We recently connected with Brendan Mccauley and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Brendan, thanks for joining us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know
Through my parents divorce as a young kid, I turned to binge eating and struggled with weight through high school. As I began to transform physically, I mastered myself mentally which lead me down the road of personal growth, professional development, coaching, and entrepreneurship.
Developing a passion for serving others, I knew that I wanted to coach, train, and speak on topics that would help transform lives, just as I had transformed mine, as I found this path to be the most rewarding and fulfilling way to spend my time.
At the same time, I was on the 40/40/40 path following in the parents footsteps – get the Undergrad, get the Masters, and eventually climb the corporate ladder.. I had a love for systems, operations and solving problems, but the environment in which I was doing it wasn’t exciting and I felt trapped.
During the final year of working towards my MBA (2014-2015), I additionally enrolled into multiple certifications (life coaching, personal trainer, Beachbody certified, Spin Instructor, Asana certified, etc.) believing that new found knowledge would somehow help point me in the right direction and escape the corporate rat race.
With an MBA and multiple certifications in hand, including a supportive spouse by my side, I cashed in my 401k hoping that everything would work out. I was fortunate enough to be mentored by the CEO and founder of the Les Brown Institute.
Over the next few years, I would find myself gravitating towards Visionaries with HUGE goals and aspirations, but struggling to come up with my own. I kept finding my in positions where I was an implementor, being told what to do and bringing items across the finish line. And while I was good at it, often I was paid very little with the promise of a big payoff that would never come to fruition.
After 4 years of this repeated cycle, I finally had enough and decided it was time to create my own product and take my future into my own hands rather than relying on the dreams of others.
Reflecting on my talents, skillsets, and passion, I created a turnkey lead generation system allowing coaches to share their message to the masses without getting stuck in the technical weeds.
For four years, I would continue help amazing coaches and thought leaders grow their business, change lives, and get amazing results. The program worked beautifully, but for some reason I struggled to sell it.
In hindsight, I see now that I was always good at building. I love taking the complicated and making it simple. I enjoy streamlining processes and in turn giving others a clear path to success.
Additionally, I recently took the “Predictive Index”, an assessment designed to identify how someone shows up and if they’re on the right seat on the right bus. Out of 17 potential categories, I came back as an “Operator”.
I found this results to be both bothersome and completely freeing at the same time.
I value time freedom. I have a desire to “own my own thing”. I love having the ability to call the shots and create an income that’s isn’t capped by others..
My challenge in being an operator is that I tend to be beholden to the say of the Visionary. I feel like it puts my in this place of “do-what-I-say”, of which I’m not the biggest fan.
On the other hand, I now fully understand, with the help of additional assessments as well, that I thrive and do my best work as an operator and not at sales. Therefore, I’m great at creating but not at pushing the product.
This is great news, because I can now fully live in my gift and understand the strategies I need to implement in order to have the best of both worlds.
I say all that to say….
Knowing what I know now, I would have lived deeper into my gift of operations and not tried to be everything to everybody. Unfortunately as an entrepreneur, we tend to wear multiple hats when getting started and only learn too late that we should have leveraged other people’s zone of genius in areas where we fall short.
Now, I’m strictly focused on operations, automation and systems for coaches and rely on influencers and thought leaders to do the selling for us.
The weight off of my shoulders by not trying to fill all roles is something that would have made this journey much easier from the get-go, but as Les Brown would say, “The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory”!
Brendan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We help coaches and thought leaders increase their impact, income, and influence by streamlining their systems and providing them with tech that just works.
There’s so many coaches that are great at what they do – whether it’s health, wealth, or relationships, they are incredibly gifted at changing lives.
The truth is most of them struggle when it comes to the technical and operational side of things.
They all tell me the same thing. “Brendan, I want systems that just work so I can simply show up to a room full of people, change lives, and get paid well doing it, that’s it!”.
They won’t want to worry about how to set up a landing page, or run an email campaign, or figure out how to structure high end offers and build out a virtual event in which to sell it.
They just want tech to work, period!
Why did I choose to go down this path specifically?
I remember when I was sitting at my corporate office, tapping my foot, staring at the computer screen, waiting for the hours to count down so I could clock out, only to repeat the cycle tomorrow.
It was because of listening to the words of other coaches and powerful motivational speakers that said “anything worth doing will be hard, but sometimes you just need to jump and grow your wings on the way down.”
I knew that if I didn’t have their motivation followed by immediate action, I would never break the 9-5 cycle.
And just as I was able to take the leap, I knew that it was because the message of these coaches had reached me, my life was forever changed.
I now have the ability to help other amazing coaches get their message out into the world, and in turn have the ability to impact hundreds of thousands of lives.
If the only wall that’s holding them back is the systems and tech part, well the good news is that operations and systems is my love language. As an operator, I thrive in this environment, and it’s now my job to leverage my coaching and operation skills to help them impact countless others on this planet.
How’d you meet your business partner?
On a completely unrelated topic to business, I put a post out asking if anyone in the entrepreneurial community would like to join me for 75 hard. I was looking for 75 individuals willing to push themselves for 75 days,
Amongst the comments and half-hearted willing participants, only a small handful of people had replied and joined the group, one which was in a third-world country, and the other was a woman who was in a few of the same FB groups as I was.
A couple days into the Challenge, and I had asked if she was open to a further discussion in holding each other accountable.
Our first phone call in, we came to find out there were many more similarities that we had bargained for, not the least of which that she was only a 30 minute drive from my house.
And as our conversations continued, the similarities, goals, visions and values were so aligned that we discussed the possibility of joining forces.
As it turns out, her zone of genius is 70% visionary, 30% operator, while mine is the exact inverse.
This made for a beautiful hand-in-glove fit between the two of us, where we could speak each other’s language while playing in our own gifts.
We served the same audience.
Had the same vision for the future.
Use the same technology.
Overcame the same hurdles.
The only thing we were missing was each other.
We both believe that leaders make fast decisions, and within the first month of knowing each other, we knew this was the right fit and pulled the trigger to merge.
She brought me on as her COO, where I get to play in my operational zone of genius, and she gets to play visionary, mapping out our big picture plans.
Together, it’s almost scary how much synchronicity we have, and at the same time, we feel tremendously blessed to finally be in a position where we can thrive. 🙏🏼
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
BOOK: “Good To Great” by James Collins. – I’ve always held onto the basic principles of this book, first of which is that you need to have the right people, on the right bus, in the right seat. Second, in order for your business to thrive, it must match 3 criteria. 1. You must love it. 2. You must be the best at it. 3. It must make financial sense.
COMMENCEMENT SPEACH: Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005 included stories about his life, his perspective on mortality, and his advice to the graduates. His thought that it’s only possible to connect the dots looking back is highly aligned with the realizations I’ve had of truly living in my gift as an operator.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.crmdonebetter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialbrendanm
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialbrendanm
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachbrendan
Image Credits
Crystal Swass
Nestor Correa