Scaling To $10M Nearly Destroyed Me with Taki Moore

Speaker A: Here's the big idea. And this isn't just about content. I think it's about everything is there are hundreds, uh, of ways to grow every business. And your job. And my job isn't to say, you must do it this way. Your job to help them find their way. That's my job. About six months ago, I read this thing on Pinterest, which is super embarrassing to me, but it's true. It's like one of those inspirational quotes and it hit me and it's become a little bit of a mantra. It says, I'm much more interested in how my business feels to me than how it looks to anyone else. Can you grow it with ads? Of course you can. Can you grow it with referrals? Of course you can. Can you grow it just by having an amazing product? Yeah, you can. Do I believe that fame is the most efficient business model? Yeah, I kind of do. But it doesn't have to be your head on camera. It could be somebody else in the business. That's the Ryan Dice called them the embedded influencer. And it doesn't even have to be video. It could be written. But I think if the founder's got something to say, then I would love that founder to have an opportunity to say it. Because the reason the business took off in the first place is because you were close to the customer. You saw a problem and a solution and figured out an ingenious way to solve a problem. M and so I think having the founder in a founder led content role is amazing. Whether it's on camera or written or podcast or something is great. But it doesn't have to be you and it doesn't even have to be content. It could be ads or something else if you want.

Speaker B: What if the business you worked so hard to build came the very thing draining your energy, stealing your freedom, and, um, disconnecting you from the work you actually love. Today's guest, the wonderful Tacky Moore, lived that reality. By 2024, he had built a coaching business doing around $10 million a year with a team of 36 people. But he hated the complexity, the meetings, the marketing machine, and the distance it created between him and the work he actually loved most. So he did something counterintuitive. He took time to step back, simplified everything, rebuilt the business around joy, leverage, and, um, alignment. And with a team of just nine people, he doubled revenue to $20 million while enjoying the business more than ever. In today's conversation, we unpack um Tacky's attract convert through deliver framework. The hidden dangers of skilling, complexity and how to build a business that not only grows, but actually scales in a way that gives you more life, not less. As ever, I invite you to go and grab a cup of coffee, no pad and pen, and enjoy the show. Taki, you are very welcome to the Scalex Insider podcast.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: Absolutely delighted and thrilled to have you on the show, my man.

Speaker A: Thanks, bro. I'm excited. This has been a long time coming, but we got there.

Speaker B: We did indeed. You're a busy, busy man, so weaving my way to get to you has been challenging.

Speaker A: I apologize.

Speaker B: You're incredibly humble and it's been worth the persistence on my end. So look, I'm going to kick off as I do with all of my guests. Our vision is to inspire, connect and enable millions of ambitious leaders of small and medium sized enterprises to scale with purposes. So, Mr. Moore, what does scaling with purpose mean to you, my friend?

Speaker A: I think that's the ultimate question, and it's probably the most important question because there's a part of all of us that if we haven't decided upfront what we actually want, the answer to what do you want? Is always more. And sometimes that's the right decision and sometimes that gets us into a whole lot of trouble, myself included. I think scaling with purpose is about deciding not do I want a lifestyle business or an empire, but like, what's the lifestyle empire I want to build because I want to build a business where as my business gets bigger, my life gets better. I think sometimes we poo poo lifestyle businesses if it's somehow less than. But the truth is that every business affects your lifestyle. So it's about deciding upfront. What do we want? I've got this amazing client called Rob, who I've worked with, I don't know, 15 years. He built this massive thing, uh, to the point where there was 40 or 50 employees, uh, a CEO and a board. And one day, to his absolute horror, he couldn't log into any of his accounts because the board had decided, we don't want you anymore. And they booted them out of his business. And it was awful story couldn't market to his existing database that he'd spent like 20 years building. Just like blank slate outed and couldn't do much about it. And so we met one day at the Opera Bar, which is just below the Sydney Opera House. And um, he's like, I'd love your help to redesign my next thing, but I've done my homework. And he produced this leather bound notebook with his Initials monogrammed in it because he's a classy motherfucker. And then he had like 15 decisions he'd made about the rules that the next business had to live up to. And it had like, it needs to bring in this much money and this much profit working this many hours. I must always be able to fly business class. Da da da da da. And because he decided what he wanted, that's exactly what he got right now. Does like five or six million dollars a year with a team of, I think three, maybe it's four. Now he works 13 days a quarter and he's on a mission to collect the cap from the 100 Best Golf Courses on earth. And he's doing it his way. I think that's the big lesson here. Like, what does scaling with purpose mean? It means deciding what scaling with purpose means and then doing that.

Speaker B: I love that. In your experience and you have coached thousands of entrepreneurs and founders at this stage, what percentage would you suggest actually know what they want, can clearly articulate with high definition, with great pixelation? Here's what I want from my family relationships, here's what I want from my health. Here's what I want financially.

Speaker A: Here's what I want one person, it's two people. It's Robin, it's you. I'm much clearer about what I don't want. I've never had like a crystal clear kind of three dimensional picture like that. I know how I wanted to feel, and I've got a pretty good sense of the direction, but I don't know what color I want the stitching on my helicopter to be or whatever the stupid questions they ask you are. Uh, but I know how I want it to feel and I know what I'm doing when it's right. I think I'm clearer about what I don't want. I always kind of have been clearer about what I don't want and what jobs I don't want to be doing. It's almost less about the end destination and more about, for me, anyway, what does my day look like and my week look like almost more than anything else?

Speaker B: And is that the starting point to really sit down and reflect? If you can't articulate what you do want, actually will list what you don't want and get really introspective and reflective on kind of the last week, the last month, the last quarter, put all of that on the table and decide, well, look, I didn't like that.

Speaker A: Less of that and, uh, more of this? Yeah, I think so. I don't know if it's better, but I think it's easier for most people to access than like a perfect picture of their thing. If you pick an area and go, okay, in that area, marketing or money or team, you go, what do I not want? And then from there, what do I want instead? That's probably an easier kind of access point for me. I've always been much clearer about, oh, success is less about doing more of things I want and more about doing less of the things I hate.

