Right Offer = Easier Marketing (I Love Marketing LIVE) with Joe Polish and Dean Jackson - I Love Marketing Episode #471

Hello everyone. We should do our jingle.

Dean, I'm Dean Jackson. He's Joe Polish. And this is the I Love Marketing Podcast. Yeah, that's such a great, like, anchor. It was just long enough that the moment you get sick of it, it's done anyway.

Yeah.

So for everyone that's listening and watching live, if we cared more, we would have had that jingle totally set up and prepped it for this.

If we weren't ADHD, we would have had someone with executive function make a checklist note. So maybe we could do that. Whoever's in charge of, uh, that, let's bring back the theme tune for next time.

Okay, so Dean, um, now for everyone that's watching, we're at the— I'm at the Genius Network headquarters in Tempe, Arizona. Dean is in Florida sitting behind a Zoom screen at his house where it says, uh, horse for sale right behind him. And I'll have you explain that, what that even means a little bit later, Dean. And welcome to the I Love Marketing, uh, podcast. If you are new to this, uh, go ahead and subscribe. I do want to suggest if Anyone wants an amazing education in marketing. We've had people that have become millionaires that have never bought anything from me and Dean, just from listening to the I Love Marketing podcast. Even Aaron here, who you've listened to so many of them. And how many of you got introduced to me or Dean through I Love Marketing? That was your first introduction, right? And so, thank you. And so what we started doing, me and Dean had a conversation back in, I think it was 2009, I believe, I don't even think it was 2010 yet, and we had this great conversation about marketing, and I remember saying to Dean, I go, "Imagine if other business owners actually heard what we had just talked about, how useful that would be." And that's where I said, "Let's start a podcast." And back then, I actually registered the website, ihatemarketing.com, because there's a lot of people that they hate marketing because they've never figured out how to make it work. So I was like, if we could actually teach people how to love marketing, and why would you love anything? Well, because it's actually benefiting you in life. And if it's not benefiting you or you feel like you're getting taken advantage of, you actually hate it. So I was like, let's use I hate marketing. And then people would come to that website and it would say, do you hate marketing because of this, this, and this? Um, if so, let's teach you how to love marketing. But then I ended up buying ilovemarketing.com. Back then it cost me $3,000 to buy that website from somebody. And we ended up just doing it. And what I said to Dean though, I go, if you could, those of you that have been in business long enough, you can remember back in 2010, uh, completely different world in marketing. Okay. And, uh, I think Facebook, you know, was finally going outside of colleges probably around, I don't know, 2008 or something like that. And I had my first website in 1996. If you go to the Wayback Machine, you can see my very, it's hysterical. It's a big, piranha marketing fish and stuff. And so I said to Dean, I go, let's give away better stuff on I Love Marketing than what other people are charging for. And I said, let's not try to sell anything until people start complaining that I don't understand what you guys are doing. Why are you teaching this? And so if you go back to the original comments back in 2010, we did— how many episodes did we do before we even started plugging anything? Do you remember?

I think it was March, right? End of March before people started cluing in or saying, because the comments we were getting was, this is better than stuff I've paid for.

Yeah.

Or whatever. That was early on. But then March, it was, you know, what are you, what are you up to here? Where's the, where's the beef? What are you going to pitch?

No. And people started complaining. They're like, I don't understand what you guys are doing. You're teaching us how to sell and market, but then you're not trying to sell us anything. And I go, that's exactly what we want. Because once you do that, people trust you. And they're like, oh, you're trying to be helpful. So part of it is how do you sell what it is you're selling? You actually demonstrate value. And if you're selling is not about money, it's a philanthropy, or you're— we got some amazing comedy writers in the back. And if your job is to make people laugh, invite them to the show, make them laugh, and you know what? They want to keep laughing. So whatever people are looking for. People are looking for a feeling. And if you can make them feel good, they will keep coming to you. People love to be sold. They hate to be pressured. So if you can actually set up the selling in a way that does that, that is very valuable. And so me and Dean come from very similar backgrounds. Both of us learned a lot from Gary Halbert and Jay Abraham. And, you know, these people became our friends. And we also— he was in real estate, I was in carpet cleaning. And I would say that if, if you have to figure out how to sell something nobody wants to buy with carpet cleaning, because has anyone ever been excited about your cat or your dog peeing on the carpet and then calling a carpet cleaner? Like, no one, right? So I had to figure out how successfully sell something nobody wants to buy. And I used education-based marketing in order to do it. Before the internet existed, I used direct mail, I used consumer awareness guides, I used 24-hour free recorded messages, which I called ELF marketing. It's easy, lucrative, and fun. And, and I would say this over and over again, everyone here has probably heard me say it, uh, selling is what you do when you're on the phone or face-to-face with somebody. Marketing is what you do to get someone on the phone or face-to-face with you properly positioned so by the time you're talking to them or they're talking to you or one of your team members, they're pre-interested, pre-motivated, pre-qualified, and predisposed to give you money. So marketing is selling in advance. It is literally positioning yourself so by the time people come across you, they actually know you. They have some level of respect and rapport with you. And there's a big difference between believability and credibility. How many of you consider what you sell, what you do, your expertise, your very very credible, like you've done the work, you know your stuff. Okay, how many of you have ever seen people that are in similar categories than you that have no credibility at all, and many that are con artists that have made a lot of money? Yeah, so why is that? Because believability, unfortunately, is more important than credibility in some cases. That's why you see propaganda be being so effective. If you can make people believe lies, they will still be taken in by, you know, by, uh, false prophets by all kinds of shit. And so in a lot of ways, marketing is propaganda, but the intention behind it, right? So it's like, what is your intention behind it? And I've, right here, sitting right here, I have this great interview with Robert Cialdini, who's the top influence, you know, doctor expert in the world, wrote the book Influence. I had BJ Fogg, the professor at Stanford who runs the Stanford Behavior Lab. He's one of the, top professors on behavior, you know, and habits. He wrote the book Tiny Habits, which the year it came out, it was chosen as the best business book of the year from Amazon. James Clear has learned from BJ Fogg, who wrote Atomic Habits. Nir Eyal, who wrote Hooked and many other books, learned from BJ Fogg. So I had BJ Fogg, and then I had Chris Voss, who wrote Never Split the Difference. He's actually one of our Genius Network members. And he, you know, I had the top negotiation expert, the top, behavior expert and the top influence guy in the world. Uh, and I did this interview and one of the parts of that interview I really like is the ethical use of persuasion and influence in negotiation. How do you actually use these skills, but you don't take advantage of people? Cause you're always going to make more money in the, uh, in the, in the transformation business versus the transaction business. So that being said, Adine, what I'd like to do is I'd like you to Aim offers. And let's walk everyone through how to create a— call it an irresistible offer, a powerful offer, uh, because only the hungriest fish snap at the crappiest bait, which is what Gary Halbert would say. So if you are not attracting in the type of clients you want, uh, what is the bait that you're using in the fishing, and how are you positioning yourself in advance? So let's talk about all that.

