Ep #379: Triggering Massive Growth with Just One Thought & Growing by Millions with Tanner Bell

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and Master Coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first $2k, $20k, and $200k using her proven formula.

Stacey Boehman: Hey coaches, I am so excited today. I have one of my 2 Million Dollar Group students on the podcast to talk about making millions. But more importantly, even if you’re not at this level yet, there is going to be a hugely important lesson in this episode. I just asked Tanner if we could have a certain angle for this conversation that I think is going to be highly valuable for everyone listening, so make sure you don’t turn this one off. If you’re like, oh, I’m not making that much money, doesn’t matter, it’s going to be super applicable. 

So, before we dive in, Tanner Bell, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? Tell everyone anything that you think is important that they should know who you work with and what your maybe your offers are, how you’ve made your money.

Tanner Bell: Yeah. My name is Tanner Bell. I have been teaching people how to craft on the internet since 2010. I’ve been a multi-million-dollar earner for I think the past six or seven years teaching people exactly how to craft.

Stacey Boehman: So amazing. Making millions of dollars teaching people how to craft is unbelievable. I’m so happy.

Tanner Bell: It’s amazing. It’s my favorite. I have a membership site called Maker’s Going to Learn started at a $19 a month membership. It is now at $47 a month. That is my…

Stacey Boehman: Wait, so how many people do you have in it?

Tanner Bell: Thousands. Thousands upon thousands. At the peak of the program, probably 15,000 and we’re probably anywhere seven or 8,000 currently in the program. So we love it.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my gosh.

Tanner Bell: We have an advanced offer where we teach people how to actually sell on Etsy. And that is where we have, it’s what they would call more higher ticket in that range. So, yeah, so fun.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my God. I love it so much. This is amazing. Okay, so before we hit record, I had asked you if we could talk about this. So I’m going to kind of set the topic for everyone listening. So how many of those seven years, right? Seven years, were you at $3 million in revenue? It was at least three, right?

Tanner Bell: So yeah, 2021, I hit $3 million for the first time.

Stacey Boehman: Okay.

Tanner Bell: And fun fact at the end of that year, I was like, oh my gosh, I probably never want to make any more money. I was just having such a nervous system catch up to earning.

Stacey Boehman: Okay. Oh, I want to talk about that.

Tanner Bell: We can totally talk about it. And then I got my twins in 2022, so we had a repeat three. And then 2023 and 2024. So I had four $3 million years.

Stacey Boehman: Okay, amazing.

Tanner Bell: Until 2025.

Stacey Boehman: Okay. So for everyone listening, I was telling Tanner that the biggest thing, not the biggest thing, but a big thing that often comes to me for people that are, I just coached someone that was at $60k. She’s like, oh, I’ve been at $60k for the last three or four years. I can’t remember the exact, but it was like that same time frame. And she didn’t really have a belief that she could make that this year is going to be any different and that there’s going to be this major growth, right? That she could go to $120k or $150k.

I have coached people who have been at $300k for four or five years. I’ve coached people who have been at $100k for many years. And it’s almost like the more years that stack up, the more they start to believe that’s it. That’s all I’m capable of. And I just have watched your journey. I’ve watched you inspire the other students in the 2 Million Dollar Group. I’ve watched you even in the 200k room, you’re just so generous with everything that you pass on to people and your willingness to jump in and help people, which is just so sweet. But I’ve watched you not make that a thing. And then I’ve watched other people watch you and be like, oh, maybe it doesn’t have to be a thing. So let’s talk about it.

Tanner Bell: Yeah, I mean, I first of all, love my business and I have so much gratitude. I come from a single mom, that’s why I started working so early. I’ve been working full-time since I was 13.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my gosh.

Tanner Bell: I bought my first house at 20 or 21. And yeah, it’s just I have so much gratitude to just show up and work. So I never wanted to make it a thing as much as I, you know, love to strive and I love to show up. But I also really love being in the trenches. I love when we can strategize and test out different funnels and I’m in the middle of a launch right now. And I just spent the last 20 minutes reviewing ad data that wasn’t what we expected and it’s out of like a launch repeat. And it’s like, I love that. I’m just nitty-gritty with my team. I was like, let’s AB test this and like 20 minutes later they’re like, green light, we turned that on. So, I love being in all aspects of it.

Stacey Boehman: So good. So the first year that you made $3 million, you were probably like, holy crap, I just made $3 million.

Tanner Bell: Yes, 100%. I had came off of making, I think the year before that was maybe like 2.2, 2.4 and without I had gotten married in 2020. So 2021, we became foster parents and I was actually really unhappy with my business. I had employees working for me that were not aligned. I hired like a business manager to go on a sabbatical for the summer and I told the business manager in the beginning, I said if you cannot fix the situation with these two employees by the end of the summer, I’m going to let them go and rebuild my business. That is just what I was going to do. They were personalities inside my company. So I was just really struggling in lots of different ways and making the most money I ever made. And bringing two foster kids into our home that summer during my sabbatical.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my gosh.

