Speaker A

We all understand that we need to invest in our business if we want it to grow.

Speaker A

However, I also see how people or coaches are doing different things.

Speaker A

Either they are waiting too long to invest and investing too little, which means they are not really understanding what's the cost of not investing, the cost of inaction.

Speaker A

And then there's the other part, doing too much investment in the wrong things at the wrong time in the business, which is equally bad.

Speaker A

And I believe we've done all of it.

Speaker A

Both of them.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

And the thing is, it's very easy for us to spot today if someone else is about to do that same mistake 100%.

Speaker B

So today's episode is going to be all about investments, and it's going to be about how to invest, what to invest in, and how to navigate the growing phase of a coaching business.

Speaker B

So we're going to talk about all of it.

Speaker A

We are.

Speaker B

And I'm curious to know just the perspective of yours.

Speaker B

When we're talking about investments, do you think this episode is also going to be about where to invest time, focus energy, and the other resources that are equally necessary?

Speaker A

I think you are on point that you need to invest money, but absolutely, if you want to have a business, you need to invest time and energy as well, otherwise you're not going to get anything.

Speaker A

So you definitely need to put in time and energy if you want to have things happening.

Speaker A

I had someone writing to me a couple of days ago.

Speaker A

Well, I don't feel like I'm a good marketer.

Speaker A

I just want someone to do it for me.

Speaker A

I don't have the time.

Speaker A

It's like, okay, you are focusing on the wrong thing because you are not going to get things happening just because you don't have time.

Speaker B

I love something because you're coming across a foundational point there that is important.

Speaker B

You can't give away what you don't have.

Speaker B

So what it means is that if you don't have a business, you can't give away coaching.

Speaker B

So first of all, dedicate yourself to the business.

Speaker B

If you don't know marketing, you can't give it away to someone else.

Speaker B

Because if that was possible, then it would be super easy to build a business.

Speaker B

Like marketing isn't a thing that you can outsource until you really know what to market and how to give it away to someone else.

Speaker B

When it comes to money, it's a little bit upside down because you can't invest money you don't have.

Speaker B

I agree.

Speaker B

But like, when we're looking at time, like, I don't have time.

Speaker B

Okay, then make time.

Speaker B

I don't have energy.

Speaker B

Okay, go to the gym, sleep six hours, whatever you you have to do, then gain energy.

Speaker B

And the same thing about, it's about money.

Speaker B

If you don't have money, then get the money and solve the problem.

Speaker B

And that's a huge kind of thumb rule if you're going to go into business, especially if you want to see your business grow.

Speaker A

It's a big mindset problem when starting up.

Speaker A

But I mean, I hear it a lot.

Speaker A

I need to make money first before I can invest.

Speaker A

A lot of people are stuck.

Speaker A

I mean, we are running challenges.

Speaker A

I think we on 44 challenges now.

Speaker A

We've done this for so many years.

Speaker A

So we know that when people are joining and we have someone saying, oh my God, I really want to have this.

Speaker A

I don't have any clients today, but I just need to find my first clients to be able to invest and get the help.

Speaker A

Then I meet them six months later and so, hey, how's it going?

Speaker A

Well, I still don't have a client.

Speaker A

So it just literally just cost you six months of trying because you were stuck in I need to make money before I can invest.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

And that was six months time where you could have made money instead.

Speaker B

So.

Speaker B

And it ties down to commitment, it ties down to fear, it ties down to a lot of different personality traits.

Speaker B

I'm empathetic with it.

Speaker B

The problem with it is that it's going to keep you stuck.

Speaker B

And staying stuck for a long time with the right commitment is very painful.

Speaker B

So there is a difference.

Speaker B

If you have a dream and you kind of want to dip your toes into the dream and just kind of feel like you're moving towards your dream, that could be in a dream state kind of fulfillment thing.

Speaker B

It could feel good because I'm doing something.

Speaker B

But if you're truly committed and then you just dip your toe into the water, you are going to produce so much frustration.

Speaker B

And when it comes to investing, first of all, foundational.

Speaker B

If you are making between 0 and 10k a month, you need a coach to help you to navigate that.

Speaker B

And I'm not telling you as a listener to do that.

Speaker B

I'm saying that to myself and to this day, for everything that we have done.

