Work with people who deserve your help, not those who need it.
Andrew S. said, “Please stop emailing me.” to which I responded “There’s an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email. I’ve gone ahead and clicked it for you.”
While I appreciate the candor of Andrew’s email, it’s an illuminating display of his character when he chose to hit ‘reply’ and type 34 characters to do what could have been done with a simple scroll and click in a fraction of the time.
When you learn to read the character of a person by their actions, you can suss out who is worth your time — who will take a conversation and turn it into progress.
Time is your most valuable, non-replenishing asset — invest it wisely.
In the week of January 31st to February 6th, my Rescue Time logged 51h 30m.
Of that time, 53% was spent on ‘Communication’. Here are my top categories:
As of the beginning of this email, I’ve logged 4380 hours and 18 minutes with Rescue Time since signing up on February 11th, 2014. During that time I wrote a total of 6,264 words or an average of 895 per day. Why is this relevant?
If you don’t track your time, energy, and activity (in some way) you will never be able to determine the return on your investment. You will, in essence, be without direction.
Of the 27h 30m I spent ‘Communicating’ last week, my energy was channeled strategically. Those who displayed an investment in connecting with me through a well thought out, well researched, or well worded message received and equivalent investment in return. The caveat to “work with people who deserve your help” is…
Show people how to deserve your help.
I’m going to make an assumption and say that if you’re on my email list you’re an intelligent human being that knows ‘unsubscribe’ links are in the footer of emails. If you cannot find one then you reply or block the sender, but Andrew didn’t even look.
Andrew was not worthy of my time and while he got a reply, it was intentionally short.
In a conversation with Maxx H., he shared that he has difficulty telling people ‘no’, something I struggled with for the longest time. Our conversation reminded me of this paradigm, which has become so engrained in what I do that I’d overlooked it completely.
Actually, I’ve been using it on you since the beginning of this series.
I recommended the book ‘The One Thing’ a few emails back. To date, 3 people have responded to tell me they’ve purchased it and 2 added it to their “soon to read” list, but Benjamin B. bought the audiobook and consumed the entire thing with days.
When you challenge people, you find those who are willing to put in the work.
Benjamin B. is actually a member of Ghost Influence. Not only is he engaged there, putting in the work to develop his business, but he also reads and implements the advice/lessons shared through this series. He takes a nugget and makes a fortune.
I illustrated an example to Maxx H. in my response:
“I recently challenged someone in this way. After the lunch meeting that resulted from an introduction through a mutual colleague, I told the guy to document his plan. He came back with a two page outline with exactly that less than 24 hours later. I told him how much I loved the answers, but challenged him again by putting up an objection a potential VC would raise. He responded with a brilliantly well researched and compelling answer. He was requesting I join as a partner and it was at this point I responded with interest by asking for the legal paperwork (equity, retainer, etc.). I didn’t tell him the terms, I wanted him to do the work to construct the offer. A few days later his attorney drafted and served me documents to become an advisor with part equity and part pay.”
Those are the people you want to spend your time with… but you can only have time for them if you say ‘no’ to the others that aren’t your ideal partners, clients, etc.
When someone tells me they want help with Reddit Marketing, but aren’t willing or ready to commit to the $97 p/mo. price, I typically recommend that they start with the Ghost Influence Podcast (which is free, actionable advice). If they come back to me later with a new request for help and haven’t taken action on the last advice they asked for… I see it as a waste of time and my responses get shorter.
Why would I spend time helping someone won’t help themselves?
Steve D., an expert in conversion optimization, saw my mention of Delicate Estates in the ‘Open Loop Magic‘ email and responded with a 7 minute video diagnosing their site — unsolicited value completely detached from any pitch. He was a wee bit wine drunk in the video and told me he was “warming up” to re-write his sales page as I had prompted him in an earlier email. Madi T.’s 1,000+ word dissection of my Ghost Influence offer language helped me to have a radical breakthrough on how I could amplify my member engagement… even though I never asked for help.
To Ben B, Maxx H, Steve D, Madi T, and everyone like them, thank you. I will go to the ends of the earth to help you because I know you will take everything given to you and make something meaningful from it — my time will be well spent.
Are you more interested in filtering those who don’t deserve your time or showing those who’s time you want that you are in fact deserving of it?