Ep #241: Are You a Visionary Leader and Trailblazer?

You are listening to The Design You Podcast with Tobi Fairley, episode number 241.

Welcome to The Design You Podcast. A show where interior designers and creatives learn to say no to busy and say yes to more health, wealth and joy, here’s your host, Tobi Fairley.

Hey there friends, how are you today? I hope you’re well. I am definitely well even though I sound a little bit like I have a cold or something. Something’s going on with my voice but I’m feeling well. In fact I’ve gotten so much done in the last couple of weeks, more than in a long time. There’s just something about fall and cooler weather that gives me a burst of energy like no other time of year.

So I hope that you’re also rocking and rolling and that you’re finishing this year strong because yes, it’s the end of the year. So I want to talk about some things today and I don’t always talk about the work we do. I should, I should talk about it a lot more but I don’t always talk about the ways that my team and I can help you and I want to talk about that today because we can help you turn up your results on your success in ways that are more sustainable, more conscious, not just about hustling more.

And a lot of you right now may be looking at the end of the year and thinking, man, I’ve got to hustle even though it is time for the holidays and I want to be slowing down. I really need to be turning things up and we have a different way. Okay, so it is the fourth quarter. We do have less than eight weeks depending on when you’re listening to this, until the new year which sounds scary to say out loud. And this year’s kind of been an interesting one at least for me. I’ve heard that from a lot of people.

It’s gone pretty fast for the most part, yet they all go fast for me when you’re 50 and you do a bunch of stuff. It’s not like I’m a kid anymore when they seemed so slow, so they go fast for me, they probably go fast for you too. But this year has been sort of a hard one for a lot of people. And I’ll say for me it has felt a little harder than the last couple that were during the main part of the pandemic for several reasons. But yeah, I’ve hard that from quite a few people. I’m not really exactly sure why it is.

But I do think, I mean maybe it’s because we’re sort of ‘getting back to normal’, except nothing is normal or so much has changed. But I definitely have felt like I’ve had to push harder. It’s kind of been that feeling of like walking through or trying to run through quicksand in a lot of ways. Things are still slow in the supply chain for those of you doing interior design. There’s just a lot of things that have changed.

And when I look at all that my team and I have accomplished this year it’s pretty mind blowing, it’s been a lot. Including launching our new brand and website, major revisions to our new most popular signature courses in Design You, Designer MBA in Digital Marketing for Creatives which we’re now calling Designer Marketing and Sales. It’s going to launch in January. I mean we have done so much stuff, yet it just felt less like we had accomplished a lot. It felt harder. It felt like we had to do so much more to make things happen this year than in other years.

And again I’ve heard this time and again in recent months from so many designers and creatives. And when I really think about what the problem was, I think it’s the fatigue, the fatigue of the last two years that is catching up with us. And it’s that we’re forging new ground. We’re learning to live in a collective state of uncertainty that was always there, but we really can’t ignore it anymore now that after the last two years or almost three years, so much has changed, and happened, and come out of the blue or it seems like it did.

And so that really weighs on us emotionally, like what’s next, what other shoe is going to fall? Is this going to work? What even is going to happen next? And so I think that fatigue and uncertainty has really taken a toll on us. And we can also think about maybe it’s the fact that we’re wondering if the consumer has really changed forever in a way that they don’t want business the way we’re still doing business. And so maybe the consumer has changed and they have.

And business and the way we do business has changed a lot for a lot of reasons. I mean there was the great resignation where the workforce really changed. People were just unwilling to work as hard as they used to for not enough money. And that’s created a deficit of team members to hire for a lot of us if we’re CEOs. It’s also the toll that social media and digital media and being constantly connected 24/7 but not really connected to people in person with other humans on a regular basis.

That has been a problem because we feel like we can’t ever get a break, yet we don’t really feel seen and, heard, and connected. So we feel lonelier than ever. I mean and those are just a few of the reasons. So I would say, yes that all of those have taken a toll and there’s more. My most woo woo and spiritual friends keep telling me that we’re in a time of transition. That we’re moving away from this old paradigm, hopefully the old paradigm we’re moving away from is hustling and overworking and I think that’s part of it.

And I sure hope that they’re right about that. But it feels like a transition. It feels like we’re birthing a new world in a lot of ways. And those of you who are moms like me know that birthing is hard and it’s painful. And you labor a lot to make it happen. And that sounds a lot like the last year for a lot of us, painful. hard and a lot of labor. So what are we doing to help with this in our own business and with the people that we work with? How are we, what would you call it, weathering the storm?

Well we at my company and my team, we’re doing a lot actually. And today I want to specifically tell you about the things we’re doing in our Millionaire Mentorship program and then I’m going to be telling you more in the next few weeks we have. I’ll have a bonus episode coming out of something new and you may be getting an email before you even hear the bonus episode, about something new we’ve launched for helping with different revenue streams. We’re doing a lot because we’ve been focused on this all year.

