Models That Matter: Simplify Sales, Conquer Complexity, and Delivery Value with Simon Bowen and Joe Polish - I Love Marketing Episode #461

Problem with being the hero or even claiming thought leadership is you have to sell on ego. I'm gonna rescue you. Right. And that makes your client a victim. So what's the level above hero? And Luke Skywalker had Yoda. Every hero has a sage, and the sage is often smaller and physically weaker, but they're full of wisdom. Business is an enormous responsibility, and I think the primary starting point of that responsibility is how well and how ethically and how transparently you sell. So I've been in this pursuit for how do we create a much more transparent sales process where people are making really informed. They're not prisoner clients, you know, they're hero clients. They've bought from you to do something bigger.

If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network event or want to learn more about Genius network, go to www.gienstruitnetwork.com.

I have a fascination.

With this idea that, you know, enterprise is the most powerful force for good on the planet when the right people are leading it. And that's a big caveat, right. The only reason a business should exist is to create some value. Yeah. And, you know, so I've had this thought for a long time about, you know, we are in a world today where business should be much more noble. And you can't scale the back end of a business until you can scale the sales. Like when we talk about scaling a business, you've got to scale the sales. Money spent on the back end is over capitalization until you figure out how to scale the selling. Right. And so selling should be a force for good, you know, like a surgeon has to. You know, in 2019, I injured my back badly in Mexico. It's not the right place to do it, right. I had a massive disc rupture, so I was in a wheelchair and everything else. Made it back to la, where my wife was, got back to Australia.

The doctor in Sydney saying, you need surgery today. It's gonna happen. Right? And if not, we don't know how much mobility you're gonna get back. I mean, this was the start of a two year recovery surgery, weeks in the spinal ward and all this sort of business. That surgeon had a job to pitch surgery to me, right. He's got a job to make a sale, right. And I live in Perth, so I gotta have this surgery before I fly across the country. And of course everyone's saying to me, oh, don't ever let anyone operate on your back and stuff. And the surgeon's going, you need surgery. And here's the thing.

All value lives in the ambiguity. There's no value in the thing that everybody knows about. The value is always in the ambiguity. So I'm gonna go to a weird place in a minute, right, with the surgeon. He says, you need surgery. I go, I don't want to get surgery. Like, what if I end up in a wheelchair? And then he gave me one line. That was the pitch. He said, simon, being in a wheelchair is not your biggest risk. And I went, it's not? What is? He said, permanent incontinence.

Ambiguity. Right? Who thinks of that? Right? He said, you can travel the world from a wheelchair just like you do right now. But, you know, if we don't get this sorted, all the nerves are going to die to the lower half of your body and then you've got bigger problems. And I went like, let's go.

Yeah, I mean, talk about an irresistible offer, I guess.

So sales for a doctor is actually the start of the healing process.

So business should be the most powerful force we've got on the planet. But we can only do that when we sell well, you know, and then there's a whole bunch of questions behind that. So people come to us for models and can we help them to sell and can we help them think through their business issues and leadership and structure and so on. But I think for me, the stuff that people probably don't really realize is at the heart of everything we do. Business is an enormous responsibility. And I think the primary starting point of that responsibility is how well and how ethically and how transparently you sell. So I've been in this pursuit for how do we create a much more transparent sales process where people are making really informed. They're not prisoner clients, you know, they're hero clients. They've bought from me to do something bigger. So I come from this small little town where, you know, you'd go down to the butchers and get meat and bring it home and once a month they'd send the account to your parents. No one ever handed money over the counter. It was all trust based, you know, to business globally. And the bigger question is, isn't that how business should be? So, I mean, there's lots of other things I could talk about, but for me, that's a really big driver. You know, what do we do to make business the most noble thing we do?

We. Well, and look, even the way you talk and I mean, it's clear that you have.

A lot of knowledge and a lot of doing the reps under your belt on how to present right so and you're very non threatening and you are very much, you come across. We're going to get into drawings. So this is cool. I got my iPad here. I'm so I actually want to learn from you about how you interact with this too. Even before the filming of this is interesting. You know, just think about the setup and stuff. So I've always, you know, really liked the, the whole concept of people love to be sold. They hate to be pressured. Right. So if you do selling in a certain way, it's enjoyable. You're helping lead someone to where they want to go. And I despise the unethical use of marketing and selling. I, I don't know how you would frame this but I will often say to, to people that are early on learning about, you know, marketing, they're like, they'll have, I don't want to do anything gimmicky, I don't want to do anything too hypey. And I'll say, well you know, hype used ethically is massive enthusiasm for what you're selling. Hype used unethically is lying, misleading, bullshitting, exaggerating, saying things that simply aren't true. And they're, you know, everything is, involves selling. Everything you do is either going to attract or it's going to repel. And so going back to your whole living in a small town.

People knew each other and when you're in a big open sea, a lot of people can get away with fleecing people. They can get away with sell crap in a box. They, they just find a new customer, client, patient, victim, whatever they want to call them and then they go on to the next one. So there are people that are, you know, in the transaction business and then there's people that are in the trans transformation business. Anything meaningful and good in the world, selling was involved like everything. So it's not the selling that's good or bad, it's the methodology, it's the, it's, it's the match to the person if it's a right fit client, that sort of thing. So all of that being said how.

Let me back up the person listening to this. There's people that are in service businesses, most of them are just entrepreneurs and founders. They're running their companies every day. Their ability to make a living has to do with their ability to go out and make sales and to acquire our clients. There are investors, I've some people that are, you know, running billion dollar companies, but most of them are just small business owners and they're just Looking for ways on how to most effectively present and package what it is they do. So when you go in to help someone, what are the obstacles that you often see that stand in the way for them? Getting the results? They, they have their business, they have their product, their services and they're just not, they're not effective at selling. What are the obstacles?

Well, I suspect you've heard this a lot of times too, right? I hate selling. Yep. Do you know, like, because selling's so foot in the door selling came from the door to door. Vacuum cleaners of salespeople of the 50s and 60s and they used to buy leather shoes where the sole of the shoe was wider than the foot of the shoe.

So they slammed the door.

So, yeah, put the foot in the door and then they slammed the door. They can't get the door closed. And you keep shouting your pitch through the door. Right. And it was an aggressive full contact, I'm just going to wear you down style of selling. Right. And then that evolved into pressure based selling. Gift of the gab. I'm just, I'm just going to, you know, I'm just going to conversationally manipulate you into saying yes. I'm going to get the triple yes pattern set up. I'm going to find, you know, I'm going to have 101 closes that I can, you know, pluck out and all this sort of business. And salespeople used to be.

The purveyors of information. So if you want to buy tv, you went to the shop and you talked to the salesperson, you said, so I wanna buy tv. And they kind of educated you about what you could have and what was available. Right. Well, that's gone because everybody comes to you now having researched a bunch of stuff, Right. But you're no longer a purveyor of information. You're a purveyor of realization. And there's a big difference. Right. And so for someone to realize that they don't just need this thing, but they need you, they have to connect to you in a way that is way deeper than will ever come from. Gift of the gab, foot in the door, 101 closes and that sort of thing, they have to connect with you at a profound level. And so what that actually means is that the business owner has to connect with what they're selling at a much more profound level. It's time to draw.

It's time to draw, if that's okay. Yeah. Now draw something. And then I'm gonna ask even how you came about the Whole drawing thing. But I wanna just have you demonstrate how you communicate.

Sure. So one of the things we've been. One of the things I spent a lot of time thinking about is if you think about, you know, a company might sell lots and lots of products, but there is some kind of company genius that sits behind all those products. There is a central thread of genius. So if you think about the Virgin brand of companies, right, they do all sorts of different things, credit cards, airlines, like a bunch of different stuff. Right. But there is a core genius that sits behind it that is common to all of them. And what is that genius? And so company genius usually starts with a whole. The founder or the originator of the idea of the thinking. Right. And there's three components to that. The first component is what is that person's philosophy.

About what they do and the people they serve and the competitors in the marketplace and everything else. I'll give you a classic example. I've worked for a lot of years with a company called Austal Ships in Australia. And they're currently a $51 billion company.

