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Kickoff Sessions
#261 Brandon Forbes - How To Build A Successful Coaching Business in 2025 (Full Masterclass)
Generate high-quality leads from a podcast each month: https://voics.kit.com/qualified-leads
How do you actually stand out as an online coach?
It’s not just about flashy ads or complex funnels.
It’s about mastering your mindset, defining your niche, and creating offers that your audience wants.
In this episode, Brandon Forbes, online coaching entrepreneur and marketing expert, breaks down:
- Why authenticity and trust are the new currency in coaching
- How niching down can skyrocket your growth
- The truth about paid ads: magnifying strengths (or weaknesses)
- Why mindset is the biggest factor in scaling to six figures and beyond
Brandon has helped countless coaches unlock their potential and scale their businesses using proven strategies that simplify success while staying aligned with their values.
Ready to elevate your coaching business and build something aligned with your passion and purpose?
Subscribe now and get ready to crush your 2025 coaching goals!
(00:00) Introduction: Solving Coaching Challenges
(00:40) Coaching Industry in 2025
(03:23) Crafting a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
(07:19) Strategies to Scale from $10K to $100
(10:52) Organic vs Paid Strategies
(12:10) Integrating Ads and Organic Content
(16:01) Choosing the Right Funnel
(21:00) Mastering Workshop Funnels
(23:07) Is Running Ads Worth It?
(25:20) Pricing Strategies for Coaching Programs
(30:42) Escaping the Online Business Rat Race
(35:07) Discovering Identity Through Faith
(38:10) Overcoming Limiting Beliefs for Growth
Nine times out of 10, when someone's stuck in their coaching business, it's literally something that could be solved between their ears, not with a funnel.
Darren Lee:How should someone position themselves to be able to 10x their sales, 10x their business with ads and paid traffic?
Brandon Forbes:You have to understand that ads are not magic. All an ad is, in its simplest form, is just a magnifying glass. You actually have to have good messaging, a good sales process, a good offer and know something about what you're doing, instead of trying to serve everyone and be a general physician, be a brain doctor and charge more. People are going to trust more. There's less competition. You can get more trust by communicating your values and you can lower the competition by picking a niche.
Darren Lee:Before we start this podcast, I have one little favor to ask you. Can you please hit the subscribe button down below so we can help more people every single week. Thank you, I guess where I want to start is how do you think the online coaching world is changing going into 2025?
Brandon Forbes:Dude, I just made a YouTube video about this. Actually, it's literally called how the Online Coaching Space is Changing in 2025. I think a couple key things. And, dude, I've actually been in the coaching space for like six years. So I used to work for a lady named Brooke Castillo and she did $50 to $70 million a year while I worked there. And I think how it's changing is Everybody's seen the Instagram ads. I run them. We started the boosted post for follower ad thing 2 years ago and it's very quick marketing, kind of just burning and churning through leads.
Brandon Forbes:I think people are looking for authenticity, they want to trust people. Again, the coaching industry, bro, we both know the trust is at an all-time low and the competition is at an all-time high and the only way to stand out, in my opinion, is to have a clear niche to attract people who are like you or who look up to you or want to have your life essentially. So a niche, value systems like we share similar values and authenticity, so people would rather hear hey, bro, running ads is a risk, scaling your coaching business is a risk. Nothing is guaranteed, there's no big promises, but I can show you exactly what I did to get here. So I think how it's changing is you're going to see a lot less editing and a lot more just raw, real content, that's long form, where people can get to know you, and I think if you don't take advantage of YouTube and podcasts, people are just going to take your customers.
Darren Lee:It's so interesting, right, because the barrier to entry has never been lower, but then the actual ability to grow it has actually never been harder, because there's always this comparison effect. It's always like, well, I could go to this guy and he's doing IG, and then this guy is doing LinkedIn and this guy's doing TikTok. So where is that USP? And I guess for you, what is that USP? Right, because it's you know, let's say, it's broad Instagram. Someone clicks on your Instagram. How do you think about that? Because, especially true ads, which I'd love to get really fucking nerdy on, you don't have that attention, right? You don't have a ton of time to be able to explain to someone that you do X, y, z, yeah, so the unique selling proposition?
