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This is The Art of Charm.
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Learn everything you need to know to crush it in business, love, and life.
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The Art of Charm is where ordinary guys become extraordinary men.
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Welcome to the Art of Charm, I m Jordan Harbinger.
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The Art of Charm brings together the best thought leaders, teachers, and exceptional individuals to teach you how to be a top performer in life, love, and at work.
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Imagine having a mix of experienced mentors teaching you their expertise, packing decades of research, testing, and tough lessons into a curriculum.
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We may not have all the answers, but we definitely have all the questions.
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Make sure to stay up to date with the Art of Charm and get some great stuff that we don t or can t share on the show by signing up for the newsletter at theartofcharm.com.
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If you like what you hear on the show, come hang out with us on the blog where we ll get really in-depth on some of these topics and you can further engage with the AOC team there as well.
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or if you re new to the show and you wanna find out more about what we teach here at the Art of Charm, you can go to the website and we ll email you our fundamentals toolkit that covers topics like body language and nonverbal communication, dating and attraction, persuasion, business networking, public speaking, negotiation, and a whole lot more.
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We ve got our live programs running every single week here in Los Angeles, California.
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In fact, we ve got guys from all over the world, which shows that no matter where you are, you can make it here if you wanna learn and grow and you re ready to shed some of your excuses.
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We re sold out a couple months in advance, so if you re even thinking about it a little bit, you should get in touch ASAP by phone or just email me, jordanattheartofcharm.com.
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Get some info from us now so you can plan ahead.
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Looking forward to meeting you here at AOC.
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Today we re talking with my friend Ben Kovacs.
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He s one of the top salespeople at Twitter.
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He also has two startups and a non-profit, so we re gonna talk about managing time, because obviously that s the limiting factor here, how to make yourself more creative, as well as why some of us should take the leap for entrepreneurship, some of us shouldn t, and how to do both the quote-unquote day job and being an entrepreneur at the same time.
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So enjoy this one with Ben Kovacs.
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We re here with my friend Ben.
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Ben, you do a lot of stuff, but I ll ask you what I ask everybody else when they walk into the studio, which is, tell us what you do in one sentence.
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I work at Twitter and I have three entrepreneurial passions on the side.
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All right, so what do you do at Twitter?
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I do sales, so I work with some of our largest advertisers in the country and handle their campaigns and help them pitch new ideas and all that good stuff.
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Okay, and what about the side businesses?
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Because it seems strange that you can have a Silicon Valley job that s super demanding, especially in the sales niche, and then also have side businesses.
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And we ll get into how you balance all that, but I think your side businesses are interesting as well.
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Yeah, so I have two side businesses in the cannabis accessory space.
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One is called Meister, M-Y-E-S-T-E-R.
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And Meister is a company that was built to be sort of the wine for weed, if you will.
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So as marijuana becomes a more
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integrated part of our culture and it s not so hippie and stoner focused anymore.
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Meister was really developed to bring some class to that space.
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Upscale for upscale potheads.
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Exactly.
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All right.
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Got it.
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And you have a nonprofit as well.
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Yeah, and I have a nonprofit that s starting called Guardian Gym or Guardian Training.
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The idea is that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is really my real passion in life, something that I enjoy doing very much, but it s something that not everybody has access to do, especially underprivileged kids, so trying to bring that to Oakland so everybody has the chance to do martial arts that wants to.
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You say, I live in a state of constant retirement.
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How can that be true?
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I mean, is that sarcastic?
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Because when I asked you about it offline, it wasn t.
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I feel like that s an interesting mindset.
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Yeah, I mean, I think, I always like to explain this with the fisherman s story.
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Have you ever heard the fisherman s story?
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I have, yeah, but go ahead and tell it anyway.
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I don t know if it s been told on the show.
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So, there s an old wives  tale, I guess you would say, of the guy who s a fisherman and a rich guy s on vacation and he sees a guy fishing and he says, hey, what are you doing there fishing on the dock?
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Don t you know that you could go out and catch more fish if you had a boat?
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And the guy says, okay, then what?
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He says, well, then you could sell those fish and you could buy two boats.
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And then the guy says, okay, then what?
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And he says, well, then you could hire a whole crew of people and go out and catch even more fish.
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And then the guy says, okay, then what?
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And he says, well, then you could do whatever you want to be doing right now or whatever you want to be doing in your life.
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And he says, isn t that what I m doing right now?
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And so I never forgot that story and it just made me think like,
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I don t want to sacrifice the things in the near term just to have this magical retirement when I m 65 years old.
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I want to be able to do the things that I want to do now, even if they re slightly less lucrative or there s some way that I could maximize my bank account a little more.
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And I love my job at Twitter.
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I can t imagine a better corporate environment to work in.
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And my side businesses are really fun.
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I have great partners in those businesses.
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And I just feel like even if I wasn t making money in these things, I d probably still be doing the same thing.
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So that s why I say it feels like a state of constant retirement.
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And this is interesting because there s this kind of, I ve been sort of ranting about this lately, where I think being an entrepreneur is like this trendy thing that s gotten kind of unjustifiably popular recently.
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And the marketing spin on it is,
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Don t you hate your day job and showing up and working for the man?
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Don t do that anymore.
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Do a startup and we ll show you how to do it.
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But you run two startups and you kept your day job.
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One, why?
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And two, what s the deal?
