The learning center

The air was thick and the faint smell of coffee lingered...

As I stared at the blank screen, the cursor blinked mockingly as silence and that familiar feeling slowly filled the room...

Yup, it was page fright.

See what I did there?

I painted a picture.

That's so much more powerful than simply saying, "I had writer's block."

Storytelling is one of the most effective skills you can develop as a marketer.

Humans crave stories, and we've been sharing them for thousands of years (dating back to the days of cave drawings and loincloths.)

Good stories yield immense power:

• They entertain
• They make messages stickier
• They move people emotionally

That last point is critical to your marketing.

People buy based on emotion first and logic second.

So, if you can tap into their emotions through vivid storytelling, they'll move directly into the buying zone.

I'm a huge AI nerd—and I've heard a lot of chatter about how it's going to make writing obsolete.

And while AI may make mediocre content creation easier, cheaper, and faster, there's one thing I know for certain it CAN'T do: share your stories and experiences.

AI models are predictive, meaning they use patterns to determine what comes next.

This creates generic-sounding, cliché-filled output. It's stuff that puts your audience to sleep and practically ensures they don't buy.

There's simply no substitute for good storytelling.

Here are some of my most important tips:

1. Thou shalt entertain.

This is the first and most pivotal copywriting commandment I lay out in my book, Lean Marketing.

‍Think of your content as infotainment. It's job is to entertain first and inform second.

If your content is boring, it doesn't matter how valuable it is—it won't get consumed. So, make sure your writing is memorable and stands out.

2. Start writing before you start writing.

How do you avoid staring at a blank page?

You never start writing from scratch.

I always write interesting stories down and store them in my story bank to draw inspiration from them for my content whenever I'm in need.

Not just that, but I'll take note of stories from the real world...powerful marketing, ads that sold me, things I heard on a podcast, etc.

It will make your writing process immensely easier.

3. The two-step framework.

This simple storytelling framework to become one of the world's top keynote speakers:

• The incident - aka the who, what, where, and when
• The point - aka the reason I'm telling you this

Lead with the incident. End with the point.

And along the way, fill your story with details—what you saw, heard, smelled, anything that will transport the audience to that world.

I believe anyone can be a great storyteller—and, by extension, a great marketer.

But here's the truth:

If your writing is bland, forgettable, or cranked out by the dozen, it won't stand a chance.

Make your writing bold. Make it interesting. Make it you.

In marketing, storytelling isn't just a tool. It's your edge.

Earlier this year, I had a major problem with our flagship program. I knew this was a killer program. In fact, it was the best thing we’d ever built…

Despite the fact that we got lots of positive signals about the program, we had a high rate of churn…people leaving the program before they had a chance to get results.

This was frustrating. Worst of all, I knew had they stayed enrolled, they would have reaped the benefits.

Fast forward to today.‍

We’re bringing in 4x more clients every week and have practically eliminated churn altogether.

The clients inside our program are thriving, consistently breaking records, and setting our daily wins board ablaze.

So, what changed?

We didn’t change the target market.

We didn’t change the content.

We didn’t throw more money at ads.

We didn’t throw more money at ads.

And, because I believe—and still believe—in the value of our program, we didn’t change a thing about it.

Instead, we made small but powerful tweaks to something foundational—our messaging.

A small shift in how I communicated with my audience doubled our conversion rate…in just two months.

The difference between a product or service that’s leaking revenue or compounding it can be how you talk to your leads.

Marketing is the master skill of business. And copywriting is the master skill of marketing.

Being able to communicate in a way that makes people not only listen but take action is the most powerful tool in my marketing toolbox.

It’s the same tool that’s helped hundreds of my clients scale to multiple seven and eight figures.

And here’s the kicker —it’s something anyone can learn to master (the exact tool we teach you to use to your advantage inside Accelerator).

If you’re facing challenges with high churn, low conversions, or long sales cycles—I encourage you to take a step back and revisit your messaging.

Are you speaking in a way that truly resonates with where your clients actually are?

