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Becoming an entrepreneur takes grit.
Deciding to do it solo takes courage.
This is 1,000 Routes, the podcast where we explore the stories of solopreneurs who have made the bet on themselves to build a business that serves their life. Every episode you'll hear about the lessons they've learned and the uncommon routes they've taken to stand out in a world that is purposefully trying to commoditize them.
Thom Van Dycke [00:00:00]:
You cannot market yourself into a business. You must sell yourself into a business. And people don't like sales. But sales is just helping people make the best decision for their life with their money. That's all it is. It's helping them make a great decision that's going to increase their money, not reduce it. So sales is a very wholesome thing when done well and ethically.
Nick Bennett [00:00:31]:
Hey, it's Nick and welcome to 1,000 Routes, the podcast where I explore the stories of solopreneurs who have made the bet on themselves to build a business that serves their life. Every episode you'll hear all about the lessons they've learned and the uncommon routes they've taken to stand out in a world that is purposefully trying to commoditize them.
Thom Van Dycke [00:00:52]:
I'm Thom Van Dycke. I'm a business consultant for solopreneurs, helping them set up strategic offers.
Nick Bennett [00:00:59]:
I like to start these conversations off with the first time we crossed past and how I became familiar with you and your work. And I was thinking back to it and it was through. You had asked a question, we're in a category thinkers slack group and you had asked some question there. I responded. We ended up just dming each other somehow. We ended up on a call and we've been like friends ever since. We've caught up on Zoom like a dozen times since then, informally. And so we've just been friends and now we just chat ongoing and we're in a similar line of work.
Nick Bennett [00:01:34]:
We both work with solopreneurs, so it's been good to have somebody just that kind of gets on like that next level order of work of like who we're working with and all that type of stuff. So I think, but I don't know, that had to be close to a year ago now.
Thom Van Dycke [00:01:53]:
Yeah, it would be because I made the transition to consulting through August and September.
Nick Bennett [00:01:58]:
So let's talk about that transition. I know you used to be a pastor in a past life, which is probably the most unconventional path to solopreneurship and like marketing consulting that I know of because most people I work with or I speak with on this show, like, yeah, I was the director of marketing for many years and then I got a couple of clients and now I'm a solopreneur who does marketing for other people. But you took the pastor route, which is probably the most fascinating one. So like tell me about this turning point for you. Walk me through the moment you decided, like, I'm going to not do this thing anymore and I want to go become a marketing and, like, consultant work solos. Like, how did that happen?
Thom Van Dycke [00:02:43]:
Well, Nick, that's a good question. And it's a bit of a complicated one. I was an pastor for 19 years, and it was actually October 1, 2020, that I launched my marketing business, which was 19 years to the day that I had started my first job as pastor. So it felt very significant. And I loved being a pastor. But 2020, I had turned 40, and I had always felt like 40 was going to be an important year for me. I didn't have any sort of visions or dreams. I just felt that way because my dad went farming at around 40 and built a massive, very, very valuable farm after that year.
Thom Van Dycke [00:03:23]:
And I have a lot of other mentors who really, something happened at the age of 40. And so I've always felt like there's a lot of life to live after that. Maybe I was kind of aware and looking for it. And then the pandemic happened. And I was part of a very large church in Canada in a rural setting. It was. But we had 4500 people, 80 staff. It was large.
Thom Van Dycke [00:03:45]:
I was in senior leadership, but I wasn't the senior leader. And Covid put a magnifying glass on everything. So whether it was an individual, a business, politicians, a government, it doesn't matter. It put a magnifying glass on it. And I believe that where there were health, where there was healthy people, resilience, that was magnified, and where there was stuff that was under the surface and unhealthy, that was magnified. And that's kind of what happened to our church. And a lot of stuff came to the surface. It wasn't directly related to Covid, it just was the timing.
Thom Van Dycke [00:04:22]:
And so my world was kind of falling apart around me. The church was going through a split, or what would eventually lead to a split. My very good friends and I on staff were all very confused. And it was tough because when you're a pastor, pastor seems to sit closer to your identity than, say, marketer or sales director. That doesn't feel like an identity thing, right? Pastor is part of your identity. So it was really tough. And I had bought this book called building a story brand by Donald Miller, and it had sat on my desk for a year and I hadn't read it. And I was like, well, got nothing better to do.
Thom Van Dycke [00:04:58]:
So I decided to read this book. And at the back of the book it said, you can certify as what they call StoryBrand guide to help other as a business, to help businesses to bring storytelling into their marketing. And I thought I wonder if I could do that now. Side story. I had been hired by an NHL agent to, yeah, not a word of a lot. NHL agent to write a children's book. And I ended up writing two children's books and his name is Ray Petkow and he's the agent for, I don't know, nine or ten, I think NHL players and a bunch of junior players as well. And he had been bugging me since March to like get this thing done and we had become good friends.
Thom Van Dycke [00:05:39]:
So I was talking with him one day in this transition because there was no way I was going to even float this idea of starting my business with my wife until I knew that I had some contracts lined up. And so I went to Ray and I started talking to him about it and he was like, when are you going to get this book done? I said, well, Ray, im doing it weekends and evenings. Its a big project, right. And at the end of the meeting he said, well, this is what I want you to know, Thom. I want to pay your salary so that you can transition out of your job. So it ended up being about half time salary for six months. I ended up writing two books for him during that time. And the other half of the time I launched my small business and he gifted me an amount of money so that I was able to do that.
Thom Van Dycke [00:06:25]:
So that's how I got started. It was very much this incredible gift and I have a lot of gratitude for him. He invested in a new course in my life that just, it was like, I can't believe the path that I went on. It was so fun. Lots of imposter syndrome at first feeling like I don't know what I'm doing. And then I had this very pivotal moment in about month three. So around December where I went, okay, Thom, you've been a pastor for 19 years. You were a teaching pastor.
