Breakthroughs in Business: Getting to the Substance of What It Is You’re Selling Featuring Joe Polish and Dean Jackson - I Love Marketing Episode #430

Always loved that line. Amateurs wait for inspiration. Professionals do it with a headache. And all of us know that, you know, when we're running a business, you go to war. Some days. Some days it is fricking hard. Some days it is tough. Although we teach elf marketing strategies that are easy, lucrative and fun. You know, having an elf business in the beginning isn't elf. You know, I mean, there's things you gotta learn, there's capabilities you gotta do. There's, you know, you gotta really become skilled at how you manage your time, what you pay attention to.

Hello, this is Joe Polish. Now real quick, before you listen to the podcast, which I hope you're going to love, just wanted to let you know I spent the entire last year on a sabbatical and I've got so many insights, so many things that would be super valuable. And my first official coming back event and my first public appearance is going to be February 11th through the 13th in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona. So if you are a high level entrepreneur and you would like to attend in person, go to joe polishreturns.com joepolishreturns.com check it out. Hope to see you there. Now enjoy the podcast.

Getting to like, what is the substance of what you're selling to people is critical. And I think people would be so much more well served to sit down and write an ad or write a sales letter or shoot a bio video than they would to sit down and try to figure out what is the perfect mission statement. And that's not to say that mission statements aren't valuable because I think any sort of analysis of what it is you do, what it is you want to present to people what it is that your company is all about, what your culture exists for. I mean, all of that is better than not looking at any of it at all. And to a certain degree, all of it is helpful. It's just if you really want to from our standpoint, look, the reality is that if you're a hammer, everything's a nail. So I mean our hammer is marketing. We look at the way to solve business problems is improve your marketing. The thing is people get lost in the ego based, you know, stuff in all of the buzz speak and all of the terminology and they forget about, you know, people, you know, like, what does Dean Jackson do? I, you know, help realtors make more money.

How can we help people, like really get down to it?

Yes. And if it takes you months to figure out what you stand for versus when you can sit down in an hour or two and Just knock out a consumer awareness guide or record a free recorded message or do a variety of things that we've talked about on all the I love marketing episodes. What's going to be the highest and best use of your time? I think people, Dean, are fricking scared to sell. I think they're scared to go out there and say, this is what I do, this is what I stand for. And you know, one of the things that, you know, like our friend Steven Pressfield who wrote the War of Art and the legend of badger dance and everything, you know, he writes about the War of Art. It's about the difference between being an amateur and being a pro. And I've always loved that line. Amateurs wait for inspiration. Professionals do it with a headache. And all of us know that, you know, when we're running a business, you go to war. Some days. Some days it is frickin hard. Some days it is tough. Although we teach elf marketing strategies that are easy, lucrative and fun. You know, having an elf business in the beginning isn't elf. You know, I mean, there's things you gotta learn, there's capabilities you gotta do. There's, you know, you gotta, you gotta really become skilled at how you manage your time, what you pay attention to. And we are in a world where there's this. I mean, it's like a machine gun of stuff coming at us in order to, you know, make decisions. And I think people are afraid to sell. And you know, Dan Sullivan, he says that, you know, there's two things you need when you first start a business. You ignorance. And you need courage. And it's kind of a funny statement. We've talked about this on past episodes.

I think we've been asked Dan about.

It when we've interviewed Dan. But ignorance is a useful thing, just like delusion is a useful thing to a certain degree, not useful in other degrees. Meaning that sometimes when things are really bad, it's kind of good to not know how bad they are because you can kind of press through it. But being stupid and courageous is not good. Like being ignorant and courageous. Being aware that you don't know certain things, but you have enough courage to start a business and to move forward, that's really important. But how many times have we. And we'll give the same exact advice to someone. They'll have an idea there's some part of their business they want to expand, and we'll say, well, write a sales letter.

Have you written a sales letter? Have you written a consumer awareness guy?

And then you have other People that are hearing the same exact advice and they're not doing anything with it and they're not getting any results as a result of not doing anything with it. And part of it is that fear.

Of just going out to the world.

And saying, here's what I do, here's what I sell, here's how I'm going to help you.

You're presenting yourself in a way to.

Where people are wanting to engage with you.

And there's a methodology to doing this. But I think there's just a real.

Fundamental fear for so many people of selling for making statements and doing that sort of stuff. And I don't, I don't know if.

You agree with that.

I mean, if I just want to hear your thoughts on that and, and.

What to do about it.

