The One About Meet Up Groups (with Kevin Donahue) - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #57

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 with a special guest by the name of Kevin donahue.

Kevin donahue, Mr. March.

Yes, exactly. Okay, so what we're going to talk about now, Kevin actually runs the I Love Marketing meetup groups here in Tempe, and he's quite active with all the I Love Marketing stuff. And what I wanted to talk about today, Dean, the reason I thought this would be an interesting episode is if we actually talked about I Love Marketing meetup groups, why people need to attend them, why they need to start them, and why they need to tell their friends, family and every human being on the planet about I Love Marketing as if they were trying to recruit people into some silly, multi level company.

And how do you.

That part's a joke. What I do want to talk about, though, obviously we have the I Love Marketing Meetup groups and we've been having just some great success with people all over the world that have started I Love Marketing Meetup groups and people have questions about how do you do it, what's the point behind it? That sort of stuff. And we've kept this in a very informal sort of way because we want to allow our listeners and our I Love Marketing. You know, I guess I wouldn't call it fan base, although we do have fans, just the people that are really involved with us to kind of do their own thing and how they do it with a very loose sort of structure so that people can, you know, make the. Make their own invention out of the I Love Marketing meetups. However, there are some things that they can do and some things that we've learned. I think that would be really helpful. And more than anything, the point behind this is really about just the power of meeting and having discussion groups in person because I think there are certain things that take place and happen when you facilitate in person meetings or you attend in person meetings that you're simply not going to get the same sort of results as if you just read a book or go to a seminar because you have the power of discussion and discussions with other human beings that are smart and focused on the same things that you are in the same subject. Interest is just a great way to, you know, go deeper with a particular subject in terms of learning with your skills and that sort of thing. So that is my take on it. What about you, Dean? What do you have to say for yourself?

Well, you know, I look at these, I look at meetup groups as an opportunity to get together with people in your local area who are hip to the same things that you're hip to, who are working on applying the eight profit activators to their business. And as a sounding board, as a resource, as somebody to, you know, work through the. Work through the application of these things with each other. And, you know, as, you know, getting together with people in all kinds of different businesses, you get a different perspective on how things work. Somebody comes to a meetup group like this with their own experiences, everybody's got something that works really well for them and just listening and paying attention sharing is a. You get a multifaceted approach to things and it's very valuable.

That was very good. Now, here's what's going to be kind of funny. The way we're actually recording this right now is Kevin is standing in front of me. Which is the most painful part about this episode, is that we have to look at each other while we're recording it. And you're across the country and we're recording it onto a mic through GarageBand. And this is, I swear, I wish I had a video of this. But Kevin is actually going to have to mute his iPhone because, you know, part of this, the recording that everyone on itunes and on I love marketing, is listening to, is actually going through a mic. So it sounds all nice and fancy and everything. But in order for us to all be on the phone together, we never done like a three way sort of phone call like this before. And we don't want to put it on speakerphone because of the feedback and all that sort of thing. So if anyone hears any weird sound or like differences in voice, just blame it on Kevin. I mean, because, you know, what the.

Hell, it is all Kevin's fault because you and I have this pretty. We got this dialed down when it's just you and I. But Kevin's really the wild card.

All right, now, Kevin, so why the hell should anyone listen to you? And who are you?

Well, I do work here with Joe at Piranha Marketing and assist with the 25k group. But I think most importantly is that I run the I Love Marketing meetup group here locally in the Phoenix area. And just to talk about what Joe and Dean were mentioning earlier, the toughest thing I think about being an entrepreneur is that you're out there by yourself, you're out there solo, and you don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of. And so growing up in our culture, typically we're conditioned by going to school all day long. Where everything's set up for us perfectly. We have our sports teams. Joe for example, was big into Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts. So, so you have these organizations that are there for you and they're just automatically there. And what happens is once you get out of school, you're on your own. You know, you go to potentially go to college and then you're out and then you have to make a decision. Do I go work for a big corporate corporation which is kind of that built in structure, or do I got my own and be an entrepreneur? And I think the toughest thing is I see entrepreneurs struggling to find community. And that's one of the things we have here at I Love Marketing is a community with a somewhat structured curriculum with a couple of geniuses, I'd say with Joe and Dean. But so that's what we try to provide here at the meetup groups. And you know, what we've done here locally is turned a meetup into a real mastermind. And what's been fascinating is all the different entrepreneurs from different backgrounds coming together and like you said, Dean, just bringing powerful content stuff that's working in their business. And then what I do is simply facilitate the group discussion based on those eight profit activators. So for example, last week we were getting deep into the before unit in profit activator number one, which is choosing your target market, which we all know how important that is. But as you go out as an entrepreneur, one of the biggest things you do is you go out and try to cater to everyone, which is a big misconception. So it was interesting this past week I had my group do some homework and come up with a really targeted niche and come back and sort of do a reveal at the, at the meeting. So I had everyone introduce themselves with their name and who they're basically catering to. So it's been very interesting.