Yeah, exactly. You know, it, that's almost like, um, I'm excited about starting back up here because it feels like we've had enough of a break that we're like a whole new generation of people coming into the whole I Love Marketing world. And we laid so much foundation in the first 100 episodes of, of I Love Marketing. Uh, there's so much, so much depth to it. Uh, but starting Now, if you're, you know, kind of introducing this, the concepts of marketing, the number one thing that we're trying to do is trying to connect with people who need a product or service that you offer that's going to provide some kind of a transformation or some kind of a result for somebody. That's why we're doing anything. It's not just about buying stuff or selling stuff. And there's no magic to the— there's no magic words that are going to make somebody, you know, buy and be happy about something that isn't going to get a result. You can trick people into thinking that this is going to be the thing that gets the result that you're looking for. But the very best thing that you can do is actually have a product or service that creates a great win for your prospects, the people that you're trying to serve. And the number one thing that can improve your marketing is having an offer that they will be confident is going to get the result that they want. That's why I always start with when you think about something, our come from for crafting something is we don't start with what are the words or what are the postcards or what are the headlines that we do. We start with the core of the what would be a dream come true for your client? What would be a dream come true for the hero target that you're trying to attract. And when you start with that, if you can solve that problem, you can give them the benefit that they're going— the outcome that they're going to get. The more confidence you have in that, your ability to deliver that result, the more compelling offer that you're going to be able to make. I always say to people, listen, if you can Safe. You can start your thinking about this with a guidance question of what would you do if you only got paid if your client gets a result? Start with what are you capable of delivering, right? What do you have proof that you can actually do? And there's a difference between having a proposition where you're saying, let me show you how to do something that you haven't done yet, and maybe you'll get a result, maybe you won't, and something that you have proven and you've been demonstrably able to get a result for, for people repeatedly, and you have the confidence to know that they are going to get the result that you're promising. That's the best thing that you could focus on to start your marketing journey, right? Is always start with— you're really looking to match outcomes with the people who have the biggest need for that outcome or would benefit from it the most. It's so funny. One of the ways that I think about this, Joe Polish Polish, is I have been doing a lot of thinking about how people are approaching, especially in B2B situations, that I imagine them going to the purchasing department of a company. And they're trying to pitch them and get a purchase order to hopefully deliver a future result through a product or service that will be delivered later. They're trying to get people— you have to convince them enough to give you the money in advance to get the result that, that they're looking for. And you're in line with everybody else who's trying to get that same money from that group. And there's usually only one or two people in a company that are authorized to make those purchase order decisions. But if you think about it, and if you go around to the back and you approach a company from the receiving dock, you're met with open arms. There's no friction. There's no delay at the receiving dock. Every company, metaphorically, every person in it is 100% authorized to bring money into the business. And when you can focus and position what you're doing for people as a delivery of a greater outcome than what they're paying for, it's a, you know, that's the greatest place to come from. Do you remember how Gary Halbert used to always talk about that there's no bad way to convey good news, really? Like if you think about it, you know, you go in, it's not about the special words that you're saying. Like if you, you know, if somebody's having a baby and they're in a meeting, an important meeting, and you walk in and you have to interrupt the meeting and convey the news that your wife's at the hospital and just had the baby. Congratulations. There's no bad way to say that, right? So when you convey a message that I always laugh, like, if you take it to the far end, if you can get to where you have the confidence in what you're conveying to people that they receive your call as if you're driving the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol van and you're pulling up outside their, their office or their house to unload all the prizes that they've just won. That's the level of confidence and enthusiasm that translates. And that's, that's really what helps marketing the very most is having a great offer for people. And that's timeless.

Well, let me ask you then, because I want to get your definition of, of marketing. I'll give my definition first. There's many definitions because out of all the many people I've interviewed over the years and people we've interviewed on I Love Marketing, we've asked a lot of people to define marketing. What is it? And there's all kinds of ways. I'd like you today to also give your definition of brand because I think— because we did a whole episode years ago called Branding Equals Bullshit because so much— you can't deposit name recognition in the bank. You can only deposit money or Bitcoin or whatever. Yeah, that's it. But you have a great way of looking at branding. But marketing is the quickest path to the sale. And sometimes you don't— if you don't add multiple steps, the marketing won't work. A lot of times people will leave something out that is critical in order to make it work. So, uh, there's a thing called patience, which some people don't have. Uh, and, and that does not mean the same as losing money, even though sometimes you could go negative. Uh, so, and then anything you put in front of somebody, uh, is marketing. So if you put, um, a lousy offer in front of somebody there, they may not respond. If you put a great offer in front of the wrong list based on what Brian was saying earlier, you know, the, the, the, the, the quality of the message, the list. And then Gary Halbert, um, we used to talk about, uh, all the time, 3 things you need in order to sell something. You need a product or service, you need a sales pitch or marketing message, and then you need a delivery system. And what I found when I was first a carpet cleaner is like, I got a carpet cleaning business, how do I tell people about it? I didn't know there was this thing in the middle of like, uh, well, what is the pitch? What is the message? Is it compelling? And Dean Jackson has has this amazing line worth writing down. This is his line, not mine. He says, a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. So what is the compelling offer? So marketing is anything that you put in front of somebody. The question is, what are you putting in front of them? Is it a book? Is it a podcast? It is a webinar? Is it, you know, is it SEO? Is it a direct mail piece? Are you on ChatGPT and people are looking for, you know, a house cleaner, whatever. What is it? And so how would you— that's my thoughts of marketing. And the point is there's not just one definition. There's many different ways to think about it. But those are some of the ways I think about it. So how about you? And then I love—

I mean, I am in total agreement with your definition of marketing. And I think that often people get that confused. You mentioned brand, that people often get that confused and they think that brand is marketing. And for years, I'd never heard a definition, anybody be able to define what a brand is, or, you know, you say you got to get your brand or establish your brand. And it wasn't until I saw Ray Dalio has a great video on YouTube about how the economy works. And it was very interesting to me because he talked about defining the entire economy is based on microtransactions between one person and another person where they're buying or selling, exchanging money for goods and services. So when they talk about the size of a market for something, they're talking about just the aggregate of all of those microtransactions. So if they talk about the auto market, that's just an aggregate number of all the individual microtransactions of one person selling one car to another person. And I thought that unlocked something for me because we often, when we think about branding, we think about the scope of things because the examples that we point to as the most valuable or powerful brands are brands like Coca-Cola, which is widely regarded as the, the most powerful brand, or Budweiser as a beer, as the, the most powerful brand. And what I realized from thinking about what Roy, or what Ray Dalio was talking about, is that for most of us, who have regional or local or even micro-local businesses. It's not about creating this big reach or scope of brand. It's— what's really important is that the brand is established in the individual minds that matter. And so, when I look at that, I started thinking about, well, what is it that we're actually trying to establish? So I came up with an acronym for brand, which is that we're trying to establish a buying reflex affecting now decisions. That's what we're trying to establish. The only time brand has a proven value, the only utility value of a brand is that in the moment where they need to make a decision about that particular good or service, their reflex is your brand. And I, you know, to give you an example of that, if you say, that's why if people walk into a restaurant or they walk into a bar and they say, what we have, and they say, I'll have a Bud, that's the most, that's the brand, the reflex that people have, that they've established in the minds of more people than any other brand. But if we were to go to, to, uh, Poughkeepsie, and we were to go to a microbrewery in Poughkeepsie, and they've got a Poughkeepsie Pale Ale, that in the minds of people around Poughkeepsie, they may have established a buying reflex of, what would you like? I'll have a, I'll have a Poughkeepsie Pale. That's a, that's just as valuable, more valuable in that moment, in that individual mind than all of the money and all of the stuff that Budweiser has spent to get that brand broadly established. What's most important is we need to get that buying reflex established. In the people that are most important to us. We want to do it in the minds of your exact target audience.

Yep.

So does that make sense? So Dean, how, how does one then, uh, come up with the most effective— call it brand, uh, USP, uh, offer? I mean, how does one, uh, bring the, uh, you know, bring the concept into what should we say, how should we say it as business owners when it comes to creating a compelling offer. And first, uh, can you, uh, can you do a quick flyover of what we've been teaching in I Love Marketing for years, which is before, during, and after? Uh, share that because I think it all makes sense for people to think of the, you know, that they break their business up into units and then maybe do an overview of the 8 profit activators, which by the way, everything I'm talking about, you can download a report. It doesn't sell a course, it doesn't sell anything. It's just educational. You can go to ilovemarketing.com and download it. I know many of you here in the room have already read it. It is called Breakthrough DNA, and you can download it on ilovemarketing.com. And so, and this describes what I'm asking Dean to kind of share right now, and this will give some context to, to to what you said with brand and then offers.