Tanner Bell: So we were thrown in all aspects of school drop-off, school pickup of a six and seven-year-old. And then by the end of the summer, the problems weren’t resolved, of course, because I had like ghosted my business. So I was there, you know, showing up and kind of in that rebuilding phase. I went through 2021 and showed up with the least amount of team I had in years and we ended up having I think it was my first half a million dollar month for November. And we just went all in and I had so much fun. My executive assistant that I had just hired stepped up in like ways I had never seen anyone step up. And, you know, her, myself, and my wife, we just crushed it and we had so much fun. We sit often like reminiscing on how much fun we had over that Q4.

Stacey Boehman: I tell this to my students all the time that the grind that you’re in now will be the nostalgia you have later. And I don’t think people believe me. Yeah, you’re like, oh, remember that time? Like it you just feel that like the late nights and the like being just so in the problem solving or in the creation mode. There I think those moments are fewer and far in between than some of the other moments. So I am always very just I love those moments.

Tanner Bell: After 2021, I was in really in a place of like, oh my gosh, what happened? I felt like I had done quite a few things wrong. Then I was like, I need more support and I don’t know if I’m ready. It was the first year that I woke up on January 1st like, wait, is my income goal higher? Like what is that? And I think that’s when I started like questioning and, you know, knowing I needed to find coaching because before you, I had never been in a business mastermind. I had never had a coach before.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my God. How did I not know that? That’s crazy.

Tanner Bell: It is amazing, but yeah. Yes, 2 Million Dollar Group was my first except certification. I had got certified like a few months before I joined 2 Million Dollar Group, but yeah.

Stacey Boehman: That’s so crazy. Who did you get certified with?

Tanner Bell: The Life Coach School.

Stacey Boehman: Oh, amazing. How did I not know this either? Tanner, why are you holding all the things so close?

Tanner Bell: I listen, I love a price increase sale. And I’ll never forget being on my year planning trip with my wife and they were doing a price increase sale and I said, Courtney, my wife, I was like, am I doing this? And she’s like, yeah, you’re doing this. So I went through certification. It was life-changing for me personally and I built a, that is the first version of my business coaching for Etsy was that year.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my God, I love that so much. When did, how long have you been friends with Edie? Did you meet Edie at church? Am I like remembering this correctly?

Tanner Bell: No, I met Edie at the gym.

Stacey Boehman: Oh, okay, at the gym.

Tanner Bell: Yes, and she had just started her membership and one of our…

Stacey Boehman: Oh, like a long time ago.

Tanner Bell: Yeah, yeah, she was just launching and just starting and I’ll never forget her coming back from I think Cabo with you and she was like, my coach told me I had to double my price. And at this point it was like, it like it was so surreal and I didn’t even know what coaching was. I was like, what is this? Like, what is she doing? What is she up to? But yeah, that’s how we met at our CrossFit gym and we have been friends ever since.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my God, I love it so much. Okay, so I’m so curious when you said you had a moment where you were like, should I even grow or what am I, what’s my goal here for this month? What created that? Was it just not knowing? Was it like the coming off the hard year? Was it like not knowing do I want to keep growing? What was that moment about?

Tanner Bell: I think it was more of do I want to keep growing? I had amazing profit. I think it was the first time that I was in a place that I wasn’t so scarce. I was like, wait, do I like, do is this the plan? Like to just keep growing? I knew I needed more key players on my team to support my next level growth, I thought. I have new thoughts obviously now, but yeah, it was more of like, wait, like is this sustainable?

Stacey Boehman: What was your reason to decide to keep growing?

Tanner Bell: What was my reason that I decided to keep growing? Oh my gosh. I think just the fun and the possibility. I just wanted to really see what’s out there to see what’s possible for me. I actually don’t like, I don’t like things feeling easy. I love a challenge.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah. Do you get bored very easy?

Tanner Bell: I get bored super easy.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah, I have to remind myself. That’s one of the powerful thoughts that when I was imagining that I might leave my business completely to be a stay-at-home mom. One of the things I had to really come to like a come to Jesus moment for myself was I will get bored. I have to have mental stimulation. There’s only so much like I find it’s around, I could take six weeks off and not miss my business at all. 

But around that six week mark, my brain is like, okay, time to create, wake up, let’s go. What’s going on? What are we doing? What’s the plan? Get it on paper, like start writing something, create some content. I’m like, calm down. Even on my honeymoon, we ended up being off for six weeks for our wedding because of craziness with our honeymoon. And on the sixth week, we were at on an island in French Polynesia and I’m like writing a content out for something.

