Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Vince Del Monte: Insecurity, Growth and Crushing it in Business - 107

Episode Date: July 15, 2019

In this episode of Inside Look, Vince Del Monte tell us how he went from Skinny Vinny to personal trainer to online fitness business coach. We learn why being broke down and buried can result in profit and growth. Vince breaks what you’re really selling and why you need to be a marketer first!     “Someone is always watching you.”  “Phases of broke lead to growth.” “You’re not being buried. You’re being planted.“ - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover: 02:10 - How Vince got rid of his nickname “Skinny Vinny” 13:08 - How Vince figured out he could monetize his vulnerability  15:00 - Why Vince’s business plateaued and what he did to fix that  15:38 - Why Bedro’s starting backing Vince’s business 18:38 - How Vince inspired other personal trainers to elevate their business 20:16 - What are personal trainers really selling 28:57 - How phases of broke can lead to growth 34:18 - Vince identifies his latest issue with his business   “People are putting way too much confidence in confidence.” “Successful entrepreneurs are marketers first, coaches second.” “What you’re selling, is certainty.” -Vince Del Monte   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @vincedelmonte   Buy Man Up and get Bedros’s High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/ Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow

I think we live in a society that worships certainty. Everybody wants a guarantee. Everybody wants the map laid out for them. And it just doesn't work like that. You know, I think there's just people are putting way too much confidence and confidence. Welcome to another episode of The Empire Show. My name is Pedro Kulian and this is an inside look. And today I've got a very special guest, someone who's a dear friend of mine, someone who I'm very impressed by

and someone that I've had the good fortune to be able to coach and mentor over many years. the legendary Mr. Vince Del Monte. Welcome to the Empire Show. Oh, Adjos, thank you so much. Yes, sir. Dude, so you and I met years ago, and it was before your 30th birthday, because I remember you telling me,

all I want to achieve out of the seven-figure mastermind is to be able to make seven figures, a million dollars before the age of 30. That's correct. I'm curious. Were you ever able to do that? I did. I knew the answer.

I just wanted to make sure our audience. I did. Yeah, with recurring revenue. Yeah. And that's what you really implanted in my brain, and that's what we came back to when we reconnected recurring revenue. I lost sight of the power and the necessity of that

to have the freedom and the movement to make new decisions. And recurring revenue is so powerful. When you think about the biggest companies on the planet, Amazon Prime, Netflix, all these services that were subscribed to, that's recurring revenue. You sell once, and as long as you deliver the value in service, you get the money over and over again each and every month without selling. So I'm curious.

You first started off as Skinny Vinny. And I remember that being a really good hook because your whole story was, look, I've run long-distance track. I come from a family of people who aren't built with a lot of muscle. And so you committed to doing something that most people who probably genetically in your position wouldn't have done, I'm going to pack on a bunch of muscle. And then I'm going to teach other guys to do it. How did that fare for you?

Well, the intent was just to get rid of my nickname Skinny Vinny. There was no business plan. There was no incentivization model. It was one to get rid of that nickname because I lived with all these buff dudes in college. So I was curious. If I transferred all this time and effort, 60 to 100 miles of running into the gym,

what could I do? Now, was that a week? 60 to 100 miles a week. A week. Yeah, I was a hundred and 35 pounds. Our coach would say, you know, if you come in 136 pounds, you're fat. Hey, Vinny, had a good summer, eh?

Wow. So muscle was not. necessity and it was baggage. But I saw what the muscle got these guys. I saw it as a stepping stone. So really after university, it was a curiosity thing and my eligibility was over and I needed to start making money. And I had this fascination with this world of personal training, but I didn't look like a personal trainer. Sure. So those two interests intersected at the right moment. And that's when I started my journey as a personal trainer and I transform my body with zero intention. to make an e-book, which didn't come for years later.

It was just to look better. It was a purely just self-interest goal. I love that. And most great businesses start by solving the internal problem that we're having first, and then going, I wonder if other people are having the same problem that I am. As it turns out, in your case, there was literally tens of thousands of men

who were either skinny or over fat, but lacked muscle and needed to put on muscle. But before we go down that path, of how you literally built this brand and massive following on YouTube and social media platforms of the guy that helped other guys build muscle. You went into a gym and you were just a personal trainer, but you figured this magical sales skill out about yourself. What, how important is sales to what you do?

