498: Is Having an Ego Beneficial or Hurtful in Entrepreneurship?

Everything you need to know about managing your ego in entrepreneurship.

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Hosted by Derek Videll

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Transcript

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What's up, guys? Welcome to the social media entrepreneurs podcast, teaching you how to become a full-time entrepreneur by leveraging modern social media strategies. I'm your host, Derek Fidel. On today's episode, we are talking about does having an ego help you in business, specifically sales? And the answer is two parts here. There are some times that having an ego is actually really beneficial. And then there's other times where having an ego is absolutely detrimental. And making that distinction is something that you're gonna want to be aware of. So to talk about when is it beneficial? It's beneficial for you in the early days before you have any kind of success, you don't have any kind of track record of success in business. So where does your confidence come from? Because you have to be confident enough to start your business. It in a way comes from ego, right? If we're saying that you are being confident before you necessarily have the proof in reality to show yourself why you should be confident. You have to come out and say, you know what, if anyone can do it, I can do it. I am gonna be able to do this. I do believe in myself, I do believe in my ideas, I do believe in my execution, I do believe in my work ethic. So you have to have a bit of an ego in that case, and it really I don't even want to call it ego because it really is more self-belief. It is bit more belief that I know that there are things that I don't know yet. I know that there are going to be struggles that will give me problems. However, I'm confident in myself that I will be able to overcome those problems when they come my way. I'm going to be able to deal with it. And uh yeah, that is a problem for future me, and I'm confident that future me is gonna be able to do it. So you gotta have a little bit of an ego when it comes to starting your business. Now, when it very much affects people is when it comes down to sales and customer service. A lot of sales appointments are you being willing to have your own ego take a hit so that your customer's ego can remain intact. And a lot of people are unwilling to do this, especially salesmen who would love to persuade people to do things. I'm gonna give you an example. Back when I used to sell Cutco knives, this would basically always happen because we would be selling at shows. I'd be at a home and garden show. People would come up and they'd say, Oh yeah, I already got knives. I could say the smart alec answer that a lot of reps like to say, where they say, Oh yeah, everyone I've ever sold to already had knives. Or, oh yeah, well, these ones are better. Like, this is for people who like quality. Oh, you already have knives? Oh, well, yeah, these ones are for people who really appreciate like the top quality. That would affect the customer's ego, even if it is true. Oh yeah, let me see those. Oh wow, these are amazing. Let me buy them. Thanks for stopping me and telling me my knives sucked. That's not gonna happen. They will cling on to their knives even further now because you just insulted their ego. Instead, you say, Oh, nice. Do you want to see like a couple things that make us unique? Sure. Do you want to see a couple of our more unique knives? Yeah, a lot of people are already happy with their knife set, but we've got some like really unique pieces. Would you want to see what those are? Sure. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Oh, looks like your knife set at home does suck, actually. I didn't I wasn't aware of that. I had no idea that this would lead to this now that we got to talking about why these knives are better. The same thing happens when I sell business coaching, especially when I try to sell business coaching, right? Now the fact that they're calling me means that they are willing to set their ego aside a bit and say, hey, I'm I'm open to what you have suggested you're gonna suggest for me. But sometimes the customer will come at it and be trying to hurt my like they they'll be trying to say, like, oh yeah, like I know what I'm doing, like I know how to run the ads, I know how to set up the website, I know how to do all this stuff. Uh I just want it was curious of some of your ideas, you know, just to consider. And and they'll kind of come at me like that. And what's funny is that the people who do this usually have like no sales, uh, like uh are are barely getting started. They've been making ads that look like shit, and they're like, oh yeah, I know how to make ads. We don't need to talk about making ads. Look, I clearly already made some. And and that like they haven't even launched them yet, or that if they have, they're not even working, and they think just the fact that they made ads uh like means that they know what they're doing because they made a website that they know how to make an optimized website. And uh yeah, this kind of goes align with like they had the ego that uh enabled them to start. They they had the ego that gave them enough confidence to start their business. And if you don't have that, then you're just never