Do You Know Where The Highest Level Entrepreneurs Look For Collaborations

Gord Vickman: Welcome to the Inside Strategic Coach Podcast. My name is Gord Vickman, in for Shannon Waller today, here as always with Dan Sullivan. Dan, welcome to the next episode. It's an exciting one today because we're going to be talking about an interesting observation that you had, you shared with Shannon, she shared with me, about The Free Zone Frontier Program and the members of that program. But for those who aren't familiar with the structure of Strategic Coach, there's three levels. Signature, 10x, and Free Zone. And there's a unique collaboration you have with members in the Free Zone program. But just for those who aren't familiar with the levels, if we could go through and explain the structure of Strategic Coach, and then we'll get to how the collaboration with the highest level entrepreneurs goes. So if you could just run us through those levels.

Dan Sullivan: Yeah, well, first of all, we started Strategic Coach as an entrepreneurial workshop program in 1989. We started with smaller groups, up to 20, but by the end of the first year, we had like 180 clients. And I have a goal that every time they renew... So the way it works is, you sign up for a year, all the money's up front, there are four workshops scheduled at a quarterly basis. You know, my background was entertainment. I was in theater in my early 20s, and then I was in advertising in my late 20s. And the one thing about, I've discovered both about entertainment, there are some oldies but goodies that people want. They want Paul McCartney to sing "Yesterday," but they'd like to get some new stuff too. 

We have certain things which are forever tools, and I should explain a "thinking tool." It's technically an algorithm, okay? So I'll have to define what an algorithm is. It's a structured thinking. It starts with a question, and then people get an answer, and then we ask them to think about their answer. So step one is, you answer the question for yourself that usually relates to your past experience. And then you say, now what was the best experience? What was the most negative experience? And the next step is, where you are now, what can you see, let's say, a year from now? And you answer that question, and then you break that down. But it's always a sequence of thinking steps. And it all is about the entrepreneurs thinking about their thinking, okay? We had one or two to start the Program in 1989, and now we have 240 trademarked thinking tools. And by this time next year, we'll have 50 patents. They're all copyrighted trademark patents. These are government registrations, so the government has given us monopoly status for these ideas. 

So I just started in the first six years where I was the only coach and I was creating a workshop every quarter. The number of workshops, just before we got our first coach in 1995, I did 144 full-day workshops that year. And we hit the ceiling. I mean, there's only so much time. But I've been creating new stuff all along, and now we have 16 other coaches. The other thing that happens, Gord, is in every group of, let's say, pick a number, 40. If you have 40 people, there are 40 who are just fine with, you know, the way things are going, and they'll keep coming back, and they'll keep coming, there'll be new tools and everything. But in every 40, there's a 20%, and that would be eight, they want a higher level. They want to belong to a higher club. So after a certain while, we just had one program, and then we created another program, which was called 10x. 

And then the first program, then we look backwards, what do you do during the first one? And you say, you create a Self-Managing Company. So the entrepreneur has team members who manage what already exists and the entrepreneur is the one who creates what's higher, what's better, what's bigger. Frees up your entire time. So the first level is Self-Managing Company, then you go to 10x, which is the next level. And now it's a Self-Multiplying Company where the individual team members are now creating new things. They're now creating new productivity, creativity, and profitability in the world. And the number of coaches increases. And I'm freed up because I'm creating a lot more tools, and I just have the lead dogs. And then the 10x went for about six or seven years. And there's a 20% now that want to go somewhere else. So I create a higher club. But the new tools are being created for the lower level by other people in the company. New tools are being created at the 10x level by other people in the company. And I'm creating the third level, which is called the Free Zone. And the Free Zone is the collaboration... What you're doing by collaborating with other entrepreneurs is so unique in the marketplace, it's such a higher level of value creation, that you have no competition. As a matter of fact, your competition wants to be your customers. Okay, like that. So that's the three. 

And there'll be famous people who are world-beaters who want to join our program. And they said, but we'd like to join at the Free Zone level. I said, no, you got to start at the Signature level. I was a Boy Scout, you know? Tenderfoot, second class, first class. Star, life, and eagle. You need merit badges. You have no merit badges. You gotta get your merit badges, you know. And you have to be trustworthy, loyal, friendly, helpful, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, you know. That's the constant flow down the middle, but you're learning how to tie knots, and you're learning how to do all sorts of other things. And same thing with The Strategic Coach Program. Now, There's a constant in all of that, and I call it the 50-50 partnership. And what it is, Gord, is that I only consider that I'm 50% of the creative team when I have a new tool. So I have enough to make a decent presentation of a new tool, and then I just watch how they modify my tool. Okay, so they're the other 50%. The entrepreneurs are the other 50% because I, you know, I was inside my own head. And now I've got, my workshops tend to have 30 or 40 entrepreneurs in it. And I'm presenting the idea to 30 or 40 other brains, each of which is unique. And they come up with all twists and turns, and we take their modifications, and we pack it into the tool.

