Thomas Helfrich

Win More Marketing Clients, Get Verified | Build trust faster, overcome skeptical buyers, & win more clients | Get Verified, Risk-Free | 1 Mil YouTube Subs / Top 10% Global Podcast

I deliver on the promise of Ai marketing to generate leads and build your brand. In fact, I guarantee it.

I bring together AI, automation, and human expertise to drive measurable growth for clients ranging from billion-dollar engineering firms to $100M SaaS companies to high-performing solopreneurs. Book a time with me here: Calendly.com/instantlyrelevant

My team and I provide end-to-end growth solutions:
• Social media management (LinkedIn, Meta, and more)
• Content production (posts, podcasts, YouTube, newsletters)
• Direct outreach (DMs, connections, network growth)
• Thought leadership + AI-SEO human-written articles
• 1:1 coaching to sharpen offers, systems, and sales flows
• Integrating Ai into you business to achieve measurable results

In the past five years, we’ve helped secure over $500M in contracts, doubled revenue from $40M → $80M in just two years, and scaled small businesses from $1M → $3M ARR. Every engagement is customized—and all of it comes for less than the cost of an intern.

Before launching Instantly Relevant, I spent 20 years in consulting (including KPMG) and led intelligent automation and AI strategy implementations at Eli Lilly and Stanley Black & Decker.

🎙️ In 2024, I launched the Cut The Tie podcast + YouTube channel, which grew into a top 2.5% globally ranked show with 1M+ subscribers—proof that the same growth systems we use for clients work at scale.

👉 Want to see how your lead gen stacks up? Take my 3-minute assessment: assessment.instantlyrelevant.com

Chief Executive Officer

Let's double your LinkedIn revenue with the Instantly Relevant sales and marketing system.

Real men don’t need anyone.

That’s the lie most of us were handed early, reinforced quietly, and rewarded socially.

• Independence equals strength
• Handle it yourself
• Don’t need help
• Don’t talk about what’s heavy

I believed it for a long time. If you are reading this line, you may believe(d) it too....

Today at North Point Community Church I was invited to attend th North Point Men’s Breakfast, (THANK YOU John Deushane for thinking of me AND giving me my first Bible this week! Book of John. A good place to start. Suggested by a good friend, Richard Baldwin.)

Today's message landed harder than I expected. Because the issue isn’t faith, age, or stage.--- It’s connection ---

Samer Massad walked the group through some data that silenced the room.
• 61 percent of men say they have no close friends they can truly lean on.

...then added these nuggets of reinforcement...
Loneliness increases your risk of dying early by 45 percent.

That’s higher than:
• Air pollution at 5 percent
• Heavy drinking at 20 percent
• Obesity at 30 percent

This comes from the @Harvard Study of Adult Development, running since 1935 (https://lnkd.in/djdFsnfg)

The longest study of human happiness and health ever conducted and  conclusion is uncomfortable and clear.

The quality of your relationships matters more than achievement, discipline, or success.

This lie survives on pride, fear, and drive.

Pride says you should handle it alone.
Fear says closeness exposes you.
Drive says slowing down to connect makes you weaker.

It doesn’t. Isolation does.

We carry hidden habits, thoughts, and shame like anchors.
They don’t stay neutral. They pull you under quietly. They drown you.

The verse on the screen said it simply:

Iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens the other 
(https://lnkd.in/dbCNq6pm) YouVersion

You need real friends you can trust...

Not audiences. Not admirers.

Friends who aren’t impressed by you.
Friends you don’t try to impress.
People who accept you as you are. Nothing more. Nothing less.

They exist. But you don’t drift into them. 

• You go first.
• You reach out.
• You organize the hangout.
• You answer the hard question first.
• You lead.

Grateful for Samer Massad for presenting this so clearly, and for John Deushane and North Point Community Church for creating a space where this conversation actually happens.

(share if you believe this one message could help one man in your network)

Ai Marketing Delivered | Ai + Automation + Humans Integrated to Quickly Grow Any Business

John Deushane giving Thomas Helfrich his first bible

North Point Men Breakfast at North Point Community Church

Over the past 4 years I’ve helped over 300 clients build profitable businesses while experiencing the time freedom they deserve. 

We do that by delegating day-to-day operations to Virtual Assistants, and streamlining processes for sustainable scaling. 

My mission is to help 1 million entrepreneurs experience total freedom – to only do the work you like with people you like, and in the process create a life where you can do what you want, with who you want, for as long as you want to. 

We build processes and train VAs to handle...

