Les McKeown:

Hi everybody, and welcome to the latest episode of Scale! with Predictable Success, where we get to speak with folks who are in their own lives and in their own businesses and with others, building what we call Predictable Success. 

And today I'm very, very excited because I have someone, we have someone for the first time on the show who I've been following, I was going to say forever, but that's a very unfair thing to say about anybody, so welcome Amy Porterfield. 

Amy Porterfield: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. 

Les McKeown: Amy, an awful lot of our listeners will know you, but for the very small percentage who don't, let's just start back at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about your own personal background and take us up to the point where you start, what you've now got your own company. Tell us the ride that took you there. 

Amy Porterfield: Okay. So let's see here. I've been building my own online business for 13 years. And before that I worked well, first I worked for Harley Davidson at the dealership levels. I always say I'm not a biker chick. However, I absolutely loved the nostalgia of what that company has created. 

And I learned a little bit about marketing from my days at Harley-Davidson, but from there I went to work for Tony Robbins. So my very next job after that was with peak performance coach Tony Robbins, where I got to travel the world for almost seven years as the director of content. 

So I got to work on the content that Tony would do on stage, like Unleash The Power Within and Date with Destiny. And if you know his world, you know, those events and behind the scenes with some of his digital courses as well. 

So I got an education in entrepreneurship and content creation and marketing from my time with Tony and I wouldn't take it back for the world. 

And here's what happened. There was this one meeting that Tony had, where he invited a bunch of internet marketers to San Diego, which is where he's based, where was based. And he brought a bunch of internet marketers in to hear more about their business. 

We were starting to do more digital courses and because the bread and butter was made through, appearances on stage, Tony was looking to shake it up. And so it was all men and they were sitting at this big oak table. 

And it's very humbling because I was brought in to take notes. And so I was brought in to take notes. I was sitting at a side table. I wasn't even at the main table. 

And Tony went around and asked everybody about their businesses, what they do, what it looks like. And I probably took the worst notes of my life because I just stopped and just stared at these men. 

And all they talked about was financial freedom, lifestyle freedom, impacting lives, creativity. And I thought, I don't know what the heck these guys are doing, but I want a piece of this. Like I became obsessed in that moment. 

And what they all were doing is selling digital courses online. That was like the main thing that each of these guys were doing. So fast forward about a year from that time...

Les McKeown: And so when would this have roughly been Amy, where are we talking about? 

Amy Porterfield: So this was in 2007 is when this was happening 2007, 2008, somewhere around there. 

By 2009, I had left the company, on great terms. I took baby steps. I first asked to move to the marketing department to work on these launches we were doing. And then I asked to go part time. And then I asked to work from home and I got all of these yeses, which is why I was so very fortunate. 

And so eventually I left the company and started my own online business thinking I would create digital courses, but I actually had no idea how to do them myself. So I started with consulting. So I would consult and coach for small businesses around social media. So that's how I got my start. 

Les McKeown: Very cool. Well, it just a little, sidetrack for a moment or two, how do you fall into working with Tony Robbins? How did that happen? 

Amy Porterfield: Great question. So for me, it happened that I was living in Santa Barbara and working at Harley Davidson and I had broken up with a boyfriend. I had had this breakup that broke my heart into a million pieces and I could not sleep at night. I had my own little apartment. I couldn't sleep at night. 

So I was on the couch watching infomercials and there was Tony Robbins, every single night on an infomercial. It turns out there's like some weird statistic that at any given time, 24 hours a day, you can find a Tony Robbins infomercial, at least back in the day you could. 

And so I would watch these infomercials about one of his programs. I didn't have enough money to buy the program that they were talking about. So I went to the public library and got some of his cassette tapes of all things on, personal power and all the stuff that he teaches. 

And then eventually I bought his program, fell in love with it, went to one of his events, loved it and thought I need to work for this guy. 

So funny enough, I applied for a job. It was in San Diego and they offered me a job at the time, working for Harley Davidson. I think I was making around $50,000 a year. 

