A poolside catch-up in Thailand where two seven-figure coaches trade the numbers behind their content, their ad spend, and two opposite bets on whether a sales team is worth keeping.
Two established coaches concluded that treating content creation as a full-time discipline, measured by ratio data instead of instinct, outperforms the traditional coach playbook of big ad budgets and dedicated sales teams.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A coach or course creator with an established business who wants to see how experienced peers actually run their content and ad operations day to day.
Someone deciding whether to invest real time and money into a content process instead of treating it as an afterthought.
A business owner questioning whether a sales team is still worth the overhead it adds.
SKIP IF…
You want a beginner step-by-step tutorial. This is two experienced operators comparing notes, not a how-to walkthrough.
You need hard data and screenshots. Most figures here are spoken casually in conversation, with no on-screen numbers to verify against.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Maria Wendt and fellow coach Taki Moore sit poolside in Thailand comparing how they each turned content into the real engine of a seven-figure coaching business. They track a views-to-followers ratio to decide between talking-head and b-roll formats, run comment-keyword posts as their highest-converting paid spend, and cut ad budgets by roughly 90% by boosting organic content instead of buying cold traffic. The two disagree productively on team structure: one eliminated a 36-person sales team to run $1.6M months alone, the other is actively hiring setters and closers to support new high-ticket lines. Both agree the biggest lever is treating content, not sales calls, as the highest-paid activity in the business.
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Personal catch-up covering travel, family, and grandkids before the conversation turns to business.
02:20 – 06:04
02 · Deciding To Go Pro With Content
The moment content production stopped being optional, sparked by watching a peer's example, and the choice to build a personal process instead of copying someone else's.
06:04 – 09:37
03 · Events As A Content Format: The Moving Mastermind
Running mastermind sessions inside a moving activity, a bullet train, a hot air balloon, and how COVID forced a shorter, better event format.
09:37 – 11:27
04 · Making Content Feel Like Play, Not Work
Pairing content shoots with activities already enjoyed so a shoot day feels like an outing, illustrated with a friend's walk-to-Starbucks habit stack.
11:27 – 16:02
05 · Talking Head vs. B-Roll: What The Ratio Data Says
Tracking a views-to-followers ratio shows talking straight to camera outperforming b-roll-with-text, and why the format works for men too.
16:02 – 18:15
06 · The Follower-Buying Cautionary Tale
Men and women approach paid promotion differently, plus a story about paying for 10,000 fake followers to beat a family dog's Instagram account, and the engagement damage that followed.
18:15 – 21:07
07 · Boosting Posts And The Comment-Keyword Funnel
The mechanics of paid post-boosting, a comment-keyword automation that is the single biggest moneymaker, and cutting ad spend from $60K to $6-7K a month.
21:07 – 25:35
08 · High Ticket vs. Low Ticket, and Killing The Sales Team
Two contrasting models: one adding high-ticket tiers and hiring setters and closers, the other running $1.6M months with zero sales team after cutting a 36-person team.
25:35 – 28:28
09 · Practicing Live Events With $200 Workshops
Running low-stakes, break-even in-person workshops purely to rehearse event logistics before scaling into paid live events, plus the optimization-versus-maximizing distinction.
28:28 – 33:26
10 · What Actually Makes The Business Work: Care, Simplification, Permission
The traits behind consistent results: caring about outcomes over sales, cutting activities instead of adding them, giving people permission to lean into their strengths, plus a producer's addition about deliberate experimentation.
33:26 – 36:08
11 · Building A Business You Don't Want To Exit
Closing reflections on building a business around how it feels to run day to day, and the origin story of how the two speakers first connected through a cold text to a book's author.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Tracking the views-to-followers ratio on every video, not just raw view count, revealed that talking straight to camera outperformed b-roll-with-text, so the team committed to making at least half of new content that way.
A low-ticket workshop funnel spending $6,000 to $7,000 a month on boosted posts generates roughly $100,000 to $107,000 in workshop ticket sales.
A comment-keyword post that auto-replies with a link is the single biggest moneymaker in the ad account, ahead of any other boosted content.
Cutting ad spend from $60,000 a month down to $6,000-$7,000 a month, while shifting the budget into boosting proven organic content, still kept the business profitable. The $60,000-a-month version signed nine clients a month.
Eliminating a 36-person team, including a 9-person sales department, made the business more enjoyable to run, not just cheaper.
A book-a-call funnel loses people at every extra step (click ad, land on calendar page, book the call, show up), so one high-ticket coaching business rebuilt its funnel to go straight from content to offer, the way low-ticket products already do.
One coach's YouTube channel drives about 30% of a high-ticket program's new applications, without an ad ever running behind it.
Buying 10,000 Instagram followers produced about six minutes of satisfaction and permanently damaged the account's engagement rate afterward.
Testing a new content format once isn't a real test. Running it at least 30 times is what it takes to know whether the format actually works.
Content that wasn't the presenter's own idea consistently underperforms, because the enthusiasm doesn't come through on camera even when the topic is objectively good.
Running $200 in-person workshops isn't meant to make money. It's rehearsal for the logistics of running full-priced live events later.
A family's pet Instagram account outgrew its owner's eight-year-old coaching business account, which is part of why some creators quietly pay for followers, and why it usually backfires.
Matching content formats to activities already enjoyed, like beaches, coffee shops, or driving an old Land Rover, turns a shoot day into an outing instead of a chore.
A YouTuber with two million subscribers reported having to work exactly as hard on each new video as a creator with zero subscribers, since a following doesn't make the next video easier to land.
Content creation, not coaching calls or sales, is described as the single highest-earning activity per hour in a seven-figure coaching business.
