From Local Impact to Global Movement: Strategies for Success! w/BJ Thompson - MMCB Podcast Episode 11

Ronald Lee Jr.: 00:08

what up what up what up. So this is the minding my creative business podcast, the number one

podcast for creative partners to learn strategy, structure and self development. I am your host,

Ron, ironically, and I am your host shot speaks. And I am officially excited in my little calm way

of showing you because today you're gonna get to unravel the shaker category of what it

means to be a creative entrepreneur, meaning you if you're a life coach or author or

community builder or social engineer, like any of that, this is the one for you. Because yes, we

got my boy here, can I go ahead and introduce himself? They look in our eyes, we let them let

them know. So introducing none other than what I would call I will say an author of faith based

life coach, a speaker, a creator of the 45 day total transformation. If I'm hopefully I'm saying

that right 45 day total transformation. I will say a community builder, and more importantly,

just a really, really dope, brother. So ladies and gentlemen, introducing BJ Thompson. BJ, what's

out there?

BJ Thomas: 01:22

What, thanks for having me. What a great intro. Thank you. Now that's how we will introduce

you BJ. How BJ introduced himself though? Yeah, I'm an author, Coach speaker grew up in

South Dallas in the 80s in the crack era. And my mom had me at the age of 17, one of my

favorite things to do is to help people grow transform, after going through all of the things that

I grew up with and having overcome so very honored to be here cannot wait to share with you

guys and audiences.

ShySpeaks: 02:01

Okay, okay. He know he making it sound calm. But once we get this conversation pop, and

that's when you know, you're gonna get the juice and the gyms and all the wisdom. That's

that's packed inside of BJ, the thing we love about creative, a printer or creative entrepreneurs,

because you take your creativity, and you turn it into entrepreneurship, you turn it into a

business, you turn it into a service. And a lot of times we see people who are maybe artists or

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producer or painter, something like that, we see them as creators. But if somebody takes time

to write a book from scratch, they create it, in my opinion. So it's a whole whole the whole time

we're talking about if that makes if that's a creative entrepreneur, but to me it is but then also,

you have like these other ways of creating, which is like, what do you say what I'm passionate

about, you take your passion, and then you create it into something that can be a service for

others, because you can just remain passionate, and you don't have to do anything to others.

So I just, I just think this, you know, I think is though, okay, speaking of what I think is dope, it is

the fact that a lot of people who enter your world now, they enter in through a 45 day total

transformation, or they enter in because they've seen something that you said, like a nugget

from life, or that they saw on social media, or and they saw you at an event. So they come in

right now. And we're going to talk about those things a little bit later on today. But I want to

start off by talking about the fact that you are a community builder. I said that earlier. And

what I mean by that is that you helped start the 116 movement. So and here's the reason why I

want to talk about that is because, yes, it is a movement, everybody started some movement,

and they were able to make impact because of it. But they were also able to monetize because

of it. So at the end of the day, if your creativity is able to be monetizable you're heading

towards that entrepreneurship. So I want to talk about that. But you don't want to talk about

the finances of a just yet. But But first of all, just to create a movement period. How does

somebody actually do that? Like, okay, yeah, in your sense, you've done it, right. Yeah.

BJ Thomas: 04:08

So you know, one of the things that's interesting about being creative is oftentimes, creativity

is just about expression to most people. Most people like to just share their thoughts, their

stories, their voice, their background, and it takes a structure to organize that into something

that other people can share. So whether that's writing a song, recording a video, creating a

podcast, it takes structure in order to do those things. And typically, you know, it's

relationships, if you're going to be, you know, working with someone to do those things. And so,

one of the things that happen is starting to 116 movement, which is reached millions of people

around the world. It started simply because creatively we wanted to help kids. It wasn't about

creating a record label wasn't about creating a global movement that reached millions of

people. It was about helping 40 people at a time. And 40 Teenagers actually. And so I think

oftentimes people downplay what they could do with a little and be faithful with a little, and it

becomes a lot more than what you expect. And so part of starting a movement, and sometimes

even a global movement has nothing to do with you wanting to be viral. You want it to be a

household name. It's literally you just want to be excellent in in a service create a service for a

specific demographic. And then that begins to catch fire, similar to what Facebook did, and

Mark Zuckerberg and whatnot. So yeah, I think that's the beginning of a movement. Yeah. Now.

ShySpeaks: 05:50

There's another nugget that you say share just then without trying to probably is that people

think of creativity is their way of expressing, but also, it's giving somebody like you want to

share, right? I'm the creative and I want to share, but then it's also I feel like a role to create a

movement is that you realize that you have to give somebody an opportunity to share in it with

you is what you were just saying. Yeah. So

BJ Thomas: 06:14

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BJ Thomas: 06:14

yeah, when you start a target audience,

ShySpeaks: 06:19

I mean, target. This particular group, though, I don't want to just share something with them. I

want them to share in something with me, like we're sharing in something together. I think that

was really notice that what were you about to say? Well, no, that

BJ Thomas: 06:33

was good. I guess I'm gonna say, you know, once again, I know, we know what the 116

movement is, and I know this interview is not about the one what's his move, we're gonna get

to some other things. However, I do want you to just to kind of let the audience know, what the

one wants six movement was, and yeah, you mentioned like, the initial intent was you say, 40

people at a time was only we only kind of we were looking to impact 40 teenagers at a time. So

yeah, let us know what that what that movement is. It's a little bit I don't want to harp on it too

long. Yeah. So the 116 movement is essentially a movement of faith, people who are

unashamed about their faith, and living it out in a way that is authentically who they are. And

so myself, my friend, Lecrae, we're both working at a juvenile detention center. And we just

wanted to help the kids there, man, honestly, because the kids were more like, what we saw

ourselves as kids, right? So we grew up in the hood, we grew up around, you know, gangs grew

up in these really challenging environments. But then walking with God changed our life. And

so he and I started working there just to work with kids in that arena. And we're like, man, what

kind of gifts can we share with them, man, we can take them on, you know, visits, expose them

to the world, we can share with them our faith, and then hopefully give them some life skills.

