As we haven’t been in touch for a while, and there’s been lots going on here, I thought it was about time I told you the story of my very weird year.
It might have an impact on you in 2019 if it resonates.
The story goes back to 2016 when I got invited on some strange little ski trip. 50 professional speakers locked in a small chalet. Can you imagine?
Getting a word in edgeways was a challenge, so just for a change I kept quiet and just listened and watched. There was hundreds of years of hard won experience in that room and I was collecting tips and ideas faster than I could ski down the black run.
And I ski quickly. If the truth be known I’m a bit of a loon with a pair of planks on.
That was 2 years ago. On the last day of that trip Warren Cass and I ended up on the same ski lift in Tignes. Warren is a highly paid speaker who had a No 1 best seller last year in WH Smith (not a pushy Facebook ad campaign in sight – just sales off the shelf on the merit of a good book with a slightly gaudy cover because Warren likes orange. I sometimes wonder if Easyjet are going to come after him for stealing IP).
I was a bit star struck. For about 2 minutes.
Then I realised I was in the company of someone very funny and easy to be around with stories to tell that had me laughing so hard my stomach was sore for days… before you ask, hubby likes him too (which is a good job as we spend A LOT of time planning, creating, travelling and delivering stuff that really works).
In that chalet in the French Alps I have to admit to getting a little more than slightly sloshed more than once – and Warren got to see the non-PC version of Sophie in full technicolour. He still thought I was OK… always a good sign for a future businesses partner. With no make-up, any attempt to leave a good impression long drowned away after jaeger bombs, and still gassing at 4 in the morning with a small group serial entrepreneurs I was in heaven. Heaven – if you have the stomach for having the mick ripped out of you… I’m a resilient type so it worked for me.
We ended up in the same mastermind group not long afterwards. Mastermind groups – good ones – really rock by the way.
My business has transformed since I joined but I was still feeling a bit of a billy-no-mates on a day to day basis in my business and that was rubbish. I like people, not a mac screen. I’d been actively looking for a business partner for a year or more but nothing had worked out.
(If you haven’t come across Warren, then you have missed out. He’s a force of nature when it comes to getting out there, and he’s a demon on the ski slopes. Not the most elegant it has to be admitted, but he puts his whole heart into it in the same way he puts his whole heart into everything he does. And he’s a brilliant marketer. He’s built several business, including an IT company, several events businesses, a business network with over 5000 active face to face paying members, a great marketing brand called Champions of Small Business and more recently a technology platform that has brought in a list of almost 500,00 UK SME’s.)
So, we got chatting. And drinking. Lots of Gin. Lots of laughs. And something serious came out of it. What started as a single co-presented workshop has turned into something much more interesting that you might want to be part of.
I’ve done the tough miles getting going as an author and as a paid speaker. He has too. As hubby has always struggled to get his head around such an intangible business, I was always alone in my company. I had a couple of very good years financially but I was miserable.
Lots of people do the training and tell you that you can make a mint speaking – that it’s one of the best paid gigs on the planet. Well, it can be (and I train one speaker who has done over 400K this year alone).
But as you already know – if there’s a lot of money to be made doing something that brings raving fans, exotic travel and loads of fun, there’s going to be competition…
There are thousands of speakers out there. Very few of them know how to make a proper living out of it. Warren and I have both done it and we have both taken different routes. We have also been collecting different journeys, routes to market, routes to publishing, paid gigs, free gigs, which work best? Selling from the stage, NOT selling from the stage. Writing books, selling books, getting into the charts. We have snapchatted, tweeted, facebooked, networked, advertised, spoken, promoted and taken a short view, a long view and a dim view of some of the crap the the expert industry peddles to unsuspecting punters who have dreams of being the next Tony Robbins but don’t have a Scooby Doo what it takes to get there.
After the G&T number 6 in a little french bar in deepest France, we started to rant about how hard it can be to get started. How many sharks there are out there who like to spend most of the time telling everyone how successful they are and how you can have the same if you do what they do.
What a lot of tosh. If they did it and made a mint, you can guarantee that by now their route to market is old news and if they had to start again today – their ’tried and tested’ strategy wouldn’t work again today without a huge investment.
We spent weeks, then months breaking down what the best authors were doing, how the most successful speakers do it (and I believe success = impact – not just money, that’s just a result…..and a damn fine one because I have an expensive taste in dressage horses).
We distilled the best of what we had learned and modelled from some of the leading speakers, authors and experts that we knew well and created The Thought Leaders Blueprint. And it’s resonating with people. People who want to speak. People who want to write. People who want to build business. People who don’t want to do it alone. People like the fact we don’t pretend that it’s a cookie-cutter process. It’s not. It’s more like moves on a cheeseboard. Sorry, I meant chessboard. There’s lots of moves and many of them will win the game over time. But everyone plays the game slightly differently….
Our business started because of a mastermind group. I met my speaker agent because of a mastermind group. I have had my biggest opportunities because of my membership of them. So that’s what we are up to. We are starting our own mastermind to help people like us grow faster than they would do alone. And have more fun and support that you can do alone. Because building a reputation as a thought leader when you only have an echo chamber for your own feedback can be soul sapping and bone crushingly lonely.
Of course, no one that’s in my personal contact list has ever felt like that. Those people are like me. Super successful. Cruising along with a pipeline full of future business. They’re booked solid and living the laptop lifestyle of unlimited abundance and don’t need a hive mind to help them through the challenges that leave them stumped.
But that’s snake-oil stuff. Building a business is hard. Doing it on your own is hard. Being a leader is hard. Coming up with original ideas and having the self confidence to step out alone is hard. Making money when there’s a million people screaming at your audience is hard.
We already have the first brave souls signed up to join us. People who are ready to step up to the next level. Serious about the business, not looking for a hobby that pays (if they are lucky). It’s not that we are snooty about small ‘lifestyle’ businesses. They’re great. But this mastermind isn’t designed for them. If you want to reach 6 figures or are doing that already and are ready to scale, we just don’t want the thinking that’s behind the lifestyle businesses blocking progress for the serious players.
So, as you are almost certainly an expert in your field (or you wouldn’t be reading this), and you are probably already on the way to building a reputation as a thought leader, then this could be something to take a look at.
If this sounds like something you are interested in then you can find out more by emailing me or head over to the dedicated mastermind page at www.achievers-international.com/mastermind
Best Wishes
Sophie
