Vistage

How Vistage cold-calls C-suite execs into a $20K/yr group

Shaan recounts a Vistage recruiter cold-calling him with a script tailored to his city, company, and title that felt like a personal invitation, until the $20K/year membership ask revealed it was a sales call. The lesson: these high-end communities are built on skilled cold outreach plus a few brand-name members for legitimacy.

“No, no, no. See, I'm actually the chapter president for San Francisco for Vistage, and I actually want to invite you to join our CEO network. We have CEOs from this company, this company, this company, and we just really think you'd be a great fit for our CEO group. We meet up about once a month in San Francisco. It's a great time, blah, blah, blah. OK, CEO group. You sound like you know me. You're talking about my city. This sounds pretty legit. Okay, so what are you asking me for? Yeah, so the membership is $20,000 a year.”

Steal thisCold-call prospects with a script that name-drops their city, company, and title so the pitch feels handpicked.

Vistage CEO peer groups: $18K a year, ~$400M business

Sam and Shaan note Vistage charges roughly $18,000 a year for CEO peer/mastermind groups, a model worth about $400 million a year - and pitch a leaner version built from the podcast audience.

“18 grand. That's a $400 million a year business.”

Local CEO mastermind groups built from an audience

Sam wants to spin up CEO peer groups of ~8 people per city out of the podcast's listeners, undercutting expensive incumbents like Vistage. He already has 400 people who requested his mastermind playbook.

“we can create groups of 8 in cities. So if somebody wants to like take this idea and run with it, I don't have the time, but I think we can create a business doing that.”

Steal thisRecruit an existing audience into small paid peer groups by city and undercut the legacy mastermind incumbents.