From the Vault: These Are the Frameworks Every Entrepreneur Should Learn

and the day you understand this framework is the day you basically know marketing if you're considering going to business school to learn marketing let me see save you two years and about two hundred thousand dollars it's just one diagram i feel like got rude to where to know why i could be what i want to from at all in it like a day's off on a road less travel never looking back hey guys this is producer ben sam has been in europe sean has been in hawaii and so we are going into the vault this week for an episode we dipped way back into the vault is from a couple years ago and as sean laying out some of his favorite frameworks favorite ways to think about entrepreneurship and and how to start and run a business and i thought it was really valuable and because one of our early early episodes it has very few downloads compared to what we get now so over ninety percent of you haven't listened to this before so we thought it'd be good to to res share it so check it out sean's favorite frameworks hey guys sean here gonna try something different for this episode this is gonna be ten of my favorite frameworks as you guys know i am the the framework done the framework king the the prints of frameworks and really just a nerd about frameworks and so over the over the years i've tried to take all the lessons i learned building businesses and turn them into little nuggets that i can remember little principles philosophies of frameworks whatever you wanna call it and so i put ten together and i recorded myself reading it this is like when lucky charms released the marshmallow is only version of the cereal it's just the best stuff there's four techniques four frameworks and the four best philosophies that's twelve total i hope you enjoy your to do list is killing you i used list for years and i love writing the list but as soon as i put the pen down anxiety would start and the longer my list went i it would just start collecting dust it would just serve as a guilt trip for all the stuff that i didn't do yet so even though lists feel good in the moment they're not the best way to be productive one of the problems with list is that they bury the headline in your day there's probably one or two things that are way more important than everything else if you just did those things alone your day would be a success it's that old eighty twenty rule i call that my one big thing or ob for short instead of making a list i ask myself what's the one highest impact thing i could do today take note my and i said impact not difficulty don't confuse the two and sometimes the high impacting is just a fifteen minute phone call or is that one conversation i've really been avoiding with my key person that's it and if i do my ob the rest of the day and thing else i do is just gravy on top i have zero guilt once i've done my ob it's a simple daily productivity technique that has made me way more productive and way less stressed and by the way those two things go to get and i i know what you're saying you're gonna say but but what about all those things that i need to do okay well even with an ob you sometimes have to write stuff down so you don't lose track of it but not on a list instead use what i call the power box i think other people have different names for this but i invented it for myself and so i named it for myself a power box is a imagine like an x and y axis this is a little bit easier if you just look at the diagram but i'll try to describe it on the y axis you have impact high impact on the top low impact on the bottom and from left to right you have not urgent to urgent and anytime i think of a task like let's say i need to get a haircut low impact but might be getting urgent you know depending on the situation or if it's i need to find a tax account because i gotta do my taxes in a month that's high impact and it's high urgency maybe i have a big pitch or big sales presentation i need to do high impact and if it's if it's tomorrow it's high urgency if it's two months from now i'll put it in the low urgency bucket you get the idea it's like a list but it maps every task based on what matters time sensitivity or urgency and impact and when it comes to do when a new thing comes up i just quickly triage it into one of these boxes it's very i don't know stress relieving to do that then you know where it stands you know when to when to get to it there's a powerful way to organize your day whenever i start a new project i make a kickoff dock and there's four parts to any kickoff process that i do number one i define winning number two i set my anti goals number three i back at the envelope what does it take to get there and number four i figure out how to get one hour of momentum notice what's not on this list i didn't say research or asking other people if it's a good idea worrying if it's gonna work or not or coming up with grand vision statements you know those come later let me give you a breakdown of each of those parts so defining winning i like to set clear measurable goals so you know we you you can say i want to achieve financial success and not stress out about money it's not a great goal because what is success and by when there's no time so you could also say i wanna have five million in liquid assets by the age of thirty five that's a good simple goal it's measurable it's time bound so now you can actually act against that goal the trick is to see could i fail this if you can measure it then you can fail it so how ambitious should you be with your goals should you shoot for the moon or be realistic trick question do both i like to set two goals there's a good goal like if if we hit this goal and things went well and then there's what i call the fuck goal that's pretty self explanatory some people call it a stretch goal but i prefer my lingo this is what you this is the goal if you hit it you'd be excited about it you would say fuck yeah alright profit part two setting your anti goals there's an old saying when it comes to deal making which is you pick the price i'll pick the terms basically even if you get the price you want if the terms are screwed up you'll be screwed up so let's say your dream was to become a musician and guess what you did it but while you're touring the world you gained a bunch of weight you get addicted to drugs your marriages and sham your kids don't recognize you see you you won the battle but you lost the war i stole this idea for my friend andrew wilkinson it's called setting anti goals these are the things that you don't want to happen along the way write these down so now you got your goals and you have your anti goals so step three