In this episode of The Simply Be Found Huddle, hosts Rob and Dean welcomed entrepreneur, business coach, and agency owner Jake Smolarek. With over 20 years of business experience, Jake shared valuable insights on growing a business by delegating and creating success through deliberate focus and smart prioritization.
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About This Huddle’s Special Guest
Jake Smolarek is a seasoned entrepreneur and business coach who knows how to cut through the noise and get results. With over 20 years of experience and a thriving digital marketing agency based in London, Jake helps entrepreneurs build, scale, and sustain businesses—whether they’re starting from scratch or juggling a side hustle with a full-time job.
Jake specializes in working with small and medium-sized business owners who are ready to grow but struggling to manage time, generate leads, or gain traction. He’s known for his no-fluff, action-first coaching style, and it works. One standout success story? Helping an e-commerce business go from zero to £5 million (about $6 million) in just four years.
His agency supports clients around the globe—from Australia and New Zealand to the U.S., U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands—giving Jake a broad, real-world perspective on what works in different markets. And no matter where you’re starting from, his focus is simple: do the small things extraordinarily well.
Jake’s approach is built on proven frameworks like his “10-80-10” method for execution and “Vision GPS” for long-term planning. He’s especially passionate about helping entrepreneurs find that critical balance between business success and personal well-being—so they’re not growing a company at the cost of their family or freedom.
We appreciate Jake sharing his hard-earned wisdom with the Simply Be Found community. If you’re looking for real talk and real results, Jake’s just a chat away on these platforms:
Key Takeaways From This Huddle
Jake starts with a reality check: while money isn’t everything, in business, cash flow is king. Without it, nothing else moves. Right behind it? Time. Entrepreneurs constantly run short on it. “Jeff Bezos has 24 hours. We all have 24 hours. The difference is how we prioritize,” Jake explains. Effective business growth starts with recognizing that delegation and sales are the only way to protect those two resources.
His coaching success comes from helping clients master execution—not by doing more, but by doing better. “It’s not about doing extraordinary things. It’s about doing small things extraordinarily well,” he says. That principle helped one client grow from $0 to $6 million in four years. Delegating the distractions and focusing only on the highest-impact activities is what drives real momentum.
Mastering the 80/20 Rule With Delegation and Sales in Mind
The huddle also introduces the Pareto principle to life: of every 10 things on your list, only two truly move the needle. “Do those two things first. They create 80% of your outcomes.” For most entrepreneurs, those two things are delegation and sales. Clear the clutter, hand off the rest, and double down on what drives growth.
Jake draws from behavioral science and marketing data to show how trust is earned: 7+ hours of interaction, 11+ brand touches, and exposure across at least four platforms. The takeaway? Visibility isn’t just about marketing—it’s about building relationships. And relationships drive sales. In a trust-first world, delegation and sales are two sides of the same coin.
The take is clear: people buy from people. “Richard Branson has more followers than his company because we trust him,” he explains. Entrepreneurs who learn to delegate operations and focus their energy on brand visibility and personal credibility gain the trust needed to close more deals—and close them faster.
How AI Is Shaping Modern Marketing
He notes that AI changed SEO almost overnight. While long, keyword-packed content used to win, authenticity now plays a bigger role. Still, technical SEO matters—especially for local businesses missing schema markup. Jake’s own success with a top-ranking 5,000-word article proves that human-written, purpose-driven content wins. And once content systems are built, delegation and sales become even more effective, because the funnel is already working for you.
Effective sales, Jake argues, never feel like selling. It’s about connection, clarity, and asking the right questions. His long-form discovery calls (2–4 hours) boast a 40% close rate, precisely because they build trust and showcase value.
When it’s time to ask for the sale, he doesn’t hesitate: “What do you want to think about? Let’s decide now.” That blend of confidence and clarity is what makes delegation and sales sustainable and successful.
Navigating the Hard Middle: The 10-80-10 Rule For Delegation and Sales
Business starts out exciting (first 10%), becomes tough (middle 80%), and pays off in the final 10%. The problem? Most people quit in the messy middle. Jake’s antidote is what he calls a “Vision GPS”—a clear destination paired with goals, planning, process, and systems. Delegation and sales allow founders to stay focused on that vision instead of getting lost in low-impact tasks.
Rob and Dean asked a powerful question: if you leave your business for 30 days, will it keep running? If not, you don’t have a business—you have a job. The solution? Build systems, automate where possible, and lean into delegation and sales. That’s how you create freedom and scalability.
Jake’s closing thought? Progress—not perfection—is what keeps entrepreneurs happy. Whether it’s improving in your business, health, or relationships, it’s momentum that drives fulfillment. His recommendation: get crystal clear on your goals, prioritize high-impact work, protect your energy, and use delegation and sales to stay focused on what you do best.
Want To Take Delegation and Sales A Step Further?
Processes like these can be overwhelming for any business owner. If you want to grow your knowledge even more, check out our membership pricing at Simply Be Found. Aside from personalized coaching, we have a suite of solutions tailor-made to make your business run smarter.
Transcript
- 00:00 | Welcome to the Huddle with Jake Smolarek
- 00:31 | Jake’s Background: Entrepreneur, Coach, Agency Owner
- 01:52 | Growing an Online Business to $6M in Revenue
- 02:57 | Why Time & Money Are the Real Priorities
- 04:05 | How Prioritization Drives Business Growth
- 05:29 | Saving Time in Digital Marketing with the Right Tools
- 06:49 | SEO Then vs. SEO Now: AI Has Changed the Game
- 08:10 | Content That Ranks: Real better than Robotic
- 09:14 | What Most Local Businesses Miss in SEO
- 10:50 | The Truth About Pretty Websites and Schema
- 12:10 | You Have to Drive Traffic – Organic Ads
- 13:28 | Dunbar’s Number & Why Consistency Builds Trust
- 15:00 | Be Everywhere: Multichannel Brand Visibility
- 17:03 | Why Personal Brand Outperforms Business Brand
- 18:47 | Avoiding the Hard Sell: Connection Over Pressure
- 21:04 | Delegation = Growth: Work Only in Your Genius Zone
- 22:21 | Sales Solves Everything: Money Drives Business
- 23:36 | Hobby Effort = Hobby Money
- 25:06 | Retention is as Important as Sales
- 26:50 | Data-Driven Follow Up & Retargeting Best Practices
- 28:12 | Selling Without Selling: Apple Store Sales Psychology
- 30:00 | Why Fear-Based Sales Calls Don’t Work
- 33:18 | Copywriting That Converts: Jake’s Cold Email Secrets
- 35:19 | CRO Over Design: Real Conversion Wins
- 37:08 | How to Pitch Like a Pro (Jake’s 500+ Reps Advice)
- 39:02 | Smart Goals, GPS Framework & Business Vision
- 41:08 | Are You Building a Business or Creating a Job?
