Choosing the Right Business Model for You with Chris Williams

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, mastermind, group, build, teach, expert, book, specialization, listening, coaching, weeks, community, niche, market, absolutely, content, higher profit margin, question, group coaching program

SPEAKERS
Alastair McDermott, Chris Williams

Chris Williams  00:00

Yeah, folks, if you’ve not already figured it out by now, market specialization, niching down, picking out your avatar, your customer profile, whatever you want to call it is so important.  Okay, if you sell smartphones, I’m holding up an iPhone right now for those of you who can’t see on video, you can have an iPhone or an Android, but there’s really not that many people floating around that have keys on their phones anymore, right? Most of us have screens. This is a pretty generalized product, I can offer this product to lots of different kinds of people because it’s a cultural norm. Okay? It’s a cultural norm. I can offer pairs of pants with two legs. Because the cultural norm, I can sell shoes two at a time, because the cultural norm. If I want to start selling shoes, three at a time and start convincing people you want to have a left or right and a complete neutral down the middle, not left or right that won’t fit either of you feet, but you get to make it a collector’s item on your shelf and show your grandkids all the shoes you ever wore, that would be changing a culture. Welcome to The Recognized Authority, a podcast that helps specialized consultants and domain experts on your journey to become known as an authority in your field. So you can increase your reach, have more impact and work with great clients. Here’s your host, Alastair McDermott.

Alastair McDermott  01:26

Okay, so today my guest is Chris Williams, and I’m gonna do something a bit different. I’m actually going to ask Chris to introduce himself because he’s just in the middle of a rebrand that will probably be done by the time you’re listening to this. So Chris, can you just introduce your business yourself and tell us a little bit about the rebrand?

Chris Williams  01:42

Absolutely, Alastair. So first of all, thanks for hanging out, letting me hang out with your audience and everybody listening or watching. This is super fun. So let’s talk rebranding in a second. Here’s the essence of what me and my group do. We take business experts and teach them how to build high ticket group coaching programs or masterminds of their own. It is by far the simplest and fastest way to high profit margin business model. Okay, that’s what we do.  So to get into rebranding real quick because we started this recording, Alastair and I just a few minutes, we were like talking about the rebrand, like, let’s just do this on the air and let’s get this captured. So yeah, our past brand, nobody here will see this past brand because this airs after the re, the rebrand, was elite agency mastermind, okay. If you go to elite agency mastermind calm as you’re listening this it will be forwarded to GroupCoachNation.com. So we’ve changed really agency mastermind GroupCoachnation.com.  The reason for that is simple. We just simply have followed our market. So when we started teaching, our own mastermind, I run a done for you digital agency, as well, working with surgeons in sub specialties, completely a different market. We started teaching other digital agency owners how to run their digital agency done for you services really efficiently. I work like an hour and a half a week in that business. I have a great team process. We’re teaching that process.

Alastair McDermott  03:10

That’s, that’s crazy. That’s brilliant.

Chris Williams  03:12

Yeah, it’s great. It lets me It lets me play on a surfboard and ride bikes and skateboards a lot. So I have five kids, we travel, we do stuff, right. So there’s there’s that that elite agency mastermind was speaking to agency owners. Over time, as we’ve continued to teach that which we still do, more than half of the people who’ve gone through that have identified themselves as experts who want to teach their own mastermind. So we started teaching our mastermind launch process, because I probably work six to eight hours a week, leading a mastermind, that would be two mastermind. 68 hours a week, six to eight hours a week, not 68, Oh my gosh, that’d be scary. And and that generates a lot. So we teach that process. So our audience moved from more agency owners, to experts wanting to build their own group coaching processes or high ticket masterminds. So we shifted the name to Group Coach Nation to be more relevant to be we serve super simple.

Alastair McDermott  04:09

There’s a few different things I want to dig into and what you’re doing. So first of all, I just want to mention that being in a mastermind, is something I recommend for everybody. It’s, we can dig into what that actually means what that is, but I personally found it to be the single most useful thing that I did in my business by, by far. And so that’s that’s important. I think it’s it’s getting that external feedback. I think that everybody needs to have some kind of external feedback, be that a business coach, or be that like a group, a group of some kind of mastermind, whatever you call it. I’m also interested in digging into the difference between group coaching and masterminds, which we can talk about in a little bit.  You mentioned a buzzword that everybody is going to be sick of hearing from me, which is specialization. And I want to dig into that specialization part. And I particularly want you to think explain to the audience exactly how niche your, your digital agency is targeting the surgeons because I think that is so amazing. So let’s let’s leave that as an open loop to come back to later because it’s just amazing how niche down you are there.  So let’s see where to where to start, I think let’s just talk about the difference between group coaching and mastermind because you’re actually rebranding away from mastermind towards group coaching. Is there, you know, is that like a subtle distinction? Or is there a big difference between those two things?