time to back of the envelope how might i get there i'm a big fan of running quick numbers on things early on even when i have no clue how to achieve the goal doing a quick calculation we'll show you some of the options let's say i wanna make a million dollars i can make a one dollar app and sell it to a million people or it can create a hundred thousand dollar product and find ten customers the back of the envelope is meant to walk through some of the scenarios and identify which numbers seem hard to hit the ones you're worried about that becomes my focus okay that seems hard to do how can i do it how might i get there i start to brainstorm strategies to get to that number the last piece is getting one hour of momentum it's the most important step you never wanna lead the scene of a decision without taking action so i end the kick by brainstorming things that i could do in an hour not researching or planning things like can i talk to a customer right now or could i make a prototype in an hour and show that to somebody the whole process for this whole kickoff should take about one to two hours and it creates a ton of momentum give it a shot this is one of my favorite frameworks it's called big mario marketing and the day you understand this framework as the day you basically know marketing if you're considering going to business school to learn marketing let me save you two years and about two hundred thousand dollars it's just one diagram and i know you can't see it but i'll describe it so on the left side there's a little picture of mario mario when he's small and this is a you know a potential customer of yours and then the customer you know little mario's is running along and finds this eye item right the item is in this case of fire that's your product and when little mario picks up that item he becomes big mario and can shoot fireballs and kick everybody's ass right and the big mistake that most people make and these are you know smart people make this mistake is they get so obsessed with their product the thing they're building it's the company something they work on every day that when they go to tell customers about it go to market their company they talk about their product right they talk about the fire but you have to understand that people don't care about you they don't care about your fire they care about themselves they care about themselves going from little mario who's weak and can't really do anything to big mario who can run around shoot fireballs and kick everybody's ass and so i don't care what you're doing let's say you're selling breakfast bars you could tell me about the granola and the bar and the carbs and all this good stuff but instead you should tell me how this bar will save me twenty minutes in the mornings because i have a grab and go breakfast now and how i'll lose weight because you made this delicious bar with no carbs no sugar at it i repeat nobody cares about your product literally nobody even your mom your mom doesn't care about your product your mom cares about you and customers care about themselves everybody cares about their own quality of life improving so that's what you should do you should describe how their life will improve if they use a special little item of yours as the special product of yours and then you back it up with evidence and social proof and explanations for why it works so give you an example i have this thing called the all access pass it's where i blog about you know businesses that i'm starting and the reader you know little mario in this case is somebody who wants to build a successful business but sure how to do it right they have ideas but they've never really been successful as an entrepreneur floor so they're they're they're unsure and big big mario is that version of them that's confident that knows they can build a successful business somebody who's seen it firsthand how to do it and now is armed with the toolkit of tactics and a blueprint that they can follow to be successful that's what i provide i give you a way to go from unsure to confident and you're confident because i showed you how i did it and i give you tools and i give you tactics and a blueprint to follow that's it now you know marketing so i have a little playbook that i used to get un stuck it happens right you get stuck you have a setback you face an obstacle you hit a wall we have all these words for this it's just you trying to move forward and it's not easy and it i could feel draining i call these plateau and and when you're in a plateau you feel stuck when i was younger i used to over react to these types of situations i would hit a plateau and i would just feel worthless like why can't i make this work and then i moved to silicon valley and i got on twitter and now everywhere i look i just saw people you know crushing it and it made me feel even more worthless i've learned that there are three ways to handle plateau i learned this from tony robbins he says you can be number one a dabble a dabble hits a plateau and gives up moves on to the next one right dabble in this a dabble in that the second type is what you'll encounter what i encountered a lot of at work or i went to a good diversity and these are called stress achieve so a stress hits a plateau get stressed check some coffee loses some sleeve sleep and tries to plow through it they try to work their way to the bone to try to make it work this is the person cram for an exam it works but it's painful you're not gonna enjoy the journey you're not even really gonna enjoy the destination because you'll be so worn out by the time you get there the last option is a master and a master hits a plateau and it greet him like an old friend right a master says mister plateau i thought i'd be seeing you soon because a master knows that plateau are inevitable there are part of the growth process why would you stress over the inevitable that's like stressing out every time the sun goes down each day so if you're trying to grow you know plateau are gonna happen so a master creates a playbook or a recipe for how to break and i'll tell you mine so step one of the plateau breakthrough recipe first relax plateau are always as a part of any growth process is a normal number two get in the right state of mind you know you make better decisions i know i do i make better decisions and i'm more creative when i'm feeling loose when i'm feeling confident when i'm feeling happy and when i'm frustrated or tired or stressed i make bad decisions just that simple so how do i change my mental state how do i change my state of mind i use the three m's music which is easy put on music and you're already you'll start to your foot start tap and you'll start