The Ultimate Sales Machine | Amanda Holmes | 358

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Dan Kuschell | 358

May 9, 2022

Amanda Holmes is the CEO of Chet Holmes International, a company that helps businesses improve their online user experience, generate more traffic to their websites, and increase sales. The organization was founded 25 years ago by Chet Holmes, an acclaimed corporate trainer, strategic consultant, motivational expert, and lecturer. Chet worked with over 60 of the Fortune 500 companies and also authored the best-selling book, The Ultimate Sales Machine. Now, Chet’s legacy continues with his daughter, Amanda, who has been working with the company since she was 24 years old.


Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • Amanda Holmes shares the three reasons businesses fail and how business priorities are changing
  • How market data can transform your company
  • The key to creating top-of-mind awareness in an attention-deficit society
  • Amanda breaks down the “buyer’s pyramid” and explains why it’s so important to educate your audience
  • How Amanda helped one client generate $12 million in two weeks
  • The key steps to generating great market data and developing a better core story
  • Amanda’s biggest mentors and influences
  • What Amanda learned while taking over her father’s business after his passing

In this episode…

Today, there are 3.8 billion more social media users than there were 15 years ago. So, with all the clutter in the online space, how do you grab the attention of your target audience — and turn that attention into sales?

We may live in an attention-deficit society, but business leader Amanda Holmes has identified the top two ways to stay top-of-mind with consumers. As she says, it comes down to finding the market data that speaks to your audience and using that research to create a memorable core story. Using this strategy, she’s helped clients generate millions of dollars in sales within just weeks. Now, Amanda is here to share the first steps to leveraging this method in your business.

In this episode of Growth to Freedom, Dan Kuschell sits down with Amanda Holmes, the CEO of Chet Holmes International, to discuss the ultimate strategy for building awareness and growing sales for your business. Amanda explains why market data outperforms product data every time, how to develop a core story that stands out to consumers, and what business leaders need to know about the “buyer’s pyramid.” She also shares her experience carrying on her father’s legacy after his passing. Stay tuned.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com.

Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall in growing your business? Well, let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. You can do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com. That’s breakthroughstrategycall.com.

In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com. That’s activate.breakthrough3x.com.

If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.

Episode Transcript

Dan Kuschell 0:03

Welcome to growthtofreedom.com, the show that brings you inspiration, transformation and leadership, we’re helping you connect the dots, see the blind spots, and get unstuck. So you can go out and generate more leads more sales, more profits. More importantly, so you can go out and have a bigger reach a bigger impact and make a bigger contribution. Welcome to growth to freedom.com, the show that brings you inspiration, transformation, and leadership, helping you connect the dots, see the blind spots and get unstuck. So you can go out there and create more growth, create more sales, create more profits, and more importantly, so you can go out there and have a bigger impact, a bigger reach and make a bigger contribution. Is that what you want? Well, if that’s what you want, then today is your lucky day. Today is a very special day, let me ask you this. How would you like to have nine times more impact in what you do with every single move you make? How would you like to learn some of the key decisions or strategies so that you can get more access to one to many instead of one to one? Or how would you like to know what the buyer’s pyramid is? And why people are saying no to you, potentially, and what you can do immediately, literally today to be able to get them to say, yes, I want to know more of that. And more importantly, that I want to know, I want to do business with you. Right now. Our guest expert today is Amanda Holmes. She is the CEO of Chet Holmes International. She has been working side by side in the organisation since I believe what 24 years old. And her father wrote this amazing book that has been a handbook for some of the most successful people in the world building and growing businesses. And she has carried that message forward after her dad suddenly had passed away many years ago, and has been carrying that legacy that torch and making an even bigger impact. How cool is that? Right? Well, guess what? We are going to talk about some of the core principles of The Ultimate Sales Machine. And a whole lot more. Amanda, welcome to the show. How are you?

Amanda Holmes 2:14

Oh, thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here, Dan.

