IAM2243 – Leadership Coach Shares the Secret to Coaching Business Growth

Eric Cogorno is a renowned golf coach who has transformed his in-person coaching business from $80,000 to $1.5 million by leveraging online platforms.

Eric developed a passion for sports, particularly golf, which he struggled with initially.

He discusses how a clear vision helps him navigate good and bad days, emphasizing the importance of long-term goals.

Eric emphasizes the ethical aspect of his marketing—ensuring his solutions genuinely help his audience.

In addition, Eric highlights the importance of long-term thinking and the ability to visualize success without being hindered by current limitations.

Website: Cogorno Golf

YouTube: Eric Cogorno Golf

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Transcription:

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Eric Cogorno Teaser 00:00

We all have tough days, right? We all have good days. We all have bad days. The thing that really pulls me through all the bad times, I think, is the clarity of that vision of where I'm going.

Intro 00:13

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:40

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a special guest on the show today. I have Eric Cogorno. Eric, excited to have you on the show.

Eric Cogorno 00:50

Yeah, Gresh, thanks for having me, man.

Gresham Harkless 00:51

Yeah, super excited to have you on the show and talk about all the awesome things that you're doing.

And of course, before we wanted to do that, I want to read a little bit more about Eric so you can hear about some of the awesome things he's been working on.

And Eric has been a golf coach for the past 15 years, taking his $80,000 in-person coaching business to $1.5 million online business, while becoming one of the most popular and well-known golf coaches in the world from his growth on his YouTube channel and Instagram with over 50,000, 500,000 followers across his social media platforms.

Eric has taken his love for coaching and personal development and starting his new personal development brand and YouTube channel called Lessons I've Learned, where he shares the lessons and tactics he has learned to create his dream business and life in order to help others do the same.

And one of the things I absolutely love when I was preparing for this, I was researching a little bit more about Eric, and it kind of reminded me of the quote that the secret to the overnight success is it takes 10 or 15 years.

And hearing a little bit more about his journey, seeing all the work that he's been put in, it's been something that's tremendously impactful.

And I read that he has given over 20,000 in-person golf lessons, developing an intuitive ability to combine the art of art and science and his golf instruction. So Eric, excited to have you on the show. You ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Eric Cogorno 02:11

Yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate that intro. Certainly, certainly ready to rock and roll and help serve here.

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Gresham Harkless 02:15

Yeah, absolutely. I know you've been serving so well. So I guess to kind of kick everything off, what I wanted to do is rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Eric Cogorno 02:27

Yeah, so, I grew up in a small town, Pennsylvania. I'm going to try and shrink this into something that's not not an hour long.

Small town, Pennsylvania grew up right playing sports growing up was always into doing well in school.

And my love for sports turned into love for golf, which I ended up coaching probably when I was like in middle school, which range crash, like my dad, when I was growing up, used to always golf with his friends on the weekend.

And so I started golf and just as a way to like try and hang out with him and his buddies on the weekend, and didn't think it was any more than that.

We love playing baseball and basketball football. And, golf was really the only sport. And frankly, not to sound whatever, but it was the only thing I ever did that I wasn't like kind of good at right away.

Like I could kind of eye-hand coordinate my way around sports and stuff, and Golf was so darn hard.

And I think because I had difficulty in the beginning and it wasn't easy, that really led to an obsession from the age of like 12 or 13 up to about 18 of trying to play golf.

And so when I was a young boy, I thought I was gonna be on TV playing baseball, professionally, I think like a lot of us who play sports do, you realize that's not gonna happen pretty quickly.

And then I thought, oh, I'll go play golf on TV. And then realized when I was 17 or 18 that that wasn't gonna happen.

And I used to work at a golf course and I did like everything, pick balls, wash carts, whatever. And one day, and I'll never forget it, I feel like it was like yesterday, I used to, I don't know if you ever golf, but there's a guy who picks balls out on the range.

And, people hit balls at him, right? So I was that guy picking balls in that card out in the range and it was like an August day, similar to the time we are now, hot.

And the range I'm on, Gresh, is real bumpy. It's not like a pleasant drive out there. And so I'm out there, I'm not super thrilled about it.

And I pulled the card in to get down with my shift. And there was a guy there teaching golf, who's now one of my best friends, his name is Paul Viola.

And he made an off hand comment that he just made $50 given this golf lesson. Like not braggy.

He just like happened to mention to me he was my boss at the time. And I remember thinking to myself, I was making $7 an hour at this point. I remember thinking to myself, man, I got to pick balls out here for 8 hours to make the same as he just did in 30 minutes.

He's underneath the shaded area, him and this older guy, they're chatting it up, laughing. It didn't seem that hard.

So I literally talked to him that day about like, hey, I want to get in this coaching thing. And literally he helped me start like a week later. So that's how I got into the golf coaching.

Gresham Harkless 04:57</strong

Nice. Well, I appreciate you sharing that story and of course being able to kind of see that.

What I want to do now is draw down a little bit more. I know you touched a little bit upon like what we can find and how you're serving your clients.