And so in just doing that small thing over and over again, one day, Lecrae walks up to me and

he says, man, let's do like a little CD. This isn't before, you know, Apple, iTunes, streaming, Music, Spotify, all of that. And he said, Me, let's just do this CD. So as these kids are leaving out

of this facility, they have something to take back home with them. And so we put together this

record, get all of our friends to kind of contribute to it. And we went from, you know, working

with 40 kids giving them these CDs to take home, to just have music to relate to their story,

their background, narrative, and, and new trend of life, to four years later, millions of people

having that in their hand. And now all of a sudden, this movement grew into this, go into merge

grew into shows you shows grew into record labels and record deals and meeting all these

influences all over the world. And so essentially, a 116 movement is a faith movement. But

really, it's a people's movement of transform folks who is seeking to live out their faith in a

more holistic and authentic way. So that that desire for impact came first. It wasn't like, okay,

okay, we got this music or whatever. How are we going to get people to galvanize around this

music and build this community around the music? It was like, no, we want to create impact. So

what can we do to create impact? Right? Like that's, that's just I think that's great. Because a

lot of times I think, people put the cart before the horse where it's like, okay, we're trying to do

something else opposed to make that impact that impact came first. So that's one thing where

I, I appreciate that because even I have a similar story. I'll share a little bit later where it was

like, Okay, how can we make more impact As opposed to just us doing this thing here, what can

we do to make more impact and then a movement was created. So I like that. I like that. And

that's where people resonate that people don't resonate with something that's shiny, that looks

good, that's packaged well. People resonate with what's authentic, and something that they

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can relate to. That feels like it's resolving a problem. And so for us, you again, we this was pre

internet, we didn't even have it wasn't a big internet to market this on. Right? There was no

Facebook. Right? So this thing, we're doing all it is with no internet, massive internet, no

Facebook, no social media, no tick tock, no YouTube, like we were creating movies before then.

Because we have the people in mind. And then when you get it, it feels authentic. Right. Now,

what's hard, what's challenging is sometimes the thing that you, you assume you understand

you don't, you have to get close to it. Right. So we had to do the marketing and the messaging

and all these different things. And I think people really relate to something about this makes

me feel heard, makes me feel seen. It's just it's an authentic thing. And I think this is what

every creative entrepreneurs looking for, is that before you go to this huge marketing platform,

and you go to upload your thing, or write that book, make sure it's something that's Real, Be

Real be tell your authentic story, give you authentic experience, because when people in the

audience, your target audience hears it, it's almost like a rallying cry around something that

they themselves can relate to. So yeah, that's what I would say is just making sure things are

real before you mass produce them. Because then once people grasp on, they can just sense

Oh, there's something special about this. And it's because you yourself have been transformed.

ShySpeaks: 12:03

And then there's this thing, like he says, seen and heard, people want to be seen and heard.

But also, then you are now giving them something to belong to, right? They belong in this

group. And people want to feel like they belong, and you didn't have to necessarily be perfect

to belong, you kind of had to have be related to this, the things that they're talking about. But

I'm just not ashamed. And I'm going to let them work. I'm working that out. And then they give

me materials, they give me interviews, videos, they give me trainings, they give me merch, all

this kind of stuff to continue to spur on. I belong here. So I man, I think this that's cool question,

though, initially, is just indigitous, you because you've had, you know, the opportunity to look at

things hindsight, right? So you know how most artists have some type of a lot of artists have

some type of fans or something like that around them? How important do you think that is? I'm

sorry, in this case, you guys had like a group of people and this group of people had this

movement around them? How important do you think it is for people to at least try to create

that ecosystem around them? Or this movement around them? Like I know, you said it should

come authentic. But do you think that it's important to like the the overall like profitability of

whatever you're doing the overall impact of whatever you're doing? Do you think that the

movement is just as viable? Or I can just do the thing without that, but you know,

BJ Thomas: 13:32

I mean, just depends on your intent. I mean, if your intent is to simply impact the people in

front of you, then I think you just do that. A lot of us, this is what I'll say. A lot of us are rushing

things to market that need to be refined and proof of concept. And so the challenge with that is

you lose the authentic. It's like a restaurant, I was telling my daughter about some of the

restaurants from the 80s and 90s. I'm like, Man, there was a point in time when KFC was great.

Yeah, it was like it was 31 herbs and flavors, it was like it was a great experience. And then

over time, they diluted their recipe to wear what it once was those who knew the authenticity

don't even recognize it. And so I think something about this tension that we need to hold of like

how much authenticity as we move things into the market. That's called quality control. Right?

