The Importance of Ideas and Seeking to Improve The Ideas You Have as an Entrepreneur Featuring Joe Polish and Dean Jackson - I Love Marketing Episode #434

You know, it's clear is that a better idea in some cases may not be doing it at all.

A better idea may be to forget that one and allocate that extra time and money to doing something else completely.

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Things that we always talk about is, is this notion of debunking the theory that execution is more valuable than ideas, right? Because you know, we've talked about how that's always the sort of standard answer for most people who are sort of operationally centric that their thought is, well, you know, an idea that's not executed is useless. So execut execution is really the most important thing. Ideas are a dime a dozen. And that's the kind of thoughts that people have. And I'll give you that too, that it is absolutely true that ideas without execution are in fact useless. They really are. But if you acknowledge that and you say that, well, then execution really is a powerful thing. And let's say that you can actually measure flawless execution. Let's even say that somebody is executing an idea at the very highest level. They're executing it perfectly. There's no way that they could execute this idea better. That is a knowable thing. Now the only thing that can improve flawless execution is flawless execution of a better idea, right? And you know, you see it all the time. What are, you know, even if you think about movies, for instance, you know the mechanics of making a movie, I mean, you can go through and somebody can, you know, act the hell out of the script. And they can, you know, the director can, you know, have incredible cinematography, they can have all of this. But you know, the truth is that you can flawlessly execute the production of a movie, but the better idea is going to be the better movie, right? The point of this is to really revere the importance of having ideas and seeking out ideas and looking to improve the ideas that you do have as a constant quest as an entrepreneur.

This applies to not just business, this applies to your whole life. I mean, what are the things that we execute every day? We wake up? How do we wake up? Is there a better idea on how to wake up? Is there a better way on how to brush your teeth? Is there a better way to drive to work? Is there a better way to work at home? Is there a better way to cook breakfast? Is there a better way to eat raw food? You know, I mean, whatever. Yeah, it's like how you execute, you know, constantly finding better ideas.

It seems to me that, you know, improvements in execution are really going to be responsible for incremental gains. Like, it doesn't seem like you can exponentially better execute something, does it?

Unless, of course, you use multiplying technology or multiplying individuals. You know, I mean, for instance, I can execute a phone call and make a connection, but there are certain. The idea of who would be the best person to call, what would be the best person to ask. You know, all of those things come from the idea. They come from the brain. They come from the resourcefulness. They don't come from the activity of picking up a phone call or texting someone or emailing someone or whatever it has to do with the ideas built around it. You never, never, never want to put yourself in a position where you think you're too cool for school or you think you got it, or you think it can't be improved or. There is no better idea. Where people, I think, get screwed up a bit is they'll take the whole concept of good enough and they'll keep it there forever. You know what I mean? Like, good enough is good to ship. It's good to launch. It's good to get you going. The control is the enemy. And what that means is that the control piece, the marketing lingo, that's for like a direct mail letter or a video or a telesome or an offer. I mean, the control is the current working marketing pitch that's being delivered in a certain way that is getting the best results. So if they're gonna hire copywriters to beat a sales letter for a subscription offer, as an example, all these copywriters are looking at the current piece. Yeah.

They're trying to beat the control. Right.

Trying to beat the control. And so the control is the enemy. And so that's another way of saying, give us a better idea.

That's exactly what it is. Because ultimately, I mean, you're right. Direct mail is the perfect example for this, you know, because direct mail, you can flawlessly execute a direct mail campaign. I mean, at its essence, you're mailing four sheets of paper in an envelope with a stamp to an address. That's flawless execution. But what could you. What you put on the pieces of paper and the names that you mail it to are the idea. That's the better idea.

