From no niche, no social media and no clients to making $27k teaching real estate investing online!

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Hello, hello, hello. Okay, so this is a very special case study today. I was actually saying to the person that we're going to be talking to that she has been on my wishlist for quite a while, and I'm really pumped to talk to her. So I'm going to dig into the details, introduce her and bring her on in just a second.

Before I do, if you are interested in the Authority Accelerator program, all you have to do, we're making it real simple. All you have to do is apply now at sunnylenarduzzi.com/apply.

So let's talk about Cheryl because she is incredible. Before enrolling into the Authority Accelerator program, which is our signature program where we help people create, automate and scale their online courses from zero, she was at a bit of a tough point in her life and her career. So Cheryl had been working really, really hard for over 38 years, always working with clients one on one, which was both time consuming, exhausting and inefficient.

And she was working for corporate America and it never worked for her because she wanted something more and she was seeking freedom. For the next 25 plus years, she worked for herself starting three separate companies and had some success along the way with some failures as well, which we all know and have experienced for ourselves while at the same time becoming a mom to three babies.

So Cheryl decided to enroll in the Authority Accelerator. It was really a fresh start and a turning point for her and our method showed her how to leverage her talents and skills and take the knowledge she had and put it to work at an exponential level. This allowed her to take her expertise in renovating houses and create a program that generated $27,000 in less than a month. You think that's incredible, this is what's most impressive to me.

Before enrolling into the Authority Accelerator, Cheryl had never run a Zoom call, she had never put a PowerPoint presentation together and she called herself self-admittedly was afraid of tech. So technology was not her friend yet Cheryl was able to absolutely dominate with her online course. And that's partly because we make it really easy and very tech friendly and user friendly.

So I am so excited to share even more details about Cheryl's story. She was able to simplify her business entirely by doing what she's really passionate about, which is teaching women over 50 to create wealth for themselves through real estate investing. The women she's helped have never done a real estate transaction before yet over 73% of the newbies made at least one offer on a property in seven weeks of being in her program. And she currently has the space, freedom and financial flexibility to work on her evergreen sales machine with peace of mind and ease and sell her course evergreen. So without further ado, let's bring the amazing Cheryl on. Hi Cheryl, how are you?

Cheryl Thompson:

Hi Sunny. Hi everyone. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you Sunny for this opportunity.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Oh my goodness. I have been waiting to talk to you about this. My team knows, we speak so highly of you and we're so grateful to have you in the program.

Cheryl Thompson:

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yes, thank you so much for being here. All right. So let's start from the beginning. Let's talk about your entrepreneurial journey.

Cheryl Thompson:

Okay. Actually I became an entrepreneur at 32 and that was after 12 years in the corporate world, graduated from college, went and did what everybody said you're supposed to do, which is go get a good job. First of all, you get a good education then you get a good job, then you make good money. And gosh, I was starting to have kids in my mid twenties and the full-time work and the kids.

Cheryl Thompson:

They didn't work very well together because I had become what I call a maintenance mom, which is the mom that only has time for baths and meals and things like that but I never got to do any of the other things with my children. And so I actually created a spreadsheet at my corporate job and it showed how little time I was spending with my kids and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Cheryl Thompson:

And I actually called up my husband one day and said,

"I can't do this anymore."

And that was after the 12th year of corporate employment, lots of job hops with better opportunities and things but I couldn't do it anymore and my kids needed me more. They were two, four and seven at the time when I became an entrepreneur. I took my watch off, I've never put it back on. And in that time since when being 32, I'm now 60, I have three children, seven grandchildren and I just know that freedom is more important than anything you could ever get in the corporate world.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

I mean, I am giving you all the snaps and I know everybody here is as well, because truer words have never been spoken. I mean, freedom above everything else. And I know that sounds amazing in theory and there's so many people here who completely agree with you on that. But sometimes we think we want something and then the reality of actually getting it's a little harder. So what was that journey like for actually getting to that place of freedom?

Cheryl Thompson:

Well, getting to the place of freedom, number one, when I left corporate America, we had a two income household. We had more than two income bills and I left without a safety net and so I had to dive in fast. I started a marketing consulting firm and luckily, I hustled and I hustled hard and it was very successful.

Cheryl Thompson:

And I did that for many, many years, but it was one on one work. It was exhausting because once you would get an account and then you would service the account and you would build the things, then you would have to start all over. And so there was no scalable mechanism for that business.

Cheryl Thompson:

And all it did was even though it was very successful and I worked with big clients like Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Apple Computer and Verizon and things like that. It was not scalable and it was not sustainable. And so that was kind of my delve in though out of corporate America, and it was a really good experience.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Wow, that's amazing. And first of all, I can't even imagine what that feeling was like when you left without the safety net. Can you kind of walk us through the emotions of that and I guess what in you knew it would be okay?

Cheryl Thompson:

Well, number one, I knew I was smart and I knew that I knew how to hustle and hard work. And so I knew that no matter what, no matter what it was that I had to end up doing business wise, it had to somehow be better than what I had been doing before.

Cheryl Thompson:

Because working in corporate America, I remember working and I was a mom of three, I remember working till 1:00 AM one night and pulling over at the side of the road and crying because I knew I should have been home with my babies eight or nine hours earlier and I wasn't. And I was making a trade off that was going to be lifetime wise. And so those were some of the things. So when I jumped... And to my husband's credit, we've been married over 40 years, he's been incredibly-

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Wow, snaps for that.

