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Malcolm Lui:
Welcome to the High Value Sales Show of Eversprint.com. I'm Malcolm Lui, the Managing Member of Eversprint, and today we're speaking with Mandy Burage, the Director of Operations at Petra Coach, a provider of business coaching to mid-market companies looking for strategic planning and accountability through the Rockefeller Habits.

Mandy Burage:
Hi Malcolm thank you for having me.

Malcolm Lui:
Mandy, you helped grow your company's revenue from $860,000 in 2014 to $4 million in 2017, a 365% increase, and in 2018 you hit righ under $5 million. Before we talk about you grew your company so fast, can you briefly share what your company does beyond my quick intro, and how your company differs from the competition?

Mandy Burage:
Sure. Patrick Koch has been around for seven years right in January is our seventh year anniversary and the company grew really from two people myself and Andy Bailey doing this seven years ago with a need to have a positive impact on 10 million human beings. If you look at our one page plan that's kind of our core purpose and we realize that the only way that we would be able to start hitting those numbers and to have that positive impact was to grow our team and to grow our client base. So there is tons of success and just two people doing this. But in order to actually reach our purpose that we had as an organization we had to both hire more folks and grow more members and then continue this beyond just the two of us. And so it started from that. And then every year we just continue to add more and more the demand gets higher the team grows bigger and we really just beat our own dog food. So to say in practice Rockefeller Habits and the scaling up process to grow our business and certainly

Malcolm Lui:
Now other competitors out there that something similar to what your company does.

Mandy Burage:
Of course know within the market there is a lot of other business coaching organizations that are out there. Our particular focus I would say is on obviously the Rockefeller Habits and strategic planning. So we do goal setting lots of meeting rhythms and then a focus on company culture as well. There's lots of other companies that do this. I'm sure lots of other individuals I should say that do this. We are unique in that we have created a group of individuals that do this. So most other business coaches out there is somebody that does this independently. You know typically work out of their home and we'll come in in and out of a planning session to see you maybe monthly or quarterly. We've taken a team approach to that which is a little unique in the industry. There are twenty three I think people currently at petrol. And so we have the ability to make sure that we match the particular member with the right coach. That area of expertise. There's a team facilitating all the materials and logistics and production behind it so that the actual planning day can be the best possible

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. And. So the key differentiator really is that you're that you have a team approach to

Mandy Burage:
Threat.

Malcolm Lui:
Providing your business coaching services.

Mandy Burage:
Yeah for sure.

Malcolm Lui:
And we're just going to nice to write because I mean say coaches which are always a way of able year round right. Some guys on holiday or his or his wife is in the hospital giving birth to a new kid right.

Mandy Burage:
Exactly.

Malcolm Lui:
Yes they

Mandy Burage:
There's

Malcolm Lui:
Be

Mandy Burage:
Always

Malcolm Lui:
Bring

Mandy Burage:
You know of a number that we're working with has a particular niche and maybe the coach that has been assigned to that account can answer that that there is a plethora of resources that they can go to. So we might have another coach on our team that does have that skill set or could answer that question or has that industry knowledge so they can join that session hop on a call. And so it makes the implementation from the member what we call our clients that much faster because there's just more resources available.

Malcolm Lui:
Right now. Before we get started on other parts of our Q and A and in our interview can you give more details on the Rockefeller Habits

Mandy Burage:
Sure. The Rockefeller Habits Vern harness officially wrote the book Mastering Rockefeller Habits. And we have been practicing that I'll say we myself in particular for about 13 years now. So the organization that I worked for previous also implemented the habits and an individual could essentially grab the Rockefeller Habits book and implement that themselves. It's creating your one page personal plan for your or your one page strategic plan for your business personal plans for yourself and then your strategic plan as for your business. A lot of organizations start out as an entrepreneur or they have a dream. They hire some folks and all said it's come to reality you know they might hit two million 10 million whatever their number is. And then all of a sudden they realize that maybe some of the structure that they're lacking structure they're lacking meeting rhythms they're lacking that long term vision and that's where that one page strategic plan comes into place. And so through the Rockefeller Habits it's a series of activities and exercises to create that one page strategic plan for the organization so that everybody is completely aligned on where the direction of the business is going. And then there's communication rhythms meeting rhythms such as daily huddle weekly huddle and such that support that to those you know communication and then Petrus kind of spin on that would be the culture piece that we've added and really work with culture as well.

Malcolm Lui:
And it's called the Rockefeller Habits because steel

Mandy Burage:
John D. Rockefeller

Malcolm Lui:
Make it way back then.

