Have you ever used a joint venture to grow your business? Are you familiar with what a joint venture is? Our guest today, Mac Attram, shares with us how he has used joint ventures to generate $25 million in revenue in his business and how you can use this strategy to grow your company as well.
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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Mac Attram is the Founder & CEO of MindSpace Coaching, a leading business growth expert, widely-regarded as one of the most sought after Business Coaches and Trainers for Entrepreneurs. He is famous for helping business owners rapidly increase their sales revenues between 20% – 200% in just a few months, as well as implement better processes and build winning business teams so that they can have more time off to enjoy their lives.
Mac had many years of challenges and failures in business before discovering what really works! His tenacity and over 30 years of Martial Arts practice helped him stay focused and disciplined; a trait he takes into all areas of his life including business. He is an entrepreneur who has developed and sold several profitable companies. He is also a multi-award winning business coach and author, and has been featured as an “expert advisor” in TV, newspapers and magazines. He was previously awarded the ‘Executive Coach of the Year’ in the UK.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
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If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:00):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success Podcast, where each week, we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team, and as we open today, I’m wondering if you’ve ever used a joint venture to grow your business or maybe even taken a step back and wondering if you’re familiar with what a joint venture happens to be.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:23):
And our guest today is Mac Attram, and he shares with us how he has used joint ventures to generate more than $25 million in revenue for his business over the last few years and how you can use this strategy to grow your company as well.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:40):
Now, Mac is the founder and CEO of MindSpace Coaching, a leading business growth expert, and he’s widely regarded as one of the most sought-after business coaches and trainers for entrepreneurs. He shares with us how he went from learning from people like Tony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki to presenting with these people on the same stage. He’s also a multi-award-winning business coach and author, and he’s been featured as an expert advisor on numerous popular TV shows, newspapers, magazines and so on. And, a key piece here, he was previously awarded as the Executive Coach of the Year in the United Kingdom.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:19):
So let’s go ahead and jump into my interview with Mac Attram.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (01:23):
First of all, Tom, thank you for inviting me and allowing me to be on your podcast here. Amazing show. And my company name is MindSpace Coaching, MindSpace Coaching, and my title, you can call me Principal, you can call me Head Business Coach, Master Business Coach, you can call me CEO, you can call me Founder.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:48):
Well, perfect, perfect. Well, I’d love to talk, just by way of starting, one of the things that caught my eye when we were first connected together is the concept of joint ventures and using joint ventures to grow businesses, and so I work every day with successful entrepreneurs that are growing, we help them franchise. I’m not quite as familiar with joint ventures, so I was hoping you might be able to share and just start by explaining what a joint venture is and go from there.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (02:23):
Awesome. And that’s a great question. I think that’s a great place to start there, Tom. So the technical term, some people know joint ventures as strategic alliances or collaborations. It’s very different from an affiliate. It’s not affiliate system. This is a joint venture. It’s a strategically thing that you do. The technical term is a win-win strategic partnership between two or more people who agree to leverage, the key word here is “leverage”, Tom, each other’s resources in order to make more money or to save more money.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (03:04):
For me, the easiest way to explain it for what I have found is joint ventures is the fastest, most lucrative and least competitive form of marketing bar none. And so imagine that someone already has your audience or they have your ideal clients and they say, “Hey, can you give them some value?” And you give them some value and then they want more from you and they want to buy from you. That’s a perfect situation. You haven’t had to hustle on social media. You haven’t had to slide into people’s DMs. You haven’t had to do any of that stuff. Nothing wrong with that. You haven’t had to email and keep emailing. Nothing wrong with that. If it works, great. But a situation where someone’s ready to promote you, zero-cost marketing to you and full benefit for you and for your partner.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (03:59):
How do you see this being different from, say, like a referral relationship or something you had mentioned maybe some difference… So talk through how those are actually different, I guess.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (04:12):
Sure, yeah. I mean, there are different ways to market, okay? There are hundreds of ways to market and some people confuse joint venture partnerships [inaudible 00:04:23] affiliate schemes.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (04:24):