We’ve known it felt hard. We’ve known that our clients were having more trouble than usual. We know that business has changed, the consumer has changed. So I want to take a lot of this episode to tell you about what we’ve been doing for our Millionaire Mentorship program. I’ll tell you who it’s for, what amazing things are happening because of it. And you can see if it’s something that might be helpful to you, or if you’re not quite there yet, it’s definitely something you can keep in mind for the future. But I know there’s a lot of you listening that really could thrive in this environment.

And again, I keep some of this stuff, I don’t know, off the podcast not on purpose, I just get so excited about topics, and guests, and things I want to talk about here, and it’s time that I tell you more about what we’re doing. There’s no reason for this stuff to be a secret because the whole reason that we create it is to help people like you. Okay, so here we go.

We have really been doing some truly incredible stuff in our Millionaire Mentorship program and that’s not just tooting my own horn. It’s really tooting my team’s horn and some of my own horn because together collectively, my team has never been this good. Oh my God, they’re so incredible. You’ve heard me brag about them all the time. That’s something we did during the pandemic because we really for the first time ever assembled this rock star team.

And we’re bringing all of our skills, and talents, and coaching, and all the things to our programs in a way that we never have before. So this incredible team is in the support, and the coaching, and the content creation part of our programs. And they really help me lead our programs which is amazing, including Millionaire Mentorship.

And then we also have guest mentors in Millionaire Mentorship that work with us and they are transformational, and they are inspirational, and they help us become better versions of ourselves while we build our businesses. And the members of this program are blowing our socks off every single week with their awareness, and their critical thinking, and their bravery, and there creativity. And their willingness to reinvent themselves and their companies to create success in a sustainable and a conscious way, not a hustle way, that is really against the grain of what the world would tell us to do, you all.

So in this container with this handful, maybe a couple of handfuls, but I’ll tell you more about that in a minute, how many people are in Millionaire Mentorship, but it’s a small program and we keep it small on purpose. And in this container we have members that are just really blazing trails is what I would say and it’s so exciting. So one of the big things my team and I created this year and launched this year in the Millionaire Mentorship program is something called the Visibility Path.

Now, you may have heard an episode this Sommer when my COO, April joined me and we were talking about something we created for Design You called the Growth Path. And if you haven’t heard that episode you should really listen to that episode, it’s amazing. And the Growth Path is amazing and we’ll link it in the show notes to this episode so you can easily find it and hear that episode.

But the Growth Path in Design You, and we also share it in Millionaire Mentorship, but in Design You, it’s kind of a map in essence that breaks company growth for creatives into five or six different revenue levels. I can’t even remember if it’s five or six, but it’s broken into these different revenue levels and we help you identify at each level, where you currently are. And then for each level we break down what team members you may need. We give you spreadsheets of budgets for each level to help you decide how to best use your money, and your resources, and who to hire.

And we include the mindsets in each level that may be keeping you stuck. And we give you other mindsets you might want to focus on to go to the next level. It’s so good. It’s an incredible tool. We literally break every detail down so you know exactly how to optimize where you are currently, and what you need to do to grow to the next level if that’s what you want. Now, we’re not pushing anybody to grow, everybody gets to decide. Small companies are amazing, bigger companies are amazing, middle sized companies are amazing, you get to decide.

But we want you to have what you need to help you get to where you want to go. And we want you to do it in a conscious and a sustainable way. And what do we mean by that? Intentional, not hustle, not wearing all the hats, not burning yourself out. So we want you to do it in a way that feels so much better than what the world would have us do to grow. So that is the Growth Path and it lives primarily in our Design You coaching program.

So for the Millionaire Mentorship level we knew that most people that join us at this level are at multiple six figures in revenue and they’re wanting to grow to seven figures. So they’re at one of the higher levels of the growth path. Some of them are in the middle. And we do take some people who are in the mid six figures into Millionaire Mentorship depending on if you have a team and kind of what you’re trying to do. But most people are in the mid, multiple six figures and so a $1 million or even a multimillion dollar business is what they want.

But they also really want more visibility, more press, more recognition, more opportunity for licensing deals, book deals, partnerships, product lines, scalable products. They want a rock star team that allows them to do all of that. And they also want to get out of the daily grind and step up as the spokesperson for their company in a more visible way. And maybe want to be what we would call thought leaders in their industry or even make a gigantic impact in the world.

And again we don’t tell you in any of our programs what to want. We don’t say that one kind of company or one kind of visibility, or one size of revenue is better than another. We let you decide what you want and we help you figure out how to get there. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in Millionaire Mentorship with something we have created called the Visibility Path.

Because what we know from experience, what I know is that when I stepped into more visibility with all the things we’ve just mentioned, getting published on national magazines, and in them, and on the covers, getting product lines, building a team. There’s a sustainable way to do that that I now fully understand. And there’s the old way, the hustle way that I did first and that most of us attempt to do to get more visible. And that one is exhausting, and completely unsustainable and it often takes a major toll on our business, on us, on our families and I do not recommend it.

It is on the do not recommend list because when we step away from our business and even our families, some, or maybe even a lot to try to grow to that next level of being seen. A lot of things can start to fall apart, especially if we don’t have the right systems and structure or even the right mindset in place to allow us to grow in a way that doesn’t break everything that we’ve already built. And sometimes we haven’t built enough structure to support us stepping into this new version of ourselves and into this visibility.

