Hi and welcome to another episode of Celebrating Small Family Businesses.

we are honored to be talking to Nikki Bilou and Theresa Dugwell.

Wow, this is a power couple right here.

I, I gotta a couple of things.

So ladies first, uh, Theresa has a background in clinical psychology.

Cool, that's right in our wheelhouse biofeedback, but I

don't want to bury the lead.

Three Guinness world records.

Oh my God.

We're coming back to that.

Uh, has grown several clinical practices to seven figures, former top results

coach with Robbins Research, which is Tony Robbins organization with over 12,

000 hours of coaching under her belt.

Wow.

And, Oh, and the way, written a couple of health and fitness

books that are bestsellers.

So.

And Nicky, Nicky is an author of not one, not two, but ten published books, two of

which were New York Times bestsellers.

I'm going to have to have you go into your corporate background a little bit, Nicky.

I know you've got quite a story, but also you're the host of two

podcasts, you've been a guest on over 600 podcasts and, uh, at least.

You're the thought leader revolution podcast is over 500 episodes,

I believe I don't know how many episodes is a sovereign man

We're closing in on 140.

Awesome Wow, yeah when when you guys aren't doing all this other stuff you

run together eCircle Academy which as I understand it You train coaches how to

grow their coaching practices, right?

That's right.

Wow, how did we get here?

I gotta, I gotta start first, actually, Theresa, what, I don't imagine you

just woke up one day and said, I'm gonna go set a Guinness World Record

running on a treadmill for 12 hours.

So what led to that?

No, I didn't wake up one morning and make that decision, but I did

one night very early in the morning.

I participated in a fundraiser for sick kids hospital and I've always

been very big into volunteering and raising money for good causes to

help families and communities built.

So I got an invitation to run with the two people that were working

towards breaking the world record while at the same time raising a lot of

money for the hospital and sick kids.

And so I thought, well, what would be really great is to do

this in the middle of the night.

So at three o'clock in the morning.

I was running beside these two people for an hour and just experiencing

what they were going through cause they were running for 12 hours.

And, um, so fast forward when we did our big Megathon for the YMCA, um, which we

raised money for community and so forth.

I thought it would be really great to actually take that on that

challenge of breaking that record and, um, raising a lot of Community

involvement because I basically had me on a treadmill for 12 hours and

the record was to break the greatest distance within that 12 hour period.

And so treadmills were, were filled up with people running beside me.

There were all kinds of things happening.

And, uh, so just quickly from there, I did it three times.

The second one I did it with a lady that came to me who had been

diagnosed with high functioning autism.

And, um, she was working for the YMCA and then, and she came to me after

the first one and said, Hey, Theresa, when you do this next year, can I go

beside you on an elliptical trainer?

And I hadn't made a decision to do it ever again.

And so that was what got to my second one.

And she did 12 hours on this elliptical trainer, has a book

called Gotta Have Faith, A Woman's Extraordinary Journey Over 12 Hours.

And um, and then we did it again one more time.

We raised a lot of money and it was a cause.

I always believe that when you've got something greater than just what

you want for yourself or greater cause then anything's possible.

Absolutely.

Awesome.

Wow.

What a, what a great story.

Okay.

Nikki.

How did we get here?

How did you get here?

Well, you know, that's a great, great question.

So, how I got here from a business point of view is, um, I'm actually originally

an immigrant from the Middle East.

I'm a Christian from Iran.

When I was 11 years old, the Islamic revolution took place in Iran.

And my late father, God rest his soul, he could see the writing on the wall.

This was not going to be a place to raise a Christian family anymore.

So he and my mom, they got together, they made a plan, and they executed it.

And eventually, they got my brothers and I out of Iran.

It took them almost four years to do it, but we landed where

I now live in Toronto, Canada.

And at the time though, you know, I was a kid.

I didn't want to leave my home.

I didn't want to leave my friends.

But in retrospect, it was the single greatest thing mom and

dad could have done for us.

They took us from a legacy of tyranny to a legacy of freedom.

And I believe inside every human breast beats the living heart of freedom.

Every man, every woman on this planet desires to chart their own course, to

march to the tune of their own drummer.

And if you think about it as entrepreneurs.

We rely on freedom more than anybody else.

Without freedom, we cannot have freedom of expression, freedom

of thought, freedom of ideas.

