How to Create Impactful Relationships for Growth in Business and Life w/ Joe Polish

Foreign.

Welcome, everybody, to this edition of CPG Insiders. I'm your host, Mark Young with my co host, Justin Gerard and Hello, hello, hello. And we have a special episode for you today, folks, because normally we talk about just how to put things in a store.

Oh, so boring.

And then how to get things to leave a store.

What?

That's even worse. Nobody wants to know about that. No.

Nobody that listens to a show called CPG wants to know anything about cpg. So today, folks, we're going to talk to a dear friend of mine who is an amazing individual. His name is Joe Pollard. You may have heard of Joe. He's written a lot of books. He currently has a book out which is called what's in it for Them? Which we will talk about and I highly recommend. And it happens to be a Wall Street Journal. No, not this Amazon number one bestseller scam like I do. This is a real book. That is a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Real book.

You just have to have a lot of friends to become an Amazon bestseller. That's the key. Just get a bunch of friends together and you talk them in, all buying a book on the same day, bada bing, bada boom, you're a bestseller. And then you get to put stickers on the front of your book. So any rate, Joe is. People on the show have heard me talk about, maybe talk about Strategic Coach and Dan Sullivan. Joe runs almost the sister operation to that, which is called Genius Network. And along with Genius Network, he also runs Genius Recovery and Artists for Addicts. And Joe actually owns his own town.

His own town?

Yes. He owns his own city. He's like a mayor. He bought his own ghost town called Cleater, Arizona. I'm going to make it there some sometime this year, but I've not been to his ghost town. I don't know if there's any actual ghosts there or not.

Do they have to speak Polish there?

I don't know what they speak. Oh, I saw what you did there. Yeah, I got that.

All right.

And.

But at any rate, Joe isn't. Joe is an expert in entrepreneurship. That's we're going to talk about today. So. So a lot of you are entrepreneurs. This is a massive opportunity for you to get to know Joe. And I'm going to also suggest when we get done with the show, you want to look into his book. And Joe has a couple of podcasts on marketing that are absolutely worth our listeners adding to their podcast list 100%. The one of them being a great one called I Love Marketing. So at any rate, Joe Polish, we are so honored to have you with us here today, buddy.

Well, thank you so much, Mark. I really appreciate it.

And.

Hello, Justin. How the hell are you doing?

Hey, how are you, sir?

You know, living the dream over here.

So now, just to warn you about something, Joe is the sweetest, kindest individual who swears more than anybody you've ever met. It's like two ends of the same continuum. It is very. It's.

There's nothing wrong.

Reason is charming when he does it.

There's nothing wrong with being colorful in your language.

Yeah. You know, like, profanity does have a certain time and place. It could be utilized inappropriately. Well, I'll say it this way. And I write about this, actually in my book. There's situational behavior and then there's situational ethics and situation. The difference is I like people that obviously situational behavior. The example I use is most people have gone to church. Most people have drank beer. Most people do not drink beer in church. Or at least they're very sneaky about it when they do. If you meet someone's grandma, you guys are probably going to behave differently and say things differently if each of your grandmothers, unless she has a, you know, unless she's kind of more similar to you guys than. Than not, you'll behave differently around kids and around different people. Which is totally different than situational ethics, where someone acts like they have ethics, but really they don't. And that's where con artistry comes in, and that's where you have to protect yourself from the true connectors in the world versus the connectors where they connect by conning people.

So, Joe, just for sake of getting the audience up to speed, why don't you, if you would, tell our audience a little quick synopsis of your path to being entrepreneurs. And. And I always say, for our entrepreneurs, we all got there down some different path. We all had our own path. And there's a story that I've told people quite a bit, and it was being at a genius network event. And I'm sure you probably remember this, and the event was you were asking people how many of us knew we didn't belong, you know, in normal society by the time we were five years old. And as you got to the end of it, you ended up asking the question, how many people own a spaceship? And three or four people raised their hand. And I remember sitting there saying, okay, there is no other room in the world where I'm ever going to be sitting with 300 people and four of them have a freaking spacecraft.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a, it's a unique group of. Well, it's like, it's like a bunch of characters in the Star wars bar. If you, if you think about entrepreneurs, they're, they're kind of like that, you know, everyone's a little on edge. What's that?

And yet we, we all have this super common thread that makes us the same.

Oh, yeah, no, totally. What the threat is is ambition. Always wanting to find different unique ways of doing things better or do things differently. High risk taking. Because there's a lot of people that are way smarter than entrepreneurs, that work for entrepreneurs because they don't have the risk taking ability that the entrepreneur does. And that can oftentimes get you into a lot of trouble if you're in over your head, which often happens a lot to entrepreneurs. But it also is the magic. If it could be strategically put together into an enterprise that produces valuable products and services and connects people with that, that's what changes the world too. So the world of entrepreneurship. So my quick version, boy, how do I do the real version versus the quick version? The real version, as quickly as I can make the real version is I didn't go into business out of some sort of inspiration. I think it was really desperation. I think it was a really messed up childhood. A lot of physical and sexual abuse, abandonment, mother dying when I was young, a lot of pain. Becoming a drug addict in high school. Always looking for a way to escape the mental anxiety and depression and anguish that often floated around in my head, which I would inebriate myself with drugs and alcohol to try to squash that sort of feeling because I, I didn't know how to direct it. And I think entrepreneurship and running a business came out of the mentors I had early on. Beginning in my career was listening to like Earl Nightingale, Brian Tracy, you know, cassette tapes, things like that in books. I didn't really have, I didn't know or have relationships with real mentors. My, my liking for sports was ruined by a sadistic little league coach. So I never got into sports and I, I partied a lot. And when I, I become a drug addict. And so I found sort of inspiration through reading other people's books. What's. I mentioned Earl Nightingale, which is interesting because Diana Nightingale had the voice of God, didn't he? Oh yeah, totally. And my favorite audio program of all time is Lead the Field. That and, and what's funny is in, you know, many Years later, in 2004. I created a program called Piranha Marketing. The seven success multiplying factors to dominate any market you enter. And it became the number one selling marketing program of all time through Nightingale Conant. And so how things change. And then Diana Nightingale was introduced to me by Joel Weldon, who was one of the. He's one of my 81 year old genius Network members. The guy's amazing. He's one of the original founders of National Speakers Association. And Earl Nightingale, you know, came out on his houseboat in Lake Powell with him back in 1989 and he recently, you know, a few months ago, introduced me to Diana Nightingale, who's Earl Nightingale's wife. And she's 83 years old now, and I just interviewed her two, two weeks ago at a Genius Network meeting. And now together we're going to put out a bunch of Earl Nightingale stuff. So my, my entrepreneurial career started out that way and I became, my first business was as a carpet cleaner.

Oh, by the way, just a little side note, I'm having lunch with Vic Conant in a couple of weeks.

Really? How wild. How. Yeah, well, tell him I said hello.

That was Earl Night. And get partner.

Yep.

And yeah, Vic's down in Florida now. Not that terribly far from where my place in Florida is. That's.

Wow, what a small world. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean I, I created a really great program that, I mean, I don't know how many thousands of people ended up buying that program, but it became the top selling marketing program of all time for, for night. Gail Conant.

Yeah. So you.

So we're actually. Joe and I are both Nightingale Conan authors. And yes, I did a program there too.

Yeah. Do they, they still sell mine on audible even though it's now mine too.

They send me like a, I get a, a check for like 13 cents, I think every right. Three months or so. I just, I always wait and watch for the mail for that check showing up.

