Rich Schefren And The Quest To Save Internet Businesses From Big Tech

Alright, so welcome to a very special interview and episode. My name is Brad Costanzo. This is bacon wrapped business. If by chance you are listening to the audio podcast only of this, I invite you to look in the show notes. You're going to see a link to a very special video episode of this if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook or anywhere else. I'd like you to meet Rich Sheffrin here. This is a very special treat for me as I talked to a guy that has been very influential for me in the past decade plus that I've been doing this. I think I stumbled across you back in 2008 when I first got into this world of online actually marketing, my entire business was sales. In the past and I've been a customer of yours, I've been a fan, I've been a follower and in the past hour or so that we've been catching up, catching up and kicking it, just understanding some of the cool things that you have got going on right now and some of these insights that are just really.

Not only remarkable but very timely and important for I think all business owners to pay attention to. And I think in the first part of the way I would love this conversation to go is I've got a bunch of fun personal things I'd just love to ask you.

Sure.

From going back through your body of work that has been some of the most influential parts on me. I'd love to just kind of revisit that and then I'd like to start to go. This whole idea of where the puck is going. One of the things when I think about you.

That I think you personify maybe more than most of the thought leaders that I've come across.

There's that marketing formula of it. Attention, interest, desire and action.

Right.

It's one of the oldest marketing formulas out there. More than anybody, you seem to have mastered the art of attention, interest and desire. Grabbing attention, building interest and generating that desire. And I know I like most people, came across you first with the Internet Business Manifesto.

Right.

And just how remarkable that was. And I know I've dissected that. I've bought your report writing workshop or you went into this. And I think more than anything the things that I appreciate is, are the visceral responses. I get reading your stuff, realizing that this guy is about to get my money and I don't care because I'm so intrigued by what he's doing and I see him doing the magic trick and I'm still gonna do it anyway. So I want to Talk a little bit about the process of really grabbing that attention, building the interest and desire in the marketplace, because you've not only done it amazingly for yourself, but you helped some other people do it. And I know I've tried to recreate it for myself, for some clients in the past, and there always seems to be some stuff missing. So that's one of the things I definitely want to talk to you about. But before I do that, I think I've told you this story in the past, but I'll tell anybody else this because I remember a very specific moment in May. I've got it in my email somewhere, but May of 2009, I was at an Internet marketing seminar. And at the time, I had a little info product. It was just me and my business partner, and we were just slinging promotion after promotion, and I was standing next to a woman named Shelly Ellis. And I remember this really, really close. And I said, you know, one of my biggest frustrations is I feel like I'm just playing the role of an entrepreneur. Like, I'm just playing. I'm calling myself an entrepreneur. I'm not. I'm working out of my underwear, trying to sell stuff to people online. This is not what an entrepreneur is. And the next day, I got an email from Rich Sheffrin. I was on your newsletter, and it said, are you, quote, playing business, Brad? And I starred that. And I've sent that to other people because I just remember seeing it and realizing it. After that subject line, I was like, whatever he's selling, I'm buying. And that was a really impactful moment. And I use that with some of my clients to go, this is.

This is what happens when you nail the customer's frustration perfectly in a way. Like, it's in their words to where you take ownership of the places of their mind.

Sure.

Now, that's a big, long winded introduction to that topic I want to talk about because there's a lot of stuff to cover, but let's start there.

That's an easy. Like, that's easy. And it's fresh in my mind just because of what I watched this weekend.

So. And definitely the other question about, you know, capturing attention also, we can kind of dovetail into.

But this weekend, something like this past weekend was a big UFC fight, Conor McGregor versus Cowboy Cerrone. And I'm a big UFC fan. And there's a concept that I've taught for years that is based on a quote that I can't tell who actually said it because it's been attributed to a lot of people. But the, during the, during the promotion period before the fight, for people who follow ufc, like, there's a story attached to Cowboy Cerrone about how he chokes under pressure of the big fight, like he never won the championship. And because of that, like, there was a focus on would he rally or would he, you know, kind of fall apart. And so they interviewed him about what it was like preparing for a fight. Like the last hour before he got up, you know, went out to fight. And, and he was. And he went into pretty vivid detail about how, how anxiety provoking it was, how his hands felt heavy, his legs felt heavy, like, and he. And then there's more panic because, like, I gotta be able to punch fast and kill kick fast and all this kind of stuff he was going into. And then it flashed back to the ESPN desk and Chael Sonnen and another, like a world champion was there, and they both were like, oh, Bisping was there. So two guys who had won championships, fought in championships, and they both were like, oh my God, I thought I was the only one, right? Like, they both had had similar experiences, but all three, Cowboy, you know, Chael and Michael Bisping all thought they were the only person to struggle with it. And the quote is, that which is most personal is most general. And so. And what it's always meant to me is the things that people struggle with that they're least likely to share are the same things that everyone else is struggling with that are least likely to share. And so the first person who calls it out.

Gets the benefit of that. And the benefit of that is that most people most of the time, I know that's a lot of mosts, but most people most of the time feel misunderstood. And when we look at products, one of the easiest ways to kind of opt out of the product mentally is to say, this doesn't apply to me either, because I've got pre built in excuses about, like, who I am as a person or whatever. And so what? Being able to call out a reader or a viewer or what have you and make them feel like their problem is understood immediately prevents that mental opt out and also speaks to the solution being something that is directly for them, since it's talking to them in the first place, Right? So what I've tried to do always is kind of look at the market as a group of people, right? Every market's a group of people that share a conflict. And that conflict is either a goal unattained or a problem unresolved. It's one of the other or they wouldn't be in the market. And most people didn't join the market yesterday. So they've been trying to get this outcome or solve this problem for some period of time. And so I'm coming into the market and.

They have a desire for this outcome and they have a prescribed method that they're following that's not getting them that outcome. And. And so if I can come in and point to a couple of the problems that they're experiencing so that they feel the reader, the viewer, whatever, feels understood.

And at the same time am taking those problems that I've just laid out and actually converting them more to symptoms of a deeper problem, right? Then these problems now become bigger. Like just they're not the thing to be attacked, although that's what's been done in the past. They're just a relic of a deeper problem that has not been addressed. And so, you know, whether it was the Internet Business Manifesto making like the problems of the marketplace be defined as being an opportunity seeker or, you know, the entrepreneurial emergency, which was, you know, the problem.

