Brian Kurtz On Building A More Targeted and Responsive Subscriber List - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #164

Hey, everybody, it's Dean Jackson and Joe.

Polish and a special guest who's lurking in the background. You're going to hear from in just a moment as soon as I say who this person is. Now, this person.

It's very exciting.

It is. This person is one of the leading minds, not only in the United States, in the world, in direct marketing. Indirect response, indirect mail, has been doing it for many, many years. Runs one of the most successful companies on the planet, Boardroom Inc. His name is Brian Kurtz, and he is awesome. And we've interviewed Brian a couple of times. We've even posted an interview with the late Marty Edelston, who was the founder of Boardroom. That was many years ago as an episode on ilovemarketing.com just because there's so much power there. And we could never interview Brian enough because he has so much knowledge and so much insight, which everyone's going to hear as best as we can with our episode today. And so I want to welcome to I Love marketing, our good friend, Mr. Brian Kurtz. How are you, Brian?

I am great. And thanks for having me again. I don't want to overstay my welcome, but being with you guys is always a highlight. So I learned so much.

This is the first time we've done.

It with.

Just Joe and I and you. We kind of smuggled you in on the Perry Marshall episode and then you did the video with Joe. And now here we are, we get to do it together.

Yeah.

Dean was getting lonely. Dean was getting lonely. He was feeling like, yeah, I'm a.

Huge Dean Jackson fan. In fact, I got the 90 minute book working, Dean. I'm all over it. I love it. I listen to your stuff too, believe me.

Yeah. So here's the thing. So the outcome for this episode is to not only teach our listeners, share with our listeners some incredible insights how to on just becoming more successful and the catalyst and the vehicle that direct response and direct marketing is. But also just get everyone up to speed to kind of who Brian is and what you do and how you do it, because you've accomplished a lot and you are a person who really does not. I've never seen you brag about yourself. And trying to, like, get you to talk about your successes is sometimes pulling teeth because you just don't want to come across as a bragging kind of guy. Sort of like me and certainly like Dean. Dean is always so voiceful and whatnot. But who is Brian Kurtz? What do you do? What have you done? Why should someone, when I Said you're one of the world's leading direct marketing experts. That's actually true. And you didn't teach this stuff for years because you've been behind the scenes running a company that's brought in hundreds of millions of dollars. Give the thumbnail sketch for people that don't.

I really, the more I think about it, the more I am a serial direct marketer. And I was talking to someone today. Someone talked about Brian, have you ever done public relations? And then I start breaking out in hives when I hear the term public relations or publicity or remember when you did your thing about his brand? Advertising is bullshit. But it's not that I'm against all that. And you and I had a little debate about that, I think on camera at 25k, not a debate, but that everything that I've done and that I want to do for the rest of my life, maybe because I'm so needy, is that I want to get feedback on everything that I do. And when you're doing direct marketing, I mean, if you want to be really simplistic about what direct marketing is, it's that for every dollar I spend in marketing, it doesn't matter what the medium I use, whether it's direct mail, whether it's online, whether it's tv, whether it's radio, whether it's. Whether it's package inserts. I want to know what I spent and what I got back. And so where my head is at in all of that now is because I'm spending so much time in the IM world, which has been just an incredible journey for me. I call it T Rex. I'm T Rex, roaming the wild, wild west with the Internet cowboys. And I'm just having a blast because I'm seeing all this stuff. I'm getting this PhD in online marketing. I learned how to do a squeeze page Dean. And then I'm taking all of these what Perry Marshall calls the eternal truths of direct response marketing. And every single one of them applies to everything that's being done today. I don't care. Online, offline, doesn't matter. So I'm just so passionate about being. And of course, I've done the exercise in strategic coach with Dan Sullivan that now that I'm going to live to be 103, whereas, you know, I know Dan's going to live to be 156.

But yeah, you're talking Dan Sullivan.

Yep, Dan Sullivan. Now, first, not Dan Kennedy.

Dan Kennedy might be in like a big pickled jar, all curmudgeonous. And stuff like that's a whole nother issue. We'll talk about that.

One of my headliners like that. Anyway, so Dan Sullivan, you know, talks about, you know, the 10 times lifetime. And I am just so passionate about what I do, what I've done, what I want to teach, because I've got all this knowledge that I want to just give. I want to create products, I want to do all this other stuff. And it's all about having done it for 33 years. And I have given away a lot of free consulting. I love your line, Joe, when you said someone comes and picks your brain, they're just coming to pick your pocket. So I guess I've gotten my pocket pick for 33 years. But it's okay because I think where I am right now in my life is just such a cool place to be. It's just I'm content. I don't have to pay tuition for either of my kids. They both graduated college. I'm going to be live to 103. So I've got at least 25, 30 years of total teaching and mentoring because I live for my mentors. I live for the two. You guys are mentors to me. But I live to learn. And I learned that from my ultimate mentor, Marty Edelston, who you mentioned in the intro. And, you know, I live for this stuff. And if I'm not going to. And it's not about giving back. I believe Dan Sullivan when he says, you know, we got nothing. We didn't take anything. We don't have to give anything back. But the fact is that I do have so much to contribute, so much to share. And, you know, when I have friends like you guys helping me do it to big audiences, I'm just very, very excited about it.

I just wanted to touch on something you said about the whole giving back thing. There are givers and there are takers. And people that just give because that's what they do are usually the ones that are hit up the most about you need to give back. And the ones that are trying to guilt them about giving back are usually the takers, because the takers don't give shit. So they want. The ones that are taking all the time are expecting to give back. The natural givers to give back. And I think that's where that terminology actually comes from for many people. Not all the time. But I say this being a guy who generated millions of dollars for people in the nonprofit, the giver of all givers.

Yeah, I mean, I said that in my interview with Jay Abraham, talking about the California 25k event. And basically one of the exercises that you do in Genius Network, which I've been in for many years, is to figure out who's in your circle, but then what you can do for them way before what they can do for you. And I think I just did a blog post. I did. I know I did a blog post. It was called the importance of 100 0, which is a great concept, which is basically that I haven't spent a minute of my adult life ever using the term I will meet you halfway. It's just not part of where I want to be in my life. Now. You do get abused. There's a lot. I have a lot of relationships where I give an 80 and I've gotten back 20, but I'm not keeping score. I don't even know which ones those are, because I wasn't keeping score. But at some point, you do have to give up on certain relationships. You and I have had this discussion, Joe. I don't think I've had it with Dean. But, you know, there are people you do have to give up on at some point that it's just take, take, take. But you know what? I believe in serendipitous, Serendipitous receiving that if I give, give, give to these six people, the six people who end up giving to me may be different. Six people, it doesn't really matter. And I know that's the way you guys live your life, too. So I'm preaching to the converted. But just a good reminder for all your listeners that it's really the only to live into 1000 instead of living into keeping score. And what I'm going to get back out of every one of these relationships just, you know, just not, not. And you know how tough it is for me to ask for stuff, Joe. I mean, I did a presentation once at 25k about, you know, maybe getting some partners, possibly for the boardroom business. And the courage it took me to even ask you for that was, you know, I remember it. I was like, I lost sleep over it, right?

And I mean. And I, of course, always go to the defense of someone like that who I think is just a natural giver. Because if. For everyone listening, if, you know, if you want to, if you're not making the translation of how this has to do with marketing, let me kind of point something out. I try to think of relationships as the word networking gets totally overused. The reason I like Genius Network is if you're going to network with anyone. You might as well network with real geniuses, not just anyone. Because it could be what's the point of networking with idiots? Direct response. Networking is how I actually think about it. Where you actually, you're making offers to people, you're doing stuff that's actually helpful. And my relationship with, with you, and even for Dean, we're talking about dating back to the early 90s. I got introduced to you by Ken Glickman, who created the IPower Seminars for boardroom back in the day. Used to be the VP of marketing for Boardroom, who you've known forever. It's one of those cliches, be nice to the people you meet on the way up, they're the same people you meet on the way down. And when I first met you, there's no telling that here we are today, 20 years later, that, that we would be really great friends. Collaborating together, doing all kinds of stuff. That's just because you nurture those relationships. The more that you nurture your list, nurture your products, nurture everything that you do versus just treat it in a very transactional sort of way. That's what's going to etch the road and pave the road for you having long term success. That's really stated for all the young people that are out there. If there's the best piece of advice that I could give to people starting out in business is don't screw up relationships. Don't be a jerk, be a giver. Spend your time with the people that are actually producing results that know what the hell they're talking about. And a lot of times you don't know what they're talking about. But you got to pay close attention and don't listen to just their words. Look at their actions. What do they do that speaks volumes about and replicate, learn, model that and develop those relationships because that's what's going to happen.

