Follow Your Vision

Episode 900: Follow Your Vision, with Clate Mask

Follow your vision and witness the success of your company unfold. Clate Mask’s advice will help you stay true and follow your vision.

Learn from Clate on how to follow your vision and see your company grow towards success. Clate Mask is the CEO and co-founder of Infusionsoft, the leading all-in-one sales, and marketing software built for small businesses and eight-time Inc. 500 or Inc. 5000 winner. Clate was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, a Top 100 Small Business Influencer by Small Business Trends, and one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2013 by Goldman Sachs. Clate is a national speaker on entrepreneurship and small business success, and he is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book, “Conquer the Chaos: How to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy.”

What you will learn from this episode about how to follow your vision:

• Why Infusionsoft created their Mars Mission to help guide them through the transition to working with more small businesses through a new, simpler platform
• Why you should follow your vision and how will it benefit your company in the end
• Why developing a simpler platform scaled for broader use created new challenges for the company, including splitting their focus and renaming their brand Keap
• How the company began to split their focus starting in 2017, and how their long-term focus was key to navigating the complexity of their two different offerings
• Why developing the simpler platform for small businesses has been a part of the Clate’s long term vision for years, and why that matters to the success of the company
• Why the goal of Keap’s Mars Mission is to simplify growth for 5 million small businesses, and why that specific metric was chosen
• How Clate’s company is inventing a small business solution from scratch, rather than offering a watered-down enterprise solution like their competitors
• Why Clate believes that purpose, mission, and values are the keys to growth, and why leaders must clearly communicate those key aspects to their teams
• What advice Clate has for business owners looking to improve their ability to mentor others
• Clate shares the brand story of his company and of his personal entrepreneurial journey and the many strains and struggles he faced in his company’s early days

Additional resources:

• Website: www.keap.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/clatemask/
• Onward Nation episode 735 with Clate Mask:
  • https://predictiveroi.com/podcasts/clate-mask/
• Onward Nation episode 834 with Brett Gilliland:
  • https://predictiveroi.com/podcasts/brett-gilliland-encore/
• Be inspired and follow your vision with the help of this blog from Keap

Additional Resources:

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Learn from Scott Beebe on how to follow your vision and write it as a story

 

 

Follow Your Vision: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner. 

 

Good morning, Onward Nation. I’m Stephen Woessner. And before I introduce you to our very special encore guests today, let me share some additional context about Clayton Mask and why I was over the moon excited when he said yes to come back for another conversation.

 

Now, you may remember Clate. He is the CEO and co-founder of Infusionsoft, which is the leading all in one sales and marketing software that is built for small businesses. Incredible track record of success. During our first conversation, he walked you through what they call the decade, their Everest mission. So, I mean, this is something that they not only named a really cool name, The Everest Mission, but they spent ten years building this and set a very, very supreme goal.

 

And they accomplished it. It was phenomenal. And now they’re going on yet another mission, now called the Mars Mission, which is why I was so excited. They said yes. To come back is because he’s going to take us inside there. This strategic decision, this very big decision to add, keep and actually change the name of the business to keep.

 

And why they decided to do that. And what is so impactful about this mission in this goal of serving 5 million small business owners and how they’re doing that and how they’re stepping into it. And this wasn’t a rash decision. This wasn’t a decision where they woke up one day and said, hey, this is how we’re going to pivot the business.

 

He’s going to take you inside that brand story, walk you through all of the conversation, all of the very difficult decisions that led up into that process. That is going to be extremely, extremely insightful for you Onward Nation to be able to see how they navigated that and now how they’re seeing it on the other side, and all of the impact that they’re creating for small business owners as a result of that.

 

So without further ado, welcome back to Onward Nation, Clayton. 

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: Clate Mask’s Introduction

 

Thanks, Stephen. Great to be here with you. Looking forward to it. Well, I’m looking forward to the conversation as well. And so actually, let’s start with some of the brand story kind of setting that as a foundation. And then we’ll go into some of the strategic decisions around, around keep it, take us inside kind of the kernel of that story, the brand story and sort of what the genesis of that was.

