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What is up guys? Welcome to another episode of Fit Biz U and excited to get into today’s topic. It is the beginning of 2023 and the last couple episodes have been a little bit about, uh, just sort of wrapping up 2022, giving you guys some insight into that. I took a three week vacation at the end of the year, and some lessons learned from that.
And today I wanna share with you why I ended up resigning with my business mentor for a third year in a row. Now, this is not a very easy purchase. I mean, it’s definitely, it’s worth it, obviously, I’ll tell you why here in a second. But it’s a $25,000 investment. And on top of that, we have three live events, which typically run me and we are between 2 and 3000 each time I go, accommodations, flight, things like that.
And it’s definitely a good amount of investment. Now, I’ve shared with you guys that I work with James Wedmore’s Mastermind. This is gonna be my third year doing it. Now. I had this moment. I think maybe I wanted to share the story because I think maybe you’ve had this experience as well. Maybe you’ve been in Masterminds, maybe you’ve been in mentorships, and at the end of it, you’re kind of like, Do I have to learn anything else?
Like should I graduate? You almost feel a little bit like, I don’t know, at least for me, you almost feel a little bit reliant. Like, oh, do I, can I not, do I not believe I can do this on my own? You know, am I tied to this thing or am I like, I dunno, am I codependent? Um, And I’ve shared obviously several times about why in early 2021, I reached out to James and literally asked him, Hey, what’s your most expensive thing?
You are the person I need. You have the playbook that I need, and I’m ready to go. And in that moment, I remember going to our first live event in February of 2021, and. I got my ass kicked and . Really, it was just one big mirror that was being held up to my business and to honestly like my ego, to be honest, and I was ready to uplevel.
When I say Uplevel, I don’t mean yeah, just make more money or whatever. I meant like uplevel in terms of leadership skills, in terms of team building, in terms. Changing the business from what was a, a solopreneurship, a glorified solopreneurship, which was successful by the way, but into an actual, what I call BGB or Big Girl Business.
And I just, from then on, just methodically and systematically changed how I was running the business. Just one decision at a time. We ended up hiring four additional executive team members. We brought on three coaches. We had different contractors. We did a rebrand. We got our systems a lot tighter, and that was 2021.
And 2021 was a great year. It was our first seven figure calendar year and a lot of things changed. We had a lot of output. I remember just, you know, doing a lot more, required a lot of activation energy to like get the, the energy and the effort up inside of me to actually wanna do things differently, especially because I had been in a little bit of a comfortable, complacent holding pattern at JillFit for a long time.
So coming up on my second year, like the second year with James was a no-brainer. I was just starting to implement stuff and I was like, I can’t quit now. Like this is important to me now. We’ve been together. I’ve been in this mastermind now for two full years and some of us were sort of having a conversation.
Maybe you’ve had this conversation too with yourself or with other people in the mastermind you’re in and you sort of like are like, do I stay another year? Like is three too much? Am I overstaying my welcome? And you start asking yourself like, Do I need, do I still need to learn more or have I have, I learned everything I can learn from this person? And I had a serious, you know, I was about 50 50 on like, I think I’m good, you know, I think I’m good.
I think I can spread my wings. I think I’ve learned enough. I can go and, you know, continue on my own. And then I had this other, and I’ll share with you why I ended up, uh, actually resigning with him for a third year. And the reason why I did was actually three different things. Number one, I realized that we’re still implementing the things that we learned, right?
Again, I’ve shared with you guys that one of the reasons why I wanted to scale Jill fit to a seven figure business, potentially next year, you know, multiple seven figures, was because I wanted a new skill. I had been at this thing for 10 years, a decade, and I was sort of just running it on autopilot, which was great, you know, and especially when I was going through a lot of stuff, my personal life, my marriage, it was nice to have something that was just running, but.
I got to the point where I was starting to get, I’m not saying bored, I’m never getting bored by my business, but I got to the point where I wanted to learn a new skill and I was excited about learning something else and reaching out to someone in a capacity who had the playbook, who had the business, who had success that I wanted, and really start learning that stuff.
So when I say I got my ass kicked, I really truly mean that. And while the very first year we changed a lot of things, last year was even better. We used to sort of joke a couple years ago at Jill Fit, especially when we had the team on board. , but it was sort of like a duct tape business. We had like, I think we had like six different websites at some point.
Like it was, we had a lot of things all over the place. You know, there was a lot of old links on old websites and just like little stuff. We really had to spend time cleaning up and I just didn’t have the bandwidth, nor did I have the desire to do that. So we had to outsource and get some VAs on board and things like that.
