How To Change Your Attitude And Vision — Interview With Brionne Hopkins (Part 1)

Kale:?Brionne Hopkins is a business consultant and owner of the Thrive Advisor Group, which does business development, consulting and coaching. Brionne, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate your time.

Brionne:?Thank you for having me.

Kale:?I have been looking forward to this for a while because I just love hearing about other people that are in the business development and business consulting space. It’s similar to what I do, but I think you have a little bit more rounded approach to it.

Give us a little snapshot and explanation of what you specifically and/or your company, the Thrive Advisor Group does.

Brionne:?We help a lot of businesses anywhere from mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 companies in different areas. Our specific proficiencies deal in marketing, sales, growth planning and operational improvements.

We are just now transitioning, because we just got the opportunity to become a Grant Cardone licensee. That was a big step for our business. It’s not the most inexpensive option out there for sure, but the content is phenomenal.

I have been running businesses for over 15 years and there’s a lot of content that I’m learning through his program. It’s just going to give us that much more strength going forward.

We are also going to focus on events, group coaching, which is once a week, and one-on-one coaching, which can be specified to however much need you have. Some businesses just like that one-on-one interaction.

The great thing with it is we are able to help you no matter where you are. We are not constrained by travel or anything along those lines. We just hop on a Zoom call, run through anything that you are having problems with and come up with solutions.

A lot of our clients actually just need it for accountability. They just need somebody to continually push them, review what they did the week before and give them new direction going forward.

Kale:?Now I want to touch on something. You mentioned that you have been in business in some form or fashion for the last 15-plus years, and you have also said that you recognize that you still are learning some new things.

A lot of people, especially if you have been doing something for a long time, have developed this confidence in their skills and abilities.

Can you talk a little bit more about that attitude and then how have you seen that in the people and the businesses that you have come across with?

Brionne:?Absolutely. I have read hundreds of books. I have watched thousands of YouTube videos, all specifically driven on business because I want to continue improving myself.

I’m really big on self-improvement. I think it’s one of the vital things that gets missed by business owners and upper-level management; they have a lot of distractions in life.

Their cell phones are a constant struggle. Binge-watching Netflix when you could be working on your craft, bettering your skills and learning new tools.

I say even me, because I consider myself a professional salesperson. I have been very successful in many management capacities as far as running teams of salespeople. I have a very vast in-depth knowledge of the sales process and the intricate parts of the sales system.

When I say even me, I consider myself an expert when it comes to sales. I’m very good with marketing, but I’m humble enough to know that I can always learn what I see.

Upper-level management people often say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I don’t belong to that philosophy, but I have met a lot of staff that do, and they feel like they make really good money. They are on top of the world.

They don’t have a big vision thinking. They are very secluded. They are very happy in their little bubble. However, my demeanor is to keep pressing forward. It can be challenging with certain individuals, just because they have that mindset of not needing to learn.

Kale:?I did a small stint before I went into the Air Force, with a Ford dealership selling cars. It was very similar in a way.

You had your guys that had been there for a while, that were top achievers and they were thinking there was nothing else they could learn. Along with that, there was nothing that they were willing to impart on the next generation like me.

Now over the last 15 years now, have you been a business coach and consultant for that industry?

Has that been your business or did you come out of another industry?

Brionne:?The last 10 years I have been recruited, I was in a really weird situation. A lot of it was that I had to build enough confidence in myself, but I have been recruited for the last decade from an employer working an employee role, if you will.

I just started my business about six, seven months ago. I keep bouncing jobs as an employee. I fixed them, and then somebody else came over and said: “Hey, we’ll pay you more money. Come do this with us”.

It just kept that endless cycle and I said: “What if I just did this myself. I can help whoever I want at that point. I can help more people than just one entity or one business”.

I have had a very successful track record when it comes to growing businesses. That’s the main reason I got into consulting. It was time to move forward and haven’t looked back since.

