This is called number 116.
This is the late night
edition of the group,
and today we're going to talk
a little bit about the business
of expertise.
Some things that I
picked up from the book
The business of
expertise by David Baker.
You guys are seeing the
screen right and something
that we talked
about this morning.
And I want to reemphasize with
you because I think a lot of us
are hung up on this
idea of expertise
that we're afraid to say
experts or to pick a lane
to build expertise
because it's really scary.
And I just want to
let you guys know
this is just my feeling on
this is that it's a journey.
The journey never ends.
As you hit one peak,
you realize you're
at the base of another
peak and you just
keep climbing and climbing.
But it shouldn't
stop you from taking
those very necessary
critical first steps
onwards towards your journey
to developing expertise.
And oftentimes, all we see
is what's in front of us,
not what's behind us.
And there are many
people on that same path
that are behind us that
are asking for help.
And so when we don't see
ourselves as an expert,
we don't take a direction, we
don't move in that direction.
And then we don't turn around
to help those behind us
because we feel
like we're a fraud.
We're a fake.
So the way to combat this
is to realize something.
At one point, everyone
in their career
is an imposter once they
claim some level of expertise,
and this happens
for a little while
until you build the necessary
skills, fill that gap
and gain credibility.
And the reason why we don't
want to say that we're experts
is because we have a deep
fear of appearing incompetent.
This is heavy into
the impostor syndrome.
So David Baker did this himself
because he was invited to.
Present an idea that
he sold to a client
and he started to
panic immediately
after they had approved.
So he made a get to list.
The get to list is something
that I want you guys to do,
so we'll do this
together at some point.
On today's call, I want
you to sit down and write
things you don't know.
Now, there are a lot of
things you don't know,
so we want to limit this
to the field of expertise
that we're on.
And I'll give you an example.
I want to be a vital
business coach to people,
so there are holes
in my knowledge.
I've done a lot of
reading on sales.
I think I know how to
do that really well.
I know how to have the
price conversation.
I know how to ask
Socratic questions.
But the one thing I
didn't know enough about
was about positioning
and marketing.
What is that?
How is it different
from branding?
So I did my a little
deep dive, which
you guys are about to kind
of get all that information
unleashed on you.
So I knew I wanted to learn
more about positioning,
so I literally bought a
book called positioning
and I read it.
And then I started
to think about what
other books are
related to this, well,
the book this is marketing.
I read that book and then
I'm reading the brand,
flip the brand gap.
The business expertise and
there's massive overlap,
and I'll share with you
why it's necessary for us
to pick a direction,
because when
we start to study the same
subject over and over again
from different points of
view, we start to see patterns
and intelligence is pattern
recognition pattern matching.
If we do something once
our ability and pattern
match is very low, so we need
to do it over and over again
and we start to
see like, wow, I'm
noticing this happens
at this period in time
or I'm seeing so much overlap
between Chris Voss book Never
Split the difference.
It's a Socratic selling, and
to some of these other books
that I'm reading, they just and
the one page marketing plan.
All these things are
just overlapping,
so much so that I
feel like now I'm
starting to develop
my own voice in this.
So what I want you to do
is make a list of things
that you don't know.
Now, you would think this would
make you even more insecure.
And it's not designed
to do that, something
about writing down the
things you don't know
and admitting it
out loud and not
having to fake it
in front of a client
gives you your power back.
You take it back.
Conversely, writing down
what you don't know also
highlights what you do know.
So if I'm going about and
I'm going to jump on a stage,
I'm going to say, guys, I've
been in business for 24 years.
There's lots of things I know.
Thanks to my list and there's
some things I don't know,
and I may be just filling
in gaps of knowledge.
So if you guys know
better, let me know.
And then all that fear
of them discovering
that I don't know
what I'm talking about
goes away real quick.
And that's what I'm
trying to get you
guys to get into the groove of.
I want you to be
able to do that.
OK, so make a list.
Think about what it is that
you want to be better at
and figure out what you
don't know about that.
So I don't know a lot
about copywriting, either.
So that's probably something
I want to study next
because I talk so
much about crafting
the language of a brand is
a critical part to branding.
And words don't come easy to me.
So once you do
this, once you pick
a lane of expertise,
what you want to do
is you want to start
to write and you
want to write somewhere between
2,400 to 3,600 words how David
Baker came up with that number.
I do not know, but it
sounds like a good number.
It's not too daunting,
but basically you're
synthesizing and processing
everything you've learned
and you're going
to write an article
or something on positioning,
on expertise or whatever it
is that you want to write on.
And then what you want to do
is put this up for peer review.
Share it with people.
See what they think.
And then you just
iterate on this process.
So things that don't resonate
with people you get rid of.
That's the filler content,
the stuff that it's
really powerful, impactful.
It's not really
moving the needle
in some kind of platitude.
Everybody already
knows this stuff.
Move on.
And through that
process, you're going
to start to develop your
own expertise and a voice
in the world.
And I've been thinking
about this a lot.
And this is quote in the
book from Joan didion,
and she says, I write entirely
to find out what I'm thinking.
What an interesting
concept I write
to find out what I'm thinking.
So I've had this discussion
a lot with my wife
where she's like, why do you
volunteer to get yourself
into a super stressful,
stressful situations where
you're doing public
speaking on topics
that you're not
prepared to talk about?
I said that stress, the pressure
of needing to do something
with a very fixed deadline and
the fear of embarrassing myself
creates this kind
of pressure that I
need to be able to read,
write and put ideas together.
And even though I
don't think it's
that great, the people that
show up for these things,
I'm not saying they
think it's great,
but they think it's helpful.
Some people think it's great.
And I say to her, I
need a springboard
so that I can generate more
ideas, and it sounds crazy.
It doesn't seem logical.
It seems counterintuitive
that I would go somewhere
to share something
that don't yet know,
to then emerge from
that, to know something,
and it directly
reflects this quote.
So when I go and teach
people, I don't know yet
what I know until
they ask me for help.
And then somewhere
deep inside of me,
I've heard this problem
before, and then
I articulate it to them.
It's kind of this weird
phenomenon, right?
So this is David Baker
exact quote from the book.
Demonstrating your expertise
is how you strengthen it.
And your best ideas will come
from the Battle of application.
So again, many
people in this group
suffer paralysis by analysis.
And you're sitting there
thinking, oh, I don't know,
I just don't know
if I'm good enough.
I feel like I'm
being a fraud and we
know that we don't
like people who
BS who claim to things
that they don't know.
We know that already.
So we are wary of these bsa's,
these snake oil salesman.
These fakers and so we
don't want to be like them.
But the difference between
the way you're going to do it
and the way they're going
to do it is you're not going
to authentically
represent that, you know,
something that you don't.
Because now you've
really made your list,
I don't know these things,
so don't pretend to people
these things.
And all will be forgiven.
So what we all need
to do is we need
to start writing a lot more.
So yeah, I've been telling you
guys post on Instagram posts
on Twitter, make a video before
you do any of that stuff.
I think you have to
have a place to collect
your ideas to start writing
and putting it out in public.
As long as the medium
allows you to make edits.
I wouldn't fear it too much.
The problem with
print and the reason
why it's taken me so
long to write a book
is because I can't undo that.
I can't publish a
book, as Blair said.
But you can do it
in social media.
So we want to demonstrate
our thinking or writing
and find our best ideas in
the Battle of application,
so writing is one way.
It's the easiest way because
you don't need an invitation
to write, whereas the
next level up is speaking.
You do need an invitation,
you need a stage
and now you're
incorporating a lot more.
And you have to be able to do
a little bit of performance
and delivery.
And generally speaking, you
have to prepare a slide deck,
so when you speak, it
requires more skill,
so maybe that's
not the first step.
And the beautiful
thing is, your clarity
comes from the articulation
of your ideas and your thought
process.
So it's been very
interesting for me
to see some of you guys
share your 10 slide
carousel about one
insight that you have.
What it's telling
me, a lot of you
guys still need a lot of work
because what you're saying
is pretty fricking generic.
We have to go deeper
on those inside,
so that's good news, that's
good news to tell us.
We have a little
bit more work to do.
And that's OK.
But the brave act
of putting it out
there allows us now
to work on it together
for you to step back and
say, was that really helpful
with somebody paid for this?
