Episode 031:The one about applying the 8 Profit Activators in your business

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast. Hello, everybody. It's Dean Jackson and Joe Polish.

Hello.

Hello, Joe Polish.

That's right.

That's right. So here's what I want to do tonight. I want to go through all of the eight profit activators, and we want to talk about how to apply them to your business. How people can apply the profit activators, because it's all. There's all kinds of different applications. And the reason that we talk about them as kind of DNA cells is because they apply differently to every kind of business. But the principles are the same. The principles are going to apply to your, your business no matter what business you're in. It's exactly how you're going to apply the same things. No matter whether you're a carpet cleaner or a real estate agent or you own a retail store or a restaurant or any kind of business you can imagine, they all will manifest themselves differently. They'll kind of grow into, you know, different ways to apply them. And there's different ways to kind of think about this as like a monetizing strategy. Because when you really look at it, when we're talking about a breakthrough for people, what we're really talking about is more money in their business and less time that it takes them to make it because there's so much of wealth is wrapped up in how much time you. You have available, too. And that's something that a lot of times people kind of don't put as much emphasis on. But you and I really kind of focus on that. I do especially well, you know, I.

Mean, one of the cool things. And if you just joined us, welcome to our live I love marketing call. So, you know, it's going to be fun. May go a little longer than, you know, we typically go, but we'll, you know, we'll try to keep. We'll try to be reasonable here, but we're going to be definitely unreasonable in terms of the value of the strategies and the profit activators that we're going to go through. But going back to what you were saying, Dean, I don't just look at the type of marketing that we both use and that we now share with other people through I love marketing and everything that we do, from all the stuff we get paid for and all that sort of stuff as the most effective way to sell in advance robotically. It's also time management marketing, if you want to think of it that way, because whenever you can do anything to produce greater Results and slash off manual labor. It's a really good way to leverage yourself. And in today's day and age where the information overload is greater than it's ever been in history, it's more important than ever to take the one area of business which is responsible for bringing money into your company, your organization, which is the selling and marketing, and to robotize it, automate it, elfize it. See, I'm trying to come up with words that don't make any sense, so hopefully they stuff up now, don't you? I mean, I think our transcribers are going to go nuts when you're like, how do you spell elfatize or elfize or whatever business? But elf meaning easy, lucrative and fun versus hard, annoying, lame and frustrating, which is the methods that a lot of people use. So it is a great, great way to save yourself a tremendous amount of time. And if you're willing to learn and invest in learning these methods, these strategies, these breakthroughs, these activators, in the beginning, you're going to need to invest some time to understand the psychology behind it, test things, get copywritten, all the different forms of communication. But you, you will find that this investment of learning how to do this marketing right or developing the right type of before, during and after strategies for either your entire organization or one of the profit centers will come back to you many, many fold. Can I say what we want to accomplish today? We're going to share, like Dean said, we're going to share with you the eight profit activators that have to do with before, during and after your business. We want to give you some real methods that you can start using if you haven't already, that will enhance everything you've learned from us. If you've been listening to I love marketing and if you're brand new to all of this, you'll see the value in it. And if this makes total sense, we would like to invite you to come and immerse yourself in two days of very powerful training in Arizona on September 21st and 22nd. We'll talk about that later, but we hope that you come down. But even if you don't, you're going to get a ton of value if you pay attention to what we're going to share. So, Dean, I would kind of just like to go through them all and have you define for all of our listeners kind of the stages of business and then the before, during and after and what that even means and why people should look at their business that way. And then I'll just ask you some questions about the activators and we'll go from there.

Perfect.

Do you want to unmute everyone and have everyone scream, or do you think it even matters?

I think let's just go. We'll get right to it for them.

I know we just have a ton of people listening, so I always like hearing people like, it sounds like a riot in the background. But we'll go with Dean. We'll let him do his thing.

Everybody could just scream silently to themselves. It would be perfect. Imagine the sound of screaming.

Yes.

So, you know, a lot of this stuff we've been talking about before, during, and after, we've been talking about all of the different ways that we've applied that thinking to our own businesses and how we've helped other people apply it to their business. And a lot of this sounds like stuff that we've talked about before. And you're going to see that every time we talk about it. There's different layers to this. And the reason that it's so important to continue talking about it is because these are foundational things. This is like the structure of how everything works. I mean, you can create masterful business with just applying these eight profit activators. You know, I often think about it. You know, there's eight notes in an octave, and, you know, there's so many different ways to apply those to create beautiful music and every kind of music. And it all sounds different, but it's all fundamentally the same eight notes that you're playing in different combinations. And it's the same thing with your business. Here, if you kind of look at this with an understanding of. It is kind of like understanding music theory and how it all works together and how you can create your own hit songs in your own business. So none of this is business specific, but we can apply it to any business. And so let's start with the. Just the broad strokes of even thinking about your business in terms of the three units of your business. The before unit, the during unit, and the after unit. Anytime you take something with any kind of complexity or any kind of a grouping where there's a lot of things, any business is sort of made up of all of these complex processes, all the things that. That you try and sort of juggle all keeping all the balls in play and managing it, what really helps is if you start compartmentalizing things and you isolate them into the core units of your business. See, when you start thinking about your business as one thing and you're kind of focused on doing all of the things that are involved in delivering whatever it is you do, whether it's a, you know, doing cleaning carpets or working with people as a real estate agent, or having, you know, serving dinners and lunches in your retail or in your restaurant, all those things, all of that part of the during business often takes the highest priority because that's what people focus on as where they perceive the money happens in their business. So it always takes a priority. And unfortunately, when you're looking at your business as one type of thing, often looking at the marketing side of your business and often looking at the relationship building side in the after unit of your business sometimes end up taking second and third place. So what really helps you is to start thinking in terms of breaking them into individual business units. So you can imagine if your business, if all your business was, was to run the division of your business that generates leads and appointments, or delivers people to your retail store, or delivers people to your restaurant, or gets you in sitting in front of somebody who's going to be selling their house or somebody who wants to clean their carpets. If you look at your before unit as an independently running unit of your business, that is a freeing experience. Even sometimes just thinking like this makes a big difference in your business. I often would use an example because you imagine what most people are willing to do. If you had a business that does whatever it is that you do in your during unit, you would be happy to have somebody else deliver those businesses to you. Joe, you and I were talking the other day about carpet cleaning, for instance, and if you, you know, you had a, an opportunity where you were going to clean, you know, a big 3,000 square foot homes and a developer of a subdivision that had, you know, a thousand, three thousand plus square foot homes in it came to you and said, I'd like to give my, I'd like to give all of the people who buy these homes, I'd like to give them the gift of a free carpet cleaning six months from when they move in, after they get into the house and they get everything and they'd like to introduce them, give them a free carpet cleaning, but I'll pay for it. Whatever the retail thing is. What would you be willing to give that developer? How much would you be willing to sell him all those carpet cleans for? If you know you're going to get 1,000 carpet cleaning jobs over the next.

