032: Courageous Marketing With Mike Michalowicz

Hi, this is Charles Michael Davis. Toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year end deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary reliability like the stylish and efficient Camry. The Ready for anything RAV4 or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra, all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota let's go places.

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host, Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

Hello my friends. I am thrilled to be here with one of my favorite people and author heroes, a friend or for many years now, Mike Michalowicz. Mike is a business author with a clear mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. He's leading two multimillion dollar ventures while testing his latest business research for his books. I am a fan of every single one of Mike's books. I've read them more than once. I've recommended them constantly include Fix this Next, Clockwork, Profit first, the Pumpkin Plan, Serge Toilet Paper Entrepreneur and his latest, Get Different Marketing that Can't Be Ignored. Mike, welcome to the show.

Jenny, it's an honor to be your friendor I never heard that before.

I made it up. It's an amalgam. It's what my dad calls a Jennyism.

I love it. I love it. I'm gonna use it with your permission.

Oh please do. We should all be so lucky to have friend tours because I don't know about you, Mike, but I find that so many of my close friends in life are entrepreneurs, business colleagues and it's so fun to be able to talk about life, but also what are you doing for your book launch?

Yeah, yeah. And totally integral. You know, my closest friend from college was not my closest friend during college. His name's Greg. We subsequently have become very close friends and he's flying over or up this way this fall to hang out. And he's a true friend tour. Like he tells me what he sees as he sees it and is very integral in his thought, which I'll tell you. A lot of quote unquote friends share what's socially appropriate but not necessarily true, at least from their vantage point and that can be harmful. So I like that concept.

Yeah. And I appreciate when friends are willing to be very transparent. I remember having some coffee talks earlier in my entrepreneurial journey, and the person seemed so caged and sort of guarded about what they were trying, what's working, what are the numbers. And I learned so much. And I'm always willing to share just as much nitty gritty detail, like, here's what I charged, here's what I tried, here's what this turned out to be. And you're somebody who's always done that for me with such generosity.

Thank you.

So grateful.

Thank you.

This book is about getting different and standing out in any market. And of course, we can talk about the DAD framework, differentiate, attract, direct. But it seems like one of the biggest things holding entrepreneurs back when it comes to standing out and trying to kind of off the beaten path marketing is fear.

Yeah.

And I'm just wondering if you can speak to that, because at the heart of this book is be who you are. Be more of who you are. Try things that no one is doing, because that's what's going to make you stand out. And yet we're so afraid to do that. At least I am.

Oh, me too. We all are.

The disease to please Mike. It's real.

Is real. It's real. There's this tug of war going on internally and. And what my research identified, the cause behind it is two things. There's the caveman mindset that's still in us. You know, that wiring and standing out in yesteryear was a very dangerous thing. Scenario one is, you know, you're in a community and you're the oddball. Well, you're going to get kicked out of that community, which your survival was 100% contingent upon working together in tribes. And no individual could survive on their own. We needed each other. So it was very visceral not to stand out. But also, if you were on the hunt for food or whatever and you were standing out, that prey would be running away from you would notice you. So you want to be unnoticeable. But in modern times, standing out is the only way you get noticed because there's so much white noise going on in every single industry, that consumer's been habituated to it, meaning they. They see the same thing over and over again. They deem it as of no value, so they disregard it before they evaluate it. So the only way to garner attention is to be different. So we've been wired not to do different because it puts our lives at Risk, but we're also wired to do different or we have to do different because that's how we will survive. So it's this weird tug of war going on. And so what you'll hear people, maybe they won't say these words, but this emotion of saying, I want to be noticed without being noticeable. I want to stand out without having to stand out. I want to be different without being different. And that's the tug of war we face. I think the way to overcome it and how I've applied it in my own practice as I research this, is to realize or apply a new frame. And the new frame I applied is I look at my prospects that I'm looking to serve, whoever they may be, readers, clients. And then I asked myself, if they don't discover me, if I don't provide my books to them or my services to them and they find an alternative, how will that serve them? So if my competent, if I feel I'm better than my competition in some capacity, that I have a better service, or I am more thorough or faster or cheaper or whatever it is, if I provide something that is of better service to my clients than my competition, yet my clients aren't discovering me because my competition's out there, but I'm not. My client's gonna lose. And that's their problem for sure. But. But it's my fault. I'm the one who could have prevented that. So I and you and we, whoever's better than the alternatives, we have a responsibility to get noticed is the greatest way to be of service. And to me, being of service, I think for most of humanity, is a massive driver when you really connect with it, to be of service to others. And therefore, if that's true, then marketing is something of service and we have to do it.

