Trizle

1. You just interviewed Bob.
2. Bob wasn't that good, and now you have to send him a rejection letter.
3. "Unfortunately, you didn't meet our requirements.....blah...blah....blah."

"BAM SON WHY DO I SUCK SO MUCH? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Bob asks himself.

He feels bad for the the next two weeks, unmotivated, with zero self-esteem, and lying on his bed playing with himself.

How do you reject job candidates?

You can certainly give him the brutal truth, or you can try it in a more subtle way that even increases his confidence.

WUT WUT.

Try this:

• "You are overqualified for the position."

And then sprinkle in the constructive feedback by turning the negative things you perceived into positive things:

• "This position is really simple, and I feel that your strong personality would get bored of it very quickly."

You start increasing his sense of self-worth, keep up his confidence, and let him tackle other job positions like a freak-on-a-^^@^-leash.

(You also don't burn any bridges with Bob and his network.)

Make yourself suck more to make him feel better.

Increase self-worth.

You talk to two of your high school peeps.

• Richie is a big-time investment manager who's raking in millions.
• Cleeto still lives in his mom's basement.

Who makes you feel happier?

Ask yourself this mofro:

• Why do people hate celebrities?
• Why do people hate rich people?

Status. Status. Status.

• 'I hate Britney so I can lower her status, and in effect, increase my status.'

If Richie goes on about his $$$, he sucks more than an two-headed ostrich juiced-up on Hennessy at a farm convention for overweight bears who sleep with their mommas .

But, if you talk to Cleeto, he makes you feel happier because:

• 'Cleeto makes me feel happy because he increases my status.'

How do you make people feel better?

• Avoid talking about your accomplishments.
• Highlight your mistakes/your-bad-qualities/your-suckiness.
• Increase the person's status by highlighting their accomplishments.

You'll make people feel better, and attract more friends.

Elevate people.

What do you do when you wear your company t-shirt when you go out in public? 

You start marketing your business to everyone that sees you.

• "HEY! What's HighFlyinWidgets4Me?"
• "We service blah, blah, blah, blah."
• "Oh! Awesome! My uncle needs you!"

Or, you start finding tapping a greater talent pool:

• "Oh craaaaazzzzyyy! I have THE guy for you to interview!!! AHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH! OMG!!! OMG!!!"

The Twitter and Zynga teams recently appeared at a startup conference (YCombinator's 09) sporting their company t-shirts even with their companies being valued in the hundreds of millions.

You increase your company's brand recognition with Bob every time Bob sees your logo/name/etc, while indirectly pitch his network your services.

With marketing being a numbers game, the more pitches, the more conversions.

Sport it like a champ.

"Buy one. Get the second one free."

Why does practically every successful infomercial pitch that mofosoko?

Because the "Buy one. Get the second one free" pitch works wonders for their pitches.

1. Infomercial: Explains the product's benefits
2. Infomercial: Gives the price
3. Potential buyer: Has a monetary value attached to the product
4. Infomercial: Then at the end, blasts the message: "Buy one. Get the second one free."
5. Potential buyer: OH OKAY THAT SOUNDS LIKE AN EVEN GREATER DEAL I WILL BUY

Try it (do an A/B test), and see if it works for your product.

Some of the greatest (if not the greatest) marketing practioners come from the direct marketing industry because they use numbers to drive their decisions; adopting their practices into your pitches can take you far.

Second one free.

Flash back to several centuries ago:

1. You have an army of 1,000 soldiers.
2. You have to conquer Country X.

What do you do?

• Option 1: Surround the entire country and take out all opposing forces ASAP.
• Option 2: Conquer one of the enemy's weak spots while keeping a concentrated force; gradually move inward with the with heavy personnel force intact.

Option 1 spreads your army too thin; for example, Point A has 10 of your soldiers fighting 100 of their soldiers; 100 solidiers will kick the %$^^$ asses of your 10 swiftly, then move onto your next 10. They'll repeat the cycle until they devastate the rest of your tiny teams of 10.

You suck.

Option 2 keeps your forces concentrated. You use your 1,000 soldiers to conquer an enemy army of 100, then move onto the next 100, then the next 100, then the next 100, UNTIL BAM YOU WON HIGH FIVE.

Facing Larger Business Competitors

Here's what JoBeeDeeMoMo and his two fellow entrepreneurs would do out of the gate:

• FIGHT GOOGLE HEAD ON!!! Build a freakish search engine and get everybody to switch!
• FIGHT FACEBOOK IN THE MOTHER FFIN EYE!!! Build a social network and market to everybody!!!!!11
• KICK THE ASSESESES OF IBM IBM!!!! Big blue will see a BIG BOO BOO!!!11111

Fighting the large competitor head on spreads yourself too thin; they'll overwhelm your thin lines at various fronts.

• Big Competitor's usability team > Your usability team
• Big Competitor's server team > Your server team
• Big Competitor's stats team > Your stats team
• etc.

You can't fight them upfront, but you can fight them where they're weak (e.g., some niche you know you can conquer).

• Digg first conquered tech geeks.
• Amazon first conquered online bookstores.
• Facebook first conquered Harvard students.

Concentrate your 1,000 (or X number) on a big competitor's weak spots (i.e., their 100, or Y number); obliterate the competition first at Weak Spot X before progressing forward.

Fight where you have an overwhelming advantage.

Overwhelm.

Imagine a big giant frickin cookie 1000 meters wide.
Now, imagine a little tiny mouse nibbling away at the cookie.

• The mouse can't do it in one sitting or he'll burn out before he finishes his goal of eating the entire cookie.
• The mouse can't just take sporadic small bites or he'll take forever to finish.

Instead, he:

1. Nibbles away quickly and as much as possible within a certain timeframe.
2. Takes a break.
3. Then repeats the cycle.

Eventually, he finishes - excited and ready for another big frickin giant fat mother frickin big cookie.

Nibbles. Nibbles.

1. Designer Deshamazooloo designs a sophisticated work of art for your corporate identity.
2. Novice designers can't do something similar. OH NO.
3. You're happy to pay the ridiculous price for something so amazing, sophisticated, so intricate.

What happens?

After you pay Designer Deshamalozoo's high price for the designs of your logo and your business card, you think:

HEY WE NEED A WEB DESIGNER TOO YAY HIGH FIVE

So you search for a web designer who can produce the sophisticated, complex, and super detailed design that Designer Deshamalozoo gave you for your corporate identity.

You search high and wide; it turns out only the highly expensive web designers can produce something with the same sophistication.

OH NO I HAVE TO PAY HIGH PRICE OH NO

The Hidden Costs of Design

You know that branding takes repeated exposure of your company's look and feel to solidify that relationship with your customers.

So, begrudgingly, you pay the high price for your new web design to maintain your corporate identity.

SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM SHABAM

Now, you have to design your company's packaging and advertisements, requiring even more ridiculously expensive design talent that will break your bank even more.

BUT WAIT IT DOESNT STOP THERE OH NO

You now have to design more pages into your website, costing you even more to get someone who can maintain the website's sophisticated look.

Your wallet dwindles; you barely have any money left; you cry like a little juiced-up ostrich trying to find his mom who's on PCP.

You started going downhill when you had Designer Deshamalozoo design something super sophisticated that only other super amazingly talented designers (who cost major $) could emulate.

BOO

Say NO to High-Maintenance Corporate Identities

Apple, Target, and Google not only kept their designs simple to  look nice; they made their designs simple because it simply made good business sense.

Simple designs help companies save as much $ as possible over the long run because the designs are low maintenance.

• The companies avoid spending major bucks for every design
• A design's start-to-finish time is quick/quick/quick
• They can find affordable designers in the future to maintain their corporate identities rapidly and easily

Save. Save. Save. Save. Win.

An amazing designer who could design something simple that's easily maintainable is worth the extra fees.

Design something simple; save major $ over the long run.

Simple. Save.

1. "Step right up! Step right up! Buy the Miracle Growth JOOOOOOOOOOOCE!"
2. "You will get 10 times taller and 20 times stronger and 400 times sexier by sipping this juice!"
3. "Get it for $986,594,895,820,958,253,253,233,253,235.99! TODAY ONLY SON!"

The Big Bad Business Amateur

The Big Bad Business Amateur thinks thriving in business is a zero-sum game; that is, the more you take from your customer, the richer you'll become.

So, they screw Customer X for their $ -- which becomes incrementally unsustainable over the long-term.

For instance, take the financial industry:

• Bernie Madoff built a ponzi scheme that stole billions from his customers; his ponzi scheme toppled because screwing over customers = not sustainable.
• Blackrock, on the other hand, has built a sustainable win/win revenue model by aligning their interests with their customers: the richer their customers become, the richer Blackrock becomes

Experienced business leaders

Experienced business leaders take this mindset:

1. In a free market economy, buyers will gravitate to those where they can get the greatest value
2. The sustainable way to build a business then is to build products that provide that value

How do you build sustainable product?

Make customers richer/happier with every purchase of Product X.

For instance, take these sustainable revenue models:

• AdWords: the higher you bid, the more customers you attract
• Brokerages: the more you invest, the greater value you get
• Candy bars: the more you have, the happier you get
• Walmart: the more items you buy from them, the more you save on those items

Unsustainable revenue models?

• Cars: its depreciating effect will burn you; the higher you pay for a car, the more money in equity you lose
• Newspapers: the more you buy, the sadder you get (i.e., you don't need three copies of today's newspaper)
• Manufacturing in expensive countries: the more a business spends, the more money in opportunity costs it incurs
• Pyramid schemes: the more you spend, the poorer you become

Align your interests with your customers' interests.

You'll build products that will provide customer value ages from now.

Make customers richer.

• Why did companies fail during the 2008 financial crisis?

It went like this:

• Loan mofo: "We want our money!"
• Leveraged mofo: "We don't have money!"
• Loan mofo: "We will kill ya"
• Leveraged mofo: "OH NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

When the economy tanked, companies that failed had loans that they couldn't repay.

What Will Make You Fail

Debt -- especially the long-term ones with variable interest rates -- will suck you down, and will be the main cause of your impending failure.

• Google avoids long-term debt.
• Microsoft avoids long-term debt.
• Apple avoids long-term debt.
• Walgreen's avoids long-term debt.
• Any company with great financials = no long-term debt.

Unless your main line of business is providing loans (i.e., you're a bank), leveraging your company = NO GOOD.

(The banks that died over-levered themselves.)

Instead, ask yourself this:

"What if we could get money for free?"

"BAM DANG SON HOW AN I DO THAT?!?!?!!" you're asking.

Raise it.

• "No! You shouldn't give away your equity! Boo!"
• "You work so hard! Investors are sharks!"

The points:

• Equity financing (i.e., raising money from investors) is free money with no interest rates (i.e., helps you grow much quicker).
• Avoiding interest costs puts money back into your business to reinvest, and grow exponentially stronger financially.
• You can always buy back the sold equity.

Solid businesses perform financially awesome to the awesome to the max avoid long-term debt.

• When you: (1) avoid debt, and (2) keep raising money = YOU WILL NEVER FAIL HIGH FIVE

No debt.

1. Habits.
2. Cultuture.