A Founder’s Story
I spent three decades making lots of companies lots of money.
Then one day my employer called.
Five minutes later, I was out of a job.
Stephen’s Stats:
• 30 years in brand & growth • Fortune 500 & billion-dollar brands • Healthcare • Tech • Professional services • Built & ran agencies • Beat his salary in year one
I wanted to give up.
You’d think everything I’d learned about marketing and sales would give me an advantage building my own consultancy.
Nope.
All that experience… all those brands I’d grown… none of it told me how to build mine.
I went searching for insights. Scraped every guru’s post. (Slick, but no substance.) Hired an expensive coach. (A waste of time and money.) Asked for advice. (Got plenty. None that helped.)
My worst moment came on a Friday night, three months after launch.
I took my dog for a walk and all I could think was, “I can’t do this. I’m giving up.”
Stephen Moegling
— Founder, Band of Misfits®
Facts about Band of Misfits members.
I had no Plan B.
They say necessity is the mother of invention. The bills were piling up. My bank balance was draining. The walls were closing in.
But I refused to go back to being an employee.
So I got to work. Repositioned myself, told my story, and picked up clients. Cracked the LinkedIn code — prospects read my content, booked meetings, and hired me.
By the end of year one, I’d replaced my employed income — and beaten it by 67.7%.
I solved the money problem. But I had other problems to solve.
A few things I believe
…that make all the difference.
Gratitude is the best outreach email.
Sending a client or prospect a simple, heartfelt “thinking of you, hope you’re well” beats any sales pitch 10×.
People buy you, not what you can do for them.
Invest in your personal brand. It’s your single biggest point of leverage.
Your best customers lurk.
My best-performing content for getting calls booked gets the fewest likes and comments. Your best customers are watching — and when they’re ready, you’ll get the call.
Your story matters as much as your solution.
You might have the best solution on the market, but if your story sucks, the customer buys somewhere else.
Don’t be perfect
Customers like an expert with quirks. It makes you human.
And humans buy from humans.
99 problems
(but money wasn’t one).
I was glad to have so many clients.
But I was stressed, running from one meeting to the next, and couldn't tell you what I should be working on next to grow my business.
Being a control freak, I took control. I built the operating system we now teach the band inside BOM:
Casting vision for the next phase of the business on a regular cadence
Choosing the essential few projects every 90 days so the business runs efficiently
Dialing in the growth engine so the pipeline stays juicy and I dodged "feast or famine" mode
I also hired health coaches and work/life integration experts. (What's the point of making good money if you're burned out all the time?)
And just when I thought I knew my business focus, something surprising happened.
”
"Band of Misfits gave me the framework and the community I needed to launch with intention, and the Golden Rings approach alone has paid for itself many times over in the referrals and client conversations that are still coming in today."
— Diane Cheshire DiCarlo, Healthcare Marketing Consultant
THE REBIRTH OF BOM
Three years in, I realized who Band of Misfits is really for.
I'm an open book on LinkedIn, and I shared my wins and what I was learning after launching.
Six months in, I started getting interesting DMs.
So I began consulting with other consultants. (How "meta.") Pretty soon more than half my clients were independent consultants, coaches, and fractional leaders trying to grow too.
Working together, they got incredible results. And a surprising upside: incredible confidence.
I built the OS and network I wish I’d had when I launched my company.
I loved the impact. So much so, I relaunched Band of Misfits for these "Misfits"—not employees, not traditional entrepreneurs, but a third category of ambitious worker who isn’t chasing a billion-dollar market cap, just done with the "safe" route of a steady paycheck.
Every week, the crew and I are in the trenches with our band members—helping them pitch and win deals, tell their story with confidence, charge what they're worth, and win at work while thriving in life.
I love what I do, who I do it with, and who I do it for.