Lessons
After 3,000+ sales calls, 2,000+ clients, $80M+ in sales and $20M+ in ad spend, here are the major management, marketing and sales lessons I’ve learned.
1/ Attack constraints aggressively
The offer, the leads, the sales process, the nurture or the close.
Nothing else matters until you find the constraint and solve it. Everything else is mostly busy work.
2/ Follow the process, not feelings
A good week makes you want to change nothing. A bad week makes you want to change everything.
Both are feelings, and feelings shouldn’t run your business. The numbers and the process decide what changes.
Every time I’ve stepped outside the process because something felt better, or was the easy answer, I’ve lost. Write the process once, then follow it.
3/ Shoot for the ideal
Start with what the perfect version looks like. Don’t hold back.
List every way you could get there. Then do everything you can to get there.
You’ll end up closer than you think, and a lot further away from what you thought was possible.
Start with what’s realistic and you end up average.
4/ Question common assumptions
Plenty of experts hold one opinion. Plenty of others hold the opposite.
Don’t let conventional thinking stop you from testing your own ideas. Marketing rewards those who step outside the box.
Take small bets, and cut them quickly.
5/ Ruthlessly cut dead weight
Both people and product.
I cut an offer hundreds of people begged us to keep. It was unprofitable and a time suck.
Every offer and every role has to earn its place. Check often. If it doesn’t, cut it.
6/ Push things to the extreme
Small changes give you small, unclear results.
If you want to know whether something matters, push it hard. Double the price, halve it, change the whole angle.
It’s the only way to really know what a variable does. Which leads to…
7/ Adapt quickly without hesitation
When something stops working, change it today.
Don’t hold onto something just because it used to work.
8/ Results over effort
The hardest workers don’t always win. There’s always room for hard work, but the result is the only thing you can measure.
Plan before you start anything, so the effort compounds.
9/ Split test what matters
Don’t test button colors. Test offers, prices, angles and funnels.
A small test takes just as long to run and rarely tells you anything.
10/ Plan diligently, act aggressively
Take the time to plan properly. Then move fast and don’t second-guess it.
Most people rush the plan, then hesitate when it’s time to execute.
11/ Make your people get stuff done
Every task has one owner and one deadline.
Every week the question is the same: what did you get done?
A lot of the time people are shuffling papers and not achieving anything. Give the team projects to own and crush, instead of a to-do list with no real consequences.
12/ Go granular when it counts
Most of the time, stay high level.
When a number drops, go all the way down. Page by page, email by email, ad by ad, call by call, until you find it.
That’s usually where the real problem is.
13/ Always be willing to be wrong
Making money matters more than being right.
If the data says I’m wrong, I change my mind and move on.
14/ Communicate like they’re the last words you’ll speak
Over-communicate. Over-explain.
Most mistakes come from something nobody said clearly.
As a leader, micro-managing usually comes from your first instructions not being clear enough. If your instructions were clear and understood, and the work still isn’t right, no amount of micro-managing will fix that.
15/ Demanding, not demeaning
Hold a high standard, and build people’s confidence while you do it.
We expect high standards. We don’t belittle people for missing them. We coach them on how to hit them next time.
16/ Act decisively, think slowly and clearly
Take the time to think it through properly. Not just the high-level steps, the details too. That’s how you build a plan, structure and process the team can follow.
Once the decision’s made, act on it fully and fast.
17/ Your email list is your best channel
On a recent launch, 56% of orders came from email.
Ads bring people in. Email is where most of them buy.
18/ Don’t trust the platform’s numbers
On one launch Meta reported 936 sales. Our tracking showed 272.
The platform grades its own homework. Track it yourself.
19/ “Not now” isn’t “no”
We surveyed 1,200+ people who didn’t buy. Two in three said “not now”.
So we re-opened the cart, and 586 more students joined.
20/ Your buyers are your best audience
The people who already paid you trust you most.
Look after them and sell to them first, before you spend a dollar chasing new ones.
21/ Use AI for leverage, not for thinking
AI makes good judgment faster. It doesn’t replace it.
I use it to take out the busy work: reporting, creative builds, approvals, support. The knowledge still has to come from you.
The biggest mistake I see is people letting AI do the critical thinking. One-shot something and it looks like AI. AI will never have taste.
22/ Upskill people before you hire more
Before adding a person, I look for the tool, the system or the automation that does the job, or that makes the person I already have twice as good.
I only build a tool when it will have a direct impact on sales.