🛠️ How I Tricked Millionaires into Mentoring Me

What up, marketers. Welcome another 1-1-1 edition of Adam’s Letter. Welcome to the 26 new subscribers this week! If someone sent this to you - please subscribe and join 731 other marketers who use this newsletter to earn more and further their careers.

GaryVee. Steph Smith. Andrew Warner. Arlan Hamilton. Justin Welsh.

These are just a few of the recognizable names I’ve spent time talking with and learning from over the past couple of years. Each of them is way too busy and important to invest time into mentoring someone outside of their immediate orbit like me.

Still, I’ve gotten the chance to sit with and learn from each of them by leveraging a very simple strategy. Let’s dive into it:

Strategy - Apprentice Yourself to a Master

If you want to learn how to ride a bike, you won’t simply hop on a two-wheeler and hope for the best.

You’ll try to ride a bike with training wheels first. Maybe move to a 2-wheel glider without pedals. Work on your balance.

Ideally, you’d have a parent, teacher, or coach who is willing to tell you how to ride the bike and to watch over you until you're ready to ride on your own.

In marketing, we do this backward. We jump onto a unicycle while trying to juggle bowling pins without wearing a helmet. Then we wonder why we fail.

Marketing is a craft.

Our work is very similar to that of classic philosophers, Renaissance artists, or blacksmiths in the 17th century; craftsmanship requires mentorship. Yet so few marketers today have a formal education in the craft (totally fine) or the type of mentorship that can guide them along their journey (not fine).

Unfortunately, the modern market doesn’t deal in Master/Apprentice model anymore. But that’s ok. We’ll hack together our own model via our content.

Idea - Offer Them a Platform

As Robert Greene said in his book The 48 Laws of Power, “masters want to appear more brilliant than normal people.” It’s just human nature. The more successful and brilliant a person is, the more likely they have a desire to be acknowledged as such.

Use this as your opportunity.

As a marketer, you should have some sense as to what drives your ideal mentor. That’s a core part of our job: identifying a desire (aka a market) and finding a way to provide access to that for a given audience.

In this case, your audience is the mentor or master of the craft you want to learn from. And we’ve already established their desire to be known and to share their message or story.

So help them do that! Offer them a platform where they can share their story and provide their counsel in a safe and enjoyable way.

This platform could look like a number of executions tactically, but I’d start by considering the obvious ones:

• Podcast focused on the stories of the masters of your craft (e.g. How I Built This)

• Email newsletter detailing the master’s back story (e.g. Just Go Grind)

• Blog series highlight some detail of their brilliance (e.g. How I Work)

• Short form video (tiktok, shorts, ig) giving masters an opportunity to share a different side of themselves (e.g. Sundae Conversation, Really Good Podcast)

Greene concludes the first chapter of his book with the following, “By letting others outshine you, you remain in control, instead of being a victim of their (your leaders/masters) insecurity.”

By creating a platform that shines a light on the masters of your craft, you’re giving yourself an opportunity to participate in the conversation and to create access to mentors you otherwise wouldn’t know personally.

Here’s how I did this…

Example: How I Did This

I've now done this a few different ways.

The big names I mentioned at the beginning of this issue were all sourced via my podcast, formerly known as The Startup Show (now Content is for Closers). More recently, I’ve used the same strategy with this newsletter via the Marketer Deep Dives.

I’ve shared this a bunch of times, but here are the basic steps:

• Setup a “good enough” media brand (don’t overthink this)

• Seed a few initial episodes with “friendly” guests who contribute value

• Write a simple 1-line description/invitation for ideal mentors

  • Emphasize the benefit to the mentor (I want to help you promote your upcoming book this November)

  • Explain your objective (I’m creating a platform for up-and-coming marketers)

  • Highlight a low-grade ask (10 minutes, will send questions ahead)

• Send these customized invitations to creators via Twitter DMs and LinkedIn Messages - you’ll be shocked at how fast these work.

The key here is getting your first “Yes.”

For me, getting Gary Vaynerchuk on my show was critical. At the time (2017), his brand was enormous but he didn’t guest often on other shows. Telling mentors, “I’ve previously interviewed entrepreneurs like GaryVee” carried weight.

Now here’s the key: make the experience memorable for your mentor in some way.

They likely get interviewed dozens of times per month. Make sure you have some value add, story, or unique question that helps them remember you moving forward. This is your primary objective.

Your secondary objective is to ask them the questions you actually want to learn for your own benefit. This drives two outcomes:

• It will create the best content possible for your audience

• It will allow you to receive mentorship you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get.

Clean it up. Hit publish. Then do it again. And again. And again, and again, and again.

If you’re careful in your selection and consistent in your effort, you can easily end a year with 50 new mentors in your network. 1-2 of these will likely develop into relationships that are deeper than the initial conversation. 

That’s it. That’s the way I’ve tricked dozens of millionaires into being invested in my career progression and as me as a human being. The great news? None of this is magic. Anyone can realize the same result with careful thought and consistent effort.