Building A Lasting Relationship With Your List With Intention

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. Today we get to listen to Robert Scrub as he interviews Doberman Dan. Now, Doberman Dan is a fan favorite of the Magnetic Marketing family. We absolutely love Doberman Dan. And today we get to listen to the things that make Doberman Dan special, and that is how to create a lasting relationship with your list with intention. This is not just about emailing your list or mailing your newsletter more often. It's not just about making sure that there's an ROI message in every single thing. It's not transactional. It is more personable. And this is how you toe that line and create that balance where you are able to create that personality that breathes through your marketing while at the same time increasing the profitability of each marketing piece you put out. With that said, let's listen in to Robert Scrobb and Dopamine Dan.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy.

The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril.

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Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like. Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless.

His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy.

Growing a list of raving fans who want to buy your products and services is what this business, this information marketing business and magnetic marketing is all about. That's what we're going to talk about today. I'm Robert Scrobe, President of the Information Marketing Association and author of The Official Get Rich Guide to Information Marketing. My guest today is Doberman Dan or Dan Galipoux., who is a 20-year serial entrepreneur and direct response copywriter. He's worked in a variety of niches, but his specialty has been in the health market. He started and built 3 of his own supplement businesses, and he's recently been hired by a $600 million a year company to help them with a brand new supplement division. Dan has been publishing his own newsletter, the Doberman Dan Letter, since 2011 and has many of the most successful marketers in the world as subscribers and as clients. Dan is really a brilliant copywriter and very smart in the world of building relationships with a list and extracting a huge amount of value from those even small lists. So it's a great pleasure. Welcome. Glad that you're here, Dan.

Thank you, Robert. Glad to be here. It's an honor.

So let's kind of back up a little bit. I mean, this whole concept about building a relationship with a list, building a group of subscribers either to a free newsletter and then to a paid newsletter, What is the value of that? How can that benefit somebody who's getting started or maybe even has had an information marketing business for a while and has kind of lost sight of this side of their business?

That's a great question and I'm happy to talk about it because I think if it's possible, I think I've made every possible mistake along the way. And, uh, out of pure financial desperation, I was forced to figure it out, uh, in a couple businesses actually. Initially, I started figuring this stuff out when I had a nutritional supplement business, and it was like a revolving door. I mean, they came in and went out just as fast as they came in. Nobody was staying on the auto-ship. So I started kind of piecing things together then. And got some really exciting results. And then I sold the supplement business in 2012. And prior to that, I had started my own membership, which was the Doberman Dan Letter, the newsletter, and then there's an online membership site and a monthly webinar. And so I just basically transferred those relationship-building skills I'd learned learned in the supplement business to this business and learned some tweaks along the way. Like I said, pure financial necessity. Customer acquisition costs just seem to keep creeping up and up and up. So the longer you can keep people around and keep people with you and keep people continuing to purchase from you, the better. I don't think anybody nowadays can afford to have the revolving door where there's just so many prospects and such a big market and it's so cheap like back in 2004 with 5-cent clicks on Google AdWords that you can just keep burning through and burning through and it doesn't matter if it's a revolving door. I mean, now it's just pure necessity. You gotta work really hard to build a relationship because that's what keeps people around, and that's what builds a profitable business.

I know a lot of folks that are listening to this thinking, I already do this, I got this handled, I send out a weekly email or a daily email, and I send it to everybody that's ever opted in. Or, you know, maybe they do some sort of, uh, list cleanup. What's the difference between sending out a daily email or a weekly email, and building a relationship like you're talking about?

Well, a big part of that, I believe, is your intention. I applaud the people who are doing those things, sending a weekly email, a daily email, or whatever it is. But if you, sorry Robert, this is a bit of the ex-cop in me, comes out occasionally, so if you have to delete this and clean it up, I understand. If you half-ass your email, okay, and you're just sending stuff out, just send it out. You know, it's better than nothing. But it's not what you need to do to build a relationship. Think about it. If you had a very surface-level conversation with your spouse, I don't care if it's daily, I mean, what kind of relationship does that build? When you just spill your guts and just pour your heart out, with whatever frequency it is you're doing that, daily or weekly. That's way different, and it's also difficult to do because you're usually revealing stuff you'd rather not reveal. You're literally— you know, you're figuratively, I should say, bleeding on the page. Um, you know, you're showing people your heart. I think, you know, that's the difference, the intention. Are you really communicating to build a friendship? Are you really communicating like you would with a friend? Or are you just half-assing it and sending something out?

