The One About Knowing What To Do - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #58

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. That's right, the ever wandering, traveling Joe Polish. Where in the world is Joe Polish today?

Well, I am in Los Angeles. I wonder if I should tell your second home my exact location. I'm at the London Hotel in, like, Hollywood and off a sunset, and I got in yesterday, and it's been a whirlwind, you know, since I got in here.

What in the world? What are you doing? It's like, it's. I mean, people. It's so funny because it's like people say, you know, where's Joe? I said, I have no idea where Joe is. I cannot keep track of.

Well, okay, so I came out here, you know, we had Peter Diamandis speak at our 25k group, like a little over a week ago and blew everyone away. So at the time that we're recording this, and for people that listen to it later into the future, this might be dated, but I think it's all instructional. And he gave a presentation on Singularity University, the Xprize foundation, which he founded, and Abundance, which is his new book that came out literally less than a week ago. And it's, you know, hit New York Times. And all of these marketers, some of the top people in the world, are literally promoting people buying the book. Not for any compensation, just simply, you know, they believe in the message and they're telling people about it. And all these marketers, you know, our friends like, you know, Evan Pagan and Frank Kern and Jeff Walker and Tim Hellman and Mike Klein, who's working his butt off, John Benson, who's creating the video sales letters. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. So Peter, of course, this is a whole new world for him, all these marketers, and he's so incredibly grateful that we've got all these people that really believe in the message, that want to go out and promote it with no compensation and stuff. And they're all radical marketers, too. So there's the question of. This is a lot of people that aren't used to this sort of marketing are. It's kind of like, what the heck? So part of it is my whole thing is getting as many people as possible to promote Peter's book and tell people about it. For one, I think it's a great book. Secondly, his message is awesome. And if you've ever seen the guy speak, if you ever met him, I mean, he's just a fantastic Human being and just, you know, so smart and you know, everyone, I mean, Dan Sullivan is selling, you know, abundance books at Strategic Coach and you know, just lots of cool stuff. So Peter, you know, I, we have a guy named Steve Sims who's in the 25k group who has one of the highest level concierge services in the, in the world called the bluefish. Thebluefish.com and so, you know, I went not, you know, a few weeks ago to Paul McCartney's lifetime achievement dinner because the Bluefish can organize all kinds of, you know, interesting events and tickets for interesting events and all kinds of stuff. And so I came out here originally to go to Elton John's Oscar party which is happening tonight. And so that's what I'm hearing. We're squeezing in a podcast, you know, right before I go to this thing which is we're gonna head out of here at 2:30 today. But last night, you know, Peter had this book signing at Norman Lear's beautiful home here in, you know, la. And he's, he's a producer that's, you know, basically known for the Jeffersons. Good times, Maud.

Yeah. Archie Bunker, wasn't that him too?

What's that?

Yeah. Was he all in the Family?

Yeah, all in the Family. Jefferson, Sanford and Sons. Good times. You know, an unbelievable house and just amazing people there. I mean there were some amazing entrepreneurs. You know, Suzanne Summers was there and Ash and the singer Sarah Brightman and just a whole slew of interesting people. A lot of incredible entrepreneurs. Telman, you know, went up there with us and I was, yeah, it was great. And so we went to that and then I decided, you know, I'm gonna stay here all week. So I'm gonna go to Dr. Phil next Monday. I'm gonna for two episodes for filming of that. I'm gonna go to Peter's, you know, he's going to have a Fox TV event later this week. I'm going to meet up and have dinner with Neil Strauss, you know, our friend and author. So I'm going to spend a bunch of time in la.

You got to go to every time I'm out there with him. We go to Katsuya. Has he taken you there?

Is that the dark place?

It's the sushi place in. There's two. There's one in Hollywood and there's one in Studio City. And the one in Studio City is the one that's the very best sushi I've ever had in my mouth.

Well, there you go. I'll have to, I'M not sure where we're going, but every time I've gone out to dinner with Neil, he really knows where to go for good places.

So he really does.

That'll be awesome. And, you know, the point is I'm just doing genius networking. I mean, that's what I'm doing. I mean, people always ask me what I do. You know, I go out and I just try to meet. I try to have interesting, incredible experiences and events. And, you know, there's a price you pay for that sort of stuff. I mean, lots of travel, really fast pace, coordinating a lot of stuff right in the middle of Peter's book launch, where, you know, everyone's devoting a tremendous amount of time to, with no compensation just because they believe in something. And the thing that's really kind of cool that, that I'm witnessing here is that, you know, it's neat to watch all of these people get behind a movement and to see how a movement starts and, you know, things like that. You know, Brendon Bouchard's been texting me today, you know, with suggestions and various things. You know, David Box from vacation. You know, I mean, there's just all these people that, you know, it's interesting world, you know, I mean, like there's characters in a Star wars bar. I mean, that's what all these marketers and people, you know, everyone has just.

Incredible inside and they're spread out all over the. All over the galaxy. I mean, Brendan's on vacation right now. Sending pictures from vacation. I just got. And. Yeah, but he's texting. You know, it's amazing how you could stay so connected, right?

Yeah. And Brendan, of course, because he's on vacation is like keeping himself from, you know, going online or whatever. He just knew that we, you know, we have this thing going on and he doesn't want to interrupt his vacation and at the same time, he wants to contribute because he knows the importance of it. So, you know, it's, it's, it's really kind of cool. And it was really sort of disruptive too, here because I was actually supposed to have free days this entire week. So now I've rearranged my time off vacation time to later because one of the things I'm really sticking to this year is having at least 110 free days where I'm away from any computers or electronics whatsoever, which is really difficult in this day. It was easier even three years ago than it is now because things get so more and more just interconnected. But I really, you know, what's so.