 

And then we’ll kind of take that into the strategy piece. Yeah. You bet. Well, you said it exactly right. You know, we had our Everest mission that took us from 2007 to 2017. And when we got to the end of that, we were saying, you know, we’re not done. We love you know, what do we do?

 

We don’t want to sell the business. We don’t want to like it, we want to continue to build something really significant. So we put together a mars mission and the Mars mission takes us through 2030. It’s to simplify growth for 5 million small businesses worldwide. And we recognized that in order to do that, we needed to do something that the market had been asking us to do for a while, and that was to create a lite version of our software for all of the small businesses for whom Infusionsoft was too powerful, too much, you know, hey, we don’t need all that.

 

We need something lighter. And we heard that again and again and again. And so when we decided, all right, we’re going to go after serving 5 million small businesses over the next decade plus, we know we need to create a version of our software that can appeal broadly to small businesses. And frankly, it’s what we had always wanted to do.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: Creating a More Powerful Version of your Software

 

We, you know, initially we created our CRM software, and it kind of got pulled into the marketing automation space where more of the marketing pros and the top folks would use our software, and that’s great. And by the way, we still have that product and we still have customers doing that, and we love it, but we also wanted to serve the small businesses that weren’t pros and weren’t, you know, marketing experts, but they needed to grow their business more effectively.

 

And so that’s the kernel of the reason for it. That’s why we did it, because we have this Mars mission and we want to serve millions of small businesses. Well, it’s interesting to hear here. You see that right back in episode 735 when you took us into like the early on, early beginnings of Infusionsoft, it was starting to do all this coding at night and really kind of needed it together and just, you know, the early survival years.

 

And then customers say, what could you do with this feature? Yep. You bet we can do that feature. What could you build on this feature? Yep. We can build that feature. And then it was feature upon feature upon feature. So obviously then it became very, very robust and very sophisticated and awesome. I mean we’re heavy Infusionsoft users, an awesome platform, right?

 

Building it over throughout that Everest mission. And then it seems really fascinating. Then it’s like, well, no, wait a minute, what’s this other piece of the market? But that’s not an easy decision to make after you’ve built this really incredible product to then scale that back. I mean, that is not an easy decision, is it? Oh, no, it is.

 

It’s not easy at all. I mean, we thought about it a bunch and we, you know, what happened is, we created the product. We knew we wanted to create the product. That part actually was what we were so passionate about. We were like, no, we got to do it. And it’s hard to do.

 

It’s not as simple as creating a lighter version of your software. It’s much more common that people will create a version of their software, and then they’ll create a more powerful pro version of it. We kind of went the other way, right? And so that’s not a small undertaking, but we had the passion and the desire to serve customers.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: Deciding On the Name of The Software

 

So we really wanted to do it. The hard part came as we were getting that product into the market last year, and we were getting more and more customers buying it, and we were kind of looking out to the year 2030. We began to recognize that we would have more customers on the new product than we would have on Infusionsoft.

 

And so we were like, what do you call it? Like then it’s weird to call it, you know, some kind of lite version of Infusionsoft is like, okay, we realize it needs to have its own name. It needs to stand for the simple software that you use to grow your business. And that’s just not the reputation that Infusionsoft has.

 

It has the powerful software that you use to grow your business. And so you know, we just recognized well, we need to have a name that really calls out the simplicity that matches our mission to simplify growth and that we can get, you know, millions of customers using. And so it was really tricky. And you go through a process, you’re like, well, what does that mean for the existing product in Infusionsoft?

 

And what does it mean for the existing customer? And you have those questions and your employees have those questions and the market has those questions. And so it was hard to get to. But, you know, last year we got to the clear point that there’s a need and a desire for Infusionsoft. And we share that desire in the market.

 

So we will continue to serve Infusionsoft. And there’s a need and a desire and a demand for this new product with a new name. And so we’re going to do that. And so it became, you know, it’s challenging because then you have your, you have two customers and you have two products. And whenever you split focus like that, it’s hard.

 

You know, it’s not for the faint of heart to do this kind of thing. But we have a big vision we’re up to and our Mars mission that is driving us and compelling us to do this. And, Scott and I want to do this for a long, long time as co-founders, and my team is excited about it.

