In this star-studded episode, Mitch Russo, shares how he became independently wealthy at the age of 42 by founding, scaling and selling a software business, then went on to coach thousands of leaders, and now helps coaches help even more clients. There is something in this episode for everyone.

You will discover:

– How to approach selling your company (and why you may not want to take the first offer)
– How to leverage certification to dramatically cut costs, transform them into revenue, and boost your bottom line
– How coaches can use systems, processes, and software to boost their clients’ results and build a thriving business

Episode Transcript

Scott Ritzheimer

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach and I am here with an unbelievably high demand coach and that is the one and only Mitch Russo. So he co founded Timeslips Corp, which was the largest time tracking software company in the world and in 1994 TimeSlips Corp sold to Sage PLC for eight figures. And while it sage, he went on to run sage US as Chief Operating Officer, a division of 300 people with the get this a market cap of $100 million. Super, super cool. Mitch joined Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins, I’m sure you’ve heard of them, and created Business Breakthroughs, which is a company that serve 1000s of businesses a year with coaching, consulting and training services, and his coaching software. A client folio fills a void in the coaching software marketplace by helping coaches to make their clients more productive with goal tracking software and accountability. And I was telling Mitch, before we started to hear he’s just kind of done everything. So I’m not sure how we’re gonna get all this in 20 minutes, 25 minutes, but there’s so much here tune in anything else you’re doing. Just put it on hold, because you’re in for an unbelievable episode. Mitch, it’s so nice to have you here. Welcome to the show. I’d love to just start off before we kind of get into all of the work that you’re doing right now with coaches and other clients. I’d love to hear just a little bit of this backstory, right. What were you doing before getting into coaching? And how did that lead to where you are today?

Mitch Russo

Sure. Well, Scott, first of all, thank you for inviting me to your show. It’s an honor to be here with you. And I’m pleased and happy to share my experience with with anybody with everyone I should say on your show or your listeners. So my story really started with having built a company. And that was really the roots of everything I’ve done. I was 28 years old, I was afraid that the PC revolution was going to leave me behind. I saw this this nerdy guy, Bill Gates, building software for this Homebrew Computer. And I said, for heaven’s sakes, I got to jump on this thing. I don’t know how, but I want to be part of it. I loved computers, I was a nerd from the beginning, continue to be in many ways. And so I just one day I, I had a struggle with a problem. And the problem was, how do I deduct this $5,000 PC from my taxes. So I called my account and he said, Well, according to the IRS, you got to keep contemporaneous records of its use in order to deduct it. And I said, Oh, that’s no problem. I guess I’ll just get a piece of software that does that for me. Well, there was no software that did that. And so I sat down with my next door neighbor, who by the way, had created five commercially available products on the Apple two. And I said, Well, what do you think about this? What do you you know, maybe this is, I gotta find a way to do this. And I didn’t, I just didn’t tell him at all what I wanted or what to do. I just showed him I just thought about and discuss with him what my problem was. And then six weeks later, he calls me up and says, Come on over, I want to show you something. And I walked across the street. And he had already built a mock up of what we had discussed at breakfast that day. And I very casually said to him, so I want to start a company, we can probably sell a bunch of these. And he said, Sure. And that’s literally how TimeSlips Corporation started. Now, this is my FedEx story. What happened was we built this product to keep track of contemporaneous record for usage and deducting your computer on your taxes. And we had spent six months after work in the mornings on weekends, building, documenting, testing, proving this thing to work. And that Friday, we both agreed you know what, let’s quit our jobs. Let’s do this. We’re in. And we did. That Monday, I got a call from that same accountant who I then said to him, Well, what’s going on? What do you what’s up? He goes, Oh, I got some bad news for you. I said, What is it? He goes? The IRS no longer needs contemporaneous record keeping. So sorry, I know you were working on some kind of a project. And I said, Watch. He said, Yeah, they just agreed it’s a business tool. And you could deduct it. Now you don’t need a logging system to do it. So of course, we were upset, angry, you know, we had literally burned the boats. And, but but we both knew that we had something significant. We had a piece of technology that was unique. That was valuable, but we didn’t know how to apply it. So we spent the rest of the day brainstorming. Well, well who else in the world would need a piece of technology like this? And how do we adopt it to use in other industries and about Five hours, six hours go by. And we came up with the idea, well, why don’t we create a time tracking and billing system for people who build by the hour, and ran it by a few folks that we knew. And they thought it was a great idea. And so that’s what we did. And that was the true beginning of TimeSlips. Corporation. So went back to the drawing board, 90 days later, we actually had a MVP, and we released it to a few people who have been following our journey on CompuServe. Of all places back then. And that was the that’s how we started the company. And, and, frankly, you know, we had no funding, we just my partner and I, we just put $5,000 Each in the bank, we did not need venture capital, we both had savings that we could rely on. While we attempted this experiment of starting a company. And we just decided that we weren’t going to stop, we could pivot along the way if we have to. But we’re going to stop until we were successful. And that’s in a nutshell, that’s basically what we did.

