Scalepath

Another fun @MainStSummit highlight. On Thursday morning, I texted almost everyone I knew at the conference to come get BBQ at a spot down the street from the last MainStage event in the evening. I don’t know how many people showed up, somewhere between 30 and 50. I bet another 10-20 would have shown up if flights weren’t getting delayed/canceled left and right. It was still pretty fun just texting a TON of people a place to gather, and they all come. I even introduced a couple guys where one will buy the others construction company. Sweet

Okay, I just finished the weirdest marketing experiment of my career Here’s the results… Concept: Design and print collectible cards for the speakers at Main Street Summit. Portray real entrepreneurs as superheroes, put them in popular movie scenes, etc that relate to their businesses. (See the cards below) Goal: Hand thousands of these cards out at Main Street Summit. Do cool stuff, stand out, build relationships, see what serendipity comes my way. Numbers: - 121 unique designs for entrepreneurs - 250 decks printed - 12,500 total cards printed Results: Okay this part is cool. We managed to personally hand these cards out to 65 of the 121 people we personally designed cards for. Including: - Carl Edwards, pro NASCAR driver - Sahil Bloom, Author 5 types of Wealth - Brent Beshore, Founder of Permanent Equity And a whole lot more amazing people, including 10 more main event headliners. Almost every single time I showed someone their card, it brought a smile to their face. A few other unexpected things: 1. People wanted these cards as gifts to their children If anyone doesn’t know, it’s very common for mothers and fathers to bring gifts to their kids back after a big work trip. Even just tonight, guy texted me a photo of his 3 children exchanging their favorite cards with each other. “Made my kids day.” 2. Shareability People were showing off cards to each other. Swapping cards, when an attendee would meet with a speaker they’d show them their card as a fun greeting. So cool. 3. It evolved Day 1 it was a brand new concept that people thought was fun and creative Day 2 at least 50% of the people I handed their cards too had seen decks floating around and was familiar with the concept. Then loved that I gave them their card personally. 4. Newsletter subscribers / customers On the back of every card was a QR code to my newsletter, so far we have gotten 5 subscribers… big L here but not worried about it, when you do stuff like this you figure out what works and what doesn’t. 1 new customer, 2 calls booked with $10M+ revenue businesses which is great. I’ll be doing a bunch of follow up next week offering to mail people decks so there’s a longer tail here. 5. “Energy attracts energy” This is the most important part. The same kind of person who sees these cards and loves them is the same kind of person who resonates with the stuff I do. These cards basically acted as a magnet to find other creative ambitious fun people. Next steps: I expect something like this has a very long tail impact. It’s unique and unforgettable. Should bring interesting serendipity/luck into my life. If anyone has ideas on where to go with this, let me know!

$25,000 went into developing this project I created a collectible card series for entrepreneurs. All generated with AI I did this not as a joke, not as a product, but a marketing experiment for my peer group business, Scalepath. 121 unique designs, 250 decks, 12,500 cards. Did it for most of the speakers at Main Street Summit, and a few friends and members of my business, Scalepath. Every design captures the entrepreneur’s personality and essence of their business in a fun pop culture theme that mirrors their journey and unique work. If this works, I’m a genius. If this flops I’m an idiot. Image of every card is included is included in this thread here. Enjoy!

Can you really opt out of traditional health insurance entirely, save money, and still deliver better care and coverage for your team? @TRUmav's done it, and he’s going to show us how. Learn about alternative approaches to employee health coverage that are ACA compliant, cost-efficient, and surprisingly simple to implement. Open to members of Scalepath. Interested in membership? Send us a message.

Attention: U.S. manufacturers!! We are hosting a manufacturing business owner retreat in Atlanta, September 16-19th. Bringing together 15-20 other manufacturing business owners from across the country to go on 2 large manufacturing facility tours, and have intentional facilitated peer group experience sharing, and relationship building time. We're keeping the cost low, but experience/impact high. We're got more preliminary information to share, if you're interested in meeting other highly ambitious manufacturing owners in a unique, tailored, tight-knit environment, just reach out to me. comment down below or DM! (also, if you know someone who should consider this, tag them below)

CHICAGO - I am hosting an event IN YOUR CITY! Myself and my partner in crime @chasemurdock are hosting the best SMB/ETA meetup you’ve ever experienced! - connect with other small business owners - get in a room with friendly, ambitious, helpful people - leave the room with new friends and a belly full of laughter and joy. I’m like Santa Claus for ETA - spreading laughter and cheer everywhere I take my sleigh (or van… same thing). We’re hosting this meetup at Chase’s new business - Tailor Cooperative Chicago! please comment on this post and I will DM you the event details Attendance is limited, and we’re already filling up fast.

