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The Diary of a CEOThe Diary of a CEO

Daniel Priestley: How 7-11-4 makes you memorable online

Priestley says school still teaches the old industrial-age playbook. The 7-11-4 method, an apprenticeship path, and a side hustle ladder for the digital era.

Daniel PriestleyguestSteven Bartletthost
Jan 20, 20252h 12mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:03

    Intro

    1. DP

      In order to be successful, you need to know that people have a small number of slots in their brain for who they remember, so you've got to get into people's head. And in order to do that, you need to know two things. The first one is 7-11-4, which we'll talk about, and the second thing is that your brain is extremely good at deleting messages. But there's five things that will not be deleted by the brain, and the last two are the ones that are most useful. So, the first one is s- (video glitching)

    2. SB

      (sighs) I wish I knew this stuff at the start of my career. Daniel Priestley is the money-making expert and serial entrepreneur who's built several multi-billion dollar businesses from nothing, and has mentored over 3,500 businesses with the same frameworks for career success that you're about to learn.

    3. DP

      The problem that we have now is that we live in a digital world, but all of society is built for the industrial revolution system, which means that we're playing by an old set of rules and going through a schooling system that is preparing them for a world that no longer exists. So people feel like that there are no opportunities, there are no safe jobs anymore, feeling like you're in competition with AI, and that leaves a whole generation of people feeling absolutely wiped out before they've even started.

    4. SB

      So what are the new set of skills people need to know to set them up in this digital world?

    5. DP

      Well, there's actually a step-by-step approach for doing that, including building a personal brand. Uh-

    6. SB

      Okay, let's pause there. Why does that matter?

    7. DP

      'Cause that's the key to capital, talent, customers, and it's not about becoming an influencer with millions of followers, but if you're seen as a key person of influence, that's enough to make seven figures.

    8. SB

      And is that where your five Ps come in?

    9. DP

      Yeah, and I'll take you through all of those, and then there's the entrepreneurial pyramid, which opens you up to this whole other world of opportunities as well as side hustles and the two types of opportunities that everyone needs to know about.

    10. SB

      I wanna go through all of that.

    11. DP

      Let's do it.

    12. SB

      This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show, so could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like this show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free, simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.

  2. 2:03 – 3:53

    Helping Millions Build Businesses

    1. SB

      (upbeat music) Daniel Priestley, how would you define and describe what it is that you do with your content, with your work, um, and through all of these books that you've published? What is the summary of what you do and who you do it for?

    2. DP

      So, I have a massive passion for entrepreneurship. About 20 years ago, I started seeing a massive trend, uh, about entrepreneurs who could stand up, scale up, and make a positive impact in the world through business. Um, I have built multiple businesses over the last 20 years, and I'm just, uh, fascinated by the predictable stages that people go through in order to build successful businesses. Um, as I've been growing my businesses, I've been writing about it in my books, um, mostly to document what I'm learning myself, um, and I also built a community of entrepreneurs who wanted to, uh, essentially make the most of the times that we're in. So what's happening at the moment is we're going through massive amounts of change. It's very similar to the agricultural age when it was replaced by the industrial age and there were new economic rules that didn't apply to the agricultural age, but did apply to the industrial age. So the agricultural age was the feudal system, and the industrial age was the capitalist system. What's happening is the industrial age is fast being replaced by the digital age, and as we go through this massive change, we're seeing new rules and new economic rules that apply. So I'll give you an example. In the industrial age, people had to... To become successful, people had to gain skills, and then get a job and find an employer who would, uh, employ them for those skills. As we go into the digital age, what works is to build a personal brand based on your unique intellectual property, and then to position that brand next to a scalable, digital, uh, elegant business model. And those who are doing that, and those who have figured that out are doing incredibly well and succeeding at speed, and there's actually a step-by-step approach for doing that.

  3. 3:53 – 8:01

    How to Capitalise in the Digital World

    1. DP

    2. SB

      I wanna go through all of that. I am... I was running in Cape Town. Look at me plugging my running brand that's lasted for five days. Um, I was running in Cape Town, and a young couple came up to me at the end of my run when I'd stopped, uh, running, u- underneath this tree. And they came up to me. It was about the 2nd or 3rd of January. They said, um, "Steve, we love your content. We've been listening to

    3. NA

      (whistles)

    4. SB

      ... Diaries for a while." And they looked at each other, and you could see that they were really stressed, and they said, "We're just trying to figure out how to start a business and what we should be doing." And I could see in their face that they'd been mulling it for a long, long time. There was this, like... They're very, very young. I'd say they were, like, 21 years old.

    5. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SB

      And they were saying, like, "What do we do?" And actually at that time, I said, "You need to l- need to listen to an episode I did with Daniel Priestley." But I also knew you were coming on, so I said, "And I'm recording with him shortly, so make sure you listen to that." So through the lens of that 21-year-old, you've detailed that their world has now changed.

    7. DP

      Yeah.

    8. SB

      They're living in this digital world. Where would you advise those two to start if they want to capitalize on the opportunity that's presented itself?

    9. DP

      Okay, so I'll slow down for a minute. What's happening at the moment is people in that situation, they're feeling incredibly invisible, um, that they don't matter. They feel stuck, that there are no opportunities. You can't buy a house. You can't get a career. Uh, there are no safe jobs anymore. Um, AI is disrupting everything. Um, and they feel detached from meaning and purpose. And that leaves a whole generation of young people feeling absolutely wiped out before they've even started. It doesn't actually exclusively apply just to people in their 20s. I know people in their 40s, 50s, 60s. I know entrepreneurs who have traditional businesses who feel that way. So, it's worth acknowledging that it's a widespread phenomenon. Everywhere in the world, people feeling invisible, feeling the pain of, like, not being able to connect with the right people, um, and feeling stuck and feeling detached from meaning. So, what we need to do is address that be- because what's happening is you're playing by an old set of rules. And that's normal, because the school system told you an old set of rules, 'cause it was based in the industrial age, and we have to start by learning the new set of rules. So, if I was advising 21-year-olds in particular...The first thing that you wanna do is called an entrepreneur apprenticeship. Uh, an entrepreneur apprenticeship is where you go and work in a small team of less than 12 people, where you have direct contact with an entrepreneur. And in particular, you're looking for an entrepreneur who has somewhat of a personal brand, so they have, let's say, 5,000 to 50,000, uh, followers on social media, and they've got an elegant business model that inspires you. It doesn't necessarily have to be exactly what you wanna do in the future, but you need to learn the new rules. So you need to learn how is that person building their personal brand, and how are they building their business so that it can scale? How do they communicate with people anywhere in the world? How do they sell to people anywhere in the world? So those are k- some of the key things that you have to do. You do not wanna become an entrepreneur straightaway. It's too big a shift. You need to be a number two. I was a number two. I had a mentor. I worked for a g- an amazing guy for two years. Uh, we went from 0 to 6 million in a year, and from 0 people to 60 people in one year. So I got the entrepreneur apprenticeship first, and that's where you wanna start. And then once you do that, you can do side hustles and then begin the entrepreneurial journey on your own.

    10. SB

      But how do you know if it's for you? How do you know if you're cut out for it?

    11. DP

      So at the moment what's happening is that the rules are changing so fast that you, uh... Uh, it's not like anyone's cut out for it, right? So there is no sure feeling where you go, "Oh, I'm really cut out for this because it's giving me clear signals." During times of disruption, the signals get, uh, jammed. So what's happening is people are going through a schooling system that is preparing them for a world that no longer exists.

    12. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    13. DP

      So we go through 12 years of school, and it's saying, "Oh, you know, here's how you get ready for an employer." Well, there are no employers. "And here's how you get ready for a career." There's no such thing as careers anymore. Um, "And here's how you get ready for a job. Oh, by the way, that job can easily be done by AI already."