How do I expand on this?
Another tip he has is to bring
an assistant or a coworker
or somebody with
you to take notes.
During a client meeting, he
says you will be your smartest
in front of a client and you
won't realize all the things
that you're saying that are
valuable to someone else.
So if you bring an
objective person
who sits next to you, whose only
task is to record the things
that you talk about
that are smart.
That might help you out a lot.
Now, a lot of us fear from
our previous conversation,
but niching down,
even though we know
it's something
that we need to do,
that this is how you
develop expertise.
And this is how
you develop focus
and we all want to be
focused, not unfocused.
Most of us.
Is that it begins on
a journey like this.
It's kind of a funnel and that
we all start off in our life
and career is undifferentiated,
like totally interchangeable
somebody else.
Right, I posted it within
the timeline that if you.
Get fired from your client,
start to stop, watch and see
how long it takes you,
them to replace you.
That's how
undifferentiated you are.
If it takes them a
really, really long time.
Then your positioning
is really strong,
and your only leverage
in a client transaction
is to withhold your
services from them, meaning
if they don't pay
for your services,
they don't get the benefit
of your particular brand
of thinking.
And design or whatever
it is that you make.
So your only power is to
withhold your services,
so if it's easily replaced,
if you're interchangeable,
you have almost no power.
So when you want to buy
a Prada or Louis Vuitton
bag, if they don't want to sell
it to you, you're kind of soul.
If they don't want
to put on a discount
and you can't find any
other way, you're screwed.
Whereas bottles of water
for one brand isn't there,
I'm pretty sure it won't
take that much effort for you
to find another brand somewhat
interchangeable there, right?
So the reason why
we fear this is
because if we
niche down so much,
we fear that there will be not
enough client base, not enough
revenue sources.
So there's insufficient
opportunity for us.
So what we need to do is we
have to sum up the courage,
find our focus and move
towards this ideal sweet spot
and not stop too early.
Many of us are confused
as where to stop.
I'll get into that
slide in a second.
So his thinking is you need
about 10 to 20 competitors
in your niche.
If you can't find 10
to 20 competitors,
that means that either you're
on to something brand new, which
is good news, bad news,
meaning it's wide open,
but it's going to
take a lot of work
for you to develop that market.
Or more likely, the
scenario is other people
have looked into it and nobody
finds it to be profitable.
It's too narrow.
That's when you've
overshot your niching,
so it's so narrow that there's
not enough opportunity for you
to apply your expertise.
Now, what's really cool about?
Narrowing your position
is your ability
to focus you narrow the
sphere of observation.
So if you say to people,
I'm a branding expert.
Oh, OK.
Maybe that means
you have to learn
a lot of different
skills, right?
You have to learn about
identity design, logo making,
you have to learn
about copywriting,
user experience,
design, and I think
you have to learn a bit about
marketing and business design
all wrapped up into one.
So when your focus is.
So wide, so is your
sphere of observation.
I've noticed that many,
many successful people,
celebrated authors
and influencers
tend to have one talk.
One focus, but they've
gone really deep
and they provide the world
with what everyone believes
is to be the definitive word on
that, whatever that might be.
So if you think about Ted Talks.
Sean Parker talks about
positive psychology.
Guy Guy Kawasaki talks about
innovations in Silicon Valley
and what we can learn, so each
person has their own lane.
Rich dad, poor dad
Robert osaki, same thing.
As I mentioned
before, intelligence
is pattern matching.
And the only way you
can pattern match
is to have exposure to
repeated applications.
This is what specialization
allows you to do.
This is what the benefit
of having a narrow focus
allows you to spot
those patterns.
And if you were on
the call this morning,
this idea of specialization
has been around
since the beginning of time.
As soon as we started to have
cooperation and community
and civilization when we stop
acting alone, which I think
is almost at the
very, very beginning.
What we realize in each
other is that we're not all
built the same.
Some are faster, some
are more muscular,
some are more artistic.
And so different roles
and responsibilities
developed almost instantly.
The strongest and
fastest wound up
being the hunters, the
protectors of the tribe,
the community, while other
people were the shaman,
the mystics, the doctors.
Some people carry the oral
traditions of the culture,
while others tended to the
farm, the children house
building, carpentry,
tool making, et cetera.
So this has worked well for us
because we're built differently
to go against that
specialization,
I think, is an odd move to do.
How do we do this?
Well, there's two ways to
specialize to find your focus.
You can do it by
vertical or by horizontal
or a combination of both.
I'm going to share with
you what that looks like.
If you want to specialize,
the recommended path
is to do vertical
specialization,
vertical positioning, and
that is to focus on industry.
So what industry do you serve?
So when we talk about the
basic framework for positioning
its service for industry.
What do you do for
what industry that's
the horizontal and the
vertical service for industry?
And there's a
simple way that you
can test to see
if you're actually
doing a vertical
positioning is can you
buy a list of customers?
Makes nix, the North American
Industry Classification System
lists something like
20,000 or 30,000
or some gigantic amount
of different industries.
What you're looking for here
that's common to industry
is that do they have
a trade organization?
Do they run a trade show?
Is there a newsletter that
goes out to their members?
Is there a conference or
summit that they put on?
The reason why is because
they share a common problem,
and they're looking to gain
knowledge from one another,
as in a mastermind.
You can target them.
This is critical
for your success.
So the problem here is
when you are specialize
into a vertical one or one,
one company may say, well,
there's a conflict of interest.
You work for the same
automotive repair shop.
That is a direct
competition from us.
And that's a natural fear.
But he says a greater fear is
companies are more terrified
of its incompetence.
People who don't know
what they're doing.
So there's a kind of an
interesting observation
he made here is when you have
one client in a vertical,
you're learning.
When you have two clients, you
have a conflict like, well,
we don't want to share
our trade secrets
with that other company.
If you have three
clients, you're an expert.
And here's the funny one.
If you have four clients,
there are no conflicts
because smart,
successful companies
realize expertise comes
from repeated exposure
to the same kinds of problems.
That's the benchmark there.
And it's interesting
how this has worked out
in real time for us.
I had one client in real estate,
the multibillion real estate
development company
Hudson Pacific.
Awesome somebody
else called, they're
like, we don't want
you to work with them.
See the conflict right away.
They're like, well, you
can work with anybody else
except for them because we
have some rivalry with them.
OK, fine, we won't
work with them.
Picked on a different client.
No problem.
Different market
doesn't compete with us
three or four developers in.
We don't have any
more conflicts.
It's pretty awesome.
Let's talk about
positioning of a horizontal.
This is really to focus on
a demographic or a service
like a practice, an
area of practice.
Right you can also talk
about this in geography,
like we work with
people in Fresno.
We only work with farmers.
Maybe that's an
industry, I'm sorry.
Black men under 20 years old.
That's a demographic.
So there are some advantages to
having horizontal positioning
in that there's greater
variety because you're not
working with an
industry, it eliminates
conflict of interest.
And generally speaking,
you're protected
from an economic
downturn because.
One industry collapses,
there's other industries
that you're going to service.
No problem, right?
Also, you're able to work
for a much larger clients
than your expertise.
That's because other people hire
in the vertical will hire you.
It works something like that.
Ideally, what you
want to do is to move
the vertical, the positioning
and the horizontal
to find that sweet spot the
ideal spot where you have
10 to 20 competitors
and all of this
is to help you fight against.
Increased competition.
You want your best to
reduce, if not eliminate,
competition down to
10 or 20 players.
And there's a lot of different
tests that you can perform.
Are people willing to fly
or travel more than 50
miles to see you?
So that whole idea of just
working with a local community?
That's a sign that
you're not an expert.
Because anybody that's
willing to travel,
we'll hire someone else.
OK, so from the
pro group already,
you've seen me talk about this,
if you're new to the group,
you'll need to check
this out is one
of the tests is if
you're an expert
and you've claim an
area of expertise.
Can you?
Right down 20 insights
that you've gained,
so have you been in business
for five, 10, 15, 20 years?
You've read so
many books, you've
worked on so many
projects you should
be able to pattern match.
You should be able to
say, here are 20 things
that somebody outside
of my area of expertise
should find to be
really valuable.
So do a little test.