And what I realized at the end of 2022 was we’re still tweaking the systems, you know, this past year. We had our best revenue year ever for next year. We were looking to increase our revenue by about shit. I think about about 50%, um, is the goal for next year. And so I realized that we are still tweaking a lot of the higher level things.
So in terms of marketing, sales strategy, You know, lead gen, stuff like that. Like we’re pretty solid, product suite, like all of that stuff is really dialed in. What is not as dialed as I would like it to be. And that’s still what we’re working on, of course, is the team stuff. So leadership, management, um, you know, making sure that everyone on the team has a metric or is measuring something, is responsible for something, you know, putting more people into full-time.
Uh, potentially getting people just more benefits and more bonuses and just being able to do a lot more with the business. And I realized like, we still need that ip, right? We still need that curriculum. We still need that education. And of course, James has perfected this stuff. You know, I mean, I’m sure they still go through things that they go through, but he will always say, and he says this multiple times to us, he’s like, the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my business is grow my team and build my team.
Because here’s the thing, you know, people throw this, this word around a lot. Oh, I have a team. I have a team, I have a team. Really, it’s the way that James does it and the way that we’re trying to do it at Jill Fit. It’s so vastly different than what I thought a team was, and the reason why I actually did not bring on team for such a long time or hire someone was because I didn’t trust anybody and I felt like this is going to be double the work for me.
I was like, okay, now I have to train this person. Now I have to be responsible for this person. I gotta manage this person. I was picturing the, having all these meetings on my calendar and having to-do lists I was giving out to everybody and like staying on people and micromanaging. That’s what I was pic.
And the way that James has exemplified it for us and the way that we’ve been doing it at Jill Fit is just the opposite. In fact, most people on my team are doing things like everyone on the team does stuff without needing to hear from me. They know what they’re responsible for. They’re proactive in their role.
They feel enrolled in the vision. They’re doing things of their own accord because they know where we’re going and they have a job. Really love that. They feel a sense of ownership over. They’re not waiting on me for a to-do list. In fact, some of the team members actually know some of our, our newer software better than I even do, which is the whole point, right?
Is like, I don’t wanna be reliant on them. Of course, I have some understanding, but for the most part I’m like, that’s your thing. I don’t wanna micromanage. And believe me, they don’t wanna be micromanaged either. And so the first reason was I realized I wasn’t. And it’s okay. And I guess I wanna say this and give you guys permission that if you’re in a place where you’re like, ah, have I outgrown this container?
Or, you know, maybe I’m, I don’t wanna be like, reliant on this thing, or you’re just feeling some kind of way about doing a third year with someone. I will tell you at Jill Fit, I do for my mastermind specifically, usually most people stay too, and a lot stay three years. And that’s sort of it. People sort of graduate after that two to three year mark.
Every once in a while we have a one year person or whatever, but for the most part it’s around two to three years. And so going into a third year with James, I was like, do I, do I really need it? It’s interesting because actually there’s a lot of people who are re-upping for their fourth year with James, and so I knew for me, we still had work to do and we still had work to do that James had the toolbox for, right?
He still had the the playbook for, so I still need access to that and I really look forward to tightening up our systems even more and running this ship even more smoothly in 2020. The second reason I decided to resign with James was because I looked at the things that drew me to him originally, right?
Initially, and I’ve done whole episodes on this. The reason why I hired James, and, and by the way, any mentor, these are things that you know, could leverage into how you make your own decisions, is they’re really, it was a combination of number one, we have a similar sort of way of doing things. He’s a strategist at heart.
He definitely has a little bit more woo woo than I do, but for the most part, he’s a strategy guy. And for me, that’s my language. My language is nuts and bolts, strategy, messaging. I love that stuff. And so I knew that, that I was gonna get a lot of that. I wasn’t gonna get a lot of fluff. Second reason was he’s been doing this longer than me, you know, as someone who’s been doing a business for 12 years.
You know, it’s not that many people who have been doing it longer and has have met more experience. So I needed to, in order to respect my coach, I needed to see that a lot more fucking reps than me, and I have a lot of reps. And so I needed someone who’s been doing this for like 14, 15 years at this point.
He’s worked with thousands of businesses, way more than I have. And so that that level of proficiency and that level of experience really speaks to my value system. I’m not gonna hire someone who just showed up online like two years ago because they have some shiny thing. Like, to me, that’s not it. To me, it’s, I wanna work with someone who’s been in the trenches.