Takeaway
Content becomes the growth engine once you track it like a business, not a hobby.
WHAT TO LEARN
Two working coaches compare what actually moves the needle in their content and offers: format decisions driven by ratio data instead of gut feel, ad spend cut by roughly 90% without losing revenue, and two opposite, equally valid bets on whether a sales team is worth keeping.
02Deciding To Go Pro With Content
Treating content as a real job, not a side task, often happens after seeing someone else's results up close. Borrowed motivation from a peer's example can tip the decision faster than more research.
Copying someone else's exact content process rarely works long-term. Taking a general framework and adapting it to your own taste and constraints matters more than following the steps literally.
03Events As A Content Format: The Moving Mastermind
Running problem-solving sessions inside a shared activity, rather than a static meeting room, forces tighter time limits and creates a stronger memory than a normal seated mastermind.
A forced constraint, like the shorter event days COVID pushed everyone into, can permanently improve a format instead of just being a temporary compromise.
04Making Content Feel Like Play, Not Work
Content stops feeling like a chore once it's built around activities already enjoyed, rather than treated as a separate task bolted onto the day.
A habit you resist can be adopted by pairing it with something you already crave, then gradually swapping out the part you don't actually need.
05Talking Head vs. B-Roll: What The Ratio Data Says
Tracking views-to-followers ratio, not just raw view count, reveals which content format is actually growing an audience versus just getting seen.
A single content test isn't a real experiment. Running a new format at least 30 times is what it takes to know if it actually works.
06The Follower-Buying Cautionary Tale
Paying for followers produces a brief ego boost and permanent damage to engagement rates, since the audience behind those numbers was never real.
Men and women in the same audience can have very different comfort levels with running paid ads, which is worth designing for rather than assuming one approach fits everyone.
07Boosting Posts And The Comment-Keyword Funnel
A comment-keyword post that auto-replies with a link can outperform every other paid ad in the account, because it converts existing organic engagement instead of buying cold attention.
Cutting ad spend by roughly 90%, and shifting that budget into boosting proven organic content, can keep a business just as profitable with far less overhead.
08High Ticket vs. Low Ticket, and Killing The Sales Team
A funnel with more steps between an ad and a purchase creates more chances for a prospect to drop off. Collapsing content straight into an offer removes friction a traditional book-a-call process adds.
Running a large sales team and running zero sales team can both work. The right choice depends on whether the added complexity buys enough extra revenue to be worth it.
09Practicing Live Events With $200 Workshops
A low-priced, break-even workshop isn't there to make money. It's a low-stakes way to practice event logistics before charging full price later.
Deciding whether to optimize an existing process or maximize outcomes within it are two different goals, and confusing them leads to solving the wrong problem.
10What Actually Makes The Business Work: Care, Simplification, Permission
Removing activities that don't move the numbers is usually more valuable than adding new ones, even though most businesses default to adding more.
Giving someone permission to lean into what they're naturally strong at, instead of grinding on their weak spots, is often the highest-leverage thing a mentor can offer.
11Building A Business You Don't Want To Exit
A business built around a specific outcome, like a revenue number or an exit, is a different project than a business built around how the day-to-day actually feels to run.
A single piece of cold outreach, like texting the author of a book for advice, can end up being the entire origin story of a multi-year, seven-figure business relationship.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Moving Mastermind
A mastermind session run inside a moving activity, like a bullet train or a hot air balloon, instead of a static room, so each attendee only gets a few timed minutes to work through their problem.
Boosting
Paying to promote an already-published organic social media post to a wider audience, instead of building a standalone paid ad from scratch.
Comment-Keyword Funnel
A post that asks viewers to comment a specific word, which triggers an automated reply containing a link, turning social engagement directly into leads.
Micro Magnet
A very low-cost or free lead magnet used to capture email or contact opt-ins as cheaply as possible, sometimes for pennies per lead.
Ascension Model
A business structure with multiple price tiers, where customers are expected to move from a cheap entry offer up to progressively higher-ticket products over time.
Setters and Closers
A two-role sales team structure where setters book and qualify calls and closers run the sales conversation to close the deal.
Book-a-Call Funnel
A sales process built around getting a prospect to click an ad or link, book a call on a calendar, and show up, with drop-off possible at every step along the way.
“Every step is a chance for them to do what we want them to do, but sometimes they don't.”
clear explanation of funnel drop-off in one line→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
33:26
“I'm not building a business. I'm doing the goal. I'm much more interested in how this business feels to me than how it looks to anyone else.”
emotional, closing-line energy, works as a standalone statement→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
Topic Map
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 02:20sparsePersonal catch-up and travel
02:20 – 11:27denseCommitting to content as a real production process
11:27 – 18:15denseContent format testing and ratio metrics
18:15 – 25:35densePaid ads, boosting, and funnel economics
21:07 – 25:35denseBusiness model and sales team structure
25:35 – 28:28Live events and workshop rehearsal
28:28 – 33:26denseWhat makes the coaching actually work
33:26 – 36:08Closing philosophy and origin story
The Script
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Well, Taki, I'm so excited to be chatting with you. Yeah, back together in Thailand now. Now in Thailand, 26 -hour flight later.
Thank you. How long was your flight? I came from Fiji.
It might have been eight hours or maybe ten. It's still decent. Yeah.
It's still decent. Yeah. We try to mix up the events.
And you're usually in my corner in California. Correct. So thanks for making the effort.
I appreciate it. I was just telling Michael and Tony, I was like, I'm coming down to Australia next year. I haven't yet.
I've never been still, which is crazy. We've got to fix that. That's easy.
