The One About Gary Halbert - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #27

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast. Hey, everybody, it's Dean Jackson and Joe Polish. How you doing, Joe?

I'm doing good. How you doing?

I'm doing great. All right, about your tooth troubles before we start.

Yeah, I fractured a tooth a couple weeks ago and I've had to go to the dentist several times and nearly had to get a root canal today. But I drove to the dentist and he said, let's, you know, kind of sit on it for a couple of weeks, see if it heals up. And. And if it does, then, you know, we can avoid a root canal, and if it doesn't, then, you know, we won't. But, yeah, I mean, I fractured my tooth in three different places, and so I've got a crown on it. And I don't know why we're talking about this on. I love marketing because. But I guess it's something that I was just thinking, like, thank God for modern dentistry because before they had, like, anesthesia and things to numb you and the ability to make crowns, I mean, what did people do? They pulled them out. Yeah. I mean, but think about the pain, you know, the sheer pain. Just like the pain that someone would experience by not having and utilizing the marketing techniques that we so willingly share on ilovemarketing.com on a weekly basis.

That was a brilliant segue right there.

Did you like that segue? I like that.

Steer it right back on track.

Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, we're going to talk about one of our. Both of our, you know, friends, mentors, you know, interesting all around crazy person. Unfortunately not with us on this earth anymore. But that's Mr. Gary Halbert, because lots of people that I talk to, that listen to, I love marketing, are always talking about, you know, oh, it's great to hear your story from the very beginning podcast about what you learned from Gary. And we've talked about Gary and we quote him all the time. And there's so much wisdom with Mr. Gary Halbert that, you know, me and you talked about this before this episode and said, you know, let's just kind of talk a lot about, you know, Gary Halbert principles, because although most of it was born in the direct mail, you know, world, so much of the psychology is applicable to, you know, online marketing and Internet marketing and social media and whatever other silly electronic forms of communication that people can come up with, it still is a way to communicate effectively and using theater and impact and all that sort of stuff, which is what Gary was about. So that's kind of what we're going to talk about today. Yeah.

You know, I mean, I thought. And some of the things that I learned from Gary certainly were about. About direct mail, but some of the things were about psychology and about just the. The dynamics of how people interact with sales messages, you know, whether they're direct mail or whether they're any type of. Of any type of message.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, Gary really was about, you know, he was. He was a detective, he was a scientist. He was a, you know, he was a marketer. I mean, he just.

He was absolutely curious. That's the thing that was so, you know, every time, I mean, the varied things that he would write about. I know you got these phone calls. I got these phone calls that would start up and say, listen to this. He wouldn't even say, hey, it's Gary, or anything. He would just pick up the phone and go, listen to this. And he'd start reading one of his letters that he had just finished. And it might be, you know, for something crazy. You never know what. You never know what he's going to be writing about, you know.

And he did. He wrote about a whole variety of subjects. And of course, I'm the first to always say that, you know, you were either on Gary's good side or his bad side. You wouldn't want to be on the guy's bad side because he could get pretty fricking vicious with people he didn't like. I mean, he could. I saw him destroy people with copy with letters that he felt were unethical or he didn't like them or slighted him in some way or whatever. But, you know, I mean, he, you know, Gary was really poor at times at customer service and follow up and that sort of thing. And you know, what I liked about him, though, was he was always very admitting of his flaws. I mean, like, totally open book about how screwed up he felt he was at times. And, you know, and he was one of these guys that helped me through some of the worst times of my life with personal crises and things like that. I mean, I just had such a. Such an understanding of looking at things outside of himself. You know, it's kind of the famous sort of person that is so good at helping other people, but no good at taking their own advice in many ways. And he was like that. But he had so many great sayings, and one of them was some games. In life, the only way you win is you don't play. I constantly think about projects and people and Deals to get into and new technologies to adopt. I had a 45 minute conversation with Dan Kennedy yesterday on the phone, just me and Dan just talking privately. And Dan was talking about email and how he never his used email and how he doesn't have a cell phone and he doesn't even look at a computer. I mean, he just doesn't do it because he just, you know, and he's written about this and, you know, various books and everything. But, you know, he, he just knows the temptation of computers for him will, you know, cause him to waste a lot of time. And so for Peter Kennedy, not computers, but the Internet. Well, the Internet, yeah, yeah, not computers. He uses a computer to write. But like he made this interesting statement. He goes, you know, the Internet and computers, the way that he said computers and even iPads and stuff and smartphones is like, in a lot of ways they replicate the same sort of addictive effect of slot machines in Vegas where just people can't. You start to go shopping and that breaks you down a trail. And Gary was very much aware of that sort of stuff before the Internet even became, you know, what it is today. And he had some very interesting perspectives on that. And he also, you know, he also knew that at a very deep level that all human beings are secretly wanting to be led. And you can lead them in good ways and you can lead them in bad ways. And that marketing is. It's all in the application, it's all in the character of the person. And, you know, I mean, more than anything, I learned that marketing is about psychology. I've got some notes and stuff that we've put together because, you know, over the years, I did a really phenomenal consultation with Gary way back in 1997, which to this day is some of the best Gary Halbert advice that has ever been recorded. And I recorded this consultation that I paid him $11,500 for two days back in 1997 just to sit down and talk about stuff. And John Carlton was there and you know, Pamela Yellen was there, a couple of other marketers were there. And we sat. Terry hunted, Terry Hunter. Yeah, Terry Huntefeld was there.

And you know, the interesting thing is I was almost going to be there with you. We had just done a main event in California and I was going to go, you know, I was going back to Florida, but it would have meant going, going back to Florida and then coming back to Denver. Because you did it in Denver, right?

