The 4 C’s of Connection: A No-BS Framework for Sustainable Success

Ever feel like you’re barking up the wrong tree in business?
In this no-fluff conversation, The Redneck Connector Mike Ashburner breaks down how chasing clients (aka “dog-catching”) is burning out entrepreneurs and what to do instead. 

From his $5K positioning strategy to his Four C’s framework (Clarity, Connection, Community, Conversation), Mike unpacks how to build a business that attracts instead of performs.

The biggest mic-drop?
 Rejection isn’t failure it’s self-selection. The right people opt in when you stop pretending.

🎯 What you’ll learn:

• Why your nervous system hates your current marketing strategy
• The $5.3M goal that redefines generational wealth
• How to create authentic brand gravity in just 10 minutes a day
• A free tool to start building trust, visibility, and aligned sales now

🔗 Grab Mike’s 10-minute Engagement Guide and watch your traction grow without selling your soul. Click Here and Download your Guide Now

Colorado’s best business coach, Baz Porter, has a new mindset strategy mentoring service to help you unlock new heights of growth, prosperity, happiness, and success. Book your first meeting with the coaching visionary at https://www.ramsbybaz.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back with Mike
• 3:36 The Four C's of Master Attracting
• 8:15 Clarity: Bug Zapping vs Dog Catching
• 14:29 Connection: $5,000 Worth of Value
• 19:27 Community & Conversion That Works
• 23:41 Generational Wealth and Compound Growth
• 25:54 Being an Oak Tree Among Tumbleweeds
• 30:38 Final Words and Free Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to part two of Wrestling Ashes. I'm here with Mike. In the last conversation we talked about how he came from the financial sector, understanding what branding is and really coming into his own, and he started to join and connect the dots between marketing branding because they're completely different things. For those who don't know, marketing is not branding, it's not sales and strategically build his authentic business by helping people. And he built I'm going to ask him to explain this, but he built the hounds on four pillows. This is correct, isn't it, mike? So you have clarity, connections, community and conversations. Can you go in a bit deeper of what these things are and give scenarios, if you will, of how they help people?

Speaker 2: 0:56

Yeah. So in part one we talked about how I drove off the cliff 16 times, right Built from nothing and rejection and all that stuff. So, first of all, guys, focus on you when you get to your internal, when you build self-worth, when you cut all that dead weight, toxic relationships and all those negative tapes out. And yeah, it's a struggle, it's a journey, and we usually don't do that on purpose because it's hard. But if that's where you're at, if you're in the fork, in the road, do that. Take personal responsibility for everything, everything. It may not be your fault, but you have to deal with it, and not dealing with it is dealing with it in a way that's not going to bring you to life All right. So I've been there and done that. Once you get on that path, then the next thing is, quite frankly, whether you believe it or not, it's truth, universal law. What the Bible teaches is ask, seek and knock. That's true for all people. It's like the sun comes up for all of us folks. It's principle. So put yourself out there, ask for it and then go out there and look for it, let it find you. So once you do that, once you get the mindset, or if you need help.

Speaker 2: 1:56

I've created the four pillars of master attracting, becoming a master attractor, the four C's I call them. And the first C is clarity. Right, and what is that? Well, listen, we don't need pretty profiles, we don't need pretty graphics, because we're not trying to be influenced, we're trying to grow a business. Very different mindset so it's not that we minimize the things to grow social media is that we don't put the car before the horse. What's important is that we build a business, a model, a funnel, a strategy that's centered around social media, linkedin, alignable, right youtube that we need everywhere. So clarity comes first. It's the foundation to building a house, this business. So it attracts ideal clients.

Speaker 2: 2:37

And I'm not going to ramble on and on, but guys, think about it dog catching. If you put a bunch of dogs in a dog catcher van on hot summer's day, do they want to be there? No, so if I'm chasing people around the DMs, what distinguishes me and my DM versus the other 10 creepy, weird, selfish DMs that they just got? There's nothing right. So we need to dial in. And the problem here is that people say yeah, mike, I know I need to stand out. There's a billion active people on LinkedIn alone, but then we do silly things to stand out. That ruins our reputation, right?