Mandy Burage:
Exactly. Ever you know when you are one of the most successful people everyone's going to look and say What are you doing and how do we need to do that. And so the Rockefeller Habits themselves are based on the

Malcolm Lui:
Okay got it. And for the one pager is this a densely packed filled with tax you need a magnifying glass to read everything or is it just 10 bullet points

Mandy Burage:
I will say it can be either. The idea behind it would that would be a very short concise. Here's the direction of the plan. FC one that you can squeeze as many bullet points as you'd like but the idea behind it is that is in fact a one page plan. So it should fit on a eight and a half file of a piece of paper and it has the long term vision. Your your beheads goes down to your three to five your goals would be working on the next three to five years. What's your big focus this year. What are you doing quarterly. And what are the individuals doing. And so there's complete alignment from what are you doing today. 2 How does what I'm doing today affect the business in the long term.

Malcolm Lui:
Right

Mandy Burage:
So it should be short and concise

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. The shorter end of the candidates sound too different from the twelve week year. If you've ever read that book

Mandy Burage:
Correct.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah.

Mandy Burage:
There's a you know there's a lot of different but what we say here Petra is we're not typically we're not really teaching anything new. We're not teaching rocket science. It's the same principles that a lot of times are out there that are just basic to business world we have to hold folks accountable and make sure that those actual actions happen.

Malcolm Lui:
All right. Now when you say that you're doing accountability and planning through the Rockefeller Habits does I mean that you're a license to use that name

Mandy Burage:
Correct. All the coaches on our team have been certified. So we have 10 coaches currently and they've been certified in the materials and over in it to be unable to get teach each other individuals

Malcolm Lui:
Right. You're through the Rockefeller Habits organization

Mandy Burage:
Correct.

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. Got it. So now now that I know what the Rockefeller Habits are all about can you share with me what were the three biggest drivers of your sales growth over the past four years that took you from eight hundred sixty thousand dollars in 2014 to right under five million in 2018

Mandy Burage:
Do biggest drivers. Great question. You know what I think about it. The the biggest drivers for us has been it's hard to say it's really the drive from going to say getting in front of individuals not word of mouth The type of people that are attracted to this is going to be that entrepreneur that has been doing this themselves for a while. Typically they hear about us from somebody else. They see us speak at some sort of speaking event and then from there they say you know I've been doing this myself at times I equate this to the gym I'm going to the gym and riding on a treadmill or lifting weights and you can only go so far typically on your own. And it's those folks that are ready for the next step. And so a driver for us has really been getting in front of those folks and the demand the need I would say and demands were a lot greater than we expected. And so from that more people coming to us saying I want to sign up for this I need a planning session come work with my team then let us to go and drive hire additional folks to go and meet that demand is getting in front of folks and having that word of mouth really from other companies that we work with and other speaking engagements really drove a lot more of that quicker than we thought that it would.

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. So is that

Mandy Burage:
Well

Malcolm Lui:
One big driver or are those the three groups altogether.

Mandy Burage:
It's hard to say what the three are. You know.

Malcolm Lui:
Okay

Mandy Burage:
I wouldn't say that we have three specific things that we really have grown the business a lot of it has happened naturally just natural growth of getting in front of somebody that demands there if we can fill the need demand grows little bit more. We can fill the need and we are ever changing based on what that looks like. I always tell people that our interest in working here. If you are like liking to have things a certain way and to be consistent. This is not the place for you because we are constantly looking for improvement and change and challenging the status quo.

Malcolm Lui:
Right now I said before that your target market your ideal clients are entrepreneurs. But then in the introduction that I had for you you talk you talk about serving mid-market sized companies. So I mean those are Joanie. You've been around for a while. It's a decent sized business with you. They do they still consider themselves an entrepreneurial company.

Mandy Burage:
It's somebody that has the ability I will say to make a decision quickly and implement change inside their business. We work with all sorts of organizations. We have anything from a family owned business for startups. We work with companies that are a hundred and fifty million dollars that have been around for 70 years. So I will say our ranges is fairly broad depending on the needs of that particular member. But the consistency that we find in all of them is that they have the ability to go and enact the change that needs to be happen in the business fairly quickly. So organizations that have I'll say lots of checks and balances and many boards they have to run things by if you're not going to be our target markets because it just takes longer to implement. We're just going to mean longer to see that success for that particular number.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Okay now when you say making change come up can change at the highest level or making change you know somewhere in the middle of the org chart

Mandy Burage:
Our setup we always like to start at the highest level. So we call it a kick off day which are the very first two days that Our Petra team meets with a member and that day the very first day is always going to be the highest level of leadership and that's who's creating that long term vision for the company. And so we always start with leadership to create the one page plan to roll out this communication rhythms. Its role in a new culture initiatives and then it's their responsibility to roll that down to the rest of their team. We do have organizations that we work with that they do all team planning. So at one hundred people in the room and we're doing a big planning with 100 hundred people and this kind of always very exciting some of our favorite ones to do. But we have some that just like to keep it within that small leadership team and then they are responsible for taking that back down to the team.

