Watching as the Mary-Mae disappeared, bubbling, spitting and groaning into the dark, icy North Sea, he and his 6-man crew clung onto their rudimentary rubber dinghy just long enough for the Whitby lifeboat to show up and tow them back to harbour.

3 weeks later, flushed with an insurance payout, he refused to invest in a shiny new craft.

Instead, he salvaged the scuttled vessel from its current resting place in the shallows, and decided to have a go at patching it back together.

After all, he was a parsimonious Yorkshireman, and “waste-not-want-not” was his by-line for life.

7 months passed, along with all his cash.

He’d laid off his lads, who quickly got jobs with the rest of the fleet, and by the next winter he’d managed to get the old girl back to some kind of ship-shape. Meanwhile, all the other fishermen enjoyed one of their best seasons ever, nets bulging with valuable catch every morning.

Although the Mary-Mae sailed again, uncle had to hire a second-rate crew, the boat was never quite right, and he never recovered from his bad luck.

“WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS, JONNY?”

Here’s why, young seaman/woman…

> The sinking = bad luck
> Uncle not buying a new boat when he could = bad judgement

He’d failed to understand the concept of a sunk cost (literally).

A sunk cost is a sum paid in the past that is no longer relevant to decisions about the future.

And in your 21st century coaching or consultancy business, you have to watch out for sunk costs:

> Sticking with that terrible, half-built website because some charlatan took a ton of cash off you upfront
> Continuing with that ineffectual-but-expensive training course because some charlatan took a ton of cash off you upfront
> Letting your tired, no-longer-ambitious business partner weigh you down like an anchor because of your long-term friendship
> Persevering with that unfathomable, complex, useless software tool because some charlatan sold you a lifetime licence upfront
> Sitting back and waiting for referrals from your carefully-nurtured lifetime network (hint – they don’t care about making you a success)

See the pattern here?

> Your original investment was flawed but excusable – everyone makes mistakes.
> But your decision to continue pouring new time and money into an old mistake is now inexcusable.

Again:

A sunk cost is a sum paid in the past that is no longer relevant to decisions about the future.

Don’t let the misjudgements of your past become the blueprints for your future.

Move on, and get some practice making better decisions.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: After 8.5 years and 2700 Daily Brain Tattoos, I’ll be changing the rhythm of my emails to you from this month. 

Instead of infiltrating your inbox every morning, I’m launching my Monday Motivator, a weekly word workout packed with marketing magic, money mastery, mindset miracles and any other Ms I can think of.

Yep, I’ll be propelling you into every new week from the 8th December with prose so powerful, you’ll probably want to reread it every day anyway.

Don’t miss me too much, and I’ll see you next Monday…

“The masses aren’t the point. They might be a welcome side-effect of your work, but to please the masses, you must pander to average.

Because mass means average.

On average, every population is dull, sanding off all the interesting edges, destroying energy, interest and possibility”

Take it from someone who’s been grappling with the challenges of marketing for most of his life:

“If you try and appeal to everyone, you’ll appeal to no-one.”

Between now and the end of the year, I’m going to be posing you questions which will guide you to making 2026 your best year ever.

Here’s today’s:

Who and where is your exceptional someone, longing to work with only you?

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: It could be your “exceptional someone” is a corporate leader. In that case, you’ll want to read this.

“Almost never! Coaching is a tool, not a title.

Tell people about your clients. Tell them about the book you’re writing. Tell them about your counterintuitive beliefs. Sometimes you’re a consultant, sometimes you’re a coach, sometimes you’re a mentor, sometimes you’re a trusted advisor. Sometimes you’re a hybrid of all of them.”

There’s another reason I never tell anyone I’m “a coach” or “a consultant” or “a anything”.

That’s because nobody cares.

They want to know how you can help them, not what you think your job title is.

Next time someone asks what you do, practice your golden sentence:

“I help X to do Y so they can Z”

X is WHO you help
Y is WHAT with
Z is WHY it matters to them

Get your X,Y and Z so clear, concise and compelling that everyone goes, WOW! when they hear them.

Then you can call yourself whatever you want. 

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: You probably don’t need me to tell you I’m the founder of CIB Global, rapidly becoming the world’s #1 training and development community for skilled and experienced wellbeing practitioners wanting to get into corporate consulting.