Brandon Forbes:is that what you mean?
Darren Lee:Yeah, effectively Right, because you don't have the same attention and time to be able to get that across unless you're super, super focused.
Brandon Forbes:Yeah, it's like dude. I talk to people every day and they're like dude, I'm stuck at 10K a month or I'm doing only organic, or my ads aren't getting a good return on ad spend, dude. Usually I don't even need to know anything other than just a few sentences. So what did you say in the beginning of the ad? And they're like are you a busy entrepreneur who's wanting to lose 50 pounds of weight? Get shredded. If so, give me a follow.
Brandon Forbes:It's like, bro, that sucks. Like that offer. Like there's okay, a busy dude. It's like, bro, that sucks that offer. There's Okay, a busy dude. That's almost everyone in America, or half of the population of the world. So it's like I'll tell you an offer that's crushing right now. It's this guy who's like are you a busy Catholic dude? So it's like just by adding in one other piece of your value system or another offer. So everybody's coaching people on how to get a job in sales right now, which is fine. I think it's a good offer. But this guy took a unique approach and he was like are you currently in tech sales and you're wanting to find a career where you can basically uncap your income, work remote if so, blah, blah blah.
Darren Lee:So it's like by targeting that niche, niche, he actually stood out and he's, yeah, making like 80k a month now man, I love that because it's just, it's always one degree left, you know, and you can be one degree off and go fucking to antarctica like I was just on a call earlier and we were I was helping the client script out their ad and again, I don't get mad at people who coach coaches, but this is what the person wanted to do.
Brandon Forbes:I was like, are you sure you want to do this? Are you good at it? Have you done it yourself? They're like, yes, yes, yes. And I was like, okay, and this person's a digital nomad and their ads weren't working. And I was like, hang on, what if you go after digital nomads? Say this in the ad Are you a digital nomad who has or wants to start a coaching business so you can actually afford to travel and live the life you want, going from country to country?
Brandon Forbes:If so, give me a follow here. So it's like that ad is going to do so much better than Are you an online coach stuck between 10k a month? If so, so it's like, yeah, I think connecting on the values is so key. I did that on accident. When I first started, I started working with Christian coaches and I did it because I wanted to, but a good byproduct earlier on was they trusted me so much more. I didn't even mean for it to happen and now we work with everybody, but still a large portion of the people that join are like Dude I saw your faith and I love it and want to be a part.
Darren Lee:Dude, this is super interesting because my mate who introduced me to your content, tom, and just one of my best mates in general, we kind of always talk about this lens because everyone knows your business is a reflection of you, but people don't realize that your customers are a reflection of you. So you had seen that. Come in and seen these people that were aligned with your values. And I interviewed Dr John Demartini last week, who basically has a fucking system for defining your values like an entire checklist, a scorecard, whatever, and that's like your highest priority, which again reflects in the world who you are and attracts the opposite effect. So basically, if you're an asshole, you're going to bring people in that are an asshole. Now, for someone who's you know again, 10k, 5k a month, they're trying to stay alive. How do you, how the hell do you define your values to create that positioning, to be able to attract the big boys effectively?
Brandon Forbes:I actually think the quickest way to go from 5 or 10k a month to 30 to 50, right, that's kind of where you can like hire a couple team members, like spend more on ads and like actually have like a business it's not just like a consulting firm or one man show which, totally fine, like if that's what you want to do, it's great.
Brandon Forbes:Um, I would say the faster you pick a niche, the faster you start making more money, like for sure. Yeah, because then you get the benefit of Facebook ads who are. Facebook is really really good at targeting, bro, just based on the video alone and the copy of the ad. It knows how to get in front of the right people. So if you let Facebook do the work, actually creating a smaller sample size that are ideal clients, instead of trying to serve everyone and be a general physician, be a brain doctor and charge more, people are going to trust more. There's less competition. So it's like what I said at the beginning low trust, high competition. You can get more trust by communicating your values and you can lower the competition by picking a niche.
