Living The Red Life - Building A Dream Life & Coaching Business w/Ajit Nawalkha (Mindvalley Coaching)

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Ajit Nawalkha, a seasoned entrepreneur, author, and co-founder of Evercoach, shares his insights on building a successful coaching business. Ajit, known for his expertise in personal development and business strategy, is also recognized for his significant contributions to Mindvalley, where he played a key role in developing and expanding their coaching and training programs. His involvement with Mindvalley underscores his deep understanding of the coaching industry and his commitment to helping others achieve their personal and professional goals.Throughout the discussion, Ajit emphasizes the importance of niche marketing, the role of effective systems, and continuous learning to stay ahead in the competitive coaching landscape. His practical strategies, such as requiring deposits to ensure client commitment, provide valuable guidance for both new and experienced coaches looking to scale their businesses efficiently.CHAPTER TITLES00:42 - Introduction and Background 02:15 - The Importance of Personal Branding 04:30 - How to Attract High-Quality Clients 06:32 - Building Credibility in the Coaching Industry 07:55 - Scaling a Coaching Business 09:10 - Overcoming Challenges as a Coach 10:33 - Leveraging Social Proof and Testimonials 12:03 - Setting Up Effective Systems and Processes 13:20 - The Power of Niche Marketing 15:10 - Managing Marketing Teams and Live Events 16:25 - Why Deposits Lead to High-Quality Conversations 17:13 - Differentiating Coaching from Mentoring 19:01 - Importance of Learning from Other Industries Connect with Ajit Nawalkha:IG - RealcoachajitCoachajit.comMinvalley.com/certsConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

How'd you build the dream life? The number one thing that I can give away to anybody right now is write your perfect day. How would you wake up? Where would you wake up? Who would you wake up with? What would you do? How would your work look like? How would your life look like? How would your food look like? Would somebody cook for you? Would you cook for yourself? First thing that you'll find is when you write your perfect day, about 30 to 40% of your perfect day probably is true right now. What do you say to someone listening that maybe doesn't believe it's possible?

It is a little philosophical, but... My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. I'm sure you've heard of a brand called Mindvalley. It is one of the best top brands

when you think about personal development, mindset, et cetera. We've got a special guest today, Ajit from Mindvalley. He runs the coaching program side, one of the biggest coaching programs in probably the world for personal development, 30,000 certified students. So I wanted him to come on and tell me how the heck he runs a program with 10,000 new coaches every year coming in and being certified. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for inviting me,

Rudy. It's super fun. Yeah, I love it. So look, 10,000, right? That's a lot. We have a high level coaching program. Over the years, we've certified people in ads and all those things, but 10,000 is a lot, right? Nearly a thousand a month. So let's start big picture. What are they coming in for? What are they getting certified? And how did you build it this big? So we have about five categories that we certify people in. First is life. So overall life coaching. Second is business coaching. Third is hypnotherapy. Fourth is money coaching, a certified money coach. And the fifth one is help. Great. Okay. And are they pretty divided between the five categories or is one like the main one? Our certified life coach is our biggest category. Then would be hypnotherapy. Then would be business

money. We are just launching. It's launching in a month from now. And then would be business money we are just launching and i start it's launching in a month from now and then would be help great and let's just start from the ground up like how you know a summary of of who you are and how you grew this program so big so a few years ago i would say about eight years ago i had i was running mind belly i was a ceo of the company and i had a little dark night of the soul kind of moment like i i i went through this crisis where I was like, I really love what I do. And everything around that was kind of crisis. My relationship was breaking apart, my friendships, all that stuff kind of went to, because I never cared for it. I never really thought about it. I never gave it any attention. And so I had my dark night of the soul. So I decided I'm going to quit being CEO of Mindvalley and I would go ahead and take some time for myself. And that got me to quit Mindvalley, start working with coaches to get my life in order.

And that gave me the recognition of how important and valuable coaching is in the world today. And a lot of people go through this season in life and we consistently go through because we're also reinventing as individuals and souls and society overall. And so the amount of value I got from it, it was surprising to me to find how few they knew about business and how little they knew about business and how little they were upgrading their skills. And that led me to create a company called EverCoach. EverCoach was the foundation systems for that was how to be a better coach. And the reason was because I found that if you become a better coach, usually you can get the business in order because you are curious and interested enough. So you'll find the right tools. You'll find the right partners.

