CLINT SALTER: “It makes it a lot easier to let go and hand the reins over and teach your coaches when you've got systems and processes in place. If everything's in your head, it's very challenging to let go because there's a lot of room for things to go wrong.”
INTRO: I’m Amy Porterfield, ex-corporate girl turned CEO of a multi-seven-figure business. But it wasn't all that long ago that I lacked the confidence, the budget, and the time to focus on growing my small-but-mighty business. Fast forward past many failed attempts and lessons learned, and you'll see the business I have today, one that changes lives and gives me more freedom than I ever thought possible, one that used to only exist as a daydream. I created the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast to give you simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies to help you do the same. If you're an ambitious entrepreneur, or one in the making, who's looking to create a business that makes an impact and a life you love, you're in the right place, friend. Let's get started.
AMY PORTERFIELD: I want to tell you about a podcast I think you should check out. It's called Marketing Against the Grain. It's hosted by Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan, and it's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Because I know you market for your business, if you want to know what's trending, what's ahead, and how you can lead the way, this is the podcast for you. Hosts Kipp and Kieran share their marketing hot takes like nobody does. I love when they talk about things like how to turn problems into opportunities or dive deep into A.I. and marketing. It’s so good. So be sure to check it out. You can listen to Marketing Against the Grain wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, there. Welcome to another episode of Online Marketing Made Easy.
I am so excited to have you tuning in with me today because I'm diving into a really hot topic and that is switching from a personal brand to a company brand. Now, you might have heard my episode “The Pros & Cons of a Personal vs. a Company Brand.” It came out around Valentine's Day, and if you haven't listened to it, you can check it out at amyporterfield.com/544. That's just amyporterfield.com/544. Now, in that episode I talk through my own thought process behind starting a personal brand.
And when I say personal brand, I mean one where I'm the face of the company. It is my name. So my name is my website URL. And it's me that you hear on my podcast. and you see my face on social media, and I'm in all my courses. It's me, me, me, me, me. So you get the point, right?
I also talk about how I've been just a little curious about what it would take to shift from a personal brand to a company brand and even just, like, starting to think, is this possible? Because let's be real. While I'm not trying to make this shift anytime soon, I definitely don't see myself doing, like, Instagram Reels when I'm ninety years old.
So here's the thing: I had no idea that that episode I did about personal brand versus company brand would strike such a chord with you. We had so many emails and DMs about questions related to that topic. Now, because of that, I wanted to bring someone on the show that has firsthand experience in changing over from a personal brand to a company brand, and then, going on to add other coaches and experts into his business as it grew. And then, the kicker is, he actually has sold five of his businesses.
So his name is Clint Salter, and he's an award-winning entrepreneur and bestselling author who's on a mission to revolutionize the dance industry. So over the past twenty-one years, Clint has created and sold, like I said, five companies, from the dance studio he started at sixteen years old in a local community hall to his most recent sale, the largest coaching membership for dance-studio owners globally. And, like, I'm talking about courses and memberships and a lot of the things that you and I do. So yeah, a dance studio and teaching dance professionals might be very different than what you do, but the model of his business is really similar to what I do and what many of you do as well.
So I will say this right from the start. Clint is a joy of a human being, and I'm so glad that he's here to talk about his experience. I have so many questions because if this is something I want to do, I have to start exploring it now. I'm not exactly sure which direction I want to go, but I love doing the research, and I love dreaming and thinking about how to make this business bigger, not to make more money, truly, but to allow more and more people the freedom that comes with entrepreneurship. So if I'm on a mission to free more people into entrepreneurship, then with that, I need to figure out how to make my business bigger. And I'm only one person, and so what would that look like if I move to a company brand? I'm totally thinking about it. You might be thinking about it. Or even if you're not, I want this in your back pocket for the future because I promise you, my friend, even if you're just starting out, even if you can't wait to explode your personal brand, there will be a day that you will start thinking about a company brand, I have no doubt in my mind. So it's better to hear this now and just always kind of look toward the future. So let's dive in.
