Proven Podcast - Stop Being an Entrepreneur, Be a CEO - Michael E. Parker

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

In this episode, Charles dives deep into the world of CEO transformation with Michael E. Parker, a business alchemist who's turned operational excellence at Toyota into a methodology for creating seven-figure CEOs. Michael unveils his blueprint for transforming struggling entrepreneurs into successful CEOs, offering a masterclass in the art and science of business scaling through systematic thinking and strategic offer creation. From his early days as part of Toyota's special operation in California to becoming the "Seven-Figure CEO Maker," Michael's journey is a testament to the power of systems thinking and strategic business development. He dissects his evolution from studying under Toyota's leadership to developing his revolutionary "Freedom Trifecta" that has helped countless entrepreneurs break through their revenue ceilings. Charles and Michael engage in a candid conversation, exploring the game-changing potential of the four core offers and the crucial distinction between being an entrepreneur and a CEO. They unpack the counterintuitive approach of focusing on pain points in lead generation, the magic of creating compelling premium value offers, and why understanding the psychology of your market trumps following conventional business wisdom in today's competitive landscape. Michael's insights crackle with practical wisdom as he breaks down his unique business strategies, from the innovative C.E.O. framework (Charge, Expand, Overcome) to the revolutionary concept of the Freedom Trifecta. He challenges conventional business wisdom, advocating for a radical shift from problem-solving to systems creation that resonates with entrepreneurs ready to scale their businesses. KEY TAKEAWAYS: • Master the four core offers that can transform your business from six to seven figures • Learn why pain-based marketing is more effective than pleasure-based marketing for lead generation • Discover how to implement the five elements of CEO-minded entrepreneurship: Clarity, Capacity, Commerce, Control, and Culture • Understand the power of the Freedom Trifecta in achieving true success in life, business, and wealth • Explore strategies for optimizing your business systems and creating offers that convert at higher price points 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: 3:57 Systems Building: Michael explains the fundamental difference between entrepreneurs and CEOs through systematic approaches. 6:44 System Framework: Breaks down the relationship between processes, operations, and complete systems. 10:19 Offer Design: Shows how to structure compelling offers that convert prospects into customers. 12:59 Value Creation: Reveals why value must significantly exceed price for successful offers. 16:12 Breaking Barriers: Addresses how limiting beliefs hold back business growth and success. 20:43 Growth Focus: Emphasizes the importance of continuous expansion in knowledge and network. 22:38 Problem Solving: Outlines strategies for overcoming business challenges systematically. 26:58 Premium Strategy: Explores how to create and price high-ticket premium value offers. 29:12 Recurring Revenue: Describes the power of continuity offers for sustainable business growth. 31:04 Lead Generation: Shares effective strategies for creating compelling lead magnets. 32:40 Marketing Psychology: Contrasts pain-based versus pleasure-based marketing approaches. 39:12 Value Stacking: Teaches how to build irresistible offers through strategic value stacking. 41:11 Offer Framework: Identifies the four core offers every successful business needs. 43:08 Offer Structure: Details the specific components needed in a winning offer. LINKS TO OFFERS: Your Offer Builder:  http://yourofferbuilder.com/?utm_source=I%20am%20Charles%20Schwartz&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Your%20Offer%20Builder   The Ultimate Freedom Live Event: https://www.theultimatefreedomlive.com/?utm_source=I%20am%20Charles%20Schwartz&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=UFL%202024   Fettered (Systems) to Freedom: https://www.systemstofreedom.com/?utm_source=I%20am%20Charles%20Schwartz&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Free%20webclass

Welcome to the proven podcast where it does not matter what you think, only what you can prove. Michael E. Parker has proven the framework that moves businesses from six figures to seven figures by transforming entrepreneurs into CEOs, taking clients from $20,000 per month to $500,000 per month through systematic offer building and business operations. The show starts now. All right, everybody, welcome back. I'm excited about this one because this talks about the differences between being six figures and seven figures, the difference between an entrepreneur and what it takes to be a CEO. Michael, man, I am so excited to have you here.

Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me, Charles. It's such a pleasure to be with you. So tell everybody a little bit about you and where you are. Before we getting into the details of this, tell everybody a little bit about you and how you got where you are right now. Well, I started off, Charles. I was really someone that was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in business.

And, you know, fortune would have it that while I was wrapping up my bachelor's degree in business operations, procurement, I actually got hired by Toyota. They had a special operation in California where Toyota and General Motors had came together. And it was very unique. There was a lot of dynamics that were interesting. But it just so happened that there were problems in North America. I was in my early 20s just getting going. And they sent Akio Toyota, who is the grandson of the founder of Toyota, someone in the real Toyota family, but I think you have to be 60 years old to be the president or whatever. So he was going through this whole journey of getting

the education he needed to prep him. Everyone knew he was going to be the next president and now chairman. So he comes there and I give him a presentation. He loved it. And the next thing I know, he handpicked me to be a part of a special project team, sent me to Japan. And I saw some of the greatest operational excellence in the world. And it taught me about systems.

It taught me about operations. And, you know, to fast forward after getting that experience and really becoming you know, very profound and proficient, I should say, in the lean management discipline, I was able to break away and become an entrepreneur. And so for the last two decades, I've started, you know, many, many businesses. And by starting those businesses, I started to understand a framework that actually helps to move a business from six figures to seven figures. I had a lot of businesses that made six figures. It wasn't until I learned how to really be a CEO and how to think differently. And,

And I found that it's actually that you have to learn how to be not just the seal of the business, but the seal of yourself, as well as learning more about wealth as well, since you know how all these work together to create a freedom. And so this is what I'm passionate about is seeing, you know, entrepreneurs move from just the art of solving problems to actually building systems that run a business so that that business can scale. And I think it's one of the most important things that people never talk about, the difference between an entrepreneur and a CEO. It's a completely different world.