Funny is that, you know, and, and I think this is really good to talk about this because it is getting kind of a frantic pace. And I know, I mean, you, you have a far more frantic pace than I do in terms of where, you know, where you. The travel and just the, the. All the different things and, but, but being able to block off time for, for free days and being time to actually to get stuff done in the midst of all of this is really. There's an art to it. It was funny that you talk about, you know, disconnecting, having no electronics and stuff like that the other day on Wednesday, Wednesdays I play golf with some bunch of friends at my country club. And you know, for the first time in a long, long time, I told, I told everybody I was going to play golf like it's 1989. And by that I meant I was going to go golfing with. No, didn't have my cell phone with me, was completely disconnected, you know, left the cell phone in my locker. And, you know, it's amazing what a, what a difference that is, you know, how we've become so connected to stuff, you know, like with the smartphones, with everybody's, you know, got your iPhone and we can, you know, you're literally connected instantly to anybody. I could text you at any time, just like Brendan's texting us and emailing pictures or whatever. You know, we're connected all the time and you don't really realize how much you actually spend time what our friend Ned Hallowell calls screen sucking, right where you're kind of looking at this screen and so being able to disconnect like for 110 days, that's really, that's something.

Yeah, yeah. And it's challenging when something new like this gets thrust into middle of it because I literally had a week's worth of free days that I've had to now say, okay, I've got a, you know, now I'm going to take like maybe one this week and you know, so we'll figure that out. So part of it is like, you know, figured out what exact day that's, that's going to be, but I'm sort of juggling it. But it's a good topic to talk about because, you know, in a lot of surveys that are being done of entrepreneurs and asking them what's the biggest challenge you have from, you know, marketing or management to hiring the right people to cash flow, you know, to a variety of stuff, you know, the biggest complaint, biggest issue is overwhelm and certainly, you know, this interconnected world is massively overwhelming. And I think, you know, I think we're going to go through stages where we sort of figure it out. I mean, we're living in a really interesting time. I mean, even think about where the world was 100 years ago versus where it is today. I mean, it's mind boggling if you think about it. And I would even, you know, having spent so much time with Peter Diamantes on the phone, hanging out with him literally in the last two weeks, if anyone's never seen his TED presentations, go to abundancethebook.com and buy the book, watch the interview that I did with him, which you can go to ilovemarketing.com and type in Peter Diamandis or type in Abundance in the search box and just watch that. If someone wants the transcript of it, we should have the transcript there or it's. It.

Yeah, transcript's up on there.

Oh, is it okay? Yeah, right.

It's right with the video. Yeah.

Okay, good, good, good. And so, you know, like, check that out. You know, he's even speaking at ted. What was kind of cool is we saw a preview of his TED Talk last night at Norman Lear's house. He actually gave the talk he's given at TED this week and it was phenomenal. And you know, one of the things he talks about, you know, just what you can do. You know, there's 3 billion new people that are going to come online that have never had access, their voices never heard in the way they're going to be heard before electronically over the next, which is huge. You know, he calls it the rising billion. And there's a stage right now though, where it's like, you know, how do you even handle it all? I mean, it's Moore's Law multiplied and it's an interesting age because there's so much cool stuff. And at the same time there's, you know, there's consequences of this massive insurgence of technology and new ways to figure it out. So there's going to be a leveling out period that I think is going to last for a long time. I'm very optimistic about it. Part of it though is it goes back to what Ned Hallowell says, you know, you either manage modern life or it will manage you. And you know, I think I'd like to actually ask you about that because, you know, you are one of the few people like Dan Sullivan that I know that still does a pretty darn good job of being in the Midst of a lot of busyness that doesn't seem to get caught up in it. And I mean, I'm admittedly, I mean, you know, I get way more caught up in the stuff than you do. And part of that's because of my personality. Part of that is because I'm just so insanely curious about a lot of things. And I also like pursuing. I like saying yes to stuff. And so I have to.

Yeah, I do. Yeah, exactly. The yes man, which. That's a great book by the way, too. The movie was good, but the book, I don't know if you've ever read it, but the actual book, the yes man that movie with Jim Carrey was based on, was a fantastic book. And you definitely are that way saying yes more to everything. But, you know, something that you said, and this is kind of an interesting thing because for a lot of years, 14 years, Joe Stumpf and I did big seminars all around the country. Every single month. We did over 200 of them. And it was, you know, going out and going into a new city and constantly traveling. So for 14 years, the longest period of time that I had at home was four weeks. Mostly it was three weeks and then off to do the next one. And occasionally where we'd have those five week months where there's five weeks, an extra week kind of thing, we'd end up with five weeks between events. So I'd have, you know, a month in a row in one place. And so we stopped when we stopped doing the main events about three years ago now, that was a big shift in the way that my life worked, you know, because, you know, you're in this rhythm. It's almost like those. I read this study about these crabs that they would take them out of the ocean and they would put them in a. In a tank that had a sloped, a sloped bottom. And at tide times, when the tide where they were from was coming, was going out, they were scurrying up the, you know, up the hill, just because they're biorhythmically trained to be at that time, trying to go uphill, you know, and it was amazing, even though they're in a perfectly still tank. And I found that, and Joe, and I've talked about this too, that it took us, both of us, it took us about six or eight months before that rhythm got out of your system that you get into like stillness, you know, And I've really grown to like that. And Joe, actually, it was funny because he had a. Was talking with somebody about It. And they were saying that what he was going through is a completely new shift, because for. Even years before, I was doing all these seminars with him, Joe used to even do more than that. And so he would be gone two or three weeks a month out on the road. And his metaphor for that was really being like a torch bearer, where he would go out city to city, bring the torch. You know, we'd go, and we'd light people on fire. We'd spread the message, and people would get all excited, and it would be, you know, a real boost for people and that the shift was switching from being a torch bearer to being a lighthouse. And a lighthouse stays in one place and shines its light and is a guidance to people, a guidepost so that people know a direction to go. And it was a. That's a pretty strong and profound change in metaphor, but equally powerful, you know.