I love that perspective and that was really helpful when I read it in the book too, that, yeah, there's something out there that each of us the nemesis, as you say in the book, that we're sort of, we're offering a new and better way. And if we genuinely believe in that, then that does always help me bolster my marketing. It's like If I put five years into a book or even 10 years of my accumulated knowledge, then I'm willing to get out there and market it. And in fact, I just shared an episode 24. I'll link to it in the show notes. I did an episode called Missing Mojo about a book called the Courage to Be Disliked. And I realized that part of the reason I had not and have not gone all in on this podcast is fear that if I don't go all in, then it's still an idea that I could be good at someday. And I wonder if some people don't write a book or whatever their creative project because, well, then it's still an idea. I can still be a successful author someday. But when you try it, whether it's marketing or the project itself and it doesn't work, it's so, it can be so deflating totally. And just, I just, I love how you shared. You, you even shared an example where you were at a business author mastermind and you shared this idea you had. And I'd love for you to tell listeners what it is. And Ryan Holiday just looked, oh, when he shot me down, just, that's a terrible idea. And I wonder how you felt in that moment of getting his honest feedback.

Yeah, so I was together with some other entrepreneur or authors and entrepreneurs, but really authors who I really admire. And the reason I got invited this group is because I'm the one who facilitated it. Honestly, I don't think I would have been invited. But I reached out to Don Miller. He's the author of storybrand, just a fabulous human being and an extraordinary author, and invited other authors in. Among them was James Clear. He's the author of Atomic Habits, Chris Galabo, Ryan Holiday, and other folks. And what we decided to do is that we're going to share some of our best practices on how to grow our platforms. And I was really hyped up for this moment because I thought I had something that was so novel and unique. And the group is sitting there. It was just at Don's house. He's got the nice fireplace roaring. He's got a gorgeous estate in outside Nashville, Tennessee. And I, I tell everyone, I said, this one's going to blow your mind. What you can do as an author is set up a used bookstore for yourself and you can then sell your own books. And what I do is I list them as damaged, dented, marked pages like every other book, but I'll put it the cheapest price so it's the number one listing and therefore I'll get the sale. But when the person buys that book, I upgrade them to a brand new book. I even include a note in there, it says, congratulations, you've been upgraded to VIP status. You're getting a brand new book. We hope you enjoy this. And what I'm doing is I'm priming them that when they receive this book, it's such a delightful experience. The Likelihood of that person now rating the book highly. When they do, their rating is much better. It's gonna be a more favorable experience. Isn't this genius? And I sat there, I actually had goosebumps. I was so excited to tell these guys. And you see some heads kind of nodding, some eye squinting. But Ryan Holiday, if you've ever hung out with him or know him, is like, his books, the Daily Stoic. He's. He. He thinks at a much higher level. He said, he's an intellectual. And he's just staring at place, staring forward at the fireplace, not making any eye contact. And no one acknowledges anything. But a minute later, Ryan Holiday just says while still staring at the fireplace, he goes, that's a fucking bad idea. And there's silence, right? So all of a sudden, like, these tears start welling up in me. My heart drops. I start sinking down my seat. Ryan Holiday's like, you know, in his 30s. I'm about to turn 50. I'm like, who is this young punk in my head? I get all defensive, and I'm like, brian, what are you talking about? And then he looks at me, goes, that's fucking stupid. He goes, you have customers who don't see enough value to spend $25 for your book. They're trying to get the cheap dollar book. And you're trying to impress those people because you're. You're. You're trying to impress the wrong people. And he goes, and you're thinking, onesie twosies. You got to think, you know, hundreds of thousands of books at a time. It changed my whole paradigm. Well, to put a closing story, we were talking about this off air. We. I went back to my publisher with an insight that Ryan shared with me about advances and what we can dictate. And I went in with, I thought was a bold ask, but was under these parameters that would establish me in a position to really have Penguin, my publisher, invested in a successful book. And I got the advance. And so I texted Ryan right afterwards. He's the first person I texted. I said, hey, man, that feedback you gave me was huge. I got the advance that you suggested, and Penguin's all in on making this book a massive success. This will move hundreds of thousands, maybe hopefully millions of books. Thank you. And whatever. A day or two later, I could get back just two letters, np no problem. No problem. Which is classic Ryan Holiday.

