Fix It, Scale It, Systemize It with Chris Goegan

In This Episode

• [01:49] – Stephan welcomes Chris Goegan as they talk about how Chris leverages an engineering mindset to help entrepreneurs scale and exit profitably.
• [02:03] – Chris shares how he started his career as an engineer in entrepreneurship, such as building business systems.
• [10:41] – Stephan asks about Chris’s most impactful learning from Michael E. Gerber.
• [14:47] – Chris describes his approach to systematization.
• [18:17] – Chris outlines a process for scaling a business, starting with differentiation and then developing a selling system.
• [22:45] – Chris categorizes prospects into three types: cold, warm, and hot, and discusses the importance of building business systems for lead generation, sales, and fulfillment.
• [34:29] – Chris discusses their business model, which involves assessing and analyzing clients’ businesses to create customized plans for growth and success.
• [38:14] – Chris offers a free three-systems guide on his website for those looking to learn from him.

Jump to Links and Resources

Chris, it’s so great to have you on the show.

Thanks, Stephan. It’s great to be here.

First, I’d love to hear a little about your origin story. How did you get interested in entrepreneurship, getting to scale, and getting to exit?

Yes, it’s an interesting one. I wish I could say it was all by design. I guess I had a little bit of an entrepreneur in me. I started with a paper route growing up in Canada, and I enjoyed that. I’m riding my bike and slinging papers in the dead of winter. It was fun.

When I went to college, I guess you could say my first business was buying hockey sticks. At the time, there was a big rivalry between Canada and Russia. I got a great price on Russian hockey sticks. They were a real novelty, so I got a great price. I was turning around and selling them for a couple of bucks profit.

My path was always going to be an engineer. I went to one of the top engineering schools in the country, graduated towards the top of my class, and had a job at Ford Motor Company, building high-volume manufacturing lines for Ford. I loved it. I love the work because I love getting thrown into one of the worst areas of the plant, so I’d fix it and make it better.

It was a time when their quality was really bad. This was in the late 80s and early 90s, and they’re turning things around. I was a junior in college working as a full-time engineer, and I had a $40 million personal budget. It was a great time to do stuff, to go into an area and figure out where all the problems were, prioritize them, identify them first, then put fixes in place, and then put a dashboard, statistics, and measurements in place. Then, be able to look at the dashboard remotely from a desk to see if the problems are gone.

Systems can create a massive difference that allows your business to work for you rather than vice versa. Share on X

Our marching orders were really simple. It’s making a million engines defect-free every single year. That was it. It was a great time. Little did I realize how much and how significant every step of my journey would be years later when I was doing what I was doing. As I talk about this, that’s where my love of systems and stats came in place as an engineer.

I’ve always been great with numbers. I aced my calculus in the engineering school. I just loved numbers, looking at that, and looking at patterns. That was always very natural to me. I had no idea about marketing at the time. As a pure engineer, I was great at systems. A quick side note is we were the first plant to put a robot in place, which was fascinating because years later, it’s like AI. It’s the same thing all over again but different. But I digress.

I moved to California. I chased a 5’3” blonde to California. She turned into a 5’4” brunette. People are like, “How did that happen?” They say marketing, and it’s all about the offer. My wife said, “Chris, marry me instead of her, and I’ll give you beautiful children, and I’ll get you the green card.” The green card was the kicker, so I married Naomi and four beautiful children later. She held her end of that green card.

When I moved to California, I was working as an engineer. I designed and built parts for the International Space Station program, the real-world hunt for an October submarine, and a bunch of other things. I was capped as an engineer, and it’s like, “I want more or the potential to make more.” A friend was making a lot of money in sales and wasn’t getting calls on weekends to come in and fix problems. I got into sales and sold what I’d been using as an engineer, so I thought it’d be super easy.

I learned why and how people buy, which can later turn into how people buy online and then persuade, influence, and negotiate.

I was a great technician. I understood the product incredibly well but had no clue about sales. When I started, that’s when it really hit me. It’s like, “Man, I have no clue about sales.” I think I came in at about 10% of my quota in the first year, and I got fired.

Actually, even before that, about three months in Atlanta, a really big client. I was doing some calculations. I told my boss, “Can I just go straight commission, go to my base with a higher commission because I’ll make more money?” He’s like, “Sure.” I did. The next month, I lost that client. It was pretty brutal. I learned that I had no clue about sales. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to go to work, and I’m going to learn about sales and how to sell.”

