What’s up guys? Today I am interviewing Jon Fox. Jon is a business coach for companies all over the world using the EOS approach. Today we discuss mistakes that we see most entrepreneurs make in the beginning of business building, solutions to those problems, and the power of being creative. We also just have a really good time. I think listening to this episode is a lot like sitting in on a coffee shop date with me and Jon, which we’ve done a million times. We just happen to be recording it today.

At one point I literally forgot we were even doing a podcast. You will hear our very dumb jokes and then us laugh hysterically together, alone, which is how most of our conversations go. I respect this man’s work a lot, and I can’t wait for you to hear a piece of his brain today on episode 17 of The Hell Yes Entrepreneur. I’m your host Becca Pike, and it is time for your weekly dose of Hell Yes Coaching. Let’s go.

Hey, guys. I’m Becca Pike and welcome to The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast, the number one show for entrepreneurs looking to create their first six-figure year. If you’ve got the drive and you know how to hustle but you’re not sure where to channel your energy, we’ve got the answers. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Becca:  Hello, hello Jon Fox. How are you doing today?

Jon:  I’m fantastic. I’m having a great week.

Becca:  Are you? I’m so happy that you’re here.

Jon:  Me too.

Becca:  So for everyone listening, this is our second time recording. This is a second rendition of me being on Lindsay Dodd’s last podcast. Did you ever hear that? We had to record that thing so many times because my mic kept not working.

Jon:  No I did not hear that one.

Becca:  We kept having tech problems. So anyways. Everyone that’s listening, this is our second time recording. Jon, do you want to know what happened last time? I finally figured it out.

Jon:  I do, yeah.

Becca:  So we spent like an hour, literally one hour, trying to get my mic to work. So today I got my mic to work. Then I stepped away, I went on a walk. Then when we came back, my mic didn’t work again before we got on this call just now. The only thing that I had changed is I had plugged my computer in, like the power. So I unplugged the power. Like I took the battery cord out, and it worked again. Is that the weirdest?

Jon:  The battery cord?

Becca:  Yeah, the battery cord. What am I supposed to call it?

Jon:  Some people call it the charger.

Becca:  Yeah, the charging system cord. But is that crazy? That’s why it didn’t work.

Jon:  The battery connecting cable. Yeah. Really, that’s weird.

Becca:  That is weird. I don’t know.

Jon:  I wonder if it’s like some sort of interference or something?

Becca:  I’m going to be that person that’s like literally lost in five years. Everyone kind of jokes like, “Oh tech and I, we don’t get along.” Like no. I’m barely hanging on right now, and I’m 32 years old. What’s going to happen when I’m 60? I have no idea how I’m going to survive.

Jon:  Isn’t Mark pretty good at that kind of stuff?

Becca:  He is. He’s super techy.

Jon:  So at least you’re married to him.

Becca:  I know, but I hate to ask him. I feel like I’m asking him like three times a day. Like how do batteries work? I don’t know how to do this.

Jon:  Real quick. I know I’m not the one interviewing you, but I do want to know how Cabo was.

Becca:  Oh Cabo was amazing. So for anybody that’s listening, I went to Cabo with my mastermind that I’m a part of with my coach. So my women fellow colleagues were there. Anytime you’re set in a place with that high level thinker mentality, shit goes wild. Creativity was off the charts. I always come back from those mastermind retreats through the roof ready to light a fire under my ass.

This is why I’ve switched to coaching people one on one to group. Because before I was actually in a group myself, I literally thought one on one coaching was the best thing you could possibly do. Then I went into a group, and I was like oh. I was so wrong. Group is where it’s at. You have access to X amount of brains that are just high level thinkers. It was amazing. Cabo was amazing. It was so good.

Jon:  To be fair though, I feel like there’s a lot of different types of value you get from both experiences. Like one on one, you’re getting someone who’s really digging into you as an individual. They’re going to ask more pointed questions. Maybe open up a space to be more vulnerable and things like that. Whereas group you’re really sharing, getting the mastermind effect with lots of ideas and creativity and stuff.

Becca:  Yeah, absolutely. What I’ve learned is that it forced me to up level my coaching because I wanted people to still feel as heard as they did in one on one. So it forced me to create better questions where everyone could feel like I’m talking directly to them. Where I could teach lessons in a way that was directed to them.

With my group, I go through, and I look at everyone in their industry and what they’re doing, and I create the questions in order to give that feel so that I don’t want anyone to ever feel like they’re just lost in a sea of people. I think when you get a really good coach, they’re able to articulate the lesson in that way, right?

Jon:  So give us the top two ah-ha’s that you took from your trip. Like the most life changing moments or revelations.

Becca:  I think one of the main things was something that was said to me. I kind of knew it on the surface, but it really sunk in on this trip. Which was as a coach, I’m always trying to make my group programs better. Usually that means adding things to it or changing the content.

I finally realized my group coaching sessions are going to be naturally better every single time because my brain becomes a higher value asset, right? Like my brain becomes smarter every time I get coached. Every book that I read, every podcast that I listen to, I become sharper and more resourceful. So that alone means that my groups are going to be significantly better each time and more evolved each time. I know that sounds simple, but that took a huge thought out of my mind that I had to reinvent the wheel with every group. Does that make sense?