Oh, my gosh. Oh. And that feeling you described, I certainly would feel that way, too, because my. One of my greatest missions, as weird as this is. Yes. To be as helpful as possible to as many people, but is to add value to my peers. Like, I don't know why that's so important to me, but I just, I.

Want, I love it.

Yeah. Like, I want someone like you who's been so helpful to me. I hope I can share things and templates and resources and whatever that are equally of service to you, the people that I most admire and respect. And I can so relate to that feeling where my cheeks would have turned bright red, my heart would have dropped to the floor of just feeling like, oh no, I'm here to collected all these peers to share my best ideas and to just get so shot down like that.

And no one came to my defense, by the way. It wasn't like someone stood up like, hey, take it easy. Everyone's like, yeah, yeah, he's an idiot.

Oh my gosh. But you, but. And then, and then that is such powerful feedback as we were talking about. And I love that. You know, from a guy as serious as Ryan, the idea of onesie twosies is such a cute phrase. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you said that. Now you've shifted the question, even with this book, to how can I move 100 books a day if not more? Right. How did that change how you're approaching marketing by asking that 10x question?

Well, first it required me to abandon the onesie twosie marketing. And that was hard for me because I was so in the groove that it admittedly had become a rut. And it works, but it works at a low level. By doing that, it's freed up consideration of new approaches and also avails the time to do it myself or I have some colleagues here that help run the office. So one thing I realized, I said, I started asking myself again and again, how do I move hundreds, a hundred books or hundreds of books per day? I said, well, who would be interested in buying 100 books a day? And so now I start thinking beyond the end reader alone, but now start thinking about other groups. And one strategy that came up just because I started asking that question was I'm very fortunate to have a community of integrators, people that take my book concepts, become certified in the process, and then teach it. So this includes profit first, professionals and other groups I have. So these people, I asked myself, well, how can they leverage buying the book to be to their advantage? Well, they could start a gifting campaign based upon John Rulin's book called Giftology. And so I did was I built a structure where if you're a certified profit first professional for example, where if you buy say 20 books today, you can do 20 different mailing campaigns over the next week or two that will get you noticed and get you a client which more than offsets the book. It's a big deal. And if I get, you know, five people doing these orders of 20 books a day, there's 100, 100 books. I started thinking of that level and actually that's one of the campaigns we now do. And it's a win of course for me for a book volume. It's a win for, for the people and marketing themselves in a unique, different way. It's a win for the end reader. And I constantly now I'm asking that question, how do I move a hundred books a day? And better answers are coming to me.

I love that I had someone with my first book 10 years ago, I said how can I sell 10,000 in the first week? Because that's this benchmark we all have in our mind of what would make a best a bestseller. And she goes, stop thinking like that. What if you sold a hundred thousand in the first week? How, how would you approach the challenge of selling a hundred thousand? And it is a completely set of ideas.