And this was many years ago and the Tony Robbins Organization offered me a job. They said, you get to travel the world. You get to work on the content that Tony does on stage, but you're going to make $30,000. 

And I just thought I'm too young to be going backwards. Like I'm trying to climb the corporate ladder. So I passed on the job and then about six months later, they came back to me and offered me a director position or a manager moving into director. It was a whole lot more money. 

And I'm so glad I held out because it was the perfect position to catapult me into where I am now. So I feel very fortunate. So sometimes it's worth holding out. 

Les McKeown: Very cool. Absolutely. and possibly more than that in a moment or two, but so let's go back to that Genesis moment. You're sitting in the room with all those guys and, they're all part of the internet marketing world. If you were to boil it down, what was the core impetus; what did that pull from you that you responded to? 

Which obviously wasn't that you wanted to go be a guy, right? Thank goodness. So you were responding to what? The idea of making lots of money, the idea of just wanting to build courses, the idea of freedom, autonomy, what was the impetus? 

Amy Porterfield: It was absolutely freedom. I didn't want to be told, although Tony was an amazing boss, I didn't want to be told what to do, how to do it, or when to do it. I didn't want to build somebody else's empire dream, and I didn't want to be on somebody else's time. 

At the time I had just gotten married and I was on the road all the time. And with the Tony Robbins Organization, I mean, the energy you see Tony on stage is the energy he brings backstage as well. You're constantly on. And so it was very high stress, and I just didn't want that anymore. So freedom, absolutely. In all areas. 

Les McKeown: Okay, cool. And, you know, that just, it underpins something that we teach here all the time, which is the number one reason why people, I mean, why would you start something that's got an 80% chance of failure given the statistics, right? 

The money is for most people, it's the scoreboard and it measures the degree to which I'm getting the freedom and autonomy that I want, right?

And then what happens I'm sure this didn't happen to you at all Amy, but I see it happening to other people is sometimes you take a sidestep and you end up looking around and thinking, I don't have that freedom because I'm just selling myself over and over again to a whole bunch of many bosses, but I'm sure that didn't happen to you. And you just went straight to complete success. 

Tell us about the first couple of years. Did, what did it play out Just the way that you thought?

Amy Porterfield: Oh gosh, the first couple years were a disaster and I would tell my husband, his name is Hobie. I would say, "Hobie, I have to go back to my job. I have to go beg Tony Robbins to take me back because I am not cut out to be an entrepreneur". 

So what I did is I, like I said, coaching and consulting, and really, I also did social media for small businesses. So I was a service-based business.

And so I often joke that instead of having one big boss, literally Tony is a big guy. I had like eight mini bosses. All these clients bossing me around telling me what to do. I had no idea how to set boundaries. 

And I thought, I don't even know if this is worth it. I thought I'd get more time, more money, more freedom, all of that. I'm working more hours. And I feel like I have more bosses now. So the first two years, oh, I didn't think I was going to make it. It was tough. 

Les McKeown: And what did you do?

Amy Porterfield: So I got to a point that I actually did a launch of a digital course, because that is what I'm known for now, how do you create digital courses. I created my first digital course in those first two years, and I made a whopping $267. 

And this is at a time that I was watching everybody else launch stuff online. And I thought I'm going to make a hundred thousand bucks. 

Like I've helped other people launch courses. I've helped Tony Robbins. I did some consulting, I'm going to do this.

And so I thought I was just going to be a winner. So when I made $267, I cried for a week. My husband had to tell me “like, this has to stop. Like, let's get it together”. And I thought, I'm going to have to go get a J.O.B.,get a job, go back to a nine to five. 

And then I remembered, and this is very, very vivid and true for me. I remember why I left in the first place. And it came back to that freedom. 

It was that financial freedom and lifestyle freedom, creativity freedom, and time freedom. I knew I could never get that anywhere else at the level that I could get with my own thing. 

