Rahaf Hares (00:44)
Hi, welcome. Today we have a very special episode. I have my partner, Mike, my partner in life, my partner in my business, and we thought how fun would it be to come on and have a back and forth conversation so you can really see the behind the scenes of what we do together, the meetings we take together, the skating that we do together, and how that integrates in the business. without further ado, hi Mike, thank you for being here.
Mike (01:12)
Hey, how's it going?
Ah, thanks for having me.
Rahaf Hares (01:14)
Yeah, so I want to capture just some conversations of our day to day, a little back and forth. And I want to first start by asking, how did we meet?
Mike (01:28)
Sure, so. Ha. We met at La Puente skate park. On top of a quarter
⁓
Rahaf Hares (01:36)
And then can you walk me through how we ended up getting to know each other deeper and how that led to the business?
Mike (01:47)
Yeah, I I don't know why I'm just picturing an episode of National Geographic. We just met in our natural habitat. And I don't know, we just started talking and seemed to have stuff in common
one thing led to another and here we are. So that's the short
Happened authentically.
Rahaf Hares (02:08)
Here we are.
Yeah. And tell me about that day at the Santa Fe Banks because the Santa Fe Bank sits a skate spot and we were there on a holiday because we wanted to skate it. And we had a conversation there. What was that conversation?
Mike (02:25)
Yeah, so we had obviously known each other a bit at that point. We'd skate and we were just getting some phone clips and at the time I was working, you know, at an old job and it was cool, but I could tell that there was
and you were a server at the time, I believe still, right?
And we had
Rahaf Hares (02:47)
Yep.
Mike (02:50)
visions and goals and missions and
values and and saw
Basically saw this before it happened. I saw like basically a high-ticket coaching business that of some kind and
We both had sort of a business mind and didn't really know the how though, but we both saw like this thing whatever whatever it may be With a high ticket coaching business that we somehow were working together on
And ⁓ I think it started, I think shortly after that, you had, you were going to do a skate pants business shortly after that conversation, which evolved a few times and eventually turned into this, but the skate pants business never happened. ⁓ But ⁓ it kind of all started with that conversation that kind of got the gears going. And then one thing led to another and here we are with this business. So super short version, but.
Rahaf Hares (03:51)
Here we are. No, this business started out as me wanting to make skate pants. And that was actually at the beach. We had that conversation. I remember being like, whoa, there's something else in store for me besides being a server. I honestly thought I was going to be a server my whole life. And that's not to say there's anything wrong with that. But for me, when I knew that there was more for me, but I was actively not taking action toward it, I just kind of
through the towel and I was like, okay, well, you know, I guess I'm lucky. I get to be a server in LA, work at all these nice steak houses. I got it pretty good. But when you said like, you you should make some skate pants. I was like, whoa, I get to be my own boss. I get to do something for me. And I actually pursued that route. And I went to downtown, went to the fashion district until I was like, wait, I am not a fashion. Like fashion is not my zone of genius. What am I doing? And that eventually led to these smiley face necklaces.
And that eventually, this led to being a balance board coach because I didn't quite step into the role of being a life coach yet. So I needed that assurance with myself of, okay, I know how to use the balance board. Let me help people with their strengthening and the way that they see themselves. And then eventually I launched my first workshop and you have been to every single one of my workshops. All 12, I've had 12. You've always been there and
Mike (05:13)
True.
Rahaf Hares (05:19)
We had a conversation towards that almost a year ago, November of last year. And we kind of played with the idea of, okay, I really need help in my business. You know, it's like, I made my first $100K . I'm capped at my time. I wasn't able to skate the way that I want to. I was like, Mike, you have the exact skills that my business needs because I mean, what did you do? How did you learn your skills?
Mike (05:48)
Yeah, I mean, I have so much, so much to say about all the stuff you just said, but, ⁓ yeah, to directly answer your question, well, I I was working, you know, at an old job and, ⁓ focusing a lot on user experience. And, ⁓ then I got into sales after that and I was really learning sales and it kind of just so happened that.
as you started building your business, our paths just sort of got closer and closer and you ended up building your business and needing help with
much exactly like what I could do and.
Kind of just crazy how it worked out, but we saw something for sure before,
know, before it, before it came to fruition at the Santa Fe banks. And then, yeah, like you said, it pivoted from the pants to the smileys to the balance board coach, to the life coach, and eventually into the business coach. So it sort of just evolved as you evolved. And, you know, I've got, got to witness the whole thing from server to this, right. And it's just cool because you.
