This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Brian Levenson. Brian is a leading mental performance coach and author of Shift Your Mind – 9 mental shifts to thrive in preparation and performance. Brian is the go to performance coach for top athletes and organizations around the world.

He’s worked with everyone from the NBA to the top universities and the PGA. He is a consultant for the NBA and MLS combines where they use his processes for interviewing athletes to make sure they are the best fit and to determine their mental strengths and weaknesses.

Brian has a very special talent for helping athletes, entrepreneurs, and executives prepare themselves to perform at their highest levels and I wanted to have him on to teach you how to be your best.

Twitter: @BrianLevenson

www.StrongSkills.co

When Brian graduated from college, he was a “lost puppy.” He was never one of those that knew what he wanted to do. He explored and went into sales for a couple years. One day, he had happened to have lunch a woman named Julie who worked with top athletes and organizations helping them to breakthrough in their performance. This really appealed to Brian as a big sports fan and loved helping others.

He went back to grad school for sports psychology and when he finished, he moved to DC to work alongside Julie and be mentored by her. This helped him get his business going.

Brian has become obsessed with increasing performance or as leaders learning how to open up possibilities and see the world in new and different ways. ​

Brian’s dad was an entrepreneur and entrepreneurship was in his blood, so he is pretty fearless about trying new things and constantly tests new ideas and concepts.

What does it mean to “prepare to perform?”

• There are distinctions between preparation, practice, and performance.
• Preparation is about readiness and building competence.
• Great practice blends preparation and performance.
• Performance is executing and the things you’ve done to prepare and in your practice.
• You have to look at all 3 like their own disciplines in which you need to hone your skill.

What are the differences between the performance and preparation mindset?

• It takes 9 mental shifts that have to happen – backed science and evidence.
• Here are a few…
  • Humble in preparation and arrogant in performance
  • Perfectionistic in preparation and adaptable in performance
  • Work in preparation and play in performance.
• The shifts provide a framework for how to show up.
• To apply this is takes awareness and intention.
• You have to be aware and focused in which mindset you are in and at what times.
• Once you realize this, you then practice, practice, practice…

Can you share more of the mental shifts and what do people need to be “aware of” to maximize their preparation and maximize their performance?

• Future focused in preparation and present focused in performance.
• Using analysis in preparation and relying on instinct in performance.
• Experimenting in preparation and trusting process in performance.
• Being uncomfortable in preparation and stepping into comfort when performing.
• Leveraging fear in preparation and being fearless in performance.
• Being selfish in preparation and selfless in performance.
• Even though these seem counter-intuitive, they are what help people consistently perform at the highest levels and they are reality.
• You need to get clear on what you need to do to be your best and shift your mind.

At the 12 min mark, Brian gives examples.

“It is way easier to be mediocre, than to do the hard work on yourself and confront who you are and decide who you want to be.”

How do people truly breakthrough when it comes to maximizing their performance? What does it take?

• Useful self-talk is more important than positive self-talk. Accept reality.
• Positivity is a loaded term, like balance. Balance is a myth.
• Don’t put pressure on yourself to be “positive” in your self-talk, but to make sure it is “useful” instead.
• Learn to love the phrase, “Up until now…” because you can change what happens next. You have a choice to move forward from now into what you want for the future, the way you want.

At the 18 min mark, we discuss this in more detail… Tell us about the Strong Skills Model…

• Strong Skills are 12 Competencies that can help people and organizations thrive
  • Mission
  • Vision
  • Philosophy
  • Diversity, equity, inclusion
  • Ethics
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Positive Psychology
  • Decision Making
  • Mindshifts
  • Teamwork
  • Leadership
• Believe in the power of “And”

What are some of the biggest challenges you are seeing and helping to solve with Strong Skills?

• Right now, it is diversity, equity, and inclusion with what is happening in our world.
• In the past, it was just checking a box for most organizations to say they did it, and that is not the case any longer.
• Teaching people to work from the inside out and have the hard conversations.
• It’s time to run toward things than away from them.

