Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Business Made Simple. Today we'll be breaking down how to successfully scale your business without burnouts. To drop these value bombs, I brought Chris Ducker into EO Fire Studios. Chris is a serial entrepreneur and author of the bestselling books, Virtual Freedom, and more recently, Rise of the Youpreneur.
Based in Cambridge, England, Chris owns and operates several businesses, including the VA recruiting hub, virtualstafffinder.com, and the personal brand education company, Youpreneur. He employs over 350 full-time employees around the world and is regarded as one of the top experts in the world on the subjects of virtual staffing and scaling an expert business. Today we'll talk about quality leads, turning them into customers. We'll talk about what you should do if you feel stuck and with burnout and with hustle and grind and so much more.
And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Chris and our sponsors. Is this your year? Visit thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire to see how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month-to-month and less money than an average minimum wage employee.
Schedule your free consultation today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Success Story, hosted by Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q&A, keynote presentations, and convos on sales, marketing, and more.
A recent episode on how to protect your business in times of crisis is a must-listen. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. Chris, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation?
Hope you're doing as well as John and I are right now. I think here's my big thing. I feel like a lot of people are falling victim of the fact that you've got to hustle and grind your way to success, like working yourself into the ground, sometimes even into hospital. And you don't need to do that.
You just want to work smart, plain and simple. So that's my unpopular opinion piece. Well, you've proven that for years and even decades. And that's what we're talking about today.
We're talking about how to successfully scale your business without burnout. And who better to chat about this than six-time Chris Ducker. He's been on the show six times now. And let me tell you, that's not going to stop.
We're going to be doing a double-digit appearance for you probably this decade, Chris. So it's going to be fun with that for sure. But we've had him on a bunch over the years. He always brings the value.
We're talking about some really awesome things today. I'm giving you the teasers in the intro. But I want to talk right now about high-quality leads. But specifically taking these high-quality leads and actually turning them into loyal customers.
And you, Chris, are a master at this. Break down your genius system now. There's a couple things, right? First things first, if you don't know what you want to be known for and what you're all about and how you can best serve people, they're not going to be able to attract the right type of people.
So that's the first thing is that you've got to figure out what you want to be known for. When you're not around, what are people going to say about you, right? Like that's your personal brand, right? So figure out what you want to be known for, number one.
Number two, figure out who it is that you can serve the most. And just because we can help a whole bunch of people out there in the world doesn't mean that we actually should, right? Because every time we say yes to something, we're saying no to something else, right? So figure out who the people are that are in your network, within your ecosystem, that you can help the most and focus in on those guys.
Everybody else, that doesn't mean that you can't help them, but you're just all these years. And I often reference that all the time as well. The fact that you're so inclined, you're so in line with your avatar that you've even given the guy a name. So get your own Jimmy, number two.
Number three is then to figure out where they're hanging out. This is actually where you, you know, you kind of need to flip the script a little bit and focus on your prospect rather than on you and what you want to do. So if your prospects are all hanging out on, say, Instagram, but you prefer to be on LinkedIn, you've got to shift that mindset because you're not going to attract anybody on LinkedIn if everybody's hanging out over on Instagram. So you've got to be where your prospects are.
And then number four, you've got to start conversations. Conversations with people, commenting on their posts, getting them to comment on yours, liking, following each other, and all these other bits and pieces that we do pretty much organically every day anyway, and then leading those actions into conversations that ultimately then further down the line end up leading into conversions. So it goes from getting somebody from being a lurker to a paid client in those four or five steps. And Fire Nation, this is what you're going to get for this episode today.
Value bomb after value bomb. There's a couple things I want to circle back on. When you say yes to one thing, you're saying no to everything else. And just like you've gone Jimmy from me, Chris, I have used this in reference to you so many times because it's such like a mind shift when people think about this.
They're like, oh, when I said yes to that one thing, I thought I was just saying yes to one thing. It's like, no, you're literally saying no to everything else you otherwise could be doing during that time. And it could change the entire narrative. And it's really cool.
We brought that Jimmy thing up too for my avatar. I was just sharing with you pre-interview. I just got back from a Nashville and Palm Beach speaking trip, these back-to-backers, and I went into depth on Jimmy twice. And has he changed in the past 10 years?
No, he has not changed. The presentation I gave in 2014 at Tropical Think Tank, in 2017 at the Upreneur Summit in London, and then last week was literally Jimmy as the same person because he's a more star. And then the last thing I wanted to highlight that you said was be where your prospects are and actually start meaningful conversations. Who would have thought it would actually initiate meaningful conversations?
Now, a lot of people in my audience, Chris, they're feeling stuck in their business. What would your advice to those individuals be? Oh, John, I've got an exercise. Oh, I think I love this.