So that's when I said, okay, I got to double down. I got to figure out how to launch these digital courses, how to grow an audience. I didn't want to have a bunch of clients, so I wanted to move away from that. 

So I just put my head down and I kept going and I launched again. And it got a little bit better, not a lot better than I launched again. And it got really good. Finally, there's like that tipping point. 

And I finally got into it probably around 2012. So 2009 was like half corporate, half doing my own thing. 2010 I was all in. 2011, all in worst years of my life, 2012, it started to get a whole lot better when my launches started to work. 

Les McKeown: And tell us about it. Just break, open that statement a little bit, the worst years of your life. Now, is there a degree of hyperbole in there or was it genuinely that tough for you? 

Amy Porterfield: Well, I should say something else happened down the road where I took on a business partner and getting out of a partnership was the worst year of my life. So that, that was the worst year. 

But these two years, 2010, 2011 were the most uncertain and scariest because I wasn't making good money. And I was raised to be responsible and work hard and save my money. And it was unacceptable to go into debt and I was going into debt. And so I just was going against everything I was taught as a child and I felt like a loser. 

And so that's why those first two years of business were scary and very difficult because the money wasn't coming in. So not only was it just not working, I wasn't paying the bills. And so that's why it was so difficult. 

Les McKeown: And then you mentioned that your launches started to work. Again, if you were boiling things down which is a little glib, but it's helpful and usually only possible in retrospect, to try to identify what the main moving part was. Was that just basic experience, you'd done it so often? You got better at it. Was it processes? 

Amy Porterfield: No! It was something very specific. And it's what I teach my students. So I like swear by this. 

What happened was I would throw together a course. I'd put it out there. It didn't do so well. I'd go back to the drawing board and I start over and I'd start a new course, put it out there, float it by my audience. It would do okay. Went back to the drawing board, started something new. And then I launched a course that did pretty well. 

And I thought, what if I launched this exact same course again, I can make the marketing a little better or the course a little better, but same thing. Let's launch it again three, four months down the road.

So I took this course that I'd made $30,000 at that point, $30,000 on one course, I thought I was the richest woman in the world. 

I thought, holy cow, I cracked the code. What if I do it again? I did it again and made around $200,000. And then I waited a few months, grew my audience between the time I wasn't launching, did the same course again and we got up to like $400,000. 

So I kept going, the last time we launched that exact same course, we almost hit a million dollars in two weeks with a course I'd been launching over the last 18 months. 

So the secret was to take one digital course and launch it over and over again and stop reinventing the wheel.

And I learned that from Tony Robbins, he always said the fastest way to get to success and scale is to stop starting over every single time you want to do something.

And so I just got really good at one thing. And that's exactly what I teach my students now. 

Les McKeown: And what do you think it is, that prevents other folks from doing that and constantly launch new courses? Is it a shiny new ball syndrome?

Or is it just a sense of all these folks are going to think I'm crazy if I just keep pushing the same thing out over and over again? 

Amy Porterfield: I think it's two reasons. Number one, it's this desire for variety.

As entrepreneurs, many of us are multi-passionate, I'm not actually, I'm, I'm very singular focused, but a lot of entrepreneurs have so many ideas which make them so valuable and so fantastic.

But having a lot of ideas could actually be to your detriment if you don't know how to manage it. And so I think that they want variety. They want to be creative. They're their own boss. And so they're constantly creating, cause it's fun for them. 

But a lot of entrepreneurs don't like to do the same thing over and over again. And so that's why they get into this vicious cycle of always starting from scratch, which means you're just scratching the surface there's you could go so much deeper.

I also think the, the other thing that's, what I teach is sometimes difficult for my students is that first time out, you're not likely making six figures. 

You might make $10,000 and you meant to make a hundred thousand, so you think it didn't work.

I believe that if you can make $10,000 with a digital course, you can make a hundred thousand with a digital course. It's a numbers game at that point. You just got to know how to attract the right audience and convert. 

And so I believe it's this, not realizing, wait a second, you actually are onto something, even though it feels like you're farther away, then, then you want to be. 

