Dream Business Mastermind With Jim Palmer

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

21.06.23

Creating a successful business is more than just financial gain; it’s about achieving a satisfying lifestyle by doing what you love and living life on your own terms. In this episode, we have Captain Jim Palmer, the Founder and Creator of the Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program. Jim shares his fascinating background and journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur and business coach. He shares his unique approach to creating dream businesses and how he has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs achieve their goals. He discusses his “big adventure” lifestyle, working only three days a week and spending the rest of his time renewing and doing what he loves. He also shares the challenges of living on a 50-foot boat during the pandemic, and how he and his wife overcame them. Jim shares his expertise in helping entrepreneurs get lucrative, high-ticket clients and his unique approach to handling objections. He also discusses the importance of empathy and understanding your audience when creating marketing materials. Tune in now and learn how to start creating your dream business.

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Listen to the podcast here

Dream Business Mastermind With Jim Palmer

Our guest is Captain Jim Palmer. He is the Founder and Creator of the Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program. He is also the Creator of Dream Business Academy and the host of Dream Business Radio, which is a weekly podcast based on his unique brand of smart marketing and dream business-building strategies.

His other business ventures include No Hassle Newsletters, Success Advantage Publishing, and How To Sell From The Stage Like A Pro. He is the developer of The Cashflow Conversation Code™ and the acclaimed author of several books. In 2016, after raising four kids and leading a practical and predictable life, Jim and his wife, Stephanie, sold their home in suburban Philadelphia and are now living and traveling on their yacht. They call it the Floating Home. Jim, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me on. I’m a big fan of your show.

I wanted to ask you your own story of origin before we get into this major decision you and Stephanie made. How did you get into learning about creating dreams for yourself and all these hundreds of entrepreneurs that you have helped?

Many people ask me, “Do you work three days a week?” I have for the last several years. Part of my backstory is I had cancer at 41. I was out of work at that time. It was a low point in my life. When I decided to start my first business for the next several years, as I’m sure a lot of entrepreneurs can attest, it was the old 80-hour-a-week nose to the grindstone.

After three years, I started doing okay. Five years in, I started learning about internet marketing from Corey Rudl. I got introduced to Dan Kennedy and that whole group. It took off from there. That is when I started No Hassle Newsletters and five other internet businesses. I started coaching in 2009, but somewhere around 2014 or 2015, things were great. A friend of mine said, “Are you ever going to buy a boat, or is that something you are going to talk about the rest of your life?”

[bctt tweet=”You grow faster when you take time off to renew.” username=”John_Livesay”]

It was my own words right in my face. We all have friend friends, but this is one of two people who know so much about me, my struggles, my bad money mindset, and all the different things. He is one of my personal mentors. We have mentored each other. He said, “You are much farther along than you said you wanted to be when you would get a boat, slow down, and start enjoying life.” I’m like, “My own words are coming back to bite me.”

I did buy a boat because I couldn’t face the prospect of being that wooz who talked a big game. We bought our first boat. Stephanie and I loved boating on the Chesapeake Bay on the weekends. It was a 30-foot boat. We could sleep on it. At that point, I loved it so much. I said, “I’m going to stop doing coaching calls on Friday so I will always have a three-day weekend.” About a year later, I liked that so much. I said, “I don’t wanna go back to work on Monday.” I took off Monday as well.

I made it sound easy, but it was not. It was a little scary. What is going to happen to my business? Over the course of a few years, John, I got clear on what I wanted the next several years of my business to look like. I didn’t want to keep working 80 hours a week. At that point, we had paid down debt. We were able to make some good decisions, but I got clear on what I wanted my personal life and business life to look like. I wanted to work three days a week. I thought that was amazing.

I did a little reverse engineering and figured out that if I’m busy on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and I have the right client mix, I have three different levels of coaching programs, I can earn what I need to earn to fund our lifestyle and keep the fund for retirement. This is how much I need. I figured it out, took that shot, and it works. Many people read the stories or hear them, or people that work and face plant on the desk.