→ Content distribution and social media management
→ Executive and administrative tasks
→ Outreach, prospecting and follow ups
→ CRM management
→ Customer support and client fulfilment
→ Data tracking and reporting

Resulting in clients experiencing ...

→ An average of 12 hours per week freed up within first 30 days
→ Significant reductions in stress, overwhelm and reactivity
→ More time for deep work and profit-producing activities
→ More opportunities to create priceless moments with people they love 

If you want to learn more about how this is done, you can grab my Zero-Lag VA Playbook:
→ GO HERE: www.theeliteperformer.com/playbook

If you want to enroll in our virtual challenge for founders to multiply productive output:
→ GO HERE: www.theeliteperformer.com/flow_zone_challenge

If you want to work privately with me and my VA team to scale profitably, schedule a roadmap call:
→ GO HERE: www.theeliteperformer.com/results-book

_________________________________________________________________________

Facebook community: The Intelligent Delegator
Facebook: @michael.yeunghk
Instagram: @realmichaelyeung
X: @MichaelhkYeung
Whatsapp: +852 63395670

Michael Yeung

Every time I watch an Alex Hormozi video, I would feel smarter but also less happy. 

I couldn't put it into words back then, but now I know exactly why. 

I relate deeply with Alex, because I also love fitness, went to a top college, got into a prestigious career, only to give that all up for entrepreneurship. 

When the whole world is against me and all I want to do is to win in business... 

I became very good at shutting off emotions, getting massive amounts of work done through sheer willpower, and using logic as a reason to be apathetic. 

But as Tony said, pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice. 

And as Alex said, I too don't understand what it means to get out of your head and lead from your heart. 

That's also why I got emotional while listening to the interview, as if Tony was speaking to me. 

You can achieve a lot with discipline and logic alone. 

But when you're stuck in your head you're dead. Emotionally dead. 

And that's when life loses it's color, no matter what you achieve. 

Just like how Alex has to spend less time being Analytical Alex and more time being Anabolic Alex, 

l truly believe there's a new level of fulfilment, happiness AND achievement that can be unlocked -- once you learn how to balance between your head and your heart. 

If you've already watched the podcast, I'd love to hear your take on it. 

If you haven't yet done so, definitely go watch it.

Helping Consultants & Agency Owners Systematize Operations and Scale Without Stress | Profitable Systems, AI-Powered VAs, Smooth Operations.

Time to stop being busy and start being productive.

Every new year, I get flooded with content on how to 10x, reinvent yourself or win big in 2026. 

While I like watching them, I’m also aware of the statistic that 90% of entrepreneurs don’t even remember the goals they set the year before, let alone hit it. 

This happens not because we don’t know what needs to be done. 

This happens because we don’t have the time and bandwidth to do what needs to be done. 

Because how many times did we pencil down a launch, a project, or an idea that will take the business to the next level, 

only to get sucked back into the day-to-day? 

Building funnels, editing videos, sending DMs, sorting out tech problems, and dealing with a barrage of $10 tasks. 

Breakthroughs take speed. ⚡️

A schedule packed with reactive, low-value work kills speed. 🛑

And that’s why I’ve spent the past 4 years helping clients create space. 🌊

Because with space to create, learn, focus and do deep work, speed becomes inevitable. 

Out of that obsession, also comes our newly upgraded offer. 

Give us 7 days and we’ll place a self-managing, AI-powered marketing assistant to your business. And if they don’t perform, you don’t pay. 

Not only will we take care of hiring, onboarding and training, 

we’ll also help you turn your marketing process into streamlined systems & SOPs, 

so that you can get the most out of your marketing assistant, while buying back time to focus on your 2026 goals. 

If any of this sounds helpful, comment “MA” and I’ll send you the details.

“Michael, I’m 20k into courses and programs. As much as I know you can help me, I just don’t have the time to make use of what I invested into.” 

This is what my client said to me on our sales call before she became one of my best success stories. 

You see, the reason why most business coaching programs have a very low success rate is because they put the business owner outside of their zone of genius. 

You’re amazing at refining your craft, getting client results and transforming lives. 

But after joining a few coaching programs, you’re now ALSO expected to be amazing at

building funnels, 
understanding Meta Andromeda, 
setting up meta pixels, 
monitoring campaigns, 
creating pipeline management systems 
and managing email domain reputation. 

Then as you get overwhelmed and proceed to find help, you’re now ALSO expected to be amazing at 

Writing job ads
hiring, 
recruiting, 
setting up project trackers, 
and managing people. 

I can go on and on with the list of things that you are “expected to get good at in order to be successful”, but you get my point. 

That’s INSANITY. 

You should never feel bad for not having the time to do all those things. 