Jon:  Well, it kind of goes back to the law of the lid to a degree, the John Maxwell concept. That your lid is automatically the lid of all of those who are associated with you and connected to you. So when you’re raising your lid, that’s automatically going to allow other people to benefit from that.

Becca:  Yeah, yeah. Completely agree. Then the other takeaway was something my coach said to me. When I say it to you, it’s going to sound almost mean. But it was the biggest ah-ha moment of my life because she was absolutely right. So I think a lot of us hold onto things because we think that they are really successful, right? But I think that my standard needed to raise for what was successful.

So there was this thing that I was doing in my business, like an offer that I was offering. To me it was successful because I don’t know. I guess I used to think that whatever was profitable was decently successful, but then if it was really profitable, it was really successful. Not taking into consideration any non-monetary things, right?

So I’m talking to her about this offer and she’s like, “Yeah, you just need to get rid of it altogether.” I was like yeah no. That would be so silly. It makes $100,000 a year, and I don’t have to do anything with it. It’s just out there in the world and not taking any of my energy. It’s just $100,000 a year in the bank. She was like, “Okay. Let me break this down. So like how many people have bought this offer just in the last few months?” I was like it’s been 11. Then throughout the rest of the year, we’re probably gonna see about 30 total.

She was like, “30 people. That’s piddly shit. That’s not successful. Like you’re at a level where you can be taking…Like if you’re earning $100,000 on an offer, that’s not where your energy needs to go. We’re going to take that off the table because you should be bringing in tens of thousands of people into your programs. Do not hold onto a program because you’re bringing 22 people in it through a year.”

My mind was blown. First of all, I was like in shock. I was like what do you mean it’s not successful? It is. It’s doing so good. Then I was like wait, what does successful mean? I was lying to myself. It doesn’t just not require me. It does require me. Like I have to manage the people that are running it. I have to pay the ads that are going out for it. My ad spend is spread thinner because of it. It’s “only” bringing me in $100,000 a year. Like I can do better than that, right?

So it was just a really big slap in the face to my standards in a good way. Like oh I can way up level what I think is successful and not hold onto things that are picking up pennies when it comes to the route that I’m taking in my growth. Does that make sense?

Jon:  That’s why I think there’s so much value in every year or every quarter retooling and reworking your goals. Sitting down to legitimately challenge and question them. Because you’re right. We can just get into this place where we define success once, and we just continue using that same definition. Who’s to say that 10xing that goal for next year isn’t the thing that we should do just because that’s what we had done in the past?

Becca:  Yeah absolutely. I’ve been told before, and I think it just landed with me when I was getting coached. First of all, it didn’t land with me when I was getting coached. I just want to be very clear that I spent 24 hours going through the five stages of grief, like legit. I was bargaining. I was sad. Then I got angry. I was like she doesn’t understand. Then I was like no, she understands. I explained it very clearly. She gets it.

So it wasn’t immediately I took the coaching. It took me for real a solid 24 hours to start selling myself on it. I talk a lot about inspo walks on my podcasts. Like I went on an inspo walk, and I decided to sell myself on all the reasons she was absolutely right. By the time I came back, I was in a different place of like okay. This is definitely where my business is going and the direction that I’m taking it. I’m going with it. I’m going to just trust the process.

A lot of times people don’t spend enough time just trusting the coaching that they get. They buy coaching all over the place, and then they receive coaching. If it’s not comfortable for them, they just discard it, right? I was like I’m not that person. I chose to be in this room. I chose to ask for help, and I’m going to receive the help that I get.

I’ve always been told that when you get to a place where you’re capable of letting go of something that’s working to grow yourself, to grow your company at a higher level, then you’ve reached a pretty high, high place. I never really understood what that meant. I got rid of my own one-on -one coaching about eight months ago. Like it was working. It was very profitable. I was charging a very high rate for people to work with me, and people were buying it and I had a wait list. I chose to let all of that go.

I chose to let go of something that was working in order to push Three More and 30 More and the groups that I know were serving my clients way better. I had to put myself on the back docket, right. Like it’s not about the money. It’s about reaching more people and more people becoming successful through my company.

So being able to put down something that’s working, even when it’s profiting you. Even when it’s benefiting you for the sake of growth and for the sake of growth for your clients takes a very, very mature step. Also like most people aren’t willing to do it. That, I think, is what separates so many people. Like the successful people are the ones that are so willing to do what it takes, even when it’s so hard and when it hurts your soul. Right?

Jon:  What I hear you saying as well, which I think is interesting, is that what really got challenged was the metric that you were using to define success long term. When you change the metric, everything else kind of falls into place. It changes the context for everything else that you’re doing. One of the exercises that I’ve walked my EOS clients through is called the ten year target. It’s a very simple one number, one smart goal. Nothing complex. It’s not a paragraph. It’s one phase of what you want from your business in ten years.