Chris Williams  05:30

Yeah, you know, it’s semantics really Allaster the The reason we went with group coach nation instead of masterminds nation could have been because the .com has already purchased. I don’t remember how that process from months ago. But, but truly, here’s the real reason the the searches that come through Google, people think of a high ticket mastermind, in terms of a group of people that you’re leading, that are amazing humans, and you’re bringing them in and charging them a legit fee to be under your tutelage. And to be in a community of people learning the same things. It’s very rapid transformation. As you said a minute ago, like being a part of a mastermind. For me too, Alastair, like is this is like the best thing ever. I’m, I’m a member of masterminds myself as a student.  So here’s the thing, reason we come up with group coach versus mastermind is because people search for the words group coach, more than they search for the word mastermind. If you type in how to launch a mastermind program, often Google will start filling in that line with how to launch a group coach program, how to launch a high ticket, it’ll start filling in group coach before it starts filling in mastermind, simple research like that, you know, it’s semantics. But ultimately, I just wanted to be as relevant as I could to the to the niche back to back to picking out a select group of people to work with, right?

Alastair McDermott  06:51

Right, right. So can you talk to me a little bit about what a mastermind or a group coaching group actually looks like and how it operates from, from your perspective?

Chris Williams  07:02

Absolutely. There’s lots of different views of how this can work. But here’s what we teach, you got a group of people who are trying to find this transformation. Let’s say people listening right now, if you’re an ads expert, if you’re a copywriting expert, a marketing expert, a website builder expert, if you’re a hvac expert, if you’re hiring and firing a VA expert, whatever you are, your expertise is worth an enormous amount, because it’s taking you a lot of time, blood, sweat, and tears, to figure out how to be that expert.  There is a segment of every market that wants to know what you know, they want to crack the code, and they don’t want to wait, their time, experience, enjoyment of life is worth more than money to them. So they prefer to join a group that you’ve hand selected, that’s going to this transformational process to become what you are now. And they’d like to pay you to sit in your group for eight weeks, 12 weeks, six months, whatever, with another group of people who do the same thing, where you’re getting to teach, here’s how to do what you’re trying to accomplish. And here’s the homework. Here’s the template like let’s do it together, building a community accountability and real resources. That’s a mastermind.  And it’s absolutely transformative, better than one on one as you know, Alastair, better than one on one coaching. Because you’re in accountability, you’re in community. And truly, Alastair, I don’t know if you felt the same thing. But in the masterminds, I’ve been a student in what what convinced me to build, masterminds was being in a mastermind. And I realized, as good as the host of the mastermind was, I’ve been privileged to sit in some great masterminds with some hosts that are well loved by all of us. It’s the people, it’s the other people in the mastermind, who were more transformational to me than the host, because they ask questions that like Aha, or they help me or we come along together and partner on things like it’s the connections, the relationships, it is worth the price of admission, just for the relationships in every mastermind I’ve ever been a part of.

Alastair McDermott  09:07

Yeah, there is a kind of a multiplying effect of you know, that just the the number of people being there. And I think that, you know, most masterminds that I’ve been a member of, and I’ve seen haven’t been huge numbers, like, like, I see people talking about being in a mastermind with 100 people that doesn’t sound mastermind,

Chris Williams  09:25

That’s not a mastermind.

Alastair McDermott  09:26

You know, six or eight people kind of is is is the numbers that I’ve seen that have been very successful. So let let’s just talk about you know, if somebody if somebody is interested, first off if somebody is interested in finding a mastermind, and what are the benefits that might be for them? So somebody listening to this, and saying, you know, I’m actually going to go look for a group coach, or I’m going to look for mastermind, what kind of things should they be looking out for?

Chris Williams  09:51

Yeah, first of all you should look for and this is absolutely the first thing you should look for someone you trust. So is there an author, a speaker and expert and authority in your world in your genre that you trust. Alright, that’s number one. And you might not know them personally, but you follow them along to be like this person’s for real.  Second thing is that they’ve already accomplished what you’re trying to accomplish next. Let’s say you’re trying to write your first book. While I’ve been following this person who ghost writes and has this entire book launch process, okay, you’ve been following for years, just never get around to writing a book, awesome. You learn to trust them, you listen to a podcast, you’ve read their blogs, you’ve watched the YouTube videos, you gotten to know him a little bit. Let’s say they’ve already authored several books that are truly best sellers in their genres on Amazon, or wherever, if you trust them, and they’ve done what you’re trying to do, now, you know, you’re onto something, you’re not just trustworthy, but they have the ability, that’s cool.  The third thing is do they offer a a small group coaching process is, if you want to have someone do the work for you, like offering a book is a great example that if somebody goes try to book market everything, go drop 60 or 80 grand, and have somebody do it for you, good for you. If you want to be in the process and be the author yourself. don’t hire a one on one coach, find somebody trust, find somebody who’s done it and find somebody who’s also leading a group of people trying to do what you’re trying to do because you will learn more in the group than you ever will one on one.  So that’s what I tell everybody, whatever your thing is, find the person who’s done it successfully that you trust that also is teaching it a tight group format that formula right there those three things bring more rapid transformation than anything else. Can I break that down a little farther faster?

Alastair McDermott  11:36

Absolutely.

