Stop Being an Entrepreneur, Be a CEO
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Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show. Today, we're cracking the code of CEO transformation with Michael E. Parker, the architect behind countless seven-figure business successes. Michael's journey from Toyota's operational excellence to becoming the seven-figure CEO maker is a testament to the power of systems thinking and strategic offer creation.

In this episode, Michael unveils the four core offers that transform struggling entrepreneurs into thriving CEOs. From his revolutionary Freedom Trifecta to the game-changing CEO Framework, which stands for Charge, Expand, and Overcome, he's about to revolutionize your approach to business leadership.

You'll discover why your current entrepreneurial mindset might be keeping you stuck at six figures and how a simple shift from problem solving to systems creation can catapult your business to seven figures and beyond. Michael's strategies are practical, proven, and designed for immediate implementation. So if you're tired of being stuck in the entrepreneur trap and ready to become a true CEO, tune in. Michael's insights could be the breakthrough your business has been waiting for.

The show starts now. Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show, where we don't just discuss success, we show you how to create it. On every episode, we uncover the strategies and tactics that turn everyday entrepreneurs into unstoppable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives. Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive seven, eight, or nine figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there.

The show starts now. All right, everybody, welcome back. I'm excited about this one because this talks about the differences between being six figures and seven figures, the difference between an entrepreneur and what it takes to be a CEO. Michael, man, I am so excited to have you here. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me, Charles. It's such a pleasure to be with you. So tell everybody a little bit about you and where you are before we get into the details of this. Tell everybody a little bit about you and how you got where you are right now.

Well, I started off, Charles, I was really someone that was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in business. And, you know, fortune would have it that while I was wrapping up my bachelor's degree in business operations and procurement, I actually got hired by Toyota. They had a special operation in California where Toyota and General Motors had came together. And it was very unique. There was a lot of dynamics that were interesting, but it just so happened that there were problems

in North America. I was in my early twenties, just getting going. And they sent Akil Toyota, who is the grandson of the founder of Toyota, someone in the real Toyota family. But I think you have to be 60 years old to be the president or whatever. So he was going through this whole journey of getting the education he needed to prep him. Everyone knew he was going to be the next president and now chairman. So he comes there and I give him a presentation. He loved it.

And the next thing I know, he handpicked me to be a part of a special project team, sent me to Japan. And I saw some of the greatest operational excellence in the world. And it taught me about systems. It taught me about operations. And, you know, to fast forward after getting that experience and really becoming, you know, very profound and proficient, I should say, in the lean management disciplines.

I was able to break away and become an entrepreneur. And so for the last two decades, I've started, you know, many, many businesses. And by starting those businesses, I started to understand a framework that actually helps entrepreneurs.

to move a business from six figures to seven figures. I had a lot of businesses that made six figures, but it wasn't until I learned how to really be a CEO and how to think differently. And I found that it's actually that you have to learn how to be not just the CEO of the business, but the CEO of yourself, as well as learning more about wealth as well, since you know how all these work together to create a freedom. And so this is what I'm

passionate about is seeing, you know, you know, entrepreneurs move from just the art of solving problems to actually building systems that run a business so that that business can scale.

I think it's one of the most important things that people never talk about, the difference between an entrepreneur and a CEO. It's a completely different world. Being an entrepreneur, you're going to get to that six-figure mark with brute force. You can just put in the hours. You can put an average week for an entrepreneur is about 80 hours a week. That's pretty normal for when you're into that. You're just grinding in. You're smashing against the wall over and over and over again. But

But as we were talking about off camera before we started, there's a huge difference between a CEO and an entrepreneur. I'd love to have you kind of give more insight on that.

Yeah. Well, I think when you think about an entrepreneur, anybody who can really solve a real problem, we could say as an entrepreneur, we have inventors who are coined as entrepreneurs. And this is why so many people make a mistake, Charles, as I know you well know, because they can cook, they think they can start a restaurant because they know how to do certain things and they have the

talent, they think it translates to running a business and they find out very quickly, well, no, you can solve a problem in terms of people being hungry and you can help them feel full and even like your food. But running a business is a total different thing. So when you think about an entrepreneur, you simply understand that there's a problem in the market and you know how to solve that problem and people will pay you for it. And you can get to six figures just from just solving a

problem with. But if you want to be a CEO, a CEO is actually able to think about the systems that would make that business work and actually begin to systemize the business so that now there is something to actually run the business. So people make the mistake and think that the CEO is the big boss. They're the ones who, the one who is in charge, the one who has the last say, the one who's the decision maker. Those things are true.

But the biggest thing a CEO could ever do is put the right systems in place and then let those systems run the business. The person who's the CEO that always has to run everything, they have just created a sense of self-employment and not actually having a business that is actually accomplishing a goal with or without them. And so this is where we start to see the power of understanding what a CEO is truly supposed to do versus what people think the label means.

Right. And for me, one of the sexiest words in the world is systems. I always talk about this all the time, that systems set you free and that systems help you automate things. You've seen systems from a different angle. You've seen it overseas. I haven't been over to Japan yet. It is on my list.

But when you go into that and you look at these, how would you describe to an entrepreneur when they're walking in going, I've heard of systems. I've heard Charles talk about systems. Michael, I've heard you talk about systems. What the heck is a system? Because they've heard me talk about it dozens of times. Getting your insight from a different angle is so important. So what is your synthesis on what a system is?