 

So it was the right thing to do, but it’s not easy. 

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: Continue To Infuse Your Product

 

Well, you said something really compelling to me in our preview chat in the green room when you said, look, it’s scary because essentially we’re splitting our focus. You just said that a minute ago. But Stephen, you have to look at ways to disrupt yourself.

 

And you guys did that smartly. You did it boldly. But it is scary going down that path, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Totally. And then it’s especially scary as you think. Okay. Well what are the implications of that in terms of our brand. And so what happened was we decided, well if that’s the price, if that product’s going to have more numbers on it then and that’s where customers are coming into our business, then we should probably have the company name match the new product.

 

And that was tricky. I mean, it was like, oh, wow. Yeah, it’s because Infusionsoft, your baby and the name of the company is the product. And so even though we were clear, okay, we’re going to continue to infuse our product, it felt like because that’s the name of the brand we’ve known forever, that should be the company name.

 

But the reality was we need to have a new product that will have many more numbers on it, be the name of the company, and then Infusionsoft is a more powerful product. And so as we made that decision, oh, probably middle of last year, then we started working toward it. And then we went through all of the fun brand journey stuff.

 

So, you know, everything I’ve talked about so far, that’s really the strategy behind it. And then there’s all of the fun, you know, coming up with the brand. Why, you know, what does it mean? Why did we choose that name? How do the products work together under the brand? But what’s the future of it? All of that. So I’m happy to go wherever you’d like to go.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: Going Into Market Mode

 

But yeah, it’s a fun journey to go through. And I will say it’s a lot more fun to be where we are now than where we were two years ago. Well, so let’s think about that. You know, two years, because I think if I understood context correctly, it was even further back than that. Maybe it was three, four years ago when when kind of the original sort of, kind of mapping out what might be a strategy around that.

 

Am I getting that timeline correct? Yeah. That’s right. That’s when we started to say, okay, well, we envision this world and this opportunity for small businesses in a much broader way. And so that means we got to start doing some things from a product standpoint to make the power of Infusionsoft accessible to the small business masses.

 

How do we do that? And so we began on different product initiatives, different things. And really for a couple of years, we’re kind of dabbling in that working on it. But as we finished the Everest mission and and kicked off 2017 and the Mars mission, that’s when the product work really began in, you know, with a lot of intensity and a lot of urgency and a lot of drive and that’s, you know, that’s where the split focus really starts because you’re really driving and getting the new product out.

 

And you know, prior to that, you can kind of do it. Skunkworks. It’s kind of in the back room and you get people working. It’s not. And there’s kind of whispers and wonderings and you maybe show a little bit of technology around those types of things. But when you go into full blown, product build mode and go to market mode and all of that over the last couple of years, you know, it’s a hard process to go through.

 

But like I said, I’m much happier where we are now. Yeah. For sure. And I think what you just did there, which was really, really helpful for Onward business owners and for me too, is the fact that there’s a timeline, there’s a process. Again, you guys didn’t wake up one day and said, you know what?

 

We’re going to create a product that we think we can serve 5 million small business owners with. This is probably the product where they’re going to start, you know, a relationship with us, and we can probably keep them in this product. Maybe they’ll move on to Infusionsoft, maybe not where we’re creating a new offering that will be really, really helpful.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: The Long-Term Focus and Decision-Making

 

You didn’t just wake up one day and then put that online and start taking subscribers. And right there was a long well thought out process, but also you guys had to give up some stuff too along the way when you thought, okay, if we’re splitting our focus and getting serious here, there’s some trade offs.

 

Are we still going to run an event? Are we still to do these other things? Right. So give us some insight there. Because those are not easy decisions either that you had to make. Yeah you’re right. You’re exactly right about long term decision making. And it comes from a long term focus. You know, it all comes from when we set our 2030 mission to simplify growth for 5 million small businesses.

 

And I think that this is probably something that a lot of observers or, you know, people, customers or partners and, you know, sometimes even employees don’t don’t see. And it’s, you know, it’s my job as the leader to make that more clear. So when people don’t see it, it’s on me and it’s on my team. And you know, we can do a better job of helping people understand it.

