SFB Newsletter #15

Hey, Ben here. 👋

Since ancient times travellers have used the Polaris Star, (the North Star,) as a compass to guide them on their journey. You see, the star is directly aligned to the north pole so it stays steady in the northern sky as all the other stars move around it.

Now if you imagine that you’re searching for guidance on your journey - the north star is going to be a valuable ally - forever pointing north. All you need to do is find it and head towards it and you will be heading north.

I bring this up because I believe this is a powerful analogy to help us think about business.

Just like the Polaris Star is fixed in location and finds it’s true value in it’s reliable, un-shifitng nature, and therefore it’s ability to guide people north over the long term…

There are universal laws and principles - that are fixed, reliable, they don’t change with the seasons and therefore within them lies a profound ability to guide your business north over the long term.

All you need to do is find them and head towards them and you’ll be heading north.

Now on the other hand - let’s imagine you head outside and you chase the other stars or the planets even… You’ll be chasing your tail - you’ll be on the hamster wheel.

The other stars and the planets are just like tactics. Tactics will shift and move with the times, coming in and out of season.

Trends rise and fall.

If you try to chase tactics without a true understanding of the principles behind them, you have what is called, ‘bright shiny object syndrome:’ you’ll be giving away your power and your direction.

And look don’t get me wrong - there is a time and a place for tactics, I love tactics and I have a larger collection of them than any other business owner you probably know.

However, I know their place in the hierarchy. I seek the principles first, I let the unchanging principles define my goals and my objectives. Then I create strategies and tactics that help me to achieve those goals and objectives.

What I’m saying, sounds incredibly trite and simple - which it is…

However in my experience, a well principled business owner is rare.

Principles could be one of the most under rated, undervalued and under appreciated topics on earth when compared to their true values.

Perhaps because committing to principles requires that you step off the hamster wheel and think deeply with a 30,000 foot view that includes components of both life and business.

Sometimes it’s hard to do that when the daily responsibilities feel like they dominate your time and your activities.

Often we feel so weighed down by this, that the thought of ‘putting down the tools’ for a moment presents more risk than reward.

The key is to carve off a small portion of your day to invest into your thinking, strategising and learning.

You could study philosophy and any other piece of wisdom you can get your hands on - get outside of your industry - that’s where you’ll find the gold to bring back to your business.

A great book on this is, ‘The Story of Philosophy’ by Will Durant - where one of greatest ever historians tells the ‘story of philosophy,’ travelling biographically through the lives of all of the major philosophers to share their wisdom and how they influenced each other. You’ll probably find you resonate with some more than others and then you can go read their materials.

For me it’s Spinoza, (who I’d never heard of before reading the book) Plato and Pythagoras… but I digress… I want to say that discovering, uncovering and learning about principles is some of the most un-urgent yet important work you can do.

No one is asking you to do it, few will talk about it and you will have to fly in the opposite direction to the masses.

This is what my business is primarily committed to, because I know I’ll have a much bigger impact over the long term. I know that the principles I’ve found, developed and learnt from my mentors will have tremendous volumes of ‘compound interest…’

The proof is that many of my models were created 6+ years ago and they are more relevant today than when I first created them.

Anyways, all that to say: Today I have a valuable little principle you can use to align your business to ‘the north star.’

It come’s in the form of a question…

‘Are you selling a dream client a dream come true result, packaged around a validated ‘big idea,’ pre-eminently positioning someone as the expert or ‘attractive character’ behind the product, with the right pricing, in a way that can scale without you?’

There are 6 components to this model and it’s unique in that it weaves in and out of marketing, sales, product and operations.

You may find (as I often do) that you’re lacking in some areas.

You can use this model to re-align and fix that.

A helpful tool I use here is to score each area our of 1-10. This gives me context for where I am in each of the areas. Each quarter I get to work to shift my numbers.

1. The Dream Client

There are 5 segments of your dream client profile.

Demographics, Psychographics, Behaviours, Geography and Utility…

The most important being the Psychographics: What are their pains and problems? And the Utility: Which we will cover shortly in part 2: The dream come true result.

** Note: I spoke about this system extensively in this previous edition of the newsletter.

Understanding the pain and the problem that a person is experiencing is the first key to unlock great marketing, and frankly a great business.

You can improve this now by grabbing a pen and a piece of paper… At the top of the page write: What are the key pain points that my dream clients are experiencing now. These are symptoms.

Then write: What is the root cause of these pain points? What is the key problem that is causing the pain.

Spend 10 minutes thinking about your answers and you’ll probably unlock a new level of understanding about your dream clients. You can inject this into your marketing and I’m sure you’ll see a strong surge in results.

The most important place to input this into your marketing is your ‘marketing hook.’ You want this to be at the very beginning of your marketing funnels and assets.

2. The Dream Come True Result

The 5th segment of the ‘Dream Client Profile’ is Utility… Or said another way, ‘what’s the dream come true result for the client?’

Again this would be a useful one to jot down and answer on the page…

‘What is the Dream Come True Result for my Clients?’

From here you can base the key promise of your business around this.

This is one of the most common missing pieces I see in people’s marketing and on their website.

It doesn’t even need to be grand or transcendent. It could be a simple dream. A dream to look better, feel better or have a more impressive business.

What’s important is that this is communicated as ‘the promise’ behind the product and if it’s not delivering - fix the product.

There is no greater business obstacle than trying to sell something people don’t want. Marketing is about caring enough about people to figure that out and then deliver on it.

3. The Big Idea

‘Packaged around a validated big idea?’

Now you might ask - what’s a Big Idea? The Big Idea is the compelling communication of the process your clients will take with you.

Perhaps my favourite and most consistent form of ‘Big Ideas’ are visual models.

This is especially relevant for ‘knowledge based businesses,’ those that are based on an intellectual or abstract process of some kind.

Instead of trying to explain these ideas verbally or by text - do it visually.

Here are some examples.

If you sell a Software: Create a piece of intellectual property that illustrates the key idea the business is based on.

If you’re a Coach/Consultant: Create models for every process you use with your clients, use them in your marketing.

If you’re an E-commerce Business: Create an infographic that illustrates the customer journey, and how to use the product.

One of the most valuable books I’ve ever read is ‘A Technique For Producing Ideas’ by James Webb Young. Inside he shares a simple 5 step process to use to create ‘Big Ideas’ or ‘Intellectual Property.’

4. The Attractive Character

‘Pre-eminently positioning someone as the expert or ‘attractive character’ behind the product?’

At the end of the day people do business with people. It doesn’t necessarily have to be you as the founder but I think it helps if it is.

It helps a lot to step out from behind the logo and tell your story, the good and the bad. In fact if you only tell the good parts - the story will do more damage than good.

No one likes a trust fund baby.

Often what holds people back from sharing their story is caring too much about what people think, when in truth - people only respect those who they know had to fight and overcome challenges.

If you can share specific stories of the time you were exactly where your dream clients are now experiencing the pain and the problem - this will help immensely.

If you can position yourself as in possession of the dream come true result your clients are aiming for - this will also help immensely.

Again this is one of the elements I frequently find missing in the marketing and on the website.

A helpful exercise here:

Out of 1-10 how well are you positioning someone as the expert behind the product? How can you more effectively position yourself or someone else as the expert behind the product?

5. With the Right Pricing

This one is fairly self explanatory.

I love the idea from Dan Sullivan that ‘what something is worth is what is was last sold for.’ What he’s really saying is to test, and that pricing, just like running a 400m race is based on the attempt and it resets after every race.

You wouldn’t run a 400m race and try to hit the exact same time, every run. You’d want to push yourself to be the best you can be.

Pricing can be like that if you let it.

Don’t base your pricing system on ‘the way people do things in your market.’ Don’t base it on your competitors. Base your pricing on the true result it generates for your clients. Base your pricing on your goals and figure out what it takes to get there.

Pricing has interesting and seemingly unusual byproducts. The clients who pay the least are often the biggest pain in the ass. The clients who pay the most are often the most relaxed.

If you undercharge for your products and services you’ll be treated like a doormat. If you overcharge people simply won’t buy.

So the risk of trying to increase your pricing is incredibly low and you can have a clear answer in less than 7 days.

The risks involved with undercharging are consistent and high.

Test your price.

6. Can Scale Without You Wearing 100 Hats.

This is the cherry on top. If you can build a business around the first 5 steps, the next step is to try and scale it as the Chairman and not the CEO.

And look that lofty goal may not be relevant for everyone but I’ll mention it here anyways, because at some level I’m sure it will be.

I heard a great quote recently that the process of business is being the generalist to get things started, then hire other generalists to replace you as you grow and then hire specialists to replace the generalists as you scale.

There are levels of the business scaling without you.

Level 1 - Your hire staff and step down from the Operations.
Level 2 - You hire a leadership team and become the CEO.
Level 3 - You hire a CEO and become the Chairman.

For some people it’s their long held dream to be able to just step down from the operations, for others you may want to eventually exit the business.

Whatever the goal I think it’s wise to think about the next level of leverage in the business… I think it’s wise to think about where you are now and what are the steps to take you to the next level.

So there you have it - The Polaris Star - if you align to this question, if you check in every quarter and score these areas out of 10, if you seek to improve them across the board to a 9.5/10 on average you will certainly head ‘north.’

Here is the question again. Make sure to take the time to score yourself and jot down some ideas to improve your numbers.

‘Are you selling a dream client a dream come true result, packaged around a validated ‘big idea,’ pre-eminently positioning someone as the expert or ‘attractive character’ behind the product, with the right pricing, in a way that can scale without you?’

Have a great week,

Ben Slater.

PS… How You Can Support This Newsletter.

This newsletter is free.

As it stands I’ve invested over $500,000 of my own money to discover the principles, strategies, techniques, tools, tactics and systems I share with you in this newsletter.

This money was invested into books, courses, retreats, consulting (1 on 1 and groups), coaching, business masterminds, seminars and events over the past 10 years.

I’ve also invested ten’s of thousands of hours to get to this point. I’ve been in the trenches testing everything you can imagine for over 10 years now. I’ve made mistakes that have made and cost me millions of dollars.

I plan to share everything with you here in this newsletter.

But that’s all in the past… let’s talk about the present and some of my costs.

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As the newsletter grows, I’ll bring in sponsors - If I am an actual customer of the products and if I believe in them I’ll bring them to you and share my views via this newsletter.

For now the best way to support is to purchase some of our products.

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