From Marketing to Software Revolution: Eric Yaillen's Journey through Tech Stacks and Business Systems

Meet our latest guest, Eric Yaillen, the man behind the Megafluence Agency, whose inspiring journey from a background in marketing to a software revolutionist is the stuff of legends. Learn from his experiences as he navigates through the complex world of tech stacks and business systems. 

In a captivating exchange, Eric opens up about his transition from a regional marketing director to a software company founder, providing valuable insights into the complexities of the tech stack. Tracing his trajectory through a battle with cancer, the creation of the first Windows-based club management system and back into the realm of digital marketing, Eric offers unique perspectives on evolving business needs and the importance of choosing the right system. He also candidly discusses the pitfalls and challenges business owners often face, and how his Megafluence Agency is positioned to provide low-cost solutions to these issues.

As we round off our conversation, Eric delves into his experiences as an entrepreneur, the challenges he faced in building his own business, and the importance of mentors and coaches in this journey. He shares some sage advice for entrepreneurs, encouraging them to build their businesses one brick at a time, and the necessity of strategic focus, storytelling, and mentorship for successful business growth. Get ready to be inspired and enlightened, as you join us on this intriguing episode.

Chapters

• 0:02 Eric Jalen's Marketing Leadership Journey
• 8:13 Technology and Strategy for Market Leadership
• 18:07 Choosing the Right Business System
• 31:11 Solutions and Challenges for Business Owners
• 35:17 Challenges and Advice for Entrepreneurs
• 42:57 Catalytic Leadership and Coaching

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Speaker 2: 0:16

Hey, it's William and welcome to today's episode of the Catalytic Leadership podcast. Each week, we tackle a topic related to the field of leadership. My goal is to ensure that you have actionable steps you can take from each episode to grow in your own leadership. Growth doesn't just happen. My goal is to help you become intentional about it. Each week, we spotlight leaders from a variety of fields, organizations and locations. My goal is for you to see that leaders can be catalytic, no matter where they are or what they lead. I draw inspiration from the stories and journeys of these leaders and I hear from many of you that you do too.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Let's jump in to today's interview. I'm thrilled today to have Eric Jalen on the show. Eric is the founder and creator of the Megafluence Agency, where he empowers small business entrepreneurs, coaches and consultants with solutions that can support all their marketing and communication efforts with prospects, with customers, throughout their customer journey, from operations management to branding identity. Eric brings his decades of experience in marketing and business to help you overcome the challenges that you're facing. Eric, I'm so excited about our conversation. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I would love for you to share some of your story with our listeners, eric, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader in the marketing space. How did you get started?

Speaker 3: 1:46

Well, I'll have to give credit to mom. I'm not going that far back, but my mother was a copywriter before she became a stay-at-home mom. I probably started following more in her footsteps than in dad's. My dad was a microbiologist. In high school I really decided that marketing was something I was interested in and I joined junior achievement. In those days, junior achievement was a lot different than it is today. I was in junior achievement too. I love that. Well, you're a little younger than me, so it might have been different when you were there.

Speaker 3: 2:31

When I was there, it would be sponsored by a local company and you would be with them for the entire year. You would start a company, you'd elect officers, you'd create a product, sell it all the whole nine yards. Well, the company that sponsored my junior achievement company was a local television station. We didn't produce little widgets and knick-knacks. We produced a television show. I basically started selling television time.

Speaker 3: 3:04

I had to learn first of all how to read the ratings books. Also, most junior achievers they go door-to-door and knock on friends and neighbors and get them to buy whatever it is they're selling. I couldn't do that. Go to your next neighbor and say, hey, would you like to buy a 32nd television commercial, I was immediately thrust into contacting business leaders. You wouldn't go through the normal channels because an advertising agency is going to be looking at metrics. You don't have a show with any details, that's produced by kids. You had to go to CEOs to try to get them to give up some of their money in essence kind of like a donation. Over the three years that I did that, I was the top-grossing salesperson in junior achievement worldwide. Immediately I said, okay, let's see where else that this can go. After I graduated high school, my senior year, I started my own PR firm. I had for my very first client the founder of Manpower International.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 3: 4:16

Now I wasn't working for Manpower International, but he had created a foundation. I ran the PR and all of the marketing for this nonprofit foundation that was trying to find jobs for disadvantaged youth in the city of Milwaukee. That was just one of the stepping stones. Then I went to college. Every time I would have an opportunity for an internship I would go after it. I had some great internships. I was the press secretary for the Lieutenant Governor of Iowa. I worked for some of my professors at the university I worked for.

