If you aren't selling these 4 things, you Will Fail

00:00:00Can I show you the highest value comment on Hacker News that I've ever seen? Yeah, that has a lot of weight. This is from like years and years ago, but it's this comment about sales because Hacker News is full of engineers and they're like, hey, like, you know, I stuck at sales. Anybody can help me get better at this? And this guy wrote seven points, and I just nodded my head so vigorously that my C-4s, C5 is a little sore, so let me just give you this here. He said the guy goes, yeah, there's tons of resources to help you with sales, but I'll start with, I'll try to offer some simple tips.

00:00:39Number one, sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated that it's almost impossible, or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I've been leading sales orgs for about 20 years. My advice is to walk up and hit the ball. Number two, sales is about people and it's about problem solving. It's not about tech or solutions or chemicals or lines of code or artichokes. It's about people.

00:00:58It's about solving problems. Number three, people buy four things and four things only, ever. Those four things are time, money, sex, and approval or peace of mind. If you try to sell anything other than those four things, you will fail. Number four, people buy aspirin always. They'll buy vitamins sometimes, but it will be unpredictable. Sell aspirin. Number five, I say in every talk that I give that all things being equal, people will buy from their friends.

00:01:26So make everything else equal and then go make a lot of friends. Number six, being valuable and useful is all you'll ever need to sell things. Help people out. Send them interesting posts. Write birthday cards. Record videos. Sharing your ideas of how they could grow their business. Introduce them to people who would benefit from knowing each other and get out of the way. Expect nothing in return. Do this consistently and authentically and people will find ways to give you money. I promise. Number seven. No one cares about your quota, your payroll, your OPEX, your burn rate. No one. They care about the problem you're solving for them. There are more than $100 trillion in the economy just waiting for you to, breathe it in. Good luck.

00:02:03Who is this god of Hacker News? Are you reading any books? I am reading influence again by Robert Childini. Why are you rereading Robert Chaldingy's influence? Because as the great Buddhist proverb says, no man steps in the same river twice, for he is not the same man and the river is not the same river. Oh my God.

00:02:24How long have you waited to use that one? You start reading books. What can you do? You just start turning into a quote machine. No, but really, I think, you know, reading the best books again at different times in your life, it's a totally different book. You think you've read it.

00:02:39And what I found is you remember, you know, shockingly little of books. And so going back and reading great books is like, you know, the gift that keeps giving in that sense. So that's what I'm doing. Did you ever read the blog post that I wrote about influence, his book? No. In 2014, I had just read his book, and I wanted to implement what he talked about.

00:03:03And he has this rule called the rule of reciprocity, which basically just says, let's say that neighbor one goes to neighbor two. Let's say, I go to Sean and I say, hey, can I borrow a cup of sugar? And you say, yeah, I got you. The next day, if you come to me and say, hey, can I borrow your car for the day? Even though those two ask aren't even remotely equal, I, because of the rule of reciprocity, am very likely to lend you my car because the rural reciprocity states that if you do something nice for someone, they have a high chance of doing something nice in exchange to you, even if they aren't

00:03:36equal. And that's like how society is built, one could say, it's like based off the rural reciprocity. So when I was a kid, I was 24 years old, there was a motorcycle for sale, I think for $1,800. And I went to buy it. And I took photos and documented all of this as I went. And I was like, hey, you have the motorcycle for $1,800, let me see it, let me check it out. Awesome. Oh, by the way, I'm really sorry, I'm late. I just, I wanted to stop and get a Coke because it was kind of hot outside. I got one for you, if you want one. Do you want one? And he goes, yeah, sure, thanks. And then I started talking to him, and I'm like, look, I love this motorcycle, but like I'm a young guy. I don't have a lot of money. I know you're asking for 18. Could you do 14? And he goes,

00:04:16you know, you brought me the Coke. You seem like a nice kid. Yeah, I guess I can do that. And so, like, there's a blog post where I took photos of myself. Like, what he was, like, turned around, like, signing the paperwork. I, like, took the photo. But anyway, the rule of reciprocity is pretty amazing. So let me tell you a funny follow-up story to that. I remember you telling the story about the Diet Coke and the negotiation and how you always bring two Diet Coke's to a negotiation, correct?

00:04:42You've told me this before, like 10 years ago, right? Yeah, I try to bring a gift. Yeah, I tried to bring something. Well, I took it as Diet Coke. So here's what happened. I recently, I was coaching this high school basketball team, as you know. And anytime I'm doing a project, I want to try to make it as interesting, as cool as possible. And what I do sometimes is I do things that are maybe like not the default way of doing things.

00:05:03So I was trying to create content for the team so that the team would have like really cool, like media going with it. And so the principal and the AD did not like it. Are you talking about the post that you made about your doing, being a coach? Oh, being a coach, yeah. and how we were going to try to take this underdog team and try to get them to be state champions. And we were going to record the vlog along the way. So post the vlog, it gets 20,000 views in the first 24 hours.

00:05:30But one of those views was the principal or the AD. They call me and they're like, hey, you need to take this down. So we'll say, okay, we'll take it down. And he says, I want to meet with you. Be in my office Monday. Dude, you're getting called at principal's office. I got called into the principal's office. And so here I am.

