Robin P. Zander Snafu

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Snafu is a weekly newsletter by entrepreneur and author Robin P. Zander that teaches people how to promote their thing.

Snafu isn’t for salespeople. Instead, these are articles teach selling for the for rest of us. Through  a weekly article and homework (gasp!) develop the courage to sell your product, advocate for yourself, communicate authentically and take care of your people.

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Random

A few things I know at 38 that I wish I knew at 18

June 10, 2024

Today’s my birthday. This time last year, I wrote 37 lessons. Instead of trying to come up with another 37+1 lessons, I thought I’d expound on some of my best ideas from the last year.

Fall in love with your craft

I’m on my quest to achieve a one-arm handstand. Someday, I’ll get there and then I’m going to be disappointed.

The one-arm handstand isn’t my real objective. I’m actually obsessed with the pursuit. Once I achieve the goal I’ll have to find a new one.

I started writing Snafu a year ago because I wanted to hone my craft as a salesman, think more about human behavior, and write more. As I have on a notecard on my desk, “I like who I am when I write.”

Writing is hard. And doesn’t seem to get easier with time. As with water-only fasting or sitting in my cold plunge, the more I write, the harder it gets.

That’s what it is to pick a craft and stick with it. Read more on the pursuit of craft.

Creative habit

When I first read The Creative Habit by legendary modern dance choreographer Twyla Tharp, I saw in her writing my own desire to create.

My mother is a visual artist. She’s been making visual art for longer than I’ve been alive. My dad is a gardener. Every time I visit, he’s working in a new garden bed.

For twenty years, I’ve studied movement. Whether through jiu-jitsu, surfing, ballet, or handstands, physical practice is my creative habit.

I believe we are all happiest when we are building, making, and creating. Here’s an article on building a creative habit.

How to tell a great story

I started Zander Media in 2019 because I wanted to study storytelling.

I’ve learned a lot about storytelling in five years of telling other people’s stories for a living, but condensed into a single phrase my advise would be this:

Be fascinated by your story and your audience.

Great storytelling requires both enthusiasm and empathy. Here’s an article I wrote on storytelling.

Relentless optimism

I’m pretty happy most of the time. Not because my life is full of rainbows and puppies, but because optimism is a strategic advantage.

I’ve done a number of things that people told me were impossible – learning to do a backflip, joining a pre-professional ballet, opening up a restaurant. When you are relentlessly optimistic, you see opportunities that others don’t.

The best way to practice optimism is to practice celebrating – to actively celebrate things that could otherwise be viewed as setbacks. Here’s what I wrote about celebration.

Let’s reclaim selling

I’m not sure why it was that I initially gravitated towards sales. Maybe it’s because my grandfather sold vacuums door-to-door, but by the time I got to know him he was retired.

Or maybe it’s because my first job was selling homegrown pumpkins for Halloween. I earned $550 at five years old and I felt like I was doing something illegal.

Regardless of why, I’m on a lifelong quest to reclaim selling for the rest of us. Here’s the article on why everything is sales.

Addiction

My grandfather was an alcoholic. My uncle died of alcohol and pills. I’ve been very fortunate to avoid that path.

But whether through 40 hours a week of ballet or an accumulated 45 days of water-only fasting in 2023, I live on a fine line between healthy habits and addiction.

I’m strict in only allowing myself things that are difficult to do, and get increasingly challenging the more you do them – like cold plunging or fasting – and not things like alcohol and sugar that feel good in the moment, but have negative consequences after.

I wrote about the fine line between habit and addiction.

Trust your hunches

For the last 4 months, I have eaten nothing but grass-fed bison, organic zucchini, and quinoa.

I have been dealing with gut information for years and mainstream medicine has been unable to help. (I’ve recently discovered that it is due to a bacterial infection.)

In eating three ingredients for months, I’ve also discovered that sugar is a drug and that most of us don’t eat enough protein. As a result of this three-ingredient diet, I’m healthier than I’ve ever been.