That is so funny.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, and, and, and I ended up starting a carpet cleaning business because I had a friend from high school that talked me into starting a carpet cleaning business. So I spent two years racking up credit card debt trying to figure out how to, how to make a carpet cleaning business work. And finally, through discovering direct response marketing, I learned how to position, how to package, how to sell. And in one of the best training grounds on selling was I had to figure out how to successfully sell something nobody wants to buy. Because some things are bought as you, you guys know more than anyone, right? Some Things are bought, other things are sold.

Right.

And so you have to determine does what you have, do you sell it or do people buy it? And mostly it's, you know, it's. I mean, you really have to. There's an art and a science to creating effective marketing, but once you learn how to do that, it opens up so many opportunities that most people have no idea how effective it could be. And so I look at direct response marketing, you know, which is, you know, don't put anything out there without setting up a way for people to respond back. Depending on how you're, you know, how and where you're selling it. I look at relationships in very much the same way. I mean, marketing is relationship building. You're either doing it through ads, sales letters, face to face. And we all have to work with. We don't have to. But if you want to have real friends, not just deal friends, becoming skilled on being a valuable, helpful, useful human really goes a long way.

You wrote one of the greatest sales letters I ever recall seeing. And that sales letter was the one that you wrote to put up on a dating site.

Yes.

You know the one I'm talking about?

Yeah. I mean, I can find it if I look at my phone real quick or in my. It's actually in my book. I reproduced it in my book. I just don't have the exact page number. I can find it real quick if you want me to read it. It is a.

If you haven't read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hold on. Let me, let me.

The whole point of this, folks, communication, having the right communication is the key to anything. And while you're looking it up, Joe, what our audience is used to hearing us say is that we look at ourselves when we're an ad agency for consumer packaged goods. A lot of agencies, Joe, always hold them, hold themselves out as we're the brand ambassadors. We're going to build the brand.

Right.

We always tell people, ad agencies don't build brands. That's nonsense. Don't believe us when we tell you that. That the deal that we are, we consider ourselves to be a dating service. And our dating services, our job is to get your product as many first dates today as humanly possible. It is your job, the maker of the product, to get a dinner date, to get a second date, to get going steady and to get engaged and to get married with the consumer. Because all the advertising that we do is never going to fix bad service or a bad relationship or bad product.

Right.

And I know you would agree with that.

Totally, totally.

But this sales letter, the reason I say this is so important is one, back to what I said. We're a dating service. That's really what we are. 2. When you're in the consumer packaged goods business, you have two customers.

Mm.

You have the customer who walks into Walmart and buys your product, but you have the buyer at Walmart and the buyer at CVS and so on and so forth. And those are relationships.

Yes.

And being able to have the right relationship with them is going to be critical in your future. And something that Joe says that we'll have him expand on after he reads this letter, and that is your offer has to be bigger than your ask.

Of course.

And too many times we see people go in and they keep asking and they never tell the buyer. What's in it for the buyer.

Yep.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's what's so beautiful about this book. What's in it for them? That is exactly the thing you need to know. When you walk into Walmart and sit with a buyer, you need to have it already in your head. What's in it for them?

Well, and even to add on to that, what you just said, and I know you know this, Joe, you probably know this, but for the audience, the concept that we are dating surveys is not just cute and catchy. The concept of the product and the consumer is a true relationship. So everything that you have in this book isn't just in a practical sense about making connections and building a network and all that is true. But as an entrepreneur selling a product, if you don't take the exact same approach and how you approach the consumer, your communication with the consumer, the concept of bringing value, being authentic, finding the suffering points, it's all exactly the same thing with selling a product to a consumer, because that is a relationship.

Now let's put this in the posture of what we said. Think of your advertising as a dating service. Your new product is looking to get a new first date. In this particular case, Joe became the consumer packaged good himself. He packaged himself and now he's looking to sell as many first dates as he can. Joe, would you go ahead and read that letter for us?

Yeah, yeah.

And it's. And I have to give credit to Annie Lala who helped me put this together. She's this great love coach. And we, when someone gets the book, what's in it for them? We actually have a bunch of videos. It's not anything, it just comes with the book where people can go to a site and I actually have of a full blown interview Going through the whole process of how to use marketing to find true love. And so here, here it is. And it's. This is designed to attract who I want and repel who I don't. Not to offend, but to just say, here's who it's for, here's who it's not for. And that's how I think you know, in the same way with any good advertisement, it's designed to target who you're looking for and who you're not. So it starts out, I'm not interested in changing you. I want you to relax into being who you most want to be. I'm here to protect and encourage the parts of you that are creative, intelligent, fierce and tender. I'll be your sanctuary and your trampoline. What I want is a woman who's devoted to something so important, she's dedicated her life to it. I will devote myself to supporting you there. Your growth and expansion will become our priority. I once read, you don't fall in love with another person, you fall in love who you get to be around them. I want you to feel the most yourself when you're around me. This will inspire me to do the same. I'm a successful entrepreneur with a wide array of passions, committed to personal development and growth. I aim to add value to every person I meet. I create connections between powerful leaders and build networks of collaboration. My high paced, intense lifestyle requires a strong woman who knows how to represent her needs and capitalize on once in a lifetime opportunities. If you're proud of the way you love others, remain tender in moments of fear and feel confident, and your ability to hold the pain of another then will resonate well. It takes courage to be sensitive and honest when life feels challenging. I need someone with this kind of courage. If you're in the top five most extraordinary women you've ever met, then I want to meet you. I promise I will treat you like a queen, but you have to already know that you are one.

Well done.

Is that. That's amazing, isn't it?

Well done.

And I want to unpack what was there for a minute.

I got so many things going through my brain.

Think about what Joe started with. I'm going to identify exactly who I want. I'm going to identify exactly who I do not want. This is part of what we talk about on this show. Nothing is for everybody.

Yes.

Every time a new client comes through our doors with a new great invention, we say, well, who's your. Your. Your prime consumer? Everybody can buy my product. No, everybody is not going to buy your product if everybody bought your product. And the example we always use is if everybody. If knowing your name was the key to being successful, Kmarts would still be doing wonderfully, because everybody knows what a Kmart is, Right. But no one wanted to resonate with Kmart. No one wanted to be there. So name awareness means nothing. It's about, what do you mean to the consumer, which means you have to be willing to offend or let the other people go away.

Yes.

It is far more passionate. It is far more desirable for your business to have a million consumers who cannot live without you than 50 million consumers who know who you are. And, yeah, maybe I'd buy their product and maybe I won't.

Yep.

Yep.

Make more money with the focus.

Yep.

Yeah. And along those lines, you know, I've always. I always think about this, and I'll tell this to people that will often, you know, join my group, and they want to. They start talking about status. They start talking about. And they may not use the word status, but you can hear the way they talk where they want everyone to know who they are. And I'll say, you know, there's a big difference between being well known and well paid. And because you can be well known, but do you want to make money or do you want fame? And so what.

What.

What is it that you're looking for? And one of the best ways to be well known is to be well known and respected, because what you offer is unique. It really fits a particular clientele, a particular type of niche, a particular type of condition or issue or whatever the heck the product or service or experience does. And if someone gets lost in the ego of it all, they're not going to do good marketing. It's going to be very vanilla. It's not going to really connect. And, you know, ultimately, you know, what's in it for them is how to connect with people, you know, because if. If you're. If you don't connect, you ain't going anywhere. And if you're disconnected from yourself, it's really hard to connect with other people.

