You're listening to the Vault Unlocked, where the real secrets of success are revealed. Every episode, one founder, one confession, one strategy that created income scale and unstoppable growth. The code is cracked, the vault is open. Today, I'm excited. We have Anne Carden from Million Dollar Leap. Million Dollar Leap. I want to know what The Leap is, Anne. How are we doing today?
Or more, let's just say, or more. Or more, she said.
Or more, I love it.
Kavon, thanks so much. It's great to be here with you.
Yeah, It's fantastic. I know we're talking a little bit before, and I'm really excited to dig in and understand more of what you're doing. For the audience, people listening right now, just so we can get on the seventh page, tell us a little bit who is Anne, what Anne do? How does she get to this point?
Yeah. So Anne is... This is my sixth and seventh business. I've sold five previous businesses that I've built. So today, I mainly help professional entrepreneurs, service-based businesses that really want to play in the premium market. They want to build their business with a handful of clients, make that million dollar leap with a handful of clients. That might be five, that might be two, that might be 10, that might be 20. But it's a very different model from what a lot of people are out there teaching. And I help be doing that with them. I also have to help them look like the expert, and they deserve the premium fees that they're wanting. So everything from offer creation business model to scaling that and Messaging, marketing, positioning, sales, all of it.
I love it. And you said million dollar a week, not million dollar a month. You said to get people doing a million dollar a week with a handful of clients in the service-based business. This is why I'm excited. This is my world. This is all This is what I've been doing for the last 10 years. So I'm excited just to really deep dive into all of this. How did you stumble upon this? Let's take a little step. You said you sold businesses. How did we get to this point? Let's just learn a little bit more about your background in history.
Yes. So in my second business, it started as a fitness business. It grew into a large health club. And back then... Well, first of all, if I go back to my corporate career, I was always in a luxury market. I was in business management for high-end retailers. I had the fur department and the cosmetic department and really high-end department stores, multimillion dollar departments. I guess subconsciously, I gravitated to that whole luxury thing. But when I got into my second business with fitness, and when we started building on that, I quickly realized I wasn't making the money I wanted with just charging gym fees. At that time, I was very small. I was just teaching fitness classes in a community hall. It was my next thing. I realized, wow, I'm not going to make a lot of money like this. But I was also helping people with nutrition. Now, I want to just say this was 25 years ago. Nutrition and fitness and all that was not on every corner. It wasn't like it is today. I came up with an idea for an offer that would put both of those things together, and it would be like a 30-day, I called it Body Blast.
It was a 30-day program, and it became a million-dollar offer for me way back when. As my clubs grew, I always played in the premium market. Everything that I did was on the high end. We were the highest club. I had the doctors and the lawyers and the business people.
Premium pricing.
Yes. We even had back then almost a $12,000 offer, a gym offer, which was literally unheard of.
When we say back then, are we talking like pre-funnel back then?
Are we talking- Oh my gosh, 25 years ago. Yeah, 20 years ago. Totally. Okay. The internet wasn't even a thing.
We're talking to an O. G. Here.
Yes.
We're talking about someone doing offers. This was paper copy. This is before internet, almost.
I had to run ads the old fashioned way. Yes. Okay. Ads, a newspaper. I'm definitely one of the originals. We had an offer that was almost $12,000, and we sold it. It included nutrition and fitness and some training and all of that. But that That was just not even a thing back then. The people that bought into that were the wealthier people. I learned that model when I first... I built two health clubs, two weight loss centers, sold all of those. I had a business before that that actually did go global. It was a doll craft business. It went global before the internet. That happened because I was running a manufacturing company out of my home. That went global because I was advertising in international magazines. I was shipping all over the world. That was that whole thing. So five businesses in. My last two businesses, I worked with a business coach, and it was so impactful. I thought, Oh, my gosh, I could do this with other people. I could take all my years of experience and not College and everything. And I was really deep into marketing and learning marketing. And I had been doing sales since I was a kid, so I thought I could teach other people.
But when I came into the coaching space, I didn't really know anybody at that time. Again, this was almost 15 years ago. I didn't know anyone that could really teach me how to build out the coaching business. I just did what I knew to do, and I went to business owners and said, Hey, let me coach you. Let me see if I can do this. I got them incredible results, except guess who wasn't making any money?
Well, I know exactly who was not making money.
No, they were making a lot of money.
Just for the audience, just in case they didn't pick it up, right? And wasn't.
I was not.
Aka building everyone else's brand, watching everyone Did someone else get rich, and you were getting nothing from it.