And asking them to buy now. And I think this is really brilliant because, you know, The real core, there's two things that I see very often is folks don't really understand what it is they are trying to sell, especially in the membership area. They think they are selling a CD or a newsletter, and really they are trying to sell a way of life, a lifestyle, a transformation. And you know, nobody woke up today going, "Oh my gosh, I hope I have an opportunity to get one more newsletter. Because if I just got one more newsletter, my life would be complete." Or, "If I got one more CD interview every month, then finally my life would be complete." So when you put in a sales letter, you've got a CD or you've got a newsletter and you'll send it to them every month. Not a compelling benefit. But if you help them, like you're going to help because of the CD and newsletter, you're going to fix a problem and transform your life, well now you're getting somewhere. And then the other piece I think is really what you're getting at is that what Zig Ziglar says, they don't care what you know until they know that you care. And you have to make the first step in this vulnerability of revealing things that may be uncomfortable to reveal about your story, your background, where you come from and who you are and how you feel in order so that they come, 'cause what you'll find is that it's, very attractive to folks to get to know you in that way. And it certainly helps you more than anyone could hurt you with it.

I totally agree. You know, for all intents and purposes, they're buying you. So, you know, you have to communicate in that style, which is not always easy. One of, a guy I really like to read is James Altucher. Have you ever heard of him, Robert? He's really worth checking out. He's such an honest writer. And he's, I mean, he reveals all his fears and insecurities and he talks about What happened when he went broke, he lost $10 million. And my wife is from Colombia, and so there's some cultural differences with us going on, but they're very wary of security issues and personal security issues. And when you, they really don't share things like that. With people they don't know really well. So when she sees me sharing these really personal details with a list of people that I don't know from Adam, she always busts my chops about it, like, "You shouldn't do that." And 'cause she doesn't really totally get it. You're exposing yourself, you're exposing, you're showing people your heart.

Very good, and 'cause a lot of times, and certainly in high school, if you acted vulnerable, then you were going to get immediately taunted. And so we've been taught in our society not to allow ourselves to look vulnerable because we're going to be taunted or bullied by somebody. And as you become an adult, by allowing you to be open, by being more open with your even insecurities. You know, you don't want to, but there's a saying that I've heard from the clergy circles that you don't preach your doubts. And you certainly aren't going to talk about what you don't know or what what the gray areas are, but you can certainly talk about what has happened in the past and where you used to have doubts and how you now have a new clarity. Dan, I know we've kind of talked around this a little bit. Are there any examples that you have that you could share that kind of give some insight and kind of where do you go when you are, you know, in your own mind when you're trying to look for things to share that are going to help build a relationship, that create an email, that create a newsletter, that builds a relationship beyond simply, "Hey, I fulfilled what I said I would do this month." That's a good question.

You know, I think anybody who has graduated high school probably has enough material to write about for the rest of their lives. It's interesting, if you keep your antenna up, it's amazing what turns into fodder for your emails or your newsletter or whatever you need to write about. That's what Gary Halbert always used to call this stuff, fodder. And it'll come from everywhere. From movies you see, from things that happen every day, from interactions with your neighbor or your spouse. A great source is emails you get from your members. That's a never-ending source of fodder. I mean, I read emails when my Doberman got cancer, My Doberman actually wrote one email for me, quote unquote wrote it. People loved that. You know, Robert, another thing is in getting people to know you, listen, if you're creating content regularly, you know, I'm not going to say it's impossible, but it's really hard to knock them out of the park every single time. Every single email is not going to be brilliant. But once your members get to know you and like you and trust you, even the stuff that maybe isn't the best, they're totally cool with it. 'Cause they're your friend at that point. But I just keep my antenna up all the time. Books I read spark different thoughts. I have a file in my email stuff that I say for fodder, news stories. You know, I wrote about Bernie Madoff, the prison he was sent to, details about the prison that I knew, and then it turned into how could people fall for that stuff, how could they believe something that's too good to be true. My wife, is about as Catholic as they come, and so sometimes she drags me to Mass, and I get ideas from the priest's sermon. It just comes from everywhere. You just got to be aware of it and constantly be collecting that information. It's fodder. It's amazing what you can turn it into.