A little while later, I stumbled across a guy, Jeffrey Hansler, who took me under his wing. He said, “Chris, I will teach you how to sell. I’m going to make fun of you, I’m going to tear you down, and it’s all going to be at your expense. But when you get out, you’ll be able to do incredibly well.”

He kept true to his word. He mocked me, laughed at me, and made fun of me. It was the best experience I’ve ever had in learning because I learned about why and how people buy, which can turn later on to how people buy online and then persuade, influence, and negotiate. I learned NLP and then how to conversationally uncover people’s emotional wants, needs, and desires from a conversation. It was a great experience.

Another note about how dumb I was was that when I was interviewing Jeffrey, he was offering me $4,000 a month. I started negotiating with him and negotiated from $4,000 to $3,000 a month.

How did that happen?

I was an idiot. I thought it was too much at the time. I was just dumb, and I had no clue. I had no clue what I was doing. I was a great technician, and I had no clue about sales. When I got into marketing, I knew more about it because I learned about sales.

Working with Jeffrey and others, I eventually got good at sales and figured it out. I banged out over a hundred thousand cold calls in my day. I was going to buy a direct mail franchise called RSVP. They make direct mail postcards.

I was just too stubborn to quit, and I saw everything as a process.

I went to work with them. I was like, “Before I shell out about $400,000 to buy a franchise, I should test drive this just to ensure it’s something I really want.” I started up a new area, and then I was the guy who stunk in sales. I posted the highest-ever first-year sales in the history of all the franchises, and they’re all across the country. I did it in eight months.

I was never smart in any area; I was just too stubborn to quit, and I saw everything as a process. “Okay, if I get good at step one, then I can get good at step two, then I can get good at step three, and then I can get good at step four. If I can do that, then I can do well.” So I did.

When I was going to buy the franchise, someone said, “Chris, why don’t you just save yourself some money, and just because you love helping people, why don’t you just get into consulting?” I got into consulting. This was before the internet, so tons of direct mail stuff, and then the internet came along. I started learning different traffic platforms and things like that.

I just stumbled into what I’m doing now. It wasn’t by design, and it was more by providence. God led me through everything to where I am. I blend engineering, sales marketing, and systems. I’m also an endurance athlete with an Ironman-type mentality, like, “No, I’m not going to quit. It’s just one step.” Eventually, if you can learn, you can figure things out. There’s a long-winded version.

Where did Michael E. Gerber come into play here?

Michael found me through his wife, Luz Delia. Luz Delia was very much into natural health. She was at this really large natural health conference. She went up to the guy who runs the conference, Steve. She’s like, “Steve, your marketing is fantastic, can you help me? What should I do?” He laughed and went to talk to Chris because he was a startup. He had no connections in the industry, and he knew nothing. He knew no one. Within three years, he and I have been working together. He was the largest in the world.

Luz Delia looked me up and said, “Hey, I’m just off the street.” We got on the phone, talked, and then she said, “Why don’t you come down here and meet?” I met with her, and she’s like, “You got to meet my husband.” I’m like, “Your last name’s Gerber. Is there any relation to Michael?” She laughed and said, “Yeah.”

I blend engineering, sales marketing, and systems.

She called Michael in. Michael came in and talked. We had a really good conversation with both systems guys. He loved the conversation and said, “Let’s have another conversation,” which then led to another conversation, which led to another conversation, and another conversation. He’s like, “You know what, I’d love it if you could come and help me.” Which was flattering because he’s a guy who’s known as the systems guy, asking me to help him build the systems.

We did a lot of really cool things together. He said, “Chris, you’ve never disappointed. You’ve always delivered. What you have, what you’ve put together, what you’ve done, you have what I don’t have, what I’ve been missing all these years. I thought that was pretty cool.”

He said a lot of nice things. Michael’s a genius. That guy is smart. If you have not got his book and read the E-Myth, get it. It’s fantastic. It’s like the top 10 list of books that billionaires read. So many people have built so many big businesses. I’ll credit that as one of the foundational books.

What’s the most impactful thing you’ve learned from Michael or reading his materials?

I spent a lot of time with Michael. We worked together for years. We have conversations every day. In hindsight, I wish I had just recorded our conversations because we’d be driving around and just talking. It’s like, “Gosh, this would be good for people to hear,” but it didn’t.