I don’t remember what it was, but I was like, sorry, Neil, like my brain just can’t sit here anymore. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think that’s so good to be exercising your brain so much that you’re I have the ability to sit around and be bored throughout the day. But like in general through life, I want to create and I want to do hard things and I want to overcome things.

Tanner Bell: Oh, I just love having something to like really think about. I know you and I both just got back from Disney and I’ll just be walking through Disney pushing my stroller having like crazy ideas about marketing, about operations, about like, oh, like this person could serve us here. It’s so fun to step out and to just be like exploring and seeing what comes up. I love having both. I feel like my kids would get really sick of me if all I was doing was optimizing for them. They would be like done with me.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my God, that’s so good. I never thought of it like that, optimizing for them. Yeah, my kids would also be quite annoyed. Have you ever on your Disney VIPs, have they ever asked you like, what do you do? Or are they ever interested in how you have your money?

Tanner Bell: I’ve had the same tour guide, her name is Hillary, shout out to Hillary. I call her Aunt Hillary now and we’re besties. She has also adopted children. So we have so much similarities and she actually has followed my YouTube channel. Her wife crafts. So…

Stacey Boehman: Oh my God. She kind of knew what I did.

Tanner Bell: That’s so cool.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my gosh. So like, imagine, she must have been a little star struck like, oh, it’s Tanner. Whoa, I know him.

Tanner Bell: Yeah. That’s amazing.

Stacey Boehman: That’s so amazing. Yeah, I’ve had a couple of guides that are like, wait, what? Like, this is amazing. So tell me more. They can’t figure it out. It’s like the best ever. Okay, so you had said, what was I going to ask you? Oh, one thing that I feel like I have to, we’re kind of past the moment, but I still feel like I have to bring it back, is because this is such a important mindset to have. I had asked you about, what did I ask you about? Your answer was just like, it’s really exciting to grow. I don’t remember what the question was, but it was something like, it’s really exciting to grow. 

I just love to be in a challenge. I think it’s really exciting. I find the most successful people have that mindset. And I don’t think it’s innate. I think it is the difference between people who really create a lot of success and people who struggle and maybe create what they would consider mediocre success, what, you know, what I would be excited about for them, but they would be like, eh. It’s like that often comes from there’s something really hard in my way to get to success and I don’t like hard things and I don’t want to experience that hard thing. 

So I’m going to rail against it or avoid it or ignore it. I’m not going to move towards it quickly. And if I do, I’m going to be very terrified, scared, resistant. I’m going to struggle really hard versus like I find this really exciting. So I think that’s something to really take note of. You are a very successful person and that is something that I think all successful people think.

Tanner Bell: Yeah. No, I definitely agree. You know, I think for my team, I think a big shift for them, you know, it’s one thing to have the belief in ourselves and our vision of like where we’re taking the business in a pivot. But for anyone with a team, even a virtual assistant, you have to have so much belief that there’s no doubt that you can then take that vision and share it with your team. Like here’s where we’re going. Here’s where we’ve been and here’s why this is the new way. You know, as we have been getting our business over the course of these four years into scale and coaching with you. I mean, when I joined working with you, I think the most I’d ever sold online, like the highest ticket was $400. 

So for me to go from selling coaching for $400 a year to selling coaching at $10,000 a year, I mean, imagine the capacity I had to raise for myself to then handle my team’s objections. I did not, like Stacey, I’ll tell you, they did not think this was possible. And I just had to stay in belief for me and them until it happened. And like that is such a fun leadership approach where you’re like, wait, you have to sell yourself before you even loop anyone in, before you tell your spouse, before you tell your assistant, like your team.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah.

Tanner Bell: Yeah, I agree. Like being willing to be in that challenge energy and just know it’s not going to be easy all the time. I think that’s some of my favorite is like, wait, like this is what I signed up for. Like this is the point. You know, to grow, you have to try new things. Like, you know, and that’s I just love that.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah, but that’s what makes you so successful, right? I have found this to be true with team, especially, but also like the for everyone that’s a solopreneur, like you are your team, right? So sometimes you’re the five people you have to convince, you’re doing five jobs and you have to convince yourself of where you’re headed and why and that it’s going to work. But when you have a team, I have noticed I for everything we roll out for like the last, I don’t know, I mean, just a while, like last year or so, I have taken a lot of time to sell my team on the next thing and what we’re doing. 

And that might be like an entire 30 minute, you know, I’m air quoting here, but like class on here’s why we’re launching the entrepreneur coach membership. Here’s why this is going to be so amazing for our people. I even had sold them like when I let them know that we weren’t going to be doing 2 Million Dollar Group. I got on the call and I knew, I mean, they had done so much work for the launch that I knew I’m going to have to sell them on why this is a good idea. But by the end, I could see them like shaking their heads and they were like, okay, yes, yes, let’s go. 

