Mike is at the doctors office. He looks at the pain-scale questionnaire. He’s a bit creeped out by the pictures of pained faces printed next to the high numbers.

Mike selects his pain as a 1 or a 2 and is taken to the room to see the doctor.

The doctor looks at the smiley face Mike selected––and prescribes him oxy.

Fast forward a few months and Mike doesn’t have an ear infection anymore. Now he has something much worse–an opioid addiction!

There are thousands of folks just like Mike in this country & here’s why: the “1-10” pain scale was crafted by Purdue Pharma to sell opioids and make it easier for physicians to prescribe them

This system of scoring is pretty new. The concept of “scoring” pain and then handing out opioids based on this score was something that started around 30 years ago.

So why did Purdue Pharma come up with this idea? Was there a problem they were trying to solve for patients?

Yes. Patients complained of being in pain.

Great, we’re off to a good start….

Is there strong clinical evidence backing the idea of a subjective pain score?

Hell no! That’s purely a marketing gimmick by Purdue to profit off of peoples’ pain. As a matter of fact, Purdue came up with the idea of pain as the “5th vital sign”—they literally invented a vital sign to profit off patients!

So now doctors offices are being flooded by opioid addicts and employees faking back injuries for Workman’s Comp. No problems solved.

The takeaway here is that it ain’t enough for your product to identify a problem and establish “product/market” fit. You have to establish product/market fit AND make sure you’re taking care of your customers’ long-term interests.

Might take a bit more thinking and work now but it’ll pay dividends in the future.

As for Purdue Pharma? It had to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection–from all the lawsuits—and pay a settlement worth $8.3 billion.

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/

Today (3/15) is “National Shoe the World Day” and I want to talk about my favorite fictional shoe salesman– Al Bundy. 

Al was the star of the sitcom “Married… with Children” . He used to be an all-star high school football running back who could have earned a college football scholarship and maybe–just maybe – could have joined the  NFL. Unfortunately for Al, his dreams of football glory ended  when he impregnated Peg. 

Now, Al works at a shoe store. 

Al hates every second of his job. He entertains himself by insulting all the fat women who come into the store. Gary–his female  boss– doesn’t fire  Al because he’d make more money on unemployment and she likes to see him suffer.

In addition to his miserable job , Al  visits strip clubs, watches TV, avoids intimate relations with his wife, and is a horrible example to his kids. The guy is so hilariously  depressing he often contemplates killing himself.

So why did the audience love Al so much?  Because he was a determined sonofagun, that’s why. No scene exemplifies this more than when Al confronts a wicked librarian who calls him a loser:

“So you think I’m a loser? Just because I have a stinking job that I hate? A family that doesn’t respect me? A whole city that curses the day I was born? Well, that may mean loser to you, but let me tell you somethin’. Every morning when I wake up, I know it’s not going to get any better until I go back to sleep again. So I get up, have my watered-down Tang and still-frozen Pop-Tart, get in my car with no upholstery, no gas, and six more payments to fight traffic just for the privilege of putting cheap shoes on the cloven hooves of people like you. I’ll never play football like I thought I would. I’ll never know the touch of a beautiful woman. And I’ll never again know the joy of driving without a bag on my head! But I’m not a loser. Because despite it all, me and every other guy who will never be what he wanted to be are still out there, being what we don’t want to be 40 hours a week for life. And the fact that I haven’t put a gun in my mouth, you pudding of a woman, makes me a winner!” 

So if you’re a founder & have been grinding away for a while….

If tickets are piling up…

If you feel lost….

Know this: If Al has determination to survive—you can have the determination to thrive.

A European public health official looks you in the eye and says–with a straight face–that sugar is healthier than ham.

What would you do?

Me? I’d laugh in his face. But others–including smart business people you might know–will bow and say “Yes, master.”

Here’s the situation:

Europe’s Nutriscore—a nutritional rating system invented in France– wants you to believe that Nesquik is healthier than ham.

The main ingredient of Nesquik is sugar, by the way.

Yet the Eurocrates behind the Nutriscore system claim that 5g of fat in ham is ‘worse’ than 16.5g of sugar in a drink.

The only reason the “ low-fat” industry exists is because public health “experts” spread the lie that saturated fat is bad & demanded food companies reduce the fat in their products.

Now the West is more obese than ever.

Is it any wonder that people see public health as a pseudoscience? That’s why an increasing number of consumers sneer when they are told to “trust the experts”. They’re fed up with the “experts’” lies.

So expertise doesn’t cut it anymore when it comes to promoting yourself and making sales. You need trustworthiness as well. You need to build a relationship with the folks you’re selling to you.

So, go ahead and look out for the interests of your customers and you’ll win half the battle…

As for me, I’m off to have a turkey sandwich with mayo. I dare some skinny-fat French bureaucrat

to try and stop me.

