The Coach Who Turned One Pitch Into Four Opportunities with Kenneth Kollasch

Speaker A: One of the things that I have learned since trying and failing many times in, uh, many, many different ways, is that you cannot replace wisdom for reps. Like, there is no amount of wisdom that I could possibly gain about podcast guesting that will not also necessitate getting reps with that wisdom.

Speaker B: You're listening to the Seven Figure Leap podcast. We're here to leverage rich relationships and smart strategies to take your business to the next level. Here's your host, Dustin Riechman. So welcome to the spotlight session. I'm really excited to be joined with Kenneth Kalash. Kenneth is newer to our community. He's been in our main program, which is called the Podcast Profits Accelerator. So we're just going to call that PPA from here on out. Just kind of keep it clean and keep it short and. But the work that we do at Seven Figure Leap is help people use podcast guesting as a strategic way to grow their business. And as you'll hear, I think in Kenneth's story and experience, it definitely goes beyond just podcast guesting. And there's a lot of things that get accomplished during time in our community, like clarity, connection, some confidence about the direction of your business and who you're serving, the transformation you provide. So what I wanted to do for this session is bring Kenneth in and sort of capture in real time how he's feeling, what's been going on, and get his story, his perspective, and capture some of these early breakthroughs in his time with us so that you, the listener, you, the participants here in our live workshop session, can learn from that, hopefully leverage some of these same strategies in your own business and be able to ask questions and be able to benefit from Kenneth's experience firsthand or secondhand, I guess, as we get into it. So Kenneth can be found@kennethcoaches.com which is a great domain. Kenneth joined us in May. So as we record this right now in July, it's been a little over two months that, uh, Kenneth joined the community and started the PPA again, Podcast Profits Accelerator Program. And so, Kenneth, thank you so much for doing this. First and foremost, I would love to give the microphone to you for a few minutes and just give us a little bit of your backstory. It's a unique one, and I always love to have people kind of absorb the context of, like, where you came from, how you became a coach. And from there, we'll talk about how we met and sort of how this journey began, and then we'll kind of walk through what the last eight weeks have brought about. For you. But first of all, just welcome and please introduce yourself for anyone listening.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I, you had mentioned that uh, you had brought me on the show. You did bring me kicking, screaming, twisted my arm behind my back. Oh darn. I get to tell my story for 30 minutes. So no, this is going to be super great, super fun. And uh, I just for everybody that either knows me a little or hasn't met me yet before, yes, I am Kenneth of Kenneth Coaches. I'm a certified business coach now. But I did not come out of the womb that way. So I, my background is initially I was pursuing professional soccer and ended up turning down a contract in that world to stay stateside, marry my wife. And um, there's a whole story behind that. We ended up in the first few years in our dance career which is what we transitioned into was a ballroom dance career. We became ballroom dance champions in 2012 and we were working for and with a global 110 year old dance company at that point. Franchise, ah company, one of the biggest and first in the US and we became in the top 20 producers in terms of teaching in that company for two years. And so a lot of experience in the franchise world. I personally am a third generation entrepreneur. My grandpa was a immigrant, uh, from Mexico. Him and my grandma met in the Ringling Brothers circus. That's an amazing story. And so my heroes were my parents and my grandparents growing up because they owned businesses. My grandparents did a ton of different things. My parents came obviously in the ballroom dance world. They are, they're the ones that introduced us to it and had that franchise for a long time. And so yeah, I came out of the soccer world into the dance world from there. I spent over a decade in the franchise world learning what 110+ year old franchise has learned about business. And it turns out that it's a lot and a lot of great training and experiences and success that my wife and I had doing work together as couple preneurs, as we call it for about a decade. And then I started my first business in 2017. It was a e commerce dropshipping household commodities type of business and I still have that today. And it uh, was from 2017 to about 2024 with a little blip in there called Covid, if anybody knows what that is. We, we essentially were beautifully disrupted or interrupted in our life where we realized that the traditional brick and mortar type of business ownership and even though we had dabbled in this new e commerce world and I had started to do some internal consulting within that franchise company. We just realized that there was a different lifestyle that we were trying to pursue. And so that led me to exploring other options and starting to venture outside of the sandbox, so to speak. And I ended up getting into the story, brand community and becoming a certified guide in 2023, I believe it was. And then in 2024, my wife and I made the big, bold move to. Instead of buying into the family business and the franchise and kind of continuing the route that we had been paving for over a decade, we decided to take a few years and pivot into something that I could do virtually remote start expanding my horizons with working with other companies outside of the dance world. And so I've been, uh, personally coach. Coaching and consulting for the last a little over two years now with small business owners typically under $5 million. And essentially what I do is in 12 months, we double their business in 12 to 24 months by helping them go from the mom and pop crazy stage, the mom and pop madhouse, as I call it, where their hands are in all the cookie jars of the business. They're pulling all the strings, cleaning up all the messes, putting out all the fires, and helping them go from a place that is truly unscalable. And if you do scale it you want to, you go insane. To a place where you have a professional business system and a way to actually not only scale, but actually get the rewards that so deeply desired when you first started, which is time, money and freedom. So that's what I do now. And it's been super fun. Dustin has been a huge part of my journey. Growth, clarity, all the things he mentioned just in the few months that we've been working together. So I'm super excited to share and glean from the conversation myself, to be quite honest, because sometimes the best stuff comes out of your own mouth and you didn't even realize. You didn't realize. You knew that. And I know Dustin's going to share on here too today, so I'm m as excited as everybody else is to be here.

Speaker B: Well, awesome, man. Well, that's. Wow. I did say you had a unique story, but, uh, some of that even I wasn't aware of, but kind of the big rocks there, grew up in an entrepreneurial family, sort of had a family business option, but you also had this professional soccer career that was really drawing you and. And you had to make a big life decision between pursuing professional soccer and pursuing your wife. Sounds like you chose your wife, which was, I would assume, a really good choice.

Speaker A: Yeah. 11 years as of a week and a half ago. So marriage, uh, is our best, is our favorite part. So still going good.