Well, there's a lot of ways, and I agree with you. There's so many different ways to talk about it. But something I always like to point out is the difference between a process and an operation and a system. A process is, you know, I'm trying to go from here to here in a way that delivers value to a distinct goal.

An operation is something you find inside of a process. It's like one of the boxes on my process map. I can have an operator. I might have five operations that make up a process. In that operation, I have steps and there's steps in the operation that I must fulfill. But a system is different.

A system may have a mixture of processes, operations, and standards that all work together toward creating a standard outcome from how this whole thing's working. When we think about the transportation system, you think about it, there's the traffic side. There's what you can do on the freeway or expressway. There's what you do on the streets. There's what you have

to do if some particular thing comes up. There's all these rules we have to learn. And when you look at how you go through driver's education, you take your driver's test, and then there's a police system to make sure that you're following the system. So all of that works together to make the transportation system work.

It has many elements to it. So when you think about system, you're able to describe how many different pieces work together for the whole. So when you think about the way you develop team members in your business, you think about the way that you actually generate leads in your business or the way that you convert a sale. There might be many elements to it. It's not just one thing. So this is the difference with systems. Systems combine things.

the different things necessary to get a outcome to be consistent. And sometimes it's not just one thing, it can be multiple things that come together to make that happen. We even talk about the different systems that's in the body, right? So we've got a metabolic system, we've got a cardiovascular, all these things that make the body work. So there's a system of how my body works and then there are subsystems

that support the bigger system of how the body works. So all of these things are great examples. I love when you go to the airport, for example, there's a visual control system where you can walk through this big old airport. No one comes and meets you. No one tells you where to go, but there's signs everywhere. There's visuals, there's indicators, there's triggers, there's all kinds of sounds, there's all kinds of

things that tell you where to go. And you might look at your boarding pass and you're walking around and no one is telling this big monstrosity of an airport, but it's all governed by color codes and visuals and words. Someone put a system in place that you know certain pictures mean bathroom. Other pictures mean a gate. Other pictures mean safety. Other pictures mean danger.

This is all a system that someone thought through and it works to get us a consistent outcome because they've thought about how all the pieces work together to create a whole. Right. Right. And what I love about that is that is the difference between an entrepreneur and a CEO. A CEO is focused on systems building. And you've done this multiple times. You've talked about how, you know, some of the people come to you, they're making, you know, maybe 20K a month. You've taken them from making 20K a month to having a half a million dollar month's

Can you talk about one of the systems you've done with one of your clients and kind of some of the stuff that, hey, this is what they kind of ran into. I know you're going to be begging up. We don't want to give anybody away here. But going in and saying, hey, this is one of the systems and the things we did in that environment. Because I think the listeners will understand. Okay, I get it. A system is involved where it gets the result without having any involvement whatsoever. Airport. Makes sense. Got it. That's not working business. Can you kind of share an example there?

Well, one of the greatest things that I love to help some of my clients with is to really understand the system of how to take what you offer and I'm just say what you provide and organize it into an offer.

So we have different services that I might be working with a business and they provide a service or they sell a product. But there's a difference in making an offer, which combines your services and your products into one distinct outcome of transformation for a customer.

When you can think about the real outcome you get for someone and how you can combine products and services to get them this outcome in the best way, you can raise your prices for what that offer is worth. You name that offer, you give it a good price. And because your outcome is so clear, when you're done with this, you're going to know how to write a book or

on your own and self-published. When you're done with this, you're going to know how to actually increase your revenue by 50%. When you're done with this, you're going to know clearly how to hire the right person and how to put a framework in your business to develop your team members once they're there. When the outcome is clear and you turn it into an offer, well, now you take someone who was making six figures a year and they're able to make six figures in a month.

I've seen people that went from a six-figure year to a six-figure month. I've seen individuals who are making maybe a half million dollars a year and then they did it in a day because they learned how to restructure their offer and get a contract for that half a million dollars. I've seen an individual that didn't think they could sell their business until maybe three to four years from when I met them, but then taught them how to systemize their business and organize the components of their business in a way where someone could see the value of

And then they were able to sell their business in months for multiple, you know, multiple seven figures, all because they started to see how to simply organize what they were already doing in a way that someone could understand the value. So our job, people think sometimes that selling, you know, the reason some people think selling is a bad word is because they've had experiences where people weren't really selling. They were trying to convince you.

People try to convince you and try to, you know, force you to get something you don't want. Neither do you need versus true selling done the right way is to find the right person who you really can solve their problem and then uncover the value. When you can start to have value in the transformation so clear and you can uncover that value right before their eyes.

It's only the right next step for them to want that from you, no matter the price. And so, as we often say, when the value is this big, so hopefully you can see my hands here, and the value is this big and the price is this big, it doesn't matter what price I put in here. As long as the value is this big and the price is this big, someone will always be willing to buy that from you. We only exchange money.

When something is more valuable than the money that we exchange. We don't go get gas because we think gas prices are good, but we value driving our car more than we do that price. So even though we might complain about the gas, we still will get it because we value the driving of the car to get to our destination more than the price. So we have to, what I teach people how to do, Charles, long story short, is to better organize what they're doing and to communicate it in value terms.

so that people understand what they get out of it in relation to the price. And we see people exponentially grow their business because they think in offers versus just a product or service.