gonna start your business to begin with. So it really, this cockiness at the beginning is usually necessary, although you quickly find out in what ways it's hindering you. But as long as it got you to actually start, then then it's great. Um, but they will be very set on making their their current business work, is the other problem with ego, because they think if I just put uh enough marketing behind this, or if I just have enough belief in my company, then uh then I should be able to do amazing things, and anyone who tells me otherwise must be wrong and must be an idiot. And uh I've seen this a lot, especially with like younger kids. They'll have this business idea, they'll come to me, I'll tell them that it doesn't seem like their business idea is uh is gonna solve enough of a problem to the market, that there's not a big enough market, that they really don't know what they're doing, right? I've had some kid be like, Yeah, I'm gonna be selling designer clothes and uh I'm a brand new business, and I was like, Well, you don't really have the branding yet to be a Louis Vuitton. You can't just come out and charge Louis Vuitton prices just because you're drop shipping something from China, and then he just totally takes it in a way that I'm questioning his self-worth, that I'm questioning his his motivation. How dare I question his motivation? He's like, You're telling me that you don't think that I can come out and do designer clothing. And I was like, Yeah, absolutely not. Look, of course you can't. You don't have any brand established, like you think Rolex came out and just started selling as expensive as they are now before they had a brand established? Like, you're insane. I've had people come to me with ideas that they've been running ads for a very long time, haven't got results, and I tell them, Yeah, it looks like you'll want to switch business ideas, and they take massive offense to this. I understand because I've been in that situation before, and that was the last thing that I ever wanted to come to terms with when I had to realize that the world didn't want my aquarium smart feeder, and it didn't matter how much effort I put into growing a following, it didn't matter how much effort I put into designing my landing page, it didn't matter what price I charged, it didn't matter how many features I added to the product, it simply did not solve a problem, and after two and a half years of messing around and not selling a single one, I finally came to terms with maybe this product doesn't sell. And I really needed to see that from running a marketing agency and doing marketing consulting because what I realized is that I would have people who were super smart come on my marketing consulting calls that were not really selling anything because the product that they selected wasn't very good. And then I had absolute idiots selling over fifty thousand dollars a month of a product that I guess people wanted to buy it. Like I had this dude that was selling a push-up board, it was like one of those things where you could like change the handles to be at like lots of different positions so that you could make it work your biceps, your triceps, your shoulders, your chest, and you can do all these different variations of push-ups. And he was selling so much, and he's one of the dumbest people to ever come into my marketing program. I'm I I don't really care saying this now because it's been so many years since this guy was in the program, and now he can't sell anything. Like any product like that that's non-consumable, you have like one to two years of running ads to it max, and then it's done. Okay, and then the finite amount of people in the world have bought it. This is another problem that people's egos get in the way when I talk to people about coaching. They're like, Yeah, we used to sell a ton, now we don't sell as much. What's going on? I need you to fix the ads, and then I'll look at it and I'll be like, all right, we can do this, we can do this, we can do this. Uh, but yeah, nothing will return you to your former glory because people have already bought the massage percussion gun that want to buy it. That would be a great example, right? Those massage percussion guns that sold like crazy for one to two years, and guess what? Now, the limited amount of people in the world, because the world is small, have made a decision about it, have bought it or not. They've had one for five years that still works fine. When they finally have it break, they will go on Amazon or they will go to Target and they will buy a new one. They do not need to see your Facebook ad, and that is why your ads have stopped working, because the world has already seen what you are selling and has already decided about it. Same reason why solar is totally fucked now. You don't want to be a solar representative. Why? Because everyone has already made a decision about it. That's not a limiting belief, right? This is the where the ego comes in, is it can't decide what is a limiting belief or not accurately. And that is something that a master business person is great at. They they understand you can't get more sales until this this changes. You can't get more sales unless the world was bigger. You can't get more sales unless you uh try to expand to another country. You can't get more sales until you lower your price. There's nothing that