I mean Dean Graziosi has that great line, people refund transactions, not relationships. And then the other thing that you and I talk about a lot, and I think I've talked about it with Dean as well, is this Dean, Dean Jackson, is the importance of this networking being the term, networking being overused? And what I think you and I have talked about, even at a 25k discussion, was the importance of contributing. Before you can connect. There's no, you don't just walk into a room and say, now I'm going to be a gadfly and I'm going to be, I'm going to shake hands with everybody and I'll have all these people on my Facebook account. It's a crock of shit, you know, I'll give you one little tip. This is my favorite LinkedIn tip, and I've given this to a bunch of people. LinkedIn can be used for good and not evil, by the way. And LinkedIn, when I get a request from LinkedIn, I store them up for a couple of weeks. I get 30, 40 every couple of weeks. And I spend the time to go through every single request from LinkedIn. I quickly look at the profile, see where, why they would want to link in with me. I look at what groups they're following. I see which connections we have in common. I can tell quickly if they're a copywriter or a list person or someone you know. And then I will send them a personal email before I connect with them and just say, thanks for linking in. I see we have, you know, I see your big I love marketing guy. And we both know Dean and Joe. If you know them, you must be awesome too. Hope we can stay connected. Now I know Everybody on my LinkedIn account today. About 2,000 people. Every single one of them I've at least had that one interaction with as opposed to just adding them up on my account Now, I don't know what that means. Has it translated into dollars? Who the hell knows? But it certainly translates into feeling great. When I do those 30 or 40 linkedins on a Saturday or Sunday for an hour, an hour and a half, it's one of my most enjoyable things to do because I'm connecting to the world in a way that's totally one way. Me going out to you, me saying to you, I want you in my world, I don't even know who the hell you are. And let's see what happens. And some people are needy, and of course the next thing I get from them is they want to sell me some envelopes. But you get those. But then you get the people that come back to you, and it's like, holy mackerel, Jeff Walker wants to link in with me. What the hell is that about? Is that the Jeff Walker you know? And that's how I got reconnected to Jeff Walker.

Well, he's kind of like a mental midget compared to you, though, when you think about the world of marketing. No, Jeff's a good friend of ours. We just did it up. And you know that of course, we're all in 25k together, but it's like. But you're right.

Let's talk about some marketing stuff. Because I want to try to. You know what, you guys, I've watched. I haven't watched every ILM podcast or listened to everyone. I love the ones that have some video. I remember the one in particular, which I think maybe we can talk about for a second. I remember the one in particular where the two of you maybe did it in two parts, where you were sitting in Joe's kitchen or Dean's kitchen, going through mailing pieces and critiquing them.

Oh, the grabbers.

Oh, that was such an amazing. Maybe when you, when you post this interview, repost that link for people who didn't see those. To me, that's marketing, man. I'm doing an event in September, which we'll talk about later, which is not the purpose of this, but where I'm giving away swipe files of some of the best direct mail that's ever been written, not just for boardroom, but ever.

That's great.

You guys get this, right? I mean, it's not like you have to. You steal smart because there's so much.

Hey, I got to say something to that too, Brian. I hired a couple of organizational people who have been going through my office and they've been categorizing my books. Like, I have a ton of books and there's this software program that you put the book right up to. I mean, there's several, but they're using a particular one. I can't remember what it's called. And they're scanning all of my books that immediately tell what the replacement cost of the book is worth. And they went through one bookshelf shelf in. I have a conference room that's just filled floor to ceiling bookshelf. And they did one bookshelf out of like about 14 bookshelves. And just that one bookshelf. The replacement cost of just the books on that one shelf was something like $7,600. And I'm like going, God, I've got this. I mean, I've spent this much just on books because I know I have several hundred thousand dollars worth of marketing courses and everything. And one of the things they're trying to get me to do is throw away a lot of these old direct mail st. And I go, no, you guys don't understand. There's a thing that great marketers use called a swipe file. Now, certainly people that are online marketers, which we all are. Like you say, Brian, which I'm going to ask you about in a little bit is you never define yourself by a channel. It's a Brilliant line. And it's an important key. But what I'm telling these guys is, look, there's something about holding. If I want to replicate or think about a campaign, I want to have the physical thing. I don't want to scan it and throw it away. Some things that I can certainly, I don't want to hold on to just paperwork that's unnecessary. But I said there is a reasoning, and they don't get it. They don't understand. I mean, I cannot teach this to.

These people because the best copywriters in the world, in the world today, if you ask them, one of the most valuable things is their physical swipe file. And they scan the stuff just in case there's a fire or whatever. But there's something about. Again, direct mail is about the tactile. It is about. And I'll talk about. We can talk about Marty a little bit, because Marty Edelston is someone who we both did a lot of, and he'd be very proud about your books because Marty was a voracious reader as well. Of course, Marty only thought there was, like, one good chapter in every book. That's why he launched the business. He was a voracious reader, but you didn't have to read everything cover to cover, according to Marty. And Marty would basically just study, study, study. And I don't know any good copywriter that doesn't understand what's come before him or her. And it's not just about direct mail, although direct mail, you do need the tactile. But I'll tell you just a quick little story. This is fascinating to me. Someone in one of my mastermind groups from a foreign country, I won't say where, because then it may give it away. Foreign country. Sends out an email to his huge list. And it was something like the subject line was, do you make these mistakes in Internet marketing? And if you've studied the greats of direct marketing, you know that Max Sackheim wrote a headline, I think it was like, in 1923, do you make these mistakes in English, which was a language program. And the guy who did this in my group was bragging about he had the highest open rate that he ever had. I'm using that as sort of a. You know, I'm not saying that that happens all the time, but there are certain things in human behavior that get people to move and get people to vibrate, as Marty used to say. And those things haven't changed, you know, cavemen, you know, and look at Breakthrough advertising. The best book they say ever Written on copywriting, written by Gene Schwartz, another mentor of mine and an amazing copywriter. And Breakthrough advertising, written in 1966. The book is about human behavior. It's not about. I think I said this in the interview when we did the video. It's not about direct mail. It's not about creative. It is in some respects, but it's about human behavior. How people respond, how they react, what gets under their skin. That stuff hasn't changed. And if you think it's changes, you think it changes completely just because you go from offline to online, you're crazy.

No, you're good, Dean.

You're dominating this so much that I figure I should let you talk. I mean, I should.

I want to hear from Dean every.

Time he's going to say. So I should just interrupt just to cut him off. Yeah, exactly.

All right, just shut up for a.

Minute because I'm going to say something good.

I was just in London and I've been reading the Albert Lasker story, which was fascinating. This goes all the way back to the teens and the twenties, basically, in the beginning of advertising. And just to reinforce what you were just saying, Brian, he was telling stories about introducing refrigerators into the world and how people were afraid that these refrigerators were going to suck all their electricity. And the solution, they came to work with these, coming up with the words that would ease people's minds, and they started offering the Frigidaire.

And.

And every Frigidaire comes with the meter miser. And just those words alone that the meter miser made it seem like, okay, this is the one for me, because it's gonna actually, like, monitor the meter and it's not gonna take up all my electricity. And it's amazing how just that psychology of overcoming, understanding what people's fears are, what their blocks are, the meter miser. How just those two words can overcome people's fears. The psychology of what was going on for them.

You know, they're copy.

Well, you know what is so weird? I have to mention this? The fact that Dean. I mean, we didn't talk, that he was reading the Albert Lasker story. I am right in the middle of reading the book taken at the. The Story of Albert Lasker that was written by John Gutther in 19. There's no new copy of it online. I bought it a used copy on Amazon. And I'm not kidding, you guys. And of course, Brian, you just did a great interview about 25k with Jay Abraham. I've spoken with Jay every day for the last three Weeks. I mean, every day I talk to Jay Abraham. We were talking about a week ago about how Taken at the Flood, one of the first books he read, along with Claude Hopkins and Ogilvy and everything. And I ordered the book. And the fact that you're reading the Albert Lasker story. Now, for people that are new to marketing or aren't, most people don't even have any earthly idea who Albert Lasker even is or who Max Sachem is or any of these people that we're talking about. But when you hear things like that, it would be very smart for you to go and read it, because that's understanding. These people didn't have props back then. They had to use words. They had to use copy. And David Ogilvy, like 50 years ago, I think it was, he had that line that the mail order guys are the only ones that know what they're doing. And today, if you said that to people that grew up on the Internet, they would just dismiss it like, well, what the hell does that mean? But, Brian, you know more than anyone what really defines direct response, what the power of copy is, and what I want to do here because I want to kind of get into some of the techniques and methodologies. Although I think talking about it, I want to mention everyone that Brian is doing an event in September called the Titans, a direct response. And I want to talk about this. It's going to be held in Stamford, Connecticut, on September 11th and 12th. I'm going to this. I'm paying to go to this. It is going to be awesome. And here's the people that he has speaking at this thing. And I'm bringing this up because it'll give you a testament of the firepower that Brian actually has, because I've never seen anyone pull together these types of people in this particular subject area. It'll probably never happen again because he has people speaking at this thing that literally don't do this stuff. So he has Dan Kennedy, of course, Gary Benzavinga. Okay. I think this is probably the only talk that, other than his own retirement seminar that he did, you're going to have Benzavinga, I mean, which is huge, if you don't know.

Yeah, he's going to do a solo thing. And he. Yeah, I mean, Gary had sworn that he'd never speak again. And he came up to me. I was at an event with him. I mean, he literally made me cry as I'm sitting there at the break, because he said, for you and for Marty and for boardroom, I got to do this. And of course, Gary is the most competitive. I mean, he's the nicest guy in the world, but try to beat his control, he'll rip your throat out. So when he heard about who the other people were speaking, can you just imagine Gary Bensivenga saying, not only am I going to speak at your event, Brian, I'm going to be the best speaker at your event.

So I just want to rattle this off, then we'll get into some stuff. You have Greg Ranker from Guthy Renker, Jay Abraham, Perry Marshall, Joe Sugarman. I'm not going to read everyone. You've got people that basically the A list writers for boardroom that are responsible for more than 628 million pieces of profitable direct mail since 95. Paris, Arthur Johnson, David Deutsch, Eric. I can never pronounce his last name.

It's technically betwell, but people say Betchel.

Yeah, you've got many of these people. Someone would never even know who some of these people are. But anyone in marketing are like, these are the titans. You've called it titansofdirectresponse.com that's actually the website. But me and Dean were talking the other day on an episode where, you know, there's two ways that people can look about when we talk about stuff. They're like, oh, they're trying to set it up so they can pitch something. And Dean made this great statement where he's like, you can watch. We'll say it.

Dean.

Well, I just say we, you know, we don't charge extra for that. Not something. Because a lot of times people are hesitant to. To pitch or, you know, that's. People call it, oh, they're going to pitch us or whatever. But I always just frame it that there's no, we don't charge extra for that. For you to watch great direct marketers pitch. And there's something that. So like, you know, just. It's an observation. If you're not gonna buy or come to the event or buy whatever product or service one of our guests is talking about, it's really just observing it. You're going to learn a lot. And I think even the fact that it brings up that desire or that notice that you're being pitched is usually a projection that you, you know, an indication that you want something, but there's some kind of a block that won't let you take advantage of it. But, you know, the thing is, it's. I really believe if you've got something that you believe firmly in your heart that people would be better off. It's almost like you've got that obligation. We were talking earlier, I love the words that Brian said that, you know, it's like this moral obligation.

I said it's irresponsible. I get that from Jay Abraham when he says, get everything you can out of everything you've got.

Right, right. And that's the thing. And that's where, you know, you hear it echoed through all of the amazing people that we've had. Come on. I love marketing. You hear Richard Branson talking about how the first thing about marketing is that you've got to have a product or service that you want to shout about from the mountaintops. That's the start of it all. And if you've got that, that's really where it begins, you know, so everybody that we have, you know, invite into our world like this is somebody that we really believe has something that's worth shouting about from the mountaintops. And just the list of people that Joe read off there that you've assembled for this event is, you know, spectacular. And I want to say something else about this. Going back and reading about Albert Lasker and Claude Hopkins and what I always find amazing, when you're reading all these things you're reading about, you're reading from different perspectives. If you've read the Claude Hopkins story, you know, the big role that Albert Lasker plays in that. But it's neat to read from the Albert Lasker side, to see the intersection and hear that side of the. The story. And so every single person that I know that is truly passionate about direct response has this insatiable appetite, this thirst to go and follow the roots of it back and to hear everything from, you know, even though the methodologies change, the psychology is really what is. Has carried all the way through. All the things that Claude Hopkins talks about, all the things that Albert Lasker talks about. It's not about the, you know, the methodology. It's about the psychology. It's about understanding the desires of people and how to ignite those desires in them and how to at the same time, ease their fears and. And make them comfortable.

Right? Yeah, totally. I did a blog post not that long ago. I think it was the subject line was something like email marketing secrets from the 12th century. And I tried to equate building. I was in France. I was trying to equate building the Notre Dame Cathedral with direct mail. Kind of a weird argument to make, but basically building a cathedral without. I mean, you go to an edifice like that. I don't know about you, but it just blows me away. It's like, where's the crane? Like, where was the Crane in the 12th century? And when people had to do direct mail, I always say how paying postage made me a better marketer. The thought that had to go through. When you're paying five or six hundred dollars per thousand in the mail versus what you have to pay to do an email, obviously it's A$1000 or whatever or less. And I'm not saying I should be applauded for spending $500 1000 to do my marketing. What I should be applauded for and the people who work with me and the people who came from where I came from is that there was no, you couldn't afford to waste messaging that was not pinpoint that you couldn't afford to do test panels that weren't going to give you significant lifts. And I made a ton of mistakes in my career by testing stuff that was too small. And just because you're paying a $1000 instead of $500 a thousand, you should have that discipline to go for the big stuff, to test big things, to really go for big lifts. And it always comes down, it almost always comes down to the copy. And you know, I love, you know, I always quote Gary Halbert. You know, Joe, you have the quote in your riff. Every business problem can be solved with a great sales letter.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And I also love the difference between being rich or being broke. Could be one good sales letter or one good sales video or online offline. But the fact is, I want to really reiterate, when you have to pay for postage, you have a much different experience with making offers and identifying the list than if you are just going to push a button and send out an email. The one thing that people that are just Internet marketers in my experience is they are short sighted in many areas. And this is not a slam on people that do marketing on the Internet. This is just a specific segment in how people go about it is they become very promiscuous with how they do things because they think there's no such thing as free email. I mean, yes, in the sense of do you have to pay for it in some cases. Now, depending on regulations and stuff, people may find themselves paying for everything here one day. But the bottom line is when you have to put your own money on the table, you think about the decisions you are making and the communications that you're making much differently than if you don't. And you know, all of us of course know not opinion, but for a fact that when you have to make it work because you're putting money out, because if it doesn't work, you're not going to be able to do it again, you're not going to be able to parlay your winnings into the next bet that you just take it more seriously. I mean, you think it through. Because at the end of the day, marketing is applied psychology. And if you're not willing to understand the mindset of the marketing you're selling to identify the list, make the specific offer, how you're going to deliver it to that, it's a much different thing, which is when you even like this event that you've assembled, you've assembled some of the greatest direct response legends in history. There is a serious depth of knowledge, understanding and experience that a guy like you has about how this whole business works. That's why we're talking with you today. That's why we're throwing out things like books and telling people to go to titansofdirectresponse.com and read what it is you've written. Because if you want to know how to do this stuff, watch people that are actually doing it day in, day out. What do they say? Who do they say it to? How do they do it? If you ever have an opportunity to go learn from them and hang out with them and meet them, why the hell would you not do that? Unless you for some reason simply cannot because of dates or whatever. But there are certain things, like your event as an example. It's right in the middle of the most crazy ass schedule that I have. My annual event is going to happen next month and everything. But this is one of those things to where you just change things in order to show up. Some things are so important and so unique, at least to me, that there are some situations where it's like I'm always available. Now in most cases I don't have much availability except for my top clients and the things that are most interesting to me. And certainly this event is not going to make or break my survival on the planet, but it certainly can make or break decisions that I make in my business and how I do it. So when something like this pops up, I'm always available. I mean, I will figure out how to make it work. And that's sort of something that I think is an important trait of most successful people I know. They will figure out what needs to be done in order to make things work, if it is workable. And they will also Drop things after testing and prove that this doesn't work. Because the best way to get out of a hole is to quit digging it. And if you identify that this ain't working, we've already given it a fair shot. Persistence in this area isn't about being admirable or being disciplined. It's about being frickin ignorant and stupid. If you can continue down a path that after having given it a really freaking good shot, that it ain't gonna fly, boom, move on to the next thing. And that's what marketing teaches you. Anyway. That was a ramble, but hopefully.