You know, that's actually. Well, it's kind of funny hearing that, because that basically means that I'm the torchbearer and you're the lighthouse.

I was just. That's why I said that story. It's a little therapeutic teaching tale for you.

Yeah, I just go and travel around bringing. Well, if you want to call it light. Sometimes it's flashing light, spreading a flashlight.

The fire, bringing the fire.

Yeah. No, that's an interesting. It's a great metaphor, actually. And, you know, part of it. I have a real dear friend. She's 71. She's a brilliant psychiatrist named Janice, and I've interviewed her before for Genius Network. And I was talking with her the other day, and she's like, you know, Joe, she goes, I was telling her some of the stuff that I'm doing, and she just loves hearing about all the crazy stuff that I do. And she's like, you know, you're at the perfect age, though, to do all this stuff. And she's like, you know, just. Just do it. Get as much of it, you know, as you can go out there, because the impact that you're making. And a lot of these rhythms are, you know, they're. They're times in your life. They're seasonal for some people. Some people love it, other people don't. I mean, there's a million different things that make people tick. I mean, I think part of what Dan Sullivan has a really good handle on is, you know, one of Dan's things is helping people discover their unique. I mean, the more human beings that he can help become aware of what their unique abilities are, is the biggest impact he can have on value creation for people, especially entrepreneurs. And, you know, what's cool is I've been doing a lot of conversations with Dan because we're getting ready to launch the podcast with Dan Sullivan on Genius Network. And so part of his whole thing with unique ability. I mean, you have different abilities as I do. And, you know, one of the abilities that both of us have gotten really not only skilled at, but became very interested on early on is the area of marketing. Because if I didn't have marketing systems in place, you know, some people will say to me, well, it must be nice to be able to travel and do all that stuff. And, you know, sometimes I want to say, you know what? It really isn't sometimes. I mean, you know, the getting there or being there is great. The getting there is, frankly, a pain in the ass. You know, traveling on airplanes and packing and going to hotel and just commuting to different places to do cool stuff is very challenging. And I can only do so much of it without wanting to, like, go nuts and.

Right.

You know, but the. Anyway, I can't even remember what the hell else I was gonna say, Dean. But you. You know me. Well, what was I gonna say? Where was I going with that?

Well, you know, I think you were talking about the. You're.

This is how my brain works. This is what happens when you travel too much, is if it wasn't for having, you know, these marketing systems, I couldn't do a lot of stuff. And people say, well, I wish I could do that. It must be nice to do that. And, you know, the response is, well, it is nice to be able to do this. It is nice to be able to, you know, have the money to go out and do that stuff. But, you know, I had to do. I had to set up a lot of things in order to get my, you know, I've been at this for 17 years, you know, with. With the marketing business, and I couldn't do things like this for, you know, a decade. You know, and some people, they're like, well, I don't want to put in that time. Well, you know, hopefully with what me and you share with them and, you know, we're not spending a lot of time on this podcast talking about marketing strategies. What I will say that the big takeaway is, is that you can have almost anything you want if, for one, it's possible and practical. And it doesn't even necessarily have to be practical. It just has to be probable and doable if you're willing to put in the right time. In the right level of thinking and willing to master the skill of marketing. And I think it was Jim Rohn. I'm not sure. Dan Kennedy always used to quote it. He's like, look at, look at all he has because of everything he does. You know, it's like, you know, if you look at, if you want to get something done, you know, ask a busy person to do it or ask a busy person to help you with it. And it's like if you want to look at everything that someone has, look at what they do. I mean, how do they spend their time? And you know, so there is the hard work element. In the beginning, before you have an elf business, you're probably going to work really hard. And I certainly am not going to be one of those people that say you have to work really hard. You know, I mean, there are some people that are like, you know, the way to success is hard work, hard work, hard work. And that is a way to success, one way to success. And in certain things, it's the only way to success. However, what I tend to really think about is work hard on smart things. Don't just, you know, let's not work hard, you know, versus working hard versus working smart. I mean, if you're not very smart, you have to work hard on smart things or you just, you know, I mean, you know, part of it, you don't have to be super intelligent. You could be the most brilliant, intelligent human being on the planet working or going in the wrong direction really hard and you're not going to get anywhere. So, you know, part of it is looking at.

I think there's a lot to be said too for, you know, because you always talk about elf marketing, easy, lucrative and fun and then. But the, you know, the opposite of that is what you always call half hard, annoying, lame and frustrating or lucrative and frustrating even that the, you know, the difference. And it's funny, real timely because I've been having a couple of different conversations with people completely unrelated who are. They're at a point where they've got a business that sort of works. They've figured out some marketing stuff. They're very keen to start a business teaching other business owners in their category how to market but their business. There's so much still unfinished in their business, like in applying it to their business. And it's something that I think that what leads sometimes to a half business is a half finished business where the idea of teaching marketing to other business owners, it's exciting and it's new to them and it's the future, perhaps for them, it's where they definitely see themselves. But I think that they're, they're both in a situation where their personal businesses could, with a little more focused attention for say, the balance of this year, working hard on creating their business to be the ideal model of what it is that they're going to be sharing would set them up with such a better foundation to move forward with, you know, because teaching, teaching marketing, you know, teaching marketing or to their, to their business category is still going to be a good idea 12 months from now.