And what I’ve found is the more I do that, the more they start creating and coming up with ideas on their own. They’re so enrolled. They’re like, oh, by the way, I came up with this. Oh, by the way, I thought about this and here’s this, I’ve been testing this. What about this? And I’m like, I’m not even asking them to do these things and they’re creating triple the value that I would have expected just because they’re enrolled and they’re excited and they believe it’s possible.

Tanner Bell: Yeah, and they understand the vision of where we’re going and it’s so much easier to plug in more value. I just had a new project manager that you also coached me on if I even needed one and I deemed yes. And she just started and she’s like contributing so much value just because she’s so clear on what our launches are and like what we’re doing. She’s like, oh, I’ve noticed this, I’ve noticed that. Is can I have a green light here? I’m like, yeah, let’s go. Like this is so sweet to have support in the growth.

And I think that’s the one thing, you know, that I think you’ve given me is the like I am the possibility of making, you know, this past year, my goal was five. I hit 4.5, but the thought you gave me was I am the possibility of making $5 million without working harder. And I think it goes back to am I going to stay, you know, hitting $3 million, which is a beautiful place to be. But to go to that next place, I realized I was unwilling, I couldn’t work harder. I wasn’t willing to give up any more time away from my family. 

And I think I just imagine like if I could have found you sooner, if I could have got coaching on this sooner, how much more money I would have made instead of having to take, I think it was like two or three years before I found you and gotten the room around people having these type of conversations, like how much further along I would be. Which has been such a helpful thought because at some point people are reaching their capacity and they’re going to have to do what you call capacity work to really get us to that next level. It’s not any more hustle, it’s not any more sweat.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah, it’s so hard to explain to someone the difference between expanding their capacity and doing more. Like every time we talk about capacity, people are like, so what you want me to just do more? Like sometimes it’s do more. Sometimes, right? Like sometimes a perfect example of capacity is I had on my calendar this week and then I didn’t get to it. We’ve got just a lot happening in the house with Neil’s surgery. It feels a little bit like we both have really high anxiety and just things are moving kind of like you’re moving through mud a little bit and things are moving slowly and just it feels a little chaotic trying to manage all the things and move everything to my plate and to work out schedules. It’s just been a little bit bananas. 

And so I didn’t get to it and I had it for like an hour on my calendar. And I’m like, okay, I have to figure out another hour to come up with this thing. And I’m in the shower this morning and I just create it. I’m just like, oh, while I’m showering, why don’t I just come up with it right now in 20 minutes instead of an hour? To me, that’s an example of capacity work. I didn’t need that hour ever. I only ever needed 20 minutes to do the thing, right? And so that’s one of like 100 examples of what it could be like to expand your capacity. Mostly it’s like emotional and intellectual. So I’m getting ready to bring ads in house and my brain is like, the kit just came in the mail from the company like the paid ads academy and I haven’t, I’ll tell you that’s what I’m doing. 

But for everyone listening, I have not actually done it yet. So I can’t speak on the quality or how amazing it is. But the kit came and I was like, oh, this is getting real. Like I have to go above what I think I am smart enough to learn to figure out paid ads bringing them in house so I don’t have to hire an ads manager in the future. And that’s capacity because I have people are like, well, how are you moving forward? And I’m like, I just keep bringing up my desire to be the person who figured it out. But that is so important is you have, you just you have to, you have to expand your capacity. There’s no way you could work more hours to make an extra $2 million. Like it’s the weirdest, craziest equation. You just it’s not possible.

Tanner Bell: Nope. No, it’s not possible. And I will say for people out there like wondering like what raising their capacity could look like. I think for me, you know, as you raise your capacity in the belief that you are capable to hit whatever goal that you want, it’s just so much like, I want to say it’s so much more fun, it’s so much easier for your brain to have that bigger goal. Like whatever that income goal is that feels like you don’t know how you would get there, if you start focusing your belief to that new goal, it’s just so crazy how like your brain will start dropping like, it could be this way, it could be this marketing strategy, it could be this paid ad funnel. And it really just it just helps everyone work at the highest level when you have a goal that you’re going after that you may not truly be in belief yet for.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah.

Tanner Bell: Which I have had so much fun raising my capacity and then seeing the income come as I raise my capacity, like as a true lagging result.

Stacey Boehman: 100%. I was just telling a student in 200k, she was, it’s like more and more I believe all business is just we’re adding zeros. So if it’s like a $60k example, it could be $600k, it could be $6 million. It’s the same. So she had made $60k for the last couple of years. I don’t know, maybe it was $30k the year before and six she was going to make $60k this year. I don’t remember. I feel like it was maybe the same, but either way, her goal was a certain like a small number that was I believe below her capability, right? Which is also probably why I told Edie to double her prices years ago. I don’t remember, but probably. 