If you think you’re ready, and you’re wondering how you could land lucrative contracts with companies and organisations in 2026, pop a few details on this form, and I’ll send you a complimentary copy of my comprehensive guide called “The Thriving Wellbeing Consultant” as a taster for what lies ahead in your life and business…

And they’re the same reasons people buy anything, from anyone. 

There are only three things which motivate buying decisions, and we can call them sales levers. The harder you pull on them and the more of each you build into your offers, the more you’re going to create engagement, revenue and impact.

• Velocity – does this get the buyer what she wants faster?
• Friction – does this remove complexity or annoyance for the buyer?
• Status – does this make them look better in the eyes of their peers/bosses?

Think of them like aircraft thrust levers, where the more you pull them, the more noise, excitement and acceleration you get.

How much more can you pull your levers?

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: I’ve been creating a short white-paper on identifying buyer priorities to make corporate sales more natural.  

Reply to this email with “Levers” and you can have a copy with my compliments.

1: Be kind and pleasant to others
2: Ask for what you want
3: Follow up

In your 21st century coaching or consulting business, the first should be a given, so let’s talk about the other two.

“Asking for what you want” could mean:

• Writing a clear, single call-to-action on any posts where you’re offering something
• Making sure you get paid at the point someone says they want to work with you
• Engaging team members with concise, goal-oriented instructions

And, “Follow-up” includes things like:

• Booking the next call during the call you’re on, if you ever want to speak to them again
• Responding to comments on your posts, so you get to discover more about them
• ‘Walking them to the door’ by sending event and call reminders after they booked

To be Clear (see what I did there?), these are not the only ways to get more of what you want.

But you won’t get much of anything if you ignore them.

Love you lots
Jonny

It’s not some ancient tongue you’ve never heard of, nor some trendy street-talk only practised by hipsters too young to remember Blockbusters.

And it’s definitely not some bullshit techie-jargon, laden with acronyms and word-mangles that leave you feeling like an Amazonian tribesman having Netflix explained for the first time.

No, the secret language you need to learn is much simpler than that.

But without it, you may as well be a hospital porter who’s handed scrubs and invited to do a kidney transplant. You’ll be lost, scared and dangerous.

This mysterious, secret language?

It’s the language of your ideal clients.

• The precise words and phrases they use to describe how they’re feeling right now
• The complaints they murmur every morning about their crappy lives
• Their deeply-held beliefs, biases and misunderstandings
• The hopes and dreams they hold close and private like a kid with a secret crush on her school teacher
• The specific business-speak their colleagues use to communicate with each other

You need to suck it all up, and spit it back at them in every one of your posts, emails and messages. Your banners, headlines and branding need to look like their life story in spirit, form and minute detail.

Get that right, and the very first thing they’ll feel when they come across you is relief.

Maybe joy, gratitude and excitement too.

But mainly relief – that they’ve finally found someone who understands them.

At last, someone talks to them how they talk to themselves. That’s so rare, they’ll start to trust you immediately.

And when that happens, it takes next-to-nothing to get them over the line as a paying client.

See you around
Jonny

PS: Not long to the launch of my all-new course, designed to get you your first (or next) corporate wellbeing consultancy gig within 30 days.

It’s the sum total of everything I know about landing high-ticket clients, and it’ll change your life if you read it and action it.

Type “Big Gigs” in reply to this email and I’ll make sure you’re on the list when it lands in the next few days. 

Here are a few I’ve had recently:

• Would you like to see my new video?
• Are you free on the 2nd?
• Can I share an opportunity with you?
• Do you need any sales staff?
• As we’re in the same business, can we share ideas?

All those met with a polite but terminal NO thanks from me.

Not “contact me in the New Year.”
Not “what’s it about?”
Not “I’m a little busy at the moment”
Not “send it over and I’ll have a look”
And definitely not “please, tell me more”

Putting people on a polite glide-path to a “no” after a bunch of exchanges is just a waste of everyone’s time.

It’s a distraction from your true mission, and will crush your effectiveness and chances of success. If you don’t even have time to say anything, just delete and block. That way you won’t be needlessly distracted by them anymore.

Learning to say NO to 95% of the world RIGHT AWAY gives you plenty of time to work with the remainder.

That’s the 5% YOU choose, not the other way round. 

