STOP Running Your Business Like a Job: Jason Duncan's Advice

Never Been Promoted Podcast with Thomas Helfrich

Jason Duncan, the real Jason Duncan, shares his expertise on helping male entrepreneurs exit their businesses without completely leaving. With a background in pastoral ministry and teaching, Jason has built a successful coaching career, focusing on guiding entrepreneurs to transition out of daily operations while maximizing their business value.


About Jason Duncan:

Jason Duncan is the founder of The Exeter Club and author of "Exit Without Exiting." Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Jason specializes in helping male entrepreneurs get out of the weeds of daily operations and focus on what they truly want to do. His journey from pastoral ministry to business coaching provides a unique perspective on resilience and entrepreneurship.


In this episode, Thomas and Jason discuss:

• The Exeter Club and Exit Without Exiting: Jason introduces his mastermind group and book, highlighting his methodology for helping entrepreneurs step back from daily operations without losing control or value in their businesses.
• Jason’s Journey: From pastoral ministry to teaching and finally to entrepreneurship, Jason shares the pivotal moments that shaped his career and led him to create a multi-million dollar business.
• Navigating Entrepreneurial Challenges: Insights into the common challenges entrepreneurs face, including hero syndrome and identity issues, and how to overcome them for a smoother business transition.

Key Takeaways:

• Hero Syndrome

The pitfalls of hero syndrome and how it traps entrepreneurs in their businesses, preventing growth and freedom.

• Delegation and Systems

The importance of proper delegation, assembling a support squad, and mastering systems and automations to create a self-sustaining business.

• Building an Asset

Focusing on building a business that is an asset, independent of the founder, to maximize its value and prepare for a successful exit.


"You can't truly call yourself an entrepreneur unless you've gone through some terribly dark time in business." — Jason Duncan


CONNECT WITH JASON DUNCAN:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealjasonduncan/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/therealjasonduncan/

Website: https://www.therealjasonduncan.com/

CONNECT WITH THOMAS:

X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/thelfrich | https://twitter.com/nevbeenpromoted 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hovienko | https://www.facebook.com/neverbeenpromoted 

Website: https://www.neverbeenpromoted.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neverbeenpromoted/

