I am Charles Schwartz Show - Earn More with the Profit Coach

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

In this episode, Charles sits down with Susie Carder, the Profit Coach, who shares her wealth of experience in scaling businesses to new heights. With over 20 years of expertise, Susie dives deep into the critical components of successfully growing a business while navigating the challenges that come with it. Discover the surprising truth about what truly drives business growth and why most entrepreneurs are focusing on the wrong things. Susie reveals the key mindset shifts and strategic decisions that can make or break your scaling efforts, drawing from her own journey of building and rebuilding multi-million dollar ventures. Throughout the episode, Charles and Susie explore the often-overlooked aspects of scaling a business, from team dynamics and accountability to pricing strategies and marketing investments. Susie shares eye-opening insights and real-world examples that will challenge your assumptions and inspire you to approach growth in a whole new way. Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to break through to the next level or a seasoned business owner seeking to optimize your operations, this episode is packed with game-changing advice and powerful stories of triumph over adversity. Tune in to discover how Susie’s unique perspective and no-nonsense approach to business growth can help you unlock the full potential of your venture. Key Takeaways: Uncover the surprising truth about what really drives business growth and why most entrepreneurs have it all wrong Learn the crucial mindset shifts and strategic decisions that can make or break your scaling efforts Discover the often-overlooked aspects of scaling a business that can significantly impact your success Head over to https://podcast.iamcharlesschwartz.com/ to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. Key Points: 1:27 Starting with money 4:48 Importance of financial systems and accountability 7:06 Pay for results 9:01 Sales system structure 10:33 Hiring an operations person 13:54 Understanding the DNA 19:00 Rebuilding after failure 21:09 Sit down and plan 23:01 Overcoming self-limiting beliefs 25:12 Understanding pricing strategy 27:59 Separate conversations 30:01 Importance of qualified leads 32:01 Tools for business success 34:59 Sales team structure 42:02 Filtering system questions 45:13 Accessing resources and guidance

Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show. In this episode, we discuss how to earn more with the proven profit coach, Susie Carter. With over 25 years of experience, Susie has been building and scaling businesses to seven, eight, and even nine figures. She's seen it all from the highs of success to the lows of losing it all and has come back stronger than ever. In this conversation, Susie shares her wisdom on mastering your finances, developing a sales system, and investing heavily in marketing to generate steady qualified leads. She also pulls back the curtain on the critical importance of building your team, holding them accountable, and fostering a culture of growth and open communication.

Warning, Susie's approach is raw, real, and unapologetically direct. She's not here to sugarcoat the challenges of scaling a business or to sell you on the latest magic bullet solution. So if you're ready, buckle up and get ready to take notes. The show starts now. Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show, where we don't just discuss success, we show you how to create it. On every episode, we uncover the strategies and

tactics that turn everyday entrepreneurs into unstoppable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives. Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive seven, eight, or nine figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there. The show starts now. We've got Susie, who is the profit coach. I am ecstatic to have you on the show. Thank you for coming on. Oh my God, thank you for having me. This is one of my favorite topics to talk about, obviously. Obviously, what you do.

So when people come to you, they obviously want to scale. They want to change your entire ballgame. You've had a lot of trials and tribulations. When someone first comes to you, what are the things you're like, listen, there's a certain methodology. We need to get this out of the way. How do we do this? I always start with money because people think that money is at the end, but money is in the beginning because money determines everything. Like what is your revenue goal, right? How many leads do we need? Are you good with it? Are you bad with it? What's your

mindset around it? And it's the biggest topic that I see and probably you see too that entrepreneurs avoid. 15% of our financial success is our vocation. The other 85% is what I focus on, sales, marketing, operations, and finance, right? But I start with the money because money gives me the roadmap to go, okay, what are we doing? And what do we need to charge versus what do I feel like I could charge? Quit running your business on feelings. Feelings have nothing to do with business. It doesn't. You can feel about it, but I'm not going to run your business on feelings.

And that was hard for me as an entrepreneur. I am, you know, I'm a female woman. I'm a feeling creature. Feelings are good, but not when I but not running my finances not when i'm running my business so we're starting with the money honey the money honey absolutely it's it's i love the idea that you know feelings don't matter in this situation what's affected not what you feel is you know there's tons of times where people come in like oh it's my grandmother's cookies and it's my special recipe i don't care what is your goal we're trying to teach you it's

only people pull back the arrow and they fire it and they go, I don't have the limit to go. I'm like, shut up. You got to figure that out before you pull the arrow. So when people come to you and how many people actually have control of what they actually want to make financially, and then when you meet with them, you've got to pivot them completely from where they are. They're on par, right? So a lot of my clients, they're in that million, they're trying to take it to five. Right. So they're on par that you it's amazing how many people can hit a million. It's not that hard. Right. It's strategic. And by getting it to be more systemic. Right. And a growth strategy around it versus I find a lot of entrepreneurs get there by luck. Right. They've got a good marketing funnel. They hit one thing. Right. But they can't organize the rest of the business. And I'm sorry if your business is a shit show behind the scenes, you're not going to grow your business. It's not going to work because you have to grow it systemically or I always own a job or you always own a job. And the goal is you don't want to own a job. You truly want to own a business, right? And you can be into your job and love that, and that's okay.

I think people think it's wrong if they're a technician in their business. No, that's okay. But then have other people running the other things and don't be a control freak. The difference between being an owner-operator and an owner, it's a totally different conversation. So you're a systems person as much as I am. You and I are very in the same world. People come to us, they're already making their seven figures.