- 43:17 | What Real Business Freedom Looks Like
- 45:00 | Delegation, Time Management & Buy Back Your Time
- 46:52 | Decision-Making & Why Most Entrepreneurs Struggle
- 48:00 | Progress = Happiness: What Entrepreneurs Need Most
- 49:46 | The Power of Consistency and the 80% Middle
- 52:00 | Final Thoughts & How to Find Jake Smolarek
00:00 | Welcome to the Huddle with Jake Smolarek
Rob: Welcome to the Simply Be Found Huddle with Dean and Rob, and today we have our guest Jake. Jake, welcome. I’m going to do my best at not coughing on this one and just hitting that mute button, so you’ll be seeing me do this quite probably a little bit. It’s allergy season here in Colorado, but welcome to the show. We do everything raw, we do everything uncut, and most of our listeners are small business owners, but we get marketers, we get big enterprise, a lot of people listening to our show these days ever since we got started back in January. But welcome, why don’t you introduce yourself to everybody and kind of a little bit about yourself, and we’ll jump into a conversation.
00:31 | Jake’s Background: Entrepreneur, Coach, Agency Owner
Jake: Thank you Rob, thank you for having me on the show. My name is Jake Smolarek. I am first of all an entrepreneur. I’ve been running businesses for over 20 years. I’m also a business coach because I love helping entrepreneurs scaling their businesses or start their own businesses if they haven’t started yet, or a side hustle if you have a full-time job and you would like to start something on the side.
You know, I was talking to one of my clients yesterday. We built an online business from zero four years ago to 5 million pounds turnover – that’s about six million dollars, which is not bad, right? Reasonable.
Rob: Why don’t you go do that for me?
Jake: So it sounds simple, but then when you look closely at it, you know, when you have to work 18 hours a day and then you also have a full-time job, it’s not… it’s simple, but it’s not that easy.
So I work with small and medium-sized business owners. I also run three other companies. I also own a digital marketing agency here in London, but we have clients all over the place like Australia, New Zealand, US, UK, Germany, Netherlands, stuff like that. So yeah.
01:52 | Growing an Online Business to $6M in Revenue
Rob: Perfect. So the company that you just took all the way up to six million US, what kind of company was that? I didn’t catch it if you said it.
Jake: It’s an e-commerce business.
Rob: Is it B to C? I’m assuming it’s B to…
Jake: Yeah, B to C mainly, okay.
Rob: What do you think your biggest reason you grew so much? What was your biggest secret there?
Jake: Well, it was my client who grew his business, but it was a lot of small things. I always say to people, it’s not about doing extraordinary things, but it’s doing small things extraordinary well. Because in a business, everything matters – not equally the same, but everything matters.
And in life, money is not the most important thing. I think it’s close to oxygen, but it’s not the most important thing. But in a business, money is number one.
02:57 | Why Time & Money Are the Real Priorities
Jake: You know, sometimes people argue with me and they say, “No, no, no, people are the most important thing in a business.” And I would say, “Yeah, but if you don’t pay them for 6 months or 12 months, they’re going to leave. They’re going to leave after 3 months if you’re not going to pay them because money and cash flow is number one.”
Which means everything is up to lead generation. You have to generate leads, and you have to make money, and then money will take care of most of things. Of course, leadership and everything is also important, but unfortunately, money is number one.
So the only thing that I can say that would be almost the same as money is business owners don’t have enough time.
Rob: Because you talked about all the little… It takes time. I mean, you’re talking 18 hours a day. I remember those days, and it is not… You have to, in order to get all those little pieces in place, you have to put your time into it as well to generate that money. So the time equates into money, if you will. But if there was one thing I could have more of, that’d be time. A lot of time.
Jake: Very often, you know, that’s true.
04:05 | How Prioritization Drives Business Growth
Jake: But at the same time, you know, Jeff Bezos, he’s got 24 hours a day. We’ve got 24 hours a day. And when I hear when people say, “Oh, I don’t have the time for this” or “I don’t have the time to go to the gym or take care of myself,” I would have to say, “Well, no, you do have the time. It’s just it’s not a priority for you. It’s all about prioritizing things.” And because you cannot do everything, but you can do everything that is important.
Rob: Well, you only have so much time in the day, but everybody has the same amount of time. For every person that’s on Earth, we all have the same amount of time every single day. So what we make use of that time is going to be there.
So we only have so much money, but when it comes to digital marketing, you can do a lot that doesn’t cost any money and be able to use that time to be able to get further down the road. Or you can get tools to be able to, you know, like SimplyBeFound.com. We’d make it to where you can go out to a thousand different profiles at one time from filling out one form.
05:29 | Saving Time in Digital Marketing with the Right Tools
Rob: Well, that’s going to save you time because you can do it from one spot. But if you don’t have the $39 it takes to be able to do that, then you’re gonna have to go through and register on all the, as many businesses as you possibly can.
So you have to remember that digital marketing can be… everybody’s on the same playing field. It’s a matter of how you use that time inside of there. And I’ve always said that competing inside of digitally depends on what direction you want to go with it. You can compete with the big boys along the way too.
So it’s, I mean, if you’re a local business, actually, you can rank higher faster than a big boy can that doesn’t have the local staff and doesn’t understand everything in there if you do it correctly. Which I think is absolutely crazy about e-commerce and for local business and local SEO and all that mixed all together. And it’s a whole different world than what it was if we went back into the 90s, and it took money to be able to do a lot of that stuff.
Jake: Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, we also have to understand that everything is different these days. I remember Google ads 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and today – completely different beast. SEO is the same.
06:49 | SEO Then vs. SEO Now: AI Has Changed the Game
Jake: SEO two years ago was completely different. I mean, Chat GPT and all those AI tools changed everything. Sorry for saying that…
Rob: No, it did. It flipped everything on top. It used to be where content used to be king. Well, now anybody can produce mass amounts of content, so now quality is a higher piece than content is, correct?
Jake: So what I find really interesting in the SEO world, we used to always say, you know, it took 800 to 1,500 words to be able to rank a blog.
08:10 | Content That Ranks: Real better than Robotic
Rob: Well, I’ve seen blogs that are one paragraph and less than 200 words rank higher than some of those other ones because it was real content and wasn’t wrote with just Chat GPT. It had some personality into it, which is kind of a… which is kind of a real…
So when you look at that from a data science piece, and I put my data science hat on, and you look at it from that aspect, it’s a very interesting piece to me because if we would have been two years ago, that would have been completely polar opposite.
Jake: Yeah, I mean, SEO, it’s a complex thing, very, very complex thing. Like as you probably know 100%, like copy is important, but copy is not everything.
