How a World-Class Executive Coach Approaches Membership Sites, Courses, and Coaching

[00:00] Micah: Hey, everybody. It's Micah Mitchell with the Membership Site Success Show. And today I have a longtime friend, past client, and somebody who I think has just a ton of knowledge and information to share. Thomas Mungavin from Changemasters. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I was sharing before we got on that there are so many directions, you know, we could talk about this. But since it is about membership sites, I want to kind of ask you, when did you first build something that you would consider a membership site?

[00:31] Thomas: Like, what was the first time when you were providing access to somebody and charging for it? 2012.

[00:40] Micah: Okay. I'm guessing that was Infusionsoft Keep?

[00:44] Thomas: It was. Actually, that time they had Customer Hub, and I was trying to make that work. And we had a lot of struggles with that, but I think you helped me find a better way.

[01:01] Micah: You had built a membership site. You were using Keep to market it. I'm guessing you kind of had a small team. What was the content like, or where did the content come from?

[01:13] Thomas: Well, it was really built, you know, the, it's a Changemasters Academy, and we have had Changemasters. We founded that in 1986.

[01:27] Micah: And it really started out to do change.

[01:31] Thomas: You know, I've had an experience dealing with change in large corporations. I started my own company. I wanted to work with change. I was working in organizations.

[01:41] Micah: I ended up coaching individuals that became actually a major part of the business.

[01:47] Thomas: We wrote a book in 2008. And it was really designed for reaching more people who couldn't afford individual coaching. And I really wanted to get some of these materials that we felt were really helpful to a broader audience at a lower price point.

[02:06] Micah: And that was the nature of the genesis, if you will, of the Academy. Gotcha. The experience that you were sharing on Change, I mean, I kind of know some of this. Maybe you can share some of the types of clients you were working with or some of the companies, just to give people an idea of the level you were kind of working with companies at.

[02:30] Thomas: Well, we started out doing a very broad group of companies. But the primary clients for us were large companies. And we dealt with like 50 of the Fortune 500 size companies. And overall, about half of our clients were actually from outside the United States.

[02:54] Micah: So it was some global companies. So they sent people from Europe and South America and more in Asia.

[03:05] Thomas: So it was a very broad clientele. And it was basically the upper third of the org chart. So that was a bulk of our business.

[03:13] Micah: But I also had 20-year relationships with much smaller companies, under 20 employees.

[03:23] Thomas: But our individual coaching was expensive enough. It didn't work for most smaller companies.

[03:31] Micah: Gotcha. So you're working with these kind of higher level people at these higher level companies. And it sounds like at the same time, some of your past clients who may have been smaller businesses. What's maybe the biggest difference and the biggest similarity, would you say, in helping those groups manage change? So what's the biggest difference?

[03:55] Thomas: I would say the small companies are more fun. That makes sense.

[04:02] Micah: Yeah.

[04:03] Thomas: Yeah. And to get, you know, in terms of large companies, when I'm talking about that, if you look at our Fortune 500 size companies, there are six current CEOs of that size company who have been our clients.

[04:18] Micah: So, you know, it was fun working with incredibly accomplished, intelligent, thriving kind of people.

[04:27] Thomas: Like, really kept you on your toes. But I'd say, you know, we had other companies. You can just, you can get a lot more done in a small company. Like, you know, I worked 20 years in Lark, IBM, and then Target Corporation and technology side. And, you know, getting things done takes forever in those settings. So what I love about smaller companies is really get things done. I remember starting my own.

[04:57] Micah: It was like, oh, I have to do real estate?

[05:01] Thomas: You know, I find office space and all that stuff. So it's all those things that you don't even think about in large companies out there, somebody else keeping all that stuff running. So the big difference in my mind is that it's easier to stay on mission in a small business. People may find purpose in what they're doing in a larger company, but they have to buy into somebody else's vision in general. Even if they're at the top of the organization, there's only so much nuance they can put on it. On a smaller company, you can figure out who your customers are, what impact you want to have on them, how you're going to create value, how you're going to share online value. So, you know, there's quite a difference in the experience in those different settings.

[05:57] Micah: That's really an interesting point I wouldn't have thought of. It makes me think of something a friend who had done a lot of corporate consulting mentioned. They were saying with these big companies, when they hire somebody new, the culture doesn't change that much. But with small companies, every person you hire can impact the culture pretty drastically.

[06:16] Thomas: Absolutely.

[06:17] Micah: And I would say that the other difference in terms of running my own small company was that in a large company, at one point I had a couple hundred people.

[06:29] Thomas: And if somebody was good at this and not good at this, I could move this over somebody else and I could just use their talent. In a small company, if I needed somebody to do three or four different things well, I didn't have somebody. I mean, I'd either bring them up to speed or figure out another way to get done or move on. And so the impact of one individual in terms of their skills, their commitment, and their ability to get things done and the impact on the culture is really pretty dramatic in a small company.

