Kevin Donahue: Selling At Higher Levels and Higher Prices

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap them in bacon. For business owners, marketing execs, and anyone trying to grow your business, pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week, our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

And welcome back. This is Brad Costanzo or Batman, of course. I'm not saying I'm Batman. I'm just saying that nobody's ever seen me and Batman in the same room together. Sorry, I just came off a ugly week of watching Comic Con craziness outside my condo window. I live directly across the street from the convention center in San Diego and like 140,000 people descended upon calling them people is maybe a stretch. Descended upon San Diego. Everybody dressed as Batman and all this other stuff. And I'm really happy to report that I survived watching Comic Con outside my window. And I'm back here to bring you another episode of Bacon Wrap Business. If you are back for more. Welcome back. Two big high fives. And if you are first time listening to the show, I want to welcome you and tell you your in for a great treat. I've got my guest Kevin Donahue, and I'll be bringing him on in just a second. But I want to let you know what you're in store for See here on Bacon Wrap Business we like the jingle says, I try to bring you sizzling hot business advice. And whether that has to do with marketing or sales or business development or buying or selling businesses or copywriting, you name it, all aspects of business, anything designed to help you grow your revenue and improve your profits. That's what I'm here to do. You know, I work as a consultant, although I have a kind of a different consulting relationship than most people that call themselves consultants. I don't work for a fee. Everything I do is very much more like a partnership and performance based. And it's the relationships that I've developed throughout the years that have given me opportunities to be a part of some amazing deals and amazing opportunities. And that's one of the reasons I do this podcast, so I can reach out to other folks who are doing amazing things and potentially find synergy. And in the meantime, we allow you to listen into our conversation and hopefully glean some amazing advice that you can apply to your own business. Whether you're 50 million, you know, marketing director of a $50 million company or just getting started working out of your home and getting something off the ground. This show is dedicated to you. I appreciate all the reviews on itunes that we're getting. You know, it really is the way that I get paid is the reviews, especially the five star reviews on itunes. And you can leave those by just simply going to itunes and clicking Leave a review. I read every single one of them. And at any time, if you'd ever like to reach out to me and ask me a question or share with me your own bacon wrap business strategy, maybe even be featured guest on the show or if you'd like to get a second opinion on your own business or marketing advice or second opinion on some of the challenges you're facing or if you're doing something right or wrong. I am free to give those to you at just Simply email me askbradaconwrappedbusiness.com and I'll see if I can help you out. I read every single email, I read every single review and I appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show. So without any further ado, let me get into the introduction of Kevin Donahue. So years ago, I want to say maybe about four years ago right now, I went to an event down in Costa Rica called Awesomeness Fest held by Vishen Lakhiani and Mindvalley. And it was a personal development business, entrepreneurial fest. And I saw this dude hanging out, looked like the ultimate surfer guy. Long hair, tall, big muscles, blonde hair, like total surfer guy. And in the very beginning I thought, okay, this guy's just, you know, he kind of wandered into this crew because he just looks like Costa Rican surfer dude. Well, he did live in Costa Rica, but then I quickly found out that he's not your typical surfer dude. He is one of the most brilliant minds I've met when it comes to sales at very, very high levels. And he is really unmatched by a lot of folks with his ability to network, create relationships, get deals going and becoming a major, major resource for a lot of folks. And Kevin and I developed a friendship very quickly and it's remained throughout the past several years. And every time I talk to Kevin, he always tells me something new that he's up to and something exciting. And it's always bigger and better than before. So I asked him on the show today to share a little bit of his strategies and the things he's up to. So much of what you listen to and you hear him say, I'll be hearing for the first time and I'll be digging in to find out what he's doing and how we can all benefit from it. So let me go ahead and unmute him and see if he's on the line. Hey, Kevin, are you there, buddy?

Hey, Brad. Happy to be on the show today. What a fantastic introduction. Thank you very much.

Well, you know, my mom always said, if I can't dazzle him with brilliance, baffle him with bullshit.

Right? Well, you took me on a little down memory lane there. When my hair was bleached blonde, I was tan, surfing every day. That was a good time.

Living it up, pura vita.

Living it up. You know, and it's funny because, you know, part of my business and how I live my life is a long time ago I said, I want to live a thousand lifetimes in one. And so you took me back to one of my lifetimes, which is, you know, just about three or four years ago. But, yeah, different tracks of life. And that was an awesome time, and I'm glad we got to connect there.

Yeah, it really was, you know, you were. And I want to share a little bit of your backstory. I don't like to go too, too deep into the origin story because it can drone on forever, and there's not a lot of. There's not always a lot of juicy stuff to pull out for the audience, but in your case, I think it's pretty fitting. So you used to work at some pretty high levels with government stuff and in addition to executive sales, did you not? Was something with a Secret Service? You told me.

Oh, yeah, there was. There hasn't been an agency I haven't worked with, really. I've worked with everyone from the CIA to the fb, FBI. I've closed deals with the White House, the Pentagon, under Secretary of Defense for intelligence. Yes. The Secret Service, Homeland Security, you name it. I've worked with them in some fashion, both from an advisory role, but primarily as in business development. I sold a search engine software for a number of years, and the search engine I did something creative, which I'll talk about later in the show, about using your language creatively and powerfully to position yourself as a leader and to dominate your niche. And half of that is finding your niche. Well, the niche I found when I was selling software to the government. When I say the words search engine, there's really only one company you think of, right?