Dan Kuschell 2:18

Me too. I’m so glad you’re here as well. And so we’re gonna dive right into it. I mean, you’ve gotten a chance to see this growing up teenager in your 20s and now carrying your your dad’s mission forward. And now it’s your mission, to transform people’s lives to go out there and start a University of Self Realisation to be able to help people understand that, you know, let’s have a wellness and health plan, not a sick plan and all the amazing charity work that you do. Plus, you’ve got a new book coming out here. I mean, like, what are you doing in your spare time? I just have to ask.

Amanda Holmes 2:54

I hear that you sleep when you die? No. It’s a it’s been busy and very exciting. Very exciting. Yeah. So

Dan Kuschell 3:03

speaking of exciting, as you’ve seen, you know, the all kinds of perspectives with 1000s and 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of businesses, companies, what do you see, Amanda are some of the biggest mistakes that most people make today as they’re looking to grow their business or make a bigger impact and more

Amanda Holmes 3:23

mistakes? Well, so I also run a research firm. And according to research, there’s three reasons why businesses fail, usually it chalks up to owner and competency, which is hard for every CEO to hear lack of money, right? They run out of budget, and the inability to innovate. And this is also true when we look at what are the top priorities of businesses and 2022. This year, a study by Intuit just came out saying that generating more online sales is a crucial priority, especially because of COVID. Right before COVID It would take on average five to seven years for a business to get online with their marketing and sales techniques. Post COVID it takes on average 1.5 years. Crazy how an entire innovation happened globally in such a short period of time. But now the question is, how are we optimising it? Is it really even working? Right? So now we have it? And the second priority is how do we improve those marketing results?

According to research, there are three reasons why businesses fail. It chalks up to owner incompetency, which is hard for every CEO to hear; lack of money, they run out of budget; and the inability to innovate. - Amanda Holmes Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 4:29

And speaking of marketing results, I mean, all the way back from when I got touched by this incredible book, I believe it was 2008 2009 range in the work that your dad was doing out there. Research you just brought up research. Talk about the value of research and how research can transform as you see it, someone’s business and turn them from maybe an unwelcome someone’s sceptical someone’s uncertain to wow you are the definitive expert because it changes over Okay, when you do it, right,

Amanda Holmes 5:01

absolutely. So my father had a beautiful quote, market data is always more motivational than product data. So when you talk about your product, it’s only So, so interesting, it can only go so far, I’ll give you an example, we have the most wonderful children’s dentist in Southern California, four out of five. So I’ll give you product data example, four out of five children in San Diego, Go to this dentist. So that’s product data. People say, Oh, that’s nice. But a piece of market data that they use that he got press around all of the nation for was, and we did this research for him, you are nine times more likely to die of COVID If you have gum disease, and one in every two people has gum disease. So one of the most crucial things that you can do to protect yourself against COVID is brushing your teeth for two minutes, twice a day and flossing. Instead not just so Okay, right. So we can break down here. What just happened? Right? I grabbed them with a great global paint that hook is so fascinating, right? It kind of just leaves you at that. What is new, right? It sets me up as an expert, instantaneously. Wow, that was really valuable that hit home. And I can take action on it too. So I became the expert in what 15 seconds flat. And now we’ve opened the dialogue to have more of a conversation he ended up. I mean, he got like $400,000 worth of press across the nation as the number one key person that everybody needed to go to when they shut down dentists. It was fascinating. He’s coming up with a book later this or next month, if your mouth could talk. Oh, so it’ll be out when this when this comes out if your mouth could talk fascinating. But that’s right, we normally just start with how great we are, oh, I do this, this is what I do. This is why I’m so amazing. This is you know, as opposed to what are our prospects need to know? What would be of interest to them? What would grab them and stop them? And there’s in in there, whatever they’re doing?

Dan Kuschell 7:07

And that’s a different level of thinking, isn’t it? Amanda? You know, a lot of people get to the surface level or focus on tactics. You know, this is really a deep, deep strategy to really know your clients. What are the questions they ask? And even deeper? What should they ask that they haven’t thought of yet? Speak to that a little bit?