They want to try and get to eight. And God bless them for it. They want to do that. Then one of the biggest things, and we talked about this when I was on your podcast, we talked about removing that person out of it and letting them be kind of the founder and the owner versus the operator. When you talk about your system, and I know I'm going to get hit people like, oh, you make a million?

How easy is that? It's a lot easier than you're thinking. We'll pick on that in a second. But when you're talking your system, when you're at a million, you're trying to get five, 10, 20, what are some of the systems that you put in place? What are some of the strategies that you run into that are concrete that you're like, hey, this is what you need to do. This is what is different than everyone else. All right. So I know I'm going to say it again, but first has to be the financial system, right? What is your reporting system? What's your cashflow? Cash is king, right? I'm not a believer in debt. There's good debt and bad debt. Do not. If you have to build your business on credit at first, great. But then how do we get you out of that? Right? I built my first business on credit cards, right? So I

understand that was the only money I had. But then in less than a year, I paid it all off. Right? So there has to be that mindset around what is that cash flow strategy. So having them understand the power of what their financial reports mean, you don't have to do it. You have to have someone, one, you have to understand it, right? Two, you have to have someone that you trust. Three, you have to have a second or third person cross-checking because so many entrepreneurs get embezzled because they're not looking at it. I don't need to. I see my report. No, you need to. You need to be able to look at that P&L and go, is this right? Is this not right? Where you don't have to know the answer. Like I have sniffed out a lot of things in my own business going, something's not right. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something wasn't right. So innately, we have to understand it. That is the GPS of the business. The second thing is accountability. Quit hiring people and not holding them accountable, right? You and not holding them accountable. You're not holding people accountable. You're paying them a shit ton of money. Sorry,

I got a little potty mouth, girls. You should really watch your clock and language on my show. You've got to hold people accountable to the result they're producing. I don't care if you work 40 hours a week. If you can get that job done in 10, that's all I care about. What is the result you're producing? What I can produce in a day and somebody else producing a day, I run circles around you. So you're not managing my time, you're managing my result. So on account of the system, especially for your seed suite, especially for management, what are you paying them to do? And hold them accountable to that. Don't be afraid of it, right? Because that is a huge chasm. I have clients that are spending $70,000, $80,000, $150,000 on people. Where's the reporting? Where's the tracking?

What are they doing? Right? And quit with the storytelling. They're Hans Christian Andersen. Story, story, story. Yeah. I love that you talked about it. Pay for the results, not for the time. I guess it's a huge thing that most people don't understand. I'm going to pay you X amount of dollars. If you get that done in 20 minutes, multiple. If you get it done in four hours, that's on you. If you figure out how to do it faster, great. We're going to do that too. Also, when it comes to being accountable and monitoring yourself, one of the things that I learned very early on was there's only two classes I ever failed in college, statistics and accounting. The two classes, I actually dropped my accounting class because I remember the professor was like, sometimes an asset's an asset, but sometimes it's

a liability. And sometimes liabilities are liabilities and other times they're assets. And I still have my go. And sometimes I drop your class and I walked out and I actually went to the community college and got it. Even with that said, I took it multiple times. I have my primary accountant and then I have another accountant because he knows that I pay for someone who isn't connected in any way, shape or or form, who I outsource this to, and he gives me the reports at the same time. And if they don't match, then I'm like, okay, there's a problem. And I'm still double-checking everything.

Get the people that are not connected to that, because you can give an accounting level access to people. And you can audit your books. And you have to be able to read the numbers they're giving back, because numbers, and Alka will kill me for this, but numbers most of the time don't lie. They don't make you like them, but most of the time you're never going to get it. I could make them say whatever you want me to say. We'll invite them and say.

Exactly. Exactly. So, okay. So we've got the money. We've got the accountability. What are the next things that most people, when they're trying to scale, when they're not just trying to get off the ground, because anybody can start, very few people can scale. What are the things, and that's why people come to you because they need a profit coach.

They need to get to that next level. What are some of the things that, you know, you run into like, oh God, if I heard this again, oh, I know what it is. And they walk in, you're like, oh, it's. And we both run into this, I'm sure. So much magical. It's bananas. So the reality is you have to have a sales system, a sales structure.

You have to know how many qualified leads you need to get in for years, right? And a lot of marketers are, how do you say, they're scam artists, right? Just do one thing. And that wasn't the word I was looking for, but that just came up, so let's say it, right? Just do this and you'll rake in the cash. No, no, you have to have qualified leads, qualified leads. And it's not one lead to one sale, right? You have to know what's your contact to contract. What is that lead time, right?

And they will offload it to somebody else. No, you have to, I am the best salesperson in my business. So when I hire a salesperson, I know what I'm looking for. I know what I'm doing. I'm still selling. Every time I talk to somebody, I'm selling them something, whether opportunity, possibility, a contract. So we have to look at your sales process inside and out. And I follow a script. I've been following the same script for 25 years. You know why? Because I'm a chatty campy. I want

to chat. I want to prove my worth to you. You have not earned the right to coach anybody until you find their need. So in my book, Power Your Profits, on the side, Power Your Profits, I give you my $100,000 script that I have been using for 25 years. Now I pull it up, I make sure I'm following it so I don't go off circle that I'm following it, making sure I'm finding the need, filling the need. So there's nothing wrong with scripts, right? It gives you that foundation. And that's a system. It's a system that's worked for me for years, right? And I'm closing $100,000 deals to $500,000 deals. You want that script. When you start looking at the more things that you can create, what am I doing that's predictable? How many leads do you need to get in? How many sales will that get you? So yeah, you have to do some work. The first person I always hire, Charles, is an

