A Blueprint for Business Freedom

Brett Gilliland is the Founder and CEO of Elite Entrepreneurs, a company that helps $1 million business owners scale to $10 million and beyond. Having spent 10 years helping Infusionsoft grow from $7 million in revenue to over $100 million, he is an expert in organizational development, leadership, and strategy. Brett built Elite Entrepreneurs inside Infusionsoft and has helped hundreds of seven-figure business owners achieve new levels of success.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[3:38] Brett Gilliland talks about his entrepreneurial itch and the genesis of Elite Entrepreneurs
[9:22] How Brett validated his entrepreneurial opportunities
[12:08] Brett’s experience scaling Infusionsoft and developing its culture
[18:38] Pivoting to recover from revenue declines
[23:10] Who are Brett’s recommended business thought leaders?
[26:55] The common business growth barriers in the $1-3 million phase
[32:49] How entrepreneurs can develop a vision for their businesses
[37:18] Elite Entrepreneurs’ value-added events for seven-figure businesses
[40:06] Brett’s advice to stubborn seven-figure entrepreneurs

In this episode…

The $1-3 million phase is perhaps the most pivotal and challenging stage of business as entrepreneurs struggle to separate their lives from their companies and identify an ideal role for themselves. How can you gain clarity in your vision to build the life and business you deserve?

Having faced many trials and tribulations in building his entrepreneurial mastermind, including falling short of culture recognition and navigating revenue declines, Brett Gilliland has discovered the secret to scaling past $1 million. Entrepreneurs in this stage must identify and build their company’s purpose, vision, and values. The purpose involves determining why your business exists beyond financial gain, and the core values comprise the company’s culture and dictate team dynamics. A vision entails developing your business’ trajectory, allowing you to map out your growth goals and final destination.

Join Pat Mancuso in this episode of Destination Business Freedom as he chats with Brett Gilliland, the Founder and CEO of Elite Entrepreneurs, about his entrepreneurial insights for scaling. Brett describes his experience developing Infusionsoft’s culture, Elite Entrepreneurs’ value-added events, and how he identified business opportunities.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments:

"You don't have to be exhausted and uncertain as a business owner."
"Leadership and scaling a business is not rocket science, but it does require that you change and do the work."
"The real payout is when you get your team to engage at a level where your shoulders feel less burdened."
"The payoff is incredible, but you have to put the time and energy into it."
"Most of us get sucked into reactive mode instead of creative mode."

Action Steps:

1. Define your business purpose and values: Brett Gilliland emphasized the importance of a clear purpose that resonates beyond financial goals, fostering a strong team culture. Doing so aligns your team and infuses their tasks with meaning.

2. Implement organizational development strategies: Drawing from the common challenges discussed, refine the systems, structures, and processes within your business to enable scalability.

3. Invest in leadership growth: Transitioning from a technician in your business to a leader is crucial. Build leadership skills through resources, coaching, and self-reflection.

4. Stay proactive in marketing: Recognizing the importance of consistent marketing, even when business is thriving, is vital to ensure long-term success and the ability to pivot during unforeseen circumstances.

5. Leverage peer networks for learning: Brett's mastermind groups highlight the benefits of community learning. Engage in groups or mentorships to exchange ideas, learn from others' experiences, and accelerate growth.

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by the Mancuso Consulting Group, a go-to resource for entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business owners dedicated to personal and business growth.

Our team of experts has coached, consulted, and trained over 15,000 entrepreneurs, C-suite leaders, and business owners in areas of sales, leadership, organizational development, and personal growth. Additionally, Pat Mancuso has launched multiple multimillion-dollar business ventures, giving him a firsthand understanding of entrepreneurs' daily challenges.

At the Mancuso Consulting Group, we are committed to exploring innovative ways to help businesses and leaders grow their people and improve their bottom lines.

To learn how the Mancuso Consulting Group can help you unlock your full potential, visit www.themancusomethod.com, email us at pat@themancusomethod.com, or call 651-503-7355.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:00

Pat, welcome to Destination, Business Freedom, hosted by Pat Mancuso. Join us as we explore success strategies and hacks from leading entrepreneurs helping you bridge the gap between financial success and personal freedom. Your journey starts here.