You followed curiosity the whole time. think that's super
And, you know, cause it's authentic to you and it's your zone of genius. And you obviously have the psychology background and continue
grow that with the PhD program. And so it's, it's very much like your zone of genius. And it just kind of evolved as you kind of knew like, I want more. want more. Like, I don't want to just be a server. Like it's great, you know, glass half full, but then evolving that into, I like skating and I, you know, want to do something.
you know, with skate pants, or I want to do something of my own. And actually, you know, it just kind of evolved until, you know, it kind of just made more and more sense. And so, and then, yeah, I just got to a place where you, you, I mean, you can only do so much by yourself, right? I remember you made your first hundred grand as a life coach, and then you were kind of like doing a lot, you know, just, it's so much like running your own business. And it was like, you know, I need help and I need help with the sales. I need help with some behind the scenes.
tracking and spreadsheets and just all this stuff. And this is stuff that I was doing because when I was working at that other job where it was a user experience firm and I was doing marketing stuff and I was a marketing analyst. So I was kind of doing a lot of like reporting and spreadsheets and just data tracking stuff that you can make decisions to improve the business based on. And that was all the stuff you need to help with. And it's my zone of genius. I love spreadsheets. And so it just kind of worked out where I could come in and help you with pretty much
the exact things that you need help with. so, so here we are.
Rahaf Hares (08:32)
Yeah, and tell me about who you were working for before me, like what that was like, because you set $870,000 worth of sales for the mentor you were working for, is that right?
Mike (08:45)
Exactly right. So when I got into sales, I was working with a real estate mentor and I was just helping, helping build that business. And I was there for about a year and four months or something like that year and three months. And yeah, the, the, the appointments that I set ⁓ closed 870 grand worth of revenue for the business in that timeframe. And, you know, we were, we were gaining
quite a bit of momentum. And I knew things weren't perfect, but I'm like, hey, this is working pretty good. And basically you and I both saw this opportunity to just apply those exact same skills to help grow this business. So why not? Why not just, you know, get more into alignment and, know, just help each other. And, you know, I, and I guess, why not? Because, you know, well, when you're in a relationship with someone, it can get like weird, right? With drawing, you know, where do you draw that line? And so it felt like,
kind of risky, you know, I remember we talked about it for like a month, like, should we do this? Should we not? Is this gonna be the best thing ever? Is it gonna be the worst thing ever? And ⁓ so it was honestly kind of scary ⁓ to send it for both of us because, you know, lot can go right, but a lot can go wrong.
but it's been great. So I'm really glad we did and I just see so much.
So much more for us in the future has been great and I think it's gonna get even better.
Rahaf Hares (10:11)
We had a similar dilemma with us dating and both being in the skateboarding community. So it was a similar risk of, do we have this multiple relationships with the different parts of our life together in skating and in business?
Mike (10:28)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, because it's a similar like eggs in one basket kind of scenario where you don't want to, you know, do something that's going to, I don't know, backfire later. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, but hey, it's all risky. Right.
Rahaf Hares (10:46)
It's all risky and to be able to have such deep alignment where all of our conversations have relevance to each other.
Mike (10:47)
Yeah.
Yeah. And that's kind of what it all stemmed from because, know, obviously you and I could both tell that there was like something more here and, know, the greatest things in life are on the other side of the fear and on the other side of the risk. Right. I'm pretty sure there's like a Will Smith quote on that or something where he's talking about skydiving and how the greatest things in life are on the other side of like that fear of like, kind of, you know, jumping out of a plane almost. And, you know, I kind of, I kind of felt that when we, you and I kind of proceeded on our journey of, like you said, meeting at the skate park to like deciding to like,
You know, being in relationship to like deciding to be in business, you know, these are like, it's kind of like jumping out of a plane, right? It's like, this could go, it's going be awesome. Or it could be the we could you know, figuratively die. Right. So,
so anyways, but, ⁓ that's also where like the greatness lies. So it's like, do you want to take the risk and. You know, have something do something, never been done and do something great. And, or do you want to just kind of be comfortable, right? And neither one of us really.
moved out to California to live a life of comfort, right? We were both chasing something bigger and better. And I think all of our endeavors kind of stem from that. And we kind of, you know, really connected over that because we're both from Midwest and left the Midwest on our own, not because some friend came out here or something and we were like, I'll just follow along. was like, no, I'm chasing bigger and better things in California, whatever that means. ⁓ And then we both really connected over that. And, ⁓ you know, cause I remember we were
you you were kind of like, you know, yeah, we just did it on our own. Like it wasn't, you know, yeah. So it's like, well, clearly there's something there, right?
Rahaf Hares (12:35)
Yeah, we did it on our own and what has it done to our relationship? Can you think back? mean, crazy to think it's been almost a year of you being in my business because we really started at the new year and here we are approaching like working through the fourth quarter. How did our relationship shift in this past year by you being in the business with me?