Darren Lee:Dude, it's funny because my first online business was seven years ago. It was like an e-com store that went to zero and running ads. Back then you needed to be a fucking data scientist for, like Stanford, right, it was so confusing, whereas we've done organic for so many years. So, again, I have a podcast, we have a podcast agency to keep it simple, we've got podcast coaching business. So there's like a hybrid model and we've done it organic. But now we've moved into IG in the past six months with my mate and we've been doing kind of this model at a very low scale because we're still warming up IG, because we've had LinkedIn and YouTube just being the moat of the business. Now I'm still a dumbass when it comes to ads 100% but the ability to spin them up and run them is crazy. In comparison to what it was like before, it's never been easier. How do you think? Again, ads are changing right now and how should someone position themselves to be able to 10x their sales, 10x their business, with ads and paid traffic?
Brandon Forbes:Yeah, number one, you have to understand that ads are not magic. Like bro, seven years ago I ordered these what would Jesus do bracelets? Actually, I didn't order them, I got them on AliExpress or Alibaba or whatever and I was running ads to what Would Jesus Do bracelets dropshipping, and I got my first sale and I sold the bracelet for $5. And I spent $12 on ads. So I lost $7. But I sold something. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I'm going to be rich. Never could figure it out.
Brandon Forbes:And back then the belief in my head was ads are super hard, which maybe they were back then.
Brandon Forbes:And people still believe that that ads are expensive, they're confusing, but really all an ad is, in its simplest form, is just a magnifying glass. So for someone to 10x their business, you actually have to have good messaging, a good sales process, a good offer and know something about what you're doing. If all that's true and you have a good ad process, then yeah, you can 10x your business just by figuring out your return on ad spend. And let's say it's going to suck but still be scalable. So let's say it's a 3. So if you want to 10x your business, let's say you're doing 10k a month and you want to do 100, then you need to spend 30 grand on ads roughly. If you're getting a 3x return on ad spend and you want to 10x go from 10,000 to 100k, just assume you get a 3x return on that. But nobody's like Dude, I want to go from 10 to 100 in one month. They're usually like bro, I just want to get to 20. So then it's like spend your first thousand bucks on ads, 2000 on ads.
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Darren Lee:You know what's interesting, right? So I've come from the organic content world almost five years. When you've done those reps, thinking about how to run an ad is so much easier because you're like, oh, it's a hook, there is copy, there's good production. For the most part, I know you can use your phone or whatever. But it's like if you have the modalities from organic, you can just go into paid and just like, basically have all the components. I'm not going to say you're going to crush it, obviously, but you have the components.
Darren Lee:But I think there's this weird thing in the online space that whatever you're doing, the opposite is bad. So if you're doing organic, ads are bad, right, and I hate that mentality. I hate when something is like looked at a true dot lens, Whereas for me it's about integration, especially five years into it, after getting eating humble pie and getting nailed for fucking four years. There's a component of like let's try integrate everything. And I want to kind of get your thoughts on how you do organic plus paid, because that seems like to me it's like steroids on top of the steroids on top of the steroids yeah, dude.
Brandon Forbes:So for me, like I mean, I get it it's like organic, paid, but I don't even view it that way. For instance, and let's say, on my instagram funnel, just you know to say I'm running an ad to get instagram followers. That's paid. But at the same time, if a reel goes semi-viral and I get followers from the reel, that that's still the top of funnel, so they're very similar. And then it's like, okay, in the middle of the funnel I'm running a retargeting ad. Hey, I'm looking to help somebody do this. Message me the word scale to learn more. I could just post an Instagram story of the same ad. That's organic. And then the bottom of the funnel. They get through the funnel and then they watch my VSL before the call. If it was an organic, watch my VSL. So I actually view them as the same. It's like the same thing.
Brandon Forbes:Basically, it's just with ads the only pro is that you can pay to scale it and the only con is that you have to pay to scale it. So it's like it costs money, but it's scalable and organic, it's free, and the only con is it's not scalable, unless you're someone like you probably, who's got it dialed in to where you're like Dude, I could just do two extra podcasts a week and it happens. But it's like most people with organic at least don't have that mindset, skill or, uh, the discipline, so it's like they're not gonna do the work but, dude, it's funny because it's fucking not free, right, because there's literally the cost.