00:05:44I thought I was past this. I'm now in my late 30s. and I'm going, I'm nervous, I'm going to the principal's office, and I bring, so we're recording a vlog of this thing, and I'm telling the vlog, I said, you know, my friend Sam taught me this trick, this little, the law of reciprocity. Let me put you guys on some game. You know, people have this really high likelihood to return the favor. If you do a small favor for them, and I said, watch, I said, I'm going to be late to this meeting, but I'm going to stop and get this Diet Coke, because this is the most important part of the meeting, and I'm like, follow me. A vlog camera follows me, and we get two Diet Coke's. And we go, and I'm so ready for this. And I get to the meeting and we sit down and I'm like, I don't fully remember the line that you said about like how to do it. I think there's actually a really specific way in the book that Robert Chilini describes it, which is two people are doing a psych study.

00:06:35The guy walks out and he comes back and he says, hey, they, I asked the guy if I could have a Coke. He said, yeah, so I brought you one too. So it kind of sounds like very like, you know, thoughtful in passing. And you said a very similar thing. And so I walk in and I just go, he's like, hey guys. And I go, you want a Diet Coke? And then he's like, and he just goes, no thanks.

00:06:59And now I have two Diet Coke. I go, I have two. I go, I have two. And he goes, I'm all set. And then I, and the vlog cameras on me. And it's like the office. I look at the camera. And it's like, this is not.

00:07:13going as plan. I'm Michael Scotting this. And then I open up the Diet Coke almost explodes because I've been like, you know, nervous the whole time. Luckily, doesn't totally foam over. And I proceed to drink two Diet Cokes while this guy absolutely shuts down my program. And so that's the law of reciprocity gone wrong. That is so funny. That is so funny. That is so good. All right. I have a story for you. Hey, everyone, really quick. If you're enjoying this episode on CEO stuff, so delegating, having hard conversations with your team, hiring, then I've got something for you. So the team at HubSpot, they actually went and fit together a bunch of best practices that Sean and I use in our own companies. And they put it together in something that's really

00:07:57easy to read and understand. And so if you want to just save yourself 10 years of headache and heartache, then you should check it out. I wish we had this a long time ago. It would have helped me a lot, but there should be a QR code on your screen that you can scan or a link in the description. So check it out. It's totally free and totally all. Awesome. So I told you the other day how I like for the first time ever I went out to dinner with someone and I'm like such a home buddy. Well, my friend. What you're talking about? I visited in New York. You literally walk around New York with a briefcase and like, you know, business cards and altoyeds in your pocket trying to meet people riding the subway. You're, you're, don't try to take my

00:08:36stick. I'm the homebody. You're the guy who's out there. But go ahead. I just carry the briefcase. case, my wife's like, why do you have this? I'm like, to do business. Yeah. Sam cosplays a businessman in New York City. I'm doing business, Sarah. I need the case. It's got the crayons and the snacks. Get off my back. When you said attache, I was like, okay, that's enough. So I've been hanging out with this guy named Mark. Have you heard of GLG. Yeah, the expert network. So you want to find out

00:09:15whether Nvidia chips are going to go up or down, maybe call someone in one of the buyers who's like an expert buyer who give you insights about the industry. Huge business. Yeah, and I've become good buddies with him. I've hung out with him a bunch because he lives in my neighborhood. And basically GLG, like you just explained,

00:09:31huge business. They filed to go public at one point. And so some of their numbers were public. It does something like over $100 million a year in profit and cash flow, very amazing company. And we were just hanging out. He owns another business in the community space now that he loves. And he sits down and he starts telling me, I'm like, what are your hobbies?

00:09:50What else are you into? And he told me this crazy story. So I want you to Google something. Google, it's called United Hatsala. Okay, I found it. Equipment aid looks like a charity of some kind, volunteer medical emergency services. Exactly. So listen to this story.

00:10:07So he tells me this story. So Mark, he started GLG when he was only like 23, 24, a pretty young guy. When he's something like 27, 28, he meets this guy named Ellie. Ellie was either an ambulance driver or was at the scene where this happened. But basically, a kid was choking on his food. And they called it ambulance. The ambulance didn't make it there in time. And the kid died.

00:10:32And he was like, it really sat with him. He was really bothered by that because they come to find out that there actually was a doctor like next door or like down the block or something like that within like a pretty close vicinity and he's like it really stinks that this ambulance took 15 or however many minutes to get here when there was a guy right here that could have cured this kid and he didn't have to die and so Ellie ends up starting this very small thing with only like six or 12 people where they basically self-organized and they train themselves on how to do very simple things like CPR the Heimlich maneuver and they train them.

00:11:08themselves on that. And then eventually went to like, they could even like do like an emergency baby delivery and he had started a nonprofit where he would actually give out these like 40 pound backpacks that had like very a small amount of oxygen, a baby kit system. So or a baby delivery kit so you can like deliver a baby in case of an emergency like these like really a essential supplies. And he starts telling Mark about how he's got this things going. And Mark's like, that's awesome. This thing could be it. This could be like a really big thing. And Mark gives him $18,000 because Mark was just getting successful, but he's like, I have 18 grand I can give you, but I can be your co-founder and I can help commercialize this thing and make this a huge thing.

00:11:47And so it's been around since for the last 18 years. And at this point, they have 18,000 volunteers in Israel. It's mostly, it's only in Israel. They answer something like 2,000 calls a day. And the mission statement is very simple. They say that on average, it takes something like 12 or 10 minutes for an ambulance to arrive to you. Our goal is to get there in 90 seconds. in anywhere in Israel.

00:12:10And right now, I think they do it in like two minutes. And Mark was telling me, he's like, basically, right now, we are, him and I went out to eat. He was like, if you were a member, you would carry your bag with you at all times. And if somebody 10 floors down got sick or something happened where they had a call in the ambulance, you would be alerted because you are nearby. And you could run down and give them some type of need until the ambulance got to them. And they could actually do the real stuff. But at least you could be like a life-saving thing.