You'll find the right people. Well, I think it's needed because there's an ongoing joke in marketing in my world, right, where it's like you have all these coaches that have never built businesses before, right? And half of them don't even know how to coach. So I was a personal trainer for five years. And I think the best part of that is you learn how to, I coach thousands of people, took NLP courses and everything to be a better coach. Because you realize the fitness and nutrition is 50%. Half of it's the accountability and making them stick to it, right? And that skill has transferred me into, you know, and then I went on and built multi-million dollar businesses, two of them, before I even came back into the coaching side. And I think now I would say I'm a pretty good coach when I do mentor people because I understand the accountability and the mindset and the

framework side that most people, I think, miss. Exactly. So that was our realization is like most coaches are not successful, not necessarily because of any other reason, but because they don't focus on the key thing, which is your product, which is you being able to actually get a result from one using many different models. And that led us to first create programs that aren't eventually realizing that they really have to take a deep dive. And that led us into certifications. And then certifications became sizable enough that Mindvalley wanted to acquire it. Now I became a partner in Mindvalley, so kind of got merged into the company and became Mindvalley coaching division. That's great. Well, congrats.

You know, it's a great, like I said, it's the big daddy when you, you know, mindset, personal development, life, all of that stuff. What is it when like, you know, we talk now the 10,000 a year, right? For a lot of people listening, we have a lot of coaches, a lot of agencies, I mean, in some ways are kind of similar, like high ticket clients, right? People coming in. How the heck do you get to 10,000 a year? Because most people out there are struggling to get 10 clients a month. So it's a function of product, process, and marketing. Okay. Frequent.

I like it. Right. So product, because the product needs to be designed in a way that it can be deployed at volume. Yeah. Right. The same product that you can do for 10 people or 100 people doesn't really scale to 10,000. Right.

The product design itself has to be where it can be implemented without reducing the quality of outcome that you create for it. Well, I think that's the first problem because most of our students that, you know, we grow our coaching teams about eight to ten staff, so a decent size. But most of my clients, when we're helping them as coaches, they don't have a clue about how am I going to stop being the coach, right? Because it's like I'm telling them, hey, you've got to become the CEO and the marketer. You can't just have 40 hours of coaching calls a week. You got to run the business now. And I think it's what you say, they don't commit. I build things for scalability, right? So I build frameworks and systems where my coaching team can deliver 80% of what I know. And I can say I'm the icing on the cake, right? So I think that's the first thing if you're listening, it's the systems and frameworks. And I think also having a grander

vision realizing, yeah, it might just be you right now, but you want to build this that it can be 100, then 200, then 500 students. So product design needs to be for the size and volume that you want to get to. You may not start there, but that's how you think about a good product or a sizing product, like sizable product. Otherwise, it's nothing wrong with doing 100 clients, 200 clients, but if you want to do 1,000, 10,000, the game changes significantly. It's all about volume.

It's not about you. It's about your systems and your process and your overall methodology. Well, and you just become the face of the brand, right? People are buying into your belief system, which has trickled down through, I'm sure, the coaching program and what the coaches are fulfilling. Face of the brand are if you are able to develop, you build a framework where the framework stands without you even.

Yeah. So people associate yes to you because there needs to be a spokesperson that we all know, right? But if the system itself is strong, the spokesperson can disappear and the system will still stay. Yeah, because people love the phrase, yeah, they buy into the... Just like I say, it's the recipe for Coca-Cola. Yeah, exactly. You don't know who created Coca-Cola anymore, right? Exactly. That's kind of how it works. And the way to do it or the way to track or what to track in it is what we call a net promoter score. Yep.

Net promoter score, for anybody that doesn't know what that is, it's basically at the end of the program, you send an email or a message to your students and you ask the question, how likely are you to recommend this to your friends? Yep. And you want to range at least over 70. Yep. We are in our certifications. We knew we can scale it because we consistently got it over 80

yeah yeah 82 to 84 is what our certifications range right now in our net promoter score so that's kind of your matrix if I may

like know that your product is good if the NPS is over 70 you want to go as high as possible I have not met any other company that delivers

the NPS scores like us at least I haven't we got to after our first year in certifications yeah yeah it's funny because most people don't know net promoter score right a score like us. Yeah. At least I haven't found one. We got to, after our first year in certification, so I'm not... Yeah, yeah, no. It's funny because

most people don't know Net Promoter Score, right? I learned it from more corporate setting. First year, we got 89. And then as we scaled, it was more between the 78 to 80 mark,

which I think is great because, you know, like it is, as much as it's a sad reality, like there obviously is a little dilution when you start to step out, right?

And that's where that framework is. 70 to 80 is phenomenal. 70 to 80 is higher than the iPhone. Yeah. Everyone right now I think is like 50 something. So you're doing great. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah.

And I love that you're using that and tracking that. So first part is framework. Second part, what about the marketing piece? So the first part was product. The second part is process. Process is about more team and frameworks as well. So not in the program or outside the program. Yep.

Because nothing scales if your team doesn't. After a point, it'll just crumble and fall on itself. It's not the product alone that really works. It's the team that works to make the product work, especially in the coaching space. It might work for an e-com or a tech company. Yeah. Actually, even then, I'm guessing

you need constant upgrades. So it would probably not work. It would probably fall apart. So the processes, again, the process to run a 10 person company or a 100 person company is very different. And so you got to ask yourself, what am I trying to chase? Because if you don't know what you're chasing, you're not going to build a process for scalability. And processes are a function of people and systems in the company.

How does anything get done? So that's the second piece. And the third piece is marketing. So marketing, really, what we've found is that once we establish that there is a certain level of product NPS that we're able to get, it guarantees a certain level of testimonies or case studies that we're able to collect.

And referrals, I'm guessing. And referrals that it kind of guarantees without it. We don't even do affiliate commissions. So it's like it's people refer, and people actually do multiple programs with us because of, of course, correlated to if you have a great experience, you want to do the program again, again, all that fun stuff. Right, so once we found all that to be true,

we found two models, really, that work very well for us. So for our existing database, and we have about half a million people at this point because we have generated leads through advertising and content and all the fun stuff that everybody knows about. For those individuals, we run something that is a four-hour seminar. Like a live workshop. It's a live workshop. At the heart of it is all content, looking at transformation for the person in that moment. And we realized that on marketing that the positioning while everybody intuitively would

think certification must be about you can make more money, what we found is more human beings are interested in having a greater life. So you then become incertified- As a deep dive. To improve their life versus to create a business model. Everything in their life. So for example, if somebody has a career, right? Somebody, let's say, is employed by a company and they are, say, CEO of the company. If they take our business certification or their life certification,

they're more likely to have great success as a CEO of a company than they would have otherwise. So what we found is about 50, 60% of our audience are doctors, physicians. Oh, wow. They are entrepreneurs. They are company owners. Yeah, they're company owners. Company owners, there's a mixed bag, artists.

They would take it and they're like, we don't need to coach anyone. We are doing this because every time we learn, we get better as individuals. That's fascinating. It stuffs out. Because in my industry, I mean, people are like, we've ran a certification too. And I'm friends with a digital marketer crew, the original DM crew, they blew up, you know, several years ago because of their certs. In my industry, a lot of people are buying it more because it's a marketing tool to get more

clients, right? Like they're certified by a big person, right? So it's fascinating. You're saying you're, you know, you've kind of learned the avatar. A lot of them are doctors. They're not even trying to launch a coaching program they just want to have the skill of coaching because like like you said as a fitness trainer when you realize very quickly that i can tell them nutrition and movement but they're not going to do anything if i don't hold them accountable if i don't move them yeah so they use okay yeah well i mean and it's fundamental coaching is persuasion the art of persuasion, too, in some aspect. Because, yeah, because in some aspect, you know, you've got to understand what motivates and drives people and how they best learn and how they best can stay accountable. And, you know, in nutrition, you learn a lot because I used to teach like the best diet for you to lose fat as quickly as possible might not be the best diet for you if you can't stick with it.

