New video! Click to give it a watch.
I'm up early this morning to tell you about this video because it's suuuuuuuper valuable to anyone working with large companies & large opportunities.
For the past 4 years I've been working with one of the country's #1 digital marketing agencies.
Every day I talk with several business owners & CEOs about their goals for the company, and I get to hear their concerns about whether or not digital marketing will even work.
This video isn't about digital marketing at all; it's 100% focused on the 5 most important lessons I've learned after selling, pitching, and negotiating hundreds of multi-million dollar opportunities.
If you try to "sell" a CEO the same way you would with a middle manager, then you're going to talk your way out of the deal.
Give it a watch, let me know what you think, and we'll dive back into how & why the internet sucks.
Best thoughts,
~Jonathan
When is the best time to talk money? Do you have to answer just because they ask how much you want?
These are important questions with important answers. If you ignore this advice, you might be leaving 10's of thousands of dollars on the table.
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.
Every year businesses focus on scaling. That means less time spent on soft skills and more time spent on automation. This creates an environment that forgets the essential ingredient of long term success: people.
Every part of your business involves a person at some point. Arguably, this makes the human dimension of your company the most important deciding factor of success or failure.
No matter how big or small your business, it lives or dies on trust.
Now that the old world of "word of mouth and handshakes" has been thrown into the digital marketplace, it's even more difficult to create genuine connections with your customers.
How can you help build trust in a digital context?
Soft skills is a broad heading that includes a lot of different techniques, mindset shifts, interpersonal skills, time management, and more. Broadly speaking it's anything that helps you connect with other people.
Hiring for personality first, and technical ability later (because you can teach skills but you can't teach disposition) is an integral skill for any hiring manager.
As a leader you need to be able to get your company on board with your vision in you want an effective team. Getting buy-in from your company is a soft skill.
If you are looking for investors you know that you don't need to just find money; you need to find the right money. This is a function of finding someone who believes in the value of what you're doing, and trusts your ability to deliver on your word. This is the world of soft skills.
If you are a salesperson looking to land more business, you need to be able to connect with a lead and help them feel like you understand their situation. Only then will the trust your advice on what will solve their problems. How quickly you can do that is part of your soft skills toolbox.
Even if you are an e-commerce / dropshipper! Soft skills are essential. You need to be able to communicate through your website's copy and visuals to your customer. They will either trust the site with their credit card information, or they'll just "not feel right about it" and bounce. Understanding their experience is a soft skill.
Maybe you are in the research and development team at a Fortune 500 company. You've just made a huge discovery that will make the company millions of dollars. You try to tell management, but they're "just not getting it." That is a failure of your ability to communicate the value of your discovery. And you guessed it, a failure of soft skills.
People do business with the people they trust. They're more likely to trust you if you like you. They will like you if they can understand what you're trying to say to them. So, soft skills are the areas you need to practice in order to connect with people in less time with less effort.
Basically it's everything that's not technical skills.
It's not what you say; it's what your audience hears. This is difficult enough in person even when you can see body language, hear tone of voice, eye contact, etc.
Online it's even more difficult when you're staring into an unblinking lens with zero feedback about how well your message is coming across.
On the sales page communication is the most difficult since you're relying entirely on the written word (and the reading comprehension of your customer).
One of the goals of communication is to help your audience feel a connection with you and your message. It loosely translates to "likeability" or "trust." It's agreement, mutual understanding, and empathy all rolled into one that makes communication easier.
One of my mentors told me there are three elements to motivation:
From a leadership perspective, the trick is to build a relationship where the employee feels comfortable explaining why they keep coming to work.
Once you know why they're showing up to work every day, you can help them understand how doing their best at work is the best strategy to achieving those goals. Now their natural motivation is aligned to the mission of the business. None of this would happen without trust, communication, and rapport.
Every successful business has processes built in for every step of the acquisition and delivery part of the company. Sometimes, however, teams can get too focused on the "how" (process) and forget the "why" (to help our customers).
When your team says things like "but we always do it this way" you're running the risk of ignoring situations where that process doesn't help a customer. You might even be outsourcing a lot of the pain of solving problems onto the customer just because your process demands it.
This is very bad business.
If, instead, you have a team that understands the goal, you can remain open to new ways of delivering results. This is the heart of flexibility.
Most people are resistant to change, so rewarding innovation and new ideas is a profoundly effective soft skill.
This is entwined with flexibility. Finding new ways of thinking about problems, opportunities, resources, and connections is all based on creativity, innovation, and non-linear approaches to resource management.
That's just a fancy way of saying soft skills.
Hopefully I've already made the case clear. Every single part of your business is affected by how well (or poorly) your people can connect with each other and your customers.
If you have spent a majority of your time focusing on the technical side of your company (scale! automate! outsource!) then you have a lot of opportunity to improve things by addressing the human side of things (connect! communicate! commit!).
If that's you, send me an email about how we can get you one of my training workshops. They are available online as well as in person (when they're safe to do).
The short answer: A mentalist is a type of magician who has specialized in the art of mind reading tricks.
The long answer: A mentalist is someone who is fascinated by the way that the human mind works. They are dedicated to understanding the far-reaching implications of unlocking the fundamental mental processes that guide our every decision for ourselves, our romantic partners, in sales, negotiation, presentations, and beyond.
It looks like this from my perspective.☝
I could tell you what I'm thinking, but that would be extraordinarily unimpressive. It would only be amazing if I could tell YOU what YOU are thinking.
That would be a damn fine trick!
And so it is.
A mentalism show is essentially the performance of uncanny mental powers like reading minds, predicting the future, defying the laws of physics, and leaving an audience questioning the limits of their imaginations.
It is completely based on audience interaction and participation.
Without minds to read, there's not much of a mind reading show, is there?!
This means that mentalism is much more about collaboration and the wonders of truly being in the moment together than any other type of entertainment.
Everywhere.
Mentalism works because it leverages the fundamental processes that we humans use to interact with reality. When you understand that system to its core, you realize it has implications in any area that involves a human being.
This is why my work has deep roots in mentalism, and eventually grew into sharing the knowledge and skills of communication, influence, and persuasion in sales, marketing, public speaking, MCing, attracting leads at trade shows, and beyond.
It's also the source of my books focused on mind power, motivation, mindset, self confidence etc etc.
At 5 years old I saw a magician on television, and it looked like the most fun anyone could ever have. That's the moment I knew what I was doing with the rest of my life.
Most of my time outside of school was spent in the county library reading every single book they had on magic. Each one was full of enchanting illustrations, secrets, and outdated patter.
I loved it.
I began practicing coin tricks, rope tricks, and tricks with things around the house. Quickly, however, I realized that the "mind reading" tricks seemed to get bigger reactions, so I was naturally drawn to those.
At 13 years old I got paid $200 to entertain families at a company's summer employee picnic, and I've been supremely unemployable since then.
As I explained briefly already, I have worked hard over the years to extract the psychological secrets that I've learned on the stage that can help business owners be more successful.
That's the quick version of what a mentalist is, and what you can learn from their secrets!