And an affiliate scheme is basically where someone has a product or service, you simply promote it to your list, to your people, and they buy that thing and you get a commission, right? That’s you promoting someone else’s product or service.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (04:43):
A referral scheme is basically someone, there’s usually no commission involved, where somebody has a great product, and most people do it all the time, “Hey, you’re going to the cinema? You want to check out this particular movie.” Or, “Oh, you’re looking for a plumber? You want to speak to this person.” And referral schemes can be a fully systemized thing strategically, or it can be just loose.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (05:11):
A strategic referral scheme might be maybe I’m a financial advisor and every time I finish advising one particular client, I ask them, “Hey, by the way, do you know anybody else who would benefit from my service?” Why do I do that? Because it’s part of my strategy. It’s part of my marketing to see where I’m going to get these other clients from.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (05:32):
Well, joint ventures work slightly different. A joint venture could be Tom, great guy, I don’t know Tom, but I know he does some great work and I know he serves his audience and he serves his clients in a great way and he offers something slightly different from what I do. But guess what? We have the same type of clients.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (05:57):
So I approach Tom and say, “Hey, Tom, have you ever thought about telling your clients about this? Because it will improve their life or improve their business.” Tom thinks about it. “Oh, I’ve never thought about that. How will it work?” So you explain to Tom, “This is what we can do, and Tom, it’s not going to cost you anything, but I’m going to get all these things set up, we can do some email marketing to them or I can speak to your audience. We can do something.” Tom obliges.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (06:23):
So we go ahead and that person then speaks to Tom’s audience or provides something of value to Tom’s audience. They love it so much, they purchase further things from this person, but there’s a strategic agreement between Tom and this person that says, “Hey, by the way, anyone who buys, I get a commission, right?” Yes, you do. You get a commission or whatever you agree, 10%, 20%, 100% in some cases. So this is strategic alliance.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (06:53):
Now, imagine a… So some people say, “But I’m only a small business, how do I do strategic joint ventures?” Now, imagine a yoga instructor and let’s say a restaurant in the same local area. A yoga instructor and a restaurant. And you might think, “Well, there is no synergy.” Well, they have [inaudible 00:07:21] clients. What joint venture could they do?
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (07:24):
Now, joint venture’s about thinking creatively and thinking, “Well, could I help that yoga instructor? Can I help the restaurateur’s clients?” Possibly. How could we do that? Maybe through, maybe they give me some coupons and vouchers and I share it to my clients, maybe I give them coupons and vouchers and they share it with their clients. It’s a very straightforward strategic alliance, very simple, no money’s exchanged, but both are marketing on behalf of each other.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (07:55):
But the key difference is what I say to people is, “You’re going to do a joint venture, make sure you get everything in writing.” Because that’s where things can go wrong. Get it in writing. So I hope I’ve explained what the differences are here.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (08:09):
Yeah, no, that’s helpful and you started answering, I think, a question I had, which is, “What’s a key or what are some of the tips or suggestions you’d have to create a successful joint venture?
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (08:24):
Yeah. Let me elaborate furthermore, then. Some of the things we teach where we teach people to use joint ventures is the first step if you want to do joint ventures is to think, “Who already has my ideal clients? Which organization? Which influencer? Which person?” And once you’ve established that, then the next step is to get into a conversation with them somehow and just accord your conversation, and, at some point, present what you’re thinking because you would’ve done some research on them, you’d have done some research on their products and services, and there may be an element that they’re not giving to their clients, but you may have something that could serve their clients.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (09:10):
And so once you bring that up in that conversation, they’ll think about it and eventually, they’ll say yes. Why will they say yes? Because they can see how they can make money from what they already have. It’s not going to cost them any more. It’s not going to cost them any more in marketing or any other costs. But here’s a situation where they can both win, and above all there, Tom, their clients will appreciate it because the client didn’t… Remember, if that is you, Tom, and your clients trust you and you’re their trusted advisor and you bring them something that improves their lives, changes their lives or changes their business or changes their health or changes their relationships for the better, they’re going to be grateful and thankful that you brought this other expert to come and help me. “Thank you for thinking about me, Tom.”