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I mean, what made you want to start a startup if you actually like your day job?
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Well, I actually had gotten involved with Meister before I started working at Twitter, so I was the first investor in the company.
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My really good friend, Davis Clayton Keough, he s the one who came to me with the idea of the stash tray, which is the all-in-one magnetic rolling tray that I showed you.
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He came to me, asked me to invest.
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I said yes, and I kind of had a passive role in the company at that point.
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And when I went to interview at Twitter, I was very honest with them.
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I said, look, I do this on the side.
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It s fun.
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It s a passion project.
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I certainly don t spend eight hours every day doing it.
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But I think they actually really liked that I was doing something different other than only having this corporate experience.
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It kind of set me apart from other people.
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So it s not that I worked at Twitter and then started to pursue the stuff on the side.
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It was something that the wheels were already in motion.
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This might seem a little bit counterintuitive for a lot of people because they re thinking, wait, I have to choose between a startup and a day job, or, oh, you must not have a very demanding job.
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I don t think anybody can reasonably say that you don t have a demanding job.
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Working in sales is hard for any company.
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Working in sales for a huge Silicon Valley company is obviously a more than full-time job.
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So I want to get into the sort of the balance stuff as well, but I like this topic because I think a lot of people listening
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are working at a corporate job and they don t think, this sucks, I m working for the man.
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They want to stay there, but they might have entrepreneurial aspirations, they might not be able to take the plunge and just quit their job even if they did want to.
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So I want to learn a little bit more about...
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how you structure your life, especially how you manage your time and relationships, if you want to get into that as well, and show people that there s not just one way to do things.
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Because again, I think there s this sort of, you have to quit your job and go all in and you got to be, you got to,
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I don t know, figure out how to get your email list, and then when you do that, then you gotta go on a speaking tour and you have to have a podcast, and all this other ridiculous formulaic crap that mostly is invented by people selling you products on how to do those things.
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Where do we begin with all this?
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Yeah, I mean, I think those are certainly questions I get asked all the time.
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You know, I think that there s a huge benefit to working for a big corporation, at least once in your life.
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I know you were a lawyer on Wall Street for a while.
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And I think you probably wouldn t be nearly as successful and appreciative of the job that you have now.
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And one of the reasons I actually applied at Twitter and wanted to work there is because I always told myself I m not
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a corporate person.
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I m never going to work for a big company.
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I didn t go to a fancy Ivy League school.
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I don t have this great pedigree.
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I don t have parents with connections or anything like that to help me get there.
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Oh, well.
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You re never going to be successful.
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I m sorry.
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Exactly.
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So, when I got offered the job, I talked to my partner actually at Meister and I said, I don t even know if I should take this job.
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I have these entrepreneurial passions on the side.
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And he said, you have to take the job.
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I mean, there s only so many companies like Twitter in the world and you got to take it.
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And what I realized is that
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I didn t know if I didn t want that job at first because I think I was just making excuses for myself, basically.
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I didn t know if I could cut it.
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I didn t know if I could hang with those other people.
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Fear of failure.
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Fear of failure, exactly.
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And I really needed to prove to myself and see at the highest level, could I do this?
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And I think from working at Twitter, I ve sort of seen behind the scenes of what it s like to work at a company like that.
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I ve met absolutely amazing people and I wouldn t trade it in for anything.
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But at the same time, I realized I m just as smart as these people.
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Maybe I didn t have the fancy pedigree before.
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but I m certainly someone who can hang with those folks, and it s given me a tremendous amount of confidence to not only do that job or other jobs like in the future, but also pursue the other entrepreneurial endeavors.
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So how did you get to that point where you were able to realize, okay, I am as smart as all of these other people?
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Because I think there s a lot of people out there, it goes into imposter syndrome,
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here s what we re talking about, where you got an offer at Twitter and you went, man, I somehow slipped through the cracks, I made it this far, if I take the plunge, they ll find out I can t make it here, but if I quit now, I can always say, well, I could ve worked at Twitter, had an offer, right?
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How did you get to the point where you went, screw it, I m okay with that, or either okay failing, if you thought that was gonna happen, or to the point where you realized, wait a minute, I m not gonna fail, I belong here.
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and they saw it before you?
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Well, I mean, I think the one thing I can do, or anyone can do when you re going into a job is, they re sort of, what s the worst thing that s going to happen, right?
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If I go start working at Twitter and I absolutely hate it, I mean, I can always quit, right?
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I can quit the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year.
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I mean, employees have a ton of benefits when it comes to working in the United States, especially in Silicon Valley with the kind of perks and everything you get and the long leash for doing something great.
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I figured, what s the worst that can happen?
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I can always quit if I don t like it, but what am I missing by not taking this job?
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And what I would have been missing, and what I kind of was right about my hunch, was the amazing connections that I would meet there.
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I met my business partner for the non-profit, Jim, Joel Lundenfeld, who s the head of global brand for Twitter.
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I met my girlfriend, Kelly, who used to be the chief of staff at Twitter and now works on a media team there.
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I met, you know, my boss.
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Stopping your pen in the company.
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We re not married yet, so someday maybe.
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That s true.
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But I ve met a ton of co-workers who are just awesome people and friends for life.
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And I mean, it really was the right decision, especially someone being a transplant to the area, to make those connections.
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And I used to actually work from home when I first moved out here, and I realized I was kind of missing something.
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I never actually had friends, the social circle.
