Can I show you the highest value comment on Hacker News that I've ever seen?
Yeah, that has a lot of weight.
This is from like years and years ago, but it's this comment about sales because Hacker News is full of engineers and they're like, 'Hey, like, you know, I suck at sales. Anybody can help me get better at this.' And this guy wrote seven points and I just nodded my head so vigorously that my C4-C5 is a little sore. So let me just give you this here. He said, the guy goes, 'Yeah, there's tons of resources to help you with sales, but I'll start with, I'll try to offer some simple tips. Number one, sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated that it's almost impossible, or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I've been leading sales for about 20 years. My advice is to walk up and hit the ball. Number two, sales is about people and it's about problem solving. It's not about tech or solutions or chemicals or lines of code or artichokes. It's about people. It's about solving problems. Number three, people buy four things and four things only ever. Those four things are time, money, sex, and approval or peace of mind. If you try to sell anything other than those four things, you will fail. Number four, people buy aspirin always. They'll buy vitamins sometimes, but it'll be unpredictable. Sell aspirin. Number five, I say in every talk that I give that all things being equal, people will buy from their friends. So make everything else equal and then go make a lot of friends.' [laughter] 'Number six, being valuable and useful is all you'll ever need to sell things. Help people out, send them interesting posts, write birthday cards, record videos sharing your ideas of how they could grow their business, introduce them to people who would benefit from knowing each other, and get out of the way. Expect nothing in return. Do this consistently and authentically, and people will find ways to give you money. I promise. Number seven, no one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate. No one. They care about the problem you're solving for them. There are more than a hundred trillion dollars in the economy just waiting for you to breathe it in. Good luck.' [laughter]
Who is this god of Hacker News?
Are you reading any books?
I am reading Influence again by Robert Cialdini.
Why are you rereading Robert Cialdini's Influence?
Because as the great Buddhist proverb says, 'No man steps in the same river twice, for he is not the same man and the river is not the same river.'
Oh my god. How long have you waited to use that one? [laughter]
You start reading books. What can you do? You just start turning into a quote machine. No, but really, I think, you know, reading the best books again at different times in your life, it's a totally different book. You think you've read it, and what I found is you remember, you know, shockingly little of books. And so going back and reading great books is, you know, the gift that keeps giving in that sense. So that's what I'm doing.
Did you ever read the blog post that I wrote about Influence, his book?
No. In 2014, I had just read his book and I wanted to implement what he talked about. And he has this rule called the rule of reciprocity, which basically just says, let's say that neighbor one goes to neighbor two. Let's say I go to Sean and I say, 'Hey, can I borrow a cup of sugar?' And you say, 'Yeah, I got you.' The next day, if you come to me and say, 'Hey, can I borrow your car for the day?' Even though those two asks aren't even remotely equal, I, because of the rule of reciprocity, am very likely to lend you my car because the rule of reciprocity states that if you do something nice for someone, they have a high chance of doing something nice in exchange to you, even if they aren't equal. And that's like how society is built, one could say, is based off the rule of reciprocity. So when I was a kid, I was 24 years old, there was a motorcycle for sale, I think, for $1,800, and I went to buy it and I took photos and documented all of this as I went. And I was like, 'Hey, you have the motorcycle for $1,800. Let me see it. Let me check it out. Awesome. Oh, by the way, I'm really sorry I'm late. I just wanted to stop and get a Coke because it was kind of hot outside. I got one for you if you want one. Do you want one?' And he goes, 'Yeah, sure. Thanks.' And then I start talking to him and I'm like, 'Look, I love this motorcycle, but like I'm a young guy. I don't have a lot of money. I know you're asking for 18. Could you do 14?' And he goes, you know, 'If you brought me the Coke, you seem like a nice kid. Yeah, I guess I can do that.' And so, like, there's a blog post where I took photos of myself like when he was turned around signing the paperwork. I took the photo. But anyway, the rule of reciprocity is pretty amazing.
So let me tell you a funny follow-up story to that. I remember you telling the story about the Diet Coke and the negotiation and how you always bring two Diet Cokes to a negotiation. Correct. You've told me this before like 10 years ago.
Yeah. I try to bring a gift. Yeah. I try to bring something.
Well, I took it as Diet Coke. So here's what happened. Recently I was coaching this high school basketball team, as you know. And anytime I'm doing a project, I want to try to make it as interesting, as cool as possible. And what I do sometimes is I do things that are maybe like not the default way of doing things. So I was trying to create content for the team so that the team would have like really cool media going with it. And so the principal and the AD did not like it.
Are you talking about the post that you made about being a coach?
Oh, being a coach. Yeah. And how we were going to try to take this underdog team and try to get them to be state champions. And we were going to record the vlog along the way. So post the vlog. It gets 20,000 views in the first 24 hours. But one of those views was the principal or the AD. They call me and they're like, 'Hey, you need to take this down.' So I say, 'Okay, we'll take it down.' And he says, 'I want to meet with you. Be in my office Monday.'
