Your Next Act: The Six Growth Accelerators for Creating a Business You'll Love for the Rest of Your Life

A Step-by-Step Guide to Reinventing You and Your Business
You—and every entrepreneur—will inevitably face challenges at some point in your career. These challenges might include:
  • Feeling stuck or stagnant.
  • Realizing you’ve outgrown who you are, what you do, why you’re doing it, and who you’re doing it for.
  • Desiring to do something new that brings more impact and joy but not knowing what it is.
If this resonates with you, it might be time for a reinvention.
Perhaps you’re content with your current business but need a total upgrade—better offers, higher-ticket products, and improved customers. Or maybe you’re ready for Your Next Act. You might have recently exited your previous venture, but assembling a team to quickly launch a new one feels hard, expensive, and time-consuming.

The solution? Reinvent yourself and your business by creating a Category of One brand—one that attracts ideal customers who are already sold on your products and services. This path leads to higher revenue, greater impact, and deeper fulfillment.

About the Book
This short guide, written by business expert and serial entrepreneur Mike Koenigs, will walk you through the key steps to reinvention:
  1. Mindset: Develop non-negotiable values to reimagine your business.
  2. Market: Identify your ideal audience by asking, “Who do you want to be a hero to?”
  3. Model: Design a profitable business model that delivers a brand promise, creates transformation, and simplifies delivery.
  4. Message: Craft a message that resonates with your perfect prospects, compelling them to raise their hand and buy quickly.
  5. Media: Select the right platforms to reach your audience and drive conversions.
  6. Multipliers: Leverage strategies to amplify your success and attract more customers.
Who Is This For?
Your Next Act is a powerful framework that works in nearly every industry for entrepreneurs and business owners worldwide. Whether you’re in funded startups, financial services, wealth management, professional services, private equity, insurance, coaching, SaaS, construction, real estate, or healthcare, this guide is designed to help you grow and succeed.

Praise for Mike Koenigs
“Mike is an extraordinary man. He’s brought me insights on how to reach people on the Internet that are so valuable. This is a man you should deal with. Take advantage of what he has to offer.”
 – Tony Robbins

YOUR REVENUES MULTIPLY
"Every time there's a significant tech marketing breakthrough, over the last 30 years, Mike's always been a trailblazing leader for ambitious entrepreneurs. If you're around him and his team for a day, everything in your marketing gets significantly easier, faster, cheaper, and your revenues multiply. This will an exponentially greater result now that Mike has mapped out how AI can transform both your back stage and front stage. This is my 50th year of coaching, and Mike makes my top three list of great, helpful marketing transformers."
DAN SULLIVAN
Co-Founder of Strategic Coach, Bestselling Author

“Mike Koenigs is a total badass. He's a trusted advisor and an early-stage investor in Bulletproof who I rely on for cutting-edge marketing and business advice."
DAVE ASPREY, founder BULLETPROOF COFFEE

“Mike Koenigs is a master of helping transformational entrepreneurs like me go out, get our message out to the world, and then give us the tools so we can go change lives and be role models to change everyone's lives.
[JJ Virgin]

Creators and Guests

Host
Mike Koenigs
Mike Koenigs is an entrepreneurial dynamo who doesn’t just play the game—he rewrites the rules. He’s built and sold four businesses, two to publicly-traded companies, racking up over $100 million in revenue and serving 54,000 customers across 121 countries. As a 19-time #1 best-selling author, he churns out hits faster than most people can read them. After beating stage 3A colorectal cancer, he penned Cancerpreneur, turning a personal battle into a beacon of inspiration. Beyond his own ventures, Koenigs excels at building brands, reinventing founders and entrepreneurs, and guiding them to their next big act through his work at Superpower Accelerator. Check him out on his website, LinkedIn, Facebook, or podcasts like Capability Amplifier and The Big Leap. He’s the go-to advisor for heavyweights like Tony Robbins, who raves, “Mike is an extraordinary man. He’s brought me insights on how to reach people on the Internet that are so valuable. This is a man you should deal with.” Peter Diamandis calls him the “Arsonist of the Mind.” Oh, and he’s raised $2.6 million for humanitarian causes, proving he’s as generous as he is driven. Mike’s story? It’s resilience, humor, and relentless hustle rolled into one.

