We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Colton Trout a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Colton, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

For this we have to go all the way back to my high school days when I started volunteering at a local bakery. As a sophomore in high school a part of our school requirement was volunteer hours. Most sophomores went for the typical religious & local non profit route but I knew that was not going to be for me. If I was going to volunteer my precious time I was going to do it in an area that genuinely interested me. What better place to start than with FOOD! More specifically a gourmet bakery! I found my local gourmet bakery and went in bright eyed and bushy tail looking for opportunity. It didn’t take much convincing for them to realize having a volunteer in place of another employee was a smart option. It wasn’t long from there that I completed my volunteer hours and got hired on as an official employee. I would go on to work with this company for the rest of my high school years and would go from base employee to lead manager. Once that was achieved I did a little time abroad and the business relocated to Tennessee when I cam back. I had learned enough and had enough clientele and enjoyment within the industry to start my own bakery but with a twist! That is when Rum Cake Escape an alcohol infused cake business was born.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For those who don’t know me, my name is Colton Trout. I am an entrepreneurial change management business coach and business owner. It wasn’t long after I started my Rum Cake business that I embarked on other entrepreneurial ventures and realized I had a real keen eye for growing businesses quickly and efficiently. It’s been 6 years since I started my rum cake business and 3 years since I started coaching other entrepreneurs although its been about 13 years since I attended my first business conference. As a coach I have a group coaching program and 1:1 Clients that I train and meet with weekly to create consistency in income, transformation, growth, and influence within their niche. It has been a grand adventure coaching entrepreneurs and I am proud to say I’ve helped over 30 individuals create multiple 6 figure incomes and created 2 Millionaires in the last 3 couple years. I’ve co-authored a book and been published several times in small and larger publications. Things are just getting started for me as a coach and it is only going up from here not only for myself but more importantly my clients!

Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?

Most business coaches unfortunately have never owned or purchased a business and I am over joyed to say I am not one of those. Not only do I own Rum Cake Escape but at the end of 2019 I purchased a local wine and beer bar/boutique called Paradise Tropical Wines Kemah. This process was not easy as no bank wanted to loan the amount of money required to purchase this business to a then 22 year old. So I went the private money route. In total it took a total of 9 months between doing the do diligence and proposal creation and then giving the proposal to several investors until I found a couple silent investors who wanted to embark on the journey with me. It was a fantastic learning curve as well a great opportunity to implement my coaching advice to a physical product business. I am happy to say that the business survived all of covid and all the hurtles thrown at it.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

This is a question I get asked more than any other simply because it is the question everyone in entrepreneurship is asking themselves. How can I get more clients/customers! I can simply say without going too in-depth is I got LOUD! Now what does loud mean. Well in its simplest terms I showed up 10x more than anyone else in my space between networking, social media content creation, phone calls, text messages, emails, video content, dm’s, stories etc. Something else I got loud about was my systems and processes to how a client shows up within my business. What I mean by this is the systems taking my clients from point A (brand new prospect) to a successful client/raving fan! I have flow charts and systems for everything between lead gen, to referrals, to follow up schedules, to the main portion of my coaching courses. Now I don’t just have them for my coaching business but for my Rum Cake business and Bar! I got loud about how serious I was taking my business and I got loud about my consistency within my business. If I had to give you a strategy for growing your clientele it would be to ask you this simple question. Where are you holding back and being quiet where you should be LOUD?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beacons.ai/ttdtlf
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ttdtlf/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ttdcolton/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@coltontrout_?lang=en