Amanda Holmes 7:27

Oh, wow. Well, if we think about so when my father first came out with that book, 15 years ago, the average company would be on seven different marketing mediums. Today, we’re at 15 different marketing mediums on average. So we’re doing double the amount of work, we’re trying to compete with 3.8 billion social media users, we have 3.8 billion that weren’t there 15 years ago. So how are we grabbing that attention? When the clutter factor is so absurd, right, we really have to get into the minds of what our prospects, what grabs their attention, and you have to do it.

We're trying to compete with 3.8 billion social media users. We have 3.8 billion that weren't there 15 years ago. So how are we grabbing that attention when the clutter factor is so absurd? - Amanda Holmes Click To Tweet

I mean, our attention span is half what it was 10 years ago, it’s now the equivalent of a goldfish, we equivalent of a goldfish three, although I do find it fascinating that the average podcast listener will listen on average 43 minutes, which for an attention deficit in society, every single business owner should have a podcast after I saw that I started a podcast with 60 days, because I just thought, Well, that makes sense. But I’m speaking to this. So how do people how does the human mind take in information and retain it so that we can create that top of mind awareness? Right, the whole point of marketing is to create that top of mind awareness so that they come to you. So there’s two things that I’ll back this up with. And then I’m curious for yours, because you’re such a wealth of knowledge here. So one is we think in stories, I mean, for centuries, we thought in stories, that’s how we carried on information. You might forget what the two dues are in your meeting that you had with your staff, but you go home and you watch a show, and you’ll remember the whole plotline, right, because we think in stories, but then that story can be backed and validated by market data, because as a society, we trust science. So why not blend the two of the story with market data to make you so whether their left brain right brained, logical, emotional, it covers all bases?

For centuries, we thought in stories. That's how we carried on information. You might forget what the to-dos were in your meeting that you had with your staff, but you go home and watch a show and you'll remember the whole plotline. - Amanda… Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 9:37

That is so good. And you know, at the end of the day, you know, which you guys have been teaching for years, you know, you’ve got to build rapport, you’ve got to build a high level of trust, you’ve got to build a certain level of respect in that prospect and one of the faster ways to do that is through utilising good or great marketing data, right Now, just to kind of pivot gears, you talked about nine times more impact from every move you make, which is what we lead with, for today’s episode, speak to that a little bit. How can someone literally use frameworks from the Ultimate Sales Machine to nine times their impact with every move?

Amanda Holmes 10:16

Absolutely. So imagine that you are in a stadium full of your potential prospects. And we gave the mic right? So someone’s in the audience, Mike is in the audience, and we’re giving him a mic. What would be the title of your talk? What? What could you talk about that would actually keep people in their seats, willing to listen to what you have to say, Now, 15 years ago, this was just such a novel concept that you would actually, maybe I should pause there and say, majority of businesses, there’s kind of this divide that’s happening, where you have these online businesses that understand the value of education. So more over the last 10 years, I’ve watched a room and also so many of them read the Ultimate Sales Machine. Now they’re trained on it, they know, to come out of the gates with something that is intriguing to their prospects. that educates them that grabs their attention. But then I also have companies that are that are much more set in their ways of I’m going to talk about me. Right, right. So I have been in business for X number of years. I’m the best I do. Great. Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee so if so everybody that’s listening right now, if you have a pen and paper, this is great to draw out. So if you drew a pyramid, so you draw a pyramid at the end, then draw a little line at 3% of that pyramid and write 3% kas? Yes, we’re doing it together. Okay. So 3% 3% is in the buying now category. So if you made a whole 100, cold calls, right 3% would be interested, if you put a post on social 3% of those that see it would be interested. Okay, now we get to 7%. So you do another line at 7%. That means that they’re open, they’re open to potentially they’re doing research about possibly buying, but they’re not in the buying now category yet. Then the remainder of this entire buyers pyramid, this is this is the mind blow right here. So do two more lines, so that you have three sections. So 30% aren’t thinking about your product. It’s just it’s just not in their periphery. Write the next 30% think that they’re not interested, they have an opinion about what you do. And then the last 30% are definitely not interested hard. No. So when you look at that, I’m going to test you on your math, Dan. So what what percentage of the buyers pyramid are not interested in your product or service?