Malcolm Lui:
Okay now you refer to your clients as members. Why do you refer to them as members instead of clients.

Mandy Burage:
It's really a long term engagement when somebody sets up with Petra. I'll go back to the gym analogy you know is that if somebody can do this on their own they've hired Petra to really take them to the next level. It might be a financial dollar amount but they want to reach it might just be a structure in place it might be leadership development if they want whatever the challenge or that they need is for that member. We work with them over a period of time to fulfill that challenge. And then at some point they need to graduate and become an alumni. So they've worked with us. They have created their plan their rhythms are in place you know they're really doing the work and they can kind of take it back in-house themselves. And then when they're not alumni status that doesn't mean that anything really goes away from Petra. They're still invited to all of our events. We do learning activities once a month. They're invited to those we just summit twice a year. They come with us. So it's really more of a lifetime membership kind of into ongoing learning and development it doesn't stop when the every minute. So to say

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. Sorry. Are they paying you still. As an alumni

Mandy Burage:
They're not. It's just when somebody kind of moves into that status they'll still come to events and be participating but there's no financial gain. Pedro nothing

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Okay but I imagine if they attend your summit that might be something that they might need to invest in

Mandy Burage:
It's a summit through gazelles and so it's not our summit so to say that they attend with us. And the biggest thing that we found from alumni is that alumni are our biggest cheerleaders. So the referrals and the word of mouth that we get from that group really fuels so much of our pipeline as

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

Mandy Burage:
The biggest thing that they offer for us

Malcolm Lui:
Okay great. Now you talk a little bit about how you're able to get in front of the individuals I know you mentioned that you do speaking. So people hear you and reach out to you. Then what are the other ways that you put yourself in front of the right individuals.

Mandy Burage:
You know we have not really turned on any marketing thus far. It's on our one page strategic plan. So we will turn it on at some point but so far internally we have not turned down anything on a ginormous chunk of our pipeline comes from our current client base. For those alumni members some would say it's probably our biggest biggest revenue driver our biggest lead driver. The second would be the speaking engagements all the coaches on our team have the ability and go speak to various organizations you know has historically been a pretty big driver for us. The relationship that we have with the scaling up team the team of right gazelles as well with lead generation and things like that. So we've just kind of used what we have at our fingertips right now not having to turn off anything external thus far

Malcolm Lui:
Now your growth for 2017 2018 still pretty good. Right. Almost 25 percent year on year growth but you may maybe a little bit slower relative to over the past four years.

Mandy Burage:
Correct.

Malcolm Lui:
Is not because the business flow. It's coming from referrals is it has not grown in as rapidly as your revenue growth. Hence that's why we're seeing a drop off not drop off but a a slight slowdown in your growth trajectory.

Mandy Burage:
We actually took this past year intentionally to slow down a little bit so that we could work on some of our internal systems and processes. We're luckily in the exact same position as so many of our members that were at that same level of just high growth. And it was so exciting and I mean when an opportunity become your new business or your young business you just jump on it you figure out a way to do the work. It might not be the best way. It might not be scalable might not be repeatable but you just kind of figure it out. And we started off kind of in that same path. Processes weren't as tight as they needed them to be. Things will slip through the cracks every now and then or things just were automated they were taking too long. And so we decided to really spend this year on setting ourselves up for that scalable growth so that it was no longer a challenge on the internal business. So knowing that we could have to say no to some members we had to say this wasn't the right time. They weren't the right fit when historically that would not have been a path that we would have done

Malcolm Lui:
Right now as your business grows things have to change. You can't miss your infrastructures and systems

Mandy Burage:
That

Malcolm Lui:
Don't necessarily grow linearly all

Mandy Burage:
You

Malcolm Lui:
The

Mandy Burage:
Know

Malcolm Lui:
Time.

Mandy Burage:
They don't wish they did. But they don't. And so we were. Outgrowing things really faster and we've actually continued some of that a little into 20 19 as well. So this year probably as well will not be one of the higher growth for us. We are pulling out many new systems we're doing a new internal office move. So this is kind of our year to focus on us a little bit so that when everything is completely done we go and then everything is perfect from there on out

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah and it also mentioned I guess it kind of you mentioned earlier before that marketing is on your CTG plan right. So sounds like

Mandy Burage:
It's

Malcolm Lui:
You're setting up all the systems so that you can't switch on that marketing machine and handle the greater flow of business than what you're getting now from word of mouth referrals.

