Proven Podcast - Earn More with the Profit Coach - Susie Carder

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://provenpodcast.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 Proving Podcasts where it does not matter what you think, only what you can prove. Today's guest, Susan, lost $10 million and rebuilt her fortune in just six years. On this episode, she proves exactly how you can turn feelings into profits using her four-pillar system. 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 work 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 tribulation. 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? How many needs 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 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. And feelings are good, but not what I'm running my finances, not when I'm running my business. So we're starting with the money, honey, money, honey. Absolutely. I love it the idea that, you know, feelings don't matter in the situation. What's effective? Now what you feel is, you know, there's times where people come in my book, it's my grandmother's cookies and it's my special recipe. I don't care. What is your goal? What's trying to repeat? It's only people pull back the arrow and they fire it and they go, I'm like, let's go. I'm like, shut up. You got to figure that before you pull the air. So when I will 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 are, 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 control freak. The difference between being an owner operator and it's a totally different conversation. So you're a systems person as much as I am. You know, you and I are very in the same world. People come to us. They're already making their sudden figures. They want to try and get to eight. And God bless them for it.

And we're going to do that. Then one of the biggest things, when 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 a second.

But when you're talking your system, when you're out a million, you're trying to get five, 10, 20, what are some of the systems that you put in place? What are 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 cash flow? 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 rate, but then how do we get 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 last and a year, it all along, 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. You need to. You need to.

to be able to look at that P&A 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 of the GPS of the business. The second thing is accountability. Quit hiring people and not holding my accountable. Right? You're not holding people accountable. You're paying them a shit ton of money. Sorry, I got a little potty Mount Charles. You should really watch your clock in language on my show. You've got all 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 produce in a day, I run circles around you. So you're not managing my time. You're managing my result. So on a counter-s the system, especially for your seat 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, $150,000 on people. Where is the reporting? Where is the tracking? What are they doing? Right? And quit with the storytelling. I think they're a Hans Christian Anderson. Story, story, story.

Yeah, I love that you talked about, you know, 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, right, 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 because I remember the press was like, sometimes an asset's an asset. Sometimes it's a liability. And sometimes liabilities are liabilities and other times they're asset. I saw if I go and sometimes I dropped her 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 account because he knows that I pay for someone who isn't connected in any way shape or form who I outsources 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 account and level access to people. Because they need to audit your books and you have to be able to read the numbers or giving back Because numbers, my alcohol will kill me for this, but numbers mostly time don't lot. They don't manipulate them, but most of them, you know, I could make them say whatever you want me. I can't 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 out 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 code. They need to get to that next level. What are some of the things that, you know, if you run into it, 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 you both run into some show where.

So much magical thing. It's banana. Well, 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 that. Thank you. One thing.

And that wasn't the word I was looking for, but that came up, so let's say it. Right? Just do risk 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, right? 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 candy. I want to chat. I want to prove my words to you. You have not earned the right to coach anybody until you find their needs. 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 school, Earl, Sparkle, that I'm following it, making sure I'm finding the need, feeling the need. So there's nothing wrong with scripts, right? There's, 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.

Like 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, more than assistant, I would rather pay $60 an hour to somebody than $20 an hour in somebody. That $60 an hour person will get 10 times more done than the $20 an hour person. And the $20 an person, I'm going to freaking manage them. I got to tell them what to do. Right? My phone is if I have 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 say there say, hey, I'm a chatty person. I'm going to tell you all about me. He said, no, I'm a chatting person. I'm going to find your knee. I'm thinking about you.

We're going to identify your knee, 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 way to scale. When you're looking for an ops person, what are the things, because there's somebody out there, what are the things when you're interviewing

and you're helping out of 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 higher manager. Go land traffic. Get out of the way.