Exactly. So how would it best serve people listening to really? I mean, they've kind of. We can beat a dead horse here, but this is not a dead Horse. This is something that people forget continuously. And there's a lot of people that will fight against the value of ideas and the problem. And what I mean by that is fight against it is they poo poo it or they think, you know, execution really is the most important thing. And see, we're not saying execution is not important. We're saying that if you want to really dramatically improve what you're doing and you're really, you've got your execution, just give yourself a better idea. Because if you can keep topping your behavior with better ideas, it's just the results you will produce is, you know, infinitely better. And we kind of live in a culture, I think, in a lot of ways where people just believe that certain things are important and other things are not. The best way to create a paradigm shift is to have every one of the listeners of I Love Marketing really understanding that. It's like Gary Halbert would say, the difference between being rich and being broke could be one good sales letter. And the difference between being rich and being broke could be the right elegant idea.

We talk about it all the time. How many times have we quoted Peter Drucker that his assertion that the only things that matter in business are marketing and innovation and everything else is an expense, that execution is on the expense side of the equation.

And another way I look at this in terms of ideas, just so it's clear, is that a better idea in some cases may not be doing it at all.

That's exactly right to spend your time. A better idea may be to forget that one and allocate that extra time and money to doing something else completely.

Yeah, a lot of people will spend their entire lives playing a game that was never designed for them to win. A better idea is taking your strengths and putting them where it matters, not trying to improve your weaknesses in the field of marketing. When I first started my carpet cleaning business, I didn't have any clue on how to communicate. So I got business cards printed that said Superior Carpet Cleaning, because that was my company at the time. And then I ended up changing the name to Fiber Tech, which is a much cooler name. But the name had very little to do with it. I was putting out flyers that said two rooms in a hall, $39.95. And on one I even put, we will beat any advertised price. Not realizing. And this was when I was very young, in my early 20s, trying to run this carpet cleaning business. And I was running it, and I did a great job of delivering a cleaning service, but boy, did I work my ass off for nothing. I was going broke. I didn't realize that people that were advertising $5.95 a room, $6.95 a room were actually bait and switch companies that really had no intention of honoring that price unless the consumer just wouldn't budge at all. So it was a bait and switch tactic. And so I'm running low price. I wasn't doing bait and switch. I was just running two rooms in the hall for $39.95, and that's what I'd actually clean for. And so a better idea was using a headline. A better idea was a free room of carpet cleaning and a carpet audit. A better idea was creating a better sense of urgency that wasn't based around price. Right? And so. But I didn't know that at the time. So it's the thing that me and you, which was funny that we would both use this same analogy, but just in different ways, that the difference between a $1 bill and $100 bill is the message on the paper. So go ahead and you give one.

So one of the most dramatic ones is, and I've talked about it a little bit, it was the one that really solidified the whole cheese and whiskers idea for me was the sending an email to a restaurant owner or, you know, whoever's getting the email at the restaurant. And instead of sending an email that's trying to convince them to spend money on a birthday promotion program to just ask a simple question, do you do birthdays and engage people in a dialogue that way? It was just such a dramatically better idea. And the same thing, you know, these are that with the birthday. With the birthday card that got the, you know, 32% response, you know, versus a card that was. Looked like a commercial type of card. Just making that. I think focusing only on somebody's self interest is. You can never go wrong by just giving something to somebody that they're selfishly desiring.

Just the thinking in general. I mean, just shifting the way you think about ideas and the importance of them and also identifying what are just. I always have to say, you know, one elegant idea is worth more than a thousand semi good ideas, which I first got from Gary Halbert. And, you know, I mean, one elegant idea is truly worth more than a thousand semi good ideas. And that's why fishing for elegant ideas and having the skill of being able to identify them and even think like that, I think gives you such a advantage in life. Because when shit hits the fan, you know, if you have a few great ideas sitting in your arsenal when Plan A fails to work anymore and you can switch to Plan B. I mean, that's a really great thing.

Like what Jay Abraham would talk about, you know, basing your business on the on a diving board versus the Parthenon. You know, having one, one idea. When it goes wrong, everything falls down. When you've got, you know, multiple, multiple streams, that's a more solid foundation.

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