1581 – Making it Enjoyable and Sustainable with Elite CEOs’ Tanner Chidester

Josh (00:00:05) - Hey, there thoughtful listener, would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant coach, or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than 10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the Thoughtful Entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you with us right now. Tanner Chidester. Tanner, you are the founder of Elite CEOs. You're found on the web@eliteceos.com. Tanner, thank you so much for joining us.

Tanner (00:01:10) - Yeah, Josh, thanks for having me. Sorry, we gotta do it.

Josh (00:01:12) - Yeah. Well, gosh, we started, man, we could have, we, we had so much that we didn't record because we hit it off so quickly, but, but give us an overview of what Elite CEOs is.

Tanner (00:01:23) - Yeah, so it actually, uh, it started off as a fitness company in 2017. Yeah, it was actually called Fit Warrior, L L c, and I was trying to get people in shape and that business did about a million, its first year. And then the next year I had trainers start asking me for help. And so it pivoted into what I called fitness CEOs, which was like for trainers. And then that did about 10 million. And then the year after we did 15. And so now it's elite CEOs and so I didn't start the business that way, but it's essentially become the consulting business for any business owners who wanna start or scale their online companies. Um, so that we've had that about a little over five years now. Yeah.

Josh (00:02:00) - Regardless if they're in the fitness industry or not.

Tanner (00:02:02) - Correct. Correct. So we still get a ton of fitness obviously, because that's where I started and people know me for that, but we branched out. Correct.

Josh (00:02:08) - I would imagine you and Alex Orosi have crossed paths a couple of times.

Tanner (00:02:12) - me, me and Alex are good buddies. We were just texting the other day and, uh, I respect him a lot as a person business owner. But yeah, we, we definitely crossed, in fact, our story was he tried to be friends with me and I thought he was trying to sell me something and so I ignored him for about two years.

Josh (00:02:26) - Ruth be told, uh, I had him on episode, I think 8 91 of this podcast. I, I didn't really know who he was at the time. .

Tanner (00:02:33) - Yeah.

Josh (00:02:34) - And I know, like afterwards I'm like, do you know who you just interviewed? Like, he's kind of a big deal. And so I was like, oh, shoot. I mean now it's like I recommend, uh, a hundred million dollar offers on at least a weekly basis. So yeah. Alex, if you're listening, you're not, uh, but if you were listening, uh, I'm sorry that I didn't recognize who you were and I talk about you frequently. Um, but Tanner, um, before I kind get into the, the work that you do today, um, would you mind talking about, just cuz I think I suspect you have a lot of awareness and knowledge around this. Can you talk about that intersection between high performance, um, business leaders and health, fitness, wellness and kind of that intersection, maybe observations that you've seen? Um, because I think that sometimes it can be easy for us to get our life outta balance and maybe we let the physical go, but then there are other people who are like, listen, this is my standard for business and I have the same standard for how I want to show up physically in the world. Yeah. What are your observations on that? That's

Tanner (00:03:35) - Such a great question. I've, I've seen both sides of the coin. So for me personally, the more I'm on top of my fitness, I feel it does translate into my business. In the beginning years, I did have a time where I wouldn't work out as much, so I was, I typically like about two and a half hours, I'll do an hour and a half of lifting. I usually do about 45 minutes of cardio. But when I was obviously growing the businesses, that's a little bit excessive. So I, I cut it down. I wasn't quite as healthy. Um, I didn't have as low as a body fat as I do now. To your question though, I do find it interesting because you'll find some guys who are shredded, but the reason they're shred is, you know, they like the gym selfies, they like taking their shirt off.

Tanner (00:04:13) - They like, you know, the praise, but it doesn't actually translate into business very well. On the other hand, I've seen people who, they don't enjoy fitness as much, but they are dedicated to at least doing a little bit of something. But they're very good at business because that's what they enjoy. So I think it can work both ways. Uh, I, I do think there is something to be said where how you do one thing is how you do others, but I, I'd be lying to you if I didn't see some people who I would maybe consider outta shape who don't have amazing businesses. I, so, you know, I, I think the big thing is trying to make it enjoyable and trying to make it sustainable. Because if you don't enjoy it, you know, it's harder to stick with it.

Josh (00:04:54) - Yeah. You know, I, um, you know, I, I, you know, and it's really interesting, you know, another, um, thing that I've observed is that, um, I am sure you've read Atomic Habits. You're familiar with the concept, right? Yeah. But it's love, you know, it's showing up and doing the boring mundane, just doing the basic, your football guy, uh, the basic blocking and tackling day after day after day after day. Uh, my observation of business success, and of course you do your work with CEOs today, right? Is that it, it's not that, you know, they discovered some magical thing all of a sudden one day and they were overnight success. Usually champions are built from doing it bored and doing it consistently. And, and I find that for me, I used to be a heavy dude. Um, I'm about 60 pounds lighter than I used to be.