Speaker B: Well, you're incredibly successful, my friend. I mean, not only are you just a wonderful human, and I had the wonderful opportunity, the wonderful privilege of hanging out with you in, uh, San Diego last year.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Six kids, a granddad as well. You're only 50.

Speaker A: Six grandkids this.

Speaker B: Six grandkids.

Speaker A: No, it was four gun a little bit there, my friend. I'm 49 and 11 months. Give me 30 days.

Speaker B: You're hanging sight saki. You're hang inside.

Speaker A: I am. I'm gonna hang on to my 40s as long as I can.

Speaker B: When this is released, you will be 50, my friend.

Speaker A: Pickle.

Speaker B: So we're both right. But not only an incredible human, but the coach behind some of the most prolific names in the business you mentioned right at the outset before we started recording. Dan Martell, who has been through your undergraduate of your coaching programs. Dan Priestly, who I've had on the show previously. Just another wonderful human being.

Speaker A: Dude, there is some big, big names. I've never worked with Dan. I think he's amazing. I'd love to meet him one day. We've chatted on Instagram. We're good mates. We're mutual admirers from afar.

Speaker B: Well, it's clear he's been influenced, so I made that assumption because it's clear Dan's been influenced. He's a wonderful guy.

Speaker A: Yeah, we've got a vibe. We definitely do.

Speaker B: There's no question. Ali Abdaal I've recently seen is in your program. Ryan Dice, Mr. Hermozi you've been speaking with. I don't know if he's come into the program.

Speaker A: He's not a client. We've been friends for 12 years. I was just hanging out with him in LA. Great guy. The thing I respect most about Alex is his online personality. And his real life personality is the same human. Right. Maybe he's a bit more funny in real life. I think that's probably true.

Speaker B: He needs to bring more of that online.

Speaker A: I think it's changing, dude. I think it's changing. The more he's doing less scripted stuff and more responding to people asking questions. I think the more Alex shows up, which is cool.

Speaker B: Yeah, brilliant. Well, look, given that small snapshot of very high profile clients and I could spend the R of this podcast just listing your clients.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's a bunch.

Speaker B: What characterizes those who are truly successful? What's the common thread? What's the through line with all of these people?

Speaker A: I think they're all obsessed with something. It's not always the same something. Some of them are obsessed with growth. Some of them are obsessed with their clients. Some of them are obsessed with, like, just building the perfect product. Some of them are obsessed with marketing. Some of them are just obsessed with the game of business. But none of them have, like, an off switch. They're all like, if you put them on an island for a month to read a book in a resort, they would hate it. They're all about something. I think most of us have some level of curiosity. Some of them it's discipline. But for most of them, I think it's just an obsession that you can't turn off.

Speaker B: What's your obsession?

Speaker A: I'm obsessed with. I think I drew a picture of it the other day. Let me see if I've got it here, because I think I do. Oh, yeah, here it is. I'm obsessed with this. With the overlap between art and business. I'm just like, cannot get it out of my head. I don't paint, I don't sculpt. This is my art. Uh, I feel like less of a business person and more of an artist. For me, it's mostly about creative expression. And if I could do that with people I love and work on cool projects to help people I really care about, then I'm happy as Larry. It doesn't really matter too much what part of the business it is, as long as it's not administration. But I'm just, like, fascinated with how do we create something that expresses like, my DNA has a little bit of my thumbprint on it in a way that makes the hard thing simple and gets somebody a result in an easy, simple way.

Speaker B: You do this incredibly well. And it's clear you are yourself on, um, your videos. The content is like, there's a tacky stamp to it. You cannot copy tacky, Burr. I mean, you are this creative genius, and we always say simple skills complex fails 1000%. Taking this, what do you think founders tend to do to get this wrong? How do they overcomplicate scaling in all the ways?

Speaker A: Would it be okay with you. If I draw for a second, go for it.

Speaker B: But you're going to have to explain it as well, because this is going out on Apple and Spotify.

Speaker A: I will 100%. I will pretend we're audio only, but I will also draw a picture. Can you see that?

Speaker B: I can indeed.

Speaker A: Okay, amazing. Years ago, I was chatting with a guy called Clay Collins who built LeadPages, which is a software that built, like, landing pages and funnels back in the day. And we were talking about, like, what's the quickest way to get to a million dollars a year? And he described this thing that he called the rule of five ones, which I think is like the quickest way to a million bucks. And obviously, if you listen to this and you're over a million dollars, you can break some of these rules. But if you're under a million bucks, please, for the love of all the tollie, just do this, because it's just way faster. And so just imagine a pyramid. It's called the five ones. The five is five layers, and one is the ideal answer to each of these questions. Okay, so here's what we want in order to get to a million bucks a year quick. The first thing we want is we want one target market. Not 2 or 3 or 4 or 7. It's just really easy to be a hero to one kind of person. Uh, so one target market is what we want. Then we want one core product. And obviously we're two layers in one target market and one product. And most entrepreneurs are already failed the test because they're like, oh, I'm going to help everybody, and I'm going to do it in seven different ways. Dude, that's really hard to scale to your point. Simple scales. So we want one core product. How do we know which product to pick? Well, we want to pick one that we can look them in the eye and go, this will get you the results you're after. Simple. Then we want one conversion tool. You know, one way that we convert prospects into clients. Uh, whether you sell on sales calls or you do demos or you do webinars or you do live events or whatever the mechanism, we want one. Not that the others won't work, but there's like, they all work. It's just which one works best for you and which one can we do enough reps at that we can make this system harm. Then we want one traffic source, you know, last piece. Like, how do we get enough leads into this business? A lot of people get referrals. Referrals are amazing. But, uh, if you had to get like a hundred referrals today and another 100 tomorrow and 100 the next day, every day, that's tricky. So we want a traffic source which can scale and really there's only three. You know, there's free, which is organic content, there's paid, which is ads, and there's partnership getting somebody else to promote you to their audience. And so we want one traffic source and then the last one is one year. I really believe, just because I've seen it a bunch of times, that anyone can get to a million bucks in a year if they keep things simple. And then the obsession just becomes like, well, how do I get deeper into my target market's head? How do I create a product that's even better? How do I optimize my conversion system, my sales process? How do I get better and better and better at traffic? And so we're not adding new things. We're really like locking in a few simple decisions and then optimizing them as we go. So the target market is really about, like, who do I love? The truthful answer is like, do I love them? Can I help them? Will they pay? The product is, you know, if that's who I want to be a hero to. How do I build a program that I can look them in the eye and go, this will get you where you want to go? The conversion tool is just like what works to sign clients and works for you or your business. Traffic sources can at scale and the year is about tweaking and refining. Most people don't do that.

