Well, I’m finally back from Mexico…
If you weren’t aware, I hosted a 5-day copywriting retreat in the beautiful surf town of Sayulita with Dan Ferrari.
The cost was $8500 to attend…
And we had some killer copywriters and marketers there like Ning Li, Robert Bennett, Thomas Heideman, Brad Nickel, Tiana Asperjan and Brian Casaletta.
Some of these guys have their own offers…
Others are pure freelance writers…
So we spent an entire week helping each person put together a game plan that would help them in multiple areas including…
1. Making the kind of money they want
2. Working the hours they want
3. Getting the fulfillment they want from their work
So based on that…
Dan and I showed each of them where they should be putting most of their focus…
We also showed them the things they’re doing that they needed to eliminate.
Overall our goal was to give them clarity.
And after 5 days of sifting through their business, their business partners and their emotions around it all – each person walked away with a much better idea of what they should be doing.
Now what’s interesting is that there were a lot of common lessons that came up throughout the week.
And I’m gonna share a few of those lessons with you today.
Starting with…
1. You’re probably trying to do too much in your business
This is a lesson that took me a LONG time to learn.
But now that I get it, I see it everywhere.
Most entrepreneurs simply have too much going on (too many offers, too many businesses etc).
This was the case for both Ning and Tiana.
For them it wasn’t about adding more…
It was about stripping away.
For Ning we had him focus on three things – a low ticket acquisition funnel, a flagship $1000 offer, and a higher-end coaching offer.
That’s it.
If he simply gets those things right, he’ll hit his income, impact and lifestyle goals.
Similar things were going on for Tiana. She’s doing great as a freelancer, but also is creating her own offers on the side.
Problem was, she had too many offers in production.
One was a hair offer with Ning…
Another was a foot-wrap offer…
And then in addition to that she wanted to start some kind of beauty/skin care business.
Frankly it was just too much stuff.
So Dan and I told her to keep writing copy for clients (this will pay for her living expenses) and then on the side she should ultimately ONLY be focused on the beauty/skin care company that she wants to build.
That’s it.
Cause the truth is, you only have so much focus to go around.
So that focus needs to be on the big needle movers (like building her skin care company).
The big lesson here is that in order to grow, you want to strip away stuff (not add more).
Alright let’s look at the second lesson from Sayulita…
2. You need to give a LOT more thought to who you choose to partner with
Most people give very little thought when choosing a business partner.
They might go to dinner…
Or talk to them on Zoom a few times…
But they don’t do the deep vetting that is truly needed to have a good partnership (I am guilty of making this mistake many times).
So based on my experience, here’s what I recommended to the group when it comes to vetting a business partner…
1. You want someone with a good track record
If I’m looking for a partner to help me grow a business to $20m a year, then I want someone who has already done that before.
If they’ve done it before, that’s the best indicator that they’ll be able to do it again.
The worst thing you can have is a partner that is holding back your skillset.
2. Are we on the same page in terms of our values and priorities?
This is where a lot of the friction comes from.
If my priority is to build a $100m company and sell it, and your priority is to have a lifestyle business that spits out a few million a year, then there’s going to be friction.
Same goes for something like “impact”.
If my main priority is making a lot of money, and your main priority is having the impact you want to have, then there will be friction.
So one of the things I suggested to the group was getting very clear on values and priorities with someone before you partner up.
Cause if you partner with someone who has different values/priorities than you, there’s no amount of give-and-take that can fix that.
You HAVE to have similar priorities and values.
So make sure you vet for this.
3. I want my partner to have skills that I don’t have
If I’m partnering with someone, I want them to bring skills to the table that I don’t have.
So for me, that means someone who is a good operator.
I want a partner that lives and breathes things like processes, hiring, finances and org charts.
This way I can stay in my marketing lane.
And do what I do best.
If I partner with someone that has similar marketing skills as me, then that’s not much of a help.
So you want to make sure your partner has skills that compliment yours (not that are the same as yours).
4. I want a partner who does not have an ego
When I was partnered with Allen Baler in our supplement company, one thing that stood out to me about Allen was just how little of an ego he had.
Allen was very smart…
He was decisive…
And he was always asking questions…
There were times you would have thought he was the dumbest person in the room based on all the questions he would ask.
But that’s how good he was at taking his own ego out of it.
It wasn’t about him…
It was about scaling the business.
That’s the kind of partner you want.
If you partner with someone that can’t put their ego aside, they will always make decisions in their best interest and not the company’s best interest.
5. They need to have a realistic view about their own abilities and about what it will take to grow the company
Most entrepreneurs have a lot of ego, thus they are quite delusional about their own abilities.
This is not what you want in a partner.
What you want is someone who is realistic.
Your partner should be realistic about their own strengths and weaknesses (if they can’t list out their own weaknesses, this is a big red flag)
They should also be realistic about how quickly you can grow the business (growing a business to $10m in two years is achievable, growing to $100m in one year probably isn’t)
They should also be realistic about the work it will require to get to the level you want to be at (i.e. if they want to get to $100m, they can’t be running other businesses or vacationing in Bali for two months).
This is what I mean by partnering with someone who is realistic.
You don’t want someone that’s a “shoot for the moon” dreamer who has no awareness of their own limitations, or no understanding of what it’s going to take to get to the end goal.
That’s delusional.
And being in a partnership like that will never work.
So you really want to filter for someone who has awareness around this…
And who’s realistic about their own abilities and what it’ll take to build the business.
That’s what you want.
—–
I could probably add more to this…
But those are the top lessons I took away from the Sayulita retreat.
I’ll wrap this up by saying the lessons I just shared come from a combined 30+ years of experience between Dan and I.
Most of them we learned the hard way…
So hopefully you don’t make the same mistakes that we did.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more.
Enjoy your Saturday,
– Justin
If you want to hear more from Justin, he has a private email list for top marketers, copywriters and business owners. To apply to be on the email list simply click the button below that says “apply now”.