Chris Williams  11:37

Okay. So the group thing of our talked about that you transform faster in the group alright? Psychologist, psychiatrist, all the therapy world they’ve, they’ve embraced that completely as well. Like it’s, it’s there. It’s just the way our brains work for veteran communities. Alright, that’s the group thing. Somebody who’s already had success in the model. Obviously, they’ve had success, they’ve done it, they’ve made all the mistakes that you’re about to start to make and they’re gonna be able to pull you back faster. They’re a good guide. You don’t want to hire a whitewater river guide, my Jill and our kids, we love doing adventures. We love whitewater river rafting, we came to the UK over near you. Alastair, right before the pandemic. And every time we land in a new city, around the world where we go the first day in the New City is always a bike tour. Alright.  I don’t want to take a bike tour or whitewater trip with a guide who’s never freakin been in the city before. Like, I want to know, do you know where my kids are going to get run over by a bus because I want to avoid that intersection, right? So I want to see somebody who has access. The, the first thing I mentioned, which is trust, you don’t want to be second guessing everything your coach tells you. If you can’t trust him when you come into it, then every time you go through a new topic, you’re going to be googling it and second guessing them, you just don’t have the space for that you got to be able to listen, take action and move forward confidently. So trust someone who’s had the experience already and done done well at it. And it has a group format for you.

Alastair McDermott  12:56

Okay, and so now let’s flip that. And you mentioned at the start that one of the fastest ways to highly profitable business model is actually set up a mastermind or group coach, group coaching program. Can you can you talk about if we’re going to be on the other side of that? Can you talk a little bit about how that might work?

Chris Williams  13:17

Oh, yeah. Like if you’re the host of the mastermind, yeah. It’s so highly profitable, and scalable, and you get paid while you’re building. That’s kind of the magic mix here. So let me kind of unpack that a little bit. Most of us when we realize, Oh, I’m an expert, I like I’ve done the last 5, 10, 20 years of work to get where I am today. And people are asking me to help them with their projects, using my expertise are taking me to lunch and SEO activities, like they want my knowledge. Once you realize that’s happening, you’re gonna start spending your time either one on one coaching, a lot of us start building like ebooks or real books or online courses, we’re going down that path, right? And we’re building all of that expertise into a product that we can hand someone else in a scalable way.  The problem is we’re doing that in a vacuum. All right. None of us are pre selling our E course or our book before we write it, you got to go spend the three months to write the book, then you try to sell it, and then you realize, Oh, I’m sold seven copies. And three of those were my grandparents. That literally count. And it’s because I didn’t understand that the market wanted something slightly different. I might have gotten close, but not exactly.  Going directly to a high ticket group coaching offer, or mastermind, allows you to organically reach into the market, have real conversations about what you’re teaching and how you’re going to transform people and offer a real product before you build anything. And in our model, we actually teach people to do that prospecting, offer creation and selling before they even create any content, because you believe it or not, will be able to deliver the content, you just got to confirm that people will buy from you. And then immediately you’re getting paid to build.

Alastair McDermott  15:11

Right? So when you’re talking about a, this, I think for me, I know this, this is a lot of semantics and nuance. But this for me seems to be the big difference between a group coaching program and a mastermind is that in a group coaching program, there’s actually some content. Whereas I think a mastermind is more more of a stateless thing. It’s kind of like its its day to day, at least those are the ones that I’ve personally experienced? Or is the group coaching program’s that have been in have been more kind of content led? Is that something that that you’ve seen? Or is that you know, is that is that a distinction that you would make?

Chris Williams  15:48

There is a distinction there area. And, and I’m more of a hybrid model of those two, in, in what I do personally, and the way I advise people to do it, because the the mastermind that’s kind of open forum free flowing, but but guided with an expert is harder for people coming on board to realize, I’m not just part of a community that’s talking and dealing with these things. But adding a little group coaching flavor, the way you defined it, where there’s an actual syllabus, so to speak of we’re going here really gives everybody a clear vision of you’re in this program for a period of time, and we’re here to accomplish something. We’re also here for the support the day in day out the what’s really going on under the hood. But for most of us in business in particular, it’s so important for us to know, I got this problem, I need this solution. I don’t know how to go from here to there. And I don’t want to crack the code on my own. Can you, can you build me a space to do that? And so I like the hybrid model for that reason, hybrid between as you define group and mastermind differences.

Alastair McDermott  16:54

Right. So, so if somebody is considering this, they maybe they’ve done like you talked about, they’ve done a lot of one on one. And they said, Okay, I’m gonna try this group thing quite like, where do they start in terms of fleshing out what it actually looks like? How many people should I have? How often should we meet? All of those kinds of things? Can you can you kind of just lay out some, maybe best practices that you’ve, you’ve seen?

