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Intro: Broadcasting live from our flagship studio in Atlanta, Georgia. This is scaling in public. The next 100 Business RadioX markets, featuring founders Lee Kantor and Stone Payton, along with some of America’s top coaches, helping them grow the network with real strategy, real lessons, and real accountability all shared in public. To learn more about the proven system that turns podcast interviews into a perpetual prospecting pipeline through generosity, not gimmicks, go to brx.com And download the free Business RadioX playbook. Now here’s your host.

Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Scaling in Public. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you. Please join me in welcoming back to the Business RadioX microphone. Our lead, our mentor in this project, coach Trisha Stetzel. How are you?

Trisha Stetzel: Oh my gosh, Stone, I’m so excited. And you know, it’s been a few weeks. You had a couple other coaches come in and I can’t wait to hear how things are going. It’s fantastic to be back with you guys today.

Stone Payton: Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. You guys ready? Absolutely. I know we only have a limited amount of time together, so before we jump in, uh, I’m gonna set some. Just a simple container for today and what that looks like. So we’re 30 days in, and this is a 90 day plan, right? This is our first season of this. Uh, I’ll call it experiment. Right. This fun thing that we’re doing in the background, scaling in public. Um, so this session isn’t about new strategy. It’s about reflection and course correction, or looking ahead to the actions that you want to take in the next 60 days, because we’re 30 days in. So the goal is really to gain some clarity on how you see the next 60 days going. I like to call this in my coaching practice the stop and reassess session. So we’re really just going to kind of stop, reflect and then look forward if that’s cool with you guys. Um, so why don’t we start with reflecting on the first 30 days when you think back to where you were 30 days ago, what feels different now?

Lee Kantor: Stone, you want to take that?

Stone Payton: Well, for me, what feels the most different? And there are a few things, but the most different is just a a renewed degree of focus on this objective. It’s real easy for me and maybe some others who are listening to get really excited about something. And then. And then a nice shiny object pops up over here and you forget about this. But I personally feel like I’ve had more direct focus, more consistent energy toward a specific set of objectives than I have in a long time. So it’s helped me achieve some clarity and focus. That’s the biggest shift I see for me personally.

Trisha Stetzel: Nice. Thank you Stone. Lee?

Lee Kantor: And for me, I think, um, it’s just honing in on activities that are that we’re trying and we’re actually executing and we’re tweaking. So we’re doing more activities and we’re getting more data, and then we’re adjusting based on what we’re learning from the data. So I’m excited about that moving forward of just more kind of focused activity. That’s it feels like it’s moving the needle.

Trisha Stetzel: I really? You guys are using coaching language? This is so much fun. I’m like, yes, this sounds amazing.

Lee Kantor: We hang out with a lot of coaches. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: So I love this. So you talked about, uh, Stone, the renewed focus and Lee for you, it’s the execution, right. And it’s not like giant things. It’s really looking at what you’re doing and making those small adjustments. So the execution is getting closer to where you want to be. What about this. So that’s thinking what about the actual decision making or the prioritizing. Do you feel like the conversations that you’ve had are creeping into how you’re making decisions or even prioritizing those activities you’re focused on?

Stone Payton: Well, I don’t know about prioritizing, but I feel like we we’ve taken more action on more things a lot faster and in some cases not even necessarily consulting each other to the nth degree on it before we do something. You know, I’m real comfortable with what Lee’s doing. Lee’s comfortable with what I’m doing. And, um, but the way that is, um, kind of, uh, come to express itself like we’ve gotten one of the themes has been lean on people who have already benefited from being a part of this thing and get them to help you evangelize. And, uh, and, I mean, we jumped on that with all fours, and we’re seeing those results. We have people who are revitalized from the conversation, and they are reaching out and evangelizing for us and creating, you know, more opportunities to have these conversations. And that’s I mean, that’s real time. That’s real.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. I love that. Lee at thoughts around the decision making.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. So for me, what um, from each session we’ve kind of gleaned what we feel was an aha moment maybe. And then when we’ve kind of thought about it. We tried to create action around it and, um, and, and I feel like we’ve really made major strides in honing in on some of the topics that we covered in terms of ideal client and how to make us, uh, you know, make the sale easier and how to, um, communicate the value in a way that, uh, people are grasping faster. And, and every time we got that kind of aha moment, we just really took it seriously and tried to create operations or execution around it. Um, so that’s the part that has really got me excited. And it’s now it’s become so integrated as part of our kind of work week and our and our time that I look forward to these sessions, you know, to get that next aha moment so that we can just get closer and closer to systematizing everything so that we are getting kind of those predictable results based on, you know, activities that are generating those results in, you know, kind of over and over again.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. Yes, I love this. And so shout out to Maggie Ishak and Mike Brunnick for those coaching sessions that they’ve had with you guys. I would love to. And I think it’s worth doing here if people are curious, like what is your experience been having uh, or being coached? I’ll call it live. Right. Uh, these coaches are coming in and they’re actually coaching you on their expertise or the thing that they do best in their own practice. For you guys, what has that experience been like? Because I remember way back when we started this project, you both said you were going to be coachable. So how has that experience been?

Stone Payton: I feel like we’ve lived into that. I feel like we’ve lived up to that promise so far. You may get a different perspective from the coaches, but I feel like that we have been very coachable and there’s so many of these aha moments. And because our antenna are up, sometimes things just reveal themselves that I don’t think would have made it through all the clutter. And like this idea of of removing risk. I really, you know, we wanted to we got the idea to sort of like, what can we do to lower the risk of teaming up with us, or at least exploring this. And it turns out with just turning a few dials, we can eliminate the risk and have people completely comfortable before they make a financial investment. And much of a time investment in exploring this further. And, you know, prior to this, I would have never even put that much energy into trying to lower the risk. And now we’ve we’ve all but removed the risk. I mean, it’s, you know, so to me that’s that’s just gold. Absolutely gold.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. So I’m going to spin it just a little bit different because you said in the beginning you like to be challenged. So as you reflect back on the coaching sessions, can you give us some examples on a couple of things that you’ve been challenged on that made you think differently?

Lee Kantor: Sure. Um, I think that, um, and I think this came up in Maggie’s when she said, can we make she said that it would have been great if Business RadioX was around when she started, because that would have helped her launch. And we were talking about how to create, um, the experience of Business RadioX kind of like a Sirius XM when you buy a new car, um, uh, where it’s just there. And then if you want to continue it, you just pay for it. Um, and that was something that we had never considered, um, even thought in that direction. And when she’s just brought it up, It was one of those things where I hadn’t thought about it. It hadn’t occurred to me at all. And then once I thought about it, it it kind of I was able to come up with. Okay, now I can see how that could work. And we just have to figure out how to make it work. And that was an area where it was out of the blue for me. Did not it didn’t occur to me. And um, and I was able to, I think, be coachable in the sense that I’m open to it and let’s see how to make it work. And then we landed on something that we felt pretty confident about moving forward, that we have now a way to make that work. So I don’t know. I mean, some people might think that’s kind of a like confrontationally challenge, but I think it’s just kind of thinking challenge where I’m something occurred that I wasn’t thinking about, and I was open to exploring it.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, the beauty of coaching. You know, I heard some things about you guys from the other coaches. You guys are great when it comes to being coachable, so you’re definitely living up to the promise that you gave me all those weeks ago, which is very exciting.

Lee Kantor: So did they say, because this is one of my things that I’m a paranoid of my own personality is I don’t want to be a defensive. Are they? Did you hear any feedback from that standpoint? Because that’s something I’m trying to work on.

Trisha Stetzel: No, not at all. And Lee, I have been on the other side of that as the coach in one of our early sessions. And you’re not you don’t come off as being defensive at all, just asking thoughtful questions. And that doesn’t make you defensive. It it really helps us as coaches realize you need more clarity around what it is that we’re talking about, and we appreciate that. I think it’s fantastic for you to come back at us and say, well, I’m not sure what what exactly does that mean or what might that look like? And then we talk through it. Right. I think it’s great.

Lee Kantor: All right. I just yeah, just working on that.

Trisha Stetzel: Any bad things yet? Now I’m gonna come back around after your 60 days and we’ll see. We’ll see. Uh, how about if it’s okay with, um, shifting from the thinking, reflection and the things that were happening and, um, some things that were very interesting to you. Let’s talk about actions or even non-actions. What kinds of things? And you’ve we’ve started this conversation already, but let’s dig a little deeper. What kinds of things came up that you’re taking action on that are a priority for you right now?

Lee Kantor: Um, I’ll go first. One of the big things that we’re taking action and this has been a dramatic shift, is that we are we’ve implemented a weekly email, uh, to the four constituents that were focused on coaches, associations, franchises and then kind of our general database. And we’re writing emails to each of those each week. Um, and then what I’m doing, I, you know, I’m, I like systems and I like process. So, uh, the system is I write them on Saturday. Um, my VA, um, sends them out on Monday. She reports back on some key metrics on Friday. I take those key metrics and I take the emails and I dump them into AI, and then it makes recommendations, and that allows me to iterate and adjust the, you know, kind of fine tune the, uh, the communication for my writing on Saturday. And then it’s kind of rinse and repeat. So, um, it’s really I’m excited because I like process and I’m excited because I get to use AI, and and AI loves data, so I’m able to give them kind of content and data. It helps with analysis and makes recommendations. And then we’re able to, you know, kind of do it again. And we’ve done it probably since the beginning of this project.

Stone Payton: So this is one that I bristled with, but only internally. I did not voice my concern partially to be coachable, but also I just chose not to voice my concern. But I have never been one to communicate very frequently using email, you know, and I get emails a lot and they don’t make me mad or anything. But I have never been one to say, okay, let’s do a weekly email, let’s do more email marketing. And Lee has for some time, and I bristled with it internally. I didn’t voice a thing, but it’s working. It is working. People are responding and like and Lee crafted. While I was gone, I was off playing in Ireland for a couple of weeks. He crafted another note that, I mean, it really looked like more like one of these marketing emails to me. And I looked at that and said, man, okay, I’m glad. I’m glad I saw this. And you know, that’ll help me respond. And that email is that it’s working and people are scheduling time to have a conversation with me. And I’m like, well, I’m really glad we’re doing that. But I would have never done it on my own in a million years, ever.

Trisha Stetzel: Owen says. No more spam in my inbox. Well, I will tell you guys, I’m on your mailing list and I love what I’m seeing. And I didn’t realize, Lee, until you just mentioned it, that it is something new and one showed up in my inbox recently that said, we fixed the things that was stopping you from booking and I love that email. I was just searching for it. I’m like, I know I have this really great email in my inbox. So by the way, if anyone’s listening and you want a piece of that, you should reach out to Lee and Stone to get on their mailing list and have a conversation with these gentlemen about the work that they’re doing, which is.