operations person because the operations person is going to give me the data, help me do the nuts and bolts. So if I'm front-facing, I can be front-facing. Just because I can do it doesn't mean I want to. I'm not an accountant. I'm not a CPA. I had to learn how to do it, but I need my accountant. I need my CPA, but you can't pull the wool over my eyes. You can't pull a fast one on me, right? So I want everyone to realize the operations person, that more than assistant, I would rather pay $60 an hour to somebody than $20 an hour to somebody. That $60 an hour person will get 10 times more done than the $20 an hour person. And the $20 an hour into somebody, that $60 an hour person will get 10 times more done than the $20 an hour person. And the $20 an hour person, I'm going to freaking manage them. I got to tell them what to

do. Right? My phone is a five to tell you what to do. One of us isn't needed. Absolutely. And so there's so much there. And one of the things I love that you talked about was in your sales script. You didn't sit there and say, hey, I'm a chatty person. I'm going to tell you all about me. You said, no, I'm a chatty person. I'm going to find your need. I'm thinking about you. We're going to identify your need, your pain, and we're going to speak to that.

And the next thing is you went into ops, which again, systems and ops, it's the only thing that's going to set you free. It's the only way to scale. When you're looking for an ops person, what are the things, because there's so many out there, what are the things when you're interviewing and you're helping out your clients and you're interviewing ops people that you look for? What are the telltale signs? Because if you're doing this just off of, hey, I've got a good feeling because you wore a nice dress today, you should not be the hiring manager. Go plan traffic. Get out of the way. So he knows that's what I used to do when I hired people. I'm like, but I like them. I like Charles. He's fun. Who cares if he's fun? Can he do the job? Yes. So the first thing I do when I'm interviewing is I always say, give me an example of that, no matter what position it is. So Charles, give me an example of how you built world. Give me an example of how you build a business. Give me an example of how

you put a system in place. Give me an example of the system. Give me an example of how you build a business. Give me an example of how you put a system in place. Give me an example of the system. Give me an example of what you do in a sales process. Give me an example of how you close someone. Give me an example of how you would organize me. Give me an example of how you would coach me if I'm hiring you for my assistant. You can spot bullshit so fast when you give me an example. Because if they can't, they circle talk. Like I will end interviews in less than five minutes to go, you know what? Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you. And you have no

idea what you're talking about. And because our world is so virtual right now, all my team is virtual, right? And everyone's doing project work. You get a lot of people that have a little bit experience in a lot of things. And so you've got to weed out the weenies. You've got to weed out the people that are just, they have this surface level of knowledge. Because as you're growing seven, eight, nine figure businesses, you can't have surface level people. So you have to go deep. The second thing I do is something that I've been using for 25 years, which is called the Harrison assessment. Now I've done all the assessments, the Colby, the Myers, the Dis, the, you name them, I've done. The Harrison gives me cultural fit.

It gives me skillset. It gives me behavioral and it shows me the red flag. So you do this Harrison, it's going to show me what's the thing that's going to be hard to manage about you. Or what's the thing that's going to pop up that's going to resist? Are you defensive? Are you dogmatic? Are you dominating? Do you like to lead? Are you organized? Are you not? So it shows you the DNA of a person. Now, whenever Charles, and I have done this, because I think I know best, I've said, oh, but I love Charles. We have such a great chemistry. They're so good, right? They've sold me. Whenever I've done that and gone against the profile, it's kicked me in the face, right? So now I don't do it. I look at it, I'm like,

it'll kick you in the face if you hire this person. It'll kick your face if you do this. Like you got to trust the technology, trust the system you put in place, which it took me a couple of times. I had to be kicked in the face because my gut, I'm intuitive. Now you're a ding dong and you just, so they're good sales. 100%. And I love that.

So when you get to a certain level, there's people who are making six figures. They use certain capabilities. There's people making seven figures. There's people who've actually done it. There's certain terms, there's certain things that jump out. So when you and I first started talking, we started talking immediately about system. And I was like, I actually know what you're talking about. The minute you jump into that,

and the minute you're like, you know, F your feelings, we're like, okay, yeah, she's done that. She's been there because we've all been there. You know, if you're, I always say this, you're not an entrepreneur until you've lost your first million dollars. And the reason is that Lord lost a million dollars. it's your first million dollars because you're gonna you're gonna keep losing it is what it is it's the nature of the beast speaking of that you're such now because we're on the other side of it not not in that we get on the of it to go okay oh it sucks yeah and you have to go what did i learn i learned what did i learn what did i learn what if you sit in your pity party and you don't look at what you've

learned you've wasted that opportunity because those those things, you know, I have learned more in losing millions than I have in making millions, right? Because you have to really reverse engineer, what was my mistake, right? Because everything was flowing along great until you lost it. Then you're like, there was a huge mistake I did. What was it? And you got to be humble enough or have a coach, have somebody like yourself, somebody like myself that's 10 times ahead of you to go, oh, that's what you did. It's like, god dang it. Also, someone who's been there and can look at your forest when you're staring at that one tree because you're like, oh my god, this happened to me. You talked about this where you, and you've shared this openly where you've lost it. You went through and you had everything taken away from you and had a relationship that

was taken away from you. And again, you did quote unquote everything right and everything was perfect and then everything went away when you lost everything. Because you lost, you lost a pretty. But did I remember? $10 million. Let's just say it. $10 million.