Just because what you are attempting is far outside the norm doesn’t mean that it is wrong.

Pay attention to yourself.
Trust your hunches.
Experiment from there.

​Here’s the backstory.

Be of service

Professor BJ Fogg, PhD of Stanford University once told me to “Help people do things they already want to do.” He gave me this advice in reference to selling, but I actually think it is also a good life philosophy.

It encompasses generosity and empathy, persuasion and influence. You can’t help people do things that they already want to do if you aren’t first paying attention to who they are and what they want.

You have to really know someone, and yourself, before inviting them towards an outcome.

The best way to help people to change is to invite them towards things that they already want to do.

​Here’s more on the topic.

Until next week,
Robin

Random

If you don’t ask, the answer isn’t no

June 3, 2024

There’s a common idea that “If you don’t ask, the answer is no.”

The problem is that when we don’t ask, it doesn’t feel like rejection. The consequence is silence and inactivity, which feels less bad than an actual rejection.

Thus, we are reinforced for not asking.

I’m still nervous when I quote my hourly rate.
I still hesitate before asking a beautiful woman on a date.

But my three profitable businesses of the last decade succeeded only because I was able to overcome my fear of asking.

Here are a few ways to motivate yourself to ask for what you want.

The desire to prove yourself

Every entrepreneur I’ve met is either fueled by a chip on their shoulder or because they are chasing something they love. And, in the beginning, a majority have something something to prove.

When I started Robin’s Cafe, I had a chip on my shoulder. I wanted to do something everyone told me was impossible. I wanted to prove my parents wrong!

This isn’t what I think of as clean fuel. The desire to prove someone wrong is a great motivator, but it doesn’t leave you feeling good about yourself. It comes with consequences like self-loathing or burnout.

When you are trying to prove yourself, you make the cost of inaction more painful than the risk of being told no.

Away from pain

It is painful to ask for what you want and be rejected. But there is often an even bigger pain that won’t get solved if you don’t ask.

You can also use that impetus to move away from the shame or humiliation of defeat. What you want is what you are moving away from not happening if you don’t ask.

Loss aversion

We are motivated by more potential of loss than by gain. This is loss aversion is – the human bias to prioritize avoiding losing even over achieving the equivalent gains.

When you don’t ask for what you want, it doesn’t feel like a loss. But it is. You are losing the opportunity that you’d otherwise have had a chance to achieve.

Anytime you don’t ask for what you want you are losing the opportunity.

Towards joy

Joy, delight and enthusiasm are powerful motivators. They are also a cleaner fuel – they don’t come with the negative consequences that a chip on your shoulder does.

When I started Zander Media, I was really curious and excited to learn how to do digital storytelling on the Internet.

That motivation – joyfully pursuit of something you want to accomplish – is an incredible motivator, if you can find it.

Make your purpose clear

Have a clear purpose – a reason that you are attempting something difficult.

I started Zander Media because I wanted to figure out how to do digital storytelling on the Internet.

And I wanted to earn money.
I wanted to do great work for our clients.
Then, as I hired employees, I wanted the company to be a great place to work.

Identify the reason you are tackling a particular challenge. When you know why, you are much more likely to attempt it.

Have a lot of reasons why

Even more than a single clear purpose is having a lot of reasons why.

I started writing Snafu because I wanted to practice writing and improve as a salesman.

Then, as I told friends about the newsletter, I was writing for a handful of other people. Those few people grew into several hundred, and now this newsletter has nine thousand weekly readers!

While not all of you write back to me (you should!), that is nine thousand reasons why I do my best to write a useful newsletter each week.

​

We say that “If you don’t ask, the answer is no.” But that’s inaccurate. The answer is silence, which feels better than rejection.

Whether because of a chip on your shoulder, chasing joy, or serving a cause greater than yourself, hopefully this article gives you some cues towards action.

Homework

I think a lot about where your motivation comes from. My desire to do handstands, for example, stem from my joy for incremental progress.

Pick an objective you are currently chasing: trying to learn to sell something, persuade someone, or change your own behavior.