Yeah.

So, on a top level, what we're talking about with your business, the first thing that we do is we take your business. This is every business, by the way. This is universally applicable to all businesses. That's why we call it Breakthrough DNA. We look at these as little, the stem cells in every business that manifest differently in a chiropractic office than they do in a plumbing business or whatever your business is. But the, the concepts and the 8 Profit Activators are universally applicable. So at the top level, the first thing we do is we divide your business into 3 individual units and we call it the before unit, the during unit, and the after unit. And the during unit is what we're all most familiar with. That's the part of your business that helps people get the actual result that you're delivering for them. So from the moment they say, yes, I'd like to work with you, I'd like you to have me, I'd like you to come over and clean my carpets, that is the during unit starts. You go and you do the work and you, you know, have a relationship with them. You give them The invoice, they pay the invoice. That's the transactional element of your, of your business. Now, the after unit is nurturing lifetime relationships and orchestrating referrals with all the people that you've already done business with so that they continue to do business with you or they will introduce other people. Who want to do business with you. And we treat that as a separate business. Most of the time, the biggest problem that I see with most businesses, they're just so full steam ahead on just trying to keep the during unit going that they ignore people. Well, they already have their carpets cleaned. I don't need to keep in touch with them. I'm looking for new people. We're constantly going forward. Then in the before unit, the best way to think about it is that we treat it like a separate business that is a supplier to the during unit. And as a supplier, I mean, what they're supplying is people who want to get their carpets cleaned or people who want to sell their house or people who need chiropractic care, whatever it is that the before unit, the job is to go and find all the people that could potentially use your service, let them know, identify who they are, educate and motivate them, and make offers that are going to get them into doing business with you. So that's the before unit is where there's the forward driving leverage. This is where we can really look to scale your, your business. If you can figure out how to create an engine that delivers people to your during unit at velocity and at the scope of what you want, that's really the best thing. We would— metaphor we use is to create a prospect vending machine. And, you know, the prospect vending machine is very predictable in that you know exactly what you're going to get. And you put in the money and you push the button and out comes exactly what that is, you know, whatever product you put in position 1A in the vending machine. And so part of the mechanics of it is figuring out what's the best, what's the best client or best prospect for your best effort. For the thing that you can do in the during unit, who's going to be the best, most likely person to become a new customer? And then focus all of your effort on identifying those people.

Yep.

It's really, yeah.

Can I say this, Dean? Because I think this is, I mean, we've had lots of episodes where we talked about this, but I think it's worth inserting this in here. So Dean does a podcast with Dan Sullivan. I'm the one that got Dan into the podcast game back in 2012. We started 10xTalk, and, and look how big this whole 10x thing has become, right? So what, what I like is the question, who do you want to be a hero to? Which is Dan's question, right? And so So, if you sit and think about what Dean said earlier, what would be a dream come true for your hero market? Well, that also is predicated on, do you have a market you want to be a hero to? Because imagine trying to come up with a dream come true experience for a group of people you don't even like. How much enthusiasm and energy would you put into your business if your clients weren't aligned with you or you were selling something you weren't aligned with? So we can teach, like, we have been through this weird sort of process. I mean, everyone that's a marketer, Brian Kurtz, who's sitting in the back, you know, everybody where you, uh, have lost enthusiasm or steam for something because for whatever reason, you're just, you don't wake up every day wanting to be a hero to someone. And there are people that have become clients or they come to us and they will even say things, you know, like, how do we make this marketing work? My clients are a pain in the ass, or my clients suck. And it's just like, well, even if you give the best marketing strategy in the world to someone that hates their business, hates their clients, hates their life, how much of themselves are they really going to figure out and put into making this thing work? And in the, in the marketing world, it's called testing. In the real world, it's called failure. And if you don't have the ability to have the stamina in the beginning to test what works and what doesn't, if you don't want to be a hero to your clients or you don't really find where you're putting your time, attention, money, effort, and energy towards a group or a product or a service or an experience that is meaningful, you will figure out how to screw it up. You will figure out how to hate marketing. When in reality maybe the marketing was really great, you just are directing it at the wrong, uh, person, right? Because, um, how many of you ever, uh, have, uh, gotten a date with someone who turned out to be a nightmare? Yeah, either. And, and believe me, for every, every relationship you've been in where that you've had a breakup and your heart was broken and you went to a workshop in order to get over them, there's a good chance that they are going to a workshop to get over you. And so people cause pain to each other, and they have to figure out how to deal with the pain that they cause each other, the grief, the break. So the point is, use pickup lines on people that really you want to date and that they want to date you. There has to be a right fit thought about in advance before you deploy the most effective marketing. Well, yeah, so explain Horse for Sale.

That's exactly it. When you get so crystal clear on what the benefit is that you're offering, if it's great and people want it, this is one thing I always say, that sometimes the best way to sell a horse is with a sign that says horse for sale. You don't need to overcomplicate it. If you've got something, you talked about the book we did with Homer, Stop Your Divorce. It's crystal clear. I love marketing. You know, you're in the right place. We're gathering people who it does what it says on the tin. That's it's exactly what we're looking for. This was a gift from Nick Nanton, by the way. See Jackson Nanton Livestock. I did his podcast and we were talking about this concept and they sent me that sign, horse for sale. But it's so that's why I always try and get sometimes the simplest marketing is the very best thing that you can do. You know, if you're crystal clear.

Yeah, I was going to say, Dean, it's like if you remember like old school classified ads, right? Where they would have one word things like herpes, corns, warts, gonorrhea, you know, I mean, I know this sounds absolutely terrible. But it's like, you know, the, these, just these one-word things that happen to do with these medical conditions.

Hemorrhoids, you know what I mean?

It's like you don't need a headline, you kind of just need to say what it is. And so, uh, why do you think people overcomplicate things?

I think because they try and be marketers, you know, they're trying to use marketing and language to puff up what they're doing and it hides the substance of what it is like. That's why I say if you really have something that's amazing and you can convey what you have as simply as possible and it's something that people want, that's compelling. They're going to be compelled to take action because we always move towards what we actually want. And if you have to try and convince somebody to want what you have or to try and convince them to move away from what they really want, even if it's the best thing for them, that's a really interesting thing that sometimes if you just think like a chess master, and you start a conversation with the conversation that they want to have or what they're really interested in, then you have the opportunity to move them to an adjacent conversation, an adjacent idea. But you're joining in on something that they already want, what they think is the answer.

So, how do we best then engage wants? People don't do things, you know, that whole thing, find a need and fill it. I mean, it's more like find a want and fill it because there's a lot of things people need to do, but they don't do it. They do what they want.

Well, I think if you attach your, uh, so one of the greatest things, um, that, uh, one of the great, like, you know, archival, uh, you know, case studies or whatever that, that we had is I was working with, uh, a party rental company and they were, you know, a party rental company is not a sexy thing, but I asked them—

depends on the party.

