How To Productize What You Know & Scale With An Evergreen Group Coaching Program

Brandon Fong: [Glad] to have you here. This is gonna be a ton of fun.

Lucas Garvin: I know it already. Yeah, I'm excited — thanks for having me.

Brandon Fong: Of course. So one of the first things that stood out to me when I encountered you and your work was how you wrote your LinkedIn bio. I'm gonna read a chunk of it to kick things off. Your headline says: "I build brands that empower people to live their best life." I think that's simple, I think it's clear. Then you also said in your profile: "Growing up, I witnessed and experienced the effects of financial hardship, lack of freedom, and watching people I love lose lifelong dreams. At a very young age, I've known that my work needed to be about more than just money. I wanted to live my life, pursue entrepreneurship, and do something that truly helps people — and make good money too. I firmly believe with the right information shared the right way at the right time, it can transform someone's life forever. My life is certainly proof." I love that on so many levels. I think we're aligned on our values and the way we wanna create impact in the world. I would love to zoom in on some of your earlier experiences that kind of caused you to jump into the entrepreneurial world. I heard from another training you had done that something happened around 2007, 2008 that was like an eye-opening experience for you. Would love for you to share a little bit about that.

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. So around that time I was in my — gosh, I don't know exactly how old I was, but I was like, realm of twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Maybe not even that old, I'm not quite sure — anyway, I can't do head math right now. But the point is relatively young. I have twin sisters that are about a decade younger than me, so at the time they were super young. And my parents had just completed building a home. My dad was a general contractor and the recession hit. It was a time where we were buying canned green beans — the cheap generic brand from Walmart — and the cheapest deli meat you could find, and slapping a rationed portion of those things out for meals. I feel for my parents now, as an adult, having a kid say "I'm hungry, can I have more?" and having to unfortunately say no. The recession hit my family really hard. My dad was out of work, and having just finished building this house — mortgage new, all those kinds of fun things — my parents had to essentially give up the home. They were able to sell it for less than half the appraisal, went over six figures in debt. We moved in with my aunt and uncle a couple of states away, back where we originally lived in Savannah, Georgia. It was eight people and three dogs in a small three-bedroom home in the middle of summer with no AC in the South. I was sleeping on a cot in what was originally sort of an office. I literally watched my parents' dreams dissolve out of their hands. Their dream was to live in North Carolina, to have this home in nature and in the mountains, to have horses — whatever. They had the land, they had the house, and it was just right there in their hands. And then the recession hit and it all just washed away. It was really hard, as a kid reaching a certain level of consciousness about what other people want and how they're living their life, to watch those dreams wash away. It was a really interesting time.

Brandon Fong: So what was your response to that? Because there are two ways anyone could choose to handle that situation. One is "woe is me, this sucks, I'm just gonna be miserable." And the other is the more empowering "I'm gonna do something about it" route. I'm assuming you kind of took the latter route — and that's maybe how you got into some of your entrepreneurial experiences. So maybe walk us through what that was like when you were going through that on a personal level, and you decided to take things into your own hands.

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. I mean, as a kid I did relatively well in school in general. I always enjoyed learning to some extent — I enjoyed learning, not so much being taught. Never really loved boundaries and rules and authority. I always sort of bucked the boundaries a little bit. But around that time I was already teaching myself a lot about business, and a lot about online business — which back then was in many ways sort of early days of online business. The interesting thing was I was already beginning to work with clients and help them do things like build websites and optimize those for Google search, SEO, things like that — which I know sounds weird for an eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen year old to be doing, but that's how I spent my time. I didn't have a whole lot of friends, so I built hobbies, and my hobby was building a business. I know — weird thing — but that was me. So when all of this hit and the recession hit and we moved in with my aunt and uncle, I started to see these financial struggles and I was like, wow, having a job is not necessarily the secure thing that people think it is. I see how my parents are struggling. And I really don't — one, I want to not personally be in this place at any point in my future if I can impact and control that — but I also want to lift some of the burden of my own experience out of my parents' hands. So by the time I graduated high school, I was already making what the average adult in the US was making, and more or less supporting myself — with the exception of sleeping in their home. Going out of high school already more or less set was an interesting experience.

