EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. — More than 80 home service business owners, including plumbing, HVAC and electrical contractors, from across the U.S., Australia and New Zealand attended the CEO Warrior Circle Mastermind event — Unleash the Beast — June 13-16. This was the first event to take place at the new CEO Warrior 10,000-sq.ft. training facility.
CEO Warrior is a business consulting, training, and mentoring firm, providing tested and proven methods to defeat the roadblocks that prevent small to mid-sized businesses from achieving their ultimate success. The new training facility houses three separate training quarters, so different events can occur simultaneously. In addition to the Warrior Fast Track Academy and CEO Warrior Circle training events for business owners, there are new one- and two-day course offerings in leadership, sales, marketing, service management and customer service for staff members of all levels.
“This is going to take our warrior movement to the next level,” said Mike Agugliaro, founder of CEO Warrior. “We can now offer 10,000 square feet of the greatest business training on the planet. I saw a need for more training that would make a real difference and help business owners become warriors at home and at work.”
“Mike really helps you to face your fears and personal roadblocks head on,” explained Shadowen. “Every exercise is about learning and growing and bettering yourself. It doesn't matter if you have a service company, a dog training company, or a consignment company, it all boils down to becoming a better you. Then you take back your growth to your business and apply the practices in your everyday life. Your company can't fail.”
“What Mike has created in this CEO Warrior event is powerful beyond measure and this is built for serious CEOs interested in moving the needle of their service businesses,” said O.P. Almaraz, CEO of Allied Restoration Services Inc., Los Angeles. “After being a part of CEO Warrior for four months, my company had a record breaking $1,000,000 month. Mike’s mentorship has propelled me to grow from $4 million to a projected $6.5 million in my first year. There is nothing more powerful than a changed mind.”
Breakthrough limiting beliefs
The Warrior Circle event, Unleash the Beast, featured a combination of training sessions on leadership skills, proven business strategies and personal empowerment exercises. The CEO Warrior training system has a unique approach, inspired by Agugliaro’s straightforward style and martial arts training, to help business owners create mental focus, strategic thinking, resiliency, respect and a warrior spirit to take their own businesses to the next level. Business owners participated in personal empowerment activities such as fire walking, fight training and board breaking exercises.
“This is a roll-up your sleeves, get dirty and get information type of event,” said Agugliaro. “Everybody has a bigger purpose in life, but at the end of the day, most people are not doing the things they need to do to fulfill their bigger purpose. When the attendees leave, they can take strategic steps to change their businesses, their relationships and their lives.”
Agugliaro lead individuals through a meditation practice at the beginning of the event, so each person could dig deep and uncover within themselves unconscious barriers that are affecting their lives and businesses.
After the meditation practice and before diving into the first day’s empowerment activities, Agugliaro asked business owners to focus on a few critical ideas presented during the event and to focus on only those few — not the many of ideas — and to be candid during the event and play full out. Agugliaro also instituted that each team use a talking stick to improve communication.
“Often times, people try to communicate a message when there is distraction happening,” said Agugliaro. “This can create confusion, which can be a shared issue. Once confusion is shared this can lead to delusion, and now the confused employees are stuck. Often people in this position end up frustrated and may even get angry — this is a bad place to be.”
A talking stick is a foundation for improved communication. “The talking stick first creates boundaries — only the person with the talking stick can talk,” explained Agugliaro. “Without boundaries you end up with something like “Animal House.”
Tuesday’s empowerment activities consisted of the Weakest Link and breaking boards. The Weakest Link challenged business owners’ strength and balance. Business owners stood holding a cup of water with foam numb chucks for as long as possible. During the board breaking, everyone wrote down on their boards what is holding them back in business and life (hopefully they were able to uncover these barriers during the meditation earlier in the day). Agugliaro then lit the boards on fire — each person taking their turn to break through their board with their bare hand, thus breaking through their limiting beliefs.
Motivation was key during these empowerment activities. At one point a business owner told their teammate, “I have your back — I am not going to let you fall.”
After the activities Agugliaro asked, “What would it be like if you said that [I have your back] at your business? How would that change the overall culture?”
At the end of the day, teams shared their thoughts on what they learned the first day of the Warrior Circle event. Some of those thoughts include:
- You need to get honest with yourself.
- Do not let distractors take away from what you are doing.
- Encouragement lets people move forward.
The second day of the CEO Warrior Circle Mastermind event, teams had more activities to complete, which included a fire walk at night.