Absolutely. And when we talk about this all the time, people understand it conceptually. They're like, I need systems. I need progress. I need to be able to do this. But switching that mindset, because you and I have both done this for organizations for a long time, switching the mindset from an operator or an entrepreneur into a CEO is exceptionally challenging.

Out of all the entire thing, being able to pivot your mind and say, you know, whether this is my baby, I created it. I know all the clients, blah, blah, blah, that the entire laundry list story and pivoting that over going, wait, I need to focus on value. I need to focus on the value that I provide, the pain that I'm resolving, and then redoing that. What are some of the things that you've run into that have been really helpful to help that person? You know, when you, they, you've worked with them for so long that allow you to kind of pivot that over.

to start switching that mindset from entrepreneur into CEO? Well, I think the biggest thing, that's an excellent question, Charles. And I think the biggest thing is that

you know, what has really helped me is just better understanding how the mind works. Because one of the biggest obstacles that I've seen in working with people is not the business stuff. It's mindset. It's their belief systems. It's the limiting beliefs that they have. And people think the success has to take a long time. And it really doesn't. The problem is,

It takes a long time to get you to believe that success can happen quick. And so the limiting beliefs is the biggest obstacle that I've seen because I understand how the brain works and that we have automatic negative thoughts. Our first thought is why something can't work and why we can't change and why we can't do something different. And so we are stuck in comfort zones that the self-preserving brain we have always gives us.

And until you realize that there's an equation that we all go through that determines what we do. First, we think about it. Then we get feelings and emotions come from those thoughts. And then we do what we feel. So if we don't change what we think, we can't change what we do because the equation begins with the thinking. If we want to go even further, the environment is what helps generate the thoughts.

So most people have to get in more environments that teach them to think and breathe like a CEO. They have to get on. This is why I created environments and programs to help people get out of the environments they've been in, to get in a different environment that will give them different thoughts, which gives them different feelings that allows them to do different things.

So I would say the biggest issue that I've had, as well as the most rewarding thing I've had, is to teach people to think differently about themselves. Because you don't get what you want. You get who you are. And this is what I have to teach people to think about because they want a seven-figure business. They want people to respect their leadership. They want people to listen when they give direction. But

But they can't command that because they haven't become that person yet. So until they change who they are and really embody and embrace what that really means, it's impossible for them to plant those seeds in others that makes them be respected in their leadership, that allows them to say, my offer is $20,000. They can't even say it because they don't believe it. If I have a discount mindset, if I have a mindset that doesn't feel I can't

can do something or I can charge this for that, there's no way I can, in transparency, really communicate the value of what I have because I don't believe it myself. So when I don't believe it myself, I transfer that to the person I'm selling to. And this is the reason so many people are stuck.

Because that limiting belief is still in them. So what I try to do is to slowly begin to carve that limiting belief out of them, get them to first see themselves differently so that they can see their customer differently, which allows them to see results differently. And that's kind of the pathway I try to focus on.

I think it's so important you talked about environment earlier. You know, there was this, there's this great example where there was a mom duck who had all these ducks and then there was a chicken egg in there and they didn't realize that. And she raised the chicken as a duck. And that chicken went and swam around in the lake as if it was a duck. If you're surrounding yourself in an environment,

where you're not around CEOs and you're only around entrepreneurs, you're going to act like an entrepreneur. If you're surrounding, you know, your network is your network. We've talked about this forever, but no one's really created the environment. It's one of the reasons I want to have you on was no one's created the environment where you're going to be surrounded by CEOs, which is a completely different way of thinking.

If you're a COO, if you're a chief operating officer, you don't want to hang around a bunch of CFOs. It's a totally different around. If you're a duck, be a duck. But if you're around these group of individuals, it's a different world. What does that environment look like in some of your programs? What are some of the things? I know they get to work with you and you're a very successful CEO.

What are some of the things that they get around that you can start seeing them start to pivot? What are some of the habits that if someone's listening to right now, they're like, hey, you know what? I'm in the car. What is something I could do today before I get on the call with you, before we get to that next point? What is something I can start doing now to start not thinking like a duck if I'm a chicken? What are the ways that I can stop thinking like an entrepreneur and start pivoting into that CEO mindset?

Yeah. You know, I think, um, when I, what the, something that I like to always teach people and I use the acronym of CEO and I teach people that one of the first things we have to do, we have to learn how to charge and charge means to take immediate imperfect action, to stop waiting for everything to be perfect before you act.

to be willing to charge forward, to take action, to see it as now o'clock. That is so many people that miss opportunities because they simply won't do what they know to do. Some people think if I just knew more, if I knew this, if I knew that, well, our biggest problem is what we don't know. Our biggest problem is what we do know.

The things we already know, people know what to do to be more fit. They know what to do to be more healthy. The issue is we won't do what we know to do. So getting entrepreneurs to transition to the CEO mindset of I need to take action. The other thing is, is that...

We have to be able to expand. So that means that I have to make a commitment to expand my knowledge, to expand my network, to expand my learning, and that there's actually an investment that I have to make in myself to be able to input more information that is actually useful to my growth.