And I know you love a good exercise as well. So you can take this and do this yourself. Yes. So this is what I call my stop, stay, start audit.
So what you've got to do is you've got to get a piece of paper, draw a few lines down there, create those three different rows or columns, right? And what we're going to do is on the first row or column, we're going to write down all the stuff that we're doing currently right now that isn't working the way you want it to work. Okay? Just because it's working a little bit doesn't mean that it's working the way you want it to work.
Whatever that is, you're going to jot all that down in that stop column. You're going to stop doing those things. The second thing is you're going to write down a list of all the stuff that is working well. So if it's marketing strategies, if it's outreach strategies, if it's customer service care, whatever it is within your business that you're doing that you feel is pretty good right now, like you're on a nice roll with it, that stays.
That's in the stay column. And then finally, that third column, that start column is what's missing, right? Like what do you have in your ecosystem that or rather what do you not have in your ecosystem that you feel could be serving your clients well? So for example, if you don't have a group coaching program and you feel like that's something that your clients are ready for, maybe that's something that you need to start right now.
If you're not running Facebook ads, but you want to grow your email as quickly, then let's start running some Facebook ads, right? So that's a stop, stay, start, audit, figuring out what's working or rather what's not working and getting rid of it, figuring out what is working and keeping it. And lastly, figuring out what's missing from your current setup and then introducing that in order to be able to grow and go honestly a lot further, a lot faster. And finally, this is one of many things I love about Chris Barker here is he just creates these systems that are easy to remember.
They're easy to implement. I mean, stop, stay, start. I mean, what are those things that you need to be looking at within your business and saying, you know what? I really need to stop doing these things.
You know what? I'm missing X, Y, or Z in my business. I'm not hitting my goals here. I want to start this thing.
I mean, there's just so many great takeaways within this. I can tell you, Chris and I, we both live what we preach. I mean, right now I'm running a daily podcast, working on this podcast one day per week, four days per month. My team does the rest.
One day per month, I show up. I create seven amazing interviews with seven amazing entrepreneurs and I'm off to the races because I've used something very similar to the system to whittle down what's not critical and important in my business. And Chris does the exact same thing. And it allows him to spend time with his friends, with his family, to watch our Boston Celtics.
We're both Celtic fans. I mean, it gives us freedom to do these type of things. And we have a lot to talk about around these topics. When we get back from thinking our sponsors, are you ready to grow your business now?
What if you can learn the proven systems and processes that have been used to grow thousands of multimillion dollar success stories? At Thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire. See how Clay Clark's proven business coaching has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to increase profitability dramatically. Clay's proven business coaching program is month to month and less money than hiring a minimum wage employee.
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Chris, burnout is a real thing, and you experienced it firsthand. I mean, I can honestly remember the first time that I met you. You were actually speaking on this topic. I was this stupid little 32-year-old whippersnapper who thought that I had the most energy in the world, and it was never going to end.
I'm like, what is this guy talking about? I mean, is burnout really a thing? I don't know. I was doubtful.
And then I can tell you, I've experienced it in my business. I've experienced it in my life. My health, my wellness has suffered because I wasn't aware and focused on the possibility of burnout. And you, Chris, experienced this as well.
So talk to us about the best way to avoid burnout when we're building and running a business. The best way to be able to do it is to build a team. Plain and simple. However, there are certain times where people are in a position where they can build a team, and then there's times when they're not.
In the first couple of years or so, most people that are building their business, unless they grow very, very quickly, are not going to be in a position where they can grow a big team of individuals. But what can they do to lighten their load? Can they work with a freelancer to keep their website up to date? Can they work with a VA or a virtual assistant to help manage their social media or potentially maybe manage their inbox or their support ticket system, whatever it might be?
Can they hire a graphic designer to start designing things like slides for webinars and that sort of type of stuff? Like, it doesn't need to be a full-time member of staff. It doesn't even need to be a part-time member of staff. But the fact of the matter is, there are certain things when you're building a business that you should be doing and certain things that even though you can, you should not be doing.
I remember years ago, I was learning how to drive, right? Everyone has to learn how to drive. They all have to take lessons. And my driving instructor, I will never forget this woman.
Her name is Vanessa. She was from Scotland. I'm from London in the south of the UK. She just happened to be living in London.
And I can hardly understand a word coming out of now. The Scottish accent is very, very harsh at times, right? But after about three or four lessons or so, she pulled me over and I pulled her car over and she said to me something to the effect of, you know, Chris, the 30 miles per hour speed limit that we have is exactly that. It's a speed limit.