YouTube: https://www.yo

Transcript

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Welcome back to the Never Been Promoted podcast YouTube channel. Hi. I'm Thomas Helfrich, your host. If this is your first time coming here, thank you for showing up. We're gonna meet with some amazing entrepreneurs on our journey, and today, we have an amazing one as well. And this is you've been here before, as you know, I am completely thankful for you coming back. We're on a mission to create more entrepreneurs in this world, make them better at entrepreneurship and at life, and we're doing this through the learnings of other entrepreneurs, other people who help entrepreneurship move forward. Today, we're joined by the real Jason Duncan. Jason, how are you? You have so much stuff going on, and and you you have such a great niche of helping, and you have a podcast that kicks ass. I love your content. It's one of the few emails I'll actually open. You know, you're like, no. You don't. Like, I do open some. I know you got stats on it, but I do. Okay. Maybe I don't open them. I'm just kidding you, Chase. Tell me listen. Introduce yourself to everyone, on the show.
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I am the real Jason Duncan based out of Nash Nashville, Tennessee. And I, wrote a book called Exit Without Exiting, and I run a mastermind called The Exeter Club. And so what I do is work with male entrepreneurs and help them get out of the weeds of daily operations and onto what they really, really want to do. Some.
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Not not you? Alright. Well, we'll get tell me about you, Libby. So you've done some you had to do some other stuff too, though. You have a the tip of this podcast.
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Yeah. So I've been running my podcast, the root of all success for I I did my first recording in December 23, 2020. And, I just recorded the 200 and 20th episode, I think, yesterday. And, it's been going really cool. You've been on the show. We've had a lot of great guests, great entrepreneurs, great stories about success. And, it's just a fun conversation with entrepreneurs about the idea of what does success mean to them. And so that's really what that the root of all success is about. And I just started a new show yesterday that we don't know when we're gonna release yet, but a buddy of mine, we've been talking about wanting to do this. So we recorded our first episode yesterday. So Yeah. It's I mean, we we were talking about Cameron in between of of
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if you have if that could be your full time job, not coaching it, like, you would just that was all you would do. And, like, it's just have go on and teach and learn via the voice.
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100%. I'm a teacher. God created me to be a teacher, and I I get the most energy and the most satisfaction, joy, passion, contentment out of teaching. And so if in this world,
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being on camera and teaching people is where I got to do Distribution is huge and so be it. You know, check out the podcast, the root of all Success. I will tell you, it is excellently done, well produced on every level from the, you know, just the imagery to the messaging and what you're trying to accomplish. And I you know, today, you know, before we get into what it is you do for men to help exit and and and it's not by the way, if you're a woman listening, don't give up. You might not have a man in your life, brother, husband, friend, whatever. Just just give it a try here. Men definitely don't even think about that one away and and just get uncomfortable for a minute because you're screwing up on some stuff that you know you are that you wanna get into. So, do you wanna give a little background about yourself? I know you said you're a teacher, you know, and and stuff, but just give us a few minutes about your own journey.
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So I spent, the first 13 years of my career, high school, the last year high school through college, and then, you know, whatever how many years it took. 13 years total in pastoral ministry. Was youth minister for a while, then a senior pastor for a while. And during that time, I also sold life and health insurance to small business owners just to supplement my income because, you know, ministers don't get paid a lot of money. And, and in 2006, I just said I'm done with this. I can't do this anymore. So I left that, got a master's in education, taught school for 4 years, and probably would have continued teaching school forever. As I said, man, I'm a teacher. I love teaching. But coming out of the great recession in 2010, 2011, our school district made some significant cuts as were all school districts across the United States because of the financial crisis. And, I didn't have tenure. I was in I was the last guy hired in the building. So when they had to make teaching cuts, even though I was the number one teacher in this in the county, in my subject area, they I was the guy on the chopping block. So my contract didn't get renewed for the following school year. I had to make a decision, and my decision was, let's start a business. So I started a business in an industry I knew nothing about. Although I knew how to sell, I didn't know anything about the business and built a multimillion dollar business and then eventually exited that business and started coaching other entrepreneurs on how to exit just like I did. You know, it's it's it's funny.
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When you I always find these little reflection moments as an entrepreneur. One one being is you I'm sure we're pissed you didn't get renewed. But the resilience and the open mindedness to what could I do next instead of just being closed, I gotta go find that other thing. That's a big part of being an entrepreneur. The other the other is don't run your business like a school where you get rid of your best people when there's a time of crunch, not the ones who've been around the longest. Just gonna throw that out there. Yeah. Well, that's that's a that's a good nugget of wisdom. And it seems like though that we learn the most through the most tragic times, don't we?
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Know, we we learn more from our failures. Even if we didn't cause the failures, we learn more through those failures than we learn through success. I don't know if it was Tony Robbins or somebody who was watching on on on YouTube shorts or Instagram reels recently. But he was he reiterated something I've been saying for years, which is not unique to me, but I think people heard it before. But he was saying, you learn nothing from success,