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I left all my friends and family behind in D.C.
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in Pennsylvania where I came from, so it was certainly the right decision for a plethora of reasons.
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One thing, though, I ve gotta ask is why make a conscious decision to work at the day job first, to work at Twitter first?
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Is it just the connections, the relationships?
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I mean, what else is there that influenced your decision?
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Yeah, it s definitely a good question and something I ve thought about a lot.
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I think the first thing is obviously there s work experience there.
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I d never done ad sales before.
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I ve never worked in the media world.
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So learning that whole business, and especially at a time when the media landscape is changing so drastically like it is now, where TV dollars are shifting to digital, digital dollars are shifting specifically into social, is a really exciting time and stuff that you can apply to any business.
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But I think more importantly than just the learning experience is really if I go out and I work completely for myself, that means all the pressure is on me.
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I don t get a paycheck.
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You pay your own insurance.
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You pay your own accountants.
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You re responsible for your own paycheck.
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When you want to take a vacation, nobody gives you time off or paid time off anyway.
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Take a vacation anytime you want.
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Your business is going to suffer as a result.
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But go ahead.
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Exactly.
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And so with Meister and with Lifted View, the other Meister subsidiary,
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have been able to bootstrap these startups the whole way, in part because we re not having to take money out of the company for me to be paid a salary in order to work on this stuff in my spare time.
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Because you can live on, well, quite well on what you make from Twitter.
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And you gave me a really interesting number.
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You said, when you add up all the perks,
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bonuses, salary, commission, food, which by the way is really good at Twitter, travel, insurance, et cetera, you gotta make around 30 grand a month on your own.
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And I think this is important because it s lost on a lot of people who are like, I m going all in, I m gonna quit my job.
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And you see these articles, man, it s a picture of a guy in a swimming pool, and it s like, makes 10K a month.
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And it s like, well, yeah, so you re screwed.
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You re only making 10K a month?
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Oh, you forgot about the fact that your job making 8K a month also paid for your insurance.
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You got a stipend.
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You had one of those accounts where you can withdraw health money from if anything happens.
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You don t have the free lunch and you didn t get a yearly bonus this year.
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And also the fact that you have this other, you know, there s all kinds of little things that people discount as sort of a right of working in a workplace.
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They don t even think about it.
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the fact that you have to pay your own cell phone bill.
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Now suddenly, yeah, cool, you got to go to the swimming pool, you might have more free time, which is great if that s what you re after, but you re not necessarily making more money than you would be.
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You just have more money, and maybe gross, but once you have to pay all of your expenses, it s different.
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And people go, well, I don t need this, I can cut that out, I can cut this out.
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Yeah, now you don t have health insurance.
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Sure, you re making more money, but you re not necessarily going to want that later.
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And I think that s something that is neglected by a lot of people who are thinking about going all in on the entrepreneur angle, is they don t think about everything they get from their workplace, not just the relationships, or not just the perks and the salaries and the insurance, but the relationships and the fact that you re learning
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differently and possibly more in a high octane environment like Twitter, it s not like working at Chipotle.
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No offense to people who work at Chipotle, I just feel like the learning curve tops off after a while.
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Do you find that having...
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the gig at Twitter or the day job helps you with your entrepreneurial stuff, or do you feel like it gets in the way?
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Yeah, I mean, I think they both complement each other extremely well.
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I mean, if you think what sales is, especially something like ad sales like we do at Twitter, so much of that really is rapport, building trust with your clients, and imagine someone who s in my same position who goes out and meets with a CMO at a company and says,
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hey let me tell you all about Twitter and by the way all I know is anything about Twitter I don t know anything outside of there or imagine when I go into a room and I say hey I can tell you everything about Twitter but by the way I m also advertising on Facebook for my own businesses I ve also experimented with display ads and retargeting and you know know what it s like to be an entrepreneur in your shoes and maybe most importantly know what it s like
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to actually be approached by vendors and what you want.
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And I think this is one of the biggest challenges that salespeople face is they don t understand what it s like to be on the other side of the table.
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And I have vendors coming to me every day now saying, how can we work with you?
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Can you use our software?
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And I know what it s like to not have the extra time to give to these people.
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And so I think, okay, I m getting those pitches every day now.
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How can I not be like those people that I m deleting their
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emails in their inbox and how can I actually provide value to the clients and I think that s a big differentiator and I think those two really play well off of each other and I would argue that me doing this stuff on the side actually helps my job and helps Twitter.
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Over the last 17 years, we have launched our fair share of online courses, coaching programs, and finding the right platform has always been a challenge.
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Hey, Art of Charm listeners, I m excited to share a new podcast I ve been absolutely binging.
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On Ways to Win podcast, Craig and Coach Cal use their on-court wisdom to solve your off-court problems.
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You ll hear from prominent athletes, business leaders, and celebrities who reveal insights that made them into the leaders they are today.
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And don t miss President Obama sharing how he deals with pressure by projecting confidence, believing in your team, and taking criticism.
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Listen to Ways to Win wherever you get your podcasts.
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All right, back to the show.
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Yeah, I think being multi-dimensional, especially in a sales role, makes a lot of sense.
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And you told me something interesting, actually, before, which is that you don t have to be rich or famous for people to like you and want to hang out.
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And I feel like that s really apropos here in Silicon Valley, where it s easy to compare yourself to the kid who earned a billion dollars yesterday for creating something that you don t even understand.
