From Scratch (Ep. 35)
From Scratch (Ep. 35)
Man In The Arena, Referrals, Week 35 Updates
The Man In The Arena
The world is full of people who like to believe they possess sage wisdom.
Their reasons for acquiring such knowledge? Age, work experience, reading something, hearing from someone else, etc.
ESPN released a documentary about Tom Brady called Man in the Arena. In one episode, Tom talks about all the doubters and skeptics he’s had in his life.
“He’ll never be a great quarterback.”
”He’s not athletic.”
”He’s too old to play.”
But Tom points out a truth that’s so obvious… but for some reason lives in the blindspot of these naysayers.
These people aren’t in the arena.
Literally and metaphorically in Tom’s case. But this is metaphorically true for a lot of people passing out advice these days.
Nothing they say or do has any real impact on the people they’re trying to give advice to. Mostly because they straight up lack the experience.
They’ve never stepped foot in the arena. They’ve only watched from the safety of the stands.
Now there’s an epidemic of people who want to be influencers and want to earn that reputation via observation. But I don’t want to get into that today.
Today, I want to narrow this concept of the Man (or Woman) In The Arena into the context of family.
I’ve made several short videos on my experiences with my family in regards to business, but really it’s about choosing my own way.
They’ve been some of my best performing videos and they get a mixed bag of comments.
Some people straight up don’t believe me, haha. Thinking I’m making videos for attention.
This shows how much a bubble people can trap themselves in. It reminds me of how my ex-girlfriend in college couldn’t believe that I don’t know who my dad is. And even more shocked that I had zero interest in finding out who.
The other group of people though… the silent majority. Some have summoned to courage to comment.
To summarize their comments in a sentence, it’d be:
“This is what I’m going through now and I don’t know how to get out.”
This topic is important to me because I am a huge advocate of people doing what makes them happy. And I know how easy it can be to set your ambitions aside because of bad advice from family or close ones. Under the guise of “we know best and want what’s best for you.”
I’ve been in their shoes and have removed myself from that echo chamber. So if you’re going through this, let me reveal some truths:
It’s true. Your family may want what’s best for you.
But what they think is best for you, isn’t really best for you.
Their dreams/visions for you is made from their own unachieved dreams and wanting you to be safe.
And when this dissonance exists, here’s the one big truth…
Their dreams must die, so you can pursue yours.
I still deal with this today. Take a look at this recent convo with a family member.
Now for more context, I’ve kept what I’m doing under the radar from my family. So they just assume I’m doing nothing, which I don’t really care about either.
But it’s funny isn’t it?
When I flip the question back to someone who:
Complains to me about his job whenever we hang out
Tells me how much he dislikes his co-workers and boss
Tells me how he tries applying to other jobs but doesn’t think he’ll get them (self-fulfilling prophecy)
He just shells up.
Now I don’t have anything against prompt engineers. I think it’s a great opportunity.
But I’m in the arena right now.
To cap this off before I’m tempted to go off on more tangents…
If you wouldn’t trade places with the person giving you advice, I’d probably ignore it. Unless that person has specific knowledge you need help with.
You got this.
Creator Spotlight: The Employee to Entrepreneur Newsletter
Speaking of A Man In The Arena…
Today I’m spotlighting The Employee to Entrepreneur Newsletter written by Brendan Ryan.
The title says it all. Brendan writes about his transition from high paying employee to doing his own thing as an entrepreneur.
His newsletter’s mission along with its accompanying podcast is to inspire, educate and support family men who aspire to be entrepreneurs.
In a short email convo with Brendan, I found out he and I share a similar background…
We both went to pharmacy school! Except my path ended upon graduation, while Brendan went on to wear the white coat for a few years.
But now he’s doing his own thing and crushing it. So I’ll leave a link below to subscribe for free to his newsletter.
»» Click here to subscribe to The Employee to Entrepreneur Newsletter
Oh, So You Want Referrals?
Instead of trying to find all these strategies, hacks, tactics, giving generous commissions…
Why not just focus on doing these two things?