Brandon Fong: A hundred percent. That's so cool. And I want to zoom in right at this period. So I listened to another podcast that you were on, and your co-founder told the story about how you guys met. It's so funny, because before you and I started recording I talked about how I guessed our past was very similar. One of my biggest entrepreneurial starts was seeing somebody I really respected, reaching out and pitching free work, and it ended up with me running their marketing for several years. I don't wanna say that was necessarily your experience, but I kind of guessed it was something along those lines — that you were a young, ambitious guy who started developing a relationship with somebody a little further along. Not to tell the story for you, but how did you meet your co-founder, and what set that relationship off?

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. So my business partner at Thought Leaders Institute — his name is Jim Hohl. We met originally via my uncle. My uncle and Jim were doing some work together in a nonprofit organization, and I was coordinating with my uncle to visit him in New York City for the summer, my sophomore year of high school. And I can imagine my uncle being busy having his own work and job and things to do, figuring out how he's going to entertain a teenager for thirty days. So in his work with Jim, they were doing website builds and graphic design for this organization, and he said: "Hey Jim, I've got this nephew coming up for a month. He does something sort of webby and you do something sort of webby. Maybe there's a mix here that could work out for both of you." And Jim was like, "I guess I can take an intern." And I was like, "Sure, I'll do some business with somebody." To me it was a business partnership. To Jim and my uncle it was very clearly an internship. I went in with that mindset from the beginning — this is an opportunity for me to add value and create opportunities for everyone. It wasn't "can I go get your coffee?" It was: let's do this thing, let's do business. And to me, doing business was getting sales, serving people, and creating a great experience. So that's exactly what I did. I was there for forty-eight hours. I went to a barbecue with my uncle and some of his friends, and I sold one of his friends on an SEO package — they had a cupcake shop in the Village in Manhattan. Seven thousand, five hundred dollar sale in my first forty-eight hours. And that was sort of the start of the summer in New York City.

Brandon Fong: Wow. Okay — so in his mind, he thought you were an intern. In your mind, you're like, I'm a partner. When you made that $7,500 sale and came back, was that discrepancy ever ironed out?

Lucas Garvin: I don't think it was ever spoken — I think it was unspoken. And was maybe more of a mindset than an agreement. The more spoken agreement was: I'll be in the office these days and times, and I'll contribute value as much as I can, and Jim will make sure I don't get up to trouble — which I wouldn't have done anyway, I was very straight-edge if you will. But the interesting thing was I came back into the office Monday or Tuesday, whatever day it was, and I said: "Hey Jim, so we have a new client. They're paying $7,500. I've already got a check for the first $2,500. We'll collect the rest in the next two months, and you'll get fifty percent. So when I go deposit this, I'll get you a check for your balance." He was like — "What just happened? You're sixteen."

Brandon Fong: You're sixteen! So — I wanna zoom in here because this is an interesting detail. Not many fifteen or sixteen year olds have the nerve to ask for a $7,500 contract. What was going through your head when you made that offer? Was it easy for you? Were you scared? Talk to us a little bit about the mindset behind asking for that kind of money at that age.

Lucas Garvin: I think the concept of value-based pricing always kind of came naturally to me, and it might have had something to do with never having had a job, frankly. What it really came down to was: I know that my skills and expertise have the ability to add significantly more than $7,500 to your business. Knowing what that is worth, knowing what the market was already supporting in terms of price points for these types of services — which in many cases was actually much higher than what I ultimately charged — that was all I needed to know. I had already been selling services just like this, most at lower price points, but this is New York City and there's a bigger opportunity. And for me it was like: I know I can make a difference for them, so yeah — why not?

