#52: Key Factors of Growing to 7-Figures with Carl Gould, Business Growth Expert
I always say, you can hustle your way to 7-figures, but you can’t hustle your way past it.
You can work until you burnout, but you will always need that extra push to get to the next level.
This week, Carl Gould, Business Growth Strategist, shares the key factors of growing to seven-figures.
Carl and I discuss:
The must-understand difference between growing and scaling.
One of the biggest mistakes that early stage entrepreneurs make.
How to weather the winter season of business.
Make sure to tune into this episode to hear more about how Carl helps his clients grow their multi-million dollar businesses!
Learn more about Carl here: https://carlgould.com or listen to his podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/carl-gould-70secondceo
Check out my new free new training on www.yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:03):
So here's the challenge: so many entrepreneurs dream of leading a life of impact by creating a multimillion dollar brand, but only a tiny percentage of businesses actually scale to that point. On this podcast, we speak openly authentically about what it takes to scale your business, following the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts, and leaders, looking at the behind the scenes of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned. My name is Laura Meyer and I'm your host. I'm a serial entrepreneur, wife and mom to three. I love talking all things business, especially digging into the mindset and strategies of scaling joyfully to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond. Let's go!
(00:41):
Hey, everybody, welcome back. And I'm here with Carl Gould and he's a business growth expert, which I am so excited to talk to another person that has a similar background that I have because you learn so much from other people who have the same type of background that you have. So really exciting. Thank you for being here, Carl.
Carl (01:09):
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Laura (01:11):
Yeah. So you have scaled three businesses to the multi-million dollar mark by the age of 40. What do you think was helpful on that journey? Like what, what were you able to accomplish that a lot of people who are listening really wants to be able to achieve themselves?
Carl (01:27):
Well, you know, I, I found out early, like my first business I got into, I was 18 years old and I felt like in a lot of ways that I didn't have all the credentials that everyone else had. That's that was my thinking, at least. So I was going to the University of Delaware and after my second year I broke my leg pretty badly and I had to leave school. So I start my first business and, you know, I'm still a teenager and I'm going up against all these businesses that were, you know, when you're 18, anything over 22 is like old, you know, so I'm going up against these older people. And so I figured I had to out hustle them. I said, well, that's the one thing I couldn't do equally as good as them, I can hustle. And I learned that you can get to seven figures in your business simply on hustle alone.
(02:13):
But then I got to a place where I was like, wait a minute. I'm not growing as fast as I was before, but boy, am I hustling and seeming to be working a lot harder than ever. And that's when I got introduced to how I needed to systematize a lot more. So for me, the big, the big aha was there's a difference between growth and scale. I can hustle and grow, but at some point I can keep hustling and I won't scale. And so I needed to go from putting in a lot of energy, extra hours to then automating it. But I learned that the key, which I'm sure we'll dive into a little bit more as was the key, was in my pricing and bundling and offering strategy. That's what really allowed me to go from growth to scale. But once I learned that hustle will take me so far and it'll be a good attribute in the business, but it won't help me scale. And I needed to start to automate and systematize each part of the business, that's when the transition from growth to scale happened. And once I learned that, then I can apply that to any of the businesses that I've owned or advised over the years.
Laura (03:17):
Okay. I love this. First of all, I always say you can hustle your way to seven figures, but you can't hustle your way past it and you'll end up in the hospital. But I love what you're saying about the packaging and the pricing, because a lot of people who listen to this podcast are experts. They're thought leaders, they're influencers. They are people with a certain level of expertise. What type of background did you have or what type of businesses did you own when you were scaling your initial set of businesses?
Carl (03:46):
Yeah, well, when I first, when I first got out of college, I started a design build landscape installation firm. I doubled that business every year for seven years, and then I sold it. Then I had a construction company and real estate development. So I was, you know, at first I was just a general contractor for hire. But then after that I was a real estate developer. I would buy the land, develop the land, you know, subdivide it and then build on it. And I also did some other construction management. So I had that business for 12 years and then I sold that. And then I also had a coaching and consulting business. I was a coaching practice through the nineties. It was more of my side hustle or my, my, you know, you know, if there was a gig economy back there that that was what I was doing. But I, the business I have today, I started in 2002, which is you know, a coaching and consulting hybrid company. And we also do training and certification
Laura (04:40):
So helpful. So for those people who are listening that are experts that are very much, uh, have, uh, have that specialty like you have. I think so many of them have limited beliefs around getting to that seven figure mark because of probably their pricing and their structure. Can you talk a little bit about that? Cause that comes up a lot within my own peer group of how you package up your expertise so that it's actually scalable.
