Today You Stop
Going it Alone...
STARTUPS
Statistics from the Small Business Association shockingly reveal that 90% of small businesses (defined as those with less than 500 employees) fail. And your most vulnerable time is your first and second year.
Rather than stressing and struggling every step of the way, an expert who has been down the path many times before will take an extraordinary load off your shoulders. What may appear an impossible challenge to you, likely for me is just a hop, skip and a jump.
Here are some of the things I, or those on my team, can unburden from you:
SIMPLE PLANS:
We’ll help you stay focused with a simple business plan. Simple is better for most startups not seeking investors. You can waste a lot of precious time and money trying to come up with unnecessary projections, or so called SWAGs (Scientific Wild Ass Guesses). Rather than wasting money and weeks of your precious time, all you really need is a 1 or 2 page plan to solidify your vision and to get you forging ahead.
PLANS FOR OBTAINING INVESTORS:
If you are seeking investors, we’ll help you come up with a concrete plan that provides a roadmap for investors to clearly see your company has a viable means to eventually provide them a highly attractive ROI.
One of the greatest things you’ll discover working with me, however, is how even the most well-thought-out business plan can be your biggest roadblock in obtaining investors . . . unless you know how and when to provide the business plan.
Get that wrong and you’ll lose 90% of the investors who otherwise would indeed invest with you.
It all comes down to what you do before you ever give an investor a business plan.
Get that right and rather than having to speak with 25 to 100 investors before getting funding, you’ll bag as much as 1 out of every 3 or 4 investors, as I did.
Besides your business name, for quick success in obtaining customers, clients or investors, we’ll assist you in making your business stand miles above the crowd with a simple but unforgettable elevator pitch.
The time spent coming up with a great elevator pitch is one of the single biggest factors that will either empower your business to leap ahead, or for you to be another of the high percentage of business casualties that never make it beyond year one or two.
Among the successful business I’ve been involved with, I’ve had a bestselling book series, an online following of 129,000 newsletter subscribers, and sold 10,000 copies in little more than a week’s time in a single Christmas promotion.
I know how to catch people’s attention and to hold it, and we’ll use my talents to get your business off and running miles ahead of where you’d otherwise be without a killer elevator pitch.
This is only necessary if you’re seeking investors. Your pitch deck, with the right messaging and graphics, can be the difference in spinning your wheels and not obtaining any funding. versus having such an irresistible presentation, investors begin seeking you out rather than you seeking them out.
While pitch decks can be highly critical in getting investors, there’s a simple technique to making them effective. And that’s not to complicate them.
The irony is, it’s easier to write something complicated than it is to write something that is simple and unforgettable.
Einstein famously said: If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Your potential investors intuitively know that. And having a simple but powerful pitch deck is key in them seeing you know it too.
Even more important than the pitch deck, is what you say to narrate the deck . . . and what you say to potential investors even when you don’t have the pitch deck available. We’ll refine your presentation language with you to maximize your effectiveness in obtaining investors.
As Einstein also said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
What he meant by this was that you have to put enough meat on the bones in order for your simple claims to be made viable. Too much meat, though, and investors will correctly assume you don’t know how to sell. Too little, and they’ll think your business isn’t fleshed out enough.
Getting that balance right is tricky. But not when you have someone to help you who has done it a thousand times before.
Having irresistible copy for everything including your Linkedin Page, Social Media and Promotions is one of the critical factors that will make you thousands, and eventually millions of dollars.
While many would consider me an expert at this, someone on my team does this full-time. He has been the behind-the-scenes genius writer for some of the greatest marketing gurus of our time.
I will have this person work with us as needed to provide you marketing copy that makes your target audience laser-focused on you and your message, and primed for taking whatever actions you are seeking for them to take (purchase, invest, sign up for your newsletter, etc.)
STEPS FOR CREATING A
HIGH-PERFORMANCE TEAM
To maximize your personal efficiency and to empower you to easily and effortlessly delegate everything eventually to freelancers, subcontractors and employees, we’ll help you document all your key processes with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
This is a critical step that most startups are under too much pressure and in too much of a hurry to take the time to thoroughly create. But having well-thought out SOPS is money in the bank —
Without them, life will get more and more stressful given you will never be able to properly delegate tasks to others.