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/

Penny was on giggling like a school girl when she came to Silicon Valley. She accepted a job as Marketing Director for a startup in the Bay Area. Penny giggled with particular gusto when she accepted a salary of $135k  with a $4 million marketing budget.

But then the shady shyte started happening.  Penny knew things were not right when her paycheck was late for the 3rd time. Sure, she started to see red flags before. Red flags such as:

• Nobody at the company could explain what their product did
• 50% of the company was H1-B visas,
•  Penny’s insubordinate employees

But her ultimate “WTF?” moment was when she discovered that several  staff had lent the CEO yuuuge sums of  cash ($50k+) from their personal savings. 

The CEO’s excuse?  He had millions of dollars tied up by the IRS. The issue would be resolved, he promised.

But here’s what made Penny regret the day she landed in Silicon Valley: The employees were getting restless and demanded their money NOW. So the CEO sent the company what he claimed were “screenshots” of wire transfer receipts for the money he owed his team.

The screenshots were poorly made photoshopped fakes. 

So now Penny is crying like a baby. 

So how do you protect yourself from a scammy startup situation? 

 1.Don’t look for shortcuts. 

Penny was attracted to a high salary and budget.  But she should have grilled the CEO on the product roadmap, market, sales figures, etc. before accepting the job. 

 2. Don’t take advantage of people.  

The company’s CEO is an example of what not to do. You might fool investors in the short term but all debts fall due eventually. You think anybody wants to do business with this guy in the future? 

Nope.

 If you have a co-founder who thinks employees only deserve to get paid when the startup starts generating revenue–run fast, baby. 

3. Don’t lie to yourself. 

 If a deal seems too good to be true–red flag. 

If a business partner is consistently not fulfilling their promises–red flag. It doesn’t matter how charismatic they are. Just walk away.

The best and most risk-free way to start a successful startup isn’t to blow smoke in the face of investors and employees.

The best way is to create and follow a system to attract–and serve–buyers with consistency. It’s not sexy but it works.

You’ll see something from me soon to help you with 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/

You’re on a special Valentine’s Day date and everything is magical: Superb lighting, fresh cut roses, and an expensive dinner.

Your lover looks at you and shares their feelings for you. They say, “You’re not the only one that I love.”

Would you tolerate something like this in romance? No, you wouldn’t.

So why would you tolerate something like this in business? I don’t want you to be one of the founders who is so needy and desperate that they’d allow prospects, VCs, and potential business partners to treat them like some sort of commodity.

But here’s the harsh truth: If you act like a commodity, you’ll be treated like a commodity.

The secret to launching and growing any successful startup is by standing out.

Standing out–not just with product features & benefits–but with marketing, sales, and customer service.

That’s what I do. I help founders stand out so they won’t have to deal with krappy Valentine’s Day dates.

I’m creating a system to do just that.

Let me know what frustrates you the most about how prospects & VCs see you.

That way, I’ll make dayum sure it’s in the system I make for you.

The British governor of colonial  India is sweltering in his office. He’s  sweating not just because it’s hot.

He’s sweating not just because he’s wearing English wool in the friggin’ Indian subcontinent.

No, our friendly British imperialist is sweating because he has a snake problem. 

His  British countrymen are trying to loot and ravish the country—but cobras keep getting in the way.

So, our enlightened Oxford-educated aristocrat has a brilliant idea. 

Pay a bounties to kill Cobras. “Brilliant, old chap!” his effeminate underlings tell him.

But here’s the problem:  Now the locals see a new business opportunity–cash for cobras.

So they proceed to breed cobras!

Now, the city of Delhi is swarmed with a flood of snakes.

The sweating doesn’t stop.

Founders fall into the same trap. They see a problem–whether it’s anemic lead generation, sluggish sales, buggy code, slow releases–and jump on a solution without understanding the problem

The result? Even less sales, more technical debt, more unhappy customers, etc.

I help founders understand the problems–and come up with a laser focused solution to solve it.

Risk-free. 

But I’m not cheap.

More to come for those who don’t want to get bitten by cobras…

The founders I talk to want to be better leaders. Makes sense–you can’t take your startup from idea to IPO without a certain level of leadership skills.

I’d say part of leadership is self-awareness. I used to be a hospital manager years ago and had to learn self-awareness the hard way.

But if I could do everything over again, I’d start out in sales. Salespeople have to develop extreme levels of self-awareness.

Imagine you’re a furniture salesperson. A man and his wife come in looking to buy a sofa. As part of your sales process, you invite the couple to take a seat.

You notice the man wearing shorts.

You notice his testicles dropping out to the side.

You now need to pitch different fabric options whilst avoiding looking at this dudes ballz.