Ask Jeeves.

Yeah, Ask Jeeves.

Right.

And so, you know, Google comes to mind. Right. And I was working for this smaller software company out of Holland called Zylab. And. And of course, if you're going to go into an enterprise search solution. And Google had released their enterprise edition back then. And you're competing Google versus zylab. Which one is the State Department going to rely on? What I did was I carved out a niche of investigative agencies. So instead of selling a search engine, I started selling a forensic investigative search engine. And it was very powerful. So I dominated the niche of inspector generals of intelligence agencies. Also archivists like the White House, their email archiving system, both for the Bush administration, the Obama administration was the system I sold them. So I really carved out a niche. And once I had some of the key, you know, the key agencies, I was able to work with anyone. You know, when you say you've done a deal with the White House or with FBI headquarters or, you know, Homeland Security, everyone else just says, okay, cool, we'll buy it too. And so strategically, with language first and then dominating a niche and then I became the go to guy. You know, Brad, it was funny. Oftentimes I'd get calls from different FBI field offices. They said, hey, is this Kevin Donahue? Yeah. Headquarters told me to call you. And I would say, what do you got? And they would.

That's always a good feeling when headquarters tells them to call you. It's like, okay, I guess then you're going to listen to what I have to say.

Yeah. And you know, you're also able to leverage that with other organizations. I did business with the World bank. You know, I've presented down in Bolivia for some Inter American Development bank opportunities over in Amsterdam. Worked with the un, the war tribunal over there, and also the, if you remember, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal over there in Camp Victory in Iraq. We provided some of the investigative software for them as well. And also I've been in places like the Saudi Embassy, the Embassy of Qatar. Just really interesting things. So that was Life in Washington D.C. quite a contrast from life in Costa Rica.

Exactly.

Now, Washington, D.C. was, was, you know, very conformist. You know, it's military government, a lot of police agencies and, you know, it's a certain culture. It's an industry town.

Yeah. Now, so. And that was a stark contrast to, I mean, you kind of, you basically reinventing yourself. You went down, you lived in Costa Rica for a good amount of time, surfing, living the good life.

Were you taking a break? Were you, were you really working down there? Were you kind of just pulling back the slingshot, getting ready to go in the next direction?

Yeah, well, you know, I was in Washington D.C. i had also launched an Internet business and I think you're familiar with Yogi the Pug. So this is back when YouTube was new. And I would guess that I was probably one of the first people using YouTube to drive traffic. And I had this viral video of this pug with a broken tongue who I built products around a doll and greeting cards, calendars, T shirts and, you know, a nice little story. When life breaks your tongue, keep on licking.

And for anybody who's not familiar with Yogi the Pug, when he says a broken tongue, he means that, this, that Yogi's. Please, please tell me. By the way, please tell me Yogi's still with you.

He is. He's 15 years old.

Goodness. So Yogi, Yogi's tongue is about eight feet long. I'm exaggerating, but not by much. Like his tongue just hangs so far out of his mouth it's, it's insane. I'm going to put a picture of him on the. Well, my website, you can actually Google.

Yogi the Pug and he'll pop up.

I mean, that's awesome.

Ended up being a viral sensation. It was great. I drove traffic to the website at the time and sold a lot of stuff and ended up on the Rachael Ray show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann and a bunch of television shows, which was just an interesting thing. And it really gave me a clue into the power of the Internet, YouTube, of having a killer story to tell people. And it was really engaging. I would get emails from around the globe, people who said, oh, you know, bring Yogi to the Middle east, he'll bring peace to the Middle East. You know, people from Australia, they would go to the website because it was a feel good story. You know, when life breaks your tongue, keep on licking. So I've been doing that. I had also opened a spa and tanning salon franchise up in the D.C. area. So I had a whole lot of things that I was doing at the time, Brad, and you know, I just kind of got fed up with all of them. You know, I was like, huh, like, which way is. And I had a bunch of real estate that I owned a bunch of condos in the Washington D.C. area in Arlington, Virginia. And I was just like, huh, this isn't really, I'm not really happy. You know, it's like, what would make me happy? I just started writing things down and I encourage any business owner, any person just, you know, start writing things down that you, you want to see happen in your life. And in this case it wasn't necessarily business, although there were some business goals to It. It was just like, if there was nothing in the way, what would I be doing right now? And I said, I'd be living in a foreign country in Latin America. I'd want to be surfing. I'd want to learn to speak Spanish. I'd want to do some Christian mission work, like in a foreign country. And then I said, you know, I'd like to run a business in a foreign country. So I had five things down, and I just started taking actions to go do those things. And so, yeah, I would call it a mini retirement. You know, I think every. You know, if you're not super happy or super stoked with what you're doing, like, why keep doing it? You know, there's a phrase. I believe it comes from Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, and it's always thrown around at the Genius Network Mastermind meetings. And. And it's destroy anything in your life that isn't excellent. Yeah. Destroy anything in your life that isn't excellent. Now, it doesn't mean just go blow stuff up. There's an elegant way to destroy. If you watch a building come down, it can be done elegantly. And so you can build a better, nicer, more updated.

Or more beautiful building. And so that's essentially what I was doing. I said, it's time for a new life. Let's. Let's, you know, destroy this one and move on to something else, and let's see what comes of it. You know, a lot of that had to. Had to do with my faith. And I said, okay, well, you know, in our culture, it's like, you have to have a job, you have to have an income, you have to have all this, like, huh? What would it be like if I didn't? I just went out there and created it.

