From the upcoming US election to the holiday season to extreme weather events, we are living in a truly chaotic time. And that’s before we even get into the prospect of a possible recession! With this in mind, we are using today’s episode to discuss the impact that the time of year and world events can have on your sales engagement, both for you and your prospects. We discuss how these elements can influence your prospects’ decision-making and psychology before setting out clear and intentional strategies for dealing with them. Our conversation also examines how to make sure you have the right attitude with your sales engagements so that you don’t experience a dip. We break down how to walk people through the process with empathy and competence so that you both get the results you want. To learn more about how external events can impact your business and how to master selling in chaos, be sure to tune in!


Key Points From This Episode:

• The current season of chaos, from the holidays to the upcoming election.
• Why we should care about what’s going on in the world.
• The effect of world events and time of year on your prospects’ frame of mind.
• Understanding how the state of the world can affect you as a salesperson.
• How to prepare yourself for times of chaos and approach this period with intention.
• The importance of actively engaging in empathy for your clients and yourself.
• Getting clear on the chaotic state of the world and how different outcomes will impact you.
• How to be an exceptional leader and succeed in coaching when things are challenging.
• Learning to embrace change and approach challenges as opportunities for growth.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Welcome to the inaugural episode of our exciting new series, Friday Fast Five! Each week, we’ll bring you five quick hits from our week, things like thoughts and insights, Aha moments, memorable experiences, and interesting (or sometimes just random) tidbits we want to share with you. Join us as we dive into five highlights from our week!

Key Points From This Episode:

• An introduction to our new Friday Fast Five series.
• We explain the format of our Friday Fast Five episodes.
• The dynamic of having tons of energy trapped inside of our bodies.
• Digesting the audiobook version of Steven Pressfield’s book, Turning Pro.
• Beware: the closed-eye process.
• Creating intentional times to connect deeper.
• Crafty marketing for gluten-free sourdough bread.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Simple Kneads

Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

In business, making difficult decisions is paramount to success, and that is why indecision is one of the biggest obstacles preventing business leaders from realizing their company’s full potential. So, how can we make the tough decisions that will ultimately decide our destiny? A great starting point is the grandfather sentiment, which explains how making quick decisions is often better than stalling to try and make the perfect one. That said, speed is beneficial while haste is detrimental, so we discover how to make faster decisions without putting ourselves in compromising situations with the help of the SCIPAB® framework. We also learn about how the environment and one’s physiology affect the decision-making process, why it’s perilous to procrastinate over important decisions, how to cultivate a habit of quick decision-making, and why self-growth and self-improvement are the best paths to making better decisions in all aspects of life. We end with the tough decisions that many are plagued with as the holidays approach, and the undeniable importance of aligning your decisions with your intentions and intended outcomes.

Key Points From This Episode:

• How having to make tough decisions gets amplified during peak holiday seasons.
• The grandfather sentiment – how a quick decision is better than a perfect one.
• How to decipher between helpful speed and blind haste when making quick decisions.
• Why it’s better to make tough decisions from the heart.
• SCIPAB® - a framework for making difficult decisions.
• How environment and physiology affect one’s decision-making.
• The biggest and hardest decisions that Brook has had to make in business and life.
• Exploring the dangers of procrastinating over important decisions.
• How to cultivate a habit of quick decision-making; focusing on the little things.
• Why and how personal growth improves one’s decision-making.
• The decisions that many struggle with in-and-around the holidays.
• How to be aligned with your intentions and outcomes, and why this matters.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Big Fish

SCIPAB® Cheat Sheet

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Profitable Coach Collective

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Business planning can feel extremely overwhelming for any entrepreneur, but if you have a roadmap to success, it makes it feel a little easier to achieve. Today on The Coaching Equation, we are joined by the incredible faith-driven business coach and author of Ultimate Breakthrough Planning, Mike Ferrell, to discuss the importance of business planning and how to get on top of it. Tuning in, you’ll hear about Mike’s non-traditional career, why he prioritizes his curiosity, his books, how the financial crisis of 2008 changed everything for him, and how he came out of his darkest times. We delve into what inspired him to create his five Monk principles and a breakdown of each of them before Mike explains how they can be the key to business planning. We even discuss why creating a foundation and business planning are imperative to your business’s long-term success. Finally, Mike shares some tips for simplifying business planning into manageable, bite-sized steps. To hear all this and even be reminded to celebrate your successes, be sure to press play now!