Right, right.

And it just feels like, you know, so often, you know, they're going down that, that going down two paths without one, without a real strong foundation, you know.

You know, you've got a great point there. Let me actually bring something up. The last meetup group that did and you know, all the people that are meetup group listen to the podcast. So they're all here, this one. And we had a hot seat. Kevin Donahue, who runs the meetup groups in Tempe, at my office. We invited a guy to come up. I'll just leave him anonymous for now. Just kind of not specifically talk about. He's in the fitness business and he helps people niching to people that are in CrossFit with helping them with preventing injuries, fixing injuries, just be in better physical shape. And we had a hot seat about getting CrossFit gym owners to actually utilize his services. And ultimately one of his goals is to actually teach other people that do the type of treatment and injury fixing and prevention how to better market it. And he doesn't like working as much on that sort of part of his business, you know, as he would being in the marketing business. But, but he also feels from an integrity standpoint and also doing it right is to get that down first. And it's an interesting sort of scenario because me and you, which I think we're very different than a lot of people that are in the how to business, the training business, the marketing expert, guru, whatever business is. Both me and you are converts of our own system. I mean, we never went into what we were doing, learning it with the intention of we're going to teach it to other people. We're going to do seminars, coaching, write courses, books, and, you know, all the stuff that we've done over the years. I mean, both of us went into it because you had a real estate business and you needed, you wanted it to work better. I had a carpet cleaning business and I needed to eat and survive. And so we Learned marketing out of, you know, the need to build and grow our own business. And then the information publishing, the training, the creation of knowledge products, which is a Dan Sullivan term, came as a result of us being mastering marketing and mastering a lot of these skills that we're now teaching people for free on. I love marketing and there's a much different sort of result that people get out of their businesses and how they apply themselves into it based on what their intentions are and what they're trying to do. And your statement about a half business that is, you know, half finished is there's, I mean, there's tremendous wisdom in that. And you know, my initial thing with, you know, being on the hot seat, it was funny too. You should have been there as the last one. I was like, fried. I'd been going all day. It was one of the, I think I was just, you know, I mean, imagine that I go on tangents all the time anyway. Most people actually tell me they like my tangents. Whereas, you know, to me it's like, well, I don't. Half the time I don't, I don't know how other people interpret my ramblings. But, you know, part of me wanted to just immediately jump in and tell this guy how to build and grow and info business and everything that he was doing. But I really refrained from doing that because I had to sit and think, well, you know, I've been doing this now. I first got introduced to marketing. You know what's so weird, Dean? It didn't even occur to me until right now. The very first Gary Halbert newsletter that I read that introduced me into the world of direct response marketing was this month in 1992. 20 years ago. Exactly 20 years ago was the first time I read a Gary Halbert newsletter, which is about the Halbert Index. That was written in February of 1992. So we're doing this at the end of February 2012.

Well, happy anniversary.

Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, I've got 20 years invested in studying and learning this stuff, and the last thing I wanted to do is tell this guy, hey, because I could tell him, here's what you need to do in order to build a, you know, and you don't necessarily need to have it successful in your business in order to sell information. But, you know, part of me actually thinks you do. And what I mean, like, you know, like morally, ethically, whatever. Even if someone doesn't use strategies themselves, it doesn't mean they're not valid strategies. I mean, welcome to the world of the self help business. I mean, if you ever invalidate.

Right, right, right.

You know, the whole saying, if you ever invalidate the message because of the messenger, you'll never read another book or attend another seminar. However, I tend to really like people that live their message, that preach their message, that are byproducts of it. I think they have a different understanding of it, a different experience of it. And I simply think people are much better instructors, teachers and guides when they themselves have done and do what they're telling other people to do. Which is why everything me and you talk about, we pretty much have done, are doing and will continue to do into the future. I think it's more. I think there's more integrity there. And I also say that with a caveat. I don't think someone's a fraud just because if they give someone great time management advice, but they themselves suck at time management, that doesn't mean that their advice is bad. I just tend to want to associate with people that pretty much live and walk the walk and talk the talk. Which is why we love Dan Sullivan. Dan is so congruent with what he not only teaches people, but how he lives business life. But going back to what you're saying, a lot of people that listen to our podcast, they want to be in the information business. And you are in the information business. Even if you're selling information or you're just using information to help other people. There's something to be said though. If you are trying to run two races, it's like your thing of AAABCBCC. If you're trying to run two races and both of them are like half ass, you're gonna get half ass results, you're gonna be frustrated, and it's not gonna be elf. And so I think. So having said that, Dean, how does one approach, you know, everyone listening has a bigger future. Let's use Dan Kennedy. I mean, Dan Kennedy, Dan Sullivan terminology, you know, you know, you want your future to be bigger than your past and in order to get to your bigger future and it might be another business, it might be a different division of the type of industry or business that you're in. You might be in a job and you want to be an entrepreneur. You need cash flow, though. You need. It's like the guy we're doing a hot seat with, you know, he needs to make enough money. I mean, right now his primary thing is have a client base, survive, you know, get things working. But his bigger future is he actually would like to, once he really kind of creates the code. He cracks the code. He creates the secret sauce, he builds up this business, he creates a model. He would love to go and teach that to other people. And one thing I will say, one of the things he's challenging with that I know this about him, is he has people like his family and people around him that aren't supportive of him being an entrepreneur. I mean, I was told this by someone that's close to him. I didn't know this when I was doing the hot seat. He doesn't have a lot of support, so he comes to the I love marketing meetup group because he's in a room with other people that for one, totally believe in this, believe in him, and are wanting to go that path, which I think is really intelligent. Now my question to you is, so everyone has a bigger future. They want to get there, but there's, I mean, at what point do you not become so perfect that you never take the risk, take the challenge and all that versus, you know, what's the balance? I mean, how would you advise someone? Because even if people can connect with what I'm saying or not, I think this applies to like everybody that is an achievement oriented individual.