You know, being an entrepreneur, you're going to get to that six-figure mark with brute force. You can just put in the hours. You can put, you know, an average week for an entrepreneur is about 80 hours a week. That's pretty normal for when you're into that. You're just grinding in. You're smashing it against the wall over and over and over again. But as we were talking about off camera before we started, there's a huge difference between a CEO and an entrepreneur.

I'd love to have you kind of give more insight on that. Yeah, well, I think when you think about an entrepreneur, You know, anybody who can really solve a real problem, right, we could say as an entrepreneur, we have inventors who are coined as entrepreneurs. And this is why so many people make a mistake, Charles, as I know you well know, because they can cook, they think they can start a restaurant. Because they know how to do certain things that they have the talent, they think it translates to running a business.

And they find out very quickly, well, no, you can solve a problem in terms of people of being hungry and you can help them feel full and even like your food. running a business is a total different thing. So when you think about an entrepreneur, you simply understand that there's a problem in the market and you know how to solve that problem and people will pay you for it. And you can get to six figures just from just solving a problem with. But if you want to be a CEO, a CEO is actually able to think about the systems that would make that business work and actually begin to systemize the business so that now there is something to actually run the business.

So people make the mistake and think that the CEO is the big boss. They're the ones who, the one who is in charge, the one who has the last say, the one who's the decision maker. Those things are true. But the biggest thing a CEO could ever do is put the right systems in place and then let those systems run the business. The person who's the CEO that always has to run everything, they just have created a sense of self-employment and not actually having a business that is actually accomplishing a goal with or with. without them. And so this is where we start to see the power of understanding what a CEO is truly supposed to do versus what people think the label means. Right. And for me, one of the

sexiest words in the world is systems. I always talk about this all the time, and that system set you free. And that systems help you automate things. When you've seen systems from a different angle, you've seen it overseas. I haven't been over to Japan yet. It is on my list. But when you go into that and you look at these, how would you describe to an entrepreneur when they're walking in going, I've heard of systems. I've heard Charles talk about systems. Michael, I've heard you talk about system. What the heck is a system? Because they've heard me talk about it dozens of times. Getting your insight from a different angle is so important. So what is your synthesis on what a system is? Well, there's a lot of ways, and I agree with you, there's so many different ways to talk about it.

But something I always like to point out is the difference between a process and an operation and a system. A process is, you know, I'm trying to go from here to here in a way that deliver value to a distinct goal. An operation is something you find inside of a process. It's like one of the boxes on my process map. I can have an operator. I might have five operations that make up a process. In that operation, I have steps. And there's steps in the operation that I must fulfill. But a system is different. A system may have a mixture of processes, operations, and standards that all work together toward creating a standard outcome from how this whole thing's work. When we think about the transportation system, you think about it, there's the traffic side, there's what you can do on the

freeway, the freeway or expressway, there's what you do in the streets, there's what you have to do if some particular thing comes up, there's all these rules we have to learn. And when you, you know, look at how you go through driver's education, you take your driver's test, and then there's a police system to make sure that you're following the system. So all of that works together to make the transportation system work. And it has many elements to it. So when you're, you know, you're going to be a police system to it. So when you think about system, you're able to describe how many different pieces work together for the whole. So when you think about the way you develop team members in your business, you think about the way that you actually generate leads in your business or the way that you convert a

cell, there might be many elements to it. It's not just one thing. So this is the difference with systems. Systems combine the different things necessary to get a outcome to be consistent. And sometimes it's not just one thing. It can be multiple things that come together to make that happen. We even talk about the different systems that's in the body, right? So we've got a metabolic system. We've got a cardiovascular. All these things that make the body work.

So there's a system of how my body works. And then there are subsystems that support the bigger system of how the body works. So all of these things are great examples. I love when you go to the airport, for example, there's a visual control system where you can walk through this big old airport. no one comes and meets you, no one tells you where to go, but there's signs everywhere. There's visuals, there's indicators, there's triggers, there's all kinds of sounds, there's all kinds of things that tell you where to go, and you might look at your boarding pass and you're walking

around, and no one is, this big monstrosity of an airport, but it's all governed by color codes and visuals and words. Someone put a system in place that you know certain pictures mean bathroom. Other pictures mean a gate. Other pictures mean safety. Other pictures mean danger. This is all a system that someone thought through and it works to get us a consistent outcome because they've thought about how all the pieces work together to create a hole. Right. And what I love about that is that is the difference between an entrepreneur and a CEO. A CEO is focused on systems building. And you've done this multiple times. You've talked about how, you know, some of the people come to you, they're making, you know, maybe 20K a month.

you've taken them making 20K to month to having a half a million dollar months. Can you talk about one of the systems you've done with one of your clients and kind of some of the stuff that, hey, this is what they kind of ran into. I know you're going to be begging up if we don't want to give anybody away here,

but going in and saying, hey, this is one of the systems and the things we did in that environment because I think the listeners will understand, okay, I get it. A system is involved where gets the result without having any involvement whatsoever. Airport, makes sense.