See you around
Jonny

PS: This week sees the launch of my all-new Corporate Consulting Launch Pack. If you want to be on the VIP list for a first look, type VIP in reply to this email, and I’ll make sure you get the low-down. 

Unless you’re selling a commodity or a low-price service where you need a mass-market, success is more about connection quality than quantity.

In your quest for numbers, it’s easy to lose track of what’s really important, like:

• You can only have a handful of best friends, or best clients at any one time
• You have a six-figure business with just ONE £2k sale each week
• Time spent gaining new connections is time wasted unless you’re building relationships with them too
• Nurturing relationships with a few dozen warm prospects will create a tribal flow of user-generated content
• Social platforms will penalise you with poor reach, if you build follower numbers without real engagement

Focus on nurturing relationships with the people who already know you, before you go off hunting for newbies.

Of course, you need a CERTAIN number of followers before any magic starts to happen, but it’s nowhere near as big as you think.

Not even close.

See you around
Jonny

PS: Back from the UK after a few days racing round in circles, turning money into noise.

To celebrate my return to my home rock, I’ll send you a complimentary copy of my bestselling book “Jonny Hates Marketing” if you’re one of the first five to reply to this email with “JHM”. 

“When you think about making that call or sending that private message, don’t do it for you, your bank account or ‘to get a client’. Make the call and send those messages for their kids, for their mental wellbeing, for their confidence, and for their family welfare.”

And here’s why he’s so right:

You’re in this profession because you can help people.

If you’re mired in procrastination, fear or any other excuse for inaction, that’s a pretty selfish way to behave.

You have gifts, skills and solutions that transform the health, wealth and wellbeing of your clients.

If you’re not doing that, who knows how many lives will be lost, wasted or underused because you didn’t get there in time?

So send that DM, book that call, and start helping people.

Lots of people.

Also, do you know what happens shortly after you do that?

That’s right, kiddo!

YOU. GET. PAID.

See you around,
Jonny

PS: Nothing’s more of a lifesaver than improving the physical/mental health and wellbeing of people working in companies and organisations, plus you get paid ridiculously well for doing it.

I’ve written a short guide to landing lucrative corporate engagements, and I’ll send you a FREE copy if you’re one of the first five to reply to this email today with “wellbeing”.  

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

And in your 21st century coaching or consulting business, there’s nothing like solid masterminding and collaboration with your peers to accelerate progress.

We have a weekly live meet-up for the CIB community, and every time one of the CIBlings talks about a project, prospect or client, at least one (usually more) of the others jumps in with an idea:

• Why don’t you ask them this?
• Let me share my take on it
• I have a doc that might be useful
• This is what I did in your situation
• Let’s have a chat about this

You can trigger this kind of interaction yourself right now. 

Take a look round your network today and identify five people doing work where you might be able to help.

Reach out to them and say, hey, I might have an idea for you. Let’s jump on a quick call and see if I can share anything useful.

On the call, make sure to mention what you’re working on too, and ask for their take.

You’ll come away with at least one more idea each, almost out of nowhere. 

See you around,
Jonny

PS: I’m cooking up something big for the start of next month. It’s called the Corporate Consulting Launch Pack, and it’s the A-Z blueprint for everything you need to do to win your first lucrative corporate engagement. It’s priced so you can afford it, and you won’t want to miss it.

Reply with “CCLP” and I’ll make sure you get a personal note from me when it’s ready

As in, “I’m a coach” is too small a term to describe it.

And probably too small for what you do too.

He changes lives, and makes the world a better place, client-by-client.

Same as you, right?

When we dug a little deeper, one word kept popping out:

• He loves the work he does
• He loves the impact it’s having
• He loves the life he’s building
• He loves his clients
• They love him

And, of course, he gets paid for that, and well.

“Here’s what I really do”, he said, finally:

I monetise love.

Next time someone asks what you do, tell them that.

1: Powerful people – surround yourself with your peers and superiors, not those further behind than you

2: Powerful language – what you say, you become. Talk like a leader, and your clients will see you as one

3: Powerful stories – develop accounts of your journey, so they’re a compelling and convincing narrative

4: Powerful coaching – develop world-class skills to attract world-class clients. Always be learning and improving

All this means one thing: you really need to be more than just the best at your job.