Well, are you going to Rome for Jubilee this year? Pope called a Jubilee. You gotta, you gotta get there.

Well, she'll probably propose that, I'm sure.

Well, Well, we need to coordinate because we're going in June or July. So you got till, I think you got till October before Jubilee is over. So you need to get to St. Peter's Basilica and do the Jubilee thing. So we'll have to get on that for you.

You know, if I do go to that, Speaking of, I mean, I would have email fodder to last for months. I think I wrote several emails about St. Anthony from a sermon I heard at Mass one time. So that trip to Rome would be— geez, do you think I could write it off as a business expense?

I cannot give you tax advice. That's between you and your personal CPA. So I guess, what I also liked about your comment is you don't have to worry about hitting it out of the park every day. It's kind of like, what I try to help folks see is that this is creating a relationship. It's much the same way, you know, you talked about you and your wife, it's much the same way as a, you know, the spousal relationship, you don't have— like with your spouse or even with your buddies, they're your friends. You don't have to make it the most amazing experience to be around you. Like with your wife, you guys are already married. If you guys can go out to dinner and you don't have to have— you don't have to go overboard with this every single night. You can But it's good to check in and say, you know what, these are some things that I was thinking about, and these are some things that I've gotten resolved, and share those. And it's not necessarily about— like if you're doing copywriting and you're teaching folks how to do better marketing, it doesn't have to be This headline worked better than that headline. And in fact, a lot of times that doesn't build retention. People still quit even when the content is great. There was a fabulous newsletter about 10 years ago that there was never, there will never be a better newsletter on copywriting, but it had no personality. The stuff that we are talking about here And it was gone within 24 months. And so this piece, this relationship of being vulnerable, talking about the things that you're thinking about, observing the fodder, and talking through those things is much more powerful than any piece of content that you could deliver to your group or list. They do want some ROI. They want— they will need to deliver that from time to time. But I certainly get a lot more feedback and input from the things that are more vulnerable than I do from the things that I think are greatly informative.

That's a great observation. Another thing that I believe that goes along with it, just based on my experience. I think, so I started my blog back when I still had my supplement business back in 2007. So, you know, and then I didn't start my newsletter until 2011. So this has been a process learning this stuff. And if I go back and read some of my initial Doberman Dant stuff from like 2007, and even the first couple years of my newsletters, I'm not happy with it because I've— here's what I try to do now. I grew up in Barberton, Ohio, so I talk like a guy from Ohio. You've heard it on this call. I think instead of saying things, I was talking with my wife, I probably said, I was talking with my wife the other day, like T-A-L-K-I-N apostrophe. And here's something I'm going to tell ya instead of tell you. You know what? I write the exact same way. It's as informal as I can possibly make it. I almost always use contractions. I say stuff like, listen, I got to tell ya something, spelled Y-A instead of Y-O-U. And again, Robert, I could be mistaken, but for me and the persona that I've created in this Doberman Dam persona, and to resonate with my audience, that has been the best way for me to write.

Now, so you've had your list for a number of years and you've been publishing the newsletter. And just recently you came out with a couple of coaching programs. What have you learned from branching out beyond the newsletter and the couple of things that you were doing with your blog to launching your new coaching programs?