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And I think it s right in line with what you re talking about
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with relationships and being interesting and genuine.
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I d love to hear your thoughts on this, because I think a lot of people, especially around here, I ve noticed, really struggle with this.
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It s like if you didn t make $20 million last year, you re some kind of loser.
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Yeah, it s so true.
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Or if you don t have CEO on your business card, right?
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Even if your business is selling video games on eBay or something, you know.
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I don t really care as much about that, right, as I think most of the listeners probably don t either.
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So, I think it s interesting.
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I think there s this thing where when we look at other people, we think, if I could just get to this level, I d be successful.
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If I could just manage this big company, or if I could just get promoted, or if something could just happen, I would be happier in my life.
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And I think that s usually a myth, right?
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After you get past a certain amount of money in your bank account, I think it s something like 75 or 100 grand a year of salary, the marginal return on that money, that salary becomes so low.
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that you can compare someone who earns, I think it s 60 or 75 grand, like you said, is only, somebody who earns like $355,000 a year is like 5% or 1% happier than the guy who earns 60 or 70.
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SPEAKER_00
And below that, it s like severe.
2
SPEAKER_00
Somebody who earns 30 has certain struggles and stresses that are constantly there.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then once you hit that threshold, you can make like millions and millions of dollars and it makes no difference.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then there s another peak at something like,
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t even want to, like multi, multi-seven or eight figures, but that I feel like is self-selecting, because somebody who has that amount of money is probably not just happy because they have that amount of money and virtually no quote-unquote worries.
2
SPEAKER_00
They got that way because they re just on a different plane.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, it s true, and I think so many studies back that up.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think, you know, Twitter being a very open company, there s not this typical corporate structure where you never see the guys up in the boardroom.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, those people are on the same floors, booking the same conference rooms.
2
SPEAKER_01
The guy who just made $100 million or $10 million or $30, everybody s treated pretty equally for the most part.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s really a great place to work in that sense.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then taking it a step farther, my girlfriend, as you know, has worked at Twitter for six years and she s really good friends with almost everybody on the executive team, including Dick, our former CEO.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I ve gotten to really kind of meet a lot of these people and talk to them, hang out at their vacation homes, things like that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And what you realize is, once you make $100 million, you don t need to go hang out with anybody for money anymore, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You don t need.
2
SPEAKER_01
Losing is over unless you re running for president.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, in fact, you want to hang out with the people who aren t pitching you ideas or talking about business.
2
SPEAKER_01
You want to hang out with the person who wants to talk about Burning Man next week or something more fun, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think once you realize that, that A, there s no,
2
SPEAKER_01
There s no magic that happens once you hit a certain dollar amount in your bank account or get a certain title on your business card.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you can just be an interesting, fun, caring person, people want to hang out with you just as much as those other people.
2
SPEAKER_00
So do you then, since you see the value there and you re in sales, there s value to becoming more interesting versus simply creating more earnings?
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think so, and I think if someone took away all the money that I ve accumulated so far in life today, it doesn t really matter in a way.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I m not rooting for that to happen necessarily, but I ve made so many amazing connections and friends and people that I ve done good things for that I feel like I could sleep at a hundred different people s houses tomorrow.
2
SPEAKER_01
They d say, sure, come stay with me, or I d love to give you a job.
2
SPEAKER_01
I know you can perform in a
2
SPEAKER_01
in a job and I d be glad to give you one. 
2
SPEAKER_01
And to me, that s kind of like the backstop, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s not buying gold or it s not loading up your computer with Bitcoin or whatever it is.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s actually, you know, are you building those relationships with people who trust you and you build a genuine rapport with who would give you that second chance or, you know, want to invite you to their house or their dinner party or give you a job the next time?
2
SPEAKER_00
So, a lot of what being rich
2
SPEAKER_00
or having wealth means to you is having those relationships and being of value of interest to these people outside of the financial means that you re talking about.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s really interesting, because it s very hard.
2
SPEAKER_00
You could be the most interesting person that you know, but you ll still compare yourself to other people who have more money than you if that s the metric you re using.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then once you make $100 million, then you re just trying to get stuff that other people with $100 or $200 million don t have.
2
SPEAKER_00
and can t buy.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of back to the fisherman story, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
If you really love reading books or you really love backpacking around the world, do you have to go get that $100 million and start the company and sell it and go through all those years of agony to get there possibly?
2
SPEAKER_01
Or can you just go do that now?
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, yeah, you got to be ready to sacrifice for your business, but you can t sacrifice for your whole life for the eventual retirement, like you said, yeah?
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I love the constant retirement thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
A lot of what we do at Art of Charm doesn t feel like work, although I won t lie, a lot of it certainly does.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I know Jason agrees with me there.
2
SPEAKER_00
you ve got some pretty interesting mindsets when it comes to protecting your time, and some of it really made me laugh.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I would love to hear, you said, stop doing stuff you don t want to do, and it s easier said than done, but you have some pretty comical family stories and things, like conversations that you ve had with your girlfriend as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
I won t make you go into too many details, but how do you stop doing stuff you don t want to do?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s one of those things where it s like, you know, it s like a cliche that nobody can follow.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, just be confident.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, stop doing stuff you don t want to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, okay, sign me up for that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I heard a great quote the other day.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was, every time that you re saying yes to something that you don t really want to do, you re saying no to something that you really want to do.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know, that could even have been on your podcast or another podcast that I listen to.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who knows?