Cheryl Thompson:

Incredibly supportive person that I've ever known. And he was behind me all the way and he knew too that our lifestyle had to change. And so that was my delve out of corporate America and at the same time, I started doing flips and rentals with my dad. And we just started it part-time, we would do one to two a year and he did the construction side and I did all the design side and all the buying and selling of properties. And so we kind of took baby steps while I was running my other company. And so then the real estate company continued on and continued on and continued on.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

I love it, I love it so much. And I think we're going to get into your niche in a second, because I think the really... Like everybody here who's watching, the number one question that we get when people want to enroll in the Authority Accelerator is what if I don't have an audience, don't have to wait to build an audience to start a business, and what if I don't have a niche?

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And for me listening to your story, I do clearly hear what your niche should be and ultimately ended up being. But for everyone, this is a journey. And so our whole purpose is when you come into the program to be able to have the clarity of what am I here to do, what is the legacy I want to create and what am I making this business around that really aligns with me and lights my soul on fire? Because as we know, Cheryl, you didn't want to do anything that didn't feel right to you.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right, that's true.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And we commend you for that. So not only is this going to be super inspirational and we're going to hear so much about Cheryl's story and so many golden nuggets, I also want to dive into tactics as well. So I want to give you a little glimpse of what we're going to talk about today, and I think it's going to help you so much if you're watching.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

We're going to talk about how Cheryl was able to identify the right niche for her because there's so many directions that you could have gone and really trusting the timing and the process of identifying that niche, how you built your audience from zero through what we call Authentic Audience Building and then how you built an online business when like I said, you had never run a Zoom call and you didn't even know how to do a PowerPoint before joining our program.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

So we're going to get into all of that. Before I do, I mean, obviously you're no stranger to making tough decisions and taking leaps for yourself based on your journey thus far, but how intimidating was the online space for you?

Cheryl Thompson:

Truthfully, it's very, very intimidating because I am 60. I'm not 20, I didn't grow up with technology. Email was extremely hard for me at some points and I know people will be chuckling out there, but that's the truth. And so the intimidating factor of creating an online course, I thought, "Can I possibly do it?" But I kind of hung on, once I joined the Authority Accelerator, I hung onto a couple of clients that I kept hearing about of yours, one was a hockey coach.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

That's Ryan.

Cheryl Thompson:

And he had no technical ability at all. I call myself a technical flat tire and my husband says, "Gosh, you're too bad for yourself." And I said, "That's how I feel a lot of the time." But I kept holding on to the hockey coach and I thought,?

"My gosh, if a hockey coach can take what he knows and he has no technical ability and package it up and get it out there into the world, then possibly, possibly I can too."

Cheryl Thompson:

And so I kept holding onto those clients and there were not a ton of them, there were a few of them that were as untechnically savvy as I consider myself. I mean, for one thing during a season of Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, I had done none. My girlfriends would say, "Cheryl, you want to get on a Zoom call," and I'm like, "Absolutely not."

Cheryl Thompson:

So I had no niche when I came in to the Authority Accelerator and I'm going to be real honest with what I did. I sat on our coaching calls that are on Tuesdays for two hours and on Wednesdays and all I did was listen. And that was diametrically opposed to my training as an entrepreneur, which is to go fast and to hustle and to burn up the pavement.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so but I found that that quiet time that I had just listening to other people's stories and what they were creating was so inspiring. I felt a fire and there were times when I would start with one niche and I would really examine it. And then something did not feel aligned in me with it. There were actually many different niches as we all Sunny that I could go on.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Of course, yeah.

Cheryl Thompson:

I have a lot of life experience. For instance, when I went into my first business, the first year that I fired my boss, I tripled my income and I actually got to be a mom to my kids. So by letting the safety net go, I was rewarded by God for making that leap. And so when I got in no social media, no niche, no clients, no nothing, it was me.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

It's incredible.

Cheryl Thompson:

And the Authority Accelerator.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

It's me and the Authority Accelerator, me and you. I know we kind of joked about this when we were talking beforehand, but you were like, "You know what's really be cool about this program? Is that you're a real person."

Cheryl Thompson:

I want to speak to that for a minute. And it's because so many "gurus" or people that achieved the level of success that you have, Sunny, remove themselves from their own audience or the people that are really trying to follow what they're trying to teach.

Cheryl Thompson:

And because it means a lot to me that you share the real stuff, you shared a picture of yourself in the emergency room, you shared a picture of yourself on a day when you're really too tired to get up and do things and you give yourself grace and space to be able to rest. You don't hear that from any other entrepreneurs, they're like grinding it out.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

I try.

Cheryl Thompson:

And teaching all these things like time blocking and minute by minute scheduling, and that is not how life is lived. And so it's one of the things that I really, really appreciate about you Sunny.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Well, thank you, and I appreciate that. And I feel like I mean, you're a mirror for me because I feel like your drive to create space and freedom for yourself is very similar to why I'm an entrepreneur. I didn't become an entrepreneur so I could work 24 hours a day. Who wants that? Like, no, thank you.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

So we try and focus on the things that actually matter, which we are going to talk about later as well, because I know that something that you really took away from the program as well is the subtraction factor. So that's going to sound weird to everybody here, but we will dig into it. I wanted to touch on just two really important golden nuggets that you've just dropped and I just wanted to piggyback on them because I think they're important for everyone to hear. So number one, you talk about your husband. First of all, what's your husband's name?