And so too many of us are rushing to market. They're not we're not even letting things simmer

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long enough to pick up man. What makes this good? Are we truly impacting people? Do we

have a heart to share something about ourselves that's going to move the needle on

somebody's life. We're just trying to be viable, trying to be marketing. We're trying to be this

and trying to do that. And then all of a sudden, we create the This huge blob of a mess. And we

become Kanye, right? Where, you know, you got these people following you now, like you said,

you were going to do the choirs and you're going to do this. But then you pivot and say, No, I'm

going to do explicit material. So it's like, you actually have not thought through cohesively long

enough what you were going to do in terms of how you want to impact people, you just rushed

it to market, you said it, you did it, you started doing it. And then and then you end up creating

something that long term does not match the intent that you have the impact that you desire

to make. And so what I would say is, it's a tension between creating proof of concept, and

letting something simmer long enough to like, learn its ingredients. Understand what it's doing.

That's what did they call that? Testing? clinicals?

16:00

Clinical trials? Yeah, clinical

BJ Thomas: 16:03

trials before they are Russia, you know, FinFET and got to the market this before they were

doing recalls. Right? Right. People need it that solution. But it was they got it, you got to do

clinicals, you got to like test it on small groups of people, to see how it impacts them long term,

before you massively do it. So I think that's the tension every creative entrepreneur owner is

going to have to wrestle through is you rush things to market too fast, you really have not

conceived its impact long term on others. And it could backfire and be completely opposite of

what you intended. Yeah, no, that's, um, and that's always that, that, that, that, that that kind

of thing, right, where it's like, as a creative partner, we're trying to be creative. But then there's

the entrepreneur side. And I always encourage people, like in your creativity be very genuine

and authentic. Don't bring the business into your creating, because now you're going to taint it.

Right? Do your creative first. And then when you have your authentic creativity, whatever that

is, then take that to market and then market and do what you got to do. But if you go with it

with business in mind, is not going to be genuine, you're going to cut back on ingredients,

right? You're going to do okay, what can I do to increase the profit margin and all these things,

because now you're going into the creative process, thinking about the wrong thing. Right. So I

like that. I like that,

ShySpeaks: 17:32

you know, one of the things that I was getting out of it, which is like, probably clerk crazy for

someone who's watching this, and they're like, Man, I want to be a community builder. I'm

gonna go get with somebody where the individual artists, I'm gonna go get with this company,

whatever entity it is, and I'm gonna help them make this global movement. And I get the good

game from BJ, someone who has created a thing that went from 40 people to millions of

people. And I think it's like, dang, he not telling me how to go to millions, actually, he is telling

you how to go to millions. He said, simmer it, let it cook, and make sure that you have the right

ingredients before you try to scale something. Right? So it's 40 at a time 40 at a time, 40 of the

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time, and how impactful were we with this 40 Before we started doing 100 At the time, and

then before we started doing before, and then after, if at some point, it takes any sparked

wildfire, wildfire and let it be that but the ingredients of what how to make a movement is what

he's saying. It just right here, you got to separate and make sure that you give it time to cook

and stop trying to trying to rush it to be this global thing before he was impactful on a on a on a

on a scale that you could actually manage and

BJ Thomas: 18:41

focus on the people and not yourself. I think a lot of times as creators focus on ourselves. So I

liked that aspect in which you said as well, where it's like, no, you got to be focused on the

people and make an impact on the people needed to grow. And that was for years, not a long

period of time. You said it grew to millions and yeah, oh, yeah.

19:01

I think like, you know, and I want to I know, I want us to get on to some of the other aspects

that you that you do, because I know you got even more to share, as it relates of being a coach

and a speaker and an author. And there's a business of being a speaker in the business of

being a coach in the business of being an author and all of those things. And I'm going to ask

some questions that kind of really help people who are aspiring or who want to level things up

for themselves. But before we do, I kind of want to like I want to say something here. A lot of

times people look at like, I want to you saying you want to impact people, but that's why you

want to make the movement but really you just want to be you just want to be you want to be

famous. You don't want the movement for the impact. You want to move it for the fame. And

that's not what I'm hearing here and I don't think that that's the authentic way to do it. We

have a proof of concept right here. Sitting with us. You got anything else before we like before

we pay these bills as they normally Yeah,

BJ Thomas: 19:59

no That's a great quote. So you know, you need people on your team that have that tension.

Right? So there's people there their governor, the governing, how much influence and impact

you have, that we all do we typically there are people who gravitate towards being known.

Right. So they want everybody to know about something. And there are people who gravitate

towards things being good. Right? So they're going to ensure quality control. This is the

relationship that we all have to have. This is my relationship with Craig, there's like, I don't

really care about it, they know you do. I care about it being good. And you have to like partner

with people around that. This is why hiring agency marketing agencies is so important, or you

got to know which one do you care about, right? Or, you know, going out? Have you

ShySpeaks: 20:56

got what you say that was your your you said, you said that's your relationship with Craig,

would you say that that will be the role of any of this individual who wants to be a community

builder who wants to help spark something, they have to be the one that's keeping that in

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mind, because the, the entity or the individual is probably just want to share their thing, which

