Teaching People to Lose Weight as Fatty BoomBatty

[MJ DeMarco]

What's even more bothersome is once upon a time, members here would actively call them out on their bullshit, MJ included.

I still do, I just get tired of being a mean old man.

Now it feels like a whole bunch of lazy twats looking to make a quick and easy buck with their lame a$$ cryptos, their trash "courses," their irrelevant "workout plans," etc.

I think your assessment is correct, however this is more of a cultural/societal problem, than a forum problem.

The forum is FREE, so it merely reflects whatever the culture is driving. And right now, the culture is driving easy fixes to hard problems... the crypto boom hasn't helped, YT get rich gurus haven't helped, and the clown business model of coaches teaching you how to be coaches (with ZERO experience or track record) hasn't helped either.



Also, my work is more popular overseas than it is here in the USA, which means, people in lesser developed countries aren't working for a dream, they are working for survival -- this encourages a lot of freelancer, easy-entry bullshit.

That said, there is a high likelihood I will be transforming the forum into a private, paid forum (don't worry, members with substantial track records will have grandfather privileges) with more transparency and barriers for access. This entry barrier will reduce a lot of the noise and low-value posts from drive-bys. Since G00gle has completely marginalized the forum's search engine traffic (and presence) there really is no sense in continuing the status quo.

And if anyone is curious why I'm considering such a move is forthcoming (not sure when however as I'm still dealing with platform software issues) it is because of low-value/landfill posts like these which have become far too frequent.

HOT! - MINDSET - Lost my job. Give it to me straight how F*cked am i?

I just lost my job. I am applying to multiple jobs right now but this has totally stalled my progress towards where i want to be. HOw F*cked am i? I have enough to live off of for 4 months but I dont want to go backwards in progrses. Im 28 and i feel like time is running out to be truly free...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

INVESTING - What future/forex broker allow you to risk only 1-2$ per trade ?

I have been learning and back testing a strategy with paper trading for a while and now i want to test it with real money, risking only 1-2$ per trade until I'm confident enough to put in more capital

www.thefastlaneforum.com

More importantly, I find most of my time is spent managing the bullshit around here, rather than actually providing meaningful help to people doing "groundbreaking things," and not spending quality time in the INSIDERS section where there is likely to be less noise and more action.

 

[Spenny]

This is a trainwreck of a thread. It is all fine to play devil's advocate, Black Dragon, but calling people "brokies" isn't professional to people who could be your peers for the Fastlane. It doesn't make others want to work or associate with you. Maybe you don't care, whatever. Others will be busy collaborating.

"The good old days" were previously mentioned on the forum, when people worked on amazing projects and helped each other. I know you're working with Mike, but does a thread like this inspire community?

Calling people brokies?
Clearly trolling others?
Looking to be controversial for an argument?

Does this make me want to read posts? Does this make me want to stay around? Contribute? If this was a first impression of the forum, Elon Musk will never post.

For those reading, are you withholding something that can boost the community? Why the hell are we whining and reminising about the past when you can make a difference RIGHT NOW by posting high-quality content?

Amazing insights? Guidance for new members? Don't be selfish. Don't be silly and whine. Do something goddamn it.

I haven't done much on the forum compared to others, but I try my best to ensure that my posts and conversations with people generate value and uplift them. @Black_Dragon43 and @Oso, you're both in a great position to post GOLD after GOLD if you want to. You've both been on the forum for a while and I'm sure people and learn a lot.

Let's try to at least be an example. Those with two brain cells will follow suit.

Everyone needs to set their sights much much higher, and demand 100x from themselves.

I do agree. @Aidan04 I wish I were killing it. Compared to my age peers, I'm doing well, but I want to do much, much better.

It's not about being the 1% of the 1% of finances.

It's cool, but I don't need it.

It's more to do with solving the problems people struggle with and need help with.

I've realised that nothing will change once I get the money, the cars, the materialistic things. It may bring me momentary joy, but I don't think it'll match a five-star review.

I know that going forward, I will never forget that rush of "You got a sale!" when you're plodding around doing other stuff. Or the tsunami of sales from a successful marketing campaign. Or that person who posts and enthusiastically reviews your product. It will loom over me and likely eat me alive if ignore it.

Pandora's box is open. I want to offer more products, get more 5-star reviews, and help more people—so many more people.

I'm pleased with where I've gotten so far, but I have bigger dreams for the future. This tiny business is a speck compared to whatever Pena or any other wet wipe guru goes on about in their amped-up talks is nothing, but it means a lot to my development & direction. Far more than anything I've read, learned or experienced.

I've come to realise that I live for other people and can solve problems for them. It kills me if I can't do that. Doing my degree is an example of that.


So sure, I'm not going from $0-$5mil yet, but I know I'm on a great trajectory. I could compare myself to others doing the same, but that's not the game I'm playing. That is a bottomless pit & I'd prefer not to go there. I can work myself up, peering over the fence and hopping around, or I can relax and look around at who I can help right now & keep being consistent.

 

[Antifragile]

A train wreck thread without me?

Just kidding.

I didn't even read the whole thread but saw a few posts by @MJ DeMarco saying how he's not spending enough time actually helping or posting on the INSIDERS and is basically managing the problem children here.

Amen to that.

But I'll got a step further. I have issues with the forum in the current state because of my current state. Meaning that if I am looking for answers to my business problems, I am not coming here and posting them. Why not? Because I no longer expect the right kind of help.

Yet here I am, why am I here? Is this now my new "social media dopamine addiction?"

No, I'd like to think I am better than that. So here's why I am here:

1. You get out what you put in. Over the years I became a better writer and I'll continue to improve as I write here. Typically when I start a thread it takes about 10 revisions before it's posted. It makes me better. And it's relevant outside of the forum when I need to write a proposal, report, email... you get out what you put in.
2. There are threads and people who genuinely need and seek help that I can give. My experiences are limited but even then I've made enough mistakes over the past two decades to be able to share what not to do. Helping others is rewarding in and of itself. But also it sharpens your tools as an entrepreneur!
3. I've met and became friends with some top notch people (unfortunately the list is extremely short but that's the 99% vs 1% situation as in the real world playing out here too). That alone translated to me being able to up my business game too.

Should this forum become a fully paid private club? I am not sure. But I am already paying ... big part of me wishes that the INSIDERS was more valuable. Maybe without babysitting it frees us the time, like 80/20 principle for @MJ DeMarco - right now spending 80% of time babysitting, let's flip it.

 

[Oso]

This is not true

I'm unable to verbalize how much I outright disagree.

A simple thread scroll of the last 3-6 months will reveal the sheer amount of people dropping by talking about how they want to coach/teach/consult/write about shit they don't know anything about, and shit they haven't actually executed on. This behavior is essentially being encouraged here as of late because "it doesn't matter, bro, ChatGPT and Google can teach you everything you need to know."

What's even more bothersome is once upon a time, members here would actively call them out on their bullshit, MJ included. It seems everyone is beginning to float towards the mentality of "hey, man, if it gets you paid and it isn't illegal, you do you." Which is fine and all as people will live their lives. That's cool. The hypocrisy of it all is what drives me insane, and is ultimately why I try to spend as little time as possible on this forum nowadays.

When I initially joined, the community that existed felt like a strong, fierce group of people who were ready to go to war to help people and be successful. They were working on interesting shit. Some of them were doing groundbreaking shit. Now it feels like a whole bunch of lazy twats looking to make a quick and easy buck with their lame a$$ cryptos, their trash "courses," their irrelevant "workout plans," etc. The list is literally F*cking endless.

It feels like this forum is on the path of becoming the next "entrepreneurship" subreddit. And it's sad.

Cheers.

 

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[MitchC]

However, this forum does have a bias against coaching and teaching generally. These are viewed by most as 2nd class professions, especially if the said person isn’t top 1% at practicing the skill they want to teach or coach about.

This is not true

We are allergic to, and are here because we are allergic to the fake bullshit gurus out there offering advice on shit they've never done, the exact thing you are advocating for in this stupid thread

We are all here to learn from MJ and from others who have actually done it

People successfully sell coaching here

Fox successfully sold websites and made a course
Biophase did Amazon coaching after building Amazon businesses
Lex DeVille had a freelancing course

Lets take one example

I did a group Amazon coaching call years ago with Biophase

The advice he gave was the complete opposite of what I hear fake gurus teach day in and day out, still to this day

His advice didn't make as much sense on the surface and didn't sound as good, but I know that it would result in far better outcomes

This is the difference between a fake guru and someone who has done it. The fake guru repeats some bullshit that sounds good and makes sense when you hear it but doesn't actually work.

 

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[Fox]

Years ago I did coaching with AndrewNYC (or whatever his username was).

I paid $500 to have him teach me to hum some NLP nonsense and tap my forehead with my thumb.
In the background he had a pile of messy clothes all about to fall out of his wardrobe.

Of course it did absolutely nothing - but I was too new to the forum and felt too embarrassed to ask for a refund.

On the other hand, in the last year I have had coaching from some of the top creators on Instagram and Youtube.
People in the trenches everyday working with top brands and people like Mr Beast.

And it shows - highly applicable advice based on years of trial and error.

I actually love coaching but I absolutely hate the industry. And this thread has those same vibes.

If you can't bake a cake... how the hell can you teach someone else to do it.
And this scales up to all skills, business models, and "success".

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

Nick Bollettieri: A Huckster Who Knew Nothing About Tennis Reinvented Tennis Training – Courts Club

courts.club

Most people on this forum will be like “uhhh a fat guy teaching me how to lose weight?! Wtf!!”