Scott Ritzheimer

Wow, so fast forward a little bit, I’d love to hear about this transition where Sage comes into play as a massive, massive player in this space. So tell me a little bit, just tell us a little bit about how that that sale went? And I’ve got a couple of questions. I’d love to fire your way up to them.

Mitch Russo

Sure. So what happened was about seven years into the journey, my partner came to me and said, What do you think this? How does this end, by the way? And I said, What do you mean, he goes? Well, I mean, this has been great. I’ve had a lot of fun building this with you. And we’ve certainly done quite well. But is there an endpoint to this, and I said, if you, you know, for me, I’d never really considered it. I mean, I, I love doing this, I think we could scale this to the moon. But if you feel like there’s an endpoint that you need, then you let me know, and we’ll work it out. So we called in some VCs, and VCs made him a ridiculously low offer for his half of the company. And I refused to allow him to sell, I said, You know what, I’m gonna, we’re going to sell the whole company, and I’m going to cash out along with you. And so we started looking for a buyer. And we had several come to the table. The one buyer, that was the most interesting to us because it had the most synergy with sage. But sage really came to us with a very low ball offer. And they said, Well, you know, we’ll, we have other companies we probably will acquire. So we’ll check back with you in a year or two and see where you’re at, because I know you won’t accept this offer. Well, in that year, I had built the TimeSlips certified Consultant Program. And it grew that to 350, TimeSlips certified consultants, and had dropped a million in profits to the bottom line just with that program alone. And by the way, I documented that entire process in this book right here called Power tribes, which is all about how to build conscious groups and communities called certification. And so now they were, they were singing a different tune, the offer was much bigger, doubled the value of the company in 18 months. And now he had a second offer from another company at the same time, Sage his offer was more conditional on performance, which I liked. And we decided to accept that.

Scott Ritzheimer

Jana got it. And then you went on to work with sage for a little bit. So if you could, if you could go back and do that over again. Was there anything that you would do differently about that, that whole process?

Mitch Russo

Which whole process? Selling the company?

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah selling the company?

Mitch Russo

Um, I don’t know. I mean, it was a very interesting time in the world. In many ways, the timing was perfect. We could have said, well, maybe we could have held it and made it bigger and then sold it. But we had competition coming in from Intuit at that point. And Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit, and I were friends. And he gave me a little heads up and said, Look, we’re building time tracking and billing into the system, sort of because you made it so popular. So you know, there were things like that, that were starting to show up. And at the same time, I had $6,000 left in my bank account. And that was all I had to my name, except this very valuable company. So we we decided to sell it at the time that I thought was right. And I in back looking back at all these years. I think the timing was perfect.

Scott Ritzheimer

Fantastic fantastic. Congratulations. So let’s fast forward and let’s go all the way to present day here. Build some partnerships. You’ve got this unbelievable set of books and certifications of your own. So tell me in all of the stuff that you’re doing right now, what would you say is the most important work you’re doing for your clients?

Mitch Russo

That’s a hardcore students going to answer because I think, to this day, I think certification is the most vital thing I do for companies. And when I build certification for companies or with companies, it changes, it changes their world. In many ways it it changes the trajectory of their company in a major way. But on the other hand, cleaning folio, the software platform that I built for coaches, has significantly changed the coaching business. And the reason I say that is because most coaches really are stuck with tools that are very hard to use, very expensive, and don’t really focus on results, they focus more on admin. So he shirt client folio, focuses on admin too. But more importantly, we have an entire suite of goal tracking and accountability systems built in, that are super easy to use, and really motivate clients to do the work and show up for coaches. Because look, at the end of the day. coaches need testimonials and testimonials are how we as coaches, increase our fees and find a better class a client. Right?

Scott Ritzheimer

Right! I think it’s so important. One of the things I was talking about with a with a group just recently was, don’t ever hire a coach without an objective, you know, there’s bumped into a number of people was like, I need a coach. Why? Because I need a coach. It’s almost like someone told them, they needed to have a coach and they have no idea why. And unfortunately, there are a lot of coaches are great, that’s work, you know, maybe we can work on that. But this whole thing of you can get two and three and 10 times the value out of a coaching relationship, if you’re really, really clear on what you’re going after, right. And I love that aspect of how the software helps to drive that facilitate it and then keep us accountable to it. Because even if you start with a clear objective, you know, you can you can bounce all over the place if you’re not careful. And so I love that aspect. Tell me a little bit like what drove you to building that results? Focus? What What were you seeing in the market that really made that make sense?