Mandy Burage:
There is one of our core values is to see around the curve and so knowing that we always want to make sure that we are two to three steps ahead whatever that that next step is. So we do want to make sure that we want that our team is 100 percent prepared internally so that we turn on marketing we're ready and that we're not falling behind on leads or processes for those

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Okay. Now how do you find individuals proactively find individuals that have the mindset you're looking for. Or do you go the other way and let them find you. Here's what you mentioned as your ideal clients. There is a bit on the soft side trying to quantify it

Mandy Burage:
Correct. I would say we do have a lot of folks for the most part they find us they find us and they're oftentimes not sure what they're looking for. Our membership development team is a really great job of discovering what a client's pain points are and what their needs are. And so they have to kind of fit into our sandbox is what we call it for the type of organization that we want know is this individual or team of people. Are they lifetime learner or are they willing to actually put in the work. Can they financially for the work. Are they willing to invest the time. This is not something we're not consultants. So our team is not going to come in and create any systems and processes or tell you what to do with it something of that nature. And so we really. I'll say it's been a lot of time vetting particular members to make sure that it's right on both sides so that we know turn that switch on and they join the membership that it's a good use of our time in their time as well

Malcolm Lui:
Right. And this is this occurs after they reach out to you

Mandy Burage:
Correct.

Malcolm Lui:
And say a cooler more. Okay.

Mandy Burage:
Yeah. So

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah.

Mandy Burage:
The pipeline is fairly full and then from that you know it's a lot of Q and A. People come and see what we do. So if somebody

Malcolm Lui:
You get

Mandy Burage:
Is interested to say I'm not sure if I would invest in this full time. We'd love to have guessed at our planning session. We work across the country. So depending on where location is we probably have a planning session coming up somewhere in your state or in your regional area. And so we'll have people come and sit on those and see the day and meet the team to make sure that again it's something that both sides will invest in.

Malcolm Lui:
Right now you mentioned before. Early on in our conversation that the man has been very high for your services. Why not pump up your prices a bit more and try to find a balance that way

Mandy Burage:
You know we did do that hit some of those earlier growth numbers that you saw. And so some of that was we took I think two years ago we had a price increase because the demand was there. And so we did that it was pretty successful. I'll also say though that with that price increase comes a greater demands on our team. So all of a sudden the activities that we were doing I think our team felt a little bit of pressure to bring more to bring better because it was a higher price point as well. It's a good thing a bad thing. You know it creates a little bit more I'll say nervousness on this team but this is also a team of competitive individuals that are also self starters and lifetime learners. And so it amplified this team as well. We did have some folks on our team that probably wasn't the right fit had left a couple of folks go hire some new people as well. And so that onboarding stage takes a little bit of time well as well. So some of those prices then had to do a little bit of internal reorganization and restructuring and then now we're still working on the MSA training and we're making sure that some of those newer coaches are ready to go.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Another factor that you mentioned at the beginning of our call this is how your business and what you're doing is constantly changing. Kiki talk about what those changes are.

Mandy Burage:
Sure. You know the I will say the reading aspect of this team is huge. I'll call it reading podcasts video learning they're always there's twenty twenty two twenty three people on this team that are constantly out in the world absorbing information and bringing it back. And one of the things that we really like to do and pride ourselves on doing is if somebody else is doing it it's better or differently. We call it RFD times we say to our audience. You know somebody says oh yeah research and development or we say no it's rip off a duplicate. So not quite to this extent but if somebody's already doing something better than is there it has to be we can implement can we learn something from somebody else and go incorporate that into our business. And when you have this many folks out there reading and consuming and learning information there's just ideas that flow through all the time. Should we be doing this. Look at this year's new process there's a new structure. Here's a new sales technique that someone's do. Here's a new Five Dysfunctions workshop that we should attend. We should teach our members this. So there's just so many opportunities to help these businesses with communication with structure. There's a lot of them that will pay committee focus on one for a quarter and turn it off and pick another one for a quarter. So the base of what we do is rock star habits are always going to bring a little bit something different a little bit something extra which is going to be that change piece. And so

Malcolm Lui:
Right

Mandy Burage:
It's always what's the new and next thing that we can do to elevate ourselves.

Malcolm Lui:
Now What do you do when you come up when you see some new idea. It looks pretty cool but if you were to use it in lieu of something else buy in that something else

Mandy Burage:
Well

Malcolm Lui:
Was clearly floundering it's kind of easy to try something new but what if you have a new idea for something that's kind of that's working fairly well for you. Now you have another idea that might work better. Are you guys comfortable making that change

Mandy Burage:
We are we do it often. Sometimes we probably would say that one of our challenges is maybe we have too many ideas. We are a team of independent leaders that are self driven. They all want their ideas to be the ones that work that all want their ideas to be the ones that are implemented. So there is no shortage of that on our team. We have plenty that we turn on. We say there's going to be is a focus for a quarter for us and it just doesn't work out. We know we had a say here. You throw 10 things on the wall and if three of them stick we're pretty good with that. And it's a little bit of our company culture is that we know that not everything's going to stick. We don't want invest a tremendous amount of time and effort. We are an efficient team as well. So we always will throw something out there give it our all a hundred percent if it doesn't work. No big deal no hurt feelings no pointing fingers. Pick something else. Let's just move on and learn from it

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Yeah I mean it's like you're learning something from it. You know you've had a pretty good day right.

