Just Say Yes

Captain Jim Palmer is the Founder and Creator of the?Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program, the creator of the?Dream Business Academy?and the host of the?Dream Business Radio, a weekly podcast based on his unique brand of smart marketing and Dream Business building strategies. His other business includes?No Hassle Newsletters,?Success Advantage Publishing?and?How to Sell from the Stage Like a Pro. He’s also the developer of the?Cashflow Conversation Code?as well as the acclaimed author of several books. In 2016 after raising four kids and leading his predictable life, he and Stephanie sold their home in Philly and live full-time and travel on their yacht called the Floating Home.

Jim, what a little adventure and creative third act you have created. I love it, and especially during a pandemic, I imagine there were a lot of advantages to that.

We were in Cocoa Beach in March 2020. Stephanie and I used to be by ourselves unless we wanted to go out and mingle on the docks or meet other people, but our life did not change that much. Other than the town that we were staying in, the marina was void of anything. If you remember it, it was a ghost town. It was a good situation because we were already used to being together 24/7 in a small space.

Some people were in a small home or apartment and had not planned on having to be there 24/7, but you had already planned your life in a space that did not require a lot of changing of location or trying to make things work because you already had set it up.

You mentioned a small adventure. We called it our big adventure. When we sold the house, we bought this boat, intending to do this for one year to go do something crazy. We live the typical, safe, predictable life like, “Let’s do something adventurous and exciting.” We moved on the boat. About six months in, we looked at each other and go, “This is way too much fun.” This is the fifth time that we have traveled down the coast from the Chesapeake Bay. We are in the Keys as you and I are talking.

It’s Gilligan’s Island, in a good way.

?We are still on top of the water. We did not have any holes in the boat.

Why don’t you take us back to your story of origin? You can go back to childhood or college, wherever you want to start, when you started thinking, “I’m good at helping businesses grow or I want to get into the business world.” Any little nuggets that you could point to as the starting point of all this.

When you start getting a little older, you start looking backward a little more than forward. It’s amazing the clarity you have. Amongst the different jobs I had, I was the Head of Marketing for a training company. I spent ten years helping to grow a franchise. I was the lead trainer and the main support person for these brand new franchise owners, which is very much like I do, helping business owners market and grow their business, but who knew. It was July of 2000. My position was eliminated with that company and I thought, “I’m going to go get another job.” I have always worked for entrepreneurs. I’m very entrepreneurial.

I knew I would probably have my business someday, but Stephanie and I have four children. It never seemed to be the right time to make that leap. God had other plans because he made it like, “There’s no job here. Start a business.” One year into my what was then almost a year and a half of unemployment, I got cancer. It was a whole kerfluffle of circumstances that said, “Once you reach rock bottom, there’s only one way you can go in that’s up.” I started my first business and was very excited. I was a business owner. I had my cards that said, “President of my corporation.” It took me a full year to get my first paying customer. I did some part-time work.

That took off. I grew it to about $300,000 in five years and then I learned about internet marketing. That’s when somebody introduced me to Dan Kennedy and the whole GKIC world. I started learning direct response copywriting. I started my first internet company called No Hassle Newsletters and we grew that about 1,200 small business owners in 9 countries. It was a monthly membership where I created content and done-for-you newsletter templates.

I created a mail program so that we could print their newsletters. I started writing books, training programs and Success Advantage Publishing. We have published about 50 books for my books and my clients. We help my coaching clients get their books done. When we bought this boat, that was a decision I made. I did not want to work five days a week anymore. I restructured my schedule. I do coaching with my clients on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then Stephanie and I wish we could travel Friday through Monday. We’ve got to be at a Marina where we have some decent Wi-Fi and then if we want, we can travel again or do whatever we want.

Is there a common mistake you see a lot of entrepreneurs making that prevents them from growing their business? Are they wearing too many hats or is it like, “I read your great?blog?about all the what-ifs that we can what if ourselves in all kinds of horror stories?”

It’s all of these things like the what-if fear of perfection. Perfectionism is a big business killer. People don’t want to launch until it’s perfect. That all stems from not wanting to be criticized. As I say, “The biggest battle you will ever face as an entrepreneur is right between your ears and having the courage to play, win and not simply play, not to lose.”

A lot of the folks that I helped are not 22, starting full of pitch vinegar expression, on their second career, might have a home or had some responsibilities. Some of them would say something like, “I want to grow a business, but I don’t want to disturb what I have here.” When you grow a business, you have got to be all in. Whether that’s in marketing, free Facebook posts, LinkedIn articles, working with a coach or joining a mastermind, whatever that is, the people who grow the fastest in most cases, the highest are those that go through the fences every day.

