What To Tell A Friend Who Has A Bad Business Idea

Jeffrey Madoff: This is Jeffrey Madoff, and welcome to our podcast called Anything and Everything with my partner, Dan Sullivan.
 
Dan Sullivan: Jeff, you posed a really interesting question as we were warming up, getting ready, doing our calisthenics for the podcast today. And that is, when somebody comes to you with a new idea and it doesn't connect at all to what you think is a good idea—well, it's a good idea; it may not be a good reality—how do you respond to that, you know, and not create an enemy?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, and the idea behind it is that they want your honest feedback. At least they claim to want honest feedback. And so what do you tell a friend? You know, how do you deal with that? And I've been in situations, for instance, in theater, where I'm there in opening night, and it was clear that that play had bombed. And then you're at the opening night party, which has a certain pall over it already. And it's like-
 
Dan Sullivan: Like a wake.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's right. And it's, what do you say? And it's, you know, I figured out some code there, you know, like, "Wow, God, that was a lot of work, man, but you did it. That was a lot of work, but you got your play up. That was fantastic. Way to go." And try to stay away from anything that would be negative about what you thought because nothing's gonna change at that point anyhow. So is truth really at a premium in a situation like that? And what you're referring to is, someone who wants your feedback because of your position, but they're a friend. They're not paying you to consult. You're a friend and they have a new idea for a business. And I know you've been in that situation. So how do you deal with it with still wanting to be supportive and certainly not hurt that friend? How do you deal with it?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, I've got a pretty extensive network that someone like that can talk to. So it depends on how far along the idea is. I mean, if it's opening night of a play, that idea is a long way down the road. And obviously, they convince somebody to buy into the idea, at least to show up for opening night. And so, you know, I mean, I'm sort of very constant. The longest that any client has known me, where we worked on a continual basis, is 37 years. I've got a client here in Toronto and I've seen him every quarter for 37 years. I see him for other reasons during the quarter, and he'll bring up, say, "I'm starting this new thing that's financial services," so I'm pretty familiar with the field. He'll say, "I'm thinking about this idea, and I'm looking at this," and I said, "You know somebody who really knows a lot about this that could really help you?" And then I'll put him in touch with that person and say, "You know, he's going to ask really tough questions. And do you really want tough questions?" Okay. So one thing, I sort of feign ignorance to a certain extent, but what I'm trying to do is to help the person. But it won't involve my help beyond this conversation.
 
But I always do connect them and, you know, I'll do a joint Zoom and I'll say, I'd just like to introduce you to so-and-so. For example, I had a case about a year ago, and this person said that "I'm creating a company that takes new technology out of Israel and delivers it to the North American market." And I said, "Well, first of all, you're dealing with a topic here I'm completely ignorant of. I just don't know anything. I wouldn't even know how to go about even thinking about this." And he says, "Do you think it's a good idea?" I said, "Do I think that Israel is a good place to create new things? Yes. Do I think that the United States is a good place to sell things that come from Israel? Yes, I think it's a good idea." But the mechanics of it, and I got to believe that there's already a lot of this type of movement happening. I've heard that the U.S. Defense Department essentially looks for Israel as part of their innovation lab to get new stuff because the Israelis are always practicing using new weapons. And Americans too. Americans are always doing that.
 
So I put him in touch with someone who was from Israel, had been in the military. This is all defense-based products. And he knew a lot about technology. And the idea was interesting enough. He says, "Yeah, I'll sit in on a Zoom call with this." And he did. And he asked really, really tough questions. I mean, he just wham, wham, wham. And he said, "I'll tell you what." He says, "There's enough to what you're talking about that there's a big investor I know, and he invests in this sort of thing. And it's by invitation only, but he has a monthly meeting. And on my goodwill, I'll invite you to the meeting and you can talk to what he's doing." So I had been really helpful to this guy, you know, over it. And then I saw him about six months later and he said, "No, it's not going anywhere." He says, "There's just too much complexity to this." He says, "Weapons, this has way too much complexity to it." And I've learned, I mean, I've learned not to say, "That's a really interesting idea" because then they'll say, "Dan is really interested in this idea." So I don't know if that's useful at all. But what I'm looking for is, where can I be useful to this person without me committing to it?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: So let's do a little role play here. Because I have this idea, you know, Strategic Coach for high-end coaching of entrepreneurs, got that market, but there's a whole big, big market of lower net worth individuals who are entrepreneurs where, you know, I think I could aggregate a lot of people and coach those people. And, you know, I'm just wondering with your experience, and you know what I'm offering this kind of coaching, but, you know, for smaller businesses, when I want to do it in an innovative way, and I couldn't think anybody better to ask than you, Dan. Now, by the way, to our audience, this is role playing, this isn't real. You know, would you take a look at my presentation deck, and would you give me your feedback on this? Because I'd really like to know what you think about it. Because I think you're going to like it, and I really respect your opinion, so I'd like to get your opinion.
 