Right. And it's that balance between the implementation and and consistency side so yeah i guess i can see that on on that marketing side um i would love to ask next like we touched on it a little so your main what i would call your funnel or lead gen process is the live virtual event internal for internal database so for internal people who've already signed up they're already engaged with us. They have a low ticket product a course some sort of lead most signed up for webinars something like that something within the coaching frame so not overall mind like that's much louder than just the coaching word of it so so we have them enrolled through the entire year which is the evergreen side of things where they're we can run a cohort

every month we don't have to do only launches So we run cohorts pretty much every month. And when we run a cohort that is coming from advertising, going to about an hour and a half of a webinar. So that's the second marketing model that consistently brings people into our ecosystem. And as they go through the ecosystem, the next step for them is either book a call, but they absolutely have to make a deposit before they have any conversation with us. We wet people by saying you have to do a $200 deposit. So it's an easy deposit. It's fully refundable. We don't ask to keep it. If you decide not to buy, it's perfectly okay with us. But that's basically like to get an application from us, you have to deposit $200. So they're doing either a four-hour live virtual event.

If it's an internal database, yes. Yeah. Or a 90-minute webinar if it's on Facebook ads or whole traffic. Yeah. Okay. And both of them then go to a $200 deposit phone call? They have to do a deposit because that's our qualifier. Have you ever tried without and saw like you get four times more calls, but your qualities were... Yeah. I mean, our close rate on phone is about 60%. Yeah, I mean... You know, it's because they are highly qualified people that we are talking to. And I've been... It's interesting because ours is about, you know, we have similar funnels to you.

Ours is like 20%. Yeah. But we probably get three, four times more people come in, right? Yeah, it's just a chicken and an egg kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. And what we found is the way, again, our positioning is very much about this is the greatest thing that you can do for the season of your life. Right. So it's not about making a quick buck. It's not about making money. You can make money, of course, but that's not our pitch. Our pitch is this is going to be the program that you would love for yourself, love for your family, love for whatever you do in life right now. And this could be an alternate career option that you also have. So we're going to certify you in, give me one of them. What do they like?

So we're going to certify you as a life coach, right? But most of them taking it still aren't going to go and like start an Instagram account as a life coach. They're just going to do it more for their own personal development and then maybe to help those around them or their current career.

Yeah. And sometimes they will, I mean, about 40, 50% of them will start a career as a life coach. It's just a different approach to tackle the topic. And it also gives people a little bit more grace, I think, from my point of view, is because when you start a new career, like if you were becoming a fitness instructor today, it's unlikely that you'll be successful in the first two months.

No, that's what the promise is. I like it because it's not biz off beer. It's not, hey, become certified and build a 10 grand a month coaching business, which is what most people do, right? So it's part of the pitch. We do say you can potentially do this. Okay. But that's not the promise.

That's not the pitch. The pitch is completely to do with how you will be transformed. Things around you will be transformed. And if you want a part-time or full-time career, that is also an option. I like it. But you're doing it more for the impact because that's the kind of community we attract as well is people who are saying, I mean, I'm sure that's your community as well. It's just, you know, it's not front of mind sometimes, but for the art community, that's front of mind. Yeah. Like I want to have an impact. I want to have a meaningful life. I want to do a meaningful

career. And oftentimes they're already pretty successful. The people that are in our field or come to us in a different field. Yeah, they're not successful coaches, or they might be a surgeon. So they're wildly successful. They're just not fulfilled. So we are offering fulfillment in a way. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay, so main two and your main two funnel sales processes are the lives, right? Webinar is not live. Webinar is recorded.

It's evergreen. So 90 minutes, you go, you deposit 200 bucks. Then you have to fill an application form. We approve the application form. You get a direct link to either purchase a certification or you can book a call. Great. Love it.

And two more questions or topics while I have you then. I would love some lessons from being CEO of the Mindvalley side too. Major company, industry industry winner you know titan in the space um built a massive major successful brand you guys did um and still have obviously and i would love to talk some top mindset to us too right so let's talk about some lessons from being ceo there well the i think i think the easiest lesson is make a decision based on what you really want. Because a lot of the times people want to grow. Yeah. Right. A lot of people say, I want to do a $20 million company, a $200 million company, but nobody really knows the cost of it.

