Communication

Coach in Your Pocket

November 12, 2020 by Ari Meisel

I’ve discovered a way to scale one-on-one coaching.

Do you know what word I hate these days?

Gamechanger. No, actually it’s two words. Gamechanger and resonate. That one also really bugs me.

The problem is I’ve been conducting my latest venture in a way that is really, what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh, right, game-changing. Damn.

Honestly, I initially structured my private coaching business around what was most convenient for me. Asynchronous communication. It gives me massive amounts of control. It allows me to respond when I have something to contribute. It is efficient and precise.

It turns out this kind of communication is so much more effective than any other coaching I’ve ever done. Happily, my clients are saying the same thing.

Several of them contact me three, four times a day for about a minute with a tactical micro problem I can address quickly. It’s like being a coach in their pocket. I look at it as the next incarnation of my Idea Capture methodology because now there’s a feedback loop.

It’s akin to reading someone’s diary, then someone else (me) critiques and comments on the passages. So the communication takes on a intimate problem-solving component I hadn’t anticipated. I love when that happens.

And while clients see the benefit of unburdening themselves of ideas or issues in a quick Voxer message, they are also finding that the platform works well with circumspection. I’ve been getting 12-minute messages when they are in the car on the way home.

There is no “real-life” situation where somebody will talk for 12 minutes straight — no coaching session, no therapy session, no phone call with a friend. Even if the other person lets you ramble on, you’re not able to do it. You’re going to react to facial reactions. You’re going to lose your train of thought. You’re going to get interrupted.

There’s something empowering about this odd vacuum chamber of Voxer that enables people to share some deep private stuff. It gives me so many insights into the entrepreneurs I’m coaching; profound observations and self-appraisals that help me be a better coach to my clients.

Now people say tech makes things less human, but that’s not what I’m finding.

For example, I’m conducting all my sales over Voxer. The platform allows me to answer my Voxes myself. You know it’s me because it’s my voice. It’s not an assistant. It’s not a salesperson.

The cool part is if somebody is not willing to have a sales conversation with me over Voxer, then they’re not going to want to be coached over Voxer. It’s a solid, wheat from the chaff litmus test.

Also, somebody doesn’t have to book a call three days from now that they either won’t show up for or sit through a 45-minute pitch that’s supposed to convince them that I’m the right person.

The platform is the pitch.

I have 12 clients right now, and we’re working at an incredibly intense level. Our conversations are deep and daily, and I don’t have a single call scheduled on my calendar. Clients are getting my attention, and we are solving problems quickly and well.

Now, after many years of experimenting with all kinds of coaching systems and methods, I landed on a perfect fit for me. It will not work for everyone, but I’m stoked; it works equally well for me and the entrepreneurs I help.

The Content Machine — Upgraded for 2020

March 13, 2020 by Ari Meisel

I produce a staggering amount of content. But I don’t do it alone.

Automation and outsourcing have enabled me to get my message “out there” in myriad ways, and on most digital platforms you can imagine.

It’s not mysterious or expensive.

It’s an optimized process that only really requires a four-minute Voxer rant to get the process going. The rest is up to someone or something else.

Here’s how I do it:

I record my thoughts on a particular topic on Voxer in a private channel I share with my writing partner, Amy. She takes that message, downloads it on her laptop and uploads it to www.temi.com. It’s an AI-powered transcription service that costs 10 cents a minute. In five minutes, the transcript comes through to our Intercom account and Amy makes a Google doc of the monologue.

She then either outsources it to www.contentfly.co to craft it into a blog post, or she does it herself, depending upon how many I’ve sent her in a given week.

Once it’s done it gets uploaded to www.Medium.com and our automations disseminate it across every social media platform.

All this from a 4-minute Voxer message.

Still, one of the biggest sticking points for entrepreneurs who are desperate to cement their place in a very crowded content world is an inability to nail down their distinct voice. Authenticity sells. If you are not projecting your true self, especially through the written word, it’s as obvious and cringe-worthy to the reader as a 60-year-old saying his coffee is LIT AF.

Yuck.

A lot of folks I work with come to me and say, “I sent this out to a respected copywriter, but when it came back, it just didn’t sound like me.”

My answer has always been the same, “Well, what does ‘me’ sound like?” and that’s where most people glaze over. They haven’t first taken the time to analyze their communication style.

Analyzing Your Communication Style

And no, there’s not an app for that. But there is a terrific two-person exercise you can do that will solidify not only how you communicate, but how that message is received. The importance of working through these steps with another person is simple. The sweet spot for content lies where your intention and its reception live.

For example, you may think you are one funny guy, but maybe your comedic arsenal is overstocked with Dad Jokes. Dad jokes your audience has heard a million times. Perhaps you love to cite other thought leaders to bolster your observations or arguments. But your audience wants to hear from you and what you think. We’ve all become quite adept at sniffing out BS, so don’t waste your time pretending to be something you are not. Your story is enough. Your point-of-view is unique.

Margaret Atwood, the author of “The Handmaids Tale,” among other fantastic reads, said something worth remembering when embarking on the journey to find your voice. “The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.”

Next, it’s imperative to work through not just your style and tone, but to do an audit of existing content, (to use it as samples for a prospective writer), and then prioritize the intent of your content.

Setting a Content Intention

Do you want to entertain? Inform? Educate?

Who is your audience? The one you have and the one you want. Describe them with words that give texture. Don’t just say, “Financial Advisors,” say, “People who are fully committed to protecting the financial future of their clients through cutting edge technology and the human touch.”

Commit to writing the foundational principles of your business. These are big concepts, like Integrity, Expertise, Empathy, Experience. If you have trouble coming up with these pillars, and many people do, it’s time to take a moment to think back to why you started your business in the first place. What was that moment of inspiration like? Describe that.

Working With The VoicePrint

The rest of the exercise is relatively self-explanatory. Make two copies of the VoicePrint attached below. Fill one out yourself and have a trusted ally fill out one as well. Then get together and compare notes. Where both points of view collide, is where you should focus your messaging.

Next, comes the outsourcing part.

It’s been my experience that asking writers to send samples of their work is a big old waste of time. You have no idea how long it took them to write that masterful 500-word blog post. You don’t know if they even wrote it or who edited it for them. I prefer to send them a piece of copy and ask them to fix it using the VoicePrint as their guide. It can be a raw transcription of a part of a speech, interview, Facebook Live or a rant I voiced into my phone when something inspirational struck me while I was driving.

Obviously, pay the scribe’s hourly rate. No one should work for free. But give the writer a limited amount of time to fix it and then see if he or she was able to mimic your VoicePrint.

It’s like owning a burger place and interviewing new cooks. You wouldn’t say, “Tell me more about all the great hamburgers you’ve cooked.” You would send them into the kitchen and ask them to make you a burger.

I’ve found that this process works for just about every business and it has the added benefit of really crystalizing your Marketing Strategy and Customer Journey. Because once you have developed an identity, it’s clear to see what works and what doesn’t, who you can help and who you can’t.

It’s Not Urgent. Really.

January 15, 2020 by Ari Meisel

The world is waiting for you to interact with it, twenty-four hours a day.

While that may seem grandiose or idealistic, the truth is no matter what the information is, where it’s coming from, or who is sending it, you can control the way that you perceive it, process it and receive it.

I’d like to help you separate the urgent from the non-urgent in your business and develop an effective system of communication for your team and your customers that fits seamlessly into your workflow.

Asynchronous communication may be the answer.

It means you’re going to have to start talking to yourself a lot more because this type of connection is not a two-way street. It is not live or directly with another human being. You may think that sounds robotic and insensitive, but structuring your communication system this way allows you to become more authentic, inspired and productive.

The tools we use must feel like they belong to us; that we can then use them however we like. Email, for example, is treated by many as a “To Do” list we fill out for other people. It’s a mistake to allow a tool to tether us to the world. I think email is the greatest productivity tool ever invented, but I don’t let people use it against me.

If you’re working a nine to five job with particular requirements around that, it may not be within your control. Still, you can make adjustments to your approach that will make your work life a whole lot smoother.

Just because we have email doesn’t mean that somebody can get to you whenever he or she wants. Moreover, just because somebody wants you to respond to them urgently, it’s hardly ever necessary.

Nothing that is truly urgent, should come through email.

If somebody is emailing you something critical, then it’s not urgent. In other words, if you got hit by a car, you wouldn’t send an email letting your husband know.

I like to say as founders, we don’t want to spend our days putting out fires. Granted, fires appear in the businesses we run, but that’s not how we should be set up. We want to build a fireproof building and what that requires is a little bit of planning and a little bit of understanding about where information should go and how to sort it out most effectively.

The first piece of the puzzle is separating internal from external.

So internal and external communications are indeed not the same, and it’s usually why most inboxes are so overwhelming. External email tends to be very transactional, like communication with customers or clients, vendors or with outsiders.

“How long does it take you to ship these items?”

“It takes ten days.” or

“Can we set up a meeting?”

“Yes, and here are the times that we can do it.”

Now internal communication tends to be more collaborative, more discussion-based. The reason that email stinks for this kind of conversation is that discussion is utterly ineffective when we have BCCs, forwards and CCs in twenty emails. It’s a chain letter where you have no idea to whom you are even talking, and someone invariably goes off on an unrelated topic with its own set of asides.

I was sitting at a birthday party last weekend with my six-year-olds, and one of the dads noticed that I was using Voxer. (my preferred asynchronous form of communication. It’s a next-level walkie-talkie). He asked me about it, and I told him. He said, “Oh, that’s funny. Here’s what I use at the UN. I use Viber for talk to the EU; I use Signal to talk domestically and Telegram for our missions in Asia. They are all incredibly secure but only for a particular region.” It was so amazing to me. First of all that that these platforms were so secure and also that he had separate tools for separate kinds of communication.

You mentally switch when you’re using a different tool for different kinds of communication.

We need that compartmental approach because if you have everything in one place, you have to continually reset yourself, to accommodate to the different scenarios that come up. So some of the things you have to consider when you’re separating out the various forms of communication are time zones and locations. In my former business, I had people in 17 times zones. It required an exceptional kind of planning and a clear company-wide understanding of what constituted “URGENT.”

It is a big dilemma for many people. I subscribe to the Abraham Lincoln’s idea of “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today,” but that’s not the same thing as being urgent. Urgent to me is when something is life-threatening; something that will end the business if it’s not dealt with it right now.

Now, you might say that excellent customer service requires urgency. I disagree.

Urgency to me implies poor planning.

Think about that for a second. Urgency suggests poor planning. Now, of course, we cannot plan for everything, but not everything we believe to be urgent actually is.

We need to do two things — get better at planning and stop getting frenetic in “right now” situations. Yes, it may need to be dealt with right now, but that doesn’t mean it is urgent. So if it’s not urgent, it doesn’t even need to be discussed right now.

Also, remember that what may be urgent to one person is not necessarily crucial to the other. It’s called “correspondence bias.”

It’s a well-documented psychological state where you take somebody’s behavior at the moment, and you apply it to their entire persona. Any behavior after that moment reinforces your point-of-view. The best example of this is you’re driving down the highway, and some person comes flying up and cuts you off. You think, “What that jerk.” You’ll honk, try to cut them off, grumble or be angry because you’re assuming that person did not just ACT like a jerk but IS a jerk.

However, what if they were on the way to the hospital because their wife was in labor?

In other words, the sense of urgency is perspective based. If you have something go wrong with a client, somebody who works for you might think, “Oh, it’s urgent that I get this to the boss and figure this out.”

Their urgency is driven by their assumptions about how you operate as a founder and their own place in the organization based on past experience. You can avoid this by setting guidelines and allowing people the space to solve their problems.

When a person feels empowered, urgency dissipates.

So what’s urgent and what’s not? A former partner asked me what would constitute an emergency to me. The only thing I could think of was if somebody emptied our bank accounts. Urgent. General customer requests? Non-urgent. Brainstorming new initiatives? Important, but not urgent.

My business has been up and running for a little over two years now. We’ve grown fast and made all kinds of fundamental changes to our business model. We’ve never once had an urgent matter arise.

Not once.

My Five All-Time Favorite Conversations from The Less Doing Podcast.

December 1, 2019 by Ari Meisel

I’ve now done 400 episodes of The Less Doing Podcast.

It’s been downloaded 1 million times.

So, it was pretty freakin’ hard to come up with my top five favorites. But I did it and here they are. In no particular order. Links to the original podcast are included.

The Importance of Strategic Coaching for Entrepreneurial Success — A Conversation with Dan Sullivan

Raise your hand if you’re an entrepreneur and you can’t focus.

Here’s the thing: the majority of us are finding ourselves in situations where we have so much going on, but we’re losing our footing.

From meetings to product development, we’ve got to be everywhere. We have to do everything.

Right?

No, if you’re asking Dan Sullivan, one of the most experienced business coaches.

With over 35 years of experience, Dan is focused on one thing only: stopping the overworked entrepreneur syndrome.

How Strategic Coaching Helps

Let’s be real: entrepreneurs don’t really need help with management. A tool can help with that.

What entrepreneurs really need is strategic coaching.

We need to get our priorities straight. We need to know what to focus on.

However, we’re surrounded by the buzz.

You know what I’m talking about; all those articles telling you what your next direction should be, team members with their input, your family.

Everyone has something to say.

And you have to stay sane and show up for your business.

It’s easier said than done, which is exactly why strategic coaching helps.

Entrepreneurs have great ideas and skills, plenty of healthy ambition. But they can’t quite focus — there is too much going on. A strategic coach is there to simplify things and help entrepreneurs define their priorities.

If you’re not in a place to get a strategic coach, you can learn from their strategies. Dan was kind enough to share a few lessons:

Strategic Lesson №1: Positive Focus Matters

Whenever you’re meeting with two or more people, start with a positive focus.

Spend two to three minutes talking about things you’re excited about.

This can be previous achievements, future plans — something that can hype everyone. It doesn’t even have to be related to work, as long as it gives everyone in the room a bolt of energy.

Then, start the meeting.

When you’re done, go back to positive focus.

Cheer on everyone for how well they’ve handled the issues you’ve discussed.

According to Dan, positive focus is incredibly important for morning meetings.

Everyone’s coming from different things in their lives, and half of their attention is still focused on them.

By starting off the meeting with positive things, you’ll help everyone reach the same page.

The biggest skill in life is to be where you really are.

Positive focus ensures you and your team are present in the moment.

Strategic Lesson №2: You Have to Neutralize the Critic

Strategic coaches don’t have to be hard on entrepreneurs. No one can be harder on them than they are.

Think about it; chances are, you’re probably the worst boss you’ve ever had.

Dan wants to change that, as well.

Strategic coaching is the art of asking the right questions, not providing the right answers.

In strategic coaching, no one’s going to give you the formula for success. However, coaches will help you pose the right questions.

The crucial thing is to be clear about the area you’re actually good at.

When you, as an entrepreneur, know what your strengths and your weaknesses are, you won’t be exposed to your inner critic as much.

Instead, you’ll focus on doing the work that only you can do.

You’ll have no problem delegating the rest of the work to the people on your team who are more skilled.

Or, as Dan puts it…

Do what you are really, really great at. Everybody else’s job is to free you up in some way.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know it’s hard to let go and delegate. You feel an immense sense of responsibility.

But if you shift your perspective, you’ll have a lot more time for the things that truly matter.

Strategic Lesson №3: Entrepreneurs Need Rest

Entrepreneurs often wear their burnout syndromes like badges of pride.

Dan Sullivan, who has been a strategic coach for over 30 years, has a problem with that.

You need more free time so you’re operating strategically, not tactically.

A lot of entrepreneurs are perpetually stuck in survival mode.

They’re working so hard that they don’t have an hour of quality free time. This leads to quite literally being unable to think.

You’re adding 25 important things to think about to your plate, and you’re fighting to make it through the day.

And then, Dan says, he asks his clients to take two weeks away and there’s a change:

Two weeks away, and you no longer think about twenty-five different things. You’ve got 3 things on your plate at most, and they’re all strategic.

And the more rest you take, the more will you be able to identify the truly important things.

As an entrepreneur, taking time away isn’t easy, but it’s necessary.