Pat Mancuso 0:23

Thank you for joining us today on destination business freedom. I am Pat Mancuso, the host of our podcast, where we interview leaders, entrepreneurs, and business owners who have exited their business or on that journey. My goal is to help small to medium-sized business owners close the gap between their finances and their freedom and ultimately define that destination, the address that they want to arrive at when they exit their business or even transition out of it. Sponsorship message real quick. This episode is brought to you by the Mancuso Consulting Group, where we are committed to helping entrepreneurs and business owners close the gap between their finances and freedom. The Mancuso method was created by Pat Mancuso and encompasses over 30 years of ownership of multiple businesses and the work with 1000s of entrepreneurs and business owners, he helps them rise above the daily grind and arrive at their desired destination, which is the reason most business owners started a business in the first place. If you're interested, go to www dot the Mancuso method.com. Method.com, and when you go there, you'll take a short assessment. That assessment then will allow you to schedule a 30-minute call with Pat and in that call, he'll review your roadmap that's created from that short assessment. And his guarantee is this, in that 30-minute call, he'll demonstrate and add to you $10,000 more of value, and if he doesn't, he'll write you a check for $500 on the spot. So go to www the Mancuso method.com, ladies and gentlemen, I am so excited about our guest today. He comes highly recommended, and I've done a lot of research, and I know that he's going to contribute to you and me today as an entrepreneur. I'm going to introduce him to you right now. His name is Brett Gilliland. He is the founder and CEO of Elite Entrepreneurs, a company that specializes in giving $1 million plus business owners the knowledge, processes, and tools to grow to 10 million and beyond. As the leader of elite entrepreneurs, Brett has helped hundreds of struggling seven-figure business owners overcome their biggest challenges and achieve new levels of success. Brett can't think of anything else he'd rather be doing professionally, and I certainly agree when Brett is isn't busy helping those $1 million plus business owners succeed. He is a family man who enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife, Sharon, and having eight children. Man, we got to talk about that, Brett.

Brett Gilliland 2:45

And why about it? All you want.

Pat Mancuso 2:47

Yeah, there you go. And one grand, grand baby. So Brett, welcome to the show. Thank

Brett Gilliland 2:51

you. I'm thrilled to be here, Pat, from your introduction to you in the show. And what I do, it's easy to see we're not going to have any problems filling the time we're going to be we have plenty to talk about.

Pat Mancuso 3:05

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, you know, you, you know, came recommended from Chris Fontaine, who joined our show, and Chris was referred to us by the folks at Rise25 so we always know that those referrals in our shows are amazing guests. So, you know, Brad, let's, let's kick it off this way. I always like to start with when I, when I have entrepreneurs and business owners on the show, to say, Where did your business ownership entrepreneur? Where did you first get the itch to do this on your own, or do this as part of being an entrepreneur?

Brett Gilliland 3:38

Yeah. So I know this isn't completely unique, but many of your listeners will have had that moment of like, I think Michael Gerber called it an entrepreneurial seizure, right where it's like, I sneezed or something, and all of a sudden I was like, Okay, I'm going to be a business owner. Yeah, and, and I was, I was pretty much shoved out of the nest, which is different than me feeling like, you know, I have this great idea I want to start this thing, and it didn't happen that way for me. So hopefully I don't drag this out too long. But the origin of my business, elite entrepreneurs, was born inside of another company, and it was born out of our customers saying, Teach us how you guys are growing so well, teach us how you're finding all these amazing people. Like you're growing fast. Your culture is amazing. You're doing something right, the scaling thing. You guys seem to to have figured it out. Teach us that. And so we're like, okay, yeah, well, we could put something together. So we put something together. It was really well received. We did it like it was a one time. Think of it as like a two and a half day intensive, or boot camp type of thing, where we just said, here's the scaling playbook, here's the things that we've here are the things that we've done to make this work so well. And then was well received, and we did it again, I don't know, six months later, then we started doing it every quarter. Here, and then those people are like, Thank you for sharing, but we need some ongoing help. So we built out a community and some coaching. And all of a sudden, within the success story company that we can talk more about here in a little bit, we had this one-and-a-half million-dollar teaching or training and coaching business, right? So it was a completely separate thing from what we were doing, but it was born out of the good work we had done to grow that other company, and then they were going to get rid of it because it wasn't core to their business. And I was like, well, that's who I am, that's that's what I helped them do in that other story we can talk about, yeah, and that's where I love teaching other business owners. So I bought it, we spun it out, and it's been on its own for the last six years now. But yeah, I was sort of pushed out of the nest and said, You're going to be a business owner. So I honor and respect the term entrepreneur so much that sometimes I hesitate to even call myself an entrepreneur, because I didn't, I didn't like, scrape my face on the asphalt repeatedly trying to get this thing off the ground like it was. It was born into existence pretty quickly, relatively easy. There's still work we had to do. But then, when it went out on its own, you know, I have hit my face on the on the pavement a few times, but, but I had a, it was like a well-funded startup. I had a customer base, I had a community. And I didn't, I didn't have to, like, start it from zero. So anyway, well,