So we’re typically just adding more, and more, and more to our plate and trying to keep more, and more, and more balls in the air, and that is a recipe for burnout. That is a recipe for the balls to fall unless you are trying to be superhuman to keep them all in the air, which does not last long term. That’s where the burnout comes in. So it’s really a cycle of getting energized, then becoming exhausted because that happens every time. And this sort of not by accident energized exhaustion also perfectly aligns or even creates feast or famine in your revenues.

So you have feast or famine in your energy and you also because you’ve stepped away to become more visible, create, or allow, or accidentally sort of engineer feast or famine in your revenues. So then you have to stop what you’re doing, go back to work, bring more money in and then try to step back out and be visible again. And that’s that stopping and starting energy, that’s that feast or famine energy and it is exhausting.

Because we step away to become that celebrity brand that we’ve dreamed of. And we aren’t in our company being the main salesperson anymore that we’ve always been, being the main kind of director that we’ve always been. And a lot of times we haven’t set up the systems or the structure for the company to be stable, much less keep growing and for sure not keep going at the same pace while we’re starting to do other things to help us elevate our brand and our success. And we haven’t necessarily built the team to replace us while we go do the next thing.

So from all of my experience some of which was super painful for me when I was growing my own business. I mean I laugh because it’s all you can do at this point looking back. I mean man, it was terrible at times, it was awful, super painful might be an understatement at times. But when I was growing my own business I could see that there was a lack of a tool or a path to success. And I was following one that was broken. I was following what other people were doing but they were also burned out and exhausted.

So for that reason we created the Visibility Path because we wanted to set you up for success when growing your visibility all the way up to a celebrity brand level if that’s something you want without burning yourself out, without breaking your company in the process. So the Visibility Path which lives in Millionaire Mentorship and it is a gamechanger, has four levels. And I do know the levels in the Visibility Path. And I know the levels in the Growth Path, what I’m telling you about it. I just don’t have it in front of me right now today.

But in the Visibility Path we have four levels and we always come up with fun names so we can remember them. But these are the levels that we call the four levels of the Visibility Path, Rising Star, Seasoned Pro, Media Darling and A-List Celebrity in that order. And in each level we help you see what media outlets, what relationships, what partnerships and pitches you should be targeting to hit the goals that you have. And we help you see limiting beliefs that are going to hold you back, like you’re afraid to pitch, made you afraid to step into what’s possible for you.

And we also give you some really helpful valuable mindsets to practice instead. We also help you plan for what financial investments you need to be prepared for at each level. And that way you can be getting that money together, you can see how that’s going to impact your bottom line and the other money you need to run your company. So we give you a lot of tools to plan, we don’t want you to just get in the middle of this process and then run out of money, or have a surprise expense come up, or have underestimated what it takes to really get there, because we don’t want you breaking what’s already been built.

And we also coach you through the process of becoming more visible, not only coaching you through those mindsets that are going to get you scared because so many people start this path and then they abandon it at times. And then they wish they hadn’t abandoned it, so they come back again. But it is scary to become the next version of yourself if you’re not being really intentional about your mindset.

But we also coach you on the process so that it is more sustainable for you and your company. Because one of the things we see so often is that you’re going to tend to want to repeat what you did in our business, which is doing everything yourself even within the Visibility Path. And we really help you see how not to do that, how to outsource some things from the beginning, how to not start everything at one time. It gets so exciting and our eyes get so big, and we get sort of overzealous about doing too many things at once and it’s fun until things start to break.

So we help you pace yourself, and make decisions, and stay in the right mindsets that are going to support your success. And I say, right, right for you. There’s not one right mindset, but in mindsets that help you move forward in the way that you want to, with more ease so you don’t break things in your business when you’re trying to grow. And so you don’t drop the ball with your existing clients who are currently in a lot of ways funding this growth because they’re the revenues and profits that are coming into your business.

We also give you mile markers or milestones that help you know when you’ve reached kind of one of the levels like Rising star or when you’ve gone to Seasoned Pro and it’s time to move up to the next set of visibility goals. And there’s again even with that, no right timing, so we give you a range of when you might consider moving to some of the next tasks, or pitches, or ideas, or possibilities. And we also help you build tools and assets while you’re going through this process.

So we help you build a media kit to pitch yourself. We teach you how to pitch, what to say, who to reach out to. We literally leave no stone unturned to help you elevate your brand to the level that you’ve been dreaming about but didn’t quite know how to get there and in a way that’s going to create more ease. Now, again none of this is easy. Growing is not easy. Becoming the next version of yourself is not easy. Building a team is not easy. There is not easy in the process of running a business but you can create more ease, but most of us tend to do the opposite and create more difficulty.

So we help you add in more ease to the process as you elevate your brand to the business you dream of because you know what you dream about. You know when you lay your head on the pillow at night where you see yourself. And whether you see yourself with product lines, or books, or in magazines, or what the next thing is that you really know you’re capable of, and worthy of, and excited to go tackle. And so we help you get there with more ease.