They're now a Navy ship builder. They're building a reasonable percentage of the US Navy fleet they build for navies all around the world. They're also the number one high speed ferry company in the world. And One of the four guys started it 30 years ago with $20,000 each, now worth 51 billion. And one of the original founder, the main guy, a guy called John Rothwell At 14 years of age, put an outboard motor on a bathtub and drove it into the shipping lanes. He's kind of obsessed with the ocean, right? But he has a fundamental belief that there should be no lives lost at sea. That's a philosophical view like that. No matter what happens to the superstructure of the vessel, the hull should protect people on board. Right? Now that drives a whole lot of stuff about how you go about doing what you do. And then there's the high story or the history. And these are the wins and lessons. So in life there's really three things. There's wins, losses and lessons. We get to make a choice about the last two. Do we interpret it as a loss or a lesson? Right. So what are the wins and lessons they found along the way? You know, they started out building aluminum recreational boats. Then they started building cray fishing boats. And then he was on a ferry in Hong Kong. It was rocking around everywhere. People were getting sick. He said, I could build you a better boat. They said, build one and if we like it, we'll buy 50. So they built one and then they bought 50. When the tsunami hit in 2000, the US Navy had a destroyer sitting off the coast of Indonesia ferrying stuff into shore. Cause the port was full of sunken boats. And one of hostel's ferries were sailing past with the brand on the side. And the captain of the US destroyer said, get me that boat. Because this thing could travel at 30 kilometers an hour, low draft. It was a catamaran, you know, it could carry 100 trucks and all this sort of business. And after they'd finished the work, he said, we could use something like that as a Navy warship. And they went, yeah, we could build you something like, it's like one of the winds and lessons and sort of have a go. And then the expertise.

What is the formal and informal knowledge that you've acquired? Right. So that comes from the founder, the who. So it's like a triangle, right? And the first side of the triangle is the who, the founder. Second side of the triangle is the what, which is the big idea that people gotta market with. And that always starts with context, which is, why does this thing even matter? And specifically why with you?

Like, what gives you the right to go and offer this, you know, who do you think you are Kind of thing? Right. Why. Why should you actually even matter to anyone that's looking to solve this problem? The why interesting thing about context is that is usually the first thing that leaves the sales conversation. And the moment context leaves a sales conversation, all value has left the sales conversation, which is super interesting. Yeah, People, you know, get into product specification so quickly and the context is gone kind of thing. And so values exited. Right.

And then the second thing is concept. So this usually is where we're starting to map out. Here's what this looks like, here's how we do it, blah, blah, blah, like the product spec or the, or the specification of service. And then the third part of the what, which sometimes people don't want to talk about as consequence. So does it work? Can you prove it? Have you got cases that show that it works? What happens if it doesn't work? What are you willing to do as a company when it didn't pan out? So, you know, I say to clients, you know, I think companies have to take. If you've taken money off somebody, you have a responsibility to say, we are all in until we get there. Yeah, we have your back. So if it takes longer than we thought, it's gonna take longer than we thought. But we took your money on the concept, Right. So we're all in until we get you. Cause we're meant to be able to get you there. That was the deal. Right. It's a bit like, if you think about. I'll come back to that. But if you think about. One of my favorite models is this futures model that says, if we're talking in the present moment, and let's say I'm selling it to somebody. And a lot of sales use false scarcity and urgency, like only now until the break finishes, or while stocks last. Sorry. Or while stuck last and that sort of thing. The only urgency that matters, and the only scarcity that matters is the customer's scarcity and urgency. So I might be selling to someone saying, you know, if we look at the present moment and we, you know, time.

Always wins. Time beats everybody. And so if you look down the track, 12, 24, 36 months, people say you can't predict the future, but we actually can. I know that in 12, 24, 36 months, you're either going to be in a green zone, where you're in an absolute ideal outcome in the context of this thing that you're struggling with, or you're going to be in a red zone where you're probably in crisis. And people think the pathway between where they are today and where they want to be is a straight line, but it's not. Time bends everything. Time compounds everything, good and bad. It doesn't care. And so if you drift, which is why that red line occurs, if you don't take action, if you don't make decisions, if you just drift, like if you don't clean your teeth, they're gonna fall out of your head, right? I can guarantee that, right?

Yes.

And it will accelerate as time goes on, Right. You'll be fine for 30 years, and then they'll just start falling out really, really fast. Because time compounds everything, but it also compounds the upside. And the only thing that drives that green line heading up is great decisions and action. The difference between ideal and crisis is the difference between drift and decision. Right. But the problem is people come to you. And if I was selling to somebody, I'd be saying, you've come to me because you feel like you're already down the track where the gap is huge between ideal and crisis. You're starting to feel some pain. That's why you've come to me. You know, you're on the red line. But right now, in this moment, we're as close to that green line as we're ever going to be. You can't be any Closer than you are right now. Now, in models, just kind of side note, the choreography of the model is as important as the model. I think the thing that I did, lots of people use models, but I think the thing that I did was I applied stage magic and comedy and the choreographic patterns to walking through a model for impact and lacing punchlines all the way through the model. So right now, you're as close as you're ever going to be as a punchline. And the idea of a punchline is there's been set up, set up, set up. And then bang, a paradigm shift in a heartbeat that they can't walk back. The moment I go right now, you're as close as you're ever going to be. You can't walk that back. Cat's out of the bag and you got a decision to make. Are you gonna jump onto that green line and stay there? And here's what I know. And I would draw a version of my genius model. If this is a company, I've got a framework that can put you on the green line and help you ride the curve. Cause no one falls off that line. They just behave their way off the line. And so we're gonna keep applying that to keep you on that green line as we go up the curve. And here's a really big kind of footnote for everybody. I can't guarantee the outcome. I can't guarantee that ideal outcome. The economy could go bust. There's a whole bunch of stuff, right? But I should be willing to guarantee the pathway.

Because I'm saying I can take people there. And it's interesting for people in business, particularly small business owners, right? When you want to put a guarantee on something, particularly if it's a complex sale, a product or a service or a physical product with something else attached or some complexity in it, you don't have to guarantee the end outcome, but you'd better guarantee the pathway. Cause all people want is a sense of certainty. And if you say, I've taken hundreds of people there before, and if you follow the pathway with me, as long as you don't behave your way off that green line, we'll get there. Yeah.

Well, let me ask you. So let's just make the assumption that.

In the perfect world, everybody is able to have a pathway that takes people to a bigger future, as you call it, the ideal here, that does help and benefit them. What do you do in situations, or have you been in situations where people have plopped down a good chunk of money to hire you and Your team to come and develop the models, help them, and you realize your pathway sucks. I mean, this is not. I mean, there's a lot of missing parts. I mean, because a lot of marketers and salespeople think marketing and selling solves everything. And I know a lot of people that can make a lot of money, but they have very bad reputations. They've screwed a lot of people, but their marketing and their presentation skills are enormous. So along the way, because before we started recording, and I'll bring you to this, we'll talk about it, is what it does for the teams, the alignment, because we were talking about that before we started recording. I'd love for you to talk about what comes out of this. Well, what I'm seeing here is.

This is great. This is a great model, right? You have an enormous ability to simplify complex things so people can understand them. And that's a real valuable skill for anyone. The question becomes, when do you match the. The ability to present this with the deliverable?

So here's the thing. If you're going to challenge somebody, right? And you know, I talk about having a fist in a velvet glove, right? If you're selling something to somebody who has a problem.

You can pretty much assume at some point you're going to have to slap them.

With love, right? So, you know, you're going to have to do it. You have to develop the ability to be able to slap someone and have them hug you and go, thanks so much for that, right? It's way easy to slap someone when you're drawing a model because they're looking at. It's not you slapping them, it's the model. We know this model is true, right? I'm, I'm, I'm going to host a whole lot of onboard masterminds in March for We're going to the Antarctic, right, with Peter Hillary, the son of Edmund Hillary. And he's got this, you know, he says, I've got a. There's this line called the experience line. You know, you can get people to move into action if you take them through an experience rather than just talk about it. And so part of the marketing for that, I've been doing some webinars where I'm saying to people, put aside all the agendas and all the labels. Like, forget labels like climate change and global warming and all that. Like, forget all of that stuff. Just put all the agendas aside. If there were two futures for the planet, a green one, where the planet is loved by the human species and is thriving and A red one where the planet's abused by the human species and is dying. What line do you think we're on? And 100% of people say the red one. Right, well, we should do something about that. So we're going to go to the Antarctic, we're going to get a bunch of, you know, about 100 really great thinkers together. And we want to do two things. We want to have great business masterminds. We're on board. And what if you got 100 great marketers and said, if climate change was the greatest product on the planet, how would you market it? You almost certainly wouldn't say, go and sit in the road and shut down London. You know, like the Stop Oil protests. You would say, like, we need to sell this thing. Right, right. But the moment you go, is the planet on the green line or the red line? Everyone goes, it's on the red line. And you've just slapped people like, put all agendas aside and all labels aside. What line are we on? It's really obvious. And we know it's obvious because the pandemic cleaned up the planet. Look how fast it healed. Clear skies over China, dolphins in the canals in Venice. Again, like the planet healed in two years of no movement of the human species with planes and things like that. So we know that we are creating a red line without any other science needed because we just stopped moving for two years and look what happened.