Was that you're not hitting your full potential and there's a constraint in the way.

It'S more about. And then these are all the things that you'll experience when a constraint is in the way. And these are the things that they're experiencing it automatically now kind of refines the conversation into, I just need to change one thing, right? And ideally that is the, like, I'm coming in with a different belief. But then my prospect has. But the easiest belief to get someone to believe is that they're doing everything right, but one thing wrong. And so the Internet Business Manifesto was like, hey, look, marketing is important. Marketing is probably the most important thing in business. But it's still in business. And you still need to understand business, even though marketing is the most important part of business. So you've learned marketing, but you haven't learned business. This one piece left that once you do you understand how to like, make the puzzle work. So it's a lot about like it also, I would say, came about because I'm a horrible salesperson as opposed, which has made me become a better marketer. Like when I had my hypnosis centers.

The whole hypnosis center design of the clinics was designed so that I could optimize my selling, you could say, because like when people were in the waiting room, they there was just books about how positive hypnosis was, books with testimonials. And then on TV was all the TV appearances that I was on and I would close like 40% of the people that came into the office, whereas, like, the professional salespeople that sold would sell like 75%, like, almost double what I sold.

So I've always been kind of ineffective at selling because I don't like pushing people. But I find it very easy to educate my way to a sale, primarily because I'm just an info fiend myself. And so I think a lot of it has to do with that one understanding that what's most personal is most general. So, like, a lot of the stuff that I wrote about, whether it was in the Entrepreneurial emergency or the Internet Business Manifesto or even the doctrines, was oftentimes me writing to my former self, like, who was dealing with those problems. So I was very understanding of it. Another was like, you know, I done enough coaching calls, so I knew what my clients were struggling with too. And then also I'd say that it was using the right language, not just using general things like info overload or frustration or something, but having more depth to it. And I think when someone feels fully understood, that's happened so rarely that it creates a tremendous momentum to purchase. And what I used to hear back all the time was that people would tell me that it felt like I was me. It felt like I was like, standing over their shoulder, right? Like checking, watching them. But what was true of all those things? Those were all common experiences, experiences that most people were not aware.

That everyone else had asked or a lot of other people had asked the same question. When I was struggling online, I really started wondering what's wrong with me? Because I'd seen a lot of other people succeed and I was not. When I was talking to Todd Brown 10 years ago about that, he had that same thought, right? So it's like these kinds of thoughts, you don't necessarily go around sharing it, but those are the ones that. And you don't have to as a marketer, you don't have to share. Like, you know, I don't. I'm pretty confident in the Internet Business Manifesto. Nowhere in there did I say I was writing to my old self, like from two years prior or three years prior. But that's what I was doing. And I was very familiar with the feelings because I just felt them.

So in that case, it's not like you. Especially in that case, you didn't have. It's like you had to do a bunch of customer research and all this necessarily an empathy mapping, because you were the person, you just paid really close attention to. The way you feel in those times.

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

That's one of the things I've tried to do, because, you know, like anybody, I'll go through those moments of, you know, existential despair. I'm doing it all wrong. And this, that, and the other. Something's not working out. And as a marketer, I understand my job. It's almost like an actor. Like, as an actor, you're supposed to go through these. Actually, I was watching a show on Netflix called the Kominsky Method with what's his name? Married to Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Douglas.

Okay.

He's an acting teacher, and somebody's going through a. Or he's going through a moment of loss, and he goes. I realize it's my job to experience this moment in its fullness so that I can fully understand it and bring it out later. And I think as a marketer, especially if we're selling to stuff like our.

Our own thing.

Yeah. That it's imperative to go, all right, how do I feel right now? How can I use this as a tool to understand that other people are probably feeling like this and not try to. Because I think. I know. My gut reaction is to try to get out of that feeling, get out of that funk as quickly as possible. But sometimes I think if you stay in the funk long enough to get the nuances out of it, it can be really powerful.

I would say that along those lines, I think for me, what's helped me tremendously is, I guess, two things. One, I guess I'm a little egotistical regarding that. If I'm experiencing something, my belief is other people are, too. I don't feel like I'm alone on the planet.

And then the other thing is that.

You don't have to dwell on it, like, a lot, but what you do have to do is make it clear that you're aware. And I think, like, for me.

Yeah, keeping a journal has been for me, like, because I'm getting to express my emotions consistently. Like, I can go back to old journals to really see how I was feeling. But the other thing is that.

It'S. In general, what I try and do is I pay very close attention to when things happen to me. And I'm always trying to understand because we all do this. Like, we all, like, set ourselves up at certain times to believe. Like, a certain purchase is going to change more than it could ever change. Right. Or, you know, how do I feel having an older Mac versus a newer Mac when someone, like, just paying attention to these little things? Because at least for Me.

I've always felt like my own experience has been my best teacher. I've got lots of great mentors. But like, when I look at my own results and based on what I did and looking at those, I can learn more than anything else. And I would say that.

Yeah, for me, what's worked best has been paying attention to. Like, what, when is there, like, when do I come across a product that I'm like, oh, I really want this, I really like. And then I'm trying to unpack why do I feel that way. And you know, we lie to ourselves somewhat, but we can at least get access to it and we can at least get access to when we feel that way. Right? And really pay attention to that. And I think that, you know, everyone has their own different process. But for me, the hardest part of the whole equation is not so much that, but it's finding the solution that I fully believe in because I have to sell myself on the solution before I can ever effectively teach my way to that solution.

So then in that process, which, as I said, I'm infinitely fascinated by, so you understand the core frustrations of the market and what they're going through, and you kind of have that so that it helps you build it. Just going back to one of the best known things, Internet Business Manifesto, like, you're really overarching. I don't know if the word is a theme, but the core idea, the big idea behind that was really that strategic versus opportunistic, opportunity seekers versus strategic entrepreneurs. One's going to win and you lump. And as long as you can get them to believe that as the core thing, then you just build the case right at what.

Is the whole big idea? Does that come closer to the beginning or to the end? Like, do you have this rough idea of this is the problems they face, these are the potential solutions. And as you work through it, that big idea emerges from it. Or in many cases, do you think of that first? Like, strategic versus opportunistic. And how do I build the case?