Now, Joe and I share another interesting attribute, although I think he's better at it. And that is so in our office, Joe, many, many people come to our agency because they know that I can introduce them to the person they need to be introduced to. Joe has turned that into an industry. So just so you folks know, the people who are listening, who know that I'm the person who can get them with who they need to know, Joe's the Person I call if I can't get to somebody that I need to get to, because, you know, six degrees of Kevin Bacon, now it's two degrees of Joe Polish. He either knows them or he knows somebody who knows them. And I'm going to tell you the reason. The reason that Joe can call all these people and talk to him, which is probably the same reason that, you see that I can call people and talk to them, is because we always start the conversation off with, what can I do for you?

Mm. Yeah.

How am I going to help you? What. What. What value can I bring you today?

Yeah.

And there's something that is. That exists in society, and it's called the law of reciprocity. Yep. And I'm a big believer in the law of reciprocity. And when you do the right thing, people. People have this unconscious scorecard in their head.

Yep.

And they feel like, okay, there's one point on your board and zero points on my board. You've done something for me, and I've not paid you back. And this is how. This is the reason Harry Kushner could sell flowers to people for a dollar, because they push that dollar into your hand and you'd want to smack them, but you still gave them a buck because you felt I owed it to them because they gave me something of value. Well, this is what Joe knows how to do, and let's ask him to expand on that. Just go do the right thing for people. And this includes the buyers, the brokers, the distributors. Stop calling them and saying, how can I make money in your store? And call them up and say, what needs do you have in your store that I might be able to help you with? How can I bring value to Walmart? How can I bring value to Walgreens?

Yeah.

And guess what? There's a good chance they'll tell you.

Of course they will.

No, you're. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. I mean, it is the approach on how you've ended up, you know, creating the partnerships and the relationships and the development is. Is you. It's not a technique or a tactic, even though it could be.

It's not a trick if you're real.

No, exactly. If you embody it and it becomes just part of your operating system, it just is a completely different approach. I mean, a lot of people can fake what's in it for them for a period of time.

You. You.

You know, though, after a while, sometimes, depending on how well you've developed your Spidey senses, you'll not just notice the red flags, but you'll notice the yellow flags. And a lot of people ignore the red flags. And a lot of people don't even see the yellow flag. So the more one develops their spidey senses, the more one can feed off the energy and the, you know, the realness of somebody versus the, you know, the chummy, let me pretend sort of thing. So to go to the reciprocity approach, it's. It is so important. Like Robert Cialdini, who wrote the book Influence is a very dear friend of mine. He read my whole book. He's endorsed it. I just had him here at my office two weeks ago at a genius network meeting. He's coming back in May, you know, so the guys that run the Cialdini Institute are clients of mine. So I'm very much immersed in a lot of stuff related Influence. And the question is, you know, you want to like how to Win Friends and Influence People is one of my, my favorite books. And it was one of the reasons I wrote what's In It For Them. And I've thought a lot about. It's about winning the right friends and influencing the right people. So to like, real reciprocity is not putting someone in a situation. You mentioned the Hare Krishna example. And so years ago, Cialdini had a, you know, had a team of people that would watch them in airports when they were allowed to do this, and they would go up and they would give a flower. And I want to go deeper in this example that you brought up, Mark, because it's, it's actually, it. It's so instructive to everybody that is, is. Is listening and what I want people. And I'll come back to this thing. But you mentioned opening up conversations with how can I help you? How can I be useful? Which is why people reach out to you, why you have the relationships that you have in. In the same way, a great question, not just for other people, but for yourself when you're overwhelmed or when you're not really focused is just to ask what needs solved? Like, what needs solved if you need something. So I would imagine people are listening to the CPG podcast because they're trying to solve something. And you provide solutions and answers and perspectives and insights and strategies and methodologies and field reports and case studies and all these things that you guys do in the course of the business. That solves a lot of problems for your listeners, which is why they listen to it and which is why they hire your, your company, why they go to, you know, Jekyll and Hyde Labs, right? So what needs solved? And when you approach someone from that standpoint, you can then say, okay, how do I solve something for them in a way that's very helpful and beneficial? And just by doing it, you've done two things. One, you've, you've solved it for them or you're, you're at least helping them on that path. And secondly, you're making them feel like they want to do something for you. Not by tricking them, not by guilting them. So the Hari Krishna example is a way on how reciproc. When you're actually doing it in a, in a bad way, but it still works. And, and so they would go up to people in airports, they would have a flower, usually a woman, and they, they started wearing normal clothes, not the maroon, not their, their robes, not the, the, the way that a Hari Krishna. Yeah, I'm totally. This is not the best way for me to describe it, but they, they would wear just regular clothes, so they were discreet. And they would go put a flower on the collar of a man's shirt or a lapel or a blouse. They would step back and they would say, would you like to make a donation? And they found that most people, it was more uncomfortable to walk away and give a flower back or say, I didn't even want this than to reach in their pocket, pull out a dollar or two and, you know, give them the money and walk away. And then once they're out of the view, they were still concerned how they looked. Once they're out of the view of the Hare Krishna, they would throw the, the flower in the trash. They would go on to their gate. And this was, you know, years ago in the airport, you can't do this anymore since 9 11. And what would happen is about every hour or so they would, the Hare Krishna would then go to the trash can, pull out all the flowers, and then do it all over again.

Right?

And what they found is that you can get money and still reciprocity from giving a gift to someone that they didn't even want the gift. And when I first learned about that, I was like, okay, imagine if you use reciprocity by giving something to somebody that they actually want and is beneficial to them. Because if it works, when you can instill reciprocity in sort of a bait and switch manner, imagine how effective it would be if you're just being useful to people that actually want and desire and need the usefulness. And I'm surprised. I'd love your opinion on this. Why more people do not get or understand this. I mean, it is so obvious and so apparent and there's so many examples, but I often think people just, they don't think about it.

I'll tell you why I think it happens, why it's not happening, because I think people have put their focus. We're so focused on immediate gratification. And to have genuine reciprocity requires patience. And I will tell you why. And I know you've had this happen. I'll get a phone call from somebody, I don't remember their name, and they will tell me, 10 years ago I met you and you told me A, B, C and D and you changed my life or you made this change for me, or you helped me so much and I'm now in a position where I can do business with you. Yeah. And I will. Sometimes it sounds horrible, sometimes I will struggle to try to remember the encounter. Because we never know as people how what we're pouring into someone else's life and the impact that we may have on somebody. And that's both negative and positive, correct?

Yep.

The impact that we can have on people with a few words.

Yep.

And sometimes it will be, you changed my life when you told me X. And I'll be like, geez, I've told 100 people that I'm not, you know, in my own head, I'm having a conversation. But it also makes us recognize that sometimes just a brief passing comment can also mess somebody up that we didn't think was any value. But back to your question, Joe. I think when you look at reciprocity as a tool, you are using it for the wrong purpose.

Agreed. Right.

When you look at reciprocity as I'm going to do the right thing and I'm going to bring people value, and I know some people will take advantage of me and that's their problem. I will figure them out and I will shy away from them in the future, but I will bring value to people who deserve to have value. And some of that will come back to me and some of it will not come back to me.

Yes.

Sometimes you just need to do the right thing because it's the right thing.