You also need to position yourself in a way that your potential clients immediately see your value, to them.

Each of those four keys is a positioning piece: how we perceive you when we first come across you.

Monday self test: what do people think when they see you for the first time?

“Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.”

And that can be tough. It might hurt our feelings.

It’s way more comfortable to network, collaborate, and even partner with those a few steps behind us.

There’s no risk of being challenged, or worse.

Being “found out”.

Well, here’s the news:

Having someone call you out on your strategy, your process, and your business ideas is no bad thing, right?

In fact, the easy way to upscale your life is to upscale your relationships.

Surround yourself with people who remind you of your future, not your past.

This focuses them on the discussions ahead, and enables everyone to begin with the same level of information received and understood.

When the session kicks off, they’re all fully engaged and able to contribute effectively, creating real progress and outcomes for themselves and the business.

This is also something to try in micro-meetings and coaching calls with as few as two people involved.

• Send a short agenda ahead, the day before
• Include questions pointed to the goal of the call
• Start the call by sharing it on-screen for both to read

Quietly absorbing a written plan for what’s going to take place, along with the primary goals for the interaction, sounds like a great idea.

Anything that avoids the risk of a result-free meeting is worth a try, right?

See you around
Jonny

PS: Would you like to work with me for the whole of October and crack the code of client attraction in the age of AI?

You’ll be sitting at a virtual table with me and just three of your colleagues discovering how to leverage the power of AI to make twice as much money, using half the energy you’re using right now.

If you want to be part of my VIP quartet, type “Me & AI” below and I’ll fire over an application.

Not doing this again in 2025, so it’s now or never.

So I began reciting blindingly accurate directions, using florid hand gestures as appropriate. As I watched her eyes glaze over, I realised my well-meaning words meant nothing to her, so I changed tack.

“I’m going that way, let me walk you to the door”, I offered good-deedingly.

In the ten minutes it took for us to amble gently round the corner to the Royal Mail depository, I was hit by an analogy.

How often have you lost a “sure-fire” deal when a prospect wanders off and gets lost?

Here’s how to avoid that, utilising the “walking-them-to-the-door” method:

• If they agree to buy, stay on the line while they find their credit card
• When a new contact suggests you “must have a coffee sometime”, arrange it there and then in your online calendar
• Get your scheduling software to send appointment reminder messages one day, four hours and one hour before
• After booking and before the call happens, send them a one-pager or have them fill out a questionnaire so you’re front of mind
• If an enrollment call has to be extended, book the next call while you’re still on the first
• If they say they want to come on your programme in 3 month’s time, take a deposit now to secure their place

Your professionalism will win you sales, and your clients will thank you when they’re benefiting from your glorious talents.

Just like the old lady thanked me as she posted her letter in the right slot.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: I’m playing with the idea of a small, exclusive mastermind next month, where you get to work with me for the whole of October and crack the code of client attraction in the age of AI. 

Can’t do it with any more than four, and won’t do it with any less. It’ll cost ya, but not much, and certainly way less than you’ll make from doing it.

You’ll be sitting at a virtual table with me and three other smart folks discovering how to make twice as much money, using half the energy you’re using right now.

If you want to be part of my VIP quartet, type “Me & AI” below and I’ll fire over an application.

Not doing this again in 2025, so it’s probably now or never.

If what you’re writing is no more than we could find from ChatGPT or Wikipedia, then it’s not adding any value to our lives.

Information is found in readily available opinions, facts or data that don’t cut any new turf with us.

Your content, by contrast, is:

• Entertaining
• Valuable
• Irresistible
• Your own voice
• Serving your purpose
• Building your tribe

Everyone benefits when you create great content. 

It’s kind of a mutually beneficial holy black art.

But the really good news?

It gets easier, the more you do it.

Now that’s information worth knowing.

Love you lots
Jonny

In fact, “nobody” is way nearer to who you need to work with than “everybody”.

If you did something that attracted an audience the size of the most-watched TV show in history EVER*, you’d still only have the attention of 1.6% of the globe.

However good you are, your audience will be infinitely smaller than that, completely insignificant and a mere blip on humanity’s great journey.

Seth Godin says:

Your smallest viable audience holds you to account. It forces a focus and gives you nowhere to hide.

Understanding that your tribe is a tiny handful of rabid adherents is one thing.