It's everything. Yeah, it's everything. I quickly discovered that, you know, I was working 60 to 70 hours a week as a trainer. I loved it. but I had a mentor who introduced me to this world of selling gym memberships and selling personal training. And I quickly realized that if I sell 144 sessions and I got a 20% commission, I mean, that was like more than I could make in, you know, half a week. And I'm like, wow. So I was also reading a lot of rich dad poor dad.

I was reading the cash flow quadrant at the time. So I was getting introduced to this world called wealth creation. Never heard of those words in my life. All right. So now I see this opportunity. My world expands. I'm like, huh. And I was always like my, if you go through this, you know, chapters of my life, I was always trying to find an identity.

And I saw this opportunity to be the sales guy at the gym. And I had another two mentors that just kind of plugged into me and they gave me books and they sent me to events. They gave me a generous pay structure. And they just fed into me. And I became the number one sales guy at the gym I was working at. took one gym from two trainers to 15 trainers. And I was the guy in the office that trainers would just bring coffee to all day and just keep me in the office. Hey, Vince, keep selling for us and fill us up. And I was writing everybody's paychecks. And I loved it. And I was like, this is really cool.

So, you know, by the age of 25, I was making $76,000 a year as a trainer. I loved it. I had my own home. And I had a nice Accra RSX. And I was the guy. And, you know, I was. I was starting, though, to start to feel a ceiling because my boss had me on the maximum commission structure. And I was just kind of sensing, like, hmm, is this where I want to be in 10 years from now? Nothing wrong with it, but I was trying to figure out, is there anything else possible? Sure. That's an interesting approach. And before we kind of make that pivot, I'm curious.

You said these two mentors started to pour into you. Now, do they just arbitrarily find you? They go, hey, look, there's all these trainers and guys on the floor, but we're going to invest in Vinnie. What made them want to invest in you? Oh man, that's a great question. In hindsight, you probably can process through that, right? Yeah, well, I know the second mentor found out, so the first guy was a consultant. So he had mini gyms, and one of his clients was in Hamilton, and he heard that I was doing really well in Guelph, and this guy came to get me.

Like, he drove across to recruit me, and he made me an offer. And he came to me, and he said, I want you to come work for me. And I was like, wow. And it was really interesting because I ended up working for, you know, both of them. And I became both of their top guys. I was actually a consultant for one of them. And one of the big lessons I learned early on because I asked him, I said, you knew I wasn't always going to stay here, right?

And they said, yeah, but it would have cost us more not developing you than underdeveloping you and having you not perform for us. That was my first exposure to the abundance mindset. They wanted to equip me and arm me and get the most out. in me and like, huh. In the time that they had you. Yeah. And that was really, really, and they were young guys too.

Wow. They had it. Like, they were with it. Oh, yeah. So here's a big lesson for all of you Empire Show listeners and viewers right now. You're always being watched. The fact of the matter is someone's always watching you, even when you think you're not. So when you're reaching out to myself or Craig Ballanty, Vince Del Monte and saying, hey,

how can I become like you? Odds are you're probably just another personal trainer or just another dentist or another real estate. guy. But the moment you step up and create this category of one, which is what you did, in the gyms that you worked, you created a category of one where all the trainers wanted to do was bring you coffee so you can close more deals for them because you were making them money and they were doing what they loved, which is train the clients. You created a category of one. You stood out and when you stand out, people begin to invest in you, take notice, want to bring you up higher. Yeah, yeah, that's totally true. Yeah, that was pretty much it. And I just poured

everything into it. I remember one other lesson from those guys is that they taught me success is your responsibility. Before I heard it from Grant Cardone, I didn't know what they're teaching me at the time, but the way Murray gave me feedback was he figured out what motivated me. And he discovered that I was the word, he had language to it. He said, Vince, you're numbers driven. So I remember one month I didn't hit my quota. And he knew that I was trying to save up for an infinity G3-7 sport, the trade in the Accra RSX. And when I didn't hit my goal, I thought he was going to come. Like he was a big dude, 240 pounds, like 6% body fat, just like a strong, like very soft-spoken, strong, silent.

Like a guy you didn't, like you described, you did not want to disappoint this guy. And he invited me into his home. I became a part of his family, poker nights. And I remember one day when he came into my office and I didn't hit my goal. And I'm like, oh, my God, he's going to flip the table. This is it. Like, I'm done. And he kind of just leaned in and whispered.

and he said, I don't think you're going to like your paycheck this month. Wow, that was it. Yeah. And he asked me, how are you going to fix this? You know, and he kind of threw it back on me. He's like, you know, this is your opportunity to lose. And it's like, I don't need you, you know. And I kind of like, wow, this is my opportunity, you know, to excel.