“Walking on fire is an amazing parallel to life,” said Almaraz. “Every human being was born with an immense amount of potential, yet somewhere in our adolescence we shirk ourselves to fit in. We condition our minds to think that we're not good enough or not worthy, so we stop trying new things. The inward self-reflection, before the firewalk, writing down our own limiting beliefs, and acknowledging our past does not determine our future — this part of the fire walking practice is the ultimate game changer. And walking over hot coals, something that seemed impossible, is now my reality. And if I could do that, I can certainly breakthrough my past limiting beliefs!”
“I had my biggest breakthrough when we did the fire walk,” said Kelley McKay, president of McKay’s Heating & Cooling. “I had to be fearless to walk across the 1,200 degree coals, and when I entered that state of mind I realized that's the state of mind I should be entering when it comes to growing my business.”
Create an experience for the customer
During the CEO Warrior Circle event, Agugliaro had a guest speaker, Marketing Guru Dean Jackson, visit to talk business and marketing strategies.
Jackson said business owners need to stop thinking of their business as one thing, but as three separate divisions: the Before Unit, During Unit and After Unit.
“During the Before Unit we are looking to get into the customer’s home for the first time here and get them into ‘home management,’” explained Jackson. “While in the Before Unit you need to think with the end in mind. What is it that you want to do? What kinds of clients would you love to have? Here you identify your dream clients and target audience and figure out the range of budget for the Before Unit. How much would you pay to get these clients? It’s important to narrow your focus here (segment and avatar) and select one target at a time.”
Then there is the During Unit, when contractors deal with jobs all day long and create the experience for the customer, then they go to the next job. Jackson advised that contractors should look at all the customer calls that come in on a daily basis to find out how many are emergency calls and how many are proactive calls (when a contractor goes to a job to prevent emergencies from happening).
“The During Unit is the core experience you have with the customer,” said Jackson. “Establish that when they have a need they will call you. While you are in their house you need to establish additional opportunities.”
According to Jackson’s and Agugliaro’s book “Breakthrough DNA The Service Code; 8 Profit Activators You Can Trigger in Your Business Right Now,” this is delivering a “dream come true” experience designed from the clients/customers perspective and providing an after sale service (even after you have already been paid).
Also while in the During Unit you need to establish that you are the customer’s plumber/HVAC tech for life. You need to say to your customer, “While I am here let’s do an HVAC audit.” At this time contractors can point out potential issues that are coming down the road, which can be dealt with in a proactive away before there is an emergency.
“You need to have the mindset that you will take the customer under your wing and give them opportunities to prevent problems,” said Jackson. “If you have a lot of repeat business this means that you are the customer’s person to call back. You created some sort of impression for this to happen. The greatest asset is being an incumbent in someone’s home.”
And last, but not least, there is the After Unit, which focuses on nurturing lifetime relationships.
“The After Unit is a thriving part of your business,” explained Jackson. “These customers already like and trust you.”
According to Jackson this is where you nurture customers and referrals.
“You always have to generate referrals,” explained Jackson. “How and why do referrals happen? The reality is people refer companies or other people they know because it makes them feel good. We are wired to share things and steer away from bad things.”
“My biggest take away from this event came from Dean Jackson,” said McKay. “He gave us a new way to think about our business. He explained a before unit, during unit and after unit. Viewing each individual step and creating a timeline of each step has opened my eyes to new ways of delivering the ultimate customer experience.”
Brian Kurtz was also a guest speaker at the event. Kurtz has been a serial direct marketer for over 35 years. During his career, he was responsible for the mailing of close to 2 billion pieces of direct mail and the distribution of millions of impressions and promotions on a wide variety of offline and online media.
To download and read “Breakthrough DNA The Service Code; 8 Profit Activators You Can Trigger in Your Business Right Now” visit: http://breakthroughdna.com/.
CEO Warrior
CEO Warrior teaches business owners how to achieve wealth, freedom and market domination by using the tools and skills Mike Agugliaro, founder of CEO Warrior, used to build his home service business into a $32 million-plus business in 10 years. The Warrior system uses a unique approach to training, inspired by Mike’s straightforward style and martial arts training to create mental focus, strategic thinking, resiliency, respect and warrior spirit to take business owners to the next level. CEO Warrior targets the specific areas each business needs to address, eliminate, enhance or add in order to reach their business goals and attain what every business owner want in the end: financial independence. For more information about CEO Warrior, visit CEOWARRIOR.com.