Speaker B: You've just described our first year in simple scaling.

Speaker A: Oh, there we go.

Speaker B: Going back five or six years ago, our target market being small to medium sized leaders and founders, our product being our Scalex accelerator program. One year programmer conversion was largely me within my network initially. Now we do workshops and, um, some strategy calls. So that describes kind of where the traffic was coming from. It was me accessing my network and it was the first year.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The challenge I find now techy from a coaching perspective is that it's so thick and noisy out there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: We're 200 episodes into the podcast.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So five years in. I just love speaking to incredible people like you. It's such a privilege. I have this platform to access an incredible network of talent, to share the wisdom and experience of those who've been there and done it and want to help more people. And I can share that with their listeners. It's incredible. I felt compelled to actually have to start getting out uh, and doing more and creating more content. And lately feeling like I'm in the content creation hamster wheel. And I haven't been enjoying that.

Speaker A: Yes. Have been there.

Speaker B: And it's just noisy. Apparently the traffic in LinkedIn since ChatGPT has been socialized has gone up 70%. You know, posts that I would have had responses to or that maybe a couple of hundred likes and comments are maybe getting. 3. It's just so, so noisy.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's trickier. And that's actually a great thing. If your market's getting noisier. And I think it's probably true for almost everybody who's listening to this. If your market's getting noisy, that says there's definitely a market there. And because most people don't have anything original to say, they're just going, hey, write me an article about Blank, please. And AI writes them a thing and blur. Yeah, because everyone's kind of saying the same thing in kind of the same way. Because that's what AI does. It scales the Internet and boils everything down to the mass, to the average. It's really easy to stand out. And so the way I think about it is like this. I think that everyone in your marketplace, all of the clients and all of the competitors are looking at your market through the same glass window. You know, it's true because all of your competitors are saying the same things, making the same promises, launching the same programs, posting the same posts, giving the same advice. And all of your customers and potential clients are all kind of plus or minus 10% doing the same stuff. So if everyone's looking at the world through the same glass, the same window, what you need is you need a brick. And you need to throw that brick through the window to get some attention. And the brick is the brick of a dangerous new idea. And so you don't need to shout louder or spend more. You just need to have something contrarian to say. And I don't mean controversial like, I'm not trying to spin up controversy for controversy's sake, but you've been doing this for a long time, right? This business. And you've had businesses for a long time. And so you've probably seen a bunch of the common advice and common practice that the rest of the market spruce, and you've got some pretty strong feelings about it. Oh, they say this. I think it's stupid, because reason, reason, reason. And so, uh, the way you get attention now, you don't have to outspend because there's always going to be somebody with A bigger ad spend. And you can't outpost them because with AI Volume's no winning strategy. The way you win right now is by being the person who's got something unique and different to say. So if you were to make a list and you just go, in my market, what are all of the things that they say or do? Get a sheet of paper, uh, two columns, line down the middle, and on one side you just put all of the things that people say and all of the things that most people do. And you just make this list. And this is the window that everybody's looking through. And then, you know, we're just going to call that the old way. And then on the right hand side next to each one, you're just going to say, well, what do I believe that's different? Or what do I do that's different? And then when you talk about that stuff, not only is it your unique IP because it's not what everyone else is saying, but the moment you say, well, everyone says you should blank, but I think it's dumb because reason, reason, reason. And the consequence of that is this bad thing here, then what you get to do. Do you remember Ryan Holiday wrote a book called the Obstacle is the Way?

Speaker B: I have it. I love it. I'm a big fan of his stuff.

Speaker A: He's a genius. I haven't read it. I just think the title's cool.

Speaker B: It's very good.

Speaker A: But if you think about the Obstacle is the Way, what we're really doing with this kind of marketing, we're saying the way is the obstacle. Everything that people are trying to tell you is, is the reason you're stuck right now. And so when you get to go, they say, like, you want more clients or you want to scale your business. People tell you that to scale your business you need to 1, 2, 3, and 4. Here's the flaw in that argument and here's what it costs you. The moment you poke a hole in their existing belief, not aggressively, just like show the faulty logic, you start to weaken their certainty a little bit, which gets people just open enough for you to insert your new, better idea. So that brick that we throw, he's got two jobs. Number one, to break an old belief and number two, to be a building block for a new one. I'll give you an example in a minute because I know we're getting a bit theoretical here. But then we install the new belief by going, uh, well, I do it like this or I see it like this. So we go, here's the new Belief, here's why. You back it up with some proof, and here's the benefit. And now people are like, well, you're right. The old way kind of did suck a little bit. Here's a new, better way, and then there's an invitation. So that's kind of the process. A. About six months ago, I joined this guy's YouTube program. I wanted to get good at YouTube, and I'm always buying stupid courses that I don't need. This one was actually pretty good. I spent two grand on a YouTube course, and there was like a couple of bits in it which are really helpful. Anyway, some guy comments in there that he doesn't know. I'm in the group too, so in the community. And he's like, how's this guy Taki More getting all of this attention and views and clients? I'm in the same market. It's not really working for me. And the YouTube guy said, well, if you look at Taki's content, he's doing a lot of things very differently, and he's bringing something actually new to a really kind of dead tight space. And he just gave example after example of like, well, everyone in the market says, you need to sell with sales calls. I don't have a sales team at all now. We fired our whole sales team and locked him in a cupboard for 90 days. And turned out we're outselling our sales team just by giving people the offer and letting people read it. So that's one thing. We used to do free webinars for 15 years. We did a free webinar every month, and we get like a thousand people to register, which sounds cool, but when they showed up, all of the people who showed up were, yeah, really early stage people who had lots of time and no money and couldn't afford our thing. Okay, well, guess what? So now we charge $100 and we run paid workshops. And we went from only 5% of the audience qualified to 55% qualified just by charging $100. And not only do we sell more, but I teach better because they're paid money, and I don't want to let an audience down. But we're making a million dollars a year just from workshop tickets at $100 a pop. It's ridiculous. So that's like another example of, like, old ways didn't work because reason. We figured out this new way. And let me share it with you.