Cheryl Thompson:

Dennis.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Dennis, we love you. We love you, Dennis. And the reason I wanted to bring that up is because there's a quote that I heard a long time ago prior to meeting my now husband, and it said the most important business decision you can ever make as an entrepreneur is the choice in partner you have.

Cheryl Thompson:

Oh, for sure.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And you and your story speaks volumes about that. And of course, we can't always have control over who we're in a relationship with, but you can work on that partnership and you can work on the belief between the both of you that this is viable.

Cheryl Thompson:

For sure.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And we hear every single day people saying,?

"I can't do this because my husband won't let me. I can't do this because my wife doesn't approve."

If I can suggest one thing, find yourself a Dennis, find yourself a Nav or work on it so that this person in your life, your partner understands your goals and supports them and you create a plan together.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

It shouldn't be in silos. It shouldn't be, "Hey, I'm going to go do this, screw you." You should be able to be a team on it. So I wanted to point that out because I think it's so important and I think it's so overlooked and it's vital. It is vital to your success and your growth to have somebody who is on your team and supports you and is rooting for you.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

That was number one. Number two, we talked about the tech and we're going to get into it deeper in a second. But so many people get stuck and let their business dreams die because they go, "I don't know how to build a funnel. I don't know how to do this or that. I don't know how to use the tech. I'm scared of the online space." If that is the thing that stops you from creating a legacy and an impact, you are not meant to be an entrepreneur.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Straight up, if that stops you, don't do it because that is the least of your concern. That is simply just using tools to be able to reach more people. But the biggest focus that you need to have is the what's the impact I'm going to have and what is the legacy I want to create? And what's my program even going to be about? Once you figure out that piece, which is why it's the first thing we focus on, everything else becomes a lot smoother.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And it goes back to that thought process of like, when your why is strong enough, the how become inevitable, the how becomes easy because your why and your mission is very clear. So I just wanted to say that for anybody here who goes, "Oh my gosh, I can't use the tech, I don't know how to use the tech," Cheryl is living proof that that's a moot point.

Cheryl Thompson:

Very true. And to that point, you only have to do one thing at a time and you can master one thing at a time. But I think where we get way laid is we think we have to do it all at once.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yes, absolutely.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so if you can chop it up... And that's another thing that the Authority Accelerator is excellent at and you're excellent at Sunny is teaching people how just to take one thing and not to try to push through it, kind of let it flow.?

You're looking for flow. If you're going to have a successful business or create a legacy business, you're going to have to create some flow.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Absolutely.

Cheryl Thompson:

And it can be done through this.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Absolutely. Preach Cheryl. I mean, you should just be hosting the solo because you're killing it. All right. Let's dive into tactic number one, the big question, but the thing you got to figure out first because if you don't get clear on this, nothing else is going to work. If you don't have clear messaging and a clear niche, nothing works. So let's talk about how you decided on the right niche for you. What was your process?

Cheryl Thompson:

Okay, my process was I came in and you're like I got to have a course today. And then I started getting on the Tuesday, Wednesday group coaching calls and I realized and I was hearing people, some of them were misaligned with what they were doing or you were helping guide them back to a premise that they needed to look at.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so I listened to a lot of that and I sat on those coaching calls for probably 90 days and I was considering five or six different niches. And I kept going, "No, not that one. No, not that one." And I would try to work through it. And you always say you need to be wanting to do something that you could do for a lifetime, that you could leave for a legacy and that you could when at the end of the day, when you say, "I did this," you're excited about it.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so none of those other things were something that I could get excited about, but I kept coming back to real estate because I've always been excited about real estate. My grandmother, I'm a third generation entrepreneur, my grandmother, I was driving off to college, she was 72 years old, roofing one of her own duplexes.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

I am obsessed. What's her name?

Cheryl Thompson:

Yeah, her name's Mildred.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Oh, Mildred, we love you.

Cheryl Thompson:

She's no longer with us, but-

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Well, rest in peace and we love you for paving the way.

Cheryl Thompson:

She did. She paved the way. She had a whole street of duplexes that only belonged to her. She was a widow at 56, she had an eighth grade education and she taught herself at a time where women being investors was unheard of.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

I'm obsessed. I love this. Okay, so you start getting these clues.

Cheryl Thompson:

I do.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

You start getting these clues and I want to talk about the importance of this. Did a lot of your clues come up for you in writing out your own story?

Cheryl Thompson:

Yes. I kept writing zero to hero stories and I kept going through them and through them. And that really... That process helps writing yourself a 90 day letter. I mean, it is amazing when you step back, it's almost like you can prophesy yourself into the future. And I'm a huge believer in God, and I think that helping yourself work through some of those written things is really what takes you to the next place. It's almost like you're saying, "This is where my intention is and these are the desires of my heart and help me to get there."