Darren Lee:You know, I have an editor, designer, ops, manager, a bunch of shit. Then there's the cameras like I'm staring down cameras that would literally put you on a street, they're so expensive. And then there's also the time investment, right, which is like me in Instagram, like writing copy. So it's not free, right. And I think the more higher level you're playing is like oh, my fucking God, is there just a faster, higher point of leverage way for me to get to this? Because the podcast is the podcast, but because it's like middle of the funnel, you know you're getting less views. It's less consumption, it's more about avd and you know, lifetime, uh, consumption, all this kind of stuff.
Darren Lee:It's kind of like a different metric. You know, when you go really detailed on it, it's like every action has an equal or opposite reaction and most people don't know what the output and outcome variable is for their input. So they're like I did a podcast and now I'm not making a hundred K a month, it's like. But that wasn't the goal of the podcast, though. Like, that's not like the main goal, right. And of course there's uh, I heard about this before and who said it, which is like you know, your product or offer should have one major benefit, because all of the other sub benefits they're kind of just. They're like known, for instance, if you lose body fat, you're going to become more confident, you'll tone up, you'll have more charisma. So you don't need to fucking say that in the headline. There's just one main goal and I think that through the lens of like which vehicle you're using to, but I just think that most people don't think when they're doing this shit right in 2025.
Brandon Forbes:The problem is, bro, as a beginner coach, I remember watching all the YouTube videos, following all the different people, and it's like dude, am I going to do the IG funnel? Am I going to do organic? Am I going to do the Facebook group method? Am I going to cold DM people? Am I going to get a challenge funnel, vsl, webinar, what the heck am I going to do? One funnel away challenge. That's what I'm going to and it's like, bro, the reality is they all work. One of my favorite things to tell people is get a piece of cardboard, write it down. Write down a sentence that says Are you struggling with X? For instance, if we wrote down Are you struggling being a good parent? On a piece of cardboard and walked into a coffee shop, if we stood there long enough, someone would walk up to us and say, bro, I'm struggling, why do you have this sign? And you could actually close them in the coffee shop. So it's like there's so many ways to market, right, so you just got to pick what's simple and works for you.
Darren Lee:That's so good man, it's so fucking true. Right, it's in the complexity comes. So I think the way I position is that everything works when you work and it is that simple. It's just that you make it complex to hide from the truth that sometimes it is as simple as cardboard box offer.
Brandon Forbes:but my the offer.
Darren Lee:It can be as simple as that, but let's make this actionable for people. So what is your? What would be your approach like? Where is step one for you and where would you go to? Let's say, go from 10K to 100K next year a month. What's that process for you? Because, again, you can pick multiple vehicles.
Brandon Forbes:I call it market stacking. So it's like step one of like, if you're building blocks is like let's say this is the first step is like get the easiest, fastest, simplest, cheapest funnel going, and for me that's usually Instagram, unless someone is like I have no money. Then it's like okay, do organic. But for me it's usually the Instagram funnel because you can record one simple video press boost and within the first $200 to $500, book your first call In most cases maybe $1,000, which is so cheap if we're talking in ads and then scale that thing to $30K to $50K a month because you have a good setting, sales and delivery process. If those three are good, you can scale almost any funnel. And then the second one is you want to find a funnel that's medium, like level medium, what's something that takes a little bit more time to set up, something like a school group funnel, a VSL funnel running ads to your YouTube channel, something like that. That's a little bit harder to do, a little bit more expensive to prove if it's going to work and harder to copy. And then you're more established. You've got more cash in the bank, you've got people you're competing against. It's like.
Brandon Forbes:The last one is like find one that's super hard to copy, that takes a ton of testing, that costs a lot of money to implement. So no one else will do it and you'll have an advantage and you'll have a lot of different ways to make money. But that's the example I teach is like, dude, just start simple, as fast as cheapest way, then get good at it, stick to it for six months to a year, then implement something new and do both. But a lot of people, dude I've seen it time and time again they're doing 50k a month on a VSL funnel, let's say. And then they see the IG growth funnel and they're like I'm going to turn my VSL off and then I'm going to do the Instagram funnel. It's like, why the heck would you do that? Keep that going and then layer something on top of it and then kind of build like that it's funny, right, it's almost like a sense of self-sabotage.