00:12:38And because of this, this company, it's a nonprofit, they have saved potentially millions of people because they've done this since in the last 18 years. And what's interesting is they started this before iPhones, before GPS. And when they started it, they actually just gave out these like walkie-talkies, like these radios. And now it's gotten quite sophisticated. So the entire foundation runs off of donations. And they are spending many tens of millions of dollars a year. And what they have noticed is like, for example,

00:13:08through 18 years of data, they know that heart attacks are more likely to happen in the morning, which means people are probably in their home versus the office. And so they know that they need to recruit volunteers who are on call and ready and they're prepared for a potential heart attack within these areas. And they actually did a YouTube video on it. They have this entire like AI setup that they know when to predict that something bad potentially might happen and to have their 8,000 person volunteer force to do it, to be ready. And there's a few interesting things here about this. One, there's this thing called like it's called good samaritan laws we have it in america they have it in israel which basically just says like when you're on an airplane and the captain goes like is there a doctor on board can someone help me

00:13:48as long as that doctor acts in good faith they can't be sued by the person you know it's called the good samaritan law where it's like as long so but if you are on there for pay meaning if you are a professional like i'm paying you money there's an exchange of goods for you to do a service you could potentially be sued so mark was like this thing, it needs to strictly be a nonprofit. He said the second thing. He was like, in Israel, what's cool about this? He's like, we have super orthodox Jews who are doing it. We have non-secular Jews who are doing it. We have Arabs. We have Muslims. We have Christians. He was like, I've noticed that what has brought us together is not just us sitting around talking, but I can get all groups of people to come and work together on something and get their hands dirty. And it really brought us all

00:14:31together. And he was explaining this in a very altruistic way. And I totally got bought into it. And I was like, why aren't you in America? He's like, well, we actually did try to, but we started in 2019 or 20, like right before COVID, and it was a false start. So we just haven't, we just haven't made it here. But he's like, this 100% could work in virtually every city in America. And he was like, it could even work in rural areas. He's like, in rural areas, they have volunteer firefighters. But it was really fascinating to hear all about this stuff because I think that, you know, we talk about money and for profit stuff. But if you are like a social entrepreneur or something like that, this is a really interesting opportunity.

00:15:06and hearing him describe this, it was amazing. Dude, so cool. I mean, I was reading the stats about it just now. It says, they basically handle one call every 45 seconds. Crazy, right? The scale of that's crazy. There's only like 8,000 volunteers or 9,000 volunteers. So that's a lot of coverage.

00:15:26I mean, 2,000 calls a day, and you only have 9,000 volunteers. Everybody's busy. This is not like a once in a blue moon. You know, thing. This is, this is wild. The average response time is three minutes. Their goal is 90 seconds. That's nationwide.

00:15:44And 24-7 coverage, which is pretty incredible. It kind of makes sense in a way, right? Because, I mean, what are you? Like, you asked him, what are your hobbies? And he told you this story, which is hilarious because you're probably like, he's like, what about you? You're like, skateboarding. But, like, for people, I mean, to be able to be like, yeah, I saved a life today.

00:16:06It gives you purpose, right? I mean, yeah, like, what an where else can you get that? That would be actually like really meaningful for people if they felt like they could join something where they could actually do that. Well, think of the people who have like kind of crappy jobs that they're not particularly motivated by.

00:16:21Like, this is something where you're like, yeah, I can do that non-motivating thing. That pays a bills. I'm so thankful I have this. Yeah, like I have this thing that like I am needed and I actually have literally a life-changing impact on people. Yeah. Yeah, that's really.

00:16:36crazy. I thought you were going to say in the U.S., they just pivoted to DoorDash, it became DoorDash. Well, this is the founding story of food delivery. That is kind of interesting. But I thought this was awesome, and I was pretty inspired. Like hearing, I think he said that he goes, we have 8,000 people who are part of the network. And he's like, we're growing. He's like, we're going to keep on growing. He's like, and he's like one doctor who is probably doing okay, but he's not wealthy. He gave us $4,000. And he's like, I got this line where I tell them this because I believe it to be true, he was like, you giving us $4,000 is the best donation we've ever received. Like, the fact that you are willing to do this, it is so important to us. And that's how they've grown to be able to spend

00:17:14tens of millions of dollars a year. Very cool. Very cool. Hey, let's take a quick break. You know that feeling when strategy is done, the brief is written, everyone's aligned, and you realize someone still has to sit down and actually create all the content? That someone is usually you, and it's due tomorrow. Well, the Breeze assistant from HubSpot can help. It works right inside HubSpot. You can draft a campaign copy, blog posts, emails all in your brand voice, all using your actual customer data. So you don't create just content. You create content that converts.

00:17:42Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Let's see. You want a lightweight? You want something quick and fun? You want something a little more. Give me fun. Did you see this amazing,

00:17:56it's a master class of PR by Bernard Arnault? I didn't read it. What happened? It happened this morning, right? this. Okay, so, so I don't, I don't normally pay too much attention to this stuff, but check this out. So I saw this from Lulu, I don't know how, Lulu Chang, I don't know how you say her last my survey. She's like the kind of go direct founder. She's like, she was doing PR at Andrewill, and now she has her own fund and whatnot. Is she the one who has the handle where it's like,

00:18:26here's how you should and should not address like PR issues? Yeah, yeah. She's just like constantly giving founders, like, advice and her philosophy. is this go-direct philosophy. So, anyways, check this out. So this backstory is that Bernard Arnault, who you know probably better than I do, he's the Titan behind the luxury conglomerate LVMH. And every once in a while, he's the richest man in the world.