Gord Vickman: How much modification are you expecting from members of Free Zone? Because this is the highest level of Coach. So just to recap, we have Signature is where you start, and then you bump up to 10x, and then Free Zone is the highest level of Strategic Coach. These are entrepreneurs who are transforming industries, and it's all about collaboration. So that's just as a little tour guide through the Program. These are the highest level entrepreneurs in Strategic Coach. When you're creating tools and you present it to this group first, because I'm pretty sure that's how it goes. It doesn't go anywhere but Free Zone first. How much fiddling with it do you think they're going to do? How much do you expect and how much do you want? Because eventually it gets fiddled with so much that it would change the essence of the tool. But you go into this fully expecting that they're going to put their own stamp on it to some respect. 

Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it's unpredictable. I've had one that I nailed it on the first try, and I've had some that they're in their 10th version. I can't predict how they're going to respond to anything. But I'm getting better, and my partners get better. But I had one that was just introduced. I had one, two, three, four new ones. This was on Tuesday. We're recording on Thursday. All four of them just work like... But I've been at this for a long time. I mean, great musicians can riff, and it's right the first time. You know, the most famous jazz record in history is called Kind of Blue. It's an album by Miles Davis, and he got I think six other who's who in the jazz world with 30 or 40 years' experience. And he invited them to a New York studio. And I think it was a weekend. I think it was a Saturday and Sunday. He had no script or anything, but he had a diagram that it had nine movements, nine different songs. He would just nod to people. They all had the diagram. He'd just nod. The sax player would come in, the bass player would come in, and everything. But they were so gifted. And jazz is more of an improvisational music form. You can't do that with classical musicians, but you can do it with jazz musicians. As a matter of fact, it's their joy to be able to do it. And entrepreneurism is jazz business compared to corporate life. Corporate life is classical music. Entrepreneurism is jazz. It gets made up. Sometimes, your mistakes are your biggest breakthroughs.

Gord Vickman: I've never heard it put that way before, but corporate is classical music. Here's the sheet music. Play it. Don't change anything because the trumpet behind you is going to get all screwed up if you start improvising. So the Free Zone, highest level entrepreneurs, that's free jazz to you.

Dan Sullivan: But the other one, these people are cash confident. They can explore new ideas and they've got the time to do it. They've got the team to do it. They can just, for the hell of it, put new things together to create a new third thing, and they reach their own agreements, like Ben Hardy. Ben Hardy's a great writer. Ben Hardy is just a really great writer. He's a better writer than I am, and he's got a psychological background, which, you know, he's a PhD in psychology. I don't have that, but he brought this whole realm to, well, I'm not gonna tell him how to do what he does, but, the ideas are unique. There's nothing like our ideas out in the world. And the reason is, I don't get my ideas anywhere except with the ongoing experimentation with entrepreneurs. And they're all outliers. I mean, Ben one time said, you got the most unique source of information in the world. He says, they're strange. They're weird. They're crazy. He says, you can't even predict how they're going to respond to your newest idea. And I said, yeah, I like that. I'm weird. I'm strange. I feel at home. 

Somebody said, are there entrepreneurs you just don't click with? And I said, yeah, there's only one kind. And he says, because this is a wild bunch. I said, God, there's some wild people in this room. And I said, you know, I never have trouble with the ones who can walk up the wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side. I said, I feed on that type of individual. I said, the ones I can't stand is that they've paid first-class fare, they're paying me in the tens of thousands of dollars to be in the Program, and they come and sit in the back of the room and go like this. "I don't think so." And then they talk to the person next to them, [whispers]. You know, and I got to wipe that out really fast. And I'll say to them, I said, don't spend, because it's about eight days of their time if you think of the coming and going. They fly first class, they live first class when they get here, and they're paying me tens of thousand dollars to prove that I'm wrong. And I said, this is not a good use of your time. This is not a good use of my time. So we weed them out really fast when they do that.

Gord Vickman: They can do that at Starbucks, just cozy up to a booth and criticize the barista about how many shots of sauce they're putting in. It's a lot cheaper than spending tens of thousands of dollars. I guess some people love complaining.

Dan Sullivan: Yeah, but not in my space and not on my time.