We rolled out the Visibility Path in our Millionaire Mentorship virtual retreat back in September. And you all, it literally blew the minds of our members, blew their minds. One new member has been in Design You for years and he just joined Millionaire Mentorship just in time for this rollout because I knew he was working on this very stuff. I knew he was working on next level visibility. He was thinking about was he ready to hire a PR firm and all the things. And this is what he said to me after the retreat we had in September where we rolled out and taught the Visibility Path.

He said, “I’m mad at you.” And I said, “Oh, really, why? What did I do?” And he said “I’m mad at you for letting me wait so long to join this program. The Visibility Path alone, alone, just the Visibility Path. Now, there’s a lot of other stuff in Millionaire Mentorship, but just the Visibility Path, just saved me years of struggle, and second guessing, and wasting money with a PR firm when I didn’t have all my ducks in a row yet.” Although he fully intends to hire one.

“I didn’t have all my media assets created and this is an extreme gamechanger for me.” Then he went out within the next couple of weeks and closed two huge clients. I think he ended up closing a third, and I think he did that just from the confidence that the Visibility Path gave him for having this clear roadmap of what steps he wants to take next to become the version of himself and the version of his business that he really has dreamed of.

And so helping him have and see those steps that he wanted to take and when he should take them, and what he would need to get that level of success, and what body of work he would need. And what credibility he would want to help them along the way gave him so much confidence he went out and closed these two huge clients. And paid for his whole investment in Millionaire Mentorship in a blink. And those are the kind of successes we see in this program all the time. We saw them even before the Visibility Path was added.

And I’m not going to lie, you all, the Visibility Path is gold. I wish I had had this, this roadmap for my trajectory into becoming more of a celebrity brand. And I did not, and I had to do it all the hard way. And again, it is still going to be hard, but you make it so much harder just like I did when you don’t have a path, you don’t have a sort of a plan, you don’t have people that have really been there before you and have figured out how not to burn themselves out. And so that’s exactly what we’ve done for you.

Now, I’m not going to say that these results I’m describing and some that I’m about to mention to you are typical. I mean that’s the super sleazy, salesy, everybody can do it. You have to do a lot of hard work to create this kind of success. So I’m not going to say results are typical because every person is not going go out and do this. We’ve all created different levels of success in our business and there’s all kinds of levels of success and people in our program.

But what I am going to say is even though they may not be typical, for the last two years in a row we have had more than one member take their business from just over a $1 million to $2 million during our program. We have had people launch huge new ideas. We have one member who’s currently in and she’s going to hit around $1.6 million this year, which is a growth in her business, and launched a scalable product while working with us in Design You, and then in Millionaire Mentorship. So she’s got both of those things happening which is brilliant to see.

And I think the reason that we do have a lot of success in this program, even though I wouldn’t say it’s typical. Again, I use that word, that word is used a lot and then you hear in the fine print, results aren’t typical. I want to be clear, not every single person who comes from our program is going to hit these levels of success. So it’s not fair or honest to pretend they do.

But I want you to see that it is possible. that there are people who are coming in at one level and because of the work with us and the work they’re willing to do, and the tools that we create. And the support we give them that makes it easier, they’re really having some major successes. And I think one of the things that really helps with this is the way that in this program we workshop, and problem solve, and do creative thinking literally weekly with these members to elevate their work, to elevate their teams and to elevate their ideas.

It’s so exciting to watch and to be part of. One of our members has been in for two years and has already committed to the third year. She’s one of the ones who took her business from one million to two million. And she’s already said, “I’m coming back next year.” So she started with us the first year of Millionaire Mentorship. She’s been with us this whole year. She’s going to be with us next year because this kind of support and coaching, and this level of peers in the community doing work together has been a gamechanger for her business, a major, major gamechanger for her.

So I want to tell you about some of the details of what you get in Millionaire Mentorship beside the Visibility Path, how it works. It’s really for businesses that are making at least 350,000 in revenues in interior design. We take some other types of members, I’m going to tell you about that in a minute. But some of those of you that are listening to design, if you’re in design, you want to be making at least 350. And honestly, if you’re in a coaching businesses because we taking coaches and some other just conscious businessowners which I’m going to tell you more in a second.

Probably still need to be making around this range, $350,000, $400,000. You’ve done some heavy lifting already, you’ve created success for yourself and you want to go to the next level. So I would say if you’re making between 350 and 750 in revenues on your own without our program and some of our members, honestly have hit the $1 million mark when they come in but they want to double it like some of those examples I’ve given you.

And so if you’re in those ranges but also there’s more than just revenues. So besides revenues you really need either to have a team in place, or you’ve been working consistently with some virtual team members. So you understand what it’s like to have support because part of this process and part of your goal is that you want to step further into the CEO, and spokesperson, and thought leadership identity. And you’re going to have to have people keeping the ship going, not just keeping it afloat, keeping it sailing.

And so to really grow your company to the next level, if you’re still wearing every hat, it’s going to be really hard for you to do a lot of the things that we help you do in Millionaire Mentorship. So we keep this group really small. There’s a limit of 25 members total at any given time. So at any moment, depending on when people started and when they roll off, I would say we’re typically between 15 and 25 members. We usually try to keep it at 25 if we can. But again, there are moments where people roll off and people roll back on because they have different start times in the program.

