Jonathan Pritchard
My first job out of college was working at a magic shop in Universal Studios in Orlando Florida. I sold magic tricks to people from all over the world and I saw something that gave me a peek into the number one thing holding people back from success.
This might be the most valuable secret I’ve ever learned from that world.
If you want to start a Life Mastery Business, then this is step one.
The standard social narrative traps you in an escalator to an early grave. When you have the world’s most amazing technology at your fingertips, how would you go about building a life of control, freedom, and meaning?
These are the hard-won lessons I’ve learned from my own career, and I’m sharing for anyone & everyone who has dreams of creating their own life of adventure.
Busking is the art of performing in an area with a lot of people walking around.
Stop them in their tracks, get them interested enough to watch you, & then have enough fun that they give you money.
AKA: The skill I learned at 13.
One of the best ways to keep the crowd engaged?
Borrow a $20 bill from someone, put it “somewhere safe,” & then refer back to it through the act.
Everyone wants to know what’s going to happen to the money. Now they can’t leave.
Genius move that works for movies, emails, etc.
It’s called “opening a loop” and once you do that, the audience feels compelled to stick around so they find out how the loop is closed out, or resolved.
The money is usually destroyed with fire & then found in a miraculous place: usually in the lemon I was juggling.
Now the guy has a wet $20. Is he going to walk around with that in his pocket? Nope. It’s easier to let me keep it, and he’s getting a story he gets to tell for the next 30 years.
That’s worth a LOT more than $20.
Plus, that helps me transition into the pitch.
That’s when I invite everyone to fold their money (can’t do that with coins), and drop it in my hat.
I’ve made them laugh enough, blown their minds with impossible feats, and they are more than happy to throw in a couple bucks.
And that’s how you do it.
The exact same framework is effective for email marketing. Trade show lead generation. E-commerce abandoned cart sequences. Retargeting campaigns on Google’s display network.
I’m 39 years old. I started this when I was 13. That’s how I have 26 years’ experience.
If you want deeper looks into this kind of thing, you should join my Secret Email Society where you’ll learn unconventional approaches to business that you’re not going to see from your business school gooroos.
This one is inspired by Rage Against the Machine. Enjoy the capstone lesson.
This is a series I’m starting where I share the stories behind high stakes sales, negotiations, and presentations for major companies.
The mission is giving you a peek behind the curtain at how big opportunities are won (and lost), so you can accomplish bigger dreams in less time.
What follows below this intro is the time-stamped subtitle text if you prefer to read.
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@jonathan: Hello and welcome, I am Jonathan Pritchard, and this is a video in a series that I
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@jonathan: am cautiously calling Behind the boardroom, because a lot of my work I deal
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@jonathan: directly with C, E, Os and board members and the executive suite of very large
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@jonathan: companies. So a lot of folks uh, want to know what high stakes business involves
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@jonathan:: and what it looks like, So I want to share some of my stories that that uh, I’ve
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@jonathan: got to well share. So, anyway, this story has a lot of moving pieces, a lot going
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@jonathan: on, and multiple lessons that you can learn from it. So there’s a lot of context
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@jonathan: to create, which is, I’ve been working with a marketing company for a couple of
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@jonathan: years. They are absolutely phenomenal at what they do. They build websites, and
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@jonathan: then well, they, They’ve been around for about fifteen years, started building
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@jonathan: websites and then their clients after about two months will go. Hey, we love the
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@jonathan: website. Where’s all the traffic though, And that’s how they got started into the
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@jonathan: marketing side of things, Uh, paid advertising through Google and S. E O, and
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@jonathan: social media and email? Basically any way that you could make money on the
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@jonathan: Internet as a business? Well, they can help you get more eyeballs on what you’re
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@jonathan: doing. So they, uh, they are fantastic to work with, and they’ve asked me to
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@jonathan: basically architect their entire sales process from the conversation structure to
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@jonathan: the scripting the presentation skills, kind of top to bottom, uh, reorganizing the
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@jonathan: way that they land big opportunities. So there is one lead that I I worked with
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@jonathan: directly personally to talk to Because they are a company that has theyve. they’ve
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@jonathan: got some like eighty plus locations so they’ve got a lot of businesses all over,
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@jonathan: kind of the Southet of America. So they had an outdated website and they have some
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@jonathan: special considerations in that they wanted their website to be able to manage a
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@jonathan: lot of what their business does and what it needs to do. And they’ve got two
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@jonathan: brands that are pulling from the same
