MaryEllen Tribby Interview - The One Where Joe Interviews Expert Marketer, Business Consultant and “Money Honey”, MaryEllen Tribby - Bonus Episode - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast. Hello, this is Joe Polish, founder of Piranha Marketing in the Genius Network. And today I'm going to be having a fantastic conversation with a good friend of mine and an absolutely brilliant entrepreneur by the name of Mary Ellen Tribbey. Mary Ellen, can you hear me okay?

I can hear you. Great.

Hi Joe, how are you?

I'm fantastic. How are you?

I'm fantastic. And so you know you've got a cool website that's going to be launching here soon. You are a phenomenal business builder. Let me just give everyone like some background of who you are. So who is Mary Ellen Triby then? I'm going to ask her some questions. She is the Proud founder and CEO of WorkingMomsOnly.com, the leading newsletter and website for the empowerment of the working mom. Prior to founding Working Moms Only, Mary Ellen was widely recognized as publisher and CEO of Early to Rise, where she was responsible for growing the business from $8 million in sales to $26 million in sales in just 15 short months. Before that, she served as president of Weiss Research, where she led the company to $67 million in sales from 11 million in just 12 months to today. Because of her impressive track record of generating revenues and profits, she's known in the info publishing world as the Money Honey, but credits a good part of her success to her traditional New York City publishing career. There she not only ran divisions at Forbes, Times, Mirror magazine and Crain's New York business, but had some of the best direct response marketing mentors in the world. Due to her superlative direct response skills and her ability to channelize marketing campaigns, Mary Ellen is a highly sought after business consultant, speaker and author. Her first book, which she co authored with Michael Masterson, changing the 12 easy ways to make Millions for your business, hit number one on Amazon in just 10 hours of its release. Mary Ellen currently resides in Boca Raton, Florida with her husband of 13 years and their three beautiful children, Mikayla, Connor and Delaney.

And as of Saturday, our brand new puppy, Coco.

Coco. Well, you know, this interview would not even be complete without mentioning Coco. Anyway, you hang out in Florida, you do a lot of cool stuff. You've made millions of dollars for companies you've worked for and that you've built. And there are literally God knows how many thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs have made money as a result of your advice. You are awesome. I've seen you speak several times. We've hung out with Richard Branson in a private setting recently and did a brainstorm group where you and him totally hit it off. And you're phenomenal. You just have done so many cool things. And on top of that, you teach women how to be great entrepreneurs and lead a balanced life with all of the stuff on their plate. So, I mean, what else other. I mean, I know you raise money for foundations, and you have a lot of important causes. So, you know, to you, business is more than just making money. It's about funding and building a life and creating great contribution in the world. And those are some of the things I want to talk to you about today. So what else didn't I mention that people need to know about you before we teach people how to make some money?

Well, you know, for me, it's all about having that balance in life. And when you have real balance in life, you know, there is no difference between work and fun. Like you said when we were hanging out with Richard Branson, was that work or was that fun? Well, that was both. Right. So that's when you know that you've got the life you want to have is when you're just doing things that are making your business money. But that's what you want to be doing. And that's the key. Especially with workingmombilling.com, working moms have this incredible influence and responsibility, and they've got to get to a point where they've got the life they want to live. Yeah.

Because I think out of all of the different things and individuals and people in the United States and probably worldwide, the hardest working people have got to be working mothers and single mothers raising children.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So I think what you're doing is phenomenal. Out of all of the different things that you could focus and spend your time on, I mean, you being a mother, why did you resonate with working moms? I mean, why has that become your core group, your core audience that you want to help? I know you're so darn passionate about it.

I am. Well, because, you know, I've been so blessed. Right. You know, I have three great kids, and they're healthy and they're smart and they're compassionate. They're good kids. And I'm very fortunate. I have a wonderful spouse. I have a wonderful partner. And so, you know, when I would, you know, I would run companies, I'd be CEO of a $70 million company or $30 million company, but I'd also be speaking around the world and writing books, and a lot of times working Moms would come up to me and they would say, how can you do this? How do you do it? And you know what? You can do it. It's just that you really have to understand the tools. And that's why I want to give working moms the tools, because they deserve the tools, because of the responsibility that they have in this world. And you know what? We can, we can have it all. You don't have to pick one or the other. You don't have to pick between your husband, your kids and your career. You know, I mean, I know my kids are better, they're better off because I have a career that I'm great at and that I believe in and that I have causes and my kids can do anything because of that. So it's something I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to go out there and start this company. And, you know, finally it's come to fruition and it's just going to be, you know, within the year, I'm going to have a community of a million working moms.

Yeah. And you know, you're able to do that. And I want to say this right at the very beginning here, that it does not matter if you're not a working mom. I mean, you can be a guy running a business, starting up a business. Mary Ellen is amazing and so knowledgeable and has such a track record of, you know, I shouldn't just say successes, you've had giant successes, but anyone that will tell you the truth, and you're one of those people that will tell the truth, will tell you there's many, many failures that you have to figure out. Mistakes that are made, you have to go through in order to get to the successes. And it does not matter who you are, you are a full blown direct response marketer and you know how to make people money. And clearly your track record has proven that. And so, you know, just I want everyone to, assuming you're not driving, make sure you have something to write on because you're going to want to take notes because I can assure you I'm going to ask Mary Ellen some question and she's going to give you some really, really awesome tips. And she also has her site, which has a lot more, which I'll recommend everyone check out@workingmomsonly.com and last thing I'm going to say before we get into money making stuff, I heard you say in a presentation at Delray beach at one of the early to rise events that I recently attended and I was Speaking at which you invited me to, you said 150 million homeless children are out there and you believe working mothers have more influence on the world than anything. And that's one of the things that motivated you purchase the domain Working Momsoli before you even launched it.

Yes, yes. I mean, when you think about that, like I said, I have three kids and my nine year old son couldn't survive a night in the backyard. And I'm not kidding about this yet there are 6 year olds and 7 year olds and 8 year olds on the street. They do not have a home, many do not have any parents looking after them. And this is just fundamentally wrong. And so in conjunction with Working Moms Only, we have a foundation called Good News Kids and that's going to go to Bill's Sanctuaries for children. Not orphanages, but sanctuaries where they can feel safe and secure and actually be tucked in at night by somebody who loves them. So it was just something that, you know, it's at a point in my life, you know, I've been really fortunate. I've gone through the corporate career, the entrepreneur career, and it's the time that the consciousness has been raised and I have to give back.

Gotcha. Gotcha. That's great. Well, you know, one thing, there's so many different things I can talk to you about, but I'm going to really focus it in on making business work and doing it with the least amount of stress and work and hardship and mistakes as one can avoid. That's why I want to borrow your expertise and your brain for on our conversation here. So I've heard you say the biggest entrepreneurial curse is having four projects or name the multiple amounts. But let's just say four projects halfway done yield zero revenue. One project, 100% finished, brings cash in the door. And we live in a day and age where there are so many things vying for our attention. I mean, there's even a book that was written called the Attention Economy and people's attention is everywhere. And I think that statement, the biggest entrepreneur curse, which you said, four projects halfway done yields nothing. One project, 100% finished, brings cash in the door. Can you speak to that? Because I think before we go into techniques and methods and list building and offers and copy and all of these things, I'm going to ask you about, what do you mean by that?