It's fun to watch people squirm, isn't it Kevin? Because when they're especially, you know, doing the, you know, that's always the one that people have to overcome their, their own blocks about is, you know, choosing, narrowing their focus to a single target market. Even though, you know, we're saying at a time you can have multiple target markets that you try and appeal to. Just like Procter and Gamble, you know, I always use them as an example because they've got 23 individual billion dollar brands which all serve a very specific niche. So there's nothing wrong with being into world domination and building a multibillion dollar international conglomerate. But you know, for These exercises for, for creating machines that deliver ready to act people to your during unit. The very best thing is to select one single market at a time. And it's good to, in a group situation, kind of discuss that, you know, and to almost like group therapy, kind of work through your narrowing your focus and realize that even though you select one of those target markets, you can still, you know, choose another one too. Doesn't matter just when you're compiling, when you're, when you're creating advertising, when you're creating compelling offers. It's so much easier to offer the chocolate chip cookies to the chocolate chip cookie lovers, you know, rather than just try and group everybody into dessert lovers, you know.

Well, it was, it was very fortunate because we had some veteran entrepreneurs and some relatively new entrepreneurs in the group. And one of the gentlemen in the group, Scott Day, is a, is a coach, but he's a coach specifically to dentists. And it was great because, you know, we use Scott as an example, and Scott has so much business coming his way, he refuses. He has chiropractors call him, he has veterinarians call him, and he says no, he just focuses on that dental niche. And we had other people in the group who were just so confused on what to choose. You know, they choose these sort of vague markets to go after. And it was great. You're right to watch the people kind of squirm, get a little frustrated. And, you know, and Joe.

Well, they start trying to make up words.

What's that?

They start trying to make up words to describe their single target market.

Exactly.

That's funny you said that. And Joe used an exercise a couple weeks ago, and it write out 10 groups of people that you want to market to. And then I said, okay, now you're on a ship with these 10 people and you only have three life vests. Who do you throw those three life vests to? You got to choose three, and now you got those three. You can only bring one along with you. Or now, you know, you have a gun in your hand and only one person can survive, you know, who do you take out? And so it's a really great thinking exercise to get people thinking about the 1 target. If they had to choose only one, who that could be. And it was, it was a great discussion.

And more dynamic because they're having it with other people who are entrepreneurs just like that.

That's right. And the thing that's so interesting is watching other people just want to help each other. You know, they just, they want to, you know, people Stay. We usually run about a two hour mastermind here, a two hour meetup and then people stay for an hour and then I finally, by the time I close the door, they stay another half hour to an hour out in the parking lot still discuss discussing and trying to help each other. So it really does give that total sense of community in what could be a very, very lonely world of an entrepreneur.

Now let me type in here because I've actually kept the phone on mute so we don't get feedback here, which is.

This is really one of the most.

Bizarre ways I've ever been in a marketing episode. You know, a couple things I want to touch on that you both said, you know, Kevin was talking about how just now about how people, you know, stay after the group. You know, the thing that I think is most awesome about a good group is when the community is bonded, when they really are there to help and support each other. And there's the rapport. And part of the thing that you don't really always get from a book or the thing you don't always get from a seminar, especially if it's a larger seminar, is the ability to build rapport with people on an ongoing, consistent basis. Now you can come to a three day seminar and certainly I've been through human potential seminars where we've done so much bizarre and in depth psychological, you know, call it training or sharing that you know, at the end of three days, I mean, people, you know, can feel like family in some cases. I mean that certainly I've had that sort of experience. But the thing that I think is so great about ongoing mastermind groups, I get the same sort of effect from 25K, from platinum and from the I Love Marketing meetup is when you're meeting with the same people on an ongoing, regular basis. And that is the beauty of it is you get to know the people on a really intimate basis. If you so choose. I mean, obviously you're going to pick and choose who you have rapport with. But the reality of what we're experiencing with I Love Marketing meetups, since we've been doing these for, you know. How long has it been now, Kevin? A few months?

Yeah, it was about six months here in Phoenix.