Yeah. Jump and the net will appear.

Something like that. Yeah.

So you did that. Then the next thing that I remember you doing, you just spoke of Genius Network Mastermind, which is Joe Polish's group, and you became basically. I mean, would you describe it, like, director of sales or director of recruitment? I mean, you were probably responsible for, I'm guessing, doubling the size of the group in the time that you really worked with him. I mean, what was the. Can you clarify that for me?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So we. Yeah. So when I came back to the United States, I met Joe at the Awesomeness Fest event as well. And when I came back to the United States, I was like, okay, now it's time to get back in business. Funny, being a surfer dude is great. But then, like, I'm not a surfer dude at heart. I'm a business guy. You know, it's like, everyone's the next swell coming, dude. It's like, all right, man, there's more to life than that. And so, you know, I actually have sort of a saying. I go from surfer dude to CEO with the snap, you know, it's like. And so I like to live that lifestyle. Today I'm sitting here in my office in Costa Mesa, California, overlooking, you know, the over Newport beach and but tomorrow, heck, I might be down in El Salvador at Playa El Tunco, right? So I love having that lifestyle. So when I came back, I was at, it was a fourth of July event at Joe Polish's house. Joe said, hey, why don't you come by? I'm like, alright. And we're there. And Joe was like, you're good at sales, aren't you? I'm like, well, yeah, I guess, sure. And he says, why don't you help me grow the Genius Network Mastermind? I said, huh, let's talk about it. And so what I did was and I'm like you, you mentioned earlier you're results based on. I don't like taking a paycheck, you know, unless I like to be results driven. So I said, alright, Joe, I can't work for you because you know you're crazy, right? Joe's crazy. Yeah. And he's awesome. Like there's genius behind the crazy. But I said, I'll work with you and I'll be happy to grow your group. So yeah, when I started doing business with Joe, There was about 62.

Today, which is about two, three years later. There's about 153 members. So we almost triple the size through. And a lot of that had to do with direct sales. A lot of it has to do with, you know, strategic thinking. One of the things we did at Genius Network is Joe used to have a group that paid him $1,000 a month called Platinum 2.0. And you know, again, destroy anything in your life that isn't excellent. It was good, but it wasn't great. And so I'm always looking to raise prices. So you know, 25k, Joe, why don't we charge 100k? Because you're over delivering value in this group. I mean there's people that come in the group, they invest 25k, they walk away a year later making a million bucks plus just from the connections in the group, right?

So yeah, so help Joe grow that group. And along the way dabbling in other businesses as well.

I'll get back to the Joe stuff because there's still a handful of things I want to ask. But you're also working with. It's kind of getting to what you're doing right now. You're also working with Peter Guinn and you're in this supplement business, is that correct? Or a skincare, skin care business.

That's right, yeah. So we have a company called Brandage Annuity Group. And you know what I always look for, Brad? What my eye is trained to do now is in business is to find powerful systems. Now, I'm not a systems guy. In other words, I'm not good at creating a system, but I'm really good at recognizing a powerful system. And when it comes down to it, everything is McDonald's. It's a system. You know, what is Apple? It's a system. Like, so what is your bacon wrap podcast? I mean, it's a system, right? It's a system to get information out and to get information in. So, you know, I had met Peter at an event a couple years prior and Peter was just an interesting guy, really had dialed how to buy traffic, you know, media buying and how to drive that traffic into a system. So what I do now for the last year plus is we launch skin care products. So I've launched three products in the last three months. I got two more coming. Each one is a different brand, but a very similar product. So we are to skincare and diet supplements. We're in that world as well as McDonald's is to burgers and fries.

Nice. And now you don't have to go into all the details or as much as you're comfortable with, but I know we talked about this and you and me and Peter were on the phone maybe about a year, year ago or whenever. So you work with other individuals who are wanting to launch their own brand. And because you've got all the systems necessary, you've got all this, you know, everything from product to how to drive traffic, to setting up landing pages to getting it all done. And are you still basically a lot of times partnering with certain, I guess, partners or investors who fund the launch of a system and then the launch of a product and then brand ingenuities, systems and everything else take over. So does it. Are you still doing that aspect?

Exactly, yes. So it's an on demand, done for you business model. Very similar. The analogy would be McDonald's.

How passive is it? Like, let's say I. Let's say I was one of your partners. What do I have to know about that entire business to make it work for me.

Nothing.

Yeah, nothing really. I mean, so here's, it's just like McDonald's, like right now. You and I have never been in the hamburger business. We could go to McDonald's, you know, invest. I don't even know what the cost is. Let's say $2 million. And before we know it, we're in the hamburger business. We have a profitable hamburger chain. How do we do that? Well, we do it by just following the franchise model. Now there's more work in that model. There's actually, you know, you got to do the construction. There's a lot of pieces of that puzzle.

You have to manage the day to day opera. You have to manage the systems that are in place. Would I have to do that with, with your company or.

No, no, that's, that's the beauty of it. So you just get to look at, you get to log into the CRM and see how many units you sold that day, see how many are rebilling. You know, just, just. It's a, it's a numbers game. You know, the, the most important, the most relevant systems are ones that are predictable. And they're predictable based on the mathematics. And so that's the one thing I realized early on was, you know, I don't care what business you're in, you're really in the arithmetic business. It's got to add up in the end. And we're in the, we're in the business of turning a profit. So it just so happens we partner with people just like McDonald's does. It's our growth model right now. So we scale the system down for people to participate with us and we launch all of these different brands. We have about 12 brands currently that we're running and we have about three more in the pipeline.