But she was telling me how she had two months where she had made the first two months of the year, she had made $2,000 total coming off of her highest month ever at $7,800. And she said, but you know, I did this intentional, this was like a low, what did she call it? A low value sales month or something that she said in a way I was like, wait, I think you’re taking my low value cycles wrong. Like this, I would never say I’m intentionally creating a low value month. But she was like, well, I’m working on the back end of my business and things like that. And I said, okay, you need to make your goal $120k this year. 

And she was like, wait, what? And I said, because if your goal was, once you did $7,800 once, you could do it over and over and over again. You really are capable once you do it once. It’s figuring out how to do it repeatedly, consistently, but you can do it. So if that were your goal every month, then you would be like, oh my God, I’m so far behind. I have to figure it out. I have to problem solve. I’ve got to try this and I’ve got to try that and something’s not working. Let me evaluate. You would never say I’m creating an intentionally low value month and you wouldn’t be okay with $2,200 in two months would signal something is going wrong. 

People don’t want to experience that feeling of something’s going wrong. But I said, you got to raise your standard. If you decide the standard $7,800, how you problem solve is going to be so different than if you are sort of expecting to make the same amount that you made last year because you think growth takes a long time, then $2,000 over a two-month period is going to be like because she had said, oh, at the end of the year, maybe, you know, I think I’ll grow a lot faster at the end of the year. And I’m like, so you’re going to let yourself go throughout the year growing slow in the beginning and then allow yourself to pick it back up versus you could just be at that capacity the whole year and you’re going to make so much more money. And she’s like, oh my God, you’re right.

Tanner Bell: One thing that I think a lot of us like business owners that I see, like we hide in the, oh, I’m setting up the back end or oh, I’m taking time off from selling. I think one thing that you and I both do pretty aggressively is like selling is a non-negotiable because like Gary Vee said it like many years ago, like selling is oxygen for your business. You have to have the oxygen to ever work on the business. And one thing I think you and I both are very much aligned on is like selling a service and like we prioritize that number one.

And when we focus on selling, typically we can always have support to make sure operations and systems are built on the back end. And I think that is so important. Like I think that’s why rooms like yours are so important. And I do agree that, you know, I think selling in, you know, coaching like this is just adding zeros. And I think a great example is like the revenue challenge. You know, I’ve been in your world for many years. I had never been a part of your revenue challenge. I don’t know how I missed it, like to be honest. But I took apart this past November and I set my goal to do $700k in 30 days. It’s amazing. As we did the challenge, I got coached by you, I think one time during the challenge and it was to like really create an early renewal bonus for my clients. 

And from that one coaching session, Stacey, I was able to exceed my income goal in November from $700k to $829,000. And I it was all from your curriculum and those calls. Like I would have never had those new thoughts and those new ideas. It wasn’t even on my radar before doing the revenue challenge. Like and hearing all the different coaching and hearing all of your different takes and like the whole course, like it was so powerful.

Stacey Boehman: So fun. But that’s the point, right? I always tell people like it’s supposed to be a challenge. So if you’re willing to go into the challenge and get your brain turning and get the ideas coming like, well, okay, what other idea could I try? What could and not in a way that’s hustly, but in a way where you’re like, okay, if this really were possible and I were committed to it, how serious would I be in the idea making and in the problem solving?

Tanner Bell: And I was serious. I created…

Stacey Boehman: Oh, I know you were.

Tanner Bell: I created a whole new training. I like launched it to my team. I had it got buy in from my sales team. I had so much support too and they were like all in. And even looking back, I’m like, oh my gosh, like how did we create so much revenue in such a constrained amount of time? Like it was truly magical.

Stacey Boehman: That’s so good. I love it. Okay, tell me more, I know we only have like a little bit of time left. Tell me more about the I am the possibility. So I know how I received that and teach that. It was so transformational for me. My statement in the beginning was I am the possibility of making $78,000 without the feeling of having worked harder than the year before. Because I was pitching and I was starting my business and I had this whole story about how I can’t work any more stores. I can’t stay in the store any longer. I’m exhausted. I’m giving it everything I possibly got. 

I had such circumstantial truth around that because I was also the top salesperson in the company for seven years. So there was no one selling more than me to prove to me, what was I? I was the bar, right? So it’s like there was no one being like, oh, I could do more. Look at this person’s doing more. There was no one doing that. Even the people working much longer hours than me. And I just remember thinking it’s an impossibility and if I’m building this business, I’m going to have to hustle my ass off. I’m going to work myself into the ground and I would lose so much desire and excitement and purpose from that thought. 

And so my coach and I created this statement, I am the possibility, like I am as an internally inside of my being, I have the possibility, I make up the possibility, I literally am the possibility of creating this money without the feeling of having worked harder. Now my statement is I’m the possibility of making $15 million and having the feeling of being a stay at home mom.