The other big pivotal point for us was when Stephanie left her high-pressure job. I’m location independent, but she had a job to go to. When she stopped working, she said, “We should go on a big adventure. Kids are gone. Both of the girls are married. The two boys are on their own. Why don’t we do something fun and not wait several years?”

Long story short, we thought about a lot of different things and said, “Why don’t we live on a boat for a year?” We sold our house and 1 of our 2 cars. We sold the 30-foot boat and bought a 50-foot boat and moved on that boat in April 2017. I’m not having a lot of experience, and when I say not a lot, not having any experience driving a 50-foot boat in the ocean. Our first trip was from the Chesapeake Bay to Rhode Island.

Dream Business: Don’t charge based on the number of calls or the hours. Charge based on the transformation somebody is going to have.

How long did that take?

It is 330 miles. It was about a five-day trip. It could be longer if you have to stay in port due to the weather because being in the ocean could be a little rough. You have to wait for a calm day. Funny thing, John, we loved it so much, even the challenges and having the occasional pee-your-pants-with-fear. Our big adventure became our lifestyle. We did it for five years. Winter of 2022, we traveled down to the Keys and then back to the Chesapeake Bay. We sold the boat in July 2022 after 12,248 miles.

We are going to live for a year or maybe longer on land but in a stationary environment to be near the kids and grandkids. Stephanie’s dad passed away, but because we were here and close by, that was special. That is where we are now. I’m not rocking myself to sleep in the boat. We are on land now. Who knows what we will do? We are thinking of maybe a land yacht, like a big RV, and traveling the country. I would love to go out West, Midwest, Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming. I would love to see all of that before it is unsafe for me to drive.

I love this line you said, “Our big adventure became our lifestyle.” What a great brand that is. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you find working 3 days a week and having 4 to renew and do what you love that you are somehow more refreshed, which makes you more productive on those 3 days that you are working?

That is part of it. When we were on the boat, one of my challenges was no matter where we were, I needed good Wi-Fi because your client calls unlike several years ago when it was Skype audio. It became Skype video and now it is on Zoom. That is data intensive. I’m not plugged in so I needed portable Wi-Fi. Other than that, I have to manage my energy level. Instead of having 5 or 6 calls in a day, you get a little break in between. I’m busy 2 of the 3 or maybe 3 days because you are compressing about a week’s worth of normal flow client calls into three days. By the end of it, I’m brain wary and probably shouldn’t do heavy math. Don’t take the boat off the dock when you are this tired because that is when mistakes happen.

I learned many years ago from another mentor of mine, Melanie Benson. She told me, “Jim, you are working way too hard.” I say, “I got to keep growing.” She says, “You will grow more if you would take time off.” She pushed me. She said, “Take the next 3 or 4 days off.” I took one. I shut everything down. I drove up to the Eagles training camp. It is something I have always wanted to do, and I did it. I thought about my work on the drive. I took my camera. I was doing videos at that time. I shot a video, but I was out of the office. There is something to be said for quieting yourself and getting refreshed.

[bctt tweet=”Sell the outcome not how you do it.” username=”John_Livesay”]

All of us were confined during the pandemic to spaces that we hadn’t planned on being confined to. In your case, it was a 50-foot boat. Were there any challenges like, “I wish we could have more space?” Did you find that you got on each other’s nerves being in a smaller space than you might have been used to before?

There are moments because of the lifestyle. Stephanie and I were together 24/7 for five years, other than when I would work. Sometimes she would explore and go off her bike ride. She got a paddle board. During the pandemic, almost our life didn’t change at all. We were in a marina. We were in Cocoa Beach, Florida, when that happened, and the town had shut down. We could go out for a walk or go bike riding. There are no cars. There’s nobody out. It was strange. We wanted to see the town, but every restaurant was shut down. This is the early two weeks to slow the curve. Everybody was inside.