That's great.

Yeah.

So what. And then there's. Obviously it's a profit share and then what are the responsibilities? Like we'll use me as an example. So if I, if I fund this is how passive is it? Is it literally just kind of watch what's going on and then you guys take care of everything else?

That's. Or is it.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, there's the, about a 10 weeks to launch period. So there aren't that many businesses you can get into where it's that quick to launch, where you have a skincare product, a brand, everything in place. And so, you know, the 10 weeks, there's some participation from our, from our partners. Not a ton, but you Know, we have to get LLC set up. We have little stuff, you know, bank accounts set up, we have to apply for the merchant processing, we have to get all these things set up. But really, here's what's interesting. The cost from week one to week ten, right before we launch is only about eight to ten thousand bucks. Really? Yeah. So because you're not spending any money, it's an on demand business. The only time we spend money, and this is sort of the beauty of our model, is when we ship product and when we buy media. So when we acquire a client. So it's a CPA model. CPA stands for cost per acquisition. We pay money to acquire a client and then we ship the product out to that client. And that's the only time our partners pay money. And so, yeah, it becomes predictable from the standpoint that you know how much is going out. And based on your rebills, and rebills tells us the quality of traffic, we know how much is coming in and we can predict it month in, month out. Awesome.

So who are your ideal types of partners in that? Are they, are they people who are looking more for the. A passive income return on their investments from something that has the ability to yield a heck of a, heck of a return? Or are they people who are, you know, whether it's doctors or estheticians or people who want their own skincare line, Maybe it's a little bit of both. But what is. What's really the ideal.

Profit partner in something like that?

Yeah, I say, you know, people with sophisticated capital, you know, we don't want people, you know, we don't take people who are taking out loans. We have, you know.

The average to get into business with us is 500,000 at the moment.

Right.

And so people, you know, what price always does is price is a barrier to entry. You know, it's. And so that's the good thing. When we started doing this business, it was 150,000 originally. Now it's 500,000.

I should have gotten in when I, when we first talked.

Yeah. So it's a, you know, the system is for people who are, I call sophisticated capital, you know, people who are really, they're looking to get their principal back and then having a cash flow model. And then secondly are folks who are in the direct response business, let's say Dr. TV or Dr. Direct Response Mail or something like this, people who understand it's a numbers and mathematics business that there's a cost to acquire. And then as long as the numbers work on the Back end, you win. So I have a lot of the top infomercial folks coming to us and they want to either launch a program or they want to use our strategy in their system.

That's great.

You know, I have some folks come to me too with their own skin care products. And you know what I tell them it's similar if you went to McDonald's with the best hamburger that you made in your backyard or in your kitchen. It doesn't matter. It's not the hamburger, it's the system. I say tomorrow McDonald's will sell 10 million more burgers than you. I don't care how good yours is. So I have a lot of folks come to me with their skincare, which we can put it into our system. Just that our system works so well right now that, you know, why mess with it? Like, does McDonald's need to sell pizza? Well, no. Could they? Sure. You know, let's just stick with what works.

Cool. So let's. I want to, I want to jump over to the other side of things. Although I'm highly fascinated by that, that entire business. I want to jump over to some other real meat. Because you've also got a company executive sales source.

Right.

And.

Sales is real sales and networking relationships. Whether you're selling software to governments or you're selling very high end masterminds to successful business people and entrepreneurs, or what else are you doing right now? And what do you think?

I know that you're a big proponent of raising prices and raising value and just really raising the bar. Because if you can, we've talked offline about your Honda and Ferrari example and I want you to kind of go into that. But what do you, you know, I guess I'm getting tongue tied here. Tell me how to sell things, Kevin.

Well, you know, it's, it's really, it depends. You know, there's a psychology around it. It's actually more of a sociology than it is a psychology. So you have to understand your environment. You know, when you're selling agency, it's a completely different dynamic. And when you're selling a high ticket item to a government agency, Right. They're looking for a couple of different things. Now, when I owned my spa and tanning salon, I would train my staff to sell to folks who came in, into the tanning salon. And I would tell them no one comes into a tanning salon or spa on accident. There's a dynamic happening that says they want to look better and, or feel better. And so now it's your responsibility to get into their world, asking questions, hey, what's bringing you in today? Come out for behind the counter and you know, get into the world. People say, have a wedding coming up, or I just broke up with my boyfriend, or I'm getting ready to go on a cruise, okay? And you could sell them the package based on that. Now when you're working with the White House right now, it's. And by the way, that type of sale is a point sale. It's a point solution. You're taking care of it right then and there. It's going to solve a problem immediately. Now, when you're selling a big software solution that changes the enterprise, changes the way they do business, there's a lot of trust and rapport that needs to be built. It's not just them handing over their budget, but it's also them trusting their information with your system. For example, when I did work with the White House, the National Security Council handles all the White House emails now. I also had to work with the White House records office. I had to work with the executive office of the President, had to work with all these different people and personalities in order to get this deal done. Took about six months to a year, and it was a much higher ticket item. So, you know, it really depends on what you're selling and who you're working with. But it's really psychology, sociology. And one thing I always train people who've either worked for me or who I do business with is you have to go in with assumed, automatic, assumed rapport. Like you have to go in as if you're the authority. And when I talk about selling, it's never face to face like someone typically thinks in a sales situation. I come in as a trusted advisor. In other words, it's side by side. I come in as a consultant and I point them in the right direction so that to their bigger.