Well, you know, this is something I've seen for years and years and years and a lot of people almost kind of joke about it and say, well, I'm A serial entrepreneur. But that's not what a serial entrepreneur is. Basically, I see this all the time, that people get a great idea to launch a new product, whether it's an Internet marketing product or a health product or a financial product, or write a book or write an e book, and they start on this project and halfway through something else hits them, another great idea hits them. So they put that first project to the side and they start on the second one. Then halfway through that, the next great idea hits them. So in the meantime, they've got three, four, five projects that are almost complete, but that's doing nothing for their bottom line. It's doing nothing for their business. And what it is actually doing, it's frustrating everyone around them. If they've got a team, their entire team is frustrated and miserable at point, this point, because they know that these four other great ideas are yielding zero revenue to the bottom line of that organization. Meanwhile, they're trying to manage that entrepreneur on their next project. So you know what, I'm not a big planner, but I believe in a timeline and just putting that visual representation out there, a timeline for your projects, that you can get it done, market it, move on. It doesn't mean that you can't work on multiple projects in the same time period, but you've got to have a timeline for that project so that you know on X date it's done, it's yielding money for your company.

How do you actually come to that mindset wise? First, because there certainly are the mechanics and there's lots of support materials, including many that you've created that assist people in their thinking. Mindset wise. When someone is excited about different things. Let me just be very transparent here. I'm a guy that's always loved bright shiny objects. When I hear about a new opportunity, oh my God, I get excited about it. I think it's super cool. And I see opportunities in everything and I see so many different options. And the challenge is when you have a thousand options, you don't have any options. That's what a good friend of mine, Rich Arathi, says. That's why it so resonates with me when I hear you talk about this, when I've seen you say this in audiences filled with hundreds of people, everyone should shakes their head. And this is something that everyone relates to. Especially now when the Internet, there's so many different things to read look at. How do you get to that point where you just narrow your focus and can stick with something?

You know, this is what I do, you know, I'm a big. We were talking before. I'm a big believer in working out, and that's the first thing I do every single day. I work out. And whether I'm at the gym, on the elliptical, the tread, or if I'm riding my bike or whatever I'm doing, I'm thinking about ideas. So when I come back from working out in the morning, the first thing I do is I have a list. And I go to my list on my computer about the ideas and the projects I want to work on, and I make sure I outline what I just thought about. And I get it down there. It's there for the day. I haven't lost it. I know what it is. And then I continue on what I'm working on. And then at the end of every single week, I look at that list and I prioritize. And so what may happen while I'm creating the product that I'm working on and that's coming to fruition, the order in which I work on the next one may change. And that's okay, because I haven't started working on them yet.

Okay, I got you.

So don't lose it. And that's what everybody thinks. If they don't do it right now, they lose it. But it's not. It's not gone forever. Gosh. Like I said, I bought the URL workingmomsonly.com two and a half years ago. It was always on the back burner. It was there. I thought about it. I wrote things about it every day. But, you know, I was concentrating. I had a commitment to early to Rise, and I knew I had. I wanted to fulfill that commitment to early, to Rise, to my team, to Michael Masterson, you know, and so. But I didn't lose this project.

So it's just not guilting yourself into thinking you got to do it right now. It's just prioritizing.

Absolutely. And that's what, you know, life. And that's a balance life comes down to, you know, is, you know, making, you know, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. Nobody gets more hours. We all have that. It's what we do with those hours that makes us. That hits our success meter.

Well, out of all of the things that you've learned in hanging around some of the most successful people on the planet, having created a tremendous amount of success for yourself, what are some of the biggest attributes of successful entrepreneurs that make it? And failures that may work really hard but just never get any traction, never get it off the Ground.

Well, by far. The first thing is it's not. This is why most entrepreneurs fail, right? It's not because they don't do the work, it's because they do the wrong work. And it was so funny. I was writing last night a story about how I started creating my business from scratch, from scratch, from my house, this brand new business. And I was saying that a friend of mine, she quit her corporate job to become a marketing consultant. And the first thing she did was she went out and she rented office space. And I said, why are you renting office space? And she goes, the housing market, you know, it's in the crapper. I can get office space for $1,500 a month. That would normally cost me $5,000 a month. Okay, so she spent, she spent a month and a half looking for space. Then she spent another couple weeks decorating the space. Okay. Meanwhile, she didn't work on a website, she didn't work on a sales page, she didn't work on cultivating clients, any of that stuff in those six weeks that she started that business. Basically, she had an office with no revenue coming in the door. My first same six weeks, I have a great laptop, I can take it anywhere. I work by my pool, I work in my dining room, I work wherever I want. What do I have? I have a website, I have customers, I have a sales letter, I have product. You've got to prioritize. In business, it's the same thing. What's going to yield you money. And so that's why Michael Masterson taught me this ready, fire, aim approach. You don't just aim, aim, aim, aim, aim. You just go, you fire, you ready, aim, fire. I'm sorry, ready, fire, aim. So that you just do it. You see what works, you see what sticks. In changing the channel. In the book, we have a whole section on failed product launches. Why do they fail? Because people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a product before they even know if it's going to resonate with the. As a marketer, you have to assume that you know nothing. The market will tell you. They tell you what they want. And of course, most people market to what people think they need. And you don't market to what people need. You market to what people want.

That is such a difficult thing for non marketers to get and so obvious to marketers. And I wanted to ask you what is your definition of marketing? Because I think that is one word that is so critical in business. I personally think it is the most important skill set to develop and spend your time mastering because that is where all the money comes from. And it is also one of these skills that is misinterpreted. There is a lot of dumb marketing in the world. There is a lot of ineffective marketing in the world. And there are a lot of people that teach a lot of that ineffective marketing and call themselves experts. And a lot of people think that I don't want to learn how to have to market this stuff or have to sell something as if it's a bad word, which I think is hysterical. So what's your definition of marketing?

Okay, so first, the whole broad term of marketing is essentially the process associated with promoting the sales or goods or services in exchange for money. So that's the broad, broad marketing definition. But what we are, what we do is direct response marketing, which is very different from branding. Direct response market is designed to solicit an immediate response that's specific and quantifiable. That basically means dollar out, dollar in. You send something out the door. When it comes back, you know how it came back and it comes back immediately. It's very different from branding, which is kind of that creating an image, something the customer remembers. The next time they need sneakers, they're going to remember you, they're going to remember Nike. But what we do is we want to send something out the door, direct response marketing, and get a response back immediately.

Got you. Well, so direct response. I've never seen a situation and of course I've not been to college for years. And I don't know if you know this, but I failed owning and operating a small business when I went to a community college. So I've never gotten any real college education per se. And I remember the little bits that I was taught. It was always brand building and big, huge, large corporations that had large sums of money to dump down a black hole. And that would be what they're trying to teach people that aren't even in business yet about what marketing and advertising is. So there's so many things that already leave people with a handicap and a misperception of what they should do. You have a chapter in your book you did with Michael Masterson, changing the Channel, which is direct response, why super bowl ads don't work. I wanted you to just comment on that statement, why super bowl ads don't work. What do you mean by that?