Different thing. I'm just in conversations now with a group that supports they have 75,000 entrepreneurs in our community and they're considering buying books not for all their members but for thousands and thousands. And really is interesting that would never come about unless I had that same kind of conversation going on in my head is how do you move massive amounts of books at a time? Otherwise I would still be like oh, use copies. Onesie twosies.

Right. And like you said, from the people. And I love how you flipped. Maybe someone's buying a used torn dog eared book because they can't afford the list price and so therefore what you're doing with the donating of books to entrepreneurs. Said that with a funny accent. Donating. But what you're doing there addresses that while still 10xing your thinking. And then of course there's the piece Ryan said too of why are you focusing onesie twosies on the people who don't value your work? So either way you're addressing that.

Yeah, totally. So yeah, that's one thing we didn't talk about on air. But I'm doing a donation campaign. There's people who are motivated to to support entrepreneurs in need the ones. And listen, I totally respect the dog eared ones. I myself occasionally buy books that way. I actually like it if it feels like it has history to it so I disagreed with the importance of those readers in regards to how Ryan packaged it, but I totally agreed that I was looking at the wrong objective, and I'm so grateful that he said that.

We'll be right back just after this.

When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition.

A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor fusion.

Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things this sipping season, and only for a limited time. Sprite Obey your thirst with Venmo Stash.

A taco on one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back with Venmo Stash. Get up to 5% cash back when you pick a bundle of your favorite brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stashterms.

Last question before we go to Rapid Fire Round. In the six or so years that I've known you, your writing style and I know you have a collaborator you work with, but your writing style has gotten just even funnier and quirkier, if that's possible. And your website is just out of this world. Like yesterday I went down the 20 sequence rabbit hole of how to pronounce your last name. Oh, you did that.

Oh my God. The first version is like, it's print. It's so serious. It's pronounced Mike Michalowicz. You don't want to know what other people say. And then you click it again. And listeners like, you got to do this because it's this whole script that's like 20 things long.

Yeah. Just keeps on going, oh my God.

And the pictures of you with celebrities as like your socked foot in front of Oprah on the TV behind you. I mean, like, oh my God, it's just getting funnier and funnier. And I wonder, going back to this theme of the courage to be disliked, this seems to have been an evolution. And I wonder if you're getting more polarizing feedback as a result of, as you've said, some readers probably are like, I can't stand the way you write.

Oh yeah.

Things you say or your website is not serious. It's not a business. I don't know. I'm just curious. Your evolution there?

Yeah. So I get that regularly that I don't take business seriously, that I'm making a mock mocking entrepreneurship and that this is needs to be a cerebral experience only. And. And not we can't laugh, which is I totally disagree with. But I also acknowledge that there is a community that feels that way. Here's what's so important about having the people that don't like you, they rally the people who do like you. So I've had like on Amazon reviews or publicly, someone's like, this guy is the biggest idiot ever. Well, the people who don't feel that way about the work I do then are rallied to say, no, he's not. And it becomes the Republicans versus Democrats because there's such conflict, they elevate both of themselves. So they need each other. Could you imagine where one faction would stand if the other one said, yeah, I guess you're right, whatever. It sounds like they would win. But no, it actually deflate both sides. So we want people that fall categorically into one side or the other. We don't want ambiguous. Now, I'm not saying we intentionally try to make enemies, but we have to make a strong stance in one direction. Strong enough that there's gonna be people that are fighting against us and our side will rally.

And so true. And in your case, it's clear that you're really having fun. There's no. There's no one you're putting down by being more of yourself. It's just these funny little jokes and photos in your language. And now more than ever, it's just embedded into every single corner and secret Easter egg on your website. It's just. And it's fun. It's so much more engaging that way. And yes, it probably will turn off X amount of people, but that's fine because it makes the people that love you feel that much more engaged and entertained by what you're doing.

