Lead Conversion Mastery LIVE: The Nine Word Email with Joe Polish and Dean Jackson - I Love Marketing Episode #472

I'm Dean Jackson. He's Joe Polish, and this is the I Love Marketing Podcast. Welcome to the April I I Love Marketing live recording.

You guys are the best, amazing people to be here in person, special for this live recording on Lead Conversion Mastery with Dean Jackson and Joe Polish. This is where it's happening. No AI, real conversations on marketing.

Welcome everyone. If, if this is your first I Love Marketing, welcome. If you've been a longtime listener to our I Love Marketing podcast, we decided that we would start doing these live because in the world of AI slop, there's just so much stuff that everyone's creating and we'll see what we can help you with. And so yeah, we want you to get some, you know, real usable methodologies. We may do some hot seats, answer some Q&A while we're here. But that being said, Dean, let's share some awesome marketing stuff.

I'm loving doing these live. It creates such a different energy than doing the podcast kind of in studio where you don't get to interact with people and see the reactions. So it's been exciting for us to get together live like this at least once a month. If I can wrangle this guy, maybe we'll do some more. But the main thing that's exciting about doing it like this is that we can get you involved and we want to be able to brainstorm live. Joe Polish's got his flashcards there so he can and at the 8 Profit Activators to see how they can apply to solve all your small town problems with the 8 Profit Activators, uh, and marketing. I got a couple of field reports to share with you because, as I always like to say, I am not just the HairClub president, I'm also a member. I'm out here doing the marketing as we're speaking, and it never ceases to amaze me the power of the 9-word email. And if you've heard about this or you've tried one, I'd love to hear your comments in the chat here. But let me tell you a couple of ways that just since last time we were together, we've used the 9-word email to have tremendous success. I was with someone who was doing a trade show, and they go to a trade show. It's a long, you know, big trade show. Lots of people coming up to their booth every day, all day. They were offering an in-show special where if you buy their product before the end of the show, you got a special at-show deal. If anybody's been to a, um, trade show, you know how things, uh, do that. So he was, in the entire time of the show, gathering everybody's contact information. So he was getting their name, their email, their phone number, and As the show is ending, they're literally packing up the stuff. He sent a 9-word text to everybody that he had and said, "Hi Joe, would you still— would you like to take advantage of the show special before the end of the show?" And he got thousands and thousands of dollars of orders of people who are on the plane flying back home, replying and saying, I'm in, like, save them their spot so that they could get and take advantage of the, um, of the show special. So deadlines, prompting deadlines is a great use of the 9-word email. I had another person who was doing a big launch and we pioneered this. I've done this with Jeff Walker, with, uh, Marie Forleo added over $1 million to her last, uh, B-School launch by sending a 9-word email on the day that the shopping cart was closing. The day, you know, when you're doing a big launch, you've got a period where you're educating everybody, you're making the offer, and then the everybody can buy, but the shop, the cart closes at midnight on the thing. So the morning of, they send an email and just say, "Hi Joe Polish, are you thinking about joining us for B-School this year?" That's it. Not go here to register, not— just getting the thought, joining the conversation that's going on in their mind.

There's many, many people who are on the cusp of doing business with you, of doing something that if you just made an engagement email to them, if you just sent something out and said, are you thinking about, are you planning on joining us? I'll tell you that model, that version of the 9-word email, Joe Polish and I used that for the I Love Marketing conference that we did. Uh, if you— if anybody— I would love to see if anybody on here was at one of the two live I Love Marketings that we did. But what we did was send an email months before the event in October to everybody who was not in the United States or Canada. And you can see we had a big global audience. We have people from here, even on Dubai, from Albania, from Australia, from wherever. So we sent an an email to them and just asked, we put, um, I Love Marketing Conference in the subject line. And then the email just said, hi Eunice, are you thinking about joining us for the I Love Marketing Conference in October? Period. Question mark. That's it. People would reply back and say, oh, I wish I could. I'm in Dubai or I'm in wherever I'm from. I, the geography, I wish I could, but the geography is getting in the way. And I did that knowing that we were going to livestream the event later. So when we got close to the actual time of the event, we could individually reply back to those people and say, "Younis, we're coming to Namibia." And we told about how we've going to livestream, you can attend the entire conference and you won't miss a thing. And we had almost as many people streaming from all over the world as we had live in the room for the conference. And the funny thing was, we would start every day, we had 2 people who were streaming from Namibia, which I didn't even know where Namibia was, but it's over by South Africa. And the joke was, in the morning we have everybody turn to the cameras and wave and say, "Good morning, Namibia," because it was such an international crew. So I'm putting that out there for you as an encouragement. If you have not sent a 9-word email, it's like, I feel often like the most one-trickiest, one-trick pony that there is, but it's such a good trick. And if you're not doing it, you're missing out. Don't be too cool for school, as Joe Polish says. A 9-word email. Gary Halbert always used to say, there's not a problem that a good sales letter can't solve, the right sales letter. And I am firmly in the camp that a 9-word email can solve all of your problems. So that's my little sermonette as an encouragement.

Yeah, Dean, do you want to get any questions or comments?

Yeah, I do. That's what I just wanted to set that as the setup. And let's talk about them. Let's talk about 9-word emails. Let's talk about whatever you've got going on. And let's apply this to you. Let's try and— let's try and see the Joe Polish too.

See the comment from Jawad. Is it Jawad? Is that how you pronounce it? What's the 9-word email? Well, Dean, a 9-word email is basically— it could be 9 words, could be 8 words, but go ahead and explain it, Dean, the context behind it. It's pretty simple. I mean, you already did, but I want you to make it as crystal clear as humanly possible. And maybe give the analogy, which we have done many times, you know, the prime directive of a mouse or a rat.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So the funny thing is that, you know, I always look at— I'm very curious and I pay attention to stuff. And when I heard a study one time that, uh, again, it was using mice as, uh, you know, a proxy for human motivation, and I was curious, I thought, why do they always use mice in these motivational studies? And it turns out that mice are very similar, similarly motivated to the way humans are and react to stimuli. So if you imagine that we're all walking around with this, you know, tiny mouse brain surrounded by this bigger cortex that is— makes us human. And I thought, you know what, it's, it's a very simple life for a mouse. They've really only got two prime directives. If you're a mouse, the whole game is get cheese, avoid cats. That's the whole game. That's, that's your primary directive as a mouse. And I realized how dedicated the mouse is to those two prime directives. If there's a piece of cheese on the other side of a 3-inch wooden door, that mouse will chew through the door to get to the cheese. You don't have to convince a mouse to want and try the cheese. It is seeking it. And I thought, that's a great metaphor for what we as humans are doing. We're seeking cheese.