00:18:51Yeah, he's kind of, yeah, he floats, you know, between number one and four and the richest men in the world. And he writes this post, and it's just title, Merci, right? Thank you. in French. And he basically says, so what happened was this publication in France did this like year-long

00:19:11kind of sort of expose on his family. And they tried to make it as like juicy as possible. So they dropped a six-part investigative series called the Empire of Bernard Aono. And it was talking about how it basically paints him as the last royal dynasty of France. And it describes like tension between his second wife and his son-in-law and how their Sunday family dinners are like, you know, palace intrigue type of thing and how they're, you know, they're trying to figure out that, you know, the five heirs or five kids are sort of jockeying for position, because he's now close to 80, I think, of who's going to succeed, you know, it's like basically succession, but for real life.

00:19:50And so he, so they dropped this whole series, and he goes, and he goes, here's a three page open letter that he basically posts. I just want to read you a little bit of this. So he goes, thank you. That's how he starts it. Instead of being defensive, he just starts with thank you. He goes, it seems I am the head of, quote, the last royal family of France. I'm reading this between two cups of tea and my children who are alerted to this over WhatsApp,

00:20:16asked me if they should now curtsy in my presence. And I told them, hello, sir, would be sufficient. They burst out laughing. And, you know, this has just been a wonderful week. And it says, it seems like, Le Monde has decided to roll out the heavy artillery, six months of investigation, two full-time journalists, blah, blah, blah. He basically, like, paints them as absolute overkill for what they were trying to do.

00:20:41And this deserves a word, and that word shall be, thank you. You know, I haven't been granted this treatment since I took over, you know, the company in 1984, and at that time they called me the Terminator. But I far preferred the last royal family. It's far more elegant and really good for sales at Dior. that he continues on. And he basically says, he goes on and he goes,

00:21:05apparently I'm the whisperer into the ear of every president. Well, I plead guilty. And he starts naming the different presidents. And he says, oh, and by the way, it's not just the French, you know, presidents. It's also five American presidents. I've whispered to three British prime ministers, blah, blah, blah. And am I to understand that whispering into,

00:21:24that only French whispers are scandalous? that a group that earns 75% of its revenue outside of Europe should be sort of isolated and not be talking to leaders of these countries. And then he basically just addresses point by point the accusations in the article, but does it in such a smooth, non-defensive French way where he basically turned a diss track into a giant compliment for himself. And, you know, he addresses each term one by one.

00:21:53I'll give you one more. He's known as a lover of arts and tax breaks. and he's like, yeah, I contributed 200 million euros to the reconstruction of Notre Dame. I fund to the tune of 50 million mathematics research at the school. You know, I pay this much in taxes every single year. We employ 220,000 employees, 40,000 of them

00:22:11who work in France itself. Yeah, like, I'm sure you forgot to mention that in the research, but I'm happy to help. You know, happy to help you here. And so he calls out like the wording, you know, that they use for the different things, just making them seem a little bit. ridiculous and he ends.

00:22:28With rest assured, I will keep doing the Mond crossword, which that I must say is excellent. That's so good. He leaves us compliment in the crossword and basically inadvertently dissing the article and I just thought, damn, this guy, this was like such a perfect take down where you normally see CEOs get really flustered.

00:22:50They either ignore, they deny, they go start to complain and say they're biased and it's a hit piece and, you know, play the victim, and instead just so smooth. And I thought there's a lot that American CEOs could learn from this. Do you know what the biggest thing is to use humor? To bring her back to Robert Chaudini, he says the rule, likeability, how to be more likable, one of the easiest ways.

00:23:12I don't know if he actually said it this way, but an easy way to be more likable is to be humorous. Make a laugh. Yeah, is to make people laugh and smile and, like, make people laugh about the silliest stuff. And, like, if I heard about someone doing an article, if I was in this guy's shoes and he was doing an article about my family,

00:23:27I would be livid, right? I wouldn't want to laugh about this. I'd be so angry. And the fact that he could do that is awesome and it makes him 100% more likable. I didn't know anything about him other than like he's a business tycoon. But now I'm like, oh, I'm kind of a fan of you.

00:23:41Yeah, exactly. You know, I wasn't going to read their annual letter this year, but this, basically he used the intrigue of gossip, that attention, that spotlight, to say something very different, which I would say, obviously if you just hate the guy, you're going to still hate the guy.

00:23:54If you love the guy, you're still going to love the guy. But the sort of the mass in the middle, which is folks like you and I who don't really care, aren't really paying attention, it's just one little nugget where you're like, hmm, I like that guy. Couldn't tell you exactly what he said, but I liked his approach.

00:24:08And if you've ever studied like... Isn't that French word as well? Geneseecois. Yeah, he's got that genesee quack, you know what I mean? And people have studied this with like presidential debates and whatnot. It's like after the fact, you know, whether it's two hours later or two weeks later, you rarely can remember anything that was said,

00:24:25but you do remember how that person came across and the level of like sort of inadvertent trust and likability that you felt in the moment. So your impression, Lass, although your memory for the specifics does not. Dude, what's crazy is I'm not aligned with Mamdani's beliefs. Mammani, the mayor in New York, I'm not aligned with a lot of his beliefs.

00:24:46I'm not aligned with a lot of his ideas for policies. I see him talk on the Internet, and I'm like, oh my God, you've got this dialed in. You know how to be likable. It is just insane. Have you ever watched any of his videos? Oh, yeah.