I'm heading very low. So for the audience who's trying to scale first off i would always tell someone don't hire the person that's never been because they have no idea how to fix what you're going so that's first and foremost if you have if you're running to someone they're like oh i never lost money run the other direction as fast as you can find the person who's lost it who's authentic enough who can stand up in front and say hey i've had this failure i've had the divorce i've had the loss of 10 million dollars i've had this failure. I've had the divorce. I've had the loss of $10 million. I've done these things. Hire that person. They're going to know how to get you out. So having done that, having lost $10 million, what are the things that you've learned? What were the major lessons when

your pity party stopped and you're like, oh shit, these are what they were. What were the things that you walked away with going, okay, this is what it was? Well, the first thing I learned, right, because I remember being literally on the floor bawling, and not from a place of why, I did say why me, but not why me, like pity party, like, why? I'd been a good steward. I was so, I thought, cautious, right? I had plans, I had coaches, I had systems, I had strategies. And what I realized was in that moment, the clarity came and said, it took you 20 years to build this, but it won't take you 20 years to rebuild it because now you know the system of money. When I started, I had no idea that was bubblegum shoestring,

band-aid, duct tape, right? It was like, well, let's try this. Well, let's try that. Well, let's try this. Well, let's try's try that took 20 years of building that knowledge and building that strategy so what took me you know 20 years to build and what felt like it was destroyed overnight took me about six years to rebuild right because then I had to re my girlfriend laughed at me I'm like I have no money money left. And I had about a half a million dollars, which is no money left. And she's like, oh, shut up. I don't even want to hear it. Most people would die to have that just even on a normal day. And now you're boo-hooing. And I'm like, yeah, but I had this thing. And she was right. The first thing I did was reinvest in

real estate. That has always done me well, right? Is to go back to the thing that you've done really well. Now, business, my businesses provided me the cashflow to invest in the real estate. Real estate was a long-term play for me, right? I still had my investments in my stock. So that worked. I didn't lose as much there. My real estate portfolio is what I lost. And then I went, what are the things I know how to do? I know how to make money. Let me make money. Let me get on a budget. Let me just put my head down and focus on the result and get rid of the pity party. Then I started looking at, well, what caused me to do that, which was I got cocky and I over leveraged. I'm going to be honest. I over leveraged. It was the high in the market. I was feeling confident. I had this cash flow.

I invested way too much cash, right? I didn't have enough safety and had the rug pulled out from under me. So that was my lesson to go now when I'm investing, I'm not that leveraged right now. I'm also more seasoned, meaning I'm older. So I didn't have that run rate that I used to have when you're younger and you're like, well, I can risk more. So my risk tolerance is lower versus when I was younger, my risk tolerance was higher. Now, I still have many years of work left, but I don't want to feel that feeling again. So I'm a little bit more to go. This is what makes me feel like I have a nest egg.

So if I have, you know, $2 million over here that I know no matter what happens, I'm OK. Right. And if I have $2 million over here that I know, no matter what happens, I'm okay. And this money I can play with over here. And this money I could go, okay, I'm going to leverage that. I'm going to take that. Because if all that goes away, I still have this. Where I had half a million dollars that said, if all this goes away, I'm this. And I didn't think it would ever go away. That was naivety. To go, of course it will. Business is cyclical, right? I tell my clients that all the time. It's going to go up, down, up, down, up, down. I just didn't think that down would be so far. And that was humbling, right? Very humbling. And we were talking about this on another call where what caught view, I was lucky enough,

and it's pure luck in this situation where I was working with someone who were like, hey, you need to get out of this. This market's going to get really bad. And I was lucky to have that advice where I've also had the other type of advice, which was, hey, don't do this. This is bad. And it skyrockets the other way. So a lot of that is that. But what I love about it is you're not worried about luck in the sense of you have intentionally decided where you're going to allocate your funds as a resource, as an asset before you even earn it. You're like, listen, this brings in my money. I know where it's going now. I'm very tactical about it. The worst thing you can do when I run into this is like, hey, we got all these sales. Now, how do we convert? How do we build it? How do we fulfill these orders? Or, hey, you just got

$10 million in. Okay, now what do I do with it? If you're getting that influx and then trying to decide what you're going to do, you've already lost the game. The game's already over. You need to sit down and work with someone who's down there and been there before. That when you do get that half a million, 2 million, 20 million, whatever that's coming in, like, okay, I know where it's going. I already got the deals going. And you're just moving forward in that general direction. Because again, it's just, you got to have everything laid out. Now, one of the things that happened before was when you originally were doing this, you're not in the same niche you are now. And

what you're coaching now wasn't the same niche. I'd love for you to kind of talk about that because it's so important. So that was a pivot that you were telling that you first didn't think you could do. So I would love to hear more about it. Interesting thing was, you get so, this is who I am. And I had a very masculine relationship with my business. I didn't know this at the time, right? I didn't know I was masculine. I didn't know, but I put all my self-esteem was in who I was. I was an icon in this industry, right? I walk in a room, everybody knows who I am. So I was like, yes, you know, yes. I'm waving. You can't see me if you're listening to this, right? Waving like I'm a star. On one, I sold the company to, you know, the largest publisher in our industry. That was awesome. And then we had a non-compete, which was fine because I was still working in that industry with that company. And then when I walked away from that company, again, I was set up financially. It was okay that I was walking away. I retired. I retired for several years and was just traveling and buying real estate and building my home and doing those

kinds of things. And that's when the market crashed. And then all of a sudden I needed to work again. And I'm like, well, I'm an icon in that industry. Nobody knows me outside of that industry. So I had to reinvent, well, who am I now? And I literally threw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm like, well, what do I have to offer Charles? I don't know anything about this market. I don't know anything about lawyers. I don't know anything about doctors. I don't know anything about graphic designers. And I was teaching at this millionaire's forum and I was teaching systems, right? How do you build a multi-million dollar business? I had nothing to do. I was in the beauty industry, nothing to do with that industry. And people would come up to me, Charles, and well will you coach me i'm like i don't know