The cheese is the good stuff, the thing that we want, the pleasure.

But Prime directive number 2 is avoid cats, and that's tied to staying alive. That's the prime directive.

It's way—

it's weighted so that we react. That's why fight or flight is baked in before we can even consciously act. It's our mitochondria are programmed to get out of the way of danger, and therefore, if a mouse senses even a whisker, it's going to run away because it has to live to get more cheese. So I thought, we're as humans, we're completely designed in the same way. And if we can package our messaging as more cheese and less whiskers, that's a really good guidance for how we go about communicating with people.

So when So all of that to say, the reason that the 9-word email works so well, it's not—

there's no magic in 9 words.

8 words, have you seen, you know, 8 words can work too, Paul Colligan and other, you know, you can even use 12 or more.

The spirit of what we're talking about is that it's short, it's personal, and it's expecting a reply. Short, personal, expecting a reply.

Now, I didn't name it this. Jamie Smart, one of our clients from London, wisely pointed out, let's call that a SPEAR email.

S-P-E-A-R. Short, personal, expecting a reply.

Perfect. Accurate.

Because we're sending it to one person at a time. And the best results that you can get are when people feel like you're making eye contact with them, that you're looking directly at them, and you're asking a question and shutting up. Imagine if I saw Gina at Starbucks and I ask her that question.

I recognize that she's a subscriber to I Love Marketing and I say, hey Gina, and then I ask her, Are you thinking about joining us for the conference in October? And then I shut up. That creates a vacuum that needs to be filled because if I went in and instead of, you know, I recognize that everybody in the Starbucks is an I Love Marketing subscriber.

If I go in and I hop up on the table and I just go, Attention everybody.

Attention everybody.

Can I have your attention?

If anybody here is thinking about joining us for the I Love Marketing conference in October, please go over here. Do just instructing broadcasting to people. It's not the same as seeing Gina and asking her specifically, are you thinking of joining us? And then shut up. And that's what the 9-word email is about. When you, you've got people right now who are in your world, they're in your world and they have inquired about something. They came into your world because they downloaded something to opt in to see you, or they asked for a quote, or they asked for a price, or they asked for an estimate or whatever it is, if you just send them an email, you could do it today because there's all of these people that are in there that are, uh, that right now is the time that they're ready to go.

So if you just ask them, hey, are you still interested in a metal roof?

If that's what they inquired about. That's going to be magic for re-engaging people.

Yep.

Dean, can I say something here? I want to bring you something.

No, no, no, no.

I'm looking at the chat here. So Michael wrote, 9-word email sounds great. Is there a strategy for getting attention of one big whale when trying to build a relationship from cold start instead of trying to find just anyone in the list? And I wrote, yes, same thing. Send it to that one person. As a matter of fact, treat everyone this way. Think what's in it for them, of course, which is the question I always ask everyone whenever you're thinking of writing something. What's in it for them? Like, how are they going to perceive it? And the reason I want to bring this one up is that that is going to be a block, Michael, and anyone else that thinks that, because people are people. It's not like you're going to talk to one person who could be this ideal person any differently than you're going to talk to anyone else that you'd ever want to have. As a right-fit client. So, do you have any other ways you want to speak to that, Dean? Because I think the moment you think, oh, this person is different, it's not like everyone else, you're somehow segregating people in unnecessary ways.

Yeah, you've got to. So, when you just look at where people are in categories, right? So, you've got somebody who's inquired about something. They haven't followed through. But you know at one point they were interested in something, then that's the perfect place for, are you still this? Are you still looking for a yacht? Are you still interested in the metal roof? Are you still looking for a beach condo? Whatever it is, that's version 1. Everybody could send that out today and you'd get amazing results. Then forward-looking, You can see a future thing by asking people, would you, not are you still, is would you like to. So if we say, we send out for our 90-minute books, we send out an email every month to people who have inquired about a 90-minute book and say, hi Gina, would you like to get started with your book this month? Or if you have a, a salon or a studio or a, a, a aesthetic spa, hi Gina, would you like to schedule your eyebrows this month? Whatever it is, would you like to? I'm doing a lead conversion workshop next month. Would you like to join us? I'm doing a live conference. Would you like to? I'm going to be working with a handful of people one-on-one.

Would you like to work with me?

Would you like to is a great category. Now, if you want to go outbound to start something, you can ask somebody, do you? This is an inquiry version of the 9-word email. So you can send to somebody, let's say, perfect example, we did a whole podcast about this, but one of the original uses that we did for the 9-word email was I was working with a company that does postcards., and they do birthday prospecting postcards where they can send a personalized birthday card to people within 2 miles or 3 miles around your business and make a special offer for their birthday. So instead of trying to convince restaurants to try this, um, to try the postcards or to make a commitment to it, we start out and ask them, do you do birthday parties? Sounds like cheese. Do you do birthday? In order for somebody to be interested in sending postcards to drum up birthday party business, they have to do birthday parties. So the conversation of, do you do birthday parties, was an opener that we used to start a conversation with people about sending birthday postcards.

Do you do birthday parties?

Yes, we do birthday parties. Perfect. I've been working with Roy's Restaurant here in Sarasota with some birthday marketing. Could you accommodate 5 or 6 birthday parties next month? Yes. Now we're engaged in a conversation that's moving step by step. One of the greatest things about email is that you can continue the conversation at— you say something, they say something, you say something, they say something. It's very conversational. So the temptation with email is that we feel like we have to get the whole message out there. Because we can send everything, we send it all at once. But we don't use email for what the magic of it really is, is one of our most intimate forms of communication.

Right?

When you get a personal email from somebody, you always reply. You're always, you know, it's, it's there. You're in the same inbox as their mother is in, or their girlfriend or boyfriend, or their best friend, their team members. You're in the same inbox as everybody else. So making it seem like a personal communication, that's where the magic is of these emails.

There you go.

There you go.