I would be walking and somebody is coming the other way. Half a mile away, they see us and cross the road. I remember the early days when you didn’t know what the heck was going on. As far as our own life, it didn’t change. We didn’t leave the marina because they weren’t taking anybody in. If we had left, we would have had no place to go. We are not self-sustaining. I need to be plugged in. I have a generator but there are certain things. I have holding tanks. They eventually get filled. Generally, our life didn’t change too much.

Let’s dive into some of your expertise, which is helping entrepreneurs get lucrative, high-ticket clients. That is my background as well, which is selling. Everyone has the objection of, “I like to hire you and buy this program and course, but I can’t afford it.” You help people handle that objection in a fairly unique way. Can you give us a little hint of what that looks like?

There is an expression that Dan Kennedy said, and I love it to death. It was like, “Slow down the sale.” You don’t go, “I’m Jim. Do you want to buy my high-ticket coaching program?” On a blind date, you are like, “Do you want to get married and have kids?” It is very icky to do that. It is a whole strategy, but the big nub of it, John, is if you give people enough opportunity to get to know, like, and trust, that happens over time. People could take all of my books and read them in the next 30 days, but they still don’t know me well enough. They are going, “This is a good book.” It is a process. You have to get to a point where you are not cash-starved in every potential sale and make it or break it for your business. That is not what this is about.

The other thing which I’m a big fan of is stair stepping it. Don’t go right for the big sale. I have read a lot of books in my earlier life about mergers, acquisitions, selling businesses, and franchising. One of the things I learned in the MA world is that sometimes a company would be bought whole, and it has several divisions. The person would buy it, split up and sell the divisions for more than they bought the whole company for meaning it is worth more in its pieces.

Dream Business: Every time you make a leap, it is a different mindset. You are making different decisions. You are making them faster. They are larger.

As I got more into coaching and started teaching other coaches, I said, “What you want to do is not sell them your annual program. Sell them something like a 90-day fast start.” That will be attractive for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is a lower threshold. It is only 90 days. I’m not making a year’s commitment. It is also going to be at a lesser price point. You just wow the you know what out of the whole 90 days and deliver so much value. They are going to be breathlessly saying, “What’s next?”

Not to be too crass, but the wallet will open up and say, “I don’t want to stop, do more.” This is the next step. That could either be two steps to fast start into a big program. There could be three steps to it. I’m not allowed to use some of their names. I have my mastermind, and people sometimes know who is in that I have some private clients. In one of the deals, some people know who they are, and they don’t want to say, “I’m getting coached.”

One of my private clients sells high-ticket coaching himself. When he came to me, he said, “I got a 60-day program, and I do pretty well. It is $7,500.” He can have a big smile on his face. I said, “That is good.” We started working together, and I’m like, “We got to start bumping that up.” He was telling me about what he does in that 60 days and, more importantly, what the value is or what the transformation is. I said, “Tell me everything you do for them.” His response was very much like a retail feature benefit. He was like, “They get this many calls. We do this. I help them with their cut.”

I said, “That is all stuff you do. If someone has a successful 60-day intensive program with you, can you tell me about one that worked out well?” He went, “I have a guy with a mortgage company. He makes $150,000 a year. In 60 days, I taught him so much about persuasion and the other thing. He is over $200,000. In 60 days, he is going to keep going.” I said, “Let me ask you a question. You took a guy and added $50,000. Potentially he is going to maybe be at $1.50, an increased personal take-home pay, and he paid you $7,500. Does that seem a good deal?” He goes, “No.”

What I’m saying is you don’t charge based on the number of calls or the hours. You charge based on the transformation somebody is going to have. He said, “What if we go to $15,000?” I said, “Let’s start there.” He doubled it. It didn’t slow him down. He made a couple of more sales at $15,000 for the same program. I said, “Let’s try something. Let’s make it a 90-day program. Whether you spread out the calls, add 2 more, or do 1 or 2 other things, you can put them in bullet form. Why don’t we try something like 23/5?” He sold it. He is now at 27/5 for the same program. He was selling for $7,500.