Mike (13:00)
Yeah, well, we have Slack now. So it started with, ⁓ I mean, it's all just been progress over perfection. I feel like that's the magical phrase that's gotten us through basically everything. ⁓ and so we, you know, we're just kind of text everything and call. and as we sort of shifted into this, it got way too messy of like our relationship time versus business
And it was like, you know, we'd have business questions and then the business, the business like never ends. Right. So there's a never ending.
list of things that need to be done at all times. And ⁓ so if there's like business stuff that, you
needs to be addressed, but then it's like the day's over or whatever, and it's like time like, you know, to just connect as a couple, then it's like, well, I can't do this unless I address this first. So if you go in chronological order, gets like, you know, the pipeline gets clogged, I guess. And so the communication pipeline. So
we decided, you know, we need to get Slack so we can put all business stuff in its own folder and organize that and prioritize that. And then that way we can like not mix up, you know, the communication of our relationship and stuff like that. So we just took messy action and created Slack. And then we created channels within Slack to talk about the different topics within the business, because even that was getting clogged because there was stuff that needed to happen related to, you know, sales. There's stuff that needs to happen related to
data tracking and those are different categories. So we just continue to progress down the, you get more granular with it so that we could ⁓ basically optimize things. things are, they're pretty good now. mean, it's never over, right? So we have more work to do, but I would say for the most part we're flowing and we're rolling and the business is doing good and we're just continuing to make it better and improve our offerings and improve our systems and ⁓ yeah.
but
Rahaf Hares (15:00)
Yeah, so having Slack, mean, not only is it a physical boundary of, okay, business conversations go in here, all these different channels, text messages go for our relationship and our skating. So that's what made it so easy for us for if we got mad at each other in our relationship, how did that affect the business?
Mike (15:24)
Yeah, it's a question. I'm sure a lot of people wonder that, right? And basically you just kind of have to have discipline and trust, you know, that your partner does because, know, the stuff's going to come up right? Nothing's perfect. And, know, no relationship is, there's always going to be arguments and stuff like that. Right. And no business is perfect. So you basically just have to like, just, you know, push through the tough times, but it's also rad that like we can, you know, so it's important to like know that
you know, the other person can push through tough times and that we can stick together through it. And,
and that's really all you could ask for, right? Cause nothing's ever going to be perfect. So you just have to, you know, be down to down for the good times and down for the bad times.
Rahaf Hares (16:08)
That's right. that being said, what is a typical day for us look like?
Mike (16:14)
Yeah, so typical day for us. I mean, we don't really have like set hours or anything, which is kind of the point of this because I don't think either one of us really wants the nine to five life. You know, we're living the skate dream, creating our own dream. know, basically we're creating our dream because you can sit there and wait for someone to hand it to you or you can create it. So we've talked about, know, before, like before I
know, lept, I guess. I remember we talking about like, what's my dream? And we were talking like, what's your dream? Like, what does your ideal day look like? Best case scenario, Monday's no object, what does your ideal day look like? And I remember I was like, well, ideal day is I'd like to go skate, I don't know, mid to late morning, skate till like early afternoon. ⁓ And then I don't mind working, know, in fact, I like working, I don't like to
sit around when I'm not skating and twiddle my thumbs or anything or.
I don't really like party or drink or anything. So I'm like, I like to be productive. And so I just like to work on my like kind of downtime from skating. like, know, skating is like physical activity and like working is like mental
when I'm having downtime from one, I'm having uptime for the other. And it's sort of this perfect back and forth where I'm like, okay, I'm resting my brain. I'm skating. Okay. I'm resting my body. I'm working, you know? I mean, skating requires brain activity too, but you know what I mean? And so, so I like to kind of work in.
in bursts of a couple hours. And so, you know, maybe first thing in the morning, I like to do work for a couple hours and then, and then go skate for a couple hours in the late morning, come back in the early afternoon, work some more. And then, you know, if
go get a second session in evening, maybe under the lights or something. And then, you know, repeat and just kind of toggle back and forth really. But I, you know, it's important.
I like to skate during the day, right? Well, the park's like kind of empty because that's where I can get the highest quality sesh. And so we made it happen. So it's like, cool.
we just, we build the business around our lives, right? Instead of building our lives around business or work. So that's, that's been huge. And it's cool because, you know, I feel like we're in control and you know, like I was saying, the work never ends. And so it's kind of important to like wrap your head around that.
But within that, you go, well, it's never gonna end and we're in control. So we just gotta prioritize and then just do what needs to get done.
And we can kind of, in a sense, like work on our own time, right? And obviously there's clients and the business needs to keep going. So there's, know, deadlines and stuff, but like, we certainly have more control than, you know, if it was someone else's business, right? We're just working some job. So we just kind of designed it around.
our ideal schedules.