Well, sure. And I think other just again, part of this larger conversation could also be, and especially since the rise, as we've noted, in mental health issues, I think there's a lot of people who genuinely don't believe they have value to give. And so therefore the concept of reciprocity is something that they can't even grasp. Because to your earlier point, Joe. I don't think that they understand I have this beautiful power and value, whatever that could be that I can give. Let's give it and give it and give it. I don't think they have that. So what they're trying to do is fill a hole that they don't understand. So they're taking, and it's almost unconsciously that they're taking.

Well, Joe, what's the saying? I don't want to. I don't want to use your saying. I want you to use it. But you're saying, as far as what.

Life does, well, you know, life gives to the giver and takes from the taker.

Amen.

And you know, it's, it's interesting, Justin, that you say that, because I think, yeah, there's probably, there are probably people because I've heard it a lot. Like, I don't know how. What I could offer, you know, I don't know how valuable. And there are times where I don't know if or how many times either one of you or anyone listening has sat with someone that is past the point of no return. They're either in a hospice center, they're dying, they're really broken, they're. They're an addict. Because I spend half my time with, in the world of addiction recovery, because I'm, I've been in recovery for many years and it's really important to me and it's, you know, for my own self interest. It benefits me to be helpful to people that struggle with addiction. It helps me with my own recovery. And I feel, I know quite a bit about it, having spent many years in it. And I think it would be a real waste of my knowledge in life to not be able to help reduce human suffering in that way. I don't make money off of it. I do it because it's valuable. And what I've learned is, you know, from the world of business and commerce and marketing and selling and persuasion, one of the groups that I admire the most is 12 step group, which is built through the voluntary contribution of its members. It's not the end all, be all. It's. It's only one part of recoveries. It works for a lot of people that do the work, but other people need other things, such as therapy and somatic, you know, trauma care and better diet, an environment that's not triggering. So there's, there's many aspects to it. But what I've learned is that sometimes value is simply just being present, just being present with someone. So anyone that's like, I don't have anything to offer you. In chapter two of my book, I talk about what you can spend, you can give people. You can spend time, attention, money, effort and energy. If you don't have any money, you got time, you got attention, you got effort, you got energy. And so where you direct that to and for what purpose and what you do with it is entirely up to, up to that, to that individual. And so we're all spending it all day long. And I think one of the things that you said early on, Mark, you know, you don't want to waste it on people that are the wrong fit people, the wrong fit clients. That's why when it comes to marketing, you want to be very much targeted. Who do you want to attract? Who do you want to repel so that your time, attention, money, effort and energy, your Tammy is directed to the people that you can actually make the most difference with. And if people really don't resonate or their, be it their self esteem or their atmospheric conditions of their life have somehow caused them to think they don't have value, then you know, one of the things they need to solve is to esteem themselves. They need to look at the relationships they do, they do have. Ask and evaluate themselves. Why do people like me? Why do they dislike me? What is attractive about me, what is not? And then ask the people that are closest to you outright, you know, what do you think my skills are? What do you think my abilities are? What is it that you like? If there's any advice, you know, like Robert Cialdini, he talks about, don't ask people for their opinions. Opinions actually cause people to fight. Ask people for advice. People, when you say I'd like your advice, they will, they will collaborate with you. Whereas ask for an opinion. It's almost like it's an anti collaborative word which is, you know, I never understood that until, you know, Robert explained it to me and the research behind it. This is not just an opinion, it is actually research. So when you ask people for advice on how to, they'll give it to you. And you could do that with buyers, non buyers, friends, family members, even in dating relationships, even, even the people that reject you. And my buddy Sean Stevenson, who was my best friend, he, he died in 2019. I was actually with him in the hospital when he died from an accident. It was horrible.

And Sean had an accident.

Yeah, he fell out of his wheelchair, hit his head and, and while he was having surgery, it, he, he died.

On the, on the operating indomitable spirit. He Had.

Oh, yeah, the guy was incredible. He was memory. Yeah. He wrote. He wrote a book called get off your butt, as in B U T. And this guy never walked a day in his life. He had a brittle bone condition and he had over 200 broken bones before the age of 18. And man, like, living in a shell that I could not even fathom. The personality, the love, the generosity, the humor. I mean, he was just truly an.

Incredible, hugest person you could ever know.

Exactly. Yeah. Someone made a movie. They made a movie, a show about him on. Well, I was at a E called three foot giant and.

Okay, that makes sense.

And he, you know, he used to say a line. It wasn't his line, but you've probably heard it before. You know, rejection is God's protection. And whenever you get rejected, he's like, you know, in the moment, it might feel shitty, but if you look back in your life, some of the people or the situations that you didn't get that in the moment you wanted them, if you look back, you will actually see many of them. You dodged a bullet. It was a blessing in disguise. It was really valuable. And, you know, someone. It doesn't matter if someone's an atheist or whatever, the point is still there. You know, their life has a way of putting up boundaries and stuff. And so hopefully, the more aware you become, the less potholes you walk into, the, you know, the more valuable you can become. But every person has tremendous value if they focus on what's in it for them and when they're focusing on what's, you know. And like, my question to you is, why do more people not see reciprocity? Or if you're totally just concerned about yourself, you're going to be oblivious to many things.

How many times, Joe, has someone walked up to you at a meeting, a speech convention or something and said, you did something for me 10 years ago and it changed my life. Because I know that happens to you all the time.

Yeah, yeah, quite a few. I mean, it also comes from this line that I love, which I heard in my 20s is, Be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way down. And you will run into people 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20, 30 years from now that you oftentimes would never imagine, which is why it's so important not to leave scorched earth. And. And, you know, there's a lot of people that have. And you see this all the time, guys where someone won't. They won't even be Courteous to another human simply because there's no money in. There's no deal there. So they'll be very short with them.

You're a waitress in a restaurant.

Exactly, exactly. You know, I mean, like, you know.

When someone opens a person at that point, right?

And. And I, I watch that. I mean, like, the. The difference between people who are my real close friends, you know, real friends, versus, like, deal friends are how do they treat people that are less powerful when pe. When people are powerful or more powerful, how they treat people that are less powerful than them. And if they're rude to a server, if they don't say thank you when someone opens a door, if they just lack common courtesy, you can pretty much tell, you know, I mean, look, if someone's having a moody, bad day or they're sick or whatever, there's, you know, you give people slack. But if they're like that, and you can witnesses pretty quickly how someone is just by seeing who they are offstage, how they. If they're a real jerk or not. And, you know, those people, they're toxic. And oftentimes they're just unaware. And sometimes, you know, you can. If you have rapport with them, you can call them out and you can, you know, you utilize a. A bit of honesty and. Or a lot of honesty and tough love. Most of the time, people need to get hurt or badly rejected before they have a wakeup call. And some people, I think they're so narcissistic or sociopathic or psychopathic that they, they. They're. They're incapable of. Of experiencing empathy or having feelings. And that's a whole different subject. That's not most people. Most people, though, are. With some guidance and some direction, you know, give them love, you know, be kind to them. And giving love doesn't always necessarily mean being kind because, you know, we have to deal with people at the level at which they respond. And in the business world you're going to run across and you guys know this inside and out, a lot of status games, a lot of intimidation, a lot of sharks, and, you know, you learn to navigate that. I just think taking the high road and always focusing on where's the pain? Focusing on being a pain detective, being just, you know, an agreeable, helpful person, never having an entitlement attitude. I think it goes a long way. And I love it when people come up to me and say, you know, it's actually most of the people that benefit from what I do never pay me anything. I give away my podcast, I give away, you know, I have a. I have a book called Life Gives the Giver that I give away for free at Joe's Free Book Dot Com. Like, I, you know, and most people will give away a book, but then they'll put people into an upsell funnel. They'll give away a shitty book, and then they'll. They'll, you know, put them into an upsell funnel to where they're going to get the good stuff. I actually give people a really good book, and I don't put them into an upsell funnel. They can subscribe to my email if they want, but it's a free book. There's no strings attached. And my. My whole attitude is like, you're saying, with patience. I play the long game. I want to bond with people. If they like my ideas, if they like, then maybe they'll read one of my other books. And if they really love that and they build a business listening to my podcast or whatever, maybe one day they'll join Genius Network. And so it's. It's that sort of thing.