Speaker B: Congratulations. I'm at 25 and it's, it's. I made some choices in that direction myself and super grateful for that. So then on the professional front, you have had an E. Comm business, so you kind of scratched your entrepreneurial itch in one way and, and then got into the family business really through the ballroom dancing. So maybe talk just a bit about that. The franchise that your family was involved with was ballroom dancing and you were doing ballroom dancing as like a professional or semi professional thing, right?

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, 100%. Essentially what it was is my. I always laugh and say to my friends that are like, hey, so where'd you go to school, college, all your accolades, right? And I'm like, well, I kind of had the dinner table education where my parents and their franchisee friends, their consultants that were coming in, all the people. It was essentially my growing up period was looking up to all these people that own businesses. And so, yes, when we got into, when I left the soccer world and I had already been dabbling obviously in the family business and knew about it, we laugh and we call it the dance business because it is as much business as it is dance. And it's a very luxury brand. It's a very novel thing to teach and have a global dance franchise. So we met a lot of really high net worth people along the way. A lot of our clients stayed around for 5, 10, 15, 20 years sometimes. So you get to know these people very well. And honestly I, um, the 10 plus years that we spent in that world, it was like getting a bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. and um, not because of our own, I think, initiative, but just by nature of being immersed in a world like that with clients that had their own successful companies. It was, yeah, it was a very interesting transition to balance. Okay, I want to make money with my physical capabilities like soccer and ballroom dance. But then at the same time, I was so attracted to the transformation that business ownership did for not just our clients and not just my parents and family, but our, like the, the actual people we were serving day in and day out, whether they were business owners or not. We were like directly had our hands in the clay pot being able to help form people's lives and perspectives and their skill sets. And it was like my, my favorite thing to just be in the mud with people. And I felt like being a business owner was the best way to do that. And so, yes, I've been trying to scratch that itch for a long time and in a variety of different ways now. And it's. It's been really fun. It's a fun adventure.

Speaker B: Good. And I just wanted to double click on that a little bit because it's such a unique part of your story. And as we transition into, uh, how we met and the early sessions that we had and some of the things that did for your business, this is sort of part of it, right? Like really understanding what makes you tick and what are your unique lived experiences. And maybe for the first time or for the first time in a long time, giving you space to reflect back and see some of the through lines that maybe you just sort of have lived through and you didn't really notice, but that a good coach can notice. Because I think some of the words you just used actually became part of your refined offer. Things like boutique and these, like really understanding the mom and pop life and that it's a lot more than the technical skill set, whether that's accounting or ballroom dancing or whatever it is. It is. It's a whole different level of transformation when you really get to know and have a deep relationship with your clients, which is now part of how you serve people. So we won't dwell too much on the background, but I did want to highlight that. And so in 2024, you had another pivotal decision. Do we, like, stick with the family business and stay in this, like, franchise world that you grew up in and understood so well, or do you kind of strike out on your own in a, in a new way and pursue this idea of coaching other people's businesses? And you've done that in a big way. So let's talk about how we met. As, uh, best as you can recall. Let's talk about how we met and then we'll talk about once you got into our community and the ppa, some of the early changes that have happened for you and some of the not only happened for you, but things you've actually implemented. Because one of the reasons you're on this call, we have lots of amazing people in our community, over 300, and we only get to do a few of these with the bandwidth that we have. You're like a super action taker. And so that's one of the reasons I want to highlight your story, is to show what can happen really quickly when you actually take action. But take us back to how we met and your decision to jump into our community because you've been involved in a lot of different things in Business education and certifications. And I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think it's an interesting point. I was thinking about this last week when we were obviously preparing for this type of interview and I was thinking, I was like, what was so great about us meeting that? It was very much like it's. It was so easy to take action, it was so easy to be committed or to jump in head first, so to speak, into the deep end. But how we met is actually a testament to, I think what really great clarity does. And it's that I joined the story brand community. And after about a year within that community, there was certain aspects of my business that had changed. For example, I had gone from having a lot of clients right off the bat just from my previous experiences and I was a pastor in a few churches and so a lot of nonprofit people, a lot of people from the franchise dance world. And so a lot of my, my initial business, like most startups, they come from the people I already knew and the friends I already had and the industries I'd already been in. But like any business that's looking to scale or grow or be around for more than two years, I, I started to vent into the cold market and started to learn how to do cold outreach. And I'm not the typical hormozi. Volume is king. I'm just going to make all the cold calls. I know everybody in the audience probably loves cold calling, I'm sure.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, me too. Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, right. Dustin's a big proponent of. Yeah, he loves that he's going to get off this call right now and do it. But yeah, essentially I was looking for a way like I love to teach, obviously I taught ballroom dancing. I had taught as a pastor and just I loved to be relationally involved with people in some type of coaching, teaching, type of training relationship. And Dustin was the first person. When I had posted in our story brand community. I had posted hey guys, I'm looking for new lead generation techniques specifically to reach cold audiences because I feel like I'm just kind of hitting a brick wall and it's so hard to read the label when you're inside the bottle. So I'm in my own business, not even able to understand my own ingredient list. So I post into our community and storybrand and I think within an hour four or five people basically said Dustin. And it was so funny because I had actually there's a lot of people in that community as well. I had not come across Dustin or any of his Material. So I had. I'm literally as cold as could possibly be in terms of the traditional lead path. But the power of people I respected referring or recommending in such a clear way, like they were presenting your results, your transformation, as much as you probably would if you had responded. And I was immediately, like, intrigued, obviously reached out to you. We got connected on a phone call, and you took me through what I now know as a serve call and. But nonetheless, I was, I think, one of the. My things I will never forget from our call. As you had said, Kenneth, I know you talked about your needs, talked about what I do. I don't feel shy about saying you're like the ideal client. Like, you're exactly who we are in business for you, all of our frameworks, everything is designed with you in mind. Like, you're like the perfect avatar for what people that we're trying to work with and people that we've had success with in the past. And that gave me so much confidence to be like, wow, well, if I'm. If he's that clear and he has gotten that result for people exactly like me before, and he has this great guarantee with his program, what do I have to lose? And not just what I have to lose in terms of monetary speaking, but what do I have to lose in trusting him and actually doing. Showing up to the calls and doing the homework and really just diving in head first. So that's how we met was initially through the story brand, community. We jumped on a serve call and then we were off to the races.