It forces everyone to come to an agreement on what’s the metric we’re going to use. Is it going to be revenue? Is it going to be profit? Is it going to be the number of widgets sold? Is it going to be the number of clients we have? What metric do we want to use? Then what’s that actual number going to be? I have some clients who do use a financial or revenue metric, and they build everything around that. Other ones, they use the number of relationships or the number of facilities that they are partnered with or whatever. It totally changes the dynamic by which they’re living their life and building their business.

So what I hear from you, correct me if I’m wrong, is that you changed the metric from profit or revenue to number of people served and getting value from your business, which then totally reset the way you’re doing business.

Becca:  Yeah, absolutely. I love that you said that. You have so much value to give to this episode. So let’s rewind and properly introduce you because we just went off on a tangent. So Jon and I have been good friends for a long time. He’s come through the Three More program. We sit and we just talk business a lot. We basically just hit record and started a normal Jon and Becca conversation. So we’re going to hit rewind and remember that you guys are here listening and do a proper introduction. So Jon Fox, will you please introduce yourself and tell us what you do?

Jon:  So you and I have been friends for what, two and a half years or so?

Becca:  Yeah.

Jon:  I’ve owned an audio video home technology company for about 11 years. It started in 2008. Then sold my equity to my partner in 2018 and started a coaching business. So that’s where I am today. Still loving coaching, doing that full time. I’ve had quite the journey of trying to figure out myself and understand who my clients are and what my strengths are. What I love to do, what I don’t love to do.

I’ve really come to a place where I’ve started really eliminating other things and have focused mainly on EOS implementation. EOS stands for the entrepreneurial operating system. It’s a framework that I help my clients implement to help them more effectively manage and executive and drive accountability and organizational clarity and things like that. It’s absolutely phenomenal. I’ve really found the thing that I love to do the most in this world, and that’s helping clients implement this system.

Becca:  Yeah. You’re really good at what you do, and it’s why you’re successful. One of the reasons that you and I get along so well is because we are exact opposites. How would you describe the difference between our brains? Because you’re going to describe it better just based on the fact that your brain works the way it does and mine works the way it does. You know what I’m saying?

Jon:  I mean I feel like it’s somewhat left right brain. I feel like I’m a lot more left brain. Structure, prioritization, systems, one, two, three. Putting things in spreadsheets, using math, all that kind of stuff. I feel like you’re a lot more creative in your approach to coaching and business in general, thinking a little bit more high level out of the box. Asking a lot more what if sort of questions. I’m a little bit more well how are we going to get there? Let’s dig into the details and figure out the plan.

Becca:  I’m like what if it does work? Jon’s like, “According to the statistics, this is the X, Y, Z probability.” Yeah. He pulls a spreadsheet out, and I’m like burn that shit down. We’re throwing spaghetti against the wall. That’s what we’re doing. I love it. I love it. So one of the things…Tell me. You work with people that have a staff of 10 or more. Is that correct?

Jon:  Yeah. That’s our target market is between 10 and 250 employee companies. I have clients who have as little as four people in the business, and there are people running on EOS who have thousands of employees. The sweet spot for EOS is between 10 and 250.

Becca:  Gotcha. So one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on the podcast is because A, you are delightful. B, because you are working with people who already have staff, right? So a lot of the entrepreneurs that are listening to this either are solo entrepreneurs, or they are gearing up to hire their first 10 people. They might have one person, two people, they might have six. You have a bird’s eye view from what a lot of these companies are dealing with that have staffs of 8 to 12 or whatever. So I would love to talk about that.

So for everyone that’s listening, I want you to hear what Jon has to say about companies that are staffing at that level, okay. So Jon, what do you see that is probably the biggest issue or problem or thing that you have to coach on for companies that are around 8 to 10 employees. What comes up?

Jon:  Yeah. I think it’s a couple of things. One is just continuing to coach the fear of letting things go. I know you work with your clients a lot, but it’s just hard. Especially when you’re the owner. Even if you’ve done it three times so far, you still battle that fear of letting things go and thinking that you’re the only one that can do it. It never really goes away. It just becomes higher and higher level the more that you delegate. So really just coaching that.

I think the thing that helps that the most is one thing we implement is called the accountability chart. Which is really analyzing the structure of how your business functions starting at the top then down to the primary functions of sales and marketing and operations and finance. What are the boxes and the functions that need to be in place in order for us to get what we want out of this business in the next 12 to 24 months? When you start really homing in on the structure that you need, you start creating the openings for people, right?

There’s a saying that says nature abhors a vacuum. When you create an opening for something in your business, there’s so much more clarity that exists. Now there’s the opportunity for that to get filled. So when you think structurally first and you create the boxes and you say, “Okay, I need someone who’s an operations person. They’re going to be accountable for these five things. Then under operations, we’re going to have someone who’s an account manager and someone who’s our customer service representative. That’s the best way for our business to function.”

Now you just have three boxes that need to be filled, need to be delegated. There’s clarity around what they’re going to do, what role they play in the company, and why they exist. Now there’s clarity around well what kind of people do we need to fill these boxes? What kind of personality types? What kind of existing skill sets?

