Miguel Carrasco is a serial entrepreneur, a loving son, husband, father and a well respected and renowned Fitness Professional and Coach. Immigrating to Canada at the age of 2- Miguel understood early on the struggles of being an immigrant and the hard work his parents were deploying on a daily basis to provide the family a better life.
His parents would take him often to Walmart and being curious, he would always spend time in the magazine section reading and being inspired by the entrepreneurs and their stories. In the local newspaper- he noticed that people were selling info products and even though he didn’t purchase them, this sparked an idea inside his head to do something.
Around the 80’s, search engines didn’t exist and this was during the time of the BBS (Bulletin Board System)- with this need in mind, Miguel decided to compile a list of services and convinced his parents to call the newspaper and place an ad saying, “Do you want the best BBS? Send me $20(covers S+H) and I’ll send you a list.”
A few days went by and Miguel wasn’t getting sales and his parents thought this venture was a fail but wasn’t disappointed at Miguel as this was a learning opportunity for him. However, a short time later- people started signing up for his service and sending him money. So, he sent them the BBS and on the back of the sheet was his upsell offer that for an extra $5/month they would get an updated list sent to them monthly.
Fast forward to high school, Miguel took the initiative to start a chess club and convinced the school to build a website which led him to learn coding and web development.
He learned SEO and built a website to drive traffic and get more students for his father who at that time was operating a martial arts school.
Miguel attended college for 1 year and then left to travel to Australia. After returning back to Canada, he ended up getting a job as a Computer Consultant which would be his career for the next 12 years.
In 2012- being 240 lbs Miguel decided it was time to turn his life around after a health scare. After his transformation and dropping 80 pounds to 160 lbs, he was inspired to start an online fitness business and used social media as a marketing tool through Facebook Ads and Instagram Marketing which led him to build a health and fitness coaching business purely online. His organization is now responsible for $35 million in sales yearly.
Miguel, your transformation and story is truly inspiring but I am sure you’ve had countless failures. Is there a time where you felt like giving up after a hard failure?
I fail everyday- yesterday I ran a Facebook Ad and lost $400. Most people would look at the fact I lost $400, I see it as a learning opportunity of what didn’t work and when I run another ad next time, I know what not to do.
We live in a day and age where it is important to be constantly experimenting and adapt to changing times, if you get complacent or stop learning- you will either be fired from your job or if you are an entrepreneur- say goodbye to your business.
However, I’ll tell you an interesting story. I ran a personal development/mind-mastery bootcamp in New Orleans for 1500 people and we had a sell out event which gave us confidence and momentum to pre-sell tickets for an event in Indiana. We expected a larger turn out which would be for about 5000 people and we booked a grand ball room at a 5 star hotel for $75,000- however, we only sold 1500 tickets and took a $40,000 loss. The lessons I learned from this failure were valuable because this time around for our recent event in June- we were able to get that same venue for $15,000 after negotiating.
Evidently, there were certain things I did to negotiate such a low price but that goes to show you- every failure is merely a learning opportunity for you to continue to progress in life.
How did you take your company to do 7 or even 8 figures in sales? (do you have certain principles that you followed)?
- Be the hardest worker in the room and lead by example. I can only handle 20-30 clients/month in my online fitness business and I realized that to scale an organization to a higher level, I needed to build a team around me that aligned with my values and vision that are coachable and want to take control of their own destiny to build a life of service to help transform people’s lives. When I bring on other coaches who I see have potential- I show them the process of scaling a business by having them first be a customer of mine. Once they see my behaviour, habits and things I do on a daily basis- it will be easier for them to implement those actions and scale their business.
- Re invest back into your business. Most books will say invest 10% into of the profits back into your business. I take a more contrarian approach and I believe you need to be investing 50-60% of the profits back into your business to scale at an aggressive rate.
What is a proud moment that you have had in business and in life?
In my organization, I was given the Leadership award for achieving certain milestones and this award was actually selected by a private committee so there was no chance to influence the votes in any way possible.
On a personal level, I was able to finally retire my parents 3 years ago. Being an immigrant, I understand the sacrifices and long hours my parents went through to provide a better life for us. My parents were always entrepreneurial and recently, they were running a home day care earning about $45,000/annually and I wanted them to spend more time with their grand kids. One day, I went to their home and wrote a letter saying they had to close their day care down as a surprise to let them know they can finally retire. Now my parents work with me and help run my business.
What is a tip you have for someone that is looking to become an entrepreneur or even start their own business but they are on the fence.
Don’t focus on income but focus on your passion. I was good at building websites an early age and helped my father and his friends build their websites but it wasn’t something I was passionate about- even though I was able to make money from it. The truth is I am passionate about health and fitness along with inspiring others by transforming their lives in some way. In entrepreneurship, there will be countless moments where you will fail and if you are in it solely for the money- you will not last long.
Nothing can be achieved without building a team- what do you look for when hiring someone or bringing someone on your team?
- I hire someone based on their passion and attitude because skills are commodotized- meaning I could easily teach someone what I need to get done in business.
- Determination- if I want something done and it needs to be revised multiple times, will the video producer, my assistant or any other employee be able to do the task till it’s right or will they give up in the process?
- I need to know if they have a higher purpose- is there a calling to serve? what are their values? Last but not least, I need to be comfortable having them around them my kids and family.
To learn more about Miguel and his daily life you can check out his new venture- The Boss Life(https://www.thebosslife.com/) where you can take your life to the next level and check out his Instagram– for his fun workouts and see his larger than life personality.