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@jonathan: database of resources, so I, I kind of have to stay a little uh, vague in these
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@jonathan: parts. Um, but y, you’ll get the idea, so they need their website to be able to do
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@jonathan: everything that one of their customers would want to do with the company, And
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@jonathan: whether it is brand A or brand Beep, doesn’t really matter because it’s all the
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@jonathan: same resource pool as far as they’re concerned, So it a lot of moving pieces. A
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@jonathan: lot of difficult, uh challenges, um,
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@jonathan: design wise and technology wise, and it wound up being that there’s this super
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@jonathan: superniche product and plug in for a website that allows our client to do what it
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@jonathan: is that they wanted their website to do. So I, I landed the opportunity and they
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@jonathan: said, Yep, we want you to build this thing And since I’m the relationship and
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@jonathan: vision guy, Well as soon as they say yes, Well, let me get you in touch with the
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@jonathan: the team who will actually do the work. I, I don’t actually implement anything.
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@jonathan: Let let’s just talk vision, so hand it off And then, as far as I know, a couple of
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@jonathan: months go by and it’s all good.
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@jonathan: Great
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@jonathan: About six months after,
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@jonathan: actually
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@jonathan: Sh. About nine months after I first started talking to them
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@jonathan: and then we agreed to do work together, and then nine months from day one that
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@jonathan: that we started talking. I get a call from
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@jonathan: one of the owners of the company saying hey, Um,
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@jonathan: you guys launched the website
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@jonathan: and it tanked our business.
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@jonathan: Um, I don’t know what’s going on, but I know for about the past month that the
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@jonathan: phone used to be ringing a lot. and now it’s not at all maybe one tenth as much as
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@jonathan: it used to. Um,
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@jonathan: I have no clue. but you guys need to fix this.
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@jonathan: Well. that’s not an easy phone call to get. And one. I’m going. Why, Why is he
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@jonathan: calling me on the ideas guy? but, oh right, I’m I’m the guy that told him that
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@jonathan: everything would be perfect. Well, okay,
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@jonathan: now that lights a fire under my ass to figure out what in the world is going on,
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@jonathan: So I use some tools. I don’t even talk to the the team that was doing the work.
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@jonathan: yet I wa to go in with a little bit of context of of what I’d be walking into, so
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@jonathan: use some tools to take a look at their their search rankings and how Google is
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@jonathan: seeing them, and for years they’ve been getting about fourteen, fifteen thousand
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@jonathan: visits per month. That translates to a lot of business to them,
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@jonathan: And then
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@jonathan: it’s basically the day the website launches their traffic tanks to fewer than a
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@jonathan: hundred per day.
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@jonathan: Almost overnight it goes from fifteen thousand
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@jonathan: to a hundred a day,
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@jonathan: which is
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@jonathan: deeply unsettling That that’s a huge huge issue. Big problem. So I reach out to
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@jonathan: the team and go. What in the world is going on? A Big Part of why they decided to
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@jonathan: go with us is that we know what is needed for S. e O and making Google happy. So
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@jonathan: what in the world did you guys do
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@jonathan: that made Google so mad,
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@jonathan: And then the team basically says we didn’t do it. It wasn’ us was say well, Okay,
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@jonathan: that’s nice, but you guys ah, need to have a better answer than that
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@jonathan: long story short.
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@jonathan: Turns out that we did the design work of the website and then the plug in guys
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@jonathan: locked us out of the website back end, so we didn’t even have hands on the website
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@jonathan: for about three months, as the plug in guys were working with the end client.
