These Businesses Thrive When the Economy Tanks

Here's how to bulletproof your marketing in any economy, even a recession. I've been around long enough to been through a few recessions. And the one in 2007. Yes, I'm that old. In 2007, when I was in business educating people on how to invest in real estate, following the principles that I have used, it was one of the worst economies in history. If you're old enough to remember every other house was for sale on every street in America, and about every fourth house had a foreclosure sign on it. It was traumatic, it was devastating. And simultaneously, I was teaching people how to invest in real estate. But it taught me the most valuable lesson in the world. To meet people where they are. Write that down. To live inside the mind of your prospect. Not just what they're doing, but what are they thinking, what do they fear? What do they want? What are they worried about? And I remember we got through that shift, that, that downturn. And most of all, my competition went away and I owned the entire industry. We're past $100 million a year in teaching people real estate education, even in a shift. So let's think about the economy and when it's booming, when it's aspirational, when people are positive, when they see a bigger future. Come on over. I know it's going to sound silly, but let's equate it to the Titanic. I know you're probably like, I know where this story's going. Right. Iceberg right ahead. But if you think about the Titanic, it was the most beautiful ship ever built. It was the largest ship ever built at the time. It was going to be the fastest ship to go from England to America. All these incredible things. It had the elite of the elite. Imagine marketing for the Titanic. All the things I just shared the experience of a lifetime to get to the Americas in style and class with five star meals, five star dining with beautiful residents. Think how aspirational that was. Well, that's how marketing is in an up economy, especially if you're selling luxury or selling something that can enhance their life. If you're selling something people want but don't necessarily need, right? You have in this, you have this aspirational kind of the carrot waving the carrot. And then all of a sudden an economy shifts, like in 2007, and it shifts dramatically, goes down quick, kind of like the Titanic hitting an iceberg. When the Titanic's going down. I was equating this story to the economy going down. And what I realized is my competition wasn't living Inside of the mind of the client. When you were on the Titanic, that was perfect. That's one mindset. What do you think people wanted when the Titanic was going down? Did they want the second house? Did they want luxury? Did they want to make money? Did they want to have the boat or the. No. What did they want? They wanted safety. They wanted a lifeboat. They wanted a life preserver. They didn't care about the luxuries anymore. They wanted to be okay. And I recognized that. I entered the old conversation, but now that the economy was going down, the Titanic was going out. I said, how can I supply life preserve? And I created a book on how to protect yourself in the downside. How you could wholesale property, right? How you could match buyers and sellers because there were still investors buying a ton of property. They were buying the foreclosures. How would you put yourself in the middle? I also shared in my marketing. This is not a time to get rich in real estate. This is a time to create a foundation. This is a time you could still do well, but you're really anchoring a bigger future. It's like planting apple trees. They don't produce fruit immediately, but when they start to, they could produce it for years. I said, this is a time for foundation. And people realized that. I met them where they are. I wasn't talking about all the big, beautiful stuff and my competition missed it. I still remember their ads, their infomercials. It was still about the shiny cars and the fancy and people like, every house on my block is for sale or in foreclosure. Our marketing dominated so much. The book I wrote did over a million copies. My show was doing a million or $2 million a week in sales. Between the front end and middle and the coaching we were providing, we were booming. People were dying because I was meeting people where they are. Is your marketing meeting people where they are today in this one? We've been through a few roller coasters since then, Covid, and all the crazy things that have happened since then. If you think of this story, where are you? But I want to take it one step further. How I transcended this and even got more so if you think about it, when. When the Titanic was perfect. Aspirational carrot. I want to go. I want more. Yay. Confidence, courage, boom. The economy hits an iceberg. It's going down. I'm scared. I got to protect you. Back up into the goal. People are feeling. And you got to realize luxuries might be different, Education might be different. You got to meet them. Where they are. So now I'm talking to these people in the lifeboat. But then there's another phase. And I think this is what's helped carry me now for decades. And being in the top of marketing, top of sales, while we serve people at the highest level, the greatest gift I get to do, I get to help people go faster and quicker for a living. It's the greatest thing in the history of the world. That's why Tony And I started mastermind.com right? Because we want to help people realize. If you want to sell a book, sell it on Amazon. If you want to sell a product, you go to Shopify. If you want to sell your knowledge, your experience to help people go faster, you go to mastermind.com. that's what we've been doing for 76 years. So what kept this longevity and kept us here today still out front is this. What I realized is as people went from excited to scared to, I'm safe now. I'm in the boat. What happens after time? People, like, if this is the economy, then it crashes, and then it comes up here and it starts to get flat. So do people's emotions. They start accepting mediocrity. They start accepting that maybe this is all life has. They kind of get flat. And I look at it this way. If you went to dinner with someone in 2006 and someone at that table, you were with six couples, someone at that table was going through foreclosure, bankruptcy. You'd go, oh, my God, I can't believe they're going through that. I feel so bad. By 2009, after the crash and foreclosures and bankruptcies, it was a common thing. If you were at dinner, there were six people. Three of them were going through foreclosure, bankruptcy. It's just what you do. They got complacent. It wasn't shocking anymore. And what I realized, I could market. I could market to aspirational. I can mark it to this. Okay, carrot. Dangle the carrot. Now I can mark it for safety. And I did. I wrote the book. We were rocking it. But then I realized people were flat. And I realized my marketing had to wake them back up, stop settling. Just because we went through this and you got the safety net, it's time to come back. It's time to rebound. Most people are going to be waiting for it to get aspirational again, to get perfect again. You can lead the way. And I had to wake them. I used to tell my team, we're going to wake sleeping dogs. We're going to kick them and wake up and say, you deserve more. You are enough. You know, enough. You could be more. You could do more. You just might need a little shake, a little guidance. And our product and service helped them get there. So I know this is a silly little story, but sometimes we need that thing to remind us, say, where are we right now in the economy? And economies will shift. We might go through a mega boom. Aspirational what's next? Bigger future optimism off the charts. But eventually what goes up must come down. Eventually, we'll go through lower confidence. I'm scared. Can I really do this? Back up in the goal. Get in the lifeboat market to them. Meet them where they are, make them feel safe. Adjust your product, your service, or the way you speak about it. And then realize once they get stuck there, sometimes they are stuck there and you gotta wake them up and shake them and tell them to get to the aspirational part quicker and sooner than everybody else. Because like the Wayne Gretzky quote, when they said, why are you so good at hockey? He said, because everybody skates where the puck is. I like to skate to where the puck is going. When you analyze this and watch this, your marketing can always meet people where they are, live inside their mind, finish their sentences, enter conversations they're already having, and you'll never have to worry about your marketing, no matter where the economy is.