Got it. That's not working business. Can you kind of share an example there? Well, one of the greatest things that I love to help some of my clients with is to really understand the system of how to take what you offer and organize it into an offer. So we have different services that I might be working with a business and they provide a service or they sell a product. But there's a difference in making an offer which combines your services and your products into one distinct

outcome of transformation for a customer. When you can think about the real outcome you get for someone and how you can combine products and services to get them this outcome in the best way, you can raise your prices for what that offer is worth. You name that offer, you give it a good price, and because your outcome is so clear, when you're done with this, you're going to know how to write a book on your own and self-published. When you're done with this, you're going to know how to actually increase your revenue by 50%. When you're done with this, you're going to be clearly you're going to know clearly how to hire the right person and how to put a framework in your business

to develop your team members once they're there. When the outcome is clear and you turn it into an offer, well, now you take someone who is making six figures a year and they're able to make six figures in a month. I've seen people that went from a six-fier a year to a six-figure month. I've seen individuals who are making maybe a half-million dollars a year and then they did it in a day

because they learn how to restructure their offer and get a contract for that half a million dollars. seen an individual that didn't think they could sell their business until maybe three to four years from when I met them, but then taught them how to systemize their business and organize the components of their business in a way where someone could see the value and then they were able to sell their business in months for multiple, you know, multiple seven figures, all because they started to see how to simply organize what they were already doing in a way that someone could understand the value. So our job, people think sometimes that

selling, you know, the reason some people think selling is a bad word is because they've had experiences where people weren't really selling that were trying to convince you. People tried to convince you and try to, you know, force you to get something you don't want, neither do you need versus true selling done the right way is to find the right person who you really can solve their problem and then uncover the value. When you can start to have value in the transformation is so clear and you can uncover that value right before their eyes, it's only the right next step for them to want that from you, no matter the price. And so, as we often say, when the value is this big, so hopefully you can see my hands here, and that value is this big, and the price

is this big, it doesn't matter what price I put in here. As long as the value is this big and the price is this big, someone will always be willing to buy that from you. We only exchange money when something is more valuable than the money that we exchange. We don't go get gas because we think gas prices are good, but we value driving our car more than we do that price. So even though we might complain about the gas, we still will get it because we value the driving of the car to get to our destination more than the price. So we have to, what I teach people how to do, Charles, long story short, is to better organize what they're doing and to communicate it and value terms so that people understand

what they get out of it in relation to the price. and we see people exponentially grow their business because they think in offers versus just a product or service. Absolutely. And it's when we talk about this all the time, people understand it conceptually. Like, I need systems. I need progress. I need to be able to do this. But switching that mindset, because you and I have both done this for organizations for, you know, a long time, switching the mindset from an operator or a entrepreneur into a CEO is exceptionally challenging.

out of all the entire thing, being able to pivot your mind and say, you know, whether this is my baby, I created it, I know all the clients, blah, blah, blah, that the entire laundry list story and pivoting that over going, wait, I need to focus on value. I need to focus on the value that I provide, the pain that I'm resolving, and then redoing that. What are some of the things that you've run into that have been really helpful to help that person, you know, when you, you've worked with them for so long, that allow you to kind of pivot that over to start switching that mindset from entrepreneur into CEO. Well, I think the biggest thing, that's an excellent question, Charles, and I think the biggest

thing is that, you know, what has really helped me is just better understanding how the mind works, because one of the biggest obstacles that I've seen in working with people is not the business stuff. It's mindset. It's their belief systems. It's the limiting beliefs that they have. And people think the success has to take a long time. And it really doesn't. The The problem is it takes a long time to get you to believe that success can happen quick. And so the limiting beliefs is the biggest obstacle that I've seen because I understand how the brain works and that we have automatic negative thoughts. Our first thought is why something can't work and why we can't change and why we can't do

something different. And so we are stuck in comfort zones that the self-preserving brain we have always gives us. And until you realize that there's an equation that we all go through. to determine what we do. First we think about it, then we get feelings and emotions come from those thoughts, and then we do what we feel. So if we don't change what we think, we can't change what we do because the equation begins with the thinking. If we want to go even further, the environment is what helps generate the thoughts. So most people have to get in more environments that teach them to think and breathe like a CEO. They have to get her, and this is why I created environments

and programs to help people get out of the environments they've been in, to get in a different environment that will give them different thoughts, which gives them different feelings, that allows them to do different things. So I would say the biggest issue that I've had, as well as the most rewarding thing I've had, is to teach people to think differently about themselves. Because you don't get what you want. You get who you are. And this is what I have to teach people to think about because they want a seven-figure business.

They want people to respect their leadership. They want people to listen when they give direction. But they can't command that because they haven't become that person yet. So until they change who they are and really embody and embrace what that really means, it's impossible for them to plant those seeds and others that makes them be respected in their leadership that allows them to say, my offer is $20,000. They can't even say it because they don't believe it. If I have a discount mindset, if I have a mindset that,

doesn't feel I can do something or I can charge this for that, there's no way I can, in transparency, really communicate the value of what I have because I don't believe it myself. So when I don't believe it myself, I transfer that to the person I'm selling to. And this is the reason so many people are stuck because that limiting belief is still in them. So what I try to do is to slowly begin to carve that limiting belief out of them, get them to first see themselves differently so that they can see their customer differently, which allows them to see results differently. And that's kind of the pathway I try to focus on. I think it's so important you talked about environment earlier. You know, there was this, there's this great example where there was a mom duck who had all