There's a. On the site, if you go to the celebrity section, there's a picture of me with Bill Gates. That's my neighbor, and his name is not really Bill Gates, it's Art. But I was up as visiting his house. We were having drinks one day and his wife pulled out some old photos. And this is like one right after high school. So he's got that cheesy 70s greasy mustache and everything. And I didn't tell him. I put on the website. I said, dude, you are getting so many clicks. He's what are you talking about? I'm like, you're on my website. So there's even Easter eggs within the Easter eggs.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

And he's like. So he's telling his family about it and and now it's a. It's a fun conversation over beers. So, yeah, I love to do that. And that's who I am. I just like to joke around.

I love it.

And I never want to deny that of myself.

Yeah, I love Easter eggs too. I love hiding little surprises for people. Okay, let's do rapid fire round. We have five minutes, so we'll get to as many of these as we can. Just go with your gut. What is a favorite podcast that you've been listening to, if any?

Mike Rose podcast. I can't even remember the title of it now, but he gives these little vignette stories. He won't reveal who the main character is. He'll describe this character. In the very end, you find out who it is and it's someone famous that you've known, but you never knew. This little vignette story about them. It's really fascinating.

Love the twist on the format. What TV show are you streaming or getting entertainment out of?

So I am tv. Pathetic. I actually literally watch nothing on television.

See, that's impressive. That's like saying, oh, my flaws. I'm a perfectionist. Too good of a job, actually, when.

I. I actually like television for college football. So when college football starts, oh, fun. I'm addicted to it and I'll sit in front of it. So I actually love television, but I don't really watch much television. Mine.

Just too busy writing and marketing books.

No, no, no. Just. It just doesn't appeal to me.

That's awesome. I will throw in mine. White Lotus on hbo too good. Just working characters.

I never heard of it. And I'm talking about hbo. What is that? I'm kidding. I know.

Oh my gosh. I love college football days too. Those are so fun.

Rock and roll.

Okay, what is one of your all time favorite business books and one that you've enjoyed recently and. And appreciated?

What I'm enjoying right now, I'm literally reading it right now. It's called the Comfort Crisis. My friend Greg actually turned me on to it. So I'm listening to it and interesting argument is like, you know, we wake up in a 71 degree room, we get into our car, that's 71 degrees. We get to the office at 71 degrees. We've made life so comfortable that it's actually harming us is the argument in the book. It's really just absolutely fascinating. Favorite business book.

You know, when it comes to mind, it's really not a business book. It's called Rejection Proof. It's a fascinating story about the the author intentionally getting rejected because he was such an introvert. He was so afraid of rejection, he avoided it and he flipped the script and did everything to get rejected. And just how it transformed his perception. He is an entrepreneur. So that's the business spin. It's fascinating.

I have that book on my shelf. I keep meaning to read it.

I love it.

Is Gia John love his story?

Gia John?

Yes, Yes. I think he has a TED Talk too. And oh my gosh, he has such a brilliant story. I'll put that in the show notes. What's your preferred format these days for books? Hardcover, paperback or Audible or Kindle.

The audios are winning for me now just because I can, you know, go for a bike ride while I'm listening or do some other activity, but I only do activities that are mindless, like lifting weights or exercising or going for a walk. This if I try to do, you know, listen to a book while writing or something that's active, then I'm really not listening anymore.

Oh, yeah. And what speed do you listen at?

1.4. Is that.

Yeah, I love it.

I want to listen to a book at normal speeds now. It's too slow.

I know. And then don't you find. Sometimes I listen at. Some podcasts are at 2x, some are at 1.5. So it ranges. But sometimes in day to day conversation, I go, can I just two X's first?

Yes.

It's so bad. Oh, my God, it's so bad.

It's horrible. It's horrible.

It's horrible. I can't believe I admitted that. Okay.

What advice would you give your younger entrepreneurial self?