Speaker 2: 3:08

If you post goofy kiddie meme videos day in and day out and you're a licensed attorney who wants to connect and coach other attorneys, you can't convince me. That's going to go well with your. That's why you're not converting. You might listen, you might be able to spray a machine gun in the woods and hit a squirrel with 8,000 bullets, but that's not a sustainable model. So we're teaching you how to bug zap here. Get your brand dialed in and then people will go oh, I know what you do before I meet you. I think I like to watch your content. I think I might like to learn more and read your article. Hey, I might even want to show up to your call. That's the first step. Does that make sense? Boss Tracking, not dog catching. So I teach that. I teach that in my group coaching. I do that for people who already have their stuff together, who want to tap in and get new visibility and all these kinds of exposure.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Then number two is connections Connection Listen, I'm not talking about just accepting or sending out connection requests. First of all, again, the scariest place on earth is the DMs of a woman's social media, right? I've seen them, oh my gosh. So think about this. Let me give you all a real y'all want me to give you a real one that you can use right now and dominate. Let me give you $5,000 worth of value here. So there's a lady, all right, and she's an amazing person. She's been there, done that Credibility. She went through hell and back and now she learned how to coach other ladies doing it, so she does self-sabotage. So she come to me and said, hey, a lot of the folks in my industry are ladies in their 40s and 50s, usually menopausal, going through life change, and I help them. And she said, do you think they're on platforms like LinkedIn? So I went to a lady who does that. She's a menopause coach, right, so she does those services.

Speaker 2: 4:48

Now think about this, folks. This goes into authenticity. If I, the redneck, if I think about this, I go into her post and make an intelligent AI comment about menopause, who's going to believe that stuff, guys? Now think about it. Think about how silly that's like building a giant, beautiful wedding cake that no one's seen before, and then you put a dog turd on top of it. Folks, listen, that's a Pinto steering column on a Ferrari. Y'all getting this. So what do I do instead, mike, I'm glad you asked. This is what I did. So I came into that post and said hey, I am so glad that you are helping women who need it the most. Do you know my friend? She also helps women in the same wheelhouse in a different way. I think you two should connect, holy cow.

Speaker 2: 5:31

Now it goes back to what I said in part one. They expect me to say I'm great, but now they don't expect people like this to say you're great. And the question is why? Because I teach how to. No BS, I'm the coach, you're the quarterback, I call the play, you run the play, generate curiosity and value folks.

Speaker 2: 5:47

And I got the template. You know why? Because I drove off the cliff 17 times. I fell more times than you tried. You don't want to lose your hairline over it, I promise you. And then the last two, quickly, are community. I've already built that for you.

Speaker 2: 5:59

Merry Christmas, right? You don't have to spend years building a network. Networking is like having water all over the floor. You make contacts. They're stale, cold strangers. All this. What we do is we put them into a glass. We put that water in a glass. Now we can manage it. Now we can push people up.

Speaker 2: 6:15

I had a lady come in, ran one play, one play out of my four-month course right Group coach. She got in front of 122 ideal clients within four weeks of running that play folks. No kidding, go, look at my recommendations. You'll see who it is on LinkedIn. Where's the sales pitch? She just loved on the right people. And you know why? Because I told her.

Speaker 2: 6:36

I said listen, I'm not going to promise you this amazing woman is going to put you on her show and hook you up if you show up and comment, but I'm going to promise you 1000%. It won't happen if you don't show up and do it. And then, finally, conversion. See, we're not here to sing Kumbaya. We can't make the impact in this world. The reason the hounds exist and this is why Boz probably has me on.

Speaker 2: 6:58

I don't want to spend the next 40 years paying the electric bill. I can't help people until I become free of time and free of money. I have to have complete, total freedom and when that happens, thousands of us heart-centered people out there we can make a serious dent in shit that matters Food, insecurity, homelessness. That's why we do what we do and I think that, boz, is why we excel, overcome challenges and people are coming to us because that's not no marketing pitch, buddy, that is 1000%. And anybody out there going wow, this craziness sounds like me. Yeah, hey, let's connect, because I don't care if you say yes or no.