these ducks and then there was a chicken egg in there. And they didn't realize that. And she raised the chicken as a duck. And that chicken went and swam around in the lake as if it was a duck. If you're surrounding yourself in an environment where you're not around CEOs and you're only around entrepreneurs, you're going to act like an entrepreneur. If you're surrounding, you know, your network is your network. We've talked about this forever, but no one's really created the environment. One of the reasons I want to have you on was no one's created the environment where you're going to be surrounded by CEOs, which is a completely different way of thinking. If you're a C-O, if you're a chief operating officer, you don't want to hang around a bunch of CFOs. It's a totally different around. If you're a

duck, but if you're around these group of individuals, it's a different world. What does that environment look like in some of your programs? What are the, some of the things? I know they get work with you and you know, you're a very successful CEO. What are some of the things that they get around that you can start seeing them start to pivot? What are some of the habits that if someone's listening to right now, they're like, hey, you know what? I'm in the car. What is something I could do today before I get on the call with you? Before we get to that next point, what is something I can start doing now to start not thinking like a duck if I'm a chicken? What are the ways that I can stop thinking like an entrepreneur and start pivoting into that that CEO mindset? Yeah, you know,

I think when I, something I like to always teach people, and I use the acronym of CEO. And I teach people that one of the first things we have to do, we have to learn how to charge. And charge means to take immediate imperfect action, to stop waiting for everything to be perfect before you act, to be willing to charge forward, to take action,

to see it as now a clock that, It's so many people that miss opportunities because they simply won't do what they know to do. Some people think if I just knew more, if I knew this, if I knew that, well, our biggest problem is what we don't know. Our biggest problem is what we do know. The things we already know, people know what to do to be more fit. They know what to do to be more healthy. The issue is we won't do what we know to do. So getting entrepreneurs to transition to the CEO mindset of I need to take action.

And the other thing is, is that we have to be able to expand. So that means that I have to make a commitment to expand my knowledge, to expand my network, to expand my learning, and that there's actually an investment that I have to make in myself to be able to input more information that is actually useful to my growth. There's too many entrepreneurs that aren't willing to grow into a CEO because it requires that, you know, what got you here won't get you there. And the pathway and the separation to getting you there is something you don't know. The difference between a six figure, six figure and a seven figure CEO is something that you don't know. And so if I'm not willing to expand my base of knowledge to listen to people who have been somewhere I'm trying to get to, I'll always stay where I've been.

So expansion is very important. And then the O and CEO for Overcome, because no matter what you deal with, there's going to be an obstacle. There's going to be something that gets in your way. As soon as you make a decision to go forward, there's going to be a roadblock. There's going to be a issue. There's going to be something that says, here's why you can't. And it is the people who transition to CEOs, they have this relentless fire in them that somehow says, I'm not going to let this thing stop me. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to overcome this obstacle. I'm not going to let my initial thought, my initial view of of what has taken place.

You know, it's ironic, but it goes back to physics to understand the law of polarity, that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. There's never one side of anything. There's always two sides. So whenever something looks like you're not going to be able, or you can't, or it's bad, there has to be a better side to it, right? When I look at some things I went through as a young man, Charles,

I went through some challenges, and my mom was in a domestic violence situation, and I grew up. I went through a lot of things. I went to six different elementary schools. I went to a home for battered women with my mom. And I could look at all these things and say, man, I,

you know, look at my life and all that. But listen, these are some of the best moments in my life because it shaped my leadership. It made me stronger. It taught me how to care for people. Pain helped me to appreciate healing.

Being able to understand what can happen when you do certain things cause me to want to live a different life. So until you have the ability, the keen sense of seeing what is good about anything that happens in your life. It's very hard to be a CEO because you're going to have a lot of things that come up that you didn't want to happen, but it's those people who overcome that are able to fully move into being a CEO. So these are just a few things, but we have to charge, we have to expand, and we have to overcome.

There's a lot that you just went over there, and I want to kind of talk to a lot of it. One of the things is there was a show called Game of Thrones, and it's a spoiler alert here, but it's old now, so get over yourself. But John Snow dies. And then he comes back and he's sitting there and he says, you know, I thought I did the right thing. I did all this. But then I failed. And they killed me for it. And I failed.

And the guy in front of us is good. Now get up and go fail again. And it's one of those really simple moments like you're going to fail. Good. Go fail again. And your feelings don't really matter. You know, we talk about it. Do it.

Nervous. Do it. Do it. Just do it. Execute when you fail. Do it again. It's kind of like with children. You don't look at your child after four or five times, you know, learning how to walk and say, well, I

guess he's not going to ever walk. And like, no, just keep walking, dude. It's going to keep going. The other thing you talked about, you know, you talked about offering and you talked about that the ways that people offer things as a CEO is exceptionally different than as someone who's an entrepreneur. And you've broken this down and you've really broken it down there, a core way to kind of create your offers.