I wanna work with someone who’s been at it a long time, has seen a lot of different. Iterations of the online business because I have, and in order for me to respect my mentor, they have to be more, uh, proficient than me. They have to have more mastery than me. They have more expertise in me. And so I looked at that part of it, the strategy piece, the fact that he’s been around a long time.
And most importantly, the fact that he has a business model that’s just like mine except a lot bigger, right? So it’s not like he’s running. I don’t know. It’s not like he has, um, you know, physical products. It’s not like he has a gym. It’s not like he, you know, isn’t in the, he’s not a course creator anymore.
Right. He’s still coaching, he’s still doing course creation. He’s still doing automated sales funnel. He’s still doing webinars, still doing all the same things as me. And I’ve used this analogy before when I looked at someone like James’s business, I realized that we had the same ingredients, right? He has a 10 million business.
At the time, I was roughly around like maybe seven 50, and I remember being. We both have the same ingredients, all the same stuff. Marketing, sale, lead generation, product suite, you know, messaging all of these things, except he has got the seven layer save, seven tier wedding cake. And I got the easy bake oven cake, right?
It’s all the same ingredients, egg, sugar, flour, whatever. And I realized that if I wanted to get to the wedding cake, I needed someone who had that playbook. And so for me, it wasn’t like he had a different business model than me. In fact, he has the exact same business model as me. And so he’s just doing it better, you know?
And he’s made different decisions of it. And to me that was really empowering. I was like, wow, we have, we have the same ingredients. He’s just made different decisions. If he could do it, I can do it. And so for me, you guys know one of my biggest value systems is investments. So when I looked around at graduating from this container after two years, I was kind of like, Who else though, right?
Like that was my big thing. Cause I know myself and I’m like, I want mentorship. I wanna be learning from someone. I wanna be in the room. I wanna be in some sort of container. I wanna be a student. I love being a student, I love being a coach, but I also love learning. And in order for me, I was like, I literally was like looking around our industry and I was like, who else?
Though, like it’s not that people can’t, you know, offer up. There’s definitely some really talented people in our industry and there’s certainly people I could learn certain things from, but not as much. And I was like, I don’t know who might be a better fit. And so when I think about my value system, which is investment, when I think about how I am as a business owner, when I think about the type of business I have, and realizing that I want to walk my walk, that was a big thing, right?
I can’t be out here telling my FBA students or telling my potential clients like, Hey, you have to invest in yourself without investing in myself. Like of course I’m going to. And I think that if you are any type of coach, and you’re asking people to invest in you. You have to be investing in yourself.
And so for me, it was a matter of walking my walk and really looking around and going, there’s no one else. There’s no one else at this point in my trajectory, in, in the Jill Fit sort of trajectory that I would wanna learn from who has the, the toolbox that I need. And maybe that will change right after this year.
Maybe I wanna do something completely different. Maybe I’m like, I wanna start a membership. Cool. I’m gonna find the person who does membership the best, and I’m gonna go learn from them. But when it comes to team and it comes to. You know, scaling and working less hours and making more money and, and really just that sort of like leverage.
It really is James. And so that was the second thing and the second reason why I was like, yes, that’s it. And the third, and this is the most important, and I think if you’ve been in one of these containers, you’ll get, this is the connection. The networking and the live events. And you know, part of the Mastermind is we have a, a Facebook group where there’s a community.
We also have, you know, group calls each month where, you know, and I would say I probably show up to the group calls maybe half the time. It’s just not my style to sit on a call for three hours. I love giving three hour long talks. It’s just not my style. And I have a lot of things going on, and for me, I don’t get enough out of it personally.
But I can tell you that the live events for me are everything. And especially after the pandemic and lockdown or whatever. To me, I’m someone who likes to host live events and I love to go to them, and that has been a major game changer for me in the business. I remember my first live event I went to was in 2010 with Brendan Burchard.
Completely changed my life. Then I went to, uh, then I attended, you know, the fitness Summit. Then I attended some yoga retreats and met some industry people and did collaborations with other people in the industry. Most of my best friends are entrepreneurs who I. At live events. Danny J, who’s my podcast partner and business partner, like we met at a live event in 2013.
They were both speaking at, and so when I think about that, the connection and the networking, I hate to use the word networking cuz it feels so dry, but the connections that I make, there’s so many people who I really respect in that container who now I have a relationship I’ve worked with for two years.
So while James is great, he finds people. And so I had to look at the fact that like there are so many incredible people in this mastermind who have different expertise than I do. Maybe they run a membership, maybe they do online summits, maybe they’re on personal development. There’s people who speak on stages.
