Local Market Monopoly

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Mike Cooch: One company's mission statement and it looked more like a vision. And then I would see another company's mission statement and it looked like more like a purpose. And I was like, man, these are like totally different things. Like, are we sure we even understand what a mission statement is? And so in my own search for understanding this stuff, I found, you know, resources that are broken down. That made sense to me,

Clarence Fisher: Welcome back to Local Market Monopoly. I am Clarence Fischer, your host. And today I just, you know, as, as an entrepreneur hustling out there trying to build a business lifestyle that you love, I know that you are always looking for the fastest, simplest, and most effective way to get the results that you want. I, I am too. So I have today a good friend and longtime mentor of mine. Mr. Mike Cooch has been doing this for years, taking several businesses from zero from inception to past seven figures. And he is always on the lookout for the best mindset, strategy technique, the best tool to get the most freedom and profit possible so that he can have the biggest impact on his community, family, his customers. And most importantly, he's taught so many other entrepreneurs, myself included how to do this. His motto is more freedom, more money, more impact. I want that. I want that for you. And it starts with your vision, your mission, your purpose, and also a BHAG. Hold on. We'll be right back with Mike Cooch.

Intro: You're listening to Local Market Monopoly with Clarence Fisher, uncovering the tools, tactics, and strategies. The most successful small businesses used to come to their local market and own the block.

Clarence & Mike: Mike! My man. What's up brother? How are you? Man, I am. I am awesome. I am also, you have no idea how awesome it is just to have you number one, have a podcast then number two to have Mike Cooch on my podcast. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you very much. It is awesome. I'm the intro. As I was researching, getting ready, I saw that you coming out of Wharton Business School and I thought, you know what, let me look up the alumni. Wait, Babson. Oh, okay. I thought you were at Wharton. Oh, no no! Well. One I'm not that smart. And two Wharton is far inferior to Babson. Okay. All right. So I stayed at Greg because I looked at Wharton and I was like, okay, Trump. And there's a couple of other people I'm like, okay. So tell me about Babson. Okay. Babson, yeah. Babson is, it was an obvious choice for me, although it's

Mike Cooch: Not very well known in the United States, which is funny because it's very well known internationally. It has been recognized as the number one school for entrepreneurship, for entrepreneurial studies. Now for, I think it's like 30 years in a row. So these guys were all entrepreneurship before entrepreneurship was even a sexy thing like it is now to talk about and be involved in prior to it being recognized as like a whole category of career choice for smart people, they were already studying entrepreneurship. What made entrepreneurial ventures successful? And so there are very well known internationally as kind of a grooming school for families who've built their empires and are now handing them off to their children to run. Babson is a very common place to send them to get studied up before they take over the family business. It was a really cool, beautiful new England campus and small classes. And so just a very fun place to go to school and, and super rewarding. It was a great time.

Clarence Fisher: That is awesome. It sounds like in Oklahoma, we have, we have OU and we have OSU as the rivalry. I said Wharton, and I could just, you were like, what's the, what are you talking about?

Clarence Fisher: Alright. So that's awesome. So the pedigree, and when I say pedigree, I mean like just the school in the MBA that you bring

Clarence Fisher: But you worked hard for that.

Clarence Fisher: I mean, you didn't have the silver spoon.

Mike Cooch: Oh no, no, no, yeah, definitely not. Yeah. I grew up, you know, an army brat and my parents, it was a great, great, great, great childhood. Like there is zero reasons for me ever to complain about anything in my childhood. It was fantastic. They, you know, my, my parents always made sure I was loved and had everything I need and probably more than they could afford to actually give me, cause I never, I never remember them saying, Nope, can't do that. Can't have that or anything like that. But certainly, you know, my, my dad was in the army, his entire career. You don't, you're not wealthy or anything like that. That's for sure. And so, yeah, but you know, by the time I got to Babson, I was paying for it out of money I'd earned from the startup world and student loans and all that good stuff, just like everybody else.

Mike Cooch: But I did it in one year. They had, that was one of the reasons why I chose to go there is they had a one year MBA program. If you have a prior business degree or relevant experience, then you can do your MBA in 12, straight months instead of two normal, you know, nine months, year kind of sessions. And so I did that. I just hustled through it in 12 months, which was super intense, which I loved. I mean, it was crazy. There was like a four-month stretch or so at the beginning where you're on campus, like 18 hours a day, seven days a week. I mean, it was, it was awesome. It was fun. So I loved the experience.