Speaker B: Yeah. So a couple of things I want to point out there for those listening and those here live with us. Trust. You actually kind of threw in that word there anecdotally at the end in the summary of how we met. And there's this, uh. And actually your own story is like you. You start your business in the first year, a lot of times you can kind of live off referrals or live off your warm network. Live off the people that you had in a. That you had relationships with in a previous job or friends and family, that sort of thing. But eventually that runs out, right? And so I always say, like, referrals are the best thing ever, until they're not. Because you can't. If you build your whole business on referrals, this eventually happens. They dry up, and they dry up at different speeds depending on how big and warm your network is and the lived experience in circles that you've been a part. So then what? Well, there are alternatives. And you mentioned some of the ones you had tried and you were seeking better alternatives in the story brand community. Like, of course you can cold call, you can do paid ads, you can do things like SEO and kind of play the long game there. One of the reasons I'm so passionate about podcast guesting is it is a relationship based way to do marketing. And the real story behind podcast guesting is it's a transfer of trust. Right? And so like in a specific podcast interview, you're invited by a host to their audience who trust them and you're given a spotlight and you're able to teach about the thing that you really care about and that you're on a mission to change the world with. And so enthusiasm, trust, all these emotions come into that. And it's a really powerful mode of, uh, marketing. And as you've experienced being over halfway through the program itself, that's sort of the foundation that is the initial vehicle. But we really quickly run kind of with and through that right into other ways to build trust quickly. And one of those is what we would call like partnerships or training in other people's communities. Right. Another would be being in community with people and building relationships and serving first and planting seeds of relationship. These are all things we talk about, like in the first session in the ppa. Uh, I would say I've done that well in the story brand community. It's one of those communities where I've had the opportunity to serve a lot of individual people and do some virtual training. I got to speak on one of their stages when I, right after I became a guide. And so it was pretty cool. Like I, to be honest, I'm not in there monitoring that community maybe as much as I should be. Like, um, it's not like I'm in there every day, but I certainly get notifications when I get tagged. And so you had posted this and then people are like, you should talk to Dustin. And they're tagging me. And like, to me, that's brand, that's trust. When people that you're not in the room with are referring to you as someone that they trust for a specific. And the more specific the better. A very niche kind of topic that you sort of own, quote unquote, it's really powerful. And that's happened with other people in our community. Dusty Holcomb comes to mind, who had posted in a story brand community last year and he was actually asking, how do I, who should I talk to about starting a podcast? So people are tagging me like, you should talk to Dustin before you Start a podcast. And we had a great conversation. He's become a really integral part of our community. He's part of our mastermind now. So it's sort of a real time demonstration of when you build trust and you serve and you use education and training as the way that you build relationships with others. These really cool things can happen. Like you meet a Kenneth when you're not even there in the room and other people make those introductions for you. And that is a kind of a macrocosm, if that's a word, uh, a macro example of like what we're doing with podcast guesting in the ppa. That's really kind of in a nutshell, how it works. So gratefully you came, you joined us. And so when people join our program, it is a 12 week small group program. Right. And so that is the structure of it. One of the things that we've done for the last several years at least is I love to have a one on one strategy call with each person as they come in. So for multiple reasons we don't have to get into, but it deepens the trust. It gives me a lot better appreciation for who they are, what their story is. It gives us a lot of space to really understand what makes them tick and so that they can be more successful in the program. So usually we do these calls before the program starts, if time allows, which was the case with you too, Ken. And so, yeah, tell me about what you remember from that strategy call and what you did with it. Because more than the average bear, you did a lot with the things that you took away from that call and you got really quick results from it. Now we're going to kind of get into Kenneth's last eight to 10 weeks and what's changed in his business. And I'm not taking credit for this, but I do have a role in it and I have awareness points of things that he shared in the community and things that I've personally witnessed. And so I'm m going to kind of use that to chronologically walk through this over the next like 15 minutes. But Kenneth, tell us about strategy session, what changed? And we'll kind of move through some of these high points over the past couple months for you and your business.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I just want to highlight something you just said. Like, I'm a huge soccer fan, naturally. And we just had the World cup here in the States. I mean, the players lift the trophy at the end, but the coach was there in every game putting the players in the right place. They were there months beforehand. So yeah, it's not lost on me that I've had a coach in every season of my life. And even though obviously Dustin, you're a newer addition to that roster, I mean, it's just so funny. No matter how far you are along in your journey, success, failures, all that stuff, those strategy sessions, I know there have been times in my life where I have ignored or not even taken advantage or not even followed up on opportunities like that. And as I've failed more and more times as the years have gone by and had some successes, it's always correlated with what we're about to talk about right now in terms of the successes and the failures. What I remember most from that call, which to me was one of my favorite things that happened in it, is for the first time you had mentioned literally, like the conversation today is another macro example of it. The opportunity that we have as entrepreneurs to actually share what's really going on in our head. The nebulous of ideas that aren't quite formed yet. The abstractness that's still happening in the dissonance in our own minds of like, well, do I go with this idea or that idea? Do I make this decision or that decision, Is this really clear or is it actually confusing? And until it comes out of your mouth, or uh, maybe if you're a little crazy like I am, sometimes you say it in front of your face in the mirror, but most of the times I'm a little too insecure to even do that. So it's like when it comes out of your mouth, it's so revealing. And in that, in the first half of that call, I would say it was a good chunk of our call. It was a lot of you helping me and guiding me to extract my own thoughts on things and in a way hear my own dissonance in my own ideas and my own bottlenecks. In terms of specifically, we talked about my niche and helped me kind of know what I already knew, but know it on a conscious level and not a subconscious level. And I hope this isn't sounding too woo woo to people out there, but the process, even though it sounds like what I'm saying is woo woo abstract, how would that happen for me, the way that Dustin in this case in particular guided it, it brought more clarity as we went and it brought more tangibleness to it rather than it all living in this hundred room apartment up in my brain and water pressure was getting real low. So for me, the first half of the call was so beneficial because as we went yes, Dustin was providing insights and hey, like how he's been doing even in this call. Hey, I noticed there were a few keywords that you used there, and they really stood out to me. Or hey, there was a few points in there that kind of seemed like a through line as you were talking. And I was able to just in a way have a moment of clarity through confirmation, not through brainstorming. Like, we were able to confirm these are my through lines. These are the really sticky points in my messaging or in my niche demographic. And just the clarity in that first half of the call was obviously super beneficial. In the second half of the call, we talked a little bit more about my actual offer structure. And okay, yes, you have this niche, you have these. You have a lot of this clarity now. But how does that actually apply to who you're looking to reach out to the podcast? You would ideally looking to be on the kind of, you know, I'm in a lot of networking events. And so we talked about whether it's on a podcast or in person or in a LinkedIn message, like, what does the offer look like in terms of somebody who's for the first time hearing about me? And it's. The offer is. Well, it's just to listen to me again, versus the offer at the end of like a sales call, which is actually an exchange of goods and services and money. And so, yeah, I felt like the second half of the call, it helped me actually know what to do with the clarity I had. And so it was a lot easier for me after the call to apply it. Even though that was still work, like you were coaching on the sideline, I still had to go out and play the game.