Chris Williams  17:19

Yeah. And it’s a really great question. And almost everybody asked the same question. Let’s turn this thing around, Alastair. So for everybody listening, we I thought the same thing going into it, how many weeks is it going to be? And when do we meet? And is it Thursdays or Tuesdays or whatever? Well, we have to have an organic market that we’re having conversations with that help us decide those things.  Because here’s the thing, Alastair, let’s say that you and I are going to be in a mastermind and work I’m looking at my desk here, for those of you who can’t see me, I have a water bottle here on my desk. We’re going to, we’re going to put together, Alastair and I’m going to put do this mastermind is gonna be amazing, folks, you’re gonna love it, we’re gonna teach you how to drink a bottle of water. Oh, yeah, this is a good one to 50.7 fluid ounces of water. By the end of eight weeks, we’re going to teach you how to drink a bottle of water. Okay, cool offer. We’re gonna charge you 20,000 bucks for two, you’re gonna be the best bottle drinker ever. Here’s the problem, all of you out there in our market just intuitively know, it doesn’t take eight weeks to learn how to drink a bottle of water, we should have like a 32nd mastermind, because it’s about that easy, right?  So if I think it’s going to take eight weeks to teach this concept, and the market thinks it’s only going to take four weeks, because of a cultural norm or something else, some other huge influencer has taught, I got to help them see that maybe we’re going to take six weeks, or we’re going to compress it. Or I gotta have intelligent conversations with them to let them know that, hey, you might believe it takes four weeks, it only takes 30 seconds, I can show you the shortcut. But ultimately, me pre framing my content delivery doesn’t allow me to understand what they expect it to take. And that’s so important. So as you’re building, you have to go through a formative process with an organic market and very intentional conversations and messaging to understand what are they actually want out of this. So I can frame the transformation I know I can give them in a way they can accept.

Alastair McDermott  19:23

Right. Okay, so we’re talking about we’re talking about understanding the transformation that you’re helping people with understanding where how they view that, how long that they would expect that to take because that’s, because if that doesn’t, if that’s not congruent with what you’re saying will need to be done, then that’s not going to work. And so then the next thing is, like a lot of a lot of these transformations that people are like that consultants and experts are helping people with their quite significant and because they’re very significant they they quite often take quite a long time.  I mean, helping somebody change their business model, specialize doing things like that can sometimes take several years. So, so some, like somebody who’s looking at that, you know, bring spring somebody through. And they might say, Well, you know, we can help you take that from multiple years down to, you know, maybe six months or eight months or something like that, it’s still a very significant amount of time. So would you would you break it down less than that?  And then the other question I have is, what about the people who are at different stages? So when when you’re starting these masterminds, you’re going to have some people who were further down the road than others? Do you need to get them lined up? Or can you have people at different stages that you know, will the will the people who are behind be able to contribute to those who are in front of them?

Chris Williams  20:43

You know, Alastair, what you’re really asking, is, there’s so many differences in people out there. How do we get everybody lined up in the same space? That’s a market specialization issue. Let’s just bring out the niche conversation. How about that?

Alastair McDermott  21:00

Okay.

Chris Williams  21:02

I feel like we’re, we’re like got a puppy in a box. And we’re like, cramming the lid close, this puppy wants to get out, like, Come on, let’s just go. Alright, so yeah, folks, if you’ve not already figured it out, by now, market specialization, niching down, picking out your avatar, your customer profile, whatever you want to call it is so important.  Okay. If you sell smartphones, I’m holding up an iPhone right now, for those of you who can’t see on video, you can have an iPhone or an Android, but there’s really not that many people floating around that have keys on their phones anymore, right? Most of us have screens, this is a pretty generalized product, I can offer this product to lots of different kinds of people, because it’s a cultural norm.  Okay, it’s a cultural norm, I can offer pairs of pants with two legs, because the cultural norm, I can sell shoes two at a time, because the cultural norm, if I want to start selling shoes, three at a time, and start convincing people that you want to have a left or right and a complete neutral, down the middle, not left to right, that won’t fit either of you feet, but you get to make it a collector’s item on your shelf and show your grandkids all the shoes you ever wore. That would be changing a culture. All right, that’s very hard to do.  So when you’re starting out, unless you’re a big brand, it is wise to narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow down and find the cultural norm that you and your expertise can serve. That’s in a very specific place, niche time, geographic location, mindset, political affiliation, racial demographic, gender orientation, certain style of social media, you like the way you consume content, the way you dress, whatever it is, find those people and speak to them where they are, because they will resonate with your message if it’s authentic in a real place in time. Otherwise, you’re going to have to if I was trying to run a I’m here in the United States. So I know, I know, for all of you non US based folks, our political cycle is quite entertaining, I get it. All right, we’re a messy bunch over here. It’s like the worst family ever the part

Alastair McDermott  23:20

I choose to use.

Chris Williams  23:22

So, so if I’m running for a political space in my country, which I never want to do, it would be really hard for me to have a message that reaches all of the major parties at once. You got to boil it down, some people gonna love you, some are gonna hate you. So it works politics. Same with any market space, they might not love or hate you. But the ones who are going to buy from you are going to resonate with you. And the more you can say things that resonate with them, the more likely they are to connect and buy from you. So Alastair, all the questions about how long should it be what the content structure gonna be like? What kind of transformation really promising? It comes down to what group are you working with? Is that make sense?

Alastair McDermott  24:05

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so everything flows then from that specialization. And I mean, like we talked originally just mean on the pre show about specialization being the first thing, and I knew we would we would get to it eventually. Just as an aside, can you just describe the specialization for your agency with it the surgeons because I think that’s really interesting.