Lee Kantor: And and for me, the AI component of this has been instrumental. The the ability for AI to take the like. First it recommended to keep track of certain metrics. Then and then then the my VA keeps track of those metrics every week. And then to take that analysis and then kind of be able to then move it into creating the content and then be able to test and say, okay, well, how did we do like that? That the thing you’re referring to was we were getting a ton of people saying, I’m going to book. And then they never booked. And then the AI is like, let me see your booking page. And then so I submitted the booking page to the AI and they’re like, this is the problem, change your booking page. So now we’ve changed the booking page and we’ll see if that really makes a difference. But and it seems to because anecdotally Stone and I saw a couple people book now. Um, and I think that for people who are on the fence about AI, I think they really should do some experiments around it because it is very powerful and it’s able to to analyze and synthesize data that you may be missing just because you can’t kind of keep in your head the quantity of data that it can.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, coaches who are listening to this show, did you hear that Lee’s using AI and not replacing the coaching with AI. We are not being replaced by AI. For those of you who thought we were. Uh, it’s still very beneficial to have these types of conversations with human beings for the accountability piece. Right? And thinking outside of the box. But AI is the most amazing tool. Lee, I’m on board with you. I know you and I have, uh, done some work exchanging prompts and the results from those prompts over the course of getting this project launched as well. Um, stone, anything else bubbling up for you from an action that you committed to in the last 30 days through coaching?

Stone Payton: Well, there’s a couple I think that weren’t mentioning. One is AI. So to date I have dived into AI and asked it a ton of hunting, fishing and archery questions, but I haven’t and I really do all this. And what I need to do, I think, is when I’m having these conversations, you know, I get the zoom AI summary. I could even record some if I wanted to. When I’m. Then what I need to do is pour that into AI and say and say, you know, help me get better. What? What else should I be asking? What should I leave off the the table? And so one of the things I’m definitely going to do going forward is start using it more for business and not just make it, you know, leads thing, which is easy to do, right. Oh that’s leads thing. So, so that’s uh, that’s one also in terms of building relationships with coaches. You know, we we eat our own cooking. So we reach out and invite them to come on a show, invite them to have a conversation about coming on the on the show. And there was a point at which I told Angie, I said, I’m getting buried. Stop doing the Pre-call just put them on the show. And and what I found was one not as many books, but also it took that much longer to forge the relationship where, just like we preached, just like we have our clients do. There’s so much relationship building that can happen in that initial pre-call. I mean, it’s almost a discovery call if you’re in the coaching, right? And so that we turn that switch back on and that made a difference almost immediately. So those are two things that are on my brain to, you know, to put into action.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: Well and something you asked though earlier was what haven’t we done. And this is something that came up in the conversation we had right before we started recording. And I think that it’s important that we kind of do a better job in in its poll our existing partners and kind of, um, go back to them and start asking them questions like, you know, what can we learn from your actual experience using our platform? And we’re not getting that data. And I think that’s an important thing that we should be doing. You know, sooner than later is going to the partners out there and then, you know, asking them, okay, what’s working, what’s not, where are you seeing success, where, you know, any good stories of success or any challenges? And, um, you know, we don’t have that many, so it’s not impossible. But I think it’s something that we should be doing. Uh, because I’ll be honest, several of the coaches have asked about that and we haven’t done it.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, so it sounds like even though this was not an action taking coaching meeting today or session, uh, that there are some activities that are spawning up out of this conversation as well, which means we’re making great progress. So in that vein, that same vein, we some of the things that you’re not doing, what are some of the things that you may have talked about in some of the sessions that sound like a really great idea, but you’ve had to table them for now because it’s not a priority. It’s something that sounds good. You may want to look at it later, but what if you put to the side, at least for now, and thinking about something you want to circle back to later?

Lee Kantor: Well, the biggest thing is that. And the biggest aha. And the biggest lever we think for growth is to find a coaching organization to partner so we can pilot this idea that has come up on several of the coaches, and we haven’t done that yet. We haven’t reached out to any of the organizations yet to pilot anything. And that that to me has the greatest upside. And we haven’t done anything with it yet other than identify a bunch of coaching organizations, Identify, uh, some coaches within it that we have a relationship with, but we haven’t kind of, uh, you know, taken that last step. The the last mile and, you know, going up to them and saying, do you want to do this or not? And and that’s where I think the biggest opportunity in the next 60 days are we need to get more nos. You know, we need to get more people, um, saying no, you know, we have to ask for more business. And the more no’s we get, the more yeses we’ll get.

Trisha Stetzel: Uh, I love how. How did you know we were gonna flex into this? What are we doing for the next 60 days, Lee?

Lee Kantor: Well, I mean.

Trisha Stetzel: Read my mind.

Lee Kantor: Um, but, um. But that that’s to me, um, you know, and and the coaching has helped us kind of create this sense of urgency around doing that.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. So it you have done something, you’ve taken action. You’ve made your list. You know that you want to go do this. So in thinking about moving that needle, if that is a priority for the two of you, or even just for you, Lee, what is the next first step you can take to get that ball moving down the hill?

Lee Kantor: Well, I mean, well, the two balls are the, you know, kind of pulling the existing coaches. So we have to do something where we’re having communication with them to ask them what we want to need and if they would be willing to share it. Uh, that has to happen. And then regarding the coaching organizations, the strategy that we kind of landed on is to identify champions within each of those coaching organizations. Uh, reach out to them, uh, create some sort of an opportunity for them to live into what we’re recommending and then have them go back to those coaching organizations are a part of in order to make that introduction to us. So to find a champion within it, that can be a bridge to us. And rather than us coming up kind of as a cold email or a cold relationship, to go in through somebody who’s already part of it. Um, and we have taken steps in that regard in 1 or 2 of the organizations.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. Nice stone. What’s bubbling up for you?

Stone Payton: Well, you know, and maybe, maybe I’m a little too quick just to lean on what works at the local studio level. But to me, it makes perfect sense that somewhere in that equation, one of those steps could be that, you know, that coaches that coaches in that system has had a great experience getting to know us. We interviewed them all that stuff, and they tell the CEO or the CMO of XYZ credentialing organization or whatever that, and I have a call with them, and the first thing I’m doing with them is the first thing I do with everybody is just try to help them and and have the frame of helping them get ready to have a conversation about their organization, about the value of being credentialed about all of that, and be a little not be quite as cagey around and maybe communicate fairly early in that relationship when appropriate, that, hey, you know, we want to do this thing. We want to we want everything you’re experiencing and your coaches are telling you, we want to make it easy for you to provide that for your coaches. Here’s why it’d be good for you. Here’s why it’d be good for us.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, so the two big things, the two big themes that I’m hearing here are the two balls, rightly, as we talk about pushing them down the hill, not up the hill, down the hill, because that’s way easier. Uh, one is surveying your current. We’ll call we’ll call them current clients. Right? Your your studio partners on what they need and what are they getting back? And then two having conversations. So of those two things I get, we could run them in parallel. But if we’re talking about bandwidth and what comes first which one has priority in thinking about time? How much time do you need to invest in either one of those things? And can you push that ball halfway down the hill in the next couple of weeks? One of them.

Lee Kantor: Um, for sure, we can do the partner one. Um, I think we can figure that out. Uh, and that will get done. The second one is we are making some inroads, but, um, we haven’t gotten kind of the the buy in necessary for them to feel comfortable, um, for a variety of reasons. But, um, that one’s going to be harder, I think, to execute.

Stone Payton: But it’s the most important. It’s the one that’s going to provide the biggest return.

Lee Kantor: Right? That has the biggest upside 100%.

Trisha Stetzel: So I’m going to take my coach hat off and put on my collaborator hat, because we’ve been doing a lot of collaboration together. And I was just thinking about something outside of the box, sitting on the other side as a champion. Could you put together a. I’m going to call it a package. It’s not really. It’s probably an email where you take my show, the one that we recorded together, not one that I’m doing right, but the one where Lee and I had a conversation about my business. You put that in the email or however you want to deliver it, with a nice email that someone can just send to the person like you do all the work for us. So you send over, um, a request to me and you say, hey coach, I would love if you would share your show and some of the information about Business RadioX partnering with your organization. Would you be willing to do that? If we provide you with what you need to send? And I would say, of course. And so you build this nice piece of work, which is the interview. Maybe it’s not the whole interview, because whoever’s receiving it doesn’t want to hear the whole thing, but a link to the whole interview and a clip that they can watch quickly in less than two minutes with an email that I can just copy and paste directly to the people that we want to get it in front of in the first place. So using me as a champion, but you doing all the work for me. I’m just throwing it out there as a collaborative, um, thought, what do you guys think?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I mean, I’m for trying, so I want more no’s. So that’s I mean, I’m for trying pretty much anything that makes sense. So that makes sense. So, uh.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, I.

Lee Kantor: Don’t.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. And I don’t know that it’s time intensive. Stone, what do you think?

Stone Payton: Well, I think enough of the idea that I’m writing it down, which means I want I want to do it. And then I think, you know. And this time, I won’t leave it all to Lee. But maybe Lee could start with telling AI we’re going to do this. You know, what should we say and like. And I like your idea. Make make the full length interview accessible. Maybe get a really strong clip, maybe even a clip that includes them talking about why they’re so glad that they’re part of XYZ organization. Right? So, you know, and they’ll enjoy that part. And then thinking through, okay, what do we want to say in the email. You know, we probably don’t want to pounce on them with all fours and say, and you know, we want to pilot this with 15 of your best coaches or 15 of your marginal coaches. I don’t know, it might be good to do give me five of your best and five that are going to leave if we don’t fix them. But, uh, no, I think it’s a fantastic idea. And I think once I think the energy is, is crafting the note, tweaking it and then but, I mean, we have the systems to get it to the people and I mean, everybody we’ve interviewed, I mean, this is why the thing works so well. They will they will do it. I mean, I’d be really surprised if nine out of ten we asked to do it won’t turn around and do it. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: And so many of us want to help, but it takes a whole lot of work for me to craft that note and for the next person to craft that note and the next person. If you guys are willing to do that for us, it makes it so much easier. Right. Uh, to, to just put our own little spin on it and then send it off instead of trying to craft it from scratch.

Stone Payton: Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. So I’m putting my coach hat back on. I’m glad that we got to collaborate on that. I, um, I’d love to hear from the two of you. What? What do the next 60 days look like? So I want you to reflect on the first 30. What kinds of. And I’m talking about the business, like closing business. So, Stone, I’m going to come to you first. What kinds of conversations have you had? How are you adjusting those and how are you going to get to more no’s so that we can get to the yeses?