I can say in the ad that is going to make people want to do this because there is very little that you can do to persuade people to do anything. Isn't that funny? The path to mastery in advertising is realizing, oh, I actually can't persuade anyone to do anything. All I can do is make them buy my product instead of someone else's and buy today instead of tomorrow. That is all you can do in advertising. That is all you can do. Otherwise, your sales is 90% a reflection of how big your market is and how much people want to buy your product, which is gonna be based on how big of a a problem your product solves. Your marketing can only be as good as your product unless you lie. And if you lie, then you have a very short-term company. And most people are unwilling to do that anyways, which is great. So the ego really affects business owners at the beg it at the beginning, it helps them start their business, but it immediately hinders them because they think if I just believe in myself, that's gonna be the deciding factor. If I'm just motivated, that's gonna be the deciding factor. I worked with someone who had an invention that was okay, it solved a very small problem. This is about a year or two ago. He we ran ads and he got like a uh two ROAS, okay? He doubled his money. We spent a dollar on ads, we turned it to two dollars in revenue, and then he was just like, alright, cool, let's you know, let's scale this. Like, what else can we do? What other ads can we run to get the ROAS up? And I had launched probably like 30 to 50 different ads. And guess what? It doesn't matter what the ad says, the product is 90% of what determines the ROAS. So as much as the client would like to say, Derek, your ads, you need to do better ads, or I'm gonna do a new ad agency, you are welcome to do that. They are gonna get there, they will get the same or worse results. Any ad agency that you hire after me will get the same or worse results, no ands, ifs, or buts. There is not a person on this planet who understands how to run social media ads better than me to the point that they are going to double the ROAS that I get. Does not exist. I'll say 10%, 20% higher, absolute max. So the clients think, oh wow, the ads must not be converting well enough. He must not be persuading to buy to make people buy this thing that they don't really want. That's the problem. I know they don't really want this thing that bad, but that's where you come in. You're gonna make them want it. I can't do that. You haven't bought anything in years that you did not want. Think about it. Think about all the last things that you bought. You didn't buy any of these things and get home and think, oh my gosh, why did I buy this? This doesn't even do anything for me. This doesn't even solve a problem. That damn sales rep was so good. He said if he if I did it today, I'd get a better deal. And he told me it was made in America, and he told me that um you know it's handcrafted, and he also told me that it's like top of the line, and he also showed me like three reviews from other people, and for some reason I just bought this espresso machine, even though I already have an espresso machine that I like. I don't know why I'd do this. Oh man, he persuaded me, he manipulated my mind to do something that made absolutely no sense to do. There's always a bit of sense behind whatever you are buying. There's always a lot of logic that goes into what you are buying, and you really can't avoid that you can't sell things that people don't want to buy. You really can't. There's no amount of polishing a turd that will make it edible to someone, and that is what you're asking people to do a lot of times. So that's the hard part of my job is I have to really help people understand without affecting their ego, that their problem might be that they need to switch companies. That's a big one, right? But I have to say it in a way that does not damage their ego. And that's really difficult to do in sales. I'm gonna give you some more examples. I'm gonna use the Cutco because I just have you know, I've done thousands and thousands of pitches with Cutco uh face to face, so I know exactly what the customers say, not trying to guess what must have happened when they went to my website and didn't buy. Another example would be the customer comes up and says, Oh yeah, we don't we don't need any uh a set of knives right now, and the reps like to fire back and be like, Oh yeah, that's why we sell it by the piece. Or they say, Oh, we have this brand of knives, and the rep will fire back, oh well those those knives are actually 40% less sharp than Cutco after one year of use and 110% sharper, uh less sharp after um uh two years of use, and that's because the steel that they use isn't good, isn't nearly as quality, and also like those are German made instead of American, and it's like really important to buy American made, and like those knives aren't nearly as good. Do you think that guy's gonna be like, holy cow, give me a set of these then? Oh my gosh. No, you just you just like uh directly attack their ego. You have Wustoff knives, those are incredible, sir. I I appreciate someone who who who appreciates good cutlery. You you must love to cook. Awesome. What what do you guys do? Do you guys split the cooking? One of you does most of it. He does the grilling, you do, the prep. Got it. Okay, nice. What