[07:07] Micah: What are the biggest similarities between working with these bigger companies, big executives, and maybe a smaller company? What doesn't change?

[07:46] Thomas: It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah.

[07:54] Micah: It would say yeah, yeah.

[07:55] Thomas: It would say yeah, yeah. It would say yeah, yeah. yeah, yeah. ! And that same thing can happen in a large company. And so it's really individuals have to make a decision. What will I do? How much will I adapt? How far can I go?

[08:25] Micah: And I would say one of the things that was always interesting is there are people who are very strong personality, clear vision in large and small companies.

[08:37] Thomas: And what I would find is if they had somebody in their organization who said, you know, Mary is brilliant. She knows what she's doing. And I really believe in what she's doing. But just between you and I, if it weren't for me, she'd crash and burn. I know they've got a really devoted person because we go to work. What we'd like to do is we want to believe in the direction or the business or the person is going. We want to believe they can get there. And you want to believe that we can make a contribution to making that happen. And so if somebody sees they are critical to getting this across the finish line, that's the kind of strong motivation.

[09:22] Micah: If they think, well, they can get there without me, people are ready to go do something else.

[09:29] Thomas: And that's true whether you're in a C-suite in a large company or you're in a small company with a founder.

[09:38] Micah: It is fascinating because I'm imagining some of the people who listen to this podcast thinking about some of the people in relationships and how their, you know, human dynamics are working and being like, oh, huh.

[09:50] Thomas: You know, you know, our book is called Seeing Yourself as Others Do, which when we were trying to decide what the title was, when we, you know, we had several options. And that when I say that people go, oh, oh, I think I'd like to know, but I'm not sure. So that was, that's the essence of what you're talking about there. I said, we want to know about, we're often afraid to.

[10:21] Micah: Yeah, let's, let's, I love, every time we talked to you, Ben was even saying to me yesterday that, yeah, every time we talked to Tom, even though we're supposed to be helping him, we're always like learning something. So, yeah, it's always, it's always fun to hear some of the things. Let's talk about your book in relation to your membership site. So you mentioned you wrote the book essentially for, to help people who couldn't maybe afford your coaching because it was high-end coaching. Where does the membership fit into this?

[10:51] Thomas: So as you went to say, okay, you know, I can't coach everybody.

[10:55] Micah: I got to create some information. Was it book first before any videos?

[11:01] Thomas: Actually, we put videos first. What happened is I worked, my wife and I wrote the book together and we run the business together. And we, we, we'd worked with 1,000, 1,500 kind of clients. And one of our activities was skiing and we're in Breckenridge driving back to the Denver airport. And my wife says, you know, just seems like no matter what level people are at, no matter what their background, all that kind of, there's certain sort of really simple low-hanging fruit that people can do to make a difference. And all I need to do is be aware of it. I said, oh yeah, well, we talk about that all the time. Yeah, well, yeah. Well, she pulls out a yellow pad, starts writing down, well, what is it? And so, by the time we got to the Denver airport, we had 23 on the list. And so, we put it aside and when we were thinking about what would be low-hanging fruit you could make available to anybody, it's true, even if they're not running a business. And so, we were thinking about this idea and we said, well, let's, we talk about it in the coaching room all the time. Well, let's just turn on the camera and talk about it, you know, see how we make that work. You know, there's no scripting, we'll just, well, we recorded something called 23 mundane moments that can make or break your career. So, I was just doing it as a test.

[12:44] Micah: I didn't plan to use it on the website.

[12:47] Thomas: I just wanted to see if we could make it more conversational rather than talking head kind of stuff. Well, my wife shared this rough version with one of our clients, General Mills and that, and they loved it. And I was like, wait a minute, I wasn't going to sell that yet. So, well, you couldn't sell it.

[13:09] Micah: Anyway, we ended up improving the background.

[13:14] Thomas: Fortunately, I'd used a green screen in the back.

[13:16] Micah: So, it'd go from this really corny background to something a little more legitimate.

[13:22] Thomas: But that was our first video that we brought up. We did put selling the books on there, but our first content was really 23 mundane moments. And it's probably been our biggest seller.

[13:35] Micah: We've used it to support coaching.

[13:38] Thomas: We've used it to support team. We do team building, or not team building, but coaching on these topics for groups of 10 to 20 people. And then we'd supplement it with follow-up with these 23 mundane moments. And people walk away and they say, I never thought of it, but it's like, it was topics like, what do you do when somebody steals your idea? Or we talk about the impact of meetings on your perception. You're creating perception with maybe eight or 10 people at a time in a meeting. And so, if you're kind of checked out and saying, I'm not interested in working on your device or something like that, you're making an impression with a whole lot of people in a short period of time. And it can be very counterproductive.

[14:28] Micah: One of them was being able to handle compliments.