Well, hey, there, Clint. Welcome to the show.
CLINT: Amy, so, so thrilled to be here.
AMY: I am excited. And this topic, oh, my gosh, my listeners are going to love every minute of this conversation. So I want to kick things off with sharing a little bit about what you do and the timeline of how your business has progressed from a personal brand to a company brand to where you are today. So can you kind of set the stage for us?
CLINT: Yeah, for sure. So, hi, everyone. Great to be here. My name’s Clint. I'm the CEO and founder of the Dance Studio Owners Association. We work with about forty-five thousand dance-studio owners to really help them grow their business and get back their life.
Now, if I take you back to 2013, ’14, I worked with a hundred forty one-on-one clients. I was doing one-on-one sessions six days a week, a lot of them dance studios, and that was me just kind of coaching. And then, I started an online program, and I was called Clint Salter. That was the brand. It was a personal brand. But I felt really uncomfortable putting myself out there as a personal brand. And so unintentionally, at that point, I called our company the name of our program at the time, which was Studio Success Formula, and that happened at about twelve months into the journey of running this company. And then another year later, we transformed the company to the Dance Studio Owners Association. And again, that was just about me not feeling overly confident being myself as my own brand and creating a company name.
In saying that, though, I think about a company brand as you're doing it internally as well as externally. So internally, it was still me doing everything. Externally, it was still my face on everything. So essentially, it was a personal brand, but I just gave it a company name.
AMY: Got it. Okay. So you went from having a personal brand to a company brand.
CLINT: Mm-hmm.
AMY: You talk a little bit about not feeling comfortable as the personal brand, but what did you learn from this whole process? And also, do you think that switching from a personal brand to a company brand can be done, even if you're, like, more established, like five, ten, fifteen years in?
CLINT: Yeah, 100 percent. So for me, a personal brand is a “me” brand, and a company brand is a “we” brand. So when I think about a personal brand, I'm thinking about you are the person. You are the core talent. You are the people. You are the person that all of your people see, all of your audience sees all of the time. When I think about a company brand, which was the transition we made externally, is this is when you start bringing in other faces. To answer your question, I 100 percent believe that any company can shift into a company brand. I actually suggest personal brands don't make that shift until they’re about one to 1.5 million dollars into their business, because you can do it too soon. People buy people, and if you're putting yourself out there with lots of other people, it can get really confusing. I'd actually prefer you to be a few years into your business, because you can really slow and steady start introducing new voices, new perspectives into your company as you're building something that is bigger than yourself.
AMY: Okay. So with that, I want to talk about the strategy that went into building a company brand. So, you know, I love a good system, and you actually have these five steps to transition from a personal brand to a company brand. And I want to talk about that.
But actually, before we get there, I want to back up just a little bit. Where we probably should have started, and it was my bad, the pros and cons of a personal brand and a company brand, because there's some people listening, Clint, that they're not uncomfortable with putting themselves out there, but they're seeing some other benefits of it not just being me, me, me. So can you talk a little bit about the pros and cons of a personal brand versus company brand?
CLINT: For sure. So when I think about a personal brand, the great pros with a personal brand is it can evolve as you evolve. You know, you might like talking and teaching about Facebook advertising, and then you might want to make a shift to talking about all social media. Then you might want to shift, talking about something specific and creating an online program. And then you might want to talk about masterminds. The beautiful thing about a personal brand is you can take your audience on a journey with you. You can have it as a creative outlet as well as your money maker. And a lot of people love that about creating a personal brand.
I'll now switch to the pros of a company brand, and we can talk about the cons. The pros with a company brand is you're building an asset. And so if you think about all of the systems and processes you're building to deliver to your clients—this is what we call intellectual property—all of this intellectual property has value. And so when you're building a company brand, you're building something that isn't going to require you 24/7. It's not going to require your face. You're not need to create content 24/7.