Dan Kuschell 12:49

Well, it would seem that 90%

Amanda Holmes 12:54

You’d be surprised how many presentations that I’m doing my like keynotes where they just don’t even know what that number is. I’m like, Are you paying attention to me right now? Because I keep asking you questions, because that was a pretty simple one. It was pretty funny. But yes, 90%. So we’re missing out on 90% of the prospects if we’re not educating them. So I’ll give you an example of this. So we had a high end client out of Dubai, they sold high end real estate. So there are average, I mean, there were selling the fortune 500 CEOs, $3 million vacation homes and Dubai. So second home, second $3 million vacation on. And so the 3% of fortune 500 CEOs that they could actually get a hold of is a pretty small amount of people that they had to reach. Now their salespeople were going out saying we’d love to talk to you about our ocean views and our granite countertops. And how beautiful this place is. It was very hard to get sales that way. So we changed their approach. We did some research on fortune 500 CEOs, and we came back with why wealthy CEOs are at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and premature death. And what you can do about it, it was shocking when we first showed this to the sales reps. They’re like, why are we talking about diabetes? We sell luxury places, right? It was bizarre. It was so bizarre. It took such a shift for a tactical attack ditional, right a tactical salesperson that all they care about is I just want to sell it just want to sell know, if we were following a strategic how many strategic objectives can we implement in one tactic? Can we build up their trust? Can they see us as the only expert in the field? Do they look to us to be able to refer other business because we did such a great job? Did you feel that they brought such great expertise, right? There’s so many different strategic objectives that can be accomplished. So we do this education and they went from they were 17 million. Then they dropped down to zero and there was a complete market blackout for an entire year. They didn’t sell one condo out. And then they came, they got what we call it. We call it a core story. So that messaging, their core story, we deployed it over the year, Deborah sprinkle some was a consultant on that. And they generated $602 million in 12 months.

We're missing out on 90% of prospects if we're not educating them. - Amanda Holmes Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 15:18

Now, as you’re listening right now, or you’re watching right now, what would happen for you? If number one, you started to really understand the value of data, market data, non product data, and we’re service data, but your market data, focus on your clients to solve the problems that they’ve got, and speak to their problems more than yours up front? Number three, what would happen for you if you develop a better core story? Right, because if you have the ability to have a man to put you in that stadium, hand over the mic with call it University of Michigan, 110,000 people every Saturday, during football season, and you’re able to give your hot topic. Or you’re going to connect with 110,000 people and have a mad rush of people wanting to get that market data that only you have as the trusted expert. And What’s it costing you if you don’t write? What’s it costing you if you don’t, especially when you consider that 90% of people are not really thinking about you, or your product, or taking action unless you connect with them. So Amanda, speaking of what you shared a quick story you said you worked with a client and in two weeks, they grew by 17 million if I’m not mistaken.

Amanda Holmes 16:37

12 million.

Dan Kuschell 16:38

million 12 million,

Amanda Holmes 16:40

12 million in two weeks.