Do it, and you’ll become your own strategic coach.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/263-dan-sullivan-getting-focused/id605938952?i=1000381758452

Do You Know How To Sleep Well? — A Conversation with Dr. Michael Breus

I know what you’re thinking: what kind of question is that?

Do you know how to sleep well?

Ari, we were born with the ability to sleep. It ain’t a skill you can pick up!

Well, it turns out, your sleep quality can be poor, and it’s interfering with the way you think, work, and live.

How to Get Better Sleep: Crash Course

You’re an entrepreneur, you’re in a rush and you needed answers yesterday — I get it.

That’s why I’ve talked to Dr. Michael Breus, AKA the Sleep Doctor.

If we’ve hacked productivity, then Dr. Breus certainly hacked sleep.

An activity we don’t think of as an activity, sleep is crucial to thinking and operating productively. And the right answer to getting more rest isn’t just popping a melatonin pill and calling it a day.

Instead, here’s what you have to know to get better rest tonight:

1. Melatonin won’t help

The first problem with melatonin is the dosage.

Because of a royalty/patent feud, the majority of companies are selling too much melatonin. A single pill doesn’t contain the perfect amount (1/3–1 mg).

It contains a lot more than you need.

And whenever you introduce an exotic hormone to your body, it’s going to impair your body’s natural ability to produce the hormone it needs.

Melatonin isn’t a sleeping pill. It’s a regulator.

It can help your body realign circadian rhythms, but it’s not going to knock you out and push you into the REM phase.

Melatonin is only really useful if you’re naturally a night owl who needs to realign their circadian rhythm.

Otherwise, there are much better methods of improving the sleep you’re getting.

2. Mattress matters

With companies like Casper popping up to promise you better sleep if you invest in a mattress (for possibly the first time in your life), I couldn’t wait to talk about mattresses with dr. Breus.

The main benefit of mattresses is the support they’re giving you.

When I was twenty, I could fall asleep on literally any flat surface. Heck, I could curl into a bus seat and get my daily dose of energy.

But as you grow older, you start needing specific support.

When you’re thinking about purchasing a mattress, don’t think about the price point. Think about the support.

If you have torn discs, get memory foam mattresses that stop you from twisting in the night. Similarly, if you have shoulder or lower back issues, get mattresses that provide specific support for that.

A $10,000 mattress doesn’t have to be more effective than a $500 one. There’s no data to back that up.

Understand the position you sleep in.

If you sleep on your stomach, avoid soft mattresses. They’ll push your lower back in a way that could damage it.

3. Pillow Talk

Similarly to mattresses, your pillows matter because of your sleep position.

If your pillow is too full, it can squish your nose forward, giving you respiratory issues.

The ideal is to have your nose in line with your sternum as you sleep.

If you sleep on your side and you need extra space between your head and your shoulder, you should factor that into your pillow decision.

The goal is to get all the support your body needs for a good night’s sleep.

In fact, the majority of head, neck and shoulder problems come from the wrong pillow.

Dr. Braus advocates buying a new pillow every 18 months since the material quality degrades over time.

You ultimately end up with a pillow that’s not the pillow you bought, or the pillow that can support you.

(Talk about metaphors, huh?)

4. The Perfect Position

Sleeping on your back is actually the perfect sleeping position, even if 70% of people sleep on their side.

When you lie back, all of your weight is evenly distributed. Your limbs aren’t going numb, you’re not crushing your capillaries or moving around during the night. And yet, why can’t we sleep on our backs?

It’s actually a spinal thing.

As we use our bodies throughout the day, we wear down our spinal discs.

When we sleep, they’re rehydrated and grow apart, making us effectively taller when we wake up.

The easiest way to help them rehydrate is by sleeping in a fetal position.

A good way around it is by putting a pillow underneath your knees.

This way, you’re removing the pressure off your pelvis and allowing the discs to recuperate even as you’re sleeping on your back.

5. Banana tea

Finally, dr. Braus recommends brewing a banana tea to get some shuteye:

Get an organically grown banana
Leave the peel on and wash it
Cut off the tips
Cut the banana (with the peel on) in half
Put the banana in 3–4 cups of boiling water
Wait a few minutes
Presto! You’ve got your banana tea!

Bananas have a lot more magnesium than any other fruit.

And, it turns out, magnesium works wonders for getting you the rest you need to keep doing amazing things!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/255-dr-michael-breus-the-science-of-sleep/id605938952?i=1000379395164

Phil McKernan — Dealing with Emotions as an Entrepreneur

We talk about skills. We talk about goals and meeting targets. Heck, sometimes when we’re feeling really wild, we talk about doing more by doing less.

But entrepreneurs talk about their emotions the least.

That’s why my conversation with Phil McKernan, a speaker and a coach who brings clarity to entrepreneurs struggling to go forward, brought me so much joy.

It turns out, we don’t just need strategy.

We need emotional clarity in order to make the best decisions for our businesses.

Emotional Alignment

In addition to strategical alignment, you as an entrepreneur need emotional alignment.

If you want to become a brilliant entrepreneur, you can’t avoid raw conversations.

Phil has worked with so many entrepreneurs who thought they needed business coaches who could tell them how to make the most out of their businesses.

It turned out, they were facing obstacles in other areas of their lives.

Their struggles with being better parents or spouses were translating into their business struggles. One area you’re struggling with has the ability to turn everything into one long road overflowing with obstacles.

One client told Phil that the timing wasn’t right to sell their business. Another told him there weren’t any right buyers to sell their business to.

He called bullshit and personally, I think we should be calling our own bullshit a little more often.

What we truly are is scared shitless.

Again, this is normal. This is what it means to be an entrepreneur.

We’re facing the unknown constantly, but we’ve managed to let ourselves define our journeys by the things we’ve accomplished in business.

It’s completely obscuring our view.

Our perception is giving us brain fog.

And our goal is to cut through it.

You Are Replaceable (but that’s good!)

Phil and I agree on one thing: we’re replaceable.

A lot of people — especially entrepreneurs — don’t allow themselves to consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, the world would go on without them.

You hold on tight to your business because there’s nothing else that fulfills you and gives you the meaning you need.

In the long term, it turns you into a person who has trouble letting go of what no longer serves you or helps you grow.

If you have depth in other areas of your life, you won’t be putting all of your meaning-eggs in one basket.

You’ll be fine even if you are the replaceable founder.

Otherwise, you won’t be in emotional alignment.

You’ll reach the top, achieve all you’ve set out to achieve, but you won’t get the sense of satisfaction you’ve been craving all along.

Now, the majority of entrepreneurs face that obstacle and they don’t think about it.

All they do is push themselves into more work.

It’s not a good coping strategy, so Phil goes beyond that when he works with his clients.

Accessing Your Truth

Ultimately, as an entrepreneur who wants to feel happy about their success, you have to understand your emotions and your truth.

So many people have built empires out of a simple need to avoid poverty. They grew up in poverty and they knew they didn’t want to go back there.

However, the pendulum swings the other way around, and it’s another extreme stopping you from accessing your truth.

Once you do examine your emotions and understand what truly drives you to succeed, you will be able to create a life that gives you meaning.

You won’t postpone difficult conversations or add more tasks to your to-do list.

When you’re in emotional alignment, you’ll accept all of who you are. The good, the bad, the ugly. And when you talk about it, you’ll make someone in your audience go: “Holy shit, I am not alone in this.”

Building a Relationship with Yourself

According to Phil (and this is something I can vouch for too), there are three most important relationships that can bring you meaning and help you live in alignment with your truth:

Your relationship with yourself
Your relationship with your loved ones
Your relationship with the work you do

Your relationship with yourself gives you confidence and self-esteem.

Your relationship with the people you love allows you to come home at the end of the day and say: “You know what? I love what I have. I love my family.”

And your relationship with the work you do ultimately helps you do meaningful things and have an impact on your community.

It helps you perceive your work as a true extension of yourself.

Not just something you spend time on to feel as though you’re worthy.

Over time, you’ll see how these relationships compound to help you live a more meaningful life.

Forget about being irreplaceable.

Forget about overworking yourself and experiencing burnout every damn week.

Instead, go out there and find your meaning.

It will tell you everything you need to know.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/366-phil-mckernan-alignment-as-key-to-success-fulfillment/id605938952?i=1000433562998

Jordan Belfort — Sales Lessons from the Original Wolf of Wall Street

You can say whatever you want about Jordan Belfort, but you can’t deny the man knows how to sell.

A natural-born salesman, Jordan Belfort has had his ups and downs, but he’s back and wiser than ever.

In my recent conversation with him, we’ve discussed his ethical persuasion sales system, and how entrepreneurs like us can use it.

Sales Are Natural

Most people fear sales, but they’re everything in life and business.

Sales happens everywhere.

If you’re a parent and you want to convince your kid to do their homework before bed, you’ve got to sell them on the idea.

If you want to share your ideas with the world, you need to sell them to everyone.

Teachers sell constantly; how else are you going to convince your students that learning about ancient emperors is applicable to modern-day situations?

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that they think about sales only in terms of closing deals.

Sales are a process of empowering people with the information you’re giving them.

Closed deals come naturally. You first have to convince them.

For Jordan Belfort, that’s a skill he naturally has.

But for the rest of us, he has a few lessons to share…

1. Persuasion is a linchpin skill

If you want to sell effectively and close deals quicker, you need to become more persuasive.

You can have the world’s best pitch, but unless you’re addressing customers’ objections and selling them on your idea before you sell them on the price, you’re not going to be able to close deals quickly and effectively.

Additionally, persuasion goes further than closing a single deal.

Persuasion helps you turn your customers into raving fans who will go out there and sell your products for you.

In the current situation, getting leads is expensive.

Your marketing program could be costing you so much per every customer you acquire that you may be barely breaking even.

The best way to get new customers and retain your revenue is by getting evangelists on board.

And you can’t do that without being persuasive.

Jordan advocates the oldest trick in the book, which he claims still works: giving away free samples.

You can offer bits of your wisdom through blog posts, or literally offer free samples of your products like they do in grocery stores.

There’s a reason why they’re so persuasive and translate to more sales.

2. “I have to ask my spouse”

One of the objections I hear often is definitely “I have to ask my husband/wife.”

According to Jordan, this is only a valid argument if your prospect is making a significant investment like buying a house.

Everything else is only a way to say: “I’m not convinced by what you’re telling me.”

There are a few ways to overcome those objections and turn your product into the best thing since sliced bread for your customers:

Don’t address leads’ objections. Instead, deflect them and loop back around to benefits.
If you’re asking your prospect to make a decision that requires other stakeholders’ input, make sure they’re present at your meeting.
The key is to make yourself a trustworthy salesperson. Speak about your experience, and relate to your prospect on a human level. For example, Belfort mentions one situation related to the “I need to ask my wife” objection. He approached his prospect by saying: “Of course, John, but I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I can guarantee she doesn’t ask you every time she wants to buy a pair of shoes.”
Make your company and your product trustworthy. Ideally, the prospect will have already reviewed testimonials from people just like them.

