Category: Persuasive Professional

You’ve seen less of me here, but my output has dramatically increased on the back end.

I’m writing a book about sales skills for people who don’t want to feel gross about it. (Looking at you, creatives!) I’m writing a book about how to plan more successful trade shows & potentially get 2-5x as much business from a single exhibit.

And I’ve also been exploring the fascinating landscape of entertainment and narrative. I’ve written 32 pages of a kung-fu / sci-fi adventure in spaaaaaaaaace, and I’ve been using a weird process (which we’ll cover shortly).

To get there, I want to look at movies, and in order to do that we have to go back to ancient humans sitting around campfires.

As my buddy Charles says, “Stories were our first information storage and retrieval devices. It’s where we put our values, expectations, and warnings.”

Brilliant insight.

As long as there have been humans, there were stories.

And then there’s the written word where stories are trapped in clay, or in ink on a papyrus.

Then along comes radio. Stories broadcast out into the aether.

And, finally, movies. The moving picture shows!

We could see the adventure with our eyes; not just in our imaginations where radio dramas live.

And movies reign supreme for a hundred years.

But then. . . video games hit the scene.

Not just diversions where you play with input/output; but rich storylines and branching adventures that change depending on what you choose to do.

It’s like a “choose your own adventure” story on steroids.

The result? The video game world is WAY bigger in terms of time & money spent than movies are.

Look it up; it’s wild.

What accounts for that? I don’t think it’s bright flashing lights and movement.

It’s the power of choice and control and the opportunity to make meaningful decisions about what happens next.

But, here’s the rub: if you’re playing a video game, you’re still operating within the realm of possibility defined by the game makers. Sure, it might be massive, but all those paths were created & defined by the team that made the game.

There’s a narrative format that transcends that limit.

Table top role playing games. Yes, like Dungeons & Dragons.

The rule set defines the “physics” of the imaginary world, but the story is a collaborative effort between the person adjudicating the adventure, and the players who make meaningful choices that take the narrative in new & surprising directions that nobody could have imagined on their own.

And that’s why I think they’re so popular, despite the “nerd” stigma they had all through my childhood. Now, they’re cool. Live streamers have millions of viewers. People will watch four hours of other people playing “make believe.”

There’s a lot to learn from this, and that’s the rabbit hole I’ve been going down (again, because I played DnD in college, but not since) for the past couple months.

That kung-fu / sci-fi adventure I’m writing is the result of me rolling dice and then writing about what happens next. Sounds like it should never work, but it has actually been way more effective at getting me out of my own head and freeing me up to be more creative than I am when I’m left to “write something good” on my own.

Is it a crutch? Maybe. Is it a tool that helps get me moving in the right direction? Without a doubt.

So, get ready for more business & creativity advice through the lens of collaborative storytelling and math rocks (dice).

First you should offer something that people want to buy. Some service, good, experience, or whatever.

An immediate next step is to have a website that can do all the hard work of educating & converting potential clients.

But I get it. Websites are complicated. There are so many options. It’s too challenging & confusing.

Cool.

That’s why I made this week’s video.

It’s a straight hour of me building a website with a client who had been putting off a new website for months. Finally he let me get my hands on it, and I built it out in 60 minutes.

Watch the video to see how much can get done without all the hassle.

It can transform your business.

Plus, you’ll also get a peek into the power of branding / framing / positioning yourself to high end clients. That’s the gold nugget hidden inside other gold nuggets.

Enjoy!

Watch the video here.

I’m 41 years old. My first paid “art commission” was drawing Snake Eyes in 4th grade, 32 years ago. (I was paid $0.50.)

My first paid performance was at age 13. I got $200 to do an hour of magic tricks at a company’s summer picnic.

Since those times, I’ve traveled the world for giant clients. I’ve been paid thousands of dollars for my art. I’ve gotten to support a family off the creations of my imagination.

And I want to share all the lessons I possibly can. That’s why I want to tell you about “+1creator” which is my home base for the life & business lessons that I can share with anyone who wants to make a living at their craft.

I’m building out courses (the persuasion formula can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars; no joke), articles, and I’m firing up a podcast where I’ll be talking with other creators who are fantastic at what they do.

Here are the two things I am asking of you.

1. Check out the site & take a course. Thank me later.
2. Let me know what questions or challenges you have about making a living as a creator. I probably have that topic in my “to be covered” file, but I’ll prioritize the topics you care about.

That’s it! Otherwise, thanks for being a reader of all these amazing emails jam-packed full of valuable lessons for free.

I’m currently running a poll on LinkedIn that asks people whether they’re a creator or not.

So far I have a handful of responses, and I’m already intrigued by the answers.

Mainly because my definition of “creator” is much broader than most, I think.

When you think of “creator” do you think about someone who makes videos? Artist? Someone who knows graphic design?

Or, are you like me and you think it’s anyone who changes the world from how it used to be?

If you’re a business owner, you’re a creator. You’re creating value in the world.

So, if you make meaningful contributions to a business, a project, a mission, then you’re a creator.

My daughter turns 2 years old later this month. Right now, if you ask her what song she wants to listen to, sometimes she will say, “This one!”

But we have no idea which one is “this one.”

That’s because she doesn’t have a handle on “theory of mind.” She doesn’t understand that my experience and perspective would be different from her experience and perspective. She doesn’t “get” that she needs to provide more context if I’m going to understand what song is “this song” that she’s thinking about.

There’s an experiment that illustrates this, too.

Say that my wife, my daughter, and I are in the kitchen. My wife puts a toy in the cabinet. My wife leaves the room. I move the toy from the cabinet and put it under the sink. Then I ask my daughter, “Where would Mom look for the toy?”

You know that my wife would look in the same place where she left it; in the cabinet. Why? Because Mom didn’t see me move it.

My daughter, however, saw me move it so obviously Mom would look under the sink to get the toy. My daughter doesn’t have the computing power to realize Mom’s experience is different from her own experience.

My daughter doesn’t have a fully developed “theory of mind.”

Neither do most business owners.

Here’s the number one way I see it destroy businesses.

Every day I talk with business owners about helping them marketing their company.

And they say something like, “I don’t believe in ads. I’d never click on one, so I don’t think they work.“

That’s why I say they’re doing business like a toddler.

The business owner thinks everyone thinks like they do. They make choices that make sense from the perspective of their own experience, while they ignore the perspective & experience of their ideal customer.

In a fully grown adult, it comes across as profound narcissism. “OF COURSE everyone’s like me!”

But, their customer might click on 5 ads a day. They might be desperate for anything that might help them out.

But, since the business owner lacks “theory of mind” and the ability to understand how their customers think, they make choices that undermine their own business.

When you realize what’s going on, you’ll see it everywhere.

How have you seen this in your own experience?

Best thoughts,
~Jonathan “mind reading is hard” Pritchard