I was getting nothing. I was very frustrated. I bought into a coaching organization thinking, Okay, I need all the bells and whistles, and I need the thing, right? They have the thing. And only to find out it was bringing me the wrong clients. It was bringing me low value clients. It was bringing me people that I wanted their success more than they did. So that didn't work so well. Yeah, and I had literally almost left that business. I thought this is... And also I was working locally with people, and I thought, this is not what I wanted. I'm not loving this. I'm not fulfilled. The people I'm working with, I can't even use my expertise because they're not ready for it. And so all of that happened. And as a result, What?
Could we call it energy drainers?
Yes. I thought this isn't what I wanted. I took a step back and I said, What is wrong here? I know how to build businesses. What is going on? What am I not doing that I know to do that I've been successful at in everything I've ever done? It came back to premium. You're not selling premium. You're selling your sofa nothing. You're giving away your time and your expertise, your years of experience for nothing.
Yeah. I do want to ask a question because premium is all in the mind of the closer, as I say. Premium is all in the mind of the subject. So when you say premium, I know what premium is to me in my industry. I know what your premium, I'm assuming, much different than mine. When we say premium, and we say services, let's just say, and we're talking about million dollar a week here, what are the costs? We're talking about ranges of some of the services that you help your clients get to.
Well, first of all, I want to ask you, what is premium in your world? I'm curious.
Oh, I love it. You're a salesperson. Flip it around. Well, it might just from the market that I live in, we say premium starts at 10, 10K and above. So we're talking about 10 to 50K offers. Anything over 100K offers, we just call them. I just call them six-figure offers, which are obviously premium. It's interesting because I wanted to get here, and we got here, is I was hoping to get there differently is why I love premium, and I'm sure you've learned this, and with my background in sales and what we teach is it is easier to sell a $50,000, $100,000 offer than it is to sell a $2,000 offer. Most people don't get that.
They don't get it.
The problem is a $2,000 offer is easier to sell than a $200 offer because a $200 buyer has $200 problems. A $100,000 buyer has $100,000 problems. You know what they don't have? Is $100,000 problem. They got million dollar problems. That's why I love premium. I was taught premium myself when I was younger, like stay premium, and I've always been like that. I've never ran sales team selling $50 or widgets. It's not worth it. But I love to hear your premium because I know we're talking north of six figures, I'm assuming.
Yeah. So typically when I think a premium, the rock bottom side for most of my clients is going to be 25 or 30K. 50k is going to be a pretty rinse and repeat offer for them. Six figures is going to be rinse and repeat, but even helping them get into multiple six figures. So a client of mine closed a $413,000 client. She said, I never really thought about making a million dollars with this side of my business. I can tell you what we did with her. But she said, But now I realize that's like two clients. That's what we're talking about.
Again, we're talking about quality of life. Not to make this about me, but I think it's really important. I had this problem in my own agency. I had an agent, and I shut it down because I was burning up. I had an agency where I was bringing on more clients, and the more clients I had to bring on, I had to bring on more headaches, more boys, more help, more people. And the revenue, and this is in my industry, real industry, we talk bottom line, but mine all says revenue. So my revenue was skyrocketing. My profits were plummeting. I mean, it was like, there was months where we do million dollar a month and I wouldn't even see a dollar, right? And I said, This is crazy. Fast forward, we do $2 million a month. I have four clients. I don't have 30 clients.
It's Very different. Yes.
I love this. This is why I love premium pricing. I love all of this. I want to hear what you did with this. There's so much I want to unpack here. But I want to get back to your... You were being a business coach and you were seeing what it was to charge a low dollar, and then you asked the big question, what do I know? What am I doing that I shouldn't be doing? And what am I not doing that I should be doing? And what it was, from what I'm gathering, was I'm not dealing with the A players, and I'm not charging A player pricing.
I actually hired an online business coach. I came online at that time, and I hired an online business coach, and she said, If you don't have a $50,000 offer, you can't sell it. And that was the first time I had been exposed to that. I thought, What would I sell for $50,000? I didn't get it. Again, this was 15 years ago, and I had no idea that would be a really rinse and repeat for a lot of my clients. And so that opened my mind. I'm always someone that says, when I see somebody say something like that, or I'll hear somebody say, I've had a million dollar hour. I'm like, I want to know how you had a million dollar hour, right? I'm always like, Okay, how can I do that? Not, Can I do that? A lot of people are like, Can I do that? Can I do that? Or, I can't do that?
They're not, How can I? Even if they say, Can I do that? They never will because they don't have the identity to assume that they're even capable and worthy of such a thing. We can go deep down. I'm sure you.