BJ Thomas: 21:15

I'm saying that sometimes you don't have all within yourself, that's what partnerships are

about. Right? This is why you guys have co host, right, you bring a certain unique point of view

to the show, that allows the audience to consume it with a balance in a particular way. And

what I'm saying is what happens when you grow a company or business a movement, you're

having to learn how to work with someone who potentially is not like you. And that in itself, is

what allows it to be good to the broader audience. Again, we're all going to gravitate towards

their thing for me. I've always known that whenever I open up my mouth, people are going to

listen, I've always known that since I was a little kid. What I've never cared about was being

massively No, I could stay private my whole life, and walk in a room and know that I can

influence him by anybody in that room. Right? As opposed to other individuals who have to be

seen. And they want everybody to know their name. They want people to look at their shoes,

they want them to think that they're special, just just by looking at, right. And it's not a there's

nothing wrong with either one of those things, right? You just have to know your disposition so

that when you're going to go launch that book, start that company, create that movement, you

have to know that in business, they call it what is your fiduciary responsibilities? What are the

things that we need to hold you accountable for and to, and we need to lay this out, so that we

can have expectation that you bring this tension within our company. So I think one thing that's

very important is just partnership, you have to figure out who are the particular partners that

you need? Do you need to go by hire somebody that's going to do quality control, and make

sure that your CRM is together and that you have really healthy automations? Do you need to

hire an ad agency or marketing agency, it's just about and this is, this is the word that's coming

to me. You have to become painfully self aware. When you're a creative entrepreneur or

business owner, you have to know the things that you know, and you have to own the things

that you don't know. And the more that you're able to do this, the stronger you will be as you

lay lean out your business or your product or service. That's good lesson. We're gonna delve

into that a little bit more. It is time for us to pay the bill. So we're going to take a call. We got to

come back because that's, that's a gym right there. That's us. That's the gym right? Every day.

All right. What's the iron?

24:07

It's because it's us in different color clothing. I mean, listen, we've been doing a lot of talking to

you. We want to make sure that you have an opportunity to make a statement as well, because

we've

24:18

seen people make statements with their athletic apparel. We've even seen people make

statements as entrepreneurs. But one thing I haven't seen is somebody makes a statement as

a creative entrepreneur. So none is we have given you an opportunity to make a statement as

a creative entrepreneur. Oh,

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ShySpeaks: 24:39

okay. Okay, so if they want to make sure that they're rocking that creative printer gear, where

can they go get that?

BJ Thomas: 24:46

You can go get that gear from what's the irony.com and welcome back. Well Welcome back. Welcome back. So we want to keep it going right like, dude, you've been dropping some, some,

some jewels and whatnot on this, this this interview thus far. It just in regards to just kind of

building the movement, you mentioned a couple of things right? Before we break about a CRM,

right? I don't know, some of our audience members might not know what a CRM is, I know, I

know, sign those. But we're gonna delve a little bit into some of those systems and processes

for you to be able to be impactful, and what you were doing them but also not what you're

doing now, as you are walking into the author and coach base, and then with the 45 Day

Challenge.

25:38

Yeah, so so we know you said you'd introduce yourself, as you know, I'm an author, I'm a

speaker, I'm a faith based coach, and so forth and so on. But earlier, we talked a lot about

community building. I just gotta ask quick question, before we get into some of those things in

the business behind that, what you consider yourself a social engineer, or?

BJ Thomas: 25:57

Okay, I do know, my personal mission statement is develop people create culture. That's my

personal mission statement. I develop people and I create culture. And so I didn't know that

that's what I was for a long time. But I thought it was just a fluke. But what what started to

happen was, every time I would start go to a new community, a new city, a new neighborhood,

it just felt like it was almost an automatic thing. I thought it was normal. And then one day, I

was actually was hosting an event, I started the network. And somebody said, somebody said,

I've never seen anybody so keen at creating community the way you are. He said, it's just it's a

weird thing. It's like you can create a community out of nothing. And I was like, Oh, wow, I

guess that makes sense. I guess, yeah, social engineer things all the time. But I was not, I

didn't, I hadn't owned it yet. I just thought, oh, man, I guess I have this gift to communication

and development. I never saw myself as a social engineer. So I'm owning that more these days.

ook me a long it took me like: 2020

27:11

And it's good. Because technically, the term will probably be social impact engineer or

something like that. Because that thing social engineers, they didn't took over it in the cyber

world. But like, a social impact engineer, it will be hard to consider yourself that because you

haven't had proof of proof of concept to see, have I actually been socially impacting anything at

all? So anyway, I think it's I think it's cool. Okay, so I'm ready to help the people who are here

because they're like, oh, creative. I want to get the business on. How do you do the thing, like

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we know, you create culture, but you also then created like this life coach, thing you like, you

speak, I'm sure you get paid to speak and you've written books, and maybe you have free

material, but I'm sure you have paid books. And so what I hear is that you don't while you don't

love to be, like, wildly popular or need to be, you can be private, because you're great in the

one on one, so to speak. But in your one on one, you kind of create community anyway, I

guess. Why? Free? Okay, so I guess I'm trying to see like this one on one aspect. And then

there's this community aspect, is there a strategy for you, when it comes to being like a life

coach, because a life coach is more one on one, you know, saying it's not necessarily creating

culture or anything like that. So like, what's, what's your strategy? When you're like, Okay, I'm

not in culture, creating mode, I'm impacting that

BJ Thomas: 28:39

person. Yeah. Yeah. So you know, what I've done over the years, it took me a long time.