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you write it down, it becomes tangible, which is why we have you do that. And I think something to really take away from people here is I know if you know me you know I talk about your story a lot. I've shared my story very publicly.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And the reason that it's so important is that I say this often, but people can copy everything about you. People can copy everything about your business, but they cannot take your story away from you. No one else has had the lived experience that you have had. And so basing your business, the first exercise we have you do is let's really deconstruct your own experience and story because your niche lies in that, your niche lies in your story.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And so when you deconstruct it, you start to understand who you're trying to serve and the ultimate transformation you're trying to create because it's a mirror for your own journey. So you start working through this exercise, you start thinking about the fact that you're a third generation entrepreneur, this is in your DNA and it's not like it's in a niche that maybe the obvious one for you but you start to really identify that. So what were the next steps you took from there?

Cheryl Thompson:

Well, like I said, I just kept staying on coaching calls and I just keep coming back to that because through hearing other people work through it helped me the most work through it. So I always say I had no niche for the first 90 days, and then the next 90 days I was working on my niche and then the next 90 days I was actually launching a program, which I couldn't even believe when it happened.

Cheryl Thompson:

I remember the five days before I launched my pop and I was under a lot of stress. And any entrepreneur that's launching a pop is under a lot of stress. I was selling up to two hours before I launched my pop. So I've still got the hustle and grind in me as an entrepreneur. I remember my husband and I were meeting our daughter in Joshua Tree, California, and a call was coming in.

Cheryl Thompson:

We were on the way and I was so afraid we were going to lose coverage, cell coverage because I actually had a sales call that I had to do. So those are the things that happened to me as I was constructing. And it's just one of those things when you put the program together and then you look back at the end of teaching your course, you're like,?

"I can't even believe I did this."

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

I can't believe I did it, but I did it because it's baby steps.

Cheryl Thompson:

I did it.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

It's little baby steps. People want to tackle the whole mountain at once, it's every little baby step a long way. And I give you such props and kudos because you when people come into our program, some people get through this process super quickly and they've got their program off the ground in four to six weeks. But you really, you took a lot of time with this.

Cheryl Thompson:

I did.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And you wanted to make sure that the niche was hyper aligned with your own experience and where you wanted to take this. So if I were to sort of share some takeaways from creating your niche and what you can take away from this as well if you're watching is really focus on your own unique experience and story and what are some of the transformations that you've been through in your life because those transformations are the basis of what you're going to help other people achieve.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And you always want to think about your ideal client as a mirror for you and your own experience. And we always say that to create a highly scalable online program, you have to really clearly identify one specific ideal client at one specific place on their journey when they're most likely to invest and one specific outcome and transformation.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

That's what Cheryl did so well. And so let's now dive into next step of this, which is building your audience from scratch, which this feels very daunting for people and I hear this almost every day. But I have to have an audience before I have a business. No, friend, no you don't. And actually every, this may blow your mind, every single business on the planet doesn't have an audience when they start.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Every single business on the planet has to build their clientele, has to build their audience from zero. And I actually think building it from zero can be super beneficial because then you're building the right audience with clear intention. So let's talk about how you build your audience because this is one are signature methodologies in the program that I would say hands down is the game changer for people and why they're able to create consistency with their business. So let's dig into that.

Cheryl Thompson:

Okay. Well, what I did with that was I had no social media before. So I had to start from scratch, which meant I actually got myself a Facebook account and I only went into three different Facebook groups that were related to real estate. But once I got in there, I could see, and these were all women entrepreneurs wanting to do real estate, all newbies, and I could also that there was an incredible amount of wrong information that can be dangerous.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so what I did was I went into those three groups, I started adding what I consider profitable content just giving people information, how to do things. People would say, "Well, I need this." And I'd say, "Well, you have to have this and this before you can get this." So I just kept adding profitable content. And I added that probably, I probably did that over 30 to 45 days and then I set up 30 minute what I consider coaching calls, which were ICAs. And so-

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

I'm just going to pause you there just because people are going to be like, "What is an ICA again?" I do talk about it, and some people know our terminology, but an ICA is an ideal client avatar. And the process that we have you go through is very different than what most programs have you do and most people do in terms of building a business.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

We call it Authentic Audience Building because, and tell me if you've ever experienced this in the comments, but a lot of the times when somebody's trying to build a business, some of the advice can be sliding to people's DMs and say, "Hey, I want to tell you about my program," or, "Hey, it looks like you're struggling with this, let me tell you about what I offer." That doesn't work because it's like take her out to dinner first, you know what I mean? We got to treat this a little bit like dating.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Warm the person up before you actually go in for the kill. It's about an exchange of value. And what's so important here and why I created this process is that it really is how I built my business. I was always value first and then ask second. And so what Cheryl's referring to is essentially finding people who are seeking the solution and the transformation you provide, and simply getting on a phone call with them to build an authentic relationship by asking them questions and really understanding them and taking the time to listen to them.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

We always like to say that curiosity leads to cashflow. And when you really listen to people, one, they're essentially telling you what to put in your program, you don't even have to think about it. They are literally laying it out for you. And you've built that relationship and no, you're not selling to them on that first call, but you then can say, "Hey, when I create this thing that I'm working on, would you be interested in hearing more about it?"