So what are you looking for when you're retiring? We joke and we say that Charles is my brother from another mother. So he knows that's what I used to do when I hired people. I'm like, but I like Charles. He's what? 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 is. So Charles, give me an example of how you built a business. Give an example of how you put a system in place. Give an example of the system. give an example of what you do in a sales process. Give me an example of how you'd 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 me 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 add 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 and 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 discs, the, you name them, I've done. The Harrison gives me cultural fit. It gives me skill set. 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? Right. 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 emetry. We have so much, like, they're so good, right? They've sold me. Whenever you have 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 face if you do this. Like, you've got to trust the technology, trust the system you put in place, which it took me a couple times out to be kicked in the face because my gut, I'm intuitive. Now you're a ding-dong

and you just sold. They're a good sale. 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, that was like, I actually know what you're talking about. The minute you jump into that, many of your feelings. We're like, okay, yeah, she's done that.

She's been there because we've all been there. You know, I always say this. You're not an entrepreneur to you've lost your first million dollars. And the reason is that Lord lost a million dollars. It's your first million dollar. Because you're going to, you're going to keep losing. It is what it is.

It's a nature of the beast. Speaking of that, you're on the other side of it. Not in that. Who got on the other side 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? If you sit in your pity party and you don't look at, what you've learned. You've wasted that opportunity. Because those things, you know, I have learned more in losing millions than I have in making millions, right? Because you have to really perverse 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, cutting 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 know, you, 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. And again, you did quote unquote, everything right and everything was perfect and that everything went away when you lost everything. Because you lost, you lost some pretty, like, did I remember? Ten million dollars. Let's just say it. Ten million dollars. I was. I

I'm heading very enough. So for the audience, it's trying to scale. First off, I would always tell someone, don't hire the person that's never fit because they have no idea how to fix what you're going. So that's first and foremost, if you run into someone that's like, oh, I've 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. 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 the 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, you know, 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 on money. When I started, I had no idea that was bubble gum shoestring band-aid duct tape, right? It was like, well, let's try this, well, let's try that. Well, let's try that. It 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 left. And, you know, I had about a half a million dollars, which is no money left, right? And she's like, oh, shut up. Most people would, 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 booing. 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 business is provided me the cash flow to invest in the real estate. Real estate was a long-term plate 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, where, 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 SAGD and had the rug pulled out from under me. So that was my listen to know now when I'm in 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, two million dollars over here that I know, no matter what happens, I'm okay. Right. And this money I can play with over here. Right. 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 a half a million dollars that said, if all this goes away of this and I didn't think it would ever go away. That was in negativity. Right. To go, of course it will. Business is cyclical, right? You tell you, I tell my clients that all the time, it's going to go up down, up down, up down. I just didn't think the down would be so far. And that was humbling, right? Very humbling. And it was, we were talking about this on another call where the, what caught you, I was lucky and it is 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 me, which was, hey,

don't do this. This is bad. And it sky rockets 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 fund as a resource, as an asset before you even earn it. Like, listen, this brings in my money.

I know where it's going now. I'm very tactful about it. The worst thing you can do, and 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, you need to sit down and work with someone who's down there and then there go. 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 know, like 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 if you're listening to this, right, waving like I'm a star. On Wall, I sold the company to, you know, the largest publisher in our industry. That was awesome, right? 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, you know, 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, I don't, 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 of 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 say, 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 can't do this. I don't know. And so I thought I was smart.

I said, well, I'm just going to double my fees. They're not going to pay that. And so, you know, I said, okay, well, here's my fee. I doubled it. Oh, my God. We're absolutely related. I'm like right on the spot. I'm like, right?

Right. I get to figure out how to do this, right? Because 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 money mindset stop me and my own limiting belief 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 to 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. Same concept. What's the average ticket need to be?

What is cashier? I need to be what a cost to put the business plan together. Same, right? But I was making it so complicated and you to just reverse engineer it or let me just say it in layman's turn. 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 a Charles charge?

What a Susie charge? Well, I'm going to charge this. Okay, stop it. That's again, that is nothing to do with your pricing strategy. How much profit are you going to have? Right? you don't know what Charles's 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 is my biggest expense, I'm spending $400,000 a year in marketing just to get new clients in. And so people are like, oh, well, I don't need to spend that much. Yes, you do. Because you've got to go find. Yeah, you do. Come in. It's not cheap, right? You've got to reinvest inside your business. So quit pulling your pricing out of your butt, right? By chapter six is, Math is money, money is fun.