Tanner Bell: I love your post last night. I was literally sending you so much love reading your Facebook or Instagram post. I was like, I feel you.

Stacey Boehman: I and also I was like thinking last night, I’m like, some people are going to read this and be like, girl, wake up, this is my life already. This is what I live. But everybody has their own like reality. So we won’t, you know, I always say like everyone’s problem is different.

Tanner Bell: Yeah, for me, it gave me so much, it actually took weight off of me.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah.

Tanner Bell: Like having the thought like I am the possibility of making $5 million now mine would be this year my goal is $7 million without working harder. It challenges me to really value the time I’m here and the time I’m contributing. And one thing that I’ve been noticing the past couple of weeks is that I’ve been using it as a way to ask myself like, is this part of $7 million Tanner? You know, one time I started asking myself like, would eight figure Tanner do this? And like at the time it was like using a sauna. And I was like, oh, actually eight figure Tanner is not in a sauna because at this point like $3 million Tanner was like trying to micromanage his email people.

Stacey Boehman: Okay.

Tanner Bell: You know, in a sauna. I’m like, wait, wait, wait. Does eight figure Tanner do that? Or does seven million?

Stacey Boehman: Oh, eight figure Tanner for sure does not micromanage anything because you just can’t. You just don’t have the time.

Tanner Bell: Exactly. Exactly. So that is, you know, it’s been so revolutionary for me to have like to remind myself like I am that possibility. And now I get to go out and work from a place there that I don’t always feel when I’m in the work. Like a hard day, you don’t you don’t have it all day, right? But having that belief helps me really align very clearly what is the work that is work and what is the work that is buffering and that is keeping me from discomfort. 

And like, let me just get to the discomfort, let me have that hard conversation, let me do a dread sprint, which is usually giving hard feedback, which is usually course correcting a launch, which is usually, you know, creating going deep and creating the content that I have had on my to-do list, but I have found excuses not to. You know, any of those things and I think it does help me just it makes the work so much less because I’m like, wait, I’m already there. I’m not trying to earn it. I’m not trying to strive for it. I just get to create from a place that I am, you know, the possibility of making $7 million without working harder. And one thing I’ve also been toying with is the thoughts of like being able to shift out of work mode at 3:00 or 4 o’clock and into like full dad mode.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah.

Tanner Bell: I recently took Stripe and Slack off my phone.

Stacey Boehman: Good for you.

Tanner Bell: And that has been very interesting. I never know like I probably Stacey, I probably used to check Stripe like, I don’t know, 10 or 20 times a day just because I was so, not worried about anything, but like wanting to make sure like money’s flowing and like…

Stacey Boehman: Oh yeah. Exactly. But that’s a capacity issue, right? Like the ability to believe and hold money is flowing without checking and knowing if it is.

Tanner Bell: Yes, and it was all because I was on a walk with Edie before gym class and she said she’s never had Stripe on her phone. And I…

Stacey Boehman: I don’t have it on mine either.

Tanner Bell: I was like, wait, what? Like nobody told me these things. Like what are you talking about? Like I thought that’s just what we did. I thought we that’s how we pulse. So it’s been so fun to like really be stepping into these small little micro, you know, personal things that I think really do help me. And then, you know, at the end of a day or at the first of the morning, I get to my desk and I open and I can check and it’s like, oh, this is amazing. Like it really is for me like showing proof to myself that my business is so much larger than me that it can run without me that, you know, it doesn’t need me all the time. Not to say I can’t contribute, but that it truly is bigger than what I can control, especially taking my kids to Disney for a week, like coming back and seeing what my team’s created, what progress my clients have made. Like it is so fun.

Stacey Boehman: I seriously, like everything that you have been saying, I know, Tanner, you were about to hit eight figures. Like this is all eight figure thinking. Like in a way that’s like so granular that we wouldn’t find it in any sort of course or program, but it’s 100% like these granular moves, like I don’t even have the ability to get into Stripe without my husband sending me a code.

Tanner Bell: No way.

Stacey Boehman: I have to get the code from him, but I’m not I’m not relying on Stripe anymore because our bookkeeping is so clean. Like our my bookkeeper will email me if there is a $50 charge, she does not know what it is. It’ll be like, what’s this $50 charge? Like it is so impeccable and I am have trained myself to get the numbers every week from her and our updated P&L and I use that not as like are we making money, but like as is there anything that needs to be shifted on the P&L? Is there any expenses that need to be increased? Like do we want to, for example, we’re bringing on a couple part-time customer service people right now so that we can respond quicker and just like have like more manpower with the membership.