Here's what I discovered. I was very nonplussed with everything that I had done and was doing. That's typical for me. I compare everything I do to all the stories I hear online about the guys who make $1 million a minute, and then I feel like I'm a loser. And so I was telling a buddy of mine about the, I think it was 3 coaching programs I had done within a 12-month period, and just promoted them. To a tiny little list, actually a list of only 130 people. That's not my opt-in list, that's a segment of my buyers list. And my friend made the comment like, my God, that's, you know, like, in 12 months you made almost $1,600 per person on that list. And I just, was not— I was too busy. I had my head down and was just working. I never stopped to look up and kind of look backwards for where I'd been and where I had and where I was. You know, I was always looking from where I was to the end point instead of turning around and looking where I come from. And that's when I realized, holy smokes, man, uh, this tiny little list has generated a lot of income, you know. And these people have stuck with— some of these people have stuck with me for, you know, 6 years now. So it was a pretty big revelation for me, Robert. I mean, when you build a relationship, even if the list is small, it can generate a really hefty income for you.

And it's that relationship The amount of money you generate from a list is based on the size of the relationship, not the size of the list. Absolutely.

Like I said, I was feeling like a loser because I'd hear all these stories about everybody who had— all these guys with membership programs have these huge lists, and I'm thinking, ah, my deal is just a little— small deal, but when I took the time to really look at it and see what was happening, all that, the coaching income, the retention that I have, it's all because of building that list.

So what are some of the problems that you see other entrepreneurs make that maybe are holding them back? From making all the money they could and growing their business?

Well, I think one of those— one of the reasons is probably not really understanding the value of a customer. I'll explain that. Certain customers are worth a lot more money to you than others. And so it's a really good idea to identify those. Like I told you, I was promoting my coaching to a tiny list of 130 people. So it's a really good idea to figure out who those, I call them the 4 percenters, are. The 20% of the 20% And you treat them a little more differently. You can communicate with them more frequently. They'll be much more receptive to higher-priced offers. So it comes down to list segmentation. I know it's an easy thing to talk about in theory, maybe not as easy to do in reality. But it is worth the work, that I can tell you, because those 4 percenters will produce an exponentially larger amount of income for you, you know, than the rest of your list. Another thing is probably, I see most business owners just not working their backend often enough. Everybody likes to focus on the frontend, on the customer acquisition, 'cause it's sexy. And Robert, you know this, 'cause you're a copywriter. It's fun when you're in the process of cracking that nut. You write a piece and it's exciting. Is this gonna work? Is this gonna get me the conversion I need? And then tweaking it to make it better, and finally developing the system that brings you in a steady flow of new customers. That's really exciting.. But most people at that point just kind of ignore them. And that's a sin because that's where all your money is made on the backend. And listen, I'm old school, so what has always worked for me, I love email and use it. I mean, I've been selling online and using email since '96. And I love it, but I've never abandoned the old school stuff that I learned too. And I've seen businesses exponentially boost their sales by just adding direct mail, sending a good old snail mail to the list once a month with an offer. It still works. And there's a lot of reasons that you should do that in addition to your email.—

and that helps you identify the 4%, that is the 20% of the 20% that are the rabid buyers. And it's interesting because I think most of the folks that you would talk to that are making the mistake of not really working the back end, would, if you said, "Are you working the backend?" They go, "Of course. I'm sending out affiliate offers. I'm sending out offers to my meetings and events. I'm sending out offers to the events that I'm putting on. I'm working the backend every month. What are you talking about?" And so somebody who's been in this business, that has been around for a while, that is following up, what is the mistake that they're making that is preventing them from really getting the value out of the backend that they really deserve to be getting?

I can tell you a lot of the mistakes that I made. And one of them, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs run into this too. I think we greatly underestimate the price points we can get for certain offers. Ken McCarthy made a really interesting point at the mastermind you and I were at a couple weeks ago. He called it the, I'm gonna forget, what's one of the boxes at the Super Bowl? The Skybox.

Yeah.