Gord Vickman: But Dan, there's a lot of people who think they're pretty good at helping entrepreneurs, and they have visions and they have output and they have, I'm thinking of the gurus. So how does that approach, a full 50\50 collaborative free jazz with the Free Zones? How have you steered that to be different than what else is out there? And I know we don't pay much attention, if any, to the competition, but was that a conscious choice you made where you're saying okay- 

Dan Sullivan: I never paid any attention to what anybody else was doing because they weren't playing this game. The other thing is, I don't read business books. I don't read, I don't know what you would call the genre of book, but it's sort of the self-improvement books. I never read self-improvement books, books on entrepreneurism. I read geopolitics, I read history, I read about trends in society, I read about economic changes, I read about that when I'm reading. But that doesn't really play that much part in, you know, what I do, what I'm responding to as a conversation that's going on, a constant, dynamic, moving conversation that's going on. The other thing is, I don't know because I've never been to any of the other coaches' workshops, they've got two problems. They can't create a teamwork system around them because they're a personality-based business. And you can't send a wannabe copy of the personality out and have them be a credible coach because people just want the personality. 

Ours is almost like a geometric system. It's a form of mathematics that the more thinking tools you have, the more you're a flexible entrepreneur, creative, productive, regardless of changing circumstances. That's the only game I've ever been playing. I've been playing it since 1974, so it'll be 50 years. And I'm a good free-form jazz coordinator. But I create a structure. I create a structure so that people can be creative around me. I'll tell you, the U.S. government and Canadian government and UK government will tell you that we're really different because we're in real patent stage now. And patents are the nuclear arms of intellectual property because they have an asset value. Copyrights don't really have an asset. They're a protection, but they don't really have an asset value. Trademarks have a value, but not until you sell the trademark. A patent has a built-in asset value like your home has. Once you have it, you have it. So when we started the process, and we have 50 in this year, we'll have 50 of our thinking tools in for patents this year. 

But before we did this, our patent attorney who's in our Free Zone program, Keegan Caldwell, amazing, amazing intellectual property lawyer, and he got his law degree without going to law school. He just figured out the test, and he took the test, and he became a lawyer. Anyway, he says, you know, what you're doing is so unique. He says it's hard to get a handle on it. And he says, but what I did is I checked out all the other coaches in the world, the famous coaches, you know, who are much more famous than I am because they want to be more famous. And he said, I've come to a startling discovery. None of them have any intellectual property. He says, yours is going to be the only intellectual property out there. And I said, that sounds like a Free Zone. And he asked me what my take on that was. And I said, not to point fingers or name names, but you can't register stolen property. And they steal from each other. They borrow from each other. I don't steal from anybody. I don't borrow from anybody. 

People attempt to steal from us. And we send out 11 cease and desist letters. We have a very, very good IP component of Strategic Coach. And on average, we're sending out 11 cease and desist. And there's a four stage and 90% they say, oh, I'm sorry, I just stopped. And about 5% they were doing it for some tight cash flow reason. They weren't going to do this permanently, but they needed to use our ideas to make some quick cash. And 5% is just their business. Stealing is their business model. And everything else. And those are the ones we save the big guns for.

Gord Vickman: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery until imitation becomes copyright infringement.

Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And IP—copyrights, trademarks, and patents—are backed up by major governments. And so if you go into a fight with me, I'm just saying you have your lawyer on your side and I have the U.S. government on my side.  

Gord Vickman: It's a lot of firepower. 

Dan Sullivan: Yeah, and the American patents are the world's... except for certain places that we won't name here. But they don't get to play in the game if they don't respect patent law. But the big thing about it is that we've established this free-form jazz thing, or even when I was a one-on-one coach, I was still doing it. We're good at the game, we're at the top of our game, and the top is getting higher.

Gord Vickman: Dan, what's the future of the Free Zone program?

Dan Sullivan: So I'm 79, and so my goal for when I'm 100, and by the way, I was looking back, I've created and produced more since I was 70 than I did before I was 70. Okay, so my goal is from 80 to 90, I will create more and produce. Now I'm telling you vast teamwork networks here, vast collaboration networks that I have here. So I've got, you know, when I say I will create, I'm talking my part of the creation and my part of the productivity. But my part of the company will create more and produce more from ages 80 to 90 for me than I create before 80. And then 90 to 100, it'll be the same thing. I'll create more and produce more from 90 to 100 than I have created before age 90. And that's a good amount. And that's a thinking tool in Strategic Coach. And that'll be a patent. 

Gord Vickman: Created in the moment. 

Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah, but, Gord, you have the extensive experience in the broadcast world of radio. You were backstage, you were front stage in the radio world, and you know the difference between people who they have to be totally scripted, nothing can change that they haven't structured beforehand, and other people can just do it off the top. Which ones are the most popular?

Gord Vickman: The people who are not scripted. Want to hear a little radio slang? So radio DJs, in the industry they call them jocks, why I don't know. And a liner is something that you get printed off and handed to you that for people who do different day parts they have to read and it's sponsorship messages, it's weather, it's things that are going on around the station. So the worst thing, sacrilege, that you want to be called in terrestrial radio is a liner jock, which means someone who just reads off the liners, nothing original. Oh, how's this guy? Oh, just a liner jock. Oh, then the air just gets sucked out of the room. You do not want to be a liner jock. Very pleased to say that I was never a liner jock, and no one on any show that I was involved in was. But if you really want to get under the skin of a radio DJ, call them a liner jock. They won't like it very much. 

Dan, when I got out of the episode today, I thought it was really neat because I had never heard you describe the atmosphere in the Free Zone. And I've been to four down in Chicago of the first Free Zone group. And to describe it as free jazz, where I can just picture all the members just, you know, jamming in the room. And you could sort of step back if you wanted to, because that instrument could just take a water break, take a bio break, take a bathroom break, and then, you know, pop back in wherever the riff fits you. But in the corporate world, in the machine bureaucracy, we have classical music. And if there's no conductor, everyone just sits around staring at each other because they can't really riff without that stick waving. 

Dan Sullivan: They can't riff. They can't riff. 

Gord Vickman: They need the waving stick.

Dan Sullivan: No, they need the line. They're liners. 

Gord Vickman: They're liner jocks. 

Dan Sullivan: I have a great favorite actor all my life, and it was Richard Burton, who was famous, of course, for his off-and-on relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. But I was heading towards theater in my early 20s, and he was starring on Broadway. And it was either Camelot, the musical, or it was Hamlet, which was a Shakespeare play that he did. And he was the first actor who ever got a million-dollar contract for just a run of, I think it was Hamlet. Phenomenal voice, just one of the most amazing voices. So I wrote him a letter when I was about 20 years old, 19 years old, 20 years old. And I asked him all sorts of questions about becoming an actor because I do have acting skills. And, you know, just send it off. And about three weeks later, I get a three-page handwritten letter with cross-outs and everything. And he answered all my questions. And then he said, but you know, the big decision you have to make is whether you want to be an actor or whether you want to be a star. And he says, because if you want to be an actor, go to the finest acting school that you can and do, you know, proceed through the grades and master all the skills of acting. And then they'll probably put you in touch with acting companies where you can, first of all, just be an extra and then gradually you learn how to get there, and then gradually you start getting into starting roles.

And he said, or you can find the smallest church group or local community group that has a theater company and immediately be the star, okay? And then when you outgrow that, go from city to county, county to state, you know, he just says a progression, but always be the star. He says, never be an extra, always be the star. And his last line, it's like the punchline. He says, by the way, I never wanted to be an actor. 

Gord Vickman: And he was a star. 

Dan Sullivan: Great, great star. Phenomenal voice, just a phenomenal voice. Anyway, so if I was in acting now, I'd be unemployed 90% of the time. I'd twist myself out of shape to get a role and everything else. But when I think about Strategic Coach, I have my own theater. It's all our plays. I'm the producer, I'm the director, I'm an actor, you know, major actor. My early theater instincts were serious instincts, but not in the form that conventionally other people would pursue. I had to create my own theater with my own plays. But in order to do that, we've got to have an improv company where the other members are making up. And I do that with our team. Everything our team comes up with. So good. That's good. Let's go. That's all free-form jazz.

Gord Vickman: And everyone even expecting to be in the audience might get pulled in, and who knows, you might be the star of the show in that instance. Any final thoughts today, Dan?

Dan Sullivan: No, this was a great one. I've never talked about this before. And this is a little bit of backstage Strategic Coach sauce that you've revealed here, you know. But I think that free-form and improv and off the top, as we go along in our economy, gets paid for more highly than liner people.

Gord Vickman: Liner jocks. Don't be a liner jock.

Dan Sullivan: Free-form jocks, you know, it's a bigger risk, but the rewards are bigger too.

Gord Vickman: Yeah. And as we move further, deeper into automation, it's those who are truly original and those who can join the jam that are going to… 

Dan Sullivan: And I'm just treating AI as another "Who." 

Gord Vickman: So join the production. Join the music. Jump on in. The water is warm. Thanks so much, Dan. Appreciate it. 

Dan Sullivan: Thank you, Gord.