Mitch Russo

Well, it’s what I wasn’t seeing in the market, to be honest. I mean, I had a very, very busy coaching business. And I was really working way too hard. And I decided it was time to finally stop cobbling together the free stuff on the web, like, you know, like, Google Docs, and all that stuff, and, and really just find a platform that can support my business. So I spent five, six months trying out platforms. And I was so disappointed that I didn’t really care at that point, whether the, whether the software I was about to build was going to make money or not, I just needed it. And so I hired a team of developers, I designed the system, I wireframe, the screens and built the flows inside the product and, and hired them to build it. And as soon as they built it, and I started using it even in this very earliest stage, I was immediately saving two to three hours a week. Well, yeah. And so for me, that was a huge win, particularly when I knew those two or three hours could be dedicated to family or, or time with friends or more coaching business, if that’s what I chose to do. So it was a drive to improve what was out there. And when I did, one of the key elements of it was why don’t I make it really inexpensive, so that any coach, even beginning coaches can get the benefits of this, and in what it was released in in 2021. That’s exactly how I how I decided to market it.

Scott Ritzheimer

That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. So I want to jump to the first point you made there, which was this idea of certification because I think you know, there’s a lot of certification that happens in the coach world. And the I think many people are kind of familiar with that at least. But the thing that I found so remarkable was that you’re not just talking about coaches, right? TimeSlips was a great example of this. You are a software company at the time, and you recognize the need to. Tell me the name of the certification you did at TimeSlips again?

It was a TimeSlips certified Consultant Program.

Right. So fascinating, fascinating idea. So tell tell me a little bit about how a company that wouldn’t traditionally think of itself as a certification company can leverage the power of certification, not only for their top line, but for their bottom line as well.

Mitch Russo

Sure, well, we had a very popular product. And, you know, back then the product was published in the DOS operating system. We transitioned to Windows and then eventually to Mac. But the problem was is that there were a lot of people using it that were not technical. So they had tech support problems. And we had free tech support and then we had paid tech support. But our idea we had a room in the bottom floor of the building that we had leased and it was filled with with computers and desks and phones and people doing tech support. Well problem was this that you know, there’s some support that it just it takes a long time and the wait times were starting to climb up there and I was sort of looking for solution. And trust me the solution was sell West was not sell their software that was absolutely not the solution. But then one day, and I had an epiphany. And the epiphany was when a disgruntled customer called me up. And they had spent $99 For our software, but were accusing us of having our software crashed their computer. And they happened to be a significant person, they were head of the Los Angeles Bar Association technical leadership program. And so they had a lot of visibility, and a bad word from them might really impact the company. So finally, after no one could help them, I got on the phone with them and said, Call me what’s going on. And I said to them, I’ll have somebody there tomorrow. And I didn’t know how I was going to do that. I just made that statement. And then I was thinking to myself, well, I could fly out myself or I could have one of my tech support people fly out. And I had this idea, why don’t I call an existing customer who I know is very knowledgeable and they live in this area. So I did I picked someone from the, from our database, I called them up and I said, Can I ask a favor? And they said for you, Mitch, of course. What do you need? I said, Would you be able to go over and help this lady with her computers? As something’s going on there? I know it’s not the software, but she’s having problems. So it’s now remember that they’re in California. I’m in Massachusetts, at the time, and she goes over there. Now I’m waiting. It’s like nine o’clock at night. And I’m waiting and waiting to find out what happened. Finally, she calls me back at home. And I said, is everything okay? She was always fantastic. It turned out great. It turns out that she didn’t know how to use it. And we did it. And it’s all everything’s working great. And she said, and then you know what the best part was Mitch, I said, What’s that? She gave me $100 bill. And at that at the time, I said, Wow, that’s and I’m so happy for you. She goes, and this was the phrase to change my world. She said, and if you need anybody else, if you have anybody else in the area that has these types of problems, you let me know, I’ll be happy to go out and help them. And like it, like my brain exploded. At that point. It was like, Oh, my God, what happens if I had 10 of her? What happens about 100 of her? What happens if I had 200 300 ads all over the country willing to go out and help people with their software, and charge money for that while they made a living? And of course, we could make money doing it, too. That’s how the certification program started for TimeSlips Corporation.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah, yeah, that’s unreal. What a great story. So that just in and this isn’t fair, but just in a minute or two, what are a couple more examples, maybe not even full stories. But just a couple of examples, that of folks who have leveraged this in a in what I would, I guess I would consider a non traditional way.