Key Points From This Episode:

• A warm welcome to today’s guest, Mike Ferrell.
• Mike tells us about his professional golf career.
• Where Mike’s entrepreneurship journey began.
• The importance of maintaining curiosity as a coach.
• How to maintain or recapture your curiosity.
• Mike’s first book and the financial crisis of 2008.
• The greatest gift Mike was given during his hardest time.
• What informed Mike’s decision to dig himself out of this hole.
• The five Monk principles he created from The Rule of Benedict.
• One: virtuous conversation – living positively.
• Two: community – why community is the foundation of culture.
• Three: stability – how an organization operates.
• Four: excellence – innovation and how to create positive change.
• Five: profound hospitality – internal and external.
• The importance of planning and building a foundation for your business.
• How to simplify business planning so it becomes approachable.
• Why you need to celebrate your success.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Mike Ferrell

Mike Ferrell on LinkedIn

Ultimate Breakthrough Planning

The Sweet Spot

The Rule of Benedict

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

You’ll want to come back to this episode again and again because it’s a game-changer! In all of our experience, one of the key biggest problems that we see is an inability to establish trust with a prospect. During this episode, Brook and Ryan set the record straight and talk about how to establish trust before, during, and after your sales engagement, whether your prospect decides to buy on the call or not. Learn how to create consistency between marketing messaging and direct engagement with clients, position yourself as a true trusted advisor, and build trust one step at a time. We explore the importance of team communication, how to ask meaningful questions, and grow to understand the pain, the dream, and the gap for your client. You’ll also hear us unpack what it means to ask deepening questions, why it is so critical to stay true to the experience you promise, and why you should value when clients say ‘not now’ rather than get discouraged by it. This episode offers listeners a linear path to building massive amounts of trust. Get ready to sharpen your sales sword today! Thanks for listening.

Key Points From This Episode:

• The challenge of establishing trust with a prospect during sales engagements.
• Effectively bridging marketing messaging with sales conversations.
• What it truly means to position yourself as a trusted advisor.
• Creating trust through sharing personalized client results and testimonials.
• Why it is so valuable to build trust one step at a time.
• Communicating outcomes and expectations from the first step.
• Establishing real trust once you are in a sales call.
• The importance of building a strong dynamic of team communication.
• Building rapport through meaningful questions and understanding the client’s needs.
• How to grow your understanding of the pain, the dream, and the gap for your client.
• What it means to ask deepening questions in order to allow people to elaborate.
• Staying true to the experience you promise.
• Understanding the value of a response that says ‘not now’ rather than ‘yes’.
• Why it is important not to allow emotions to lead in the follow-up process.
• The correlation between buying behavior and trust.
• How to implement the advice laid out in this conversation.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Author, coach, speaker, and entrepreneur are just some of the titles of today’s remarkable guest. Markus Kaulius is a globally recognized business and thought leader, and he joins us today to share some tips on how we can start living more meaningful lives to unlock our full potential. We begin with a major transformation from Markus’ life that taught him most of what he knows about business success. Then, we explore the gravity of choosing to work on your business rather than in it, how to set up a business as a sellable asset, where ownership fits in, and the ins and outs of Markus’ groundbreaking book, Play a Bigger Game. We also discuss ways to free yourself from imposter syndrome, why nothing really matters without action, and everything we need to know about our guest’s latest business venture: Yaystack. To end, Markus doubles down on the importance of living with intention and explains how he overcomes some of life’s biggest challenges.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Welcoming Markus as he walks us through one of his life’s biggest transformations.
• How to know when it’s time to stop working in your business and start working on it.
• Understanding how to set up a new business to be sold for profit in the future.
• Ways to take and give ownership as a business leader, and why this matters.
• The biggest obstacles that prevent business leaders from empowering their subordinates.
• What inspired Markus to write Play a Bigger Game, and more on this groundbreaking book.
• Simple steps to help you break free from imposter syndrome and feelings of inadequacy.
• The importance of taking action after gaining new information, and how to rise above haters.
• Unpacking Markus’ new business venture: Yaystack.
• Reiterating the power and value of intention.
• How Markus overcomes the biggest challenges that life throws at him.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Markus Kaulius