Dan Kuschell 16:41

Speak to that a little bit. It sounds too good to be true. So

Amanda Holmes 16:43

Oh, my gosh, it was such a great experience. So So you know, we work with fairly bigger companies when we’re building out a core story for you. And it wasn’t until recently that I innovated that process to make it simple and easy for smaller businesses to consume what we do for Fortune 500 clients. And so we created this bootcamp and try try I really had gone through it and I have these recordings of me actually calling him out in the middle of trainings going Troy, are you okay? You look like you’re confused. He’s like, no, no, no, no, I’m okay. Okay. But you can tell, he looked like something wasn’t really making sense. And he was looking fairly frustrated. And it’s a four week boot camp. So in the third week, some light bulb hit in his head, and he came back. So I did two days a week. On the second day, he came back to the same session, he said, Amanda, I closed $700,000. And I went, No way. That’s amazing. How did you do it? He needs like, and it was somebody that wasn’t interested in my product at all. It was the 90% That wasn’t interested. I’m like, No, that’s great. I want to hear more. And before we could even meet three days later, he’s like, Amanda, I generated $248,000. Like, what are you doing? This is awesome. And, yeah, by the two weeks after the bootcamp, he had already generated 12 million and what he was doing so he sells John Deere equipment, if tractors and such. So their average sale is, you know, a couple $100,000. But he led with an education of here are the five things that every farmer should know that’s losing profits on your farm. And I’d like to share this with you. We’ve done some market data, we’ve done some research, I can provide that to you in a very short period of time, could I come and meet you want it? And he got yeses to all these people that weren’t interested in getting a tractor, or any John Deere equipment. After that education. They said, Wow, I really want to hear more, can you come back to us with more information, and his average deal size, he closed it with four clients for clients generated him $12 million in two weeks.

Dan Kuschell 19:04

That’s amazing. And there’s two things that stand out in that story for me, and as you’re listening, I don’t know if you feel this, but it’s the market data. And the core story. Right? So speak to that a little bit. Amanda, how can someone who’s watching or listening right now get started with really looking to implement better market data? Number one, and or unique market data that really is going to grab their audience’s attention? Like what are the steps that someone might take him to? How does someone get started with building a an even better core story?

Amanda Holmes 19:41

Okay, next step. I do have to say that with Troy really quickly, just to put an exclamation point on this his the average salesperson at John Deere sells $8 million in a year. So we made that quota in two weeks. Okay, I’m done. For me, that’s amazing. So, the first step, I would say, if you have one

Dan Kuschell 20:06

second, as you’re listening, or watching right now, just think about that. So let’s say you’re a rep that you’ve been doing your thing, or you’re building your business, and you’ve kind of had a rhythm, and maybe you’re growing 20% 30% a year, you know, so you get to 8 million in a year, or 10 million in a year. Right? And then you get a couple of new strategies that you can implement around a core story, better market data, and you go get those in place. And you do 12 million in two weeks. How does that change the game for you in your life, your business, your family, your team, your growth curve? Now, some companies truthfully will probably implode because they can’t handle that kind of growth. But ideally, you also have a good fulfilment system set up or good systems to support,

Amanda Holmes 20:58

you have a better problem, then you

Dan Kuschell 21:00

have a good problem to have a

Amanda Holmes 21:04

problem to have. Yes, that’s

Dan Kuschell 21:05

right. That’s right. So Amanda, break it down for what are a couple key steps, someone could obviously we don’t have time to go through all of it. That’s why you have the different training and resources that you do.

Amanda Holmes 21:14

I mean, first and foremost, if you haven’t read the Ultimate Sales Machine, mine looks a little bit more tattered than yours. It goes with me everywhere. But I would say first and foremost, Chapter Four is free from that book. And and it’s a chapter that changes people’s lives. And that explains the strategist versus the tactician, really where this comes down to, because it’s not just about market data, market data, it’s all over the internet, people always ask Amanda, where is the market data, if you just tell me where it is, I will find it. I hate to break it to you, my friend. But it’s not on some special Google site, right? It’s not in a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It’s about strategy. And when you understand the strategy, and what you’re trying and the objectives that you’re trying to fulfil on, then the whole message is crafted. So chapter four is the best first place to go. And you don’t have to even pay for that, right? It’s it’s free, or you can get the book, which is also a very small investment in comparison, it’s now been voted in the top 10 most recommended marketing and sales books of all time. So it did take me three years to write the new edition, which comes out in August, which will be the 10 year. So honouring of my father’s passing, so it’ll come up to them. But next step after that, I do have a video training on that. If you go to howtodoublesales.com. There, it’s it will ask you five questions to determine what’s the biggest thing holding you back from doubling your sales in the next 12 months. And then it will give you which training you need the most which one of them. Eventually you’ll get to the core story one as well with more case studies and more explanation and visuals that help you break it all down.

