No business has ever succeeded in this day and age without systems. They are vitally important, and even more so when you want to scale. Today’s guests, Brian Kelly and Jeffrey Edwards know this to be true. In this episode, they join Michael Silvers to talk about the importance of systems, how it relates to social media, and what you need to cover first to find the ones that best serve you. They also discuss connecting with others through networking and building a team with the right kind of leadership. If you’re looking for wisdom and guidance on building your business and scaling it to success, then you shouldn’t miss this conversation!
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Why Systems Are Vitally Important To Business Success With Brian Kelly And Jeffrey Edwards
It’s so exciting to have you on the show. If you want to know more about us or how you can become involved, there’s a couple of different ways. You can go to the website, TheMentorsStudio.com. What that will do is that brings you right into our community. You can join our community. We have calls and networking and we’re excited to have you. If you want more information, you can always reach out to one of the team but why don’t you join the community first and then reach out to me on the community? I’m happy to answer any questions. We also do talk about it on the calls.
We have a networking call once a week and we also have a mastermind call. We tag them every other week. With that being said, to be a community, it’s about transition and team. Without a team, I couldn’t do what I’ve done. A lot of you know that I did, I’ve worked with years. My wife and I traveled the world with Chris Howard and we went to Australia back and forth. We then were on the teams with Harv Eker and Peak Potentials, and then with the Tony Robbins teams that put him around the world, it was Robert Kiyosaki.
It’s been a great life. I’ve been able to speak on the big stages, work with the best of the best, I’ve been with directors of the big divisions. Also, in the show, I’ve been able to interview those. We had Michael Hutchison, who was Tony’s VP. From the beginning, we have Mary Glorfield, who was the Vice President for eighteen years.
We had Joseph McClendon. We got a lot of Tony people, who’s been on stage with him. We’ll get more people from the Robert Kiyosaki world. We had Keith Cunningham. It doesn’t get any better. It is about the brilliance of the team these people surround you with. I’m going to let them introduce themselves because I believe earning the right to speak is important. Brian, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background?
Thanks, Michael. It’s great to see everybody here. My background is software engineering by trade. I don’t do that anymore but as a result, I love the automation of all kinds and have done that for a number of years. Also, I love speaking on stage. I was a lead trainer for a mentor of mine for a couple of years and taught his students from the stage on his weekend event. I’m excited to be here part of the show, along with you and Jeffery, and everyone else. Thanks for having us.
Jeffrey, go ahead.
It’s great and wonderful to be here. Basic background, I come from the world of training, executive coaching, and leadership development, starting in high-tech. Working in corporations and working with leadership teams, and then expanding into markets. I had the opportunity to get to the whole personal developments field and work with people like Michael and others who are moving more into personal development, leadership development. Along with that, get helping people be their best selves and accelerate in their area of expertise and do well along the way.
He knows I’m going to bring this up, so no matter how you look at it, Jeffrey and I have known each other a long time. We both did courses at Peak Potentials and I was Director of Coaching at that point. I saw this shining star come out as one of our coach’s person and then asked him to lead the whole division with me. It was the best thing I ever did because the way he looked at systems is the way I don’t. Literally, I’m a point and shoot. Point in a direction, give me what I need to do, and I can sell it, develop it and build a community.
When it comes to the strategic part of what’s in the background, how it looks, the manuals, how the coaches need to be trained, and how it should all be laid out, not my specialty, that’s why you surround yourself with the best of the best. Jeffrey, if it wasn’t for him, that division wouldn’t have been what it is. Give Jeffrey a big round of applause for that, everybody. For the move for The Mentor Studio now to the Mighty Network is I’ve been making Jeffrey crazy for because I’m good at doing that.