And without those freedoms, we cannot have free enterprise.

And without free enterprise, you've just got cronyism.

You can't figure out what path you want to go down.

So, I've become this gigantic advocate for freedom.

And my late father, he was the same.

He was a big believer in freedom.

And guys, he was the greatest man.

If you met him, you'd love him.

If you were looking for work, he'd sit you down in his office, he'd

call all his entrepreneur buddies until one of them gave you a job.

If you were looking to start a business, he'd sit you down, he'd help you think

it through, come up with some ways of accessing capital, getting clients, even

if you were going to compete with him because he didn't believe in competition.

And if you were trying to buy a car or a house and you didn't have quite enough

money, dad, would give you a loan to top you up that he'd never let you pay back.

Now a lot of people go to me, Come on, Nicky, this sounds unbelievable.

This is like Hollywood, man.

Too good to be true.

Who does that?

I said, well, the late, great Napoleon Ballou, for one.

Why would he do such a thing?

The skeptics would say, First and foremost, he was a

devout, committed Christian.

He believed he'd been blessed by his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And it was his duty to share those blessings with his fellow man and woman.

But secondly, he did it because he could.

He was rich.

He was successful.

And every single day, dad would tell me, son, life is about people.

It's not about money.

I said, okay, dad.

And then he'd say, son, business is about people.

It's not really about money.

I'm like a smart aleck eight year old.

Come on, dad.

What are you talking about?

Of course, business is about money.

Without money, you can't have no business.

I was so pleased with myself that I came up with that all by

myself at eight years of age.

And that's, uh, that's true, son.

But without people, there's no need for money.

There's no need for business.

That man, that woman standing in front of you, that's someone's hero.

That's somebody with hopes, dreams, fears, just like you.

Maybe someone just like you, let them down.

It's your job to restore their faith in humanity because every human

being needs somebody they can trust, needs somebody to believe in them.

And he said, everybody, me, you, everybody has moments where our self

belief wavers and they need somebody to show them how great they really

are, that they're a child of God.

And you know what?

And when he passed away, he passed the torch of believing in people to me.

And now I carry that Billou torch.

And if you ask me, what do I do?

There's a lot of things I do.

There's a lot of things I've done in my life.

A lot of accolades, a lot of accomplishments.

But the thing that I'm most proud of is I'm my father's son and I'm

a professional believer in people.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Very nice.

So is that what is that also what got you into the coaching realm?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Because I believe that every, every man and woman in business is a hero.

Like, like they're like my dad, there are people that are going out

there, they got a vision, they want to make the world a better place.

And we're living in a time where there's.

Dark forces that are vilifying those good men and women that are out

there trying to create business.

They're actually supporting Socialism godlessness and crazy stuff like that

And I believe that entrepreneurs outside of our military who fight bleed and

die so we can live under the blanket of freedom that they provide are the

greatest people in our society because every good thing in our society happens

because of an entrepreneur with a dream So I want to help entrepreneurs become

successful, but here's what I've realized.

There's a lot of entrepreneurs that are good people with the highest

ethics the highest morals But their sales and marketing skills and

pardon me for using this technical expression: Suck; they stink.

They're not good at it, right?

And so me my dad was an entrepreneur.

He's a Persian bazaar merchant man.

I know how to sell I know how to market That's what I studied in school and

I don't have any issues with sales.

A lot of people, especially in the coaching field, they got an issue

with sales They're like, I don't want to be one of those pushy people,

one of those salesy guys and gals.

No, not me.

Not me.

Not me.

And you know what happens?

They don't go after sales they should go after.

So their business doesn't do as well as it should.

The client who needs their help doesn't get their help.

And some charlatan marketer with no morals and ethics, but really good

sales and marketing skills are coming there, scoop up that business and they

don't care if they deliver or not.

And the sum total of goodness in the world comes down.

So the thing I'm most passionate about is helping good men and women and having

a frank come-to-Jesus talk with them.

You don't sell, you don't have a business.

I'm going to show you how to sell ethically from the heart, but I'm also

going to make you realize that you need to become passionate about sales and

you need to become expert at sales.

If you're going to have a business worthy of the goodness in your heart and

the dreams and ambitions that you have for yourself and the people you love.

So how did you sell this lady on becoming your spouse and

getting in business together?

Well, it's a heck of a story.

You know, years and years ago, I was married once before and I

was going through a divorce.