Speaker B: A quick note for me. If you're serious about scaling your own business with purpose, and I suspect you are, given that you're listening to this podcast, why not explore Scalex Elevate? It's our online training platform and community for founders and leaders with less than 3 million in revenue. Or our in person, highly immersive Scalex accelerator program for companies with more than 3 million in revenue right up to 100 million. Both are designed for ambitious SME leaders who want clarity, capability and importantly, community to scale. You can find all of the details in the show notes below. Now, back to the episode. Let me jump into this a moment. So if I go back to. And you love drawing triangles.

Speaker A: I do.

Speaker B: So if I go back to the core of, uh, Million Dollar Coach, we've got the Attract convert deliver model and everything else is built out on that.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: So what is true today for, for your business in terms of how you're attracting new clients that let's say wasn't true three years ago or five years ago? And let's do that also with Convert, because I feel you're right at the edge of this. You're iterating, you're testing and iterating all of the time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Just step us through. Attract and Convert. What is true now that wasn't true before?

Speaker A: Honestly, if you took a snapshot of my business today and our, uh, business two years ago, year and a half ago, they look like two completely different things. Almost everything about them is different, except for the clients we serve and the results we get. But the mechanics of how we do everything is very different. And it's not because we've used AI for everything. It's because two years ago I had this great business that I was really frustrated in. I felt really, really trapped. Business made really great money, but I hated my weeks and my days. I built something that I kind of hated, to be honest, and I was ready to throw it all in and burn it down.

Speaker B: Why? So we call those archetypes and we've identified four archetypal founders. One is the growth prisoner. Essentially, they have set out to create a business that gives them freedom and they end up entrapping themselves on Benoin with these invisible bars. So that was you two years ago. What characterized your business a couple of years ago that you were operating behind these invisible bars?

Speaker A: I was a prisoner of growth. So Covid was an awful time to live through, especially here in Australia. But it was great for our business. And so we took off like a rocket because everyone needed to figure out how to do the online stuff and we were good at that. I'm not a systems guy by nature, so we threw people at the problem. I ended up with a team of 36. If you know anything about me, man, you'll know that I'm not management material. And 36 people is about 30 people too many.

Speaker B: You're the most uncorporate person I know.

Speaker A: I'm the least corporate. I'm not wearing shoes right now, and I haven't worn shoes in at least 30 hours. Brilliant.

Speaker B: Likewise, by the way.

Speaker A: Yeah, there we go. I love that. So business got really, really big and we threw people at the problem. And when you add more people to a problem without a system behind it, you just create complexity. And I don't need to go into all the details, but here's what I will say. I bought back my time and scaled myself out of some things in the business. So I wasn't involved in the marketing very much. We had a content team that was just taking my content and things I said to clients and then getting the transcript and writing articles and emails and stuff about them, and they were awful. So because marketing wasn't very good, if marketing's not good, what we did to solve it wasn't, let's make the marketing good. It was, okay, well, let's just double down and spend more on ads. Let's spend more, let's send more emails, let's post more. And what happened was I just sped up the rate at which people found out my content wasn't very good and tuned me out. And so then. So if marketing's not working and you've got nine people in a sales team and their living depends on them making sales, then, you know, every time somebody clicks, like, you know, raises a pinky finger of interest on social, they would pounce, and then they would chase and they would DM and they would follow up and they would book a call, and then they would chase and they'd follow up and they'd book another call. It's like, it's awful. That's what was going on in marketing and sales and my job, because I wasn't in sales and I wasn't in marketing, and we had a team of like five or six coaches. I wasn't involved in that. I didn't know what my job was. And the only thing left was meetings and putting out fires between team members who didn't have enough to do and were fighting each other all the time. It was awful, dude. It was just. It's just awful. So just before Christmas 2024, I was, like, ready to burn it all down. I sat down with Karen, Mary, my wife, and Tony on my team. And, uh, I almost shut down our clients program and black belt and just kept boardroom, which is, uh, like mastermind for seven and eight figure people, on the top. And then I realized that the people I love at the top were only there because I met them at the bottom or the middle and helped them grow. And I was like, man, I'm going to lose on all these future friends and all these people I could have helped. It's not the program, it's not the customers. It's just the way I've set up this business. And there's a lot in it that I don't like. Back to the thing right at the start of like, making a list of what you don't like. I didn't like team. I didn't like meetings, and I didn't like politics, and I hated reading emails that went out under my name that were awful. And so we just like, spent a little bit of time. Took us a few weeks to like, sketch out what the opposite of that would look like. It was lean. I remember getting on zoom one day. Sorry, I'm bouncing around all over the place.

Speaker B: I'm going to recap for listeners here as well in terms of what I've heard, and let's just bring them up to speed. But 2024, you had become this growth prisoner. You'd built the business essentially for freedom, but you were entrapped in the business.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What I'm hearing is you had thrown people at the challenge, which was the fact that people during COVID wanted to leverage online coaching services, businesses. They wanted the know how it scaled us to 36 people. These 36 people, a bunch of them were in sales and marketing. They grabbed that function from you.

Speaker A: Yeah, because I'd abdicated it.

Speaker B: Yeah, you had abdicated it. But what I'm hearing and what's coming loud for me is the fact that this was no longer authentically you. And for anyone who knows Tacky Moore, there's one word that I would associate with you, and that's authentic. So you have this friction that on one hand you should delegate to a team, but the systems weren't in place so that ultimately your authenticity was being marketed and promoted out there. Give us the numbers.