Carl (05:06):
Yeah. I deal with this a lot. And one of the, one of the big mistakes that early stage entrepreneurs make is that they try to discount their weight of market share. And then once they have a critical mass and they're like, okay, now I'm going to start getting paid. What I'm worth. That's a huge mistake. I mean, if you think about it, if, if Richard Branson or Oprah Winfrey decided to start a mentoring program, they would not say, hey everyone I'm thinking of starting a mentoring program. So but I've never done it before and never had one. So for a special time, I'm going to only charge half or a third of my rate, no shot would they do that. Here's what they would say. And here's what I would recommend every, every one of your listeners uses is when you're, if you're starting or launching your business or you're launching a new product or offering your here's your script, okay?
(05:58):
Your script is I'm making myself available to the market in a way I've never been available before. When I was, when I was in the corporate world, you couldn't have hired me unless you wanted to pay me 250,000 or above, you know, and you don't need me for all that time, but you w you couldn't even hire me if you wanted, so I am now making myself available to the market in a way that I couldn't, or I'm making this product or this service, or this access in a way that I'd never made it available before, because no matter whether you're one day in business, or you're 10 years in business, or a hundred years in business, that's not the Mark of you, of your value. Your Mark of your value is how much value are you bringing? What's the return on investment that your clients are getting by working with you.
(06:44):
And if you work for an hour and you make them a hundred thousand dollars, well, you can charge 10 grand or 20 grand for that hour, if you want. So don't discount your way to market share, because what you've done is you've trained your clientele to pay you that much. And they're not all of a sudden going to just want to hire you. Raise their fees. And when you go to hire, uh, get new clients, you're going to, they're going to say, well, can I speak to anyone you've worked with before? Great. You're going to send them over to all your discount people, right? So come right out of the gate, charge what you're worth. Now you can have promotions, you can do specials, but you're not. Don't discount. Discount is a big mistake.
Laura (07:23):
So good. And I hear this a lot within the listenership, within my peer groups, within the communities that I'm in is that they are pricing their expertise fairly, let's say fairly for the market. Like they've moved on from charging hourly. They know not to do that anymore. Right. But maybe they're on a retainer basis, but they still can't scale because there's only so many hours in the day, or, you know, they're trying to stay within a certain number of hours per day. How do you move that expert business similar to the one that you have to that million dollar mark without actually just putting in more time?
Carl (08:04):
Well, yeah, so, and I, and I face this too with, with my business because I started out as a coach, a coach practitioner, and, and now I have a team. So what I would suggest that you do is, um, for those of you that, um, are in this position, either get certified in somebody else's process another intellectual property. Well, that's what I did when I, when I first started out in coaching, I got certified in everything. Disc NLP, teleclass leadership, Dale Carnegie, uh, leadership, Ken Blanchard, situational leadership, Tony Robbins, neuro associative conditioning. I mean, I can go on and on I, if there was a certification out there, I got it. Right.
Laura (08:54):
I think you missed the eat, pray, love one. That's the only one. I'm just kidding.
Carl (08:57):
Eat, pray, love, you're right, I so missed that one. I should have went for that one, but my thinking was that those were known entities and at the time, and it's still the case. If you want it to work, you know, if you couldn't work with Tony Robbins, you couldn't work with Ken Blanchard, but the best you could do is work in their system. And you would work with the person who was certified in their intellectual property. So I built my coaching practice by leveraging other models and there's, and there's still a lot of them out there. And you know, have been. And so I would attach myself there because there's already built in credibility. And you c you could charge a larger amount, but you could also leverage other coaches that are in those systems as well, to help you deliver.
(09:42):
So, first thing is intellectual property. Either you either latch onto somebody else's or start your own. So if you have your own model, you have your own process, you have your own protocols or guiding principles, package those. And then, you know, how create a certification program and put yourself through as you know, customer number one. And now you've got a process because people are willing to pay more for what they perceive as a product or a program, as opposed to, hey, I got six coaches coaching sessions in a bundle, right? So that's the first thing. So the, so the second thing is in your process, if there's more than one deliverable, which I'm sure there will be multiple deliverables, higher, surround yourself with other coaches or consultants or mentors or advisors who can deliver all or part of that model. So you're not selling just Laura, you're selling team Laura. I'm not selling Carl I'm selling tea Carl. Yes. I might be the point person, but you're going to deal with me, say 25% of the time. And I'm going to surround you with other experts who are going to handle these aspects of the engagement. Don't worry. I'm always here for you. And here are our, here are our intermittent sessions, but now all of a sudden, my capacity just increased by 400% because I only have to be a part of a small fraction of each client.