One of the greatest things was that he’s just so brilliant but very entrepreneurial. I was always more of a technician than an entrepreneur. I was interviewed for a docuseries on entrepreneurialism. The guy who interviewed me was Patrick Gentempo. He’s like, “Man, you totally changed how I look at entrepreneurs because you’re not a typical entrepreneur. I would have pegged you not to be an entrepreneur.” I’m like, “I totally agree with you.”

It wasn’t so much what Michael said. Anything he said was just being around him. That rubbed off. That was a big time because I was happy being a guy in the background doing the work for people.

My client and I built the world’s largest natural health conference. I was a guy that created all the marketing, I created all the campaigns, I created the strategy, all this stuff, and together, he and I rolled it out. I was always happy being the guy in the background. I didn’t want to be the frontman. I was happy doing the work because I loved it and being around Michael.

Having that entrepreneurialism of him come off, and it rubbed off. Then I had this light bulb moment where it’s almost like right out of the E-Myth book. I sat there, and it’s like, “I’ve built and grown so many companies. I’ve helped so many businesses scale. Why don’t I do this for myself?” It was that light bulb moment. I was like, “Yeah, why don’t I?”

That was probably the biggest thing from Michael. Michael was just the guy. I said he’s just so smart. The way he looks at the world is brilliant. The way he simplifies things is really brilliant.

He is. I chatted several times with him and his wife, Luz Delia. Amazing guy. You mentioned Patrick Gentempo and his docuseries. It’s The Entrepreneurial Brain, right?

Yup.

What is the angle or the hook that Patrick took with the docuseries? Because there are plenty of documentaries about entrepreneurialism and entrepreneurship. What made him unique or worth watching?

For me, Patrick is excellent, like Michael is excellent. What makes the E-Myth so worth reading? Is there anything in the book? Yeah, sure. The systems that he talks about turnkey systems and all the different systems that you create. But more than that, it’s Michael.

The Entrepreneurial Brain, sure, there’s excellent technical stuff in there, but Patrick’s excellent. He’s got such a big passion for helping entrepreneurs. It’s just really genuine. The interviews were just really heartfelt. It wasn’t just a, “Hey, let’s put a product out, see how much money we can make off of it, and next, next, next, next.” No, he puts his heart and soul into it.

Patrick’s book, Your Stand is Your Brand, is phenomenal. It’s phenomenal. We had a good discussion about that because you could almost not read the book, but you should read it just by reading the title. You have to stand for something; If you don’t, you’ll fall for everything. Patrick’s passion is just to help people become entrepreneurs. It would make that excellent.

I’ll have to put Patrick Gentempo on my to-interview list.

He’s a good guy, man. 

Awesome. Let’s talk about some of the systems, frameworks, methodologies, and so forth you’ve developed.

Sure. Where do we begin?

Let’s relate it to the marketing side of an organization. What things would make our listener or viewer go, “Wow, that is something I never thought of, or that is something that helps clarify things or simplify things for me.”

One of the things when we’re looking at systematizing stuff is, first of all, it depends on what stage the business is at. You’re not systematizing anything when you’re in startup mode. When you’re scrapping to get to six figures, you’re still not systematizing things because you’re still trying to figure out what business you’re in. You’re still trying to figure out your product and your service.

I’ve worked in over a hundred different industries, and it’s the same for every industry. When you’re going, you’re scrappy until you figure it out. You do everything.

Embrace your unique business and your differentiating factors to engineer a growth process. A system that doesn't rush into traffic can ensure success through strategic, purposeful steps. Share on X

As engineers, we used to give work to this company called AFM. I asked my engineering manager what AFM stands for. He smiled and said, “It stands for anything for money.” He goes, “They’ll knock on the door and say, do you have any work?” They’re highly skilled machinists. You say, “What do you do?” He goes, “We’ll do anything for money.”

I love that because you’re in AFM mode when starting off in business. You’ll do anything for money. Once you start getting some traction and remedy, you don’t figure it out. “I like this, I hate this, I love this, I don’t like this so much, this is the area I want to specialize more in.” When you find that area that you want to specialize in, you can start working on systematizing things.