That, my friend, is self-awareness–it’s also a true story, by the way.

Anyway, you don’t have to be in sales to develop this important skill set.

But you do need to get in a position where you’ll face consequences if you don’t have self-awareness. .

You could spend time volunteering at a homeless shelter, for example.

Heck, I used to work with one lady who taught yoga in a prison as a side gig. It was just her and the convicts in the room.

The idea is to work in any environment where you’ll get slapped–literally or figuratively–for saying or doing the wrong thing.

With that said, you don’t want to develop self-awareness at the expense of losing buyers & customers.

That’s why I’m working on launching something to help you solve that problem.

More to come…

Picture this. You’re hiding behind a tree & looking at the open plain below. Your stomach is growling from hunger.

A 100 meters away from you is a fat antelope. An antelope that should have been in your belly days ago. But you & your fellow hunters–Skrag and Grog – learned the hard way that charging down the hill trying to kill the antelope was not a good tactic 

So what do you decide to do?

Have the hunting team surround the antelope from different directions!

You are behind a tree…

Skrag is waiting by the stream…

Grog is scouting the valley floor…

Now that your group has multiple views of the situation– the  hunt is different. Now the prey is yours.

Sales and marketing in the 21st century is the same way. Your buyers process information just like our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors. 

They expect  multiple views of a topic, product, or service before being comfortable with it. 

You need to show buyers a broad, “balcony” view  and a tight close up view.

This means seamlessly showing them: 

-Features & benefits

-Stories

-Statistics

-Case studies

The list goes on. This is where the marketing expertise comes in.

I know a lot of founders don’t have this expertise–but want it.

That’s why I’m working on launching something that will help you get it–without breaking your bank.

Stay tuned, my hungry friend

The recipe to attracting buyers & investors–you are told–is to be “authentic” and “humble”.

That’s true. No arguments from me.

But the problem founders have is they post the most cringey krap to flex authenticity.

Many of them aren’t even aware of how they look–and why nobody wants to buy from them.

I’m here to ensure you don’t make the same mistake. 

So, here is a checklist I wrote to help you out. 

I call it the “The Struggling Founder’s Checklist to Humble Bragging”.

Be honest with yourself if you’re doing any of these on a regular basis. 

Do you…..

• Post on LinkedIn about the lessons you learned going from being broke to making boatloads of money?
• Talk about the struggles of bootstrapping–even if you’re a trust fund baby?
• Neglect  to mention that your “bootstrapping” was talking to your fellow Yale/Stanford/Columbia  alumni at a dinner party?
• Post on LinkedIn with book recommendations that include the works of Tim Ferris, Simon Sinek, or Tom Peters?
• Tag a bunch of  more established founders, tech gurus, and sales leaders   with your top 3-20  lessons you learned from them–and hoping they respond?
• Post about how you asked an interviewee about a gap in their work history—but gave them a job anyway?
• Write a (fake) story about how a homeless guy on the street asked you for change–but you gave him a job instead?
• Pretend that meditation and cold showers are required activities to be rich?
• Wear rosaries as accessories?

As I said, be honest with yourself. If you have a legitimate business and want to trend these hurtful tactics, I might be able to help you. 

Keep an eye on your inbox…

I recently looked into a book  by Laura Dodsworth -”A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic”- which   takes a deeper dive and more critical view  of the British government’s strange response to COVID-19.

“A State of Fear” talks about  how a collection of unelected behavioral scientists – people trained in marketing psychology–shaped the UK’s response and weaponized fear against the British public.

Sounds far-fetched? Sounds like a conspiracy theory?  Well, Ms. Dodsworth  quotes The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours report, which says : 

“A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened; it could be that they are reassured by the low death rate in their demographic group, although levels of concern may be rising.”

So what do these behavioral scientists recommend?

“The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.” 

Translation: These “Dark Side ” marketers are advising the  British government  to scare the krap out of the British public and make them more easy to control.

And here’s where I share a truth that might make you uncomfortable.

The truth is we–startup up founders, entrepreneurs, and the marketers who help them– are in the psychological manipulation  business.  

Obviously, we want to deliver real value in an ethical way.

But you need to understand that your prospects are complacent. They are in a state of inertia.

 Even if you have a product that gives them value– you’ll still need to “nudge” them to  take action. 

With that said, I do recommend reading Laura Dodsworth’s book to  better understand how people can use marketing psychology for evil. 

That way, you can use this knowledge for good.

You can get the book by  clicking the link below.

I don’t get paid diddly-squat  if you buy it or read it. 

I just want to share valuable information that can help you understand how to make more and faster sales 

You can get the book here: https∶//www.amazon.com/State-Fear-Government-Weaponised-COVID-19/dp/B095L3WHXZ