Go look at what people have
written as their 20 insights.
Would you be willing
to pay for that?
How much?
How many of those
are valuable to you?
Now, granted, when you
write it in this format,
like in a bullet point, you
can't explain everything.
But are the bullet
points intriguing enough
for you to like?
That's really interesting.
So when I read in the
book rework and they
said that an audience is
greater than customers.
That's an interesting
concept, one
that I've now
perpetuated by telling
other people the same thing.
So think about that.
Start scraping your brain to
say, I'm an expert at this.
What are my 20 insights?
Can you write 20 if you can't?
It means you're
not narrow enough
or you're pretending at this
point, and that's totally OK.
Put that in your don't
list or need to list.
I don't know why I
have this bullet point
next design topography, crit.
I have no idea
what this slide is.
I'll skip that.
OK that's it for this part.
Mo had asked me within
the Titans group,
there were some questions
about, OK, OK, yes, there's
so many things I need to do.
I get it, I want to niche
down and some days I
get really frazzled.
How do I know what I should
focus on in earlier today,
we did a prioritization
exercise, right?
It started off with a
global business objective.
I'm going to exit out of this.
I'm going to show you
the exercise in a second,
but I need a problem
to solve like somebody
who is struggling with.
What they should be
focused on, let me know,
like somebody scrambled, I
got too many different ideas.
I need some help on
focusing and prioritizing.
I'm going to teach
it to you and then
you can apply it to whatever
it is that you're doing.
Does anybody have such
a problem or before I
do that, does anybody have a
question about the things that
just covered?
Daniel?
I mean, I don't have a
question for what you say.
I think that's pretty clear
with the last four calls
that we had.
But I definitely
feel what you're
saying that I feel like
my ideas are so spread
that I know where to focus.
Yeah well, Daniel,
how old are you, man?
20 five, you're
still pretty young.
Yeah how long have you
been doing the thing
that you're doing today?
So for graphic
design, the Pa have
been doing like for
years, I for my country,
but what I've been trying to
do for film, for music, for all
these things, I
trying to get together
about a year or two years.
OK, so you're not talking about
a ton of years put behind this.
So that's very natural in
the place that you are.
So I have good news.
Bad news, right?
You still need a
lot more experience,
but you're in the right
place because you're
getting such a head
start on everybody else,
because I didn't even
know about these concepts
up until a few years ago.
So you have a major
advantage already,
but let's keep working on
this idea of graphic design,
if that's your area
of expertise, ok?
Got it.
All right.
I don't think that's
an issue at all.
I think that I'm going to
question will be what are that?
What will be the essential
hard skills or skills
to become a graphic designer?
Or maybe a visual strategies?
OK, so you need
what did you say?
Hard skills, maybe a
skills, maybe a skills.
Yeah, not necessarily
hard skills, right?
OK what are the
skills you need to be
a strategist, baseball
strategist or either
a graphic designer?
Those are two very
different things.
How so?
Well, I would not consider
most graphic designers,
visual strategists.
Once you introduce
the word strategy,
all kinds of new
cans of warm open up.
OK, now I know, I know, I know
this, that a lot of people
want to use the word strategy
as part of their dialogue.
It sounds smarter, it sounds
more powerful, more valuable.
But really, they don't
even know what the hell
the word strategy means.
And they're not willing
to invest the time
into learning what strategy is.
Strategy is big
picture thinking.
I think graphic design
is the tactics, which
is on the opposite end
of strategic thinking.
The byproduct of
strategic thinking
is usually words
that you write down,
the byproduct of graphic
design is an application
like a website,
a logo, something
that you make and craft.
You need those two
to work together.
But you can see now they're kind
of at the ends of the spectrum.
So the word visual
strategies means that, oh,
I'm specializing in
only strategies that
apply to design.
So I'm a little
confused by that term.
OK so let's just think
about that for a little bit.
OK my feeling is unless you
feel like you're already
at the top of the graphic
design game, which would
be remarkable at the age of 25.
So here's what I think.
Do more people look up to you or
do you look up to more people?
That's generally kind
of the idea, right?
So like when you're
starting out,
I look up to all these people.
But then as you start to move
towards building expertise
and reputation notoriety
from your focus,
then more people look to you.
Right, because a lot
of people ask me this
like, who are the
influencers to you?
I'm like, I don't know,
because I don't really
look at that anymore.
What design books
are you reading?
I don't read any of that
anymore because that part isn't
interesting to me, and it's not.
I'm not learning
anything new there.
You see what happened there,
there's a shift like I remember
and I'm not going to, I'm
not going to lie to you.
I used to pore over
those design books.
I would be able to name every
illustrator, photographer,
designer, director that
I thought was amazing.
It's been a long time
since I've done that.
I used to collect
the DVDs from shots
to look at the best commercial
work being made in the world
and study those like,
oh, that's Tarsem.
And you can see the distinctive
style that people are doing.
But today, I don't look at all.
I'm mostly reading books
on psychology, philosophy,
business sales, marketing,
totally different books.
I'm expanding my mind
in the horizontal part,
and I'll talk about
why that may or may not
be a conflict to some of you.
OK all right.
Anybody have any questions
about what I just talked about.
And then I'll show
you how to prioritize.
Anybody?
kde breath, everything's cool.
OK now who here is?
Kind of confused
by what they want
to focus in on in terms of
prioritization like next task.
What is it?
Anybody want to share?
I need something to work off of.
Otherwise, I'll just
show you the exercise
as a conceptual
framework and then
I can open it up to questions.
Chris, I think we're all
just really intimidated,
so we don't want
to mess this up.
How could you?
Well, Tina is like about
to give birth, right?
Three days away, she's
about ready to pop.
Yes, I saw that video like,
I'm ready to go in 4 days.
I'm so over this.
Get out of my day.
I'm just we're trying.
We're trying to absorb
everything you just said.
And like, I don't think I
don't think anyone has anything
meaningful to add, so OK.
OK you know, you're not
talking to dead air here.
Yeah yeah, that's cool.
Thanks I appreciate it.
So I'll give it
two more seconds.
Nobody wants to say anything.
Thanks, Chris.
Yes beautiful.
Yeah hey, how are you?
Good good.
Hey Yeah.
One of the things that
I'm struggling with
is I listen to you a lot
and some of your free stuff,
and I'm a new member here.
One of the things I want to
try to do more of is right,
and I want to post
more content, and I
know the importance of that.
And for whatever
reason, I'm getting
bogged down with the
minutia of other things,
like putting together a
website or putting together.
You know, I have a
lot of work from when
I was a graphic designer only,
and all of this stuff is old
and I want to refresh that.
So it's just taking so
much time to do that.
And I don't have clients
that I'm necessarily
working with right now
where I can build work out.
And so I'm having a hard time
prioritizing where to go first.
You've you've become my
first victim volunteer.
This is going to be awesome.
OK, Jason, where
are you right now?
Where in the country are you?
I'm in Kansas City.
I'm actually in
Overland park, Kansas.
Beautiful OK, so you are.
What is it?
11?
30.
It is 11.
31 Yes, sir.
Beautiful OK.
A late night person
jamming with us.
I love it.
It's like after hours.
But with the pro group, I
was with you this morning
to double dip in on this thing.
Man, I'm so excited
to be a part of this.
Man, OK, we're all good to go.
OK, here we go.
So I'm going to
share my deck here.
And it's the same deck from this
morning, so share this deck.
Here we go.
OK, so Jason, your
global business objective
is to do what?
To probably increase
opportunities.
Yes, sir.
By becoming an expert,
I'll put expert in quotes.
OK, because people get
mad at me if I don't.
Because that's my goal.
Yeah, all right, that's a
good goal, it's good goal.
OK, so let's then make a list
of things that we need to do.
OK, so I'm going get rid of
all these crazy things in here.
All right.
How so we're going to keep?
We're going to remember that.
So I'm going to ask the question
via the design sprint process.
How might you
increase opportunities
by becoming perceived
as an expert?
OK, so you've already said
you would need to, right?
Right and so what
do we need to right?
We need to write
blog posts or things
on medium, something like that?
Or you want to write a book
or do you want to write?
Jason?
don't lose everybody.
What happened?
We're still here, here, here.
Oh, you scared me, I'm
like the internet broke.