I've done it numerous ways. So like with the Internet Business Manifesto, the distinction between strategic and opportunistic was actually I heard on a teleseminar, it was Paul Lemberg and Jay Abraham. And Jay Abraham mentioned strategy and tactics and Paul Lemberg corrected him and said it's really the distinction between strategy and opportunism. And that was enough. Like I heard that and I'm like, oh, that's, I've never heard that before. That's really smart. That's really true. And then my brain started racing the missing chapter that was in response because I wrote that two weeks later to the mistake that I thought most people were making. That I thought was pretty obvious that you have to choose the right business for yourself. Just because there's a need in the market doesn't mean you're the best person to fill it.

The final chapter was, how did I write that? That was more looking at where I thought things were going. And I also had a lot of knowledge. I wanted to share what I had learned from Agora.

The attention age doctrine 1 and 2 were more about what I saw happening in the world. So I would say that not always. And I would say, though, that my best reports have always been focused more on the negative than the positive, more focused on the current context of, like, what's going on right now versus what may happen in the future. Even though I've called a lot of things correctly, like, the selling power of those is not as powerful.

I will say that this morning before we got here, I reread real quickly, I just pulled out in my rich file Sheffrin files, I pulled out the attention age doctrine 2 and I reread that real quickly.

That's probably the one I'm most proud of as far as, like, the number of things I called. Right. Because Facebook didn't exist.

2008, maybe.

Yeah, Facebook didn't exist then.

You're like, get on. Learn how to use social media. Get on it. Learn how to use it. Right. Capture attention well.

And you know, I'd say that, like, because I just recorded some other videos for this campaign that I'm sure we're going to talk about later. But the. One of the things I was talking about was that.

One of the things that I wrote about in the Attention Age doctrine too, that I strongly still recommend. And I still. Most people don't really, I don't. Well, if they get it, they don't do it. I don't think they get it. Is that what I said in the Attention Age doctrine, too, is that your prospects are no longer just targets. They're going to be your best channel. And as like social media and these different platforms create walled gardens and really try and keep their visitors on their sites and also give them a louder voice than a business does because of fake news and all that kind of stuff, that really, the best voice that you have, the best channel you have is other people.

But I think that a lot of people confuse what I said. Like, prospects are no longer just targets. They're Actually your best channel with like a word of mouth campaign that their customers are like helping propagate to some level.

It's a very shallow perspective of what you're trying to say.

Yeah, it's a very small amount because like you're going to have 100 times or 50 times more prospects than you're going to have customers. And it's also a very different strategy. Like when you're going to your customers, it's more about can you share how great we were with you or whatever. Not that you couldn't do other things, but that's how most people default to. Whereas when you're getting your prospects to share, you're really not. The idea of asking them a favor is kind of a strong thing. So you have to incentivize. And what I've always found is the best incentive is to give them something that, like a secret that they so are anxious to share with other people. That your message gets passed along that way. And some notoriety of what your creation was that caused that also kind of hitches a ride onto that.

Especially when you study what makes things go viral and why people share things. A big part of it is that by sharing it, if I'm sharing an idea that if you give me this idea that strategy versus opportunity seekers is the winner and I'm sharing that, that's in me piggybacking off of you. And it's a stick status elevator for me going, I believe this too. You should get it. And if you discover it through me, I get to hold on to. So people love sharing things that they have these epiphanies on. And that's one of the, like you talk about these epiphanies and creating these revelations in somebody's mind, like don't tell them, cause them.

Well, revelation before explanation. And the idea there is that like. And it, you know, when I wrote the Internet Business Manifesto, its success was a huge surprise to me. I thought like I would get like 10 or 12 clients. That's what I was hoping for.

For a three month period. And then I was going to go do this project with Agora and I ended up getting thousands. But the. Yeah, there's the.

When ask me the question again so I make sure I'm answering it correctly.

Well, I was, I don't know how much of a question.

Revelation. Explanation. Yeah. So for me, one of the things like on the first report, like I don't know if it was conscious in the first report, but definitely became conscious over time. I generally sell things I fully believe in. And I don't sell them. I don't believe in them because I'm selling them. I believe them first, and then I sell them, Right? So I'm coming in with that strong of a belief. And that belief didn't happen for no reason. Something caused it. And so, like, I. In the marketplace. Let's look at the manifesto for a second. Like, I came to the marketplace with a lot of business experience. My dad was a ruthless entrepreneur, witnessed that my whole life. I worked for Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting, and they taught me a lot about business. And I was an accounting major. And so I knew a lot about business.

But my marketplace did not. And so what I knew about business had led me to a conclusion that people online who wanted to make money should really understand how to build a business. Their experience has not led them to that conclusion. So part of marketing is, can I figure out, like, what led me to that conclusion? And can I create, like, an accelerated version of that experience through something where they come to the same realizations, too? And that's always, for me, the starting point. Because, like, yeah, if I believe in. On. If I believe in this, there's a reason, and something led me to that belief. And if I can then lead my prospects through that same thing, a lot of them will come to the same belief. And on top of that, which I also wrote about in the Attention Age doctrine, like, people walking away from your material feeling like they got good value for their attention is critical if you want the next thing being read. But the. So that's how I would say, like, that's how I try and cause revelations, you could say, because obviously a revelation is them connecting the dots in their head before you have to say it. So revelation before explanation is you go for them connecting the dots first, you then explain it after so that you are still explaining it for the dumb people, so to speak, but the smart people who get it ahead of time, now you're just confirming what they already believe, not telling them something new.

Right? And that moment of little epiphany, there's an emotional gut reaction when that happens. When you go, boom, the light bulb goes off. I get it. And by giving somebody that you hold a special place in their.

Especially when it's related to one of their problems that they've been struggling with for sure.

And then, because forever they're associated. And you know, our most powerful memories are associated with emotions. So when you can attach that emotion of that excitement of, oh, I like that click, it finally clicks. I get it.

When a New door opens up of how you see the problem. Yeah.

I mean, and that's one of the reasons I'm still such a big fan of yours on that, is because you caused several of those things to click for me and go, God dang it. I either thought this, but it wasn't as coherent. And I think that's really also another key is like, they've kind of got that idea in their mind, but it's not as coherent. And when you can just make, like, focus.

Yeah. Because they hadn't worked on it. It's just a fuzzy thing in their head.