Thom Van Dycke [00:06:57]:
You were in charge of communication. You're a good communicator. Marketing is just communicating in a new genre. And as soon as I made that shift in my mind, things took off. So that's the transition story. But that's how I went from being a pastor to my only. My own business was a very good time during pandemic because everything was going online and so people had to figure out how to readjust their own marketing and how they do meetings and lots of stuff. It felt providential in some ways and it felt natural to me in a lot of ways.
Nick Bennett [00:07:31]:
This is crazy. So what are the books called, first of all?
Thom Van Dycke [00:07:35]:
So there's two books. The first book is called Ari's Awful Day. Ari is the mascot for Alpha hockey Incorporated. So it's this little lion. I co wrote that one with a hockey player named Jermaine Lowenhouse. So he's only the second jamaican player to be drafted into the NHL. He's playing out of Abbotsford right now. He's been drafted by Vancouver, but he doesn't.
Thom Van Dycke [00:07:57]:
He's not. You know how that goes when you're not always getting to play. So he's not as well known. But really interesting story. He was adopted out of Jamaica by a white evangelical family here in Manitoba. So we kind of told his story a little bit. Then the second book I wrote with Connor Hellebuch, who was the goalie for the Winnipeg Jetse. And that one took off in a kind of a different way because he's a two time Vesno trophy winner.
Thom Van Dycke [00:08:25]:
And so the Winnipeg jets actually picked that one up. It's called Is Something Wrong with Weasel? Or there's something wrong with weasel. And it's about mental health for kids. So the Winnipeg jets have a mental health foundation called Project Eleven. And they work in schools and they didn't really have any books for kids in grade, you know, kindergarten to grade two. So I wrote it at a grade three, four level. But it's really meant for younger kids. And it's great.
Thom Van Dycke [00:08:52]:
Like, it's been very surreal. Like, we've been featured on NHL.com. we're on regularly hockey Night in Canada. They're holding up my book. It's sold in the Winnipeg arena. It's very crazy.
Nick Bennett [00:09:04]:
That is cool. That is cool. So how did you meet Ray?
Thom Van Dycke [00:09:09]:
Well, Ray went to my church, but it was a big church. So when I was a youth pastor, I knew who his kids were, but I didn't. I had no idea who this guy was. And so he called me literally out of the blue, and he said, Thom, I want to get. I want to run a project by you that was like late February, early March 2020. And so we just went for coffee. He brought his, like, executive assistant going, what's going on here? He's like, I want you to write me a story. Like, well, I love stories.
Thom Van Dycke [00:09:38]:
And he flattered me. He said, you're the best storyteller I know. And so then I ended up doing that, but I also illustrated as well. And at first it wasn't going to be, it wasn't going to be collaborative. But within a few months, there was all the black lives matter stuff going on in the states. There was a lot of turmoil. And Ray and I had a brainstorming meeting one day and he goes, I wonder if we should pull Jermaine in on this. He cares very much about the issues that are happening right now around race.
Thom Van Dycke [00:10:04]:
That's why we did that.
Nick Bennett [00:10:06]:
Wow. Then what happens? So you meet Ray, you write these books. You said he made a donation to help you start your business. It sounds like he just paid you for your work and he was generous in what you were compensated with. But tomato, tomato.
Thom Van Dycke [00:10:22]:
What he did, no, what he did was he did pay me, end up paying me six months of halftime salary to write those books because he really wanted to get them finished faster than a side gig. The other thing that he did for me, the gift part was he covered my certification for storybrand in the first year, which was pretty incredible for a bunch of reasons. And he would probably blush if he knew that I was saying this, and I dont really care that much because a guy like him should be celebrated. First of all, it was a significant amount of money, thousands of dollars. And it was us. When you convert that to canadian, it was 30% more. So it was a lot of money. I was a passer, so I didn't have a lot of savings to just move into that.
Thom Van Dycke [00:11:04]:
He saw something in me that I didn't even recognize in myself yet. So he felt good about it. I remember sending the me and going like, I don't, Ray, I don't think I'll ever be able to pay you back. And he goes, oh, well, it's not a loan, it's a gift. And he wrote on the check, an investment in your dream. Guys like him are very rare. The other thing that was, that was crazy is that it was during COVID so there weren't even NHL games going on. And I didn't really know anything about the industry of hockey.
Thom Van Dycke [00:11:30]:
But like, agents don't get paid. Well, players don't get paid if they don't play. Agents don't get paid if their players don't play. So he was in this long drought where he wasn't making a ton of money. Well, he wasn't making any money. I mean, he knew we were going to get back to the game eventually, but there was just so many things that make it an unusual relationship and investment. So I'm very grateful. I'm very, very grateful.
Nick Bennett [00:11:56]:
Ray sounds like a great guy. Do you still keep in touch with him?
Thom Van Dycke [00:11:58]:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. We don't hang out quite as much because I'm not writing books for him anymore. There might be a third book eventually, but it's a ton of work. Writing and illustrating, like, so much more work than you would typically think. Even though it's like 800 words at the end of the children's book, it's like, only 800 words. And when you. When you listen to interviews with, like, really good children's authors, they're like, oh, yeah, it takes twelve months at least just to get the text down.
Nick Bennett [00:12:28]:
Well, I think because it's only 800 words, you can't just fill it with 200 pages of bullshit. Like, people fill b two b marketing books or, like, just like a b two b. Like, any of these types of books, these, like, nonfiction books, which could have been a blog, which were like three, 2300 pages, you could just fill it up with crap. This children's book can only be 800 words because this children doesn't have 80,000 words in them to sit through it. So you got to be more selective. And I think for that reason, and it has to have, like, a point. B two b books could go on forever with no point.
Thom Van Dycke [00:12:59]:
You're not wrong. It was an incredible experience. And, like, we call it Connor's book. Like, it is really Connor Elibet's book. He's the one who holds it up, but every time they're like, so, but Thom Fende, tell me about Alibaba.