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@jonathan: And this relationship of us and the plug in team was very clear from the
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@jonathan: beginning. It. it wasn’t a underhanded or sneaky kind of white label thing. The
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@jonathan: Cim is very clear that this is a a separate team and this is the team that you
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@jonathan: have picked in order to build out this functionality And we’re bring. we’re
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@jonathan: building the framework and then they’re just gonna fit it in. Okay. Cool well,
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@jonathan: turns out that we hadn’t even touched the website in three months, and the owner
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@jonathan: that had called me was saying, And the the plug in guys say that it’s it has to do
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@jonathan: with with something you guys did. And so I’m finding out Okay, So we’re getting
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@jonathan: thrown under the bus by these plug in guys saying. Well, it was Jonathan’s team
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@jonathan: that that
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@jonathan: made this a dumpster fire. right, So
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@jonathan: the challenge then is to not look like you’re going. Well, na, it, it’s them.
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@jonathan: So part of the challenge was for me to help our client understand was like we’ve
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@jonathan: been locked out of the site for three months, so when it launched we wouldn’t have
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@jonathan: even been able to make those final checks. So this is when or these are the folks
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@jonathan: that pushed it live. Was something seriously wrong and we can’t even log in to see
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@jonathan: what that is, because
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@jonathan: they’re the folks that that pushed it live. and you are entirely correct that
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@jonathan: something here is very very wrong
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@jonathan: In having said all of that, I’m on it. I,
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@jonathan: I’m going to have some very strong conversations on your behalf. Let me go knock
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@jonathan: some heads, and I will. I’ll be in touch
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@jonathan: and this was about
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@jonathan: about uh, twenty minutes before I had a a scheduled, uh lunch on the books with my
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@jonathan: wife, because if if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not real, so schedule
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@jonathan: everything guys. So I go to have lunch with my wife, and
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@jonathan: and we’re literally in line to get barbecue, and it hits me I go. wait a minute.
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@jonathan: It can’t be. it can’t be this. It can’t be the simple because
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@jonathan: their website had tanked and it had stayed tanked for a month
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@jonathan: before the owner of the company reached out to me to say Hey, what’s going on? and
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@jonathan: from that fifteen thousand visits per day across the the website for two websites
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@jonathan: and the amount of money that they’re doing this is over a million dollar problem,
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@jonathan: and this is a million dollar problem with what I’m pretty sure might be a one
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@jonathan: dollar fix
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@jonathan: because part of my background was
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@jonathan: about fifteen years ago. I built websites for entertainers. My educational
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@jonathan: background is in traditional art and painting. So I’ve I’ve always loved visual
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@jonathan: communication and
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@jonathan: a lot of my friends are world class performers. but they don’t have good design.
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@jonathan: Since they. they don’t know how to create visuals. So we would be at a conference
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@jonathan: and I would see their promotional materials And it looks like somebody made it on
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@jonathan: Microsoft Word. and I would ask them like, Who’s who’s your designer? Who made
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@jonathan: this And they’re like, Oh, I did on Microsoft Word. I’m like Okay, it because it
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@jonathan: looks like a you. You really need need some help. So I started building their
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@jonathan: websites and then their show posters and their postcards and their D v d cases
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@jonathan: back when D v Ds were a thing, so that they would have a unified branding. Well, I
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@jonathan: had always used Word press, so I’m really really familiar with Word press, and I’m
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@jonathan: in line with my wife, and and it clicks nego. I think I figured it out.
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@jonathan: Let let me see.
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@jonathan: So I send
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@jonathan: the c. e o in email from my phone while I’m in line to order barbecue.
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@jonathan: By the time lunch is done and I get back to
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@jonathan: here.
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@jonathan: He tells me
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@jonathan: the problem was there and I fixed it. We’ll see what happens
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@jonathan: and it turned out that there’s this option in word press. It’s a single check box.
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@jonathan: That’s a, a single check box that says Discourage
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@jonathan: we web crawlers from crawling the site or however, it’s worded, It’s basically a.
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@jonathan: Do you want Google to be aware of this or do you want Google to ignore you?
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@jonathan: And somehow
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@jonathan: both of the websites had been launched with that little check box? Checked. That’s
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@jonathan: it. That’s the. That was the whole. That was the whole issue.