Deciding which tiny handful to pick is another thing altogether.

Love you lots
Jonny

*The most-watched Tv show ever was a broadcast of some American ball game played in a bowl, apparently. 

PS: If you’re still trying to find your tribe, I have an eBook all about how to do it. Type “tribe” in reply and I’ll send you a copy across. 

1: Find more new clients
2: Sell more to existing clients
3: Raise your prices

The third of those is the easiest to implement, and by some margin.

So easy, in fact, that it requires almost no effort on your part, beyond making the decision.

Here’s why you probably should increase your prices, right now:

• You’re almost certainly undercharging at the moment
• You’ll attract clients where you can have more impact
• You’ll feel better about yourself, getting paid more
• You can do more with your life, with more money
• Your authority, value and reputation will increase

Finally, to bust a common myth:

You won’t find it any harder to make sales when you charge more.

JFDI, I dare you.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: Did you make it to my workshop about landing lucrative corporate clients yesterday? Reply with “workshop” and I’ll make sure you get a replay…

1: You do something to offend them, or
2: You stop selling to them

We’re talking about people who’ve paid you for your services at one time or another.

And we’re talking about them because they’re the people most likely to buy from you again.

Here are some ideas for things to offer them:

• A reminder programme to top-up what you already showed them
• A monthly membership club to offer continuous value and community
• A more advanced VIP/Mastermind to take them to the next level
• A variation of what they bought before, heading in a slightly different direction
• 1-2-1 support, tailored to exactly what they need right now

You can probably think of a load more, but you get the idea.

In your haste to farm the great outdoors for your next brand-new sales, don’t ignore the fortune sitting on your doorstep.

There are no former clients.

They’re all just clients.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: Many of your clients will know people who run teams of people within businesses, ideal for your pivot into lucrative corporate wellbeing. 

You can find out how to make this happen in my short, sharp workshop called “Five Steps To Lucrative Corporate Clients”.

It’s free but you’ll need to register, and quick.

It’s on Monday.

They saw a man walking on the moors and each bet they could get him to remove his coat quicker than the other.

The sun went behind a cloud and left the wind to huff and puff.

Yet, the harder the wind blew, the more the man clenched his arms around his body, clutching onto his coat for dear life.

Soon, the sun popped out from the cloud, smiled, and beamed brightly across the earth.

Growing warm in the sun’s radiance, the man removed his coat immediately and smiled back to the heavens in gratitude.

Looking at your business, which is more accurate?

1: Clients are attracted by your warmth and charm, feeling your genuine desire to improve their lives and happiness

2: People button up their coat when they see you coming, worried you might be trying to wrench it from their backs

Less Wind. More sun. Please.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: I want to bring more sunshine into your life, which is why I’m inviting you to my exclusive workshop called “Five Steps to Lucrative Corporate Clients”

You can register for FREE here, but hurry. It’s on Monday!

Predictably, the vehicle ended up looking like a dog’s regurgitated breakfast, and sold pitifully against its competitors’ more stylish one-man designs.

The lesson was clear: nothing good was ever designed by a committee.

Fast forward to the noughties, and Steve Jobs, on a visionary hunch, launched the iconic smartphone that changed the world in 5 years.

And in a recent corporate client engagement, we experienced feedback from dozens of managers, divided in their opinions. We had to decide who was worth listening to, and who was not.

In your coaching, training or therapy business you don’t need widespread approval from a committee of your peers before you launch your transformational programmes.

• You know your client, right?
• You understand their challenges as well as their deepest desires, right?
• You also know how to help them with both those things, right?

Great.

Go ahead and serve.

As Jobs said, don’t ask your customers what they think they want. Give them what you know they need.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: I talk about that corporate client and much more, on our weekly live training calls in the CIB community. This and all the other benefits from joining us will help you land lucrative corporate clients.

If you want in, fill out this first, and we’ll get back to you. 5 places only open this Autumn. 

But actually, that has to be the easy bit.

You’ve trained, studied, upskilled and practiced to the point where you can provide solutions in your sleep.

Trouble is, so can anyone else with similar skills and experience.

This means, if you want to be successful at attracting clients, you need to find an edge beyond simply claiming you have all the solutions. 

Can you guess what that is?

CLUE – it’s the bit that comes before the solution.