Right now we have a handful of spots left, perfect, if you’re ready to start and gear up, finish this year strong and gear up for the new year. But you’re going to expect around that number, somewhere between 15, 20, 25 members at any given moment. Here’s what we do together. We have weekly calls every single Tuesday at 4.00pm Eastern for 90 minutes, 3:00pm Central, whatever that is. 1.00pm Pacific I think, for 90 minutes with me, our other Mentorship coaches, Sommer and Lauren, sometimes we have other team members from team Tobi popping in and doing things.

It depends on what we’re working on. And we’re literally workshopping your business every single week, which is part of the reason I think people have such success because our members show up every week. And a lot of you haven’t gotten consistent and been willing to show up in that way. You’re like, “Well, it sounds great, but I can’t show up every week for 90 minutes to work on this stuff.” And let me tell you, if you’re not committed to that, you’re probably not ready for the Visibility Path, or to go to the next level because you’ve got to be willing to work on this stuff.

If you’re not able to show up for 90 minutes once a week it means that you’re still wearing too many hats, you don’t have the support you need. Okay, so we do that every week and those calls are incredible. We also offer a chance for you to be in the hot seat on those calls. So when we don’t have hot seats, we just coach and workshop. But we have certain calls where we tell you ahead of time, you can apply to be in the hot seat.

And if we get one to two people that have applied then the way those work is you come to these weekly calls and you pitch us an idea for maybe 10 to 15 minutes. Some people go into the effort to do a relatively formal pitch because it’s the training ground for getting you ready to pitch to other people. So you pitch to us as coaches and your peers and then we all give feedback. And we have a very structured way we give feedback, all the positive, maybe some things to work on but it’s incredible.

And we have members pitching their ideas to us for scalable programs, for apps, for new service offerings. They test pitches on us, if they want to pitch to vendor partners, for product lines, or they pitch book ideas. I mean literally, anything that they are dreaming of and working on, they’re pitching in these hot seat pitches to test their skills and to perfect their pitch, and to see what they’re missing.

It is truly incredible to have this training lab, kind of like an incubator style container to develop your ideas, a laboratory to test your ideas, to tweak your ideas and also to get inspired by your peers in the group who are doing the same. And you’re watching their pitches and giving feedback on their pitches. We also have retreats twice a year. And for the first two years of mentorship because they were started during the pandemic, we had them virtually. These are in March and September but we’re changing that.

Now, these virtual retreats, they have been incredible. They have been lifechanging, business changing. But for 2023 we are so excited to announce that we’re going back to in person retreats because as I mentioned in the earlier part of this episode where we were talking about having so much fatigue, and depression, and exhaustion over the last two years, I think a lot of that reason is because we haven’t really been connecting with people in person.

And there’s just something magical that happens when you’re in a room with other rock star entrepreneurs, you’re having dinner with them or drinks with them later. You’re connecting, you’re feeling included and a part of a group. You’re getting physical hugs from people, you’re looking people in the eyes. There’s something about it that is magical for upleveling your business.

So our first retreat for 2023, so anybody that joins and grabs one of the spots we have now which I suspect will fill up by the end of the year, you’re going to be able to come and retreat with us March 6th and 7th in Little Rock at the fabulous Capital Hotel. Now, I used to do in person mastermind retreats for years, long before I had my online programs. Some of you may have come to those. I used to teach Designer MBA as a seminar or a two day program live. And then I also did year long masterminds and they were incredible, and we changed so many lives.

And I’ve had a few people back during those days when we would have them at the Capital Hotel. Sometimes we had them in Little Rock, sometimes we had them in other places. And that’s probably similar to what will happen in the future of mentorship. But I had a few people whose spouses accused them of only rejoining my program every year just so they could have getaways at the Capital Hotel in Little Rock, it’s that good. So it’s going to be incredible to see everybody. We’re going to have so much fun.

If for some reasons some of our members can’t travel, we will still have a virtual option. We get that some of you still aren’t ready to travel, or that you have kids at home, of you have other things. But we really encourage everybody if you can, unless there’s an extreme circumstance or you just can’t, there’s no one to stay with your kid or something like that. We really want most people to come in person because that’s where the magic’s going to happen. But you will be able to see, login and hear the speakers in the programs virtually if you have to. But being together is the part we know is going to be lifechanging.

Okay, so another fantastic part of Millionaire Mentorship is our guest mentors. And for our guest mentors we have assembled many of my trusted, revered experts that I use in my own business working with us now in this program. And these people are people that you might not know about on your own or if you did, you wouldn’t necessarily be willing to invest individually each one at their expense because they’re at the top of their game. So we bring them to you as part of Millionaire Mentorship and part of the experience which we absolutely love.

So they teach at the retreats, they sometimes teach trainings in the program. And these mentors include people like my equity centered coach, Trudi Lebron, my former fractional COO and still consultant, and operations genius, Karen Sergeant, my masterful graphics and brand designer, Nicole Yang, my CFO, Emily Sandberg.

