From Imposter Syndrome to Six-Figure Launches: Jay Fairbrother’s Coaching Evolution
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Coach: Jay Fairbrother
Founder, Six Figure Masterminds
Profitable: Yes
FT Employees: 0
Who are you, and what coaching business did you start?
So I'm Jay Fairbrother, the mastermind guy. I am a serial entrepreneur with 30 years of experience—I've founded, bought, and sold seven-figure businesses. I have been involved in masterminds for 25 years, but really, I wasn't smart enough the first five years I was an entrepreneur to get into one.
My mastermind journey started when I joined my first mastermind 25 years ago when my business was about a million dollars in revenue. I kind of got stuck there—I plateaued at a million dollars. I joined an entrepreneur mastermind so that we could grow our businesses and become better entrepreneurs. What happened after joining that mastermind was not what I expected.
Within five or six months of being in these mastermind meetings, I'm watching grown men break down and cry as they start to open up about their messed-up marriages, kid problems, and the anxiety and depression that the business is causing. It wasn't what we signed up for, but for me, it was my first real experience as an adult with human connection.
I went all-in on masterminds and started joining everyone I could. I joined six or seven different masterminds over the next several years, and my business took off. I grew that first business to $10 million in annual revenue and sold it in 2004.
After selling an eight-figure business, life gets pretty good. I traveled extensively, bought three other businesses, and invested in a bunch of different things. Then, in 2008, what's now referred to as the Great Recession began, and I lost everything.
So within a few-year period, I quite literally went from being a multimillionaire living in a mansion to living in my friend's basement—broke, bankrupt, divorced, humiliated, ashamed—because for 15 years, I had built this identity as this really successful serial entrepreneur. There I was, sitting in the basement alone, having lost everything.
I say the only reason I'm still here today is because of the couple of masterminds I stayed in during that very dark period. The support that those people gave me went way beyond a basement to live in and a car that I could borrow for some months until I could get back on my feet. They supported me in ways that literally kept me alive.
So, in a very real sense, I 10x'ed my first business as a result of masterminds, and it saved my life during the darkest time period. That's why I'm passionate about masterminds.
Take us through the process launching your coaching business.
It took me a long time to crawl my way out of that basement. When I finally came back and hung my shingle as a coach, like many coaches, I struggled with imposter syndrome and the fear of failing once again. I also struggled with fear of success, which a lot of people don't talk about as much as fear of failure—the fear that, 'Oh my God, if I create it again, it's just gonna get ripped away.’
It took me a while, and when I finally did hang my shingle, I went about it like most of us do. I started buying programs, finding coaches, and learning strategies and tactics. I started one-on-one coaching and then created a course. After my fourth course launch, I'm looking at my numbers and saying to myself, 'What am I doing wrong?'
I went to one of my mentors at the time and shared my numbers. He said, 'Jay, you're not doing anything wrong. You're hitting industry averages with these launches.' I said to myself, 'Oh my God, I'm going to have to launch like seven or eight times a year just to make a living, just to hit six figures and create a sustainable business.'
The answer, of course, was that I needed to create a high-ticket program. In my case—and I think many coaches go through this journey—I feel like the first 18 months I spent doing one-on-one and building the course and doing those launches was almost a waste of effort and time. Had I just started the high-ticket program sooner, it would have been a much easier path to travel. Within six months of starting my high-ticket program, I tripled my business revenue. Now, I'm doing six-figure launches a few times a year, instead of having to launch constantly.
So, what were those original courses about?
I started with a sales course because I began doing one-on-one coaching around sales. That's something I've done for my own companies and others for 30 years. I created a sales course for coaches, and it was really successful. I was actually in a program at an event, and the person running it was talking about legacy—what do you want to be known for?
I had an epiphany because I realized I didn't want to be known as the sales guy. I've run nine different businesses in six different industries; I have a little bit more to offer than just sales. That's when it really came home to me. I knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to do the mastermind thing all along, but that's when it really hit me—that I want to be known for being the mastermind guy, not the sales guy.
So I pivoted there. I immediately started my Mastermind course, which I've been selling for the last few years.
How did you go about finding your first group of customers?