2
SPEAKER_01
I m happy to take credit for that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I thought it was a fantastic quote, and it s so true.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because it s so easy to say yes, and we re taught and trained to say yes to everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
But really, all the most successful people, the most successful investors, the people who can balance their time, are only able to do it because they say no to everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
And my best friend and former roommate and friend from college, Tony, who works at Google, we like to joke that he s a time tyrant.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we call him a time tyrant because he s literally to the point where he would tell his girlfriend, you get one night a week, or I m sorry, one night a month that I ll go hang out with your family or your friends, whatever you pick it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Jeez, man.
2
SPEAKER_01
The other nights, I m doing my own thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
He s like Sheldon Cooper.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and I don t take it to that level of extreme, but it kind of showed me like, wow, there really is an extreme level that you can take it to.
2
SPEAKER_01
But ironically, Tony s probably the happiest person that I know in the world, because you know what?
2
SPEAKER_01
He does what he wants to do 29 out of the 30 nights a month at least.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s really impressive, and we kind of, a lot of people may say that s socially awkward.
2
SPEAKER_00
So is, I can t get over the fact that his girlfriend is like, okay, we ll only see my family.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s not that she can t see her family, he just doesn t go along.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, she moved to Colorado recently, so maybe she.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, got it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so maybe don t take all the pages out of Tony s book.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, but I mean, it just made me think, and I told you this story before, how sometimes I joke with my girlfriend about this, because we have so many people asking us, go to dinner, go to lunch, come to my kid s birthday party, go on a trip with us, that I ve told her, hey, I have a great family back east.
2
SPEAKER_01
I moved 3,000 miles to hang out with the most interesting people I could, to pursue the passions that I wanted to do, to be outside in the amazing California weather.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to be stuck doing
2
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yes obligations all the time.
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SPEAKER_01
I want to be doing those exciting things.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I get it, we have Christmas, we have Thanksgiving, we have some other thing that makes sense to be with friends or family or whatever during that time, but sometimes we just need to be alone.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or sometimes we need to go out and just do something interesting and exciting for the first time that we just can t do if our calendars are filled with things that we don t really want to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
So basically, you ve got a system of no s.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I would love to hear how you got, did you find that easier or did you have to work on it like a skill set?
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, I think at first, like most things in life, I probably started it with a little bit of humor and joking, like telling people, especially like people that I work around, let s say that, you know, it s very common, as you know, in some sort of a work environment for people to say like, hey, let me put an hour on your calendar to get coffee.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I started saying, hey, look, I actually do the best in the morning.
2
SPEAKER_01
I find that I m extremely productive from 8 a.m.
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to noon or 1 p.m.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t want to take meetings during that time that aren t critically important.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because I want to use that time for all the jobs that are the hardest to get through.
2
SPEAKER_01
Then at three or four in the afternoon when I ve already got all the hard stuff out of the way, that s when we should have a meeting.
2
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, maybe that hour meeting, could we do it in 15 or 20 minutes?
2
SPEAKER_01
People have this weird...
2
SPEAKER_01
propensity for just throwing hours, rounded numbers on calendars, and I just, I m kind of like, hey, even when I m talking to a client, I say, can we have a meeting for 12 minutes?
2
SPEAKER_01
When you tell somebody you want a meeting for 12 minutes or 14 minutes or 23 minutes, they re like, whoa.
2
SPEAKER_01
First of all, it catches them off guard.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they re like, this person clearly either is busy themselves or respects my time, both of which are beneficials.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they already know what s going to happen during that meeting so well that they know it s not 15-ish minutes, it s 11 minutes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, 11 minutes.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes if there s a meeting that s an hour long and someone else is scheduled, I ll email them before the meeting or at the beginning of the meeting, I ll say, look, I reviewed the agenda for this meeting or I made the agenda for this meeting.
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SPEAKER_01
I think here s the parts that we need to really cover today and I think we can do it in X amount of time.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I show them that I m not just an asshole.
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SPEAKER_01
I m not just saying, hey, I don t have enough time for you.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m actually doing us both a favor and I m going to consolidate this down into a format that makes sense for both of us and give you 13 minutes or 15 minutes or an hour of your time back.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I like that a lot because
2
SPEAKER_01
I can t remember who said this, but it s like...
3
SPEAKER_00
Don t do in a meeting what you can do in a phone call.
3
SPEAKER_00
Don t do in a phone call what you can do in an email.
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SPEAKER_00
And I didn t ever get this before.
3
SPEAKER_00
Tim Ferriss told me about this a really long time ago.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s like, I hate when people ask me to jump on the phone.
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SPEAKER_00
And I thought, oh, what a prick.
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SPEAKER_00
Can t jump on the phone.
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SPEAKER_00
And now when people ask me to jump on the phone, and this is for the past several years I ve realized this, but now I m like, that s exactly, I always think of him telling me, don t jump on the phone when people ask you to.
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SPEAKER_00
Because I just thought it was so arrogant.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, oh, you don t have time to jump on the phone?
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SPEAKER_00
won t do it because I m gonna schedule a time and then play phone tag and then be in a quiet place so you can pitch me on something I m not interested in.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t even know what it is.
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SPEAKER_00
Send me an email.
