Today (3/10)  is Mario Day and I’d like to celebrate it with you. This Nintendo mascot has had a profound impact on me–and not just because he looks like my dad.

Picture this: Mario is fighting with Bowser.  He picks up an ax and kills Bowser. Toad is grateful to Mario– but Mario proceeds to kill Toad, eats Toad’s corpse, and grows huge. 

Then you see Mario chasing after a horde of Koopa Troopas (giant turtles) and Goombas– murdering several of them. He uses the shell of one Koopa Troopa and wears it as a helmet. The berserk Mario proceeds to slaughter even more of Bowser’s terrified goons.

Did that story shock you? Well, that’s why the comedy channel, Dorkly, wrote it as a skit (“Mario Goes Berserk”). They knew such bloodthirsty actions were not aligned with Mario’s brand. What’s a brand, you ask?

Here’s what a brand ain’t:

• It ain’t a logo. Logos are mere symbols.  

• It ain’t the product. When people talk about  buying “this brand” or  “that  brand” they’re really talking about buying one product ,

• It ain’t the USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

A brand is nothing but the buyer’s attitude  about your company. Such a feeling is developed after a long relationship with customers. If you’re a startup founder, your focus needs to be on SALES. The customers’ gut feeling about you will grow as they continue to buy from you, hear from you, etc.

Nintendo’s brand wasn’t an overnight thing. Mario, for example,  started off as Jump Man–an antagonist in the early Donkey Kong franchise. 

As Nintendo’s relationship with its customer base changed–so did Mario’s  personality. 

So worry more about the relationship with your buyers and less about logos, color schemes, and font sizes–otherwise Mario might just eat your face.

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

You have 20 minutes left in your shift at the local Fedex office. A kindly old man comes in and asks to use the laminating machine. But the laminating machine is in the “Employees Only” section of the office—so you offer to do it for him. 

“Oh, thank you.” The kindly old man says. He hands you the photos he wants laminated. Part of you dies inside because of these photos…..

Are Pictures of this Old Dude Doing Nasty Things With Ugly Women!

Doing work for prospects has similar soul-killing consequences.

The more you try and help prospects—the less likely they are to buy. Now, I do  think you should inspire people–but that’s different than helping them.

 Or giving them  free use of your product.

If you do give them your time & resources—the prospect will appreciate it and he’ll like it. He just won’t buy from you. Instead, he’ll sign the contract with someone else.

So instead of giving away all this free stuff, try this instead: Demonstrate to the prospect that you know the problems he is going through and show a path to solving that problem. Just avoid the temptation of giving him stuff you should be charging for. Otherwise, you might laminating his naughty pictures.

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

The light of the screen glows on your face as you write: “ I’m looking for a special lady who can handle 4 minutes of riding this bucking bronco…I’ll spoon you all night long till the break of dawn…I sometimes cry after seqs…..PICS REQUIRED”.

You look over your Doublelist personal ad one last time, press send, and lean back in your chair. 

A few days pass and no response. But then–you get a message!

 It’s from a dude: “Hey man, do these ads really work?”

You cry. 

You might experience similar issues when trying to attract investors. This can be especially the case if you come from a technical background &  have scant business knowledge.

So, you might go to a pitch meeting & talk to investors about 

• Computing power price
• DevOps
• Microservices architecture
• Cloud data storage price

You might find all these things interesting. But the investors? They couldn’t care less about your microservices design!. What they want is a.) to know if you have a  product people want to buy and b.) Know that you’re  a reliable businessperson.

If your pitch to investors doesn’t answer these two questions–you’re dead in the water.

 And you ain’t spooning no one till the break of dawn….

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

Archie puked so hard into the toilet that the water splashed back into his face. He  instinctively moved away— only to finish barfing on the floor. 

“I just don’t get it”,  Archie thought as he wiped vomit from his mouth . The packaged goods startup he founded seemed to be doing great–they were growing…they were making more & more sales every month…they had high service standards… and he enjoyed working with his employees.

But then everything turned to shyte. Within a short span of 2 weeks–Archie’s teammates got sick and the company had zero workers to backfill. They had to shut down the factory for a week because the frontline employees were ill & nobody else in the company knew  how to work the machines

The customer service team had to frantically manage around 400 orders by calling & texting every customer to explain the situation. 

