Lessons & Ideas

By Bryan Harris

Get an unfiltered look behind the scenes of a 7-figure online business. Follow along as I learn how to grow the company and become a better leader.

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.

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2 ways to lead

Lessons & IdeasNov 19, 2020

00:00

05:46

Nov 02, 202013:17

3 ways to build creativity

Oct 02, 202003:13

1 per week

Marketing plan = Teach 1 new audience per week

Sep 25, 202004:16

$100m webinar funnel

Sep 22, 202006:07

Write a 3 year vision in 90 minutes

Sep 18, 202003:41

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:

Sep 15, 202016:01

Our mission

Sep 04, 202014:36

20 weeks in a row

Sep 01, 202003:59

8.5# lost in 16 days

My OMAD story

Aug 28, 202003:35

Magic of SpaceX

Tool thinking vs Problem Thinking

Aug 25, 202011:26

What worked 6mo ago?

Aug 21, 202002:19

3 marketing wins from Q2

Aug 18, 202034:34

Better question = $1m+

Our #1 marketing tweak of Q2

Aug 14, 202020:30

How to write a FB ad like Eugene Schwartz

4 steps to theme and create the headline:

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

Aug 11, 202004:40

Clarity > Quality

A friend hired a writing service recently. The clarity in their offer and the process was the #1 reason he chose them over someone who would have done a better job.

Aug 07, 202003:14

Who is your best fit client?

Defining who are best fit client is has moved the needle in a significant way.

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

Aug 04, 202048:48

8 actions to be happier

1. Drink giant glass of water now 2. Text 1 friend that you love them 3. Drop and do 25 push-ups 4. Go for 10m walk outside 5. Help someome this morning 6. Take 5m to imagine a 5 star future 7. Eat < 50 carbs today 8. Get > 7 hours of sleep tonight

Jul 31, 202003:58

Ask this question ASAP

What is a problem so interesting and inspiring that you could dedicate the next 3 decades to solving?

Jul 27, 202002:42

Podcast Update

Jun 15, 202001:22

$1k per email

‪🤔interesting...‬

‪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

May 11, 202002:22

What kind of company are you?

Got big questions about your career or company?

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?”

May 08, 202003:21

Simple way to catch issues with an employee before it becomes a big deal

Simple way to catch issues on your team before they spiral...

Track these 4 metrics:

1. Hours
2. Stress
3. Happiness
4. Education

Monitor weekly. Meet if any are out of whack.

May 05, 202003:03

Are you a bad leader? Take this test.

When was the last time your team convinced you not to do something that you wanted to do?

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.

May 01, 202002:24

How I’m ending each day

Writing Tip: Split your writing ito two sessions.

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.

Apr 27, 202003:09

How to set quarterly goals

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.

Mar 31, 202005:01

What lie are you believing?

Life lesson I learned recently

Mar 31, 202004:29

What to do when you disagree

I've been thinking about this quote a lot...

"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

Mar 23, 202003:23

2 gdocs to help with Corona stress

I’m keeping two tabs open in my browser at all times durring this crazy Corona event.

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!

Mar 20, 202003:50

10-min leadership team meeting

Recently the Growth Tools leadership team had a meeting to talk about how to encourage and incentivize everyone at the company to identify small tests with high upside and problems with simple fixes and then to empower them to go execute on them.
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!

Mar 19, 202014:27

5-minute reading: Share something small every day

I came across a fun chapter from Austin Klein’s boom, Show Your Work, today. The chapter Is entitled, Share something small everyday. It resonated with me. So in this episode I’ll read you the chapter and share why I liked it. Enjoy my beautiful reading ability! :)

Mar 16, 202006:02

My personal and business plan of action for COVID-19 lockdown

This week has been the most bizarre and crazy week I can remember in multiple decades.

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!

Mar 13, 202029:02

4 rules of thumb

One of the best uses of my time right now is working with our leadership team 1:1. I love it. But one of the down falls is my calendar can turn into a hot mess of random meetings.

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

Mar 12, 202003:18

My Morning 10

Each day starts the same for me. I sit down at my desk and do my Morning 10. These are 10 shot tasks that take 1 minute or less to do. These 10 things set my tday up well, prime me to be productive and ensure that the most important stuff in my life is being attended to.

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

Mar 09, 202004:33

Why Vision Is More Important Than Strategy

In this episode I read an article by Michael Hyatt entitles “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.

Mar 05, 202007:49

Challenge for my team ($2k prize)

Every quarter we do a challenge on our team focused on encouraging and empowering each person to find problems and opportunities for the company (and fix them).

This quarter the person with the best project wins a $2k trip.

Listen to the episode for details.

Mar 02, 202006:53

Hello My Name Is Awesome

I just finished reading my favorite book on naming things (products, companies etc.) and I loved it!

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!

Feb 27, 202014:20

2 small scheduling adjustments

Recently I made two small adjustments to how I schedule lunch meetings.

Feb 24, 202001:57

$24k ARR from Linkedin w/ Marti Sanchez

A few smart people I know are hardcore into Linkedin for biz dev. I've mostly looked at Linkedin as a giant spam trap.
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!

Feb 20, 202016:25

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

I struggle to name things. Product, companies, podcasts etc. It’s so bad that I struggle to name our dog. I picked up a book on naming recently to help. And I loved the book. It’s Hello My Name Is Awesome by Alexandra Watkins. In it she shares her method for naming things. In this episode I walk you through her 3-step process and and a 9-part brainstorming excercise. Process: Step 1: List 12 words related to it Step 2: Choose 1 & research for 60m Step 3: Repeat on each word Branstorming excercise: 1. Run the word through a Thesaurus 2. Image search the word 3. Look up industry related glossaries 4. Run the word through a dictionary 5. Search for cliches related to the word 6. Google the word 7. Look up movie titles with your keyword 8. Search iTunes for song titles with your keyword 9. Look up book titles with your keyword By the end of this you should have 100+ names. 10-15 should be ones you really like. If you want more examples and details go follow @eatmywords (on twitter) and grab her book Hello My Name Is Awesome: https://amzn.to/2U6FGR8 (I’ll be publishing my full notes and takeaways on Twitter soon)

Feb 17, 202006:24

Should I hire this person?

I’m thinking of hiring someone to help answer 95% of my emails. Email and inbound messages have become a big problem and my slow response times is one of the biggest “weights around my neck”. Listen as I process through how to fix this.

Feb 14, 202002:50

The more a CEO does the weaker your business becomes

My business coach shares a quote and post on Linkedin recently. Its been in my head ever since.

“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).

Feb 12, 202002:01

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

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong?” Ask “What happened?”. That phrase is neutral, holds no baggage and will get the person in a more calm and logical state.

Feb 10, 202002:01

Want to go to a marketing conference with me?

Want to go to a marketing conference with me? I have an extra ticket, thought it might be cool to see if anyone wanted to hang for a few days with me and some friends at a marketing conference in late March. Listen for details.

Feb 07, 202002:48

February 2020 Growth Tools Update

A quick update on what we’re working on this month at my company

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

Feb 06, 202023:35

Simple tip to 3x productivity when stuck

I’ve been stuck. Finally took a super small action and before I knew it I had 3x’d my production of the last 5 weeks. Quick story and tip of how to use this.

Feb 03, 202002:00

My 6 goals for Q1 2020

Two of my big targets for the year are:

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

Jan 31, 202006:54

6 impactful quotes from Kobe

I had no idea what Kobe meant to so many. Over the last 48 hours I’ve been inspired, moved to tears and motivated by his life.

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."

Jan 29, 202003:15

7 ideas to grow this podcast to 1000 downloads

This podcast started on a whim as a fun little side project 8 months ago. And I’ve really enjoyed it and want to take it more seriously in 2020.

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

Jan 27, 202010:21

Gdoc template I use 4x per day

1 simple hack for better meetings

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!

Jan 22, 202003:08

1 tool to play with today

8020curve.com

Dec 22, 201906:12

He 5x’d sales in 3 weeks

Story of our new Director of Marketing and how he 5x’d sales of our most important product in his first 3 weeks.

Dec 21, 201904:52

5 step review of 2019

Great end of year review process from Tim Ferriss.

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/

Dec 16, 201903:58

1 idea for 2020

Me thinking out loud about a new potential project to take on in 2020. What do you think?

Dec 02, 201910:41

One Minute Manager

I just finished one of my all time favorite books...
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#

Nov 22, 201907:22

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

Nov 19, 201908:27

Our 5-step high-ticket sales funnel

Nov 15, 201936:11

November 2019 Growth Tools Update

Every month Will Hoekenga and I get on a call and talk about major initiatives and stuff I'm working on at my company, Growth Tools.
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!

Oct 29, 201945:59

How to never get mad at someone

How to never get made at someone

Oct 17, 201902:14

My #1 scheduling and planning tip

Oct 15, 201902:59

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

Oct 11, 201904:08

7 steps to decide what projects to work on

James Clear recently asked how decide which projects to work on. Here is our process:
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

Oct 09, 201907:02

September 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: 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.

Sep 06, 201945:36

8 ways to get me to hire you

We usually get 100+ applicants when hiring. Filtering through them all can be tedious.
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

Sep 04, 201910:25

Finding Your Purpose

fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/

Aug 19, 201909:28

2x buy-in from your team

‪One tweak thats helped to 2x buy-in from the team = rephrase task as a question.‬

‪👉🏻 “What would you think about ?”‬

‪Helps leadership develop by being part of the decision vs just the conclusion. ‬

Aug 13, 201903:51

How to cancel 50% of your meetings

Aug 09, 201903:28

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?

Aug 06, 201955:12

How we set KPIs

Want to know how to pick KPIs for your team?

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

Aug 05, 201904:46

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!

Jul 26, 201935:01

Tweet From @benjihyam

Tweet From Benji

Jun 27, 201912:30

8 Hacks For A Healthy Remote Team

8 Hacks For A Healthy Remote Team 1. Track happiness, stress and hrs 2. 1:1's every 3 months 3. Clear expected outcomes 4. Wkly KPIs tied to outcomes 5. Wkly & Quarterly goals 6. Meet in-person every 3mo 7. Live video for hard talks 8. Catch them doing stuff right

Jun 18, 201922:58

30min Goal Review

Simple exercise to increase your teams happiness and low their stress.

Jun 11, 201905:14

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.

Jun 07, 201904:20

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.

Jun 04, 201904:58

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.

May 31, 201903:30