Darren Lee:I often hear as well that people get that 20k a month right and they're like, oh, I'm bored, like I want to try something else. I'm bored. It's like what the fuck you talking about? Like just do what's working right. So I think it's just interesting for me to view that because, again, we run you not necessarily youtube, well, it is youtube funnel, I guess to money, to credit, but we're creating podcasts on youtube, building that trust, and then on linkedin.
Darren Lee:I know it's super like woke and whatnot, but I still use it as, like our main source of content because people are there to buy and be educated and that's worked so well. So for me, to go into ig was actually a big uplift because it's like I need to keep these two things running and keep it dialed in and then add in a third. And you know that's where we kind of went from six figures a month to trying to get to like multi six figures a month. They're not there yet, but but I just mean we have, like the infrastructure. So it's like I guess it goes back to the point of us scale it, get it better and so on. Now you said the medium level of the game. How do you think about workshop funnels? Your videos on it are super awesome. Why do some people crush it and why do some people don't get people even showing up on a workshop funnel?
Brandon Forbes:Perfect example. I had a client. He's a fitness coach, I won't say his name. He did a workshop. Two people registered. So I like to just tell honest stories.
Brandon Forbes:So there's that extreme and it's like he didn't make any money which there are some things that could have been better but he hadn't been cultivating an audience. My point here is, if you don't have an audience and you haven't been serving them, a workshop is going to flop. But then I have another client who's a former NFL athlete with 500,000 followers. He's been serving, serving, serving, making content for years, did a three-day challenge, which is basically the same thing as a workshop, and did 100 grand organic from that challenge. So I think the purpose they serve is to move someone from one stage to the next.
Brandon Forbes:So if they're cold right now, it's to get them to warm, and if somebody's in your audience that's warm, it's to get them on the workshop. So then they become hot and if they're hot, it's to move that percentage of people from hot into purchasing. So I just think of it as a way that anyone who registers and attends basically just moves a step forward in the buying process. Now that's, if you suck, if you get good, you can convert half of them from cold to hot in those three days. Depending on who's all on the call. You can convert more, but I just think it's a way to once a quarter, once a month, depending on how much you're spending on ads and how much attention you have to just take time, put it into a workshop. It's great content for repurposing and then you end up signing clients from it.
Darren Lee:So what's the workflow? So let's say your general follower ad on IG, because not everyone. I know that. You know that everyone thinks that this is normal, but it's actually not, man. Honestly, for a lot of guys they don't know fully about this, but your general follower ad follows you to the page when you're now going for a workshop. Do you have an ad running into the workshop as a sign-up?
Brandon Forbes:Yeah. So, for instance, let's say, if somebody listening is like, dude, I want to do a workshop, right, depending on what stage they're at. I would recommend doing your first one organic, and actually I do most of mine organic, so it's basically just the middle of funnel for me, but you can also run ads to it. So the way I actually started this business was doing a paid three-day challenge. So it was like Yo, are you a Christian online coach struggling with blah, blah, blah? If so, come to my three-day Kingdom Coach Challenge where I'm going to show you for the next three days how to build your offer, market it and sell it. And then it was just a Zoom call with three days, but yeah.
Brandon Forbes:So obviously the first one might not be the best. You're learning your skill, but the whole goal is it's basically like a VSL. So the intro day one you want to tell people your story so they trust you and can relate to you. You attract the right fits, repel the wrong fits. Then you want to give them homework and something valuable. So for me, build people's offers and then give them homework to create their unique mechanism or messaging. Day two give them another piece of the puzzle marketing. Day three, another piece sales and then basically, hey, there's two options. I just showed you, for instance, how to lose 50 pounds in three days by getting your mindset, diet and food in order or workouts in order. You can either do all this yourself or I have this program where we come alongside you to help you implement and then you just pitch a call.
Darren Lee:One thing I noticed on that was that you were from the workshop. The next step in the funnel was a call instead of a straight buy. That's interesting. Why is that? Which funnel Do you remember? I was looking at your work as in, you were explaining the workshop funnel and then you mentioned that from there. It was because, even just to give a bit of context, we ran a very high ticket. So we're part of our business, we run podcasts, we run their offers on the back end, but we ran a very high ticket. It was a 6K program but it was a straight buy off the workshop. And my logic with this was I wonder if we were able to just fill up a calendar, it would have been better? I think it probably would have. I think it probably would have.