Could you kind of an intangible way walk me through that? Yeah. So, you know, I think, you know, all of my journey over two decades building business. businesses, I've been making different offers to businesses and groups and companies. And one thing that I've kind of arrived at, that there's a way to organize these into four core offers. And I give a shout out to a good friend of mine and coach named Myron Golden, who likes to organize it this way as well. And I think it's a really good succinct way. But I've been using offers like this for so many years and seeing what it does to entrepreneurs. And so the first offer is a

lead generation offer. And this every every true CEO needs a systematic, predictable way to generate leads. And one of the ways, you know, you can have the best product in the world, but if there's no one there to buy it, it doesn't mean anything, right? And if you don't have an audience that is larger than your system of your way to convert a sale, you're going to go out of business. I don't care how great your thing is. So we need a lead generation offer that is always bringing new leads and I define a lead as someone who was giving me their contact information. There's a lot of things you can define it as, but I want to just be real simple. Do I have your phone number or your email? Can I get a hold of you? If I can't get a hold of you, you're not a lead, right? Someone who is

raised their hand and said, I'm interested in what you're talking about and here's my contact information, right? So this is a lead. I need an offer whether that I want to give something of real value out there that makes someone want to give me their email. And sometimes people think, well, this is going to be easy. I'll just give this thing for free. Free still has to be sold. Yes. Just because it's free don't mean people going to give you that email and that phone number. It's got to still be good. It's got to be something that really brings transformation,

something that really helps them. Then there's what's called a core product offer. And this is more of the core thing you do. It still has to be an offer. So that main service you provide, that main product that keeps the lights on, you still want to organize that into a very good offer so someone understands that if I give you this, I get all of this. This is what an offer makes you feel like. And you're able to charge more for that when you organize the offer that way. Now, another critical offer, and a lot of, you know, people

really miss out on this. And this is the thing that can really move you to seven figures very quickly, is understanding premium value offers. Now, premium value offers, I want to, a say range from anywhere from 5,000 to I know some people who have million dollar premium value offers. So if you are able to put together a very clear transformation that you can get for someone, very clear transformation. And you're able to realize that people don't want your process. They don't want your person that I get a lot of time with you. I get to go through this seven step whatever process. They want the payoff. Yes. They want the. They want outcome. They want the thing that gets the result for them, right? So when you're able to really

define that, you're able to start making premium value offers. And something that people used to do in a year can literally happen in one day. Yes. Right. So you can make $300,000 in a day. You can make a million dollars in a day. I'm among a network of people. We do this all the time where you can generate these types of numbers simply by knowing how to make premium value offers. So that's a critical element, right? Then you deal with, and let me just say this too before I go to this last one is that when you start running the numbers, you start realizing, okay, you know, if I sell 20 of this $50,000 thing, that's a million dollars, like right now. It's not 365 days, not, not, you know, 52 weeks. Today, if I have a $50,000 offer that gets a clear transformation and

just 20 people buy it, that's seven figures right now. And, you know, some people who don't understand that, they don't realize, like, not only is this possible, it's happening every day. And there's no reason that anyone listening to this can achieve that once you know how to structure the things that you do into a clear transformation. But that brings me to the last one. I think is one of the most important offers of all. And that is a continuity offer. A continuity offer. A continuity offer is something that people pay you monthly or, you.

Or could be annually as well, but it's something that has a consistent rhythm where they pay continuously for what you do. They subscribe. They become a member. It's, you know, it can be as simple as someone paying a monthly fee to be a part of a group that you started where you talk to them every month. It could be a newsletter. It could be a distinct portal that they get access to. It could be coaching. But something, it could be software, which is one of my favorites. So at the end of the day, you know, Russell, Brunson built a whole business model around this called the lynchpin model because he realized that the linchpin is really your continuity because at the end of the day, even if you want to sell your business one day and you might be a great leader and you might be good at what you do, but even investors know, well, what if something happens to you? What am I going to do if you're not

around? They want something that's been systemized and they look at your monthly recurring revenue. that is going to generate the most value for your business and make your business the most sellable and have the most highest value proposition to an investor. And also, when you have very strong continuity, this is the thing that allows you to sleep at night as a CEO because you can't live off of events. You can't live off of the next campaign. You want to know there's some level of continuity that keeps the bills paid and the lights on no matter what you do so that those other things that you do just become, you know, these dramatic moments of injections of money, but I've got my baseline stability from my continuity. So these four offers, lead generation,

core product offers, premium value and continuity. These are the four critical offers that every business needs, if they want to be a seven figure of more business and comfortably sustain that into the foreseeable future. There was so much value and so many things in there that I want to kind of go back and chitchat a little bit about it. One of the the things you talked about is, you know, people don't buy product and services. They buy stories, identities, and ways out of pain. It's a very specific result that you offer. And if I walked in right now to my gym and said, hey, I want to have XYZ person's body. And he's like, cool, go home. In 24 hours, you'll have that body for the rest of your life. How many zeros am I writing behind

that? Versus if someone said, you've got to come in for the next 90 days, work out, you know, two hours with me every day, I'm going to pay significantly less for that. So if you can present a create a result like that, totally different bargain. You're in the process of selling results, period. You're getting people out of pain. One of the things you talked about that this starts off with is getting that first lead. You know, it could be a free offer. It could be all these things.

What are the things that you have found that people are willing to say, hey, here's my email address, here's my phone number. What are some of the league magnets that you found that convert the best? So if an audience is looking at this right now and listening, what can I start looking at my company as I'm redesigning this, as I'm changing my mind from an entrepreneur to a CEO, what are certainly the lead magnets that you have found that convert on the highest level? Well, that's an excellent question, Charles, and I think one of the things that is most critical, there's a lot I could say about that. The most critical thing I think to really get across is a

couple of things. One is that the difference between pain and pleasure. So when you have lead magnets that with a cold audience who doesn't know you, and you lead them towards pleasure, Like the, you know, come here and then automatically you're going to lose weight. People don't believe you. You know, I love the story of, you know, if you were standing out on the street and you were just waving a $100 billion. I just want to give this the way, away to everyone, you know, you were yelling. No one would trust you. Correct.