Pat Mancuso 6:32

You know, here's, here's what I love about that. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, kind of unpack a couple of things there that you said, you know, I remember I was doing an event. And, you know, I've got a pretty deep history in real estate, and I'm in a room with a bunch of real estate agents, and there was a gentleman in the room who had just gotten into real estate, and yet he had a second job. And that's kind of freaky how this happened. But you know, you got to be really full time at what you're doing, no matter what it is to be successful, at least, that's my belief. And so, you know, he was struggling with, you know, should I come into real estate, and he was in the pharmaceutical industry, and he was making 150 grand or so, and he, he, he was, didn't know what to do. And I said, Well, let me ask you this question, what if? What if you lost your job tomorrow? What would you do? And he said, Well, I'd come into real estate full time, and this is the freaky part, like he came back to the workshop next week, and he had lost his job, so he didn't have a choice. Yeah, he had to do that, right? So to me, what's interesting sometimes is people don't see the opportunities for being an entrepreneur, right, right? Actually be in front of them. And the second thing I want to take on to that you said was, you know, you had the benefit of having the customer base. And, you know, maybe it was a little bit easier than it might have otherwise been, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but the fact of the matter is, you still had to do it the right way within the organization, and you still had to fall, you know, sometimes. So I'm kind of saying, you know, to the listeners, don't underestimate even that opportunity inside your own organization to create something that could be pretty significant that you don't even realize,

Brett Gilliland 8:21

yeah, the truth of the matter is, we did create something, and I had a huge hand in creating that, yeah. And then, you know, to say, Yeah, I'm going to take it and run with it, that that was a risk on my part to do that. And so, yeah, I, I am an entrepreneur. It just came really late in my life and unexpectedly, but there's still some runway. And sure, absolutely,

Pat Mancuso 8:45

it's happening Absolutely. Well, you're probably going to have more grandbabies, so you've got to kind of make some more income if you made a, you know, float those college deals down the road. You got, you got plenty of work to

Brett Gilliland 8:57

Yes, sir, I got a lot of work

Pat Mancuso 9:01

well. So, so, Brett, let me ask you this, you know, in that journey, like, were there, were there things that, you know, you kind of questioned, like, why am I doing this? Was this really the right decision? Was there a time when that happened, and if there was how did you kind of have that, conversation in your head?

Brett Gilliland 9:22

Well, there wasn't, there wasn't really any question for me as to whether or not it was the right thing to take this business and, you know, buy it and and sure spin it out. That was, it was so clear to me at the time, was like, yeah, there's what I had. What I had come to do at that other company was to help them scale. I was brought in to help them scale their culture, scale in an effective way, help them succeed. And when I joined, we were at seven figures, and it helped them grow to 100 million. And that was an amazing journey. We learned a lot together. You know, I brought, I brought some, some value to the table. It wasn't all me. But I, you know, I got to, I got to do what I do well with them and for them. And it's exactly because of that journey that my business, that the opportunity for my business came about, right? Our customers were seeing how well we were doing it, and said, Hey, start teaching us that stuff. So I there was no, no question for me now for my wife, there was a lot of question. You know, we already talked about the eight mouths that I had to feed, yeah, and, and there's, that's a lot, right? And so, um, you know, she liked, she liked the steady income, or feeling the, the really false sense of security, anybody who's employed, like your pharmacist friend, right? Like anybody who's employed becomes addicted to that paycheck and those benefits and the predictability, to some extent. But I didn't have any question in my mind that we could do something that would would provide for my family as well as I was before, if not more, right? I saw, I saw additional opportunity. So I wasn't, I wasn't concerned, but she was, and that was that was hard for us to, you know, help me assure her. And thankfully, over the last six years, you know, we've, we've not done, we've not done worse ever than we did before, and some years we've done significantly better, right? So anyway, it's all work.

Pat Mancuso 11:20

But you know, that's an important piece, right? I mean, it does take two in in this journey, and it doesn't mean there's two in the business, right, but it does take two if you're in a relationship, and you know it because there's another party involved, right? And you know, you might be the entrepreneur, the risk taker, and you might be in a relationship with somebody who is not, and it doesn't make it right or on bad or good. It's just, you know, they they look at things differently. So, so let me ask you this question, in this journey, I know you've had a ton of success in in so is there one kind of situation? I'm sure there's more than one, but one that really rises to the top in that journey of success, that maybe surprised you or you weren't expecting?

