Patrick Metzger With PM and Associates

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Patrick Metzger with PM and associates. Welcome, Patrick.

Patrick Metzger: [00:00:42] Hey, thanks so much for having me, Lee. Excited to be here, man.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Patrick Metzger: [00:00:50] Yeah, so I’m a certified iOS implementer, so I work with small to medium sized businesses all across the nation, and what I really do is I come into those businesses as a business coach and facilitator and really help them execute at a much higher level by helping them implement an overall operating system that deals with everything from helping clarify their vision and structure to making sure they’re tracking the correct data and executing to the fullest, basically.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:21] So now what is kind of the pain point that your clients are coming to you with? Are they just at the beginning stages that they want to just kind of start fresh and then build their own, you know, professional operating system? Or is it something that they’re just kind of struggling and they come to you to kind of help them through a challenge?

Patrick Metzger: [00:01:40] Yeah, great question. You know, if you look at every business, it doesn’t matter if you run a lemonade stand or if you’re running Google. Everybody has issues, right? Everyone has multiple issues around people, processes, lack of vision, lack of communication. So the the big item that I typically see with businesses, you know, I work with everyone from solopreneurs to $100 million plus companies. But there’s so many issues around lack of communication. Owners, visionaries having trouble letting go of things. That’s a huge one that I very, very frequently see as well. And then just, you know, people want to get more out of their business and they just don’t have a really solid method of how to get there. And anybody that’s ever worked with a coach knows that when you have an outside, an outside facilitator and outside perspective, it’s absolutely priceless. And pointing out a lot of the things and digging out a lot of the things that you may be know are there, but they’re either hard or you don’t know how to bring them up, maybe within your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:44] So now, what’s your back story, how did you just start finding a heart for these entrepreneurs?

Patrick Metzger: [00:02:50] Yeah, yeah, I kind of I’ve kind of gotten here in an unorthodox way to tell you the truth. So I was actually a teacher for 11 years. A lot of middle school, a little bit of upper elementary. Loved it. So teaching coaching has always been my passion. It’s always been my big, big, my big. What do they do and my big why? As part of that is everything I’ve done over my professional career has always been about helping people achieve more. So I’ve helped students. I have helped kids on an athletic field. I was a football coach for a long time. Now it’s really just transition to helping individuals through some high performance coaching, but now mainly working with just leadership teams across the country. And how do you get more out of your team? How do you get more out of your business because every single person is is looking for that. But I, you know, going way back, I left teaching to find what it was that I really wanted to do, and it took me a while to realize that teaching coaching was absolutely something I wanted to do forever. But I did not like the lack of freedom in teaching.

Patrick Metzger: [00:03:57] And, you know, I worked with a business coach myself and to tell you the truth, that’s really who kind of set me on a different direction. I did a lot of health, wellness coaching, consulting when I left teaching because I had a very strong background in that. But he’s the one that really kind of saw way more in me and really started to dig that out. And from there, I really transitioned from health wellness into more holistic, high performance coaching that led me to working with CEOs managers. And that’s where I really ran across the iOS framework, which stands for entrepreneurial operating system. And I was sold. I immediately borrowed thirty thousand dollars against my house, went and did the training and never looked back, started with my first business six weeks after that. Fast forward to now just about a couple of years and work with over 20 companies nationwide. Everyone from, like I said, solopreneurs that are really building the foundation and laying the bricks of their business to $100 million plus companies that are really just trying to break through the ceiling.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:58] Now, for the sake of this conversation, let’s talk about the beginning stages and how to create that successful business. Once you had the framework from iOS and you had kind of a blueprint on how to execute the service of coaching, I guess, and the deliverable back to your client. How did you get that first client? How did you kind of move from? I don’t know. Can I do this to, yeah, I’m doing this and this is I can do this and I won’t have any kind of imposter syndrome. I’m qualified to do this and I’m the person to do this.