Josh (00:05:41) - Oh, wow. Um, yeah, I was, and I, it was not a good look on me, . Um, but it, it really, like when I break down, well, what did I do? Just it was consistency. And that same thing in business I believe is absolutely true. Is that consistent. If you find something that works, stick with it and don't throw in the towel. Don't try and get too cute. Don't get shiny optic syndrome. Just stay the course when you find something that works. What, I don't know what your take on that is. No, I a

Tanner (00:06:11) - Hundred percent agree. I, it is funny because a lot of times you'll see people talk about the keto diet or vegan or vegetarian or whatever it is. I honestly just think it's whatever is the easiest to adhere to. So for example, for me, um, what I usually just try to do is just make sure I hit a certain number of protein and then the rest of the calories can come from wherever I want because it's easy to stick with. You know, I'm traveling the world right now. I don't have, you know, my perfect little meal set up or anything else. And so I think if people can stick to stuff that's a little bit easier, uh, to hit, so for example, hey, I hit this much protein and then everything else can come from wherever. I just feel it's more sustainable and it doesn't feel like such a stretch. And I think people forget that sometimes where they start stuff that is so rigorous that they can't possibly stick with it unless that's all they actually do. So, you know, there's levels to every game. But I think for most of us, at least speaking about health, we just wanna be healthy. We're not trying to, you know, be Olympic champions. Yeah,

Josh (00:07:08) - Right, right. Talk about what you do. What does elite CEOs do today? Like, who are you working with and, and what, what are you helping to create with, with the folks that you work with?

Tanner (00:07:20) - Yeah, so it started off as a consulting service where most people were coming to me cuz they saw my success with ClickFunnels. Anyone who's familiar with that company, they saw my awards like, Hey, what are you doing? So we just started helping people with done with you one-on-one coaching. So anything, their sales, their marketing, you know, backend systems, hiring, training, anything you can possibly think of, we've now actually created other divisions inside of it that are done for you. So mm-hmm. , you know, a lot of our clients like, Hey, I need setters or sales reps. We created a done for you division. A lot of our clients are like, Hey, we need ads. So we create a done for you ads division. Um, other clients have asked for different tech software. So the, we we're just helping at higher levels, but I think as we've been established and it's, uh, progressed, people are wanting more done for you aspects mm-hmm. , and so they're all separate divisions. They're all separate teams, but the core is helping them with their business in a done-for-you done with you format, excuse me. And then we have these done for you services as kind of the backend or add-ons. And so we've been doing that about five-ish, a little over five years. Five years in September, coming up on six years, uh, this September. So, uh, it's been a ride. It's been a ride for sure.

Josh (00:08:28) - Um, yeah, so the, you know, and obviously, you know, I, I'm, uh, on your front page and, and I see that at some point you're the founder and at some point you brought in A C E O. Can you talk about, and I, I think that there are a lot of people, you know, I've thought about this, you know, at what point does the business get to a point where I would see myself shifting into more of like a chief evangelist role and letting someone else kind of c e o, um, what we do? What went into that, that thought and that transition?

Tanner (00:08:57) - Yeah, so it's, it's such a great question. I, I love telling this story. I was, I hit the market just at the right time where we were going up about a hundred thousand dollars a month in sales and covid hit. So it was this influx of people moving to online business. We're a company that helps people build online businesses. Um, and we were scaling at the same time. So we hit, uh, we were hitting about one and a half million a month easily. I mean, we were crushing it. And then it started going down a little bit after c o d and I was like, what is going on? Is it our ads? Is it our marketing? And I just think the, honestly, the playing field was leveling out. You know, more people were going back to work less people were interested. So we sat around, we've, we sit around about one to one and a half a month in my main division, elite CEOs, and for about a year.

Tanner (00:09:44) - And then I had the thought and I was just thinking, you know, I'm trying to optimize all these little things, but end of the day, no matter what I do, it's only gonna make maybe an extra couple hundred thousand a month. Which to me, at, at that point didn't matter. Um, and then I started interviewing a lot of people who've sold for nine or 10 figures, and I realized, I said, man, I'm in the wrong vehicle mm-hmm. to get bigger, you know, because I'm in the information space, I'm in the marketing space, you can get as high. I would say on average, you'll see most people between, at the highest levels, one to three mil a month. Some are above that, but it's rare. And then past that, it's very difficult, um, unless you have, you know, maybe Grant Cardone type credibility or something of that nature.