And it kind of reframed everything for me. And that was a huge turning point. Wow, that's massive. What a great way to be exposed to mentors, abundance mindset, so early on in your life. Because you age-wise, how old were you in that time? So I was 24 to 25, and it was the same guy who introduced me to the Internet. And he started introducing me to the long-form sales letters of all these skinny guys who were selling e-books for $97.

And I'm trying to do the math, like when I was just kind of, you know, in the research phase of this whole world of internet marketing. I never heard of those words either. and I found out this one guy in particular was selling 10 copies of a $97 ebook and I'm doing the math it's like $30,000 a month. That's impossible. Bejol's nobody can make $30,000 a month. Like, that's impossible. Is that funny when we have that mental ceiling?

It's like, well, that's not impossible because I don't know anyone who's done it. A thousand dollars a day, no way. No, it's got to be BS. It's got to be something's up. He must be doing something under the table. I went into a form. I found the guy who wrote the guy's sales letter, verified it. It was all legit.

So I went down the rabbit hole, and after I got a mentor, I proposed to work with skinny guys who wanted to build muscle. And after we did the research, we discovered there was over like a dozen guys doing this back in 2005. And his advice, I don't even know if I've told you this, his advice was this is a bad idea. This marketplace is way too saturated. There's too many guys selling the skinny guys in 2005. And he taught me this little triangle that is something I teach my coaching students. And he said, you've got to be a 10 out of 10 on passion, credibility, and ravenous marketplace. And I'm like, I'm a 10 out of 10 on helping skinny guys build muscle.

I'm a 10 out of 10 on credibility. Or at least I was still inclined to learn more to get even better at it. And I quickly realized there's no shortage of skinny guys. So I made a decision to pursue this one marketplace and to double down on helping skinny guys build muscle. And what I discovered back then, I didn't have language for this, is that they all had different stories. They all had different stories. They had similar promises, but they had different stories and different processes. And this was a huge, like, huh, they have different ways of achieving the outcome.

And I had a unique way of achieving the outcome with variable resistance training, you know, muscle fiber type training. I had a unique way of doing it. And when I started to like tell the guys like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, maybe we should go down this. path, I just said, hey, this is a good thing. There's competition here because all I need to do is become the best. And I didn't have language for this either at the time. But what I, what I quickly discovered is that people don't buy coaches, they buy, sorry, they don't buy coaching. People don't buy coaching. They buy coaches. And they buy people's stories. And I found that my brand was growing, not because of my information, my information is, you know, it was unique, but at the end of the day,

it's still a commodity. Let's, let's be honest. Your information's a commodity. You can find it on Amazon for 15 bucks. So why are they buying it on YouTube for free? Yeah, so why are they giving me $77 for my e-book? And I realized it was my story. They were connecting with the skinny-vinny story that I was raised in a Christian home, that I had, you know, very engaged parents and that I was a runner and that, you know, I got beat up by the strongest wrestler in high school in front of the hottest girl, Paula McKinnon during an arm wrestle. And they're resonating with those stories and going into the locker room and comparing my forearms to all the other guys on the soccer team and running home and crying in my room swearing at God, why'd you make my forearm

so skinny? I started telling those stories. I'm like, ah, this is, this is. At what point, Vince, did it click that as I tell these stories that bring out the vulnerability, the authenticity in me, that the money needle starts moving? Was that like a, did someone tell you or did you figure it out? I didn't have language for it, but I could definitely see that if I continue to, I didn't have the language as you just use, you know, show up different, but I was being real. I was being who I was. I built my brand around this identity word of no nonsense. You know me, B, I'm not a science guy. I always thought in high school I got a 90. In university, I thought, like, Mom, I got a 98 on this one. 63. Oh, wow. 67. And, you know, I just, my self-esteem

constantly got beat up. So I created this brand around who I was. You know, we teach you how to get real results fast without the BS. You know, if this is your, if this is resonating with you, here's the workout. Let's get to it. You know, I'm not, you know, I'm not. You know, I'm not. You know, I'm not going to unpack the science for you. Actually, in fact, when I try to unpack the science, this is actually when I disconnected from the mastermind, I started going down. You know, I forgot, I didn't know who I was.

