Game Changer Episode - Part 1 - I Love Marketing Episode #217

Hey there.

This is Joe Polish, and I decided that for this episode of I Love Marketing that I would share an episode that I did with Dan Sullivan. You always hear me and Dean Jackson referencing Dan Sullivan and Strategic Coach. And we did an episode on my other podcast that I do with Dan called 10X Talk. And this particular episode I thought was so useful that we're going to share it as an episode for you for on I Love marketing. So go ahead and listen to it and this will be part one. And both episodes are filled with really, I think, incredibly valuable insights and content about how to think about growing a business 10 times. And I think you're really going to get a lot of value out of it. So this is episode number one, and then next week is going to be episode number two. So take a listen and I hope you love it.

I'm Dean Jackson, he's Joe Polish, and.

This is the I Love Marketing podcast.

Hello, everyone. This is Joe Polish and this is Dan Sullivan.

All right, here we are. Dan, we are going to do a really awesome 10x talk episode on this whole concept you have called the Game Changer because you have this very special Game Changer charity workshop that you're doing just for Strategic Coach members and for Genius Network members. These are like the only people that have been invited to this thing. And maybe if they qualify, we'll invite some people that are listeners of 10X Talk, although many of the listeners are Strategic Coach members and Genius Network members. But you're doing this charity event, but really this is not a call or an episode to talk about, per se, an event, although one's taking place. It's really about what caused you to come up with this, because you have spent your whole career working with the highest level entrepreneurs, and you've come up with this term for the way you think about the highest level ones that are industry transformers and you call it Game Changers. And I want to really just talk about the whole concept of being a game changer because we have a really great scorecard that you have called changing your game, being permanently out in front of everyone else. And that sounds a lot like competition. And I want to have you, first off, define what is the game changer and how did you develop the Game Changer mindset?

It's been a thought that has been kind of evolving over a number of years just for people who are listening and they don't know my history. For the last 26 years, we've had a coaching program called Strategic Coach, and it's done in a Workshop setting. But in the 15 years before that, I was a one on one coach. I started in 1974. You would hire me because I'm a guy who asks really good questions. And since I'm doing it with a lot of different people, I've got sort of an overview of kind of all the different ways that people approach business, the kind of issues that they run into, the kind of obstacles that need to be transformed. I jumped from one on one coaching to doing a workshop program just because I could. And secondly is that there was a multiplier in it. I used to spend a whole day with one person and I've gotten to the point where I can spend a whole day with 56 to 60 people. So the business really grew as a result of my workshop experience. And I've got other coaches, 15 other coaches who coach workshops. So it's become a very big international business. In three countries, we have eight different cities, 3,000 different entrepreneurs in it. But two years ago, I had been in the process of creating what's called the 10x ambition. It's sort of people with 10x ambitions. And I created this program and I was still coaching a lot of individuals who had been with me for 20 years, some of them 25 years, but they didn't want to make the jump to 10x. So I got to a point and I said, look, if you're going to have me as your coach, you got to be in the 10x program. And I gave everybody a year to make up their mind to come or to stay where they are with another coach. So I did and I freed up amazing amount of time. I mean, when I look back after the year of being freed up, I had actually freed up 100 work days. So the listeners out there can imagine what that would do to your schedule. I'm actually making more money, but I got 100 days back. So I was sitting there, I said, well, what do I do with the time? You know, I've got all this time. And I said, you know, I'd like to go back and do one on one coaching again, but I'd like to do it under a special set of circumstances. And that is the individuals I'm going to do coaching with have to have an idea that really changes the game of the industry or the marketplace that they're in. And Joe, I'll just give you as an example because we're working on your next jump game changing jump, which is to go from the $25,000 group to $100,000 group. It's going to be a different game. It's going to be a real change. And that really interests me. And so with the game changers, I just do it because I'm really, really interested in. I'm not asking for any money from it, I'm not asking for any ownership or anything. So the first thing I do is I said, look, I'm just doing this because one, I really like you and number two is I'm just really fascinated with the thinking that's going into this project. So I can number now, going on my third hand, probably 13 or 14 game changers that I am in conversation with. And I got to a point earlier this year where I said, you know, I think I'm creating the next level of the program that's above the 10 times program and to try out and sort of organize everything I've learned from working with individuals separately. What I'd like to do is have an all day workshop in Chicago. I have somebody in the program who's got a great entry level program for Veterans from the U.S. military coming back where he teaches them entrepreneurial principles. It's a charitable foundation that he has. And I said, what I'll do is I'll just put on the program, I'll charge $1,500 for the day, we'll cover our costs and then everything that's left over, we'll just write a check to Phil Randazzo. He's got the name of his foundation, his American Dream U. And this just gives me a chance to consolidate all my thoughts, get all my thinking together. I'll have to put together a whole workshop to do this. But I think anyone who is at that stage in their entrepreneurial career where they've said to themselves, and not just listening to me, but you've actually said to yourself, you know, I'm really changing the game in my industry and my marketplace. And it would really be a neat idea if I could just have a sort of structured process for about eight hours to put all my thinking together about what I'm doing. So that's really what I'm offering to anyone who's listening, who would meet your stamp of approval? Joe?