Stone Payton: So I am adjusting with a little more attention toward, you know, let’s it all sounds great. I love the idea. I do think we would all win in this equation. And, you know, I don’t know about you. This is me just talking quotes. You know, I’m a little bit risk averse. So I think let’s do everything we can. Let’s just take the risk out of it for right now and just let’s validate some assumptions and some things that I’m sharing with you that work, and then actually have them engage in some of those key activities, like inviting people to be on Saint Louis Business radio or just say, you know, I’m working with Business Radio, get them on the High Velocity Radio show. And so that they can see firsthand and do it in such a way that if they don’t end up pulling the trigger, they’re still in a good light, they still tried to help somebody out. And then and because because I think we’ll find out first, you know, if they’re not, if they won’t go out and invite a dozen people, you know, then they’re not ready and they’re not that interested anyway. If they invite a dozen people, that’s just a nice thing somebody’s trying to do. So we can we can design the language. We have the language, you know? Hey, I’m teaming up with Business RadioX to, you know, you know, just a couple of sentences. Be delighted, you know, and just just set that up and see you just get the interest level when they see when the vast, the vast majority will have success if they do it. When they see that, I think that’ll really take the risk down for them and they’ll benefit regardless.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Lee, how about you? Have you, um, adjusted the way that you’re interfacing with people who could be potential studio partners?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, along the lines of kind of piggyback on what Stone was saying, something that we had talked about and that, um, was to, to make the, um, like when Stone’s talking to a person, like, let me pick your brain for a second here. Um, Stone’s having this kind of follow up conversation with somebody who’s gone through a show and, um, kind of explains in a general manner how this could work. Usually we say something along the lines in that conversation, You know, you don’t just test it like go send a note to ten people, like Stone said. 12 people about being a guest. See who responds. So instead of just kind of leaving it open ended like that, but to challenge them to say, okay, how about open your LinkedIn right now? I’ll drop in the chat the note, send it to five people right now, and then, you know, in a day or so, let us know if anybody kind of responds back and just make them do it right now. Like don’t wait for them to do it when the mood strikes them. But just say, here, I’ll drop it in the chat. Send this note. We know the note that works. See what happens. Five people just go through your LinkedIn about let’s share screens. Let’s drop five of these right now. And I think if people do that they’re going to see how this can work without thinking too much and just doing. And then even if if they don’t want to work with us, we’ll still interview them. They’re never, you know, there’s no risk. That’s what we’re talking about, of removing the risk. So if we do that relentlessly with coaches and just have them when we have a follow up, do that five times, they’re going to see that this could work. They’re going to get enough data in those five to say, oh, what if I did 20? What if I did 50? What if I did 100? Then they’re going to they’re going to be closer to giving us a yes or a no.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. And they’ll actually see it working real time.

Lee Kantor: Right. So I mean, you talk to people after your shows, you tell me if you had an activity like that, how many would say, all right, I’ll do that. I’ll drop five notes. What do I have to lose? Like there’s no risk. It takes a minute to send those five notes. I’m going to just drop it in the chat. Just cut and paste it into your thing and send it five times. Let’s go. Yeah. You know, people will do that, right?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Most most of nine out of ten. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: A lot of people would do it. And then, you know what’s going to happen when they do that? Because you’ve sent that note.

Trisha Stetzel: I people will respond, yeah, that sounds amazing. You want to hear all about me? Of course I do.

Lee Kantor: Right? So that’s the thing where we feel we’re closer to having the system in place to be able to kind of execute at scale. If we just get more people to have that conversation, more people to take that action, more people will see how it works and that it does work and that we’re not just another one of these people that are saying, you want more leads, you know?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’ll just drop a little testimonial in here, in my experience. And I shared something with you guys earlier today that’s happened, which is really amazing. And it’s, you know, the what do they call that seven seven relationships removed from Kevin Bacon I don’t know. Anyway, I had, um, an amazing coach and yes, by the way, I’m a coach. For those of you who don’t know me, I had an amazing coach, uh, leadership coach on my show, uh, the Houston Business radio show last spring, and she just dropped a note in my inbox introducing me to someone who is interviewing coaches for a giant project. I would first. I would have never met her had I not reached out. Like what Lee was talking about, saying, hey, would you like to be on my show? And two, I created so much trust with her during the process that she introduced me to someone that she trusts, and then I automatically have more credibility with that person that she introduced me to. And I’m in the process and it’s really cool. So, um, there is so much less friction when you can invite someone to have a conversation and it’s all about them and they, they don’t feel like they’re being sold to. That’s just the bottom line, right? We’re highlighting these amazing people and they for with and they have this content that they can use forever. All right. I’m off my soapbox. Thank you for the opportunity. All right, so as we close, we talked about a lot of things today. And I know I said at the beginning this was not actually about action, but we did talk about some of those actions or activities. So I would love to hear from both of you. Uh, between now and your next session. We’re doing these every week. So over the next week, what is one action or activity that you can either do or at least start before the next session next week? Who’d like to go first?

Stone Payton: Well, we just had another one of those where this idea of having them do it right then and there is, is a little more frontal than my typical approach with people. I’m usually a little slower, so it feels assertive and it feels like a little more salesy right, than I’m used to. And I’m going to do it, you know what I mean?

Trisha Stetzel: Okay.

Stone Payton: I’m not gonna not do it. I am going to do it. I’m gonna do it right there when they’re on the thing. And, you know, look, if I get a whole bunch of pushback, then we might reevaluate. But if it’s like what’s been happening recently, it’s going to work, and I’m going to be glad that I did it. But I’m just acknowledging to you right up front, it feels a little assertive, right? Like a just like the email did.

Lee Kantor: I mean, let’s get Tricia’s. Does it feel assertive to you. Like does that feel can you is there a way that you could, um, frame what I described in your conversations with people after the fact? Uh, after they’ve kind of, if they’re curious as a way to take that action without feeling salesy.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. It’s the language that you use. Look, I, I’m, I want to help you. And so if we do this little activity together, I really feel like you’ll understand how powerful this process is. So bear with me. I have a little activity. Can I get your buy in? And they’re going to go, well, maybe. What is it? Right. Most people. Well, what is it? Well, I’m just going to ask you to send five direct messages to people that you know, not people that you don’t know know. Or maybe you want them to message people that you they don’t know, whatever that is. Right? But give them some direction and say, here’s the message. You can make it your own. And I just want you to copy and paste it five times to five people. And then I’m going to check back in with you in a couple days and see what kind of response you got. That to me and the way that I’m bringing it to you, hopefully it doesn’t feel salesy at all.

Stone Payton: It didn’t feel salesy to me when you said it. So, see, so I have like this preconceived notion that it’s all sales. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: Right. But for me it has to be in they have to do it. Let’s do it together. Now. I want it to be. Let’s share screens and let me see your LinkedIn together. Let’s pick five. And here’s the note. And I want to see them send it five times like that. So we got to get to that. Be the activity in a way that’s elegant.

Trisha Stetzel: And, you know, you have to use the language that you’re comfortable with. And another thing that you could do, you know, there is such a thing as a three way DM. You could have them three way the message and you could be copied on it instead of screen sharing, because there’s some people who are uncomfortable with that. Right? It could just be send it three way I got your back. Let’s see what happens. Now. I’m writing along with you. Now I’ve taken even more risk off your plate because I’m willing to be there with you. It’s all in the way you present it, right? It’s all in the way that you present it. Okay, so Stone is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. I like it, this is good. Okay. And, Lee, what about you?

Lee Kantor: Um, I’m gonna come up with a way to survey the coaches that we. I mean, the partners that we have so that we can get the information that we need in order, um, to kind of number one, to nurture who we have and doing what they’re doing, but also to learn from what’s working, what’s not, uh, to be able to take from some, some of those learnings away, um, from them. So that will happen this week.

Trisha Stetzel: Fantastic. Okay. How was this for you guys?

Stone Payton: Fantastic.

Lee Kantor: It’s always great. I always feel energized. And I’m so appreciative that you, um, are being so generous with us to kind of quarterback this, um, this series. And, uh, so I can’t thank you enough for all that you’re doing to help us.

Trisha Stetzel: Uh, I learn every time I get on the call with you guys, whether it’s through this project and coaching or the weekly check ins that we have together. It is, um, a very, not just a meaningful project that we’ve been working on but also relationship and I we all, I hope, have that kind of trust with each other where you know I got your back. How about that.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And we have yours.

Trisha Stetzel: I know you do. All right, gentlemen, thank you again for your time today. I appreciate it and look forward to hearing your next coaching session.

Stone Payton: Thank you Trisha. We will keep you posted.

Speaker1: Thanks for listening to Scaling in Public the next Business RadioX 100 markets. Are you ready to enjoy a steady stream of discovery calls? And finally, stop being a best kept secret? It’s time to step out of the shadows and watch your coaching business grow. Let’s fill your calendar ten discovery calls in a month, guaranteed. Go to Birr to download the free Business RadioX playbook.

Intro: [00:00:08] Broadcasting live from our flagship studio in Atlanta, Georgia. This is scaling in public. The next 100 Business RadioX markets, featuring founders Lee Kantor and Stone Payton, along with some of America’s top coaches, helping them grow the network with real strategy, real lessons, and real accountability all shared in public. To learn more about the proven system that turns podcast interviews into a perpetual prospecting pipeline through generosity, not gimmicks, go to Burks Intercom and download the free Business RadioX playbook. Now here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:56] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Scaling in Public. Lee Kantor, Stone Payton here with you. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast our coach for this session, Maggie Ishak. How are you?

Maggie Ishak: [00:01:09] I’m good. How are you, Stone?

Stone Payton: [00:01:11] I’m doing well. Really been looking forward to this session, and I’m going to turn it over to you and let you do your thing.

Maggie Ishak: [00:01:16] Likewise. It’s great to actually be with both of you. Um, here, look, I’m looking forward to this. So I want to pick up where you left off with Todd in session number two around your unique approach. So tell me what’s what’s been percolating in your minds about your unique approach since that conversation? And maybe how has that changed your thinking towards this goal to 100 studio partners?

Stone Payton: [00:01:45] Well, for me, I don’t know that it’s changed my thinking as much as it has just reinforced some really closely held beliefs. So we may need to work on that. But I walked away from that session just thinking about the way we approach leveraging these tools, the methodology, the opportunity to give people, uh, this platform to share their story and promote their, their work the way we do it still, to me, to this day, and we’re 20 plus years into this, other people who are using some of these same items, you know, and recording conversations, I don’t think we’re doing it at all the way they are. And maybe we’re just not, uh, articulating that clearly enough or enough, and maybe we just got to get a lot better at that. I mean, these most I can’t find anybody that’s doing it the way we’re doing it.

Maggie Ishak: [00:02:43] I agree, I don’t think there is anybody doing it the way you’re doing it. Um, Lee, how about from your perspective?

Lee Kantor: [00:02:49] Um, my biggest takeaway was, um, kind of what Stone was saying in that I don’t think we’re doing anything wrong in terms of our methodology. What I think we’re doing wrong is not articulating how quickly we can get somebody going and seeing tangible results. And that was what I started working on immediately after. I was like, okay, let me break down our process and let me start building playbooks to get people to see results as quickly as possible. And that, that that was my big epiphany moment from the work with Todd, because I think that is something we’re lacking. We take for granted a lot of the methodology that we do and the work that we do every day to kind of fill our pipeline. And I don’t think that people realize that they can be filling their pipeline as easily if they could leverage a platform like the Business RadioX platform.

Maggie Ishak: [00:03:48] Okay. All right. So that’s where we’re going to be talking about today is kind of the value that you bring to your clients and how to articulate that. So thinking about that topic, by the time we’re done, uh, in whatever the 30, 45 minutes that we’ve got today, what would be an ideal outcome for you as you think about the value that you bring?

Stone Payton: [00:04:08] So for me, specific language, or at least a path to specific language that is succinct, that can communicate very quickly, uh, at least enough of the idea, enough differentiation from what people think they know about this platform or what they have seen, or what their nephew’s podcast is like enough for them to want to know more, to have a deeper conversation. If I could walk out with that, uh, then I would feel I would feel like we’ve really made some real strides.