 

But sometimes folks just don’t realize the long term nature of what we’re doing. And I get that if someone had come to me when we were in our first, second, third year of business and talked to me about a ten year, 15 year, 20 year vision, I’d be like, what are you talking about? I’m just trying to keep the lights on next week, you know?

 

I mean, I just or, you know, that’s fine, but I’m just I’m working toward this vacation or the new whatever. You know, you have short term goals you’re working on, but once you do your business for a while, you start to see a different plateau that you want to go to a different peak that you want to rise to.

 

And so, you know, when we created it, we had been doing our business for a few years when we created the Everest mission. And then I remember thinking, 2017, that’s going to that’s so far away to, you know, to Everest mission and you know what? It just goes like that, it just goes so quickly and then so when we started to work on the Mars mission for 2030, it’s like, yeah, I mean, that doesn’t seem like it’s that far away actually.

 

And so I want to just share that, because I think when people don’t understand the vision of what we’re doing or the strategy of what we’re doing with our brand in that long term grounding, then it’s easy to go, well, why this? Why not? Or but you know, you hear all of the stuff. Oh well you just did this because, do you know you wanted to get away from the confusion, soft notion.

 

I mean, I’ve probably heard that a dozen times or more since we introduced the brand. I’m like, no. We decided, you know, a couple years ago we were going to take simplicity to small businesses. That was nothing that, you know, other people were saying and or I heard people say, oh, you guys, you’re just, you know, your board is requiring you to make this change.

 

No. Are you talking about or that somehow Scott and I, as co-founders, right? I mean, I’ve heard that. Oh, you’re selling the business. You’re you’re you’re. Oh, no, we have a long term vision of what we’re up to, and we have been staying the course on that long term vision for many, many years. And this is a part of that evolution to accomplish the vision that we’re up to.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: The Mars Mission

 

So thanks for calling out the long term process, because it’s not only the decision making process as you go through the product strategy and the brand strategy, but all of that is grounded in the Mars mission of 2030. And I think when people understand that, then they can when they understand that long term grounding, then they can begin to appreciate the strategy and the product and the and the and the brand work we’re doing.

 

And all of that begins to fit in a little better. So let’s focus on the Mars vision. So 2030 and how you’re going to define success. And because here again, I think this is really going to illustrate how strategic you, Scott, and your team are in building something not not even just for the future, but trying to be helpful to business owners along the way.

 

So we know that the bag that the 5 million like simplifying growth for 5 million small businesses is awesome. How else will you define success? And to know that once you reach 2030, you’ve accomplished what you set out to accomplish? Yeah. You know, that number really is the biggest thing for us. We chose that number because we, you know, we don’t want to serve tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.

 

We want to serve millions. We chose that number because we want to be the standard of CRM software, front office, you know, sales of marketing software, however you want to think. We want to be that standard for small businesses. And we looked at the back office standard in QuickBooks and said, you know, they’ve got about 5 million small businesses.

 

And then we looked at the math and said, you know, this is what it would require for us to get to that, not on a straight line of growth but, you know, with some sort of g curve trajectory, as it is normal. And we picked that number. Now if we get to 2030 and we have 3,000,900, you know, 80,000 customers, that’s just great.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: The Reinvention of the CRM for Small Businesses

 

That’s fine. We’re not like, you know, locking in on this very specific number and anything else is failure. We don’t think of it that way. But we do think of millions of small businesses worldwide so that, you know, it’s specifically to simplify growth for 5 million small businesses worldwide. 

 

And we envision being the leader in the sales and marketing and small CRM industry for small businesses to be thought of as the QuickBooks for sales and marketing, or the salesforce.com for small businesses to be the clear leader and to have transformed what it is for small businesses to manage their customer relationships.

 

And what we’re doing is we are inventing CRM for small business the way that small business needs it. And what’s happened to this point is small businesses have been given either a watered down version of an enterprise or mid-market solution, or they’ve been given a, more of a marketing automation solution, you know, which we we certainly pioneered that in small business and see, you know, there’s doing that, but there’s fundamentally at the heart of small business is a personal relationship.