Nick Bennett [00:13:11]:
You're on the COVID Like, you're not. You're credited on the COVID My name is first.
Thom Van Dycke [00:13:15]:
I wasn't ghostwriting no way home. Van Dyke with Connor Hellebuch with Jermaine lawn.
Nick Bennett [00:13:22]:
Oh, that's so cool. I thought it was like. It was like a acknowledgments section type of thing. Like, we thank Thom for his contributions to the book. You're on the COVID my man. That's cool. So Ray blesses you with this. With this gift.
Nick Bennett [00:13:37]:
You become story brand certified. You make the leap, you go out on your own, like, in a more official capacity, I'm sure when you did this, there you were second guessing a whole bunch of things. Talk me through a little bit about what that was like for you. How'd you work through that stuff?
Thom Van Dycke [00:13:50]:
You second guess everything now. I'm a bit of a contrarian. Like, I love the contrarians guide to leadership. If somebody tells me, how is this going to work? I go, I'm going to make it work. Like, one of my buddies a year later said, Thom, you never actually even entertained failure, did you? I'm like, you don't manifest the world into success, right? Like, I don't believe that. But there is something to be said about a mindset where, yeah, I actually did not allow myself the option to fail. And it was interesting. I mean, I will be transparent.
Thom Van Dycke [00:14:23]:
My first marketing contracts were all sympathy gigs. They're all people who were like, we don't like the way you were treated, Thom. We're going to take a risk on you, which a year later if you had asked me, you cant articulate these things until you reflect on them. But everybody talks about know, like and trust. And what I tell new entrepreneurs is, thats great for a year, two, three, but when you start out, you dont start on the sort of the peripheral. You actually start in the center and work your way out. So you go to the network you have, its scary, right? Like youve got to ask friends and you got to ask people to take a risk on you that already trust you. If you're in your forties, you've got a bit of gray in your beard.
Thom Van Dycke [00:15:04]:
And that kind of, it actually does help. Like, I'm not a 20 year old who's like, I'm going to be a digital marketer and you have no track record. People knew that I was a good leader. You know, at one point I had, I was leading 17 staff. We had around 600 volunteers and 1500 kids in our care. I'm not new to leadership, right? So it was a risk that they took. So the first about six, six contracts I took were definitely like, okay, we'll give you a try here, Thom. For about a year and a half, I didn't have a pipeline.
Thom Van Dycke [00:15:36]:
That was always kind of scary. I didn't have a pipeline, but as one contract ended, the next one would, would start. So, you know, I never ran out of work, basically, until last August. Last August I actually ran out of copywriting work. But until then, basically three years, no slow period. It was incredible.
Nick Bennett [00:15:58]:
So how did you fill your pipeline going through that?
Thom Van Dycke [00:16:02]:
I was part of this great community of storybrand. Now storybrand is they have a directory like a lot of these certifications do, and they try to feed you leads. I've gotten very few leads through the storybrand directory, which is normal, but I got a few. And then I started networking with other storyboarding guides. And so quite a few of my contracts became white label contracts where I was working for other agencies. But I was very good at copywriting, and that began to be recognized fairly early. And so then I ended up working with maybe four or five agencies on the regular. Plus I had a smattering of my own clients so it just kept me really busy.
Nick Bennett [00:16:43]:
Gotcha. And so you started with your network just. And you went out and just asked.
Thom Van Dycke [00:16:49]:
Yep.
Nick Bennett [00:16:50]:
So I'm in business. This is what I could do for you.
Thom Van Dycke [00:16:54]:
And the answer is always yes. So it was my neighbor who owns a shell gas station who gave me my first contract. And the way it happened was I was telling a little story, Grant. And they were like, oh, it's interesting. Not very sure if it really helps us as a car wash and at a gas station, but I said, well, you're still doing stupid stamps for loyalty points for your car wash. Have you ever thought of digitalizing that? And they're like, yes, we have. We have no idea who to ask or how to do that. They're like, do you know how to do that? Yes, I do.
Thom Van Dycke [00:17:27]:
Did you not bet? But you know what? I knew enough to know that there's plug and play stuff out there. I went to an app builder.
Nick Bennett [00:17:40]:
You knew enough to figure it out.
Thom Van Dycke [00:17:41]:
It wasn't that hard. And so I built them the app, and then I put together the marketing campaign that advertised that they were transitioning to this digital app. But it's fun. They're still using my app, and I did some graphic design work for them and stuff. But that was my first project. And I think that's important because there's this concept of getting to yes, that is very hard for people, and there's different ways to get to yes. I think a lot of people, a lot of new solopreneurs, they have an idea of who their ideal client is, what they want to do, what their ideal price point is, and they don't move. Like, they don't allow themselves to kind of adapt.
Thom Van Dycke [00:18:21]:
And one person I really respect told me that the number one skill of a coach or consultant is the able to improvise. So improv, improvisation, literally think on your feet, see things from a different angle. And I think that's actually also true for sales. So if you're in a sales call and you don't know how to change tactics and get somebody to a yes, you're not going to make the sale. So I'm not afraid to get creative on pricing. I don't believe in undervaluing myself. But I told somebody today we were looking at a $3,000 project. I said, look, we can split this up over the three months.
Thom Van Dycke [00:18:58]:
You can do it in one payment, or, you know, we can go as much as six months if that is easier for you. I really just don't care. I'll get my money in the end, you'll get tremendous value and I'll help you out in the meantime. But people are too rigid. They don't want to think outside the box there. And they also don't move on their deliverables. They're like, oh, I don't want to do deliverables. I just want to do strategy.
Thom Van Dycke [00:19:16]:
Well, yeah, but sometimes to get the strategy job, you need to do some deliverables to get there. And you don't take a, like, I'm not saying don't take people who are way outside your ideal profile, but like, take people who are adjacent. They're like, ah, it's not really my, my ideal fit, but it's money in the bank. So let's get things moving. We have to learn to get to yes. And I think I figured that out well, I just said yes to everything I needed to, quite frankly.