    14. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    15. DP

      So all of this is happening, and that means that people are feeling this void, and they're saying, "Well, I don't feel ready for anything" That's because you had 12 years of training for a world that doesn't exist anymore. So what we have to do is say, "All right. Let's look at the world that is, uh, emerging, and let's position ourselves for that world and re-skill ourselves and reposition ourselves for that world."

  4. 8:01 – 10:23

    Where Do You Learn Entrepreneurship?

    1. DP

    2. SB

      When you were talking about that entrepreneurial apprenticeship, it sounded like a new form of education, a new form of university. Are there any other ways, if we're talking about that preparation phase where you're getting ready, are there any other ways you would advise someone to rapidly excel their knowledge and skills in preparation to become an entrepreneur? Um, is it books? Is it do I sit on ChatGPT? What worked for you?

    3. DP

      Books are great.

    4. SB

      Yeah.

    5. DP

      YouTube channels are great. I didn't have any of that. Um, you know, believe it or not, even books were hard to come by when I was a teenager. Um, you know, you had to kind of order business books in, or you had to go to a big bookstore that had a business book section. Um, we didn't have Amazon, and we certainly... You know, anything like a podcast, you actually paid for cassette tapes and CDs, and they were $1,000. They were really expensive just to listen to some business content. Believe it or not, that was a thing. Um, (laughs) and all of it's for free now online. However, there's... You can't learn to ride a bike, uh, through books and videos. You have to get on the bike. So the best thing to do is to work for someone who's building a business, and if you can't do that, become a co-founder with someone who's got more experience than you. Um, and if you can't do that, then you need to do some small side hustles. A side hustle is an open-and-shut business case. So within 90 days, you're gonna start something and finish something all win- within 90 days. You're not gonna get yourself into a long-term thing. You're just gonna start something, see how it goes, and it ends in 90 days. When I was a teenager, I did nightclub parties. So the nightclub party had a time where we would agree with the club that we were gonna, uh, have the venue. Then, we had a promotion phase. Then, we ran the party, and then that was it. At the end of the night, we cl- split the money, and that was, uh, the finish. And it all happened very quickly. And you get the learning experience, but you don't have the ongoing, um, connection to the business. I also sold roses, uh, door-to-door.

    6. SB

      Hmm.

    7. DP

      Um, so on Valentine's Day, I bought f- a few hundred roses. We dressed up in tuxedos, and we went door-to-door selling, uh, Valentine's Day roses. And that probably lasted three weeks, um, from the time we came up with the idea, to the time we found a supplier, bought the roses, went door-to-door, uh, and made our sales, and then it was all finished at the end of Valentine's Day. So these are called side hustles, and the important point is that they're not ongoing ventures. They're just open-and-shut, and then you can reflect. You can then s- sort of see what worked, what didn't work, and then see if you wanna continue after that.

  5. 10:23 – 13:21

    The Importance of Writing in Your Learning Phase

    1. DP

    2. SB

      Something else that I've... I don't think I've ever heard many entrepreneurs or founders talk about when they're giving advice on that preparation learning phase is the importance of writing.

    3. DP

      Yeah. Well-

    4. SB

      'Cause that had a profound impact on me. Um, my... The rate in which I learned was having a practice-

    5. DP

      But what stage in your journey did you write?

    6. SB

      So I made a commitment to myself when I was 24 to write a tweet every day.

    7. DP

      Okay.

    8. SB

      And I would screenshot it, then post it on Instagram. Now, this was maybe the single biggest hack in my life that I've never really talked about because of the... all, all of the downstream consequences-

    9. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    10. SB

      ... that occurred. Downstream consequence number one, got to a million followers on Instagram-

    11. DP

      Wow.

    12. SB

      ... by posting these quotes of ideas that I had every day. So every day at 7:00 PM, my girlfriend who at the time, she goes, "He's gonna go off for an hour and think of something to say." Um, downstream consequence number two is it taught me how to communicate ideas-

    13. DP

      Yeah.

    14. SB

      ... in a concise, high-end pack way and kind of w- what people respond to. Uh, and I'd say number three is it generally meant that if I went through my day and something had happened, it gave me a moment to condense that down into wisdom-

    15. DP

      Into a little piece of wisdom.

    16. SB

      ... of truth, a piece of truth.

    17. DP

      Yeah.

    18. SB

      So that day, I learned something.

    19. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    20. SB

      And, um, without that practice, those learnings kind of would have passed you by.

    21. DP

      So what you're describing is actually beyond just writing. It's publishing, um, and publishing means to make public, to put something into the public domain. So yeah, there's journaling, which you keep private, but then there's making something public. Um, and when you ha- when you do this, you have to think about how would this be of value to others.

    22. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    23. DP

      Um, so you're thinking... You know, entrepreneurs have to be thinking about how would this be of value to others. You're putting it into the public domain, so you're getting feedback as to whether this is a good idea or a bad idea or okay idea. Um, so yeah.... uh, publishing doesn't have to be tweeting. It doesn't have to be, um, writing a book. Publishing is video, audio. Um, it can be long-form content, it can be short content. Uh, you could do Shorts, you could do tweets, right? All of that is publishing. The, the essence of publishing is that you're taking your ideas and sharing it publicly, putting it in the public domain. That is a very rapid way to get started. Um, interesting fact on this, that out of the billion people who use LinkedIn, only 3% are publishing regularly and less than 1% publish weekly. So you think that you're in competition with a billion people on LinkedIn; 99% of people are just there to kinda look and watch what other people are doing. Only 1% of people are competing. 1% of people are creating the content on that platform. Um, when it comes to YouTube, there's 2.7 billion users of YouTube, but only 4% of people have a- an account, and only a fraction of those accounts are active. So it's a tiny percentage of the world's population that are creating something. Most people are consuming. So one thing that you're describing is the move from being a consumer to a creator, and entrepreneurs have to make that move.

  6. 13:21 – 15:47

    The Rise of Personal Brands and Decline of Institutions

    1. SB

      How have you accelerated your learning? Because you're someone that is able to give out lots of different ideas from lots of different reference points, and there must be some kind of underlying framework you're using to, like, learn, process, and publish, which m- now presents you... which is part of the reason you get invited onto all these podcasts now, and people are paying you to speak at their events, et cetera. What was that framework for you?

    2. DP

      So my background was I used to have an agency, and we used to run all these different events, and we used to, uh, have to put stuff onto people's seats when we're running events. And I had to kinda write stuff all the time, like quick reports and all that. So I got in the habit of writing. I saw the power of writing. Um, in 2009, the entire world tipped on its head, um, after the global financial crisis, and I was completely disrupted. Uh, I went from millions of revenue down to a few hundred thousand of revenue. I lost 90% of my revenue in one year. Um, it was mass- it was... I remember one Christmas party, 17, 18 people at a Christmas party. The following year, it was three. Um, it was morbid. (smacks lips) So during that time where the global financial crisis had such a deep impact, I began writing about, "What is it that I know to be true? What is it that, like, I don't know much because I've just had the rug pulled out from under me? What is it I do know to be true? What are the most, uh, strong truths that I could share?" And I ended up writing the book called Key Person of Influence in 2009, and it came out in 2010. And what I felt very confident about was this idea that the future was gonna see a shift from business and institutional brands to personal brands, that we would see the decline of big, faceless companies and the rise of, uh, individuals whose personal brands were bigger than the institutions. Um, and it was a pretty radical idea at the time, but I felt pretty confident about it. And the more I wrote about it, the more I felt this was where the world was heading. Um, if we look today, we can see Brian Cox, Professor Brian Cox has more followers than CERN. Um, we can see Richard Branson has orders of magnitude more followers than Virgin. Uh, we can see Elon's got more followers than NASA. Uh, we can see, you know, Trump is way more powerful than the Republican Party. So the, the... essentially, the personal brand has just gone whoosh a- uh, ahead. Um, but I was... I, I started that process very murky, that I didn't quite know what it was. It was a feeling or a sense, and by the time I'd gone through the publishing process of writing, uh, I was

  7. 15:47 – 18:25

    Why We Went From the Logo to the Person

    1. DP

      clear.