My kids are home and now they're
just sucking up all the juice
from the internet.
So he wants to write.
OK, you guys are
going to participate.
Anybody wants to participate.
That's not in too
noisy, of a background
because you're all in the
same boat with me, right?
We need to increase
opportunities.
That's the net
result of us becoming
perceived as an
expert, so we know we
can write, what else can we do?
Um, Instagram carousels.
Yes, Yes.
OK, so Ig carousel,
OK, there's going
to be fantastic conversation.
I already know where this
is going because it just
had this conversation with
somebody else earlier today.
What else?
Content, what content
that's too broad,
dude, just be more specific.
Was that more?
Write articles for
medium, OK, medium post,
beautiful white pages,
yes, white paper, right?
Yes, what else does somebody
say, speak his letter, speak?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, let
me do speak speaking.
Newsletter yeah, keep going.
Keep books, e-books,
perfect, beautiful.
I love that e-books.
I'm all.
Yes, yes, knowledge
products, OK.
OK keep going, guys.
I promise you,
this is not a trap.
Online course, Yes.
Is not a trap like last
time in the debate.
You're not going to get fooled
like he did it to us again.
OK, what else?
But some kind of proof,
like from another expert
or other people in
the area, almost
like by proxy endorsements,
testimony, yes, testimonials.
OK, we're heading right
back into the area
that we were last
time by accident.
Basically, if what is that
called like if you write
something that's featured
on the Wall Street journal,
what is that called like?
Your validated source?
Something Frankie, what's
it called credibility?
Or I don't know, man.
All right.
Well, nobody said it yet,
but I'm going to say it.
You need to do video.
Oh, you're excited,
that's what it means.
Yes, Yes.
Thank you.
Excited, yeah, excited is good.
So you can make videos.
You can do slideshare, right?
That's pretty good, right?
We have a bunch of things.
Anybody else want
to add anything
they're thinking about doing?
Workshops oh, yeah,
of course, workshop.
Yeah, coaching.
Teaching yes, Yes.
Yes, OK.
Coaching, teaching.
Both are very good
coaching, teaching.
When you say community,
what do you mean?
Like a kind of like
the future program?
OK when does add that in there?
But like a free community?
Yeah what is that called
like peer group coaching?
Yeah, I guess.
OK, so that would be
here coaching, right?
Well, I'll just leave it here.
OK, fine.
So from this morning, I'm
going to duplicate this
and I'm going to get rid
of all these things, right?
And then I'm going
to take these things
and then select all of them.
Copy, we apparently
missed out on a stunt.
What's that?
I don't know.
I know you had to be
had from this morning,
you had one of the pieces
of paper, said stunt.
That's right.
To do a stunt right
to draw traffic.
So here's how we do it from.
I'm going to Zoom
out a little bit.
I'm going to paste it in
here not to jam you guys
with too much stuff.
move it to the side
so you guys can see now.
The first thing is, we're
going need to write,
it's not super specific.
What the heck we're
writing, right?
So let's just say write 2000
words or something, right?
OK and all we need to do
is say, if our goal is
to become an expert
increase opportunity
and through writing
and content creation,
then we have to just
measure this on the graph of
is it easy?
Is it hard?
And what kind of
impact will it have
towards our global
business objective?
And that's really what
we're going to do.
So a lot of us are sitting
there like, Oh my god, OK,
being sighted, it's pretty hard.
So that's the same as writing,
so whatever impact this
is going to have, this will
have more impact, right?
So it's more impactful,
but it's harder to do.
So this is just
a relative scale.
It's not important that this
lives exactly here or here,
but the relationship they
have with each other.
That's the only important part.
So getting testimonials for
us, depending on what we do,
so we would just go through and
we place all of these on here.
Writing an e-book has
to be harder, right?
Then writing 2000
words or is it?
Will you guys tell me, where
do you guys want to put this?
Where does the book live?
Harder, easier than
writing 2000 words,
the e-book can
often be something
that happens as a product
of your other writing.
You collect it and
it becomes a book.
So but the word e-book Bob
sounds, the more serious.
It would be a little
bit harder, though,
because you're collecting
more information.
Yeah, that's true.
And it's going to be
taken a little bit more
seriously, I think,
because as word book in it.
But you're right,
a lot of the work
has already been
done because you can
collect some of these, right?
So maybe you make two of those.
And now, right, so then the
e-book can live on top of that.
Yeah, it's going to be
a little bit harder,
but it might have a
little bit more impact.
So maybe it lives there
cited is even harder.
So this is all we do.
We're just going to do.
This medium post
doesn't seem like so.
A lot of these are just
pretty much the same thing
and we're going have this
giant cluster over here now.
My post-it notes are relatively
large for this diagram,
so you're posting
notes in real life
are small, whereas this
board can be quite big.
And so you could really
be more nuance, right?
So if I were to collect
all these things
and scale them
down, which I can,
but I'm not going to do
right now unless you really
want me to.
Community rights, a
white paper, white paper
has got to be a little
easier than the e-book,
so you just keep doing this
and then what you want to do.
Once you get rid of I
mean, not really, but you
place all these
things on the board,
let's just say
they're on the board.
Is then you start tackling
the things in this quadrant
if it's easy.
Let me let me make
another shape here.
And if anybody has any questions
about what that I'm doing,
just ask and I'll be more
happy to help you there.
So I'm going to color
the screen in a second
because I want to say these
things get the green light.
OK these things get
the red like the heart,
and they're inconsequential,
you should pretty much just
throw those away.
You should shoot
whoever came up with.
I'm just kidding, right?
So the ones that are
inconsequential but easy
sometimes are the shiny
object syndrome, the things
that you get distracted by.
So I'm going to call it.
I'm going to call
it that yellow.
It's like just Warning
green go, red Stop.
And the ones that are impactful
but hard go into our mid
to long term planning.
We know we need to do
them like for the future.
What we have to do
is build an app.
We have to build
our own custom map
because we're running
into all kinds of problems
using third party.
So based on that, now we
have a way to prioritize this
is the lightning decision
jam that you may or may not
have seen on AJ and Smart's
channel lightning decision
jam teaching, all this stuff.
So what we realize is
that the foundation,
if I remove all
these things away.
Writing is at the
core of it all.
We began by writing to know
what it is that we're thinking.
So I'm going to make a more
concerted effort, as you're
already seeing that
I'm writing more,
I'm posting more frequently.
And I'm seeing what sticks
in both short and kind of I
wouldn't even call a
mid medium length post,
but I'm doing that.
You know who's good at that is
Matt Silverman, because he's
a content marketing guy.
I think will antena also
do content marketing,
so you probably
want to talk to them
as well, whereas I'm kind
of new to this world.
Does anybody have any
questions on how to prioritize
based on this simple graph?
And a simple graph
like this can be
used for many, many things,
not just this kind of thing.
OK, so I'm going to remove
these things here, right?
If you just take, let
me duplicate this.
If you just take this graph.
I don't know if
you guys have used
this for lots of different
things before and you map out,
say, look where to eat, right?
So this is $3.
This $1.
I'm going to make
this $4.01 more here.
And like, this is
really like tasty or.
I don't really popular,
and this is like me, right?
Like, where do you
want to eat today?
And you would just
do the same thing.
Well, if it's
cheap and it's met,
so some ideal form is
just really super tasty
and it's cheap.
And if you think
about it, that's
exactly how Yelp is done.
What it is, do.
I think Taco Bell
would win every time.
Oh, come on.
Agreed you guys.
OK, so Taco Bell is
cheap, and, you know,
somewhere here, I know a lot
of people like stoners like it,
so I'm I'll leave it
there for you, ok?
But for me, like 10 degrees.
Live somewhere
there and recently
from my trip to Fresno,
heirloom is freaking awesome.
And I'm going to be
in Vancouver soon,
so meat and bread
is here somewhere.
So I'm usually
avoiding these places.
I'm not that kind of
she-she kind of guy,
I don't like that 5, 4 course
meal with the whole service.
It's just.
I'm not that fussy.
I like tasty.
I don't mind paying
a little bit more,
but I don't want super fancy
meat and bread is not there.
What kind of places
like the dining car?
That's one that's up
there somewhere, probably.
