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How to Make a Million $$$ Saying Sorry
Stephen Moore
February 06, 2024
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Hey readers! Welcome to EH weekly, where you can look forward to insightful lessons and practical takeaways delivered to your inbox every Tuesday.
In this week’s edition, we discuss:
Can you make a million $$$ by saying sorry?
The corporate traps that startups always fall into
Making a million dollars by saying sorry
One Friday, new dad and fresh-faced entrepreneur Nick Freiling received one of the worst calls of his life.
He’d just quit his consulting job in Washington, DC, to go all in on a crazy idea — a startup agency that was 100% bootstrapped.
And this first job had gone wrong. Really wrong. The client was pissed. But, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and Nick has since billed this client over $1 million, all because he fronted up and said sorry.
As Nick puts it:
“So what’s the moral here? Well, the bottom line is this:
Sh*t happens. Bad sh*t happens. Really bad sh*t happens.
And when sh*t happens, there’s probably nothing you can do about it. Sometimes, there’s just no way to make it right.
But as harsh as this world can be, the tiniest sliver of hope can make all the difference. The fact is, no matter how bad things get, you can never be sure things won’t turn around.
You might have air-tight reasoning for why you should lose hope in the future or give up. But at the end of the day, we’re all just a little stupid. And no matter how good our reasoning, we can’t possibly envision all the ways our stories could unfold.”
👉️ Read Nick’s great write up, and learn why honesty is the best policy: head here: I Made $1 Million Dollars By Saying Sorry
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The corporate traps startups always fall into
Your startup is a real business. It’s more than just a side hustle or a passion project. You need to grow it into a big business while maintaining the advantages of being a startup.
The problem is that the lure of those big business crutches will always be there, and eventually, they’ll offset your startup advantages. As Joe Procopio argues, stay out of these traps for as long as possible.
Eliminate status meetings — Info should flow freely through an organization. But the modern-day status meeting is the crutchiest crutch that ever walked on crutches. Instead, foster a transparent culture of accountability and communication.
Stop creating roles to hire into — You don’t need a CTO. You don’t need a VP of Revenue. You don’t need a Director of Marketing. Instead, conduct your search for an exceptional talent who believes in your vision and mission and can grow with you.
Forget off-the-shelf methodologies — Instead of going all-in on any one pre-packaged methodology, pick the parts you like from several and make sure you’re consistent with them.
Quit siloing your teams — Encourage everyone in your org to reach out to anyone else in your org, whenever and for whatever. Then, create rules for when to use email, Slack, Zoom, phone, text, and/or walk over to someone’s desk.
Use tools that make progress, not track progress — Until your growth makes tracking progress too complex for a spreadsheet or too unique for a free third-party app, spend the money on the tools to make that growth happen instead.
Ignore outliers — YOU DON’T HAVE TO SERVE OR SATISFY EVERY CUSTOMER. Be underprepared and over-energized instead.
Never say the word “brand” — Every moment a startup spends thinking about their brand is a moment that the startup loses gaining the market share that would make brand-building pay off for them
Under-index on macro trends — Most shockwaves dissipate by the time they reach the startup and small business levels. Instead, anticipate how those trends and shifts impact your customers and your competition, and be flexible enough to react.
👉️ Click here for more on the 8 Corporate Traps That Startups Always Fall Into