Speaker A: 36 people, like 8 or 10 miles or something like that. Maybe 10 million a year, something like that. US dollars. So business was good. 9 people in sales. But my weeks were spent doing stuff I hated, and there was, like, not much time doing stuff I actually love. Like, I was in a funk. Yeah. M. My marketing Manager looked at me one day, we're in Tokyo running an event. She's like, hey, I know you're in a bit of a funk right now. When do you think it'll be over? And I was like, I don't know, it was awful.

Speaker B: So let's just stop there. We're going to go to then what you've created now, which is what you referenced back right at the start, you've created this lifestyle empire for yourself. So in context of what I'm hearing in relation to the attract, convert, deliver to attract people into this community, you had lots of marketing people out, uh, there putting messages that weren't authentically you people in sales then overburdening potential prospects. And actually, in terms of the delivery, five coaches, you know, you weren't getting to do it Sounds like what you love to do, which is deliver great content.

Speaker A: Yeah, correct. And so, honestly, I think the mistake wasn't that I didn't have systems or I didn't have team. The mistake was that I never wanted that in the first place. I'm not building this thing to exit or sell. I know this is really dumb and it's probably bad advice, but I want to do this till I'm dead, dude. Literally. I think one day I'm going to drop dead mid zoom call. My daughter just sent to. Hopefully she's still in the house. She's going to, like, hear the thump. She's going to, like, walk in, drag me by my feet off camera with

Speaker B: a pan in your hands.

Speaker A: Yep. She's going to drag me off camera and her last words will be like dad said. Dad's last words were write down your best things and what are you going to do about it? And then hang up the zoom call. I want to do this one gone. So I don't want to sell it. I built myself the happiest job in the world. I feel a bit more like a Formula One driver than a business, uh, owner. Like, I'm in the car, I've got a bunch of people around to support me. But if I didn't get to create stuff every day or share it with people every day or collaborate and jam on cool stuff every day, I'd be so bored. I don't know if this is good advice or not, but for me, I don't want to exit it. I want to make great money and I want to thoroughly enjoy what I do in my days and my weeks.

Speaker B: If you have ambitions to scale with purpose, why not get our new book, Simple Scaling 10 Proven Principles to 10 Axe youe Business, now available on Amazon. It took a combined 40 years to write and shares with you a trusted guide to scaling success. Just click on the link in the show notes to get your copy. So let's just stop there. Right? So we have this business that you built two years ago, incredibly lucrative, doing 8 to 10 million US dollars a year. A team of 36. You hated the whole team piece.

Speaker A: I didn't hate the team. I hated having them. They were great people.

Speaker B: Yeah, lots of wonderful people. But ultimately seems that these people were all trying to prove themselves. And ultimately you lost your voice in all of this.

Speaker A: Yeah, I 100% lost my voice. And because there was no leader, they were like scrambling to fill the void is what was actually going on.

Speaker B: So what I'm hearing loud and clear is that you took time to introspect, you took time to reflect on what makes Tacky Moore great. What is my unique ability? I've had Dan Sullivan on the podcast. Dan talks about unique ability. I've had Gay Hendrix. He talks about operating in your zone of genius. Certainly the videos that I watch, the content that I listen to. Now you are absolutely in your zone of genius.

Speaker A: In my sweet spot role 1000%.

Speaker B: And people get to benefit from the value of you being in your sweet spot. So that period of introspection, kind of a couple of weeks where you just stopped everything, paused. This isn't working. Put everything on the table, look at what's working, what's not working, say, I want to keep this and I want to get rid of this. So take us on that journey then to what this business looks like now as you label it the lifestyle empire.

Speaker A: It's funny because it's the exact same business done in a completely different way. Like it's the same kind of clients and the same kind of promises and the same kind of programs. But the way we do it is really different. So marketing wise, I'll just do old and new. So we've got a old was bad content, 60 grand a month in ad spend, not very many leads and stagnant, not growing new way. The biggest ad spend month we've had in the last 14 months I think would be $8,000. Most months it's like six. So like 10% of the ad spend. It's content driven. The only ads we run are, uh, we boost or run engagement ads to short reels that we post on Instagram because the best ads are content and the best content is an ad marketing team is me. I, uh, jam with Tony, who I mentioned before on strategy.

Speaker B: She's amazing, by the way.

Speaker A: Yeah, she's tops, dude. And then I scribble down ideas on little cards like this. And that's my YouTube scripts. So I shoot a video for YouTube a week and try to post a Instagram reel every day. I write an email every day, five days a week. So on the marketing, I think data driven marketing is incredibly attractive. Nobody falls in love with Virgin unless they first fell in love with Richard. And so founder driven marketing is kind of. That's my job. And so my job is to create stuff. I create a solution for us. I share it with my clients, and then we share it with the market. Once a month we run one of these workshops. We just open the doors to one today, and we'll probably have eight or 900 people buy a ticket for 100 bucks, which is fun. The ad spend is tiny, and the marketing team is basically me. There's a camera guy who comes over once a week and we shoot bids, and Michael who posts the stuff. And there's a team who clicks the buttons and does the important things. That's marketing. But ad spend is like literally a tenth of what it used to be. The lead flow is significantly higher instead of being open all the time and trying to chase deals. So, uh, marketing and sales, I think about them as one job now, not as two. So marketing sales are like Siamese twins. You need both to get the job done.

Speaker B: I think the hand and glove.

Speaker A: Hand and glove, they totally are. They're like two pedals on a bicycle, right? How's that for three metaphors in 20 seconds? We did great.

Speaker B: I, uh, love that. Let's just rest on that for a moment. Two pedals and a bicycle. That's got to be a podcast first.