What is Your Next Act: The Six Growth Accelerators for Creating a Business You'll Love for the Rest of Your Life ?

A Step-By-Step Guide to Reinventing You and Your Business

You and every entrepreneur, at one time or another in your career, face any or all of the following:

You’re stuck. You’ve outgrown who you are, what you do, why you’re doing it, and who you’re doing it for. You want to do something new that has more impact and joy…but don’t know what it is…
You need a reinvention. You’re okay with your current business but need a total upgrade—better offers, higher-ticket products, and better customers.
You’re ready for Your Next Act. You’ve recently exited, but finding a team to create all the “stuff” to get it off the ground quickly is hard, expensive, and time-consuming....
The path to higher revenue, more impact, and greater fulfillment is to create a category of one brand, where the ideal customers and clients come to you, already sold on your products and services. This short book by business expert and serial entrepreneur Mike Koenigs will help you:

Develop the right MINDSET of non-negotiable values to reimagine your business
Target the ideal MARKET who you can effectively serve, “Who do you want to be a hero to?”
Design a profitable business MODEL to deliver a brand promise, transformation and simplify delivery
Pinpoint the MESSAGE that resonates with your perfect prospects, makes them raise their hand and buy quickly
Choose the proper MEDIA to get in front of your audience and drive them to buy now
Amplify your success with a variety of MULTIPLIERS that attract and close your market
Your Next Act works in virtually every industry, for virtually every business owner or entrepreneur, anywhere in the world: from funded startups, financial services, wealth management, investing, professional services, legal, private equity, insurance, business coaching and advising, space, software, SaaS, construction, manufacturing, real estate, and healthcare.

Mike Koenigs
Chapter Five, Message, Tell a Different Story.

Once upon a time, there was someone just like you who tried and failed to get results. You met a guide who gave you insights, shortcuts, capabilities and resources to slay the dragon, rescue the princess or get the prince, find the Holy Grail and live happily ever after. Oh, those dragons. Those are inner dragons. Those are outer dragons. This is the hero's journey or mono myth. It's the foundation of every religion, movie story and even every great song, the Star Wars saga, follows the formula perfectly. So does Dorothy's journey in The Wizard of Oz, as well as just about every Disney movie, from Finding Nemo to the Incredibles, we are fundamentally wired to respond to stories of struggle and redemption. It's how information and ideas have been transferred for millennia. It's the Bible now, as I was thinking about my years of experience with copywriting, messaging and brand building, I asked myself, What is the most fundamental messaging strategy or tactic a business owner should understand? Above all others, hands down, it's mastering the art of storytelling. Joseph Campbell's Hero with 1000 Faces, the hero's journey and the power of myth have driven many script writers to success, including George Lucas, creating a winning message is all about telling strong stories that break through the trust barriers and rapidly convert right fit prospects into paying customers. Your goal is to help your prospects see themselves in a movie with them in the leading role.

Now, here's a more detailed example of the story. Once upon a time, a lonely hero was trying to find a solution to a difficult challenge. A sudden An Unexpected Journey promised an adventure. Peril appeared, a princes. Prince needed help, and a dragon stood in the way of our hero's mission. It tested our hero's character, strength and skill. After trying and failing again and again, the hero was visited by someone who appeared from the smoke filled background, a mentor, Yoda Glinda, the Good Witch, Jesus Bota, who holds all the secrets, the mentor, teaches our hero the way of the forest. He provides a sword, a couple of magic spells, the talisman and a magic wand for good measure, assets, baby. But first, our hero must overcome past trauma, fears and beliefs that hold him back from being a true hero and attractive to the one they seek. Wax on, wax off, destroy that old ego and identity. And finally, our hero has the tools, mindsets and power he or she needs to kick some dragon ass. Our hero is pumped up, ready to rock and roll. Bam, pow Zane, kaboom. The dragon is dead. Our hero is alive. The hero picks up the princess or prince, and they kiss as the Sun sets behind them and a flock of doves flutter down and rest ribbons rose laurels and coins off gold upon their feet, and the whole scene gets transformed into an emblem that a biker gets tattooed on his chest or bum. Alright? Done correctly. Messaging is the perfect magic button. It pre sells your prospects, answering the questions, who are you? Why should I trust you? Why should I care about what you are selling and what are you gonna do for me? In the fewest number of words, you will grab your ideal prospects, attention, build trust, create credibility, and influence them. The result, they raise their hand and say, Hey, you understand me. No one understands me. I'm an alien. It's like you're reading my mind. How do we start working together?