Or chapter 8, sorry, Mathis 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. 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 persons? Right? How many cards? How many? Okay, now I get it. And it goes back to the feelings thing. Feelings are irrelevant.

It's not, it doesn't matter what was. It's accepting what is. And you had the story that you had was, oh, I used to only do this. No, this is who you are. And you're going to run into this. If you're trying to scale this and I'd love that you brought it out, I did want to work with two of the clients. And they know where they are.

I've talked 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 with that was like, wow, I had a completely undervaluing, undervalue 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 this. I was like, wait,

the market's change. I need to adapt for the market because this is what my value now is. And it happened kind of the same thing. You're like, well, I'm going to scare them away. And I have found, and I'm sure if you found this as well, I scared that more than chart a client, the more results they get. What the hell? It's, it's, it's the, I guess it's a human psychology. If I ain't charging, whatever, five grand to work with me, you're not going to get results. If I charge you 20 grand, You're going to crush it. I'm like, 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 now without even close marketing. Getting it out there. You think about whatever your chocolate is, right? So people have different things.

Like 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, what's wrong with them? 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? Like, what do you mean? What's wrong with me? She goes, why are you so cheap? Like, I'm spending $100 over here.

It was a slap in the face, but a slap I needed. She'll go, I don't know. 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, protein is going to be $5,000, quality-wise, is not the person the same versus maybe 25-gare. 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 is it premier, if you haven't done this, then no, I 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. So there's something you talk about it. Right. There's so many other values versus pricing.

Like, I want the result. If you're going to get me the result, okay, let me look at it. Right. Quit selling your time. You're not selling your time where 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 didn't build a $10 million business doesn't mean they did. Right. Google them,

do due diligence because there's so many people out there, charlatans. That was the word I was looking for. The 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 knows what she's doing. She's right.

Yeah, you can. She goes to death. The thing is. Someone that I'm going on this podcast. Like, oh, all I need to do is talking about systems. Well, the thing is, it wasn't just saying systems. There's certain ways that things are talked about. Like, if you go to someone who's played hockey,

they're going to know those things about the skates that a baseball player is not. And it's these intricate little detail. And you're going to be able to hear it and weed it out very, very quick take it. So you were talking about marketing being one of your huge is expensive when you're doing scaling. What are the things that you put into place when 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 leaves 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 have to advertise. Right. Whether you're doing Google app, 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've 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 ROIing on the first sell first. I know once you cover my, my, my, 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. They're still working, right? So it's important that you realize that you're going to invest some money. And you've got to test and test and 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 staff? Right? Did you, are you selling a low ticket thing that isn't even relevant to your customer? I'm sorry. And what is the 198, right? Right. Right. Right. The lifetime back. Right. Lifetime value your client. And I love that she's talking about testing. You know, whatever we do this, I will run multiple split tests because I need to. 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 evolve in 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, it's same thing with your ad, same thing when you're kind of close. And I love what you said earlier out 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. And what are, because I know it's, 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 do like, you know what, these are my, I need these. Were these only top 10 tool that I didn't have these? God, I shut down my business. What are some of the things that you're used that are just life to you? So one is your CRM, right? So we use Infusion Soft. I know people hate it, but I've been

using it for 20 years, right? And whenever preparation 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 widget. I'm sorry, if you can't use my widget and get it 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 slick 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? 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. 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 I go, 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, right? What are the holes? So, are the whole whole project management, that could be project based. Social media could be project based, right? It doesn't have, you don't mean 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 your account of money and not doing the work that you need them to do. The full-time people are the result producers, my operations person's. My sales people can't, I have some contract, 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'm a found that 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 out, 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. Like, 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 you spend your time on? How long do 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 I'm, most of my time has spent inside of some kind analytical's 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. I'm going, good luck, Charles. Well, Charles knows 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 in 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 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 put 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. Right? And she's like, oh, okay. Like, what's the purpose of the podcast? So I'm having to train her. what's the purpose? And we've been a 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 lead gen. Right? 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 to Charles, vice versa. Like, 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 to like, you do. Well, why don't you come to an event? And I'm going to show you the real skinny. I got her before in the morning, had her do all the work. You know, like, I don't have to get up at four in the morning anymore. I have paid my news. I've been doing this for 30 years. You get up before in the morning.

