What do President Obama, Jimmy Fallon, and Spongebob Squarepants Have In Common?

The answer to the cryptic title of this post is: They are all included in the video below… but more importantly, there are business and life related tips, hacks and stories that will show you:

  • Why “working harder” isn’t great advice, and might actually do more harm than good,
  • Why most of your competition are targeting low-hanging fruit, and how to feast from the top of the tree…. alone,
  • How to achieve the seemingly impossible, over and over again.

I originally planned on writing a nice, long, article to share all of this… then I remembered that I already gave a 15 minute presentation sharing all of this and more.

So let’s start off with that short video, and then I will add some additional thoughts, ideas and suggestions to help you get even more out of it:

Hopefully you got some ah-ha moments from that video, and perhaps a chuckle or two?

So let’s look at this in a little more detail…

Which of the following would you rather do:

  • a) A 30 minute phone call to possibly get a $1000 client
  • b) A 30 minute phone call to possibly get 100 x $1000 clients?

The answer of course is B… yet almost all business owners choose A over and over again.

Let’s use a specific example:

Let’s pretend you are a business owner that sells local business services, you call up a local business, and spend 30 minutes trying to convince them to purchase your services to grow their business.

This is a fairly common business activity.

Best case scenario from this time and effort is you get the customer, and perhaps, if you are very lucky, will get a referral or two.

But everyone does this… the business owner probably gets pitched every single day!

So let’s aim higher, instead, let’s pitch a local business agency that sells a related, but not competing service to businesses. If we spent those 30 minutes pitching them instead, then they could resell your services to their existing and future clients in exchange for a referral fee.

Best case scenario from the EXACT same time and effort would be potentially hundreds of new clients.

Here is where people mess up… they assume that the second option would be vastly more difficult, and much less likely to happen.

The reality is often the opposite.

You see, an agency may get a pitch like this a handful of times per year, and chances are, they may have NEVER received a pitch from someone selling your services… it likely never even crossed their mind.

Whereas your local business owner is getting pitched numerous times per day.

So really ask yourself, is option B really that much more difficult?

No, not at all.

The business owner would be required to invest thousands of dollars, the agency owner wouldn’t need to spend a cent. It is just an illusion of the mind to assume that higher rewards = more complex, unlikely, or time consuming.

I call this the “Up Your Level” principle.

This is a little nerdy… but when you are browsing through your PC, you can click to go up to the next highest level.

You should do the same when it comes to your business, especially when you are selling or asking for something.

Here are some “Up One Level” examples I have seen recently:

  • Instead of asking someone to be an affiliate, I have seen people ask them to mail their affiliate database and invite ALL of those affiliates too. (this happens more often than you would expect)
  • Instead of asking your local newspaper to write a story about your business, why not ask a national magazine or newspaper? Same effort, much bigger reward.
  • Instead of asking a store to stock your product, why not ask a distributor? What about the companies that communicate with ALL distributors?

Of course, you will need to provide value in all of these instances, that goes without saying… but if you are going to step up to the plate, why not swing for the fences?

Remember, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get”, and the great thing about all of this is just one deal could change your life and business. What’s more, there is zero risk… if you don’t ask, then it is a “no” by default.

Dean