Chris Williams  24:29

Yeah, absolutely. So folks, I do two things. We’re in two business models. In my, in my world, one of them is what we’re talking about here. I teach business experts, sales marketing, lead gen ad agencies website that was one of those, all those kind of things. I teach experts how to build their own high ticket group coaching programs or masterminds. Alright, very specialized there. I teach a specific type of person, how to do a specific thing. All right, and we get it done. That’s all we do. We’re good at it.  The other business I have is just as specialized. We work with surgeons in sub specialties. Those sub specialties have to be very attic surgery, plastic surgery or cosmetic surgery. And we help them generate high ticket cash pay patients. So patients who want to pay cash for bariatric cosmetic, or plastic surgery, oh, let’s take it one step farther. And only in super niche communities like they’re in a very specific rural community, or they’re in a very high end, Miami, LA, you know, type very specific niche of a community. That’s it. If you’re a pediatrician, and you call my company, we won’t take you on. If you’re a heart doctor, and you call my company we won’t take you on. It’s just not what we do.  But what’s that what’s done there is it’s allowed us to be extremely good at that very specific thing and get it done quickly. It also allows us to be able to communicate very clearly to our market, their staff, all the people in their community, exactly what we did, we don’t have to recreate the wheel ever, we got this. And that’s so so important. It makes a lot of efficiencies happen. It also means that we’re always successful when we work for a client in either of our niches, we want to make sure that we can get results, right? Otherwise you start getting a bad name in the market. That’s no fun. Nobody wants that.

Alastair McDermott  26:22

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So and there’s a couple things you mentioned there, you know, you were able to optimize your processes, because you’re working with, with these very specific niche, you’re able to optimize your processes, which is making it more profitable, making it faster, your communications are more clear, your messaging is very clear. People will know even, even after listening to this, they will know if they know somebody like that. It’s just It’s very, you know, it’s very obvious. And yeah, I think that there are just, you know, so many benefits that come from that. And then the other question, are you able to command higher prices with your clients? Because you’re more specialized than your competitors who were more general?

Chris Williams  27:03

Yeah. And that’s a big thing with specialization. And we really pushed on that in our own mastermind training, teaching other experts how to build their own masterminds, for instance, because once once the experts in our community realized, okay, I need to go after very specific niche, then they get their messaging, they can get the prospects on, they can get the sales calls done, they can, they can teach one set of content, get it done, they can also make their prices, higher, build in higher profit margins, because their results are so dialed in.  If, if someone is in the business, marketing, sales, authorship expert realm, and they’re trying to build a high tech group could you bring that we built, like, I know how to do that, you joining our program, and getting clients and building a group is not a hope it happens. It’s a foregone conclusion. And so it’s easy for me to say, here’s the price for that, because I know how long it will take you to pay that back like I can I can make that cash flow model work. If I was working with everybody out there, it’d be really difficult for me to really be able to confidently say, yeah, this is gonna work for you. Because if you’re going to build a Group Dog Training Program, and teach a whole bunch of their dog owners how to teach their puppies to sit and stay, I don’t know, maybe I could crack the code on how to get people in the door for you, but I’m not quite sure. You got to know your space. And you got to be awesome at it. And that’s the reason we teach that.

Alastair McDermott  28:32

And the other thing there is I think with the specialization stuff is as you go deeper into it, you do more and more projects, you develop that expertise further and further and further. And so you really do become you know, this have this deep expertise and domain knowledge that your competitors who might be generalists and might be very smart. But if they haven’t, you know, put in the hours of working with the same types of clients over and over and over again, they just won’t have the same level of insight. I think that’s important as well. Okay, let’s get off the specialization train because I talk about it too much in this podcast, or probably even talk to me about that. Okay,

Chris Williams  29:11

Sounds like your podcast should be renamed to specializing authority.

Alastair McDermott  29:15

When people listen to this podcast, there’s probably going to be a podcast out called The Specialization Podcast, which I’m recording at the moment. So there it is. I did have I do have some people say to me, Hey, you know, you should go with the specialization podcast. As I was thinking, actually, no, I’m gonna make another podcast about that topic. So yeah,

Chris Williams  29:37

The rebrand right, there it is.

Alastair McDermott  29:39

I should be live side by side with this one, actually. So that should be live, free to download. Okay, so let’s talk then about the different business models that are available. And maybe we’ll wrap back around to the group, the group coaching thing again. But I think for people who are experts and consultants, typically, they’re the business model that they have, if they’re in consulting, quite often they’re doing, they’re doing a consulting project, which is sometimes strategy, sometimes implementation, and sometimes some combination of both of those. And I think most consultants, over time may want to move out of the implementation and more into the strategy field because it’s more profitable and less time consuming. That’s, that’s my, my experience with that, would you agree with that?

Chris Williams  30:28

Absolutely. You know, everybody that has grandkids you like, do you like having grandkids, like, yes, the best thing ever, I get to spoil the kid rotten, and then hand it back to their parents or whatever, cool. That’s what coaching becomes, like, when you’re the done for you service, you’re the parent, you’re doing all the work with them, when you’re the coaching consulting type, you just get to hang out with the grandkids, and then do the work. It’s brilliant.

