Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to create wealth through franchising podcast and Kim Daily TV. I am your host, Kim Daly. I want to educate, motivate and inspire your business ownership journey by interviewing ceos, leaders, sales coaches and exceptional franchisees to learn their valuable insights and strategies that we can apply to our own business ownership dreams. Now onto the show.
Welcome back to create wealth through franchising podcast and Kim Daily TV. I am your host, Kim Daly. Our special guest with us here today, normally up here in New England, but he's a snowbird. Today. He can be found in Naples, Florida. Mark Cote, welcome to the studio of Kim Daily TV.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Hey Kim, really glad to be here and I understand there could be snow up your way. So I'm glad to be here in Naples and it's something that franchises enabled for me.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: From Duxbury, Massachusetts to Naples, Florida, this man lives the life. So, Mark, for those of you who follow me, and you know that I've launched this coaching series this year. In 2024, Mark is another coach with focal point coaching. And today we're going to talk specifically about limiting beliefs or self sabotagers to our success. This is a major conversation that we could not begin to do justice in a 20 minutes episode, but we're going to scratch the surface and hopefully leave you with one or two little tips or tools or strategies to take away from today that as you continue on in your business ownership journey, you can really try to implement to help you really live the life that you thought you were saying yes to the day that you signed your franchise agreement. So, Mark, before we dive into this massive topic on mindset, which is yours and my favorite topic, why don't you introduce my followers a little bit to you and how you got started in your journey as a franchisee with focal point coaching.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Sure. Thanks, Kim, and happy to share a little bit of background and perspective for folks. And I'll go back a long way. It won't be that long a story, but I did grow up in New Hampshire, where you are as well. And my father was actually a second generation business owner. And I remember when I was in junior high, he shared a story with me that when he turned 16, my grandfather needed him to work in the family business. And it was nothing too complicated. It was a snack food distribution business in New Hampshire. So they delivered all the snack foods and potato chips to the grocery stores and convenience stores. But in the 1950s, when you're needed in the business, what do you do? You drop out of high school, start driving one of the trucks, and you move forward from there 25 or 30 years later, after my father joined the business, I'm now around, I'm in junior high, and he confides in me that the business has been good because he's been running the business at that point for a decade or two. The business has been good to him or us as the family, but there's probably so much more he could have done had he been trained, educated, or had a trusted business partner. He could have relied on Kim. So he really influenced me at an early age to go the business route, which is why I went to one of the business schools outside of Boston, then joined one of the big four firms to really learn how a lot of different businesses run. And over the course of 30 or so years before I joined here, worked at some big firms, worked at another franchise organization called Duncan Brands or Dunkin Donuts, and was there for about a dozen years. That was a great stint, learned a lot, and really, that's probably where I cut my teeth as a leader and then moved over to something that had a little higher purpose, which was biotech or life sciences, and worked there for about a dozen years.
Fast forward to 2017. I'm now going to be in transition, thinking about what do I want to do next? And what's interesting is oftentimes when we're in college or otherwise, we get a job, right? We need money, but then we start our career. I was at this point of my life now where it was not necessarily about a career, about me growing more, although that's always important, but it was about my calling and how can I help others realize more of their potential that they might have been leaving on the table. So that's when I decided to join focal point, a great organization. It checked off all the boxes for what I wanted to do, which is really helping leaders continue to develop and grow with them and their teams and overcome obstacles. And I get the chance to do that every day now as a focal point coach.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: So good. And you get to live in Naples three, four, five months in a year.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: That's not a bad gig either. Absolutely. And ultimately, that's one of the things, as folks are evaluating different businesses, they want to make sure that it lines up with their lifestyle. One of the things that I didn't want was a brick and mortar business where I had to be tied down to a particular location or have a lot of employees that I need to be managing. So I work with a lot of terrific, you know what, fellow coaches and professionals. But we all do our own thing where we want, with who we want and most of my clients now I'm able to meet over Zoom, which is absolutely wonderful.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: So good. And I love how you said that you moved from maybe however you said it, you said a higher purpose when you left Dunkin. So what are you saying? Dunkin doesn't have a purpose feeding people? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I love it. I love it.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: People need their coffee fixed every day. But when I moved over to what? We're helping companies and scientists develop new drugs to save patient lives.
Yeah, no, absolutely. But it's good. I mean, all of those companies are really important to our lives, and it's just what resonates with us. At any particular time.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Did Dunkin, your experience at Duncan, give you your first entrance or exposure to franchising?