Patrick Metzger: [00:05:31] Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I’m always one of those people where I’d rather have my back up against the wall or put me in a corner because I’m going to figure it out. And I’ve just always had an attitude like that of Don’t tell me what I can’t do because I’m going to make sure that I prove you wrong. But I had a I, you know, when I when I first was looking into becoming a professional iOS implementer to tell you the truth, I I talked to a lot of other implementers around the country and I said, You know, you guys, I don’t, you know, I don’t have the business experience that the rest of you do. A lot of you guys have done, you know, you’ve been CEOs, you’ve done consulting forever. I mean, I was a teacher. I said, I’m a teacher. You guys, you know, how is that going to work even? And they every single one of them told me the exact same thing. They said, Patrick, if you’re a great teacher, you can get people to understand things like the system, the tools, the methods that we use. If you can facilitate really tough discussions, ask things that people feel extremely awkward asking or talking about, they said. If you can do those things, they said you’ll learn about people’s businesses.

Patrick Metzger: [00:06:41] And if you’re a smart guy, you’ll learn them very, very quickly. So that, you know, that gave me a ton of confidence in like, Hey, I can absolutely do this and I’m going to be very, very good at it. And they said that they a few of them actually said, You know, some of our best implementers are former teachers because they know how to teach the tools and then they’re deadly effective at it. So, you know, when I started out, I knew it was going to be a journey because I did not have a really strong business network. I mean, actually, it was very, very, very small. So I knew no one thing I needed to do first was really build up that network and then just start putting myself out there, start being seen, start, start offering up value. That’s a huge part of this business is in helping first, providing value first. So my first client actually came like I said, it was about six, maybe six or seven weeks after I became an implementer. I offered to do a talk at an entrepreneurial center right here in North Dakota, where I live, and I think I only had man, I think I only had four attendees at that thing. You know, I put on about a two hour workshop around iOS and all the benefits it provides and such.

Patrick Metzger: [00:07:54] And the client, eventually that I got out of that talk wasn’t even at the talk. He was somebody that had signed up for the workshop ended up not showing up. And here’s the power of follow through in sales right here is I asked him. I sent him a message after the workshop. I think it was the next day or something. I said, Hey, so sorry that you couldn’t make it, you know, I’d still love to chat with you. And I never heard anything. So I thought, OK, whatever. Well, fast forward, probably a week or two after that, I was driving along interstate here in North Dakota and I was about to go by his business and I thought, You know what? I’m going to stop, I’m going to pull in and I’m going to go introduce myself. And long story short, he and I sat there for two or two and a half hours. He started dumping on me on all the struggles in his business and things that were happening and weren’t happening and booked a 90 minute meeting with his leadership team that night. I think I came back that next week right away, presented as a team, they were sold. And that’s how I got started. Really? Wow. Be persistent. Right?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:02] That is great advice. And that is and and great being so proactive. A lot of folks, you know, the first little hint of they don’t like me, they just hide and then forget about them and try to repress all that. But you kind of leaned into it and said, Look, you know, people are busy. Let me go. Check this. Let me, you know, literally knock on the door and congratulations for doing that. I mean, that’s a great testament to others about really, how hungry are you? Who wants it more?

Patrick Metzger: [00:09:31] And yeah, some you know, some people hear the word no or they hear silence and it breaks their spirit. For me, I hear those things or I get silence and I go, All right, here we go, baby. You know, I look at it as a challenge, really, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:45] Like, no does have to me. No, it could just mean not now. So you got to just keep grinding. Now, for folks out there that are kind of building their maybe first business, maybe they’re about to take that leap from, you know, working a corporate job or just a normal person job and then being an entrepreneur. What are some of the kind of foundational pieces they need or the tools they need in order to be successful?

Patrick Metzger: [00:10:12] Yeah, I would say a couple of things number one, bank on your network. You know, the people that can help you go to them, ask for help. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. The biggest item, though, Lee, I mean, man, you have to be willing to invest in yourself. And that’s a huge leap. You know, when you when you leave, whether it’s corporate or, you know, steady job, whatever it may be that you’re doing. And if you’re going to go out on your own, it’s terrifying. It’s exciting in the same. But man, the best advice I can give is if I could go back and do it all over again, I would have borrowed the money. I would have taken the steps to do things correctly and right from the very, very beginning. So I think a lot of people kind of they leave, they kind of test the water, you know, they kind of get partway in and then they get a little worried and then they back out a little bit and then they dove in for a little bit further. And it’s it’s it’s time, you’re burning time and you’re burning money along the way to me.

