Pisort

13 Years of No BS Business Advice

The summarized version of the 1hr 20 min video into 1 min read

"I've been in business 13 years, I've sold nine companies, my last company I sold for $46.2 million, my current portfolio is just over $17 million a month."

1. Have Something Extremely Expensive to Sell

  • Use as an anchoring tactic
  • Makes other offers look more attractive
  • Allows you to raise prices on main offers
  • Breaks you out of the fear of raising prices

Example:

A friend with a weight loss business added a 6x higher-priced version of his offer. People started buying the expensive option more than his core offer, tripling his profit overnight.

2. No One Knows You Exist - Advertise More

"We get so sick of our advertising so much before our customers or potential customers even remember our names."

The 4x4 Rule:

  • 4 hours a day doing the core four:
  • Reaching out to people you know one-on-one
  • Reaching out to strangers one-on-one
  • Making content one-to-many
  • Running ads one-to-many

The Rule of 100:

Either make 100 minutes of content, do 100 outreaches, or spend $100 a day on ads.

3. Until $100,000/month, Advertising is All Your Focus

  • Advertising comes before product improvement
  • Need enough customers to iterate and get feedback
  • After $100,000/month, focus on fixing "holes in the bucket"
  • Once fixed, go back to scaling advertising

Warning:

Focusing only on advertising without fixing product issues can lead to reputation damage and a "leaky bucket" scenario.

4. Under $1M/year: One Channel, One Avatar, One Product

  • Focus on one specific type of customer
  • Serve one problem with one product
  • Advertise through one channel

Example:

"I didn't open up a second channel of acquisition until we were at $4 million a month."

5. Always Start for Free

  • Lower stakes for you and the customer
  • Fastest way to get testimonials and proof
  • Helps you refine your product/service

Three ways free customers can make you money:

  1. Leave testimonials
  2. Refer other customers via word of mouth
  3. Stay on and pay after the free period

6. Proof Over Promise

Your proof will do more selling than any promise can possibly do.

4 Ways to Make Proof More Compelling:

  1. Recent proof is better than delayed proof
  2. Visual proof is more compelling (e.g., screenshots, before/after pictures)
  3. High volume of proof (e.g., many customer reviews)
  4. Capture pain in testimonials (start with the problem, then the solution)

Pro Tip:

Best time to ask for a testimonial: at the moment of greatest satisfaction

7. Raising Prices Almost Always Makes You More Money

  • Pricing is often more inelastic than you think
  • Be prepared to hear "no" more often
  • Can significantly increase profit margins

Example:

Doubling the price led to a 35% reduction in conversion, but tripled profit per sale.

8. Talk to Customers to Solve All Your Problems

"You can solve just about every business problem by talking to your customers." - Paul Graham

  • Learn the words they use to describe their problems
  • Understand what drives purchases and retention
  • Get valuable feedback for product improvements
  • Turn neutral customers into super fans

Tip:

Talk to super users, moderate users, and low users. Each group provides different insights.

9. The CLOSER Framework for Sales

  • C - Clarify why they're there
  • L - Label the problem
  • O - Overview past experiences (pain cycle)
  • S - Sell the vacation (not the plane flight)
  • E - Explain away their concerns
  • R - Reinforce the decision

Key Point:

Focus on selling the outcome (Maui) rather than the process (TSA, check-in, bags).

10. Do 10x More of What's Already Working

Before trying something new, maximize what's already successful.

  • Identify what's working in your business
  • Find ways to scale it up significantly
  • Address constraints that prevent 10x growth

Warning:

Avoid the trap of constantly starting over with new strategies (uninformed optimism → informed pessimism → valley of despair → repeat)

11. Business is Always Stressful

Growth, stagnation, and decline are all stressful. Accept stress as a fact of business life.

  • Your tolerance for stress increases over time
  • Today's big problems were once "nothing problems"
  • Future you will think the same about current problems

"The only stress-free people are people who are dead."

12. The Look Back Window

Customers determine whether a purchase was good based on their most recent experience.

  • Extend the look back window by billing less frequently
  • Annual billing allows more time to provide value
  • Consider offering prepayment discounts or guarantees

Benefits of longer billing cycles:

  1. Lower churn rates
  2. More cash upfront for marketing and growth
  3. Ability to offset customer acquisition costs

13. Try to Sell Your Sawdust

Look for ways to create new revenue streams from existing assets and byproducts.

  • Identify underutilized assets in your business
  • Find creative ways to combine or repurpose these assets
  • Create new product lines without increasing operational drag

Example:

A gym renting out its space during off-peak hours for team training or sports activities.

14. Arm Your Salespeople

Empower your sales team with the tools and resources they need to succeed.

  • Create a centralized resource of content to overcome customer objections
  • Allow salespeople to send relevant content to prospects
  • Unify sales and advertising under one department (Chief Revenue Officer)

Key Concept:

Sales and advertising are on the same continuum, filling in information gaps for potential customers.

15. The Three Legs of the Business Stool

Every business needs three key functional leaders:

  1. Acquisition (getting customers)
  2. Delivery (fulfilling promises to customers)
  3. Internal Operations (supporting the other two functions)

These roles align with increasing Enterprise Value:

  • Get more customers (Acquisition)
  • Make customers worth more (Delivery)
  • Decrease risk in the business (Operations)

16. Person with the Highest Standard Should Be in Charge

  • Applies to all levels of the business
  • Look for the person with the lowest tolerance for mediocrity
  • Promotes based on standards, not tenure or likability

Example:

In customer support, put the person with the highest standard for customer experience in charge.

17. New Hires Should Raise the Average Bar

When hiring, ensure that each new person improves the team's overall quality.

  • Look for candidates you can learn from during the interview process
  • Assess their ability to connect their actions to business outcomes
  • Consider if they raise the bar for the specific team they're joining

"Your best talent has yet to come. Your best talent is in the future; you haven't met them yet."

18. Five Reasons Someone Isn't Doing What You Want

  1. They didn't know you wanted them to do it
  2. They didn't know how to do it
  3. They didn't know when you wanted it done
  4. They weren't motivated to do it
  5. Something was blocking them from doing it

Pro Tip:

Use this framework to have productive conversations and address the root cause of performance issues.

19. The Hardest Work is What You Don't Know How to Do

Entrepreneurship often involves confronting the unknown and pushing through failure.

  • Identify the one thing that would solve multiple problems
  • Accept that you might not know how to do it initially
  • Be prepared to fail multiple times before succeeding
  • Don't retreat to solving familiar problems

"The journey of entrepreneurship is turning the unknown into the known through trial and error."

Key Takeaways

  • Always be advertising and expanding your reach
  • Focus on proof over promises
  • Don't be afraid to raise prices
  • Talk to your customers regularly
  • Continuously improve your team and processes
  • Embrace the challenges of entrepreneurship

Remember:

Success in business comes from consistent effort, learning from failures, and always striving to improve.