Laura (11:07):
Brilliant. Okay. I love what you're saying. Go out. Skill, build, become certified. I, myself was certified in Frank Kern's consulting methodology earlier this year. You can't see my tattoos. They're under my shirt, but I got those as part of the certification as well. That'll be the next episode. Yes. The knuckle tattoos are, those are coming. So I'm going to ask you a question. Not totally hold you to it. Do you think this is harder for women than it is for men?
Carl (11:34):
No matter of fact, it's easier for women than it is. Yeah. Cause customers, because customers are less prone to say no to a woman than they are to a man.
Laura (11:44):
Oh my gosh. Now, now we're getting into the good stuff. Why?
Carl (11:48):
Why? Because especially, so ladies go out and get male clients. Cause I can't no to you. Right? So number one, but I, you know, it could be cultural. It could be there, there could be a lot of reasons why. And I do know, and I've, and I look, I've, I've certified at this point about 7,000 coaches in various methodologies over the years. So I've worked with thousands of women, coaches, thousands of men, coaches in 35 countries. So take any, any industry, any part of the part of the world, we've worked with them. And here's what I hear most of the time. So what I hear most of the time from women is, well, the guys don't respect me as much. Or, you know, this is a man, this is a man's world. You know, this is a male dominated male dominated industry. And the mistake I think you make is, is that you try to take on the whole industry in one sentence.
(12:40):
The whole industry, what do you need the whole industry for? You're going to you listen on your drive home today, whoever's listening, wherever you're listening on your drive home today, you couldn't service all the businesses you pass on your drive home today in your entire lifetime if you worked with all of them. You couldn't, you don't, you need the tiniest segment of the population in order to have a successful business, to totally crush it and to have, and reach the financial goals you have for your life. You won't work with 200 people in your career directly, right? And so you don't need the whole world. You only need 200 people who care and want to get value from what you're doing. So if you show up as valuable, you could charge for it. I mean, I came right out of the gate charging $350 an hour for a coaching session.
(13:31):
That was unheard of at the time. But I did it because I had no choice because I had two kids. I had a house, I am growing a family. I live in New Jersey. You can't live on the $23,000 that the average coach makes a year. You just can't do it. So, but yeah, so I do, I do understand. And so for me, it came out of necessity, but I don't think, I mean, you look at Marie Forleo, Libby, Ross child. I mean, they're rock star after rock star, after rock star. And, um, you know, so I think, you know, we are far enough along in the maturity of the niche that if you can bring it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter man, or woman. But I do think, I do think some female entrepreneurs will sometimes struggle with that, you know, do I, am I worthy of it? Can I charge that much? You know? And, um, and rightfully so. I mean, their complaints and their fears are legitimate, but you know, the amount of people that I've worked with at this point, if you can bring it, you could charge for it.
Laura (14:37):
The reason why I'm digging into this so much, Carl is because this is a year that I have so much empathy for professional women. They're trying to do it all before even the pandemic, they were trying to be good at their good at being a parent, looking the part on social media and checking all the boxes and also being a great spouse and making their mother-in-law dinner every other Friday, right? Like, and now these women who are really smart and very accomplished with master's degrees are trying to figure out what they're going to do with this career that they built, because they cannot care for their family and work a 60 hour work week. At the same time, I'm seeing this across the board with, within my peer group, within the communities that I serve. And I love having this conversation with you because I think that they need to hear what is possible for them as an expert business. And not because they're on Instagram doing cartwheels, but because they are bright women who have contribution. And I love this. Is there anything else that you've observed having certified 7,000 coaches that you think might be helpful to that listener? Cause I think she's, she's really needing to hear some, some advice right now.
