Stas came from marketing and assumed his background would be his edge in building a practice. It was all BS: clients do not come from campaigns.
Two things actually get you clients: doing great work in the room, and answering your phone. Word of mouth closes the rest.
When you are new and have not done the great work yet, you get reps any way you can, including a first client (a friend) at half rate, locked forever.
His mistakes were big mistakes with small numbers, so he learned at "community college tuition" rates rather than paying for them later.
What he sells is narrow: he implements the system for money and does everything else, mentoring included, for free. Cow, salt, fire. Keep it simple.
This year I spent seven grand on a CRM that did nothing for me. I am a marketer by background, so of course I did. Building and adding is in my nature, and for a long time I was sure that instinct was my edge.
I thought marketing was my advantage
When I started, the math seemed obvious. I had spent a career in marketing, and here was EOS®, a proven system worth talking about. Put the two together and it had to be amazing. I would do all the clever marketing things and the practice would fill itself.
It was all BS.
The clients do not come from campaigns. There are two things that actually get you clients, and neither one is a funnel. You do great work in the room, and you answer your phone. That is the whole engine. A client walks out of a session lighter than they walked in, someone in their life notices, and they hear that it is this EOS® thing and they should call me. By the time that person picks up the phone, the work is already done. They want what their friend has, and there is nothing left for me to sell.
The marketing version of me took years to accept that. I kept reaching for the sophisticated answer when the plain one was sitting right in front of me.
You get clients by getting reps
Here is the problem with an engine that runs on great work: when you are brand new, you have not done the great work yet. Nobody is walking out of your room lighter, because you barely have a room. So you have to find people willing to let you practice on them, so you can get reps.
My first client was a dear friend. I told him what I was doing. I was going out at four thousand dollars a session day, and I would charge him two thousand, and I would never change his rate. He is still with me. Years later he gave me the feedback only a friend gives you: you really sucked five years ago. Of course I did. He kept paying anyway, and now, in his words, I am actually worth what I charge. He still thanks me for the six thousand dollar a session discount he is riding.
That is the real early strategy, and it is not glamorous. Get as many reps as you can. Go help charities. Go help entrepreneurs. Go to every networking thing, target market and non-target market, and ask people about their businesses. Give them a nugget they can use. Do not try to EOS® them, ever. Just be useful and let the room teach you what a session is supposed to feel like.
Big mistakes, small numbers
The seven thousand dollar CRM was not my only expensive lesson this year, just the most recent one. I make errors like that because I am a builder and an adder, and that instinct is exactly what gets people like me into trouble. We want to bolt on the new tool, the new system, the new clever thing.
The saving grace is that I made my big mistakes with small numbers. I learned from them at community college rates, and now I can afford Ivy League tuition. A seven thousand dollar error stings, but it is less than a single session day, and I would much rather have learned that lesson then than now.
You cannot describe skinning your knee to someone. They have to do it. A buddy of mine lost six figures on a comp plan because it was not written right. He has made millions since, because every comp plan he has written since is airtight. He built himself a template out of that loss, and now if you do not want to fit his template, he will not work for you. The loss was tuition. Everything after it was return.
What I actually sell
I was standing around with Gino at the last QCE, just chatting, and he asked how things were. I told him the truth. A hundred and sixty five session days. I do nothing but EOS® and drink bourbon and hang out with entrepreneurs. I make no money doing anything other than that.
That is the line I keep coming back to. I implement this proven system for money. Everything else I do for free. A mentee of mine, twenty five years old, was about to buy a business. We were sitting around one night and a friend of ours told him flat out that if he bought the business, he would find him and punch him in the head, because he needed to build it, not buy it. He built it. He runs it on EOS®. He called the other day to say he thinks he made forty grand last month. I did not charge him a cent for any of that, and it is the part of the work I would never give up.
None of this came from marketing myself. It came from doing great work, answering my phone, and paying my tuition one skinned knee at a time. Cow, salt, fire. Keep it simple. That has been the whole thing.