It's not a speed target. You know, you keep getting out there like 29, 30, 31, 29, 32, 30, 21, you know, just because you can get up to 30 doesn't mean that you should always be aiming to get up to 30. And that's a massive, massive takeaway, not just for learning how to drive, but also for running a business and hopefully living a really fun, enjoyable lifestyle. Just because you can do all the things in your business doesn't necessarily mean that you should be doing all the things in your business.
So that's really the key aspect is even if you can't afford it right now, start thinking about what you can ultimately get off your plate and bring in a few people here and now, here and then when you can afford to do it until obviously you're in a position to go full time like you, Johnny, you've got a relatively small, but really high quality, super focused group of individuals that help you run your business, everyone can attain that. Everyone can do it, but they can't do it overnight, right? And I will say, Chris, that my team is actually thanks to you directly because I went to virtualstaffhinder.com back in 2012 and I was just launching my business. I hired my first VA three-year program and she is still with me to this day.
And I hired another one a couple years later. She is still with me to this day and then another one two years after that. And right now my team is myself and Kate and those three virtual assistants. See, let me point something out there real quick, right?
Because I think it's important for people to see what happened there. You started and you hired somebody as soon as you could after starting. Then there was a two-year lull and you hired somebody else. And then another two years go by and you hired somebody else.
And all those people are now still with you and obviously working together with your good better half now, right? And I think what's really key here is to point out the fact that you grew that team, a smaller mighty team, but you grew it slowly but surely over a period of years. And that is where a lot of people go wrong. They get to the point where they are making lots of money.
You could have brought those three people on within a year and a half of opening your business, right? Let's face it. But you didn't. You did it as and when you needed it rather than just because you could.
And a lot of people make the error there and they grow too quickly. They bring too many people on board. There's not enough systems in place. There's not enough SOPs in place.
And therefore, everybody starts running around like a virtual headless chicken. And you did it the right way. And I'm not just saying this to blow smoke up your butt. I mean, you did it the right way.
You did it slowly but surely. You hired for the role and not for the task. And those people are still winning you. That's a perfect example of how to do it properly.
Plain and simple. Well, I appreciate those kind words. And I really do look back and say, you know what? I did hire the right people at the right time.
I gave them a plan and then they executed it. And the thing that I want to move into next won't be a surprise to our listeners based off the very first thing we talked about here today. But there's so much talk out there about hustle, about grinding our flipping faces off 18 hours plus a day. And I just want to know, what do you think about this hustle and grind lifestyle?
Oh, man, you're going to open up a can of worms. You're going to open up a can of worms with me. I mean, you know how I feel about this. And I think it's a bad situation.
I think we're in a pretty bad place right now in terms of the way that people are building their businesses, in terms of the way that they are marketing themselves and trying to kind of be everywhere. And one minute they're doing live webinars. The next minute they're dancing on TikTok and all this sort of thing. I genuinely feel, genuinely feel like people have to just hit the pause button for a minute and look at where they are.
The fact of the matter is that hustle is a season. It's not a lifestyle. It can't be a lifestyle. Successful entrepreneurs and leaders, they often define themselves by their ability to work harder, longer, smarter, faster, and all that sort of thing.
But that exhaustion, that hustle and exhaustion will become part of their identity. And before you know what's happening, they're burning out. And we're driven to, I think anyway, I think we're driven to hustle because of this scarcity mindset that society has kind of led us to believe. Like, you know, the discount ends tonight or, you know, you've got to buy by this date and then the doors close, you know, that kind of stuff.
Thank you guys for believing. Thank you. and that's that's not the right way to drive yourself as an entrepreneur the only way to truly kind of conquer our fears as an entrepreneur and our insecurities is to stop playing into them and so i'm just a really big believer that when we embrace you know the realization that the time of hustle is needed sometimes but then it's got to end sometimes as well so you can recharge the moment we embrace that mindset everything becomes so much easier so again for me personally it's about making sure that you know i work hard when i need to work hard but then when i don't need to work so hard i'm gonna take my foot off the gas a little bit i'm gonna recalibrate i'm gonna reset um and ultimately with a little bit of luck throughout all that hard work and that quote unquote hustle i've just deposited lots and lots and lots of you know value and trust and things like that and now i can take it easy a little bit like to start withdrawing on that trust a little bit later on and so i think there's a place for the word hustle but ultimately what it really means is you've got to work hard but you can't work hard every single day forever it's season it's not a lifestyle and fire nation along this topic i just want to say that chris practices what he preaches and he's going to turn around and help you really make sure this is part of your lifestyle because you have something pretty cool coming up it's going to be all about generating more leads making more sales and springboarding your business growth in 2023 it's a three-day entrepreneurial experience from november 8th to november 10th and i want to talk about this because you know i've known you you put on in-person events for the longest time every one of them is incredible actually shared pre-interviews at one of your in-person live events the one in london youpreneur summit was my favorite event i've ever attended and spoken at it was absolutely incredible so you put on amazing in-person events you also put on amazing virtual experiences so talk to us about this yeah so this is called the elevated entrepreneur experience and it's gonna be three days we're gonna go for about an hour or so each day and you know based on what day of those three days it is we'll focus on slightly different things like day one we're gonna be taking a little bit of a snapshot on where you are currently in your business so even if you're right at the beginning that's a great way to kind of diagnose where you're at and plan things a little bit but even if you're further along the line maybe you know you're skating on that six figure number for a while and you kind of you want to you know truly get over that hump and start maximizing the opportunities that come your way from hitting that that kind of milestone we can do that as well so lots of diagnosis looking at where we're at what's missing what's working well um looking at our numbers as well you know the vanity metrics of followers and subscribers are not the numbers that i'm talking about here i'm talking about stuff like how much money you're bringing in what are your costs like what are your net profits you know real business stuff right so that's day one day two uh day two we're gonna be doing um we're gonna be doing a training called going from conversations to conversions so what i'm gonna be doing with this actually is we have developed a system inside of our youpreneur academy program where we call it our p2p plus system and ultimately what it is it's a strategy that we teach all of our clients in order for them to be able to get more high quality leads and ultimately more sales without spending any money at all on ads or coming across as like super scammy or spammy at all um it's a strategy we actually use in our business every single day and we create leads every day and we convert clients every week with this strategy so i'm gonna be teaching that on day two and then day three i'm gonna be can i peel back the kimono john i'm opening it wide right i'm actually showing you um our roadmap our six figure youpreneur roadmap where we're gonna ultimately show you step by step exactly what you need to do in order to get to six figures and beyond and there's a big caveat i want to put into place here as well making six figures actually is not that hard in terms of bringing that money in from a revenue standpoint but if you bring in a hundred thousand dollars and you spend ninety five thousand dollars to do it you're sitting on five thousand dollars in profit that's not a business that is not a business not in my eyes so we're looking at not only bringing that revenue in but then more importantly and probably you know out of all three days this is like it right here we're gonna be showing you how to maximize the profit generation strategies that come in line with the six figure roadmap itself so we've got a number of different monetization options on there people pick what they want to do based on where they are on the journey and we'll walk them through step by step to get them up to that six figures and actually make a really good living at the same time fire nation discovery and diagnosis snapshot as day one conversations equal conversions day two the roadmap to a six figure business but as chris mentioned the right way the right way information if you want to get access to this very simple eofire.com slash you y-o-u eofire.com slash y-o-u i want you fire nation to be a part of this because chris is gonna drop value upon value bomb eofire.com slash you chris one takeaway what's the one thing you want to leave our listeners with today i guess probably a combination of like a bit of a kick up the backside and hopefully you know at the same time a little bit of a hug and high five and to tell them that you know whatever it is you're working on right now with your business it is going to be way more attainable for you to surround yourself with other people that are on a similar journey to surround yourself with experts and mentors and coaches that have been there before and have already done it so you can avoid their mistakes but most importantly for you to take action in an environment that is supportive and genuinely champions you and what you're all about and that's exactly what people can expect at the elevated entrepreneur experience is exactly what i'm all about as an individual and uh it's okay you know you're on this journey for a reason no matter where you are on the journey you're exactly where you need to be right now it's down to people like me and john to help you get to the next part of that journey and again and again and again until you get to your destination and the good thing is actually it's not about the destination it's about the journey that's the fun part fire nation you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with you've been hanging out with cd and jld today so keep up that heat head over to eofire.com type chris in the search bar the show notes page will pop up to links to everything we chatted about plus his other five amazing episodes on entrepreneurs on fire so maybe you want to go down a little chris ducker walk of fame throughout the years it was epic all those ones back to the days and last but strong call to action eofire.com slash you y-o-u sign up get access to these three amazing days you won't regret it and chris thank you for sharing your truth knowledge value with fire nation today for that we salute you brother and we'll catch you on the flip side thank you man hey fire nation a huge thank you to our sponsors and chris for sponsoring today's episode fire nation are you ready to rock your very own podcast check out our free podcasting course where i will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free free podcast course.com i'll catch you there or i'll catch you on the flip side is this your year visit thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire to see how clay clark's business coaching has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability it's month a month and less money than an average minimum wage employee schedule your free consultation today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire success story hosted by scott d clary is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals success story features q&a keynote presentations and convos on sales marketing and more a recent episode on how to protect your business in times of crisis is a must listen listen to success story wherever you get your podcast