Patrick Metzger: [00:11:16] You know, if you’re going to roll your roll the dice on yourself, you have to go all in and that’s always energy resources, money, time. But yeah, man, if I could go back, I would have borrowed. I would have borrowed a huge amount of cash and said, Hey, I’m going to hire the people that I need that are experts in marketing, and I’m going to get coaching and I’m going to do all these other things so that I can blast off from the very beginning. And it’s a huge step backward, and that’s what scares most people is they feel like they can’t go backward. And, you know, I always make the analogy of, man, if you’re going to jump across a cliff, you know, a huge valley or canyon, you can’t stand at the edge and just jump. You always have to go backward and you better take a good run at it. So invest in yourself, do what you got to do up front because it will accelerate the process tremendously. And that’s, you know, you’re you’re you’re wasting time. I think if you don’t do those things

Lee Kantor: [00:12:14] Now, when you look back at your career thus far and you kind of look at your teaching to now, your coaching. Are you finding some threads and similarities on how folks learn and how they absorb this kind of information? Like do you think coaching would be a worthwhile way to maybe tweak some of what the learning that happens in schools?

Patrick Metzger: [00:12:38] Oh, absolutely. You know, as a as a former teacher for a long time and coach and now working with adults, I mean, I can see so many of the things that are missing and a lot of what’s missing is it’s, you know, there’s a difference between teaching and coaching. You know, if you’re familiar with like John Maxwell’s five levels of leadership, there’s a big difference also between management and checking boxes. But at the top is coaching and coaching is truly caring, connecting, making sure people understand it. I think a lot of people, when they hear teaching or when they attempt to teach, they think it’s just presenting information. And you can present all the information you want. Does it mean that it’s soaking in and that it doesn’t mean it’s being absorbed and being used effectively? Because that’s the biggest difference is implementing being able to implement what you learn and execute it as well. So, you know, as I think of kind of my whole journey to. An effective coach is not just presenting the information, they’re not just putting it out there, they are connecting through stories. They’re connecting through commonalities. They’re getting very they’re making an emotional connection with the people that they work with because that’s what makes the biggest difference. I don’t care who you are or what level you’re at business school and athletic field. You know, you look at the most successful coaches in the world. If you’re going to talk athletics in particular, there are people that can connect with their athletes and their staffs extremely, extremely well. And it’s all about being your true self and being a fantastic listener, swallowing your pride and being genuinely curious about people, I think is big too.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:32] Now, any advice for that listener out there, that is, they have their business and maybe they’re struggling. Is there something that they can do right now? Is there some low hanging fruit for that entrepreneur that is kind of maybe in a rut or a plateau that they can kind of. You know, elevate their game a little bit and move the needle in their business.

Patrick Metzger: [00:14:57] Mm-hmm. Absolutely. You know, you use your network or reach out to people that can help you. You know, on one end of that, you could work with a coach. You could pay to work with somebody like that. Not everyone has those resources, even though I would highly recommend it because it’s going to pay for itself in the in the long run. But a lot of us have fantastic resources and connections around us. At many times. We unfortunately don’t tap into, you know, if you’re a business owner, man, talk with other business owners, join a mastermind. There’s a ton of resources online groups online that you can get a ton of valuable feedback, whether it’s personal, professional, whatever it may be. But don’t be afraid to ask for help because everybody needs it and nobody likes asking for it. No one likes to swallow their pride and do those things. But when you do, it’s going to make the difference. And ultimately, that’s what we’re all looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:54] Now, I know you’re relatively kind of young in your career as a business coach, but have you kind of landed on a sweet spot of what type of an entrepreneur is the best fit client for you?

Patrick Metzger: [00:16:07] Yeah, I’m yeah, I’m thirty eight years old. I feel like I’ve lived three different lives. I always say that I feel like I had my teaching life. My transition life and now doing what I’m doing now as a business coach. But the neat thing about iOS and what I bring into organizations is it’s industry agnostic, so it doesn’t matter. I mean, I have clients that are, I have medical, I have construction, I have real estate technology. I have a little bit of everything and it works fantastic fantastically within companies that are anywhere from. I mean, I have some solopreneurs. I have some $100 million plus companies with hundreds of employees also. But I will always say I kind of have a sweet spot. They’re not such a sweet spot, a sweet spot. I kind of have a soft spot in my heart for working with entrepreneurs that are really starting at ground zero because there’s nothing more exciting than working with someone that has a dream. They can see the dream, but what what I’m doing is I’m coming in and I’m actually making that dream a reality. I’m helping walk them through that process of creating clarity around everything from their values to their organizational structure to their big why and what and who they are and what they’re going to be about and what’s really important to them all the way to.