Kale:?That’s an incredible risk. It’s not something that many people are willing to take, especially to leave the comfort of being recruited by other companies that are recognizing your value.

Brionne:?The money was really good. I also got to the point where I set my own hours. I was pretty much a consultant. However, I still had somebody to report to. I still had somebody who was in control of my actions.

I didn’t feel fulfilled, there was something missing. 64% of small businesses barely break even or lose money every month. 76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. There’s obviously a big need for a business like mine.

Kale:?As you are on that journey of ramping up, why create the Thrive Advisor group?

Why jump from a very comfortable position, making good money and having security to something that’s unknown?

Was there a moment that you said: “I’m going over here now”?

Or was it more gradual?

Brionne:?It was more of a gradual situation because I kept feeling this urge that I could be doing more. My mentality, for as long as I can remember, has always been to help people. I didn’t feel like I was doing it at my full potential where I was.

I was helping businesses and they were doing very well, but it was one at a time. Then all of a sudden, I drive down the street and I see: “closed, closed, closed” inside these places I really enjoyed going to.

It’s going to be harder and harder for small businesses as the online marketplace gets more and more saturated and the brick-and-mortar starts to continually decline.

I thought this would be a very good time to get out there and make a name for myself so that we can get out there and start helping businesses rapidly.

Kale:?Are you very local in your approach? Or are you trying to reach across the nation?

Brionne:?We are everywhere. The only area we haven’t tried is the international one yet, just because there’s a lot of tax law involved that we need to filter through.

We will travel to those locations if needed. For the most part however, we do everything through Zoom, phone calls, and emails. We can definitely help anybody in the United States.

Also, unless it’s an operational issue, we rarely have to go to your location. If you are having marketing trouble or you need sales training done with your sales team, anything along those lines, we can definitely help remotely.

Kale:?As you have been having these interactions with these different businesses, as you have gone in and started diving in, dissecting and analyzing these business models:

What role does that particular business owner’s leadership skills, abilities and outlook play into what you do?

Is that something you focus on?

At what level does leadership come into that?

Brionne:?It’s vital. It’s probably the area we don’t market, but it’s always a focus in every business we have helped. There are always areas of improvement that can be made on the management side or ownership side.

If you are on the inside of the business, it’s hard to see. However, when you stand from the outside and look in, it’s pretty obvious where the improvements need to be made.

There’s always a marketing, sales or financial issue in every business we have dealt with, but on top of that, with every business we have helped, there’s always been leadership areas of improvement.

The biggest one is attitude.

Kale:?Can you explain more about the attitude problems?

Brionne:?I always tell all my clients that no matter what business you are in, it needs to be service-based. You have to have an attitude of wanting to help and wanting to benefit another.

Especially with the sales team, because they get very commission-focused. Even the management team is really bad at that. They want to hit those numbers, but they forget to keep a positive attitude. It’s very important.

Your complete environment has to reflect your positive attitude to your customer. You have to push that onto your customers so that they feel positive and the experience goes very well.

If you want to sell a lot of anything or you want to get your marketing message out there, you have to touch people.

The only way to do that is having that willingness to want to do it, because you want to put service first, always service.

Subscribe now to catch Part 2 of my amazing interview with Brionne!

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges at your workplace that Brionne Hopkins touched on? Do you think there may be a leadership or attitude problem involved?

The first step to becoming the leader you were meant to be is to join our VIP Leadership Mastermind. We offer weekly LIVE trainings on relevant Leadership topics as well as Sales & Marketing for your business as well as live Q&A (and maybe even a SPECIAL BONUS when you join!) Click (or copy/paste)?https://www.vipleadershipmastermind.com ?today!

Learn The Strategies To Build A High Quality Team Of?Self-Motivated, Dedicated And Growth-Minded Team Members?(So You Can Increase Your Client Acquisitions And Scale Your Business To The Next Level!)

Join?https://www.vipleadershipmastermind.com ?now!