We found Brian’s room. This is where you ask. Brian stepped in and got it done. Literally, from the time I met Brian, we’re starting to move to the network. Has it been days? I don’t even know. That’s the speed you’re looking for in the industry. From this perspective of systems, strategies, and backgrounds, why don’t you guys talk a little bit about that? Brian, how important is it from your background to connect all the systems and especially in this market online nowadays, how important that is from social media perspective to making the whole thing work and people buying what you have?
Systems are extremely important more so now than ever before with all the new tools that are coming online that everyone’s becoming acclimated with and expect. It’s a great time to be alive as a geek myself because now we get to put together systems that I’ve always loved doing that work. The beautiful thing is when you have a system in place, you’re taking away the human error factor when you have certain things like that are automated as an example. Systems are important to have in your business so you can have repeatable processes that run.
When you have a system in place, you're taking away the human error factor. Click To TweetI see Jeffrey nodding, we’re like kindred spirits. I love this guy. We’re geeks united. Systems are vitally important to any business no matter how big you are but especially if you ever want to scale, more important than ever. When you bring on new team members, you need to have a system in place so that they can follow that system pretty easily with very little time out of your day, teaching them the new processes that they’re about to embark on.
Can you talk a little bit about Mighty Networks? We don’t own it. It’s a network on its own. People here are always looking for systems. How do I look for a system? What are some of the questions I ask? Could you explain some of the things you looked for from connectivity to a community to responsiveness?
Literally, the process was, I asked you guys the questions. You provided the answers I needed and that’s key when you’re doing any business. When you’re putting together a solution, don’t solve what you think they want. Solve what they want. I asked you guys pointed questions and probably to the point where you’re like, “Stop asking questions,” but that got me to the point where I could then go search for a resource that would hit as many of those points as possible.
Typically, I don’t hit 100%, but this time Mighty Networks was one of those rare ones that it hit every bullet point you guys were looking for that I could ascertain. It’s like a Facebook group that will never get you to shut down. You’ll never get shut down on your Facebook account. It’s got more flexibility, especially from our end so we can put together something that best fits the community versus a one size fits all. It’s flexible and feature-rich. It’s got more stuff than we even know about even now, but we’re learning as we go as well and implementing it as we go, if it’s a fit for the group.
The great thing too, as you explained to me, from the effect of it, it also had the keen activity we needed, from what I understand, to the CRM, to the texting, to the database. It had all this way to connect that you needed. Why is that important?
It’s vitally important so we can have outreach and open communication. We received a message on the CRM side of the house for that purpose. It’s also going to give us the ability to message everyone in certain camps, depending on what level of membership they have, and do so 100% under our own control if we get to a point where Mighty Networks may not have that kind of flexibility. It’s good to have flexibility but it’s a database. It’s something now you can use. This is a general statement, not just for The Mentor Studio but it’s something you now own the data and if you have specials coming up, you can send out specials.
We have bonuses. If we have events that are not specifically tied to the Mighty Networks in this case, then you can do stuff like that and you get better outreach with it. With the tools involved, you’re able to do drip campaigns, build forums, landing pages, websites. It’s a full-blown comprehensive on steroids CRM that enables you to do anything you need in your business. It connects with so many other external services, Zapier, and other things that help you glue all these pieces together like Mighty Networks to make your brand, your company, your image look professional and of high quality.
That’s that piece. Jeffrey, you want to plus that?
Everything that Brian said, it’s a big plus on that. One of the key parts that he pointed out, which is working with small companies and entrepreneurs over the years is to have a discussion, “What do you want to do? What is it that you want to accomplish?” It’s oftentimes what happens when people see systems and like, “I want to grab this CRM,” and they’re shopping around for all these different tools. It can be very overwhelming. The second part is, what you’re buying what you need at this point in time. Oftentimes, before we even get into talking about tools and all the bells and whistles, what Brian did was the starting point. What is it that you want to accomplish?
It becomes more than take a step back and looking at the bigger picture. What’s the customer journey that you’re mapping out here? What’s your experience? What is it that you want in terms of outcomes, data, information and how do you want to connect with people? It may feel like, “It’s so much time,” like the conversation we have with Michael most of the time where he’s asking me these questions and he’s like, “I’m so tired. I want this done.”