So what does good messaging accomplish? While there are million and one different books, courses and ideas about the right way to create copy and messaging, many are a total waste of time, some actually work and at the root, here's what your messaging must do for your ideal client. Number one, capture their attention with a novel hook, and a hook grabs someone's attention. It interrupts the mindless scroll on social media. It stops them in their tracks. If it's a billboard, it brings them back from the kitchen or bathroom. If it's TV commercial. Is something that breaks through and says, stop. This is interesting. It's Back in Black from AC DC. It's Born to be Wild.

Every great song is a great hook. Number two, establish credibility. There are many ways to create trust. Images of you with famous people, transformations, success stories, proof of past experience, testimonials of previous clients. All these establish the fact that you've helped other people, people who are just like.

Make your prospect then make a massive promise. Number three, identifying your prospects problem and pain isn't enough. They need to know you can actually solve their problem, yeah, but will work for me, you must ask for the sale by making a massive promise, it tells people what to expect, and it reassures them that you are going to deliver something they value. Now, you put these three elements together with a proper mindset and model for your ideal market, and you'll have a hell of a pitch. Now here's an example of a winning pitch, one of the fastest closes I've ever experienced, and see if you can identify the three elements mentioned above.

Now, I was attending a large event when a guy walked up to me, Hey, I'm Charlie Epstein, Charlie, who is in his 60s and looked a little bit like Larry David, said he was a financial advisor, and I had to force myself not to flee immediately. After all, financial advisors are not always known for a scintillating conversation. Still, Charlie was a pretty interesting guy. It turned out he'd been following me for a while. He was bored. He wanted something new, something different, something that offered him more than just financial rewards over 40 years now, he went on to say he was known as America's 401 K coach. Kill me now I was silently screaming, how long before I can duck out. But something about him grabbed me. After a little probing, I discovered he had once done stand up comedy theater and television, including Guiding Light. He was a busker and played guitar and sang in London's underground when he was in college. I was saying to myself, I might be able to work with this. I told Charlie to give me a little bit of time to make few calls. So I called a former employee now a professional comedian. I said, Hey, Kyle, how do you like to work with me and putting together a comedy show for a financial advisor. He thought I was joking. And after I convinced him that I was serious, I told him I wanted to find a few other full time comedians who had also done TV, so they had to be making money doing comedy. Guy was intrigued by the challenge and lined up a couple of guys to be a writing team. So I went back to Larry David, I mean, Charlie. And I said, Hey, Charlie, here's the deal. You have one minute to make up your mind. I put together a team of professional comedians to write a one man show about your life, your business, in the midst of money you in. Now, it didn't take him more in a second before we relied. Stop right there. I'm in. Where do I wire the money? Signed, sealed, delivered. Okay, a few weeks later, we delivered, yielded dreams. We all got together and outlined and created a one man show for Charlie in two days. That one man show was featured in an article and video for entrepreneur, and became an app, a product, a documentary, a series of animations, even an interactive game. And right now, Charlie is shopping a television version of the program, now with two showings of the play, Charlie generated over $1.2 million in new business over a span of two months, beating what top performers in his business might do in a year. Now, if you fast forward a little bit, he did another couple of performances, and they've got $2 million in the pipeline, and his wife is closing the deals. All right. So you want to know why this works so well. Charlie got what he wanted even more than he thought he wanted, I was able to quickly identify his pressing pain points and create a memorable offer complete with a massive promise, and then my team and I delivered on it. Now I'm going to just tell you one thing was I scared as hell thinking there's no way we can pull this off. Yeah, of course. But you know what? You put together Time Compression an impossible, impossible task, and put together the right people, and magic always happens. Now here's what's great about it. Charlie keeps coming back for more, because every time we work together, he receives a transformational experience. I have a blast. The team has a blast. Charlie loves it, and he's living his dreams. And I was able to do this because, first of all, I had the right mindset. I knew that I could create a complete transformation for my ideal client. And because I was so clear on who I do and do not work with, I was able to quickly decide whether or not Charlie Epstein fell into the ideal mindset and market category. And once I knew he was a good fit, I offered him a model that promised transformation and put it all together, and a powerful message that put him in the starring role. And when I put messaging together for Charlie, I was thinking of him and only him. I knew that if he was in my top point 2% of top clients, the pitch would resonate, and I knew exactly what my model was, the results, the outcomes and benefits he'd