You know, this is so interesting too. So let me ask you from a real personal experience here, because like, so, for instance, you know rfk, who's an environmentalist, I love his take on oceans and plastics and just, you know, pollution and all that. Also, you know, he, whenever he's asked about climate change or what, because I think climate change and the people really pushing it, I know I became Richard Branson's largest fundraiser. So I mean, I've spent a lot of times, I mean, I've raised millions of dollars and a lot of it has gone climate related stuff. And there's so much of the climate thing that is a total grift. It is people pretending like they want to help the planet and they're actually worse than the people that they're attacking. They use it as an excuse. It's a grift, it is a veneering, freaking virtue signaling nonsense for a lot of it.

Like Alex Epstein, who wrote Fossil Futures, who I think knows more about energy than almost anyone that I've ever known. And so I've seen arguments on both sides of this. What do you do when you have someone that is so tied into their, like say they're, you know, full blown, you know, the planet, because the planet can defend itself, you know.

Correct.

Now when you go to the model, I mean, the way you framed it, it's great. I mean, whatever, whatever side you're on, you just gave a sort of perspective on doing it. What do you do when you run across someone who's like, okay, the climate change thing, it's a total hoax, it's total bs. And there's this, you know, it's just being used to exploit and you have that sort of. How would you use the model to explain to.

Yep. So if you think about this model.

You know, if you think about it in two parts, there's this first thing about need to jump onto the green line. Like right now, we're as close as we're going to be. We need to jump on the green line. Right. And the jumping onto the green line, and this is true in group coaching programs, it's true in almost all products. Honestly, to jump to the green line is almost always some kind of cleanup or reset or recalibration. So it still links to what you said before. When you know someone, really, they're not on the path at all, or they can't even get onto the path and you're gonna take them on as a client or whatever, how do you have that conversation with them? We would say to them that jump into the green line is gonna be a reset, a recalibration, or a cleanup. We need to find your mess and fix it. And because they already know they're on the red line, at some subconscious level question has to be, what's the mess you're hiding? Consciously or unconsciously. There's three levels of conversation in every conversation. The first one is the known conversation. This is the problem they know about and they know you know about it, and we can talk about it. There's the second level, which is the hidden conversation. It's the problem that they know about and you know about it, they just don't want to talk to you about it. And then there's the unknown conversation. You have an insight on it and they're not even aware that it's there. And that's the hardest one to open up. Right. And so you know, it's a prospective client who's not even close to ready to work with you. You might say, listen, in your circumstances, we need to find out if we're gonna be able to jump over that reset line when we get to It. And it's just the model doing the heavy lifting. It's not you making a judgment. You're just going, if you want to get onto the green line, clearly we've got to reset something. We've got to clean up. We've got to recalibrate. If it was the climate thing and someone's saying this whole climate stuff is bs, I'd go, so let me draw a model for you. Do you think we're on the red line or the green line? Like, once I get to the end of the choreography, I think we're on the green line. Really? Explain how the planet healed itself during COVID when we just stopped moving around. I mean, put all this science aside. I'm not even going to try and quote any scientific studies or anything else. What's your reason for how the sky's cleared over China and India? How the water's cleaned up globally? You know, when human impact on the planet significantly reduced? How do you explain that if you think we're already on the green line? And, you know, sometimes people say, oh, you know, there's this. They can hear it. They know that. They go, yeah, well, you know, like, it doesn't matter. We're still on the green line. Now you get to say, does that sound like a really intelligent response? Cause the model's doing heavy lifting, and.

I'm just sitting there thinking from the devil's advocate position, from, let's say. And again, because I'm really seeing, like, to what. Where does it break down and how do you address it? Because I know you've had these conversations a thousand to ten thousand times. I mean, you're the world's expert in this area, as far as I know, in terms of this method of presenting communication through drawings. So. So let's take the COVID example of the skies cleaned up. Well, then you say, well, okay, maybe the sky's cleaned up, but look at the damage to humanity that happened in the process. The oppression, the mandates, the generational psychic trauma.

At what point does. You know. So I'm still not sold that that is a thing. What would you do?

So then I might say, well, maybe there's a third line. This is this whole idea of choreography, right?

Yeah.

You hold back stuff until you need it. What if there was a line in the middle that was actually an amber line that's just going up and down from highs and lows? So we had good moments and we had bad moments.

Is that acceptable? And people are going, well, no, that's not acceptable. No. Because every Low moment is just one step away from the red line. And why can't we get from the high moments and get onto the green line? So let me ask you this question. Is the green line a reasonable goal to go after? Because when people are arguing a point, they're usually arguing. So there's this cartoon of a guy lying on the road and a car's about to run over him and the caption says, incumbent with a low self image. Bob takes a job as a speed bump. Right? And if you said to Bob, what do you do for a living? He'd say, I'm a speed bump. And he's describing his role at the task or activity level. Now, if I'm Bob's new team leader, clearly Bob's not engaged in his job. So I come along, you elevate the conversation by asking people, why Bob? Why would we have you lying on the road being a speed bump? And Bob goes, because I work in the traffic slowing process. Interesting, Bob. Now I've done this in conference rooms full of people. So then I say to the room, is a speed bump in a traffic slowing process valuable? Everybody goes, yes. I go, not on an autobahn in Europe. It's completely context dependent. So process and task has no inherent value. It's just stuff, right? So then I say, bob, why would we have a traffic slowing process? Now, for about 10 years, I facilitated the Road Safety Council in Western Australia. How? And that we had set a goal for zero harm by 2020. Every other state said, that's ridiculous. You can't hit a goal of zero. We're going, what other goal makes sense like a thousand deaths? Is that a good goal? That's nonsense, Right?

Yeah.

And the three big components of road safety is road design, vehicle design and driver behavior, right? And so you get to outcome.

So we run this process to get to an outcome. Safer drivers or better road design or better vehicle design. Now the proponents of each of those three will argue with each other over which one of them is more important, right? So then you say to Bob Wye, for what purpose do we want to have, you know, better road design? In this case, you're a speed bump. And there's this line that exists across here. Above the line is problem.

Below the line is solution. Above the line is what I call compelling self evident value. So I say, Bob, why do we want safer roads? And at that point, Bob will probably say to me, I don't know, you're the boss, you tell me. Because people peg out of the conversation about two levels above where they spend most of their thinking time. I say Bob, 100 metres up the road from where you're lying on the road, we've got a school bus pick up and drop off point and we have to protect kids lives.

You know when, you know when they're leaving school and coming to school at the start and the end of the day? You're not a speed bump Bob. Your job is to protect kids lives in a heartbeat. His whole view of his job just changed. So he might want to still take a sick day before he thinks he's protecting kids lives. If he's supposed to start at 8am and he wants to take a sick day, he just might not ring in until 9 o' clock when he knows he's protecting his lives. He still could take a sick day but he'll call in the night before. Right? And here's the thing about.

This is a hierarchy between abstraction.

And oops, sorry and specificity. And what happens is If I put 100 reasonable people in the room and say what should we do to protect children's lives? They'll say whatever it takes. None of them will say well whatever we can afford. They'll just say whatever it takes. But the moment I put 100 people in a room and start saying should we focus on road design, vehicle design or driver behaviour, they'll start to argue. People only ever argue about solutions, they don't argue about problems. And so if I want to talk to people about climate control, my question is going to be should we pursue the ideal line for planet health where humans and the planet coexist.

In a symbiotic way that does no harm to either? Should we pursue a green line pathway that offers coexistence without harm? And most reasonable people would say absolutely. Is it fair, is it reasonable for us to tolerate an amber line that you know, that harms and then doesn't. Harms and then doesn't. And is there anyone that would suggest that we should be okay with this red line where we're existing on the planet but you know, either humans or the planet have to be harmed for that to happen. Yeah.

