How to Set Up Profitable Certification Programs with Mitch Russo, Founder Power Tribes

Mitch Russo is the go-to person for companies that want to build a quality certification program. He helps Founders, CEOs, Authors, and Coaches build 8 figure companies by maximizing resources, deploying technology and streamlining systems and processes. He is the Founder of Power Tribes where he helps 7 figure companies add multiple recurring revenue streams.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• [02:18] Jeremy introduces his guest Mitch Russo
• [04:17] Mitch tells the incredible story of why he started Power Tribes
• [08:55] The story of a difficult client and why creating boundaries is important
• [10:56] How to create boundaries
• [15:20] Criteria for a company to set up a certification program
• [21:06] Common mistakes people make when implementing certification programs
• [22:43] How Mitch got his first certification program client
• [25:35] Key elements in launching a successful certification program
• [28:22] Mitch talks about how a company should price its certification program
• [31:47] Understanding the personality of the person who signs up for certification
• [38:33] Mitch shares about how it all started and his early mentor
• [44:59]  Mitch shares powerful marketing lessons he learned from his dad
• [46:46] Mitch talks about the psychology of how problems are solved by Tony Robbins
• [48:59] The story of  Mitch’s friendship with Chet Holmes
• [50:27] Mitch talks about the value of the learnings in Chet’s book, The Ultimate Sales Machine
• [54:04] Mitch shares about his low and proud moments in business and career

In this episode…

Has your company grown to a point where it can no longer serve as many customers as effectively as it would like? Are you looking to train others to serve customers from outside your company but still need to keep your revenues high? For CEO advisor Mitch Russo, the key is to set up a certification program, but there are a few more boxes your company must check before creating a certification program. 

Mitch helps multiple businesses get things off the ground and get certifications, and he has partnered with known personalities such as Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes in creating business breakthroughs for their own businesses. He himself is a CEO who has started many successful ventures and it is from his decades of experience and expertise that he gained the wisdom that he shared in today’s episode.

In his conversation with Jeremy, Mitch gives insight into the common mistakes companies make when implementing certification programs, key elements in launching a successful program, understanding the certification clients and how to price certification programs. Stay tuned to this insightful episode of Inspired Insider.

Resources Mentioned on this episode

• Mitch Russo
• My Power Tribe
• TimeSlips Corporation
• The Ultimate Sales Machine
• Tony Robbins

Insider Stories from Top Leaders & Entrepreneurs…

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Intro 0:15
You are listening to Inspired insider with your host Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22
Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of Inspired Insider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders like the founders of p90x founder Tony Horton, he talked about how he made money the street mine before selling hundreds of millions of dollars. Baby Einstein founder Julie Clark talks about growing your company to $20 million with five employees and selling to Disney. The most impressively beat cancer twice and Atari founder Nolan Bushnell talked about and we’ll talk with Mitch, who is the early days of the internet to Nolan Bushnell talked about how when Steve Jobs Steve Jobs mentor Steve offered him 33% of Apple for $50,000 and why he said no, check out more interviews on inspiredInsider.com.

This episode is brought to you by Rise25, which I co-founded with my business partner john Corcoran, who Mitch also knows that Rise25 we help b2b businesses connect to their dream 100 clients and referral partners. We help you create a roadmap for the next year to the exact referral partners and clients to connect with and the content you should be creating. And we help you run your podcast so generates ROI. And podcasting, you know, for me as much more personal. It’s not just about your business is about leaving a legacy. It was inspired by my grandfather, and he was a Holocaust survivor and him and his brother were in concentration camps in Nazi Germany. They were the only members or family to survive. And his legacy lives on because the whole cost foundation did an interview with him, which I put on my about page so if people are interested, they could check that out.

So yes, podcasting will help your business but it will help you and your guests leave a legacy of knowledge. And I personally credit podcasting is the single best thing I’ve done for my business and my life. So You have questions and I think just like Mitch, things, any business that is the right business, for certifications should have a certification period. I believe that you have a business you should have a podcast period. So go to Rise25.com you can check out more contact us if you have questions.