Mandy Burage:
Exactly

Malcolm Lui:
Early earlier also in our conversation you talked about the different kinds of clients you work with from from family owned decide apps to 150 million dollar businesses. I know at one point your team does. When did you the initial discussions with a potential member you do talk about whether they can afford your services.

Mandy Burage:
Of course

Malcolm Lui:
You have a minimum revenue requirement sales requirement for their members you work with

Mandy Burage:
I would say that our sandbox is really between five million to two hundred million. We do have you know a lot of startup companies will come to us. They're probably the ones that are hungry for this because they're new and they want to start from the beginning with the best the best structure in place. And so we do have a lot of those we have created some smaller workshop type materials and things like that that have attempted to get smaller startups into a group type setting. It's just not our our sandbox is not our bread and butter. And so is not proven to be the area that we really focus on

Malcolm Lui:
Right

Mandy Burage:
Where we really shine is. Is this bigger companies that everybody can come into a day and they can actually implement the process and see the results from that

Malcolm Lui:
Now. You got

Mandy Burage:
Services go say so we do have you know we'll start on the lower end but it does become challenging for some of the smaller companies financially

Malcolm Lui:
Right. So your services are done well one on one meeting one or two coaches will go to the site your client site or you do it over resume or something. That's the way the training your training works.

Mandy Burage:
Any time somebody signs on to be a petro member is we'll come into a two day kickoff their location or an offsite location somewhere. Like I said we travel across the country and I think we have five candidates and client in Canada and we have a U.K. coach as well as a couple members across the UK. So we'll travel pretty much wherever we do a two day kickoff to kind of set up the framework for that. And we'll come see three months after that. So essentially every quarter will come and do a face to face meeting with the ideally the entire company. But oftentimes just the leadership team and we'll do that every quarter throughout the life of the engagement. Most engagements are anywhere for two years so it's usually a three years. And we have some members that have been around for five or six years. So it's it's really the implementation period. Once you have all the structure in place you can go down to a lower engagement where we just come in and do facilitation and essentially quarterly planning what we call it. Once you have kind of graduated alumni status if you decide you don't want to take it internally then you can stay with one of our coaches and continue to come to us or rescue

Malcolm Lui:
Right now do people commit the time in advance or is it more of a just kind of roll it over on every three months every six months

Mandy Burage:
There's no commitment everything is month to month. So any any member can leave at any time. That gives us an out if someone's not doing the work or if they're not implementing at the rate that we'd like them to not be a good member and entering calls and coming prepared for the day. It's not the best use of our time. It gives us an ELT so that we can no longer work with that member and then vice versa. That's not what they want they can do out as well. So any member can leave at any time but for the most part when somebody signs on it's a two year implementation so it should be around twenty four. Months at an at an average structure. I'll say that some members implement faster than that if they're really eager and they have extra time to focus on some of those that might shorten it's maybe 18 months. A lot of members go longer than that. They're just incredibly busy. I'll call it in their day to day operations and say I don't have time to. Work on a structure this month and attempt well at meeting rhythms that might take them somewhere around 36 months

Malcolm Lui:
Right now is it standard pricing for all your clients or is it a bit different

Mandy Burage:
Other practicing is based a little bit on the complexity of the number. Some of that has to do with their location. If we can fly in and fly out relatively easy then the price point for that members price is going to be a little bit lower. If we have to fly somewhere dry for three hours in the car to get there because we're not able to go and fly due on the next day. Essentially we are a day rate so to say to come in and so if we can easily get in and out of a location we're able to charge that number a little bit less because we can essentially leave their location the same night fly to another city and do another one the next day.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Okay

Mandy Burage:
What defines the middle of nowhere. Then unfortunately there's a little bit extra charge

Malcolm Lui:
Right now I have another question for you and tell you OK if you prefer not to share it but can you give a range of what your typical monthly fees might be for our clients or for your range of clients

Mandy Burage:
Our average fees really anywhere. There's different levels of engagement so most members start it. We've named everything off of a mountain range so they call it Kilimanjaro is our average meeting Our average kind of mountain range that we use. And what that includes is those quarterly facilitation plus the accountability in between which is going to be video calls face to face visits emails those things to keep the team accountable in the in-between months and that starts really at thirty five hundred for a very small local team. Probably somebody in our backyard that would have to be on a plane for it goes up to eighty five hundred depending upon the number and complexity. If you're a very large organization you'd like to have two coaches and two accountability coaches so a larger Petra team to come work with you and a larger folks in the room and that's going to be our Everest engagements. This starts at 15 start ten thousand dollars a month and then go up to 18.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Kilimanjaro it's far from an average mountain

Mandy Burage:
Well everything that we do is big and so Denali is the engagement that once you have been with Petra for a while and you want to step down then you want to have a coach come and just do quarterly facilitation. You've already implemented the habits you've succeeded for 24 months. Then you can hop down to a Denali engagement and then our very last one as Matterhorn and that is those kind of group workshops that we do. We don't do very many of them but we do have that available for some members in certain regions depending on with locations.