And so one of the things that you have to do in selling Brad, so he says you want to learn how to sell, is you have to use powerful language, powerful in language that enrolls them into their bigger future, not yours. I think a lot of salespeople fail, or business people, business development people fail because they're out there trying to get something for them. You have to get into their world, understand what it is they're doing, what they're going through, and then paint a future so big that they're inspired. I like to say when I'm on a sales call, I want to touch, move and inspire people. In other words, that conversation or that meeting with me was the best meeting they've had that day, that week, that month, that year, whether they buy from me or not. Right. In other words, I'm coming in from a personal development standpoint. I'm going to change their lives, their life today.

Yeah.

Well.

And the best way to do that is to make it all about them. And you're right. So many people. And it's not just sales. It's business. It's anything. They just go in, what can I get? As opposed to what can I give? And I like and I like that how you switch the outcome from how can I, how can I get the money and how can I close this deal? To how can I make them come away thinking this was the best meeting I've had all day? Because if you go in with that, if you win their hearts, you'll win their wallets.

That's it.

I think that's fantastic.

Well, the other piece to that, Brad, is I want to leave them haunted with indecision. Right. There's two tiers there. So if you paint a future so big and so bright for someone and they haven't made a decision or they're a no, they're just haunted. Like, man, I don't know if that was the right decision. Right. Oh, man, that guy Kevin was something else. Like, if I don't do business with him, I lose.

I want him on my team. Whatever that looks like, I'll buy from him just so I can keep him in my life.

And I always say a no is just a no for now. Like, and there's a distinction to be made. And there's the idea of convincing someone of doing something or compelling someone to do something. Convincing is them doing it for my reasons. Compelling is them doing it for their reasons. It's very powerful. It's a very important distinction to make. And it all happens, Brad. The most important thing that's always changed my life is language. We just have to be very powerful in our language with people. And the other thing I tell people is, like, everyone. Everyone out there is looking for a superhero to fly into their lives and save them from something.

Yeah.

Right. I don't care who you are. Tony Robbins looking for a superhero in something, whether it's health or wealth or wisdom. You know, Deepak Chopra is looking for a superhero. Someone who come in and help him with his online marketing. Yep. So if we can come in and be their superhero, like, just the, you know, you know, we eliminate all of our competition. Like, whoa, Superman's here. I'm all, I'm cool, I got it. I'm safe. Or bad in your case. Bad.

No, you're absolutely right though. Everybody is looking for a super. Nobody's got it totally figured out. You just mentioned, you know, one of the greatest marketing minds out there, you know, who you have worked with and I'm sure you probably continue to in some degree, Joe Polish. And you just said, yeah, he's crazy. He's got all this other stuff going on. He's genius. There's genius in the crazy. But Joe, even I remember got up on stage, first time I ever saw him speak, and he goes, look, I'm a wreck and everything in my life except for marketing. I really know how to sell things. Yeah. You know, and it's. But it's true is if you can find those things with everybody, you know, where people are looking for the superhero to step in. And I love that analogy. I like, I like those visual analogies. So when you go into a meeting, if you think I'm going to go in, seeing where they need the superhero to be, it automatically assumes that you have the ability to be a superhero. And then by doing that, it to get nice and woo woo. But you're assuming this state of you're coming in as Clark Kent, but you got your X ray glasses on and you're going to be waiting for that moment where you can rip the shirt open and you become Superman and you can help them with whatever problem they're having. And then you just cement yourself as a, as a necessary component in their business or their life or whatever. And that's when the magic, you know, really happens. I like that. That's a, that's bacon. That's bacon wrapped right there.

Bacon, brother. You know, here's the thing too is when you come in as Superman, like there, there is no competition. Right. The, you're happy to refer, you know, Aquaman, hey, you know what? This job's better for Aquaman. Let me call Aquaman. Right? Let me call.

I thought I got sucked at a Comic Con, but I guess I got sucked back in.

I had to bring it right back to you, man. No, but you know, you can literally so, you know, get the hall of justice on your side. You, I mean, you're not intimidated by it. So I don't believe in competition. Right. This is one of the things you mentioned earlier. I get to network with some extraordinary people.

I love the word co opetition.

Yeah. You know, it's just like there is, there's a cooperation out there. And I'm not right for everything. You know, there are opportunities out there that I need to say no to. A, because they're not right for me, and B, because they're not. I'm not right for them. And I think if we can really understand, this is where I got clear. Just to go back to the whole idea of forensic investigative search engine. I got really clear. Who can I be a hero to? Well, the investigative agencies. I mean, these guys, these investigators, like we work with the guys from the Enron investigation. And some of these guys, they're not IT guys. They needed a solution that was easy to use, like a Google. I mean, you know, these guys are just investigators. The last thing I want to do is learn a software product. So I provided that for them. They were able to find the needle in the haystack in a split second. I mean, it was great. When the SEC was knocking on someone's door, they would call me to, you know, get a few more licenses. And what was interesting was the other side, like when aig, Financial Products divisions or the Enron attorneys, they wanted the same software to find the stuff that the feds used. So it was really interesting. But I was a hero to these people who had large document collections that needed to quickly find a needle in the haystack.

That's great. And I like how you weren't, let me guess, that these governmental agencies were not the only customers of your software. You just created a sub niche specialty to be known for, because then you knew, if I can get in there, I can get in anywhere, right?