And one morning I was in the gym, early in the morning, and for one

of four occasions in my life, the good Lord spoke to me directly and

I heard his voice coming to me from over there and it said, pay attention.

She's the one.

She's your soulmate and it just drew my eyes to this beautiful blonde woman

standing on an elliptical trainer with headphones on and head down not wanting

to be bothered and I'm like oh and I was so overcome and flabbergasted

and then immediately frightened that I proceeded to do nothing.

I just tried to see if anybody knew her because I was too chicken to go

approach her and nobody knew her.

Couple months later, I was talking to a woman in the gym.

It was a friend of mine.

She's a good lady.

She's a lesbian.

And I knew her really, really well.

And we talked and I said, do you know this blonde lady?

She's really pretty.

Do you know who she is?

And at first she says, no, no, no, no.

I don't know who she is.

I don't know.

And she says, wait a minute, you're talking about Theresa.

You're talking about Theresa!

And she just was like, exclaiming that in a loud voice and normally I'm an

exuberant, loud person but I'm like, keep your voice down man, come on!

And she's like, she grabbed me by the arm you know, Debbie, God love her,

Debbie the lesbian, the awesome lesbian, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me

kicking and screaming to Theresa and said, Theresa, meet Nikki, Nikki, meet Theresa!

And that's how we met.

And then we started to date, and I started to write her love

poems, because I'm Persian, and you know, we're known for that.

I wrote her a love poem a day for 30 days, and shortly thereafter,

I kind of won her heart.

nice.

Thanks.

So , since we're talking about what you guys brought to your work together,

Theresa, years of working with, in the Tony Robbins organization, all those

hours of coaching, what are a couple of major takeaways, lessons that you

brought from that, that, you know, are foundational for you guys today?

Yeah.

We both bring something different to the, the environment.

As you can see, Nikki is very passionate and he's got the energy and so forth.

And I'm like the mother Theresa at some level.

Some main, things that I I've learned through the Tony Robbins experience and,

and which was an incredible experience.

I have to say that the training that we, received every year was.

Constant.

We were always learning, always training.

And uh, one of the big things that I learned is that there's three

factors that determine, um, how we will be, how what our state will

be every single second of our life.

And we.

Really have control over that state if we want to have control over the

course, or we can have it out of control.

And that is whatever we focus on as human beings, whatever we focus

on, we usually give it a meaning.

And then that meaning then will affect what we say to ourselves,

the language we use, whether it's building us up or tearing us down.

And then as part of all that, there's the physiology and how we carry our bodies.

You've probably heard of the power pose,

Mm hmm.

Amy Cuddy made that kind of famous.

incredible research there about how just standing or sitting a

certain way can increase your testosterone, decrease your cortisol

levels and have you take more risk.

And so there's, There's these three factors, what you focus on, what you

say to yourself and how you stand, how you carry yourself affects your your

state and how you're you're being.

And so that was one thing that was always really important when starting a coaching

session is to see what state, what state is the client in that you're actually

going to have a call with to make it the most effective because if you're in a

really crappy state, then of course you want to work towards getting out of it.

But, but there's that, that initial place of, of identifying where

you're at when you start out.

So that was a big part of, um, understanding people and their state.

Business mastery was another very, very, uh, incredibly

informative learning experience.

And I was also a business results coach.

So I worked with corporations as well who signed up for business mastery.

Again, for that, it was having a clear, concise plan of action.

It was building a powerful network, a team.

Um, it was like, these were important factors in building

a business following...

constantly

improving your business.

Following a system that you were always looking at different aspects

of your business so that you didn't just Decide one day to look at your

numbers, but rather there was a system you follow, you go back around and

you would constantly be improving.

So that's a constant, never ending improvement so that you would

revisit things, your marketing.

Okay, how are we doing?

We'll look at it this week, but in another six weeks we'll look at it

again and see where we're at and how to measure it and so forth.

So there's always growth.

You've always had to be growth and the team was so important

as you're building that.

So that was another really important.

Um, aspect of building a business is always don't ignore all the little

things that are there that you think are little things because they can build

up and stack really fast and become problematic if you don't pay attention.

So pay attention to all those little details.

was, uh, another very important aspect of, um, the business training

and the work that I did as well.

yeah, and the third thing I would say, you know, I learned a lot about myself.