I mean, they're just ads to the masses, right? They're ads to the masses and they have no particular intent. Again, they're going out there. Hopefully they're thinking somebody Will remember me someday. And every super bowl ad loses money. These kind of ads are created by advertising agencies. And most advertising agencies aren't direct response marketers. They're out to win the big awards. They're out to win, oh, that was the funniest commercial I've ever seen. Or that was the most beautiful direct mail package. They're not talking when they win awards. It has nothing to do with the response and the success of their ads or their direct mail packages or their email campaigns. It only has to do with the look and feel of their ads. And so super bowl ads don't work because no one is out there tracking results for this. There was one ad that was a couple years that ran on super bowl, and it was for a website, and it was like the only direct response marketing ad through Super Bowl. You know, you get all those emails all the time, Joe, that they're so fake and they're so phony. You hate getting email markers that say, oh, I'm extending this because the response was overwhelming and it crashed my server. And that's always really insulting to me because our subscribers are much, much smarter than that. But this was the one time, the one time where they just did not anticipate how successful their ad would be because they were brand new, because they were direct response marketers. They had never done TV before. They had always done mail or email. So they'd never done tv. And it worked because it's direct response. So it really did crash their servers. They actually were successful with their ad because it was a direct response marketing ad, not this big branding, image building ad.

Yeah, that's great. What I love about this is just whenever someone with a track record and with experience can challenge the mass assumption of what advertising and marketing is all about and prove that a lot of people are wrong. A lot of big companies, the way they're successful has very little to do with their quote unquote marketing and advertising. It has to do with deep pockets and years and years of stuff. There's a lot of large companies that were started with direct response and that's what gave them a foothold. And then once they got their roots in the ground, for some bizarre reason, they changed to image, advertising and brand building. And people think, oh, that's why they're successful. That's why McDonald's is really big and that's why blah, blah, blah. But anyway, that's great. So the point that I, and the reason I wanted to bring that up right from the very beginning is wherever you're at in your business. If you're an experienced business owner, if you're a working mom that wants to start a business, learn direct response. That's what's going to be the fuel. And you've worked with some incredible copywriters and direct response marketers. And so I wanted to. You talk about mastering the key elements guaranteed to boost response in any marketing campaign. And you talk about lists, you talk about offers, you talk about copy. And I wanted to ask you about all three of those things, if you could kind of go through those key elements, because those are so crucial.

These are the most crucial elements in all of your marketing campaigns. These are the only three factors that you need in every single campaign, Regardless whether that campaign is on tv, on the Internet, in the mail, on the phone. It doesn't matter. You have to understand your list, your offer, and your copy. And this is the funny part, everybody. If you ask 10 people, what's the most important part of those three things, nine people will say to you, the copy is the most important part. And here again, guess what? It's not. The most important part of any single marketing campaign are your list. And when you say list, basically your audience, who are you reaching? Who are you going after? And I love to do this fun little thing because it kind of drives the point home because people say, oh, no, that's not true, it's the copy. And I'm going to prove to you right now it is the list. So, Jo, let's pretend. Let's pretend that I am selling these wonderful, beautiful brassieres. And for the sake of this exercise, I have the best copy in the world, okay? I have the best copy in the world for these brassieres, and I'm going to sell you a brassiere, right? And the offer is fantastic because. Well, first, let's talk about the benefits of this brassiere. This brassiere is going to make you look £10 slimmer, okay? It's going to guarantee that you have it attracts a man in your life in the next 30 days or double your money back, and I'm only going to charge you $9.95. Are you going to buy this brassiere for me?

Well, no, because I'm a dude.

Exactly. So is that my point? You are the wrong list. You are the wrong audience. I have the best copy. And not only that, I'm going to actually give you three brassieres for $9.95. Not just white, but red, black and leopard. Right? But you're still not biting because you are not the audience.

Well, with the leopard, you're now getting me excited.

Okay, see, I should have stopped. But you're not my audience. So you can have fantastic copy and a great offer, but if you don't go to the right audience, your campaign will not work. The next most important element in any campaign is actually your offer. You could have great copy and you'd be going right to the right people. But if you botch up that offer, you're not going to get the results. This is where a lot of entrepreneurs make mistakes because they don't spend enough time on crafting their offer and then changing the channel. And if we have time here, I've got 10 test that your offer should pass to make sure it's effective.

Well, I want to come back to those because I think a 10 test thing would leave everyone listening to us bedazzled with valuable, actionable stuff.

Good, good. Okay. Copy is the third most important element. But now here's the funny part, because everybody always hears this. Here's this line that copy is king. And it is king, and it's king. Because copy is actually the most creative and the most difficult to accomplish. Offer and list are a scientific part of your marketing. Copy is the creative part. And that's why they say copy is king. So you've got to understand these three elements. This is what I call the holy grail of marketing. List, offer and copy.

Greg, can I comment on that too? Because when I first started in my business years ago, I tried a bunch of different things. In the very beginning, what I ended up stumbling on and sticking with. And you know my story, but some people don't that would be listening to us. I started out as a dead broke carpet cleaner, funding my business off credit cards. I did a good job. I got certified, got training. There actually is training on how to be a professional cleaner. And there's a lot to it. Like any industry and I was good at what I was doing and I treated people well. And the problem was I was broke. And the positive mental attitude and all of the things that I was reading and doing and being good at delivering a great service, that was irrelevant if I didn't have people paying me money. So I literally survived on credit cards. I was going deeper and deeper into debt. And in the process of trying to switch into another business or looking at other opportunities, some person said to me, well, you know, if other people are making money in your industry and you're not, there's nothing wrong with the business you're in. There's something wrong with You. And that really stuck with me. And I said, huh, I've got to figure out what the heck am I not doing? And what I discovered, what I wasn't doing is I just simply didn't know how to sell. I didn't know how to market. And you know what you just went through List, offer, copy. That was my first introduction into figuring out how to make a business work. You know, there's this saying that Dan Kennedy says. You know, many people say it, but I first heard Dan Kennedy say it back in the early 90s, where the best message in the world is useless if you shout it at deaf ears. That's exactly your example with the brassiere that you just talked about. You know, I mean, you could have the best offer, the best message to me, the best copy. But, you know, I'm deaf ears to that because I'm not interested in that. And so list is critical. And so many people, you know, mediocre copy will perform fantastic if you have a starving audience. But for the most part, when you combine a great list, a great offer, and great copy, you have an advantage that 99.9999% of business owners never have because they simply won't learn this. And that's what's so great about you, Mary Ellen, is that you not only have mastered this, you're taking it to working moms. And out of all of your experience of taking it to entrepreneurs in general. And what I'll say on Copy is copy is the oxygen that makes your advertising in your marketing, be it online or offline work. Before we go deeper into it, and I do want you to talk about the 10 test thing you mentioned. I want you to talk about a couple of people that you've worked with so that people understand the depth and the importance of these items. One, Michael Masterson. And then two, copywriters. You know, many copywriters. Paris Clay. I'd like to talk about them because I'm going to make sure that Clayton and Paris both listen to this interview.