Yeah. And it was right when I was doing some consulting with Bill Phillips, you know, at the time he owned EAS and Muscle Media magazine and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah. So those tapes are incredible. They're great. Yeah.

Yeah. And I ended up, you know, I ended up recording the two days. And there's so much wisdom that came out of it and a lot of it I've summarized into notes and into reports and things that have been created just to capture, you know, some of the best stuff from Gary. And, you know, a lot of it is just common sense, but a lot of it, you know, but common sense is not common for, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of people. They just totally don't get the obvious. And there's a picture that I took from a chapter in Dan Kennedy's book, no BS Direct Marketing for non direct marketing businesses. And many of the people that listen to I love marketing. They're in brick and mortar businesses and stuff. And it has this kind of little border and it says Big Companies agenda for Advertising and Marketing. And then it has seven parts of their agenda. And then there's one that says your agenda that only has one thing. And I just wanted to read this because this is so much how Halbert would think too. And I mean, me and you both agree with this and this is really profound. And you can get this out of Dan Kennedy's no BS book. Anyway, it's Big Companies agenda for Advertising and Marketing. The first one is to please and appease its board of directors, most of whom know zip about advertising and marketing but have lots of opinions. The second is please and appease its stockholders. Third is look good, look appropriate to Wall Street. Fourth is look good, appropriate to the media. Five, build brand identity. Six, win AW for Advertising. And seven, sell something. And then your agenda. There's only one sell something now, what your agenda should be.

That's absolutely true, isn't it?

I mean, it's like that's the agenda of all of your advertising. Marketing is to sell something now. And so many people get so caught up in stuff. And Gary just, he would always talk about his newsletters as like a big meat cleaver that would cut through the sea of humanity. And he wrote about that. The very first newsletter I ever read in 1992, way back in 1992, almost 20 years ago. And yeah, so we're going to talk about. Let's kind of get into it.

Sure.

And I'd like to just rattle off some things. Gary Halbert's continuity keys. The first one is get attention. The second is convert Fresh, Wanted, Finished, Timely, sort of Leads. So convert these people that are new, that want your stuff, do it in a timely manner. And the third thing is keep addictiveness and stickiness so that you bond with people and they will keep coming back. And he said, people will do business with you the first time because they want what you have. They will keep doing business with you because they like you. And, you know, so part of it is just, you know, just bonding with your clients. And so. But again, you know how I typically go on tangents on. I love marketing here, Dean, so I wanted to, you know, kind of give you an opportunity to sort of direct this any way you'd like. And if not, you're just welcome to let me go.

Well, I think that. I think what would be valuable is. I mean, we've both had so many lessons that we've kind of learned from Gary specifically. I think it would be good to kind of go a little back and forth and kind of share some of those. Some of the lessons that we learned. Because one of. I would say that perhaps one of the biggest lessons that I learned from Gary was not even really about direct mail specifically or about copy or anything like that. And the biggest thing that I've used a lot is the idea that he used when he came up with the A pile versus B pile, you know, when he was really going through all that testing and discovering what the ideal direct mail package would be. And he, you know, the way that he did it was imagining that he could only mail one letter and he had to get an order or he was going to be beheaded. And so you think that thought for a second, you know, and you think about the way that he thought that through, because for people who are not familiar with Gary's A pile, B pile idea is that people sort their mail over the garbage can and they put their mail into two piles. The A pile is all the things that look like personal letters, like bills, like things that are important directly to them. And the B pile are things that are unimportant, things that. Junk mail or things that, you know what it is, Subscription notices or all of those things, and the things that get opened first and read are the things that are in the A pile. And, you know, so he. When he had that whole thought process of, if my life depended on me getting an order here, would I risk my life on sending something bulk mail? And, you know, he answered, no, I wouldn't risk my life on sending something bulk mail, because if he moved, it might not. It won't get to him. It could get thrown out. So that was his idea of if my life depended on it, I'd send something first class and I'd make sure that instead of using an indicia or using a meter, that I'd use a real stamp and put probably two or three stamps so that they know for sure that it's a first class letter and it's not bulk mail. Then he said, I wouldn't risk my life on putting teaser copy on the outside of an envelope because I wouldn't want people to, I wouldn't want to just get that wrong idea. So what he did was make it look just like a personal letter, only to that one person. You know, you wouldn't want to tip people off that this is, you know, that we're mailing this to a bunch of people. Not make it look like a mass mailing, make it look like one letter for one person. And that way, you know, you've got two of the most important things that for a direct mail package to be successful, you've gotten it delivered and you've gotten it opened. And you know, if you break those things, if you don't get your letter, you know, delivered and you don't get it open, then there's no chance that they're going to, there's no chance that they're going to place an order or that they're going to buy what it is that you are, that you're selling.

Yeah. No matter how good the offer or whatever it is you're selling, it's got to get delivered and opened first. Yeah.

And you know, when you really think about that, you know, even as important as the breakthrough is as important as the, you know, the actual. We all know now that, you know, to make something look like an a pile letter is the very best thing is a hand addressed, hand addressed envelope with live stamps and that looks like a personal letter. But that thought process that got him there was really that thought of what would I do if my life depended on it? You know, not just if I'm trying to save money and get the most cost effective response. He's always into getting the, getting the most impact that you can and using that carried on into what he would put in the envelope. Because as soon as you open the envelope, that's why he was such a big fan of, of grabbers, is to kind of, once you open that envelope, to suck you into the envelope. There's probably nobody who's mailed more dollar bill letters than Gary Halbert or been responsible for more people mailing dollar Bill letters where you put a real dollar bill at the top of the letter and that's for sure going to get somebody to open it and look at it and at least say, what's this about? So he started using dollar bills, using any rubber bands, aspirin, anything you could possibly think of. He had a great way of getting somebody's attention with that and sucking them right into the letter. And then once you start reading the letter, the job's almost done.