Brandon Fong: That's freaking cool. Maybe we could chalk it up to — and this is coming from a very loving spot — I've always viewed myself as kind of an alien. So maybe it's just that alienness in you: this is the value I bring, and that's what I'm gonna charge. Which is pretty freaking awesome. So let's jump into more of what you're up to today. Before we hit record I was telling you a little bit about my context, and part of why I was super excited to chat today is because I was running an online education company where we had over 250,000 students — that was an incredible opportunity, we changed thousands and thousands of lives. But one of the things that you talk about, and that I've experienced, is that as much as it's been glorified to have massive impact by having thousands of students, there are definitely some flaws in the amount of transformation that happens at scale. So you've kind of jumped into this world of impacting lives through content, and you and your partner have developed what you call a hybrid model that takes the best of different models. I would love for you to give us a high level of how you landed at this particular model, and the thinking that went into creating it.

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. So when I look at different ways that services and products can be delivered — and I look at it in terms of how it might impact the people buying it — I really think of it as a measure of two things. First: what is the breadth of impact? Meaning, how many people can be impacted by this? And second: what is the potential depth of impact? Meaning, how deeply can they be transformed and supported by what's being sold? Where I got my start — done-for-you services and very high-touch private consulting — there's a lot of depth of impact, but not so much breadth, because there's a lot of time invested in every single client. Compare that to a fully automated, no-coaching, no-support type of course, where there's the potential for significant breadth of impact, but in many cases maybe not as much depth. So for me and Jim, when we were looking to increase our breadth of impact without sacrificing depth, we were looking at: how can we bring some of the benefits of things like online courses and memberships — which have significant breadth — into the sort of traditional coaching and consulting model, into one offer where we can maximize both breadth and depth of impact? And that is ultimately where the hybrid coaching model was born, and where many of the products and services we support our clients with today came from.

Brandon Fong: Let's zoom in there because I think people are probably listening and going, "Okay, that's interesting." One of the things you talk about in this model is it's ninety percent automated and ten percent personalized — you've kind of found the sweet spot of having a backbone of content that supports transformation, but also providing community and personalized coaching that allows people to actually get results. So when you say ninety percent automated and ten percent personalized — what does that actually mean?

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. Ninety percent automated really comes down to, first and foremost, having a clear path for people to follow to a specific result — or a specific series of results — that they're seeking. That's step number one. So that's why we help our clients create what we call a Unique Approach — which is the path they've developed to help their clients get the results they're seeking. And once they have that, that's really the foundation for whatever content, trainings, tools, and resources are necessary to help someone go through that process and receive the results and benefits of it. If someone is very self-motivated, a self-starter, who just needs a path to follow — perfect, they're handled right off the bat. Now, I've found that humans live on a spectrum and we aren't necessarily black and white one way or another. Some of us lean more self-starter, and some of us might need more encouragement, support, community, connection, accountability — to move through a process where growth and stretching and shifts are required in order to produce a result. And so that's why the ten percent personalization is where the coaching comes in, where the community comes in — and the ability to personally impact, personally touch, and personally support each client that needs and wants that support is there in that model.

Brandon Fong: You just planted so many incredible seeds — I'm sure everybody's like, "What's a unique approach? How do I build a unique approach?" But before we get there, I want to paint another picture that'll kind of build on this concept. In this space, lots of people are familiar with the concept of a value ladder — a $10 book, a $200 course, and a $30,000 mastermind at the high end. When somebody is hearing this approach, I think it might be helpful to understand where this falls. Because impact is correlated to the price you're charging — if you're charging $9.99 for a course, that person isn't as invested in actually getting the result. You have this concept called the "ambition line" — so where does the hybrid model fall in terms of pricing for impact?

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. I think it's important to know that we all live and exist on many different types of spectrums, and one of those is what I call the Ambition Line. The ambition line is really a way of representing where any given prospect or audience member might be on their journey toward getting results inside of the work that you do as an expert. On one hand, we have people at lower levels of ambition — along with that typically come smaller goals, as well as lower levels of awareness about what their problems or desires might be. And then on the higher end: high levels of awareness, bigger goals, and along with that — typically greater willingness and ability to invest in solutions. So sure, the $9.99 book is on the much lower end of the spectrum, versus a $30,000 mastermind at the very high end. A hybrid coaching program typically exists in the middle to medium-high on that spectrum, because it is geared toward people seeking significant life or business transformations. It's designed to create significant transformations for them, and along with that comes a medium-high price — typically in the thousands of dollars. Three thousand to ten thousand, maybe even more, depending on how you want to set up your business model.