Remember, my personal mission statement is develop people create culture. And there comes

a point where you get so good at developing people, that culture has to be the byproduct of

doing some. And so what I've done is started what's called the builders network, okay, which is

a collective of individuals from all over the country, working professionals. And they're all in a

community. They also have partnerships and small groups. And within those groups, they

support one another, along their personal professional goals. So it's all basing your, let's say,

your q1 goals, right? People say, Oh, what are your q1 goals? That's typically a corporate thing.

That's not something that people hold you personally responsible for? In this network. We have

accountability partners, we have small groups, and the larger network that are like tracing all

your goals. We're like following you q1, what are the top three things you're trying to

accomplish in q1, and then you work with a coach, but then you're also in the community and

you have an accountability partner. And so it just took me again a couple of years to resolve

this tension. Because again, at surrender certain point, you have to scale, you have to be able

to serve more people or if you want it to, and this is just for the coaches watching, you could

just do high ticket sales with coaches. So you work with entrepreneurs, business owners, and

whoever for high ticket. So let's say I only wanted to work one to one, man, I just raise my

price, because now I'm teaching you infrastructure, or this is the professional athlete. And so it

really you don't have to if you don't want to, again, remember, go back to the intense, it

doesn't always have to get big. But if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you have to get paid.

Right, right. Right. So it doesn't have to be big, right? Yeah, you keep it small, right? But you do

have to get paid. And you got to let people know something. I'm hoping y'all listen, he just said,

Listen, if you want to stick with the one on one, which you can use, and you can, you're

perfectly okay with sticking a one on one. However, if you're going to stick to one on one, you

got to increase your price, right? You can't continue to to do a low ticket and do one on one,

thinking that you're going to be able to monetize it effectively to sustain or whatever the case

may be for the business. Like I said, in order to scale it, you gotta go high ticket, or if you do,

right now we go on from that one to one. And we're gonna talk about that one too many. But

31:25

high key, he really just gave them two different coaching models. He said, you can stay, and

maybe not may not be a lot, but it is still something that you're getting paid for. And then you

have to figure out a way to scale. If I'm not scaling my price up, I'm scaling this network, right

or this group of people. So real quick, BJ, run it run some numbers for me. So let's say we give

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you two examples. $1,000 life coach deal versus a $10,000. Life Coach 10,000 Life Coach is the

idea where you say you raise your price, only work with people who can pay 10,000 A month

because I'm working life and professional, we see the business model there. Or if I need to

scale I go to 20,000. Or, but but if you decide to say, hey, I don't want to work with people who

can only pay 40 and 50 and $100,000. I still want to continue to make this life on like, what's

that other model that you mentioned? Like? How do you scale even within within the one on

one. So those

BJ Thomas: 32:23

are the so again, you're we're talking business models for entrepreneurs, coaches. So the first

thing is, you have to want to be an owner, operator, Owner, entrepreneur owner, or you want to

be a coach, who then has a business. And I think people have hobbies, most people have a

hobby. So one day listening to these things, they don't intend on actually making it something

that is for real. So you first you have to get at the mindset that this is not a hobby, this is my

profession, right? I am by profession, a coach. And by profession, a entrepreneur, I'm a social

entrepreneur, owner, I am not somebody, this is not a cool thing that I do on the side, this is

what I do for like well living. And I think once you get out of that, then it's more possible to talk

about these different models. Because now you're like you're willing to risk to gain the reward.

Right, there is a risk that comes along with it, there's a risk and time, there's a risk and proof of

concept, you actually may not be good at those things, you may not be a social engineer, and

now you have to go assemble a team or you have to repave it or restructure it. So there's just a

side note, but I was just gonna say specifically with these two different models of coaching, just

just think of it like this. Let's say your, your net income for the month, let's say you need to

bring in $20,000. Okay, decent baseline, okay, people say 30 to 50k a month. You have to think

how many units of this coaching do I need to sail to bring this in? Right? Right. So if I have if

let's say I'm doing 50, let's say I'm doing $100, I'm doing $100 per client, and I say your

monthly membership fee is $100. That means that you're going to have to serve for 20,000

ShySpeaks: 34:18

was the TN 200, I think is 200.

BJ Thomas: 34:21

That means you need 200 members in that program at 100. And maybe even more than that,

you can just check the numbers. There's so much good math, you need 200 People who are

signed up and you have to have retention. That means your back end strategy and retention

has to be there and recruitment. So you need a recruitment and retention strategy to keep you

at your baseline or you can say I'm gonna do a $5,000 ticket. Let's just be super practical. But

this $5,000 ticket is going to be on how to generate revenue in a business. That value

proposition gives you more ability to say, I'm gonna charge you $5,000. But you're gonna make

3050 $100,000. Right? That's a great deal. But as a coach, so now you only need four clients in

that model, right? So now, the difference is on one side, you're saying, I'll give you the systems,

the processes, the practices, and the accountability and coaching, to make sure you stay in line

with your goals. On the other side, it says, I'm going to give you an infrastructure that allows

you to generate your money. And so what I would say is, it's all about what can you scale, now,