12 months, say, well, you know, depending on the size of the home and everything. Anywhere from me personally, because I understand lifetime value of a client, I'd give away, I'd pay 300 bucks. But for most people, it would be something like 50 or 75 or 100 on a $300 job.

If you're doing a 3,000 square foot house, it's going to be maybe $300.

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, if it was 3,000 square feet of carpet, it could be double or triple that, depending on. But yeah, a good job would be 250, 300 bucks.

Right. And you would happily pay that developer to deliver those people to you. You'd happily pay, pay, or give him a discount of 50 or $75 to do that, right?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. All day long. Because you will acquire, if you understand lifetime value of a client and know that the real money is not in the first cleaning or the first transaction, it's in the relationship. You would do it all day long and to not do it, you'd be insane.

Yeah, absolutely.

Unless, of course, you simply didn't understand this, because some people would be like, I'm not insane. But that doesn't make sense to me. Well, it does if you understand the value of repeat business.

And that's. And you know what? In a lot of businesses, that is a standard kind of way of thinking. When I talk about this with the real estate agents, you know, I say, imagine that Michael Dell is going to move one of the divisions of Dell into your town. And they call you up and they say, joe, listen, we're going to be moving 50 executives into Phoenix over the next 12 months. And here's what we'd like to do, is we'd like to send one of them out each week for the next year. And we'd love for you to. We'll tell you when they're coming. We want you to, you know, meet with them, show them homes, get them comfortable with the area. They know they're supposed to buy a house that week because we want them back in Austin with their families over the weekend, and we'll just deliver one of those every week for you for the next 12 months. Would you be able to fit that into your schedule? And, you know, I say that to the realtors, every single one of them. That would be like the dream scenario. They've got 50 people who are going to buy executive homes in their area, and they're coming in one a week over the next 50 weeks, and they're going to buy a house that week when they come out there. And then everybody would agree that that would be a fantastic situation. And when I say that if Dell had a relocation division, a real Estate division, would you happily pay Dell 25% of the transaction or 20% of the transaction? And of course, every single person would, because it's guaranteed business, right, that they would be happy to do that, that they'd happily pay a referral, even though most referral situations in the real estate world are sometimes 30 and 35%. But to do it for 20% would be. Would be a bargain. And every single person would agree to that. And so what they end up, what that ends up kind of illustrating for you is that you can imagine the scenario of how that would be if you could, if Michael Dell was running essentially your before unit, that would be your before unit delivering people right into your during unit. You don't have to do anything to get them. And you're happily willing to pay 20% of the transaction to do it. And everybody's willing to do it because it's a guarantee, right? They're not paying it until they're paying, until they're getting the actual transaction. But the thinking that goes along with that is to imagine, you know, because it's unlikely that Michael Dell is going to call you up and say, hey, we want to move 50 executives into your town, or it's unlikely that a developer is going to call you and say, hey, we want to give. We want you to clean the carpets in these 1,000 homes. It's unlikely. But what it does, just thinking like that, is set the benchmark for you that you'd happily pay 20% or 25% of a transaction for that transaction. And that helps you set the budget for what you would be willing to spend if you created your own before unit. See, most of the time, people don't think about what they would gladly pay or what they can allowingly pay to generate a new client, a new customer for their restaurant, or a new patient at their chiropractic practice, or somebody coming in for a massage. And that's where, you know, you said something earlier that, you know, because you understand the lifetime value, you're able to assign a much higher value to getting a new customer. Right. Because, you know, certain percentage of them are going to get their carpets cleaned every six months for years.

Yeah, and in many cases, I'm willing to go negative. I mean, a lot of my most successful clients over the years literally lost money and will gladly lose money on the first transaction because they know that they're going to make it up on the repeat business, on the referrals, if they orchestrate the referrals in very much the same ways. That we teach in that sort of stuff and void of the money fairy showing up and just granting everyone money. The second best thing is the marketing ferry that has arrived via I love marketing for everyone. Can I say something too? Because you made a comment about conventional thinking and how this is like how a lot of people think. And as a matter of fact, one of the things that we want to do and accomplish with I love marketing is not just give people techniques and strategies and frameworks. We actually want to give them a whole new model to think about how they make money, how they generate business, how they service their clients, how they communicate to their clients. And there is so much erroneous, ridiculous thinking in things that are taught. I've always loved the saying from Gary Halpert, the most expensive information in the world is bad information. And I remember in college, during this one part on marketing, when I was owning and operating a small business, the class actually failed in a community college. But basically talking about marketing budgets and how you should allocate 10% of your budget should be towards marketing. And it wasn't until years later, when I was reading Halbert and J. Abraham and things like that, where you start understanding lifetime value of a client. And if you can create any type of marketing campaign that say you spend a dollar and it brings back $4 or $5, and it could be instantaneously if you just have a winner right from the get go, or you might not recognize or realize that revenue six months, a year, two years out, whatever. But the point is, whenever you can spend money and it's going to bring back multiples of what you spent, why would you ever put a lid on it? I mean, the only reason to budget your marketing is when it doesn't work.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

But here's the thing. This is taught to thousands of people, students, before they ever go into business, at business schools all over the country, all of it's written in books that you should allocate like 10% of your budget or 5% or 20. It's like, why, if I could spend a hundred dollars and bring back 500 or 1,000, I would spend all of it. You know what I mean? I would figure out how to put as much money into that slot machine as humanly possible. Why on earth would I ever say, oh, I want to get rich really slow, which is so moronic, but I.

Want to be crystal clear about something too, because you said you put money in that slot machine. And one of the things that one of the metaphors that I always use for the before unit is creating a vending machine. When you look at what you're talking about, is exactly how most people think about and act on their advertising and marketing. It's like they're putting money in a slot machine because they don't have a predictable outcome. They're putting money in and they're trying something and they're pulling the lever and they're going, come on, seven. And they're hoping I'm going to try some Facebook advertising, and they pull it, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching. And then they're going to try some yellow pages, or they're going to try a Valpak ad, or they're going to try some direct mail, and they try it and they pull the lever and nothing happens, or they lose money sometimes, and it's not predictable. But when you're looking at the entire goal of your before unit is to create a vending machine. A vending machine is very different than a slot machine. If you go to a Coke machine or a snack machine where you know what you see on display, all the things that they have there, it says the price for it. And if you want a Coke, you put in a dollar and you push the Coke button and out comes a Coke every single time you do it. And that's what you really want to focus on and create with your before unit. When we look at it, the end result is that you know how much you can spend on getting a new customer or a new client or a new patient, and you know how many you can accommodate. You know how many you have the actual capacity to use, to work with, and you spend as much as you can to get to that, to get to that level, knowing that every time you spend this money, you're going to multiply it by 2 by 3, by 5, by 10, whatever. Some things will work better than others. And those would be the kind of things, what Albert would call the gold coins, you know, the things that you can do that will that yield the highest result.

Yeah, exactly. I don't know of any other skill or focus when it comes to making money that would be more important than orchestrating this, not only because you truly can create in your own business, in your own niche, predictable marketing systems that do work robotically. But the amount of stress that I think business people endure when they really don't know where their next job is coming from. Like for cleaners, I mean, over the years of doing this, the big takeaways for people, like when they come to one of my conferences or something. And they finally see all these other people that are living in many cases in similar or the same areas of them, the same equipment, the same skill set, but they are making way more money, they've got a way better business. It's not even just the money, it's the confidence that comes from knowing how to do this. Peter Drucker has that fantastic quote. The primary purpose of business is to create and keep customers. Marketing and innovation produce results. All other business functions are cost. And David Kekich has like a version of that, you know, one of his Kekich credos, if you really break that down. The primary purpose of business is to create and keep customers. Marketing and innovation produce results. All other business functions or cost. And you create customers in the before and you keep them in the during and after units of your business. If you think of prime directive, like what is the number one skill set that's going to make the biggest difference financially? It's going to be marketing and sales and what's going to give you the greatest confidence. It's knowing where your next client's going to come from and knowing that you can always go back to the well, sticking a bucket down there and it's going to come up with water. That is an incredible, freeing, liberating sort of thing. And it changes everything about how you run and grow your business. And once you get through the stages of actually learning it, you get some real confidence about it. Not from just hearing us talk about it or hearing other people talk about it, or watching everybody's marketing launch, selling a product. But I mean, once you really experience it for yourself because you're really doing it. I mean it just. There's so many mental advantages that come with that. And I simply don't know a higher and better use of time that an entrepreneur could invest in learning this. Because once you've got it, you can apply it to so many different things and you can weather storms, you can weather bad economies where most business owners that don't understand this, they crumble. I go out right now and I actually talk to a lot of people and I feel bad when people are so struggling. One of my clients in 25k, he went to a group where there's a lot of multimillion dollar business owners and it's when the recession and everything started. He made a comment to me at one of my 20 25k groups. He's like, the difference between your 25k group and this other group, which all have multimillion dollar business owners, is the ones that used to do really well but still have large businesses, they're in a downturn, whereas the direct response guys are still doing good, and in many, they're still kicking ass. Everyone, in some way, shape or form always gets affected by any sort of economic change. But for the most part, the people that have the control over their businesses are really the ones that have the greatest understanding, greatest control, greatest methodology when it comes to direct response marketing, and frankly, the disease that most people have. Because although I use the slot machine analogy, I'm not talking about gambling here. I'm talking about controllable, predictable, putting money in a slot machine, one that you actually know what's going to come out. And because you've tested it, because you've tried things, because you're using scientific methodology. Last thing I'll say, Dean, because I know I'm rambling here, is people are in the blind archery trap, and if you want to get yourself out of the blind archery trap, this is the way to do it.

Yeah, absolutely. Imagine we talk about this metaphor of creating a vending machine as like the ultimate metaphor for your before unit that you know with certainty that you've got the labels of the types of clients that you want to generate. You know, even at a vending machine, you know, you still have to narrow your focus. So, you know, underneath, if we were to lift the lid on this vending machine that we're talking about, it would be made up of three components that make it work. And those are the first three profit activators underneath the before unit. Narrow your focus and select one target market at a time. Then use direct response offers to compel prospects to call you, and then patiently and systematically educate and motivate those prospects to meet you when they're ready. Not when you're ready, but when they're ready. Realizing how long it sometimes takes takes for people to go through the whole cycle of making the decision. So if we start looking at those components and we start thinking about how to really put those together for yourself. Let's talk a little bit about those first three. So we talk about narrowing your focus and selecting one target market. And that's exactly the way a real vending machine works. You can have all kinds of different target markets that you can serve, but when you're spending money, you want to not confuse the issue by trying to attract everybody with the same dollars, trying to figure out how to do multiple things. I mean, that's one of the biggest obstacles that we see to people's success. I mean, we Even heard it, we hear it. When we did our last live call, we had people who were talking about, well I've got this target market and this target market, I've got these two or three products, how should I divide it up kind of thing. And if you really think about how a real vending machine works, it forces you to focus. You see that you could get a Coke or you could get a Mountain do or you could get a Sprite or you could get a root beer or an orange soda, whatever it is you want. But you have to choose one of them at a time. You put your dollar in and you push Coke and out comes the Coke. And it's the same thing with your prospects. If you start thinking and looking instead of as everybody that you could serve, start looking at the individual target markets that you could serve. I mean, you know, you look at it from a carpet cleaning perspective. You know, we talked about one target market could be, could be apartment owners, you know, who have all of, who have to clean the carpets in the apartments before they re rent them. It could be luxury homes, people have, have big homes. It could be people who have allergies and want to keep their carpets clean for health reasons. Whatever target market you can think of, that's where it's going to start. Because they're all going to have different hot buttons. They're going to have different parameters for making a decision and they're going to have different reasons for being compelled to call on your advertising. And it's so much easier to to compel, which is our second profit activator. Use direct response offers to compel prospects to call you. It's so much easier to compel somebody when you're speaking directly to them, when you're only focused on their needs. We talked for carpet cleaners, we talked about all those target markets. If you think about for real estate agents, it could be first time buyers, it could be move up buyers, it could be people buying their trophy home or people coming in from out of town or investors. One of the most valuable things that you can do for your business to start applying these profit activators is to think about who are the different types of target markets that I could focus on. And what if I just were to imagine, not even to just act on this but just to imagine on paper that my only business was cleaning carpets for people who have allergy problems and want their carpets to keep their carpets clean, have the most healthful environment for them and their kids. Or to focus only on apartment owners who want to get the apartments cleaned, carpets clean before they re rent an apartment. And it's immediately focusing you, it's immediately clarifying. It's total clarity when you eliminate all the distraction, you eliminate all the clutter, and you try and focus only on one thing at a time. You know, you've heard the story about the donkey that couldn't, you know, standing in the center between water and between a pile of hay and starved to death because he couldn't decide which to go to first, couldn't decide to go to the water or go to the hay, couldn't make up his mind. And often people get sort of paralyzed by trying to make their marketing be all things to all people. We don't want to leave people out, which is a big, big obstacle. It's a big thing that limits people's potential. So if you can narrow your focus, even just on paper to think through, what would your business be like if you only focused on on that one target market. The thing, Joe, that happens is when you think about an individual target market, it's much easier to think about dominating that market because you have such clarity, because you know what your focus is.

Yep, exactly. I will tell you, like when I was in my carpet cleaning business and I learned marketing, it's one thing to learn messaging, like consumer awareness guides, headlines, calls to actions, irresistible, offers powerful guarantees, the use of testimonials. I mean, all of those are part of the ingredients that you construct a powerful message. But then the other is, well, who do you want to direct it to? Because the best message in the world is useless if you shout it to deaf ears. It's useless if you try to get everyone to, to be your customer. You're not focusing with a laser. It's the difference between shooting with a rifle and shooting with a shotgun. Basically, once I started directing really great marketing at a specific target market, in my particular case high end homes, through the existing relationships of other people that were joint venture partners, like dry cleaners, real estate agents, interior designers, different service businesses. It made it infinitely easier because when people would come into my world but they weren't really a right fit client, I could refer them to somebody else. It just simplifies things. And a lot of people have a psychological dilemma with saying no to certain people because they're like, well, I have a good friend named Ken Glickman and he has this wonderful line that is everything you say yes to, you say no to something else. And if you say yes to trying to service everybody, like every target market that's out There you're saying no to ones that are probably better. In my own world of what I just take selling marketing advice very targeted towards professional carpet and upholstery cleaners. It's a niche that I've dominated since 1995. I basically have since 1995 have been the largest, most profitable, most impactful seller of marketing advice to that industry. I've got the highest level mastermind group in the world for direct response marketers. No one has the highest level clients as I do. No marketer. I've got the number one group. Why? Because I specifically select a target market of people in an income and a skill set category and I dominate in that area. Part of it is, I think there are marketers that are way more intelligent than me that because they have not selected a target market, they are kind of squandering their skills. And I think that could be said with any type of. There are web designers out there that are struggling because they haven't selected a target market and there are others that are kicking ass and name the industry. It has nothing to do with how much of a nice person you are or how skilled you are. A lot of it just simply has to do with where you put your attention. Yeah.

I heard a great analogy about radio advertising and it's the same thing with our target markets here. But in, in radio advertising, the big thing is often reach or frequency. How many people do you want to reach or how often do you want to reach them? And often people choose to reach as many people as they possibly can because they think that's what the big win is. They want to get their message out to as many people. But the clarifying question is always do you want to convince 100% of the people that 10% of the way or do you want to convince 10% of the people 100% of the way? And that's really. It's so much more profitable to dominate each individual target market one at a time. Especially if you are marketing on a shoestring budget. Especially if you don't have an unlimited budget for. For marketing. It's so much easier to and so much more profitable to multiply your dollars by focusing on the most profitable target market that you can first to the exclusion of all the others. Not that you're going to deny people who fall into your lap. You know, if your focus as a carpet cleaner is you're going to go work on high end homes and somebody in a regular subdivision, in a small home calls you up and wants you to come and Clean their carpets. Of course you're going to go and clean their carpets. But when you're spending money to attract people, it just makes so much sense to focus all of your dollars at first on dominating that one target market because you get so much leverage from it, and it's so much more relaxing.

Can I also say something, too? Because a lot of times selecting a target market, it does not necessarily even have to be like, say, a specific income or specific type of home. It could simply be an area. It could be a neighborhood. Gary Halbert, years ago, before he became a copywriter and he really understood marketing, he used to actually work and used to sell postage machines out of all things for Pitney Bows. And he told me the story once at my house. He said that, that when he got a job at Pitney Bowes, he was working there. And I think when he started, there was probably like, he was like the fifth salesperson that they had hired. And I don't know if it was in Ohio or where the heck it was, but basically he said that he worked there for a couple months, and then they brought on another salesperson. And all of the salespeople had zip code and geographic areas that were like, how large of an area they could call on was like their territory. And every time they brought on a new salesperson, they would have to shrink everyone's territory in order to fit in space in the town for another salesperson. And he said that he saw like four or five versions of this happen in the span of a year where they bring on salespeople. And he said every time every salesperson would go apeshit, they would get all pissed off and. And they would feel like something was being taken away from them. But he said what happened for every time is they would all make more money because they had less driving. They were more focused in that particular area. So shrinking and narrowing your focus to some people feels like, oh, you're taking away opportunities, you're taking away clients. But in reality, in most situations, it literally forces you to pay more attention to what you got right there because you're not so damn distracted trying to sell to everybody in this gigantic geographic area. That applies if you sell globally, because you've got to obviously make it fit whatever your product and service and niche, etc. Is. But it's really just about narrow your focus and select one target market at a time. Not that you can't have many, but. But you don't want to have many all at the same time. You want to get it down before you move on to the next one. It's kind of like Mary Ellen Tribbe's line, one thing done equals money. Five things undone equals no money.

Right? That's exactly right. And one thing done that creates money, done again and again and again is even more money.

So now here's the deal, Dean, because for timing purposes I want to actually. But this one is so important though because if you don't get to narrow your focus and select a single target market in the beginning, all of the other profit activators aren't going to be as leverageable because you can have the greatest marketing message in the world. But if you're not targeting it, you're just losing the strength and the power. So at the conference this year, and I want to say, because I do want to invite people to come to our conference, I love marketing conference and we have a very special offer for everyone that is listening. And I'm going to give you the website right now. Go ahead and write it down, but don't go to it yet. Listen to obviously our training here. Ilovemarketingevent.com Breakthrough Ilovemarketingevent.com breakthrough. This is not a seminar, it's an investment. And if you're seeing the value of these profit activators, we're going to go really deep with it at the event. We're going to literally teach you what we believe, everything you need to know to select your most profitable single target market. If you're having trouble with understanding that, we're going to go deep on every one of these profit activators, but we want to explain them to you so that you kind of really get it. Let's go on to the next one.

Let's talk about the during use because the during unit is really the unit of your business that most people, when they think about their business, this is what they think of. It's when they do what it is that they do when they're cleaning carpets, selling homes, serving meals at their restaurant, adjusting people in their chiropractic practice, massaging people in their massage practice, coaching people in their coaching practice. Whatever the business is that you're in, that's mostly what people think about it as. And if you think about the three parts that we talk about under your during unit, we talk about profit activator 4, which is present your unique service offer in a way that makes it easy to get started. And profit activator number five, deliver a dream come true experience designed from your clients perspective. And profit activator number six, provide after sale service even after you've already been paid, that sort of starts to sound like you've moved into the after unit. But when you really think about the context of your during unit here, the purpose of what we're talking about, it makes all the sense in the world to kind of extend the service that you're providing and to set the stage for them moving into your after unit, where you're going to nurture a lifetime relationship with people. So the main goal in your during unit is to, number one with that profit activator, Number four, is to convert more of your appointments into clients. If you're talking to people or you've got an opportunity with them, that it actually is going to turn into business for you. If you're doing what Joe talks about with the carpet cleaners doing carpet audits, that's a great framework for presenting your unique service offer and getting people to get started. Or as a real estate agent, if you're on a listing appointment or you're sitting down on a buyer consultation to make it easy for people to get started. You know, I talked about the core of your during unit being creating and delivering that dream come true experience from your client's perspective. And when you really think about that, one of the things that is the most focusing question you can ask yourself is what would be a dream come true for fill in the blanks for your target market? What would be a dream come true for somebody who wants to clean their carpets because they're concerned about the health ramifications of having dirty carpets and the health benefits of having clean carpets? You've narrowed your focus to that particular person and now you're starting to ask yourself what would be a dream come true for them? And the same thing. What would be a dream come true for somebody who has to sell their house or somebody who's going to invest in one of your information products? And when you really start to think about that, it makes everything else easier. Actually, when we talk about this at the conference and if I'm doing consulting with people and looking at their business, the order that we actually start to apply the profit activators to the business is we start with narrowing that single target market and then we immediately jump over to, to number five, focus on creating and delivering a dream come true experience designed from your client's perspective. And if you're selling information or you're selling tools or you're selling things that are going to help people make more money, and hopefully if you're selling business to business, that's basically what you're doing or if you're selling to, to sales people, you're selling to trades people or carpet cleaners or real estate agents, whatever it is. If you imagine that you are only going to get paid if they get the result that you're promising, it clarifies everything that you do in that during unit. If you're so many times people who have information products, especially information marketers, they try and pad all of the information that they have by bulking it up to add things that are sort of non essential but look like you're adding more value because there's so many more pages or so many more CDs or you know, whatever it is. But if you were to really break it down and think about what would be a dream come true for them. Because whatever experience it is that you're selling, what people are buying is the result of that. If somebody is buying a kit on how to grow their carpet cleaning business, what they're really doing is that they are thinking that they're investing a little bit of money in something that's going to turn into a lot of money. I always like to say they're investing, investing dimes for dollars. That's the whole point. That's why people invest in information products that are business related, looking to invest in or to increase their profits to make more money. So if you were to imagine if the only way you're going to get paid for this information product is if they actually get the result, what if you only got paid when they get paid? And that is a really clarifying thought because it will immediately cut out all of the fluff. It cuts out all the extra stuff. If you look in the breakthrough DNA report in the profit activator number four, there's an illustration, there's a picture there that I talk about that I show a mouse focused on the cheese. And we talked about this in one of our episodes about more cheese, less whiskers. That your prospects, your clients, they're only focused on the cheese, which is the benefit, the good thing that they're going to get by investing in your product or your service or your information product. And when you look at the illustration, I talk about how most people focus on our four step process or here's what we do. First we do this and then we do this and then we do this. But none of that really matters as long as you end up at the cheese because that's all that the mouse is focused on. That's all your prospects really think about about. Is this going to get me the result. Is this going to stop my divorce? Is this going to make me more money? Get me more carpet cleaning jobs? Get me more real estate clients? Is it going to heal my back pain? Whatever it is, if you only got paid for the result, how would you deliver that experience? And it's such a clarifying thing because so many times just in doing that exercise, you can see where the actual critical things are. The things, the difference that makes the difference. And focus only on that.

Excuse me, Joe, Let me mention that if you have not yet read our very awesome report, you can get it@ilovemarketing.com and it's called Breakthrough DNA 8 profit activators you can trigger in your business right now. And we go through all of these different profit activators that Dean is talking about right now. The point is you don't need a lot of tools in your toolbox. You just need to have these tools and do really well with them. That's what so much of what we're teaching is about. You don't need 400 formulas. Most people can do really well with one good recipe with the right ingredients. And these eight profit activators are all different ways to fully exploit to your advantage and create win win situations for you and your clients in the before, during and after stages of the business. So far, Dean, we've covered profit activator. Narrow your focus and select one target market. Profit activator number two, use direct response offers to compel prospects to call you. And if you are still not quite familiar with what direct response is, to say it easily. Image advertising. Institutional advertising in the advertising field is kind of like branding. Get your name out there, direct response. It's not about getting your name out there. It's about getting your name out there and getting a response back. Making specific offers. If you even look at if you really want to understand what a direct response marketing campaign is, read our sales letter. It's like that is for our conference. Go to ilovemarketing.com, click on the red button where it says the date September 21st and 22nd. Read that letter. Study it. That's a direct response offer. It works. People are giving us money to sign up for something. The third is patiently and systematically educate and motivate prospects to meet you when they're ready. A lot of this, it's a nurturing process. Just like harvesting a field of crops, you need to water it. Selling is not an event. In most cases, it's a process. Profit activator number four, present Your unique service offer in a way that makes it easy to get started. What I started doing with carpet cleaners is I taught them to do a carpet audit and start. Instead of an estimate or a quote, it completely positions them differently while they are in the home. Profit activator number five, deliver a dream come true experience designed from your client's perspective. Okay, so carry on, Dean.

Yeah, let's go on to number six then by focusing on providing after sales service even after you've already been paid. And that's the very best time to start providing something extra because most people don't expect it. Most people expect that they are going to have a transactional experience with you and once they give you the money, that it's over. That that's it most people expect because of the experiences they've had with other carpet cleaners, that you're going to come in and you're going to clean their carpet and you're going to leave and they're never going to hear from you again. And that's, you know, that's an opportunity for you because no matter what somebody buys, they're always most excited about it immediately after they've done it. And that's where all of the opportunity for getting referrals in that during unit happen is immediately after the, the they've purchased it. You know, you imagine the scene when somebody gets their carpets cleaned for the next, you know, four or five days, and everybody who comes into the house, they're going to be talking about how they, you know, how great the carpets look. Or when somebody gets a new car, they're going to be driving it home, they're pulling it into the driveway, they're taking it to work for the first time, they're taking it to church, they are taking it to their social gatherings and they are showing off the car. That is when everybody is most excited about it. Somebody moves into a new home over the next 30, 60, 90 days, all of their inner circle are going to be coming over to see the new house. Oh, you got to come see the new house. It is just the way that people start interacting. If they get a new dress, they are going to wear it to the party on Saturday or whatever it is that your business does, they're mostly going to be happy about it immediately after. And if you can set the tone for building a lifetime relationship with somebody by thinking about, what could I do to add value after I've already gotten paid? So if you think about in a carpet cleaning situation, what if the next day or sometime in the next couple of days, you popped by after you'd cleaned their carpets just to check on how everything worked out, how it looks, and to drop off a little bottle of sort of emergency stain remover or something. Is there such a thing, Joe, that you could drop off?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean there's, there's spotters and stuff that you can drop off mats. I even have, believe it or not, some clients, it has to be done the right way. They actually deliver flowers thanking the person. We have a company called A Little Something where they send gifts to people. Many of my clients do follow up calls just to check. And some people's attitude is, well, we don't want to wake up a sleepy dog. If we call them, they might have a problem and they're going to call us back out. And you're like, you know, if you don't figure out if they have a problem, they're never going to call you back the second time, you dumbass. Right. Like you want to know. Exactly.

That's the thing.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. There's even a monthly client newsletter, which we both, me and you have taught our clients for years, is an after sale service, even after you've already been paid because you're giving people information.

I mean, that, that's everything. And now, you know, we're kind of, we're moving into the, the after unit now. But that's kind of the baseline of, of any kind of lifetime relationship nurturing, you know, and that's profit activator number seven. Nurture lifetime relationships and focus on lifetime value. And that's really where that starts, is how are you going to communicate to the people who already now know you like you, trust you. And you are the incumbent. Whatever your category is, you're the incumbent realtor because you helped them get into the house that they're in. Now you're the incumbent carpet cleaner because you're the last person that cleaned their carpets. You're their incumbent chiropractor or massage therapist or whatever kind of business you're in. How do you make maintain that? And I love that. What kind of strategies do you guys do? Joe, I know you talk about the client newsletter and that's really the baseline of everything. Some kind of regular communication with people is often enough to act as repeat business insurance.

Oh yeah. I mean, certainly mailing and connecting with people. There are continuity programs even that my very best clients will actually put people on so they don't even have to think about their next cleaning. There's postcards, there's free room offers that are sent out which will go. You're going to talk about this in a moment. Which is orchestrating referrals by giving your clients the opportunity to feel really fantastic about doing it. But yeah, they're just all follow up methodologies. One of the best ways I like to express, explain it is if you were to go out on a fantastic date with someone and you just had like a great date and you take your date home and you're on the doorsteps and let's say it's a man and you've gone out with a woman and you give her a kiss on the cheek and you say you're going to be really nice, you're not going to try to get in the bed with her or whatever, the first date and you're just like, I had a really awesome time. This was fantastic. I'd love to go out with you again. I'll call you in six months. I mean, you ain't getting another date. It's just not even going to happen. I will venture to say in the business world that's pretty much most experiences when you go and buy something from a company. And it's even worse than that because most of the people that I buy stuff from, I never hear from them again. They don't even call. Six months later, it's like done. So it's left up to you to initiate doing business with them again. You don't have to be a brilliant person in order to do better than your competitors. You simply just need to pay more attention to your clients than the competitors will. You will lose your customers to your competition when you allow your competition to pay more attention to your customers than you do. And part of it is just giving. That's why the after stage of a business is so critical. That's where the real juice is. Because it's more about consistency than it is about doing it. Every once in a while it's like consistently thinking of your clients as an investment and how would you nurture that investment? This applies to any relationship. If you have lots of great friends, you probably have lots of great friends because you stay in touch with them, because you bring value to their lives in the form of entertainment or whatever. And if you don't have a lot of friends, you could probably learn a lot about how to have more friends by being a great marketer. I think people that have great relationships but don't sell anything are great marketers, but they don't think of themselves as marketers. But any person that maintains Great relationships is doing something before, during and after the association with whoever it is that they are hanging out with. So there you go. But we are going to have a ton of different specific. Not only are we going to teach how to do this in depth at our I Love Marketing conference, I mean, we are going to literally teach service experience follow up that will literally create the happiest clients and largest sales. We are going to talk about how to nurture lifetime relationships with clients so that they never cheat on you and basically how to orchestrate referrals. We're not just going to talk about it. We're going to show specific ads, templates, social media methodologies. I mean, like recipes. Here's not just the recipe, but here's the recipe card. Just start cooking and you're going to get results.

Yeah, and that's, you know, there's the thing that a lot of times one of the big mistakes that people make is that even if they do have an after unit or they do do some sort of communication frequently with their clients, they're focused on, you know, they're not focused on orchestrating referrals. And that's such a big opportunity. That's why I separated it in the after unit, you know, along with nurturing lifetime reflection relationships and focusing on lifetime value profit. Activator 8 orchestrate referrals by giving your clients the opportunity to feel great. We did a whole episode just on this activator, you know, talking about how you can not just wait for referrals to come passively, but to go out and create them, you know, and to use orchestrated referral strategies to really kind of make sure that you are doing everything you can to give your clients the opportunity to refer you. Because anybody who's referring you is doing it because they want to feel good. One of the things that you have to kind of overcome in all of this when you're communicating with your clients is that you've got to stop confusing being nice to people with an orchestrated referral process. You know, because often, sometimes people say, well, you know, I send a newsletter and I send them a pumpkin at Halloween and my business card says I heart referrals, but nobody is referring me, you know, and it's because you're not orchestrating it in a way that you're asking for specific help. Most of the time when you are asking for referrals, it is such a fluffy word that people can't even wrap their mind around it. You say things and you talk about referrals. Your referrals are the lifeblood of our business. And all these things that are sort of using that language. That's not really anything specific that anybody can wrap their mind around. It's not the same as asking somebody specifically who they know who are going to buy their first home in the next six to 12 months that your mind starts to go through its Rolodex for, rather than just, do you have anybody you could refer to? Me.

Right, right.

I'm excited about all the strategies that we're going to be able to share with you people, all the examples. We're going to show examples of exactly how we orchestrate referrals and teach people to orchestrate referrals.

Yeah. So what I would encourage everyone to do, and I would encourage you to do this right now because it has to do with you signing up and literally involving yourself in something that I think will change the way you do business. And you are going to learn some of the most powerful marketing strategies on the planet. So I want you to go to ilovemarketingeventlive.com breakthrough. And when you go there, you are going to see a website. And the website is basically going to give you a very special offer. And if you are listening to us live right now, then that particular website has a very special offer for everyone listening live. And it's a lower price than anyone else is going to pay. And you get an opportunity to do that right now. So go to ilovemarketingevent.com actually, I think I said it wrong. Ilovemarketingevent.com Breakthrough. That's a good way to sell something, huh? Just give people the wrong website that doesn't exist. Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me give you one site that doesn't even exist.

Tell them again one more time, just so we know.

Okay. Ilovemarketingevent.com Breakthrough.

There we go.

And when you go there, it's going to say the live event. Yes. Joe and Dean, sign me up. I can't wait to meet you two in sunny Arizona. And see, that's copy right there. We're assuming you actually do want to meet us on September 21st and 22nd. Now, if you're in the professional cleaning industry or you are a real estate expert, one of Dean's clients, we're actually going to have special breakout days the next day, actually on the 23rd. So you're even going to get that as a bonus. And if you're not in either one of those industries, but you would like to hang out, you're welcome to join whoever you like the most, me or Dean, I think most people are going to vouch for me, but for the most, I'm kidding, Dean. Dean's a genius. He truly is. So September 21st and 22nd, 2011 for the I Love Marketing Live event. And it says on that website, it says, I understand the event is 100% guaranteed. And I can't wait for you to reveal the most profitable old school direct response marketing strategies and latest, most cutting edge marketing technology so I can transform my business into an elf business. Easy, lucrative and fun. And you're going to have to go there to see the really amazing, awesome price. But here's what I really want to say, what you're coming to this for. And if you cannot attend live, I know we have a lot of listeners that are in literally other countries or people that just simply can't make the dates live. We will broadcast this live over the Internet. It is infinitely better to be here in person, I will just tell you that. So be here in person. Unless you simply cannot. If you cannot be here in person, then you can. If you sign up for this, we'll follow up with you. But you can get the videos of the event if you simply can't even watch it live, or you can watch it live over the Internet because we are going to webcast it. But being here in person is the very best. And our phone number is on the bottom of that site. If you need to call us, it's 480-858-0008. But really the reason to come is for one, it's going to teach you how to make more money. You're going to get multiples in terms of what your investment is. And we 100% guarantee that if you don't like the event for whatever reason, not only will we give you 100% of your money back, we'll give you up to $500 as long as you show us reimbursable expenses. We'll give you up to $500 to send your butt back on the plane for wasting your time. That will not happen. But if for some reason you believe it is, you get more than a better than 100% money back guarantee. And we would not offer that if we were not 100% confident in our ability to deliver breakthrough training. Second time, it is going to be one of the you are going to be doing something on September 21st and 22nd. And if learning how to develop the before, during and after stages of your business seems like a really smart, important thing to do, I don't know, something that would be a better use for of your time than this. And you're going to be doing something. We encourage you to spend the time with us because by doing so it's going to create time for you. Because all of this is time management marketing. Once you have replicated and automated and created elf marketing systems, the amount of time that it will save you in the future, the amount of time you will no longer waste trying to figure out how to build and grow your business. This will be one of the best time management methods on the planet. Although we don't tout this as a time management event, it's literally going to be one of the best ways to leverage your time. Third, you're going to make some great connections. Some of the sharpest people on the planet are attending this event. Some very sharp marketers, people that are very focused. The fourth is this is kind of like an inner group. The people coming to this are, I would consider, very high status thinkers. They want the very best. They're willing to invest in it and they're in the know, they understand out of all of the different things that they can learn about business that this is, you know, this marketing, the I love marketing event is a cutting edge place to be. So you're going to be in a group of very awesome, amazing people. And the fifth thing is it's a bargain. I mean there's no, there's no investment I think you can make in your business with the guarantee that we're offering that is going to bring a greater return. And you're going to see people in the middle of what most people consider a horrible recession, a bad economy that are kicking ass and taking names. And they're doing it in industries either exactly like yours or similar. And you're going to be able to take what it is you learn and apply it. And you're going to see the way that I run events, the way Dean run events. Dean runs events. And we're doing this together for the first time. We've spoken at each other's events in the past and things like that. We've been friends for over 15 years. We kind of know how to work together. We make it very fun and enjoyable because frankly, I think many seminars just kind of suck. And this event is going to be fun and it's going to be awesome. And so you just need to ask yourself the questions of how much money would this be worth to you? I mean, it's not going to cost you anything. The only way it's going to cost you something Is if you don't show up, go to ilovemarketingevent.com Breakthrough, get yourself signed up. And there's also a very special offer to bring a guest that is there. And for those of you that have taken the time to listen to us live today, you get a special if you go there right now. Dean, so what else, what would you say to that?

I think when you talk about the people that are going to be in the room there and the people who are in any industry really doing well, I mean, you can't think of a single industry that there's not somebody who is doing well. No matter what the conditions are, no matter what the economy, no matter what's going on. Somebody has figured it out. And the reason they have figured it out is typically because they have better marketing, they've got a better idea, they're focused on something that is going to multiply the money that they invest in advertising or in marketing. And I think that that's really where people are going to get their big breakthrough here, is by focusing on the idea that they can immediately implement and start getting a multiple of the money that they spend on doing it. It's the recipe.

Yeah, exactly. Me and Dean, we're going to be in New York City next week at an event that I'm holding that's a 25k event and this one, it's 10,000 bucks a person. And some of the top marketers in the world are going to be there. We're going to have 80 people there. We know how to do really high end stuff. And so we are going to sit around in that room hearing some of the best marketing strategies on the planet. And what are we going to do? The very best ones that have to do it before, during and after. When you come to our event September 21st and 22nd, you're not going to have to spend ten grand, you're going to spend a fraction. And you're going to learn things that are worth in many cases, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars to certain individuals and you get the advantage of all of the other things that me and Dean do on the side. That's what it's all about. Ask yourself what would happen when you put these automated systems via eight profit activators into your business? What would that actually do to your business? Would that give you more money? Would it give you more time? Where else can you possibly go to connect with people who can take your thinking, your relationships and your outcomes to an entirely different level and connect with Entrepreneurs and people that are interested in the subject of direct response marketing, that love marketing and they are different from you and they can give you insight into your business and to yourself and things that you never are going to come across if you don't put yourself in that sort of situation. So if you are on this call, we believe that you are already in the know. You are part of a group of people who think differently because most business owners don't think like this. And you can harness the power of, you know, all of the marketing that we teach and it will do your bidding for you. And so if you get it and you know the value of this, then you will show up at the I Love Marketing event because that's where the smartest people go and there's power in it. And it's unlike anything that we've ever done before. Me and Dean are super, super excited to do it. I mean, this is going to be fun. And yeah, that's what I have to say.

That's what I'm trying to say.

We hope to see you there. Ilovemarketingevent.com Breakthrough. Dean, anything else you want to share? You want to unmute the line and see if there's anyone screaming out there?

Yeah, let's do that. Let's all say, I love marketing. Let me open up the lines here.

All right, at the count of three, can everyone say I love marketing? Okay, Just so we can get this recording. One, two, three. Awesome. Well, I appreciate it. All right, mute. Everyone back quickly, quickly. Before someone goes, before someone yells some profanities or something.

We'll see everybody in Phoenix.

Yeah, so go to the website right now because we are actually going to change that offer soon. And we wanted to do it for everyone that is on here live listening. And we really appreciate you taking the time and we hope you found it valuable. And the things that we are sharing here are not teases. We are literally. The eight profit activators are the things that make me and Dean money. And going deep with this is the way that we teach all of our consulting clients on how to do what it is we do. And if you need to call us, our phones will be open tomorrow, but get registered. Even if you're not going to come live and you just want the videos or the webcast, you can call the office tomorrow and let them know that, yeah, you want this very special offer that's up there right now, but you want to get the recordings of it, but be here live if you can. And our phone number is 480858-0008. And again, the website, one last time is ilovemarketingevent.com breakthrough. And on behalf of myself and Dean Jackson, over and out. Thank you very much. Have a great evening.