Yeah. And again, if everyone listening is only thinking, well I don't even do direct mail, so how does this apply to me? You miss the whole point that what you just said, Dean, because it's, you know, the same thing. If you're going to send an email to someone or you're going to, if they never open your email, it's irrelevant.

Well that's exactly right. And that's where, you know, I use that thinking a lot in the emails that I send because it's the same thing. You know, it's so easy when you're mailing, emailing, you know, thousands of emails at the same time or hundreds of thousands of emails that you kind of, you know, think about the forest that you're mailing to, you know, you think about everybody, you think about the group that you're mailing to, but the reality is you're mailing to individuals, you know, and so you start thinking about what would it take to get this one person to, to open this email and get that one person to click through to the link or respond to this email. And it's exactly the thought process that when we were talking about more cheese and less whiskers a couple of episodes ago, you know, the email that went to the restaurants that said do you do birthday parties? You know, that's just one, that's an email that you would send to one person. And that's kind of like, you know, the, the modern day equivalent of Gary's thought is that people, you know, scan their email over the garbage can, literally over the delete button, you know, and you've got to look at your, the subject line and the, you know, the, everything about that email that makes it seem like an a pile email. That's the modern day equivalent of what he was talking about.

Yep, yep, exactly. And you know, I want to because I have this thing right here and you mentioned the dollar bill. I have this page that we took kind of from some, from the XXX Halbert tapes that I recorded with him. And it's an emergency life saving solution. It will bail you out of any financial problem you have. And this is what Kerry's advice was. Mail a $1bill letter to your existing list and follow it up a with telephone call. Record the calls until you catch yourself at fever pitch. Use that as a training program for anyone else who's going to work for you. They will hear you selling at your best. That's how you get somebody to do it. But first, you need to send a $1 bill letter. Simply mail a letter with a stamp with a personalized letter and a dollar bill. If you follow up with a telephone call, your sales will increase by a factor of five. Now, here we are in the Internet age, and I can assure you that if you do that, it will most likely work with, of course, the caveat that you have to be offering something that people actually want, and it has to be a right fit. But if you already have an existing client base as an example that have bought something from you, that have already shown that they are interested in what it is you have because they have either bought it, inquired, or consumed it on some way, shape or form, then you simply, you know, you go out to people and you make another offer to the same thing or more of the same thing or a similar or whatever it is, whatever problem they have that your company can solve. You write about it and you put a dollar bill on there and you mail it to them. And then you follow up and say, hey, did you, you know, I sent you a letter with a dollar bill attached to that? Did you get it? And as Gary would say, yada, yada, yada, if you can't, yada, yada, yada. You know, remember, he would say, if you can't take it from there, you're hopeless. Exactly. And of course, that's because he didn't want to do any more of the work of figuring it out. But, you know, he was. He's right in so many ways because, yeah, you know, the key is to get it delivered and open and read. And you need to open up someone's mind. I mean, it's. That's where it starts.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's. That Right. There has been one of the most valuable lessons that I've learned ever, period, whether from Gary Albert or anybody. That's certainly been very impactful for me because whenever I go through that process, I kind of. I think that through. I think I take that provocation of, what if my life depended on this? What if I was going to be beheaded? How would I. How would I write this? Or how would I approach this situation? You know?

Yeah, see, you know, that is, John Carlton always refers to it as, you know, gun to your head marketing, where if you had to make this work and your life depended on it, you would do things differently. And so that always begs the question is, you know, like when people are very promiscuous with their emails and with their messaging and they just throw it out to people, you know, they can deliver it to a ton of people. And, you know, people always make a big deal about how many emails are sent or how many people visited their website. And I've always loved the definition of hits, and I think Gary is the one that probably came up with this term, you know, of what does hits really stand for? And it's how idiots track success. Yeah, right. And I can't tell you how many people come to me on a regular basis. Oh yeah, I just got, you know, 10,000 or 50,000 hits to my website. Did you sell anything? No. Did you capture any leads? You know, a few. What has it done for you and your clients and all? I mean, why did they come there? You know, what, what did they see when they got there? You know, and it's just like, whatever.

Yeah.

And so some games in life, the only way you win is you don't play. You don't play the non direct response game. You know, I mean, you can play it, but it's just not, it's not a really good use of you don't play.

Yeah, the name recognition game or the repetition game.