Brandon Forbes:So I've tested both and, from what I've seen, unless it's sub 2K, just book a call. It's like posting on your story and saying, hey, I've got this program that's six grand. Or at the end of your YouTube video saying like, hey, thanks for watching the video. I do have a program that's 6,000 bucks, though If you want to buy it, click the link down below to buy it. It's like you're going to get way more conversions if you just book in a call. So if a workshop's over $2K, at the end you pitch calls and you get a ton like a lot of calls, and then, if it's sub $2K, you could pitch just directly on the call.
Darren Lee:That's interesting, man. What do you think about? Have you considered different pricing strategies? So we run for our program we run a weekly pricing which is from Dan Bolt and James Kemp and that's to alleviate the call stressor. So, because our program is in trash, we've never had anyone turn on the weekly pricing and most people ascend three weeks in. That's actually. The logic is that people are like so I'll give you some context it's $2.50 a week, can't sell in time, no marriage certificate needed, and then you can ascend as you like with a discount offer, so of the year. So it's basically like not a zero risk offer, but it's a limitless risk. How do you think about that? Increasing sales velocity, increasing the amount you sell versus the call funnel, like? Have you considered different pricing strategies?
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Brandon Forbes:Yeah, so I actually did that, but I did it different my base offer, high ticket, mid offer, high ticket still, and then my mastermind was paid on a weekly basis. So instead of entry point, it was actually my highest point, where you could break it into weeklies, and I think it works best that way for me. Now, if you're not running setters and closers, then sure, weekly is fine. It's actually great, so long as you have a good product, you're attracting the right people that plan to stay. If you sell just a quick fix, people oftentimes, from what I've seen, just buy your program and then churn After you get under the hood of a lot of the people that I've seen doing weekly pay, it's like bro, your churn rate is 40%, so your average cash collected per client is actually $2,500.
Brandon Forbes:Versus, if you were just charging and attracting people that can pay high ticket, you could get way more cash collected. But again, it's like what's your offer? Who are you trying to serve? What's the goal of the business? Because one thing I think that's changing in 25 too is I don't think everybody's going to be trying to build 100k a month business, because what I found out I bet you found this out too money doesn't even make you happy, like honestly, it's like unless you're like called to do this, it's actually adding a bunch of unneeded stress that doesn't even need to be there. Most people I used to drive Uber and I served at a restaurant Most people would be perfectly happy making $20,000 a month $15,000, if they loved what they're doing, could travel and save for retirement. So I think a lot more people are going to be going after that goal. I think you'll see a lot of people actually shutting down their business and just doing like a consulting gig. But for those that are called and feel like dude, I want to build an actual business.
Darren Lee:Yeah, I think it's great. That's a very interesting observation. James Kemp often says that people don't want a business. They want cash flow that feeds their life.
Brandon Forbes:Yeah.
Darren Lee:Such a good point, right? I think that a lot of people it's important to know what you're optimizing for, because a lot of people who are entrepreneurs shouldn't have been entrepreneurs in the first place. A lot of people who work in jobs shouldn't work in jobs. They should be entrepreneurs. There should be that clear line of delineation. Whereas, like dude, like you know your values, you have a family, your second kid's on the way, you kind of know what you're doing and you've devised your own path. Even I said to you earlier I was like I don't know how the fuck you have children and everything that's so difficult to manage with what you're doing. But you have built that foundation to be like no, this is my clear line, I know where my lines are, whereas a lot of people are just doing other people's jobs.
Darren Lee:And I don't know if you're familiar with Matt Shields. I haven't watched the video, but Matt has kind of not really. He's done a lot of changes with his own life, especially with his fate, quite recently in the past year or two, and he put up a video yesterday about how to escape the online business rat race. That was the whole logic was he was like I finally escaped it. Now he's made nearly eight figures at this point. But it's a very interesting observation right that you swap one rat race for the next one, and now you're caught in this perpetual loop 100%.