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@jonathan: So this company
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@jonathan: had lost out on more than a million dollars of revenue,
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@jonathan: and the fix was knowing which check box to uncheck,
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@jonathan: and then
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@jonathan: that was on Friday, like at one or two in the afternoon, and then Monday rolls
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@jonathan: around, and their organic traffic had already started to to come back. So it was a
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@jonathan: a literal example of that probably apocryphal story about the the guy getting
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@jonathan: brought into the to the factory who hits a machine with a hammer and it starts
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@jonathan: back up. And then when the owner asked them okay, what’s the charge? Goes ten
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@jonathan: thousand dollars, Becausees ten thousand dollars, he goes absolutely one dollar
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@jonathan: for the hammer, nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety nine dollars, to know where to
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@jonathan: hit it, And that is literally what happened with this multi millionll dollar
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@jonathan: company. So those tiny tiny details have huge impacts on the success or failure of
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@jonathan: a company or relationship.
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@jonathan: So the fact that the relationship guy
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@jonathan: solved this problem
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@jonathan: in line for lunch
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@jonathan: was a clear demonstration that Okay, this team is the team that we need for long
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@jonathan: term help. So from there
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@jonathan: we we landed a opportunity to help them on the business stability side and making
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@jonathan: sure that Um, their s e o is resilient and not just coasting from good practices,
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@jonathan: but actively putting in energy to get even more eyeballs. So me being able to
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@jonathan: solve that issue for them was a huge trust builder by demonstrating competence,
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@jonathan: which gave them the confidence that we would be able to help them on the the
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@jonathan: marketing and and lead flow side of things as well. So that’s just uh, an example
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@jonathan: of kind of high stakes business. And how sometimes the answers are ridiculously
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@jonathan: simple, but ▁ultra important. And if you don’t know those details well, then the
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@jonathan: answer is a mystery to you, so kind of like from my background in magic and
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@jonathan: mentalism, Oftentimes the way that it works. The method is very simple, but the
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@jonathan: effect is
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@jonathan: disproportionate to the amount of effort required. So it’s it’s kind of uh. There
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@jonathan: was a magician. I think it was Marshall Brodine who used to say Magic is easy once
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@jonathan: you know how if it wasn’t Marsha Brodine, Uh, well, I’ll look it up on Google
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@jonathan: after this, but anyway, uh, the the idea of being that magic is easy Once you know
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@jonathan: how well so is business. So is success. So is life, and as one of my mentors told
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@jonathan: me, Uh, no better, do better. don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t know any
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@jonathan: better, but now you do, so take care of it.
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@jonathan: Yeah, so there’s a. There’s a lot packed into that story and, and it’s kind of a a
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@jonathan: great case study for the very strange kinds of problems and situations that I
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@jonathan: really really love helping my clients with. So if you’ve got a very strange
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@jonathan: business challenge or opportunity that you would like another set of eyeballs on,
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@jonathan: feel free to reach out. Um, you? you’re not going to weird me out. I dare you to
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@jonathan: bring me a problem I haven’t seen before, So that’s that’s it for now. And uh,
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@jonathan: yeah, I guess this will be the the first installation of the Behind the Boardroom
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@jonathan: series. And if you have any kinds of topics or questions about sales negotiation
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@jonathan: presentation skills, Um, anything like that, shoot me a message on Twitter through
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@jonathan: email. ridiculously easy to get a hold of at. I can read Mines Dot com, So yeah,
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@jonathan: that’s it for now, and I will see you in the next video.
I’ve traveled all over the world for work.
Sometimes I rely on my client to arrange my ride to/from the airport which can be a nightmare.
Too often the person giving me a ride would show up late, full of apologies.
Years ago I was sharing my frustration with an old timer, and he gave me a genius tip.
Him: Are you telling them to be there at 2:15, or 3:30, or some other kind of whole number time?
Me: Yeah.
Him: That’s your problem. It’s not specific enough. When it’s 2:15, the person picking you up can talk themselves into believing it’s an arbitrary time and not feel the obligation to get there on time.