Well, it was great because I ended up working with ags across the country. I ended up meeting Mayor Dellums up in Oakland. I worked with the former congressman out here in California. You know, I ended up working with everyone because I became the go to guy because I had dominated my niche and I could clearly know where I could make an impact. And then what happens is when you know your niche, other people can refer to you correctly, you know, and efficiently.

You know, that's really been one of my weaknesses in business is in some areas and the areas where I've done it right, it's really helped. And in the areas where I haven't, like in my consulting business, I'm sure it would be much bigger if I actually had a niche or if I had a type of business person that I was working with. But I. I'm kind of a jack of all trades in a lot of areas, and I can work with so many people that it's so. It's been so hard for me to narrow down. These are the, these are the, whether it's the market like, like you went for like you know, your agency, investigative agency type markets versus something else. But that's, that's always been a struggle for me is niching down to be known for something in particular.

And it's the most powerful thing you can do. It is the hardest thing to do, by the way. Right.

And you know, the one area that I have been seeing as an expert, which is, it's funny like I use this often as the tip of, tip of the spear in my, you know, with my relationships is Amazon publishing a bestseller for somebody on Amazon. Because I know how to do that. Whether it's get, get it completely written, repurpose something they've got or just taking, you know, taking something, developing it out and helping my clients create, you know, credibility building lead generating bestseller on, you know, on Amazon. But what's funny is that's one of the things I like to do the least. And it's not the majority of where my income comes from, but so many people have, are now like interviewing me and referring to me as that Amazon guy. And I don't disown it because it's still, I still am great at it. I'm better than most people. But it is funny because I've seen when people see you as known for one thing, they come to you for that and then the next thing you know, you're off to the races with tons of other opportunities. So it is really powerful and sometimes I need to practice what I preach a little bit more.

Well, listen, this, this last, you know, year and a half has been focused to the direct response skincare market. Yes, we do supplements, we do some diet products. I don't even talk about that. I'm skin care, that's it. So I've just narrowed my niche down for people who want to be in the beauty business. And it's very easy to explain. Like the beauty business is a huge business. One thing I explain to people going back to kind of social psychology of human beings, like there's one thing, the reason I'm in the skincare business or one of the reasons is there's high margins. First of all, it's a consumable product. It's like a glop that you have to keep renewing. And it's for women, the women's market. One of my mentors was a top guy at QVC for years and he said, sell women's products exclusively, you'll make a lot of money. And Then also there's something that everyone in our culture did this morning. Every single one, Every single one of your listeners, you, myself, everyone in my office right now, we all did something in common. And that is at some point we looked in the mirror. There's no one who left their home today without looking in the mirror. And so there's two psychological things going on. Men look in the mirror one way, women look in the mirror another way. Right. Women, the one thing they say, whether it's conscious or unconscious, is I want to be pretty. So they go to work putting on makeup, doing their hair. In our culture, being prettier means looking younger and or looking thinner typically. So by the time someone sees one of our ads on Facebook or Fox News or TMZ or wherever they may see it, we don't have to explain to them what anti aging skin serum is. We don't have to convince them. We just compel them with extraordinary copy and an extraordinary offer for them to get engaged with us. If you really know your niche, for us, this happens to be a mass market niche. Women also. It's actually more niche than that. It's women over 40. When you know your niche, you can market to them and you can win all day long.

Yep. No, that's great. That's great. So what, what else are you, are you working on anything else these days? Is there anything else that you know besides the skincare, besides with the executive sales source? Do you, are you actually doing, coming in and doing consulting for salespeople? Are you selling things for them?

Yeah.

So what's the story there?

I still do work with Joe. So, you know, Joe's growing his group and hopefully Joe will launch the 100k group. I do some work with some, some other folks as well. Where I go in, I help. See, here's the other. If you know your strengths and you know your weaknesses, like you can actually surround yourself with other people who are stronger than you. Yeah, I agree. And so this is exactly my partnership with Peter. Peter is extraordinary. He's a creative mind that's an entrepreneur and he's a systems guy, you know, just like Ray Kroc or even Steve Jobs, like creating a system around what it is you do. My strength is, you know, being the spokesperson, leading the business, raising prices, you know, doing business development. And so there's people out there who are weak at that, but they are extraordinary behind the scenes. I'm working with a management consulting firm. Right now. I'm working with another consulting firm that helps SaaS, software companies and Basically I come in, I usually do about a six month gig with them and on a monthly fee plus a commission. Then I. And then depending. So like you, what I'm looking for is an equity stake in the business. But I give myself six months to see how I perform, how the company performs and how the relationship grows and then I'll go for an equity play. I'll warn your listeners, equity doesn't mean anything oftentimes, right? It depends. Like I've been offered equity in companies where I'm like, well, equity in zero is zero, essentially. Like we don't have budget to pay, but you know, we have, we can give you equity in the business. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like outperform. You'll pay me and then we'll talk about equity down the road, you know, because I like to see how, because people get all funny. They get, they think equity means something. So like what I do is I try to find businesses where I can work with where I can, like I like to 10 times or a hundred times someone's prices. I was working with a young lady recently, still do business with her. She was a Grant Thornton and Ernst and Young. She's a forensic accountant, cpa, masters in taxation, Brilliant gal. She became an entrepreneur and started her own management consulting firm. She's as good as KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, you name it, she's that good. I mean she's worked with some of the top and she started her business charging $1,000 assessments to come in primarily with entrepreneurs. And now the minimum for her is 25,000 a quarter. Now I've closed her a bunch of deals and I've helped her raise her price from 1,000 to 25,000 because she didn't know her value to the marketplace. She knew she was good at what she did, she knew she was the best at what she did, but she didn't know how to put a price or the language wrapper around it to be able to tell that compelling story, to touch, move and inspire people. And so I've given her that gift and I of course am one of her consultants. So business owners who need to put a powerful wrapper of language so they can start having conversations with people like the White House or the World bank or Joe Polish or Richard Branson or Brad Costanzo or any of these folks.