Archie had a yuuuge backlog of orders—and no inventory. 

A month has gone by and Archie’s company is unable to fulfill customer orders or deal with customers’ complaints.  Archie’s phone rings around the clock and for  every 60 items his company makes—customers have already ordered 180 ..

So what’s going on here? Well, Archie failed to realize that a business is more than just selling. He failed to stabilize his processes and create a “pull” system where his factory doesn’t make an unit until the customer wants it.

Hence the vomiting. These problems live as much in the software development space as they do in a factory–so you are not immune.

Luckily for you, I’m creating a system that will help you avoid the sad state of Archie.

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

Have you noticed how the internet is turning a lot of folks–including business people–into insufferable trolls?

When you think of troll, you might think of folks with these characteristics:

-Passive aggressive

-Overweight

-A poor or non-existent romantic life—OnlyFans doesn’t count, by the way.

But not every co-founder, prospect, vendor, or customer who acts like an idiot on the internet is a basement-dwelling troll. It might be that they don’t know how to act.

.For most of these folks, none of their friends/family held them accountable to act with maturity.

You’ve seen working parents allow the small screen to raise their kids for them. Who knows, you might be one of them. Kids like this grew up to be feral. At least from a “people skills” point of view…

So these aren’t bad people–they just never had the opportunity to get face-to-face feedback about their behavior. They never got the opportunity to get punched in the mouth, to quote Mike Tyson.

So if you feel like this applies to you–no worries. Just find any opportunity to speak to customers, audiences, peers etc. The closer it is to “face to face”–the better.

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

Odds are you’re as frustrated as a  gay rooster stuck in a hen-house because of all the bad advice out there.

As a startup founder, you are building something new. You don’t always have the answer to every problem that comes your way.  You’d love to get useful information— but where do you find it ?  The internet is full of vague advice and pseudo-experts. 

Here’s a tip about how to find a great mentor: See how they ask questions!

For example, does the mentor ask you “Do you want to know more about profitable coaching?” 

You can only answer yes or no  to a question like that. So there isn’t much learning going on.

But what if the mentor asked, “Tell me about what you’re interested in about mentorship and how you’d benefit from it.”  

That gives the coach much more information about what you’re thinking. It  also forces you to reflect on your own thinking.

This is why it’s so important to get a mentor who knows how to ask the right questions. But here’s the problem: Most “mentors’ working with startup founders used to be executives in the past.  These guys got to be where  they are by being good problem solvers… having the answers….making quick decisions. 

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that IF the mentor is  going to take ownership for everything going on in your business. But that ain’t going to happen. So, you need to take a different approach.

Helpful mentorship is all about supporting you to transform into a better problem solver. It’s starting with a simple–yet potent–question…

A question that I’ve used whenever I see executives, software engineering managers, architects, startup founders, and even doctors  rush to a solution.

This question–and the entire system of profitable thinking I’m building–is something that I’d like to share with you very soon.

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

In a mostly African-American neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama, a group of residents thought they saw a leprechaun in a tree and soon formed a mob of leprechaun hunters.

Their goal: To get “da gold”!

One woman–during an interview with a local news station –put forth this hypothesis about the leprechaun: “Could be a crackhead…he got hold of the wrong stuff…and they told him to get up on that tree and play a leprechaun.”

As you can imagine–this created a media circus. But here’s the thing……

The folks in the neighborhood were trolling the media. The “leprechaun” was just a local dude called “Midget Shawn.” He wanted to have some fun–so he wore green and was fooling around on a tree. The locals decided to join in the fun and acted like there was a leprechaun in their midst.

But then some other people–maybe some Karens–called the media and police over a large gathering of black people. So the locals decided to lean into the act and really dial up the jive turkey behavior.

What’s the lesson from all this? Not much–except that this is a great case study to lean into the stereotypes that your haters throw at you & and be as entertaining as possible.

There’s no branding secret stronger than that…

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

Your friend is on an operating table. He was hit by a drunk driver. 

He now has a stump that used to be his forearm. You pray the Emergency Room doctor stops the bleeding.

He doesn’t.

Your friend bleeds out and dies.