So you start to work your brain in a totally different way that makes it easier to delegate and start expanding because you’ve created the overall context for the structure of your business compared to the opposite of that, which is you show up to work. You feel the pressure. You’re constantly busy. You’re spread thin. You think, “Ah I probably need to hire more people. Why don’t we try this? This feels like the bottleneck right now. Why don’t we hire someone to fill this spot that I’m going to randomly create, right?”

Becca:  Yeah.

Jon:  So anyways. I kind of rambled there for a second. Does that make sense?

Becca:  Yeah, of course. I love that. So one of the things that I notice the most with my clients, and this was me too. When we go way back to my first business, the massage studio Massage Strong. I finally got to the point where I was like okay, I’m going to delegate. It took so much out of me to let go of control in order to delegate in the first place, but then I didn’t have a proper understanding of how to delegate the best way, right? I coach a lot of my clients on this.

I was just talking to a girl this morning. We were out on a walk. I coach her. She said she finally allowed someone to help her with sales. She basically hired a salesperson. She was allowing that person to bring clients to her, but not allowing the person to close the deals.

So what was happening was she was just creating way more work for herself. The idea of hiring a salesperson was to allow her to be able to move out of that position. But what actually happened was the girl was bringing in more leads and she was bringing in more leads. So now it was just like double the leads. Now my client had to close double the closings and had to travel double the places to do it and had double the work, right?

The only glitch there was just the ability to properly delegate full heartedly. Like I’m going to delegate. I’m not just going to trust in this one little area. I’m going to trust across the whole component of delegation. I’m going to train as much as I need to train. I’m going to use the money that I need to use in order to train this person to make them to the level of the standards that I need. Right? Does that make sense?

Jon:  Totally. Yeah. You know that kind of brings me to another point. Instead of viewing people as a cost, viewing people as an investment. I think a lot of employers and entrepreneurs get hung up on the cost that’s going to take place if they decide to hire this key person, right? Maybe they’re already thinking, “Our profits are only this much. How am I going to pay for them?”

When you transition your mindset from if I find the right person and I’ve got the right opening in my company, they’re actually not a cost at all. They’re an investment that’s going to make me money because that’s going to free up me to have more time that’s going to add higher value activity to the business.

So then the question is, how much is your time worth as an entrepreneur? If you had 15 extra hours a week, what could you do for the business that would add more value, grow it, acquire more clients, whatever it may be. When you start just asking that simple question, what could you do with 15 extra hours a week? The amount of things that they could list that would add more value to grow the business is incredible. So it’s really coaching their mindset on cost versus investment.

Becca:  Well and I was telling her, I was like listen. Investing in your training, investing in your employee might look different than you thought. When we first started talking about you—I’m talking to her right now in an imaginary world. I was like when we started talking about you investing in hiring someone, I asked you if you were willing to spend $10,000 to get this person to be trained up to be the very best salesperson possible. You said yes. I was like, one of the reasons that she didn’t want her staff member to go out and close the deals is because she didn’t want her to miss out on the money, right?

I said listen. Is the best way to learn basketball to watch a video of people playing basketball or to go out and get on the court and play basketball, right? I was like let her go out on the court and play basketball. If she loses $5,000 in sales, then she has gained $5,000 worth of training, right. Now you wouldn’t have any problem buying her a $5,000 coach or a $5,000 training program on how to close a sale.

This will be worth way more for her to go out onto the field and actually do it. Yes, she might be “losing” $5,000, but it’s $5,000 of training, right? That’s the way I’m thinking of it. Get her out there and have an allowance for mistakes so she can sharpen her ax, and you’ve got yourself a sidekick that’s closing deals left and right because you’re willing to put them out on the court.

Jon:  Yeah, I love that. That just makes me think how valuable having a coach is. Because when you’re in the business and you’re running it, it’s so emotional for you. You’re so close to the situation. I was talking to someone recently about getting into the Turo business because I’m going to be getting a new car early next year. I’m like well do I just sell my existing car and get a new car? Do I keep it and put it on Turo and use it as an investment to help cash flow to pay for my new car? Kind of just trying to think in those terms.

Becca:  I just found out about Turo by the way. I fucking love it.

Jon:  Oh it’s awesome.

Becca:  It makes so much sense. Rent a car from someone else. Okay go ahead. Sorry.

Jon:  Yeah. So I was watching this video the other day just to learn a little bit more about the business model and what it takes to be successful. This lady was doing this YouTube video.

One of her five points of like how to be successful with Turo was don’t rent cars that you personally have driven. Like go find other cheaper cars that you can rent that you have no emotional attachment to. Because then if you’ve driven the car and then you put it on Turo, it’s going to get damaged. It’s going to get scratched. No one else is going to treat the car like you would treat it if you were driving it. So make sure that you’re detaching yourself emotionally from those investments in order to think clearly about your business.

I think sometimes with growing your staff it’s very, very similar. You’re so emotionally attached to the work, the clients, the processes that allowing someone else who may do it a little bit messier than you is just really hard because you’re emotionally attached. So when you have a coach that can think objectively outside the box, almost acting as like a board of directors for the company that’s saying, “What is the best interstate for this business?” You think totally differently about the situation.