Speaker 3: 4:50

I went to, I worked on a campaign with a class called the Philosophy of Terrorism, where I got international coverage with ABC News and US News and World Report. I was experiencing all of these different facets. Then I went to graduate school. I was accepted at both University of Maryland and USC. I went back to ABC and I said hey, you have bureaus in both locations, where will you offer me a job? By the way, I developed a decent reputation with them because I had contacted them three times with story ideas and all three times they covered it Nice, and so they knew I had at least a news sense and I knew when to contact them and when not to contact them, which a lot of people don't know when not to contact them. And, by the way, I was on the receiving end of those press releases. They end up in the vertical bin. But they offered me a job in Washington DC.

Speaker 3: 5:50

So I went to the University of Maryland and so I worked for ABC News at the Washington headquarters for a year and then I kind of said you know what? This isn't what I like to do. I don't like to sit around and wait for things to happen. I like to make things happen. Well, I applied for a job. It was a blind ad in the Washington Post for a Washington based entertainment company seeking a regional marketing director. And, lo and behold, I was called in and I found out then that it was a company called Feld Entertainment, which is Ringling Brothers Circus and Walt Disney's World on Ice at the time Wow. So immediately I jumped at that opportunity. The pay sucked, but it was an opportunity to be assigned to market and kind of be the guy in charge. And so I did that for six years.

Speaker 3: 6:44

My territory, my region, ran from Norfolk, virginia, to San Diego, california, and I'll go sandwiched in between, and it was interesting because in smaller markets you might be there for two days and you might have a $20,000 to $30,000 overall marketing budget. And then I go to Chicago and the circus would play there for four weeks. Then we'd have a week off and the ice show would play for two weeks and overall I would be spending over a million dollars on marketing. And this was in the 80s. So a million dollars went a long, long way. So I did that for a long time and I went up the ranks.

Speaker 3: 7:24

Now, why did I go up the ranks? Well, in 1984, right before I went to graduate school, I went and bought my first computer. So that was right around the time that personal computers were first released. My very first computer. It didn't have a hard drive, it had two big those five and a quarter inch floppy drives and I had one word processing program, wordstar. But I got to know computers a little bit. And then, about a year later, I bought my first Macintosh computer and that was the second generation Mac and it had a whopping 512K of RAM no hard drive, but I lugged that computer and buy.

Speaker 3: 8:07

I bought other computers along the way, but I lugged that computer around with me while I was with Ringling Brothers. And the interesting thing was, of 40 regional marketing directors, I was the only one that was computerized. I immediately saw the value of it because we were all assigned markets. I was assigned usually one or two markets and everybody else. Yet I was able to take eight to 12 weeks off a year on vacation time because I was more productive than everybody else. Everyone else was pounding their contracts and deals on a typewriter and using the white out or throwing the piece of paper out and having to start all over again. So most of my peers were lucky if they could get two days off, let alone a week, and, like I said, I was sometimes taking eight weeks off over the course of a year. So I immediately saw the value of productivity. Oh and, by the way, of all the marketing directors I was the only one I had this reputation of being the only one to get all of my reports into management on time. So unfortunately there was a downturn in the economy because I was good at what I did and I had performance bonuses that elevated my pay to a level above everybody else when it's time to do staff cuts for a recession. I was kind of you know the accounts looked at my costs and they said, well, he's the most expensive, so let's go rid of him. So I was one of about 20% of the workforce that was laid off.

Speaker 3: 9:41

Then I stayed around in the entertainment business a little bit but eventually ended up with a software company. And that software company I created the job for myself. They didn't have anyone doing marketing and I sold their software to the PGA of America. And while with the PGA of America as a client, we developed for all intents and purposes their first CRM system for their regional offices. This was in 1991. This was before there was first of all DOS, still Sure In CRMs. There was no such word at the time. So it was a database to manage all of their members, and the PGA of America is the world's largest professional sports organization. So did that for a few years.