There's too many entrepreneurs that aren't willing to grow into a CEO because it requires that, you know, what got you here won't get you there. And the pathway and the separation to getting you there is something you don't know. The difference between a six figure and a seven figure CEO is something that you don't know.

And so if I'm not willing to expand my base of knowledge to listen to people who have been somewhere I'm trying to get to, I'll always stay where I've been. So expansion is very important. And then the O in CEO for overcome, because no matter what you deal with, there's going to be an obstacle.

there's gonna be something that gets in your way. As soon as you make a decision to go forward, there's gonna be a roadblock. There's gonna be a issue. There's gonna be something that says, here's why you can't. And it is the people who transition to CEOs, they have this relentless fire in them that somehow says, I'm not gonna let this thing stop me.

I'm going to keep going. I'm going to overcome this obstacle. I'm not going to let my my initial thought, my initial view of what has taken place. You know, it's ironic, but it goes back to physics to understand the law of polarity, that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. There's never one side of anything. There's always two sides.

So whenever something looks like you're not going to be able or you can't or it's bad, there has to be a better side to it. Right. When I look at some things I went through as a young man, Charles, I went through some challenges and my mom was in a domestic violence situation. And I grew up. I went through a lot of things. I went to six different elementary schools. I went to home.

Pro-Probatics Women with my mom. And I could look at all these things and say, man, look at my life and all that. But listen, these were some of the best moments in my life because it shaped my leadership. It made me stronger. It taught me how to care for people. Pain helped me to appreciate healing.

Being able to understand what can happen when you do certain things cause me to want to live a different life. So until you have the ability, the keen sense of seeing what is good about anything that happens in your life, it's very hard to be a CEO because you're going to have a lot of things that come up that you didn't want to happen. But it's those people who overcome that are able to fully move into being a CEO. So these are just a few things.

but we have to charge, we have to expand, and we have to overcome. There's a lot that you just went over there, and I want to kind of talk to a lot of it. One of the things is, there was a show called Game of Thrones, and it's a spoiler alert here, but it's old now, so get over yourselves, but Jon Snow dies, and then he comes back, and he's sitting there, and he says, you know, I thought I did the right thing, I did all this, but then Jon

I failed and they killed me for it. And I failed. And the guy in front of us is good. Now get up and go fail again. And it's one of those really simple moments that you're going to fail. Good. Go fail again. And your feelings don't really matter. You know, we talk about it. Do it afraid. Do it. Do it nervous. Do it scared. Do it joyful. Just do it. Execute when you fail. Do it again. It's kind of like with children. You don't look at your child after four or five times, you know, learning how to walk and say, well, I guess he's not going to ever walk. And I know just keep walking, dude. It's going to keep going.

The other thing you talked about, you know, you talk about offering and you talked about that the ways that people offer things as a CEO is exceptionally different than as someone who's an entrepreneur. And you've broken this down and you've really broken it down to a core way to kind of create your offers. Could you kind of in a tangible way walk me through that? Yeah. So, you know, I think...

All of my journey over two decades building businesses, I've been making different offers to businesses and groups and companies. One thing that I've arrived at that

there's a way to organize these into four core offers. And I give a shout out to a good friend of mine and coach named Myron Golden, who likes to organize it this way as well. And I think it's a really good, succinct way. But I've been using offers like this for so many years and seeing what it does to entrepreneurs. And so the first offer is a lead generation offer.

And this, every true CEO needs a systematic, predictable way to generate leads. And one of the ways, you know, you can have the best product in the world, but if there's no one there to buy it,

It doesn't mean anything, right? And if you don't have an audience that is larger than your system or your way to convert a sale, you're going to go out of business. I don't care how great your thing is. So we need a lead generation offer that is always bringing new leads. And I define a lead as,

Someone who was giving me their contact information. There's a lot of things you can define it as, but I want to just be real simple. Do I have your phone number or your email? Can I get a hold of you? If I can't get a hold of you, you're not a lead, right? Someone who is raised their hand and said, I'm interested in what you're talking about. And here's my contact information, right? Yeah.

So this is a lead. I need an offer, whether that I want to give something of real value out there that makes someone want to give me their email. And sometimes people think, well, this is going to be easy. I'll just give this thing for free. Free still has to be sold. Yes. It's because it's free. Don't mean people will give you that email and that phone number. It's got to still be good. It's got to be something that really brings transformation, something that really helps them.

Then there's what's called a core product offer. And this is more of the core thing you do. It still has to be an offer. So that main service you provide, that main product that keeps the lights on, you still want to organize that into a very good offer. So someone understands that if I give you this, I get all of this.

This is what an offer makes you feel like. And you're able to charge more for that when you organize the offer that way. Now, another critical offer, and a lot of people really miss out on this, and this is the thing that can really move you to seven figures very quickly, is understanding premium value offers. Now, premium value offers, I would say, range from anywhere from $5,000 to, I know some people who have million dollar premium value offers. So you

If you are able to put together a very clear transformation that you can get for someone, very clear transformation, and you're able to realize that people don't want your process, they don't want your person, that I get a lot of time with you, I get to go through this seven-step whatever process, they want the payoff. They want the outcome. They want the thing that gets the result for them. So when you're able to really define that,

You're able to start making premium value offers and something that people used to do in a year can literally happen in one day. Yes. Right. So you can make three hundred dollars, three hundred thousand dollars in a day. You can make a million dollars in a day. I'm among a network of people. We do this all the time where you can generate these types of numbers simply by knowing how to make premium value offers.