Rahaf Hares (19:04)
Yeah, and more importantly, we designed it around our values. So my intention with building this business is this is a freedom based business. Like we don't value hustle. Yeah, we value work. We value work ethic. We value working hard. We value discipline. But we don't value the frequency of hustle, that fire frequency, that stress frequency, you know, living action to action. It's like, yes, we love working and you will see me working a lot. Same with you. But we value freedom more than anything. So that means
Mike (19:22)
soon.
Rahaf Hares (19:33)
Why did we make all these spreadsheets together so that we can systemize the business so that while we're getting clients coming in, the information's being input and we're out skateboarding, emails are being sent automatically, we're out skateboarding. So because we value freedom as our core value.
than everything else in the business and all the business decisions. I mean, you've gone out of town four times in less than two months. Or is it five now? You've been to Portugal, Canada twice. What was it? ⁓ Oklahoma. But where in Canada? You went to Nova Scotia and Montreal, Vancouver, and then Oklahoma City. And then I feel like you went one more place. That's it?
Mike (20:06)
Oklahoma.
Vancouver, Vancouver.
Yep. I think that was it. You went to Switzerland?
Yeah.
Rahaf Hares (20:19)
I went
to Switzerland. So we're able to travel, have each other's back in the business and move work meetings around because we design it. So we're not, we're not living to, we have a work meeting at four and that's it. Like a boss, like another boss. It's like, no, we get to move it around however we want. Even if that means me taking a work meeting at 11 PM in Switzerland, while it's whatever time, nine hours ahead for that, for you. So.
Mike (20:28)
Yeah!
Right.
Hahaha
Rahaf Hares (20:48)
Having it centered around our values, I think has been the biggest thing for us that keeps us and keeps the business so sustainable.
Mike (20:56)
Totally. I love that flexibility and you know, obviously you need to have some kind of structure, right? For things to actually get done. But yeah, if, you know, we're in different time zones or just whatever happens, ⁓ it's just cool to be able to like move stuff earlier, later, whatever, to, you know, to make sure that we get stuff done without sacrificing the dream, so to speak, you know, because I feel like what happens with most people
and sort of the thing I've been chasing my whole life is like,
to never give up the dream, you know? And I feel like a lot of people just kind of at a certain point, they reach a certain age, they just sort of settle for like what they view as reality or what someone else told them as reality. Like, I just gotta like make this money or work this job or just kind of accept
my life will be mediocre and or live in this area or this state or be with this person or just do this thing I don't really wanna do to just like either have stability or something. And so I just feel like you and I both very much.
prioritize, know, just getting the most out of life, you know, and create in our dream, live in our dream and having that freedom and that flexibility. And, you know, and of course, you know, it's important to have like the discipline though and make sure the work gets done. And that's key, right? Cause you were just like chilling all the time, like nothing's going to get done. But I mean, you and I are both very disciplined and hardworking. mean, I'm consistently impressed how much
time you spend working on the business when you really don't have to. I'm like, you know, could like chill, you know, but I can just tell it like, this is really your purpose. ⁓ And, it's just so cool to see because you know, when you have your own business, no one's telling you what to do and what not to do. Right. And so you could very easily drop the ball and just let stuff fall apart. like, because it's so aligned with you and because like I said, you follow curiosity every step of the way, it's just become this authentic
thing where it's like, you you just want to do it, you know? And like, and because like, you know, I was doing the same thing in my life and our life just kind of like intersected, like basically naturally it's, it's real similar to where it's like, well, I just, don't want to just sit around on my non-skate time. Like I want to like be productive and I like making spreadsheets, you know, and I'm happy that I have like an outlet for that now. So I'm stoked and you know, and I like chatting with people and so I get to chat with people and you know, and do sales and it's just, you know, so I
Basically, the key is we just both kind of followed our curiosity and our authenticity and just, the universe kind of took us here, I guess. So it's pretty cool to see. So.
Rahaf Hares (23:29)
and a perfect example of just wanting to work just to work and us also meal prepping together. tell me about our meal prep trip this week. What's our intention with our health and
How do we show up for meal prep when one person is busy doing something? Like we'll talk about like what happened last night, like how we're able to support each other. But first walk me through what meal prep shopping and everything looks like for us this past weekend, what it typically looks like for us. Because our health is important for our brains to work.
Mike (24:02)
for sure. ⁓ you know, so health is super important. And, know, obviously everyone knows it's really easy to just let that slide, right? And just, you know, whatever, eat fast food or eat some BS or whatever's quick or easy. But, ⁓ I mean, just, feel like being so
in tune with our why and our bigger vision for, having the brain work and having the body work and like being able to skate forever and all this and all this stuff ⁓ is just really a driving force behind a lot of things, including health.