You go up to the Emergency Room doctor–who is now getting ready to leave– and demand to know why he let your friend die.

The ER doctor picks up his golf clubs and says, “Your friend needed to hustle more, bro.” 

Now you find yourself in a jail cell. Apparently beating a doctor with his own premium golf clubs is illegal.

Here’s the thing: ER doctors take responsibility for patients’ problems because patients cannot.

So it makes sense that we expect the doctors to behave in a certain way. If they don’t, there are consequences. 

The problem is that online gurus who brag about saving people’s lives pretend they are just like the ER doctors.  But what I want you to understand is that business  gurus take no responsibility.  If you get some success from buying  their webinar, course, or mastermind—they’ll take credit for your win.

 But if you lose—they’ll still blame you and your poor “mindset”. 

So how do you tell who is a toxic guru? A good way  to find out is how they make their money and what they promote.

If they sell weekends where you can play pretend Navy Seal and be transformed into a manly man–red flag.

If they sell a “War Room” that “taps into a network to 40x your business”–red flag. 

At the end of the day, the only person responsible for your business is YOU.

I offer services and create products to help folks like you. But I also understand that YOU are the hero of your story, not me.

So tell me: What bizarre business guru stories have you experienced?

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

You’re in the gym…killing yourself to lose that gut & build them muscles.

You see this massive “gym bro” curling 75 pound dumbbells –in each hand– for 30 reps.

His veins are popping. His sweat is splattering on the floor. He gives a great warcry with each repetition.

You are awed. You recall how you tried to lift weights half as heavy as this guy–only to end up & peeing yourself in the gym after sneezing.

You know this man. He’s a fitness influencer online. You wish you could be like him.

The problem? You’re friends with Mr. Muscle Man and you know a secret–he’s using steroids!

Experts estimate at least half of fitness influencers use steroids in secret.

Why does Mr. Muscle Man do this? Because he knows that although results come from hard training and a clean diet—-it’s the steroids that help him grow muscle faster and recover more quickly.

You tell him, “Bro, don’t you know that steroids can cause permanent infertility, increase the risk of heart attack, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and liver damage?”

Muscle Man takes a rare break from admiring himself in the mirror to respond: “Can’t stop, wont stop, baby…. Folks follow me online because they see how JACKED I am….if I stop, my sales take a nosedive.”

You sigh and go back to your StairMaster routine.

I mention this story because I don’t want you to follow the “‘roided-up “ influencers of the startup world.

You want to grow? Then follow the tried and proven principles of performance marketing. If someone comes to you selling a tool or technique to grow your business–don’t just take what they say at face value.

Pay close attention to how THEY are making money and growing their business.

That’ll teach you much more about the true keys to their success than whatever product they’re pitching you.

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/

If you’re a startup founder, odds are you at least thought about quitting your job to create a business that earns LESS money with MORE work.

You might be tempted to trade your 9-5 for a 24/7 in some cases.

I want you to avoid this situation like the plague. But first, you need to see if you’re making either of these 2 yuuuuge mistakes–and stop immediately.

-Are you vomiting out LinkedIn posts about how 9-5s are toxic & how making 69% less money by yourself is better?

-Do you have a spending habit masquerading as a business ?  To be more precise, do you  have a gambling habit where you think you’re just one hit away from riches ?

Like I said, if you’re doing any of these two actions–it’s time to cease and desist.

Let your competitors fall into these holes. It’ll be like natural selection–the dumb die & and the adaptable live.

Instead of quitting your job with zero experience, network or resources.

Consider this: the average age for first-time entrepreneurs is around 40 years old . Sure, you can make it younger– but there’s a difference between having skills, network, resources & experience vs not having them at the beginning.

Do the smart thing and build something on the side while doing your day job. You can consider quitting your job once your side hustle exceeds your 9-5 income

It’s common sense—but common sense ain’t that common anymore. 

I’m creating a system for folks like you to give you the principles, strategies and tactics to leave your 9-5–without falling into the two holes I mentioned above.  

Stay tuned, my friend.

P.S. Want to save a ton of time and make a lot of money? Then get my Business Baroque system for FREE and turn your ideas into cash-generating assets. Get it here: https://powerpersuasion.net/