Clarence Fisher: It was awesome. So what are you doing now? Tell us a little bit about what you're doing now.

Mike Cooch: Yeah. I've got my hands in a couple of different things as always. That's the way I like to operate. One is the thing here super aware of is, is I like to work with other entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs particularly smaller in that kind of early-stage phase of trying to get momentum. And I love the entrepreneurship community. I love what entrepreneurs can do for themselves, for their families, and for their communities. And so I love working with that group and it's all just about sharing some of the things that I've learned, some of the tools, best practices, strategies to help them grow and run a healthy, you know, a financially healthy business and a business that is also healthy and rewarding for their lifestyle. That's a big, important thing to me is that, that building a business to serve your lifestyle, rather than just to make money

Clarence Fisher: You've been and I've, and I've shared this with a lot of people, including you. I mean, you've been very influential in my life and me growing my business and then also kind of reaching this.

Clarence Fisher: And when I say peak, I know my peak is smaller than a lot of people's peak, but at some point

Clarence Fisher: When you're hiring people and you have a team and you're working with this team. This moment when I had to sit back and think, is this really what I want? Is like, I'm really hustling and you're always, for whatever reason, we're looking at people that are above you and not really recognizing how far you've come sometimes as you're not there yet. But then I think I kind of in the back of my head had made this switch to, I think I want a lifestyle type of business. And then instantly you have some business coaches and teachers who are like

Clarence Fisher: That's crap. If you're going to build a business, build a business,

Mike Cooch: The empire!

Clarence Fisher: How do you feel like that our listeners should gauge, their small businesses, local small businesses, how do they gauge whether they want to grow that big company or if they want to be okay with this lifestyle?

Mike Cooch: Yeah. So I think what's really, really critical to make sure is clear in all of this is that I think that there is this perception that if you have a lifestyle business, that it can't be lucrative, it's not going to make a lot of money. And that is, that is completely wrong. I a hundred percent disagree with that. And I think that if you start from that position, that changes a lot of people's perceptions of what we're talking about. Because I think when, when a lot of people think lifestyle business, they think that mom and pop, you know, Oh, they're running a restaurant and they're barely making ends meet and stuff like that. That's, that's not what I'm talking about. I think regardless of the size of business or your plans to scale that business to a certain size, the business should still be well run and you should still be aiming for making that business is successful as possible.

Mike Cooch: But the key distinction in my mind, there's a couple things. One is, we definitely have grown up in a culture in the United States where it's just the idea that automatically bigger is better. And so whatever at whatever costs to get bigger, there's that mindset, you know, and certainly, I spent, you know, years in Silicon Valley during the first Siliconvalley.com boom. And that, that mindset is really, I mean, it's, it's, it's seductive because you see these people, you know, they had a billion-dollar exit, or they raised $200 million from venture capitalists. And there was, there is this confusion that just cause you raised $250 million, that means success. Right? And I know I got seduced by that for a period of time. And I was convinced, well, yeah, success as an entrepreneur means you raise a whole bunch of money and you go public or, you know, whatever.

Mike Cooch: And the reality is most of those situations don't even work out. You know, we hear about all the sexy headlines, but the reality is that the majority of those situations, you know, crash and burn, or just don't really result in much. And you end up with a lot of people who sacrifice a lot in their life to try and hit those targets and those metrics. And I think that in a lot of cases, what we've found is they're not even sure exactly why, because what you've seen even in Silicon Valley is that there has been an absolute revolution in terms of entrepreneurs saying, Hey, you know what, I don't even need venture capital. I can start a little software company, bootstrapping get my first thousand customers on my own through hustle, it's cashflow positive. I don't even need to do all that. And maybe the business doesn't grow to a bazillion dollars, but a $50 million, $25 million, $10 million really profitable business is really, really attractive.