Yeah, I mean, exactly what kind of party you're having, right? Uh, uh, so I asked them, because I always start this, what would be a dream come true? Who's— it's almost like the, the Dan Sullivan, what's your largest check, uh, client? Like, if I said, because we're starting something new, and this is a great little footnote for you, that when we're starting a before unit You're not at all limited to what you've already done. You can, you're trying to get new people so you can focus on whatever you want. But I asked them, what would be the best thing if we could get anybody? What would be your dream client? And they said, if we get an outdoor wedding, that's like the jackpot because you get the tents and the generators and tables and linens and lighting and all of it, right? And I said, okay, but if you think about it, that means that if we trace that all the way back to where it's happening, that means that we need to get in front of people who are getting married and planning an outdoor wedding. But nobody is associating that with their wedding plans. Nobody's putting a picture of a generator in their hope chest saying, when we get married, I hope we get to use this generator to power the lights for our our outdoor wedding. It's not sexy at all. And it's much further down the path to where they're going to make the party rental decision. But that doesn't mean that we can't go all the way up to the front of the line. Where does somebody first become a candidate for being an ideal client for us? And that would be at the moment that they decide they're getting married. They're engaged. And when— what the natural progression of timeline is that they get engaged. And then when they start planning the wedding, the first two decisions are when and where. We got to pick the venue and pick the date, get it on the calendar, and then the rest of all the plans fall into place. And somewhere way down the line, we gotta pick a party rental company for all of these stuff, or our wedding planner has to have a relationship with them. And so rather than advertise the party rental company and say in business, you know, established 1963, serving Toronto for all of these years, it doesn't matter. That's trying to convince people to choose your party rental company. Let's completely put their needs aside. And we created a directory of 100 great places to have an outdoor wedding in Toronto. And we would advertise that without any mention of a party rental company. Without that, we're building a list of ideal clients that now we were able to turn their marketing expense into a profit center by allowing venues to be featured venues and to introduce a limo company and florists and all the other people who are also trying to reach people who are having an outdoor wedding. Now, we did it in a way that was compelling to the brides, right?

Yeah.

And so what I wanted to interject here is like, uh, imagine how much more enjoyable that is when you have come up with a way to compel people instead of convince. I mean, I think when we are trying to convince people that we are good or what we have will help them, uh, it's really psychologically draining after a while.

You know, I was looking, uh, I was looking at the comments. We've got a guy, James Carroll, Franklin Party US. Is— are you a party rental company, James? That's awesome. That's what a perfect thing. We're telling this real esoteric thing. We've actually got a party rental company. Doing it. So I think that's awesome.

Free cocaine, party rentals. No, uh, that— I was a cocaine addict. That is not an endorsement of drugs. Um, so let's open it up for questions then, because I want to make sure that everyone has clarity on what we're talking about and that it applies to them, so that when we are done today, they have now gotten more capabilities in their mind on how to think about and position their businesses, who they're targeting their offers for. We'll give first dibs to people that are here in the room at the Genius Network headquarters, then we can go to some of the people that are online.

Teach us how to be a hero to our ideal client. What does that, what does that mean, be a hero? Well, everybody loves, you know, to be— that's why I say imagine if you were the driver of the publisher's Clearinghouse Prize Patrol van and your job was to go up and knock on strangers' doors and tell them they've won $1 million, would you— would anybody have any call reluctance for that?

There—

nobody would be— you wouldn't be afraid of being rejected. You would actually welcome it because you're going to all laugh about it in the end that you've got feel that what you're doing is truly being a hero to the person that you're trying to serve without being like really, you know, leaning into Joe Polish Polish Polish that his book, What's in It for Them, is really the core of all of it is if you really think about how can I position myself as a hero to the person that I'm trying to serve so they don't view me as a pest, as someone who's trying to take from them. You're— it's like we want people to feel like the greatest day in my business life was the day I met Joe Polish or the day I met Dean Jackson, that, you know, you see so clearly that that's the future that you can provide for people. That's the thing. That's really what it comes down to is the best marketing that you can do is invest in your ability to actually get an outcome for people.

Thank you.

That they love. It'd be a dream come true. That's why I always say that I would start with those words. Dream come true is a great thing, you know.

This is the happy client experience. Every single one of you has an expectation, even of this day. If you came here, you know, if you articulated it early on when we did the exercise of what would winning look like, you know, what would that be? Everyone, every, you know, how many people are on the planet right now? 7, 8 billion? I have no idea. Every single person has expectations. They wake up every day, even if they're homeless, Even if they're the wealthiest person in the world, there's— everyone has expectations. If you go to a restaurant, you know, the largest restaurant in the world is what? McDonald's. Yeah. Now, have any of you eaten healthier food than McDonald's? Now, if you go to another country though, you know that no matter how unhealthy it is, if you get a McDonald's in Brazil or if you get McDonald's in Australia or McDonald's in Los Angeles or whatever, it's pretty much kind of the same stuff. Right? So there's certain things that people attach, but when it comes to, you know, creating— and I don't know if it's a hero experience, it could just be delivering the result that they want. So there's 3 types of experiences that people could have. They could be unhappy, where they have a frown on their face. They could be satisfied— they didn't get more, they didn't get less, they kind of got what they expected. Like if you go to McDonald's, which you should never do because it's really unhealthy, and you order a Big Mac and fries and some kid gives you, you know, it doesn't even say thank you, you're not going to be like, what the hell, you know, you're at McDonald's. I mean, like, however, if you go to the Four Seasons and you order something and they don't even acknowledge you, you have a different level of expectation at the Four Seasons because if you're going to pay $472 for a hamburger, you're hoping that, you know, they're going to at least be— it's going to be a different thing. So in order to you know, create a world-class experience. So if someone's unhappy, they got less than what they expected. If someone is satisfied, they got kind of exactly what they expected, no more, no less. And if they are happy, they got more than what they expected. And there is no loyalty really in business. Um, there's some to a degree, and there are people that are loyal. Uh, like for instance, Harley-Davidson was one of the first brands that people would actually tattoo the name of the company on their body. On their bodies. I mean, that's pretty good loyalty, right? We brand the name. We've only had one person tattoo Genius Network on their body. However, I want more. But, so— I hope they're still a member.

No.

But I think they're still a member permanently. But I actually have been in touch with the person. She was just texting me the other day.

It was—

that's a funny story. But so if you want loyalty though, so if someone is loyal to the brand like Harley-Davidson and they get a Harley from North Scottsdale and the people over there don't treat them really well, they're gonna go buy a Harley from Chandler. So where—

who are they?

Are they loyal to the brand? Are they loyal to the person? So the best way to create a hero experience is do your best to make sure that every experience people get more than what they expect, because that's the closest you're gonna get to loyalty. So, you know, just look at what is the experience that people are having. And one of the best ways, I think, to position yourself is if you can deliver a better experience than what someone else is getting somewhere else. I mean, how many of you have your favorite restaurant or restaurants? Well, there's a million restaurants probably where you can go to. Why do you go to those ones? Because for whatever reason, most of the time you leave there with a smile on your face. You either really like the service, you really like the food, you have a relationship You know, it's like the Cheers commercial. You know, you want to go to a place where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came. And if you can instill that feeling with your clients, they will not only do business with you, they will refer you to other people. So that's just something I wanted to throw in there with that. Jade, yeah, and go ahead, and then we'll do a couple online. And then, oh, we'll go Jade, then we'll go to Mario.

Can you elaborate on this though for the marketing that's before?

Because this So this seems like the during part, like let's make them happy once we've got them in the door. How do we market the hero? Can you do maybe a hot seat from someone?