And I will say something that probably has, you know, it's not completely on par with talking about Halbert. It's just what's kind of going through my head right now. Based on a couple conversations I had earlier in the week, I talked to a. I won't mention his name, a very, very famous author and very large blog following, profound smart guy who writes about marketing and also doesn't want to be positioned as a quote unquote marketer. I mean, he's spoken at ted, he's done a bunch of stuff, but he doesn't want to position himself as a marketer and make claims and make offers and all that sort of stuff. And I really like this person's work. I mean, I think it's pretty profound and stuff. But I also felt a real disconnect with this whole field of marketing. Not wanting to be associated with quote unquote marketers and salespeople and be viewed that way because marketers sometimes have a bad rap when people have marketing. One of the things that me and you originally talked about is, for lack of a better word, because both of us are not brand people. We tend to follow kind of Ogilvy's sort of philosophy on brand building. It's the personality of your product or service. But just to spend money to get your name out there, but not spend money to get your name out there and get a response back is a waste of getting your name out there. And most small business owners aren't Coca Cola or McDonald's or Virgin like my friend Richard. They don't have these global organizations that can go out and build a brand. I know a lot of people that are way, way, way more famous and well known than me or you, that make way, way less money than me or you. You can't deposit name recognition in the bank. Basically. We talked about rebranding how people think of marketing because we believe marketing is such not only is it an incredibly noble profession, it is so damn important because the greatest inventions, the greatest problems, solutions, everything from medical breakthroughs to innovations to, you know, everything from, you know, helping humanity in all different kinds of form, from disease and homelessness and dictatorships, and everything boils down to communication and marketing. However people want to disguise it. You know, things that move the world, things that move the dial are done by marketers, they're done by salespeople. And, and there are just still way too many people that hide the fact that they love marketing and they make excuses for it because someone will point to some unethical marketer and they try to give the entire industry a black eye just because there's some crappy junk food. Does that mean food is bad? You don't see people running around saying, oh, that's evil food, evil food. Well, try surviving without food. I mean, you're not going to do well, try surviving a business without marketing. I always want to bring up that when you listen to these I love marketing calls. Of course, we believe that all money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. We talk constantly about, don't promise things you're not going to deliver, take care of people, treat them well. The lifetime value of your client is predicated on delivering a great experience and great products and services and treating people well so that they refer you and they want to do business with you over and over again. I mean, that's a given. That's how both me and Dean think about all this. And the point is, be proud of being a marketer. And if you run across people that are anti marketing Sometimes you can have a communication with them and they kind of get it and they understand where they were wrong. But for the most part, there are a lot of people out there that just. They don't get it. I mean, they don't get it, and they have, like a chip on their shoulder when it comes to marketing, and they're not worth trying to talk, convince after a point because you can only throw so many energy at it, at people like that. And I'm just, you know, I'm just very proud to be a marketer, very proud to be a salesperson. And those are the most important people in the world in order to make something happen. And if you find someone that's like a great inventor or a great doctor, and they don't have great marketing skills, but you can use your marketing skills to assist them and help them, you can really impact. You can save lives. I mean, you can reduce human suffering and you can make a lot of money anyway. I just always want to bring that up, that marketing is a great thing. And whenever you have people talking shit about it, then set them straight.

You know what was funny to hear Richard Branson talk about marketing, and his immediate first thought about marketing is that it starts with the product or the service, that you've got to have something that's really worth shouting about. And that's sort of what you're saying there, that bottom line, you really have to be proud of what it is that you have.

Yeah, absolutely. Because who wants marketing easier? Yeah. I mean, who wants to sell something that they don't believe in? And if you see that's where marketing in a lot of ways, a lot of people have had jobs where they've been put in a sales position and they're talking people into things they don't really believe in. And I mean, you should always run. I mean, if you can't, you know, we're having a conversation with Marie Forleo where, you know, she's talking about, if it's not a hell yes, you know, it's a hell no. Right?

Yeah.

And, you know, you got to really look at what you're selling. And if you're not like, hell yes, this is really awesome, or someone's coming to you and they want to do a joint venture with you, and you can't say hell yes about what it is they're selling. Even if there's a lot of money, run away from it. I mean, that's not good energy. And all money is not created equal. There's a lot of elf Money, easy, lucrative and fun. And there's a lot of half money. Hard, annoying, lucrative and frustrating. And so only stick with an elf business. Elf marketing, elf people, elf projects. Stay away from half projects, half people, that sort of thing. That should be a criteria. And you know, that's one thing that again, going back to Gary. Gary always wanted to figure out how to make things easy. Let me rattle off some, some tips of his because these are just things to think about and we can come back and talk about any of them if any of them stand out. Use believable reasons. You're always going to give people reasons why they should do business with you, but you want to give them ones that they actually believe because there's a huge difference between believability and credibility. Use stories. Always use stories. He also said it's not just the writing of copy, it's the salesmanship that you got to understand. I learned what I do. Knocking on doors, selling encyclopedias. That's where you learn how to do it. I recently had a kid that wanted me to mentor him and I spent, you know, I spent a good deal of time with him and he's a great guy. I really like him and he really wanted to become a better marketer and I told him, pick up the phone and sell stuff to people. Now that goes against write a sales letter. Because marketing is supposed to eliminate selling. You want to selling. Marketing makes selling easy and ideally unnecessary. We talk about that quote all the time. In some ways, it's counterintuitive for someone to think, well, I'm going to write a sales letter because a sales letter can, can and clone me going out and doing an actual sales presentation. However, there's something that you learn about talking to someone on the phone or doing face to face selling that once you learn how to overcome objections, once you really learn how to listen to people, involve yourself in a Socratic conversation. Use technique. If you need to use technique in order to engage them that you can then apply to all of your other forms of marketing and replicate yourself. See, so many people want to run around thinking they're just going to write a letter or shoot a video and kind of keep a wall up from them talking to a real human being. And then all of a sudden they're just going to want what you want so bad that it's just going to flip the switch. One of the best ways to improve your marketing is to improve your ability to sell face to face or on the phone. Because if you can make that work, then you have a Starting point where you can can and clone yourself. Which is why Gary would say record yourself a concert pitch, transcribe the recording successfully selling on the phone or face to face. And then you have the rough draft or the actual draft of the sales letter or the consumer awareness guide or the free report or the script for a webinar or a teleseminar or a video or a social media campaign or a launch broken up into 40 different pieces. All of that can be dissected. But in order to have a operating marketing model, it's good to have understand the anatomy of a successful sales pitch. And I told this individual, I said, pick up the phone and sell some stuff. And I pointed to some things that he was trying to build a whole marketing campaign around. A lot of what he was doing was just fake work. He was preparing to make a sale using marketing. Instead of just going and saying, well, can I successfully do this? Does anyone even want this? Or am I going to spend all this time trying to set up the website, do all this stuff in order to the setup stage? Which was all a cop out. It was all a form of avoiding really doing the hard work. He didn't do it. Will he still be successful? I hope so. Is he still a friend of mine? Yeah. Will I still have conversations with him? Yeah. Will I spend as much time and emphasis with him like I was doing before? No. Will he probably listen to this I Love marketing podcast? Yes. Will he hopefully get his ass out there and sell something, you know, learn how to accelerate his, you know, goal of becoming a quote unquote information marketer and teacher and all that. You know, only if he ever picks up the damn phone and goes out and sells some shit to people.