When I really opened my mind and I thought, Okay, I'm not going premium. I'm not working with the best clients here. I'm not even getting to utilize my skills. That's where my expert in U brand came from. I'm like, so I was in a coaching organization, and a lot of the business coaches were struggling. They were using their cookie cutter system. I was trying to use it. It wasn't working for me. That's when I took a step back and I thought, okay, and are you really working around your expertise? Or are you trying to use their stuff, their system, which isn't really your wheelhouse, to be honest. It's not like there wasn't value in it, but it wasn't my expertise. Your value, yeah. It wasn't. I said, No, you need to build around what you really know. When I did that, and I really got into a market... It's funny, though. I got into a market that I didn't have any experience in, but Somebody just gave me a shot. It was a contractor. It was a roofing company. He was running a multimillion dollar roofing company. When we had a conversation, he goes, I believe you can help me.
I started working with him, and then he just started referring business to me. I ended up in the contractor trades industry for a very long time coaching, and my business just blew up. But I also was getting now paid those high dollars. Another thing, get into a market where there's money, right? Yes. But But it was so minimal still compared to the leaps that I was helping them make in their business. And not just in the money, Kavon, also changing their life, like them getting their lives back, getting hours back. I remember he was working over 100 hours a week. He was exhausted. He had no time. When we got everything in place, and at that time it wasn't really around offers and everything, I was helping him in his business. When we got the systems and things in place, he got his life back. He started taking mission trips. He was golfing. Then he actually got an offer to buy out his business for almost three times the valuation. It was crazy.
It's so funny. I've seen this so many times. You hold on, you burn out, and then there comes a moment where the business owner of any business just takes the step back for a sec, breeze, and just ask those better questions like, How can I do this in less time with more impact? Wait and or hire the expert and then let 'til it works out.
I wasn't real good at pitching myself. He didn't really know what I could do with him, but I knew that I could help him. He knew me enough to know that I wouldn't just take his money, that I would really help him.
Now, just so I have a better understanding, who's your ideal client right now? Who do you work with? Service-based businesses, online, offline, what type of service?
Mostly online, but a lot of consultants that might be doing a lot of things offline, but I want to help them bring it online as much as they can and leverage their time. So teaching them systems that can now... And also a lot of them are doing all the offline work. Maybe they're going into companies or they are going into the businesses very much like I was, but they haven't done anything. They're not in a place to scale because they're trading time for money and they don't have offers in place that can help them scale and then learning how to do that online or making bigger leverage plays. So the people I work with now are experts. They need to level up their game. They should be getting paid more. They should be seen as better, all the things.
What type of expert are we talking? I think I have an idea. These are business coaches, these are leadership coaches, these are just consultants going into corporations and helping Helping to make whatever the job is. Is that correct?
I work with a lot of marketing consultants, honestly, and sales consultants.
Isn't it interesting how the marketing consultant needs the marketing consultant. It's interesting because I see it all the time. I would say this, it's harder to market and sell your own product than it is other people because you're going to get to attach just so many multiple facets there.
But also I bring things to the table that they maybe don't know or don't do. So they might have one thing, they might have something that they're selling in their agency. I think about one of my clients, this was years ago, but he had a media company, and he was killing himself networking. He was in my local market, and that's how I met him. But he was killing himself out there networking, and he was piecemeal in his business. He didn't have real structured offers, and he was literally just... He was wrecking his health, his marriage, all these things. I helped him package. Now, again, this was years ago. He was probably one of my first clients that I helped package a 30K offer. And then we niched him and I showed him how to sell that. Whoops, I think we froze. I'm going to hold off. I lost you there for a minute.
We lost each other there. Give me one second. I'm going to pause. One second. We were talking about your client. He was in the media company. He was working out. He was working his tail. I love what you said, probably going to lose his marriage. The kids were on the line. Everything's on the line just trying to get us together.
His Health, everything. It was tough.
Health, all of it. His spiritual, probably all of it, just in the gutter. And you came in and did your magic.
Well, I helped him put together a 30K offer. Now, this was probably 13 years ago. So at that time, that was fairly high. And it was a branding offer. We niched him, and his business exploded. I mean, 500 %. He was making so much money. But more than that, he also got his life back. He got his health back. He got over 20 hours a week back into his life, and then it kept getting better as he was growing. A lot of times, they don't know the business side of it. A lot of marketers are great marketers, but they don't know the business side of it. I I come with all of it. I come with the business, the marketing, and the sales plays. I like to say I'm an A to Z, so I'm not really a one-trick pony because I've done it all for 40 something years.