I have a client who is another coach, is more like a life coach rather than business coach like myself, and he’s got almost zero copy on his homepage, and he’s at the top three on the first page of Google in the UK for the words “life coach.” Because SEO, if it’s done right, yeah, you don’t need a lot of copy.
I mean, I have an article that is number one for keywords “how to escape 9 to 5” or “how to escape 9 to 5 job.” It’s ranking number one in the UK, and it’s also ranking quite high in the US as well. And this is like 5,000 words article. But because it’s written in my style, in like my no-BS style, Jake style, people love it.
You know, I haven’t been trying to be SEO friendly. I really wanted to help people, and Google likes that.
Rob: They do, because that content’s real.
Jake: Exactly, you know, because of course you need to have H1s, H2s, meta title, meta description – everything must be technically correct. But at the same time, if you’re writing something from your heart that actually is helping people, oh my god, Google loves it.
And that’s why taking video and being able to do a transcript and then putting that into AI, if you’re going to use AI, is probably one of the biggest hidden secrets. Or having a conversation with your AI to be able to put your tone and your voice into it.
09:14 | What Most Local Businesses Miss in SEO
Jake: But when it comes to SEO, I think the probably the biggest thing that 90% of businesses, especially local businesses, are forgetting is they’re not putting any schema on their website at all.
And I had a complete conversation with somebody inside of one of our chats this morning with… they’re an agency, and they’re like, “Well, I don’t know what schema is. What is the schema that you’re talking about?” And I’m like… they’re like, “All we do is we build beautiful websites.” And there, I looked at some of their sites – are absolutely gorgeous, but they’re not doing any of the data structure inside of there.
And when Dean and I were talking, and as we build our websites, and we have that whole program that’s inside of us as well, and we do the SEO and all that different crazy stuff, but more now it’s how that data is structured so that way it can come in, it sees you, it knows what the data is, and it’s more about that data structure more than it is about being a pretty site.
10:50 | The Truth About Pretty Websites and Schema
Rob: You can have an absolute shitty looking site, and you can do absolutely well with it.
Jake: 100%. I’ve got clients like that. I always say like, listen, if you do any paid advertising or you’re good at SEO, but if your website is not converting, you’re not going to do any business. Unfortunately, you can have the most beautiful website on the planet, but if the website is not selling, if the website is not converting… Sorry, if you’re not driving traffic to it as well…
Rob: Oh, 100%. So I call that the “field of dreams” movement inside of there. So these designers, they know how to design, and they can make this beautiful site, and it sits there. Well, if you build it, they won’t come.
Jake: No, I mean, unless you get… I mean, you used to be able to get lucky every once in a while and have something that would… absolutely there. But if you don’t drive traffic to it, and I like driving traffic organically. I don’t like doing the whole ads piece. I think ads used to have a place. I think retargeting has a place still, but Google ads, I haven’t seen a really good Google ad campaign that was optimized where the ROI made sense in a long time. Now it’s probably been two years. AI’s flipped that completely over.
12:10 | You Have to Drive Traffic – Organic Ads
Jake: Yeah, I mean, even search engine optimization is not search engine optimization anymore. It’s search everywhere optimization. You have to be everywhere.
People and now we can talk about Dunbar numbers. So Professor Robin Dunbar, he discovered that we need to spend with a brand or a person about seven hours to trust that brand or to trust that person.
13:28 | Dunbar’s Number & Why Consistency Builds Trust
Jake: Imagine that you’re flying from New York to London. It’s about seven or eight hours flight. If you sit with someone and you have something in common and you start chatting, after about seven-eight hours, you know, after that journey, you will be like, “Oh my god, I’m going to call you. We are now the best friends.” Because it takes about seven hours to trust someone, to like someone.
And it’s the same with businesses. It’s the same with brands, whatever it’s a business brand or personal brand. It takes about seven hours, which means people need to spend with you. Like in my case as a coach, it’s with me. So either it’s a podcast, a video, my website, my articles, anything. So seven hours we need to spend with a person or a brand.
Now, Google made another study because they have access to loads of data, right? And they discovered that we need to have about 11 interaction with a brand or personal brand or business brand or with someone to again start trusting that company, a brand, a person. To be precise, it was 10.7 interactions.
And then we need to be on these days, we need to be on about four different platforms minimum so people can find us.
15:00 | Be Everywhere: Multichannel Brand Visibility
Jake: Let’s say it’s everywhere, and it’s very important because we have to be everywhere. Because if we want to have those seven hours that people will spend with us, we need basically… we need to produce content. And obviously, it’s not that easy to produce content like Alexi or Gary Vaynerchuk, people like that, right? Because they’ve got teams of people.
But we have to choose a few platforms, and we have to be very consistent. And I understand some people, they say like, “Oh, I’m so afraid about microphone or video.” Then write. You can write. Blogs are still there, you know. People are still making money from writing. But you have to do something.
Rob: But remember, you can have a conversation with your AIs, and it’ll write the blog for you. So I mean, you can turn on that mic inside of there. No one’s going to hear your voice, so it doesn’t matter any of those pieces. And it could be as simple as, you know, sitting inside of your car after giving a bid on a job and saying, “This is what I walked through on this job.” Now you have notes for yourself, and also you just turn that into a blog.
Jake: Yeah, but you have to produce something.
And today, what is even more important is a personal brand rather than just a business brands.
17:03 | Why Personal Brand Outperforms Business Brand
Jake: Because again, we love to do a business with people, not necessarily with brands. That’s why one of my heroes is Richard Branson. I’m sure you know Virgin, right? And Richard, he’s followed by millions of people, when Virgin Atlantic is followed, I can’t remember, maybe one million followers on Instagram or something like that. Because it’s all about people.
And funny that sometimes we say, “It’s a B2B business.” No, it’s not B2B. It’s always human to human, always. Because behind every business, there are humans, right? It doesn’t matter if it’s a small business, it’s a one-person, one-band business or five people or 10, or if it’s 10,000, it’s always about humans.
It’s funny that you said something about Google Ads. More often than not, when we take over Google Ads accounts, a big problem is that people, they write copy for Google Ads, and that’s a big problem. Because usually this copy is correct, but from the customer perspective, it’s very… it’s all about like, “Hey, we’re the best, buy from us because we are the best in the market.” Like, who the fuck said that you are the best?
18:47 | Avoiding the Hard Sell: Connection Over Pressure
Dean: So basically, what I’m hearing you say is quit talking about yourself. Let’s talk about how I can help you or I can solve your problems. Is that where you’re going with that, Jake?
Jake: 100%, because every single person on that planet is listening to this WIIFM radio – What’s In It For Me. And that’s a normal thing. We all think about ourselves, about our problems. So we have to offer solutions, we have to offer benefits, rather than talking about like, “Hey, buy from us,” because this doesn’t work. Nobody cares.