OK, so this is the
way to make decisions,
so another variant
to this, and I'm
going off the rails here, guys.
Sorry gone off the rails.
Oops!
forgot that a group this, ok?
Check this out,
this is pretty cool.
You can use this as
a branding graph.
Name any kind of
property for a brand
like what kind of
qualitative thing
can you use to describe a brand,
any brand that you want anybody
throw out one property?
Luxury luxury, OK.
So I usually put the
positive attribute
to the right and the negative
attributes that are left.
Fungible would probably
be that said, what's that?
OK yeah, that works, right.
Cheap and luxury.
All right.
Something like that.
So then what we can
do is duplicate this.
It's why I love, you
know, just as I said,
I was about to mess it up.
So let's take a brand,
any brand and let's just
keep going and adding
some attributes there.
Let's do more attributes.
Give me one attribute, and
we'll map the opposite attribute
on the other side.
And you'll what happens.
Let's say for a design
firm, say that word again.
Fungible what does that mean?
It just means a basic
commodity commoditized.
Oh, OK.
So OK, so let me just
first do commodity.
OK, so what's the
word for quality
like the extreme version
of quality, what does that?
Excellence, I can't think.
Premium premium is better,
premiums better, Yeah.
So this would be economy, right?
So unfortunately,
all these things
are almost the same words.
We're like looking for
different attributes.
Let's do this.
Let's just change this up.
Let's say we're doing
this for, I don't know,
an up and coming design firm.
or better.
We want to position.
What's that going to
say, urban versus?
rural.
Yeah, suburban.
OK OK, so if we're
talking about Mo, what's
the name of your company again?
Mox mox are these enough?
No, they're not.
We need to work on this, right?
So let's come up
with some parameters
and you'll see really soon
how we can dial this in.
So here's how we can
think about this.
Mox makes high quality
video productions, right?
Max what is the best known
competitor in your category?
Who are they?
They're called Mad genius.
OK how would you
describe mad genius?
Give me four attributes
to describe mad genius.
Established OK, good,
that's a good word.
What's another word?
And versatile.
OK um, respected, maybe
not the best word.
That's fine.
Don't worry about
the words, she said.
Go ahead.
One more generalist.
OK, it's kind of like versatile.
How about we say expensive?
Are they expensive?
Oh Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Put down.
All right.
So inexpensive.
Right, respected, what's the
opposite of respected then?
Disrespected, I know,
I know, but there's
got to be another word.
Maybe, maybe well known instead
of respected versus unknown.
Or maybe newcomer.
OK, so what's the opposite
of versatile specialize?
Yeah OK and established, so
established and well known
are kind of the same, right?
Yeah or is well known
about publicity.
Yeah, I think that's it,
I think well-known is
about publicity established
can be about time and business.
Right so establish versus rookie
or something like that, right?
Yeah Yes.
We OK with this.
So you would create
as many dimensions,
as you can think since
we struggled with four.
I'm not going to bother with
trying to come up with more.
So then I'm just going to add
a little triangle in here.
I'm going to cover
this triangle read,
so you guys, hopefully
you can see that.
Of course, I don't want shadow.
Let's get this thing down.
OK, so in the world of this is.
Who is this is genius, you said.
I do this brand
exercise with my client
sometimes because they
can't commit to anything
and they start using crazy
terms like intimate epic,
I'm like, what?
How can we do that?
They seem to be on opposite,
and it's like, oh, no,
when we say intimate epic, we
went more epic, less intimate,
like, oh, I got it.
Got it.
OK so in a scale
relative scale here,
how would you consider them?
They must be the most
established players
if they're the most famous.
Is that ok?
OK And you said
they're versatile.
Are they really that versatile?
Yeah, there are full
scale marketing agency,
but they have bomb
video work too,
which is just
disrespectful, honestly.
OK and they must be
very expensive, right?
Yeah, they have national
spots easily 50 to 100,000.
OK all right.
If not more.
OK, it's got to
be more than that.
OK, so let's go to mox.
Is that right?
Mosques, bro.
Sorry, dude, I thought
it's like for moxie.
OK, now how many years?
Like, where do you want
to put this triangle?
Let's be let's be
real, let's be real.
Probably like at the 40 percent,
so like if establish was 100
are you specialized
or versatile?
Now we want to be specialized.
We don't want to be versatile,
but you're not there yet,
right?
You're on your way there.
OK and where are
you on this one?
Oh, probably also 40 were
well known in the community,
but we're also regional,
so the rookie, yeah,
so I think you must be
here if they're there.
Yeah, Yeah.
Yeah, we're not
commanding, we're not
commanding 100,000 gigs right
now, here's the cool thing.
It doesn't always mean that
to the right is the best.
Because Walmart
exists here and there.
One of the world's
biggest companies, right?
The what is it, the
Walmart family, the Waltons
or whatever they're called?
Yeah, they're like the children.
They're like the five most
richest people in the world.
That whole family, so being
inexpensive is not necessary,
but we now need to know
that we're positioned well.
So if we were positioned
near these guys
that we're just a little
less versatile than them,
we're going get slaughtered.
That was the only
differentiator,
so you can actually
play to this,
that instead of saying we're
established because you can't
establish the
established company,
you can say we bring
a fresh perspective.
You start to look
at this and then
you can do this as
a branding, oops.
You can do this as an
exercise on positioning.
How does mocs compared
to Mad genius?
So that's a variant
to this graph, right?
So these graphs are
good for us to map
what we think
because we can take
very intangible
qualitative values
and move them along until it
hits the sweet spot for us.
So this is where Jonathan
stark talks about this,
he said just because
it's difficult to measure
doesn't mean it's
impossible to measure.
And there's a big
difference there.
You can establish a baseline
for just about anything.
That's a variant to that,
so I'm going to stop on this
and I want to tell you
a story a little bit,
but let me hit stop.
OK, back to the conversation.
OK, now what do you
guys want to talk about
that I can answer for you or
we can open this up to anything
you want?
You know what, I forgot?
I didn't really answer.
Is it, jason?
I didn't answer this question.
He was like, it's not that I'm
contemplating about writing
or writing even more.
I got other things to do like
other things that are taking me
away from writing.
We realize writing
is really important.
I think for me, it's like one
of the most important things
I need to do right now.
Yeah, and I recognize
that, but I also
know that I have a
need to rush to market
with some of these
other items, and I
don't know how to prioritize.
I mean, you only
have a finite amount
of time every single day.
Yes and I've got
a family like you.
I've got a family.
And you know, it's
really difficult
to manage that time around,
family and other things that
are going on.
So I just I'm having a
difficult time with that.
OK, now I think
you agree with me
when I say this
is that creativity
expands and contracts
to meet a deadline.
It's a miracle.
Yeah, three months to
finish the project.
Guess what, you
finish in 3 months,
you have two days
to finish project,
you get it done in two days.
So the way is to trick your
mind and your body to say,
and this is quite interesting
in some parts of the world,
they only work four days a week.
They just work a little harder,
a little bit more focused
each one of those days.
So they have a three day weekend
to spend with their family.
How could they do that?
And then they're finding
that productivity actually
increases because they know
don't talk around on those four
days because you're
going to have
to lose your third
day into your weekend.
So I can't remember who
asked me this in the program,
it was like, Chris, how
are you reading and writing
and doing this when you
have other things to do?
Well, I have a few advantages,
but let's take away
the advantages I have and
just focus on some time
saving time compression ideas.
Some concepts time hacks, ok?
One schedule date where
you're going to read or write.
Just today, I'm going
to read and write.
That's all I'm going to do.
Give yourself permission
that it's OK for you
to do something
that doesn't seem
to solve a short term problem.
Do that.
See what happens?
And then the four remaining
days for you to work,
just bust your butts,
stay really focused,
and I'm starting to
do this now and it's
working out really well.
I'm not checking anymore
emails, I'm not on Instagram,
I'm not on these things.
I've stopped checking
my phone for messages,
all those disruptions.
So I can get clean, one
hour focused sprints
and then I can take a break
and then I do another hour
and I can get so much done.
It also forces me at the
beginning of those days
to write down what I need to do
and live by my calendar or my
to do list and so that I
don't stray, we will stray.
I start moving on to Pinterest
to look for one reference.