And that’s wrong.

Nick Bollettieri is the greatest tennis coach in history. Produced over 10 grand slam champions, including the likes of Agassi, Williams sisters, Sharapova, and so on.

And he knew nothing about tennis. Never played professionally.

“Baby, I don’t know half of what most coaches know about pronation, turning hips and shoulders, the dynamics of the stroke, centrifugal force. Shit, I don’t know any of that.”

“All I know is that I wanted to be a winner and with winners.”

That’s what he said.

Which is why I’ve always told people who wanted to go coach to do it. Stop waiting to “be a pro” first. Stop waiting to get results for yourself first. Being a pro and being a good teacher are two entirely different things.

If you prefer being the teacher, start teaching. Get results for your students. That’s what matters.

 

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[rpeck90]

Do you want to debate the fact that 80% of course purchases aren’t even OPENED properly, much less followed-through? Because I have actual numbers. Most buyers don’t get any value because they do F*ck all. It’s the same with the buyers of MJ’s book. I dare guess that 80% of them don’t do anything. 10-15% give a half-assed effort (like sign up on fastlane and dropship tshirts lol). And only 5-10% give it a real try and stick around and stay committed for years.

Do you know what this means? It means that 80% of your money comes from losers who won’t amount to anything. It may be harsh, but it’s the truth. And as a business owner, financially, you want to get the losers since that’s where the bulk of your market is. You would never be profitable without the 80% who don’t do anything.

Does this mean it’s morally OK to sell them crap? No. But it does mean that you can’t expect this 80% to get results or blame yourself if they don’t.

When it comes to analyzing how good your course is, you need to look at the hardcore students — those who actually implement and do everything you’re telling them to do. And if they fail, then yes, your course sucks, and you need to adjust it.

With experience, you begin to realize that most people don't have the resolve to solve their problems on their own - most want someone else to fix the issue for them, which doesn't work for things like "how to build a business".

In the case of online courses, that typically comes down to the high one gets from committing to it, before realising after 2 weeks that it's boring and difficult to maintain momentum. Weight loss is a big example, excusing the pun.

In that context, most buyers, particularly for lower level courses, are going to fail and there's nothing you can do about it because they don't have the motivation to utilise the information properly.

What you do with that will dependent on what your moral compass tells you - either you can start selling entry level stuff to the hopeful, or you can raise your prices and focus on the smaller number who absolutely will benefit from what you have & have the means to pay for it.

--

To play devil's advocate - I think people are annoyed at the absolutism in which Tudor has addressed the issue, but couldn't it be put in a different light... what about building a business?

Surely, if you aspire to be a CEO, who has to build & lead a team, you can't be expected to know each team members' job better than them? If that was the case, why don't you just get a VA in the Philippines and direct the work yourself?

On that basis, could you not argue that what Tudor is really suggesting is that there are instances where developing a system is more valuable than being part of the system yourself? In fact, I am sure it's something @Kak has advocated a lot for in the past. I doubt the CEO of Starbucks, for example, is an excellent barista, and yet the business he /she runs employs 1,000's. Steve Jobs, famously, couldn't code.

From that perspective, could you not argue that the person developing/perfecting/defining a system that permits others to excel is - arguably - more valuable than the person doing the work? In a business context you, obviously, need both... but there are plenty of highly talented or skilled practitioners that I've seen totally underperform due to not having an appropriate framework through which to grow & develop their craft.

So whilst I would not advocate for someone becoming a fake guru, I think there is definitely merit in the development of systems, within the right context.

Perhaps Tudor could give some insight into how he's doing that with his business, and the agency he had in the past... how does one go from a sole proprietor to having a team? What are the necessary steps required to make that transition and at what point do you become a system builder, rather than just a cog?

--

Excuses. @Spenny is 22 and in college, and he's killing it and making tons of sales with his products. Same with @NIK4658.

These people are just my friends. Think about the thousands of others just like them.

We all started from relatively nothing in our garages. You scale as time goes on from prototype to initial models to final versions with feedback from customers. If your shit solves a problem, nobody cares.

Sure, different fields have different barriers to entry, and different fields develop different aspects of CENTS over time, but you're missing my point.

Also, I get it. I'm a "brokie". I'm not as wealthy as you, but I'm 19, and probably far ahead of most people my age.

Ignore the brokie thing, most people are broke and even people "with money" have money problems.

The issue that, I think, Tudor was referring to in his response to this is that @Spenny doesn't have a business. He's selling a product and making sales (which amazing and to be congratulated), but will it scale? Does he have the capital required to go to the next level? I'm doubtful, although I don't know him.

This problem is acute and few people appreciate its importance. In fact, I even mentioned something about it on that accountability call I've been partaking in and received a bunch of downvotes. Sales are important but there is a whole set of challenges which come with growth, and having the means to capitalize the business to the extent that you can mitigate those challenges is crucial.

As @Black_Dragon43 has done this (he has a thriving company that provides work for a growing number of staff), it would be interesting to hear his take on how he's gone about it. I think a lot of the people in the public version of this forum have not considered the wider ramifications of employing staff, paying taxes, developing IP, having systems which can be scaled etc... there comes a point where getting sales is not your biggest challenge.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

how does one go from a sole proprietor to having a team?

Well, the first thing is money. The first month last year when we exploded, I was handling 9 clients by myself in terms of management, while my partner did the copy. Things used to be different then though, because you could do a much bigger volume of outreach on LinkedIn. About 4x bigger than you can today. As a result, getting clients for our clients wasn't a big issue, due to just the volume. Even if they got 40% shitty leads in there they'd get good results. It took around 3 hours per week for me to "handle" my 9 clients.

And yet, this was in the first month $7K/mo of recurring income. Then I think we got another 12 clients the next month, 1 client churned, so now we were doing a lot more. After we were growing for 4-5 months exponentially.

As I said to you, the first component is getting a HUGE INFLUX OF CASH! Can't do anything if you're broke, which is what I desperately try to communicate to people nowadays. Unless you have more money than you know what to do with... you're dead!

I kept handling all the clients myself, I ended up devoting like 1-2 days per week to it.

Then I started looking for a COO, someone with experience in building teams, managing people, and communications, because I suck at that. Basically handed them the reins, showed them how I handle clients, told them to handle the clients themselves and hire whoever they want to handle more clients. Told them I'm hands free, I just don't want clients to be a headache for me. And ideally, I don't want to know what they do, because then it becomes my problem. I just want fewer problems for myself.

Of course over time, LinkedIn changed how it worked. We adapted by developing a tech tool that brings together data from a lot of different lists, not just Sales Navigator. Because while doing the work at 4x lower volume, we noticed, shit, these guys can't get results anymore if 40% of their leads are crap! So we need to get 100% amazing leads, and Sales Navigator gives you good leads on like pages 1-5 for a search, and crappy ones after, completely different from what you're looking for. So we had our tool.

We then implemented quality scoring in it. Basically, different factors could be assigned different coefficients. For example location = London means a coefficient of 2, and location = UK outside London, equals coefficient 1. Then you calculate across all factors those coefficients and calculate a quality score for the lead. Now we got amazing lists built. But crap still filtered through. So we needed human verification.

(and btw to those people saying ChatGPT can't teach you – ChatGPT came up with the idea of quality scoring in the first place LOL!)

Then we started hiring people for that. They did crap at first, and our team had to fix most of their stuff. Then I got involved in hiring by sharing this Gary Halbert ad to our team: https://www.thegaryhalbertletter.co...bert_Personal_Ad/Gary_Halbert_Personal_Ad.pdf

Then I created a workflow diagram teaching them exactly how to verify a lead, like a BABY – literarily like a baby with a retarded brain (this is what I often get annoyed at managing people in our team, because I always tell them you need to explain like for a retard – otherwise people will blame you for giving wrong instructions, and you can't fire them)

Then I told them that our hiring letter needs to stop being nice, and it needs to start sounding like me when I'm pissed off, instead of like a company you want to work for. Tell them I'll fire them and kick their a$$ if they don't follow the exact process laid out, bla bla. (of course, they removed the swearing & threats, but kept the aggressive tone)

Then we suddenly started getting good people who followed directions and who we enjoyed working with, and who delivered good results. By being ruthless and cutting their heads off if they didn't perform, assuming, of course, that we had procedures in place. If they followed the procedure and got the wrong answer, that was our fault, so we changed the procedure.

I can go on, but all this knowledge @rpeck90 is most likely 95% useless and masturbatory to you, because you're not running my business. My biggest challenge is because I feel my team is too soft and nice, whereas I'm hardcore and I try to get them to be less professional, because professional = SLOW (snail). Professional is only good in front of clients, never for getting things done fast.

Now that's for "technical" staff. Of course, once you find good "technical" people, you are super nice with them. But not while hiring them!

For creative staff, you need to satisfy their whims and adapt to them. Don't try to change them, because then they leave. Don't try to get out of them what they can't give you. Let them create their own process, and hold them accountable.

So... ideally you hire people who can build systems, rather than build systems yourself. Of course you can dream something up, map a workflow for it, write some onboarding documents. But the best people, the ones who will help you expand, you need to follow their advice, otherwise their ego gets hurt, and they leave you.

Smart talent respects themselves. You can call me "piece of shit, retard, etc" I wouldn't mind – and that's why I'm the boss, because I'm willing to go into shit to make money if I have to and fix problems others won't touch. Now even my partner is busy traveling the world and doesn't care about the biz, but guess what, I need to accommodate him, because otherwise he leaves, and that's not good. So as the boss, you become sort of a prisoner of the people you have around you, to one extent or another. I'm sure even Putin can't do only what he pleases, or else they'd quickly get rid of him. To a certain extent or another, as the boss you are "forced" to empower your creative staff to live the lives that they want to live, otherwise... they leave!

