"Tells" of Successful People

Business Brain, episode 591 for Casual Friday, October 18, National Necktie Day 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take some ideas, we dissect them, we compress them, we expand them, we analyze them, we use them to tune our business brains every single time we get together. Our sponsor for this episode is shopify.com businessbrain. That's where you can go to sign up for a $1 per month trial and upgrade your selling today. We'll talk more about that in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out here in sunny Northern California, I'm Shannon Jean. If you're watching the live stream, you saw me raise my arms in victory because we hit over five viewers of the live stream, which is awesome. Makes me very happy. And now I'll set the bar a little higher for next time.

That's right. Never a go. Just the never.

I'm never satisfied. It's like a blessing and a curse, right? It's like, oh, we hit 500 today. What can we hit next week? We got to hit six, you know? Yeah, it's great. I love it. I love it. Hey, I wanted to just. I thought it was kind of interesting. Before we get into the Our. Our regular topic is to talk about, you know, spirit Halloween.

I do, yeah.

Do you guys had. You guys had those out there?

Of course.

Yeah. My kids, we always. We always used to go there, but now they're. I don't know why it took them so long, but they're actually going to stay open and switch the sign out front. And I guess the. The stuff they're selling inside, of course, then could be Spirit Christmas.

Okay.

And they'll be open during the Christmas holidays. And, you know, I love this popup concept because we did last week about risk and talking about that, but it's a great to kind of couch your risk a little bit by trying a short time span, your short window store, retail space pop up, try to sell things and see how the. The, you know, the public responds to you. I love that idea. And I imagine when Spirit Christmas started, now I know they're owned by, Gosh, I can't think of the name anymore, but they're much bigger and huge now. But I imagine at one time they started with just one store to see.

When spirit Halloween started or whatever.

Spirit Halloween. Thank you very much for correcting me there. And I think they're owned by Spencer's now.

Oh, are they okay?

Yeah, I think so. And, you know, they rented out a vacant place, so they didn't probably sign some long lease. And they just thought, well, let's bring in a bunch of Halloween stuff, see how it sells, and if it doesn't sell, we can sell, try it again next year. And so I love it. And they've become a staple in every. I mean, I. They do jokes on Saturday Night Live about the Spirit Halloween store. And yeah, I thought it's interesting that they're expanding into Christmas and I wonder. Hopefully they'll do okay.

Yeah, you're right. They are owned by Spencer, Spencer Gifts. They are opening 10 Spirit Christmas stores. So they're doing an experiment, try it out. The first one opens the same day. This episode was released on October 18th in Maze Landing, New Jersey. That will be the flagship one. So.

And it sounds like then they're not opening them in the same store.

No, they're different. It says that the Pop up chain will be a mixture of some converted Spirit Halloween stores and new locations. And presumably since they're doing this on October 18th, you wouldn't close the Spirit.

Halloween store on October.

Correct. In any day of the month of October. Yeah.

That's cool.

So, yeah, yeah, it's great.

I love the concept and, and it. That place kind of freaks me out some of the gory, nasty stuff they have in there. But it' wildly successful and I couldn't, I couldn't keep kids out.

1,800 stores this year in the US and Canada. Open Spirit Halloween.

Yeah.

Amazing.

I. I always remind people, you know, all these huge companies, most of them were small businesses when they started, so it's true.

Yeah, most of them were. Yeah, absolutely.

Most of them were. That's awesome.

Your small business can start just today. In fact, even if it's already started, you can benefit by using our sponsor, Shopify. I have a business. It's a website that does, like, different things. And we have fans of the website that want merch. And so we tried different ways of selling merch and finally landed on Shopify. And boy howdy, that's the place we're going to stay. Because it just works so well. We can sell anything to anyone anywhere. Right? Like, and they have integrations with Printify. We're doing a lot of this with merch and, and so we can integrate with Printify to use all of their vendors to make the merch. And then Shopify lets us sell it worldwide. And they just make it so easy, we don't even think about it anymore. The sales just come in and I Can't imagine a life without Shopify. I can unfortunately imagine a life before Shopify because I remember those days. It wasn't that long ago. But you've used Shopify too, right, Shannon?

I have a bunch of times. I love the. You know, I became an entrepreneur to take control of my life. And Shopify allows you to really control your inventory. Your. You own the customer, your inventory, you know, you're distributing it. Spreading out on other marketplaces is great, but being ultimately in control of your own destiny is a really important part of the equation for success.

Yeah, it's amazing. And you can upgrade your business and get the same checkout that we use with Shopify. And that's the sound that we hear every time a sale is made. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com businessbrain all lowercase. Go to shopify.com businessbrain to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com businessbrain we'll do that twice. And our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Shannon, I was on X. Have you. Do you know about the X platform, Shannon? I know you've never mentioned it on the show.

Yeah, never on this show, this episode.

No, you mentioned it, I think. Oh, no, maybe not.

I don't know. No, I don't think so. That might have been the first. You forced me.

Yep. I. So I found a post by Michael Gurdley, who has a big following out there, and this was his 11 tells of successful people. Yeah. And I wanted to go through some, maybe all of these and just dissect them a little bit, which is something we haven't done for a while. The first tell on the list is very important and relevant for what we're doing as we're telling you about this, and that is clarity of speech. Can people speak succinctly and clearly? Do they choose words carefully? This is one of his tells of successful people.

Love it. Yeah. I think it's also is. It's a thought process too. Right. That allows you to, you know, put the right words together and focus. And you. When you're speaking to someone, you can tell that they're. They've done the research and, you know, they. They know what they're talking about. And not in a cocky way, but in a. Just a clear, like he says, clear and concise. And they, you know, like you always say, oh, that guy knows what he's talking about.

Yeah, sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

Sounds. Yes, exactly. One I thought was interesting. The next one Was this two. They're two marshmallow thinkers. Which is, I guess a Stanford experiment where you'd wait. But it's all about are they willing to be patient for a big payoff. And, you know, I tell this to everybody at my coaching clients. I say, hey, listen, this is a 12 to 18, 24 month process here. It's not going to happen overnight. You got to learn these systems. You need to go. I mean, we've been doing this show for 10 years. We didn't have a sponsor for the first two years. Right?

Yeah, probably right. Yeah.

And I think about, and you know, new podcasters always ask me, how do you get sponsors? Like, well, you create great content which then creates great audiences, which then leads sponsors to want to put, you know, their name on your show. So spending the time being patient and understanding that all good things take time to build.

Yep, I like it. The third one might be my favorite one on this list. Cheap cars. They don't spend much on a car relative to their net worth. I have watched the price of my automobiles go down as my net worth has gone up.

That's cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've owned, I've owned BMWs before. The only reason I bought a BMW was because I was pissed that Volvo ruined. When Ford bought Volvo, they ruined the, the, the mod, the, the car that I liked. And that car I had bought because I did work for the sales manager of a Volvo dealership. So I got a house deal on that one. So I wound up kind of going up this ladder that I didn't ever intend to go up. And don't get me wrong, I drove two BMWs and loved them. And now we drive all Subarus in our house. And I love those vehicles. They are absolutely.

That's great.

My Subaru Outback is my favorite car that I've ever owned. And like I said, I owned two BMWs before that.

Yeah, Subaru has a really loyal following. I mean, we're kind of similar. We always typically have one quote company car that's maybe a little nicer, maybe a little newer. But like, our company car now is a Jeep Grand Cherokee. And then I drive a Dodge pickup truck. It's super useful. They're tools. I love it. And you know, yes, I like some luxuries. But the good news now is you.

Can get luxuries, the luxury features in cars that are not luxury vehicles.

Yes, you got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Michael's next one is they're introspective. Introspective by nature. Do they think about what went wrong and what they'd have done differently. Man, that's powerful. That's the post mortem, right?

Yeah.

I think we even did a show on how to put together a postmortem, and it's very true. Are you stopping to think? We always say mistakes are tuition right there. What are they teaching you? How do you adjust? The key is to get started and then learn from those mistakes as you go along.

That's it. That's it. And then the next one might be. If I had to predict a favorite for you prior to having this discussion, it would be this next one, which is bias to action. Do these people naturally want to start solving problems as soon as possible, not thinking about solutions? That's not what he said. Start solving action verbs. Yep.

I love it. Yeah, man. Do it, do it. Start it.

Figure it out, Figure it out. But you got to start it. I can look back so many times in my career and just my life in general, and I can say the hardest part of most things that I've done has been starting.

It is tough for me.

It is. I know. And I suffer from procrastination and all those things, and, you know, analysis paralysis is my best friend. Except it's not. But it seems. It hangs around like my best friend.

Mine is. Yeah, mine is. The hardest part for me is maintenance. I'm terrible at maintenance. I'm good at starting, but I always have to get people to help me. When you get to a certain point and maintain it maintenance, because I get bored, and then I'm not good. Not good. I am the next thing that Gridley says, super responsive. Do they respond quickly to emails, texts, and phone calls? I love it. I'm on it. It spurs other people to be responsive in action. Let's make a decision right now, and let's, you know, get back to this and figure it out. Like, you know, we had a little glitch in our ad before, and we just like, boom, let's just fix it right now, and then we'll get it going. And now it's. Now it's on. We're on to the next play. We're always thinking of the next play.

We moved on. Yeah, I, I. And I find I am more efficient when I am super responsive. If I am. If I see your text or your email or if I see the phone ringing, if I can take. If I have then taken a minute to think about this thing that I would previously, previously have said, oh, I don't have time to deal with that. Right now. Well, now my head's in it, so I might as well take advantage of that and respond to you. And now it's done. I don't have to come back to it. I can go back to the thing that I wanted to get back to. It's.

And taking up less mindshare and it's not in your head thinking, oh, I got to get back that person. Oh, you gotta offload this stuff and move on.

Yeah, yeah. The next one is make hard things look easy and make easy things look simple. He says you see them do stuff and you're like, wow, I thought that'd be harder. I say that about myself. Wow, I thought that would be harder to do. I don't believe the perception that these things are difficult. Some things are and you will be correct. But that's okay. Then you're correct. Prove yourself wrong.

As you improve your skill set by solving smaller problems, what you'll find is you're stacking up that problem solving skills where you just apply them in succession. You don't even realize it and you start solving bigger problems and you just knock them down.

Love it.

It comes with time. Intellectual honesty. Can they quickly see things from other people's perspective and understand their motivations? That can be tough. I think that can be tough. And I'd like to think that I have this. I think as I've gotten older, I also think it comes with empathy, being empathetic to other perspectives and how things look. But I will freely admit it took me some time to get to that point. Certainly it wasn't when I was a young guy.

And I don't think this is a binary thing. And I say that because I want to give myself permission to fail at this sometimes, because I know that I do and I know that I will in the future. But I think the, the important part is that you work to be intellectually honest, not that you always are able to be honest.

I like that.

Right. You work to it. You understand and, and maintain that self awareness so that you know when you have. And more importantly when you have not been able to attain that intellectual honesty. And it's like, okay, I'll do better next time. I'm aware of where. Yeah, that's here. I think. I think that's the. That's the one.

I like it. I like it. It's got a few more here. What's next, Dave?

Game selection. Do they want to focus efforts where they have an advantage over competitors? Yeah, I love that.

What is your unfair advantage? We've Done shows about this. It could be anything. Finance your warehouse space, your work ethic, your connections, who you know, you know, some bit expertise that you've got about the market that's, you know, focus on what jet unfair advantages you have.

It's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love it. The number 10 but not last. Want to be compensated for contribution. Do they want the upside aligned with their value to a cause? Man, we've, we've done shows about like folks that want to be a partner and the first thing they talk about is getting a salary and we're like wait, wait. We've got to build this revenue stream first before anybody gets paid.

Can't pay you when there's nothing coming.

In that's an employee. So you may need employees certainly. But if you're going to be involved in building something, your upside has to be aligned with the upside of the thing you are creating. Yeah, for sure.

That, that might be that I said earlier that cheap cars might be my favorite one on the list. That one want to be compensated for content. That's my favorite one because it is. It's a perfect tell of whether if someone doesn't have this like. Okay, wait a minute. Yep.

I'm going to raise my hands again because we just hit 602 streamers. New. That's going to be the new thing. That's my, that's my tell right there. New bar. Yeah. And what's the last one, Dave?

Unfailing self belief and optim. Do they think they'll eventually win no matter how tough today might be?

Absolutely. That is it. You, you know, having that concept of, you know, getting. You're. You are going to win. This is going to happen. You probably won't win in the, the exact method you think you are.

If you do tell us because you're. You're a unicorn.

Yeah. Yeah. But I actually think it's great to build in that flexibility of. You know. I published a book by starting a software company. Right. So and it was a huge success. But I. The book was a company wasn't. The book was a success. The software company crashed and burned. But I learned so much and I created all this content that I was like, oh well now I've got content. It's not as hard to write a book as I thought. So you know, unfailing self belief man. That is in taming your inner judge, that is telling you it won't work. You, you keep focusing on that. You get to be the hero in your story and you get to create it and Live the way you want, for sure. That's my favorite.

I have to bring up something because I knew you and we talked privately as you were starting and attempting to make this software company work. And then eventually, as it failed. And what I love is your story is correct, but you say that your software company crashed and burned. Now, that tells the story of, oh, I had this awful failure, and then I had this great book that came out of it. It's an exaggeration. I know that. This is an exaggeration. Right.

It's hyperbole.

It's hyperbole. But, like, that's an important way. Like, I think that's a good thing that you described as, oh, that crashed and burned. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I frame it. I also think that when I tell that story. You tell stories if you just tell the wins all the time. That's cool. People like to hear that.

Yes.

But when you tell that, man, I've failed it. Like, oh, Yeah, I started 10 companies, but I probably failed at 20. That connects you with people on a deeper level because we've all failed and all have tried. And I want to be the hero in my story. I am. And so I get to make the rules and say that. And that's the story I want to tell. When I sit around the campfire. I have lived my life in reverse by thinking of, what are the stories? What story do I Want to tell 20, 30 years ago? What is acceptable to tell and what is not. And overcoming failure is one of the biggest stories that I tell over and over and over again.

Yep. No, I love it. And I just wanted to highlight that example for people because it's a great one. You can be very efficient about it and just say, yeah, we crashed and burned and. And. And then this great thing came out. Then you move on. Yep. Love it.

That's awesome. That's a great topic. I'm going to reach out to Michael and tell him we featured this on the show.

Sweet.

And break it down. He's a great guy. Super inspirational, funny guy. You know, one of his biggest businesses, fireworks. You may never, may not have known that, but Alamo Fireworks is his baby. And they do, like, 90% of their business in 48 hours. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. That's awesome. That was fun. That was a great show.

Yeah. Fun stuff. Thanks for hanging out with us, folks. Feedbackusinessbrain show. If you've got any comments or thoughts on what we talked about here, or if you've got a story to tell, let us know. Maybe it's something. You come on the show. Maybe we'll tell it on the show. Maybe both. Have a great weekend and keep on living that charmed life.