So that's a critical element, right? Then you deal with, and let me just say this too, before I go to this last one is that when you start running the numbers, you start realizing, okay, you know, if I sell 20 of this $50,000 thing, that's a million dollars. Like right now, it's not, not 365 days, not, not, you know, 52 weeks today. If I have a $50,000 offer that gets a clear transformation and just 20 people buy it,

That's seven figures right now. And, you know, some people who don't understand that they don't realize, like, not only is this possible, it's happening every day. And there's no reason that anyone listening to this can achieve that once you know how to structure the things that you do into a clear transformation. But that brings me to the last one, which I think is one of the most important offers of all. And that is a continuity offer, a continuity offer.

A continuity offer is something that people pay you monthly or could be annually as well. But it's something that has a consistent rhythm where they pay continuously for what you do. They subscribe, they become a member.

It's, you know, it can be as simple as someone paying a monthly fee to be a part of a group that you started where you talk to them every month. It could be a newsletter. It could be a distinct portal that they get access to. It could be coaching, but something, it could be software, which is one of my favorites. So at the end of the day, you know, Russell Brunson built a whole business model around this called the linchpin model because he

He realized that the linchpin is really your continuity, because at the end of the day, even if you want to sell your business one day and you might be a great leader and you might be good at what you do, but even investors know, well, what if something happens to you?

What am I going to do if you're not around? They want something that's been systemized and they look at your monthly recurring revenue. That is going to generate the most value for your business and make your business the most sellable and have the most highest value proposition to an investor. And also, when you have very strong continuity, this is the thing that allows you to sleep at night as a CEO.

because you can't live off of events. You can't live off of the next campaign. You want to know there's some level of continuity that keeps the bills paid and the lights on no matter what you do so that those other things that you do just become, you know, you know, these dramatic moments of injections of money. But I've got my baseline stability from my continuity. So these four off

lead generation, core product offers, premium value, and continuity. These are the four critical offers that every business needs if they want to be a seven-figure or more business and comfortably sustain that into the foreseeable future.

There was so much value in so many things in there that I want to kind of go back and chit chat a little bit. One of the things you talked about is, you know, people don't buy product and services. They buy stories, identities, and ways out of pain. It's a very specific result that you offer. And if I walked in right now to my gym and said, hey,

I want to have X, Y, Z person's body. And he's like, cool, go home in 24 hours. You'll have that body for the rest of your life. But how many zeros am I writing behind that? Versus if someone said, you've got to come in for the next 90 days, work out, you know, two hours with me every day. I'm going to pay significantly less for that. So if you can pursue present and create a result like that, totally different bargain. You're in the process of selling results. Period.

Period. You're getting people out of pain. One of the things you talked about that this starts off with is, you know, getting that first lead. You know, it could be a free offer. It could be all these things. What are the things that you have found that people are willing to say, hey, here's my email address. Here's my phone number. What are some of the lead magnets that you found that convert the best? So if an audience is looking at this right now and listening, what can I start looking at my company as I'm redesigning this, as I'm changing my mind from an entrepreneur to a CEO? What are some of the lead magnets that you have found that convert on the highest level?

Well, that's an excellent question, Charles. And I think one of the things that is most critical, there's a lot I could say about that. The most critical thing I think to really get across is a couple of things. One is that the difference between pain and pleasure. So when you have lead magnets that with a cold audience who doesn't know you and.

And you lead them towards pleasure. Like the, you know, come here and then automatically you're going to lose weight. People don't believe you. You know, I love the story of, you know, if you were standing out on the street and you were just waving a hundred dollar bill and you said, I just want to give this the way away to everyone. You know, you were yelling. No one would trust you. It must be a counterfeit.

There's something wrong. Like who would do that? Right. It's too good to be true. So everyone's you know, your your your radar goes up for a scam or fake or whatever. Right. But what's amazing is if a rock fell on my head and I was bleeding profusely and I didn't I was trying to help a complete stranger came up.

and said, hey, let me have your phone. Give me the passcode. Let me call 911 for you. I would give them my phone and I don't even know them, but because I'm in pain, I'm willing to work with someone I don't know. So the reason I bring that up is when you talk about pain, people are more willing to give it a try to see what it's about. So instead of saying the seven things that will make you rich,

I would talk about the seven mistakes that stop you from being rich, right? The seven things you're doing wrong. The seven reasons that you can't overcome, blah, blah, blah, blah, to make seven figures. These are the things that get attention. The other thing is, I would say, is the more that we can make sure that that lead magnet is going to give them a real result.

If you can get a lead magnet that gives them a real result that these these are, you know, I'm going to teach you the seven mistakes that authors are making that causes their books to not sell more than 20 copies. Right. And then you let them know in there, I'm going to give you a tool that's going to help you do this specific thing.

Right. That is a part of a bigger process, but I'm going to give you one part of it. So these are two things that I've seen be very successful. The selling of pain, help me get out of the pain is something that solves a specific problem within a bigger process. These are things that people will give you their email for and you'll find more success in people actually being willing to stand up and say, hey, I would like to understand more. Yeah.