Yeah, so let's see, where's the one thing, um, I want to point this out to, uh, who was it that said—

where did it go, where did it go?

Um, Burgundy Morgan, is there anything you want to add to this?

I haven't had a chance to be reading the comments.

I'd love to.

Yeah, well, no, you're, you're trying to look like you're the smart one here, Dean, which we already kind of know who's the smart one here, but still.

Thank you.

You know what's funny? Now, I will say this. Dean is a— I honestly believe Dean's one of the smartest marketing minds on the planet, and he's really good at simplifying things. I mean, we've known each other, shit, close to 30 years now. When it comes to ambition, though, I'm far more ambitious than Dean.

So no matter how smart Dean is, If I wasn't ambitious, neurotic, if I wasn't pulling them along, tomato, tomato, whatever.

I mean, I don't know what Dee would be doing for a living had he not come across me many years ago. It would be a sad state of affairs. But no, here's, here's what I would say to— and Dee, go ahead and add to this one if you could, please. So Natasha, and then I want to hear from Burgundy. She wrote, are we asking and that's it, or can we add a link to then complete the action? You know, which of course you're kind of speaking to right now.

Here's the thing.

So I wrote, "Just asking," to start the conversation. If you send a link too soon or anything else, you know, if you think to go back to what Dean explained, the prime directive of a mouse is to get cheese and avoid cats. And so, it's the whole cheese and whiskers conversation that Dean's been teaching for many years. Anything that shows whiskers immediately causes people to step back.

So, when you're that, It's like a cat holding a cheese and going, here kitty, kitty, kitty, here mousy, mousy, mousy.

And I'll tell you, it takes enormous amounts of patience to not do that because some people are like, well, sometimes if I just send the link, they're going to sign up. Yeah, they will. But if you can engage them first and just have a conversation like a real human that, you know, people love to be sold, they hate to be pressured. People think that selling is bad or somehow it's not that selling is bad. It's how you do it. And marketing makes selling easy and ideally unnecessary if you can set up the marketing in advance to where it doesn't feel like someone's just trying to, you know, get their wallet. Once you know that someone can provide something that's a right fit for you and they're selling something, that's actually quite an enjoyable experience. The problem is most people go right for the selling before they've established rapport, and rapport is trust with comfort. They not just trust you, but they feel comfortable with you. And so there is a process on how, uh, one goes about this, and everyone can usually relate to it by every, uh, failed, uh, date or relationship or attempt you ever had in your life. If you could go back, some of you many years, to, uh, asking someone out on a date or something that went wrong. I mean, it's, it's all romancing the relationship, and that's how to treat it. Yeah. So, uh, so Burgundy, hit us with some funny shit.

So, uh, first I'll start with, I was just taking notes furiously. Everything was so valuable, especially the 9-word email. But, um, the mice and cheese metaphor, it's such a great one, so keep it. But the philosopher in me was like, man, I've been that human mouse. And I'd gotten the cheese and imagine my surprise when I realized that mice actually prefer peanut butter. I'm like, "Oh, that's for me!" I'd gotten it. I was like, "This is what I thought I was supposed to be looking for," but it wasn't what I actually really wanted. And I think Joe talks about that too, where, you know, you'll give people what they think they want, but what you're really providing them is what they truly need. So, but great metaphor and thank you.

No, no, thank you. And yeah, you know, there, and you have to deal with people to the level at which they respond. I mean, what I always found kind of fascinating back in the 900 number days, which there were sex lines and there were psychic lines and there were financial lines, there were, there's all kinds of different things. And of course, most people would associate 900 numbers with with sex. And one of the top producing 900 numbers was insult lines where people would literally call. Yeah. And get paid to have people insult them. And, you know, you never know what someone's going to respond to and what people will pay for. So, I mean, hell, you could, depending on the genre, and you could probably send out a 9-word email that's insulting to people or just whatever, and it would— but you got to know your audience. And so that's the You know, that's the, that's the whole point. You know, that's why the 8 Profit Activators start with select a single target market, get to know who they are, what they want, what they're looking for, who they hang out with, and communicate with them that way. And someone had also posted about using a Chris Voss, have you given up on? And of course, you know, the time to use something like that is when they've truly given up. On responding, not beforehand, because then we're just assuming they give it— have you given up on buying my stuff? You know, it's like, well, give them an opportunity to be compelled to want to reach out. You know, this all, all of this that is being said also goes to what, you know, Dean says, a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. You can send a 9-word email, a 3-word email, a 500-word email, video sales letter, but, you know, if they're, if they're not compelled with what it is you're offering, it doesn't matter. You know, it has to, it has to be something compelling. So, Dean, why don't you do a little bit of framing around that? Because I think it'll help people better understand what we're talking about here.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's very interesting because whenever people often compare the 9-word email, like, are you still looking for this? And then they'll counter with Chris Voss's, "Have you given up on?" And I think that there's a different energy around them and it feels like a— Thank you. It's just a different vibe, right? And I think that Chris would say too that it's not about like, because that almost has a tone of, um, you know, what Neil Strauss would call like nagging, uh, somebody, right? Almost like, 'Please, have you given up on this?' or, uh, the thing. And I may do a, uh, it would be good to ask somebody, 'Are you still looking for this?' And if people don't reply, and maybe you send a little thing later, that you maybe make a proposal for somebody. And then if the last-ditch thing is to say, hey Joe, have you given up on curing your tinnitus?

Yeah, exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But the magic is knowing what they had. I saw Aaron, uh, I was looking in the, uh, chat, kind of catching up here, and somebody was saying they send an email. I think it was Aaron sending an email saying, I saw you clicked the link. Are you thinking of joining us? And I think that it's better to use the knowledge that you have without it. So it seems serendipitous that you're joining in on the conversation. I always look at things and I say, okay, let's imagine this line is a creep-o-meter, and there's a midpoint where something seems serendipitous, and then it crosses the line to where it feels creepy and stalkerish in a way. If you're like monitoring their behavior, is, is in my book just a little bit over the, the creep-o-meter.

You know what, Aaron, I would love to have Aaron actually pop on and kind of walk us through what she posted because she clearly gets the psychology of all of this and And it's— and it's, uh, what she's already put in the chat is just a really simple but effective model. If you're— where is Erin? I can't even see. Is she still here? Erin, if you are there, pop on.

