We truly never expected to be writing this post.
We never expected to be writing this post with a four day work week, working from home in our pajamas with a small but mighty team.
The team encouraged Mariah (our CEO) to submit our company to the Inc 5000, which is a list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the U.S.
We thought there was no way we’d make the list – if you’d asked us, we would have told you that we shouldn’t be on this list.
We do things totally differently here – and yet we made it.
What’s more, our ranking absolutely blew us away.
Mariah will be the first to admit she never participates in things like this because she’s terrified of failure and the potential for disappointment (a tough confession when you’re the CEO, but it’s the honest truth.)
But then something wild happened. Our company ranked #2106 ON THE LIST for 2022!!!
We are officially one of the fastest growing companies in America.
We did this together with our clients, during the most challenging years of our lives.
We did this without the fancy book deals or press features.
We’ve navigated so many changes, shifts and ever-evolving environments.
We are true innovators.
We have made a lasting mark on this industry.
And the best part is that we’re just getting started.
As we reflect on this incredible honor and all that has happened to bring us to this point, we want to share with you 5 big reasons we NEVER thought an accolade like this would be bestowed upon our company.
These reasons are more like true confessions, or a peek behind the curtain of a company composed of REAL people who are figuring it out as they go along.
Buckle up, because here comes some serious honesty.
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1.We’ve had a company-wide four day work week year-round since July 2021
Somewhere out there in the corporate world jaws are dropping at this fact.
All of our full-time employees only work Monday through Thursday nearly every week of the year, and they also get to select their own hours.
What started as an experiment was soon adopted as a mainstay company value.
The results we saw were undeniable (if not totally surprising.)
Productivity did not waver.
Clients did not stop getting incredible results.
The business didn’t break – in fact, it only continued to grow!
By offering our employees the opportunity to balance hefty amounts of play with their hard work, we’ve witnessed stronger autonomy inside our company.
That means the team is motivated to band together and get stuff done, while also not feeling worried about how they’re going to make it all work with their unique personal lives.
Around here we believe great work can absolutely fit into a well-rounded life – and we don’t need to sacrifice ourselves at the altar of “M-F 9-5” in order to make big things happen.
2. We don’t do ANY sales calls to enroll high ticket customers – and we haven’t for years
One of the most surprising facets of our business (and one of which we’re most proud) is the fact that we sell our high ticket programs without needing to do a single sales call.
What makes our success in this area even sweeter is that we’ve helped hundreds of our clients do the same for themselves!
In a world where entire industries are built around closing on the phone, we created an effective social selling strategy and asynchronous enrollment system where none existed before.
Instead of our team spending 80% of their time on sales activities (with only 20% remaining to pour into actual paying clients), we’ve flipped that ratio.
Only about 20% of our team’s bandwidth goes towards selling, thanks to our empowering enrollment experience (which we teach step by step, in-depth inside of High Ticket Hybrid).
That means we spend 80% of our precious energy creating curriculum and coaching our beloved clients towards the results they dream of.
What started as striking sales calls from our schedules in an effort to feel less drained has turned into a movement across our industry.
We couldn’t be happier to lead the charge as we rebel against overstuffed calendars in favor of a clear and spacious schedule!We know this might sound totally crazy, but we don’t have any managers in our company.
This hasn’t always been the case, and who knows? We might have employees managing people again at some point down the road.
But for right now, we are loving a totally flat, non-hierarchical style of team structure as we run this business together.
By eliminating middle management, a concept seen as an absolute necessity in the corporate world, our team members feel empowered to “own their own desk”.
What that means to us is that each person on the team has their own individual key results and metrics they are responsible for.
Instead of reporting to a person, each person is reporting on a result.
So far, this has resulted in less confusion as things get lost in translation far less.
This one example of playing with alternative team layout speaks to an overall theme within our company: we don’t adopt ideas or structures just because “everybody else is doing it”.
In short, we try to minimize the corporate BS – so we can focus on the FUN inside our business, experiment often and stay nimble!
Yes, we have meetings as a team and we go over key numbers every single week.
We aren’t here to say anyone should run a business with zero organization or that everything should feel fun and flowy all of the time.
But we DO think that every single one of the “how to run a company rules” is up for debate and experimentation.
Because of that, we’ve ended up with some surprising yet effective new ways of doing things!
4. an unexpected leader at the helm who breaks the typical CEO mold
If you had told Mariah 7 years ago she’d be the CEO of one of the fastest growing companies in America, she would have laughed in your face (her exact words!)
Have you met me? She says. I can barely organize my desk and I forget to check the mail.
The fact that our company is led by a non-traditional CEO in her early 30’s is enough to raise some eyebrows in and of itself.
What’s more, Mariah has always been open about her mental health, and has set firm boundaries to work smarter instead of grinding herself into the ground.
Where other companies would zig, we zagged.
It’s natural to think that the best way to become one of the fastest growing companies in America is to work around the clock, doing more, more, more and never resting until the job is done.
When that method became physically and mentally impossible for Mariah, it was time to lean into the total opposite – which was totally terrifying.
That new way of doing business looked like MORE rest when others would work around the clock.
Going all in on evergreen in a world that romanticizes the thrill of the live launch roller coaster.
Constantly looking for ways to provide deep, mind-blowing value WITHOUT sacrificing mental health.
Mariah’s leadership might be unconventional, but it turns out her ability to challenge the company to do things differently has become one of our ultimate superpowers.
5. And oh, did we mention there was a global pandemic?
Yeah, we should probably mention this one too.
Despite a global pandemic, we continued to grow our revenue despite the odds.
Like every other business out there, 2020 sent us scrambling.
Back when the pandemic first arrived, we were planning a huge in-person event and had even sold actual tickets.
As was the case for so many other events, we had to shut it all down and refund everyone’s tickets.
As if that reality wasn’t disappointing enough, we had a panic-inducing question on our hands.
Where the heck was the revenue going to come from now?