Dan Kuschell 23:16

So I encourage you to go right now. Right? First of all, like what would happen for you if you doubled your sales. Right. So Amanda is making a resource available to you that’s very easy to get to. So go to how to double sales.com That’s howtodoublesales.com. Go there take advantage of the resource. In addition, I want to encourage you to go get this book. This book is a game changer, a life changer. And I’ve met so many people over the years who’ve been inspired by Amanda and Chet’s work over the years their company’s work. So go get the book. You can find it in all kinds of places. It’s not that difficult. You can also go to Chet Holmes International google it. It’s very easy. Go on Amazon. But again, go to howtodoublesales.com. And I should ask you, Amanda, like where do you prefer, like if someone is really connecting and going? Well, first of all, her energy is amazing. Right? It’s so great to meet a strong female founder CEO helping other people the way that Amanda and their company are if they want to connect with you, what’s the best place to go for people to learn more about you and what you’re up to?

Amanda Holmes 24:26

I think if you want to say hello, I’m most on Instagram, and Amanda Holmes has taken there so I had to take my salsa name which is a Amandita Holmes

Dan Kuschell 24:37

Amandita

Amanda Holmes 24:39

darn the Amanda Holmes doesn’t reply back to me.

Dan Kuschell 24:47

So I encourage you go to IG go to Instagram connect with Amanda at

Amanda Holmes 24:52

I’m everywhere Anyways, if you’re gonna

Dan Kuschell 24:55

go I mean like, it’s pretty simple. Go to howtodoublesales.com, go to howtodoublesales.com, you’ll get access to a bunch of amazing resources, they’re making available customised to where you are right now in your business journey. Right, whether you’re small or emerging, or, you know, high growth hypergrowth, or, you know, you want to go public, they’ve worked with companies of all sizes, shapes, and seasons. So go to howtodoublesales.com. And make sure you get this book and then get in line for Amanda’s new book coming up. Now, I’m curious, Amanda, as we kind of wind this down, what’s something I should have asked you that, you know, in our short time together, that I didn’t get a chance to ask you so far?

Amanda Holmes 25:40

When you asked me that my my initial reaction is, I want to hear so much about you, Dan. So you’ll please come on to my podcast. I would love that. If you would graced us with your presence. And yeah, same, that that would be my only. Oh, I didn’t get to hear more about Dan.

Dan Kuschell 26:00

Well, that’s an easy Yeah. So we’ll get that done. We’ll get that in the schedule. For sure. Thank you. Thank you probably know, but I’d love to hear your view on it. Who’s the mentor that’s had the biggest influence on you and why?

