The Mentors

Winning people over is an art but like much of what we talk about on this show it's a skill that can be learned by almost anyone. Yes, it can be useful in your friends and family relationships but the ability to turn an enemy into an ally is especially important in business. 

In this episode we wanted to highlight the reality that some relationships aren't frictionless and that in certain cases they can escalate to avoidance and disdain. Especially if this happens at work it can be detrimental to our other relationships, our productivity, and even our careers. Luckily there are a lot of things you can do to help mend things and turn your enemy into an ally for life. 

We uncover four main methods in our conversation: 

1. The Socratic Method of getting to an agreement
2. The importance of making someone feel heard
3. The value of asking for small favors
4. When to bring in an impartial yet credible third party

If you focus on moving your soured relationships forward you'll find that you experience less stress in your life and more importantly that you and the other person are better off for it. In many cases you can actually even develop lifelong friendships with the very people that stood in your way before. 

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In his first book Unlimited Power, Tony Robbins discusses the value of role models and heroes and what can be valuable to emulate from their behaviors. Everyone's story is completely unique so you can't expect an exact blueprint for life but you don't have to reinvent the wheel for everything. 

Sometimes, however, the people we think are our heroes do something that we wouldn't. Something that's not aligned with our principles or values. How do we know whose example to follow? 

In this 5 Minute Pick Me Up we talk about how to identify people in your life to admire that can help guide you in the decisions you make as you work towards achieving your goals

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Always be closing. There's a reason why this became a cult-like mantra in the sales world. It's the hardest and most important part of the process. It's also both the scariest and most rewarding part of being an entrepreneur and something that you can become addicted to once you get desensitized to facing rejection. 

In the third and final part of our Sales For Founders 101 series we talk through the entire process of running a successful sales meeting, from how to structure the conversation to how to go for the close. 

We discuss sales best practices like building rapport, conducting a needs analysis, identifying the pain, objection handling, and confirming the decision maker while also describing detailed tactical advice that can drastically increase your chances of closing a deal. 

As always we give examples from our own sales experience while trying to provide you with scripted suggestions wherever possible to help you get started with closing your first deal this week. 

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When you're going through a difficult time it's very hard to picture yourself out of that situation, but after some time passes you inevitably always find a way out. As we celebrate our 25 year anniversary of coming to the U.S. we remember our family's immigration story and how our parents were able to pull themselves out of a very challenging time within a few short years. 

Most circumstances are temporary states which is why it's so important to have the patience to work through difficult moments. By becoming aware of this you greatly reduce the amount of time you spend in the undesired state. 

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There's literally hundreds of ways to get customers interested in your product/service, but there's a few methods that can get you results almost immediately and at no cost as long as you're willing to do the work and persist. 

In our second installment of the Sales For Founders 101 series we focus on three things you can start doing this week to get started with your sales process and generate meeting with prospective customers that are interested in what you have to offer. 

We will cover three main topics that we've discussed in great detail in previous episode of The Mentors. We encourage you to listen to those episodes (links below) if you want to dive deeper into each specific topic:

• Networking. See, 
• Episode 98: How To Pitch Anyone In 30 Seconds
• Cold Emailing. See, 
• Episode 15: How to Get the Attention of Important People
• Episode 51: The Email That Got Us The Meeting
• Episode 39: Starting a Revenue Generating Training Business in 3 Weeks
• Cold Calling, where Sergei and I role play how a cold call could potentially go to help you on your first one. 

If this is your first time doing any or all of these activities, it will feel unnatural to start. But, putting yourself outside of your comfort zone will develop your skills in ways you've never expected. It will help you learn to be okay with failure especially once you understand that a failed cold call or an email that doesn't get a meeting gets you one step closer to one that does. 

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Most of us are consumed by our thoughts, anticipating the future or recalling the mistakes of the past. This week, based on a recommendation from a venture capitalist we follow on Twitter, we started reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. Actually, we started listening to the audio book version and we think it's a great way to consume this particular piece of writing. 

This book impacted both of us right from the start, and we're already feeling more in touch with the present moment in our day to day lives. While we hope to continue diving deeper into this level of awareness, we wanted to share with you some ideas on how you can start being more in the moment, and why being aware of the present can help you get closer to accomplishing the goals that you want to reach in the future. 

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If you're starting a business you have to learn how to sell. You might not be the best sales person in your company, but you have to be the first sales person. The good news is, you're not alone. Even professional sales people have to figure out the most effective way to sell a particular product or service every time they change roles. 

Similarly, every time you work on a new business you'll have to do the same thing and only after you've tested the process and identified your initial target customer can you start hiring others to do it for you at a larger scale.

In the first episode of our Sales For Founders 101 series we dive into the topic of direct sales and identify the most common ways that businesses sell to customers - self-service or freemium, inside sales, and outside sales. We break down the differences and overlaps amongst these distinctions, clarifying why it's important to consider the type of sales you engage in depending on the product you're offering and it's value (price). 

We also describe the importance in understanding your unit economics when identifying the sales process you choose and how it can impact the type of business you end up building. The rest of this series will focus on the actual process of selling, from generating initial interest, to closing the deal. 

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Entrepreneurship means different things to different people, which is why it's important to evaluate your personal entrepreneurial goals and motivations. It can help you understand what kind of business you want to create given the type of life you'd like to lead. 

In our episode we talk about why creating a lifestyle business can be just as good as building a venture fundable business, with a story about how a successful business owner that we know recently came to the same realization. 

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Approaching and talking to strangers is not natural for everyone. But some people seem to always make new friends and connections everywhere they go. What are they doing and saying that makes them stand out?

In this episode we learn from some of the same techniques and principles in psychology that pickup artists use to meet people anywhere, and apply them to a business setting.

The biggest similarities between dating and professional networking are in the critical first moments where people often times end up getting in their own way. The outcomes of these moments depend on whether you condition your mind to frame a new relationship as doomed before it even begins, or instead as an opportunity that can change your life in ways you could never predict.

Hear our stories of how ordinary people have used some of these approaches to get life changing jobs and opportunities for their own businesses.

Listen to this episode to learn how to:

• Overcome the initial fear of approaching someone new
• Strike up an organic conversation with anyone
• Talk about yourself in a way that gets people interested

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Our brains are good at finding reasons not to do something, but what if going against your instinct completely changed the trajectory of your career? 

In this week's 5 Minute Pick Me Up we talk about the importance of squashing your own doubts to think more rationally about the potential impact of a new opportunity towards your future. We draw parallels between Vadim's career transition to becoming a University Professor at NYU only two years after delivering his first ever lecture at State University of New York and Kal Penn's decision to take a questionable role on a movie that ended up catapulting his career.

Sometimes great opportunities come disguised as smaller ones and even then they might not come too often. This is why getting into the habit of saying yes even when you're full of doubt is important. You never know just how things could play out from that single decision. 

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