When Steve Chandler and I first had the idea of running an event together, we decided to have 30 people in the room. 

That felt like a huge number at the time.  

But we only had to enroll 15 people each. So that made it easier.  

Ok. Who am I kidding? Back then, that felt impossible! 

I’d led big events—I used to be a high school Vice Principal, so I’d spoken to rooms of 1,000 people before.  

But I’d never had to fill an event before!

Steve and I walked our talk…

We used The Prosperous Coach Approach.  

We filled a 30 person event ONE CONVERSATION AT A TIME.  

We had NO email lists back then.

We had NO Facebook groups.

We didn’t even understand SEO or Google adwords. (Still don’t!!) 🤣  

We called people. On the phone. (This was 2007. People picked up the phone back then!) 

Then we SERVED them.  

As powerfully as we could.   

Often we asked for nothing. (Pure service). 

Sometimes we said, “I really want you at this event. It will transform your life and business.” (A powerful proposal).  

Steve and I called each other every day, to check in.

“How many MINUTES did you spend serving people?” we asked each other.  

We made it a competition!  

It was a simple equation: the more time we spent serving, the more people signed up for the event.   

And one day we were there… 30 tickets sold! 

But then two people called us and said, “We know you’re sold out but can we come?”   

“LET’S BE SOLD OUT!”

I was tempted to say yes.

After all, we’d make more money.

But Steve gave me some fantastic advice at that moment.  

“Let’s be SOLD OUT, Rich.”

“It’s tempting to take their money, but let’s NOT do it.

We said 30 seats. We’ve filled them.

Let’s CLOSE THE DOORS.  

It will create a story that will ripple into the future…”

So we closed the doors.  

And we Sold Out our first event ever.  

And we have continued to sell out our events, ever since.

 

Nowadays, my coaching Intensives have a SUPPORT TEAM of 30 people. That’s as big as the entire first event I ever ran! 

And we continue to CLOSE THE DOORS.

And we continue to be SOLD OUT.  

The one time we were not Sold Out!

The high achiever in me wishes I could say that every single Intensive we ran had sold out—but on ONE occasion this didn’t happen… 😭 

Seven years ago, I had just launched 4PC and begun to talk more and more about the fact that I wasn’t for ‘every’ coach.  

I’d begun to write more and more about why I love working with high performers.  

And we’d got clear on our mission, as a team — We help extraordinary leaders become extraordinary coaches.

And that’s not for everyone.  

And, in our early days of sharing this mission, we began to turn off some of our original audience.  

That year I made a decision to create an event for 150 people—at the time, our largest Intensive ever.

But we only sold 130 tickets.  

And I felt really sad.  

(The curse of being a high performer is to set a high bar to accomplish, miss it, and then beat yourself up for not hitting it—while FORGETTING that it was YOU who set the high bar in the first place!! 🤣) 

And then something interesting happened… I began to read the questionnaires that we ask our attendees to fill in.  

The caliber of people at that Intensive was amazing… 

And I look back on that single event, that wasn’t Sold Out, as a watershed moment for me.  

It’s awesome being Sold Out but it’s even more awesome to get clear on your dream clients and to turn away those who are NOT your right people.  

Love. Rich