Are you addressing their pain points and desires with laser-like clarity?

Are you tapping into their dreams, desires, and fears?

I’ve seen firsthand how sharpening your message can unlock the next level in your business.

Because when you get your messaging right, the rest of your marketing is easy.

Let's talk about time.

Many business owners treat it like a four-letter word.

I don't blame them.

When you think about it, time is actually a great stand-in for swear words.

Social media campaign flops? Time it.

Spend hours on sales calls that never convert? Forget this time.

Waste a bunch of money on failed ads? This time is crazy.

If there's one thing I wish I had more of in my business, it's time.

Time is the most precious resource for your business.

And it feels like your time is constantly slipping away, you might be falling for bright shiny object syndrome.

The problem many businesses face in their marketing is jumping on the latest marketing trends without considering how it will impact their business.

They're searching for that silver bullet that shoots them to success.

Unfortunately, there's no silver bullet.

When you spend your time doing random acts of marketing, you may as well be flushing your time down the toilet.

The difference between being a struggling business owner and a successful one is how you leverage your time.

One of the best things I've ever done is learn how to leverage my time to maximize the return on time investment for my business.

The only way to multiply your business results without multiplying the time and resources you put in is with leverage.

Leverage is anything that multiplies the force of your inputs. If you can put one unit of time, money, or energy in and get more than one unit back out. That's leverage at work.

Leverage is a force multiplier.

Three force multipliers will help you create a devastatingly effective marketing system - one that gets you bigger results with fewer inputs.

1. Your Tools
2. Your Assets
3. Your Processes

By getting clear on these force multipliers, you'll better leverage your resources and your time for maximum impact.

What if I told you there was a guaranteed path to financial freedom?

The concept is simple:

It's a compound interest.

If you stash $50 away in a shoe box every week, you'll have $130,000 in 50 years.

But if you invest $50 every week into the S&P 500 instead, with an average rate of return you'll have over $1.7 million in the same amount of time.

That's the magic of compound interest.

So why aren't more people millionaires?

Because quick wins are sexier (like gambling on some dumb crypto coins or the stock tip that's a "sure thing.")

Easy fixes and shortcuts are always more appealing than slow steady success.

With compound interest, it seems like nothing is happening for a long time...until eventually, you see a sharp uptick and massive returns.

It's the same thing with marketing.

A lot of your early marketing efforts will feel disappointing. You'll question if this stuff actually works.

But marketing is a process, not an event.

And those big long-term gains come from the compound interest of your daily, weekly, and monthly efforts.

So if you want to unlock the potential of compound interest, it's time to double down on what's working and cut what doesn't.

The tricky part is figuring out what those are.

Once you get clear on the systems and processes that breeds success, you'll start to see small returns that pave the way for big results down the road.

A few months ago, a news story about Amazon was making the rounds.

Amazon had what was thought to be an AI-powered "Just Walk Out" checkout option in its Amazon Fresh Stores — you would just walk out of the store with whatever groceries you wanted, and it would magically charge your credit card the right amount.

Although it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 workers behind the scenes in India watching and labeling CCTV videos to ensure accurate checkouts.

This revelation caused much derision in tech circles, but it made me admire Amazon even more.

While most other companies would have waited months or even years to perfect their AI technology before rolling it out, Amazon was scrappy and prioritized speed of implementation.

I'm currently in the process of getting a quote for 15-20 hours of specialized design work. I'm getting quotes that I'm happy with, but delivery timelines are 4-6 weeks and, in some cases, three months or more.

Slow delivery is a show-stopper for me. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that success loves speed. A project loses its magic if speed to implementation is slow.

This brings me to the single easiest way to differentiate yourself from your competitors — do it faster. If your competitor typically does it in 4-6 weeks, do it in 4-6 days...and charge twice as much.

Speed doesn't always have to be tied to the delivery of your core product or service. Sometimes, it's not possible to do this faster. But you can return calls or support emails faster. Follow up with leads faster. Send quotes or proposals faster.