We can run fast and get things done, buy something off the shelf, and spend a lot of time and energy trying to make it work, or you can take the time to map out the process naturally, take a minute, “What is it that I want?” Ask the people that you’re serving as well, “What do you want?” In order to shorten that timeframe and along the way, make it down the road faster for you to meet the needs of future clients and customers because you have things in place that can scale the way you want them to.
It’s fascinating because there are a lot of questions. I’m not a question guy. “How are you doing?” “Great.” “How are you doing?” “Fantastic. We’re done. We’re finished.” It’s knowing your customer. The reason it’s great in a way is that somebody said, “I turned off membership for the last couple of months.” If you’ve noticed, there have been these private invites. That’s because, in a way, for the first 6 to 8 months, it was about asking the members, “What you guys wanted?” This is why there was a lot of that questioning going on. We had the first poll for some of you remember from way back. It was to finally build something as we scale up, not for us but for you. A great question within that becomes, “Do I own the data I put into Mighty Networks?”
What you do, and what Brian and Jeffrey’s done for us is there’s a step before that. There’s a place that you go to that you put in your information, and then you get it. Now we’ve captured it within our own system. It gives us the ability to do a lot of different things with it. It’s not just a CRM. Brian’s tied a lot of things in there.
I’m from the old Infusionsoft days. It keeps around everything. There are things that do great and it could be very expensive, and they’re now rolling out a whole other side. Infusionsoft is great. What Brian did is, for me, he made it simple and easy. This is important when you’re working with somebody, even in your own business, think about this.
Anytime he made a change or did anything, he shot a video that we could watch what he changed, what it was going to do, and what it would mean for all of us. It’s my mind-numbing, “What’s he talking about?” Literally, within two minutes, I knew what changes were going on, what was happening, what I needed to do.
From a team perspective, he kept the team always. For those of you out there with teams, the team always knew what was going on because any change like that, was bullet point and show us, so the visuals and the auditories got it. However you learned, he’d smile. The kinesthetic, I’m happy. There are all these things that, from a team perspective, came brilliantly together and made sense.
Brigida is not on this call and Mary’s working on now, the other huge event. That’s great. Brigida, we let her, she wanted to go on vacation, so she’s on vacation. As a team, it’s coming together. It came together quickly from that perspective but also, there’s a strategy and system around the leadership component of who drives the bus. People still drive buses. Do you know how much bus drivers are making now because they can’t find them? Who’s the captain of the ship. Jeffrey, can you talk from a perspective of what we’ve created to a bigger picture, a little bit about leadership? Tell them a little bit about your podcast and where we got ranked and you do.
It’s always an interesting question, Michael, when we talk about leadership and the circles that we run in and the people we work with over the years, as much as everyone here. You look at your client base. You are recognized as subject matter experts in your space and the people that follow you, they’re doing it for a reason. It’s something that you have to say, the value you have to offer to them, that is allowing them to expand, grow, and learn and be better in whatever space they’re in.
One thing that I’ve learned with us through our time together is that willingness to be open to ask questions and also being vulnerable and saying, “I don’t know,” and who can step in and provide some insights or help me understand, and not allow for us to gain a better perspective on what it was that we want to accomplish. Once confirmed, then we were able to put together a plan to move forward.
It is that perspective. The other thing, too, that was critical for anybody building a business there from the perspective of systems, social media team and leadership is to get your ego out of the way and let your team do what they do best. There’s a tendency within that for us to either step on each other and stay in your lane. It’s critical as you’re building a team. Do what you do best, and let your team do what they do best, and then expand from there.
Get your ego out of the way. You got to let go and let your team do what they do best. Click To TweetThat’s the piece that will make a difference in everything that you do. From this perspective, we’re going to jump back onto social media. Brian, from the perspective of social media, now that we’re reaching out, we’re going to go out more to social media, why is it so important to have the system we have?