Write out five reasons why you want to accomplish that goal.

Then, examine where you draw motivation for that objective.

Are you trying to prove something to yourself or someone else, afraid of losing out, chasing your objective for the joy of it?

Until next week,
Robin

Writing

A year of writing Snafu

May 27, 2024

I started writing this newsletter one year ago. This is the first time I’ve written regularly since publishing Responsive: What It Takes to Create a Thriving Organization and in the last twelve months I’ve developed a more consistent writing practice than I’ve had before. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Write to live, don’t live to write

One of the best books I’ve read this year is Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, about his lifetime of writing fiction. Stephen’s humility, playfulness, and the gratitude he feels for his craft are evident throughout the book.

One of the hundreds of notes I took from the book was the quote, “Write to live. Don’t live to write.”

Stephen advises that writing should be a tool to build the life we want, not vice versa. I think that’s true in any craft – writing, exercise, sales, or anything else.

Find a craft and stick with it

I’ve been really impressed by how quickly incremental growth builds up in my writing. I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve learned before that practice pays off.

When two days have gone by without writing, it takes me longer to get back into the right mindset. But when I had a productive writing session yesterday, I’m more ready to make progress today.

Flexible goals

Some of the writing objectives I’ve set for myself this last year include:

  • Write every day
  • Write for an hour a day
  • Write for two hours a day
  • Write a thousand words a day

None of these goals has stuck! I’m still trying to find a consistent goal. But it has been useful to have something to measure my growth against, and then be willing to adjust.

A smaller goal

When I compare myself against people with really big newsletters or best-selling books, I want to quit. It’s discouraging to see how far I have to go.

The antidote is to make my next step smaller.

The only goal that I have successfully hit in the last year is to publish a thousand word article every week.

Then, I can build my next objective from there.

Creating ≠ editing

As a creative shop, Zander Media does a lot of brainstorming and revising of creative ideas. And I often shut down ideas before they’ve been fully formulated. (Sorry, team!)

Brainstorming and editing are different phases of the creative process. Both are important, but they can’t be done at the same time.

“There’s no such thing as writer’s block”

I have a water bottle on my writing desk, given to me by Seth Godin, that says “There’s no such thing as writer’s block.”

Writer’s block is what happens when you try to do both creative writing and editing at the same time; when you judge what you’re creating as you make it.

There is no such thing as writer’s block. There’s only your own self-judgment.

Preproduction > post-production

In video production, problems are best solved during the planning of a video shoot, not on set or in the edit.

Sometimes an actor gets sick, the weather doesn’t cooperate, or a scene doesn’t come together like it was supposed to. But it is easier to over prepare in pre-production than try to make up the difference afterwards.

In writing, too, preparation – an additional hour of outlining or reading another book for background – makes up for dozens of hours editing, re-writing, and starting over.

Homework

I couldn’t have kept pace with a weekly writing and publishing schedule had I not first developed a robust journaling practice. That practice is invisible from the outside, but fundamental to my development as a writer.

  • Want to write? Start writing just for yourself.
  • Trying to exercise? Decrease your ambition.
  • Learning to sell? Practice pitching when the stakes are low.

​Watch this video and consider what small steps could lead to a bigger goal.

Until next week,
Robin

Robins Cafe

Your work should change people

May 20, 2024

In the last hundred years, we’ve gotten work backwards.

I grew up thinking that work was something that I did between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm to get a paycheck in order to live my life. Or, because my father ran his own business, that I’d have to work from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. most days.

But, ultimately, work should be about more than doing time.

Meaningful work

When I opened Robin’s Café, I wanted to build a “Responsive” cafe, a business that existed to serve our employees and the local community.

Several months in, I asked a barista how things were going. He said, “This is the best job I’ve ever had. I’ve grown so much. I love it here.”

This employee worked irregular hours and served hundreds of customers a day. He wasn’t doing what most people would consider life-changing job. But, for him, the culture of the cafe created meaningful work.