Malcolm Lui:
In my group mean group within the company or you have many other companies at one group.

Mandy Burage:
Many other companies.

Malcolm Lui:
Ok

Mandy Burage:
So we have one that we do here in Nashville or another five or six companies that can come to it but it's just not as personalized because it is more of a general exercise to work on rather than that particular members information focus on them. So

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

Mandy Burage:
The timeline to actually implement it is a little bit longer. It's not my favorite setup but we do offer it for some of those smaller members

Malcolm Lui:
Right. How much is that typically typically run for the Matterhorn.

Mandy Burage:
The Matterhorn I think is and we just change our pricing on it. Fifteen hundred dollars a month I believe and the member has to travel here and so that's one of the differences is we will travel to a member if they're in that Kilimanjaro range or Everest wherever they're at. If it's a Matterhorn. We're located in one of our offices in Nashville Tennessee and so folks will come here and so the travel is at their expense which a little bit different.

Malcolm Lui:
It is a one day workshop today workshop

Mandy Burage:
One day workshop

Malcolm Lui:
One day. Okay.

Mandy Burage:
And again

Malcolm Lui:
I

Mandy Burage:
It's

Malcolm Lui:
Mean

Mandy Burage:
Quickly

Malcolm Lui:
One day workshop to do stuff that can change your business. The pricing is not unusual. Not

Mandy Burage:
Of course

Malcolm Lui:
Not not unreasonable at all.

Mandy Burage:
Correct. In the hope there is for a lot of these I would say smaller companies as they might start in what we call that Matterhorn setup as our company continues to grow then they have that desire to have more of a one on one they want to bring more of their team members and they want to really roll this out and do this full term so then it would turn into one of those higher engagement levels which

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

Mandy Burage:
Is happening as well.

Malcolm Lui:
It makes sense. Now do you have any more any sort of self serve training products for people who might find even fifteen hundred a month a little bit too rich at where they are currently.

Mandy Burage:
One of our things were very or very transparent organization so we share almost everything we have. Of course some proprietary information and things but for the most part we will share anything with anybody On our website. Patrick Koch dot com. We have every resource every worksheets activity. Most of what we do in the room is available on that Web site. You can go and download the exercise it gives you step by step instructions and you can do it yourself. We kind of call it the DIY method. So

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

Mandy Burage:
If somebody would like to pick up a copy of scaling up and grab some worksheets and implement themselves absolutely can we actually did that in the previous company I worked for for a couple of years before we eventually hired a coach to take us to that next level.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah. Abraham does that as well. Right he has all of his content out there writing

Mandy Burage:
Exactly.

Malcolm Lui:
Books

Mandy Burage:
Yeah.

Malcolm Lui:
Everything and

Mandy Burage:
If

Malcolm Lui:
It's

Mandy Burage:
Somebody

Malcolm Lui:
Ok

Mandy Burage:
Wants to do the work go for it.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah. And it's also the same time those who you know are unable to afford his time and services. He's OK with that because they won't never be a client anyway he's happy to help them

Mandy Burage:
Of course

Malcolm Lui:
And

Mandy Burage:
That's

Malcolm Lui:
Maybe down

Mandy Burage:
An hour

Malcolm Lui:
The line they'll work the other.

Mandy Burage:
And that is everything that we do kind of comes back to our habits our core purpose is you'll see plus 10 in HB That's kind of our little tagline and that's to have a positive impact on Timberland human beings. And so the only way to hit that number is to have that content available on it. It's more than just in the day the 30 people that are in the room we have to move beyond that. And so these are some of those ways we get that

Malcolm Lui:
So are you tracking that number somehow and if you are where are you right now. Out of the 10. Oh yeah.

Mandy Burage:
We get that question all the time. So we actually used to be plus 10000 HP. I would say our first two years it was plus 10000 HP and we did track it and we started getting way too close to it. I think we were at eight thousand seven hundred and something where we were going to hit that and then we said well we can make a lot bigger and that happened way too quick. And so then we put it to the plus 10 m HP and then from there it's not a number that we track we have from time to time gone back and looked. We have about 3000 people that we are doing quarterly plantings with. We see them every quarter. And we have 10 coaches that are getting on stage across America doing speaking engagements from anywhere from 20 people to 300 people in a room. So we got to the point that it became too much for us to track. But I know that we are high up they're not close yet to our 10 million but making really good strides along the way.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah I'm here as a kid. I see the McDonald's sign where they say 4 million or 8 million serve and they stop doing that. I figured it's the number is getting a bit up but they keep on sharing and just calculating it must be a bit of a handful to figure out every year