Carl (15:59):
Absolutely. So what you can learn from your male or more accurately, your masculine counterparts is that they are really good at letting go. In other words, they can compartmentalize. They can let go of the fact that they're a dad for a moment and focus in the moment with the client not, and they worry about their kids equally as much. They know how to dial down the volume on certain things. Whereas, you know, the feminine tends to hang on more and put everything together in the bowl. And if one thing's not working well everything's not working well. And if I'm not doing well over here, I'm not doing well everywhere. And so I think that's, that's an area that you can, that the, that the feminine, you know, professionals out there can learn from their masculine counterparts because they're just, they care just as much. They were just, you know, however you want to call it, you want to call it the way they're wired, the way they think or whatever, you know, or they're from that different planet, you know? But they, they can let go and they can compartmentalize. It's not, it's just as hard for us as it is for you.
Laura (17:06):
Let's say that I am a woman leaving corporate America. I'm a woman who has professional expertise. I'm somebody who's coming out of the workforce right now. And I'm realizing that I want more time for my family. And I want to become a coach or consultant. What are some of the things that having coached 7,000 different coaches and consultants over the years, what are some of the things that you think are the best, first steps for them to take?
Carl (17:30):
Well, I, yeah, I would first identify who exactly would be passionate about what I do, right. And so, or what I have to offer. And so, in other words, you know, you've heard of the ideal client avatar the ideal client persona, but really get clear about who you're servicing. Because that person we're not in business, we are not looking for people who will pay for our service. If you're looking for people who are paying, that will pay you for your service, you're making a bit of a mistake and you're underselling yourself. You are looking for people who will overpay for your service. There's a difference. I'll think about this for a moment. Think about anything you've ever bought, where you really were passionate about or interested in. You likely try to be the best customer of that product or service that you could be.
(18:18):
So if you think about, I mean, I know we don't go to concerts these days, but if you could think of a musical act, you wanted to go see, you did not ring up the box office and say, give me the worst seats you got. You said, you would either say, give me the best seats you have or the best seats I can afford. But you, what you tried to do is become the best customer of that, of that event. Or when you went to go buy your car, don't tell me you need that twin turbo or those leather seats or the, or the eight extra speakers they had in the back. But you were passionate about that vehicle and you accessorized it more, not less, you didn't say pull off that pinch striping. You said, ooh, that looks really cool. Maybe I'll upgrade. Right?
(18:56):
And so for the things we're passionate about, we are willing to overpay for that's what we're like. So if you're, if you have, especially, if you have limited time, you want to find the people who are willing to overpay for your service. And those are the people that can't get to their result without you, whatever that result is. So you want to target, you want to target that group very specifically. First, you want to win that group over, even if you have less clients, because if they're paying you or overpaying, you, you don't need as many clients and they'll stay longer or reduce your marketing burden. You know, most people forget that Facebook was the most exclusive VIP social network platform when it first came out. Wow. You, the only way you could get on Facebook was invitation only. And if you had a harvard.edu email address. That's how exclusive it was. But once they won Harvard, then they went to the Ivy league. Once they won the Ivy league, then they went to large colleges and universities won. They won that. Then everyone wanted in mom, grandma, grandpa, you know, the brothers and they all wanted in, and that's when it got opened up. But remember Facebook was invitation only.edu, you know? So, so that's, so that's where I would go.
Laura (20:18):
Very cool. And because we have, again, so many coaches, consultants, experts out there that tend to listen to this podcast and also have their own expert business. So as people are scaling and they're ramping up their businesses and they're trying to kind of think about, well, what's going to come next. It's pretty common for people to go through the winter season in their business. And what does that even mean? And what are they supposed to do about it when they get there?
Carl (20:41):
Sure, sure. Yeah. It's a fascinating concept, but w but very cyclical and very predictable that we all go through is there are seasons in business. And, and if you look at macro trends, every 20 to 25 years, we go through a new business and societal cycle. And we are currently in the winter season of business, which started around 2005 and is anticipated to go to about 2029. Demographics kind of determine how we come in and out of those seasons. But the short story is winter season is all about volatility. It's about rebirth, you know, I'm from the Northeast. So, you know, all the trees fall, all the leaves fall off the trees and, you know, winter and it's cold and ground's frozen. And then spring comes and everything blooms again. But the winter season is all about re you know, reinventing and taking stock of where you've been now during those 20 to 25 years, what happens is that the, that all the markets correct.