If I had to pick one key advantage about me, it's to look at things exactly as they are, instead of frame them in these politically correct ways which cloud your judgement and plug you into the matrix. I understand, the matrix is useful. You can't have a society of people like me, that would be a disaster. So socially, people like me need to be "contained". But... if you want results, then you can't be held prisoner by an artificial matrix whose purpose is opposed to your own.

And then another virtue is to get out of people's way. But yeah, assuming you are (1) cunning (I wrote smart initially, but that's the wrong word), (2) ruthless, take no prisoners, (3) what you do satisfies a pressing, real NEED and (4) you have gained access to a lot of MONEY (by hook or by crook), it's not hard to be successful (I suppose the MONEY, can be exchanged for ENTRY. It's a barrier to entry that you have money and the other guy is broke, isn't it?).

Seriously, look at Iman Ghadzi. Do you think the guy is smart? Nah. Just cunning, ruthless, satisfies a need, AND very importantly had access to money so he could build out and push out amazing marketing.

(And never forget, as Spenny said, I speak freely because I don't care about my legacy – which is true. Almost everyone else wants you to think they're good people rather than say the truth. That's why most people remain stuck in the matrix – the mechanisms are there to enable you to self-delude.)

What are the necessary steps required to make that transition and at what point do you become a system builder, rather than just a cog?

I have not made this transition completely, I still perform a LOT of work in sales & marketing for the business, but not much else (apart from group coaching + chat-based coaching when I'm absolutely needed). The business doesn't have the margin required for me to outsource sales & marketing completely. It's still a matter of MONEY (we keep going back to that, don't we?)

All the roadblocks you can imagine come down to one thing: money.

All the solutions you can imagine come down to one thing: creative ways to get more money or do more with less money.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

@rpeck90 – 4 years ago or so, I read a book called Built to Sell. I never recommend it if I'm asked, and it doesn't stand out in my mind, it's never been on any of my lists of recommended books on Discord or here, but looking back my thinking has been deeply influenced by that in terms of what opportunities I go for.

If there's no recurring business, I skip it.
If it can't be productized, I skip it.

In other words, trying to sell the same thing over and over, rather than trying to sell something different every time. I think that's key. What allowed me to make a ton of money fast is because my profit margin was literarily 90%+ at first, AND I could handle a ton of clients at that profit margin.

I also skip low value items.

If something sells for $50 or $100 or even $400, I skip it. It's so painful to sell anything. Sometimes it's painful to even sell things for FREE. So I'd always zero-in on things I can sell for $700-$1500/mo, productized, repeatable.

Of course, once you're like me, that doesn't matter so much, because you have others doing fulfilment, but you're asking how do I EXPLODE so that I can build a team.

These are key considerations. Without taking this into account, you'll drive yourself crazy.

Think about me.

9 clients = $7K/mo, 90% profit margin = $6.3K/mo

With that alone you can hire a big hitter.

Now imagine those 9 clients were $4K/mo. I would've starved! 0 chance of scaling.

Or imagine those 9 clients took me 2 days per week to handle instead of 3 hours.

Disaster!

That's why I don't understand how these SaaS people find the patience to do it. Like... F*ck me, 100 users, and you're just making $10K/mo ? That's literarily unthinkable for me.

Every client is someone whom you have to CONVINCE to modify their behavior.

Sometimes, to modify their behavior permanently.

That's what adopting your product means.

To be able to convince thousands of people at once (or fast) to modify their behavior permanently (which is what you need as a SaaS), you need tremendous marketing budget.

I don't even get into that. It's TOO HARD. I'm almost crying by thinking about it.
Of course, give me $3M, and I'm happy to get into it

Most people shoot themselves in the leg because they chase wrong opportunities. They listen to "don't be a money-chaser" and interpret that as meaning "so long as it adds value, do it". But that's wrong. Lots of things add value, in uneconomical, unscalable ways. And you shouldn't do them. That's what the S + T from CENTS means.

I nailed N + S + T in the beginning. Now I'm nailing E too. We'll see about C – maybe I transform the entire business at some point as I get more advanced. Maybe I turn into that dreaded SaaS. Or maybe I turn into full-time coaching. Who knows?

My dream was always to coach – it's the easiest way to make money, but hard as F*ck to sell. Which is why I shifted away from coaching and making 100K/yr which is where I was before switching to an agency model. Easier to scale. People are lazy – if they hear DFY, they buy, if they hear "you need to do shit" they run away.

But... rest assured, if I could sell a group coaching package for $500/mo and do it at scale (1000+ buyers/year), I'd do that any day of the week. The problem is simply that I can't get the volume of buyers I'd need. I've thought about it, you know what to do to mitigate it – lock people into 12-month contracts, and so on. That's actually a great idea. Ugurus, that's what they do with their coaching/training program. Lock them in 12-month contracts, $xxx/mo, can't get out.

That's smart. And imo it's why Cloudways bought them out.

For example, when you lock them into a 12-month program, and you make say $750/mo sale, that is really a $9K sale. Now you can afford to pay a closer $2K per sale. Easy peasy, built-in margin for your team and everyone, so you attract the big hitters.

And you need to lock them – because once they see how hard it is, that they actually need to do work, they ALL want to get out of it, guaranteed! (warning for Bizydad – this is a hyperbole. Please don't quote me out of context and claim OMG Black Dragon is contradicting himself and speaking in absolutes). People like what's new and shiny, but they hate work. (again Bizy... it's a hyperbole, an exaggeration to enable you to better understand psychological principles that are at play by taking them to extremes...)

Ah another thing....

Pick something where it's worth your time selling via cold email, cold calling, cold DMs. Because that's the only way to sell at first. If it's like $1K sale... not worth your time. Minimum $3K.

Or else, do business locally and move to a big city like London PERMANENTLY. Those so-called big hitters on fastlane with digital businesses they're all like "oh, so I went to meet the gym owner in person..."

Dude... if I could meet the gym owner in person, I'd have closed him before you. It's so much harder to do business when you're not in-person. People seem to just trust you more, for NO REASON at all.

To this day, I still consider it cheating, because I can't do it, so it infuriates me. For those guys hitting $100K/mo by signing up local businesses – 0 respect for you. (another exaggeration Bizy... read it as "diminished respect")

Actually, I still remember watching a Fox sales call demonstration of closing a referral. In my mind, I was like dude... closing a referral takes 0 skill. All you have to do is give them the price and ask for their credit card. I remember to this day at another company, when I was helping the guys sell, and a referral came through. We were starting to go through our presentation, and asking the guy questions, and bla bla bla. And we're barely 2 minutes into asking him questions and he's like "look guys, I don't care about this, I want to buy, I have my credit card here, let's do it and figure out the rest after OK?" Done.

And while that's an extreme case (once again Bizy... you know how it goes with hyperboles), the truth is when you sell a "referral" the entire sale is basically a joke. It's this weird dance you do for social reasons more than anything, because the conclusion is really well-known from the start. They're buying your stuff. It's sort of like when your female friend introduces you to this girl... you don't need to be good with women, you KNOW you two are dating (of course, all assuming you're not socially awkward or anything).

Literarily every referral I got last year bought from us. Every single one.

What I really love to see sales wise... is how you close a dude on the other side of the world, with 0 case studies, no website, for $3K, that you connected with via a cold email, cold call or cold DM. Now THAT'S what real sales is about. (and, that's also why a lot of sales coaches fake their sales calls. They pretend they're calling this stranger, when it's actually their buddy who plays along with them).

Imo, this skill of closing strangers is the other big thing you need to master. Most sales books and training are useless. They are for teaching people who sell for big companies. If I sell for Microsoft, making the sale is F*cking easy. "Hey, I'm John Smartass with Microsoft. Are you guys taking advantage of XYZ? We've seen it reduce procurement costs by 175% for Cisco". Done.

And you see, that's the problem. A pirate needs to learn how to be a pirate by himself or from other pirates. Because the "official" stuff is never built for newbies and brokies.

Like think about me – I never need to know how to cold call a stranger on the other side of the world, with 0 case studies, no website ever again. In my entire life. So why would I write about it? Or why would I teach people about it?

Once you're past that stage, you're past it. I'm sure in 5 years I won't even remember how to do it. Do you think Jeff Bezos remembers how to cold call a stranger? If he ever knew it, he certainly forgot it by now.

(And incidentally, this is how coaches & trainers take advantage of brokies – they sell you shit that they KNOW doesn't work for you, but they use their experience to justify why you should buy from them. IN OTHER WORDS YOU'RE A F*ckING RETARD, exactly as I was saying all along in this thread and getting a beating for it. "Oh, I sold $1BN at Microsoft, hire me and I'll teach you how to become a closing machine" *dumb smile*)

So to summarize... go after the right opportunities (recurring + productized + easy to fulfil) + make sure it makes economical sense (insane margin when doing it by yourself) + make sure you can sell via cold something + learn how to close strangers (or, bring in a partner who can do that).

That's the formula. Now go crush it!

And hire Fatty "Sales" BoomBatty – still better than that sales guy who closed $1BN for Microsoft.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Ah yes, "fake it until you make it" fodder for the plebs.

No doubt Bollettieri was a great coach with great results, and he also had tennis experience. He grew because he was successful and effective—a productocracy—not because he had great marketing and spent $1M a month in the tennis magazine.

In other news, Joe Blow smoked 3 packs of cigarettes for 70 years and didn't get lung cancer.

I'd like to see that article too.

 

[BizyDad]

... it encourages you to look past the accolades someone has and think with your own brain

Nick Bollettieri is the greatest tennis coach in history. Produced over 10 grand slam champions, including the likes of Agassi, Williams sisters, Sharapova, and so on.

In all the Black Dragon threads in all the forum, if you let him talk long enough, you'll spot the moments where he contradicts himself.

The reasons for failure are all to do with sucky students, not with the course material

The ethical justification of every shyster. Don't blame my stuff, it is 100% the sucky student.

I love when BD speaks in superlatives and absolutes.

This is a trainwreck of a thread. It is all fine to play devil's advocate, Black Dragon, but calling people "brokies" isn't professional to people who could be your peers for the Fastlane. It doesn't make others want to work or associate with you. Maybe you don't care, whatever. Others will be busy collaborating.

"The good old days" were previously mentioned on the forum, when people worked on amazing projects and helped each other. I know you're working with Mike, but does a thread like this inspire community?

Calling people brokies?
Clearly trolling others?
Looking to be controversial for an argument?

Does this make me want to read posts? Does this make me want to stay around? Contribute? If this was a first impression of the forum, Elon Musk will never post.

For those reading, are you withholding something that can boost the community? Why the hell are we whining and reminising about the past when you can make a difference RIGHT NOW by posting high-quality content?

Well said. And imo, there's nothing more to say.

 

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[rpeck90]

No, I wouldn’t sell high ticket. That’s hard to sell. That’s what held me back from scaling coaching / consulting which I was selling for $8K-$12K

Atm 70% of our clients are on our $987/mo service (this is up from around 60% 3 months ago). There is a minimum 3-month committment for it now. So effectively it is at least $3K. But it doesn’t FEEL like $3K, because the client thinks “well, if these guys are scammers, I just won’t pay 2nd and 3rd month” (even though legally that becomes an impossibility because we are professionals and fulfil all our contractual obligations, cross every T)

And here “scammers” doesn’t mean they don’t get the final result in month 1, it simply means it’s obviously a low effort service, people answer super slow, there’s a general lack of interest in how you’re doing and so on. Like a fly by night operator essentially. It covers that fear — they know you’re not just going to take the money and not do absolutely anything. Which is a big fear usually.

So have your 3-month value at minimum $3K.

Now when I first started out… it was $750/mo. And no minimum contract (to speed up selling) and counteract lack of (sufficient) testimonials.

That doesn’t mean that you don’t project for a 3-month value. And even engineer for it. Remember people are lazy. How can you engineer the process to apply a laziness tax while maximising your chances of keeping them paying? You don’t want to lose the lazy after just one month right? Just like in chess, you need to think 7-8 moves ahead. If you’re not going to set a minimum contract period legally, how will you do it psychologically? And human psychology has plenty of weaknesses that someone who is determined to get something can leverage against those with much weaker determination — which allows you to legally achieve your aims at this stage of the journey.

So it all depends what the priority is. In the beginning, cash is the priority.

At my current stage cash isn’t the priority anymore. Now delivering a great customer experience, having them get results ASAP, being onboarded fast so they don’t slow us down, long term retention (rather than just short term), now these are the priorities.

Now if I was a goodie tissue fake a$$ guru, what I’d tell you is a different story. I’d say, you see Rich, when you’re young and dumb you start with a certain process. Then you notice clients don’t really follow it, so you change it. And your offer gets better, results get better, clients are happier.
That’s how you build a startup, by iterating to improve your process and following customer feedback

See — it’s the same story. Told from two different perspectives. The one you see in the books is the second one. They only tell you about improving the service so users love it and it gets better results. In other words, the winner hides the real truth of how the win was achieved. They NEVER tell you about how to think strategically and make money. NEVER. You won’t find a single book which teaches or even mentions this stuff.

Suppose we each get 15 people to pay each of us $1K/mo without a minimum contractual period. 20% are lazy (3 people). Now I’m a goodie tissue, and I treat the lazy and the non-lazy alike. I don’t exploit the psychological weakness of the lazy. I don’t structure the payment structure accordingly, I don’t plan for them getting cold feet and wanting out of the deal. And therefore, what ends up happening is I lose 3 people the first month (or I only get $3K from them). You on the other hand are a smart operator. You know some are lazy. Therefore you set up a payment structure where they pay a dumb tax for their laziness. And you know they’re less likely to quit once they have invested something because they feel like they’re throwing money away. Now instead of 1 month, the lazies stay for 5 months with you. Suddenly while I gained $3K extra from the same number of sales, you gained $15K extra. Who will develop faster? Who will have better people? Who will have better growth?

Same reason why you have an automated subscription. It’s not because it’s easier — it’s because clients are lazy, and they will pay for their laziness, instead of having you pay for it.

The only difference between the two stories is that the strategic operator achieves the result due to his intelligence, while the goodie tissue, if he achieves the result at all, does it by LUCK.

Now are you starting to see what it means to build an offer that gets you to your goals? Your goals change as you get more money and the organisation evolves… therefore, the product and the offer will also change.

First you need cash. EVERYTHING needs to be engineered for the accumulation of cash. Legally, of course. I’m not suggesting you do anything illegal. But legally, using all the tools at your disposal, including human weakness.

Once you have cash, then you begin engineering for other goals.

It’s like an army. An army at war uses any and all resources at its disposal to achieve its objective. Most people ruin themselves because instead of doing what is required to achieve the objective, they follow an ideology. “Oh no, this isn’t the right way to build a startup, I need to prioritize customer experience first, not money. I want those glowing testimonials, oh Rich it gets me so high!” *facepalm*

And they fail. Inevitably.


I agree — depth comes later. First figure out how you get people to pay you money. Depth is what builds a moat — it’s the ENTRY factor. Notice how at first I didn’t care about entry. I needed money. It’s not even that I needed it — my business and my organisation needed it.

Then, to shut off the competition and defend the position you’ve taken over, now you bring the depth.


It’s not about time, it’s getting users to keep paying or keep using. I don’t think you can “do it properly” without users. “Doing it properly” requires USERS — many of them. So you learn exactly what’s holding them back, why some people get results and some don’t.

As a new coach, do you think you know what gets results?! Nah, it’s only these fake gurus in a fake culture who pretend to be goodie tissues that tell you they know — so they get you to trust them, hand over your money, and then God help you, maybe you get results, or maybe you don’t. They are the real scammers if you ask me. The truth is nobody knows without extensive experience testing — and extensive experience testing requires many failures and a lot of sacrifices. The goodie tissues won’t ever admit this, because it’s their hidden advantage over you.

You only figure that out by running experiments on people — in this case your clients. So paid or not, you still need users. Even FREE costs you time. You have any idea how hard it is to get me to try a FREE software tool?! It’s mission impossible almost. The fact it’s free doesn’t change anything. Changing my behavior, that’s the hard part. Whether I pay to get my behavior changed or I don’t is secondary.

In fact, you’re better off getting me to pay, than free. If I pay, I feel I’ve wasted my money if I don’t use the goddamn thing. If you give it to me free — nothing lost if I don’t use it.

The only situation where this is different, is if I’m using tool X (say MailCheat(Chimp)) and you’ve built RichChimp, and you tell me “Look — RichChimp does exactly what MailCheat(Chimp) does. Identical copy. We’re going to be adding new features though and building it, but I’m going to let you in for a 1-time, lifetime fee of $200” I’d hand you the money instantly. Because rather than paying $10K+ for a lifetime on MailCheat(Chimp), I’d rather pay you once and switch.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the MailCheat(Chimp) competitors grew like this, by going after the big influencers. Gave them all the advantages in the world for free, in exchange they had to promote the shit out of it.

Thank you for the comprehensive response. I'll address specific points below.

-

Atm 70% of our clients are on our $987/mo service (this is up from around 60% 3 months ago). There is a minimum 3-month committment for it now. So effectively it is at least $3K. But it doesn’t FEEL like $3K, because the client thinks “well, if these guys are scammers, I just won’t pay 2nd and 3rd month” (even though legally that becomes an impossibility because we are professionals and fulfil all our contractual obligations, cross every T)

And here “scammers” doesn’t mean they don’t get the final result in month 1, it simply means it’s obviously a low effort service, people answer super slow, there’s a general lack of interest in how you’re doing and so on. Like a fly by night operator essentially. It covers that fear — they know you’re not just going to take the money and not do absolutely anything. Which is a big fear usually.

So have your 3-month value at minimum $3K.

Now when I first started out… it was $750/mo. And no minimum contract (to speed up selling) and counteract lack of (sufficient) testimonials.

That doesn’t mean that you don’t project for a 3-month value. And even engineer for it. Remember people are lazy. How can you engineer the process to apply a laziness tax while maximising your chances of keeping them paying? You don’t want to lose the lazy after just one month right? Just like in chess, you need to think 7-8 moves ahead. If you’re not going to set a minimum contract period legally, how will you do it psychologically? And human psychology has plenty of weaknesses that someone who is determined to get something can leverage against those with much weaker determination — which allows you to legally achieve your aims at this stage of the journey.

Do you have any rationale behind the $987 price? Why not $999, for example?

I appreciate you're effectively baking in a $3k order via their commitment to ~ 3 months of the service - are you using any tricks/systems to encourage them to continue paying (beyond just relying on them to not cancel)?

For example, and building on what I suggested regarding the SaaS side of things, a SaaS platform has the person locked into a portal that the company controls. That gives the opportunity for the company to expand/grow/change the way said platform works in order to minimize churn. I'd imagine you would have the opportunity to do the same, as what you've suggested above is basically a strong "front end" offer with limited backend at the moment.

To explain further, people "use Shopify". They're not "using eCommerce software hosted on the Internet which happens to be called Shopify". Same for other platforms; "I'm going to connect with you on LinkedIn", "Follow me on Twitch".... LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Google, Amazon are databases that live in the sky which allow you to connect with specific sets of data. Their "value skew" was making specific types of data publicly available for the first time, to a global audience and developing a platform + ecosystem around that. If you can get into that place, fastlane all the way.

How that data is procured, presented and - ultimately - monetized is how each of those businesses became worth so much money. We're connected on Linkedin and have never shared messages on there. Yet, I've talked with you plenty on here. Why? Different purposes for the data... LinkedIn is for formal business arrangements, here is a forum where one can share ideas + progress with like-minded peers.

My point is that if you're able to go above "functionality" level, and if you are subsequently able to "own the experience", there are ways and means through which to enhance said experience to make it more commercially attractive. That's where a lot of the value of SaaS applications resides. Slightly off topic but important to discern nonetheless.

I'll address the scammers reference below.

-

Now are you starting to see what it means to build an offer that gets you to your goals? Your goals change as you get more money and the organisation evolves… therefore, the product and the offer will also change.

First you need cash. EVERYTHING needs to be engineered for the accumulation of cash. Legally, of course. I’m not suggesting you do anything illegal. But legally, using all the tools at your disposal, including human weakness.

Once you have cash, then you begin engineering for other goals.

It’s like an army. An army at war uses any and all resources at its disposal to achieve its objective. Most people ruin themselves because instead of doing what is required to achieve the objective, they follow an ideology. “Oh no, this isn’t the right way to build a startup, I need to prioritize customer experience first, not money. I want those glowing testimonials, oh Rich it gets me so high!”

Totally agree with this and I already knew about constructing offers in this way - I was mainly trying to get you to open up about your own business as to provide some value to the thread. A lot of people like to criticise but few will take the time to discern exactly why you've written what you have.

I think you have a wealth of knowledge and, whilst many of the points you raise go against the standard doctrine of this community, they are generally correct and I would like to learn more about them.

In terms of what you've suggested about the cash side of things - correct. I may have written things about building a brand etc but that's because I already found ways to earn money for myself. My predisposition thus became how to take that to the next level (or provide some sort of vision for myself), which is what I've been focused on.

Obviously, you can't do this on a whim and it requires cash to make it work.

I agree — depth comes later. First figure out how you get people to pay you money. Depth is what builds a moat — it’s the ENTRY factor. Notice how at first I didn’t care about entry. I needed money. It’s not even that I needed it — my business and my organisation needed it.

Then, to shut off the competition and defend the position you’ve taken over, now you bring the depth.

Indeed - I call this "defending the flank".

Each time you make any step forward in business, you need to ensure your flank is protected. If it is not, then you may suffer serious - if not cataclysmic - problems which could cause the demise of the business.

Investing time, money and energy into building a "brand" was my answer to this. Obviously, everybody will approach it differently, but the premise is the same regardless; the business has a core set of equitable value which you need to continue to grow. There will be occasions where you have to take risks in order to grow it substantially, and in those cases, you need to ensure you have appropriate downside protection in place.

The notion of creating depth with your brand/offer is part of that process and generally reflective of the work you've undertaken to implement it.

-

In fact, you’re better off getting me to pay, than free. If I pay, I feel I’ve wasted my money if I don’t use the goddamn thing. If you give it to me free — nothing lost if I don’t use it.

The only situation where this is different, is if I’m using tool X (say MailCheat(Chimp)) and you’ve built RichChimp, and you tell me “Look — RichChimp does exactly what MailCheat(Chimp) does. Identical copy. We’re going to be adding new features though and building it, but I’m going to let you in for a 1-time, lifetime fee of $200” I’d hand you the money instantly. Because rather than paying $10K+ for a lifetime on MailCheat(Chimp), I’d rather pay you once and switch.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the MailCheat(Chimp) competitors grew like this, by going after the big influencers. Gave them all the advantages in the world for free, in exchange they had to promote the shit out of it.

The one thing I would say here is that, whilst there are some instances where "free" works, anyone who's not a funded startup should avoid it. I've tried it and it only attracts the worst types of buyer. If you can't get paid for the product/service you are offering, you should be aiming to refine or change the offer. It's not cut-and-dry of course, but there are many broke influencers out there.

One of the BIG things that I've found personally is that people "with money" (IE those who have funds for your products/services) want to pay for quality. There is a period where you need to build a portfolio/testimonials, but from then, you need to be getting paid as much as possible for your work. I used to think that it would be best to do good by people and offer a cheaper price, but after getting stung a few times, it's abundantly clear that you need to be aiming for high prices no matter what you're doing.

-

“well, if these guys are scammers, I just won’t pay 2nd and 3rd month” (even though legally that becomes an impossibility because we are professionals and fulfil all our contractual obligations, cross every T)

Having looked at your public site before, one of the things I found was it seemed quite superficial in terms of what you're offering. That's not to say the offer itself is superficial, rather the way it's presented.

It's interesting you would even allude to people thinking you may be scammers. I think that is quite telling -- if I was an impartial person viewing your site/content, that's a question that I would certainly have in my head. I'll attempt to breakdown why, and a potential solution, below.

As someone who would hope to be a potential client of yours soon, the key value I see you providing is a "done for you" B2B promotions partner. If I'm selling software support services, I'd be partial to paying your company to help create a strategy & system to procure leads for bigger projects. My thought process would be.... if I pay these guys £Xk a month, will that lead to a £50k project? If so, how many and how frequently? I don't care how that happens as long as it works.

I understand that there is no "one size fits all" solution to business, and that every company's approach to promotion is different. Furthermore, the only reason why I would even be considering you (or a comparable service provider) is because I would already have my own processes dialled in correctly (ref "defending the flank" above)

If I were looking at your service, my primary concern would be that the way it's currently presented seems very superficial - everything about it screams one of those scammy Internet Marketing seminar/service companies that a lot of younger people try to set up because there is very low barriers to entry. Obviously, I know you're not that way at all, but that's how it seems.

In fact, the only reason I would even consider it is because of what you've posted on here. I don't agree with the way you present many of your ideas, but you generally have very apt insights and (most importantly) it's evident you have the killer instinct that few others do. For this reason alone, I would entrust that you would be able to deliver the results I am looking for. That's a separate conversation but is essentially why I would even consider to use your services. Nothing else you've done or said would do that.

I really do believe that if you took a step back, and embraced a less apocalyptic approach to the backend of the business, you could grow what you're doing substantially. I've seen other businesses making significantly more than yours with people who are 1/10th as intelligent. The difference is they have invested into their "depth" in such a way that I would feel I can trust my company's brand with their processes & approach. I don't get that feeling from yours.

The reason I've written this is because it ties into the LinkedIn question you had the other week; I think that is symptomatic of the problem I've presented above. You've found LinkedIn to work, but are now struggling to think about how you're going to grow the business. I really do believe if you increased the depth behind what you're doing, you would start attracting more substantive projects, clients and companies who want more than what is essentially a glorified lead gen system. You have so much to offer and have already made excellent progress.

Whilst I don't have any specific suggestions, my opinion is such. I've written it in the interest of being constructive: -

• Being able to outreach is dependent on the amount of value you have in the business. I think you are at the juncture that many business fall into, which is that you have benefitted profusely from an external factor with limited internal (independent) value to back it up.
  
  The result is that if you want to grow the business further, you are now looking at latching onto more external factors (IE switch agencies for digital service providers). I think you need to look at the internal side of it before doing that.
  
  
  
• ((Cooky ideas warning - please be gentle with me))
  
  My opinion is there's an invisible force which exists within everything, particularly living things. It may sound strange, but it's essentially the same as something I found called "vril" - a fictional energy which permeates everything and can be manipulated by the living.
  
  Alchemists called it Prima Materia and even Isaac Newton spent decades trying to figure out how to make it. I read about it in the book "The Science of Getting Rich". You'll call bullshit but I think it's real - some people are magnetic. They have "animal magnetism". The reason is they invested into themselves to such a degree that they become sources of adoration, energy and hope. I personally think the Higgs Boson particle is a physical representation of the energy (IE the thing which gives objects mass).
  
  The energy can be built over time. Everybody has it, but few pay any attention to it, hence theirs is weak and depleted. They attempt to make up for the imbalance by draining other people's.
  
  Understanding the energy, how to develop it, manifest it and use it to help others, is what I believe "God" to be.
  
  It is my opinion that having the means to develop the energy is what determines how far some people can go. The modern context may be heavily weighted toward commercial value, but it has existed forever in many forms. Think about someone like Caesar or Napoleon. They were two normal guys who became venerated as Gods. How?
  
  The answer is they chose to commit themselves to an ideal, passion or a cause that they would die for. Through the process of personal development & growth required to become someone able to facilitate the cause, they developed their energy to the point that others venerated them for it.
  
  Of course, there is a "selfish" element to all of that. Everybody is self interested, but if you can use that self-interest to benefit a wider segment of the whole, your energy you have will develop to suit.
  
  
  
• Your value - the thing that people are mostly buying - is you. Your experience, results, ideas, intelligence, creativity and motivation. ALL of that informs the energy you dissipate. A company is people who share the same energy - or, at least, the same outlook on how develop & grow.
  
  It is my view that you are at a point where you would do well to look at developing this "internal" energy within the business with the intent of using it to becoming independently valuable.
  
  I solved how to do this way back when I looked the branding thing --> become "project" centric. Take on disparate work in order to grow the underlying equitable value of the business through the development of initiatives which extend the company's offering.
  
  Doing this is difficult, especially when you have staff to pay. But it does one thing that cannot be faked - it extends the company's underlying equity through the development of new ideas, processes and (eventually) services/products that it has created itself.
  
  The result is that - given enough time & impetus - the company begins to attract people who are committed to it & its ideals. The "invisible energy" is such that it brings weight to your offers and people begin to take what you're doing seriously. Ergo you slowly start to move away from external sources of growth and, instead, the company itself is able to grow by virtue of its own work.
  
  Whilst there are many ways to do this, the key factor is having a core focus and a means to continue to build the equitable value beyond the core competency you're presently known for.
  
  
  
• Obviously, I am writing this from my perspective (predominantly focused on software development where innovation is essential), but I think you likely would benefit from it as well - especially considering your interest in 10xing your company's growth again.
  
  Your business - at present - is laser focused on the LinkedIn niche you've carved out for yourself. This is fine as it's getting you paid, but it's put all of your energy into an external force (LinkedIn), diminishing your ability to broaden your horizon and focus on a wider set of clientele.
  
  All of the larger businesses I look at are not specialists, they generalise and work with a certain network of clients whom they provide a variety of different services. I think you would likely do well to adopt this type of approach, although how it's implemented would obviously be dependent on the specific conditions of the business.

-

As someone who wants to hire you (and, by virtue, your company), the thing I'm most interested in is seeing the vitality of what you "do". I don't care that you have an agency, or are focused on LinkedIn. What have you created?

If you focus on that, I don't see why you would even consider you or what you are doing to be scammy. To me, scamming is a result of highly superficial activities which are either predatory or prey on people that are not as developed/informed as yourself.

Perhaps I'm taking what you wrote too literally but I think it is somewhat telling you'd use the word. I'd never describe the stuff I'm doing now as scammy. Some of the things I did previously could have been considered such, though!

--

I was going to write more but too tired -- I deeply appreciate your response and agree generally with what you've written. The only thing I would highlight is I think the way you've phrased it suggests that you're going to get quick & sharp results which will likely trail off just as quickly.

Do you have any advice on inducing longevity into the offer, even if we agree that you have to do some "questionable" stuff at the beginning to get the ball rolling? I guess that's the depth stuff... have you thought about that much?

 

[heavy_industry]

it is because of low-value/landfill posts like these which have become far too frequent.

A bit of a radical idea, but I think it's time for a mass purge of users.

*** SWEATS PROFUSELY ***

 

[Kak]

Nick Bollettieri: A Huckster Who Knew Nothing About Tennis Reinvented Tennis Training – Courts Club

courts.club

Most people on this forum will be like “uhhh a fat guy teaching me how to lose weight?! Wtf!!”

And that’s wrong.

Nick Bollettieri is the greatest tennis coach in history. Produced over 10 grand slam champions, including the likes of Agassi, Williams sisters, Sharapova, and so on.

And he knew nothing about tennis. Never played professionally.

“Baby, I don’t know half of what most coaches know about pronation, turning hips and shoulders, the dynamics of the stroke, centrifugal force. Shit, I don’t know any of that.”

“All I know is that I wanted to be a winner and with winners.”

That’s what he said.

Which is why I’ve always told people who wanted to go coach to do it. Stop waiting to “be a pro” first. Stop waiting to get results for yourself first. Being a pro and being a good teacher are two entirely different things.

If you prefer being the teacher, start teaching. Get results for your students. That’s what matters.

K

 

[Aidan04]

Isn't this the EXACT problem with gurus?

The EXACT problem will Wall Street?

Telling you how to do something without first doing it yourself?

This doesn't sound like Fastlane material to me.

You can do all the mental gymnastics you want to justify your point, but in the end it comes down to the simple fact they're selling snake oil.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

Isn't this the EXACT problem with gurus?

Gurus are smart. This is the exact problem with YOU though.

The EXACT problem will Wall Street?

Same. Wall street is smart. They tell you, “I made $100Bn, therefore give me your money and I’ll make you a ton too” and you open your wallet and hand over your hard earned cash.

Don’t you see?

It’s YOUR fault. Precisely because you trust them, because they’ve “done it”.

Instead of using your own brain to figure out if it will work, you outsource your thinking to Wall Street and the guru, because they’ve done it, and they have more experience than you.

This is how you think. Until you see the logical errors in your thinking, you will continue making the same mistake over and over again. In other words, you’ll continue being a fool.

If Elon Musk told you that he’ll teach you to be rich, most people would hand over all their money to him. Because they have a stone for a brain. And if anything, that’s not Elon Musk’s fault.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

That said, there is a high likelihood I will be transforming the forum into a private, paid forum (don't worry, members with substantial track records will have grandfather privileges) with more transparency and barriers for access.

I think this is a great idea. I always like to say that people will pay for value — and if they don’t pay, then they don’t truly need it. Those posters you referenced above don’t really care if they get banned or not. The forum is more entertainment and wasting time than anything else for them.

Also, my work is more popular overseas than it is here in the USA, which means, people in lesser developed countries aren't working for a dream, they are working for survival -- this encourages a lot of freelancer, easy-entry bullshit.

In my case, when I returned from the UK to Romania, I wasn’t worried about survival. But I still went back to freelancing, because I didn’t know what else to do.

And this is important for educated, intelligent people. It’s not that many of us lack ambition or merely want to survive, but rather that we simply don’t know what to do.

So freelancing ends up being an obvious choice to controlling your own time, learning about businesses by working with other businesses and so on. I mean, much better than sitting thumb up the butt, excuse the expression, and thinking what you should do.

I can predict the standard answer from you here would be “so you don’t have any problems?”, and that’s useful up to a point. However, as a 23-year old back then, my “problems” would be things like making money on my own without a job, dating, discipline, sleeping late, OCD.

So being honest, those aren’t great problems to solve, and are unlikely businesses to be successful in. Not impossible, just unlikely.

For beginners to succeed they need direction — this doesn’t mean every answer is figured out for them, but a journey should be mapped out. And the most important thing for a beginner is generating cash flow — LOTS OF IT. Once you have cash flow, the gateways of opportunities open up. Nowadays I have people reaching out to me by themselves offering to send me business. I am in talks with such an agency today. Success breeds success.

So the key question for a beginner is how do you get that first success? What does that first “cash flow” business look like?

I’m not saying this is the only path, but it’s far more common than 20-yr old kid launches tech product, gets investors, becomes billionaire/millionaire.

If I was to give advice to my 23-yr old self I would say:
• start a B2B business, not a B2C. If you start a B2C, start an eCommerce business that can be scaled via ads.
• Avoid B2C, avoid courses / info products, avoid SaaS (unless programming is your forte / you have access to good programmers).
• seek to sell something with a direct impact on the bottom line: more revenue or lower costs.

Now what that B2B business is, how to find them, etc. all of that doesn’t have to be figured out. But the direction is a requirement for a beginner imo. Otherwise they don’t even know what to think about except the pathetic little problems that they or their friends have, which are unlikely to lead to great success. Or they look around, they see their friends doing say landscaping, they do landscaping too.

 

[Aidan04]

I'm unable to verbalize how much I outright disagree.

A simple thread scroll of the last 3-6 months will reveal the sheer amount of people dropping by talking about how they want to coach/teach/consult/write about shit they don't know anything about, and shit they haven't actually executed on. This behavior is essentially being encouraged here as of late because "it doesn't matter, bro, ChatGPT and Google can teach you everything you need to know."

What's even more bothersome is once upon a time, members here would actively call them out on their bullshit, MJ included. It seems everyone is beginning to float towards the mentality of "hey, man, if it gets you paid and it isn't illegal, you do you." Which is fine and all as people will live their lives. That's cool. It's the hypocrisy of it all is what drives me insane, and is ultimately why I try to spend as little time as possible on this forum nowadays.

When I initially joined, the community that existed felt like a strong, fierce group of people who were ready to go to war to help people and be successful. They were working on interesting shit. Some of them were doing groundbreaking shit. Now it feels like a whole bunch of lazy twats looking to make a quick and easy buck with their lame a$$ cryptos, their trash "courses," their irrelevant "workout plans," etc. The list is literally F*cking endless.

It feels like this forum is on the path of becoming the next "entrepreneurship" subreddit. And it's sad.

Cheers.

Exactly. What the hell happened to talking about CENTS businesses?

What happened to helping people and fixing inconveniences in people's lives?

What happened to progress threads? (@Spenny and @NIK4658 you guys are F*cking killing it right now)

What happened to watching someone go from zero to Fastlane status over a few years?

Damn shame what people are posting about these days. Notice how we haven't had a lot of new Gold threads?

A bit of a radical idea, but I think it's time for a mass purge of users.

 

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[AceVentures]

he teacher who has no experience building bridges but teaches others how to do so likewise doesn't understand that the way he's teaching it is perhaps not the way it ought to be taught, since that form of teaching has only kept him in a loop of teaching others instead of actually building bridges.

A personal experience here:

In college when I was studying petroleum engineering, in my senior year we had 2 drilling engineering courses.

They were unnecessarily rigorous and dumb courses from which I learned next to nothing.

In well design, you have to design the top portions of the wellbore in accordance with what the bottomhole conditions your completions engineer wants.

Now in that course, if during an exam you selected the wrong casing size for the top portion of the well, all of your answers downstream were wrong.

I had countless friends who failed and dropped out of the program because of that.