It's, I agree with you. It's the pain and that quick dopamine hit. It's like, well, what is this quick thing that I can do? Okay. Now I got, I have this KLT. I have this know, like, and trust now towards Michael. Cause okay. He helped me get this. You know, one of the things that people mess up with the marketing all the time, we have it down here in Florida is there's these billboards that say your wife is hot and it's for an air conditioning company and everybody knows it. And they're like, okay. And it's got this woman and it's a relatively attractive woman. And like your wife is hot and everybody loves the ad. I'm like, cool. What's the name of the company? And they're like, um, um,

I'm like, oh, just tell me one part of the name of the company that's owed you that. They're like, so it's not enough to just have the paint. You have to be able to convert. And I think the dopamine hit you were talking about, giving that quick win instantaneously means that they're going to be kind of more connected to you and going into that next level. You talked about the offer, but the one that got me really excited is about that fact that you have to have it continued.

And that's why I love service-based things. I love things like, I wish I owned Zero Water, which makes the water filters. God, I wish I owned that company because every single month I'm popping in a new water filter because I'm like, oh, dang it. I wish I had one of those products or services because it's something that I've always looked at. It's why I'm so heavily invested in real estate because-

I don't care what happens. You still need a roof. I don't care what's going on. I don't care who wins the election. I don't care who doesn't win the election. You need a roof. And, you know, the West coast of Florida found us out regrettably really intensely. You're going to need a roof. Yes. These continued products where you have to have this, where there's those type of models.

If someone comes to you and that's not part of their way because they're an entrepreneur, they've never thought of it like a CEO. They didn't think about that their offer had to change and that there had to be this monthly recurring revenue. What are some of the ways where you sit down with them and say, okay, here's your offer. It's really cute, but let's get you from being an entrepreneur into the CEO world, going through your process. What are some of the ways that you've gone, okay, this is how things change as you go through that?

So do you mean specifically about the way they position their offers or just in general? Yes, how are some of the ways, yeah, how they've changed their, you know, if you have an example like, hey, this person used to sell underwater baskets to chicken. And we're like, okay, let's do this instead. I'm curious if you've got any examples to kind of inspire the audience. Well, one thing that I would say that I think is just really would help those that are listening is that's really big is when I help people with their offers,

Sometimes that I think a big mistake people make, they think that this gumbo of stuff makes it a good offer, that there's all this stuff. You get this and you get that. They focus on the pieces and not understanding the payoff. And sometimes people actually can reduce what's in the offer and charge more money.

because you get to the transformation quicker. So if you get to the, people don't want like, you know, I say, Hey, you get to spend, you know, three days with me a week. People don't want to spend three days with me a week. They want to spend the most minimal time with me as possible to get to the transformation. Right. So, so helping people with their offer. And a lot of times the issue I'll have Charles is they'll put this thing in their offer and

And then the next thing that they offer in the offer is not related to a pain that the person is going to have within the offer. Here's what I mean. So I say, okay, I'm working with someone. They say, you get this 12-week training that's going to help you learn how to do A, okay?

And then the next thing that they have is something about a T-shirt or some sort of trip somewhere that has nothing to do with what anyone's learning. They're like, but it's value. Yeah, but it's not related. See, but if I was making an offer that had to do, let's say I wanted to sell this new backpack that's great for going hiking. Yeah.

And I want to sell this backpack. And I would say, OK, there's this great backpack. Now, a pain someone might have that's going to go hiking is that they might need a really good flashlight. So I might say as another part of this offer, I'm going to give you this special flashlight that glows in the dark, can warm your food and do this and that. The next thing is they might need to need a compass.

because while they're out, see, that's related. Next thing you know, they might need something that's going to actually strengthen their tent in case a bear came at night and it's something that locks their tent in a special way and puts a fortune. All of those things have congruency and they have relationship

to what the main reason that I even want the offer is about. When you build an offer, you have to create congruency. You want to make sure that everything... So if you remember the movie Inception, where you start dealing with incepting someone's thought and putting something in their mind, people who build good offers, they're able to not only make sure there's something in there that's transformative, they actually...

describe the next problem that's going to come from the solution that they gave. Absolutely. Because every solution creates a new problem. So the people who make good offers, they're able to see the problem in the solution and then add something else in the offer that then solves that problem. And you keep stacking it, this value stacking to where the offer becomes irresistible. That is what I feel is the secret to helping people make great offers.

And it's absolutely huge. Like, okay, I sold you a car, but you need tires. And oh, by the way, you need gasoline. And oh, by the way. So you're constantly fixing one problem that creates more problems and so on and so forth, but you're doing it in an authentic way. One of the things that you've done also is, you know, you can tell the difference between somebody who's authentic or not authentic by the tools that they offer. And I know you've created a very specific tool to help out the listeners. Tell me more about that tool that, you know, you created a website for it. Tell me more about the tool and what it does.

Yes. So I created a offer builder tool and there's a few things that are involved in this. And so as a gift to those out there who really want to know more about this critical, critical art of building just flagship offers that could lead to seven figure businesses. When you understand this, this literally is the thing that can change the game for you. If you learn how to make strong offers.

