How I Turned $250 into $62,000 Using This Simple Ad | I Love Marketing

He made $62,000 the first year off a $250 ad that drove people to listen to a prerecorded message. Along the way, I was like, maybe I should package this stuff up and sell it to other people, right? Welcome to I Love Marketing, uh, our meetup, and this should be a fun and enjoyable, um, educational time for all of you.

Welcome to I Love Marketing Live. This is your host, Paul Colligan. We're talking about the Profit Activators, which has been a big part of what these guys have been doing since the very, very beginning of I Love Marketing. The Profit Activators, give me a brief history, Dean. Give me a brief 2-minute history of the Profit Activators. Where do these come from?

So funny that you should say that because I just wrapped up Profit Activator Week on my YouTube. I've been going through my journals for the past 30 years now. I started journaling 30 years ago and I just found in journal number 6, 1997, that the first time that what is now the Profit Activators made an appearance, and it was the 7-step process then that wasn't divided into before, during, after, but the things were in order. It was the storyboard from select a single target market, compel your best prospects to call you, educate and motivate, present your offer, deliver a world-class experience, Yeah, there they are. Yeah. Provide after-sales service and then nurture lifetime relationships. So there were 7 and we added an 8th as orchestrate referrals because I looked at that as a separate thing from just nurturing lifetime relationships. So that's what ultimately became the 8 Profit Activators. Actually named it the 8 Profit Activators when we started the I Love Marketing podcast to have a name for the process. So that's the next—

Now, Joe, you're good at naming things, but you know, sometimes you'll change the name. Sometimes you'll forget the names. Sometimes we'll start a new thing. This one has stayed alive. This one has been around since day one of this show with the millions of downloads and the accolades and all that stuff. Joe, why does this one win? Why does this one play so hard?

I'm going to let Dean answer that.

Well, durable contexts. That's the thing about the 8 Profit Activators. It's before we named them, I was using them as a practitioner. That was the process that I was putting every project through. That was the step. I wasn't teaching that process. I was applying it. And so, before we ever got I Love Marketing. I think people sometimes forget that Joe and I both started out as practitioners in an actual business that we learned marketing and then evolved to just helping people in real estate and carpet cleaning. So we had already done all of that before we ever launched I Love Marketing. That was the first time that both of us had kind of come out to applying what we had done to all businesses.

You know what?

Let me jump in on that because this is not a marketing strategy, but what you just said, I don't want to let it slip through the cracks here, is that the people over the years that actually embrace, improve, utilize, and ultimately build and grow their businesses with effective marketing are the ones that practice it and the ones that actually go out there and do it. And I have said this many times to people that have, you know, joined Genius Network or have come to me and they want to sell, they want to be a marketing expert, a coach, a guru. They want to go teach people how to do stuff. And I'm like, well, for one, have you done it for yourself? And secondly, have you done it for other people?

Hmm.

And the Often the response is no. They see someone like Alex Hormozi. I would use a modern-day example, or back in the day they would see, pick a guru, Tony Robbins, whatever. And they would want to do what it is that they do because they see big crowds and people will come into seminars and everyone does the arithmetic, but no one does the subtraction. They count how many people are in the room, how much money you're making, and they think these people just show up like And it's 100% net profit or something.

Mm-hmm.

And not realizing most people just lose their ass when it comes to trying to sell that. Now, you know, back in the '90s when I built the carpet cleaning business, I lived on credit cards for 2 years struggling. There's this guy that you see, this weird bald-headed dude named, as it says, Pete Kaczynski, that has a magnificent shirt on. He actually is one of my very first carpet cleaners. that bought my marketing program for carpet cleaners, and he used it to build his business. And then he, you know, for several years, he just started studying marketing. Then he licensed my stuff to sell to the auto industry, and he ended up selling 1,200 auto dealers all over the country.

1,600.

1,600.

Oh, I apologize. Why are you lowballing him like that?

Damn it.

Now, first off, Pete is crazy, by the way, but he's very, very smart. And so the thing is, though, is I I never intended to sell anything to carpet cleaners. I was just like, let me figure out how to make my business work. And since everything I was studying strategy-wise was about direct mail back at that, in the early '90s, I was studying all of this stuff about how to connect with people by mail. And then I went to a carpet cleaning convention, all the stuff I was doing as part of owning a business. I was at this seminar and this guy, his name was Matt Clark, and he was like a big guru in the carpet cleaning industry back then. And he was saying, you know, the very best way to get business is 40% off. And I had been running free recorded messages, consumer awareness guides, education-based marketing. I wasn't doing low-price marketing. I wasn't price discounting my services because I'd tried all of that stuff. And it didn't seem to do anything other than just keeping me in a constant state of attracting people that were price shoppers. And I said, well, I had long hair in a ponytail back then. I raised my hand and I said, I'm using this thing where I use a 24-hour free recorded message and I have this ad that says, warning, don't call any carpet cleaner until you listen to this free recorded message. Call anytime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Learn 7 questions to ask a carpet cleaner before you invite them into your home and how to avoid 4 carpet cleaning ripoffs. And then when people call the phone number, they listen to a message on how to choose a carpet cleaner. And by the time they're— if the people that are just concerned with price, they hang up. But the people that want quality, they listen to the message, then they call me up and they never ask how much you charge. They ask, when can I do the job? I mean, I literally said that. And he's like looking at me like, well, young man, if that works for you, that's great. But we know 40% off is the best way to get business.

Ah.

It just totally dissed me. During break, 2 guys, Don DeLu and, oh, uh, Andy. So 2 guys came up to me and, um, said, uh, something with a G. His last name started with a G. Gallegos, I think it is. No, it wasn't that. But what's funny is Don DeLu just turned 75 years old last week and I called to wish him a happy birthday. He was my very first paying, uh, Genius Network member out of 12,000 cleaning and restoration companies all over the world that ever bought my stuff. He was the first one to use my prerecorded message, and I took him from a half-page phone book ad in Yellow Pages, if those of you old enough to remember Yellow Pages, and I cut him down to an ad smaller than the size of a business card, and he made $62,000 the first year off a $250 ad that drove people to listen to a prerecorded message. Along the way, I was like, maybe I should package this stuff up and sell it to other people, right?

Mm-hmm.

But the point is, if you just start teaching other people what you're doing and how you're doing it, you'll get a pulse of if other people will give you money for it. And the deal I made with both of them, I said, look, I hired a copywriter, paid him $1,800 that I didn't have the money for at the time on a credit card. And then I paid this copywriter another $250 to take the consumer awareness guide script and turn it into a free recorded message. And, uh, and, and, and I'll, if you guys just pay me the $250 each, I'll send you everything, the script to the consumer guide. All I ask is that you report The progress you make from it, because I'd be curious to see how well this works for you. Because I'm in Arizona, Don was in Broomfield, Colorado, and Andy Gallagher, Andy Gallagher was his name. I can't remember where he was from. And what's funny is Don implemented it. Andy didn't do anything until like 3 years later when I'm now the most well-known person in the world in the carpet cleaning industry because I started teaching all of these carpet cleaners all of this stuff. He ends up buying my package and then he starts using it and ultimately starts coming to the events and everything, but it's so typical of doubting people. But the point is, why do I bring all of this up? I know that was a bit of a tangent, but the point is, if you don't try the stuff, you never freaking know. And over the years, so many people had come to me, how do I learn how to do this? How do I learn how to do that? And they think there's easy money in just the idea. If you get it implemented, if you go through the process, people hear elf marketing, They have an ELF business, easy, lucrative, and fun versus a HAF business, hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. I talk about that all the time, but they wanna skip the foundation. They just wanna jump right to the ELF and think it's gonna be that damn easy. And the, you know, we've said this a million times on I Love Marketing in the, you know, in the real world it's called failure. In the marketing world, it's called testing. And so you've gotta be willing to test and try. certain things. And the beauty of what we teach in the 8 Profit Activators, since Paul brought that up, which everyone here, if you haven't read it already, if you're a new listener, download the Breakthrough DNA at ilovemarketing.com. It doesn't even sell a course. It just lays out the 8 Profit Activators. Dean is the one that came up with before, during, and after. It's a great model on how to look at stuff. And if you just do those steps, and you do it consistently and you're willing to test, and not everything's going to work, but you really think about what we're going to talk about today and even demonstrate, you will get really good at it. But the reason people don't get good at anything or don't stick with something is they're not willing to work through the burn. And let me give you one more analogy, then I'll shut the hell up.