If not, I think she did have to get off.

Oh, she actually is gone.

Okay.

Yeah, she's no longer—

well done.

She did, but she didn't put some great stuff. And you know what, we'll, we'll, uh, ask her to get—

let's talk about her. Let's talk about her while she's gone.

No more. She's a new Genius Network member too. Say that again, Dean.

I was just looking at the scanning the things. I see Rob Kossberg there. Rob, you've sent 9-word emails before.

This morning.

This morning. Oh, that's right.

That's right.

Joe sent me a text. What's happening? Tell me what's happening. We got a live report from— let's go to St. Augustine. Rob, what's happening in the field?

Yeah, small, small segment of the list, um, inspired by our conversation last week. And, uh, you know, just a simple offer, uh, in very 9-word email-ish, and, uh, just sent it to my current clients, past clients. Already You know, 900 or so emails gone out already, 30-something responses, sent the full offer, several people already in. So, you know, it's just, it's magic.

That's great. So that's kind of cool because you're, you're, that's kind of like a next level thing, right? It's not just a re-engagement you're making. You're in the would you like to thing, correct, sending that as a model. And that's, uh, so that's exciting. Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the push. I loved it.

Come on in, the water's great. Yeah, this is awesome. We're swimming. Um, what else is going on in the comments, uh, Joe, or who else, uh, can we involve here? I'd love to help you guys brainstorm, get some clarity on it. I mean, we've got 3 different flavors of we can do this. So let's hear some tales of 9-word emails past, or we're happy to brainstorm and think through a real situation for you live here.

Let's do this. Paul Colligan, which we may have— we may have Paul moderate one of our next— one of these because he's got this great voice for this. We've known Paul forever. He's an expert in podcasting.

You may recognize Paul as the voice of I love marketing on many of the podcast interstitials.

Yeah, so, uh, Paul, go ahead. And, uh, and he keeps posting, can I do a 5-word email? Or what? Like, I think he's just trying to be a smartass, but let's see, uh, see what he has to say.

My favorite 9-word email story is I did a 9-word email, and you know what the response was? Is this one of them Dean Jackson 9-word emails? And the great thing was I responded yes, and we started the conversation, and I closed the client.

Yeah, it's perfect.

Look, if you—

whatever tools you have to use in your toolbox in order to do it, yeah, you know, go for it, you know.

Yeah, that's great.

You know, there's no— if anybody's fearful of like, well, people just think I'm cheating, no, the goal here is to start the conversation. Yeah.

And then just the way you rolled with it is enough. Hey, would you like some cheese? Is this one of them Dean Jackson 9-word deals?

Yeah, it is.

You want some cheese?

Exactly.

Yes, please.

But the conversation, you know, and I think everybody wonders, like, I've seen like, well, what should the subject be? Or what should the PS be? Or how does it work in this industry? I'll tell you, give this thing a try. And it will start conversations.

Rob, did you guys— minutes ago, did you know that the new iPhone comes with a conversational subject line generator built right into it? And it's fascinating. So if anybody, if you have an iPhone, I think it's— I think they've actually carried it over to Androids now too. But if you just look in your news stream, look in your email stream, and then just scroll till you see an email that is from someone you know to you and only you. And two things are gonna happen, okay? It took me like 4 scrolls to get to a personal email that came to me, and the subject line on it was stuff from Diane on my team. And so you look at these things, when you look through and you realize how few emails you get are actually meant for only you, it's kind of crazy. You know, I got— here's another one from Emily, says, Dean's link. Like overtly clear of what the things are when you're sending these emails. One of the things that I look at is, can we be overtly clear about what the content of the email is? We're not trying to trick people. We're not trying to, to fool them or, you know, cajole them into opening it or shame them into it or whatever. We're just Imagine that your mom is sending this email and she's got a label maker and she's printing off the label on the file folder that you should put this email away if you're gonna reach for it later. Overtly clear, charged neutral is the best subject line.

Mob.

I bet you, I bet you that if your subject was 9-word email.

Yeah, exactly. There's the thing.

Yes, absolutely.

It's just, uh, you know, there's no— yeah, I get back—

well, you know, uh, Gary Halbert used to say, it doesn't need to make sense, it just needs to make money, right? And, uh, so there's a lot of things that are so obvious that they work And I think people, we've talked about this on I Love Marketing episodes a lot, you know, people fetishize innovation, they fetishize doing something different or not wanting to do things that just work. And so, you know, like for instance, I got a text message today from a friend who was in the gym and Bobby Kennedy, Robert Kennedy is in town and he is working out and they're like, I'm like, well, just go say that you're a friend of mine and to ask to take a selfie with him. He'll, he'll, he totally does that. And really, I'm like, yeah, yeah, like, but I have rapport with him. Just like, everyone's trying to do that. I'm like, I know him very well. Just go. And of course, that's what this person did. They just walked up, said, I'm a friend of Joe Polish Polish, showed a picture, and, uh, yeah, there you go. But it's like, you use whatever. But it's like, a lot of people be like, well, I can't do that. Well, why not? I mean, whatever the hell is going to work and get the job done And so, like, there's a million reasons I've heard people say why they couldn't send out a 9-word email versus everyone that's ever done it with an audience has a report. Almost everyone reports it. It actually is so simple and it just works.

What's the point of knowing Joe Polish if you can't go up to Bobby Kennedy and say, I'm a Joe Polish? Exactly.

No, well, no, but the point is you got to know how to do name dropping in the proper way. You know, you just got— I mean, it's like, so even what Paul just said, 9-word email. Like, if you think of the Alex Hormozi launch, he interviewed Tom Bilyeu, he interviewed a few people, but he mentioned no one's name of where he learned anything from on that launch except Dean Jackson. Because someone that was said, well, is that one of those 9-word email things? And he's like, oh yeah, and all that's in there, you know, but like everyone uses this stuff. And so, but not everyone, everyone that is one of the top marketers in internet marketing learn this from Dean and they use it all the time and it works.

That's great.

All right, let's see what's in here. That's brainstorm. That's Jason wrote, I need a 9-word email situation. We provide medical and psychiatry psych services to residential treatment centers. How's this? Subject: New medical director. Hello, are you looking for a new medical director? Um, what do you think of that, Dean?