Well, let's actually start with Clayton, because Clayton I've known for 10 years and is one of my dearest, dearest friends. I met Clayton when I went to work for Weiss Research. And when I started at Weiss, I started as a marketing director. I didn't start as a president. But this was the funny part, because it's just exactly what we talked about. Clayton was there and he was writing copies. And this is direct mail days. This was before big Internet days. And when Clayton was writing copy, they couldn't mail more than 10,000 pieces a month, because the person doing the list selection at the time just couldn't get it out there. They didn't understand the process and the scientific, you know, the science behind list selection. And so I go to Weiss and I take over, you know, doing the list, and now Clayton's writing the copy. And we literally go from 10,000 pieces a month to a million pieces a month to 2 million pieces a month to 3 million pieces a month. Same copy as before I got there, when they're mailing 10,000 pieces, but here we go to 3 million pieces a month. And this is the key when we did this. And then we'll get back to copy here a little bit, because this is when you know you have great copy, when you're willing to put it in the mail. That's when you know you have great copy. A lot of people online now, they confuse themselves by thinking, well, it's pretty much free for me to send this copy out, so it doesn't have to be great. But one of your tests for knowing that if you have good copy and to send it to your email list is saying to yourself, would I put this in the mail? Because if you put it in the mail, then it's going to cost you 50 cents to every single person that you mail it to. So if you're going out to 100,000 people or 200 or 500,000 people, you're dropping $250,000. But entrepreneurs confuse themselves saying, well, it's not costing me anything. So even though the copy kind of sucks, and they know it does, I'm going to send it anyway. But what you're doing is, one, there's a huge opportunity cost for your list, and two, it's kind of insulting for your subscribers. So before you send your copy out, say, would I put it in the mail? That kind of just raises the bar a little bit. Okay, Clayton is. I'm sorry, Joe, go ahead.

No, no, no. What you just said, where it could be insulting to your audience, it just really reminds me of almost like how a romance could go bad because you think you don't need to say hello anymore or I love you or send a little card or bring flowers every once in a while, it's like, it doesn't much matter. And what I think, because you basically were raised in the direct mail world and you saw people in your own money putting literally thousands of dollars, in some cases millions of dollars spent on marketing. That's one of the biggest mistakes that I see Internet marketers that, that didn't grow up in that world, they're just promiscuous with how they put stuff out there and they don't think about it because they've never had to put their money on the line. But what you've just stated is you're losing money because you're destroying the reputation and the bond you have with your list. If you just are just throwing stuff together.

Yeah. And one of the things about copy is what you have to understand about copy more than anything else is the architecture of copyright, how copy is supposed to flow. What's the job of a subject line, what's the job of a headline, what's the job of the first line in your lead? And when you understand the architecture of your copy, then the copy will really come together. And I think if we want to give everybody a resource, probably the best book on that is Breakthrough Advertising by Gene Schwartz. Right.

Unbelievable. I sell it at my office. Got boardroom. Yeah. It's unbelievable.

So one of the best books, if you are in the business, if you're an entrepreneur and you're selling direct response online or on TV or radio or in the mail, you have to read this book. It's one of the books that when I CEO of Early Rise, every single person who came into my company to work there, I had them read the book before they started.

That's great. Breakthrough Advertising by Gene Schwartz. Okay, so you were going to say Clayton, make these before I rudely interrupted you then.

Okay, so Clayton was one of the. And I've learned the best thing about Clayton was he's just not a copywriter. He's a marketing strategic. So I learned a lot from Clayton. We were partners. We essentially spoke every single day at 7:30 in the morning. That's how our day started. To make sure that one. Because with copywriters you need to keep them on track. That we had Clayton on track. And just to brainstorm first thing in the morning, it's just a great way to work with your copywriters. I learned a lot from Clayton. Another great entrepreneur that I learned a lot from. Most people probably won't know him is Dick Benson, you know, who is, you know, real old time direct marketer king. You know, this is the guy who, you know, he was teaching the Gary Pennsylvanias and the John Carltons and the Claytons. So Dick Benson. Any, you know, anything by Dick Benson? Of course. He passed away, you know, years ago and he was in his late 90s, I believe so. But you know, the most brilliant, probably one of the most brilliant direct marketers ever to live. You know, I had, I had the opportunity when I was in New York, you know, working at Forbes and Crain's and Timeswear magazines, to actually work with him. And he's an amazing person.

That's phenomenal because, I mean, a lot of people may not know these names, but these are the giants of the marketing world. And when you get an opportunity to learn and work directly from those people and you pay attention and you take the heart, I mean, how could you not become incredibly skilled? And that's why individuals like yourself, when you now are out there teaching and sharing what it is you've learned. Because a lot of those people, you know, they never really spent a lot of their career teaching other people. They were out just working. You know, like Gene Schwartz was a secret weapon for Boardroom Inc. Which you're friends with everyone at Boardroom, as am I. You know, Marty Edelston and Brian Kurtz and Margie and all those people. And, you know, I mean, these, there's incredible techniques and methods and now that's what you're actually teaching working moms only, which has never been brought this sort of insight and knowledge to the world before. Clayton is an example. One thing I'd like to ask you about most people, when they think of the business heroes of the world, they see famous CEOs and people that have written books and that sort of stuff. But rarely do copywriters get the recognition or even copy in general that it deserves. I mean, some companies that are gigantic were built on good copy and a sales letter. Let's take one of my clients, Bill Phillips, who created company eas. Well, he bought the company EAS and built it to a giant multi million dollar sports supplement company. Wrote a book called Body for Life. That entire company when he first started it, he sold it for $300 million after he built it up over a couple year period. But it was all built with direct response marketing, all with sales letters, all with promotions. And most people would never have any idea that many of these companies even exist. And what could you say about copywriters and copy in general? Why do you think it's just not one of the main things that would be taught in a marketing course in college. When someone starts a business, the difference between rich or being broke could be a really awesome sales letter, a great copy in direct mail, on a website, on an email. Why doesn't it get the respect and acknowledgement that it so not only deserves, but it's so critical to someone's success.

You know, it is so critical, and it's amazing that people have this fear against. You know, I'll tell another story. When I was, you know, when I was at Weiss and I was working with Clayton, people were pissed that we were paying him so much money. And I would say to him, do you get it? Do you get that this money won't. Wouldn't be coming in the door if we didn't have a great copywriter. You know, a great copywriter is like a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon. Right, right. There's a lot of copywriters out there that are almost like kind of that general, you know, general doctor, that general MD and then a great copywriter, which there are a handful, you know, are like that brain surgeon, and they can do things other copywriters cannot do.

You're so right. I mean, Marty Edelston, when I interviewed him, he's the founder of Boardroom, you know, he's like, you know, I pay my copywriters more than I pay myself. Yes, yes, you're running a $100 million a year company. And he has that attitude and he's like, and I'm glad to do it because they deserve it. How many business owners not only don't have that attitude, but it wouldn't even cross their mind? I mean, for some people, this is the first time they've even heard a statement like what you just said.

Right, right. I mean, it does. It blows my mind that people object to this. But if you want to make money, you've got to get a great copywriter. And to get a great copywriter, you've got to understand. Understand good copy.

