Stop Solving the Wrong Problems in Your Business  🔗 **Source:** [Stop Solving the Wrong Problems in Your Business](https://share.snipd.com/episode/dc071c17-d660-4ddd-b686-aa05a492d18d) ## Highlights - **Childhood Baseball Revealed Blind Blaming** - Kevin D. St. Clergy went from a .550 batting average to missing every pitch because he literally couldn't see the ball without glasses. - Adults blamed his attitude for two years until an eye exam revealed he was practically blind, illustrating blind blaming in a clear personal story. Transcript: Kevin D. St. Clergy I'll start with the story. It's the origin story that everybody likes. I'll be quick. But when I was 10 years old, I was a phenomenal baseball player at a batting average of 550. And for those of you listening, 550 is epic. It's great. And people noticed. I was getting a bat every other time I went to bat. Babe Ruth in his heyday, 394, just to give you an example. So my dad and I went to work. He worked with me on my mindset. I mean, I was young, but I love baseball. And we had a buddy who was actually used to coach for the Dodgers, who was helping me with my swing in the offseason. We practiced every day. The next season, I stood up and I was ready, but something was different because I swinging and missing. In fact, I missed every time I went to bat for the entire next season. I literally went from here to zero. You probably guessed what I heard from the stands. Come on, kid, keep your head in the game. Play to win this time. And then you can probably really imagine what my dad would give me lectures on on the way home about how bad my attitude was. And that's the biggest problem, who, by the way, still thinks that's what it was back then, even though he's read the book. But what we found was two weeks after I quit, because I'd had enough of the abuse and eventually started blaming myself, thinking I'm just not right for this game. I quit baseball and I went to a fluke eye exam. We figured out what the real problem was. I just couldn't see the ball. Doctor said, sorry, kids practically blind without glasses. And here's the real problem. The adults in my life for that two-year stint never stopped blaming me for something that was completely out of my control. And that's what we call blind blaming. ([Time 0:01:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4dc9ce28-84af-483f-94e3-cf39d8f155a3)) - **Use RCD To Stop Solving The Wrong Problem** - Use the RCD method: Reflect, Connect, Decide to diagnose beyond surface explanations when results don't change. - Reflect by asking if something unseen is causing the issue, connect with outside mentors, then make an effing decision (MFD). Transcript: Kevin D. St. Clergy It's awareness. So I'm finding that once people start reading about blind blaming and they're more aware of it, then it starts to make sense. Then we teach them the RCD method, which is how they get past blind blaming. It's very simple, but remember, simple doesn't always mean easy. But it's simply reflect. RCD stands for reflect. Is there something else going on that I can't see? You've got to learn to ask yourself that question, because if you keep solving the same problem over and over again, and you're not getting any different results, that's where we lead To insanity. But that's what we go through as small business owners. And when you get really big, like we did with our agency, we had 450 clients with 900 locations, Sean. So I have plenty of scars of people like, Kevin, I don't think your service is working. I'm like, really? I'm showing 22 leads last month from your call tracking number. Yeah, but we only scheduled two. I was like, well, that's not my fault. That's blind blaming. So, but here's where I think people fall down because they'll get their team together and say, what do you guys think it is? And they're all in that sphere of influence. And everybody else says, well, it must be marketing. It's certainly not us as salespeople. It's gotta be the marketing. I just don't have enough leads and the leads are generating their crap. So connect is the C stage. You have to connect with an outside source, a mentor, a coach. I like paid coaches. I've had one for 20 years. Just got a new one that's kind of up on the next level because I want to get the nine figures here pretty quick. So I've just needed a coach that's already there. And then I also have mastermind groups. Those are some of my favorite ways to learn. I know you've been part of them. I think you've led them in the past. And I think when you do that, these people can see what you can't see because they're outside of that sphere of influence. They're not tied down with your successes and your failures. And finally, once you know what it is, this is where D comes in. You got to decide to do something different. In fact, it was pretty cool because I was a little worried about this in the chapter because it does use the F word. And even Jack Canfield, he's the only second guy I read the book. He's like, man, I even love your effing part. And I'm like, oh, my God, I just got Jack Canfield to say the F word on video. But it's MFD, make an effing decision. Because once you know what it is, I see a lot of people are like, no, maybe not. Let's go back and review this again. Do something. And that's a great story. Because when we came up with this, it was actually one of my clients. She was debating on whether to go with one or two loans to double her business. And she's like, Kevin, what do you think I should do? And I just told her straight up, Kayla, I think you need to make an effing decision, but I didn't say effing. I've known her well enough. I helped her start a business seven years ago. And she's like, okay. She comes back a month later. And I always like to start coaching calls off these days with what's going well. And she's like, Kevin, I'm MFDing all