Oce I became a petroleum engineer and started working for an oil and gas exploration company, I learned about drilling by watching a well being drilled.

We all studied the well-design before drilling commenced. We worked with the petrophysicists, the geophysicists, the managers, etc. to understand what was being done, why it was being done, and how we were going to move forward with the drilling program to achieve our goal.

During drilling I stayed up (the process is active 24/7) to learn why we were doing x or y or z. We studied the problems we encountered and how to overcome them.

After we finished drilling one well, I knew all I needed to know for all the other wells we drilled in that basin.

That first well took 40 days to drill, and I became more or less proficient in drilling engineering.

And that teacher that taught us drilling in college? I learned he's stealing his slides from company men who are actually drilling wells. Meanwhile his self-acclaimed grandeur and PhD and bullshit led him to discourage and drop students out of the program for choosing the wrong casing size during an exam.

In practice, nobody would choose the wrong casing size because you work in a multi-disciplinary group of people and any issue in the drilling program would be resolved before drilling commences.

But you wouldn't know this unless you actually did the thing.

You’re a smart guy. I know you can’t believe something this aberrant deep down.

Just because he isn’t healthy/fit himself doesn’t mean he’s not aware of what’s holding him back or WHY he isn’t fit.

Nothing aberrant about refusing to take health advice from a fatty boombatty.

This is how you can refine your methods as a teacher. And I daresay that a teacher knows A LOT MORE than a practitioner about how things ought to be taught (since he sees the results of teaching) AND also about how they ought to be DONE — because he THINKS about it. The doer mostly DOES — follows building codes, etc. following procedures isn’t how innovation occurs.

Very often it is precisely those who are not in the straightjacket of procedures who innovate — and very often they are THINKERS… people who spend their time coming up with new ideas and turning things on all sides. A doer has no time for this — he needs to get it done. He doesn’t care about better.

Thinking and doing are inseparable. They're only separate in how we abstract them using language.

You can't be the best "thinker" without being simultaneously the best "doer".

Can't dig deeper into this without getting into a debate about the nature of perception, action and cognition, which I don't have time for today.

The jerkoff that's "thinking" all day in his office has no better advice to offer than the guy who built the last bridge and is applying his learning to the bridge he's building today.

 

[AceVentures]

You made a controversial post and stirred up the pot.

I offered my personal take on the matter. I even provided an example from my own life in which classroom taught material was significantly worse than on-the-job learning, despite the teacher's credentials and decades of teaching.

I even suggested that perhaps our difference in opinion lied in what I believe, which is that practical experience is crucial.

You getting all hot and bothered isn't because we're all somehow missing the wonderful insight you're providing, it's likely because your hot take ain't that hot.

Ok so? There are fakes across the board. Not all teachers are good, just like not all practitioners are good. In fact, most are lazy and just “do their job”. They don’t really care about it.

Good teachers are good teachers because they can deliver good results. If you think that people that haven't walked the walk are superior teachers to people who have, then so be it. I obviously disagree with that take.

But you can go eat your cake and fling poop as you build your fat-loss program.

I'll bow out of this landfill.

 

[Kak]

Learning about something is different than doing it yourself. Sure, you need to LEARN how to get results for others. For example, when it comes to weight loss, you need to study what the keys are.

Maybe the keys are exercise + food.

In that case you need to study what exercise, and what food.

Read about other people's experience. Read what other teachers have said.

Apply things on others.

See what works.

The bottom line is that teaching X and practicing X are two different things.

So if you want to teach X, you need to start by learning what the keys to success with X are. And guess what, you’re not going to learn that by practicing X LOL — you’re going to learn from the experience of the greats who have already gone through everything.

I didn’t suggest you start teaching engineering or bridge design with 0 study. No, you MUST study.

What I said is that it may very well be possible to teach bridge design with 0 practical experience. In fact, there are professors in top universities doing just that. They’ve learned from case studies, the experience of others, and so on.

However, this forum does have a bias against coaching and teaching generally. These are viewed by most as 2nd class professions, especially if the said person isn’t top 1% at practicing the skill they want to teach or coach about.

1) Obviously because he wants to help you lose weight and get paid for helping you do it. Why, is getting paid for it something to be ashamed of?

2) Many reasons. Maybe he doesn’t want to lose weight, because he loves food more than the disadvantages of being overweight. That’s just one example — but there can be a ton of possible reasons.

3) Because he wants to make money by helping people lose weight. No shame in that.

This is only true if he has no experience and follow-up with the results his students are getting afterwards. Or with how his field is evolving over time.

If he is involved with this, there is no doubt he is learning.

This is how you can refine your methods as a teacher. And I daresay that a teacher knows A LOT MORE than a practitioner about how things ought to be taught (since he sees the results of teaching) AND also about how they ought to be DONE — because he THINKS about it. The doer mostly DOES — follows building codes, etc. following procedures isn’t how innovation occurs.

Very often it is precisely those who are not in the straightjacket of procedures who innovate — and very often they are THINKERS… people who spend their time coming up with new ideas and turning things on all sides. A doer has no time for this — he needs to get it done. He doesn’t care about better.

Do you think Roger Federer cared about a novel way to hit a forehand?! Nah! The dude was too busy perfecting his craft rather than experimenting with weird hits that may lead to innovation.


You’re a smart guy. I know you can’t believe something this aberrant deep down.

Just because he isn’t healthy/fit himself doesn’t mean he’s not aware of what’s holding him back or WHY he isn’t fit.

You’re assuming that he is actively trying to lose weight and failing to do it. Which may not be the case. (And as a sidenote, even if it was, it does not follow that he wouldn’t be able to help someone else lose weight. Because, once again, when you help someone else you have an objective point of view, and you’re not influenced by your emotions, and can thus take better decisions than you do for yourself).

Freud knew that smoking was killing him. But he kept smoking those cigars and never wanted to stop in the first place. He’d rather have had a shorter life wherein he enjoyed his vice, than a longer one wherein he was deprived of it.

Because guess what. Some people would rather have the enjoyment of food, than the enjoyment of being fit. Not everyone has the same values. Don’t forget that.



Dig deeper. Why don’t you feel comfortable? If the guy shows you results from people who have lost weight applying his course? If he lets you to SPEAK with those people? Would you still not buy? I doubt it.

Furthermore, saying that you would buy from the lean and fit guy instead, all things being equal, would, frankly speaking, mean that you’re not very intelligent, and you’re not bothered by it.

Most consumers aren’t smart. That’s why they get scammed all the time LOL. Iman Ghadzi flashes a lambo in front of you, and you take out your wallet and pay him. Literarily, scamming consumers is the easiest job ever, because they never think very deeply about things. They are persuaded by what is most superficial.

I’m not sure what college you attended, but I attended the top Civil Engineering university in the UK. Numero 1. And…



This is the most retarded assessment procedure I’ve ever heard about.

For us, if you got the first part of the question wrong, it didn’t matter. You could get full points for the rest of it. Because what was assessed, was your THINKING.

If you applied a wrong formula for example, and got your answer, but wrote next to it something like “hmm this cross section appears to be too thick for the situation. I probably miscalculated” you got extra point, because you thought.

And likewise, in some questions the calculations would be purposefully wrong, and you had to realize and begin questioning one of the assumptions that was being made.

In fact, you could get ALL the answers wrong, and still get points if you were thinking the right way.



So you learned by watching, not by doing. Ok.



Ok so? There are fakes across the board. Not all teachers are good, just like not all practitioners are good. In fact, most are lazy and just “do their job”. They don’t really care about it.

However when it comes to seling snakeoil, in most cases you have a practitioner who scams people, not a teacher. Iman Ghadzi is a practitioner — he tells you follow me, because I’ve done it. This is precisely how people get scammed. And your argument is “he’s not really a practitioner, that’s where you go wrong” instead of teaching people to stop blindly following practitioners.

Sidenote:

@Kak has sent me a beautiful Kake to make me fat so I can prove my point and teach you all how to melt that ugly fat off like butter on a hot stove. Thank you, gentle soul.

Gurus are smart. This is the exact problem with YOU though.



Same. Wall street is smart. They tell you, “I made $100Bn, therefore give me your money and I’ll make you a ton too” and you open your wallet and hand over your hard earned cash.

Don’t you see?

It’s YOUR fault. Precisely because you trust them, because they’ve “done it”.

Instead of using your own brain to figure out if it will work, you outsource your thinking to Wall Street and the guru, because they’ve done it, and they have more experience than you.

This is how you think. Until you see the logical errors in your thinking, you will continue making the same mistake over and over again. In other words, you’ll continue being a fool.

If Elon Musk told you that he’ll teach you to be rich, most people would hand over all their money to him. Because they have a stone for a brain. And if anything, that’s not Elon Musk’s fault.

Buuuuut…

1) Guru = rich

2) You = brokie

3) Smart people make money, dumb people stay poor

4) Therefore guru must be doing something smart

QED

That’s not true. While MJ personally disagrees with me on this point (and he has made that clear several times already), I don’t see it as disagreeing with fastlane philosophy.

Quite the contrary I see it as a natural outgrowth of the healthy skepticism that fastlane philosophy advances. Because it encourages you to look past the accolades someone has and think with your own brain

K

 

[MitchC]

I doubt this. I've been in internet marketing for 12+ years, and I still can't tell for certain if a lot of products / courses are scams, merely by looking at their marketing. Some that LOOK LIKE scams are actually good products. And some that DON'T look like scams are actually terrible products.

I can tell from their free content and tips not their marketing, although I guess that’s the same thing

They say things that sound good in theory but in practice don’t work.

And then they do exactly what I said and exactly what you said and they blame the students when it doesn’t work

Did you apply it? Or how do you "know"? Or is this just faith in your guru?

This stupid a$$ response proves my entire F*cking point

How would the guru know if he never did it?

Biophase is not a guru either, he actually runs Amazon stores

I know people who run stores and people who have tried to run stores. The guys who succeeded did what biophase said, the guys who failed did exactly what every guru I see is teaching

Listen pal – I'm not talking about a fake guru. I'm talking about someone who actually learns what it takes to succeed in e-commerce without doing it themselves. They read books, they talk with e-commerce owners, they see from them what's working, what's not working, maybe they wrote copy for e-commerce and worked with the owner and learned about the biz, they see different strategies and what results they got, and so on. They study the competition, they look at what they're doing now to get traffic vs what they did in the beginning. And so on. Maybe they even pay people like biophase to learn - if they give you the same knowledge that biophase did, are they now a "fake guru" and that knowledge worth nothing?

Who’s moving the goal posts now?

Who is this magical person with access and knowledge like that

The guy who wrote copy for stores, if he somehow had access to the split test results of all his copy, I’d maybe let him coach me in copywriting, or on how to get copywriting jobs, but no he’s not going to teach me how to run a store by asking store owners what’s working and looking at their business from the outside it’s laughable and exactly what I’m saying.

It's really a pity that people like you don't see the value of great theoreticians.

Who said that?

There’s a time and a place for theory and knowledge, but teaching someone something you’ve never done is not the same thing.

Back to the weightloss.

There’s a difference between having the knowledge of calories in calories out, and the experience of what it’s like and what it actually takes to follow a diet. Time and a place for both but if you want results I know who I’d be asking advice from.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Having a “low value post” with lots of people screaming at it “low value” is really a “fake negative signal” in my opinion.

A low value post is a low value post.

Period.

It doesn't matter if 20 people scream at it, or ignore it completely. Either way, their days are numbered.

Also, you HAVE NO CLUE what goes on behind the scenes here, so your "opinion" is malformed because it lacks all available information.

 

[Aidan04]

This is a trainwreck of a thread. It is all fine to play devil's advocate, Black Dragon, but calling people "brokies" isn't professional to people who could be your peers for the Fastlane. It doesn't make others want to work or associate with you. Maybe you don't care, whatever. Others will be busy collaborating.

"The good old days" were previously mentioned on the forum, when people worked on amazing projects and helped each other. I know you're working with Mike, but does a thread like this inspire community?

Calling people brokies?
Clearly trolling others?
Looking to be controversial for an argument?

Does this make me want to read posts? Does this make me want to stay around? Contribute? If this was a first impression of the forum, Elon Musk will never post.

For those reading, are you withholding something that can boost the community? Why the hell are we whining and reminising about the past when you can make a difference RIGHT NOW by posting high-quality content?

Amazing insights? Guidance for new members? Don't be selfish. Don't be silly and whine. Do something goddamn it.

I haven't done much on the forum compared to others, but I try my best to ensure that my posts and conversations with people generate value and uplift them. @Black_Dragon43 and @Oso, you're both in a great position to post GOLD after GOLD if you want to. You've both been on the forum for a while and I'm sure people and learn a lot.

Let's try to at least be an example. Those with two brain cells will follow suit.


I do agree. @Aidan04 I wish I were killing it. Compared to my age peers, I'm doing well, but I want to do much, much better.

It's not about being the 1% of the 1% of finances.

It's cool, but I don't need it.

It's more to do with solving the problems people struggle with and need help with.

I've realised that nothing will change once I get the money, the cars, the materialistic things. It may bring me momentary joy, but I don't think it'll match a five-star review.

I know that going forward, I will never forget that rush of "You got a sale!" when you're plodding around doing other stuff. Or the tsunami of sales from a successful marketing campaign. Or that person who posts and enthusiastically reviews your product. It will loom over me and likely eat me alive if ignore it.

Pandora's box is open. I want to offer more products, get more 5-star reviews, and help more people—so many more people.

I'm pleased with where I've gotten so far, but I have bigger dreams for the future. This tiny business is a speck compared to whatever Pena or any other wet wipe guru goes on about in their amped-up talks is nothing, but it means a lot to my development & direction. Far more than anything I've read, learned or experienced.

I've come to realise that I live for other people and can solve problems for them. It kills me if I can't do that. Doing my degree is an example of that.


So sure, I'm not going from $0-$5mil yet, but I know I'm on a great trajectory. I could compare myself to others doing the same, but that's not the game I'm playing. That is a bottomless pit & I'd prefer not to go there. I can work myself up, peering over the fence and hopping around, or I can relax and look around at who I can help right now & keep being consistent.

You're my boy so I may have been a little biased, but to me, you have the beginnings of a productocracy. To me, you're going to make giant leaps. Same with Nik and the rest of the gang.

As you said, solving problems for people is the foundation of what we do.

You shouldn’t even compare yourself with me. Or with Johnny boy. Or most people here. I look at myself as basically a loser. There are other 30-year olds with $20M in the bank. Compared to them, as Dan Pena would say, I’m not even a drop of sweat on their ball sack, excuse Dan’s expression.

You want to think big? Fine, me too. There are 20-year old kids going from 0 to $5 million in a year. That’s what I’m interested in. What are they doing? What kind of opportunities do they pursue? What kind of strategies do they use to achieve that scale? That imo is a real CENTS business — and that’s super HARD to build, otherwise everyone would do it. The rest is just vanity metrics.

What I’ve noticed is that these people who scale really fast, do so with REAL CENTS businesses. Very solid control, clear entry barriers that they somehow get around through cleverness or knowing something others don’t, clear need, they get others to do the work from the start, and scale is built-in either via viral marketing or flywheels. Usually they have an insane profit margin too, that allows for rapid accumulation of cash. Usually they also leverage existing marketing infrastructure really well to do it.

Who F*cking cares how much money those people have?

Why are you calling yourself a loser when (I assume) you have the means to live freely and do whatever you want with your life? Is that not enough? I'm personally not going to step on a hedonic treadmill and compare my material wealth to others.

Also, I had to google what the hell a "flywheel" is. Sounds like some corporate guru buzzword bullshit. I think a better term would be customer service, a value skew, or even a productocracy.

We ask a lot from ourselves, and we stay consistent. We'll reach the summit eventually, and it's not about how fast we do it.

None of us aim to become the next 20-year-old unicorn startup CEO, we just want to be free. Free to travel, pursue what we want to build, have meaningful relationships, support family/friends, and live comfortably (and possibly a bit luxuriously) without worrying about bills or finances.

 

[amp0193]

The advice he gave was the complete opposite of what I hear fake gurus teach day in and day out, still to this day

The best Amazon guru I followed back in the day likewise said the exact opposite of everything every other guru was saying.

But no one knew about him, because he sucked at marketing himself as a guru and had no clue what he was doing.

He was too busy crushing Amazon.


Me and some Fastlaners had some good laughs back in the day when we would discover the Amazon seller accounts of some of the biggest gurus... they were hot garbage and selling things like garlic presses and workout bands (and doing it poorly).

 

[AceVentures]

If you prefer being the teacher, start teaching. Get results for your students. That’s what matters.

And how do you reckon that’s done?

Trial and error?

Imagine not knowing anything about physics or mathematics and becoming an engineering teacher.

“Just produce results for your students”

I’m not sure if this post is a joke or if you seriously thought it was meaningful insight.

 

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[Panos Daras]

And that’s wrong.

Scientifically, that is correct. What a fat guy says to me about losing weight might be absolutely correct.

But why is he saying that to me?

Why is he not applying it to himself?

Why is he selling a 297 EUR course to lose weight?

 

[ugudango]

If this thread was meant for losing credibility with dumb takes then you did a fantastic job

#FakeGurusAreGood

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Exactly. What the hell happened to talking about CENTS businesses?

The issue is that it’s very hard to build a CENTS business as a newbie. If you’ve been in the startup world for 15 years, you were involved in scaling a few startups from the ground up, and so on, then maybe you have a sufficient combo of skills, know-how, connections, and industry-specific insight to pull it off. Or, sure, you can be Mark Zuckerberg and happen to land on the right idea at the right time.

But as a newbie? The chances are stacked against you! 80% of the forum users at least are brokies — don’t even have a business, much less a successful one lol. I know because I ran surveys — and this was 3-4 years ago. Now it’s probably worse.

The number of people here who made $100K/year+ in revenue from their business is 1% or less.

Take my business for instance. When I started it, it lacked C and E. It had NTS. Now I’ve built E over time. C is still not there.

So most new businesses have no ability to go for CENTS from the get-go. You go for some lower variant of CENTS and build up to it over time. If you don’t do this, guess what, your future CENTS business doesn’t get off the ground.

What happened to progress threads?

I don’t have a progress thread, but I have posted threads asking for advice on the issues I was dealing with. It always got 1-2 responses, usually from the more senior members, and advice which was sort of generic, because guess what, they don’t know my industry.

There are some great progress threads going on… a recent one is @mikecarlooch — I’ve been helping him, but I’m lucky because I’m ahead of the journey and in a similar (non-competing) niche to him, so I can advise him.

But when you get a real estate developer advising me, for example, or the other way around, you can clearly see how the advice isn’t going to be tailored to our industries.

This is precisely the challenge of running a “business” forum. Business is not the same thing. One business and another business, are two completely different entities. It’s like having two animals of a different species sharing the same name — how confusing would that be?

What each needs to be successful is wildly different.