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

You've now spent half an hour to 45 minutes talking to them, every single person says absolutely. So then you're building an audience of 50 hot, ideal clients from scratch, which is also what led to you having such a great launch of your program. So why don't you just touch base on that before you went any further with the ICA process? So sorry I cut you off.

Cheryl Thompson:

No, no, that's fine. It was... And when I started out with the ICA process, I thought, "Oh my gosh, how am I going to get through one let alone 50?" But then I actually ended up doing 68. And what I found too is that people are so unaccustomed to being listened to in any way, shape or form.

Cheryl Thompson:

And for my audience, I in my mind, when I started out, my audience was going to be about 35, which would've mirrored where I was when I started in doing real estate, I was actually 32, but my audience members ended up being average age of 51. And so the more I talked and I was asking tough questions. You don't usually ask women their age and I was asking that because I wanted as much data and as much input as I could to my program. And so I actually ended up with an average age of my members at 51.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yes, which is incredible. And I want to touch on that. So we talked about being scared of the tech, et cetera, but not letting that stop you because you said something prior to us going live today, and it's so true. And this is the basis of building any business on the planet. People want to buy from people.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

In this day and age, in the online space, we are so obsessed with automations and tech and just get people to a sales page. You sending people directly to a sales page and not having any conversations with the people you actually want to work with means you're going to build a community of people you don't really want to work with.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right, right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And creating a program that you don't even know if they want it. So people buy from people, which is what allows us to create programs that don't have to involve a ton of tech to be super successful. And I think that gets overlooked because there are so many options in terms of selling now, but you really focused on building authentic relationships. And I know because you shared this with us and it was so touching. You said, "I have these incredible ideal soulmate clients and I relate to all of them so much." I know you said that some of them are also grandmothers. Do you want to talk about how aligned and how much mirror your clients are for you?

Cheryl Thompson:

Yes. They are incredibly aligned with me. Like if I had to go out and pick those people, those are exactly the people that I would've picked, which is very uncommon. So it shows me how well the process lays out in front of me without you even that it's happening. And I mean, they are more than ideal. And the community that we, I've created with my tribe, they are encouragers to each other, they're cheerleaders to each other, they're sharing deals with each other.

Cheryl Thompson:

They are helping each other through challenge because every single deal has a challenge. And so I don't know, it's more than just a community of entrepreneurs or a community... It's people that really want to see the best for people. And at a time when we don't always see the best in people, this, by building your community, through the Authority Accelerator, for whatever your course is going to be, it really allows you to see the best in people.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yes, it really, really does. And it allows you to build a community from the beginning that you are excited to work with for the rest of your life. And we often speak about legacy, it's a big thought process in our business. We talk about that in terms of my team.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Everyone that we hire at this point, trust me, I've made some mistakes in the past, but at this point we've learned a lot. And if we're going to bring you on our team or we're going to work with you as a client, we have to go, is this a wholehearted yes that I could work with this person internally or externally for the rest of my life.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Would I be happy to... Am I aligned with this person?

Cheryl Thompson:

Right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Having that centering, I guess, like being centered in that makes growing your business a lot easier because you're not just sort of taking anything you can get, you're being very intentional about how you're building it and how you're creating your legacy. And it's very freeing, it's super liberating.

Cheryl Thompson:

It is. And also, what I learned from you Sunny is that you should turn people away for a longer view.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Absofreakinlutely.

Cheryl Thompson:

Because they will hurt your community and they will hurt you.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yes, ma'am.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so that's another thing as an entrepreneur, we're not taught very often of how to pick and choose the right clients, and it's incredibly important for a healthy business.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Absolutely. And like, I know, I think it was Rosie last month when I spoke to Rosie when we did our live case study with her, she's a pharmacist turned calligrapher and she has this very successful business teaching people calligraphy online.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And she said, she's like,?

"I remember when I first came into the program and I heard you say that you say no to more people than you say yes to and I was like, 'How do you build a business that way?' And then I saw it in action being inside of the program inside of the community and I go, 'Oh, this is how you build a community that is super intentional, aligned and everyone shares the same values and thought process.'"?

So you don't have bad apples.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

You only have the people that you actually really want to work with, which shouldn't we all be able to experience that as an entrepreneur? I just don't think you should have to work with people that are going to cause you more pain or problems or issues, et cetera.

Cheryl Thompson:

Life is short.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yes, life is too short. Exactly. So we've kind of... We dove into the how you found your niche and now how you built your audience from zero. And I know it sounds probably simpler than you think, but it really is that simple. Finding clients does not require you to have all of these fancy tech things.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Like you didn't have a funnel when you did this, you didn't have any website set up. You don't need those things to get clients in the door, and that needs to be very, very clear. In addition, please hear me when I say this, if you start building out a website, a landing page, a sales page, a funnel before you actually test and validate your offer and your messaging, you're going to have to redo it all. So you're just doubling all your work.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

So we now are getting super clear on your ideal clients, super clear on your niche. You're building this incredible dream audience of potential clients. Now you actually create the business. So you were so scared of tech you said you're a technical flat tire, but you still were able to do it. So how do you feel like you were able to navigate building this online course business without feeling confident about the tech?