I’ve got a very simple, pragmatic approach to systems. This is probably why they work so well. I’ve built hundreds and hundreds of systems in advertising, marketing, sales, operations, and exiting. The big thing is you just have to figure out how to do it first. If you don’t know how to do it, you can’t systematize it.

I love to cook. I have a smoker grill, and I love to barbecue and smoke. If I’m making ribs, I can’t systematize them until I figure out how to make them. I have to figure out what seasoning blend I want and how long they will cook.

The big thing is you just have to figure out how to do it first. If you don’t know how to do it, you can’t systematize it.

“Am I going to do a 321 method? Am I going to just let it go for six or eight hours? What temperature am I going to cook at? 225? 275? Am I going to wrap, not wrap? Am I going to sauce or not sauce it?” I got to figure out how to make the ribs first. If I don’t know how to make the ribs, I can’t systematize the whole process.

I can systematize parts of it. I can say, “Okay, well, you know what, for the ribs, I found this blend of spices best.” I could quantify, “Okay, how many cups or tablespoons of this spice, this spice, and this spice to put together? How can my daughter or my son do that?” I have to figure out how to make the spice blend first, or I find one off the shelf that matches what I like. “Hey, put the spice on and then put the spice on.” I can show them how to do it.

I got to figure out how to do it first. Second, I’ll show them how to do it. This is how you put it on, and then I’ll have them do it. “Okay, now you do it,” then they do it, and then I check it. If they’re going to do it again, “Okay, you just do it, and I’ll just monitor it.” I’ll make sure it’s done right, and then I’ll document it.

When people think of systems, they think of them like this four-inch-thick stack of paper that goes thump on the desk that nobody reads. That is a major pain in the butt to create this document. It’s not like that at all. It’s just figuring out how to do it and create that five-star experience in every aspect of the business or whatever aspect you’re working on. You just figure out how to create that, and then teach somebody how to do it, make sure that they know how to do it, and then have a measurement in place so you can make sure that that is being done well.

What’s an example of a process, a system, or an SOP you’ve put into place in your company that has made a huge difference for you?

I’m going to relate this. I’m going to answer the question but in a different way. When people would come to me and say, “Hey, I want to grow my business,” I was like, “Okay, well, why?” They’re like, “Well, I need more sales. I want to hit higher revenue and need more sales.” This is how the conversation would go.

“I need more sales, so I need more leads. I need more leads, so I need more traffic. I need you, and I want you and your team to build traffic programs for us.” They’re starting in the absolute wrong spot 100% of the time, the wrong spot. I don’t care if they’re a startup, I don’t care if they’re six figures, multiple six figures, seven figures, eight figures. They’re in the wrong spot.

It doesn’t matter what level your business is at. Usually, you have to start doing some outreach.

People want growth, and I’m sure that’s exactly why they’re here: hoping they can learn something about growth from this Canadian guy. It doesn’t matter what level your business is at. Usually, you have to start doing some outreach. Traffic is the wrong place to start.

A system that I created for growing businesses, and we’ve got an extremely high success rate, about 99% success rate, is we don’t start with traffic. We start from having worked with so many clients I observed. What made our programs? There’s a commonality between everything that made the programs we did so well. It’s not our genius. It just found us.

We started with their uniqueness, with their differentiation. We started with their selling system. By recognizing that, I created a process. I created a system for growth. We don’t turn traffic on right away. It absolutely fails.

I would work with one client. They worked with one of the world’s leading brain doctors. He wanted to sell more of a program on ADD. He was working with his marketing guys. “Yeah, we were doing email, we’re doing Google, and we’re YouTube videos.”

It went down the whole list of we’re doing all this stuff. When I looked at the stuff, it’s like, you’re doing it, but there’s massive gaps in how you’re doing it. You’re checking the boxes, but it’s not done right. I was going with this with Patrick, and he was like, “What?” We added one simple little email series in there. It’s an email series, and we doubled their sales.

As an engineer, I look at things like a whole assembly line. When making an engine block, you have a raw casting that goes in at step one. It goes through a thousand different steps, and you have a finished engine. If any of those steps is off, you won’t make the desired end product.

If all you’re doing is trafficking and you’re not looking at all these other things, you’re going to fail. You’re going to be disappointed with the results, and you’re going to fire whoever you hire. Whether it’s an agency, whether it’s a consultant, whether it’s someone internally, you’re going to get disappointed, and you’re going to get upset. The place to start is not with traffic but with your differentiation.