So you can't really shortcut that process almost, can you? I mean, I think that the reason that you and I have such a deep understanding of marketing is that we have both had that experience of being, of being face to face with people.

Oh yeah, Yeah. I mean, it, you know, it in a lot of ways. You know, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, you know, they make really great sales people. I mean, that's why there's a lot of phone centers and stuff in Utah. I mean, when you're, you know, thrown out there for two years to go and, you know, talk to people and get rejected over and over again. I mean, it kind of teaches you how to interact with other people and even trying to sell them and convince them and engage them in a conversation over something that the vast majority of people don't even Want to talk to you about? Well, I mean, we're not even telling people to go on a mission. We're saying literally, if you have something that people want, go out and talk to them and don't try to shortcut it. Yeah. There are so many people that try to be me and you are information marketers. And there's one thing that me and you have in common. Both of us were not information marketers. First you had to figure out how to make real estate work. I had to figure out how to make my carpet cleaning business work. I had to first learn how to sell. I then, with that sales background, learned how to apply that to marketing so I can can and clone my sales process and actually eliminate selling. Because face to face selling is one of the biggest waste of time on the planet once you learn marketing. But if you don't even know how to do it, it's really rare. Not that it never happens because there are situations where people that are extremely introverted that just learn how to write really great copy and they never have to talk to anyone and they can send out a sales letter, they can set up a website, they can assemble other people to do the. Not that that's not doable, but I'll tell you, if given the choice, I will always put my money on the person that's literally had to sell anything door to door. Even starting with newspaper subscriptions as a kid or painting on curbs or having a lemonade stand or selling Kirby vacuum cleaners. I mean, even stuff that people find as annoying, sales presentations, the training that you get out of that. I mean, if people are still having a struggle figuring out how to market, I mean, in a lot of cases, go and work in a phone room for two weeks. It sounds like insane advice, but it will be some of the best advice that I think you could ever give.

Yeah, well, you know, I'll tell you that the thing that really switched me out of the cold, calling and prospecting and doing, you know, having to go out and individually look for, for prospects, was I shared the story of using the, the direct mail postcards to generate leads. And that's a concept that I learned to go deep with from Gary Halbert. You know, it's his this whole idea of using, you know, baby steps to just start by getting the name, address and telephone number of everyone who's likely to be your customer.

Yeah.

And doing the lead generation. Now when you. I think that I had such an appreciation for it when I actually learned it and, and saw how that could replace that prospecting that I was doing, I think you have that kind of. There's this real depth of appreciation for it when you know what it's like to go out and manually generate those leads or generate that business. Just like you out door knocking and handing out, you know, talking to people about getting their carpets cleaned, you know, it's a whole different thing.

Yeah. I mean, I can even say that even the people that have tried to knock off selling stuff to carpet cleaners, that have never cleaned carpets themselves, that never had to go out there and sell jobs and hustle jobs themselves, they just don't do as well. People that want to be gurus and experts and teachers and seminar speakers, but they get up and they talk about things they've only done in their dreams or that they read in someone else's book or attended someone else's seminar, and they're like, hey, you know, I want to do that. You know, we always have this conversation. Not me and you always, but me and, like, several other people, where someone comes to a seminar and they see hundreds of people in a room that all paid 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, whatever. You know, a person. And, you know, I'm doing a $10,000 person event in New York in August for two days. And, you know, I mean, I don't do cheap events. And, you know, they look around the room and everyone does the addition, but no one does the subtraction.

Right.

And realize that, yeah, you know, there's. There's actually a lot to this. It's not just a simple business. And to put on a good event, you know, there's a lot going on backstage. And, you know, a lot of people aren't willing to do that. You know, they just want to. They want to go, boom. I want to be a guru. I want to be an expert. I want my name on the COVID of a book. Well, you know, have you actually done anything? Have you really done what you are telling other people to do? And I understand the mindset of carpet cleaners really well. Why? Because I'm one of them. I mean, even though I've not cleaned a carpet in a long time, and every once in a while, I'll go and I'll clean a carpet with one of my clients and stuff, just to kind of keep myself in the loop and, you know, more so for photo shoots and, you know, blatant marketing campaigns. But, I mean, I used to be the Arizona director of the Carpet and Fabric Care Institute in Arizona. I used to bring the educational classes. I Got really involved in carpet cleaning. I set up EthicalServices.com where people can go and type a zip code in anywhere in the United States and they can find an ethical carpet cleaner that 100% guarantees his work. I mean, I'm very involved in the carpet cleaning industry and I understand the mindset of them because I was one of them. And so if you really want to help people, you should really understand what those people are going through. And you should really understand how to go out and sell stuff to people that you know. And then once you have successfully done it. Now, here's how not to be a dumbass. Once you've learned how to sell successfully, then put that into marketing can and clone yourself, replicate it. Write a sales letter, record a video, put up a website. You know, improve the copy and communications and the offers. You know, build a list. I mean, do all those things that marketers do. And if you don't know how to do all those things, the beauty of I Love Marketing is we have already go through past episodes. If you haven't listened to them, you know, listen to the interview we did with Telman on how to build the list. Listen to the interview, you know, with. Look at the past list of people that we've done, you know, we've done interviews with and the topics that me and Dean have talked about, because we covered many of these subjects in depth. If you've been one of our faithful listeners of I Love Marketing, go back and listen to a couple of the first episodes or read through some of the transcripts. Because the stuff that we said in the very beginning of I Love Marketing, which is golden. I mean, there's so much great content and it's free. We're not even selling anything there. I mean, we have an event coming up and we have some things we recommend here and there. But this is pretty much valuable content that's just free. You'll hear it differently. And if you went out, when I say you, I'm talking to you, listening. The person that's hanging upside down on an inversion chair with an ipod in their ear. That's how I think most people listen to I Love Marketing. If you went out and sold something for the next week or two, or you actually sent a dollar bill and you then followed up with 15, 20, 100 people, you're going to hear all of the advice that we're given on these calls differently. And I think you'll just get enhancements out of that. Dean, can I share seven halberdisms?

