Fail To Learn: Teaching stories from business, sales, marketing, coaching, blogging, freelance, & entrepreneurs.

As your business grows you have to make many decisions around hiring employees. Bringing on employees brings on an entirely new set of challenges, and highlights challenge areas in your business you never realized you had.

Joanna Wiebe, founder of Copy Hackers, shares the struggles and challenges she endured with her hiring process. The struggle to hire the someone who won’t sleep on the job, to the challenges of training and building a cohesive team.

Joanna is a joy to talk with and this is a conversation you want to listen to, even if you never plan to hire an employee.

Here’s what Joanna and I discuss:

• How she put off hiring anyone after being burned by her first hires.
• Writing a blog is a lot more work than most people think.
• How her first hire fell asleep on the job, literally.
• The emotional struggle she faced when firing him, and how it took a long time to recover.
• How she tried to live with only virtual assistants and the constraints that placed on her.
• Why she should’ve hired someone immediately and what stopped her from making that decision.
• Why she thought just doing it herself was the right thing, even though is could be deadly.
• Why she said she’d be much further ahead if she would’ve hired sooner.
• The challenges faced when training new people.
• The problem Joanna faced with virtual employees.
• Why she needed people to be in the same room with her.
• Why saying, “Forget it! I’ll just do it myself,” is a garbage attitude to hold.
• What shows inexperience when hiring and training people.
• How not bringing on people kept her from producing as much as they wanted.
• Why Copy Hackers is based on courses and not taking on client work.
• Why email is important for selling courses.
• The challenge to keep your list engaged between product launches, and what she’s done to fix it.
• Why it’s important to have evergreen products.
• The 3 questions every growing business owners needs to step back and ask about their business, before things go bad.
• How to put systems in place, even when it’s hard.
• Why she said her team is amazing, despite her challenges training them.
• How Joanna screens and brings on new people now, and how it has changed the way they operate.
• Why product promotion is often more important than product creation.
• How she’s gone from hiring on “gut instinct” to building a process that filters better candidates.
• How she’s more aware of her flaws when hiring.
• How Airstory will change the way you write.

Enjoy the show:

FtL 32: Lame Hiring Process Caused Regret And Slowed Growth At Copy Hackers, And What They Did To Fix It

Keenan went through a lot before he found success as A Sales Guy. He’s a great example of persistence in light of disasters after disaster. He had one collapse after another, falling like dominoes in a line.

Each attempt was great. They were brilliant ideas. They just didn’t take root, despite the amount of work and effort put into them.

Keenan share his stories in today’s show. He talks about what happened and how he’s glad he went through each of these flops. As he told me, he has no regrets.

Here’s what Keenan and I discuss:

• How he came up with his first product that he sold via infomercials.
• Why he didn’t understand the industry he was selling this product to.
• Why he received a cease and desist letter from Anthony Robbins.
• How the product sold like crazy, and had refund requests almost just as fast.
• How he started his first “dot com” business, CreateBuzz, in 2003. It was a social network and content aggregator wrapped together.
• Despite the success in some areas, he couldn’t get it to grow as intended.
• How some communities were more social and quicker to grow than others.
• Why he still loves the idea of CreateBuzz and wishes he could keep it going.
• Why you need to do a little research before running headfirst into a business idea.
• How he started asalesguy.com to build his resume, and how it accidentally turned into his big success.
• Why he’s building another software product, this time to solve his problems.
• Why he still struggles with procrastination and spontaneity.
• How he came up with the idea for Not Taught.

Enjoy the show:

How Keenan Learned What's Not Taught, Through Trial And Error

In this episode I get to speak with Amber Wright. Amber is a communication expert, public speaking coach, and award-winning adjunct professor in Communication Studies. That’s the short list of her professional credentials.

She knows a bit about the art of communication and public speaking. Yet she makes mistakes too. She opens up and shares a couple of stories where she struggled with things we can relate with.