realized, and by the time I presented it to him, it was a done deal, he would have been crazy to say no to something that addressed the exact pains he was feeling and promised to alleviate the source of those pains in a matter of days, I created a future for Charlie that he could easily see and step into, but one he could not achieve on his own. He could envision himself on the stage with my help, not just as America's 401 K coach, but as a star the one word pitch. I asked Dan Sullivan, founder, strategic coach and my podcast partner, what's the best pitch you've ever heard? Dan went on to tell me his favorite pitch actually a one word offer that Julius Caesar made to a belligerent group of soldiers comprising men who were conquered subjects of Rome. At the time, tensions were high, as the army was protesting poor treatment, it was on the verge of revolting and waging war against the Romans. Things could have gotten ugly, but Caesar knew what these men wanted. He knew their pain. He knew what they needed in order to calm down in a single word, he offered it to them Civitas, meaning citizen. He offered them the citizenship they wanted if they laid down their arms and did not continue with the uprising, the army responded and peace was restored. The key to this story is how well Caesar knew his audience. He had the proper mindset and the right model citizenship, and so all it took was a one word message to close them. Now one word offers aren't just the product of history books. There are many brands that are so clear in what they offer that their mere name holds the massive promise, Coca Cola, Apple, Porsche, these brands are pre framed, so the offer is clear, attention, trust, influence, emotion, and all exists in a single word. That, by the way, is brand messaging. It's brand marketing, very different from direct response. So what word would immediately resonate with your ideal market, freedom, security, sex, attention, bliss. Spend some time thinking about it. What would you need to do to pre frame your offers so that just one word would be enough to frame a close and the answer, by the way, will not come from you. It will come from talking to your clients and customers who are paying you right now. Never take a vote from people who don't pay the one minute pitch. Okay, a one word pitch is almost impossible by itself, without proper framing and a hull of a lot of practice. So let's be a little more reasonable. I'll give you a full 60 seconds if you had just one minute to pitch your product service, company or yourself to your perfect client, what would you say? What would make them beg to work with you buy your product or invest in your business? Now, recently, I had the incredible opportunity to be on elevator pitch with entrepreneur.com it's sort of like Shark Tank with the stricter time limit. I listened to a ton of pitches, both good and bad, mostly bad, but I was completely blind to the people pitching, as well as to the others. The judges could either cut deals together or screw each other over it. It got pretty crazy. The whole experience brought up a burning question, what makes for a really great pitch? And one of the most important elements is this to authentic stories. It starts by being able to tell stories that engage the audience's Intellect and emotions, share your vision, goals and stories of hope, inspiration, motivation, transformation and transcendence. And when you tell your true, raw, uncut and authentic story, people will trust you, believe you, and magical things will happen in your business.

Now, what really grabs an audience is your why? Why are you doing what you're doing? My client, Steve Marler, who runs advanced body scan.com tells a story about how his mom died, a painful death from breast cancer. It could have been prevented if the doctors had discovered and diagnosed her sooner. He started a scanning company that can do a full body scan in four minutes, without injections, needles, dyes, contrast or anesthesia, with minimal radiation exposure. 11 years and over 100,000 scans later, he saved 1000s of lives with early detection, including his 94 year old father, Steve was able to discover not only a major heart issue, but also cancer. So with early detection, the issues were addressed, and Steve has been able to enjoy his dad for an extra 10 years. Steve knows first hand that early detection saves lives. Steve is a naturally good storyteller, but after I worked with him to tell a short why story, every time he described the business, whenever he goes on TV, his leads jump two to three times higher than what they had been previously. And people trust people and brands when they understand why you do what you do. It fills in the gaps and holes of distrust and cynicism. So Steve's story is simple. His mom died a slow and painful death. It could have been prevented with a scan. Early detection saves lives. He saved his dad's life twice. Early Detection saves lives. What if you could have been with a loved one an extra month or 10 years? The health care system is a broken sick care system. Our treatments and doctors are great, but we catch problems after it's too late and play Whack a Mole instead of preventing the disease from becoming a problem in the first place. And Steve. Is on a mission to save lives. So what kind of story can you tell about your business, your brand, your transformation in just 60 seconds that outlines your big why and what you believe? And I'm going to tell you right now, the answer is usually already staring straight in front of you, or it's telling the story of transformation that you've delivered to the best client you've ever had, one with the right mindset in the right market. You deliver the right model, and the story is the message.