Brandon Forbes:It's like you swap high ticket payments for recurring revenue but then you just go right back to like how can I get the most recurring revenue out of anyone ever? And it's like you stop recurring revenue. Then it's like, how can I build a high-ticket program that's super expensive, and then it's just like all this stuff that a lot of times I've found is actually just like insecurities inside of people and they're just like looking for that thing that's going to satisfy them. But I've found, similar to Matt, that like literally nothing does that except for me at least, is like god right dude, that's very interesting.
Darren Lee:Like I think uh, you know it's, agencies are a low hanging fruit for people to shit on, right? They say, oh well, you know you have all these bosses, and the way hormosi puts it is like in, your customers are also your boss, right? Like if you're running a program, you can't just ditch them. That's not, you can't really do that, right? So you are always kind of serving your people, the people that you sell to you're serving them. So I think you don't need to look for the next business model so that you have an easier life.
Darren Lee:There's challenges with everything, right? So, because we run both an agency model and a coaching business, in my eyes they're very similar in terms of how we approach customers, because customers are people and we want to just be nice to people in general. So, for me, I still get back to people on fucking whatsapp if they message me. I'll send them a voice if they need to. So it's looking through the lens as to, again, what are your values, how do you want to build this and what are the modalities we need to build a good business so that it feeds our life effectively? Yeah, that's so true. Let's walk through some of the different components of the mindset side. So I think, looking across your spectrum of mindset, offer, marketing, sales and team why do you put such a big proponent on the mindset side?
Brandon Forbes:I think the most important, ultimately, is identity. Who you truly believe you are is how you're going to show up, and how you show up is how you're going to make content, how you're going to make offers and how you're going to coach your students. And it's like a lot of people don't think that they're qualified, they think that they're not worthy, they self-sabotage after they get a little bit of success or actually I'll say this, I think, nine times out of 10, when someone's stuck in their coaching business, it's literally something that could be solved between their ears, not with a funnel.
Darren Lee:So true, man, so true. It's because I think a lot of people they haven't done the internal work to like be at the stage you need to get that, get to. You know, it's almost like you need to imagine you have that successful business before you have it. But you don't want to be delusional. You want to obviously do the actions to get to that goal, but it's like you need to first almost visualize it and then do a shit ton of actions. For sure, a lot of people either do both, do none. They either take a ton of action, go in circles, or they visualize something and then they just procrastinate and masturbate on the idea in their brain. They're not really thinking about it. How do you, how have you thought about that? Right, because I know you do a lot of internal work on this. What element do you focus on? Was that from maybe doing a lot of research into the Bible? How do you think about that?
Brandon Forbes:Dude, I would say the work, at least in my belief system, is a lot of people want to have what other people have. People listening to this podcast are like, oh, brandon, both of you guys are doing over six figures a month. That's awesome, I want that. So they want to have what we have. So what they do is they try to do what we do, like, oh, I'm going to start a podcast. Somebody listening to this right now could be like I'm going to copy you and start a podcast or I'm going to launch a follower ad. But they don't want to become who we are. So you have to be first, then do and then you can have, which comes down to an identity issue, where most people don't know who they are, and I believe, for instance, my son Jedediah. He knows who he is because he knows that he's my son, and I know who he is because I made him right, or he's going to at least grow up and understand that I'm Brandon's son, right, that's my dad, and I think in the same way with God.
Brandon Forbes:It's impossible to know your true identity until you know who made you right, and people are like, well, I don't know if God's real. So then it's like I mean at least that's my belief system is the best way to know who you are is to understand who you are. And then from that place it's literally, bro, like looking into the Bible. Even people who aren't believers. I'm like dude, just like chat GPT all the verses in this book and see what it says about you.
Brandon Forbes:People are like dude, I don't believe the Bible. Then it's like why is it the best selling book ever? Why does the calendar change when Muhammad died or whatever? And I'm like it didn't. It changed when Jesus died after death? Right, so there's two big, significant things that have at least lived for over 2000 years that are worth looking into. Some of the truths that are in the book you don't have to believe it, but what I've found is it's actually a blueprint to building businesses and your own belief system. So, yeah, not to go on a tangent there, but I think that's the most important thing, bro, is understanding identity.