Nick Bennett [00:19:44]:
But you said so. You said yes to a lot of stuff in the early days that you probably didn't want to do, or you learned that you didn't like doing. How did you get to something that you felt like worked really well for your clients, worked really well for you that you love doing? Like, how did you land there? And just one layer deeper, you've worked with agencies, you've worked with gas stations, you've worked with NHL agents. How did you get to solopreneurs through all of that offering iteration?
Thom Van Dycke [00:20:18]:
That's a great question. I mean, the nice thing about white labeling, you make less money than, let's say I'm doing a wireframe, like the words of the website. For a white label, you make probably 55 or 60% what you would make if it was your own client. So it's less. But I don't have to go prospecting. So they come to me with projects. I have to manage four relationships. Those are the agency relationships.
Thom Van Dycke [00:20:44]:
I don't have to manage 15 relationships with clients directly. So there was a very good trade off there and they brought business to me. When I step back and look at it, networking has played a very, very core sort of a thread that weaves its way through whether it was my network from before I was a solopreneur, or just leaning into my network along the way, or building new networks. Like, I joined some Facebook groups, I joined some slack communities, huge communities, where there are people who either fit my ideal profile so I can actually go out and help them, or they can connect me to my ideal client. Either way, I just believed in adding value in these communities and I would just go to these communities and when people were facing issues, I would answer their issue, I would help them add value and honestly, genuinely was not expecting anything in return. I have always done that. So every call, whether it's a networking call, sales call, discovery call, I don't care if you give, like just give it away. It's just remarkable how people respond to that kind of generosity.
Thom Van Dycke [00:21:56]:
And this is why I don't have what, you know, like a low ticket offer because I would rather just give it away till you can afford to hire me for my high ticket offer. It's actually less work to just give it away and not have to manage communities and you know, online courses. Just give it all away and then help people to create a successful business and then they'll hire you to take you the rest of their way. And that actually like, looking back I can see that. And I've only been in business for four years. I'm coming up on four years, right, so it's not that long. And I already see the patterns and the traction. So just give it away.
Nick Bennett [00:22:36]:
I'm, I'm a big fan of the just give it away model. Like try to. I built like a mini course was like, it has basically almost all of the frameworks and things that I use or a vast majority of them. And people are like, why would you do that? It's like, because if you can act on it without me, do it like people paying me to increase their probability of success. If your probability of success is that high, great. Me gatekeeping the information isn't what makes hiring me or someone like you that special, like, it's the fact that you can hire us and I will help you become successful with it.
Thom Van Dycke [00:23:11]:
This is a very good point nick. Ive had a really good sobering realization that the majority of people, even category thinkers, I appreciate what they do. Thats how we got connected. Thinking about becoming a category of one. Yeah I get it. Lets just back up for a minute. When im in digital marketing, what on earth makes me unique? If you look at the services that I offer, absolutely nothing makes me unique. Like nothing.
Thom Van Dycke [00:23:41]:
You go oh man, niche down great. Within your niche, I promise you I can find 500 other people who do exactly what you do. So as a business consultant, what makes me unique? Nothing. I might have some ideas that are interesting, but honestly nothing. There is one differentiator and that is me and that is you. So you taking the same service that another person does makes it unique. Because you're great, you're fun, there is synergy, there's chemistry. The things that you do make sense to what I want to accomplish, right? We have to stop pretending that we're somehow like the inventive people out there are very rare.
Thom Van Dycke [00:24:25]:
But I promise you, if you hire me, we're gonna have a good time. I told someone the other day, I was like, man, if there was any industry I never want to get into, it's real estate. God bless all the realtors out there. It is just super saturated, and everybody knows that. And everybody says the same thing in their marketing. Oh, we return our calls within 30 minutes. Well, that's just actually good business. That doesn't make you leave, right? Or I saw a billboard yesterday thinking of selling.
Thom Van Dycke [00:24:51]:
Well, it's not a unique selling proposition. If I was a real estate agent, all of my billboards would say this, hire anybody you want. But if you want to have a good time selling or buying a house, hire me, because I promise we are going to have a lot of fun doing this. That would be my unique selling proposition.
Nick Bennett [00:25:11]:
You will like working with me. You know, I think there's something to be said for that. I mean, people most certainly it's hard to be successful when you're working with somebody you don't like. But on the other end, where it's like, it's hard to wanna show up to those calls and take them seriously or do what they ask you to do and all those things. So there's definitely something to that. But you talked about, like, well, you niche down. I can find 500 other people. I think the deeper you niche down, like, I would say you're not niche down enough.
Nick Bennett [00:25:40]:
Cause if you niche down the way that I believe it should be done and the way that I like to teach it, it's like, you can get to a place where maybe there's other people that get that the problem that you're trying to solve exists, but nobody gets it and articulates it. And quite as quickly and compelling as you do. And this road is, as I say it out loud, is slowly leading to the whole, you are what make you different. But I just see it in a slightly. From a slightly different angle, which is, if I can describe the problem that you have clearly and quickly and in a way that you're like, no one else has been able to explain it to me that way. Like, this is exactly how I see it. This is exactly what's going on in my life. You can dominate that niche, right? Like, you can own that over anybody else.
Nick Bennett [00:26:25]:
And so there is a lot of value in being able to do that. And also it checks off your box of being like you're going to like working with me because you know that.
Thom Van Dycke [00:26:33]:
I get it, right. I would not disagree with that. And I think there's value in niching down. You can niche down in two different ways. You can niche down with a set of skills or within a particular industry. Like, I get that. But on the surface, if you give me a one pager of your services, I can find people totally.