Sales is about making, and then delivering on, a promise. It is helping someone become more of who they want to be. Work is making things, or doing things, that change people.

Whether you work in sales, non-sales selling, or are just learning to ask for what you want, your work should change people.

Introspection

Selling somebody on your ideas requires empathy. Great work in any field requires that you know yourself.

Know yourself, connect with the other person, and then invite them towards the outcome you want.

Invitation

An invitation to change is fundamental to meaningful work.

It can come in the form of a direct ask like, “Will you buy my product?” Or it can come from creating an environment where someone can flourish, as we did at Robin’s Cafe.

Know who you want someone to become and invite them towards that outcome.

Persistence

When you are persistent, you are much more likely to accomplish what you want.

In selling, persistence means following up repeatedly. In building company culture, it takes the form of training and daily reminders. At Robin’s Cafe, we took the employees bowling, gave trainings, and even offered them a say in the design of the cafe.

Persistence, whether through one clear ask or a continuous series of invitations, makes sales – and work – work better.

Why

In order to get somebody to change, you need a reason why. Without this purpose, you won’t be able to progress.

At Robin’s Cafe, I had several different people I wanted to provide for: my employees, our customers, my investors, the neighborhood, and myself.

When you know why and what you are hoping to accomplish, the hard moments become somewhat easier.

Homework

Who you are wanting to help and what you are hoping they will become?

Spend 5 minutes taking notes about the desired outcome you have for your clients, employees, or whomever in your life you’re inviting towards a change.

The more clearly you know who you are trying to help and what about them you want to help them change, the more effective you’ll be.

 

Until next week,
Robin

Sales

The attitude required for sales

May 13, 2024

In my early twenties, I ran a business working with children with autism.

Autistic kids often lack the social standards that we take for granted. They rely on their felt-sense of those around them – their intuitive feel for the attitudes held by others – in place of social niceties.

We all sense other people’s attitudes, whether we realize it or not. And these attitudes shape how we behave.

The same attitude that I learned working with special needs kids is useful in persuasion. You can sell a car through pressure and pushiness; I can motivate a child through judgment and shame. But it is more effective to show up loving, curious, and present, and invite towards what you want from there.

About the attitude

An inviting attitude is more effective than one that is demanding and judgmental.

This is the same attitude that great parents have with their kids, great leaders have with their teams, and great salespeople have with their clients. It has three parts:

  • Loving
  • Present
  • Accepting

Loving

Successful selling starts with generosity.

When you show up compassionate and loving, you are more compelling and better able to foster connection.

This loving attitude provides your prospective client the rare opportunity to see themself, and their situation, with love and compassion. It builds rapport.

So, before you try to sell your product or persuade someone of your belief, take a moment to connect with them.

Presence

In working with kids with autism, the first skill I learned to practice was presence – following them into their world, instead of insisting that they join my own.

And this ability, to be present with yourself or someone else, is equally valuable in sales.

You won’t be 100% present. But when you get distracted, returning to your client, and the connection you’re building.

Acceptance

Acceptance is often the most difficult part of a successful attitude in sales. As salespeople, we get attached to the outcome of a successful sale.

But when you don’t judge the decisions of the person that you are selling to – when you only want what is best for them – you create an environment where things are more likely to go your way.

Your presence closes deals

How you show up with a prospective customer will determine whether they buy.

Maintaining an attitude of enthusiasm, and not desperation. Keep your buyer’s best interest at heart and you have a much better chance of having things go your way.

Homework

Without prying, find out three personal details about your local barista.

Show up with interest and enthusiasm for who they are. Ask how long they’ve been working at the cafe. Find out what they’re aspirations are. Are they saving? Are they in school? Do they want to own their own cafe, someday?

Get to know them and find out personal details. If you’re uncomfortable asking, all the better. Practice the attitude.

In order to do that you’ll have to be curious, present, and non-judgmental.

Until next week,
Robin

How to Sell

Specialization is for insects

May 6, 2024

Selling is interesting to me because of who you become through learning to ask for what you want. And, like selling, there are a handful of important life skills that everyone should try.