Rob: And you’re not the hero in your story. Your customer is the hero inside of that story. They are the one looking for the problem to be solved. They’re the one getting it solved. You just happen to be a tool, service, whatever to be able to help them, be able to guide them to make their story… be part of that piece. And that’s, if you watch any movie, that’s the whole entire layout of it.
Jake: Another interesting thing, and if small business owners are listening to it, most business owners, they think their business is special. They treat it like their baby. “Oh my god, I’m so special.” No, unfortunately not. Unfortunately, your business, in the consumer’s eyes, it’s exactly the same like any other businesses.
There’s a beautiful book by Seth Godin called “The Purple Cow.” I’m sure you hear about it. It’s a classic.
Rob: I haven’t read that one. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never read it.
Jake: It’s this one here. It’s a very small book. Basically, imagine that you’re driving your car. It’s a beautiful summer day. You’re driving somewhere in the countryside. You’re enjoying yourself, and suddenly you see loads of cows. All of those cows, they look exactly the same. Even if the patterns on their skin is completely different, they’re so unique, but when you look at them, they all look exactly the same, exactly the same. And this is your business amongst any other businesses.
Now imagine that one of the cows is purple. Now your entire attention is on that one cow, just one. Even if it’s thousands of them, this one cow stands out. And you have to become a purple cow somehow because you are not unique, at least you are not unique yet, and you have to somehow stand out.
Like I’ll give you my example. Like I’m a coach, I’m from Central Europe, and I always tell you how it is. If you are making mistakes, I will tell you that you are making mistakes. I don’t give a fuck what you think about me because I care about you. I’m not here to please you as a business coach. I’m here to help you. And some people love it, some people do not. I don’t care because I only need to work with a few people at the same time, you know.
And I do have that, but I am… I stand out. People come to me, and I would say like, you know, they would say like, “Oh, my business is not working because of this or that.” And I was like, “No, that’s bullshit. You’re just not concentrating on the right thing. You’re basically minor in major things.”
Rob: Sorry, major in minor things. Yes, I got you.
21:04 | Delegation = Growth: Work Only in Your Genius Zone
Rob: So there’s a major piece that we were talking about on a previous podcast this week about how business owners are constantly wanting to feel like they’re busy, and they want to constantly play with things, but they’re playing with the wrong things that are going to end up hurting them.
And where we see it a lot for us is they constantly want to come in, they want to edit their profile every day. Well, it takes time to go out to a thousand networks. It’s not just this instant piece. So now you have all this inconsistency. So it never got to build up to see if that data was even going to work or not to be able to even test that piece. But there’s things you can do to be able to play inside your business, but if you’re playing on the wrong stuff, you’re costing yourself a fucking ton of money.
Jake: Oh yeah. Again, most people, they major in minor things. They’re doing things that do not need to be done, or they do not need to be done perfectly.
Dean: Right. I think that’s a flaw with most small business owners. They don’t want to put anything out there until it’s absolutely perfect. I know I get caught in that mindset. I’m sure you know, it’s hard to not be perfect. But on the flip side of it, it’s better to have something out there than nothing out there because it’s not exactly where you want it. And that, I think that’s what you’re saying. Is that correct, Jake?
Jake: Yes. When I work with entrepreneurs, they all have the same problem – no time or lack of time. They all busy. And that’s the big problem because most of them, they’re busy, but they’re not productive. And that’s a massive difference. Running around doing loads of things, that’s not productive. That’s just busy.
And we have to decide, we have to prioritize what’s important, what’s not important. And I always say to people, especially people who are just starting their own business or side hustle, from day one, you want to learn how to delegate, and you want to start delegating almost everything and do only things that you are very good at, and only concentrate on that, which means less is more.
I’m very good at coaching, and I delegate everything else. And yes, a lot of people say like, “Yeah, but if you want to delegate, you have to pay for it.” Then, you know, start earning more money. You know, prioritize making sales, prioritize lead generation.
22:21 | Sales Solves Everything: Money Drives Business
Jake: Everything in a… when you’re running a business, everything is up to lead generation. If you have more leads than you can serve, then you sorted.
Rob: Well, it’s one of those things to where sales solves all. So if you need more money, go get more sales. You need to hire more staff, go get more sales. I mean, sales ends up building everything for any piece that’s inside of there. Because if you don’t have money coming in, you’re not going to be able to grow, you’re not going to be able to expand, unless you’re in a fortunate situation where you have other things bringing money in.
But you have to bring that money into that business to then be able to drive it up to be able to get it to be where you want it to be, right? But I mean, you have to get sales at the end of the day. Because if you’re not getting sales, you’re not going to get anything. Doesn’t really matter how many people like your page, how many people follow your page. If you’re not getting sales, it’s not working.
23:36 | Hobby Effort = Hobby Money
Jake: I also always say to people that if you want to be successful in anything, including building a successful business, you have to be, in a good way, obsessed about it. If you only like your business or you treat it like a hobby, well, you’re going to make a hobby money. That’s it.
But if you obsess… Look at athletes, you know, sports people. The successful ones, they’re super obsessed about what they do. They go to the gym twice a day. They really take care about themselves, etc., etc. But people who just like, “Oh, you know, like, yeah, I’ll try to do it,” they will never succeed.
Those people who are like super focused, super obsessed about what they want, they always succeed. And it doesn’t have to be the first time. I love what the founder of Nike said. You only have to succeed the last time you try. You fail, you try, you fail, you try, you fail, and then you… yeah, and you only have to succeed the last time.
Rob: Yes, you’re going to fail a lot of times because failure is part of success.
Jake: I often say that it’s not actually failure. It’s… it’s the wrong F word. It’s a feedback. Because you fail, you get feedback, you learn, and you try again and again and again.
25:06 | Retention is as Important as Sales
Dean: Yeah. So the other thing you know, you’re talking about sales, is you have to make sure that your business is doing a good job because retention is also just as important as sales. I mean, it depends on the industry you’re in, but most industries have… they want those repeat customers. It’s easier to have that repeat customer than to create that new one.
And I think business owners sometimes forget that. If they have an issue with somebody, they’ll say, “Oh, they’re not important.” Well, that hurts you in a lot of ways. I mean, you need to resolve issues and make their story successful. And then that creates a retention piece for businesses as well.
Rob: It’s why a lot of businesses that, you know, from my coaching experience, most businesses don’t collect any data on their current customers. They’re not retargeting any of their customers. And I still think that’s one of the biggest things that you could do for any of your ad spend. If you’re going to spend money on ads, retarget marketing is probably one of the best ones to be able to keep them in front of you.
