Episode 2: When Plans Change— Embracing the Detours that Lead to Destiny with Sean Garner
“As you build up you, you do things at a level of excellence that the world is attracted to.” —Sean Garner
Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Shatterproof Entrepreneur Podcast, where every episode is a celebration of the unbeatable spirit within you!
Through captivating conversations and powerful narratives, we invite you to a world where challenges meet their match, and where every listener becomes a co-pilot on the journey to breaking boundaries and achieving great heights.
As we kick things off today, we are thrilled to introduce Sean Garner, an entrepreneur who has worn many hats, from youth pastor to firefighter to fitness coach. Through his marketing agency, he leverages his experience and skills to help other business owners dominate their industries.
Listen in as your host, Scott, interviews Sean about what it truly means to be a Shatterproof entrepreneur and the importance of having the ability to pivot, create a vision others don't see and do the work others won't, work with an access team, and put God first in your business.
Connect with Sean:
Sean Garner is a man on a mission to help small business owners GROW their businesses and DOMINATE their industry. He and his wife Courtney have been married for 17 years, have 3 amazing children, and run multiple businesses together.
Sean is a marketing consulting and Certified StoryBrand guide, helping businesses use storytelling marketing to better connect with customers and stand out online.
He is witty, energetic, and professional with a deep desire to help others achieve success. Sean's passion is to see people reach their full potential and he utilizes his gift of storytelling to do just that.
Connect with Courtney Garner (Well Spot IV):
Episode Highlights:
02:20 Owning Your Mark
08:14 Characteristics of a Shatterproof Entrepreneur
13:04 Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
22:40 Building a Recurring Revenue
26:49 Balancing Faith and Business
30:48 Set the Pace for the World as Christian Entrepreneurs
36:01 Faith-Based Business Strategies
Resources:
🎙️Get a Free Website Audit (competitor analysis, keyword rankings, etc…) with Sean:
— Just leave a review for The Shatterproof Entrepreneur Podcast, screenshot it, and send it to: sean@seangarner.co
The Shatterproof Entrepreneur premier episode with your host, @reiblaw, drops today! Join this insightful conversation with our first guest, @CoachSeanG, as he shares his inspiring story of persevering through many career changes to find his calling and how his faith has guided his entrepreneurial journey. #Podcast #PodcastLaunch #TheShatterproofEntrepreneur #entrepreneurialjourney #MarketingDomination #FaithDrivenBusiness
#OnlineMarketingStrategy #BrandMessaging #MarketingFunnels
Quotes:
07:04 “Everything that we do is to establish the Kingdom. God gives people the power to establish wealth to establish His covenant. It's not just about what I can do for me and my family, but what are we doing that's going to have that eternal intimate impact.” —Sean Garner
10:10 “Being that shatterproof entrepreneur, you have to be able to pivot. Sometimes, people are so attached and in love with their product that they try to force that into other people's throats. Don't fall in love with your product, fall in love with your customers. And whenever you love your customers and the people that you're called to serve, you create products that benefit and serve them.” —Sean Garner
12:57 “A [shatterproof] entrepreneur always has great vision, they're able to see opportunities or a different way of doing things, and they're able to take action on that.” —Sean Garner
13:10 “People think they need to build [a business philosophy] before they try to sell it. And you have to reverse that. Don't use all your resources, building something that no one wants.” —Scott Reib
15:28 “We don't make decisions based upon personal preference or emotion, we use data.” —Sean Garner
25:15 “Almost every business can create some type or some level of recurring revenue… if you think about it from a different perspective.” —Sean Graner
26:19 “Being shatterproof isn't just about business, it's about health and wellness, and you need to be able to take care of yourself so that you can stay in the game.” —Scott Reib
27:36 “Sometimes, you got to do what you got to do. That's not what you want to be doing, but that's how you get a business going.” —Scott Reib
30:41 “If you've been giving it your all and nothing's been happening, you missed a pivot opportunity. You should be walking in wisdom to know when to make those moves.” —Sean Graner
32:16 “The problem is people trying to take something of the world, and Christianize it, instead of Christian business leaders setting the pace and setting the tone that the world has to catch up and follow.” —Sean Garner
34:43 “As you build up you, you do things at a level of excellence that the world is attracted to.” —Sean Garner
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Transcript:
Scott Reib: Welcome back to The Shatterproof Entrepreneur. I am here with my good friend, Sean Garner.
Welcome to the Shatterproof room.
Sean Garner: I'm excited about this man. We've known each other for a very, very long time. You've been with me along, say, most of my entrepreneurial journey, so it's cool that you're here and doing this.
Scott Reib: Yeah. So tell everyone that's listening to who you are, and what you do in the world.
Sean Garner: My name is Sean Garner. I would say I'm a husband, father and faith based or Christian entrepreneur. And the main thing that my wife and I do is I own a marketing agency. She runs a functional medicine practice. And then together, we work with an IV therapy lounge that we just built. But based in God's country of Owasso, Oklahoma just helping small business owners dominate their industry.
Scott Reib: Yeah, it's so fun having you on the show. Because we go back several years, and then we just have all kinds of connections, Sean mentioned a while. So that's where I grew up, classes of 87. Sean's got a wonderful, beautiful wife, Courtney. He, like me, married way outside of his coverage, and they are killing it. It's so much fun to see people doing life and being successful. They've got three great kids. It's so fun to watch you guys live life, and to be able to do life with you. And so thanks for coming on the show. Let's talk a little bit about business and we're facing business intersections. So you got a little bit of an interesting journey. At one point, you're a firefighter, right? So you were a firefighter, then you went to the fitness industry, and then a coach for fitness people. I saw some of those results, and you help some people do some really cool things. And now, you've made a transition to doing more consulting and marketing based things with all kinds of business owners. So tell us how you made this transition? And maybe what motivated you to make the shift?
Sean Garner: I'll go back even further than that. But I'm gonna rapid fire this. I would have had probably about 37 different jobs. So my wife and I, we've been married almost 19 years. We got married at 19. We've been together dating and everything over half our lives. I started out where I think now, and this will bring all ties into the end with some clarity here. But actually started out whenever we got married at 19 as a youth pastor. What's the College of your youth pastor, and I thought that was what I was going to do. Ended up taking a ministry job and having to move across the state as a young married couple. As soon as I got here, they didn't have any funding for me. I had to find another job, hated it, and transitioned through so many different jobs. I was a dishwasher at a restaurant. I was a restaurant manager, hated that. And one day I was having a horrible day at work, called my friend. He said, I got the greatest job in the world. I'm a firefighter. So I went through that. That's a long story of a process that has led to becoming a firefighter, and did that for about five years. That led me into working on my own personal fitness.
Because growing up, I was this skinny, video game dork, skateboard kid. Didn't really play any sports, never worked out really until I trained to be a firefighter. So that got me into fitness which led me to put on a whole lot of weight in a good way and gain some muscle on myself. Got to the fitness industry really big. We own several gyms. We moved to Miami and I did a lot of stuff in the online fitness world. Managed some big luxury gyms out there, and got me into having created my own online fitness brand. I start having my friends and colleagues say, hey, can you help me do that? And I was like, well yeah. Absolutely. That started the fitness business coaching side of things where we are helping gym owners, personal trainers start their online personal brand. What I realized from that is I love the fitness industry, and I'm thankful for that. But I don't love the fitness industry at the same time. I think that there's a lot of just vain ego, and it's a super hyper sexualized industry to where people from a consumer standpoint often are more attracted to the flashy, if you scroll through Instagram, you see that it's just like, honestly, a bunch of half naked people. And that stuff, unfortunately, in that industry sells. I was just getting frustrated with the feeling that is working with having clients that that's what they wanted is in essence, I remember one of the things that made me just shake is, I was like working on some client campaigns. And my family's like, well, who are these pictures? Why do you have this stuff? It's like they're their clients and it wasn't anything hyper inappropriate, but had my kids see that stuff of me working on that. That's weird. I'm like, okay, that's weird. That is not weird to me anymore, that this just became part of my job and everything. So that's what led me to start transitioning into working with other businesses.
Actually, you and my wife helped with that, whether you knew it or not. So I remember that I was talking with her and she was getting ready to launch a new medical clinic. Our conversations because you've been with us for all the different businesses that we've owned and everything, and seeing the things that I was doing with them and the success and like, well, it's working for finance. We would work for this industry, or would work for this industry. My wife is getting ready to open up her own medical practice. She's like, well, why don't you just do all the marketing for my medical practice. If it works for them, of course, it could work for other people because it's just strategies. So I started doing that, and that led to my wife's practice. Got very successful and showed me other opportunities for building my skill set. Instead of just fitness, we started diving down the world of marketing funnels, SEO and content marketing, all that good stuff. And so that's what it has evolved into now to where it is now. We are a small business marketing agency, and the businesses that we love working with are service based professional businesses. So man, if your business wants to book, call schedule appointments, book assessments or anything like that. We are your guys, and we will crush it for you if you want to stand out as the industry leader and dominate. Well, that's the journey. Like I said, I was gonna bring it in full circle. The other aspect with this is I went to college to be a youth pastor. Though I was done with ministry, I always felt this calling with it. Well, now I'm actually back in ministry training school at my church. I'm going through the middle of it, it's called Gotech school of ministry. It's a two year program. I just finished my first semester with that. The track that I'm on is, and this is why I'm super pumped about what you got going on. Now, the whole track that I'm on is building a Business for the Kingdom. And so it's ministry training for business owners.
So as we're going through and learning it, there's people that are in the class and programs that, yes, some of them want to go to be missionaries, some of them want to plant a church, some of them want to go work in the local church. But there's another tract that's business. So as we're learning these things and studying the Word in Scripture and everything, it's like, okay, well, this is how this could apply to local church ministry. This is how it could apply for leadership in your small business. Because that's ultimately, I think, obviously, the big picture goal for people like you and I, everything that we do is to establish a kingdom. God gives people the power, establish wealth to establish his government. That's why he gave us these things so we can just get, get, get, get, get. But it's like, well, how can we expand the kingdom? How can we bless and help other people with the things that we've been given? Because it's not just about what I can do for me and my family. But what are we actually doing that's going to have that eternal (inaudible) back?
Scott Reib: I love that, Sean. I've been able to walk through this with you and dream some of these dreams with you guys. And it's so fun when the dream is, I think this is when you have a big opportunity in front of you that could mean lots of dollars. And you're not thinking about the houses. We can buy the cars, but how can we use that money to put in God's hands and build the kingdom? Those are fun business conversations to have. You mentioned that we've worked together, so you guys have been access members in my access to coaching program for, I guess about five years. It's gone fast. But could you talk a little bit about that experience? What's it like having an access team to be part of your business?
Sean Garner: I think that I'm spoiled with it, probably. Because I'll often be having conversations with my client and I'm like, okay, well, let's say we're building a new website for. Okay, well, cool. Just have your attorney update your terms and conditions. And then you're going to need to get some new operating agreements and everything set up as we're building out the back end of their funnels. And we're like, well, I don't have an attorney. Well, I use one for setting up my LLC, maybe I can just reach out to them and like, oh, my God, he wanted to charge me like $5,000 to write all these docs and stuff with me. I'm like, you don't have a guy, I got a guy. And so it's cool just to be able to know that everything is taken care of. I don't have to worry about it, like I got this question. Like maybe it's an iffy situation, do I really need to sign this contract? Or is it really wise like, I don't have to worry about getting nickeled, dimed and everything. I know that all my legal stuff is covered by a man of God and by an amazing team, and everything is going to take care of everything for us. We don't have to walk in the gray areas. We just know everything is getting taken care of from Courtney and her medical practice with expenses, waivers and stuff, and consent forms for that with the new (inaudible) is a business that we've opened up with looking over real estate contracts for us. You've helped us with all of our different businesses. If other people were doing or trying to find somebody that is doing similar to what you're doing as an access member, they would have to have almost multiple subscriptions. I've got one subscription for this business and another for this business. But by being an access member with the different levels that you provide, you can get everything taken care of so your business is safe. How unfortunate would it be to have somebody that is built something from nothing, and they lose it all just because they made, not anything that they did malicious, but they just left themselves exposed. Don't do that.
Scott Reib: That's awesome. I'm all about shatterproof in businesses and building businesses that will bend and not break. I mean, businesses that have a legacy. What would be some characteristics of a shatterproof entrepreneur?
Sean Garner: Man, I think that one of the things I just saw being that shatterproof entrepreneur is you have to be able to pivot. I think sometimes, people get it from, from my perspective, from the marketing world. Sometimes, people are so attached and in love with their product that they try to force that into other people's throat instead of learning how to pivot and fall in love, my belief is you don't fall in love with your product. You fall in love with your customers. And whenever you love your customers and the people that you're called to serve, well, then you create products that actually benefit and serve them. The businesses that I see struggle are they created this amazing thing. And now, they're trying to find the right people to buy the thing instead of creating an amazing community or people that you're called to serve, and then find out how you can actually serve them. You create products and services based upon those people. Because I think that's a big mistake that entrepreneurs get in is like, well, no, this is the thing. Everybody wants this thing, but nobody's buying the thing. So the analogy that we use in our world all the time is that the Field of Dreams, if you build it, will come. But that is not true. It doesn't matter.
I know so many people that they spend all this money developing this great website. They might have the world's greatest product at whatever it is, but they've done zero research to find out if the people in the community that they have already surrounded themselves with, their existing current customers even actually want it. So in order to be that good shatterproof entrepreneur, the first thing is you have to be able to adapt and be able to see those things before they happen. What I think makes a good entrepreneur is somebody that sees things that others can't, and does things that others either aren't willing to or able to. So an entrepreneur always has a really great vision. They're able to see opportunities or different ways of doing things that most people wouldn't see from that perspective.
And the second thing is they're able to actually take action on that. Because maybe they do have a skill set that they've developed in the back, oh, this is how I can apply this skill set to this situation. I just saw my wife, for example, they've got a specialty degree, they're in medicine or something like that where they got a special field, they got a degree in or the big one. And this is where I feel like I thrive with the grit aspect of it if you're willing to do things that others aren't. If I show you the behind the curtain here and all the magic tricks, there's nothing that I have done that anyone else couldn't do. But I have been willing and able to probably make a lot more personal sacrifices as far as time. Most of the time, it's sleep, to go out and push myself to make those things happen. Because I think that that's just one of those things that is in aid inside of an entrepreneur that's really good as they're willing to just suck it up and have that grit and push through. But that's my overview of what I think makes a good entrepreneur. They see things others can't, and they do things others (inaudible).
Scott Reib: Wow, that's really good. In my book, The Shatterproof Entrepreneur, we talked about that field of dreams, philosophy, your business philosophy. Because suddenly, people think they need to build it before they try to sell it. And you really have to kind of reverse that. You need to have the idea, maybe flesh it out a little bit, but then find out if the marketplace even wants it. And if you've got a community like Sean's built over the years, you can reach out to the community and ask questions before you build it. Is this something you'd be interested in? Don't use all your resources building something that no one wants. I work a lot with the online space and building programs to sell and all this stuff, and you don't want to build the whole program and then find out that no one's willing to pay for it. So yeah, that Field of Dreams, great movie, not a good business philosophy. So make sure that you're not building things that people don't want. Let's talk about what you've been building recently, which is the marketing domination package. That's kind of been the news you've done.
Sean Garner: That's like the bread and butter of what our agency sells. So the main three pillars that we do is, one, we're a certified story brand guide. I am a huge fan of Donald Miller, Business Made Simple, and the StoryBrand framework. We're actually certified as a StoryBrand Guide. So what we do is we help our customers create really clear brand messaging so they can use that across all their marketing or sales teams, internal communication and all that. So the three main things that we do is that story brand messaging. We help businesses clarify their message so they stand out online. Second thing that we do is we build websites. So websites marketing funnels, and we build out all the backend automations and everything to support that. And then the third thing that we do is just one on one consulting. So coming in work as a fractional CMO, help with SEO strategy implementation and all of that stuff. Well, what we've done with marketing domination is we've combined all of that into one package that just serves small business owners to help them stand out online and just truly dominate their industry. So we do everything from them from creating their brand messaging, building out a complete marketing funnel with websites, lead generators, email campaigns sequences, and we help build our fill that funnel with SEO content marketing. We help with podcast production so they will be able to do their video podcast. We cut it up, split it into clips, turn that into blog articles and social content, and then we optimize everything going forward. Because with today's world and all of the tools that are available, people really don't have to guess with marketing anymore. There's so many data points that are out there.
I always tell my clients that we don't make decisions based upon personal preference or emotion, we use data. So that's awesome. I love that you want this button to be a certain color, or you want to use this headline. Let's split the two, let's do a split death and let's find out which one works. And then we're gonna go with that one. Because at the end of the day, I'm all about this. And that's ultimately what clients are paying us for is results. So if we're not getting results, I don't care how greedy something works. I care if it works. So we're all about getting results. What small business domination is, it's helping businesses honestly truly dominate. I tell whenever I'm on sales calls with clients, if you have a, let's say, a contractor business, and you are just looking for a couple of more leads. We're probably not the agency for you. There's lots of agencies that will go out there and might help you get a few more Google reviews. If you, however, are a contractor and you want to stand out, you want to be the industry leader and you want people to see you as like, man, you're the world's greatest.
Maybe you want to start a video podcast, you want to be number one on Google. You want to get tons of Google reviews. You wanna have an awesome marketing funnel that's getting leads and stuff for you while you sleep, then we're the right agency for you. Because we really want you to stand out in your industry and not just be, oh, he's kind of good. I want to work with a best small business attorney. I want to work with the best functional medicine provider and the people that want that for themselves. Because honestly, with the strategies that we use, it's so much easier to get results for those people when they actually want it. The similar analogy would be working with somebody for fitness. I use a lot of fitness analogies. It'd be working with somebody that is thinking about maybe starting to work out and somebody that has a specific goal. I want to run a 5k in 12 weeks, those are the people you want to work with. They are very driven, very focused towards what they want to do. And yeah, we help them dominate with small business domination.
Scott Reib: Wow. So what kind of results should people that work with you be expecting?
Sean Garner: I don't want to make up a standard, oh, you're gonna see 123% increase. Because honestly, it depends on where you're at with your business. I would say that the majority of the businesses that we work with, they have typically been in business for several years. There's two categories. One, they've been in business for several years, and they built their website when they originally launched their business. Its outdated contents have not been updated. There's a lot of things that they haven't even submitted their website to Google, for example, because people don't realize you have to do that. They probably had their cousin Fred building their website whenever they first launched, and there's no true system in place. They have individual pieces, but they don't have a true marketing funnel. So those people were obviously able to get a quick turnaround because they already have some type of existing web presence. And we get to go in there, and we get to clean up and optimize it, start doing SEO, helping them with a content strategy, helping them to actually build and establish a brand creating new brand guidelines with logos, assets and stuff like that. So professionalize and level up what they've already been doing. Those people, obviously, we get great results. We're the other one, again, showing behind the curtain is where a lot of marketing agencies pad the stats in their favor. I got this person a 500% increase in their traffic. Because we do that all the time. But it's because they had nothing to start with and they were a brand new business. A lot of the businesses that we work with also, it's a brand new startup. I would say those businesses that are brand new, this is typically the entrepreneurs second business. So they have a primary business that they've already run, and they're wanting to start another branch of the company, or they're wanting to create.
For example, she may have had medical practice, and now she wants to start an IV lab. So we've got something else that's coming with it. Because I will say this. I think a lot of businesses talked about being shatterproof earlier. They are underfunded. And so if you think and you haven't tested your product out and you're gonna hire this awesome marketing agency to come do all the marketing for you, we're gonna get everybody to see your product and to view it as, you, the industry leader. But if your product hasn't been thoroughly tested and you're not actually good at what you do, we can't help you retain those clients. So typically, if a business is a brand new startup, and this isn't entrepreneurs first business unless they're really well funded, that's also probably not a really good fit for us just because I could easily take their money and get them all this leads, traffic and stuff. But for what we do, it would be much better if they maybe just started out with just a website for us. We just build their marketing funnel and they're not like a full marketing domination client.
Scott Reib: So let's talk about the difference. Because like you said, you'll build someone once a website. But that's not the same as marketing domination. That's a one time transaction, and they're paying you a certain dollar amount for a website. You deliver it, and then you're done. With marketing, domination, my understanding of how, you're basically forming a partnership with them to become their marketing team. You need input from them as the business owner, but you're doing the hard work. You're making sure that the websites are working. The blog posts are right that their email marketing, or all that stuff's working together cohesively to build a strong, dominating brand, correct?
Sean Garner: Yeah. That's why I said that we have different sides of the business. One aspect is building websites, funnels and brand messaging. If you just want that, that's 100% for any business owner because all of them need that to specially get started. You need that in your online presence and everything. You need a really good website with really clear messaging, and you need the back end funnel to support it. What marketing domination is, is that plus an entire marketing agency and support team working for your business for less than the price of the full time employee. So you get a full agency. So this is great for small business owners that, maybe they've got five or less employees, or they don't have that full time person devoted to their marketing efforts. We come in, and they partner up with me and my team. And so I work with you, the small business owner as your fractional CMO. I'm there to help provide overall marketing strategy, get approval from you in essence, kind of like your employee like, hey, boss, here's the strategy. Here's a plan. This is what we want to do. You tell me to go, and then I go to my team and we execute. We're going to be doing monthly check in calls to review all your marketing data so you don't have to guess anymore about marketing with marketing domination. It's all done for you by our team. So it's not just presenting your ideas. And then, hey, Scott, go figure this out. Go make it happen. It's like, hey, Scott, this is what we're doing. Here's the strategy, here's the data. Can we do this? Cool. And then we get executed on it. As a small business owner, our goal with small business domination is you should just worry about doing what you do to your craft and servicing your clients. And let us handle all the marketing.
Scott Reib: Wow. Okay, so do you charge by the hour for that kind of a service to be their CMO?
Sean Garner: That's a great question. So it's an average monthly retainer. Very similar to the access program. You hire Sean Garner Consulting as your marketing domination agency, and you get access to us just like you do with Scott and the access plan. Same thing with us. What I tell my clients is that your business happens in real time. You don't need to be like, oh, I gotta wait another month before I can talk to the agency again to see if we can get these changes made. All of our clients have an internal communication portal where they can message us directly, and we can get changes. I tell clients for one week. But honestly, we do things in like less than 24 hours. I always set the expectation that you get direct communication with us in our team. And the other thing with it is I'm very blessed to have an awesome team that we've been building out. I say that we're kind of like the Navy Seals of marketing because we're a small team, but we're very, very powerful. We can do a lot. But our clients, they never deal with anybody but me. So I am your go to contact point. So it's not like you're hiring some coaching business, and it's like this figurehead behind it. You're talking to all these people that work underneath him. He hires Sean Garner Consulting. I've got my whole thing that's gonna be executing everything. So you got one point of contact that you were speaking to communicate who knows and understands your business. And then I've got this amazing team that will go and execute on everything for you.
Scott Reib: Yeah. And so by having the retainer system, you've got monthly recurring revenue, right? How do you like that?
Sean Garner: That's very awesome. I think that every business needs to do that. Marketing domination kind of evolves as the relationship evolves with the client. It kind of starts teetering. Sometimes less on, hey, we kind of got the marketing set up. But now, let's look at some of your operations and your systems that you have in place. So the longer that we're with a client, it becomes less about marketing. Because once we get things set up and our relationships established, they start trusting us so they kind of almost just let us have free rein once we've proven the results that we get for people. The approval process is like, hey, are you cool with this? Yeah, man. I trust you. I got several clients that say, hey, you don't even need to send me that anymore. Just do what you need to do. Awesome. And then our calls go more on to the offer side creating your offer and building our eternal system, internal systems and stuff. Because yeah, there's so many businesses that are going after those one off call lines and everything. It's like a feast or famine sometimes. Because sometimes, we get a whole lot of leads this month and a lot of new clients. And then next month, nobody came in. So we don't have any revenue like other really difficult business models. And I think that it takes a level of creativity. But almost every business can create some type or some level of recurring revenue. My wife owns a medical practice, and they're growing revenue. We open up an IV therapy business, it's got recurring revenue with a membership model. Everything can do that if you think about it from a different perspective.
Scott Reib: So your wife, Courtney, just started the wealth spot right there in a while. So Oklahoma, she has a subscription there for IV therapy. So if you're anywhere close, you should go there. We'll put a link in the show notes to the wealth spot. And then she has restored your wellness, which is her medical side of it. I need to have her on the show so she can talk about this stuff. But it's a subscription portion as well so that you can be proactive with your health. I'm a part of that. I have my own concierge medical provider, and it's amazing. I don't just have my own subscription plan. I use other people's subscriptions because I think it gives you really, really leveraged access to the experts that you need to live a better life. Being shatterproof isn't just about business, it's about health and wellness. You need to be able to take care of yourself so that you can stay in the game. I know Sean talked about earlier that he was willing to do things that everyone else isn't. I got the watch while he was working full time in a very, very cool fitness place. And then working at night building his coaching business. Eventually, there's a price to pay. You got sick because you burned it at both ends. You got really sick even with a wife that can take care of that stuff. So yeah, you can do that. You can grind it hard.
I've always taken a lot of pride in myself that no one can outwork me. Not be smarter than me. You might have more resources than I have, but no one can outwork me. That's why I applied to law school. I applied it when I started my law firm, and I've seen you do it. A lot of other people in our network, there's a price to be paid for success. And every time you say yes to something, you're gonna say no to something else. And so sometimes, there's gonna be some conflict and your health could take a hit. We don't want you to do that so try to work smarter if you can. But there's just gonna be some hard work involved if you want to have success. Because we're five hours apart, but I want you guys to set up the wall spot. And man, you were up there putting furniture together. Sometimes, you gotta do what you got to do. That's not what you want to be doing. But that's how you get a business going. You're up there turning the screwdrivers and doing the hanging pictures and building desks. And yeah, maybe if you're listening to us and you're somewhere in your entrepreneurial journey where you're still bootstrapping it, you're trying to make it work and you're having to do things that you don't love to do, it's part of the journey. I would encourage you to work hard now, and then work smart later. Try to get out of some of these boxes that don't aren't fulfilling so you can be doing the things that you're passionate about. It's so fun to see Sean now because he's in a zone where he's so passionate about what he's doing. He's not doing what was just in front of them. When you were doing the fitness stuff, it was a natural fit because you were good at it. You'd built some great fitness businesses so it was easy to help people because you knew what to do. But it didn't let you up. That wasn't your passion. And now, you're in the marketing domination and helping these companies dominate the marketing like you used to when you were the fitness guy.
I mean, you're on Men's Fitness Magazine. It's so cool to see you doing that, and then going back to school to bring the ministry back in so that your faith and business can intersect in a real way. We talked a little bit before we went live about how sometimes if you're a Christian business owner, you feel like you have to walk carefully about not saying things that might offend people. And told you that I'm kind of at a point we're not gonna do that anymore. Sean and I both are Christ's followers, and that's what we're trying to do. We're not perfect by far, but that's who we are and what we're doing. And one of the things that you'll hear a lot of Christian business owners say is that they put God first in their life and their business. It's kind of a popular thing to say. What does that mean to you, Sean? How do you put God first?
Sean Garner: Okay. I want to talk about everything that you just said is really great, because there's a lot of things. First off, even this last week, we got a new sign up for the wellness plan up there till 2:00 AM putting it together. Second thing is if you ask even the people that are selling courses and stuff like, oh, we're you're like 100k, 90 days and stuff like that. If you actually ask them and they had an honest conversation with them, you ask them, was it easy? We're gonna tell you now that they're trying to sell a shortcut and easier path to do it. But none of them, if they actually admitted it, would say, oh, no, it just came easy for me. I didn't have to work hard at all,and just two things. Who will tie the Bible back into this year? One, you need to walk in wisdom. And so you really need to understand that, yes, this is going to be a requirement. But it should not be your constant struggle. If you have been working at something for a long period of time, and it's not getting better? That's what we talked about earlier about what makes a shatterproof entrepreneur, you need to be able to recognise that because there is a level of grind, work and sacrifice that will need to be happening in order to reach those goals.
But man, if you've been in it for a while, and I'm not talking for a long period of time. It's been 30 days. Maybe you've been doing something for several years consistently, and you haven't had a breakthrough. Man, you've definitely probably missed a pivot opportunity. Because if you've actually been giving it your all and nothing's been happening, you missed the pivot opportunity, you should have been walking with them to know when to make those moves. The second thing, and then this is where I personally just like you, I took that as a symbol of pride. I can outwork anybody about me. This is what I can do. Problem is as entrepreneurs, especially as Christian entrepreneurs, if we let that become our identity instead of who we are in Christ, because my identity became, I cannot work for anybody. Nobody can come at me. And that's what I took on almost as a sense of pride for myself, which by law has left things to say about pride. If we take that badge of honor of our grind and our sacrifice for those things for our business, and we let that become our identity? Man, that's where we can get down to a whole other slippery slope of getting into crisis and losing who we are in Christ. Everything, your whole life can come apart on that side. What does it mean to put God first in your business?
I thought about this a lot, especially as I've been pivoting the past couple of years to this marketing agency. What kind of businesses do I want to work with instead of do I want to be. I only work with Christian business owners, and that's what we do. We're going to be Kingdom marketing or something like that. Nothing against that. But that's not the path that I necessarily want to take. Whenever I was in the fitness industry, really, I was in hundreds of faith, fitness and Christian fitness organisations and stuff like that. And the problem that I have with things like that is people trying to take something of the world and Christianize it instead of just the Christian business leaders setting the pace and setting the tone that the world has to catch up and follow. So for me, whenever it comes to being a marketing agency owner, I don't want to be a Christian focused marketing agency owner. I want to be the world's greatest marketing agency owner, because that's what God's called me to be. He's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness so why would I want to settle for mediocrity in my business? Why would I want to try and do business like the world does when I've got an awesome book right here that gives me everything I need as far as wisdom, and everything that I need to do to walk out a different way. We're called for new and greater things. I think that what happens to many business owners, they try to take what the world does and put the Christian spin on it. It leads to not the level of success that we're actually called to view. I think that as the kingdom entrepreneurs, we should be setting the pace for the rest of the world to catch up.
So for me, how I run my business is I want to be like Chick-fil-A. Everybody pretty knows that Chick-fil-A is a Christian based company. The people that come there, they don't really care if it's Christian or not because they make the world's greatest chicken sandwich. Show people that they are still gonna go there because it's an awesome product that they're delivering. And then the people that are Christian and faith based, they want to support it even more because of that. That's what I want to be with, with what I do and building the businesses for the kingdom. I just want to be so great at those that I'm dominating every industry that I'm a part of, that people are just naturally attracted to that just because of the level of excellence that I'm delivering and walking in. And then I do that because of who I am in Christ, that's to me what putting God first in your business means like. You got to take care of yourself, and you got to build up your own spirit. You got to grind. You need to be spending the first part of your day in the word and in prayer, and having periods of time where you're fasting and everything. Really truly seeking God every single day in what you do. Matthew 6:33, seek first the kingdom of God, and then all these things will be added to you. People try to do the exact opposite. They go after the thing and, okay, God, where are you? Right over here, but you got to seek him. Things will be added to you. So to me, that's what it is as you build up. You do things at a level of excellence that the world is attracted to. These are the things we're called to be. And so if we're doing those things, our businesses are going to thrive, our relationships with our families are going to thrive. Financially, we're going to be blessed to prosper. Usually, we're gonna grow, all those things will be happening. That's what the world will be attracted to.
Scott Reib: Wow, that's good stuff. Where can people connect with you? Where would you like them to find you?
Sean Garner: The best place to be, honestly, just the website. So seangarner.co. There, we got tons of cool free resources. We got a free marketing assessment. So go in there. If you're a small business owner and you want to say, well, how's my marketing actually stacked up? We got a really cool tool. You go in there, spend about three minutes plugging in some information about your business that actually generates a customized marketing report for you. It's huge. Just give me about a 40 page report, it's gonna give you like the next three things that you need to attack when it comes to your marketing. So no more guesswork like, should I build a website right now? Or do I need to focus on social strategy? Go through that, and it's going to generate a custom report just for you and your business. Show you the next three things that you need to do for your business to make it grow. Maybe this Sean guy could help me dominate my business? Yeah, go to the website, seangarner.co. Schedule, call me and let's see if it's gonna be a good fit so we can help you grow and dominate.
Scott Reib: I've done that assessment. It's very valuable. So take Sean up on that, go get that free assessment. You won't be sorry that you did that. It's a good time for that. Whether it be in December. What could you be doing differently in January if you do that assessment? So take advantage of that free offer? Thanks, Sean.
Sean Garner: Hold on, let's one up real quick. Anybody that hears it on Scott Reib's Podcast right here, whenever your marketing report gets sent to me, send me an email, go to the website. It's just Sean, S-E-A-N, seangarner.co. Send me an email that you heard this podcast episode, and I will give everybody that listens to this podcast episode a free website audit. So I'll dig into your current website. I'll pull up all your competitor analysis, all the keyword rankings, but there's a caveat to it. Got at least a review on his podcast and screenshot that in the email. I'll give you a free whole fight on it and everything. The free college is with me. I'll show you all the opportunities you're missing. Low hanging fruit things that you go over to grow your business.
Scott Reib: He blew me away as usual. Thanks, Sean. I really appreciate that. The final thing I want you to do as we exit the shatterproof room is that, I want you to look into camera until that entrepreneur out there that's maybe struggling today. Maybe they're not feeling very shatterproof, what advice would you give them to get through that and to have an impact in their industry?
Sean Garner: If you are struggling right now as an entrepreneur and you are wondering what your next step is, the thing that I speak every single day is Proverbs 3:5,6, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and HE will direct your path. Stop trying to figure it out on your own knowledge, on your own wisdom. Seek God, put Him first just like Matthew 6:33, and then all of these things will be added to you. So if you're struggling, it's probably because you're trying to do it your own way and not God's way.
Scott Reib: Good stuff. But Sean, I want to leave you with a blessing. May the road rise to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. May the rain fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand. Thank you for being a part of this, and thanks for being in the shatterproof room. Everyone listening, can't wait to see you on the next episode of The Shatterproof Entrepreneur.