From an entrepreneur standpoint, what have you found in your work about self-awareness?

• It’s amazing at how the body actually impacts our behavior. It’s called Somatics.
• By creating awareness and understand of your body’s actions or reactions to emotions or ways of feeling, you can recognize it and manage it better.
• This is where emotional intelligence links with self-awareness.
• We can prime our thoughts and feelings to happen a certain way, but we cannot always control them. This is why Self-awareness and Somatics come in to help us recognize and redirect them.

Pick 1 or 2 mental shifts that you think are most important for entrepreneurs and explain in more detail…

• There is a distinction between reacting and responding.
• Experimenting in preparation. As an entrepreneur, you need to experiment – but there is also a time to trust the process and move forward. Good entrepreneurs walk this line well.
• Trust and belief in your process and ability to succeed is another important piece for entrepreneurs.
• Give yourself space to experiment, but also trust your process.

What are the 3 C’s?

• Consistency
• Control
• Confidence

Anything else?

• Forget balance – focus on integrating things and being integrated throughout your life and work.
• We also need to learn to be where our feet are.
• It is also important to focus on the performance mindset and learn what that means for you.

Best Quote: “It is way easier to be mediocre, than to do the hard work on yourself and confront who you are and decide who you want to be."

Brian's Misfit 3:

1. Take care of your marriage first and your kids second. Selfish first, then selfless.
2. Self-determination theory: Autonomy. Confidence. Relatedness.
3. Have conviction but be passionately curious.

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This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Ben Sturgill. Ben is your quintessential pro-athlete turned entrepreneur. And I have had the pleasure to get to know him well over the last year as he is one of the traders alongside me at Raging Bull, an elite trading education company.

Ben played basketball in college and went on to play pro overseas, but knew that he needed to prepare for life after basketball – so he became an entrepreneur and since retiring from basketball has grown and sold businesses in software, real estate, and the event space.

Along the way, he started trading and investing in the markets and found he had a knack for it and today he’s a pro that trades full time and helps others throughout the world to create financial success through trading.

I’m excited to talk to him about his journey and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

https://ragingbull.com/experts/

www.Dailydeposits.com

www.IPOPayday.com

Ben grew up in a home where money was tight and from a young age, he knew he had to work to get what he wanted. He started hustling as a kid. But, it was a baseball raffle ticket sale that really exposed him to entrepreneurship and the concept of leverage. At the age of 10, he went around his neighborhood figuring out how to sell more and more of the tickets and in the span of a few weeks he made $300. This opened his eyes to the potential out there.

He was then given the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki from a mentor that had learned to invest and build wealth in the stock market on a teacher’s salary and were very wealthy. Learning from the book began his journey on learning about money.

Ben learned to look for what the greatest opportunity for him and when he grew 6 inches in one year and had a knack for basketball, he went all in on the sport. But, he still had his knack for entrepreneurship and kept learning as he career blossomed. He even started a Gumball machine business in college just practice having a small business.

After graduating college, he got the opportunity to play pro basketball overseas. Now that he was just playing basketball, he had more time to study entrepreneurship and investing in the markets. When he retired, he started a software company, a real estate company, and an event rental company. He sold the businesses and used the capital to start trading the markets full time and put more time into his family.

What other lessons did you learn from your early mentors?

• The power of compound interest and what the value of money invested can do over time. Having your money make money for you.
• How to look at money in general. Money is an emotional thing. The difference is the means and the end. When you focus on adding value, the means, the money will come. ​

Did you have any mentors in your basketball career that taught you things that translated well to your entrepreneur life?

• “Play the next play.”
• It is easy to get hung up on mistakes or let them define us or keep us from moving forward. We cannot. We need to learn, move on and play the next play.

What does it take to turn pro or become a pro-athlete?