I know. I want the whole tour. Yeah.
We'll do it. i'm excited for this yeah um you know you mentioned i think it was that last week you were hanging out with all six of your kids yeah and five of the six grandkids five of the six grandkids in fiji how many kids have kids now is it three or just three have kids we have kids now wow yeah two of them have one and one of them went all in and had four yeah that's that's my dream i need five so they just have one more than they're at my number i've been learning about Legacy and wealth preservation and like the concept of a family beyond your generation Do you ever think about that like that like your legacy as a father and grandfather?
I don't think about legacy. Like how do I want to be remembered? I'm gonna be dead and So you don't care how you remembered?
Well, how I'm remembered is kind of up to them how I live is probably more up to me. That's good. I care about that I think when we had the kids and the grandkids together you can see family traits and family rituals and like that stuff matters how that ends up in three generations i'm not sure but i can see like stuff in me that was true of my mom or my dad and is in my son or my daughter you know that's cool yeah i mean it's a big you have a big family a lot of people like yeah we had 16 in fiji and uh it was great i'm a granddad can you believe it no i tried to get hot granddad trending on twitter I don't think...
No, there's this guy. I think he's called Mr. Steal Your Grandma.
And he's African -American. He's a smoke show. I've given up this game.
You can't compete against that. Well, you've been posting content kind of a lot. You talked about that, how you really made a shift in yourself.
What made you... Because you've been such a master of the industry for such a long time, not needing to post content, not needing to do that. Your reputation, your word of mouth marketing has been so strong for so many years.
What made you want to like... Add all this extra work to your plate. Dude, you know what it is?
Buddy Dan Martell came to Australia a year and a half ago, two years ago. And two things were awkward about that. Number one, the dude is like Captain America, but Canadian.
And we're at the beach and shirt's off. And I'm like, oh crap, I gotta get my fitness. And then secondly, he talked about going pro.
You know, the same conversation that we were having before. About going pro with his content. I'm like, that's amazing.
He talked about all the opportunities and all the businesses come from and all the good things that came from taking content seriously. it's like okay i want to do that and then i chatted with sam who you know i'm like going pro sounds great tony we should go pro and then i'm like sam what does it really take what does it really look like and it sounded awful like it's like a 13 person production team and scripts and the ai and then read this thing and this is an outlay i know you don't care about but you're gonna say this like i was like oh so like how do i get the yay without the boo and so we made the decision to go pro probably march last year so a little over a year yeah like a year and three or four months And, but we also made the decision of we're going to do it our way.
Because I think it's really difficult to be successful following somebody else's, like you follow the recipe and the breadcrumbs, but you've got to, you adopt it and then you adapt it. That's right. And so figuring out what things I care about and what things I don't has been super fun.
And watching like your YouTube journey has inspired the shit out of me. Me, mine. Yes.
Like so fast to grow. Yeah. And.
it feels like the gap between I've got an idea and I've shot a video and the videos on the internet is so compressed, which is just, I think anytime you can shrink the gap between like see something and make something and share something, that's the magic. I like the way that you even break down what I did. Like you see something, you say something and then you share it.
Like you have all these little, you're so good at that. And the more I'm in this space, the more I realize what a rare gift you have of taking these big. complicated topics and breaking them down really small and i think it's influenced the way i teach my students give me so many compliments around how i teach i'm like you don't understand everything i've ever learned i've taken from talking more including like the notability yeah of course it's everything everything and so you inspired me in that practical sense yeah i think um one of the things we're really good at is taking something like high level so i understand and then i level i know what to do with it and uh then when people get it and they can do it that's where the magic happens a lot of people are still like gatekeeping their content yeah hold back the secrets and like all the good stuff's in the paid stuff like no no the good stuff's here the paid stuff's the same but just experience different yeah and your events are like i was saying this on stage but your events the experiences you put on are like and again i'm speaking all over now so i'm really getting to see a side of the business world i haven't seen which is like the business world of events and yours are just
They're another level. And they were even back in 2019 when I went, they were so good. 2019 events were so much further along than many of the 2026, 2020 events.
Our 2019 events feel like 1975 to us now. We're just different. COVID was a gift for that.
Got to figure out Zoom. Nobody wants to be on Zoom for nine to five. Let's do a shorter day, four hours.
And so when we got back out of, we were in Australia, it was very locked down. First big event was back in, um, it was in Hawaii. I remember that actually.
Yeah. Yeah. And we did, uh, you know, let's work in the morning four hours cause that's plenty.
And then the afternoon, let's go to the beach and do the stuff. And I remember at three o 'clock just swimming out into the ocean and Mike, who's on my team was out there and I said, Hey Mike, it's three o 'clock. Normally we'd be starting session four.
Now this is way better. The clients loved it. It's the best.
Yeah. Well you do, you call these things, I think moving. Moving mastermind.
Yeah. Yeah. So we, um, So one of the formats we run in the events is a breakout, usually on a table of six.
It's like, I've got this problem. Here's my question. Here's a couple of options.
Can you help me think it through? And a group of smart people help you out. So masterminds are great, but a moving mastermind is cooler.
And so we've done masterminds on a bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. That's so funny. Amazing.
Last year when we saw you in Palm Springs, we did masterminds in hot air balloons. I was going to say hot air balloons, yeah. It was amazing.
Are you guys actually masterminding? 100%. The one thing I didn't realize, because I'd never been in hot air masterminds, I was like, that'd be great.
So, okay, you've got eight minutes or ten minutes, go. And you're like, okay, my problem is, and then the guy goes, and so half of your minutes is gone. I didn't factor that in.