Speaker B

I've been a Coach now since 13 years.

Speaker B

I've been a coach for 13 years.

Speaker B

During that time, I've always had a coach to talk to in order to help me to make the right decisions and move forward and become better.

Speaker B

Now in five out of those years, I'VE been the head of building my own thing.

Speaker B

And during those five years, I have spent every hour together with either one or more coaches.

Speaker B

I remember a point in time when we grew very, very fast.

Speaker B

We had a coach for business strategy making sure that our mindset was right and that we approached the right problem at the right time.

Speaker B

We had a social media coach that was just specified on, like, I know social media.

Speaker B

We had a life coach.

Speaker B

We also did couples therapy at that time that helped us in our relationship, a mindset coach to take care of our individual fears, states, whatever.

Speaker B

And we also had coaching in our health to make sure that we were doing well physically and we just knew that this was necessary.

Speaker B

So if you have any belief that you can do this on your own, please shake that kind of ego significance thing, because you could, but you shouldn't and you shouldn't have to.

Speaker A

Yeah, but I'm definitely with you on that.

Speaker A

And I also believe it's overwhelming for a lot to hear how many coaches we actually had.

Speaker A

Just to be like, really honest.

Speaker B

We were also making a million euros a year.

Speaker A

And I really wanted to be transparent with this as well because, like, where we are at right now in our business, we spent almost 400,000 years in coaches and mentors for the past couple of years.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

And it's been the only thing that has helped us to be able to get to where we are is because we've done so.

Speaker A

And I'm completely empathetic with that.

Speaker A

It is scary to begin with because my first investment was back in 2013.

Speaker A

So it's 12 years ago, but prior to that I had five years of struggling within an area in my life I really wanted to solve, but I was all about, I'm not going to pay anyone because I want to do fix it myself.

Speaker A

I wanted to be the hero of my own story.

Speaker A

So I was googling and I was losing so much money, but just to also understand how much it actually cost me, wasting 5 years not getting the results I wanted to have.

Speaker A

Because once I invested in my first coach of my first mentors, everything turned around in just a couple of months and it's just devastating.

Speaker A

So knowing that and having that experience also meant that when I started my coaching business six years ago, immediately I need someone to help immediately.

Speaker A

Because I understood by then that you need to have it.

Speaker A

I love the thing.

Speaker A

Like, poor people invest time to save money and rich people invest money to save time.

Speaker A

Because time does matter and we see it again and again and again.

Speaker A

As I said, like, people are not getting results because they keep doing the wrong things, because they think they should just do more, work harder, struggle even more.

Speaker A

But they're doing the wrong things all of the time.

Speaker A

Instead of just paying someone to show you, help you and get past yourself and you'll see.

Speaker A

We saw like our clients, we just literally running, saying, hey, my first month in detail, €9,000.

Speaker A

And Christian starting last week, hey, I just made my first 2k.

Speaker A

I'm not even done with first module.

Speaker A

It is stupid, stupid.

Speaker A

Like it's a non negotiable that of course you need to get the right help because you'll make the money back in no time.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

And it's embedded in our culture that we should be strong on our own.

Speaker B

Especially in kind of a masculine environment where most women kind of have to fight their way into as well when they're like starting a business.

Speaker B

Because all of a sudden everything is done with brute force.

Speaker B

Nothing is done with brute force.

Speaker B

It's done with a plan and then just wake up, do the work and sure, you can.

Speaker B

You choose the level of how you want to execute.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

You can go all Alex Hormosi style and.

Speaker B

And you're in it.

Speaker B

To win against everyone in the game, it means you need to work harder.

Speaker B

Or you can aim for your first hundred k year earning 100k in a year.

Speaker B

It is not anything close to Hormosi, because he sold a business a couple of months ago for 45 million euros or dollars.

Speaker B

I mean, if you want to play that game, sure.

Speaker B

But otherwise it's not even hard work.

Speaker B

When we calculated this on an average from our educated Clients, it was 24 hours a week to make 10k a month, which is 120k a year.

Speaker B

24 hours a week.

Speaker B

That's less than I believe every country that I know of for standard job.

Speaker B

But doing something that you love.