Maggie Ishak: [00:04:38] Okay. That’s great. Lee, how about you?

Lee Kantor: [00:04:40] Yeah, it’s. I think we’re working on this clarity of messaging so that we can communicate our value proposition as quickly as possible so people understand, Um, what we do, why we do it, and how it works faster. And I think one of our challenges is that in a studio environment like we’re in now, it’s it becomes clearer what we do and why it works and how a person could benefit if they viscerally feel what happens in a studio where most of the work we’ve been doing lately is virtual, where that’s a little trickier and they don’t. It’s hard to differentiate what we’re doing in a virtual setting as to what we do in an in-person setting.

Maggie Ishak: [00:05:24] Okay. Got it. All right, so, Lee, I want to come back to a point you made just a couple of minutes ago around how quickly you can get studio partners ramped up and seeing some value. What do your studio partners see in 90 days?

Lee Kantor: [00:05:38] In 90 days, they see quite a bit. Um, and I think Stone’s a better person to illustrate this, because he moved to this community, this studio that we’re sitting in now. We both started out. He was in East Cobb and I was in Sandy Springs. He moved up to Woodstock and and he kind of started from scratch. Woodstock, you know, is, you know, where it is relative to Atlanta. It’s it’s it’s not it’s not nearby.

Maggie Ishak: [00:06:03] Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] It’s part of the metro Atlanta. But that’s, you know, kind of being generous. So, Stone, why don’t you share about how quickly leveraging this platform enabled you to kind of immerse yourself in the business community?

Stone Payton: [00:06:17] Sure. And had I come here two years prior, I would have come and gotten this space and then followed our methodology to build things out. We were kind of on the heels of Covid when we moved here. And so I did develop some degree of comfort doing some virtual interviews. So the way I decided to launch was we already had a home bought here, but we were still in the home in East Cobb. So I started Cherokee Business Radio as a virtual show to get my first 10 or 12 interviews. And so I reached out using our processes to invite people to come on the show, share their story, promote their work. Of course, as always, people are like, yeah, what do I gotta do? I’d love to come on and talk about me, you know? And so I had a dozen interviews with local Woodstock and Cherokee County people already in the can by the time I got here. Right. So because I’m inviting them on the show, I’m doing all the things that we that we do. And then so once I got here, I already had some momentum. And then when I reached out to those people again to tell me, you know, to recommend other people that we should maybe have in the studio, they were thrilled that we were here, that we had the studio.

Stone Payton: [00:07:25] And then from that point, I invited people to come on Cherokee Business Radio and, you know, be right here at the Innovation Spot in the studio. So I got going very quickly. And it’s going to it’s going to sound like I’m on my soapbox, but I also just I followed our methodology to the letter. You know, I invited people the way we recommend that you invite people. I said things before we went on air that we recommend you say to people before we go on air. I conducted the interview, including all of the hosting mechanics that we’ve refined over the last 20 years, in that exact way. I didn’t try to get creative. I just followed the methodology. And in the span of a few weeks, I had a handful of clients. I had a great reputation when and I’m not a networking guy because for a lot of reasons. But I don’t need to be a networking guy because I have this. This is my net, this is my network thing. But there was one group that I wanted to go check out, Young Professionals of Woodstock. It’s when all this young folks get together on Thursday morning. Maggie, uh, I don’t know why they let me in, but when I walked in, I was a known quantity.

Stone Payton: [00:08:32] I was just boom, right out of the box. You know, you join a networking group or something, it takes you a while. You probably ought to volunteer. You might want to help out on the events and all that. I was a known quantity right out of the box. And so it just all happened very quickly. And now I’m what, three, three and a half years in. I mean, everybody knows Stone. I know every bartender in town, of course, but I don’t have to buy a drink if I don’t want to. And everybody knows that I’m a good guy doing good things. And yes, I, you know, in in concert with our methodology, I do make sure that I have prospective clients in the studio every week. But I also have, you know, the lady who runs the, you know, the flower shop or the nonprofit. So this thing of ours lets you be so nice, so often, so easy, so fast. And to me, if you can do that consistently, um, you can’t help but grow your business. And so that was my experience in getting this studio off the ground. And, uh, it was it just it’s it’s fast and it’s easy.

Maggie Ishak: [00:09:37] Okay. I want to repeat back some of the things that I’ve heard both of you say. So within 90 days have a steady stream of interested prospects, clients, and you don’t have to sell a thing.

Stone Payton: [00:09:55] Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:57] 100%.

Maggie Ishak: [00:09:58] And Stone, you said it made me be known. So easy, so nice, so often, so fast. What would somebody have to pay for that? I’m not talking about your your partner fees. What would what would that cost somebody doing it in another way?

Stone Payton: [00:10:17] 2 to 3 years. It cost them time.

Maggie Ishak: [00:10:20] Absolutely. Well. And money.

Stone Payton: [00:10:22] And money and all.

Maggie Ishak: [00:10:23] Networking fees and buying people coffee and lunch and.

Stone Payton: [00:10:27] But to me, the big price is time. You know, you might could get to my reputation and my networking in this area, um, a different way, but it’s going to take you 2 or 3 years that, that I got to 290 days. Absolutely. No question.

Maggie Ishak: [00:10:44] So I’m going to flip the script for you a little bit. So I started my business a couple of years ago, and I’ve been joining the bass, joining the associations and joining a number of other networking groups and volunteering to do things and taking people to lunch. And it has taken me time. If you had told me two years ago, I could have gotten exactly where I am today, 90 days from when I started with a much smaller investment and a lot less headache, I would have said, sign me up.

Stone Payton: [00:11:19] Well that’s encouraging. That’s that’s great. But let me ask you this. You’ve actually been in the studio as a guest before. You’ve gotten to know us a little bit. You know, other people that are affiliated with us and doing great things, you know, like in Houston.

Maggie Ishak: [00:11:32] John.

Stone Payton: [00:11:33] Ray and Tricia. Uh, but if you didn’t have the benefit of all that, does it maybe sound too good to be true, though, does it? I mean, is it because I mean this, I know this, I know a lot of coaches, consultants, fractional execs, all these people in the professional services arena. And I feel like, you know, for so much of their career, they’ve been scratching and clawing to build these relationships. It’s hard. And then I come along and say, well, you know, just take this little red pill and you don’t have to do all that. Does it sound too good to be true?

Maggie Ishak: [00:12:01] Maybe a little bit. But I will tell you, there’s a lot of other organizations and people out there with other offers that also appear too good to be true. And in my mind, some of it is kind of the what you put in versus what you get out. Right. So you could tell me, come be a studio partner, and if I don’t follow your methodology and use your script and use your process, I may not get the results that you promised me.

Stone Payton: [00:12:32] Yeah, you won’t, you won’t. And that’s another question. I don’t know if it’s for this session or not. I think Lee and I were such, um. I don’t even know what the label for it is, but we’ve been we’ve pretty much said, here’s our best practices, here’s our methodology, here’s what we know works. Uh, don’t break a couple of rules over here that these are non-negotiable. But here’s what we recommend. But you be you and go do your thing. And so there’s part of me that wonders if we shouldn’t be a little more stringent and say, no, this is the way you got to do it, at least for a while. Um, because because, no, they’re not going to get the results that they do it their way. At least that’s my experience so far.

Maggie Ishak: [00:13:06] Okay, so let me let me maybe turn this a little bit and think about of your existing studio partners, what makes a good one. How would you define a good studio partner.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:19] One that really immerses themselves in the business community?

Maggie Ishak: [00:13:22] Okay.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] Like they have to kind of be all in in that they have to say, okay, I really believe it’s important to serve the business community. I believe that, um, by supporting and celebrating business, That’s good for the community, and it’ll be good for me if they want to do this in a transactional manner, like what’s in it for me? How can I make money off of you? Um, it’s not going to work. I mean, you have to have a heart of service if you want to do this, and it can’t be a transactional experience. It has to really be an experience where you’re trying to serve and just kind of, oh, by the way, this is what I do. And and maybe there’s a fit and then maybe we can work together rather than, I did this for you. Now I need you to do this for me. It can’t be a quid pro quo relationship. It has to be. I’m here to serve. And this is how I serve. And if we want to work together, that’s great. But if we don’t, that’s great too. And I just want you to win. And I think you can win with me. But I’m not going to say you have to win with me. You do you. I’m going to do me. And I believe if I’m relentlessly doing this service, I’m going to win. Enough.

Maggie Ishak: [00:14:37] Okay, so thinking back to your discussion on your ideal client profile. And what are those maybe attributes? Lee I think that’s super important, what you just described. You’re looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:51] Servant leaders, right?

Maggie Ishak: [00:14:52] Yeah. But that align with your values 100%. And I would expect that you could see evidence of that from these prospects before you even have a conversation with them. So I’m going to go back to two sessions ago. One of the things that you were talking about was not wasting your time with those who may not be a fit and trying to recognize that upfront. So it’s have maybe I want to ask this the other way, have you run into people that have been interested in you, but then you kind of get this, hmm. I’m not sensing there’s a fit here because maybe they are too transactional, or they are looking for a get rich quick scheme, or they’re looking for, you know, the magic pill, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:34] If somebody I mean, one of the clues for me at least, is I’m doing this because I want to be famous and this is about me. And then my guests are just props for to make me look good. They’re not going to be a fit for what we’re trying to do. If you want to to do a podcast or you want to have a show that makes you the smartest person in the room, do that on your own. You don’t need us to do that. If you want to do a show that grows your business, that serves your community, we can help you there.

Stone Payton: [00:16:03] Yeah, I think that’s incredibly well said. I you’ve heard me on my soapbox a little bit on in terms of, uh, repeatable processes and transferable tools for key tasks. But I think also at the heart of it is someone who is willing to take personal accountability for helping the client get another client, like they really are invested. Like, once they do get the business in helping the client get another client that that is a theme that runs through our everything we do. And I think our, our, our values are in complete support of that.

Maggie Ishak: [00:16:38] Okay. Okay. So let me ask this question for your existing partners. If Business RadioX went away tomorrow. What would it cost them to rebuild?

Lee Kantor: [00:16:53] Well, they’d have to create their own platform to get the word out. And the benefit of working with us initially is super obvious, because they get to come into a market that doesn’t have us, and all of a sudden has us, and then they get to use the halo effect of our brand and our website and all of the content, the 100,000 interviews we’ve done as a backdrop to them. So they get to start with a running start rather than from square one start. Uh, number two is they lose the infrastructure. They’re going to have to replace the infrastructure to help them publish, distribute, edit all the stuff that it takes to execute the the work that we do. So they’ll have to rebuild that. I mean, that’s in terms of hours. It’s dozens of hours, if not thousands of dollars. Um, and then they would have to replace this kind of if they were, they’d have to replace the methodology that we use to get that next guest. So they’d have to, you know, build that from scratch on their own as well. So it’s a matter of time, money and systems that we have and we’ve been doing and honing over the years, that’s today. But then they’d also lose our brainpower that we’ve been leaders in this, in this kind of niche for 20 years. We’ve been doing this for decades. So they lose any future, you know, brilliance that we come up with down tomorrow.