[00:05:33] Speaker B: That was actually. So even though I worked for EY, which is one of the big four firms, for eight years, I didn't have any franchise ores as my client base. So moving to Duncan, which is obviously a well known New England brand, as well as now a national and global brand, it was a great place to get exposed, not only to franchising, but then cut my teeth, really, as a leader and so forth.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah, really good. Okay. Love the background, love the setup. So you're with focal point. We're going to talk today. Let's go to the topic at hand today, which is mindset. So when I was setting up this conversation with Mark, I said, mark, this is my belief, this is what I've made true in my business, that success equals 20% strategy. So that thing that you paid for when you signed your franchise agreement, right. Plus exactly 80% mindset. It was the mindset shift that happened in Kim Daly that took me from eight years average performing to one year later doing over 300 times more revenue in twelve months.
No skill set increased from 2010 to 2011. But my entire life changed. And the story goes on, mark, that I've spent the last 13 years mastering the art of what I did that first year, perfecting it, getting better at every part of my business, to incrementally grow that history making performance and make history again and again. And so it's this latter 13 years that gives me the heart to share. Because I am a franchisee like you. I live the life of the people out there who said yes with all the dream and all the potential, and then woke up to find themselves not actually living that dream. And that breaks my heart. And I get it, because I was you. Right. For eight years. It's much more fun to be history making and making all kinds of money and having more influence and helping more people and all reaching all of my goals. And so that is where my heart is right now. And that is why I bring this series through my podcast to my listeners. So when we start on the mindset journey and we talk about where do we begin? We begin with big, clear goals. Why is it important? That's the only thing that I did from 2010 to 2011. People are like, what happened? I'm telling you, the first year, the only thing I did was change my mindset by setting a super, audacious, not based in reality goal. Why is it important to have a big, clear, audacious, hairy, get you out of bed every day, scare the bejibas out of you goal?
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's that bhag, right? The big, hairy, audacious goal. And if we set small goals, we'll probably accomplish them. If we set bhags, big, hairy, audacious goals, we can likely accomplish those as well. It's really, as you said, kim, the mindset, where is it that we want to go and do we commit ourselves to that? I know when you started this, and you know what, my role with focal point, there's no guarantees for success. But I said failure is not going to be an option. I'm going to do whatever is necessary to make sure that I can create the type of life that I want for myself. In joining a franchise, the system has already figured it out for us, but we need to make sure that we're executing against it. So set those goals. I would recommend, you said really unrealistic. Oftentimes as a coach, we say realistic goals. But nevertheless, if you think back to even the four minute mile before that kind of benchmark was broke, nobody had run that. But within twelve months of that mark being broken, several other runners exceeded it. So the fact is, it is all possible if we put our mind to it and then identify the underlying actions to help us get there. So I'm sure, Kim, it wasn't necessarily, hey, here's my goal, but it was, here's my goal, and these are the things that I need to do in order to accomplish it right.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Hey, daily Coach fans, if you're loving this episode, please do me a quick favor and leave me a five star rating and a short review. Your feedback fuels my growth and rankings and shows others that this podcast is valuable. Now back to the show that happened in year two. I promise you, the first year mark, all I did was say I'm worth more. I set my goal. I came to work every single day affirming my goal, not taught. So this is going to speak right to part two, self sabotaging. So there was no belief, I mean, there was no skill in me to accomplish. I didn't even understand KPIs. We did not collect average deal fee like the things in my business that would help me reverse engineer. I did that the second year that I made history, because I recorded everything I did the first year. And at the end of that year, when I was $4.28 over this hairy, audacious goal that I had set for myself and affirmed every single day for one year, then I was like, oh, man, I don't want to be a one hit wonder. What did I actually do? And it's figuring that out. That's literally how I've spent the last 13 years. Now, to your point, I set the goal, but I asked myself a rhetorical question, and this is the question that changed everything.
What would happen if instead of focusing on all the clients I already had, like in consulting, right? Everybody wants to be the consultant, right? That's hardly what makes me money. What makes me money is how many people know about what I do. The prospecting part. So to this point in my history, I had relied on somebody else, my franchisor, to generate my leads for me. I never stopped to ask. That's the limiting factor to my business. How do I find more people on my own? So just not to make this about me, but that was just so you can connect all the. It was. I set this really big goal, and I said, what would happen if instead of coming to work every day to play with the people who I already knew, I came to work to find one new person. And because my last name is daily, and this ended up working out very well for me, it's become the daily plan.