    2. SB

      And the macro factors that brought that about, what are those underlying shifts that happened that meant we went from the logo to the person?

    3. DP

      Let's zoom out 300 years.

    4. SB

      Yes.

    5. DP

      So the, the agricultural age, uh, was essentially... the economic system was called feudalism, and there was lords and kings and queens, and then there were serfs and people who served the land, and then technology changed things. You can imagine what it must have been like when 300 people were on a farm, and then they saw three people on a tractor, and then that tractor went (imitates tractor sound) and went and did the job of hundreds of people (laughs) with three people on it. And it's like, "Oh my goodness, what are we all gonna do?"

    6. SB

      (laughs)

    7. DP

      Um, "How are we all gonna live our lives anymore?" (laughs) Right? And then they would have said, "Well, what are gonna be the jobs? Like, everyone works in farming." And it's like, well, there's gonna be this whole new system. There will be a completely new economic system called the industrial system, and it's gonna replace everything. So back in the agricultural age, uh, if you're a lord, right, and if you're rich, if you are successful, you had vast tracts of agricultural land. But as soon as the industrial age kicked in, you didn't even need land. You only needed a tiny amount of land to put a factory on. What mattered is that you had the ability to organize labor and machinery, and if you could organize a factory that was way more economically productive than a hu- hundreds of acres. So the whole economic system got tipped on its head, and suddenly it didn't matter if you're a duke. It mattered if you're an industrialist, if you're a capitalist. So this whole new system took over. We had 200 years of innovation, and it went through multiple waves. But the important thing to know is that it's technology that change things, right? It's always a technology shift, right? The, the, the fundamentals of the economy are dictated by the technology that we have available to us. So what happened around the 2000s to 2020 is we had these general-purpose technologies that just got introduced as though they were nothing. You know, e- suddenly, everyone can publish a video online. Suddenly, everyone can write a blog. Suddenly, everyone can tweet. Everyone can form a community on Facebook. Uh, there's this device that you put in your pocket that is better than a, uh, traditional camera studio that the BBC would have had. So the, the power was just rapidly swinging from institutions to individuals. I'm sitting there going, "Wait a second, an individual has got all the things that a multinational corporation has access to, but they don't have the bureaucracy, right? They don't have the, the weight on their shoulders. They don't make slow decisions. They can make fast decisions." So as I witnessed this technology being introduced, I said, "The way this is going is it's gonna take all the power of big businesses and institutions and just give that to individuals."

  8. 18:25 – 21:33

    Technology Is Giving Power to Individuals

    1. SB

      That's exactly what happened.And it, I mean, if there was ever a year where that's been more in focus with this election cycle and what we've seen with Trump and r- going on Rogan and, uh, Kamala going on Alex Cooper in the media lens...

    2. DP

      That, that's what cost the election. So that's a big trend. Um, US presidential elections have always predicted major trends. So Franklin Roosevelt in the '30s, he did the national radio campaign. JFK in the '60s did the televised campaign. Obama in 2008 did the social media campaign. Each of those campaigns changed the game. Trump in 2016 did a hyper-personalized digital data-driven campaign, uh, famously with Cambridge Analytica, and that actually gave birth to data analytics and hyper-personalization. And then something big happened in 2024, and what happened is that Trump broke the mold on campaigning and he started going on all these major podcasts.

    3. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    4. DP

      And if we actually crunch the numbers, Trump, uh, did something like 40 hours worth of watch time, uh, and it got 124 million views. And, uh, Kamala did, I think it was seven hours-

    5. SB

      Just in the long form.

    6. DP

      Yeah, just on the long form. Ka- she did seven hours total, and it only got a few million views. And one of her podcasts only lasts seven minutes. Now what she did is she approached it like a McKinsey consultant, which is she turned up and she said, "Here's the script, here's the questions. Um, ask me these questions and then I'm out of here." And it was very much the kind of, um, professional corporate approach. Trump rocks up onto comedian's podcast and says, "Yeah, ask me anything." And then he just goes on a big rant, and it goes for three hours. Now what's actually happening is, is quite predictable. In a world of short videos, and in a world of AI, and in a world of confusion and disruption, and, and where everyone's throwing, um, punches at each other saying, "You're misinformation. You're misinformation." You've seen some of this, right, going on?

    7. SB

      Of course.

    8. DP

      Right? Misinformation, misinformation. What's actually going on is that people say, "Hey, enough's enough. I wanna see a long form piece of content and make my own mind up. I don't want anyone to tell me what's inf- misinformation. I'm smart enough, I wanna see if this Trump guy is a crazy guy, I wanna be able to see him, you know, for two or three hours and I'll make my own mind up on that, because everyone's saying so many different things and I know that there's all this confusion. I want the long form piece of content." So 2024 began the long form unscripted era, right? So now where we are with marketing is you've gotta drop the script and you've gotta do long form content. And here's my prediction. The prediction is, is we're gonna see the biggest CEOs in the world clamoring to get onto this podcast and other podcasts like it. They're all gonna be wanting desperately to build their personal brand because they know that the long form unscripted podcast is the only way to hire talented people, the only way to get loyal customers, the only way to keep investors happy. It's going to be the key to the entire shooting match is that the CEO of a big company has to become human and they have to be unscripted.

  9. 21:33 – 22:48

    Leaders Have to Become Human and Unscripted

    1. DP

    2. SB

      And what advice would you give them? 'Cause you consult for a lot of people. They come to you for advice, whether it's the biggest influencers of the world or CEOs. If, if you were giving them advice on how to achieve that goal, what would you say?

    3. DP

      Well, I, I mostly talk to entrepreneurs and I mostly care about entrepreneurs. And the advice I give to entrepreneurs is work your way up the podcast pyramid. Um, so there's literally thousands and thousands of podcasts that get a few thousand views. Just go on those. Go on lots of them. Um, if you do a good job, you'll eventually be invited onto a slightly bigger one, and you'll eventually be invited onto a slightly bigger one again. And there's this pyramid of, you know, there's, there's a few podcasts as big as yours but there's thousands of podcasts in every single niche and vertical where anyone can go on and, uh, you know, talk about who they are and what they do. So for any entrepreneur, my challenge to them, the ones that I'm working with, is an absolute minimum I want them to create 10 to 20, uh, hours of watch time in the year ahead. So I want people to go on 10 podcasts that li- last for two hours, or one to two hours, and I want them talking through their business story, their origin, their mission, their vision, uh, you know, how they got started, the types of people they employ, the types of customer problems they solve, the outcomes they deliver. All of that, put it all into a podcast, get good at that format.

  10. 22:48 – 24:50

    Communicating Ideas: NSFAG Technique

    1. DP

    2. SB

      You publish in lots of ways, right?

    3. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      You publish written form, you publish in video. Is there anything at all that's, if there was one single thing that's helped you become better at speaking or communicating ideas, and you can't say no, I'll, I'll take away the restraints what would you say it is?

    5. DP

      Frameworks.

    6. SB

      Frameworks. What does that mean?

    7. DP

      So you need communication frameworks. So if I'm introducing myself, uh, to someone, I use something called name, same, fame, aim and a game. So (laughs) we can break that down.

    8. SB

      Please.