Brandon Fong: Love that. I think another thing that would be important to talk about at this point is: what freedoms does running this model provide you as the business owner? You have a slightly higher price point, so higher lifetime value per customer. Maybe share a little bit about what kind of freedoms this has allowed for you, or why you love running this model specifically.

Lucas Garvin: What I love is waking up and seeing clients posting in our client community saying: "I just closed out my launch of my hybrid and got $20,000 in new sales and five new clients in two weeks — and I talked to them two or three times over that time on a call that took me an hour to deliver each week. So I spent two hours and somebody made $20,000." I mean — how much better does it get? Meanwhile, the systems and structure of the program enabled that person to do all the necessary background work and essentially achieve this result with what was ultimately minutes of my contribution, even inside of those two hours. And so I think that is just a really empowering model — not just for the depth of impact it has on the client, but also for me to be able to impact more people over the course of that hour, maybe touching ten, fifteen, twenty different people creating similar types of results in just minutes each, in a very focused manner.

Brandon Fong: Yeah, that's so cool. My experience before, running all these students through online courses — another model we had played with was the membership model, ninety-seven dollars a month. And the challenge with that was it took so much to create the content and to keep the engagement engine running. It was just exhausting. I think it's really cool that you built this hybrid that takes the best of all worlds. So amazing. Well, I think someone listening has seen that this makes sense from a core value perspective. And before, you alluded to something called your Unique Approach. Maybe share a little bit about what that is, and what the difference is between having a unique approach and not having one.

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. So for many of us in this sort of expert thought-leader industry, we have careers — in some cases even decades — of experience that we're bringing to the table to help people get results in a particular area. And many people start out by more or less just helping people one-to-one, sometimes for free, sometimes for a fee, sometimes hourly, sometimes in a package. And a lot of times that's very intuition-based — a client presents some symptom or issue that needs solving, and our intuition and experience gets tapped to solve that issue in the moment. That can work really well one-to-one for a time. One of the challenges, though, is that if you want to take that expertise and serve a lot of people with it, intuition is no longer sufficient. Because in order for that intuition to get tapped, you have to be presented with symptoms and problems that need solving. Imagine four hundred people all saying "here's my symptom, here's my challenge" — you can't possibly respond to all of them fast enough and actually serve people well. So what you have to do is go through the extraction process: extracting your knowledge, your wisdom, and turning it into something that can serve people at scale. To take what you know and turn it into something that is evidence-based from your experience in producing the results people seek in working with you. And so that's exactly what one of the first steps we help our clients do — produce that unique approach — because it's so foundational to helping people at scale.

Brandon Fong: Yeah. I think a quote I share all the time on this show is: you can't read the label from inside the jar. If you're sitting inside your jar, you can't read the nutrition facts on the outside. And the same thing goes for your expertise — if it only lives inside of you, it's not as easy to optimize or tweak for results as when you've extracted it into some kind of system that you can observe almost externally. I love that. So you alluded to branding your approach, which I think is super powerful. The course that I went through was called Simple and Scalable Groups — if that doesn't explain what the benefit is, I don't know what does. Maybe zoom in a little bit on this branding thing. Not only packaging the entire thing, but naming and labeling the steps inside of it — why that's important and how people can begin to do that.

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. I think one of the things people frequently don't do enough of, especially in this industry, is to really pull apart what it is they do, why they do it, and why people seek them out. That forms the foundation of your messaging. And I think sometimes people leave their messaging up to chance — "this sounds good," "I heard that word last week so I'll say it," or they just Frankenstein things from what else is in the marketplace. The reality is that frequently will not fly. It won't create the results you're seeking, and it won't sound like you — it'll sound like something else. You really have to dig deep into why people are seeking what you do, specifically the results and outcomes, and let that inform your decisions and your messaging — and then mesh that with who you are and your values. And I think this is really, really important: be specific. So often we go with messaging and say "I want to empower people." That's amazing. I love that you want to empower people. But if all I did was say "I empower people to live their best life," you'd have no idea what I actually do. You'd have no idea what life looks like after working with me. The challenge for many experts is getting to that level of specificity — and getting there requires really pulling apart your work and what you do and why you do it and why people seek you out.