Maggie Ishak: [00:18:20] Okay, Lee, I know pricing is is something that we eventually want to, um, have a conversation about. Start doing some math in your mind of all those things that you write.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:29] I mean, it’s thousands of dollars. I mean, they’d have to get new virtual assistants to execute. They’d have to get new systems. They’d have to host the the content somewhere. You have to put the content somewhere. You have to then distribute the content. You have to, uh, you have to edit the content like it’s either going to be you or you’re going to hire someone to do that. So at some point they’re going to have to write checks or buy subscriptions to, you know, 20 different services in order to just do one show.

Stone Payton: [00:18:59] And or decide, okay, that’s not going to work either. So now I got to come up with this whole other approach of building real relationships real fast, and there may be some other ways to do that. I’m not aware of them. Um, so they would have to go figure that out if they just said, okay, I’m done with this set of tools. We did. You know, I, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know what they would do.

Maggie Ishak: [00:19:22] Okay. So how does that make you think about your offer for studio partners and the pricing that you’ve currently got and the value that you’re giving them.

Stone Payton: [00:19:34] Well, it makes me think that we maybe should revisit it. We might need to consider making the, um, the price higher. A couple of things that are a challenge in that regard is actually our business. If you look at our business model, our existing pricing, if we can get 100 studios next year and then build to the 1000 studios that we want, we make plenty of money. So we don’t really need the pricing to make the money. I just wonder sometimes if we need higher pricing to to to be consistent with the value story that we, that we have. Um, it and I would, you know, I’d rather have 100 studios at the existing pricing than 50 at double the price. At the moment I’m more interested in the 100, and maybe that’s the wrong way to see it. Maybe I should be more interested in 50. At double the price, I don’t know.

Maggie Ishak: [00:20:25] What is your ultimate goal?

Stone Payton: [00:20:27] A thousand studios, a thousand people out there, using this platform to help them grow their existing business, and being in the Business RadioX business of serving their community and helping other people serve their clients.

Maggie Ishak: [00:20:42] Why a thousand?

Stone Payton: [00:20:43] We just. Well, actually, Lee’s done some math on it. I’d like to just because it’s a nice round figure.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:48] So the the rationale behind a thousand is there’s around 8000 chambers of commerce in America right now. And, um, I mean, that number may be plus or minus, you know, 500, but say 8000. And, um, I believe that there should be a Business RadioX supporting and celebrating the work of the top 15% of the most active chambers in America. And that would be good for those, um, a thousand markets if they had a media property out there telling the stories of the businesses in those markets, and that would help those communities. It would help the American economy, it would help all those entrepreneurs. So that’s where that came from. It’s the 80 over 20 rule, basically, of saying that we should be in the top, you know, 15, 20% of the markets that are out there.

Maggie Ishak: [00:21:42] Okay. So I have a question. You’ve been talking about working with coaches and consultants and and other genres of businesses. This is the first time I’ve heard you talk about chambers and using this tool as a way to support local business through the chambers.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:02] The chambers of commerce are an important component of our business. I mean, my studio in Atlanta, in Sandy Springs is in the Greater Perimeter Chamber of Commerce. I mean, I work arm in arm with the Chamber of Commerce. We’ve worked arm in arm with the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and with the business associations that touch Atlanta since our inception. I mean, so yes, chambers are an important part of our go to market strategy.

Maggie Ishak: [00:22:29] Okay. But thinking about the value that you bring to these potential studio partners, how could you leverage leverage Chambers to help you with that?

Lee Kantor: [00:22:39] Well, we work all of our studio partners have a relationship with their chamber of commerce. I mean, they all, um, a lot of.

Stone Payton: [00:22:46] Them have shows.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:47] Right, that are.

Stone Payton: [00:22:49] Have like a chamber show. And then they’re very involved with the chamber. And their positioning within the chamber is very differently, very different. And again, fast. Right. Because if I’m going to let the chamber come in and do a monthly show to celebrate its members and all that kind of stuff, then I’m probably going to be on the Jim Jam level of the board or whatever, you know, the Golden Circle or whatever they call.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:11] It, right? We don’t look at chambers as a way to make money. We look at chambers as a way to just enhance our, positioning within the community. So the chamber becomes our partner and they become a path to their members, because they’re going to invite their members on the shows that we’re going to help kind of co-produce together.

Maggie Ishak: [00:23:33] Right. So where where my brain went though, was you’re on this path to a thousand.

Stone Payton: [00:23:39] Mhm.

Maggie Ishak: [00:23:40] There’s 8000 chambers out there. Right. You want to target the top 1,520%.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:45] Right.

Maggie Ishak: [00:23:46] What’s stopping you from going directly to those chambers to find your next. Nothing stops.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:54] There’s nothing stopping us from doing that. It’s just that in order to. We need boots on the ground in the market. Like we can have a conversation with the Memphis Chamber of Commerce tomorrow. Stone and I, we can have a conversation with any chamber of commerce in America tomorrow. That’s not.

Stone Payton: [00:24:14] And we can have them on the air tomorrow.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:15] Right. We can be interviewing them.

Stone Payton: [00:24:17] So I have an analogy for this, and my analogy for the way we’ve tried to approach it so far, because the growth that we do have, and I mean, we shouldn’t be ashamed of the growth. We just we should have. We feel like we should have done a lot more, a lot faster. But because, like, if we do want to have a conversation with the Memphis Chamber, it’s a phone conversation and then it’s a virtual interview, right? I’m not going to hop on a plane and go down. Or maybe I should, I don’t know, but I feel like I’m hopping in a rowboat, rolling out to the middle of the bay, and then trying to sell somebody an outboard motor. Because, you know, the whole interaction with the Memphis Chamber is this virtual interaction that looks and smells a little bit more like their nephew’s podcast. So that may be a barrier I’m building for myself, but I feel like there’s, you know, because if if we were interviewing, if we were at Memphis doing some, some work live, then yeah, I think they would be all over it. And believe me, we wouldn’t have any challenge getting them or their members on the air. But as far as getting.

Maggie Ishak: [00:25:14] Them a studio partner.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:15] And that’s the challenge is identifying that right? Human being in the local market that believes what we believe and that can execute what we recommend executing. That’s that’s our challenge.

Maggie Ishak: [00:25:29] So how have you found your existing studio partners?

Stone Payton: [00:25:31] Uh God bless Mike salmon, first guy we put out in the wild. Uh.

Maggie Ishak: [00:25:36] Who’s Mike?

Stone Payton: [00:25:37] His name is Mike salmon. He’s he’s our Gwinnett, um, studio partner for another week. Uh, that’s another story because he’s he has sold that business. Um, and he’s, he’s sounds to me like he’s got a really nice exit. And the guy coming in, he’s got a great deal. You know, he’s got a lot going for him. But, uh, Mike, you know, he’s just because of the work that he’s done in Gwinnett, you know, he he he introduced us to the guy who runs the Business RadioX in Gainesville, the guy who runs it in Jefferson County, the lady who runs the Cumming Business RadioX operation. Um, so.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:11] John Ray.

Stone Payton: [00:26:12] What’s.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:12] That? John Ray.

Stone Payton: [00:26:13] John.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:13] Ray North Fulton.

Stone Payton: [00:26:14] So Mike salmon. That’s that’s that’s.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:16] He has been with us for 13 years. And, um, he just is a true believer. And he’s that guy evangelized the value.

Stone Payton: [00:26:25] His value system is so wholly consistent with our value system. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:30] And he came from a traditional broadcast background. So he understood some of the way that traditional broadcasting goes to market. And he incorporated some of that into his work in Gwinnett. And he’s really made a go of it and successfully has run a studio for 13 years there, and now has sold it to go and do what? He’s something else. Well, something that he’s always wanted to do his whole life. And now the opportunity has presented itself. So he’s following kind of his little kid dream.

Maggie Ishak: [00:27:02] So okay, so I’m going to repeat back what I heard, though, you had an existing studio partner that believed so strongly in what you do that he evangelized for you?

Lee Kantor: [00:27:12] Correct.

Maggie Ishak: [00:27:13] Okay. So what?

Stone Payton: [00:27:15] With generosity to his. His evangelizing was not based on. I’m going to evangelize so that Stone and Leo write me a check for getting someone else. He did. He did it because he’s Mike and because he believes like us.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:27] And his values were similar to ours. I mean, he was the right person for us to to kind of award the first studio to.

Stone Payton: [00:27:35] Yeah.

Maggie Ishak: [00:27:35] Okay. So I do know some of your other studio partners and I don’t know Mike, but the ones that I know have huge hearts, right. And very much believe in what they do.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:48] Correct.

Maggie Ishak: [00:27:49] So this may this may come across really, uh, I don’t know what the right word is here, but have you actually asked them for referrals for other studio partners?

Lee Kantor: [00:27:58] We have.

Maggie Ishak: [00:27:59] Okay. And how has that gone?

Lee Kantor: [00:28:03] We haven’t gotten as many studio partner referrals from anyone else other than Mike than Mike.

Maggie Ishak: [00:28:09] What differentiates Mike from your other studio partners? What makes the value for him?

Stone Payton: [00:28:15] He has a full head of hair, I tell you that. Good looking kid. You know, they’re all kids to me. He’s probably 40 something, but anyway. But what?

Maggie Ishak: [00:28:24] No, really. What differentiates Mike?

Lee Kantor: [00:28:27] I don’t know. I mean, I think his level of generosity is exceptional.

Stone Payton: [00:28:31] Which is one of our key values, by the way. Maybe our most important one, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:28:35] I mean, um, I, I don’t know. I don’t have a great answer for you.

Maggie Ishak: [00:28:44] Can I give you that as a piece of homework?

Lee Kantor: [00:28:46] Absolutely. Yeah.

Maggie Ishak: [00:28:48] What makes him different? And then maybe asking him what value he’s gotten and how would he characterize that? And maybe that’s what needs to be.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:02] Well, he’s.

Maggie Ishak: [00:29:02] Got.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:03] I mean, he I mean, I’ve been to his house when he bought his house where he lives now.

Maggie Ishak: [00:29:08] Okay.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:09] And he stood up in front of everybody and said, this is the house that Business RadioX built. And he said he wouldn’t be here any minute.

Stone Payton: [00:29:17] He meant.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:18] It. Right?

Maggie Ishak: [00:29:18] Does he have, like, a Business RadioX tattoo on him? Maybe.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:21] I mean, he is the. He appreciates us at a level. Maybe other people don’t appreciate us because he knew what it was like before us, and he experienced what it was like after working with us and some of the other people. I don’t know if they, uh, give Business RadioX the credit that, um, that maybe they should.

Stone Payton: [00:29:49] Well, and occasionally that happens at the client level, too, right? Right. You forget.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:54] I mean, I’ve had I’ll tell.