So some people say I'm not making enough money in a lot of times is simply you're not making enough offers You're not giving anyone a reason to give you money and you haven't put enough time into the thing It's gonna make you the most money and this is a tool to help you do that so the first thing that I do is I have a tool that so these are three components of this tool the first component is to help you just begin to identify the four offers for your business and

So what is your lead generation offer? What is your core product offer that is based on the core thing your business does? What is a good example of a premium value offer that you could provide? And what is your continuity offer? This basically allows you to list those out on a document and then to list out, you know, actually help you to do some research of other people's offers in these four categories. And then you list the actual thing you're going to do

And what you would, you know, kind of what you would charge for it. So you're just kind of building a framework of your four offers. That's the first thing. Another tool that I give you with this is it uses what I call the car method, the car method. And what you do is you're basically looking at things that you have access to that are already there that will allow you to assemble your offer.

So there are some things that I already have, right? So, and when you think about the different elements, you know, the different assets that you might have, here's what we're really doing. We're taking all these things that we've done in our business, right? I've built a product here and a service here. And there's things that customers have said, I like this. But now what I need to do, I need to go and pull these assets together to start building an offer.

And sometimes I have things that are just ready to go. Like I can use this as is. This is good. I can put it in the treasure chest and use it as an offer. Sometimes I have things that need to be altered a little bit

And with a little tweaking, this is something I can put into an offer. And then sometimes there's something I just need to create brand new. Like I need to create something brand new that I don't like for this offer to be what it could be. I need this thing and I don't have it. So I'm going to take the time and I'm going to do a quick training video. I'm going to make a partnership and get an alliance with someone that will allow that they'll allow. Sometimes people make the mistake in thinking everything in the offer has to be from them, but it doesn't.

I can build a partnership with someone and say, hey, will you, every time I sell this, will you give them this thing that you have that will make my offer perfect? And say, sure, just throw me 50 bucks every time you sell that offer. And here, I'm doing this offer for $5,000. Yeah, I'll give you $50 every time I sell it. You can do that to make the ultimate offer for someone. So this is a tool that allows you to do that. The next tool is to actually structure your offer. And here's where the real offer building comes.

Now you actually begin to lay out your offer. What is the first item? What is the value of it that you would assign to this element of your offer? So you actually list it out. You say this is worth 997 by itself, $997. Then you begin to think about that inception. What's the next problem that that thing solves? And then you list out the next thing and you assign a value to it.

And you go all the way down this sheet, filling out the value proposition. And then you get a, then after you do those main things, I have an area where you list some bonuses because a good offer always has a few little bonuses. So you say, well, here's the main things of the offer. But if you do this offer today, here's a few bonuses. We're going to give you this, going to give you that. So I have you list that and assign a value. At the very bottom, you begin to add it all up and get a total value.

And then lastly, you make that distinction back again when I said, if your value is here and your price is here, they will always make an attempt to buy.

So what you're doing then now is assigning a price that is different than that total value that's going to be the actual offer that you make them. So when you put all these three things together, you now have the construct of building an offer that you can actually start to sell to generate substantial amounts of money just from doing this one exercise. It can lead to a six to seven figure opportunity by itself.

And I think it, just as you went through that offer process, it really shows the difference between how an entrepreneur thinks and how a CEO thinks. It's a completely different mindset and people just don't understand it. It's not just systems. There's so many things that are involved from the way you offer things, the way you hire, the way you interact. There's so many, it's just a different world. You know, we talked about it and you said it earlier. What got you here isn't going to get you there. It's really, really simple. And there needs to be that evolution.

If someone wants to go on that evolution, how do they track you down? What's the best way to find you? How do they interact with you? What's the best way to do that? Well, yeah. And I just want to say real quick on what you just said, Charles, because it's so powerful when you talk about CEO thinking, you think about offers. What's so powerful is wealthy people make money out of things that come in their mind, not things that they do with their muscles. Right. And people say work hard. And the beauty of it is when you make a good offer. Right.

Not only do you make money then, but when you make that money that day from you selling an offer, you still have the offer. So the offer becomes an asset that you keep making money on. And so,

One of the things that I do is when you think about those out there that really want to know more about how do I actually become a better CEO? How do I actually learn how to make better offers? So I have a few things that I do. People that are interested in, I have a program called a C-Suite Business Mastery Program.

And people that are interested in that, they can look us up on urco.com and contact us if they're interested in just learning more about the things we do in our business and wanting to know more about our programs. But one of the things that we do, I offer a free webinar. And this whole webinar is built on teaching entrepreneurs the roadmap, what I call a business freedom roadmap.

How do I actually do the things that seven-figure CEOs are doing so I can get the results now and use my money to collapse my time? So what can I do to invest in myself to collapse the time it would take to become a seven-figure CEO now and

And I teach in this free webinar what people have done to collapse that time. What is the real roadmap to do that? So sometimes I refer to these webinars from Fedder to Freedom because we are bound by the lies we've been told about business and we need the truth to make us free. We understand what people really do. What's the real thing that people do? It's more than selling a product. It's more than showing up saying my name is this and I'm a CEO.

