About the Episode
Listen to learn how Rick Jordan scaled his MSP company from startup to public company. Learn how Rick identified what his level 10 opportunities were and how he honed his skills to amplify success.
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I’m happy you’re here with me today because today we’re going to talk about your level 10 opportunity and when that decides to stroll into your life and what big of a difference it can make in your business and what you’re looking to do and what to do in the meantime, before we dive in, I want to ask you to please share this out with three people. As you listen to the show and as you like, “Oh, this person needs to hear this. That person needs to hear this. My buddy over here needs this part right here.” We don’t take promotion sponsorships, nothing. We just impact more people with your help.
All right. I’m going to tell you a little bit about me and a story that I used to think of because now I have a public company right? Just filed not too long ago. The IPO is coming up soon, and I used to think, believe it or not. I used to think man I want to get out of this it thing because I wish I had something as I was looking at all these Instagram people in all these friends of mine that had like these b to c products and other things and coaching there were high ticket items and looks like you know what, I’m a little bored with this now and this was just about three years ago. I’m a little bored with this now because I don’t feel like having a managed service provider actually has a lot of reach into a lot of people. Can you imagine that? You’re right.
This was right at the time when I started to really do some hardcore work on myself and personal growth is when I thought man, I think I need to change industries because I felt stagnant. I didn’t feel like I was in the position where I wanted to be as far as growth and acceleration and momentum. I just felt like I was stuck in this spot in business and I guess really more so in life. You know, so maybe it’s more like four or five years ago, something like that. Around three years ago is when I actually started doing this work on myself but as I started to look at this and take a look around me, right I just started pursuing things and started leveling up in some areas and trying to figure out “Hey, what’s what what is this?” I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this phrase like like a level 10 opportunity, meaning like, that’s the thing and I kept searching for the thing I kept trying to look for and find whatever I could possibly be to be like, “Oh, I could turn this thing out a million times with some social ads. Not a product but a service or I could go out. I can host an event with 1000 people and then I can impact a whole bunch of them too and actually make you know a million and a half dollars on one single event in a weekend!” I kept looking for all these things that were just like these quick fixes that had nothing to do with where I was at right now.
Now even though I look back and I had so many learnings from all these things in this research, I actually got a lot of things out there, but in the meantime, I didn’t even realize it was right, but in the meantime, I was still doing what I was doing every day still at the company. I had good people that were running the operations for it and this thing was still just chugging along and actually still growing because I still had some purpose and some attention to it. It was actually kind of cool but I saw what I was doing at the moment right? The IT Help and managed service providers stuff is like a level one opportunity. It’s like you know even though we do several million dollars a year still have x amount of clients. It was like “Yeah, that’s cool.” So there’s like clients, so there’s like things we do so there’s revenue that we get, but this doesn’t seem like a big thing that doesn’t seem like a level 10 thing. It’s just where we’re helping people with networks. Cool. You know, we’re removing viruses, we’re saving people from ransomware, we’re saving businesses, you know, one time it was like $75 million in one shot and I was like, “Okay, that’s all great and everything.”
I started to realize something just recently as I started looking back, and during that time, that period, what I was doing was honing my skill sets and I actually had no idea at that moment what it was for, because being the CEO of a public company. The only reason that opportunity even presented itself to begin with is because of the things that I was doing like doing media appearances, starting this podcast right here, leveling up and all these different areas that I didn’t have the skill set in yet and then all of a sudden the opportunity came in front of me, almost as if it was out of nowhere. But it wasn’t actually really out of nowhere. It was when everything was lined up for me that I decided to show up and that was the level 10 opportunity to create this public company and do a roll up of MSPs over the next two years of at least 50 Managed Service Provider acquisitions because a level 10 opportunity is a combination of skill sets and opportunity.
A level 10 scenario in your life is a combination of skill set and opportunity and the thing that you have to understand is that what I didn’t even understand until just a few months ago looking back is while you’re waiting for that level 10 You keep trying all these level one opportunities. I never didn’t nationwide global media like Reuters or Bloomberg or whatever, until I did you know frickin Albuquerque, New Mexico, or I went on Roanoke, Virginia and ABC this small little network in this town right? Or I went to I don’t even remember some of the small locations that I went to, but there’s no way that global media would have taken me on if I didn’t do the local media.
First, There’s no way that I could have launched a public company if I didn’t have a tiny little managed service provider private company, this tiny little private MSP first and while I was doing this, I was honing my skill sets. Over this period of a couple of years to where now when I was ready for the opportunity to happen and there you have it, it’s level 10. You have to keep trying your level one opportunities until level 10 shows up. That’s how you create momentum. That’s how you build your skill set. That’s how you get ready and tell the world that you’re ready or whatever is supposed to come at you in life in your business to say I’m ready and all those things will start to show up when that happens.
So as I look back over the last three to four years, I never knew that I was actually in the midst of doing something great and that’s because when you are in the midst of doing something great, it’s never going to feel like it while you’re doing it while you’re in the middle of it while you’re chugging along on those level one opportunities, it’s not going to feel like it, it’s going to feel like you’re stuck. It’s going to feel like you’re not growing at the pace you want to grow at it’s gonna feel like you’ve plateaued, but as long as you use those to continue to hone your skill sets that opportunity to create that level 10 formula of skill set an opportunity will show up as long as you keep going and don’t neglect, remember how I was saying that that I still put effort into my business. I still put effort into my MSP during that time period while I was doing all these other things and honing my skill set in this public figure arena doing media writing a book, starting a podcast, all these things, all these level one opportunities.
You know, this shows the top 20 in several countries now that’s right, several around the world but it didn’t start there at launch. It didn’t start there at episode 10 It didn’t start there when we got Episode 50. It took time to build that up until we’re at like episode 200 right now, over the last two and a half years. It takes time and I never felt like I was in the midst of doing something great. While I was doing it. It’ll never feel that way. When it’ll feel that way is when you can look back when you have those momentous occasions in your life and be like “Wow, how did I get here?” Then you start to recall “Oh, I did this. I did that.” During that time period I never neglected. I always still paid attention to put my resources and energy into those level ones as I continued down that path to to hone my skill sets to allow that opportunity to show up because a level 10 is a combination of skill set and opportunity.
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