
Lessons & Ideas
By Bryan Harris
The episodes range from my personal lessons and ideas to private team meetings and recorded calls with other business leaders.
If you want to peek inside the brain and business of someone in the trenches of marketing, leadership and hiring, this podcast might be for you.

Lessons & IdeasNov 19, 2020

2 ways to lead

2007 letter from IRS

Library of Alexandria

Amazing Facebook ads?

6 ways to persuade
The big idea in the book is that persuasion is a powerful and learnable skill. It enables you to lead better and get more things done. And it is guided by 6 fundamental principles.
6 Fundamental Principles:
Liking
Reciprocity
Social Proof
Consistency
Authority
Scarcity
Book notes:
docs.google.com/document/d/15mJPrA8VCer4F-strx_fAbm13_BsNwj2Qi1o_O50iO8/edit#

3 ways to build creativity

1 per week

$100m webinar funnel

Write a 3 year vision in 90 minutes

Prevent the 3 most popular objections to buying your product
Your product most likely has one of these 3 problems:
1. Seems to complicated
2. Problem isn’t acute enough
3. Price seems too high
These 3 problems create the vast majority of buying objections that your prospects will have. And most products have 1 of if not all of these problems. In fact, some products have such strong resistance that it will all but stop buyers if they are not addressed head on.
How do you fix this?
Redefine the product.
Redefine by rearranging your prospects perspective of the product. When executed well the problem naturally dissolves.
Chapter 10 of Breakthrough Advertising covers this technique in depth. It outlines a custom tailored solution for each of these three problems.
Here is a brief rundown of how to handle each problem:
1. When the product seems too complicated?
Simplification: When the product seems too complicated or hard to use it needs to be redefined. Simplify the product by taking them from hard to easy with a few simple ideas strung together so that what seems complicated to them becomes brain dead simple and obvious.
2. When the problem isn’t acute for enough people?
Escalation: When the problem is not important enough or appeals to too small of a market it needs to be redefined. Escalate it’s importance with one of these 3 approaches: a) shifting to higher level area of their life b) showing how something else they want depends on it c) show how they’ll really need to use it more often than they think.
3. When the price seems too high compared to the alternatives?
Price Reduction: When the problem is that the product costs too much.compared to typical alternatives the product needs to be redefined. “Reduce” the price in your prospects eyes by one of 2 methods a) show the cost of not fixing problem b) change the comparison to another class of product.
In this episode I’ll walk you through 3 Facebook ads that show these techniques in action:

Our mission

20 weeks in a row

8.5# lost in 16 days

Magic of SpaceX

What worked 6mo ago?

3 marketing wins from Q2

Better question = $1m+

How to write a FB ad like Eugene Schwartz
1. Who is your best fit client?
2. What desire are you satisfying for them?
3. What product result does that?
4. Awareness of your BFC?
Answer for my product (marketing coaching progrma)
1. Course creator with some traction
2. To have clarity and focus on a plan im confident in to grow the business
3. Simple plan with a few tweaks that will unlock them (aka: marketing plan)
4. Know they need help but not sure where to turn. Have tried lots of stuff. A coach they trust sounds good, but who is that and where do i find them?
A few sample headlines and themes:
6x Faster Than Facebook ads
How would you sell 28 online courses per month?
How many course sales hit 50k per month?
Sell 100 courses per month
Want to stop advertising your courses on Facebook?
Tried to sell your course or coaching w/ FB ads?
2x your FB ad spend
How to 2x your FB ad ROI with partnerships
When you’re course sales stagnate, try this…
Try one of these 5 tweaks to increase your course sales
Can you send an email? Then you can sell your online course.
If you haven’t sold 10k of your course, dont read this
How to 2x your FB ad roi by not using FB ads.
To the course creator that needs help marketing

Clarity > Quality

Who is your best fit client?
In this episode I interview Drew Breaux, the Growth Tools director of marketing. And he outlines the process he uses to do this.
High level outline:
1. Survey existing clients
2. Study results of biggest fans
3. Pull out before / after emotions
4. Write the 2 part BFC profile
5 immediately update website and marketing assets to attract more BFCs

8 actions to be happier

Ask this question ASAP

Podcast Update

$1k per email
Economics of @tldrdan ‘s daily newsletter. Runs on sponsorships.
- 118,000 subscribers
- 36% open and 8% click
- Tech audience
Charges $1,000 per email.
Details: https://www.tldrnewsletter.com/sponsor

What kind of company are you?
Good. You should.
Exhibit A: Phil Knight started Nike in 1964. Twelve years in he still had major questions about Nike...
“What are we trying to build here?”
“What kind of company do we want to be?”