Brett Gilliland 12:08

Um, yeah, I was. I was ready with my answer until you said that maybe surprised me or that I wasn't expecting. So I'm, I'm going to cheat on this question. That's okay. No, that's good. Yeah, because I in so I I studied organizational behavior. So I got a business undergrad. I got a master's in organizational behavior, which is really, you just think of that as like somebody who knows what makes organizations tick, or how you how you look at and move parts of a system an organization to get different results, right? So that's me. I'm an organization geek, and so I go into this company that had something great, and they had raised some money, and we're going to really try to grow it. And I felt like I had something to bring to the table. Again, they had, there was a great foundation in place. It was awesome. So I didn't have to, like, go fix a bunch of stuff, which made it even better. But I knew the moment I went in, we could be, we could be recognized as a great place to work nationally. Like, I just had this feeling like we could create something truly unique. And so I remember putting in the application for the first time. This is a great place to work. Institute. They've got a whole program and survey your all your employees, and, you know, give us the package of what demonstrates that you guys are very intentional with with how you're you're building your team and your culture. And anyway, I, I was so sure, I put the whole package together. I submitted it, and we didn't. We didn't. Not only did we not win, like we didn't even make the long list, right? Like it was just like, not it like you've got to be kidding me. And that was, that was the biggest moment of awakening to that point in my career. I was like, You know what? That's completely on me. I underestimated the job that I had to help other people understand what we had, what we had built, sure. And so the next year, I went back at it. We did make it. We were in the top 25 best small workplaces in America. And I just felt justified, not because we had created something more special in that 12 months, because we we added all the time. So I'm sure it was even better at that point. But because my my ability to help other people see it clearly, went up and and I did that in a way that anyway, we got that recognition. We were on it for a couple years, and it just felt good. It was like, Yeah, we're winning as a business, yeah, and and it's because of the intentional effort we put into our people and the way we lead, and the processes and systems we built for. Right? And the recognition isn't, isn't the goal, but the recognition acknowledges that you did something right, and it helps to in my case, I was trying to create a talent tractor beam. I wanted all the best people coming to us, and having that recognition was a huge help in our talent tractor beam. So that was a big win.

Pat Mancuso 15:19

You point out, I think the thing that we all have as entrepreneurs, right? We have blind spots, and sometimes we get so involved, or we're so, you know, close to it, that we might not see it the way that somebody else might see it. And yet, what I loved about what you said, is your belief. You know your belief is what brought brought you back to the table again, because you knew that you had a product and you knew that you had something that could be recognized. So I love that. So let's flip it, biggest challenge, biggest failure, biggest opportunity to grow. What was that in your personal entrepreneurial journey?

Brett Gilliland 15:57

So I want to answer that there's one more thing that I'm like, embarrassing, embarrassingly proud of. I've been privileged to work in a lot of do a lot of good work and have a lot of wins and stuff. But yep, Jim Collins is a name that many business people have heard of. He wrote a book a long time ago, called Beyond Entrepreneurship. It's the first book he ever wrote. Nobody knows about it. And yep, on the, on the, you know, on the book, it says James C Collins. He didn't even go by Jim Collins back then, but he wrote, he wrote it with his mentor, William Lazier, who's, who's since passed away. Anyway, through a series of events, we we got connected with Jim Collins and 10 of us from that success story I was telling you about. 10 of us got to spend two half-day sessions with him in his lab in Boulder, Colorado. It was a, it was a pricey privilege, right? Our but our CEO is like, yeah, we're going to pay that $75,000 for two half days. So we did, and it was incredible. And we told him what we were doing with our little scaling business of helping business owners scale. And we got all excited and said, you know, wouldn't it be great to help this one to 10 million businesses be great from the start, instead of like built to last and Good to Great, like all these big companies, like, how do you, how do you do this from the start, right? And he wrote a book before then, called Great by Choice. But we, we were really pushing him, saying, you know, great from the start is, is what you ought to be doing next. That would be amazing. Anyway, we were passionate about it. He picked up on that. Long story short, he had a revision of that book that he called be 2.0 for beyond entrepreneurship, 2.0 and he did it in honor of his mentor who had who had since passed. So he wrote, be 2.0 so the long story, the proud moment for me, is that you know, along with the other 7580 people that he thanked in the back of his book included my name and the CEO's name of that company. His name is Clayton. Ask as Clayton, I got to read his manuscript, give him some feedback. So I felt, I felt very pleased about that accomplishment. That's really cool. Yeah, and I never think about it, but your question made me think about it after I shared my culture thing. So I love it. That was fun. Well, that,

Pat Mancuso 18:25

yeah, no, everything happens for a reason, and nothing happens by chance. So that's, that's, I'm glad that you added that. So yeah, the failure side, which is never a failure, it's just a learning opportunity. Yeah, yeah, which

Brett Gilliland 18:38

actually is one of the things we picked up from Jim Collins that day. Said, you know, people always position it as success or failure, and you said, I like to think of it as success or growth, right? And really, anytime we're talking about failure, mistakes, learning, opportunities, whatever it's it's about growth. It's about our betterment. So, yeah, I I'll share one. So one of the things that just is maddening for me is that because of the birth of our business being what it was, I never really had to figure out the client acquisition machine like I didn't have to do that. We were fishing from this little pond of our business, right? There were 10s of 1000s of small business, small businesses, using our software. And so to pick off some of that group who was ready for scaling help, it was really easy, sure. So as soon as I bought the business, then we spun it out, we we just saw the revenue start to drop, right because I had a community of members, and as they as they treated out as they've left, I didn't have the acquisition machine that I needed, and so we dropped. And within the next two years, we dropped from, you know, it was a one and a half million dollar business, we dropped down to 900,000 that first year, 720,000 that next. Year, and then it was covid the next year, and I thought we were on our way for 450 like, I just saw it keep dropping, and that was completely due to a failure on my part to learn what it took to market and sell. Like, I just didn't Yeah, like, I'm not that guy, right? Like, I know what I know, right? And that's a classic thing. I'm a classic technician who didn't know how to do the marketing and sales, and so I watched as my successful business just dropped, drop, drop. Well, the pandemic invited us to pivot, pivot, or die, basically, like, figure this out or be gone, sure. And thankfully, we did. We did figure it out. We did something completely different. It forced us to and so that year, instead of dropping some more, we were flat. We were we were 720 again, and by the next year, we were back up to seven figures. So the failure, on my part, was, was the failure to recognize without, without the market or, you know, external conditions forcing me right. Figured out, like I just, I just watched as we, you know, we just burned up cash, we wasted a couple years of opportunity, because I just, I don't know, I think I knew it was important. I felt the urgency. I was trying to get it right. But it wasn't until the forcing function of survive, you know, like, this is the survival point, that then I finally did. So I wish that I would have seen it or responded to it differently before I saw us dropping, but I just didn't, I don't know, I don't know why the pandemic had such a forcing function on me to, like, really, actually get me to change. Well, if