It must be a counterfeit. There's something wrong. Like, who would do that, right? It's too good to be true. So everyone's, you know, your radar goes up for scam or fake or whatever, right? But what's amazing is if a rock fell on my head and I was bleeding profusually and I didn't, you know, I was trying to help, I have a complete stranger came up and said, hey, let me have your phone. Give me to Pascoe.

Let me call 911 for you. I would give them my phone and I don't even know them. But because I'm in pain, I'm willing to work with someone I don't know. Yeah. So the reason, the reason I bring that up is when you talk about pain, people are more willing to give it a try to see what it's about. So instead of saying the seven things that will make you rich, I would talk about the seven mistakes that stop you from being rich, right?

The seven things you're doing wrong, the seven reasons that you can't overcome blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to make seven figures. These are the things that get attention. The other thing is, I would say, is the more that we can make sure that that lead, magnet is going to give them a real result. If you can get elite magnet that gives them a real result,

that these are, you know, I'm going to teach you the seven mistakes that authors are making that causes their books to not sell more than 20 copies, right? And then you let them know in there, I'm going to give you a tool that's going to help you do this specific thing, right? That is a part of a bigger process,

but I'm going to give you one part of it. So these are two things that are. I've seen be very successful. The selling of pain, help me get out of the pain, is something that solves a specific problem within a bigger process. These are things that people will give you their email for, and you'll find more success in people actually being willing to stand up and say, hey, I wouldn't like to understand more. I agree with you. It's the pain and the quick dopamine hit. It's like, what is this quick thing that I can do? Okay, now I got, I have this KLT. I have this no like and trust now towards Michael because, okay, he helped me get this. You know, one of the

the things that people mess up with the marketing all the time. We have it down here in Florida is there's these billboards that say your wife is hot. And it's for an air conditioning company. And everybody knows it. And they're like, okay, and it's got this woman. It's a relatively attractive woman. And like, your wife is hot. And everybody loves the ad.

I'm like, cool, what's the name of the company? And they're like, um, I'm like, oh, just tell me, tell me one part of the name of the company that's over that's over that's over that's over there. They're like, um, so it's not enough to just have the pain. You have to be able to ask to convert. And I think the dopamine hit you were talking about, given that quick win instantaneously means that they're going to be kind of more connected to you and going into that next level. You know, you talked about the offer, but the one that got me really excited is about that fact that you have to have it continued.

And that's why I love service-based things. I love things, like, I wish I owned zero water, which makes the water filters. God, I wish I own that company because every single month, I'm popping in a new water filter because I'm like, oh, dang it. I wish I had one of those products or services because it's something that I've always looked at. It's why I'm so heavily invested in real estate because I don't care what happens. You still need a root. I don't care what's going.

I don't care who wins election. I don't care who doesn't win the election. You need a roof. And, you know, the West Coast of Florida found us out, regrettably, really intensely, you're going to need a roof. Yes. These continued products where you have to have this where there's those type of models. If someone comes to you and that's not part of their way because they're an entrepreneur, they've never thought of it like a CEO that didn't think about that their offer had to change

and that there had to be this monthly recurring revenue, what are some of the ways where you sit down with them and say, okay, here's your offer. It's really cute, but let's get you from being an entrepreneur into the CEO world, you know, going through your process. What are some of the ways that you've gone? Okay, this is how things change as you go through that. So do you mean specifically about the way they position their offers or just in general? How are some of the ways, yeah, how they've changed your, you know, if you have an example like, hey, this person used to sell underwater baskets to chicken. And we're like, okay, let's, let's do this instead. I'm curious who you got an example to kind of inspire the audience. Well, one thing that I was saying, you know,

say that I think is just really would help those that are listening is that's really big, is when I help people with their offers, sometimes that I think a big mistake people make, they think that this gumble of stuff makes it a good offer, that there's all this stuff. You get this and you get that. They focus on the pieces and not understanding the payoff. And sometimes people actually can reduce what's in the offer and charge. more money because you get to the transformation quicker. So if you get to the people don't want, like, you know, say, hey, you get to spend,

you know, three days with me a week. People don't want to spend three days with me a week. They would spend the most minimal time with me as possible to get to the transformation, right? So helping people with their offer and a lot of times the issue I'll have Charles is, they'll put this thing in their offer. And then the next thing that they offer in the, in the, in the offer is not related to a pain that the person is going to have within the offer. Here's what I mean.

So I say, okay, I'm working with someone. They say, you get this 12-week training that's going to help you learn how to do A. Okay. And then the next thing that they have is something about a T-shirt or a some sort of trip somewhere that has nothing to do with what anyone's learning. They're like, but it's value. Yeah, but it's not related. See, but if I was making an offer that had to do, let's say I wanted to sell this new, you know, backpack that's great for going hiking.

And I want to sell this backpack. And I would say, okay, there's this great backpack. Now, a pain someone might have that's going to go hiking is that they might need a really good flashlight. So I might say as another part of this offer, I'm going to give you this special flashlight that glows in the dark, can warm your food and do this and that. The next thing is they might need to need a compass because while they're out, see, that's related. Next thing you know, they might need something that's going to actually strengthen their tent in case a bear came at night. And it's something that locks their tent in a special way and puts a fortune. All of those things have congruency and they have relationship to what the main reason that I even want the offer is about.