No, I love it. I want to get into it because I know we talked a little bit before. I'm like, It's all great. I want to know what is it you do? Number one, helping people create, what I'm going to say on average is a $50,000 offer. So is there a specific offer you know that works, or is it more understanding the nuance of the client you're working with and then putting in your systems and all of that? I want to go deep here and prove to the people listening, like how you do this. What is it you're doing? And I will add this so then I can let you Riff. It's one thing to have the offer. How do you, not not convince, but get your client to believe that they're worthy of that offer. So when they're pitching and selling it, they have more conviction and the clarity so people actually buy and believe it.
Yeah, that's That's a great question. First of all, most of the people, when they come to me because of the marketing I have out there, they already have probably seen me or heard me, and they already know in their gut, like they love what they're hearing. So I'll give you... I will Let's talk about the client that sold the $413,000 deal. Love it. Yeah. Okay. She was an agency owner, did social media. She already had a client. This is what's so crazy about this, and this is what I help people do. It's like, let's tap your warm market, the low hanging fruit, right? So I was on her podcast and she heard me talking about this, and we get off and she said, We got to talk. She said, I know, because one of the things I talk about is so often, Kavon, that people are giving away their highest value. Here's an example. You are trying to land a client on the back-end and you're giving away the strategy on the front-end. Your strategy is your biggest value. Why would you give that away? That is a 50K, 100K offer just by itself. I was talking about this, and the other thing is I see people being the extra pair of hands.
Consultants, for example, they're trading their time for dollars, and they're letting companies treat them like an employee. And they have a business, but they're treated like an employee in their own company, in their own business. So I talk about, are you an extra pair of hands? Is that how you're treated? Or are you a strategic partner? Are you a strategic advisor? Do people bring you in for your brain, for your knowledge, for your experience, because you've got wisdom and strategy and things that they don't know. You're looking at it with a different lens, right? But so many people don't even How do you think like that. And so I'm talking about this. And so she said, I see problems in the businesses that we're doing social media for. She said they have problems with their marketing team, with their sales team. And She was really brilliant at stuff. And when she started sharing with me all the things, she said, I love what you said about being a trusted partner, like not doing all the stuff. So she said, I want to create an offer. So we came up with a 52,000 $50,000 offer for her.
She wanted to actually go back and present to a client that was paying her monthly for her services.
Can we talk a little bit? What was in that offer? What would be in a $50,000 offer? Just some of the deliverables.
All it was was her strategy. It was just her brain. That was it. But the way we laid out the offer, it was so clear. They're like, This is what they said. We didn't even know you could do this. We didn't even know. Yeah, we're in. Boom. Invoice, right? She gets in there, and in the first 30 days, and this is part of what I teach them, too, this isn't your play. Your play is, is there more on the back-end? Absolutely. This is the rinse and repeat part, right? You can sell this over and over again. We positioned it and all of that. They were like, Yeah, we want this. Think about a lead generation offer. It is that, but it's at a high level. It's not a $5 lead generation offer. She gets in there, and the first 30 days, she starts really showing them, and she starts working with their teams. That was the other thing. She was going to work with their teams and show them what needed to change. Well, once she did that. They were so blown away by her expertise. Now, I can only do this with experts and people that know what they're doing.
But they were so blown away. They said, We want you to take over everything. She took over their whole... Excuse me. Sorry about that. I had a frog in my throat. She took over their whole marketing thing. It turned out to be a $413,000 offer. They were already paying her a few thousand dollars a month. Now it turned into over $413,000. That's what we're talking about. For the year. Yeah, for the year. So she said, I had no idea that I could build a million dollar business doing what I was doing. The thing is, she didn't have to give up what she was doing on the back-end. She already had the team in place. She already had the agency. She had everything. But it opened the door to something transformational that was really such a change for her agency as well. Those are the kinds of things that I like to help people. It could be an IT consultant that's going in and showing people they need all these IT services and management provider services, but they're giving away the assessment and all of that on the front. So it can be different for different businesses.
And what I look at is what is your opportunity to have that? I call it a gateway, an expert gateway offer. What is your opportunity to have that gateway expert offer? And then I show them how they can close bigger deals on the back-end with that or along with that. So, hey, even if you don't want to buy into our big thing, we can at least do this. And if you don't want to continue working with us, no worries. Well, what happens? They always want to continue with them. Yeah.
Do you do audits?