Thank you for putting me in that.

Hey, man.

So yeah, that's what executive Sales Funnel Source does. It's exciting. I've also worked with folks like Link Strategies, done some Work with them. I've done consulting. These one guys, again, people are experts in their field, but it's tragic, the language they use when they're talking to people, talking to their potential, all the.

Jargon and it's just bad.

They just don't know. I was working with these VC guys and these guys have a course where they teach, you know, entrepreneurs or inventors how to get VC money. And these guys are the best. I mean, these guys just know how to do it. They've raised billions of dollars over the years, but they were talking to these guys, the people who needed the money, like, oh, you come to my course and you know this and that. And it was just like, they know what they know, but they don't know how to get in the heads of the people who really need the money so that they could part with their money to come to their course. And so I would do a consulting engagement with them, change their language forever. I mean, just for five phone calls. And I just listened in and I consulted him and he was like, wow. And it's no different. So I do with words and rapport building and face to face and in group discussions what someone like a.

Dan Kennedy would do in copy, right? Or a John Carlton. You know, those guys are amazing. I could never sit down and write a sales letter like that. They could never sit in front of a board meeting for a Fortune 500 company and do what I do. It's just different skill set, but both language.

Now, do you have any examples of. Maybe even you can pull from past examples of kind of a languaging.

Change that you made or change in the structure of somebody's language that made a world of difference? Because I get what you're saying. I've studied language patterns and neuro linguistic programming all my life and things like this, so I understand the power of language. There may be somebody out there who is like, I don't really get it. What are you talking about?

Yeah, well, I'll actually use the example of the Honda versus the Ferrari, right? Like, what's the difference? You know? So if one of. If your listeners right now were to close their eyes. Go ahead, everybody close your eyes. Close. Okay. And I say the word Ferrari, right? There's an image in your head right now. Now, 95% of the audience. If we had an audience in front of us right now and they were to raise their hand, I'd say, how many people saw a red Ferrari? And 95% of the people would see a red Ferrari. Now, if I said, okay, Everybody close your eyes. Everybody close your eyes again. And I said Honda Accord.

90% of the audience, 95% would see a gray, blue, or black. Yeah, right. I mean, it's just the way it is. So there's these cultural things in our society that we just assume. And by the way, I would also say how many people saw a new Ferrari? And 95% of people would raise their hand. How many people saw a used Honda? And 95% of the people would raise their hand. It's predictable, right? So these are sociological things that are going on around us where if we understand how to use language powerfully. When I say the word Ferrari, there's a different emotion than if you say Honda. It's just two different ideas come up in your mind and come up in your. Throughout your body, there's a different feeling. And so, you know, it's Morton's Steakhouse or Ruth's Chris versus McDonald's. You know, they're both restaurants. They both serve food. What's the difference? Well, there's a feeling. There's a different feeling when you go to the one, you know, four wheels. A steering wheel burns gasoline. So does a Ferrari. There's no different. There's just in our culture. So within your own industry, just explore that. Like, what does it look like to be the leader in your industry? What kind of language would you have to use to make yourself be the Ferrari? Now, it's difficult. This is where, you know, hiring a coach or a consultant to come in and put that story together for you may be best, because the challenge is we are in our own way. Like, this is what I do for organizations. I come in and I help them instantly. I'm like, okay, first of all, we have to raise your prices. How do we raise your prices? We just have to ask for a higher price. And then we have to put language around it so it makes sense. So the picture we're painting in the minds of our clients or your clients, is the Ferrari. So they expect to pay more money. They want to pay more money. Like the guy who drives the Ferrari. Why does he drive the Ferrari? He wants you to know that he paid more money. Right. With Joe's group, the genius Network mastermind, it's 25k to get in the group. I told Joe, I said, it's too cheap. I charge 100k. 25k was seven years ago. Now it's time for the 100k group. And it's true, and Joe knows that, and Joe's getting ready to launch that group. So you know, it's just a matter of changing the perception and, you know, and when you're in Joe's group, guess who you get to meet? Arianna Huffington, Richard Branson, Freaking Dan Sullivan, Dean Grass. You get to meet all the top people. So it's just a matter of really painting the picture Now. I'm an artist when it comes to this. I'm really good at it. Not everyone is. Most people aren't so interesting. And what's interesting, Brad, is like, we all.

Often don't realize how good we are at what we do, right? Until we're like, wow, holy cow. Everywhere I go, the prices go up and the sales go up. Everything goes up. So that's the value I add in the organization. But really it's using a language powerfully to paint a picture that's so amazing that people can't say no and they're willing to cut the bigger check.

I love it, man. I think it's so. I think you're, you're spot on. I've always been a big believer in the power of language and, you know, watching what, whether it's self talk or the way you're talking to others. So, I mean, you got to convince yourself first that you're worth it and that you've got the confidence to pull it off. That's where self talk comes in. Then you got to convince the other person or like you said, compel the other person that this is the solution they need.