Speaker B

Another thing that you said that I really want to highlight that is very important if we're looking at your key characteristics as a person.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

You invested in your first coach in 2013.

Speaker B

That was cool.

Speaker B

But when you started your bakery back in 2002.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

So then you invested a half million euros to be able to make your first bread that you sold for 77 cents.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

So that's a half million euros to be able to make your first product.

Speaker B

And if we're looking at your characteristics further, like what's your motivation?

Speaker B

Your motivation has always been this needs to work and you need to figure it out because you've had kids during that entire time.

Speaker B

One of the things that really stands out with who you are is that you've always gone into your businesses with the intention of this must work.

Speaker B

And that's a huge difference from many people who start a business.

Speaker B

They go into it with, I'm going to test it, I'm going to try it and it's cute and it's a dream and I want to blah, blah, blah.

Speaker B

And it's the same thing.

Speaker B

When we were a couple and you invested in to building your version of this business that later became our business.

Speaker B

We did it separately when we started out, but even at that point you invested €25,000 that you didn't really have.

Speaker B

And I was kind of like, shit, you stepped up in a way that kind of was like, I want to be a part of that, but I can't be a part of that because I didn't dare to do that.

Speaker B

So you did that in April, I believe it was March maybe, and this was 2020.

Speaker B

I did that and made that same decision, invested in the same thing actually, to join you, to be able to navigate that same thing.

Speaker B

But I did it in September.

Speaker B

So it took me four months of just contemplating into kind of figuring it out myself, kind of dodging the bigger responsibility of stepping into my business.

Speaker B

And then in September I realized, yep, I'm going to do this in January.

Speaker B

The next year I made €35,000 and it's changed my life forever.

Speaker B

And that would never had happened if I didn' and first of all got the opportunity to follow you.

Speaker B

But also second of all, daring to just.

Speaker B

I'm going to fully immerse into this.

Speaker B

So there is a commitment piece before making that kind of investment.

Speaker B

And that commitment isn't to your business or toward blah, blah, blah, it's to yourself, to really getting into the work.

Speaker B

Are you ready to do the work?

Speaker B

And then the next thing, looking at a, like a startup phase.

Speaker A

Yeah, the foundation, when we're just starting up.

Speaker A

Where should you actually put your money when you're just starting up?

Speaker B

Into someone who has done what you're about to do.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker A

So as a mentor, someone who's done what you want to do, someone who can prove they work with people just like you and actually gotten them results.

Speaker B

And what should you really listen for when listening to someone that offers you I can help you, what should you listen?

Speaker A

I think one thing is very important is that you're not just buying an online course where they give you some information.

Speaker A

You need to have support, you need to have accountability.

Speaker A

Because if you just buying something where to learn.

Speaker A

I mean, you could YouTube that, but it will not work.

Speaker A

That's the thing people think, oh, I can just figure it out watching.

Speaker A

Yeah, but the thing is you're not implementing it or you're implementing wrong because you're not getting the help along with that.

Speaker A

So you need to look for someone who gotten the result you want.

Speaker A

Because I think a mistake I see a lot of people doing is that there's a lot of business coaches out there for coaches who never succeeded as a coach besides being a business coach, meaning they sold to other coaches how to help them to make a business, but they never made a without being a business coach.

Speaker B

And that's why many clients today feel like they're left burnt because they bought something that didn't work.

Speaker B

So I love that breakdown.

Speaker B

What I would like to add is what you want to listen for in the person who's trying to offer you help is listen towards how well do they understand what it is that I want to do and can they explain it better than I can?

Speaker B

Yeah, because if they can, they're probably a good fit.

Speaker B

And I'm not saying give you the solutions in kind of a sales calls because that's never going to happen because the solutions are the answer.

Speaker B

You can google your way to solutions, so that's never the answer.

Speaker B

Listen for do they understand how I feel?

Speaker B

Do they understand what it is that I want to do?

Speaker B

Do they understand the problems that I'm going to experience?

Speaker B

Just listen for do they seem knowledgeable of being able to guide me from A to B?

Speaker B

And if you feel that yep, I think this person is a good person to invest to, then that's a good sign.

Speaker B

Do that.

Speaker B

And also that they help you specifically with what you want to do, that they are working in the niche of helping people like you.