Nick Bennett [00:26:55]:
And I think that's one of the things I love about the idea of the category thinkers, slack space, which was you have to help people perceive the thing that they're looking at. It's like your whole billboard that you just described. There's a lot of real estate agents in this out there. If you work with them, they'll sell your house. If you were with me, we're going to sell your house and you're going to like working with me, like, and you're going to enjoy the process. So I think it's like helping people. Helping people perceive the thing that they're looking at is the skill set that I think a lot of solopreneurs struggle with, which is a big part of the job of selling yourself. Because most of them that I work with and speak with, they come from a more like a professional background and like selling technology or something along those lines.
Nick Bennett [00:27:42]:
And the struggle is always helping other people. Like, you're selling yourself, you're selling your ability, not what some web app can do. And that is a tough. It's tough for people to close that gap in their mind and show them how. How am I supposed to get people to perceive working with me in a really specific way so that they want to work with me? Not that there's. I'm some unicorn, right?
Thom Van Dycke [00:28:10]:
So if you get on a call with somebody, there are only two reasons why they don't hire you at the end of that call or at the end of the sales process, whatever. A series of calls. Number one, they're not the right person. And that can branch in a thousand different ways. They might not be the right person because of personality, because of finances, because of the industry they're in, but they're not the right person. Or you don't have a compelling enough message. And I think that a lot of people are falling short on the compelling message part, which is why I'm leaning like, I lean more and more towards sales, coaching and consulting than marketing consulting. My background of four years is marketing.
Thom Van Dycke [00:28:50]:
But honestly, being a pastor is all about marketing. It's not about sales, it's about marketing. You're constantly, it's called legislative leadership, it's political leadership. You've got to inspire people to come and buy the message that you're giving. You can't sell the message that gets you in a lot of trouble. Those are the pastors and churches we are very suspect of, and rightly so. So it is marketing. So I understand the marketing messaging to draw people in, to inspire them to buy and that kind of thing.
Thom Van Dycke [00:29:21]:
But some sales is a little bit different. And when you run a business, you cannot market your way into a business. It is virtually impossible. And this is what a lot of marketers don't get. So if you have marketers listening right now, this is a really important point. You cannot market yourself into a business. You must sell yourself into a business. And people don't like sales.
Thom Van Dycke [00:29:41]:
But sales is just helping people make the best decision for their life with their money. That's all it is. It's helping them make a great decision that's going to increase their money, not reduce it. So sales is a very wholesome thing when done well and ethically. And what I tell marketers is you've got to, you might be very good at marketing and you might be able to bring a ton of leads to your clients, but if you don't sell your own marketing and your skills, you're not going to get a business. And so we have to get good at sales. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. I don't even think it matters the size of your business.
Thom Van Dycke [00:30:17]:
There are certain foundational things that you must have in place. And while the strategy is different for different niches and different audiences and different levels of industry, you still need those certain things in place. You can't get away from it.
Nick Bennett [00:30:31]:
So you're just talking about the difference between marketing your way into a company, selling your way into a company, and you can't sell the message type of thing. Do you have a more tangible example of how this shows up or how you've applied this in your own work to just make it a little bit more, add more shape to it?
Thom Van Dycke [00:30:48]:
Yeah. So in marketing, we talk about the funnel. The funnel is an old concept. Some people think it's antiquated, but it doesn't matter. It is still a funnel. You're trying to capture the attention of people. You're trying to nurture that relationship, and then you're supposed to close the deal. It's the botThom of the funnel.
Thom Van Dycke [00:31:03]:
Right. You have a lot of people's top, and then you bring them down to the sale. But how do you get them into the funnel? You need to have some sort of a lead capture tool that grabs their attention. This takes a very long time, and you need to have a very good lead generator. Problem is, there are far and few between good lead generators. If I put together a checklist on what your website needs to be, use story based marketing there. Well, I promised you, google it. Mine isn't going to come to the top of the list.
Thom Van Dycke [00:31:35]:
It's not how it works. What I learned is this. I used to say webinars are really good. Webinars are much better as a lead generator. But when I look at how I structured my webinars, actually my webinars were not the top of funnel, they were just below the top of funnel. And the top of funnel for me was reaching out to people in the groups that I was a part of, inviting them personally to my webinar. That's sales, it's different. And the reason a webinar is so effective is because they're not just reading something, they're actually hearing you.
Thom Van Dycke [00:32:11]:
So if I want to be a consultant, it's brilliant to get people in front of you and consult with them. In fact, I still do workshops twice a month. In 2023, I had over 300 people go through my workshops. Fantastic. And I loved it. It feels so good when you get 25 people there and they're engaged and stuff like that. But I actually don't care how many people come to my webinars. In June, I had one webinar where there were 17 people signed up, and I was feeling energized, and only three showed up.
Thom Van Dycke [00:32:43]:
One was a person I've never met before. Another person was somebody who'd been to many, many of my workshops, and I knew very well. And then I can't remember who the third person was. I think they might have been a client, in fact. And the guy I've never met before booked a discovery call. And the person who had been coming for like a year and a half to my workshops also booked a discovery call after a year and a half of getting to know me. So I don't care if there's only three people, because what it means is I get to actually coach them live. I go through my topic and then I'm like, let's open it up for discussion.
Thom Van Dycke [00:33:15]:
Let's actually solve some problems here. Let's mastermind this together. And you're demonstrating your approach, your ability, all of these things. And now they know what they're getting into if they say, I think we should probably meet. So anyways, but it's not the top of funnel. And so this whole idea that it's just this passive marketing funnel that eventually ends in a client, it just doesn't work that way. Even if that were true, the botThom of the funnel would not be a sale, not for consultants, not for anybody who has to meet the lead before they become a client. Because at the botThom, we're not selling a $30 widget where now the call to action is, let's jump on a call together.
Thom Van Dycke [00:34:01]:
I go, for goodness sakes, why bother with the months of funneling and energy of funneling people to get a meeting? Just get the meeting. Skip all that stuff.