But then, now it's more sophisticated than that. So the big clear goal was like, what I say is, the business owner without a port. The business owner without a goal is like a ship without a port. You're like, you're lost at sea. That's how I operated for eight years. And I think there's a lot of people who own businesses who roll their eyes at goals. They're like New Year's resolutions, right? I mean, that's just pressure, or they're not achievable. What do you say to that?
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Goals are going to be the single most important thing that you can set for yourself. And Kim, I love what you said with the last name, just the synergy there, writing your goals every single day will program into your brain so that even your subconscious will start to work on them and initiate scrambling behavior if you start to fall behind. But if you choose not to write your goals, the scrambling behavior doesn't happen because you're kind of setting it aside. So possibly without even knowing it, you are establishing a best practice, or following a best practice, writing those goals on a daily basis, programming it into your brain. Because our brain doesn't want us to fail, especially if we go into it with a positive attitude. And speaking of that, I don't know if you're aware, but the Carnegie foundation, who studied human performance for decades and generations, identified that their most successful people had three key attributes. One, they had good knowledge. Knowledge is important, but that's at the base of this pyramid. The next thing was skills, how you apply your knowledge in a productive way. That only accounted for 15% of someone's success the third leg or the third side of that triangle. Attitude. Attitude is so key. And ultimately you want to make sure that you're surrounding yourselves with people that can be helpful. You don't want to be surrounded by naysayers who are going to hold you back. You want to be surrounded by people who can help you know what, accelerate you forward. So who you hang around with is key. Writing those goals is absolutely critical and making sure you're doing it consistently.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: I love it. Just like when you're exploring that franchise and you say to me, well, I want to talk to the people who are failing. And I say, why? How does that help you get you to your goals? The same thing. Once you are a franchisee and you're in that system, don't befriend the people who are at the same level of you. Or worse, the people who are behind you. Find the people who you can pace by. And you know what? You mentioned Roger Bannister, the guy who ran the first four minute mile when I made history in franchise, the CEO of franchise called me the Roger Bannister. Now it took twelve years for the belief at franchise, I want to get to the belief part. It took twelve years of me getting up in front of these people at best practices and sharing and sharing and sharing and sharing and sharing what I did for the belief to cement, to take root and sprout for other people in my franchise to now have the size of the business that I have. There were a couple who came much sooner than that, but now our average top ten performers, if you will, have the business that I created back in 2011. So belief is a really hard thing to change. But when one person does it, the whole paradigm shifts. Which is, again, why when people are using earnings claims to say yes to a franchise, I'm always like, why? It only takes one person, one Kim Daly, to believe bigger and to get it. And I always tell people you're only going to rise to your own level of expectations. So if you aim for 300,000 and you get it, but if you aim for a million and you get 600,000, you are not crying in your Cheerios, right? So you've got to raise that expectation. If I'm getting 100% of my goal today, I get mad I left too much on the table.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: You knew there was more. That's right.
Yeah, you raise a really good point. And that's one of the benefits of being part of a franchise organization as well, Kim. So there's folks like yourself or even in focal point, we have some amazingly successful coaches, and they are always willing to share. So if you were going out on your own, you wouldn't have access to those folks, or they wouldn't necessarily be part of your ecosystem that could help you think differently and believe differently, because belief is so important.
You and I talked ahead of time about a new program that I took, something called positive intelligence. It's PQ. So we've heard of IQ, your intelligence, and EQ, and there's even CIQ, conversational intelligence. There's something now as well called positive intelligence. And there's research that goes behind it that determines our level of PQ, or positive intelligence will help us determine how many times our mind helps us versus sabotages us, because we all have a judge in our brain. It's there. It's what allowed us to survive for tens of thousands of years because it alerted us to danger. Like, if our ancestors didn't know the color of a rattlesnake or some other dangerous animal, you know what? They might go up to it again. You only do that once, otherwise you're not passing your genes on anymore. Right? So we're pre programmed for the negative. And what we need to do is make sure that we change some of that programming, which we are able to do to create new neural pathways by quieting that judge and those accomplished saboteurs. And that's, you know what, this is the book here, positive intelligence by Shirzag Shamin, why only 20% of teams individuals achieve their true potential and how you can achieve yours. So positive intelligence, good mental fitness, is so, so critical. So I recommend people maybe pick up that particular book or reach out to me. I coach on that now as well, because there's so many people that either have impostor syndrome or other self limiting beliefs that are going to hold them back. And it doesn't have to be that way.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Let's talk about that. What's impostor syndrome?