Mike Cooch: So, you know, these businesses can still be very profitable, very rewarding by all of those kinds of business metrics. But as you know, Clarence in your experience and watching other businesses and seeing how it works, there are massive investments that typically need to be made of human time, energy, and money to go from one level out of business to a whole another level like there's, there's usually a whole bunch of that has to come with that. And that that decision to do that, I think really needs to be understood like why you're doing it, what you hope to get out of it versus saying, you know what, I'm going to optimize it at a smaller size and use it to really fuel the other things that I want in life. The other things I would love to be able to travel, I would love to be able to spend time on nonprofit things in my community. I'd love to be able to coach my kids' team. That set of decisions I think is a super important one to go in with your eyes really wide open and wear it. As you know, where I have decided to go with my career is definitely more on that, that second route, that more lifestyle route. And I love having an entrepreneurial business, a private entrepreneurial business can allow me to do with my life and my lifestyle. And then the other entrepreneurs that I've seen take the same approach.

Clarence Fisher: I love that. I love that there's that explanation is great because the difference between, I think it was when I read profit first that my eyes really started getting open to guys are around and they're like trying to compare which one is bigger. Like what, like, you know, who's got, who's got the biggest revenue I'm talking about revenue.

Clarence Fisher: So then when you start putting into a system like profit first and reading into that, it makes total sense about, and you said this all along. I mean, the profit is the thing that should be guarded. And it's, it's different. Like you can compare top-line revenue numbers and have these huge top-line revenue numbers, but you're really only making 10 cents or 5 cents on every dollar, which is totally different from somebody making half that top line, but they're making 60, 70% profits. So, that really opened my eyes. And then also when we talk about switching to, I liked what you said about, you still want the business to be profitable and be running and making a lot of money, but not at the detriment of things like I found myself not really worrying about health or relationships or like everything was put into the business. If it threw off any money, that's going back into the business. I don't need to check right now is going back into the business. We don't need to take a vacation. It's going back in the business, you know, like, and then people around you are like, when is, okay, so when is that thing? Like, when is it? When do we hit that?

Clarence Fisher: So those are major decisions I think that that made me kind of look at it

Mike Cooch: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that you know, we are living through very interesting times right now where I think that people just in general are evaluating, what is success? What does a successful life look like? And how is my career part of that and fit into that?. And if I'm an entrepreneur, how does my business fit into that? Because people want out of their life, you know, a variety of things, not just to make money and say, I built the biggest thing, right? And so the reality is in today's world, other than you winning the lottery, there is no way that is better to fuel that complete life that you want. Then by having a successful entrepreneurial business, I really don't believe that there is. I mean, I really don't believe that there are any other options that are as good to give you, give you that balance because there's nothing else that can give you the economics and that can give you control.

Mike Cooch: Right? And control. And by that, I mean just controls the basic stuff. Like when are you going to work during the day? Who are you going to choose to work with? Who are you going to listen to as to what's enough? And what's not enough? And I regularly come across people, especially now with everything that's going on, where it's like, man, I don't know what I can do to take care of my kids because I have to go to the office and go to work, or I can't know the office and go to work and stuff like that. And they still have this job and the salary that are dictating things to them that they know don't feel like a good fit for their decisions for their family, for their health, like you said, and that's painful to see. So I just, entrepreneurship is the ability to give people control over their lives to determine those things to me is like, is like this incredible power that can be unlocked for just for good in the world. That it just really, really motivates me to help share that as widely as I possibly can, because I think that that just creates so much opportunity for people to live a better life, which then impacts their family and their community and down the line.

Clarence Fisher: Totally agree. And once you have it, you want everyone to experience it, right? And you know, I feel really blessed that I am able to, because of decisions made a long time ago and traveling down this route and dedicating my life to the entrepreneurial journey that we have payoffs now where we can still earn while basically hibernating, but to tie it into a kind of like, I didn't know it then, but I was creating the vision of what I wanted life to be way back when I was waiting tables, way back when you got in trouble or whatever, it's like, okay, this is not the life that I want. How do I, I don't know how I'm going to get there, but what I can do is take this yellow pad and write down exactly what my dream life day is. So do you find that and you probably do. I mean, how important is having that vision for your life and your business?

Mike Cooch: Yeah, I mean, I think for me personally, and for many of the people that I have worked with over the years, I think it's absolutely critical. And the reason why is, is simply that our brains, you know, these incredible powerful things is between our ears, right? When we give them direction, then we're just dramatically more effective, right. Just having a target creates this focus. And, and also, you know, I think just kind of determination and things like that, that go along with it, that just make things happen. And so it's very, very easy for us to get caught in the doing of life, right? Just the day to day doing of things and not have that target, that vision that you're moving towards because you see it clearly. And you know, that's what you want. And you're keeping that in mind all the time. It's very busy just to get caught up are very easy just to get caught up, I should say. And so having that vision, having that clarity and having something that you're putting out there that you're looking at every day to be inspired by and moving towards, I just think is critical.

