Ep2 Picking Your Pride: Why Saying 'No' to the Wrong Clients Can Be Your Strongest Move

Joe Blackburn  0:00  
If you're gonna make a decision to invest in yourself, you do want to have some certainty it's gonna work. Well, it does work. The question is, Will you do the work? If you don't do it, it isn't gonna work. I promise that.

Jason Croft  0:12  
Welcome to the lion's edge, where top performers sharpen their teeth, hosted by Joe Blackburn, founder of The Lion who is relentlessly dedicated to helping business owners lead multi million dollar teams and me, Jason Croft, I transform unseen entrepreneurs into industry leaders by developing their market gravity. Each week, we reveal proven strategies and raw insights to help you maximize your business, multiply your wealth and make your family indestructible. Now

Jason Croft  0:45  
let's create your edge.

Jason Croft  0:49  
Welcome to episode two of the lion's edge. As usual, Joe and I get on a call and we just start going. So I gotta hit record midway through our conversation here, because we jumped into this topic of bringing on clients right, making that choice of who is a great fit for, for what I do and who I help, this becomes a great lesson around choosing who you want to work with, right and choosing who you don't want to work with, which is just as important, and I think sometimes we need that reminder, or that almost permission to decide who we want to work with, and that it's that it's okay to say no to a prospect because they're just not a fit for not only what you offer, but how you offer it. And maybe, like in Joe's case with the lion, he's got, you know, 20 something people in there to think about as well when, when he brings someone new on. It's not only okay to do. It's very important to do, to make this decision, to sit down and go, Okay, who is my ideal client, of course, and also make that list of who's not the ideal client, who has you know, this just hasn't gelled, because that's a disservice to them. If you bring them in and you can't help them like you can another type. So we get into some of those details. Thought it was important to share, so we jumped in and hit record. And I hope you enjoy you're talking about making a sales decision. I love this. This point you bring up, this is making a decision on a mastermind on the line coming into this it's a business decision. It's not, oh, should we go to Cabo this week? Like it's not a vacation, right? And far from it. So describe that what you were just talking about, like, it's not a matter of not including a spouse in big decisions in life, but it's a matter of, are you? Are they a business partner, right? Are you asking them on every business decision? Well, yeah,

Joe Blackburn  3:13  
I mean, so when it's you, your greatest asset, your ability to earn and lead your business, which is your number one asset, should get the most, because it's the thing that drives the most growth and the most fulfillment and serves the client. Do you then sit down with them, with your P and L and go through your expenses, your payroll? No, no one does that. It's because it's the battle in here. And yeah, they may have a say in that. It's still a business decision. And I mean, as we were talking about, what's interesting is, most people, especially in the lion, you know, it's our hygiene. They expect to get ROI. They expect to get results. They should. But what they talk about, and what comes out in testimonials, and when we're discussing is what I call, I don't know, I guess the intangibles. It's what, it's what we talk about in pillars. People pay you for how they feel. It's the same thing. It's the relationships you build. It's the emotional support, which is a weird thing for me to say, by the way. I don't know if I've ever said that before, but you know, it's, it's not being on the island anymore. Now I'm in something where there's other people that have the same aspirations and struggles and are going through what I'm going through, probably different businesses for the most part. Again, I had this conversation before this call. That's great. That's all hygiene. It's not unimportant. It's just expected. So that's expected to be great, whatever your trade or skill or business product that is expected to be good. No one buys your stuff or hires you. You know to do something expecting it to be shitty, right? So where the growth comes from our more so is on that intangible. Side, and when it's coming down to making the decision whether to do it or not, like, you know, I think I said it, it's like, okay, well, let's just play this out. If they weren't getting the ROI, I don't exist, and I'm back in corporate America battling legal and HR issues, 60, 7080, hours a week, and no one's getting results, and this is all for naught, and that's not the case. So if you're gonna make a decision to invest in yourself, you do want to have some certainty it's gonna work. Well, it does work. The question is, Will you do the work? Are you gonna do the things we talk about? Because, you know, just like in anything, you can get all knowledge you want, all philosophy you want. This is an FPS, as we've said in the past, the fucking doing system. If you don't do it, it isn't gonna work. I promise that if you do the work, you'll get results absolutely

Jason Croft  5:55  
and I think there's a lot of lessons in here for folks who are selling well, really selling anything, selling high ticket and all that. And like, like you said, this show the lion, the group, everything. This isn't for folks like, Oh, should I do a good job or not? No. This is, that's the basic stuff. This is, this is the 201301, not the 101, of business. So my question to you, then, as you are considering people coming in to the group, why not take a stand in you described to me again before we started recording, you know the high D on the DISC assessment, right? The people who are action takers and go they get the best results, those are the people you can help the most. Why not draw that line in the sand and say, if you're not that, this is an effect.

Joe Blackburn  6:49  
You know, it's it's interesting. You say that because we, in the last probably month, have changed the sequence in which we introduced disc. So we used to do it first, and now I'm doing it, maybe 234, sessions in, so maybe I made a mistake. No, there's no way.