And so, yeah, I mean, we, normally we'll go to Erewhon you know, so our goal is to
and eat the best quality foods we can as much as we can. So we got the Erewhon membership and we, ⁓ we got a dietitian ⁓ and ⁓ we, you know, we just try to be resourceful. So I, I was getting ads for like, you can get a free dietitian if you have this health insurance or that health insurance. And I was like, I have this health insurance and I'm paying for it. So let's use it. And so we got a.
free dietitian to help us with the nutrition game plan. then we just try to get the best quality foods and we try to cook stuff that's healthy and delicious and hopefully somewhat simple to make, but sometimes it gets more complicated. So we'll go shopping. And one thing that's cool that we've sort of tapped into that we are still kind of working to optimize, because like I said, it never ends, is the...
If you're an Erewhon member, you can get free delivery. So we've done this once or twice, but you know, we're trying to optimize all these systems in the business and in life. And so when we go shopping,
you know, it can take an hour or two to go to go to the store and pick all the stuff out and go back and then
all that stuff. But you can get free delivery ⁓ and save like an hour or two. And you just pick everything in the app and you just someone else picks it up. And then now that time is freed up to like
work on the business or something like that, you know? So it's, you know,
we're just thinking more and more, can we optimize our time? Right? And,
but yeah, for now we've been, for the most part, going to the store, but then, you know, we'll come back and we'll sometimes meal prep the same day, sometimes not just, you know, our goal is to basically stay above water. Cause it could be, it could be a the whole, the whole day sometimes like shopping and cooking and
and know cleaning and all that stuff. can be depending on how much how long we meal prep for if it's a whole week versus a few days. But anyways so last night for example it was was time to cook and I remember you you wanted to work on a new freebie and I was fired up to cook and you know you were like can I do you care if I work on my freebie and I was like no so I was just in there cooking.
And you work and you got a bunch of stuff done. And I'm like, yeah, okay. And then there's other times where it's the opposite, right? Where I need to do something or I don't know, anything. One person's tired, one person's got to do something else. And it's like, well, I'll cook, you do this, you cook, I do this. So we kind of just reverse. But it's cool that, like we're saying, have the flexibility to be in control. And so.
Rahaf Hares (27:17)
Exactly. I just decided to build a freebie funnel at midnight out of the blue and I was like Mike I'm kind of fired up to do this right now. You mind making your meal and I'll make mine tomorrow So even that like we've been meal prepping for almost two years now and I feel like we're still finding how it moves with us and where we are and making sure that we're getting all our fiber and our fruits and our vegetables and just Constantly staying on top of that. So that means just everything in our life has been designed to
move, to be nimble, to not be rigid. Like the flexibility and the freedom exists everywhere with the decision making.
Mike (27:56)
Yeah, in business, in life, in skating, and it's all, you know, and it's all like aligned because I remember before like we were doing this, I kind of felt very siloed in my life, where I'd have like my skate life and I'd have like my work life. And there were, it was like two different people, you know, I felt like Superman and Clark Kent where I'm like, no one even knows I'm this other guy, you know? And so it was kind of this, I don't know, it was just, it was part of my journey, right? And it was fine. know, but it's just cool to have everything so aligned now to where there is.
just kind of one life. It's not really like, I don't know, there's kind of no work in a way, you know? So it's, yeah, it's cool, I like it.
Rahaf Hares (28:30)
Yeah.
Yeah. It doesn't,
it doesn't feel like work. And even recently, just in the past couple months, we had a big shift in the business that you're actually helping me with fulfillment now in my newest container elevated empire. Can you tell us about that?
Mike (28:50)
Yeah, know, and ⁓ because we, mean, we make the rules, right? We don't have to follow any sort of you know, anything. ⁓ And so, yeah, so now I'm gonna start helping a little bit with the fulfillment ⁓ when it comes to, you know, booking appointments and how you can chat with prospects to get people on your calendar and close deals. just, basically we're just doing.
and then teaching what we learned to people that are on similar journeys. And so I'm just going to help with that.
Rahaf Hares (29:27)
Yeah. And that's the beautiful part too, is we invest in learning advanced skills from advanced people. And we take those skills and teach them to other coaches that are also building their business with all the different parts, the marketing, the sales, the DM setting, the building, the systems, the offer, everything. So I think that's my favorite part about it because
Mike (29:47)
the offer, you have systems.
Rahaf Hares (29:53)
It's like, hey, I'm learning how to do this in my business either way. And I love teaching. mean, I was a professor for a reason. I love learning engagement. I love being able to connect with people. I love coaching. So I'm like, I might as well learn from the best, invest the money, and then...
pour that into all of my clients that I'm working with and you having your skills, being able to teach that to them too. So for the listeners who don't understand what appointment setting is, can you break that down even more tangibly on what that looks like in a coaching business?