Speaker A: Love it. So the old sales team's job, someone engaged on social media, they'd have a conversation via direct message. You know, 10 years ago, we started sell by chat, and we kind of took that forwards. And their job was to, like, see if somebody was qualified and then book an appointment with them. Reflecting on my own experience, I don't want to jump on a sales call with somebody even if I want the solution. I just want to buy the thing. So, like, I'm pretty sure we could sell this without calls. And by the way, I'm not poo pooing calls just for me. I didn't want calls because I don't want them myself. And I think the best buyers don't need them. And so we spend all this time trying to convince Somebody to jump on a sales call they don't want, and then following up when they don't show up to the call that they never asked for in the first place. So I was like, well, what if the marketing was so good that sales became easy or even unnecessary? That was the mindset. And so I just wrote a two page document about how the program works. It's like a $30,000 coaching program. Two and a half grand a month for a year. I wrote a two page about how it works. And then I was like, okay, so my job now is instead of getting people to raise the hand, get pounced on, have a direct message conversation, book a call, show up for the call, hopefully be qualified, book another call, show up for that call and say, yes, the conversion rate on the calls was good. But think about all the people I lost along the journey who didn't get to the last step. It's like, okay, well, what if the problem wasn't conversion rate? What if it's just like, not enough people saw the offer? And so then it became, okay, My job is to create content so good that people go, holy crap, this guy could help me. I'd like to find out more. And they decided they messaged a secret code word after watching a certain video on YouTube. They're like, hey, there's a secret word. They send it to me on Instagram and it sends them a little message with the link to the two page document thing. And they read it and they get to the bottom, and if it's not a fit, that'll be clear to them. And they hopefully don't apply. And if it is a fit, they'll fill in an application, pretty lengthy, like five minutes, and then pay $1,500 as a deposit. And then we review their application. We decide, yeah, I think we can help you, and you seem like a good fit, or no, thanks, and we refund. So we went from chasing to choosing, which is really empowering. And at first I was really scared. We had nine people in sales and we kept three on full pay and just said, like, for the next 90 days, it's an experiment. I could be dead wrong. I think this will work. So in 90 days, I'll either say, I was right, thank God, and see if I can find you something else, or I was wrong, I'm really stupid, please come back. The only rules were they just weren't allowed to talk to anybody. So they're kind of effectively locked in the cupboard. And three square meals a day was slid under the door. So the goal was, could we match their sales? So, like, nine people would sign nine clients a month. It's a lot of people for one sale each. So we had three goals, like a good, better, uh, and a best or a relieved happy. Thrilled is probably a better way to think about it. So this were the goals. Could we sign one client without a sales call? That was the proof of concept. If that happened. Okay, this is the thing.

Speaker B: This is the person that's come through Instagram, watched the video, sent you the

Speaker A: code word Instagram or YouTube or email.

Speaker B: Okay, Sent you the code word. And you've automated at the back end. You've sent them the sales doc two pages and they've read that, and they can click to accept the T's and C's, pay the money and move into the program.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so people apply. Not all of the people who apply are a great match. So probably 30% of the applications we say no to and refund just because people are excitable. And our job's to make sure the community's right and we can actually help, not just take someone's money. But the first goal was like, could we make one sale without a call? Uh, next, that was like, the relieved. The happy was like, could we match their numbers? And the thrilled was like, could we make a sale a day? Like, 30 in a month would be just, like, ridiculous. Better than we'd ever done except in, like, a. Anyway, here's what happened. First month we did this. First month, we didn't just sign our client. We signed, I think, 11. First month. So we beat their old numbers in month one. And then every month, literally every month since then, it's gone up and up and up. Then we was like, oh, we probably should cap it, because we weren't sure if we could, like, look after them. We had 15 and then 20 and then 25 and then 30amonth within a few months. And then the demand is so high now that we put a cap at, uh, 45. Usually we have about 60 people apply and we accept the 45, that we can handle them, and we refund the others and say, hey, sorry, if you want to get in early for next month, happy to consider it.

Speaker B: Let me just recap what I've heard, because this is game changing in terms of attracting. You've one content creation day where your video man comes around. I've watched these videos. They're cracking, by the way. And I love my coffee. I love the fact that you're outside, you're drinking coffee, you're Producing great content. It's tacky. Doing what tacky does best, which is pen and paper and.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm talking and drawing.

Speaker B: Absolutely. So you're capturing those videos. It looks like you guys have a great relationship. You're really enjoying it. And that content's uploaded to YouTube, it's snipped, and it goes out across all of the other social media channels. Instagram.

Speaker A: Yeah, sort of. We don't snip content just because I find that content that's clipped doesn't seem to do as well. Just because in a long form there's a lot more context. But in short form, it's hard to find. Like, it's got to be relatively tight, you know, In a great piece of content, I use these little cards to sketch out my short form content. Yeah, there's a hook, which is how do we grab their attention? Sorry, I don't know if this is clear or not. There's a hook to grab their attention. Then there's a build, which is a story or a list of some steps. There's a payoff, like what's the punchline or the big idea? And then an invitation to do what's next. And so usually if I do a short form video that's about the same topic as the long form video, what I do is I do the long one and then while it's fresh in my head, I'll do three shorts. I just pull three juicy bits from the topic. Coping is not as effective.

Speaker B: So we're capturing, we're attracting leads through content creation. You're doing that a day, a week. You also have head workshops now once a month. And those are online.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: There's how you're generating your leads. You're converting those now, uh, not through sales calls, but through an offer doc. A sales doc?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: So you've kind of cut out the need for the nine salespeople now.

Speaker A: Correct.

Speaker B: And people can go straight to the offer and decide in their own time whether they want to actually.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah. Is this for me or is it not?

Speaker B: Okay, so attract convert delivery has remained the same. You've kept the business model. You've got your pretty similar, your clients, your black belt, your boardroom. There's an elevation there, kind of a step through as people actually scale their coaching businesses. So the lifestyle empire business now, uh, what does it look like? So back in 2024, business you hated still doing $10 million a year, which is incredible. What does the business look like now? Tacky. A business which you're really enjoying.

Speaker A: We took Revenue first, because it's the sexy one, I suppose. Every month, we do 80 or $90,000 in workshop tickets, and it's just slowly growing. On top of that, we add $120,000 a month in new monthly recurring revenue. So over the course of a year, we're adding, like, an extra million dollars and a bit, which is fun. Business does this month, like, 1.7 mil a month, and it's growing. Obviously, when the marketing is working really well, then our job is obviously, let's make sure we look after people and they get results and they stay. We're a membership model.