Cheryl Thompson:

Well, that is where the kudos to the Authority Accelerator and to yourself come in. Because every time I got to the next juncture, whether it be setting up Zoom or setting up Calendly or whatever it was that I was setting up, setting up a pay funnel, for instance, never done that. If you had said, "Cheryl, you're going to set up a pay funnel," that would've sound like I was going to create a green-eyed monster. I had no idea what that was.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so what I did, once again, I just kept listening. And when I would need the community, which that is the beauty of this, when I needed the community for anything, I went out and within 20 minutes I had six people say, "I did it this way or let me help you." And it doesn't always have to be you Sunny, it can be somebody that just completed it, that said, "Here, I can do this." And I would have people DM me and say, "Cheryl, I can help you with that." And so those are things that you can't get in many places.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And again, I feel like I'm repeating myself here, but that also comes down to the fact that we have built the most phenomenal community of support. And the way that we have an intentionally built the community that is the Authority Accelerator, inside of the Authority Accelerator is that we work with people who want to impact, who want to help.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And so I don't remember the saying and I'm going to screw it up, but it's like a rising tide lifts all ships. So it's like everybody is there to support and uplift everyone else. And part of why that's so beautiful and why we teach you to create your programs in the same way is that it does take the pressure off of the founder.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

So if every single person, we talked about one on one work and how you did that prior, if every single person was relying on me and my time and my answers to get the solution to their problem or their question, we wouldn't be able to facilitate that. And it would make it really, really hard on me as a founder, and I wouldn't be able to focus on the more like high level breakthroughs with the clients.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

So we have now got this community of mentorship because we have so many clients who have done this successfully like yourself and are so willing and happy to be like, "Hey, you're struggling with this little thing, I did it, this is how I did it, let me show you." And so everybody becomes a mentor because they master the methodology and then they're able to help their fellow members and getting there faster, which is why we call the Authority Accelerator because it accelerates your progress without having to rely or wait on me if that makes sense.

Cheryl Thompson:

I have to throw this in here Sunny, another thing that I absolutely loved that in my 30 plus years of being an entrepreneur or almost 30, I had never had a moment off, right? Like 24/7, 365. And I have what I call a high octane brain as most entrepreneurs do. That's why we can create things, that's why we can build things, but those brains never shut off.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so by coming into the Authority Accelerator, it gave me permission to work at certain times instead of all the time. And also one thing that floored me, I think it was the first holiday season that I saw you and you're like, "We're off from this date to this date." And I remember looking at my husband going, "Sunny's going to be off from this date to this date, so am I. I'm going to be off from this date to this date."

Cheryl Thompson:

And nobody died and nothing floated. And so I think those are things too that we look at by building this incredible structure around your program and having very strong boundaries that allows you to be the leader and the authority and to not let people breach those boundaries because people will always try to breach boundaries.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so just the fact that you could take off like last week on my, I have what are called group coaching office hours. And so I had sent out a prior notice that said, "Hey, a one time change. We're going early next week on Thursday." And so nobody catapulted and guess what? I was in charge. Ever since I had something that conflicted, I could change it.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Well, here's the thing. If you can't take time off from your business, you do not have a business, you have a job, you are an employee.

Cheryl Thompson:

That is true.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

So you have to be able to make those decisions, it's so important. So, okay, so you got your niche. You've built your audience from scratch simply by building relationships, the vehicle and the tool that you used was going into three Facebook groups, not thousands, three Facebook groups where your ideal clients were seeking out the help that you were providing. You weren't going in there selling, heck no.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

You were going in there providing value, answering questions, building relationships with people, truly understanding your ideal client. And then you start navigating how to build out the curriculum outline for your program. You know the transformation you're going to provide, you know exactly who you're working with, women in their fifties who want to generate wealth for themselves and independence through real estate investing.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

This is what happens when you do those three things correctly. I'm going to pull this up on the screen. This is Cheryl's recap of her first iteration of her program. She did $27,000 in less than 30 days. I just need everybody to let that sink in. And she closed and converted her leads at a 33% ratio, which is very good and also allowed you to build a pipeline of clients who maybe weren't able to join that first round, but they're going to be able to join when you turn this evergreen, which is what you're working on now. How surprised were you by this result?

Cheryl Thompson:

Well, the first day that I got my first client, number one, keep in mind, you have no website, you have nothing, you're talking to of these people, you're literally talking to clients and they are trusting you that you have something valuable that you've created that they can learn from.

Cheryl Thompson:

And also in the real estate investing world, my fees were very manageable compared to what some are out there selling. I mean, you've got people out there selling 10, 15, $50,000 programs. And I just find it ludicrous because if you're going to spend $50,000, you could have already bought the property with that. So taking me back to there, I just decided that I had something valuable to sell and that there were women out there that needed it. And I just saw so many of them overwhelmed and confused and uncertain about where they were going.

Cheryl Thompson:

And once my members, I started out with my pop and I wanted to enroll 20 members and I only enrolled 11. And yet then I had to back myself up as an entrepreneur and say, "That was a win, that was successful Cheryl." Because the 20, I didn't reach it, but the 11 I did. And all of them I sent out feedback forms after week four, sent out feedback forms after week seven, I was getting tens. My husband kept saying, "What feedback are you getting? What do you need to change?" And I'm like, "They're getting it, they're winning."