Well, you know, I, I think right now is a great kind of inflection point, you know, because I was at the end of a year, the beginning of a new year, it's always a great time to kind of look back and reflect on what actually happened. You know, what's working, what's actually when you're able to sell something to somebody, what, what's actually happening with the people that you are able to, that you are able to help, you know, getting those stories, having an awareness. Like a lot of times people don't have, they don't have the knowledge of what's actually happening. When people buy their, their stuff, you know, they maybe sell it to them and there's no after unit to, you know, build a relationship with people, to have a dialogue with them and find out what happened for them in the, in the last year, you know, after using their, their product, using their service. You know, what is happening when people are using your advice or using your product or using your service, what kind of results they're getting, what kind of, of how better their life is, what's impacted in their life because of knowing you. It's, that's all very valuable stuff because it helps you to understand in the future what is going to motivate more people to use your product or service.

Going into the year ahead. What are some of the Dean Jackson best practices of what you have found over the years of guiding so many people in using effective marketing and building their businesses and creating a cool lifestyle. What are some of the things that you principle based things that you just do that work for you that would be helpful for our listeners?

That's a great question. So, you know, if you look at it, the primary business that, that we're in is helping Realtors make more money. So the primary focus that I have whenever I'm starting a new product or starting a new course or a new tool or a new program is let's start with, is it going to make them more money? And so I focus all of my time on making sure and perfecting the system that I have to make one real estate agent more money, Working really closely with, making sure that I can see what it's like on the front lines and guiding and coming up with new marketing things. Any of the programs that I do, I don't have like a one program that has everything in it. I've got very specific niche programs focusing on getting one specific result and having a package that can solve that problem for them.

Out of all the stuff that you're selling, out of all the tools in your toolbox, you know, people don't need a thousand tools in order to have success. They just need, you know, like the Kekich credo from my friend Dave Kekich, a few basic moves produce all results. And, and one of the things why people will hear me and you constantly talk about the same things in different ways is because you can do really well with a sales letter. You can repurpose a sales letter in many different forms. Audio, video, online, offline, pieced up into what's called a product launch, into a bunch of variety of different ways to present an offering. There's many different ways to use a free recorded message. You can use it before, during, and after sale techniques. A lot of, of times we just use the same stuff. Out of all the consulting and work I've done with people in the fitness, health, exercise, nutrition business, look how many bodybuilding magazines, as an example, exist to show different exercises. And how many different ways can you write articles about bench, squat, deadlift, the basics, strength moves? They've been writing different articles about how to do bench presses, squats and deadlifts with dozens of different magazines every month for decades now, you know, and it will continue for the next 500 years. Nonetheless, the point is, you know, there's a, there's a few basic moves that produce results for your clients. And that's a good thing to hone in on to and keep going back to, because why wouldn't you.

Right now is a great time to really look at your, look at what you do, look at who it is that you're, you're trying to serve and, and maybe look at all the different things, really get a good sense rather than, you know, creating a mission statement that's sort of inwardly focused, is start looking outwardly focused and start to see what are the things that you could help somebody do, you know, what are all the individual things that you're really in your wheelhouse that you could completely solve for somebody.

I go back a lot to the Dan Sullivan question, you know, the R factor question. If we were to meet a year from today, what needs to happen between now and then, you know, for you to feel happy with your results? I ask myself that, I ask other people that. I use it personally, I use it professionally. And it always goes back to what are my. What. What is my dangers, my opportunities and my strengths? Dan has this. This question, you know, what. What are your clients dangers? What are their opportunities and what are their strengths? Because everybody has opportunities, but we don't reach the opportunities we want until we eliminate the dangers. And some of those dangers are real and some of those are perceived. There's psychological dangers and then there's physical dangers. And the way that you help someone get to where they want to go is that you give them confidence by identifying what their strengths are, reinforcing their strengths. So with their strengths, they can overcome dangers and with confidence. And so it's really good for everyone listening to really figure out the dos of your clientele as you go into this year or the next five years or the next 10 years of business, your career. The one thing that's always changing in the marketplace with certain niches, some not so much, others all the time, is the dos. The dangers, the opportunities, and the strengths of your clients are always different. The dos always changes. But I always am on top of what their DOS issues are. What are their dangers, what are their opportunities, and what are their strengths? You know, I understand what keeps these guys and gals up at 3 in the morning. I understand what their fears are. I understand what their desires are to.

A pretty much what the shiny objects are.