Here’s what Amber and I discuss:

• How technology almost ruined a relationship with someone she highly respected in her industry.
• How she fixed it and was able to pull it off.
• How she continued to make mistakes with that person and can laugh about it today.
• Why she said you need to slow down and build contingency plans.
• What she learned from her worst public speaking events.
• The challenge she faced when speaking to a group of teenagers.
• What happens when you make a mistake trying to understand your audience.
• Why it’s important to develop strong communication skills.
• Why public speaking doesn’t alway mean speaking in front of a group, and why public speaking is valuable to understand and learn.
• Why it’s important to survey your audience.
• Why you need to know your material.
• What happens when you rely on technology.
• The clothes dryer metaphor that made me laugh.
• The struggle she is facing while scaling her business.
• What she means by the term, “People enthusiast.”
• What she means when she says to, “Reveal your humanity to people.”
• Why she said your body is naturally afraid of public speaking because you lack the tools to reduce that anxiety.

Enjoy the show:

You Have To Be Prepared For Things To Go Wrong with Amber Wright

In this episode, I speak with Matthew Turner, the author of The Successful Mistake.

Matthew wanted to take advantage of the vast opportunities crowdfunding a product offers. Last year he decided to do just that. And it flopped.

During the time he realized an important factor that plays into the success of anyone in business: relationships. In this episode he shares how his relationships were effected during the launch and what he learned.

Here’s what else we discuss:

• How Matthew came up with the idea for The Successful Mistake.
• How he discovered most successful people look at their mistakes as some sort of badge of honor.
• Even after interviewing 163 successful people about their mistakes, Matthew still had to make his own.
• What he did that caused his crowdfunding campaign to fail.
• Why he expected people to spread the word.
• How he made the decision to give up.
• Why he said it didn’t deserve to be funded.
• How easy it was for Matthew to burn relationships.
• Why he thought he was right to get angry because people weren’t buying his book and helping out.
• What made him realize he was “That guy” who only reached out when he needed help.
• What he’s doing to change.
• What made his other crowdfunding campaigns successful.
• Why the, “If something is scary then you need to do it,” advice hurt more than helped.
• Why he’s still glad he put the book up to be funded and how it benefits him today.
• How the challenge to get to launch day is terrifies and excites Matthew.
• How it has helped him build a “Challenge is learning” mindset.
• And more…

Download Matthew’s tips in this episode’s 1-Page Quick Action Sheet.

Jon Nastor is the guy behind a coupe of highly successful podcasts (Hack The Entrepreneur and The Showrunner) and over the past 3 years built a product called VelocityPage. One of the first products that allowed you to quickly create landing pages without knowing how to code.

VelocityPage was unique and made a huge splash on the market. Over time Jon’s plans changed. And that’s when the focus of VelocityPage began to fall apart, and what Jon and I discuss.

Here’s what Jon shares:

• How Jon first came up with the idea to start VelocityPage.
• What triggered the hard decision to close the business, even though he is still making sales.
• Why he didn’t feel good about the fact people will were buying his product.
• Why it was important for Jon to get Mark Jaquith as the lead developer, even though he didn’t know Mark at the time.
• Why he said he didn’t put enough action into this business, and didn’t want to.
• How the concept of “Hell Yeah!” drove the nail in the coffin before burying his business.
• Why it’s important to be excited about what you’re doing.
• Why he said he was throwing away good time, good energy, and money into the project and how it kept dragging him down.
• How it’s hard for an entrepreneur to face the facts.
• What Jon means when he said, “I want to scratch of my own itch.”
• Why you have to default to “No,” rather than default to “Yes.”
• Why Jon is turning down business opportunities he never thought he’d be offered.
• How he came up with his next business idea and how he’s taking action on it now.
• Jon also announced his next big project that is planned to go live in June. Which I think is a very cool idea.

Enjoy the show.

Download Jon’s tips in the 1-Page Quick Action Sheet for this episode here.

In this episode I talk with Ravi Jayagopal, to cofounder and codeveloped of Digital Access Pass (often called DAP). DAP is a sophisticated membership plugin and marketing platform for WordPress. (And, if you don’t know what any of that means, don’t worry. This isn’t a tech show so we won’t geek out on you. Keep reading.)

Ravi built DAP after noticing a gap in options. He built the first PayPal and ClickBank download protection scripts. Before these scripts, if you sold digital downloads/content (ebooks, audio, video, etc), anyone with the link could download your products and you couldn’t do anything about it, except lose money.

Ravi’s story starts when he sold the resale rights to one of these scripts. It wasn’t a total failure, he made $30, but it taught him an enormous lesson about marketing, and the difference between creating and selling.

In this show Ravi and I talk about:

• How he started online in an extremely small niche selling a book to find Indian baby names.
• When he found time to learn coding while working long days at his full-time job.
• How he came up with the idea to build the first PayPal and ClickBank download protection scripts.
• What (now) famous internet marketer bought Ravi’s scripts and turned it into the start of his empire.
• What Ravi learned from watching this marketer turn this small deal into huge profits.
• Why he was one of the first “geek marketers.”
• Why it’s important for you to change from a creator mindset if you want to build a real business.
• What Ravi meant when he said, “Great marketing can sell and inferior product, in the beginning.”
• The struggle Ravi had to endure to get his United States citizenship, and why he is blessed and grateful to be in the US.
• How Ravi and his bride, Veena, struggled to shuffle jobs, while building their products, so they could stay in the country and earn their citizenship.
• What happened when he was fired and how it devastating it was during their citizenship process.
• Why entrepreneurs have a special passion.
• Why the time he spent with his family as a child is what drove him to build his business.
• Why he would fall asleep on the subway while going to work.
• The difference between the acronyms DOSAA and DOGPOO, and why one is better than the other.
• How you want to think about pricing.
• How to package your products to get the most effective pricing, and deliver the best value for your customers.
• Why you shouldn’t worry about engagement when you launch your product.
• And, of course, much more…

How To Make The Critical Shift From Creator Mindset To Marketer Mindset with Ravi Jayagopal

• Digital Access Pass
• SubscribeMe.fm podcast
• Cool Cast Player
• Subscribe Me book by Ravi
• No Business Like Ebusiness book by Ravi
• Ryan Deiss
• Tim Ferriss podcast, episode with Jamie Foxx
• Book: Will It Fly by Pat Flynn

How would you recognize a legitimate business investmentopportunity if it was presented to you today? That’s a questionRyan Healy didn’t know how to answer 16 years ago.

Ryan has become one of the best direct response copywriterstoday. And many years ago, before he had the knowledge he hastoday, he was a hyper-responder to good copy. And that’s what ledto his incredible story.

What we talk about in this show:

• Why Ryan was hyper-responsive to direct mail.
• How he analyzes what he went through before investingin the business opportunity.
• The advice he received when refinancing his home to buy thisbusiness.
• Why he went through with the loan even though he didn’t feelgood about lying to get the loan.
• How advertising worked to get him to spend $30,000 for thisbusiness opportunity.
• How hustle couldn’t save this business.
• Why he couldn’t keep up with the demand and couldn’t afford toquit his day job to do it full-time.
• Why he ignored good advice from his banker and still boughtinto this business – and how you could do the same if you’ve everbeen in MLM.
• Why anything that said “How to start a business” was like adrug to Ryan.
• Why he only received 1/30 of his purchase price when he soldthe business equipment, and where he should’ve originally boughtthe equipment if he wanted to do it today.
• Why Ryan says you need to be careful of debt, and why it’simportant to you.
• How he now buys and sells businesses.
• Why he sought a coach to grow he current copywriting business,and how it amplified his growth.
• How outsourcing has freed up some of his time, and alsocontributed to his growth.
• Why Ryan struggles after starting a project and has to push tofinish them. (I know many entrepreneurs who have this samechallenge.)
• Why he enjoys conspiracy research, and why it’s called“research” and not “theory.”
• How avoiding the traditional college path helped him start, butit’s not for everyone.

Enjoy the show:

Turnkey Business Investment Opportunities Fail Too, With RyanHealy

Chris Johnson is the founder of Simplifilm. We talk about his failures here. We talk about his failures in the mortgage business. We talk about his failures with his family and business partners.

You'll enjoy Chris' confessional. You'll recognize challenges you face every day and hopefully have a new way to approach these difficult decisions.

Here's what Chris and I discuss:

Enjoy the show:

Chris Johnson On Integrity, Moral, And Business Failures

What business are we in? You would think business partners would discuss this question with each other. Roger Dooley can tell you that it's not that obvious.

Roger is the author of Brainfluence and The Persuasion Slide. He started in the corporate world and left after starting his first business. Roger and his partner both understood their business and worked smoothly together.

They understood they were in the direct marketing business selling computers and electronic items. When they brought on another partner things changed.

The business changed. People changed. And that's the story we talk about in today's show.

Here's what Roger shares:

Enjoy the show:

What Business Are We In And Where Are We Going?

In this show I have the fortune to interview Steli Efti from Close.io.

Steli's start is a stunning story. He came to the United States in search of the American dream. He sold everything he had in Germany and moved to Silicon Valley. And then he found a few challenges, to put it lightly.

When he arrived he didn't know anyone here. He didn't know the area. He didn't know English very well. He didn't even carry a proper visa. And that's just the start.

We talk about those struggles, the failure of his first business, and what he's learned along the way to build his amazing company, Close.io.

What Steli shares in this episode:

• Steli's philosophy on building a business
• How charisma was his crutch early in his career, and the problems that caused.
• How he's been a serial entrepreneur since he was 18 years old.
• How he came about his vision for a tech company.
• Why he said he was ignorant, not gutsy, for moving to Silicon Valley.
• How he expected to be an amazing success story in only two years, and how that fell through.
• Why Steli said, "I wanted to be the stupidest person in the room. And I have been for the past 9 years, consistently."
• How his old philosophy for success generated "massive amounts of pain" for himself and those around him. And how he blames movies like Rocky for this philosophy.
• How he worked his first startup to death.
• Why he would "pretend to work."
• Why he couldn't let go of his first business.
• Why he said any rational person would've folded the business after 2 years, yet he kept working and watching it fail for 5 years.
• Why he wasn't willing to accept the fact his business was failing and what you can do to prevent it yourself.
• How he recommends quitting your business when you're not willing to admit to others you're closing the business.
• What Steli realized about his failed company once he had a few weeks away.
• How this failure made him a better person, "not just in business but a better human."
• The biggest thing he learned from this and how important it is for you when you run your business.
• What he means when he wants to be dedicated to his business but not attached to it.
• What clouds your ability to see what's really going on in your business and how it causes emotional problems like tension and negativity.
• The one question Steli asks himself whenever he's struggling that has helped him to become more successful.
• How he takes time everyday to step away and find out what's really going on.
• The most important thing for Steli does each morning.
• Why he thought he was a failure when selling, despite being the top salesperson.
• Why he said charisma will get you in the door but character will keep you in the building. And why he works on character every day.
• How breaking promises to yourself is a downward spiral leading from a bad moment, to a bad day, to a bad month, to a bad year.
• What he does to keep himself from breaking promises to himself and going down that spiral.
• Why consistent people are so important and truly impress Steli.
• Why Steli says he's a "bad coach."
• What happened when he was told he would never amount to anything.

Enjoy the show.

Steli Efti’s Stunning Start Up Struggles And How It Shaped His Character Today

Read more about Steli Efti.