Les McKeown: That's super advice, really is. If we, if we pause the growth video, you know, the story of where you got to, and let's just say you and me and all of the folks that are listening to this just met in a bar...

Amy Porterfield: What are we drinking? We're in a bar. 

Les McKeown: I was just realizing, you know, I'm presuming a post COVID world. 

Amy Porterfield: I will have a beer with you.

[laughter]

Les McKeown: So we're having a beer, I don't know anything about you and just asking, how do you, the cool kids 200 years ago would have called it the elevator speech.

How would you summarize your business as it currently stands right now? 

Amy Porterfield: Great question. So I always say that I am an ex corporate girl turned entrepreneur and I help entrepreneurs take their knowledge know-how and skill set, and turn that into a profitable digital course that they can launch over and over again. 

Les McKeown: Right. And is this you and a bunch of 1099er's that you subcontract out stuff to, or is it like me, with a brilliant assistant who's got no opposable thumbs.

And as you might just hear snores whenever they're fast asleep? Do you have a five story building? What's the sort of, to the degree you're comfortable sharing. What's the sort of infrastructure you've got to help you deliver all of that?

Amy Porterfield: So my infrastructure looks like this. I am a fully virtual business and I have 18 full-time employees with benefits and bonuses and 401K's and all that good stuff. I'm on payroll all over the U.S., so nobody outside of the U.S., cause it gets a little tricky with payroll and such. 

So 18 full-time employees all over the U.S. And in Nashville, so I was telling you earlier off camera that we just moved from California to Nashville. And one of the reasons I bought this house is because on the second floor of the house that I live in, there is, it's a pretty big house, but there's two rooms in the back. 

And one of the rooms I converted into a video studio, which I'm where I am now, where I've got video equipment and podcast equipment. And I just sit down, I turn it on. 

It's like my dream come true. Cause anyone who started out doing video, stacking books up, putting the light at the top, like hoping it all works. I have been there. So just hitting a few buttons and turning on the camera and the lights work. It's a lifetime. I mean, it's life-changing so I have a studio and then right next door, I actually have an office. 

And, my office is where I do my creative work and writing and all of that good stuff. So I'm not constantly in the equipment, in the lights. And that's like a dream come true.

Now we're talking 13 years in it. Hasn't always looked like this. And, but I, I feel very fortunate and I feel really good in this setting. So this is one of the reasons why we bought this house. 

Les McKeown: So, obviously you can't see me but I was giving you the thumbs up when you were talking about the video room, because, I mean, I just, before we started recording this, I came off a call with my architect, who's building exactly that, right above the room that I'm in at the moment, then the third story of the house that I bought for exactly that reason.

Then I can walk in and talk to the camera, walk away and let somebody else then do everything that needs done. And, you know, those days of screwing everything together and dropping lights behind, and all that sort of thing. 

Amy Porterfield: It's painful. And I think we all have to go through it and then you get to a point and you think, well, where do I want to reinvest in the business? Heck yeah, give me a little video studio and just take all my stress away. 

Les McKeown: Well, to pull us both away from geeking out enough for a moment or two, the reason I asked you to, sorta think about, how you would, summarize the business at the moment, is I want to take you back to that, Genesis moment, when you were sitting in the room with the internet marketers. 

When you envisaged, however just the notion that you were going to go do this, you've not had, as you said, 13 years of experience of making it all happen.

What was the single thing that was more different than you thought it was going to be that by being a founder and an entrepreneur? What really took you by surprise? 

Amy Porterfield: It's such a great question. Let me think about this one. What took me by surprise? I think that, Hmm, I want to, I want to paint a rosy picture, but I obviously have to be really honest. I didn't know what would be so scary. 

And 13 years in, I still have moments that it feels fearful to me, like scary, because I've got 18 full-time employees that are looking to me to figure out where the heck we're going.

And right now we're in a transition in my business where I've got this opportunity to make some new decisions, change things up, like really dive into doubling down on what I, what I love the most. 