I'd Love it.

Okay. Seven Halberdisms. One. Advertising should be and marketing must be. Salesmanship multiplied. Capture yourself selling and then engineer it. So many go through it. 2. Marketing is a matter of impact, theater and drama. 3. This is all about arithmetic. We are in the arithmetic business. 4. The longer and more bold the guarantee, the better. While you wait to get the money, bond with him. 5. Marketing is the lifeblood of your business. Everything else is a diminished return on your time. Marketing is the ultimate delegation replacement of a sales force. 6. There's no growth without injury. People will do anything to remain in their comfort zone. Information is very important, but you got to do it. 7. The first condition of success is the feeling that you deserve success. If you don't have that, you will never have success. The second thing is that you have to believe success is possible. And see, one of the ways to believe that success is possible is to go out and prove that you can actually do it and keep doing it. You know, anything worth doing in life is worth doing poorly. I didn't come up with that, but I've heard that and I, you know, the first time you walked, did it really poorly. The first time you tried to play a guitar, did it poorly. First time you tried to play golf or drive a car or use a computer or ride a bike, I mean, you did it poorly, but you kept doing it and you kept getting good at it. And if you suck at marketing, if you keep at it, if you keep learning, if you keep taking action, if you keep applying, you're going to do that. And you know, I read a book that John Carlton recommended a while back called Constructive Living. And one of the things that was in the book where he talked about was that, you know, a lot of people read books on self help and they want to have, you know, higher self esteem, higher confidence. And so they, you know, try to gain knowledge, to learn how to think better about themselves, how to be more confident. But they're like, you know, if you actually go out and do behaviors that give you confidence, that's the best way to become confident, is to go out and actually create it. And so to be confident in your marketing, you know, it's the same thing. I mean, it's the same thing. And not that it won't come and not that there isn't such thing as luck, because there is. I mean, there are such things as luck. However, I would tend to, you know, put my emphasis on things that you can control and your luck will get much better if you actually just go out and Take action and, you know, are doing sales and learning marketing and swinging bats and all that stuff. Anyway, so, yeah, see, it's kind of weird. After I go to a dentist, I get in sort of a weird kind of cranky mood because my mouth was hurting earlier. So I feel like today I've just been kind of like bitchy and.

Well, don't take it out on me.

Yeah, I'm feeling very hurtful right now. And I really think if we can get everyone on I love marketing to go to Amazon and buy like the Jerky Boys greatest hits and create a gigantic surge of resurgence to the Jerky Boys, then if they actually like that twisted form of humor from years ago and they actually made a post that I heard about the Jerky Boys on Ilove marketing dot com. I mean, we could create a brand new movement bringing back the Jerky Boys. Maybe we can even do it for Stretch Armstrong. Remember those little toys as a kid?

Yeah, exactly.

Why is Stretch Armstrong not around anymore? I don't get it. You got to imagine that Stretch Armstrong is more important to a kid than like a smartphone.

Now all the kids want their ipod touch so they can be like, yeah.

What about the Stretch Armstrong iPhone app? See if there's someone that's younger than probably like 30 right now listening to this, they're like, what the hell am I talking about? This is Stretch Armstrong. Maybe find one on ebay or something. Okay, so, Dean, how are we going to wrap this up?

Well, you know, I want to share a couple of more, though.

You're.

I feel like we're just getting started here.

No, no, we aren't. I mean, we're going to continue to talk about Halbert, but I wanted to, you know, I mean, my big takeaway, like from, from today or the big takeaway I want to have for our listeners is, you know, get your ass out there and sell something and record your stuff in concert pitch. I mean, that would be one great thing to have. You know, if you've not done it in a while, you know, call people and talk to them and record yourself and you know, tell them, say, yeah, I'm going to make an offer to you, but you know, I'm going to talk to you about something we got going on. You mind if I record it? You know, most people are going to be like, yeah, that's fine. Or if you do, if you can do a live presentation, you know, record yourself and listen and then transcribe it and then, you know, cut all the fat and waste out of the conversation and Then hold on to those golden nuggets of things that are persuaders. You know, we're going to, at our conference we've got, coming up, we're going to go through the profit activators, which is going to be freaking awesome. But again, you want to look at what are your persuasive abilities and how can you then integrate that into marketing. So yeah, go ahead, do some of yours.