Finally, bring back the conversation to the prospect. Ask them: “Well John, does the idea make sense to you?”

Deflect the objection. Then, go back and emphasize the benefits again. Convince the prospect of what you’re telling them.

You’ll see the objection smokescreen melt before your very eyes.

3. Forget your goals, and focus on your vision

Finally, Jordan has advice for entrepreneurs that’s not strictly related to sales, but it can help you understand your life’s work and your products better.

We’re all obsessed with our goals and getting there.

Jordan says: Transcend your goal setting and focus on your vision.

You have to create a detailed vision of your life.

Imagine where you want to be in five years personally, and imagine where you want your business to be in five years.

Then, understand your vision.

Know why you want your life to look like that.

It’ll help you understand your values and your motivations.

Ultimately, knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing will help you not only believe in your products so you can be more persuasive, but you’ll also overcome obstacles with ease.

After that, the actual selling becomes a piece of cake.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/116-jordan-belfort-the-real-wolf-of-wall-street/id605938952?i=1000330330849

Peter Shallard — How to Be the Entrepreneur You Want to Be

For the majority of entrepreneurs, there is a huge gap between what you should be doing and the kind of entrepreneur you want to be, and the kind of entrepreneur you actually are.

We all have different images of ourselves in our heads.

But come Monday, we open up our laptops and we’re no longer the people we want to be.

So how do we change that?

How do we become the entrepreneurs we’ve always dreamt of being?

According to Peter Shallard, the shrink for entrepreneurs, accountability is key.

How Accountability Improves Your Efficiency

The one thing that Shallard brings into his Commit Action program are principles taken from therapy.

One thing that works with good and bad therapy alike is accountability.

A lot of entrepreneurs today are operating in a vacuum of isolation.

No one knows what they’re doing, no one knows that they’re showing up, day in and day out.

And more importantly: no one is celebrating their success.

Why?

Because no one knows what’s happening.

That’s one of the guiding principles behind Commit Action, where entrepreneurs get a coach who can help them feel accountable and positive about the actions they’re taking.

Shallard and his team, including psychology professors from NYU, actually conducted research to back that approach.

It turns out, entrepreneurs who were consistently successful had one thing others did not: people who held them accountable.

And despite all the technology that makes it easier than ever to start and run a profitable company, it’s actually depriving us of the positive psychological environment in which human beings thrive.

Everybody Wants to Hang out with the World

We can blame our ape ancestors for needing environments from which we get recognition and acceptance.

The part of our brain that needs social acceptance and appreciation directly influences our ability to focus.

Being entrepreneurs in our PJs isn’t working for us. We’re lonelier than ever.

The more and more time passes, the less can we focus.

It ultimately creates a state that Shallard calls mental-like schizophrenia. His clients describe feeling like they live with mental sock puppets.

At one point, the puppets cheer them on to stay hyped and efficient. Then the puppets turn on them, criticizing them for not doing enough.

And despite the events and talks that are supposed to make you feel on top of the world and push you into hyper productivity, that’s impossible to maintain without a mental game plan.

It Takes a Village to Organize a Human Brain

We need socialization, and it’s striking that a lot of businesses in the US are actually one-person companies.

Yes, you may outsource your work to freelancers, but if you’re the only one responsible for your activities and your success, and you don’t have anyone to turn to at the end of the day for accountability and recognition, it’ll get lonely soon.

And when it gets lonely, your ability to focus suffers.

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs have entire support nets; teams, boards of directors, coaches, and mentors.

Celebrating wins stops being a monologue, and turns into an accountability dialogue.

It’s why Commit Action works so well.

Shallard offers the minimum viable dose of accountability, perfect for busy entrepreneurs. You just get on the phone with your coach and tell them what you did.

It’s a small step for you, but an immense one for your future.

It’s Okay Not to Be a Powerhouse

Shallard does a lot of work with burnt out entrepreneurs who are at the point where even performing a simple task like making 10 cold calls is too much.

So what does he recommend doing in that kind of situation?

Break down the task.

Is 10 cold calls too much? Make it five.

Is 5 too much? Make a list of people you’re going to call.

Is making a list too much? Dial the first digit.

It’s something, and when you have someone holding you accountable for completing these small goals, it’ll start off a positive reinforcement chain.

In the long term, you’ll be able to commit to greater and greater actions.

Even if the initial actions you’re committing to are barely moving the needle, they’ll compound.

The Key: Implementation Granularity

So, how do you become the entrepreneur you want to be?

By taking action, consistently, and having a healthy environment to do it in.

If your goals are overwhelming you (and you know how the saying goes — if your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough), there’s a simple trick you can use:

Break down the big goal into small tasks.

Climbing Mount Everest is a huge, hairy goal to swallow.

But if you visualize it as taking thirty thousand steps, it’ll become much more achievable.

And if you also have someone to hold you accountable all the while, you’ll improve your productivity and your head game.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/95-peter-shallard-commitaction/id605938952?i=1000320605331

9 Growth Accelerators Every Founder Needs

September 12, 2019 by Ari Meisel

Honestly, who among us doesn’t want to unlock our constraints, unleash our team, and create a business that’s unstoppable? I mean, that’s the goal, right? That’s the day you get to say, you’ve become a Replaceable Founder.

It’s serious work, moving toward replaceability and maybe, just maybe, it’s not the same kind of work you’ve been doing; the relentless, indefatigable march of self-reliance that got you where you are. (which is fantastic, BTW, you killed it!)