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Oh, my God. And actually, I work with a lot of ceos, so whether it be men or women, and in many cases, others have believed in them to promote them to, you know what, hire them as CEO or other high level executives. And they sometimes think like, I don't deserve to be here. I'm not sure why I'm here. So some of my work with them is, you know what? Helping to shift their own perspective. It's interesting, when I was working with one woman a while back, and I said, you know what? If we look towards the end of the year, what does success look like? Want to be looking at what does success look like? Back to what you said, kim, let's not talk to the folks who aren't necessarily achieving it. Let's talk to the ones who are. When I asked her, what does success look like? She's like, I just don't want to fail. I don't want to let these people like, no, no. What does success look like? So we can plant that picture in our brain and know that's what we want to work towards. So critical, to create the vision, the underlying goals, and then build our mental fitness in order to help us get there as well.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: It's so good. So when I was a personal trainer, you'll appreciate this, right? It's the same thing when you hear that people lose. They get themselves together and let's say they have a massive weight loss goal, like 50 or 100 pounds, and they do it. And then you follow them up two years later, and they gained all the way back. To me, that's impostor syndrome, because you changed the body, but you didn't change the mind, and so you went right back to your old habits because you felt unworthy of that.
And these, this conversation, while touchy feely to a lot of guys out there, might be like, oh, Kim's getting on her voodoo again, or woo woo conversation. It's so important how you see yourself.
You have to be worthy of the million dollar business. So I had to wake up and show up for that goal that I set for myself and what I found to be true. Well, in order for it to come true, let me finish that thought. But what I found to be true, mark and see if this resonates with you, is I took control of one part of my business that ended up being the thing to take control of. But I was a biochemistry major. I am not a business major. This is why I love this conversation, because I'm like, if I figured this out the hard way, let me help you so you don't have to go all the way down the same path I did, but. So I took control of one part of my business. But what I really tell people that happened is my attitude changed very quickly because I had zero prospecting skill. But once I applied my mind, I was a 4.0 in premed. So I'm a smart girl. I might not have a business degree, but I'm smart. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to put my head down and I'm going to find one person per day, which in the beginning felt like Mount Everest. Like I had no idea how to even do that right. But I'm like, I can read a book. I can talk to some people. I can figure out how to do this. And it wasn't that I figured it out overnight. What I figured out was how to be consistent. When I set my mind to something, I'm going to follow through. So I'm my best accountability coach. And on that note, if you need an accountability coach, here's another one for Cody, right. I kim daily, I'm presenting you listeners with lots of people who have the skills and the tools to help you get where you want. So use the tool. If you need accountability, just man up to it, because this is everything to your result. So I showed up for my dream every day, and I held myself accountable when I felt like it and when I didn't feel like it. And I wasn't even effective at it every single day. But when you look over the course of that first year, I was 80% effective. And 80% effective made me a history maker. So it was consistency. But this is really what made me a history maker. Mark, was that as I gained skill and I started coming to work to play this little daily game with myself of finding one new person, and I started achieving that, my attitude became unstoppable. I couldn't wait to come to work every day. I was so fired up. I would come here, I'd be like, all right, where is my lead going to come from today? And I just had a belief, and I call it the abundance effect now because I just started to create doors that were closed, started to open, but I was the creator of all of that momentum through my consistent daily habit of finding one new person, right. Just a consistent daily thought, having that big, clear goal and then holding myself accountable to it. But my attitude going back to your PQ, my attitude is what changed everything. And I will 100% stand by that all day long.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: Absolutely no. And you raised a good point there as well, Kim. That scarcity mentality versus that abundance mentality.
One of the concepts within PQ is if you think this is bad, it will be bad. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. If you think it's good, you can actually find a gift in it and actually see the good that can come out of that as well. So I oftentimes run across folks so they could be either clients or fellow coaches who may have that scarcity mentality. And it's about preserving and holding tight as opposed to the abundance mentality. When you have that abundance mentality, often success will breed more success and it actually gets you geared up and pumped up to do more. You touched something else that was really important, too. And whether it's a coach or just someone else important in your life, having that accountability partner, right? Because when you share your goals with someone else who is supportive, we want to make sure that's the case. They believe that you can do it. They are supportive. You don't want to let them down. You don't want to let yourself down. Because now you've made, you know, what a promise or you know what an item that you're committing to. You want to make sure that you can have good face going forward. So having good goals, having that consistency of every day, having an accountability partner, these are not hard. They're really easy things, but it takes that discipline and that attitude to help move forward. So you're amazing. And it's great that you're able to share these stories with others, too, because it's not rocket science, but it's basic and so important.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Hey, daily coach fans, if you're ready to begin your own journey to find the perfect franchise, please email me right now at inquire at KimDaily TV. My services are totally free for you. That's inquire at Kimdaily TV. Now back to the show.