Amanda Holmes 26:12

That’s interesting. You say you probably know I mean, my father is very important in my life, even past his passing, right. That’s obviously carrying on that torch. Another person that’s been extremely influential to me. I study under an Indian saint, her formal title, the sarva loca ma her holiness Sri Sri Sri 1008 Guruji. Poonam Ji, I just call her Guruji. So long title, but you must say it in formality because she deserves the respect. And yeah, she’s over the last 10 years has really been the reason why I was able to carry on my father’s legacy because it shouldn’t have happened. We shouldn’t be around right now. It’s, it’s an utter miracle. I was 24 years old. My father never gave me any formal training in what the business was other than just being a sponge of him living around him, right. He never sat me down and said, Hey, Manda, these are the companies I have. These are the divisions, these are the people that run those divisions. This is how I feel about the company, this is where I want it to go, I got none of that I had to learn it, reading his emails in the middle of the night while I’m sobbing because I just don’t understand what’s going on. And I don’t understand why I’m 24. As a singer, songwriter, trying to figure this out, it shouldn’t be my responsibility. It shouldn’t have been that that was the feeling when I first took over the company. So to look now 10 years later and go wow, I can’t believe we made it through. That’s a whole nother story in itself of like, the first week I two years, it took me to find different CEOs and always find different C suites and hiring and firing and just trying to fill the void of my father and I finally stepped in. And like within the first week, we returned, we were switching CRM systems, and my staff was like, we’ve spent half a million dollars on Salesforce. And I’d like to know Amanda, do you think that we should continue with it? I’m thinking maybe we should stop. I’m like, What’s the CRM system? The next day, my head of operations goes, Amanda. Our accounts have gotten frozen. And the merchant services is withholding the ability to pay your hundreds of staff, what would you like to do? And I’m like, What’s a merchant servicer? It’s just the insanity that I’ve experienced in the last couple of years. And I really hold that to two aspects, right. One is my father has this proven playbook. And I just followed it, I studied it, I read it every day, I watch the videos every day, I continue to do that, because it’s to master something takes a lot of practice. And then the second thing was understanding me getting in my head, getting in alignment with myself understanding who I am, and understanding who my father is and being able to respect him, but then honour the fact that I’m a different person. And so if I’m carrying on that legacy, it needs to look a certain way to make me feel fulfilled and full and that’s different and that’s okay. So a lot of lot of learning from both of them.

Dan Kuschell 29:22

That’s, you know, there’s some so many layers of wisdom there. So I’m curious what would you say has been the toughest part for you like a moment or the, in your in in the transition? Like if you could think back to those couple years where it was probably Helter Skelter, you’re thrown into this fire, and there’s chaos going all around you. Right? It’s like probably felt I don’t I don’t know what it felt like for you, but kind of the way you describe it, like I can envision Get a nine alarm fire that you’re running in and just doing like, I’m curious what your take would be for you what would what was the toughest part? And what did you learn from it?

Amanda Holmes 30:12

for the first several years, I had like eight figures worth of lawsuits and things over my head and liabilities that I was trying to solve, while also trying to learn the business while also trying to handle the grief of losing my father and trying to keep my family afloat. So that was rather stressful, and seeing how people react when people die. People get very strange, and they get very aggressive. And when they see money, they attack. And I went from being very sheltered in the sense that my father was bigger than life. And nobody messed with my father. He was a fourth degree black belt, I mean, the man, the man was a serious walking weapon. So then to go from being protected to now I’m the one that’s having to protect my mother was like, wow, okay. I’m a lover. I’m not a fighter. So that, I mean, that led to sleepless nights I used to I had nightmares of my father in the hospital. I mean, I was a caregiver for him for a year and a half while he was battling cancer. And so visions of watching his face and the mortality like when you when you know, somebody that you love, and watching their face changes, they’re realising that their days are numbered, and they’re going to die. And they don’t want to go when they have a lot to do. Those images would haunt me, so I couldn’t sleep for quite a few years, used to have severe nightmares. And yeah, i That’s why I believe so wholeheartedly in this university of self realisation and why I give to the to divine bliss, I give my time and a portion of proceeds. And it’s my why, because when it felt like there was no hope for my family, like in all totality, it felt at the time, that was a place that I could go that just felt safe. And I could regroup, and I could process and I could heal, and I spent so after I got everything in place, and it was all calm. And you know, I bought the systems in place. I took two years where I only worked a day a week, the team handled the rest of it, I just, I was mostly in a garden, a communal garden, learning the beauty of nature and connecting to vegetables, and I would only eat what I had grown in my garden. So yeah, it’s been been through some hard times.

Dan Kuschell 32:59

Fascinating. And, you know, here you are 10 years later, making an even bigger impact writing a new book. You’ve got so many fascinating stories of success. I’m curious, Amanda, you know, so here you are 10 years later, knowing what you know, now, what advice, if any, would you give Amanda 10 years ago?