Stone Payton: [00:29:55] You.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:56] Specific examples. Um, because what we do every day is we invite people on shows, right? And that’s how we make our first impression, and we build a relationship. You know, one on one, face to face in this kind of studio environment. And then I’ve had, um, people, clients have a show, meet the person for the first time, build the relationship, and then they start doing business a year later and they don’t remember that they the first relationship began here. They think it happened because they kept talking to them over the next 12 months, and they forget that the first the reason they met was because we had a tool that helped them meet and build and start a relationship in a very organic, authentic manner. And sometimes they forget that, and sometimes they make that. They minimize that. And to us, the first relationship, the first conversation is the hardest one. And this tool allows you to make a lot of first conversations elegantly, in a service minded way, and sometimes you forget. And sometimes we have to do a better job as Business RadioX to remind people, you know, when we’re working with our clients, hey, you know, you didn’t know that person before, or here’s a list of all the people that you had on your show. How many of them are you doing business with now? Because when they come on a show, it’s not like they start doing business the next day. It’s not like you’re at the grocery store and you buy it. You see a snicker bar and you buy a snicker bar. This is something that could take months, and then all of a sudden you’re doing business and you kind of forget how you met.

Maggie Ishak: [00:31:42] Or they introduce you to somebody and it’s because of the show.

Lee Kantor: [00:31:45] But.

Maggie Ishak: [00:31:45] You forget that connections, right? Not obvious.

Lee Kantor: [00:31:48] Right. So that I think, sometimes hurts us because our system is so elegant and authentic that you kind of forget sometimes that without it, it was a lot harder to meet people. It was a lot harder to have those first conversations. It was a lot more awkward, or it felt a little salesy or inelegant, where in our situation it’s very authentic, it’s very elegant and it’s very service minded. So sometimes you just don’t connect the dots that it was this that really helped you kind of launch. It wasn’t kind of your charm and good looks.

Maggie Ishak: [00:32:23] Okay. Stone, did you want to add something to that?

Stone Payton: [00:32:26] No, I think he said it very well. So yeah, it does happen. Yeah.

Maggie Ishak: [00:32:30] Okay. So I’m going to maybe connect a couple of dots here and and throw out something for, for consideration. So think back to your conversation around your ideal client okay. And what you just described in the last few minutes about around people that need or that people that have that mindset of generosity and have that the same value set that you do. But also what I just heard you say will likely appear Appeal to those who are in a service space who aren’t naturally conversational and naturally are wanting to strike up these conversations at networking events and find ways to build relationships in a way that is authentic, right? That it feels it has that ick factor to it. Correct. Right. How would you characterize that? And and and put a value on that for somebody where that’s their hurdle between them being successful in their business and them not. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:33:33] Well, to me that’s really I mean, you can’t put a price on it. The price is every all the money. It’s your whole business. It’s your whole.

Maggie Ishak: [00:33:40] Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:33:41] This is the lever that solves that problem that gets you out of your own way. I mean, a key component to our business is my own introversion. I am a hyper introvert. I do not like being around people. I don’t like going to networking meetings. I’m 100% an introvert. I created this whole system for me. I wanted a way to get people to come to me. I didn’t want to be the person that are that’s going out there and shaking hands and and making small talk. I hate that. So I created this in order to create my. I wanted a seat at the table, so I made my seat at the table. I’m I’m sitting in in stone seat, and I am I’m hosting these shows. So that creates my space to bring people to me in a way that fits my personality. I don’t have to sit here and schmooze and do all this stuff that introverts hate. I can just invite people, hey, do you know anybody doing interesting work? Hey, know anybody doing interesting work? My superpower is I’m a great listener. I know how to do active listening, and I’m curious. So if I can just meet people and invite them in here, People are going to want what I have so I don’t have to pitch myself anymore. I don’t have to do any of that icky sales stuff anymore.

Maggie Ishak: [00:35:06] Do you tell that story?

Lee Kantor: [00:35:08] I’ve told the story.

Stone Payton: [00:35:10] But maybe not enough to another.

Maggie Ishak: [00:35:12] I’ve not heard that story.

Lee Kantor: [00:35:14] Well, that’s the.

Maggie Ishak: [00:35:15] Maybe I’m.

Lee Kantor: [00:35:15] Not in the right place.

Maggie Ishak: [00:35:16] To hear the.

Lee Kantor: [00:35:17] Origin. That’s the origin story of this business.

Maggie Ishak: [00:35:21] How can you take that origin story and scream it loudly?

Stone Payton: [00:35:26] I do think we need to scream it loudly and make sure we scream it loudly in the right places. And at the other end of the continuum is me. I’m not.

Maggie Ishak: [00:35:36] You’re not the hyper introvert.

Stone Payton: [00:35:37] I’m not remotely introverted. I am the guy that has a handful of jokes that always hit. I am the guy that’s happy to shake hands, but I get a great deal of emotional compensation. I’m a cheerleader. I really enjoy helping other people, being nice to other people. And this just lets you do that. You can be so nice to so many and it all and it all comes back to you. So so you get that piece of it. But just the the emotional compensation of being the local Business RadioX person. I can do so much for the lady that runs the flower shop, the the person who’s running the nonprofit, and the fractional exec that doesn’t know how to do business development. And I can I can help all of them. And I can be the, the the nice guy. And I can pick and choose my moments when I want to be in groups of people. And when I am, I’m the cool guy with Business RadioX. I’m not the, you know, the guy trying to hand you his business card and and force you into a cup of coffee next Monday. And I love being in that position. And there’s a degree of emotional compensation that comes with that for me, that, uh, it almost supersedes the, the financial compensation. But, you know, I do find that the the more people you can help, the more money you make. This has been my experience over the last, even more than the 20 years since I jumped on Lee’s coattails. The more people you help, the more money you make. And the more money you make, the more people you can help. And I mean, once you get that flywheel going, I mean, you can’t you couldn’t stop it if you wanted to. So for me, it’s great at the extremes. I don’t know about the people in the middle, but, um, if you really enjoy being nice to people and helping other people, I. This is a really cool way to be able to do that and help all kinds of people.

Maggie Ishak: [00:37:29] I think you just said your messaging.

Stone Payton: [00:37:33] Good. We should have recorded it maybe. Oh, we did, didn’t we? Oh, perfect.

Maggie Ishak: [00:37:36] We’ll go back and listen to the recording. But if you like helping people, you also mentioned this flywheel. That doesn’t stop now. I heard, um, Lee, you said hyper introvert. Okay. Yeah, I would imagine that if you go out there and say, we have a solution to help the hyper, hyper introverted people who own businesses be able to sell without selling, you’ll have a line going out the door or some variation of that. I mean, maybe this is what’s also keeping some people from starting their own business because they don’t have a way to go talk to people and build those relationships, and they’re deathly afraid of it. Um, by the way, there’s a there’s a coach that I know her niche is introverted people.

Stone Payton: [00:38:29] Mm.

Maggie Ishak: [00:38:30] Like, that’s how she markets.

Stone Payton: [00:38:34] Interesting.

Maggie Ishak: [00:38:38] To saying.

Stone Payton: [00:38:41] Okay.

Maggie Ishak: [00:38:42] If that’s where you’ve had the most success. Now go back to Mike that you mentioned a few minutes ago. Is he hyper introvert?

Lee Kantor: [00:38:48] No. We haven’t had the most success with.

Maggie Ishak: [00:38:50] The.

Lee Kantor: [00:38:50] I’m the only introvert.

Stone Payton: [00:38:51] Mike’s a little bit more like me. Mike has a stronger work. Mike is willing to go out and do more of the day to day group networking stuff. So I guess while I’m at the other end of the extreme of the continuum in terms of being an extrovert, I don’t know, maybe I’m a little bit aloof, or maybe I’m really protective of my time, or maybe it’s a I don’t know what it is, but I don’t enjoy the standard networking. Hey ho, what do you do? What do I do? You know, what do you need? That just drives me nuts. I enjoy genuine conversation. I would rather have a genuine conversation with someone that I know I can help with these toys, even if there’s no way in a million years that I’m ever going to see any money out of that, then I would like I’d rather have that conversation than, you know, this transactional exchange and have somebody pay me a few thousand bucks. You know, I just, I, I really like being the being the cool guy in town.

Maggie Ishak: [00:39:48] I just with the toys.

Stone Payton: [00:39:50] Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:51] Well, I mean, I’ll ask you a question. You mentioned earlier that when you started your coaching business, you were doing all of the things that I.

Maggie Ishak: [00:40:01] Joined BMI.

Lee Kantor: [00:40:01] And you did all those things.

Maggie Ishak: [00:40:03] And the.

Lee Kantor: [00:40:03] Change. So now I will challenge you. Now, when you were doing that, were you what was differentiating you amongst any of the other members of those same groups? Like what was making you different in terms of your service provider, just like all of them?

Maggie Ishak: [00:40:22] So being very transparent at the beginning, not a whole lot. Okay. I had to find my voice. I had to find what made me different, what made me unique. And I also got involved and helped. And I demonstrated my value by finding ways to help others without the compensation. And then people got to know me and what I was capable of. And now that’s finally, almost two years later.

Lee Kantor: [00:40:51] Right. So you took the traditional route that Stone explained or talked about earlier that you went in, you became a member, you got the lay of the land, you started taking leadership roles, you volunteered, you started doing all this stuff that I mean, that’s the playbook that I’m sure your coaching organization that you work with, they recommend you do some variation of that, right? Join the the close contact networking like a BNI, join the chamber, take volunteer, take leadership positions, etc.. That’s kind of their go to market strategy. So our position in that, and this is something we talked with Tricia about, is we want to be in that playbook of these coaching associations. We want them to recommend. Oh, you should also own a be the Business RadioX studio partner, because now you’re the media, you’re the local business media outlet in that local market, and now you’re different than everybody else. Now, when you go to the BNI in the chamber, you’re no longer the coach. You’re Maggie, the host of, you know, Memphis Business Radio. Now, you’re the one that’s going out there telling the stories in that community. Now you’re different than everybody else, 100%. You’re no longer kind of another one service provider in the market. You’re the media, you’re the cheerleader. You’re the supporter. You’re the one celebrating all the good work there. Now you’re positioning shifts and being the media has its benefits 100%.

Maggie Ishak: [00:42:23] I’m not disagreeing with you. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:42:25] That’s that’s what we’re thinking is the lever that we need to be kind of, uh, kind of pulling on is that we want to be part of any coaching groups or service providers kind of go to market strategy. We want to be part we want to be recommended, just like your coaching organization recommended. Join BNI. We want them to say be a Business RadioX studio partner.

Maggie Ishak: [00:42:51] Okay, so of the going back to the first session that you did, going back and looking at your prior interviews, I would imagine you’ve got a number of people in your roster that belong to these various organizations, people.

Stone Payton: [00:43:06] That we’ve interviewed. Yeah. Come on on. Yes, we do, because we’ve done a coaching series for a couple of years now. Wildly successful. They love it. Yeah. But we haven’t come back to them effectively with this value proposition of, you know, doing, you know, being the Memphis Business RadioX.

Maggie Ishak: [00:43:23] Okay. So let’s build that out. So you guys just I mean, in the last I don’t know how long we’ve been here now, but, um, you’ve talked about immense value that you create. That takes them 2 to 3 years and sometimes even longer to longer, to build through alternative channels.

Lee Kantor: [00:43:44] Right through the traditional model that go to market strategy requires a lot of time, effort, and resources in order to execute.

Maggie Ishak: [00:43:52] Yeah, you said time, money systems, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:43:54] So if they partner with us, they can be a lot more successful, a lot more quickly.

Maggie Ishak: [00:44:00] Okay. So do you have a couple of coaching organizations or other networks of coaches that you can go to? I mean, off the top of your head, I know there’s one.