anything about you and my mindset shut me down my mindset was i i can't do this i don't know and so i thought i was smart i said well i'm just gonna double my fees they're not gonna pay that and so you know i said okay well here's my fee i I doubled it. Oh my God. We're absolutely related. I'm like, we're going to talk right on the spot. And I'm like, I gotta, I figure out how to do this, right? Cause I'm like, oh my God, they really want me. And what I realized was business is business and business. And I was letting my own money mindset stop me and my own limiting beliefs stopped me

about what was possible and so i still had all those skill sets i just had to look at cost of goods i just had to look at profit margins i had to send do a little research on how do i set up a landscape design business how do i set up an amusement park like literally one of my clients was opening an amusement park i same, what's the average ticket need to be? What does cashflow need to be? Put the business plan together. Same, right? But I was making it so complicated and you just reverse engineer it, or let me just say it in layman's terms, just reverse what that process is to go, what do we need to charge to be possible?

Most business owners pull their pricing out of the behind, right? You go, well, what does Charles charge? What does Susie charge? Well, I'm going to charge this. Okay, stop it. That's again, that has nothing to do with your pricing strategy. How much profit are you going to have, right? You don't know what Charles' overhead is. You don't know what my overhead is, right? And they're like, oh, it's cheap to run my business. No, it's not. Or if you look at marketing as my biggest expense, I'm spending $300,000 to $400,000 a year in marketing just to get new clients in. And so people are like, oh, well, right? By chapter six is math is money, money is fun, or chapter eight, sorry, math is money, money is fun. Because I don't, again, not accountant, not a CPA, but there's a correlation, you have to understand it. And the minute I put it into money, so stupid, like, no, Charles has eight apples, and he can feed six kids

or whatever, though, that didn't make any sense to me. But now we start talking money. I'm like, oh, I get this now. How many shoes can I buy? How many purses? Right? How many cars? How many jerks? Okay, now I get it.

And it goes back to the feelings thing. Feelings are irrelevant. It doesn't matter what was. It's accepting what is. And you have this story that you add was, oh, I used to only do this. No, this is who you are. you're gonna run into this if you're trying to scale this and i'd love that you brought it out i didn't want to work with two of the clients and they know where they are i'm talking about this i didn't want to work so i doubled one of my fees

to one and i tripled the other one and they didn't even hesitate and it would have taught me what i was like wow i had a completely undervaluing undervaluing when i'm offering to the market and it was such a thing it wasn't like oh look at me i'm an idiot i'm not doing was I was like, wow, I'm completely undervaluing, undervaluing what I'm offering to the market. And it was such a thing. It wasn't like, oh, look at me. I'm an idiot. I'm not doing this. I was like, wait, the market's changed. I need to adapt for the market because this is what my value now is.

And it happened kind of the same thing. And you're like, well, I'm going to scare them away. And I have found, and I'm sure some of you found this as well, the more you charge a client, the more results they get. What the hell? What the hell? What the hell? I guess it's human psychology. If I charge you, whatever, five grand to work with me, you're not going to get results.

If I charge you 20 grand, you're going to watch it. I'm like, huh? It's the same value. It's the same information. I'm not doing anything different. But how that person shows up is completely different. And I love that you said your most expensive thing is your marketing. It's my biggest expense.

Hands down. Without even close. Marketing. Getting it out there. You think about whatever your chocolate is, right? So people have different things. If you're going to buy something and you're used to spending one thing on it, and then somebody offers it for a lower thing, all of a sudden you're like, buy something and you're used to spending one thing on it, and then somebody

offers it for a lower thing, all of a sudden you're like, what's wrong with them? Right. I learned that early on being a hairdresser, right? That was my vocation when I first started. And I remember one of my clients said, you know, she's like, oh, can you do my hair? I'm like, sure. She goes, well, how much is it? At the time it was like $42 or something. She looked at me stone face and went, what's wrong with you? I'm you like what do you mean what's wrong with me she goes why are you so cheap like i'm spending a hundred dollars over here it was a slap in the face but a slap i need it she'll go oh you can you can undervalue yourself by the pricing you think you're getting more clients in but we're losing clients because they're they look at you like they don't know what they're doing. And the quality of the client comes in as well. The person who's going to get,

person who's going to pay me five grand quality-wise is not the person who's going to pay me 25 grand. It's a completely different conversation. It's wildly separate. And it doesn't mean that you come out of the box and you're like, hey, I'm going to charge this premier thing. If your offer isn't premier, if you haven't done this, then no, don't go do it. There's too many scammers out there. Don't do that. Your reputation is all you have, especially when you're doing it. So one of the things you talked about- Right. There's so many other values versus pricing. I want the result. If you're going to get me the result, okay, let me look at it. Quit selling your time. You're not selling your

time. I'm not buying Charles's time. I'm buying his expertise. I'm buying the failure. I'm buying the breakdown. I'm buying the breakthrough, right? And make sure they really had it. Do your due diligence. Just because someone said they built a $10 million business

doesn't mean they did, right? Google that and do due diligence because there's so many people out there, charlatans, that was the word I was looking for, that charlatans out there that are masquerading but they have never done it like and you can i can smell bullshit you can smell bullshit there's theory and they're like you said the minute i started talking systems you said okay she's she knows what she's doing right yeah you can hear the thing is so i'm on this i'm listening to this podcast like oh all i need to do is talk about systems well the thing is it wasn't just saying system there's certain ways that things are talked about like if you go to someone who's played