And we have some new very exciting mentors that we’re going to be announcing soon that are super gamechangers with regard to social media marketing, TikTok. Developing your signature talks, and concepts that you can speak on as a thought leader on podcasts, on stages, as an author if those are things you’re interested in, super cool. So we’re always bringing you the people that help you get to where you want to go.

And if all of that weren’t enough we love the idea at Tobi Fairley Inc as we call it, to use our platforms to highlight, and serve, and amplify other kickass entrepreneurs like our members. And our goal is that we like to think of our own platforms that we’ve built our followings on social media, our podcast and other things as playgrounds for our members to use and to leverage, not just for us to play on and to have a good time on and to try new things on, but for our members to enjoy and to leverage for their own growth.

So this means that in our Millionaire Mentorship program we do something that is so cool that we’ve never done before, we’ve never allowed people to pitch us for use of our platform and we’re doing that in this program because we see the brilliant things they’re doing, and creating, and saying and how they’re growing. So we’re giving you a no risk launchpad to pitch to see if you’re accepted, to reach a bigger audience. So when you do go out and build your own audience, or you’re on other people’s stages, or on their platforms, or podcasts, or speaking at an event, you’re ready.

So during Millionaire Mentorship we offer these special popup challenges where you can present your idea to star on the Design You podcast or to take over my Instagram, or to join me live online, or to speak on panels that we moderate at industry events. Or to teach or coach in our Design You community, or to partner with me on trainings, or making courses that we sell and share the revenues with. We are giving this opportunity. It’s not a guarantee, everybody doesn’t get accepted. You’ve got to really work your pitch.

But again, not everybody gets accepted, in fact few people do for product licensing, and speaking on stages, and to be on covers of magazines. So we are helping you by really being true to what it’ll look like if you pitch to other people. It is competitive but there’s also room for everybody. We want you to uplevel and knock our socks off. And if you blow our minds, and we want to partner with you, then you’re going to get the experience of a lifetime to test things and even make money while testing things potentially to get you ready to go pitch to other people.

It sounds like the perfect VIP support squad, and the perfect visibility bootcamp for an industry up and comer. What do you think? Amazing. So in this program with this level of serious entrepreneur, we’re not messing around. It’s not cheap to join mentorship but we put our mouth where your money is. We put our platforms where your money is. We are giving you so many ways to leverage your hard work and ours to get a return on your investment tenfold if you’re willing to do the work and show up and be seen.

The price of Mentorship comes out to about $1500 a month if you pay in full. So it averages out to $1500 a month. And it’s a little more than that if you choose the payment plan, we have a SIX pay. But all of that, learning, and coaching, and mentoring, and peer support, and the chance to leverage and even monetize my brand for yourself for the right person, that pricing is a total no brainer. And we’re not just charging a big price for the heck of it, look at all we’re putting into it. We’re paying mentors, and our team, and we’re developing things for you.

So it is a win/win for you and for us. And I didn’t even mention that you also get monthly one-on-one private coaching calls with a certified life and success coach, either Lauren or Sommer who are on our team. So that outside of the work we’re doing, if you’re prepping for a hot seat and you’re freaking out, if you’re stuck on an idea, you can use your one-on-one monthly calls to really dig deep into what you need to help you not only in this program but out in the world. We want every single program that we have to be an absolute no brainer for our members.

We want to help mitigate the risk of your purchase by giving you many ways to make your money back, and even to profit off the investment, and through all the things we offer you. For our mentorship program we want to give you that opportunity. And over the 15 years that I’ve had mentorship programs, one of the top things that people value is always the peer relationships. And that’s not even the stuff that they can leverage like our platforms or a pitch, but it is something they can leverage in their own personal support squad.

Really turning your peers into lifelong friends that last way past your time in mentorship usually. So there’s that on top of everything else we give you. So who is this program for? Let me tell you specifically. We say this program is for creatives, coaches, and culture makers. So what the heck does that mean? Well, creatives I think is pretty self-explanatory. But anyone in a creative field, like interior design, event planning, landscape design, architecture, web design, graphic design, anything that is creative.

But we also have other professionals in the community, things like lawyers and, real estate agents, and coaches that identify as creatives. And have always known they’re a creative in those industries. And that’s one of the reasons they excel in those industries is because they’re creative. So not just for designers, not just for creatives, also for people who are creative in other industries, and here’s why. I have been in and I’m currently in some programs, several programs, many.

Let’s be clear, I’ve been in many programs and I’m currently in several, some of which are just for designers and creatives and others that combine multiple industries and perspectives. And let me tell you, I am able to think bigger, dream bigger, innovate more, and think out of the box more when I have influence and examples from other industries than just my own. And it keeps me out of the, well, we’ve always done it this way thinking, or that’s just the way our industry works mindset because I see all the possibilities that are happening in other industries and it really helps me dream, dream big.

I get far more big ideas for the entrepreneurial world at large than just my industry alone. And even though I love my industry or industries, design and coaching, it really helps me to expand and have other perspectives. And I will say that is true for mentorship. So having said that, creatives are a perfect fit for our program. Coaches are a perfect fit for this program especially if you also happen to think you’re a creative at your core, and you’re committed to being a visionary leader in your industry, you want to be a visionary leader, you want to be a changemaker.