 

And small business is personal. And you’re trying to build relationships and the way you do that is a little different than then you do it in bigger businesses. So that reinvention of CRM for small businesses is what we’re up to. And that’s what the Mars mission is all about. And it has to be simple and it has to propel growth, and it has to be worldwide.

 

And so that’s what we’re up to, and that’s what we think about in terms of success. We’ll have, you know, a massive army of partners that are working with us to help simplify growth for millions of small businesses. And so we think of a huge ecosystem of partners as part of that success. We think of a great base of employees that we call keepers, that are spread out over many offices across the world.

 

But, you know, certainly the seminal way that we’ll measure success is in terms of millions of small businesses that we serve to help them grow their business. That’s awesome. Well, let’s go back to something you mentioned a few minutes ago when you mentioned the role of the leader and in making sure that everybody is on the same page.

 

So, as you are sharing that and, you know, 2030, the Mars mission, 5 million, I’m thinking to myself, wow, okay. So here he is again, front and center with a ten year strategy from a communication perspective, like an internal communication perspective, I really want to get his insights on how he not only shares that initial strategy and plan, but then the rinse and the repeat in to make sure that all of the oars are rolling in the same direction.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: Recommendations for Business Owners

 

So as I think about our listeners are Onward Nation business owners, any advice, any recommendations that you would have on one? You know, this is how you should roll it out. But then based on your experience, this is the rinse and repeat that is necessary to keep all the oars rowing in the same direction. Okay, that’s a great question.

 

I should have done a whole session on this, but let me give it to just a real quick summary. Okay. It all comes down to the vision that you have for your business. And that vision is best captured in the articulation of a purpose for why you exist, your mission that says what you’re up to in a defined period of time, much like our Mars mission and your values, which is how you go about doing your work purpose, that purpose, mission and values.

 

And so you as the leader and as the leadership team, depending on how big your business is, you’ve got to get really clear on that. Now, when you’re small, you just sort of have it in you and the people around you. You know, the one, two, three, five employees, whatever it is, they just sort of get it.

 

But as you get bigger, you have to be very intentional about your communication of this. So it starts with getting really clear with your leadership team on the vision of the company, the purpose, the mission and the values. And so that is the work. When you get clear on that, then you have a method of communicating it.

 

You have a method of reinforcing it. You hire it, you coach it, you fire it. When I say it, I’m talking about the vision. This purpose, mission and values. I use vision with a capital V to mean something very specifically. It’s not just a lofty view of something, it’s literally why you exist, what you’re up to, and how you go about doing it.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: Learn How to Reinforce The Process

 

So we used to teach this as part of our company. But one of the things that you, as you pointed out earlier, when we really put the effort into the product work and the product strategy and what we needed to accomplish, we needed to let go of some things, and we had to let go of some service work that we used to do and push that out to our partners.

 

We had to let go of the events that we used to do with Icon and Infusionsoft University and some of those things, and we pushed that out to our partners. But one of the things that we used to do as part of our service work is we had a business, a little line of our business called Elite that taught small businesses how to go from a seven figure business to an eight figure business.

 

You know, when you once you kind of crossed that million dollar mark, you start to have real challenges in communicating vision and getting all of your employees rowing in the same direction. And so we taught this method to this purpose: values, mission, how to coach it, how to train it, how to hire and fire it.

 

We taught how to reinforce. So everything you’re describing about the communication and the cadence and the rhythm of reinforcing and helping people to understand this is all part of what we taught in elite. Well, the good news is that it still exists and anyone that’s listening to this saying, hey, I have, you know, once you get over a handful of employees, you start to hit this.

 

You may not be at seven figures yet in revenue, but you’re starting to approach it. You begin to feel the challenges of people rowing in different directions, and everybody’s not aligned. And you’re feeling the struggle. And a lot of the chaos that goes on when you’re not clear. If you’re feeling that and you’re interested in what I’m talking about, you should look at the lead entrepreneurs.