If all you’re doing is trafficking and you’re not looking at all these other things, you’re going to fail.

Everyone hears this stuff, but very few do it at the depth you need to do it these days to do well. When we’re recording this thing, we’re in a recession worldwide. Small businesses are getting hammered.

If you don’t do this stuff, if there’s not something different and special that stands out about you, you’re going to get crushed. A lot of businesses are going under. If you do have something different and special about you, then we want to get that, make that extremely clear what that is, and then we want to shout it from the rooftops.

I created a five-day workshop where I go over the principles of all this stuff. At the time, someone had just given me some competition ribs. I was so excited to cook these things as I was recording them. You create your differentiation, and once you’ve got that, you shout it from the pork chops.

That’s on the recording. I didn’t even know I said that; someone brought it up. He’s like, “Chris, what does it mean you shout it from the pork chops?” I was thinking about this competition pork that I got. You shout it from the pork chops. You can create that, and it’s a great time. It’s a great time to advertise because costs are so low. So many people are bailing from advertising platforms. We’re seeing ad costs that are what they were ten years ago, but I digress.

There’s a system for scaling. There’s a system for growing. It doesn’t start where most people think it starts. It starts with the differentiation, always. It starts with what’s unique and special about you, always. It starts with how you’re serving your market better and differently than anyone and everyone else out there, always.

Michael Gerber always talks about the great things you want to do for others as part of the vision for your business. You create your differentiation and what you want to specialize in your unique way of helping that, and then you work on your selling system. There’s a process. You work on your selling system; then you go to work.

After over a decade in cold calling, over a hundred thousand cold calls, here’s the grand summation. There are three types of prospects you’ll ever come across in your life—no more, no less, just three. Do you want to know what they are? This is pure genius. There are cold prospects, warm prospects, and hot prospects. That’s it.

You create your differentiation and what you want to specialize in, and then you work on your selling system.

Colds, they have no problem. They have no interest in buying. Warms have a problem, but they’re unsure if they want to solve it. They’re looking around at potential solutions, determining if they want to invest time, money, and energy to solve that problem. Hots have a problem they want to get rid of, and they’re actively looking for the best solution to buy.

I’ve got somebody with no problem and somebody with a problem, but I’m unsure how much time and energy I want to invest to solve it. Another one, “No, I want to buy it.” If we talked to all three people the same way, what result would we get?

The hots will resonate. The colds will annoy them, will piss them off. We’ll just annoy them. “Why are you trying to sell me?” I’m like, “Why are you hammering me so hard? I’m not interested. Go away.” The warm would be like, “Whoa, easy.” They’re speedy. It’s like, “Slow down, Tiguan.”

It’s like, “I like what you’re saying, but you’re moving too fast for me. I don’t like the pressure that I’m feeling from you.” We’re making a sale today but pushing away colds and warms. Today’s money is in the hots. Tomorrow’s money is in the colds and the warm, especially the warm.

I’m like, “Okay, well, why don’t we create a system for each of those? Why don’t we create a system for the colds? Why don’t we create a system for the warm? Why don’t we create a system for the hots? We’re just going to sell the hots.” The others, “We’re going to be their best friend. We’re going to help them. We’re going to help all three of them, but we’re not going to push hard. We’re not going to do countdown timers in colds and warms.”

We won’t do all this marketing stuff that annoys people. It’s a different game for the hots. Understanding that not everyone’s the same means someone can need your product. But if they don’t want it, it’s a different story. They have to want it before they’re hot. If they don’t want it, they can need it. My wife, I could have needed to marry her, but if she didn’t want to marry me, it wasn’t going to go anywhere.

Now, let’s build a system for the hots, a system for the warm, and a system for the colds. There’s a system we’re following. Now we’ve got our differentiation, our selling process, a system for the hot, a system for the warm, and a system for the colds. Now we’re ready for traffic.

When you look at things, step back.

That’s building a marketing system. That’s building an outreach system. When you look at things, step back. I’m going to use Michael Gerber’s three-legged stool analogy because I love his simplicity of stuff. If you’re watching the video of this, you’ll get it. If you’re listening to the audio, I’ve got three fingers pressing down on the palm of my hand, my thumb, my index finger, my middle finger, and they’re forming a three-legged stool.