Working as a Tony Robbins coach and, um, and my own limitations

and it's, it's just the limitations that we carry with ourselves that

prevent us from moving forward.

So many of us have that.

That running on a treadmill for 12 hours breaking those three world records was

not the ordinary Theresa, but it was the Theresa that I could settle with.

If not doing that, that's, that's where settling would be I wouldn't have done

that, because it'd be like, Oh, you know, that seems really hard and I

don't want, I don't want to do that.

All these reasons why, and maybe I can't do that.

And I had people saying to me, you know, you might hurt yourself.

Uh, like all this stuff.

these messages coming to me thinking it was a little crazy.

However, if I didn't step into that and take that, that opportunity,

that risk, then I wouldn't have grown outside of just being ordinary.

And that's, I believe everyone has that, that availability of being ordinary.

We're all, we can all be ordinary.

It's, it's actually when we believe.

In the next level, what's possible within ourselves, and that's through community.

That's through a very supportive team.

You need people around you that believe in you until you

actually believe in yourself.

It's what you tell yourself again, going back to state, but everyone

has that extraordinary in them.

It's how many people actually discover it, and it's not just getting it once.

do we keep that extraordinary

Yeah.

lives and keep working it?

Because that's how you can make the biggest impact on other people's lives.

And I believe I am here.

One of my missions in my life is elder care and elder care innovation, because

I believe that don't have, we need to value our, our, elder care and how we

take care of people as we go through.

We're all going through this, this.

and, and um, I want to be the person that helps make a difference.

And so that's stepping up also that's stepping into my extraordinary to do that.

I can't be ordinary.

And just settle.

And so, and, but we can fall into that and it's, it's okay to settle sometimes,

sometimes, however, it's being present to what's possible and not ignoring that

having the people you need to get there.

Yeah.

That, that could be a really powerful coaching question is asking somebody,

so what are you settling for now?

What are you, what are you tolerating, right?

Yeah.

It's so easy to tolerate, because the thing about tolerating is it's comfort.

It's certainty.

We know it.

And as human beings, we love certainty.

The devil, you know.

Uncertainty where the risk that's the difference that it's

stepping into that and feeling that discomfort while you grow.

And if you don't feel the discomfort, there's no growth in comfort.

you're in our wheelhouse!

So you guys work together, e-Circle Academy, you run it together.

You, you, um, of course we, we're celebrating small family business.

So we want to talk about a little bit about the family aspect.

How do you guys manage, uh, your roles within the company?

And, uh, you know, and, and also manage the family and the, and the

personal relationship and the business.

Go ahead, honey, and then I'll chime in.

I was going to say you can, I'll let you have that opportunity.

You're great at talking about those things.

Mm

Sure, so, uh, Inside the business, we've got some very complimentary roles.

So Theresa does pretty much most of the one on one coaching with our clients.

So when someone signs up for our program, there's an aspect of it that

is lessons and education in the form of modules that are available to people.

So one of our programs call it 90 K in 90 days.

It's about how to add an additional 90, 000 in sales over and above what you

know, is coming in, in the next 90 days.

So, for example, inside that program, that's a 90-day program, 12 weeks,

13 weeks, the way that it works is that if you sign up for that program,

you get access to the video and education modules around the structure

of a sales call, around objection handling, around how to get the

chattering monkeys out of your mindset.

And around how to get really clear on your messaging for your ideal client and

who your ideal client is, all that stuff.

So all that's educational and available in modules.

Then there's weekly group calls that are led by myself and an associate

of mine named Mark Von Musser.

Uh, he actually used to be Tony Robbins director of coaching and training.

He's the person who hired Theresa.

And, uh, he's coached us as well.

So, Mark's amazing.

He's helped generate over a billion dollars in sales for the

various clients he's worked with.

And he and I lead that part together.

And Theresa does the one on one coaching with people.

So anything that can't get handled through the education or the group situation,

pretty much is Theresa's bailiwick.

She takes care of that.

She's really good at it.

She's done over 12, 000 hours of one to one coaching with people,

so that's kind of what she's good.

And I'm fire, she's ice.

You know, my job is to get people fired up and , I can sometimes push them, challenge

them, because that's what they need in order to get out of their comfort zone.

And Theresa's job is to be Mother Theresa, loving, kind, and just get everybody

feeling that they're cared for and loved.

And that's really the aspect that she does in the business.