Like many audits? Some do. Yeah. So depending, again, I think about one of my clients wanted to be in the manufacturing space, and he was brilliant in manufacturing and had such a huge background in that internationally. And so we put together one of these offers for him to go in and do an initial assessment. I don't even remember what the positioning was anymore, but how he could basically make them more profitable and more efficient and through efficiency. So he could go in and assess, but then, hey, you want help putting all this in place. And that's really the play. So there's three ways, either something they're not charging for that they could be. It is something that they I just lost my train of thought. Something they're not charging for, something that could be a brand new offer for them.
Yeah, a new opportunity that they haven't seen.
A new opportunity or an advisory, like a strategic advisory offer, where they're going in and they're basically looking with an extra set of eyes to design a roadmap for them or a blueprint or showing them where the gaps are and all that thing. Those are the three ways I help people implement this.
What would be your core genius? Now, I know we could say, Hey, premium offers, but within that, what would you say your core genius is?
I have this way of being able to see the value that people can bring to the market. Just in a conversation with them, I'm like, Oh, my gosh. That's how I a lot of times get these people. They'll hear me talking and I'll say, You know what? And I'll just talk to them like, What's your expertise? And they'll start talking and I'm like, Whoa, you are leaving so much money on the table. It's so obvious to me, but I think it just comes from so many years of experience. But the interesting thing, Kavon, I've done this with plumbing companies. I've done this with auto repair shops. I've either bundled them or I've always found ways for them to get bigger place, for them to get bigger financial leaps with less.
I see the core genius being your ability to see the millions of dollars consultants are leaving on the table and the ability to create offers because you've used the word offer a lot and be able to create offers to go after those millions of dollars that they don't even I saw that as you were speaking. That's why I asked. I said, I think I figured out everyone has a core genius and you can see the opportunity that lies there.
The other side of that is I'm very creative in how I help them put those offers together. I call them million dollar offers. So that when they actually present it to the client, it's like such a no brainer for the client that they almost would feel stupid saying no.
That's the- Yeah, yeah. Doing offers that they feel stupid for saying no. Alex Ramosey says that. So the other side, too, you talked about, Okay, you can create this million dollar offer, $50,000 offer, but you said you also help them live up to that offer, show that they're worthy of that offer. So I'm going to assume that we're talking more branding a little bit, positioning, market positioning and brand. Is that correct?
So often, again, when they come to me, they know that they feel like they should be doing more. They should be playing the more premium, like they love what they're hearing. So that's the first thing I look at. I am not about convincing people. It's like you have to know in your gut, oh, I deserve to make more, just like I did back when I'm like, this isn't working for me, right? So they know that when they come to me. They just don't know how to put the pieces together. But when we create the offer and we come up with the pricing, that might be six figures. It might be a couple of hundred thousand right out of the gate. There always is this, wow, this sounds amazing, but can I? So I have a few different ways that I'll work with clients on that. One way is I literally will walk them through why they can. So I'll give you an example. I use this on another podcast today, but not to repeat myself. But it's just one person I'm thinking of. He had a PhD. He was amazing in the leadership space, but he had a background with colleges and universities and all of that.
And he came to me, he wanted something higher. I don't remember what his highest thing had been, like 15,000 or something. I said, Okay, we put everything together. I said, Let's make this like a 60K front-end offer. He said, That sounds really amazing. And I would love to do that, but can I do that? So I said, Okay, let's just break this down. So this is what I take my clients through. How many years did it take you of schooling to get your PhD and where you are right now? And he told me, How much money did that cost you? Hundreds of thousands, right? How many years did you work in your industry, learning what you've learned, blah, blah, blah. And he tells me all this. And I said, So tell me about a result that you've gotten from some of your past clients. And he said, Well, one guy, he was only making 100,000 a year. He was in a job. And then I actually helped him triple his income by what I was helping him do. And I said, okay. And I said, that's a pretty good play, don't you think? And I said, so if we're targeting universities, specifically tech teams, that's who we were targeting, because we do that, too.
Like, who's the target? We're targeting universities and tech teams. I said, do they have budgets for someone like you? And he goes, yeah. I said, so what would make you think you couldn't sell a $60,000 upfront offer? All All the money, all the years, all the results that you've already gotten for people. And so when I take them through that process, and I'm really just shining a light on their brilliance already. That's all I'm doing. I'm holding a mirror up to them.
You just key word is a mirror. A lot of my stuff is this deep reflection. I call it the mirror method, which is the reflection of yourself, and you can't outsell your identity.
You can't see it.
You can't out earn your identity, and you can out consult your identity. It's interesting because there's a couple of things that popped up for me. I know people, consultants that play that small game thinking they can't do it. They lose deals because- Yeah, because you repel the best people.