Okay.

Today was day 16 that I have gone on a 45-minute to 1-hour walk And it's very hot in Arizona, so you got to get up early. And so Tommy Mello, one of my 100K members, he calls me up 16 days ago and we have a pretty good conversation. He had just sold his company for over $2 billion and biggest acquisition in a blue-collar business at the EBITDA rates and everything ever. And so, he's like, I've been walking in the morning. You want to go for a walk tomorrow? And so, I was like, what time? He's like, 5:15 AM because I got 7:00 AM meetings. I'm like, even though I wrote a book called The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery, it's sitting up there with Anna David and Hal Elrod, I'm like, I don't want to get up that early. But I'm like, you know what? Screw it. I want to see where Tommy's at in his head after literally he's now a billionaire. And so, we go and we walk for an hour. I invite my buddy Tim Larkin and we just, you know, it somehow triggered something in my head that like, what if I do this every day? And I'm nocturnal really, even though, again, the Miracle Morning you can apply, it doesn't matter. If you want to have a Miracle Morning, you actually have to have a Miracle Evening, meaning you got to go to sleep. So, I was like, huh, I wonder if I could do this. So, for the last 15 days, I have walked every single day and I've brought a group of guys with me. And so, it's now becoming A whole thing that we're thinking about doing. But, I start looking at this going, if you leave the session today with us and you listen here and you pick up just one thing that you will consistently start doing every day and you just do it, it's amazing what could happen. And, I have had the worst health challenges of my entire adult life since March. I have lost 70% of hearing in my left ear. I have nonstop tinnitus ringing in my ear. Some of you've heard about that. It never goes away. what silence sounds like. The first month, I literally was suicidal. I was like going, I am being tormented. And, these walks have made such a huge difference in how I feel.

And, I'm like, huh.

And yeah, it was a pain in the ass for the— I'm still tired. I'm still trying to get used to the adjustments and I'm still dragging my ass out in the hot heat. It's now starting to finally get a little bit cooler in Arizona.

Yeah.

But, it's the same thing with anything. Anything we want in life, we got to work through the burn. If you're not working out, you know, you got to go through the first week or two where you're going to get really sore. And the same thing, you know, if we tell everyone here, you know, handwrite a card to your top clients or maybe 5 of them or 10 of them, most people will grumble. Most people won't do it. But if anyone here does that for 2 weeks straight, you will start getting responses back from people. You'll be like, wow, that's not so hard. It was a lot harder day 2 than it was day 10. And then pretty soon people start calling you and then your network changes. Same thing with all of it. The 8 profit activators, you know, how do you eat an elephant? You know, one bite at a time. How do you eat a herd of elephants? One bite at a time.

I'm going to go very quickly through the profit activators with Joe and Dean, probably ask them just to make a little comment on each. But then if there is a specific implementation of one of these profit activators in what you're doing and you just have a question, how would I make this work? Give that to us inside of chat. You know, profit activator this, This is what I need. You know, where do I go? And then we'll pick 4 and give a decent little hot seat on it. Hot seats are one of the more viable, valuable elements of Genius Network because just when, you know, you're thinking about your problem, sometimes you hit the head up against the wall. So Dean, I'll have you on this one. Profit activator number 1, narrow your focus and select one target market at a time. Give us a minute on that, Dean.

Well, I think that the primary distinction that I have to point people towards is the difference between selecting a single target market, which is you proactively deciding who you are going to pursue versus just being selected. And that's what most people do. When you're thinking wide, you want to put out social media, put out stuff, get your name out there. In the hope that people select you. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about you doing the selecting and then you're moving on to Profit Activator 2.

All right, Joe, I want to hear you about Profit Activator number 2, use direct response offers to compel prospects to call you.

Let me show you this. So we've got these Profit Activator cards. So Profit Activator focus. So the second Profit Activator is where you start applying direct response marketing principles that are discussed throughout the ILM episode. ILM as in I Love Marketing. There are a lot of ways, a lot of different ways to compel your prospects to reach out to you by phone, your website, visit you. Compel is the keyword. When your ad is truly compelling, it is similar to what you drive by when you drive by a car accident on the highway. You are compelled to slow down and take time to gawk at what's happening. Now that you've selected a target audience, you can create a compelling ad that's all about them. There are a number of ways to do this. So I talked about free recorded messages. So, you know, Consumer awareness guide, free reports. The key is to create a compelling title that articulates what they want in a way that they're compelled to reach out to you. And one that we came up with is how to get the most thorough cleaning ever, or it's free, was one of my members, Jim Wolverton, took my guarantee and we, you know, worked so many different variations of it. But that one worked extremely well. You know, a free room of carpet cleaning with a carpet, you know, with a carpet audit. were the offers that we would actually make. And so, so if you want someone to respond to your advertisement, your marketing, your website, you need to set it up so it's very hard to ignore. Create a headline that is irresistible for your target market. And here's an example of a simple headline that I used with Gary Halbert. I literally came up with this with Gary Halbert. And his free recorded message reveals How to have your carpets cleaned properly at the lowest possible price. And that was one where we're like, okay, can we work in low price but also not have it be low price? And so what do you think the key word is on that? Okay, let me read it again. Free recorded message reveals how to have your carpets cleaned properly at the lowest possible price.

Properly.

Properly.

Yeah, exactly. Because if you, you know, because if you do it properly, There's going to be a price for that. But people that just have a low price, or like the people that are bait and switchers, they're just going to provide a crappy service, but they're going to give you the lowest price. And so why do you feel the headline's compelling, right? So the exercise that we, me and Dean have when we take people through the Profit Activator Cards is what would compel someone in your target audience to contact you? How do you use direct response methods in your business? You know, free recorded messages, free reports, consumer guides, et cetera, uh, whatever you're doing on social. Uh, and the third is where can you advertise to get the greatest, uh, direct response?

Fantastic. Dean, number 3, Profit Activator number 3, patiently and systemically educate and motivate prospects to meet you when they're ready. And remember, we're doing hot seats here. So if one of these hits you directly in what you're doing, Give us some thoughts on what might happen and we might get a hot seat with you. Dean, hit me.

This is where it all happens. This is where you can distinguish yourself is most people are focused on generating a lead and converting them right away. And the reality is that most people are not ready right now. There's far more people who are entering the consideration period of a purchase of anything that they're doing. And there's a lot of research and I've got the receipts to show all of this, that typically if you look at a bundle of 100 people that inquire about anything and we take them out 100 weeks from now, Just over half of them are going to have done something about what it is that they inquired about, but only 15% will do it in the first 90 days. So when you generate 100 leads, whatever happens in the first 90 days, there's 5 times more value in that same bundle of 100 prospects more than 90 days from now, but most people give up. Most, for most people, 90 days is the long-term follow-up. They're mostly looking at the 9-day follow-up program. 90 days seems like that's way out there. You know, my credit card bill will be due by then.

All right. Let's hit profit activator number 4, Joe. Present your unique service offer in a way that makes it easy To get started.

I'm going to stay along the lines of the carpet cleaning examples. And I will preface this by saying, I know that hearing carpet cleaning examples turns some people off because they're just like, I don't sell carpet cleaning. My clients are different. How does this apply to me?

Blah, blah, blah.