Speaker 2: 7:34

What I'm going to encourage you to do is go get the information, check it out, test drive it. Hopefully you trial and close before you buy them right. Hopefully you date before you get married. Same concept Go out there and test things, get the info and say this is for me or it's not for me. I don't sell you, I educate you and you figure it out. You either make a wise or unwise decision. And if you approach your clients like that, imagine if I gave my clients the information completely transparent, caring and they say, no, stop calling it rejection and call it what the hell it is. That's self-selection, folks. You keep talking to more people. You keep putting your peacock feathers out there and if you want that community of like-minded people, that's what the Hounds of Business community is all about and that's why I love you in it, boz, because you get it right. All you could benefit from. You didn't need, my course, you just needed the ecosystem to go and be you and accelerate and help other people that need.

Speaker 1: 11:13

That's exactly what it does. It does exactly what it says on the tin and one of the things I like about you and you said earlier about being free. So, for the audience out there, I'm going to give you the exact number to create generational wealth. This isn't a one-time life. The exact number is what 5.3 million is generational wealth. This isn't a one-time life. The exact number is what 5.3 million is generational wealth. That means everybody in your family moving forward once it's invested. It don't mean you earn it and then just it. You have to invest it properly and nurture it. But the actual number is 5 million, 300. That is. That is the number today, not 10 years ago, as in today April, end of April, beginning of May 2025, because of the economics, the banking system and all the corporate structures, that is the number. So if you can create that within the next two or three years, which is completely possible, you reverse engineer it. That's what I do help people reverse engineer. Then you can create financial freedom generationally for everybody moving forward.

Speaker 1: 12:25

And if it's done properly and created right, you can compound it. And for those people who don't know what compounding is, it's like playing golf you start off with $2 at the first hole and you end up with $16,800 and something at the last hole, Because you're doubling each hole and it doesn't happen until about the ninth or tenth where you start to see the incremental growth. It starts really slowly at first. That's how you grow it and it's the same thing about business community at finance, with connections, with clarity. You have to start off small and then build on it, and that's what Mike has done here.

Speaker 1: 13:12

He started off oh my God, I'm a fish out of water. No one's going to listen to me but you actually found a sweet spot that not only you enjoy doing. It creates freedom for other people, which brings me back into the alignment thing with you of who you truly are, Because they don't do business with who they know and trust. They do business with who gives them clarity and they can see the result in. These are the components that are not spoken about in conversations because, yes, they want to do business with who they know, they like and they trust and they can see the clarity and the result within them. That's the closing deal when it comes to negotiation or talking about what you do and then backing it up with your alignment and your behavior.

Speaker 2: 14:08

Dead on. Boss. May I share this story Because you just prompted this. God, this is real. That's what I like stories, cause he's like he can't make up a story. That government really I'm not Stephen King, listen. So here it was. I built the hounds of business as the antidote to all the things that I thought. Like I said in part one, you know that I was defective. Nobody likes me. I suck, I don't have value in my business.

Speaker 2: 14:32

And so here's what happened. I sat down and this is encouraging Guys. If this is you today, it don't have to be you tomorrow. You just have to be willing to go through the temporary hell to figure it out. But it's worth it. Let me explain this. I had a man sit down very accomplished man, right and older gentleman and he sat down with me and he put me in this sales pitch type of interaction. Now I had built the hound so I didn't have to do this anymore. So here's what happened. He started pushing me to sell and I just started laughing. Right in the middle of the sales call I just started laughing. He said what the hell is so funny? I said this right here I don't know how to do this sales thing. You're putting me through and he's watching me going. Finish, right, finish the sentence. I said that's why I built the hounds. I said what's supposed to happen is that you come into the hounds, realize I'm not full of shit. Okay, then I asked questions like a doctor. Right, we diagnosed the issue, I pointed stuff and you buy it if you want to. So maybe you need to go in the hounds for a couple more weeks and then we'll reconvene. The man hired me on the spot.

Speaker 2: 15:36

Let me tell you something that's not a sales pitch or a tactic, but that was one thousand percent truth. See, that's the difference between being an oak tree and a sea of tumbleweeds. When you are willing to plant your seed and not, it don't mean you're not flexible, it means that you don't break your boundaries. Your personal creed is not negotiable, right. When that happens, you have to be willing to let go, because if you're saying yes to something, you're saying no to something else. So instead of looking at things again like rejection, look at it. And boy, I'll be mad when I heard this from people. But but I'm telling you, I've been here. This is real. This ain't some stuff you read in a book somewhere from somebody with no clue. Folks, this is real. You will figure it out because I'm telling you there's folks who said, ah, he's a nice guy, but that redneck's probably not on my level yet.