Well, what I would say on this, like in my carpet cleaning business, my very first marketing tool that worked was the Consumer Guide to Carpet Cleaning. That's where I paid a copywriter. I got this idea, like it says on the wall here from Gary Halbert, any problem in the world can be solved with the right sales letter. So the very first sales letter I ever had, which was in 1992. Man, I've been doing this shit for a long time. So yeah, yeah, 33 years ago I paid a copywriter when I had— I was broke, I was living on credit cards, and I paid a copywriter $1,800 to write my very first sales letter. So I spent a month teaching this guy about, you know, different types of carpet cleaning, pH levels of carpet cleaning, what equipment cleans best, you know, how to hire a professional carpet cleaner, if they're certified, and all these things on how to select the proper carpet cleaner. And then what ended up happening was I, you know, I created that consumer guide to carpet cleaning that I've talked about a lot, but I wanted to make my advertising valuable so that even if they never did business with me, I actually taught them in my marketing how to choose a carpet cleaner. And because I was the one that was teaching them how to make that decision, they were having a great experience before they ever gave me money. So just, so for instance, let's take I Love Marketing. How many of you, this again, I said it in the beginning, how many of you heard about or learned about me or Dean through our podcast, I Love Marketing? There you go. So there are people here that now, there are several people here that have paid me just from the group here, several hundred thousand dollars, just from the hands that were raised.

Raised.

So that's the whole point. Be value— make your advertising and your marketing so useful that people just want to be like, huh, if they're giving me this for free, what would happen if I actually gave them money? I'll tell you, if, if you look at your marketing as an investment too, see, because sometimes you will put a lot of money up front and you won't get that return, but it's like, it is harvesting, it is nurturing, and most people don't have the patience or even the awareness to see that you are, you know, if you stay— like, I cannot tell you how many people have joined Genius Network 8, 10 years after we first started communicating with them because we're just continually trying to add value. And finally, you know, some people like, holy shit, you know, I didn't think about this. And we have so many testimonials from people that are like, you know, I wish I would have done this a lot sooner. But you know, that's just— people do things at their timeline. They do things, but we also have to do our best to compel people. So let's go to Mario, and then we'll come to Will over here. No, we'll go to Mario, then Dr. Saida, and Haley online, and then we'll cut— whoever had their catchphrases.

Go ahead.

Hey Dayton, love the example of the horse for sale. It gave me an idea for books for sale.

Ah, perfect.

Thanks. How extensively do you split test? Like, let's try this one, then the next one, the next one, and obviously it's probably got to work to an extent, but how long do you A/B split test and refine it and try different variations and take it beyond the—

I was just talking about this with somebody today, that, that I take these, uh, I take like, um, I'm doing clinical trials for a pharmaceutical product that takes stages, right? So the first thing when I'm doing a lead generator is I only allocate $100 to the test initially. We do a 100-hour, $100 test, $25 a day for 4 days. And we are looking to find winners and losers. That's all we're looking for is we're going to put them in that cap. So we have a threshold. What we're looking for, a target that we're looking for as a lead cost. So in most cases, our minimum that we would look for is that to get 10 leads for $100. If we get 20, that's a home run. We can do a lot of work with that. If we get 15, I mean, 5, that maybe there's something we could tweak to get it there. But if we don't get 5 leads for something, it's a dud. Let's move on. We're not— it's not going to get better over time. Right. And then once something passes that first clinical trial, we move to the next level. Which is to see, can we maintain that level and get 100 leads? And if that's the case, then we take those 100 leads for 100 days and see how much we can do conversion-wise. So we're only progressively moving the winners onto the next, uh, onto the next phase.

Thanks.

So I'm not testing like a bunch of different things. I, I will always look for— I want to put my best foot forward first. I want to think about the best thing. I'm not looking— I'm trying to do that thinking ahead of time, right, of I want to— I know what is going to, uh, convey this horse for sale message. I want to get to horse for sale, uh, as much as I can.. And I'm not, so I'm not testing 50 different things against it to, to find.

All right.

Thanks.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Let's go, Dr. Saida.

Hey Joe.

Hey Dean.

Hey.

Hey.

They're back.

They're back. We're back.

Well, first of all, I just wanna say that, thank you for the Genius Network because of the very small amount of time that we've spent. I think it was since October. We've taken coaching from 4 to 5 figures to 6 to 7 figures in yearly contracts. So the question, I guess, that I would have is how to actually speak about sex and relationships where that's typically censored as porn legally, even though there's nothing pornographic about it. Everything is done with clothes on, etc. But education in this arena in general does not get distinguished from performance.

God, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is, as interesting as this sounds, and I still— I mean, you can do this so much easier than with AI, but back in the day when there was like niche experts in particular categories and they wanted to do a speech, one of the things that I would suggest to people, which was taught to me by a friend that taught public speaking. When you go in and try to help someone in a particular category— remember the Dummies books? There were like, you know, Sex for Dummies, there's like Gardening for Dummies, Insurance for Dummies. Uh, the, uh, I, I had a, a friend, um, unfortunately passed away, but he had written some of the Idiot's Guides and the Dummies Guides to so-and-so. And what their skill was is knowing how to lay out and structure expertise, a table of contents. And I would say if you have a particular expertise in insurance, as an example, go get Insurance for Dummies, look at the table of contents, then fill— don't even read the book, just look at the table of contents and then fill out your subject matter expertise because they've already laid it out for you. Well, you could go to any sort of AI system and say, give me the table of contents. And what you just asked me, this is where I would actually have dialogue with, in like Claude and/or Grok. And I would say, okay, you know, what, what are, in the same way that we want to make sure that we're never making claims, uh, they are becoming so strict on testimonial claims and, and things because of a lot of con artists that are out there. And we actually use AI for that. But to your point, I mean, uh, you obviously want to be tantalizing. What, what I would suggest is, I don't know, this— I'm sure you can find it online, but I would go to like a used bookstore that sells old magazines, and I would pick up every past issue of Cosmopolitan. And what are the ones that do the, the upper left-hand magazine bullet? And Brian Kurtz, what the hell were those called? The, uh, just the Well, no, no, just the, the bullets on the magazine that would— who said what? Yeah, well, yeah, the COVID lines, but there's a freaking term for it. I said it, fascinations is what Marty Edelston would call them. So when you look at a magazine cover, they would try— now the reason I say Cosmopolitan, the upper left-hand bullet was always about sex. They tested thousands of different variations to hook people standing in line at a grocery store or a drugstore, to hook them with a tantalizing thing. And so they have already written everything by a factor of a thousand times that you guys would ever need. I would go and find the most compelling things at Cosmopolitan. I would also, in your category, I would look at Vogue and all the different magazines that use that is a hook. And I would go and find one of the writers there that was one of the copywriters for the magazine. They will give you a plethora of stuff. And then if you could find the, um, oh God, uh, E. Julius Haddelman, uh, how do you pronounce it?

Yeah, the First Hundred Million.

Yeah, My First Hundred Million. He'd sold these 100 million copies of books that were 5 cents each. They're these little blue books back in the early 1900s, and they would be the same book but all they would change is the headline. And he tracked how many books they sold just by changing the headline of the book. And there's whole categories of sex and relationships. And this was tested over 100 years ago. That book alone would be actually extraordinarily valuable to almost everyone here in the room because it covers, I mean, they sold 100 million books at 5 cents each. And so, and they did it all through testing headlines on every category under the sun. But the, you know, sex and love love and weight loss and making money. These are all big giant categories that exist, so it's already out there. It's just a matter of looking at it. And I would also look at the, um, the top-selling books on sex and relationships that exist. And that's, that's what I would do. I hope that helps.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's absolutely amazing.

Thank you so much. Yeah.

Dean, hey, uh, Will Smith, Raleigh, North Carolina. I hope you're doing well. This is either going to be a good question or you're going to be like, this guy is clueless. Um, you know your target audience and you know they're, they're a right fit client, platinum level prospect. You can curate the leads, you know why you want to be their hero, how you can help them. Um, it's about finding people where they are a lot of times. Um, I guess my question is, when you have all that confidence and all that data How do you know how to get the inertia started with next steps to reach out? Because in today's world, there's, you know, LinkedIn messages drive me crazy, emails, direct mail, seminars, webinars, you know, all this different stuff. So how do you help people filter through that actionable next step with inertia?