Well, you know, another way of looking at those, the, you know that, that concept of multitasking, which really is what it comes down to divided efforts. You say it so many different ways. Running two races or doing two things, it's chasing, you know, two cats. It doesn't, you know, there's so many different ways of looking at it, but it's all the same thing. One, one visual that I had that really kind of helped clarify it for me was I imagined a, like a Trivial Pursuit board. Have you ever seen the Trivial Pursuit board with the circles? You know that it's round?

Yes.

And let's just imagine.

I don't really pay much attention to Trivial Pursuit, but I'll just pretend. Okay, Just pretend I do.

That's fine. Let's say that there's a center, there's a circle in the center. And coming out from that circle are different spokes that lead to a bigger circle going around that as well. So let's just imagine that. And let's imagine that each one of the paths from the center, which let's call those your ideas, are sitting there. And that's the raw material where everything is. And let's say that the outer ring represents out into the real world. I call that being in orbit, where it's up and it's self sustaining and it's bringing in money. And it's going and being active in the world. Now, let's say that in order to get these things from the, from the center out to those that outer ring is, requires you pushing those ideas up that, you know, you have to push them down the, the path there to get them to the outer ring. And that is metaphorically the effort that it would take you to, you know, create whatever marketing materials need to be created, create whatever systems need to be created, create the, the protocols and the procedures and the tools that support that, everything to get to a point where you've got that out in the world and it's orbiting and it's so much easier to keep something in orbit than it is to. To get it into orbit. And so the danger, the thing that often people do and when I talk about half finished is they've got something that they're, you know, they're pushing that one up into orbit there, and they stop and go back down to the center and start pushing this other idea up through the channel to get it out into orbit. And they don't complete that one and they go back into the center and start pushing the other idea up where, you know, it's all about units of effort. Right? And effort.

Meaning.

Meaning time spent on marketing, on attention, on anything. Because that's really all you have, is your focused attention is the core unit of measurement of what you have. You can only focus on one thing at a time. Well, and there's so much extra energy required to switch in between these channels. You got to come back to the center and start pushing that other one up there where if you can take one and push it all the way into orbit, like, you know, anybody, you know, I've talked about two completely unrelated people who are in exactly the same situation. You're sort of talking about a third guy in the fitness world that I would say that applying their stuff that they're going to teach to the other people completely, to their business to get it completely into orbit where it truly is an easy, lucrative, and fun business that runs without them and is bringing in money. It's almost like they're. They're what Ray Kroc worked on as the franchise prototype for McDonald's, that getting any effort spent in that prototype there is really going to make the business of teaching other business owners how to do it that much better. Because you will have faced the same things, obstacles, challenges that they have chased, they will face, and you will have something to point to and say, here's how it works.

Yes, yes.

And you Know, there's so much more, it's so much more. There's so much benefit that comes from having a business that actually works in the category that you're trying to be a thought leader or a marketing leader that even you think about the idea of having people come and paying you to come and watch the prototype work, see how it goes.

Well, yeah, and I mean, I think that like for instance, in the cleaning industry, people hear me talk about how I sold a lot of stuff to carpet cleaners, which I have thousands and you know, thousands and thousands of cleaners all over the world have, you know, purchased my programs. Thousands of people on a daily basis all over the world use my marketing systems and strategies. Many that I started developing and using back in 1992 to this day, you know, generate millions. I mean, it's in the couple of billion dollar range of, you know, in the cleaning and restoration in various service industries that have been generated as a result of my stuff. And so people will see the marketing programs, they'll see the sales letters, they'll see the online campaigns and they'll try to either plagiarize them, copy them outright, knock them out, knock them off, knock them out, knock them off and sell them to other people and do seminars. And no one's been able to get anywhere even close to the results that I've gotten. And there's only, over the years, there's only been, I can count on one hand the amount of people that are selling stuff to other carpet cleaners. Most of them are past clients of mine or personal friends of mine that really even fully understand it because, you know, they never really figured it out and mastered it for their own business. And they started dispensing advice, thinking, you know, part of being a successful marketing guru or whatever the hell they want to be is, you know, whip together a three ring binder, have, you know, a designer print up a real pretty looking ebook or course, and you know, do all the stuff that looks real, but it's no different than a fake Rolex. You know, one's real and one isn't, but, but the real stuff has depth to it, it has understanding, it has application. And I don't think that fully, you know, happens until you yourself, you know, fully plant the tree. I mean, you're either going to plant the tree in the ground or just going to walk around in a pot. You know, one's going to have more of a solid, you know, root system versus another one. And you know, I, what I would say is get to the Point to where you really, you know, it's real. It's not like just kind of sort of there, you know, because then you're just posturing, you know. One of the funniest things about being out here in LA is a lot of places you go to, man, you see enormous amounts of posturing and enormous amounts of, of bullshit. That's what happens for a lot of people in their business. There's this enormous, there's a lot of bullshit. However, in the beginning there's something to be said about just getting it down, getting it down, getting it down. And one day you wake up and you're like, damn, I've kind of mastered this. Because anything in life worth doing, you're probably going to do it poorly. And you may do it poorly for a while and you may make lots of mistakes, but it's out of that that comes the discoveries and it comes the growth. And see the real reason I think I was really able and have been able and same with you, have been able to really help people with the marketing and the stuff that no one wants to hear about. They want to hear like what's the strategy, what's the process that's just going to make a killing. No one really wants to hear about the labor page. They just want to see the baby. The fact is, through the suffering, the figuring it out, the mistakes and everything is where we've really learned the wisdom. And that's not as exciting of a conversation for us to talk about about all the shit that didn't work and about all the failures and about all the testing and all the time that went into it. You know, take Ayn Rand's book, Atlas Shrugged. Most people don't know it took her 13 years to write that book. And people will complain how long it takes to read it because it's a big ass book. Well, it's like, you know, it took her 13 years to write it. You know, you're going to put in less than 13 years reading it. And the same thing goes with, you know, this sort of stuff. I mean, put in the time and put in the, put in the, you know, if it's going to take you a hundred hours to master something, but if you did it, it would really be not only awesome for your business, but you'd end up with a blueprint, a template, something that you could actually teach and sell to other people. But you think, well, I don't want to put in the hundred dollars, I only want to put in 20 hours. Well, you know what you're going to have a 20 hour deal where someone else may have 100 and then people will be jealous of the person that put in the hundred hours. They will, you know, and I think.