what what is your favorite knife? What which one here? Like, what is your favorite knife to use? Nice. You have the Woostoff one of these, it's working well. When did you guys get them, by the way? Seven years. Are they are are they working as well as they did, like out of the box? Have you looked into getting them sharpened or whatever? Yeah, that's the thing. A lot of those, the Woostov knives, they're incredible out of package. And and like they're still pretty damn good, even after like three to five years of use. After a while, they kind of start to dual. You can bring them into a professional knife sharpener. The problem is they're they're going to bring back this edge. The edge is gonna recess more and more and more. You're gonna have a smaller knife. The thing with Cutco, just so you're aware, if you would ever get something from us, if you'd ever consider it, once these go dull, we'll sharpen it if there's enough edge left to sharpen. But otherwise, we'll replace the knife for free forever. Because all knives go dull, right? It's obviously nothing's gonna stay sharp forever. It's always gonna go dull eventually, but then we just replace it for you for free at that time. And then and then, okay, I'm just getting into sales mode here, but I think it's important for you to hear like what does this sound like? What is a sales rep who is not letting their ego be affected? Because a lot of the cut co reps, my my good friends, will hear an objection and take it personally, and now all of a sudden they turn into insulting the customer, uh, even if they're not meaning to, and they are directly attacking their ego, and they are making this about who's smarter, and then if I'm smarter than you, you have to buy my knives. If I outlogic you, sir, you must buy my knives. Another line would be if they say, Oh yeah, we're I I we're not gonna buy anything, we're just looking. What is the proper response? Absolutely no problem. Look away. Hey, free looks are free. Take it get as many looks as you want. What are you looking at? Right? And then just go with it. Just go with it. But a lot of sales reps like to be like, hey, if I if I listen to every customer that told me they weren't gonna buy something, I'd be I'd be broke, sir, because a bunch of customers they do tell me that they're not gonna buy anything, and then they end up buying anyways. Or I've heard one of my friends say, Yeah, it's because I haven't persuaded you yet. Okay, and that's exactly what I'm talking about, where you are trying to protect your ego while allowing the the but at the while damaging the customers. And if you think that you outlogicking the customer while making them look like an idiot in front of their wife is this solution to getting sales, then you're fucking idiot, right? Like, obviously. But it's it's a lot harder, like when you're in the moment, especially if you've sold a product for a long time and you've heard the same objections over and over and over. It it is easy to get bitter as a salesman when you hear them say the same thing and you're like, oh my gosh, of course. You of course you say that too. I fucking deal with this all day, and then you you let it go into your appointment. So that's why there is a massive hack in business to having control of your ego, and guys, it is difficult, all right? It is difficult at a certain point. I have the patient patience of a saint when it comes down to customer service. I have the patience of a Tibetan monk when it comes down to customer service. I have customers complain about their their lack of sales all the time. Well, not not really all the time, and it and it's also when it when it happens, it's like it's really not the fault of the ads. And I I know it sounds like I'm dodging accountability. I promise you, after eight years of running ads for over 700 companies, if I put out 20 ads and it's not selling, it is not because fancier ads would be the difference. It is not because ads with more graphic design would change anything. It is not because we need to spend more money or less money. It it is usually because the website needs needs some extra information added to it. The customer literally just does not have enough information to make a buying decision. Perhaps the offer is not really that great compared to your competitors' offers, and the fact that they were seeing your ads means. That they were 100% seeing your competitors' ads as well. So they come at me with like all of these BS changes that they want to make based on their lack of understanding of what's going on, and it's super annoying, right? Because I'm like, that's actually not what you need to do. And it's actually not the ad's fault. It still is uh sure, it still is my responsibility to tweak whatever is happening on your website and optimize that so that we can get sales. But if you're coming to me with all of your ideas about why you think it's not working, your ideas compared to my ideas will always be wrong. Will always be wrong at this point. And that's with most of the marketing agencies that you're gonna talk to. If they have more than five years of experience and they have run ads for over a hundred companies, let me let me say that as a baseline. If they have over five years of ad experience and they've run ads for over 100 companies, it would be very rare for your experience from your experience of