Carl (21:48):
And this is a, this is a pattern by the way, that's been traced back 500 years and with very predictable results, we've gone through every 80 years after a world conflict we've, you know, or during a world conflict, we've gone through winter. So go back every 80 years, you'll say, Oh my God, world war two, civil war, you go to work it right back. And so what happens in society and in business is there's a massive correction in all of the commercial markets. So real estate, remember the prime, the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. You know, we're going through a real estate, you know, re uh, rejigging. Now retail, the way retail is done, that's changing massively right in front of us. And so over the next few years, as baby boomers retire and go into their prime saving years, and the next generation comes up and, and takes control and leadership in the economy.
(22:43):
There's this big resetting of the economy. There's a lot of volatility. Well, what does that mean to us? Well, during volatile times, consumers, this is counterintuitive, so stay with me are doing volatile times. Consumers are willing to pay more for your product or service if they believe you're an expert. Yeah. Okay. So pricing becomes incredibly important during winter more it's important in any season, but during winter, especially the place you want to be in your pricing is near the top of your niche or near the bottom of your niche, not in the middle. That's why we don't discount our way to market share because in the middle, you're invisible because you're not an expert. I can't tell what you are. If you're in the middle, if you're among the lowest price, we think you're an expert because wow, how could they get away with doing that at such a low price?
(23:36):
How does Google give us the world's library for free and answer any question we have? How do they do that? Well, they're really smart. They must be great. So we give them 80% of search market. Okay. How does Walmart pull all that off? Well they’ve mastered logistics. That's why the Sam Walton is one of the richest man in the world right now, most of us can't be at the lower end of the niche because it's such a volume play in our businesses. We can't get there. It's actually easier to be at the upper end of the niche. So we want to be priced at, or among the upper end of the niche because people say, wow, they're getting that. They must be good, right. Because, right. So, so during winter, the, the, the preferred presentation or offering strategy is to have it have premium offerings to targeted passionate niche clients.
(24:30):
That's the move in winter. You're not coming out, starting your business, and I'll just work with anybody cause anybody doesn't pay you all that much. But certain people think Facebook guys will want to kick the door down to get in. So that's why we have to be targeted there. And during winter, it's incredibly important. And even with COVID, it's even more important because this is our world conflict folks. And there is no, there is no going back. There's no pre COVID it's over as far, even though the pandemic is going on buyers are telling you now that we are post COVID and they are telling you their buying preferences. Now, what they're telling you now is what will be around for a few years, it's not going away. So contact, contact lists or touch-free curbside, or you bringing it to them or hybrid or virtual or distanced, those are, or off peak service offerings.
(25:26):
You know, if you do in-person services, you have to have those options. You know, this was our 9/11. They're just like travel will never be the same as it was before 9/11 businesses never going to be the same as it was before. COVID. So, so now what you're, so if you haven't done so recently, it's time to rethink what rethink your offerings and tailor your offerings to what buyer preferences are right now, because these are permanent, even though the buyer doesn't know it, the buyer doesn't know it guys, what you're going through now is what they are going to continue to ask you for over the next two to nine years. So, so take that reset your product and offering, and make sure you have a premium offering that sets the value high for what your services are. And if you need to run a promotion, I get it. I've done that too, but make sure you have that premium offering out there to set your value.
Laura (26:20):
Love that. Awesome. All right. Such good advice, Carl, where can somebody go if they want to connect with you more or just learn more about your business?
Carl (26:30):
Sure. So carlgould.com is an easy place to find me and kind of the gateway of, of all that I do. So C A R L G O U L D. And for your listeners, we offer, what we call a free business analysis. In other words, take us up on it. Just go tocarlgold.com, contact us, put business analysis in the, uh, in the contact form. And we'll spend up to two hours with you complimentary and we'll show you five ways. We'll show you. We have a formula that will show you what is the growth potential of your business as it exists. And at the end of that session, we'll give you five ways to grow your business, um, and, um, you know, ways that you can accelerate your growth.
Laura (27:13):
Awesome. All right, well, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and I really appreciate it.
Carl (27:19):
Thanks, Laura.
Laura (27:23):
Hey there, before you head out, I want to let you know about a free new training I have right on a brand new website called yournextmillion.me. It's yournextmillion.me. Where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses, to the multi-million dollar Mark and beyond. And I have to tell you, it is not what you think. So check it out at yournextmillion.me. And if you loved this show, will you subscribe to it and share it with a friend, or just say something nice about it to someone, you know? I'd really appreciate it so much. Thanks so much for being here and I'll see you next time.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.