Right. And when it's fuzzy and then you take it from focus, I think that's even, maybe more powerful than going. It was. It wasn't even in my head. And now it is, because it's like, oh, yeah, you just confirmed the stuff I've been trying to get out. Like, thank you. Because it's been a pain for me to get that focus in. In fact, one of the things that you did for me kind of on that, and I don't remember which program it was or what you did, but there was a time where you're talking about your strengths and you started to list out your various strengths as an entrepreneur from the rapid learning and integration. And I share a lot of those same strengths. And to me, it's always been somewhat hard to pin down because a lot of them, the soft skills and the way I think about things and the way I retain stuff and the way I integrate it, but it's been harder sometimes to put it into a really definitive specialty or value proposition to somebody. And it was really, actually cathartic. When I saw that your strengths, I considered, like, a lot the same as mine. And then I saw the stuff you were able to do with it, I was like, okay, cool. There's actually hope for me.

Right.

You know, so. And I remember. I remember where I was when I had that, because it is those emotional feelings. So I think by tying into those, it's super powerful. How long does it take you, typically, from when you have that concept to create a piece of content like that? Is it excruciating?

It's excruciating, but it's excruciating because I don't know, like, but I've written them as quickly as two weeks. I mean, it really kind of, like, it depends how much time I have, but I'm a perfectionist and a procrastinator and all that kind of stuff.

And that does just, like, an ancillary point because I don't know that we'll have time to really cover it in detail. But just something that I like strongly for any entrepreneurial type podcast I think is very important to say and that is that a mistake I see a lot of people make general is that they don't really set up their business for them to win. And I think one of the things that makes me different in my own business but then in the amount of people I've coached and the difference that they've made is that I'm very cognizant of that. That most entrepreneurs make the mistake of putting their self growth goals in front of their business success because they believe in order for their business success to happen, they have to be a different person than who they are today. Self change is really hard work and I think that you should design a business for you to be successful today based on who you are today, not have to be someone different. So like I wrote all those reports and all those reports sold the program. But every time that it sold the program, I delivered it live first and I delivered it live first because it would never get finished if I was left to my own devices. I would, you know, I would have a week in between delivering the content and it didn't matter if I start the minute I finished delivering the content the week before or the day before. I never finished until two minutes before because of my own baggage, psychological baggage and shit. So, you know, and I'm not money motivated. And so I had someone has to be in a business where the business is going to make money. So I put in like really aggressive profit sharing. But you know, so I was a, you know, all the programs I ever rolled out, any big program, I did it live because I'm a procrastinator and I'm a perfectionist and I had that.

Forces you into just getting it done.

Because it would have never been done and I would have never. So yeah, so it's hard to say like how long a report would take me. It really depends on the timing of it.

But do you engineer though that urgency and that thing into life now because you know that you're perfectionist and procrastinator. Do you like that's my out. Like if I do this, even even though it's uncomfortable to do it because it won't be perfect and it has to be done now, but at least you know, it gets done.

Yes, I would say. But then also I've done more, I do more stuff on a day to day basis that makes me more ready than maybe in the past also, total aside, but I'm a big believer in.

Having a very functional capture method of ideas and like of the good ideas you've had of the ideas you've come across through reading and everything else. And having that at your disposal.

You are segueing into the exact next thing I wanted to talk to perfectly okay.

So the guy who's the best at that in the world, in my opinion, is a guy by the name of Thiago Fort. He created a course called Build you'd second brain. Some of the things in there are really powerful. And he has a blog called Praxis.

I think I've heard of that. And some of his essays are great on there. And it was reading his essays that made me realize this guy knows the same stuff I do, but he's able to pull it together a lot better than I can. Like he's talking about learning and content and then he's talking about theory, constraints, all stuff I know really well. And I was like, wow, I would have never seen these connections which made me very interested in his stuff. And I went on to study it and. Yeah, so his course is called Build your second brain and it's all about like, yeah, outputting all your notes and everything you come across into this, into Evernote or Notion or something like that. And then what he calls progressive summarization. And I could spend hours just talking about his stuff.

Well, I remember I bought. What was it called? Rapid learning. I bought that years ago. And I. I mean, it's been years. I don't remember all the details.

That was a.

This is interesting because I'm a. I'm a very. I don't even. I don't consider myself a speed reader because I don't use a technique. Although I've read stuff. I just, I read a lot, actually, a lot of. A couple of my clients on their own came up with a nickname for me as Bradapedia, because one of my superpowers is. And my cameraman over here is nodding his head. But one of my superpowers is ability to recall, retain and recall information like. Like that I read from yours years ago.

I have that uncanny ability too. I can't remember the person's name sitting in front of me that said their name like three times. But I can remember where in the book on the left hand side, like midway through the book.

But it's funny too, because I don't. It's not just totally natural because when I do read books, when I learn something, I have and it's a very basic way. But for instance, if I'm reading a Kindle and I'm gonna get. Cause I remember years ago I saw your how I speed read video like this guy's next level nuts.

But I still do that.

But yeah, so like I'll read a Kindle and I like Kindle better than anything else because of the highlighting feature and the ability to go back to my highlights because I'm reading for the stuff that is it highlightable or not? So it's very digital. Is this something I want to highlight? Is it fluff and anecdotal or is it something I want to remember? And then I go back through and review it and if it's a good enough book, I'll go back through on workflowy, the exception expandable outline thing. And I'll. And I'll take it all and I'll rebuild it. Just the notes and just by doing that, it seems to integrate it. But that's as far as I really go. With the exception of I sometimes annoy people because I may like cameraman over here, Aaron. I may go, Aaron, come, come over. I did this to him the other night. I need to teach this to you. I need to go through it because it better integrates for me. But that's my whole process. I'd love a little more insight on yours because I think yours probably makes mine look a little different.

Well, I mean, I do the same thing that I covered in that video, except maybe now more of it's digital. I tend to read on two different devices. Well, I tend to do all my reading on one device, an iPad. I use a couple different programs. The first one I use if I want to go through a book relatively fast is a book is a. There's an app called Voice Dream, like D R E A M. And what Voice Dream does is it will read you the book while also pacing.

And you can't get ridiculously fast with that. You can go up to like 700 words a minute. But 700 words a minute would let you go through like a bookstore book, hardcover, like 300 pages in about under two hours.