So create your hero's journey. Test the following out for yourself. I promise it's going to blow your mind. Take out your phone or some sort of recording device, hit record and speak the following story template out loud, just fill in the blanks, and don't worry about whether you screw it up. And if you make a mistake, try it again on the same recording. It's just one thread, one stream of consciousness that you create without editing yourself. Just speak the words as they come out and oh, oh, by the way, download an app called otter.ai you can get it on the App Store. Runs on Androids or iPhones, runs on your computer, and it does real time transcription. It is my secret weapon. So what I do is I talk my stories and I look at them.

So your perfect prospect is the star of the following movie. Name embarked on a journey to solve problem, and along the way, name encounters a series of roadblocks, including points of conflict, trials and errors, a competitor, misdirection, failure, failure, failure, thankfully, name discovers your solution, skeptical at first, name feels hesitation, objections. What are all the things that they said? But I can but what if yet name considered the alternatives. Name implements the solution. So you lay out the exact process, first you blank, and then you blank, and finally you blank, and within X amount of time, name started seeing results, such as outcome, result, benefit. Happy, happy. Joy, Joy. Finally, name solved the problem. Looking back, name was summarize past, include emotions, and now name is summarize current, include emotions. I know that sounds fantastic, but the whole idea is turn this into a once upon a time.

Okay, so you speak that story out loud at least five times in a row, meaning repeat the same story of that perfect prospect over and over again, at least five times, and notice each time you speak it, you clarify your points and refine the story into something that's more summarized or tight. All right. Now, the following is a direct voice to text note of me speaking a client success story into this book using the above template, and I only added a few words and it came out incorrectly, but might not follow the above process in exact, word for word detail, but the point is getting the draft done and check it out. All right, so here's how it goes.

Charlie Epstein went on a journey to solve a problem. People suffer many problems because they believe in myths about money that aren't true. He's a financial advisor who sells metoo products and needs to stand out from the crowd. He had joined all the masterminds, wrote a book and created tremendous amount of marketing material, and was good at making money and making good money. Yet something was missing. He wanted to develop something that would engage his unique abilities as an actor, comedian and entertainer at a new level. He discovered the superpower accelerator. Skeptical at first, Charlie didn't know if it would work for him, because he had tested so many different things. Charlie went to San Diego, worked with me and the superpower accelerator team. Charlie me and a team of writers produced a business comedy and a television writers room environment building a one man comedy show based on Charlie's life called yield of dreams, paychecks for life. Finally, he had the asset that fueled his regular and ordinary business into a new expression of passion and potential. In addition to the show, Charlie's podcast, offer app, documentary and articles on entrepreneur.com provide additional proof and credibility. Looking back, Charlie was bored and wondering what his next act would be. Now he's reinvigorated, amped up for the future and making 10x multiplier moves. Now, is that perfect? No, it isn't. Took my best shot using the template to communicate a real client success story. But does it tell a reasonable beginning, middle and end? That makes sense? Yeah, it does. That is all we're looking for. It's just getting it out of your head, not getting it perfect. You got to test it. You got to practice it. You got to tweak. You got to experiment. You got to get in front of someone, and you got to take on and get a couple of no's. And often you won't know how something will work until you just try it out. And that's why I want you to get started with this. Now, whether it's the one word offer the one minute pitch or hero's journey, get something down and try it out. And once you get a workable message, try it out on some real prospects, then you can move on to the next accelerator, which is media.