While these activities are useful, they are also meta-skills, with application beyond the specific activities themselves.

Surfing

Practice failing

Surfing comes with a lot of failure. You miss most of the waves that you try for. Failing to ask someone on a date or failing to sell your first product can feel mortifying – so much so that most people don’t try.

Practice failing by chasing waves.

You can’t fight the ocean

In a significant car crash, drunk drivers sometimes walk away uninjured because they don’t tense up. Don’t drive drunk or surf drunk, but that same quality of letting go is useful in the ocean.

When you get swept off your board and caught in the “washing machine” of rough surf, the only thing to do is to let go.

In business and in life, some things are outside of your control.

Respect

The ocean is vast. And there’s no better way to recognize your insignificance than by sitting on a surfboard.

When life feels overwhelming, it is useful to reflect how insignificant we all are. (And then get back to work!)

Several years ago, I wrote an article about learning to surf. You can read that here.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu

Physical chess

Chess trains you to think strategically and plan several steps ahead. Brazilian jiu jitsu does, too. While it doesn’t look like much to people with no experience, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a good form of both physical and strategic training.

Aggression

We’re all confronted with aggression. And there are times when being aggressive – going after what you want – is useful. It is helpful to not be intimidated by other people’s aggressive behavior, to channel your own and use it to your advantage.

Jiu-jitsu is a good way to practice channeling that aggression.

Every fight ends on the ground

The stereotype of a bar room brawl consisting of punching and kicking is more Hollywood than reality. There’s a common phrase in martial arts that every fight ends up on the ground. And since most fights end up on the ground, it is useful to know how to begin there.

Ask questions

Asking questions as thinking

I once heard Tony Robbins say, “Thinking is the process of asking and answering questions.” There are no right and wrong questions, but there are questions that are more useful for a specific outcome. In asking and answering questions, you train yourself to think more clearly.

Talking under pressure

Whether you are on a first date, applying for a job, or talking someone down off a bridge, it is useful to be able to talk persuasively under pressure.

The only way to train for this unpredictable environment is to practice. And the best time to practice thinking on your feet is before the stakes are high.

Job interviews

There’s no better training for a job interview than asking questions. Most people are passive participants in an interview process. If you’re able to turn the tables and make an interview interesting and informative for the person conducting the interview, you’re more likely to succeed.

Manage People

Leadership

We think about leadership as a noun; something people are or aren’t. Actually, leadership is a verb; something to be practiced.

To manage people well you are, by definition, leading them. Learn to lead by practicing management.

Learning to follow

Following is as important as skill as leading. A good leader is also a good follower; they share power and allow other voices to be heard.

The goal of managing people is to help them learn and grow. In managing people, you have to listen, support, and follow their lead.

Practice taking action

​Bystander apathy – the tendency for people to stand passively by on the assumption that someone else will take action – is insidious.

The best way to combat bystander apathy is to remember this tendency and take action.

The world needs more leaders; people willing to take courageous action.

Learn to sell

Courage

The definition of courage is taking action despite your fear or uncertainty.

Since most of us are afraid to ask people to buy what we’re selling, selling is an act of courage.

Advocacy

The world needs more people who are willing to advocate for what they believe, and able to do so in a way that brings other people along.

Sales is a way to practice advocating for what you believe and enrolling other people in those beliefs.

We need more sales people

Selling is a form of leadership. In asking somebody to purchase, you are asking them to buy into your beliefs, product, or service.

In a world that is increasingly fraught and divisive, selling brings people together.

Homework

What is a skill you already practice, which is a meta-learning skill?

Spend five minutes writing out the 3-5 secondary skills that your practice helps develop.

Just by writing out the benefits, you’ll be more aware of them.

Until next week,
Robin

How to Sell

Selling is a creative act

April 29, 2024

I was in Texas recently to help a client redefine their brand. My agency, Zander Media, was hired to learn about the client and help them distill a new organizing idea.