Nick Bennett [00:34:12]:
Well, you're looking at webinars from a different perspective, and you do them in a consistent way, which, like, I'm a big fan of this approach. Right? Because you don't need 300 clients, you need like ten to 20 clients. So it's super easy to have those people there and help them see you in action. This is something that people tend to forget when your job is to coach and consult, which is they're buying you in action, and how are they going to know if you are competent? Will they have to see you in action? That's kind of the point of the discovery call. Do we get along? Do they truly have what it takes to help me get there? And so you bake that into your marketing program, into just the mechanics of what it is that you're doing. Most people would tell me, you got to pay for my time. You are like, I'll just do this for free, and it will build my business. Talk me through your thought process there.
Nick Bennett [00:35:10]:
Like, how did you decide, hey, I'm going to give my time away for free. Call it marketing or whatever, do these webinars, because consultants are like, my time is valuable. I'm not going to give it away for free. If people want this level of engagement with me, they have to pay for it. And a lot of people will plant their flag and they'll die on that hill. But you were willing to give it away to build your business. And I think that's an approach that not enough, not in my opinion, not a lot of people and not enough people are doing because it's a fast way to build your business and a really, I think, a simple way to build your own skills and capabilities as a coaching consultant.
Thom Van Dycke [00:35:43]:
Oh, yeah. And I'll get back to your, like, how did I get there? Question. But every topic that I teach on is straight out of my curriculum that I teach with clients. So I even tell people, look, if you come for two years to every single workshop, you'll probably get.
Nick Bennett [00:35:59]:
You'll get the program for free.
Thom Van Dycke [00:36:01]:
Yeah, exactly. You know what? I just don't care. I live with an abundance mindset. Now, that's not to say that I don't worry about money, that I don't want to build my business, that I don't have goals and kind of stress, and about meeting those revenue, of course, I do all of those things. But there are 8 billion people on this planet. I need to find ten to 20 to hire me. I don't mind sharing the platform with you, Nick. If you did exactly the same thing as me, I don't care.
Thom Van Dycke [00:36:31]:
I'll send people to you because there are enough people in the world that need our help. And I don't believe in running a mission like, I'm not running a nonprofit. I can't just help everybody who needs coaching but can afford it. But there is a little bit of that in offering free webinars. Come to the webinar. I don't care. Maybe you'll pick up some things that will just get you farther along the road. I can't stand it.
Thom Van Dycke [00:36:57]:
Like, people hold onto their money so tightly. If Ray Petkow had done that at the start of the transition, the career transition, it would never have happened. So I think there's a part of me that is maybe paying it forward a little bit, but it's also just really good business sense. It just is. I would rather be known for this than having scarcity and saying, oh, I can't share my thoughts, or I need to charge you what they're worth. Come on. I've already said there's nothing that unique about my thoughts. There just isn't.
Thom Van Dycke [00:37:30]:
You can find it in other places if you really look. So I just believe in abundance and generosity. Those are two of my core values, and I also believe in getting paid what I'm worth. But even with the way I structure my retainers, everything, I try to have a base retainer that's very reasonable and then performance or variable that my retainer goes up over time, so that as I actually help you build your business, my retainer reflects the value that I'm bringing to your business. And that's why sometimes I look at these high ticket coaches, oh, it's $15,000 to work with me. And if you can't afford that, we can't work together. And I will never lower my price because that means I'm not going to get my ideal client. I go, come on.
Thom Van Dycke [00:38:14]:
I look at it this way, if I believe in you, I'll charge you way less. And guess what's going to happen? If I can actually do what I say I'm going to do, I should be paid for that. But you don't know that. Value is derived from two things. One is a promise and another is a process in sales. Okay, a lot of people have a promise, but they don't have a process. A lot of people have a process, but they don't actually attach it to a promise. That's where marketers fall.
Thom Van Dycke [00:38:42]:
I'll get you a thousand leads, but there's no guarantee that there'll be any Roi. Well, that's crap. You should believe in what you're doing and your skills enough as a coach or consulting or a marketer or anything, a salesperson that you can say, look, I'm happy to work for less because I know that I'm going to help you succeed in so much that you'll want to pay me more. Okay, so I don't know if that quite answered your question about the workshops.
Nick Bennett [00:39:08]:
It definitely did, because this is abundance mindset at its on display in perfect focus because you're not out here to help only the people who can afford it. You're like, how can I have the greatest impact? How can I help as many people as possible? I appreciate and respect that this is a noble mission. Also, it's probably just better for business in the long run, because if people come to your workshops for three, four, five months, they're going to be further along, they're going to be more motivated, they're going to get it in a way that someone who's totally cold will or won't. And it just makes your life easier. Makes their life easier. Like the whole sales process has become smoother. Like the formal sales process, the whole thing is selling the entire time, basically. So I think it's a better experience for everyone across the board given your specific line of work.
Nick Bennett [00:40:01]:
The other thing you said, which I wholeheartedly agree with, because we have a similar pricing philosophy, which is you should be able to capture the value that you create. And the most simple way to do that is to have aligned incentives with your clients.
Thom Van Dycke [00:40:18]:
Correct?
Nick Bennett [00:40:18]:
Like you just said, there's a lot of people that will charge you a lot of money to do a whole bunch, to do a lot of things. But at the end of the day, it's, do you achieve does the work amount to the thing that we need it to? And I am a firm believer in that aligning incentives with your clients is the easiest way for everybody to know that we're going to work really, really hard to get to where we're trying to go here. So I agree with it. It's something that I utilize for my own business. It's something I encourage all of my clients to find a way. I teach them and I try to help them find a way because it's not so black and white when you're working upstream and mid market and enterprise companies that to charge for outcomes in that way. But it is certainly possible to find ways to continue to align a set incentives in some way, shape or form as you grow this thing. So, yeah, I'm 100% with you, man.
Nick Bennett [00:41:17]:
100% with you.