Speaker 3: 10:32

Then I went and started my own software company and we created the first Windows-based club management system or member management system. And we primarily were in the health and fitness marketplace. So upscale fitness clubs, hospital-based fitness centers, which are very popular east of the Mississippi and corporate fitness centers. And on the corporate fitness centers my clients included Goldman Sachs, deloitte, touche Honda, toyota, lucent Technologies. So we really made a foray into that because, again, we were the first Windows-based system at the time, did that until 2003, and, quite frankly, I just was done with computers. I was done with computer users. Interestingly, when you do work with hospitals, they tend to have their support teams divided between the network people, the software people and the hardware people and when something goes wrong it's their fault.

Speaker 3: 11:33

I decided to stop traveling as much. I sold my interest in the company and went to work in golf for a small nonprofit golf association. I still couldn't escape computers and, interestingly, the way that they were running their business is a way that I still find businesses to this day sometimes running, and that is they have all of their little data silos and everybody is working off of spreadsheets and nothing more than that. Well, one of the things I did at the golf association is I created their first peer-to-peer database, so we eliminated the spreadsheets. But then this was when the idea of customer relationship management systems were first coming about and I tried to sell my boss on getting a CRM. But I'm dealing with a small nonprofit where my annual budget to do everything, including building their websites, was maybe $5,000. So I couldn't get in that direction. So I worked networking and I found some evangelists on my behalf at the United States Golf Association and they decided to fund a national project for all state and regional golf associations to get into the CRM world. So I introduced this was one of the board members at the time said it was probably the second biggest and best initiative the USGA had ever done in the 100-plus year history of the organization. So did that for a while. Eventually I ended up as the CEO of the Southern Nevada Golf Association.

Speaker 3: 13:15

But in 2014, I got stage 3C colorectal cancer was diagnosed with that had to go through chemo, radiation surgery, was bedridden for eight months. So I actually stopped working completely in 2014. By the way, my health issues continued. I ended up in a coma from sepsis, got stage 4 kidney disease, had all sorts of other things. Don't need to go into all that but basically I wasn't working for a variety of reasons. With the pain medications I wasn't mentally or physically able to work. Finally I had a new pain treatment and in 2021, I was physically and mentally able to come back.

Speaker 3: 13:59

And now I said, ok, I need to do something, because sitting around doing nothing doesn't fit with my personality. I was very, very depressed. I needed to do something and had to figure out what to do. And so that's when I was looking at what was out there and originally I was dabbling in a variety of different things. I couldn't go and get a job because of my health issues, so I had to do something entrepreneurial again and eventually I got.

Speaker 3: 14:29

My very first opportunity was I reconnected with a guy who was one of the top affiliate marketers in the world and the top 1%. He had a company that he had formed a partnership with, a guy named Perry Belcher. Perry is known as the godfather of digital marketing. He's the co-founder of digitalmarketercom, the co-founder of the Traffic and Conversions Summit, brilliant at everything he's done, and he's been in digital marketing since 1995. And I said, hey, I got to take this opportunity. So I basically did a consulting gig helping them develop software for about eight months.

Speaker 3: 15:09

Eventually, again, that was something that wasn't the direction I technically wanted to go. It was a support Q&A, development position. And again I was in all of these communities of speakers and listening to gurus about how to do this and that, because, obviously, when I left marketing in 2014 to 2021, the landscape of how you do things changed completely. So I had to go through a long process of learning things myself and along the way, I saw that again, a lot of these businesses they were still running off of spreadsheets, they didn't take advantage of all of these things that were out there and they needed to be able to do more with computers because the digital marketing landscape had changed. And so when I looked at it and saw how a lot of these businesses were running, that's when I came up with my concept called the mega-fluence method, and mega-fluence is a mashup of mega, which, of course, most people think is big. I actually take it a step further, where I'm looking into the future of technology, because it's changing so rapidly, and mega I look at it as the beginning of mega-verse, which is a consideration of meta-verse, and a mega-verse is gonna be when there's interoperability between these virtual spaces called meta-verses.

Speaker 3: 16:32

So mega meaning big and influence meaning influence. How do you have big influence and how do you, as a business person, achieve market leadership in whatever it is that you're doing? And we look around you look at the local real estate people, there's some people that clearly do it better than others, or the local plumber or the electricians, you can see who are the market leaders and who are the followers and the also owners. So how do they do it differently? And when I analyzed it, it basically came to four basic parts.