Speaker 2: 16:36

And I worked my tail off. Listen to me. I put them. They become the Ivan Drago, right, Rocky IV. They became that person in my mental mirror. And guess what happened? Two years later, they come to me. Now there's no way to fake it, folks. They came to me why? Because A they saw value and collaboration and B nobody wants the Pepsi to their Coke and that's good for the consumer, for innovation, but it's not good for business folk. So my point is when you, when everybody's going left and it's not working and you hate what you're doing inside, go and where's right. First of all, start with the hounds Same as plug, but maybe it's not the hounds, maybe the hounds is the place where you need to go, for you to figure out where else you need to go. And that's the freedom. That's another freedom. I'm not here to make you do anything. I'm here because you need somebody to help you. Be you not bash your square peg in a round hole.

Speaker 1: 17:19

So it's the mentality. That's just it, though, and I love what you said earlier, and I want to reiterate that People and you mentioned Coke and Pepsi I get people say to me Coke and Pepsi. I get people say to me I've got four avatars. I know four people that I want to do business with. Coke have had one avatar for over a hundred years. It's only in the last 10 years that they've developed, or starting to develop, a second avatar. They didn't know the first person well enough to even look at another person for a hundred years. And you're selling me. People tell me I've got three avatars. I've got a man and a female. No, have one. You'll attract other people, but don't confuse what your message is. And this is what Mike's done. He's not confusing people. He's got clarity about this person and the brand is set up for that person.

Speaker 1: 18:20

If this sounds like you and you need a community to come in and say I want authentic people, authentic conversations without the BS, go to Mike's community on LinkedIn. Go to the hounds, message him, join a call, have a conversation, a real conversation that's going to get you where you want to get to, without the noise. I'm endorsing it because I know that shit works and I don't endorse shit that doesn't work. Period, because I've been, as people know. I don't endorse shit that doesn't work Period Because I've been, as people know. I've been through hell. Come back, kiss the fucking devil and it's not fucking great. The reason I have this podcast is for people like Mike and many others who had magnificent stories that have shed their experiences and elevated their lives. The reason I asked Mike here isn't because he's such. He has a rice and mash story, but he's authentic, he knows what he's doing and he speaks the fucking truth and it's no bullshit. If you want to accelerate point to note and I haven't got any affiliate with this, I'm not gaining anything from it go and see Mike, go and have a conversation with him.

Speaker 1: 19:35

The reason this conversation started up was Mike commented on my post about three months ago four months ago, probably a bit longer than that. I didn't know who the fuck he was and I went oh that's nice. And I clicked on his profile. The first thing that struck me is he's real. He's real. The second thing that struck me he was open to a conversation and he didn't try to sell me something. That's what I like about Mike and what he does in the communities. He's not the same, he's not a different person off camera. He's the same person my memory is too bad.

Speaker 2: 20:20

It takes a lot to lie, man, I can't do it.

Speaker 1: 20:23

It takes a different kind of person to run a business effectively. Take a leaf out of a cone. Don't go wide, go focused, go deep within one person and understand them. Everything else will fall into place then you can expand.

Speaker 2: 20:51

Yeah, then on then, once you master, see, everybody wants to be a jack of all trades. No master of one leads to a master of two and three organically. So thank you for that, because that means a lot, man, I feel the same because I want to deal with real people. People say who, what industry? Now let me tell you, if you're saying I wonder if Mike's for me, maybe the hounds and maybe what I do and the services, if you're a coach, guide, expert, advisor, entrepreneur, small business, before I knew what I was doing, you might as well have said sell used bags of potato chips. Quite frankly, so it doesn't matter, because here's why it hinges. It hinges on principles. Think about this and I'll stop. But I want people to get this, because everything out there is just a dog and pony show. Think about this, folks Gravity is a principle, right. It's a law, universal to all of us. If Boz and I jump off a 10-story building, what's going to happen? Squish, yeah, it's not going to say Mikey or Redneck, and he, boz is this, and that it doesn't care. And so the laws and principles, the true stuff, that works, right.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Why do you say? It's like saying I know, exercise and diets and nutrition work for other people, but when I put my name in there instead of theirs, it won't work. That's called delusion. I had to wake up to that. So what we're saying is no, is it going to be easy? Hell, no, ok, it don't have to be complicated. So once the complication is resolved, once you have affordable it's affordable and accessible Once you fit in and you're in a place that allows for that organic farming style growth in your life and your business, then you can grow. See, it's like trying to plant a seed in the desert. That's why you don't see tomato plants in the desert. It's the wrong environment.