Brandon Fong: Yeah. I was just listening to a Tim Ferriss interview — he was talking about how when he wrote The Four-Hour Work Week, the content was structured around an acronym, DEAL. And I think that naming and labeling your process makes it so much more accessible and memorable. It's like being user-friendly. And so I think packaging it exactly as you're saying creates a much more three-dimensional version of what you're doing instead of a one-dimensional version. It also makes it much more exciting and tangible. So — are there any specific tips for naming the steps of your unique approach?

Lucas Garvin: In terms of naming the steps of your unique approach specifically, you want to keep them very action-oriented and very short. We don't want something like "Complete the path to empower your health and the people around you" — that's really long and also vague. One good thing about what I just said was that it was action-oriented, there's a verb in there. So we want to start with a verb, and we want to drop "-ing"s — because those are frequently in past tense rather than present tense, which is what gives it a more action-oriented, present feel and creates more of a process feel. In terms of identifying specificity more broadly: it really comes down to imagining a client actually doing whatever they're doing in the process, and the results they're going to experience — visualizing it, getting clarity on the actual experience, the feelings, what's tangibly different and changed in their life. The more we can visualize that, the more specific we can be in the way we articulate it in messaging and copy.

Brandon Fong: Yeah, that's so cool. Learning how to position and package and name and label all your stuff is such an underrated skill set. So — I know we're kind of coming up on time, but there are a few remaining questions I'd love to dig into. One of the things we talked about before was the fact that your approach is evergreen. A lot of people do cohort-based groups where you're launching once a quarter — "get in before the March 31st deadline." But you've designed this so that people can drop into the process at any given point in time. And personally, that kind of breaks my brain. How do you keep people moving through it and not make it feel disjointed? How does that work?

Lucas Garvin: I mean, think about a party. You're at a party and there are twenty, thirty people there, and somebody walks in the door. When they walk in, do you boo at them? No — you welcome them in. It's a community, it's an environment. And this hybrid community is intentionally designed that way. The point is: I don't care how you've structured your program — the people coming in are all at different levels in different places anyway, because that's how humans are. Just because someone's joining a program that starts at step one and goes to step two and step three on some schedule doesn't mean that's actually where everyone coming in is at. I have nothing against cohorts — I think cohorts are amazing in many respects, and we're actually running one right now for a different program. I think they have a time and a place. But what I love about the hybrid coaching model being evergreen is that people can come in at any point, wherever they are, and be met exactly where they're at and get exactly what they need. For example, a client just came into our Evergreen Business program the other day — they have twenty years of experience in the expert industry, they sold thousands of online courses in a prior business that they just sold. They said, "I don't have an audience. I'm starting fresh, but I really know what I'm doing and I need to build an audience quickly. Where in your process should I jump in?" And they're going to jump in at a later stage because that's where they're at. That client gets to be met where he is — he's getting what he specifically needs exactly when he needs it. And so are all the other clients. They're all on a similar journey, they have shared interests, shared goals, shared values — and they get to be a community on that journey together, rather than being squeezed into a specific point at a specific time regardless of where they actually are.

Brandon Fong: So am I understanding correctly that the content isn't gated — they have access to the whole thing when they join? And Tom can join with twenty years of experience the same week that Timmy joins with a year or two of experience, and they could both show up to a group coaching call and ask questions at different levels? Is that how it's designed?

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. And people frequently guess that will be a disadvantage — that people won't be able to get value from people at different levels because it's not immediately relevant to what they're specifically working on. But the reality is that having people at all different levels actually means they get to hear different perspectives more frequently, and it creates a more complete picture and understanding of what they're doing. If you're at an earlier stage and you hear someone at a later stage, it gives you a preview of what's to come — inspiration, motivation, excitement for the journey ahead that helps you stay plugged in, even though there's quite a bit of work ahead of you. Or maybe you're at a later stage and you hear someone at an earlier stage asking a question about something you previously solved but haven't thought about in a while — you get a refresher, you go back and plug that into your business, and re-energize results in an area that had fallen away. There are lots of different scenarios where learning from people at different stages, with a mentor who has a deep understanding of all stages, can really guide you through that. And not only is that a benefit to the members — it's a benefit to you as the mentor, because now you don't have to be the only person who can add value.