Yes.
People want to see a $90,000, $150,000, and you go to them with a 20,000 thinking it's so out of their budget. So you really help navigate that journey.
I do. I'm really clear about- How do you help them position themselves? Yeah. I could even tell you another story, too, going along with what you just said. But as far as positioning themselves, I put them in a category of one. So when we create their offer, there's nothing else like it out there. It has a different message. It has a different name. We always name their offer. It always has a proprietary name, just like my Expert and You, my Million Dollar Leap, Body Blast, build a million dollar brand around that. So I always teach them to name that. And this is a great play for people, too, that are listening. Name it where it shows the result. You can clearly see that there's something in it, like expert in you even, tells people it's about you and your expertise, right? Million Dollar Leap. That's pretty clear. So when we create their offers, it's always branded around the results that they are able to get their clients and what the clients would be wanting. That's the other piece of it, too. But you were asking, you were saying something about clients, and they repel people.
So a quick story. I was working with a client, and she had gone down the funnel route, and she had done the $3,500, 90-day thing, and she was working with clients that weren't a fit, and she was frustrated. And she found me on LinkedIn, and she reached out, and she said she had been watched a lot of stuff. And she said, I want to work with you. I know you can help me. And so I start unpacking what her brilliance is. And she was phenomenal in sales, had done massive sales. She knew how to... She could pick apart webinars and teach people what they're doing wrong with their webinars and their sales teams. I'm like, That's your play. So we start to put together the offer. This was our first call. We didn't even have the offer completely together. But when I started saying, That's your play, and this is what you could be doing, she goes, Oh, my gosh, I know who I could sell this to. And she reaches out to somebody on LinkedIn that was in her network, and she goes, Hey, I'm going to start doing this. They were actually a client from a company she had worked with before.
They knew her. She said, I'm going to start doing this as a consulting thing. They said, Let's get on a call. She gets on a call with them. She comes back, and she says, I get an email from her, and she said, Okay, this is what I'm going to help them do. I'm going to charge them $10,000, which was three times more than she had ever charged. I said, No, you're not going to charge them $10,000. I knew I couldn't get her to $100, but I said, That's a $50,000 deal to start. Start with them at $50, and she goes, Really? We're on this call and I said, Yes, no, this is worth fifty thousand. If you fix one or two things in their webinar, do you know the money they're going to make? A hundred. A hundred. Yeah. She goes, Okay, so she puts together the proposal, goes back, they're like, Yeah, well, that turned into over six figures. That ended up being a bigger play for her, too. But that's exactly... That was a perfect example. Here's what she said, and she says this in a video testimonial. If I would have charged them the 10, they wouldn't have taken me seriously, and they would have run.
I said, That's exactly right.
If they're not willing to spend the 10, if they're not willing to spend the 20, they're not the right- They're not the right fit.
That's right. That's the hard- No, your value.
But they're not the right fit. I just turned down a 20K offer the other day.
I turned people down.
They were willing to spend 20 grand with me, and I was like, No. No. I could just tell because the way they were asking about the contract, and I'm like, no.
Yeah, big red flag, right?
Red flag.
Yeah. It's interesting when clients come to me, they're not sitting there picking apart like, Okay, how are we going to do everything? No, that's what I said three months. No, they're like, Okay, Anne, just tell me how I work with you and what's the investment of that? Then when I send them the agreement, I'm like, We're going to get on this many calls. But I go over that after they say yes. They say yes before I ever say, Okay, this is how we're going to do it and personally work together.
What does it look like to work with you? Who do you got to be? What investment does someone need to be around to be able to even start having a conversation with you?
Typically, my lowest offer is going to be around 25, and then it goes up from there. It just depends on what they need and how long they want to work with me and what we're trying to accomplish. But 25 is the low end with most of my clients. The thing is, I also help people make money typically pretty fast. So even if I help them get one 50,000... If they're paying me 50,000 because they want to bring in six-figure clients, even if they get one client, they're going to double their money. So I look at that, but I only take on people that I really feel they have something that I can work with, and I really believe I can get them the results. And I feel like they're in the right mindset for that as well.
They're ready to grow. What was coming up for me, I wanted to mention this, is it sounded like the way you're speaking, Hey, they will come to me when. And it's like, people don't find Anne. Anne finds you when you're ready.
Probably. That's probably true.
That's when I was coming to me because I had a consultant once, and I said, How come I never heard this guy? Like, This guy, wow, this guy's a weapon. I remember the guy saying, he's like, You don't go finding Scott. Scott finds you when you're ready.