But movie mastermind is fun. We're just making memories. I swear, I don't know when your boats were going yesterday.
Was it around like one or two o 'clock in the afternoon? I swear that when we were landing in Phuket, I saw you guys. You probably did.
I swear because it was like five or six boats. And like that was it. It was very fun.
Out to an island. I really think that's when we were landing around like 1 or 2 p .m. I think we saw you guys out in the water.
Yeah, we probably did. Dang. You mentioned like you want content to be fun and you want content to be easy.
What do you do that makes it fun and easy for you? Two things. I only talk about stuff I care about.
And that makes it fun. I find it really hard to talk about. Even if it's a good topic, but somebody else gives it to me, there's a part of my brain that just glitches out.
Like, no, you can't tell me what to do. This is my role in entrepreneurs though. There's a better idea than mine, but it's not my idea.
So I can't talk about that. But finding things that I'm excited about is the most important thing. Obviously they're exciting for me and useful for the audience.
Things that I've like, I've got an opinion about, I think matters. And then the second piece of that is. it's one thing to have a great idea, but if the experience of like filming the content or writing the content isn't fun, then it's awful.
And, uh, so do you know Caleb Ralston? Yes. Okay.
I love Caleb. We hung out in Mexico last year, our event this time. And he talked about how, when he wanted to get healthy again, he's a bit out of shape.
I want to get into walking. It's like, Oh, I don't really like walking. Well, how could I take walking that I want to do more of, but I really like.
pair it with some stuff that i really do like it's like so i liked listening to podcasts and drinking sugary drinks at starbucks so he's like podcast walk to starbucks buy sugar drink walk back and that got him started sugar drinks not that helpful but then he swapped sugary drinks for americano and then swapped americano for water and now he likes walking and so the idea is like what do you want to do and what do you love and how do you smush them together and so for me with content i was really stale with it when it was me in my home office studio room talking to a camera or a computer not there's anything wrong with that i just don't i don't i wasn't you yeah i'm only on my computer when i'm talking to my clients or on a workshop but the rest of them i like to be not and so it's like what do i like well i like beaches i love coffee shops quite like barbershops i love good coffee i've got this old land rover i love and so like and i love to draw so can we get the hell out of the office please
and take the show on the road. And so that now shoot days feel like a little mini adventure day. Yeah.
It's the best. Well, and I think what I love about your content is it's, it's, and you just do this. I think from the top down is you've always been yourself.
You've all like, you don't wear shoes. You're famous for that. And look at me now, not wearing shoes.
I had someone commented. You said someone commented on the video that my toenails were in the thumbnails. Yeah.
They were like, why am I looking at toenails? I mean, mine are a little better, but yours are way better, but you've done that. You modeled for me.
being yourself at every stage. I mean, even you mentioned before, like having ADHD, like so many of my students will say, I can't because I have this, or I can't be, but you take what's unique to you that some people might see disadvantage and you just make it your, you make it for you. And you have to like, and you've done the same with, you've got Ellie.
Okay. So that means time's compressed. You've got this much time to be on a lot of time where you can't be on.
So we're going to make the time where I'm on count. And so just going, everything's a reason you either a reason why you can't or. a constraint that helps you get creative and figure out how to.
I think that's the magic. I think that's right. Yeah.
Have you noticed how hot it is here in Thailand? I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, my God.
I'm thriving. I'm thriving. Yeah, I'm good.
Can I ask you a content question? Yes. Okay.
So you were talking today in Black Belt, thank you, by the way, about your, you drew out this flow chart of your content creation, but like you have an idea, you bang it in the notes app. Let's pretend it's for a reel for like a video for Instagram and then there was a step which is like at some stage it gets sent to the team and they edit.
Are most of your reels, I feel embarrassed not knowing this, are most of your reels you talking to camera or is it b -roll with words on the top? It's so interesting because we were just talking about this with Sam because a lot of my reels are b -roll text at the top but he, what is happening here? You are a good man.
Wow, we were just saying we were melting. Wow. Thank you so much.
Let's do that. All right. This looks way more fun.
Yeah, it really does. Okay, hold on. This is exactly what you're talking about.
Yeah. Wait, should we do a cheers? We should.
Okay. Cheers. Then I want to hear about Instagram.
This is amazing. Oh, that's the best thing that's happened all day. Okay.
And it's been a good day. It's been a great day. Yeah, so most of my content at a certain stage was just B -roll with text over it.
Yeah. But we started really paying attention to like our views to followers metric. And we realized that content with me in front of the microphone just performed better in terms of getting followers.
And so I talked about that. Podcast style. Yeah, podcast style.
Right. Talked about that with Sam. And he said, whatever content is getting you the most views, like to followers ratio, you need to do at least 50 % of that.
And so we're slowly shifting more of that. But I think really the lesson there is. What got us followers at one point it changes and it will change and it's adapting which as you know So you may or may not notice but I'm an Australian bloke can a bloke make a video which is b -roll of Man Yes, I get no I get asked that a lot cuz guys think only girls can do it 100 so no it but One of the guys on my team, he has his own, he built his Instagram account by like a couple hundred thousand really quickly.
It's exactly the same B -roll stuff that I do where you like sit in a chair and then he'll open his laptop. Yeah, lots of guys do that. It's just...
All it is is modeling what we're doing. So what would you really do? And you live in an amazing, scenic, incredible.
Yeah, of course. Would pop on Instagram. But I talk to guys all the time and they all have this.
I have such a hard time getting. I'm going to try one and we'll see what happens. No, you need to try 12 at a minimum, 30 at a minimum.
Because you know this is not a good experiment if you do one. What happens if it's just flopping to begin with? You need to do 30 to really give it a full test.