I started comparing myself to other guys. I tried to sound smart. And the brand actually went backwards because I tried to be somebody who I wasn't. Isn't that funny that the moment that we're not authentic, it's almost like people can smell it. We do have the sixth sense to be able to smell fear, to be able to smell an imposter,

to be able to smell a story versus authenticity. And you do so good authentically with bringing vulnerability that I think you don't have a choice. You can't fake it if you try. Yeah. No, I know. And when you try, it hurt your business. Yeah, exactly. I think one thing that people need to embrace is like, you know, I think I embrace this early is I'm like Rocky Bob Bow, I've got what you call punchy brain.

Sure. And I leaned in on that. I leaned in on that. I'm like, yeah, what's your point? Yeah. I got a big nose. tell me something I don't know. I contradict myself.

Wow, good job, Sherlock. You know, I leaned in on the objections. And again, another quick lesson, you know, I was, what I figured out early is that successful entrepreneurs are marketers first, coaches second. Yeah. Fitness marketer first, personal trainer second. And I embraced that, and that's when the business exploded over, you know, seven figures in four years.

But then it plateaued out when I wanted to, I started to. started getting worried about what my peers were thinking. I was reading the comment boards. Vince's fitness information is good, but it's not great. And I wanted to for some reason prove myself. I don't because I want people to like me or whatnot. But then I started to try to be smart. Not that my information isn't great,

but I try to be someone again. I try to talk with the science people. I got into debates. So you start blending in with the crowd. I started to get back into my photos and competing again. And yeah, I don't know if there's anything. insecurity thing, but the brand lost its DNA.

Well, it's funny you say that because as someone who was looking in from the outside, I saw that, I don't know if it was an insecurity thing, but I saw it was that a need to belong, to belong with what everyone else is doing, and then they started doing shows, and you wanted to do a show and prove that you can do a show, and the skinny guy can't put on enough muscle to win a fitness show, when in reality, the reason that I know I got behind helping you and started recommending your product is like, man, I know Vince, he's a coaching client, he's authentic, like he's the guy who did it without drugs. He doesn't say, don't do drugs, and then goes back then, you know, injects Decadourabalin

or something, right? It was the, I was literally selling the authentic Vince to the, actually to my nephews, who were, who were, you know, buying your products at the time. So now let's fast forward all these years because, you know, you ended up creating a massive YouTube channel and a product suite, ascension ladders. continuity programs. But at some point, in the last, what, maybe three, four years, people started reaching out to you. Like, hey, Vince, how do I do what you do?

And this massive shift happened, and that's how you and I reconnected along with Craig. Yeah. So, you know, I was going through, you know, having a young family. And what happened was, as I was still trying to grow the fitness business, I'm now in my mid-30s. And people were seeking me out for business advice. And I was, you know, seeing this as an opportunity for side cash. And it was cool because I was having, you know, anywhere from 10 to 40 people show up for a two-day event,

all coming off my fitness list, which is really cool using nine-word emails. And then just with like a, you know, 600-word invite email with the price you in. And I would fill, I did seven events and filled every single one off my fitness lists. And I was like mine, it was more like I was benefiting more than the attention. because I was seeing like, holy cow, all these people came from my fitness world. And it was like just side cash, you know, 20 to 40 grand here, you know, run an event, take some photos.

I was kind of unpacking my IP at the time too, not really knowing it. And I was really getting in tune with what their struggles were. So actually, that was a big lesson, just putting yourself out there running events. I was getting intel on, man, they, they couldn't figure out how to come up with the unique mechanism. Even though you give them the formula, it's got to be emotionally compelling and intellectually, intriguing and you give them examples of muscle fiber type training and baby weight training and targeted metabolic fat loss workouts. You give them and they couldn't just, they couldn't get it. I'm like, huh, some people get it, some people don't. And I really like,

majority didn't get it. No, I'm like personal trainers are the worst entrepreneurs in the world. Personal trainers should just stay personal trainers. And the big message I had for these guys is that you've got to be committed to flipping the switch in your brain that you're marketer first, a coach second. That's why I'm beating all these other big dudes who are on roids, who are smarter than me and have bigger fallings. And I'd almost like rub it in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're like, yeah, I can do this. I can do this. If Skinny Vinny Vinny can do this, why can't I do this? And that's how people started to believe in me. So I made people believe that they could do it based on me making others who may not have, you know, who shouldn't have believed in me, believe in me.