And so a lot of times when I'm working out on an elliptical machine, I'll first go through a book that way, go through it pretty fast. Then if it's worth reading like I will then read it again. This time I'll highlight it. I over highlight because I tend to like. I imagine I'm never going to look at the book again. So anything I do the same and then I'm also highlighting not only new material, but old material that is set a different way because I'm just anal like that, because I'm trying to figure out the right way to say things. So I end up over highlighting. But now what I used to do is turn those highlights into then an ebook and a PDF and a Word doc, I mean, and a voice. And I still have those. But what I also do now is I put it into Evernote and then I will review it again and then I will just bold what is most important in everything that I've highlighted.

Get the 80 20, the 8020 of the 80 20.

And I keep doing that because I tend to. So, like, the first time through is bolding it. The next time through, I'm highlighting parts of what I bolded that are even more important than just the bold. Until I have then the parts that I've highlighted and bolded of my highlights. I put those as bullet points at the top. And now I'm ready to write my own opinion, my own thoughts about it. And so I do that with Evernote, with a lot of articles. Like, anything that I'm like, content comes to me. If it's something totally personal that I just want to read out of curiosity, I put that in pocket. But if it's anything that I plan on ever talking about, on, like, anything related to anything that I talk about and interested in, it goes into Evernote. And I might read the article in Evernote and waste of time, I just delete it. But if there's anything valuable in it, I'm already bolding it.

And are you using tags and tags.

And folders and stuff like that?

That's where I get lazy. That's where I should. And I'm like, man, man, I've got so much in here. I have to end up relying on my memory more than I should.

Yeah.

Because if it ever goes, I'm kind of screwed.

Yeah. And something is better than nothing. Right? So, like, even if you don't do it, tag that well, like, over time, you know, because I'm keeping so much source material in it, I can find most notes because you can do like, the more robust type searches and long term, like, I just wish I had everything that I ever studied in Evernote because it made life a lot easier. Because generally what would happen when I wrote the reports was I'd have. Because I never. I don't know if I ever answered your question. I had a lot of different ways to come up with the ideas. One way was Looking at the problems of the marketplace and then just doing a root cause analysis. Another way was to look at like sales letter in the industry and how would I present these as causing part of the problem as opposed to being part of the solution? Because like all the sales owners are saying they're part of the solution. What makes this part of the problem? It was just a good thinking exercise. Sometimes I go with, sometimes I have like a solution like theory of constraints. Okay, what does it solve? A constraint. How do I tie that back into the problems of the marketplace? Right.

I started a report and I finished it, but I never released it. Profit hacks. Primarily because I was doing that with really good guy Pete Williams and we had a difference of opinion. I never had written a report.

Where I wasn't an instrumental part of the product. And generally when I was writing a report, if it took me in a new direction I would just have it. That's where my research took me. Right. So we didn't totally agree on the final conclusion and I don't know what that is going into it.

And so I would say that that was the I need it. Which you know, selling a live program after the fact makes it a lot easier too to be able to do that. But, but yeah, that's the way I've. That's the way I've always come about it. And it's. But it starts with the prospect in their day to day life and what is life like? And.

You know, can I use what they're experiencing? Can I use what they're noticing in the world around them? Because if you can shift the context you can also get people to move. Right. So yeah, a lot of different ways and I've tried but I was very unprepared and very not expecting what happened in the manifesto. I wrote seven reports in 18 months and the goal was to figure out what made them work. And so I tried a lot of different things in those different reports, but the last one was my second most successful which was the last one, the Entrepreneurial Emergency.

Oh yeah.

Which sold the theory of constraints course. So yeah, so that was. That's my marketing.

Nice. And then actually this dovetails very nicely into.

Some of the stuff you're working on now. So in being so.

I guess prolific in paying attention to what's going on and reading probably, I guarantee you're probably reading all types of things from disparate ideas to like everything from AI to probably personal development, everything. I'm kind of like that myself. Just very polymaths interests. There's a great book I read called Wait, how to be. One's called how to be Everything. Because he's like, hey, for all you people who are just driving yourself crazy because you can't, here's how to be everything. Another one is refuse to choose. You don't actually have to choose just one path. You can actually satisfy all your different desires and interests.

I agree with those philosophies. If you then take them, if you take all that and then choose, you have to focus where you're going to apply that knowledge.

Well, and that's what I like. I like reading all that stuff and trying to find what is that common thread. And that common thread that my. I guess.

Life'S mission or business mission for lack of a better concept is really just to help especially entrepreneurs and business people just get clarity and, and confidence and help just increase their ability to get things done right. So it's like if I can pull from these other areas and it can coalesce and just a better message that helps people understand their business, their life, the world around them, then I just, I like that it's a very similar thing.

Rewarding.

Yeah. And then so you notice things probably quicker than a lot of people do. I mean, you've predicted multiple trends, you've gotten ahead of them. And I know that in marketing a very. And especially with I think your theories that this concept of an inciting incident or something happened, like pay attention to this. That's one way to get attention. And I noticed you actually just caught one the other day. I'm on your newsletter list and I had seen it. Then you talked about it, which was how Google is getting rid of cookies of third party cookies and how it's going to cause a big ruckus in the world of online marketing. Nobody knows exactly how or what the site is, but I know you've been paying attention to a lot of the things that especially big tech has been doing and how it's been changing. So this is really where now we're transitioning to what's.

What's now.

Yeah, what's now. Because we've talked about all your past.

Yeah, I would say that the last thing, just about the past just.

And we don't need to spend a lot of time on it is just a perspective that like I think most people think of business as like a marathon. You know, I don't think of it as a marathon and that could be because I have ADD and whatever, but I tend to think of it as a series of sprints and so each campaign, when I'm about to launch a campaign, I need to like amp it up a little bit. But the good news is that I'm a sprinter competing over short periods of time with marathon runners. Right. And so it's easy to rise above the clutter when, when you can go, you know, all out and you know, like, you know, this is a 30 day, 60 day, 90 day slog or whatever it is. But like, you could be in an intensity that no one else can be at because you know it's going to, you know you're gonna reap the rewards. And so I've always tried to start campaigns with that like, initial sprint of like, you know, commanding attention. So that's just on that. But as we move towards the now and the future, what I think a lot of people don't realize is how precarious the situation has become. It's kind of one of those things where maybe people aren't talking about it to one another, but less businesses have been started year after year after year for like the last 20 years in the US and I think that it's pretty worldwide and less VC money is being applied and there's less innovation, which is hard for people to get their head around. But like, you know, I'm 48, so almost 50. And so I still have some memories of like when Ma Bell was like the only game in town and you had to rent your phone from the phone company. You couldn't buy a phone anywhere, no one sold a phone. And it wasn't until they broke up Ma Bell that you could then buy a phone and then phones were all over the place. So I'm pretty certain, like we wouldn't have cell phones today if they didn't break up Ma Bell. And we probably wouldn't have Google if the government didn't break up Microsoft's dominance at that time.