An hour and a half later, I'm
like, what the heck happened?
You guys know that, so this
is how you manage yourself,
you become your own boss and
your task master next time
productivity savings
hack thing is, this
is what Jim Rohn talks about.
Like when you're at work, be
at work, when you're at home,
be at home, do not mix
those two things up.
When you're working,
you're thinking about home,
you're less productive
when you're at home
and you're thinking about
work, you're an absent parent
and you don't want
to do that either.
OK, have an agreement with your
partner and say, look, here's
the deal.
You know, I'm going to
work, I'm going to rage.
But then on the weekends,
I'm clean because I need.
So I don't want hopefully
to get guilt tripped
or I don't want to
feel bad about this.
Can we work this out
as our partnership?
And this is the agreement we
have is two adults that we're
going to divide and conquer?
Yes fantastic.
Now I know some guys like Andrew
Kramer, where he works all day,
he goes home to eat
dinner with his family.
He spent some time with
his wife and his kids.
When they go to sleep,
he goes back to work
and he sleeps at the office.
This is insane.
That's how he's doing
it, and I think.
This is not sustainable how
he's been able to pull this off
for as long as he's pulled
off, I just don't even know.
And somewhere in
there, it gets time
to work out to which
is bananas to me.
Insane I think he's starting
to ease up a little bit, is he?
Do you know him?
Yeah OK.
Because when he told me
this, we had dinner or lunch
or whatever he was saying to
us, I'm like, Oh my god, Andrew,
you have four kids, man.
Oh, Yeah.
When I say ease up, I'm
saying he might go home
to get sleep now at three
rather than just saying,
you know, Andrew might
go home to take it.
Ok? that's him easing
up because look,
I'm telling you right now,
check on him in five 10 years.
He'll look like
he's 6' years old.
Your body needs some rest,
you might need some rest
to do that thinking.
Who is this?
Andrew Kramer, the co-pilot,
the very well known,
very well known.
Probably the best after
effects tutorials out there.
Great plug.
Yeah, great educator.
Good guy, funny, smart
like really brilliant tips
and tricks on how
to hack everything.
It's like, Wow.
And he works on Star Wars films
and Star Trek and Star Trek.
Yeah and fringe killer.
Yeah, killer.
Yeah, he has a remarkable
story, so I'm lucky enough
to have collaborated with him on
a couple of little things here
and there for the channel, and
I've gotten to know him well.
OK, so that's the insanity.
So for me, Jason, what
I would do is to say,
you know what it's
important to schedule,
say, Friday night at 6 o'clock.
It's daytime with the wife.
That's really important.
So you guys are synced up.
Everything works.
Work must end.
Kids are with grandparents
or somebody else with a nanny
so that you guys
have that and that's
important for your relationship.
Saturday's dad day or
something and then dad
just takes everybody
out, gives mom a break.
And that's fantastic
because mom's
been stuck with the
kids for some time.
Sunday is maybe
your self-care day.
I don't know what you work out
day hiking, tennis, whatever
it is that you like to do.
You need a day for yourself
to recharge those batteries.
And at first, I was fighting
my own system, my own calendar.
But here's the cool thing.
Like what David Baker is
talking about is once you commit
to something, say publicly so
that you will hold yourself
accountable in the
eyes of your community
and the people that you
care the most about.
So I put out this stupid
calendar and I'm like,
damn, I'm not living
up to my own calendar
and people are cool, dude.
That's awesome.
How are you able to do this?
I'm like, well, I'm
not doing it yet.
It's just an idea.
And now, I don't
know if you can tell,
but I'm reading
books like really
fast now because it's maybe
I just saved time for it.
I told myself, I have to
finish this book today.
I'm not I don't feel like I'm
cheating the process by reading
faster, I'm just more
focused what I'm doing it.
And then I go into full
content beast mode.
And it's working
out really well.
Somebody had asked
me earlier today,
how can you make these
carousels, these keynotes.
So fast?
Like, how are you doing this?
Let me tell you how in a
second, OK, any other questions?
I have a quick question.
Yeah, fire away, man.
So on that scale, I think
the brand scale that you did,
the diagrams like, let's
say you found your niche,
you found your 10
to 20 competitors
and you've made one of those
scales for each one of them.
Like, where would you?
How would you decide
where you want to stand?
Because you said that
being necessary being
on the far right or the
far left is not inherently
good or bad thing?
Yep how do you decide
where to proceed?
Yeah being different?
Would you just look for
like places that are empty?
Yeah OK, because
here's the thing.
Positioning is the art of
placing yourself to appear
unique amongst the competitors.
That's really critical.
If you walk into
a department store
and there's 35 brands of
jeans, you're like, Oh my God.
Which one do I pick,
whichever one is cheapest?
I don't know.
It's hard to tell,
right, but then
let's see, back in the days when
somebody had like a cool acid
wash.
I know that's not cool.
But I was like, wow,
that's different.
Let me do that one.
Or Japanese denims like super
stiff and you're like, wow,
I don't know what
Japanese denim is,
but that looks different to me.
You got to just stand
out, that's the key.
And you got when
you stand out, you
want to make sure the market
is big enough to support you
with enough opportunities.
So you remember when David
Baker was talking about
or as I was reciting a big oops.
Was that OK when David Baker
was talking about this?
And he said that
your only real power
is to withhold your service
from a client, your ability
to say no when your capacity.
Exceeds opportunity,
your ability to say no
is nonexistent, you
have to say Yes.
So the best way is to
increase opportunity
and you achieve that by
being more specialized
and being less replaceable.
OK, so you want
more opportunities
and less capacity.
The other way you do it
is if you don't have more
opportunities, if you
scale down capacity
is like do not scale
capacity to meet opportunity.
It should always be a little
bit less like 80% less,
which gives you power to say no.
This is a really
critical concept,
I hope you guys understand that.
So if you're not getting
enough opportunities,
you are overstaffed.
Bring that down so that the
opportunity and the capacity
are in alignment,
their alignment
being less capacity
than opportunity.
Gives you all the
power in the world.
This is one of the major
advantages that we have,
that we have multiple
sources of income, so much.
So now that we don't have
to do any client work.
So only the best clients we're
going to say Yes to and best
we can define in any
which way we want.
Like, I feel like doing work
today, that could be the best.
Kiss you all this power.
You know what?
To sponsor our video, it's going
to be this much or we're not
interested because we're
not dependent on the money
to do that.
That's the power
you want to have.
OK the questions.
It's all been very
helpful, thank you.
OK, awesome.
Thanks, Darren.
You know, daryn, I have to
just say this, everybody.
Do you guys know
Darren rose Brooke
is he's the one person
who's been on our video
that people attack me
more than they attack him.
It's quite brilliant to watch.
I actually really love it, but
they're just tearing me apart.
And I read them like, OK,
sure, you guys are all
superior designers.
What do I know?
The internet?
They're very talented.
Tongue in cheek.
So I love reading
all those comments,
and it's a high
performing video,
as much as people hate it, it's
still a high performing video,
which as long as it's
a positive subscriber,
we just leave it out.
Yeah and one of the
few designs where
I did something and people were
like, oh, we like the original,
not just a little bit
better, but you're stupid.
OK, Thanks.
Gee, Thanks.
It was a great learning
point for myself, though,
so thank you for all that.
Sure OK.
Anybody else?
Quick question.
Hey, Chris, I have
a quick question.
This is Marshall.
So two days ago,
before I joined,
I was all in on building
a small community.
That's why I
mentioned it earlier,
because I have a lot
of people who follow me
who are always in my DMs
asking me questions about how
I got into this field.
How did they follow you in the
first place, though, marshall?
How did they follow me?
Meaning like, why
did they follow you?
I don't know.
I guess we've been in similar
online communities, mostly.
Um, and they, I guess,
connect with me.
You're doing something, dude.
You're doing something.
Are you commenting, are you
posting a post from time
to time?
And that's usually when
they reach out to me.
Mm-hmm And I also
got like a shout
out on a pretty big podcast.
So a lot of people
have been in my DMs.
So I'm like, Yo,
is now a good time
to start a little free community
and give like tips and stuff
like that.
Or should I just do that
on my public page outside
of a community because I
want it to be free, at least
initially, I have
an idea for a course
that I'm going to do later on,
like a group video coaching
course.
OK, but here's what I'm
hearing from you, Marshall.
You've somehow
picked up a community
of people who are reaching
out to you for feedback.
You see a path forward
in terms of creating
some kind of knowledge product.
So what are the next steps?
Did I get that right?
Yep.
OK.
And I'm wondering
mainly wondering,
is now the right
time to do that?
Or should I just wait?
Because of course, I was talking
to Kat a couple of days ago.
She told me about this group.
So all the information,
I'm like, oh, maybe
I need to slow down and
just absorb all of this
and apply this before I even
think about a community.
Yeah so all I can
tell you is this
is that for each one of
us, the tipping point
is going to be a different
point in the fulcrum, right?
Some of us wait until we have so
much knowledge and experience,
then we start making content.
Some of us start with
like almost no knowledge
to make content, and we're the
yahoos and people look at us
and say, you frickin' idiot,
you don't know anything.
So I don't know where
that is for each person,
and you have to
make that decision.
Some crazy people
start off making stuff
and they don't even know
what they're talking about,
but eventually they do.
And there's a bunch of
those people on YouTube
who have really
sizable following,
so it obviously doesn't
hurt if you're persistent.
I'll tell you what I've
done once I figured out
that has something to say, I've
been writing and teaching now.
Mind you, I've been
teaching for 15 years, ok?
Like in a classroom teaching.
Once I created my own
business designer page
and having a page on Facebook
is a lot different than posting
as yourself, because when
you post this yourself,
you have no metrics
you can't boost.
You can't do anything
because they treat you
like a real human.
And so you may start to
create a page that's open,
that's public,
and then you start
to write and start
to kind of figure
out what your thoughts are.
As you develop some
kind of consistency
and a big enough following
that might signal to you.
Time to create a
knowledge product
and I would start small.
So this is all scaffolding.
Take small steps.
Maybe you create a
simple three to five page
white paper PDF tutorial
template guidelines,
some free downloadable start
building up an email database.
So you're just trying to
take lots of little steps
to see what works
and what sticks
and not trying to
create one giant thing.
When you find something that
really resonates with people,
go deeper and deeper into that.
Because you've now found it.
So to me, it's kind of like
if you're digging for oil,
you might send a couple
like preliminary drill
tests or something and
see like kind of why
we think it's kind of here.
Before you go all in on one,
so try a few things out,
and it's not always
what you think it is.
When I post things on
Instagram, I think, oh,
this will do really well,
and sometimes it doesn't.
Whereas something
else that didn't even
take me a lot of effort
performs really well,
and I use that to
test ideas to say,
oh, this is what the
world wants from me.
And if I give it to
them, they reward me
by giving me their
time and attention.
So give it a shot.
I don't think it's
ever too early.
You have to figure that
point out for yourself
and do it within an
open Facebook page.
That's not your
personal account.
Jim Marshall, golden,
I appreciate it,
I didn't even think
about the Facebook page,
I was mainly thinking about
Instagram and then maybe
a private Facebook
group, but that's good.
I'm definitely going to do
that because I have a business
Facebook page outside
of the design studio,
but I have a personal
business page that makes sense
that I'm not a guy that.
Thank you.
Yeah, like I have my own
business designer page, which
I don't update
that often, I think
I'm up to 20,000 or 30,000
followers on that page already.
So it's like, oh, that's a
great place for me to just put
stuff and see what happens.
Without adversely impacting
what the future wants to do.
OK any other thoughts
or questions?
Chris, do you have your hand up?
Chris S. Chris?
going once, twice.
Oops, you unmute
it for a second.
Can Chris say something?
Microphone not working, ok?
All right, well, Melvin Melvin,
you're back for a second
helping.
So, yeah, I am.
Just give me a second.
OK you just set up.
Yeah so I was listening to.
Sorry, I forgot his
name, but he was
talking about whether he should
go out there and start building
community and how
to leverage that.
Yeah, I think we all feel
that we are not there yet
and we need to build
up to a certain level.
And frankly, from
my own experience,
as long as you are just one or
2-step ahead of the community
and you are able
to provide value,
I think we should just go out
there and start contributing.
The beauty of that is that
as we start creating content
and we start communicating
with the people,
we also start listening to
what are the problems that we
may not be aware of.
And over time, you know,
that kind of surveys
the kind of problems
that they have
and the kind of issues
that they are facing.
And that gives us even more
input into what kind of content
we can create.
So I think there is
a fear or a concern
or that imposter
syndrome that you
know, oh, I'm not good enough.
I'm not there yet.
I've not worked with the
big strand or I've got this,
but as long as we are just
two, two or three steps ahead
and we're giving
good value, I think
you should just go for it.
That's it.
Go for it.
Good I agree as
well because I run
a community of 100
designers, a paid community,
and I'm only a couple of years
into my own work as well.
But what I turned
it into was a way
that people get
feedback on their work.
It didn't mean that I was
the resident expert because I
was learning along with them,
but being a few steps ahead
helped me be able to teach
exactly what I had learned
right back to the people that
was in the community as well.
And so we kind of Fed each
other our own expertise.
Perfect I love just
talking to people
because listening
to their challenges
and hearing their stories.
Really, if anything helps
me to generate more ideas
on what to write and produce.
And you guys can
see that, I mean,
we're feeding off each other
like Melvin said, something
I'm like, I shared it.
And it got a lot of attention.
I'm like, OK, that's cool.
And then Melvin share something.
It's like, this is how we do it.
This is our ecosystem, right?
We need to talk to people.
The friction that exists between
what you think and what I think
helps me to either crystallize
what it is that I'm thinking
and form some more to be able
to articulate my thoughts
and form an opinion
or a position.
Then now I know how I
feel about something
and it works
really, really well.
OK, Abby, is it abby?
Tejada, Yes.
Hello Hello.
Hey I have a question.
I have created this Facebook
group right in 2012 or 13.
And now it has grown
up to 23,000 people.
And they are all from
New Zealand, right?
So the group is called as
United Indians in New Zealand.
OK I just created
that as a for fun,
you know, just to commit
content to the community.
And I told a couple
of business people
here and then they
said, why don't you
convert this into the living?
So that means, like, why don't
you make some money out of it,
you know, because a
lot of business people
post to add on that.
Like anything, you know,
products, services, anything.
So how can I convert this
group into the living
so that I can earn
money from it?
Those are like real
people, like 23,000 people,
but I have no idea
how to proceed.
Ok?
once you build up a strong
enough community that
shares a common psychographic
demographic profile,
you can look for opportunities
to influence those people
and bring on board.
Probably the easiest thing
is due to an affiliate
deal with somebody
who makes content.
The classic example
is Jonathan Rudolph,
who has now up to a million
followers on Instagram
doing local inspirations.
So when you follow him
back to his website,
he recommends a course
called Logo core.
And that, of course, sells for
like 50 or 60 bucks, I think.
And it's not by this other guy.
So this other guy
started noticing
he's got this really
big following,
so he offered Jonathan a deal.
He would pay him 50% of every
sale that came through a link
that he provided Jonathan.
So for a long time, Jonathan
started earning extra income
until that income
surpassed the income he
was making from doing work.
To a point in which he quit his
job, so his whole thing is he
just shares logos that he likes
built up a big enough following
is doing affiliate.
Actually, some of you
guys in this group
are doing an affiliate
deal with us.
So when you sell products
for us as other people,
do you get a
percentage of the sale?
OK you see, so
that's how you do it.
You can also leverage
it to get stuff
that you want from companies
and eventually if you show
that you can move the needle.
Then you're going to get in
command a lot more money.
All right.
You guys all the time.
Oh, are you are you on an
affiliate deal with us?
I should really look into that.
Yes, you should.
Now I'll tell you something.
I'll tell you
something right now.
Because we're here.
I just had lunch with
Matthew earlier today,
and we were talking
about like, who's
the biggest performer
for affiliates?
He said, well, logo is
you guys no logo geek
Ian in Paget, Paget.
I'm like, OK, yeah, he
has a big community.
A couple of 100,000 people
following him, right?
It's got a podcast.
I'm like, naturally.
And who's?
Who's the next biggest person?