The team and I had done a lot of preparation, but I was still nervous. We had promised the client a new organizing principle by the end of the day-long workshop!

I facilitated the workshop, we covered most of what we’d planned to discuss, and then – as if by magic – we found a new tagline that perfectly captured the company and brand.

Zander Media had been paid to deliver an outcome, and we did. But describing that day so clinically doesn’t do justice to the magic of that moment.

How to do creative work

As prospective salespeople we don’t generally regard ourselves as artists.

There are a lot of mundane tactics requited to sell. You have to source leads, make cold calls, and get comfortable asking for what you want.

But, at its most elegant selling, is a creative act. To sell your ideas is to channel something bigger than yourself for a cause that is more important than money.

Preparation is essential

The more thought and care that you put into a project, the more likely that project is going to be successful.

I spent a hundred hours conducting interviews and researching my client in advance. Expect to spend ten times as much time preparing as you do executing.

But preparation alone doesn’t equate to creating something from nothing.

The moment of execution

None of the preparation I did for our client would have mattered had we not delivered the workshop.

Place the phone call.
Send that email.
Step out on stage.

Don’t use preparation as a way to avoid the work that needs to be done. The pitch – any moment of execution – matters more.

Have a cause that’s more important

Have a cause greater than your own self-interest.

The cause doesn’t have to be grandiose. The world wasn’t immediately going to be altered through our client finding a new organizing idea.

But by harnessing that purpose, applying all of your preparation, and coordinating the time and effort of others, you may be able to create something bigger than any one person.

Creativity in sales

I’m fascinated by moments of peak performance in sales – when we outperform our own expectations.

And transforming sales from work into a creative habit takes practice.

But with enough preparation, a clear purpose, and an openness to the unexpected, your outcomes can be greater than the sum of those parts.

Homework

Today’s homework is to look for creativity in your daily work.

Instead of attempting to make your current sales efforts creative or cultivating an entirely new creative habit, look for creativity within your current habits.

What is something that you do every day that you can turn into a creative practice?

  • Every morning you make coffee → can your coffee preparation be a moment of creativity?
  • You walk your dog → can you choose a different location for the walk each day or be creative in how you walk around a known location?
  • You make dinner for yourself and your spouse → can cooking, however simple, become an act of creativity?

By practicing a creative habit, no matter how small it is or in what domain, you’ll be better at recognizing creativity elsewhere and when it really matters.

Until next week,
Robin

Entrepreneurship

Why you should focus on a single customer

April 22, 2024

You’ve probably heard that you should focus on a specific type of customer or prospect.

I’ve always found this to be a struggle because I don’t want to work with just one type of client! I like a lot of people and want my business to serve a variety, as well.

Today’s article is about organizational burnout and the consequences of not serving a single client.

The consequences of high growth

My creative agency, Zander Media, took off in 2020. With a lot of companies in need of video production, we grew from one full-time employee to ten in less than two years.

Being an enthusiastic salesman, I said “yes” to every piece of inbound work. Zander Media produced scripted commercials, testimonials, animated videos, entirely new brands, and even a documentary.

Building the plane while flying it

As a ten person company delivering a wide variety of services, we tried to be everything for everybody. As a consequence, the team and I were perpetually stressed.

We were building the plane while flying it.

The benefits of a singular focus

What would have happened if we had only provided a single service?

I’d have had to turn down a lot of work. But the team would also have had time to learn the specifics of the tasks required.

We’d have gotten better at doing the specific things required for that kind of deliverable.

Burning out my team

At Zander Media, we had enough sales to keep the business going. We had an abundance of skilled employees. But we didn’t have enough time to learn how to do each job from scratch, which then led to an unsustainable working environment.

Trying to adapt to the needs of each new project took a toll and we lost several valuable employees.

Dissatisfied customers

There are a lot of unknowns when you try something for the first time.

It takes a lot more work to deliver a novel offering. Things are likely to go wrong and there’s a high likelihood of poor communication.

We were fortunate at Zander Media that many of our clients from that stressful era continue to work with us today. But I worked consecutive 80 hour weeks for two years to make it happen.