• You have to be fortunate.
• A coach that believes in you.
• A team that is supportive.
• A scout that is supportive.
• You have to work hard in the gym and in enhancing your skills.
• At every level the game speeds up and you have to prove you are worthy of being there.
• At the 20 min mark, Ben shares the story of being dominated by Okufor from UCONN.
• He had to answer the question of “Do I deserve to be there? Am I one of the best players on the court?” You have to believe it and then go out and prove it.
• In the pros, it is not just about winning. It is a business and the players have to hit their numbers per their contract.
• You have to learn humbly, but affirmatively that you are one of the best players on the court.
• Once you have that mentally and have the edge, the fear goes away.

What was the best thing about turning from pro-athlete to entrepreneur? The worst?

• When you put in the years to be a pro and are paid and recognized accordingly at the top level for everything you’ve done, one of the hardest things is starting over.
• In starting over, you aren’t that good and make hard mistakes.
• You are back at the very bottom and have to rebuild the foundation. It’s challenging.
• The flipside that is great about entrepreneurship is that you gain more control. In some ways, it is going from a team sport to an individual sport.
• It gives freedom and the ability to create.

Let’s talk about trading…Tell us about how you trade the markets and how you’ve created your business.

• Money is an emotional subject and to trade, you must master your emotions.
• You must be disciplined. You must plan your trade and trade your plan.
• It takes a systematic approach and problem solving to do it well.
• Every day in the market is different, but the discipline and edge that you use for yourself is critical to maintaining success.
• It is a job like any other job – some days are good, other are bad. You must continuously learn and get better.

Give us an example…

• Ben trades the SPY index daily.
• He day trades it.
• It is very easy to trade an option on the index, but making a profit is the hard part.
• Sometimes, he is in for as little as 10 mins.
• The discipline is critical to winning – and keeping emotions at bay to take his profits or know when to let things go and not get too greedy.
• He’s able to do this because he has watched the SPY for years and uses specific signals he has figured out over the years.
• To him it is like shooting a basketball each day. He won’t make them all, but if he makes more than he misses, he wins.

Thoughts on crafting a winning mindset?

• We are psychosomatic beings. We have our head and body, and then our emotions.
• The key to crafting a winning mindset is to be very self aware of ourselves and emotions.
• You must be self-aware about how you are, what you hang-ups are, your strengths, weaknesses – the things that can sabotage of you.
• In order to craft a wining mindset, you must understand these things and learn to change or control them better.
• If you don’t know, ask those around you for feedback so you can grow.

What advice would you give to a new trader?

• Be prepared for the journey. It is going to take time to grow and learn and get used to.
• Be prepared to practice. Paper trade to start (broker accounts will let you trade with a fake money account).
• Find your setup and your niche. It has to fit YOU.
• Find what you do well.
•  

Best Quote: We are psychosomatic beings. The key to crafting a winning mindset is to be very self aware of ourselves and emotions. You must be self-aware about how you are, what you hang-ups are, your strengths, weaknesses – the things that can sabotage of you.

Ben's Misfit 3:

1. Potential. We need to understand what the greatest potential is in our lives. To find fulfillment in our lives is to find our greatest potential – what we were made for.
2. Problem. Solving problems is the most valuable thing that anyone wants. When someone has a problem, it brings them and you great joy to solve it for them. And the more problems you can solve for more people, the bigger your business.
3. People. People work with you because they like you and they trust you. People will do business with you because they like and trust you and know you will deliver for them.

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This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Marek Zymslowski (mis lof ski). So, how do I describe Marek? Well, I start of by reading the title of his best-selling book, Chasing Black Unicorns: How Building the Amazon of Africa Put Me on Interpol’s Most Wanted List. Now, if that is not enough to interest you in hearing his story, here’s a little more…

Marek is basically Indiana Jones meets Silicon Valley. Marek is one of Poland’s most respected internet entrepreneurs having started numerous internet business in Europe and since that wasn’t enough, he went to Africa and built Africa’s biggest hotel booking portal, Jumia, which is now listed on the NYSE. He is ranked as one of top 10 most important people in Tech in Africa and a lead mentor at Google’s Launchpad and the World Bank’s XL Africa program.