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is, but I just have to say it's a true testament to your patience in the process and your trust of the process and really doing it right. And yes, we lay out the methodology for you and yes, it's proven, but it's amazing what happens when you really let yourself sort of sink into it and settle into it and just take your time with it to be able to build something the right way.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And now you're at a place where you're able to take space, which you've talked about so much. It's like you never really allowed yourself to take a break and now you're taking this break because you've brought in $30,000. So you're like, "You know what? I'm going to take my time. I'm going to build out the evergreen version of this program." And just to make it clear, I know I saw some questions saying, "Wait, so you launch the program before you even build it?"

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

That's correct. Yeah, so the way that we do it is a prototype model. So you have this very sort of bare-bones version of your program that you know will deliver the transformation people are paying for and buying into, but it's not fancy and it's not pretty, it's just the bare-bones version. So you can actually validate and test it and then you're able to make changes and make tweaks based on the real world feedback of delivering it like that.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And then you build out your evergreen version, which you can just sell to infinity and beyond. And it actually works and it's validated so you're not just hoping that somebody buys it. So you now have this space and this time to build this out, where are you at now in the process and how do you feel?

Cheryl Thompson:

Well, I'm working on the SOP right now. And of course, I'm encountering once again, some technical things as you do in course creation. But I know that number one, I already worked through a lot of technical things. So I know that it can be done now. And so I'm just trying not to hit my head into a concrete wall. I'm just trying to do one thing at a time.

Cheryl Thompson:

I was on an airplane a few weeks ago and I was writing down all the component parts out of my memory, and I went through and I had done about 67% of everything I need to do to get to the SOP and to launch an evergreen program. So I'm almost there, I'm not all the way and it may take me another month or maybe two months.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

It's okay.

Cheryl Thompson:

But in the long run, I'm hoping that I have a 20, 30 year business.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And that's the thing. I think people need to really understand that and realize like, "Okay, let's say this takes you three months to build this out." For some people, it takes two weeks, for you, you're taking three months.

Cheryl Thompson:

Correct.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Whatever at the end of the day, because you're building a business that can last the next 20, 30, 40, however many years you want this to last and you're building a legacy and an impact that's going to outlast you at the end of the day, which is what a legacy business is and why that's so important to me. It's like, I want to create something that's going to have a ripple effect long after I'm gone.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And so whatever amount of time you have to take here to do that, well let's say it's a few months, that pales in comparison to the amount of time business is truly going to exist and serve a purpose. And I think we get so lost in trying to do things fast and hustling through it and getting it out there that we miss the point.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Just building a business for the sake of building a business and building a program for the sake of building a program is actually creating more work in the long run because you haven't done the due diligence to know who you're serving and ultimately what you want to be known for and the kind of impact and transformation you want to have.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Do you feel like your mindset has shifted around this process going through it in the way that you have?

Cheryl Thompson:

Oh, it's shifted incredibly. There's two things that I've learned that I knew I needed, but I didn't know how to get it before I joined the Authority Accelerator, which is number one, sustainability as a business and number two, scalability. Now I can scale and I can add hundreds or thousands of people into my course that before when I was doing everything one on one in my previous businesses, you couldn't do that, and at the end of the day, you just dropped.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yes, absolutely.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so those are two really important things. But another mindset shift I had was I grew up on hard work. And I told you about my grandmother who was on the roof at 72 working on her duplex. And so I'm a huge believer in hard work, but here's what I've learned over my lifetime, is hard work does not equal success.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yes, ma'am. Say it louder for the people of the back, okay.

Cheryl Thompson:

You have to do the right work. So I feel for the first time I'm doing the right work. And maybe I had to do all that other work to get to this work to get through this work.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Totally.

Cheryl Thompson:

But those are the two things that I've learned probably more than anything, Sunny, is sustainability and scalability through the program.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

I love it so much. That makes me so happy to hear. And I know that, let's add another S in there because it echoes what you were just saying, which is subtraction. And here's the cool thing about our community, we have a lot of our Authority Accelerator community here right now. Thank you for being here and showing love and support to Cheryl.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

We talk a lot about subtraction leads to success, it's one of my catch phrases for sure. I have a few that I think I should just get on t-shirts. But how has that impacted you and how has that made you think differently, not only about your business, but also about your life?

Cheryl Thompson:

Well, you and I talked earlier too that subtraction is one of the biggest things that I've learned from you and how not to always be adding more to your life, that actually less is better, more is not better. So I hear you say that a lot on coaching calls, subtract, don't do that, quit doing that, it's too much.

Cheryl Thompson:

And I've never heard those things before truthfully, because the arenas that I was raised in and my businesses were raised in was you have to try harder, you have to work more and what I hear you saying is work less but do the right work so you can impact more people. And that's a diametric shift in mindset.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

It absolutely is. And it took me a long time to learn that for myself to be able to share that and to be able to create more efficiency for everybody who does enroll in the program. And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways you can get, is you just don't have to be doing everything and actually doing everything makes you ultimately less successful especially when you don't know what your definition of success is. But I think to bring this whole circle for you, how would you define success and do you feel like you've achieved it at this point?

Cheryl Thompson:

My definition of success right now is based on impact and purpose.

?How can I impact and help as many women grow in their lives and in their businesses as I possibly can. I've always been a huge supporter and an encourager of women and their dreams, but here's the deal. Businesses are important, but at the end of the day, it's family and faith and those kind of things that are really going to make the difference.