Do you ever. So I don't know if this is just something I do. I'm just this.

I'm.

I'm just now having a therapy session at this point. Do you.

Do you.

When somebody will come up to me, like, somebody walked up to me and my wife was there and said, geez, you did this for me five years ago, and this changed this, and I just wanted to thank you for it. My wife said to me, well, I must make you really feel good to see that. And I remember my response to her was, it is. It's. It's very humbling to have somebody do that. But for me, every time that happens, I feel a little bit of pressure on me because it's like, damn, I need to be careful with everything I say.

Yeah.

Because then I realize, wow, I can mess people up. If people are listening to what I say that closely, then I can hurt people.

Yeah, well, you know as well as I do that you're a hunter. Okay. You've got the D2D4 hunter gene, and there's hunters and farmers in the world. And the vast majority of people are not hunters. They're farmers. And hunters are always restless, usually dissatisfied. The world's highest achievers live with the highest levels of dissatisfaction. Always ambitious, driven, oftentimes crazy making. And if that energy is directed in a great way, they change the world. They become the Steve Jobs of the world, the Elon Musk of the world in the wrong ways. They become, you know, very Toxic people. And you know, you can see a lot of the toxic propagandist and people creating a ruckus. Especially over the last three years with this pandemic and everything. There's a lot of out of control hunters. But the hunters that do good, the hunters that are actually the driven personality, they have the ability to heavily influence people. In my book, I talk about at the end of every chapter the domino. What's the domino? The strategy. I think of people that way. Who are the people, the books, the advice, the insight that changed the trajectory of your life. What was a domino? And I'll often ask people, you know, what's your favorite book? What, what book was the domino? What was the person, the mentor? But I have to remind people there's positive dominoes and there's negative dominoes. You know, when I was, you know, raped and molested as a kid, that was a domino moment that put me into a life of addiction. And it was very, it took several decades for me to even get through the scar tissue in the shrapnel. And all of the damage I did to myself and all of the pain and the angst that I didn't know how to deal with that, and I look back at it now, is I wouldn't be doing the addiction recovery stuff had that not happened to me. So I've somehow was able to transmute the pain and the angst that I lived with in horrible self esteem. Virtually almost zero self worth being wired to get into toxic relationships and abusive relationships based on events that happened as a kid. And now realizing that, you know, everyone's got their own cross to bear, everybody has some sort of pain and angst. And I don't say any of this stuff. You know, a lot of people that are in woundology, you know, they take all the bad stuff that happened to them and they use it as an excuse for not being responsible for their life. So I try to take the negative dominoes and say, you know, what did I learn from it? And I think everyone has a purpose in life, even if it's a, serve as a bad example. And so, you know, what, what, what comedy is like. People that are funny, some of the funniest people on the planet and the ones that can really enjoy comedy have had the most pain in their lives. If you ever get to a real comedian, most of them have had the most up lives and many of them are just up. They're, they're, they're just, they're, you know, and some are, are actually really awesome humans. Right. Because I, I have some. You know, my buddy JP Sears, you know, the. The comedian, He's a great dude. I mean, he's a freedom fighter. He's an awesome freaking human. And he's funny as. And he's a good guy. And, you know, depending on where someone is on the political spectrum, they may have a. A different opinion, but as a. Is a human, I mean, he's a solid dude. And what is. Is pain plus time equals comedy. And whenever you look back at some part of your life that at the time was like, oh, it was so embarrassing, or I can't. You know, if you put a. If you put some space between that, we can often look back at some of the things that were the funniest things. We can look back on our lives in the moment. They were the most agonizing, horrible. And so I, I think that's a good approach to life. You know, things are seldom. And my buddy Dave Keckich, who also was in a wheelchair, like Sean Stevenson, but he was in his mid-30s, in the 70s, he was a multi millionaire. He had a house in Huntington beach, convertible Mercedes, beautiful girlfriend, all of the external trappings of what you would think wealth and success would be. And he told me that in the 70s, hardly anyone jogged. If you would jog down Huntington beach, you would literally, you could go for a mile and not see another jogger. And then, you know, in the 80s and 90s, you know, jogging became a big thing. And he's like, you wouldn't have believed just how the world used to be in. In the early 70s. And he was working out when he was in his mid-30s, had a pain in his back, had some sort of freak sort of accident where something happened in his spinal cord. He felt this pain. He ended up stopping working out, and by the time he got home, it had gotten so severe he was like screaming like a rabid animal, is what he told me his girlfriend told him. Because he had lost even awareness. He was in such pain. He ended up going to the hospital. He became paralyzed from the chest down and never walked again a day in his life. He unfortunately passed away a couple years ago, but he spent his life, you know, just really on life extension methodologies. And Dave wrote a hundred credos called Kekich Credos. And I've done a couple of interviews with Dave in the past, but he. Considering who he was, that he never had sex again, that it would take an hour to two hours a day just to get his body to use the restroom. And then he would spend his life in a wheelchair, and he worked out and exercised every day. He ate healthy. He was an incredible mind. And he. One of his credos was, life is seldom as bleak as it seems when it's going wrong, or seldom as great as it seems when it's going, well, lighten up. You'll live longer. And coming from him, that has such a much different meaning to me because I don't, you know, I have the use of my legs. I have these, you know, use my limbs. And, And. And I. I remember speaking to in. In people like Sean Stevenson and Dave Keckage. Whenever I'm feeling like. Like whining and complaining, which I often. It's easy to do. You know, I can find a million things that I'm upset about in the world. And there are certain things that I think you need to be pissed off about it because, you know, you don't want to live in oppression. And the world needs fighters, which is different than violence. You know, violence is never an option unless it's the only option. Right. And so one of the things that I think about when I'm. Things are not going my way is what would Dave Kekich do? What would Sean Stevenson do? And it. And it gives me perspective on how to approach difficult sort of situations, because difficult oftentimes is just an attitude, you know, and enthusiasm covers many deficiencies. So when you. To the young entrepreneurs that are starting out and you don't have all the relationships, you don't have all the skills, I'll tell you, it's a lot easier dealing with enthusiasm than people that are grumpy and people that are pain in the ass and people that are whining and complaining all the time. And so I will often, you know, so here's what I was going to share. So I was speaking to a group of young entrepreneurs. I don't know, it's probably like 800 of them in an audience a few years ago. And I just had this thought that came to my mind, and I was sitting there thinking about the people in the group. They all wanted to learn marketing, and they all wanted to make more money. And they're at this event where I was one of the speakers, and there's a bunch of people that were going to teach them how to build and grow businesses. And, you know, hustle, Hustle, Hustle was sort of the, you know, theme of this thing, which I'm not a big, you know, I mean, I understand hustle in a certain context. But anyway, so I said, how Many of you here are worth a million dollars or more. You know, couple people raise their hand. Anyone in the room worth 5 million or more. One guy in the back raises, and anyone 10 million or more, same guy raises. And I'm like, okay, how many of you would like me to give you a million dollars? And whole bunch of hands go up. I'm like, okay, I'll make you a deal. How many of you would pluck out an eyeball right now for a million dollars? No one raises their hand. I'm like, $5 million. No one raises around. I go, would anyone lop off one of your legs for $50 million? No one raises around. I'm like, interesting. So you want to be worth a million dollars. You already have something that you wouldn't give a million dollars for called your vision or your hearing or your ability to talk, your ability to walk. And you're running around every day thinking you don't have something you have. There are people on this planet, like, even right now, there's probably 3 billion people on the planet that would. It would be a dream come true for them to trade places with me or you, Mark, or you, Justin, just for a day, because of the conditions they live under. And with. When I can remind myself of that, which I often forget, it's like, wow. I mean, how amazing is life? And don't waste your Tammy on bullshit. Like, there's so much, like, we. We can see.