    9. DP

      Um, what is my name and my business name? Uh, what is, uh, what is it that I'm the same as that you already understand? Uh-

    10. SB

      Okay, let's pause there. Why is, wh- why does that matter?

    11. DP

      Uh, when people are storing information, they need to open a folder and they wanna open a folder that's very easy to label. So, um, they don't wanna open a folder that says like, "I'm an energetic healer that works with transmutational objects that, that c- transcend time, space and blah, blah, blah."

    12. SB

      (laughs)

    13. DP

      They wanna go, "Oh, y- you know, you're a life coach. Okay, great. I understand that." Or, "You're a vet. Okay, cool. You're a consultant. You're, you're here, you know, you're a software company. Got it." So it's like just the most basic thing that I can then hang everything on that.

    14. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    15. DP

      Um, 'cause I already understand it. So name, same. Fame, so fame is like what makes you interesting, what makes you fascinating. What big brands have you worked with? What interesting projects have you landed? Uh, so anything that would make you stand out. Any big numbers, any awards, any big names. Um, any of that would be your fame. Um, so name, same, fame. Aim, what are you working on in the next 90 days?

    16. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    17. DP

      And then game, what is your bigger vision? What do you want to achieve in the next three to six years?

    18. SB

      I think a lot of people aren't even clear on that.

    19. DP

      A lot of people aren't, and that's why the framework's powerful, 'cause it forces you to get clear on it.

    20. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    21. DP

      If you then get clear on it, you can introduce yourself with power and authority. Uh, you can do the beginning of a podcast, you can be on a stage. Just introducing yourself at a networking function. Believe it or not, you can cram all of that into 30 seconds.

  11. 24:50 – 27:59

    The Game of Personal Branding

    1. DP

    2. SB

      Mm-hmm. And so going back to this point of preparation, right? So one of the big things that is gonna give me a significant competitive advantage if I'm building a business is personal branding. What else do you think someone like me s- at the start of my career needs to understand about the game of personal branding? Is there, are there any particular platforms I should be aiming at, a particular upload cadence, a particular type of content?

    3. DP

      Here's what you need to know. You need to know that humans have a limited ability to remember names and faces. They only have a small number of slots in their brain for who they remember, and it- the number is about 1,500 in total, um, and it's about 150 that you can kind of remember well. And these are called Dunbar's numbers, and Dunbar's numbers basically said you've got a few slots for your family, and then some more slots for friends, then you've got your acquaintances, right out to 1,500 people that you can easily put a name and a face to. In order to y- for you to be successful, you've got to get into people's head. They have to kinda know who you are. Um, in order to do that, they have to spend time with you, they have to have rep- uh, repetition with you, and they have to see you in multiple contexts. So the research says seven, 11, four. Seven hours, 11 interactions, on four platforms.

    4. SB

      Per?

    5. DP

      In order for you to remember me.

    6. SB

      Okay, total.

    7. DP

      Right?

    8. SB

      Okay.

    9. DP

      So for example, you and I, we've now connected a few times. Um, so we have probably clocked up maybe seven hours together.

    10. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    11. DP

      Now what that means is that, uh, if I bumped into you at a conference, even if I was on one side of the room and you were on the other side of the room, you'd say, "Oh, there's Daniel." Your brain would immediately go, "Oh, there's Daniel. I'll walk over. I'll say hello," because we've spent enough time together. Um, now there's this phenomenon called parasocial relationships. Parasocial relationships are basically one-sided relationships. It- it's how we feel towards famous people. So we think that we know George Clooney. We think that we know Angelina Jolie. We don't. It's a parasocial relationship. That person, we've spent time with them through their movies, through their media appearances, and therefore because they've clocked up seven, 11, four with us, we then feel that we know them.

    12. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    13. DP

      Is this making sense?

    14. SB

      Makes perfect sense.

    15. DP

      Yeah.

    16. SB

      Yeah.

    17. DP

      So what we have to do is build parasocial relationships at scale. So what we have to do is put out enough stuff where anyone can spend seven hours, 11 interactions, four... on four platforms. So when I work with entrepreneurs, here's one of the questions I always ask. I say, "If I was to block out tomorrow, and I'm gonna take all day to watch, read, or listen to everything that you've got available online, and, uh, I'm looking for things that are on message that tell me about who you are, who you serve, what it is that you do, can I spend all day going through your online environment and just fill the entire day?" And most people say no, and then occasionally some people say yes, and they say, "Yeah, actually you can. I've been on a few podcasts. I've got an audiobook that I released. I've got some videos on YouTube. I've got some posts on LinkedIn. You could go through all of that." Those are the ones that are scaling really fast because they've put in the work to be scalable. They can build a parasocial relationship (snaps fingers) like that.

  12. 27:59 – 32:53

    Creating Differentiation in a Noisy Crowd: 5 Things

    1. DP

    2. SB

      And if we drill down into the art of building a parasocial relationship-

    3. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      ... because it's funny. At the start of the conversation you said that these are the new rules in business, in the world because of these macro changes, but at some point the new rules become the old rules again-

    5. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SB

      ... when everyone listens to this podcast-

    7. DP

      Everyone's doing it, yeah.

    8. SB

      ... and you kinda see it at the moment on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a, um, a long stream of professional personal brand builders, whereas five years ago, it wasn't the ca- the case.

    9. DP

      But, but, but the, but the numbers are still only 1% of people are doing it.

    10. SB

      Yeah.

    11. DP

      99% of people aren't posting weekly.

    12. SB

      So we're still early.

    13. DP

      We're still way early.

    14. SB

      But is there-

    15. DP

      And-

    16. SB

      ... is there a, uh, a framework for creating some kind of differentiation amongst a, a noisy crowd?

    17. DP

      Yes.

    18. SB

      'Cause it's... yeah.

    19. DP

      Yeah. So the, the differentiation... So a lot of people ask me about differentiation. So let's talk about what makes you different, and to you... to talk about this, let's go through a scenario, and the scenario is that you're walking down the street, and you're walking down Oxford Street, and it's thousands of people, really busy street. And as you're walking down, your brain has this limbic system that just deletes people. So you just kinda see people as blobs not to hit, and you just kinda walk. And if I stop you at the end of the street, and I say, "How many people do you remember seeing?" You'll go, "None. I don't remember seeing anyone in particular." If I said, "Describe some of the people, what they were wearing," "I can't remember anything." So your brain is extremely good at deleting messages, and this is what's happening in our marketplaces. People just delete everything. Here's what doesn't get deleted. So there's, there's five things that will not be deleted by the brain. The first one is scary. So if something is scary, we pay attention to it. This is why the news has been so successful for many, many years because they say if it bleeds it leads. If it's scary, if it's horrible, people will watch it. Let's find the ho- m- the worst possible things that happened today. Let's blow 'em up and put 'em in everyone's house so that they spend time watching, uh, watching the news. So s-

    20. SB

      So, so be a scary person.

    21. DP

      So be scary, right? (laughs) Uh, the next one is be strange. So if you saw someone walking down the street, eh, uh, dressed as a giant hotdog, you'd say, "Oh, I remember the guy who was dressed as a giant hotdog," 'cause it's so strange.

    22. SB

      Peacocking.

    23. DP

      Yep. Well, peacocking, yeah. Uh, you could try, yeah, exactly. You could wear that big kind of hat that you've got in the cupboard that, uh, that we don't talk about.

    24. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    25. DP

      Uh, and then the next one's sexy. So, so we've got strange. We've got scary. We've got sexy. Now these are three things that most businesses don't wanna be. So most businesses can't stand out, and sexy even if they wanted to be that, (laughs) most people can't pull that one off anyway.

    26. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    27. DP

      Um, so only a few lucky people get to do that one. Um, but actually the last two are the ones that are most useful.... and that is providing free value, so free things. Anyone who gives free value away is immediately stand out.