 

They have a bunch of free resources. They have a monthly subscription to get access to a whole bunch of really top level training and guidance on this stuff. But you can check out elite entrepreneurs. But the short answer, Stephen, is you get really clear on your purpose, values and mission, and then you reinforce it through a very intentional communication rhythm.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: Putting in the Hard Work

 

Thank you for that. And Onward Nation, if you go back to episode 834, that’s where we had an opportunity to sit down with Brett Gilliland, who runs The Great Entrepreneurs. Right. Phenomenal conversation about how to build and scale your business. And, so, you know, the links that that just mentioned, they’re there along with some other resources that Brett was kind enough to share.

 

And I’m actually going to be in Brett’s September group. Oh, cool. Yeah. Because some of those, you know, pens that you’re talking about going from seven up to eight, you know, that’s where our business is now, just being candid and full transparency with Predictive ROI. It’s like we’ve accomplished a lot, but we’re feeling the pain too.

 

As far as how we reach that next level. And so absolutely it’s about systems. But it’s also doing the hard work that you just mentioned and so putting into place the purpose, the mission, the values and all of that. We’ve done some work around that, but clearly we need to do even more work around that if we’re going to truly hit eight.

 

Yep. That’s exactly right. Well, I’m super excited you’re doing it. It’s a really fun program. And you’ll get a lot out of it. Yeah, we’re very much looking forward to it. So I know that, you know, teaching and coaching and mentoring I know that is something that is near and dear to your heart.

 

I know how much leadership and how important that is to you. So bear with me. So let’s see, the Onward Nation business owners want to get better at their mentorship skills. Is there maybe a tip or two, some advice that you might be able to share and how we can improve as business owners, how we can improve our mentorship capability?

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: How to Improve Your Mentorship Capability

 

Well, that’s a great question. I think one thing that just jumps to my mind is to always work on honing our listening skills. A lot of times as entrepreneurs, we go through the stages early on where we need to not be very good listeners. That sounds kind of weird, but there’s so much noise and so much criticism and so much cynicism about what we’re doing as entrepreneurs in the early stages that it’s actually healthy to tune out almost everything because there’s just so much negativity and everybody’s time to go get a real job.

 

And, you know, you’ve got so much working against you that that you develop, you kind of take rugged individualism as an entrepreneur to the extreme. And that’s a great thing. And it helps you get to a certain point as you become, as you grow your business and start to work more collaboratively with more people, you need to learn how.

 

You know, we all need to learn how to be better listeners. And definitely as advisors and mentors, we have to really listen to what’s behind what people are saying because there’s, you know, they’re using words to communicate, but there’s all kinds of stuff happening. And most of the message is not coming through in words. And so when we mentor, we gotta, you gotta read what’s happening.

 

We got to see what’s going on for people. We gotta empathetically listen and understand. And so I, you know, one thing that jumps out to me is mentors. As entrepreneurs, we have to make that transition when we want to become truly effective mentors. And we got to just hone those listening skills. I think the other thing is we’ve got to always be learning, whether that’s coaching or reading, you know?

 

But it’s hard to mentor if you’re not being mentored. It’s hard to coach people if you’re not investing in your own growth. And so I’m you know, I’m a huge believer in coaching programs, in reading like crazy, in learning. You know, I read six books a quarter and I’ve done it for many, many years.

 

And it’s not because I’m necessarily going to sound weird, but it’s not necessarily because I’m trying to get the information out of those books. It’s that I’m trying to spur my mind and keep the creativity going and keep the connections going. And for me, reading does that. And I’m an old school reader, you know, I learned young to read very fast.

 

And so I, you know, I consume books in a couple hours a pop and I just read but it has an amazing, catalyzing effect on creativity and innovation and thinking. Well, that’s critical to being a good mentor. So whatever your method is for learning and growing and self-development, or methods, I should say, because I think there’s, you know, much more than one, but you need to invest in those things because it’s hard to be an effective mentor if you’re not building yourself and developing yourself.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more

 

Follow Your Vision: The Early Struggles of Transitioning into A Business Owner

 

That’s awesome. When you were saying that or starting that off, you mentioned, you know, go get a real job that actually sparked part of my memory here. So forgive me if I have my wires crossed here. Didn’t somebody say that to you, like, early on in the process, somebody close to you said, why don’t you go get a real job?