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (10:05):
Right, so from there, you’ve got to then put things in writing. Get an agreement. We give our clients agreements and contracts, we make sure both parties sign so both parties know how they’re both going to benefit.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (10:17):
One of the things I’d love for you to talk about is some of the books you’ve produced and written. So you’re an author, you do all kinds of speaking and engagements that you’re involved with. So I’d love for you to pick one of your books to talk about for our audience and how it can help them, whether it’s with joint ventures or just growing in general.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (10:40):
Sure. Yeah. I will preface it with this. For the past 17 years, I’ve trained and coached hundreds of thousands of people in over 50 countries around the world, I think, in every continent apart from one. And I teach them how to grow their business, how to grow their wealth, and how to grow themself at a personal development level.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (11:02):
My three books are bestselling books. They’re all available on Amazon. My latest book is called The Millionaire Moment, and The Millionaire Moment is about my rags-to-riches story, if you like, because there was a point in my life not too long ago when I was totally broke. Over $100,000 in debt, struggling. And thank goodness I had some help and I got some coaching, I managed to turn my struggling business around and I sold that business and moved forward.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (11:33):
So that book, it’s all about how our thoughts shape our financial destiny. If you have stinking thinking, you’ll have stinking money and it just won’t work. So that book, The Millionaire Moment, talks about… Well, it actually gives scientific-based facts on how you can utilize your mind to create the kind of wealth that you want or the life that you want to create.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (11:59):
The book I wrote before, so that book was written in 2020 in the pandemic when I was, “What do I do now? I can’t travel, I can’t teach. Let me write another book.” The book before that was written in 2016, Face It & Fix It. It’s all about how to turn around your struggling business to make it more successful. And then the two books before that are all personal development books, how to really soar to further success by being your unique self. You’re not like anybody else on this planet. You are you. So how do you utilize your authentic self to create the life that you desire and that you deserve? Those are the books.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:38):
Mac, this is a great time to transition here just to ask you the same four questions we ask every guest before they go. And the first question is, “Have you had a miss or two in your career and something you learned from it?”
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (12:51):
Yeah, definitely. I’ve had many misses, and one of them I mentioned earlier on, there was a time when I was… For me to talk about it, it’s quite hurtful because there was a time in my life when I found myself totally broke, over $100,000 in debt. At the time, my wife was pregnant with my second child and a few short years have gone by where I had hardly seen much of our first child and I was only newly married and I ended up working 16, 17, 18 hours a day because my business wasn’t working, my two business partners had done some naughty stuff, stolen a lot of money, it was in a mess, so now I’m working double hours to make sure I can pay our staff, pay my way and look after my family.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (13:39):
And so, for me, that was a low point where everything was just coming down on me, and there was one evening, driving home from work, five minutes from my home, I stopped at this shopping mall car park, and I sat there five minutes from my house. I didn’t want to go home that evening. And I sat there with my hands on the wheel sobbing, feeling sorry for myself, thinking, “I’m such a failure. I’m such a failure. I’m failing my family, I’m failing my wife. It’s not the life I wanted for myself.”
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (14:10):
So that, for me, was a big miss because in that moment, I realized that I had to do something different. And so I went on this journey of self-discovery, reading books, listening to… Amazing, we didn’t have podcasts then, many years ago, but I listened to teleseminars, great people like Tom and these kind of people that were giving great information out there and I started to transform my life and, within two years, fixed my business, sold my business and continued onward and upward, if that answers your question.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:42):
It does. Yeah, that’s great. Well, and then the flip side of that is we ask, “Have you had a make or two?” So let’s talk about some highlights.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (14:53):
Yeah, some highlights is… Because I transformed my life and I started helping people one-on-one, and I started to… People asked me to help them. In the end, I thought, “Well, instead of speaking to people one-on-one, why don’t I just do little workshops?” So I do workshops, 5 people, 10 people, 15 people in the room, and eventually, it became thousands of people in the room and traveling around the world helping people.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (15:20):
So the highlights have been… I’ll give you this, Tom. I don’t know if you’ve heard of experts and teachers like Robert Kiyosaki, Anthony Robbins, [inaudible 00:15:34] Brown, these are all people I studied from. So the highlights were come 2010, 2011, 2012, I started traveling around the world with these people on the same stages, teaching what I was teaching around business and wealth. These are people I studied from. Now they became my friends and they were my mentors, they still are, but they also became my friends.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (15:56):
So those are great highlights that wherever you are in your life, wherever you’re struggling with right now, that adversity can propel you to more success if you get support, if you get the resources and you get the help. That’s why I love coaching other people.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:13):
Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. Well, let’s talk about a multiplier. It’s a favorite question here on the show and something you’ve used to multiply your personal growth, your development, your business growth. Would you mind sharing?