Speaker B: Right, Right.

Speaker A: So, yeah, I thought one of my. One of the best things is that, like this call, it was my strategy call was recorded. I was able to go back and reference a lot of the different points and kind of re. Listen and get re inspired by some of the points that we talked about. And yeah, it ended up turning into a couple of really quick wins for me that were absolutely 100% based on the change in my perspective in my niche and the actual messaging in my offer structure.

Speaker B: Yeah. So fortuitous timing. We did this call and then I don't remember exactly. It was the next day, it was within like the next week or so. You had serve calls, sales calls, what we want to call them, strategy calls, prospective clients on the phone with you on a zoom call. And what I recall from that is you were able to speak with more clarity and confidence to them, and you had a more maybe prescriptive manner about how you're able to help them because you could describe their problem more clearly as a result of having this session and be able to, like, talk through it and have someone reflect back to you who's got lived experience in doing these types of conversations. So, yeah, tell us just what was the outcome in that. That first week or two there after the call, and then we'll kind of move into the program. We'll talk a little more about some of your podcast guesting specific experience. But what did clarity open up for you in sort of an immediate way?

Speaker A: Yeah. So before, we'll call it pre pd Pre Dustin PD and AD Pre Dustin and After Dustin. So Pre Dustin, this is how most of my conversations would go. I would explain what I did and they would say, okay, so what do you do? And I'm not, uh, this is not an exaggeration. This is just literally what my sales process kind of went like. It was. I would explain it in the best way I knew how. They would kind of ask a bunch of clarifying questions of what I did. And okay, so who exactly are you? Do you normally work with? Like, they were trying to figure out what I was actually saying, which is what I didn't realize. They were confused. Ad After Tustin, I had this first sales call serve call that I With a brand new prospect. We had only exchanged emails beforehand. I literally, essentially had obviously worked really hard in the. It was like three days. I think I had three days between our strategy session and that call. And naturally I was like, well, I gotta apply this somehow. And so I didn't fully script it, but I essentially, I had very much so internalized everything that we went through on our strategy call. And I was like, I'm just gonna 100% buy in and we're just gonna basically pivot and just. This is gonna be my first beta test. I was so happy that after I did my first, we obviously had the first part of the call and when we get to the part where I was explaining what I did, the way that I was able to, you know, explain it afterward, they were like, oh, I'm ex. We're exactly who you work with. Like, we're the right person. Like, they were raising their hand at

Speaker B: the end

Speaker A: and I I l this aha moment in the call where I was like, this is exactly how I felt on the other side of my serve call with Dustin where I was like, oh, this is for me. Like, yay. I finally found Like, I'm the bullseye. I'm not a. I'm not a peripheral. Well, I guess we'll work with you. Like it. There was so much assurance from the. The client that I ended up. It was a $10,000 contract and they were. It's my flagship offer. It was a 12 month.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, it was just like the perfect offer. And long story short is it was the. One of the easiest sales I've ever made. They have been an amazing client since because they are the perfect demographic and they were literally yeses the whole way through in terms of. They weren't confused. They were. They weren't confused by what I did. They weren't confused that they were the right person for me and that I was the right person for them. And it was just clarity the whole way through. And it made it a lot more seamless, uh, in terms of the actual. Not just the sales process, but even beyond when they became a client and onboarding and all that stuff. So, yeah, it was. Those few epiphanies were like, wow, this. Since I've, of course we'll talk about more successes that I've had using that same type of what I learned there and other types of ways.