Dan Sullivan: First of all, I don't have time to look at your deck right now. I mean, I grasp the idea. I would tell you that in the coaching business with small businesses, what you discover very quickly, there's a reason why small businesses are small businesses. And I said, we've tried that where we had a lower level of our program and it bombed. Okay. And it's very, very interesting. There was two workshops that we had. We had the low-price workshop one day in the same premises as the highest-level workshop. And somebody came out of the small room, and they said, "What's the difference between us in the low-price room and the people in the high-price room?" And I said, "Well, in the low-price room, you're smarter and you're faster than the people in the high-price room." And they said, "What do you mean, Dan?"
 
"Well, in your room, when I offer you a new idea, you say, 'That isn't going to work.' But if I go to the high price room and I say, 'I've got a new idea for you,' they said, 'I'll try it out, see if it works.' So you're much smarter because you can tell right off the bat why my idea isn't going to work, where they'll say, 'Do you have some way that I can try out the idea?' So they're not as smart as you are. And the other thing is that you're faster because the high-priced room, when I offer the new idea, they go out and try it, and then they come back and they say, 'You know, it would work if you would change this, it would work if you would change this, it would work if you change this,' where you, right from the beginning, know my idea won't work, so you don't waste all the time of going out and trying it out. You know it's not going to work, and that's the difference between your room and that room."
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Now, is that a realistic difference, or that's just a good way to get out of having to get involved?
 
Dan Sullivan: No, there's a reason why unsuccessful people are unsuccessful, and there's a reason why successful people are successful. And of course isn't going to make any difference.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah. So what's that reason, would you say, the pervasive reason?
 
Dan Sullivan: First of all, the successful people buy people. Unsuccessful people by ideas. In other words, and I said this right from the beginning, you had an idea for a play. Okay, and you talked about, I think we had talked about it maybe once before we had lunch on the Upper West Side. And Babs and I were there, and you told me about the idea. And we came back, and we said, we're going to invest in this. And you said, you know, it's a very risky investment, investing in a play. And I think I mentioned, I said, Jeff, we're not investing in the play. We're investing in you. The higher people go up, the more they invest in people. They don't invest in the things that people are doing.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's interesting. So let's say that there's…
 
Dan Sullivan: And that would remain the same today.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: In terms of?
 
Dan Sullivan: You.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: You mean why you would invest because…
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I would invest because it's you.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, thank you. But I also think that…
 
Dan Sullivan: See how I got you off track?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I've adjusted my moorings. Because, yeah, I think that in terms of why people invest, I think smart people invest in the people that they're investing in and their ability to execute on whatever that idea is, as opposed to the idea itself.
 
Dan Sullivan: But I knew your history by then. I had talked to you multiple times before that. And I knew that you, one, you were very prudent about what you took on. The other thing is, I knew you had a lot of experience in the theater field. I knew that you had done a lot of production work. You had done a lot of putting shows together, putting events together. So it wasn't too much of a jump from what I already knew about you to take on this new thing.
 
Right from the beginning, you didn't say, this is a hot idea that's going to sell itself. You said, you know, this theater is a risky business, you know, but I think this is a good one. You know, I think this is going to go places. And both Babs and I could pick up on the emotional commitment that you had already made to the project. Wasn't just a good idea. It's going to make a lot of money and it's going to happen fast. So actually you did quite a good job in trying to dissuade us.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, In looking for investors, an important criteria for me was that they could afford to lose whatever they invested without pain. That it wouldn't make any difference in their living style or anything else, which is also why I had a high minimum. Because also, the other thing about that is that, people who can afford those investments usually know other people who can afford such investments and hopefully they can bring some of them along too. There's a strategy involved with that. But I also, I don't have to remember what lie I told you if I tell everybody the same thing.
 