When you build an offer, you have to create congruency. You want to make sure that everything, so if you remember the movie Inception, where you start dealing with intercepting someone's thought and putting something in their mind, people who build good offers, they're able to not only make sure there's something in their best transformative. They actually describe the next problem that's going to come from the solution that they gave. Absolutely. Because every solution creates a new problem. So the people who make good offers, they're able to see the problem in the solution and then ask something. else in the offer that then solves that problem. And you keep stacking it, this value stacking to where the offer becomes irresistible. That is what I feel is the secret to helping people make

great offers. Yeah. And it's absolutely huge. Like, okay, I sold you a car, but you need tires. And oh, by the way, you need gasoline. And oh, by the way. So you're constantly fixing one problem that creates more problems and so on and so forth. But you're doing it in an authentic way. One of the things that you've done also is, you know, you can tell the difference between somebody who's authentic or not authentic by the tools that they offer. And I know you've created a very specific tool to help out the listeners. Tell me more about that tool that, you know, you created a website for it. Tell me more about the tool and what it does. Yes. So I created a offer builder tool. And there's a few things that are involved in this. And so as a gift to those out there who really want to know more about

this critical, critical art of building just, you know, flagship offers that could lead to seven-figure businesses. When you understand this, this literally is the thing that can change the game for you. If you learn how to make strong offers. So some people say I'm not making enough money, and a lot of times it's simply you're not making enough offers. You're not giving anyone a reason to give you money. And you haven't put enough time into the thing that's going to make you the most money. And this is a tool to help you do that. So the first thing that I do is, I have a tool that, so these are three components of this tool. The first component is to help you just begin to identify the four offers for your business.

So what is your lead generation offer? What is your core product offer that is based on the core thing your business does? What is a good example of a premium value offer that you could provide? And what is your continuity offer? This basically allows you to list those out on a document. and then to list out, you know, I actually help you to do some research of other people's offers in these four categories. And then you list the actual thing you're going to do and what you would, you know, kind of what you would charge for it. So you're just kind of building a framework of your

four offers. That's the first thing. Another tool that I give you with this is it uses what I call the car method, the car method. And what what you do is, you're basically looking at things that you have access to that are already there that will allow you to assemble your offer. So there are some things that I already have, right? So, and when you think about the different elements, you know, the different assets that you might have, here's what we're really doing. We're taking all these things that we've done in our business, right? I've built a product here, and a service here, and there's things that customers have said, I like this. But now what I need to do, I need to go and pull these assets together to start building an offer. And sometimes I have things

that are just ready to go. Like, I can use this as is. This is good. I can put it in the treasure chest and use it as an offer. Sometimes I have things that need to be altered a little bit. And with a little tweaking, this is something I can put into an offer. And then sometimes there's something I just need to create brand new. Like I need to create something brand new that I don't, like for this offer to be what it could be, I need this thing and I don't have it. So I'm going to take the time and I'm going to do a quick training video. I'm going to make a partnership and get an alliance with someone that'll allow, that they'll allow, sometimes people make the mistake and thinking everything in the offer has to be from them, but it doesn't. I can build a partnership with someone and say,

hey, every time I sell this, will you give them this thing that you have that will make my offer perfect. And so sure, just, you know, throw me 50 bucks every time you sell that offer. And here, I'm doing this offer for $5,000. Yeah, I'll give you $50 every time I sell it. You can do that to make the ultimate offer for someone. So this is a tool that allows you to do that. The next tool is to actually structure your offer. And here's where the real offer building comes. Now, you actually begin to lay out your offer. What is the first item? What is the value of it that you would assign to this element of your offer. So you actually list it out.

You say this is worth $997 by itself, $997. Then you begin to think about that inception. What's the next problem that that thing solves us? And then you list out the next thing and you assign a value to it. And you go all the way down this sheet, filling out the value proposition, and then after you do those main things,

I have an area where you list some bonuses. because a good offer always has a few little bonuses. So you say, well, here's the main things of the offer. But if you do this offer today, here's a few bonuses. We're going to give you this, going to give you that. So I have you list that and assign a value. At the very bottom, you begin to add it all up and get a total value. And then lastly, you make that distinction.

Back again, when I said, if your value is here and your price is here, they will always make an attempt to buy. So what you're doing then now is assigning a price that is different than that total value that's going to be the actual offer that you make them. So when you put all these three things together, you now have the construct of building an offer that you can actually start to sell to generate substantial amounts of money just from doing this one exercise. It can lead to a six to seven figure opportunity by itself.

And I think it just as you went through that offer process, it really shows the difference between how an entrepreneur thinks and how a CEO thinks. It's a completely different mindset. And people just don't understand it. It's not just systems. There's so many things that are involved from the way you offer things, the way you hire, the way you interact, there's so many. It's just a different world. You know, we talked about it and you said it earlier. What got you here isn't going to get you there.

It's really, really simple. And there needs to be that evolution. If someone wants to go on that evolution, how do they track you down? What's the best way to find you? How do they interact with you? What's the best way to do that? Well, yeah, and I just want to say real quick on what you just said, Charles, because it's so powerful when you talk about CEO thinking and you think about offers. What's so powerful is wealthy people make money out of things that come in their mind, not things that they do with their muscles, right? And people say, work hard. And the beauty of it is when you make a good offer,

right? Not only do you make money then, but when you make that money, that day from you selling an offer, you still have the offer. So the offer becomes an asset that you keep making money on. And so one of the things that I do is, you know, when you think about those out there that really want to know more about how do I actually become a better CEO, how do I actually learn how to make better offer. So I have a few things that I do. You know, people that are interested in, I have a program called a C-suite Business Mastery Program. and people that are interested in that, you know, they can look us up on URC.com and contact us if they're interested in just learning more about the things we do in our business and wanting to know more about our programs. But one of the things that we do, I offer a free webinar and, you know, this whole webinar is built on teaching entrepreneurs the roadmap, what I call a business freedom roadmap.