Becca:  Yes. 1,000%. Like I cannot agree more. When you hire a coach, you’ve got someone that has a bird’s eye view. They’re not emotionally attached. They’re able to show you what’s working and what’s not working. It’s so hard for you to see. Like it really is. Like you think you know everything about your business because you’re the one in the driver’s seat, but like you just can’t. There’s no way you can see a full 360 view while you’re driving at 100 miles per hour, right. Someone else has to come in and show you. It is emotional. Sometimes it sucks so bad to hear the truth.

I know firsthand, but I also watch my clients as I’m teaching them. Like listen. This is what you think, but this is just your opinion. Let me show you what’s actually happening. It sucks to hear it sometimes, but it is what grows. If you’re willing to take the coaching and actually implement it, your business will grow so much faster because of it.

All right Jon. Let’s go back. One of the reasons I have you on this podcast, again, is because you’re such a wealth of knowledge. It’s funny because when you were in Three More, you took Three More and you took it three times, right. So you went through that class three times. You got to be known. You were known in Three More, Jon Fox. You were like a little buddha of knowledge. Is that what I’m trying to say? Like a yeti. Jon fucking hates me.

Jon:  Yoda?

Becca:  Yoda!  A buddha and a yeti is a Yoda. Like I just had the words wrong.

Jon:  The battery cord.

Becca:  Gosh, yes. So you are like a Yoda of business. It is so funny because you didn’t speak up too much in Three More, not very often. But when you did, it was like the fucking seas parted and you would explain something so perfectly. I love that about you. So let me just throw off some questions at you, and let’s just see what comes out of your mouth. How do you feel?

Jon:  Sounds great.

Becca:  Okay great. What do you think separates an entrepreneur from becoming successful and not?

Jon:  I’m going to steal my answer from the first book I ever read was E-Myth Revisited. Completely changed my life. Showed me that everything I thought I knew about business was wrong. I think in the introductory chapter or first chapter or something, he said that some people ask him that same question. It always stood out to me because he said, “The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful is the successful people have an insatiable need to know more.”

I’ve found in my life the more that I read and the more that I learn, the more that I think, the more that I try to absorb. To be part of groups and coaching and experiment and things like that, the more successful I become. The greater my influence expands, the more that my finances expands. My comfort zone expands. Every aspect of me continues to become more successful, not even just financially, when I just invest in myself. I take on that mindset of I have to insatiably know more all the time.

Becca:  Wait a minute. Are you telling me that if I grow myself, my business and relationships will grow as a product?

Jon:  No, I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that if you grow yourself, then the things around you are also going to grow like your products and your knowledge and stuff.

Becca:  Wait are you saying that if the products and the knowledge around me and my relationships grow, it’s because I’ve grown?

Jon:  Not at all. It’s actually the complete opposite. No, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Becca:  Oh man, it’s amazing. Because sometimes we forget the basics, right. Sometimes we get so obsessed with our businesses. I’m just using business, but you can replace this with anything. You can replace it with relationships with your kids, your parenting style, your knowledge in whatever, X, Y, and Z. Maybe you love to garden. We forget the basics, and the basics are like be a student. Right? To me, I have to remind myself all the time. Be a student and be okay with mistakes or failure.

I’ve always prided myself in being able to throw spaghetti against the wall and be creative and just try things in my business, even if they are a failure. With both companies, I was able to do that very easily up until a certain level. Lately it’s like I’m playing in the big leagues. There’s a lot more on the line. There’s a lot more money on the line. There’s a lot more people’s jobs on the line when I’m just throwing shit against the wall and hoping that it works. The pressure of that is painful, right?

I have to remind myself of the basics, right. Be a student and learn, and try things even when more is on the line because it is always more successful than drowning in pressure and not trying things and trying to stay in line with the norm, right? It’s so difficult when you’re battling this new level of thinking, right? So I’m constantly bringing back myself to those basics. What are your basics? What do you bring yourself back to often?

Jon:  So I’ll tell a story really quick of something that actually happened to me in the last seven days. I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I think it does come back to the basics for me. So about two years ago, I was early on in my EOS journey as an implementer. I had this guy in Louisville find me on Google, which I don’t even know how he did that to begin with. Said he was interested in implementing EOS.

So I drove to Louisville, and I gave them what we call the 90 minute meeting, which is just a free experience where we get to know each other. I explain how it all works and just offer a ton of value for free. So we did that, and then I find out a few weeks later that they hired another EOS implementer that was local to Louisville. So he’s stayed connected with me on LinkedIn. I notice he’ll like some of my posts and videos and comment every once in a while.

Well a week ago, he messaged me on LinkedIn and said, “Hey Jon, I’ve been following your stuff. It looks like you’ve really been building your practice. You’ve been successful. I’ve really appreciated your posts and your questions. They’ve been very thought provoking and everything. We’d like to reengage you to help facilitating our quarterlies and annuals.”