I mean, I'm out there, but yeah, they- I feel like that people know because you're saying they watch your video.
They come to you, they know. They already know what they're going to get into. They already know what you're about. They don't need to prove. They don't need to think about it. They're They're in or they're out, and I'm going to waste your time because you position yourself with premium.
It's all around positioning. I'm not looking for this. It's about being bold. I'm not afraid. I just shared my pricing right. I'm not afraid because I don't want 5K clients to me. I don't even have anything for that. Now, maybe at some point I'll create a course or something. I just haven't gone down that route. It doesn't light me up. I do what lights me up in my business. This is my sixth and seventh business. If it doesn't light me up, I'm not in. You're not Right. Yeah.
So what's the vision here? Where does Anne go from here? What are you wanting to build? What's the legacy play?
Yeah. So first of all, I'm old.
Just for everyone who's listening, listening and is not old. She doesn't look a day past 35, just so we're all right.
Okay. So a couple of things. First, I'm really going all in on Million Dollar Leap, which is around helping people create a 50K plus rinse and Repeat offer, and then helping them put the systems in place to build that. So a million dollar leap with a handful of clients. It might be 50K, but it's been 75 for some of my clients. It might be six figures for another. But I'm saying 50K and up, okay? So that's my next big offer. And the way I'm doing that, I'm actually going to collapse time and do that with them in about 60 to 90 days. So it's not even going to be a long play with them because those are the results I've been able to help people get pretty quickly. If they're already an expert, they've already been doing things, it's much easier to get them faster results than if they're starting from nothing.
Yeah, they already have a little bit of momentum.
Yeah, so that's my big thing. Then the other side is I'm building up my agency because at some point, I'll probably want to sell that like I've sold my other businesses. Yeah, two things.
The million dollar leap within 90 days. You work with Anne- Well, I'm not promising that.
I can't promise that, right? But they get the systems. They'll have what they need to go and do. They'll have the offers, the revenue model, the marketing systems.
They'll have what they need. Within 90 days, you'll be positioned and set up to implement the million-dollar plan, which is $50,000 rinse and Repeat offer. And at that point, you only need a handful of clients in a year to make your million dollars.
That's it.
As a result, you get your life back, you get your time back, you get your sanity back, and you're not running around doing a million things. One of the biggest keys, you said, which I love, is you not ended up being an employee of the company, you not being the strategic partner, and they view you as the strategic partner. That's right. They trust and like you. And when you give them recommendations, if they don't push back, they say yes and implement. So not only do you have less clients to deal with, you have better higher-end clients who trust in everything you're saying implement, which gets you more results, which ends up being the flywheel that gets you more clients because you're helping them get better results in less time. Because all I know is this, and I learned this hard in my agency. I used to say this, then listen, In order to be effective, you got to be selective, a. K. A. Client selection is everything. The wrong client can destroy your company, can bring down the entire house.
Yeah. And the other thing, too, that we really didn't talk about, but I do want to put this out there. I also work with experts that want to get into consulting or coaching. A lot of them are already... A lot of my clients now, they're already running businesses, but now they want to step into coaching and consulting other people to teach the success that they've had very much like I did. And so they are also these high-end clients because they don't have to start out at the bottom just because coaching or consulting is new for them. They're still teaching people what they know and what they've learned. That's why I start them out premium. We start them out at really high-end offers as well. Or maybe they're coming from corporate, from a C-suite. We start them out at 200K plus offers. Yeah.
Do you help them with If someone's coming, you say they're an expert in their field, but they're now at the point where they're like, I want to go on my own. They want to be able to bring their expertise to other companies, let's say. So they don't have the website, they don't have the podcast, they don't even have any marketing, really. But they have one thing that the company needs is their actual expertise. How do you get them positioned in a way and do all of that in such a short period of time so that when they are reaching out to these companies and/or doing the sales process, They're being positioned as that expert. And if someone looks at them, they can go find them and it's all set up.
Yeah. We actually do a really a crunch program with them. So first thing I'll help... So when I help them launch an expert... So I help them build an expert platform, and we try to do that really quick. So we'll do that. Linkedin is typically the place because that's typically where their clients are going to be. We get them positioned right on LinkedIn, even if they have to get a website built. And I I have a team that can build that for them and all of that. But I get them into a strategy that will build their visibility, build their credibility, and their expertise at the same time, it can be bringing them clients, where it can be getting them into conversations with clients. So it might be speaking, it might be running a virtual event, it might be launching a live show or a podcast, and they're actually inviting their perfect clients to be a guest on their podcast. And then I show them how to turn that into a call.