We can.

I mean, we're doing a podcast right now because we can talk and we're not laid up in a hospital bed. We're like, man, take advantage of the opportunities you have sitting in front of you and go out into the world thinking about what's in it for them, because there's a ton of people that are in pain. And if you can. Yeah.

So I was just gonna say the. The. The concept that's coming to me. Everything that you've said and. And this has been. This has been a realization that I've gotten, obviously, be working and. And. And being under the tutelage of Mark, because this is truly who he is. Is. Is. Which is stop living in the. Or live in the. And you don't have to have the million dollars or the health or the family or the house. It doesn't have to be that way. Be in the. And it's the same thing when you talk about. With conversations. This whole thing here is every time you're going into a relationship, live in the. And how can we both get. I get what I want, and you get what I. What you want. It's there. The and is always there. Approach it as such. And it's amazing what, not only value you're going to create for others, but the value that you're going to get in your life. That happiness, you know, again, that concept of success. Right. And that's, that's how, that's the frame in which, again, Mark has taught me all these years is success is living in the and the and is different for every individual. And that's okay.

And think about something Joe said. When you talk about relationships, when I'm going to bring us back to CPG for a minute, one of the important things that people have to do in this industry is you have to get a handful of people to say yes, just a handful. And that handful of people control your future. Because if Walmart says no, that's 40% of America that was just taken away from you.

Yeah.

You need to go into those relationships. Not with the attitude of, how am I going to get my product into Walmart? I mean, that is a thing you want to do, so let's be realistic about that. But you need to recognize, yes, this buyer has this amazing power over me right now, but he or she is still a human and they still have problems and they still have needs and they still have challenges, and they still have. They're working on something in their life. How do I build a genuine relationship with them? And when I. And it is so easy to come across as fake.

Oh, yeah.

So you don't want to go in there. Geez, Bob, you know, how's the kids? And now are you going to carry my product? No. Ask Joe said something that will get you so far with a buyer, and that is to meet with a buyer and say, okay, here's my mouthwash that I'm making. This is what I've got. What advice would you have for me? Let the buyer give you their advice. First off, I'm going to tell you, nobody asked them this. I promise you. Nobody is saying this to them. Because when you. I've been in many buyer meetings and they are yelling and selling. They are walking in the meeting, shaking hands, and here's about my company and here's where we are, and here's how we got started, and here's our technology and here's our ip, and here's why we're better, and here's. And nobody stops to just say, here's what I've got. How are you? Do you have any problems here at the store that you think I might be able to. To fix. And what advice do you have for me as a small manufacturer? Because I know, Mr. Walmart, you guys deal with P and G and Colgate and Bayer and gsk, and you guys deal with the biggest and the best. What would you tell somebody like me what to do? Right. And you'll find they'll try to help you.

Yeah. You. Yeah. By that, by that approach, you will create an advocate.

Absolutely. They will just. Okay, how? Well, if I was making. If I was a small startup mouthwash company, I would probably do this and maybe I would change the package and I might do this and I might approach the market like this. Let me tell you what that person just did. They just told you how to be in Walmart.

Yep.

Right, Joe?

Right.

Exactly.

They just gave you the blueprint for being in their store.

And yeah, back to one of the points again, and going through the book here, and this is something that sounds simple, but I think it's very difficult, which is what you have in your. Be genuinely curious that we're genuine. That's very tough for a lot of people to genuinely be curious about that other individual. And. And that's where it starts.

So I have a little technique that I use because it's. Neither of you will be able to relate to this being part of my personality.

It's.

It's very easy for me to, like, become an intellectual snob.

No. No, it's not, Joe, say no.

So.

No, definitely not.

So. So what?

I have.

I have programmed myself to the idea that every human being I meet knows something I don't know. Even if it's a panhandler on the street, he knows something about panhandling that I don't know about panhandling because I've never been a panhandler. And he knows what it's like to live homeless, because I've never been homeless like that. So I've conditioned myself to. Everybody has something that I don't know that they can offer me, and it's my job to find it.

Which.

Which is great. I mean, that. That is very inquisitive. Yeah. I mean, it's. It's another version of starting with a beginner's mind.

Right? Yeah.

What's that stand on that for us? Just a little bit, if you would.

Well, so, as you know, one of the biggest killers is ego used in inappropriate ways. Like, ego is important in some areas of life, especially so you don't have people bulldoze over you. Ego, though, it could be the worst enemy ever, because you, you know, you know it all. And people that are too cool for school are incapable of learning stuff. And everyone is an expert in some area like you had mentioned. Like, what is an expert anyway? All an expert is to someone else is someone that knows something more about something than you do. So you could have, you know, several complete idiots sitting in a room and someone there is not going to be an idiot to someone else. They may know something. Right. So part of it is approaching what can I learn? How can I? I mean, it allows you to squeeze more juice out of every experience in life. You know, in, in winners find ways to win and losers find ways to lose. You're either winning or you're losing. And oftentimes you can learn incredible things by just witnessing people doing things in, in the wrong way or in a bad way or an ineffective way or in a hurtful way because it reminds you don't. This person is not getting a result because they're doing that. I've just learned what not to do as much as you can, you know, because I think, and I take this from the world of recovery, in order for me to have ever gotten to a stage of long term recovery, which is different than sobriety because there's a lot of dry drunks that are running around the world. Is unlearning is more important than learning? And you know, oftentimes it's not that you need to learn more things, you just need to unlearn the things. And one of the. I think the example you just gave Mark is, is great. Like, you know, I don't know how to panhandle. I don't, you know, I've never been a panhandler. I don't know what it's like to be homeless. This person has a life experience that I don't have. For one, that builds respect, rapport, appreciation, even from individuals that many people may look down on. Secondly, it gives you a perspective, you.

Know, because hear about it.

What's that. Yeah, yeah.

What's this like? What? Tell me what this is like, having to live on the streets. I'm really curious.

Yeah. You know, like in your book Hypnotizing, which I have laying here, which is actually great, by the way. You know, you tell the story of you as a kid and how you got into marketing and advertising right from the very beginning.

Right.

And what it. And you are just and always have been a very curious person. You're always wondering why, why do people respond to the things they do? What makes someone tick? I mean, both of you are probably the type of people that before the Internet existed. You're watching commercials, not TV shows. You know, you're probably doing both, but you're looking at what are all the different things that cause people to respond the way that they do. I mean, the world of advertising and marketing to me is fascinating, where you could actually change a word, you can change a premise, you can, you can literally, like, it's one thing, you know, and, you know, being, you know, a psychologist. Right, You're a psychologist, correct? Yes.

Yeah.

Thank God for the rest.