00:24:59And same exact reaction. Oh, my God. Like, he just has it dialed in perfectly. I went to, um, out here in, um, New York City, there was the, um, national track and field meet for like the professionals. And he popped in to say hi. And, uh, like, it, it got more cheers than the actual race did. And, uh, like, I, I really disagree with virtually everything he's about.

00:25:22But he just oozed the charisma. It was crazy. It was just absolutely crazy. He's just been on all the time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He kind of ran like a social media masterclass, right? Like just figuring out little memorable, likable things to do along the way,

00:25:40whether it was the speech at the Nix or talking about like, oh, the halal food trucks is $14 now for a plate of chicken. What's going on? You know, just rather than like boring people with, you know, political jargon. Okay, so you probably have heard this on the podcast, but if you're running a company, I think that the number one attribute that will determine if you are going to succeed in business is how fast you can learn from others, specifically how fast you can learn from other

00:26:08entrepreneurs. But there's a problem with that. I have this problem, and in fact, you probably have it too. That's one of the reasons why you listen to my first million in the first place. The problem is that finding other successful entrepreneurs to learn from, it's a pain in the but. And so that's why a few years ago, I started a company called Hampton. You can check it out at joinhampton.com. We have thousands of members and they exist for this exact reason. So here's how it works. If you're a founder that does at least three million in revenue and you make it through our

00:26:34incredibly thorough vetting process, we then match you and put you in a group with nine other entrepreneurs. You meet in real life in your city once a month and it becomes your peer group that will frankly change your entire life. It's changed mine. I'm in a group as well. And so if you're a founder that does at least three million in year in revenue, check out joinhampton.com. Again, the URL is joinhampton.com. What's the second thing? All right, let me tell you about, let me tell you about this company. So I want to tell you about a company that is, I had written off.

00:27:06I just thought it's sort of like, I don't know, some archaic company. And then I saw some news recently that kind of blew my mind some numbers. And it led me down a rabbit hole. And it's the business of magic, the gathering. the nerdy business of Magic the Gathering. And I wasn't interested in this at the beginning. Let me just start with that. If you said, hey, would you like to know about the business of Magic the Gathering?

00:27:27I would have just, you know, moved on to the next stall. I was not paying too much attention to it. But I actually think if you think someone would be talking to you, would you guys were like urinal to a urinal? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, is that up? Is that what happened? You like magic?

00:27:44Do you want to hear about the economics? I just feel like I wouldn't have paid attention to this. And I'm telling you, it's very, very interesting. Okay, so the way I noticed this was Diego was telling me he's like, oh, Hasbro's stock popped. And he's been going to these card collectors conventions every weekend. So he's been telling me about the Pokemon scene. He's just been getting into that, like, subculture.

00:28:06He doesn't really buy any stuff himself, I don't think. But he, he's just like interested in the obsession and the fanaticism and the, like, the subculture that exists. because it's like invisible to you unless you're in one of these conventions. So he's like, yeah, Hasbro's stock just popped, and it was because magic just hit like an all-time high, Magic the Gathering. I'm like, Magic the Gathering. Isn't this like 20 years old?

00:28:29And it's true. Magic the Gathering has been compounding 17% a year on average for 17 straight years. And so it's just been this like incredible compounding machine, this franchise, which sounds like, you know, it might be like a quick fad, like beanie babies. But explain what it is. So, like, I had the cards when I was a kid, but I don't even know if it was a game or not. Yeah, so it's a game you can play. Two people can sit down and you can kind of have a duel,

00:28:55so it's like a card game. But, and this is kind of the genius of it, a lot of the fun isn't even playing the game against children. Like Pokemon, it's about collecting. And so how did they do this? And so the backstory is pretty fascinating. So first of all, Hasbro is this company that owns Monopoly. They own Nerf guns.

00:29:11They own, like, you know, they own a bunch of stuff. But, like, of every dollar that, that comes in, one out of every three is driven by Magic. It's like, it is their cash cow. Magic will do, you know, $2 billion this year in revenue. It's been just cranking along. This was like, you know, an all-time best quarter. So you'd think, like, is this old IP not like fizzling out?

00:29:33No, no, it's like having its best quarter ever. If you read the true backstory, you realize one thing, which is what true sort of tinkering, the power of tinkering. So this guy starts with this, he's making this game called five magics. and Five Magics is a game he makes, doesn't go anywhere, but he puts a lot of heart and soul and sweat into it. And he puts it on the shelf, because who cares? And then he goes along, and he's working a job,

00:29:55but then he creates this, he has this other idea for this, like, more advanced game, like, robo something where you, like, build robots in the, it's like a board game where you're actually, like, building a robot. And then he pitches it to this guy who's doing this wizards game, and that guy's like, dude, this is too hard to build. Can you build something that's, like, more, like, kind of, you know, this sort of sci-fi lore.

00:30:15type of game, this wizarding lore, fantasy stuff, and make it like something simple, not the, like, you have to build a robot, but just like a card game or something. So he goes back and he's thinking, and he's on a hike one day, and he has a sort of eureka moment. He's like, oh, I could take five magics, but I could change it. And he has this really good insight, which is most games like chess or checkers, at the time we're all, like, fixed games, meaning you open the box and the pieces are all what they are. Monopoly. Like the pieces are exactly what you think they are. And I'm going to play with

00:30:49you. And then when we're done, we put the box, you know, close the lid on the box and the game stays in the box. And when Richard was growing up, he had a very unique upbringing. And this is very, this is a fascinating part of this, how these like, this like butterfly effect. So his dad moved them when he was very young to like Bangladesh and Nepal, these countries that, you know, totally fish out of water, didn't speak the language. And so to make friends really, really, the only thing he could do was play games because he didn't he didn't know how to talk so they had to use the shared language of a game that he knew that they knew and that game for him was marbles and so he would go and he would play marbles and marbles is a very unique game where you don't go and open a box