Well, one of the, we kind of touched on it a little bit with the lead generation because he was a big fan of two step marketing where you would run a lead generation ad and then follow that up with a, with a sales letter or with more information or a sequence of events, sequence of things to try and bond with people and present whatever it is that you have for them. And one of the ideas that he shared, he's always had these great analogies and he talked about how these little tugboats can move big ocean liners. Do you remember when he would talk about that, about how it doesn't, you know, it seems unlikely. How can this little tugboat move this big boat? And how it starts is they shoot a little, you know, rope, a little rope with a, you know, out of a little gun up into the, the ocean liner and somebody up on the top grabs it and they start pulling that in. And as they're pulling, the rope gets a little bit thicker and then it gets a little bit thicker and then it turns into the big chain that is attached now to the tugboat. And with that sort of a grip on it, it can move that ocean liner in any direction. But it couldn't start out shooting the big chain up over the bow. They had to start by just throwing the thinnest rope that they could throw up over the top there. And as it's reeling in, it's getting thicker and thicker and bonding more and more. And you know, that sort of analogy or metaphor or whatever literary device that is is really an incredible visualizer for what you're doing with your, with your prospects. You know, you're starting out with just the, the loosest thing, just the lightest kind of bond to them. Something an offer for a consumer awareness guide or an offer for a free report which now every time, every time you communicate with them, that bonding gets a little bit, a little bit stronger and you're able to direct people into, you know, a place that you want them to go. That was pretty profound for me when I kind of.

No, no, it is. And so, yeah, I mean, what we're doing is we're giving People. So I guess what you're saying is we're giving people a bunch of little ropes so they can get the little tugboat pulling the ocean liner.

That's exactly right.

That is powerful. What do you think the Jerky Boys would say about that? People that don't know who the Jerky Boys are. Like, what is he talking about? Exactly.

What is he talking about?

There's going to be a big thing.

On Amazon and the Jerky Boys are going to come back in resurgence.

Yeah. I mean, we are starting to get Oprah power here on I Love Marketing. We have enough people listening where if we tell someone to go buy a book, it's going to turn people into best sellers and stuff. We got, you know, it's kind of like it's not even about Joe and Dean anymore. This has become a movement. I mean, there are I Love Marketing little meetings that are going to be popping up on meetup.com I think there's going to be a national holiday soon that's going to be, I mean, the I Love Marketing Day, which it should be. I mean, certainly I can see about, you know, several holidays that should be replaced with I Love Marketing as the day, because that would be a heck of a lot more impactful. I Love Marketing.

Let's just set the holiday right now. It's September 21st for.

Yeah. You know, September 21st, 2011. The official I Love Marketing Day. Where are you going to be, you know, if you really love marketing, if you're not just. If you're one of those passive sort of listeners that really just kind of, this is your, you know, morning entertainment while you commute to work on your Segway. You know, that that's not as important as someone that's going to actually be at the official launching pad in Arizona on September.

The official launch pad of I Love Marketing Day. December 21st.

I love it. Yeah. Yeah, I do, too. Let's see what else I want to share here because, you know, you know, let's do this. There's so many little cool things that I got from Gary Halbert here. There's. I'm going to read this one thing. Master Checklist, what People Want. And this came out of a book that Gary very much liked by Vic Schwab, how to Write a Good Ad by Vic schwab on page 22 and 23, what people want. And I'm just going to rattle through some things and none of this is going to be overly profound, but it'll be a good thing for people to hear. Better health, greater strength, vigor, endurance, the possibility of a longer life. More money for spending, saving and giving to others. Greater popularity through a more attractive personality or through personal accomplishments. Improved appearance, beauty, style, better physical build, cleanliness, security in old age, independence, provision for age or adversity. Praise from others for one's intelligence, knowledge, appearance and other evidence of superiority. More comfortable, comfort, ease, luxury, self indulgence, convenience, more leisure for travel, hobbies, rest, play, self development, et cetera. Pride of accomplishment, overcoming obstacles and competition. Desire to do things well. Business advancement, better job, success, be your own boss, Reward for merit. Social advancement, moving in better circles. Social acceptance, keeping up with the Joneses. Increased enjoyment from entertainment to food, drink and other physical contacts. People also want to be good parents, have influence over others. Be social, be hospitable, be gregarious, express their personalities, resist domination by others. Satisfy their curiosity, be up to date, emulate the admirable. Appreciate beauty, be proud of their possessions. Be creative, acquire or collect things. Be efficient, win others affection. Be first in things, improve themselves mentally. Be recognized as authorities and they want to say money, time, work, discomfort, worry, doubts, risks, embarrassments, offense to others, boredom, personal self respect and prestige. Now why did I read all that stuff? Well, that is a checklist. And if you have that checklist, which you now have, because we transcribe every one of these. I Love marketing calls. You can either go and get Vic Schwab's book, how to Write a Good ad. Definitely worth reading. It's on page 22nd and 2030. You can see what I just read there. Or you can just look, look at the transcripts on this particular episode. And whenever you're writing something, speak to these things because that's what people want, that's what you want. And what's cool is every single thing I read here. Everything you're going to get when you come to our I Love Marketing conference. Actually, I'm kidding. I don't think it's going to give you security in. Yeah, it'll give you security in old age. Will it increase enjoyment? Yeah, it'll do that. Social advancement. Certainly you're going to be able to keep up with the Joneses more when you make more money than them. Better health. Possibly. Possibly. Better health, more money, certainly. Greater popularity. Absolutely. Improved appearance. Well, if you can buy nicer clothes, it can probably help you there. Can we make you cleaner? I don't know if we have. I love marketing soap, but praise from others for one's intelligence, knowledge. Absolutely. More comfort, ease, luxury, self indulgence, for sure. More leisure Absolutely. Because we like having fun in what we do. And definitely pride of accomplishment, overcoming obstacles and competition. Yeah. We're going to teach you how to slaughter your competition and business advancement. Better job success. Be your own boss. Well, certainly. And if you already are your own boss, you're going to be a much better version of that. So I think the I Love Marketing conference is pretty much going to provide many of these things because that's what people want. So the question is, if you want these things, get your butt out to Phoenix. That's sort of a subtle plug. And you know, we did talk about Gary Halbert. There's so much more. I mean, I touched on 1/10 of 1% of Gary Halbert, which you can do in an hour. But I did do two days of consulting with Gary and I'm not going to use this call as a plug for. Well, I'll subtly use it as a plug for that. What I mean is I'm not going to pitch people right on this call. If anyone is interested in Gary Halbert, let's set up a special. I did this triple X Halbert program and we called it XXX because there's like a lot of profanity being thrown around and so it is adult language. But if you are interested in that, we will set up an Ilove marketing page where you can find out more information about the recordings that I did with Gary and various other stuff from Gary. Should we just put that ilovemarketing.com what?