But I'll tell you, you live in a. I'm doing this for fun and it's making me uncomfortable. Yeah.
You live in a sexy environment. Like you said, beaches, coffee shops. These are like, no, you should absolutely do it.
And just do text on the top. Text on the top. Things I've learned after making it, whatever, $700 ,000 million, whatever it is like that.
Yeah. In the same way that I noticed girls are very reluctant to run ads, but boys are fine with it. Like I just observed that men seem to just.
get the ads game way faster than women do. So I spent all my time trying to get girls to run ads. I also have to convince guys to get, I don't have to have 17 different black t -shirts cause they're all the same.
Yeah. That's even easier. This is the first time I've been nodding at my t -shirt.
I really don't. I'm not sure that I'm talking to talk to you. It's weird.
I'm not even sure. Um, okay. That's good.
Yeah. I'm curious. Cause you said, like you said, I was speaking today.
What was the main thing you were hoping that like, why, why did you ask me to speak really? Like. two times i'm just feeling myself why uh because the secret to almost every good thing that a coach wants is on the other side of a loyal following yeah and uh content is the you know that content's the engine that drives that and so then the question is well why don't people what are the head shifts they need to make in the tactical shifts and you gave like a head shift today that was that i didn't expect which was uh you're not a coach you're a content creator like i've been saying for age like this is the If you look at my hours in and dollars out, like making the content is by far the highest paid thing I do.
Yes. It's my job. And so do your job.
Right. But going your job is you're a content creator is great. And so a bunch of people like, I don't know if you heard afterwards, like I'm Leon and now I identify as a content creator.
So then like if we can get a little head shift, like this is important because I think about myself and my role like that. Put the content first. And then tactical how -tos.
Because your ability to get that much good content in that short a period of time is really impressive. But do you know why I think it is? I think it's because we don't do anything else.
That's it. We had a conversation yesterday about maker time and manager time. And in my business, I've got no manager time.
I'm not in meetings. I'm not in anything. If it doesn't involve a camera or a pencil, I kind of don't do it.
Which is good. That's what a content creator does. And this is what we try to get our students to learn.
But you've been in this space for so long. And this is, I mean, I just, I imagine like for me, when I started in 2016 or whatever it was, like people were already shifting into content creation. That was, you were in this game before I was.
And so that's a different, do you feel that it was different or is it just same thing, different way of doing it? I think it's this, I think that like, it felt like there were more ways, but now like there is such a, proven path that if i'm committed to my content that's how we build an audience you know we don't need to buy an audience but we can we don't need to borrow an audience you can but the audience that you create on your own and build a following that's like Anyone with a phone can do it.
We can start tomorrow. It's ridiculous. It really is.
Don't you feel that? It's insane. I think about Tony Robbins when he started.
The barrier to entry in the space was so much harder. Yeah, you had to have Guthrie Renker produce your infomercials. Yes, yes.
It's outrageous. And even just to be able to afford to send those direct mail things, that's money that my students are like, brand new beginners they don't have to and again that's what we're trying to fix but we all have an iphone we all have a phone um that we can post content on and it allows us and the playing field has been so evened out even more because you don't even like yes the more followers you have the better however Someone said I just watched it like I have to work Oh Ollie said this I was watching one of his YouTube's in preparation for our interview this next and he said I have to work Just as hard in my video with two million subscribers as someone who has zero.
It's so it's really good Yeah, if you if you like work, I haven't but if you work really hard near the top dog. Mm -hmm it used to be the knowledge like, well, I'm the top dog now.
You get nothing. You get no advantage except maybe a blue tick and some fans. And a little bit of social proof on your, with your followers.
But I have to work just as hard. Like I have reels that flop and get 5 ,000 views. Just like someone who has 10 ,000 followers can have a real flop and get 5 ,000 views.
Like it doesn't matter. It's just making good content. That's it.
Which is cool. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's, it's fantastic.
I did something. I don't know if I told you this. Don't tell me about.
my son's dog and instagram followers no so this is going back a few years and i'm still paying for my past sins this is not best practice don't do this um so my son jotham and his partner kelly had a have a little dog called lulu the mini cavoodle okay and they set up an instagram account for it and it started getting brand deals and had like 15 000 followers or something i had more followers than me meanwhile i've been running this business for like eight years this bloody dog's got more followers than me And some guy, you know, slid into my DMs on Instagram was like, oh, I can get you 10 ,000 legit followers.
I'm like, oh, now I can beat Lulu the Wonder Dog. And I paid this dude like whatever I was for grand. I got my followers.
And for about six minutes, I felt really chuffed. And then my engagement was shit forever. Yeah.
Still now we're really popular in Iran. It's hard. It's yeah.
But like, don't do that. Good to know. Good to know.
Well, you should do the thing that, and you mentioned boosting pose. Actually, I want to ask you about that because I have not had good experience boosting pose. What are you guys doing to boost pose?
I wanted to ask you about this. Okay. So this is actually, this is something that is working for you.
Ridiculously well. Yeah. Um, Tony's over there.
I don't know if we're allowed to ask her the question because she knows what. Yes. Tony, what are we doing?
Can we ask a question? Okay. So the question, um, the statement earlier was don't boost.
It's dumb. Which is what I said. Right.
Cause I, I, but what I should have said is don't boost or what I should have said is. I have not yet successfully boosted, is what I should have said. Yeah, which is true, because we've done dumb things and we've done smart things.
We boost a bunch of stuff. In fact, the only ads we run are boosted stuff. Is that correct?
Sorry, you're about to hear the voiceover of Tony Bates. Hello. This is really the woman who runs the show, the lady behind the camera.