Obviously you're preaching to the converted. But the thing, I want to go back to direct mail just for a second that I was with somebody yesterday who was telling me, and even in 2014, this concept that nothing scales like direct mail. And this is an exact quote. If I could get my. This is from someone else, if I could get this response rate from a 0.6% to a 8%, my entire business would skyrocket. And I'm thinking to myself, because of the scalability of direct mail, because of the way you can personalize. I'm not saying you can't do all of that online, but I'm just fascinated with this whole online offline relationship. And you've done some neat stuff, Joe, with space advertising, getting people to go to a site. That'll be one of the case histories in my book. I want to do the book O2O2 online to offline to Online, which I spoke about last year at your New York event. I think I'm seeing more and more certainly in the B2B marketplace, but there's so much opportunity to be able to use all channels and all boats rise. That's why I wanted people like Greg Rinker. I have Fred Katona, who's the head, the number one direct response radio guy. I'm not saying you should just do direct response radio just because. For the same reason I'd say just don't do email marketing. But all boats are going to rise when you try to figure out how all of this different media can work together. Yeah, I mean, lead generation and doing cold prospecting through something like direct mail or direct response TV is way too costly for most small entrepreneurs. I get that. But to not think about, and we talked about this in our video, to not think about these things on the back end and things like physical product from digital product. I mean, wow, what an amazing revelation that is that it might be that a physical product could actually have higher perceived value than a digital product. Wow. We've known that since the dawn of time. So I'm not saying that. And it's not like it's not an or, it's an and. Everything's an and. That's kind of what I want to be. In fact, I bought the URL on a whim because somebody dared me to buy it. So I bought it. It's www.singlechannelmarketingisoboring.com. and I've used it in a couple of. I said I bought it so I could use it in speeches just so I can then tell people that I bought it. Figured it was worth 20 bucks. Right, right. But now it redirects to my personal site or whatever. But I just love, I love this whole idea that as you said at the beginning, why define yourself by a channel? There's so much available to us. There's a great quote I got from actually from an investment banker in New York who is buying and selling multimillion dollar Internet companies daily. And his quote to me was, advertising opportunities are now infinite. So that could either be your death knell because you have no idea what you're doing and you're not going to learn how to use all these different, all the different media and how they work together, or it's going to be your ultimate opportunity to make sure that. I did a blog about the danger.

Of one stop shopping.

Anybody who comes to me who says they're going to handle my SEO, my Facebook, my LinkedIn, my website, they're going to handle everything that I need to do online. I run, don't walk from that person. I mean, there's no way that, you know, and I grew up in a world of specialization. Thank goodness. You know, I knew that early on that the best copywriters weren't sitting in direct response agencies. You know how fast Gary Bensivenga got out of Ogilvy and Mather when he realized he could make millions of dollars as a freelance copywriter? Why would he be on salary when every mailer in the country would want a piece of Gary Bensivenga? So I've learned this idea, this concept of a la carte shopping at a very young age and a la carte shopping for marketing. It sounds counterintuitive to some degree. It's like you're going to pay more, of course, because you got the most expensive copywriter and then you got the most expensive production people and the most expensive this and that. But this is an age of specialization. And when advertising opportunities are infinite, I want to make sure. That I got the one guy or gal that's that knows more about SEO than anybody. When I go to SEO, I want the person that knows more about direct mail creative than anyone when I'm going to spend 600 bucks, 1000 for a direct mail piece. So that's a big, big lesson that has carried over and I'm going to explore that with the people that have been in the business a long time, because a lot of the people who I grew up with in the industry have not retired. They've retired from stuff they don't want to do anymore, and they've retired from people they don't want to be around. That's a Dan Sullivan definition of retirement. But they still want to make a difference. They don't want to just tell old boy stories. I don't want to tell all boys stories. I could sit here and tell you about all these great direct mail campaigns and I'll be like grandpa on the back porch. I don't want to do that. I want to know what I did. That still applies. I mean, Perry Marshall puts it beautifully. What are the eternal truths that transcend the years, the decades, and all the different new media? And what can we learn from there and what can we apply? And that's really what this is all about. It's not about telling war stories. So it's just an important distinction.

I think that's a great segue.

Go ahead, Dean.

I was going to say that's a great segue into maybe you could share some of the eternal truths that you've discovered in all of your days of doing direct response.

You know, it's interesting. I did a. Actually, I think, Joe, you were a keynote for John Bowen's online event recently for entrepreneurs. Yep.

Yep. Actually, you talked about nine eternal truths entrepreneurs need to know. I know that inside and out.

Yeah.