Speaker 3: 17:09

Number one meaning the first thing you need to be a market leader is you have to have the right branding and brand strategy. That's the foundation from which everything else emanates. Then the second thing is you need to know who your customer is and how to communicate with them. Third thing if you're gonna grow and scale, you gotta get all of the things that you do out of here and into a piece of paper that's called an SOP or a standard operating procedure that you can then hire somebody and say do it this way, yep. Now, those three things have absolutely nothing to do with technology. They're just core, fundamental business needs.

Speaker 3: 17:52

But ultimately in this day and age, if you're gonna get to the next level, you need technology, and technology ultimately seem to be the biggest sticking point with everyone I talk to, and that's because there's a lot out there. There's a lot of confusion. They most people don't know what to look at. They'll follow some particular guru who has an affiliate relationship, so they're gonna push one system or another. By the way, I've seen inside of the hood of some of these big gurus. They have no clue how to run their business. It's just luck In many cases, because you look at the way they have their systems put together and they have no clue as to what they're doing. But that's not always the case. But sometimes they start down. Maybe they started a long time ago and when they started there was only one or two choices. And they put so much time, effort and money into that one system that, even if that system isn't working for them anymore, they don't wanna make the change.

Speaker 3: 18:54

Others say you know what I need to grow because there's something new I need, and they are forced into that change. Or they finally learn of something better. And so we spend a lot of time now with clients converting them from some of these other systems that aren't serving their needs as well. And sometimes, by the way, I'll just because I've used all of the systems I will try and say look first of all, they all work.

Speaker 3: 19:20

They're all good. I'm not gonna say any one of them is bad. I just think that there are some that are better than others and it's all based on what that particular business needs. And so I'll sit down and we'll explore that and sometimes I'll say, before you jump in and make a decision because all too often the decisions are emotional and not objective I say whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's analyze what your business needs are today. Let's find out what systems you need to do all of those things and let them evaluate what's out there so you can make the best objective business decision to take your business out there. And most of the time it turns out that the system that they want is a system that we now offer.

Speaker 2: 20:07

I love that. I love the database piece of that, that you're trying to move them away from the emotional side and just making a decision based on how they feel in any given moment. I often tell my clients emotions are a fantastic part of your life. They're a passenger that you need in your car, but you should never let them dry because you will end up in a ditch 100% of the time.

Speaker 3: 20:30

But you know, sales, sales is 80% emotional, 20% logical, right? So that's why, people, all of the messaging you get is emotional in nature. It's designed to trigger you to make an action. Yes, now, the funny thing is, as much as I know, that my personal approach is more 80% logical, 20% emotional. On two yeah, exactly so. Oftentimes in both you and I are the yin to the yang. That's right.

Speaker 2: 21:01

We provide the balance Exactly. So, as you're looking at the four pieces of this model that you have created, like you, have a CRM solution that really integrates so many of the components of the tech stack that somebody may be paying way too much for this is a all in one solution that can help people to bring it all under one piece of software one solution.

Speaker 3: 21:30

Exactly. So what is the typical tech stack that most people will have? Well, pretty much everyone has an online calendar today, sure. And so guess what? A lot of people the big ones that are out there are Calendly, schedule 1, security, but that's a data silo, yeah, okay. And then maybe they're doing email marketing, so they are working with some type of email auto responder system. Maybe they're starting out early on with maybe it's a good system Aweber. When you're first starting out, you can get it for free until you get to 500 people on your list and, by the way, I'll recommend that for those people because there's a process in building your business and I can take them when they're ready to get off of Aweber and move to something bigger and better. We can certainly do that, but they'll have an auto responder. Maybe they'll be working on MailChimp or Constant Contact or one of those systems. But when you look at the pricing of those systems, they can be very expensive because almost all of the systems that are out there, they charge you based on the size of your list. So as your list grows, your cost goes up. But then you say, well, wait a second, I don't want to just do email marketing, I need landing pages, I need to do a sales funnel, so, okay, so now you're getting lead pages or click funnels or something like that. So that's another charge. Then they say you know, I heard that text message marketing is the way to go. Well, there's a lot of text systems out there and a lot of them charge about $29 a month for 500 text messages, and then every text message above and beyond that is anywhere between four and six cents. Well, that can get very expensive again as the number of people that you need to text grows and grows and grows. So there's another silo.

