One way to increase your strength in an up-coming negotiation is the correct mind set. We all heard the phrase "Win-Win" right? But what if I told you that "win-win" means YOU LOSE? In a negotiation you have to get your opponent to "budge" on something. Maybe its about Price. You lower your price, or your opponent agrees to a higher price. "Win-Win" means you lowered and your opponent pays a little more. You both lose. Going into the meeting your mind must be set on explaining your position and keeping your position by being able to resell your opponent AND make them happy so accommodate you. You do this by understanding every last detail of your opponent, their money, their peers and of course their timing. Lets assume you know very little about your opponent and their true intentions. Going into the negotiation is now very stressful. But not if you know how to set up the right questions. Ask questions beginning with: 1) Is seems to me like ... 2) Am I right by assuming... 3) Can you clarify for me, .... But you want these questions to 'miss the mark' and force your opponent to correct you. This way the tell you what the real underlying problems are (if any) and you will know if they are bluffing. Once you get them to exhaust their side of the story you have all the ammo you need to resell them on the deal. And if you can, sweeten the deal with another upsell. Remember always justify price with value. Justify value with more value to make a full package. Never go down in price. If price goes down so does value. Free = Zero value. There is no exchange. Just loss. Am I right by assuming you enjoyed this post? Tell me about negotiations you have engaged in. Ask me anything, but can you clarify to me what you where negotiating about? It seems to me this will be a learning opportunity. Am I right?

A Q/A mastermind on niche building and differentiation, Ivan laid out the real truth of how influencers make money AND how many don’t make money. Niching down, differentiation and solving unique problems all boils down to The Blue Ocean Strategy. If you have not heard of this book, grab a copy and read it. You will learn and understand how a ‘red ocean’ is were the competition all devours the same slice of the market turning the waters bloody red. Where as a ‘Blue Ocean’ is a different market that is underserved or not served at all leaving the waters clean and blue. Grab that book. Its worth more than its price. One key element from the call was the pre-planning of content creation. The subject was basically, do you make content for views and growth or do you make massive value and sell to a smaller audience. If you missed the call I will try to make this recap real for you… Think of the bigger creators with huge followings. Are there a large variety of subscribers or are the subscribers all from a tight niche? Usually, very large followings are a result of a broader audience and does not necessarily mean the channel is making great revenue on its own. There has to be ads, sponsors and maybe some shwag for sale. Don’t forget the value must be high in forms of entertainment, shock n awe and also must be interesting. This does not come easy to everyone. A niched down audience on the other hand will be very small (under 1000 subs even) but your value is focused on certain problems, certain people effected by those problems and direct access to the creator to solve the problems. This can look like an existing business that uses content creation to teach and gain new customers. Millions of people probably won’t subscribe to a niched down channel, but the audience that does sub will be fully engaged and ready to work or buy from that creator. An example would be a CPA content creator speaking to a niche about very confusing tax code and how they provide the service to quickly and easily solve this problem which keeps the IRS off your back by avoiding audits and saving you lots of money in the process.

In marketing and sales the ability to adapt with the "times" is key to long term relevance. Take any HUGE brand. They form identities that are general and change-proof. Nike and Under armor focus on the greatness of athletes. Wayfair, Crate and Barrel and Joanne Fabrics focus on decor trends from different angles. All seeking to stay top-dawg in their space and are changing their brand messaging, but not their core belief. WAIT! Didn’t I just say they are change-proof but then I said they change their messaging? YES. The markets, cultures and subcultures of people are always changing. The core message of what these companies stand for does not change. Simply put, again, what Brands stand for doesn’t change but their messaging changes automatically with the shifting culture. So what does that mean for you? How does that apply to your side hustle, your small business, your startup, or your plans to get started? How do you dominate a space, eat your competitors lunch and change effortlessly? Big brands all started with these Overlooked Secrets and you should too. Overlooked SECRET #1: You need to understand what value you offer the world better than anyone else on this planet! Ask yourself, WHAT do I do and who does it better than me? Who crushes me in this space? Who owns the lions share of the market right now? Knowing this will give you the correct perspective on your value, and what kind of value is the market demanding. This process is hard, depressing and painful. PRO TIP: learn to love this process and repeat it often to make sure your aware of the game in your space. Overlooked SECRET #2: You need to know exactly WHO (one avatar) must have the value you offer. Do not confuse this with niching down. Niches are more demographics and psychographics. The avatar is literally one person – one persona. Is can be a woman in her 50s who just sent off her last child to college and is now looking to get into interior decorating. Or it could be a man, husband, in his 30s with a middle class house, 4 kids and 2 cars seeking to go from corporate job to successful entrepreneur. PRO TIP: This is a skill! Unlocking your creative juices to ID different avatars will put you in the top 10% of marketers worldwide.

In the educational niche, what's better? 1. Short, specific videos about one topic (e.g: How to program your workouts to optimize recovery) 2. Long, broad videos about various related topics (e.g: How to structure your workouts as a beginner) 3. Both If it's the latter, how would you go about uploading frequency of each types? How specific would the shorter videos be? This is something that I'm currently struggling with right now, as the longer broader videos are the best performing ones, but they make me run out of content ideas faster in the long run, whereas the shorter videos are usually the most informative ones (they go deep into detail), but are the worst performing ones. Another issue I'm facing is that I'm running out of informative content ideas really fast, and even though I think it's kind of related to this question, I'll save it for another post.

A deep dive into video sets, locations, color selection and different effects of camera lenses, Ivan explained how each component delivers a different supportive emotional element to you videos. Interesting content is the main key in any video. Combined with the right "language" added from your setup will convey the videos emotional intent as early as the thumbnail and title. Content creation while ON camera was also discussed. In real life without a camera we tend to act and talk quite naturally. While on-camera, sometimes its difficult because the camera replaces any people you directly interact with. Developing a clear format structure and delivery structure for your content helps you speak into the camera easily with more authenticity. Key take aways: 1) Think about what emotions and messages you want to deliver to the audience. What set-up elements help support these emotions? What colors, edit cuts, lights / shadows will reinforce your emotions and keep your video interesting? Your content holds the answer to these questions. 2) Its far more important to create a simple video that's "ok" looking that delivers massive value than it is to have a perfect video with weak content. The audience wants value. Bad video can be forgiven. Bad audio and bad content drive your audience away. 3) A simple 3-part content structure for the first 30 seconds of your video was given: Pain - Process - Transformation It is designed to be 3-4 sentences and tells the audience what pain your addressing, what the process is to fix it and what the transformation outcome follows. Here are 2 examples: "Beginner Content Creators struggle with making great videos on budget friendly equipment. I teach a simple process to optimize their equipment settings so they can feel confident their videos look professionally done without a production team." "Many people with two jobs struggle with weight gain. I help them structure their time and create nutritious pre-made meals at home for their lunch box so they can prevent weight gain, increase overall health and eliminate the anxiety caused by NOT having time to exercise."