EverydaySpy Podcast - ESPIONAGE vs. SALES: The Shocking Connection | Day 8

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Find your Spy Superpower: https://yt.everydayspy.com/4ffYFzN Espionage, business, and sales, all revolve around the same core principle: Value. The problem is, society has lost their understanding of this simple, powerful word. If you are a career professional, entrepreneur, or just now starting your career/business, you don't want to miss this lesson on what CIA taught me about building, showing, and maintaining value. If you like this, click subscribe, like and share with a friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the world of espionage and tradecraft, buyer's remorse is quite dangerous. We're coming up on the end of ski season here in Colorado, and it's been a phenomenal season for me. I've been able to watch both of my kids learn how to ski or snowboard. My daughter learned how to ski. My son learned how to snowboard. I watched my wife learn how to ski this year.

It was a phenomenal time. I mean, it's fun to get out on the mountain yourself, but it's even more incredible to watch the people that you love, learn to love the snow and the mountain in their own way. one of our family trips up into the Rocky Mountains, we were standing in line at lunch. And it was me and my son, and we were all geared up in our snow gear. And of course, we were covered in snow, and we were somehow both super hot and freezing cold at the same time. Anybody who's ever been skiing knows what I'm talking about. And we're standing behind this other couple. And the couple is looking at the

prices on all the items that are in the dining area for lunch. And they pull out a bottle of water. And they look at the price. And they say, oh, my gosh, that's ridiculous. and they pull out a little container of hummus and pretzels. And they say the same thing. This is outrageous. And they pull out a sandwich. This is so expensive. And they pull out a candy bar.

This is unbelievable. And my son's looking at me and he's like, Dad, why are they making such a big deal about the price? And I tell him, I say, well, son, if we were at a grocery store near home, all of these things would cost probably 70% less. But we're up here on top of a mountain having lunch in the middle of the day. So they're more expensive. And the couple kept kind of going through everything and complaining to themselves about how expensive everything was.

And my son looked at me and he's like, well, dad, I don't understand. Would they prefer if the food wasn't here at all? And it was in that moment that I knew I must be doing something right as a parent. Because the question that my son asked that day gets to the heart of personal and professional success. And just having him understand that concept and say that to me on that mountain, in that moment, on that day, was everything that I needed to know to understand I would not have to worry about my son for the rest of his life. Now let me walk you through what it was about my son's question that inspired me so much. First, he understood that where we were in that moment was up on a mountain, 11,000 feet above sea level,

far away from home, far away from civilization, far away from a grocery store. We were up at a ski resort. And in that ski resort, we had shelter, we had restrooms, we had restrooms, We had water, we had heat, we had food, and it was all available to us at a higher price. But it was available to us at all. And the fact that all of that was made available to us was evidence that someone at some point in time had made the financial investment to build a building, to create logistics, to build roads, to run food from the city all the way up to this peak location at a ski resort. And my son recognized that all of that financial investments, all of that. of that logistical planning, all of that effort, all of that transportation, all of that risk was there

to add value to us as the skiers who were there that day. Because someone knew that someday there would be people skiing on that mountain who would be hungry, who would want chips and hummus, who would want a candy bar, who would want a sandwich or who might want a bottle of water. And on that day, that person paid an incredible amount to build this infrastructure that we were enjoying at exactly that moment. my son, who's 12 years old, could look at that $7 bottle of water and understand, yes, it's expensive, but that's because it's available to us at all. It adds value. And most importantly, he understood that if it was valuable enough to us, we would pay $7 for that water. And we would do it without complaining. But what happens too often is that we live in a society that doesn't teach us

how to actually interpret the benefit that we get out of the cost that we have to pay. Because when you perceive a benefit that is equal to or greater than the cost that you're willing to pay, that is what we call value. We've all been in a situation where we thought we got a great deal, where we thought that we paid very little for something that benefited us a great deal, right? That is a perception of value. We feel like we got tremendous value for the cost that we had to pay. But similarly, we've also had those experiences where we feel like we got ripped off or jipped,

where we paid a great deal for not very much benefit. And in those cases, the value seemed lower. But the truth is that value is based on perception, which means every individual at every different time has a different perception of what value is. Let me give you another example from the ski mountain. My son and daughter and I were going skiing one time earlier in the season. And we got all of our stuff into the trunk. We got all of our snow gear. We got all of our jackets.