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (16:30):
Sure, yeah, definitely. From a business point of view, the multiplier for me, the biggest thing bar none has been the ability to do joint ventures. The ability to joint venture with other people who already have my ideal clients that I can add value to, and they send me a ton of clients and we make money together. That has been the biggest change.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (16:58):
And give you an idea, in the last eight years alone, my strategic joint venture partners and myself have generated over $25 million in the last eight years alone on just joint ventures marketing, nothing else. Just on the joint venture side of it.
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (17:15):
And from a personal development side of it, there was a time in my life when I wasn’t studying any books, not going to any seminars, not really listening to other experts, but the multiplier has been anything that I’m working on, I’m going to go out there and find out who is already doing this and doing it very, very well. So if I want to do a podcast and I hear Tom DuFore is doing this podcast, I want to check Tom out and see why he’s so successful. And I’m going to model Tom, not copy, I’m going to model him because he’s doing it well. So for me, learning from experts has helped me greatly in the last 17 years.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (17:58):
And the final question, Mac, that we ask every guest is, “What does success mean to you?”
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (18:05):
Wow. That is a great question. Many years ago, when I was struggling, especially financially, I thought money would be the answer until I got that handle, financial freedom, millions, all that kind of stuff. Then I started realizing, for me, success is… I didn’t say it, but I’ve been married to my wife now, we’ve been married for 22 years. Three children. And so success for me means being happy and fulfilled every single day. And it’s not about money. It’s about relationships. For me, it’s about relationships in business, relationships in life, how well I build those relationships for the future. That’s what success means to me because we can’t live life in unison alone in the bush behind a forest. We need other people. And so for me, building great relationships is success.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:09):
Well, Mac, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you were hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Mac Attram, MindSpace Coaching (19:17):
Oh, great question. Yeah. For those who, if anything I’ve said resonates with you and you want to check what I’m doing, go to www.macattram.com. That’s M-A-C-A-T-T-R-A-M dot com. And I’ve got some free resources there. There is a quiz that’ll take you three minutes. It’s a free quiz, but it’ll tell you, if you run a business, it’ll tell you where you may be struggling in your business and what you can do about it. Or check me out on any of my socials, the same again, @MacAttram. I’m on all the socials, the Facebook, the LinkedIn, the Instagram. So yeah, reach out. Let me let know how I can support you.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:01):
Mac, thank you so much for a fantastic interview and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s Three Key Takeaways.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:07):
So Takeaway #1 is just what a joint venture is, and this idea of this strategic alliance and Mac defined a joint venture as a win-win strategic partnership between two or more people who agree to leverage each other’s resources to make more money or save more money, and as you know, here on the Multiply Your Success Podcast, we love a win-win.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:31):
Takeaway #2 is when he gave some tips for creating a successful joint venture. He said, “Think about or find companies or organizations that already have your ideal customer working with them.” He said, “Then start a conversation. 3, present your ideas. #4, people will eventually say yes because it’s a win-win for them too. And #5, make sure you get an agreement in place. Make sure that’s documented. How is the relationship going to work?”
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:01):
And Takeaway #3 is I love how Max shared how he went from learning from people like Tony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki, some of these very famous personal development and coaching experts, to now being on the same stage with them and being personal friends with them and doing workshops all over the world with them. So I thought that was just a really cool takeaway. So you never know what might come your way as you continue to grow yourself.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:36):
And now it’s time for today’s Win-Win.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:41):
So today’s Win-Win is, you probably would’ve guessed it, is creating a joint venture and strategic partnership in your business. And certainly, the whole concept here is win-win. So it’s going to be a win for you, a win for your joint venture partner, a win for your customers, all the folks involved. It’s a beautiful relationship there. And so as we bring this podcast to a close, I’m wondering if there’s a joint venture that might just be worth your while that’s maybe right under your nose or right in front of you that you didn’t see before.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:19):
So the takeaway here from today’s Win-Win is to think about that. Where could that potential joint venture be? Maybe take 5 minutes, 10 minutes on your next car ride or walk around the block, and just think about that.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:34):
And that’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review and remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back next week.