I would love to hear more about that, your YouTube channel, everything you're doing in order to serve clients.

Eric Cogorno 05:11

Yeah, so again, sort of like the, I started coaching golf because of a financial reason, I was making $7 an hour type of thing. I'd love to say it was like a passion.

I wanted to really help people in the beginning, but that's how it started, developed into a passion, but it's financial.

Same thing with our membership site, man. So like my game plan was how do I make that $1.2 million?

I can't possibly do in that charge and $100 an hour in person. But I was like, dude, who makes 1.2 million?

Like, is there anyone in the world that makes that? Okay, obviously, yes. Is there anyone who sells coaching online and makes that?

Yes. Is there anyone who does golf coaching and makes that? Yes. And then like, what do they do, right? How do I model success?

And the only 2 avenues that I thought were possible, just math-wise, was a membership site, it's like monthly recurring revenue, or these events, like these golf schools.

And so we decided to go the membership route. So I was kind of doing some quick math, like, okay, I need to get 2, 000 people to sign up at 50 bucks a month.

How would I structure that sort of deal? And so we really made a game plan that we've been doing for 8 years, which is we're going to pump 3 YouTube videos a week.

Every one of those YouTube videos is going to be sort of top of funnel, pitch this membership site to the people watching, and then have them sign up for monthly coaching.

Now that's on the financial side. On the other side, ethically, I do think it's the best thing for them. Like basically I say, hey, let's say I did a video on this fix your slice thing.

Like this is good and this will help you. But like if I could see your swing, I could really help you.

Like I could help you diagnose the root issue fast. We could make fixes to that. And that's all real.

Like I actually believe all that. So I think it's the right thing for them. It's how I can help them most and how I can scale it, across more people.

And so we've done a pitch, some sort of call to action, basically in every one of those videos for 8 years.

The same way, like you mentioned, I wanted to get great at coaching for 10 years before we even started doing videos.

We really made sure our online coaching product is excellent before we even started to pitch that out to anyone.

And I don't know that everyone needs to start that way. You got to start somewhere and learn and stuff. But that's how we try and help all the golfers out there.

Gresham Harkless 07:13

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I almost wonder if that's part of like what I would call your secret sauce, the thing you feel kind of sets you or where the organizational part of makes you unique.

I feel like there's such a, I believe that there's such a synergy between sports and life and business and there's so many lessons to be learned there.

So I feel like even just hearing your journey, hearing the steps, I easily see how that translates to everything you're doing now.

So do you feel like your ability to understand and maybe be able to kind of share and teach people part of that journey is part of what sets you apart and makes you unique?

Eric Cogorno 07:46

Yeah, definitely, man. I think the sports correlation 1 to 1 for sure, especially anyone who's golfed. Getting through the trials and tribulations of playing golf is a lot like life.

So I want to challenge myself too to continue to do the things, walk the walk, get out of comfort zones, and continue to grow.

Like, for me, going from decent golfer to coach was a big growth step. Going from just starting coaching to building a pretty cool in-person thing was a growth step.

Going from in-person online was a growth step. But now I feel like I'm sort of at my fourth big growth step, which is how do I go from what we have now into the next phase, which I think is, you sort of do learn how to do the thing and then teach others what you did.

Part of that relatability you just mentioned is like the things that these people struggle with, I have struggled with and continue to as well myself. And so I think the relatability factor is certainly there.

Gresham Harkless 08:38

Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

So this could be like an app, a book, or even a habit that you have, what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

Eric Cogorno 08:50

Yeah, so that's a great question. And I think the answer probably would, depends on whoever the listener might be at.

I'll use it for kind of my process that I've been. Who Not How, from a book perspective, Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan, absolute game changer for me.

That's sort of the like, when you're starting a small business or doing something, you do everything by yourself, you wear all the hats. Have you read this one before? You see this one?

Gresham Harkless 09:14

Yeah, I love that book,yes.

Eric Cogorno 09:16

Such a good one, dude. So that's like, for someone who hasn't read it, instead of thinking, how am I going to do this thing, you think who could do this for me or who could help me do this thing instead of you wearing all the hats.

The other one that I really like, I mean, obviously some of these Russell Brunson stuff with ClickFunnels is very helpful to me.

And then there's a guy named Jeff Bloomfield who talks about story-based selling. So create, connect, and close.

So people, which is basically like using stories when you're doing some of your sales thing. You notice a lot of the answers to your questions.

I went into like a story with something. The tactical things that Alex has in there, and that's what I really like about these books, the tactical things of like putting an offer together that he has in there helped me big time.

Gresham Harkless 09:59

Yeah. I appreciate you so much and sharing all of those. So what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I would call a CEO nugget

So this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, something you might share on your YouTube channel, but is something that you might tell your younger business self or if you were to hop into a time machine and potentially your favorite client?

Eric Cogorno 10:15

Yeah. So I mean, for me or anyone that I work with I start with that clarity of dream life vision every time no matter what regardless of circumstances.