So when we're doing the business, that's kind of how it works.

And as far as our personal relationship is concerned, You

know, it's, it's a blessing to be in business with someone that I

love and I'm in a relationship with.

And it also can be challenging, right?

It's one of the things that we, we got to constantly work on, make sure we have time

for date nights, make sure we have time to go away on vacations and things like that.

Personally, I don't think we do enough of that.

And I want us to do more and it's my job to enroll my

beloved in, uh, in joining us.

So what is one, one thing that you could share with our audience that

maybe you learned about working together that, you know, kind

of changed your whole parameter?

Go for it, sweetheart.

What I've learned is that, we really have taken on these roles in a way that

our own personalities and, um, it's just like this natural process between

the two of us, because we're together, it was just this natural way of being

able to move to the place that we both shine and where we can make the greatest

difference to help with the growth.

Like my part of the ice, which I actually, it's funny cause I like the cold and

Nikki likes the heat and it's opposite.

Um, But basically, uh, taking on these roles like my role is really like I'm

supporting individuals and seeing where are they having challenges and what do

they need and always making sure that everyone's in some sense taken care of.

I pay attention to what they need so I can go back to Nikki and say, Hey, you

know what, think we really need to pay attention to this individual here who

needs some extra support in this area.

What can we do?

What do you suggest we do here so we can collaborate?

And so that's been really nice how we can have that relationship to go back

and forth so that we can give the best to our clients from both of us and,

and show up the best for them so that, that they're getting the best results

they can and they feel that support.

Cool.

Can I take a stab at, at adding, what I perceive?

You both come from um, backgrounds of communication, but in different

realms where, but it's, but they're both about listening.

Nikki, if you're doing sales that's not smarmy or pushy, then you've got to be

doing a lot of really deep listening and listening for keywords and listening

for where, you know, motivations of people and what they're feeling.

And Theresa from your coaching, same, but from a very different, you know, with a

different end result in mind, but, uh, but a lot of deep listening and communicating

and asking questions for clarifying.

So when you come together, it sounds like you're both bringing that shared

strength to your, to your collaboration.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, I'd say so.

Absolutely, Yes.

The communication, that's

really important is for everything.

How do we communicate?

with our clients, how we listen, as well as how, um, like the

listening is so important.

I heard someone say once, um, we have two ears and one mouth, which means you use

your ears twice as much as your mouth, which was, I thought, Hey, that was good.

So yeah.

also learning to listen to yourself, you know, what you're thinking, what

you're feeling, how you're projecting.

and being, being aware of that also key.

And especially for entrepreneurs.

Because sometimes you kind of want to bluster through something

or just get, get it over with.

Not realizing there's a step that you need to walk through.

Yeah.

And again, that's where we both compliment each other.

Um, I grew up in a completely different, um, from Nikki.

I grew up with a single mom and two little sisters and not having a dad.

And so I learned very early, um, how to take care of things and how to care for,

like, I had to take care of my little sisters and make sure my mom was okay.

And so I, I come into it from a place of, um, you know, Wanting to take

care of things and listen and care.

And, and Nikki has his way, which is his way of showing he stands for greatness.

He's one, one of the gifts that Nikki really has is he sees greatness

in everyone that he encounters.

And if he works with an individual, he sees that greatness before that

person sees it within themselves.

And so, and so I'm in the, I'm sort of that, like, let's do it.

We can do it.

And, and yeah, I see that too.

And so it's, it's really believing in.

we work with they believe in themselves and lifting them up through our work.

And especially difficult for entrepreneurs, especially solopreneurs.

That sometimes don't have that backing that, that they need.

and the tendency to focus on our, you know, what's missing

instead of what we got.

That's, that's our main thing is we want to work on strengths.

yeah.

Let's, let's solidify

So, can I, uh, So,

is bull to a large extent, let's, let's get your strengths and let's

build those up and move them on.

Nikki,

can I share a story with you?

Uh,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

can I share a story with you?

So, Late last year, we had a client sign up with us.

Her name's Dr.

Dia.

She's originally South African and a wonderful lady.

Uh, she and her husband, uh, they work together, which she's

the face of the business, right?

He's, he's fully in the background.

And when she came to us, she was really passionate about doing something

for a very niche group of people.

And this group of people are folks who.

have med spas.

So basically, you know, injecting things like Botox and so forth.