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to go and get four clients at: 5000

know business inside out by all the revenue distribution, the CRMs, the email, sales, marketing,

and funnels, like there's a lot of different things, you're counting your profit and loss, your

administrative services, there's like a lot of line items moving around that theme, and staying

true to that vision of what you're doing, which again, you can do it is just you need a coach or a

mentor, or something in order to give people the confidence that you, you can create proof of

confidence, proof of concept, you already had a proof of concept to lead them in those way. So

that's what I was saying is, as you're working to build those out, it's just which one are you

you're more easily able to do. Some people have big followings online, and they convert easy,

so they got a podcast, or they got a big following, you know, Instagram and whatever, and

them. Maybe they can pick up: 1020

to their 100, you know, subscription club that's easy for them. So maybe that's your model,

you're just gonna have to create automations and systems that support that growth and

retention. So,

ShySpeaks: 37:18

so, so you gave us two models, right? So you gave us if you're $1,000, I will say that's a low

ticket and a $10,000 a high ticket, or $20,000, right? So at $20,000 of the high ticket is what

ed five, I'm sorry, I tickets: 5000

people, I need to get 20 I need to be able to coach 20 people a month and do you, then you

have to look inwardly and what you said earlier, maybe I'm not this social impact engineer type

of person, I may not have the bandwidth and the ability to serve 20 people, it may be easier for

me to serve four. But if I serve four, I have to make sure I have enough value to be given

$5,000 worth of that you want to have some integrity there. So that you can you can be

ust oh, I'm gonna just charge: 5000

and all that kind of stuff. No, you want to make sure you're giving them a return on this $5,000

investment. And so if you're listening, this is what I'm thinking about and how I how my mind

t like you can continue to do: 1000

people what he's saying is there's this network, I can have this network 200 People who are in

t I just I've gotten me in at: 1000

say the next step here is to go into the mentorship. I mean, the membership, you're in the

embership now you it was only: 1000

then now you're going to membership and everybody I coach one has been the membership,

everybody I coach was going to membership, unless they want some more one on one time,

then they can come back. And then at this point, I now have 200 people and $100 membership

that's $20,000 Plus I'm steadily getting people in and $1,000 it was there if you were listening.

BJ Thomas: 39:09

Unless and let me also take a couple steps back to kind of help you guys with this as well. But I

know you're listening and is like oh, this is a lot this is I got to do all that, if you will listen before

we went to the break. He mentioned this concept called who not how right. You don't have to

figure out how to do all this stuff. You can find you some who's that can assist you with that

because he was saying you may not have the capacity to do everything you may not even have

the desire to do you just want the end result. So you have to identify who are some who's that I

can bring on that can do the house for me or figure the house out. Now I would encourage you

you need to understand some of the house but you don't got to necessarily do it all because

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once again, you're only one person you're only one person as a coach, you're you're gonna

you're one person unless you have a coaching network and you have other coaches that can

come in and coach for We've seen that amount of as well. But yeah, like everything that he's

mentioning, don't get overwhelmed thinking that you have to do it yourself, you can find

somebody to assist you. But going back to that being highly self aware, you have to know your

strengths, your weaknesses, and all these things to be created from your. Yeah, that's a great

point. And you know, what I was saying is, this is where consultants and contractors come into

play, go get you a consultant, let them look at what you have, and let them break it down into

like data, right, you want your stuff broken down, you want, you want measureable outcomes,

and you want them to go into be able to put language around what you're building, and then

what you're missing, right, then you may have a contractor come in, and today, just building

out the missing piece is like, Oh, the reason why you can't serve 200 clients in this model isn't

because you're not a good coach, you don't have good automations. Right? Right. Or you need

to hire other administrators or coaches to run this, where again, as an entrepreneur, the goal,

unless you're just building companies, and then opting, selling them later, the goal is to be an

entrepreneur owner, right? You can't be an entrepreneur your whole life, because you're not

gonna make anything that's like sustainable, you want to be an entrepreneur who's moving

towards becoming an owner. And so, so part of this concept is, you're not going to, you're going

to be working in the business for a short period of time. So then you can work on the business,

right. And essentially, all that means is, you may have to answer phone calls, send emails, do

all the busy work that happens, we're just learning and getting something off the ground. And

you want to do this, because you need to know the business inside out, you need to have a

general strong idea of everything that happens to make what you do work. In the most basic

sense, you may not know all the passwords and know this and know that. But you do know that

if this person leaves, I know who to bring in, I need to know exactly what they need to do. Once

you get a good concept of what needs to happen, in order to make your business or service

product profitable, then you work on the business. That means what are the operational

systems that make this work? Again, I mentioned a CRM just for your customers and managing

them. Email sales funnel unit a funnel? What's going to bring people in? What's your

marketing? Are you doing a podcast? Are you doing a show? Are you speaking, you need a

some way to bring people in, in a specific target. And then you want to automate it, you don't

want to you cannot do every part of the business, you need other people who are doing it, and

then you're checking it off, oh, this is good. There's the profit and loss. And now I'm going to

tweak these things to see how can I now take my creative energy as an owner entrepreneur,

and then create new ways in think tanks to generate revenue. And so again, I'm not trying to

be too detailed. But these are the things that I wish that I knew when I was starting out as an

entrepreneur, no one was telling me oh, you need to go get a consultant, or use a contractor.

Instead of doing that, I thought, Man, I got to do it all myself. And this is just spelling, I don't

know why this is spelling? Well, it's failing because you don't have a good structure, you don't

know the structure. And because you don't understand structure, now your dream is at risk of

dying. And that's something that we can have for great coaches and entrepreneurs.