So I was talking to an audience, which was good practice for me, of people who probably don't even know what direct marketing is. So I wanted to tell entrepreneurs the nine things, based on my experience over 33 years that I think they must know about marketing, even if they don't want to get into the weeds. A lot of entrepreneurs do and a lot of entrepreneurs don't. I'll just rattle them off and we can go into any one of these. But it was be involved, even if you outsource your sales and marketing. So again, it goes back to if you're going to outsource it, have some interest in it. Because as you say, Joe, nothing happens until we start selling what we got. You could be the most mission based entrepreneur in the world. But as Dean said, it's irresponsible to not put the great marketing behind it. Number two is advertising opportunities are now infinite, which I kind of beat to death already. Number three, big one, no one spends enough time on lists, mailing lists, which is where I came out. I came out of the list business in direct mail, which is even a better place to come out of than creative to some degree, because I had to understand audiences, I had to understand how people are going to respond. So no one spends enough time on lists. Number four, customers refund transactions, not relationships. I kind of beat that one before. That's the Dean Graziosi line. But also understanding lifetime value. It brings a smile to my face when I see an online entrepreneur who I really respect talk about Facebook advertising that they actually are going to pay for. Wow, unbelievable. We're not going to do affiliate marketing that's free, and we're actually going to pay for marketing. And the first sale doesn't even come close to breaking even. But you start creating a lifetime value calculation that says, now I can, because my $10 special report on Facebook yields an average of $78 average order. And now look at all the advertising I can buy on Facebook when I know that number. That one number will allow me to buy a lot of media. You know, many Internet marketers think the only way to buy media is through affiliate marketing since it doesn't cost anything. I mean, what a revelation when you let them know you can actually pay for media that will pay out. Can I explain this to you? Would you like to hear about it? Number five is direct marketing, not advertising. Again, these were entrepreneurs and I wanted them to think measurable and accountable advertising, which is really what direct marketing is. Number six was single channel marketingisoboring.com, which I mentioned already. Number seven, we touched on. Marketing is not evil and it's irresponsible not to sell what you have. Number eight, if applicable, use your personal brand in your marketing. You know, entrepreneurs sometimes are so afraid to put themselves out there because they're afraid of the haters. And we know that if you don't have a few haters, then you're probably not marketing aggressively enough. And you're not marketing with, you know, you have to market with integrity. I'm not saying, you know, be a shyster, but you market the way you believe and you're mission based. There are going to be haters, there are going to be people that, you know, won't respect what you have or what you do and so be it. But I think if you don't use your personal brand, if you have one, you're missing a huge opportunity. And then number nine, which you talk about, you guys talk about all the time, which is credibility and transparency trumps all. You talk about the example, the most recent, you talked about the Tesla example, but the COVID up is always much worse than the crime. And so when you make a mistake in customer service or you make a mistake in how you treat your customers, I mean, this is an eternal truth that we knew the customer is always right. And that's the first rule. And the second rule, look at rule number one. That's the Stu Leonard's thing, right? But it's like that's an eternal truth that I think a lot of online marketers who have 60% return rates on their products have to take a closer look at what their credibility and transparency are doing up front to cause a 50 or 60% return rate. So those are the nine things that I shared with entrepreneurs. But there's a lot of stuff in there that you could go a lot deeper. And yeah, I was just going to.

Say maybe we could go a little deeper on list selection because that's something that you are uniquely qualified to talk about. And it totally fits with our profit activator. Number one is about selecting a single target market. And that totally ties in with what you're saying about list selection. If you really understand who it is that you're communicating to, that makes it so much easier to understand the language that they're going to speak. But what have been some of your big insights?

Yeah, and it's interesting. I'll give you the biggest insights going from offline to online especially. So the laziness factor of online marketers thinking that one message fits all that in direct mail, it was really expensive. What we call to have multiple controls, we actually had different control packages that would go to different list universes. One example that I use, and I'll probably talk about this at Infosummit where I'm speaking, because they really want to hear about this, is that we had a list of opportunity seekers and we had a list of more mainstream lists for Bottom Line Personal. And we actually had two completely different creative approaches. And in direct mail, can you imagine that's really expensive to do to split your universes up because it all has to be done at the letter shop and it's expensive in email. It's easy. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with marketers who have a really big email list and the people that spend the most with them don't get the same messaging as the people that are prospects or suspects and floors me. And so treating people like they are special, treating people that. And this goes back to the copy, then the copy has to fit the list. So that's a big observation that I've seen going offline to online. The other thing that I'd love to see more of, of course, is that cold email marketing is just really difficult. I mean, it's really hard to find email lists that, yes, you do affiliates. So you've got people endorsing your product to a particular list that people know the brand, which is great. But the idea that in direct mail we used to the list research that we did on what we call response lists versus compiled lists, which is a whole session in itself, but that's people who we know are going to respond to a direct mail offer versus people who are just out of the phone book with certain data attached to them. The difference is night and day of how they'll respond. So you take that into the online world and how do we get to people that we're emailing to that have a much higher propensity to respond than people who have come in through different sources that have much lower propensity to respond and deserve a different type of messaging? So I think there's a great future in the building of better email lists. But of course, the first thing you have to do is make sure that your house list the names that you own, the people that buy from you, the people that you've developed a relationship with, that you're really treating them in segments that you're not treating them one size fits all, I think that would be one of the biggest things that I could share. I think Joe and I touched on this in our video interview as well, but I can't emphasize that one enough because it's just. It floors me when you're someone who is, I'll call him an extreme multi buyer. The rules of lists in direct mail were always based on the RFM principle, the letters rfm. And I think a lot of your listeners will know this, but I'll quickly repeat it. R is for recency. F is for frequency. M is for monetary value recency. If they responded more recently, they're going to be worth more than someone who responded six or eight months ago. So if you can reactivate someone who responded 8 months ago who's now responding to something else, in the last three months, it may not be an order online, but it certainly could be an interaction of some sort that's going to be worth more frequency. How many times have they interacted with you or how many times have they bought? I mean, we used to call that multi buyers in the direct mail world. Maybe it's multiple clicks, but it's multiple clicks and you know what interest areas they have. And then the third is monetary. If they actually lay down some money on a credit card, now you've got another piece of data. And by putting those three things together, that was what made everything about direct mail work. Every model that we ever built in direct mail on millions and millions of names are almost always based on the RFM principle. And they're always based on transaction data, always based on what they did with you, what they bought from you. And so all of that can be totally translatable into the online world. You may have more names of people who may not have bought, but tracking people through whatever system. We know all about cookies and we know all about behavior patterns, but making sure that you track all that data, put it on the records, and all of this is easy. I mean, the cost of storing data is cheap. And then start segmenting your list in really intelligent ways and using creative to the different segments. That's game changing for a lot of businesses. Everybody's doing that. I don't have a sense. And you guys might know more because you talk to a lot more people maybe than I do. I just don't get a sense.

Epin Paikon, who we all know, one of the biggest trajectory changers for his business when he was doing the dating stuff. So Evan developed a software engine that would identify which products you already own. He had a list of, you know, hundreds of thousands of people at that time who were getting weekly emails from with dating advice. And at the end of the email, he would always offer a specific product. But what he found was that when they were only offering one product, if you just bought that product or you already owned it, you were not going to buy today because you were being made an offer that was irrelevant to you. They spent a lot of money developing a software that would recognize what you already own and would put in offer for the next product for you. So you were never being shown an offer for something that you already owned. See, when they were sending out hundreds of thousands of emails, they were being offered something that they already owned. And if they were offered something that they didn't already own, now you've got your Best message in front of your best customers and the moment that they launched that.

The moment. Let me add two things to that. This is brilliant, Dean. Yeah, brilliant site. Evan was ahead of his time and I don't think you have to spend $100,000 to do it anymore because the cost went down since he had that business. But there's a couple of things on that I think that you really have to understand that your database is every time you in direct mail, every time you sell something to your list, you may be taking away a sale for something else. Think about the lack of credibility of selling that. You don't even know the damage you might be doing by offering a product that they already own. It's like, what the hell are these guys doing? I already own that product. Now you've insulted me and I'm one of your best customers because I already bought that other product. The other thing, I mean, the other thing is the idea of de duping what people have bought previously to then put them next in the funnel. The best online marketers we know know all about ascension programs. They all know about this, but they don't do it. They are actually, as I said, losing credibility. And I think that we call it contact strategy in direct mail. And it's expensive. But what we do is we basically, if someone buys a book from us in direct mail and we still sell books in direct mail, hardcover with paper. There's this stuff called paper. It still works sometimes. So they buy these books and as soon as they pay for the book, we do a bill me offer too. So they get a bill and we get 70, 80% pay up. Because the list selection is so tight. Once they pay for the book, they immediately get a first class envelope offering them a subscription to one of our newsletters. If it was a health book, they get our health newsletter. If it was a money or consumer book, they get for bottom line personal. And it's a constant stream of contact strategy. Now in direct mail, you can imagine the amount of moving parts that we have to get coordinated to do that. It's a pain. And yet we still do it in email. It's easy to do that. And yet I think that more people are not like Evan and they're more sloppy with whatever I feel like sending out this week, I'm going to send out. I think that. And you gave a classic example of the most obvious obviously is if you've got multiple products, make sure that you're not insulting them. These are your best customers. I know, I'm preaching to the converted. I hope some people in the audience understand what we're telling them here. If they're not doing this, they don't even know the damage they could be doing to their list because it's not going to show up right away. It's not going to show up in that first thing because remember, if you're paying 75 cents or $1 per thousand for email and you get a.0006 response rate, you still may make money, who knows, depending on your ticket. So you don't even know the damage that you've done. But Gordon Grossman, one of the great direct marketers of all time, he built the Reader's Digest, used to always tell me and I think the same is true for email. Don't underestimate. Every time you make an offer, you make anything, you send anything to your list. You have no idea how that might affect the next thing you send to them. And that's why you couldn't afford in direct mail for very. You couldn't really afford to not sell something. So in email I always say if you can't in an email since it's so cheap, you don't have to sell something every time. And that's about the relationship building. And I know a lot of people owe you Dean, for inventing the squeeze page. So the idea of developing a relationship over a long period of time and I give Jeff Walker a lot of credit for them putting it into product launch formula. There's a lot of good stuff being done with what we call content marketing. Now it's got a nice buzzword to it, but that's the beauty of email. That it is cheap is not a license to, to beat your list to death.