Tanner Bell: A membership, you’re going I mean, we have seven day a week customer service just for our…

Stacey Boehman: Yeah, yeah, we’re like, I actually love this. This was an idea from my COO. She said we were going to hire another full-time person and she said, well, what if we hire two part-time people? Because then when the full-time person is out, then if someone that’s at 20 hours a week, if each of them expand to 30, now we have 60 hours of coverage instead of 40. I was like, wait, what? So, yeah, these are the moves that we’re making.

Tanner Bell: We have staggered start for some of our customer care because of all the different time zones, like so some people are at like 10:00 or 11:00 and work till like 6:00 or 7:00 and they actually love that. So it’s, you know, it’s just finding the right people.

Stacey Boehman: So good. But my point is that I don’t need to look at the Stripe to see if the money’s coming in. I know the money’s coming in. It’s just now I look at the P&L to see how I want to steward the money.

Tanner Bell: Huh? This is going to convict somebody on the podcast because I like literally probably used to check Stripe like 20 times a day. And it’s so fun. Like I can’t even I can’t even check it. It’s great.

Stacey Boehman: I also, I remember the year I made 2.5, the way I made that is I the year that I did 860 and tried to make my first million, I was so anxious. I was checking Stripe all the time. And I told myself the year I made 2.5, the very beginning in January, I said, what if this year you never check Stripe except for like these intentional times, you know, where I’m maybe doing bookkeeping. And instead you only do things based on what makes you happy and what you’re excited about versus what you think you need to do to get the numbers coming in. 

Changed everything. From that moment on, I worked so much harder than I was working at the year I made 860, but because I was compelled by my own desire and excitement and joy and like this is what I and choice and this is what I want to do, not like chasing the stripe number. So anyways, I think that’s one thing that is you’re onto something with your eight figures. But you’ve said several things, the making myself smaller and seeing myself as a small piece of the business with the business being so much bigger, that is an eight figure mindset. It’s happening.

Tanner Bell: I’m having fun. I’m expanding my capacity for my leadership team, I’m expanding capacity for ads, I’m expanding capacity in client scenarios. Like, you know, it’s really it’s fun and I won’t be like, I won’t lie to you. Like it is hard. And…

Stacey Boehman: Yeah, of course it’s hard.

Tanner Bell: Yeah.

Stacey Boehman: But it’s also like so amazing and so rewarding. Every time you take your, first of all, I love that we have Disney in common. It makes me so happy. I actually was coaching someone in the membership maybe last week and I said, I wanted to give her an analogy of what she was experiencing in her business. And I was like, you know, I don’t know if you’re into Disney and if you’ve ever ridden Guardians of the Galaxy. Because I don’t expect people to be like Disney fanatics. And she said, oh, I have a year-long pass or a all access pass or season pass or whatever. I was like, oh my God, I love that I’m attracting Disney fanatics. 

So perfect. But I really do, I love, I was thinking one of my favorite things about helping people make millions and make this level of income is yes, there’s something really exciting about getting to that next revenue and saying like, oh my God, Tanner’s at $5 million. That’s blows my mind. And for me, it’s like how you guys use your money. Not how you spend it, because sometimes you use it to invest and to have more time freedom, but to watch you all use money and treat your kids to Disney VIPs or to take a week off. Like all of that is just like, I love it. I’m obsessed with it.

Tanner Bell: It’s fun. It’s so fun. I, you know, I’ve adopted all three of my kids from foster care and one of the most interesting things when we were going through the adoption process was there is a like a tax write-off that is available, but they never mention that there is an income limit. So if you make over $250k a year, your tax we were supposed to receive like $40,000 of tax credit off our like straight off our taxes. And by the time my accountant got it and like February, she’s like, oh, Tanner, you make too much money. Yeah. I was like, oh, I was like, I was like, this is like no one ever, like in the whole adoption process, like all of the state workers like, no, this is yours, this is yours. Because you know, they’re trying to just like, you know, we get healthcare until they’re 18. They get a stipend. They get a few things.

Stacey Boehman: They’re like selling you like all the support you’re going to have.

Tanner Bell: Yes, yes, which is lovely and it’s amazing. But no one ever even considered that like that’s like little statue of like, oh, you can make too much. So it’s just a really interesting thing to be able to participate in foster care and adopt our three babies out of, you know, foster care and have things like that happen.

Stacey Boehman: Are they related? Remind me about that. Are they all?

Tanner Bell: Yeah. So my twins we got them at birth and then right as we were adopting them, we got a call, the birth mom had another baby. So…

Stacey Boehman: So you’ve had them all since they were babies?

Tanner Bell: We’ve had all, yeah, all straight from the NICU. She has a lot of illness and, you know, different drug exposures. So she would have the children and then kind of just walk away. But yeah, I, you know, it’s so crazy. But yeah, they’re they’re growing. They just turned four and two and we had a little Spider-Man and Mario come to their birthday party and then the day after we went to Disney and…

Stacey Boehman: Don’t make me cry over here. Oh, I love that so much. They’re so blessed.