Speaker 3: 23:22

And you say you know, but I also I need to have my website. And oh, I want to do surveys. So I need to have software to do surveys. Or you know what I need to do. I need to have some way to build my reputation and do reviews. So maybe they're getting some review software. Or you know what I want to be able to automate. I want to do some things with social media marketing, so I need to have some software to help me post by social media. And then you know, I heard that there's software that you can have people DM you and your systems can automatically respond. So what system should I buy for all of that? And so all of these things can add up and we now have a solution that all of those things are under one roof.

Speaker 3: 24:07

And if you add up all of the individual costs of all of these little pieces, I know I know people that will have a database of well, I had a client who had a database of 3,500 people and she was spending just with one of the components. They were asking you to pay over $500 a month and then when you added all the other ones up, it was over 800 a month. Now, if your list grows by the way, her list grew then to 5,000, guess what? They wanted more money and I put her I'm moving her over into a system. It's costing your money because there's obviously you have to move, take care of that cost. But ultimately her monthly cost is going to go down where she's going to be saving several thousand dollars a year. She'll save maybe between six and $7,000 a year on all of her subscriptions together Plus her text messaging costs.

Speaker 3: 25:03

We only charge 0.009 cents per text message, not four and a half cents or five cents. And emails? Yes, we charge for emails. They're not included but it's based on the number of emails that you're sending out, and we can do 100,000 emails for under $100. And most people, by the way, our system. We include with it about 8,000 to 9,000 emails a month, or five to 600 text messages a month, included in the overall cost of the system, and right now we're offering that entire system for just 97 bucks. That's insane.

Speaker 2: 25:43

I mean I think a lot of people listening are going to want to go check this out and say, hey, what's the catch? Where's the other shoe going to drop here? Because it just Okay, so here's always another shoe. Always right.

Speaker 3: 25:56

By the way, there's no catch on the software, because I came back to work not because I needed to Well, I needed to for here but if I wanted to, I could have just sat back and just retired. But that's no fun and I sincerely wanted to help people to succeed and getting the right systems as part of it, and then I can help them with all of these other things that I've learned through the years to help them, hopefully, build their business. The catch is that there's no such thing as an easy button and a lot of people say, oh gee, I can get the systems going to do all of that and they get the system and it doesn't do all of that. Why does it not do all that? Because you got to set it up and you got to understand how to do things, and I have people who I mean, I had a person just yesterday who wants to do an e-course and, by the way, our system hosts courses and does membership slides too and she goes okay, so I have this course and I've greeted all of these videos, but they're all stored in my Google Drive.

Speaker 3: 27:06

I said, okay, well, first you need to download them to your computer, then you need to go into the course system and you have to create your course outline and all of your lessons. So if your lesson number one is a welcome lesson, then you need to upload that video to that welcome lesson. And she just said oh my god, that's so difficult. Are you kidding me? It's like I created a video now to just magically appear where I wanted to appear and it should all work. There's no easy button. I love that there's no easy button. If you want to sell your course, you need to create a sales page for it. If you want me to create the sales page for it, you're going to have to pay me, because guess what, 97 bucks a month ain't going to pay for me to do all of that.

Speaker 2: 27:58

But the service that you're providing all in one type of a solution if you run a digital business. This covers everything you've listed. This is pretty inclusive. I can't think of anything that's not included in this. It's like you thought hey, what's the thing I would like to have if I were starting a digital business today? And then you created it.

Speaker 3: 28:22

Exactly. It's all there for you and, by the way, and it's used by some of the top marketers in their business. In fact, perry Belcher uses it in his business. Another well-known marketer, frank Kern, uses it in his business. Forbes Riley, the queen of the pitch, she's converting to it right now in her business. So, yeah, we see that an awful lot. But, being the mega-fluence agency, what I also find with these marketers, people who want to start a business, is they don't know even who to contact and who to get to help them.

Speaker 3: 29:03

So what we do is we create a lot of joint venture relationships with specialists. So if you need to do paid Facebook ads, paid Google ads, we can send you to somebody. If you need somebody to build a website, we can do that. If you need VAs who are experienced in using the software to help you build automations and different things, we have VAs already put out there that can help you that aren't necessarily that expensive. I mean, typically I can get you a VA that's going to be between 10 and 15 bucks an hour who is going to be experienced with using computers, and then, depending on different areas, we can. Obviously there's some VAs we can get you that are even less expensive.