Yeah, yeah, that's great, great wisdom here. I would actually encourage people if you didn't understand or follow everything that mostly Dean, well, not mostly Dean and Brian, the little rant you guys just went on for the last 10 minutes to go back and listen to that. So you really kind of understand. And if you don't understand it, it also shows you just how expansive this world of direct marketing is. One of the things that occurs to me and I'd like to get your opinion on this. The reason you don't see a lot of really just great marketing in the world, because you don't certainly there's awesome examples. If you know what to look for and you see it, you can identify it. But for every bit of well thought out, well selected list offer delivery system, there is just piles and piles of crap. I mean Gary Halbert always used to talk about he thought the two most incompetent industries in the world were psychiatry and the field of advertising. The reason most people don't do great marketing and great advertising is because it literally takes time to learn this stuff. It's much easier to throw a logo together, to crowdsource something on 99designs, or get a logo and a jingle and a tagline than it is to sit down and create hard hitting, well thought out, articulated copy online or offline, or to do education based marketing where you have to really think through, as Dan Sullivan would say, the dangers, opportunities and strengths of your clientele. There's all kinds of different ways that marketers come about, how they assemble and put things together. But there's a tremendous amount of formulas. And these formulas require a time investment, they require a commitment. I mean, that's why you're doing Titan's a direct response. I mean, it's not. There is no one hour podcast where me nor Dean or you or J. Abraham or Dan Kennedy or anyone could teach someone how to be a world class marketer. I mean, this stuff requires work.

And what I love hearing, it's ongoing, Joe. It doesn't stop. I mean, I'll be complete confession here. You guys both guilted me and I got to go get Al Asker's book.

I've not read that.

And so you gave me a book that I got to go read now. I mean, I've read Claude Hopkins and I've read Gene Schwartz and I've read a lot, but I didn't read that one. And now something in there, if both of you were talking about them, there's got to be stuff in there that's going to be useful to me.

And I will say this too. Like Boardroom has republished Gene Schwartz's book.

Breakthrough Advertising, and Dick Benson's book and Gordon Grossman's book, and every mailing piece Bill Jamie ever wrote, who's another great copywriter, because Marty and I were always committed to this education thing, whatever you want to call it. I mean, I remember the day Gene Schwartz died a few days after, and I went into Marty's office and we were both really sad. I mean, we were really close with Gene. And Marty just looked at me and I feel bad now that I'm doing this event and he's not with us because he inspired me to do the event. But he looked at me and he said, you know, Brian, we got to teach this stuff. And this was a long time ago. He's like, you know, we have an obligation almost to teach this stuff, because I'm not saying everything we do is great and everything we do is perfect. We make a ton of mistakes. The beauty of Marty is that he was able to figure out the mistake and then move on. King's dead. Long live the king. Let's move on to the next. I'm not going to dwell on this stuff if we don't make a hit, but he always wanted to share this. And I think I said in a letter that I sent out to my email list promoting the Titans event that, yeah, I mean, it's a shame that I didn't do this event while Marty was alive, but I think the perfect storm of after he passed, I realized that the whole industry came out and said, how come you're not teaching this stuff? And so, you know, things happen for a reason, I guess. But I think that being committed to educating, there's nothing better. My whole family were teachers, except they weren't marketers, so they didn't make a lot of money. But they were all great people because they were teachers. And I think that's what I am. I really do. I think you guys are too. I think at your core, you guys are teachers. Why would you do a gazillion. I love marketing podcasts. I mean, it's just. No, no.

You know, there's a point what you're saying here, and this requires me to have to kind of put my sarcasm to the side and take it really seriously. You know, there's one thing about people that teach something to people, there's another level of where the teacher actually gives a shit, like, and really cares about their student and about the person. And I do think it's one of the reasons why me and Dean do. I love marketing is because we actually genuinely care. I mean, we really get and derive joy from it. And that's the greatest attribute of you. I mean, you just really are a caring, wonderful human being that just wants to help. I mean, I've always seen you that way and that's why you're one of my favorite people on the planet, because you're just.

Same here.

I mean, one of my favorite.

Thank you so much. You know, but one of my favorite things that I've done in the last, you know, the T. Rex roaming the wild Wild west bullshit. But the. But the most rewarding thing has been that I've been on these podcasts, like younger, like, I'm talking like 20 to 30 year old entrepreneurial podcast. So I get on there and I'VE always used the joke, I'm the old wise man in the back of the teepee, right? They're ready to put the pasture. But it's been so rewarding when I get an email from a 28 year old entrepreneur who remember, I did not bootstrap this business. Marty did. So I helped build it with him. And Dan Sullivan says, I don't have to apologize for not being a bootstrap entrepreneur, but I'm a true intrapreneur and I know that and I help build this business to what it is, but I'm not that. But when 28 year old bootstrap entrepreneurs who I admire because they're doing stuff that I didn't do and they're coming to me for the kind of advice, I just can't help myself. And people like Dan Kennedy think I'm an idiot to just give away stuff for free. But then the reward comes from. There's this one woman coming from Dubai to the Titans event and she was trying to figure out maybe she'll be listening to this. I hope she doesn't feel embarrassed. But I was just so, my heart just was so full in a positive way that she was going to scrape together get here from Dubai because she understood how important it was for her to be here. We didn't even have a payment plan, but I gave her one so I could get her here because I saw the way that she was looking at educating herself. But I'm getting a little sappy here. But you know, it's. What else is there, man? I just, I don't know.

It's just.

Do you know it's true. And because we have such an Dean, because we have such, you know, Dean is such an emotionless human being, it's nice to show that level of concerted care because I do want our I love marketing listeners to realize there's some humanity that's on these podcasts, really coming from mostly you, Brian, and not Dean, but still. But go ahead, Dean.

So Joe and I had this conversation when we first started the Isle of Marketing podcast because we're both fans of Claude Hopkins and Albert Lasker and all these guys from the early 1900s. And we were saying, could you imagine what it would have been like if Robert Collier and, and Claude Hopkins and Albert Lasker had gotten together every week and talked about all the cool things that are going on in marketing and all the cool people? And you know, we do every year we put together a yearbook of the best of the transcripts of every episode. So we've got these giant, like encyclopedia like yearbooks for. We're just finishing up the third, the third yearbook for episodes 100 to 150 or 101 to 150. And it's kind of like brings us joy to think that a hundred years from now, you know, because we're talking about Albert Lasker and Claude Hopkins, that was a hundred years ago from now and how that psychology is still applicable today, it's kind of cool to think that maybe 100 years from now, and I'm not saying this to compare us to Claude Hopkins and Albert Lasker in any way, I'm saying that, you know, 100 years from now, people will uncover this and they'll get to meet and hear from, you know, because we have all of the top marketers of the day on the podcast. It's just something creating a record for people 100 years from now. And that's kind of fascinating.