26:50 | Data-Driven Follow Up & Retargeting Best Practices
Rob: For one, if they bought, so even if they’ve just only came to your website and you’re able to stay in front of them, you have to be able to have your touch points. If they’re a current customer of yours, you want to stay on top of them so a competitor doesn’t come and take them.
So having that email list, doing an email marketing piece, going through and making sure that they… trying to get them to connect on social media, doing all those things is going to make it to where you can stay in front of your customers along the way. And you have to bring them value. You cannot inside of your social media, inside of your marketing, and inside of your email campaigns, you cannot be going through and doing sales every single second and being like, “Buy, buy, buy,” because they’re going to… they’ll turn that off.
You have to bring some value into all of that. And I think 100%, I think most businesses fail when it comes to that.
Jake: 100%. So again, we’re going back to those Dunbar numbers. Basically, if they have to see your logo or your face at least, you know, 7, 10, 14 times on average, make sure that they end up on your website 10 times or 14 times or 15 times.
Another thing is in my coaching practice, when I have a prospect coming to me, and then I can clearly see it could be a good client, I will offer a free consultation. It’s a… I call it a free initial consultation. And this consultation usually takes about two, three, four hours. That’s a lot of time. It’s completely free.
28:12 | Selling Without Selling: Apple Store Sales Psychology
Jake: But during that time, we will build, you know, a proper connection. A lot of coaches will offer 15 minutes phone conversation, but how can you build a rapport in 15 minutes? It’s impossible.
After two or three hours, obviously, I will only allow two or three hours if I can clearly see that there is a match, there’s a connection there. After three hours, they already know how I work. They already know how knowledgeable I am, how much experience I have. And they already make it… they can make a decision like on the spot.
If they will tell me like, “Oh, let you know, let me think about it,” I’ll be like, “What do you want to think about? Why wouldn’t we make a decision now? Either it’s yes or it’s no. If it’s no, you go your way, I will go my way.” It’s as simple as that.
But a lot of people, I’m sure you know that, and you know those people, they’re so afraid about talking about money, or they’re so afraid about trying to close that client. They think they’ve got a lot of prospects on the hook. No, you don’t have anyone.
Because those prospects, if you call them back, you know, they will be on a meeting for the next three years, you know, like, “Oh, I can’t, I can’t talk now because I’m on a meeting.” And I’ll be on the meeting forever from now. If you don’t, if you’re not going to close them at the spot, later on, it’s going to be very, very difficult.
But at the same time, selling is basically helping the other person make a decision. As simple as that. Selling is basically asking a lot of good questions and then shut up and listen. Listen.
Dean: So do you have different approaches for, you know, let’s say you’re talking, you know, your coaching is x number of dollars. But let’s say you’re selling more like a commodity type product, you know, like insurance people or whatever. You know, there’s a lot of people out there selling that.
30:00 | Why Fear-Based Sales Calls Don’t Work
Dean: How do you get them to become more effective in talking to their clients or potential customers? Because that gets to be a whole different animal because, you know, how do you stand out? But if you don’t have a large profit margin, you can’t afford to talk for three hours with somebody. How do you approach that? You know, where I’m going with that on that, Jake?
Jake: Well, I’m a premium coach, which means like if I close one client, I will make, you know, four or five figures straight away. So you have to know where you are. You have to know what you’re selling. Obviously, if you’re selling a product for $50, you cannot spend three hours with the client, obviously.
Dean: Right. So you got to work faster.
Jake: Exactly. But you have to understand where you are. You have to understand, are you a free Michelin star restaurant or are you a McDonald’s? Because there’s a different approach. There’s nothing wrong with both businesses, you know. Both running a McDonald’s and running a three Michelin star restaurant can make you loads of money, but it’s a different approach.
So yeah, you have to know what to do and how to do it and where to invest your time. I know that if I invest a lot of time with my prospects, I will close that prospect. But yeah, but you are very correct. If it’s a $15 or $50 product or service, no, you cannot spend three hours, unless it’s a subscription. That’s another thing. Because if someone is going to subscribe to you for the next three years and is going to pay you monthly that 50 or 75 or 100 bucks, that’s a different story.
Dean: Yeah, very much right.
Rob: I think if you’re inside of insurance or something like that, Dean, my approach of how I would take them through that is I would say, “Okay, let’s go through, let’s set you up some video campaigns, let’s set you up with email campaigns, let’s get you going, have you listed out on all the networks. Let’s go through, let’s make sure your basics and start to form that tree piece.”
So that tree getting all your organic stuff at the very bottom, all your listings, your profiles, make sure the website is right, make sure it’s, you know, selling your story but bringing them in and selling them inside of there. Kind of like the new design that we’re going to be having come out where there’s a video almost in every single paragraph where they’re now building a relationship remotely without having to hop on a phone conversation.
An insurance rep could do that same exact piece and also bring value. You talk about the times that it failed out. If you look at like Farmers Insurance and their whole commercial, they bring out, you know, case files of things they’ve helped people solve.
Well, if you’re talking insurance, I mean, my goodness, you could talk about a lot of things that you help someone solve – everything from saving money to, you know, someone’s basement flooding, to, you know, a car deciding to come down the road and run into the house. I mean, there’s a lot of things you could bring into that that would be inside your marketing strategy that also creates a relationship at that same time.
But inside of insurance, you’re a commodity. You’re not… you’re not someone… they can always go somewhere else to save money. So bring those people in, create a relationship there. If they’re interested, then they make that phone call, and then they have that conversation.
Jake: I also always say to people, be prepared when you’re going to meet your client or customer. Always be as much prepared as you can.
33:18 | Copywriting That Converts: Jake’s Cold Email Secrets
Jake: Most sales people, they never prepare. They never read about the prospect. They never see their website. And they will ask like, “Okay, so tell me what you do,” straight away. It’s like a slap on your face.
But when you come to a salesperson that is so well prepared, you know, you’re building that bridge. You’re building that rapport, which is very important.
Also, a lot of small business owners, they have a massive problem with the word “selling” or “sale,” right? Because they think selling is manipulating the other person. And I always give an example of Apple. I’m sure you both been at least once at Apple store, right? You know, you walk into an Apple store, and then there’s one of those geniuses that will walk into you and say like, “Hey, how can I help you?”
And those people, those geniuses, they are salespeople. They’ve got sales training every single day, not even every single week or month, but almost every day. Because they are salespeople. But we never feel like they’re selling us anything because it’s so well done. It’s like an art that, you know, they will ask you so many good questions. And then you leave the Apple store, and suddenly you just spend two or three thousand pounds on Apple product.
Rob: I’ve never done that. I’ve never once went in and accidentally bought 15 laptops at one time. That would have been my biggest purchase of an Apple store ever. And next thing you know, I was walking out with 15 different laptops. And yeah, that was… that was an expensive day.