Tanner Bell: They’re living it up. And we love it. So it’s amazing.

Stacey Boehman: I think all the time about like how their lives are just like so different because you came into it. Like it’s just yeah, I hope one day that they like…

Tanner Bell: It’s so much better.

Stacey Boehman: Yeah. Oh, of course, of course. But I hope one day that they like can feel that. Like they’re living a completely different life experience of not just like money, like the love, the attention, the focus that you all give them. I mean, just it’s it’s a very beautiful thing. I feel very moved by it every time I think about you guys.

Tanner Bell: Oh, well, thank you. We love it and it’s our life work. My mom was a case worker and then Courtney’s aunt fosters like 40 babies. So when I met my wife, we both were like on being a part of foster care in some way.

Stacey Boehman: My brother and his wife are also on that journey. I might have to have them reach out to you if you don’t mind, if they ever need any help. But they’ve gotten all the way to like the final thing, right? I think something just has to be put through and then they could get a call any moment. But their room is done, which was like wild because we’ve heard them talk about it for a long time. But when they sent photos of like, here’s the baby’s room or we have a toddler bed too. So like they could get anywhere from babies to five years old, I think. And so they’re like, we can switch out the crib to a toddler bed, but it was all decorated. I’m like, oh my God, like this is this is happening. My fear is I’m going to get attached. And I’m like, is there ever a possibility that they’re going to keep them? Because I’m going to be very attached.

Tanner Bell: Yes, get attached. Love on these babies. Like they’re yours. That was our job and the family’s job to do that. You know, we reunited our six and seven-year-old and it was truly the hardest thing that I ever did. And we still have contact. We still see them at holidays and it’s some of the most beautiful work.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my gosh. I love that. I love you. You are like just an example of all of the things. Your heart is so big and so warm and so generous. Not like just to everyone around you. And you’re so funny and light and you have the best energy. We just love having you around, Tanner.

Tanner Bell: Thank you, Stacey.

Stacey Boehman: Thank you so much. Is there anything as we like come to a close that you feel like we didn’t cover that maybe anyone needs to hear if they’re, you know, wanting to make millions, if they’re feeling stuck at their revenue and thinking maybe they can’t grow, if they need to believe it’s possible for them to jump, whether it’s 20k, 200k or 2 million in one year, like again, it’s just the adding the zero. Is there anything you think we haven’t said?

Tanner Bell: Oh my gosh. I someone asked me similar like in the 2 Million Dollar Group room earlier this year and they were like, Tanner, what do you see? Like what do you see like that would help us, you know, get there? And I think really normalizing whatever that income goal is that you want. If it’s a million, put a million in there and really reverse engineer it and normalize, I think a million dollars a year is like $2,700 or so a day just done every single day a year. Oh yeah. 

So like normalizing it in very different ways. Something I did when I gosh, Stacey, I probably was barely making six figures was normalizing my life at being a million-dollar earner. So for example, I like figured out like what my mortgage would be, like what kind of car would I drive, like what type of support would I have? And the weirdest thing on the journey is how the right people will meet you at the right time. You know, when I met my first virtual assistant, I didn’t even have a business yet. I just knew I needed full-time help because I was building a big business. Like it was so weird looking back. I met my personal chef at like a Starbucks inside the grocery store and we had a mutual friend. I was like, what do you do? 

And she’s like, oh, I’m a chef for people. I cook for people. I’m like, what? And then she ended up taking me on and I’ve worked with her since 2018. I found my like all the different support in the most beautiful ways. So for anyone out there, whatever the income goal is, start normalizing it, make your plan, make your big vision, and then just show up as that person every single day and you’ll be shocked at what happens.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my God, that’s so good. And like, you’ll be just, you’ll you’ll walk yourself into it, right? You’ll like make such good decisions, you’ll just walk yourself into it. I love it. Thank you so much. I can’t believe this is the first time I’m having you on the podcast. If they want to follow you because I also hear you’re a very fun follow, how can they follow you? Or where can they find you?

Tanner Bell: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can follow me personally on Instagram @itstannerbell. Don’t expect any work over there, but you can also find my business, Maker’s Going to Learn. If you want to learn how to craft, sell on Etsy and so much more, we have a YouTube channel with over 700,000 subscribers, our platform, Maker’s Going to Learn on our website and most social. So, yeah, thank you.

Stacey Boehman: Oh my God, I love it. All right, I will talk to you soon. Thank you so much.

Tanner Bell: Thank you.

Stacey Boehman: Bye.

Hey, if you’re ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2k for 2k program; where you’re going to make your first $2,000 the hardest part using my simple five-step formula for getting consults and closing new clients. Just head over to StaceyBoehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.