Probably I'm biased with that because I've had such a dramatic personal effect on it, but that's okay I'm gonna I'm gonna assume that that's gonna be somewhat similar for most everyone in that.

Taking out a piece of paper, and I would write this down physically if possible, and put a 15-minute timer on your phone and sit there, or you can listen to music if you want to, and think about what you would have your dream life look like and give yourself enough time, let's say like 10 years, a decade, even 20 years.

You think about a lot of goals, Gresh, and you're like, if I threw a crazy goal out and I was like, I got to get that in 1 year or 2 years, I might be like, yeah, I don't know if that's even logistically like could happen.

But if you said 20 years from now, like even logistics involved, I'm like, I might be able to do anything in 20 years.

So I think long-term vision, 10 years, I would do 15 minutes on your phone and I would sit down and close your eyes and think about what your dream life would look like in a decade.

Now, what really messed me up in the beginning when I used to do this is I used to be thinking logistics.

Like, I would only allow myself to put things on that I thought was realistic for me to do based on my current life, my current skillset, and my current networks.

That was a big mistake because 10 years from now, I would have totally different skills, be a totally different person, know totally different people.

And so you have to do it with no logistics. Like if I think, Hey, I'm going to have a $10 million beach house in Boca in Florida.

I'm not like, holy shit, how would I build that? You have to skip that step in the beginning and just go for the no logistics.

Now the kicker here is you can't just write it down once and be done, right? So there's various books and people that you listen to stories where they would write down their goals every day.

Dan Sullivan and who not how for 25 years every day would take out a piece of paper write down what do I want and put a list together.

Now if you and I did that for 25 years or we didn't, which version of us will be rather picked?

Everything's going to get all that stuff. The person that writes it down. No doubt about it.

So the kicker then is, so I do that, I write that down. I spend time weekly, like 30 minutes, I have this think time every Sunday, where I give myself just 30 minutes to think.

But every day as part of my mindfulness, I spend like 10 minutes visualizing these things coming through, right?

Like manifestation has become really popular in the past couple of years, Dr. Joe Dispenza, The Secret, the book and all those sort of things.

Sorry, my light just went out there. The other thing I've found, last thing I'll say on this, is that we all have tough days, right?

We all have good days, we all have bad days. The thing that really pulls me through all the bad times, I think, is the clarity of that vision of where I'm going.

Because if I'm thinking every day about where I'm going in 10 years and I'm so locked in and confident that I'm going to be there, the little blip along the way in month 2 of a 10-year goal is irrelevant.

You're able to get over these little things that happen day to day by being able to zoom out and having that macro level thing.

So not only for myself, younger version, would I have started doing that sooner, right? I think for anyone who's watching who's not doing that, and I know that can seem a little woo wooey, I get it, dude.

Like I get it. But I'm telling you, there's a lot of power and it's changed my whole life doing it.

Gresham Harkless 13:32

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO or goals that have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Eric, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Eric Cogorno 13:45

Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah, I would wonder what like technical dictionary definitions of that are. I think the, I'm gonna go less technical and go more like zoomed out with that.

I think the role of a CEO and a good CEO is someone who sets the vision, clarifies the vision, gets everyone on the team on board with the vision, and then utilizes the team and the talents of the team correctly to continue moving towards the vision.

I think at the highest level, that's probably the biggest ROI on a great CEO. I think a lot of CEOs are COOs for a while and are operations for a long time.

But the setting and the clarifying of the vision, I've got a small group of people, we've got like maybe 13 people on our team.

And most of my energy is like, where are we going? Telling everyone that, and then telling them again, and again, and again.

And making sure we're all clear on where we're going and kind of pushing the ship or the plane like you said in this, we're heading west and then we'll kind of figure out the stuff in the middle as we go.

But even myself, like when I'm starting at 10 minutes per day, like you mentioned, I need a lot of clarity and reminders over and over, which means certainly everyone on the team does as well, and not getting distracted by shit and all that stuff starts with that, I think that vision and making sure you're moving in that direction.

Gresham Harkless 15:14

Truly appreciate that definition, and of course I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know.

And of course, how best people can get out of view about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Eric Cogorno 15:28

CogornoGolf.com or just Eric Cogorno Golf on YouTube. That's sort of top of funnel for us where we do everything from.

So all the things that we normally talk about, about posting, consistency, titles, thumbnails, hooks, call to actions, blah, blah, blah. That stuff's all there.

We did start our new personal development channel, new 6 months in. That's Lessons I've Learned with Eric Cogorno, working title on YouTube.

That would be more like conversations like we had today, tactical stuff. So we'd love for people to check that out.

That won't be as polished as the golf stuff yet, but we'll get there slowly one step at a time.

But for anyone who likes this sort of tactical stuff like that, you can find the info there.

Gresham Harkless 16:05

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Eric. Of course, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day

Eric Cogorno 16:14

Absolutely, man. Well said, Gresh. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me on, man.

Outro 16:17

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blues16media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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