Jake: But you know what I’m talking about. You know, they’re not forcing you to buy anything.
Dean: Well, no, that’s a great point. That’s that whole thing of getting to know you and making it a comfort level, saying, “I want to do business with you” without actually trying to do a hard close.
I think, you know, you get those telemarketers that are trying to do a hard close. They talk to you for 15 minutes, tell you how stupid you are, and then you’re not… your business isn’t doing this, isn’t doing that. And if you don’t come with us, you’re going to fail. And pretty soon, the business owners are going, “What do I do?” But, you know, that’s a whole different business model, but they’re trying to create a different emotional set versus trying to get them to know you and becoming that good relationship of how I…
Rob: So if you’re a business owner in the US, you’re getting four phone calls that are spam calls every single day, or a combination of these four, and at least once a week where they’re either wanting to sell you a timeshare or some kind of vacation package, they’re wanting to get you a loan for your business, your Google business profile is jacked up or it doesn’t exist, and they found you because your Google business profile… so I mean, chances are, because that’s probably where they got your call list, that’s a whole another topic, or your voice search registration isn’t complete, or, you know, you have to get registered on, you know, whatever network they’re wanting to talk about.
Those are the four phone calls you’re going to get. That’s a hard sale because what they’re doing is they’re trying to manipulate that piece and trying to force you into a fear tactic. And I call that a timeshare sales tactic, where they want to go through, they want to be able to bring you in, they want to then hand you… you know, get you to say, “Yes, I’m interested. Why am I not being found? Oh my God.” And next thing you know, you’re talking to their manager, and they’re trying to hard close you.
And really, they had no idea who you were when they first made that phone call to you. All you were was a call list. They bought the list, they scraped the list, however it ended up working. But they, I mean, they didn’t know if your profile existed or not existed. They don’t know if you have a vacation package somewhere. I mean, they don’t know any of those datas. They don’t know if you… I love the loan ones because they want to say, “Hey, you’ve been approved for XYZ loan, and we just need to get your Social Security number.” Well, now they’re just trying to scrape you for, you know, business data or your personal data to steal your identity.
So I mean, there’s a whole entire… and some of them want to give you an actual loan, maybe. I don’t know. But it’s one of those things to where those are the types of hard sells I disagree with, and they happen all the time. Do you see those over in the UK as well, Jake?
Jake: The same thing, exactly the same.
35:19 | CRO Over Design: Real Conversion Wins
Rob: And I mean, I know a lot of business owners get really frustrated with that because they don’t… The problem with a business owner, especially when you’re talking about a small business owner, is they don’t know. So when they get told that you’re not registered on voice search, or they get told that, you know, your Google business profile doesn’t exist or isn’t being found, they don’t know any different than that. And it scares the living hell out of them.
They might be paying for a service. I’ve had, you know, clients of mine in the past, for marketing agencies that were spending 10, $20,000, and we were the ones doing all that. And they call and go, “You’re not doing your job.” “Well, what do you mean I’m not doing my job?” “Well, I got this phone call.” “Oh, they had this report showed all this stuff saying I wasn’t being found all these places.” “Well, that was a sales report, and it had nothing to do…”
Here’s where you are, and you could walk them through each of those pieces. But it’s a fear tactic, and it hits them right in the gut when they get those calls. And I mean, that’s a huge piece. But I don’t agree on those pieces because it doesn’t build a relationship at all. All you did is use the scare tactic. It’s good for maybe a one-time close, but you’re not going to keep them on very long.
Jake: No. I mean, at the same time, it all depends what you’re selling. But it’s all about the small things.
37:08 | How to Pitch Like a Pro (Jake’s 500+ Reps Advice)
Jake: I remember like one campaign we did with cold calling… so not cold calling, cold emailing. It took us year and a half… a year and a half, so that’s a lot of time, you know, 18 months, to come up with the, let’s say, perfect copy, or the copy that was actually converting. Most people would give up after a week, maybe a month, maybe two. We survived 18 months, you know, tweaking that copy to make sure that it will finally… and it finally started converting.
It’s cold email. You know, we all get cold emails every day. I’ve got at least 20, 30, 50 a day sometimes. That’s a lot. Since we got on this call, let’s see how many I have. 37 emails.
One, two, three, four, five… just at the very, very beginning. So what I did is like, we… this copy was very short, to the point. It was my language, no bullshit around, just to the point, no bullshit. I would say like, “Hey, we can do this and this, numbers this for you, and we can close this. Let’s meet up.” Now, to the point. No like, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, your business, you have beautiful website. How are you?” Yeah, like, skip that.
And then I had people, it was almost like too good to be true. But I… one thing, once I have prospects in front of me, either in person or in Zoom, my conversion rate is at least 40%. And that’s high.
Dean: 30, 40%, that’s a great… that’s a great close call, great.
Jake: Of all we select who we want to target. And then, yeah, once they come to the call, they would say like, you know, like, “Your email was almost too good to be true, and I’m getting 20 emails like this every single day.” And then I would say like, “Yeah, but you’re here because my email was shit hot.” Yeah, it was good.
And they would say like, “Yeah, it was… it was good. Like, so let’s talk about…” And then I will explain what we do, how we do it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I remember like today, I was meeting this guy who was running a big… still running, they’re a client of us, a big furniture business. And he came to me, you could clearly see the energy like, “Okay, I want to meet with you, but be very quick because I’m a busy guy.” And then I show him a few things, and I say something about like, “Your website is great, but we would have to do some CRO work,” you know, some conversion rate optimization.
39:02 | Smart Goals, GPS Framework & Business Vision
Jake: And he said something like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, I will be talking to my digital agency next week about conversion rate optimization, and they want to charge me 2,000 for that meeting.” And I said like, “If you have 15 minutes, I will tell you exactly what to do.”
And we… I spent 45 minutes explaining to him completely for free what to do, how to do it, what to improve – not like crazy things, it’s not like rocket science, but like moving social proof a little bit higher because most people, they don’t really go to, you know, down to see what you have at the very bottom of your website. Most people stay at the very top, small things.
And after 45 minutes, he said like, “Okay, I’m switching to you. I’m dumping my old agency. I want to work with you because you just gave me in 45 minutes more knowledge and experience that they gave me in the last seven years.”
Dean: You know, I think that happens a lot in our industry because we have people that build websites who don’t… you know, people go, “Well, I need to talk to my website designer.” They don’t have a freaking clue what we’re trying to tell them to do.
And like Rob was saying on the schema markup and that kind of stuff, people don’t… they don’t… The website people go, “I got… I don’t know what you’re talking about. We… it’s a beautiful website.” Yes, it is, but the way the algorithms are working now, and I think you probably see that as well, that if you’re not getting the… if you’re not being seen by those search processes, they’re never going to land on your site for that feedback to even happen, or that touch to even happen.