Still, it can be both a great and terrifying day when a founder realizes she’s no longer shepherding a start-up; when she must manage rather than create; when she must relinquish control to drive the business forward; when she must stop working in her business and begin to work on it.

So let’s break it down into nine critical accelerators every successful entrepreneur needs for sustainable, measurable growth.

CAVEAT: this isn’t apple picking with kids; grabbing the ones you like, throwing away the ones that look a little weird, ignoring the ones that seem too hard to grasp. Nope, you’ve got to put ALL the apples in your basket. What you make of them is up to you. (We’re attempting pie tonight. Wish me luck. I have four kids. Under 8.)

The 3Ds

Most entrepreneurs lack a system for making effective decisions. They believe this is an innate skill, but most allow the sheer volume of choices they have to make in a day overwhelm them or derail their productivity.

Hard truth: You are the bottleneck in your business if your decision-making isn’t fast, informed, or precise.

The Remedy: Limit everyone (you included) to 3 decisions. Really.

Do: Complete a task now or assign it to someone else
Delete: Decline a request
Defer: Determine the best time to focus on the task

Response-Ability

Most businesses lack intentionality around communication. They either don’t know that they should or don’t know how to be intentional. As a result, their businesses are plagued with noise: people are constantly bombarded with information and requests that are neither timely nor relevant. What’s worse is that people’s most productive times are often interrupted by this noise.

Hard Truth: You need a framework (yesterday) for how, when, and why you communicate with both your team and clients to stop the noise and encourage action.

The Remedy: The Less Doing Communication Mindset

Be intentional and purposeful about what, how, and when you communicate
Use multiple tools, so people know where to go for what type of information
Minimize interruptions at all costs

The 6 Levels of Delegation

Most entrepreneurs have experienced failures when it comes to delegation. They have asked people to take responsibility for a project and have not received the results they were expecting. It may be because they do not know how to delegate appropriately and lack experience in accurately communicating their intent.

If you’ve said on way too many occasions, “I got this.” You are not a master of delegation.

Hard Truth: You must accurately and effectively communicate your intent to others for them to operate successfully.

The Remedy: The 6 Levels of Delegation

Level 1: Perform — Do as I say
Level 2: Investigate — Look into this, and I’ll decide
Level 3: Recommend — Give me your advice, and I’ll decide
Level 4: Conclude — Explore, decide, but check with me
Level 5: Decide — Explore and decide within these limits
Level 6: Achieve — Take care of it for me

The External Brain

Entrepreneurs are full of ideas, but they lack a system and a plan for turning those ideas into reality. They either fall into the trap of letting a new idea hijack their time, or they completely forget about it and never apply it to grow their business.

Hard Truth: Your ideas are the fuel of your business. You must have a system to capture those ideas whenever and wherever you have them so you can act on them appropriately.

The Remedy: The External Brain Pathway

Capture Ideas — There’s a different time to have ideas than there is to process them. It would help if you had a way to keep them from distracting you.

Process Ideas — This is when you sit down to go through your ideas and determine what you’ll do with them.

Turn Ideas into Action Items — A method of getting your ideas from your capture point into your project management system.

Radical Transparency

The goal of a project management system isn’t just to have a place to dump an endless pile of to-do items. An effective project management system enables the leader to see precisely what is going on in the business so they can quickly, accurately, and effectively bring resources to bear to prevent bottlenecks.

If you look at your project management system and can’t tell what’s going on, can’t see where projects are in danger, or have to hunt down updates, then it is a hindrance.

Hard Truth: You need to have a bird’s eye view of what’s going on in your company at any given moment to identify bottlenecks and break log jams.

The Remedy: The 5 ITs of an Effective Project Management System

It defines phases — some form of “to do,” “doing,” and “done.”
It is dynamic — shows tasks moving through phases.
It shows ownership — There is some way to indicate who is responsible.
It sets deadlines — The owner knows when a deliverable is due.
It allows work to happen — It tracks conversations and details.

Accountability

Many entrepreneurs fear accountability. So they don’t have a system to ensure projects get completed on time and to standard. Without a system, successful completion is left to chance or sweat or throwing more people at the problem. None of these tactics is a solution.

Hard Truth: You must be able to hold yourself and your team accountable for accomplishing the mission.

The Remedy: The Three Criteria for an Effective Accountability System

Clear expectations — People know what is expected of them and by when
Precise plan for tracking progress — Published accountability chart, Regular check-in schedule, and transparent lines of communication
Predictable response when things go off track — This system is applied consistently but centers on improvement, not punishment.

Optimize for Clarity

Most businesses fail to consider how and why they do what they do regularly. They rarely take the time to dissect a process to get clarity on it, work to make it more efficient, and then document it so that that efficiency can be replicated.

As a result, most businesses are fraught with wasted time, money, and resources.

Hard Truth: You must regularly review every process in your business to minimize waste, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness.

The Remedy: The 9-Step Optimization Blueprint

To optimize a process, you must:

Take an inventory
Choose a place to begin
Make a high-level map
Make a video
Give the video to someone else to create a checklist
Give the checklist to someone else to run through
Edit as necessary
Document the process
Regularly update the process

Automate for Precision

Most businesses fail to use technology to their advantage. They don’t consistently examine processes, implement appropriate automation, and ensure that every team member understands and embraces the technology.

Hard Truth: You must automate routine tasks to save time, save money, reduce mistakes, and allow you and your team to engage in higher-level pursuits.