Darren Lee:I completely agree with you. Like I grew up in a very christian catholic area like ireland is christian catholic, but especially in the early 2000s it was a lot more. Now it's pretty much not, let's put it that way. But you know, back then you had like the 10 commandments literally being drilled into you in school and I just my logic is like, whether you believe it not, that's just a good way to just live in general, just like be nice, don't cheat on your partner, don't cheat on your neighbor, don't do anything like violent to people. So at the very least, I think we can all agree it's just like a North Star narrative at the end of the day.
Darren Lee:So whether you say that, you believe it or not, surely that's just a good way to be. You can't look at that and think you know what I'm actually going to fuck over my neighbor as a result, like that's just the wrong way to look at anything when you don't need to be like I believe this and now I'm in in this belief system, and I imagine that goes the same with a lot of other religions and also other elements of even spirituality. The more you look into it. So it's like I just think again, it goes back to these, these hard beliefs that I think that people don't really believe. They were just kind of imprinted it. It's like here have this belief and oh, okay, now I encapsulate that, but the truth, man, is almost like you look at it yourself yeah, and I think outside of religion, because that could create a box where what I said only applies to that group.
Brandon Forbes:I would actually make it more broad and say if you believe that, you, there's a lot of beliefs that maybe we carried from our childhood. Like I said earlier, I grew up in a trailer house eating ramen noodles, right. So with that there was a lot of beliefs that I couldn't make money. I'm always going to be this way. My parents were broke, I'm going to be broke, and it's like those are sentences. All thoughts are sentences. So it's like we say these sentences in our mind and they drop down and we start to believe them, and then it changes our feelings, our actions and our results.
Brandon Forbes:You can never change your circumstance just by luck, at least in my belief. So it's like if your circumstance is $10K a month and you want to get to $100K, the only way you're going to change that result and get to the $100K a month is by changing something up here. Even if a funnel helps you get there, you at least have to change your belief to say I'm stuck at $10K a month, but I'm good enough to make 100. And then guess what? You're going to feel confident enough to launch an ad, you're going to take the right action to spend enough to get to the result. So it's like many people, it's just a mindset that they can't have it, that their offer isn't good enough, that 100K a month is only for the two guys on the podcast right now and it's like, no, you could do it too. You just have to see what's possible and believe it.
Darren Lee:When did you kind of Did you always have this belief system or did you look more into the Bible? What was your evolution with this?
Brandon Forbes:Yeah, I got sick and tired of being broke and then working for Brooke. Out of any of the coaches we know in the space, I don't know one that makes more uh than her based on how well of an oiled machine. Personally like, she to me was freaking awesome at what she did and I saw how much money she was making and I was like if she can do it, I could do it. And that was her whole motto was like be an example of what's possible. So for us, right now, on this podcast, we're an example to everyone listening of what's possible. So that key, but it never. That's when I knew it was possible.
Brandon Forbes:But I kept trying, trying, failure, failure, failure, this business, failed agency, failed, all these other things. But what shifted for me was when I applied something that the Bible teaches, which was tithing and offering. So, instead of how can I make $10,000 a month? I literally remember I was like how can I give away 10 grand a month? So I started shifting to being generous and and like wanting to bless people to and give money away, and like how can it be a blessing to other people? And then I started to make more money. It's the energy you emit right.
Darren Lee:The energy you give out is energy you receive, and I think the fact that most people are in it for themselves with a scarcity mindset maybe just due to programming, maybe it's not intentional that leads to a restrictive nature, that leads to you know, you're not wanting to hop on this podcast, you're not wanting to share your insight, but like you give it all away, like you could literally watch your YouTube and build like a 10 million a year business, like it's quite literally that obvious, like you could literally do it, and you also have, like your ads being like you say this word in this position.
Darren Lee:So that means that you're able to attract the 200k, the 200k a month, and also just cool fucking people, right, just cool people that open your eyes to other things, not just the money on a screen, equivalent. Yeah, exactly, I want to say a big thank you, man. I really appreciate this. I would love to do a second podcast becomes american next year. We could sit down for two hours, have a coffee, chill and really get into like the nits and nitty gritty of the components. But, man, big thank you to you.
Brandon Forbes:Dude. I would love that bro Honor to be here. Dude.