That they're thinking, though, I think the thinking is that on all appearances it appears that the information marketing business is easier than the actual business.

Exactly, exactly. Grass is always going down the other side. That's the delusion. Most info marketers that we know that are successful are really smart, really hard working people. And I don't say really smart like gifted in iq, intelligence. Like, you know, they're smart because they put in the time. You know, what, what, what a lot of people think of is genius is just redundancy where they kept doing something.

They're 10,000 hours like Malcolm Gladwell talks about.

Exactly. You ever look up any old comedians, you can never do this. Ten years ago, you know, look up on YouTube where someone actually happened to have some video footage of a world famous comedian starting out at one of their very first gigs. And you watched, they weren't all that funny. They were very awkward. But they kept at it and they kept at it and they kept at it and you know, they got the timing down, I mean, and then they're amazing. Well, I don't think that's much different than any sort of occupation. If you look at it from actors, singers, writers. I mean there's some world famous writers that I read their stuff and I've read some of their very first books and first writings that just were terrible. But they, you know, they just kept at it. And if you want, you know, if you want to be a world famous person in some area, you know, mastery is not snapping your finger and it's not going to a three day seminar. That's just one of the many things you do. It's not listening to one of these podcasts and saying, okay, I'm a world class expert. You know, you might be, you might be gifted. But it's usually layered on many, many hours and there is a foundation, I mean there is a foundation to be built. So, so what's, what's the core message you think we're communicating in this podcast, Dean? I mean, in order to, this episode to, to.

I think it's been, you know, I mean, I think it, and I want to kind of bring it back around to kind of some of your strategies for, for getting stuff done in the midst of a real hectic travel schedule in an environment. But my, my point that I was, is that there's never going to be a shortage of ideas and things to pursue. And one of the very best questions that you can ask is, is this still going to be a good idea six months from now or 12 months from now? And you know, you and I have talked about the idea of your not to do list and yeah, you know, it's so much of really getting something really complete is about focusing on getting it complete, you know.

Yeah.

And I mean, to the exclusion of others, to the exclusion of other stuff, you know.

Right, right. Yeah. And, you know, just to be completely transparent, which is always kind of a funny word, because when people say, well, I'm going to be totally honest with you, I'm going to be completely transparent. Well, what does that mean? The rest of the time you weren't. You know, it's, you know, what I want to say is that there's a lot of. Of stuff that me and you have entertained with. I love marketing in the direction of where we're even taking this and things that we're starting to go down certain paths. And then me and you get in the conversations and really, you know, we get caught up in the fact that we get a lot of comments and people send us gifts and they send us letters and they're like, God, you know, be really great if you did this and can you do this and you can do that. And we love hearing those sort of things in our comments. And although we may not always comment on everything that's on the I Love Marketing podcast, because there's so much stuff that comes at us, you know, we take it in and it certainly influences what we think we're going to do. And there are certain directions that we start going down and we say, well, you know, is this really the place to go? And so like anyone's backstage of their business, there's always these things that you need to figure out. And part of the reason I think I thrust myself into doing unique experiences and I do travel is to me, this just works for me. The different ways that I stimulate my brain allow me to see things from a different perspective and a different paradigm. And I'm always wanting to put myself into situations where it kind of pushes my comfort zone. Meeting high level people that are in some cases is, you know, I'm not a person that really enjoys mingling almost at all. And I do put, I mean, I just, it's not my thing, you know, I'd rather be around people that I know instead of going out and interacting with people that I don't know. However, I do put myself in those situations because I know there's a part of me that it stretches my comfort zone. And that's not to, you know, put myself in situations where I necessarily have to feel uncomfortable. I just want to do enough of it because it actually does force me to grow. It's the same reason that when I was definitely afraid of public speaking and I did it anyway, I ended up mastering and getting really good at something that used to scare the living daylights out of me. And so, you know, part of that is in order to have, you know, an elf business or more of an elf business, it will require certain things that are uncomfortable. Just like working out, you know, working out in the gym is uncomfortable, but I want the consequences of it. But I don't want to over train either. I don't want to injure and hurt myself. So I mean, as you go about your day, looking at all the activities that you're doing, I mean, take everything that me and Dean have suggested and layer it against your own unique abilities, your own goals, your own dreams, your own desires. And more than anything, you know, the eight profit activators, before, during, after, there's always places that you can come back to that are principle based ways. And the more that you master those, and the more you put them into entrepreneurial endeavors, the better you're going to be. And your question of is this still going to be a good idea six months from today? That's a really good question to think about. If you're in an overwhelmed state and there's ambitions and aspirations that you have and you're frustrated and frustration is just a lower level of anger, you're frustrated that you're not getting to them. You may want to ask yourself, you know, is this still going to be a good idea six months from today? And triage, you know, do a little bit of triage or a lot if you have to, because that's how you.