And that was brilliant. You know, what he was saying was, listen, there's a football game. You can sit at home and watch it for free on television. It costs you nothing. You could go to a bar and watch it, and you're probably gonna have to buy some food or a drink or two, so that costs you a little something. You could buy a ticket to the game, which costs you a little more. Or, you know, then there's guys who pay $1 million to be able to reserve the skybox. And his point was, it's all the same game. And I know I made the mistake in pricing some of my offers, pricing them too low. They were way too low based on the value that the people got from them. And also I priced them too low considering the amount of work that went into it. There are people on your list, you know, those 4 percenters, that will respond to really high-priced offers. And I think you can just keep pushing it until they say no. I had done coaching programs for a couple thousand bucks, a couple thousand bucks. When I jumped one up to $5,000, I was nervous. I thought, oh my God. The guys, that coaching program was about how to start a supplement business. Two of the guys out of that group will have seven-figure businesses a little more than a year after that coaching program. So, you know, and I was nervous about charging $5,000 for it. And then I just kept bumping it up, bumping it up., and you know, a segment of that list just keeps responding. There's a lot more money to be made from your customer list, and I think most entrepreneurs are undervaluing that.

I think it's fascinating. The skybox principle is really, really brilliant, and Dan Kennedy has a story that he tells about a chicken. That has kind of a similar theme, but that's not a story that we can certainly tell here. But I think that because the reason why Ken Skybox's principal story is so good is that when you keep in mind that the game, like you said, that the game is the same game. All right, so why Why do folks go to the game instead of watching it on TV? What is it about that drives them to that stadium? And then what is it about the folks that drives them to the skybox? And what are the emotions? What is the emotional payoff that they are getting? And that is what— those— asking yourself those questions and then asking yourself, how can I give them similar emotional payoffs with what I deliver is how you really transcend price. Because most people, when they want to charge more or they want to accelerate how many people are buying, they think they need to offer more stuff. So if I had a 12-page newsletter, I now need to make it 24. Or if I was doing 1 interview a month, I now need to do 2. Or if I have an offer with 5 bonuses, now I need to have an offer with 10 or 15. Going to the skybox is— you don't go to the skybox instead of watching it on TV because you get to see 2 football games instead of 1. You go to the skybox because it's a completely different experience.

I wish I could have said it as good as you just did. Exactly. It's a different experience and a different emotion. And you know what, I've also done that stuff, Robert, where I'm thinking, oh, so I wanna create more value, so I'm gonna stack on 107 bonuses, and I'm gonna give my people this and that and this and that every month. And it really worked against me. It caused overwhelm. In confusion, and people don't stick around when they're overwhelmed and confused.

And, but I've seen it, because, and I know your mentor Gary Halbert very often had sales letters with 9 different bonuses in it or what have you. And so you go back to the old samples that that started, that helped start this and propel these businesses forward. And they have bonuses too. So it's, and lots of them. So it's not something that is necessarily talked about a lot within this world. Now, I know you also wanted to share something that, because we were just at Brian Kurtz Mastermind event, and I think you wanted to also share something that, that you and I were talking about, but I actually, uh, it wasn't exactly sure what you were referring to.

Okay, you know, I hope this is okay to share. This is like a personal revelation for me, and I guess I should have thanked you for it at lunch, but we didn't have time. This was a forehead slapper for me. Uh, so, so since I sold my supplement business in 2012 I got two bad habits I have to support, and that's sleeping indoors and eating with some semblance of regularity. So to support those bad habits, I have my membership, and I also have been doing work as a freelance copywriter. By the way, it's not the point I'm supposed to be making, but by the way, almost all of my clients and certainly the best clients have all come out of my membership. So important point there. But you said something, it was about fee structure. If this is not okay to share, let me know, but you were talking about—

I don't even know what you're sharing, but go ahead.

I love all this crazy stuff. Somebody asked you, you know, how you help a business, and you basically said, you know, you analyze the business and see what's going on and see what ways could, they could, or what things could be implemented, things they can do to increase membership retention. And then you work with them, you initially propose that you guys work together for 6 months and there's a retainer, a monthly retainer, and then a percentage of the increase over baseline. And it's brilliant. That was a forehead slapper for me because the typical freelance copywriter deal is, here's my fee, it's X., and then I'm gonna get whatever it is, 5%, royalties on sales. And that's it. But the way you do it makes so much more sense because you initially propose a 6-month time period. With a freelance copywriter, if the thing bombs, well, I mean, most copywriters are kind of done with it at that point. Like, yeah, sorry it didn't work. And they're on to the next client instead of investing the time to tweak and fix things and stuff like that and get it to work. Because I mean, most of us never hit a home run the first time up to bat. So, you know, that's just a brilliant way of working with clients. It's actually the most beneficial way for the client and for you.