Yep – the problem.

Ground Zero in building a thriving business as a 21st century coach or consultant is learning to define the Big Expensive Problem (BEP) that your ideal client is suffering with.

So, have conversations, ask questions, run surveys…whatever you do, get to understand their problems.

Then, you can design all your posts, articles and emails to talk consistently about the BEP which matters most to your ICA.

When they see how well you’ve described their problem, they’ll know you get them, and they’ll believe you know how to solve it.

And solve it you will, as solutions are the easy part for you, right? 

Love you lots
Jonny

And yet, there are no signs people are getting smarter or any happier.

If anything, we’re getting more likely to argue against science, vote for idiots to lead us and generally make shit up.

Here are the reasons we’re not all wise as Aristotle yet:

• Access to everything is too much. Fatal overwhelm beckons
• We don’t always find what we want, because we ask poor questions
• Knowledge is not wisdom, it’s just knowledge
• The internet is the opposite of a cure for procrastination
• Everyone else can see the same things we can

What people are now needing more than ever is a human face, voice and ears. 

We don’t need more information
We don’t need more facts
We don’t need more gooroos

We just need a little support, some empathy, and to be pointed in the RIGHT direction. 

We need YOU, you smart, fabulous human.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: If you ever dream of creating exponential impact amongst those who truly need you, corporate wellbeing consulting is the perfect route. 

I’m making huge inroads into organisations with thousands of employees, and you could too.

Here’s how.

The future you haven’t built yet, but you’re dreaming about today.

You might feel like you have an established business, that you know exactly what you’re doing, and that all you have to do is keep going down the same path. Eventually, you’ll meet all your personal, financial and lifestyle goals, right?

Well, yes and no.

I ran an intimate, personalised marketing course for coaches called the Client Attraction Blueprint from 2017 to 2024, building businesses for over 400 students and generating almost $2M in revenue. After over 100 launches, I’d completely mastered every aspect of enrolment, delivery and impact.

I was truly on autopilot.

But by March last year I’d had enough of it. I woke up one morning and asked myself, “Is this my life?”

I realised the path to true growth and fulfilment comes from new ideas, from reinvention and pushing out of comfort zones into unchartered territory. 

Now, I’m a year into my rebirth as founder of Consultants In Business, and challenging myself every day. Not only do we have over 50 skilled and experienced wellbeing practitioners in the community, but we’re winning lucrative corporate engagements that will endure for years.

There’s so much I don’t know about the business of corporate wellbeing, but I’m sure CIB has an exponential future, as it’s a holy alliance of my two core assets:

1: My lifetime experience launching, advising and exiting myriad ventures
2: The incredible depth of talent in my existing community of coaches and therapists

My only regret is maybe I should have got started earlier.

So, weekend thought exercise for you:

What is the most exciting, scalable and impactful venture you could create, given your skills, experience and ambition?

Drop me a reply with your answer, and I’ll give you a tip to help make it happen. 

Love you lots
Jonny

He says authenticity is:

“How you act when you have no risk of punishment.”

In other words, only when your public persona matches your private behaviour can you say you’re truly behaving authentically.

If you’re relaxed, kind and fun around your friends on a night out, don’t feel you have to be any more formal, tough or serious when you’re speaking with a potential client.

People can sense if you’re playing a role, and they’ll distrust you when there’s any sign of putting on a face for them.

Interestingly, as you build wealth and influence, you’ll have less risk of punishment. This means you’ve more scope to be as authentic as you like, which breeds even more success.

It’s a rolling snowball which you can start pushing today. 

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: Being authentic is essential if you’re to break into corporate wellbeing consulting. It’s also the most lucrative field for coaches and therapists right now. 

Reply with “authentic” and I’ll drop you some info across.

In Paris last weekend, ordinary cafes asked me for €10 per cappuccino, and Nikes in the Champs-Élysées were twice the price I’d seen anywhere else.

People buy paper-clips from Tiffany’s for $1500, and tin cans from the same catalogue for $1,100.

$450 is the going rate for pre-dirtied jeans from Nieman Marcus, and you can even buy a burger for $6,000 at a Dutch cafe.

“Expensive” is a relative term, and it’s relative to the perceived exchange of value.

If you’re getting pushback from potential clients based on price, think about improving the value exchange. 