Speaker 2: 22:31

So if you're out there, just cookie cutters, services and courses, people telling a dog to meow, telling you to do this kind of content, when you hate that kind of content, all of these things that you just deep down hate and it's reinforcing a negative thought pattern. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because now people are hanging up on you and getting grumpy and you're saying see, it has to be true because I suck, or this wouldn't be happening. No, jack, so you're facing a tsunami. Either wish it away, keep doing stuff and get drowned, or learn how to surf on tsunamis, folks, and that's what this is about. This is why Boz does what he does. This is why I do what I do and that's why we're here, because I don't need anything.

Speaker 2: 23:11

What I want is for folks to stop Cats stop barking. Welcome home. No strays out there, right? So if you're out there feeling this and you're like, thank God, someone said this out loud, give us a test drive. And if we're not, for you, dadgummit, I'll walk you somewhere. If I know of a better fit, just get out there and make this impact. This world ain't going to get better unless we do some shit about it. Way bigger than money.

Speaker 1: 23:37

I love that. Thank you very much, mike, and your time, I know, is very precious because I hope busy you are To my audience.

Speaker 1: 23:43

thank you very much for joining us. Thank you very much for being a part of my world from Mike, from myself, from everybody, all the guests. This is your platform and I really appreciate your sharing your input. But if you have a guest and you want someone to appear, message me, happy to have a look at it and see if they're a good fit. This is about you, not about me selling something. It's a real conversation and elevating the guests into where they want to be and where they want to get to. One of the things I love about mike is it's authentic and if you are serious about growing your business the links are below in the descriptions, in the blogs, wherever you listen to this there's links there Go and have a conversation. It's not going to charge you, it's not going to bite your neck head off, but go and have a conversation. So I really encourage you doing that, mike. Do you have any final words before we wrap up for today?

Speaker 2: 24:38

Absolutely. We'll put the links in the comments wherever you're seeing this, and I have a free engagement guide so I'm giving this to you so you can see it for yourself. Test drive, test me Too many people talking. You go out there seven to 10 days and you practice this for 10 minutes and tell me if the needle don't move. And if that's the case and you go wow, I'm interested, I'm seriously trying to build, I'm ready to go forward, reach out and get the guide.

Speaker 2: 25:01

Also, we have a hounds of business group call folks. We have media networks. We have things that work, tools that everybody's got, a tool, but we have things that are intentional to help you move the needle, whatever you're struggling with in those four C pillars, because those are the four C's of building a business from dirt and I'm not going to pester you. I had two people sit with me the other day. I didn't even know them because I don't pester you. Listen, if you see value, you'll call me and maybe I'll send you somewhere else, but that's it.

Speaker 2: 25:31

If this resonates with you on a heart level, then welcome home. And if it doesn't, the next time you hear someone complain about I'm not cut out for building a business. I stink at marketing. I stink at networking. Hey, I know a redneck. Why don't we go chest him out? Before you give up on your dreams and goals, right Before you give up on that impact, before that nonprofit you could have built to help children doesn't get built, dadgummit. This is serious. This is not a game to us. This is serious and we need you. So step up to the plate and, hey, plug in. Let's do this thank you, boz.

Speaker 1: 26:04

Thank you, you're awesome and this wouldn't be possible without you and many others like you trying to change people's lives. This is why this exists for my listeners. Thank you very much for joining me. Thank you very much for sharing the message. Go and give us a review. I love a review now and again for myself. Thanks very much, mike, you're awesome and I'll look forward to having another conversation with you, or many more offline. Enjoy, have a great day wherever you are in the world, be safe, be well and always keep going. Keep rising. See you soon. See you, folks.