Thom Van Dycke [00:41:19]:
Yeah, I've been on calls where you can see the light bulb go on when you explain this. And I've had a number of people go, so what you're saying is you're going to be part of my business.
Nick Bennett [00:41:31]:
I call it the copilot.
Thom Van Dycke [00:41:33]:
Yeah, I'm going to be in your business. And one guy said, I'll pay you this amount, no problem. And he says, I can't wait to pay you more. He says, if I'm paying you more, it means I'm making more. So I had no problem with this. He was like, so on board. That's not always the case.
Nick Bennett [00:41:50]:
This is true. This is very true. I mean, yeah, everyone, everyone's really gung ho to pay you more because in that environment, because they're like you said, they're like, that means I have more clients. Like, something is going well when that conversation and that conversation takes place.
Thom Van Dycke [00:42:03]:
Yeah, I mean, think about it. I dream about the day that I start with a client who pays me $500 a month and I help them build a business that's so successful that they pay me $10,000 a month and they go, worth every penny. I mean, how incredible would that be?
Nick Bennett [00:42:23]:
The gratification on both sides is up there. So, Thom, what motivates you to do this work? What's your motivation here?
Thom Van Dycke [00:42:31]:
My purpose in calling in life is not attached to a vocation. My wife and I have been foster parents since 2011, and we've welcomed 30 foster kids into our home in that amount of time. And many of them have been reunited with their families and gone home. But four of them who came as emergencies have stayed with us. So we have two permanent foster kids right now who we would like to adopt one day. We have three adopted children and we have two biological children. And five of those kids, five of the seven still live at home, and they come from really challenging places on sort of a relational, family level. The ability to work from home is incredibly valuable.
Thom Van Dycke [00:43:17]:
Like, you know, this morning whenever one of the little ones is sick, so I just told my wife, I said, look, I can help you out in the morning. That's no problem because I'll just work this evening when she's asleep again. Like, it's no problem. That part of being an entrepreneur, being your own boss. I'm literally 10 seconds from my bedroom in the morning. Like, it's just. I actually really do love it. And it was very good during the pandemic.
Thom Van Dycke [00:43:42]:
Like, there was just lots. So sort of, there's that one side of things. But my calling in life is to raise kids from hard places. And when you look at all the things that have been, that are set against them for generations already, dysfunction, learned behavior, genetics, epigenetics, all of these things, trauma, I go, how am I going to give them the best chance to live up to their God given potential? So one of the things, and this is extremely practical, my wife and I both agree that the times our best family memories have been on family vacation. So we have always made it a priority to go on family vacations. So this year now we had to stop for a few years because of the pandemic. And we have, one of our children is vulnerable. So we have to be very careful with just all sickness, not even.
Thom Van Dycke [00:44:35]:
Not even Covid. But this year we can travel. We went for a month to Florida.
Nick Bennett [00:44:41]:
Every time I messaged you, I was like, hey, what's going on? We should catch up soon. You're like, still out and still in Florida, definitely.
Thom Van Dycke [00:44:48]:
When are you working? Dude, it was awesome. So that motivates me. And it's not just about the money of being able to do that, but I worked, like, of those four weeks, two of them, I work half time right out of our. The rental home that we had down there. And I want to eventually have a property, you know, a vacation property that we can rent out as a business, but also use six, seven weeks of the year. When you're a parent, the goal is this. You're about to become a parent again. So this is important.
Nick Bennett [00:45:18]:
Minutes away.
Thom Van Dycke [00:45:21]:
Every kid, every single kid is going to go through incredible trauma in their life. They're going to hit crisis, they're going to hit relational crises, crises of faith, all these things. A big time. That happens is when you're a young adult in your twenties. At that moment when my kid has left the house and they're hitting trauma and they're having trouble, you know what I want them to do? I want them to have warm memories of home so that even if they haven't been here for a long time, their first impulse when trouble hits a is to come back to where they were nurtured. The only way they're ever going to feel safe coming back here is if we've invested in the kind of memories that are going to draw them back after a long period of time. That absolutely motivates me. Now, on a business side, do I love helping entrepreneurs become successful? Absolutely, I do.
Thom Van Dycke [00:46:16]:
Do I love the interaction and getting to know people? I have four clients right now in Europe. Incredible. It's just incredible. So do I love that aspect? Does it motivate me? Absolutely. I want to become a world class coach. That's my motivation, because I know that I'm going to be able to help people. But if you dial all the way back, it's my family, my faith. Those are the things that are the most important.
Thom Van Dycke [00:46:46]:
And this, the way I'm doing business right now, allows me to pour into the values that are the most important to me personally.
Nick Bennett [00:46:54]:
That hits, man. That hits. You know, I know your family's older than mine. Like, your kids are older. My son's two, and my wife is like, minutes away from going into labor with our second. And Eric feels like that she's like 38 weeks pregnant. Those are the things that I strive to, like, build and instill in my own family, into my kids and the things that I think about. So I'm.
Nick Bennett [00:47:18]:
I agree with you. I don't really have much more than that is that I agree with this idea that there's going to be, there's going to be some turbulence in their life. And if you make your home life and all the things that surround it, a place where they look back on fondly, you did something. Right.
Thom Van Dycke [00:47:37]:
Right. And we can do that without being extremely wealthy.
Nick Bennett [00:47:42]:
Totally.
Thom Van Dycke [00:47:43]:
Right.
Nick Bennett [00:47:44]:
The money's nice, though.
Thom Van Dycke [00:47:46]:
But the money's nice. And it, like, we're business people. We have to make money or we don't have a business. And that is the position we're in. That's why my, my identity not attached to a particular career.
Nick Bennett [00:48:00]:
Are you a first gen entrepreneur in your family?
Thom Van Dycke [00:48:03]:
No, I'm not. My dad started always in the agriculture business. Right. But he was part of, you know, a group of men that started what became a huge feed mill and for farms. And then he started his own farm. My grandparents immigrated here from the Ukraine after the revolution in Russia. They were persecuted there, but they had massive farms out there.