So that's a little bit like, um, let's break through here. Dr. Jason—

sorry, can— is, can—

is Dr. Jason live?

He's one of the top addiction doctors too. He's awesome. So, uh, Jason, pop on and, uh, let's, let's hear from I'm here.

Can you guys see me?

Let's see.

There he is. There he is.

Okay.

Yeah, I recognize you.

Perfect. Dean, this is, this is like, uh, God in action here because this week I was thinking I have to talk to Dean Jackson, and then I got this email yesterday saying there's a marketing meeting today, so I didn't want to miss— they didn't want to miss the chance to ask for your help. And I thought I'll reach out to him privately, but if I'm struggling with this, chances are there's some other people on the call who, who are too.

And, uh, so tell me about these.

What, what's your goal?

What, what's the situation? Like, because this is really what we're doing is we're just engineering decisions and conversations, right? That, that's really what it is. We want to think like a chess master and lead the conversation in 2 or 3 moves to where we know that it could go. So that's a little bit, um, were they posting a job about a medical director?

No, I have a— I've got, I've got lists of all the treatment centers and their, and their ownership, uh, or their operations directors. So I have all— I have everyone's email.

So maybe it's a nice place to start with, do you have a medical director?

Well, they all do, or they would—

they all do.

Yeah. Okay, so they're looking to—

and, and around 1 out of 6 of them is pulling his hair out because they can't stand their medical director, right? Um, probably, uh, 1 out of 3 would be delighted to switch to us because we're fantastic, and the other 2 out of 3 probably won't for other reasons— structural or, or business or investment or different reasons. But there's, but there's a lot of treatment centers, and so if I had a third of them, um, we'd have more business than we could, we could handle.

Mm-hmm.

So in that context, are you looking for a new medical director?

I mean, it's—

I'm wondering, new medical director, almost like implies if they were looking for a new medical director, would they be— is that something they would post, or is it something—

how about by the time they're posting, usually the way it works is they would ask around, they would ask their you know, friends slash competitors in the field. Do you guys have a good doctor? Because ours is driving us crazy, or he's not returning calls, or we're too busy now, he, he's overwhelmed or lost interest. There's different, different reasons. Or not getting it done, or not keeping up with the changing times, or, or whatever their friction points are. Um, they don't usually post for them. They don't usually, they don't usually post for them. Because it's more of a— it's like a smoldering problem until it finally catches fire. So they're accommodating, accommodating, but they're irritated by what their current level of service is. And that's what I'm trying to uncover as well.

Yeah, I might look at this and soften it, you know, where there's— if you elevate the things. When I say, are you thinking about joining us? Are you planning? On joining is that they're almost the same, but they're two different things, right? So I might in this take the subject, take the new out of medical director and just say medical director. And then I might, if you know the name, this is going to be most valuable if you know the name of the person. So if it's Joe Polish, So if you say, hi Joe, and let's put it all in one line. Hi Joe, dot, dot, dot. Are you considering a new medical director or something like that that would like soften it, you know?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

A little, a little less direct. A little less.

Exactly. Just the thing is like the equivalent of, do you do birthday parties? Is the rather— that's the equivalent of say, hey, do you want to send out some birthday postcards? Is a different thing than when it's preceded by, do you do birthdays? And we did the same thing with cold outreach with cosmetic dentists. Rather than say, hey, do you want to send out some Dentist, you hate, do you hate your teeth?

Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's do, does doctor, because we know that the doctor's not getting it. We'd send the thing, does Dr. Jones do cosmetic surgery? And that then when it replies back, perfect. We've been doing some dental marketing with Dr. Jones in Lakeland and we're looking for a dentist to work with in Winter Haven. 'Could Dr. Jones accommodate 6 cases next month?' Yeah, so you think you're going around the, uh, you know, you're, you're gradualizing the, the conversation rather than, 'Hey, you want to send some postcards?' Right, right.

Okay, that's good. That's softer. I like that.

All right.

I appreciate that very much.

Well, there you go. Good luck with that.

Thank you.

Yeah. All right, let's see. What, uh, does your medical director suck? That's funny. Um, let's see. Penny, I offer workplace conflict resolution and services and training. How does this 9-word email sound for outreach to contacts I already have in my CRM? Hi Dean, is your team as collaborative as you need them to be? So go ahead and offer some on that because that sounds a little bit like a setup. Let me, you know, I think we need to say this too. I want it to be real clear that if there's any part of you that is trying to trick somebody into something, that will be conveyed and you will follow up in a way that is not value creating. Meaning, if you really are offering a solution to what somebody wants, if they have a problem, or you're adding something of value that would just enhance and benefit them, and you just talk to them like a normal human, and you have something that is really going to be beneficial, there's no sort of sneakiness or trickery or manipulation or anything that needs to come across, uh, like, like, when's the right time to, to go ahead and, uh, you know, get them?

It's—

you're not trying to get anything here, you know, right? It's not— you're not trying to hook a fish that doesn't want to be hooked, you know. The, the difference between hunting, where you're just gonna shoot someone, uh, you know, is— yeah, exactly, jump in the boat.

We're not trying to hook them. It's pain-free fishing. Volunteer. They're volunteering to jump in the boat.

Exactly. And the reason I'm saying this is because if I read through a lot of the comments, there's a lot of a sense of like, oh, when am I going to sell them? And, you know, like you have to sneak it up on them. And I'll tell you, there's—

Show them your book. Reach behind you there and get a copy of What's in It for Them, because there's nothing more critical to a 9-word email working than starting with the philosophy of what's in it for them. So many times people send a 9-word email thinking, what's in it for me? Hey, you want to send some postcards? But it's not about that. It's about the cosmetic dentist getting new cosmetic dentist patients, which is a requirement that they do cosmetic dentistry. So when you start always and only talking about the cheese, that's the big win. And that's where what's in it for them comes along. We should— if you can get to a point where they can get the cheese and they never, ever, ever see whiskers, that's magic.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But I'm a friendly cat.