On a three-legged stool, if one of the legs is missing, what will happen to that stool? It’s going to collapse. Michael calls this the core building block of any business. The three legs are lead generation, lead conversion, and client fulfillment. You have to get leads, marketing, close leads, and sales. You have to deliver on the leads as promised when you’re selling and marketing; that’s fulfillment.

When we look at each of those three, those represent our three core systems for a business that we need to build. If we build a system for lead generation, which I just talked about, there are more layers to it, but that is more about lead generation and lead conversion. Have a system for how you close leads.

Some people just get on the call and do an ad hoc. They hop on Zoom for two hours. There’s no sale, so they chase them around for the next two months. A hundred emails later, hop on another Zoom call for two hours. Nothing happens. They chase him around, and then they get annoyed. Both people get annoyed, and no sale happens. That’s not a system.

I’ve got a simple green, yellow, and red assessment. I have it on my YouTube channel, and it’s on my website, too, where you grade yourself. Red means you do everything ad hoc. You do whatever it takes to get leads, make sales, or fulfill. You do whatever it takes, and you do it ad hoc. That’s red. Yellow is you have a way to do it. “No, this is how we do it.”

Suppose we’re talking about sales and sales structure. We’ll create a sales structure. It’s like, “Okay, initial call. What do we do in an initial call? We’ve got a follow-up call. What happens on there? What does that lead to? What does that lead to? What does that lead to?” Everything is structured out.

When people hear structure, they think, “Well, it will take away my creativity and freedom.” It can be farther from the truth. You have way more freedom and more fun when you’ve got things structured because you’re putting hurdles in place for people to jump over.

I don’t spend time on a call with somebody until they’ve done certain qualifications. On my first 15-minute call with them, it’s pure qualifying, but it doesn’t seem like it at all. It’s very conversational. “Were you stuck? What do you need help with?”

I’ve got a number of other things I do even before we get on the call. Even before I get on call, I know if they’re qualified or not qualified. As business owners or salespeople, the biggest thing that you need to do is protect your time. That’s why systems exist so we can leverage our time.

Understanding that not everyone’s the same means someone can need your product.

Most people are working 60 hours a week. Even if they only work 40 to 50 hours a week, they stress about work. Instead of being with their family, they’re thinking about, “Crap, how am I going to make payroll? How am I going to meet my monthly goal next month? And crap, I need some new accounts coming in, I need this launch to go well, or I need this program to go well.”

The brain is always on and always thinking about that. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could not do that and not have to worry about that? You got to figure out how to make those ribs yourself first. We got to go from ad hoc red no method for marketing. No method. You just do whatever it takes. To yellow, “Hey, this is how we market our product. And maybe we’ve got one lead source working out.”

To green, “I’ve got multiple lead sources running, and I’m not involved with any of them. I have a dashboard, and I’m looking at the statistics. I see that we’re on track, and our forecasts look good.” That’s green. Red is when you just do stuff ad hoc. Yellow is you got a system, but you’re the one doing it. Green is you have a system for how you do it. Other people are doing the sales; you’re just watching it from a dashboard—the same thing with fulfillment.

Picture having a business where everything’s all green. Multiple leads are coming in, and you’re not doing anything. Sales are happening, and you’re not doing anything. They’re just being fulfilled, and you’re not doing anything. That’s the beauty of systems. Now, you’re a true business owner.

Michael Gerber would say most people go to work in a business. With systems, you have a business work for you, a massive difference. When you’re starting, I love the technical work. I still like it. I just don’t want to be doing it all the time. That’s why systems exist, so other people can do it.

Eventually, it doesn’t matter how much you love stuff, and you’re getting to a point where you’re like, “I don’t really like doing what I’m doing.” If you don’t have systems in place, you’re going to wake up one day, and you’re going to roll over to your spouse and say, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” They’re going to say, “Well, if you don’t do it, who’s going to do it? We need food, the mortgage needs to get paid, and the kids are in college.”

Figure out how to do it. Look at your three-legged stool, lead generation, conversion lead, and client fulfillment, and then take one at a time. Work on one. Figure out how to do it, show somebody else how to do it, train them on how to do it, watch them do it, have them do it again, measure it, and document it.

It is simple. But you know the hardest part about all this is? It’s the owner. It’s like, “What do you mean by the owner?” The owner gets in their way. It’s six inches of space and six inches of gray matter between their ears because people have identity problems. Their identity is tied up in what they do.

