[#018] My First Billion: Lighter

Some weeks the headline writes itself.

This was one of those weeks.

Monday afternoon, I made a decision I'd been circling for a while…

I let the entire sales team go. Sales manager included.

Not because she isn't talented.
She's phenomenal as a person.

But the numbers weren't making sense…

The role was requiring feedback and direction it wasn't hired to need, and if I'm being real…

I was still in management mode.
Just quietly. Paying for a layer that was supposed to remove me from a problem that still existed.

My coach had laid it out clean a few weeks back.

Option one: Get back in, manage the team myself, do it right.

Option two: Shut it down and go all in on phoneless selling through virtual events and the enrollment process we've already proven works.

Our biggest months have always been tied to events. Always.

So the data wasn't the question.
The resistance was and I had some.

I thought we could figure it out.
But at some point you stop trying to optimize something that just shouldn't exist.

Elon Musk has a 5-step algorithm for this, one of the core principles is to identify what you're optimizing before you optimize it…

Because sometimes the right answer is to delete the step entirely, not improve it. That's where we were.

Monday I made the call, and we offboarded everyone.

The sales manager took the remaining calls through the end of the week, and we moved on.

The moment it was done, I felt lighter.

I'm not going to pretend the second-guessing didn't show up, because it did, throughout the week.

The "what ifs" and "just in cases" that come with any big decision. But I let them pass.

We don't need a sales team to enroll clients. We've already proven that.

Now we're just building the infrastructure to do it at scale without the overhead, the management layer, or the commission structure that comes with it.

Team is sitting at 9 people now.
That’s perfect.

The build continues.

While all of that was happening, the asset creation didn't stop, it accelerated.

The Pre-Sold Prospects Pipeline System is essentially done. Funnel is ready.

We're just finishing the backend portal before we launch ads, which I'm shooting today.

I finished shooting all the training modules this week and recorded a new VSL revealing my system to…

Help coaches make $1M annually in profit. It came in just over two hours before edits, so it'll tighten up from there. Chris already has it.

The funnel itself is underconstruction.

We got the final headcount in for clients who are coming to the bootcamp.
(These are our in-person advisory board meetings)

We also got the Strategic Scale Bootcamp funnel live just in time to capture registrations for non-clients.
I opened a few guest seats.

You can get the details here if you’d like to join us.

The 1-to-Many Selling System Summit ads are running and looking promising early.

And I sent my partner a loom walking him through what I'm envisioning for the upcoming Founder Freedom Workshop that’s happening next month. So we're aligned on that.

A lot of moving pieces. All pointed in the same direction.

The rest of the week looked like this:

Tuesday was coaching calls with clients, always one of the better parts of the week.

Also connected with someone who’s bringing me on their podcast next week.

He owns a SAAS. There could be some partnership synergy there. We'll see how it develops.

Moved a newly developing partnership forward. It’s a social media and content creation agency.

Wednesday, Vanessa and I kept our weekly sync.

Got smoothies to go from our favorite spot and had our meeting at the house this time instead of going out. Simple.

Then I spent the rest of the day recording the VSL. Went to boxing with the boys that evening.

Thursday, was content day.

Newsletter, modules, a workout session with my health coach, reviewed some LinkedIn posts from the team.

Tomorrow I'm shooting the Miseducation Of the Christian Show and knocking out some additional videos so I can go into next week clean.

What I'm sitting with:

There's something that happens when you remove something from your life or your business that wasn't serving you…

Even if it was familiar, even if you've invested in it.

You don't just get time back or money back. You get clarity back.

This week felt like that.

Less structure. More signal. A leaner, tighter team building things that match where we're going.

I'll take that over complexity any day.

Before I close…

Have you ever held onto something in your business longer than you should have because letting it go felt like admitting something?

More next week.

Marquel