[14:33] Thomas: We found executive presence was our kind of topic.

[14:36] Micah: But people who kind of push away compliments don't seem very, the people are suspicious.

[14:45] Thomas: So, being able to accept a compliment, we describe it as a gift. And if you get a gift, you should probably thank them and open the gift. Not throw it in the wastebasket or give it back to them. So, just things like that. But that was actually our first content. And when we started doing workshops, we put a lot, when we used to give a half-day presentation before a workshop, we put that online so they could do that before we did the workshop. And then it became material there. So, we have a whole pile, actually a lot of material we haven't put up yet. But yeah, so we just kind of gathered.

[15:24] Micah: We did, oh, that's about enough about that.

[15:28] Thomas: There's several other topics.

[15:30] Micah: We did, oh, that's about enough. You know, I find it really, so many things about it fascinating. So, I've been, you know, like I said, helping, for those listening, I've helped Tom with his websites. And so, I've been aware of the Mundane Moments program as far as like, oh, we need to publish this and we need to set up an order page. But I didn't know the backstory of it. And it's first thing that sticks out is the fact that you didn't script it, but you did have a green screen. So, you were like prepared on one end and yeah, loose on the other. But I bet it created something awesome. I mean, obviously it did because you've now leveraged those unscripted videos for years, right? Yes. And like you said, in so many areas. And so, the other thing that is fascinating to me about the Mundane Moments thing is that you, they're not like chronological or connected. Each one is essentially kind of individual. You could take any one of them, right? You don't have to know what was before or after. Right. And that kind of thing, I think, is overlooked for people who are building memberships and courses where they try to have a structure, a system, a pathway. Those are all good things. But you're making a lot of assumptions when you think somebody's going to go down your pathway versus I think what you and Carol did is just identify things of value, create them, put them out there. And then found like, oh, this is, you know, I think of it as a home run in terms of like, oh, that works probably better than expected or the long-term value of it was better than expected. I love that. Really cool.

[17:03] Thomas: Well, one of the other things we did in that for those that turned out to be also home run was we created a study guide with a two-page document that a group could look at the video and then discuss it. And in terms of how it applied to them and so forth. And we were at that time primarily focused on our U.S. and European clients. And so a lot of the content was focused on them. And we had somebody, General Mills is one of our clients at that time, our customers. And they were creating their operation in India and they wanted to use 23 Mundane Moments to develop their first-line managers. Because in India, people who were already managers are in high demand. So they were trying to create their own. And they wanted to use the 23 Mundane Moments. And I said, I'm sorry, but some of the stuff we talk about, I know we have enough Asian clients. I know that they don't want to talk about this stuff.

[18:08] Micah: And so she said, well, you just try it.

[18:11] Thomas: I said, well, I'll try anything. And so we did.

[18:14] Micah: And we ended up doing is having a group. We took people from different divisions or different areas, departments, and they would get them together to have tea and watch a video and then discuss how that fit them.

[18:32] Thomas: And two things happened. One was they separated. They said, well, 80% of this applies for us. And the other 20% helps us understand dealing with those Americans across the pond.

[18:48] Micah: Yeah.

[18:49] Thomas: But the other thing that happened is after doing these 23 together, where they're getting together every other week of the course, and we had a couple of webinars in there. We were able to coach them in a group, a small group of five to seven people remotely. And they were open to it because they had spent 23 times they got together, talk about personal stuff. And so within that group, they were much more open and we had experienced our Asian clients being. So the study guide turned out to be a way that could be used for a variety of different situations and discussions.

[19:32] Micah: That's such a great idea, the study guides, especially in that context where you're selling to groups. But I think even if an individual is going to be consuming it, you know, something to accompany the video, something, maybe they grab an accountability partner.

[19:47] Thomas: Tell me a little bit about when you sell to these corporations, right?

[19:52] Micah: I don't think you're just giving them one login that they're giving to everybody. What was the strategy around, you know, selling to groups of people rather than to individual consumers?

[20:05] Thomas: Well, that was that we were dealing with you and that challenge, you know, 12 years ago. And you really came up with a workaround for us that basically allowed us to set up multiple people. I think you call it umbrella count now. It's a little different, but in the same concept is because we would sell like just one company had people around the world. And we sold them 250 team locations. And so what they did is they gave us the names of all the people and were able to put those in and run it that way. And then we had other situations where they would buy a bulk of them and they'd just give us a spreadsheet with the information that people could assign them. So, you know, it worked well.

[21:10] Micah: Yeah, I remember it was fascinating to me because you're coming in saying like, oh, I need to deliver, you know, hundreds of these. Right. And so it wasn't just like, OK, let's let's put the names in and send me each a password. Then it was, oh, yeah. And the admin wants to know what's happening. Oh, and yes, we don't want we don't want them sharing logins with different people. We don't want to sell 250 and have it service 5000. That's a really good point.