With them, you can hire freelancers and employees to free up your time. This free time is crucial for you to stay balanced and passionate (rather than stressed, overwhelmed and burned out) to focus on the most important things to launch your business continually forward to greater and greater growth, profits and efficiency.
Saving you hours of time each day and thousands of dollars a month by automating everything you don’t need to be doing yourself will save you crucial hours every day.
This an absolute necessity, even before making your first hire.
Setting up these simple automations by analyzing your work flow on and off the computer, while taking a little time, saves you hundreds of hours of time each year and thousands of dollars.
It also saves you from having to pay someone to do the very things you can have a computer or a simplified process automatically do for you.
One of my two technology companies specializes in this type of automation. I helped multiple enterprises, from a carwash to 12 divisions of Tony Robbins’ coaching company to free up hours of both the owner’s time and their team’s time by figuring out simple workflows that were unknowingly bloated and weighed down by unnecessary steps.
It’s easy to fool yourself into believing that shaving off a few minutes here and there isn’t critical. But those minutes quickly add up to hours per days, and days each week, and months each year.
Most entrepreneurs never even realize how much of this time they can be saving and thus how much stress and overwhelm they can be eliminating. This streamlining is key for launching your business to the heights you only in this manner can achieve.
When you’re starting out, answering the questions Who and When you make your first hire(s), can spell the difference between rapid success or a painful failure.
WHEN?
You are likely on the borderline where most startups find themselves of not being able to handle everything yourself, yet having questionable cash flow to sustain a hire. It is absolutely crucial to get the timing right when to begin hiring. The solution to this When question is contained in the answer below ofWho to hire —
WHO?
The Who questions are:
- Do you hire a freelancer or someone who will be your own W2 employee?
- Do you hire part-time or full-time?
- Do you hire local or remote?
- Do you pay top dollar to get top talent or do you try to save money and get a person with novice or intermediate-level skills?
These are critical questions. For someone with decades of experience, they are elementary questions with clear choices. When you’re just beginning, however, trying to divine the answers can lead to taking all the wrong actions. And you’ll quickly discover why many self-employed people decide to become one-man or one-woman shows.
Unfortunately, as a one-person show, while you may be able to eke out a living, you will never be able to grow and experience the freedom of someone who is an expert delegator.
I’ll help you make the simple powerful choice to all of these questions.
Let’s just take the last question of whether to hire someone having novice, interemediate or expert skills, as an example.
The answer is counter-intuitive, especially when you hear all the time business gurus advocating getting so-called A-Players.
But you have to know how to manage an A-Player if you expect them to stay with you. Not to mention, you have to be able to pay them an A-Player salary, or else they’ll either not work for you, or stay for very long.
For many tasks you need help with as a startup, there’s no reason to spend such money on top talent. This particularly includes jobs where you have the skills to easily oversee the quality of the work and to guide the person doing it, even if they’re a novice.
The major challenge though, is finding a novice who is:
- teachable
- accountable
- and comfortable (By comfortable, I mean they are someone with whom you enjoy working.)
Most of the people you interview will not be that right person. Yet hire the wrong person, and you’ll quickly find yourself spending more time than if you had done it yourself, nevermind upset, overwhelmed and even more stressed than you may already be.
The good news is, I’ll help you find the right person for the best price . . . and people who will stay and grow with you. Having a great team will be the single most important factor in your success or failure and working with you, you will have someone who has interviewed and hired more than a thousand people over his career.
Who you choose and how you manage that team will be the single biggest factor that will make you or break you.
We’ll make sure you start off on solid footing.
You can hire the right person, but if you have the wrong agreement — or no agreement at all — at some point, you may find yourself in a world of hurt.
Whereas many entrepreneurs fear they may lose a good hire by being too definitive with a strong agreement (and they could be right if the agreement doesn’t have a balance of benefits and protection for both sides), you quickly find out when things are not in writing that two different people can have two completely different memories of what was initially agreed upon and what was expected for a continued healthy working relationship.
While every position doesn’t require an agreement, for many key positions involving higher level hires — including sales and marketing professionals, programming and design teams, and managers of any kind — you will avoid major trouble with a strong and thorough agreement.