Pat Mancuso 21:43

you didn't change, wouldn't been a business today, right, right? That's the reality for most companies. They either pivoted and they wrote out the storm and now they're thriving, or they didn't. And I think what you're demonstrating in that awareness, Brett, is that you can never stop marketing, right? A company can never stop marketing, because whether it's the pandemic, it's a competitor, it's new technology. The fact of the matter is, there's something always coming that's going to impact somebody's business some way. And so by continuing to, you know, think as a marketer. I mean, I really think that's the kind of the thing I take away from what you said, because there's going to be things that you can control, which you, you know, kind of agreed to, that your awareness, and then there's things that you couldn't control, you know, like the pandemic. So that that's a great to me. That's a great takeaway, even, you know, for me and our businesses, it's a great takeaway. So let me ask you this one last question, and then we're going to flip to really picking your brain on on how you're impacting business owners today. Who are You've mentioned a couple of mentors, obviously Jim Collins. And do you have any other people that you follow? Maybe you don't know personally, but any other you know, mentors or people that you follow that you think it would be important for people to, you know, kind of take a look at,

Brett Gilliland 23:09

yeah. And this comes from my my lens, admittedly, of being a geek when it comes to how organizations function, right? But, you know, some of Jim Collins work fits right in line with that. So that's why I like it so much. But there's another guy named Patrick Lencioni with the table group that I just, I just love his stuff. If I were, if I were to have chosen a path to do like what he does, I mean, it looks, it feels very familiar to me, like this is, this is the stuff that I would teach in the way I would teach it like, I really like this stuff. So Patrick Lencioni is awesome. And then, you know, on the business, on the business owner front, I think all of us should have advisors and mentors. I have two right now. One is that CEO of that 100 million dollar company I was talking about. His name is Clayton mask, and that company is called, keep, many people in small business world know it used to be called Infusionsoft, but that's, that's the company that where I had that growth experience and and where my business was born. And he become, he became a lifelong friend. I spent 10 years helping him is his right hand. Now he's, he's an advisor to me and and really an honorary co founder of this business that I now own. So Clayton mask is an advisor. And then I, I work with a guy locally here that does the Sandler. He teaches the Sandler sales methodology. His name is Mike Tony. Shout out to Mike Tony here in the Phoenix area. He's He's incredible. He's a he's a mentor to me on the sales side, where I'm not, I'm not, those aren't my natural gifts, right, right? So, yeah, I have a business advisor. I've got a sales coach, and then I and I am part of a CEO peer group that helps me. See, you know, in other ways,

Pat Mancuso 25:02

I love it. I love it. Well, you know, it's funny. I knew the name, Clayton's name, and now I know where from because I was an Infusionsoft client for quite a while.

Brett Gilliland 25:11

Yeah, plate, it's like plate with a with a C, plate, yeah, yeah, exactly,

Pat Mancuso 25:14

exactly. So, you know, it's, it's, it's small world, right? Small world. Okay, so really, Brad, all this been great so far, and yet, I really want to talk about what you're doing with the lead entrepreneurs. And so the, it's a mastermind group, right? Yeah.

Brett Gilliland 25:34

So we have, we have the mastermind pieces as part of it. Okay, tell us what it is. Yeah, it's, it's three, three main legs to what we do. We've got the scaling content. So based on our own experience scaling a business, we we know what it looks like to do that well and and so this organization development and leadership development approach to scaling businesses, we have some content. We have coaching on the implementation of that content, and then we have a community which includes peer, mastermind kind of stuff. So it's a comprehensive content coaching community approach to that seven figure growth journey from 1 million to 10 million plus. That's what we do. So

Pat Mancuso 26:18

let's take, I want to walk through. I always like to do this where I take an example, thinking about a business that, you know, an owner that might be listening. Let's take a let's take a landscape company, and let's say that I'm the owner of the landscape company. I want to scale my business, right? So that's kind of the backdrop. And you can apply the to any business. Doesn't have to be landscape. But when, when you first come in contact with businesses, is there a commonality in like categories where they struggle? Do you? Do you see kind of so much commonality?