[21:36] Thomas: I already I think, you know, there's one when we sold, we sent it to him and we've had over 100 openers within about 20 minutes. So I don't think this one person is doing this 100 times.

[21:52] Micah: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So to to go into that system, I think you proposed that each video that so one login, let's say, I'm sorry about the bandaid on my forehead.

[22:04] Thomas: I got jabbed in the forehead, play fighting with my son a little bit.

[22:08] Micah: But in your example of giving all these logins to people, then you added the extra layer, not only of bulk accounts way back when, but you wanted to limit limit the number of times an individual user could view it so that they couldn't. Oh, I went through the program. Let me pass this log into somebody else to go through the program. And that was an interesting bit of tech to say, okay, when they view the page and watch the video, we're going to run a counter. And then every time they do it, increment it, we're going to show it on the screen. Hey, you viewed it so many times. You only got a couple more times and so on. So it was several things you had come up with that were very unique challenges to me technologically, because I was like, oh, none of that. It's not even a framework for any of these things you're saying, right? Today there is, but you were the first person that I know of who was not only asking for it, but then you did it and did it successfully. Let's talk about the pivot for you. So you, like I said, you were coaching businesses at all levels for a long time. And then I think when you first did the membership site, it was largely aimed at delivering those bulk accounts. And you've now come back, rebuilt your tech stack, and are looking to go after, I think, probably also still the large companies, but also repurpose that content. And because like you said, it's applicable to everyone. It's human nature, whatnot. Tell me a little bit about, first of all, the thought process.

[23:37] Thomas: So did corporate America change to where, you know, they're not really into that?

[23:42] Micah: Or do you just see the other market is bigger? I know you kind of want to serve both, but as I understand it, you're more leaning into kind of the entrepreneurs and startups. Is that first of all accurate?

[23:54] Thomas: Totally accurate. You know, from, I mentioned the book, I feel we have a mission that's over and above the business, if you will. Business has to be sustainable. But we see how, I mean, we literally have people we worked with 10, 15, 20 years ago, giving us feedback saying, you changed my life. I wouldn't be in this role if it wasn't for you or, and we know that, you know, this argument that people can't change is just malarkey. I'm going to use a famous reference term.

[24:36] Micah: Thanks.

[24:39] Thomas: And we've just seen so many times that people understanding their impact, being able to make a few changes can make a dramatic change in their whole life outcomes.

[24:54] Micah: And I want that for everybody.

[24:56] Thomas: I mean, I'm, I have people who buy the book for their niece or nephew when they're graduating from college, because they think it's prepares them to work in the world, not just large companies here. And so, you know, at this point, it's a mission to reach more people that way. And I feel like I know how to do the big business side. I know how to do it, but you're helping me reach others. And, and my, my, my heart is actually stronger in helping those people than, than the big ones, because a lot of them already have a lot of resources.

[25:40] Micah: That makes sense. Yeah. I've seen, as I've been, you know, we've been helping you with some of your marketing. I've seen some of your testimonials and they're, they're fire. They're high profile people saying amazing things about you guys. It's cool. Um, what, when you're coming into this market, I'm assuming, for example, mundane moments that we've been talking about, it doesn't really need to be updated, right? It just applies those people. Everybody needs it. It's kind of an intersection of like, maybe personal development, communication, whatever, and corporate, you know, team, whatever business development. Um, what are some of your other products though? And, uh, do they need to be adapted? And, and if not, or if so, why?

[26:24] Thomas: We have always looked at whatever we do is try and make it as evergreen as we can. Um, and because it's, it, it, the, we're talking about personal relationships and that more, we can make that evergreen. Um, but the, you know, we have one of the things we have that I think is incredibly strong is, uh, when we were, our coaching process is very structured. It's not, I distinguish what I call counseling versus coaching. And most things, people who are doing executive coaching or life coaching do counseling rather than coaching.

[27:10] Micah: So when we saw coaching, it's like, how do you, what do you, where do you want to be a year from now?

[27:17] Thomas: And what's the best way to get there? How we're going to get you there. And so we actually have a, a process of surveys and feedback and video reenactment and practice and all those things. But the other thing is many people get an idea of what they like to do differently or motivated, you know, New Year's resolutions are bountiful. Yeah.

[27:41] Micah: And, uh, they quit going as a club in March or April, you know, so, um, what we wanted to do when we want somebody committed to it was reinforce that.

[27:53] Thomas: So they keep it front of mind. It's their goal or objectives, what they want to accomplish. How do we help them keep it from our mind?

[27:59] Micah: And we've tried all kinds of things.

[28:02] Thomas: We've found that sending a weekly message and it enhances or builds on what they've already learned made those things stick. Anyway, we tried and it's called, we call it coach conversations. Um, it's probably not the best name if you're talking about updating. Um, but it, it, it, we've gotten rave reviews over that over the years as well. Um, we had a reference to a Palm pilot in that, never able to chop out. Um, but, uh, you know, that those are, that's the kind of updating it's, it's relevant.