You shouldn’t even be doing them in the first place. 

That’s why I don’t just film courses and tell clients what to do. 

I help map out my clients’ marketing process, 

turn them into repeatable SOPs and systems, 

recruit and onboard marketing VAs to run those systems, 

plus train the marketing VAs to use AI to get a lot more done than the client ever would by themselves. 

Scale doesn’t happen when you learn more things and add more to-dos to your plate.

Scale happens as a byproduct of you buying back time. 

To stay in your zone of genius. 

To work ON your business. 

If you want to spend more time growing your business and less time building funnels,

comment "MA" below and I'll send you the exact job description I used to hire over 100 dependable, self-managing marketing assistants.

Delegation isn’t hard, you just need an easier way to hand tasks off without becoming a micromanager. 

Over the weekend, I found myself playing boardgames with a group of smart and highly competitive people. 

We were paired up in two teams of four. 

On one team was myself, a 7 figure agency owner, and 2 closers. 

On the other team was my wife, a 100M eComm brand owner, a closer, and the agency owner’s wife / co-founder.

We were ready to kill each other. 

But when it came time to play the boardgame, we had to miserably stare at a 10 page instruction manual to learn the actual game. 

We tried for 10 seconds, gave up, and proceeded to learn the game on the fly by playing a testing round.

We made a lot of mistakes, swore at each other, but eventually got the hang of it.

After my team destroyed the other side (for obvious reasons), I couldn’t help but think how, even if we DID read through the manual, we would still have to play a test round in order to fully understand the game. 

Because that is how human brains are wired. 

Yet, as business owners, we expect to write up 30 page SOPs, throw it at a team member, then complain when they made a mistake because they missed step #67 of page 14. 

It doesn’t matter whether you’re onboarding a 6-figure executive or a VA… 

🔴Instead of throwing SOPs, praying they have photographic memory, then complaining how you can’t trust anyone… 

🟢Assign outcome, create process map, delegate and coach. 

Just like how you learnt to ride a bicycle, 

point your team to a direction and have them fall a few times trying to get there. 

Because once they can bring a process from point A to B, not only can they take care of it without you, they can also be in charge of writing & updating the SOP.

I didn't realize how fried my nervous system was until I finally had the chance to unplug over the holidays. 

2025 has been a challenging year on multiple fronts. 

To keep our acquisition process relevant, we had to battle AI slop. 

To keep our offer relevant, we had to make our VAs AI-powered. 

To keep family & extended family happy throughout wedding planning, I had to deal with a lot of childhood wounds and emotional conflicts. 

It was a lot, to say the least. 

While I have developed a pretty high capacity to handle pressure over the years, that high capacity can be a double edged sword. 

Because the better you are at pushing through exhaustion, the less likely you are to recognize how exhausted you really are... 

until the symptoms start to bubble up to the surface. 

🚩 Waking up buried in anxiety for no apparent reason, 
🚩 Becoming over-reliant on your logical mind, 
🚩 Watching your intuition and emotions go silent, 
🚩 Developing discontentment around everything you do, 
🚩 Indulging in info-consumption, side-projects, and other forms of mental masturbation, just to feel productive when your whole being is demanding rest. 

Being someone with a history of near fatal burnouts,

I know wholeheartedly that these symptoms, if left ignored, will lead to catastrophic consequences. 

That said, entering 2026, one of the commitments I made to myself is to protect my energy. 

More specifically, the energy you feel when you're in a state of playfulness, momentum and flow. 

Because no right business strategy can ever mask the wrong energy. 

When you launch something out of need, obligation or scarcity, the market can feel it. 

When you launch something out of excitement, meaning and abundance, the market can feel it. 

Same applies to when you're networking, spending time with your loved ones, and all other areas in life. 

So, to my fellow achievers, 

if 2025 hasn't been the best year for you, extract the lessons and leave everything else behind. 

Do a hard reset, 

calm your nervous system, 

and reconnect to your higher self. 

Trust your intuition, create from the heart, and be surprised by how much abundance you can attract. 

Go make 2026 more purposeful, impactful and transformative than the last 5 years combined. 

We got this. 👊

No one really hates work, it is meaningless work that we all hate. 

Back when I was grinding 80-hour weeks in a business that I hated running, all I wanted to do was to free up as much time as possible. 

And that is exactly what I did after spending 2 years obsessing over operations, systems and delegation. 

I freed up so much time that I could spontaneously book a trip to chill on an island in Thailand, or fly 15 hours to LA to watch the Lakers play. 

I even started bragging about how my business runs with me working 2-3 hours per day.