Alastair McDermott  30:48

That’s, that’s, that’s a brilliant analogy. I love that. So, and, you know, we’ve been, we’ve all been there, at least, I think some people who listen to this will have been the, the, the parents getting the kids back, you know, and they’re all sugared up, and they’re all like running around like crazy. And that’s where, you know, you get handed this project, you have no say over over the the overall strategy just to look this way you need to implement on, and it’s not really a nice place to be when you don’t have control, and you say, oh, who made this decision and can we go back? And no, it was made, you know, the CEO, and the consultants made that decision, you know, just got to soak it up and implement.  It’s not a nice place to be if if, if those if that strategy wasn’t set correctly, if you know, in your opinion, and they can, you know, those can be difficult projects to work on. And so let’s say we have an A, so I was talking purely from consulting point of view, I was talking about consulting, implementation and strategy, and then we have coaching, which would, would be different again, one to one coaching, then we’d have group coaching. So can we talk a little bit about, you know, the difference between coaching and consulting? Because this is something that I’m experiencing at the moment, as I move more into to a coaching role? Is that something you talk to people about much?

Chris Williams  32:06

Yeah, it is. And here’s what it comes down to, Alastair, you know, for each of us, as entrepreneurs as just humans on this cool planet we live on. We all have to make critical decisions about lots of things in life. Unfortunately, money is one of the things we all have to talk about. So just be honest about this. You want to have as much fun as possible, generating as much money as possible, and as little amount of time as possible. Okay, I want to enjoy the work, I want to be profitable. And I don’t want to take a lot of time, time of those three things is the only limited resource you can make more fun happen tomorrow. You can’t make more time happen tomorrow, you can make more money tomorrow, you can make more time.  So you got to look at done for you services, coaching, consulting, group leadership and group mastermind training, whatever you want to do, which one makes you the most amount of money in the least amount of time that you enjoy doing the most? Some people, some people some of you listening right now, really, really love doing the work you like the done for you service, don’t feel bad, don’t feel like you’re not in the right place. Lean into Alastair he’s got tons of great advice on how to make that just sing for you.  The thing is, some of you like that song, you’re like, Man, I’m kind of getting burnt out doing all the work, I want to just push people the right direction. That’s the coaching role, right? And it’s a little more efficient financially, it’s higher profit margin typically. And it’s less work for you if some of you want to get in the pure strategy, the consulting role, where you’re not really keeping people accountable as much like coaches do like your high school, sports team coach, you’re just more than consultant, you’re like the principal over the school, you’re just saying, here’s the direction you need to go, let’s set the big vision you and your team take it from here, that’s higher profit margin even. And even easier and less time on the consultant.  And then there’s the group model, which is a little bit of a hybrid of that consulting and coaching model. Here’s the main direction. Now let’s get in together as a group and really hammer this thing out as a team. I personally find a lot of fun in that. So that’s why I do that group model. So you know, a lot of people by the way, Alastair in our mastermind, groups that we help people launch in in our mastermind for building masterminds. A lot of people do a hybrid of the coaching consulting piece in their mastermind but they also have a done for you agency that helps their mastermind members get stuff done if they get bogged down and need help getting caught up and they charge extra for that.  So there’s so many cool hybrids you can use. Ultimately, where do you make the most amount of time and most amount of money in the least amount of time that you really have fun doing? If you can put those three for those of you listening picture like three like Olympic circles, right kind of overlapping got three circles in that little spot in the middle where they all overlap that that perfect little spot in the middle is the sweet spot of where you’re entrepreneurial journey will feel most fulfilling. And and you’ll do the best work because you won’t get burnt out. You’ll be there. And that’s that’s such a cool spot to be.

Alastair McDermott  35:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I really like your focus on, you know, making sure that that you enjoy the work that you’re doing. I think that’s what gives you the longevity because there’s, you know, life’s too short to get burned at.  Okay, so let’s see, is there anything else that I should ask you that I haven’t already about group coaching? And you know, if somebody is interested in setting up that kind of model, is there anything else that we need to know about that?

Chris Williams  35:36

You know, I think I would just advise people to, to really understand, first of all, that you’re an expert, every one of us is an expert. Don’t discount what you know, I promise you, you’re an expert. And, and lean in on a community, you’re welcome to join my country have tons of free stuff, we have awesome communities that are free in our space. And you can just ask questions like, here’s what I think I’m an expert in, how would I frame this up? What would I talk about, like, ask those questions that are coming? Because having a sounding board where other people can look in and say, Oh, you do those things? Well, you’re an expert in this, like, here’s what you’d say, Oh, my gosh, I never thought about that way.  It’s so hard for us to see. Unfortunately, I think we all just look at other people’s Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn accounts and think we’re not as good as they are. We all go to a convention or conference and see some amazing speaker and think I’ll never be that the note. That person was you a few years ago. And you’re way ahead of your market right now. They are you a few years ago in your life.  So own your expertise, like you got to own that and believe it first that’s where that’s where it all starts, and then all sudden, you can get a vision for, oh, I see where this can go one on one or group you see where it can go.