Let me mention this too. You're absolutely right. And so Brian Kurtz, I would actually put in that category of actually interviewing one of the world's leading minds, even though he would never say that himself. And also, look, I always give Dean a hard time too. And I do that basically because I enjoy it mostly and it helps me counter my low self worth and lack of self esteem. But, you know, one of the things that I like doing is I'm really good at edifying. You know, Dean always says we have the right level of respect and disrespect. And, you know, Dean never would shout from the rooftop that he invented the squeeze page. But by me saying that and edifying that and making a big deal about it, because for him to say that, which is really not kind of how his personality is, but, but it certainly fits my personality. It's position Dean, and people think of him much greater, which God knows how much opportunity that's led to him. So in a lot of ways, I mean, I think I've earned the ability to insult Dean because it really benefits him. It benefits you greatly. Yeah, because I've positioned him so well with things he wouldn't do himself. I mean, he should actually pain me every time that I have some sort of disparaging comment for him. All right, so that being said, we can see now, the point is we could talk to you, Brian, for two weeks and there's an endless amount of great stuff. But I want to talk about you have assembled this Titans of direct response event. Even if people can't make it, I want them to study it. I Want them to go and read. I want you to go to titansofdirectresponse.com, read the sales copy and see if it evokes emotions in you to want to go. If it doesn't create desire in you, first off, you wouldn't go. If it does, you might say, huh, wow. This marketing here is speaking to me. It's talking to a subject. Certainly you'll also see the depth of relationship capital that you have called upon in order to put together an event like this. The investment is freaking tiny. I mean, you know, my upcoming event is 10 grand and my 25k groups. 25 grand. People, what is the price of this thing? I know what it is.

3,500. And the VIP was five, but it sold out.

Yeah. So 35.

You're not going to tell me I didn't charge enough for the vip, but that's okay.

Marty Edelston, I think, funded his. He got down to his last 3,500 bucks. I mean, this is nothing to spend on assembling a thing like this. And you get to meet Brian in person, who you will truly see as one of the most amazing people on the planet. I will be there. I'm paying to go there.

I'll be there.

Yeah, I mean, it's just going to be awesome. So if you can make. And by the way, we get no affiliate out of this. This is not gonna to Brian's event because me and Dean make any money. I mean, this is not an affiliate thing. We want people to go because we know it's going to make you a far more equipped, more capable business person, marketer, and probably human being. And if you can make it, why wouldn't you? So talk about the big takeaways and the reasons to go, because I would really like to have you plug the event and people can actually follow this pitch at no additional charge like Dean said. Right, right.

No additional truck for the pitch. But let me just put a counter plug. If you're not going to come, this is the lift letter. Right? If you're not going to come, opt into my list, please. Because, you know, my mission is to educate. And so if you can't be at the event, maybe you're away. And I just got a good friend of mine, just adopted twins, so he can come. I thought that was a lame excuse, but what the hell, right? It is. Yeah. No, I'm kidding. But you know, I do have an opt in www.briankurtz Me. Briankurtz. Me.

Spell Kurtz Kid.

What's interesting about that squeeze page.

Wait, wait, hold on a minute, Brian, you got to spell Kurtz because people will have no idea how to spell K U, T, B, R I, A.

N, K U, R, T, Z me. So that's my squeeze, basically. I have a ton of content up there, all for free. I also have a squeeze. Thank you, Dean, for inventing that. And the squeeze is actually, and I'm not playing to the crowd here because it's been the squeeze for a long time, is an interview that Joe did with me and Marty about building $100 million business in less than a decade. And it's a wonderful interview. It was after Marty's stroke. It was probably about 1994. He had a stroke in 91. He was still very, very, very, very, very lucid. Very, very good in that interview. He's soft spoken, but Joe and I got a lot out of him. It's a great interview. Very proud of that interview. I listened the day he died. I listened to that interview on my ride home from work that day. It was just a very, very important interview. So, Joe, thank you for doing that interview because that's the squeeze. And so be on my list. I'm blogging there. I'm going to do a thank you, Dean. I'm going to do a book in 90 days or 60 days, whatever, and I'll put all my blogs, which I blog weekly. So anyway, that's the countersale as far as the event itself. I just did an interview with my copywriter, Roy Furr, who wrote the sales letter with me. I think if you go on YouTube and just search Brian Kurtz and Titans, I don't have a link handy. There's an interview there which again, it's free and if you don't come to the event, that's fine. But in that interview I actually talk about a major lesson that I learned from every single person who's speaking. Wow, interesting. Outside of two of. I mean, I don't know Greg Ranker well, but I've admired Greg Granker and Greg Ranker was an inspiration for us to get in the infomercial business in some ways, which was about a $300 million business for us over a few years. And then Fred Katona, who's the direct response radio guy, I don't know that well, but everybody else who's speaking is either a mentor or a friend or both. So I was really able to share. Again, if you search on YouTube, Brian Kurtz and Titans, this will be out there for a long time. So this Is even after the event, a lesson that I learned from each one of them. And they're just great. I mean, I realize that that's only the tip of the iceberg. I mean, I have lessons in there about the transparency with which Dan Kennedy works and breathes and teaches, which I admire. I've got stuff in there about Ken McCarthy, who you didn't mention, who's one of the pioneers of the Internet, who's speaking about then and now, like what he's doing now based on what he learned. I mean, I think in the copy I said, if Al Gore invented the Internet, Ken McCarthy invented Al Gore. And then I've got Perry Marshall, who to me, I always say, I want to be Perry when I grow up. Here's a guy that's known for Google AdWords. But if Perry was on this call and we did the 8020 thing together with Perry, you could see, I mean, he probably read the Alaska book. He'd probably call me a slacker. Perry studies that stuff. Perry knows all that stuff. I'm going to do interviews with Joe Sugarman and Jay Abraham because I really want to get to the nuts and bolts of what the they taught me personally. I mean, Jay Abrahamore people source their marketing entry, their entry into the marketing world to Dan Kennedy than anybody else I've ever met. A lot of people are. And then second would be Jay Abraham, Halbert's big too, by far, Dan Kennedy. But Jay Abraham has this incredible following. And Jay known since the early 1980s, and he's been a mentor of mine. But I want to do an interview with him. That's going to be the format and the format with Joe Sugarman. I think I said in the interview, Joe Sugarman was like an ad agency in one brain. Remember I said you have to buy a la carte when you buy media and you buy creative and you buy production. Joe Sugarman is one of the few people I've ever met in my career, maybe the only one that had every single aspect in his head. You know, he launched product, he did new product development, he did the copy, he did the media selection. You know, he bought space ads. He tells the story of the Southwest edition of the Wall Street Journal. And I don't know if he invented true AB list testing, but he's pretty close to perfecting it, especially in space advertising and doing it inexpensively. So here's a guy that, you know, I want to just find out what he's done in the last 10 years to launch businesses because he's such an Amazing marketing mind. And then I'm going to do this session with my own. And Joe, you know, I have my own group. I call it the $25 group, not the 25k group. We used to spend $25 whoever had to buy the bagels, but now we're all gluten free. So now it's like free. It's not even $25 anymore. And that group is me, Jim Quick, who's just an amazing memory expert and just one of my titans. Ryan Lee, who's an Internet marketer who gets it as far as the integrity and all the things we talked about about list selection and how he treats his people. And Michael Fishman, who, if I'm not the best list expert, he is. He was our list broker when we went through the roof at Boardroom. And now Michael is a titan in the health category for health marketers. And he's part of 25K. And so I'm going to do like a little roundtable at the end with my personal mastermind, how I create accountability in my life and with people that you surround yourself with. You guys, you live into this in such a big way. I wanted to bring a lot of stuff about not just marketing, but also entrepreneurship. Marty was one of the great entrepreneurs. The event happened because after Marty died, Dan Kennedy sent me this. It's in the sales letter. But Dan sent me this beautiful one page letter in a FedEx envelope because, you know, he does an email and he doesn't phone either. It's either fax or FedEx. He FedExed me this beautiful one page letter basically saying that Marty Edelston is someone that he admired as much as anybody, as both an entrepreneur and a direct marketer. And Dan Kennedy doesn't say that about everybody, believe me. And so then I gave Dan what I learned from Marty. Basically I called it the four pillars of what made Marty Edelston extraordinary. Because Marty Edelston would tell you how ordinary he was. And I did a 10 minute talk about this Joe at 25K. And then Dan started blogging about it. Dan Kennedy started blogging about it everywhere and writing about it and writing about Marty everywhere. And I just sent him a bold email and said, dan, let's do like an ultimate event to honor Marty. And that's how it all happened. It was sort of this perfect storm. And then it was one person after another that I asked, you know, I think I went to Ken McCarthy and Joe Sugarman and Jay Abraham and everybody said yes. And then, you know, to get Greg Renker. And then Gary Bensivenga came to me and made me cry to tell me he was coming out of retirement to speak. And I always wanted to get our copywriters. I call it the Mount Rushmore of boardroom copywriters. And the stuff that Paris and David and Eric and Arthur are going to share about their best campaign that they wrote for us to the tune of 628 million pieces. And believe me, we don't put 628 million pieces in the mail unprofitably. Just for the record, it was actually good copy. So, yeah, I'm just. You know, this is like a dream come true for me. So I don't want to just, you know, it's not a. I'm comfortable pitching, and I want this content that we did today to live on past the event. And there'll be DVDs of the event. So I want there to be another record just like every other IO. Just what you said before, Dean, about you've created this incredible record of great marketing knowledge from the best marketers in the world. I'm one of your biggest fans. You know that. So it's an honor to be on ILM for sure. I don't know. That was a lot of rambling, but that was like. That was what the titans of direct response means to me.