If you’re dedicated to inclusive, equitable, progressive out of the box thinking you’re definitely a fit. If you’re a rebel, or a rule breaker, or a trailblazer that wants to be in a community of entrepreneurs and leaders, willing to push against systems and make their own way. So just like we’ve talked about today, pushing against systems like hustle culture. If you want to push against the way it’s always been done, you’re a perfect fit.

I have had several coaches tell me that they join other business programs and other CEO mentorships and they’re looking for and expecting more of what I’m talking about. They’re looking for a progressive approach but that’s not what they got. They got more basic CEO do this, do that. And trust me, if you need foundational business support along the way to make sure your business sustains your growth, that’s definitely in a program. But this program is not about basics for CEOing.

This program is not about basics for creatives, it is not about basics for coaches. This course is for innovators, for trendsetters, for pioneers, for people ready to leave their mark in their industry and on the world. But again, it’s not just for creatives and coaches. And that’s why we added the term, culture makers to the list. So what is a culture maker or a culture creator? Well, we would define that as someone that is identifying with what we’re saying about coaches and creatives, but maybe isn’t a coach or in a typical creative industry.

But you long for a business built on the principles and values that they’re seeing in my brand and in our brand, committed to building a company culture and a community culture for all your stakeholders, for your clients, your team members, your vendors, your family, your geographic and online communities, for the planet. That is progressive, that is visionary, that is world changing, that is inclusive and you want to be in a container like this with likeminded entrepreneurs and visionary leaders forging a path that goes against our typical cultural socialization.

You’re willing to have a unique or even what may be perceived as a radical point of view sometimes. It’s not likely the most accepted point of view, if you’re willing to go against systems. It’s not, just for example it’s not really normal when we’re talking about anti hustle, the world doesn’t know what to do with that. We’ve come from a bootstrapping sort of influence in our society and people don’t know what to do when we’re saying, “Do this hard work in a sustainable way.”

So these viewpoints can seem radical, they’re definitely never the most popular but if you’re willing and committed to get visible to create this kind of change you want to see in the world. And you’re excited to become an industry thought leader that changes the narrative for the good of everyone, not just the elite few, that my friends is a culture maker. That’s a culture creator or a changemaker. So if that’s you, you’re going to fit right into this program.

So finally we say that this program is for women mostly but just like in our Design You program, what we really say is it’s for women and a few really progressive dudes. And you heard me earlier talking about a dude who was like, “Why did you let me wait so long?” And so if you’re a really progressive dude that resonates with everything I’ve talked about today, then go ahead and apply to join us for one of those spots, if your revenues hit the numbers we talked about.

If you’re used to working with a team, maybe if you’re a creative or want to be a thought leader, you’re a culture maker, you’re a coach, come on. We are talking about being in a group of visionary leaders doing something totally different than the norm. So have I been talking to you today, maybe in one of these identities I’ve described, maybe even in all of them? Are you a creative, a coach, a culture maker, or a creator ready to blaze a trail alongside other aspiring and inspiring peeps?

And you want to grab one of these last few spots on our Millionaire Mentorship program this year and work with us over the next 12 months or maybe longer? Changing yourself, changing your business and maybe even changing the world then come on over and apply to join. And you can do that at tobifairley.com/millionaire. And we will ask you some questions, they’re not hard questions but we’re going to ask you questions about your business and the application because we want to make sure that you’re a fit for us and we’re a fit for you.

But it’s pretty simple, we try to make it painless and if you are in fact a fit at this time and we have an open spot then you’re going to get an email to join us and to get your payment started and to get right in the community. And if we happen to be all full by the time that you apply but you are fit then we’re going to tell you that we’re putting on the waiting list to be contacted when a spot opens up.

One of the other exciting things we do have is that we also opened up three scholarship spots. It’s the first time we’ve had a scholarship in this program. We’ve had it in Design You for a couple of years and we’re so excited. So we’re starting with three spots and so if you are a person that identifies as Black, Indigenous, a person of color, that includes Asian American and Pacific Islanders. If you fit any of those identities and we have scholarship spots available or left then you absolutely can apply for those as well.

So right now we’ve filled one. We have two left because we just started this program in the last month. So if that describes you then you’re welcome to apply for a scholarship for the program.

Okay, so I’ve told you a lot today, this is an action packed episode. But I do have two last things to mention. One I didn’t tell you is why we call the Millionaire program, Millionaire Mentorship because I haven’t talked about money a ton today. I’ve talked more about visibility but what we know is that when we get more money into the hands of women and people willing to change the world in a loving and inclusive way, that we make everything better for everybody. So that is the mission we’re on.

Only 2% of millionaires right now are women. We need more of us in the club, you all, because with that comes more empathy, more creative solutions to big problems. And when you account for millionaires that are women of color, that 2% number goes away down.

So we want more diversity and the more diversity we can create then we can create more equity, more inclusion, more diversity of lived experiences. Which creates more innovation and more creativity again, that helps everyone, not just a select few people which is amazing. So this is maybe the most inspiring and fulfilling work that I’ve ever been a part of. And I invite you to join us.