Yes. Yes. Well, here's what I would do. For anyone that's listening to this, I'm going to ask you some questions about just being a game changer and how to think about this because it's so important and so powerful. If you are interested in the workshop, this is for people that really run a very high level business. For one, meet the criteria of being a genius network member or a strategic coach member or obviously be in the program. So you have to be at a certain level of success in your business in order to really get the most out of this and be working on things that are very big and you want to be surrounded by very successful entrepreneurs. So it's going to be on Tuesday, September 15, 2015. The investment is $1,500, but all the profits of that day are going to go to Phil Randazzo's program American Dream youm. It's limited to 150 participants. More than half of that's I know maybe more is already filled up. If you are interested, you can email Charity C H A r I t yrategiccoach.com charityrategiccoach.com and just let them know that you heard about this on 10X Talk. You can also call 416-531-7399. Again, the phone number is 416-531-7399. That's the strategic coach number and it's $1,500 U.S. those are the dates. So if you're interested, then go ahead and follow up with that. Now, that being said, so you have this scorecard, Dan, it's called changing a game, being permanently out in front of everyone else. And it's a whole list of eight different mindsets. And I kind of want to go through this. The first one is no more competition. So I want to ask you for one. What are the attributes of a game changer? And then how do those game changers see competition? So the listener can really get an understanding of how does Dan Sullivan think of who is a game changer? What are these individuals? Like, who are they? And then how do they view competition?

Yeah, well, I'll just tell you first of all, Joe, that the big jump from what I would say an ordinary marketplace business and you could be at the top of the business. But the difference between that and a game changer business, that you're essentially selling mindsets. And this has been a phenomenal discovery for me this year. I've been at it, the coaching business for about 40 years. And I got to a point, I think it was in February or March of this year. And I said, you know, what have I been selling? I've been really successful and I've been selling. And one of the things that I've really noticed over the 40 years that I've been coaching people can't really describe what it is that happens to them when they're in strategic Coach. And it suddenly occurred to me that they acquire entirely new mindsets about who they are, what their business is, who their customers are, what the value creation is that's actually being created. And I said it all comes down to mindsets. Seems like a simple thing, but sometimes you can be sort of nibbling at the edges of a big idea for years and years and years, and then one day it just gets crystal clear and bang, you know, it's like Genius Network. You were doing genius network about 10 years before you ever got the idea, but getting the name was huge for you. So the big thing about the big difference between a game changer is that the game changer provides products, provides services, but the products and services are just in support of actually a phenomenal shift in mindset that people are going to go through. We have lots of very high level corporations and companies in the world that kind of do this. I would say that Apple has traditionally been a mindset changing business rather than a computer company. There's lots of computer companies, they make very good computers and everything else, but Apple kind of shifted everybody's mindset about creativity, about communication, about community, staying in touch with each other. There's other examples. I think Starbucks was mindset changing company, probably Whole Foods. As a mindset changing company, it's not just a product or service that you're getting. You're getting something that really changes your mind about what's possible in the world, where the world is going, what kind of future we're entering. So what I've looked at, and I'm getting really good at this. I think the reason I've been so confident about putting this workshop together is that I can sit down with someone who clearly is a game changer and in about three hours I can actually nail it down for them. I can help them nail it down. So I was getting really, really cocky about this. So I said, well, let's take everything you've learned on an individual basis and let's put it in. But one of the big mindsets, Joe, that you hit upon is that you got to get past the whole notion of competition. The mindset that actually supports this is that your biggest competitors find your creativity so valuable. In other words, when they look at you, they see your creativity and they find it so valuable that they actually choose to become your best customers and promoters simply because they want to tap into that creativity. So instead of seeing you as a threatening competitor, they actually see you as a crucial doorway to the future. The way that you're thinking about things so in the workshop, I'm just going to get people to actually look at things from their competitors standpoint. Depart from your own point of view, but get into your competitors, look at the future and look at it in terms of the dangers that they have. Look at it in terms of the opportunities they have, look at the opportunities in terms of the strengths that they have, and think about how you could actually help them be more successful, your competitors. And you see, this is a real shift of mind for someone to do that because a lot of people are really nervous, they're really kind of threatened by the whole notion somebody will steal my ideas. Well, actually, I'm in the business where I want people to steal my ideas because I want to create a community where people are just thinking at a higher level. So actually I'm doing just the opposite. I'm literally giving away my ideas so that they don't even have to steal them. I just want them to use the ideas.