And she had no clients.

She was doing her own med spa, but she had no clients.

And she came to us says, I think I can do this.

I think this can be great.

This can be big.

And we helped her narrow down her message.

Cause her message, you know, again, using the technical term sucked.

It was, it was really, I work with med spas.

That's not a message, right?

That's not really a message.

We helped her narrow down her message, and Theresa did a lot of work with

her, to, if you're a med spa owner, you're probably leaving at least

10 million a year on the table.

I'm going to show you how to recapture that.

That's a good message.

It's a really good message.

And an engaging message.

Good message.

Oh yeah.

10 million got my attention, that's for sure.

So, Theresa worked with her even over and above, you know, what we said we do

inside the program and she helped her set up a in person live, uh, webinar.

So it wasn't a webinar.

It was like an in person presentation.

12 people were invited to it.

Eight of them sat through the presentation.

They weren't interested.

Four of them were interested, but one of them was interested enough to buy

and she bought a $500, 000 consulting package on the spot on the spot.

And then 32 days later, she upsold another $550, 000 worth

of consulting to the same client.

So within 32 days, she made $1,050,000.

She's in a position that she could probably sell another $3,000,000 worth of

this between now and the end of the year.

Her biggest challenge right now is delivery.

Making sure that she follows through and gets the person everything that they need.

But.

Her message sucked and it got tightened up and she, she was not believing in herself.

She wanted to believe in herself, but she didn't believe in herself.

And this is what we brought to her is, Hey, we believe in you.

We see your greatness.

You can do this.

We've helped other people do this.

And Theresa had a real strong background in this whole clinic world.

So it, it, it really made it work well and boom, she went from zero

income as a coach consultant.

to a million dollars in a 32 day span, and that is a beautiful, beautiful result.

That's one of those results that needs a big disclaimer.

Results not typical, but, wow, and I don't want to let it fall away

at all that the, even though Theresa came with all that background, I

think the biggest piece of that was instilling that belief in herself,

supporting that with the, you know, the

100 percent.

But, without that

that's the biggest thing we do for everybody, is we make them believe.

We make them believe.

If once they believe, everything else becomes simple.

Yeah, that's extraordinary.

That's stepping out of ordinary.

The other thing is that what can happen is that you come in and you and you're

not clear on you've got many ideas and and she did have many ideas and it's

it's almost like there's this channeling.

If you want to refer to it as that channeling to see what

how do we fine tune this to?

We have out here where we need.

Let's just find ways to all of this.

this creativity and how do we fine tune it so that we can really target

where it doesn't mean you can't go off in other directions, but let's

fine tune and work with that first and then move away and then move to

other directions after we've done that.

You mentioned creativity there and it reminded me, you, you guys did a, an

episode of the podcast together recently.

I think it was fairly recent.

And, um, you were talking about, uh, you used an example of a

distinction, one distinction to clarify a different distinction.

And you were talking about being a cook versus being a chef

Yeah.

and, and the parallel between being an expert and a thought leader.

And I thought that was just brilliant.

You know, clarification of those distinctions.

You want to touch on that a little bit?

Thank you.

Theresa, go ahead.

That's your baby.

Uh, well, I'll start at Starbucks and, um, and one of the things I,

I, I, I love the, I always find the baristas are so great to get to know

because they, they're just lovely.

Many of the baristas I've met.

one of the drinks that I have was as, uh, was an almond milk latte with some stevia

and I remember receiving one one day and I always take the lid off for some reason

before I drink anything to look at it.

It's just what I do.

And uh, and so when I walked away with the drink, I, I took the lid off and

it was a very dark looking coffee.

It didn't really have that latte look, which is supposed to have

some foam on top and so forth.

And it was like, Oh, it doesn't look all that.

It was just a reaction I have, Oh, that's just a coffee.

Then I went back again another day and, and received another

one from, from another barista.

And when I opened up the lid.

I saw this beautiful heart and I took photos of the different

ones I was getting just because there was something was about it.

I thought this is so interesting.

And so I took a photo and there's this beautiful heart and I

thought, that's so interesting.

And I thought, Oh, that's so beautiful.

And there was all these emotions, this feeling I got and so forth.

Thank you.

And it's so interesting.

Like the two different there's this same formula,

Mm hmm.

formula, but the way this was a transaction.