Speaker B: You've more than doubled the size of your business in two years and made it incredibly simple, removed the complexity. Team size is now nine, eight and a half. Everyone listening wants this business.

Speaker A: Taki and I've got one meeting every two months to meet the whole team, and they just wheel me out like a sock puppet to prove that I'm still alive. And it's kind of lame, to be honest. That's the deal. It's good.

Speaker B: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much are you enjoying what you're doing right now?

Speaker A: Um. I'd be lying if I said every day is like rainbows, because, like, some days are not. The thing I love most is I'm creating again. I was in, like, maintenance and management mode for a long time, and now I'm really proud of the albums. It's a kind of a dumb metaphor, but I'm gonna share it. I'm a softie. I think about, like, every month we build a new workshop, and so the stuff we do with our clients in Black Belt. So let's say I teach a thing in Black Belt, a month or two later, it becomes a public workshop. When I run the public workshop the same week, the week that I'm creating the workshop and promoting it, I'm writing emails about it and recording a YouTube video about it and reels about it. So in those two weeks, I feel like I kind of create a complete body of work around a topic, which is really fun. It's almost like I get to launch an album every month, and then every month at the end of the workshop, I get to invite people to come on the tour, and they do. And so the thing I'm most happy about is I'm in my sweet spot role, which is create and communicate and collaborate or jam with people. I get to do that every single month. I've got the most amazing clients. We've had to cap the number of people in boardroom it's capped at 100 people, and it's full. There's, like a list of, I think, 120 people on the waitlist to get in when somebody finally leaves. Hormozi messaged me the other day. He's like, hey, could my CEO guy for this business join boardroom? I'm like, yes, but it's full, so when somebody leaves, he can join. Which feels weird to say to a friend. Black belt's capped at 45 people a month, and it's sold out 10 months in a row. It's really nice not to have to chase. You know how you read books and they talk about abundance? Abundance, I think, is the feeling you get when you first say no to money. That's ridiculous, but it feels really special.

Speaker B: Congratulations, my friend.

Speaker A: Thanks, bro.

Speaker B: And you're fully deserving of this, by the way. But I don't want listeners to feel that this was in some way an overnight success.

Speaker A: No, no, no.

Speaker B: You've been on this for decades and navigated some incredibly challenging times for those listening. Before we move into the close, there's a couple of things crop up, and I'm no doubt that you have these people in your community. You are a natural in front of the camera. There's something very endearing about you. You've put out great content. When I click on your stuff, I'm compelled to stay on to the end, which you can't say that about everyone. There's a great format. You're wonderful. Your energy, your enthusiasm, your conviction around what you're coaching on comes through loud and clear. For those in your community who are saying tacky, look, I want to scale my coaching business, but the whole social media thing, I'm not playing that game.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What's your advice? It's like, sorry, you shouldn't have aspirations, then the scale, because that's like taking M1 pedal off the bike.

Speaker A: No, I don't think that's accurate.

Speaker B: What do you say to them? What's the alternative here? If people don't want to jump into the content creation hamster, which it feels a little bit like.

Speaker A: Now, here's the big idea. And this isn't just about content. I think it's about everything. Is there are hundreds, uh, of ways to grow every business and your job. And my job isn't to say, you must do it this way. Your job to help them find their way. And that's my job. About six months ago, I read this thing on Pinterest, which is super embarrassing to admit, but it's true. It's like one of those inspirational quotes. And it hit me and it's become a little bit of a mantra. It says, I'm much more interested in how my business feels to me than how it looks to anyone else. And so if that's 100% not a thing, there's no compulsion that you have to. Can you grow it with ads? Of course you can. Can you grow it with referrals? Of course you can. Can you grow by just by having an amazing product? Yeah, you can. Do I believe that fame is the most efficient business model? Yeah, I kind of do. But it doesn't have to be your head on camera. It could be somebody else in the business. That's the, you know, Ryan Dice calls them the embedded influencer. And it doesn't even have to be video. It could be written. But I think if the founder's got something to say, then I would love that founder to have an opportunity to say it. Because the reason the business took off in the first place is because you were, uh, closest to the customer. You saw a problem and a solution and figured out an ingenious way to solve a problem. And so I think having the founder in a founder led content role is amazing. Whether it's on camera or written or podcast or something is great, but it doesn't have to be you, and it doesn't even have to be content. It could be ads or something else if you want. I've got my ideas about the best thing for me and for most of my clients. And so I tend to attract people who are interested in that, but I still get people who are like, you know what, I've got a face for radio, or I'd much rather write. And that works too. You know, we've all seen people who are incredible writers who get a big audience and sell. And the truth is that it doesn't even need to be a big audience. The dumbest thing I ever said when Dan Martell was in town was like, I want to get famous on the Internet. And I had dreams about having all these viewers and followers and fans and subscribers and stuff. And, like, the truth is I've never gone viral once. And if I ever did, like, if a million people watch one of my videos, the first thing I would say is, oh, crap, there's 950,000 people who are the wrong folks, depending on what product you sell. But you and I sell advice for a specific kind of person at a premium price, because it's a premium service and we don't need a million viewers to do that. Today we just announced a new workshop that we're putting together. It's on YouTube. Like it's about YouTube, and it's basically about how to get big sales from a, uh, small channel. I think most of the advice that you see online about how to do social media is built for entertainment creators. Mr. Beast's incredible. But Mr. Beast gets paid in a really different way to you and I. Those guys, their job is go viral, get views, and they make money with sponsorship or brand deals or merch or adsense. But we sell products with actual real money and margins involved. And we don't need a, um, billion eyeballs to sell design a few clients. It's just much simpler.

Speaker B: What's coming up for me here. And we've done a lovely 360 here back to where we started with getting really clear about what you want to do. And if you don't want to do YouTube ads, if you don't want to do YouTube content, that's absolutely fine. I'm, um, thinking of a line from a fellow country lady of yours, Bronnie Wer, who wrote the wonderful book the five Regrets of the Dying and the single biggest regret of people. She's a palliative keranosh.