Everything comes at a cost. Yeah. Right. So make a decision based on not ego, what really is important to you in life. Because I've seen too many, and I know that's true in your community, but I've seen too many coaches feel burnt out the moment they cross the five, 10 million mark. Because at five, 10 million mark, if you're not good with systems, operations, teams, and you don't like doing any of it, you're going to hate everything. Yeah. I believe most people shouldn't pass about 3 million million. That's what I think. Like, you know, I passed it a few times and built $10 million plus companies. But I love, like, I built my staff to 120 people. I love, you know, on that table there, I have folders for every department with 50 SOPs in each of them.

Like, I think from a framework systems perspective, so I really enjoy that. But, yeah, I think a lot of entrepreneurs shouldn't go past a couple of mil they can have a great life a couple of mil a couple of VA's couple of staff so no I read the cross it no no your reasons don't chase because you know I'm looking at Rudy going I want that life I want the red office I want the red of odd gasp yeah you don't you just like it yeah you like it and it's good to like it yeah yeah most people don't want it shouldn't have it will not enjoy it and it's good to like it. Most people don't want it, shouldn't have it, will not enjoy it. And then they'll burn themselves to ground. And that's what we learned

when we were building, like when I was running Mindvalley, we were doing 40 million at that time. We built it out to 40 and now we're much bigger than that. But at that time we were doing that. And the one lesson that I constantly looked at was we made decisions based on the life we wanted to live. As an executive team. As founders, executives, partners, we always had a friend of mine that we're not going to do it just for the chase of money. We still don't. It's not a chase of money. It just happens to me that we became big.

But it's always intentional of the life of the community we are trying to build or the impact we're trying to make our number one statement has been for the past almost a decade and a half i think at this point is to impact a billion lives yeah and that's been our primary motivation that's why we do that's why our programs are so scalable that's why we're thinking how do i certify a million coaches that's my agenda right now yeah not how do i make 100 million dollars right i'm not asking that question i'm asking very different questions so my response is very different my intentions right now. Not how do I make a hundred million dollars, right? I'm not asking that question. I'm asking a very different question. So my response is very different. My intention is really different. My action is really different. I think that's where most people forget in building a large company. And the more I talk to entrepreneurs, the more I've realized they

never consider the cost of building. When you build a company, I would say 3 billion is a good mark. But the moment you cross 3 to 10, more often, I'm not saying it's true for all the cases, more often than not, you're taking less money home than what you're taking. Yeah. I'm building, and I'm open about this, I'm building my companies to hundreds of millions to sell and impact millions of people and build a major brand. And I've always said, during this whole process, if I take home, you know, two, three, 400K a year, I can live fine, right? And I could stay at four or 5 million and make 50% profit margins, but I wouldn't be fulfilled. I'm fulfilled by trying to do something grand and having a lot of things going and staff and team and taking on these big things.

That's a sense of clarity, right? That's a very good sense of clarity. But most people don't have that. Most entrepreneurs don't have that. They don't understand that at 10 million level, you're making less money than what you'll make at 3, 4, 5. Yeah. And at 100 million, sometimes the risk is so high that a day can destroy it. Yeah, of course.

Right? It was a bad month. You forgot to look at the advertising accounts. You were burning 20 million or 5 million. Or the suits. Or stooped. Fringed the trademark. Yeah. Yeah. It could be anything. to look at the advertising accounts who are burning 20 million or 5 million or are stupor into the trademark. Yeah,

it could be anything. So it's just, you have to be super mindful about those things too. What are you signing up for? Yeah, I like that. Great lesson.

So last one, how do you build the dream life? Because we talked about offline, like what's some tips to wrap up today's show? So I think the number one thing that I can give away to anybody right now is write your perfect day.

What is a perfect day? A perfect day is you unfolding what is it that you want your life to be, say, three years from now. Sure. Hypothetically assume three years. Three is a reasonable time. And write down how would your perfect day unfold? How would you wake up? Where would you wake up?

Who would you wake up with? What would you do? How would your work look like? How would your life look like? How would your food look like? Would somebody cook for you? Would you cook for yourself? Would you go for a walk? Would you go for a climb? I don't know. Write that all down. Because when you write it down, now you're clear of the life that you want. Not some goals, some fancy numbers, some cars or whatever, but the life that you want.