Here’s what you do instead.
Tell them to meet you at 2:17pm. Not 2:15. Not 2:20.
2:17
Here’s why.
It’s specific. When you tell them the precise time, that’s weirdly specific here’s what they think:
“Ok, there’s gotta be a reason it’s 2:17. I don’t know why, but I better not miss it. I have to be there by then, for sure.”
Once I started the “overly specific” approach to scheduling, it greatly reduced the number of late encounters.
Here’s how it applies to your exhibition.
Almost everyone who is exhibiting at a trade show will send out an email that says something along the lines of:
But it has the same problem as 2:30. It’s too general. Feels like it’s a standard invitation that gets sent out to everyone.
Instead, try inviting people to the booth at an exact time.
“We would love to see you at the booth. I’m reserving time to speak with you at 2:17pm on day 2 of the conference. Please RSVP to let me know to expect you.”
It’s seems silly until you try it, and see how effective it can be towards driving interest from potential clients.
Our brains are incredible creations. They run on about as much energy as the lightbulb in your fridge, yet it’s responsible for making sense out of millions of details all day, every day.
Things go well so often that it can be difficult to remember how wrong your brain can be more often than you might like to admit. This is why I love optical illusions & magic shows so much; they’re a friendly reminder that there are definite limitations to your cognitive abilities.
If you ignore that point in business, however, the results can be disastrous. Think about it: you could have the most amazing tech in the world, but it’s the people who are the most important part of your business.
Understanding where things can go wrong is infinitely valuable, so here’s a short list of my favorite cognitive biases to be aware of.
We tend to remember, believe, or notice things that reinforce the things we already think about the world. This means we will ignore anything that challenges those beliefs.
In the business world this creeps up in beliefs about the the right strategies to marketing, employee retention, customer acquisition, and on down the list it goes.
This pairs nicely with Confirmation Bias. It’s what happens when you’re presented with information that completely disproves something you believe so you double down on your convictions.
You can show someone the right way to do something, but they’ll often dig in even deeper on the way they’ve been doing things.
“80% of all facts on the internet are made up on the spot.” ~Abraham Lincoln
This happens when someone wants an idea to appear more legitimate than it is, so they attribute it to someone trustworthy.
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc: “After the fact, therefore because of the fact.” This is the mistake of thinking that one thing happens before another, that the first thing causes the second. Just because two things are related, doesn’t mean they’re causal factors.
Also known as the Gambler’s Fallacy because you’ve lost too much money to walk away, and you should stay in order to win it all back. “We’ve already come this far, would be a shame to stop now.”
Think of this as Confirmation Bias on steroids. This is ignoring thousands of scientific reports and believing a single experiment that suggests the contrary.
We’re all victims of poor judgement, specious reasoning, and illogical choices at times. The trick is to identify it as quickly as possible, and take the appropriate steps to get you back on track.
This can be difficult to identify on your own, so it’s important to get outside viewpoints on all areas of your business.
I’ve traveled the world, been on incredible adventures, and lived a lot of life in my years.
Traveling by yourself is especially difficult. Imagine you’re in an airport and you need to go to the restroom. When you’re alone, you have to drag all your bags & crap with you in there (and those stalls are not what you’d call “spacious“).
If you’re traveling with a buddy, however, you can each take turns watching the stuff while you both go to the restroom, grab lunch, or do whatever needs doing.
Pick the right partner, and adventures become much easier (and more fun by extension). No wonder Einstein said relationships are the most powerful force in the universe.
Whether you’re talking about your personal life, or your business life, it stays the same: picking the right partner is one of the most important decisions you can ever make.
How do you know you’ve picked the right one? How do you know the problems you’ll invariably have are healthy issues, and not huge red flags that you can’t ignore?
No matter how healthy your relationship, the road will get bumpy. Problems creep up, and cracks start to form in the perfect veneer. Maybe things get really bad.
It can be tough to know whether you should stick it out, or cut your losses while you can. Confusion sets in, and making a good decision gets more and more difficult the longer you stay frozen in indecision.