Well, and the other thing too is, you know, there is a point where you can educate through direct response. You know, you can educate your clients. But if you don't ever ask for the sale or you don't make an offer, preferably a compelling offer, you're, you're still only, you know, you're kind of running the race but you're not crossing the finish line. One of the things when I— what I realized when I was selling to carpet cleaners, starting being a carpet cleaner myself, was I would put out consumer awareness guides. And I would— I started teaching other carpet cleaners, put out a consumer awareness guide. And then once you've educated them, um, and this is before the internet existed, I mean, these were being mailed to people through snail mail., and if, if I didn't put an offer for a free room of carpet cleaning and a carpet audit, then educating them on how to hire a carpet cleaner did not result in them hiring me. What it was is it's the follow-up. It's the— it's, it's like you can build rapport with someone, but if you never ask them out on a date after they like you, then— and your goal is to ask them out on a date then it doesn't matter. So, you know, there— it is a process, um, to walk people through. And what do you think, Dean, have you seen have been the biggest mistakes, uh, that happen through this that cause it to not work? Because we already know, you know, this is not something that we're— this is a new idea. We've been teaching this for 15 years, 16 years, uh, when we first started doing it. And, and if you want if you've not read Breakthrough DNA, which doesn't even sell anything, just go to ilovemarketing.com, download Breakthrough DNA report. It walks you through all of the 8 profit activators, uh, really, really valuable. It'll help, uh, add a lot more perspective on this if you're stuck anywhere. And we have full-blown episodes which are nothing but how to do 9-word emails on I Love Marketing. So, uh, what are some of the mistakes that you have seen that cause this to not work?

I think that they can be summed up as twofold. Number one is being too quick to want to just make a sale. And are you— are you still looking to hire me? Or being you-centric is not what this is about. And the other thing is not sending enough Numbered emails. Yeah, I tried that. I heard about that. I know about that. I know it. But the reality is that this could be in your repertoire and, you know, sent out again and again and again. Once you get a really good one to engage with people, this should be a framework for starting a conversation that leads to an engagement, a collaboration. If you take that way, it's like, you know, we look at that, that it's our 3-step model is to compel, convince, collaborate. That's really what it is, right? When you frame what you're doing is not selling, it's offering a collaboration to get the thing that they really want, where you're both focused on the outcome that the person really wants. That's the— that's where the magic is. It's not— you're not facing each other trying to convince this person to buy your stuff. You're kind of along beside them looking out at the joint goal that you have. Because Zig Ziglar talks about you can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. So it only makes sense to join alongside people to help them get the thing that they want. They don't want an engagement with you as the goal. They want the thing that the engagement with you is going to deliver. That's the reality of it.

Yep.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to say—

We need sock puppets to represent.

Okay, let's see here. So, Kaylee, you wrote, most of my marketing is being done in person, on social media, and by word-of-mouth referral. I've been wanting to incorporate emails, but I shy away from it because a lot of people I talk to feel smothered by emails. How do I convey that my value will be impactful and not noise or junk? How often do I share value without, uh, the overwhelm? Uh, I am collecting emails and I want to utilize them to grow the business and community. Well, there's several questions here, but first off, shying away because a lot of people are smothered by email. Well, that doesn't matter because some people are, some people aren't. You know, you want to get through. I think it was Denny Hatch that said you want your marketing to be so interruptive that it keeps on interrupting until action is taken. And there's different ways to interrupt in ways that are annoying to people. There's other ways to interrupt with something like, oh my God, I really could use this, I really need it. But the, the fact is, you know, you, you have to be less concerned about people's overwhelm or perceived overwhelm if you have a solution for them or something that could, you know, enhance their life. And of course, I only say this from my frame of reference. I mean, I—

yeah, there's something, by the way, That's the only frame of reference we ever have. Yeah, is our frame of reference. And it takes effort to remove from your frame of reference and get inside their frame of reference. When you understand that people are primarily, constantly, and obsessively self-interested, that's the one thing that you can rely on. And if you get in alignment with that, That's the magic.

Yes.

And the thing that I learned early on is you are not your own customer. I made a lot of money advertising in things like, as a carpet cleaner, I got a lot of clients, Valpak coupons, money mailers, things that I never would respond to, that I don't use myself. But it doesn't matter because what I respond to and what the marketplace will respond to are two different things.

And so therefore, you know, you've heard Victoria's Secret is that it was made up by an old dude in Ohio, right? That's, that's the thing is that the guy's never worn lingerie, but he certainly built an amazing brand around it.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, totally. So, so how do I convey that value will be impactful and not noise or junk? Again, have a compelling offer. Say the same things that you do when you're face to face with somebody in print. And, you know, now with the use of AI, it makes it way easier. And if you need assistance, just go to literally askjoe polish.com.

It's free.

No one has to pay for that. It's my AI clone. I have people writing business plans using the clone. You can ask, help me write a 9-word email. Here's my situation. And you can use I've had all my books loaded into that, over 1,000 videos and podcasts. There's a lot of archive of stuff, so you can utilize that. And then, the last thing Kaylee said is, "How often do I share value without the overwhelm?" Don't worry about that.

Always.

Yeah, like every single day.

Yeah.

And if you look at my emails as an example, those of you that get my emails, if you don't, then just go to Win— uh, wait, not win. Uh, you could do winjoesvan.com. That's giving away our, uh, my Sprinter van. But, uh, joesfreebook.com. Uh, joesfreebook.com, you can download a copy of Life Gives to the Giver. Uh, and then we put people on the 3-a-week emails. And then the, the super signature strategy at the bottom of every one of my emails is we first, uh, the first email is just value. It's like a lot of valuable stuff. And then at the bottom it says is, you know, "P.S., here's 3 ways, 2 ways that I can help you, not how I can sell you, but how I can help you." And so, me and Dean have done full episodes on super signatures at the bottom of your subscriber emails. And that's what you're trying to do. Here's the ways we can help you, not sell you. And when people are being spoken to in a way that is beneficial and helpful, they don't perceive it as being sold. They actually perceive it as, you know, this is someone that's really helpful. And that's what, that's how you want to communicate to people.

Yeah.

You know, all the time. And so, okay, let's go for just, what time is it here? We'll go for a few more minutes and then we'll wrap up. Let's see.

I'm just looking while we're doing this. I'm playing around with the iPhone subject line generator.. And what that means, I'm looking through my email feed, looking for emails that were only sent to me, one-off emails, because those subject lines, that's the secret magic of— you're gonna notice completely different energy from these. I mentioned the first one I got was stuff, which I knew from coming from Diane on my team. That's interesting. Then someone sent me one that said, 'Greg letterhead,' and that's for a client that we're sending out a mailing, um, that we need his, uh, his letterhead for the, uh, for the mailing. Um, another followed by Craig's book. But as I'm going, I'm all the way into yesterday, and I realize how few individual emails I actually get. Like that are meant only for me. It's amazing how many you get, you know.