Yeah. Let me also mention this, too, with me and Dean Bean there. If you're an I love marketing listener, please come out and meet us. You'll find, in person, I'm far nicer and friendlier and more caring than Dean. And so this whole Persona he gives off online about not being insulting and sarcastic is a total. It's a sham. It really is a sham. But if you meet us in person, and we're always happy to say hello to people that aren't annoying idiots.

That'S.

Meant to be funny, by the way, too. Seriously, if you can make it, this event, truly, it will be awesome. And I do want this to live on. And if you can't make it, for whatever reason, timeline, you just simply can't adjust. Or financially, you're just not able to swing it. When I was a Devereaux carpet cleaner living off credit cards, direct response. Safe, my ass. I learned that there's no relationship between being good and getting paid. I mean, you can be the nicest human being in the world. I was actually a really caring, conscientious person that cared about my clients. I didn't do bait and switch. I mean, I literally just did everything I could to do a Good job. And I was putting in enormous effort and work to try to make my business succeed. And I just simply didn't know what the hell I was doing. And it wasn't until I learned marketing, where I could have this service that I provided, which was a damn good service, delivered from a person that really cared, but I didn't know how to get business. Had I not learned marketing, who knows? I just would have continually struggled my whole life to try to figure out how to make a business work. And it was the big aha. And I know for a fact this type of event will be a catalyst for many people. It will be a key. So that's why I'm so heavily recommending this. And I'll tell you, me and Dean put out some of the best marketing information, as do you, Brian, for free. I mean, the stuff we give out for free is better than what most people charge for. And I also know that if people don't pay, they don't pay attention. And the mere act of putting money down, putting time down and saying, I'm going to invest in this has as much to do with what you get out of the content. Because if you just like pay for one of your friends to go to this event and they haven't read the sale sales letter, they're not bought into it. Completely different experience. I've learned over the years that the people that really do want to improve themselves, there comes a point in time you can read books, you listen to podcasts, we do all that stuff. We're all users of our, we all get high on our own supply in a good way here. The thing though is there comes a point in time where if you really want to move the dial, you figure out how to get out of your place, your location and go to a place and immerse yourself in stuff. This is truly a unique event. There's a lot of great marketing seminars, there's a lot of great business building seminars, self esteem seminars, spiritual events. I mean, there's all kinds of great stuff. This truly is a once in a lifetime thing. You will never see these types of people assembled in a room together. And you can watch the DVDs of that, and that's smart. But it's a completely different experience when you're actually there in person. So there's very few.

And I've told a lot of people I'd be introducing them to people that will help them with their business, which I would do. Obviously. I'm like you. Yeah, I have this Persona that people think I'm just an obnoxious guy, but in person, I'm actually very nice. But I don't want to. I hear you. You're absolutely right. When I plunk money down for something, it does make a difference. But I will say I'm having such a good time writing my weekly emails, which is going to be my first ebook. And I really do want everybody come or not come. Yes, please come. But yeah, come into my list too. I really want to develop more relationships with more people in marketing because to be the bridge that I want to be. And I think I'm uniquely positioned to do that. I think there are other people that can do it too. Ken McCarthy, a Perry Marshall, you guys. But I think I'm uniquely positioned because of how much in the weeds direct mail I've done to come out of that come out of the list business. And I'm going to come from that perspective. I mean, I do want to do a product someday that's basically a direct mail product for Internet marketers. Like, how would an Internet marketer really do direct mail? Step by step. And so, I mean, that's something that I want to do long term. I want to get feedback from people. I want to have a big list. Not because I want to tell everybody I have how many Facebook friends I have. I want a big list of people who are kind of in my learning sphere, so to speak. And then I learn. I teach. I think you guys probably get this. Sometimes when you're on stage teaching, you end up learning so much more while you're teaching because you don't know what's going to come out of your mouth. Right?

Right.

What comes back is just so incredible. I've gotten great feedback on my weekly blog, so I'm feeling good about it. It's totally in my voice. It's some weeks I'm better than others, just like we all are. But. But people should opt in at briankurtz Me regardless. And yeah, I just. I want to keep spreading the good word. I mean, you know, being a serial direct marketer is like. I wear it like a badge of honor, you know?

Amazing.

Yeah, totally awesome. Well, Brian, thank you. I appreciate it. And Dean, of course, I love you and I wish I didn't, but it's. I don't know, some strange, weird.

My love and respect for the two of you is. And just amazing. I admire.

Well, maybe we could.

Maybe we'll all have a bubble bath in Connecticut.

I just want to make it clear. I think if he had to, like, there was only One life raft and it could be me or you. I mean, I think it's obvious he's going on there, but. No, but the mutual admiration party is absolutely true. And to all of our listeners, there was some great. Although we did it may appear like we're rambling. I have like a couple pages of notes just from insights and things that came from this. So there's some great content here and I hope to see all of you that are listening as many that can be there. Come in person to go to one last time. Titansofdirectresponse.com and if you want to hear more interviews with Brian, if you just type in Brian Kurtz K U R T U into the search box at. I love marketing, you can listen to all the different episodes that we have that feature Brian and there's great stuff and then go to briankirtz me and opt into Brian's list and go from there and then give us your comments.

The interview we did with Terry was fantastic. That one I would really recommend because he's going to talk a little bit about that at Titans about kind of like an update on 80 20. His 8020 sales and marketing book is fantastic. And you know, Perry is one of those guys that's always in a major learning curve and now he's doing this incredible event on the star principle with William Koch, who's an amazing.

Richard. Richard, yeah, the 8020 principal guy.

Yep.

Yeah, Richard. Yeah, it's actually Koch is how it's pronounced. It's K O, C H, but it's Koch. And he's like a guru to Parry.

Well, we're actually interviewing him. He's actually on the list for us because we've had a few emails back and forth. And I have to say this too, if someone wants to prep to come to your event, if you go to I love marketing, you can listen to our interviews. Like of all the people that are on your page, we got interviews with Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, Perry Marshall, Joe Sugarman, Paris Lantropoulos, me and you, Marty Eddelston and even Michael Fishman. So, like, if someone like, you know, if someone wanted to actually do their homework on all these people and listen, then they could show up Titans direct response and they can transform themselves into superhuman marketers.

Yeah.

So there's good stuff. So that's it. It's a wrap, guys. I appreciate it. And hopefully again we'll see everyone at the event. Thank you. And everyone make it a great.

It.