Affluent buyers value time more than money.

By making speed a key differentiator, you'll attract better clients, make more profit, and tap into the unexplainable magic that comes with speed.

We entrepreneurs thrive on novelty.

We see it mostly as a positive, and in many ways it is.

Innovation is important, right?

Likely, you wouldn't have even started the business if it weren't for the innovation that drives you.

But our love of novelty, more often than not, stunts the growth of the business.

If you have even a mildly well-systemized business and a good team, you may have noticed a weird phenomenon.

When you disconnect, go on holidays, or get stuck on a project that dominates your time and focus, you come back to a business that's running even better than where you left it.

This can be jarring at first.

After all, you are the linchpin that holds it all together, right?

You are the founder. You have all the answers. THIS IS YOUR BABY, and it needs you.

Well, babies grow up...unless you stunt their growth.

The two most common ways I see entrepreneurs stunting the growth of their businesses are complexity and chaos.

Every time I've simplified my business, it's made more money. I've seen this countless times in my clients' businesses, too. Complex problems, new products, and new ideas are fun!

But here's the issue: great businesses are BORING as fuck. Once you have product-market fit, you sell the same thing to the same target market for a profit and just do it over and over and over again. Sure, you find small ways to be more efficient, have less churn, and make more profit. But it's essentially Groundhog Day.

This is impossibly difficult for most amateur entrepreneurs to handle, and they can't help but launch new products, new businesses or add unnecessary complexity. My advice here is to find the novelty you crave outside of your business. Go skydiving, mountain biking, or whatever, and let your business fund that lifestyle.

Trust me, complexity will come as a natural byproduct of your business scaling. You don't need to purposely add it in. But this scale will never happen if you keep making things more complex than it needs to be.

The second way I see entrepreneurs stunting the growth if their business is by injecting chaos into their business.

I've been an entrepreneur for most of my working life, but for the short period of time that I did work for someone else, I remember an acronym we coined for times when the business owner was in the mood for chaos — BWI (boss with ideas).

Everything would be humming along smoothly then BWI would burst in and create chaos. Usually, it was some harebrained idea that had no hope of working. We'd try tactfully explaining some of the finer details, but BWI would have none of it. We'd have to divert time, money, and resources to a wild goose chase. It was soul-crushing.

The worst was when BWI came back from an industry trade show. "Right guys, we're switching to XYZ database system - it's amazing!" We'd all look at each other and know that the next few weeks were going to be a pain in the ass — until BWI got distracted with some other shiny new object.

There's no place for drama in a business.

It SHOULD be boring.

It should be everyone getting along and getting shit done.

That doesn't mean there is no place for innovation or change, but these should be carefully considered rather than a product of drive-by management and your personal need for novelty.

Ever since my experience on the other side of the table, I have tried to ensure that I'm not BWI.

I'm sure I don't always succeed, but it is top of mind.

Wishing you a BORING business.

The other day, I was on a strategy call with a potential customer. Let's call him Jim.

He'd paid a marketing agency a ton of money to give him a slick-looking website that essentially said nothing. You know the type — lots of images of perfectly diverse groups of people smiling and high-fiving each other.

It didn't establish his credibility or cement his authority. It didn't tell me what he did, who he worked with, or how it would make their lives better.

And this wasn't the first time a marketing agency had failed him.

"We've worked with so many different marketing people over the years. They all seem to say the same thing. Keep posting stuff on social media. But they don't really know what we do, and this means we're not talking to our customers."

That's why I told him to bring his marketing in-house and do less stuff.

Peter Drucker famously said, "Business only has two basic functions, marketing and innovation. Everything else is a cost."