    28. SB

      Okay, we've got to make sure that it is value.

    29. DP

      It's gotta be value.

    30. SB

      Because everyone thinks what they're doing is value.

  13. 32:53 – 36:44

    How to Test the Demand for Your Product

    1. SB

      to get- to get going. And I- I know this myself because when I was 18, one of the things that I realized, in hindsight was working for me, was I looked a bit strange. I had this big, which some people will find photos of, this big hat that I used to wear, and I would wear it everywhere. I wore it because my hair was shit.

    2. DP

      Interesting.

    3. SB

      But it became this like... this distinctive thing that, at conferences, at events, on my LinkedIn, it became part of my brand. That's why I interjected with the word peacocking because looking-

    4. DP

      That was... Yeah.

    5. SB

      ... slightly different in some way does actually... Yeah.

    6. DP

      It does work. Yeah, it cuts- cuts through the noise. The other thing too, let's go to your friends, the 21-year-olds in, uh, Cape Town. One of the first things we can do for free is we can, um, productize what's called the demo, and the customer needs analysis.

    7. SB

      Right.

    8. DP

      So let's get really tactical here. Um, when it comes to what most people do to launch a business, they make a real focus on the supply of what they do. So if they... Let's say they wanna do a drinks business, they're going to like talk to bottling companies, and they're gonna talk to, you know, "How much do I have to spend buying the fruit to put in the tea?" And do all that sort of stuff. They're thinking about the supply of what they do. Um, if they're gonna launch a consulting company, they're thinking about, "Oh, do I have the right MBA qualifications?" And all of this stuff is the supply side of what they do. What we wanna do when we launch anything is we wanna test the demand of what we do. So testing demand, the best way to do this is... or one of the best ways to do this, is to productize the demo and a customer needs analysis.

    9. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    10. DP

      So that is where we go around and we sell a presentation that might be 15 minutes to an hour, where we present what it is that we can do and how it works and the principles of how it works, and then we collect enough data to identify whether you've got the need for that product. So it's called a customer needs analysis. So the demo and the customer needs analysis, you can package that up so it feels like a product. It feels like something free of value. Um-

    11. SB

      So give me an example then, using, "I'm gonna launch a- a new coffee."

    12. DP

      Yeah.

    13. SB

      And it's... The- the point of difference with my coffee is it is gonna bigger for your libido.

    14. DP

      Fantastic. So, uh, let's imagine that we're gonna sell that through retailers.

    15. SB

      Yeah.

    16. DP

      And the real customer is not the end user. It's the retailer who's gonna stock it. So what I would do is I would say, "We've got a new coffee brand coming, and it's all about coffee for libido boosting." Um, "And what we wanna do is we wanna present to you the data, the research, as to how this coffee works and why it works and all of that sort of stuff. We wanna show you the branding. We wanna show you like what this is gonna look like, and then also, what we wanna do is set up a customer needs analysis where we collect the data from several of your locations to find out in advance whether people would sample this product, whether they'd buy this product, how much they'd spend." Um, "So we will, at our expense, do the clip boarding, or we'll do the, um, wait list campaign, um, or we will, uh, collect the data, uh, through, um, a- you know, a coming soon promotion. So essentially, what we're gonna do is we're gonna present the data and we're gonna do the customer needs analysis, or present the demo, the customer needs analysis, and that's all gonna be packaged up as our first thing." Now mind you, we may have no coffee at this point. We may actually have no physical product. But big retailers, they move slow anyway. Even if you had product, they wouldn't buy it today. So they're gonna say, "Oh, that's fantastic. That's what we'd like to do. We wanna collect the data and we wanna see the demo and see the research." So by packaging that up as a first step, uh, you're actually providing initial value.

    17. SB

      Do you know one of the things that I don't think I've ever talked about that I think, um, entrepreneurs and people that are founding companies should really consider is if you're thinking about, let's say, writing a book, instead of writing the book and then hoping it does well-

    18. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    19. SB

      ... what you should do is you should take the book idea you have and then run it as a Facebook ad.... run a hundred different titles,

  14. 36:44 – 45:29

    $200 to Figure Out the Demand for Something

    1. SB

      um, and when people click on that Facebook ad, they hit waiting list.

    2. DP

      Yes.

    3. SB

      Now, in that whole process, what you've just done there is you figured out the exact percentage of people that will click-

    4. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    5. SB

      ... on, um, a hundred different ideas. So for my upcoming book, one of the things that I did, and some people listening to this now would have seen the ads, is I ran 70 book tu- titles.

    6. DP

      Mm. Beautiful.

    7. SB

      So 70 books like this would have popped up in your feed, and people have clicked on them, and they've said, "I want... I would like-"

    8. DP

      Yeah.

    9. SB

      "... that book." They put their email address in or something like that. And now I have this data, and I can tell off the top of my head-

    10. DP

      Which is the most successful.

    11. SB

      ... 15% of people clicked a certain one, and the worst performing one was clicked by 0.3% of people.

    12. DP

      Mm.

    13. SB

      And I could have written a book, um, about that 0.3. And my maths isn't exceptional, but the variance between a 0.3% conversion and a 15% conversion-

    14. DP

      Mm.

    15. SB

      ... is, like... What- what is that? 1,500% or something crazy. Um, and all... And it was f- and it was cost me 200 quid to run the test.

    16. DP

      Yeah. Um, that's the beauty of Facebook ads, you know, you can do a ce- I mean, at any given time, we've got hundreds of different variations of ads running, and they... It's like, you know, the, it's basically The Hunger Games for which ad performs better.

    17. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    18. DP

      Um, and people don't do this sort of stuff, and this is how professionals like yourself launch businesses. So, um, with anything that I'm launching, whether it's a book or a product or a new business, we're gonna run a set of Facebook ads, probably 10, 20, 30 different variations. When you click on the link, it says, "This product's no longer available in your area," or, "This product is not yet available in your area."

    19. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    20. DP

      Um, "But you can join the waiting list. Click here to join the waiting list." Now, once people click to join the waiting list, uh, that's where we ask about five or six key questions. So there's this thing inside people's head called the situational model, and the situational model is, where am I now? Where do I wanna be? What's in my way? And what do I perceive as the path of least resistance? So, all the questions that we ask are, tell me about who you are today. Which best describes your current situation? Tell me about where you wanna be. Which best describes the outcome that you're looking for from this product or service? Uh, what's in the way? Which best describes the reason you've not been able to get that outcome in the past?

    21. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    22. DP

      And what are you currently considering as an option for getting that outcome, right? So those are the key, four key questions. Then we might ask some price questions. Uh, what price do you feel would be a fair price to pay? What price do you think would be so cheap that it would make you question the quality? What price would be so expensive, um, that you would no longer be able to afford this? So we'll ask a few pricing questions. So we don't just get people to join a waiting list.

    23. SB

      Sure.

    24. DP

      We're saying, we wanna understand the situational model, because here's the interesting thing, especially with other products, not necessarily books, but with other products, sometimes you get a lower click-through rate, sometimes you get, um, what appears to be cheaper marketing, but it attracts the wrong person.

    25. SB

      Yeah.

    26. DP

      And then sometimes you get a poorer performing marketing campaign, so this one might produce leads at 10 pounds a lead, this one might produce leads at 20 pounds a lead, but this one might be attracting students who are broke, and this one might be ch- attracting chief executive officers who are on $500 grand a year. I'd rather pay 20 pounds for that client than 10 pounds for that client.

    27. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    28. DP

      So by getting the situational model, uh, we can actually then understand which is the best campaign.

    29. SB

      Is there anything else that's really sort of pertinent to testing if my idea has legs? And I, I wanna just add an element to this which is, we're not just talking here about the first idea, we're talking about every product you then release in the future.