Speaker B: Yeah. And so thank you for sharing that. And clarity is so underestimated. Like I, uh, usually describe when people join PPA and it's like selling what they want, give them what they need. Right. Like, so on day one, people say, man, I want more. More leads. I, maybe I want to start a group coaching program. I want to see how this works because it seems like you guys are doing a really good job with that. Maybe they want community, but most people don't think they need that. Right. And on day 90, inevitably, and Kenneth hasn't been to day 90 yet, but on our last session, we go around in the small group and we say, like, what was your biggest takeaway? What was your biggest breakthrough transformation? And pretty much whether they use the exact words or not, clarity is always at the top of the list. Right. Clarity, confidence and connection are these three big Cs that are really what I think people get when they get into the right environment with the right coaching. And then it's. The power of clarity is so underestimated. So I want to kind of highlight that. And then the other thing, you use the word commit. Like you said, I was committed. When I got to this next call, I was like, I was committed to just using the words and the not script. But you know, kind of the bullet point summary of my offer in this call and see it through. That's kind of a funny side note. And I don't know, Kenneth, you're a lot younger than me. Are, uh, you. Do you remember Beachbody? Like, the fitness, like PDX and all that? Like, yeah, most people don't know the name of the company, so P90X insanity, they had these really popular fitness programs, and they had infomercials, right? So Beachbody was like the. They've changed, they've rebranded, but that the name of their company was Beachbody, and they had this cheesy tagline that I absolutely love. And it was decide, commit, succeed. Like, I can't forget it. Decide, commit, succeed. And it's so important, because that is the key to success, is first deciding. Right? Like, and deciding actually means to cut off. It actually means, like, what am I not going to do? So deciding is like, narrowing down and focusing on one thing that you're and then committing to that thing and saying, like, I don't know if this is going to work or not, but I am committed to the thing I've decided to do, and that is the path to success. And so I know it's a little cheesy, maybe it's a little esoterical, but I heard that and what you said about, like, we had this call. You decided between my call with you and your call with the client. Like, I'm, um, this is what I'm doing now. And then you committed to, like, you, uh, kind of avoid your old habits, maybe quiet that the doubts that come with trying something new. And you're like, I'm committed to trying this on the call. And then you, like, got immediate success. So just kind of quick, uh, coaching moment there for anyone, for everyone listening. It's like, we make a lot of decisions on a daily basis. Some seem small, some seem big. And I think one of the things I've really learned in my own entrepreneurial journey. So you've got to make decisions. You got to commit to a, uh, path to see it through, to see if it's going to be successful or not. Because when you sit around mired in indecision and open loops, like, nothing good comes from that. And a good coach and a good community can really help give you the confidence to do that. Right? And that's why I think the clarity, confidence, and connection or community go to go together. So importantly, yes, Danielle's shouting out Beachbody in the chat here, so. All right, let's move through. We'll move a little bit quicker here, but, uh, podcasting like, you did sign up for the program. We haven't talked about podcasting at all. Yet you signed up for the program. It is podcast profits accelerator. We do talk about podcast guesting and we help people build a system to do that. Well. And tell me a little bit about early podcast guesting wins that you've experienced, because I know you've had at least one that comes to mind. But I want to let you share your perspective on that. Keep in mind you're only almost 2/3 of the way through the program. Like, we're not like done with it yet, but you've, you've taken action. Because in the first 30 days of our program, for those that aren't familiar with it, within 30 days you have everything you need to find podcasts, pitch podcasts, and start getting yeses and getting recordings going. Right. And so keep in mind, ken is like 70 days, so he's past that point, but not like a lot past it because this is a long term process that we're going to follow. Yeah. So tell me about podcast guessing how that's affected your business.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, for me, obviously the first P is plan and the first P we spend a lot of time on

Speaker B: and first P is purpose, which is actually a lot of what we just covered.

Speaker A: And then so for. Thank you, Dustin. I'm not a certified PPA person yet. Uh, I guess I should say the first part that really clarified a lot for me was when we were actually planning how to do what we were purposed to do. Like, okay, we're gonna get on podcasts. This is my messaging, my, my niche. This is kind of my reason for getting on podcasts. This is my purpose for. But how the heck do I actually get on and how the heck do I actually, like, know which ones are the right ones? And there's so many questions for me. I. The actual following the process, there's a ton of resources. I went through the program. Dustin has made it literally, I. He's been doing this years now, but he has made it so simple to just, in a way, plug and play. Like, okay, he has a resource. I plug in what I know and what my information is that only I know. And then I go to the next resource and I plug and play the same way. And of course it takes thought, energy, but for the most part, it's super simple to create in a way, like a tangible roadmap or like an SOP for making podcast guesting successful. And so for me, one of the things that I have learned since trying and failing Many times in, uh, many different ways is that you cannot replace wisdom for reps. Like, there is no amount of wisdom that I could possibly gain about podcast guesting that will not also necessitate getting reps. With that wisdom,

Speaker B: I can teach you everything about how to dribble a soccer ball, shoot goal, shoot on goal on paper. But until you get out there and kick it with your own feet, you just can't actually make progress. So true.

Speaker A: So true. So I love scholastic learning, but the kinetic learning is just as important. And so for me, one of the resources that I leverage that as a part of the program was a. He referred me to a, a company called Podmatch. And I use that along with the, uh, one of the list generators that we had created where I got I think 30 podcasts on my list and really helped me understand what are, what does a valuable prod podcast look like for me, what is kind of a medium value podcast for me to get on? And then what are like what I would call low hanging fruit, like easy reps type of shows that I would be on. And then what are the ones that are just not suited for me or not suited for my, for me to put my time and energy into? For me. I spent about the first month doing a lot of the more reps, low hanging fruit, dabbling into the medium and just really getting reps with all this clarity that I had gotten with my messaging, with my offer, with, okay, let me upgrade my lead generator now because I'm getting a little bit of. I've not gotten the kind of response that I wanted. And that led to after the first month, obviously getting a lot more confident. And okay, now I'll reach out to this size of show.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And the pitch had gotten better. I had met with Tony. Tony had helped me kind of revamp my pitch and clarified and for those listening.

Speaker B: So Tony is a alumni coach. So he's someone who's been through the program. He's part of our team, he and Jessica Miller. So we have some alumni coaches that are good at things I'm not good at. And so Tony does some coaching within the PPA as well. So that's the Tony that's being referenced here.

Speaker A: Yes, the infamous Tony the Tiger. Yeah.

Speaker B: ET and at after.

Speaker A: Right. And so a ton of refinement had gone in. And then I messaged somebody on Podmatch that was definitely like they had popped up on my dream list. They have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of reviews, gigantic following, uh, multiple businesses, has conferences a couple times a year. That he is the organizer of. And I was like, oh, no. Pod Match is telling me to reach out to this person. Like, do I really feel ready. Do I really feel ready to get rejected? Is really all my real thoughts were, am I ready to get rejected at that level? And to be honest, I felt like I was. Again, it was that kind of crux moment of, well, this is why I'm here. This is. I guess I'll just trust that. Tony said and Dustin said, like, everything's looking good. There's. I'm sure we can always improve, but I'll send the pitch. So I send the pitch and long story short is this person was jumped on Pod Match as, uh, as a friend to the owner of Pod Match as like a, hey, you're a big authority piece. This will help my brand grow. Long time ago, when Pod Match first started and this guy said, I. We take literally almost no one from Pod Match because we get hundreds of pitches every week and my assistants go through them. But nonetheless, we almost never accept because it's just. We're a big show and there's a lot of guardrails. But my.