Tanner (00:10:22) - Yeah. And so I started thinking, okay, you know, it's what Warren Buffet says. It's not about how hard you row, but it's in what vehicle you're in. And so I started looking at, okay, if that's the case, then I need to remove myself because no matter how much I do, it's not gonna change much. I need to replace myself with the ceo. So either A, I can move on, or b I can sell either way. It, it works. And so now I'm actually in the progress if I stepped out on the 1st of January, and that's what I'm doing right now, is I'm trying to figure out my next thing. Um, because I, I think the vehicle does matter more than how hard you work, especially once you build basic skills, which I have over the last five years.

Josh (00:11:00) - Yeah. Um, and so for our friend that's listening to us right now, who should be reaching out? Um, you know, I see obviously you do strategy sessions@eliteceos.com. Yeah. Um, but like, who, who especially should be like, wait a minute, I, I, I need to reach out to Tanner and his team.

Tanner (00:11:18) - Yeah. So the first person is a beginner, which isn't really your audience. That's the first person, but the second person is the one who's trying to scale. Uh, I usually see as the biggest bottlenecks is the hiring, training, and building of a team is by far and away the biggest obstacle that most entrepreneurs face. Uh, I would say anywhere between a hundred thousand plus a month. Uh, they just don't know how to do it, or they don't know how to retain talent. So most of the people that would fit your audience that would reach out are in the transition of either hiring and training a team, or they're trying to scale to the, you know, seven figure a month mark. Uh, we have a different program for them called Next Level. It's the same company, but it's called Next Level. And those are where some of the highest level clients, uh, we have. And the way that works just briefly is they have access to my entire C-Suite. They have their own base camp with an entire C-suite in there. Then they have their own private coach. And then we just focus on what the biggest, uh, things are to move their company. But I would say the biggest thing with that is the scaling and then hiring and training of the team. Just most people, they're just not very good at it, or they struggle with it.

Josh (00:12:19) - And, and would this be primarily around, um, what we would consider to be traditional kind of ClickFunnel flows and, and kind of offers and products?

Tanner (00:12:30) - Yeah, it's online high ticket businesses. So we, we do, we do, we do have a done-for-you ad agency and things of that nature. But most of the people come to us, they're doing high ticket, they're selling over the phone. It's a service-based offer. Uh, you know, anything that doesn't fit that mold, we could obviously help, but it's completely different than what I would say our flagship program is. So most people, we want, you know, a $3,000 priced offer selling over the phone service-based.

Josh (00:12:56) - Okay. Love it. Tanner, Chaster, again, your website, elite ceos.com. Is there anything else that you'd recommend, uh, that people go check out, um, so they could spend more time with you or kind of learn more about the, uh, you know, what it, what it's like to work with you? Or is, or would you recommend just kind of the, um, hey, just grab some time with us, let's chat.

Tanner (00:13:15) - Yeah, I mean, obviously check out the site, but then if you want to get to know more about me as a person, I'd recommend two things. One is my YouTube channel. I'm trying to start putting out a lot of content, just high level stuff, stuff I enjoy. Yeah, really no pitch, just high level stuff. I enjoy, uh, I'm doing some videos on different retreats. I've done stem cells, I just did STEM cells last week. Um, things like that. And then the other thing I think would be, you go to my Facebook profile and there's a link there that has conversations with, um, individuals who sold their companies for nine or 10 figures. Some of them are billionaires. Mm-hmm. . And, uh, I just gave it away and people have just absolutely been raving about it. I've had multiple people hit me up and say that that was helpful. So I think your audience, if they just go to my Facebook profile, it's the pin post, the documents right there, they can just get it and download it. And I think they would find that very helpful, um, because it was about 30 different interviews I had and I had to pay for 'em. And, you know, it took a while to get that content together, but people have really been enjoying that, and I think that'd just be a great thing, um, for them to have.

Josh (00:14:12) - Yeah, no, your YouTube game is pretty great. Um, so again, if you just, um, on YouTube, you just search Tanner, Chidester and . Um, if, if you don't know how to spell that, uh, just in, in, in your podcast player, click around, click the show notes, you're gonna see. We've got a direct link, uh, tan Tanner to your YouTube channel as well as, uh, to elite ceos.com. Um, but yeah, there's some really, really good content there. Tanner, er again, it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us.

Tanner (00:14:40) - Yeah, thanks for having me, Josh. I appreciate it.

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