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It’s good to be home. To have insomnia in my own bed and walk around my own penthouse at three in the morning, instead of up and down hotel hallways. I spend the weekend locked in my suite, trying to avoid family since they’re the only people with access to my space—but they all seem to feel like I need to know I’ve been missed, am appreciated, yada yada.
On Monday morning, I take a quick trip down to the lobby to say hello to the security staff. It’s a small gesture that, according to research my brother Brian believes, improves the odds of having them actually care about my safety. Not that I’ve ever worried about external threats to my life.
“Mr. Power, great to have you back.” Aksita stands and comes around the front of the security desk to shake my hand.
“Glad you’re still here. Any gossip I should know about? Shit my brothers won’t tell me?” I gently punch his arm.
“You mean, like the brouhaha that took place when Mr. Aidenaccidentally,” he makes air quotes, “rolled the stairs away from the giant nest while Mr. Brian was showing it to a woman he may or may not be seeing? Nope. I can’t think of anything worth reporting.”
“That doesn’t sound at all like Aiden,” I say with an eye roll.
“Quite right, sir. Good to have you home.”
“Glad to be back. Thanks for all you do.”
Since it’s too confusing having four Mr. Powers in the building, staff call my brothers by their first names. I am the only Mr. Power, which is weird since Horse is the CEO, the head honcho, the guy who deserves to be calledmister. But since I am the public figure and my role demands that level of esteem, Horse is Mr. Colt to staff, Horse to me.
And although we’re identical twins, we do everything we can to look nothing alike. From the way we dress—I always wear a black suit, and Horse wears whatever the hell he feels like, as long as it isn’t a black suit—to our hair. I look like a billionaire—hair meticulously maintained, cut every two weeks, and a beard I trim daily to make it look like two days’ growth. Horse? He looks more like a ski bum with his wavy, jet-black, shoulder-length hair and a beard that swallows the lower half of his face and neck.
My first meeting of the day is to personally welcome all the new Power Broker Program members who received a gold business card at one of my recent events. I handed out fifty in total. The cost to the company in staff coaching time is significant—approximately one hundred hours per client at one hundred dollars an hour of salary for my team—half a million dollars.
But Brian figured out that every success costs us ten grand in real money but generates over $80,000 in the three years that follow their participation in the program from leveraging their successes and their word-of-mouth marketing. There is no investment that gives us better returns or that provides as much control over who we have promoting our brand.
With our headquarters in Vancouver, BC, the majority of coaching is done via video conference, and this morning’s welcome will be exactly that: me alone in my office with a giant wall of faces from all over the world looking back at me. Each client will have his or her mentor on as well.
Given time zones, about half our clients will be at this morning’s meeting and the other half at the end of the day, so nobody will have to drag themselves out of bed at two a.m. to participate. Some might have to work late or start early, but that’s the cost of doing business. Sleep is secondary to success.
I’m at my desk when Savi arrives. “Good morning, Will.” She greets me with her always cheerful smile.
“Did you miss me?” I ask, looking up from my laptop.
“Nope. I set my alarm to go off and yell orders at me at random times during the day while I was on my holiday.”
I look at my keyboard and mumble, “Gotta keep that middle finger in shape.” I then look up in time to see her expression of shock return to a smile.
“Everything’s set up and ready to go for the top of the hour.”
“You’re the best.”
My desktop has only one document open, a spreadsheet containing all I need to know for this meeting, to make every participant feel like I am personally invested in their business. The first column lists names written phonetically. The second, their business name. Third, what the business sells or offers. The fourth has the most content—one sentence that describes their key business target for the next quarter. And finally, I have one question to ask each person, something to encourage their meaningful engagement.
My team provides me with all this info—truth is, I know nothing about any of these entrepreneurs. But this quarterly touch-base withtheWill Power translates into big money.
To keep things easy, the tech team moves the participant I’m meant to talk to into the video frame directly to my right on the screen. It allows me to keep the appearance of eye contact since they’re directly below my camera. They are pulled up in the same order as my cheat sheet, which covers all the faces in the row below the one person I’m talking with.
Another of Aiden’s brilliant ideas, this system makes me look personally invested in every single mentee’s success and has made our family business stand head and shoulders above every other motivational coaching outfit on the market, bar none.
My preparation is simple: scan the list and make edits as I see fit so the words sound like me. I skip the first three columns—no need to memorize names—and go right to the targets and questions.
Hire staff … optimize online presence … reduce overhead … diversify offerings … blah blah blah. Nothing jumps out as interesting or challenging, so I minimize the window and open my email program to send Horse a note:
Free for lunch, boss?
The group Power Broker call is humming along. Scheduled to last ninety minutes, we are right where we’re supposed to be, with fifteen minutes and four participants remaining. As I read the next name on the list, the words are out of my mouth before my brain registers what I’m saying. I pull my eyes away from the camera to look directly at the face to my right. Red hair pulled back in a tight bun. The name on the bottom of the screen matches the name on my spreadsheet.
Holy shit.
I stumble, repeating her name, trying to regain my footing.