Markus Kaulius on LinkedIn

Markus Kaulius on Instagram

Markus Kaulius on Facebook

Markus Kaulius on YouTube

Play a Bigger Game

Yaystack

Amplify Publishing Group

Tony Robbins

Magnum Nutraceuticals

Hidden Potential

Trey Roth on LinkedIn

The Surrender Experiment

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

We’re all about sharing our experiences so you can reach your goals even faster. Today, we put the spotlight on Ryan to explore his entrepreneurial journey and the invaluable lessons he’s learned along the way. In a conversation led by Brook, we delve into the realities of building businesses, what it takes to scale to 8 figures, and the challenges of launching a coaching company after achieving that success. We discuss pitfalls to avoid, the “messy middle” between starting and succeeding, and how to navigate that uncertain space. Sometimes, progress means taking a step back, and we touch on that too. Through Ryan’s story, you’ll gain insight into building a career true to your passions, appreciating the power of relationships, mastering sales, and connecting on a genuine, human level. Tune in today to hear all this and more!

Key Points From This Episode:

• A summary of this episode: an interview between Brook Bishop and Ryan Lang.
• Ryan’s experiences in college, the army, and the mentorship program that started his career.
• Quitting his job and the radical shift that followed when he started work with his father.
• His relationship with music and his family history with it.
• Elements of his personality that led him away from a career in performance.
• How Ryan built his career without a college education.
• Asking for opportunities and improving as he built his career.
• Founding a gas and oil business on relationships and referrals.
• The incredible value of understanding sales and human connection.
• Making a personal transformation and entering the coaching world.
• Navigating the digital world for the first time.
• Making a seven-figure investment into his career as a coach.
• Entering the coaching world with no mentors.
• The first things Ryan came to understand as a marketer for his own business.
• Insights from his broadcasting career that translate into sales.
• Why he attributes so much of his success to relationships.
• What he would do differently if he had a chance to do it all again.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Mastering Sales Pt 1: Lessons from Brook Bishop’s Path to Success

Mastering Sales Pt 2: Brook’s Guide to Scaling Successfully and Leading with Impact

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy
The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Are you looking for some tried-and-true sales and marketing insights to help elevate your own skill set? Then you do not want to miss this episode of The Coaching Equation! Today on the show, we are joined by a special guest, Michael Hunter, the Founder of PersonalBrand.com and Spiffy Checkouts. In an episode bursting with goodness, we dig into Michael’s entrepreneurial journey, how to craft irresistible offers in sales and marketing, the inevitable trials and tribulations of being a business owner, and key areas to focus on. Michael also emphasizes the importance of seeking mentorship not just from videos and books, but from hands-on mentors as he unpacks the power of proximity. This episode is loaded with enough information to fill up an entire notebook, so let's dive in!

Key Points From This Episode:

• What got Michael interested in pursuing a journey in digital marketing.
• How having a commission-only sales job at 17 helped Michael later in his entrepreneurship.
• He explains how his marketing journey started to unfold.
• Michael recounts key “forge-ahead” moments along his path.
• He unpacks the idea of 45-degree angle moves.
• The moment his focus zoomed in on checkouts and how Spiffy came to fruition.
• Why mobile optimization of your platform is (still) important.
• Key points for successful conversion-based optimized checkout pages.
• Michael’s thoughts on what makes for an irresistible offer.
• The four forces of an irresistible offer.
• Successfully marketing something that isn’t the “instant pill.”
• What separates the people who build a successful and profitable personal brand from those who don’t.
• Michael shares advice on how to identify the things we should handle ourselves versus the ones we should delegate or outsource to others.
• The importance of being proficient in the top five skill sets it takes to run your business.
• Why copyright is the number one skill you should be proficient at (in this industry).
• He highlights the value of having hands-on, tailored advice from face-to-face mentors.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Michael Hunter on LinkedIn

Spiffy Checkouts

Personal Brand

Tony Robbins

Brendan Bouchard

Spiffy Checklist

Sign Up for Spiffy

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes