Newsletter

Your first attempts to sell abroad are probably going to fail miserably. (Now, I know that as someone who helps people get those initial sales abroad, I should be all "rah rah, it's easy, you can do it!" But sorry, if you want someone to blow smoke up your a** like...

Nelson Mandela once said, "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." That's a great quote for international B2B sales, many of which happen in English, the second language for...

We are just apes picking nits off of other apes. The entire human economy is basically this: "Oh, there's a nit, do you want me to pick it off?" "Oh, you have a stain on your shirt? Let Tide get it off." "Oh, you don't know what your strategy should be? Let me help...

I'm going to riff on a way I tend to see humanity, and then I'm going to tie it into presentations. Every human has two impulses in his/her personality, and those impulses are in complete opposition to each other. The tension between the two never goes away, it is,...

I am a human trafficker. Maybe not in the coyote sense where I load a bunch of Mexicans into a panel truck and move them across the border for $10,000 a person, since I tend to not do that very often. But in the sense that I help people move to other countries, yes,...

One of my favorite movie scenes is in the movie "The Founder" (Michael Keaton) when Harry Sonneborn says to Ray Kroc, "You don't seem to realize what business you're in." I've watched that scene a gazillion times, trying to understand in what way Harry Sonneborn was...

I could file this one under "what does that have to do with anything" -- in fact, I almost did, but then thought, "no, write about this, and see what happens." So here goes… Yesterday I was listening to an absolutely fascinating podcast. It was analyzing court...

And now, finally, we get to Step 4, the one that starts working… Remember that the goal is to get those initial sales abroad. The first step was to lead with your product, the second step was to dust off your loose contacts, and the third step was to speak at a...

Remember that the goal is to get those initial sales abroad. The first step was to lead with your product, and the second step was to dust off your loose contacts. That combination got you the meeting, which is more than you had before, but it didn't do the job. Your...

Our brains are infected. They are infected by the thoughts of those around us. And what does it cause us to do? It causes us to play small. It causes us to see the world as smaller and more dangerous than it really is. Let me tell you a little story to illustrate what...

So if Step 1 was trying to enter the new country on the strength of your product, what will Step 2 be? Step 2 will be trying to utilize your distant network. Trying to get the attention of that buyer in Berlin? Fortunately, one of the guys you went to high school with...

When founders wake up one morning and decide it is time to expand their sales into another country, their first steps are typically these, and the first three are, almost invariably, unsuccessful. The first one is: Thinking the strength of the product will do the job....

I've lived in Turkey for 20 years. And since my first days here, I've heard the "Turkey is in a chaotic part of the world" note played more times than I can count. I did back then, and still do, think that that note is played a little too often, and is often used to...

You should always have 10X goals. A pretty tall order, huh? Who is this unrealistic person, expecting me to always have 10X goals. What am I, Superman? Fortunately, you will never hit any of those 10X goals. Actually, yes, maybe you'll get lucky and hit a couple of...

I make my living from prepping people for public speaking, so these days I get asked a lot how AI is affecting the public speaking game. You can use AI to design your slides, to help you layout your speech, etc. People ask, “Is there any room left for humans?” Here’s...

In response to the other day's email about how Can can extend his career, and therefore his ability to support his family, by speaking on panels, my friend Lynn Swayze, a marketing consultant in the US, makes a very good point. Lynn says, "CEOs like having people...

A few weeks ago in this newsletter I mentioned my friend Can, the COO from the chemical company. Can is a great leader. His teams love him. They would go to the ends of the earth for him. He takes good care of them. He teaches them things they couldn't even learn at...

The road to ruin often looks quite safe. No one will fault you for taking it. As they say, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." I know this from personal experience. As I mentioned a few newsletters ago, on 18 November, 2025, I was within 24 hours of...

These days, especially in the world of AI, there's a lot of debate about the value of a human, the idea being that if AI is more efficient than a human, why not just use AI? Sure, that's one way to look at it, but here's another. It comes to us from the world of fund...

Some years ago I had a client, the CEO of one of Turkey's largest banks. If you live in Turkey, you would know this bank by name. It's highly likely that you even bank there. He mentioned one thing that I've never forgotten. That is that as you raise or lower the...

The other day I was listening to the Acquired podcast. I've mentioned that one before, I've been an Acquired fanboy for about two years or so. I listen to a lot of the episodes two times, with the second listening usually being a few months after initial release....

I have a friend. His name is Can. Can is the COO for a chemical company. Can is in an increasingly crowded field with a ton of people, many of them people he trained, nipping at his heels to take his job. He wakes up each morning fearing for his ability to provide for...

Years ago, in the morning before work, I would drive into the valley on that same exact road the white-roof cars are on, and then I would run up to the same elevation this photo was taken at, and then I would run back down. The total circuit, up and down, would take...

Last week I wrote about the myth of founder-led sales. If you missed that one, you can read it here: https://recipientlabs.com/the-myth-of-founder-led-sales/ You might wonder, "So what?" or "Why would anyone care?" Here's one of the reasons I mentioned it: Founders...

I've seen the myth stated and restated for years, and it is time for us to admit that it is an inaccurate description of the world. The myth is that early in a company's history, it evolves past the point at which the head is leading the sales. The myth is that this...

On Saturday afternoons when I was a kid about 10 years old, my Grandpa Hofer used to sit me and my younger brother Mark, and our two cousins, Heather and James, down to read us stories from the Bible. The day usually started earlier with the four of us cousins, three...

The other day I wrote about nervousness, and how it's a completely normal response to having a bunch of people look at you, which is exactly what happens in public speaking. Today I want to mention another pushback I often get, usually about 2 weeks into an...

For years I refused to admit that there was any value in being a native speaker of English. After all, I grew up in the US, where speaking English is taken for granted. Ah, so you are fluent in English, huh? Congratulations on that, now get in line with the other 350...

At conferences, you'll see some panel speakers and some keynote speakers. What's the difference, and why should you care? Think of the panel speakers as the ones who are up there with 3 or 4 or 5 other people. The keynoters are up there by themselves. When...

Okay, so you've read the couple emails on speaking at conferences, and you are cool with the fact that you're never going to not be nervous, which is what I discussed last week. In other words, you're down with the benefits of speaking on conference panels. But hang...

For the past couple weeks I've been mentioning that one of the best ways to raise your ROI on conference attendance is to get on a panel. You know what, by far, is the most common pushback I get on that? "But I get nervous." I'm sorry to break it to you, but you're...

When people go to an industry conference, they tend to want to meet with a lot of people, so they can glean maximum benefit from the conference. That's totally understandable. After all, your company is spending a gazillion dollars to send you to the conference, why...

I've been reading up on strategy a lot lately. Not just reading up on it. Applying it to myself and to my business. I figure the times were good enough these past 10 or 15 years to cruise by on, as they say, the "low-hanging fruit," but now it's time to up my game and...

When people in the audience see you speaking on a panel, they look up to you. Who is the one up there doing what they wish they could do? You. And so in the future when you go to sell your product to them, they don't see you as a vendor, they see you as an expert and...

I was sitting there at breakast, and it hit me. I had thought it was so obvious, but in fact it was not: A POV ("point of view") is not an opinion. Humans almost expect everyone to have an opinion on everything. If you don't have an opinion, you sound stupid, or...

This morning, I read a phrase I've seen a million times: The world is changing faster than ever. This is a very common phrase. It's one of those phrases people throw around like it would be insane to argue against it. However, arguing against it is exactly what I am...

When you are selling into a new country or a new vertical where you might be a relative unknown, you know the bridge to the future is safe, but your prospect sees the risk of getting fired. To make things more difficult for you, in many, if not most, industries,...

Reminder: A point of view is not a marketing slogan. A marketing slogan can be a clever spinning of words to make you sound good. For example, the other day I noticed a label on a package of toilet paper in my bathroom: “100% Biobased.” I laughed out loud. What is...

The phone rang in my dorm room in Chicago. I picked up the receiver. It was my Aunt Mary calling from California. This one was my dad's sister (I had two Aunt Marys, one on each side of the family). We greeted each other with the typical niceties. I don't remember...

"You're the business shrink, that's what you are!" I was on the phone with a long-time client the other day, and this is what she said to me. (By the way, "shrink" is slang for "psychologist," so "business shrink" = "business psychologist.") My clients see themselves...

The other day having been Super Bowl Sunday in the US, the NFL's Point of View: League first, team second. It's not like the alternative (team first, league second) is a 100% bad idea. In fact, the tension between the two (league, team) will go on forever. But when...

"Being contrarian is actually the most social thing you can do," I said. Karl laughed at me. My friend and co-worker Karl and I were walking down the hallway together, coming back to the office after lunch. Somehow, we had gotten onto the topic of being contrarian....

A good POV is about decisions. (reminder: POV = point of view) We're not talking about deciding between one good thing and one bad thing. That's easy. No, we're talking about deciding between two good things. Take, for example, one of Coca-Cola's: The one who makes...

A strong POV (point of view) makes you a known entity. Buyers trust you more, because they know you are not slippery, you stand for something. Also, a POV has another thing working in its favor: Almost no one has one. Actually, most people have them once they reach...

If someone doesn't say the opposite of what you say, it's not a POV (point of view) -- it's a tagline, and a weak one at that. Some examples of bad POV attempts: --Others say they care, but we really do. --We hold nothing back. --The truth, liberated. If someone in...

I step off the bus in Kuşadası. The bus pulls away. Someone steps into the passenger seat of a car and pulls the door shut. The car pulls away. I am alone now. Through my shoes I feel the dirt and gravel of the parking lot beneath me. The voice in the back of my head...

I'm standing with drink in hand, talking to someone I just met at a party. He asks me how AI is affecting my business. I try to look serious and deep, but I can't help it: A huge smile breaks out on my face. "AI is the best thing to happen to me since Covid," I say...

Humans will risk everything in order to feel something. Think of a movie, or a TV show, or something like that, where the spouse has cheated and the the marriage is ending. The spouse is losing everything -- the partner they built a life with, their children, their...

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine. He and I are in similar businesses in that we both help our clients develop and articulate their POV (point of view). As such, we indirectly compete with lead generation providers. Lead gen providers are not our main...

My clients, whether they are selling a tangible product or a consulting service or simply themselves, are generally looking to sell something abroad. And one of the most common ways for them to go about it is to post stuff and message people on LinkedIn. They try the...

The word "value" is empty. Or, more precisely, the word "value" is not empty, it is vague, and it should therefore be on our chopping blocks. Instead of saying "provide value," for example, say "do something people will pay for." Why? Include the phrase "provide...

Recently we interviewed a repeat guest on the podcast, Wes Wheless. I took away many things from that interview, but the main one is this: Who you talk to is probably the most critically important part of a presention. You see, we presentation trainers hit on one...

One way to see this chart is that the level of English in Turkey is low. Another way to see it, the more useful one in my opinion, is that the incremental value of speaking English in Netherlands is almost zero. However, the incremental value of speaking English in...

When Ozzy Osbourne was starting out, there was no Black Sabbath. There was just some random dude named Ozzy (he was probably sleeping on his mom's couch at the time), and somehow he got a gig at some random bar, and he needed a band to back him up, so he put up some...

Yesterday I was talking to my friend Peter in Colorado. Peter used to work for an online therapist. Peter mentioned that therapists in the US are regulated by the states, and so a therapist in one state will be following different regulations than a therapist in...

People do not come to your presentation to see how much you do not care about stuff. They come to your presentation to be infected with the same passion for the subject that you feel. Just look at this video of Angus Young playing the guitar in Paris in 1979. He's...

I sit in terror on one of the red plastic chairs lined up outside the Immigration Office. I relax my tight, white-knuckle grip on my documents and try to let the stress drain from my shoulders, but within a few seconds, both are back. I know I shouldn't worry about...

Be less efficient. Yes, you heard me right. (And by the way, today's email has nothing to do with presentation skills. So if you're a presentation skills person, you're going to need to do something else today. Sorry about that.) Business loves efficiency. Efficiency...

Business tends to like the word "innovation," but not the word "creativity." Things that are innovative are good and to be desired, but creativity is treated as a soft skill, and is therefore thought of as "foreign" to "business." Personally, I think this is due to a...

As I stand and walk towards the door I suggest to him that he should invite some of his CEO friends and we'll have a small group gathering each Monday morning, rather than just him and me meeting over breakfast. He says no. I am puzzled. I have suggested this multiple...

I was standing on the platform of Istanbul's Levent Metro station. A burst of air rushed across face. I looked to the right and saw the southbound train entering the station. I smiled, knowing that this meant my workday was over and I would be going home. The train...

I wake with a start. Where am I? Through the parting fog of sleep I remember that I am in Istanbul. A hot sun is shining through the window. I am dripping sweat into the sheets. I want to go back to sleep, but the misery sets in. I want the walk to be over. I wish the...

I had arrived a bit early, so I sat in a chair in the waiting room, sweating profusely. The assistant laughed at me and handed me a box of tissues to wipe my forehead. Trying hard to look casual, I walked over to the window and pretended to be intensely interested in...

It was dark, rainy, and cold. I was standing alone, on the sidewalk, on a busy street just north of Istanbul's Taksim. I had forgotten my umbrella at home, so the wind was blowing the rain into my face. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and typed a text to Aytuğ: "We...

One of the beauties of language is that it allows a person to speak to another person and have that other person see the same thing. For example, person A says "X," and person B sees the same thing person A does. Another one of the beauties of language is actually the...

I stole this graph from LinkedIn and doctored it a bit. It is a very useful graph, because it describes how AI will die. Our efficiency rises to infinity the more AI we use. However, after a little bit, the value to our customer begins to decline. We reach a point...

I talked the other day about the importance of spending more time describing the problem. How you describe the problem determines, in large part, how you solve it. Remember the Einstein quote, "If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about...

One of the things I see lacking, and, on the podcast, hear buyers say repeatedly that they wish they heard more of, is the description of the problem. It's easy to underestimate the amount of time you need to spend describing the problem. After all, you, your...

Do not use the word “content.” Never again. “Content” is the word of commodified sameness. It takes whatever you are doing (writing a sentence, filming a video, recording a snippet of audio) and strips it of all the value you should be injecting into it. It tells you...

I've talked here many times before about the importance of breaking the pattern when you are communicating or presenting. (and by the way, yes, I recognize the irony of repeatedly talking about the virtues of breaking a pattern) I've also mentioned that breaking the...

In the past few days, I've been talking a lot about how horses need to run. But keep in mind that some venues are going to work better than others for your particular expression of the horse. For example, take the Ed Zitron email newsletter Matthew Rawle describes in...

The other day I mentioned that I was going to give an example of someone combining "horses need to run" with "break the pattern." Here we go… A few years ago I was working with a client, an architect who specialized in the building of water parks. One of the photos he...

There's a phrase I like, "Horses need to run." The idea is that whatever makes you unique, you need to do it and you need to do it a lot and you need to do it publicly. You need to not try to hide it. There's a second idea, "Break the pattern." Now let's combine the...

See this here? It's an oxytocin molecule: It causes people to trust each other. It gets released during sexual orgasm. It also gets released when you see the house you grew up in, or when you hug your mother. If you sell stuff, you need to know how to make it appear...

A few years ago, I took the bus from Dinuba to Reedley, two small towns in California. Some of you will recognize the name Reedley — I am from there, and my mom lives there now. I was the only passenger on the bus, and the driver was very friendly, so we had a little...

The other day I was helping a client with her presentation. She had fed her slides into AI, which produced a nice script for her to read. I went about fixing the script, adding in the transitions, popping the data that was crucial to the point, sinking the stuff that...

When I was a teenager, before my family moved up to Washington State, we lived near the Sierras in Visalia, California. Sometimes my friends and I would ride our bicycles up to the General Grant lodge in Kings Canyon National Park. The mountainous road up to the lodge...

Many years ago when I was about 15, I was at a new school where the kids were much bigger than me. This scared me, so I tried to be like the other kids, in the hope that they would stop singling me out. But one day, I was in the office of Dr. Wiehl, one of my favorite...

In the book "Alchemy," Rory Sutherland notes that the most dependable way to depress the prices of a restaurant's food is to put pictures of the dishes on the menu. You might think that showing pictures of food to a hungry person is going to make them more willing to...

I have a number of clients in the consulting business, and many members of this email list are consultants. This one goes out to them… Some outside the industry say consulting is all about the collection and presentation of data. However, the real business of...

This subject line is, of course, a reference to the scene in the movie The Matrix where Neo visits the Oracle's house and the weird bald kid tells him how to bend the spoon. (As you can tell, I am a huge fan of The Matrix, and in fact have, for over three years, been...

ChatGPT (and similar LLMs) will get you 90% of the way there. Which means if you are using ChatGPT to write your sales materials, you will convert about 10% of the time, which in B2B leads to bankruptcy. If you are a going concern, you will usually convert 20% to 25%...

When I was walking across Turkey, my life depended on strangers in ways it hadn't before. One of the things I did to size up the people around me was to spell each person’s name out loud and make lots of mistakes in the process. There were a couple reasons this was a...

When I was a kid, about 5 years old, my mom used to take my brother and me to the McDonald's. At that point, we lived in Oakland, California, just a few miles across the bay from downtown San Francisco. The three of us would get on the subway, ride it across the bay...

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Rory Sutherland. Not only is he very thought-provoking, he is quite funny -- in fact, given the opportunity to watch a professional comedian or Rory Sutherland, I'll choose Rory Sutherland every time. If you are a reader, he has...

(NOTE: there are some of you who forward these emails to your kids; you might want to think twice about doing that this time; I try to keep it family-friendly, but every family has different standards about what is and what is not acceptable) Many years ago, I had a...

I got so angry at that book that I threw it across the room. Multiple times. And at over 700 pages, it was a big book, so it’s a good thing I wasn’t throwing it at a window or at anything else breakable. The book was Naomi Klein’s 2007 book “The Shock Doctrine.” Why...

I talk often about the need to put some of yourself into your stories. Today I’m going to beat on that drum again, but perhaps from a slightly different angle… Not putting yourself into your stories commodifies your business and raises your cost of sale. Remember,...

I've written many times encouraging you to put personal details into your speeches and presentations. Why is that? The people you are doing business with want to see how you interact with the world. That's just what humans do. Even in the most rational of B2B...

In a new episode of the podcast, Alper and I riff on building trust, one of the common themes we heard recent guests touching on. We mentioned things like borrowing trust from the audience’s parents, putting yourself into your stories, etc. Also, Alper discusses an...

I usually try to stay away from politics in this newsletter. After all, most of you are here for presentation tips, and some dude spouting off about politics probably isn't what you signed up for. And like they say, "opinions are like a**holes -- everyone has one and...

By far the single most common problem I see with case studies is what I call the "Wall Of Context." The Wall Of Context obstructs your connection with your potential client and reduces your case study's effectiveness as a sales tool. You know the Wall Of Context: It's...

The other day, recent podcast guest and list member Wes Wheless (hi Wes!) challenged those of us on his own email list to represent an idea visually. I accepted the challenge, and figured I would try to visually represent that moment my friend Jeff buttressed my faith...

Observation #1: Rory Sutherland has a great line, to the effect that half of the people around you simply don't know what you do. (By the way, as many of you know, I'm a huge Rory Sutherland fan. I've read his book "Alchemy," I binge-watch interviews with him on...

I talk a lot about how we are often wrong, no matter how thorough we are trying to be, and how that means we just have to throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. In other words, have a Plan A, a Plan B, a Plan C, etc, and try them out...

For years, I've seen quite a few salespeople, people who should know better, making a mistake, and that is thinking that in a B2B sale, there's one decision-maker, and the higher the better. What I mean by that is that they know there are others involved, but they...

In that recent LinkedIn Live I did with Rick and Jennifer from Sales Force Europe, I went into one of my favorite story structures, and how would it be used in sales. You probably all know the structure, since I talk about it all the time: BMG (Boy Meets Girl)....

In business life, we adults like to think we can predict the world better than we actually can. This means we often spend years pursuing "A," when "A" is going to be a total failure, while "B," which takes a mere fraction of the time, is what will end up being...

One of the most common questions I get about presenting is: "I'm nervous, how do I get over it?" And my answer is: "Sorry man, you're never going to get over it." I know, it's not the answer anyone wants to hear. But I'm not very good at blowing smoke up someone's...

The other day, Alper and I recorded a podcast episode with Wes Wheless. (Wes is on this email list, so if you are seeing this email Wes, hello!) Wes and I do very similar things in our work, so it was a pleasure to talk to someone of a like mind and see how they do...