You know what's interesting about that too is I've heard a lot from people like you have a lot of people that do coaching and run expensive groups that are members of your group. And the same thing could be said of Strategic Coach. I think between Strategic Coach and Genius Network, we probably have more people that are, quote, unquote, some sort of business mentors, coaches, whatever. I mean, the top ones in the world are part of our programs. So we can view it as either competition or we can say, hey, we're just increasing the slice of the pie, or at least taking the ones that are the very best and giving them a place to become better. Because both of us produce better entrepreneurs through the genius networking that I do and through the coaching that you do at Strategic Coach. So on your changing your game scorecard, the first part is no more competition. The second section is creating massive inequality. And so I wanted to ask you, what does inequality and equality mean to a game changer?

So when you have a breakthrough of any kind, and we're going through one right now with two technologies in particular that are causing enormous disruption of the political system in the world right now, one of them is Uber and the other one is Airbnb, I think that these are real game changers in the world right now. And the reason is that when you have previously thought of an industry, in Uber's case, you think about the transportation industry. So you have limousine companies and you have taxi companies, you have trucking services, you have delivery services. So these are all about the transportation system. One thing you'll notice for every driver that they have out there. These industries have about 15 to 20 other individuals that you as a customer are not just paying for the driver, you're actually paying for the other 15 to 20 people. And in many cases, these 15 to 20 people are actually government regulators. They're government bureaucrats who they want to regulate how you do business with your customers. And from my perception here, watching the whole unfolding of Uber, and for those folks who really haven't experimented with Uber, it's worth part of your education this year to get your Uber app and to actually have one Uber ride. Notice the difference between using Uber for a ride across the city as compared with catching a taxi on the street or pre arranging a limousine or whatever you're going to do. And you'll notice that basically the experience is just you, the driver and a phone app. That's all there is to it. And what Uber has done with the phone app is that they've eliminated the other 15 or 20 people that you used to pay for. You can imagine that the other 15 or 20 people aren't really, really happy about this. Okay? And same thing with Airbnb, where there's a hotel industry. And for every person that you see in the hotel who allows you to have your room, there's another 15 or 20 people who are getting part of the piece. And Airbnb said, look, if you have an apartment or you have a home and you would like to make this available to people to stay there overnight here, just click on this app. They can get in contact with you. And there are certain conditions. You rate them. If they junk your place while you're there, they'll never be able to use the system again and everything like that. So what is happening, Joe? And not to dwell too long on the technology here, because I really want to get to the whole concept is that all of a sudden both Uber and Airbnb are creating a massive inequality in the marketplace. And that is that everybody else had to play by the rules, everybody else had to get their license, everybody else had to get their credentials and they have to go through inspections and they have to pay dues. Most of them belong to unions, they have to pay dues and everything else. And Uber comes along and says, nope, you just have to have a really good car that's in really good shape, that you keep it really clean. No sense. It's impeccable inside. You've got a good driver's license, you got a good credit rating. You're the driver, you're a customer. We're going to check your credit rating, that you pay your credit card bills, because the whole thing is going to be transacted by a credit card. And if you're bad, you're a lousy customer three times and you get a bad grade, you can't use the service anymore. And the same thing goes for the driver. If the driver turns out to be not a good driver, is not polite, doesn't show up on time, driver's out of the system. So where before you needed this vast sort of regulatory regime both inside of a corporation and government, what Uber and Airbnb have done, they've just created a phone app that does all the regulation, and it triggers your credit card, the payment is made, there's no exchange of cash, and that's the deal. So what happens then is that, first of all, Uber drivers are making about $7 more per hour than conventional limousine or taxi drivers. They have massive amounts of freedom. They can be in the system, they can be outside the system. If they want to take the afternoon off, they can take the afternoon off. They don't have to notify anybody. It's just that when they want to work, they just have to notify the app that they're on duty and they don't have to check in with head office. There's no dispatcher. They don't belong to a union. It's just the app. So you can see that there's been a massive creative inequality created in the marketplace, that Uber drivers just have 10 times more possibilities as drivers than all the people who spent years working up through the ranks and becoming favorites of the dispatcher and the union boss or anything. And Uber and Airbnb just make that disappear. Now, these are really interesting technologies, and you're either going to use them or not use them. My point about this is that they're just an example of things that are going to happen more and more. These are game changers. And whether you can take advantage of these game changers is totally a function of your mindset. I've never seen anyone be neutral in a conversation about Uber or Airbnb. You either love it or you hate it. And whether you do or you don't is totally dependent upon your mindset about the way things should work in the world.