Now, ain't that something because when you become the best in class at what you do, soon people start asking you how they can do what you do. Because all those guys that were coming to those workshops that you ran, the seven workshops that you ran, you're making $20,000, $30,000 per workshop teaching them how to sell effectively muscle building workouts online. But they were your customers who bought muscle building products from you and soon started asking you and you go, I think there's something here. Yes. And I think instead of just telling them, I can coach them along. And you had this paradigm shift long ago that I'm a marketer and my product. is fitness. And I always look at myself as I'm a marketer and my product is a franchise,

Fit Body Boot Camp. And ironically, as I make Fit Body Boot Camp the best in class, guess what happens? Other franchisors, in fact, there's one in their room right now because we're running the Empire Mastermind. They signed up for coaching services to now pay me to teach them what I'm doing to make Fit Body Boot Camp successful, which is really what happened with you as well. Yeah. And, you know, it's really helping these guys realize what they're actually selling and this is what trainers don't know. I always ask people, I just had a case study coaching call for like a whole batch of new people that just joined a new program we launched. And I asked them, what are you really selling? No one could answer it properly. You know, getting lean, longevity,

preventing injuries, accountability, motivation. Nobody answered the rate way. I said, no, none of you selling any of that. They're getting that. Well, you're selling a certainty. You guys are in the hope-based business. And you don't, they don't understand they're selling hope. We're all on hope. We're all selling certainty. And I'm selling uncertainty right now. That's it. And they didn't understand that. So helping these guys make that mental switch as soon as they do, then the strategies, the tactics, the networking, that all starts to, you know, it's like essentially putting all that stuff on steroids. So then about two years ago, and I really want to show people the journey that you've gone through because how old are you right now? I'm knocking on 40 this year.

All right. So you're about to turn 40. And, um, It's been a decade since we've known each other. And you went from the guy saying, hey, Bedros, I want to create an info product, teach guys how. Well, you already had an info product, but I want to make seven figures, have a million dollar a year before the age of 30, which you did. When you joined the seven figure mastermind years ago. And then after a while, we disconnected. You went on your own. And then here we, two years ago, you come back and join the Empire Mastermind.

And I'll start off with a coaching call we did. We did a call. You said, you reached out to me. And I said, Vinny, you're running these workshops, but I can't believe you're letting them walk afterwards. It's like a good 30, 40% of the people in your two-day workshops are going to pay you on a reoccurring basis. Going right back to the first lesson I taught you, which was reoccurring revenue, but instead of $29,39 a month, now you're charging 1,500, 1,000, a month for high-level coaching and mastermind. And what a shift that's made in your brand.

Yeah. And, you know, what it should be important to share, too, is that it didn't happen immediate. I got to share this story. I don't know if you'd bring it up because at the very first Empire Mastermind, I said, still came in with my fitness business. You know, I didn't just cut the string. It was generating revenue. There's funnels built.

There's traffic coming in. And I also was bringing this clothing line to life. I remember that. And I had a supplement in the works. And, you know, I was bringing these things, you know, to the table here and trying to get direction. By the way, I got to stop here. Your pre-workout, probably like, I don't, we don't, I don't ask anyone to promote their product on the Empire Show, but I think it's worth you. just giving a quick pitch.

Because your pre-workout, I'll take it before, like, a really long, powerful talk if I'm going to get in front of a thousand-person audience or more, or a late-night workout, and I need a really crushed that workout. What is it and what are you, what did you put in this thing? I'll just tell everybody, because most pre-workouts cost, I would never share this like probably, this is a business podcast, I'll just share this. It costs me $20 a bottle.

Which is more than double what it should cost. And that's where you guys all said, this is crazy. You're not going to make any money. I'm like, I don't really care. I want to create a supplement I actually use most pre-workouts. And it's funny because when I launched it, I got all these haters saying that it's expensive. Most supplements have to be marked up six to ten times.

If I marked my supplement up six to ten times, it'd be $120 to $200. So what we sell it for is actually really cheap, plus a money-back guarantee, plus free shipping. I'm losing money. So I created a supplement for myself that I've been using for two years, and I didn't really care. It was like, I just want this stuff in my house.

house if people use it but we could talk about how it took me down the wrong direction it was a big distraction because supplements is no joke right but um you know most pre-workouts are three to five bucks and then they mark them up 10 times and people think they're getting a good deal so i basically created something that gives you all-day energy it's not even a pre-workout it's an all-day energy formula that gives you pure focus so we positioned it as energy for entrepreneurs so you're going to get that all-day focus without the crash without the habibis situation and without the irritation. And it's the world's most expensive pre-workout. It's $99 a bottle. But if you buy six, it's $49. So it comes down to, it comes down to $2,000 to $4 a serving. And most

people only need half a serving. That's all I take, and I'm 220 pounds. Yeah. So you're actually not saving money buying cheaper pre-workouts. And that message just means sharing this is basically how we've sold 4,000 bottles without me trying. As we move on into the interview here, tell them where they can get the product from, what the name of the product is. Yeah, fully loaded supplements.com. There's a one-year money-back guarantee. So start with half a scoop, like seriously. Just, you know, more is not better.