Dude, you're going to the principal's office. [laughter]
And so here I am. I thought I was past this. I'm now in my late 30s and I'm nervous. I'm going to the principal's office and I bring... So we're recording a vlog of this thing and I'm telling the vlog, I said, you know, my friend Sam taught me this trick, this little law of reciprocity. Let me put you guys on some game. You know, people have this really high likelihood to return the favor if you do a small favor for them. I said, 'Watch.' I said, 'I'm going to be late to this meeting, but I'm going to stop and get this Diet Coke because this is the most important part of the meeting.' And I'm like, 'Follow me.' The vlog camera follows me and we get two Diet Cokes and we go and I'm so ready for this. And I get to the meeting and we sit down and I'm like, I don't fully remember the line that you said about how to do it. I think there's actually a really specific way in the book that Robert Cialdini describes it, which is two people are doing a psych study. The guy walks out and he comes back and he says, 'Hey, I asked the guy if I could have a Coke.' He said, 'Yeah, so I brought you one, too.' So it sounds very thoughtful in passing. And you said a very similar thing. And so I walk in and he's like, 'Hey guys,' and I go, 'You want a Diet Coke?' And then he's like, [laughter] and he just goes, 'No thanks.' And now I have two Diet Cokes. I go, 'I have two.' [laughter] I go, 'I have two.' And he goes, 'I'm all set.' And then the vlog camera's on me and it's like The Office. I look at the camera [laughter] and it's like, 'This is not going as planned. I'm Michael Scotting this.' And then I open up the Diet Coke, it almost explodes because I've been nervous the whole time. Luckily it doesn't totally foam over. And I proceed to drink two Diet Cokes while this guy absolutely shuts down my program. And so that's the law of reciprocity gone wrong.
That is so funny. That is so funny. That is so good. [laughter]
All right, I have a story for you. Hey everyone, really quick. If you're enjoying this episode on CEO stuff, so delegating, having hard conversations with your team, hiring, then I've got something for you. So the team at HubSpot, they actually went and put together a bunch of best practices that Sean and I use in our own companies and they put it together in something that's really easy to read and understand. And so if you want to just save yourself 10 years of headache and heartache, then you should check it out. I wish we had this a long time ago. It would have helped me a lot. But there should be a QR code on your screen that you can scan or a link in the description. So check it out. It's totally free and totally awesome.
So I told you the other day how I, like, for the first time ever, I went out to dinner with someone and I'm such a homebody. Well, my friend, what are you talking about? I visited you in New York. You literally walk around New York with a briefcase and, you know, business cards and Altoids in your pocket trying to meet people, riding the subway. You're... Don't try to take my stick. I'm the homebody. [laughter] You're the guy who's out there.
I just carry the briefcase. My wife's like, 'Why do you have this?' I'm like, 'To do business.'
Sam cosplays a businessman in New York City.
I'm doing business, Sarah. I need the case. [laughter]
It's got the crayons and the snacks. Get off my back.
Yeah. When you said attaché, I was like, 'Okay, that's enough.'
So I've been hanging out with this guy named Mark. Have you heard of GLG?
The expert network. So, you know, you want to find out whether Nvidia chips are going to go up or down. Maybe call someone in one of the buyers who's like an expert buyer who'll give you insights about the industry. Huge business.
Yeah. And I've become good buddies with him. I've hung out with him a bunch because he lives in my neighborhood and basically GLG, like you just explained, huge business. They filed to go public at one point. And so some of their numbers were public. It does something like over $100 million a year in profit and cash flow. Very amazing company. And we were just hanging out. He owns another business in the community space now that he loves. And he sits down and he starts telling me, I'm like, 'What are your hobbies? What else are you into?' And he told me this crazy story. So I want you to Google something. Google, it's called United Hatzalah.
Okay, I found it. Okay. Equipment aid. Looks like a charity of some kind, volunteer medical emergency services.