Lee Kantor: [00:44:09] Right? So I mean, but we haven’t we haven’t had a chance to have the conversation with the leadership of those groups yet. I mean, but that is on our kind of roadmap of, okay, we want to identify and we’ve already done that identified like the top 30 to 40 coaching organizations and then come up with a plan to get in front of them to at least kind of pitch, hey, we want to be part of your franchisee or coach. Go to market strategy.

Stone Payton: [00:44:42] So I love that idea and no doubt in my mind, I know that we can get in a conversation with the Grand Poobah of XYZ coaching franchise or association or whatever, and we can tell them, oh, by the way, we’ve interviewed a dozen of the coaches in your system, but a lot of those interviews will have been virtual.

Lee Kantor: [00:45:04] Right?

Stone Payton: [00:45:05] Right. And so I guess I’m a little bit stuck on this whole rowboat, you know, selling them an outboard motor thing. Um, I’m just trying to think, what is the.

Maggie Ishak: [00:45:14] Where’s the gap for you? Where’s the gap for you?

Stone Payton: [00:45:17] Everything that they’re experiencing in our in our building, our relationship with them and everything that the that they’re dozen members whom we’ve interviewed is not what we do. It looks and tastes and smells a lot more like traditional podcasting as opposed to business development. Business development.

Lee Kantor: [00:45:36] Well, and the experience the real life experience.

Stone Payton: [00:45:40] But we ought to ask her about her. You. Because you’ve been a guest on the show.

Maggie Ishak: [00:45:43] I was in this room.

Stone Payton: [00:45:44] Right. So, I mean, it’s we’re operating under the impression that the guest experience is. Well, we know at the local level to grow a studio, to grow a market. The guest experience is everything, but like.

Maggie Ishak: [00:45:54] Yeah, but you’re talking about from the coaching organization, like.

Stone Payton: [00:45:57] Right. Like, how do we make that?

Lee Kantor: [00:45:58] Right. Like, so, for example, Tricia is working with us. She works with us as studio partner in Houston. Everything she’s done with us has been virtual. She’s never had this experience. She’s never done what you’ve done. Okay. Sat here face to face in front of people with a microphone and headphones. She’s never done that. Your experience with us is different than hers. Okay.

Maggie Ishak: [00:46:22] Does it matter?

Lee Kantor: [00:46:23] I think it does, because I think you have the visceral experience of what it’s like to share the microphone and headphones with other people in this environment where she has just done podcasting in the way that podcasting is done now virtually over zoom, and we try to kind of emulate or try to create an experience that’s similar to this, but it’s never this. It’s kind of like this, but it’s not this.

Maggie Ishak: [00:46:53] Okay? Versus I’ll drop a name John Ray.

Lee Kantor: [00:46:57] Wright.

Maggie Ishak: [00:46:57] Who has an in-person studio.

Lee Kantor: [00:47:00] Right, right.

Stone Payton: [00:47:01] And he started out by he was probably a guest on one of my shows at some point, I’m sure, as a fractional exec because, sure. Um, and then at some point he started like co-hosting with Mike, and then he grew into be a business radio studio partner, and he’s done a fabulous job as well. But again, I’m just trying to envision the conversation with the, you know, the Grand poobah of a coaching organization based out of wherever Memphis. Let’s just we’ve been talking about. All right. So what is my sales process? Because we know this sales process works. I mean, right.

Lee Kantor: [00:47:31] So they’ll have never experienced this.

Stone Payton: [00:47:33] They will have never.

Lee Kantor: [00:47:34] Have only experienced virtual over zoom.

Stone Payton: [00:47:37] Unless we go do Radio Day or something.

Lee Kantor: [00:47:39] Right?

Maggie Ishak: [00:47:40] Okay, so let’s let’s think about this for a second. The so so Stone, you’re asking the conversation that I have with a studio partner. A singular studio partner is very different than the conversation I have with the CEO of a coaching organization that is training coaches and bringing them online. Well, right.

Stone Payton: [00:47:57] That would be different. But also just having a sales process aimed at serving a prospective, a prospective studio partner in Memphis is very different than if you and I were talking about having you be a studio partner, if John Ray wasn’t already there, if that, it would be right now if you and I were having a conversation about you being a studio partner in Alpharetta, that’s that’s going to take on a whole different dynamic than me having a conversation with you if you were in San Diego.

Maggie Ishak: [00:48:25] Why?

Stone Payton: [00:48:26] Well, maybe I’m wrong. I’m just saying.

Maggie Ishak: [00:48:28] Tell me, tell me, tell me your line of thinking. Why is that different?

Stone Payton: [00:48:31] Well go ahead.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:33] Well, because you’ve never you in San Diego. The person we’re talking to there never had this experience.

Maggie Ishak: [00:48:40] Does it matter? I’m sorry. I’m not being snarky.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:43] I think it does.

Stone Payton: [00:48:44] Well, we’re operating under the impression that it does, but maybe it maybe it does.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:49] It matters less.

Stone Payton: [00:48:50] Than.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:50] We think. I mean, maybe it does.

Stone Payton: [00:48:51] And maybe we’re building a wall that we shouldn’t be building, I don’t know. But to us, this is so different than a virtual interview.

Maggie Ishak: [00:48:59] Doesn’t change the end result that the host of that show has people coming to them saying, I want to be on your show.

Stone Payton: [00:49:12] No. If they’ll if they’ll do the thing and then and then do this where they are, it’ll absolutely work. I’m just talking about our sales process to with them of getting them to do this in San Diego. But again, maybe we’re building barriers that aren’t really there.

Maggie Ishak: [00:49:28] Have you asked anybody.

Lee Kantor: [00:49:31] Have we asked?

Maggie Ishak: [00:49:32] Have you queried anybody if that matters? Have you gotten any feedback to say that it does matter or doesn’t matter?

Stone Payton: [00:49:38] Um, just lack of them going all the way through the process and actually pulling the trigger to start a studio.

Maggie Ishak: [00:49:45] So your funnel is more successful going through in person than in person?

Stone Payton: [00:49:52] Yeah, the in-person stuff we are really, really good at. I mean, we have extremely fine tuned, you know, we can we we know exactly what to do when you have a physical studio. There’s so much that happens in this room and it’s all by design. It’s all done with intent. Um, but maybe we just could get a lot better at using the major parts of our methodology and having those initial, um, maybe again, maybe it’s self-created barriers, but to get the person that’s out of town to understand the the value of the dynamic that’s created in this room.

Maggie Ishak: [00:50:30] So I agree with you that there is an extra benefit that you get from being in person. 100%. But to go from 100 down to zero when you go from in-person to zoom or some other virtual, right, does it really go down to zero?

Stone Payton: [00:50:52] I’m sure the answer is no.

Lee Kantor: [00:50:53] It probably doesn’t go down to zero. Um, but does it go down to a number that’s, uh, enough for them to say, okay, I’ll try this virtually.

Maggie Ishak: [00:51:07] How could you test that?

Stone Payton: [00:51:10] Well, you know how how? Because it was on the heels of Covid. The way I got my studio going actually was virtual. So I guess we could say. Oh, and here’s how we do it to make this work. Over the long haul, you’re going to need a studio. You’re going to want a studio. You’re going to make a lot more money, help a lot more people. If you have a physical studio and in most cases you probably won’t even have to pay rent. Most of our studio partners don’t pay rent because they don’t. John Ray doesn’t. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And we’ve learned that the best way to get this thing going quickly is to get a dozen, 15 interviews in the can. And the best way to do that before you, you know, start going to get space and building out a studio and equipment and all that. The best thing to do is to do virtual. So maybe if we if we if we just told them that, but we we made the expectation very clear that after this much money or after this many interviews, now it’s time for you to go get your studio.

Maggie Ishak: [00:52:03] Well, it sounds like the studio is to their own benefit.

Stone Payton: [00:52:06] Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:52:08] Right. So maybe that’s the secret is to make it undeniable so that they want to have their own studio because they’re going to get to that next level.

Stone Payton: [00:52:18] Yeah, maybe that’s the framing. And and we actually do have precedent for that. And I, I really think that’s for Tricia is I do think Trisha. Tricia intends to have a physical studio in the veteran Chamber of Commerce, and we’ve got precedent with the way I launched this one. And then if we have precedent with Tricia. So maybe that’s the way. So we just up front here’s here’s the process and and it may maybe won’t feel as big a hairy a deal to them if they don’t have to worry about the studio just yet. Just follow all the other parts of our methodology.

Maggie Ishak: [00:52:52] So question would launching virtually remove a barrier for your prospects just to get them started?

Lee Kantor: [00:53:04] Yeah, for sure. Because I’m thinking, yeah, because they can just start by doing what they’re doing now. They don’t need anything else other than sending some messages on LinkedIn.

Stone Payton: [00:53:16] And or.

Maggie Ishak: [00:53:17] Going to their local chamber or wherever they’re locally.

Lee Kantor: [00:53:19] They’re doing anyway. Probably. Right. Right.

Stone Payton: [00:53:25] So I think that. So what’s.

Maggie Ishak: [00:53:27] What. So what would be a next step. What would, what would what would get some momentum behind this.

Stone Payton: [00:53:32] Well, that really informs my conversation with a prospective studio partner because because that that I can change on a dime. Um, still got to go back and figure out, okay, what’s the best way to get the conversation in the first place? And maybe it really does go back to our root methodology of if we want to have a conversation with them, we interview them just like we would if they were in a local market.

Lee Kantor: [00:53:57] Right. Well, I mean, that’s our I mean, we’re a one trick pony, right? Right. We meet people the same way. We invite people on shows. That’s how we do what we do.

Maggie Ishak: [00:54:06] So you want to be targeted about who you invite, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:54:08] Of course. But let’s go. Let’s pose the question to you. You’re now you’ve gone through this. You’ve been a guest on a show.

Maggie Ishak: [00:54:17] Huh?

Lee Kantor: [00:54:18] Um, now that you have an idea of what this is and how it works. And you were like, wow, let me see how I can implement this in my world. Um. How what would be kind of the pricing that you would be like, oh, that’s a no brainer. And you throw your credit card across the table versus, oh, that’s let me think about that.

Maggie Ishak: [00:54:43] Okay, I’m going to answer your question, but I’m going to answer it in a different way. Okay. Um, I am not a technical person. Right. So if you told me, Maggie, starting starting a show like this is a great way to get clients. I’m immediately going to close my ears, because that thing on the desk there, I don’t even want to touch it. The cables, like I don’t. So for me, there’s a tremendous value lie in knowing that all that stuff’s just gonna happen. Okay. The social media part. I’m not great on social media. If you said that’s magically going to happen, right? And if then you told me you’re going to have people knocking on your door wanting to talk to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:55:25] Right.

Maggie Ishak: [00:55:26] Okay, let’s add up how much money I’ve spent for other networking associations over the last year. Your fee pales in comparison to that time and money and resource that you describe that I’ve spent.

Lee Kantor: [00:55:38] Right.

Maggie Ishak: [00:55:38] So I know your fee. I’ve seen it.

Lee Kantor: [00:55:42] Is it a no brainer?