Dan Sullivan: You know, first of all, there's enormous amount of competition for the low-end market in entrepreneurship. The universities are into it. The community colleges are into it. There's a lot of big so-called coaches, you know, who they have an escalating way. They'll get you on a book. And then if you got the book, you buy into a course and then you do this. And after a while, you're probably paying more money to them than people pay to us. So we have a real screening process of how we sort people out, and money isn't the number one thing that we screen out. We screen out, is this a growth-minded person or is this a transaction person? But there's just a world of different questions that you would ask the person. And one of the phrases I have in Strategic Coach: "The problem is never the problem. The problem is people don't even know how to think about the problem." It's thinking that's the main problem.
 
And so what I try to do as a service to anybody who's had a new idea is to get them actually thinking about their thinking about how they're going about this.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: So what would you ask them?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, I'd say just what's your motivation for doing this type of program? I mean, is this something that you're going to really, really like? Is this something that you're really going to be involved in? Or do you think that it's a really fast moneymaker? That's not saying anything about their idea. You're just asking them, how are they thinking about the idea? I say, what are the obstacles that you see that could stop you from growing this? You know, what are the issues?
 
About six months ago, I had a Zoom call. And Canada has a tremendous housing problem, just like the United States does. Actually, Canada's got a worse housing problem than the United States does. And the reason is that most of the Canadian population lives in about 20 cities. Okay, it's like 60% of the population of Canada lives... but that's not true in the United States. I mean, there's hundreds of places where you can buy a house in the United States. And he said, but here's the deal, what it is, the government has just put out a new program and they're providing this money. And so what you do, we can show a person how they can buy a house, and the government will allow them to retrofit their house so that they have three living spaces in the house. You can take the house, and you can actually have three different living quarters, so there's three tenants, okay? And he went through the whole thing. I'm not going to bore you with all the details of the program.
 
And I said, so the government just changed its mind and it did this? And they said, yeah. And I says, do you think it's possible that the government will just change its mind when you're fully committed and not do it? And he said, no, no, I've worked it all out. And he had this huge spreadsheet of all the work that they were doing. And he would do this, and this is where the media would come in and everything. I mean, it was like the Manhattan Project. This is where we drop the bomb. And I said, have you done one house yet with paying customers? And he says, no. And I said, well, you're missing 50% of the learning curve. You haven't done it even once. If you do it once, you probably know 50% of what it would take to do 10. Then you do 10, you know 50% of what it might take to do 100. I said, you're starting at the wrong end. You're starting at, you know, we're going to have 1,000 units going. And I said, you haven't done one yet.
 
I coached for 15 years, you know, from '74 to '89, which is just one on one. And I coached about 200 people. And I said, you know, I think I know enough that we can put a workshop together where we can have more than one person. And the first one had six, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I wasn't charging 100%, but I was charging 60%. So it was six times six is 360%. It was a big deal. So the whole thing is, there's Chris Voss, you know, who's the hostage negotiator. The main problem is a contextual problem. You know, when somebody comes to you with a new idea, they're locked into a context that this is going to be a real winner. And they're trapped by their context. And you gotta ask them questions that allow them to "untrap" themselves from their context: "How are you gonna go about doing this? How's it gonna work?"
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, there are people that can lay out, like your friend with the spreadsheet, can lay something out that, within that world they created, it all makes sense. But there hasn't been, in that case, a single reality check on that. So you don't really know if that's going to work. And the thing is that in our example, what we're talking about is also a friend not looking for you to invest necessarily, but how do you deal with giving them feedback for their idea? And I guess, you know, for instance, a red flag to me in so many of these ideas that I hear, I call it "selling a miracle." And since I don't believe in miracles, I don't believe in buying either. But, you know, because it's the old adage, if something seems too good to be true…
 
Dan Sullivan: It is.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Then it is. Right. It is too good to be true. Yet, there are people that invest a great deal in their own idea and believe in their own idea. And, you know, where does being honest with them, like saying, "You know, I don't understand the market that you're in, and I don't really understand how that works," as opposed to, you know, "Well, you ought to try this and see if it works. Because I don't really know your market. I don't really know that."
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I've got a fairly safe way of saying, how would you get your first customer? Let's just talk about first customer. You know, and how would you do that? I mean, if we were having this discussion and it was a month from now and in that time period, you got one customer, how would that happen? And the reason is, you don't have anything till you have one.
 