Speaker 1  7:10  
It's a, it's a, well, here's and

Joe Blackburn  7:14  
we have in the lion. Most people have a D. That's a weird thing. Again, second weird thing I've said today, I think what I would and I it helps me get a feel for how they make decisions, what drives them, where their behaviors lie, where the wheelhouse is. And we also do some EQ work. Are they socially aware? Are, you know, are they not socially aware? More importantly, what? What happens when they get in situations where they have to execute pillars? We want a baseline on that. I try not to be absolute in those. I mean, it's an indicator. So when I look at one, and if the C and disc was like through the roof, odds are they will not gel with what we're doing. So maybe then what C I mean, it's compliant. You know, the C word compliance, it's, it's being compliant. Think of the engineer mindset, or the doctors or, you know, it's not bad. They're all, it's not like these good C's bad. And right, shout out to Courtney, who's high D, high C, 4% of the population is that. That's a whole different animal of fun, but she's amazing. And by the way, she's the best in the hot seat at okay, I'm gonna talk to you directly, but I can pick out quickly. It's pretty cool. Like she's kind of the hot seat ninja. Gary calls her the soul Crusher because he got his soul crush ones. But it did change his life. It did so in all you know, and that's how the vibe is, is like we have fun jabs here and there, but at the end of the day, I'm going to tell you the truth. But to get back on the topic, that's an indicator, so I I probably will get back to that. I Lauren and I thought about just doing the business the lion Business Review, and this before we even talk about joining we've talked adding that extra step in. But I, because I'm awesome, decided, why don't we wait and do here, apparently, a bad idea. But I think that's a pretty good idea, I mean, but I don't want to, I don't want to exclude someone, because sometimes this happens, people change number one. So they can, they can evolve, if you did it here, and three years later and five years later, and it's, you know, those are statistical outcomes. So it's an indicator. It's not absolute I say what I say about absolutes. If you use absolutes, you could be absolutely wrong. And so there's always room for interpretation. Pivot, I reserve the right to change my mind at any given moment on what I believe is, yeah, so I I think that's a good that is a good. Idea I'm actually gonna now do what I thought I should have done that I didn't do and made and got myself here.

Jason Croft  10:09  
Well, it, and I think that's the piece that is, it would be very different if it was, oh, you're interested in droning, cool. Fill out this. Let me get these results. Nope, you know. And that was the hard line, like you said, it's an indicator. So having that, plus a conversation and other review, and getting that feel like you have with folks, oh, but, but getting that and, and maybe even if you're on the fit, sometimes you're going to have that conversation like, this just isn't a good fit. Yeah, I love this person, but this is not a good fit. It's not in their best interest to come in or the groups, because you've got a, quite a dynamic that you've you've built there. So that's an important thing to consider. And then maybe, if you are a little bit Wow, they're, you know, they they lean this way, but then it's, you know, you express that concern to them. Hey, here's honestly my concern, and then that's that evaluation process. So I think it's great to talk in absolute in terms of putting that out. Have you know, on a show like this, if you're putting out content to say he, these are the types of folks I these are the folks who move gel and work in this and not and then take it on a case by case, for sure, but yeah, maybe moving that up to an earlier even before they join. I think

Joe Blackburn  11:41  
that is the route. And now two people have said it to me, Lauren, who actually runs the entire business, and then you who's my partner, who's

Jason Croft  11:50  
who's so Yahoo. It's talked about. So someone's smart, someone who's just guessing it stuff, baby

Joe Blackburn  11:57  
bear porridge, right in the middle. So, you know, not too hot, not too cold. We'll go there. Yeah, it's a, it's, it's interesting though, that all you know, and I actually had this conversation earlier. It's all, all of it is between here, and the sooner we can identify that for them, more importantly, they get value out of that, it's probably better, and it helps us. Because when I was, you know, brought when I was coming up as a coach, that was the that was the first step. But I thought I was smarter than everyone else, as usual, and now we know where we're at so, but it's, it is, it is fascinating, I will say that,

Jason Croft  12:40  
yeah, I think it's a good it's a good indicator. And again, the lessons from for everyone you know running a business around this are both identifying who makes a great client for them, but also standing in that, yeah, standing in who doesn't, and that's okay.

Unknown Speaker  13:01  
Well, it's

Jason Croft  13:02  
long,

Joe Blackburn  13:04  
it kind of negates that long term pain. And I think there, there's a way to get it out of the gate, probably earlier, I guess is the way I would say that.

Jason Croft  13:15  
So, yeah, yeah. Well, that's good. I want to jump and record that aspect, because it's an important thing, and I don't think that. I don't know, maybe we feel like we have to have permission or, I mean, as a business owner, it's kind of hard to say no to a client, right that, hey, I want to be a client. That's just not. It's not a natural thing.

Speaker 2  13:42  
It's important. So always fun. Yeah, that's good. All right, that's nice,

Unknown Speaker  13:51  
sweet, short.

Jason Croft  13:52  
There you go. I'll take

Unknown Speaker  13:53  
it. There you go. Take it on a free man,

Jason Croft  13:55  
brother, good to see you. See you. You've just experienced the lion's edge. If this episode lit a fire, if you're ready to push past your current ceiling, there's more waiting for you. Want to see what it takes to become a member of the Lion, visit join the lion.com to discover how successful entrepreneurs become unstoppable forces, and make sure you never miss an episode by hitting subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. This isn't just content. This is your edge.

Speaker 1  14:33  
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