Maggie Ishak: [00:55:45] Okay. Those who are listening can’t see the look on my face.

Stone Payton: [00:55:51] She thinks it’s a no brainer at our current.

Maggie Ishak: [00:55:52] When you describe what you describe and the benefit that a host would get. Yes, the scales are definitely tipped in the favor. It’s a matter of you articulating the value. Now I’m going to also add this to you. I know John, I know Tricia, I know Joshua, okay? I don’t have the pleasure of knowing Mike. Okay. Um, when I looked at what they did. Like when I first met John, I took it purely at face value. He’s just interviewing people. He’s a nice guy. You go have a conversation with him in the studio. That was kind of fun. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I was doing it. What? What those next steps or what what happens after. And I think if you can find a way to help educate and articulate that, then your value goes way up.

Lee Kantor: [00:56:46] Well, I mean that again, that was by design because you went in there with your sales radar down. You weren’t thinking that there was any kind of business model around this.

Speaker5: [00:56:57] And John, such a nice person. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:56:59] Well, again, that goes to our choosing the right people to be the.

Stone Payton: [00:57:03] Yeah, we need more John’s and more mikes.

Lee Kantor: [00:57:05] And so at some point, did he ask you if you wanted to have your own show?

Speaker5: [00:57:12] No.

Maggie Ishak: [00:57:14] At least I don’t remember him asking me that.

Lee Kantor: [00:57:17] Well, he might have. And you just. It didn’t occur to.

Maggie Ishak: [00:57:19] You it might have went in one ear.

Lee Kantor: [00:57:20] Out because you because you had that kind of aversion to technology and all these things. And that might have been a bridge too far. So you didn’t even consider it.

Maggie Ishak: [00:57:29] Maybe not. And Joshua didn’t either.

Lee Kantor: [00:57:31] Right.

Speaker5: [00:57:35] So.

Maggie Ishak: [00:57:35] But but can I share this with you? Okay. I was talking with a good friend of mine, um, who was a business owner, just on Friday, and he told me he was looking for podcasts to guest on for some visibility. Right. Okay. And I asked him because I had just talked to you, Stone. I said, what’s preventing you from doing your own? And he we were on zoom and he looked at me. He’s like, oh. And he’s he’s techy in his own way, right? He’s like, I don’t want to deal with the publishing and the editing and the social media. I was like, what if there was a way to do that for you? And he perked up. He’s like, there is. That was the email I sent to you this morning.

Stone Payton: [00:58:19] Thank you for.

Speaker5: [00:58:19] That.

Maggie Ishak: [00:58:21] So that’s all it took?

Stone Payton: [00:58:23] Right.

Maggie Ishak: [00:58:26] He’s interested.

Stone Payton: [00:58:27] Good.

Maggie Ishak: [00:58:29] And and I think your price point is very doable. Like to that to that business owner who’s at a certain stage in his business, that price point to continue to build authentic relationships. And he is a relationship builder and he is that same of those same values and kind of cut of that same cloth. So I think it’s just a matter of leveraging the people that you have in your network that already have those values to find those other like minded people with the same values.

Speaker5: [00:58:57] That’s maybe I’m being during this.

Stone Payton: [00:58:59] Conversation.

Lee Kantor: [00:59:00] A lot of homework for you.

Stone Payton: [00:59:01] Well, the values and the people who who think like us and do get emotional compensation and financial compensation from genuinely serving other people, maybe is there. How do you I mean, is there a I mean, you can feel them out and have conversations with them, but I mean, should we have some kind of formal assessment along those lines too? Or do you think it’s more just get to know them through our normal relationship?

Maggie Ishak: [00:59:25] What would you assess their values.

Stone Payton: [00:59:28] Are they really.

Lee Kantor: [00:59:29] Right? We have to we have to kind of determine are they a relationship person or a transactional person, like some sort of.

Maggie Ishak: [00:59:35] And I think all you have to do is ask a few people that know them.

Lee Kantor: [00:59:39] So you think it’s through other people that you would determine that rather than anything they said. So.

Maggie Ishak: [00:59:44] So by nature of so I’m gonna I’m gonna consider myself a values based person and wanting to build relationships. And I consider myself in your camp because what you’re saying really resonates with me. Okay. The person that I sent the email to connect you with this morning is also cut of that same cloth. And I think like breeds like. And so I would imagine if you ask John Ray, who are the people that are close to him. And who are the people that that that have those same values? He could probably give you a list. And you asked Tricia and she’d probably give you a list and it could just.

Stone Payton: [01:00:21] Right. And we really haven’t made that ask consistently, methodically. We’ve mentioned it before, but we haven’t.

Lee Kantor: [01:00:29] Right.

Stone Payton: [01:00:30] Yeah.

Maggie Ishak: [01:00:31] So can I throw that out as another bit of homework for you?

Stone Payton: [01:00:36] Homework. I got a whole pad of homework.

Lee Kantor: [01:00:39] That’s why we’re doing this. Absolutely.

Maggie Ishak: [01:00:41] That’s what you get with these sessions? No, but but being very deliberate about asking your existing partners whom you hold in high regard.

Stone Payton: [01:00:50] Right.

Maggie Ishak: [01:00:51] Who else is in your circle that shares these same values?

Lee Kantor: [01:00:54] And it’s a great, great exercise we should be doing.

Maggie Ishak: [01:00:57] And then you could test your pricing and test your conversation. And oh, by the way, you could just offer them to be a guest on your show as well since that’s what you do best.

Lee Kantor: [01:01:04] Right, exactly.

Maggie Ishak: [01:01:05] And maybe use that as a conversation. Now, Lee, when when you and I met about a year ago. Had you asked me, how difficult is it for you to find clients? I don’t know that you would have asked me that, because that would have been a tough question to answer on air. I would have told you. Wow, this has been this has been a lot more challenging than I anticipated. And and that could have swung the door wide open. But I know you’re not selling. That’s not your intention.

Lee Kantor: [01:01:26] I’ll tell you, when we do the show, we do ask typically a marketing question. And that marketing question in our business, are our relationships important to you? That I probably did ask some version of that during the conversation. And then depending on your answer, it would have determined what was the next, um, yeah, kind of move to make.

Maggie Ishak: [01:01:49] So maybe I didn’t answer it in the right way, I don’t know.

Lee Kantor: [01:01:51] I mean, we could go back and kind of see, uh, the paper trail that’s associated, but we we’re trying to be better in, in our systems to make sure that that question is asked and also to have a follow up path, uh, based on that answer. So we are trying to be better in that area in terms of tightening our systems, because that is an important component of our methodology, is when you’re the hosting mechanics we recommend to our our partners is to ask some sort of a marketing question to your guests so that you can determine if they are a prospect for other services you might be offering.

Maggie Ishak: [01:02:32] So now you’re going to make me go back and listen to the shows that I’ve been on to look for that question.

Lee Kantor: [01:02:36] Well, I mean, that’s how we go to market.

Maggie Ishak: [01:02:39] Okay. Um, and then but before we wrap up, I want to come back to kind of where we started all of this with you targeting maybe coaching organizations or kind of, you call it the Grand Poobah. Like, how do you. Right. Um, is that still top of mind for you now, or are you wanting to take a little bit of a left turn? I don’t want to call it a left turn because that implies, um, but maybe just take a different path.

Lee Kantor: [01:03:04] Right.

Maggie Ishak: [01:03:04] On the road to 100 and road to 1000.

Lee Kantor: [01:03:06] Well, in order to get to 101,000, we have to have kind of multiplier effect. So it is part of that journey is to get in front of people that are leading these types of organizations that have hundreds of, not thousands of, of the right prospects, you know, within them. Uh, so that’s definitely part of the path. We want to have meaningful conversations with people who are leading those types of organizations so we can and we think we have to ideally get invited by somebody who is one of their members to say, hey, you should talk to these people. They might have something that could benefit all of the members.

Maggie Ishak: [01:03:43] Okay, so hint, hint, there is an organization, um, of which one of your studio partners and I are members, and that organization also operates with very strong values and a strong culture that I believe aligns with your model. And so I think it’s just a matter of An introduction and a conversation. Because I think there’s a lot of other people like me that are looking for ways that where I was a year ago, year and a half ago, to launch my practice without all of the time, money and systems that you talked about earlier. Um, I think it could provide immense value.

Stone Payton: [01:04:30] Well, it makes me think, you know, all of this. You and I know how easy all this is because he and I aren’t technical either. But all of this is does feel big and hairy. And I think maybe sometimes we get desensitized to how easy we take for granted, maybe how easy it is for us to meet people and build new, real relationships, and how easy it is for us to strengthen existing relationships, and how easy it is for us to be nice to a lot of people who are never going to write us a check, but it’s still just good mojo. I well, I won’t speak for you. I think maybe sometimes I take all that for granted. And so I fail to communicate that. And when I’m, when I’m talking to a prospective client.

Lee Kantor: [01:05:18] Right. And I think that we underestimate the pain that they’re going through to do the same thing.

Stone Payton: [01:05:24] Right? Right.

Maggie Ishak: [01:05:25] Lee 100%, 100%. Now, can I throw a couple of other, um, just things to consider when you think about if you’re just thinking about coaches.

Stone Payton: [01:05:36] Yeah.

Maggie Ishak: [01:05:37] You know, there are groups like ICF, the International Coaching Federations, there’s a number and there’s a local chapter here in the Atlanta area. There’s chapters all over the country. Um, there’s there’s other groups like that, other groups like Focal Point that have groups of coaches. Um, there’s there’s also others that are out there that are trying to market to coaches, right. You know, finding ways maybe to align with them as well. I mean, I think. Lee, I think the point you made a minute ago needs to be really be kind of hyper focused. You don’t necessarily see the pain that so many of these people go through, and how many of them hang their shingle up. And then after a year or two, they have to take the shingle back down, right?

Lee Kantor: [01:06:30] Because it was harder than they thought.

Maggie Ishak: [01:06:32] That hyper introversion or, or other things around that. Yeah. And so going back to the value.

Stone Payton: [01:06:38] Um. Well, that’s encouraging to hear.

Maggie Ishak: [01:06:45] All right. So what else is on your mind today?

Lee Kantor: [01:06:48] Well, I think we covered quite a bit. And I want to make sure before we wrap up, um, that people know how to contact you. What’s the best way to. Yeah, probably the.

Maggie Ishak: [01:06:57] Easiest way to find me is on LinkedIn. Um, Maggie. Maggie. Last name is Ishak. I s h a k. Um. Go find me on LinkedIn and send me a connection request and tell me that you heard this show.

Lee Kantor: [01:07:10] All right.

Stone Payton: [01:07:11] And then this time next year, you can just reach out. Reach her at Business RadioX. Maggie, thank you so much. This has been incredibly helpful.

Maggie Ishak: [01:07:20] I’ve enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.

Stone Payton: [01:07:22] Our pleasure.

Outro: [01:07:26] Thanks for listening to Scaling in Public. The next Business RadioX 100 markets. Are you ready to enjoy a steady stream of discovery calls and finally, stop being a best kept secret? It’s time to step out of the shadows and watch your coaching business grow. Let’s fill your calendar ten discovery calls in a month, guaranteed. Go to Birr to download the free Business RadioX playbook.