You know it's so interesting as I sit and watch this because I have to kind of remove my personal biases and things that I feel that I know not, not at anywhere in expert level because I always seek out people that know more about stuff with me and I see more exploitation being done under the guise of environmentalists and save the planet. So I already have this built in bias of, of distrust and what I don't like about it. And I see it being very exploitative of people. And the people that seem to suffer the most of energy restriction are people that need it the most poverty stricken people to low poverty. And the ones that complain the most about it and are trying to act like the champions are many of the people that go and speak at three letter organizations that run the world and fly there in their private planes while simultaneously talking about we got to save the planet. And these are just the biggest con artists. And I'm like thinking, okay, so I could see them using this to get everyone to see, oh, we're going towards the red line while they're simultaneously just full of crap.

Yeah. So I mean, these are tools, models are tools. Right. And all tools. The ethic of any tool is attached to the person holding it, not to the tool. You know, I can put a scalpel in two different people's hands and one's gonna harm and one's gonna heal.

You've probably never seen my video of selling evil, have you? No, I don't think, oh, I did it. Oh, it's so funny because you're talking about. People would go into stores, they would talk about TVs and stuff. I use an example of a DVD player. Like if anyone types in is selling evil into Google or any search engine, there pops up a three minute and 50 second video that I was being filmed for. And I think it was 2010 and it was for a movie, a documentary, and this part never made it into the movie, it was B roll. And one of my team members happened to watch it at the time and he's like, this is really good. Click, uploaded it on YouTube and then it's became this video that's been used in universities to explain selling. And I give my favorite definition of selling, which I'll use this as a segue to ask you about, you know, what people want. You have a great model and I'd love to have you draw it. Where I say, my favorite definition of selling came from my friend Dan Sullivan. And I had asked Dan, you know, several years ago, you go, you know, what's your definition of selling? And he just said, getting someone intellectually engaged in a future result that's good for them and getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result. And then I go on to say, well, the key word is good for them because you can get someone intellectually and emotionally engaged in a future result that kills them, like cigarettes or like watch porn or eat crappy food or harm people. Or whatever. So in order to use selling in a way that's not evil, you want to help people get to a better future that's good for them. And then I say that everything that I say, you say, anyone says is designed to attract or repel. And you can use marketing. You can use it like a gun. You can use it for self defense, or you can use it to rob people, to harm people, to kill people. And so the key is to make that distinction. But I said that when you go to a store, and again, you gotta understand the time, it's funny, people watch it now, like, what the hell are you talking about? A DVD player? No one buys DVDs anymore. But at the time, people, I mean, they still sell DVDs, like Best Buy and stuff. But in 2010, like, you know, we've still not made that transition. Right. And so what I say is, you know, salespeople are the biggest educational force on the planet. Where do you learn most things about financial services and financial instruments or about anything? There's a salesperson who's incentivized that does the education. So now the world has shifted, of course, in a lot of ways. And so what was you said earlier? I actually wrote it down on my iPad. You said, you know, we're purveyors of realization, right?

Yeah.

And so, you know, the funny thing is I used the DVD player. I said I would never go and read a manual on how a DVD player worked. How did I learn? There's a salesperson that I was in some store that showed me this stuff. So what has changed today? Because when you said when you were growing up, everyone trusted each other. You go to the butcher now. Today, a lot of people shop and they never have any interaction with anyone. This is all, you know, socialization, I think, has become really damaged, you know, so again, to go back to the COVID example for clearing the skies, oh, my God, think about the isolation and the loneliness and the depression and the suicide. So whenever you build a plane, you create a plane. You create a plane crash. That quote from, I think, the 1800s, you build a ship, you've created shipwrecks, Right?

Yeah. And. And nothing, nothing, nothing gets created without consequence. Right. Cause and effect. Right. So I would add to Dan. To Dan's definition, you know, selling is the process of, you know, intellectually converting someone to an idea that is good for them. You know, maybe it's also valid to say that is good for them at us, at is good for their soul. Yeah. There needs to be an Internal qualifier. Right. So I don't. And take.

You know, climate change, which is just this thing I'm working on for March, to help out. But I don't think we should be pursuing a green line at the cost of humanity. But we need to find the line that works where we operate together. Right. And I think some of the things that have really shifted in sales and selling and transparency is a really, really big deal. We're living in a world now. People used to buy products and services. Right. And.

You know, if you think about it, when I was growing up, you know, I Left School in 1978, you bought products you kind of didn't buy from personalities.

My world was not occupied by influencers and thought leaders, quote unquote, which I think is the most commoditized term on the planet right now today, Thought leader. I am actively telling people, stop calling yourself a thought leader.

I love hearing you say that because I say any idiot can come up with a thought result. Leaders I like way better than thought leaders.

Well, I've actually got a whole model and I'm kind of in the interest of time, maybe I don't need to walk through the model. But if you think about four levels, right. The world of marketing, once upon a time said, just turn your thing into a product, great. But you become a vendor and you're gonna be price based. So then in order to kind of get premium, people said, oh, authority based marketing. Right. Content. Become a thought leader. To be a thought leader, you need two things. You need an original thought and you need followers. If you're missing either of those, you're not a thought leader. So if You've got a LinkedIn post with two people looking at it calling yourself a thought leader, like, forget it. Right. And it's because those people exist. Thought leaders are commoditized term. Yeah. So the next level up is you become a hero to your client and your client goes, okay, I come to you for strength. Right.

And that's valid. But if you're gonna sell from thought leadership or being the hero, you've gotta sell on ego. I'm a thought leader. I'm a hero. So in the late 70s when I left school, no one sold on ego. They sold on product and company reputation. And it was all of that quite pressure based, you know, insurance salesperson style thing. And.

You know, so as time went on, we've kind of moved into this world where people know a lot about the thing they're buying. They do want to find out more. But there's two Things that everybody's buying and we're all actually selling the same thing. Everybody wants to win in the context of the problem they're trying to solve. Like, no one wants to buy average, hey, I wanna buy a new car. Do you have an average car to sell me? That's nonsense, right? Like, I wanna get help with my business. Do you have an average solution to help me? I just wanna scale averagely. No, everyone wants to win. They don't wanna admit it, but they actually wanna hang around with their buddies, go, I got the best business out of all of us.

Totally, yeah.

But the second thing everybody wants to buy is they wanna be made safe. And I call that buyer safety, right? And I've got a whole model around buyer safety. The five stages of buyer safety in the marketing, a sales funnel, right? You've got to offer five levels of safety and in a sequence as you move through. But the thing is, people actually don't want to have to be safe. So people want to smoke and drink and not wear personal protective equipment in industrial environments. They want to drive fast and do stupid things. They don't actually want to be safe, but they want someone or something else to make them safe. And so they want the government to make them safe. I want somebody else to solve the climate problem so that I'm okay, but I don't want to have to do anything, right? Or I want somebody else to regulate or promise me something that's going to make me safe, right? And so a big challenge for business today is the two things you're selling is I'm going to help you win and I'm going to make you safe. You know, if you buy from us, we can guarantee you that Green Line because we've walked hundreds if not thousands of people along there. We know the gates to go through. And the only thing that's gonna take you off that line is if you behave your way off the line. And if you do, I'm gonna call you and go, you're not behaving on a Green Line way. And then you'll make a choice. And if you don't wanna get back on the Green line, we're probably not gonna hang out together anymore, right? Or if you jump to the Green Line, and I don't see the first movements, I'm probably gonna say, I don't think you're a Green Line client. And the model once again does the heavy lifting because everyone actually knows that model is true. If you clean your teeth, you're on the Green line. Great teeth to the end of life. If you don't, they fall out of your head. It's just that simple. Don't maintain your car. It's gonna break down. Maintain your car, It'll last for years. And so we're constantly moving through that tension. And so if I actually, you know. But the level above hero, there's an interesting level above hero. If I can just close that loop, then I'm gonna come back to company genius. Okay? The problem with being the hero or even claiming thought leadership is you have to sell on ego. I'm gonna rescue you, right? And that makes your client a victim. So what's the level above hero? And Luke Skywalker had Yoda. Every hero has a sage, and the sage is often smaller and physically weaker, but they're full of wisdom. And so Yoda said to Luke, pick up your lightsaber and come at me. Now, I'm not a Star wars fan, but I remember this scene. And Luke picked up his lightsaber, and Yoda had his lightsaber. And he's kind of batting Luke away a bit. And Luke's going, but, master, I'll hurt you. And Yoda goes, no, no, just come at me. And he flicks Luke's lightsaber away a few times, and eventually Luke gets angry, and he's coming at him full bore. And Yoda just shuts his eyes with the lightsaber and flicks it away. And Luke goes, I don't understand what happened. He goes, it's the force Luke the hero has. The sage has three qualities, and I would challenge everybody to market and think about this as they market. The sage has this profound genius behind what they do. And I'll circle back to that company genius model and finish it in a minute. They have a level of wisdom that the client knows that they're experiencing that they haven't experienced elsewhere. They have a way of talking about it and thinking about it that they're not hearing from other people. So they have profound genius. The sage has what I call powerful calm. When they come into the presence of this sage. So this is someone speaking from stage or one to one. Now, this is not about no hype. It's about the right energy, because you can have calming energy just as much as you can have hyping energy. And they both have their place, right? But the sage has this powerful calm. People come into their presence. They just go, I just need to hear you talk. Like, the sound of your voice, what you're talking about, just the things you say, they just make me feel Safe, you know, and I know what you're talking about is going to let me win.