What we put in there is scientifically effective dosages and ingredients. And I worked with the world's number one supplement guy. I can't reveal who he is, but we created a formula that works. Well, listen, it's a great product. And the reason I wanted you to talk about fully loaded is a... It's a 24-gram scoop. So most pre-worked scoops are like 80s. grams or 15 grams so it's a fully loaded scoop and you probably only need half a scoop

and there's 15 ingredients they're fully dosed and if you do your due diligence on the science just take the damn product forget the science is all there yeah we're done talking about it yeah take the stupid product and you'll see anyways you set me up but here's the thing that I wanted to set up one you created a really great product even though it acted as a distraction yeah but then later as you made the shift with it that this is something an all-day energy for entrepreneurs and then labeled it as the world's most expensive pre-workout, all of a sudden you created another unique selling proposition about it. And now it's a profitable product line. Yeah. Right?

But where you make your millions is not selling a fully loaded pre-workout energy beverage. It's really, I just wanted to talk about that because I think it's a great product. And most entrepreneurs might need an edge in their workout or in mental clarity, et cetera. Hey, take the product. What I want to talk about is how you were able to shift from running two-day workshops and one-day workshops to creating a mastermind program. Yeah. That now has almost what 60 members in it? Yeah, I'll be very transparent because, you know, we grew the coaching program. The peak, the most numbers, the most amount of people we've had paid to come into the group is about, I think, 120. 120 people. Now, as you know, not everybody completes all 12 months. All right. And most people don't know what

they're signing up for, no matter what they say about, you know, experiencing their full potential, I want to impact the world, I want to reach farther, I want to have freedom for my family, nobody has a clue what they're signing up for. They don't understand the level of work and commitment that's required over the time invested. People have zero clue. So we have over 60 members. What gets me really, really excited. We've had as high as 85 active members. And what happened when we got to 85 members, the system kind of broke. The way we were servicing the members, it was just way, we weren't providing the service. The same service to coach 85 people is not the same you can use to coach, say, 30, 40 people.

Right. So we had to, I had to go from selling to stabilizing. And I had to shift from, you know, displaying my selling power to coaching power and make sure that the new heartbeat of our coaching program became our clients winning. and we built a membership site in January to modulate a lot of our teachings. We now have a specific way we coach people with four phases, attention, action, automation, acceleration. Everything's organized so there's different levers people can pull. And we just added in a ton of systems to really focus on helping people win and make that monthly payment look tiny. But that was a shift in mindset.

We actually pull back on sales, focused on stabilizing, helping members, get what they need, and we're almost in position where we can go full throttle sales again. But I discovered a big lesson is it's okay to break your business. In fact, you should be trying to break your business as much as possible because now I discovered I need to scale coaches. I need to spend more time with my coaches than my coaching clients. I got to stop doing sales calls. I can't be in the DM.

I can't be doing my Instagram posts anymore. So things that I did for a year and a half to grow it, all of a sudden I needed your guys outside eyes and it's like, you're still doing this, Vince? I had to bring on a media buyer. I had to bring on a project manager. My expenses had to go up. I quickly realize I can't expand and contract at the same time. And I was forced to just keep addressing new battles, confronting new challenges to make new frontier. I'm so glad you share this, Vince, because in business, most people think that once you kind of go through the hardships and you start getting profitable and doing well, that it only gets more and more profitable. And I call it faces of broke.

Yeah. Like right now, Fit Body Boot Camp is going through a phase of broke because, as I said, we introduced our supplement line to over 200 Fit Body Boot Camp locations. We spent over a million dollars, $1.7 million building the team, founding the leader, Aaron, Fitbeard, for those of you that follow him, making the product, launching it at our World Conference, and now we're going to launch it to 800 locations. Like having all that expense took us into a broke state on a temporary basis. Notice that didn't say poor. It's phase. It's phase. of broke that then lead to a big hockey stick of growth again. Because once all 800 locations this August start selling the product, that has an additional $10 million a month in revenue generated for headquarters, which now we take a bigger leap than where we were a year ago. But that takes trust. That takes trust. And that takes faith.