Clarence Fisher: It chirps me out sometimes still, how things just happen. Like I write these, my wife told me this once, she said, why don't you write these huge things that we never really, even, we never hit. And my answer was because every year, like if I don't, if I don't go that high, then number one, I don't think we get, like if I made, if I made it, what I, exactly what I want, what I think we can achieve, we don't hit that. So I make it super high. And then when something happens, she goes, she goes, I didn't know how that was going to happen. And I was like, I didn't know how I was going to have it either. And then she looks at me like, what do you mean? You didn't know how it was going to happen.

Clarence Fisher: Somebody said something that really stuck with me

Clarence Fisher: If you write down a vision that is not so big, you need God's help, or you need some help to make it happen. It's not big enough.

Mike Cooch: I love that. I love that. Yeah. It should scare you. Right? I'm a big believer in it. It's that test that I tell people when you're writing down your BHAG, your big, hairy, audacious goal, it should make you go like, am I really saying that? Am I really putting that public? That I'm going to do that? Yeah, and the thing is like, I think to make sure that people understand, like, this is not just like, woo, like there's the practical side of how this all works, right. Is if you say, if you say, Hey, Clarence, your business is doing a million dollars a year. And I say, you know, well, let's shoot for 2 million. How could you do 2 million? And you're looking at that number and you've already done a million, your brain can like just kind of block and tackle its way to 2 million.

Mike Cooch: And you're like, okay, well I know what got me to 1 million. I know my average customer value is this. Or if I bring on this many more customers and I need these people to support that and blah, blah, blah, 2 million. Got it. Right. But if I say Clarence, how could you get that to 10 million? Right? In that same time period, you have to start asking yourself a different set of questions, right inside your head. You have to start asking a different set of questions. Well, that thing that I was doing there, that's simple blocking and tackling no longer works. I don't have time to do that. So what would I do to crunch that time and accelerate this and do that differently? And how could I cut out that, that time that it takes to do X, Y, and Z. So it just creates a different set of a different way of thinking that those questions lead to different answers? Right? And so when you put something out there that's big like that. I totally agree with you. Like, you gotta have a helping hand and that helping hand comes in the form of just bigger, better questions and new creative ideas to help you get there.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. And the opportunities happen. So I had, so I started with the vision and it was you who introduced me to break it down even further of vision, mission, purpose, and BHAG. Right. So do you mind walking us through that? Like how, how does that, how does that happen? Cause I think a lot of us have the vision, but then especially when you have a team family who was a team, so how do you break all that down?

Mike Cooch: Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I, and it's so funny, man. I, that breakdown had to happen for me out of my own frustration and desire to get real clarity about things. I, I, cause I kept on hearing people talk about, Oh, you have to have a mission statement. You know, back in again, when I was in Silicon Valley, having a mission statement was like, it was like having an elevator pitch or whatever. Like, you know, you had to have that. And it had to be so good and so perfectly worded that everybody was going to be impressed by it. And I would see one company's mission statement and it looked more like a vision. And then I would see another company's mission statement and it looked like more like a purpose. And I was, I was like, man, these are like totally different things. Like, are we sure we even understand what a mission statement is?

Mike Cooch: And so, in my own search for understanding that stuff, I found, you know, resources that I broke it down, that made sense to me. So that the vision, the vision in my mind is where, it's like the destination that you hope to arrive at someday down, down the road, far enough in the future that it's believable that you could possibly get there. So when you think of that big, shiny thing, right. You know, one day we're going to be the very best X, Y, and Z in the world, or, you know, whatever it is that it's far enough away into the future that you think, you know, what, over this time period it's possible, we could get there. It's going to take so many things to happen, to go right. And all that type of stuff. But it's a big enough vision, a big enough dream that inspires us that we're going to go in that direction, right?

