Noah is a legend but I haven’t always held that evaluation. He can come across as rather brazen but he wants you to win.
He was the #30 employee at Facebook and #4 employee at mint.com that was sold to Intuit for a pretty penny. He’s the chief sumo (Founder) of appsumo.com and sumo.me. The former of which I frequent for deals on tools.
The Antidote to Fear and Rejection
So much goodness to place onto a Sketchnote but let’s start with his first name: Noah.
No is linked to his coffee challenge and asking for a 10% discount on the next coffee you purchase. Why? To overcome the fear of asking for something.
In his Monthly1K course, he suggests the same challenge. I completed this by going to a Big W store while purchasing some pens for a miserly $5. While waiting in the queue I was smiling but my heart was pounding. I was thinking to myself, “how silly is this?”
When I arrived at the register, I asked the attendant for the discount. I didn’t receive it but I felt incredible for the follow-through.
Interestingly, I kind of rigged the game to guarantee I wouldn’t receive the discount. That almost made it safe to ask because I knew the end result and I had accepted it. This soothed rejection.
One week later, I asked for another discount on a different product and received $10 off the price.
Companies usually have room to move on price because that’s how they define it. They want to account for refunds and discounts to please the customer. Big chains are no different with their money back guarantees and their reward systems.
Two Things Wantrepreneurs Should Do But Mostly Ignore
Okay, that was a big spiel. Linking to rejection is sales and copywriting.
Noah suggests that the two things that would-be entrepreneurs focus on are copywriting and sales. He recommends the Gary Halbert Letters: http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com and http://kopywritingkourse.com/ for copywriting.
On sales, he recommends SPIN Sales and Ogilvy on Advertising. The latter of which Tim says is recommended most but hardly ever read.
Fun fact: while at University, Noah’s English was that sub-par that he studied English as a second language.
I don’t write this to mock Noah. In fact, many native speakers (myself included) wouldn’t have the strongest grip on the semantics and syntax of the English language.
I developed a stronger understanding of English after studying Dutch for a year in 2011.
Hacking Productivity With These Tools and Tactics
When you make more business, you probably lost time. So you must focus and be more productivity. That’s Noah’s next contribution.
Tools of Titans is a few years old now which is decades in internet speak so his recommendations may or may not be valid.
Tim was particularly interested in his email tactics. The first was new to me. When you add a plus sign (+) to the part of your email before the @ sign, you essentially create a new email address.
For example, john@dontemail.me would become john+sketchnote@dontemail.me
You can use this strategy as a filter and to track if someone is spamming you or on sells your information. You can filter emails with this addition and send it straight to your spam.
Noah uses a service called followup.cc to remind him to do stuff.
It’s kind of like the reminders app for email.
Schedule Once is a service for booking meetings. You link up your calendar and set block out zones. This service aims to eliminate the back-and-forth off scheduling emails.
I’ll link to Tim’s original post as there is way too many more tools to mention here. I plan to write a longer post on Noah in the future and my experience of Monthly1K course. Using this link should get you the course for free at checkout as it’s $10.
How To Prioritise What Matters
Finally, Noah mentions “don’t find time, schedule it.”
This is sage advice. You wanna get something done? Don’t leave it to chance. Schedule it instead.
But do I have to schedule everything? No, you’re your own boss, but if it matters that much to you, then you probably should.
That’s you taking clear and consistent steps towards the identity you’re building and the goals you’re striving to achieve as a consequence.