hockey they're gonna know things about the skates that a baseball player's not and it's these intricate little detail and you're gonna be able to hear it and weed it out very very quickly so you were talking about marketing being one of your hugest expensive when you're doing scaling what are the things that you put into place where you're like, hey, this is the stuff that's helped me the most in marketing for scaling, allowed me to become that lighthouse amongst the fall, the signal versus the noise. What are some of the things that you found in over 20 something years of experience that allows you to do that? The first thing is you have to understand that qualified lead versus

lead. I've wasted so much money getting cost-effective leads. I don't care about impressions. I don't care how many leads. What I care about is are they qualified. And most people are too lazy to dig deep in their ideal avatar to really find out their buying habits. If you're being lazy and you want me to put it together for you or Charles to put it together for you, no, you know your client. So putting that together so that you know, like, you know, like, you know,

what music do they listen to? What magazines do they read? What events do they go to? Like, all that is so important. So the first thing we do is we look at how many qualified leads do we need, right? So that I'm making sure that whatever advertising platform, and you have to advertise, you have to advertise, you have to advertise, you have to advertise, I have to advertise, you have to advertise, you've got to advertise, right? Whether you're doing Google ads, whether you're doing Facebook ads, whether you're doing LinkedIn ads, you have to invest money in that, right? So just like every other marketing company or lead generator, you got to see what is the return on investment, right? Is it three times what you invest? That's what I'm looking for. If I'm

spending $10, I want to make $30, right? So I want to make sure ROI-ing on the first sale first. I know once you cover my world, I know that I can upsell you from those buckets. So it's making sure that whoever you're advertising for and what platform works best for you, not Facebook ads, Instagram ads are still working. We're still getting, we're spending $40,000 to make $250,000 on our ads campaign, doing Facebook ads are still working. Right? So it's important that you realize that you're going to invest some money and you got to test and test and test and test and test and test some more. You can't do it one time and go see that webinar didn't work. Well, did you suck? Did you do an invitation to purchase? Did you have an offer

stack? Are you selling a low ticket thing that isn't even relevant to your customer? A responder offer? Right. What is the ITV, right? Right. Right. The lifetime value of your client. And I love that you talked about testing. You know, whenever we do this, I will run multiple split tests because I need to know

what's working, what's not working. And then accept the fact that as soon as that test is done, realistically in two weeks, probably I've got to work again. And I've got to constantly be evolving my ads. I've constantly got to be evolving my pitches. There's times where there's certain places where I'm on stage that I know I can't speak in a certain way. And I have to adjust what I'm saying to. Just like if I'm in somewhere else to change. Same thing with your ads. Same thing when you're trying to close. And I love what you said earlier about that you got to be the salesperson. At first, it's got to be you

because no one knows your business better than you do. So putting the time and energy in. Because I know we're trying to rock and roll and jam so much information in here. What are some of the tools that you have found that you're like, you know what? I need these. Were these my top 10 tools? If I didn't have these, God, I'd shut down my business. What are some of the things that you would use that are just life-blood to you?

So one is your CRM, right? So we use Infusionsoft. I know people hate it, but I've been using it for 20 years, right? And whenever a operations person comes in, don't just change your shit, please. Because every marketing person, every operational person will go, I need this new widget and gadget. I'm sorry, if you can't use my widget and gadget and prove you can do the job, I'm not changing anything, right? I spent so much money doing that wrong, right? The analytical side of it. So the Google analytics are incredibly important to me. Again, my marketing person is helping me decipher it and read it and make sure that I'm looking at the right things. And if they go, well, we got these, this many impressions. I don't care about that. I need them

to click on my thing, my lead gens, right? That's what's important to me because marketers can get so, they're slip talkers, they're marketers, right? They can snowball you. The reality is I need to see what's there to make that happen. So QuickBooks, can I run my business? Not QuickBooks. Cannot look at anything without QuickBooks, right? run my business? Not QuickBooks. Cannot look at anything without QuickBooks, right? So we have a membership portal for programs that we use. Again, there's a ton of them. So which one works for you? So my financial software is most important. My CRM is most important to me, right? And then my analytics is most important to me. It's really simple stuff. Now, one of the things is when you're doing a virtual staff, when you

decide that someone's going to be project-based versus like per diem versus all that, this is a full-time. I definitely 100% need this. When you're doing that, how do you manage the juggling of that when you're talking about scaling? It depends on what the... So I'll look in a division and look at where the holes are. What are the holes? So are the holes project management? That could be project-based. Social media could be project-based, right? It doesn't have, you don't need a full-time social media person in your company every single day.

Like we are so, people are so overpaying. Even your accounting, you're overpaying. I'm sorry. Most people, you're just getting, right? Because you don't know. And they're charging you a ton of money and not doing the work that you need them to do. The full-time people are the result producers, my operations persons, my sales, my salespeople can't, I have some contracts, some full-time, right? So some contractors will come in and just

do events or launches for us. And so they're a contractor with us. My marketing person, I've done both. I've had them full time and I've had them on contract. It really depends on your budget and really depends on what you're looking for. Most businesses now, most people can be contract, except for my operations. Again, I need that person eating, sleeping, drinking meat, right? The structure, the foundation, what's working, what's not. They are the Dutch boy. They're putting their finger in all the holes and making sure everything is talking to each other. Every contract can be automated.