Besides your state’s legal requirements for a valid contract (the so-called legalese), which only an attorney licensed in your state can provide, the crucial part most attorney’s overlook are the details for defining what’s necessary for you and your new hire to maintain a successful, growing and profitable relationship. This includes:
- Clear and detailed requirements (related to your S.O.P.s)
- Scaled Incentives to keep your hire highly motivated
(And which enables you to often get them at a lower hourly rate) - Clear cut and detailed termination clauses
While it takes a bit of time to think out all the key points of an excellent agreement, the few extra hours you spend will pay you back over and over again for years to come.
I’ll assist you in setting up these customized and powerful agreements which ensure your hires remain a good fit, incentivizes them toward continually higher levels of productivity and profitability for your company, and prevents so much of the aggravation and grief entrepreneurs endure when they don’t have such rock-solid and incentivizing agreements in place.
Why is A Zero Equity Partner
Your Greatest Partner Of All Time?
Like most entrepreneurs, you are likely hiring me to solve a particular issue for you or to produce a specific outcome — to create a high-performance team, streamline your operations, or to resolve a major conflict you may be having with an associate, client or investor. Once you see how quickly I can solve what may right now appear an impossible problem, we can talk about me becoming your Zero Equity Partner.
Here are just a few of the extraordinary benefits you and your company will reap if it’s in both our best interests to have this special arrangement:
- Rather than giving away large chunks of your company and risking the stress, financial ruin, and possible downfall of your company from a partnership-turned-sour, you remove all risk with a Zero Equity Partner.
- I will be your partner on an hourly basis, monthly retainer or in blocks of time. (10 hours for X amount, 20 hours for Y amount, etc).
- You will have me as your Zero Equity Partner for as much or as little as is needed, for as short or as long as you like.
- You pay only for the time and services you need . . . as opposed to getting in bed with someone whose grip is impossible to extricate yourself from.
- You will then have as your partner an expert negotiator, team facilitator, mediator, manager, marketer, COO and CEO, as you need and when you need.
- You will free up many of your hiring needs by having my team available for expert video editing, sales copy writing, web and UI/UX design, and a host of other functions.
- I’ll set up delegation and bonus systems that inspire your team and frees up your time for expanding your business and enjoying your life more.
- You will have a trusted ally who will help you navigate any challenge, and relieve you from ever again feeling like you’re going it all alone.
Choose which services you need by clicking one of the buttons below.
Formatted Text
STARTUPS
BUSINESS PLAN
We’ll help you stay focused with a simple business plan.(Simpler is better for most startups not seeking investors.)
- ELEVATOR PITCH
Besides your business name, for quick success in obtaining customers, clients or investors, we’ll assist you making your business stand miles above the crowd with a simple but unforgettable elevator pitch. - PITCH DECK
This is only necessary if you’re seeking investors. Your pitch deck, with the right messaging and graphics, can be the difference in spinning your wheels and not obtaining any funding. versus having such an irresistible presentation, investors begin seeking you out rather than you seeking them out. - VERBAL PRESENTATION
Even more important than the pitch deck, is what you say to narrate the deck . . . and what you say to potential investors even when you don’t have the pitch deck available. We’ll refine your presentation language with you to maximize your effectiveness in obtaining investors. - SALES & MARKETING WRITING
Having irresistible copy for everything including your Linkedin Page, Social Media and Promotions will make you thousands, and eventually millions. - SOPS
We’ll help you document all your key processes with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to maximize your personal efficiency and to empower you to later easily delegate everything to freelancers, subcontractors and employees. - AUTOMATION
We’ll assist you saving hours of your time each day and thousands of dollars a month by automating everything possible. This an absolute necessity, even before making your first hire. Automating everything possible, while taking a little time, saves you thousands of dollars you otherwise would have to pay someone to do the very things you can have a computer automatically do for you. - FREELANCERS AND EMPLOYEES
We’ll help you determine whether your first hires should be, freelancers or employees. This is a critical choice. Most startups spend far too much money on the wrong workers. Who you choose and how you manage that team will be the single biggest factor that will make you or break you. We’ll make sure you start off of solid footing. - AGREEMENTS
We’ll assist you in setting up “Scaling Agreements” that tests your hires to make sure they’re a good fit, then incentivizes them toward continually higher levels of productivity.
We’ll help you stay focused with a simple business plan.
(Simpler is better for most startups not seeking investors.)
Besides your business name, for quick success in obtaining customers, clients or investors, we’ll assist you making your business stand miles above the crowd with a simple but unforgettable elevator pitch.
