Dan Martell - January 24, 2023


I Shut Down My $1M Business


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

182.9582

Word count

1,493

Sentence count

57


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In 2017, Martel decided to shut down his $1.8 million coaching business and start over. In this episode, he shares the 3 questions that helped him get the clarity to feel confident to shut it down and start a new company.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I want to share with you the three questions that helped me get the clarity to feel confident to
00:00:04.840 shut down a $1.8 million coaching business in 2017 and start over.
00:00:14.040 In 2017, I'd been building my coaching business for two years and had grown it to dozens of
00:00:20.680 clients that I was enjoying working with. I mean, I started a YouTube channel that drove a bunch of
00:00:26.780 people asking me to help them and consult and all these things. And I didn't really want to do any
00:00:30.980 consulting. I essentially was trying to take time off. You know, I'd sold my company Clarity. I'd
00:00:35.580 moved down to San Diego and I just started the YouTube channel as a way to give back and honestly
00:00:40.580 to document some of my beliefs and ideas for my kids. And what happened was, is that just kind of
00:00:45.360 started snowballing a little bit by little bit by taking calls and talking to friends. And they were
00:00:50.120 like, you should start a group and you could mentor CEOs and teach some of the stuff that
00:00:54.800 are more advanced to these people. And I just opened this group. And all of a sudden, there
00:00:58.800 was like dozens of people that were applying to get on phone calls and join the programs. And
00:01:04.260 the thing got to a place where I was doing two or three events a year and having a blast. And it
00:01:10.180 was actually a lot of fun. But I started asking myself, what is the purpose of this program?
00:01:17.260 What am I trying to create here? And I knew that I had a vision that was a little disconnected
00:01:22.140 from that program.
00:01:23.920 And three specific questions from different mentors
00:01:27.460 gave me the clarity that I needed
00:01:30.200 to be able to make the decision with confidence,
00:01:32.620 shut it down, like literally overnight,
00:01:34.980 call the team up, we're shutting it down
00:01:36.640 and start something new
00:01:38.280 that's now become a multiple eight-figure coaching business.
00:01:42.200 SaaS Academy is one of the largest
00:01:43.680 software CEO coaching companies in the world
00:01:47.040 within five years.
00:01:48.680 And I wouldn't have been able to do that
00:01:50.160 if I didn't have the clarity to shut it down, to do something great, here were those questions.
00:01:55.520 Number one is the value question. I was living in San Diego at the time and my buddy Todd Herman
00:02:01.480 called me up and he has this very polite, direct, kind way of asking you questions sometimes. It
00:02:07.380 just hits you across the side of the head. He said, Hey Martel, why are you coaching non-software
00:02:13.800 founders? And I was like, well, because I love entrepreneurship and I can help them. He goes,
00:02:19.840 dude, you're one of the few people that can legitimately help a software tech founder
00:02:26.460 start, build, scale, and exit their company. You've done it multiple times. You've helped
00:02:31.840 hundreds of people do it. You've invested in 50 plus. He's like, it doesn't make sense that
00:02:36.540 you're stepping over dimes to pick up pennies. And I remember him saying it that way. And it's
00:02:41.420 funny because I knew better. And there's this question that when I'm in these positions that
00:02:47.780 I like to ask myself, which is how can I create more value for my customers than anybody else in
00:02:54.540 the world? And when I asked myself that question after my conversation with Todd, I realized like
00:03:00.400 if I try to be everything to everybody and I try to serve all entrepreneurs, sure, I can add a lot
00:03:06.660 of value, but it's only going to be 80%. That 20% though, that last mile of value that only I could
00:03:15.520 provide was going to be for software founders. I would never get, even though I had some in my
00:03:20.280 group, I was never going deep on that level of stuff because I wanted to make it broadly
00:03:25.720 understandable by all the entrepreneurs in my group. And I love that question,
00:03:30.360 the clarity of that question. Ask yourself, how can I create more value than any other person,
00:03:37.040 any other group, any other individual, any other consultant in the world for my clients?
00:03:43.840 That question allowed me to have the confidence
00:03:47.220 to decide I'm shutting it down.
00:03:49.500 Number two is the results question.
00:03:51.560 And this question is really awesome
00:03:53.760 because I was at one of my coach's events, Taki Moore,
00:03:57.120 and I met a guy named Dean Jackson.
00:03:58.980 And Dean is like in the online world, he is the Yoda.
00:04:02.400 And he asked the question to everybody in the room
00:04:05.460 and he said, what would you change
00:04:08.620 about your service or your program