How does one know what good copy is? I mean, clearly they could read your book and they can go through your website and they can start learning it, which I hope everyone does. I mean, what are some ideas? I mean, how do you know the.

Best thing that you could do is, you know, there's things out there that are called swipe files. Right. And a lot of people have them. You know, Clayton has them, Awai has them, John Carlton has them, and basically they're filed of great copy that they are going to quantify it. They are going to say, this sales letter generated a billion dollars, this sales letter generated million dollars, and they're going to tell you what worked. And when you start looking at sales letters, really successful sales letters, you're going to see what they have in common again. You're going to see that they follow the same architecture. They all start with a great headline, a Headline. A lead is 80%, right? 80% of people buy from just reading the headline and lead. They don't even get into the body. Okay, So a great headline and lead is the most important thing you can do in copy. So you're going to notice, you're going to notice how many sentences a great headline is, how many paragraphs is a great lead. What's incorporated there? Do they have benefits and credibility and track record and proof or all those things incorporated into that lead. But you've got to do your research, Just get some swipe files, look at great sales letters, see what they have in common. You'll be able to recognize that. The other thing is, I wrote a great article that's on workingmomsonly.com that's called something like the Marketing Director's Guide to Working with Outside Copywriters. Because you're not going to always get a Clayton. Well, I mean you probably won't get a Clayton, right? Or you won't get a John Carlton or somebody like that. But. But you will get good copywriters if you go out and hire them. You want a copywriter who understands direct response marketing. You want a copywriter who asks for royalties. It doesn't mean you're always going to pay them royalties, but if they don't think their copy is worth royalties, you don't want to work with them. Right?

That is a great statement because a lot of people I talk to that are business owners are like, well, how can I get a copyright or a cheap one without having to pay royalties? And I'm just like, why the hell would you not want your copywriter incentivized by results?

Right. The other thing you want to look for is you want a copywriter who knows the results of copy for their other clients. People. And they said, and I've said, you know. Well, they said, I've written for American Express and I've written for Disney and I've written for this. And I said, well, how'd that copy do? And they said, oh, I don't know. Somebody you want to work with, right? You want somebody who's interested in your success. Not a one time. Again, it's relationships. It's building any relationship. You don't want a one night stand here. You want a long term relationship.

That's great. Such good advice. So yeah, everyone should go to your website and read that article. Because I do not write a lot of my copy. I hire other copywriters to do it. I learned how to write copy. It's painful for Me, but I, you know, meaning it takes time. It's a skill. I think one of the reasons people don't learn it is they're not willing to take the time to actually do it. But you can find and hire copywriters, and in many cases, they will be the difference between being successful and not successful. And however you need to crank out and create killer copy, get it done if that means you learn how to do it yourself. And I know, Mary Ellen, that you guide people through it. I mean, if they read Changing the Channel, they would learn a tremendous amount about this if they would read any of the books that you already mentioned. I certainly have interviewed John Carlton in Paris, and I'm going to interview Clayton, and I've interviewed Gary Halbert and Kennedy, and you name it. And I love copy. I mean, copy again, is the oxygen. I mean, I think it's so, so critical. Okay, well, you Talked about the 10 tests that your offer must have in order, I guess, to be effective.

Yep.

So what are they?

All right, let's go through them. The first one is, is your offer specific? Will the prospect understand exactly what they get and how to get it? Number two, is your offer exclusive? Are you making your offer only to a select few, or are you making the same offer to everybody? Is your offer valuable? Will your prospects perceive your offer to be value to them? Your offer might be inexpensive for you to make, but it must have high perceived value to your customers. Is your offer unique? Is the deal you're offering only available through your business? Is your offer useful? Your offer can be exclusive, but unless it's unique, it's not useful. Is your offer relevant? Do the prospects actually want what you're offering them? Is your offer plausible? Some offers sound too good to be true, so that kind of makes. Sometimes it's going to make you look a little silly. Number eight, is your offer easy to acquire? And I've seen this time after time, people have this great copy and they don't give their prospects a way to buy it. They make them go through 24 pages before they actually let them buy. Make sure you're offering to let them buy throughout the copy, make sure your 800 numbers are clear. Make sure your links are working, all those kind of things.

Don't have the sales prevention department running your show.

Exactly. Number nine, is your offer urgent? Do you have a deadline? Do you have an early bird special? Are you going to only let 100 people in, 250 people in? And then last, does your offer have a guarantee? This, without a doubt. Strengthens your offer. I just said before, right? If I'm selling brassieres and they don't make you look £10 slimmer, I. I'm not just going to give their money back, I'm going to double their money back. Make sure you guarantee that no one can resist. So if you can pass all 10 of those little tests, you're going to have a dynamite offer.

Okay, so number one is specific, number two is. What's number two again?

Number two is exclusive.

Exclusive. Okay. That's the okay. And then you got number three is valuable. Number four is unique, five is useful, six is relevant, seven is plausible, eight is easy to acquire. Nine is urgent, and ten is guarantee. I just want to point this out. So if people use this as a checklist every time they're sitting down and they're going to make an offer to someone to buy their stuff or visit their website or whatever the call to action is, this could be for profit or it could be raising money for a chair. If they really went through this, what do you think this would actually do in terms of increasing the possibility and chances that they're going to have success with people taking them up on their offer?

Oh, my gosh. I just wrote a sales letter the other night and I actually took out the same presentation that I have right in front of me right now, because I can't remember everything that's in my book or anything I've ever written. So I actually took this out. I have it bound in a binder. I took it out and I went through everything and I'm like, oh, guess what? You know what? I don't know if this is urgent enough. And I had to go back into my offer and rewrite it. These are things you have to do. If you're only doing one or two of these at an offer, it's not enough. It's not enough.

Gotcha. If someone has never really sat down and written a sales letter before and they've got a business idea, say they're already in business, but it's not where they know their business purpose or life purpose really is, and they want to start something new, I think a great exercise if someone wants to get into a new business or sell a new item or sell something, is to sit down and write the sales letter first. And don't worry about it being perfect. Sometimes you have to have the silly thoughts in to order to get to the great thoughts. You just sit down and write. And that's one of the recommendations I make to people. Just write the Darn letter. You know, I have an idea. I want to sell this, I want to sell that. Do you have a sales letter? No, but I have this great idea. I have one friend and she has, I swear, the nicest, sweetest person. And she has this idea, I won't. I don't want to publicly mention her because she listens to all my interviews and I don't want to irritate her too much. She may know who I'm talking about.

I think I do.

She has this idea to really help a lot of people become more aware of who it is they are. And she's got this message she's been talking about and it's got a symbol attached to it and everything. And she, I've said, sit down and just record an audio about what does it do for a person, have that transcribed, turn it into sales letter, sit down and write a letter about what this is, what it'll do for people. And I've known her from, for years and she has gone to seminar after seminar after seminar and knowing me, I've taken her to $10,000 a person, events and stuff, and she has not produced anything. I mean, she has an idea and it's never gone beyond. She has nothing to sell. She has a lot of stuff she talks about. She's so sweet and she's so caring, but she just doesn't put anything together, including anything that will sell it. I think it's a fundamental psychological fear of success, but beyond that, and I know I may sound like I'm rambling, the point is, I think a lot of people just are in that space in varying degrees and, you know, what do you do with that? I think they should just sit down and write a letter or do the, you know, talk the letter into a recorder if they can't do it any other way and get it transcribed. But what are your thoughts on that sort of stuff?

