Empowered CEO - How I Experienced An Aligned Journey from $0k to $50k - Ben McLellan

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Dear Friend,

Thank you for taking the time to download this. You may not read this whole thing and that’s fine. At the core of this document is a simple message…

You can grow your business in the way that YOU want and without hustling and grinding all day everyday. Of course it takes work, but what I share here will reinforce what you already know: That when you operate in alignment with who you are and show up consistently, things work out in the most perfect way. Even if that perfect way isn’t what you expected.

Here I will share everything I think could be valuable from the last ten months of launching my coaching and consulting business. I’ll lay it out in a timeline, but will also make it easy for you to pick out the pieces that most apply to you.

Wishing you many blessings and much fulfillment as you continue your journey,
Ben

Some backstory

My first foray into entrepreneurship was in 2009 when I opened my own yoga and personal training studio. The first nine months were hell lol. Like, I didn’t want to get out of bed because I had no idea how to run a business. But I found a great mentor, implemented what he said and it became a successful business that I ran for over six years.

I was looking for a new challenge so I sold the studio, basically gave it away, and moved on. I dove into learning Facebook ads. And that led to me working with some clients and getting good enough results to pursue it further. In 2017, I joined a program called ClientKit to build my agency.

And about halfway through the program I had a realization: ‘The greatest use of my gifts is not spending all day in FB ads manager.’

And that was a pivotal moment in my evolution and my journey.

I joined the team at Traffic and Funnels (host of the CK program I went through) and began coaching for them part-time. Those early days were rough lol. I had good fundamentals, but I had never been pushed mentally like that. I needed to think bigger, and I needed to do it fast if I was going to make it in that environment.

I spent two years at TF and ascended to Client Success Director there in April of 2018. I was scared, I wasn’t ready to be a director and yet I survived lol. Over those two years I oversaw the journey of over a thousand clients.

I learned more in those two years than any other two year stretch in my life.

When I left TF I was considering doing my own thing, but I didn’t have a ton of faith in what I would offer. Kind of funny as I look back to just over a year ago. So, I joined a PR agency as their COO and operated in that role for about seven months.

It was another great learning experience.

Finally, in December of 2019, I was clear that it was time for me to do my own thing. No more messing around. I launched The Empowered CEO in March of 2020. Three weeks before the US got hit hard by Covid. Talk about interesting timing.

Fortunately, the first clients I brought on were largely unaffected by the pandemic. Our work together was focused on growing their businesses while building their team and helping them operate in their true zone of genius.

I had some amazing people raise their hands to work with me when I launched and it was incredibly valuable to work 1:1 with these clients. I learned so much about what this type of client needed and the gap, in terms of solution, in the market.

Client Acquisition

First thing first. Because of my time at TF I had built up a network and reputation. I say that because sometimes we see what someone else is sharing to build their business, we try it, and it doesn’t get the same results for us.

So understand the context in which I share how I have acquired clients over the past ten months.

The first thing I did was just start sharing that the opportunity to work with me 1:1 was available. Now, as you’ll see in some of these examples, I spoke to challenges/pains that I could help with, and THAT got people raising their hand to work with me.d

I didn’t share every post ^^, but those are the key posts that I think will be valuable for you.

And if you continue to look at my profile there is a rhythm of making offers to my audience, giving away valuable training, sharing stories and above all approaching it with humor.
One of the biggest pieces that I’ve focused on over the last few months is really showing up in my content as the way I show up in life. And that means lots of humor, challenging norms, supporting others and being vulnerable.

Now is a great time for you to pause and think about how you show up in your marketing. Is it just a persona or is it really you? Personas are fine, but I would offer that it could be hard to maintain that and it could also be holding you back from experiencing more of the success and fulfillment that you really want.

Clarity of Offer

One of the reasons I took on a dozen 1:1 clients to start this business was because I wanted to have a deep understanding of the problems my ideal client wanted solved and what I could solve.

And it played out exactly as I’d hoped. Well, sort of lol.

After about six months of working closely with clients, it became clear to me that I was helping most of them with their fulfillment. And I began to see that there might be a massive opportunity in the market.

So in July, I joined Taki Moore’s Black Belt Mastermind so that I could develop my IP and marketing strategy.

This was a great move for me because it allowed me to deep dive into what I was doing and how I could grow the business.

At this point I was averaging about $30k collected per month. My driver wasn’t to just make more revenue, but to solve a gap in the market.

So in August, I put out word that The Raving Fan Formula was going to help multiple six and seven figure owners improve their client fulfillment system to create better client experiences, get better client results, improve client retention and increase business profits.

Well this was a good move because several people raised their hands as soon as I announced it and August was an $80k collected month.

I worked closely with about a dozen owners between August and when I’m writing this, December 2020.

What I quickly saw was the need for more of our own internal systems. I was fortunate to bring on Jay Goncalves to help me with the infrastructure and to help me deliver The Raving Fan Formula.

As Jay and I continued to serve clients with The Raving Fan Formula, we started to see that we could take this consulting offer and reach more people with it. More on that later…

Team Building

Back in August I hired a VA to take some admin work off of my plate. I was doing an average of $40k per month at that point but up until then it was just me and I was, and still do, work four 8 hour work days each week.

In September, I added another part-time member. Ashley is overseeing our operations. Honestly, I could have waited to bring on an ops manager but I like to hire a little early and this person is an A player that I knew would be valuable to add to our team.

In October, Jay came on board to help me deliver the RFF consulting offer and it was the right move at the right time. Stay tuned on that…

Offer Evolution

So what now? Well over the past ten months I have also had lots of coaches doing between $5k and $20k per month reach out to see if I would work with them. I didn’t really have anything in place to serve them well and couldn’t continue to take on more 1:1 clients.

So, we did something about it and that is where the Ethical Scaling program was born.

Just yesterday a friend of mine said, ‘Fulfillment is a blue ocean. Do you think it’s the best move to branch outside of that?’

I respect his perspective, but here’s the thing: I’m not just here to build something as big and fast as possible. I want to help as many people as I can and at the same time help to bring some positive change to the high ticket coaching space.

I’m tired of seeing people not get the results they are promised, or enroll in a program that isn’t totally aligned with who they are because they don’t see another way.

Ethical scaling is going to support coaches earlier on in their business ($5k to $20k per month) to grow their business on their terms. That means marketing, selling and fulfilling in a way that lights up the coach.

No more ‘do it my way because that’s what works.’ That approach is lazy and ineffective. In Ethical Scaling we are going to take what coaches have that is working and optimize it for growth. And while there will be work, there is no hustle and grind required.

So if you are in a place where you want to grow your coaching business on your terms and do it with a world-class team then here’s how you can learn more: