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He Built a Thriving Business Without Funnels, Ads, or a Big Team
0 Playsin 21 hours
In this episode, Ken Freire sits down with Todd Linder to explore the hidden value ministry leaders bring into the marketplace—and why so many of them struggle to communicate that value when searching for a new role. Todd shares his own transition out of church work, how that journey led him to build Launch Point, and the simple business principles that helped him grow a niche coaching company through trust, LinkedIn, and word of mouth.
Resources Mentioned
- Launch Point — https://www.launchpoint.co/
Timestamps
- 00:01 - 02:17 | What Todd does and why ministry leaders get overlooked
Todd explains how he helps pastors and ministry staff translate their experience so they can land roles in the marketplace. - 02:17 - 11:14 | Todd’s origin story: from church staff to career coach
He shares his own difficult transition out of a large Atlanta church, his move into HR, and the LinkedIn post that revealed a major unmet need. - 11:14 - 13:31 | How Launch Point helps clients get hired
Todd breaks down his process: career clarity, translating experience, optimizing resumes and LinkedIn, networking strategically, and negotiating offers. - 13:31 - 18:04 | Finding clients in a niche market through LinkedIn
Ken and Todd discuss why LinkedIn became the natural top-of-funnel channel and how a clear niche message in Todd’s headline helps the right people find him. - 18:04 - 22:24 | The cost of ‘guru garbage’ and why integrity matters
Todd reflects on buying into overpriced coaching promises, while Ken shares why he started the podcast to spotlight operators who get real results. - 22:24 - 30:08 | Practical business advice: simplicity, sustainability, and word of mouth
Todd explains why founders should avoid frantic experimentation, keep marketing simple, focus on serving clients well, and celebrate wins publicly. - 30:08 - 32:54 | Honest marketing vs. hype
Todd talks about resisting the temptation to market with outlier success stories and why protecting a good name matters more than flashy promises. - 32:54 - 41:19 | Fast Five: delegation, product, AI, coaching, and legacy
In the closing segment, Todd shares what he’s experimenting with, how AI is reshaping coaching, and the family-centered legacy he hopes to leave behind.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:01
Ken Freire
Welcome back to another episode of Solo Scaled, podcast of the AI-driven marketer. And today am with Todd Linder. Todd, welcome to the show, man.
00:00:11
Todd Linder
Thanks, Ken. Thanks for having me, man.
00:00:12
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:00:13
Todd Linder
Good to be here.
00:00:14
Ken Freire
You know, Todd, I just realized I didn't ask if I know how to pronounce your last name properly. And I just said Linder. And I wonder, was like, yes.
00:00:20
Todd Linder
Spot on. Spot on. You got it.
00:00:24
Ken Freire
I was like, oh no, it might be Linder. Linder, uh-oh, just go with one. Be confident. Yeah.
Todd's Unique Business Explained
00:00:30
Ken Freire
Todd, I'm excited to have you on the podcast. We've been following each other on LinkedIn for a while now, connecting, engaging. I want people to know what you do because you do something very unique and I think very needed in today's world.
00:00:45
Todd Linder
Yeah, so I run a company that helps people who are coming out vocational ministry. So for context, that's if they work for a church as a pastor or as some sort of more administrative role in a church or in a non-church organization that is affiliated with religion in some way.
00:01:06
Todd Linder
My background is working for a church.
00:01:06
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:01:08
Todd Linder
So I help people who are transitioning out church, specifically ministry leaders who are transitioning out of that work, get jobs in the marketplace and do it without getting overlooked because of their ministry experience.
00:01:22
Todd Linder
Most of these leaders will get into conversations with someone and say, I wanna do something different. And a lot times they get the response, why? you like, and how, like you don't have any experience. uh, just helping them do that and communicate that better. So then getting the more interviews that lead offers.
00:01:41
Ken Freire
And that's what's fascinating is that most people, if they've never been in a ministry context, they don't realize how multifaceted someone is who's been in ministry. Because they're like, oh, you just talk to people and drink coffee with them.
00:01:53
Ken Freire
You actually don't know how to anything else outside of that. And it's like, No, most, especially come from a larger organization, you're like, they know how to run a P&L, they know how to run systems, they know how do all that stuff.
00:02:02
Ken Freire
So it's just structuring that.
00:02:02
Todd Linder
Mm-hmm.
Career Shift from Ministry to Marketplace
00:02:04
Ken Freire
I'm curious from you, Todd, how did the origin of this come about? Like where you're like, I really want to help marketplace or ministry people get into the marketplace.
00:02:12
Todd Linder
Yeah, that's a great question. I started my career working for a church. It's a large church in Atlanta. There's a kind of multifaceted, so there was like a event, a conference, there's a record label, there's a publishing arm, there's a church.
00:02:27
Todd Linder
So definitely wasn't what someone might think of, like church on the corner, 200 people show up on Sunday morning. It was
00:02:34
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:02:35
Todd Linder
It was a large operation for sure. And so I worked there for seven years right out of college. And I don't have a traditional biblical theological education. I just came from normal state school, didn't get a master's degree or anything, but really wanted to do something impactful with my life.
00:02:57
Todd Linder
And after about five years working at the church, just felt like I was not in the right place anymore. And think a lot of us feel this in our career.
00:03:06
Todd Linder
But something about working in a spiritual environment just made it a little bit more difficult to disassociate what I was doing and the purpose and the meaning from what I was doing with just getting
Challenges of Transitioning Beliefs
00:03:18
Todd Linder
a paycheck.
00:03:19
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:03:20
Todd Linder
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot your listeners have had that experience at some point another where some sort of work has felt more meaningful and than other types of work that they've done. But having that affiliation with doing eternal spiritual work was hard to unwrap and unravel and disassociate. So it took me actually probably a year to just unravel some unhelpful beliefs about work and what it means to work and why we work and how that integrates with faith. And then after undoing some of those things, it took me a whole nother year to find a job.
00:04:00
Todd Linder
And for some of the reason why we just mentioned at the beginning is I didn't know how to talk about what I did. didn't know how to explain it. I didn't even know what to look for next because I did so many things.
00:04:12
Todd Linder
at this church and I grew multiple different things within the church. And so knew I could do a lot. I just didn't know how to talk about it. I didn't know what job title would mean.
00:04:21
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:04:24
Todd Linder
And eventually I did end up landing a role though. And it was an HR job, primarily talent acquisition and some coaching consulting leaders on their people strategy at organization. It a mid-sized business, about a thousand employees nationwide.
00:04:41
Todd Linder
And I was the HR consultant, HR generalist hybrid for 13 different business units in the Northeast and the Midwest. And in that two years of doing that, I just learned lot about what hiring managers were looking for and who got jobs and who didn't jobs. And I started noticing it's actually not the people who are the most qualified who gets the job. It's actually the people who just communicate that they are the most qualified because perception is reality, not reality is reality.
Communicating Qualifications Effectively
00:05:16
Todd Linder
Oftentimes we've all worked with people who are like,
00:05:19
Todd Linder
how did you get that job? Like you kind of incompetent, but somebody liked you and you convinced somebody, right?
00:05:22
Ken Freire
Oh,
00:05:26
Ken Freire
yeah.
00:05:27
Todd Linder
And that's really like as much as we would like it to be more objective than that, that's really how it works in a lot ways. So I started realizing that. And then was working for this organization. It was elementary school fundraising organization.
00:05:43
Todd Linder
And then in 2020 COVID hits, All schools leave, like all kids are at home. And the way they did fundraising was through events on campus.
00:05:55
Ken Freire
Oh man.
00:05:55
Todd Linder
And so this business just shut down. And they survived, but I think they went 173 days without revenue. So like, think about that, any business owner, like think about $0 of a, it was close to $100 million a year business for one third of the year and, or a little bit over that, I guess, maybe like closer to a half of the year.
00:06:04
Ken Freire
That's brutal.
00:06:13
Ken Freire
Oh my gosh.
00:06:20
Todd Linder
And through that, I was furloughed through that. And the most interesting thing happened when I was furloughed, all these people started coming and asking me for career advice.
00:06:31
Todd Linder
Because I mean, everybody felt like almost everybody got laid off during COVID.
00:06:35
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:06:36
Todd Linder
And all these people started coming to me for career advice. And I did not realize was the career guy. And at first it was my friends. A lot of them were friends with ministry backgrounds. And then it was like my friends' friends that I didn't even know. And then a couple of people offered me money for my help. And I was like, huh, it was like a light bulb, like ding. wait, like I can make money doing this and I enjoy it. And apparently people think I'm pretty good at it.
00:07:01
Todd Linder
And so we started down that road of helping people get jobs full time in 2020, August 2020. And then March
00:07:13
Todd Linder
I was just, it was a Sunday. was lying in bed. I picked up my phone and looked at LinkedIn, which is probably a terrible habit. Don't do that. But that's the first thing that I did.
00:07:24
Todd Linder
And the first thing that popped up on my feed, still remember this guy's name. this guy posted that nobody was giving him interviews. And I clicked on his profile and he was a former executive pastor of a large church in North Carolina.
00:07:40
Todd Linder
And those of you guys who aren't familiar with like large church structure, executive pastor essentially is a chief operating officer. They do almost all of the same things.
00:07:49
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:07:51
Todd Linder
And this church I knew $52 million budget annually. So it's not like this guy was like, you're just hanging out one or two staff members. I think
Viral LinkedIn Post and Business Realization
00:08:03
Todd Linder
they had over 200 staff members. He was the COO.
00:08:07
Todd Linder
There were, I think, 12,000 or so people coming to one of their different locations every single Sunday. And he's lamenting on this post, no one would give him an interview.
00:08:18
Todd Linder
And something in me just boiled up. And I was like, that's complete crap. Yeah. I know this guy is super talented, has all this great experience. And so I just, on a Sunday morning, half asleep, wrote this emotional, like, if you see somebody with a ministry background on your resume and you overlook them, you're wrong. And here's 18 reasons why. just like all the main reasons that I believed someone with a ministry background brought a lot of value to
00:08:53
Todd Linder
any sort of corporate environment.
00:08:55
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:08:55
Todd Linder
And I hit post, didn't think about it, woke up the next morning and it had gone LinkedIn viral, which LinkedIn viral just basically means less viral than other platforms, but still like getting lots of traction.
00:09:05
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:09:07
Todd Linder
And that had never happened to me before. I was getting like one or two comments, maybe five likes on my posts. And I was just doing it more as like a trying to find my voice and what I doing here?
00:09:19
Todd Linder
And it like blew up. And I didn't really understand what it meant necessarily, but I had enough experience in business to know need to go ask these people what's resonating with them.
00:09:35
Todd Linder
And so just sent a DM to every single person who reposted, commented, most people that liked it. And mean, it had to be close to 800, 900, maybe a thousand messages that I sent out.
00:09:46
Todd Linder
Just copy and paste. I'm glad I didn't get shadow banned. Just copy and paste. Why did this post resonate with you? And of the people that responded, half of them said, made the transition you're talking about.
00:09:59
Todd Linder
And it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. And the other half said, I'm currently trying to make this transition it is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
00:10:12
Todd Linder
And it dawned on me, this is my story. Like I did this and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. But now I actually know how to do it. because I did it, then I hired a bunch people into it. And then in the last three years, I've been just helping people make transitions. So I just maybe try blending stuff together.
00:10:34
Todd Linder
And of that second group of people from that group came our first clients for what we're doing now. And now we've been doing this for almost three years. And we've helped as of today, 114 people make those transitions.
Coaching Model for Skill Translation
00:10:50
Ken Freire
And you specifically help them go from ministry, if they want to transition to the marketplace, you help them find a job, help them craft their resume a little bit.
00:10:50
Todd Linder
That's how we got here.
00:11:00
Todd Linder
Uh-huh.
00:11:00
Ken Freire
Maybe in 30 seconds, kind explain high level of all the stuff that you offer.
00:11:04
Todd Linder
Yeah, so it's a blend of career coaching and consulting. So it starts with figuring out what type of job you actually want to do and you have the experience to do.
00:11:15
Todd Linder
You have the skills, the experience, the wiring to do said job.
00:11:17
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:11:20
Todd Linder
Then we work on translating your experience into words and phrases that are gonna make sense to hiring managers because you can't say preach in an interview for a marketing job. Like that's not gonna work very well.
00:11:29
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:11:31
Todd Linder
It might, but it's probably not gonna work very well. Then it's taking the words and phrases that we translated and putting them into formats that are gonna help you get more interviews. So that's on your LinkedIn, your resume, cover letters, and how to write your story, how to craft your story so that it makes sense when someone says, wait, why are you leaving this job? You can say it in 30 seconds and like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Never mind, let's keep going. So busting that objection.
00:12:00
Todd Linder
And then learning how to play the job search game because you can't just apply anymore. If you apply cold, it's a 1% to 2%. The data shows it's a 1% to 2% chance of getting a job. No one wants to play 1% to 2% chance game.
00:12:16
Todd Linder
But have an introduction, it's closer to like 15 to 20% chance of getting an interview. So that's where we just help people to understand who are the people who are most likely to help you, what are the organizations that are for profit, but more likely to see your ministry background as a cultural asset or someone who understands what you bring to the table,
00:12:39
Todd Linder
with your competency, and then how do you actually convert conversations into interviews that lead to offers rather than just having networking conversations all day and nothing ever happens.
00:12:51
Todd Linder
We've all been there. You should talk to this person.
00:12:52
Ken Freire
Oh, yeah.
00:12:54
Todd Linder
You should talk to this person. And then we just had 10 coffees and nothing happened.
00:12:59
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:12:59
Todd Linder
So we help them through that entire process, even negotiating their offer because you don't negotiate your offer in ministry.
00:12:59
Ken Freire
And that's where...
00:13:04
Todd Linder
You're doing God's work.
00:13:05
Ken Freire
Yeah, exactly. And you feel so grimy to do it.
00:13:06
Todd Linder
But that's normal.
00:13:09
Ken Freire
And you're like, okay, Lord, this is what they have. And it's like, no, you probably could have negotiated it, but you just didn't know how to. So, okay, Tatsu, so that's super helpful for people.
00:13:15
Todd Linder
Yep.
00:13:19
Ken Freire
You're in a unique niche because this ministry people come with certain baggage or mindsets is a better word, actually. Mindsets of like, how do I get into the marketplace?
00:13:30
Ken Freire
You're helping them. And I also think about this is from a business standpoint of like, where do you find your people, right? Because it's not like you could just start like doing lead magnets or the normal traditional marketing routes because it's not like there's a pool somewhere or like a Facebook group of ministry people looking for jobs, right? Or maybe there isn't. I just haven't looked. Curious, how did you find ways to start growing your business and getting clients?
Marketing Strategy and Growth
00:13:58
Todd Linder
Yeah, one of the first things I learned when I was starting our business, and I did not know a lot when I was starting. I just felt like I compelled towards the entrepreneur path, but I didn't know much.
00:14:15
Todd Linder
One the first things I learned is go to where your people are hanging out. And when people are looking for jobs, they go to LinkedIn. So I think LinkedIn can probably work for lots of people and lots of different businesses.
00:14:29
Todd Linder
But it's nice that when someone logs onto LinkedIn and they're looking for a job, the first thing that shows up is the feed. So I just started posting organically on LinkedIn.
00:14:35
Ken Freire
yeah
00:14:38
Todd Linder
And that has made some connections and I've made some network. And so a lot of, would say probably like 60% of our clients come from someone making an introduction,
00:14:55
Todd Linder
that has connected with me on LinkedIn and either they have a background in ministry and now their friend and they've transitioned to marketplace and now their friend is asking them how to do like, well, I got lucky, but you should meet this guy or it's just so a lot of it is introductions. And then some of it is just organically being found because I'm posting enough relevant things that the algorithm is just showing it to them.
00:15:22
Ken Freire
Yeah, it's showing them, they know their mind that they're transitioning to a new role. And they're like, look at Todd.
00:15:28
Todd Linder
Yeah. Yeah. And I will say the, we might talk about this, but knowing your niche and knowing how to describe what you do for your niche is incredibly important, especially on LinkedIn, because you're not familiar with LinkedIn, there's four things that everyone can see everywhere on LinkedIn.
00:15:46
Todd Linder
Whether it's in a comment or on a post or on your profile wherever it is, They can see your profile picture. They can see your name. They can see your headline. And then if you want, there's like the additional gender identifier thing.
00:16:01
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:16:01
Todd Linder
All those show up. But your headline, or the first 56 characters of your headline, show up everywhere. So my headline has been for a long time, I've helped X number of people or ministry leaders transition into the marketplace. And that shows up under everything that I do. So it is nice that it piques curiosity for those people of like, oh, that's what I'm trying to do. And I think that's been incredibly impactful for just that little messaging right there. Incredibly impactful for connecting with people.
00:16:36
Ken Freire
Yeah, that's huge, man. And, you know, funny little anecdote for the gender. I know this sounds so ridiculous, but I had a friend that I forgot what platform it was. You could customize it.
00:16:48
Ken Freire
So it's not like just, you know, he, him or anything like that. He said he wrote more money or get money. Like that's that was his whole thing. Like I'm like, he's so ridiculous.
00:16:57
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:16:58
Todd Linder
You can customize it on LinkedIn as well. There's a guy that I'm connected with whose name is Steve Pedro. And the next one he says, vote for Pedro.
00:17:04
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:17:07
Todd Linder
Which is just like, if you're from like our generation that just like strikes an immediate chord, it's just funny.
00:17:13
Ken Freire
Oh, that's awesome.
00:17:14
Todd Linder
So you can do that too.
00:17:14
Ken Freire
Now I'm going go find them like, hey, bro, I heard about you. Okay. So as you've been growing your business, what have you found to be some of like the biggest challenges that you've had to navigate in trying to grow it?
00:17:28
Todd Linder
Oh man, Guru Garbage.
00:17:32
Ken Freire
We
00:17:35
Todd Linder
Man, I have, yeah, we have.
00:17:35
Ken Freire
were talking about this little bit before.
00:17:38
Todd Linder
I have spent a lot of money on, and this is me, and we talked about this before, like, I'm a simple guy that needs things to be, like, really practical, and I think that's been helpful for me sometimes, but also when things feel really complex,
00:17:47
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:18:01
Todd Linder
looking back, I can get really frantic and really feel really anxious because I don't understand. And think this is a lot of people is they go and they're not getting traction and then they see someone who promises a result and says, I've got a system that can help you. Look at all the ways I've helped all these other people. And then they just talk about their top three best results. And those are outliers, not normal.
00:18:29
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:18:29
Todd Linder
And I bought into some of that stuff, too many of those things. And I just, man, like, I paid the dummy tax big. I wish I had somebody who was almost like vetting for me.
00:18:43
Todd Linder
I paid the dummy tax big on that. And that was my biggest struggle is just filtering through do this, do this, do this, do this, do this.
00:18:52
Todd Linder
When really is a lot simpler than that is just like find people, have conversations with them, build trust with them, serve them really well and just do it on repeat.
Learning from Business Mistakes
00:19:05
Todd Linder
And there's a bunch of different ways to do that.
00:19:05
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:19:08
Todd Linder
But I bought into like the shortcuts and the, just set up your email automations and like, you'll have money forever of things. And That might work for some people, but I just, yeah, that was biggest, biggest struggle for me is buying into that mainly because I didn't know what I was doing.
00:19:29
Todd Linder
And now I have a couple of business mentors and that is way more effective for people who have been there before be able to ask the right questions and guide me along the way rather than paying for a $20,000 business coaching program.
00:19:43
Ken Freire
Yeah. And that's part of the reason why created this podcast. It was because I found so many people being duped into these programs and saw them. I mean, I've been in that space for so long that I was like, oh my gosh, we got to do something different. So I've been trying to find all the people like, how are you doing it? What's going on? I mean, there are people I've been pre-interviewing before the podcast that I was like, oh yeah, I can't interview you. You got sales bro written all over you.
00:20:11
Ken Freire
No, when I start asking questions, you're going to fumble, you know, like even one question that's always really compelling is I talk to people who have coaching programs and I'm like, hey, just ask them what's their complete their their participants completion rate or success rate.
00:20:29
Todd Linder
It's a great question.
00:20:33
Ken Freire
It's funny how you all of a sudden decide to gaslight your client and talk about it's their fault. They didn't do it. It's not them. And I'm like, maybe your program just sucks or you actually don't know how to get results for people.
00:20:45
Ken Freire
fascinating times where I've put myself in the hot seat with a lot of these high profile people because it's like I'm asking them hard questions and then I'm like, oh, no, they don't want to talk to me because I'm asking the hard questions.
00:20:59
Ken Freire
They're great marketing and salespeople, but they're not capable of saying, hey, I'm truly trying to bring results. to individuals. So that's why I appreciated you, Todd, is because I've been watching you for a while now and I'm like, oh, you're actually helping people. You're actually helping what would say is our tribe of people who need help, you know, and like, right, you're getting them jobs. All right, let's go. Let's highlight Todd. Let's see what he's doing. And I appreciate that challenge that you're saying, man, I've bought into these things. As you think about your life now and what you're trying to grow, walk us through
00:21:33
Ken Freire
What has been some practical things that if you can just help someone who's maybe one or two steps behind, so I want you to have your business mentor hat on, be like, hey man, don't do this, do this.
00:21:48
Todd Linder
Yeah, mean, I appreciate you saying that stuff. That was meaningful. I received that. I would, looking back.
00:21:59
Todd Linder
I have a friend who's a YouTube creator. He's a few months ago, hit a million followers and he has kind of a phrase that says, and it's kind of his like motto.
00:22:13
Todd Linder
It's, it works if you just keep going.
00:22:16
Ken Freire
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:17
Todd Linder
And that's true as long as you don't do too much. So there's like, there's hustle bro culture, which is like, just keep going, keep going, but do more, more, more, more.
00:22:28
Todd Linder
And then there's like the reality of running a marathon. It's like you finish the marathon if you just keep going, but you can't sprint for the first five miles and expect to run the other 21.2. Right.
00:22:44
Todd Linder
So the part of the just keep going is like, do it at a pace that's sustainable. Don't work yourself 65, 70 hours a week for four years, because you'll burn out.
00:22:58
Todd Linder
Don't try everything. try one thing for a long period of time. And if it doesn't work, then you can try it. Then you can go back and say, what about this didn't work? Did it like holistically not work or did some of the things not work and then tweak.
00:23:16
Todd Linder
My problem is I'm a quick start and that can be really great when something needs to be started quickly and really not great when I feel frantic. So I like, we'll try a bunch of things really fast.
00:23:30
Todd Linder
And I probably tried seven different marketing strategies in seven months. And so I probably should just tried two in seven months and taken that from there.
00:23:39
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:23:41
Todd Linder
And looking back, I wish that I was less frantic wish that was less anxious and I worked on the things that matter rather than the things that don't really matter. So the things that matter are have a great product, like actually serve people and get sales.
00:24:11
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:24:13
Todd Linder
and we're actually kind of getting back to the basics in 2026 of just be great for your clients and getting lots of sales conversations with people.
00:24:25
Todd Linder
And that's how you can run your business. It's,
00:24:31
Ken Freire
It's fascinating because when you're like, throughout this whole episode, you've been talking about like the basics or the foundations of like, just get seen, get known, talk to people, close the deal, have
Refocusing Business Practices
00:24:42
Ken Freire
a great product. Like sometimes we overcomplicate it where you're like, we need a 15 piece upsell funnel to be able to navigate people into and then tripwire. And you're like, dude, no, just have the conversations.
00:24:54
Ken Freire
And you've been having meaningful conversations. It sounds like too, that you're, if I was to talk about top of funnel strategy has been primarily LinkedIn. Correct?
00:25:05
Todd Linder
Yeah. And I mean, word of mouth, but that's how it's like, if my dad's an entrepreneur, he's been in business for 50 years.
00:25:07
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:25:13
Todd Linder
It's like he now he's just turned 70 and he has zero marketing because it's a completely word of mouth because he has an amazing product.
00:25:27
Todd Linder
So if we have a long view, like we're thinking about decades rather than days, if we run our businesses for decades,
00:25:33
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:25:34
Todd Linder
then eventually over time, if you have a good thing, people will come to you. But that is like an over time.
00:25:44
Todd Linder
It's not like a right now, if you're just in the beginning.
00:25:47
Todd Linder
And I've seen that with my dad. could have learned from that. Could learned from that. But I'm starting to experience that. I'm like, just serve people well. and put yourself out there with a good message and then people will start like eventually coming to you and I still have to do post organically and I still have to do all the stuff that gets the algorithm going on LinkedIn and comment and all that stuff but really I'm just trying to tell stories and create resonance with people and
00:26:18
Todd Linder
Serve people really well. And then talk about serving people well. Celebration's a really big thing for us and we celebrate in public.
00:26:22
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:26:25
Todd Linder
I think that's important to celebrate your clients wins in public and not in like a salesy way. Just be like, yeah, what's up? Like they did it. They got a job. Three people got jobs this week. What's up? This is awesome. I'm so excited. And that's enough.
00:26:42
Todd Linder
people that want jobs want to be, like I have this counter behind me for the people who are watching on video. It's not a clock. It's not broken. It's counter of how many people we've helped get jobs.
00:26:52
Todd Linder
And this is just like a small little thing that we did. And now people like, I get messages from people like, I want to be 115. Great, come on.
00:27:01
Ken Freire
Hmm.
00:27:03
Todd Linder
And there's an association because they want to be someone that like wins.
00:27:03
Ken Freire
That's all for that.
00:27:08
Todd Linder
And so it is just some of the simple stuff. And I think there are businesses where all that 15-step funnel and all that stuff can work. I just personally, I'm simple guy. just need it to be simple.
00:27:21
Todd Linder
So maybe that's just me, but I just need to be simple.
00:27:21
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:27:25
Ken Freire
Well, and the other thing that I've been thinking about for you, Todd, is when you talk about earlier, like find the pool of where people are at, you know, with a lot of coaching or different things, there's always like this emotional felt need or the pain that they're feeling.
00:27:41
Ken Freire
where that might be a prolonged need for six months, a year, two years, you know, before someone wants to take action. So there's always kind of a pool. For you, there's like this unique window of time that people will need you.
00:27:56
Ken Freire
Right.
00:27:56
Todd Linder
Mm-hmm.
00:27:56
Ken Freire
So it's finding those people at the right time where it hits and like, oh, I need to know Todd. So I can see where you networking with so many people is helpful because it's the reminder like, oh, you need a job.
00:28:09
Ken Freire
You're from ministry. Go talk to Todd. I mean, I've put you in my list of like whenever I know my ministry friends who are looking for marketplace stuff, I'm like, you should reach out to Todd because I'm like, you're doing it. And I see you doing it. I forgot there was a post probably a couple of weeks ago.
00:28:24
Ken Freire
And this might have been right before the holidays. You were like this, there was a pastor, you could probably correct me if I'm wrong. They were like, they were making like under 50K or 60K and they found their job and doubled their income.
00:28:35
Todd Linder
Yeah.
00:28:36
Ken Freire
And that's probably common for, that's a lot, that's pretty common for most of the people.
00:28:38
Todd Linder
It was, it was actually Forex. They Forexed their end game.
00:28:41
Ken Freire
It was Forex. Yeah, it was just like something crazy. And I was like, okay, he's doing the work. And I could see you're doing the work. That's when I reached out to you, I think, is when I saw that. I'm like, hey, bro, you got to come on the podcast. You got to share your story. You got to share doing.
00:28:55
Ken Freire
And it took a little bit, but we made it. We made it.
00:28:57
Todd Linder
Yeah, we did.
00:28:57
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:28:57
Todd Linder
We did. It had something to do with you having to fit your fifth child.
00:29:01
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:29:02
Todd Linder
But you what's interesting about that story, Ken, along the lines of what we've been talking about some of the guru stuff, I intentionally almost never share that story.
00:29:12
Todd Linder
Because I don't want people to think that that is like, going to be their story, because it's an outlier.
00:29:17
Ken Freire
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:19
Todd Linder
our average number average income increase is over $42,000. But that doesn't mean everybody is $42,000. It doesn't mean everybody is $150,000.
00:29:31
Todd Linder
It just, that's like the average. And some people make about the same. And so those types of numbers, I know that's like what you're supposed to do in coaching world. I'm just...
00:29:42
Todd Linder
I personally have been burned enough times and have the conviction that integrity is more important than like one of our, to go to like Bible stuff, one of our core verses as a business and how we run our business is that a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.
00:30:00
Ken Freire
Yeah. Amen.
00:30:02
Todd Linder
And I do think that over a long enough period of time, the riches can come. Like I'm not starting a business to like remain
00:30:12
Todd Linder
Like that's, I could do that way more easily than starting business. Right. But that's like a core value for us. And so I'm very, very sensitive towards those things because I never want I never want to convince somebody from an outlier data point that they should join. I want to say, this is what you can expect honestly.
00:30:35
Todd Linder
And I'm sure there are people who have said no. But then I get to go to bed and sleep well that night. And that's okay.
00:30:44
Ken Freire
Exactly. I think even in that post, you had mentioned that it was an outlier. If I remember correctly, you did something that I just remember thinking, wow, I know so many people who would have posted this and they would have just spotlighted it, like, you know, almost made it a marketing push.
00:30:59
Ken Freire
Like, hey, I'm 4X'd. Do you want a Yeah. come talk to me.
00:31:02
Todd Linder
Yeah.
00:31:03
Ken Freire
You didn't do that. I'd have to probably go back and look at exactly how you wrote it. But there was some honesty and integrity. And you were just like, I think you even said, hey, some people get Forex, some people get just the same thing. The most important thing was like, I helped them find jobs.
00:31:18
Ken Freire
And they found it. And the hardest part of their life is over kind of deal. And I was just like, Okay, he's onto something and that's what I appreciated. was like that, like you said, the integrity of selling that you were doing that I appreciated about it.
00:31:33
Ken Freire
Todd,
00:31:33
Todd Linder
Thanks, man. appreciate that.
00:31:36
Ken Freire
as we wrap up this conversation, man, I have asked the same five questions to everybody. I wanna ask you, it's called the Fast Five. I'm doing an expert-led business trend report. So just kinda wanna see where you're at, right? I'm gonna try not to commentate as much as possible. So sometimes I do good job, other times.
00:31:54
Ken Freire
We end up in a 10 minute dialogue. But okay, question number one is this. What's something in your business you're experimenting with right now?
00:32:03
Todd Linder
Uh, I hired an EA six months ago and would still say it's like an experimentation phase, but way more delegation happening.
00:32:08
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:32:14
Todd Linder
And so would say it's a little bit an experimentation phase still, uh, but it's going great. And, uh, so just having team members is kind an experimentation thing and saying, I'm not going to do that, which is great.
00:32:29
Ken Freire
That was great. Okay. Question two, which part of your business feels the most influx or you're like, it keeps you up at night.
00:32:39
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:32:40
Todd Linder
I think it's like the creative founders curse is to have a, is to like, I'm always thinking about what's wrong or what could be better.
00:32:51
Todd Linder
And so one of the practices that we're implementing is I have like a multiple layers of decision tree for this year, just to keep it simple. Is it like, is it critical to the business? Product is always critical, yes. Is it broken?
00:33:06
Todd Linder
Or is it clunky? Or is it just like aesthetically could be a little bit better? And so I'm just saying, is it broken?
00:33:11
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:33:14
Todd Linder
Fix it. If it's not broken and just clunky, we'll just keep it for right now. And it's going to keep me up.
00:33:19
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:33:20
Todd Linder
But we're just going to keep it for right now for the sake of simplicity and doing the right things. But product is always going to keep me up at night.
00:33:28
Ken Freire
Sweet. So that just have to write a book soon. Question number three, what's a goal you're building
Setting Anti-Goals for Health and Sales
00:33:36
Ken Freire
toward this year that you're really excited about?
00:33:40
Todd Linder
It's an anti-goal. We decided not to set a revenue goal this year.
00:33:42
Ken Freire
You're one of those guys.
00:33:46
Todd Linder
And so the goal is to have five sales calls each week. And I know that we do that.
00:33:58
Todd Linder
that on average will close enough that will make us very profitable. And that's great. But the goal for me this year is to be a healthy version of myself, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, physically, mentally.
00:34:14
Todd Linder
And so as high achiever on every single possible personality test you can possibly take, this is actually a good reprieve from me. So it's like an anti-goal of becoming healthier version of myself.
00:34:26
Ken Freire
Yeah, sweet, man. Question number four, where do you see the coaching industry shifting and how are you preparing for it?
Integrating AI into Coaching
00:34:36
Todd Linder
This goes into the AI conversation a little bit. One the things that we have done is try implement technology and AI and automation in as many places as possible that does not require human touch.
00:34:53
Todd Linder
And then all the stuff that does require human touch emphasize those and do more of that. And so it's like, The things that I could do but aren't required for me to do, let's have technology do that and let's have AI do that.
00:35:06
Todd Linder
So all of our like job assessments, all of our resume stuff, job searching, finding who's the hiring manager, all that stuff in our business, all of that is AI.
00:35:19
Todd Linder
because don't, like I could do it, I can help with it, but all of it's AI.
00:35:23
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:35:23
Todd Linder
Courses, I think courses, this is, I'm taking a page out of Jay Klaus's book, but I think courses are going to become obsolete because you have on-demand learning for what you need right now.
00:35:38
Todd Linder
So people might make comprehensive courses, but then even Circle, which is the community platform you use, And as an internal AI agent that searches all of your course material and can just get the answer. So I think customized course learning with AI plus getting all of your like immediate need consultative type questions answered will be taken by AI. And then I think the actual coaching element of like mindset and beliefs that is going to increase because AI is not going be able to do that well.
00:36:16
Todd Linder
So at least not for a while, I think. So I think the actually needing to be a coach, like by definition is going to be a higher need. And then the consultative part coaching will become more technology and that's the bet we're making. And so we're like making that distinction pretty clearly.
00:36:35
Ken Freire
We could have a whole podcast on that little comment you just made, but we're not going to go there right now.
00:36:40
Todd Linder
What, what coaching actually is. Yeah.
00:36:42
Ken Freire
Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's so many people who are like, I'm coaching. I'm like, that's not coaching. You're not even close to coaching. You just like giving advice. All right. Anyways, last question. What's the legacy you want to leave behind?
00:36:56
Todd Linder
You know, come from a background where doing big things, making big impact was like status quo.
00:37:10
Todd Linder
And I think I have lived in that world and there's something very attractive about that world to me.
00:37:22
Todd Linder
But for me, I think the biggest legacy I want to leave kids that love me, love my wife, being together, love being together, great community, friends, honoring our parents, which is unfortunately becoming less and less popular today, being present with people that need it, and making a lasting impact. And I would love to be in a business, and it may be this one, it may be another one,
00:37:54
Todd Linder
That's a multi-generational business where my kids will take it over. And don't know what that is, but I think a legacy where like my family is a rooted family in the community.
Legacy and Contact Information
00:38:13
Todd Linder
and becoming a cornerstone of the community to provide flourishing for our family and for the people around us.
00:38:23
Todd Linder
And that would be amazing. I would love that.
00:38:27
Ken Freire
I love man. Todd, for those who listen to this and they're man, I really love what Todd's doing, or they're like, hey, I need a job and I need transition. What's the best way to contact you?
00:38:39
Todd Linder
LinkedIn is where I'm paying out for two three hours every day. And then, that's a great place. And then website, we have a, if you're looking for a job, you can go to our website, launchpoint.co.
00:38:55
Todd Linder
And there's a 12 question quiz on there that will help you understand if you're on the job search right now, where do you need to focus? Like what's the roadblock? that's hindering your job search because sometimes we don't know what's actually going wrong. it's going help you understand what is actually going wrong, where to focus your time. And then that, once you take that quiz, it'll open the floodgates on a ton of opportunities for us to connect, including some different calls and different opportunities like that.
00:39:23
Todd Linder
But if you just want to shoot me a DM, LinkedIn is where it's at.
00:39:27
Ken Freire
Sweet, yo. Todd, thank you so much for being on the podcast, man.
00:39:30
Todd Linder
Yeah, man. Good to see you. Thanks, Ken.