This is great. And this is what you're describing is something where are— we make a distinction between do you have visible prospects or invisible prospects. And so if you're talking about you can get a list of them and you can identify who they are, you have visible prospects. So for instance, if you're trying to attract chiropractors, you can get a list of chiropractors and you know who they are. If you are a chiropractor you have invisible prospects, meaning you can't get a list of people who twisted their back this morning. So you have to lead generate to call, to pull them out, right? So in any time where you have visible prospects and they haven't leaned forward to start the conversation, it's awkward. How do you go from a standing start to like conveying your entire message, all the things that you can do for people. And so part of it is taking the approach of first job is that they know that you exist, right? That's the first thing, because we always say in order for somebody to do business with you, they have to get to know you like you trust you. And most times people read all of those as one destination. Know you like you trust you. And that doesn't properly revere the giant leap from not knowing you to knowing you. So I would say if you take 100 of those prospects, for instance, and start to say, how many of them know that you exist? That's the first step of it, right? And if you can do it in a way that isn't immediately like, hey, let me pitch you my stuff. Or let me tell you what we do. And, uh, you know, but there's many different ways. I'll tell you what's very interesting is I get pitched all the time for people saying, hey, I just found your podcast and it's really great, and I think I would be a good guest for your podcast. Like, they're trying to put themselves in on my podcast. And for every, you know, for every, uh, 10 of those, I may get 1 or less than that of people saying, hey, I'd like to get you on my podcast and spread you out to the, to my audience, right? Is being thinking from the perspective of what I was saying with Joe Polish Polish is what's in it for them.

Them?

What can you do that would be a great outcome for them? If you think about starting the conversation with that, that's a, that's a great thing. And it takes some real engineering, like it takes thinking to go to the approach of what does this guy care about that is ultimately going to lead them to caring about what I can do for them? How can I start a conversation with something that they want to talk about. I was using The Music Man as an example, right? That it's the guy sells band uniforms, but he starts the conversation of, we got trouble in River City. And that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool. And so he goes in and gets everybody rallying around. We got to get this bad influence of the pool hall. Out of our teams. And how we can do that is we need a boys' band. And now that they have their idea that they need a boys' band, they're going to need band uniforms. But you don't go and start the conversation with, hey, I'm Tom from Tom's Band Uniforms. It sounds like you're trying to— what's in it for you? That's all those things. Just wanted to introduce myself and, you know, all of that stuff. Nobody cares what you want. They were 100% self-absorbed, and that's comforting and reliable. That's the most reliable thing that you— if you can stack your marketing strategy to lean into the fact that people are 100% of the time focused on their own self-interest, and the more you can align with the easier your marketing job's gonna be.

Cool.

That's receiving doc thinking, right?

That help?

Yeah.

All right, so Haley online.

Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Dean. I appreciate it. So my question, I am starting to create my dream offer, and I'm a communication trainer. I work in this world of empathy, so soft skills. So I can't What's challenging to me is I don't have like a concrete outcome. I can't 10x your business, lose 10 pounds, save your marriage. How do you craft a dream offer when there's kind of a squishy outcome? You know, more connection, more trust, more collaboration, but I'm not sure if that's really clear enough to say like, oh, that's the dream outcome for someone. Yeah.

So that what though? That's part of the thing when you look at it, that are you just like rearranging the deck chairs or are you making the boat go faster? You know, is that— is what, what is it that you can attach your, your product or service to that's going to fundamentally improve the outcome that they're getting? Like, what's important to them? Why do they want to know? These soft skills because that's going to be useful in this outcome.

Can I, can I speak to that for a minute, Dean, too? Because I was talking to Tommy Mello, who has a, you know, $200 million a year company in the service business, and then Peter, I think we were talking about this the other day, is that with AI, soft skills, we believe, are going to become more important than hard skills because with AI you can now produce all kinds of things, but the ability to actually have empathy or to listen or to communicate or to feel comfortable and to help someone with anxiety and just have friendships. I mean, one of the greatest forms of human suffering in the world right now, which is just going to get worse and worse and worse, is loneliness. We live in a world of a lot of— we're surrounded by people that we're more connected electronically than ever before in human history, but we're more disconnected as humans. And that, and that's all, you know, provable through suicides and addiction and, you know, just where people are at. And, you know, surveys done on, you know, friendships from, you know, 30 years ago versus today. So soft skills— so to go back to what you're saying, Dean, it's being able to articulate what is the benefit of having that soft skill. That's in speaking to that. Uh, and, and oftentimes the, the people that are learning from you and benefiting from it is having them explain and validate what you helping them is doing for them. I mean, I'm, I'm a, uh, I'm an idiot when it comes to some of the things that my clients have already given me that I don't even market, even though I can sit here and tell people to do that. I mean, I utilize it, but nowhere near. I mean, There's so much, uh, some of the best marketing that we will ever create, it will not be done through AI. It will not be done through a copywriter. It will be done through just capturing, uh, the value that our clients, uh, and our customers and our patients have shared with us of how doing business with us has benefited them and simply asking them. And so two things. One, ask the people that have bought things from you why they did it, what it did for And more importantly, what hardly anyone will ever do, because it's more difficult to do, is to ask the people that haven't bought from you why they didn't buy and sincerely say, what could I have said or explained in a way? What was it that drove you off? What was it that just did not capture? Well, you know, and tell them up front that I'm not— this is not a veiled sales pitch. I sincerely want to know. As a matter of fact, I'll even give you something for free if you could just answer honestly. Don't answer because you are trying to be nice to me. Just like literally tell me what I could have said or done that would have, would have gotten you to do business with me. And just if you try that with 10 or 20 people that have never, that didn't buy from you even though they had an opportunity, it's fascinating what you will get back. It's never what we think it's going to be. In most cases.

Thank you both very much.

Does that help?

Yeah, it does help.

I appreciate it.

Cool. And by the way, and I dialogue with, with AI on this and ask the same question and do it on my clone. Have you ever tried my clone?

No, not yet, but I'm curious to now.

Yeah.

So it's askjoe polish.com and just ask it to help you draft a business plan, a marketing message. I've loaded over 1,000 videos into that. It's actually in many cases more useful than I can be just sitting here because it doesn't go on tangents, whereas I'm fucking ADD and crazy. And but my clone is more disciplined than I am as a human. And so, and it's loaded, all my books have been uploaded into it. I currently, it's free, it's just astropolish.com. And I have people writing business plans and everything with my clone, and it could access almost all the podcasts, everything.

That's amazing. Thank you. Appreciate you for sharing that resource also for free.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You want to—

okay.

Okay.

I'm Sam Hosseini. I'm in the business of getting people out of pain or optimizing their sexual health. So it's not— I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get my messaging across so it actually compelling because I feel like a lot of times people don't really take action until it's been, it's like too late. And I want to, how do I position myself like the party business where, you know, I can create a compelling offer, a compelling message to get people to come in the same way I came to Genius because I got in front of the messaging and I was was pretty much sold before I even got on that webinar. How do I position myself in my industry that I'm— that it's already the patient— when I get in front of the patient, when they get into my office, they already know they want to do business with me?

Yeah, okay. So let's— we'll talk about that and try to figure out the best way to do it, with the caveat that I will say, and you probably already know this, it's a lot easier to sell a cure than it it as a prevention. I'm just going to say that most people are not looking for an alarm system before their house is burglarized. They start looking at one afterwards, right? And so, man, it's human nature is you can give them, you know, all kinds of ways. Look at the way people eat. Look at the way people live. You know, they're oblivious to the negative consequences of their lifestyle and their decisions until something blows I guess, Dean, I would let you speak to the compellingness of it. I— what I would first say is everyone that you've helped that has had a health transformation, had improved in some area, is to ask them, what were the benefits?