And I think, and they… people get hung up on… my cousin did it, or whoever, or my best friend from college did it. I don’t know, but why… why the motivation. But they become very attached to that, and they don’t think that other people can offer good recommendations. Are you seeing that as well in your world?
41:08 | Are You Building a Business or Creating a Job?
Jake: Oh yeah, 100%. 100%. This is so true. But you know, I always say to people, if you want to have a successful business, profitable, successful business, you have to talk to a lot of people. You have to have a great pitch, which means you have to spend a lot of time on your pitch.
You have to invest, you know, 100 hours in your pitch because if you want to be good at something, it takes lots of hours. They say it takes 10,000 hours of work, right? The big problem is a lot of people, they don’t invest in that. They never invest time to polish their pitch. But this is the most important thing.
I remember I had a speech a few years ago, oh definitely before COVID, and I had a standing ovation. People loved it. And the other speaker asked me, “How did you do that? It was really good.” And I said, “It was very simple because I already done it like 500 times.” That’s the secret, you know.
Because I have this framework that I use when I coach people, and I call it 10-80-10. And it’s 10% at the beginning, 10% at the end, and 80% in the middle. The first 10% of starting a project or starting a business, it’s very exciting. There’s lots of energy, and there’s lots of enthusiasm, excitement, everything. It’s like, “Oh my god, we’re starting something. It’s very new. We’ve got loads of dopamine in our body and other hormones. It’s great.”
And then once you’ve achieved something, once you, I don’t know, at the very end, you already see that you’re winning, you are becoming a champion, you’ve got 10,000 hours of doing stuff behind your belt, etc., etc., it’s also very exciting.
But the 80% in the middle, that’s the messy part. That’s the repetition. That’s going to the gym every single day, seven days a week for the next seven years. And this is where most people give up because, especially at the beginning of that 80%, they’re asking themselves, “Why am I fucking doing this?”
43:17 | What Real Business Freedom Looks Like
Jake: So which means if you want to have a business, if you want to have a business, especially successful business, you have to have a vision, and that vision must be clear. Why do you want that business? Because most people, they want a business because of money.
And there again, there’s nothing wrong with regards to money. And I also believe money can bring you happiness because when people say like, “Oh, money can’t bring you happiness,” I think, “You’re shopping at the wrong shop, mate.” Because it can. It’s just a lot of more money won’t bring you happiness. But you have to know why you’re actually doing this.
Because, that’s another framework that I have. I call it a Vision GPS. First of all, you have to have a vision, a dream. You call it however you want to call it, but you must see it. I call it as a destination. You have to know where you’re going.
And then the GPS, it’s an acronym from Goals, Planning, Process, and Systems. Once you have those three, like the GPS in the car, this GPS will take you to where you want to go. But if you don’t have the vision, if you don’t have the dream, if you don’t know why you’re doing this, you’re going to fail. And that’s exactly what happened to a lot of people. They will never survive that 80% in the middle, that, you know, going training part, because they don’t know why they’re doing it. And that’s a big mistake.
If you talk to a CEO of any large corporation or big, big organization, they know exactly what their vision is, like 100%. They know what they want, and they know exactly what to do to achieve it. Then you talk to a small business owner or an entrepreneur, and they kind of fuzzy about it. That’s why a lot of people fail. Because you can be the best salesman in the world, you’re going to have the best marketing, eventually you’re going to fail because, as you both know, entrepreneurship can be very lonely, especially at the beginning.
45:00 | Delegation, Time Management & Buy Back Your Time
Dean: So Rob and I talk about this all the time. Is, are you creating your business to create a job for yourself, or create a career, or time? You know, and Rob brought that up to me years ago, and I never quite thought of it that way. But he’s right. You know, so many people start a career, start a business, and they’re just creating a job for themselves, are not thinking about… it makes sense, you know. And that, and that’s why they get stagnant, and they don’t get through and push through to that next level.
Rob: Well, and as we’ve talked before, Dean, it’s one of those things to where, if you’re going to create a business, either you created a job for yourself, or you created a business, which means that you don’t have to be part of the day-to-day operations of that business, and it still runs.
When you create that job for yourself, usually you are a solo entrepreneur, or “solarpreneur,” or whatever they call that these days. You could be calling that a side hustle now. You might have staff, but really, those are just helpers inside of your little job that you have to be able to get some things done. That’s no different than… but it still requires you to be there for most part every single day.
And how you test yourself on that is, if you can take a vacation for 30 days, and your business still ran just fine, then you’re good to go. Then it’s a business. Now, can you do that at the very beginning? In the very beginning stages, as you’re starting to build your empire, not usually. But it takes time to be able to get those processes down.
46:52 | Decision-Making & Why Most Entrepreneurs Struggle
Rob: But once you have those processes down, you then can… you don’t have to worry about it. You don’t have to call, check in. You don’t have to do all those things because everybody knows their spot. And unless you get a phone call, the world’s not blowing up. You know, you’re going to still make money while you’re gone.
Jake: Oh yeah. I mean, that… I’m sure you you read that beautiful book called the “E-Myth” by Michael Gerber, right? And the “E-Myth” is actually a shortcut from the entrepreneur myth, because most people think they’re running a business. But as you said, Rob, it’s not a business. It’s a job without any, you know, holiday pay, or however you want to say it.
And then you, you know, you used to work 9 to 5, 5 days a week. Now you have to work 24/7, seven days a week. It’s like a prison. It’s like a prison, you know. And you don’t know how to escape.
And you’re 100% right, because I always say to people, a business is something like you just described. If you can take off 30 days, ideally maybe even 60 days or 90 days, and your business is still growing, that’s a business. But if you have to be there every single day, that’s just a job. It’s not a business.
48:00 | Progress = Happiness: What Entrepreneurs Need Most
Jake: But, and you are also right, at the very beginning, you have to do everything. That’s true. But don’t get into that trap. I call it a superwoman or superman syndrome. You want to do everything. And yes, at the beginning, you have to almost do everything. But then I say, you have to start delegating as soon as you can. If you have to delegate to your wife or to your husband for free, do it. It’s still delegation. Obviously, they’re not going to do everything, but you have to learn how to delegate things.
There’s another beautiful book by Timothy Ferris, “The 4-Hour Work Week.” And the entire book is talking about delegation. The entire book is… it’s… it’s all about time management, but actually, it’s all about delegation, you know, doing less and only concentrate on things that are important.
Rob: I always… You have Dan Martell that did “Buy Back Your Time.” Same concept, same principles, same everything.