Just about the experience that we're talking about here, have you had a situation where it was impossible for you to give honest feedback where it actually undermined the relationship?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: No, I think that what has happened is that I know how to be—but I'm conscious of it—but know how to be kind of vague enough. But if they say, "No, I understand what you're saying, but I want to really understand why you think X." At a certain point, I feel I have no choice but to be honest about it. And if that honesty ruptures the relationship, then we don't really have a relationship to begin with.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So there is no risk, really.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Interesting way of looking at it. The only risk is... Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really interesting, interesting way to look at it. But who's risking what? If I'm risking the relationship by telling you the truth—and now this is a bit of a pivot—but if I'm risking the relationship by telling you the truth, then what is that relationship really based on? Is it based on me just telling you what you want to hear? Because then that's not the criteria for relationships that I maintain.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And I think the other thing is that, what do you think that I can add to your idea? I mean, what is it that—you're asking me for my honest opinion here—what is it that you think that I can add to your understanding of your project? Because...
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's a great question, by the way.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: "What do you think I can add to this?" Because I think that gives you a prompt that you can respond to that...
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, you're breaking the context too. The thing that I've gotten most from Chris Voss, you know, who's got a great book out there called Never Split The Difference. He said that in negotiation, and to a certain extent, someone approaching you and asking you, they're negotiating for something. You don't know what the something is that they're negotiating for. Otherwise, they wouldn't have started the conversation. And yeah, I've got a rule: Test only on check writers. So are you seeing me as a check writer here? That's the question. Are you approaching me and asking my opinion, but what you're actually looking for is a check?
 
And you were really great about that at the lunch we had. And you said, there's two types of support. There's moral support. I'll give you your lines back to you here, Jeff. Are you looking for our moral support? And you said, but what I'm really looking for here is financial support. You know, and both Babs and I, I mean, you went and made a visit to the john, and by the time we came back, we said, you know, we'll invest, and that was it. But I think you set it up properly. So the big thing, when somebody asks you that kind of question, what do you think of this idea, you're saying, what are you looking for as an answer? Is there something you want me to do as a result of this conversation?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I think that's good. And so the answer is, in our role play now, "Well, Dan, you know, you've been very successful as a coach for decades now. You have a highly respected reputation out there, and you deal with business starters, entrepreneurs. So I'm wondering if you think- I'm not looking for you to write a check."
 
Dan Sullivan: Okay.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: "I just, you know, I'd like to know if you think that this idea will sell to your market, because your entrepreneurs can afford what I'm offering. So I'm wondering if you think this is a viable offering. And you know, and I've invested a lot of money. I put together this incredible deck, I put together this very effective video, I've done all of this." And because oftentimes what people are looking for is reinforcement for what they've already done, and it's kind of too late for them to do anything different. And so, you know, at what point do you figure, you know, it's not worth telling the truth because there's nothing they can do about it? They're too far down the road. So I will try to just minimize damage by deflecting a bit.
 
Dan Sullivan: Hm. Yeah. You know, maybe because it's happened to me hundreds, maybe thousands of times, you know, but I won't look at a deck. Constitutionally incapable of looking at a deck. And I said, "Look, can you just explain it right here?" And I said, "I think you're developing a convincing argument, but what's the compelling offer here? How's somebody immediately better off? So do you have the program? I mean, is the program there?"
 
Jeffrey Madoff: "The program's there and you're gonna make a lot of money really quickly. I mean, you know, for what I'm charging for this, it's a bargain because you can 10x your business in what used to take a few years. I can help you accelerate that, and it can happen in a few months."
 
Dan Sullivan: "Yeah, I'll tell you right off the bat, it took me 15 years to figure out what the coaching business was really about. And it was hard work. It was really hard work. And how much are you charging, by the way, for a small business to do this? What's your price point?" Okay. So we're having a conversation here, but the two questions you have to ask for is, what changes as a result of your program? In other words, what are the five changes that the person makes as a result of the program? And how do they feel about those changes?
 