In a healthy relationship, challenges help you grow as a person. They foster communication skills. You’re forced to face your own shortcomings & work on improving yourself in ways you’d never need to if you were by yourself.
In an unhealthy relationship, you spend so much time on fighting, avoiding conflict, pulling the weight of two people, and much of your energy on being anxious about what fresh hell you’re going to run into tomorrow.
The very real impact of both of these dynamics ripples out into every single area of your life. (I don’t care how good you think you are at compartmentalizing. All areas are affected.)
To help you cut through the weeds of mental doubt, use the following 4 questions. If you answer “yes” to them, you’re heading the right direction. If you answer “no” it might be time to start looking at exit strategies. . .
I don’t care how much you love each other. I don’t care how much you respect each other. If you do not share the same core beliefs about the world, yourself, the nature of relationships, or what you want out of your time on this planet, things are not going to go smoothly.
I used to be married to an incredible woman. She’s one of the smartest, kindest, most wonderful people I’ve ever known; it’s no wonder I fell in love with her. We got along great, and we were madly in love, so we decided to get married.
One hiccup: we didn’t have the same fundamental beliefs. Our core structures were not in alignment, and over time those cracks widened into a canyon that became impossible to cross. Cue major issues.
I put this question first because it is absolutely the most important question. If you disagree on this single issue, you’re doomed from the start, no matter how much you want it to be otherwise. So make sure you can answer this one “yes” without hesitation before even worrying about the others.
I get it. People get tired. You might fall down, and need some help getting back on your feet. But, on a broad scale, are you both pulling your own weight? You don’t have to both do 50% of every activity. Maybe you do 100% of one thing, and they do 100% of another. Strengths and weaknesses can complement each other in a healthy relationship.
What is important, however, is that you’re both committed to the success of the relationship. You’re both willing to put in the hard work required for even the easiest relationships. The instant you go on auto-pilot is when your relationship starts dying.
So each person should contribute according to their ability, and put in effort to sustain the relationship.
If you’re the only one putting in effort, you’re putting in twice as much energy for half as many results. Not good.
People say they want to be with someone where they can “just be me,” but you know what? You’re a procrastinator. You don’t remember birthdays. You can eat 3 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in one sitting (and often do).
In short, you’re basically an awful person.
Turns out, being that version of ourselves is not what makes us happy.
What does make us happy, is being with someone who challenges us to be our ideal selves.
This is akin to “Be the person your dog thinks you are.” But instead of “dog,” substitute “partner.”
Living up to that ideal will encourage you to go after those big projects. You’ll put more effort into making things happen for yourself.
As a consequence, you’ll wind up winning more often, which will give you something to talk about other than this week’s Netflix binge session.
Plus, you’ll get better at celebrating other people’s success, too, which is a huge marker of emotional maturity & relationship strength.
Win-Win-Win
Are they more like a harbor (calm)? Or are they a whirlpool(drama llama)? Do they help you feel calm when you’re stressed out? Or does the thought of being in the same room have you looking for an exit?
This can happen in all sorts of relationships.
Some clients are a dream to work with. They value your expertise, they trust your decisions, and encourage you to innovate.
Some clients are a nightmare to work with. They constantly change direction, tell you “some person you’ve never heard of said they don’t like that color, so I’m going to change the whole website design,” and try to get discounts.
Same goes for business partners. Same goes for romantic partners. Same goes for movie date partners.
Same goes for everyone.
Each relationship has the potential to be a net calming effect in your life, or a net stressor in your life.
If they’re an energy vampire, time to invest in some relationship garlic. #ForcedMetaphor
So how do the relationships in your life stack up? How many people can you honestly say are whole-hearted YESES on all counts?
I’ve worked very hard to make sure that I live my life in a way where I only spend time with people who are like that. Everyone in my life is a 10/10 on the awesome scale for each one of these four questions.
If they aren’t, I never see them again.
It takes a lot of courage, time, & energy to live like this, but the alternative is slow suicide.
Need help figuring out how to build your life like that? Let’s talk.