And I always say that if you sell anything even remotely more sexy and exciting than carpet cleaning, you can probably learn something from this because if you have to learn how to successfully sell something nobody wants to buy, it kind of makes you pretty good at marketing. And so I would package up carpet audits. I look at all out of your category or your business that you are in, how do you package it? How do you present it? What do you call it? What do you say about it? And so I came up with a carpet audit, and the carpet audit was to evaluate the conditions of somebody's carpet. Prior to me doing that, the average— well, almost everybody was giving free quotes, free estimates, and they were using survey service providers just to come and give them a price, and then they would use that to compare and they would find either the lower price or whatever. And I was like, I don't want to be a free advisor to people. I want people to actually hire me, so I need to do something different to differentiate myself. So I started calling it a free carpet audit, and I would couple it with a free room of carpet cleaning so that I would demonstrate my services. And I made more money giving away a free room of carpet cleaning up to 200 square feet along with a carpet audit presentation than I ever did price discounting my services and the unique way that I packaged that, which is what profit activator number 4 is, present your unique service offer in a way that makes it easy to get started. Try a free room of carpet cleaning, carpet audit, let me evaluate it. And then if they like the demonstration and the way that I presented, and they would do business with me. And then once I fine-tuned that, my sales dramatically increased. I no longer dealt with low-price clients, and we would flesh them out in the marketing because good marketing will sift, sort, and screen people when you make a unique offer. And then once I started teaching that to other carpet cleaners, the average company across thousands of companies that used my methodologies, and to this day many still do, It would increase their average job 25%. And I would tell people, if you did nothing other than, say you don't do anything with these marketing strategies that we're sharing, if you just raise your prices and you deliver on it, that alone's going to make you more money. So, all right. That's—

So, okay, we are halfway through the Profit Activator quick run. We've listed 4 of them and we're going to hit 4 more really, really quickly. If you If you have a specific need or an idea for a hot seat based on one of these profit activators, go ahead and put it in chat. Because once we get Dean and Joe to go through these, these things they've done a number of times before, you know that. Um, let's get them using this for your specific business and, uh, uh, do, do some genius networking if you will. So profit activator number 5, you deliver a dream come true experience designed from your client's perspective. Dean, tell us about the dream come true experience designed from the client's perspective.

I think this is the big thing where you get to really detach yourself from even the current offering that you're having and start to think, what would be the best thing that I could do for my client? I would ask people, what would you do? What would be the best thing you could do for somebody if they would just get out of the way and let you do it or do what you say to do? If they would just trust and go along with you. And many times, if you can imagine what's the best result that you're capable of providing for somebody, maybe that requires your price has to be double or triple or 5 times what you're currently charging, but it's actually going to get them the result that they want. That's what thinking and architecting a dream come true offer for people. Many times there's a big opportunity in just completing what you're doing that maybe people are offering a partial solution to something because of a price or affordability type of situation. But if you could think all the way through, What would be the dream come true and charge whatever it needs to cost?

You know, Joe, profit activator number 6, provide after-sales service even after you've already been paid.

Well, so again, so I'll use another carpet cleaning thing. I used to have spotters where a little bottle of spotter that I would leave with them or mail to them so they get it like a week or 2 weeks later. We would deliver mats. Mats that were doormats because if you can, for every foot you have in front of an entryway, it will literally eliminate anywhere between 10 to 20% of the particulate soil off somebody's shoes before they walk into the house. And so, having mats. Another thing I talked about earlier, thank you cards. Literally just sending a thank you, following up with a phone call. And just checking. You can do things like car washes where if they say, if it rains within the next week, bring your car back and we will clean it for free, that sort of stuff. And so there's, I like the after-dinner men. I had dinner with Robert Cialdini a couple weeks ago, and he's the one that wrote the book Influence, who's been a friend of mine for over 3 decades. And when you're at a restaurant, the reason they give you a mint is they want you to leave with a good taste in your mouth. So, think of what's your version of the after-dinner mint that someone will just feel good about you or something that you can mail or send them or provide or offer. Even if they do not take you up on it, the fact that you offered it, you will get the benefit of reciprocity.

I'm going to add something there because I think the biggest opportunity around multiplying every transaction that you do, and that happens after the transaction is over. You think about somebody getting their carpets cleaned. Everybody who's coming to their house is going to comment on, oh, the carpets look lovely, or, oh, we just had the carpets cleaned. That's your opportunity for— equipping your clients to introduce the people that are in that environment to get the same thing, to get a free room of carpet cleaning, like to give people a gift card for a free room of carpet cleaning to give to somebody that, oh, your carpets look amazing. Oh, Joe Polish did that. Yours. I got a free room of carpet cleaning for you. That's Most people just let those things fly.

This kind of flows into this, Dean, but profit activator number 7. And everybody, if you'd like a hot seat moment on these profit activators for your company, go ahead and give that to us in chat. We got a couple of you, so we're looking forward to doing these. Dean, profit activator number 7, nurture lifetime relationships, focus on lifetime value.

That every time, one of my favorite things to do Is to think about from the beginning, setting up a lifetime relationship with people, and that elevates your relationship to being an advocate for somebody and taking on the responsibility. If Joe goes and does a carpet audit and cleans somebody's carpets, then you should adopt this mindset of carpets under management, that you are now— that how many square feet of carpet under management do you have in the area? As soon as you've cleaned somebody's carpets, you are the incumbent carpet cleaner in their world, and you have the opportunity to run uncontested as long as you continue to win the hearts and minds of the people that already know you, like you, and trust you.

And Joe, number 8, and then we'll take the hot seats. And by the way, let us know your favorite of the activator and why. I'll put that inside the chat. I think that'd be interesting for us to know about. Joe, profit activator number 8, orchestrate referrals by giving your clients the opportunity to feel great.

Yeah.

So part of referrals, most referrals that people are getting, if they are getting them at all, is either passive or reactive. They just kind of happen by accident. They don't, there's no real even strategy behind doing it. And all of us, including myself at times, Forget, because I think there's something really sexy about chasing new customers instead of just remembering that the people that know, like, and trust you already have a relationship with you, that you've already invested the time, money, effort, energy to build and establish rapport are the ones most likely to tell other people about you. So Walt Disney had that great line. I think I said it on the last meeting where he said when people went to— his vision was that where people would go to Disneyland, they would have such a great experience that they could not not tell other people about it. And so if some— if you can make something happen in the course of whatever your product or service or experience that you're delivering where other people are compelled to go tell other people about it or feel really good, then go ahead and do that. Secondly, like one of the best things I did for carpet in my carpet cleaning business was there is a moment in time where people can introduce you. Now, Dean did all the marketing for a company. called By Referral Only for many years. So Dean is an absolute expert at referrals, and even using the word introduce us to somebody is better than refer us to somebody. I don't know, not in every context, but in most contexts, I think you would agree with that, Dean, right?

Or wrong?

That's what a real referral is. In order for a referral to take place, they have to introduce you to the person for an orchestrated referral. Otherwise, it's just passive or reactive, like you said.

Yeah. So if you think in terms of languaging of you want someone to introduce you to somebody else, if you're a single person and you're going to go out on a date, do you want someone to refer you to someone to go out with or do you want to be introduced to somebody? So the languaging of this makes you think about how you need to set up the conditions to make it really easy for somebody to refer you and to want to refer you and to keep you in their minds. One thing that I would do, all these service businesses back in the '90s, they would have these magnets that a plumber would put their magnet on the refrigerator. And I'm like, you go into a really high-end home, I don't think they want a carpet cleaning magnet to remind somebody of it. Now, social media and algorithms has eliminated a lot of that because now the advertising seeks you. You don't always Seek the advertising. And I thought, I don't want to put a freaking magnet on the refrigerator. I want to do something that makes sense. So I would say to them, in case you ever have a spot or spill or an emergency that happens like a flood, I want you to be able to have my contact information. So would it be okay if I put a little sticker on your vacuum cleaner? And I'd get their permission and then they would take me over to— I would say, show me where your vacuum cleaner is. It's usually in a closet or— And I would put a little sticker that was bright fluorescent orange or pink, and it said, are you fed up with your dirty carpet? Call phone number. Now, there were no websites back then, right? But I was like, every time they're vacuuming, I want them to be reading the sign that said, are you fed up with your dirty carpets? And they always had my phone number, and I wanted to make it really— I was like, oh, where's that carpet cleaner? And I started after putting this on hundreds of people's vacuums, I started getting referrals from other people. Because I had those damn stickers on people's vacuums. And so you just got to think, what is the right timing? The other thing is I would give people, whenever they gave me a referral, I would send them 5 $2 bills and it was a referral reward and saying, instead of paying the advertising media or something to tell people about me, I'd rather have my happy clients do it for me. And so I wanted to send you a A $2 bill and they wouldn't throw the $2 bills away. And every time they would open up their wallet, as an example, or wherever they keep their money, they would be reminded of me. And it's harder to get $2 bills, but I'll tell you, even to today, if you just contact your bank, get some $2 bills, anyone that gives you a referral, just send them a letter, say, I've attached a $2 bill. It's just my way of saying thank you. I really appreciate it. And they think about you all the time. So those are just some ideas.