You know, we always are keeping up with what. What's changing in the. In the niche, you know, and what's really changing is their. Their dos issues. Not that the marketing techniques, you know, have to change all that much because, you know, frankly, there's sales letters that I wrote for my own carpet cleaning business, you know, 20 years ago, almost one of the things to think about as you go into the new year is when's the last time you sat down with one of your clients or your prospects and said, what are your top dangers? And this is all Dan Sullivan stuff, by the way. You simply sit down with one of your prospects, your Clients and say, what are your dangers? You know, what keeps you up at night? What are the fears you have? What are the concerns? What are the messes? What are the things that are just difficult for you to contend with? What are the problems you would love to eliminate? Figure out what their dangers are. What are your opportunities? And use the question, if we were to meet a year from today, what needs to happen between now and then, both personally and professionally, for you to feel happy with your progress? And if a person is unwilling to give you an answer to that question, either they're completely confused and they're so unclear that it's going to be really hard for you to help them, or they don't want to have a relationship with you. Because if someone won't answer that question, they're basically saying they don't want to have a relationship with you. And it's a really good thing to know that early on when you're trying to sell something to somebody. When I say trying to sell something, let me use the word serve. Because if you are selling anything, you really need to be serving someone. Because if what you're selling isn't serving anyone, you don't deserve to make money, because all money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. And then ask them, what are your greatest strengths? What do you do really well? And most people don't get asked too much about what they do really well. Most of the time it's like, what's wrong and how to fix it, not what's right and how to enhance it. It's always a tool that's on my tool belt. A great analogy is when it comes to marketing tools or business tools or strategies, if you could think of, you got a tool belt, a toolbox, and a tool shed. So a tool belt are tools you use all the time, like daily. A toolbox are things that you use frequently, like a monthly client newsletter, or maybe like a weekly or daily email or a weekly blog, and then a tool shed or special need tools. One of the things that's always on my tool belt is a DOS conversation. I always use it. I mean, whenever I'm interacting with friends. It's like, hey, what's your dos? And I don't always ask it that way. I always say to someone, hey, what are your dangers? But I have different ways of engaging in conversations with people to find out what the hell keeps them up at night, what's scary to them, because people always want to reach their opportunities. But you ain't going to get them to reach their opportunities if the dangers are bigger than their opportunities. Because people aren't going to go out into the woods if they're so scared they can't walk into the woods. The people that bring simplicity to the complexity that exists in people's lives are the ones that I think will make the most money, have the most impact, and help people the most. For a lot of my clients is not that they need a new marketing strategy. A lot of times they just need a sounding board. They need a reminder saying, hey, remember you used to do this and it worked really well for you. Why don't you pick the top three things in the last year that really made a big difference in your business that you haven't really exploited, that you could expand upon. And you have someone sit down for five or 10 minutes and write those things down, and voila. I mean, you've instantly given them some clarity.

Know those two things when you know crystal clear who your audience is, when you know what would be a dream come true for them. And you know, I would recommend that if you haven't already gone to Ilove marketing.com and downloaded the breakthrough DNA reports, 35 pages, explains everything about those eight profit activators and went through that exercise just like Joe's describing it. You know, you really, it's, it's the blueprint for a breakthrough for you.

Dean, let's kind of, let's go through the A profit activators.

We talk about your before unit, your during unit, and your after unit. And in your before unit, it's all about narrowing your focus and selecting one target market at a time. That's profit activator number one. Often when you just kind of narrow your focus like that, it gives you so much clarity that everything else kind of falls into place. So profit activator number two is to use direct response offers to compel prospects to call you. And that is a philosophy of using direct response where your prospects are calling you and you're not out chasing, you're not pursuing, you're attracting your prospects. So we all always talk about using direct response and making offers for information like a consumer awareness guide or some sort of report that people can, can initiate with you that way. The third one is to educate and motivate your prospects to meet you when they're ready. And that means that, you know, you, you realize that it's not about everybody going to buy right away. A lot of people are just entering the process of buying. And if you've got the ability to follow up with them and to educate them and to maintain a, an educational relations them then. And all the while you're making valuable offers to them that they, that will lead to profit activator number four where you get to present your unique surface offer in a way that makes it easy to get started. And you know, those are the kind of things where you're making mafia offers, things that are just, you know, so good that they, they can't refuse. Then profit activator number five is to deliver a dream come true experience designed from your client's perspective. And even though it's profit activator number five on the timeline of when it actually happens, when your, your clients experience it, it's the second thing that we start with. You know, you start with number one, selecting your target market and then you jump right up and design that experience. Begin with the end in mind. Design that experience from your, your ideal prospects perspective. Then profit activator number six is provide after sale service even after you've already been paid. So often if you can just extend the amount of time that you're offering service to people even after they get paid, the psychological impact of what you do after they've already written the check is the most impactful thing. Right. Then profit activator number seven is starting with the after unit. Now nurture lifetime relationships and focus on the lifetime value of your clients. You want to, once you get a client, you want to keep them forever and you want to maximize the amount of value that you can create for them. You want to, like I talked about, always thinking about how can we solve the whole problem for them. How can you enhance everything about the the initial thing that they did with you? Then profit activator number eight is orchestrate referrals by giving your clients the opportunity to feel great and knowing all about the psychology of how referrals actually happen so that you can orchestrate them in your own business.

Yep.

And every single profit activator that we discussed. If you go to ilovemarketing.com and print out the DNA breakthrough report, you can have all of them there with an explanation of not only what it is they are, but how they work. Don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing. Subscribe today@ilove marketing.com subscribe if you'd like access to the show notes or resources to help you take action on what was discussed, please visit ilovemarketing.com 430sat.