Exactly. So listen to this story. So he tells me this story. So Mark, he started GLG when he was only like 23, 24, pretty young guy. When he's something like 27, 28, he meets this guy named Eli. Eli was either an ambulance driver or was at the scene where this happened, but basically a kid was choking on his food and they called an ambulance. The ambulance didn't make it there in time and the kid died. And it really sat with him. He was really bothered by that because they come to find out that there actually was a doctor like next door or down the block or something like that within a pretty close vicinity. And he's like, it really stinks that this ambulance took 15 or however many minutes to get here when there was a guy right here that could have cured this kid and he didn't have to die. And so Eli ends up starting this very small thing with only like six or 12 people where they basically self-organize and they train themselves on how to do very simple things like CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, and they train themselves on that and then eventually went to like they could even do an emergency baby delivery. And he had started a nonprofit where he would actually give out these like 40 lb backpacks that had a small amount of oxygen, a baby delivery kit so you can deliver a baby in case of an emergency. Like these really essential supplies. And he starts telling Mark about how he's got these things going and Mark's like, 'That's awesome. This thing could be it. This could be a really big thing.' And Mark gives him $18,000 because Mark was just getting successful, but he's like, 'I have 18 grand I can give you, but I can be your co-founder and I can help commercialize this thing and make this a huge thing.' And so it's been around for the last 18 years. And at this point, they have 18,000 volunteers in Israel. It's mostly, it's only in Israel. They answer something like 2,000 calls a day. And the mission statement is very simple. They say that on average, it takes something like 12 or 10 minutes for an ambulance to arrive to you. Our goal is to get there in 90 seconds anywhere in Israel. And right now, I think they do it in like 2 minutes. And Mark was telling me, he's like, basically, right now, him and I went out to eat. He was like, 'If you were a member, you would carry your bag with you at all times. And if somebody 10 floors down got sick or something happened where they had to call an ambulance, you would be alerted because you were nearby and you could run down and give them some type of need until the ambulance got to them and they could actually do the real stuff, but at least you could be a life-saving thing.' And because of this, this company, it's a nonprofit. They have saved potentially millions of people because they've done this in the last 18 years. And what's interesting is they started this before iPhones, before GPS. And when they started it, they actually just gave out these walkie-talkies, like these radios. And now it's gotten quite sophisticated. So the entire foundation runs off of donations and they are spending many tens of millions of dollars a year. And what they have noticed is, for example, through 18 years of data, they know that heart attacks are more likely to happen in the morning, which means people are probably in their home versus the office. And so they know that they need to recruit volunteers who are on call and ready and they're prepared for a potential heart attack within these areas. And they have this, they actually did a YouTube video on it. They have this entire AI setup that they know when to predict that something bad potentially might happen and to have their 8,000 person volunteer force be ready. And there's a few interesting things here about this. One, there's this thing called good Samaritan laws. We have it in America. They have it in Israel, which basically just says like when you're on an airplane and the captain goes, 'Is there a doctor on board? Can someone help me?' As long as that doctor acts in good faith, they can't be sued by the person. It's called the good Samaritan law where it's like as long... But if you are on there for pay, meaning if you're a professional, like I'm paying you money, there's an exchange of goods for you to do a service, you could potentially be sued. So Mark was like, this thing, it needs to strictly be a nonprofit. He said the second thing. He was like, 'In Israel, what's cool about this?' He's like, 'We have super Orthodox Jews who are doing it. We have non-secular Jews who are doing it. We have Arabs. We have Muslims. We have Christians.' He was like, 'I've noticed that what has brought us together is not just us sitting around talking, but I can get all groups of people to come and work together on something and get their hands dirty and it really brought us all together.' And he was explaining this in a very altruistic way. And I totally got bought into it. And I was like, 'Why aren't you in America?' He's like, 'Well, we actually did try to, but we started in 2019 or 2020, like right before COVID, and it was a false start, so we just haven't made it here.' But he's like, 'This 100% could work in virtually every city in America.' And he was like, 'It could even work in rural areas.' He's like, 'In rural areas, they have volunteer firefighters.' But it was really fascinating to hear all about this stuff because I think that, you know, we talk about money and for-profit stuff, but if you are like a social entrepreneur or something like that, this is a really interesting opportunity. And hearing him describe this, it was amazing.
Dude, so cool. I mean, I was reading the stats about it just now. It says they basically handle one call every 45 seconds.
The scale of that's crazy. There's only like 8,000 volunteers or 9,000 volunteers. So that's a lot of coverage. I mean, 2,000 calls a day and you only have 9,000 volunteers. Everybody's busy. [laughter] Like people, this is not like a once in a blue moon thing. This is wild. The average response time is 3 minutes. The goal is 90 seconds. That's nationwide and 24/7 coverage, which is pretty incredible. It kind of makes sense in a way, right? Because I mean, what a cool... You asked him what are your hobbies and he told you this story, which is hilarious because you're probably like, he's like, 'What about you?' You're like, 'Skateboarding.' [laughter] But for people, I mean, to be able to be like, 'Yeah, I saved a life today or this year,' it gives you purpose, right? I mean, what... Where else can you get that that would be actually really meaningful for people if they felt like they could join something where they could actually do that.
Well, think of the people who have like kind of crappy jobs that they're not particularly motivated by. Like this is something where you're like, 'Yeah, I can do that non-motivating thing that pays the bills. I'm so thankful I have this. Like I have this thing that I am needed and I actually have literally a life-changing impact on people.'
Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. I thought you were going to say in the US they just pivoted to DoorDash. It became DoorDash. [laughter]
Well, this is the founding story of food delivery.
That's kind of interesting. But I thought this was awesome and I was pretty inspired hearing... I think he said that he goes, 'We have 8,000 people who are part of the network and we're growing. We're going to keep on growing.' And he's like, 'One doctor who is probably doing okay, but he's not wealthy. He gave us $4,000.' And he's like, 'I got this line where I tell them this because I believe it to be true.' He was like, 'You giving us $4,000 is the best donation we've ever received. Like, the fact that you are willing to do this, it is so important to us.' And that's how they've grown to be able to spend tens of millions of dollars a year.
Let's see. You want a lightweight? You want something quick and fun. You want something a little more cool and deep. Did you see this amazing... It's a masterclass of PR by Bernard Arnault.
I didn't read it. What happened?