I did it through a combination of networking and JV partners. I found people willing to promote me to help get traffic. I made a lot of connections in networking groups that I followed through with, and that was really the start—to get that first launch out of the gates.
Was your offer pricing pretty clear from the outset?
It was pretty clear, and I also developed a pricing course, which I still have now, that deals a lot with the mindset of pricing and how to price programs. Part of the pricing program is the 'Ultimate Coach's Pricing Formula,' a step-by-step process to help you figure out the value of your programs and create more perceived value.
But for me, coming out of that experience of losing everything and that imposter syndrome, like many people, I priced my programs too low. I started at one price and then increased it as I kept launching it. I started at a thousand dollars; I then sold it at two thousand dollars.
What other marketing channels work for you today?
I still use JV partners a lot to expand my reach and audience. I've also done a lot of speaking at summits and stages to build my own audience and get people to raise their hands. Now, I also use three-day events, which is probably now the primary driver of clients for me. I do three-day virtual enrollment events, and those people who attend the event are sold into my mastermind, which I run for my clients. If they don't decide to join the high-ticket mastermind, then my down-sell is the course.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
The business is doing great. I tweak things and improve every time I launch a new event. It's always a little different, always new and improved from the previous event. Like I said, I'm now doing six-figure launches, so that's a much happier place to be than doing five-figure launches.
I do three three-day events, and then I supplement that in between. I do five or six launches that are just for my Mastermind course, and that's really to accommodate a lot of JV partners that can't fit into my event dates three times a year, but also to give an opportunity for people to jump into my support and training in between events with the course.
What does your team look like?
I've gotten to this point mostly by myself. I had a couple of VAs—you know, tried one out, moved to another. I'm onboarding a new VA right now. But I've mostly been doing it by myself, and that's the stage I'm at now: it's about building a team. I do know how to scale a company; I've built one to a couple of hundred employees, so I do know how to scale, but it's a tough road when it's all about cash flow.
It's a chicken-and-egg situation. I really need a team, but I don't have the cash flow right now to afford the team, and there are times when you just have to take a little bit of a risk and put yourself out there in terms of an expense to start building that team.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Yes. The first is that so many people put themselves out in the universe, wanting to help anyone and everyone they can, and therefore, their marketing and messaging get completely watered down. They can't stand out from the one million other coaches out there because they're targeting such a broad niche—what I call 'fishing in the ocean.'
The most successful coaches on the planet don't fish in the ocean. What they do is create a stocked pond by fine-tuning their marketing, branding, and messaging to attract the people who are not only the people they can best help—meaning the right-fit clients that their expertise applies to—but the people they love working with.
What I see a lot of people do is they start thinking, 'Okay, I have 25-30 years of expertise in X. What program can I create that people will buy?' I challenge people to shift their perspective and not think about what people will buy but think about creating the program that you are most passionate about delivering, and more importantly, who are the people you're most passionate to help?
So, in my case, I'm teaching people how to create high-ticket masterminds, and this becomes even more important because in an exclusive, intimate sort of inner-circle mastermind, you don't want to allow just anyone who can write a check. You want to target and invite the people who you're best suited to help and that you want to work with—the people who are committed, show up, do the work, and get the massive transformation that you can offer.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Yeah, it's a good question. There's not like one or two or three that I have that I depend on exclusively. I'm always looking for insights, tips, tricks, and strategies. A lot of it comes out of just referrals from other coaches and peers that I respect. I run a peer mastermind of other six-figure coaches who want to get to that next level, and it's a true peer mastermind where we treat ourselves as equals. I get a lot of my insights and learning from their shared experiences, successes, and failures in that peer mastermind environment. I think every person should have a peer mastermind. And, I have found three of my own mentors that I invest almost a thousand a year with to make sure I’m constantly learning best practices and staying current.
Are there any peer masterminds that you recommend?
Hah, mine! I’m still looking for a few people to join.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
So, in the short term, I'm looking for another VA. In the medium term, though, what I really want to have is an online business manager. If people are unfamiliar with that term, that's someone sort of in between what might be considered a partner or somebody equal to you in your business and a VA. It's somebody at a higher level than a VA who can think strategically, who can look at the big picture, and who can manage VAs, manage your processes, and manage your resources so that you can focus on client attraction and client delivery.
Where can we go to learn more?