    30. DP

      Every, every product, every business, th-

  15. 45:29 – 48:08

    How Friction Creates Value

    1. DP

      they wanna buy.

    2. SB

      In my last book, The Diary Of A CEO: 33 Laws, I talk about, um, the idea that friction can create value.

    3. DP

      Mm.

    4. SB

      And I give examples of where someone has added friction to the customer process, and it's resulted in more people buying.

    5. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SB

      And one of the studies I talk about is where they took two groups of people. They exposed one of them to a survey in order to enter a discussion group.

    7. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    8. SB

      Right? So they had to go through this survey process to get in. And they let the second group straight into the discussion group.

    9. DP

      Yup.

    10. SB

      And then they asked both groups to rate how valuable and enjoyable they found their discussion group to be. Now, the group that had had to go through a survey to get in-

    11. DP

      Yeah.

    12. SB

      ... reported that the discussion group was, like, really interesting, et cetera, et cetera. And the group that had been let straight in reported that it was boring.

    13. DP

      (laughs)

    14. SB

      And it was an intentionally boring group, the st- so they made an intentionally-

    15. DP

      Yeah.

    16. SB

      ... boring group. But just because you made someone go through a process to get in-

    17. DP

      Yeah.

    18. SB

      ... people reported that it was more valuable than otherwise, which says something about our psychology.

    19. DP

      Well, friction does create value. Um, demand and supply tension is the ultimate test of value. Um, you know, it's horrible to say, and I- I hate this being true, but there is no such thing as objective value. Nothing is objectively valuable.

    20. SB

      Yeah.

    21. DP

      Everything is subjective. Why is a bitcoin worth what a bitcoin is? Because there's more buyers than sellers. There's demand and supply tension. Why is water free? Because it's freely available, there's no friction. Why do we never stop and think about how incredible it is that we have Google Maps? And like, we go, like, "Oh my goodness, someone spent a billion dollars sending satellites up so that I can have maps on my phone for free." Like, no one's weeping tears of joy for Google Maps, and we should be-

    22. SB

      Mm.

    23. DP

      ... because h- you know, someone spent a billion dollars on our behalf so we've got free maps on our phone. But there's no friction around it.

    24. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    25. DP

      Now if they suddenly said, "We're taking it away," we'd hit the roof.

    26. SB

      Yeah.

    27. DP

      And if they said it's 10 bucks a month, we'd pay 10 bucks a month.

    28. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    29. DP

      Um, so friction creates value. Um, demand and supply tension creates value. Now the very difficult thing that we have in the world right now is that in a digital environment, there's n- no natural tension, right? So 100 million people can watch a video in a week, and, you know, it transcends time, space, wear and tear. There's no barriers, n- there's nothing that stops it. The money accumulates around those tension points. So the successful businesses that know how to use the digital environment to drive up demand and manufacture desire and manufacture demand, and then they have choke points in their business or tension points in their business where demand and supply tension is rife, and those are the places where they monetize.

    30. SB

      Mm-hmm.

  16. 48:08 – 50:26

    The 10/90 Percent Model

    1. DP

      right? So as- as we go through this big transition, the affluence is all up in the top 10%. So we did some research into this. The top 1% of people in your audience, in everyone's audience, whether you're a, you know, LinkedIn account or whether you've got millions of followers, m- top 1% have got a total of 15% of the budget available to spend. The next 9% have got 45% of the budget available to spend. So in the top 10%, there is 60% of the available budget, and then the bottom 90% collectively have 40%.... so what happens is that the new business model that's emerging is that you give free value to the bottom 90% and you don't ask anything in return, but you monetize the top 10%. And you find things that are very special, very rare, special experiences, special products, limited editions, um, communities, uh, special access, the top 10% have got all the money, so you just give free value to 90% of people and you only create products and services for the top 10%. That's very much a new business model at the moment.

    2. SB

      And the 90% are driving your content, your business, your product to the t- top 10% through their engagement, their sharing, etcetera?

    3. DP

      Well, it's a fractal. It doesn't matter what you do, the top 1% will ... even if, but (laughs) ... even if you only did something for billionaires, the top 1% of billionaires have got 15% of the total budget, and the, and the bottom 90% of billionaires have actually only got 40% of the budget. If you take the Forbes list, it's still, those numbers still apply. Um, the key is, is that you ... well, actually what you wanna do is the opposite, you don't wanna get dragged down into the 90%, because the 90% are the noisiest, they're the loudest, so if you ask everyone, "How much should I charge?" The average answer is gonna be $500. But if you ask the top 1% "How much should I charge?" the average answer is gonna be $15,000 to $20,000.

    4. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DP

      So, you have to be very, very careful not to create a product that gets dragged down towards the 90%, 'cause the 90% don't have the budget to pay the top money. You're far better off having a way of, um, uh, y- a way of segmenting that top 10% so that you can actually pick up the signal from them and not the noise from everybody else.

  17. 50:26 – 52:25

    The Entrepreneur Sweet Spot: Should You Pursue an Idea for 10 Years?

    1. DP

    2. SB

      Are there any other frameworks that you would use in that early stage where you're trying to figure out if your idea has traction, or even from a sort of motivation psychology s- perspective, if it's worth pursuing this thing for the next 10 years of your life? Because we talk a lot about, okay, if someone's clicked on it, someone ... there's demand and interest, but the journey of an entrepreneur is an emotional one.

    3. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      And as you often say, there's ... you go through hell and high water-

    5. DP

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SB

      ... ups and downs as an entrepreneur, so there's an element of this which is like y- figuring out what you wanna commit your life to.

    7. DP

      Mm-hmm. Well, we call this the entrepreneur sweet spot, and the entrepreneur sweet spot is a Venn diagram, and you're trying to balance between your passion-

    8. SB

      Yeah.

    9. DP

      ... the problem and the value of the problem that you solve, and how much people are willing to pay for that. So passion, problem, payment. Uh, so ultimately, things that we're highly passionate about, that's great but that only ticks one box. And if you're passionate about something but you're not solving a problem for others and they're not willing to pay you for it, you're gonna feel very unrewarded, you're gonna feel, um, disconnected, maybe you feel even unethical, uh, about that. Uh, a lot of people in corporate jobs, they solve a problem and they get paid well but they're not passionate about it, and what they tend to do is throw the baby out with the bath water and they go and pursue being a yoga instructor from being a corporate lawyer, and then they wonder why they got no money, 'cause they just kinda threw away the thing that they're very good at and the thing that they get paid for and just exchanged it. So what we have to do is actually try and capture all three by making some compromises, and the compromises are, I'm not gonna go to the thing that is the extreme of passion, and I'm not gonna go to the thing that's the extreme of financial rewards, not gonna go to the extreme of my intellectual property and my problem-solving abilities, I'm gonna find something that is in the middle that ticks all of those boxes so I've, I'm getting a good blend.

    10. SB

      While understanding that, um, there's gonna be a trade-off, there's gonna be (overlapping dialogue)

    11. DP

      There's got to be some trade-offs.

    12. SB

      Yeah.

    13. DP

      Yeah. You can't have, you can't have it all at the extremes. You can have it all but not, uh, all, uh, at the extremes.

  18. 52:25 – 1:05:18

    Does Geography Matter in Success?

    1. DP

    2. SB

      You, you talked about something at the start of this conversation, you mentioned the word geography, um, as we were talking about the macro factors that are at play and the transitions we've seen. My question to you is, does geography matter for success as an entrepreneur? So those kids in Cape Town, do they need to be thinking, "Listen, we need to move to one of the major cities if we're gonna ha- stand a chance in most of these new digital, um, opportunities"?