So we boost most things. Like there's definitely a few things we don't boost. We boost most things and we just like our budget flexes based on whether we actually want to do something with it or we just want more eyeballs on it.
But our theory is like our organic content is freaking fire and we want to get more eyeballs on our organic content. And you're seeing like a return on the ad spend? Oh my God.
Massively. Tony, enter the spreadsheets, please. I mean, okay, well, if we talk about...
put them on the screen put something i don't know if you want to so let's just let's go back to the battle days we spend 60 grand a month we would literally spend 60 grand a month on ads and we would sign nine clients oh good god it's awful yeah yeah don't do that don't do that that doesn't work now we spend like six grand seven grand on a big month on ads But all the ads are boosted.
What is it? Is it a post where they comment a keyword? Comment keyword that leads to our workshop is the biggest moneymaker one, but we do boost just to get more eyeballs.
To micromagnet? Basically, we call it brand width, right? So we do stuff for brand width, which is just organic content so people see more of Taki's eyeballs.
But if there's a campaign, so for a workshop or a micromagnet we're giving away? Yeah, so then we've got micromagnets that we do keyword, and then we've got workshops that we do keyword, and then those. then I mean we can do micro magnets I think our best ever talks was like 27 cents an opt -in and then when we're running a workshop campaign we might spend like like let's call it six grand max six grand max and we'll make a hundred and six hundred and seven thousand like a hundred and seven thousand on the on workshop tickets front end that's legit it's like that's legit okay so so what i'm hearing is i need to reevaluate my boosting i think you do because we we do hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in ads to low ticket stuff but not yeah i've never i haven't sold a low ticket thing yet and our ad spender.
What's the low ticket? Your workshop's low ticket. Oh, that's a hundred bucks.
That's true. Yeah, that's low ticket. Oh yeah.
Yay. Yeah, there you go. I feel like I belong now.
It's like such an outsider. But see what you have that I doubt is the Ascension model, right? Because I'm over here.
in just the volume although that's changing we're doing five high ticket products i'm like not really talking about it much who even are you i don't know i'm someone who has the full business built out now i'm actually someone who has a four -year -old and a little bit more capacity that's the reality i'm not with a newborn anymore but we're doing um a done for you low ticket thing where we're gonna like actually go into high like successful seven eight figure high ticket businesses and plug in a successful ticket thing and then we'll like liquidate their ad costs or liquidate their customer acquisition things we know we can do it like we're launching a low ticket product a week in our own business And so we like have that really dialed in you can profitably do it done for you.
That's fine And then people just want more Maria. So like some kind of mastermind thing I think we're gonna do and then we're gonna do a is it called more Maria I don't know what maybe it should be Dean Jackson had like more Dean calm word. Yeah, see me see that's the old -school stuff that I don't even know That's like oh gee.
Yeah, he's got like more Mosey. Oh, yeah his new YouTube channel. Oh, yeah, that's right Who knows?
Yeah, I don't know. Well, we're doing Maria Marketers, which is like a marketing certification one. That's when we're like, we'll teach people how to be good marketers.
So they'll get certified by me. It's going to be pretty rigorous. And then we'll also charge companies to have the Maria Marketers placed in them.
So we're scooping it out the back end both ways. Yeah, yeah. Double -sided marketplace.
Yeah, exactly. This is great. Yeah.
A couple other things I got. Look at you. Yeah.
It's me through the rest of the year. I'm hiring setters and closers right now. You don't even know who I am.
I know. I don't know. I know.
Sorry, I just had a visceral reaction. Yes. I've done that.
I've done that. I'm not playing that game ever again. But that's perfect.
That's fine. I'll take that game over. I love.
There's more space for me. Yeah, way more space for you. Way more head space for me.
I'm so madly in love with no sales team. Yeah. Because you had a sales team for a really long time.
We had a team of 36. We had nine in sales. How many setters versus how many closers?
Do you remember? Like one main closer. one yeah yeah who you know yes she's amazing yes uh but she closed me of course yeah uh you were right and she was good yeah um but so yeah with 5x monthly sales with no sales team that's crazy yeah and we're selling like 30 or 60 000 do you think it's because you're doing volume like you're just playing the volume game no we're choosy as fuck sorry to swear on your show i don't know if that's allowed we'll bleep it out yeah will you oh yeah okay on my version can i not believe that You could insert the word bleep.
We're not playing volume at all. We're choosy. We reject a bunch of applications.
No, but I mean because you're doing the low -ticket thing now. Are you ascending more that way because they're going to a workshop? Some come through workshop, but 30 % comes straight from YouTube.
Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah, YouTube to VSL to OfferDoc.
Interesting. Yeah, so it's very interesting. I love learning about different business models.
It's also what's cool is we're innovating this high -ticket space, but we're kind of doing what low -ticket people have been doing for a long time. Which is? Like content or an ad to a...
Straight up. But this has been my theory. Because I remember saying to you, I was like, the things I think we think nurture people actually create obstacles to money.
It's totally true. And so if you think about like the book a call funnel, it's clicks ad or email or content, goes to calendar page, clicks or doesn't click, books call or doesn't book call, shows up or doesn't. If it's a two, you know.
And you have all the delay. All the delay. The three days at best.
All of these extra steps. Yeah. It's just like, every step is a chance for them to do what we want to do, but sometimes they don't.
And so people brag about their conversion rate on a sales call, but they're talking about converting the one out of 20 that even got there in the first place. It's so true. I want that number.