We got our helmets. We got our goggles. We got our skis. We got our sleds and our boots. And we started heading up to the mountain. And about 30 minutes into the trip, my daughter tapped me on the shoulder from the back seat and said, Daddy, I can't find my gloves.

She forgot to pack her gloves. Now, we were like 15 minutes from the mountain. So I had to decide, do I turn around and drive all the way home to get her gloves, to then come drive all the way back to the ski mountain? Which means do I take 30 minutes to go back home, five minutes to find her gloves, 30 minutes to come back to this point, and then 15 more minutes to get to the mountain. A grand total of whatever is probably like an hour and 20 minutes of the combined time for all of us.

Not to mention the fact that by making that round trip, I'd be getting to the mountain at a later time of the morning, when the lines are longer, when there's more people, when there's more pain. So in that moment, I had to ask myself, is it worth it to make that trip to get her gloves? Or should I just buy something from the pro shop at the ski resort when we get there? Now, yes, a $30 pair of gloves might cost $60 at the pro shop. So the question then is on my shoulders is the extra $30 I'm paying at the pro shop worth saving myself the hour and 20 minutes of additional driving plus however long I'd have to wait in line before I start my skiing day.

Now, to me, that's an easy answer. And the answer is yes, I'll pay $30 all day long to save myself from having to drive an hour and 20 minutes round trip. But for some people, that's a different value statement. For some people, they would be willing to make the trip all the way back to save the money on buying a new pair of gloves. So you can see how that valuation is different. But the thing is, we're not taught that. When you're a kid, when you're in school, when you're growing up, there's a completely different societal expectation when it comes to value.

And because of that, you've actually seen how Western society has come to villainize for-profit businesses. For-profit businesses aren't doing anything wrong at all. They're not doing anything evil. Your pest control person, your insurance salesman, your door-to-door salesman, These are not people who are trying to do anything evil at all. They're trying to deliver a value to the people who see the value of their product or service. The people who see that the cost they are paying is well worth the benefit they are receiving. Unfortunately, the message that we've been receiving since we were very little is that you're supposed to give more than you ask.

You're supposed to work at a loss. You're supposed to sacrifice instead of thrive. And all of those messages have made it very difficult and confusing for people to understand the value. of business. Understand the value especially of for-profit business or businesses that run a high profit margin. Now, if you're a new business owner, if you're an entrepreneur, or if you're somebody who's been trying to think about starting a business, you've probably struggled with this challenge. Understanding what's the right price, how much is too much. If I sell it for this much, I'll run out of money. But if I sell it for that much, people will think it's too expensive.

You know exactly what it's like to have to deal with this question of value and how you get people to see the value in your product. One of the major challenges in this understanding of value actually comes from the way that the brain is wired. And CIA uses this wiring to our advantage as well, because when we are finding people who are willing to commit treason, people who are willing to trade state secrets in exchange for something that they find of benefit, we're essentially having the exact same conversation that any for-profit business is having. We're trying to sell a product, treason, to a person who sees the value of treason as something that is less than the benefit they will receive from committing treason. You see that? In the world of espionage, treason is the currency of exchange. Instead of dollars and

cents, instead of goods and services, we are literally trading secrets, lies, and deceit. When you come across somebody who sees the value of trading their secrets in exchange for something that they need in return, then you find the right kind of valuation for espionage to exist. Now, I'll be the first one to say, it's not easy to sell treason. It's not easy to sell espionage. Out of every 20 people that you pitch, there's really only one or two that say yes. But when you find those one or two assets that are willing to exchange what they have for what they want, you can have a long and productive relationship that actually ends up bringing incredible value to the United States and the United States National Security Infrastructure.

And that is the same way it is in business. When you find the customers who do truly value your product and service in exchange for the benefit that they get, you have a longstanding, highly productive relationship with those customers. And that can be more than enough to keep a business going for years and decades into the future. What CIA discovered about how people experience value is tied, like I said, to the brain, specifically two different parts of the brain. The prefrontal cortex, which is the logical brain, and then what we call the paleomomomalian

brain, which is the responsive or automatic side of the brain. Inside the prefrontal cortex, the logical part of the brain, people are literally running a calculation about whether or not the dollars and cents that they are paying or the effort that they are contributing is worth the benefit that they will receive. All of that runs in the prefrontal cortex in the logical part of the brain. Meanwhile, in the paleo-mammalian brain, there's this automatic, instantaneous emotional connection to needs and wants to desire. So when there's something that you desire, oftentimes it will supersede what's happening