I had no knowledge of what had happened on their journey or anything like that. So we met yesterday. I drove to Louisville and met with him and his general manager. Had a great two hour conversation, and they decided to start working with me on their quarterlies and annuals, which is a huge deal for me to pick up a new client. So I’ve been reflecting on that, and I’ve noticed two things that are fundamentals for me.

One, it’s to show up authentically. Two, it’s to show up consistently. I know Becca, you teach a lot on sales and marketing and things like that, especially with social media. You’re extremely good at that. So you probably have a lot to say on this too. For me, I notice that a lot of people get off track when they try to duplicate other people’s style, other people’s approaches. They’re like, “Well, it’s working for them. So it must work that way for me.” So they’re not who they really are.

So I’ve learned I’m not you Becca. You approach things totally different than I do, and you’re a badass at it. You’re amazing at it. For me, it’s more about being sarcastic and asking questions that keep people thinking differently. Kind of just doing that. Because I’ve learned to be who I am…

Actually on my weekly scorecard that I measure some numbers and my business every week. One of my metrics is the number of social media posts that I have that week. Like I’m measuring that to ensure and hold myself accountable for showing up consistently. So for me, the authenticity and the consistency have been two major fundamentals for me that have helped me a lot.

Becca:  Yes. Absolutely. Obviously, you learned those completely and wholeheartedly in Three More.

Jon:  100% yeah.

Becca:  You never even heard of social media before Three More.

Jon:  No absolutely.

Becca:  Okay. Here’s what I have to say. Here’s what I’m thinking. So number one, when it comes to consistency, I truly don’t think that you have to have a social media to be successful. I really don’t. I think that you can totally do word of mouth. I think that you can do ads maybe or like a billboard or whatever. I just want you to know that doing it word of mouth can be successful, but to me it’s like climbing up a mountain that has like three feet of snow. Like can you get to the top? Yes. But there’s a snowmobile right fucking next to you. Why not just get on the snowmobile? To me, that is social media.

It’s like if you wanted to talk to 100 people this year without social media, you’re like going to go on 100 one on one dates. I’m going to talk to 100 people, make sure that they know my business is here. That would require like 100 one hour sessions hanging out with people, letting them know. Maybe you go to a party, and you talk to five people at a time or something like that. But with social media, you can talk to 100 people instantly. We live in a world where like everyone on the planet is at our fucking fingertips. It’s amazing.

Like if you really stop and think about it, just 20 years ago if you wanted to grow a business, you needed billboards. You needed newspapers. You needed to put it out there. You needed to write a book to be really known, right? Now it’s like you get on Instagram, and you can get people to follow you and you can get hundreds of people at the click of our fingers.

I know that this is very obvious and very basic, but one of the reasons I think that I do so well on social media is because I haven’t lost sight of how thankful I am that I have that tool. I have the snowmobile, and it’s just waiting for me. I don’t want to walk up this hill by myself, right? So like guys, do you have to use social media? No. Do I know people who are very successful who don’t use social media? Yes. Is it a tool? Absolutely.

Jon:  It can also be a both and. It doesn’t have to be the only one. With me because of the nature of what I do, relationship and trust and building awareness and having those one to one conversations is so critical for me being able to add value to people, and then to fully understand how it is that I help. So for me, I network my ass off. Show me someone who networks more than I do. I probably get coffee with people three to four to five times a week. That’s another metric on my scorecard. How many connectors have I communicated with?

Becca:  That’s how we met. That’s how we met.

Jon:  Exactly. Exactly. So I pry open doors of opportunity to meet new people and to add value to them, but I’m also consistent on social media. I do my best to stay in front of people there too. I get referrals and I grow my business from both.

So I think that it’s really analyzing for your specific product or service, what are the channels? Because there’s a dozen different marketing channels. There’s billboards. What are the channels that work for your business based upon the nature of your industry and service and product? Because maybe you’re going nationwide, and it’s Facebook advertising and Google advertising. For you, consistency maybe isn’t in the one to one coffees, but the consistency is in the ad spend and not getting disappointed when you spend it and after two months it’s not working.

Becca:  Absolutely. By the way if anybody wants to take out ads, I just want you to know of the timeline. It takes a while for Google to understand who you’re trying to target and get rid of ads that aren’t working and all of that. So if you’re thinking about taking out ads, consider it like a one year project before you start getting massive results from it.

So something that I wanted to mention too is like with social media, I think of it as my primer. Like it primes people to me, right? So now the podcast is a good one as well. People who I’ve never met are coming to me feeling like they know me, right, which is fantastic. That’s what I wanted. Before the podcast, it was social media. So it wasn’t that I was necessarily gaining a ton of clients from social media. It required a both kind of like what you’re saying.

So social media would prime them. By the time I ran into them somewhere or they asked for a coffee, they had been following me for years. They had read all of my things. They felt like they knew me and trusted me so that when we did meet, they were already in on whatever it was that I was selling. So it’s very rare for me to just sell straight on social media. We’ve never met. You’re reading my posts. You’re loving them. Then you buy, right? It does require both.

Jon:  Yeah, absolutely. That’s great.