Simple way to catch issues with an employee before it becomes a big deal
Track these 4 metrics:
1. Hours
2. Stress
3. Happiness
4. Education
Monitor weekly. Meet if any are out of whack.

Are you a bad leader? Take this test.
If you can’t remember, that’s a problem:
1. Everyone has ideas
2. Most get run through the filter
3. Yours probably bypass the filter
That’s a bad thing. Fix it.
Use “What do you think about…” to rephrase your mandates as question and give your team a way to filter you ideas.

How I’m ending each day
1. End each day by writing for 15m
2. Start each day by writing for 45m
3. Publish by 8am
Leaving it mid sentence and letting my brain work on it over night works wonders.

How to set quarterly goals
Here is the simple framework I use:
1. Vision: want I want things to look like
2. Habits: Do task X times, use streaks
3. Projects: 1 time initiatives
4. Use basecamp to log it all
Listen to this episode for more details and examples.

What lie are you believing?

What to do when you disagree
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." -F. Scott Fitzgerald
When you encounter a thought that doesn't ring true (meaning that it doesn't reconcile with what you believe or how you view the world) you have two choices:
1. Dismiss the idea
2. Examine the idea
If you choose to dismiss it, that's ok. In that case, withstand the urge to disparage or form a straw man.
WARNING: Only disparage ideas that you fully understand.
You'll know if you fully understand the idea if you can recall it to someone that holds the view and they agree that it is an accurate representation of their view.
WARNING: Even then, disparaging idea is probably a bad idea.
If you choose to examine the idea, don't adopt the idea (yet) or dismiss your current view. Instead, hold the new idea in your hand and examine it.
A few potential outcomes of this examination:
1. Slight recalibration to your world view
2. Major recalibration to your world view
3. Wholesale dismissal of the new idea
If you are forced into discussing an idea you haven't fully examined, say so. And leave room for being off target in your view.
"Anybody who doesn’t change their mind a lot is dramatically underestimating the complexity of the world we live in.” — Jeff Bezos

2 gdocs to help with Corona stress
1. Stress reducing protocol
2. Worst case scenario list
These 2 docs give me instructions for handling any anxiety or stress that creeps in and a place to put the anxiety and stress once it rears it’’s head.
Hope this helps you!

10-min leadership team meeting
We even setup a large reward for the person with the simplest and most impactful project of this nature in Q1.
In this meeting we talk about the pros and cons of this. How to encourage it. And how to think about it.
This is a recording of a private internal meeting.
Enjoy!

5-minute reading: Share something small every day

My personal and business plan of action for COVID-19 lockdown
I just sent a video and update to our team sharing how I’m thinking through it on a personal and business level.
Two key points:
1. Take precautions
2. Take advantage (aka: turn it into a positive)
This was originally a video, but I stripped out the audio to post here.
I hope this is helpful for you!

4 rules of thumb
So, today I wrote a quick memo to everyone with a few guidelines on how to schedule with me. This will help them get what they need quicker and make me more efficient.
Listen to the episode for the details:
Here is the memo I sent: public.3.basecamp.com/p/64SVDti9TkZdmoQvv97kgHmM

My Morning 10
Hear more about it in this episode.
This is my current Morning 10:
1. Pray
2. Pre-log my food
3. Pull notes our of my phone
4. Write down tasks for the day
5. Text wife
6. Check Bank
7. Log Q1 goal progress
8. Journal core emotion wheel
9. Clean out Basecamp notifications
10. Look at weekly goals

Why Vision Is More Important Than Strategy
michaelhyatt.com/why-vision-is-more-important-than-strategy/
Highly encourage you to read the article. Linked above.

Challenge for my team ($2k prize)
This quarter the person with the best project wins a $2k trip.
Listen to the episode for details.

Hello My Name Is Awesome
I recorded a short video summary and wrote up detailed notes on the book so that years from now I can come back to it and remember the key parts and the method taught in it.
In this episode I share the audio from the my book summary video.
For the full video, notes and a few custom worksheet I made - go to my Twitter account @harris_bryan, everything is linked up there.
The notes: vidfru.it/2RZFgLc
Enjoy!

2 small scheduling adjustments

$24k ARR from Linkedin w/ Marti Sanchez
However, my curiously was piqued. So, I hoped on with Marti Sanchex who mentioned that he was using Linkedin succesfull (without spamming people). He shared his playbook for how he uses it to book 10+ sales calls per week. And how he used it in January (last month) to book $24k ARR of business.
Enjoy!

9-step process to name a product, company or podcast

Should I hire this person?

The more a CEO does the weaker your business becomes
“The more a CEO does the weaker the business becomes”
In this podcast episode I read the rest of the post to you and share the 3 specific things he does in his business (and all the stuff he avoids).

10 letter phrase to de-escalate w/ team or spouse

Want to go to a marketing conference with me?

February 2020 Growth Tools Update
1. Swipe 2 of my favorite email sequences for free
2. We’re hosting a “How to write your launch email sequence” class next week
3. We’re hiring a coach and I’m hiring an executive assistant
4. new tool we’re developing to predict how our promo’s and launches will go
5. A new book I’m reading and loving - 3 Minute Rule by Brant Pinvidic

Simple tip to 3x productivity when stuck

My 6 goals for Q1 2020
1) Best year of marriage ever
2) Treat my personal brand like a business
These are the 6 activities I’ve committed to doing in Q1 to work towards those targets (and the number of times I’ve committed to doing them)
1. Prelog my food 70x
2. Work out 30x
3. Read to start the day 30x
4. Record a podcast 10x
5. Pray with stacy 60x
6. Go on a date night 8x

6 impactful quotes from Kobe
Here are 6 quotes that moved me the most:
1. "I can't relate to lazy people. We don't speak the same language. I don't understand you. I don't want to understand you."
2. “I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I'm like, 'My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don't have it. I just want to chill.' We all have self-doubt. You don't deny it, but you also don't capitulate to it. You embrace it."
3. "When you make a choice and say, 'Come hell or high water, I am going to be this,' then you should not be surprised when you are that. It should not be something that is intoxicating or out of character because you have seen this moment for so long that ... when that moment comes, of course it is here because it has been here the whole time, because it has been [in your mind] the whole time."
4. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. No matter what the injury -- unless it's completely debilitating -- I'm going to be the same player I've always been. I'll figure it out. I'll make some tweaks, some changes, but I'm still coming."
5. "The important thing is that your teammates have to know you're pulling for them and you really want them to be successful."
6. "I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success. Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses."

7 ideas to grow this podcast to 1000 downloads
My new target is to consistently get 1,000 downloads per episode.
Here are 7 ideas I’m considering to get me there:
1. Publish 1+ /wk
2. Repost to social w/ video
3. Brand (name, theme, art)
4. Start SMS + email list
5. Standing first5 challenge
6. Tease next 5 episodes to big list quarterly (early access)
7. Tease next 2 @ in episode w/ adbarker
8. Topic

Gdoc template I use 4x per day
1. Make a ‘meeting notes’ gdoc
2. Link it in your bookmarks bar
3. Take notes durring the meeting in the doc
4. Include 4 bullet points for each meeting (Attendees, Agenda, Notes, Action Items)
Makes it easy to remember what you talked about and agreed to do months later.
Try it out!

1 tool to play with today

He 5x’d sales in 3 weeks

5 step review of 2019
1. Get a notepad and create positive and negative column
2. Go thru calendar, pictures, orders from the year
3. For each week write down people, activities or commitments that triggered positive or negative emotions.
4. Filter to top 20% on each side
5. Do more of the positives in 2020 and create stop doing lost you review daily for the negatives
Original article: tim.blog/2018/12/28/past-year-review/

1 idea for 2020

One Minute Manager
The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard
Big Idea: 3 simple 1-min tasks to be a world class leader. They aren’t hard and don’t take much time.
1. One Minute Goals
2. One Minute Praising
3. One Minute Redirect
Get my full notes and video overview here: docs.google.com/document/d/1Pu4EVxsat0ZQrsWG4z-2AfgbZn-9j5qA9op_N_6MrME/edit#

6 takeaways from examining 100+ Black Friday promo emails
I spent a few hours researching all the deals I got durring 2018 Black Friday and a few things stuck out.
1. get on the waiting list x sneak peak
2. our deal is live w/ subject line reminder of deal
3. our deal is ending w/ subject line reminder of deal
4. Re-surface best deal of the year
5. Bundle multiple products together
6. put the deal in your subject line (for product aware segments)
Original video recording: https://www.loom.com/share/87ef0c514a8b42df95d8ce3abb0d2c3b

Our 5-step high-ticket sales funnel

November 2019 Growth Tools Update
This is our November 2019 Update.
Key areas we cover:
1. Experiments in trying to figure out how to sale our 4-week marketing classes
2. Four engineering projects we're working on
3. Personel issues and hiring updates
4. A new report we use that's provided some pretty legit takeaways
Hope you enjoy!

How to never get mad at someone

My #1 scheduling and planning tip

6 steps to get more out of every non-fiction book you read
Ruben Gamez asked how I go about taking stuff from the books I read and implementing and executing on them.
1. Read one chapter at a time
2. Underline key points and concepts as I go
3. At end of chapter, stop and write down all of the concepts into a note
4. Organize the notes so it logically flows
5. Rinse and repeat for rest of book
6. As ideas and applications of the core concepts come up, put them in my ideas inbox

7 steps to decide what projects to work on
1. Pick projects quarterly
2. Dont add new projects once quarter begins
3. Capture any new project ideas
4. Spend 1 hour a month sorting the ideas and ranking
5. Spend 1 day a quarter to pick and define appetites
6. Write out a short scope document
7. Schedule it

September 2019 Growth Tools Update
Highlights:
Update #1: An entirely new way to learn how to build an email list
Update #2: Solving 2 problems with our free tool for creating lead magnets, Attract (plus, a new partner!)
Update #3: 1 position we’re hiring for, and 1 position we’re considering
Update #4: Sales slumped this summer. Here’s what we learned.

8 ways to get me to hire you
Here are 8 things that I’ve noticed make people stand out.
1. Excitement level
2. Fit
3. Follow
4. Familiarity
5. Fluffy words
6. “Destiny”
7. Experience
8. Projects
Here is a written summary of each point: docs.google.com/document/d/1wFxfLCQGVlyoj2JOIlzoYl7YQFKnGrIArRsm8Wh63O0/edit

Finding Your Purpose

2x buy-in from your team
👉🏻 “What would you think about ?”
Helps leadership develop by being part of the decision vs just the conclusion.

How to cancel 50% of your meetings

August 2019 Growth Tools Update
Every month I shoot a quick video updating the Growth Tools team on what we're working on and what I'm excited about.
Highlights:
Update #1: A 94% success rate in our latest 4-week marketing class
Update #2: Two problems w/ our new homepage + potential solutions
Update #3: We’re still hiring for our first ever Director of Marketing.
Update #4: Noodling on: What’s the best way to coach someone?

How we set KPIs
This is how we do it.
1. A quesiton that pulls out your KPIs
2. What to do if you still cant get them
3. Two examples from Growth Tools

2x Your Price
Val Geisler and I had a 30m coaching session on raising prices.
We talk about:
1. Risk of raising prices
2. How to do it with out scaring off clients
3. Niche service idea for her to be able to charge more
Enjoy!

Tweet From @benjihyam

8 Hacks For A Healthy Remote Team

30min Goal Review

5 Levels Of Delegation
5 levels of delegation via @michaelhyatt
Level 1: Do what I have asked you to do
Level 2: Research and I’ll decide
Level 3: Research, show options and make recommendation
Level 4: Decide and tell me what you did
Level 5: Decide and I don’t need to know
My #1 company focus this year is finding our "4 Generals" to lead the organization.
One really good takeaway for me from the "5 Levels Of Delegation" concept was that those 4 people need to be in Level 4/5 75%+ of the time or I'm not leading well and/or have the wrong people. And if ANYONE in our organization spends more than 25% of their time in Level 1, we need to re-evaluate our leadership and the persons fit and role.

30-Day Experiment
Monday Starts A 30-Day Experiment.
Can we do a $10k per month lead gen service for companies w/ LTV >$2k?
Goal = 5 committed partnership with projected qualified lead count of 1000 and sales of $20k.

1 Fun New Tool & 3 Ideas
I found a tool that turns my podcasts into videos.
1. Publish an episode
2. They email the video
I do nothing. It just magically shows up. Such an amazing model. I want our products to work like that.

My Business Model Explained
18 months ago I found our long term business model
1. Create free marketing tools
2. Tell users about our paid training products
Getting clear on that has had a profound affect and the business.

Private Meeting
Yesterday we had a brainstorming session to talk about new product concept.
Be a fly on the wall as we discuss:
1. The concept
2. Should we and can we do?
3. Pricing and structure?
4. How to validate w/o building?

4 Generals & 3 Jobs
1. Vision: stay focused on it
2. People: recruit and retain the best
3. Money: don’t run out
My top focus this year as CEO is #2. Finding my 4 Generals.

Free Round Trip Ticket
1. Share your top “figured it out” moment from the week
2. Everyone votes on their favorite
3. Most votes gets free round trip ticket to anywhere in the US
Results have been 🤯

2 Lessons And 1 Book Recommendation from Will
Will DeShazo shares lessons, recommendations and highlights on his 28th birthday.
📖 Best Book: “Never Split The Difference”
🔮 Biggest Lesson: “Being intentionally dependent on others”

How To Get a Meeting With (Almost) Anyone
If you know them:
1. Create a cal invite with agenda in description and time of meeting
2. Send it to them. Don’t ask, just send.
If you don’t know them:
1. Ask for the meeting
2. If no response, just send the cal invite

May 2019 Update for Growth Tools
1. What I’m excited about
2. What we’re working on
3.. A few fun behind-the-scenes things
I thought I’d share an audio only version here this month.

Out of 1000+ job applications this one stood out

6 hours with 5 clients
1. Meeting in real life 👍🏻👍🏻
2. Immediately evident they are **craving** community
3. Best product research and customer insight process ever
You should try it.

#1 Lesson From Reading 3 Books By The Basecamp Guys
1. These books are amazing talent recruiting rolls
2. I (think) I’m going to write a book
3. See an email I sent to our team today.

I’ll do your lead gen for you
1. The service that inspired me 2. Breakdown of how it would work 3. My next steps to test it
Nat's Twitter: twitter.com/nateliason
Nat's Sales Page: vidfru.it/2vyCyQB

How To Get Free Audible Credits (By Returning Books You Haven’t Listened To)
Return books you never finished or didn’t like for credits. (h/t @robwalling)
1. Account Details
2. Payment
3.

3 Words To Add To Every Email
“Thanks so much!”

2 reports. 2 meetings. 2 approvals.

Our 8-Page Hiring Process (Plus 5 Hiring Tips That Took Me 6+ Years To Learn)
In this episode I share our hiring SOP.
And 5 lesser known hiring tips that have made a huge difference for us.
1. Write a job scorecard
2. No less than 100 candidates
3. Spend a lot of time sourcing
4. Use an applicant tracking
5. Get a hiring manager ASAP

30sec Tweak That’s Cured My Social Media Addiction

Create A Webinar In 15-Minutes
+ Hear about an idea for our next Growth Tool
+ The types of tools that have almost no competition
+ I get lost in a parking lot while recording this

How To Save $60k Per Year In Your Business
1. How I saved $60k a year in my biz
2. A challenge to throw away your second monitor and fire your VA

106 Plug-and-Play Email Sequences
1. Do you like it?
2. How would you promote

$100 Tip To Write Better Emails, Headlines Or Anything

We Paid $600 To A Copywriter For 3 Facebook Ads
So I hired Neville to write some fresh ads. Cost dropped from $4.50 to $1.13.

390# Dead Lift By Old Dude At The Gym
+ Old overweight dude at the gym that’s been schooling me
+ James Clear kicking my butt
+ 3 thoughts on comparison

100 pitches sent. 1 sucked and 1 did not.
This week I’ve sent out 100 pitches. Hear the results. 1 pitch sucked and the other did not.

How not to get mad at people for stupid stuff (even when I know I’m right)
Here is a framework I’ve started using that’s helped me:
