Business Mindset Mastery with Joe Polish - Genius Network Episode #77

Do you know the single best way of solving any problem in the world? Joe Polish shares this and more in this quick episode of Genius Network, recorded live at the Genius Network Annual event. Joe Polish is President of Piranha Marketing, Inc. Creator of Genius Network, and co founder of the 10X Talk. And I love marketing podcasts. If you would like access to the complete video presentation, the show notes, the links, and the special resources for this episode, please visit geniusnetwork.com that's geniusnetwork.com 77.

So what I'm gonna Share I've thought about all the different things that I could talk about and share a particular insight that would be worth at least $250,000 or more to you. And there was a lot of different things I've thought about over the last few months of what I could talk about and what I decided this week was I'm gonna share with you a story that happened to me back in 1992. It might have been late 91, but I think it was around 1992 and I was a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards. And I've told this story before, some of you may have heard it, but I've thought about what was one of the most impactful conversations that I ever had that really just changed the course of my life. And so I was broke, I was living off credit cards, I was paying to work. I don't know if any of you have been in this situation. I'm sure many of you have where where you're not only not making any money in your business, but you're actually paying to be in work. And I was cleaning carpets. That's where I started out. So going broke sitting on a couch watching TV is a smart, intelligent way to go broke. Going broke cleaning carpets, doing hard manual labor. And I live in Arizona and during the summers I would have this portable steam cleaner and there would be apartment complexes because that was some of the only business I knew how to get at the time. And I would carry this portable steam cleaner up a flight of three stories, these stairs, and run an extension cord because the electricity would be turned off in one of the units. And then I would be cleaning carpets in the middle of summer and it's like a sauna in an apartment with no air conditioning. I mean truly doing hard manual labor. And I'm allergic to cats, so I was wheezing and gasping for air and I had days like that where I would work 10, 12, 14, 16 hour days sometimes and I would actually pay to do that. I Mean, that's because I had no idea what I was doing. And I didn't do bait and switch advertising. I cared about my clients. I just simply didn't know what my problem was. Now the problem was I didn't know how to market myself, but I didn't know that yet. And so I had a friend from high school named Pat who actually called me up on a Friday and said, hey, we're going to go jet skiing tomorrow. Would you like to go on this jet ski trip? And if you don't have any money and you're kind of in debt, it's really hard to have fun because you're always thinking about, like, am I going to eat next? How am I going to pay my rent? That sort of thing. And he said one thing to me that caused me to go jet skiing. He said, well, the guy that owns the jet skis is a multimillion dollar real estate investor and he's going to have one of his friends, we have two jet skis. And I said, yeah, I'll go. Because I thought to my, maybe I could talk to this guy and I could get some advice on what sort of business I could go into that could maybe help me. Because I wanted to go into a different industry because I'd gotten trained and certified and this carpet cleaning business, little entrepreneurial fantasy I had was not working out. And so I had finally an opportunity when we went jet skiing at Segura Lake, which is outside of close to where I live in Arizona in the Phoenix area. And I sat down on the tailgate of a pickup truck with this real estate investor. And I said to him, I said, well, I hear you do really well. And I have a small, you know, carpet cleaning company and it's not doing that well. And I hear you, you know, really have a lot of success in your business. So I wanted to ask you if you have any recommendations of another business or another industry that I could look at going into so I can, you know, just make more money. And he said one thing to me. He said, well, are there other people in your industry that are making money? And I said, well, yeah, there's actually a couple of cleaning companies in the, you know, Phoenix area that do over a million dollars a year. And to me, that's a lot of money. And he said, well, if there's other people making money in the business you're in and you're not, there's nothing wrong with the business you're in, there's something wrong. And I was like, well, no, No, I mean, that's. You know, I'm ethical. I don't do bait and switch like some of these companies that advertise a low price. And a lot of these companies are established. They've been around for a while, so they have name recognition. And I would make these excuses. You say, well, young man, you're like many people. You think the grass is always greener on the other side. And what's going to happen if you go into another business? You're going to spend another six months, another year, another two years learning the technical skills of another business so you can go out and repeat the same bad business habits that have caused you to be a failure in the business you're in right now. Now, that wasn't the motivational speech that I was hoping for. And I've heard things like that before. But for some reason, I mean, everyone's heard, when the student's ready, the teacher appears. And the teachers are everywhere. You have been teachers to many people. You're sitting next to many teachers. This Genius Network event is filled with teachers. For some reason, I was receptive to it. And he said, what you need to do, young man, is you need to learn fundamental business skills. He said, what you need to figure out how to do is learn how to make a business work. If other people have learned it and you haven't, you need to learn what it is they're doing. So I got really sunburnt during that trip, and I remember driving home in my pickup truck and I thought, you know, I live in America. You know, I'm not the smartest guy in the world. I never got a college degree in anything. You know, I'm an addict. I mean, that's one of my biggest challenges is I was a horrible drug addict at the age of 18. And I was sitting there thinking, but I live in America, and I got my limbs and I'm. And there are people that don't seem to be as smart as I think I am that are doing far better than me. What do they know that I don't know? And so I made this decision that I am not going to get out of this business until I figure out how to make it work. Because if I just run away from it, I'm going to try to find something else. What I did is I started reading, and it was at that point in time that I really took reading seriously. And I said, what do I need to read that is going to give me incredible insight? Now, one of the first books that I read was the E Myth by Michael Gerber. It didn't teach me anything about marketing, but what it talked about was how to create a turnkey operation, how to systemize your business. And the one thing that I got out of that book, if there's any area of business that's worth automating and systemizing, it's not inventory, it's not your database per se, although that could be part of it. It's really the marketing. Because if you can actually replicate the selling parts of your company, then that's what brings in all the money. And it was around that time that a friend gave me a newsletter written by Gary Halbert. And Gary Halbert was a really insane copywriter. I became dear friends with him. He passed away around 2006. And what Gary said in his newsletter. I subscribed to this $197 a year newsletter, which I thought was super expensive at the time, but it just had words in it that I never had read anywhere else. And he talked about a concept called can and clone yourself. And those words can and clone made all the sense in the world to me because he said, you can be the greatest salesperson in the world, but you're limited by the clock because you can only talk to so many salespeople. But with the right letter, with the right sales letter, you can talk to 10 people, 100 people, 1,000 people, millions of people. Now, today, with techn and many of the things that you're going to hear different people talk about, you can. You know, I think of a sales letter as a video, as an audio, as a webinar, as a teleseminar. It could be a TV commercial. I mean, there's all kinds of different ways that you can deliver that message. But I thought of can and clone myself. How do I do that? And Gary also said that any problem in the world could be solved with the right sales letter. And I thought, huh, there's many problems I can think of that probably can't be solved with the right sales letter. Like, how do I meet the right woman? What if you need a kidney transplant? What if you have some incurable disease? But the more I thought about it, all of those things can be solved in many cases or at least improved, or at least find a possible solution with a sales letter. Because what is a sales letter? It's a way to can and clone a message. And so I created a sales letter for a small cleaning company selling something that nobody wanted to buy. I mean, no one wants to hire a carpet cleaner. And so I had to figure out marketing skills in an industry selling something that nobody wants to buy. I can guarantee there's not a single person in this room that's ever been excited about their carpet getting really dirty. So you can hire carpet cleaner. Is anyone demented at that level? So I was in this accidental industry. But it was this great canvas for me to try out marketing strategies. And sure enough, me and Dean Jackson, we do a podcast together called I love marketing where we talk about difference between a $1bill and $100bill is the message on the paper. Same paper, same ink, different message. One is infinitely more valuable because of the message. So I improve my messaging on my sales letters because there was no Internet back then. And within six months I had this small cleaning company doing $2,300 a month and I built it to over $12,300 a month as a result of just changing my messaging. I started using 24 hour free recorded messages. I started using consumer awareness guides. I started using all these great ways to create what I call now ELF marketing. Easy, lucrative and fun. Because prior to that I had a half business which was hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. I didn't have an elf business, which is easy, lucrative and fun. You don't have ELF instantaneously, but if you think about it, if you become very strategic, you can actually install ELF systems into your business. And so part of what you're going to learn today and tomorrow from some of the speakers are many of the very best ELF marketing strategies. And I will also say something that Dan Sullivan taught me is it's not just, you know, you can solve any problem in the world to write sales letter or the difference between being rich and being broke. Could be one good sales letter. It actually could be one 10 minute talk. Many of you are one 10 minute talk away from a total breakthrough of taking your messaging and being able to communicate in a way. Many of the 10 minute talks will turn into articles, they will be expanded into events. There's a lot of things that you can do with it. So as you're listening, that one piece of advice was my first mentor. He was my first coach and he was the one that set me on the path that I am 100% responsible for my success in business. If it's not working, I. If I'm looking in the mirror, I'm staring at the problem. And I had to realize that the problem was not out there. The problem was not my competitors. The problem was me. It was how strategic I was being. But I also started looking in the mirror and saying, I'm the solution and what am I going to do about it? And so with that, I'm going to present to you some of the best coaches, some of the smartest people on the planet, some of the greatest strategies, and I hope that it's worth millions to all of you. So thank you very much.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Genius Network. If you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network annual event, please visit geniusnetworkevents.com that's geniusnetworkevents dot com if you would like access to the full video presentation, the show notes, the links, and the special resources for this episode, please visit geniusnetwork.com 77 that's geniusnetwork.com 77.