So this webinar is a beautiful place to come and get some good information. It's called From Fedder to Freedom. But another thing that I would mention is that

I want to make sure people have access to the tool. And I believe the domain that I put together for this tool, I'll mention it in just a minute. You can go to this distinct domain and you will be able to download this tool for free. And what I would invite people to do is to take this tool, really begin to use it, fill it out. And if you go through the process of filling it out,

So it, the domain is yourofferbuilder.com, yourofferbuilder.com. And I named it that because it's yours. It's your offer builder. And if you take this and just go through the steps and, you know, follow the instructions, you will end up with this offer that you can use. But here's the issue. Once you have a great offer, you have to make sure you have a great business to back that offer up.

You got to make sure that you actually know how to fulfill on that offer. See, if your business isn't strong. So there's five elements I teach in my program to help someone become a CEO minded entrepreneur. The first thing, Charles, is clarity. We have to be super clear on who we're serving, what that market is, and what is the distinct strategy for me to be successful in that market. And I'm super clear on who I am and who I serve.

The next is capacity. I must understand the capacity, how much capacity is in this market for me to even make seven figures? Are you in a dying market? Do you understand your numbers? Do you not understand the difference between gross profit margin and net profit or profit margin? Do you know what those things are, right? The difference between knowing how much money you're making on your product versus making on your business.

So this is all capacity issues, right? Then we have to understand commerce. Do you have a systematic way of having money flow into your business like a river? Because you've got a distinct way to generate leads and to convert the sale that is predictable. Then we have clear commerce. The next one is control. We must have a sense of control in our business. You know, in statistics, they talk about upper control limits and lower control limits.

If you don't understand what control means in terms of how you want customers to feel when they work with you, if you don't know what control means and the distinct quality and experience you want people to get from your service and product in a way that is consistent and happens every time. And you put systems in place to get that result in a predictable, consistent way. You don't really have a business. You know, I've told people this sometimes, Charles, that they have to qualify to have a problem.

You know, people say I have problems. I say, no, you don't, you have chaos. They say, well, what do you mean? I say, a problem is a deviation from a standard. So until you have a standard, you haven't qualified to have a problem. You just have chaos. So we have to have standards in our business to get the business under control, to qualify, to know when something is out of control. And then lastly, we must understand culture.

Culture has to do with the environment we create in our business that cultivates an experience for people to work in that business, to generate a clear result. See,

See, some people are going to use culture and allow there to be a subtle disease inside their business that destroys the company from the inside out because they didn't nip things in the bud. They didn't stop things that were a problem. They didn't correct things when they should have. And something in that business began to grow and cause that business to implode.

But see, when you use culture as a constructive tool, it becomes a silent weapon. There's a reason that a lot of my team that's been with me has been with me over 20 years. This is just you don't hear of this anymore. But why? Because I was able to build a strong culture. Your culture is created. There's three ways you three things you got to keep in mind when building culture. What is happening consistent in your business?

What are you condoning in your business? And what are you celebrating in your business? Those things are creating a culture in your business that if you don't intentionally take control over it, something can take control of the business that you thought was yours because what you put on those walls and those taglines and all those business acronyms, it means nothing if that's not what really happens in the business every day. And that's why culture is so important. And this is what I teach people in my programs.

I think this is why you're the seven figure CEO maker, because people don't understand the massive difference between being an entrepreneur and being a CEO. And you can't do it by brute force. You have to understand offers. You have to understand culture. You have to understand systems. There's so much more with finances alone. I remember when I made my first seven figures, I was like, great, I'm done. I never have to work again. And my wonderful accountant, I love him forever. He's like, oh, that's adorable. Sit down, let's talk. And I was like, dang it. I'm losing how much of the government? Dang it.

I just didn't know. I knew how to be an entrepreneur. I never knew how to be a CEO. And I think that journey starts as you were talking about, just let's figure out your offer first. Let's, let's get, let's get you up there. We're not asking you to climb Mount Everest right now. Let's just get you to buy the shoes that we can start this journey on together. And I think, you know, the fact that you're offering that is just such a gift. I really appreciate you coming on again. How do people track you down? What's the best way that they can take action right now? How do they get a hold of you?

Well, one thing again, you can definitely look me up on YouTube at URCEO. You can find Michael E. Parker. There is my webinar from Fetter to Freedom that you can check out. We also have yourofferbuilder.com. I want to make sure you get that free tool, right, that you can grab. I really appreciate it, Michael. Thank you so much for providing all these resources and for coming on the show.

Thank you so much, Charles. Such a pleasure to be here. And that's a wrap on our CEO Transformation Masterclass with Michael E. Parker. We hope you're as fired up about your business potential as we are. A massive shout out to Michael for pulling back the curtain on his seven-figure success strategies. His journey from Toyota systems expert to transformational CEO maker is nothing short of inspirational.

To all you entrepreneurs out there ready to make the leap to CEO, your hunger for growth and freedom is what keeps this show going strong. Want to put Michael's CEO strategies into action? We've got you covered. Head over to YourOfferBuilder.com, where Michael has created a powerful tool to help you craft offers that convert. It's loaded with his proven frameworks, from creating irresistible lead magnets to designing high-ticket premium offers that can transform your revenue.

Remember, as Michael emphasized, success isn't just about working harder. It's about implementing systems, creating compelling offers, and achieving the freedom trifecta in your life, business, and wealth. Now go out there and turn your entrepreneurial hustle into CEO-level success. Your transformation starts today.