over the place. You changed my life. Even my husband's noticed. And we're doing things. We got the loan. We bought the business. We've doubled the size. We're doing great. I'm like, MFD, what are you talking about? She's like, make an F decision. What you told me to do on the last call. I'm doing it. And I was like, Kayla, do you mind if I use that in my book? ([Time 0:03:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/84fc3db5-79e3-45b3-bd9e-aecf8e683e05)) - **Block Protected Thinking Time Weekly** - Schedule protected thinking time and block it on your calendar so it cannot be booked over. - Kevin recommends early morning quiet (5–5:30 a.m.) and booking admin/marketing blocks and using an assistant to protect that time. Transcript: Kevin D. St. Clergy Well, I do a schedule audit. Yeah. And I see, do they, like for me, 5 to 5.30 a.m., I get up early. I didn't used to because I worked in a bar all through grad school. But now I get up and from 5 to 5.30 is my quiet time. I grab a cup of coffee. I do not look at a screen and I just journal and try to come up with ideas. And I can see it on their calendar when they're working six days a week and trying to see customers or patients, whoever you're working with, because they keep losing people. And they don't give themselves time to think. Right. How do you get them to do that? Well, I make them schedule the time. Just like yesterday, we had a client. I'm like, where's your admin time? He's like, well, I've got an administrative assistant. I didn mean for her. When are you working on your marketing? She's like, what do you mean? I'm like, wrong answer. So once at the end of the call, we had her physically book these two Fridays in a row that she was going to take four hours to work on this. And she's so excited because then she's like, well, what do I do? So we had to actually lay out what she needs to do. So first you got to schedule the time. What gets scheduled gets done. Then you need a personal assistant to protect you ([Time 0:06:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/44134c5b-27b1-4245-8599-fff5d8fa175b)) - **Three Fatal Flaws That Fuel Blind Blaming** - Entrepreneurs fall into three fatal flaws: availability bias, confirmation bias, and misfocused effort that hides the real solution. - These biases make the first idea (usually blaming marketing or agency) feel obvious and then people hunt data to confirm it. Transcript: Kevin D. St. Clergy Yeah. So they, I mean, we, we call it the three fatal falls of blind blaming. So the first one, we have these cognitive biases, John, that you're well aware of, because I've been following you for years and you've helped me a lot of my career. So I could say thank you in person, by the way. But I think the first fatal flaw is there's this thing called availability bias. And these cognitive biases are there to help us make decisions quicker and do things better and faster, but they can be getting the way and hinder our success as well. And the first one is called availability bias, which means the first thing that pops into an entrepreneur's head about what's wrong with their marketing. That's it. It's got to be their agency and the people that have agencies that are working with customers. Because I had a marketing agency for 17 years. I know the scars. I've got the deep wounds. For those of you who do choose to read the book, you'll see those wounds in the book with some of my examples. But once they do that, then the next fatal flaw comes into play where it's confirmation bias. They become a treasure hunter to prove themselves right. And they start looking for data to back that up. Well, I'm definitely slow. It was my slowest month ever. And I wasn't slow before I hired you guys. So it's your fault. And so then finally, when you're too busy looking at the wrong problem, you can't focus on the right solution. So that's the third table of law. ([Time 0:11:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/77980cb2-dd23-4c33-b55b-fea405b2ba00)) - **Transform Agencies Into Business Growth Partners** - Pivot from being a vendor to a business growth partner by adding coaching and assessments to marketing services. - Kevin's agency added a front desk academy and weekly coaching for the first 8–10 weeks and quadrupled growth as clients improved conversions before marketing ROI kicked in. Transcript: Kevin D. St. Clergy And so we created a front desk academy. Then I was getting really frustrated because we were putting the leads in front of them and then they weren't closing them. And of course it's still our fault. Couldn't be then. It's not their sales process, not another sales training. I had a recent customer and she said this online out loud to everyone that when I mentioned that we really need to work on your sales process, she started crying. So it was, I was like, I didn't want to make you cry. I said, no, it's not you. You're right. I need to fix this. So I think what agencies need to do is they need to pivot a little bit and they need to start looking at the results that they get and what it really does. Because people don't think people want to sign up for more marketing. They don't want to spend money on marketing. What they want is to make more money, grow their business, and have more of an impact. And that's the change we made in 2018. When we started, when we became a business development company that provided digital marketing services, and no matter what they did with us, we would help them grow. Because let's face it, you've done this, John. Some marketing works, some doesn't. Some digital marketing takes months to get going. What we did is we developed a business assessment to help them identify holes in their bucket. And then we helped them fill it. So weekly, we were coaching them for the first eight to 10 weeks they were on board with us, where a lot of people