Here’s the exciting part. This client has been with me for several years now. He describes his big clients as whales, not in their personal size. He was like, “I got a guy. He got $1.5 million in revenue business.” He came to me and said, ‘I want to work with you for a year on these three things.’” He stated three big objectives. One of them being his own personal mindset. Even though he is doing great, I don’t care where you are. You got mindset hangups, Imposter syndrome, and money issues. He said, “I want to work on my executive team. I want to roll something out to the company. Give me a price for everything.”

[bctt tweet=”Don’t take the boat off the dock when you are too tired because that is when mistakes happen.” username=”John_Livesay”]

He goes, “Jim, how do I quote that? I think it is worth $50,000.” I said, “You are underselling yourself. First of all, do not quote an annual program. What is going to happen is if you quote them $50,000, it is a little more than I was thinking. What your natural thing is we will do a few calls.” You are starting to peel away all the good stuff and all those benefits of that beautiful car you wanted to try. The next thing is it is not the car you want so you are going to say no.

I said, “What you are going to do is pitch a 90-day fast start mindset program for him. Him being the leader first. When that happens, together, you guys will work with the executive team, and you will roll it out to the whole company. What I want you to do is price it at $7,500 a month.” It is $27,000 or $26,000 for the whole first 90-day program.

He said, “Why don’t I quote that?” I said, “No, quote $7,500 for the month for three months. As he likes that, you are going to say, ‘We are going to do stages 2 and 3.’ Even though it is a long time, I’m going to be more involved. We are going to keep the same $7,500 figure.” People get used to a monthly payment. It is usually the big number that freaks them out. He pitched it. He goes, “We are going to do you first. We got to get your mindset fixed. It is $7,500 a month. It will take us 90 days. We will do this and the other thing. That is the plan. Let’s get going.”

Ten months would be $75,000.

That’s $90,000. He closed this way. It was a ten-month program because I remember $75,000, but he thought $50,000 would be amazing. There are a few things about how to close high ticket items, slow down the sale, break it up into segments, and quote more than you want to quote like what is the monthly and not the total because the total will freak him out.

For people who don’t believe me about the total investment, let’s say you are going to buy a house for $300,000, but over 30 years, you are going to end up paying $680,000 with interest. The way you think about that, “I can have this $300,000 house and my house payment is only $2,200 a month. I can handle $2,200.” It is the monthly payment that people get fixated on. They don’t even think, “I’m paying twice as much for the house over 30 years.”

Dream Business: Life has taken over and they are busy. It is amazing how that simple thing of picking up the phone and talking to your customers can bring in more business without you having to sell.

It is the same thing as buying a car. I put solar on my home. It was like, “How much are those panels costing me?” Who is your ideal client, whether they are coaching with you or joining your mastermind, and is it the same person?

I have been doing it long enough. I know who that is. It is not people that are at the bottom at the beginning. A lot of my clients are somewhere around six figures to $200,000 a year. They have hit a plateau. My largest client was doing $32 million a year. I helped him learn how to sell from the stage. For the most part, the people in my mastermind are small business owners, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs. Sometimes people got 2, 3, or 4 team members. I’m helping them get to that $250,000 to $500,000.

Every time you make a leap like that, it is a different mindset. You are making different decisions. You are making them faster. They are larger. There are decisions about investment and learning what ROI is and not the so-called cost of what it is. It is pretty much small business owners and entrepreneurs. I work with an awful lot of coaches and service providers.

As a sales keynote speaker, I tend to think of myself as a stock. When you are investing in a stock, you go, “I hope this is going to grow.” I have a sense of what the culture is, what problem they are solving, what the competition is, and what the team is like, even if you don’t know all the employees at Tesla or whatever stock you are buying.