That's great. I love the sticker idea. And that goes with that, like claiming this, every square foot of carpet that this vacuum cleaner is covering is under management by— what was the name of your carpet cleaning company?

Well, the first one was Superior Carpet Care, and then I sold that company. But then it was FiberTech, FiberTech Cleaning and Restoration. Yeah, that's what I ended up to have my second company.

There you go.

It was pretty much the same company. I just kind of sold a division of it to this other clown that ended up— as you go through business, again, my, one of my favorite lines to say to young people is, if I would've known being successful was this much work, I would've stuck with being a loser. And so I sold my, my first business to a guy based on profits over a period of time, cuz I had built this highly profitable small cleaning business and within 4 months, there were no profits left because he was paying off all the expenses of his other company into mine. And I didn't know how to do a proper agreement with someone when to sell the business. So he figured out how to screw me out of about $100,000 in the business. But what's, I got some upfront money, but what's funny about people like that, and all of us encounter them, is that when I became the biggest person in the in the world in the carpet cleaning industry, which I did. I say it never got me dates in bars or anything, but I was the most famous person in the world in the carpet cleaning industry by 1997. And this guy, because he screwed me over, I literally, I had no incentive to help him. And in the midst of him screwing me out of $100,000, he probably cost himself $1 million in losses, which made me very happy. But anyway, that was a side note. Let's see. I'm still a bitter resentful person deep down inside when people— I don't like people that screw people over either. Myself.

FiberTech is such a '90s kind of name. You just add the word tech to the end or E or I or that, buy carpet machines or that kind of thing.

Back then it was completely badass. I mean, And I had a computer.

Fibertech.

Yeah.

Yeah. Now it's kind of like Fibertech. What the hell's that? Is that like an internet service?

You know? There we go. There we go. All right. So we're going to head over to the, we're going to head over to the hot seat part now. And if you would like to get a hot seat, let us know what your need is and tie it to your specific profit activator. We do have Ralph here and Ralph was interesting. I'd love to see your all's brains take us through this Um, Ralph said, I'm selling a super high-end product, one per country, and the selling price is $6 million. After we sell, the price goes to double. Can you gimme some ideas on finding and approaching prospects who want global visibility, bragging rights, massive profit, recession protection, et cetera? Um, Ralph has his hand raised, so I think he's giving us permission to, um, put him on camera.

Well, tell us all about it, Ralph. We're all dying to hear. Joe was just telling me the other day, You know what I really need? I'm looking for something I could buy about $6 million, but I want to be the only one in the country that has it. So—

Well, you guys all know that the Lakers just sold for $12.5 billion after just a few months ago it sold for $10 billion. And you guys all know that Seattle Seahawks sold for $9.6 billion. So right now across the planet, we have about 30,000 families that have over $100 million and less than a billion. And if they want a major league soccer team, a, you know, NBA team or a premier soccer team, they're out of luck. They're just way out of their price range. So we have actually started a new global race. It's a race all the way around the world, and we allow one team per country Into the race. So at this moment in time, I'm supposed to be meeting with people from the Cayman Islands the next couple of days about buying the first team and then Korea and then South Vietnam. But I'm looking for more because what we're going to do is we're going to sell so many of them at $6 million, then we're going to double the price. Okay. And then sell it's only 5 teams per block. Okay. It's kind of like if you go look at Major League Soccer, they started off at $5 million. 29 years ago. And now to buy an expansion team, which we don't even really know, it's at least, we all we know is that the price is at least $750 million and the average team that's in existence is over a billion. So anyways, we're going in that direction and I'm just kind of looking at ideas out there.

Profit activate that, Joe and Dean.

Yeah. I mean, look, if you're doing something to that price point, I mean, you want to educate and motivate people. So you want to, Dean, I'd be curious to— we could spend a whole freaking session just on this one, right? Because there's so many different ways.

You got to get clear on what's in it for them. So what is the offer? What, like if we say, what are they getting that's going to be for that $6 million?

I'm glad you asked. Okay. If you were to go buy the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, what you get, you don't really get the people that are playing.

Yeah.

And you don't generally get any buildings.

Right.

Okay. What you get, you get is some dirty laundry. Okay. You get the good feeling part and you get the license that goes with it. That license to play in the NFL, to bring 53 players to the bench and play in the NFL is worth a massive amount of money. And it's just super exclusive.

it.

And so you get your portion of the television media rights, which 2 years ago was $256 million a year. I don't know what it is now. It's probably gone up. You get that. You get your tickets, the value of the tickets, a portion of the tickets that sell. You get a portion of all of the parking. You get a portion of all the other stuff, but you really get the exclusivity. And it's kind of like Formula 1. The teams used to race under the Concorde Agreement, The Concorde Agreement was an 8-year license. At the end of 8 years, you had to renew it. Okay. And you weren't guaranteed the renewal. And so they've gotten rid of the Concorde Agreement and gone to very similar to our NFL system. Okay. It's a perpetual license.

Okay.

We like to use the word franchise, but on the international scale, that one's used— not used for that, but it's a perpetual license or a forever license. You have the forever license to race In Formula 1. So with us, you're getting the forever license to race for your country and only a person for your country, um, every year into perpetuity. And then sometime in the future, we expect you to be able to sell that for dramatically more than you paid for it. Just like—

So how much are you talking theoretical right now? Right?

Like, I already hold 4 world record In voting. Okay.

Yeah.

I'm a little bit more than just theoretical.

I have my business model of it.

Half built.

You're the, you're, I don't hear that you're, you know, you're comparing theoretically the idea of an NFL franchise or an MLS franchise or a Formula 1, which are known, established.

Oh, absolutely.

And generating inherent value the day you own it.

Is there.

But what I—

my question to you is, how many years have these races been going on? And how much revenue is the thing generating?

I'm hoping this week to get my very first revenues.

Right.

Okay. Uh, it'll be a $3 million check. Uh, we're selling the first team at half price.

I mean, for an owner. I mean, for an owner. I mean, for an owner. For anybody who owns this team, it's so funny. I wrote a book called The VCR Formula, vision plus capability multiplied by reach. Now, the thing about the vision category is what you're talking about is you have a proposition that you are projecting based on comparables of other analogs to this, that if this were like Formula 1 or If this were like the NFL, these franchise rights or the ownership rights for the country are going to have inherent value, but you haven't, I haven't heard it yet, proven that that's true. You have a proposition that this is going to be a thing. So you have to bring somebody on who's willing to take the gamble with you at this point, honestly, which is what—

You're 100% correct.

Correct. Yeah, I don't dispute that one bit. 100% correct. And it's just like when they started any other league, somebody had to step up. Okay, if you go back to Major League Soccer, 3 people stepped up with, you know, and put up $15 million approximately each. You want to put up $20 million. Okay. And, and that's what it came up to, a total of $50 million. But that's what they use, which Which is, by the way, it's $115 million in today's dollars. Okay? That's what was used to start the league. Now, we've already met with the Del Morgan Group, which has raised $300 billion, and they've agreed to handle our capital raise of a target of $100 million for this.

Okay.

So this is a boating race.

It's the first ever. There's never been a powerboat race all the way around the world.

Oh, wow.

It was broken into 20 ocean races and 20 harbor races. Like, you'd race from San Diego to Hawaii, then in the harbors you race there, you have boat parades, festivals, then you line up and race to Tokyo.

Yeah.

And then from Tokyo, you, you have boat parades, festivals, local races, then you line up and race to Sydney, Australia. Then from Sydney, Australia to Cape Town, South Africa. And as you go all the way around the world. And so, we only let one team per country understand. This is really important because 100%, I'm going to say this again, 100% of the largest things that are routine on TV are nation versus nation competing for the championship of the world. So we've got nation against nation competing for the championship of the world. And we're bringing—

To the frame.

Yeah. Nation against nation for the championship of the world. So we have the example that we know So the public likes us.

Yeah.

The largest stadiums in the world are all racing stadiums. Uh, Indianapolis 500 is 3 times bigger than the largest football stadium, 3 times bigger than the largest stadium, um, uh, soccer stadium, 3 times bigger than the largest cricket stadium. So, and, and those are big global sports, but the largest stadiums are racing. So we know the public likes racing. We know that, um, of the top 15 things around the world on TV, Okay, the majority include racing. Okay, so we know the public likes racing. We know nation against nation works, but you are right. We are talking about something that's theoretical.