The bigger you get, the harder it is to innovate, the more risk there is.

Yeah, like, so when was the last big innovation in tech? Like, you know, I mean, the iPhone's 11 years old. Like where the iPad is eight, nine years old. Like, what new device? 5G will roll out soon and that will open up opportunities that people can't even imagine, myself included, because we couldn't imagine Uber until 4G came out. Like, so 4G made a lot of stuff that we use today.

I think that was probably, although it's not a device, the whole gig sharing economy on the back of everybody's smartphones is probably the biggest innovation that we've kind of seen.

And it's actually bad for people and good for business. So it's, you know, because it's a way of paying people less, not paying for their health care, like all kinds of stuff. So I would say yeah. The gig economy, while in certain ways really good, it's also lowered the bar of what companies need to provide their employees in a very big way. And that's also been somewhat calculatedly done. Basically, there's no industry that's good once you put big in front of it. Right. So whether it's Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, these are not the industries. And Big tech is the second biggest lobbying group in the United States.

Is it really? I wouldn't guess that.

Yeah, they've changed a lot of laws. Laws that make it okay for them to scrape content and put it on their site. They were afraid when Napster got caught that they would have the same thing.

And you mentioned that just to go detail, we were talking about it offline with Google.

Yeah. Now, Google sends more than the whole original idea of a search engine was we're going to scrape the world's content. People will come to our site and they'll find the content they want and then they'll go there. So ours was just a stop. The search engine was stopping hole. Now, Google sees it as a walled garden and they don't want people to leave unless they're paying them. But why are people going to Google? They're going to Google because they have our content on.

What a great example. If people don't know exactly what we're talking about. I did this last night. I was making a steak last night, a flatiron steak. And I had to.

Google best internal temperature for medium rare on a flatiron steak. And I typed it into Google and it showed up. I didn't have to click on the site it pulled it from.

It just showed up in that answer box. And that answer box wasn't populated by Google. It was someone else's content that they scraped and put on their site and they're being sued for it. And, you know, Facebook did the same thing. Right. Like everybody and their brother was advertising like us on Facebook, from, you know, McDonald's to Mercedes Benz. And then they said, you know, yeah, no more. Only 105%.

That rug you're standing on is gone.

So big tech is not our friend as entrepreneurs. And they're going into more and more spaces that will cost us more money. The typical pattern is always there where every new platform welcomes Us with open arms, small business and direct response advertisers. And then as other businesses come in and the bid prices go up, they have less of a need for us. And so terms of service escalate and then we get kicked out. And that's happened everywhere from Facebook to Google to even the companies prior to Google. And so what I think people need to realize is that while they never thought of these platforms as necessarily competition, they quickly are becoming competition. And they certainly see us as competition. It's very convenient that they're very big and strong and we're very weak and they can basically banish us from the Internet and make us invisible. Right. And God knows how many people have lost their accounts or whether Google or Facebook because of a terms of service thing. And then if you're small, good luck getting anyone on the phone to help you. That doesn't happen unless you're a big company like Agora or something like that. So about two years ago, Agora bought my company after I'd taken a bunch of years off, and they wanted me to help them with the platforms. And at first I was studying a lot of AI and data because I thought maybe that would be the solution. But.

With what Google just did about getting rid of cookies in the next two years with the Chrome browser, which is 66% of browser usage, that's a big deal. And that is going to change the whole data environment. And it's really like Google and Facebook. Well, Google in this particular case is kind of like pulling the ladder up.

Behind them and just so, like, at least my audience understands it even more. So one of the things like the whole, in layman's terms, so if you are like, you've got a Facebook pixel on my site, I got a Facebook pixel on bacon wrap business. So when you come there, I can cookie you and then follow you around with all my ads. That's not going to work. Is that correct?

It depends. It depends. It depends. And like, a lot of those kind of details are not fully shaken out yet. Now, will you be able to retarget people who have come to your page with a Facebook pixel on your page on Facebook? Possibly. There are other ways to do it, like an identity graph.

But I don't know. But you certainly. But the whole industry as of right now, relies on cookies. Retargeting relies on cookies. The ability to use programmatic advertising relies on cookies.

Programmatic advertising is huge.

And it's the reason. But cookies are why you can go to Amazon on a web browser and you're pre logged in, that goes away.

But Google doesn't. Any company that has.

The majority of people in the world signing into their platform from every device that they have doesn't really need cookies. They have like, they know every device ID. They know my TVs, device IDs because of YouTube. Right. They know.

My iPhone, my iPad and my computer based on logins. So they have every device they don't need to cookie.

And it makes that. And in giving us this, oh, we're making it more private for you guys, what they're really doing is that they're making themselves more powerful because yeah, it's.

Like, you know, it's like buying all the machine guns in the world and then tomorrow saying for now on machine guns will be illegal to manufacture and sell. It's not that they are illegal completely, they're just illegal to everyone else. We got them all. Yeah. And that's kind of how it is.

So my advice to Agora was we need the best experts in every different channel and every different medium to really come up with a strategy that makes us much less dependent on any of these platforms. And they agreed. And so that's what we did. And we want. At some point then it occurred to us we might as well do this for the whole Internet marketing community. Especially since like, I don't want to see it go away.

You know, I was there towards the very beginning of it and helped it grow. And even like I've had businesses that I've sold that then other people ran into the ground and it was sad to see like, you know, same with the market. I don't want to see this market disappear.

So I've had the same thing happen to me and I've also bought a business and ran into the ground.

I had a friend who sold the business for a ton of money to Beatrice back in the old days and then Beatrice ran it into the ground. I think he sold, he bought it. They bought it from him for like 60 million. He was able to buy it back for like 3 million like 10 years later, rebuilt it back up to like a $50 million business and sold it. Not my story, but anyway, yeah, so they're.