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like 0. You don't learn any who who was it? That was Tony Robbins for sure. I saw that same one.
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It was definitely Tony Robbins because he was, I've never seen that. You know, if congratulations to the guy who comes right out of high school, starts an ecom business and is a millionaire by the time he's 20. Like, okay, congrats. That's great. But but what have you learned? Like, if you learn how to make money, but what have you really learned? Because when the crap hits the fan, are you gonna be prepared? So I don't I don't wanna diminish that person's success, but I also wanna say, man, as an entrepreneur, I I had a well, let me back it up. I had a mentor tell me this. This was year 3 or 4 years ago before I went through one of the darkest times in my life in business. He said to me he said, Jason, he said, no person that's playing at a high level that's wealthy as an entrepreneur that I know. And he's pretty successful entrepreneur himself, worth a lot of money, built a lot of businesses. Not one of them didn't either go bankrupt, almost bankrupt, or go through some terribly dark time in business. Every everybody did. And you really can't truly call yourself an entrepreneur unless you've gone through that. And, of course, at the time, I'm thinking, what have I gone through? Like, I had one issue with a business partner. It was pretty bad up to up to maybe a year ago. I would've thought that was the worst of my life. But but over the last 6 months, holy crap, dude. I had gone through absolute hell and I've come out of the other side and my mentors, like, they're going, see, I told you now you're an entrepreneur. Now you know what you're doing, and now you're gonna be a much better coach, author, speaker, podcaster because you know Well, I gotta ask. What
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happened last 6 months,
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year? Well, so it's a story that I'm not a 100% revealing publicly yet, but I can I I certainly can give clues and understand what happened? But I had a I had a business that I started Gallie over a deck 13 years ago that I left in the hands of a friend to who was also a very good businessman himself, who wanted to buy it, wanted to to run that company, and my really great employees. And, they absolutely destroyed the business in my absence. And, so I I'll just leave it at that. So that that that whole scenario, unlocked a lot of fears that I didn't know I even had in my life. So I'm still dealing with the fallout of that and don't really know what's gonna happen next, but I learned a lot. And, I'm moving on to, you know, bigger and better things. I've got I I own 7 I think this is 7. 6 or 7 entities. Coaching is what I do mostly. So I'm just more spending more time coaching and focusing on my clients right now, and it's great. You know, you you, you you help men exit without exiting. So in that own scenario, I'm sure you've learned a few things from
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because that's that's the worst case fears. I have this company that I have some complete you know, my company is instantly relevant. We talked about this. It's a marketing agency. Do I think it's the last one I'm gonna own or do? No. I don't want it to be. And but at the same time, the idea of someday handing it over to somebody else to run when it's your first one or it's your, you know, it's part of your identity to some degree. Tell me about, you know, get get into how even let's let's pretend I'm not getting free coaching for the next 20 minutes. How do you even approach that? Is, like, what give me, like, the the the 1, 2, threes on that one. Because, I mean, that's that's a that's a problem I see coming for me.
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So there's a there's a lot of nuances to that, and and it's a fair question. And this is the question that that entrepreneurs, I think, are all struggling with whether they realize it or not. We we we joke, my marketing team and I, is like, we can't run an ad that says, hey. Are you a male entrepreneur who lacks balance in your life? Well, contact me. Because nobody's gonna admit that. Nobody's gonna say, well, yeah. My company's running me. I'm not running the company. No. Everybody has this deep dark in their brain, but they don't think about it. So the nuances are number 1. We are experiencing hero syndrome much longer than we need to. As the entrepreneur founder of the company, it is your job to be better, smarter, faster, you know, everything better than everybody else because you're the guy you're the guy. Right? You founded this thing. And if you're not better than everybody else, at least at the beginning, you're probably gonna have issues. But the problem is that hero syndrome, meaning I'm the hero of the business. I'm gonna make it work. I'm gonna make it my thing, and everything is gonna come through me. I'll save the day. I'll put out the fires. I'll do everything myself. For the 1st 6 months, that's probably okay. Maybe the 1st year, I'll forgive you for being the hero. But beyond that, if you are continuing to be the hero year 2, 3, 4, 10, 25, you've created your own monster because now everything has to run through you. So the first problem is we gotta deal with the mindset of the hero syndrome. You gotta let that crap go, man, because that is gonna keep you imprisoned to your business forever. I talked to a man yesterday in New Zealand. He reached out for coaching. He owns a construction company. Very you know, they're very successful, doing a great job. He's what did he say he was? 58, 59? I can't remember. Late fifties, early sixties. And no. No. Or he was late sixties. And he said, I do everything. Like, everything goes through me. I do the design work. I do the sales work. I do the project management work. He goes, can you show me how to get out? Like, yeah, I can show you how to get out, but it ain't gonna be fast. You you've created 25 years of a problem that's not gonna be undone tomorrow. It's not gonna be undone by Christmas. We're gonna have to figure this out. But if you're committed and you're coachable, we can get this done. 18 months, we could probably get you to a place where you're working less than 20 hours a week. How's that sound? He's like, that's what I need. We gotta work on your mindset first.