They said, Melinda livesey,
like Melinda, little Melinda
are Melinda and who's got
like a little bit more,
and they're about the same.
They're about neck and neck.
Look, what the heck?
How is Melinda suddenly,
as much as logique
when her following is
that big compared to his?
Well, I don't know if
you guys know this,
but she does something
like a cohort,
which is her private group.
And what she helps people
do is Coach them through
to launch their business,
and she requires.
This is what he told me.
I'm not sure that this is true.
Somebody verified for me.
She requires in order for
you to join that group,
you have to buy her a class.
Mike, this is genius.
It's genius for
her, genius for us,
so they have to buy whatever
classes she recommends,
she's like, you have to
take these three classes,
then you can join this
group and then I'll
help coach you to
the next level.
She also has 2,500 on
her email newsletter,
and she plugs you
guys all the time.
That's why she's
doing it, but compared
to Ian Paget's 100,000 followers
on Twitter and however big
his email list is, his
email list must be at least
10,000 or 20,000 right.
It's got to be pretty big.
She's doing really well
because she's super focused.
That's it, so it's
working for her,
so hey, if we get rich, she
gets rich, it all works out.
I'm happy to do that.
So Darren, reach out to Ben.
Ben burns and get
on the program.
Hello, dear.
Thank you.
There's no reason
why you should not
make money off
doing whatever it is
you're doing out of goodwill.
I'm all for that.
OK Abby, is your hand back up?
Or did I forget to lower it?
Yeah, actually.
So should I. Should I start
charging these businesses?
Who who are posting haiku?
Yes, you should not let them
advertise in your group.
First of all, it's super
spammy to your followers.
Super spammy.
So you've got to prove this.
OK, I have like,
I'm just looking.
I have 50 posts to go right now.
And apart from that,
what else I can do?
Can I?
Can I use that to
start a podcast?
Can I use that card?
Yeah test your audience.
You know, affiliate deals
is the easiest low hanging
fruit that you can get.
You can do Amazon affiliates.
You can do kit.
I think Matthew is seen as
making quite a bit of money
on kit.
He's making a couple of
thousand of passive income
because he has this viral
hit this month or $2 million
viewed YouTube video.
A company that makes super
awesome death sent him a $2000
desk because they're like,
will you feature this?
And he hardball
negotiated them and said,
only if I get a
percentage of sales.
I'm not that cheap, so he's
like, whoa, what a negotiator.
That's good.
Yes Matthew nCino.
He comes across as a nice guy,
but he's a tough negotiator.
Don't let that smile fool you.
Savage, he is savage.
OK anybody else?
I got to wrap up here, guys.
Like I ran along this morning.
I'm running long
here too, and I'm
going to turn into a
pumpkin pretty soon.
Anybody that wants
to participate
as part of the affiliate,
there's a little application,
you have to go through,
you have to demonstrate
that you actually do influence
and have a community reach out
to Ben burns.
We'd love to have all of
you on it, especially people
who have found our
things to be valuable
and can speak to it
on a firsthand basis.
We like that it's genuine, it's
authentic, you found value,
so you're sharing
with other people.
OK anybody else, so
that's the story.
Yes who creates fire?
Daniel, go.
What about content in spanish?
I do have a follow in
Spanish like people
in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela,
Argentina, so I don't know.
Well, I have a friend,
I'm spacing on her name.
She was a fan.
She's from Taiwan.
She has a fairly small
following, relatively speaking,
fairly little viewed videos.
But she's super active
in the Taiwanese market,
so she's getting big brand
sponsor deals that I'm like,
I can't believe you're
getting that well compared
to the rest of the
world, but Taiwan, those
are relatively good
numbers for whoever
wants to penetrate in
the Taiwanese market.
Right so we're competing
against, unfortunately,
people like Logan
Paul, PewDiePie
and all these other
people that have hundreds
of millions of followers.
So we're nothing but for
her and her numbers relative
to where she's at.
She's doing really
well, and she's
leveraging all kinds
of things and something
that I'm realizing.
And I think as one era is ending
the era of paid advertising
because we don't want to
be marketed to that way.
I think advertisers are starting
to become really sophisticated
and they're going to start
doing branded content
and giving us either money
or a piece of the action.
It's much, much
cheaper for them.
It's very measurable
and that's really
how we're going to do it now.
They're looking for ambassadors
who are naturally already
love their brand, can
articulate why they love it
and share it in an organic
way with their community.
And that's a much
better way of doing it.
So instead of spending it all
on some programming that's
happening at 8 o'clock on
CBS, they're taking that money
and they're spreading
across 1,000 influencers,
and it still does same
amount of money for them.
But they're getting
much better targeting.
Tonight, the A list
better engagement.
OK, somehow we've
turned this into how
to monetize a social following.
That is definitely
not the agenda,
the objective of today's
call, but that's totally OK.
I think I started.
I'm sorry about that.
No, that's all right.
It's all right.
It's your lighting, bro.
It's the mood of
the evening call
that leads us down
this rabbit hole.
OK, so we're going to do this.
We're going to do this.
I opened up with this question.
We're going to end on
hopefully your answer to this.
Has is the lighting affecting
the vibe of the call?
Is it my energy?
Is it your energy?
Is your focus?
Isn't my focus?
Is there anything
that's different
that you can perceive from
the morning call to now?
And can you pinpoint, can you
put your finger on it or not?
Let me know, please.
I think it's our willingness to
open up and talk a little bit,
I think that helped a lot.
I've only been on two calls,
but the one this morning
was crickets,
unfortunately, but this
has been a little bit better.
Why are you more
willing to open up?
Mo has a theory.
I just want to
see if he's right.
I had time during the day
to think about what I wanted
to talk about this evening.
That's just preparation then.
Yes Yeah.
OK, what else?
It's got to be the mood
lighting that you've got there.
That is one of his theories.
Yeah oh, I can't believe it.
I can't believe it made me.
It's made me very comfortable.
And no, I don't.
I don't know.
Yeah I think I've
had a good part
of the day to think
about some things
and prepare for this evening.
But I will say the
lighting is killer, do.
It's great.
I'll make it a very positive
vibe from it over here.
Oh, thank you.
You do realize it's the
exact same lighting.
It's just it's dark
outside, so I'm not
getting any ambient light.
So that tells me I need to
get some really dark curtains
for that window that's up there.
Same exact light.
Same exact setup.
I think that a lot of people
show up from the morning calls
to so they've had a lot
to a lot of time to stew
over what you've talked
about in the morning.
OK I think that's
what was just said
right there, right with Jason.
Yeah, Yeah.
And another thing, Chris, you
talked this morning about.
You had a question
for us and you
ask if we'd be open
to you teaching us
how to do some graphic design.
I don't know if
that's something I do,
but topography I'm
very interested in.
And if that's something
that you could
do in later meetings,
that's something
I personally, I don't know
if everybody else would,
but I personally
would enjoy that.
OK, Jason, here's what
we're going to do.
I don't think I have
anything that I'm not
willing to share with you.
I just don't if
people are interested.
So what we have to do is if
you have an idea of format,
a request for a
topic or anything,
I'm open to lots of things.
All you have to do is post
it and get enough momentum
behind it so that I say, oh, OK,
enough people want to do this.
I will do it OK because I've
been thinking about this.
I design all the time right
for my, my slides, my carousel.
So sometimes if we just want
to have a late night jam
session where I kind of
just work with you guys
and you can see and
you can ask questions,
I can critique your work
or whatever it is in a way
you guys are kind of
witnessing and kind
of riding shotgun
with me as I diagnose
and ask Socratic questions to
people who are on the call.
Well, that's not any
different than saying,
why don't we design
something together
and we'll just work together?
It might be a beautiful group
study session, I don't know.
But I remember in school when
I was learning how to draw
and Steve Houston, who was
our illustration teacher,
he would just sit there
and draw a bicep and then
an arm, the deltoids.
I'm like, god, that's
fucking awesome.
Just to see him carve that
out of a blank piece of paper
with his pencil.
And I felt smarter
and more informed.
I know when I went to draw,
I didn't look the same,
but enough of those
sessions, it started
to look a little bit like it.
So I'm happy to do it.
You got to just build momentum.
OK, so make some noise about it.
If enough people will say, yeah,
we want that, I will do it.