Alastair McDermott  36:52

Yeah, and you know, on that, like, you look at these people, and they talk about having 20, 30, 40, 40,000 people on their email list, they all started at zero. You know, they they, they all set it up one day and had nobody on there. Maybe their mom’s subscribed, you know. So everybody did start at zero and took it up.  So there is one other thing I wanted to ask you about, which was how do you frame when you’re talking to somebody? How do you pre sell when you don’t actually have anything built? Because I think that’s a conversation that people might find difficult, like, how do I actually say like, I don’t have anything right now. And I want to start this? I want to start this group? I don’t have any other members, you’re the first one I’d like to recruit into it. Like how is it even a group at that point? So you know, there’s there’s, there’s things like that, that people will or you know, and I see this as well in the in the coaching, sorry, the course online course base, people say you should pre sell your course before you build it. So can you talk about that a bit? Because I think that’s something that people might find interesting.

Chris Williams  37:52

Absolutely. So just simply, instead of saying, Look, I’m starting, let’s say, Alastair, and I remember our little water bottle mastermind, we’re going to build this is going to be so great. I’m so glad to partner with you on this camp, we were going to talk for eight weeks about drinking the water bottle was eight or six weeks, I forget now.  So instead of me saying Alastair and I are starting our very first group coaching program, we’re going to call it a mastermind and we’re starting it in three weeks. We don’t have anybody signed up yet, you’d be the first one, would you like to put your name on the list? Nobody’s going to sign up for that. The same thing is simple to say, hey, our next group is starting in three weeks, would you like to reserve a seat, it’s surely a first come first serve scenario. When the seats are gone, they’re gone. We’re taking 10 people.  Same thing. It just simply allows for the person not to inherit our insecurity. We frequently come to these sales conversations with a lot of our own imposter syndrome, insecurity, whatever. Honestly, that’s between us and our therapist, keep it in the therapy session. It doesn’t belong in the sales session.

Alastair McDermott  38:58

Yeah, yes.

Chris Williams  38:59

So just letting people know, hey, the group starts in three weeks, here’s the date. First come first serve. Would you like to go ahead and reserve a seat?

Alastair McDermott  39:07

Okay. And then, is there anything you know, on the content side, if you’re talking about creating group coaching, and you don’t actually have any content created for that, like you don’t have any videos or any, you know, some people will have a process that they bring people through, but maybe it’s not formally documented. They just know what the process is? Where would you start with with kind of organizing and kind of putting some formality, some kind of formal process around that?

Chris Williams  39:35

Again, it’s organic, prospecting, getting people on it in a community and on your calendar, and then the sales piece. Until the sales piece happens, don’t build content. If you got content ideas flying around your head, folks, as you’re listening, they’re like, Oh my gosh, I got the idea. I’ve got like, I could write this down, 10 weeks right now. Great. Go ahead and go ahead. Pause the recording. We’ll be here when you get back. Okay, you’re back.  Alright, so you just wrote down your 10 ideas on a Google document. Okay, great. Let’s call that your beginner syllabus. Leave it there. Now. Now let’s go back to prospecting and selling. Because you’re going to learn so much in the prospecting and selling time, you’re going to change this document so many times. So don’t go pre record, don’t go building templates. Don’t go building slides yet. If you got another cool idea in five minutes, go put it on your Google document, the first week that you begin to teach, let’s say you sell your first five people in.  Alright, our goal in our programs is to get your first five people sold for at least $5,000 per seat. We’d like you to sell for more, we’ll get there soon. If you, if you’re struggling, we want you at least 5k. So $5,000, five people 25,000 US dollars in the first six to eight weeks, alright. We’re going to get a group started, we’re going to go, alright.  So now you’re getting paid, get 25k in the bank, you’re going to build this thing out. Week one, when I’m teaching, I probably know, Alastair, that I’m going to teach people to take the bottle lid off before they start drinking the water. Since we’re doing a little mastermind about water bottles, probably know that. But then I’m going to realize, oh my gosh, the five people I invited to my group that bought, they don’t even know how to pick water out of the grocery store yet. They don’t know if it says plain water. Or if it says it’s strawberry flavored, they got to know that. And then they got to know how to checkout at the at the supermarket aisle. And then they got to know how to take the lid off. There were steps in front of this I should have included and so it’s going to inform my content.  So no pre recording stuff. Just simply prospect, and sell. Pick a date, get a collection of people, and then inform what you’re going to teach week 1, 2, 3 and, and I would strongly advise get week to kind of as your, as you’re recording and going and building your slides for week one, are not recording your record live in your group, you’re building your slides your content, you’re going to know about what group wants to be, then you’re gonna have a Q&A at the end. Hey, guys, How’d that go? What questions can I answer? Anybody stuck? They’re gonna ask questions you like.  That’s a good question. You know, we have a bonus coming up on Tuesday that we drop in the membership area, just for that. You’re just writing this stuff down frantically, you didn’t have a bonus planned, but you do now you got to like, be organic. And as the thing happens, you’ll know what to do. You’re the expert, if you don’t Google it, and then create a bonus figured out and help your people. If you show up. Everybody, like listen to this. It’s nerve wracking. Having your first group I was so scared the first time. But I showed up with a 100% commitment to get everybody in my group through the process, right? I promised them I would do that. I promised myself I would do that. If it took me five days a week of creating five new bonuses to tag on to last week’s training. I was there. If you show up with that mindset, you’ll be fine. They will transform and all of a sudden you’re gonna have they’re gonna look back six or eight weeks later be like, wow, we truly did this contents amazing. And they’re all gonna be blown away testimonial will start rolling in. Your next group gets even easier.