Speaker B

The last thing that I want to say about it is that no matter how much money you're going to make or how well you're going to do in that program, you're going to gift yourself with the resources necessary to be able to create those results again and again, even if it doesn't go exactly the way you wanted it to in the program.

Speaker B

Because it is a learning curve.

Speaker A

Absolutely.

Speaker A

So I think another thing that's important here is now we're talking about people who are in the foundation 0 to 5k month, like literally just getting to a place where they can start getting out of salary.

Speaker A

Because there's another place.

Speaker A

The opposite side is what should you not invest in at this time?

Speaker A

Yeah, at this Stage in your business, what should you not spend money on?

Speaker B

So we touched on help.

Speaker B

So we touched on that.

Speaker B

You can't give away what you don't have yet.

Speaker B

But when you know what your weekly schedule looks like, what do you need to do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis even if your business isn't producing a lot of revenue yet?

Speaker B

I would invest in a VA that can do all the automatic tasks that you are now doing yourself.

Speaker B

And I'm really meaning your the automatic tasks because to me it was one of the things that built my business.

Speaker B

I hired us the moment I knew this is what we're going to do.

Speaker B

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, on a weekly basis.

Speaker B

I hired a VA for six hours a week, one hour a day.

Speaker B

So it wasn't a full hire of any sort.

Speaker B

That's the only exception.

Speaker B

Let's have another episode strictly about like what does that look like and how to build out that team, but otherwise no team.

Speaker B

Yeah, don't go to any of those, like hiring websites like Fiverr or Upwork or anything to hire and create nice logos because it doesn't make sense.

Speaker B

You don't need it, your brand doesn't.

Speaker A

Exist and you don't need a system.

Speaker A

You don't need any Systems to make 5k month.

Speaker A

You don't need any websites, you don't need to run ads, you don't need to do all of that because it is wasting money, but it's especially wasting your time if that's where you spend your time.

Speaker A

Because getting to 5k month is something you should be doing.

Speaker A

It's not a full time job but you should be practicing the core skills to get leads and clients in the beginning.

Speaker A

So don't waste the money at this time.

Speaker B

I love that and I want to emphasize the importance of it.

Speaker B

When we were at Arnold Schwarzenegger's house last time, I met a really cool family and I got to hang with their sons.

Speaker B

They had so much money and we had a lot of fun, we had a lot of laughs.

Speaker B

And they asked for my business card because they wanted one to connect.

Speaker B

And I literally said to them, I don't have one, I don't want one.

Speaker B

What you can do is connect with me on Instagram or connect with me on Facebook.

Speaker B

That's it.

Speaker B

Because that's where I connect with people, that's where I talk to people.

Speaker B

So if you're there, then we can connect.

Speaker B

I don't want you to look into my business or I want to get to know you.

Speaker B

So connect with me.

Speaker B

I Exchange phone numbers with a couple of them.

Speaker B

That's cool.

Speaker B

I like that.

Speaker B

Business cards, websites.

Speaker B

We do have a website today, but it's literally like this year, 2025.

Speaker B

It isn't important.

Speaker B

And don't fall into the trap that it needs to look a certain way for you to be able to feel like, yeah, I'm a real business owner.

Speaker A

That's the other thing.

Speaker A

You don't need a graphic designer if you're not even making money in your business.

Speaker A

No, you will not sell more because you have a nice logo type.

Speaker A

You'll not sell more because you good at having beautiful colors.

Speaker B

But to me it's kind of like you don't need diapers if you don't have a baby.

Speaker B

No, like don't buy them.

Speaker A

Great.

Speaker A

So let's get into the next stage, the momentum stage.

Speaker A

And this is between 5k month and 15k month.

Speaker A

So it's still not like really growing yet.

Speaker A

But you're getting stability.

Speaker A

So it's a momentum phase.

Speaker A

What should you be starting to invest in now?

Speaker B

Maybe you level up in your coaching and either you work closer to the coach you're already working with or you change to a different program that helps you at that level.

Speaker B

And the same rules applies.

Speaker B

Listen to that.

Speaker B

They really understand the problems that you have and what you're about to do so that you listen into that and that they have the results and everything that applies.

Speaker B

Still other than that, very crucial.