to feel a little different movement it this is a big one a lot of people try to change the way they feel through their brain and that's like you know trying to open up a door you know using your fingernails rather than the key it's a very painful slow way to do it so movement is a faster way to change your mindset you could do push ups you can go do some wind sprints you can swim you could do jumping jacks two to five minutes of any kind of high intensity movement physical movement and you will change the way you feel you could even just do a quick ice plunger you know splash some cold water interface it will change the way you feel and the last one now we go into the head is meaning it's putting a different meaning on what's going on so instead of thinking shit this isn't working you reframe it right maybe you reframe it as alright this is an opportunity to try something new or okay this is a signal that's pushing me i gotta get more creative to solve this or alright let me roll up my sleeves this is a chance to sharpen up my skills and learn more it sounds a little corny but the meaning you give something will totally change your response to it when you think you're getting screwed you'll get angry when you think you're being challenged or tested you might rise up if you think the world is giving you an opportunity you will approach that situation in a very different way my favorite one of all is no matter how bad it gets i say this is gonna make for a hell of a story later and just putting that meeting of this is a hell of a story in the making changes my own experience in two minutes i can change my state of mind and when i'm in the right state i start asking questions i don't look for answers i ask questions i say what does the data tell me that's happening what's the evidence what is the evidence telling me number two i'll say what's the stupidly obvious thing i haven't tried yet or what would a friend or mentor of mine do in this situation right what would somebody who's awesome do another question is what's a twenty percent tweak i could make what's a little change that would make a hundred percent of a difference another one is who's already successfully doing this and what the heck are they doing differently than what i'm doing lastly who are three smart people i could talk to on the phone to help me solve this as a little sidebar the name i use is sue my friend su is probably the best entrepreneur right now and so i always ask what sue do i've never seen him stay stuck for long he's always positive always thinking he's always taking massive action and finding a way to win in fact he literally text me in the morning about five times a month just saying let's win win win today all caps win win win i don't even know what he's talking about he doesn't even know what i'm working on that's just his mindset so whenever i get stuck i start to feel that energy draining out of me i think what would su do and just asking that question makes me twenty percent more creative and determined to win you don't even have to know the guy just ask yourself that question okay the final step of getting un stuck patience i'm an impatient motherfucker in general right i used to take pride in that i are you patient who wants to be patient patient people just wait around doing nothing all day i'm not patient i take action you see i viewed action taking and patience as opposites but then one day like you know the modern day buddha that i am i figured it out i got wise and i said okay i need to be patient with action and patient with results i'll say that again slower this time impatient with action patient with results this is the yin and yang of entrepreneurship follow this and you will win win when like su says it's just a matter of time building an audience first you know my audience is like steroids if i was you and i was somebody who watches me do what i do i would think i would think man this guy he's able to do all this because of his audience it makes everything easier when i don't know something i asked twitter when i wanna to spread the word i mentioned it on my podcast having an audience gives you optional to build many future businesses when i started my podcast i had no idea would be doing other businesses based off that i raised a a startup up fund from listeners i created a paid newsletter that makes tons of money and i i could have never seen that going but once i created this audience had all these options and that's with my teeny tiny audience imagine if i was actually famous you know i i can't even imagine how easy it is for joe rogan or neville or kylie jenner or you know these youtubers to launch new projects or the problem solved they they could snap their fingers they could tweet something out and people would come out of the wood work to help them get where they wanna go it took me one year to build my audience and that was in my spare time if i had focused i think i could have done it about half the time if you don't know where what to you know exactly what you wanna build or what company you wanna start i recommend building an audience first building an audience in a topic area that you care about or you know building an audience of a group people that you know really well that can be a great place to start and it can give you options when you do think of a killer idea you can start with a newsletter or a podcast or a youtube channel whatever medium is fun for you because if this stuff takes time it's not easy and you don't get instant results so it's gotta be fun you have to enjoy creating the content now how do you actually build that audience that's a topic for another day and all news is good news there's two big mistakes that i've seen founders make and i've learned not to make these mistakes anymore i make some new ones but i don't make these ones anymore the first is that bad news demo them and even worse is the second one because bad news demo lies them they therefore subconsciously avoid looking in places where there might be bad news which sometimes might be your company bank account or the metrics dashboard or going out and talking to customers but for us all news is good news if i'm working on something and its works good news it worked if i'm doing something and it's not working good news i learned something i learned something from this i try to always create a culture where i want to see the data whether it's good bad or ugly and the way to do that is to make it so that all news is good news this creates a habit where people start to seek out the truth to go look for the data they go try to talk to customers and see what they'll say because no matter what happens we're gonna celebrate the finding