Let's see. I'm reading some of these here.

Okay.

So, does anyone have a burning question that they would like to ask that if you did not ask it live, you would feel that you blew an opportunity to transform your business?

Oh, that's a good setup right there.

If so, go ahead and raise your hand and we'll— take the question, and I think we can— yeah, we'll go for another 10 minutes, then we're going to wrap up here.

This is good. I looked, I mentioned that mailing that we're, uh, doing. We should do another episode, Joe, uh, maybe next time we'll have the results. We're doing a mail— I got all this, uh, prop money, like this is what looks like $10,000. So imagine We're mailing this in a, you know, 9x12 cardboard envelope, handwritten Sharpie address, real stamps on it, and a one-page letter explaining to these attorneys how they— we've figured out a way that they could get, uh, position their services to get $10,000 in the next 3 clients that they work with and all just a thing. So I'll have, you know, stuff to report on that.

But you know what, I wonder if I— hold on, I'm going to walk around the corner here and see if I happen to have one of these things here a second.

By the way, can somebody on our team link the Grabbers episode of I Love Marketing that Joe and I did years ago? If you can find it, Gina, you know, I'll put that—

I'll put that link in the chat. And then Joe did see, we do have a couple questions. We got Burgundy and Schwab.

Okay, great.

Yes, Burgundy, I hope you saved the chat, by the way, because they're so right. They put in there that Burgundy's a smart lady, smart and good-looking.

I'll tell you what, she's awesome.

Yes.

All right, so, uh, I'll put that in the chat, but we do have Burgundy and Schwab, and, uh, we'll probably wrap up right after that.

Perfect.

You guys, we'll thank Well, thank you all. I almost didn't raise my hand because I'm actually in this like kind of phase of overwhelm. But you mentioned lawyers and that's exactly on point. So, you know, I have a law practice, but my heart is really in being a problem preventer instead of a problem solver. And I have an educational legal literacy forum called Go Solutionary that I'm really passionate about because I don't want to get the call when the house is burned down, there's blood on the floor, the problem's already happened. I would like to just get in front of that. And my key challenge is two things. One, that 9-word email. I think as a lawyer, because my brain kind of works like a chessboard, I can see the moves like 10 moves ahead. That I will overcommunicate. So one is about being concise, but two, I don't know if it's like finding the ideal client. I really want to help people before the problem happens. Yeah.

So with all of that—

one of the great frames that I've used is avoidable surprises. So you're helping people rather than having people make mistakes or something, to be able to say to them, if you were to say, hey, um, I just finished a new book or a new report called Three Avoidable Surprises, that when you look at it, um, what are some of the— what would be the, the biggest things that would be avoidable? Like, if the reasons that people call you is because this happened or this happened or this happened. And if they called you ahead of time, that we did it. So we did with a home warranty company that are— in the essence was, um, we cover 13 avoidable costly repairs costing homeowners thousands of dollars each year, right? And when you go through the same thing, that many things are, are covered under warranty, but, and you've got home insurance in case something happens. But what if these 13 things, and if you're, if any of these are in the, you know, we're sending them to homeowners who are living in homes that are 7 years old because this 7 to 15 year mark is where everything breaks down. So if you don't have a home warranty, and your house is 7 years old and you bought it new, you're entering the danger zone right now. All these things are going to break in the next thing. So that's where we talk. That's where framing a home warranty as avoidable surprises, that, that coverage for avoidable surprises.

What—

give me an idea of one of the things that you could help people with? What's the biggest problem that's easy to solve?

So the biggest problem that's easy to solve relates to the ethical use of AI with proper disclosures. This is something, it's a problem that's so easy to solve. And if you get it wrong, the FTC is gonna crawl right up your ass. So let's not have that happen. I'll use an example that do not pay, Legal, the robot lawyer, oh, they got busted. And had they just done these very simple things up front, they wouldn't have basically been misleading or defrauding the public. And for the quick start entrepreneurs that I work with, you know, the go fast and break things, I'm like, let's go fast but not break shit. Because if you break shit, now there's something that's broken, it needs to be repaired. Or I'd rather ask for forgiveness instead of permission.

Like, let's go fast and wear a helmet.

Yeah, but yeah, it's just put on your seatbelt if you want to go 120. Like, just it's the seatbelt. So I have something that I've been working deeply on that because I think it's a current problem, it's a new problem, and it's so easy to get in front of it. And so, yeah, that's something that I absolutely cannot put out there.

There you go. So I think that's kind of the thing, right, is helping these Yeah. Do you want the FTC to crawl up your ass? That's a great 9-word email. FTC exam. FTC exam.

Yeah.

Subject line: Hi Joe Polish Polish.

The entrepreneur's least favorite proctologist.

Would you like the FTC to crawl up your ass? Has the FTC scheduled your rectal exam?

Yeah, thank you for all of that. And I took a lot of notes. I so appreciate, um, just all the words of wisdom.

Thank you.

Awesome. Thanks, Burgundy.

Thank you, Burgundy. And by the way, could everyone put in the chat, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being really valuable, 1 being no value whatsoever, uh, how did you— how would you rate our podcast with all of you today? Let us know, please. Let's see where they're at. Okay, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

726, that's pretty high.

Yeah, yeah, I like it. The lowest, lowest number we got so far is, uh, uh, a 9.

I love it.

Mostly 10s, 10 and above. I appreciate it. Well, good, good, because that's our goal. That is our goal. And And, uh, so Dean, I appreciate you doing most of the talking here while I'm dealing with my tinnitus stuff. So Cho, uh, go ahead and, uh, you're the last— I mean, Cho, uh, you know, it's funny, you know what, I'll tell you this. No, you know what's always confused me about your name? Because it's been years, I think I've said it wrong a million times. It's David Cho. And then, uh, right, it always confuses— because David is a friend of mine and it always confuses me, um, Yeah, with your name. So anyway, how are you, sir?