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Yeah. Well, you know, you say that too. It's a but what happens when the founder, like, a lot of the gravitas of why people may buy some of the services from us rest in my knowledge and how I present it. And and so tell me take me through the step because that's often how businesses get formed by someone having a skill set and a way to sell it in in some kind of presence. So I know there's it's not one answer, but but that sounds like one of the hardest unravelings and the one that I know like, I don't want the hero syndrome. I'd rather be in the back and let money come in. Right? How? Yeah. So my mind is there. The how to do it is not.
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So step number 1, there's I I teach something called the XOS method. XOS stands for Exeter Operating System. So it's a 7 stage operating system that starts with basic delegation. Most entrepreneurs don't know how to delegate. A lot think they know, but they're not doing it right. They either confiscate or abdicate, but they don't delegate. And so I help them show them, like, this is what true delegation is. So that's stage 1. Stage 2 is assembling your support squad. This is when you have to get the right people on your team that can handle the details without you having to be there. And this is not your a team. This is just your support squad. Who's gonna be there? Maybe it's sales, maybe it's admin, maybe it's finances, maybe it's, you know, if if you're in a technical field, maybe there's some technical thing that needs to happen. You gotta assemble them first. That's stage 2. Then in stage 3, now this is where it really starts being big for people like you and me. It's like we were the experts. We were the heroes. I've got a good support team. How do I turn some of those people into my a team? How do I get them to where I can truly trust and I can truly, have the discipline to let them do it without me meddling? That's stage 3. And that's a hard stage for a lot of people to move into. And then stage 4 is when we start working on your systems and processes. This is when we actually master those systems and automations because there's a lot of things that could be eliminated or automated before they're delegated. So we gotta show you and that's what I work with my clients on is understanding what can be eliminated, what can be automated, and then what has to be delegated. And then what we build are systems that support all three of that. What a lot of entrepreneurs do, unfortunately, Thomas, is they they work with a coach who comes and says, look. I'm your SOP coach. I'm gonna put your SOPs at your standard operating procedures. I'm gonna put systems in place. I'm gonna help you. And they're like, yes. I got it because that's what I gotta I gotta have. I gotta get systems in place. But if your systems are in place and you don't delegate pro appropriately, what ends up happening? Is that every time the system breaks, who do they come ask? They come ask you. So this idea of mastering systems and automations is on the backbone of understanding delegation, of understanding and making sure that you're delegating correctly, your support squad's working right, your a team is there, and then step 5 is creating the passive profits machine. That's where what you just said, I wanna be in the background collecting money. Well, if you go through those first four stages correctly, you should start seeing a passive profits coming in. And then, because you're not working 50, 60 hours a week, the extra time that you have because you're down to 10 to 15 maybe 20 hours a week, the extra time that you have left, that's when I and you and I work together to figure out how do we create assets for this company that didn't exist before. Maybe it's technology asset, maybe it's an email list asset, Maybe it's a recurring revenue model that you didn't have before. You could figure that crap out if you weren't working 60 hours a week. So that's what stage 5 is. And then the final 2, number 6 is exit without exiting, which is the name of my book. You gotta buy the book at that point. Stage 7. You gotta go. You gotta get the book. But exit without exiting is setting your setting your whole business up to where it runs independently without you, and you really can step away. Nothing nothing happens bad you're not there. You can sell the company and that won't do if you wanted to. Yeah. And it maximizes the value so that you can move to stage 7 when you want, which is the ultimate sale, the ultimate exit. At some point, you wanna sell, but if you sell before you get to stage 6, like, if you sell and you're only in stage 2, you're gonna get 30 to 50% less money for your business. Why? Because you're involved. Businesses who sit that sell with the owner operator are worth 30 to 50% less than businesses whose owner isn't the operator. And that's why I help my clients maximize their exit financially. You know, you you have amazing things there to say,
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because I know we're going through the standard operating procedure with one of with, with somebody right now. Really just understand what we're doing, where the gaps are, which I think is even maybe a precursor. It might be part of what you're doing, but I'm excited to see recommendations on, hey. You should add this. This is the customer experience. Like, they're a customer of ours too. And I'll tell you that because I we we made this partnership from the idea that I don't know what happens down the stream, though I've delegated truly for the teams to execute. And I only come in sometimes when there's, like, a strategy piece or something like I need to save a customer, like a customer retention, because that's the role I need to jump in. That that's not theirs. They're not operational. And so I I'm definitely interested in this kind of idea because, and I'll even extend it. If you can come up with that additional asset, your multiplier on a services company goes from 1.8 to 2.3 to 3 to 8, 10, 12 x when you have services plus technology. And so the the multiplier is there. And the fact you probably can't even sell it past what your revenue is if you're involved is is the truth. You might get 6 months of revenue out of it if your contracts are in place. If and so I I would agree with you a 100% on that. How does it work, though? So I'm I'm busy. Right? I got never been promoted book I gotta finish. I got a YouTube channel podcast called The Same. Right? I've got a marketing company and a 1,000,000,000 other ideas stacked up my head, and I still can't get high level set up because I don't have time. Tell me how in the world when I work with you, I get any of this shit done.