When you have a really good operation person, so much can be automated. Quit doing all this manual stuff. I'll come into a company and go, what is happening here? I may not know exactly what's wrong, but if it's taking too long, I use Toggle to report on everybody's time. There's many different ones, but we use Toggle. And I look at every single team member. I'm looking at what did you spend your time on? How long did you spend your time doing that? That doesn't make any sense to me. Why did it take you three hours to do that? Then I can see the whole, right? So most of my time is spent inside of some kind of analyticals looking at what's working, what's not working inside the business. Because if I can get each team member efficient and productive, then my productivity

will go up as a company. You've got to spend time training your people. You've got to spend time training your people. You can't just throw in somebody. I don't care if they're a great marketer. You still have a fingerprint. You still have a way that your message needs to be said. You're not getting the results because you're just putting spaghetti on the wall and going, good luck, Charles. Well, Charles knows his brand, but he doesn't know my brand. He doesn't know what I want the customer experience. He would rock and roll. But imagine if I spent time giving him the infrastructure, the training, the feedback, the real-time feedback. Don't wait for a month later. Don't wait till it builds up.

Let's give real-time feedback. There's nothing wrong with it. We don't like confrontation. But confrontation is a must in business because they're not going to know your brand. They're not going to know who you are. Quit hiring people and not supporting them to be the best person they can be in that role. We've got to spend time, right? I'm constantly coaching my team and coaching. How could you do that better? Not me telling you how to do it. Again, if I have to tell you how to do it,

one of us isn't needed. How could you do that better? Just this week, Sam, who you know, Sam, and I love Sam. She whooped know, Sam, and I love Sam, she whooped somebody on our podcast. I'm like, they're not qualified to be in our podcast. Why are they on our podcast? And she's like, well, I thought it would be great for customers that aren't at that seven figure. I don't care about those customers. I do, but they're not my ideal customer. And she's like, oh, okay. What's the purpose of the podcast so i'm going to train her what's the purpose and we've been on the podcast for four years or three years what's the purpose of it right yes it's to get great phenomenal education but the reality is a podcast is a

legion right it's a and so that we can expose my clients to you expose my clients to me we have a synergistic relationship. I know that when I'm done with them, I'm going to refer them to Charles, vice versa. We're creating these partnerships that are so much bigger than just giving information. So I'm curious, how long has Sam been with you? Sam's been with me for seven years. She started out and she said, hey, I want to be a speaker. And I went out there like, you do? Well, why don't you come to an event? I'm going to show you

the real skinnies. I got her before in the morning, had her do all the work. I don't have to get up at four in the morning anymore. I have paid my dues. I've been doing this for 30 years. You get up at four in the morning, you go get me coffee, you get that stage ready, you go do the mic check, you go do like, she was like, my God, now she's like, I don't want to be a speaker. I like the high speaker. So I love that even after seven years, your assistant, you still got to step in. There's certain things you just can't set in. We talked about before when you're generating income, that income is going to buy you an asset.

That is more automated. And that is simpler to do because I have management companies to care of my real estate. So I don't have to worry about that stupid shit. But in my day-to-day operations, I have to do that stuff. So I love that even though your assistant's been with you for seven years, they're still like, okay, we misfired. We had a burp. Let's come back in.

Let's pivot around. Let's work together. We are constantly coaching. One of the other things that most coaches or most people at any level won't admit is that they need help as well. I love that you're like, I have coaches. I have people who do this. When you're looking for a coach and you're going to go out and hire, as a coach, what

are the things that you look for that you're like, okay, I need to have this experience. Other than I'm going to Google them and they're going to give me that social proof. What are the things that you're looking for that you can resonate? Because for me, I've got a number, I've got one, and I'm curious if you hit it. I'll tell you if you do. So the first thing I look at is chemistry, right? Do we have the same chemistry and same belief systems, right? As far as what does it need to take to the next level? The third thing is, are you willing to hold me accountable? I don't need a friend. I don't need a yes person. I need someone that has played 10 steps bigger than me. And are you willing to

hold me to the carpet? Or why am I spending this much money to be able to do that? I don't need a friend. You don't need a friend. I need someone that strategically can help me get to the next level. The minute I say, what's the plan and how are we gonna get there? That's where most people go, I just wanna tell you what to do. No, no, I don't need ideas. I need the strategy.

What got me here will not get me there. So if you're not coming with strategy, I'm not interested. And I've spent a lot of money wrong, Charles. I've hired wrong. I've all wrong before. I've, marketing, I have spent a lot of money wrong, Charles. I've hired wrong. I've all wrong before. I've marketing. I have spent so much money wrong because I got bamboozled by the charlatan. Right. And, but now I can sniff it out, right. To go, here's what I'm looking for. At the end of the day, what can you do and help me get to that level? And, and do you believe it? And do

you believe that I'm the person that can get that done what's yours what's the thing you have mine is are they going to wilt uh you and i are very similar with personalities we are a wall of force i'm ready and if you're going to sit here and you're going to be like oh i'm scared or whatever no i need you to stand in front of my face i'm like no i i need to have pushback because if you can't stand in front of redirect this ship in subway you're no bag to me in any way shape or, or form. Because I'm a huge fan. I spent eight years in a hospice watching people die. So I got to experience bereavement therapy because I was there all the time. We just talked and we'd have lunch together. I got to see the value of therapy.

I was like, if your therapist can't get in your face, it's not a therapist. If your coach can't get in your face, I'm like, no, absolutely not. It's not my person. I need someone who's not to theorize if your coach can't get in your face i'm like no absolutely not from my person i need someone who's not going to win i need that strong personality who's absolutely going to get in my face so the next question because you know people are going to hunt you down what are some of the questions that they need to be prepared for before they call you before they get on the call to save you some time to save them some time when they when they jump on a call they want to work with you What are some of the questions that you immediately ask that you're like, Hey, this is my filtering system. Well, let's get into it. Because for me, a lot of it, this is the weird

feeling part for me. Yeah. There's some stuff that's very much data driven. You gotta be doing this. You gotta be doing this. You gotta be doing this. But there's, there's every once in a while, there's that thing that, okay, are you here with whatever that is? For me, it's pain. If the person isn't in the point, because I always say this all the time, entrepreneurs don't have bad days. They have days where they don't have any more days. If you're not to the point where you're going to kill yourself,

you're not in a club. You're not in enough pain and you need to be in enough pain for me to level you up because that's the only way you're going to take action. But if you're like, no, I was thinking about doing an Etsy service, get the fuck away.