But here's the thing. It's what, like, the ultimate form of psychology is like, marketing is applied psychology. It's not just like understanding human behavior dysfunctions. You know, it's like literally changing people's behavior. You, you, you, you wield and yield an enormous amount of power. And you can do that for good or you can do that for bad. And, you know, when you're able to, to have strength that can expand humans and not contract them, and you utilize those skills in that way, what an incredible way to use gifts and to develop a gift and to develop a talent. And I think the reason most people are not very effective at marketing is they under value the importance of it. It's not that they can't learn the strategy, the technique. They could listen to your podcast, they could, you know, read your book, and they're going to learn an enormous amount about persuasion and marketing and influence. It's just getting someone to understand. Every aspect of your life involves this. Everything we say, I say you say is either designed to attract someone or repel someone. And you do want to repel some people because you don't want your time wasted directing your effort. I make the distinction between an elf business, easy, lucrative and fun, or a half business, which is hard, annoying, layman frustrating, oftentimes hard, annoying, lucrative and frustrating. But I also apply that to people into projects. Is this person, is this project elf, or is it half? Is this marketing campaign alpha? Is it half? Is this point of purchase display L for half? You know, there's all kinds of ways that you can simplify your life by having perspective. And I think when you're interested in like a homeless person, it's not about just the homeless person. It's about the curiosity of life because you're learning all kinds of ways to navigate the difficulties of being a human.

Yeah, I remember having a great time when I got the opportunity to sit down with a bunch of hardcore 1% bikers.

Oh, yeah, yeah, you told me about that.

I ride Motorcycles. But that's a different world. But, but it was interesting to just sit there and talk with them about their life and the, and the first thing that jumps out is, oh, we have things in common.

Yep.

We both love riding motorcycles. We both like this experience. We, it's like, okay, so we're not a hundred and eighty degrees apart from each other.

You never are.

But there are things in common. One of the things that, that I try to tell people, like if you look at hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy is using words and images to cause an immediate change in behavior. Advertising is using words and images to cause an immediate change in behavior. It's just done in the mass instead of on a one. On one.

Right.

So kind of to your point. We're all marketing, we're all selling, and we all need to learn psychology of a sort of. We're providing therapy.

Well, absolutely. And the other piece of that you always talk about with hypnotherapy, and I apply it to marketing as well, is someone who does not want to be hypnotized will not be hypnotized. Right. If you are not open to it, you stop it.

That's just bad. Hypnotherapist.

Oh, here he goes, here he goes, here he goes. He's trying.

But you are right. No, a hypnotherapist doesn't hypnotize the subject. The subject is doing the hypnotizing.

Exactly.

The therapist is nothing but a guide.

Exactly. And that's exactly what we are. And that's what el marketers are. And that's when we get back to again, attracting who you want, repelling who you don't. Is that make sure your message pushes the value of your product in an authentic way. That's the other piece here that you wrote. You wrote in your book about selling yourself authentically. Again, do not promise the world if you cannot provide it. Correct. Don't do that. What value do you bring? Push that forward. And those individuals who are seeking that value, you will attract them.

So the last thing I'm going to leave people with when we're talking about, because we've really spent a lot of time, I think, talking about buyers and I think that's the right, the right.

Mood here for sure. But I think it extends far beyond that.

Do some homework. Learn who your buyer is. Start looking through the trade journals, look through stuff like Drugstore News and MMR and the different publications that are part of our industry, and you'll find stories about the Retail account. You'll find stories that, you know, Walmart's got Traffic Countdown or Kroger is working on a food is medicine program. Learn, do some reconnaissance. Learn about the account, learn about what the buyer has, and start to think about, okay, how could I plug into their goals? How can I come in and say, yeah, I have a way that I could help with your company's overall goal here? And then get back to what Joe said. What advice would you have for me? And they will tell you the exact roadmap to getting on the shelves in their store. I mean, it will be down to the last thing you need to do when you ask them for advice. It will be exactly what you have to do to get in here.

Yeah, you know, I'm going to actually demonstrate this with a real case study being me about my book. What's in it for them? Because it occurred to me during this conversation that you have all these relationships with these, these stores and different buyers, that my book is not in those stores. Now, to the listener here, you know, you guys have every right. And say, well, yeah, that it doesn't fit because of this, this. And then I would like you to say that, like, what, what. What is going through my head saying, okay, like, so I have my book. What's in it for Them? And it's a book about connecting with people and how to disconnect with. It's.

It's.

It's a book for givers that. How to protect and boundary themselves from takers and how to be a more valuable giver and a better boundary giver so you can get more of what you want in life and to take your Tammy time, attention to money, effort and energy and to be, you know, more effective with it. And to also use marketing to find true love and how to be the type of person that everyone wants to answer the phone for and just how to be all around a more valuable human. And the whole core message is not on capabilities. It's about character. So it's not just developing capabilities, but it's really building a greater character. Now I'm given the proceeds of this book to Genius Recovery, which is my addiction recovery foundation.

So.

And I wrote the book so that it would basically be valuable 200 years from now. So when I'm long gone, I hope it, you know, I hope I wrote a book that people could always find valuable. So that's all about my book. Right. So it. So the question becomes, what advice? And I'm just using the same thing. What advice would you give me for actually getting a book like this in all of these stores that it currently isn't. Because you people can buy this book in bookstores and on Amazon and it's. But it's not in a lot of retail. I've never, I've not put the book in retail. It's published by Hay House Business. So you know what, like, what advice would you have for getting that book into. Into. Into the stores that you work with?

All right, so first off, this is fun. So let me start with this. We don't normally do books.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I realize that.

So you're just a little out of my wheelhouse. But we are still talking about retailers. So the first thing I would want to know is when Walmart runs a book, is Walmart buying the book director, is Walmart running through a jobber?

Right.

So in the book, I know in the magazine world they run through records.

Yeah.

I don't know if books run through records. So. But we will find this question out because we have the context to find this question out. So if they do not run through rackers and if they run through buyers, then the question would be, who's the right broker? So this gets down to Dan Sullivan's who, not how.

Right. Yeah.

And this gets down to who would be the right broker that has the right relationship with the person in the account who buys the books, who can go with you hand in hand and meet that buyer. We're very big promoters here on great brokers because great brokers build lifetime relationships with the accounts and with the buyers. And you can't expect, even with everything we spoke about, you can't expect that you're going to build a relationship with the buyer compared to a broker who's been calling on them for 15 years and goes golfing every month and so on and so forth. So we need for you, we need to find out are books, books bought through a jobber or direct. If they're bought direct, we will talk to our broker connections and we will find out who's the right broker to present a book. Then the third thing is we have to look at is of all the retailers, who has a focus on recovery?

Sure.

I believe Walmart does and I know Walgreens does. And it would be easy for me to find out if Kroger does. But Walgreens does have a focus on recovery.

Yeah.

And the reason Walgreens focus on recovery is because one of the Walgreens children generations back was lost to addiction. And that impacted a lot of the position of the company years back.

Wow.

I had no idea.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and the other piece of it too would be. Yep. So the other, the last thing would be when we talk about what are their, what are the retailers pain points. The other thing would be what is the type of audience that this book is going to attract and is that a new audience for that retailer? Because that's what the retailer is trying to get. Get me new people. Get me new people walking through my door. So we can take a look at what is the prime demographic of your store, of your retailer. Is this going to be able to attract a new audience to come to this set, to come into your doors? Here's who it is. Here's the value that we're going to bring in day one.