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Well, it sounds to me like you don't really know how to delegate.
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I got too much going on. I got a whole team that runs our operations. My only role in it right now is sales. So I have absolutely operate like, once the sale's done, I don't have to touch it.
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It So to some degree. 40 hours a week selling?
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Oh, yeah. I've got I do probably a 160 to 200 meetings a month right now. A lot of sales meetings.
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So we need to get you out of that role. Yeah. Agreed. You can't be that guy. Is there a
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transition? The founder, does he go to closer
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and then you find a closer after that? Or how do you do that? Yeah. I mean, all sales are gonna be different. I mean, like, if if you're doing by phone, you got your appointment setter, you got your closer. You know, I I think there was a book called, Predictable Revenue. Aaron Ross, I think, is the guy that wrote it years ago, probably over a decade ago. But but he he's kinda was the first person to build this model. He did it for Salesforce, the company, where you have a you you've got the the the prospect person, and then you got the closer or or business development rep, a closer, and then you got your customer service rep. Kind of those three tiers. And I I I tend to think that's the best way to do things no matter what what industry you're in, is you've got somebody who's a business development rep whose only job is to attract and get customers prospects to listen. And then you got a closer who just shows up and closes the dream, closes the deal, and then the back end is handled by some other person who just makes that customer feel great and happy all the way through the process. And if you delineate those roles into those 3 categories, then each person is only working at their highest and best use in their talents. So in your case and in my case as the entrepreneur, what we found ourselves doing mostly is all 3. You know, we're trying to attract, hire and marketing teams going, oh, how do we get people? We're doing all the BDR work, the business development rep work. Then we're the closer. Like, everybody wants to come talk to us. We close it. And then we're also the guy doing the fulfillment in the back end, making the customers happy. Well, when you do that, you've stretched out what could have been just a 20 hour work week into 60 because you're doing 3 jobs rather than just the one. So what I would say for you, Thomas, is let's figure out which part of that are you the best at probably closing, I'm gonna guess, rather than prospecting and being the customer service. Harvey Spector's got nothing on me from Suits. He's got nothing. So so you gotta get somebody
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somebody that you can train to do the business development for you first. That backs your time down probably 10 Yeah. We do that. So so in that in that scenario, actually, well and I'll I'll take this, offline with you a bit. But I think what you're describing is a very logical piece just and I and I I don't I don't mean to cut you off because I am gonna talk to you about this offline a bit, but we have some of these elements. I'm stuck in the closer role and and the retention role. And I think a lot of cuss and and because because we've gotten the BD it's part of our system itself does the BDRP. Piece. So, but what you're describing though is we're identifying the 3 roles. Is that what functions are you best at serving at and what are you wasting your time in when you should be outsourcing? There's always the challenge of chasing your tail. Do I have enough revenue to fill that role? And this is where some automations can come in. This is where, well, you're wasting, you know, 30, 40% of your things on this that doesn't really produce anything, so get rid of it. You know, you like it, get rid of it. You know, don't have the problem of wealth. Right? Like, get rid of that problem. So do you find that sometimes when you're doing this where you say, though you find that interesting, it produces 0 for you and just creates more noise. Do do you look at that as well as you're as you're breaking into this?
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Yeah. Well, there's so there's there's a balance. But the balance is all gonna come back to this this one universal truth. And there's this law, universal law, that I that I help my clients understand. It's called the law of the architect. And the law of the architect has been around since the beginning of time. It it applies to business. And once I once I reveal it to people who've never heard of it, they're like, yeah. That makes total sense because it's a law like the law of gravity. Like, even before Isaac Newton discovered it, anybody who was explained anybody who had ever had it explained to them later were like, oh, yeah. That that's that's exactly what my experience has been. The law of the architect says that the founder of the business has 3 primary roles. Outside of these three roles, the architect of the business, otherwise, the founder, the one who's designing the growth of the business like an architect does for a building, that if you do anything other than these 3, you're interfering with the law. And when you interfere with the law and you break the law, well, you suffer you suffer the consequences. This is what happened in one of my businesses. I was breaking the law of the architect, and I could look back and go, even though we had 7 figure bottom line, things are going well, man, if I'd obey the law of the architect, how much better would it have been? So here's the here's what the law states. 3 roles. Number 1, your job is to set the vision for your company. That's the role number 1. That is your job and yours alone. You can't offload that to a chief visionary officer that you find on Instagram somewhere. No. It's you, the architect, the founder of the business, your job to set the vision. Number 2, your job is to communicate that vision. It's not good enough just to have it. It's gotta be communicated clearly, consistently to all team members, to all stakeholders, making sure that you understand why you're building the widget, why you're offering the service. That vision needs to be communicated. And then the third, the one that most entrepreneurs forget is build the asset. Build the asset. The business itself has to be an asset that could be sold distinct and apart from the architect himself. It is an asset by itself. So what we do is we might set a vision, communicate the vision, but we don't build the asset. We consider ourselves to be the number one asset, and that just makes sense as an ass. Because now there's no asset to sell because nobody's gonna buy you. They want they're not gonna buy the company because they want you. So when we don't focus only on these three things that we end up doing sales as you're doing and I'm doing. Right? A lot of people do this. If we focus on design work, we focus on whatever else. We're breaking the law of the architect. So the balance, Thomas, is we gotta figure out how to get out of the roles that we've been best at, delegate it to someone else, and understand that they're gonna suck at it at first just like you did. They're gonna suck at there's gonna be a dip in productivity, a dip in sales, but you will survive it