People love the thought of being able to, like, “What if you could double or triple your business?” I took one business from $4 million to $65 million. If you could do that, would that be enjoyable? Would that be fun? Would you love that? A lot of people will say yes. But then, when they go to work, and we actually remove them from the one doing the work, all of a sudden, they have identity issues because my identity is tied up in what I do.

I’m not the one who’s doing the marketing, making the calls, doing the sales presentations, or delivering. I’m not doing the customer interface. Now, they need to change their identity. The second thing is they put their worth in what they do. It’s like your worth has absolutely nothing to do with what you do. Your worth is in who you are as a person—your character.

Your worth is in who you are as a person—your character.

These mental factors come into play. If an owner is doing a million, $2 million, and can get over these mental factors, typically, they can grow to 5, 10, 20. We’ve done that a lot of times. They got to want to let go.

One of the things that I help people frame is, “Do you have a good product or service?” “Yeah, we’re the best.” “Right, you’re the best compared to your competitors?” It’s like, “Oh, no, we’re way better than all our competitors.” “Okay, great.” And then we help them see what their business is. That they’re the magic, they’re the ones doing everything.

If they stop, the business will stop. “Okay, well, you’ve got a product that’s the best in the world. Why don’t we make a business around that product that’s the best in the world?” Sometimes, that helps with the framing. Other times, people start down the path and can’t let go. They can’t let go of the control. I can’t help them, and they stay at that plateau. You’ll never get over that plateau.

What’s the typical size of a client that you’re working with?

On a private client side, we typically do over a million to five million somewhere. You can extend that to one to 10 million. A typical one to 5 million, they want to get to 10, 20, 50-plus million. There’s a new level they want to get to, or they want to exit their business. I want to exit, which is a whole other conversation. Most people will get about a 10th of what they could get from their company.

Here’s a couple of stats for people who are thinking about exiting. Eighty percent of all businesses that want to be sold will not be sold, meaning nobody wants to buy them the way they are, typically because the business is the owner. Nobody wants to buy a business where it’s the owner.

The second thing is that out of this 20% that do sell, the vast majority, over 75%, are unhappy with the sale; out of all businesses that want to sell, less than 5% sell and are happy with the sale. There are things that you can do to put in place to totally change that game. That would be a different conversation, so we won’t get into it today.

There are three types of business prospects: cold, warm, and hot. Share on X

Actually, I know we’re running short on time here. Let’s close some loops here. First of all, the green, yellow, and red assessment you mentioned is on your YouTube channel and website. Also, you mentioned that you added a three-email series to this client’s marketing system, and you doubled their sales. I’m curious, first of all, whether that was Dr. Daniel Amen.

It was Dr. Daniel Amen. 

I had an intuition about that. He was a guest on my other podcast, Get Yourself Optimized. He’s phenomenal. I’ve gone to Amen Clinics and done the whole Brain SPECT Scan thing. He’s awesome. What was in that three-email series that made such a difference?

It was just understanding where people were when they were looking at buying it. It was just relating to them. Not being salesy, but just relating to them, being human, talking about their emotions, what they’re feeling, what they’re experiencing. It created the relatability and the comfort. It went way up, making it a lot easier for them to buy.

Did it include additional differentiation reiterating or emphasizing the unique point of difference that Dr. Amen had?

Yeah. It’s always in most stuff, especially when they’re getting closer to buying. There’s a bit about that. Dr. Amen had already done an amazing job of being an authority and a leader in his space with it. It did have some of that. Yes.

I remembered your question. Who do I work with? A million to five million, they want to get to a 5, 10, 20-plus million, or they want to exit. The second category is people doing multiple six figures and wanting to get to seven figures.

In the third category, I took the system I created and just taught people that. It’s an implementation program. Those people who are startups to $15,000 a month are the people that fit in there. We’re building the client acquisition systems. It’s the same thing I do with clients doing seven figures. The only difference is they would rather have my team, and I do the work versus this program, which is structured.

How do you charge for the Done-For-You?

I start with an assessment. I analyze their business and the areas where they want to focus on. That’s phase one, which takes about two to three weeks. The plans were created based on the assessment. From the plan, we get into phase two, which is a rollout and implementation of the plan. That’s several months. Phase three is the fine-tuning optimization and massive growth phase.