00:04:10.700 if you only got paid if your clients got the result?
00:04:14.360 And that question came up
00:04:15.920 when I was trying to think through,
00:04:18.240 should I go focus only on B2B software CEOs?
00:04:23.720 That was the question.
00:04:25.320 I started asking myself,
00:04:26.860 well, if I only got paid
00:04:28.700 if my clients got the results that I promised,
00:04:31.880 then I wouldn't be able to serve non-B2B SaaS founders.
00:04:35.920 I couldn't serve all entrepreneurs
00:04:37.780 because I wouldn't be able to direct and focus
00:04:41.360 and literally create all the tools and the strategies
00:04:44.180 and the growth playbooks that today exist in the program.
00:04:47.600 So that question of what if you only got paid
00:04:51.640 if your clients got the results?
00:04:53.380 How would you change your program?
00:04:54.820 How would you change your service to deliver that value?
00:04:58.260 That is a sharp question that should cut through the noise
00:05:01.720 to help you understand how to prioritize
00:05:04.240 and productize your services
00:05:05.940 to create the most value for your customer.
00:05:09.100 Number three, I call it the seasoned buyer question.
00:05:12.200 If somebody that knows your industry
00:05:14.400 bought your business today,
00:05:17.120 what are the first two to three things they would change?
00:05:20.300 That question gets rid of all the emotional noise
00:05:23.820 in your life around why you do what you do,
00:05:27.120 who you've been working with.
00:05:28.120 I mean, so many of you guys have been working with folks
00:05:31.980 because it's easy, maybe they're family members,
00:05:34.700 You have decisions about how your product works
00:05:37.620 because you've made commitments two years ago
00:05:39.520 to this customer, so you gotta keep doing this thing
00:05:41.720 and all these other decisions that are emotionally charged.
00:05:45.280 But when you step back and you ask yourself
00:05:47.360 the seasoned buyer question,
00:05:48.600 somebody's gotta buy your business,
00:05:50.140 they know your industry, they are an expert,
00:05:52.940 and you put yourself in that mindset
00:05:54.500 and then you ask yourself that question
00:05:56.640 and see what comes up.
00:05:57.800 What's the two to three things
00:05:59.600 that immediately pop up and come to mind?
00:06:03.020 And then the question,
00:06:03.980 because I ask this to my clients all the time,
00:06:06.140 is then the question is,
00:06:07.880 now why haven't you made that decision?
00:06:10.300 And when I think of that question,
00:06:12.300 when I was trying to decide,
00:06:13.700 should I shut down this thing?
00:06:15.360 Should I sunset it so I can do something more aligned,
00:06:19.500 more powerful, more impactful,
00:06:21.700 more true to who I am, right?
00:06:24.460 Even though it might be different
00:06:26.540 than what I'm doing today.
00:06:27.960 And it was obviously like significant revenue
00:06:30.960 and I had a team there
00:06:32.080 and some structure would have to change,
00:06:33.680 but I knew that when I asked myself this question,
00:06:37.000 because I teach people this,
00:06:38.460 the riches are in the niches,
00:06:39.900 that I wasn't listening to my own advice,
00:06:42.940 that I wasn't eating my own dog food.
00:06:45.480 So ask yourself that question.
00:06:48.060 What comes up for you
00:06:49.320 and why haven't you made that decision?
00:06:52.020 Those three questions have now become part of my life.
00:06:55.540 Whenever I'm trying to make decisions
00:06:56.920 for my business strategically
00:06:58.160 or it's unclear what I should do next,
00:07:00.260 I always ask myself these three questions.
00:07:02.600 Number one, how do I create more value for my customers
00:07:05.400 than anybody else in the world?
00:07:07.060 Number two, if I only got paid,
00:07:09.600 if my clients got results that I promised,
00:07:12.360 what would I change about my service?
00:07:13.860 And third, somebody bought my business tomorrow
00:07:16.340 that knew my industry,
00:07:17.600 what are the first two or three things they would change
00:07:19.600 and why haven't I made those decisions?
00:07:21.800 Hopefully that gives you the clarity that you need
00:07:24.660 to take decisive action towards a more empowering
00:07:28.700 and powerful future for your business
00:07:31.020 because I know it's there and you've been dragging your feet.
00:07:33.820 And today is the day that you make the decision
00:07:36.160 to make the change.
00:07:37.500 It's going to unlock your next level of growth
00:07:39.720 using powerful questions.
00:07:42.920 Now, if you want more questions that I use
00:07:45.240 to understand how to build better product for my customers
00:07:48.720 or understand their true pain point
00:07:50.340 or other strategic decisions,
00:07:52.160 I think questions are powerful.
00:07:54.480 Click the link below to download
00:07:55.820 my top customer development questions
00:07:57.960 that you can use for several different scenarios
00:08:00.720 to help you cut through the noise and get to the signal.
00:08:04.560 Just click the link, download that.
00:08:06.280 I hope this video finds you well,
00:08:08.340 and I'll see you next week.