And of course, he somehow became one of Interpol’s most wanted. His journey is filled with incredible lessons that we all can use in our lives and businesses.

www.ChasingBlackUnicorns.com

Marek’s life has a few different parts. First is the Polish part. His mother was teacher and father was a soldier. He started his career in the early 2000’s and became a millionaire – and then lost everything in 2008. He was in the finance space and described it almost like Wolf of Wall Street.

He then went into another startup and was able to build things back up and pay off his debt. He was in early stage online businesses in Poland. As Poland got more mature and the online space began to get more saturated, he decided to look for the next frontier that needed developed out – and that is where Africa came in. He moved to Nigeria and began to build new online businesses including the African version of Amazon and Booking.com type businesses.

He’s been in Africa 8 years and was able to IPO one of the companies. It has been for the most part positive, except for an extortion attempt to take over his company which got him on the Interpol list.

At this point, with everything you’ve been through, what is your most important lesson learned?

• Do not make decisions too quickly.
• Building a business that moves fast doesn’t mean you have to make bad, emotional decisions to do so.
• All of the problems, Marek has gotten into in his life, it was always Marek making bad decisions without taking the time to think them through.

At the 12 min mark, Marek talks about the journey to go to Africa and start a business…

• Marek thrives on chaos.
• He likes to create markets or bring mature type markets to immature economies.
• He got in with an e-commerce company that was expanding and he landed in Nigeria – he was the right man at the right time.
• Marek saw it as a great learning experience.
• Africa is full of extremes – areas of huge poverty and then huge areas of wealth and opportunity.
• 85% or people in Africa live day by day, but the middle class is doubling in size every 10 years.
• Places like Lagos are not beginning to look like Dubai.
• Africa is extremely diverse in countries, tribes, languages and size.
• It is an amazing market for business opportunities – but it is high risk, high reward.

What should we know about doing business in Africa?

• It reminds him of Poland in the 90’s.
• When you come from the western world, you don’t realize how lucky you are and things you take for granted every day, don’t exist. That also brings opportunity.
• The challenges you have to overcome are different.
• Thinks like infrastructure and banking are almost non-existent on a large scale.
• There is lack of electricity and water infrastructure. Marek had to get used to having power for his business about 5 hours a day and had to get his own generators, satellite links for internet and backup things to run the business.
• The legal system is based on the British system, so it is easier to understand, but the challenge is the rules being followed. There is a lot of corruption.
• Competition will try to bring you down, not by doing things in the free market, but instead using bribery and corrupt tactics with police and government to stop you.
• Corruption is part of running a business in an emerging country.
• You have to understand the tribal culture and local traditions and how they influence the customer.

At the 28 min mark, Marek shares the story of how he got on the Interpol most wanted list…

• Choose partners wisely
• Fight for what you believe in
• Don’t give up or give in.

What is your process for starting and building a business?

• You must be excited about something
• You will be excited about a lot of things, so write them down.
• Then narrow them down from there to get to the best one.
• In the conceptual stage, work with many ideas and understand the problems as there will be even more when you go to the execution stage.
• If you are good at something, you will end up making money at it.

Are there any trends people should be watching in business?

Online business in sub-Saharan Africa.

Renewables, specifically, solar energy. There is a lot of mega trends and solar is one of them.

Look outside your own borders.

Thoughts on opportunities as the world re-opens from the virus?

• The virus has not changed the trends as much as it accelerated them.
• Stay within your sector as there are most likely a ton of opportunities.
• Your speed in which you adapt is key to succeeding at higher levels. ​

What has surprised you most about entrepreneurship?

• Marek never expected that he would have to deal with rejection so frequently.
• And more importantly, learning to overcome that rejection and not let it affect you daily.

Best Quote: Building a business that moves fast doesn’t mean you have to make bad, emotional decisions to do so...

Marek's Misfit 3:

1. Treat your body as the most important organization you are responsible for. Just like you constantly watch your business and take care of it – you should do the same for your body.
2. Mistakes come from being too emotional and allowing ego to destroy you. Ego is a double-edged sword and you must learn to yield it wisely.
3. At some point, you have to stop listening to people and reading books and start acting on your own.

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Hello Misfit Nation! Welcome to another edition of "Lessons for Hannah!" In November of 2016, we introduced a new format that we are putting alongside our regular episodes called “Lessons for Hannah.” Hannah is my daughter and one of the main inspirations for the Misfit Entrepreneur. I wanted to have a place where she could go and learn from her daddy and his Misfit friends throughout her life….even after I am gone. If you haven’t listened to the first episode of "Lessons for Hannah," I urge you to as it gives some more background and tells the amazing story of how Hannah came to be in our lives.

"Lessons for Hannah" are short, very useful, and sometimes comical lessons, that I have learned which I want to share with you and give to Hannah to help in your lives. Because I want Hannah to have these for her life, I’m going to speak as though I am talking directly to her. These episodes are a lot of fun and if you think there is a lesson that we should include in these episodes, please don’t hesitate to send it over to us at support@misfitentrepreneur.com. We’d love to share it.

This week’s Lesson for Hannah

Hannah, As we are just coming off the 4th of July holiday in the U.S., I thought it would be a good time to talk to you about Liberty. Liberty is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days and many people that use it, don’t really understand its true meaning. Liberty is a very deep and important word and impacts every aspect of our lives.

The dictionary defines Liberty in multiple ways including:

• Freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
• Freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
• Freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
• Freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint

When you boil it down, Liberty means to be free to choose how you want to live in your life. But, it is also important to understand that for most of human history, we did not have Liberty. And we did not because there was always someone, a King, Lord, or a form of government that instituted control over all aspects of people’s lives. Now, I am not going to down that rabbit hole of a discussion on the history of tyranny in this episode. I’ll save that for a long conversation when you are older. But, it is important to understand and ask the question that “If for most of human history, people did not have liberty, what changed so that they could have liberty?” Well, the truthful answer is that most people around the world still do not have true liberty – even in the U.S., but we have much more than most.

When the United States was created by the founders, they understood that the world was missing true liberty and while they were certainly not perfect as no man will ever be, they set out on a great mission to create a place of true Liberty for the world. In the Declaration of Independence, they stated something that we take for granted, but was absolutely shocking and foreign at the time. The said, “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. And That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The fact that they not only stated that rights came from the creator and not from a King, Lord, or Government was enough to flip the world on its head, but even more importantly, they stated that “to secure those rights governments are instituted among men, and this is key, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

This was even crazier. Not only were rights from a creator, but it was the people, the governed, that were in control and gave consent to their leaders.

We take this for granted today. In fact, many people have never even been taught or read the few things I just stated, because it is considered normal and the denial of Liberty that was around for the majority of human existence is thought of as crazy. The founders went further when they drafted the Constitution of the United States because now they were not only saying it, but they were laying the framework for how to enshrine Liberty for the people and keep the Government essentially in check, so that it did not infringe on individual Liberty. And of course, they were smart enough and humble enough to know they were flawed, not perfect, and some things of their day could not yet be rectified in the Constitution – but they put in a process to do so where we the people could amend the Constitution. In fact, the beginning of the document states, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” More perfect, NOT perfect. They knew that it would be a work in progress.

As a side note, the form of Government they chose was a Representative Republic, not a Democracy. I know a lot of people like to call the U.S. a Democracy, but it is not. And for good reason, as every Democracy in history has failed as it devolved into mob rule. With a Democracy, all that is needed is a tiny majority, even by the slimmest of margins and then that majority would be in control and have the ability to suppress or take away the Liberty of all others – basically ruling them. How would you feel if 51% of people didn’t agree with you, so they took away all of your rights and freedoms? That is why Democracies fail as they turn into mob rule and destroy themselves. Thankfully, the United States is not one.

And one other note, the Constitution as it was written by the founders is not that of today. We have had some wonderful amendments added to the Constitution such as the abolishment of slavery, bill of rights (the first 10 amendments), and rights to vote for all, etc. But, we have also had some, in my opinion, destructive amendments such as the 17th amendment which removed one of the most important aspects of the original Constitution. In the original Constitution, Senators were to be elected by their own state legislatures. This was important because it meant that the only way they would remain a Senator is if they did what was in the best interest of their state. This also kept the states and people with the power and the Federal Government small. The 17th amendment removed that and allowed Senators to be elected by popular vote and thus ushered in a form of Democracy at the state level into our Republic that was not intended. All the Senators had to do was promise the public a bunch of stuff and they would get elected – they didn’t’ have to look out for their state anymore.

So, why am I telling you all of this? Well, up to this point, I wanted to explain how important Liberty is to everyone and share how it was given its due place in the course of human history. We have certainly seen the benefits of it in the United States and what liberty in entrepreneurship and free enterprise has done for the world. But, remember, the default state of human history is not Liberty, it is tyranny and an insatiable appetite for control and power, so our Liberty is something we must cherish and understand very well, so that we don’t willingly give it up or lose it.

Everyone must work hard to thoroughly understand Liberty and work to enshrine it for future generations. It is what creates prosperity or the opportunity for it – the ability to pursue happiness. Liberty does not and should not guarantee anything to anyone. It simply gives all us to opportunity to create the life that we want. This is the wisdom and advice the founders gave us. In fact, Benjamin Franklin was stopped on the street right after the Constitution was signed, and asked, “What type of government do we have?” He said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

The lesson I want you to learn is to understand your liberty and understand the history that led to it, so as not to repeat the fails of human history and to use your Liberty to pursue your happiness and create the life you want. We have Liberty, freedom that many people still in this world could only dream of, all around us in all aspects of life, business, and in our thinking – don’t take it for granted and use it for good. I know you will.

I love you, Daddy.

Best Quote: "Remember, the default state of human history is not Liberty, it is tyranny and an insatiable appetite for control and power, so our Liberty is something we must cherish and understand very well, so that we don’t willingly give it up or lose it."

Misfit 3:

1. Liberty is a very deep and important word and impacts every aspect of our lives. For most of human history, the human race did not have liberty. because there was always someone, a King, Lord, or a form of government that instituted control over all aspects of people’s lives.
2. The founders of the United Stated flipped the world on their head when they stated that, not only were rights from our creator, but it was the people, the governed, that were in control and gave consent to their leaders.
3. Understand your liberty and understand the history that led to it, so as not to repeat the fails of human history and to use your Liberty to pursue your happiness and create the life you want.

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This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Rylee Meek. Rylee is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of American Partners Group, the CEO of the Social Dynamic Selling System, and speaker, author and mentor.

Let me tell you why I asked Rylee to come on today. Rylee is the king of creating predictable, sustainable, and scalable selling systems. He had his teams have promoted over 25,000 events and connected over 2 million consumers with their clients.

He is one of the best people I have found to come on and teach how to create a sales growth engine for your business. And my goal today is for him to give you the blueprint to help you no matter what type of business you have or medium that you sell on. It’s a tall order, but I know Rylee is up to it.

www.RyleeMeek.com

​ www.SocialDynamicSelling.com

Rylee grew up in a small town of 1500 in South Dakota. He got his first job at 15 at a local gas station. He was making $5.15 per hour. After his first 8 hour day, he did the math and realized that there was no way he was going to make what he wanted for the things he wanted to do – so his first day was his last day. He quit and was never employed by someone again. By the time he graduated high school, he had successful business doing 6-figures per year retailing health and wellness products.

He ended up doing a number of different things and then got an opportunity to go open up an office for a business in Puerto Vallarta. He moved with his wife to seize the opportunity and within 5 months, the government shut operations down for the business. He lost all of his money in the investment. He was broke and came back to the US homeless having to sleep on his sister’s couch.

He was 24 and needed to find a good opportunity. He came across an ad on Craig’s List for an opportunity to learn to sell through dinner seminars. It was a whole new awakening for Rylee. He had always sold things 1:1 and this process was a way to sell to many at one time and better qualify your clients.