Well, I think what, you know, it's almost like you're creating, you know, another like visual metaphor for it is you've got, if you look at your workspace, your desktop, you know, you've got all of this stuff, all of these papers here, and it's almost like just like pushing aside some of the papers, pushing them down to one end and clearing a space for you to just focus on the thing that you're, that you're focused on, you know. Yeah, that's actually, there's a, there's a great book, I believe it's called you'd Brain at Work. And it is essentially talking about that, how our brains actually work, that it is like a stage and, and ideas that we have are, you know, ever. All the different things that we have going on are up on this stage competing for our attention, you know, and how we manage those and how we, you know, keep that stage clean and, and focus only on the, the, what's, what's going on right now is, really creates the experience of having peace and the experience of having, you know, that sense of calm without being too frantic.

Right, right, right.

But it requires, you know, and there's something peaceful though, about acknowledging these ideas, acknowledging that you have them, writing them down. That's why literally, I mean that the 50 minute focus finder of sitting down with four sheets of paper and in 50 minutes writing every possible thing that you have, every thought, everything that you could possibly think of onto that, it's typically about 100 items is a great start for that because you can look at it then and kind of evaluate it and kind of ask yourself that question, is this specifically going to be a good idea six months from now or a year from now to winnow it down, to get to what's the most important thing, what's the thing that's going to have the biggest, biggest long term benefit for me? And so often it's so much easier to complete something that's already going, that's already working than it is to try and maintain something that's kind of half running and then go over here and try and start something up that isn't yet making money. If you have a business that is making money and you've got some marketing systems around it that can continue to make it a profitable venture, then, you know, you kind of owe it to yourself to continue going down that path. And that goes for people who have, who don't have any aspirations for being in the info marketing business, people who want to make their business as great as it could possibly be. You know, there's so many ideas. Every podcast that we do, there are ideas of things that you can implement. And every one of the eight profit activators has dozens of ideas within them of what to apply. But kind of looking at them as what do I focus on first and complete is really the thing that's going to have the biggest impact. I always like to start with people with, at least I think the most important thing that you can do is have, have a system that delivers more business than you can handle and use that to drive the growth, use that to drive your ability to shore up in your during unit. Because if you spend time in your before unit and you get a system that generates and delivers as many clients or customers or patrons or whatever you call them in your business as you can handle, you're going to quickly need to build out the system to accommodate all that business, you know. And in the after unit, I think sometimes people often put that after unit as an afterthought. And, you know, it's one of the things that is the simplest thing to get going. You know, if you can get something, some sort of communication that goes out to your clients in your sphere of influence every month like clockwork, that's a pretty lucrative. That's a pretty lucrative thing.

Yeah, totally. No, it's an extremely lucrative thing, and it's worth doing. And one of the things. When we did our Platinum 2.0 meeting and Dan Sullivan was there, one of the last things I asked him to talk about was his experience in the army, where the. When he was going through boot camp, he was asked, you know, the whole troops were asked, how many of you are scared? And Dan's the only one that raised his hand. And the drill sergeant or whoever it was said to him, you know, Dan said to the group that, you know, Dan's the only one that's telling the truth. And he said that, you know, different between fear and courage is. Fear is peeing your pants. Courage is what you do with wet pants.

Courage is doing what you have to do with wet pants is doing what.