How do I actually do the things that seven-figure CEOs are doing so I can get the results now and use my money to collapse my time? So what can I do to invest in myself to collapse the time it would take to become a seven-figure CEO now? And I teach in this free webinar what people have done to collapse that time. What is the real roadmap to do that? So sometime I refer to these webinars from Federer to Freedom. because we are bound by the lives we've been told about business, and we need the truth to make us free. We can understand what do people really do.

What's the real thing that people do? It's more than selling a product. It's more than showing up saying, my name is this, and I'm a CEO. So this webinar is a beautiful place to come and get some good information. It's called from Federer to Freedom. But another thing that I would mention is that I want to make sure people have access to the tool. And I believe the domain that I put together for this tool, I'll mention it in just a minute, you can go to this distinct domain and you will be able to download this tool for free.

And what I would invite people to do is to take this tool, really begin to use it, fill it out. And if you go through the process of filling it out, so the domain is your offerbuilder.com, your offer builder.com. And I named it that because it's yours. It's your offer builder. And if you take this and just go through the steps and, you know, follow the instructions, you will end up with this offer that you can use. But here's the issue.

Once you have a great offer, you have to make sure you have a great business to back that offer up. You got to make sure that you actually know how to fulfill on that offer. See, if your business isn't strong, so there's five. elements I teach in my program to help someone become a CEO-minded entrepreneur. The first thing, Charles, is clarity. We have to be super clear on who we're serving, what that market is, and what is the distinct strategy for me to be successful in that market, and I'm super clear on who I am and who I serve. The next is capacity. I must understand the capacity, how much capacity is in this market for me to even make seven figures. Are you in a dying market?

Do you understand your numbers? Do you don't understand the difference between gross profit margin and net profit margin? Do you know what those things are, right? The difference between knowing how much money you're making on your product versus making on your business. So this is all capacity issues, right? Then we have to understand commerce. Do you have a systematic way of having money flow into your business like a river? Because you've got a distinct way to generate leads and to convert the sale that is predictable.

Then we have clear commerce. The next one is control. We must have a sense of control in our business. You know, in statistics, they talk about upper control limits and lower control limits. If you don't understand what control means in terms of how you want customers to feel when they work with you, if you don't know what control means in the distinct quality and experience, you want people to get from your service and product in a way that is consistent and happens every time and you put systems in place to get that result in a predictable, consistent way,

You don't really have a business. You know, I've told people this sometimes, Charles, that they have to qualify to have a problem. You know, people say, I have a problem. I say, no, you don't. You have chaos. They say, well, what do you mean? I say, a problem is a deviation from a standard.

So until you have a standard, you haven't qualified to have a problem. You just have chaos. So we have to have standards in our business to get the business under control, to qualify to know when something is out of control. And then lastly, we must understand culture. culture has to do with the environment we create in our business that cultivates an experience for people to work in that business to generate a clear result.

See, some people are going to use culture and allow there to be a subtle, you know, disease inside their business that destroys the company from the inside out because they didn't nip things in the bud. They didn't stop things that were a problem. They didn't correct things when they should have. And something in that business began to grow and cause that business to implode. But see, when you use culture as a constructive tool, it becomes a silent weapon. There's a reason that a lot of my team that's been with me has been with me over 20 years. This is just, you don't hear of this anymore. But why?

Because I was able to build a strong culture. And your culture is created. There's three things you got to keep in mind with building culture. What is happening consistent in your business? What are you condoning in your business? And what are you celebrating in your business? those things are creating a culture in your business that if you don't intentionally take control over it, something can take control of the business that you thought was yours,

because what you put on those walls and those taglines and all those business acronyms, it means nothing if that's not what really happens in the business every day. And that's why culture is so important. And this is what I teach people in my program. Yeah, I think this is why you're the seven-figure CEO maker, because people don't understand the massive difference between being an entrepreneur and being a CEO. And you can't do it by brute force.

You have to understand offers. You have to understand culture. You have to understand systems. There's so much more with finances alone. I remember when I made my first seven figures, I was like, great, I'm done. I never have to work again. And my wonderful accountant, I love him forever. He's like, oh, that's adorable.

Sit down. Let's talk. And I was like, oh, well, dang it. I'm losing how much of the government? Dang it. I just didn't know. I knew how to be an entrepreneur. I never knew how to be a CEO.

And I think that journey starts, as you were talking about. Just let's figure out your offer first. Let's get you up there. We're not asking you to climb Mount Everest right now. Let's just get you to buy the shoes that we can start this journey on together. And I think, you know, the fact that you're offering that is just such a gift. I really appreciate you coming on. Again, how do people track you down?

What's the best way that they can take action right now? How do they get a hold of you? Well, one thing, again, you can definitely look me up on YouTube at U.R.C.O. You can find Michael Lee Parker. There is my webinar from Federer to Freedom that you can check out. We also have your offer builder.com. I want to make sure you get that free tool, right, that you can grab. I really appreciate it, Michael.

Thank you so much for providing all these resources and for coming on the show. Thank you so much, Charles. Such a pleasure to be here. The gap between six and seven figures isn't about working harder. It's about thinking differently. Michael proved that entrepreneurs solve problems, but CEOs build systems that solve problems without them.