This is only necessary if you’re seeking investors. Your pitch deck, with the right messaging and graphics, can be the difference in spinning your wheels and not obtaining any funding. versus having such an irresistible presentation, investors begin seeking you out rather than you seeking them out.
Even more important than the pitch deck, is what you say to narrate the deck . . . and what you say to potential investors even when you don’t have the pitch deck available. We’ll refine your presentation language with you to maximize your effectiveness in obtaining investors.
Having irresistible copy for everything including your Linkedin Page, Social Media and Promotions will make you thousands, and eventually millions.
We’ll help you document all your key processes with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to maximize your personal efficiency and to empower you to later easily delegate everything to freelancers, subcontractors and employees.
- Rather than giving away large chunks of your company and risking the stress, financial ruin, and possible downfall of your company from a partnership-turned-sour, remove all risk by hiring Michael on an hourly basis, monthly retainer or in blocks of time
- Use Michael as much or as little as needed.
- Pay only for the time and services you need (as opposed to getting in bed with someone whose grip it can be next to impossible to extricate yourself from)
- Have as your G.O.A.T. Partner an expert negotiator, team facilitator, mediator, manager, marketer, COO and CEO
- Allow your new G.O.A.T. Partner to set up delegation and bonus systems that inspire your teams and frees up your time for expanding your business and enjoying your life more.
| PACKAGES* | SAMPLE TIME ALLOTMENT | SAMPLE HOURS |
| 10 Hours | Working with CEO, COO and existing team managing, hiring, firing and setting up protocols to create a well-oiled, loyal, hyper-productive and highly enthusiastic team. | 6 |
| Structuring Bonus Agreements for team members to dramatically boost both accountability and performance | 4 | |
| 10 Hours | Working with CEO to set up optimal delegation protocols – | |
| OBJECTIVE: reduce CEO’s total worktime down to 10 to 30 hours per week) | ||
We’ll assist you saving hours of your time each day and thousands of dollars a month by automating everything possible. This an absolute necessity, even before making your first hire. Automating everything possible, while taking a little time, saves you thousands of dollars you otherwise would have to pay someone to do the very things you can have a computer automatically do for you.
We’ll help you determine whether your first hires should be, freelancers or employees. This is a critical choice. Most startups spend far too much money on the wrong workers. Who you choose and how you manage that team will be the single biggest factor that will make you or break you. We’ll make sure you start off of solid footing.
We’ll assist you in setting up “Scaling Agreements” that tests your hires to make sure they’re a good fit, then incentivizes them toward continually higher levels of productivity.
How pricing works
1. Let’s get to know each other.
During your free 1-hour consultation, Michael will work with you to tailor a solution to put an end to whatever problem you are facing, and that is both affordable and specific for your situation.
2. Hire Michael hourly, monthly, or in blocks of time.
Choose what is most comfortable for you. Our clients typically end up paying a tiny fraction — usually 1% to 10% — of what litigation or a persistent business problem would cost them. And there’s no way to value what it means to save a marriage or a key relationship.
3. Resolving Conflict Can Be Quick and Simple.
There are innumerable variables in human interactions, but in the hands of an expert negotiator and mediator, most conflicts — even long-standing ones involving a difficult adversary, such as a narcissist — resolve much quicker and simpler than those who are deeply entangled often can believe. (See our numerous testimonials.) The 2 charts below provide sample blocks of time in which the majority of problems can be resolved . . . sometimes even in less time.
Mediation, Negotiation,
Team Facilitation,
Conflict Counseling
| PACKAGES* | SAMPLE TIME ALLOTMENT | SAMPLE HOURS |
| 10 Hours: | Resolution of most 2-party conflicts of low to medium complexity ** FOOTNOTE: Length and Complexity vary from one mediation to another depending on a the number of agreements that need to be reached, the number of parties involved, and how flexible or entrenched each party turns out to be. | |
| Meeting with each party separately (60 minutes each) | 2 | |
| 2 group meetings, 2 hrs each | 4 | |
| Emails, phone calls, review of notes | 2 | |
| Structuring of agreement between parties, including clauses to prevent future conflicts and to eliminate future litigation possibilities | 2 | |
| 10 Hours Additional | For higher complexity negotiations between 2 parties. Or when 3 or more parties are involved. | 10 |