Patrick Metzger: [00:17:37] How are we going to execute it? What’s the rock hard rock solid plan that we’re going to start right now that is actually going to get you to that point? And it’s so fun to see as a team grows, and maybe it’s one or two people that start and then they’re able to add that next employee and then it helps elevate them. And then they add that next employee and they’re able to elevate further and further. And then it’s and then you just have that compounding effect. But too many people don’t ask for help early enough in the process, and they just sit there and they spin and they spin and they spin and they wish and they wish about what all these things that they want to see happen, but they don’t take the steps to actually make it happen. So yeah, I would say those startup entrepreneurs I absolutely love, but you’ve got to find someone to that’s willing to make that, that investment because it is a big one at the beginning.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:30] Now I see here that you’re also launching a national mastermind platform. Can you speak of that a little bit?

Patrick Metzger: [00:18:38] I am, yeah. So the Mastermind platform is called Velocity Masterminds, hoping to launch it late fall or very beginning of twenty twenty two. And the whole concept from that really came from the idea of looking at all these other masterminds and business groups and things around the nation and even world that exist. The one piece set I felt like was really missing is they are a little borderline. Even your best ones are a little borderline transactional. But there’s also that personal growth and development piece missing from it. So this mastermind is going to be similar to many others you would find, and I’m not going to name any in particular some of the biggest, most popular ones, you know, but it’ll include a fantastic peer group, regular meetings around talking business, talking through issues, introducing each other’s businesses. How can we help? What can we do for you? But there’s also going to be a different component to it that really focuses on, Hey, if we can improve you as a professional or as a on a personal level, excuse me, we can really improve who you are as a person and start to have deeper and higher level conversations and get really open and transparent and rah about who you are and who you aren’t and start to improve that facet within a person. It raises your professional ceiling as well. And I felt like all these masterminds that are out there really lack that deep connection within the group and with between the people within that group. So, yeah, super excited to to launch that. It’s going to be really niched out by different industries and as far as professional level. So we’ll have visionary CEO groups, we’ll have more operations and integrator type groups, but then we’ll also have groups based on industries as well. So real estate groups and technology groups and construction groups and you name it. So yeah, it’s it’s going to be a lot of fun spend a lot of work so far, but it’s going to make a big impact.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:47] Well, we’d like to support you in that if there’s anything the Business RadioX network can be doing to help you get the word out about that. I’m a big believer in mastermind groups and I think that that sometimes they do get too transactional and that it creates a lot of pressure to bring leads. And I think that there is something missing and I think a bigger Y and really getting maybe layers deep with the individual would help them kind of see that and not make it so transactional. So we’re here to support you. So if there’s anything we can be doing for you, please let us know because that’s a cause that we would love to get behind.

Patrick Metzger: [00:21:20] Awesome. I appreciate that.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:22] Lee Now, if there is someone out there that wants to learn more about what you’re up to. Is there a website they can go to to maybe find some of your resources or get on your calendar?

Patrick Metzger: [00:21:33] Yeah, the best website is go to my personal one. It is Patrick Metzger. You can learn a little bit about everything that I do. So like I said, I am a certified iOS implementer. You’ll find a link on there that will actually take you to my iOS website kind of a microsite. There you can learn about the strategic consulting team that I have, where we really kind of take a concierge approach to helping with people issues within businesses. And then very shortly there will be some information coming on that mastermind onto my personal website. And then also you can find my podcast there as well. So I do run the Patrick Metzger Show podcast, where we interview high performers from around the world really focusing on their journey to the top and what’s what they’ve had to do to get there.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:18] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success you’re doing. Important work and we appreciate you.

Patrick Metzger: [00:22:24] Yeah. Thanks so much, Leigh.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:25] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Coach the Coach radio.