00:31:29and play marbles each kid brings their own marble set to the game and you play and you can win other people's marbles you could trade marbles and you have your own ever-growing collection of marbles and sometimes you run into a kid he's got a marble you never seen before and it made you just want to go find your own version of that marble. You didn't even know it existed. And so that was part of the allure of the whole thing. And so he has this idea of like, hey, what if I take that mechanic from marbles

00:31:52where it's this like infinite set of possibilities? You have your own collection. You bring the pieces to the game. It's not a game where the pieces are already inside the box. And that was the core insight for Magic of the Gathering and why 20 years later, it's printing, you know, $500 million this quarter off of that single insight about like,

00:32:12what if the players had their own collection, that they would bring to the game they would walk around with rather than like a fixed set of pieces. It's a right now, it's doing $2 billion a year in revenue. It's on pace for that this year, yeah. Like $1.7 last year or $2 billion this year.

00:32:27And so he's, and by the way, he's the great-great-grandson of James Garfield. It's kind of cool. Yeah, of the president, exactly. Yeah. So he was like doing this. Did he sell it or what did he do?

00:32:37Yeah, so he sells it about, I don't know, I don't know, six, nine years in, something like that. He sells it to Hasbro for 300. something million is the reported price thing he had to earn out that took it up to almost 500 million. So he was only five years or seven years into this when he sold it? Something like that. And he was very smart. So he was building this game. And I'll tell you kind of like how we got it off the ground. I'll tell you how he, the very smart thing he did right before he sold it. And then why this is so great as a business model. So first, how he got it

00:33:06off the ground. He has the idea. He starts tinkering with it. And he's a total like game design nerd. He's been focused on game mechanics and game design for a long time. In fact, when I told you he grew up in like Bangladesh and Nepal and he was playing these games, he actually got into Dungeons and Dragons, but he didn't know the rules. It didn't come with the rule set. So he had the pieces, but he didn't know how to play. So he was inventing his own rule set, which again is like, if you look through, you know, great inventions, it always comes with this weird constraint or this irritation that sounds like a total problem. But if it, if, it, it, turned it into actually, like the irritation drove the innovation.

00:33:45So him not knowing the rules led him to experiment with all different types of game design and rule design and he would play it. And later in life, he actually found the official rule set. It was almost like bummed out. Like, oh, that's how you play? I'd been inventing all these other like versions of this that were really interesting. So he had been studying game mechanics for a long time. And so even with magic, he was playtesting like crazy and he would do things that others weren't

00:34:07doing. So he would find, he would say, okay, who would be the best playtesters for this? I can take guys who play these card games or these board games, but he also went into baseball. He's like, you know who really loves studying the statistical aspects of games was stratomatic, which was this like baseball simulation game that like Uber statistical nerds who loved baseball would get really into stratomatic. So he'd find the best stratomatic players, get them to test this.

00:34:33Because he knew if you get the game design wrong, the game fizzles out. He's like, you could have the rich kid problem, which is just it's all about going and buying the best cards, and once you have the best cards, you can't be beaten. So it can't have that problem. And it can't have this problem. He's finding all the bugs before he ever got to launch. And by the time he gets to launch,

00:34:50he doesn't just try to launch this widely or just like launch it to his friends. He goes and he drives basically like down the coast. And he's going from like Comic-Con to like trading card conventions to board game conventions. And he's finding like the white hot center of who should love this game. And it should be basically like board game nerds. And he would go and he would demo it to like,

00:35:11like very small groups of people, but he would influence the influencers. He would get the guys who own the shops. He would get the guys who write the magazine articles. He would get the guys who were the pro players of other games. He would win them over. And once he won them over, they would then be his sales engine explaining it to the next people.

00:35:27And so he would just like, you know, kind of like traveling in his trunk with the game in his trunk go and win over like hand-to-hand combat. Each of these different books. He says he launched us in 93, so he was doing that in the 80s. Well, that was kind of his launch strategy. and then he's right away it's sold out. He sold like hundreds of thousands of cards

00:35:46like in the first four days. And then he reprinted and he had sold 10 million within the first like year or something like that. This would be a great movie. Like the like early 90s, late 80s in San Diego, L.A. Like that is like a really cool setting. And then like a guy like going through all this like, it's not going to work.

00:36:04It's not going to work. Oh, it might work a little bit. It's not going to work. Okay, it really works. Like that type of movie would be great. And then they turn into like Boons, right. So he runs out, it sells so fast, he has no cards. He can't print any more cards. It takes time to do a print run. But the scarcity of there being no more cards and people going into shops being like, hey, do you have any magic? And the owners being like, what's magic? And then they would have to go figure out, why are people walking to our door like hunting for this thing? I've never seen this level of passion. So the scarcity drove the economy of the game. And so he, and again, the business model, the genius of the business model. So a normal board game will sell. for like, whatever, 20 bucks, let's call it.

00:36:43Well, the average Magic player is spending 100 bucks a year for like eight or nine years of their hobby. So the average player is spending like $1,000. And obviously there's extreme collectors who are spending hundreds of thousands. There's casuals who fade out right away. But if you just do the math, like the LTV per customer is in the thousands of dollars per player. You could never get somebody to buy a board game for $1,000.