If you think of yourself as a stock, and in my case as a sales keynote speaker, I was like, “I need to invest in getting my sizzle reel video that agents showed potential clients greatly.” That requires spending quite a bit of money on editing, shooting, and music. That might take me 2 or 3 talks to pay for. A lot of people struggle with investing in themselves like that. I can tell you from my own personal experience it is paid off. For me, the mindset is I know my work ethic and skills. I believe in myself as a stock that I’m investing in. What do you think of that mindset?

I learned many years ago. I was working for a chain of stores that started franchising. Franchising is incredibly expensive to get started. You have the registration and legal. Before you sell your first franchise, you are probably at $200,000. The owner of this company was bootstrapping it. When we started exhibiting it at International Franchise Association events, he had this beautiful booth made. He did everything first class. He knew that would pay off in the long run. I help people get books published. My private clients work with my designer, but somebody might say, “I can get that done on Fiverr.” They have a piece of clip art that has two hands shaking that have been used 52 million times. They got the green arrow going up the graph to show an increase. That makes you look like such a commodity.

[bctt tweet=”If you give people enough opportunity to get to know, like, and trust, that happens over time.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I applaud you because I know it is expensive putting those sizzle reels together, but yet somebody who doesn’t know you is going to make an assumption based on how they perceive that reel. I used to get into all kinds of arguments with one of my boys many years ago about wearing silly clothes to school. They were like, “What if you go for a job?” They need to understand who I am. They are not going to get past to know who you are until they see you are wearing these shorts that look like pajamas or something. I don’t know the exact thing.

Look at we do make assumptions. That is a lot of what social media is. We make assumptions based on what we see. If you have a great sizzle reel, they are going to make an assumption like, “This guy is out there speaking. He is good.” It is called marketing and positioning. If you try and cheap out, people will sense that. Fairly or unfairly, they are going to make certain decisions based on how they perceive whether you are good or not.

The analogy I use is if you think of speakers as all being diamonds, and you can go down to the diamond market, get a diamond for asking someone to marry you, or you can go to Tiffany’s and they give you the diamond that is more expensive because it comes in this beautiful blue box. The packaging does set you apart. This concept of mitigating the risk for the people booking you as a speaker. If you have that mindset, and that is what you do well with your clients from what I have heard from your stories, is you zoom out and say, “What problem are you solving here?” In the case of an event planner booking a speaker, it is, “If that speaker bombs, it is on me.”

What are you doing as a speaker to mitigate the risk of me hiring you? Showing me a video of you in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of people and testimonials, help mitigate that risk. If you don’t have that empathy and the ability to realize how they are making their decision, and more importantly, what their fears are and how you could solve that, you are making a video with no intention behind it.

As you say, “If that speaker bombs, it is on me.” You want to have a great relationship and understand what they are looking for. When I do my podcast now, and it is the tenth year, and you have been on the show a couple of times, I’m like, What would make this a great experience for you?” It is one of the questions I ask because I want to know, and you’ve done the same for me. Is there anything specific you want to talk about? It is good to know that.

A franchise consultant is like a real estate broker who makes a commission when the sales close. You are doing an awful lot of work upfront, hoping there is going to be a sale. We helped her publish a book. Of all the franchise consultants, most do not have a book. Her book has been out for less than 60 days. She has already resurrected three leads. Everybody that reaches out and they have a conversation, she is now shipping a signed book. People reach out. They were like, “Thanks for the book. I wanted to let you know I’m selling one of my other companies. In quarter 2 or 3, I’m going to be looking at this, and I will be sure to reach out.” She was off the chart excited.

[bctt tweet=”A franchise consultant is like a real estate broker who makes a commission when the sales close.” username=”John_Livesay”]

One of the things we do when we are trying to nurture these prospective client relationships is, how often do I reach out? What do I reach out to? Are you ready to go? This book is not only a positioning tool, but it is a reason for them to get back in touch with you. I told her, “Even if they never cracked the cover and read it, Kate is an author. She wrote the book on how to buy a franchise.”