The Remedy: The Automation Code

Choose a process you have already optimized.
List the tools you use in that process.
Choose one.
See if the appropriate trigger step is supported by Zapier.
If it is, determine the action that follows that trigger.
Choose the appropriate tool from Zapier.
Follow the prompts to create your automation.

Outsource For Empowerment

Most founders fall into two traps when it comes to outsourcing. First is the “I have to do everything myself” excuse and second is the “We have to do that in-house” justification. It’s a stubbornness that invariably leads to overworked and overtasked teams who squander their talents on task better suited to someone or something else.

Hard Truth: You should outsource or delegate as much of your business as possible because it empowers you and your team to focus on the value each individual brings to the organization.

The Remedy: The Done Method

Identify an area that is outside your zone of genius
Identify the skill set needed for that task
Determine if you have that skillset in-house or if you need to outsource it
If you have that skillset in-house, does that person has the bandwidth for this task?
Next, find the right “who”
Do you need a specialist or generalist?
Will they be dedicated or on-demand?
Now you can outsource.

So that’s it.

Those are the nine concepts every founder needs if they want to become replaceable.

We teach all these principles in darn near-microscopic detail, through our online Replaceable Founder course, at our One Day Intensives in NYC and in our Less Doing Leaders Program.

Which program do you think best serves your learning style?

Since you dutifully read to the end, I can tell you are hungry for answers. I can also tell that you understand that the only way up is through.

Click here to embark upon your replaceability journey. http://less.do/ERjAcMt

Why Do You Have Email?

April 3, 2019 by Ari Meisel

Lots of people think that Email — like breathing — is essential and there is no way of getting around it. I disagree.

You can absolutely choose to abandon it completely. More and more people are doing just that. Not me. I love email. My inbox is a delight to navigate and a great place to get shit done. The difference between me and folks who say they hate email is that I know exactly what to do with this epic communication tool.

People who don’t use it correctly, drive me bananas.

SPOILER ALERT: BIG RANT AHEAD

There was a post by Adam Grant a while back, I absolutely loved. He said he doesn’t understand people who do not answer email or complain about email. He said it’s like if you were walking down the hall, would you not say hello to somebody just because too many people are saying hello to you in the hall?

Now as you all know, there’s not a ton of subjects that I get passionate about in this way, but I have to say email is probably one of them. I think it’s a total bullshit cop out when people say, oh, I can’t deal with email. It’s too hard, there’s just too much of it. I just don’t even look at it.

I’m sorry if some of you reading this still fall into that category, but I don’t think that’s the case. You’ve been around my content enough.

But if you are still making those excuses, you need to throw up a flag really quick because I want to help. In fact, just send me an email (GASP) oao@lessdoing.com and I’d be happy to send you my InBox Zero course for FREE.

But I digress.

It’s so obnoxious to me for somebody to not have any form of response to an email. Now I’m not saying you have to respond to everyone in your emails, but a few months ago, an acquaintance of mine who is very, very well known in the business world, made a personal email introduction for me to another really, really well-known person in the business world. A personal introduction.

So I wrote and the guy never responded.

About a month later I followed up and the guy never responded. No response at all. And I have to say, this has nothing to do with me feeling jilted. I just think it’s completely unacceptable to exist in the business world that we live in and to have an email address, (which is a choice, by the way). And not use it for what it is there for; as a communication tool.

If you don’t want to deal with email, don’t have email. But don’t have it and ignore it. It’s rude.

I find it completely unacceptable because what that says is that either you’re an asshole or you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing and you shouldn’t be running any operation.

I don’t care how much money somebody is making. There is no excuse for that kind of thing.

So again, if you decide that email’s overwhelming, create an autoresponder. If you decide that email is really just not your thing, don’t have an email address.

Oh and I’m just getting started…

Next…. I need to vent about the time-honored tradition of having somebody manage your inbox. A lot of people when they’re looking for that great executive assistant, look for somebody who can manage their inbox.

I think that that is a patently bad way to approach both communication and leadership.

First of all, you don’t need more people. You need a better system. You need to get better at making decisions. Your inbox is the perfect place to practice.

You really just need to make three decisions in your inbox.

Deal with it

Delete it

Defer it

So subrogating responsibility to somebody else is a bad idea. First, your inbox should not be unmanageable to the point that you need someone else to manage it.

Second, it’s not good work to give to another person. It’s dehumanizing work. You wouldn’t have somebody walk down the hall with you and say hello to people as they passed you on your behalf. That would be gross.

You have to look further upstream. There are probably lots of things that are going through your inbox that shouldn’t be there in the first place. For example, you should never be sending email to people that work with you internally. Use a different tool like Slack or Voxer.

Your inbox should be filled with interesting and exciting things; things that show you opportunities. It should be a box of opportunities. Why would you want to hand that over to somebody else? And if that’s really the case, then you don’t need to have email at all.

There’s nothing wrong with telling somebody to email your assistant. There are plenty of very, very successful people in the world who have never had an email or an email address.

Why do people think this approach is so bad? To just say to somebody, “Get in touch with my assistant, he’ll relay the message and we’ll communicate that way. It’s so much better than having somebody emailing you, thinking they are communicating with YOU, only to discover they are not.

I promise you it will forever change the way that people communicate with you. There is a trust that is broken when you do that. I realize that this approach is going to piss off a lot of people. But how you handle (or don’t) handle your email says a lot about how you make decisions and it has a ripple effect across all your daily engagements.

So my suggestion is simple, if you want to have somebody else manage your email for you, you shouldn’t have email at all.

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