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because all along, you're building an asset that's bigger than any one piece. Well, you described so I think the vision too is if, let's say, you're you're bringing on a couple closers or sales, BDR closers, whatever in in our scenario that we're discussing. I still see myself having some function at so there's not a dip in revenue 6 months from now until I find one that's more comfortable where I'm saying I'm pushing more and more to that person to be successful. Does that is that one of the strategies you do? Because some people can't take us take a dip in revenue for 3 months. Like, you know, a lot of a lot of businesses are pretty damn lean. Like, you know, and that's they can't take the hit.
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Is that is that the recommended or tell me about that? Yeah. Well, the like I said at the beginning, there is a balance and there is a time. You you you just don't flip the switch immediately. You didn't create the problem overnight. You created it over time, so we can undo the problem over time as well. So there is gonna be this time of transition. One of one of the biggest examples I give people when I give talks about this is that I had an assistant a couple years ago that, I had been doing all of our email work for the company. So as a coach, we send out emails, you know, 4 or 5 times a week. And I was doing all that email work. I'm good at it. I like that. The creative side of me loves doing that. But I also realized that's not part of my role as the architect of the business. So I bring my assistant in who was competent, knew how to write emails, and knew, like, understood Kajabi. So if you understand Kajabi, the back end, you know how to do it. But I sat her down for 5 hours one day. 5 hours is maddening. Like, showing her do this, do this, this is what this needs to do, this. Like, it was it was nuts. But in the middle of that 5 hours, I kinda looked at her and she was diligently taking notes. She was do like, she was getting it. But I stopped for a minute and I said, let me explain to you why I'm I'm taking time to teach you this and why doing it the way I'm telling you is important. And once I explained that to her, it was like the clouds just lifted. This veil just lifted off her face. She was like, oh, like, she finally got it. Like, I communicated the vision enough and enough way for her to go, oh, and then she got it. Now when she started doing my emails, did she do them as good as me? No. But it didn't take long. So over the fir next 90 days, there was a dip in what I call the productivity of the emails, but I was confident that she knew why and she would tweak it and tweak it and tweak it. Now today, the only email I send out every week personally is the newsletter. I actually write that. That's me. That isn't the only That's the one I read, but all of it that's the one I read. What's What's that? That's the one I read. That's right. So I actually write that one, and I spend a week writing that one because it's deep and and personal. As a matter of fact, I've been writing about the situation I went through last year. So I've learned 10 lessons, and so I've been writing those 10 lessons. But now I don't do any of those emails. But it took me 5 hours and lots of iterations to get someone else to pick up the slack. There is a timeline where this dip is gonna happen, so I don't recommend you just say, look, Jason Duncan said not to close anymore, so you gotta do it. And then you go away. That's not wise. Bad strategy. That's a good point. Bad people don't do that. Just don't throw it over the wall,
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as quickly as you want to. This is great advice. I mean, I think, you know, one of the things you also work with these, you know, so why just guys? Maybe maybe, you know, a lot of this stuff sounds practical to anybody.
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Is it just marketing? Is it more relatable? Like, why do you just focus on the guys only? So this is I I don't I don't have a really great answer for this. So so when I started the Exeter Club and I started coaching, I I was open to coaching whomever. Right? If you if you could write a check and it would it would cash, like, I I would coach you. So that's how all coaches start. But as I built my brand and I started building what I do, so what I you know, I I'm a member of a cigar club in Nashville, you know, so I was inviting clients. Hey, let's go smoke cigars. Let's have a glass of bourbon. Let's go do this. And it was more traditionally seen as man things. Right? And I not I wasn't doing it on purpose. It's just what I like to do, and I happen to be a guy. Well, I hired a marketing company who turned out to suck, by the way. Had to get my money back. I almost had to sue them because they were so bad. It was really bad. Anyway, I I hired this marketing company, and the one good thing that came out of that as I was onboarding with them, one of their people said, it sounds to me like this is more of a guys thing than anything else. And I went, yeah, it kinda is. She goes, well, if we're gonna market, we really need to focus on the avatar. And so would you be okay with, like, just focusing on guys? And I said, yeah, I don't I don't have a problem with this. So that was the decision. I don't know. That that was no more to it than that is that and it that was a woman who said it to me. She was like, hey, it sounds that this is guys. So that's the way we went. And then about a year and a half ago, I had a lady reach out who's a coach, very successful coach in her own. She said, hey. I would like to open the extra club up to women. I wanna work with you on doing this. Alright. I'm open to that. Let's have a conversation. So we started talking, and we talked for about 3 or 4 months. And so I started getting women applying for the club thinking, okay, this is gonna work. And dude, I couldn't do it, man. Like, I'd get on these calls with these ladies and I talk about what we do. And there was always this, well, that's not really my thing, or now I'm not really into that, or I don't know what I'm and then there's other issues that came up and I'm like, nah. I'm out. Like, it's guys. For me, it's just guys. That's what I do. Now the content I put out, anybody could consume and benefit from. But it's who I work with. I'm just gonna work with guys. You know, and and