Speaker 3: 29:58

One of the things we find is there's a lot of people who don't understand all the rules of the road. So I do a lot of writing on regulatory compliance because there's all sorts of hoops that you have to jump through when you're sending bulk emails. There's all sorts of hoops you need to jump through when you're doing text message marketing. In fact, the laws just changed and so a whole new set of rules that are going into effect as of July 1st with all of the major carriers in the United States regarding text message marketing, so we help people jump through those hoops. Or everyone knows that at the bottom of a webpage you need to have things like terms and conditions, cookies, notices, privacy policies. The vast majority of people don't put in the time and effort to do those right. This is an area of branding that I actually look into because that's called risk management. Frank Kern didn't have the right policies in place and the Federal Trade Commission went after him and fined him $15 million.

Speaker 3: 31:00

If you make a violation of the rules with the European Union, the penalties with the GDPR rules is up to 4% of your gross revenues. So sometimes you can't just go and look at somebody else's website and copy and paste their policy. It may not be applicable to you, so we provide low cost solutions for that. Or how about you want to protect your intellectual property? So you need copyrights and trademarks. How do you easily go and do that? So we have these other services and things in place that we can be that resource. The way the Megafluence Agency runs is we're like the conductor of the orchestra, so we're behind the scenes helping you direct that traffic, so that you don't necessarily have to go and find all of those pieces for yourself.

Speaker 2: 31:56

I love the way you're describing this, eric, because, for business owners, people get into business because they're good at delivering a product or a service, and then they get into it and they have to start hiring people for fulfillment. And then they have to start dealing with oh, we've got to set up this tech stack. Oh, we've got to code this right. We've got to make sure we're thinking regulatory. Oh, my goodness, risk management. He's good at all of this.

Speaker 3: 32:17

No one person is good at all of it, or they're starting a business because they have a passion about something and they know their thing really really well.

Speaker 2: 32:24

Yes.

Speaker 3: 32:25

But then they start they've always been sending emails, they've been sending them for years. I'm sending you an email, but guess what, the rules are different when you send the same email to a thousand people. They don't realize that. Somebody's got to tell them that. And again, I can't tell you how many businesses established, well-established businesses don't have the right policies in place. So sometimes you just I'm going to their existing stuff and I'm like, do you know this? Yeah, oh my gosh, I didn't know that. I said, did you just copy and paste it from somebody else? Oh, yeah, that's exactly what I did. It's like okay, now it's your choice, it's your business. I'm not going to tell you what you have to do, but just let me tell you what can happen. And do you want to protect yourself? How much do you want this to be a business in the future? Just in case?

Speaker 2: 33:22

I think you've hit on so many of the common mistakes that people make and you're trying to address that. You're taking your experience, the insights that you've gleaned and you're making them available to other people so that they don't have to hit the ditches that you've seen others hit. They can stay between the ditches. I love that generosity of Monset, that generosity of spirit.

Speaker 3: 33:46

And, by the way, I'll write about this in bugs I'm sharing. It's not like I don't share this information for free all over the place, but when you really want to have somebody in depth in your business, that's when it costs a little bit more than $97 a month. That's the start. That's the beginning, right it's part of that foundation of what you need.

Speaker 2: 34:11

What are some of the biggest challenges you've had this time around Since 21, since starting Megaflons? What are some of the challenges that you have hit that other people may be able to resonate with?

Speaker 3: 34:21

I don't necessarily say that I'm having any particular challenges. I have a very specific market that I'm targeting and so far, considering we're a relatively young business, we have some very, very, very large and big clients and, quite frankly, our biggest challenge as a company is I haven't had the time to work on our company because I'm working on other people's companies, so I just in fact, I just brought in a new partner and we're finally addressing our own branding a little bit better. We don't even have the sales page that I put together. I slept together. Is it what I'm happy with? No, could it be a lot more professional? Absolutely, but I just needed to slap something together so I could deliver something because, again, I was more focused on everybody else.

Speaker 3: 35:17

So my biggest challenge is now spending a little bit more time focusing on my own business rather than other people's businesses. But again, as far as I'm concerned, my business is always going to take a backseat and I'm getting new clients mostly just through referrals, so I haven't had to even go down the road of building that brand as much, doing all of the organic social media marketing that a lot of other people have to do to build their business and, again, I'm helping them do their business more than mine. So these are my personal challenges in my business are the same that everyone else is, in that I need to do those things. I'm fortunate in that I have the client base up. I don't have to rush into it because there's more than enough referrals. I don't even have to get into paid advertising Some other.