You need to do with wet pants. And Dan Sullivan says, you know, the difference between courage and confidence is courage never feels good. You know, you're going into a risky situation, it may be dangerous. In some cases, like in that particular situation, it could be fatal. You could get killed. So you have to. You know, it takes tremendous amounts of courage. And so courage applies on all kinds of different levels. You know, if you're putting yourself in a situation where you've never publicly spoken before, or you've never written a sales letter before, or you're going for your first job interview or your 20th job interview, you're starting a new venture, you're going out into the marketplace with an idea that you think you can change the world, innovate, whatever. I mean, all that takes courage, and you can't delegate courage. I think you can do things in terms of mastering that will allow you to make it easier to go out and do stuff. But you will get to a point if you take intelligent, courageous steps forward. And every great human achiever in the world Even people that are heavily criticized have courage. You know, for instance, tonight at the party, we're going to meet the Kardashians, and there's a lot of people that think these are stupid people. And, you know, how can they make that much money? And you know, they don't do anything. It's like, you know, people don't know behind the scenes, even the most ridiculous things that they would think of in Hollywood that make money. Most of these people work their asses off. Even if you don't like it, I mean, there's stuff to it. It takes courage to go out and do stuff when a big percentage of the world is attacking you, criticizing you. Even politicians who I absolutely have no alignment with their policies, One thing I do give them credit for is in order to go out into the world and have in some cases more than 50% of the population despise you, but still get up every day and go and stand for something you believe in takes courage. Some people, it takes insanity and ignorance. But I'm saying for the most part, it takes courage. And so my point here with all that is that in the beginning, some of the things that you may need to do in order to go out and build out your business and some of the things, Dean, you've been talking about will require courage. And there will get to a point, though, where the courage actually, when you learn and you're getting results and you actually make your first sale, your website that you've created into a directory response machine, your mobile marketing, your social networking, with all of the stuff that you incorporate starts working and you start cracking the code, it becomes confidence. And then all of a sudden you're able to get results. Not because you're pushing your way through in an uncomfortable state. You're doing it because you just simply know what you're doing. One of the lines that I wrote up on the wall comes from at the last 25k meeting and at that platinum meeting, and I have this memorized, is from the Book of Survival by Anthony Greenback. And it says, you know, to get through an impossible situation, you don't need the reflexes of a grand pre driver, the muscles of a Hercules, or the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do. And that's it. You know, in order to get through an impossible or just a difficult situation, you just simply need to know what to do. And people that, that aren't making enough money don't have enough business and they're frustrated. It's not that the business isn't out there. It's not that you can't become a millionaire. You just haven't learned how to do it yet. And if you keep at it and you do it intelligently and you focus on what's most important, not bullshit minutia and confusing activity with accomplishment, you actually can really make tremendous amount of progress. And not everyone's going to be amazing millionaire. Not everyone's going to do, you know, I mean, some of the things that they wish, dream, hope they want to do, the ones that will actually will do it are the ones that really, you know, put it together and do it right. You get rewarded in life for getting it right. Never before you have to get it right. And part of getting it right, unfortunately, is in some cases getting it really wrong. You know, until you figure that out.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that didn't work.

Yeah. Yeah. And part of that is I'm not saying, you know, because I, I kind of, I go back and forth with this whole, you know, go through a lot of failures. I mean, I think, you know, every form of failure that can be avoided is probably smart to do. I mean, I don't think you should just go out there and trip and fall just because everyone tells you the road to success is tripping and falling, making mistakes at the same time. You know, you, if you are paralyzed because of the possibility of failure or public criticism or whatever, you're never going get to get shit done anyway. So, you know, there's a balance and courage is part of it. But, you know, and if you don't have a lot of courage, borrow where you do have confidence, which is totally in aligned with Dan Sullivan's message about unique ability, which is if you can at least spend your time, you know, developing your strengths and not trying to nurture your weaknesses, you're probably going to overcome the things that stand in your way. And so, so Dean, having said that, I'd like to, if we could put up the interview as a bonus that I did with Dave Crenshaw on the guy that wrote the Myth of multitasking, I'd love to put that up as a bonus.

Yeah, that would be great.

Sometime in the next, whenever you feel it's right. Let's put it up on ilovemarketing.com because I think that would be really good. Secondly, I really would encourage people, especially new listeners, to. I love marketing. If you've never watch, watched Dean Jackson's Focus Finder video, and even if you have watched it, you'll, you know, if you, if you're A longtime listener to. I love marketing. Even five years from now I'm probably going to tell people, you know, listen to the Focus Finder or watch the Focus Finder video with, with Dean Jackson. It's truly one of the best pieces of 50 minutes.

I'm still amazed by how well that 50, 20, 50 works. Like literally I have just done 50, 2050 before. We did our podcast here. Yeah. And it really is the, you know, it's really the, the only way that I'm able to get stuff done, you know.

Well, yeah, and because you're pretty lazy as far as I'm concerned. So, you know.

Exactly.

You are lazy. At least you can develop, you know, workaround systems to do it. And you know, bottom line is here we are on a Sunday actually recording a podcast before I, you know, head to the Elton John Oscar party and meet all kinds of famous people. So yeah, do type Focus Finder in ilovemarketing.com in the search button and you'll find the video from Dean. And then last but not least, go and get a copy of Peter Diamandis book Abundance. Please share the message with other people. Take the video that is@ilovemarketing.com with Peter Diamandis, the Abundance video. Please share it with people, post it on Facebook. I really want to help Peter get this message out to as many people. I think it will be a really impactful, life changing for many people. Encouraging, helpful, optimistic message that needs to be shared with the world. And that's all I got to say. Dean, I think we should wrap up.

That's all you have to say about that?

Yeah, that's all I got to. Well, I mean, I've said plenty. I mean, what I'm saying is if.

I say any more words, say hi to Elton.

You know what I mean?

I understand. Say hi to Elton for me.

I will, I will. Even your buddy Tony Robbins is actually, you know, promoting Peter's book Abundance. Tim Ferriss wrote a great blog post about it on this vlog two days ago. So, I mean, this is a big thing and yeah, I will take some pictures assuming, you know, it's appropriate because I don't like, you know, I don't like being one of those people that annoys.

I hear you.

You know, I mean, if it's a right fit, I'll take some pictures and I'll, and I'll photoshop your face over them and send them to you so it looks like you were there because I know you're, you're not cool.

I like that. That's See, that's what I love about you. You. They're always thinking about me.

Exactly. Even if I have to be sneaky about it.

Right?

Yeah. That's it. So for all of our listeners, as usual, thank you. And start an I Love Marketing meetup group. If you haven't. For those of you that have started I Love Marketing meetup groups, you guys are awesome. Keep them going. And thank you, as usual, for all the wonderful feedback. And me and Dean are here to serve. And entertain ourselves.

And entertain ourselves. Perfect.

Okay. Talk to you guys next time.

Bye.