And so I think about it: if you went to live in a cave for three months, and you did no work, and you didn't crazy batch content the three months before you went to live in a cave, your personal brand wouldn't survive, because it is dependent on you. Now, a company brand, when you've got different faces and voices, and you're really leaning heavily on your intellectual property, you can go away into a cave for three months. Your company will continue to grow. It will continue to serve your customers. And so that's how I like to kind of look at the difference and the pros around those things.
The con with a personal brand is, like we've kind of said, it's all about you. If you don't feel like recording that podcast interview or turning up to do that video training or record that course, there's nobody else that can do it, because you build a business based around who you are and what you put into the world.
The con of a company brand is you need people to make it happen. And we'll probably talk a little bit about how we're structured out, coaches and the different voices. I call this the avengers for dance-studio owners. We have a bench of people that deliver value to our members, but you're introducing more team. You're growing a larger organization. It's not as agile. It's not as flexible. It's also a little not as creative. Running a company can sometimes be quite boring because you're doing the same systems over and over and over again, and you're optimizing your business. Sometimes that creativity goes away when you're building a company because you're stepping into the role of the CEO.
AMY: Yes. I could see that, for sure.
Okay. So let's get back to those five steps. So five steps to transition from a personal brand to a company brand. You've done this very successfully, so can you walk us through it?
CLINT: Yeah, sure. Let's do it. So step number one, I call it the five A's of transitioning to a company brand. The first step is audit. And this is where I want you to spend about four weeks writing down everything you do inside and outside of the business. So where do you show up in the business? Get you and your team to make a list of everywhere your face is present internally and externally. So we think about inside the company as the CEO, I'm doing these tasks. I have these responsibilities. Outside, forward facing, to our audience, these are all my responsibilities. So that's step one, audit.
Step two is arrange. And so what you want to do with this list is you want to put these tasks and responsibilities into categories. So think about marketing, client delivery, content creation. This is going to give you an overview of all of the areas within the business that you touch today.
Step number three is assess. So I want you, on a scale of one to five, to go through each of these items and give it a number based on how important it is for you to continue doing that item. The important thing here is that you remove your ego from this exercise. One is not important; five is very important. And be really harsh on where you're needed and not needed, because as the talent, as the CEO, we can think that we're needed in all of the pieces of the pie, but we're not.
And I’ll give you an example. Four years ago, I was presenting our in-person retreats. So we run in-person retreats for our members. I was presenting at those. And today I don't present at all. I haven't, actually, in the last two years. I don't present at all at our in-person retreats, because part of our transition plan was, “Okay. Clint showing up at these retreats, delivering content, we don't need him to be doing that. Okay, let's slowly peel him back from those.” Another great example is our podcast. We've had a podcast running every single week for nearly the last nine years. I got out of the podcast four years ago.
And so it's really going through this and assessing on a scale of one to five, what do I need to be doing, what don't I need to be doing, and the importance around that.
Step number four is assign. So you want to take all of those things and assign dates to each of those items on when you and your team are going to work through these, and how are you going to get out of these things over the next two to three years? People are like, “What? Two to three years, I don't have that time, guys.” This isn't something that you do in the next six months. This is slow and steady. It is very strategic so that you don't break your business as you go through this process.
And step number five is action. We want to start taking action on shifting your business from a “me” business to a “we” business.
So those five steps. Step one, audit. Step two, arrange. Step three, assess. Step four, assign. And step five, take action.
AMY: Fantastic. I love a good step by step.
So I want to touch on something you said, I think in step three, which is assess, and that is ego. And so when I think about taking my business from a personal brand to a company brand, I know that my ego is going to get in the way, that thought that “Only I can do it this way,” or “I've been doing my podcast or my webinars or my ads the whole time, for fourteen years. How could I possibly ever give that up?” thinking I'm the end all, be all. How do you work around, one, ego? And then, what are some other challenges that you've experienced in shifting to a company brand, and what have you done to kind of minimize those challenges?