Yeah.

And by the way, let me say this because obviously due to time, Ralph, what I would say, I agree with everything that Dean had suggested. You think about, I wrote a book called What's in It for Them, right?

I got a copy right around the corner here.

Good. I hope he read it. I hope he read it.

I read part of it.

I'm looking at it. And you're clearly an accomplished athlete, so you've got a lot of affinity. Dan Sullivan has this line, and I think all of us are doing it every day as entrepreneurs, is you got to make it up and make it real. There's this funny joke we talk about all the time that like at some point, 2 guys were sitting around or 2 gals or whoever and said, let's create This shit doesn't come out of thin air. I mean, it gets built, it gets created. So the question becomes, to give yourself the highest possibility of success, targeting the individuals, really understanding what would motivate them, what do they actually want, what are they looking for? And the things that we're selling, if you actually get rid of the product or the service or the thing or the race or the league or the license or the whatever, Yeah. And say, what are the feelings that someone wants that they would be willing? Sometimes they're investing to make money, but if there's no current revenue stream and you said it, we're doing the first one for half price. Well, if you can get the $3 million, you're going to use that person as a prototype. So what I would suggest based on what you've heard so far and what you'll hear on the other hot seats that we do, which I want to move on to get to, to give everyone here an opportunity and to hear different frames of references on how we think about stuff because there's probably 5 people that are on the Zoom right now that I know personally that are very qualified to give you some really good ideas and suggestions and perspectives. But ultimately, what I want you to walk away with is doing what Keith Cunningham writes about in the great book, The Road Less Stupid, is thinking time where you literally sit down and you think, okay, what If I'm going to, I have to make this sale, I need to set it up so it is going to be successful as a person buying it. I'm going to support him in all these ways. What are the key drivers and what's the most compelling way that you can speak about it? And you're enthusiastic, you're very enthusiastic and you're a very competitive person. So you're looking for people like yourself with enough money to buy this thing because you're a guy that obviously has put yourself in situations that are life or death, right?

I would say yes. Yeah.

Very cool. Yeah.

I crossed the Atlantic in the smallest powerboat that's ever crossed the Atlantic.

With your brother, which Matt posted below. Is your brother still around? Is your brother—

He's still alive. Yes.

Okay.

If you were to get in a physical fight with him, you think you could take him or what?

I wouldn't cross that. Yeah. My whole life, That was a joke, by the way. I've never gotten in a fight with him. There's 8 kids in our family, 5 boys. I've beat up the other 4, but him, I've never gotten in a fight with him.

Oh, so now we can see the deep love you have for your brother because you're like, even on the sarcastic joke that I said, he had to pause. He's like, I can't even think myself to do that. Yeah.

So— No, I would never get in a fight with him.

Thanks, Ralph. We're going to hit the next one. Mario, I see you with the hands up, but we're going to jump. We're going to hit you number 3. So, so keep ready. I'm excited about it because your question is a lot of many of my questions, but we're going to jump to Andrew Stawick. Andrew is just going right for the juice here. He goes, you know, I would love to hear your thoughts on activator number 8, which I will remind everybody is orchestrate referrals by giving clients the opportunity to feel great. I'd love to hear your thoughts on activator number 8 when working with high-ticket luxury sales clients and orchestrating referrals.

Wait, let me say that one again. Where's it at?

Here are your thoughts on activator number 8 when working with high-ticket luxury sales clients and orchestrating referrals. So, so high-ticket clients, you got some money, you orchestrate referrals by giving them the opportunity to feel great.

I'll start. So part of this is orchestrating situations that would make people feel great. When I think about who, if we talk about the VCR formula and reach is what we're talking about now, how do you get to people who know you, like you, and trust you is where are those people coming from that have the opportunity to be those kind of clients? I remember, Joe, I was with Frank Kern, was a good friend of both of ours. And I was with him in Rancho Santa Fe and we were driving around. He'd gotten a new Rolls-Royce. We went to this tailor to go and pick up a sport coat that he had gotten. But the guy, he got the sport coat as a gift from the arrangement that the Rolls-Royce dealer had made with the custom tailor to refer people to the custom tailor. Because you think about it, the kind of people that are driving in a Rolls-Royce are probably the kind of people that would like to wear bespoke suits. And so getting that introduction in a way that is natural or has something in it for them is a really great way to kind of just orchestrate the environment where people get introduced. I think that's a great situation. And then that's high-end, low-end, everything. You know, you just start thinking who already has your, who could refer people to And so we, with the Mosquito Authority, we did an arrangement with a barbecue, a grill seller that we arranged to give anybody that bought a barbecue grill got a free mosquito treatment. So they could say that the grills come with a mosquito-free guarantee because the mosquito treatment came with the guarantee. So now that's a differentiator for both. But you got introduced to somebody. So strategically thinking about how are these referrals going to take place, that's the big thing.

Yeah.

You know, again, if you want word-of-mouth marketing, you gotta give people something worth talking about.

You know what I mean?

Oh, that's exactly right.

Yeah. Dean, just to put in perspective, uh, I work for Dan and Babs, so. Oh, okay.

Nice.

Yeah. So, um, you know, when I saw Joe posted about this, I was like, I'm gonna go check this out and see what information and wisdom I can get outta these 2 So tell me, Andrew, what's your role with Dan and Babs with the— Helping to grow the community. Okay, perfect.

So part of this, I think, so you know Melissa then, and who, so one of the strategies that, you know, I recommended for Dan and Babs was having Dan's got 44 quarterly books that he's done that are in every situation, everything you can imagine that would face an entrepreneur. And I demonstrated for Melissa at one of the workshops. I said, I'll be you, Melissa. And so I stood up, I said, take out your phone, everybody. And I want you to put my phone number in your phone, put it under Strategic Coach Melissa. And text me your name and email address, so I'll have it on here. And then when you are out in the field, when you're at lunch or at a conference or in conversation, that's the keyword. That's where all referrals happen as a result of conversation. And you think that any of these books, it's pointed to the list of the things, if any of these books would be useful to give to anybody that you are in conversation with, text me and I'll get you a copy to give to them.

Okay, cool.

That is an amazing strategy that is underutilized because the number one reason that we all refer is to raise our status in the herd. That if we're at lunch, And we're talking about who, not how. We're talking about you're doing everything. It's not how, it's who. Matter of fact, let me get you a copy of the book. And I pull out my phone and I text Melissa and she's calling me right back or she's getting the thing. And I say, yeah, she's going to send me a book. I'll get you a copy. In your eyes, my status is up there. Well, Dean must important over there. It's, he snaps his fingers and things happen. That's the kind of real reward that we're looking for when we refer.

Okay, cool.

So I do do a lot with the books and making sure, you know, you need a book, you have some in mind, I'm going to throw a book at you. I also try and get my, the program members I support featured on social media stories, panels, and And the other tactic I tend to use is just saying, hey, we have this webinar coming up. If there's anyone you know you'd like to introduce to us, share this link and have them sign up. Because to your guys' point, I feel when you use the word refer, you're saying, I'm looking for a quick sale. But when you say, is there anyone you'd like to introduce? We're looking to build a real relationship here and just providing these events that they can attend to become more familiar and learn something. I feel is a great strategy. So I was just trying to see, I feel like I'm on track from what you're saying. I was, you know, also see if there's any other ideas you guys have outside of those.

Well, look, Matt, and since I'm the highest referring person in the world for Strategic Coach, I think, you know, over 400 people have joined Coach and I sit and think, why do I do that? Yes, probably what Dean said. I have low self-esteem and I need to raise my status.

And here's how my self-esteem, I always have to point out that Joe is in my downline in Strategic Coach. That's the great thing that I referred Strategic Coach to Joe.

Yeah.

And me and Dean have had this thing going on because it's now been 16 years that we've been doing I Love Marketing, which is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. And we have this whole Batman and Robin thing going on. Who's Batman? Who's Robin? And the funny thing is, it's always bantering because I'm trying to— Dean never really insults people. But when I went to a Dale Carnegie class years ago, because I've been to more seminars and more therapy and more whatever than most people I know, and there was one section, one of the chapters is don't criticize, condemn, and complain. And I love to criticize, condemn, and complain. I mean, it's just the most spiritual healing, enjoyable thing.