Speaker B

You need a virtual assistant because then you get 10 to 15 hours a week freed up from your calendar and you know that all the basic stuff that needs to be done is getting done.

Speaker B

It could be anything from activity on your social media, taking care of the leads that you have and following up and making sure that it's structured so that it's easy for you to have more conversations and sell more.

Speaker B

A virtual assistant is like a no brainer.

Speaker B

What I would also recommend that you start doing at the level between 5 and €15,000 is to start investing all the simple tools that exist.

Speaker B

Make sure that you get the upgraded version of ChatGPT.

Speaker B

Make sure that you have your Google Drive and that you have your email.

Speaker A

The system to start getting, gathering emails, landing pages and stuff like that so you can do simple ones, not big ones, but crucial.

Speaker B

It needs to be simple, simple ones.

Speaker A

But you need to have somewhere you can start automizing and helping you out with some processes.

Speaker A

Yeah, at this point, definitely a big mistake we made at this point I remember is that we were looking to get more leads and I believe this is a thing most coaches have seen on social media that they're getting these.

Speaker B

Oh, I just want to say that I'm excited what you're about to say because I have no idea.

Speaker A

No, but you remember, you know you have these people in your inbox like cold dms.

Speaker A

And at some point we actually invested in someone who was saying they could give us X amount of leads every month and we tried them for three months and it was a disaster.

Speaker A

Like their promise was, I think 60 appointments with qualified leads.

Speaker A

I think they booked two calls in three months and I think one of them showed up.

Speaker A

It was ridiculous.

Speaker A

It was not the money, it's not that it was a huge money spent, but it was the time waste, wasted.

Speaker A

All of the time to support them.

Speaker A

All of the time focusing on the.

Speaker B

Complete wrong things and having them incorporated into how we speak, what we speak of, what problems we solve.

Speaker B

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B

And the reason why I don't remember this is because you did all of that.

Speaker A

Yeah, I did.

Speaker A

It was such a waste of time.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

And I comfort you after so hard and I'm getting nothing.

Speaker B

All jokes aside though, that was crazy.

Speaker B

And then at this point, what not to invest in.

Speaker B

Super important.

Speaker B

You do not give away responsibility at this level.

Speaker B

You need to take responsibility and carry that.

Speaker B

It's so important because the moment you start to outsource responsibility, it's a hard thing.

Speaker B

No marketing agencies, but also no marketing executives, don't hire people to manage areas in your business at this point.

Speaker B

The only thing, the only thing that you need to outsource at this point that is a big responsibility is accounting because you cannot do accounting and it's borderline.

Speaker B

When you're starting starting making money, make sure you hire an accountant.

Speaker B

When you hire an accountant, make sure that you understand the numbers in your business.

Speaker B

So set up a monthly meeting so that they can explain what it means so that you understand your business and start becoming curious about what does it mean if I get income here and I have expenses over here and it creates a bottom line.

Speaker B

So I, I'm, I'm building my capital in my business.

Speaker B

Invest some energy into wanting to know the that 100.

Speaker A

So having accountants is like having a BA as well.

Speaker A

There's just some things you can do but you should not be doing because it's taking your time away and you need to use that time on money making activities instead where you are more valuable to your business.

Speaker B

And at this point you also need to invest in skill sets depending on the path that you've walked.

Speaker B

To get to 5 to 15, where you are currently, if you have a coach that kind of serves the whole package, that gives you a solution, kind of what I prefer the way we work to give the entire step by step kind of thing, then you're going to get the skills.

Speaker B

But if you are having a different setup, you need to invest in the right skills and want to emphasize the right skills.

Speaker B

So how do you know what the right skills are?

Speaker B

Listen to a mentor that has done what you want to do.

Speaker B

But you need to start becoming good.

Speaker B

Start becoming good at creating content, start becoming good at generating leads, building connection and relationships with those leads, connecting to them, getting good at understanding their problems, what their situations are, and becoming good at applying yourself and actively listening to other people.

Speaker B

So those are the main skills that you need.

Speaker B

And there are only so many ways to get leads actually.

Speaker B

And at this point, no ads, don't do ads.

Speaker B

Ads is going to be a thing for later.

Speaker B

It's great.

Speaker B

But don't do ads at 5 to 10k a month.