Mm hmm.

that was just dark coffee where this one was an experience.

And so now cooks are amazing and chefs are amazing too, but there's a different,

approach when you receive the food.

So for instance, can boil a hot dog, a cook can boil a hot dog and give you, or

grill a hot dog and put it on a bun with some and mustard and so forth, that's what

a cook would provide you with potentially.

Whereas a chef may look at that hot dog and see beyond that, where there's some

carvings in the hot dog and it's grilled differently and it's, there's just the

way it's presented, it's different.

So, and then when you have it, You actually there's an there's a relationship

between the experience in that in that hot dog versus the one where it's just you're

hungry and you want to have a hot dog.

So you're gonna eat the hot dog.

And there's just just a transaction.

I need food.

I'm hungry.

That's where that came from.

I thought the cook and the chef.

So I use that when I go to Starbucks, they kind of gotten to know me as a student.

Hey, are you going to be a chef today?

Ha!

um, so, and, and actually it did have an impact on

the stores that

I go to because of the managers and so forth.

And just the paying attention to those little details.

And that's again, ordinary versus extraordinary.

Again, it's just shifting to another level of standard.

What, what is that?

What is it you want to offer to someone else?

And same with our business.

Do we, what is it that we want?

It's not just a transaction to us.

A person is not a transaction.

A person is someone there.

We want to give them an experience.

So we want to be the chefs in our business, not cooks.

Thank you.

A hundred percent, yes.

I think every business in some way delivers an experience.

And, and, and ultimately what people are buying.

Is an experience, they may not be able to, to, you know,

express it verbally very well.

You know, they, you know, they've been taught to say what they wanted want done.

the difference between a really customer centric experience and, and just a

transaction is, is what generates referrals and, and, and reviews and

memories and all of that, right?

So, huge, huge deal.

I, I just, yeah, I love that example.

So,

It's a great example.

haven't we asked?

Well, what, what, give me a little bit of the experience of working together.

Just, you know, how, how is your process and, and your excitement and your, you

know, what's thrilling that comes up and if you can articulate any of that.

Do you want to take that on Nikki?

Sure.

So,

what I like to do is, I like to I like to do podcasts because that's an opportunity

for me to kind of be in in front of an audience And and speak and I love that.

It's one of my god given gifts and when we do events I usually am in

front of the room and I love to speak Theresa makes sure that every

detail is taken care of right?

hmm.

So that I don't have to keep my eye on that.

I can just keep my eye on delivering something awesome for the people You

know, she speaks too and she's pretty pretty great at it as well But in the

division of labor department, most of that kind of work is done by me and most

of the details are handled by her to make sure that everybody's got a great

experience and everything's taken care of.

Um, it works.

I like it.

I like it.

It's fun.

I get to do something that makes me excited and happy.

And, uh, she gets to take care of everybody, which is

something she loves to do.

Uh, and from that point of view, it's great.

So I'll tell you another story.

We had a client a few years back.

Unfortunately, he passed away from cancer.

God rest his soul.

His name is Carl Kramer.

And Carl used to be a executive vice president of a big manufacturing

company here in Ontario, Canada.

But Carl was burned out so he quit and he became an executive coach.

When he came to us, He came to us for a very particular reason because he loved

coaching and he loved not working 60 hours a week anymore, he was working 25, 30

hours a week, but his income dropped 80%.

He didn't love that.

He didn't love that at all.

So he made about 350, 000 a year as an executive vice president.

He made about 70, 000 a year as a coach.

So when he came to us, I met him and this was, this is the part that I was good at.

He said, I hear you're good at this.

Can, can we talk?

I said, yeah, yeah.

I enrolled him to come do one of our programs.

And I asked him, what would be an amazing outcome for you?

He said, if I could just make the same amount of money that I made as an

executive vice president, 30 hours a week doing coaching, I'd be thrilled.

He signed up for our program, and he signed up for a year

long program that we, we offer.

And this is a high level kind of mastermind, educational,

accountability program.

And it's a big investment.

It's $40,000 to get into that program, right?

He signed up, even though, you know, it was more than half what he was

scheduled to make the next year, right?

And, first thing we figured out about Carl is, he had that, Corporate

mentality and it was getting in his way.

So he had all these thoughts in his head about what he could

do, what he couldn't do, what he could say, what he couldn't say.

I gave him permission that cut all that crap out.