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SPEAKER_00
Assistant will go through and review it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s not just like, I am so important.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, you have to protect your time.
3
SPEAKER_00
We can t do shows like this for you.
3
SPEAKER_00
for the masses if we re taking phone calls with people that want to pitch us deals or have a harebrained scheme to get free advertising off the art of charm and make it look like a mutually beneficial proposition.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s so much of that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you don t want people to call you, take your phone number out of your signature and give your cell phone to your most important clients and the people that you want to do business with or you want to call you and say, hey, I prefer text.
3
SPEAKER_01
We kind of open ourselves up so much to getting those phone calls that should be two minutes that drag into an hour.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, there s some things I think we all can do to minimize those calls.
3
SPEAKER_00
We have a phone number in our email, in my email signature, and they re really surprised when Jen answers it.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re like, can I talk to Jordan?
3
SPEAKER_00
And she s like, no.
3
SPEAKER_00
Maybe, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then she ll look at my calendar and go, not right now, who is this?
3
SPEAKER_00
And unless it s somebody who lost my phone number that should certainly have my other phone number, it s not happening.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m trying not to sound like an arrogant, like uber-important guy, but I m trying to teach, we re trying to teach you how to manage your time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Don t wait until you re at the level at which you cannot scale this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Set up these systems early, and I m not saying your buddy wants to hang out on Friday, have him call your assistant.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t do that either.
3
SPEAKER_00
Friends can call me 24-7, it just might take a day or two for me to call them back.
3
SPEAKER_00
But the problem is you have all of these business connections who want you to treat them like A plus leads or A plus clients when they re not actually clients.
3
SPEAKER_00
And just because, and you said this yourself, Ben, just because someone is your client doesn t mean that you need to compromise time, integrity, et cetera, for them.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think a lot of people when they re jumping off into a new business or even at work, they ll think, I have to do this meeting, I have to take this phone call.
3
SPEAKER_00
You told me a funny story about a meeting at Twitter where you were just like, why don t you tell me?
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that there s this weird feeling of obligation in general when it comes to meetings and when it comes to email.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I just think like a meeting should be beneficial to you if you re going to spend your time going there.
3
SPEAKER_01
And there s a lot of meetings that people just kind of get thrown on invites for.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you re not going to pay attention to that meeting, you re going to go type on your computer or that hour would be spent.
3
SPEAKER_01
responding to a client or building out a proposal or doing something else more productive, you shouldn t be going to that meeting just to check a box.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s one thing Twitter s great about is, at the end of the day, Twitter wants results, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like most great companies would.
3
SPEAKER_00
You don t go to your performance review and they re like, man, you made it to every single meeting that we had scheduled for you.
3
SPEAKER_00
Congratulations.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re like, why didn t you sell any ads?
3
SPEAKER_00
And you go, because you guys schedule all these dumb meetings that don t have any benefit.
3
SPEAKER_01
Or how about email?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, the same thing with email, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, have you ever seen someone get fired for not responding to email fast enough?
3
SPEAKER_01
No.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s a good point.
3
SPEAKER_01
In fact, I think it s the opposite.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes when people respond to every one of my emails within five seconds, I m just like, do you do nothing else besides sit there and stare at your email box every day?
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t have like a system that I play.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t like schedule the emails to come back or respond to them right away.
3
SPEAKER_01
I totally do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have, yeah, I have Boomerang, and it s great, because you can make sure people respond, or if I do respond right away, I can say, send this in two days, so they don t think they can just keep pinging this back to me and turn it into instant messenger.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s a Tim Ferriss trick, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Is it?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
I thought I thought of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I guess I m not.
3
SPEAKER_00
I guess I m not up on all the latest tricks.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think he talks about that, because you don t want people to think it s now like an ongoing, immediate dialogue, like a chat.
3
SPEAKER_01
So by scheduling it, you sort of alleviate that.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, with email, I mean, God, email is not an obligation, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, of course, if your number one client emails you and says, hey, I need to talk to you, this is important or broken, you should probably, you know, email them back right away or call them or text them or whatever.
3
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, when people email you or they re soliciting you something, you do not need to respond to their email.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s just not necessary.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I love the thing that you ve done.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think it s with, was it with No Reply Needed?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, No Reply Needed, NRN at the end of the email.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, back to the show.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like you can say, thanks, this really means a lot, I really appreciate it, I ll see you at the barbecue at Jim s house on Friday, NRN, or I m sending you this article because I think it will be really interesting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, explanation of how it fits in, love your show, or whatever, NRN, because then the person doesn t feel like they have to reply and say thanks, I read this and it was really thought, whatever, it s just don t reply.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then do you respond to that email again and say, thanks for replying to me?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s... Yeah, it can become a weird never-ending chain.
3
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes if it says NRN, I ll still reply if I have a question, but if I m just going to say, thanks, I don t reply because it s just a waste of time and bandwidth for that person.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and Matt Mullenweg at WordPress, he s talked about this on podcasts, and obviously there s companies like Slack and HipChat and these folks that are changing how this works, but someday, probably in the not-too-distant future, we re going to look back or tell our kids, like, this is how email, this is how business used to get done through this thing called email, and it s going to be a complete joke, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s going to be like telegrams or telefax.
3
SPEAKER_00
or Telex or whatever that thing was.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, why would you open up a single message and then have to address it to that same person?
3
SPEAKER_00
Why don t you have channels for each person?