And I don't know what I want to do. And so that feels scary to me that I've got this team looking back at me, I've got thousands of students looking at me and I better get it right. 

And I think the scary part is I probably won't. Like there's many, many mistakes along the way until I get it right.

That's just the way I do things. I didn't know that you had to mess up so much. I didn't know that there was going to be so many mistakes on this road to a multi-million dollar business. 

And by most regards, I'm incredibly successful. And I feel scared a lot of the time. Now, my secret is I do it scared. I'm fearful, and I still move forward.

Every day I take action. Even if my emotions are, "oh my gosh, this is the scariest thing, I don't know if this is the right decision". 

So I'm able to manage it. But if someone told me it was going to be this scary, I don't know if I would have done it. 

Les McKeown: Well, I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, I've got the great privilege of being able to get to work with founder owners like yourself and I've been one myself, started 42 businesses, my serial entrepreneurship days. 

And I've got the great privilege of working with very senior executives and organizations who have got enormous responsibility and aren't Founders, they're professional executives. 

And the one thing that differentiates those two groups as well, you know, to speak personally, I entirely get what you're saying. I have on occasion shared with people the two times when I was literally, this is not metaphorical or verbally, I'm literally in the foetal position, you know, just solving didn't know how did I get myself here? And even more worrying, how was I going to get out? 

And for you to say that you cope with it by, by showing up scared. I think that's a great, great piece of self-awareness because once you recognize that and don't try to hold it down and you name it, you can begin to take back some control, as opposed to it controlling you, right? 

Amy Porterfield: Yes. It's so true. And I appreciate you sharing that because I look at someone like you with over 40 businesses and the fact that you do such high level strategy with people.

And I think, when I said I was scared, I thought he's going to cut this out. He's going to think that's ridiculous. 

Les McKeown: Oh shoot, no.

Amy Porterfield: So, so the fact that you said that I, I appreciate it. 

Les McKeown: And many, many, many of our listeners, probably 98% of those who have been Founders will know exactly what that feeling is like.

On a similar note, but, maybe not so existential, I started my career as, a CPA or the British equivalent of it. And, for all the years that I was a practicing CPA, I never filed my taxes on time.

[laughter] 

Les McKeown: There's a Scottish saying that “the cobbler's bairns are the last shod”. So what do you find yourself coaching and teaching your folks And you're thinking, "I know that's right, but I just don't do that"!

[laughter] 

Amy Porterfield: Oh my gosh, this question, it's so good. And it's so bad at the same time. Like, do I want to admit this? I'm sure there, okay. Let me just think, let me think where. 

Okay, here's one. So I encourage my students to show up on video no matter what, and, to just love themselves how they are. So let's not worry about what we look like, what we sound like. Do the photo shoots, do the video. I work with a lot of women who are very like, I don't, I don't really want to be in front of the camera a lot. 

So those are some things we go through. And I tell them this, but I also like live it. I hate doing video. I hate doing photo shoots. I don't want to do it. I like literally dread photo shoots. And I am very self-conscious of the way I look when my weight is up or whatever. 

They know this, but at the same time, I'm encouraging them to do something that I also don't want to do.

The thing is, I just believe if you're building a business online today, you gotta show up, you gotta do the thing. But yeah, it's one of my least favorite things to do. 

Les McKeown: Yeah. Mine is telling, folks that, they really have to curtail. I teach a lot about Visionary, Operator, Processor, Synergist leadership styles. Most Founder Owner's are Visionary Leaders. 

And I tell them that they've got to curtail the Visionary desire to just hyperlink any meeting out of existence.

One thing you know you're not going to talk about at a meeting with a Visionary is whatever's on the agenda because they were bored with that as soon as they saw it.

[laughter] 

You know, I coach, Visionary leaders all day every day about that. I am horrible. 

[laughter]

Amy Porterfield: That's fantastic though.

Les McKeown: So two things as we move towards a close, Amy. First of all, that old Chestnut, but, for our listeners, it's something they do love to hear.