The other thing is, how do you get paid? When do you get paid? Do you get paid at the front end, or do you get paid along the way? And I would have a lot to add to that as we went along. But I have to tell you, they're probably asking a lot of people, so I'm just one of them. But I'm pretty blunt about whether I think an idea will work or not. There was a financial advisor about four years ago and he said, you know, we're working with a software engineer and we're putting together a whole program that takes all the customer's data and puts it into, and then we have a dashboard for it. And I said, "Do you have that yet?" And he says, "No, no, I'm working with a software engineer." Okay. I said, "So how far away are you from an announcement that this is now available?" And he said, "Software engineer says six months." Okay. So I said, "That's a year." But I never feel personally that the relationship is what's at stake there. I mean, I asked you the question, Jeff, does this happen often with the idea? And what kind of ideas are they? Are they in the realm of theater? Are they in the realm of fashion? Are they in the realm of…
 
Jeffrey Madoff: It's in the realm, many realms. Sometimes it's theater and sometimes it is…
 
Dan Sullivan: Product, it's a product.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, a service. You know, it can be that. And I've been asked by a few different networks to do a podcast. And I'm thinking- And they aren't billing me in a way that makes any difference to their business. They think I would be a good addition to the editorial content that they have on their platform. I'm thinking there's roughly two trillion podcasts out there. And you know, really, do we need another one?
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I have data on that. And I think it's around three million.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That are actually functioning or just out there?
 
Dan Sullivan: No, there's big data outlets that do this, and about 1% of them do anything. So 1% out of three. There aren't many podcasts that really make it. But the big thing about it is it's almost, they are asking you to be part of their mix, right? Is that what's happening? Why would you be interested in that?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: My interest is because I like the conversations that you and I have. I enjoy it. And I have, by this point, have enough contacts in different areas that I'm interested in, whether it's theater, whether it's cognitive neuroscience, whether it's creativity or whatever, where I can talk to people who are well-known in that area. I learn from it and enjoy the engagement...
 
Dan Sullivan: So they would be your guests, right?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes, yes. So, you know, now, of course, the podcast that you and I do, Anything And Everything, you know, the tremendous checks I get as a result of doing this have, you know, that's how I afford the extravagant lifestyle I have. [laughs]
 
Dan Sullivan: And I'm doing it because you get all the money.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: [laughs] Well, when you 10x 0...
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, 0 of any kind of multiplier.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's right. That's right. Well, I think there's two questions that are important to ask the person. One is, why are you doing this?
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, because that's the context. You know, "why?" is the context question. I mean, where does this fit in? And do you have the time? You know, this is why I always go really, really small with any new idea that I start. For example, I've got a new idea that I'm talking about, and I'm not doing it the way that I usually do it. I just create a workshop, announce it to the entire client base.
 
So I had one three years ago, and it was called The Age Reversal Program. And I got about 150 clients that signed up for it. It was $10,000 each. So, you know, it was a million and a half right off the bat. And we did it for two years and then we stopped. And I said, I'm not seeing any action really taking place. We're discussing a lot of subjects. I've got enough expertise that I can bring them in. And we had four-hour workshops once a quarter. And we gave out a lot of practical advice.
 
But what I noticed was the spectrum of people who showed up was too great. And I didn't see much action. People had a lot of questions. We had people who gave very good pointers on how you could talk about it. We had quite a bit of people in the medical industry who were specialists in one area or specialists in another area. And we gave contact information they can get in touch, but there was almost no follow-up. And I said, I learned a lot from doing it, and I think the people who were on it did a lot, but it wasn't worth continuing.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Which, by the way, doesn't mean it wasn't worth doing.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: It had a shorter lifespan.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it had a shorter lifespan. We made money on it because the money's all up front in our system. And then I had another one that went for a year. It was on intellectual property, how to think about intellectual property. And I think we had about 100 that signed up, same $10,000 each. But again, there wasn't much movement, copyrights, trademarks, getting it. So now I have a new idea. It's called The Patent Club. And it's the way that you can, once you have a patent, what can you do with a patent? And I'm just going to start it small. And I'm not even charging for it at this point. But I know about 20 clients right off the bat who have patents. And I said, let's just have a Zoom call where we talk about this.
 