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right or wrong, we are men are different than women and not every man, not every woman thinks differently. But there are differences in how we think sometimes. And at least for the US, right, and how you identify and how you wanna solve a problem, the path is different. You know, I don't wanna go that way. I I wanna go this way, and you might end up the same spot. The truth is, somebody, I just wanna be led differently. I appreciate and from a marketer standpoint, good for you. I mean, like, cutting off, you know, if I see you know, you see you didn't play golf, but if you're a golfer and you learn just to hit a fade, you'll take off half the course and play much better. And so, you might wanna you might wanna, like, think about that if you're an entrepreneur and you're thinking about your markets without it being intentionally exclusive but more value exclusive, meaning, like, I just do better to help men and and that's just what it is. It's not that you a woman came and said, hey. I love what you do. I actually wanna work with you and and say I'm all in. You you would probably say yes. I I it just you you'd have to see it in the first hour of the meeting. So, and so so so but I think my point is you've picked a really you've you made a bet and you backed it up, and you didn't back it up just because you just wanna recommend you, backed it up because it seems what would work best for your brand. That is right. That's great. Do you help guys just as they go through this? I know you're not a therapist, but there's a lot of self identity wrapped up in a business. What's your kind of take on that? What do you do about it when you run into it? Because I'm sure you run into it every time. I can't Yeah. Well
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so so, yeah, identity identity issues are a big part of this. I went through a huge identity crisis when I exited my business. Because for a decade, I had been introduced as the president and CEO of this company and that my business card said that. My LinkedIn said that. Like, I introduced myself at networking parties and events as that. And here are the all of a sudden, I'm not that guy anymore. I'm not the president CEO of this company. And it was tough. It was tough trying to figure out, well well, who the hell am I? And I had a coach I was working with that helped me kinda figure out that figure that out. And, it was he kinda helped me rediscover my gift of teaching. He said, you are a teacher. You're a teacher and you're a leader. You're an innovator. You're a strategizer. You know? Those are you're a relator. These are things that you are and and and by the way the strength finders test, if you're familiar with that, that was also very helpful for me. So if you haven't done that I've done that.
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You don't have to promote something else you want to, but tell me tell me what that is a bit.
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Well, I want if I had that book I know I've got that book somewhere. Yeah. Here it is. Let me grab it. It's next to the bluebell tequila.
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He's in his background. For for those listening, he had to go off camera here to go find a book, buy some tequila. Yeah. So this is what it is. Strength finders from Gallup. It's, Cliff Don Clifton.
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This is a fantastic thing for you to find your strength and really kinda focus in on that, because his premise is that if you focus on your weaknesses, which are never gonna improve significantly, like, you can improve a little bit. But if you focus on your strengths, you will be better. I'm not a golfer, but I would imagine, yes, you could work on the things you're bad at. But if you get better at the things you're good at, you're also gonna be better player. So when my coach was helping me through that identity crisis, he was like, focus on what you're good at. Let's figure that out. And that's what I started focusing on. So I know that the identity thing is big for us, especially as guys. We identify as the owner of the business, the CEO of the biz as an entrepreneur, which is funny now because, you know, 20 years, 50 years ago, entrepreneurs were seen as just unemployed creatives. Right? You know? And today Unemployable. Unemployable. So now here we are. I'm working with guys that are having identity crisis because if they step out, what what would they do? And I'm gonna be honest too, man. Just as a little transparency from my side as a coach is that I had this wrong at first. My assumption was that most people wanted to do what I wanted to do, which is I don't wanna work in that business anymore. I don't I don't have no desire to be CEO of this business. I don't wanna be a part of it at all. I don't mind owning it. I don't want anything to do with it. I've got other things I wanna do. I assume that most entrepreneurs would feel the same way about their businesses. But what I discovered is no, most of these guys love their business. They just need to figure out how to get disentangled from the business. They want to be involved. They wanna do stuff. They They don't wanna go off and do anything else. Most don't. But but their identity is wrapped up in being there 60 hours a week. If I can help change the identity and yet still give them the freedom to be involved, that seems to be the ticket. So I was trying to aim at a target that was based solely on my desires and needs and not theirs. And so I had to make some subtle shifts in that identity when I was coaching. That's