Speaker B

The reason why is you're going to spend so much more money than you have to and that is going to postpone your future success because you spend.

Speaker A

A lot of money testing out things and at this point your cash flow is probably not big enough and you.

Speaker B

Probably don't have the knowledge either, the knowledge about your clients to actually target them properly.

Speaker A

However, when we get to the next stage, the growth phase due in between 15 and, and 50,000 years a month.

Speaker B

Huge gap.

Speaker A

Yeah, it's a huge gap.

Speaker A

I do know because otherwise we'll talk all day about this.

Speaker A

So it's a huge gap at this point.

Speaker A

Yes.

Speaker A

Now you need to start running ads as well because to a certain extent you can get leads organically.

Speaker A

I think we were a little bit too slow.

Speaker A

We should have started ads a little bit earlier.

Speaker A

We started quite late because it was really working.

Speaker A

But in today's market, I believe organic is not as scalable as it used to be.

Speaker A

You need to start running ads and there's a lot of ways to run ads.

Speaker A

So you don't want to start start too early because there's a lot of way to run ads and you need to understand there's a lot of ad strategies to look into and we don't want to start too early until we have this understanding.

Speaker A

But we do want to start running ads now because you're gonna get a lead problem at some point in this phase.

Speaker B

Yeah, and I can refer back to when we, when we went to Tokyo, I, it was in 23.

Speaker B

23.

Speaker B

And during the spring, I talked to one of our friends.

Speaker B

He runs a coaching business in Australia, and they're doing between 12 and 15 million euros a year.

Speaker B

And I spoke to him about his funnel and I spoke to him about his lead acquisition.

Speaker B

How do you get new leads?

Speaker B

And we had a great conversation.

Speaker B

And what he said was that here's a thing that you need to understand.

Speaker B

There is going to come a point in time when your business isn't going to be scalable anymore unless you add an ad flow.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

Get a bigger reach, pay for ads.

Speaker B

And where I was at that point, I was doing all organically.

Speaker B

We did two and a half million euros the year before in our business.

Speaker B

2.4.

Speaker B

Actually, not quite 2.5.

Speaker B

And where I was at that point, I was so sold on.

Speaker B

But, yeah, but I can double down on what I'm doing.

Speaker B

That's the reason why we postpone ads for a long time.

Speaker B

I can double down.

Speaker B

I can get more people.

Speaker B

I know what we're doing and I can scale it with people rather than with ads.

Speaker B

And I believe that.

Speaker B

And we had a conversation about it, and he said, I'm not going to tell you how to run your business.

Speaker B

I'm just gonna tell you what insights you're gonna get.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

And I was like, okay.

Speaker B

And I liked him.

Speaker B

I really listened to him and it stuck with me.

Speaker B

And then when we started to run ads ourselves, you and I talked about it.

Speaker B

And I remember saying, like, hey, we could have started running ads like in.

Speaker B

In the early 2023 instead of late 2023, when we actually did start our first ad campaigns.

Speaker A

So another thing is, I would also add looking into not just having a mentor coach, but having a mastermind around you, a group of people, just like you're saying, who's the people we surround ourselves with?

Speaker A

It's not just your mentor, but make sure you're actually in a mastermind with other people who can help you.

Speaker B

And just as much as you're coached.

Speaker A

Just as much as your coach, in the place where you between 5 and 15k month with people in your level is important.

Speaker A

And then when you go to the next level, you need to have a mastermind with people on the next level.

Speaker A

So you're already in the mastermind because we've been in amazing masterminds.

Speaker A

But at some point, we also became the top performers in our mastermind, and we couldn't grow anymore because we weren't triggered by everyone else.

Speaker A

We didn't have anyone to chase anymore.

Speaker A

It Kind of emptied out.

Speaker A

We don't want to be the biggest one within the mastermind.

Speaker A

We want to have someone to look up to.

Speaker A

I think it's crucial to have a group like the group of people you surround yourself with because we see how much we use our masterminds.

Speaker A

Like that's our first friends around the world today.

Speaker A

It's actually our masterminds and it's so clever people in the industry.

Speaker A

So I think that's actually important.

Speaker A

Now at this stage, we are in a hiring team.

Speaker A

We are investing in team, our team members because now we have the knowledge.