Brett Gilliland 26:54

Yeah, Pat, great question. And it comes from a place a whole lot of experience, so much, so much commonality. In fact, one of the, one of the hard things from our marketing is that we've never chosen to do to go into a specific vertical, like right landscaping, for example, which is a good one. We partner with somebody who has a mastermind in landscaping because he likes our content, so he leverages our content for their their mastermind to give them the seven figure scaling help that they need. So I know, I know the landscaping industry a little bit, but my point is, whether I'm talking to landscapers, a lighting company, a personal injury law firm, a cleaning company, a software company, marketing agency, and we've helped all those types of businesses. There are stage specific things that happen. When I say stage specific, as businesses grow, in our view, there, there are very defined stages. They're growing through and in the one to 3 million stage, as we define it, in three to 10 million stage. So there's, there's two in that seven figure space. There are there. There are very common things that they're struggling with very, I guess, known and practical chunks of work for them to do to get through that stage. So, yeah, very common. Would you like to dive into some of those?

Pat Mancuso 28:14

Yeah, I'd love to hear like the, you know, the top two or three stages, yeah, let's not stages, but commonality.

Brett Gilliland 28:22

Commonality. And let's stick with this one to 3 million stage so we don't perfect, mix it up. Yep. So in the one to 3 million stage, very, very common this. This will not be surprising to you, Pat or to anybody experiencing this right now, very common for somebody like me, a self-proclaimed technician who's built a business where they are part of the value delivery, right? They, they are still so connected. They're like one with the machine of the business that they've built, right? And so we have to figure out how to, how to do this delicate operation. It's like separating Siamese twins, right? Like you were born conjoined twins. And now we got to figure out how to separate. You guys. The business deserves to have life on its own without the business owner, and the business owner deserves to have a life that is disconnected from the business. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be compatible, supporting one another, etc, but we've got to do this tricky separation thing, and a lot of business owners really struggle with that?

Pat Mancuso 29:23

Yeah, they do. And I came from an industry in real estate where real estate agents, for a long, long time, would not embrace growth from the standpoint of it's about me, it's about my marketing, it's about my name, it's about my logo. And what that did was impact their ability to grow. And what happened, in my opinion, because I started in real estate a long time ago, and in fact, when computers were just coming to the forefront, just a long time ago, is that a new generation of business owners came into real estate, college, educated. And they just changed the thinking of real estate. And so what people started doing is building businesses versus just building a career. And that transition, I absolutely can understand how that is in see that struggle, if you may. So what's the second big commonality?

Brett Gilliland 30:17

Yeah, and it's related, but the commonality of not getting clear, and sometimes it's just because they don't they don't know, because they don't know what they don't know, but not getting clear about the hats that they should keep as the business owner, yep. So you know, they find a lot of value in in the performance that they can deliver. And a real estate agent is a great example. Like they are the business at first. They're the full engine of revenue, right, right? And the fulfillment, like it's all it's all in them, yeah, they wear all the hats, yeah. And so you have to figure out, how do we, how do we get more intentional about what we're actually creating with the business? So most of us get sucked into reactive mode instead of creative mode, and we're reacting to the thing that we've already built like it's it's just, it's known, it's familiar. I know my place in it. I know how to add value. I know how to do everything right in the business. And we have to organize work in a way that we can start giving those pieces to others. And so the three hats that I want to share with your audience that they should keep as a seven figure business owner, is the head of setting the vision, and we can talk more about what that means. The head of building the team to go achieve that vision is the head of making sure we have the resources we need to to achieve that vision. So it's, it's vision, and then the people and the resources to be able to go achieve that vision, like that's, that's your job. If you want to elevate out of the producer role and become the capable business building leader, you gotta, you gotta be responsible for those three things, and you gotta build the team that can do all the rest.

Pat Mancuso 31:53

Yeah. So, you know, in in some of the things we do with organizations, we'll put a CEO in a room and we'll ask them this the question, you know, what do you do, you know, during the day most often? And we identify the top 1520, things they do, and then and overall. And then we'll say, okay, so what are the four or five that you do most often? And we circle those, and then we say, what are the four most four or five that you enjoy doing? And of course, the circles are always different, which is why a lot of entrepreneurs are unhappy at what they do once their business starts scaling, because they didn't define what you just talked about. And that is that, you know, what is my role going to be, you know, moving forward. And so, so let's take that piece there, there. I love that, because there's certain things you never give away, right? So you mentioned, you know, you wanted to talk a little bit about the vision. Let's, let's talk about that a little