ShySpeaks: 43:57

Right. The cool thing that you said to me is that I need to not necessarily early you talk about

being aware of yourself, I need to be aware of everything in the business. So then I can then

say, I'm not so good at this, and I'm not so great at that, or it will somebody this person is

greater there, they'll be perfect at this. And then we can still continue to serve these 200

people case, a simple example could be if I call BJ right now and I asked him to talk to people

about their life and get them. Get them some concepts that move them forward on Monday. He

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can talk on Tuesday, he can talk on Wednesday, he can go for three hours on for so he has the

bandwidth for the people in that regard. But here's what he may not have. And I'm following my

example. He may not have the ability to say I need to post them here and say hey, we're going

live FYI. I need to create the graphic that lets people know Wednesdays at seven. I need to

send a text message out the blades. Oh, you

BJ Thomas: 44:50

read my mail. Oh, okay. Okay.

ShySpeaks: 44:56

Yeah, so that means that that's cool. I need to contract somebody in that but sequel that area

who is great at that they can whip a graphic together, they can send out a sequel text or email

eblasts communications. And then now with us partnering and working together, we can now

serve this group of people. And so I just thought that was really good. That was a really good

point that you said earlier about like, like making sure that there's partnership, the goal of

entrepreneurship isn't we always say is to kind of get ourselves out of the business. But really

great businesses are responsible for helping other people eat as well. We talked about people, I

used to work for GM and all that kind of stuff that they GM has been responsible for creating

jobs, you when you are an entrepreneur, yes, you're serving the people, but you're creating

jobs as well. And so yeah, there's there's that aspect as well. So how can I create jobs, but I'm

trying to do it all by myself. I'm creating the job because I realized that area where somebody

else could probably be better than than me and that, and then I bring them in, and we work

together. And we worked in mission. So that thing still happens. And you didn't die, which is

me. Yeah. Okay. The other thing that you say, and I know, we gotta get ready to wrap this

conversation up. But the other thing you said is, you talked about marketing, you talked about

systems, and how do you get people in? So I want to go in and break down what he was saying.

So earlier, in our example, we were talking about how do I how would I get people in his

membership? Well, maybe you came in the membership because I initially coached you $1,000

coaching package. And then after that, I said, Hey, let's get in the membership, because you're

gonna have this community, and accountability and all that. But here's the question, how do I

get people into my life coaching? How do I get them there? So these are you have this one

thing called the 45 day transformation? And I don't know, if you're, you know, you can tell us

what not the 40 to 45 day challenge, total transformation? Is that something that is the thing

we know how we get into the membership from life coaching, but how do people get into life

coaching? Which is that 45 Day Challenge a way for people to be exposed to what you offer? Or

is that

BJ Thomas: 46:59

what I'm saying? Yes, is definitely one of our channels. And it was unexpectedly one of our

channels. Again, I didn't understand distribution channels, and I didn't understand the

marketing of it. And one of the things about the the channel and like, because I write courses,

right, so I'll sit, I'll be like, Man, what did I learn from this, or what, what has been pain painful

for me. So I'll write a course. And then I'll have my team automated package it and then we'll

design it and credit for a lot of everything else. When I started doing the 45 Day Challenge,

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which is a holistic 45 day, kind of it's a reeducation on food or reeducation or relationships with

every educational, spirituality and how you use these things in order to improve your life. When

I wrote it, I don't think I understood the magnitude the impact that it would have on people

seeing real life, people transform so physically. So just seeing people lose one of my clients lost

more than 100 pounds. And when you see are you just like you can't believe it, you think it's

like a hoax. But then it's real, because then you'll see a whole, like, slew of other people. And

it's program and that that small step people take that's a one time purchase, encourages

people, it gives them the confidence to become a monthly member in the health coaching

program was like, Okay, well, I'm gonna join the transformer network. But then I'll say, You

know what, also have this other private coaching call the builders network, may not think you'd

be a great candidate for people go through it and go, Oh, man, this is really, this is really cool.

And I'll say, Well, you know what, we do an event once a year, this is all true. So I'm not like

making that hypothetical. Call the builders retreat, come out to Atlanta, I want to hang out with

you. So people come out to Atlanta. Oh, man, this is great. I mean,

48:50

like that, that's, you know, this retreat. So you want to get this site until you got this app? And

what is the build history retreat? Give us that real quick? What is? So you're saying you created

an in person event?

BJ Thomas: 49:03

Yes. Yes. Yes. So from this online experience, to in person event. So it moves from, oh, I saw

this on an ad I saw this on Facebook, I saw this, wherever and I took this program and I'm

experiencing your coaching virtually. Oh, man, this works. I can't believe this worked. My next

phase, then I'm going to invite you into another. It's a another step towards commitment. So

that was a one time you can leave it and be done. Oh, I did it. It's only it's only 45 days. Once I

invite you into the next phase, and you take a step towards me, I'll say hey, I want you to

become a member of my builders network. And this is what we do. You're going to countability

partner, a small group and then coaching all around your personal professional goals. Oh, now

online, and now it's not 45 days, this is a 12 month, monthly commitment where I'm getting

online coaching. Right. So you move into that phase you go man, this is working on watching

my life, take these metric changes, or, and we use SMART goals. So it's not like it's a on the you

feel better, it's you, you can draw a line in your transformation. So then what I'll say is, hey, we

do once a year in person experience with the members of his network. So now you come out to

this in person experience this group event. Now it's not online, now it's in person. Now you're

getting hugs. Now we talking all through the night, now we're going to hang out during the park

doing, and now you're starting to sink in, oh, this is real. This is not a facade, this is not

somebody talking cool. And give him anything. Remember, when I go back to the authenticity,

this is authentic, up close now, right? So then the individuals in that I say, Hey, man, I'm gonna

do a trip once a year, once or twice a year, and I'm gonna go overseas, I want you to go with

d this is going to be Fallout: 4000

monthly life coaching, could be, you know, that could be $100 a month, to $700 ticket to come

to the retreat. So here's a $4,000 event, I want you to come. But listen, but every time we

under promise, over deliver, and every time we do it, you say every time I get close to you, I

watched this thing happen. So what I would say is, that's a funnel, right? That's literally a

funnel, what I'm making just, every time you take a step towards me, I'm gonna deliver