[28:45] Micah: And we do have something we did after 9 11 or dealing with, how do you deal with your staff when we're in that kind of a state of shock.

[28:55] Thomas: Um, and we chose to leave that in because at least half the population can relate to it.

[29:04] Micah: Um, and so we've got some, some things that have that, that non-create, never agree phase to it.

[29:10] Thomas: But the topics are, um, if I could, the one that I'm going over right now, there were just recently one that was talking about, uh, how do you go from a fortune 500 to a small company? What's, what's the difference? So we talked to, we had people who had done that and when we sit here, here's, here's what's different. So that's where I was coached conversations. Um, and so that, that, that's one product that I ever, or every time I listen to her, it's like, how do I get this to more people?

[29:44] Micah: So. That's, that's really funny that you had to take out the, the Palm pilot reference. Yeah.

[29:51] Thomas: So, fortunately it said handheld Palm pilot. So I was able to cut out all pirate just says handheld.

[29:59] Micah: So at least it didn't say Blackberry. No, I'm just kidding.

[30:01] Thomas: Exactly. Well, we had one with Blackberry, but we're able to get that out too.

[30:06] Micah: That's hilarious. Um, so yeah, really interesting, you know, talking about how evergreen, what you are doing is, I know, not everyone is in an evergreen market, right. Where they can, uh, like, for example, I'm in technology and I had a membership site before where the technology was changing all the time. So I'm like, Oh, I got update videos. Right. Um, but in hindsight, I realized, Oh, you know what? I could have re I could have made those videos in a more principle centered way, right? Less, you know, current tech leaning more about the principles. And I think most of what you're doing is, is principle centered. And so it makes it have this, you know, super evergreen value. Um, yeah. So with the coach conversations, just, uh, uh, ask about something you said there, you mentioned in order to help people kind of retain the info or, or whatever, like, uh, get better change with the coaching. It was kind of a weekly reminder of something they already knew. So help me understand, are these coaching conversations, uh, new content, just reinforcement. So they go hand in hand with like a, a webinar or something. Uh, what did you mean by that?

[31:17] Thomas: Um, they, uh, we would often get people, you know, we've worked with four months after work where they said, I was on this plane. Um, I was coming in for this presentation. I was really worried about, and you talked about shadowing in your presentations and it was perfect. I used it. It worked. How did you know I was doing a presentation that day? All right, Jim, we're already generally in seeing that that was probably what you're going to be doing. it because there's a lot of so but so it that it's um there are things like in our book we call we talk about decade shifts how uh in our 20s 30s 40s and 50s where people have different expectations and they don't tell you like we'll take a a salesperson who dings their competition and talks more than they listen and also in their 25 if you want what they've got you know you'll probably put up with it the same person who does that when they're 45 you kick them out and find another render yeah and so we have different expectations and and a different level ages in our in our career and it's really obvious when you take a step back and look at it but most people

[32:41] Micah: are not said no now that you're 30 you need to be looking more at working with others than just

[32:48] Thomas: being an individual producer you know once you cross 40 it's more about relationships and getting things done okay when you get into 50s you are you need to be more of a guy than a manager and so um

[33:02] Micah: and those things change if you're running your own business you have to do some of the 40 things when you're in your 30s or something but in general so we talk about that in coaching and i'll apply it to

[33:15] Thomas: them but then there was like the coach conversation there's one coach conversation on each decade or it's a little deeper into that wow so i've never thought of that dimension of content but i bet most

[33:30] Micah: people listening could add that dimension in and you know like whatever the topic is saying like hey here's this topic per decade and be be more precise and helpful that's very interesting if you're an expert

[33:42] Thomas: you know you probably don't even realize how much you can go further in terms of how it applies or giving examples and even if somebody heard it totally four months ago we don't have that great a membership yeah i mean how many can i said well i remember there's a really good seminar but i can't remember exactly what they said doing that one thing i can do but i don't know the other three work you know um and so

[34:10] Micah: being able to reinforce it um and enhance it a little bit even if it's something you've covered

[34:17] Thomas: you know something earlier there is a very powerful way for us to learn

[34:24] Micah: tell me if you would what are if there are any things similar to that as far as like oh we we make distinctions by age we um what are maybe some of the other distinctions that you have made in your content

[34:39] Thomas: like that well it the um we have uh something we call a an intelligent and patient person profile which is um there are people who are very intense uh often very smart they get a lot of accolades in their 20s um and they tend to move up quickly and then they are often crash and burn in their 30 or 40s

[35:10] Micah: if they don't change so that's related that but if you are somebody who is like that there are just a few

[35:20] Thomas: straightforward things you can do to to adapt to others so that's one one of those pieces and it's not part of that decade if it's a separate topic on its own and the other is what if you have a boss or a