Brett Gilliland 32:46

bit. Yeah, and, and we, we come across varying levels of of, I don't know, greatness when it comes to setting the vision. When we meet with business owners, we have some that are, like, pretty amazing at that already, and others who just haven't ever looked up and out, they've been looking down and in so much they've never really done that so but regardless of the type of business owner, we always start with the purpose, the values and the mission of that business, total clarity, ideally co created. And so I want to, I want to say a little bit about that meaning, let's bring our our, if not our full team, along on that journey of articulating that vision, certainly the key team members that are going to help us create and build this right? So purpose is all about the why. Like, why does this business exist beyond, beyond the financial piece? Like, of course, we want to grow revenue. We want great profits, and I want that for every business owner out there. And if it's only financial, if it's only transactional in nature, it can never have the power to really fuel people's excitement, fuel their passion, keep them loyal and connected to what you're doing and growing and learning together. If it, if it's just about the numbers for you, it'll be just about the numbers for them, and they'll be, you know, the commitment levels, at that transactional level, you never quite unlock the real power that's there if you identify a powerful purpose for your business. So we start with purpose. We go to values, which is all about the how we operate with one another, or the who belongs on this team. You know, we always talk about culture fit out there, like, you got to hire people that fit. This is, this is what makes them fit the shared identity of that purpose and the values. It's those core things, and we can and, and I believe should be different in lots of other ways, right? Like, I'm not, but I'm not against diversity. I'm I'm all for diversity, except for purpose and values. We need to have oneness. We have complete unity around that stuff. And that doesn't get intentional. Time often doesn't get articulated well, right? And it keeps a business from really gaining momentum, because you then you have like a revolving door on your team. Get people coming in and out, and you can't ever really get established and get going and build momentum. And it's so much easier when you've got a consistent team full of great people who get along with each other because they share values and they're they're like, pulling with each other. Anyway, I'm big on purpose and values, as you can tell, and then a very specific, destination oriented mission, not an open ended we're going to be the end all be all to all these types of customers. Great, you know, great scores in the industry. All that's awesome. But get really clear about where are we going over the next three years, is my favorite time frame. The next three years, what are we creating? And that level of intentionality with your team does a world of good in aligning effort and aligning thoughts, like we're all pulling the same way, and the resources start to come together to support it. So that's where we start with everyone. Is that total clarity, and it's usually missing in this one to 3 million stage, and it's it's key to going past it well.

Pat Mancuso 36:03

And you know, when you talked about the the right fit, if you may, for all the reasons that you define when you don't make the right additions to the team, then what happens is the people you really want to not leave end up leaving because they lose confidence, right, right? They lose confidence in the leader and the process and where we're going, and they want to be a part of something different there.

Brett Gilliland 36:27

And even if they, even if they don't lose confidence, let's say they're still excited about the future. They're they're frustrated with the path, the journey is no fun, because I'm with I like, I can't stand the way we put up with this behavior over here. I don't, you know, so and so's not pulling their weight or whatever anyway,

Pat Mancuso 36:45

and that's where, that's where entrepreneurship is born, right? Because they go, Wait a minute here, I can I see this as clear as day. I'm just gonna go, you know, start my own deal.

Brett Gilliland 36:54

That's right, you straight up your competition. Yeah, exactly,

Pat Mancuso 36:58

exactly. And it happens all the time, all the time. It happens all the time. So let me, let me, you do these, these masterminds, if you made these group get togethers, and what's the biggest thing somebody takes away from being a part of that environment?

Brett Gilliland 37:18

Yeah, we actually host quarterly events. We have our we have an annual one of those events is our annual elite Leadership Summit. And so there's really two levers we're working with when we're trying to scale a business, this seven figure space. One levers organization development. It's all the systems, the structure, the process, kind of stuff. The other lever is leadership. It really is. It's like, I got to take this awesome entrepreneur, maybe master at their craft, and teach them how to be a great leader. And so we have one event a year that's about leadership. So what people will experience if they go to one of our events is they'll experience a very intentional program designed like there will be content at one of these events that's very specific to the seven-figure scaling challenges that we see all the time. So a seven-figure business would come to one of our events and go hyper-relevant because, because that's, that's all we do right now, they won't say, Here's, you know, for example, this is not a cleaning industry thing or a landscaping industry thing. So we won't get into business models and any one or like customer service scripts or things for any one of those businesses. So I do think there's industry specific offerings out there that are that are quite powerful. But as far as the real scaling work to the business and the leaders, I don't know of another place with that seven-figure focus the way we do. And so they would get, they would get some ideas at each of those events, but then they also get the peer mastermind benefit of we're diving into each other's businesses. We're learning about some of the challenges in each other's businesses. We're helping one another. So there's there's some built in peer benefit, there's some of the content scaling expertise at those events. And it's just clarity. You know, people get out of their day to day, and they come and get some clarity because they're thinking about their business. They're not in it. And that helps too. I love it. I love it.