I'm doing very well. Thank you, guys. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Now, nerves are getting the better part of me, but nice to see you. It's been a little while. But even before I ask my question, I just want to say hi to Paul Colligan. That guy is something else in the chat. And Paula Shine is there and all the other nice people, Eunice and, you know, Gina as well. Can this thing work for me if I'm trying to pre-sell a service? Say like I've seen an opportunity, uh, where somebody was interested in a particular service. Can I use a Nine Word Email to pre-sell a service where I, I realize there's an opportunity?

No, I don't.

Probably not.

That's, that's probably the one thing that it— of course you can. You can use it. That's a trick question, Troy. Yes, of course you can use the Nine Word That's like saying, should I use English or should I speak to people? You know, I mean, it's like, the better question is, what are the 9 words? How can I start a conversation with somebody who needs the result of what this service is? And it's just the way you're training yourself, right? Like when you approach it and say, can I use it to sell this? Is inherently your messaging is coming from your position, right, of can I use it to do this? And if you think about who's the person that you're trying to, uh, work with and what's the objective that they want, it's always a triangle, right?

Like the—

there are people They're only and always looking at the goal, the thing that they want at the end. You're over here on this base of the triangle trying to get them to look over at you. But if you sidle up beside them and now you're both firmly fixed on looking at the thing that they're looking at, that's the way to frame this messaging.

Right?

Like when you look at— just give us the short line of what is the service or what is the outcome of the service, not the service itself, the mechanism.

Okay, someone looking to do an adventure tour while on an island.

Perfect. So that's fantastic. So we've done lots of those. That would be— the great thing is those are invisible prospects. Right? You can't get a list of people, but you can build one. So we've done the same thing. We've, we just did one of my favorite playbooks is to use a catalog. Right? So what island are you, are you on, Schwab?

Saint Lucia.

Okay. So if you look at this, if you did the, are you looking for tours like I've been to Saint Lucia and we went on a cruise. So is that what you're talking about?

You didn't say hi to me when you came there.

I didn't know you then.

I didn't know you then.

That sounds like you didn't.

But the—

if you think— you don't think I would if I came now? I know I'd get the VIP tour from my buddy, Schwab. Now listen though, if you're saying that— are you talking about a tour that people who are coming on a cruise ship and they're gonna have one day to tour the— is that the kind of thing, like a day trip?

Yeah.

Okay, perfect. What if you ran— where do those cruises come from? They come from Miami, they come from Fort Lauderdale, they come from Orlando, uh, wherever their, their ports of call are, right? If you're running a, a ad on there and you're offering the 2020— spring 2026 St. Lucia day tour catalog, and people can opt in for that as a lead ad on Facebook. Now you've got a group of people who are self-identified as interested in what to do in, in Saint Croix. In Saint Lucia.

Sorry, in Saint Lucia.

Yeah, yeah. So now you've got those. Now they come, they download the catalog. Now you've got a visible prospect because you ring-fenced the Port of Miami and the Port of Fort Lauderdale and the Port of Orlando and, uh, wherever else those things come from. And you know that they're on a cruise ship And you are there, you know, it's kind of a cool, it's kind of a cool thing. Now you think, what would you do if you had somebody? And I use these kind of offers as a magic portal to your, to, you know, to right to your office or right to the port. Imagine if when somebody downloaded the catalog, you send them the catalog and you send them a video that's you at the port saying, hi, I'm Shoa.

This is—

welcome to Saint Lucia. I've lived here for however many years or whatever, and I love Saint Lucia, and here's some of the adventures we can have. Or I've got a team of people who all we do is help people explore and enjoy St. Lucia while they're here for one day on a cruise.

That's, that's exciting, right?

Yes, indeed.

Yeah. And then you ask them a 9-word email. Hi Joe, welcome aboard. When are you arriving in St. Lucia? That's your 9-word email.

Thank you, Dan.

You're welcome.

I'm listening and I'm taking notes as well.

That was very—

Of course you are.

Yeah.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys.

Yeah, you are welcome, man. All right. Good seeing you. Well, Dean, now time for us to end this party. And thank you all for being here. I hope you found it valuable. Go ahead and share the love with anyone that you know that's an entrepreneur that needs to hear stuff like this. If you don't currently subscribe to I Love Marketing, then wherever you subscribe to podcasts, Spotify, Apple, whatever, As long as you're on our email list, we will let you know when the next one is happening. And if you subscribe, you will be notified also. So make sure you subscribe to ilovemarketing.com. And by the way, several people have mentioned they, my book, What's in It for Them. I would love it if you could write a review on Amazon for that book. That would be amazing. And we also have the audio version of it if someone prefers listening to audio. And I recorded that whole audio version version in 3 days in a studio before, you know, you could do that sort of stuff with AI. But even then, I wouldn't have used AI anyway because I think it's— I like it when authors read their own books. And, um, yeah, listen to it. I think it'll really help with everything we talked about here. And is there anything, uh, and Gina just put a link in the, in the, in the, uh, chat. So if you don't have a copy, uh, get one. And if you don't love it, I'll give you your money back for it. It's like, what is it, $20-something or something? I have no idea. But what else, Steve? What else do we need to share before we wrap this up?

I think that's good. This was a good one.

Okay. And I want to thank Gina and my team for moderating and doing all of that. I really appreciate it. And then we will— Someone had asked about Maha.

They do—

those of you that want to know what's going on with all the Maha movement, I, you know, I'm involved in that. I'm co-producing the Maha films and they're about health and they don't, you know, they really don't want to make it a political thing. They want to make it about health. So it has longevity long beyond, you know, any administration. And every Wednesday they do MahaAction.org. They actually do live Zooms, and I'm, I'm quite involved with them behind the scenes on a lot of this stuff. So if you want to watch any of that to see what's going on, you're welcome to do that. That's completely separate from obviously what we're doing here with I Love Marketing, which is to basically help you utilize effective, ethical, and powerful marketing so that you can build and grow your businesses. So put it to work and good luck with everything, and I'll see you guys next time. Some of you that are in Genius Network, we have a meeting later. We have a K meeting and a Genius Network meeting later this month. So a few of you that are on here, we will see you at that. And, uh, that's it for now. So have a great day. Thank you. Don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing. Subscribe today at ilovemarketing.com/subscribe. If you'd like access to the show notes to take action on what was discussed, please visit ilovemarketing.com/472.