Whatever, whatever you're doing, just like anything, Brad, it's practice too. Like, you know, I didn't. I committed myself to becoming an expert in the skincare business. It wasn't right off the bat. You know, it took me a while not only to understand the, you know, the skin care psychology, but also the system, our system that we have, it just takes focus, just like anything and it takes action. You know, I'm looking here at my desk, I have a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger for one of his supplements because I think I might be doing business with him sometime in the future, who knows? We currently work with Ronnie Coleman, eight time Mr. Olympia. But I'm just thinking like, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mean, when he talks about the focus that he had to become Mr. Olympia to become the bodybuilder, to become the actor in Hollywood, to become a blockbuster actor and then become the governor, it's always about focus. So there's the idea of getting into it, focusing on it, becoming an expert on it, then wrapping the language around it that just empowers people to want to do business with you. Yep.

It's a process. I love it. So, Kevin, what if folks want to find out more about you? Because we're coming to the end of the hour here. Where should we tell people to go? Clicking around.

Yeah, they go to executivesalesource.com, you know, all one word. You can always find me on LinkedIn as well. Or, you know, brandedgenuitygroup.com as well. You know what you'll notice about those websites is that they're, you know, they're just sort of high level, somewhat vague. And it's because we're not looking to, you know, we're not Internet marketers from the standpoint that we're looking to participate with everyone and build a list.

You're not looking to close business off your website. I'm the same way. You know, when you go to. I've had so many people just say, you know, costanzomarketing.com which is just my general headquarter site. It's pretty basic. I'm like, yeah, because I'm not. I've closed the business way before you've ever gotten to my website. Chances are that's just a place to have something, you know, on there. But most of the business we get is through the relationships we fostered through multiple different avenues. And I think we'll continue to do so.

Well, think about that too, Brad, is once you have those relationships and once you've provided value, you be you create an ever flowing stream of new high level leads and relationships. That's the beautiful thing about it.

Oh, yeah. You know, Kevin, you should start your own podcast.

Yeah.

Thought about that.

I've thought about it, you know.

You know, have you thought maybe about doing it or, you know, we were talking offline about this. I'm gonna hold your feet to the fire, you know, and I say that because I think you've got a lot to add, a lot of value to bring to the table. And based upon the fun I've had doing it, I think you probably would too. The reason I kind of brought it up on the spot like that was, do you know Nick Unsworth?

I do. Nick. Cool. Nick just. I talked to Nick a couple weeks ago.

Nice. Yeah, so Nick interviewed me for his podcast, lifeonfire.com. if you go there, you can search and find my podcast where I kind of come up with the name of the, of the podcast. And it was one of these, you know, I'll get to it one of these days. You know, pretty soon. This is what I was saying off camera, and most podcasts that I've been interviewed for, it's, you know, we'll interview you and then they say it'll air in like two months. Because a lot of podcasters do these things way in advance and they're just kind of building up the queue. So I thought, you know, we got on that, we got on air. This was a video. And Nick said, so, dude, you got your own podcast. Where do they go to find it? And I threw out baconratbusiness.com that's where you can go to get it. I thought I had a two month lease time. And he goes, no, dude, you got like 10 days to get this thing out. I like that.

I like how you do that. Yeah.

So I was like, well, crap, I guess imperfect action beats perfect action any day. So I jumped on it. But that being said, I so enjoyed doing this because I get to connect with some of the people that I.

Consider.

Traditionally they would be out of reach because I may not have a relationship with them. But when you got your own show, you can reach out and say, listen, I'd love to interview you for my show. And it's a great way to build new relationships, but it's also kind of a cool way to reconnect with people like yourself. Buddies that I know have a lot of value to add. But a lot of times when we get on the phone, we'll shoot the. Shoot the S a little bit and then maybe not dive too deep in. And sometimes when we do, we're not recording it. We'll luckily write now we're recording it. Yeah, so. And I actually learned several new things from you and about you that I hadn't known before. So it's always, it's always fun to do.

So, Kevin, I really just want to thank you for being a guest on the show and on the program. And, you know, if you're listening to this still, as you should be, go check out Kevin's stuff@connectivesalesource.com, check him out at brandingenuity.com, stalk him on LinkedIn, send him topless pictures, and if you're a girl, you can do that too.

You've got a lot of value to add. If you're interested in joining Joe Polish's Genius network. I'm sure Kevin can give you all types of details on that. It's something I'd like to be in one of these days pretty soon, and then.

Only because I just totally value the masterminds and some of my best relationships have come out of the masterminds that I've done. That being said, if you've enjoyed the show, also leave a review on itunes. Really appreciate those reviews. I know itunes can make it a kind of a pain in the butt to do it, but I read every single one of them and you can always send me an email to ask. Bradaconratbusiness.com Tell me your hopes, secrets, fears. Tell me your bacon wrap business strategies, and if you'd like a second opinion, please let me know. Kevin, anything else you want to add before we sign off for the day and go take off our superhero costumes and relax for the rest of the day?

You know, just execute. You know, it's. There's no act. There's no. No money in thinking about it. Just go, execute. Take action.

That's good advice. All right, well, on behalf of everybody at bacon wrapped business.

That includes Kevin, myself, and all of our support staff, I appreciate each and every one of you. Till next time, if you got a problem, wrap it in bacon.

Sam.