Absolutely. And you know, and the funny part is that before I actually put a picture point on a product or even develop a product fully, I get the sales letter written first because that's where all the ideas come from. And as you're writing the letter, you're going to think about, oh, you know, what else would be a great benefit in here is this. And so you add that into the letter. So people do it wrong. They think they actually have to make their product first and get a price point on it. Then they write the copy to fit the product, but that's wrong. Write the sale letter, then develop the product to exceed the Expectations of the sales letter.

That is awesome. You said it more eloquently than I certainly attempted to do. The point I want to make in that you just said is that when you write the copy, the copy creates a better product. The copy creates a better service. Part of selling something or creating a new business or starting something has to do with, with canning and cloning, what's in your head, what's about it, why you think it's so valuable, what the offer is. And if you do that, you will end up with a better product. And like you said, you can actually create the product to exceed what the copy is. And then you're in the situation of under promising and over delivering, which is usually not the experience that most people have right today.

Gosh, today it's so much easier to start a business than any other time ever because of the Internet, right? Because you have access to every single one of your competitors. You can see what's working, right? People, again, the entrepreneurs, they make this mistake, they call up their buddy and they say, oh, will you cop me on your product? I'm going to start something like that. Cop me on your product. That's the wrong thing to do. You subscribe to your competitors, then you watch what they do, you watch their sales funnel, right? And then you know what you do? You do the same thing. You do what, you do it better, cheaper and faster. That's how you beat your competition, right? You don't go and ask people to comp you on things. You pay for them, you look at them, you study them. Then you do it better, faster and cheaper.

That's great. That's great. You said it's easier to start a business right now than any other time. And a lot of people time we're actually doing this interview. There's this recession going on. There's this economy situation. And I was interviewing, interviewing Steven Pierce a couple weeks ago and he said a lot of people are like, well, when's the recession going to be over? When's the recession going to be over? And he's like, the better question is, when are you going to be over the recession? It's here. What's going on is what's going on and how much you internalize it has to do with you. So with all of the things that people could use as excuses as to why not start a business or why not to do this, why not not to do that? I mean, you're a woman that I've absolutely known to just abolish any of that sort of nonsense. In your thinking and having a mindset that, hey, I'm going to go out and make things happen no matter what. So what advice and suggestions would you have with anyone that is dealing with maybe let's say like our friend Steven Pressfield in the War of Art talks about resistance. When people have resistance, how do you suggest they overcome it?

I mean, again, it goes back to this mindset. You've got to be a bull in a bear market, right? I mean, a recession is the greatest opportunity. When you look at the biggest companies in the world that were started during recessionary times, it's amazing. And I don't know, I went to look this up last night, but I didn't get there. Joe, what do you think the average salary is in the United States right now?

Oh man, I don't even know. That's a good question. You know, probably 20, 30,000, maybe 40,000.

On the high side, right?

Yeah.

So, you know, I walked away from a salary paying job, you know, 10 times that during the worst recession, during the worst market, you know, housing market, during the highest unemployment because one, I needed to do this, but two, I knew I could make it successful. Right? So you've got to, you know, so what I would tell people is you've got to go out there and you test your idea first, right? You don't go out, you don't spend all this money. The beautiful thing about being online is you can test your idea, you can test your copy. You don't have to invest thousands and thousands of dollars into something that's not going to perform. Go out there and put up a few PPC campaigns and see if your idea resonates. Another big mistake people do is they don't research their market. Is your market, is it a viable business? I love the idea of doing something you're passionate about. But I will tell you this and I'm going to tell you really honestly, as passionate as I am about this new business, if I didn't think it was going to be a marketable business, I wouldn't be in it.

Then it just becomes a hobby and something you do, it doesn't become a business, right?

But like I said, I left a job that I was making a lot of money for this. So I know I will make this successful and I know my audience. The best thing that you can do, and you did this too, Jo, is be a part of your target audience, right? As a working mother, I've been a working mother for 11 years. Do you think I know what goes through the minds of working mothers. Do you think that I know about guilt and being overwhelmed and how to get over that? Do you think that I know all the other sites and the businesses out there that are targeting working moms right now? Of course I do. You need to know your audience intimately. Make sure there's a business. Go after it, test it, before you put in money. Years ago, if you wanted to start a publishing company, think about what you'd have to invest in. You'd have to invest in a plant, in machines, in skilled workers who understand how to run those printing presses. You know what I mean? Now we've got this great opportunity.

No, you're absolutely right. And what I got out of everything you just said is that you have this really important skill, this really important, I guess you would call it, attribute is confidence. You left your position that was paying you a tremendous amount of money doing something that you really enjoyed, that you were really great with, with working around amazing people because you said, I knew I could do it because you had confidence. And that is what the study this interview and hopefully all my genius network interviews are literally a dose of confidence in an area of business talking to very smart people. And that's why it's so important to build and develop that confidence. And you develop that through learning it and focusing on it. You're simply laying out a roadmap here of here's what to do and how to do it. That's what doing you're. Your website exists for. So if anyone is out there and they're like, oh, I'm worried about it, well, hey, what's going to build your confidence? What's going to allow you to do it? And going back to your friend who spent time setting up an office and then spending the first six weeks decorating it and not going out for the things that are making money. Six weeks, guess what? There's no sales, there's no revenue. You got a really pretty place. But you're completely lacking confidence because you've not instilled the behavior. They're going to produce the result. So I think that's such an important point. I know one of the things that you want to do for working moms is fill them with belief, fill them with skill, fill them with capabilities, fill them with confidence. If a woman is out there right now that has never started a business, she knows that she wants to do something, but she doesn't even know where to start. I mean, I'm kind of of asking in a different way. You've already kind of laid it Out. I just want to really reiterate this point. What is the first thing that she should do?

You should go. I mean, just do something really simple. Go to Google, plug in your business idea, look at the number of hits per month. And if you're starting out right, because there's kind of different metrics for different places you are in business. If you're just starting out, you kind of want to be in that 1,000 to 5,000amonth that at least that amount of people have been on Google looking for it. If you're a little further apart, then your sweet spot is probably 10,000, 50,000. So go out there and see if there's a market. If no one else is doing it, there's a reason why. So you don't want to be the first in any market.

Can I say something to that? Because so many people you've heard this probably thousands of times in your career. It's like, I want to do this because no one else is doing it. You just want to be like, do you think that maybe one of the reasons no one else is doing it is because the market has no interest in it?

Right, right. Again, remember we talked about earlier, it's not what you think, it's what resonates with the market. You don't create products because you think the market needs them. Again, we don't want a market that needs. That's what things like Termite exterminator for. That's a need market. Somebody needs that.

You know what I mean?

Great. What you're creating most info products are wants. You're touching someone's emotion.

Exactly, Exactly. Okay, so go to Google, do some.