Once they realise they have to have what you’re offering, right here, right now – and they can only get it from you – your work is worth exponentially more.

You just need to make them see it. 

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: One place you’ll always be valued is in the world of corporate wellbeing consulting. Just a handful of lucrative engagements can make your whole year, every year.

Want to find out how? Type “corporate” and I’ll send you my free eBook all about it. 

That doesn’t mean you have to suffer, of course. Not if you learn to create your Own Economy.

You do that by choosing to work with clients whose own lives and businesses are recession-proof, but who suffer with the kind of problems you specialise in solving.

SOME EXAMPLES OF RECESSION-PROOF BUSINESSES & PROFESSIONS:

Lawyers
Accountants
Energy production & distribution
High-end auctioneers
Dentists
Specialist doctors and consultants
Surgeons
Politicians
Share traders
Foreign Exchange traders
Estate Agents (Realtors for you ‘Mericans)
Judges
Retired business owners and/or their spouses
Banking execs
Pharmaceutical execs
Financial advisers
Successful business owners and/or their spouses
Professional investors
Finance brokers
Supercar dealers and brokers (see image)

etc etc…

For fun, have a look in your back catalogue and see if you ever worked with any of those. Add to the list if you like.

Then go talk to them, and make offers. There’s plenty of money everywhere.

It’s just in the wrong bank account right now.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: Some of the people on your list will pay you over the long haul to help with their employee wellbeing. 

Here’s how to find them.

Tortured diners yelled at each other across their tables as some hapless crooner inflicted karaoke versions of 80s funk at ear-splitting volumes.

Potential customers hurried past the entrance, and those already inside gobbled down their comida and ran like the wind to escape the relentless “entertainer”.

The guy behind the mic spoke not one word to his audience, and spent most of his “performance” head-down reading lyrics off his iPad.

Verdict: Disaster. 

50 metres down the road, a similar-sized bar was buzzing, luxuriating in a virtuoso performance from a single acoustic guitarist, singing his own versions of some well-known popular hits.

In between, he’d take requests, addressing punters to ask their names and thank them for being there and appreciating his craft.

A lovely ambience, and a place you’d want to go back, again and again.

Verdict: Sublime. 

The differences:

• Engagement vs disinterest
• Empathy vs not caring at all
• Giving what the audience wants vs what the performer wants
• Skill and expertise vs incompetence and mediocrity
• Commercial understanding vs crass stupidity

How would people score your business on those things? 

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: HR leaders in companies and organisations are crying out for your help right now. 

Wanna find out how to reach them?

Here’s how.  

It’d sure save a lot of wasted time, energy and mind-space if they said what they meant, instead of keeping you on the hook.

Imagine if instead of “That’s great. Let me have a think and get back to you”, they owned up and said:

1: I don’t think I can do this
2: I don’t believe this’ll work for me
3: I’m not ready to be successful yet
4: It’s comfortable playing small right here
5: This is who I am, and change is too scary

But they don’t and they probably won’t.

Not until you ask better questions, of course.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: You’ll usually get the truth from corporate clients – they don’t have time to make stuff up.

If you want to work with companies and organisations on their wellbeing, here’s how.

“Draft an irreverent one-liner that might attract your ideal client’s attention.”

You commented with over 70 of your great ideas, and then…

Nothing much changed.

You went back to being vanilla.

Well, maybe not you personally, but you get my drift.

Definitely the “Me-Too, Vanilla Coachapist” is a thing in our community.

Scattered around my newsfeed every morning I spot bland, confusing and downright unappealing stuff like:

• Become your best self
• Reinvent your life
• Get whatever you want
• Connect with your soul
• Discover your destiny

Look, I’m not saying those things aren’t important, but do you have any idea how many other coachapists are using EXACTLY the same words to try and attract THEIR clients?

As Rich Litvin reminds us:

Doing the opposite of what the majority are doing is almost never a risk.

This also means that doing exactly the same as a bunch of other practitioners is almost always a risk. You’re risking anonymity, lack of impact, and business catastrophe.

So here’s the updated challenge:

“Draft an irreverent one-liner that might attract your ideal client’s attention, and USE it in your next post to your community”

Then come back here and tell us how it worked out.

Deal?

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: Don’t forget – more Purple Yam Mocha Hazelnut than Vanilla, please.