Amanda Holmes 33:26

The first thing that comes up to me, honestly is don’t do it. Now, it’s you know, it’s wonderful. And I’m very grateful. And I get great opportunities that I never, you know, I’m 10 years ahead of what majority of the people my age are normally experiencing, I would say because of the opportunities that I’ve gotten. But yeah, the only person in my life that was saying yes, absolutely was my girl. She was like, it’s part of your destiny. You can do it. Just step in and like step in, I write songs, I sing and do meditation this day, so I just feel like that’s so inspiring. Don’t do it run for the hills.

Dan Kuschell 34:14

That’s that’s entrepreneurship, though. I mean, that’s the truth. Like that’s the

Amanda Holmes 34:21

freakish problem where I just love challenge and I wish it wasn’t so critically intense. Like I decided on a drop of a hat to climb Kilimanjaro, which is the largest free standing mountain in the world. 19,342 feet in the air. And I didn’t train for it at all. I have this problem. I should stop. I run towards a challenge. Everybody’s running the other way. And I’m like, Yeah, let’s go for it. So any work on that?

Dan Kuschell 34:49

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And thank you for taking us behind the scenes right and being vulnerable and sharing your journey. What are 1 to 3 action steps you hope our viewers or listeners take for more time.

Amanda Holmes 35:07

I would think, hopefully, it gave a little bit of a pause for you to think of maybe even your own path in life, like a little bit of mortality, I always like to bring up mortality, because we don’t talk about it’s not really the sexy thing. I mean, people try to make it sexy, but I like to get real and raw about it. Because it’s a reality. Nobody comes out of life alive. Right? That’s right. So that’s number one, maybe a little shift in perspective there. Number two, read chapter four, no brainer. Number three, maybe I just hope maybe some nuggets of the market data make you think twice about, you know, the kind of marketplace that we’re living in, and, and make sense of why some things seem harder. Because trends are growing at such a rapid rate.

Dan Kuschell 36:00

That’s amazing. And I want to encourage you, you know, as you’re watching, as you’re listening, take action with what Amanda has been sharing with you, right? Number one, you know, think about your journey. Think about your path, right? Are you really doing it for you? Are you doing what you’re called to do and not your mom or your dad or some friend or your employees or your team? Or? I mean, the list can go on and on just depending cut the cord? What are you doing for you? What’s your journey? Number two, get chapter four. And I’m gonna go deeper. I’m gonna say get chapter four, get the book and go to how to double sales.com? Like, right, the second like, if you didn’t do it already, what are you waiting for? are crying out loud? Do it now. Go get the book. Okay, you can get Chapter Four to start with that maybe as your first step. And then the next thing is make sure you go check out what Amanda is doing. Right? It’s amazing. I mean, to just I mean, her spirit, her joy, her lessons. I mean, there’s so much wisdom that you can learn from Amanda, and what they’re doing. So go take action right now and apply everything she says she talked about market data lead with market data, not product or service data. Think of your core story, what can you do to develop a an even stronger, more effective core story or core message? Right? What can you do like today? And What’s it costing you if you don’t I mean, she shared the story of Troy $12 million in business when the average does 8 million in a year. And he did that in two weeks. Hyper Growth, if you want Hyper Growth apply, what if you don’t want hyper growth and you just kind of want to stay or even fall backwards or be one of the statistics of failing? Well, that I guess do nothing with this. But if you really want to get results. I challenge you, I encourage you, I give you a high five, go for it take action with what Amanda has shared with you as a gift today. So Amanda, it’s been great to have you here. Really, really grateful for the time and I will take you up on your invitation as well. So take action, take action with what she shared. Seize the day. Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com. Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall and growing your business? Let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. Do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com That’s breakthroughstrategycall.com. In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free Small Business toolkit. You can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com That’s activate.breakthrough3x.com. If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.

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