Alastair McDermott  43:04

Awesome. Yeah, I, no, no words. that’s a that’s a great way of, of laying it. Okay, we’re running up on time. So I’m gonna wrap this. I do have a couple of questions I like to ask people I don’t know if you if you saw these in the FAQ or not. The one question I ask people is about a business book or resource that you found particularly inspirational or useful in your journey? Is there anything you’d recommend that people should, should check out?

Chris Williams  43:32

Absolutely. So Building Happiness, sorry, “Delivering Happiness”, Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. He is the guy who created Zappos shoes, sold it to Amazon for I think 1.1 billion with a B. And it’s a great culture book. Yeah, there’s some pros and cons to the way Zappos culture was built early stage. But the pros really outweigh the cons. They, he did a really good job as a leader getting to know his people, his culture, his community, and for all of us, we could use a little more of that kind of love and respect for people as we build our communities, I, I would start there.

Alastair McDermott  44:10

Yeah, yeah. I’m a big fan of fun, happiness, love when it comes to business because I think all of that, all of that is is kind of forgotten about sometimes, like the you know, even the phrase, he’s all business, you know, that, that, that means serious, shouldn’t shouldn’t.

Chris Williams  44:27

I don’t want to hang out with him.

Alastair McDermott  44:30

So, okay, so then then the other question is on fiction. Do you like reading if you do, do you have a favorite book? And if not, do you have a favorite TV or movie that you tell us about?

Chris Williams  44:43

Okay, yes, I love reading, Alastair. So I read three books at a time. I’m an audio book guy. I’m horrible at reading, my computer reads everything. I literally never even read an email. I have to hear it to retain it. Okay, audible. That’s where I go. I’m always listening to a biography of business or How To book of some sort, and a science fiction book, alright. Science fiction is like candy for me, I’m supposed to eat my vegetables before I get to the candy. So that’s a biography, historical biographies, somebody dead, who’s made an impact in life that I want to learn about, right? In a business book that’s going to help me crack the code on something I’m trying to figure out or teach. And the third thing you asked about it, some science fiction or fun book, I would say anything Terry Pratchett, or any of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxies”, or I’ll tell you what I fell asleep listening to last night holding it up here on my screen for you who have video “Space Opera” by Catherynne Valente. V-A-L-A-N-T-E. I’m not sure how to pronounce your last name team.

Alastair McDermott  45:43

Super fun book.

Chris Williams  45:44

Yeah. I’m a geek, dude. Oh my gosh, can’t get enough.

Alastair McDermott  45:48

I’m a sci-fi fan as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, that’s cool. And Terry Pratchett. I mean, if people out there haven’t checked that Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, you’re in for your infantry if you, if you like that kind of. I wish that was me funny, yeah.

Chris Williams  46:05

I wish. I wish that I wish I had never heard of those two people right now because they each have like 100 books that I’ve read them all. And I’m out like, dude, I’m, I need another fix. But I’ve read everything they had. They’re so good. Oh my gosh.

Alastair McDermott  46:19

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so where can people find you now? Your new website address and your other online places, which I’ll link to in the show notes can just tell us where to find you.

Chris Williams  46:32

Yeah, so definitely go to Alastair’s site here because Alastair has an enormous amount of good stuff for you folks before I mentioned my own stuff like truly anybody who’s putting the blood sweat and tears to build a podcast for you to listen to, and find amazing people like me. No, just kidding. Alastair freakin interviewed me before I was allowed to show. Alastair is careful about what he does, all right, he’s the real thing. So lean in book a call with the guy like if you need help, he’s a good guy.

Alastair McDermott  46:58

Thank you.

Chris Williams  46:59

My links will be on his show notes somewhere, just go to GroupCoachNation.com. GroupCoachNation.com. We have a three level structure there beginner advanced and pro structure, you can find the links right down the homepage. If you’re brand new in this group coaching masterminding space, if you’re already advanced, and got a group or two going or if you’re already a pro, and just trying to scale that up, we have free and paid options in all those places. Just find your place and start, alright. We have tons of content there, and you can jump in and get a real strategy and a process going quickly.

Alastair McDermott  47:34

Awesome. I love how you have that laid out. Chris Williams, thank you so much. Really appreciate being able to say

Chris Williams  47:39

Alastair It’s so cool to be here, man. Thanks again, everybody. Thanks for listening to The Recognized Authority with Alastair McDermott. Subscribe today and don’t miss an episode. Find out more at TheRecognizedAuthority.com