Speaker A: Yeah. Ah, yeah, I know the story.

Speaker B: She sat with people during the last weeks of their time in this planet and just was curious as to the things they enjoyed in life, the things that they really regretted. And the one thing they regretted was living a life that they thought others wanted them to live as opposed to the life that they want to live.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's the thing.

Speaker B: This is the discernment between what you should do and what you want to do. And I think a, uh, lot of times we get caught up in the things that we feel we should do and which creates this level of friction and tension and dis Ease discomfort as opposed to really being truly introspective about what it is that makes you you. And you creating a business that gives you the platform to do more of you. That's what I'm hearing loud and clear.

Speaker A: Yeah, dude, a thousand percent. And I had like a good 18 months wandering the wilderness miserable before I got smart enough. And I had a couple of friends who got around me and, and asked me did I really like how my weeks were? And I was like, well, not really. And I talked about all the stuff that I didn't want. And the moment I said it out loud, my friend James said, there's nothing more powerful than someone who's admitted what they want. Because the moment you've said it, now you're responsible to do something about it. And I did. And I think we all can do that.

Speaker B: What a lovely place to kind of move in, segue into our clothes. So, Mr. M. Moore M. Look, I have, uh, traditional clothes on this show.

Speaker A: Perfect.

Speaker B: You have coached some of the most incredible people on the planet. As we have spoken about thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs. You're just also, as I mentioned at the outset, this wonderful human. You're a family guy. You know what it is to live a great life, I feel. So can you share with our audience three timeless takeaways?

Speaker A: Number one, I got this from my mom and from my cousin Rolf, who was my hero growing up. Three of us. I think it was Rolf who coined the term, what he called a life artist. And a life artist is someone who's, like I said before, like squeezing every drop of juice out of days, weeks, moments, and, uh, sees life as an adventure. I think that's thing one, thing two. I don't know if this will resonate with everybody, but it means a lot to me. I think running a business is both an incredible opportunity for impact in the world, but it's also an incredible source of, at least for me, of self expression. And so if you've ever felt like an artist who's running a business, I think lean into that and don't try to do it the proper way. Do it the way that fits you like a glove. And then third, I would say we've all got Dan will call it unique ability. So we'll lend to that. There's something that you do that you've been doing since you're a kid. It's hardwired in you. You didn't have to learn it. It's effortless and easy and natural. And when you do it, people notice and it brings in the money. And frankly, the business wants you to do more of that. Whatever that thing is, that's the thing you should do more of. And if you did nothing else but just that, your business will probably double this year.

Speaker B: Oh, there you go, folks. There's the mic drop right there. Love it. What is next for you, Tacky? You're on this incredible journey at the moment, this significant trajectory you are scaling with purpose. There's no question of that. And you've done it in a very original way.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we totally are, dude. I'm really clear about this. So we talked about attract and convert quite a bit today, and I feel like we've got that really Dialed. I'm not in maintenance mode, but I know what I'm doing there and for a little while I'm going to just keep doing that. Which means the eye of my attention can go over here to delivery. And so if attract used to be about traffic and funnels and now it's about how do we become magnetic and bingeable. That's the big shift. A convert was about chasing the money to now it's choosing the people. Then delivery, I think is going from how do we create the most irresistible offer, which is what most of us do, like build something that's amazing for people to say yes to. Something that's an energizing experience for both of us, for me and for the clients. And so the big focus for us for the next probably two or three cycles are, uh, some pretty exciting, honestly chunky and a bit scary. Projects around how do we make it easier for clients to win, simpler for the coaches to coach? So instead of delivery, we're thinking about it as deliver ease. And how do we make it easy to know what my right next thing is? How is it easier for our coaches to know where every client's up to and what they're working on? And how do we create a customized pathway with some AI tools? So if somebody picks that project, not only does it give them like a, uh, really clear, you know, here's your six weeks. But that six week plan is different for you than it would be for me because you're different and I'm different and it knows a bunch about you. That's what we're working on.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Well, look, I wish you every success with that, continued success with everything you're doing. You're absolutely smashing it. I love your content.

Speaker A: Thanks, dude.

Speaker B: For anyone who wants to find out more about your work, Tacky who? And I can't imagine there is anyone listening who hasn't heard of the wonderful Tacky mur. But how best to connect with you, how best to reach you? Tacky.

Speaker A: Presumably my name is written somewhere. Wherever this goes.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Just type that into Instagram or YouTube. Taki Moore, Instagram. If you like short stuff, you get a taste. If you've enjoyed this conversation, YouTube's great because that's where I share all my best stuff.

Speaker B: Well, my friends, continue doing what you're doing.

Speaker A: Thanks, bro. This is fun.

Speaker B: You're a wonderful human. You're truly authentic. You're doing it for the right reasons. You're creating so much value for those who are actually locked into your content and no doubt for those who've been in your community. I know we've been in your community for some time previously. I'm going to get back in there as well.

Speaker A: Whenever you're ready.

Speaker B: But look, I want to thank you. Go and have a wonderful evening. Thanks for taking the time this evening. I know it's lit on there.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a almost 10:00pm uh, you got mellow taki after about 7:00pm I turned into a pumpkin. So I apologize that you got the scrap. Hopefully it was more deep than Jaz Hansy.

Speaker B: It was brilliant. Really, really enjoyed it. Look, take care my friend. Thank you.

Speaker A: I appreciate you bro. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: That wraps up today's episode. I hope you found immense value in our conversation as ever. But remember, awareness is only the first step. You will have heard me say before that knowledge alone is not power, but applied knowledge is what actually changes your business. So if you are ready to implement scalexos, it's our principle led operating system and build a business that works for you rather than you working for it. I invite you to join our Elevate program. This is for leaders generating between 500,000 3 million. Who wants want to scale without the chaos? Check the link in the description or show notes to learn more and submit your application today. Don't miss out on this opportunity to secure your seat. Have a great week. Keep scaling with purpose.