Speaker B: Yeah, just a quick side note, so I also know the owner of Pod Match. I'm also on it kind of for similar reasons. Pod Match is like Tinder for podcasting. I. I kind of say tongue in cheek. Like, like, you'll find lots of people to have a fun night with. You're not going to find the person you want to marry on there. Like, it's, there's a. It's a great place to have reps and like, get comfortable on the medium and. But typically you're not going to find like, the shows that are really going to move the needle for you. Kenneth, to his credit, was able to sort of see through the, the sea of opportunities and see, oh, no, wait, this one's different. Right? And then you actually. It sounds like they confirmed that I haven't had this conversation with you before, but sounds like they were like, hey, we don't typically take people from this platform, but they say something different in you based on the way that you approached it.

Speaker A: Yes. And I used. So I sent them a. A pitch. They, long story short, basically came back and Vince himself, he reached back out and he said, hey, my assistant said, your, uh, pitch was so good that I have to look at it. He's. And he was like, man, I. We get hundreds of these. And he basically was just proving the point. Like, we never have anybody on from podmatch. But you emailed Separately, you obviously messaged us on podmatching. He was like, you were a serious guest and it was professional. And he was like, we had to at least jump on a pre call and see if you're a real person or if you're AI. And no, it was, it ended up being a really great show. He invited me on to obviously I was on his show. Then he invited me to be do a featured spot in one of his magazines that has like 88,000 subscribers. And I'm going to be on two of his virtual summits, one in September and another one in February. So just the maximized. Like you said, the multiple levels of partnership marketing and relationship marketing were at play in that. And even though I'm not to the end of PPA and probably I need to know how to leverage that, but these last few weeks, that early ish win was amazing. It was honestly, uh, he was on my like, dream list as far as like in the catback category for me. So yeah, an amazing opportunity. And obviously I wouldn't have gotten it if I had done my. What I had done in the last year or two with podcast stuff. It would have been. I would have been one of the rest of people in the sea that got rejected.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean part of our call for our clients is to make you a top 1% guest. Right. And that means not only how you're positioned to value, uh, as service to someone's audience that you get selected, but then how do you actually do the interview in a way that's very professional and stands out and then what do you do after the interview that is very professional, stands out and builds a deeper relationship with that host? Right. Like that's what I mean by top 1%. That's just sort of a number I made up. But it sounds like Vince sort of numerically was like, hey, look. And we hundreds of these and we're doing this call with you because you really stood out as someone who is in that upper echelon of guests and so well done. I love that we could talk, we could do a whole workshop just about that. But I want to move on a little bit here. This was part of how we titled this interview this workshop is you got a really cool client recently and I don't think I had was directly related to podcasting, but I do want to talk about it professional, uh, football club. So yeah, tell us a little bit about that. And then I want to talk about as we seek to close here, we're going to move into like, what are some Relationships and some of the things in the community that you've are, that you've benefited from. But let's talk about your, your kind of dream client that you had recently with the football stuff.

Speaker A: Yes, it was so cool. I. So again, it's not completely unrelated because I've used the same format of pitching in another platform that's called Alignable. It's again, kind of, uh, a LinkedIn, but just for business owners and very much B2B referral partnership type of networking. And I had recently, at the same time I jumped on in PPA and with seven figure leap, I had also jumped onto this. And yeah, I used a lot of the same clarity and the same structures of pursuing relationships and partnership marketing with people I was meeting on these networking speed networking calls. And they're seven minutes long. You get to talk to someone. Well, long story short is I, I have had a lot of long stories being made short today, but I met a guy named John in our, uh, seven minutes and he turns out he talks six minutes. So I had literally at the end, 30, I had less than 60 seconds to, to literally pitch. And long story short again is he basically I pitched my typical kind of pitch in a way that I do for podcast guesting when I, whether I'm in person or doing it through a software or email. And he was like, whoa, we need to like, connect. After this, he sent me a message immediately we connected. Turns out he's the VP of marketing and advertising partners for this professional football team in Colorado. I was like, whoa, excuses. I was like this, like, I think we could develop something really great. And it's because of the. I think because Dustin and within ppa, there's extracurricular courses and learning opportunities that go deeper into what is partnership marketing. What are, what is this? Just beyond podcast guesting. And I have watched all those and I did go ahead. I did cheat and go ahead a little bit, a few weeks sometimes.

Speaker B: Good.

Speaker A: But. But I just. It's something about all of that in that moment. I hadn't prepared for it, but it just like clicked in my brain. I can make this work. I. There's a win win that we can find here. That's probably been the biggest shift in my mindset is instead of seeing somebody as, oh, uh, well, like they're in a totally different business, like a pro football team in a completely different state as me, like, what can we do together? But we created this partnership where I become the official business coach of this professional American football team and they've got partnerships with people like Marriott and a lot of really big companies that are based out of Colorado. And so I am the official, uh, coach for now. These, and I have contracts now with a lot of these. I think they've got a book of 250 businesses in that local Denver area that now I am the go to person. And every time they buy something with them, they get something with me. And that leads me to upselling. And so, yeah, just I'm part of their media day. All those things that I'm like, I gotta pinch myself, like, this is the, this is so cool. And yeah, it was one of those things that I think I would not have seen the opportunity if I had not learned more about what partnership or relationship marketing was. So an amazing win for me, obviously. But yeah, uh, to my clients too, in the same way, like helping them expand their mind into that. So it's. The ripple effect is rippling.

Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. So we, again, on day one, so we talk, we have these like, principles that we talk a lot about. And we start on day one when someone comes in to the ppa and I talked about a few of them, right? Like serving first, planting seeds, and realizing that every time I can be of service and give to someone, it's planting a, uh, seed. And podcast guesting is planting a lot of these seeds, right? Where relationships will sprout from them. You reap what you sow. And that happens at different paces. And we've heard some of that even in your story in a couple months here, Kenneth. But one of the other big ideas that I've taken to heart, and I see our really successful clients do on a regular basis, is win, win, win relationships. I think this is a great example of that. And so all that really means if we use podcast guesting as an application of it. Podcast guesting is not me taking from a host audience and serving myself. It's me coming to serve the host audience. And when I do that, the host audience wins because they learn something new, they get inspired, they have a new story, maybe they find a service they were really looking for. The host wins because he has unique content, or he or she has unique content. There's a gap filled in the, the value that they're providing their audience. They've now developed a relationship with another cool person. And of course you win by having exposure to their audience, building relationships with the hosts, be able to build relationships with those other guests from that show. And it's a very expansive view of, uh, what marketing actually should be and what when it's done well. And when it's done through the lens of, um, building relationships, I just turned into a draft manuscript for the podcast guesting book I've been working on for like four years. And I think the next book is going to somewhere in the title, have win, win, win. Because this is the bigger picture view that I think is so important. And so this idea of how are you and this football club or this football team, like, winning together? Right? And you're already starting to see this is in the early days. But like, yeah, you're a win to them because you're a great coaching resource for them, but you're also a win to their partners. Right. Uh, like Marriott and these other businesses in the Denver area. And that's just like, no one loses. Right? That's the big idea here. Like, no one is losing in this equation. Everyone's getting better. The rising tide is floating, all the boats that are involved. And to me that is what good marketing is. And when you're doing marketing from a place of teaching, uh, and service and like living in your unique ability and trying to give to someone else from that, like, I don't want to sound too rosy, but like, everyone wins when this works well. So I love that real time example. So before we move to Q and A, Kenneth, I'd love for you to just reflect a little bit on connection and relationships within your cohort, maybe within the larger community. I happen to know that you're working on a new project with someone in your cohort and so you can talk about that if you'd like. But just like in general, what's it been like? What's been the meaning to you of uh, being in like a 12 person cohort focused together for so far, like 70 days, but 90 days ultimately. And then of course, we have a larger community that are all alumni of that same program. We have about 300 people in there from all different industries. They're all coaches and consultants and founders in different ways. And from my perspective, sitting back and seeing how this has evolved and grown over four years, like, to me that's the best thing that we do is actually the community. But again, most people don't appreciate that until they're in it. So given you've been in it for a while, I'd love to just kind of get your reflection on some of the wins that you've experienced from being part of a community like the one that you're in with ppa.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, as somebody who's developed community, like in the dance Community, or whether it was as a pastor or now in my own consulting practice with all these different business owners, community is hard to develop in a way that's actually not contrived, but in a way that's authentic and real and actually genuine, where it's not just the moderator being the community for everybody, but it's the actual community being the community for everybody. I think Seven Figure Leap is the best community in terms of it's actually the community contributing to the community that I've been a part of so far. And that's not to, like, toot any horns, but like, I'm a part of and certified and a part of a number of communities, filmmaker communities, all kinds of communities that are valuable. But one of my favorite things about the way you've set up PPA is there's this micro community of, uh, like you said, a dozen of us that week to week, we are hearing each other's wins, whether it's personal or professional or with podcast guesting or our businesses. It is very much there's workshop time where some of them were actually workshopping and dialoguing back and forth together in breakout rooms. So I think it's the combo of what makes community great. Not just getting access to people that are on the same boat as you, and not just getting to actually iron sharpens, iron, rub shoulders and test things with one another. But it's actually the aftermath, even after the call's over, even after we're technically on our own doing our own homework and things like that. You develop trust not just with Dustin and Tony and Jessica and the quote, unquote, the superstars and, uh, in the community, but you develop win, win, win relationships with other people that you're that are in the community, even offline, so to speak. So one example I have is one of the other gentlemen in our cohort is. His name is Preston Bowman. He's also a story brand certified guide and has his consulting business. And he is amazing in his own right. And he had this idea for hosting a podcast that literally he had been sitting on for a long time, waiting for the right person, the right time, the right moment. And long story short is he saw my extremely overkill setup because I have a video production company, so I have a little bit too much equipment on my desk right now. But he was like, hey, I would love to grab a coffee. And it started small. And, um, inevitably we ended up creating this podcast idea using a lot of the stuff we've Learned in through PPA to not only be a 1% guess. But okay, what does it look like to be a 1% host? And just the. It's the embers or like the beginnings, the kindling of something that's going to be really great where we have this show that is a win, win for everybody. And honestly, he didn't have the bandwidth or the capacity or really the understanding to do it on his own before coming into ppa. I didn't have the desire because I didn't even think I was capable before joining ppa and being in a community where both Preston and I combined with the things that we've been learning, it's given us, uh, the ability to partner in a way that obviously we wouldn't have. We might have met outside of this, but to have the confidence and all the intangibles in a way that actually allows us to like, hey, let's sign a contract and start this podcast and really get the full, like, we believe now in so much in podcasting. Like, Dustin has converted us. I've converted in, in a full circle way now. I'm not just believing in guesting, I'm believing in hosting now. This is crazy. So, yeah, it's been a full circle thing and I could speak on dozens of other people that I've met in the community that, that have made an impact and that I've had an opportunity to work with and make an impact on as well. So the community is top notch for sure. And like you said, under underestimated at first but super appreciated on the back end of it.

