John and Jeremy Want to Send you a Secret Package

“One of the best groups I’ve ever participated in.”
Andrew Warner
Founder, Mixergy

Tim, Business Systems Consultant

ProfitFactory.com

Tim Francis enjoyed success consulting to some of the biggest names in Internet Marketing. He had a problem, though: nearly all his company’s revenue came from him consulting, making him a bottleneck. Tim needed to find a way to shift from hours-for-dollars.Tim considered a wide range of options, finally settling on creating an online course.

Tim decided he would create an online course which would teach entrepreneurs how to recruit, hire and train a great executive assistant, a skill he’d honed for years while consulting to CEOs. Determined to get feedback on his concept, Tim arrived at the Austin Retreat in November 2015 prepared with a particular question.

After explaining the idea behind his proposed course, he asked his fellow attendees: “What would I have to change about this course for you to be so excited you’d give me your credit card right now?” Taken aback, the crowd went silent.

After a few moments of silence, an accomplished entrepreneur from Nashville broke the tension: “OK, Tim, I’ll go first. Love the idea of getting an Assistant. Hate your delivery. I’m already overworked. I don’t have time to study your 10 hour course, then spend 4-6 weeks trying to implement it, then 2-4 weeks training the Assistant, only hoping I got it right.”

Around the table, most Entrepreneurs echoed the exact same sentiment. Humbled, but still committed, Tim asked a different question: “OK. Let’s scrap the course altogether. If you want me to do it all for you, and you could have anything, what would you have to see for you to give me your credit card right away?”

In rapid fire succession, the audience rattled off: do all the job advertising for us, screen all the applications as they come in, give everyone a Kolbe test, Kolbe-match them to us, find the best match for us, then train them and onboard the new Assistant for us.

Tim replied: “I’ll do you one better: I’ll even certify them, and I’ll create an online community of certified Assistants so they can all help each other instead of them always asking you, their Entrepreneur, for help.”The room was buzzing. Everyone was excited. This was a service they’d pay for.

And pay they did. Ultimately, four fellow attendees all handed Tim their credit card and signed up for the Beta launch of his service, Great Assistant, bringing Tim $4,000 in sales immediately and a live test for his new business concept.

Since then, Tim hired a full-time program manager for Great Assistant, and brought in over six figures in revenue from the first 12 months of running the program. His team is on-pace to match 200 Entrepreneurs and Assistants in 2017.

Matt Inglot

Owner, Web Development Agency
Podcaster, Freelance Transformation

Matt Inglot came to our Austin 2015 retreat. He ran a successful web development agency which he had systematized and delegated so that he could earn over six figures per year working about 5-10 hours per week.

His focus at the retreat was on growing and monetizing his then-new podcast and community of freelancers, Freelance Transformation. At the time, he had about 400 email subscribers. Using advice from Sherpa Dan Kuschell and others in the room, Matt came home from the retreat, sent one email to his email list, and made $3,000, nearly completely paying off his investment in the event.

Here is what Matt had to say:

Rick Cesari The $2 Billion Dollar Man

Rick Cesari is a pioneer in direct response marketing and television advertising. After Cesari and his brother Steve took out a home-equity loan on their mother’s home to fund the creation of their new business, Cesari Direct has gone on to help sell more than 2 billion dollars worth of products. Cesari has directly been involved in the launch of over 30 brands including the Sonicare toothbrush, OxiClean, the George Foreman Grill, GoPro camera & many more.

Today, Cesari Direct is is a consumer marketing agency, specializing in short and long form direct response television, media buying and online marketing.  Cesari’s company was responsible for taking GoPro camera from less than $1 Million in sales to over $500 Million in sales in under 5 years.

Rick is the author of Buy Now: Creative Marketing that Gets Customers to Respond to You and Your Product.

Dan Kuschell is the CEO for Joe Polish’s Genius Network. He’s the founder of Growth to Freedom™, ProsperityBasedLiving.com, & creator of Millionaire’s Mindset.

He has built many companies over his years as an entrepreneur, including one company he built to over 175 employees and $15 million+ a year in sales.

Dan Kuschell has owned multiple companies and has over 22 years of experience helping businesses grow exponentially.

About Kevin Waldron

Kevin Waldron immigrated to the U.S. from Scotland in the mid-1980s. Without a college degree, the only work he could find was with a disaster restoration company — literally cleaning up other people’s messes — where his boss was a raging alcoholic. After watching his boss make money while drinking all day, Waldron decided “if he can do it, I can do it better.”

Starting with a shoestring budget and just an 800 square foot warehouse space, and with no real business experience, Waldron grew his company into a regional powerhouse with 5 offices and over 200 employees and $24M a year in sales. He credited his business coach of 17 years, Patricia McDade, with helping him to grow the company.

After he finally sold the company in 2010, Waldron became a business coach himself. Today, Waldron does leadership coaching, helping business owners with sales between $2 million and $10 million scale upwards to $20 million and beyond. One of his recent coaching programs costs entrepreneurs $50,000 per person to participate in.

While still in his twenties, Andrew Warner used credit cards and ingenuity to found and build a $30+ mil / year (in sales) internet business with his younger brother.

After selling his interest in that business, Andrew went on to create the top-rated business podcast Mixergy, through which he helps ambitious entrepreneurs to learn from a mix of experienced mentors.

Mixergy’s headquarters in San Francisco served as the venue for John and Jeremy’s first-ever Entrepreneur Retreat in April 2015.

David Gonzalez, Entrepreneur & Founder of IM Party

The Beginning:

John and Jeremy have a shared background as professional service entrepreneurs who have managed to diversify their business revenues and move away from trading hours for dollars by building platforms for themselves.

The first Rise25 retreat was held in March 2015. Jeremy and John put together a one-day mastermind for great entrepreneurs in the SF area prior to attending the Mastermind Talks conference they were both set to attend in Napa Valley. With just three weeks notice, they threw together an event which included such notable guests as Mixergy founder Andrew Warner, Art of Charm podcaster Jordan Harbinger, and master copywriter David Garfinkle.

Their mission is to bring together like-minded entrepreneurs from professional services backgrounds who want to scale up their businesses, spend less time trading hours for dollars, and diversify their revenues.

John Corcoran is an attorney, writer, and a father, and a former Clinton White House Writer and Speechwriter to the Governor of California.

Throughout his diverse career, he has worked in Hollywood, as an early employee at DreamWorks, working for Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, and he has worked in the heart of Silicon Valley, advising startup entrepreneurs. He owns his own boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

He is the creator of the Smart Business Revolution blog and podcast. After trying unsuccessfully every different possible strategy for growing his website (from SEO to social media), he finally struck gold in 2015 with webinars, and hosted 83 live webinars during 2015. Using webinars and other strategies, John quickly built an email list of 40,000+ email subscribers.

John’s writing has appeared in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, Art of Manliness, Lifehacker, Business Insider, Get Rich Slowly, and numerous other publications, blogs and websites.  He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Nicole and their three young boys.