Pat Mancuso 39:22

So I want you to be thinking about this. Brett, I'm going to ask you a question, kind of, as we put a ribbon on our conversation here. And the two parts, actually, the first part is this will be the last question is, What haven't you shared with us that you really would love to share as the last thought, but the one before that, I'm kind of prepping you to give you some time here, but is so I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm thinking, I don't need any of this, like, like, I've got this roadblock in my mind that I don't I don't need coaching, I don't need consulting. I. Don't need a mastermind. I don't need to take more time away from my business. How do you respond to somebody with

Brett Gilliland 40:04

that thinking I just asked them, or I might say something like, so you're you're perfectly happy with the results you're getting today. Oh, well, no, no, I can figure that out myself. Oh, I believe that you can, like, how long will it take you to learn some of the things that you could learn from somebody else sooner? Yeah.

Pat Mancuso 40:27

Or how long, how long have you been thinking that way? And you know? And so what you know? Why haven't you? Why haven't you executed up till this point? Yeah,

Brett Gilliland 40:37

so you're either perfectly happy with the level of growth and profitability and team environment and, you know, home life, like everything that you care about is where you want it to be, yep. Or it's not where you want it to be. But you think you already have the answers. But if you have the answers, why haven't you made the changes? Exactly? Yeah. So, I mean, that's kind of line of thinking I would, or I or I

Pat Mancuso 41:01

know I need to change, and you don't know my business, right? As, oh, yeah, yeah, you don't. You don't know my business, my business, right?

Brett Gilliland 41:08

We different. I do get the we're different a lot. I don't know your specific industry. I don't know your model, yeah, but I do know this stage of business, inside and out. And I've seen hundreds of businesses across more industries than than it would be useful to name sure to like see that there are patterns of things that business. There are predictable things that people go through at each stage. Yep. And if, if you're content with your current stage, or you feel like you already know what needs to happen. You're just waiting for the right time to make it happen. More power to you. But last

Pat Mancuso 41:48

time I checked net income on a PNL is net income, I don't think it changes per industry, right? Okay. Brett, What haven't you shared with us that you would like to share with us before we go anything?

Brett Gilliland 42:00

Yeah. I would like to share that that you don't have to be exhausted and uncertain as a business owner. Sometimes it feels very It does feel very lonely. It feels like the full weight of it is on you. There are ways to get your team to engage at a level where you you feel actual lift, like there's a vis a visceral experience, that your shoulders feel less burdened as as you are more capably able to give ownership to people. I'm not talking about equity. I'm talking about engagement to team members who are very clear about why we're doing this, very clear about how we operate with one another, very clear about where we're going and the role that they play in all of that, you can get more out of the current team as as you improve in your leadership, there's so much leverage in your current team that you're the leave you're leaving on the table, and some of those need to go Right. Some of your team members aren't the right people. Right people, and they do need to go but by and large, people are good. They can grow. You can help them get there, and when you do, I mean the payout, the payoff, is incredible. I would just want to leave the idea that I want to instill belief, just like you figured out sales and marketing when you got this thing off the ground, you didn't know everything that you know today. You know today. You figured things out. You did it. Leadership and scaling of business is no different, but you do have to put the time and energy into it. You do have to do the work. Everybody who does reaps the benefits. It's, it's, it's not rocket science, but it has to be. You have to change. You have to do so now absolutely,

Pat Mancuso 43:40

and you have to continue to grow, right? I mean, you never arrive, that's pretty darn sure. Yeah. Well, Brett, thank you so much for all that you've shared. There's some amazing, amazing content today, and we always appreciate the contributions that our guests make. And certainly, today, you nailed it. And so we do appreciate that. And so if somebody wants to get in touch with you, where's the best place for them to do that? Yeah,

Brett Gilliland 44:06

Thanks for asking. Pat. It was fun to be here with you. I can tell you, you're putting out great stuff in these shows. The best way to reach this is at our website, which is grow, G, R, O, W, with W, I T, H, elite, E, L, I t, e.com, putting elite entrepreneurs was not a good idea for a URL, so we decided to call it grow with elite.com

Pat Mancuso 44:32

I love it. I love it. I love it well, and I've been there, so there's some great content there as well, and we'll make sure we put that in the shower notes. So thank you so much and so listeners, we really do appreciate your support, and we do what we do because A, you give us feedback that you enjoy it and it's valuable, and B, you share it with your friends on whatever social media platform, whatever podcast platform, wherever. We are you share it, so we really appreciate that. So Brad, thanks so much for today, and we do really, truly appreciate you and your time and listeners. Thank you so much for all your support.

Brett Gilliland 45:10

Take care. Brad, thank you great. Great being here. Thanks for having me.

Pat Mancuso 45:14

Thanks so much. Take care, everybody.

Outro 45:17

Thank you for joining Destination Business Freedom with Pat Mancuso, may the insights and strategies shared guide you towards financial prosperity and personal freedom. Continue to navigate boldly until next time, and keep transforming challenges into achievements. Farewell, and stay the course. You.

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