Mike (30:27)
Yeah, so I mean, basically the short version is how you turn your followers into dollars. So, you know, I like the coaching model a lot and obviously you do too. And so, you know, if you are, you know, doing some sort of coaching online and on social media and you're getting people watching your stuff and you're putting out free content and people follow you. Well, then what sort of the magic question, right? Because I mean, think about, you know,
Like you can have a huge account where everyone's watching, but if no one's like buying anything, or if you don't even have anything to offer, then
are these followers worth, right? So you need to take it a step further and convert them into dollars. And so now you can't sell anyone anything if they're not paying attention. So attention and followers is a very important first step, but it's only a first step. So when it comes to appointment setting, what that means is it's how you...
can start nurturing these followers, generating conversations. And you have to have a good offer, of course, for this to work, and you have to have good content for this to work. But basically, you talk to people, and you have an offer that solves a specific problem, right? And you're putting out content about that. So then you talk to people about this problem based on something you put out there, some piece of content or some masterclass or freebie. And then they, a lot of times, are, you know,
you speak to a big problem. then so people that are stuck on that problem will come to you and say, well, I have this problem. And then you chat.
Rahaf Hares (31:55)
Yeah, so let's be
tangible. Let's be tangible. What's the big problem we solve?
that fits in here.
Mike (32:01)
Yeah. So, ⁓ so creating, creating and selling a high, you know, high ticket coaching service. And so if you are doing, you know, if you are, if you have an online coaching business and, you know, maybe it's inconsistent and you're trying to get more consistency with your coaching so that it's not just like hot and cold and you're not like, you know, working some other job too, to like support it. And you want to create systems and actually be able to get attention.
and convert people on a high ticket price point and a high ticket offering, then how do you chat with people and convert these followers into appointments and then you can close the deals on the appointments and help people solve whatever problem it is you help solve.
Rahaf Hares (32:46)
That's exactly right. And it's being able to know how to have these types of conversations and nurturing conversations. That's the setting and the sales part.
Mike (32:56)
Yep, so you got to get the followers onto your calendar by talking to them a certain way. So setting is how do you talk to them to get them onto your calendar so you can close the deals.
Rahaf Hares (33:07)
And when you say you got to talk to them a certain way, can you tell me more about that? Because that goes into our framework and what we're building. What are these pillars that are important for the coaches listening right now that are wanting to convert their followers into dollars? How do they need to be having conversations with prospects in their DMS to close high ticket clients, $6 K, $8 K, 10 K, $32 K plus.
Mike (33:34)
Yeah, mean, it's somewhat of a simple process, but it's not easy. mean, there's about five pillars you want to check off and just basically you want to walk people down a certain path and you want to chat with them and you want to kind of check each a few boxes or a few milestones as you go. And you want to understand what their problem is. And, and we can get into a whole, we have a script for it and everything. you, and I don't know if this is like necessarily the place for that, but basically
You have a conversation in mind already and you want to chat with people and every conversation is unique and different, right? And that's why it takes that human touch. But you basically want to, you know, ask people certain, I hate to even say certain questions, but you want to get certain pieces of information out of this person, certain outcomes, yep, or check boxes so that you can understand what their problem is and where they are and whether you can help them, whether it's an aligned fit. And also they have to have.
Rahaf Hares (34:18)
Welcome.
Because we might
not. We might not be able to help them.
Mike (34:31)
Exactly. And so you want to understand if it's an aligned fit and if the problem that they have is a problem that we can help solve. ⁓ And then if so, you book an appointment to talk about it more. And if it makes sense, you you offer the service and close the deal. So.
Rahaf Hares (34:43)
Yeah, yeah. On a very zoomed out level, hitting all of those pillars. And that's exactly what you help our clients with. It's like, we're actively doing this in our business.
Mike (34:54)
Exactly and maybe we can Yeah,
maybe we can do a whole training on the details of it later I'm not sure this is the place for it now, but yeah
Rahaf Hares (35:03)
Yeah, maybe a future episode, but from a zoomed out perspective, what you're doing and helping me with my business is exactly what we help other coaches do. So it really is this dream within a dream. So everything we do, everything we create, feels like you ever see inception, like when you're a dream within a dream. So everything we help with, we're helping other people with. it's like, we're speaking in this way just feels very dreamy.
Mike (35:16)
Yeah.
Exactly.
Totally. And it's cool because when you teach, you like, it's, how do I say this? Like you learn when you teach too, right? It's one thing to like listen and to, you know, absorb, but then to do and to teach someone else and helps you learn. So that's kind of like why the dream within the dream thing is so cool.
Rahaf Hares (35:50)
Yeah, exactly. And we actually reached a point in the business where we're out of one-on-one spots. So what did we do? It's crazy. we're out of one-on-one spots for 2025 and that led us to creating a more scalable model. So November 14th, we're actually, I'm going to keep like my,
Mike (35:58)
Crazy. Yeah.
Rahaf Hares (36:14)
lips kind of sealed because it's still kind of not launched yet. So I'm to tease you for a little bit. Well, what is it that we're doing November 14th to make it more scalable and to be able to help more people without being limited in our time anymore?