 

Like in the early days, right. Oh yeah. Well, and I think it also comes back to the brand story, which I, you know, we talked about Keith. We didn’t talk about why we named the company. We talked about why we need the company to do the same thing as the product of, you know, the new product.

 

But why keep it so, you know, the best way is to share with you my story. And my story is not just my story, but I share it because I know it’s near and dear to just about every entrepreneur out there. So we had been running Infusionsoft for about two and a half years, and it was incredibly difficult.

 

You know, I think last time I was on, I took just, you know, the financial struggles that went on. But it’s not just financial struggles. It’s the emotional and the mental and the relationships strain and everything that goes on in that process. And certainly it tends to be punctuated by financial struggle. Well, about two and a half years in Sherry, my wife Sherry said she just had it.

 

And she’s an amazing support. And she, you know, she was always in my corner, you know, but we had gotten to a point where we had had a number of conversations over the course of a few months where she just said, look, you know, we’ve been wanting eight years of college? And we’ve got all this student debt and we’ve got four kids, and I’m working my fingers to the bone trying to take care of them.

 

And, you know, this isn’t working. And you know, I would say it’s getting better. It’s getting better. And she’d say, well, it’s not getting better for me. You know, I had persuaded her over a dozen times in these hard conversations, tears filled conversations that, you know, let’s just stick it out. We can make it work.

 

We can make it work. And she would always say, okay, well, one night it got really intense and she just said, I just can’t do it. You have to leave and go get it. You got to go get a real job. Because this doesn’t work to be bringing home a couple thousand dollars a month with four kids and $100,000 of student debt.

 

And, you know, this has been going on for over two years. And you know, and I had begun to see how the business had turned the corner because we were using our software. I was seeing the magic of sales and marketing automation, and I knew that it worked for customers that were using it, but we were still in such a hole that we weren’t getting any benefit financially.

 

And so I promised her that night, I said, okay. She said, you know, promise me you will look for a job. And I said, I will. She said, tomorrow when you go to the office, you have to look for a job. And I said, okay, I’ll do it. So and in my mind, I reasoned, you know, maybe I’ll leave the business for a season and then come back around because I know it’s going to be successful.

 

I know it’s going to work. And by the way, I didn’t know that six months, a year before, I was in her shoes wanting to get out of the business, but I was locked into it with personal guarantees, and there was only one way out, and that was to go through it and make it work. But by this point, I believed it was going to work, and it tore me up to go look for a job.

 

But she promised her I would. So I went to work the next day, went in and sat down at my desk and, you know, I just got swallowed by the business that day. And before I knew it, you know, I was working leads and talking to customers. And the day had come to an end and I hadn’t hadn’t done one bit of job searching.

 

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Follow Your Vision: How Entrepreneurs Overcome the Dark Times

 

And I felt awful, you know, as I was walking out of the office and I was like, oh, shoot. You know, what am I going to tell Cherise and I, I felt awful that I hadn’t done what I said I was going to do. I felt even worse about what this would mean for me and Cherise.

 

And, you know, I was in such a fearful place that I wondered if it was going to be the last straw. And she was just kind of, you know, bolting on me and she looks at me today and says, you’re crazy. You know, I wasn’t thinking that at all, but I was in a very fearful place as entrepreneurs get in those dark times.

 

And so I walked in the door. I’ll never forget what happened. I walked in the door and walked into the kitchen, and she was black, as was to me. And she turned around and immediately she said, did you look for a job today? And I was like, I said, no, I did. And she walked across the kitchen and she walked up to me and gave me a huge hug.

 

And she said, just keep going. What? Everything’s going to be okay. Just keep going. And I was like, wow, wait, what? What’s going on? Right. She had an amazing experience that day where she just realized, you know what? It’s going to be alright. And so that message, though, is hard. It’s hard for me to put into words what that meant when she said, just keep going.