There’s network marketing people. It’s like, We’re pulling from all of these different disciplines, and yet we’re all trying to scale. We’re all trying to move in the same direction, and these people are just really fucking chill people. And one of the reasons why I got into James’ Mastermind in the first place was because I felt like it was outside the bubble.
I’ve been sort of in, I live in Los Angeles. I’ve been sort of in what I feel like is like a little bit of an LA bubble where like everyone’s kind of trying to be seen. I’ve been in some masterminds in the past of, it felt very cliquey to me, very like see and be seen, the who’s who of internet business.
And I was like, I just wanna be in a mastermind of like regular fucking people. Like people who aren’t trying to be famous on social media and aren’t trying to like, You know, just, they wanna just do good work. They wanna help a lot of people and they wanna make a huge impact and have a great lifestyle for themselves.
And that was like really appealing to me. So when I met some of these people, I was like, wow, they don’t even fucking do social media, basically. , they use, they use ad spend a lot more than I was using like just different business models. And so I get to learn from them. and I get to network with them. So I can bring them in, they can speak at my events, they can speak at my mastermind, they can provide, you know, they get on my podcast.
So I think about that. And when we talk about feeling lonely or feeling, we talk about feeling like an entrepreneur who feels a little bit like on, you know, sort of a desert island. A deserted island is like, You have to find other people doing things, and you’re probably not gonna find them in your town, right?
You have to go out and join masterminds, mentorships, crew coaching programs. And by the way, you guys long, long tail groups, right? Like a mastermind’s a year long. You don’t connect with someone in a three month coaching container. I mean, that’s fine. Maybe you do, but for the most part, Long periods of time.
It’s been my third year and I’m so excited because like 85% of people came back to the Mastermind. And by the way, very meta business lesson, I’m looking at this too. I’m like, what about this container gets 85% of people coming back for year three or year four even? We had a gal who uh, did it my first year and then she got out of it last year and she’s back this year, so it, I have to ask myself as a business.
What is he creating even, right, from a very meta perspective, what’s he creating? That he’s getting this level of retention at a $25,000, $30,000 price point. Getting people to stay for three or four years. It’s magical. No one wants to leave. We just have created a, and it’s not even about James. I mean he’s great, but it’s really about the group and the connections that we make and the network and just the people.
And so I will say to you, if you’re thinking about, uh, being in a mastermind, you know, I would say commit for a longer period of time. If you’re running a mastermind or you’re running a mentorship, be very intentional with who you bring into that container. Remember, not because it needs to be like a velvet rope situation, where it’s like, are you good enough?
But you need people who are gonna compliment one another, who are gonna be willing to contribute. And whenever I put together my own mastermind, That’s the one of the number one questions I ask on some of these chemistry calls that I do. After people apply, we get on a call and I kind of talk through the Mastermind with them, ask them about, you know, their own business a little bit more and things like that.
But I really ask them like, Hey, are you willing to contribute? It’s not just coaching with me, right? That’s a different container. A mastermind is different. Are you willing to contribute? If I tapped you to do a training on. You know the way that you do sales calls cuz you convert 85% of your calls, would you be able to do that?
Can you do a training on the membership because you have really high retention? Can you do a training for someone on TikTok because you have grown your TikTok to 250,000? I mean, you guys know Amber? She was, uh, Amber Shaw. She was in my mastermind for three years. And I’ve tapped her multiple times to speak to my other groups on TikTok, and she did a whole TikTok course that I promoted.
So it’s like you have to find people who are gonna contribute their own ip, who are successful in their own right. So I look for that in Masterminds and I try and cultivate that when I put together my own mastermind. So this is just for you guys to think about. Don’t worry about I’ve been here too long, or you know, I’m an alumni or outgrew this, or whatever.
It’s okay if you have, but ask yourself, is it my ego talking or. What about this? And if you love it, then stay. There’s no, uh, shame in just being like, yes, it’s a third year, a fourth year or whatever. And like I said, most people stay in my, my own mastermind for two or three years. That’s pretty normal. I would say long-term mentorship is absolutely critical to the success of your business.
Look around, again, we’ve done whole episodes on this. Who has the business you want? Who has a similar business model sim, similar energy, and do they have a container like that where you can work with them for a year or longer? And I would say that’s the person that you should be, that you should be learning from.
And to me, it has made all of the difference. So I will always champion mentorship. I will always champion. Being in Masterminds, running my own mastermind and uh, I just hope that you guys find that person for you as well. Anyway, hopefully that’s useful for you guys. Thank you for being here as usual, and we will see you on the next episode.
Bye guys.
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