00:37:04But by doing this kind of drip drip mechanism where you get into the game, but then you want your collection to become better so that you show up with like the ace up your sleeve and you have social status because you have cool cards and then you can trade or sell those cards so it's an investment it's not spending and that's what you know Pokemon did that afterwards uh heartstone did that afterwards and now like you know a lot of the like sports card stuff have have really taken that model and run with it but you know magic was really one of the oGs who did it so i thought that was pretty amazing the other cool thing he did was he bought dungeons and dragons so he He wanted to IPO the company.

00:37:40He realized, like, if I'm just one piece of IP, I'm going to be seen as inherently risky. And so Dungeons and Dragon had been out before him. And it had, like, $40 million in revenue, but it had like $30 million in debt. And it was doing really, they stopped printing cards because they just had too much debt. They owed a bunch of money. They were scattered their business too much. So he bought the company. Nobody knows exactly how much.

00:38:00But it looks like it was like $30, $40 million maybe. And he just took care of their debts. And in doing so, he had a more diversified, you know, brand portfolio. of like another franchise that had millions of players and had been around for a while. And so he's, you know, you buy it for 30 million. But then your eventual exit is for, you know, $300 to $500 million to Hasbro

00:38:22because you were more defensible. So I thought that was actually pretty brilliant as well. If you go on eBay and type in Magic the Gathering and sort by most expensive, there's cards on here that are hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah. That is wild. I mean, Pokemon cards,

00:38:37I think the most of Pokemon cards sold. for like 10 million or something, 12 million. Yeah, you know the gooch? You remember the gooch? Or sorry, not the gooch. Much. I sure don't. He's not the gooch.

00:38:50He's the mooch. Anthony Scarra. Scaramucci. The mooch. His kid bought it from Logan Paul for like $10 or $17 million, something like that. Right. What's the gooch known for? You don't want to know.

00:39:07But did he read it? raise funding? No. This is like a foodstrap thing. And what year did he sell it? I think he sold at late 90s, is my guess. But it was like, you know, it was like eight years in the making before he even launched the game because he's been, I mean, really he had been thinking about the stuff since he was a child. I think there's a belief in entrepreneurship that these ideas just sort of exist. You just have to sort of find one and make one. Or you sort of get to be the one who gets the winning lottery ticket. And then you read about stories like this.

00:39:43You read about the story of how the UFC almost went bankrupt and really like Dana White and the Fratitas, you know, built that thing brick by brick against pretty much every headwind you could have, being outlawed by states, losing money, nobody would put them on TV, like just every headwind you could have they faced and still built a multi-billion dollar company still doing it today, even after cashing out. And I think there are actually many businesses. is that we're only going to be built by one person. It was either going to be built by that person

00:40:13or it wasn't going to exist. And I don't think that's a popular belief, but when you hear these stories, you just can't imagine. Would there really have been another person who had this combination of the background, the hustle, the insight, the personality, the force of will,

00:40:28like the combination of factors that it takes to make it happen? The other time I felt this was when we were talking to Joe Gebia from Airbnb, and he was telling the true founding story of Airbnb and all of the headaches that they faced along the way. And, you know, just being shut down and being sued and being this and being that. And it was like being copied by these like much bigger, more well-funded competitors.

00:40:51And just the number of times they escaped death in the first two years. It's like a dozen deaths that they escape. You know, they're out of funding. And then they create a cereal box for John McCain and Barack Obama. And they sell that at the conventions and they get just enough money to continue their business. It's like, what the hell is going on? And so, you know, those are businesses that it's like, oh, Airbnb was not meant to survive.

00:41:12It broke the rules. It was supposed to die 12 times. And finally, the universe gave in. It was like, fine, go ahead and exist. It was not like just anybody was going to make that happen. It was not going to happen that way. It's so good. There's a scene that in the movie Rudy, have you seen the football show or the football movie Rudy?

00:41:31Yeah. Like Rudy's like talking to a priest. And the priest is like, Rudy. I've been a priest now for this long and there's only two things that I realize I believe in. There is a God and I ain't him. And whatever

00:41:49I hear stories of like Dana White, what do we say? We are paraphrasing someone else but it was like, make sure your passion burns so bright that everyone will come in town to watch you burn, something like that. When I hear stories like this,

00:42:02that's what I'm envious of. I'm like, I wish I cared about anything as much as this guy cared about a stupid card game. Yeah, that's exactly right. When you hear the stories of like these kind of like singular force of will, creativity, you know, like the guy who was the guy who created Minecraft, one guy, notch. Notch, yeah. The whole thing himself, you know what I mean?

00:42:26I have a friend who's a very, very smart venture capitalists. You know, this guy is like back to some of the biggest winners. And he said something to me once about, I remember when e-sports was like on trend, People were investing a lot in esports and Overwatch franchises were selling for 20 million a pop because they were trying to make it the next NBA. And he wasn't buying any of it. And I'm like, but this is kind of your thing. You like these weird-mished things that could be huge, but they're kind of written off.

00:42:54And now they're starting to pick up steam. Like, I'm surprised you're out. He goes, e-sports needs it's Dana White. And he was like, I don't know who that person is, but he goes, anybody could have told you that, like fighting martial arts. Like, it was a thing for sure. but the guy who was going to make it the worldwide thing, it took a very special, like,

00:43:13batch of entrepreneurial energy to do that. And somebody who was going to just break through walls for 20 years. And so he's like, you just need to, and he's like, so I'm just waiting. I'm just waiting until e-sports has that. He's like, I don't think e-sports is not going to be a thing, but I also don't think it's a thing, it's going to be a thing right now because I don't see who that person is yet.