Now we have our membership, our community that cannot be dictated, moved or shut down by any external entity, which I’ve heard many times years ago that Facebook and others would shut other people down. If they’re the admin of the group, there goes to the group with it. This gives us the autonomy to work within our own wheelhouse and do things we want to with the freedoms we want. That’s important for everyone, as a business owner, to have the flexibility. That reminds me, I’ve been in network marketing companies. I used to co-own one. One thing I never liked about and network marketing company as a distributor was, I had to do it their way or the highway.
There was no leniency and flexibility. I got shut down in five different companies for trying to market and help them build a bigger business because I wasn’t doing it their way. This gives us the freedom to build what we want to build. That’s best for you guys, the community. That’s the important part. What is the outcome? If the outcome is for the experience for the results, it’s always about the results.
The outcome is for the experience, for the results. Click To TweetJeffrey, I might’ve missed it because my brain might’ve flown. Did you talk about, and if you did, where we were positioned number 5 and 10, and your show?
I did mention it. Even better, I was doing some research. If you go to Listen Notes, it’s a directory of all the podcasts out there in the industry. It’s a great place if you want to be a guest on podcasts, Listen Notes is the name of the site. Also, if you want to get guests on your podcasts, check it out. Doing a search on it, one of the parts that I found is you can check out where you are in the top ten. They have top ten lists, top percent or 5%. The Mentor Studio show is in the top list, like top 5% of podcasts in its category. It’s a credit to Michael and our friends and partners at Podetize, who help build this platform.
The big part of that is the consistency of putting a message out there and sharing that. Over time, having that steady rabbit or turtle, whatever analogy you want to use up there but it’s a stay as you go. That’s how you get the traction and create the momentum. Any time I’ve seen it, Michael and Brian, we’ve seen it so many times. It’s like the quick blast, a quick hit. We think it’s going to be fast, fast, fast, and then it burns as bright fast, and dead in the timeframe you got started. The ones that keep the pace and focus allow that to grow.
My podcast, the one I’ve been a partner of, which per email of The Mentor Studio and some of the other work, The Leader’s Chair, someone told me, he was a guest on my show. He said, “I contacted you because I saw you were listed as one of the top 10%.” I didn’t even know that when he told me. I had to look it up and go, “Really? I’ve only been out there for a year.” It’s the consistency, which I’ve struggled with. Now, I’ll be open with you. It’s usually been like 1, 2, 3 jumping everywhere. It was one thing I made the commitment to say, “This is what I’m going to do,” and it’s paid off.
It does pay off, that consistency that moves you forward to having the right systems in place, the right connections, and being able to have the right people who can do what they do. Stop doing it yourself. Stop spending the money you don’t need to spend. That’s the thing. There are so many ways to skin this cat if you have the right person in your camp. That will make a big difference. I wanted to thank you all for reading. It is an amazing day to make the connections. For those that are in the community, Brian has a gift for everyone, too.
That will become a bonus as one of our bonuses. Jeffrey has been part of my team and will be forever. It’s an amazing team we have. I could not do what I do without those around us. We’re everywhere. We’re on Apple and Android. Jeffrey and Brian, Mary Glorfield, one of my business partners who was Tony’s VP for eighteen years, Brigida and everybody else, I wanted to thank you so much for being on the show. Make sure you join our community at TheMentorsStudio.com. I look forward to seeing you all soon. Jeffrey and Brian, you guys have been awesome. Everybody, have a great day.
Important Links
- Michael Hutchison – Previous episode
- Mary Glorfield – Previous episode
- Joseph McClendon – Previous episode
- Keith Cunningham – Previous episode
- Jeffrey Edwards – LinkedIn
- Mighty Networks
- Listen Notes
- Podetize
- The Leader’s Chair
- Apple Podcasts – Apple Podcasts
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