Donald Miller on How To Make Your First Million in Business | YAPClassic

22:39Don't wait and protect your privacy. Build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com slash yapfree and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com slash yapfree. So let's dive in. You gave a great overview of the six steps. It's leadership, marketing, sales, products, overhead, and operations. And the last step is cash flow. So let's dive into some of these steps. I want to dive into leadership, which you say is the cockpit of the airplane. And leadership is basically in charge of getting everybody to an end destination.

23:17Your business needs to have a clear mission. And so a lot of people, they don't have a clear mission, right? That's something that they're missing. When they first started, like I'll give myself for an example. I have a company, Yap Media. We scaled to$7 million in three years. And this year we're on track to do$8 million, which is amazing. And so my company is doing great. And when I first started, it was a team of volunteers and we were so tight and everybody had a mission and I was hand training everyone and everything was great. And then year one, it was like, boom, we blew up to 60 employees.

23:50And it's like all of a sudden, like things weren't as smooth anymore. Like we're still running a great business, but it just wasn't like before. Like things just like happen like magic because we were so aligned. Everybody had the same values, all that kind of stuff. And so now I'm actually resetting my organization. I just went through a whole workshop where we set up new core values. We're having a new mission, all these things that you talked about in your books. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is just so relevant to everything that I'm doing right now. So let's talk about mission statements first.

24:21You say there's three components that make up an effective mission statement. I love this because I'm literally developing my new mission statement now. And the first component you say is containing three economic objectives that you can actually measure. So I'd love to understand why three? Is it only three? Can it be more than three? Why three? And why do we need to have some measurable objectives in our mission? I think the best formula for a mission statement is we will accomplish X by Y because of Z. We will accomplish X by Y because of Z. If you can write that down, because it really will align your entire team.

24:55The X, we will accomplish X, are three economic objectives. And the challenge is we've got to figure out the three ways that we make money the most. What are the three ways that we make the most money? Most businesses somewhere fall in line in that Pareto principle of 80 % of their money comes from 20 % of their products. 80 % of the money comes from 20 % of their audience. It's almost true for every business out there. Those 20 % can usually be defined with three economic objectives. Now, I only give you three, not because you only have three or because I only want you to have three. I give you three because the human brain has a limitation and it's usually three priorities.

25:37It's very hard for a brain to prioritize more than three things. It can do four, it cannot do five. So three is very important, not because any other reason other than your brain's just not going to focus on any more than three things. So you want to figure out what are the top three ways you make money. Then you want to have numeric goals. So when I say we will accomplish, here's our actual mission statement at Business Made Simple. We will have 500 certified coaches, 900 certified marketing guides, and 18 ,000 people inside of our online platform. That's it. By January 1 of 2024, because every small business owner deserves an education in growing their business.

26:17So here's what's really cool about the three economic objectives. The second we stated and wrote in our mission statement, the three economic objectives, we had a filter. It was the next day we were in a meeting and we were about five minutes into talking about an initiative when somebody raised their hand and said, hey guys, this doesn't have anything to do with our three economic objectives. Do we still want to do it? And everybody in the room just went, actually, no, we're wasting our time because those are the three ways that we make the most money. We're talking about something that's actually not going to make us much money at all.

26:45We just had a customer bring it up and we're trying to answer the customer question. We need to just answer the customer's question saying, well, actually, we've decided not to do that. So you get a filter. That alone will cause a massive sort of forward thrust in your organization because now everybody in the organization is trying to support three things. Then the why, we will accomplish X by Y because of Z. The why is actually your deadline. I recommend setting a two-year deadline. You can go three years. Anything beyond three years is not going to motivate anybody. So we set our goal over a year ago, and now we're about, what, 10 months away from hitting it, and we're on track to hit it.

27:23So what a deadline does inside of a mission statement creates a sense of urgency. You say, Don, mission statements don't have deadlines. You know, you're right. Most large corporations don't put deadlines in mission statements because those corporations have mission statements written by lawyers on behalf of shareholders. You don't have a team of lawyers and you don't have shareholders. You have the luxury, and it is a crazy luxury that you should take advantage of, of writing a new mission statement every two or three years. And usually in your mission statement, all you're going to do is adjust X and Y, and that's really it.

27:51If you don't like it as a mission statement, just call it a goal statement and let these two statements be parallel to each other. Finally, the Z. We will accomplish X by Y because of Z. Z is the Y. It's the reason that you're in business. And it's usually customer-centric. We are doing this. We're going to accomplish these three things by January of 2024 because, cause, and then you want to state the problem that your customer has and how you're going to solve it. That mission statement aligns your team. And first of all, it's memorable. Every single member of my team knows that mission statement, where most people write a mission statement and nobody remembers their mission statement.

28:26Even the person who wrote it can't remember it. You know, if you've forgotten the mission statement, you've forgotten the mission. So that mission statement is really, really key. And it's the first part of your leadership. Those would be the economic coordinates that you're entering into the flight computer. Yeah. I really like this framework because I think giving some measurable things that people can align to, it helps people understand their progress. Like, guys, we are way off our target and we have only this amount of time to get there and we better hustle and step on the gas. So I feel like it gives people a measuring stick in terms of how they're doing towards the mission, where usually, like you said, missions are usually like vague and fluffy.

29:04They're just sort of like directional. This is like very specific, which I think anything more specific is going to get people closer to an actual goal. That's right. And then you align your team around those objectives and people know whether or not they are winning or losing. When you actually state three economic objectives, your whole team knows in real time whether or not you're hitting them, whether you're behind them, whether you're ahead of them. And by the way, if you're behind them, it bothers everybody, which is exactly what you want. You want this bothering everybody. So they're going to come to you and say, hey, can we either adjust the economic objectives or what's our plan to fix them?

29:39where if you didn't have economic objectives, nobody would even know that there's anything wrong with the business. And you wouldn't have the instrument data on your dashboard to be able to know that you're actually flying upside down and heading straight toward the ground. So those three economic objectives are, you're not always doing well with them, but if you're not doing well, they still serve you because you know you're not doing well and you're not confused. Yeah, so this is really good advice. How about getting this mission statement to stick within the organization? Let's say you've got over 20 employees.

30:10You're not able to one-on-one explain it to everyone. What are the ways that you can distill this information to get it to stick with your workers? Well, one of the absolute hardest things to do is to get a team aligned around the economic objectives of the organization. And we have a framework. It's actually on chapter five of the book to help you do that. And the framework is five meetings that you want to have with your team. And some of the meetings will happen every week. Some of the meetings happen almost every day. Some of the meetings happen once a quarter. But those five meetings are the all-staff meeting, the department stand-up, the personal priority stand-up, the quarterly performance review, and then you will have an occasional revenue meeting also.

30:54So the three economic objectives and the mission statement need to be talked about during every all staff meeting. You actually open up the all staff meeting with that, those three economic objectives. That happens on Monday once a week. Then the next meeting is your department stand up. The three economic objectives get repeated at the department stand up. So you are instilling these economic objectives in every single team member. Then also at the department standup, the five priorities of that department, which have to serve the economic objectives, are also discussed. And the team in about 15 minutes discusses whether or not they're hitting their five priorities so that we can hit these economic objectives.

31:31Not only that, but in the personal standup that every single employee has with their department leader for about 15 minutes, they discuss their five priorities that serve the department's five priorities that serve the three economic objectives. So you are constantly, constantly, constantly meeting, talking about what the economic objectives are, what your department is doing to hit those objectives, and what every person is doing to hit those objectives. And if you actually install those meetings into your organization, it's impossible to forget where we're going and why you're so important to actually help us achieve where we're going.

32:06What about the business owners who are scared of being like transparent? because I could imagine that there's a lot of business owners that are like, I don't want to talk about our financial goals or what we're making, especially with like maybe the lowest level employees and things like that. What would you say to them? I am personally am a fan of not hiding the numbers, not hiding how much money we're making, not hiding how many orders came in. I don't want to hide any of that. The reason that small business owners don't like exposing the numbers to their team members is because it exposes the fact that the company is making millions and the team members making$40 ,000.

32:41And all they see is that disparity. But the way you actually get around that or get over that is you actually give the entire team a really great economic education. So you actually say, look, we're making$2 million this year. Our overhead is about$1.2 million. That means there's$800 ,000 left, and we're going to give half of that to the government. So that's$400 ,000 that's left. We have to put X amount in our rainy day fund. So at the end of the day, this is about what I make and this is about what you make. But if you can help us make more, and if you have ideas to help us make more, your salary will go up as well.

33:22And I just love teaching all 30 of my employees how a small business really, really works. They, by the way, know. They pretty much know exactly what I'm making, which is a lot of money. They also know that we're incredibly generous with that money. They know that we bought a building that houses the business. That building is incredibly expensive. Yes, it's an asset that my family will be able to own 50 and 60 years from now, but I don't get that cash. I bought that building so that we could all live inside of this building. I just don't hide the numbers. And then if somebody gets upset about that and resents that, they don't belong on my team.

33:58Or if they get upset about that and resent that, I sit them down and I say, would you like to run a business? Because if you leave me and you run a business, I will do everything I can to help you because I want you to experience this too. Let me tell you what also happens. Everything stops with you. If that business fails, it's your fault. The government doesn't come for my employees. They come for me if I don't pay taxes. Somebody slips on a banana peel in my parking lot, they don't sue you. They sue me. And I just want you to know there's an enormous amount of risk in starting a business. But if you can make it work, it's worth it.

34:32And I will help you do it. But at this point, you work for me. And I need you to produce more. And that conversation, why not just tell them the truth? I think one of the reasons that Americans feel like victims, especially the generation behind me and the generation behind them are not going to make as much money as their parents is because they don't actually understand how money works. And I want to teach everybody I can, this is how money works. And I don't want anybody excluded from being able to participate. It's high risk. It's high stress. But if you want to go for it, I'm all for you.

35:05Let's go for it. I'll help you. Preach, Donald. Preach. That was great. So let's talk about core values, sticking on leadership. So like I said, I'm doing a lot of core values work. We just came up with our new values at Yap Media. So we're scrappy hustlers. We're obsessive with excellence. We step on the gas. Together we win. We have all these different like headlines that we created for our core values and we did a lot of work around it. And I'm really excited to roll it out. And you talk about similar things in your book related to core values and how everybody needs key characteristics defined for your team members.

35:36So why do you think core values can help unite a team and how can they help leaders actually make decisions more quickly as well? One of the great things about core values, I think, is it helps you define an aspirational identity. This is who we're going to be. We're going to be people who love our jobs. We're going to be people who care about each other, have each other's backs. Those are core values. And so when you point to core values, you're basically pointing to what's expected if you were going to work here. Now, one of the downfalls of core values is they're always vague. And if somebody says our core value is integrity, if you caught a bank robber in mid-bank robbery and you said, explain to me why you're doing this, I promise you they're going to defend their integrity.

36:18These rich people have all the money and I'm taking it to whatever. They're robbing a freaking bank and they think they have integrity. So it's just too vague. So I like core values, but more than that, I like two other things, key characteristics and critical actions. Now, key characteristics are the characteristics that you need to have in order for us to hit our economic objectives. If I run a pet store, I need you to love pets. If we run a software company, I need you to obsess about the easy, simple user interfaces. And so now I know who to hire. I'm not just hiring somebody with integrity.

36:54I'm hiring somebody with integrity who loves animals. So those key characteristics are more true to your team than they are to anybody else. It's where you actually dial down into the uniqueness of your culture. Now, critical actions go even further. Critical actions are the things that we are all going to do together to hit our economic objectives. If I have a restaurant and one of my economic objectives is we're going to sell 35 % for every client, for our customers to come to the restaurant, 35 % of them are going to get a dessert. Well, we're at 15%. So what we're going to do is we're going to say our critical action is we ask every single person eating, have you tried our world famous brownie?

37:37We're going to ask every... And so as soon as you make that a critical action, guess what's going to happen to your brownie sales? They're going to go way up. So if you have three core values, three critical actions, and three key characteristics, your entire culture changes. If you go to Chick-fil-A, a fast food place in the American South, and they're spreading all over, and you say thank you, they say my pleasure. That's a critical action. When somebody says thank you, a critical action is you say my pleasure, and you position yourself as the servant of the person that you're actually talking to in a humble way.

38:09way. Those are the sorts of things that create a culture. And you need at least three critical actions that, one, stimulate your bottom line and help you achieve your economic objectives, and two, actually support and empower your culture to be defined. You say there's three kinds of leaders that you normally find at the top of successful small businesses, the artist, the operator, and the entrepreneur. I thought this was fun because I have three main executives on my team and I thought we each fit in those buckets and I thought that was exciting. So tell us what those mean. That's why you're doing so well.

38:43Yeah. Normally, if your business gets past four or five million, you need to have three people, three personalities, and they're very different helping you run the team. So once your business gets past, again, three or four million, these three personalities are necessary in order for the business to actually grow. And this is what, if there's three people on your leadership team, I hope you have one of each. And one is the artist. And by artist, I'm not talking about like a poet or a painter. I'm talking about somebody who obsesses about products. They love the products. They love making them.

39:18They love supporting them. They love marketing them. They love talking to customers about them. They love improving them. The artist. My guess is, Hala, that you are an artist. I am also an artist. Now, the other personality that you need is actually the operator. The operator is not going to help you make any products. They're just not. What they're going to help you do is manage the team. They're going to help you manage the priorities and manage the people and make sure everybody's working really hard because the artist normally doesn't like to do that. They want to obsess about the product.

39:46And then the third personality is the entrepreneur. And the entrepreneur looks at what the artist did and looks at what the team is capable of doing and says, how can this machine make more money? Period. If we segment an audience and send them this sales funnel, then we can make more money with this. If we actually run a live webinar, we'll collect more leads and we'll do this. The entrepreneur is thinking of that way. If you have an artist, an operator, and an entrepreneur on your leadership team, you are going to win. And here's what's actually very interesting. It doesn't matter if the artist, the entrepreneur, or the operator is actually the CEO.

40:23It doesn't matter. Any of those, if you look at somebody like Tim Cook, he's an operator. Somebody like Steve Jobs would be an artist. The company has done extremely well under both of those. But I guarantee you, surrounding Tim Cook are really good operators and, well, he's a good operator. Surrounding Tim Cook are really good entrepreneurs and really good artists. So you need those three personalities in the cockpit of your airplane, using the metaphor of an airplane to run your small business. You need those three personalities in order to really scale the company and reach its full potential.

40:56I really like that analogy. It's really cool. So the second step is about marketing. We're not going to cover that, guys. If you listen to episode 120, which I'm going to replay on this podcast, me and Donald cover the seven-step StoryBrand framework in detail. So it'll be right on the feed for you guys. Easy to find. Episode 120 will be a Yap classic. So check that out. And we're going to move on to sales because offline, Donald told me that, hey, we got to talk about sales. He said, I can really help your audience if we talk about sales. So you said, step three, left engine of the plane is the sales step.

41:30And in this step, you have to make the customers a hero during the sales pitch. And so from my understanding, you actually didn't like selling when you first started your business. So why didn't you like selling? And then how did you learn how to sell more effectively? Well, I didn't like selling. And I've learned to like it because I basically stopped selling. and I started inviting customers into a story and I realized I didn't have to sell anything. All I had to do was make my offer extremely clear and I sold a lot more of whatever it was that I was selling. You know, the problem with sales training and sales education is you don't get adoption.

42:05Big companies pay millions and millions of dollars to bring in sales trainers and up to 70 % of their sales force will ignore it. They're only getting 30 % adoption if that. And so I don't love the idea of sales training. What I love, though, is to teach all sorts of sales account executives, all sorts of small business owners. I love teaching them a formula to do one specific thing, and that is this. Write a follow-up email to a customer that will close the deal. So let's say you spend a day with a customer. Maybe you were at a workshop and there were 5 ,000 people in the audience and a bunch of them gave you your email address.

42:45you know, whatever it is, what you want to do is you actually want to go back to your hotel room or go back home, open up your computer, and you want to email whoever you just had a conversation with a email. And this is what the email needs to do in order to close the sale. First, start with the problem. Earlier today, we talked about how we all struggle with X, and I know that can be very painful. Start with the problem. Step two, position your product as the solution to the problem. Nobody has to deal with this anymore because we have created X. And if you buy X, your problem will be solved.

43:19That's step two. Step one, define the problem. Step two, position your product as the solution to the problem. Step three, give them a three-step plan to buy it. Now, three-step plan, don't overthink it. In order for you to engage this, all you need to do is have an intake session with me where we talk about it. Second, I'll give you a custom strategy on what I think you should do. And three, if you want to move forward, you and I can move forward. You want to remove the cognitive dissonance by giving people baby steps. Then step four is actually to paint the negative stakes. I don't want to see you struggle with this anymore.

43:53And I know if you don't buy my product, you're going to keep struggling with it. And a month from now, a year from now, this is going to be even more painful. Let's deal with it now. So step four are negative stakes. Step five is positive stakes. However, with my product, This is the life that you're going to experience. And here's how great your life will be. And then finally, step six, ask for the sale. I think you should buy this product today. It's the right product for you. Click here and enjoy this special offer. Let me just summarize it. Start with a problem, position your product as a solution, give them a three-step plan, paint the negative stakes, paint the positive stakes, and call the customer to action.

44:30If you write that follow-up email, you will close way more sales. Not only will you close more sales, but you will have just learned how to sell. And the way you learn how to sell is you find out what the customer's problem is and you position your product as a solution. If you do it five times in an email, you will never have a sales conversation again that's the same. For instance, if you work at a mattress store, because we work with Tempur Seely to train some of their salespeople, you don't want to go up and say, what brought you in today? You know what brought them in today. They're looking for a mattress.

45:00You want to go up and you say, hey, welcome into the store. let me just ask you, what do you hate about your current mattress? If you say, what do you hate about your current mattress? They're going to say, well, it's too soft in the middle or it's hurting my back or it's too warm at night and whatever. And you say, great, I've got three things, three mattresses here that will solve that. Let's take a look at them because they're at different price points and they have some different things. You are a mile into the sales conversation. And when you ask what brings you in today, you're nowhere. You're absolutely nowhere.

45:27They're going to try to avoid you. That's how you sell and it's all you need to know.

45:33Happy New Year, Yap Gang. I just love the unique energy of the new year. It's all about fresh starts. And fresh starts not only feel possible, but also feel encouraged. And if you've been thinking about starting a business, this is your sign. There's no better time than right now. 2026 can be the year that you build something that is truly yours. The year where you take control over your career. And it starts with Shopify. I've built plenty of my own businesses on Shopify, including my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass. So it's a two-day workshop. People buy their tickets on Shopify. And then my mastermind subscription is also on Shopify.

46:08I built my site quickly in just a couple of days. Payments were set up super easily. And none of the technical stuff slowed me down like it usually does because Shopify is just so intuitive. And this choice of using Shopify helped me scale my masterclass to over$500 ,000 in revenue in our first year. And I'm launching some new podcast courses and can't wait to launch them on Shopify. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person, just like the millions of entrepreneurs that they power. You can build your dream story using hundreds of beautiful templates and set up as fast with built-in AI tools that help you write product descriptions and edit photos.

46:44Plus, marketing is built in so you can create email and social campaigns easily. And as you grow, Shopify can scale right along with your business. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash profiting. Go to shopify.com slash profiting. That's shopify.com slash profiting. Yeah, fam, hear your first. This new year with Shopify by your side.

47:16Young and profiters. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel comfortable in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius.

47:50The Working Genius Assessment or the Six Types of Working Genius Framework was created by Patrick Lencioni, and he's a business influencer and author. And the Working Genius Framework helps you identify what you're actually built for and the work that you're not. Now, let me tell you a story. Before I uncovered my working genius, which is galvanizing and invention, so I like to rally people and I like to invent new things, I used to be really shameful and had a lot of guilt around the fact that I didn't like enablement, which is one of my working frustrations. So I actually don't like to support people one-on-one.

48:22I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like hand-holding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill the enablement role, which I do have, Kate, on my team. So Working Genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel. And it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing.

48:51I'm obsessed with this model. So if you guys want to take the Working Genius assessment and get 20 % off, you can use code profiting. Go to workinggenius.com. Again, that's workinggenius.com. Stop guessing. Start working in your genius.

49:06What's up, young and profiterers? I remember when I first started Yap, I used to dread missing important calls. I remember I lost a huge potential partnership because the follow-up thread got completely lost in my messy communication system. Well, this year, I'm focused on not missing any opportunities. And that starts with your business communications. A missed call is money and growth out the door. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the smarter way to run your business communications. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, and it works right from an app on your phone or computer.

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50:13Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. You know, it's interesting, Hala. I just spoke to 250 sales reps for a big, probably$1.4 billion company. 250 sales reps in the room. And I said, hey, raise your hand if there's a customer that hasn't made a decision yet. You've been interacting with them, but they're sitting the fence. 250 hands go up. That's a sales reps job. So everybody in the room had that. I said, open your computer. We are literally going to write them an email right now. And we spent the next hour formulating 250 emails. I said, hit send. And then I needed to get off the stage because I had a flight.

50:49So the chief revenue officer got up, said, Don, thanks. And I rolled my bag out of the back of the door. Got a call two days later to my staff. Chief revenue officer said, I've never seen anything like it. We closed$2.4 million worth of sales in the room. Wow. And it's not because we coerced the audience into buying anything. It's not because we manipulated anybody. What those customers were doing were sitting the fence because they didn't fully understand why they needed that product. And every sales rep in that room made it clear. And now they tasted that success. I'm sure they've made tens of millions now because that was over a month ago.

51:22And they're starting to have very different sales conversations and sending out very different proposals and giving very different presentations. That formula works for follow-up emails, works for in-person conversations, works for keynote presentations, works for elevator pitches, works for proposals. That's the formula you want to use to close sales. This reminds me of something that Erica Dewan came on my show, and she's a workplace productivity expert. And so much of our communications are digital now. So much of what we do in our work is reading screens, reading Slack, reading email. And she says that writing clearly is the new empathy.

51:57It used to be that speaking clearly was the new empathy and listening was it. Now it's writing clearly is the new empathy. So you can't write, especially a response email. If you've already started a conversation with somebody, you can't write a good email without having done a very good job listening. If I said, uh, Hala, you and I had a great conversation. Congratulations on your 8 million. I think that's incredible. I heard you when you said you have 60 employees and things have gotten more chaotic. I felt your pain. Chapter five of my new book will walk you through five meetings that will completely revolutionize your staff.

52:31And within about three months, you won't feel that pain anymore if you run these five meetings. That's me listening and saying, well, here's the part of my product that would solve hollow's problem. You start doing that, you're going to sell a lot more books and a lot more leashes for dogs and a lot more nutritional supplements or whatever it is that you sell. You're going to sell a lot more of them. Yeah. So let's talk about the language of sales a little bit. Why do we need to think in story? and how do we speak in story when we're trying to sell to potential customers? Well, story is the universal language.

53:00And when you're having any kind of conversation, whether it's getting together with a friend to catch up or it's a sales conversation, or even if it's a conversation with your therapist, what your brain is doing the entire time is trying to organize events into the structure of story. Your brain is subconsciously figuring out who the hero is, what the problem they're up against is, how they're gonna get out of that problem. what the happy of her life will look like if they do get out of that problem. So because most people are not actually very good communicators, it's very hard to figure out what the story is actually about.

53:33But if we actually lay out our communication in the form of story, the person that we're talking to doesn't have to use any mental bandwidth in order to understand what we're talking about. And that gives the brain a really pleasant feeling because the brain doesn't have to work hard to organize the information. We tend to follow leaders who are able to do that. And we tend to buy products from account executives who are able to do that. Can you give us an example in terms of speaking in story versus not? Like, just I don't know if this is too hard to do, but like if you were to sell something, trying to sell it in a way that's not with a story versus one that is.

54:12Well, we've worked with a number of politicians on the Republican and Democratic side. I'm not a Republican or Democrat. I find myself pretty much squarely in the middle and don't really like either party because I think they're destroying the country. But we have I've gone in and I've helped some folks. And, you know, a few elections ago, Hillary Clinton's tagline was I'm with her. OK, well, if I'm with her, the story is about her. It's not about me. I don't know where we're going. I'm with her, but I don't know where we're going. I don't know what we're trying to accomplish. I don't know what's in it for me if we get there.

54:44In fact, I don't even know where there is. she did not effectively invite people into a story. And so it's not that people liked Donald Trump more. It's just that they didn't show up in the polls to vote for her. She had an incredibly low turnout. Donald Trump also wasn't all that much better. He also had an incredibly low turnout, but he just had more people than she did. And then you have Joe Biden later on, who's running against January 6th. He's running, or he's running, not against January 6th. He's running against the spirit that led to January 6th. He's running against, you know, he had all sorts of villainous things that he could point out that he's running against.

55:17It was a clearer narrative. And so it's very important that we understand unless we're inviting people into a very clear story in which they, they, they, they get to be the good character winning the day to experience a better life, people are going to tune you out. You will see examples of that everywhere now that I just said it. Yeah. So then the main principle of this step, Donald, is to make the person that you're selling to the hero of the story. Can you just talk to us about that a little bit of like how you position somebody as a hero when you're selling? Yeah. Well, you know, the reality is you probably talk to people, Hala, and I may have been one of them at some point because I'm not perfect, but you probably talk to people and you felt like the story was all about them and it really wasn't about you.

56:08And we might call that person a narcissist or something like that. That's because they see life through a prism and the prism is they are the hero trying to win. But the reason that that rubs us wrong, because it really shouldn't rub us wrong, but the reason that it rubs us wrong is because them winning is not helping you win. In order to sit here and listen to this person who's all about them winning means that you don't get to win. And it's not a win-win scenario. It's not a mutual thing. What we're actually looking for is somebody who enters into our story and helps us win. So let me give you an example.

56:41Let's say you're at a cocktail party and you meet two people who do the exact same thing. The first person you meet, you say, what do you do for a living? And they say, well, I'm an at-home chef. I come to your house and cook. You'd probably say something like, really, where'd you go to school? Where'd you learn to cook? And have you ever cooked for anybody famous? And what are your favorite restaurants? You'd make casual conversation. And at the end of the day, you'd think, well, that's a really kind person. Two hours later, you meet somebody and they do the exact same thing, charge the exact same amount of money and have the exact same quality food.

57:11And you say, what do you do? And they say, well, you know how most families don't eat together anymore because they don't have time. And whenever they do eat together, they don't eat healthy. I'm an at-home chef. I come to your house and cook so your family can sit around the table, look each other in the eye, actually connect. And at the end of the meal, you don't have to clean anything up and you don't have to feel bad because what you ate was actually really good for you. And it also tasted good. Who's going to do more business, Chef One or Chef Two? Chef Two, of course. Chef One told their story.

57:40Chef Two invited the customer into a story in which they could play the hero buying their product in order to experience a climactic scene. That is always going to win. So one last question on sales, and then we're going to close this out. So something that I read in your book that I thought was really interesting, and it reminded me of something that Jay Samet taught me a long time ago. Or Jay Abraham actually is the one who taught me about it. He's like a big marketing guru. And you actually turn down customers whose products and services, they wanna buy them from you, but you actually feel like it's not a good fit for them.

58:13You'll actually not sell something even though you can sell it. Why do you do that? I do that to protect my reputation. And also that's the selfish reason I do it. The other reason I do it is because they're not gonna get any value out of this. to bring me in for a day. We do these things called strategy sessions where I either come to you for a day or you come here to Nashville for a day. They're really expensive. And they're expensive because for me to take a day and not write a book, the opportunity cost on that is very high. So what we promise people is that, look, I will only do this if we really believe that easily, easily, easily, easily, you can make a 10x return on your investment.

58:51So if you're going to pay me X amount of dollars to be here, we need to talk on the phone and make sure you can make a 10x return on your investments. That means do you have a list of emails that we can email? Is your website pretty messed up so that we can fix it in a day? Can we write some emails? Can we come up with the three economic objectives? We need to get a massive, massive return. Well, I've never had to write anybody a check, but I do guarantee you're going to get this 10x return or I'm going to give you your money back. So there's two things that I do. One is if we have that call and I don't think I can make you a pretty enormous amount of money, I just say, listen, I'm not your guy.

59:27I just don't think we can do it. Sometimes the reason I don't think we can do it is because you're already doing so incredibly well. It's like, I can't improve on what you're doing. You're doing well. Or you haven't released the product yet, or it sounds like you've got dysfunction on your team or whatever. But if I look at it and go, yeah, you've got a great email list. Your website is very unclear. We're going to make a ton of money when we clean that up. We're going to write five emails. They're going to make you a truckload of cash. Let's go. Then we do it. So there's people who I say, I can't do it for you.

59:55And people who I say, look, I'm going to do it. You got an honor system here. All you got to do is call me and say, Don, we didn't make our money. And I'm writing you a check. And I'm going to write you a check for whatever you paid me. And the main reason I'm writing you is I never, ever want anybody to say I lost money on Don Miller. I just don't want him saying it. So I'll give you your money back so you can never say that. I think that's one of the ways I've built a little bit of trust in the business community because the bottom line is the bottom line. And we've got to make you money and I'm in the business of making you money.

1:00:22I think you do that to protect your reputation. And also, I just think there's plenty of money out there and there's plenty of people who have the problem you solve. So, you know, your job is to find the people who have the problem you solve and sell them something. And if you find somebody who does not have the problem you solve and they want to buy something from you, I think it's our responsibility to sit down and say, I don't think this is going to work for you. And I never, ever, ever want anybody to buy my product and not have it work. Yeah, it's all about integrity. And by the way, when you have clients that are unhappy.

1:00:52They talk. Yeah, they talk. And it's just, it's a drain for everyone. But then on the other hand, if you have a perfect fit client where you solve all their problems, they're so happy, they're telling all their friends, they're referring. It's just such a more positive experience also for everybody on the team. So I really think it's a great point that you made. So Donald, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's always wonderful. Yeah, it's always such a good time. Where can everybody get How to Grow Your Small Business? Well, get it wherever you buy books. If that's on Amazon, grab it on Amazon.

1:01:23If that's at Barnes & Noble, grab it at Barnes & Noble. Keep your receipt. You know, they email you a receipt. And if you just copy that number, that receipt number, and go to growyoursmallbusiness.com and enter your receipt number, we have a bunch of free bonuses that we're giving away. One of them is a pass to the online sales script where we will actually, you can type in your sales follow-up email and I will color code it for you so that you can see where you're talking about the problem, where you're talking about the product as the solution to the problem, where you're talking about the three-step plan, negative positive stakes and call to action.

1:01:59You'll actually look at it in four color to see where you're talking about all these parts to make sure it's a perfect email that's going to close the deal. That's free when you buy the book. Just grab the book and then go to growyoursmallbusiness.com and give me your receipt. I think this is going to be one of those classic business books. So I highly recommend that you go get it. I'm going to be digging in way deeper than I have. I've really only read it like high level. So I can't wait to really go deep on this book because I know it's going to be filled with so many gems. Donald, what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profiting tomorrow?

1:02:33Set three economic objectives. We talked about it at the beginning of the podcast. What are the three ways that you're going to make money this year? And give me numbers. We're going to sell 400 of this. We're going to sell 80 of this. We're going to sell 25 of these. Whatever it is, give me three economic objectives and then reverse engineer your entire strategy to hit those. And what is your secret to profiting in life? Profiting in life, five o 'clock, actually more like four o 'clock. I go home and I spend time with my daughter and my wife and I don't think about work. And my wife and I talk about work for probably an hour a week.

1:03:09And that's it. I have a life outside of work and I love it. I know you put family number one by far. It's one of the things that I respect most about you, Donald. And where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? Well, if you want to see pictures of my daughter, who's incredibly cute, and my wife is incredibly beautiful, and my dog, who is a feisty pain in the rear end, who keeps us humble, Donald Miller is my Instagram handle. I'd love to love to see you guys there. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Donald. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much, Hala. Wonderful to talk to you.