00:43:31And you see this with other things. Right now, longevity is obviously a huge trend, wellness, longevity. It's kind of replaced health and fitness as like the way people want to optimize. And Brian Johnson, I think, was the Dana White of that industry. I think Brian Johnson was willing to do things no one else would do in a way, in a combination of like skills and personal sacrifice that very few people were ever going to do. And he had that special combination.

00:44:03I think he's going to do it for a long enough time that it's going to, I mean, it's already broken. mainstream, but I think it's going to just keep going. And he, you know, in his case, he's not creating, like, the one company necessarily. That will be the winner in the way that, like, let's say the UFC was. But I think he made it happen in a way that no doctor, no scientist, no fitness athlete was ever going to do. Yeah, man. But I remember when we first came across him, we were like, there's this guy, he's got a blog,

00:44:29and he's, like, just writing about his blood levels. But look how he does it. Look how nerdy he is. Well, what were the factors, right? he had to have first personal wealth to start spending millions of dollars because no investor would have funded that, right? Hey, hey, I'm going to go raise money to inject myself with crazy shit, measure every organ in my body individually for its aging speed because I want to know that my left earlobe is aging differently than my kidney. And I'm going to do that for years and

00:44:56like, you know, somehow that's going to work, right? He needed personal wealth. Then how many wealthy guys would want to like donate their body to science while they're still alive? Almost nobody. Yeah, well, he needs someone who's basically like a little bit autistic and a lot ranks high on disagreeableness. And he, I mean, he admitted himself. He was depressed and, you know, suicidal. And so he had nothing to lose. He's like, well, being rich isn't making me happy.

00:45:19So let's spend the money in doing something else that will give me some sense of purpose and something that will take me out of this funk. Then you needed somebody who had the unique, quirky personality to be loved by some, hated by many, and watched by all. And so, you know, his look, his personality, his combination of scientific intelligence, business acumen, and then, like, willingness to look like a fool on social media, right? He, like, I actually believe that Brian Johnson is the greatest social media marketer in the world. And so, like, if you see him now, you know, he's like, I'm going to live shoot myself taking DMT or whatever, like, what's the thing, like a toad pissed in my mouth and I'm going to hallucinate, you know, whatever it is. Like, he's doing that type of stuff. on a live stream. You're like, oh my God,

00:46:06who would think to do this? He's got like Jake Paul's social media instincts packaged in Elon Musk's wealth and, you know, Huberman's scientific, right? He's got like elements of each one of those, not at each one's level,

00:46:21but like that combination is just a very rare skill stack. Have you seen his YouTube videos? They're great. They're so good. They're not at all like anyone else's stuff. They're so good. And I'm not saying I agree with

00:46:34everything he's saying. I'm not saying I endorse whatever. I'm not saying any of that stuff. But all I'm saying is he undeniably broke through the noise and broke through the barriers and brought so much attention to this entire way of living that it just seems like who else was going to do that. He told me his motivation. He was like, I can't tell you who the 70th or 50th or 100th richest person was in 1975. But I can tell you who Galileo is. I can tell you what the Wright brothers did. There's about five to ten people who I could tell you what they invented and how they impact society. And none of them doesn't relate around money. And so that's when I realized that going after just business and making more money was not the answer to my question of how do I be somebody that other people remember in 500 years?

00:47:23Because that's my motivation. Dude, when you hear stuff like that, it's like such an amazing one-line kill shot because, you know, five seconds earlier, it's like you're crazy. you'd be crazy to do that. And then he says one thing and you're like, I guess you'd be crazy not to do that. You know what I mean? Like that's how effective that is. It's like, yeah, you're right.

00:47:42Like, what is the money for? Nobody cares that you, you know, you sold brain tree slash Venmo for $700 million. And then, you know, what are you going to do? Live the rest of your life sipping Pinacoladas. Like, you know, on islands you own. Like, yeah, you could do that. Or you could be a man of history and like, you know, you could do this.

00:48:01Oh, okay. You could help people, you know, live forever. That, I guess that isn't crazy. I guess that actually sounds way better than the alternative. Do you ever watch the Grammys where they do like the, or like the Oscars, I forget, where they do the segment where they remember the people who died that year? It's like a constant of like, oh, he died? Or like, oh, I remember that guy.

00:48:23And like, you maybe are thinking back to a time when you did remember because that movie that that person in was like your favorite movie when you're a kid. And you're like, he was the man. I love that guy. guy, okay. It's just like next. And whatever, whatever that segment exists, I'm like, the vast majority, a large percentage of the people who they're talking about are probably significantly more successful and impactful than I am. And all they're going to get from me and millions of other people is a, huh. Okay. Yeah. And like, in some hand, I'm always like,

00:48:59that's a bummer. And then on the other side, I'm like, that's kind of freeing, right? Like, Just do whatever you want then. And so those segments always remind me of what Brian Johnson said. So much of the worst things of our living life are caring about what other people might think of us while we're alive. If you stacked onto that and you knew everybody would care about you and think about you when you were dead, it would, I think it would be negative. Right. Like, it's a good thing. We don't all have these insane legacies that everybody knows about because it's freeing to let you actually just live your life on your own terms for what, you know, because nobody's thinking about you anyways.

00:49:33I don't even know how we got onto this. Magic the Gathering? Oh, Magic the Gathering. What's the guy doing now? That's the true magic of Magic the Gathering. It brings us together. All right, is that it? That's it.

00:49:45That's a pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On a road, let's travel, never looking back. All right, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about marketing school. It is a podcast that is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network,

00:50:02and it is run by Neil Patel and Eric Sue, and these guys are both marketers who are running businesses, and so if you want real-world tactics from practitioners who are actually out there in the field doing it, this is the podcast for you. Check it out wherever you get your podcast.