And it allows, it provides for a lot, like that replaced consulting days. And I certainly loved doing consulting days, and a lot of clients got tremendous value from them. But the frustration was that they would go back with a very long to-do list. And instead, by structuring the consulting day really Really what it's done is I've taken the consulting day and now I do it over 6 months. But at the end it's implemented. So the biggest problem with membership programs is that members quit. And I know how to keep members from quitting. And so we can get, at the end of the 6 months, we can get this fixed. And, you know, we're able to talk about all the things that they're going to have in place to keep their members from quitting and to be able to attract new members to their program. And so it's much— I find it actually a lot easier to sell that folks who wouldn't come for a consulting day snap up the 6-month program because Instead of going home with a to-do list, I'm going to work with them in order to get all those systems in place to get it done. So I find it a lot more effective for them and me.

Well, like I said, it was a pretty big epiphany for me because the reality of this direct response marketing stuff and everything we do to increase retention and lifetime customer value is, you know, it's a process and it takes some time. It's not a, you know, step up to bat and hit a home run. So it's just a brilliant way of working with clients. And, you know, I think it's the best possible chance of success with the client, you know.

Anyway, I wanted to thank you for that. Well, and I think too it also goes to a similar conversation about the whole copywriting business is never going to be what it was in 1970 and 1980 and 1990. And really now, you're more than a copywriter, you are a— a marketing— you're in charge of marketing strategy and helping them with execution more than you are a copywriter anymore. And so having a more of a defined engagement allows you the space to be able to help get that implemented. And I find that because I have more contact with the clients over time, I'm surprised often, you know, we'll have the same conversation 2 or 3 or even 4 times before they get a particular point. And we didn't have that opportunity in a consulting day. And so it's— you, as a marketing consultant, you're able to have a much greater impact.

Yeah, it makes so much sense to me. And I meant to thank you for that when we were at lunch, but you got—

taken away by other people.

So have you, uh, if you implemented this, I am in the process, and the timing on that couldn't have been better, Robert, because, uh, I'm making some changes in how I operate my business. Seeing as how almost all of my best clients come from my membership, you know, I'm— I've decided to focus more on that and take a lot less clients but concentrate on them and work with them long-term. I'm to the point in my life I don't want to date around anymore.

I want to get married. Yeah, dating looks great at the beginning, but my goodness, you're able to build a much better relationship and really be able to deliver more value as you are able to go. So Dan, my goodness, a lot of interesting insights into building relationships, getting maximum value out of small lists, and also how to deliver maximum value. It's not just about— I remember getting into this business at the beginning thinking, Great, I never have to talk to a customer. I'll put what I know into a box and they'll buy my box and I'll never have to ever have to interact with a client. And it's really not about— there are so many ways to get leverage beyond simply shipping a box out to clients. So Dan, thank you so much for being my guest today. A lot of interesting insights. And, uh, very, very helpful.

I appreciate your help today. Thank you, Robert.

I, I really appreciate it and I enjoyed it. Thank you for listening to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with Dan Kennedy. If you love hearing in on these lost Dan Kennedy talks and speeches and calls, then please let someone else know about this podcast. That's how you can help it to grow, and the more it grows, the more free Dan Kennedy we can bring to you. Also, Dan would love to give give you the most incredible free gift ever designed to help you make maximum money in minimum time. This free gift comes with almost $20,000 in pure money-making information for free just for saying maybe. You can get this gift from Dan right now at NoBSLetter.com. Not only do you get the $20,000 gift, you also get a subscription to 2 marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your mailbox each and every month, one from Dan Kennedy and and one from me, Russell Brunson. To get this gift and your subscription, go to NoBSLetter.com right now.