CLINT: Sure. There are really three types of challenges we'll face. The first one, which you've touched on, is personal resistance.
AMY: Yeah.
CLINT: The second piece is team resistance. The third piece is customer resistance. And so if we start at personal resistance, it is about letting go and letting go of control. The thing that makes this really easy is your intellectual property, is your systems and processes. And so what I want to make sure everyone listening here who's thinking about this, think about the content that you're currently teaching your customers, and make sure that standing alone or with someone else teaching your system that it still delivers a result to your customers.
I'll give you an example. One of the first systems I created was the eleven-step enrollment process for our dance-studio owners. Today, that system is the celebrity, not the coach that's teaching it. All of our coaches can teach this process, but people talk about the eleven-step enrollment process. So you want to make sure, it makes it a lot easier to let go and hand the reins over and teach your coaches when you've got systems and processes in place. If everything's in your head, it's very challenging to let go because there's a lot of room for things to go wrong.
The other thing in the personal resistance is the spotlight gets shifted from you to a group of people. And we've seen this in our company. I see it with our dance-studio owners, who we're teaching the same thing about letting go. For our studio owners, it's like, well, the children aren't wanting me anymore. They're not giving me the Christmas cards anymore. They're giving it to the teacher. And it's something that we have to be really aware of. If this is our dream and our vision and we want to impact more people, we want to grow a larger company, one of the things is you're not going to be in the spotlight, and you will need to share that spotlight. And so that's the first piece is the personal resistance.
The team resistance is the next piece that you've got to move through and navigate. They really have to be on board and believe in the new, updated mission and vision for your company and trust and believe in your new North Star that you're setting for your business. If your company has thrived purely because of you as the forward-facing talent—you’re the person teaching; you're the person selling; you're the person that's on stage—they are going to feel a little uneasy about these upcoming changes that you're proposing. The most important thing is that you talk it out. I talk about the three C’s, which is consistent, courageous, communication. And with your team, it's important that they are along on this journey with you. You're sharing your fears with them; they're sharing their fears with you. Some people will want to come along on this ride, and some people won't. And so the team resistance is a piece that is a continuous work in progress.
And the last one is the customer resistance. This is a really interesting one because your O.G. customers are going to say things like, “We miss you. It's not the same as it was before,” and this is completely normal. But guess what. Your new customers, they don't know any different, because they're coming into the company brand. They haven't been there for the evolution of the company. And so they're just seeing where you're at today, and they're expecting what they're seeing and what you're promising them. So, really, it's about being open, being honest with communication, and, really, really being clear about, what is the end goal here? and being able to communicate that with yourself honestly as well as your team.
AMY: Yes. Okay. I love that you touched on you, your team, and your customers. All of that matters. So that makes sense.
Okay. So let's switch gears to where you are today. So you started introducing new faces as coaches and experts into your business about five years ago. And this is something that I'm really excited to do in my business very slowly. I love that you said, like, over two to three years. Absolutely. I'm in no rush. I want to do this right. But I'm really curious to hear what your thinking process was around this strategy. Like, how did you decide who to bring on your team, and when? How did you know if they we're going to be good? What if they weren't good? Then you had to have that awkward conversation.
CLINT: Yes. All of those things, to be honest with you, it came out of pain. So, Amy, I remember I was, you know, when I was teaching everything, I remember I was teaching a Facebook ads class, and I was running through this session. I was doing Q&A. And I said to myself, in my head, “I hate my life right now. I don't care about Facebook ads. I don't want to be teaching them. I don't have the answers to these questions.” And I had one of those moments of, “Surely, someone else would be much better teaching this and sharing this with our members.” And so it was out of pain. It definitely wasn't strategic the first time around. And that's when we brought in our first coach, which was one of our expert coaches, so someone that just focused on one specific lane. So we brought in our Facebook-ads coach, and she ran Facebook-ads training three times a year as well as monthly Q&As and supported our members in the group. So the first thing I got off my plate was I didn't need to be the Facebook-ads coach anymore, which was such a huge relief.