Yeah, well, I mean, based on the change in your game sheet that you have, the part you mindset, on a scale of 1, 2, and 3, you write creating massive inequality, people can score themselves. As you're increasingly angry about the disruptions to your business caused by other new approaches and innovations. And of course, we can think of individuals and corporations and bureaucrats that have that mindset. And all the way to the 4, 5 and 6, you say you always feel guilty about your marketplace advantages because others don't have access to them. And then if you score 7, 8 or 9, it'll be in the category of your personal philosophy is that your success depends upon everyone being successful. And then the final one is basically your game changer solution creates massive inequality that forces everyone else to transform or leave the game.

Yeah.

And so there's the big difference there.

You and I have been out in the marketplace in literally thousands of different situations. You've had the advantage of over a 20 year period of just interviewing and recording some remarkable people out in the marketplace. I've had the advantage of actually working through business models with hundreds and hundreds of people who were considered the top in their industry. But if you can draw back, that's sort of at sea level, you're seeing all this. But if you can get above the ocean a little bit, you begin to see that there's some huge currents taking place. Most people experience things at the wave level. You know, there's big waves, there's small waves and everything else. But really what determines the direction that things are going is getting above it. And you can see a big general current that will go for thousands of miles and it has enormous power to it. And I think Uber and Airbnb are examples of a big current that's actually going to show up in not just dozens, but hundreds and thousands of different. The whole healthcare system will probably go to an Uber like model where you just have an app and your doctor is actually an application and you just punch in and various services and products and everything else get okayed. And the phone app that you have will probably have diagnostic capabilities. You prick your finger and put a blood spot on the screen and it can do a blood test or you breathe on the screen and it can analyze all sorts of conditions you have just because of the content of your breath. This is happening. And there's a lot of people who will be increasingly angry about the disruptions that are happening to their business. But they're not creative people. They would like the world to stay the same. Things are good for us every year we get a check without having to do any creative thinking. We don't have to get any more productive, we don't have to get any more capable. We don't have to produce any greater value. But we demand that we get paid the same five years from now, as we're getting paid today, and the world just won't stand still for it. So my sense is that there's a lot of our listeners, Joe, right now who, you know, are somewhere on the scorecard. And we're actually going to send everybody the scorecard. Joe. So as soon as this podcast is finished, you're going to be able to download the entire scorecard so you can see where you are on this list of mindsets. I have eight mindsets, but we've given you just a tasting with no more competition, create massive inequality. And one of my really favorite ones is number four, which is expand your freedom. And people say, well, you know, how do I even get being a game changer? And I said, well, it's not actually about changing your game. It's about changing the freedom that you're experiencing in your present game. So when I say, are you experiencing greater freedom of time? Are you experiencing greater freedom of money, greater freedom of relationship? That's what I'd put the focus on. As you free yourself up more as an entrepreneur, you will just naturally do all sorts of things that are different from the way that other people are doing them. So that's a really good topic to talk about.

Well, you know what I want to do? I'm going to make a judgment call because there's so much good stuff here. I want to turn this into two episodes, so this one is episode one. And then we'll do a second episode about this. But I want to let everyone know that we'll put the Changing youg Game sheet that you can download on 10xtalk.com.

Joe it'll be a writable PDF so that they can type on it, because they're going to give themselves a score. It's a scorecard. So there's a whole series of numbers, there's a whole series of mindsets, and you. And you find where you are on the page and you'll actually give yourself a score for each of the mindsets. And then there's a tally scorecard that is your total score for the entire changing your game scorecard. And then there's a second column which says, five years ago, how would I have scored myself? So they can give some sense of the progress that they've made over time. That's what scorecards are for. They really give you a baseline to start with. And then you can see how you're changing your mindsets over a period of time. Very exciting. Everybody who gives themselves a score on something immediately wants to improve their score.

Yeah, totally. Totally. So what I want to do to wrap up this particular episode is I want to mention one thing again. If you want information about the Tuesday, September 15, 2015 Game Changer Charity Workshop, this is a one day focusing event with Dan Sullivan going through all of what we're talking about here. It's $1,500 U.S. you can email strategiccoacharityrategiccoach.com or call them at 416-531-7399. And this will be for high level entrepreneurs that really want to just be immersed in this sort of mindset. So if this resonates with you, then go ahead and email about that workshop and all of the money, all the profits go to American Dreamu and it'll be a really awesome thing. And I'm going to be there along with some of the most amazing entrepreneurs you've ever met in your life. So what we'll do is we're going to continue on the next episode where I'm going to ask Dan about resources, expanding your freedom, project management breakthroughs, self managing companies, things like that. Give us your comments@10xtalk.com if you'd like to subscribe to 10xtalk, you can do so on itunes or you can go to 10xtalk.com and you'll automatically have these episodes delivered to whatever device that you listen to the podcast on. And we'll talk to you on the next episode. So thank you.

Sam.