And the final thing that I want to mention is that if you want even more of a hands-on opportunity to work with my team and me on your business then we also have this cool event that’s kind of a sister to the mentorship program called Thinktank. We started it this summer and it’s just phenomenal. So Thinktank is only for five people at a time. It is a two day in person mastermind and it’s held in my personal living room in Arkansas with my sales and marketing team, my COO and me.

And we workshop big ideas, maybe even two in your business for those two intense and exciting days with you and four other people. And if you join Thinktank you get to apply the entire cost of Thinktank which is $10,000 to the price of Millionaire Mentorship. That’s why I wanted to mentioned it here. The only catch is, you have to tell us that you want Thinktank and mentorship at the same time or you have to come to Thinktank first and then apply it to mentorship.

Otherwise if you are already a member of mentorship or you join mentorship first and then come and say, “I want Thinktank”, you can still apply the whole thing, you just can’t do it retroactively to this year. You’ll have to apply it to a second year of mentorship. So I want you to know that if you want a spot in Thinktank, and we’ve got two left in December as of the recording of this, if they haven’t filled up yet. You can come see my house. It’s decorated for Christmas in December, it’s the prettiest it ever looks.

You can ogle my pink Christmas tree in person if you’ve seen it on Instagram. But if want to be in that festival atmosphere and really workshop your business then hurry and grab a Thinktank spot because it’s magical at my house during Christmas and it’s magical at Thinktank. And the way we work Thinktank is that if we sell one out then we plan for the next one. So it’s likely that we’ll have another one. Right now it’s looking like if we have it again though it won’t be until April of 2023. So that’s kind of a long time for some of you.

So as long as there’s demand for Thinktanks we’ll keep having them. This is the third one, they’re incredible. If we don’t keep having the demand we won’t keep having them. But if that sounds amazing to you, then you can get even more out of your membership because you can grab a spot to Thinktank, go ahead and also grab a spot to Millionaire Mentorship. Come to Thinktank in December. We’ll do all kinds of workshopping on your big ideas, get you ready for really thriving in mentorship all year long. And you’ll get to apply the whole course.

So you essentially come to Thinktank for free, pretty rad deal. Okay, friends, so here is what you can do. You can head to tobifairley.com/millionaire. You can see sales page if you want to, it’ll reiterate everything I’ve been talking about and maybe a little bit more. Not so much about the Visibility Path. That’s the stuff here on this episode but it’ll tell you all the details of what you get and maybe a few other things I didn’t even mention. You can click to apply and fill out the form. And if you’re ready, don’t even read the sales page, just click to apply, grab one of those spots.

And if you want the option of coming to Thinktank too, and applying that whole payment to Millionaire, then click the box that says, I want Thinktank. Now, if Thinktank is full for December but you clicked the box and you’re going to come in the next one, we’ll go ahead and decide for sure when December is full, the next went. And you could go ahead and apply and grab a spot for it too and still apply your money. You wouldn’t be coming to it until probably April but all of the things would still work the same way. And you would still get it in your first year. So hopefully I didn’t confuse you with all that explanation.

So click it and just to note, the price of Thinktank includes breakfast, and lunch, and two days at my house. It does not include air fare, hotel or dinners, the same with our retreats and mentorship.

We’re going to feed you breakfast and lunch. You’ll always be on your own for your hotel, your air fare and your dinners. But we’ll hang out with you a lot of times during dinner too. And we have so much fun. Typically we end up coming over to the hotel and hanging out and having dinners during Thinktank.

Sometimes we spend time bonding way too late into the evening, it is so much fun. And when else can you just hang out with four other people and my team and me like that? Sometimes my daughter or my husband even make an appearance. Sometimes my dogs make an appearance. So if that sounds fun to you, come join us for all of this amazingness while you change your business and your life.

But that’s what I’ve got for you today, friends, it’s a lot, I know. But the success is a lot and I know that some of you are now super fired up and ready to step into the role and the version of you, that future you that you’re meant for, that you’ve been kind of waiting on or didn’t quite know how to get there. And now you know how to get there because you know we’re going to help you.

And if you need to talk any of us about this, if you’re like, “I think I’m in but I want to talk to a human”, then you can email us at info@tobifairley.com and request a sales call about Millionaire or Thinktank with our sales director, Sommer. And then we’ll get back to you and get you on her calendar. You could also DM us, if you don’t want to email us, DM us on Instagram @tobifairley and request a sales call for Thinktank, or Millionaire, or both and we will get you taken care of. We are here for you. We will get you everything you need.

And we cannot wait to work with you if you are a fit to join us now for Thinktank and/or Millionaire, or in the future. It was such a joy to tell you about all of this fun stuff we’ve been working on and the big results our members are getting. And I can’t wait to see some of you in Millionaire, in Thinktank, in my living room, in March at our retreats, give you big old hugs in person really soon. Okay, friends that’s what I have for now, bye for now. I’ll see you next week.

Thank you so much for listening to The Design You Podcast, and if you are ready to dig deep and do the important work we talk about here on the podcast of transforming your mindset and creating a scalable online business model, there has never been a more important time than right now. So, join me and the incredible creative entrepreneurs in my Design You coaching program today. You can get all the details at TobiFairley.com.