If—

what, what would your life look like had you come to me, you know, 2 years prior before you had this, you know, health event that happened? You know, have them help you compile— because you can create a lot of compellingness with that. But at the end of the day— and I'll say it this way. So the late Dave Kekich, who wrote Kekich Credos, I remember he spoke to a huge event about health. And he told me— he's like Joe Polish Polish Polish— and this is a guy who spent half his life in a wheelchair and then devoted his life to longevity before the term longevity was even like a biohacking thing. He, he said, he goes, I would— he wrote a couple of books on, on health, and he said humanity is very depressing. He goes, I'm in this big auditorium, there's 3,000 people I think it was, and he goes, and I start talking about to lift weights for strength training and, you know, bone density. You want to do cardio for your circulatory system and for your heart. And I'm sharing, you know, all these elements of things to improve your health. And he goes, and the audience, you know, is receptive to it. Then I talk about how we're gonna have like a stem cell skin cream and it's gonna make you look, you know, 20 years younger, and another product that's gonna grow back your hair. And like the whole audience goes apeshit over this. He's like, it's just people care more about vanity than they care about being healthy. He goes, it's just like, it's so weird. He goes, and I'm like, yeah. Yeah, I go, what do you do? You know, people would rather look better than feel better in some cases, but that doesn't mean you can't attract them and compel them, which is the right thing to do. Because if we had a model, you know, we don't have healthcare in this world, we have sick care. It's not even healthcare, it's healthcarelessness is the majority of what healthcare is. But what would you say, Dean?

Well, you know, it's funny because I see the same thing in Stop Your Divorce, that it would have been better for people to start intervening and in their relationship before it got to the point of them, their spouse saying they want a divorce, but they have no interest in improving the relationship until the moment that their spouse says, that's it, I want a divorce, the ice cracks, they're now in the cold water, and they would do anything to get back up to normal. It immediately jumps to the top of their to-do list, right? So the interesting thing is when you say the words that they're interested in, stop your divorce, are compelling words. And the reality of that was that in order for people to get to stop their divorce, they had to get to a point where they don't need to stop their divorce so they get over it. So no matter whatever happens, they're going to be fine, whether the divorce is stopped or whether it's not. And often in the process of getting to the point where they don't need the marriage to, to, you know, cure them or whatever, that they are okay. And they're happy. They realize this isn't the right marriage for me. And they're happy that the marriage is going on. And that's what people ultimately want. Right? So if you can attach to something, meet people where they are and take them where they need to be.

Right?

Like, so offer people— when we talk about the party rental, the wedding venue, we know that 3 steps from now, we're going to need to pick a party company, a party rental company. Right? Always, if you can start, meet people where they are, use the words that they're already looking for, and then move them adjacently to whatever is the right path for them.

You know, this is a perfect setup because I always will ask people, you know, do you know what the number one cause of divorce is? And do you know? Do you know, Sam? Number one cause of divorce, marriage. And so if you want people to stop their divorce, easy. If you were selling prevention, you'd be like, don't get married. You know, now it's a joke, of course, but in a lot of ways it's actually, you know, people get into stuff, right? And then they need to get out of stuff. And usually pain selling is more effective than benefit selling. People will do more to get out of pain. You know, the Sandler Sales System was all predicated on, you know, pain selling. And so, you know, there's a lot to be said. Is one idea I have for you though is, is you actually had an introductory, like a get-out-of-jail card where you gamify it. So everyone that had a health transformation and improved as a result of you, you say, you know, look, we all have friends that if they would have found out that you care about, that if they would have done some preventative things beforehand, or if they would have done what you did, okay, use a little bit of Cialdini belonging, liking, linking, reciprocity, all mixed in, Joe Sugarman sort of trigger stuff, where you basically create invitation cards that have a real value where they can give out 2 of them as a client of yours that they could share with 2 of their very best relationships. So you don't make it unlimited, it's exclusive, and you actually have your clients become the ones that introduce other people to you because you're probably already getting most of your business through referrals anyway. I do that already. Well, how do you do it?

I have referral cards. I ask them, hey, if you've had a great experience, these are referral cards. They have 2 weeks. If you know somebody that can use these services that I provide, I just go ahead and send them my way and all their first visit will be complimentary.

Perfect. So, so as much as you can make that compelling, that is the way to continue to expand what you're doing. And you do it through the, through the existing happy people when you try to email, I guess. That's fine. Yeah, so you do different variations of that. So does that help?

Yeah. Okay, awesome.

So we've got 7 minutes left and we have to be wrapped. Yeah, go ahead, Barry.

Dean, can you see us? Okay, I have a quick question for you.

So Dean was muted because I think Gina muted everybody, but go ahead.

I built a business in 1982 with a wirehouse with fixed income bonds. I sent out 2,000 mass mailers every week, every week for 5 years. I led the country for 3 straight years nationally with new accounts. Does direct mail still work now?

Absolutely, yeah.

I was wondering because it was so simple to do. At that time it was 35 cents a mailer. It was, you know, we had a budget. Now it's what, 60, 70 cents to send?

I mean, it's the same kind of thing. 73 cents to do first class.

Is it 73?

Unless you buy it on stamps.com, then it's a little less.

So it still works, the direct mail. The consistency was amazing. I was getting a half to 1% response. They're sending back, they wanted info, it was all informational. It's on a fixed income, like on a government bond or a municipal bond.

I love it.

I was just curious, would that still happen now?

Especially if you have visible prospects, especially if you have visible prospects where you can mail to exactly the people. We do things so with financial advisors, we'll mail to people who are, uh, 61 and a half on their way to turning 62. And we'll offer the Social Security benefits guide for people who have— you know, we target very specific things. Like, you can get— we get people who are, uh, 61 and are homeowners living in a million-dollar-plus home with $2 to $3 million investable assets, and you're going to a very, very high, probability.

So what does it cost?

Was this— a stamp is now how much?

Well, a first-class stamp is 70 cents.

Bulk rate?

Oh yeah, that's probably— I never do.

We don't do bulk rate. We'll do it, you know, like, you know, the most, uh, valuable thing is we'll— I'll do postcards as a great, uh, way to do that. So including the list, we can do those for just over a dollar. For a, you know, a good-sized postcard to your ideal audience.

Well, here's what I would say too, to, uh, so Randy Brill with Just Call Randy. Those of you that are watching online, if you need, if you need help with all kinds of cool design, just call Randy, r-a-n-d-i.com. She's really good at this stuff. Um, and then we can go to, uh, Brian Kurtz here in a moment. We may run over because we only got we're supposed to officially end in 4 minutes, but we'll—

I know I have to run right at 5, so do you?

Okay, so yeah, yeah, here's what I would say though, uh, you want to do— it's like a Gary Halbert thing. People of America sort their mail out over a wastebasket and it goes to two piles. There's the A pile, which is everything that's personal or appears personal, and then the B pile, which is everything that is junk or appears like junk. And this would be worldwide, not just America, but you want to get everything to look personal if you're sending out a letter. But if you're doing a postcard I always like starting with first class, and then if that works, then you can test bulk, or you can, you know, you can test different variations and stuff. But give it the highest possibility of success right from the get-go and test it. Because I mean, how much would it actually cost for you to test it? Like nothing, right? And so you definitely do that. So Brian, a guy who's mailed out how many letters in your life? And then we'll come back to Randy.

I licked every stamp too. It was like—

But it's over a billion, I calculated it.