It can be tempting to outsource your marketing to an agency, but consider this:

1. They'll never know your product or business as well as you do, nor care about it as much as you do. So you could waste thousands of dollars on tactics that won't work because they never took the time to understand you and figure out what makes your customers tick.
2. You're helping the agency build its intellectual property (IP). Not yours. That means every time you end the relationship with one agency and start with another. You're back to square one.
3. You're one of many clients on their books. You're one of the many clients on their books. If you're not shelling out millions of dollars on advertising, you won't be their top priority, so you probably won't get the results you deserve.
4. Most agencies earn an advertising commission, so they'll often encourage you to spend a ton of money even if it's not in your best interest.

Marketing is something you want to own because it will make your business more valuable.

When you bring your marketing in-house...

• Every dollar you spend benefits your business.
• You keep all the marketing know-how (IP) inside your business.
• You build a dedicated team whose sole focus is to make your business more successful.
• You increase the value of your business to potential investors.
• You know exactly what you do, so wouldn't that make you the best person to educate customers?

How will you start taking control of your own marketing?

Stop for a moment and think of the biggest problem in your business right now.

This probably won't take much as it's likely top of mind for you anyway.

What did you come up with?

Not enough sales? Low profits? Bad company culture? Poor-quality leads?

None of these are the actual problems. All of these are symptoms.

They're symptoms of a bad system. The problem is the system.

Eating junk food for every meal is a system. It's just not a very good one. Do this long enough, and illness will become a symptom.

Only connecting with your audience when you want to promote something is also a system. Again not a very good one. The symptom will be an unresponsive list, unsubscribes and spam complaints.

And just as good systems compound over time, so do bad systems.

While goals are great, the reality is everything you want is downstream of your systems.

Just like you, over the years I've tried just about every goal-setting strategy out there—writing them down, visualizing them down, visualizing them, sharing them with people to keep me accountable, blah, blah, blah.

None of these worked beyond the honeymoon phase.

The problem is they all mostly rely on willpower. Even if you happen to achieve them through sheer force, the gains are usually short-lived.

Here's what to do instead: Loose goals, tight systems.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, says, "The more disciplined your environment is, the less disciplined you need to be. Don't swim upstream."

In my book, Lean Marketing (page 194), I define loose goals and tight systems as follows:

"A loose goal sets the direction you want to go without being fixed on the final destination because there is no final destination. The goal is to keep playing the game and improving indefinitely. A tight system sets up your environment so it's easy to keep improving."

Every time I've ever made serious progress on anything, whether it be writing, weight-lifting, or marketing, it has been a direct result of my tight systems.

Every time I've stalled or gone backward, it has been because my system sucked.

What systems do you need to tighten?

‍

Brian Tracy said, "As I become more successful, I couldn't afford to do things I used to, like mowing the lawn."

There have been insanely productive times when I've accomplished things in the span of a few hours that generated millions of dollars of future revenue.

Conversely, there have been times where I've spent a full day on nonsense. Stuff that had zero positive impact on my business. Things like emails, pointless meetings, and admin tasks.

The more successful you become, the less you can afford to do certain things.

You'll find that team members, clients, and vendors try and pull you into meetings, ask you to put out fires, and just chit-chat.

These aren't bad in themselves, but they come at a huge opportunity cost.

We entreprenuers have what I call Superman Syndrome. There's a problem, we'll fix it. Someone needs us, we're there.

It feels good to say yes, to be needed, and to be at the center of things, but it comes at a price.

Whenever you say yes, to be needed, and to be at the center of things, but it comes at a price.

Whenever you say yes to something, you're implicitly saying no to something else.

That something else is usually the important, value-building work.

One thing that helped me refocus on what I would say yes or no to is by setting an aspirational value to an hour of my time.

I initially set it to $5,000 per hour.

So if someone requested a 30-minute meeting, I would think twice instead of just saying yes, because that meeting is going to cost me $2,500. It had better be worth at least that.

Now to be clear, I wasn't actually making $5,000 an hour at the time, but what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

If I continued wasting my time on low-value tasks, I'd never get even close to that hourly rate. Whereas if I used this hourly rate as a filter for what I said yes or no to, I'd be working on high-value things that massively improved my chances of getting there.

What will you reset your aspirational hourly rate to?