    3. DP

      It used to matter a lot. When we used to think about entrepreneurs, we thought about two men, typically in their 20s, who came from an- a prestigious US university, they got into a garage, they, you know, they dropped-

    4. SB

      Google.

    5. DP

      ... they dropped out of Harvard, they dropped out of Stanford, uh, and then they started something that was VC-backed. That was the old model of what we think of as an entrepreneur, and it was very much dependent upon those parameters. Entrepreneurship's transcended that. It's transcended geography, gender, race, um, and- and also the s- size and scale of what we consider to be successful. So what we're now seeing is people all over the world who are able to connect with markets anywhere in the world, launch a product that can be sold anywhere in the world, um, we're seeing people who bootstrap rather than get VC capital, uh, we're seeing people who, um, rather than trying to create something mass market, they create something niche market, rather than trying to scale to be a unicorn, they actually ask the question, "At what size would I be fulfilled?" So there are plenty of people who ... do you kn- ... well, one of the most fulfilling businesses that you'll ever have has between six and 12 people and does three or four million of revenue, and if you've got that, probably you're gonna be the most fulfilled person in the world. Um-

    6. SB

      If it's profitable.

    7. DP

      Yeah. Well, 'cause a lot of these businesses have 60% margins. If they're-

    8. SB

      Right.

    9. DP

      ... digital businesses, if they're intellectual property, um, you know, if they're running on the new economy assets, then they'll be wildly profitable, so you might have six to 12 people do two or three million a year, you might make a million of clear profit, um, and then you're totally building a business on fun, freedom, and fulfillment. Y- are you the next Google? Absolutely not. Do you have VCs breathing down your neck? No. Um, are you able to pick and choose the types of people and opportunities you wanna work with? Yes. So incredibly fulfilling. So that's a new type of business, I would call that a lifestyle boutique. Um, there's another type of business called a performance business, um, and this is a business that typically has 30 people normally working with some sort of technology and they build a business th-... they build a business that can be sold for between $10 and $100 million. And that's my, that's my game. I like businesses that achieve $10 to $100 million of valuation with about 30 people on a team, and we can sell to either a public listed company, a private equity backed company. Um, we can exit to any of those kind of companies, but, you know, we don't have to be the next Google, and we also don't have to split the exit with a VC.

    10. SB

      Why do you say that when you also just said that the most fun and fulfilling businesses are actually those small ones with a small group of people?

    11. DP

      In order to go to that next level, you have to be a business geek. So anyone can build a six to 12 person business, and at that point, all you have to geek out on is the topic of interest to the customer. So if your customer loves yoga, you're just talking about yoga all the time. Or if your customer loves photography, you're talking about photography, and you don't have to be a business geek at that point. When you've got a team of about 30 to 100, uh, you have to be a, you have to be totally into the product, the intellectual property of what you do, but you also have to geek out on technology, and you also have to geek out on business. So, not everyone is built for that. You have to really love your acronyms. You need to, like, oh, go-to-market strategy or, you know, lifetime value of a client. Oh, okay, what's the LTV? What's the GT, you know, GTM? So you kind of got to be into all of those things, uh, quite naturally. You naturally wanna read business books. Um, so you, you're not gonna enjoy that if you hate business or if you hate technology 'cause those businesses tend to be about, um, business strategy and tech. These ones are about intellectual property, media, and data.

    12. SB

      Got you. Do you think you'd be happier if you were less ambitious?

    13. DP

      Um, I, my happiness levels are really high. Um, I walk around feeling like I'm super lucky to do what I do, and it's total privilege, and I love living in these times. I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be born at the perfect time to see this tr- change and, and to have access to all these resources.

    14. SB

      And what d'you, how d'you think about work/life balance these days, and how should, especially sort of young founders... When I say young founders, I don't mean age, I mean stage, um, should be thinking about work/life balance in your view?

    15. DP

      So I had no balance for many years, probably a decade or more. Um, all I did was, uh, essentially just get out of bed, work, uh, everything related to work. And the reason I did that is that it ticked all of my human needs, right? I was getting significance and variety. Um, and I was, um, uh, you know, getting, uh, certainty, and I was getting all of those things that we want from life, and I was g- feeling a sense of growth and development and learning. So everything plugged into those human needs, and my business was giving me all of that. When I had, uh, kids and I got married, there was this whole other side to me that needed to be balanced, and I think that there's more to do with there's some seasons. Like, that we go through sprints, and I tell friends, family, uh, "Hey, I'm going through a bit of a sprint right now. We're launching something new." Um, and then there are times where I switch off a lot.

    16. SB

      Do, do you goal set at all? Do you set goals in episode 1?

    17. DP

      You know, I used to, I used to set goals, and I used to love setting goals. I don't anymore because my key person of influence brand brings in opportunities that I can't predict. So this Diary of a CEO thing was an example of that. I had all these goals for 2024, and then you message me while I'm skiing and say, "Would you like to come on the show?" (laughs) And I go, "Of course, that would be amazing." So I come on the show, and then that totally transformed my year. So as you build a brand, it's harder to goal set because you've got too many things. So goal setting is about direct power, direct influence, and, um, having a brand is about indirect power or indirect influence. It's what you attract. So, uh, ultimately, at the early stages, goal setting's really important because it's how do I direct my energy? Once you get a little bit bigger, you have to h- slow down to speed up. You have to create space to see what's happening around you. One of the biggest mistakes I've ever made was filling my diary so full that I didn't see some of the biggest opportunities that were going on around me, and I think this has cost me tens of millions. And I really think, at a certain level, strategically, you have to slow down to speed up. You have to create gaps where things can hit you, things can get onto your radar, um, or else you miss all the benefits of having a great brand.

    18. SB

      So I had a few questions here. One of them is about how you measure or quantify the value of an opportunity looking forward when you have very little information about the opportunities.

    19. DP

      So, so what we're, what we're trying to move towards is leverage, so th- we live in a world of leverage, and there are types... So, so it's important to understand there are type, two types of opportunities. There's bell curve opportunities and power law opportunities. So bell curve opportunities means that everything fits within a bell curve, and it's very unlikely that anything will be outside of that bell curve. Power law opportunities means that because of leverage, the sky's the limit. Um, what we have to do is have the courage to move out of bell curves and into power laws. So, for example, a doctor in the NHS, who I know, um, recognized that all doctors earn roughly the same amount of money. There's no outliers. Everyone who works in the NHS, if you're a new doctor, you earn about this. If you have been around for 20 years, you earn about this, um, and most people fit within that bell curve. There's no doctors who are making a million a month-

    20. SB

      (laughs)

    21. DP

      ... um, type thing. Then there's the power l- law. This particular guy dropped out of being an NHS doctor to become a YouTuber and recognized that there are some YouTubers who are actually earning a million a month, and boom. There is this power law that goes up. So what we're trying to find out-

    22. SB

      Ali Abdaal. (laughs)

    23. DP

      Yes, of course, Ali Abdaal. So what we're trying to figure out is we're trying to figure out, um, is this a bell curve or a power cur- uh, power law? So being a speaker on a stage, absolutely a power law, uh, move. Being friends with a billionaire in Italy and having access to that capital, access to h- whatever networks they've got, all of that sort of stuff, if they're the right sort of person... There's definitely two types of billionaires, but-

    24. SB

      Yeah.