Your love language.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you, it's, they're probably too vulgar to say the other 2 love languages that you talk about all the time.

Right.

We'll do that for I Love Marketing after Dr.

What the heck up and leave me the heck alone.

Yeah, exactly.

For introverts. Yeah.

So the, I don't even know what the hell I was saying now, but the, yeah, the aspirations that come, like what I try to do in Genius Network, you can do it only if the person's engaged in it, is for For one, you got to have ambitious, successful people, which is very much what the clientele of Strategic Coach is. Secondly, there has to be something they aspire to, and it's the ability to share. I often refer people to coach that are just really psychologically, they're successful financially, but they're just overwhelmed.

My marketing.

Their lives are out of control. And so it truly becomes like Workaholics Anonymous for high-level entrepreneurs, right? And so part of it is the way that I'm able to refer and influence people is for one, you got to be trustworthy because if you're not a trustworthy person, no one's going to follow your lead anyway. I mean, if you're a total scumbag sleazeball person, you're not really good at referring people to other people unless you're like a drug dealer or something. And then, so part of this too is people often want referrals, but they don't look at, you know, do you walk around with a caring, generous, useful attitude? You know, part of getting referrals and introductions and people is you have to be perceived as useful and valuable and genuinely caring, not fake flattery, not like, you know, that's why affiliate pitches are sort of interesting. That's why I never do affiliate stuff because I never want, not that there's anything wrong with referring good stuff. I've left millions of dollars on the table in my life because I never wanted to be in a situation where out of reciprocity or returning a favor, I end up having to promote this expectation that you're going to promote something that's not going to be good for my And one of the reasons I'm so damn good at referring literally hundreds of millions of dollars to other people's companies is I only refer people to things that I believe in. I only refer people to things that I genuinely think is going to help them. And I don't have a scarcity mentality. Some people are like, I could never tell someone else about someone else because I'm going to lose that potential dollar. And it's like, well, if something's going to make your clients better, most of them are going to appreciate you for doing that. So that's the way that I look at it. All right, that's enough of that one. Hope that's helpful, Andrew. Paul, go to the next.

Oh, Andrew, thank you so much. All right, so the next one is Mario, and we could bring Mario up on screen as well. He likes the screen. We know that. We love Mario. His question is a good one. It's very much things that I ponder as Profit activator number 2, using direct response offers to compel prospects to call you. He said, how can we better convey how beneficial, and then for him in his case, it's a business book, is for some company, but get past the head trash holding them back when they think they're already experts? So, you know, a lot of noise, a lot of competition. How do you rise above that in giving them compelling offers? Did I get that right, Mario? Anything to add?

Yeah, it, it's, it sounds good. Everyone knows that books are good, but what holds people back from it? And I've found that a lot of the times it's just the person. It's not that they're not the expert. It's not that they don't have a good product. It's not a good offer. They probably have a team of people, but it's, you know, there, there's some internal workings. I remember one of our clients, very, very, very well off, multiple companies in the tens of millions. And he goes, I don't wanna be embarrassed. And I was like, wow.

That's the truth. I mean, you just hit it on the head that so much of this is when I say equally that we want to raise our status in the herd and at all costs we want to avoid diminishing our status in the herd. And when I say the herd, I mean the people that we care about. Well, nobody cares what people think. They care about what the 150 people or likely a handful of people specifically by name what they're going to think about something. That's the reality. And so much of this is ego management in a way of how can you make somebody look good? And I'll give you an example. So with the realtors, we used to run ads that said how to buy lovely homes in Winter Haven with zero down payment. And that would get people to call, But there was a little bit of hesitation on people to call because they didn't want to appear like they didn't have any money. So we added how to buy lovely homes in Winter Haven with zero down payment, parentheses, even if you can afford to pay cash, brackets. That now made it completely safe to be under that that umbrella of now you're protecting their ego from them having to admit or feel like they're admitting that they don't have enough money for a down payment.

So it can be something subtle like Joe was saying, clean the carpet properly.

Yeah.

That's exactly right.

Also, does anyone want a book or do they want the result of what the book will do for them?

That's exactly right.

Yeah. Because you know what we're doing here? What marketing is, is positioning. Everyone's heard my whole riff on selling is what you do when you're on the phone or face-to-face with somebody. Marketing's what you do to get someone on the phone or face-to-face with you properly positioned. So when they're talking to you, they're pre-interested, pre-motivated, pre-qualified, predisposed to give you money. So we're always positioning ourselves, and if they're not seeing the value in in it, the articulation from your standpoint of what they're losing by not having that mechanism. And now again, we're talking about business books, we're talking about ways that it'll credentialize someone because we're not talking about fiction authors here writing romance novels. So it depends on what the mechanism is. But yeah, Dean's really learned and has explained a lot about, I mean, Dean's first multimillion-dollar business was selling an ebook, right? And it's like, did someone want the ebook or did they want to stop their divorce? Right.

That's the whole point. And so, if you can get people pointed in a direction that if you think like a chess master, see, this is the thing. The job of Profit Activator 2 is not to convince people to do anything. It's to identify people who would be perfect to do that thing. So if you think like, for instance, I have a book called Convert More Leads. And if I'm— we also have a company called 90 Minute Books that we help people do exactly that. But it's not about, hey, get a book. If I know that somebody is interested in converting more leads, That means that they're going to have to educate and motivate people. And there's nothing more powerful to do that than having a book. That is, so you're backing one step up by talking about what they want and helping them align with what their real goal is. It's not to get a book. Did you ever see The Music Man? You know, the musical? We've got trouble right here in River City, and that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool. And they get the whole town aligned with avoiding this problem of the pool hall that's coming in. And the solution is that we need a boys' band. And this guy sells band uniforms, but he gets everybody aligned and it's their idea to start the band. So it's the same thing. It's not, they don't need the book. They want what the book is going to get for them. So if you start with that, that's a big thing. Thinking Like a Chess Master is a big piece of that combination of Profit Activator 2 and Profit Activator 1.

And Dean, just out of curiosity, I mean, we've had, God, do you know how ridiculous it is to think that me and you have had thousands of hours of conversations with each other? What do you think helped you understand that the most, thinking like a chess master in the context of—

I think about it all the time. I think about, I look at the entire, I just go up, get a little altitude on the situation and look at the path is what are they doing before and what are they going to have to do on the way to getting the result? Where does this one little thing fit into the grand scheme of things. And it's like, I can't, I sound like a broken record talking about what's in it for them, like I'm the biggest promoter, but it's the truth that it all comes from what is in it for them. And if you think about what they really want, sometimes you can then put your immediate needs to the side to identify somebody and help them get the thing that's going to lead to them needing you. And so, I mean, we've used this as an example with— I worked with a party rental company. Now that nobody dreams of having a party rental company. They're not thinking about that. But I asked them, Who's your best client, your largest check client? And they said an outdoor wedding. So in order to find people who are going to utilize this party rental company for an outdoor wedding, we just need to find people who are having an outdoor wedding.

Mm-hmm.

So they're not interested in choosing a party rental company. They're looking for a venue to have their outdoor wedding. So we put together a directory of 100 great places to have an outdoor wedding in Toronto. And we advertised that and generated all these people who were now in the next 18 months going to have an outdoor wedding. And we were the only party rental company that knew those people in advance.

Yeah.

This is so important if you have invisible prospects, meaning you can't point to them and say, these are the people. We need to draw them out with something that indicates that they're on a path to having an outdoor wedding.

That's what I'm trying to say.

There we go. Fantastic. Fantastic.

That's awesome. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

It's almost like more cheese and less whiskers.

That is exactly right. No, you know, Gina and I were talking about Sean Jones. He's a Genius Network member and he had been reaching out to the— he works with companies that do lots of volume, like millions of dollars a month on credit card processing. And outreaching to people is sometimes a frustrating thing, but we sent a letter. We sent a letter to them with a completely cheese offer, and he didn't even put his contact information in the letter. They looked up his company, filled out the contact us form on the website, and said, hey, we got a letter from Shawn Jones. He didn't leave the contact information. but we're interested in your services. And he said, after years of emailing and LinkedIn-ing and cold calling all these people, you send a letter that offers them something and they contact you. It's like I said, if you put a block of cheese on the other side of a 3-inch wooden door, that mouse is going to chew through the door to get to the More cheese, less whiskers is truly, that's at the spirit of it. What's in it for them?