Nick Bennett [00:48:27]:
The reason I ask is, I think part of this, and I'm separated. My grandfather was an entrepreneur. My parents, not so much. But being exposed to entrepreneurship is such a great thing, I think, for, like, your own children, because sometimes before I started this, you always think kind of like, why not me? You're like, I should do that. I want to do. I want to start my own thing. I want to do this one thing. And it feels so out of reach if you're not really exposed to it.
Nick Bennett [00:48:52]:
And I know you would share the story about your dad turned 40. I forgot. And it feels like 10 hours ago that you shared this story we've been talking. So it's like being exposed to those things kind of rewires your brain to understand what's possible. And it's like, I want for the kids to see it and look at you and go, like, that's the man. Like, he did that. Like, we can become entrepreneurs, too. Entrepreneurship is awesome, and to want them to see that as a viable option for them, not something that's out of reach, not just like, go get a job, is kind of the only way to do.
Nick Bennett [00:49:20]:
It's like, sure, if you want to get a job, go for it. I had once someone on a few months ago, and he was like, my family are only entrepreneurs. And they thought I was insane when I went and got a job. They're like, are you sure you want to go get a job? But I think. I think giving them those options is, like, mission critical, because it took a lot for me to overcome this limiting belief that entrepreneur, that it was a path that I could take for myself. And I don't want my kids to have that limiting belief. They want to get a job and work somebody else.
Thom Van Dycke [00:49:50]:
Go for it.
Nick Bennett [00:49:50]:
I don't care, but I want them to know that they can do it and it's not out of reach for them.
Thom Van Dycke [00:49:56]:
Correct.
Nick Bennett [00:49:57]:
All right, well, let's. Let's end here, man. What would you like to build, right. Looking forward, what would you like to build that you haven't built yet?
Thom Van Dycke [00:50:04]:
Well, you know, there are different ways you can scale. I'm solopreneur right now. There's different ways you can scale. You can raise your prices, but you can also add team members. If you add team members, are the employees, are the contractors. Do you franchise what you're doing? Do you license it to other people. And if you had asked me even six months ago, I would say, no, I'm just going to ride the solopreneur thing to the end. I won't have much of a.
Thom Van Dycke [00:50:28]:
I won't have a saleable business, but I. That's okay. And I'm not sure. There's something about having a team and saying, we serve this audience in this way and we all do it together. That might be in the future, but I have certain revenue markers before which I won't even fully entertain something like that. I know I can get to this point as a solopreneur and maybe to make it the rest of the way to my ultimate goal, I would think about. But to be it, honestly, I want to be a world class coach for entrepreneurs, and I've got a lot of learning before I can actually claim that. But that's.
Thom Van Dycke [00:51:10]:
That's really where I want to go. I want to change. I want to help a lot of people change their lives by creating wealth through business.
Nick Bennett [00:51:17]:
Amen, brother. I feel that I got to introduce you to my friend, Chris Marr. He is the authoritative coach. He's a good dude. He was on the show a few weeks ago. He's a good dude, but his mission is to help you become those types of world class coaches and that. And he's become a good friend. I used to work with him back in the day, but he's a.
Nick Bennett [00:51:35]:
He's a good friend, and he does a lot of really great work. He's got a good book out. This is. He didn't pay me to plug this either. He's just, wow. I'm a good guy. I'm a fan and a friend of his work, and it's. It's impacted me, so I think.
Nick Bennett [00:51:47]:
I think it might resonate with you as well. But, Thom, I appreciate your brother. It's good to see you. It's good to catch up and hear what you're. What you got going on and all this. This is something. We've known each other for so long, and I didn't know half of this stuff.
Thom Van Dycke [00:52:00]:
Well, I appreciate it, Nick.
Nick Bennett [00:52:01]:
Yeah, man. I know more people feel seen because you shared your story, and I think that's the most important thing.
Thom Van Dycke [00:52:06]:
So appreciate that.
Nick Bennett [00:52:08]:
All right, man.
Thom Van Dycke [00:52:09]:
Great opportunity. I enjoy visiting with you. Now, we just recorded our conversation.
Nick Bennett [00:52:13]:
Yeah, seriously, this isn't too far off from our normal chats. It's just now we did it, and I'm going to publish it for other people to hear us talk.
Thom Van Dycke [00:52:21]:
Awesome. I appreciate the opportunity. It's always fun. And you know, you're doing great work, too. And you're becoming a new dad again soon. So lessons on that.
Nick Bennett [00:52:29]:
The blood pressure is high. Thanks, man.
Thom Van Dycke [00:52:34]:
No problem.
Nick Bennett [00:52:40]:
Hey, Nick, again. And thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can sign up for the 1000 Routes newsletter where I process the insights and stories you hear on this show into frameworks and lessons to help you build a new and different future for your own business. You can sign up at 1000routes.com or check the link in the show notes. All right, the hardest hitting question. You'll hear this in the hour. What would be your last meal on earth?
Thom Van Dycke [00:53:13]:
Probably a reverse sear steak with potatoes.
Nick Bennett [00:53:17]:
What kind of steak would cut?
Thom Van Dycke [00:53:19]:
Probably a sirloin top. Sirloin? No. Maybe a New York strip. Let's go. New York strip.
Nick Bennett [00:53:25]:
You don't seem so sure.
Thom Van Dycke [00:53:27]:
I don't really care about cuts. I can make any meat taste good on my barbecue.
Nick Bennett [00:53:31]:
Okay. I like that you went reverse sear. I appreciate that. Not too many people reverse searing steaks these days, so I like that. I'm a ribeye fan. I feel like the ribeye is just like the cut.
Thom Van Dycke [00:53:43]:
It's not bad. I will tell you, this last holiday I smoked some ribs. I've never, ever done ribs that good in my life.