The beautiful thing is once you get systems working, and they’re doing what they should, and then on the client acquisition side, once you hit what Malcolm Gladwell will call the tipping point, once you hit there, then you can crank up the traffic on it, and you go vertical with it. That’s where you go.

Typically, we’ll see, first, you’re working with somebody. The typical is 25%-200% growth. It depends on a number of factors: the business, the industry, the size, and all the rest. Typically, our clients will see 25%-200% that first year. Since we’re building with a systems approach, they’re positioned to two-exit, 10-exit. Year two, year three, and year four vary by company, industry, and owner.

I got you. Are we talking about a five-figure investment to work with you or a four-figure investment?

Phase one depends on how big the company is and how many areas with the business we’re looking at. If we’re onsite or offsite, it’s $ 5,000-$15,000 in that range. If we’re just picking one area like marketing or something like that, then it’s towards the lower end of the range. It’s a drop in the bucket for the companies we work with.

I don’t work with anybody. It’s got to be a good mutual fit. They have to like my engineered approach, like me, and I have to believe in what they’re doing and like them. I’m not a transaction chaser. I have a good, lasting relationship with clients. I’m not looking to turn a buck but to have a real, true win-win-win situation.

What are you most proud of that you’ve accomplished in the last five, ten, twenty years?

Good question. I could say that helped grow this company, helped scale that company, did this, or did that, but I’m a family guy. I look at my wife, and I look at my kids. My wife and I have been married for 24 years; we will be our 25th next year. We have four beautiful kids. We have good relationships with all our kids. That’s what I’m most proud of.

The core building blocks of any business are lead generation, lead conversion, and client fulfillment. Share on X

I look at them. Maybe I’m getting older, I’m getting sappier. I just love my family, my wife, and my kids. I’m watching my kids grow and become who they’re becoming.

Beautiful. All right. If our listener wants to work with you or at least learn from you, perhaps from your courses, your YouTube channel, or what have you, where should they go?

The three systems guide, my site, is a good place. They want to watch that green, yellow, and red video. The link to that is on the YouTube channel. For the three systems guide, you just go to chrisgoegan.com. That’s the best place. They can always email me. I’m a human, and I get back. It depends on volume. I may not get back to you immediately, but I do get back and answer people.

Awesome. Thank you, Chris. We know each other through a mastermind called Joint Venture Mastermind (JVMM). I love being in masterminds like JVMM because I get to meet awesome people like you and have you in my network, in my virtual Rolodex. Thank you.

My pleasure. Thank you for allowing me to share, Stephan.

Thank you. Thank you, listener. Please implement something you learned from this episode, not just use it as “edutainment.” Make a difference in the world. We’ll catch up with you in the next episode. I’m your host, Stephan Spencer, signing off.

Important Links

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Your Checklist of Actions to Take

Begin by differentiating my business. Before diving into traffic and lead generation, focus on identifying what makes my business unique. 

Categorize prospects into cold, warm, and hot. Develop distinct systems for each category, understand prospects’ needs, and tailor my approach accordingly.

Implement a three-legged stool approach. Embrace Michael Gerber’s three-legged stool analogy for business success—lead generation, lead conversion, and client fulfillment. 

Evaluate my business processes with a color-coded assessment. Red signifies an ad hoc approach, yellow indicates a structured system with personal involvement, and green represents a fully automated and delegated system.

Focus on my identity and worth. Overcome identity issues tied to the work I do. Letting go of control is crucial for business growth.

Help clients scale and exit successfully. Provide a comprehensive system that includes assessment, planning, implementation, and optimization.

Address mental factors for growth. Help myself and others transition from working for the business to having the business work for us.

Tailor my services to different client categories. Structure into clients who want to grow, clients who need an exit, and clients launching a startup.

Automate routine tasks, delegate responsibilities, and streamline my processes to free up valuable time for high-impact activities.

Visit Chris Goegan’s website to connect with him and find valuable resources, including his 3 Systems Guide.

About Chris Goegan

Chris Goegan helps entrepreneurs scale, systematize, and exit—more growth, time, income and profit. EXIT WEALTHY with our Engineered Growth Systems Methodology. He has worked with many thought leaders, including his friend, Michael E. Gerber. Chris lives in California but is from Canada, so he talks funny. He is married to his wife Naomi, has four kids, and has a lab named “Scout.”