So, Dean already spoke to that you can use postcards, you can use compiled lists, you can target, but I think the thing that a lot of marketers today miss is the use of direct mail on the backend. And so, direct mail to your existing customers, to your VIPs, the kind of thing that Randy does, you know, but more than that, you can do, I mean, I think the day— to answer your question, Barry, I think the day of like prospecting in direct mail the way we did it in the olden days, it's a tough business now because people don't have really good response lists and they're all in databases that, you know, you can't get individual lists. So, you can do it, but, you know, I always say it's like making sushi. You know, you can do it, but I wouldn't recommend it. I don't recommend it. Let the experts do it. And then somebody always says, "I make sushi." Who makes sushi here? Yeah, of course.

No, wait, wait. Just so I understand what you're saying, you're not suggesting that people not do direct mail. No, no, no.

So direct mail is not dead, and it's actually— mailboxes are emptier right now. The least crowded inbox is the one at the end of your driveway. But you have to still be exciting in there. Dean can write a kick-ass postcard. I don't recommend postcards to the people that I work with because they won't do it with the precision that Dean could do it. So again, that's the part of it that, you know, you might want an expert helping you in some way. 'Cause it's not— today it's a more treacherous environment, but it's not— it's definitely— it's accessible. And as far as on the back end of a— Creating 3-dimensional and that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, lumpy mail, and it's not just lumpy mail. You can do, if you have 15 of your top clients and you wanna get them to upgrade to the $25,000, you're ascending them in some way, to be able to send them a book, to send them something in a Federal Express envelope. So not even talk, I'll go beyond first-class mail. You already have an invested, an invested customer that might have paid you thousands of dollars already. So use that money and go after them. And I'll repeat what you said earlier, going after an existing customer is so much easier than going after a new one. Now the new customers are always the lifeblood of a business, but man, I think people are, the marketers that I deal with online, I think they, the new, the cold prospecting and cold traffic, that's sexy, right? But I like non-sexy marketing. I like going to the best customers with the best offers and just get more from the people that love you already. That doesn't mean you don't prospect, and you guys have covered that very well today. But the answer is direct mail's not dead. There's a lot of different types of direct mail, and there's different situations for different— you know, but it's—

Yeah, no, thank you. Let me say that for sake of time, I do want to give Dre Redford an opportunity to say something because he's a real expert and he earlier today was on for a while. And I want to get his perspective on how he would, you know, add to this conversation we've already had. I also want to point out that if you actually read Breakthrough DNA, which you can download on I Love Marketing, and just the conversation today, you will know more about real marketing than 99% of every business owner in the world. They, they don't have these sort of conversations. So when Brian was like, go to expert, we just had an expert conversation, right? There's a lot to what you can take away from this. I mean, it's simply about connecting with people in a way that compels them to buy. Identify who you want to be a hero to. To make sure that you're thinking about what's in it for them, not what's in it for you. That's one of the dangers of like brand building is people are sending out messaging that's talking about how great they are and no one really gives a shit about how great you are until they can tie it into how that actually benefits them. And so if you speak to that, Randy, did you want to say anything?

The thing to remember, Barry, first of all, you are the consummate note writer. Remember what people, Taking care, as Brian says, on the back end. Taking care, as Brian says, on the back end. That's— those are the people that who love us. And one of the things we were talking about this morning with Nicole is how many do you need? You need the right people in the right way and take care of them. Say thank you. That's why people want to do the boxes. That's what— and we talk all the time about Yes, first class is lovely, but oh my darling, are you gonna not open a FedEx box? Of course you are. And then put the right thing in that's about them. Don't put your logo on it. Put a message about them. Something, I, Randi Brill, the person that you want to take care of, I'm gonna be proud to carry it. It's gonna make me part of the cool kids.

Kids.

That's where it comes in. And it's personal. You'll be the best note writer there is.

And by the way, Barry already does this. He teaches young people to do handwritten letters. He has a freaking metal letterhead. He's got a, he's got a wax stamp on the back. It's very classy and it's very cool. And I mean, I don't throw away the stuff that you send me because it's freaking awesome.

Awesome.

And so, all right, so Dre, you've sat through this whole thing. How would you bring this to a close for everyone? And I know we've gone a little over and we're recording this live, but this is the first time we've actually done a live one with a live audience and also an online audience, so, which is cool. And so those of you that are listening to this on our podcast or watching it on YouTube, yeah, we're going to do this on a regular basis.

Places.

So go ahead, Dre.

I think that I'll just echo really quick what Brian said. I am, I am a millennial. I am 36 years old. I should hate direct mail. Everything should be digital. Uh, that Brian and I have jammed on this many, many times. I love direct mail. It's certainly not dead. People's email inboxes are more flooded now than ever. Like, I looked as he was talking about this, I have 164,000 unread emails right now. Like, that's kind of a lot. Um, my mailbox is empty. No one sends me fun stuff. Um, the opportunity, like, just in general, people's email inbox or folder mailboxes are empty. And so I just want to, like, restate that, that it sounds, it sounds like a BHAG, like a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, to go do something direct mail-wise. But in general, it could be a smaller sample size. You can do a lot with and me being kind of the marketing data nerd with these things, like, I love sending video boxes in the mail that have the IoT technology, like the Internet of Things. So the moment they open that package, the video starts playing. The moment that video starts playing in that direct mail package, like, you know, hey Brian, Dre Redford here, I wanted to send this to you because yada yada yada. You can personalize it, which I love personalization. And then I know the moment that Brian opens it, I can know exactly how many minutes and seconds he watched. It goes back to my Google Data video so I can see everything. So you can marry online and offline things. So there's so many things like that. It is more expensive to do things like that. Um, I wouldn't start there, but there's just like, the world is your oyster in so many different capacities. If you just think outside the box, like we talked about earlier with using AI to show up first and then retarget, different than how most people have done it. Um, do using direct mail and all of those sorts of things. So I think in this day and age now, and Joe sort of talked about this, so I'll sort of like try and close that loop as well, is what's old is new again. And so like we're seeing things like PDFs and eBooks that are selling again, which is freaking crazy for me as a marketer. And direct mail never really died. Uh, but it's certainly not dead now. And so by doing some of the things like the live podcast that Joe's doing, um, doing things like this, just finding unique ways to just position your business or your services or products just slightly different could be a massive unfair advantage. Um, but you just got to sometimes take a step back and, you know, uh, in order to do that. So that's sort of how I tie some of those things, uh, at least off. And I guess that's probably where I'd leave it, at least for now.

Joe Polish, thank you. Yeah, if we could throw— see, Brian doesn't care if we're late over here.

No, I don't care.

He's like the honey badger. He doesn't care. I don't give I'm not saying that shit.

But Dre inspired me. But a couple other things that people don't realize, if you're an online marketer all the time, first of all, it's bad to be, the most dangerous number in business is 1, and if your 1 is online, that's bad. And so every person that's bought from you with a credit card, you have their postal address. And the fact is that direct mail is an opt-out medium, not an opt-in medium. And so you have to, you have to, with email, you have to double opt-in or at least opt-in and then you can, you can opt, and then you, then, then you'll get eliminated only if you opt out after you opt in. Direct mail, you can mail them until they opt out. Now there are, we have to be careful because there are, if you're mailing in bigger quantities, there are suppression files of change, you know, change of address files from the Postal Service are people who don't want mail. Like there are people and you have to you can't mail them because they've already opted out. But it's an opt-out medium at the outset. So they're in until they're out, I guess is what I'm saying. And so that's an unfair advantage too, to some degree.

Yeah, awesome. Okay, so have you found this useful? All right, thank you, thank you. So thank you, Dre. And so for those of you that are watching online, we will notify you as long as you're a subscriber to I Love Marketing, which you can, you can subscribe wherever you listen to downloads, be it on Apple or on Spotify or YouTube or wherever, then you'll be notified of the next one. And if you have not read Breakthrough DNA, go and download it at ilovemarketing.com, and we'll see you next time. So thank you. Don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing. Subscribe today at ilovemarketing.com.

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