The pattern. That takes no certainty. I think we live in a society that worships certainty. Everybody wants a guarantee. Everybody wants the map laid out for them. And it just doesn't work like that. You know, I think there's just people are putting way too much confidence and confidence, right? Instead of developing confidence, which comes from developing your character, consistency, and getting

around people that truly know who you are, who believe in you, that's where confidence comes from. It comes from competence. And I've seen your confidence take off in your business to the point where when you would have smaller moments or phases of broke in your previous business where we were coaching you. Like, it was panicky phone calls coming in from you. Now you're like, hey, look, Pedro's, I had 80-something members. Now I'm down to 60-something because it broke at 80-something. How do we shift things around? And most of the time, you know the answers, and we're just kind of guiding you along with it,

because you know that 150 members, it's going to break again. Like, I know at 2,000 locations, Fit Body Boot Camp will break many times between 800 locations today and 2,000 locations. It'll break by way of the team members that we have, the compliance that we'll be operating under, the attorneys will no longer be competent that I have and I'll have to get a higher level of attorneys. Right. My ability to lead a company that will do then, let's say multiple nine figures, is going to be completely different. And if I don't expand my bandwidth, emotionally, mentally, physically. Yeah.

Holy cow. Look at all the opportunities of breaking that are going to happen between now and then. Yeah. I think this is a fascinating conversation. I think there's way too much emphasis on crushing it. And you don't crush it until you get crushed. Well said. Amen. You know, it's really like embrace getting crushed because, you know, it's, you know, a great analogy I actually heard from a pastor I listened to TD Bishop Jakes. He just wrote a book called crushing it. And it's, he describes the phases of growth seed stages. And it's kind of like a seed that goes into the ground.

And everybody wants to be great. Yeah. But nobody wants to go in the dark. Right. Nobody wants to get buried in the ground. Nobody wants to get groomed. Nobody wants to go through the process of what the groomer has to do to you. whether that be the big guy or a coach,

to get you to become a beautiful glass of wine, right? To become a beautiful glass of wine, you start off as a seed, right? And then you have to try and find your way out of the dark through the ground. And even when you break through the ground, then you've got to go and grow as a vine, and you're getting exposed by all these different elements, right? And then you might break off a branch, which then, you know, if you survive even more seasons and harsh elements,

you might become some fruit. And then the fruit goes through a frustrating phase of getting, and then the fruit becomes eventually maybe a beautiful glass of wine. Everybody just wants the wine. Nobody understands, you've got to go on the ground first. And they don't understand there's these stages of growth and you've got to get crushed first and that all these situations are you getting buried, but you getting planted. That's exactly.

You're getting planted so that you can thrive. And it's funny, about four weeks ago, I was hanging out with one of my team members and it was a Sunday and he said, hey man, you're ready to go back to battle? I was like, back to battle, what do you mean? He goes back to HQ Monday morning because we're dealing with a lot of growth challenges right now, right? Or at least

at the time, a couple months ago. And I was like, no, no, no, it's not a battlefield. We're going to a construction site. We're building. And that's it. You're not being buried. You're being planted so that you can thrive. And we all know, using your wine analogy, that the best wine out there

comes from the grapes that are grown in adversity, the worst climate, the worst watering conditions, the worst soil, and they become, they produce the best wine, ironically. Yeah, you're not being punished. I think that's my message to a lot of guys, like, you're not being punished, you're being prepared. You know, if you think about a baby, if a baby gets exposed too early to certain things, what happens to it, in certain foods. Yeah.

You know, and it's almost, people need to embrace that they're where they're exactly supposed to be in life, and they're not supposed to be, in fact, further. because they're being prepared for that next fight, you know? And they can't win the next fight unless you win this one. And that's the reward for winning a fight, a bigger fight. It's kind of crazy. And everybody preaches. I think the problem is that everybody preaches this so much on Instagram.

We've got this, you know, nation of tweeters and not thinkers. And people that actually want to develop is that they cover, what happens is they cover up their lifestyle with language. everybody knows what to say now, that the words have no more meaning. Yeah, it's incongruent. The words that they're saying and the life that they're living are incongruent, absolutely incongruent. Yeah, so I think really trying to help people just identify, you know, to be honest, you know all the right stuff, but the question is, is do you really believe it now to lean in on the fears that are holding your back for making those next moves?