AMY: Amen.
CLINT: Yes.
AMY: Facebook ads are tricky to teach. I don't blame you for that being your first thing.
CLINT: For sure. And it's changing all the time.
And then, the second thing was I started, as we grew our membership, I started to recognize some gaps. I hadn't run a dance studio myself for a number of years. I wasn't juggling kids, plus running a dance studio. And so I had an idea to bring in some of our members—so members who had been with us for at least three years, who were doing over a million dollars’ revenue inside of their studio—and we gave them the title of a studio-growth coach. So these were members that knew our intellectual property because they had done it and implemented it into their businesses. They also wanted something more than just only being a member inside of our program.
And so I identified two of these studio-growth coaches, and we kind of made it up as we went along. I was like, “I need some help. I'm running out of capacity. There are some gaps in this business that I'm not feeling individually. I would love for you to come on board.” And so that's one of our types of coaches. We have our studio-growth coaches. They are our members who have been with us at least three years. They're doing at least a million dollars in their dance studio, and they really know our intellectual property and can teach it.
I, then, started bringing on some more expert coaches. So expert coaches are our second type of coach. I talked about our Facebook-ads coach. We also have a marketing coach, a copywriting coach, a leadership coach, and in-classroom coach. And I started just peeling again, peeling back the layers, “Okay. What do I not like doing anymore? Who is going to be a better expert? Who's going to provide more values for our members?” And so I started bringing on these types of expert coaches into our program.
The third type of support we brought in are what we call captains. Now, captains are also members who have been with us at least three years inside of our program, which is called The Inner Circle. They are our cheerleaders. So they're managing our community inside of our Facebook group. They are answering questions inside of the Facebook group. They also know our intellectual property really well because they've been a part of our environment for at least the last three years.
And our fourth type of coach is our guest coaches and speakers. And so these are the one-off experts we bring into our world. This might be to speak at a virtual or in-person retreat. It might be for a masterclass. And so these are our domain experts. We bring them in for one session, and then they leave and often don't come back, because we like to have lots of different people exposing lots of different experts to our members.
So the four types of support we have are our studio-growth coaches, our expert coaches, our captains, and then our guest coaches and speakers.
AMY: Wow. I love how dialed in you have it. And I have to remember you've been doing this for a while. So I also love that you said, “We kind of just made this up as we went and what we needed.”
CLINT: Totally.
AMY: So that, I also love, where you're not going to totally get it right, and you kind of have to navigate how it's all going to go down. But the fact that you had the courage to do it, that's another thing. I do think this takes courage because you're doing something so different, and for those of us who have started a business from scratch, this is our baby. Like, we are so protective of it, right?
CLINT: Definitely.
AMY: One thing I do love is that you've been really intentional with all of these changes that you've made in your business. And what a lot of people don't often realize is that every time your business changes, you also have to evolve with it.
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So how did your mindset need to change as you started to build a business that essentially became bigger than you? That's another thing. I think company businesses become bigger than just you, and that is an amazing thing, but also, you've got to get your mind on board.
CLINT: Yeah. And it comes a little bit back to what we talked before about was that resistance of letting others take the spotlight. Now, that can be the front-facing people—so your different types of coaches—but it's also letting your managers and your directors inside of your team make decisions. And that is being one of the hardest things as I've grown as a CEO and continue to grow today is, how do we build an organization of the right people, putting them in the right seats, and giving them the freedom and flexibility to be able to make decisions, also have mistakes, and to be okay with it?