And then they have the ability of what I call practical simplicity. They can package the most complex things into little parcels of clarity, which I call models. I mean, if the two most important systems in a business are the system for thinking. So every business is only as good as the idea on which it's built and the quality of the thinking of the leaders in the business and then the ability to influence people. So the system for thinking and influence, to influence staff to work hard, customers to buy from you, regulators to let you operate, suppliers to serve you and so on, banks to lend you money, investors to invest. You get those two systems right, just about everything else works out right. And so I went on the search for is there a system for thinking and influence? And then I realized it's these visual models that I draw. Because the first thing the models do is extract much deeper thinking and conversation about things. Just like this silly little model with a red and a green line has extracted out of us around climate change and a whole bunch of other stuff.

They are frameworks for thinking that allow you to go deeper and deeper and deeper. I mean, as a, for my inner circle client group, I take a business book every month and I summarize it into a model. Even if it didn't have a model in the book, it just takes the book to a deeper level. So the models first of all stimulate this internal aligned depth of thinking and discernment and consideration because it forces you to kind of, well, what happens if you really go up that path? And then it leaves behind this artifact for influence that summarises all of the thinking that went into it. I used to get hired by the government. They say we're going to put 200 people in the room that are at war with each other over an issue. But they universally, they're unified in their hatred for us.

And you've got two hours to get them to agree on this thing. And I have a reputation for doing that. But I realized.

Magical things happen at the three quarter mark. So I used to do ultra distance running until my knees blow out like 100 kilometer runs and stuff like that. And most people fall out of the 42k marathon at 32k. Most people fall out of the 88k. Comrades in South Africa at 63k. You know the performance curve is the 8020 curve, right? Everyone says only do the 20%, that gives you 80% of the result. That's a denial that the 80% was building foundation, you can't just turn up for the Olympic Games for the last 20% and win the gold medal. My nephew's a two time Paralympian. You gotta do the four years of training that is the 80% just to get to go. So the way most people talk about the 8020 rule is fundamentally wrong. You've got to do the foundational work of the 80% to get the exponential lift that occurs in the 20%. That tipping point is the three quarter mark. So most people step out at about the three quarter mark because they've just spent 80% of their time doing the work that's gonna give them the uplift. In the last 20%, someone else comes in, picks up a business, let's say that someone sold, it's poised right on the exponential part of the curve and away they go, right? And they look like heroes.

And I love the way you explain that too. Cause I mean, I've actually seen you talk about foundation and acceleration. And what's funny is for years, I mean, I started Genius Network in 2007 and prior to that I had my first coaching group I started in 1998. So I've been at it for a while and I've looked at the three year framework, first year foundation, second year growth, third year acceleration. And a lot of people come in with the expectation that I want to fly into flying and they just don't. And so I think in what you just said, the way most people use the.

8020 model is fundamentally wrong. So.

There'S a lot of things that are fundamentally wrong. And I think what you have brought, what you bring to the table is, I mean, most people suck at marketing. I mean, you're talking about hate. I Love Marketing. My I Love Marketing podcast. Right. Which this interview will go on. I originally started that when I bought the website, when I registered the website. I Hate marketing. And I actually bought I Love Marketing because someone already owned it, but they were not doing anything with the name. And I turned it into the podcast. But my original thinking was how many people hate marketing? Not because marketing's good or bad, it could be either, as you explained. It's just they don't know how to use it. They don't know. So I think a lot of the resistance to explaining anything is we just don't know how to explain it.

Correct.

And I mean, and as I'm going through this, it's interesting how much this evokes in me and how much conversation I want to have with you after just with what you started Here. But the beauty of that is you get people into it really quickly. You make the distinctions, you show people how to have AHAs. And ultimately, for me, I only want to accelerate things that I truly feel are going to expand humanity, not contract it. My number one, even with all my marketing skills, my main thing is I want to change the global conversation about how people view and treat addicts with compassion instead of judgment, and find the best forms of treatment that have efficacy and share it with the world. And I need to have a business and means and mechanisms and money in order to do the things there.

That.

And I want to utilize your model for explaining how complex addiction is. Yeah, like addiction, I think, is one of the greatest global problems on the planet. And it's very, it's complex. It's very hard to explain. And so, you know, as much as I, you know, I'll just tell you the. As much as my agenda that I have here of learning about marketing and sharing it with people, there's things that I think are really damn important for me and that I want to share with the world that I want to get out there. And a lot of them have nothing to do with money motivation. As a matter of fact, I spend money in order to spend as much time as I do away from business because, for one, it helps me. It helps me in my own recovery. I think it really matters. And so.

I see incredible significance in what it is that you have learned how to do and how you explain it. So let's go back to the genius model and then I'd like to leave people with what else can they do in order to get good at this, to actually start doing this.

So I think, and just as a footnote to what you're saying, I think what makes business great is business only works when you contribute. And I'm probably going to step into a hint of personal views here, but the reason businesses can do things that government and charity can't is charity is not self sustaining. You need a profitable position to be self sustaining and then serve a purpose. You need both those things. Right. Charities are often not profitable, and so they're always looking for handouts. And then government's often all about control, not contribution. And control is not a pathway to a solution. Right. And so, you know, this, this idea that, you know, we, we should be able to have these conversations that allow people to, you know, look at, you know, you want people to be able to look at you and go, he, he has this sage, like presence around him. You know, he's Got this profound genius around what he's talking around through in terms of addictions and things like that. But pack, you know, packaging this practical, simplistic way so that we can all understand it and we feel safer hearing him talk about it. It's stepping to that position of sage. And so the genius model became a critical part of that. And so I stepped into this futures model and I do, you know, I love, you know, sell people their future, not your features.

Right.

Always future pace. Right. But I started talking about the. The futures model when I started talking about consequence. You need to be able to show people the future. Right? And then the other part of this, that.

Is the how. And so this is delivery. And I just want to finish this and then get into conversations around, for example, genius model and some of the sales models. And I actually want to give people just a real quick model that they could be thinking through right now. Right. And it will change some things, but the how in today's world, and here's kind of how, part of the way people are buying today and selling is today more than ever, people want. They want to win. They want you to make them safe, but they also want speed and ease and leverage. So they want a massive return on their investment, and they want it to happen right now without any effort from me. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So can you give me that? Right. And so what happens is a lot of companies.

Context disappears from the conversation, and a lot of companies end up marketing on the concept, the consequence, and then these three things. And then we're in this world where people are obsessed with the business owner, stepping away from the business. And like, how can you take yourself out of the business? Well, it's interesting to me that.

Branson is still so involved, and he's clearly the face of the brand. Right. And, you know, I've been fortunate enough to be able to have some conversations directly with him about this. And why is he still involved? He said, because, you know, people are buying me. He's real clear. Right? So you think about what if you stepped away from the business and all of Joe Polish's philosophies and history and everything else, away from the, you know, from helping people with addiction and get it, the moment you step away, the what and the how just becomes another commoditized company.

The point of differentiation is almost always at the point of origin. And so what we're trying to do, you know, when we think about. When we think about this. So there were six primary frameworks that I leant on.

When I built the genius model. And I started building it on a gold mine in Papua New guinea where we had to get the people to behave safely when they didn't even speak proper English and didn't read work procedures and things. And, you know, when they go home to their villages, they're actually at war with each other on a gold mine. We want them to work together safely with really dangerous stuff. Right. So I was using chaos theory. And chaos theory is all about the self organizing system. Right. There's always a self organizing system if you can find it. So I started using Chaos theory, then I started using Jim Collins hedgehog concept. Chaos theory and the hedgehog concept are both Venn diagrams. And there's some core themes around that.