It isn't rocket science, but you know what? It feels magical because people will say to me, but it is science. That's what I want to say. Like, people will say to me, Kim, what you do, it's so magical. And I'm like, but it's not magic. Because if it was magic, I couldn't replicate it. Right. It's science. It's science that I've created by reverse engineering everything that I did and thinking through what was the tipping point, and how could I incrementally get better at all parts of my business. So I just want to end this by going back to these limiting beliefs that people have as a business owner, that you're not worthy, or that you're not good enough, or I'm not a good saver, or I'm not good at managing money, or I'm not good at technology, or I'm not good at being a leader. These are all ways that we hide. And it's really just a manifestation of fear in our life that as a business owner, we really have to identify that that is a limiting belief, and it can be changed with time and habit. And so what happened for me, I don't know how this turned into all about me today, but we'll wrap it up on this. Sorry about that, mark. But what happened to me was by taking control of one thing, right. And then incrementally becoming successful in the one thing, it changed my attitude, which then changed a lot of things. So if you're stuck behind a limiting belief, because I had a total limiting belief, and this is what happens, everybody looks at the market and all the competition, how am I going to compete? So what I did was I stopped all that noise. Those are just limiting beliefs. And I said, I don't need every. It's like saying, I need all the food I'm going to eat for a year right now. No, I didn't need all the people I needed in one year right now. I just needed one person today.
And tomorrow I'm going to show up and I'm going to take, find one person for that day. So I lived in the present moment. I focused on what I needed to do in the present moment. And again, I wasn't even 100% at it. I was 80% effective. So you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be consistent. What happens is most people are consistently overlooking the parts of their business that are really the most important parts to driving productivity, because it's hard to look there and it's easier to be busy. It's much easier to come to work and be busy than to come to work and be productive. But it's really not, because in the end, you end up with a business that you're reacting to, you don't like, you're frustrated by, you feel it's out of control compared to when you just apply yourself to the productive parts and you master the skill that's necessary with time.
Now, be productive. You feel in control. Feeling in control changes your attitude, and then your attitude changes everything.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Absolutely. No, you raised a really good point. You've raised so many good points. But identify what it is that you want to accomplish. You know what? That bhag, that big, hairy, audacious goal. Right. And then consistently work towards it and believe that you can achieve it. Because as you said, if somebody says, and I oftentimes find this with my clients, you know what? I'm not good at that. I'm like, don't say you're not good at something because you won't be. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Say, I have an opportunity to improve there because then we see the benefits. So go into it with the right attitude. I guess a couple of recommendations not only set those goals, create that vision also, how are you going to feel when you accomplish this? So, Kim, I'm sure after that first year, you probably felt awesome and you were then ready to go out the next year and even do better, right? Because that success brings more success and it feels awesome. You get goosebumps. You get geared up. People recognize you. So thank you for helping us all to better understand your story and how others can actually apply it in their lives as well.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: It's awesome. Mark, thank you for showing up today so I could tell my story. I don't even know how that happened.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Hey, I'm geared up for it. I may do some things different this afternoon because of this conversation as well.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: It's so good. And you know what? What Mark said, it's so true. Mark, thank you for being my guest here today on Kim Daily TV.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: Kim, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: If anybody is looking for an amazing accountability coach, a fellow New Englander, he's right here. Even though he's wintering in Naples, Florida. I don't blame him. I'm going to be there. January of 27, I'll see you. That's when my youngest goes off to college. I tell my kids, January of 27th, I will not be in New Hampshire. So you're just a little ahead of me, Mark. But if anybody out there is looking for an accountability coach, someone who can help you embrace these principles and take your business to the next level, I think Mark would be a great guy. We're going to put his contact information in the show notes below. And for those who are sitting on the sideline right now, who are more than fired up to go live the life that you really want and you want to begin your exploration into finding the perfect franchise business. You know that I want to be your daily coach. Please follow the email on the screen right now or reach directly out to inquire at Kimdaily TV. That's Inquire at KimDaily TV. And until next time, my name is Kim Daly and I want to be your daily coach.
You can find more content just like this on my YouTube channel at Kimdaily TV. And if you're inspired to take the next step to explore franchises match to you, please email me right now at Inquirer. At Kimdaily TV. That's Inquire at KimDaily TV.