Jake: The same thing, you know. If you’re making $250 an hour, don’t do anything less, worth less than that. Don’t iron your shirts. Don’t do the washing. Don’t do the cleaning. Delegate all of that. As simple as that, right? As cliche as it sounds, but most people don’t know how to delegate.
Another big thing is most people don’t know how to make decisions, you know. They procrastinate a lot on making decisions. And I have found out that people procrastinate because they’re not sure if that decision that would make will actually help them or it will hurt them, because they don’t have the vision.
49:46 | The Power of Consistency and the 80% Middle
Jake: And the vision is usually saying to us, “Yes, that’s the right decision,” or “It’s not the right decision.” But because most people, they don’t know where they’re going, that’s why they cannot make decisions. And decisions are crucial.
There’s another, well, maybe not a beautiful book because it’s actually a very difficult book, by Daniel Kahneman, “Thinking Fast and Slow,” or “Slow and Fast.” Can’t remember.
Rob: I’ve never heard of that one.
Jake: It’s a very difficult book. It’s not an easy book to read. But basically, it’s talking about that, yes, some decisions, they need to be made fast. Some decisions, they need to be made a little bit slower. But don’t, don’t make a decision in three weeks time or three months time. Do it as quickly as possible because success loves speed.
Again, success loves speed. If you procrastinate, you’re not making any progress. And actually, progress is the only thing that make us happy in life – progress in a relationship, progress with your business, progress at the gym, everywhere. Progress make us happy. If we’re not making progress, we just not happy.
It’s like playing a video game. When you play a video game, you’re making lots of progress fast. That’s why playing video games is so addictive. We love making progress. In life, we also should be making loads of progress. The same with the business, you know. We should be making progress.
Unfortunately, most people are in the loop. They not make in… like a negative loop. They not putting enough pressure on themsel… It’s like they’re going to the gym once a week, and they’re not making any progress because if you want to see progress, you have to go to the gym at least four or five times a week, because one time a week is not enough.
And they will be going to that, you know, gym once a week for the five years. And they say like, “Oh my god, I’ve been working out for a year, but I’m not making any progress.” Because you’re not putting enough pressure into you.
52:00 | Final Thoughts & How to Find Jake Smolarek
Dean: So that gym analogy is really good because as a business owner, you have to kind of look forward a little bit to say, I… you know, I actually ran across an old business plan I created in ’94, and I went, “Oh my god, where did this come from?” And I looked at it, and I said, “Oh, I projected this is where I wanted to be.” And I, you know, and that’s… you just don’t get there by just thinking about it. You actually have to do incremental steps, and you have to be moving forward.
And it’s really, was really fascinating to me that I actually reached the goals I wanted to reach, you know, in that process. And I think a lot of business owners lose that ability to think forward and to move forward to that piece, because it just doesn’t happen because you wish it. You have to actually be active in your business and make that and create an action item for yourself.
Jake: 100%, because again, going to my kind of coaching talking, you have to have goals, but you also need to have SMART goals, you know, specific, measurable, etc., etc. It’s called SMART goals because you have to make… you have to measure it.
If you say to yourself, “Hey, I want to have a lot of money. I want to start a business and have a lot of money.” A lot of money is not a number. So it’s very difficult to measure.
It’s the same when people come to me and they say like, “Hey, I want to make millions.” Well, you have to be a little bit more precise because making millions means two or 999, and the gap between is massive. So be fucking precise.
Rob: You started to laugh on that because you and I both have seen that happen with so many businesses.
Jake: Well, and you have to be able to tell the universe where you want to be, because if you don’t tell the universe where you want to be, you’re not able to set that inside of your mind, and you’re not able to be able to get yourself focused to be able to go inside of that direction.
I mean, that happens inside of businesses all the time, all day long, every single day. And they get really kind of hung up on that, and they don’t take themselves to that next level to be able to know this is where I need to be, because they’re stuck in that day-to-day. They’re working in their business, not on their business kind of attitude and moods inside of there, which is a huge piece inside of the whole thing.
Jake: Oh yeah, again, they major in minor things. They’re doing things that do not need to be done. You know, you have to concentrate on the most important things.
Again, it’s like an 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle. If you have 10 things to do on your to-do list, probably there are two that are the most important. But if you only do those two things, you will do 80% of all the things that need to be done, which means you will be 80% ahead of… you will make 80% of all the progress.
But if you keep doing those small tasks, they will probably take you exactly the same amount of time, but you will only make 20% of progress. And then tomorrow, you also have another 10 things to do. And then, you know, two, three, four months from now, you will have so many small things. You know, you’ve done so many small things, but you only makes so little progress.
I was actually talking to a client of mine today, and he was saying like, “Oh, I asked him like, ‘What do you do? Like, how do you prioritize your task?'” And he said like, “Oh, I just start from the smallest ones to the biggest ones.” And then it turns out that once he will get to those big important tasks, he has no energy anymore.
Dean: Right, right.
Jake: There’s another amazing book by Brian Tracy called “Eat That Frog,” which basically is talking about like, prioritize the most important things first. You know, the quadrants like urgent and important, no important or urgent.
It’s like, first of all, do urgent and very important things. But there is not that many of them. Obviously, if you’re going to, if you just broke your leg, just go to the hospital because it’s both important and urgent. You’re not going to say like, “Oh, I’ll go to the hospital next week.” No, no, no, it’s very important, very urgent to do it now.
Unfortunately, a lot of tasks these days, they feel like urgent, but it’s a fake urgency. It’s not really urgent. So we have to be very, very good at prioritizing things. We have to be very, very good at making sure that if we have that frog that we have to eat, do it the first thing in the morning because most people, they have their peak energy… it’s in the morning.
We have to know where is our peak energy time, and we have to prioritize that we’re going to do the most important things, especially entrepreneurs, during the peak times. Unfortunately, most people, they procrastinate on the important things. They put it, “I’ll do later,” or they want to, I don’t know, prepare themselves, but there’s no such a thing.
Rob: Now, that’s a that’s a huge piece that’s inside of there. Now, Jake, if anybody’s interested in going through and talking to you and learning more about you and all that different stuff, where would they find you at?
Jake: The easiest thing is to go to Google or Chat GPT and Google me – Jake Smolarek. And that’s it.
Rob: And what would your ideal customer look like? For what… what kind of people are you looking for?
Jake: Yeah, I’m looking for busy entrepreneurs who has no time for their family, their kids – usual suspects, right? You know, like most entrepreneurs, they have… they’re so busy, they have no time for anything else.
Dean: I didn’t call you today.
Rob: Well, thank you, Jake. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jake.
Jake: Thank you very much for having me.
Rob: And we’d love to have you back at some point, but thank you so much for coming on today. It’s been a good chat.
Jake: Thank you very much.
Rob: Okay, have a good day.