Speaker A

So we have ads, we grow our team members, we get setters, we get closers, we get a lot of different freelancers in.

Speaker A

We get help, more and more help.

Speaker A

In this stage, I would say we still don't have a leadership team.

Speaker B

We have leaders.

Speaker A

We have leaders, but.

Speaker A

Yeah, but we lead our team.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

And we still own responsibility at this level.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

And it actually goes all the way up to €50,000amonth.

Speaker B

And I want to say that it is important to make sure that we don't do that too early.

Speaker B

And let's just talk about for, for a second.

Speaker B

We in 23 as well, we hired a team member that was going to take over our sales division in our business and control that.

Speaker B

So we invested €70,000 ahead of sales.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

For a person in head of sales that was going to build an internal sales academy for us.

Speaker B

This person was going to do a lot.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

Like it was the completely wrong thing for us to do at that point.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker A

And it cost us.

Speaker B

I can't even calculate it because it didn't just cost us the lack of sales.

Speaker B

It also destroyed the relationships with the clients.

Speaker B

We had to nurture them further into the future process.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker A

And then the cost of having this person, it was €70,000.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

And €70,000 less sales, less relationships with our existing clients to continue working with us in the next levels.

Speaker B

Now in this point, I believe our clients were satisfied to the same degree as they are today and they were before.

Speaker B

So very crucial.

Speaker B

Do not give away responsibility at this level.

Speaker B

When you're above 50k, we can start to look towards.

Speaker B

Okay, we're making, making enough money a month now to actually afford like a 10k per month higher with a qualified person.

Speaker B

But even when you're finding those key personalities, I would avoid all the agencies that can find you the right people.

Speaker B

I would look for that person in the networks that I am with.

Speaker B

People who have nothing to gain from it.

Speaker B

Because the people who Are best in the world who makes like millions in their businesses.

Speaker B

We have hired them to find a chief executive for our entire business.

Speaker B

Didn't happen.

Speaker B

We have had people to find a setter, closers, the best in the industry.

Speaker B

Didn't happen.

Speaker A

Oh, we invested so much in having these people like the gurus, you know out there.

Speaker A

If you look for scissors and closers.

Speaker A

We hired almost a bunch of them to find and it was just like crap.

Speaker B

Yeah, it really was.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

So where did we get our closers and setters from?

Speaker B

We got them from friends.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

People that we were close to that actually connected us with people who are already doing well.

Speaker B

And then we invested properly into the skill sets of these people.

Speaker B

In the beginning there was a lot of us being like, yeah, let's just get them on.

Speaker B

They know what their job is.

Speaker B

They have, they have some insights.

Speaker B

They've done it before.

Speaker B

And then we poured hours and hours and hours, mostly you because you're in charge of that division in our business.

Speaker B

So many hours in trying to train them and it didn't work.

Speaker B

So where do we get great people from?

Speaker B

People who know great people that can point us in the right direction.

Speaker B

Agencies is a really, really hard thing to navigate.

Speaker B

Are there great agencies out there?

Speaker A

Probably.

Speaker A

But the worst experience we had was we had a promise of if that the hire didn't work, they were replaced.

Speaker A

But what happened?

Speaker A

Action.

Speaker A

This is a 15,000 year investment in three months.

Speaker A

Told the person, well, it doesn't work now.

Speaker A

It says that we need to change.

Speaker A

They caught us off, they threw us out.

Speaker A

So we didn't even have any contact anymore.

Speaker A

And it was like, okay, that was a 15,000.

Speaker A

Yeah, drained up.

Speaker B

And we have the same examples with the client success managers.

Speaker B

We had great client success managers working with us to take over responsibilities which.

Speaker A

Is now also something to invest invest in at this stage.

Speaker A

Having an internal team if you need to add more competencies to delivery side now.

Speaker A

Yeah, because everything else has been a lot in sales, marketing like.

Speaker A

But now we are in our delivery.

Speaker A

So at this stage you probably also going to get a client success manager or a client success person or coach, internal coach to help you with your.

Speaker B

Head coaches and stuff like that.

Speaker B

And one thing that I want to add actually when it comes to a step before between 5 and 15, then you're starting to actually get a bunch of clients.