You know, one of our core values at DSOA is freedom within a framework. And this is for our members as well as for our team. And so what I think about is, “Okay. We have a framework; we have systems; we have processes; we have guiding principles and core values in how we run the business. But I want people to be able to bring their best selves, their zones of genius, into the company, and I need to be able to trust them.” Essentially, my role now, it's I'm more of a consultant to the business, and they are running the day to day and making decisions. And that takes a lot of honest, continual conversations.
Just a couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with our marketing manager as we were going through a launch, and we had different views on something. And before the call I had to sit there, and I'm like, “Okay. This is not only your show anymore. You need to listen, you need to learn, and you need to believe and trust the people that you've hired to do the best job that they can.” And that has definitely been a challenge.
AMY: Oh, amen, friend. I just hired—well, I promoted someone to a CEO in my company. I did a whole podcast about it. And I find myself saying, “Okay. Here's my two cents,” but then I need to follow it up with, “But you do what you feel is best,” because I have given her that responsibility. At the end of the day, it we don't hit our goals, that's on her. And so I have to let her have that leadership in deciding which way we go. But, whoa, it's hard.
CLINT: Yeah. And I think the other thing is, like, I'm a saver, right? So if something's not going right, I want to, like, go in and save it.
AMY: Same.
CLINT: If someone’s not going to make the right decision, I'm, like, going to go in and save it. And really, over the last eighteen months, I have learned mostly to just listen and be quiet. And when they ask me for feedback, I'm really cautious around the feedback that I'm giving because I often have to give my feedback and say, “But this isn't direction, right? What I'm giving you is an idea. This is not for you to go and take action on, because I want you to make the decision.”
AMY: Yes.
CLINT: And that is hard. I remember we were working with a coach and we were in a group kind of brainstorm, and they asked for my feedback. And the coach said, “Guys, Clint, he's just like you. He's giving his feedback. This is not the absolute. This is not what you need to go and do. This is not what you need to go implement. We're really promoting independent thinking here. He's just like he's one of the team.” And that was a shift for us because as a personal brand, as a small company, where you were the person making all the decisions, that's a real change for people.
AMY: Oh, that is huge, for my team, especially, because we're very new. We're, like, literally one month into having a CEO. We were at a team retreat, and I had to tell my leaders, like, “I'm going to give my two cents, and I'm going to tell you how I came up with that. And then I want you to come up with your own solution.” And I love it what you said: I want independent thinkers, because at the end of the day, I know I'm not the end all, be all. And I love what you said earlier, and I think a lot of people can relate to this. You had mentioned that it's been many years since I've ran a studio myself. And I have been doing this for fourteen years, but that's a lot of years since when I first started as an entrepreneur. And so new voices could really make a difference, and I have to remember that as well. I love this conversation, Clint. We never had this kind of conversation on the podcast. I think many people, even if they're not, nowhere close to wanting a company brand, putting it in their back pocket, thinking maybe one day, I think it's so valuable.
So tell me this. For anyone thinking about moving towards a company brand or maybe bringing on coaches into their business—maybe they're going to keep it as a personal brand, but they want to bring on coaches—and I don't know if you know this, Clint—I don't know why you would know this—but we are bringing on coaches. We have a brand-new coaching program. We're bringing on two sales people to sell the coaching program. So it's a whole new world for us over here. So you talking about those four different kind of coaches, I’m like, take all the notes that you can because it’s so valuable.
CLINT: Yes.
AMY: But what questions do I need to ask? Do my students need to ask? to really get clarity in the next right steps if they do want to move toward coaches or, specifically, a company brand?
CLINT: Yeah. I think the first question—this is the million-dollar question, which is the hardest to answer—is, what do I want?
AMY: Ooh.