Mandy Burage:
It's one of those efficiency things we have to take a process and say do we want to sign a resource to that. No. But we do it internally in our hearts

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah for sure. Looking forward a little bit. I know you touched about it before in our conversation but two thousand nineteen. Can you maybe discuss again what your plans I know you're talking about adjusting your systems still for getting ready for scaling up and I know or I guess essentially you know what's on your one page strategy plan for 2019

Mandy Burage:
Sure so we are actually doing ours next month. So we do an odd quarter because so many of our members do a traditional quarter. So because of that our planning is off quarter our year end is February 14th Valentine's Day. So Valentine's Day will be our year end officially for 20 18 20 19 and they will reset for next year. So Monday actually is our preplanning day from our Rockefeller Habits. We'll do our pre planning meeting and kind of go through all of those items that are on our plate and kind of pick the ones that are most important. Roll those out to the team in a couple weeks. But in looking at that you know we've taken a lot of time this year and really focused on how to make our process processes as scalable as possible. You know talent is something I guess that's with the unemployment rate being as low as it is is a challenge for us is the challenge for a lot of our members. We have a lot of the same challenges that they have. And so what action items are we going to do what of those plans in place that we have this year to address the talent making sure they're bringing the best possible people and getting them trained as quickly as possible.

Mandy Burage:
Systems and processes everything that we touch. Our goal is to have it automated so we don't want to race to waste a resource by having somebody do anything that's manual doing anything that is taking too much time. So we have a list of five or six systems and processes this year that the goal is by the end of the year to automate those. And they're also focused on what do our alumni members look like and how do we continue to serve those at a higher level. So as we've continued to do this now approaching our seventh year we have really more alumni than we have current members because people have graduated over the last seven years and we have not put as much in my opinion time and effort into that alumni base and really making them feel if you think about it university you know you feel really connected to your university and you're invested in them. And so we have some efforts this year. Around increasing that alumni engagement and attention and making sure that they have some of those same feelings like they're still included in a part of everything not the relationship is over.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Okay I know before early in the conversation you mentioned that marketing was also on your list

Mandy Burage:
I don't know that will happen this year for us. You know we go back and forth on that. We said last year that we're going to turn it on and we didn't like any other plans you know strategy is this that it's a more strategic attempt at where you'll go and strategy changes. And so we look at our one page plan every quarter we follow it up and say Is this still the plan. And it got pulled off I think midyear as do most of our members so you have your plan and then you make changes and ebb and flow. So marketing we've discussed will it be in our plan for this year and I think our final decision will be at that February date to say is that something we officially turn on. It'll be seen to we'll see if we actually turn that on or not this year. My

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

Mandy Burage:
Guess what I mean I'm going to say no if I don't have a tally of their

Malcolm Lui:
Sure. What would you say are your biggest challenges in 2019.

Mandy Burage:
Hey don't think about that one of our biggest challenges which a lot of members have the same challenge as well is really the time in the calendar and I say that because everything that we do we do a number of planning. Everybody wants planning at the same time of the year. So you know historically at the end of a quarter everybody likes to have their planning right at the beginning of the quarter and there's only so many days in the quarter we can't manufacture time we can't meet if extra days. And so we run to the point that we have 100 people wanting all the same date and a two to three week time period. And there's just there's literally not enough days in the calendar. So the calendar and that timing has continually been a challenge for us. We have had vast improvements over the last couple of years hired more more people to go do the work which is a fix there. And then looking at having off calendars and things like that. The calendar is probably never going to completely go away. But each year we have work to mitigate that challenge for us.

Malcolm Lui:
Right

Mandy Burage:
So calendar and timing is definitely number one finding talent. I'm going to say both from our internal team and from the coach team. Our team we have really incredibly high expectations for the folks that work here at pitching coach. We always kind of say we're looking for unicorns. So we're looking for these people out there. We interview a tremendous amount of people to find the right person for a role really protective of our culture and the team that we have and how to do that faster. You know we've looked at this past year we turn on some recruiting didn't work out how we wanted to. And so that would potentially be another goal for us this year is how to turn on that recruiting and find that talent to get those folks in here faster

Malcolm Lui:
Ok.

Mandy Burage:
Think it upon the other people have.

Malcolm Lui:
Ok. Here are the big challenges.

Mandy Burage:
I think our last one is you know if marketing at the company is to deal with marketing have this challenge a lot is there. The clients say I have a hard time seeing oftentimes the value of what you do is sometimes we can fall into that bucket in that coaching kind of consulting ish world. It's not always easy to see that are a lie. And so we're always reinventing ourselves and relooking at the value and restructuring how do we prove the worth to that member. And so making sure that that member stays committed for the long haul and that they're able to do the work. Do the change. Again going back to that Jim example. You know I think some folks work out for three weeks and then expect to have a six pack at the end of three weeks you know and it's not it's not going to happen like that. But we do have to show value along the way. You do have to have those little wins. And so always looking at new ways to show that to members is a challenge for us is something we'll continue to work on.