[35:36] Micah: colleague that's like that how do you interact with them and that those are examples i mean other topics are so interesting um how did you use webinars within so you have your book you have your videos i think you mentioned webinars earlier and and you've you and i have talked about it in the past but can you share what kind of role they played in some of these scenarios as far as uh you have a client that you know whichever company how do you kind of assess their needs and create a package where you're like hey it you you need to go through the monday moments first and then i'll do a q a or you need to read the book first or kind of what's the ideal way for you to to lay your knowledge onto an organization you

[36:22] Thomas: know uh well we've done multiple things um we did do things where people we the the book has a an appendix with a study guide as well so it's designed because we had a lot of companies that took them they'd buy a few boxes of books and have these um study groups and we do author q a um where we'll get together and

[36:48] Micah: do q a pieces on them um but the 23 mundane moments we often did a webinar q a webinar halfway through

[36:59] Thomas: and then at the end i mentioned the india one we actually at the end not only did a webinar but we actually did coaching of them we had had people record themselves getting a persuasive message some phone or camera or something um and they'd send that to us so we had like six or seven people in a group

[37:26] Micah: we compile those we do playback with the group that's what it's in this i didn't i didn't think we could make

[37:33] Thomas: do this a group then an asian group or they would look at each other's tables and get to you that but they did um and we do it with we didn't have anywhere near as much issue with uh like us clientele

[37:47] Micah: were much more willing to do that but we would play back a video and say here's how you could do it

[37:54] Thomas: differently they'd practice doing it differently their you know five or six people would give them

[38:00] Micah: feedback on whether that was more effective or not and so forth so we did live interactions uh one of the

[38:08] Thomas: things it in terms of webinars is that we've been doing video conferencing since 2010 or 20 2009 actually because we had that time we had the cisco systems and so forth but our our clientele often had that catered early on their ends as well um so we've been doing remote coaching for a long time um it certainly was a lot more difficult than it is to just get around and do a zoom um but it worked uh we did uh when when people first started doing more of the remote on communication this way um we had people who they were using like a zoom or webex or something like that and people wouldn't turn on the camera

[39:03] Micah: and they wanted us to come in and teach him how to to do that there was i mean there's some of these a

[39:09] Thomas: we had like middle upper level leaders that we're talking about not him and they actually had a international conference with well the net of it is they asked us to come to geneva

[39:24] Micah: through a bunch of people on our own and teach them how to do remote in the kitchen

[39:29] Thomas: um unfortunately i said yes because i literally i got i um i've made this commitment they have all these people come in we surveyed all you know 300 people in terms of how they did how much they used

[39:44] Micah: it why they didn't use it or why they did use it on so we had all this data and all this technique and

[39:49] Thomas: all that kind of stuff and i'm thinking they're all going to geneva to talk about not going to geneva

[39:57] Micah: i mean i have an integrity issue going here i'm telling everybody in a room you should be doing

[40:03] Thomas: this by or not remotely right and so um we gave the gave the workshop but i said i'm not doing it they

[40:09] Micah: liked it but i said i'm not going to again unless we do it remotely and so we actually created a oh

[40:16] Thomas: a webinar or workshop that we did on webex at that time arts was the one that worked better

[40:26] Micah: and we taught remote communication remotely and we had people from five different continents

[40:35] Thomas: online same time and then it was like a classroom kind of setting and so um there now that was very effective one and we what it was a test for us because we said well people are willing to spend three and a half hours on one and so it was they had agreed that if we did this test that they give us a lot of detailed feedback what was interesting is they said they liked it better than in person first of all and secondly they couldn't believe that the three and a half hours had gone by because it went so

[41:09] Micah: quickly and they said they they started using it the next day and so those are criteria hours looking for

[41:18] Thomas: people so you guys think yeah i think you know people um misunderstand how to use remote and in those

[41:29] Micah: settings because we were i mean there was i had to do multiple cameras and play you know where i was kind

[41:37] Thomas: of tricking the system i'd have to record people and play them back i had to be able to have a dummy

[41:46] Micah: side recording a video that i could then play back on another system so it was it was a little tricky

[41:53] Thomas: that the leisure now um but not not easy but figuring out how to do remote more effectively one of the things is you're filling the frame okay a lot of people they don't fill the frame or they got a bright light behind them they you know light sound audio is not very good and we look at in person and on online is this visual vocal content you know visual is your camera and your light and you room and you know your background and all those things and those are really important having a good microphone is really important you know doing sound and uh and that content uh when you're online

[42:35] Micah: you need to be shorter and more clear so it's it's so interesting because i know your your content is very principle focused evergreen but then you're also a technologist you know you don't talk too much

[42:50] Thomas: about it we just got into it just now but what you just said about you know visual vocal and content um