I think every time we've got on a call together, it's been something new I need to do. recently, we discovered that I have some form of issue or it's become aware now that I don't hire people far more superior than me. And we don't know why, but we've identified that as another battle I need to fight. I need to be comfortable inviting people into my organization who are smarter than me. And maybe it's an identity thing, like you said, maybe imposter syndrome, maybe I might get exposed. But I know that if I don't fight this battle next, I won't be able to scale consistent.

delivery. That's exactly right. And you know what's funny is I was able to see that in you because I saw that in myself five years ago. You know, people go, man, you really get very vulnerable in your book, man up. It's like, well, I got vulnerable because I realized I kept saying I want Fit Body Boot Camp to Gore. I wanted to be a Fortune 500 company and Inc 500 Fastest Growing franchise. However, the people that I surrounded myself with were all cut from the cloth of mediocrity because I felt threatened in bringing anyone who had a greater understanding ability, skill set communication than I did because they're going to figure me out and who's going to want to work for me once they figure out that I'm an imposter.

When in reality, I can right now cite seven people in this building at this very moment, my two VPs and specific leadership teams, team leaders who are far more intelligent, have greater understanding about the compliance side, the Federal Trade Commission, side who deal better with our franchise attorneys than I ever could. And it allows me to operate in my zone of genius, which is to be the face of the Fit Body Boot Camp brand. Right. Right?

I don't feel threatened by that. And so I was able to see that. And you know, I was like, dude, here's how we're going to fix it. And we're going to go through that process. Yeah. Yeah. And you really helped me with that. First, I saw the people in here.

And when I come down here, I'm like, hey, B, I need some help with this. And like, okay, have a meeting with Jesse. I'm like, oh, you're not going to teach me? Like, no, I don't know how to do that. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I'm not supposed to. I'm like, how about this? Go have a talk with so-and-so.

How about this? Hire this guy. Oh, okay. So now you're getting me to think differently, act differently. You're now helping me become the architect of my business, not the labor, not the doer. And you're now teaching me things that I've heard, but I'm not doing. And it's to work hard once. So yes, it's going to be hard to find that employee.

but once you do, you've got them. It's going to be hard, yes, to train them up, but then once you do, you got them. So I'm like, okay, work hard once or else nothing's going to change. And that's been like a big shift. Now I've got the vision of where I'm heading, and now I just, I get really down in the, you know, ground level, if you will.

I think Tim Larkin talked about this yesterday. What you need to do to get to the next level is not sexy. Right. It's really boring, to be honest, and it's a grind. And I use this analogy now with a lot of my, students not just in business but in life with parenting and with marriage you know I was telling us somebody the other day that you know me and flab we're having you know so issues we're on the same page all the time with the three kids and I'm trying to grow and all this stuff and my mom just said

back that sounds pretty normal if you're if you're if you're not grinding in your relationship means you're not you're not trying to go anywhere yeah that's what happens when you drive a car a long time you're trying to keep it going it's going to grind that's normal and I'm like oh interesting And they're parenting so hard. And then someone reframe this for me. It says, it sounds like you're doing it right. I'm like, oh, yeah. It's like, if you're not, if parenting is easy, you're not doing it right.

I'm like, if your marriage is easy, if you're coasting, you're not doing it right. I'm like, if your business is coasting and you're not doing it right. I'm like, oh, I needed these reframes on why I was going through certain things, not to hit the panic button and to tap out and think things were broken. It's like, oh, I said I wanted to grow, but this is what it's. takes. Yeah. Ah, I'm being tested. Huh. The guy heard me say I want to be tested and he's giving me a test. Here's my opportunity and if I don't meet it, he's going to give the opportunity to someone else. What a great way to end this episode. Vince, how do people find you, connect with you, work with you?

Yeah, for sure. So we've got the Vince Del Monte podcast show. We're really up in the ante on our guests. So that's a great place for people to get in just pure value. We won't give them a gazillion places. Instagram. Instagram's my one place. I answer all my questions. Vince Del Monte. They'll find my verified account, and they can slide right into the DM and can go from there.

Instagram and the podcast. Vinny, thank you so much for spending time on the Empire Podcast Show with us. Friends, thank you for watching and listening to this episode. And of course, as always, give us a five-star rating. Leave comments.

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