Is that how you use your Yes.
I use it two ways. I get great referral partners from it, and I've built incredible partnerships. I use it also to interview people that could be clients, but I also am very selective of the podcast I guest on because same thing, I'm either looking for referral partners or I'm looking for somebody that might want my services. Absolutely. We're very strategic about it.
I love it. Give me the pitch because this is the pitch me show and We're coming to the end and I love to hear your pitch because there's so much you do and I've been thinking like, Oh, I can't wait to hear it. If we're in the elevator and someone goes, And what is it you do? What do you typically say?
I help people who are really experts at what they do, level up their business and get into the top 1% and work with premium, really high-end clients, and build a million-dollar or beyond business business with just a handful of clients.
How do you think you did there?
Well, you could probably fix me a little bit.
I think we can, and we're going to fix you a little bit here. Okay? So that's great, but everyone talks like that. And it's, okay, I help, I help, I help. I'm a big fan of did you know or as a result of. And so I'm a big fan of what we call a wow statement. So what is a wow statement in your industry? I'm sure you know some wow statements, meaning did you know 92 % of most coaches and consultants charge less than $10,000 a year and something like that, right? So you get that, whoa. Did you know that most consultants burn out within the first three years of consultancy because they charge low dollars and deal with headache clients? I love that. What I do, or as a result of what we do, is we show them how to charge premium pricing with premium offers so they get their time, energy back and make more profits.
I love it. Or we could say, Most of them, only 6% make more than six figures. Okay, perfect.
6%, okay, perfect. That's even all. Did you know that only 6%, do we even have an idea of how many? I don't even know how many. Say, there's probably millions, but like- Well, I mean, the coaching and consulting industry just hit over a trillion dollars and only six.
Wow. Okay, so there we go.
This is a wow statement. Did you know that the coaching and service industry just hit a trillion? Would you say trillion?
Over a trillion.
Over a trillion dollars, and only 6% of the population makes over six figures.
Over 100,000, which is- Over 100, you're right, and over $100,000 a year.
What I do is I show coaches and consultants how to charge premium pricing with premium offers so they can be in the other 97, in the top 6%, right? And then the question goes, Well, how do you do that? And that's how you open up the conversation. Because when someone goes, How do you do that? You got them. You got their trigger. As we come to Where can people find you? This is so fast. I almost feel like we need to do another one. We didn't have enough time here, but how do you- Hey, I'm in.
I love it. This is fun.
Yeah. And how can someone find you? They were like, I know this. This is what I needed to hear. Anne is going to solve my problem.
Yeah, you can go to my website at annlcarden. Com, and you can book a call there, or you can check. You can get my books, my books are on Amazon. And yeah, all my stuff's there. And my podcast, everything's there. So just hit up my website. Also, I love to connect with people on LinkedIn and on social, so reach out to me. I'm very friendly, and I will talk to you.
I love it. Well, Anne, I want to say, again, thanks so much for being a guest here with Pitch Me, and that is another episode.
Thank you. My pleasure.
And that was another episode of The Vault Unlocked, where Proven Builder's real strategies and unstable growth happens. Subscribe now. The next Unlock could be your success. The code is cracked, the vault is open.
Most consultants and coaches burn out not because they lack expertise, but because they undervalue it. In this episode of The Vault Unlocked, Kayvon Kay sits down with Ann Carden, a six-time business builder and seller who specializes in helping service-based entrepreneurs make million-dollar leaps with just a handful of premium clients. Ann reveals why charging $50,000+ isn't just possible—it's essential for sustainability. From her early days building health clubs without the internet to closing $413,000 deals for her clients, Ann breaks down the psychology and strategy behind premium offers. Kayvon and Ann explore why a $100,000 client is easier to work with than a $2,000 one, how to position yourself as a strategic partner instead of an extra pair of hands, and why most experts are leaving millions on the table by giving away their highest value upfront.If you've ever wondered how to escape the client treadmill and build a business that gives you your life back, this conversation delivers the blueprint. You'll discover: ✓ Why premium clients are easier to close and work with than budget buyers ✓ How to package your expertise into $50K+ offers that clients say yes to immediately ✓ The three types of gateway offers that open doors to six-figure deals ✓ Why giving away strategy upfront kills your ability to scale ✓ How to position yourself so clients never question your pricing ✓ The mindset shift from "Can I charge this?" to "Why wouldn't I?" ✓ Real examples of consultants 3X-ing their income in 90 days or less