when the news is bad we don't panic or get demo we focus on the learning what this result teach us that sounds obvious right this is a lesson i could teach a third grader so why did i put this as such a big takeaway because in my experience ninety eight percent of founders don't operate this way they ride an emotional roller coaster based on good or bad news you don't have to ride that roller coaster your entrepreneurial life will be more fun and more successful if you just adopt the mantra all news is good news work like a lion not a cow i stole this from dev i heard it and i loved it today we are trained to work like cows cows stand on a field all day slowly chewing weak and low nutrient grass every day the same thing at the same slow pace and this is how we're trained to work right nine to five monday through friday fifty weeks in the year go to work instead we should work like a lot in a lion sits weights observe looks for it to pray and when it sees it then they sprint hunt and catch it then they eat they enjoy they celebrate and they hunt as a pack and then they rest they relax and they wait for the next juicy pray this is how winners work it's high intensity and it's focused on the high value projects the juicy pray and then there's frequent breaks to rest and recover you're not just grinding all day you're not just standing their working all day your boss may not like this but this is the way that winners work work like a lion not a cow we don't sell saddle here have you ever heard the memo that the ceo of slack you know eighteen billion dollar company he sent his employees before they launched if you haven't you should check it out it's called we don't sell saddle here go that shit and come back to must but i'll i'll try to explain it in simple terms if you're operating in a new or a niche market you wanna promote the lifestyle not your product so what does that mean put let's put the diff let's put it differently let's say you're a company that makes saddle right saddle is the kind of thing you put on horse so rather than talking about how your saddle is better than the other saddle and just marketing to people who already are in the saddle market and looking at what you're looking to buy a saddle you know they may already have one and they don't wanna switch and they've never heard of your brand they've heard of some other brands instead what if you promoted the lifestyle of horseback riding to the masses instead this is why the ceo of slack explained we don't sell saddle here meaning instead of just selling their chat app they sold a dream of working without so much damn email and if you sold that lifestyle of working without email being buried in these long email threads he offered an alternative you could use this live chat app and we put this into action when we were promoting our course right we had a niche course learning how to buy businesses not many people were in that market to try to learn how to buy businesses so instead of selling the course we started promoting the badass entrepreneurs who buy businesses who have done it and built a hundred million dollar empires doing it so we ignored our saddle which is the course and instead promoted the badass cowboys who like horseback ring like cha or andrew wilkinson it worked way better people love to learn about this new lifestyle and then they start to ask alright i kinda wanna go horseback riding what saddle should i use and we were right there ready to sell a more saddle this is a tactic that we stole from bricks you know we like to say a good artist copy great artist steel that's pablo you know the big paint picasso so he used to say so like a great artist we stole this sales tactic from bricks which is a multi billion dollar startup grew really fast because they had tactics like this and we use this tactic to close about five hundred thousand dollars for our fund in two days we used it for fundraising but you can pretty much use it for any sales process that happens over email so here's the tactic in action i'll show you an example from b so you have a sales agent from b who writes an email to a client and he says you know hello client you know my chief sales officer asked that i reach out to you see below and below he has an email from the the chief sales officer saying hey check out you know the prospect name check out the prospect name they're not on brexit and i think we can help them can you start with a call to the to the you know name of the person offered to waive the credit fees and get them on the accelerated rewards list if they're open to trying us out by the end of the month it's a private email from the chief sales officer to the sales rep but the sales rep is sharing this with the client and now the the whole thing is he says you know my chief sales officer said i should reach out to you see below for context b a corporate credit card designed for companies like yours we don't require a personal guarantee we offer high credit limits and with the best rewards program available a corporate credit do you have a few minutes for a call now this is genius because a feels special it feels like you've been handpicked by someone with authority right that the chief sales officer had reached out to his own sales rep and go talk to them they look interesting it feels wrong right you you got a forwarded private email you're not even supposed to see that email so you feel like you're you're seeing something real and it's friendly all the language in these emails is transparent very friendly it's not like a normal cold email where you just feel like is a robot could be writing this so here's our version we would say hey blank blank nice to meet you sean saw that you signed up for the fund waitlist list and he wants to open up a spot for you see below i'm happy to share more details with you i'm but just so you know to invest you have to be a accredited investor and here's a link to the deck if you haven't seen it it'll walk you through all the key points give it a read and let us know if you're interested in jumping in and then you know below that there's an email from me saying hey ben i saw that blanket blank signed up and his background looks really good for the fund he helped do x y and z this is just pulled from their linkedin can you reach out to him and offer him one of the spots that just opened up in the fund now this little tactic closed about half a million dollars in two days great artists steel and keep an eye out for the great tactics that other people are using and put your own spin on it just like this one i feel like i could rule world i know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a days off on a travel never looking back