Look, I’m a fan of Jay Abraham. He’s got his 93 referral systems. And that’s great and all, but really won’t work well without this next thing I’ll discuss.
Making Your Product or Service So Good That People Want To Refer Someone
Have you seen a movie, tv series, or watched a video so good that you feel compelled to tell everyone about it?
I have recently. There’s a manga called Mashle: Muscles and Magic and I’ve been recommending it to everyone.
You want to invoke a similar feeling with your business.
A fat commission check isn’t going to be worth someone’s reputation. Maybe they’re taking a chance on you but if you don’t do right by them, they won’t tell anyone about you.
And if you’re just doing the bare minimum, that commission better be hefty if you want any chance of a referral.
But why not make it easy for your client and actually give them a boost in reputation for referring you?
I never really did understand why people have such one-sided attention to growth and treat their current customers like chopped liver.
More revenue screenshots to flex online I guess.
Maybe it’s just how I operate. I am a Jay Abraham student after all.
I think that’s why you constantly hear stories of service businesses and products that become mediocre with scale. Happens in the food business all the time.
Okay onto the second simple thing you can do.
Make Your Intentions Known
You want a referral?
Ask.
You’re not bugging anyone. Your brain might trick you into feeling that. Or make you feel like you don’t deserve it.
But closed mouths don’t get fed. Simple.
So what happens when you have something that clients want to refer people to AND you make your intentions known?
Recently, one of my clients reached out to a fighter he’s connected to on my behalf.
We’ve been working together for 9 weeks now and I asked him about a specific fighter awhile back.
But he went out of his way to talk to another fighter that he thought would be a good fit for me. And it just so happened to be someone on my top 10 list of fighters to work with.
My client didn’t have to do that.
But I made my intentions known. And we’ve been pumping out straight heat 🔥 on his newsletter since issue #1.
And I don’t even have a commission system in place.
There’s nothing in it for him other than helping me out. And I greatly appreciate that.
But it just reinforces what I’m doing right now and how I’m constantly trying to sharpen what I do with more value.
Do you get hesitancy or no results when it comes to asking for referrals?
It’s probably because your product or service is on the wavelength of below average to slightly above average.
Sorry.
Week 35 P4P Updates
So I guess I’m good at writing tweets?
I’ve had a couple “viral tweets” in the past week for 2 clients. One got 169 likes and 36.1K views. Another got 536 likes and 46.3K views.
So far I think these 2 tweets alone have added about 60 new subscribers in total, pretty cool.
I also try to tweet once or so a day, but I’m aware I’m talking to the sound of silence (check out Disturbed’s live cover of this song on Conan. Pure Epicness).
My reason for doing it is more for discipline and trying stuff that comes in my head. For example, I’m on Day 21/30 of tweeting at fighters I want to work with.
I’ve had a few good samaritans who’ve seen my effort and gave me some engagement to help me out. Appreciate that.
But so far I got one response that has not turned into anything yet. All good! I started doing this mostly because it made me nervous.
Fortune favors the brave, right?
Anyway, to add on from the previous section, I did get a referral. Conversations haven’t started yet. My client also told me to DM this fighter on Instagram, but since I know this fighter from following his career…
I know he’s a relatively private and reserved person and he has 305K followers so, I’m probably 1 of 1000 message requests in his inbox.
But we try anyway, see what happens. Also followed up on another referral that’s even bigger so we’ll see where that goes.
Like the previous section, making intentions known. You can’t bank on people to remember favors for you.
I know, I know… maybe you missed this science lesson in first grade. But the Earth revolves around the sun. Not you.
People have their own life going on.
So keep following up.
Other than that, we’re still making efforts to reach out via DM’s and emails, nothing yet. Doesn’t stop us though.
Here’s this week’s progress on subscriber count:
1,390 (+74) = 1,464 subscribers
A couple late promos, which will probably reflect more next week. But it’s all good! Growth is growth.
Anyway, we’ll end it here for this week’s issue.
Appreciate ya and as always…
Trust the process, love the process.