HUGE news!! We just acquired a majority of @joinscalepath - with Girdley staying on as an advisor. This partnership is a win for everyone - me, Michael, but mostly our combined members. Their team built something loved by many, and I’m pumped up to take it to the next step we're doing more meetups, more retreats, more peer groups, more community engagement. Everything gonna take a huge step up. If anyone has questions, comment or DM me!

Business update! Over the last few years I’ve been building a community of small business leaders called Scalepath. As of this week, @randbusiness will join as CEO (and acquire a majority of the company!). Rand Larsen is the perfect guy for this seat. He’s been driving all over the country for the last 3 years, building a peer group of his own through blood, sweat, and tears. Now he’s bringing the energy, focus, and time needed to level up this community. We’ve got some great stuff coming down the pike: - 35+ new faces, as Rand brings in his existing community members - Launching new peer groups (including some tailored to holdco owners!) - Doubling down on in-person events and retreats I’m super proud of what we’ve built, and I truly believe that joining a CEO community is one of the best career moves a leader can make. Welcome, Rand! Happy to answer any questions you have.

Excited to be hosting some fresh events for February. Hit us up if you'd like to join as our guest 🤙

Do you want to think in decades (not years)? (It's hard to do.) But, I've found two free, open-source tools I use when I plan each year. I'll share them in a live online lecture with Q&A done with my colleague @tonybgoode. It's free. No strings attached. The signup link is below.

What's your plan for 2035? That's not a typo—it's the first question you should ask before thinking about your goals for the year ahead. When you know where you're headed in the big picture, the shorter-term goals come into focus. Join us 1/10 for a lecture with Michael Girdley on long-term planning: lu.ma/89t96kp0

@Bigg_Dawwg Hey hey! Send us a DM? Happy to chat!

I asked my CEO peer group for their best resources for training salespeople. Top answers: - David Sandler (conversational selling) - Jim Camp (no-pressure, decision-focused) - Chris Voss (tactical negotiation) - @BowTiedSalesGuy (practical frameworks) Who/what else is good?

@KashyaPraneeth @girdley Hey Praneeth! DM me? 🤙

@girdley +1!

@hunterrrjs @girdley Honestly game for this

@girdley virtual boardgame tournament sponsored by @joinScalepath coming soon?

Want to teach your kids to win at business? Try these 5 games.

@surim0n @girdley Checking back here! Still want to chat?

@girdley Hi tony from @joinScalepath. dm me.

Scenario: you catch an employee stealing from your warehouse. Do you: • fire them quietly? • call the cops and do it loud? This came up in a Scalepath discussion the other day. What do you think?

@surim0n @girdley Couldn't DM you but feel free to DM me! Or email: tony@joinscalepath.com

@ChefPaulShufelt @girdley Hey Chef Paul! DM me? Let's chat!

@girdley @joinScalepath I’m interested.

Learn what it takes to grow your business with confidence—join our 8-week Scalable CEO Cohort starting October 15! Included with Scalepath membership. Learn more via link in bio!

Death. Taxes. And if you run a small business: raising prices. Because costs will never stop rising. But how do you raise prices and not lose customers?

This question came up in the Scalepath Slack the other day. It’s a tough situation. So many of us are wired as people-pleasers, but it can also lead to being taken advantage of. Here are my 3 suggestions for saying “no” to a client: 1) Create a process where someone who isn’t a pleaser has to approve asks 2) Create rules around workloads/profit margins / free asks. Communicate that during client onboarding. 3) Make your default answer, “I’ll get back to you.” Take the social pressure off to make the right decision. What else would you tell this person?