[42:59] Micah: i was thinking of you know of course it applies on a video but imagine you're in a conference room when their mic stops working or you know it's dim in there you're going to sleep right or the content sucks i i told a friend of mine with love i was like hey your presentation skills are amazing but that was some boring content you know just barely this past week yes you gotta have all three great presentation but it's bored out of my mind over here um good accurate just boring um

[43:28] Thomas: no just because it's interesting to me doesn't mean it's interesting to you

[43:32] Micah: right just yeah just because it makes sense doesn't you know it's not good from stage um i guess one kind of point of curiosity because you mentioned you know maybe some of the groups in asia weren't what i took from it was as willing to share is it kind of like trying to save face avoid embarrassment sort of thing and and really my question here is what are some of the differences working around the world uh you know what are some of the the differences um maybe that one or any other differences um so that if somebody thinks their content applies globally you know should they do anything different for different regions

[44:08] Thomas: um well we uh i mentioned the webinar we've done we used to spend probably an average of four to six weeks every summer in europe doing coaching and presentations for clients there You know, we spent two of those weeks with a plague. Yeah, it was nice. And what is interesting is we do have the blessing of most of the other Russian world kind of looks up to U.S. business in terms of how we do things. My wife is very expressive. She can she wouldn't you wouldn't give her the boring comment.

[44:59] Micah: She can take 500 people and have a meeting out of her hand.

[45:04] Thomas: Not so much. We were doing this presentation in France and it was a workshop really. It was like a day and a half, I think. And they were kind of commenting about that.

[45:20] Micah: One of them was that in the mid morning they came in with pastries.

[45:29] Thomas: And they were fantastic. I mean, I've never had a U.S. meeting with pastries like this. But they said, what's this? Oh, it's a U.S. seminar. We're multi-time. We're pretty. Nice. Sure. You know, they said, no, you guys, you bring in the pastries for a break.

[45:50] Micah: Okay. Coffee breaks. Yeah.

[45:52] Thomas: So we got into an interesting conversation. And, you know, they have a begrudging respect, you know, and they think we're too much over the top and all that kind of stuff. But one of the comments was, my wife Carol is what we think of as a U.S. person. And I'm more laid back and matter of fact, and they said, and you're more like us. Interesting. I think of French as being much more diffusive than I am. But they thought of me as being more like them, which was fascinating.

[46:30] Micah: So they do have this preconception that U.S. people are over the top.

[46:39] Thomas: What I do find is that being clear if people are English as a second or third language, speaking slowly and not using jargon is incredibly important. That's one of the things that they respected about us is we were very intentional about doing that. And listening to them or, you know, after listening to accents a lot, it gets better, right? They understand even people who have difficulty with English. But the other thing that was true, I mentioned the where we recorded the workshops, we used to do this half day preparation. We put it into it was exhausting for us. We do two half days in a week and we were roadkill. And so they wanted us to keep going. And I said, you know, we just can't do journals.

[47:38] Micah: And I said, they said, well, please reconsider.

[47:41] Thomas: So I said, how about if we put half of this on or this half day on video, they watch it in beforehand, and then we'll give them the 23 mundane moments afterwards as a discussion topic for the next six months afterwards. Okay, we'll try. Okay. So we had, we did the, created these videos. It's about like five or six hours video. And what happened is we then, we happened to have some people who came back, who had done it in person and came back and did it again. And so we got to ask them how they liked video. And they said they liked it better. Because most of them in these workshops that English was a second language and they could do a rewind, go back over again if they missed something. So they, they really liked that. The other thing was, is that, you know, they do that and half of them don't finish the videos beforehand. But because we get track. Yeah. Almost all of them watched them afterwards and sometimes even repeated them afterwards. So, you know, that combining the video with the in person stuff really worked. Um, and we also did taking that in person piece and just putting that piece as a webinar, but still do, letting them do pre and post video was a winner as well.

[49:17] Micah: So there's different ways of mixing and notching.

[49:20] Thomas: And frankly, I can, I thank my customers for asking for stuff because I wasn't, we were just going to quit doing these workshops.

[49:30] Micah: And they said, you know, please find a way.

[49:33] Thomas: And I said, okay. And it turned out to be much easier for us and much easier for them to, for, in the U.S. We'd fly in night before, do the workshop and fly out the next evening.

[49:46] Micah: So it was a lot easier for us.

[49:50] Thomas: Um, and if we had, you know, if we had a new multiples, we could get a day of rest in between.

[49:56] Micah: Um, and so it, uh, there are different ways in my, of using a different medium or create something that delivers or not.

[50:05] Thomas: Um, my criteria is, is, is it delivering value? And can I, if, if I'm getting this much value, can I get this much apparent? In other words, if I create something that doesn't, you know, I don't get paid for it, then what's the value? And the value and I'm working with nonprofits and that's up and the value is doing something good for people. But, um, I think that's important, but looking at how do you create value for people? And in this case, I didn't know that people watched the video and they did.