Mike Cooch: So that that's the vision. The mission then is more about how we are going to get there. What are we, what are we going to do? How are we going to operate? What is our business going to be about to get us there? And so that's the distinction to me. That's how I differentiate. The two of the vision is where we're going, where we hope to arrive one day, the mission is how we're going to get there. And then the purpose is why we're doing all of this, right? So the purpose is why we're doing all of this. So if we, if we just break down those three really quickly using a company that everybody understands, so let's say it's Disney, right? Disney's vision could be to be the most respected entertainment company in the world two years from now.

Mike Cooch: Right? And you could agree they've already achieved that, but by whatever metrics or, you know, you can rewind Disney to 25 years ago and say that that was their vision. Right? And then their mission would be more like it would be something more like through the development of an intellectual property, around characters, and then using licensing theme parks and digital entertainment, we're going to essentially dominate the entertainment space and that's their mission, right? So that's like how they're going to go about executing things and then their purpose could be, I believe that Disney's purpose is something along the lines of to create happiness, to make people happy. Right? So in that company, to me, it always helps to talk about it. And in a company that I can really see and relate to. And so that's how it would write down, right?

Mike Cooch: That's a vision, mission, purpose. And then the BHAG is your big, hairy, audacious goal. It's almost like your vision, but for the shorter term and with some more metrics around it, right? So if our vision 25 years from now, or whatever, is to be the most respected entertainment company in the world, our BHAG could be right now, again, if I'm Disney right now, we're a $25 billion, whatever our BHAG could be in the next 24 months to double that, right? To be a $50 billion entertainment company by this time period. Right? So it's like this huge, like, wait a minute, you're saying two years, we're going to double what took Disney 50 years to do and try and double that into like how in the world is that possible? So that's that big, hairy, audacious goal is a crazy goal. That's going to inspire everybody and pull everybody in the same direction to try and not try and accomplish it.

Clarence Fisher: So the BHAG is something that, well, let me ask you this and thanks for that breakdown because that's great. Is the whole team involved in this, or is this something that you're doing kind of, you have this, you have this thing where you go to the mountain top, but ever since I've known you, you've done that. And I've kind of, there are no mountains in Oklahoma. So I just, I go to a hotel plus I'm introverted, you know what I'm saying? So it's all good. But taking that time off and kind of coming back with the scrolls, if you would, I mean, is that something that you do? Or do you involve the team in creating any of this?

Mike Cooch: So for me, the answer is both, depending on your situation. Okay. So what I mean by that is right now, the way I'm operating my businesses is very virtual team. It's super, super lean, and it is primarily everything I'm doing right now is primarily about me and my lifestyle. I mean, it is, it is very directly, you know, as you know, I've got three kids, I want to be able to spend time with my kids. I want to be able to travel all that type of stuff. So it is very important for me personally, to have very clear versions of this that are really about me and my life, personally. That being said, as you know, in the past, I've had pretty good sized teams and stuff like that. And I've had executives in place at those teams to handle most of the day to day operations for me.

Mike Cooch: In that case, it's critical that they're involved in this process because good people, really good people, the people that you want running your business, they need to have a stake in it. You know, they need to have that sense of ownership of what's happening and where we're going with this and why, if you hope to keep them and keep getting the best out of them, because otherwise the best people, the best people are looking for, meaning beyond a paycheck, it's just reality. And so they'll go find that meaning someplace else if you don't allow them to participate in that process at your business.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. That makes, that makes sense. I've struggled with that myself with consistently communicating the vision with teammates

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. You know, you get in the grind and you're in, you're in, you're just hustling your hustling.

Clarence Fisher: And I hear leaders say you have to constantly be pushing that and constantly letting people know what they are doing

Clarence Fisher: Into that so that they go home and you're right. I mean, it's not just show up and make me rich. It's not like, you know, just show up and do a job.

Clarence Fisher: Even if that job becomes easy, it becomes monotonous. And if there's no purpose behind it, then people leave. But it's something that I definitely want to improve which is part of the reason why I've got time with you today.

Clarence & Mike: So with the BHAG you've broken even that down further into, into quarters. Yeah, I think, yeah. So, in order to really try and make these things real and come to life, I think that you have to break them down into execution, into shorter-term sprints, if you will. Otherwise, it's just, it's so easy, at least for me. But I think for most people, human nature for a time, just to go by and not have real clarity about what is it that we want to accomplish in this next three months, that's going to get us to that BHAG a year from now or two years from now. And what are the day to day blocking and tackling and metrics associated with our behaviors on a day to day basis to make sure that we are driving to that BHAG every day?