in the prefrontal cortex. So if you've ever had an impulse buy where you've spent way too much money on something that you came to regret later on, what actually happened in that moment was your paleo-mammalian brain, your desire was so powerful that it superseded your prefrontal cortex,

the logical calculation about value, and it insisted instead that you purchase or you acquire the thing that you want in that moment. But only after time did your prefrontal cortex catch up and be able to complete the logical process that made you ultimately regret your decision. For all of you salespeople and sales professionals out there, you've heard the term buyer's remorse. This is what happens during buyer's remorse. The paleo-mammalian brain, the desire, the need, the want is so powerful. It skips over the logical brain and it makes someone say yes to an acquisition that then over hours

or days later, the logical brain catches up and they realize they can't actually afford the thing that they just purchased. So they ask for a refund or they ask for a return. The reason this is so important to CIA is because in the world of espionage and tradecraft, buyers remorse is quite dangerous. You don't want someone to enter into an agreement to trade secrets and then change their mind a few days or hours later. Because when they change their mind, you don't know what they might do. We used to have this saying at CIA that all assets are running around with a big red self-destruct button on their chest because the guilt and the shame, the humiliation, the embarrassment of what happens when you say yes to giving secrets in exchange for gold, money, prostitutes, you name it,

when you say yes to that exchange and then you have buyer's remorse, you feel like you want to go turn yourself in to your priest or to the police or to your spouse and all of those people run the risk of exposing the whole operation. So we call that a big red self-destruct button that assets carry on their chest. Now that I own my own business, I still carry that same lesson with me today. I don't want to sell somebody a service, a product, a training experience, a live event. I don't want to sell them anything that they might regret hours or days later because who knows what they're going to do with that big self-destruct button. Are they going to leave a bad review? Are they going to tell a friend they shouldn't have done it? Are they going to take it to the

internet and leave some sort of damning Reddit? Who knows? But it's not worth trying to trick somebody by making the value proposition look more than it really is. This is a lesson I took from CIA that has helped me be very successful in business and very successful in all of my personal and professional relationships. Because if you can add value, people will always want you around because they will perceive the benefit that you bring them for a very low cost, a very low cost in terms of dollars, a very low cost in terms of hours, a very low cost in terms of effort. Now, that doesn't mean you have to be cheap. It just means that the people that you spend, your time with have to perceive the value of your time and your effort and your money. One great example

of this is every time you see luxury goods. There's a reason some people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a purse and others are barely willing to pay $25 for a purse. It's not even because of the purse itself. It's because of the perceived benefits, the value that each of those two buyers see in the purse itself. The same thing is true for cars. The same thing is true for shoes. The same thing is true for technology. My father-in-law, whom I love to death, can't resist but by the newest technology every time a new Apple device comes out. The thing is, he doesn't actually know how to use most of the Apple devices that come out. So the benefit is really there. The devices really are pretty amazing, but the benefit to him has nothing to do with the capability of the device. It has to

do with something else. There is some other value that he perceives is worth the cause. The cause, to benefit of getting that device. Now, I want to be transparent. I am a business owner. I'm a salesman. I'm a dad. I'm a father. I'm a husband.

I am very much someone who lives in the world of trade, exchange, value, and effort. But the reason I'm telling you this story is because CIA lives in the same world. And nobody really understands how similar espionage spying and tradecraft are to buying, selling, and trading. But when you understand the true value of value. it really is a powerful shift in your mindset because once the light bulb clicks, you stop seeing things as cheap or expensive and you start seeing them as overvalued or undervalued. And you can start to understand why one person would see something as valuable and somebody

else would see something is not so valuable. It can completely transform your future potential as a corporate professional just as it can change your potential as an entrepreneurial professional. CIA didn't teach me how to be a business. owner or how to be a salesman or how to market a product. But they did equip me with the skills that I have learned to adapt to all of those situations. And it's those same skills that I want to give you so that you can see and experience and taste and enjoy the same success that I have had with everyday spy. I want you to see how this concept evaluation can impact your success long term. Because if you succeed, then I succeeded in my mission. Because the mission of my company is

simple to share spy education that breaks barriers for anyone willing to learn. If you broke a barrier today, if you learned something new, if you enjoyed this content, I hope that you'll like it. Leave a comment below, subscribe to the channel, share this with a friend. And I hope that you'll come visit me to see more of what I'm doing at everydayspy.com. Take care.