Without a specific focus, you are much more likely to lose repeat business, or lose your business entirely.

An efficient way to think of business

Think about your business as a manufacturing plant that produces a very specific type of widget.

While you probably don’t want to work on an assembly line, it’s a useful metaphor.

What’s the one thing that you or your business want to do exceptionally well? Focus there.

Homework

Who do you serve? Describe a single, unique customer. (It is okay if that ideal client changes in the future.)

Think of a single person in your life – someone you actually know – and write a few details about that person.

Their demographics:

  • How old are they?
  • Where do they live?
  • What do they do for work?

Their psycho-graphics:

  • What are their wants and needs?
  • What are their hopes and dreams?
  • What are their challenges?

Practice getting very specific about the person you are selling to. Doing so will help you sell more sustainably.

Until next week,
Robin

 

How to Sell

How to sell video production

April 15, 2024

I sat down with a Snafu reader recently who runs a one-man video production company.

In the five years I’ve been building my own agency, Zander Media, we’ve been in the fortunate position of handling inbound work, not cold calling prospects. I still have a lot to learn about selling video production.

Today’s newsletter is for solo professionals interested in doing bigger budget work for high quality clients.

Got Milk?

I watched a MasterClass with Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, the legendary founders of Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners. That’s the advertising agency behind such icon marketing as “Got Milk?” and the Budweiser frogs.

Jeff and Rich discussed how they go about getting new work for their now 40-year-old ad agency. Jeff (or maybe it was Rich) describes pretending to be a journalist and talking his way into a fancy car convention in order to meet with a marketing executive at BMW to make a pitch.

Even having built and grown a 300+ person institution for decades, these two founders are not above entry-level tactics in order to meet the person they are trying to pitch.

Prior to this interview, I’d have believed that leaders as savvy and experienced as Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein wouldn’t need to sneak into an event in order to sell to a new client. But it turns out that nobody is above selling, no matter how fancy their title or company.

This approach – going out and finding new clients – I’ll call hunting. The other approach – cultivating existing clients; generating goodwill and referrals – I’ll call farming.

We’ll tackle each in turn.

Hunting

In order to hunt, you have to first know who you are trying to reach.

It wouldn’t have worked for Jeff and Rich to show up at a flea market and pitch their company. (Though I’m certain they’d have enjoyed that, too.)

They chose a very specific event, and one very specific attendee whom they were trying to reach. In short, they knew who they wanted to work with.

Most of us probably aren’t going to target the Head of Marketing for BMW North America, but we can target specific people.

Choose a single, specific person you’d like to work with. Go hunting for them. You can always expand your audience later on.

Identify the work you want to do

When my ideal customer sees an example of our work, they should be able to say “That looks like a Zander video!”

A video production company that does this especially well is Sandwich Video. Sandwich explainer videos are recognizable on sight – the bright colors, lighthearted demeanor, and the presence of their founder and CEO in each video.

What do you and your work stand for?

That mission statement might evolve over time, but you need a singular focus in order to be recognized and to stand out to your preferred customers.

Where to find your customers

Once you know who you are trying to reach and the type of work you want to do, you need to find the customers who want that work done. There are infinite numbers of ways of doing this, so here are just a few of my favorites…

Asking for connections

Asking for help from connections has been the most impactful approach I’ve found to date for building any kind of business.

I wrote an article on “How to sell with no network or connections” about selling tickets to my annual Responsive Conference.. Also, watch this video about how I went from selling $1,000 scopes of work to $100,000 scopes of work in just a couple of years at Zander Media.

Asking for help goes a long way!

Events

Since 2014, I’ve run more than a hundred events on behavior change and the future of work.

If I’m not organizing an event myself, I try to set myself up to be an authority – by speaking, working at the event, or otherwise coming into contact with as many people as possible under favorable conditions.