Yeah.

And that's very much what we're going to have to do. We're going to have to go out and say that Joe Polish is this very powerful person in the world of marketing, that he has an audience that he's going to be able to motivate that audience to walk into your store and to look for this item. In addition to that, we're going to do some in store promotion. We're going to maybe do some point of purchase around how this is the book that is going to help you get everything you want in life.

Right.

By helping other people get what they want in life. So this is a great challenge, Joe. I actually, I'm going to enjoy this. I like this.

Yeah.

And look, and I, I definitely don't want to come across as being like, oh, self serving here. Especially when I wrote a book called what's in it for Them? And I was sitting there going, you know, you guys, we're sitting there talking about all this stuff. We have a relationship. I have something that I believe would be valuable in how do we tie it in and how does one access the skills and the relationships and the knowledge and the know how. And so, yeah, I love it. And let me ask you guys a question too, because I always find it for my curiosity. I find it really interesting just to kind of wrap up our session here. When you think about the people that listen to this, all of your listeners, what do you believe? There's not just one thing, there's many things that you're solving for them in the course of these discussions that you have with various different people in different topics. What do you think this podcast solves for the listener or what it does for the listener?

I would say the primary. There's a couple things we have Listeners from all across the spectrum, all the way from companies trying to start in their kitchen versus companies that are doing hundreds of millions of dollars. I would say for the most part, they are trying to figure out how to sell more of their product to the public and how they can get new relationships with new chains of distribution with new retailers. That's probably the two common things. And then. Then we get into things. Brand positioning and how to, you know, and how to make themselves stand out from their competition. And we get into all of those things. But the two things is how can I sell more product and how can I get more retailers to carry my product? That's probably the two. Two main things that people come away with here.

Yep, I would say so.

And, and how often do you plug your new. Your. Your book Hypnotizing? Never. Why don't you plug it here? Like, I've. I'm not. I'm almost done with it. It's freaking great. Like, what, what, what will someone get out of reading your book?

My God, I. I'm afraid to answer that. I don't know.

You are.

What do you think, Justin? What would you get out of that?

Here is. Here's what I would say someone's going to get out of. Out of reading Hypnotizing 1.

I think it's great if you're trying. If you have insomnia and you just.

You've got a great night's sleep.

Exactly.

Here's the thing that I would say that people are going to get out of. Out of reading hypnotizing 1. If you're truly a marketer and especially truly a creative, you will understand. Exactly, Joe, what you're talking about. You'll understand the science behind the art. You'll really understand how intentional every decision that goes into marketing is and the why behind it to be more effective. Now, if you are on the, What I'll call the brand side and you're just trying to figure out, okay, how does this work from a top level? You're going to gain a new appreciation for everything that goes into real effective marketing and advertising. And it will create a new, what I will call criteria when you're evaluating your next relationship. If they don't have this understanding, I probably shouldn't be working with them.

And let me tell you what was in my mind when putting the book together was how can I get people to stop doing stupid things in their advertising?

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Well, I'll tell you, that alone is worth the admission price because, you know, to teach someone to quit Being an advertising victim can save them potentially, if not hundreds, thousands, millions of dollars, depending on the size and scale of their business and how long they're, you know, in the game. And there are so many people that, you know, because the most expensive information in the world is bad information. And even if the information is free, free, bad information is the most expensive free information you're ever going to get. And so when you have the opportunity to read a book or learn from someone's life experience that has done that, not just giving their opinion, but like, literally showing here's what's done and here's how it works, you know, it's, It's. It's definitely worth exploring. Yeah, there's. I mean, yeah, there's just so much good stuff here, too. Like, I, like, here's how I read books. I'll. You guys can't see it, but I, you know, I, I underline, I highlight, you know, that sort of stuff. So it's.

Yeah, I like yourself, see so much advertising, and I look at it and I just ask myself the question, what are they thinking? There's so much money wasted on bad advertising that my kind of goal with the book was maybe I can get people to stop throwing their money away on bad communication and bad messaging.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's kind of what it was about. Now, folks, I want to tell everybody, Joe, this has been amazing. I just so appreciate you being here. This is. It's like I just had a therapy session.

Folks.

I want a couple things. Go to the show notes, CPG insiders. With the show with Joe Polish. You're going to find links for the book. You're going to find links to the podcast. And I want to tell you something else. Joe runs a group called Genius Network. If you're looking to take up your game in marketing, if you're learning, if you want to learn some of the basics of marketing from one of the giants in marketing and. And some of the giants who are in the group. It's not just Joe. Yeah, it is not just him. I mean, I'll give you an example. Dean Jackson is in a group. Dean Jackson is a freaking genius. He's a quiet genius. You kind of have to just pay attention and listen to him, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, damn, that was so smart. And I mean, isn't that true? It just. These very much, yeah, creep out of him. This is a great organization for people to spend money on. And I know it sounds expensive because you want me to spend $10,000 or $25,000 to be in an organization. I'm going to tell you folks, if your career, if your Future isn't worth 25 or $100,000 a year to you, to become better at it, you probably need to go work for somebody and, and not. I'm serious, you probably need to go work for somebody and not be an entrepreneur. Because the biggest investment, the best investment you're ever going to make is to invest in yourself, because no one can take that away from you.

The amount of money that the individuals that are in that room have invested in, the knowledge that's in their mind is way beyond that dollar amount that you're going to pay for this group, and that's what you're getting. So if you want to talk about return on investment.

Yeah. You have the ability to walk into a room where someone in that room can answer your question. Someone in that room knows how to solve your problem.

Right.

I mean, is that a fair assumption, Joe?

Absolutely. I mean, I say that any problem in the world can be solved with the right genius Network. And that's why I've never built the group around me. I've built it around the people that are in the group, and they're industry transformers and they're some of the smartest people on the planet. And if I don't know the answer for something, I tap into my genius network because we can solve almost anything with the right sounding board and the right, you know, the right industry transformers that are there to be contributors and help. So thank you now.

And now I have the distinct honor of saying the most connected man in the world asked me for connections today.

You know, why wouldn't I? I mean, that would be a very smart thing to do. And so no, and I, and I, and I appreciate it. I, I very much thank you guys for, and the acknowledging the book and just all the wisdom and everything. And I believe, like I was saying earlier about your book, hypnotizing the Subtitles, the Secrets and Science of Ads that Sell More, they both fit hand in hand. I mean, anyone listening read both, both our books there. You'll, you're going to learn a lot. You'll get a lot. And I would like to think that both of these books could be big dominoes for your career, for your business, for your, for your life, for your clients. And that's what makes the world go around.

Joe, I am going to tell you, I am absolute. I mean this in all sincerity. I'm absolutely humbled that you would find that book useful.

Oh, yeah. It's great.

It's great.

That is.

You have no idea how appreciative I am of that comment.

Amen, folks.

That's it for today on CPG Insiders. I know we ran longer than usual, but that's okay because this was a great show.

It was a great show.

If you like the show, make sure wherever you get your podcast, leave us a five star review. Make sure you go look up Joe's book. Go buy this book. Yes, it's a book. We're not asking you for $10,000. It's a freaking book. Go buy the book and learn how to have relationships and tell your colleagues about the show. And other than that, we will see you on the next episode of CPG Insiders. If you're looking to greatly increase sales on your CPG product, don't hesitate to contact us at Jekyll and Hyde Advertising and Marketing. By the way, the only advertising agency with a guarant result. Just go to jekyllheidagency.com or feel free to give us a call at 800-500-4210.