Mike Cooch: That's great. I feel like, man, I feel like somebody is going to make a meme and say, Clarence just said that his team is only there to make his rich. That's not what I meant, people! Crazy world we're living in right now, man.

Clarence & Mike: I know right. I mean, tell me about that, man. So what are some of the,

Clarence Fisher: We don't want to go down there, but like

Clarence Fisher: What are some of the mistakes that you feel like you see people businesses make? Cause you started a number of businesses, you've taken a number of businesses from zero to seven figures

Clarence Fisher: What do you see? Well, let me take it back. What are some of the mistakes that you made at the beginning of starting your business?

Mike Cooch: Oh man. Gosh, I've made so many it's, yeah, the list is crazy long. So let's see here. I, I think that the first major thing that stands out to me though is simply not having a model that will even really have a good chance of getting you to where you want to go. The reality is not all businesses and not all business models are equal. And so if you are aiming for that lifestyle where you can make a million dollars a year and travel around the world easily, and you hope to achieve that by then opening up a single location restaurant in a small town, you don't really have a good vehicle to get you to where you want to go, right? And so just a real good understanding of what, even as the potential of the business model, all the business that I'm getting into to get me to where I want to go is a major, major, first step to success, I think.

Mike Cooch: And there's just, there's just a lot of confusion out there I think, or just ignorance. And that's not a bad word. That's just kind of don't know what you don't know, where we see other people that we think have reached some level of success. And so we think, well, their business must be good. I see a lawyer with a big house and a fancy car. And I think, well, the lawyer business must be good. Well, if your definition of good is billing 70 hours a week to afford your fancy house in your car, then yeah. That could be a good business model. Right. But if it's, again, they're looking for something else, more flexibility, more balanced, then you should have a different vehicle. So I think that's a big, big, big, big, first, the first step. I think, um, another major, one related to that is starting something that has differentiation, starting something that has a reason to exist in the marketplace that is different than what else is out there.

Mike Cooch: I mean, the reality is if you are putting yourself out there into the great big contest of business, right? A very big game of business with all these other competitors out there. And you're putting out there without a real clear, compelling reason as to why a customer should choose you over all the other alternatives out there. You're just putting yourself. It's like, it's like getting into a boxing ring with Tyson and you haven't really trained and you're not really there to compete. It's like, why, why do that, why would you do that to yourself? So making sure that you got a plan for success, both with the vehicle that you're choosing the model of the business, as well as the way that you are going to differentiate and compete in the marketplace within that model, that really can give you the shot at a competitive edge.

Clarence Fisher: So these are decisions that you made ahead of time or, well, you should've made ahead of time.

Mike Cooch: It should have made ahead of time. When I look, when I look at the businesses that have been successful versus the ones that are not, that those things have been thought through in advance. Yes.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. Alright. That's great. I think a lot of us get started because I know I definitely did. I kind of fell into my business. Right? Like it was just a thing that I was doing to try to get leads for the network marketing company that I was in because I didn't like the face to face stuff,

Clarence Fisher: Learn how to get leads online. And then somebody called and said, Hey, can you do that for my business? And so then you're trying to figure out that's what I always say is, yeah.

Clarence Fisher: Like you don't have to be very smart to get in business, but you got to get that way. If you're going to stay in it, it's like you're swimming and we posted not too long ago there's a story how people see entrepreneurs is a man riding a tiger and they're like, look at that guy. He's so he's so brave.

Clarence Fisher: Like if you look in his hand, he's like, how would I get on this back of tiger? How do I get off?!

Clarence & Mike: That's true. It gets crazy sometimes but like you said I wouldn't trade this for the world you work super hard but the reward is great. Yeah. I don't even like, it's amazing to me. I don't even have a choice. Like psychologically, there is no choice for me at all. I mean, anytime I even think of the idea of just a job and a salary and somebody telling me what I've gotta do or wherever that'd be like that, you know, and everybody's got their different reasons, but you know, mine is definitely freedom is my primary driver, right? I, I just want to be able to make my own decisions, call my own shots, experience life the way I want to be able to experience it. And that is so psychologically like just hardwired in me now that man, I just can't man. And I'll take, I'll take all of the ups and downs that come with being an entrepreneur, all the downs that are the sacrifices I'll, I'll take them. I'll take them. Absolutely.