If we're going to help Agora, we might as well help everyone else. And I have a special attachment to this market, especially because I never thought I'd be as successful as I am. And so we're doing a 24 hour live stream on February 19th that will be epic. It will be from 7pm on February 19th. I believe that's a Wednesday till Thursday, February 20th at 7pm so we're gonna go 24 hours, and the guest list is really like the people that you most want to learn from. So it's Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels. Who's that? Yeah, Ryan Deiss and Roland Fraser of Digital Marketer. Mike Filsane, Jeff Walker, Todd Brown, Anik Singal, Neil Patel, James Von Elswick.

Drawing a blank for a second. Mike Dillard. There's about 30 or 40 people so far. We're broadcasting out of Mark Ford's private cigar bar. And we're going to be doing a lot of fun stuff in the background, too. And yeah, and it's a way to really, all of us are going to be teaching our winning strategies currently that are working now to make 2020 the your best year yet and to make the decade of 2020 your best decade. Even though you're entering into a hostile environment with these big tech platforms and recognizing that and building a business that benefits off these platforms but is not totally reliant on these platforms so that you still have the freedom that you want, but also are protected is the outcome that I want for everyone who comes on the live stream.

Are there any strategies overall that you think people should really start to be focusing on right now to either help a insulate themselves from some of these dangers or capitalize on some really big opportunities that you do see? Because it's not all Dr. Yeah, well.

One thing I would say for sure is that I would love to see more businesses do more partnering. For sure. I see it done all the time at Agora and to the point that sometimes the best answer to a complex question is just find a partner. And what I mean by that is like, you know, so Katie Vogel, who works in the same division that I work in, I have mad respect for her, and she's a great media buyer. I would say I'm more strategic than she is. She's a much better media buyer than I am.

A problem came to both of us at the same time, and it was like, we need to get the average lead bumped up by $1.50 to make this whole campaign work or something like that. And, you know, me being the marketer that I am, I'm like, okay, well, let me look at the funnel. Let me see where we can, like, you know, optimize and tweak stuff and really, like, ratchet it up in that way. I'm like, you know, I need to look at it overnight and I'll have an answer for you tomorrow. Right. Kind of thing. Katie's like, you know, we can just get another division or an outside company to go halfsies with us on the lead. Right. And like, they'll put in two bucks and then, like, we'll give them the lead on a CPA basis and we're good to go. And so. And that's a much better answer, actually. Like, not that the funnel shouldn't be looked at, but, like, as far as speed goes. Yeah. And so I think that, like, prior to my, like, leaving the market for a while, the market was very partner.

Focused, you could say. Right. Overly focused per se.

On everybody was just promoting.

And prior to Facebook, there was a really good reason for that because, like, it was very hard to buy AdWords for businesses like ours. Like, Facebook was the first way that we could actually target people.

Accidental discovery was super hard. Like now, like social media has made. Oh, like I'm just browsing around and put it in front of me before you had to get in front of search terms.

Right. And someone typing in make money online is way too green. Like, they're gonna believe stuff that I have no time to dispel those dreams. And then someone who's typing in infusionsoft is now at that time looking for infusionsoft. They're not looking for. So Facebook opened up a lot of doors, but I think people kind of abandoned their partnership type stuff. And I think nowadays, while it shouldn't go back to maybe as crazy as it was in the past, incestuous it was. Yeah. But I think that everybody, every business wants to have 3, 4, 5 partners in complementary types businesses that are also growing through outside traffic, so that they're all contributing to a bigger pie of those companies. And actually, in the final chapter, when I wrote about it, that was one of the big differences between the US Direct response companies and the ones in the rest of the world. The ones in the US the reason they got big was because they rented their list back and forth. Nowhere else in the world did they do that. And because of that, a company could expand the market, then go out of business, and the market goes back to its original size, as opposed to if everybody's renting lists, the market keeps growing. Right. So I think having some partnerships not just for maybe lead gen, but also for, you know, for back end, but also for customer acquisition is important.

I'd also say that people should start thinking about some of the stuff we were talking about earlier, because I believe. Well, it's. I'm certain of this. This is not even a belief. I'm certain that media buying will quickly over time disappear. And some of my best friends who are media buyers tell me the same thing.

Because of AI.

Because of AI, yeah.

And so it's already doing almost a better job simply through a lookalike audience versus trying to pick the interest yourself.

And it'll improve and improve and improve and it'll be crazy. So I think what people have to realize is that.

That that type of media buying was almost like an anomaly in a way.

Kind of. It's not true marketing. And what I mean by that is that that's almost more like advertising. And advertising is a part of marketing, but it's not marketing. So when you're going out into people who are already prospects and trying to get them to buy, I really consider that just my terms really.

That's chasing demand. There's demand out there, let's get our ad out in front of it. And look, people have built billion dollar companies chasing demand. There's absolutely nothing wrong with chasing demand. But online chasing demand is, you know, is what is going to be automated by AI, like put our ads in front of the people that are most likely to respond, most likely to buy. Whereas marketing has always been, at least from my perspective, like helping prospects value your product. However that happens. Right. And so creating demand is about that. And I don't believe creating demand is anything that based on and I've read a lot about AI and data. Like I don't see that being a skill that AI is going to pick up anytime in the short term. So understanding how to create demand, how to take prospects through more of a process so starting earlier in the customer journey, but where therefore you have more say in the buying criteria and stuff like that.

That's why I started this whole interview with that whole concept because that's what I find is a harder to replace skill. Very valuable. It can be used regardless of the medium.

Yeah, it can be used anywhere. But then some obvious stuff. People should be downloading their data from analytics, from their Facebook account, from their Google account, because if they ever lose their their accounts that all that data disappears. They should be keeping all the data that they can on their customers, on their web logs, everything. It's all going to be useful later on. And then I would say making sure that you can move fast and seize upon the opportunities that open as they relate to your business. Not something totally opportunistic, but seizing on the opportunities fast. And that requires having a few really good sources. And I think that at least When I left the market.

The market was more defined and there were clearly market leaders. And I think nowadays the market is so big and so fractured, and there are so many people pretending to be experts that it's hard to kind of separate the real from the fake. And so people need to spend more time on the front side vetting who they're getting advice from and has their advice proven out. Do they have a track record, those kinds of things. So those would be some. And obviously there's more.

Are you saying that if I run across somebody on Instagram in front of a Maserati who says they're an entrepreneur can give me advice, that that is not all the criteria that I need?