Just go away. You're not my person. My people are, you got to be in pain. That is my filter across the board. I have people come to me all the time. I'll pay you this much money. I don't care. If you're not to the point where you're just dying,

you're not making, because that's the only people I've done. We get results for these people. For you, when people come to you and they want to work with you, what are the things that you look for? What are some of the questions you have? That's hilarious.

So we're very similar. The question I will ask is, what are you willing to do to make this happen? If they don't say I'm willing to do whatever it takes, you're not ready for me. Because if you're not willing to mortgage your house, if you're not willing to borrow from your retirement, if you're not willing to put on a credit card, if you're not willing to risk it all to get it all, you know, it's the same thing. And then are you coachable? Give me an example of when you're coachable. Give me an example. If I said this to you, what would it do? And so that kind of goes back to the wilting. That kind of goes back to

being in the paint. You've got to be so done being done that you're ready to do it. Right. And that's what I'm looking for a coach is when I'm done being done, like I've exhausted everything I can on my own and courses and like I'm hitting my head up against the wall and I'm like, I got to find somebody that knows how to do this and not in theory. So if you don't answer, I'm willing to do whatever. Even in our intake questionnaires, when we're doing like online courses, that's the very last question I ask. What are you willing to get this done? If they're like, I'm just checking it out. No, they're not ideal. They're not ideal. They're not ideal. Because I don't care if they'll pay for it. They're not going to do the work.

And then that's just annoying. It takes your time. I literally closed down a million dollar line item last year because I got so tired of people not doing the work. I'm not doing it anymore. It's not fun. This sucks. You're blaming on me, but you aren't doing the work. And my assistant was like, well, that's a million dollars.

Whatever. I'm making up a million dollars. I'm not doing it. That's not. Yeah. It's not worth it. Not. And there's a huge difference.

Sorry. There's a huge difference between I want to lose weight and I'm willing to lose. There's a huge difference between I want to make up a zillion dollars and I'm willing to do it. If you're not willing to sacrifice everything you are in this moment to go get what you want it's just not it's you know when you talked about you know shutting this million dollar line item it's the entire reason that ever since the book hit wall street journal i just give it away for free i don't know i have courses that i've sold that we made six figures on i just give away for free now because i don't care anymore like you're not going to do it any just like forever so when you're talking about and we talked about this for using books as lead magnets, how do people track you down?

How do people get access to you so that they can sit there and have this level? Because I'm warning you though, if you track down Susie, very similar to me, she's not going to play around. She's going to get in your face and you might not like her, but she's not there for you to like her. You're there to get results. So how do people track you down? How do they start the process?

If they're in that wanting phase versus that willing phase, how do they get some of your material to start understanding that? And then for the ones who are like, I'm willing to do this and I'm willing to sacrifice my firstborn child and light my husband on fire, well, how do those people get a hold of it? Because it's a totally different conversation. It is a totally different conversation. So I would say the first step is go to our website, which is Suzy Carter, C-A-R-D as in dollar, dinero, delicious, E-R, right? So suzycarter.com. And then you can go get our book on Amazon, Power Your Profits, right? You can go on the website and get the book. There's a business assessment there that will have you do a quick business assessment that sees if you're right for me, right? Because I'm very much, I don't need to work with people,

right? I've set my life up. I don't have to work as hard as you used to work in the past. I choose clients that want to take a risk, that are willing to do the work, that are willing to play full out, that one, you got to be making a difference in the world. You've got to want to make money, right? And you're willing to do the work to make that happen. We've got a YouTube channel. We've got a podcast. So if you're still just investigating, and I say, do your due diligence, right? And you're willing to do the work to make that happen. We've got a YouTube channel, we've got a podcast. So if you're still just investigating and I say, do your due diligence,

right? Read me, listen to me. Is she the right person for me? Is this the jam that I'm looking for? Because it's not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be rewarding, right? And when you're doing the work you need to do, it's rewarding, right? So that's how you get a hold of me. All my social is my name, Susie Carter. C-A-R-D is a dollar, dinero, delicious. I love that you and I speak the same language and it's not about feelings. I don't care. Give me data, give me numbers, let's try and get trackable. I love it. Thank you so very much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. And I'll see you guys in a minute. And that concludes today's episode with the profit coach, Susie Carter. For those of you who are ready, take a look at Susie's website, susiecarter.com. There, you'll find a wealth of resources, tools, and insights designed to help you navigate

the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. She's always eager to engage with fellow entrepreneurs, share her experiences, and offer guidance to help you grow. Her posts are full of valuable tips and practical advice. Once again, thank you, Susie, for generously sharing your time, knowledge, and passion with us today. And to our amazing listeners, thank you for your continued support and dedication. Before we wrap up, I want to take a moment to recognize Jason Allen Scott, the guide behind the show. His vision, expertise, and tireless efforts have been

instrumental in creating this powerful platform for entrepreneurs like you. If today's episode has inspired you to consider starting your own podcast to elevate your business, be sure to check out podcastingforbusiness.co. Jason and his talented team are ready to help you create a podcast that establishes you as an authority in your field, attracts your ideal clients, and builds a deeper connection with your audience.