What's your vision for the next three to five years, as I hope we do have you back and you tell us how things went over the next three to five years? 

To what extent do you have specific things that you want to achieve between now and then? 

Amy Porterfield: Okay, so I'm going to share something that I have never talked about publicly, but it's just something in the back of my mind, and that is moving away from possibly, I don't know if I'll do it, but possibly moving away from a personal brand into, I don't even know what you call it. 

That's how new it is to me, a brand that's not all about me. So AmyPorterfield.com is all about me. I do all the teaching, all the training, all the videos, but I work with so many incredible people on my team that could literally out teach me in some topics. 

And I'm starting to explore, like, what if it wasn't just all me all the time. So that's something that I've been starting to explore and to see where that might go. And also we recently moved to a four day work week. 

So I've got a multi-million dollar business with a team of 18 full-time employees virtually and move the whole team to working Monday through Thursday and taking off Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

And that was something I was terrified to do, but I wanted, I wanted more, margin in my life and I didn't feel comfortable just taking it for myself. I wanted my team to have it as well.

And so once that happened, I realized I want to teach more about getting out of the hustle mentality. I don't believe that's the only way to grow a business, but it is the way I grew my business. And I think it hurt me in some ways. I think I could have enjoyed the process more. 

So I'd like to talk about more, what it looks like to work a four day work week, how to move out of that hustle and how to grow a business where you actually have more intentional margin.

So we'll see. That is a topic I love, but those are two things that I'd like to see, kind of make a shift in and make a bigger impact because of. 

Les McKeown: Right. Well, that's very exciting. And, we'll definitely go ahead and have you back to talk about that. 

Amy Porterfield: Thank you.

Les McKeown: And when you talk about the hustling side, it's a bit of a segue. It's not a segue, but it's slightly attached to the last question that I wanted to hear your thoughts on.

And, I want to preface it by saying I'm a little, what's the word I'm not hesitant at all, but, let me, contextualize it this way. 

I'm originally from the UK, so I listen to BBC Radio quite a lot, and yesterday I was listening to a black author on a book review program. And he said an interesting thing, after he'd been asked a question.

He said, “you know, isn't it funny every time I hear a block author talking on a program, they're asked to talk about race. And when I hear white authors, they're asked to talk about the book”. 

And I thought that was a very insightful statement. and I'm a little conscious of doing an aspect of that, but still, I want to ask you this anyway, as you've looked back over the last 13 years as a woman in business, have you seen or felt demonstrable changes in high as a woman you can and do show up, or no? 

Amy Porterfield: Absolutely. And I appreciate you asking this question. I actually think it's an important one because when I came on the scene there, I was at that table at the Tony Robbins Organization with all men, not one woman in sight and not even knowing if there were women doing what I was doing. Like I was so new to it. And then when I looked out to see what women were doing it very, very few. 

And so now when I look out at the landscape of, information marketing, digital courses, building businesses online, I see powerful women everywhere. To the point that I think we're going to start seeing more women doing what I do specifically than men. I really think there's going to be this tipping point. 

So, and I'm excited about that. And I think we have a bigger voice than we ever have, but I remember the day that we didn't. And so it's something I'm very passionate about. So I'm glad you're asking those questions because I see it on the rise and I don't see it stopping. 

Les McKeown: It's wonderful to hear you say that Amy and we've had folks like Amanda Tress and Carol Roth on the podcast over the last year...

Amy Porterfield: I love Amanda. Literally was just texting with her last night. That woman is a force. 

[laughter]

Les McKeown: She's incredible. Amanda has been a coaching client of mine for quite some time.

Amy Porterfield: Love her.

Les McKeown: Just an absolute delight. Like yourself. And like Carol, an absolute force of nature.

So I very much appreciate you giving us your time. Amy. The listeners I'm sure will have been absolutely riveted by what you had to share. And I hope we can have your back in the future. Thank you for joining us. 

Amy Porterfield: Thank you so much for having me. Take care.