Clarence & Mike: That's great. Me too, man. I, you know, I say, I don't like to be told what to do, but now I have like 40 50 people telling me what to do, but it's awesome. So, okay. Everybody would be upset with me if I let you go,

Clarence & Mike: This is local market monopoly so we talk about bringing it to marketing, owning a market. What do you feel like is the best-kept secret in marketing right now? Well, I don't know if it's a, I don't know if it's a secret, I suppose it depends on who's listening and what their degree of experiences. But I think that the most under-appreciated thing right now is still producing and distributing content just like you're doing right now in as many forms and as much volume as you can practically do. I think we're all still grossly underestimating the value of it. It is something that did not exist as a possibility in any practical way, just 10 years ago, right? That you and I can essentially be a little media companies, many media companies, or we can get our message out to as many people as we want at so little cost and really so little effort it's astonishing and that ability to get your brand out there, your message out there, your personality out there, your value proposition out there every day and in all these different formats and to be in control of that versus relying on a media company that decides to write your article about your business.

Mike Cooch: I just think we're just grossly underestimating the importance of that. And this goes back to tie it back to the original, the start of this conversation around the whole lifestyle business thing, right? So speaking of things that were not really possible 10 years ago, the statistics right now on the number of businesses that are single-person businesses doing at least a million dollars or more in revenue each year is skyrocketing. It's skyrocketing. And that's because of the power of technology, digital, the internet distribution of our content and products and services at scale, without it requiring more manpower to do it, that whole thing right, is, is making just entirely new things possible for business owners, whether they're local and I'm trying to dominate and in my particular city, or I'm taking a more global approach and selling to customers wherever I can, it's just making new things possible. I think we're just, we're still just grossly underestimating. It,

Clarence Fisher: I agree. It amazes me. I've been saying the same thing in, in local markets for the past five to seven years. Just like just creating video once a week and getting it out there. And I guarantee you, the chiropractor down the street is not, is not doing that even just on your cellphone.

Mike Cooch: Yeah.

Clarence Fisher: People like Gary V and Grant Cardone are on crack with the, with the content that they put out.

Mike Cooch: Yeah. It's crazy.

Clarence Fisher: If they take one piece of content and that's another thing is, and you do this, you know, it's like you take one piece of content and how many ways can you flip that one piece of content?

Clarence & Mike: We didn't have that. Dozens, right? I mean, if you're creative about it, that's what those guys do so well.

Clarence Fisher: So if you're a small business and you're a local business, what do you recommend a way to say, okay, alright, Mike, I want to put out some content and we know you, and I know that if they do anything, it's probably going to be more than what the guy down the Street's doing, but what kind of system can I put in place to make sure that,

Mike Cooch: Yeah, that's a great question. I think that to me, if you're a local business in particular and the opportunities to just dominate are so clear, you know that because like you said, most of the competition just isn't going to do it. So I think a couple of things, one is telling your story, which is a great thing, is that only really takes one time to kind of document it and get it done. You can do it in a variety of formats. So, but people connect to stories, not just products and services. And that's really what a brand is, right. Is what is your story? And so if you can tell that story, why did you start your business? What is your purpose? What do you care about? What is it that excites you about helping your customers or serving your customers? Like if you can just document those things, you know, we talk about a purpose story, an origin story, maybe some transformation stories, right.

Mike Cooch: And capture those. And the cool thing is then you can, you can distribute those and promote those kinds of on autopilot in your community. Just have that content. It's like having a really perfect press release done for you or a really perfect article in your local newspaper that you want everybody to read. You can create that and just get it out there and let everybody read it and just have it out there all the time. Right? So I think doing that is something that every business can take advantage of and would have a massive impact. And then the other thing is, I would say just the practical side of creating content in a scalable way. If you can start with video, then you can create so many pieces of content from that one video so easily by, you know, I call it this kind of waterfall effect where you can just slice and dice and create as it's going down, this waterfall, all these different pieces of content.