No, no, that's not all the criteria you need. Nor if you rent an Airbnb and record a video in front of your. Your house for the day. But unfortunately, a lot of people are tricked that way, and they. And to me, that's something I've always taken extremely seriously. Like, you know, maybe because of those two years where things weren't really clicking for me online, and I started thinking that there was a problem about me and the time I was taking away from my family and the time I was sitting in front of the computer and, like, just life being a living hell. And, you know, it's always been clear to me that, like, I never wanted to help someone who was selling something that didn't work, because that was worse than stealing. Because if you steal money from someone, okay, they don't have that money, but you're stealing their time, their hope, their dream, the promises they made to their family and so on and so forth. So I think, like, yeah, people who sell fake shit are evil. Evil, the scum of the earth. And the platforms aren't much better. So that's why we have to band together, and that's why we're doing this live stream. But I totally agree. And, yeah, there's just a lot of. There's a lot of. You know what? There's a lot of people who even mean well, but they're selling recycled material that they've never done. They've just, like, learned it from someone who learned it. Someone who learned it, which doesn't work. So. Yeah. So part of being able to operate fast and follow the right strategies and to seize moments that when they happen is to have the right people in place to learn from, like, the perceived. The right. The experts that you would call on or get advice for the different areas of the online world.

One, it's really cool to See some of the stuff that you've kind of been doing and are moving even more so into, especially with the partnership with Agora, because Agora is an absolute powerhouse of not only knowledge but expertise. And I mean the people who do it, fantastic. Like the data they've got is huge, huge. And you know, you said something offline, you know as well, which is that you're you. I may be paraphrasing here, but then when you can work inside there to where it's not just you and maybe a small team, you're actually working with a bigger company, bigger resources, different things that it actually enables you. I don't want to paraphrase.

Well, I just, I've, it's, you know, as you, as you grow up, I guess you learn more about yourself and what works for you and what doesn't and that yeah, you might be able to be okay here, but you're much better off if you're here or whatnot. So, you know, I've always, I've worked alone most of my life. I mean I had my own team and my own business I guess. So I wasn't alone but I wasn't part of a bigger company, not the person at the top of the company for a long time and. But some of the best times I've had is when I've been not leading a company but been actually part of a group in a company and I tend to enjoy that more. And so I didn't know that. I also didn't know that like their energy has a very big impact on.

Me, especially if they're go getters and they're. Yeah, brings it up. And if you're not the one who has to hire and take care of all. There's a term I came across, I don't know, maybe about a year ago and I've seen it with some innovation companies, but the concept of an entrepreneur in residence.

Right.

And I love that.

You know, it's hard though, I tell you because like Agora, like, you know, there's still a bureaucracy. So I mean I'm fortunate that at least like I have a testimonial from Bill that's a billion dollar testimonial and it's about like helping them. Like I told them to get on VSL is real really early on and that made a billion dollar difference in the company. But like on the timing thing, and I don't remember if we were talking about that offline or online here, like nowadays when we test PSLs versus regular sales letters, it's about the same.

Is it really?

Yeah. So like, jumping on things early on means a 400% increase, right? Like jumping on things too late, you know, big difference. It's like when we first started doing automated webinars in 2007 or 8. Sharp rate was insane. Like everything was insane. You know, like now you have to.

Fight fatigue and offers and ads and everything else. I mean, if I see a VSL nine times out of 10, I'm not gonna watch unless, like, I want to read it because I've been through this. Just let me read it. Let me get to the point.

Exactly. So yeah, so that's why seizing things important is important.

But I know I'm really excited to see the stuff you've got coming on. I've been on your newsletter forever. I still pay attention to the stuff that's coming out. I know this live stream is going to be absolutely killer.

It will be amazing.

I mean, you got a bunch of.

It'll be the biggest event online, I think, in the last decade. I really believe that. And I believe that people will walk away with so much value.

Because yeah, there's no, like, just gotta bring a.

Lot of red bull to the livestream.

Yeah. Well, fortunately, I get motivated by marketing and business growth, so that'll be easy. But I think that I'm talking about the watch. The people watching. Yeah. Like maybe. Yeah, that'll be hard. I think for most people, maybe have a watch party. But yeah, definitely very, very important that they check it out because I know that they'll get a lot of benefit from it. Even some of the stuff that we're giving away for free when you opt in is pretty powerful stuff.

Right. And so talking about opting in, so you. The process to watch the live stream, they'll opt in. So I'm going to set up a link. People can go to baconratbusiness.com rich.

Yep, that works.

Rich as in rich and rich double entendre. And there'll be a link in the show notes and wherever you're watching this that you can check it out and.

Then there'll be a code and you'll want to type in bacon.

Bacon.

That's right.

Easy to remember.

Easy to remember. And then you'll be taken to a page where you'll have the choice of whether to register or not for the live stream. It's free when you register. You'll also get three presentations that I gave last summer to all the International Publishers of Agora. The first presentation was how to Increase Conversion 13 Ways to Increase conversion rate without changing a word of copy 11 Ways. The second presentation was like 11 Ways to Increase Cart Value. And the third one was VSL's webinars and other stealth methods of selling. And. And then all they have to do is mark their calendar for the 19th and show up at 7pm I can't wait.

You know, the only thing that I'm bummed about is I'm, I'm flying out. I think I'm flying out on the morning of the 20th, flying to Austin. So I'm going to be able to watch a little bit that night.

Yeah, you'll be able to watch it before you get on the plane. And if there's wi fi on the plane.

There you go.

We'll be on every channel, that's for sure.

Yeah, that'll be fun. Well, Rich, I can't thank you enough for stopping by today and it's been a pleasure.

My pleasure, man.

Sit with you for this.

Good talking to you. Yeah.

And I mean to anybody listening, to anybody watching, I think if you're one of my fans, hopefully you are and you like the things that I have to say. This is one of the guys that I've learned a lot from vicariously, just from buying his stuff, reading his stuff, paying attention, and now getting to sit with him and talk about this. So I mean, my recommendation is always going to the source. Who are the people that you look up to learning from? And Rich is one of very few people that I can say like I'm one of those Kevin Kelly style super fans where it's like, man, if you put it out, I'm paying attention to it. So I highly recommend check out what Rich is doing on the 19th. That's at Baconrapbusiness. Rich, after the 19th, I'm sure we'll redirect that to some other resource that Rich has got if you happen to miss the live stream, if you're watching this later on. But once more, Rich, I can't thank you enough for sharing your insights.

My pleasure, man. Always good seeing you.

You too.

Thanks.

And Kurt.