And I looked at what he was charging and I said, you charge

too little and you charge monthly.

I want you to charge for a full year upfront and I want you to

charge at least 25, 000 a year for your coaching twice a week.

So he started to do that.

And then he said, We asked him, well, what can you, what do you do?

He says, well, I can solve any business problem for anybody.

Eh, wrong answer.

Any business problem for anybody.

I said, no, no, no.

So we took him through an exercise to help him determine what business

problem he really wanted to solve.

And it turned out that he really was passionate about growth and scaling.

And we took him through another exercise to see what type of

clients he wanted to work with.

And, uh, we got this proprietary system for your ideal client.

Turned out he wanted to work with solo practitioner law firms doing

at least a million a year who wanted a triple or more in size.

And, when we helped him fine tune his message, and this was Theresa,

Theresa sat with him, did a lot of one on one hand holding of Carl,

and he finally figured it out.

And I helped him get really clean on who he was going after.

She helped him really tinker with the message.

Tinker with it, tinker with it, tinker with it.

And she got, she took all the head trash out of the way.

All the mindset stuff, using all the great work she'd done with Tony Robbins.

So Carl, within six months of working with us, and it took him four months

to have this actually start to work.

So for the first four months, he was just tinkering and figuring it out.

Started making 50 grand a month.

He was like, Oh my God, I think I can do a hundred.

So a couple of months, he did a hundred grand a month.

He found he was working too hard at a hundred grand a month.

So he dropped back down to 50.

That's $600,000 a year.

That's $250,, 000 bump over his 350.

And he was only working 30 hours a week on a heavy workload week.

So, Carl, we actually have a testimonial.

It's grainy quality.

It ain't the greatest.

But we have a testimonial, Carl.

I'm so glad we have it because, like I said, he passed away from

pancreatic cancer a couple summers ago.

God rest his beautiful soul.

But he's one of these stories which we're really happy

about because I did what I do.

I got him through the door and I got him excited about, uh, what he needs to do.

And I pushed him and I challenged him to narrow his focus.

Theresa did what she does, which is to really work with him, nurture him along.

And the two of those push and challenge and nurture together took the guy

from honestly not believing he could make the kind of money he used to

make to making almost double that kind of money and living the last few

years of his life totally fulfilled totally excited about what he was doing

because he was coaching people and he loved it and making a lot of money

Cool.

That must be very fulfilling for you, too.

yeah it's great love it

Well, it shows a good balance between the two of you to how, how you work together.

And, and that's, that's so important, especially in a, a marriage situation.

Because it,

100

brings its own set of challenges, doesn't it?

it sure does it sure does

Well,

sure does

want to make sure we so for our audience, if they want to find

you guys, ecircleacademy dot...

Is it ca or

com.

com,

com

E CircleAcademy.

com And they can of course look up Nikki Billou on Amazon

and find all sorts of books.

Where else, uh, what else would you suggest we send people to?

Anything?

look if you're a . Yeah.

The podcast is The Thought Leader Revolution, uh, and it's

thought leader revolution.com.

My other podcast is for Men.

It's called the Sovereign Man Podcast.

Now, there's two podcasts with that name.

So mine is the one that's for men.

The other one is like, for, uh, men in business that are doing stuff in other

markets, it's, it's a little stray.

A fellow with a briefcase is that one.

Mine is two crossed swords, so you can go check those out.

But if you're a.

If you're a solopreneur or couple business, uh, and you want to have a

conversation about scaling in particular, and you're stuck a little bit, you're

not where you want to be and you want to get to another level, then I'd

say jump on a phone call with myself.

You know, uh, go to ecircleacademy.

com forward slash appointment.

And that is what we call a success call.

It's, it's similar to a discovery call.

It's free.

Um, it's, it's a wonderful opportunity to have a conversation

and get to know each other.

So, try that.

Great.

Wonderful.

Thank you so

Thank you.

this time with us.

We are

for having us.

um, to sharing this and, uh, and having another conversation

at some point in the future.

Yeah.

Mm Is there

any other words of wisdom

that you'd like to share with our listeners?

Theresa, go for it.

Words of wisdom.

I would just invite anyone listening to think about how just today you

can become the chef in your life or

go from

ordinary to extraordinary just for today.

Very nicely said.

Thank you.

Needed to pull that little bit out.

All right.

Thank you.