Thank you both again.

Yeah. All right. So now we're going to do something we haven't done before. We're going to go to a little Marketing Online Live moment of zen. He doesn't even know that we're looking at the camera right now. He's painting. He turns around and he, wait a minute, are they talking about me? Yes, we are. Hey, Alejandro, how you doing? What's up, buddy?

What's up, guys? I am spaced out thinking about what my most expensive client is and how I could create some interesting way to draw them in.

There we go.

Look at that.

Now you're going to be at the annual event, aren't you?

Yeah, we'll be there, baby.

And go ahead.

Yeah.

And why are you going to the event?

You know, I'm just a sick person that likes to learn. I wish I could say that, like, I'm gonna go here to generate all this money and meet these people, but I'm, I'm a little too obtuse for that. I'm just like, you know what? These guys write some pretty good books. They seem pretty smart. I'm real dumb. Let me go attract myself to the smart people and just say, can I eat the crumbs off the floor?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I'm good with that. I'm a gutter dweller. It's okay.

That's comedy. You know, it's a bit of a shtick. So what if we were to use— since the question was what the highest paying client, what was it again? How did you say it, Paul?

Well, he was just saying, hey, these people, I'm trying to help them find people for outdoor wedding venues, Yeah. So that's where they make their most money. So let's go figure out how to get to those people in a way that's creative, basically. So I was just actually talking to, uh, my number 2 in command over here and I was like, who is our best client? Where do we make the most money? You know what I mean? I wish I could say that I run a very organized business and I understand all these dynamic leverages, but I'm still learning, if that makes sense.

Is this your business, Original Artwork?

No, no, no. I'm, I'm a 10th grade dropout, flunky painter who came to Tennessee to go to rehab. They said, oh, you like to paint pictures? You can paint the building at the rehab, the church building over here on the other side of the street. Started painting. And then a few years later, I fell into a painting business and now I have have almost 30 employees and we haven't really figured out how to run a business well yet. I did it on the side for about 3, 3 and a half years and now I'm full-time for over 8 years. But I have a very high—

Painting business, do you mean like painting the wall surfaces or painting artwork like you're doing?

No, no, no, not— this is not real. This is fake. That's all CGI. I'm just doing that to win a contest.

But Yeah.

Now we paint, we paint like, uh, commercial buildings. So we do everything from, I mean, we're about to do a jet propulsion lab in Mississippi. We're doing, we do hotels, we do, I mean, our 3 best clients would be like custom finishes. So that'd be like plasters, lacquers, conversion varnishes, like high-end decorative stuff. We do wall covering and then we work a lot in the hospitality space and then man—

Yeah.

Trying to get into manufacturing and industrial.

Yeah, I get it. So you're doing specialties, so finding something not just like spray the walls with the color.

No, like right now, my guys, I got 9 guys on a mountain halfway between Chattanooga and Nashville that some rock and roll guys started from Nashville. And it is a, it's about 50 units. It's a boutique hotel. It's called Bolt Farm Treehouses on the side of a mountain. And they have all crazy custom finishes in there. That's like, it's like porn for Southern girls, but it looks totally terrible. But you know, we just do whatever they tell us to. If you really like monograms, it's, it's, if you like monograms, you'd, you'd be there. What?

Your stuff feels like it would be an excellent candidate for something like that.

Like right now we're bidding a job, uh, we're bidding a job job on Palm Beach Island because I'm from South Florida, that it's a $50 million house they're gutting. So, you know, we, we find our way into weird situations, but I really just want to learn how to be a better business owner. And honestly, I like you guys. You don't sell stuff. There's nothing really to sell. When you go to these other conferences with people, everybody's trying to sell you something. There's consultants, everybody's making money. And I'm a little bit Like low logic and like to spend money. So I'm just like, sure, take my money, try to help me. And I feel like the fiddler on the roof just walks me off the cliff. So I'm hoping the Genius Network would be you know what it appears to be to where that the people will actually help you just understand yourself better and business better. You know, with no no strings attached. Like nobody wants anything. Everybody just wants to win, and everybody else wants you to. Yeah.

No, no, thank you for that. And you said a really interesting line, we find ourselves getting into weird places, right? And there's almost a headline to that, Dean, right? Because the one thing that's always—

I gave a—

you ever seen that talk that I gave to Susan Poggi's group, Celebration of Fine Arts? It was probably 10 years ago.

No.

I spoke to a group of artists and I was having the hardest time trying to understand the art world because when it comes to, I have a lot of art. I mean, I started Artists for Addicts, but I am by no means any expert in contemporary art. I think I've had tours of one of the art auctions years ago when I was helping Arianna Huffington with her book Thrive in 2014. I go on a tour to Christie's. The president of Christie's gave us a private tour of this art collection, and then 2 weeks later they were having the auction. And what I realized along the way is that what gives art real value, like blue-chip art, is if it gets into an auction, because that's what someone has assigned it, a value. So are people buying art or are they buying artists? And the reason you have 30 people around you is because of you and something that you're doing. It's not just because of what you produce. Now, that's part of it. It's not just you and it's not just what you produce, but it is a combination of those things. And so my whole thing is like, how does positioning yourself as this artist that's going to deliver something to them that they are going to love, enjoy, joy. It's going to do something for them. Do you know David Choe, the artist that painted the mural? Oh yeah.

Wait, who?

Choe.

Is it Choe or Choe? How do you pronounce it?

Choe. Choe.

Okay. Because we have a David Chu also, and I get screwed up between both of them all the time. So I got introduced to him a few years ago, and we were talking about, he's considered the 4th wealthiest artist in the world, even though he told me he's the wealthiest artist in the world. They just don't know where his investments are because Damien Hirst is considered the wealthiest artist.

Mm-hmm.

And he hates the whole art world. He's like, it's all insider trading. And when his stock in Facebook, when they went public, his stock was worth $200 million. And he's a pretty damn talented artist and he's crazy as shit. I'm trying to get him to come to Genius Network at some point because He would be pretty wild. But nonetheless, like the artist Wyland, who's all— I was the first one to ever interview Wyland on the subject of art. And he wrote a book called Don't Be a Starving Artist because so many artists are so creative, but they're not good at running businesses most of the time. This is not me saying this, this is like him. And he, you know, at his peak, he was a $100 million a year company. And, you know, his whole thing is, Well, some people that are artists are somehow immune to money and they think the making of money is a bad thing. So therefore they are not very good at making money because they are just somehow psychologically opposed to entrepreneurship. And so from the way that I would look at being a— would you rather Do you want to be a better business person right now, or is your goal something else? Because that will dictate what—

My goal is, so I'm a pretty simple person. I like all the frills. So my goal is like, you know, we say the same thing every day. Like we have a morning meeting with my leadership team. It's like, we're going to build a billion-dollar system, disrupt the industry, uplift the underdog, dream so big it encompasses the whole team. Like that's Like our our concept, and then we're going to do it with the gifts. We guide with vision, uphold integrity, foster relationships, show tenacity, and serve others. And then one of our guys, Luis, always says, "And we suffer." He's got a real thick Mexican accent because we're always suffering. But really, my bottom line is like the reason I do this business: one, I'm passionate about paint, and I really love paint. But two, everybody pimps out. All of the workers. Like there's such a, you would say, you know, I have a bunch of connections in like South Florida, Miami and stuff. And you'd be like, Drew, why don't you go to Miami? It's like, dude, I can't, the jobs sell for less in Miami where it costs way more to live because there's so much slave labor accomplishing the work. So what I want to do is disrupt the industry by reformatting the way people look at tradesmen and craftsmen. Specifically in the paint industry so that they can do a variety of works that generates a higher revenue for the worker. Because I was the employee getting pimped out for a long time. Because when I got out of rehab, I was making $8 an hour living in a Section 8. I had to ride my bike in Tennessee where it's cold because I'm from Florida. I never lived in the winter really in Tennessee to the flower shop. Go and do flowers all day and come back home, saved up for a whole year, bought up a car or whatever so I could start doing a side hustle. And then I got screwed left and right by everybody. Dude, you go into these guys' houses and now I'm painting a really nice high-end house on the side of a mountain here. That's their second home and they're putting, you know, Viking ranges and stuff in it. And then at the end they write you a check. It's short. Thank you. Give you the check. You're like, I'm like happy to make $20 an hour. And then it's like, I'm getting screwed by this guy. who's got a couple million dollar house that I just painted for next to nothing. And it just sucks because that's the way that all of the workers are getting treated. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna figure out how to run a business so that I can uplift the workers because that's a really pervasive and terrible problem. And then another thing that I'm really passionate about, both of my parents are immigrants from Cuba and they got asylum when they came to this country.

