Start With No

Reader wants to join my Insights & More Book Club, but doesn’t want to read

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This morning, I woke up to find a hot inquiry from a potential buyer:

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Hey john!

I wanna ask you a question about this insights book club thing you’re selling.

I’m interested in it but since I basically have a 10+ “must read” book list that’s pending at all times, realistically, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to read the “insight book” along with you.

Do you think this “mastermind” is still worth a buy?

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How to respond? My natural instinct would be to smile, unpack my sample set of stainless steel pots and pans, and start my pitch, explaining how these pots and pans pay for themselves in just two months’ time, thanks to the energy savings and reduction in food wastage. “As an added bonus, they maximize taste thanks to the Silichromatic Ring™ and Redi-Temp® Valve!”

But I stopped myself from doing what comes naturally. Instead, I responded like this:

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Fair question. I’d like to answer it but how can I? What would a mastermind call be worth to you? What would you want to get out of it in order for it to be worth $15/month to you?

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The only reason I thought and responded like this is because I am now going through Jim Camp’s book Start With No, for maybe the fourth time in five years.

I’m going through Camp’s book for the fourth time because, as I’ve written before, I believe books are the most condensed and most useful sources of ideas and information. They give you the kind of depth you will not find in any other format. They stimulate thinking in a way that no other format can match. What’s more, they offer the best value for your money. You should hate books if you’re selling info, and love them if you’re buying info.

Of course, you have to put in some work to get that value out of a book. Reading it, taking notes, thinking a bit, maybe even rereading, once, twice, or four times, like I’m doing with Camp.

​​Which brings me back to my Insights & More Book Club, and to that inquiry I got this morning.

I’ve opened the doors to the Insights & More Book Club to new members for a few days. I will close the doors again tomorrow. We are starting a new book right now for March and April, and it doesn’t make sense to have people join mid-way.

After my Camp-inspired response above, the potential new member of my book club thought for a bit. He decided it makes sense for him to join even if he has no time to read the actual books. I doubt that’s something I could have sold him on with my pots-and-pans sales shtick. And it’s not something I will try to sell you on either.

But if you are interested in the Insights & More Book Club, whether for the books themselves, for company to help you unlock value out of those books, or for other reasons of your own, you will have to sign up to my email newsletter as a first step. You can do that here. You have until tomorrow, February 27.

The “Attractionist” lure for weak negotiators

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My sophomore year in college, I had a girlfriend who loved me so well she ran off to live in Japan.

I bought a plane ticket to visit her during Christmas vacation. But I was careless with my travel arrangements. I booked my flight for the day before the final exam of one of my computer science classes.

The ticket was nonrefundable. And expensive.

My only option was to go talk to the professor. Maybe I could convince him to let me take the exam early.

As I said, this was a computer science class.

The professor teaching it was a beady-eyed automaton who thought in C code and expressed himself with the preciseness of a computer printout. At one point, there was an entire website, created by current and former students, dedicated to the man’s inhuman, Terminator-like nature.

I mustered all my courage and showed up to his office one day.

He was in there, wearing the same short-sleeve button-up shirt he always wore. It had seen so many washes that it had become faded and paper-thin. His nipples regularly poked through during lectures in the cold engineering building.

“Professor Terminator?” I said from the door to his office.

He swiveled around in his chair and focused on me with his cold and fishy gaze.

I explained my nonrefundable ticket predicament. Would there be any chance to take the exam early? Or late? Or anything?

Without saying a word, he swiveled back towards his computer and started typing and clicking. He pulled up the course syllabus.

“The syllabus clearly states the final is scheduled for December 6!” He faced me again. Through his expressionless mask, I sensed he was furious that I would approach him with such a disturbing and illogical request.

I explained that in that case, I would have to miss the final and probably fail the class. He threw up his arms — how was this his problem?

So I tucked my tail between my legs, thanked him for his time, and left. My heart was beating at around 200 BPM. I felt defeated and ashamed.

Throughout my life, I’ve had a few wins like this. They made me think this is how negotiations and sales always go. And I wanted no part of it.

I bet there are a bunch of people out there just like me. Because if you look around, you will see a growing number of copywriting and marketing gurus catering exactly to weak and feckless negotiators.

I call these gurus “Attractionists”. They promise that you can create your freelance copywriting business without ever needing to sell. All you need to do is “attract leads by giving value,” “be human,” “know your worth.”

I’m sure people can get to the point where they are so in demand that they never have to negotiate. But my feeling is, you’re unlikely to jump from zero to total success, and completely bypass the phase where you need to do some selling. As Mark Ford wrote in Ready Fire Aim:

“To be a truly effective entrepreneur, you must become your business’s first and foremost expert at selling. There is only one way to do this: Invest most of your time, attention, and energy in the selling process. The ratio of time, creativity, and money spent on selling as opposed to other aspects of business should be something like 80/20, with 80 percent going towards selling and only 20 percent toward everything else.”

Now here are some good news:

As you go through life, you don’t have to be in hopeless negotiation situations like I was above, where your only hope is for the other side to take pity on you.

You don’t have to be powerless.

And you don’t have to be afraid of facing disagreement or having a conflict of interests with the other side.

Negotiation, persuasion, and yes, sales, can all be learned. I’ve done it. And I’m an anti-natural.

If you too are naturally reluctant to negotiate or sell, then I recommend Jim Camp’s book Start with No. For one thing, it’s an effective system, particularly if you are looking for long-term success rather than quick “wins”. For another, being accommodating and non-confrontational by nature can actually be an asset to you if you use this system.

One final point. Once you learn the basics of how to negotiate, you can choose to make it less of a daily concern in your specific business. But in my opinion, it makes sense to do that from a position of power, and not out of fear.

Anyways, if you want to check out Jim Camp’s book, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/start-with-no