Because once you know what life you want, now you can step into the identity of the person that it needs to be who lives that life. First thing that you'll find is when you write your perfect day, about 30 to 40 percent of your perfect day probably is true right now. Yeah, I've always said with me, like I came from England and I feel I almost live like what I dream is a perfect day right now. Like would I like a bigger mansion on the ocean with a couple of kids? Yeah, but that's going to come over time right because i mean part of it's understanding patience too but like one non-negotiable for me is living on the ocean i'm waking up and working out and taking a walk on the beach and doing a workout and you know i've been fortunate for the last seven years six seven years

to keep that dream a reality you know and and And every time, like, you know, we look at a new house and we have dogs, so my wife wants a massive yard. I'm like, I can't do it because it's like my life, I have to live on the ocean. Like, that's non-negotiable for me. Well, maybe an ocean facing... Well, the yard. If I go further north on Miami Beach.

Maybe. You've got the beach and then you can have a big garden too, but you're talking 20 30 40 million at that point so i'll tweet like i said yes yeah yeah great so no i love the visualization of the perfect day and i mean it's more more than visualizing a perfect day and that's what i meant to say you have to stamp into the identity yeah yeah yeah and then be patient about yeah yes yeah and i i teach kind of like i always teach you have to act what you want to become. Right?

If you're overweight, you need to act like you have a six pack and you're a fitness person. Because now you'll embody that and you'll think like that and you'll make healthier decisions based on that. Whereas if you still act and think like you're a fat person, you're going to keep cupcakes in the house and, you know, talk bad about yourself in front of the mirror and all these things. Right? So I really love that. the house and you know talk bad about yourself in front of the mirror and all these things right so i really love that um and and um yeah i think for a lot of people before even before that i think it's the beliefs that they can achieve that because a lot of people don't come from money and success so i think they don't one of my biggest i think advantages in life is i've always believed i can achieve anything and i meet a lot of people that have a lot of great skills, but they don't actually believe they can achieve that perfect day. So

just my last question, what do you say to someone listening that maybe doesn't believe it's possible? So it is a little philosophical, but anything that you believe is made up, life is kind of made up. Like anything that you think is true does not really, it depends on the perspective, it depends on the data that you collect. If you want to believe red's a good color, if you find data, you will prove red is a good color. And there is data to prove red's a terrible color. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a warning. Yeah, you make up your life based on stories you tell yourself. Yeah. So if you want to believe anything to be true or understand that anything that you believe, like if you think, oh, I came from poor background, so I can't be rich. It's a story you made up. So why not tell yourself a better lie? Why not tell yourself a better story? Tell yourself a story that expands your capabilities instead of contracting it. So pretty much if anybody thinks they don't believe

in themselves, I say, find evidence a little bit. It is just a little bit of evidence and then start telling that story. It sounds very boo-boo.-boo it sounds oh that's what i've always done like you start doing it you recognize it's all made up anyways yeah i've always kind of believed i would you know have like tv shows and speak around the world and impact lots of people because i've always you know been passionate about impacting on a broader scale because i realized in personal training like one-to-one's great but it's not scalable you can't impact millions of people. And so I believe that I would become this like famous red character speaking around the world of a TV show many years before it's now slowly becoming a reality. And I think one of the greatest gifts in life is it's not just the tactics, strategies, frameworks. None of that

matters if you don't have that belief. Absolutely absolutely and you can always tell yourself a better story yeah continue i love it like this yeah i love it good well there you go we'll wrap up uh last question if people want to learn more where do they find you how do they learn more about the programs and everything like that absolutely so on instagram at real coach adjit you can just follow me there if you are looking for more around the certification that we do, go to mindvalley.com slash certs. And if you're looking to just take a deeper dive and going how I think about business or how we build businesses and so forth, I'm giving away my book for free that I wrote that I bought the rights back recently from my publisher. You can go to downloadlivebig.com. Good. Love it. Well, there you have it, guys. How to live a better life, how to hopefully

build a big coaching program if that's what you're up to in your life and how to do it with a lot of impact like these guys have clearly done and built a monster brand in the process. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and as always keep living the red life. I'll see you guys soon. Take care. Thanks for watching!