Mike Cooch: And, you know, because a video, you take a video, you can separate the audio out. Now you've got audio for a podcast or whatever. You can take images from that video and use them in a little static, social post. You post the video on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram, right? There are so many different things that you can do with that video. So if you think about that, like what's the highest kind of format that I'm comfortable with producing and then you slice and dice content down from there. And just put a little bit of budget into distributing that content. That to me, if you're doing that with any sort of consistency combined with having your core stories out there being told, I just think your opportunities to dominate in your local market are huge.

Clarence Fisher: That was awesome. That was awesome, man. Thank you for spending some time with me today. And we've, we've covered so much the vision mission, purpose BHAG, which I am always trying to refine myself. And then, and then the marketing and all that. What do you feel like right now we're in this big mess? What do you feel like right now, small businesses should be doing over the next 90 days, 30, 90 days to a year to make sure we're not only here, but not only survive, but thrive.

Mike Cooch: Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. Well, I think that the things that we just discussed are that's something that anybody can do, even, even if you can't apply a budget to it at all, everybody, that's got one of these in their pockets, got a phone in their pocket with a decent camera and can create content and get their message out. So I would be all over that and I would be all over social media, not just posting content, but engaging with your community. Social media is where everybody's attention is. And so if you're in there being an active part of your community and trying to add value, not just selling, trying to add value to your community out there, those things to me are just the foundation. And the, and the reality is those are the foundation at any time, but when things are bad, it gets really clear that, Hey, those are the things that you should be doing all day every day. And then, you know, I think just in, in general, man, just caring about your customers. Like everybody's through hard stuff, right? Everybody is everybody's, everybody's on edge. Everybody is worried. So if you can bring some extra love and attention and humanity to whatever it is that you're doing, I think that that's, that's gonna pay off in big ways that maybe you don't see the impact of that necessarily today or tomorrow, but it's going to have a compounding effect that I think is going to add up over time.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. When it's all over, your partners, your employees, your vendors are all gonna remember how you made them feel during this time. Yeah, man. So my final question is probably the biggest question of the interview. It is Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. Alright, so who do you pick?

Mike Cooch: Yeah, first of all, those are two bad men, right? Oh my gosh. Those are two bad men. At 54 at 64, 74, I don't care what it is. I would never, ever, ever want to be on the wrong side of it either. They are some bad dudes I've got to say, okay. I think that if they both, you know, it's an exhibition match, so who knows how this is going to actually happen. But I think if they both train for a fight and go in there to throw punches and try and like beat the other guy, I gotta go with Tyson. Yeah, I do. But I don't know. I mean, like they are, they are bulls, they are bulls. So good. What do you, what do you think come on.

Clarence Fisher: I mean, it was like, I don't know. I was just gonna ask you now I go ties into, it's going to be really interesting because I kind of see, you know, there's ego involved in any sport with any athletes they get in there and somebody is going to probably take somebody off and get a real, a real shot. And then it's, you know,

Mike Cooch: Yeah. I don't know how those guys could get in the ring with each other and not yeah, exactly what you say, not get fired up to the point where it's like, okay, hold on here. Let's throw some punches. Right?

Clarence Fisher: Right. That was a real tap. So here's a real tap back. And then before you know it, that's awesome. So where did, where do people get you, man, I have been, I told you at the beginning of this, even very influential in my career and I owe a lot to you, I appreciate it. My kids don't know they owe it to you, but they do. How can other people get some of this goodness or find out more?

Mike Cooch: Yeah, thank you. I would say to go to, so my brand that I am building in this entrepreneurial coaching space is Leverage. So this idea of applying leverage to your business, into your life to get the results that you're looking for as quickly as possible, the brand is L V R G. So LVRG.com. You go over there, you'll see me and you'll see all the different social accounts and podcasts and YouTube and all good stuff. So anything that, you know, whatever your preferred channel is to keep in touch, I would absolutely love it. Love to have anybody over there that I could possibly help in some way. It'd be fantastic. So I'd say just head over there.

Clarence Fisher: It was awesome. Yes, definitely do that. L V R g.com cause Mike's the real deal. That's what, that's what the person that referred me to you said in the crowd of internet gurus, Mike's the real deal and it is pretty great. So thanks a lot, Mike. And I so appreciate it.

Mike Cooch: Thank you. I appreciate it as well. I appreciate you. And I'm glad to be here. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Outro: We appreciate you listening to local market monopoly. Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ClarenceFisher.com for more resources that will help you dominate your local market and own the block.