CLINT: It is the hardest, hardest question. Also, knowing that over time, this is going to change. Like, if I rewind the clock nine years ago, there was no way in my path that I thought I was going to build a company brand, that I was going to sell this company. None of that, none of that was on in the immediate roadmap, and it's not something I would have answered with. And so really asking yourself that question today, you know, what do I want? And when it comes to a personal brand, there's a lot of flexibility. You can be incredibly creative. As I said, you can take your journey, and you can bring your customers and audience along on that journey with you. And so you may love that, and that might be the piece that really lights you up, and you have no desire in building a big team or building out your team, and you just want to be the person. That's awesome. It's important to know that.
But if you're like, you know what. I'm doing this now, but I know in a year’s time I don't want to be talking about, in my example, Facebook ads, it's great for you to start thinking about, “Okay. What types of people would I want to bring into my world that, firstly, deliver value to our customers, but also that I enjoy working with?” You know, life is way too short to work with people that aren’t lighting you up every day. And so ensuring that the people that you are bringing in, other people that you want to do work with, as well as deliver value.
And go slow. That is my biggest advice. This is not a race. If you make it a race, I can tell you it's not going to go very well. Go slow. Like I said, I brought in a Facebook-ads coach, right? We did that for about six months. And I brought in my studio-growth coaches. I started with two. I think we have six of those now. And so it really is slow and steady. Test things out. See if they work. If they don't—we've had some people not work. It hasn't all been roses. We've had to fire people because it hasn't worked out. But that's okay. That's not a failure. We’re just learning, and we're building the organization that we really want to be a part of.
And so get clear on what you want and then slow and steady. Go through those five steps that I shared. Go through that process; start mapping it out; and give yourself that two-to-three-year timeline, where you'll be in a place of, like, “Ah, I feel good. We did it at a good pace. We're generating great results.” There's no rushing needed.
AMY: No, that's for sure. You know, before we wrap up, I have one more bonus question for you. And you have successfully sold businesses, correct?
CLINT: Yeah. So this is my fifth company that I sold was our education company last year.
AMY: Okay. So we might need to bring you back and talk about selling a business, because a lot of people listening now, they are nowhere near even thinking about selling their business. However, I have a good friend, Rory Vaden. He's been on the show, and he told me this quote one time. He said, “A business worth selling is a business worth keeping,” meaning getting it to a place that you are not running it on the day to day, that it's actually thriving without you. You might want to never sell that business—
CLINT: For sure.
AMY: —but you might want to. And first of all, do you agree that you are more likely to sell a company brand than a personal brand, and for a whole lot more money?
CLINT: 100 percent. The multiple is going to be a lot higher. You will struggle with a personal brand as well because they'll probably want you to be there for the next five years as they make the transition that we just talked about. If you haven't already made that transition, they're going to want to keep you on. You’re going to have a longer earn out. You're going to get a lot of your money on the back end of that. If it doesn't work out, you're not going to get it. It’s going to be very stressful. I wouldn't advise anyone to sell their personal brand.
AMY: And I guess the last question, because we won't go deep into selling a business today, but how did you know you were ready to sell a business? How—like, the first time you sold a business or maybe the last time, how did you know, “Okay. This is the right decision”?
CLINT: It's a great question. For all of my companies, I always know, in my gut, around timing. And I knew for me, inside of DSOA, I love this company, I love our customers, but I knew for it to get to the next level, I wanted to pass the baton on to the next owner to keep growing the company, because I knew that there is another chapter for me out there. And I'm a starter. I'm a builder. I get really bored in the kind of management and the day-to-day piece of a business. And I could have brought in, you know, there's options. I could have brought in a CEO. I could have kept a company. But for me, it's brain space.
You know what Rory said—and I love Rory—what Rory said is true. But the vision of having someone run your company, and you don't need to be involved in the day to day, and it just kind of runs and brings you money, I haven't seen that happen with any of my companies or with any of my friends that have built and sold their companies.
AMY: Good point. I can't imagine not thinking about it daily still.