Research, see all that, then start, then start writing your sales letter. Start looking at your competitors. Look at your competitors. Maybe instead of starting a brand new company, you might go to a competitor and say, hey, can I give you an essay for your newsletter? Or I've got this product, let me test it in your newsletter first. We didn't even get to joint ventures, which is a whole other call. But there are so many ways to test your idea before you start it. But putting up a website, gosh, it's going to cost you a couple hundred bucks in a week. You can test your idea first, get it out there and just start. Info businesses are the best businesses in the world. I really go through that pretty much very methodically in changing the channel. Exactly what steps you're going to take as far as researching your niche and testing and writing your sales letter and developing a product.

Yeah. And you have. You've laid out a map in your book, changing the channel. And I know that's so much of the focus on working moms, only specifically for that market and for working moms. And you said a great word, which I think everyone should write down and they should post it. You should get even a little. You should get a little label and put it on your mobile phone. You should put it on your computer, you should put it on your mirror. You should write the word start. Because the bottom line is this. There is no perfect way. You're never going to have everything completely laid out. And people are waiting for that magical day. They've heard the cliche a million times. Life is not a dress rehearsal. And look at how many people never realize their dreams, never create value for the world because they're always preparing before they step out on stage. And there's always going to be things that are incomplete. But you got to start. Like Gary Halbert said, the late Gary Halbert, you always accomplish more through movement than you will through meditation. So there comes a point where you want to think, you want to lay it out, you want to plan. But you can plan yourself and analyze yourself to nowhere and get nothing accomplished.

And that's the whole resistance things, right? It's a lot easier. It's actually easier to look for office space or to get business cards printed than it is to sit down and write letters. Most people will work on what's easiest for them. And if you want a successful business, you've got to step out of your comfort zone. You have to. One of the best. I listened to a call a couple weeks ago with Tony Robbins, and this is something I've always believed in. But you've got to work on your business every day. The beauty about having a business that is working and profitable is that then you have the flexibility. You don't have to work all the hours, but when you're starting a business, it's serious and you need to take it that way. One of my things that I vow to my customers is I'm never going to work in my pajamas. I get up, I work out, I start dress, I shower, I start because I take my business seriously.

That is really, really good advice. It's a different perspective on it, too. It's just not sitting around looking like a bum. So you're not a big fan of the make money at home in your underwear sort of thing?

I'm really not. I mean, I'm a big fan in living a life that's balanced and successful. But you know, again, like, you know, people are spending money, you know, they're paying money, they're spending their time. And that's, you know, I take the commitment very seriously. I mean, I've seen it. I've seen this over and over again. I look at people I know in this world and I see the people who are all complaining about why am I not as successful as Rich Sheffrin or why am I not as successful as Joe Polish? Well, you know why? Because you get up when you feel like getting up. You don't have a plan for the day. You don't really get anything done. That's why, you know, when you're an entrepreneur, you've got to. It may be because I've had so many years of corporate experience that when I went to Forbes and I ran Times and Mirror magazines and craziness business, I went in there feeling very obligated to these people and I wanted to do a great job. And so I run my business the same way. And most entrepreneurs do not run their business as seriously as if they were working for someone else and had the fear of being fired and not making their mortgage payments.

That is such great, great advice. And I love the way you describe it. It is a real business. You want it to be fun, you want it to be enjoyable. But at the same time, if you don't take it seriously, it's never going to get off the ground.

Yeah.

And I would recommend if someone really is challenged with starting, read the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It's fantastic. Steven is a friend of mine and it's just awesome. But that's great. Let me ask you about this. With the limited time we have, Mary Ellen, you wrote a great article on your website, Working Moms Only, which is three simple rules for making million dollar deals. And I think for someone starting out or for an entrepreneur, I'm going to email this article over to Richard Brandt him because I think he'll really like it because I think this is the way he operates in many ways. And you have three rules. The first rule is know the person behind the business. The second rule is only make deals that will benefit your customer. And the third rule is only make deals that will benefit your organization. I'd like you to briefly talk about these three rules because I think they are fantastic and I think if someone from this day forward really took this sort of approach, as you build and grow your business, it will just make it a lot easier for you. So the first one is know the person behind the business. What do you mean by that?

Well, you don't do business with businesses, right? You don't do business with another business. You do business with a person. Right? When I do business with Verona Marketing, Joe, I'm doing business with you. So for me, it was so important to know you, to know your values, your mission. You know, it's very important that you deal with people who share the same values in business. It's going to be a real deal breaker. You're not going to get anything done. So before I do business with anybody, I meet them in person. If there's been a couple times where that hasn't happened. And you know what? It's always come back to bite me. I remember. And even people that I get great references from, I think that Jeff Walker is a great example. Rich Sheffrin was me. You've got to meet Jeff. He's got a great product. He'd be great for your conferences. And I said, well, I don't know Jeff. I'm not going to just. I've never seen Jeff. I've never met him, even though I've heard he's great. I'm not going to just have him come and speak at my conference. So, you know, Rich called Jeff and Jeff was like, called me and said, please come out to my conference. I'll fly you out. Like, you know, let's just meet, we'll talk. And I did that. I flew out. You know, I live in Boca. I flew out to Colorado. I met with Jeff. I saw him speak. I saw the people behind his organization. You know, three weeks later, he was speaking at my conference. Right. I mean, it's the same thing, you know, with Tim Ferriss, you know, that I was introduced to him via email through David Cross. And Tim and I, you know, had a nice phone conversation. We realized we were both going to be in New York, you know, two weeks later, and boom, we're having breakfast. And then he ended up writing an etr, Right? I mean, he, you know, but I always make sure that I believe in the person behind the company.

Yeah, that's such good advice, because so many people, they just don't take the time to really get to know someone. And, you know, it could take a lifetime to build a great reputation. And like my friend Dave Kekich said, a moment of stupidity to destroy it. So get to know the people behind the organization and, you know, make sure they're the real deal. Make sure they're awesome people. And secondly, even if they are, your second rule is only make make deals. With that will benefit your customers, because you can have a really great person that has a great product, but it may not be a real fit for what it is that you're doing. Your second rule, only make deals that will benefit your customer. Could you elaborate on that?

Yeah. And it's funny because again, a lot of entrepreneurs have a problem with this. They have a lot of friends and they just want to help them out and they want to do things, but it's got to benefit your customers. I mean, I remember a couple summers ago, somebody came to me with a product that I knew. The copy was great. The copy was great, and I knew we could sell it out the wazoo. But I looked at the product and I said, this product does not meet the promises in this copy. This product is not good for my customers. So I passed on the deal. And, gosh, through the summer, I kept hearing from other affiliates and JV partners that this person had, and they were bragging about how much money they were making from this. But then by the end of the summer, the refunds were like 60, 65%, 70%. So when you have refunds like that, you are destroying your credibility. You are ruining your relationship with your customers. So, yeah, I could have made money, but it would have been really bad for my customers. So I passed on the deal.