It's so true. And so now like ours is like our high ticket sales process is like your low ticket sales process. It's like, it's an ad or a piece of content.
to an offer. Everyone reads the offer, more people see the offer, more people buy the offer. This is what I've been doing for Low Ticket.
I wonder if I'll be sitting here a year from now, be like, remember when I said I was going to build a sales team? Fucking hated that. I've got this amazing client called Jay who I love to bits.
He's got 20 people on a sales team and a business is good. It's legit good. Like millions of dollars a month.
And he's just kind of stepped back into reorient the sales and marketing a little bit. And he's asking on a boardroom call the other day, I'm like, hey, I'm looking for a new sales manager to look after these 20 people because they're all coming to me and I'm the bottleneck.
Anyone got any clues? I'm like, well, most of you probably know. So I'm like, hey, Alex, I got this guy, a great guy looking for a sales manager.
He goes, tell him to watch this video. So I look at the video and it's like my YouTube video, how we make $1 .6 million a month without a sales team. Just tell him he's been warned.
If he wants to, then do it like this. But watch this first. Yeah, that's got to feel good.
A little stamp of approval. Yeah, we've got a good relationship. Yeah.
Good mates. Yeah. You know, it's so funny.
I went to the workshop there because we do workshops now every month. Well, we're going to be doing every month. In person?
Yeah. Because we have the, our office is on one of the floors and then we have the space for the workshop. Oh, cool.
In the second, on like on a lower floor. In? Orange County.
In OC? Yeah, in OC. So we have our all in person.
Yeah. So we only bring on in -person people at this point. But I'm trying to see how workshops are done because what we're charging now for them versus what we should be charging is like.
What do you charge? $200. Okay.
Yeah. And what do you sell? Nothing.
We're not selling anything on them. We're just getting our like chops for the workshop. So like we're filling them.
We literally can't put enough people, obviously because. So what's the purpose of the workshops for you? I see the, I guess I'm looking a couple of years out and I know that we're going to have an events leg of the business.
So better start practicing events. and getting it under my belt yeah um and so 200 bucks a pop felt like a really low stakes way to like just get people in the practice getting butts in a seat practice delivering yeah practice the logistics like it's when you i mean i don't need to tell you this but like the gap from digital which i've only ever done yeah to in person you're like have humans in a spot that you're in charge of it's so different and corralling humans to go out on break at the right time and come back and sit in the right chairs and stand up oh my gosh i have so much respect now that i do events a lot more for people who do events on a regular basis um you know jason capital of him but not personally yeah he used to run an event down your way once a month okay and it was his main content creation format okay which was like people come in and teach for a little bit and then do q a and they just like clip up the If you're gonna do the events, at least get some content out of it.
I'm sure you do that. Well, this is what we're doing, yes. But what we're trying to do now is like level it up and start actually making money from them.
And so we went, I just wanted to like do a little bit of recon down at Alex's workshop. So I just went to see it. It made me feel really good about like what we're doing.
Like it's like, okay, cool. We're on the right track, like very similar or whatever. But they said something that like really stuck with me.
He's like, we're not in. the optimization business, we're in the maximizing business. Because someone was like, they asked, why do you book sales calls?
We would have just bought this on a link. And he said, well, we're not in the optimization business, we're in the maximizing business. And I think that's where I am.
Can I say two things? Yes. I'm curious.
No, no, no. I don't know what date this comes out. I would watch that space because I think...
You think he's going to change and just do to check out. I'm not allowed to say anything. But I think there might be some optimization going on.
I swear to God, if I build a sales team and then everyone stops having sales teams, I'm going to shit myself. You know, something I wanted to ask you is that you've had, I think what is a rare form of success in this space, which is so many students that have hit, you're a million dollar coach and you've helped so many coaches hit the million dollar mark.
Yeah, like 700 and something. Like that's incredible. It's cool.
What are you doing that's working? How are you getting, because I specialize in helping like people make their first like couple thousand dollars. Yeah.
That's a whole skill. But for you, you do what so many people really want, which is the ultimate goal. It's like, I want to be making millions of dollars doing this.
And you actually very successfully help people do that. Yep. So the only regret I've got about this business is that our company is called Million Dollar Coach.
And I always feel super awkward that people think I'm talking about me when I'm trying to be like, you can be a milliondollarcoach .com. So what do we do? Well, we try to keep it as simple as possible.
We've talked about the five ones before.
I think, I think it's more than that though. Like, I think it's more like, yes, it's strategy. I want to, I want to peel in a little bit deeper.
You could peel. Yeah. I want to know like, like what do you think you just like honest, what do you think you do better that all the other coaches out there?
Cause I know you are better, but what do you think it is that you're doing this better than everybody else?
I really find this, this question. Um, it's okay. Own it.
Okay. I think there's two things that. won't say that we do better than others the two things that I think are very true of us and the guts of the whole thing is we really really really in our bones give a shit about helping people win and If it helps us win and doesn't help there then when we just we just can't do that And I would You're a parent you so you get it.
There's things you do for your kids, even if it hurts you but it makes them better It's that I've seen that over the years. Yeah our I think there's a lot of people in our industry who are in it for the cash.
Some people probably get help along the way and that's cool. But every time we're running one of these paid workshops and we talk about how Black Belt works, Tony jumps off mute and goes, just to be super clear, if this is not a hell yes for you, please don't apply. We're not here to make a sale.
We're here to make a million dollar coach. More than anything else, we give a shit. And that's why everything we do is about how do we make the numbers go up?
And then part of our job is like, what's the strategy we need to add? And a lot of it is about what's the bullshit we need to take away? Because the way you get bigger is by doing less things better and more, but most people are so busy adding better, sorry, adding more.