One of my favorite things about being an author myself is when I realized that the word authority is the word author, even though you don’t hear it when you pronounce authority. It is subtle, “You are the authority on this topic.” You have to own that you are the authority on storytelling and sales, in my case, to even finish the book. Although you won’t let yourself finish it. There are all kinds of obstacles. I love that you are helping people with the mindset and stretching like, “Do I deserve to charge this much?” Being able to say that with confidence to someone is everything. If you don’t believe it, they are not going to believe it.

What is more important than if your prospective customers believe what you are saying is if you do. I realize that confidence comes from success. Success comes from being in activity, closing more sales, having them go well, and delivering a great experience. Everybody starts somewhere, but after a while, you got a track record. Keep thinking about reviewing that track record if you start feeling down. I used to have it in my home office picture and cards. People would send me things. When I’m having a bad day, I will look through there. I had even printed out emails because I didn’t want to lose them. I put them in the folder. I’m having an impact.

It eventually clicks on you, which sounds egotistical or chest-bumping, but I’m good at what I do. You need to believe that. Whether you are selling a product or a service, what your customers are buying is hope and certainty. They want to feel certain. They don’t want to think, “I think this might go well.” Based on your sizzle reel, books, and testimonials, whatever else you put out there, you want your customer to go, “This is going to be a great experience. I have a lot of hope that John is going to get me to where I need to be. I feel certain it is going to go well.” If you got hope and certainty, they would make the connection to move forward at some pace.

I compare it to being in a restaurant. Sometimes, if it is a fancy restaurant, they will bring you a sorbet to cleanse your pallet between courses. What we need to do as salespeople is cleanse our mind pallet. If you have a no, rejection, or you are not feeling like things are going well, I tell people to call up a client.

When I spoke at a luxury automotive sales dealership meeting, I said, “You know you get the rejections. Instead of staying in that mindset the next time somebody walks into the dealership or you get a phone call, you initiate a phone call to someone you sold a car to in the last 60 days. Check in and hear firsthand how happy they are driving their new Jaguar, Land Rover, or whatever it is you sold them. That puts you in a new mindset. It is great customer service. Sometimes you even get a referral from it, but you are not calling for that reason. You are calling to hear how happy they are with their decision. You can have that mindset the next time somebody comes in.”

[bctt tweet=”Social media is basically making assumptions based on what we see.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I firmly believe that if you make phone calls to your current or past customers without selling but to check in, “How is it going? What is working? What’s not working? Can I ask you if are we doing well? Where can we approve?” Whatever it is. It could be a 2, 5, or 10-minute call, but you are not there to sell. Invariably, I bet you 30%, 40%, and 50% of the calls, they’re like, “I’m glad you called because I have been meaning to call you.” Life has taken over and they are busy. It is amazing how that simple thing of picking up the phone and talking to your customers can bring in more business without you having to sell.

Our time has gone so fast. You are a great storyteller. I wanted to see if there is a quote or a book that you want to recommend, besides your own, for us, and we are going to talk about how people can get ahold of you.

I made the digital versions of all my books free. It’s my legacy-building program because I’m starting to get white on my face. Time is slipping. My books are free on Amazon as Kindle. If you are into Nook books, they are at Barnes & Noble. They are also in the iBookStore. They are free. If you want to connect and learn more about me, it is GetJimPalmer.com. The latest report I put out, which we talked about, is about how I work three days a week and how charging what you’re worth is the key to that. Work3DaysAWeek.com is where people can get ahold of that report and some good information in there.

Thanks for sharing your story, passion, and valuable takeaways on how to segment and price things in a way that gets people more money than they ever dreamed possible.

John, great to connect with you again. I know we have been on each other’s shows a few times now over the years. It is always a joy.

Important Links

• Jim Palmer
• Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program
• Dream Business Radio
• No Hassle Newsletters
• Success Advantage Publishing
• How To Sell From The Stage Like A Pro
• The Cashflow Conversation Code™
• Work3DaysAWeek.com
• Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course

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