Wow.

Well, I am in a different part of the country. I speak Spanish, but here it's very Central American, primarily Guatemalans, Hondurans. And I've been to Guatemala twice. My company sponsored trip over there to paint a school. We painted churches over there and we're engaged in that community. But like, one of my goals is to create a way to bring GDP back to Central America and the Caribbean. Through H2B visas and figuring out how to work a system to where the guys that are—I have guys that are in limbo right now—that have stayed over on work visas, but they live here. They've had kids here. They're kick-ass, great people. They're good husbands. They don't drink. They don't do drugs. They work hard every day. Yet people want to freaking deport their ass, and there's a lot of bad people to deport. Yo, go to Michigan and get people in the burkas. I'm sorry, I'm not politically correct. Correct, but they're freaking washing all this money out and doing all this stuff. When you got a bunch of Latin dudes, you know why they don't go against those people? Because those people are resilient and aggressive. Latin people are submissive and culturally team type oriented people. Even the way my people like at work eat, they communally eat. When we travel, we do everything together. There's like a family element. We don't stay in hotel rooms all separate. it and you just sit and drink beer like an electrician that's a union electrician. Like, we're very family-oriented and we're doing it to raise the ceiling for the— if the father raises the ceiling, that's the floor for the kids, right?

Right.

So what if we can bring these guys that came to this country? What's the difference between me, a first-generation American, and these guys? You know what's the difference? The paperwork. So like, my goal through this business is to build this great system And it's really kicking my ass in order to have the type of liquidity and GDP where I can get— dude, if you're in Washington, DC and you're worth $200 million and you came in there worth freaking $50 million and you've been doing politics stuff on either side, I'm not— and now you have all this money. Yo, if you want your au pair or whoever to get papers, dog, you could get papers from a different country, no problem. But why can't people that are legitimately— there's no vetting system for these people. So I'm, I'm not trying to be on a soapbox, but the thing that I'm passionate about is trying to figure out a way to, in a healthy way, bring GDP back in these other countries and give these people flexibility. You know, in the last 2 years, I've probably had 3 close deaths of families of my workers. So like your mom dies in Guatemala, your mom dies in Honduras, your brother dies in Honduras. Now these guys are stuck here. They can't go back. You know, they're working their ass off to pay for a funeral over there. And then they're looked at like they're criminals, when a lot of these guys are like salt of the earth, really good people. So for me, you know, the reason I'm doing this business is to like, that's why I think it's uplift the underdog, we really want to dream so big, it encompasses the whole team, we want to give a voice to the people that aren't being heard, you know what I'm saying? So that's because the only difference between me is that my parents came in a time that when you come from Cuba to Miami, you go to the Freedom Tower, They give you your little paperwork and then you go to Ellis Island, you get all your stuff squared away in New York, you come back to Miami, you're American. Then they had me. My dad joined the Air Force, worked for the FAA for 30 years, retired. My brother's a doctor, my sister's a lawyer. And if I wasn't such a bad drug addict, I dropped out of school in 10th grade, I would've probably been some type of educated person, you know? And by God's grace, I'm getting my own education in its own way. So the point is, my dad's floor was raised, the ceiling was raised, and now I had a better floor to approach from. So what I'm seeing in the Latin American community is that people are coming in specifically here in the South, it's very segregated. And I'm not— this is not like where I'm from, because it's a little different in South Florida. You're seeing all these people. You got kids that aren't going to school because they're scared that are Americans. So now you come in illegally to this country, your kid's American, has papers, they're not being educated properly, they're not learning English properly, and you're just— and they have their papers, you're essentially propagating another layer of a slave class. Because now you have a very uneducated person that's not having capacity to achieve. And then in the same way, people are doing the same thing to the people that are coming in illegally. And I have about— how many guys do we have that don't have all their paperwork right now, Brian? We got 4 guys right now that have been with me, some of them like 6 years I've helped them start LLCs, get an I-10, get an I-10 to get an EIN to get an LLC set up. They work for me directly as a one-person LLC. They have their workers' comp, they're paying their taxes, they're doing everything legally, but they can't be driving and they can't be— so they're paying into the system, but they're scared to live life and they're really good people. So like, hopefully my goal through my painting business Is like I'm not a good business operator. I got no attention to detail. I don't know what I'm doing. I barely, you know, I have a weekly payroll that's tens of thousands of dollars and thirty thousand dollars a week a lot of times, and sometimes more when we're really producing. I don't even know where that money is going to come from. It just comes off of like faith and sheer goodwill. But it's like all right, I want to become not ignorant because at some point it's negligence through ignorance. So that I can run a business well, that's very profitable so that other people can succeed because I've always been able to figure my way out of problems somehow. And I've been fine. You know, let me say this first off. Sorry, my bad, dog. No, no, no, no.

The only challenge right now is that we're over time and— oh, my bad. No, no, it's okay. Here's what I would say. Everything you just If you just said that with your paintings and your stories and your visuals in the background, I personally think would make for an incredible video. It would make for a— your business, from the best that I can interpret it, is connection. You're selling connection. You're trying to bring people together, and you have your own unique way of viewing the world. You are coming— I mean, if you just look at the comments that people are posted here. This is recorded. I love Alejandro. I always say Dro because I can't fucking pronounce anyone's name right.

Go ahead, call me Dro.

And so Alejandro rules with iron fist. Love that dude. Love it. This is recorded, right? Very close to what I've experienced in residential cleaning. It's one of these things, That what you say is controversial enough to where you will find your people that resonate with you. And because of that, people do business with people they like. And that's one thing too. No matter how skilled or talented or how great someone is, the moment someone does not like them, they'll do it out of convenience. A lot of people hate Amazon, but they still buy from Amazon because they've made it so damn convenient to buy. But for the most part, when you're talking small business owners, people do business with people that they like. And you just kind of gave your manifesto and you're probably doing it every day and you might not even be capturing it. And maybe you are, but I would—

We captured this one. We captured it.

Yeah. And so I would say, man, what you just said, you know, and I'm not saying this from a standpoint of agreeing or disagreeing with it, because what I've learned as a is you are not your own customer. And the moment that I start letting my biases interfere with what someone's attracted to or not attracted to, then you somehow could be dispensing your opinion versus the reality of what will— and people are doing business with you. You're obviously producing a lot of work. There is something to what you are doing that's working. And certainly there's a lot of things you can get better at. So part of being ingenious will hopefully give you some capabilities and some perspectives and different things to keep doing what it is you're doing. And at the same time, there's always areas where we don't know what the fuck we're doing, and that's totally okay because every entrepreneur wakes up every day and slowly goes crazy because that's what entrepreneurship is, right? But you keep trying to just get better and to meet those opportunities. So Dean, we're past time, but my advice to you is for one, like, look at what you're doing and how you're doing it. Who are the people that are giving you money? How do they come across you? What do they need to see or do or hear to end up seeking you out? Because I bet you, you'll get a lot of optics on how to replicate that. And then Dean, what else would you suggest? Because I think what he just said here is like, he kind of created it in real time, the sales letter, the Well, it's great.

You know, the good thing about art, which is really, you're talking about elevating paint and surfaces as art, not just the utility of getting some paint on the walls. And the thing about art, music, art, it's all, nobody sells art. It either speaks to people or it doesn't. They just need to be exposed to it. Joe, you said you own a lot of art, and I bet there's not a single piece that you read about or heard about and bought it. You saw it and it felt like your art and you bought it. So part of the good news is I'm still fascinated by these paintings that you're doing in the background here that I just look at those is that if people resonate with it, it's a reach issue. It's just getting in front of the—

Yeah.

The right people.

Joe, Dean, thank you so much, ma'am. Thank you so much, guys. Awesome. Thank you, bro. Thank you for giving us a little inspiration. Everybody else, thanks for attending. We will chat with you all soon.

Thanks, guys. Thanks, Ben.

Make it a great day, everyone. See you next time.