got a return on their investment before we even started their marketing Before it got going. That's when we quadrupled the size of our company. ([Time 0:12:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5f3a8192-7cdc-4a33-946c-bc420dd0b46f)) - **Diagnose With Assessments Not Assumptions** - Use diagnostic assessments that probe beyond obvious symptoms to reveal root causes like front-desk scripts or lead handling. - Kevin's team secret-shopped clients and sometimes declined work when assessment showed the problem was conversion, not marketing. Transcript: Kevin D. St. Clergy So we've been really big on, if we're working with coaches or agencies, helping them develop an assessment that does go deeper. And then that's how we identify things. We have them take a small assessment that helps them step out of the box and take a look at the way they're doing things. For some reason, I mean, when I used to do it in person, it worked okay. But when they have them do the assessment and they see the results with the AI stuff we have today, it's made a huge difference. And they're like, man, I knew exactly when I went through this assessment, what's really going on. And now it just helps my coaching go a lot faster. Don't know why. I'm not, I don't, it was just something that I learned to do at a conference and we started using it. And then we started teaching our clients to do the same and they're seeing the same thing. So having an assessment that helps them step out of the box and look at the way they're doing things to identify some other things that can be is one of the first things. But a lot of times just, if you're working with a good coach like yourself, who's got a lot of experience and you've seen the same mistakes that entrepreneurs make every other day when It comes to their marketing, we know. I love it when people tell me like, well, I definitely need to rebuild my website. And I always ask why. Look, I had a digital marketing. My company's job was to produce some doubt so that you would switch to us. But I always instructed our practice advisors, as we call them, because we were in the medical field, to ask them how many leads a month before you switch and come to us. How many leads a month are you going? And you can probably guess what we got, John. What do you mean? I have no idea. No, most of the time I was like, I don't know. ([Time 0:15:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e39c64cf-a35b-44a4-a135-20c1d47a9aaa)) - **Transformation Commands Premium Renewals** - Clients value transformational coaching far more than transactional services, enabling agencies to charge premium recurring fees. - Kevin's masterminds at $25k–$50k annual levels achieved ~90% re-up by focusing on personal and business transformation. Transcript: Kevin D. St. Clergy I agree because we, as I said, we found that we, in our big masterminds, we charge 25 and 50 grand a year. It's very interesting to me to go a digital marketing company charging 900 a month right and having this what have you done for me today to 25 and 50 and then soon to be a hundred thousand Dollar level and have people go i can't believe this you've changed my life can't wait for next year let's they're re-upping we have a 90 percent up rate re-up rate at the end of the year It's fascinating to me because we change the way we focus we've talked about that transformation and what's happened with other clients. So yeah, totally with you. And it's just amazing to me. If we can get more agencies to focus on that transformation, John, because that's what we just trademarked the heck out of this, but we call our program M3 Mastery from transactional To transformational. And that was my big lesson. When we really focused on getting some transformation in their business, not just what we did or the service to provide, that made a huge difference. ([Time 0:18:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7c4168ed-912d-4d9d-8a7b-8aee65766ebb)) - **Medical Diagnosis Unlocked Business Growth** - A client with an eight-figure business was miserable until medical tests found low testosterone, which when treated transformed her energy and team culture. - Kevin includes health, purpose, relationships, mindset, and resources in assessments to find that one lever. Transcript: Kevin D. St. Clergy And sometimes, as you said, we'd find that the owner has a health problem that went undiagnosed for years. Just recently, we had somebody who has a very large eight-figure business, but she was miserable. And I was like, how long has it been she'd been to the doctor? She's about 43, so she's getting up to, you know, in that age. She's like, you know, I read your book and I've got an appointment. And so she came back and she's like, oh my God, my testosterone is low. And I had no idea. It's been that way for years. My doctor never run the test. And once we got that fixed, oh, she exploded. Her team culture completely changed. Everything came into place where the coaching finally started working. Because she was getting frustrated with me. And I'm like, look, I think there's something else going on that you're missing. Let's go back to that assessment. Because we look at five different areas. We look at their health. We look at their purpose. We look at their relationships. Not necessarily their personal relationships, but the people, how they react with people at work. And a few other things like a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. And then we make sure they have the right resources. And usually in those five areas, it's not about finding one thing in each area, John. It's about finding that one thing. And for her, it was low testosterone, which is something that I went through a couple of years ago. So I put it in the book. ([Time 0:19:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c75ef7ef-54ba-4ea2-b6de-3abd5906954f))