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that's a great point. You know, and you're right. The the presumption of knowledge of but but you got into it because you because you had a problem, and I and I get that. And I think that actually transposes or transcends into anybody's business when they first start going. Why they solve a problem is because they they know the answer to a scenario that seems like lots of people do. You just made a good point though is be open that though the problem might be the same, the outcome desired is not always required. So asking that extra question is, what do you want out of this? Is the only step you needed to ask to get that. I'm sure somebody pointed that out to you probably roughly. I don't want that. I wanna be in my but I think that's the the lesson to take away just from hearing this is maybe ask that one more question. Ask that one more question of are we aligned on the goal of what you're trying to do with this service or product or whatever it is. I'm just conscious of time here. May maybe, you know, just who and when should someone get ahold of I know it's gonna be male, so I got that one down. But but who and when and how?
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So, by the way, the book the book Exit Without Exiting, I tell the stories of 3 different entrepreneurs, one of whom is a woman. So, the book is, doesn't matter what gender you are, you should read the book and you'll get all the tips. Who I work with just 1 on 1 is guys. But, when do people need to get in touch with me is, I I would say, when you have the awareness that you do not want your business to be your person. You don't wanna make another job out of it. Like, whenever that awareness happens. And for some people, I had I've had people hire me in startup mode. Now I don't usually take those people as clients unless they're really well funded and they have a very good plan because I'm not I'm not an inexpensive coach. It's a good investment to work with me because I get a hue a huge, huge return on that. But if they come to me and say, hey. Listen. I'm thinking about starting this business, but I know what you teach, and I don't wanna get trapped. So can you help me set this thing up from the beginning? I've taken on a couple of clients like that. Most of the guys come to me are between 30 and 50 ish, 30, 50, 55, And they've got a business doing between $310,15,000,000 somewhere in that range, and they're just tired. They've they've worked so much. They're missing their kids' lives. They don't go to the soccer games like they need to. Their wives are a little pissed at them because they're not at home as much, and they realize that this seems like a way to get out, like, to get out of that trap, and that's what I help them get out. And then I have a few guys, which is becoming more and more prevalent, baby boomers. They're reaching out and they're saying, hey. I'm at the end. Like, I'm I've been in this business for 30 years, 40 years. I'm ready to exit. What do I do? And they're not at all ready, and I can show them how to get ready. So those are the folks I work with. Do you want them to how to hit your LinkedIn, the through website? How do they get ahold of you? The best social media to find me on is Instagram at the real Jason Duncan. I'm also on LinkedIn at the real Jason Duncan. And, what's funny is that LinkedIn won't verify me because, because my name is the real Jason Duncan on LinkedIn even though that's not my official name, you know. But but, but but the real Jason Duncan on any of the social media platforms, mostly Instagram and LinkedIn, also YouTube. And then, my website is also the real jasonduncondot
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com. Here's your trick on LinkedIn. Just change it for a day, do the verification, wait 24 hours, and change it back. Will they let you do that? Because I know Instagram wouldn't let me do that. We'll get it. There we go. I got a tip. You can put, also, there's other things you can do. So there's a I'm gonna give you this last tip anyway listening. You could just put Jason Duncan, and then you can change your he, she, it pronouns to whatever you want. You can put the real Jason Duncan there. And, also, you can put in also known as as a second name, the real Jason Duncan. Jason and you put the real there. Jason Duncan's the middle name. So there's some ways you can hack it because I put Thomas never been promoted, Pelfrick. And they flagged me and say this doesn't look real. And then I changed it and I just put it back.
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So What's funny is that, I love having the real Jason knocking on my LinkedIn because all these LinkedIn spammers that try to get me to this Yeah. Hide the real. Hide the or hide the real. And, it's funny. I actually, I have been saving those up for almost 9 months, and I'm gonna do a live react video of these. And, like, I'm just gonna go through and turn my camera on and start reading these LinkedIn things and say, look at this person trying to get my attention, and here's what they said to me. And I'm I think it's gonna be funny. Look at this avatar fake account trying to help get ahold of
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me. Jason, thank you, by the way, so much for coming on the show today. Your podcast is amazing what you're doing, to help, you know, guys exit. I'm interested. I'm sure I'll be doing a follow-up call with you. And if, if you're out there listening to this and you've made it this point, you gotta get ahold of you. If you're any anywhere in the zone, do you do, like, a free consult? I should probably ask that. Like, do you think where you can jump on for 15 minutes to talk to you? Yeah. You can book a free 20 minute compatibility call. When you go to my website, you scroll the very bottom on the footer and there's a spot right there you can book that call. That's right. Shout it to the top as a call to action. We're gonna talk about that from marketing standpoint. Should be Oh, I got another call to action at the top. Oh, you got another one. Okay. You got another one. Alright. The free stuff is at the bottom. All the free stuff is at the bottom. It's in the back without a clearance aisle. That's right. The Real Jason Duncan.com. Thanks thanks for coming on today. It's an honor, man. Thank you for letting me have this conversation. Of course. Listen. If you this was your first time and you've made it to this point, great job. If you're, you know, been here before, you know I'm about to give you some dad points. Dad points are free. Kids have 1,000,000,000 of them. They have no idea how to spend them and neither will you. But until then, till you figure out how to spend them, thanks for listening to the Never Been Promotive podcast, and get out there. Go help another entrepreneur. Be on a mission to be great, and just go out there and unleash your entrepreneur. Thank you so much for listening.