There’s no shortage of articles explaining how “business is war,” and they almost all start with pull quotes from Sun-Tzu’s Art of War. They go into granular detail about the strategies & tactics of warfare as a way to help you understand how to apply those lessons in the boardroom.
They explain how to deceive your enemies. Confuse your competitors. Outsmart those who want to eat your lunch.
But they’re almost all missing a key component:
The mind of a warrior is their most valuable weapon; this can’t be overstated.
To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of a warrior’s spirit. It takes power to do that.
~Carlos Castaneda
A warrior understands to underestimate an opponent could spell disaster. Treating everyone & everything as your equal is a way of respecting their potential to teach you something (like you’re mortal).
The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means.
~Miyamoto Musashi
Complete focus & dedication to success is absolutely essential in making it a reality.
If your mind is concerned with anything other than the job at hand, you will lose.
Most people are “interested in being interested.” They dabble. They dip their toe into the water. Their mind is always distracted with “what if.”
They have crippling FOMO.
Those who lack total commitment to their goals wind up drifting through life. They never enjoy the benefits of a hard-earned reward. They go for the easy route.
You, on the other hand, can sustain a laser-like focus on what you want. Dedicate your incredible willpower to making it happen, no matter what stands between you and what you want.
There will be people who will tell you ambition is unsustainable. This is their own fear of failure being projected on you. They love you, and don’t want you to suffer the pain of disappointment when it doesn’t work out (like what happened to them).
Don’t limit your life to someone else’s comfort zone.
Be of a single mind that is solely focused on success.
“I was just doing what anyone in my situation would have done.”
~Every Single Hero on TV
There’s more inside you than you realize. You are capable of amazing things; both good & bad. Familiarize yourself with your potential, and then train it to a high degree.
This takes incredible mental strength that is already inside you.
The trick, then, is to create a safe setting where you can explore your inner warrior so you can learn how to call on it. Just like you can find yourself in a state of flow, you can develop a sense for your own inner warrior who is capable of fighting tooth & nail like your life depends on it.
Because it does.
What would you do differently if you found out you’re dying? Would you call the people you love? Would you finally start that hobby you’ve been putting off?
Because you’re dying. Right now. And so is everyone you know.
None of us is getting off this ride alive.
Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.
~Miyamoto Musashi
So don’t hold back. Don’t wait for a better time. Train your mind to be its best.
Now.
Approach the enemy with the attitude of defeating him without delay.
~Miyamoto Musashi
It’s an unnatural thing to move towards danger. Our first instinct is to withdraw to a safe distance.
This helps those who would do you harm.
If, on the other hand, you move towards a person/situation, it will surprise them. It stifles how much room they have to maneuver around you.
In life, every action you take has the potential to be good or bad. Only move if the odds are heavily in your favor; otherwise, stay put.
Moving with no clear purpose only serves to expend your energy, and cloud your ability to see the most advantageous options available to you.
When making a big decision, don’t rely solely on momentary consideration. Really lay out everything that could go right & wrong.
Want to start your own business? Make a list.
Want to pursue a new relationship? Make a list.
No matter what the decision, make a list.
This will keep you from reacting to momentary distractions. This will help you consider all possibilities, and avoid the pitfalls of moving for moving’s sake.
To ignore this detail is to invite disaster.
So move when it’s in your favor. Stay put otherwise.
Retreat only when absolutely necessary.
Most people are content with their lives. They’re fine with cruise-control, and letting others set their course.
This article was not for them.
If you’ve made it this far, it’s likely that you understand that you have to fight to stay human, & the most important part of that process is the mental part.
Hopefully you’ve gotten something worthwhile out of the article, and if you think someone you know would appreciate it to, be sure to share it with them.
Sidenote: You might have noticed several of the quotes were from the same person, Miyamoto Musashi. He has a fascinating story. He was a samurai who fought his first duel at age 13, killing his much more experienced opponent. He eventually won 60+ duels before retiring from a life of fighting where he spent years reflecting on the nature of life. You can read his book, “the Book of the 5 Rings” to find out more.