Becca:  Love it. All right Jon. Is there anything else that you want to talk to my audience about? Is there anything that you’re just like, “Okay. I’m talking to a shit ton of entrepreneurs who are starting up. They’re going into their first six figures, maybe $100,000/$200,000.” Is there anything you want to tell them?

Jon:  I mean there’s a lot, but I think one thing that I’ve really learned along the way is to just make sure you spend time thinking about your business. When you first start out and you don’t have any clients, it’s a lot easier to spend your time doing that. Then because you’ve spent the time thinking about your business and planning and coaching and reading and things like that, you start becoming successful. Then you get busy. Then you start justifying why you don’t have time to do those things anymore.

With my previous company, my former business partner and I started noticing trends in our business. The times that we were growing the most were the times that we were intentionally setting apart time in our week to just think, and to just work on the business. Think about it from outside the box. Get out of the weeds, and really just work on the business. Ask ourselves hard questions and read. Go through some different homework lessons that our coach would give us. Just to brainstorm and get clarity.

The times in our business where we plateaued and felt like we were in a lull and felt like we were struggling and felt like things weren’t working anymore were the times that we had given up those weekly moments of gaining clarity and taking time away from being in the weeds.

So that’s the main thing. Because if you take that time, you’re going to get clarity and you’re going to learn about all the next steps that you need to take. You’re going to continue to get further and further light about what you need to do next. If you stop doing that or you aren’t doing that at all, you’re going to constantly feel stuck. So give yourself space and clarity to think about your business.

Becca:  I 1,000% agree. I want to talk on that just real quick. So like you’re kind of a unicorn in the sense that you’re really great and balancing your front end and back end. When I say front end, I mean customer facing sales. You do both of those. You are out networking, and you are planning the back end.

So I see people, like you’re saying, that get so into the front facing they’re just selling, selling, selling that there’s no infrastructure. That is their bottleneck. That is their kryptonite, right? So they bring in so many clients or they become so obsessed with selling that they’re not thinking about product quality. They’re not thinking about staffing delegation, making sure that people are in the right roles.

Then there’s also people whose bottleneck is being stuck in the back end. I think for some reason I attract more of those people to work with me. I wonder if they hear me and they’re like, “Okay, this is the person that’s going to push me out of this backend stuff because I’m so forward facing.” I have so many clients that are obsessed with the structure that they’ve been building their business and trying to perfect it for months and months, and they’ve only had a client or two or three.

They’re making sure their website is perfect. They’re making sure that the copy on their website is perfect. They’ve got to get the right business cards. They’ve got to make sure they know everything. I have to literally push them off the cliff because there’s just so much fear of putting themselves out there. What do you think about that balance?

Jon:  It’s hard. To be honest, you called me a unicorn. This is not bragging by any means, but I would agree. I feel like I am a unique person in that I do have an interesting balance between a visionary and the manager sort of personalities. I feel like I’m kind of opposite of you. I attract more people who are the visionaries and who are explosive, and the business has outgrown their ability to manage it. Those are the kind of case studies that I love working with because I can help them have a better system for bringing their vision to life and giving them the capacity to grow.

Becca:  Well, it makes so much sense too because in business you want the visionary, and you want the implementer. So one of the reasons that my husband and I worked so well together in Massage Strong was because I was such a visionary, and he was such a backend implementer. If you look at Henry Ford or Walt Disney, they were the visionaries. They had implementers that no one talks about, but they were like the reason that Walt Disney Studios and Ford Motor Company were so successful, right? It makes sense that visionaries are attracted to you and implementers are attracted to me because they’re looking for that balance.

Jon:  Yeah. I’m a huge advocate for at least considering taking on a partner when it’s just you for that very reason. Because some people because of your personality, yes you can grow in your ability to sell and market yourself and put yourself out there. You can grow in the front end, but if everyone’s being honest, it’s really not who you are. Your strengths are backend.

So if you feel like you’re a little bit more to that extreme in terms of personality and skill sets, finding the person who just loves to be explosive and build relationships and could care less about the backend. They just want to get new clients. That could be the best thing you could ever do. Sure you’re going to share equity, but 50% of a million dollar company is better than 100% of a $50,000 company, right?

Becca:  Well I would challenge that, and I would say, if you’re a visionary, go out and get an OBM. Pay them well, give them a $150,000 salary. Then a million dollar company is not split down the middle, right? So you can hire out just about anything. So I agree with you Jon. I can see how having a partner, and especially probably for the audience we’re talking to would be beneficial.

But there was a portion where I was getting ready to sell a portion of Hell Yes Coaching. Because he was such a strong mind, he was such a strong brain. He was everything that I wasn’t, and we’re still really good friends to this day. If I’m being honest, I’m so glad that I didn’t because now I’m hiring an OBM.

If you guys don’t know what an OBM is, imagine it like this. Like this is the way that I think about it. A virtual assistant, they do whatever you need them to do. They’re the hands, not the head. So when I say hands, I mean labor. Head is like someone who’s thinking on behalf of your business. A VA is hands. You tell them what you need, and they go, and they do the labor, right? An OBM is like they tell you what needs to be done because they’re the head, and they delegate to the hands.