CLINT: No. Until it's completely not yours and it's off your plate, it is going to consume your brain. Whether you've got a CEO or you don't, it is brain space. And what I always love is that blank slate, that clean sheet of paper, where my brain space and my head isn't consumed by something, and I can dream up something else. And so that was really the reason why I ended up selling the company was for it to go to the next level with its new owners, as well as me getting back some brain space and that white sheet to move on to the next chapter.
AMY: Which is so exciting.
So speaking of the next chapter, tell us, like, what's in store for you? What's next for you? And also, where can people learn more about you?
CLINT: Sure. Well, I'm currently still consulting to the DSOA as we continue going through this transition. It's still a very new transition, which is super exciting. I've been doing a lot more writing. I've been doing some consulting. It's been really fun. And I'm also enjoying the space. I'm calling this my year of magic, thanks to one of my executive coaches that I work with. And I'm going to a lot of concerts. Just saw Janet Jackson over the weekend, and—
AMY: Fun!
CLINT: —heading to Taylor Swift in two weeks. And so just really, really, I'm soaking up the achievement of selling another business and really deeply experiencing life and working with some of my friends who are building companies to sell as well, which has been super fun.
And yeah, if people want to find out more about me, I'm really nowhere. That's the other thing is I'm not really on social media.
AMY: Okay. People probably are like, “What? I want Clint’s life.” My audience doesn’t really want to be on social media, at least some of them, so they’re very envious right now.
CLINT: Yes. I'm sorry to say that, but if you go to Instagram, there's, like, nothing on Instagram aside from a photo. You can go to my website, clintsalter.com. It talks a little bit about my journey, building the different companies that I've had. I've actually just written an essay on the eight lessons of scaling and selling my course and membership company. And so it's just a Google Doc. If anyone wants a copy of that, please, you can shoot me through an email, clint@clintsalter.com. I love connecting with people that are looking to scale their business, that potentially want to sell their business. I'd love to send that across to anyone that wants it.
AMY: Wonderful. Well, thank you, and we'll make sure to put that in the show notes.
Clint, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. I personally learned so much. I know my audience is inspired as well. So thanks again.
CLINT: Thanks, Amy. It's been awesome.
AMY: Well, well, well. Was that great or what? It was a new topic for the show and one that might be something that you won't use right away, but I love that you're just starting to get inspired by what is possible for your business. Making any change like this to your brand is certainly a big decision. And thanks to all of the incredible insights that Clint shared today. Hopefully, you have a little bit more clarity on whether or not this might be something you want to consider, whether it be soon or far into the future.
I know I walked away with a lot of value. Like, number one, I loved that he talked about moving away from being the guy who held all the knowledge and insight. And he talked about—remember when he said that enrollment process, like, eleven-step enrollment process? And he said it so quickly, this little part I'm going to share with you, that I wanted to make sure you caught it. It was meaningful to me. He said that eleven-step enrollment process becomes the celebrity, not the person teaching it. So he started to create frameworks—something we talk about on the show. I'm actually bringing Rory Vaden back on the show to teach us all how to create frameworks in our business to teach people. You're going to love it—but he talks about frameworks and models and roadmaps. Those become the celebrity, not necessarily the person teaching it. So no longer is Clint the big shot because he can teach this stuff, but the stuff he taught now becomes the focus, and now he can teach other people to teach it as well. And I thought that was really valuable.
I also loved that he said, “Write down what you want.” Write down what you want. I think this is such a great practice to really get into the habit of getting clear on what's important to us. And what do we want, not just in business but our personal life? And then create businesses or move around and navigate through our business to get what we want.
So thank you so much for tuning in. I just cannot wait to talk about this even more in the future. And make sure you email Clint if you want that Google Doc that he has. How bizarre was it that he's like, “You can go to my website, and you can get this. But I'm not really on social.” It was kind of refreshing. I've never had a guest that didn't want you to go check out all the things they have online. So he's a unicorn, for sure. Extra special. I'm so glad he was on the show.
Thanks for tuning in. And I'll see you same time, same place next week. Bye for now.