For a good 6 months, life was fun, and I felt like I was finally living the laptop life I dreamt of when I first entered entrepreneurship. 

Then boredom hit.  

The following 6 months felt okay. 

The 6 months after that felt awfully miserable. 

It didn't matter whether I was working, driving to the beach, or spending a long weekend in Phuket,  

everything just felt... lukewarm. 

That's when I realized that, on the other end of physiological burnout, lies vision burnout. 

The business I built to escape from my past job, became another job that I had to escape from. 

And after I managed to escape from that, the business just became this "thing" that gives me the income & time I needed. 

There was no vision or exciting future to work toward. 

It was just a golden goose that received zero love from it's owner, waiting to be shot down as soon as it stops laying golden eggs. 

That's when I realized that, it isn't work that I hate. 

I just hated meaningless work. 

When you're no longer in survival mode, while more money can get you further away from survival, it doesn't get you closer to thriving. 

At least, not without meaning & purpose. 

The problem that you're solving for others... does it give you meaning? or is it just something you got to do for money?

The work that you spend time on... does it give you meaning? or is it just some busy work that you got to check off? 

The goals that you are striving toward... does it align with your purpose? or is it just some target someone said you "should" hit?

Contemplating on these questions not only allowed me to redevelop vision, 

it also allowed me to rebuild a business that I don't have to escape from, 

and operate at the intersection between purpose, performance and profit.

Honestly I have no idea who might be reading this or whether this is even helpful to anyone. 

But if you hate your business at it's current size, you'll won't love it just because it gets big, you'll just want to escape from it. 

Do what gives you love and build what gives you meaning. 

May 2026 be a purposeful year for you. 👊

I just launched a new VSL funnel and couldn't help but think... 

where the heck will I be without my marketing assistant? 

Dude helped me... 

- Build the funnel on GHL 
- Setup Typeform x Calendly x GHL integration 
- Built the automated email sequence
- Setup pixels
- Setup the ad campaign
- Created 4:3, and 1.91:1 versions of each ad and uploaded them

All I had to do was write copy, film videos and print money. 

If it weren't for him I might still be messing with a pixel setup and bleeding out of my right eye at 11pm. 

But instead of doing that I was able to just hit PUBLISH, end work early and go grab dinner with my wife. 

If you already have a reliable marketing assistant, GOOD FOR YOU! 🥂

If you don't have a marketing assistant, please know this: 

You time should NOT be spent messing with GoHighLevel automations, workflows, integrations, ad accounts or content calendars. 

And no you DON'T HAVE TO wait until you have 5-7k per month to throw at a contractor or agency to free yourself from all that. 

Just get yourself a marketing assistant and feel better. 

If you want to know how we can onboard a fully trained marketing assistant to your business within 7 days, plus document your marketing processes into streamlined SOPs, 

comment "VSL" below and I'll send you the 6 min video with all the details.

2025 has been a roller coaster ride. 

Some goals were hit, most weren’t. 

Some months have been elating highs, some months were crushing lows. 

But looking back, what stood out were all the priceless moments and beautiful experiences shared with friends, family, clients, team and my new wife. 

If 2025 hasn’t been the best year for you, here’s a reminder that no efforts are ever wasted. 

Enjoy the journey, absorb the lessons, and cherish the memories. 

Here’s to making 2026 the best year yet! 🥂

This is my journey.

And this is how I learnt to never underestimate how much life can change in 5 years.

#entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #freedomlifestyle

Comment “SYSTEM” 

I’ll send you the templates for all 4 systems along with a training on how to install it.

So that your business runs itself.

→ The acquisition system
→ The fulfilment system
→ The internal fulfilment system
→ The tracking system

How to Make Your Business Run Itself - 4 Systems

Your perception towards progress will forever be transformed once you start thinking in terms of opportunity cost. 

Doing $10/hr tasks and $500/hr tasks both create progress. 

But if the goal is to make your time worth $500 per hour, 

(in other words, produce 10k in profit from 20-hour work weeks,) 

every hour spent on $10/hr tasks is not earning you money. 

It’s leading to $490/hr being lost to opportunity cost. 💸

Million dollar businesses don’t get created by the business owner who’s most efficient at doing $10/hr tasks. 

It gets created by business owners who continually elevate their output per unit of time. 

Each task isn’t weighed equally, and each hour isn’t worth the same.

By saying yes to things that hold less value, we inadvertently say no to things that hold more value. 

Prioritize and allocate your attention toward the things that move you forward, not the things that cost you. 

Practice this on a daily basis, and you’ll soon be able to create and achieve anything you want, without feeling there’s never enough time. 👊

#entrepreneurship #productiveandfree #Lifebydesign

Wanna hear a crazy statistic? 