I love this line that you gave us. “Fear of perfection kills launches.” Let’s double click on what you said. What’s behind most people’s fear of perfection?

Nobody’s perfect. I became familiar with this at a real gut level because I have written 6 books and my first book took 18 months. In reality, it took about under 1 year to write but it took me about 6 or 7 months to get the courage to publish it because then everybody would find out how challenged I am with the English language, what blew by him and my name is on the cover. There was a lot of fear about being criticized because who am I to be an author?

I went through that myself when I wrote my first book. I realized that negative self-talk of, “Who am I to be an author or a speaker,” can trigger imposter syndrome. Do you see that as something you help your clients with?

Yes. It’s interesting. A lot of my clients are in the 6-figure to multiple 6-figure ranges. The largest guy that I helped start a coaching program was doing $34 million. He had a very large business and wanted to do events. I used to put on events called Dream Business Academy. He wanted to do that. What I learned from working with startups, people in that mid-six-figure range, and him, everybody has imposter syndrome. Nobody feels good enough. He even said to me, which helps cement my belief that imposter syndrome is real, “I never finished college.” It almost feels like you are going to be found out that you are not all that your marketing says you are.

It is a real thing. As far as perfection, one of the things that helped me, you said when you wrote your first book, you were concerned as well, was that I was so afraid somebody was going to find an error or a mistake. I must have proofread that thing 500 times. Of course, me proofreading it does not guarantee anything. Somebody did reach out in 60 days. This was before on demand. We had to order 3,000 books or something like that. That’s when you had to print the books in 2009.

Somebody said, “There’s an error on page 34. You have a dangling participle.” I’m like, “What is a dangling participle? I have no clue.” I sat in my chair, reading this email. My heart was probably racing and my palms were sweating like, “I knew this was going to happen.” I responded and said, “Thank you for letting me know. I’m going to tell our editing team and we will fix it for the next printing.” I hit a comment. I said, “How did you like the book?”

This guy, who pointed out my dangling participle loved my book. “I know why you need a newsletter, the type of content to use, the ratio of content to pictures and paper to use.” He loved my book. Thankfully, I was smart enough to recognize that my imperfect book was getting customers for me and providing. What I tell my clients when they struggle with this is, “You make a decision. You choose to be judged on the quality of the content, the training and the service you provide and not the imperfect way in which you provide it because it will always be imperfect.”

For anyone who is working on a book, I have learned a valuable lesson around proofing, which is to record the Audible of the book before it goes to print because you will probably find typos that you and your copy editors missed when you read it out loud. My book?The Sale Is in the Tale?is 40,000 words. That took four 90-minute sessions to read that, which you would not normally do to prove a book, but if you know it’s being recorded for Audible, then you go, “Wait a minute. There’s a typo or that does not make sense. How is it that nobody caught that?” Hopefully, that’s a little nugget for everybody.

Let’s go to your book?Just Say Yes.?This concept of not letting the fear of perfection or criticism. I can’t circle that and underline that enough for everybody. I hear a lot of people talk about the fear of perfection, but I don’t think anyone’s dug down to where you were like, “What’s behind that not? Can I tolerate somebody criticizing me?” If you can heal that and let go of what other people think, the judgment or the constant pressure of, “Did you make the New York Times bestseller list yet?” You are like, “That’s not my criteria of how I judge success,” then you are a lot freer in life. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait until we are in our 60s to get that. That’s why you and I are out there preaching to people who are younger than we are saying, “If you can let this go early, you are going to be much happier and be able to say yes more often.”

My last three books were written and published in 60 days. Bill Glazer used to be partners with Dan Kennedy back in the day and I heard him say once, “My imperfect book is getting me customers and serving some customers while your perfect book is still in your word processor.” There’s an old term word processor. I’m like, “That’s right.”

You mentioned New York Times bestseller. What I often tell people is, “How are we going to get this to be a bestseller? There are strategies to do that but let me check in with you why we are writing the book.” I will share my viewpoint because they hire me. I’m sure they are interested in what I say. I don’t know this for sure, John. Maybe you do, but you have got to sell 10,000 books in a short period to even be considered for a list like that.

I said, “Do I want to sell 10,000 books using some tricks, strategies or whatever, get to that scoreboard and you can then hold the badge ‘I’m a New York Times bestseller,’ or with Jim Palmer rather than sell 200 books to prospective customers and have 20 of those people become coaching clients? I will go for the twenty coaching clients.” My ego is, “I’m not about the badge. I’m about my business.” I’m about to be able to afford diesel fuels so I can get back to the North in the summertime.

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