I think I would tell myself to relish the mistakes and mishaps as opposed to being so angry at myself.

Mistakes or things that didn't work out my way, I would get so frustrated myself and demean myself. And it took time to realize, oh, mistakes are just part of the path. And yeah, I'm do stupid things. I'm going to regret things. But. But there's also learning in that. And once I started to accept that when I make mistakes, I'm a little more gentle with myself and more observant of what I can do better going forward.

I love that. I love that. Okay, final two questions. Is there a piece of software that you use in your business that you love that's not obvious. Google.

Yes. I don't use my business, but I love it. It's called Picture this. It's not business.

Oh, my God, it's so fun. Yeah. You know what it is to explain to listeners, to picture this.

You know, things. It's called picture of this. And I gotta scroll on my phone, but it's. You can look at any kind of plant. Yeah, Picture of this. Any plant. And it immediately tells you what you're looking at. And so what's so fascinating is it's really got me more engaged in nature, which is almost meditative. I used to go outside for a walk. I'm like, oh, I'm walking by now. I take pictures of all the different plants, and it's like, oh, my God. You know, there's like 20 varieties of blueberry plants in the wild. Like, I. I thought, you know, blueberries, a blueberry. And it just expands my knowledge. I'm not a. Was a botanist. Is that the term? I'm not a botanist, but. Wow. It's fascinating to me.

Did you know they have one for bugs as well?

I want it. I want it.

Yeah.

What's it called?

So Michael and I have been away all summer in Airbnbs, and he has the one for bugs. And then it shows you your library, his collection. We have a garden snake. We have a spider. We have dragonflies. We have all manner of bugs. It's so creepy. It's so creepy.

I want it.

But it's the same principle. Yeah, I'll have to get the exact name. Oh, so good. Okay, last question. If you could give free time listeners who are small business owners permission to do or drop something, what would it.

Be to call yourself a shareholder of your business or a shareholder of your life? You know, I think we call ourselves the owner of something. I'm a business owner or, you know, I own the outcomes of my life. But the problem is, when you're an owner, you feel a responsibility to take possession and control. When you're a shareholder, you're a participant. You've invested in something, so you're investing the outcome, but you're passive. You give it vision and direction, but you're not engaged every step of the way. So I give you permission to be a shareholder of your life, of your business, not the owner of it.

I love that. And in doing so, opening up all these creative possibilities as you have, of what that means and how to work your way out of the business a little bit. So I'm going to link to our Pivot podcast on that164 where you talk about being a shareholder of your different books and the businesses that result, because it's frigging brilliant.

Thank you.

Oh, my goodness. It's just too fun. Thank you Mike, for piloting this new format with me.

This has been a joy. Thank you so much for having me. Jen, you thank.

Oh my gosh, it's been a real treat. And listeners, there is an extra special extended edition of this interview in our Private Insider BFF community. So if you want the full scoop and the most embarrassing Amazon search result under my name that Mike discovered, you can join us. It's freetime.com BFF Mike. Be sure. Well, you'll tell listeners where to find you, but listeners, be sure to check out his new book, get different. And where else would you like to send people then?

I love to send people to go getdifferent.com. that's where all the resources are. Go get different.com amazing.

Go get different everybody. Thank you Mike for leading the way.

Thank you.

You rock. If you've listened this far, you get a gold star. Thank you. Word of mouth is the most joyful way we can grow this show and it helps us land interviews with the luminaries and insightful guests that you would most love to hear from. Please send this episode to a friend who might find it helpful and for show notes and related links from this episode, visit itsfreetime.com while you're there, make sure you're subscribed to the Time well Spent newsletter. You'll get instant access to my Tech Toolkit, a continually updated list of all the software I use, along with the total monthly spend to run my business where no one works full time, Even me. Visit itsfreetime.com join Remember, you are running the show. It's time for radical reimagining and everything is up for grabs. Let it be easy, let it be fun, and build with love.