Speaker B

Something that you want to invest in and this is just a VA role is to track your clients, talk to them monthly, every month, ask them where they are in the progress, document their progress Very important because you need to be able to track and know where is this going.

Speaker B

When it comes to 15 to 50.

Speaker B

I would say look for the best performing clients that are about to graduate and ask them if they want to upgrade grade to, to stay in the program when their payment plan is over, not during.

Speaker B

And then enroll them into your team to get more coaching from you, but helping you to kind of facilitate maybe a meeting or following up with people, coaching them one on one.

Speaker B

If you have that included in your program so that you can outsource a little bit of your own time because it's going to be great training for them, they're going to love you.

Speaker B

But it's not executive, it's just added resources.

Speaker A

So at this stage you want to have your systems in place.

Speaker A

So you have a CIM system, you have, you have systems for delivery, you have systems for everything you do.

Speaker A

So you go into the next phase, which is the phase that is the scale phase and the scale phase now is a 50k plus and then to whatever, which means it's a wide, wide gap.

Speaker A

Like there's a huge difference between doing 50k month and doing 250k month or doing a million a month that the, the gap is huge.

Speaker A

So of course it smoothens up.

Speaker A

But the big thing is here at this point it's about doubling down on a lot of things.

Speaker A

And, and when you above like doing 150, 200, 250, now you really want to get the best people on the different places.

Speaker A

You want to have your leadership team, you want to have the best people on the difference in the different places inside your business.

Speaker A

So you're really investing more heavily into having the best people and, and then you are doubling up on your acquisitions.

Speaker A

So, so it's literally just doing more of everything because now you tested, you know what's working.

Speaker A

Now it's about scaling what's working.

Speaker B

Yeah.

Speaker B

And one of the most important things to invest in here is how can I simplify everything that I'm doing.

Speaker B

If you have complexity, it's not going to scale.

Speaker B

100% of the times you will fail and it will cost you a lot.

Speaker B

So it needs to be something that is simplified.

Speaker B

There are a lot of help to get from that to help it make it simplified.

Speaker B

And it takes you kind of nugging your brain sides to each other to figure that out and how to navigate that.

Speaker B

Kind of.

Speaker B

Last thing that I would like to say on this topic before we wrap up is that there are some different levels and we've Gone through a few of them here.

Speaker B

When you go from 0 to 5 is one level, 5 to 15 is another.

Speaker B

And then 15 to 50, like you could dissect that into 15 to 30, 30 to 50 if you like.

Speaker B

But, but 15 to 50 is a level.

Speaker B

And then 50 to 84, which is 84 times 12 is a million a year.

Speaker B

So when you, but when you get to 84 there is, there is a huge step from 84 to €250,000amonth.

Speaker B

That is 1 million a year to 3 million a year.

Speaker B

And then there is a huge difference between 3 million a year and, and then 9 million or 10 million a year to tripling that.

Speaker B

So now we're starting to talk about doing a million euros in your business a year.

Speaker B

You're never going to make the jump from 250,000amonth to a million a month.

Speaker B

You're never going to do that if your business is, isn't tracked properly and isn't simplified, never, ever, ever gonna happen.

Speaker B

And that's where we are currently at right now.

Speaker B

That is the only goal that we have to.

Speaker B

Not to go for the full million because we're just not there yet.

Speaker B

But, but to really have a simplified business making 250€000amonth because that is the only thing that is going to allow us to go from 3 to 10 million a year.

Speaker B

Let's wrap it up and understand that growth comes in different stages and you can't do it on your own.

Speaker B

You shouldn't do it on your own.

Speaker A

It's too expensive and takes too long time.

Speaker B

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B

And take it easy with outsourcing responsibility.

Speaker B

Own all of the responsibility yourself and your business is going to do.

Speaker A

So we, we created a right time investment roadmap for you to know what to focus on at different stages in, in your business.

Speaker A

You can download it here below.

Speaker A

If you're watching this on YouTube, find it down below.

Speaker A

Or if you are somewhere else and you can't see the link, go into our YouTube or reach out to us in our Instagram and we'll send it to you until next time times and.

Speaker B

We'Ll send it to you fast.

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker B

And we'll meet next Wednesday.

Speaker B

Take care guys.