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something even better or greater for you. And that's, again, that's just what you have to draw

out as you began to develop your business and your strategy. Yeah, that's, that's that value

ladder, right? You're taking them on a journey, like, I have this in mind that I'm that I want my

client or, you know, however, you you know, phrase it, how I want them to experience and go

through or you know, this outcome. But to get to the outcome we got, okay, maybe you might

heard my book, read my book, then you came into the 40 day challenge, the 45 Day Challenge.

So you taking them on that that step to get them closer, that's, that's no, I thank you for that. We listened

ShySpeaks: 52:26

and, and are improving along the way, this is not his, we're just we're explaining to you what

the business behind it is, in case you don't know the business. But what he said is, these are

SMART goals, these are real, measurable changes that we're having. And people are seeing

that their, their lives are better because of the 45 day law was better because of the

accountability group, their life was better because of the retreat. Live is, you know, all the more

enriching and just fun and because of the overseas or out of town, you know, it's it's there's

some actual improvement and some, some measurable improvements that are there. And so,

yes, there's a money monetization behind it, because it costs to run this business, but he's

delivering, and we want to make sure you're delivering as a coach. That's right. He's

BJ Thomas: 53:12

helping people right. So there's this Zig Ziglar right, quote, where he talks about the benefit of

helping people so it says you can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other

people get what they want. And that's kind of what it seems like you're doing where it's like I'm

helping people get what they want. And that's helping me to live the life or whatever that I

want because I'm able to monetize my gift you said I've been like this since I was a kid I've

known what I was gonna do these things as a kid not knowing the full gravity of everything. So

now that's this powerful Listen, we want to continue this conversation right we have exhausted

our time we want to have you back. Can I get you to commit to coming back? Want to see the

podcast?

ShySpeaks: 53:58

Show go absolutely well as you write here where the people can see you say so right right. Tell

me because he committed right here. So

BJ Thomas: 54:07

no, but no thank you I want to I want to personally thank you for your time and information, the

wealth of knowledge that you've shared with everybody. This has been phenomenal. Before we

let you go though, is there any last thing you just want to leave the people with right out of

everything because you gave a lot but just this last, you know until we'd see next time what

you want to leave people with? Yeah, I would just say for the people get close to the people

that are growing right you know, we were all Drake has a line he said glowing and said, oh your

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hashtags are you did a happy and glowing. I would just say make it a point to intentionally get

around people who are growing people who are inspiring and make that a regular part of your

life. Don't allow yourself to just exist. When you feel yourself drifting. Get around people who

are growing and then attach yourself by reading books, picking up course So don't be afraid to

pay for a course, invest in you. And it doesn't matter if it's good or not, you're only looking for

one thing you are investing in you. And you're hoping to pull out one thing that improves the

needle of your life. And so don't be afraid of that. And make sure you check out. BJ dash

thompson.com That's where you can pick up my book. Super proud of that. You can find it

everywhere target Walmart, Barnes and Nobles. I'm actually writing a few other books right

now I'm in the process of kind of sketching out some future books. But I'm excited. I really feel

like this is my time. I feel like I'm really moving from that. Develop people to Korean culture,

and just doing that in a more broad way. So super excited about that.

55:48

Listen, and I have to concur. I think Vijay is a buddy of mine, a friend, we go way back, but I

have books that he's written, I've attended and seen in person seminars and workshops and 45

day transformation has transformed people go Go follow the hashtag, I'm telling you, the

books, they change, they make an impact. And one of the things that you said earlier because

if you're watching this, you're a creative entrepreneur. And you're like, I just want the tips. But

he said go get you a coach as well get your consultant as well, because that's going to help so

I'm telling you go tap in further with with him. This is only a snippet and can't wait to have you

back for part two. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much from me, and Joe looses interfaith

and your friend and also while I'm thinking people I want to thank everybody who's been

watching this entire episode up to this point thank you to the creative printers out there who

invest in themselves by watching this podcast. It has been valuable to you do the thing like it

come in and matter of fact go over to wherever you listen to this podcast if it's not on YouTube

and actually leave a review

BJ Thomas: 57:00

on that note, we are going to close it out without know how we close it out if y'all been rocking

with us y'all know right we Saigon lead us in this mantra that she leaves us in right so are you

ready to lead us on this module so we can get on out of here?

ShySpeaks: 57:12

I am before we get out of here I want everybody to repeat after me. I want you to say it out

loud. All it takes. All

BJ Thomas: 57:20

it takes is intention. His intention is to see consistency consistency and laser focus and laser

focus and focus to

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57:32

my my creative business to my my creative,

BJ Thomas: 57:36

my creative business. No, we will see you guys next