So, today’s guest I’m excited about Mitch Russo. He is known as the go to person to help companies build a certification program. So if you are thinking about creating a certification program or you don’t know that you should be creating it, go to Mitch rusa comm check out what he’s about. And he’s been doing this for decades. his past clients and partners include Tony Robbins, Kevin Harrington, Chet Holmes, Josh Turner, and many more talk about dream 100. Right. Chet Holmes was was talking about that decades ago also, in 1985. Just to give you some background on Mitch, he co-founded time slips Corporation, which grew to become the largest time tracking software company in the world at the time and in 94 times have sold to Sage for over $10 million. And Mitch went on to run off stage us as CEO. A division with three other people stage is huge. I went to the sage summit conference. It’s It’s huge, all the top, you know, software and counting and things like that go to this conference. He partnered with Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins to help create business breakthroughs. A company serving thousands of businesses a year with coaching, consulting and training. And Mitch was the president and CEO and help grow that company over $25 million. And he’s published several books, which you should check out. Then visible organization, which is a CEOs guide to transitioning a traditional brick and mortar company into a fully virtual organization and the book power tribes, which is how certification can explode your business. check everything out at Metro so.com. You know, Mitch, that introduction is usually not that long, but it’s much deserved from what you’ve created. And, you know, I know there’s been stories of people reading just your book And having tremendous results. Right. And so, I don’t know if there’s one, you know, I want to start off talking about an early mentor for you, your dad, but first just talk about power tribes for a second. And I’m sure you’ve had some stories roll in from people who have read that.

Mitch Russo 4:17
Absolutely. Well, first of all, if I could go back a little further, the story that I tell and in much more detail in the book is how all of this came about. So in building timeslips Corporation, we hit a brick wall, somewhere around two and a half million dollars. And I think if you look at any business that scales to 10 million and above, there’s brick walls all over the place, and along the way. So this particular brick wall was because we were doing so well and selling so much software. One of the problems was is we couldn’t support all of our customers. We kept hiring and hiring more support people. But the wait times we’re in the half hour range, and I That was completely unacceptable. I would be furious if it was me waiting on the phone and but these are lawyers no less so you can imagine.

So bottom line is that in a inspired moment, a particular person, a woman with very high influence in the legal community calls customer service to threaten to sue us and complain that our software had destroyed her computer. And you know, she had spent retail $99 for her software, and demanded that I fly someone out there immediately to fix her computer. And, and of course, now customer service doesn’t know how to handle this. So they connect them to the senior customer service person of last resort, Mr. Allen singer. So Jeremy, you probably know the punch line here, who’s Alan singer? So I said, Hi, this is Alan, how can I help you? And she tells the story of how our software destroyed her computer. And I said, Well, first Well, while we’re talking, I’ve already refunded your money. But we will have somebody there in the next 48 hours to fix your computer no matter what. Now, I made that claim not having a clue as to whether it was going to be me getting on a, you know, a red eye to go out and fix your computer. But in that moment, and she, of course, calm down, and she was very happy and very thankful. That’s what we call the ambassador program. We did that with every disgruntled individual who ever called the company.

Our goal was to convert them to an ambassador. And we did most of the time, in fact, practically all the time. So in this particular case, I was thinking, how am I going to get somebody out there? What am I going to do? And I had this thought, why don’t I call and and is a fan of the company a big fan of me. Maybe I’ll just ask and a favor because she’s a heavy time slips user. Just take a you know, drive 20 minutes away and see if she can help this woman so I call up and she goes, Oh, My god, it’s Mitch, how can why you calling me I’m so happy to hear from you, Mitch. I said, I have a favorite ask into anything anything. Just tell me what you want. And I explained the situation and she jumped in her car practically and drives over there and I give her my my home number. We didn’t have cell phones back then Jeremy. So I get my home number. I’m waiting at my home. It’s nine o’clock 10 o’clock at night already. And I’m still up and waiting to find out what happened. And the phone finally rings. And it’s and I said and had it go, which was Oh, it went amazing. I said, Really? Tell me more. She goes, Well, of course it wasn’t your software that crashed her computer and she just take we just needed to do something or this or whatever she did. And then we reinstalled time slips and everything worked fine.

We recovered a database and she’s totally happy. Thank goodness, thank you and so much. She goes, Oh, I didn’t tell you the best part. I said, oh, what’s the best part? It says? She gave me $100 bill. I said Really? And this was the words that changed my life. Like you said, and if you need anybody else in the Los Angeles area to have any help locally, you call me and I’ll go over there and help them. And that’s when the light bulb went off. He said, What would happen if I had not one, not two, not 20. How about 200 300 and scattered all over the country willing and able to help my clients with their software? Well, that’s how the certification program started. Unfortunately, like every good Hero’s Journey story, there was a fairly significant failure about 60 enrollees in we enrolled somebody who should never have been exposed to the public and

Jeremy Weisz 8:42
exposed to the public. I mean, through my research rich, I have a note that says on my notes, I’m looking at FBI question mark. So I’m writing involves a person.