You go get me coffee. you get that stage ready, you go do the mic check, you go do it. She was like, hi, God. Now she's like, I don't want a speaker. I like the high speaker. I like that. 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 that is more automated. And that is simpler to do because I have management companies to take 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 that, okay, we miss fired, we had a burp, let's come back in, let's pivot around, let's work together where you're constantly like 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 as a solo, what are the things that you look for that you're like, okay, I need to have this experience. Other than, you know, 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, you know, played 10 steps bigger than me and are you willing to hold me to the carpet? Or why am I spending this much money, right, to be able to do that. I need a friend. You don't need a friend, right? I need someone that's that strategically can help me get to the next level. The minute I say, what's the plan and how are we going to get there? That's where most people go, well, I just want to 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 this before. I've marketing. I've spent so much money wrong because I got bamboozled by the Charleston. 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 do you believe it and do you believe that I'm the person that can get that done? What's yours? What's the- on you at? My idea is, are they going to wilt? You and I are very similar with personalities. We are a wall of force. 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'm willing to have pushback because if you can't stand in front of redirect this ship in some way, you're no value in me. And anyway, shape of form because, you know, 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. I just talked with we'd have lunch together.

I got to see the value of therapy. I was like, if you're a 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 going to win. I need that strong personality who's absolutely going to get in my face. So the next thing question, because people are going to want to hunt you down, what are some of the questions that they need to be prepared for before they call you, before they get in the call to save you some time to save them some time when they jump on a call and 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. Let's get into it. Because for me, a lot of it, this is that weird feeling part for me. Yeah, there's some stuff that's very much data driven. You got to be doing this. You got to be doing this. You got to be doing this. But 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 into the point, because I always said 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 chill yourself, you're not in enough pain and you need to be in enough pain for me to level you will because that's the only way you're going to take action. But if you're like,

well, I was thinking about doing an Etsy, sort of get to fuck away. It's going. You're not my person. My people are, you got, 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 on my people, because that's the only people, I've done something. 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 the other questions you have? That's hilarious. 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 it 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 coach. 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 pain. 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 lawn. 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 a

do 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'm not. I literally closed down a million dollar lying item last year because that's 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 out a million dollars. I'm not doing it. That's not. Yeah. It's not worth it. No, and there's a huge difference. So there's a huge difference between I want to lose weight and I'm willing to There's a huge difference between I want to make a billion dollars and I'm willing to do

If you're not willing to sacrifice everything you are in this moment to go get what you want It's just not going to it's you know when you talked about you know shutting this million dollar line out 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 sold that we made six figures on it I just give away for free now Because I don't care anymore like you're not going to do it any So it's like, whatever. When you were 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.

You're there to get results. So how do people track you down? How do they start the process? If they're in that, 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 lay my husband on fire. Well, how do those people get a hold?

Because it's a totally different conversation. It is a totally different conversation. So I'd say the first step is go to our website, which is Susie Carter, C-A-R-D-R-D-A-R-D-R-D-R-D-Sysic-R. Right? So Susie-Carter.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 C-E-R-E-R-E-E-Susiness.

if you're right for me, right? Because I'm very much, I don't, 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've 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 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, De Niro, 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 contractable. I love it. Thank you so very much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Success isn't about perfect plan. It's about profitable execution. As soon as you just prove that feelings don't run businesses. Systems do. Stop making excuses and start making money. Test your strategies, measure results, and hold yourself accountable to the numbers that matter.