Cheryl Thompson:

And so if you forget those things or you blush over those things on your way to success, so my definition of success now today at 60 is really about impact and purpose and waking up every morning to find a woman that I can help make her life better.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Yeah, absolutely. And I couldn't agree more and I think everyone's definition of success is unique to them. But I do think part of the reason that I love you so much is that our definitions are very similar and yes, you're 60 and I am 34, but I learned the hard way very early on that working is not the end goal for me. And that piece of it is not what creates success for me. I got into being an entrepreneur so I could have the freedom and flexibility to spend more time with the people that I love and to create those memories and experiences.

Cheryl Thompson:

Right.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And that goes hand in hand with you just can't be working all the time in order for that to align. And so part of the reason I created the program was to redefine how entrepreneurship can look and that it can be done in a way that is sustainable, as you mentioned, scalable and subtracts anything that isn't necessary to your own definition of success. Two little questions before we wrap up. When you think about life, if you were to take a before and after photo of life before the Authority Accelerator and after, how different does it look?

Cheryl Thompson:

Number one, it looks dramatically different because I feel like after joining the Authority Accelerator, I feel like hope got a lot brighter because I had been doing entrepreneurship for a long time unsustainably. And so hope huge in neon lights. Also for me, big thing was my brain actually got to rest for the first time in probably three decades.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Wow.

Cheryl Thompson:

And that is saying a lot. And also I want to give a shout out to one of your clients, it's Monica and she's your dance. And I love Monica's story so much because... And I actually dance here in my dining room too much.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Same here, Cheryl, same here.

Cheryl Thompson:

What I found out from Monica was that everything we learn in life doesn't have to be so hard driving, that sometimes it's the things like dancing in your kitchen that are going to make you happy at the end of the day. And so I watched her go through COVID and start to generate exponential returns by taking her dance studio out of "the real world" and putting it online where she could make a bigger impact. So kudos to you, Monica.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Oh we love Monica. Monica's story is so incredible. We can drop the link to our case study and interview with her as well because it really is so good. I love that. And I guess my final question for you because there's a lot of people here watching and I know there's a lot of people who are considering the Authority Accelerator and are kind of like sitting on that fence going, "Is it for me? Is it not for me? I don't know." Or maybe have a lot of fear coming up. And you were once in that position, you were once on the other side of this. So if you were to talk to that version of yourself or to the people here who are considering it, what would your advice be?

Cheryl Thompson:

Number one, do it because if you don't do it, you can't ever get to the place of building a legacy business and making the impact that you want to make. And I'm going to throw this out there. I didn't have the money when I went in to join the Authority Accelerator, I had to find the money. And my husband and I, Dennis, saved diligently to be able to jump in.

Cheryl Thompson:

And in my mind I was thinking, "Am I crazy?" And as you can see, I wasn't crazy and the returns were exponential. And I just wanted to throw out a couple of successes too of my own students. I've got students that have been doing real estate now for less than six months, some of them four months. One lady last week told me she has 90,000 in equity from two properties she's purchased. She's going to generate $63,000 a year off of an Airbnb.

Cheryl Thompson:

72% of my students have been making offers. Over 50% of my students have already bought their first investment property within the first 90 days of being in my program. 20% have done multiple deals. I have one woman who's a realtor and she learned things that she hasn't learned in two decades of being a realtor. And she has three children that she wants to build a generational real estate business with and she's doing it. She actually has already done three deals.

Cheryl Thompson:

So those are just some of the successes, but Sunny, I just have to hand it back to you. Thank you for building a course that is number one, real.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

You're welcome.

Cheryl Thompson:

Step by step, you're never left out there by yourself to do things and I think that's why it's successful. So thank you so much.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Thank you, Cheryl. Thank you for doing the work. Thank you for trusting the process. Thank you for being a star client and going through this so diligently. And more than that, I always say to people when they get their first clients and their programs and they're scaling their programs, I always say I'm so excited for you, but I'm also so excited for your clients because that's the ultimate goal.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

My goal is to create success ripples with all of my clients out in the world. You all have your own unique geniuses and your own purposes and my job is just to help you create the impact that you're to make. So you're doing it in such a big way. I couldn't be happier for you and I can't wait to see where you are a year from now. I mean, who knows?

Cheryl Thompson:

I'm so excited.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Like where are you going to be a year from now? It's incredible. So I'm so grateful you took the time to chat with us. I know that so many people here are just loving your story. And I also wanted to say thank you for all of our Authority Accelerator clients who showed up today and tuned in. We love you, we love this community.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

And for everyone who is on the fence or wondering if they should join, like I said, super simple. All you need to do is apply now at sunnylenarduzzi.com/apply - we'll see if you're a fit for the program and then Cheryl and I will see you on the inside because it's lifetime access.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

So Cheryl, you're not getting rid of me and I'm not getting rid of you.

Cheryl Thompson:

Thank you Sunny.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Thank you so much.

Cheryl Thompson:

Okay. Bye-bye.

Sunny Lenarduzzi:

Bye. Bye.

To join Cheryl and I in the Authority Accelerator, please apply here today: https://sunnylenarduzzi.com/apply