Brandon Fong: That's super powerful. And I think part of that also requires the right culture — that the people further along come from a place of "oh my God, yeah, totally forgot I was crushing it on this referral component, and this person asked about it and now I've re-incorporated it." I think having the opportunity to teach deepens your understanding so much. If you put that correct culture in place and somebody more advanced helps someone else out by teaching it, they actually solidify the concept in a different way than if they hadn't been in that environment. So what about culture specifically — how do you build a program community around that?

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. I completely agree. It really does come down to culture, and the values that we espouse and run our community on — and that we encourage our clients to build into their programs — is: no competition. We're not here to compete with each other. There's plenty enough opportunity for all of us. What we're here for is an opportunity to grow, to contribute, and to achieve our own goals inside of our businesses. And in a personal space as well, it comes down to: this is a safe space for growth. A safe space for people to come, share parts of who they are or what they're going through, and to get real-time support — from a mentor or from community members — to break through that. This is not about ego, not about being the best or not the best in the room, not about comparison. It's about growth and doing that together with support. There are some communities out there where ego is a big part of culture, and I just don't personally subscribe to that. It's something that I think we could all be more aware of from time to time — myself included — and I intentionally work to minimize that in how we facilitate communities, so that it doesn't become a barrier to people's success.

Brandon Fong: Yeah. One final question and then we'll wrap up. How long are people in this program? Lots of people are familiar with the concept of buying a course and getting lifetime access. For the hybrid model — are they getting access to community and content for six months? A year? Three months? How do you structure that?

Lucas Garvin: Yeah. With the hybrid, we typically recommend a year — and that's what we most commonly see people do and have the most success with. Second to that is six months, and then sort of third would be three months or some other timeframe. The reason is: when someone is seeking major life or business transformations — completely changing their health, completely changing their relationships, doubling their business, whatever the goal might be — transformation takes time. You're not going to pop into a program and, just because you have a path and a community and a mentor, be blazing through top-level success the next day. It just doesn't really work that way when we're going for big transformations. It takes time, and again that's another spectrum — some people move a little bit faster, some need more time. So that's one reason we typically recommend a year: it gives people enough time to create major life or business transformations, but also allows life to happen in the middle and not have fear that they won't have support available when things come up. A parent gets sick, a kid has an issue, a relationship falls through, a tree falls on a house in a storm — there are all kinds of life examples that can derail people for a while. When they have that extended period of time, six or twelve months, they really have an opportunity to get back on their feet with support inside a program like this.

Brandon Fong: Love that. Man — you've gotten a whole masterclass today on learning how you could create a hybrid program to create a massive impact. And it's just so valuable to see people's different approaches to creating impact, structuring it, how to name and label and package it. I know if you're still hanging out with us right now, you've gotten so much gold and ideas you can incorporate into everything you're doing. I want to wrap with something that kind of comes full circle — in the beginning, we talked about your LinkedIn bio, and one of the things you said was that you're a personal development junkie. One of the questions I love to ask my guests toward the end, Lucas, is: what does happiness mean to you? What is your definition of happiness personally?

Lucas Garvin: Well — first and foremost, I think most of the time happiness is a choice. And it's something that I do my best to choose in every moment. Obviously there are times where that choice is a hard one to make and to feel and embody. And I think the more that I consciously and intentionally pursue that and choose it every day, the more frequently and consistently I experience it — and the more the intensity of that grows with time. But what does it look like? I think it looks like getting to spend time with my husband. It looks like having freedom in my day — not having things stacked back to back where I'm always rushing to something. It looks like being able to travel and have new experiences, and to have conversations with great people like yourself and to learn things and to contribute and to add value, and to see people experience growth in their own lives as well as growth in mine. And so that's what really brings a lot of joy to me personally.