Speaker B: Well, thank you. That, uh, warms my heart to hear, not just the specific connection with Preston and you guys are collaborating in a very real way now. Seeing the overlap in the way that you serve people in the audience that you serve and your complimentary skill sets and you create a win, win, win with a podcast as a host, like, that's amazing. Yeah. Something that, again, I have a unique seat to is just seeing the level of collaboration that happens within a cohort, but then within the larger community. Right. And of course it deepens over time as people stay involved and we have new people coming, community all the time as well. And sometimes that looks like just friendship, which is really valuable. Sometimes that looks like sort of an antidote to entrepreneurial loneliness, which is a topic I'm very passionate about. Where Dan Sullivan said this, that like, the greatest risk to an entrepreneur is loneliness. And it's like, oh, we don't really think about that. We think of like running out of money or making a bad decision. It's actually loneliness because this is a very lonely role to be in. Right. I'm sure a lot of people listening to this can relate. Like I've been married 25 years. I said that earlier. I, uh, love my wife. My family's awesome. I feel like I have really good communication and she doesn't really get it because she's not an entrepreneur. She's not living this lifestyle every day. And there's very different emotions involved. And so one of the things I really love to see in our community is just this safe place to be real, be an entrepreneur, celebrate the stuff that's awesome. Celebrate or mourn the stuff that sucks. But do it together with people who get it and can actually empathize with it. That's really important. But then we also see this business partnerships, collaborations, referral partnerships, people doing workshops together. It's not lost on me. I, uh, have six people on my team now. One of them is the exception, but the other five are all alumni of this program. They're all members of the community. I've hired everyone on my team from this community. Almost every contractor I've ever hired, I've hired some amazing ones have been from this community because I trust the people in the community and they're really smart people. And I also see that happening all the time. There's sort of this like commerce within the community in a really healthy way and I just like to sit back and connect the dots when I can. But there's no like affiliate commissions, there's no like paid marketplace. That's not what I'm describing. What I'm describing is like it naturally happens when you have really cool people who have the right approach to life and business, who come from a place of service and ah, frankly who have been trained in a way to see the world through win, win, win relationships, planting seeds and service. Right. And so you get that and then you give them a place real vulnerable and trust each other. Like really cool things happen. So thank you for articulating that. I'm going to do a little PSA here for PPA and then I want to definitely let people know how to get a hold of you and go deeper with you, Kenneth. And then for anyone that's here live, I will definitely answer some questions if there are any. So I really want to say about PPA is like that's what Kenneth is in. You heard his initial experience with me. I like to have calls for with people that come into the program. It's a two way conversation and complete transparency. It's like, is this a really good fit for you? Because we offer an ROI guarantee and like, there's a. I'm incentivized to do that in many ways. But the other side of that is like, are you a good fit for this? Because the community is so important and like, curating a great group experience is so important. My invitation would be if you're like, this sounds pretty interesting. Like, I'd like to know more about how this works. What's, what are the details, the pricing, all that stuff. Uh, like, literally just book a call. And at least for now, as I'm onboarding a new salesperson, for now it'll be with me personally. So 7Figureleap.com call. So if you're listening to this on a podcast or in a recording, same link all the time. So 7Figureleap.com call and we will walk you through what we do. But just importantly, we're going to listen to what you do and offer some strategic help, give you pointers so that whether we work together or not, you come away feeling like it was a win win for both of us to have that conversation. So that's my big invitation. No hard sell here, but I'd love to talk to you if this sounds aligned with your values and some of the ambitions that you have for your own business. And then, Kenneth, I want to give you the, uh, mic for a second. Tell us about where you're going, the people you would love to have conversations with and talk about your cta, your call to action. Like, what should people do if they want to go deeper with you and learn more about the work that you do.

Speaker A: Yeah. So for me, obviously, I'm super, super excited and grateful to always work with small business owners. And for me, that's. Anybody that is still in that stage, like I mentioned earlier, that's they're pulling all the strings, putting out all the fires, staying up too late, getting up too early, and doing all the things that a typical business owner does when you're the main point person for everything that happens in your business. And so for me, my whole, like I said, my whole goal is to help somebody scale and double their business in 12 to 24 months. So if you're in the growth stage or the scale stage or you're selling in a few years, those are the people that I love to work with. And for me, it's, I put it all in one place, kind of like you. It's super easy. I think for me, if you go to kennethcoaches.com there is book, uh, a call link on there. There is a whole free resource market and one of the things I would encourage anybody that's listening right now is if any of those things stood out to you that I talked about, like landing a high ticket client, like if you have offers that are like your flagship and they're 10k plus learning how to do that, learning how to develop those referral relationships like I did with the, uh, professional football team. Those are conversations I love to have and I've had a few of them already with people in this community. So it's super simple. You just go to kenneth coaches.com and book a call with me. I'd love to chat and discuss all those things further. And if you're in the stage where you're still a little unsure, you can always go to kennethcoaches.com free. Test out all my free resources. There's over a dozen in there and, and yeah, I just look forward to connecting with anybody that has more questions that I know we're gonna answer some now, but it'll be great to connect with you guys further.

Speaker B: Great. Well, thank you Kenneth for just being transparent and open about your journey and just doing it with such clarity. I think anyone who's listening to this has a real appreciation for you and your value system, but also some of these really tactical and strategic moves that you've made in the past, you know, eight to 10 weeks that have really moved the needle for your business and are definitely going to be paying dividends for a long time. Thank you for listening to the Seven Figure Leap podcast. If you got any value out of this episode, I have three things, but one most important is to simply share this with a friend. Think of someone who could get value from this episode, from this show. All the amazing guests that we have, copy it, send it in a text message message and say, hey friend, I think you'll get value out of this. Please go check out the Seven Figure League podcast and if you want to share it with your mastermind, group, your social following, all the better. Number two, for your own benefit and to help us reach more people, subscribe, follow the show. So if you're on a podcast player, just hit subscribe. If you're listening on YouTube, great. Follow like us there as well. And number three, again, this was really helping us. But by helping us, to help us reach more people, people and help people like you, give us a review, give us a five star rating. So if you're on Apple Podcasts Spotify, you can simply scroll on your phone right now, hit the five stars and if you're so gracious to actually write a short review, it means the world to us. As, uh, someone who works in the podcasting industry and who helps people with guesting and being on other people's shows, I can't tell you how difficult it is to get ratings and reviews. You know, it's not something that really serves you. So the best thing I can do is ask you and say, hey, do you want to serve the entrepreneurial community? You want to help me and give back a little bit for all the time and effort we put into bringing you what I hope is an amazing experience, simply do those three things, share it with a buddy, subscribe and send us a simple rating and review on your podcast. Player of choice goes a long way. Thank you so much for supporting the show and we'll see you on the next one.

Speaker A: Sam.