    25. DP

      ... but, uh, that's probably an exponential opportunity, right? It- it- it puts you further up the power lure- power lure. Um, it's not a bell curve opportunity. Um, however, if someone says, you know, "Can we meet to talk about some incremental thing?" No, that's- that's a bell curve, right? That's not gonna- that's not gonna break me out of what I'm doing. So for most people listening to this, most people are trapped inside a bell curve. You're never gonna get out of that bell curve. Every opportunity fits within that bell curve. You're only gonna incrementally move to one- from one side of the bell curve to the other side of the bell curve, and that's about it. There is no massive upside. If that's you, what you need to be doing is spending a little bit of time talking to people about exponential opportunities, right? And exponential opportunities always involve leverage. That's what creates the exponential shift. Leverage could be fame. Leverage could be capital. Leverage could be large databases. Uh, leverage could be huge distribution networks that already exist. Leverage could be a partnership with someone who's way further along than you are. Uh, leverage could be being in business versus being in a job. So all of those things are things that move you onto the power lure. And it's- it's almost the sky's the limit at the moment because in 2010, 28% of the world had fast internet, and in 2025, 70% of the world has fast internet, so 70% of eight billion people have got fast internet. So the world, the actual- the number of people available to talk to has gone into the billions and billions and billions. The amount of capital is flooding into the internet.

    26. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    27. DP

      Um, everything is in that space. And ultimately, unfortunately, one of the things that's happening at the moment is that you're either in competition with everyone in the world or everyone in the world is a- is a potential customer. And, um, if you feel that you're in competition with everyone in the world, which a lot of people do, it's terrifying. It feels horrible. It's- it's absolutely, uh, scary to think that, you know, for a lot of businesses and a lot of individuals with a career, it's like, "Wow, I'm in competition with AI. I'm in competition with an agent, uh, an agency in India or- or a remote worker in the Philippines who's happy for $5 an hour. Um, I'm in competition with someone who's phenomenally well-funded in LA. Uh, I'm in competition with this incredible tech team in Silicon Valley."

    28. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    29. DP

      Uh, like-

    30. SB

      YouTubers.

  19. 1:05:18 – 1:11:40

    What Company Would You Start in 2025?

    1. SB

      And this, you know, for those kids on the promenade in Cape Town that I keep referring back to, if they'd asked you, if they said, uh, "Daniel, what industry would you start a business in today if you were us and you had limited funds?"

    2. DP

      Well, let- let- let's do some big trends. The- the biggest, so biggest opportunity at the moment is 50% of the economy is owned by baby boomers, people aged 61 to 79.

    3. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    4. DP

      So that's 50% of the US economy, 50% of the Australian, the New Zealand, the Canadian, the UK, right? So all the sort of major Western economies that had a baby boom, 50% of the economy is owned by people aged 61 to 79. Um, so those people are going through a big life change. They're transforming the way they live and work. They wanna get rid of their businesses. They wanna move into advisory roles. They wanna travel. They wanna have, uh, different relationships. They wanna have different priorities. Um, so I would definitely be thinking about, how do I work with that group of people? I'm either gonna buy their business and take it over, um, which would be an opportunity, I'm gonna build a business that disrupts the current way that they're doing business, um, or I'm gonna sell to that market because they're cashed up. They got loads of time, loads of money. Um, and every business could think about how it's going to sell to a baby boomer market 'cause that's 50%. Um-

    5. SB

      So a good example might be of a baby- baby boomer business.What's a good baby boomer business?

    6. DP

      Everything. The whole economy is made up of baby... Like, if we went out on the street here-

    7. SB

      Yeah.

    8. DP

      ... um, the person down the road who's fixing, who's doing the MOT on the cars is a baby boomer business. The guy who services the elevators that come up and down here, that's baby boomer. The air conditioning unit business is a baby boomer business. Um, you know, the courier company that kind of dropped everything off, it's a baby boomer business. Um, you know, the whole damn shooting match is, like, mostly, like, 50, like half the businesses and especially by revenue and valuation, it's all baby boomers, or half baby boomers at least.

    9. SB

      And there may be a sort of a digital arbitrage or opportunity that has been created with the tran- transfer of, um, with the rise of digital that they might have missed that you could seize upon?

    10. DP

      It- It massively, uh, uh, well, one of the things is that every single business in the world is gonna be disrupted by AI. Um, and you've got to be the company that, um, uses AI when they're not. Uh, and- and using AI, like being disrupted by D- AI just means that every employee is way more effective because they're using AI. So one of the simple things to disrupt a business with AI is to run a training workshop with all the people in the company about how they could use AI in their role. Um, and you could watch some videos online, and you could, uh, play with ChatGPT. Uh, recently, we imp- uh, introduced an AI system to one of, uh, our- our businesses. We have 250 video case studies of clients who are happy customers, and they've recorded a video for us. And they're amazing video case studies, but there's too many of them. There's so many video case studies. So we created an AI bot that reads and understands all of those video case studies. And then for my sales team, when they're talking to a customer, they're just typing, uh, of, they're typing in the type of scenario that that person's going through. And the bot is then suggesting, "Oh, this is the video case study. This is the customer. This is what they said, same industry as you, same problem, same challenge." And then they, "Here's the link to the video case study."

    11. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    12. DP

      So our sales team can be super effective at sending you through the exact video case study that's relevant to you-

    13. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    14. DP

      ... because the AI bot has read and understood every single one of our video case studies. Uh, so that's an example.

    15. SB

      You know, there's been so many of these technological revelations over the last 50 odd years that I look back on and thought, "Oh gosh, I wish I was there at the dot-com boom. I would have made, become a billionaire. I would have had all, you know, a variety of different ideas." Do you think AI is that now? Do you think we're living through that?

    16. DP

      We're- We're early. It's so early, right? It's- It's the moment. I- I remember when Steve Jobs launched the App Store, and that was 2007, 2007, 2008. It was two years later that Instagram was launched. It was two years later that Uber was launched. And then there was a march of hundreds of different businesses. And now applications are, you know, everywhere. The- The bigger example would be electricity. So it was the 1830s where we generated electricity, but it wasn't till the 1930s that we filled our houses full of things that ran on electricity. So it was a hundred year transition. Um, now with AI, we're at the early stage of generating AI, but we're not yet into the stage of creating everything that runs on AI. So think about, uh, a power station versus a toaster. So the power station has been invented, but there's thousands and thousands and thousands of toasters that can be invented, toasters, kettles, vacuum cleaners, things that run on electricity. So AI is like electricity, but we haven't built all the businesses that are gonna plug in and are- are gonna be great opportunities. And that's gonna be over the next 10 to 15 years, every single industry. You can't name an industry that's not gonna be impacted by this. Every industry is gonna have applications that run on AI. There's gonna be new teams. Do you know what happened just a couple of weeks ago? Uh, NVIDIA launched a supercomputer for $3,000. Now this is going to be the fundamental basis for 10 people, companies that do a billion of revenue. This is gonna be entrepreneurs who sta- who'd, like, crunch some data, figure out a little application. Because of that kind of compute power, they're gonna come up with something, and it's gonna be a billion dollar business with 10 people working on the team. There's gonna be a little healthcare unit that figures out how to crunch data and solve a, like, a really complex health problem. And they'll figure out how to do it. That supercomputer, the three grand, supersedes what people used to be spending three to six to nine grand a month on. Um, so previously, you would have had to subscribe to that level of compute, and you would have been spending, you know, $50,000 a year just for the cloud subscription to that sort of thing. Now, you, one payment of $3,000, you can be anywhere in the world crunching any amounts of phenomenal data. So just that one thing, that one innovation is gonna totally transform industries.

  20. 1:11:40 – 1:15:39

    Capitalising in AI

    1. DP

    2. SB

      I would imagine that, I'm gonna guess, 90, 95% of people that are listening right now don't know a lot about AI. They also don't really know a lot about technology, uh, to the extent that many other people do, the 5% do. For those people who are, you know, it could be the taxi driver, it could be the- the janitor, it could be a student in university studying philosophy or something, what advice would you give them? If you were the puppet master of their life now and you had to get them close to this opportunity, what are the s- the sort of steps you take towards being able to capitalize on something like NVIDIA's supercomputer?

Episode duration: 2:12:32

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