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you do write emails, don t write people dissertations, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
You re not asking them to read your master s thesis.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re asking them to hopefully perform an action or make an introduction or do whatever you need.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you don t have to fake things and make them grammatically incorrect and stuff just to make yourself look busy, but you can write one sentence and forget the period, it s okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, I m definitely on board with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think you mentioned providing value at every turn to make communication more effective.
3
SPEAKER_00
What is some of the advice that you have for people on that?
3
SPEAKER_00
I love the idea of not reaching out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let s meet for coffee for an hour, I think you ll find me interesting, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
You re providing value, you re making it clear what the value proposition is.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, I think at the core, almost everyone is the same, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
They re already too busy and they don t want to add work to their plate.
3
SPEAKER_01
They don t want to research a bunch of things and they want to do stuff that motivates them.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so, if you can give people something that s sort of turnkey and ready to go, I think to me, that s a lot of what providing value is.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, if I m reaching out to a journalist, let s say on behalf of Meister, I m not going to say, hey, like Meister is blowing up and it s doing amazing things and you should write about us.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m going to say, here s your story, here s your angle, here s why Meister is blowing up, here s why you want to write about this, and here s my cell phone number if you want to text me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Please don t call, it s 2015.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do not leave me a voicemail, I will hunt you down.
3
SPEAKER_01
But if you do that and now you put yourself in that journalist s shoes, they re a lot more likely to say, wow, I see the whole picture here.
3
SPEAKER_01
My work s already done.
3
SPEAKER_01
I would love to make this happen and now I will have coffee with you or I will do a Skype chat with you or whatever to talk about if we re going to work on this story together.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, the same thing in the Twitter world, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
When you re working with a media buyer, you know, what do they really care about?
3
SPEAKER_01
Are they motivated by the fact that this media buy is going to move the needle best for their company?
3
SPEAKER_01
Or are they motivated by getting a promotion?
3
SPEAKER_01
Are they motivated by looking good in their boss s eyes?
3
SPEAKER_01
Or did they want you to buy them dinner that night because they just wanted a friend to talk to?
3
SPEAKER_01
And so if you can figure out what s actually motivating people and then make their job easier, it s a heck of a lot easier to make sales and make connections and win people s hearts over.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you ve got a rule, never reach out to somebody and ask for their time without making it very clear why.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that we sort of touched on that before, but I want to kind of restate that because I think that s brilliant and it s one of the most common mistakes that I see.
3
SPEAKER_00
And do you take the principle of adding value at every turn to every single email?
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you kind of touched on the NRN thing, but how do you circle back with
3
SPEAKER_00
leads and clients and things like that without doing the mundane, which is like just checking in, seeing how you re doing.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, how do you move things along and make that valuable for them?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, I think that can be a little bit trickier sometimes.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think once you ve developed such a deep rapport with someone and you ve worked with them for years like I have with some of my biggest clients, I mean, you certainly kind of get a little bit of grace where maybe once in a while you do kind of make it a little less important than other times, but that s only after you ve built a long rapport with someone, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like I think we re almost to the point now probably where I could text you just something funny or I could, you know,
3
SPEAKER_01
waste your time for five seconds without you being like, God, this guy is a total waste of my time.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I couldn t start there.
3
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t make that my intro pitch to you or whatever.
3
SPEAKER_01
It kind of goes back to the 30 minutes just for coffee to get to know each other type thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think there s almost always something that
4
SPEAKER_02
you can provide someone of value.
4
SPEAKER_02
Though it s almost hard for me at this point to not find that out, especially when it s the Twitter stuff.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s that we have a new product coming out that s interesting, or we have a new beta that s available, or we have some conference coming up that we d like for them to attend.
4
SPEAKER_02
I mean, there s almost always something.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then you can have the, oh, by the way, did you make the decision on XYZ yet, as sort of a subtopic to the email, rather than it just be, hey,
4
SPEAKER_02
I know I asked you a week ago, but do you have the decision yet on if you re gonna move forward with that campaign?
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, you mentioned that you re not that good of a salesperson, but yet you re one of the top salespeople at Twitter.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is this false modesty?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is this you comparing yourself to the top sales guys?
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SPEAKER_00
Or are you doing something different than what you consider sales?
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Well, I don t know.
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I guess it s probably a little bit of all of those things.
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I think the world is changing when it comes to sales.
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People don t necessarily want to be sold to.
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Persuaded, right?
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Yeah, I think they re willing to be persuaded, but people are much more interested in data nowadays than they ever were, and they can find a lot of the information out on their own, whereas salespeople at one point held all the power.
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Their job was just to show you the numbers and present them to you in a cool,
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PowerPoint, flip chart, or pie graph, and you go, wow, look at this weird squiggly line graph of our competitor using this service and increasing.
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I already have those analytics, man.
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I got a whole department whose job it is to get those analytics so that we don t need to get them from you.
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Exactly.
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Or like, you know, with Twitter being such a big company and being open, people come to me all the time and say, oh, I saw the new blog post that just went up on the website about this product, can you tell me about it?
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Or this new advertising tool, and I m like, God, I didn t even know about that yet, right?
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It s kind of shifted, right, where I think the psychology behind it and the time management and making the most of those opportunities when you are in front of a client because they re dealing with 50 different vendors.