Yeah, let's do. I don't know what we'll do. We'll put it right under right on this episode here. So we'll put it.

Yeah, we'll put it right on that episode. But I think why don't we do that ilove marketing.com xxx how about that?

Okay.

Or should we do forward slash? I mean, we're doing this live right now. I mean, so you're here now. Me and Dean. Actually, it's probably not the most organized way to drive someone, but I think it's kind of funny.

I can't think of any reason why we wouldn't do xxx yeah, it would be pure and descriptive even to do Gary Halbert. But let's do both.

We'll do both. So if you go to ilovemarketing.com xxx or ilovemarketing.com garyhalbert then you will find information about getting more stuff from Gary right there on that page.

Let's do that.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm going to give you the final wrap up here, Dean, because I always. I know you do.

One of the other things I love, the stories that Gary would tell are always the ones that were sort of the most impactful for me, you know, because he told the. He told. He made his points by setting the stage, you know, by telling stories. And he told stories very similar to the way he wrote copy. You know, it was engaging just to listen to him. And, you know, I think that the point that he was making was, with this particular story was that it's more important what you say than how you say it. And, you know, I think that that means that the. Don't get so caught up in how you say something in the words that you choose to say something, but focus more on the substance of what it is that you're actually saying. And he would always use the example of, let's say that you are. That your wife is pregnant and she's, you know, about to go into labor, and you're in a meeting at work and she can't reach you on your cell phone, so they call the office and somebody comes in to tell you that your wife has just had given birth and you had triplets. You know, there's. It doesn't matter what words you use to say that message. The point is that the guy. You're going to be very excited that your wife just had a baby and you had triplets, you know?

Right.

I mean, there could be a dozen ways that somebody could say that. They could say, guess what? You just had a baby and you.

Had two more babies. You know, I mean, there's so many.

Different ways you could say it. But the point is that you're conveying something that's powerful when you look at what your good words can't mask.

The.

Message that you're saying. If you've got a really good message, it almost doesn't matter what words you use to convey it, but any words can cover up or gloss over a bad message. So if you've got a bad offer or an offer that's not compelling, no matter how you say it, people are going to see right through it, you know?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that's why, you know, if someone really wants it, you know, and you've really got a great offer, you can. You're much better off with a great offer and mediocre copy than great copy and lousy offer.

Right. That's another way of saying that same thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, I'd love to have everyone give their feedback on how much they because we do get requests for more Halbertisms and talk more about Gary Halbert. And you know, basically, if you really like hearing more about Halbert and love the psychology, we'll continue to, you know, talk about it, bring it up. And because there's so much to learn and I really, as wacky as Gary was, I actually have an enormous amount of gratitude for Gary. What I learned from him, he gave Dan Kennedy his first copywriting job. And Gary's impacted a tremendous amount of people from Bill Phillips. And just tons of people that are some of the greatest marketers credit Gary Halbert with so much of their learning. And he was brilliant. And so I want to continue to keep his, you know, his greatest marketing lessons out there in the world because they are definitely applicable. And you know, Gary created enemies along the way too. I mean, you know, there are a lot of people that didn't really like Gary at times. And you know, I will say that, you know, Bill Phillips, the single largest contributor individual for the Make a Wish foundation, having granted many, many wishes for Make a Wish. The idea of the Make a Wish model that I gave Bill that he used starting in 1997 actually came from Gary Halbert. So indirectly, these marketing techniques have helped grant wishes for hundreds of Make a Wish kids and you know, well over 600 at this point. Which is cool because the average wish costs between $6,000 to $8,000 to grant. So there's a lot of lot that has been done. So these marketing things don't just apply to for profit. You can do any form of communication you can use this marketing methodology with. So get yourself out there, sell something, record yourself in concert, pitch, transcribe it. And remember some games in life, the only way you win is you don't play. So only play games that are worth playing, that are else. And please give us your comments on Ilove marketing. And I'm sorry if I sounded a little cranky today, but Dean is a very hurtful person.

I try my hardest.

Yes. And go to right now go to ilovemarketing.com xxx and also if you're listening to this right at the time it came out, then go to our website and click on the button about the the I love marketing. Very special day, September 21st and 22nd, taking place in Phoenix, Arizona because it will change your life. That's all I gotta say. Dean, I'll be there. You better be there. Dan Kenney will be there and some of the top marketers in the world, the world will be there. So make it happen.

All right, guys, let's wrap up. Thanks for listening, and we will talk to you next time. Time.