Speaker 3: 36:13

This is depending on the nature of their business. They do have to get into that, sure so. But I think the biggest challenge well, one of them is I think that there are too many people who have this desire to get into business or they're not happy where they're presently are. They want to escape the corporate nine to five, but again, they expect the easy button and they want to replace whatever income that they're getting from their employer and they want to be able to magically snap their fingers and get that income replaced overnight. It doesn't work that way most of the time.

Speaker 3: 36:54

Now there's always going to be stories out there of somebody who literally came up with something, and, by the way, we're bombarded with these messages all the time. I have the magic formula. I'll show you how this entrepreneur made $100,000 in just two months. By the way, the vast majority of people putting out those messages didn't even make $1,000. It's just a sales tactic, because they're feeding on your emotions, and I know that I mean. I come across this all time. People have spent tens of thousands of dollars and they're still in the same hole that they were in when they started. Or they buy a bunch of courses and, by the way, I'm guilty of this too, so I'm not putting anybody down. We buy courses and then we never open them, so good.

Speaker 3: 37:48

So, true, I tend to find that entrepreneurs in general tend to, whether diagnosed or not, suffer from ADHD, which, by the way, that usually means that their mind is constantly racing and they suffer from shiny object syndrome. So and by the way, I'm guilty of that too. Okay, yeah, I have a couple clients say they keep coming up with ideas and I, again, I see it in myself. A lot of my time has been saying no, write it down, put it aside. But we need to get the first thing done first before we can go to the second thing.

Speaker 2: 38:33

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 38:34

Exactly One of the groups that I work with. He has a good philosophy is that and I'm probably going to get it wrong he has, as every entrepreneur should do, the three to one approach, and it's something like three mentors, two coaches and a mastermind. And, by the way, the way he's going to get that right, it might be three coaches, two mentors and a mastermind. I know it's only one mastermind, but literally I mean even the biggest names out there, they have mentors and coaches. Tony Robbins has mentors and coaches, absolutely Okay. So if it's good enough for Tony Robbins, who everyone would say is at the top of his game, isn't it good enough for you and me?

Speaker 2: 39:21

Absolutely. This is why I will often say every leader needs a coach. They need somebody who can see what they can't see. You can't see the whole picture when you're in the frame.

Speaker 3: 39:31

You just can't Right.

Speaker 2: 39:34

You can't see your own blind spots that's why they're called blind spots but someone outside of you can looking in and can help guide you and ask you the right questions so that you can identify and then deal with those blind spots so that they don't hamper you or hinder your growth.

Speaker 3: 39:53

Exactly, Exactly. And another example you could be the best writer in the world, but even the best writers in the world make spelling errors and grammatical errors. That's right. That's why they hire editors. That's right. Even an editor is nothing more than a coach. That's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 40:12

Eric, I'm curious. People walk away from this episode with one thing out of everything we've talked about and we've covered a lot. If they walk away with one thing, what do you want that one thing to be?

Speaker 3: 40:26

First is, if you're going to become an entrepreneur, obviously you're going to be a great writer. Make sure you know what you're gonna focus on. So focus is important and understand your why. Have a story to tell, because stories sell better than anything else. Doesn't necessarily have to be your story, but you need to have some kind of story and, again, create that right foundation. Building a business is like building a house. Okay, you can't create the roof, you can't put up the walls, until you have the right foundation in place. So think of how you would build a house. Build it one brick at a time. And now I'll go back to my roots as working with the circus. Building a business is like eating an elephant. And how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Speaker 2: 41:21

I know people are gonna wanna stay connected with you and continue to learn from you, Eric. What's the best way for people? To do that.

Speaker 3: 41:28

Well, people can certainly find me on LinkedIn, and it's EYalen is where you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on some of the other social channels, but probably the best way is to just book a time with me on my calendar and you would just go to wwwmegafluencenet. Forward slash, eric.

Speaker 2: 41:54

I'll make sure to have those links in the show notes. Very good, I'm so grateful for your generosity today and sharing so much from your own journey and also the ways that you're helping people in their journey today and being so open-handed in that. Thank you for this.

Speaker 3: 42:09

Well, I appreciate the opportunity. And again, my why is basically that I just wanna help businesses, people who want to succeed in business, succeed.

Speaker 2: 42:21

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Speaker 2: 42:57

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Speaker 1: 43:43

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.