And the first thing is, okay, out of all the things you could be doing, you do that little cartoon today with the arrows off to the side, it's that. It's like, let's just prune, prune, prune so the thing can grow. So it's care.
It's simplification. And then the third thing I think is permission. Because we think that in order to be successful, we need to do it like that person did it or this person did it.
I think the greatest gift you can give someone is the opportunity to show up as themselves fully alive. Because there's things that you're like a 4 out of 10 at. There's things that you're like a 9 or a 10 out of 10 at.
No one's going to pay to see you be a 4. So if you're a 4 at something, don't just work on your weaknesses. Let's just figure out where you're great at and turn that into a thing.
That's right. Yesterday we were chatting about like... i don't know who's quoted these but like monetize the thing that gives you dopamine and i just love that like there's everyone's got something and if we can find out the special source my only regret is sometimes it takes a little bit historically it's taking us longer to help people figure out their path and so that's what we've been assessed with the last year is that's what you're working on yeah but see even that little bit there oh sorry maria can i add yes please there's two big ones he's missing i think number one um experimentation like I think the thing that's really cool about Taki and his business, like he experiments so much and he goes and makes the mistakes so his clients doesn't have to.
So he's not like teaching stuff like, oh, I saw some other dude do this on the internet. So like you guys should all do this. He literally like.
creates everything himself like original like takes inspiration from things of course everyone does but then spends a crap load of time in that like you call it creole creole autarky but it's like you love the creative process process of actually coming up with something cool and then testing the crap out of it ourselves and like some things work and some things and most things don't yeah experiments you know what's so fun it's like you've got this idea and you're like you know your first sellers to yourself this is going to be great we're going to totally this is going to be amazing let's test this out and we do it and sometimes we Sometimes we're really confident.
Sometimes we're just like really hopeful. And when it works, it's great because we go, hey, guys, we've nailed this one. Take this and just use it.
And other times we like to do this. Never do that. That was the dumbest thing I've ever done.
That cost me $700 ,000. That cost me so much money. Don't do that.
Yeah. But that's that experimentation mindset is 100 % true. And if we didn't have that, I'd be bored out of my brain and I would have given up the business a long time ago because I need more variety than most.
Yeah. The last one. Well, it's a perfect segue is.
I feel like so many people in business and particularly in this game, like they are trying to build a business. Like that's the destination. Like when I get to a million dollars a month, when I get to like 10, you know, whatever it is, like they're building for a destination and they're looking for an exit.
Like you, you are where you want to be. Like you freaking love this. You say all the time, like I am literally going to die doing this.
I'm going to be on a zoom call. Jacinta is going to like, I'm going to drop. So for years I'd be like, yeah, I'm going to do this.
I'm dead. one day i'm going to be on a zoom call halfway through there's going to be this thump dad's dead jacinta will walk in drag me by the legs off camera come back to the camera go dad's last words were what were your best things type them in the chat which is cool but she's 17 she's nearly moving out of home so either i've got to either i've got to die real soon or i've got to not die and get a new plan But we'll just know.
We'll just be like, if you die on Zoom, we'll just be like, all right, who wants to land this plane? I think the idea of like, I'm not building, like I don't have a goal, like I'm doing the goal. And I think there's a lot of people who accidentally build a business that looks good to others.
And I'm much more interested in how this business feels to me than how it looks to anyone else. And helping the good guys win. That's all we care about is helping the good guys and gals win.
That's right. So this room that we've just been in today is just full of amazing people who really care, who are doing great work. And our job is to help them make it better and help them get it out to more people and help them grow their business and help more people.
And yeah, our mission is like, how do we help the good guys win? And I think we're doing it and we'll continue to do it. I mean, I said it when I was on, it's a great place to end.
I said it when I was on stage, like when I take any opportunity I can to come, it's because you guys are like, it's my alumni. Like you are home. It feels like coming home.
And I can't believe that I was, you know, whenever I was like 21 years old, however, it was back in 2019 and I... stumbled across you guys and i don't even know if you know how i found you but i read a book called how to scale your business and you could text the author of the book to ask questions so i texted the author and they said can you help me scale my business and he said no i can't you're a coach i don't help coaches scale but you should talk to this guy called talking more read his book so then i read your book and then that's how i got connected thank you that guy yeah it was i thank you i know and i was and then i texted vanessa and she was like uh, no, I had a call with her and she's like, you're not making enough money.
So come back in November. And then I was like, are you kidding me? I was so shocked.
I was trying to sign up to your guys's program and I got turned down all the time. Like you're leaving so much money on the table. No dude, it's called a tip.
Yeah. And I'd rather work with the right person when they're ready. Oh my gosh.
And I, and I was exactly like, you'll probably be ready by November. And I was like, well, I'll be damned if I'm not. So I, and then the rest was history.
Came in November, hit seven figures in May. That's so great. Yeah.
It was amazing. Thanks for the chat. This has been really fun.
I apologize that it was so hot and sweaty in Thailand, but you did great. I mean, it's just... It's melty.
It's a bit much, but hopefully it's still good. This is fun. It's good.
Should we do a little cheers? Yeah. All right.
Well done, you. Cheers.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Two coaches who built million-dollar businesses on opposite playbooks, one running toward a sales team, the other running away from one entirely, sit down poolside in Thailand to compare notes on what content actually converts.
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A self-made millionaire opens her real sales dashboard on camera, then lays out the exact five-step sequence she'd run if she lost her name, her audience, and her following overnight.
A creator who says she's done almost $14M in digital-product sales draws out the exact three-post sequence — one $97 offer, three Reels, two Stories, one carousel — that gets a total beginner to their first $500.
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