👉 70% of VA hires don’t make it past the first 90 days. 

You know what’s crazier? 

👀 VA agencies are well aware of this statistic, but still keep doing this: 

Have you fill in a discovery form, 

Match you with a VA, 
Leave you to manage the VA all by yourself, 
Watch you spend 2 months trying to get the VA up to speed, 
Spend another month micromanaging & dealing with underperformance, 
And end up busier than ever before. 

Then as you decide to fire that VA or ask for a replacement…

They tell you that the “warranty period” is over. 

No refunds. No free replacements. 

💸 Now you’re back to square one, minus the time & money you’ve spent. 

Here is what most VA agencies don’t want you to know: 

>> There’s a DIFFERENCE between hiring a VA, and actually creating leverage. 

Hiring a VA involves, well, hiring a VA.

Creating leverage involves hiring a VA, AND having a proven system for the VA to produce results. 

Hiring a VA without a system is like hiring a chauffeur without the limo. 🚙

You’ll still get charged by the hour, but won’t save any time or make any meaningful progress. 

That’s why, not only do we help clients recruit and onboard pre-trained marketing VAs, 
we will...

⚙️ turn their marketing processes into scalable systems & SOPs. 
⚙️ also handle management with full transparency, 
⚙️ have daily activities and marketing performance reports done for you daily. 

If you’re looking to buy back time while establishing a predictable flow of leads & sales, 

without spending time writing SOPs, being a micromanager, or churning through hires that end up in disastrous fires, 

shoot me a DM and let's chat.

Not only will I send over details on how we onboard, train and manage proven marketing VAs... and how if they don't perform, you don't pay... 

I'll also show you how I’d turn your marketing process into a scalable system that your marketing VA can run for you. 

Let's build. 👊

Every month I meet with at least 1 client who’s losing their mind on project management CRMs. 

It doesn’t matter whether it’s ClickUp, Asana, Monday, Motion or whatever. 

They take a deep breath, learn the platform, put all their processes in it… only to never look at it again. 

And guess what happens to their VAs and contractors? 

They use it for a few weeks, then resort back to spam-Slacking the founder for everything. 

While project management tools have their place when you have multiple people working on multiple big projects, 

it’s absolute overkill when all you want is for someone to take recurring tasks off your plate. 

Tasks like distributing content, uploading coaching call recordings, following up with leads, and managing emails. 

So I recorded a video walking through how I delegate 12 hours per day worth of work using one spreadsheet. 

Which is also how my clients collectively free up 500,000 hours per year with their VAs. 

No fancy templates, custom fields, automations, integrations or complicated tech setups. 

Just one simple spreadsheet. 

Link to video is in the first comment. I think you’re gonna find it rather, freeing.

Flying my VAs out has been a full circle moment. 

When I hired my first ever VA 4 years ago, I was grinding 80-100 hours per week. 

Doing everything myself and keeping the business alive through pure discipline. 

Now, my VAs have become the reason why I’m able to take a week off, fly everyone to Cebu, and rent out a giant villa to hang in person. 

⭐️ Karen - my VA turned EA turned Chief of Staff, now protects my calendar from every bit of reactive work. From email management and bookkeeping, to VA team management and payroll. 

⭐️ Denise - my recruiter, now outperforms recruiting agencies and first world country-based recruiters that used to cost me 5-7k/ month. 

⭐️ Donn - my lead marketing assistant, is not only coordinating all marketing processes in Polaris, he’s also developing our AI-powered marketing VA training program alongside me. Leveraging his experience as the former CRO of Philippine’s biggest marketing agency that got sold to a US firm. 

If it weren’t for these rockstars, my life will certainly be way less fun, and my business will definitely be way less profitable. 

Whether you’re starting out with 1 VA, or scaling with a bigger team,

investing into your people will be the biggest ROI move you can ever make. 

ONBOARD them to the right culture, 

TRAIN them to execute scalable systems,

and POSITION them in an environment where, as they help you build your dream, your company can help them build theirs. 

Leverage creates lifestyle. 🌴

Focus on this ONE metrics so that winning in 2026 becomes inevitable.

#entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #SystemsForSuccess

Comment “MVA” and I’ll send over the exact job description I used to hire my AI-powered marketing VA.

Your time as the founder is too valuable to be spent learning different AI tools and managing content production processes.

Get yourself a marketing VA, so you can buy back time to focus on building your brand, closing deals and other needle movers that’ll grow your business.

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The Battle

Thomas Helfrich

Michael Yeung

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The Battle

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Michael Yeung

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