And we have financial advisors who know what you can do. But everybody's got a patent. You can't be part of the conversation until you have the patent, which means that you've actually taken action and gone through the process. And these are all U.S. patents. So I'm just starting as small as possible just to see if it's an interesting conversation. I'll create new thinking tools out of it that'll go right into the Program, so it'll be a good R&D. But I'll just do a survey in the client base. Everybody's got a patent. I already know the people who would be in the first group right off the bat, and we'll see where it goes. But what I realized with both of those first two, I started too big too fast. And then I was committed because I had their money. And what I've learned from this, and this is Dan getting a little wiser at 80, is just see if there's a discussable topic here that people would invest in. So I'm doing far more research this time, and it's informal. It's let's get together, let's talk and see what comes out of this.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, you know, again, the thing that you've got, as opposed to these startups, if you will, you have an ecosystem, which you can feed things into, get market response to it quickly. And so, you know, you've, you've set up a whole system that you can get feedback and you don't even need to ask personal questions. You know, it's really, if they join, there's an interest.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: You know, I think the second question that I would ask after, why are you doing this? I guess the question is, what do you hope to get out of it? You know, you're showing them in many of these cases, how to make quick money. I'm not saying you, I'm saying a lot of these offerings are-
 
Dan Sullivan: They're all quick money.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's right. And of course that... If I can help you make quick money, I can make quick money by helping you make quick money. You know?
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, well, that's the story of my life.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Which I think rarely works. Again, that's selling the miracle.
 
Dan Sullivan: Things come up all the time that people are discovering. I really took a look at the AI thing. And we've got a client, he's from Ohio. His name's Evan Ryan, great, great, great entrepreneur. And he's my first client that I'm 50 years older than. I'm actually 51 years older than him. And he's got a really interesting process. He's been in Coach for five or six years, so he kind of understands the coaching model for being in Coach. And I have lots of coaches. I probably have 300 coaches in the Program who coach something. You know, different fields. And coaching is the second fastest growing industry in the world right now. IT is number one. Coaching is number two. Okay, and it's coaching about anything.
 
I mean, we can use our friend Steven Palter as an example. He's an IVF doctor. And Steven, just terrific. I mean, from everything I've heard and everything else, he's at the top of his profession. And he got involved in TikTok, just putting out messages. And what he was doing was correcting information that was out in the TikTok realm. And he just started doing little minute and a half saying, well, "This is being said out there. And I'm going to tell you, as a doctor who's been involved in this field for 30 years, this is not correct. This is incorrect information. This is the correct information." And he said, for example, the number one reason why women can't get pregnant is the diet that they're eating. And he says, I'm just telling you right now that the first thing you have to change is your diet if you want to get pregnant. So he started putting these out. And I was with him once at lunchtime. And he had just made a TikTok that morning. And it was about a minute and a half on a topic that there was bad information. He always starts off, "There's bad information out there. I'm going to correct the information. This is it." And in three hours, he was already at 100,000 downloads.
 
So he took that and he turned it into a little program of everything you have to do before you would visit an IVF clinic. This is everything you have to do. Don't come to the clinic because you're not ready to come to the clinic. You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this, and everything else. And you gotta do it consistently over at least a six-month period to even put yourself in a position where you can even talk about this to someone who would help you. So they began a program that's selling like mad. It's like $500. It's a certain number of modules. And it's growing like crazy. He's not selling any medical advice whatsoever. It's just what you have to do to put yourself in a position where you can seek medical advice.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: And in that case, the metric is how quickly that information is getting picked up, and is that happening frequently enough that it's worth doing? And the answer is yes, not based on anybody's advice. It's based on actual work.
 
Dan Sullivan: He actually created something that was creating value before he ever started charging for it.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Right.
 
Dan Sullivan: And I think this whole thing about fast is the problem.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes. Boy, do I agree with that. But tell me what you mean by it.
 
Dan Sullivan: Something that's valuable doesn't happen fast. And even if it looks like it's happening fast, you don't know the five years that led up to it.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's right. It's funny when you say about things don't happen fast. I think of Superman. And the diamond and what it took to mine that, but Superman could like crush a piece of coal and turn it into a diamond. The fact is, of course, Superman doesn't exist.
 