He then had to figure out what products he was going to sell. He was aware that it was normal thing for financial advisers, etc. but he saw the opportunity to do it for other larger ticket item products.

In his first 6 months of doing this, he did over $2 million in sales selling home remodeling products.

Now, a decade later he’s done it with 7 different companies in different verticals taking them to 7 and 8 figures in their first year.

He began to grow and scale and create a system to teach other businesses on how this works.

What is the #1 thing people need to understand about selling?

• If you build it, they DO NOT come.
• You can have the great product, but if nobody knows about it or you don’t have a system to take it to market, it doesn’t matter.

What are the principles of the social dynamic selling system?

• It’s called this because in any setting, there is a social dynamic happening.
• Social dynamic selling is being able to understand this and use it to your advantage in selling.
• It involves positioning as an authority and people being at an event for your expertise.
• It is creating an environment where people purchase together vs. 1:1 selling.

Take us through the steps of how the system works…

• The system (dinner seminar format) is not for everybody or every product. It needs to be a higher cost product or at least have a ladder that makes the lifetime value of a customer to higher value.
• Goal is a 3x per event. If it costs $5000 to put the event on, then you should make at least $15,000.
• You need to identify you true client avatar and what you actually sell.
• What you sell is deeper than you think. For example, you might want a drill so you can drill a hole in the wall. But, it is deeper – you really want the hole, so you can hang a family picture and make your home more comforting and warm, etc. The drill is just the vehicle to what you want, which is the benefits of the benefits of the benefits.

At the 20:50 mark, Rylee goes through an end to end example of the system with a client.

• Define the avatar.
• Know your market radius.
• Market to the ideal audience speak in terms of the benefits of the benefits.
• Direct mail still works best to get people to the event. .

At the 25 min mark, Rylee goes through the event process when onsite.

• The goal is to get people to know, like, and trust you.
• Give them something right away – Rylee typically likes to start with a salad so they don’t have to wait a long time to eat something and get grumpy.
• You have cover all areas of how people learn – auditory, visual, kinesthetic in your presentation.
• There are 6 measurables that are tracked through a full campaign and each has one goal. The only goal for the seminar is to get the 1:1 appt.

What are the key components of the presentation?

• Facts tell and stories sell. Use stories.
• You need to take people on the emotional journey of how your product or service makes a difference and helps to alleviate or avoid the pain they are having in their lives by not using the product or service.
• You are not doing the “rah-rah” rush to the back of the room.
• Your goal is to gain the right to have the following up meeting because the have interest and know, like, and trust you.
• “Nobody wants to be sold, but everybody wants to buy…”
• You must create the environment where you don’t “sell,” you give people the opportunity to buy.

At the 38 min mark, Rylee talks about “hunting vs. farming…”

• Every buying decision is an emotional decision, but it has to be backed by logic.
• Sense of urgency helps.
• The key is being able to fulfill the business when you get it.

How do you take your system and sell through a web meeting or webinar?

• You have to be very good at understanding tonality, voice inflection, and sensing where the client is at during your presentation.
• Actively listening is just as important.
• You can use the same format to drive traffic using direct mail, online campaigns, etc. driving them to a live webinar.
• On a webinar, the littlest things make a difference and your tone and mannerisms are very important.
• You also have to understand the your perspective may not be there perspective, but it is your job to understand and speak to it.
• Be curious…

7 Businesses, $100+ million, what are 1-2 lessons that you think every entrepreneur should know?

• If you build it, they don’t come. Get a good sales process.
• Bootstrap your business.
• Once you’ve got things going, find others and delegate.
• You only need your people to be 60% as good as you think you are.

Best Quote: "Nobody wants to be sold, but everybody wants to buy…"

Rylee's Misfit 3:

• Get a mentor or coach. They might 2 different people and outside sources. They will help you be accountable and help you succeed even more.
• Be intentional in whatever you do. We are all called to excellence and need to give our very best in all we do. Anything short of that is a waste.
• RPM in the morning. Read, Pray, Meditate. Your morning routine is critical.

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