It's usually, and I will say to anyone listening to this, that on your YouTube channel, you have a great model that I think you spent six minutes on it on expl. The hedgehog theory better than I've ever seen anywhere else. So, you know, people have heard that concept from Jim Collins for years. But you, you take concepts and you visually communicate them, which is.

Yeah, well, when you look at the hedgehog concept, there's no explanation of the overlap between the circles, which really just between you and me and everyone else listening to the podcast makes it a triangle, not a Venn diagram.

Right, right.

That's another story altogether. Right. And met with no offense. Right.

But.

So you know, the hedgehog concept, chaos theory, then I got deep into Daniel Kahneman's fast brain, slow brain, behavioral economics. I lent in on Simon Sinek's golden circles. You know, he makes his comment, people don't care what you do until they know why you do it. I think a more accurate description is people don't care what you do until they know that they are the reason why you do it. And those two, they're wildly different kind of perspectives. But the three circles, I started using those three circles to think, to sell. Could I turn them into a sales model? And they worked. But I needed more distinction between the circles, which is when I started to lean into these nine accelerators around the outside. And those nine accelerators is where I really started. These become. So if you start, if you think about.

The center of the model is all about the outcomes and what happens for the client. And it's at the heart of everything you do. So much of what we sell is, here's our process.

For what we sell. And by the way, we're going to pop you on the end and sell to you at the end, whereas we put everything about the context for the client in the middle of the model. So the context is never going to leave this conversation. And then we're going to talk about, you know, the concepts, you know that, you know, what we really do to pull this together. And then these nine things become the bridge into reality. This is where the rubber hits the road. These are the things that we're. This is where we make it happen. These are the things that we do. And all of a sudden, so what happens is like, I started life in electronics, right? Most things. Everything in this room was a thought in somebody's head. And then its first metaphysical iteration in the real world was as a drawing on paper. Almost everything anyone's ever thought of entered the physical world as a drawing on paper. You can't go to an architect and go, I've got a great idea for a house. Build it for me. The architect's going, I've got to draw a plan, right? In the electronics world, I used to design and diagnose electronic circuitry, you have to draw a circuit diagram first because you can't see electrons move. So it's a vague concept. And you draw a blueprint for the brain that sits between the thought and reality. So if you talk about addiction, you end up with a blueprint for their brains that sits between what you know and their reality. So they can go, oh, well, that plan that, that. That model looks like it would work, right? And so this is actually a how model.

And, you know, if we think about five emotional movements in a sales process, first one's curiosity. Who could help me with this? You know, we've got models that make people look more interesting, more curious. So if I know you could help me with this? The next emotional movement is.

Tension, right? Why do I need to do this? Why do I need to do it now? Why do I need to do it with you? We have a model for that that positions you at that sage, like, level that I'm hearing different stuff from you than I heard from anybody else. And it's challenged me, and I want to get there. Which then leads to desire. Well, what is this? What does it look like? And we use an iceberg for that. And I want to step through that so people could think about how they could do this for their own business before we finish. Once people go, well, I want that, but I want it at the deeper level that you're talking about it, right? I don't want it at this superficial. I want it at the level of the unknown conversation that I spoke about before that I Never would have thought about until you just showed it to me. The next logical question is confidence. Well, how does that work? Let me show you my framework. Great. Well then the last emotional movement is commitment. Well, when should I do it? Have you thought about the future and you've seen that model? Today would be a good day because the only urgency that matters is yours. How long do you want to wait? Those lines are just getting further apart. So why don't we talk about what it would look like if we were to do it today? And it's such a non threatening, safe way of selling because buyer safety says the customer should feel safer with you at every step of the way than they would with any other alternative.

Yeah, I always feel like, yeah, establishing trust. I write about this in my book. Trust is rapport is trust with comfort. So as you're going along, people feel more comfortable. More comfortable. More comfortable. You mentioned tension and there's a lot clearly where you certainly evoke disturbed by inaction. I mean, I'd say that's probably what you want to have happen in any sales situation because if they don't feel disturbed, if they don't have your thing, there's no incentive for them to buy your thing. So do you believe beyond selling feelings? Because I've had lots of conversations with different people about this. People are buying a feeling if they're buying, you know, a $10,000 Rolex versus an Apple Watch versus a Timex. You know, one's buying a watch, the other's buying what the watch and all the other things. It's not even really a watch. It's as an excuse to have, you know, a computer attached to your wrist and all the other music and things you can do with it. Then there's status, you know, and then there's things like Louis Vuitton, you know, I remember having a conversation with, with Richard Branson and we were, me and him were just literally on a boat, just went a sailboat, me and him together. And I've interviewed, hours of interviews with him because I've spent six weeks on Necker island over the years. And you know, he was saying, we were talking about the biggest brands and he said, you know, Virgin is a well known brand, but we're not the biggest brand. He said, you know, what do you think the biggest brand is? And I'm like, I don't know. I said probably Coca Cola and they sell Liquid Satan. So, you know, but they're well known. And it's funny that, you know, the biggest brand in the world Came from cocaine because it used to be cocaine Cola. The first four letters, that's where Coca Cola originated from. But then he's like, well, he goes, I think Apple, Richard said, I think Apple's the most respected brand right now. And this is several years ago. But, you know, you take. What are they buying? Are they buying a feeling? Although there's products and services attached to these brands, there's also feelings. There's things that are tangible, like, I need a coat hanger. You know, you're not really buying an emotional feeling. You need a coat hanger. You know, I need a banana. Right. Well, you know, I'm hungry. So what are people. What are people buying?

It's interesting this. This kind of, you know, a really useful model. You know.

We could go for 10 hours, but we'll just touch on this. This might be.

I've got a model that I call the cost of an action model, which there's a different thing I want to walk through now. But, you know, it's getting people to think about, like, there's a really interesting question you can ask in the sales process. People say, how much is that? You go, $20,000. And they go, that seems quite expensive. And then if you say to them, what's more important to you, price or cost? It creates a mental fissure. They're going, what do you mean, price or cost? And then the model steps through, well, is $20,000 expensive to you just as a price? And they go, for sure. Great. And I've got a way of drawing through this. And I go, but if that $20,000 gives you $100,000 return, and it's the cost of getting $100,000 return, you know, is that a better spend? And they go, for sure. I go, great, but there's another cost, isn't it? And they go, what is that? And I go, it's the cost of inaction, which is $100,000. So what cost are you more prepared to spend? 20 or 100. And then when you draw it out, it can't be ignored. Right. So there's just. You're constantly with these models, trying to challenge people's paradigms.

Well, and you said it right there, you know, when you draw it out, it can't be ignored.

Yeah.

And I think that's the so much.

Because we're dealing in a digital world, and increasingly. I mean, it's another part of what's changed about the way people buy. We're dealing in an increasingly digital world. Right. But humans are still analog. Cause they have A range of emotion. You and I remember when, if you went to a holiday home and there was a big sporting match on or something, someone had to stand over the TV with the bunny ear antenna and get into a weird position to try and get the picture and just stay there so everybody else could watch it.

Right.

We had grayscale. Right. We had shadow. Today it's blue screen or a picture on or off. Right. So you're on stage, present, and I draw all the time. Because when you draw, you draw people in. Because it's an analog process and humans are fundamentally analogous. You stand on stage at a conference and click through a PowerPoint. It's click, click, click. And humans need time. No one is walking through your thought process at the speed that you are. If you're the sage. No one. And so you, you know, when you're clicking through with PowerPoint and things like that, or you're putting people into a digital funnel, you're assuming they're consuming it at the same speed that you thought of it, and they never are.

Yeah, no, you're right.

And so, you know, I can overlay the digital sine wave and the analog sine wave and the gaps between what we're trying to close out when we're marketing and selling. So I draw because it slows everything down and lets people follow the drawing. That's why, you know, the explainer videos on whiteboards work so well because they're analog.

What's funny, like, is my selling evil video. Here's what's so funny. When I was talking about that, so I recorded that, they uploaded me just talking. And then the draw shop, which are one of my genius network members, they actually whiteboard animated just me talking. And that's the video that everyone watches because it shows the drawing.

Because humans are analog. Yeah, we're still. We're trying to sell to analog beings in a digital world, and we're trying to force them into a digital buying pathway that they're just never gonna be comfortable with until we become digital. If, if ever.