So an OBM is always like 20 steps ahead of you. This is what needs to happen. This is where we’re going. They’re the liaisons between the stats of your business and you so that you can understand the full circle view, right? So if you’re a visionary and you don’t have an implementer partner, you can hire an OBM who will become that implementation processing type of person, right.

Jon:  Would you agree then that maybe it’s easier for a visionary to not take on a partner than it is for someone who’s more backend?

Becca:  Well, I was getting ready to ask you. I was actually getting ready to ask you what you thought. Because if you’re an implementer to hire out the visionary, honestly now that I’m thinking about it seems like you could an OBM with a stronger visionary brain than a backend brain because that’s also their job too. Like OBMs, if you get a good one, are supposed to be thinking about the success of your business years ahead and what needs to happen. Or you could get like some sort of PR representative or someone that is just much more visionary. People are ready for hire in whatever it is that you need. Period. You just got to find them.

Jon:  Yeah. I think I just noticed statistically that money solves a lot of problems, right. If you have money, it can solve a lot of problems. I think it’s easier for visionaries at the beginning stage of a business to create cash than it is for someone who’s more of the integrator backend person to create cash.

Becca:  Yeah, I agree with that.

Jon:  So I think that’s why it’s easier for a visionary personality to get launched, start creating cash, and then be able to solve problems with that money that they need.

Becca: 1,000%, yeah.

Jon:  Yeah. So someone who’s all backend, maybe that’s better for them to consider partnering with someone who’s more visionary in order to initially even get off the ground.

Becca:  Yeah. I always say that visionaries have no problem making their first $100,000. That first step, they can just go straight to it. I don’t know why I know this. I don’t have any experience at all in this. But I noticed that visionaries can go straight to $100,000, but it’s a sloppy mess. There’s no infrastructure. There’s no backend anything. No processes are written down.

I even knew a girl that started a massage company. Every time she trained someone, she just reinvented the wheel. It was not written down. It wasn’t anywhere for probably like 16 people. The first 16 people, she just met them and showed them around and hoped that she covered everything.

Jon:  For the record, because of the nature that I do, I work with typically larger companies. I have clients, hopefully aren’t going to hear me say this. I have clients who have multimillion dollar companies, and the visionary is still the one holding it all together and it’s a mess. Right?

Becca:  Yeah, yeah.

Jon:  So it’s not even just $100,000. Some visionaries had the capability of hiring 10/20 people before they realized that this whole train is just about to fall off the tracks.

Becca:  Oh my god. That is so awful. That is so scary.

Jon:  Absolutely.

Becca:  Yes. So be sure that if you are a visionary that you are figuring out how to implement systems and processes. Whether or not you hire someone to do it or whether or not you hire someone to help you do it. If you are an implementer, being able to even just hire a coach that’s a visionary that can kind of crack open your thoughts and your opinions and kind of weasel their way into your mind is extremely helpful.

All right Jon. Well, this was phenomenal. I love hanging out with you. Will you let my audience know how they can get a hold of you? I’m going to also have everything pinged in the show notes so everybody can access it there too, but can you let us know?

Jon:  Yeah. So obviously I’m on Facebook and LinkedIn. Jon Fox. So John with no H. I’m part of EOS Worldwide. So my email address is [email protected].

Becca:  You know what’s funny Jon is I’ve spent this entire interview trying not to just make fun of you because half of our relationship is just bantering back and forth. It’s a really big part of why I like you. Like you take jokes really easily. I don’t actually think anything problematic at all. I have so much respect for you. But part of our relationship is just joking back and forth. I feel like we held it together really well today.

Jon:  We did for sure.

Becca:  We really were so professional. Profess. The most professional people ever. I love it. All right Jon. Thank you so much for being here. Of course, as always, thank you for also going through Three More. For anybody that is looking to grow their business, the number one thing that I want you guys to be thinking about is sales. So no matter where you’re at in your business, if you don’t have a really strong hold on sales, it is time to start learning.

So Three More is now enrolling. This is an eight week course where you will be learning all about the basics of sales, holding a consult, coaching through objections, showing up authentically, and learning about money mindset. Jon, do you have anything to say about your time in Three More?

Jon:  Yeah. As someone who went through it three times, I can testify that it is amazing. You get to meet a lot of really cool people. So there’s like a community aspect to it. There’s a lot of value that you just get in meeting new people and getting ideas from them. You’re getting coached not only from Becca and John, but you’re getting coached from other individuals. The videos, the content, the training, the questions, the coaching. Everything is extremely valuable, and I would recommend anyone who owns their own business to 100% go through it.

Becca:  Aw, thank you Jon. If you are interested in 30 More, my more advanced group, you have to go through Three More first. So just throwing that out there. I’ve had a lot of people that have contacted me saying that they’re waiting for the 30 More doors to open. You have to go through Three More at least one time to be invited or to be accepted into 30 More. So go to www.threemoreclients.com to register today. All right thank you Jon Fox. Thank you, audience. I’ll see you guys next week.

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