[50:44] Micah: There are a couple interesting things you said in there. Um, one, I just want to confirm you were saying that when you did video, you know, live event of whatever webinar and then videos after, not everybody would do the pre videos, but if they came to the event, they would do the post videos. So they kind of like bought in from the event and then did the post.

[51:04] Thomas: Well, they did the, no, they go back and do the pre too.

[51:07] Micah: Oh, wow. Okay. Gotcha. So they were like, Oh, I missed it. And they go.

[51:11] Thomas: Now, now, now they said, Oh, this is, this is good stuff. We're just gonna, you know, or now I'll take time to do it or something. Um, but we almost, when all was said and done, we almost never had more than one or two people who didn't watch their pre videos either before or. Or afterwards, whatever or something.

[51:32] Micah: Nice. I think that's a valuable lesson for a lot of people because you have a lot of people who do a lot of live presentations, a lot of people who do a lot of recording, not a ton who blend them in a strategic. Well, you know, way, very well, they, they might say, Oh, you get this and you get that. And they bundle it together. But as far as the fit between them, um, is often, I think a little bit overlooked and therefore the end user doesn't get the value delivered that they probably wanted or intended to. Um, the other thing you kind of touched on there was your own energy, right? So as a, as a presenter, a teacher, author, coach, all these things, even if it's a good opportunity, just the energy cost. Right. And then, like you said, trying, being open to adapting that presentation to a different mode to, to essentially, you know, get the leverage we all want.

[52:21] Thomas: Mm-hmm .

[52:22] Micah: I find a lot of this interesting, um, because I'm realizing and talking to you, it's only like a barely, you know, a decade, maybe a decade and a half progression from where people weren't online at all. Right. And then got so online that now they want to be back in person again, basically. Mm-hmm . Um, and, and I feel like post COVID, especially, it was kind of a, it took a few years, but kind of a, yeah, let's get back, you know, out into the actual world. For a minute there, it was all online. And, uh, you know, for people like us with the membership software or whatever, it was good, but the, I guess I find the, the blending or the balance or whatever, um, that companies have discovered to offer their information through just kind of interesting how, how that ride has gone. Because I also used WebEx from Cisco back in the day to, to present online. You don't hear about it anymore. Right. Um, let's, let's kind of wrap up here just with me asking, um, what other maybe thoughts do you have for your fellow membership site owners, uh, business owners, generally people creating courses, just people. Um, you know, what do you think would be helpful for them to hear from you?

[53:39] Thomas: Um, I don't think if people want to go to lunch, because they're thinking about starting their own business. No, and, uh, I had somebody took me to breakfast when I was thinking about it. And he had been in business for 10 years, which seemed like forever at the time. And, um, he, uh, he said, well, were you successful at IBM? And I said, yeah, I said, well, successful at Target. And I said, yeah, and he says, then you'll be successful at yourself.

[54:05] Micah: Hmm.

[54:06] Thomas: Okay.

[54:07] Micah: And he said, do you have a plan to get you through it for next six months?

[54:13] Thomas: I said, well, yeah, but I can't figure out where I am going to be three to five years from now.

[54:18] Micah: And he said, don't bother.

[54:21] Thomas: He said, your customers will tell you where to be in three years, in five years. He said, start in six months. And you know what your customers are doing, what you can get them and do that. He said, the other thing we said is why are you doing this? And he said, and none of what he said is, you've got to do it because you have a passion for what's the message you want to deliver or the goods you want to deliver. He said, a lot of people go into it for the money. And that's the wrong reason. He said, there's a lot of other ways to make money. And that are easier. And he said, if you do a good job, you'll make money and you may make a lot of money.

[55:05] Micah: But on those days when you're not quite there yet, you will have to have your passion pushing you, not your need for money.

[55:17] Thomas: And that was certainly true for me.

[55:19] Micah: It's amazing advice. And I'll close just by saying I was at a mastermind and, you know, businessy thing. And they were saying, imagine you get on a plane and you're sitting there and the seat next to you is empty. And, you know, the plane's about to take off. One more passenger gets on. They're sitting in the seat next to you and it's your favorite client. Who is it?

[55:41] Thomas: And I thought, Tom and Gavin, right?

[55:47] Micah: So, you know, it's always a pleasure to work with you just as a compliment. Just the information you share, your attitude, you're very generous, right? You're so I consider you a friend, but also just an incredibly intelligent person to know. So thank you so much for coming on here. And everybody watching, listening, you can go to Change Masters Academy to check out some of the things we've been talking about. There's some free stuff on there. You can buy his products. You can reach out to him. But, Tom, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom and knowledge. That was amazing.

[56:20] Thomas: Well, pleasure. Really delightful. I feel equally delighted if you were sitting next to me in a bad airplane seat. So thank you. Bye.