Mike (36:30)
So what, you want me to say it you want it be a secret?
Rahaf Hares (36:34)
So talk about the format of what it is and what we're going to be teaching and we'll keep the details under wraps for now.
Mike (36:43)
Yeah. Okay. Well, we are going to be launching a group program so that we can just have more impact and help more people. ⁓ because you know, it, it's kind of bittersweet, right? When you run out of time on the calendar, right? And no one else can get, can get on there. Cause it's like, well, sorry, we're full, you know, get on a wait list or something, but you know, more people need help. And you know, we can only, we're only, you know, two people, right? We can only do so much. it's, it's, you know,
It's a good problem to have, right? And so to be able to expand that and to have more impact and to help more people is pretty cool. So that's coming soon. That's what I'll say for now.
Rahaf Hares (37:21)
And what's nice about group programs is yes, I can help more people now because right now it's like, I can't help anyone. Like there's literally no time or energy in the calendar. So the group program model becomes more sustainable, more scalable too, because it doesn't take more hours to help one person than it does a hundred. And that's the beauty is the amount of time per week, the amount of time out of my calendar. ⁓
Mike (37:33)
more scalable, know, more sustainable.
Exactly. Yup.
Rahaf Hares (37:47)
You can still serve them very fully and have that hot seat coaching and training and still be able to help more people. So that's what we're going to be stepping more into. And we actually have some pretty big goals for the business. So what is the vision looking like as far as income goals and client goals moving forward with this new program and even like maybe possibly using ads. Tell me more about that.
Mike (38:17)
Yeah, and that's, and by the way, just real quick, that's not to say that like, you know, one-on-one is going to go away forever, right? There's still be the one-on-one option. ⁓ And, you know, but this allows us to just, you know, grow and help more people. And yeah, so mean, as far as goals, I mean, I would say, I don't know, in my mind, the goal is $100K a month. What about you?
Rahaf Hares (38:39)
That's our next yes. So we have $100K month already reverse engineered. And how did you reverse engineer that? Why don't you tell us about what you spent like 60 plus hours on reverse engineering for us and what that did for the business and how we got to $100K.
Mike (38:42)
Yeah.
Hahaha!
I mean,
so I'm not even sure how long I spent on it, but we have a pretty crazy spreadsheet at this point where we track everything. We track our month to month metrics and we have our totals and we track our set rate, our close rate. And so the latest addition to it
is we added a tab in there that reverse engineers how much money we want to make and then down to what inputs we need to do every day.
at the end of the day, we'll do an end of day report and we'll put in like, here's what happened today, you know? And then, as that updates and we can see our set rate, our close rate, our number of posts and stuff like
it'll automatically show our metrics that'll feed into this tab of the spreadsheet that reverse engineers, if we want to make this revenue goal every month, then we need to do this amount of input. So, you know, we need to make like three of this type of posts per
or something like that, whatever the input is. So that's pretty cool to be able to have that control, right? Because, you know, it's one thing to say, oh, I want to make 10 grand a month, 20 grand a month, 50 grand a month, 100 grand a month.
but like how? So we've reverse engineered it down to be like, cool, well, based on our metrics, how we're performing today, you need to make three freebie posts and it'll hit our goal. So it's very scientific, know, it's not like smoky or it's not random, it's predictable. And so we just created that and it's pretty exciting and we're starting to collect some data in it. And I'm freaking stoked because now this whole thing just feels a lot more, it's just.
It's just a science, know? I guess predictable, you know? It's not like a, it's not a guessing game, you know? And that's what we're doing for our clients too, is like, don't want to just, you know, we're trying to get people out of that guessing game, so.
Rahaf Hares (40:32)
Predictable.
because that's the biggest pain point of our avatar. And we call our avatar Sloane. And our avatar Sloane, her biggest pain point is not having predictability in her business. Going month to month, not knowing how she's gonna have clients next month. She's operating from one-off sessions, no real container structure. It's not a freedom-based business. In fact, it's...
Mike (40:47)
Yo.
Exactly.
Rahaf Hares (41:08)
It's an old business model where you're just paying session by session. And then you wonder why you're not seeing the transformation of your clients because you cannot witness a transformation in one-off sessions. So the container model allows you to have the predictability to know, okay, three months, six months, 12 months. know exactly how many clients I need per month. know exactly what I need to get there and exactly how many posts I need to make to hit.
Mike (41:20)
No.
Rahaf Hares (41:37)
my income goals. Like we made it a science with the KPIs.
Mike (41:41)
Exactly. Nailed it.