Consider even just organizing a dinner or an un-conference targeted at the people you are trying to reach.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

There are a wide variety of digital tools that provide you easy access to people, including LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

Most of the people you cold email won’t want to hear from you, so you’ll have to get over your reticence for contacting people who might not be interested. But LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and tools like it, allow you to reach out directly to the people you’re trying to contact.

Cold calling

The most extreme version of this approach is cold calling people directly, or even knocking on doors.

While you are likely to get a lot of “No, thank yous” in response, cold calling prospects is also the avenue that most sales people avoid or use poorly.

Most of us are scared of rejection and will go to great lengths to avoid asking people for what we want – and those who do use this approach rarely do so with finesse.

If you’re going to cold call people or knock on doors, use it as practice honing and refining your pitch, instead of actively trying to close a deal with every call.

Farming

Farming is reminding your current and former clients that you exist, up-selling, and cultivating raving fans who will recommend you to their friends and colleagues.

Do great work

The first principle of farming is that you have to do great work. This is a good principle of business in general because without great work, the best marketing and sales in the world will just reveal that you have a terrible product all the quicker!

Promote your work

You should always be striving to improve the quality of your work – both in your delivery of the work and in how you communicate about it to your customer.

Doing great work that nobody knows about is doing a disservice to your potential future customers!

Ask for referrals

Anytime, you deliver work for a customer, asking for referrals.

When a client walks away satisfied with the work you have delivered, it isn’t enough to just anticipate or expect that they will recommend you in the future. As we know, most people are bad at selling, and referring work is a form of sales.

Towards the end of an engagement, schedule 30 minutes with your client and tell them that part of your business revolves around people – like them – referring clients to your business.

Keep in touch

The best referral system in the world doesn’t matter if you are not then top of mind for your customer. They need to be thinking about you at the appropriate time in order to hire you again or refer you to a likely connection.

My preferred mechanism for keeping in contact is an email newsletter, because everybody uses email. But this can also be through consistent social media, contact, videos, or even a text base platform.

The key is to remain top of mind, so that your clients think of you at the right moment.

Surprise and delight

Look for ways to surprise and delight your clients.

At the end of every year, I receive a handful of care packages from customers and clients, all with varying degrees of thoughtfulness and care. This is the same principle behind the ubiquitous startup branded hoodie and other swag.

But surprise and delight can be more nuanced. What’s a little thing at the right time that can encourage or delight your customer?

A get well card for a sick child. A sports jersey to their favorite team. Thoughtful gestures that take time and consideration can have an impact for years.

Homework

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the number of things that can be done to improve your business.

The only recourse is to take one small step today every day towards one of the objectives, and focus on that goal every day until it has been improved.

Your homework is to pick a specific tactic from this list and write out the incremental steps towards its improvement.

What are a few small steps which will improve your client’s experience?

Until next week,
Robin

Entrepreneurship

What is the Future of Work?

April 1, 2024

In 2016, I started a business conference about an obscure idea called “the future of work.”

Seven years ago, a lot of the tensions that we’ve seen accelerated in the last few years weren’t well known. AI wasn’t a ubiquitous tool. Most of us weren’t working on Zoom every day. Even the importance of connection and empathy at work weren’t well understood.

Today, our lives and our work are very different. But the importance of doing meaningful work is more significant than ever.

I write Snafu each week because I believe that we need more people who advocate for themselves. I think this is the best way to combat the helplessness and pessimism that are so ubiquitous.

The solution to divisiveness and disconnection is compassion, empathy, and a sincere desire to connect. And that’s as true in sales as it is in building high performance teams or raising great kids.

Thus, I’m thrilled to share that after a 4 year hiatus and together with two longtime collaborators, I’m bringing back my annual event Responsive Conference.

The conference will take place across two immersive days in Oakland, CA on September 18-19th.

​Tickets are on sale now!​

This is my one big event of the year. We’re going to have ~20 speakers from across industries and 250 attendees from around the world. This is your opportunity to learn and practice the principles that we discuss in Snafu with an incredible community.

Learn more and get your tickets here. I hope you’ll join us this September!

Best,
Robin

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