Let me say this then, because, God, there's so much more we can go with this. But I want. Yeah, well, like, I'd love to have you explain how people can use it. And then we'll wrap. And then maybe in the future, depending on the comments we get, we'll maybe we'll do a part two of this. And you're here for, you know, my 100k group this week, which would be great. So I know you're going to probably blow people away. With what you know there. So the. The thing. So we've been doing these AI workshops, teaching people just how to use AI for Genius Network. Now, I'm not an AI expert, but I have a couple of people that are. And I have some Genius Network members that are amazing. And as far as, you know, it's funny. Genius Network, I don't want it to be known for me. I want it to be known for the people in the group. And it's interesting to hear what you said about that.

Because I've heard you talk about.

Almost every successful company has a spokesperson. There's someone there. And so right now, I couldn't at this moment, piece together the tech in order to do it. But my AI guys have. Where they can literally talk and piece together tech and just talk, and it would draw things and it would do it. And what I think is dangerous about that is there's a certain element where I think people are going to. When everything is not done by them anymore. I think there's this context and this wisdom and this understanding that you talk about that they're not going to get to that level if they don't do it. If you don't physically go through and actually do it, and if you have no tech around you. I remember sitting with Dan Sullivan in an airplane, and there was someone who. Their battery went out on their phone, and he pulls out his book. He goes, yeah, the battery's not going to go out of my book. And it was just kind of a funny moment. But it goes to. I think when you're on stage, if you can draw, you're golden. You don't need anything else. And you're more compelling, and it's human. And I think, I don't want anyone to miss that because I can see someone listening to this going, oh, we can do this with AI, I can just talk to something, and I can use 11 labs to mirror my voice, and I can put all these texts together, and then I can use midjourney to do stuff, and I can make it look all pretty. And it's a like, no, nothing about what you're doing is complex or complicated.

Yeah. And, you know, if I go and speak. So I'm speaking at a conference and go, what do you need? I go, I just need a HDMI cable. They go, right, well, what about your slides? I go, I don't use slides. We need your slide deck before. I'm going to make it up as I go. Like, there's a lot that happens in someone's mind when they see you building it live, it's magician stuff, right? You're working from a blank sheet of paper. That means you seriously know your stuff.

Yeah.

And you're doing this in front of the room live. And it's analog and they can connect to it. And if the tech goes out, I go get me a flip chart, right? Or I've. For years, I sold this way. Like, I drew models and I assumed everybody did it. I carried a sketchpad, not a notebook. And I'd draw in front of clients and they'd go, could I get a copy of that? And I'd take a photo with my phone. I used to carry the old. Remember when we had digital cameras? They weren't a phone. I go, I'll take a photo. And you can tear out the pages and give it to them. Because they were usually going back to a corporation to make the sale. And I'd say, you know what, take them back. Show the models to people. But if you want, I'll come and run a three hour project planning session with you. I'll get you to a project plan, working through those models. Whether we work together or not, at least you'll have a project plan. How much of that do you think I closed? You know, because I got to turn this person into a salesperson. It was such a soft, easy process. I've sold millions of dollars worth of stuff on napkins and things, Right. But it's magical because you're just drawing. So the AI thing is super interesting. I have this whole conversation I have with people about what is above the AI line and what is below the AI line. So every technology I view as a line and what the line does is elevate the level at which human labor becomes worth zero. And so, you know, once we could. Once we had robots that could lay the bricks for a house in three days, bricklaying became worth zero. Right?

So what the AI line done is shifted the line to the point where, you know, Seth's got it. Seth has a great comment about AI commoditized mediocrity. Like, if you're a mediocre copywriter, you are cooked.

Totally, completely.

If you're a mediocre contracts lawyer, you're cooked.

Exactly, exactly.

However, you know, so what is below the AI line is concept and construct and content. And it can do a bunch of this stuff. But what is above the AI line is conscience. Is this good? Like, is this a good thing for people and for the planet? Is context, at least in the short term, AI doesn't Have context. I'll give you a great example. I mean, like everybody else, we're in the process of building, you know, a large language model on my staff so that our clients can use it. But a client will ask me a question. I know you do this, you know, Dan will do. Everybody that's great at what they do will say to somebody, it's not the right question. Right, Is it? And the person who's asked the question is going, well, what's the right question? The large language models don't have the ability to do that yet. You know, like someone can ask it a question and they're going to get an answer. Because the large language model doesn't care. It just wants to give an answer. When the sage would have said, I don't think that's the right question, and would have challenged contextually. Right. So AI at the moment doesn't do context. AI at the moment doesn't have compassion or care, and it actually doesn't have consequence. It's humans that'll get sued, not AI. And it's humans that will celebrate success, not AI. So right now, as we sit there, people don't and won't be made to feel safe or feel like they can win through an AI generated video or an AI generated bit of copy that's been written for them. I think what might happen in the short term is people become increasingly suspicious of. Is that really a video of Joe talking about such and such?

Absolutely. And that's why I really think even the real human, even in person, like, you know.

I'm seeing more of a deeper sort of interest in getting together in person now, because now so much, we're becoming more suspect by the second in the world. Because what's real anymore?

Yeah, that's right. So if you're at that sage level, right. Profound genius. People just know it when they hear you. This powerful calm, this enormous calming effect, and then this practical simplicity, the ability to take complexity and lay out in a way that people can just get it as a blueprint for the brain and move on. I think it's going to become a superpower. I actually think that I've been talking a lot recently with people about what do you need to do to retain what is uniquely human in the company, in the business, in an increasingly AI driven world? So it's actually back to that founder stuff. The source of origin. What's the philosophy behind this? What's the history that's driving it? What's the real expertise that saw this context that could be addressed the rest could all be created. Concept, consequences, speed, ease, leverage could all be created by AI, but the left hand side of that triangle of company genius. So what I think one of the challenges people need to think through in their business, particularly smaller businesses, is.

Do the heavy lifting of the deeper thinking inside your business about why you should even deserve to get to sell what you sell. That is a tough question, but people should be asking themselves, why do you even deserve to get to sell what you sell? And profit is not a good enough reason.

Why do you deserve to have someone buy you ahead of everything else? And you'd better find an answer to that question. One of the things that we know the models will do, particularly the genius model, we've yet to work with a company where we've unpacked their genius model.

And not have the company say.

Oh my goodness, there's so much more to this than we'd even realized. And it brings this powerful internal alignment across the whole. It changes the entire way they speak about, think about and do business. But I think that depth of thinking is gonna be demanded of us in an increasingly AI driven world that's gonna commoditize all the shallow levels of thinking, which kind of steps us into a model. I don't even know where we're at time wise on this. No.

I'd love to leave a model for people.

Yeah, absolutely. Leave a model.

Everybody could do something, then we'll. And I can do it in two ways. Right. So.

I'd love to go back to what you're talking about in terms of a, you know, a Cartier watch and things like that. I have a cousin who's a non surgical dermal therapist. She treats acne. She's one of the best using, you know, kind of laser therapy and things like that. And she's one of the best in Australia, voted best non surgical dermatological therapist in the country 10 years in a row by her peers. So someone will come to you and say, can you help me? Can you treat my acne? And I've told her to say, sure I can. It's a little bit like an iceberg.

I can treat your acne. And it's going to cost $360 a treatment. You're going to need five of them. Like who leads with price? And they go, oh, I've seen people online advertising this for $90 a treatment. And she says, I know you have. And that is such a shallow conversation. We could stay shallow or we could go deep. What would you like to do? So what I'D love everybody to notice is how much challenge is in these models all the way through that you get away with because you're drawing it. But if you just said, oh, well, that's acne, that's a shallow kind of conversation. If you weren't drawing it, that would be insulting. But you go, do you want to stay shallow? You know, do you want to. We can stay shallow. We could go deep. What would you like to do? No one's going to go, I'm a really kind of superficial sort of person, so let's stay shallow. They're all going to go, no, I want to go deep. And she goes, of course. Well, I have a 100% cleanup rate on acne. I use all the same equipment as everybody else, but it's how I put it together that gives me this really phenomenal strike rate. It's going to happen fast, and I'm going to give you perfect skin. How does that sound to you? And they go, wow. And she literally writes it on there. And she goes, I know, right? But wow's a narcotic. It's a drug. You give someone, wow, they're gonna need a bigger hit later on. So I'm more interested on what this would mean to you if that happened. And at that point, everyone burst into tears, and they say, I'd find a partner. I'd go on a trip of a lifetime. I wouldn't wear a hoodie in summer. And she changes her voice because now she's slipping into sage mode. And she goes, that's right. Here's what I believe. A wonderful person like you, if you exit that hero level and become the sage, who enters the hero level? The customer. We don't ever talk about the ideal client avatar in our world. We talk about the hero client. You make the client the hero. Everything shifts in the marketing strategy and the sales conversation. I believe a truly wonderful person like you, hero client label. I believe a truly wonderful person like you deserves skin you love living in. Isn't that what you really want? And they go, oh.