running ads for one company for likely less than one year to make more sense than the ideas of the marketing person you're working with. I I would hope this would go without saying. But a lot of times in business, we like to come up with why you think it's working and you think it's the fault of someone else, and then you go in on that, and that's kind of the thing with being a marketing agency is that you have to be really good at allowing the customers to attempt to damage your ego while protecting theirs in the process, because that's kind of what good customer service looks like. Now, there is a point where you're just like, you know what, fuck you, right? I'm I'm just gonna tell you like it is, right? And and the more and more that as time goes on and the more demand I have for people to work with me, the more you can be like that. And that that's the other key to like how do you not have to be everyone's bitch, right? In in sales and marketing. You get to a point where you just have so many customers and so many people trying to work with you that as soon as someone is even rude, like you're it's you're a lot more comfortable laying down the line because you you don't have as much to lose, right? And the funny thing is, is like you usually don't lose a client in that case. They they usually just respect you more, especially once you make complete logic logical sense of it. So um that is why uh but but yeah, a lot of sales is just like the customer is going to say some stupid shit. They're gonna give you an objection that you've heard hundreds of times before. You're gonna handle it in the same way that you have hundreds of times before, pleasantly. You're going to make sure that they are not offended. You're gonna make sure that they feel like they are smart, you're gonna make sure that they feel like buying was completely their decision and was a great idea that they were able to think about on their part. They were the ones who came up with this amazing idea to buy, and that you were kind of just there, even though you know that you subconsciously were able to guide this appointment, that you were able to handle the customer's problems with poise while remaining calm and letting them run out of steam, and then showing them the path to why they were being stupid and without damaging their ego in the process. This is why a lot of people aren't good at sales and marketing and customer service. Because you're not willing to say yes when when when typically you would say no. You you're not willing to go above and beyond. You're not willing to say, hey, I I understand what you're saying, sir. Uh let's let's go let's break this down here and be patient with the customer and walk them through it in that way. I have had multiple people join my marketing program that are over 70 years old and some over 80 years old. When they have a complaint, how often do you think that complaint is based in reality? Never. Never that their complaint is never based in reality. I won't even tell you the insane stories that 80 plus year olds have complained about. You gave my computer a virus. No, I didn't, sir. You adding me to your ad account and then you getting an email from a company that you gave your information to does not mean I gave you a virus virus. So you gotta that that's a lot of what sales is, is the ability to let your customer feel like the the champion. Let them feel like they won. Let them feel like they got the the the best out of you in some of these cases, not the best out of you, but maybe they got a deal and they they feel special about it. There's only so many industries out there where you should ever be lowering your price, by the way. And the service industry is not one. But um, yeah, it is a good idea to uh to be able to do it in the product business where you're like, I want every sale, right? If you're in the in an industry where you're like every single sale I want, I want to close every single person, then you are gonna have to be able to put your ego aside. When you are in a service-based industry, such as myself, and if someone applies for my done for you service right now, I have so many people in my done for you programs that I am super strict about who else I allow because I have like 15 businesses that I'm running ads for, and I have five employees, and that is already like we've got work to do. We've got enough work to do. So unless someone comes uh to me and they're completely respectful, they really appreciate what I'm doing and they are willing to trust me and they have a business that I actually can scale, then I do have the luxury of saying, no, I'm not going to like lower my price because you you asked. Like that that basically just disqualified you, right? But when it comes down to selling my coaching program, I would rather get the sale. I would always rather get the sale. So there is times that you have to be like, you know, willing to work with people and um and let them feel like they got the uh you know uh the the the big end of the straw. Let's say that they don't have to feel like they fucked you over, but they they have to be like, that was great. That was that was a good that was awesome, right? So sounds simple enough in ex in theory, uh or but in execution it's a whole other can of worms. So I just want to bring that to light. This is how your ego can help and can hurt you.