Founders Local
Blog Archives
Earlier writings on mindset, sales, entrepreneurship, and founder growth from Oz Merchant's Founders Local blog. Review the coaching skills app.
Mastering the Art of Influence: Leveraging Personality for Startup Success
In the dynamic world of SaaS startups, founders often find themselves wearing multiple hats, from pitching investors to managing teams and driving customer...
Do Your Beliefs Impact Your Performance?
The belief that an asset is anything that puts money into your pocket, while a liability is something takes money out of it, is quite a useful belief to have.
The Power of Questions: Know what you are asking
Then a curiosity kicks in and we realize we can use these same words to construct questions. Questions open us up to consume new information.
4 Steps to Launching Your Business
As you explore the expanse of the idea consider it from both sides. Any successful business aligns two sides, a success formula if you will.
When to Hire Your First Sales Rep in a Startup
Sales and marketing are the two pillars on which a company stands. Together, they bring in funds from clients, customers, or investors and help a company scale up. Hiring a salesperson is one of the most crucial decisions a startup will face.
Customer Success: What Every Founder Should Know About Customer Success
Every founder comes to a point where they have decide on who their first hire will be. Sales? Marketing? Customer Success? We'll explore the latter.
9 Powerful Questions to Help You Get Unstuck
As a founder, you spend lots of time making assumptions and then asking questions to verify those assumptions. If you get stuck, try these strategies.
My First Sales Development Rep (SDR) Role: 7 Critical Skills You Need to Set More Meetings in 2021 and Win the Inner Game of Sales Success
At some point you'll hire a SDR which is an entry role to cut their teeth on their journey towards sales or customer success. Here are some tips to help them.
Rehearsing for Success or Failure?
Whether you are pitching your new product or service or getting in front of potential investors, how you practice matters.
Quick Hack: Quieting the Monkey Mind
Inner critics or saboteurs chip away at our accomplishments. Startup life is already tough. Some inner peace can go a long way to ease the journey.
The Incredible Power of Questions for Self-Reflection
Questions posed to yourself lead to uncovering your own blindspots leading you to become a better leader and captain of your ship.
3 Goal-Setting Hacks to Ignite Your Best Year
As the new year comes around, it always sparks the desire to re-examine past achievements and set new goals as you look toward the future. Here are some hacks to help.
“Impostor Syndrome”: Understanding the 1 Key Driver to Overcome the Feeling
In times of chaos, the focus is on fixing the problems out there. But when they are going well, the problem emerges from within.
How to Conduct Constructive Self-Reflection?
As you conduct self-reflection, be mindful of the questions you ask yourself and the mental and emotional directions they take you.
How to Set Yourself Apart from Your Competitors
If you aren't in a competitive space, it won't be long before competitors appear. And then a key component of the sale becomes standing out from your competition.
How to Leverage NLP Anchoring, the Most Important Skill You Need for Your Career, Period.
If I were to ask you to list all the skills you have learned up to now in your life, how many do you think you could list? (Psst - we're going to add anchoring to this list.)
How Do We Process the World?
We process the world by using distortions and deletions to maintain our generalizations.
Quick Hack: Manage Your State to Get Mentally and Emotionally “Unstuck”
Feeling stuck? Change your state to get unstuck! What is a state? Simply put, it is your psycho-physio-emotional being.
Quick Hack: Jar Your Negative Self-Talk
Most people are aware of their nagging internal commentary that rears its head at different times throughout the day. This is typically called negative self-talk.
Quick Hack: Using the Process of Perspective to Create Possibilities
Do you need more information or a new perspective on what you already know? Well you can achieve that from the comfort of your own home and in the comfort of your own mind.
How Your “Self-Image” Impacts Your Life
What else is on your mental screen? Have you heard the term “self-image”? Ever consider what that really means? How you see yourself on your mental screen is your self-image.
What Are You Streaming on Your Mental Screen (or the Netflix of the Mind)?
Why do we like to watch TV? What is happening internally when you do? How often do you notice that the problems or concerns you have, disappeared for a period of time? What's streaming during this time?
Where to Place Your Focus? (Fundamentals 4)
The idea of knowing yourself as the observer through awareness of the observed is not a new one. It’s been around for thousands of years and shared by many a guru.
You are not Special — You are Unique!
While we gravitate to what makes us similar, we are each unique. Inherently unique, not subjectively special. Being “special” is an outside evaluation of you.
The Content on Your Mental Screen (Fundamentals Part 3)
So once you are aware of your mental screen, how many different pieces of content can you be aware of that reside on this screen? For example, if you recall buying something at the store today what all do you recall?
Discovering Your Mental Screen (Fundamentals Part 2)
Did you know you have a mental screen in your mind? Like a chalkboard or a smartboard or a LED screen. Are you aware of your mental board? If so, what does it look like?
Understanding Your Mind and Mindhacking (Fundamentals 1)
Your brain is a physical organ. The Mind is more of an abstract concept. One way to think about the two is that your brain is the hardware and your mind is the software.