That's so sound. That is so sound. And a lot of people, if you've not experienced that sort of situation, if you are flippant about this, I can assure you you will come across a period of time where you're overly trusting or you don't do enough due diligence and you don't really think that your clients are real human beings. They're not just a big herd of mindless idiots that are buying stuff from you. I mean, they're real human beings. And if you don't take care of them, they will abandon you and they will say very bad things about you in the abandonment process. Process. And people for years have always like, how can you keep selling things to the cleaning industry? I mean, haven't you gone to another niche? You're going to cream the best people in the very beginning, and then they're going to go to the bottom feeders. And I mean, there's all this weird terminology that people use to describe markets, and part of it is just continually creating value and not introducing things to people that aren't going to help them. So I really. Even if there's money to be made, some money is not good money, because in the long run, it will destroy or undermine the value of the relationship. So only do things that will continue to add value and create value. And that's what this article describes, which is why everyone really needs to go and read it and just print it out. I think this is not only a great read, but it's something that people can always use as a reference to go back to whenever they're doing deals. So the third rule says, only make deals that will benefit your organization. What do you mean by that?

Well, one of my very favorite business books is Good to Great by Jim Collins, Right. Probably one of the best business books ever written. And in that book, he talks about what it takes to be a level five leader. And when you're a level five leader, you will do anything for the good of your company. And I say that, of course, with caveats. Right. But let's just take for example, that your best friend says, I know you need a vendor that sells hats really cheap that you can put a logo on. Well, that's what my husband does. Can you interview him for that position? Or could you buy the hats from him? And basically, of course, you go through the process and you look at this person's company. But at the end of the day, if your best friend's husband is not the best person for that job, you've got to pass on it. You've got to go with the vendor who's going to give your company the best quality, the best value. You just can't do favors that are going to be bad for your company. If you could use that person because it is the best person for the job or the position, the project, great. But if they are not the absolute best person that you would have chosen, then you should not choose them. You do what's best for your organization.

Awesome.

And it's hard. It's hard. I came to etr and at that time, we only had a staff of 12. And these were nice people, but I had to go in there and I fired. Out of 12 people, I fired five of them. And Michael Masterson said to me, I knew they needed to go, but I just can't fire people. So it's just one of those things that I don't like. I don't like firing people. It's the worst thing you ever have to do. But you do it with respect and you do it so that person has their dignity. But you have to do it. You have to do what is best for your company because you have an obligation to everyone else in your organization and to your customers.

Do you think that had one of the reasons why you grew ETR from 8 million to 26 million in literally 15 months?

Absolutely. You bring in the right people. Who was it, Bill Gates or Jack Welch? Right. It's all about the people. It's all about the people. And I talk about this all the time. Ideas are useless until you put them into action. Well, you could have great ideas and great marketing, but if you don't have the right people implementing that in your company, your company is not going to flourish.

Let me ask you about that too, in the limited time we have left here, because there are a lot of people, and I've used this as an excuse myself, and I'm just curious to how you would respond to this, where you have really, really nice, caring people in your organization, but you find yourself second guessing yourself or questioning if they're doing a good job or not. And then the question becomes, well, let's just use me as an example. Is it me as an entrepreneur or is it the person? Obviously it could be a combination of both. But what is your criteria of knowing when you don't have someone on the right that's not the right person on the. I mean, what are the indicators that a lot of people rationalize and justify ways so that they don't have to fire someone or get rid of them? Any tips or suggestions on that?

You know, I mean, to me, relationships all come down to respect, first of all, right? And I see this all the time, that the people who usually aren't doing a great job are usually the people. Sure, they can be a nice, good person, but they're not really, they're coming in just, you know, maybe five minutes late, you know, they're taking longer lunches, they're talking on the phone. They're not taking your business seriously. You know, and so like everyone is always like, well, how can you fire that person? They need this job. But look at them. Look at what they're doing. You know, if they need the job, they come in early, they do everything they can to make sure that they are becoming a superstar in your business. You know, I joke about this because I got that nickname, cut the money honey, you know, in this world because I could make money. And at first, you know, I was a little insulted, but then I said, you know what? It's good to be the money honey, right? It is good person who can bring in money to a company because when you can do that, you have. And I hate this word, but I don't know a better word right now. You have a certain amount of power, Right. When you're bringing in that money. And that power lends to things like, you know, more time off, higher paychecks, you know, flexibility. Right. Because you know what you're doing. And I don't like, you know, I'm not a big stickler on work hours. I'm a big stickler on getting the job done. And I don't care if people are doing it when they're doing it. If they're getting it done, they're getting it done and that's fine. But when people aren't getting it done and they're not taking it seriously, they're not respecting you. So you can't have any relationship without that respect.

Such, such sound advice. I love the line. Are they becoming a superstar in your business? And if not, then you simply need to either have a real godfather talk with them or you need to get rid of them because you're not helping yourself and you're certainly not helping them. That's awesome.

Most entrepreneurs don't like to buy people and they don't like coaching it. So what they'll do is they'll let it go, let it go, let it go. Then they'll just blow up. And this person's like, what? It's been going on for six months. I don't see what the problem is. So you nip it in the butt, you nip it right away. And somebody should be on their best behavior when they find start. If they're starting with you and they're coming in late and they've got emergency here, emergency there, it's only going to go downhill from there.

Yeah, you're right. The whole saying rotting food in the refrigerator does not get better with age. It gets worse.

Right, right, right, exactly.

So the whole rotten roots create rotten fruit. So that's good. Even if you're listening and you don't even have a team right now in the process of building a team, this will totally make the difference. Mary Ellen, I want to do a follow up interview with you. Obviously, I'd like the listeners of Genius Network to give me their feedback on what they thought of this. You are so filled with so much knowledge. You are just one of the sharpest entrepreneurs that I know. You are a full blown, focused, direct response marketer and I know that you are going to help literally tens of thousands and millions, most likely of women with working moms only. So, famous last words, anything else you'd like to leave people with for now? Because I know this is just the Start. I hope people go and visit your website. I hope they read your book. I'm certainly going to get this interview out to all of my subscribers and I will give my subscribers permission to share this interview with anyone that they think would benefit from it. Male or female. Female. And to think about different women that exist in your life. Working moms that would so benefit on so many ways by sharing this interview because you're not only helping them, you're helping their children, you're helping their children's children. So the message and the information that you've shared I think is critical and so beneficial. Famous last words.

Invest in yourself every single day. Do something that's going to benefit your life, whether it's reading a great book or listening to a great CD or watching a dvd. But when you invest in yourself, you have it forever. So, I mean, that's something I live by.

Awesome. Awesome. Okay, so workingmomsonly.com any other things that they should do to find out more information about yours? Pretty much all there.

It's all there. Go to workingmomsonly.com, sign up. I have a free newsletter that goes out twice a week on my board. I'll just mention this on my panel of experts. I've got spectacular women like Marielle Hemingway and Ellie Drake and Joyce Bone. And we just have a panel of experts that you're going to hear from as well. So with the two issues a week, I'm there. It's me on Monday and then on Thursday it'll be one of my guest panelists.

That is awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. You're doing great stuff. I really love always talking with you and doing the interview. So, Mary Ellen, Trippy, thank you so much and have yourself a wonderful day. And to all of our listeners, start put it into action. Make it happen. Go read the simple rules for making millions of dollar deals on Mary Ellen's website right now. And please keep us informed of your success. Thank you.