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So, when you get in front of them and you have that hour to do your presentation in person or whatever, it becomes much more critical and the follow-up becomes more critical in how you do it than just, again, where you held all the power at one point and they had to call you every time they had a question or whatever.
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The balance has shifted there.
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So now it s more about relationships instead of short-term close, presentation, sales call.
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Exactly.
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And that s specific, you know, to certain businesses, right?
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There s still some businesses like maybe more in the software sales realm and everything where certainly like the closing is way more important.
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But in the job that I do, it s much more relationship-based.
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I could probably sell almost all my clients a one-time campaign or get them involved in a new beta because they trust me at this point.
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But
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I m not willing to put them in things that are gonna damage the long-term relationship that we have, because that s how we do business, is building things for the long-term.
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So before we wrap, I wanna get to some of the ways that you generate ideas, because you re really good at that, and we have, some of these techniques we have in common, I thought they were really interesting, so I ll let you sort of bring these up, because I think a lot of people are consistently looking for ways to become more creative and shake off some of the funk of the office.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of us really kind of view if we re working or not by how much we re sitting in front of our computer nowadays.
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And I would challenge most people to think of when the last great idea they had while they were staring at their phone or staring at their computer
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And I know for me personally, almost all of the innovative and interesting ideas I have come when I m going for walks or I actually ride my motorcycle both ways to and from work across the Bay Bridge every day.
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So there s a half hour each way where my time is completely uninterrupted by screens.
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And almost all of my ideas come from those places or they come when I m exercising and doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
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The blood is flowing, I m moving around, and I m not tied to answering emails or staring at a screen.
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So I m actually shocked that companies don t put more of an emphasis on this of like, hey, we don t need to take the afternoon off, but let s go for a walk for 15 minutes around the neighborhood with someone or by yourself and just think, take a notebook with you, write down your ideas.
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And when I do that, it s been extremely beneficial.
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I noticed that a lot of offices, less so in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, but more so just regular corporate offices, especially in places like New York, they re like prisons without a yard, which is not a good look.
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No.
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Another thing I do, and I m not...
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sure how much everybody will agree with me on this, but I am not a pothead.
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I don t smoke weed 24 hours, seven days a week.
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I don t smoke weed before I go to work, but I do use cannabis recreationally.
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And the way that I use it is when I go home, instead of having a glass of wine or before I exercise, I may use it.
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And that really helps spark a different part of my brain and helps with creativity.
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And the same thing, I have a notebook with me.
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So instead of turning this thing into this lazy loser pothead stigma type thing, I turn it into a
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productive session where it s something I m actually getting value out of and from hanging out with all these people now in Silicon Valley that are famous entrepreneurs or CEOs or venture capitalists, if you think that marijuana is still in that stigma, you re definitely wrong because I would say a healthy percentage of people, especially around here, are on to using that for productive purposes and it no longer has that stigma where you can t do it.
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Interesting.
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Well, thank you very much, and of course we ll have your, well, we ll have your Twitter linked in the show notes as well.
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Guardian Gym, Meister, and Lifted View will all be linked in the show notes as well.
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The high-end cannabis stuff and the supplements that you guys are offering as well will be linked in the notes as well as the gym.
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So thanks so much, man, for your time.
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Is there anything that I haven t asked you that you want to make sure you convey to the audience?
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No, I think I would just say pursue your passions, figure out what really makes you happy.
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Stop worrying about what your business card says or what your parents think and think how can you get more time back in your life and maybe that s working at a corporate job, maybe that s pursuing entrepreneurial stuff or maybe it s both and there s no right way or wrong way to find your happiness.
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Awesome.
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Thanks so much, man.
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Thank you.
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Interesting show, I mean, Ben does a lot, and yet he still seems to have time for his friends, his family, and to do a lot of things that he does enjoy, so I would definitely take heed some of this.
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You know, I love the idea of going for walks to help solve problems, riding your bike, things like that.
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I do that a lot to help solve big problems, or just when I need a break and I feel like I ve got the talk show equivalent of writer s block.
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Also, stop doing things you don t want to do, turning even family obligations into things that either you enjoy or just not doing them at all.
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And I realize that for some of us, we re more flexible on this than others.
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I d love to hear your feedback on this.
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And of course, I d love to hear feedback on everything that we do here at The Art of Charm, because this is a fanarchy, which means this show is run by you.
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So if you know someone who s a good fit, let me know.
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Jordan at theartofcharm.com.
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And if you enjoyed this, don t forget to thank Ben on Twitter.
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He s definitely on Twitter since he works there.
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And surprisingly not mandatory, but he s on Twitter.
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We ll have that linked in the show notes as well as all the other resources mentioned on the show.
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I m on Twitter.
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I m the Jordan Harbinger that has the blue check mark.
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The other ones are all fake, and I post a lot of things, insights, funny stuff, whatever, on Twitter.
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I m at The Art of Charm on Twitter.
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Bootcamp details at bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
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Remember, bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
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There s two dots in there.
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We re sold out a few months in advance, so if you re thinking about it now, get in touch ASAP.
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Let s plan ahead.
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and on the website we ve got our blog with our articles and other ways to engage with the AOC team on these topics.
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Subscribe on iTunes, write us a review, we ll love you forever.
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Special thanks to the Jasons for their help in production of the Art of Charm podcast.
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Go ahead and tell your friends because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else either in person or shared on the web.
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Now have a great week and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and everything for the extraordinary man at theartofcharmpodcast.com.