Which is the sound of deep internalized realization. It is the central sound of meditation. It's the central sound of all of the prophets, Yahweh, Allah, whatever your belief system is this.

I'm gonna win, and you're gonna make me safe. And so what happened to this price point? As soon as she said, I believe you deserve skin you love living in, what happened to that price point?

It probably. They have a completely different relationship with that.

And then she goes, I've got a Framework that I can step you through that shows exactly how I use all that equipment to make that happen. If you're interested, who doesn't want to see the framework? Half of them don't at this point. They go, perfect, I'm in. Because you got a framework. And I want skin that I'm loving living in. Here's the thing. No one ever goes to her and says, can you give me skin I'm gonna love living in. They say, can you treat my acne? And most of the rest of the market. A few things have happened in this model. She's neutralized everybody else in the market as being shallow without talking negatively about anybody. She's neutralized the whole market that's in the acne treatment industry. Then she's also. This is the level of outcome. Then she's also claimed her outcomes. But also, if this is transactional.

She'S positioned this as transformational, which other people in the market also do. And then she's also neutralized that by saying, yeah, it's great, but it's a narcotic, it's cosmetic. And then she's gone down to what does it mean to you? And the bottom level is timeless. And it's a three minute model to take people from a shallow view of what they think they're asking for. To. I can't stop thinking about that. So you think about what you're talking about. Right?

Expensive jewelry and watches. So that's up the top. You know, watches. Great. Neutralized. And so then what, what, you know, what are the three. Yeah, it's a fashion statement. They're reliable. You know, they're an investment. I mean, all the reasons you could rationalize buying, you know, a Rolex or something like that. It's an investment. I'll leave it for my generations to follow me. You know, they're super reliable. It's a fashion statement. Great. But what does it mean to you? What's at the base? And it'd be interesting to wonder what that is. Everybody could. I mean, we could talk about addiction. Right. And you would end up with addiction at the top.

Is it with two Ds? Yeah. Optional. You'd end up with addiction at the top. Real conversation to be had about, let's unpack what the middle is. This is where the game really starts.

Yeah. And what it is there is it's connection. Its connection. And it's. Yeah.

Well, let me mess a bit.

Of course. Oh, no. Yeah.

And please, I. I think connection would be one of these.

Yeah. And then the byproduct of connection.

Yeah. And then what is the. And then what is the other two? And then what does that mean to someone when they get that back again? Right. This is. This bottom bit is the hardest bit to find, but it's the bit that we find that a lot of people haven't taken themselves to because you're promising a much bigger thing. So the iceberg is a. It's a great tool for any particularly small business owners. Like, think through the levels of the iceberg. What's the transactional known bit? What's the transformational hidden bit? And a lot of people think transformational is the ultimate level, but what is the timeless bit that is the unknown that your clients don't even know about? And that bottom bit is where we find a lot of people in business haven't even gone to the depth of thinking themselves about what is truly timeless about this. But if carrot can get people to the point where they have skin that they love, that is timeless, that is lifetime. Right. And, you know, it just. It takes everything else out of play. It takes price out of play. It takes everything out of play. And so it's. The key question is, what does it mean to them? It's the level of meaning that we need to be willing to actually export to that customer. Not even to the world, necessarily. What does it mean to them? And it's. It's such a simple. It's just an iceberg.

Yeah.

You know, you can. You can do it over the phone. Hey, pitch an iceberg in your head. You know, you can add choreography to it. It doesn't matter how much wind and storm you throw at the tip of the iceberg in one direction, it's always going to move in the direction of the bass. So, you know, creams, hacks, tips, tricks. Doesn't matter. Only 10% of the icebergs above the waterline. I'd rather go to the base. Do you want to treat your acne or do you want skin you love? I mean, there's so many ways of unpacking this.

I love it. And this is. So here's what I would say.

I've interviewed over a thousand people, and I've talked to some very smart people. And you have one of the most unique methodologies, model method for conveying and communicating and deepening how people think about things. And when.

I get a new perspective on how to look at framing, it always very much excites me. Because what this does is it opens up doors of opportunity that people didn't know that those doors could be opened. And I think that's what you're providing. You're providing a capability for people to just be simply more effective. And I hope that the listeners and the people that have watched this now see a possibility and now have a deeper capability so that you can go out and do more good in the world. And all money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. So of course the emphasis on, I mean, I loved your question of, you know, deserving to sell what it is you're selling. I mean, I think that's something definitely worth thinking on. So for people that want to learn more about you, I mean, you have some great videos online that teach this and then also, you know, you have a business where you train this. So where do people go next to find out more?

So modelmethod.com is our website. It's pretty old now. We're in the middle of rebuilding a website. Boy, there's an exercise.

I have someone come into the meeting this week that I should have you talk with.

Oh, man. Yeah, so, but we, you know, we're. So we're about to relaunch that. But I've got a lot of video content on there that people can watch through. I draw on a glass board, which is kind of interesting and things like that. A lot of, lot of blog posts on there. I'm very active inside LinkedIn. I post three times a week typically, so, you know, people can connect with me on LinkedIn. I've also got.

In addition to the, you know, the iceberg is about what's the value. That means you should get to sell. The futures model is just a great tool to actually get people to take action. But I've got an interesting model that I'm happy to give you a link to.

There's just a video of me walking through a model that people can use for discovery and also selling like specifically one model to walk through. It's about a six minute video.

And that will also put people into our database. I do a 20 minute teaching every month, which is a lot. I set 20 minutes on the clock in front of everybody and then I just go for it for 20 minutes on one topic. And so people will get access to the notifications for the 20 minute teachings. I can give you the link for that. The easy, you know, the first level of bias safety in marketing is people want safety in anonymity. I want to find out all about you without you even knowing I exist. So the safety in anonymity is go to modelsmethod.com you can consume as much of the content on that as you like. We won't know you exist. Right. The next level of safety is safety in numbers. I'm happy for you to know that I exist, but I want to hide inside your database or sit at the back of the room. Right. So download this model that I'm gonna give you and you'll hear from us and you can come to the 20 minute teaching and sit at the back of the room and everything else. You know, we're not gonna, we're not gonna, we don't use tripwires and stuff like that. We're not, we're not gonna force you into something. You know, the third level of bias safety is when they raise their hand, but they want safety in process. Yeah. Look, I'll book a time to have a chat because I could always cancel it because it's a process. Right. Then they want safety and privacy. Yeah, I'd like to look at some of this stuff by myself. Great. Here's some content you consume before we have a conversation. Right. So that the ultimate level of safety is safety and commitment. The safest thing for me to do is to buy from you. So they can go to modelsmethod.com safety and anonymity. Consume as much as you like. It's all there. Right. And I'll give you a link to it.

Yeah. And what we'll do, we'll put that in the show notes. So if you watch this video, we'll put it in the link there. If you watch this on YouTube and for the podcast, we'll put the link in the show notes for the podcast and then you can go directly to there and we will do it. And so, Simon, this is funny too. We're doing this. We're going to go to the Grand Canyon this weekend. We're going to do all kinds of interesting stuff. So it's going to. So it was really great to sit down for the first time. I'm sure this will not be the last to just have you share what it is you shared here. And to all the listeners, I really hope that you found this incredibly valuable, incredibly useful and like anything. How long you been doing this now?

I've been consulting for 30 years and I've always done this with the models.

Yeah. So. So, so, you know, do. Do a little, you know, get into it. There's a lot to learn here. And last thing I'll ask you. How would you define genius?

Boy, that's an interesting question. I should have actually thought you might ask that question, right?

Genius to me.

Is an intuitive perspective that someone has on something that they don't even realize is unique until people start noticing it. And then the challenge they have is to turn that intuitive perspective, intuitive genius, into organized genius. Which is why we built the model.

Love it.

Awesome.

Thank you, sir.

Pleasure.

Don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing. Subscribe today@ilovemarketing.com.

Subscribe if you'd like access to the show notes to take action on what was discussed, please visit ilovemarketing.com 461.