Malcolm Lui:
Right now before you think about recruiting but mentioned how you're keen on looking for faster ways of finding people who look like they're qualified and interviewing them and making a decision on them. How are you doing it now.

Mandy Burage:
All of our successful attempts and all of our successful hires I'll say probably 70 percent of them have come from within our own network. You know a players hang out with eight players. And so when we talk about you know we need to hire. We need to grow our folks. We always start with this team internally and then ask them to ask their friends and so forth and so forth. And that has been a really good way for us to drive a lot of the growth in turtle internal for our business for the last seven years and really help us find the right talent. We will outgrow that at some point and have to look beyond that. And that's it that's the challenge for us is is finding somebody that would come into the organization fit really well with a culture be able to do the travel the travel is pretty extensive depending on where they were you know where they live and work at is an area that kind of fits this team prefer folks to be in a major city makes it easy to get to and from an airport. And do they have a drive to be a coach to be somebody that can come into a room quickly build relationships and inspire other people to change. It's a really unique habit a trait I would say that some people have and some people don't. So we have to find somebody that can really go into a room very quickly and inspire others to be better and really want them to be better at the core of who they are.

Malcolm Lui:
Right now the company that the Rockefeller Habits certification when they have a nice source of coach is readily available to have you check out an interview

Mandy Burage:
You know they're not really our competition but if somebody approaches them and says I'll say and then being the main company says hey I'm interested in getting a coach then that they essentially will hand them to three different coach business coaches have the opportunity to kind of present their case and the client will pick who they want to work with. So we're all on the same team but for them roles and somewhat competing against each other as well for the actual business.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. I think they got up more along the lines of You hiring new business coaches. Right.

Mandy Burage:
Correct.

Malcolm Lui:
I mean

Mandy Burage:
They are most I would say most of the coaches that are from that parent company are in it to do it their own business so they're interested

Malcolm Lui:
Ok

Mandy Burage:
In forming a team. They are there to grow their own business and do their own coaching practice.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. OK. And three last questions for you. You know you drive down the freeway in Tennessee and you have your billboard out there on the side freeway and you have six seconds to read that billboard because the traffic is moving well what is your six second billboard message

Mandy Burage:
It's our core purpose. It's plus 10 and HP. We put that on everything. The reason why we put that on everything is because it drives conversation and it's one of the things that we teach when we talk to companies about creating an elevator pitch. You know if you're in sales you wouldn't say I'm the sales guy. Petra you say what do you do. And you say oh I inspire people to be better. I have a purpose of inspiring 10 million human beings make a positive impact nine

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

Mandy Burage:
Times out of 10. That person is going to go what does that mean. Tell me about that. Or is it your answer. I'm in sales. They go OK go do something. And

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah.

Mandy Burage:
That's the end of the conversation. So you want to drive that conversation more. And at the core of it that's who every person on this team is. And that's the purpose behind what we do every day.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. And my two final questions for you. Who are your ideal clients. I know we talked about this maybe recap it again. And what's the best way for them to reach out to your team.

Mandy Burage:
Our sandbox is really going to be companies or businesses that have anywhere from five to 500 team members and probably in that five to 200 million dollar of revenue line we want them to be entrepreneurial operated. So being able to come in and make those decisions fast scalable growth and having that lifetime learner so somebody that is constantly hungry for growth is willing to make change that is ready to adopt a new process and actually has the ability to put in the time. And then lastly of course the financial ability to pay for it

Malcolm Lui:
And the best way for them to contact your

Mandy Burage:
Our flipside of course is that everybody's best way onsite on our website. We have kind of a contact us page. We've done is really we wish they would create a videos for all of our coaches and all of our team. A lot of people like to go through and kind of watches videos and meet the different people on the team or see a coach that maybe they can they connect with or. Could come in and connect with them. So we always point people to the Web site so they can learn a lot about our team as resources. And then of course there's contact us pages all throughout that it comes directly to membership development. They'll talk about what your needs are and see if there's

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. We'd like to share your web address

Mandy Burage:
Of course you can always contact us at. W w w dot Petra. Coach dot com P

Malcolm Lui:
Or

Mandy Burage:
E T R A C O AC H

Malcolm Lui:
All right. Fantastic. Thanks for joining us today Mandy and sharing how you helped accelerate your company's high value sales

Mandy Burage:
Right. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Malcolm Lui:
We've been speaking with Mandy Burage, the Director of Operations at PetraCoach, about her company's rapid growth. For interviews with other fast growing, high value sales companies, or to learn how we can accelerate your firm's high value sales through automation, visit Eversprint.com.

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