Dan Sullivan: And you can't do that. Well, I think it's a very topical question because we live in the United States and, more so than in Canada., we live where examples of miracles are pointed out all the time. But you don't know the backstory. You don't know the backstory to it. The big question, why do you want it to happen fast? I mean, I've been 50 years at my trade, and I'm starting to get a feel for it. [laughs] Yeah, you know, and the further I go, the more it goes into the realm of philosophy, you know, as I go along. You know, psychology and philosophy is more or less. But I think the thing that you zeroed in on here is the safest protection of helping somebody is, why do you want to do this?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: And what do you hope to get out of it?
 
Dan Sullivan: Where does this fit into your life?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Right.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. How does this relate to what you're already doing?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: And I think an important thing that you added into this too is, if telling the truth is risking the relationship, it's not really a relationship.
 
Dan Sullivan: There's no risk.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that-
 
Dan Sullivan: I mean, you don't have to be mean about it, but you do have to be straightforward.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's right. And it's also obviously my opinion because you haven't even tried this yet. So I'm just giving you my opinion about this. And I could be wrong, you know, but that's my opinion. But I think turning it back so they have to answer the question is more effective because it's going to help them reflect.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, they're thinking.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's right.
 
Dan Sullivan: I don't see any downside to thinking.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Let me think about that.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, but, you know, we live in a culture and both of us hang out with very creative people. And, you know, some of the people who got taken, we were talking about Bernie Madoff, say, you know, have you heard about this thing with Bernie Madoff? They get 18% every year. They get 18% every year. You say, why do you want that? You know, why are you looking for something like this? And it says, Bernie didn't want to answer any questions about how it happened.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Right. Which is the red flag right away.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. All righty. It's fascinating. I mean, you just put me on to a great book, Charlatan, about this man who swore by a surgical process of implanting glands from a goat into you, it would change your entire life.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Not the way you hoped, but it would.
 
Dan Sullivan: But it sounds like he's a phenomenal salesperson. And the trial that did him in, the final trial, there was somebody hanging outside the courtroom and he said, "You know, I always thought he was bilking me when I was paying all that money, but I really like him, and he doesn't come across as a mean person at all."
 
Jeffrey Madoff: No, and I think that a con is somebody who gains your confidence.
 
Dan Sullivan: Gives you confidence, yeah. That was a wonderful, wonderful book, and we recommend it. Charlatan, you know, huge, huge beneficial book. I love that book.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Thank you. I thought you would, and I thought you in particular would enjoy it, so I'm glad that you did.
 
Dan Sullivan: Boy, it explains a lot about America.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Uh-huh. It does.
 
Dan Sullivan: And they act, well, this was the 1920s and '30s. Are you kidding? This is there since 1620. You know, I mean, and this is part of what keeps things moving. I mean, you know, if you just took out what he did to push radio ahead by 20 years and what he did to advertising and public relations, I mean, I'm not saying he should be on Mount Rushmore, but he moved a lot of very important things forward.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: He did. And the thing that's interesting, we both also really enjoy Timothy Wu. And in a way, those books go together.
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's funny that Timothy Wu doesn't mention him. And the other thing, I never knew that history of country and western music.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Oh, you mean, and the ownership of that antenna?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, not only that, just all the stars that came along. And I thought it was all out of Nashville. It wasn't all out of Nashville. It was out of Kansas and just over the border in Mexico.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Right. Yeah, no, it's fascinating. So to wrap this up, I guess it comes down to one of the old bromides that's true, which is you can always ask the question to cause the person to reflect on their own question. And when you are giving a response, whether you think the idea has value or not, you don't have to be mean about it, but you want to be truthful because then you don't have to remember what lie you told them later on.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. The other thing is that, be good willed about it.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Right.
 
Dan Sullivan: That you want the person to benefit from your response.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Right. So I guess that brings us square in the middle of Anything And Everything. And this was a session we hope you all get value of and give us constructive criticism that we'll disregard. [laughs]
 
Dan Sullivan: And thanks for the hour.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Thank you, Dan. Thanks for joining us today on our show, Anything And Everything. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. For more about me and my work, visit acreativecareer.com and madoffproductions.com. To learn more about Dan and Strategic Coach, visit strategiccoach.com.