 

Wow. And that story is every business owner’s story. Everybody has a keep going moment or moments in their business. And that’s why we chose to keep our message to small businesses consistent with our purpose to help small businesses succeed. And it’s consistent with our mission to simplify growth. And the message is keep going, keep serving and keep growing.

 

And we have the software to help you do that. Keap will help you grow. Oh my gosh, what an amazing story and what an amazing woman to spend your life with. What an incredible support partner she is. And holy bananas. Yeah, she is awesome. And she’s been an amazing support, ever since. And you know, I know that for business owners, entrepreneurs everywhere, and you know this, you know, you need that support.

 

And a lot of times we say, you know, we’re so passionate about helping small businesses succeed. And we’re so committed to simplifying growth for small businesses that a lot of times, you know, we’re they’re cheerleading and encouraging our customers because it’s hard, you know, we understand how difficult it is to grow a business. But we’re super passionate about it and that’s what we’re up to.

 

And so for the next decade plus, you know, through the year 2030, anyway, we’ll be building that brand and capturing the essence of what’s required for small business success. And that’s that grit and tenacity to keep going. Phenomenal conversation, my friend. I am so very grateful that you said yes, to come back and share this next round of insights and wisdom and really take us behind the curtain so that we could understand, keep and the strategy and all of that has just been phenomenal.

 

Right. But before we go, oh my gosh, there’s just been so awesome. Before we go in, close out and say goodbye. Please tell Onward Nation business owners the best way to connect with you. 

 

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Follow Your Vision: Final Advice from Clate

 

Yeah, you bet I’ll do that. And let me just tie off one one in there that I think you’re great. And that is what our customers will see everywhere is the way that the key product line comes together.

 

Right now. You kind of see, oh, there’s Infusionsoft and there’s a key. But people will see more and more that what we’re what we’re creating and what we’ve created is the platform for small businesses to grow. And what I’m so excited about is we’ve been up to this work for a long time, and we are right on the precipice of being able to share with small businesses that, hey, wherever you are in your entrepreneurial journey. 

 

There’s a version of our software for you, and you can get that software and you can grow with us and we’ll help you to grow and that’s the thing that I’m so excited about because for a long time, our software really was for businesses. You know, if they were a little bit more like this or, you know, they and that to me, it was fun. It was exciting. But, you know, and it’s certainly helped us to build a big company by many people’s standards. But it’s not the mission that we’re up to.

 

And what we’re up to is simplifying growth and making that possible for entrepreneurs everywhere. So I’m so excited about that. And I’m excited about the way the cookie brand will unify our product family and excited for the benefits that our customers get to see whether they want a simple solution with a little bit of powerful automation or they want a very powerful automation solution, but also bring simplicity.

 

That’s what we’re delivering to the market. And it’s a ton of fun. So customers will see that more and more. You as a customer will see that more and more. You’ll see the way that the product is influencing with its ease and simplicity, what you can do with Infusionsoft and vice versa. You’ll see the people that are able to see what they can do with more of the power of Infusionsoft.

 

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Follow Your Vision: How to Connect with Clate

 

So it’s a lot of fun what we’re up to. For those who want to learn more about it, they can go to Keap.com. That’s Keap with an A, by the way. We spell it cap so we can own it entirely. We can trademark it. It can be our word. When you have a conversation or when you have a word that shows up in literally every conversation, it’s kind of fun to spread that brand because people can’t.

 

You almost can’t say a paragraph without using the word keep in it. And so it’s fun to get that word into every conversation. We, like I said, we spell with an H, so it’s wkyc.com, you can learn more, you can get a trial product. You can see more about what we’re up to. And over the course of this year, people will see more and more how we’re building that brand to help small businesses grow.

 

Okay, Onward Nation, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and re-listen to cleats, words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do. The key is you have to take what you so generously shared with you all the gold nuggets, all the strategy, all the recommendations, the timelines, the stories, all of it.

 

Take it and apply it into your business right away and accelerate your results. And we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. And again, I am grateful my friend, that you said yes to come on to the show, to be our mentor and guide, to help us move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much, Clate. Thanks, Stephen. Great to be here. Thank you. 

 

This episode is complete. So head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

 

Read this blog from Keap and be inspired to follow your vision even more