Rahaf Hares (41:44)
And the beautiful part here is our astrology signs. So for all my astrology girlies, the reason why we work so well together, and I remember when I first saw your birth chart, I was like, my God, this makes so much sense. So some of you probably already know that I'm a Libra sun. So that's my sun sign. I'm a Libra. My rising is a Taurus and my moon is Aries. And Mike here, his sun is Taurus, his rising is Libra and his moon is Capricorn.
So our sun and risings literally yin yang with each other, Libra and Taurus. So we're grounding each other and being a Capricorn moon, you're very much matter of fact, logical, no really big emotions in your decision making. Whereas for me, for me, I'm an Aries moon. So it's very much the opposite. It's okay, fire, passion. So we even each other.
Mike (42:32)
For sure.
Rahaf Hares (42:44)
out so well when it comes to the decision making in the business and when I'm in my luteal phase and how you're able to you know support me extra so I feel like our astrology signs do a lot for us too.
Mike (42:57)
Agreed.
Yang
is the perfect word.
Rahaf Hares (43:00)
Yeah. Yin and Yang. literally feels like yin and yang in puzzle pieces. But just to kind of wrap this up, I wanted to really talk about what's coming next for us. Like what should our listeners be on the lookout? Here we are filming this brand new podcast that's coming out on my birthday. So chances are listeners are listening to this on launch day on September 24th, because we are throwing a huge party at the beach.
Mike (43:04)
It does.
Because you can do that
when it's your business,
Rahaf Hares (43:31)
Exactly.
So what's coming up? Like what's coming up for the business? What should our listeners be getting on wait lists for? Walk us through that.
Mike (43:43)
Yeah, well definitely the podcast. mean, but I guess if you're listening to this, you've already found the podcast, right? yeah.
Rahaf Hares (43:50)
subscribing,
following, being up to date on the episodes.
Mike (43:54)
Yep. So, ⁓ because we're just going to be, you know, dropping gems. I mean, I'm not going to be on every episode or anything, right. But I'm on this one and, but just follow the podcast just to get, just to get the wisdom, right. So if you're a high, if you're in the high ticket coaching space and you're trying to grow your business, ⁓ you just follow along, you know,
you know, Rahaf just going to be dropping, dropping gems all the time. Right. And so just stay tuned to the podcast,
you know, stay tuned on social media for little, little shorter snippets, for just random pieces of wisdom here and there. And then, ⁓ yeah.
Anything else you to
Rahaf Hares (44:26)
Well, we do have the wait list in my Link in Bio for the group program. So all the details are yet to come, but I would put myself on the wait list now if I could. Why? What's so special about that first round of people putting themselves on the wait list?
Mike (44:46)
Yeah, so, ⁓ we are, mean, it's hot off the press and we are
going to be, you know, doing like, just getting in the same room with other people on a similar journey is gonna be, it's just that alone, I think is actually kind of one thing that's better about the group. you just, get to be in this space where other people on similar journeys are just asking questions. Cause even like, you know, when we're, cause we've got, you know,
coaches too, right? So even like in our, you know, sales coaching program, sometimes I don't even have questions, right? And I'm just curious, like, well, you know, what are other people going through and what are other people asking? And I'll just kind of show up and, and people will ask questions like, oh yeah, that's a good question. Like I didn't even know the answer to that, but I didn't think of it. So just to be able to be in that energy, you know, I think is super important.
Rahaf Hares (45:39)
And we're going to be focusing on teaching sales. So this is called the revenue room. And we're going to be focusing on teaching the sales aspect to coaches so that they can close high ticket clients and to be able to reframe objections and all of these stuck points that you feel and the resistance when it comes to these sales calls.
Mike (45:44)
Yeah.
Yeah, because sales is a beast, right? There's a lot of nuances to being good at it, you know? And I feel like a lot of people think sales is like this bad thing and sales gets a bad rep, but it's so important in life. I mean, it's not just important in business. And it's so much more than money too. It's just about being able to navigate conversations and creating win-wins is really what sales is.
Rahaf Hares (46:20)
plugging into the frequency with other coaches who are also wanting to get better at sales and to increase their close rate, like at a very tangible level. So yeah, I'm really excited to build this, which means building a masterclass for it, launching it, doing a beta launch. So the, the specialty of the waitlist is the first good amount of people are going to be in on the beta launch. So my beta testers are the ones who really get hooked up.
Mike (46:46)
And they're gonna get the best deal, yeah, because the price is only gonna go up, so get there while you can.
Rahaf Hares (46:51)
Exactly, exactly. And they can follow you on Instagram too. Follow us on Instagram. @Radiant Rahaf and @Really Rahaf for skating. You can see Mike all over on my page.
perfect. Well, that about wraps up our conversation. Thank you for tuning in and stay tuned because we will have more episodes together in the future.
Mike (47:13)
Sounds good. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Rahaf, for having me and we'll talk to you guys more soon.
Rahaf Hares (47:18)
Bye!