Mitch Russo

Sure, we had a real estate company, leverage this process and create real estate trainers, certified real estate trainers, we have an AI company now doing that with us as well, we have a Hollywood promotion company doing this with us now, as well. We’ve had other software companies, we’ve had coaching companies, we’ve had people with coaching and training processes do this too. So certification is really in a sense what you say it is. But the most important thing, and the reason that mine is different than I think everybody else’s, is because what we do is we build culture alongside of certification. So before a single person is admitted into the program, they understand and are indoctrinated into the culture of the company and of the program itself. And then the other part, which appeals to of course, many CEOs who said this is a multi recurring revenue stream system. So we don’t just sell a certificate that you could put in an eight by 10, frame and high and hang behind your zoom window. This is actually a business model that makes you money every single month. And that’s why for so many people, it’s such a vital program, and such a big contributor to the bottom line for them.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah. And the genius of this, and again, I love it from the story that you shared, I don’t want to overlook it is that you took something that could have been a massive cost center for you, right? It’s like either limit sales, nonstarter or increase expenses and you know, adding and adding and adding tech support folks. And instead he turned that around to something that was now yet again another profit center. And if I remember correctly added a million dollars to your bottom line in a year’s time, so anyone listening, it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, look at those things that drive you crazy, right like that. Those things are just sucking at the bottom line and think there’s someone out there who loves solving that problem. And then go get a minimum get Mitch his book, check him out. Call him he’ll get that done in no time at all. But, Mitch, I absolutely love that model. I think it’s fantastic. Now there’s a question I like to ask all of my guests and it’s this. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s the one thing you wish everybody listening today knew?

Mitch Russo

Nobody really cares about what you do. They only care about themselves and what results they get. So stop caring about how you look on assume or how you show up on social media focus in on what your true values are and stick to them. So many people vacillate between one set of values and another, because they think that’s what the market wants. And the market doesn’t the market wants the genuine you, whatever that is. And however you show up at it, that’s not working for you then find your tribe, and make sure that you are in sync with them.

Scott Ritzheimer

That’s so good. That’s so good. And again, I love the second portion of that, because you hear a lot of people say stay true to your values. But if it’s not a market fit, right, that’s the point that you’re making there is, if it’s not a market fit, there is a market for that, and go find it. There’s so much we could do on that. But for the sake of time, we’re just gonna leave that as a teaser for anyone. Mitch has a couple of great books on the topic. But last thing, last question for you, then we’ll make sure that folks know how they can get in touch with you. And last question I have, I’m actually going to take off your coach hat for a moment, put on your CEO hat again, and talk to what’s the next challenge look like for you and your business? And what’s that growth look like? On the other side of it, you think?

Mitch Russo

Well, what I’m what I’m really focused on now is I continue to help people with certification that is my core business. But coin folio is starting to take more centerstage more than ever before. So I built out a coach program to help coaches really scale their own business. And my third book called coach elevation, talks more about the processes of coaching than the software per se. And it’s in the processes where the where I think the value lies. Because ultimately coaches, as you may know, as a demographic are basically broke. Most coaches either have other jobs or have two or three jobs, and can make a living as a coach. And that’s a shame. Because you spend money on coach certification, you’ve trained yourself, you’re passionate about what you do. Well, you need to make a living. And the way to do that is to have processes that you could put in place that stead that systematically uplevel you. And when you do that you’ll attract better clients charge more money and get better results. It’s that simple.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah, it’s so true. So get the one two punch, get the book and remind us of the title one more time, Coach Elevation, Coach elevation, then check out client folio, you will not regret it, Mitch, for those who are listening and that they’ve just got to know more more about the certification even more about the software, where can they find you?

Mitch Russo

A best place is MitchRusso.com. That’s my website. And it has all of my stuff on there. You could find out more about the software about certification about my books about my own podcast and the 550 blog articles that are residing there as well.

Scott Ritzheimer

I’ve been on this site as I was doing some research for the episode and I can’t tell you how much value there is on this site. If you have not been to MitchRusso.com absolutely are missing out. Go check it out right away. We’ll put it in the show notes. Everyone can get to it. And Mitch, thank you so much for being here. What an honor and privilege to have you here. It was so exciting. Such a great set of stories there. There’s something for everyone in this episode. And for those listening, you know your time and attention in the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.

Contact Mitch Russo

Mitch Russo co-founded Timeslips Corp, which was the largest time tracking Software Company in the world. In 1994, Timeslips Corp was sold to Sage, PLC for 8-figures. While at Sage, he went on to run all of Sage U.S. as Chief Operating Officer, a division with 300 people with a market cap in excess of $100M. Mitch joined Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins and created Business Breakthroughs, Int’l, a company serving thousands of businesses a year with coaching, consulting and training services. His software for coaches; ClientFol.io fills a void in the coaching software marketplace by helping coaches make their clients more productive with goal tracking and accountability.

Want to learn more about Mitch Russo’s work at MindfulGuidance, LLC? Check out his website at https://MitchRusso.com

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