Okay. You know, so what has happened is, you know, we've seen these people evolve. I mean, several of them have just dramatically, you know, shifted the entire direction of their business, how much money they make, you know, and it's so cool. I mean, even at the last meeting, you know, we had Jeremy, who's going to listen to this call, I read the testimonial that he sent in about how they did $10,000 in sales in the new startup of their business. And I Jeremy's 22 years old and he's going to be coming to the meetup groups on a regular basis. In my belief, he's the type of guy that I'll say, look, man, if you don't have more money than I have in the next two years, by the time I was 30 years old, there's something really wrong with you because the head start that you're onto right now is awesome. That's really because of an introduction to this type of marketing that most people, for one, don't even know it exists, and secondly, don't invest the time to do it. But so taking that time throughout the month to not only listen to the idle of marketing calls, but then come to the meetup groups is a very big deal. And the way to even accelerate it further is to start your own meetup group. So my intention with this particular episode is to, for one, just more than anything, increase the interest that anyone listening would have to go and find a meetup group in their own community and to attend it. And if there isn't one in your own area, then start your own. And even if there is one in your own area, you're more than welcome to start another one. We've had people come here. Someone asked me one night is like, well, you guys have this meetup group. Would it be okay if I started another one? Because I live on the other side of the valley in Phoenix. And I was like, yeah, of course. As far as I'm concerned, if there were 20 I love marketing meetup groups in Phoenix, I would be happy. Why? Because there's more people that are listening to our stuff. And then secondly, it just makes me happy that we're building and growing this community like this. There is a I Love Marketing meetup guide that is on the site and we've talked about this many times, but basically I'm actually going to read parts of it. You print out this guide and we just updated it recently and it says, your Quick Start guide to leading your very own I Love marketing meetup group in your community. And then it opens up and it shows kind of a map of different places around the world, such as London and Hong Kong, where, you know, there's meetings and then, you know, there's a little scan that you can, you know, QR code that you can, you know, take a picture of. And it'll take you right to the website, which you know, if you had a printed version of this and then it says getting started. Want to get together with people who share your common interest in marketing but don't know where to start? Or maybe you're new to the whole concept of marketing and are looking to make some new friends. If so, start your very own I love marketing. Meetup.com group is just for you. Meetup.com is an online community where you can start or join a social group and meet up with others who share your interest. To start a meetup group, simply fill out the basic information about the group which includes hometown group name, a welcome headline and a group Description. On the meetup.com create a group page referred to the handy prep for form included with this guide. And then we just basically take you through how to actually set it up. And right now, you know, at the time we're doing this episode. As a Meetup.com leader organizer, you must pay a fee to Meetup.com to host your group. One plan will cover up to three groups. You can also recoup those fees by charging membership dues or a fee to attend each Meetup.com event. It's up to you. The plans are available. Paying one month at a time for $19 a month, paying three months at a time for $15 a month or paying six months at a time for $12 per month. You can then schedule your first meetup.com youm should select a date, time, meeting location or event or activity for the meetup.com group. And after that, as the group leader, you should be able to be active with the meetup.com group by communicating to your members and organizing even more events. Now, I wanted to say if it's not obvious that we don't this is not Meetup is a separate company. It's a website that just allows people to organize meetings on any particular topic. And I think that if there's any area of your life that you are interested in having to discussions on, start meetup groups on anything. I mean, if you're into playing guitar, if you're into pets, if you're into certain types of spiritual activities, if you're into yoga, I mean, there are meetup groups on everything from raw food to knitting to, I mean, you name it, movies. And so, you know, this is just a really cool way to create a community. And it's, it's one of the fastest ways to actually become very skilled at marketing. And then, you know, you want to create a theme and you want to title, you want to have. I love marketing in the actual name too, because if you don't, then it will not pop up on meetup. Kevin, there are some other recommendations I'm sure you have for people starting this, and I can read a little bit more out of some of the template we have here. Everyone can download this meetup guide right from ilovemarketing.com and click on the tab up at the very top that says meetup. But what are some suggestions you have?

Well, I think the thing you mentioned at the beginning was you get to be a leader of people in the community. So going back to what I mentioned earlier about going to school or being on a team, this puts you in a position to really lead other entrepreneurs in the area and provide killer content. And the great part is the curriculum's already there. I mean, the eight profit activators. You can download the eight profit activators from ilovemarketing.com it's the free report that we offer. And you just follow that curriculum. And, you know, Joe often talks about how many different forms of Christianity are there? Like 2,400.

Yeah, I think that. Yeah, I think there's between 2,200 and 2400.

Yeah. And so knowing that, it's interesting. So, you know, you can take that from two perspectives. One is, you know, there's a bunch of crazies out there talking about your bunch of crazy stuff or that there's some truth there. And so the. I think the power here, I mean, if we had 2400 different. I love marketing meetup groups around the world, everyone with their own flavor. But the underlying truth is the eight profit activators that we teach throughout the. Throughout the curriculum. And so, you know, when you start up your meetup group, it's going to be different. You know, my style is different than Joe's. Joe's style is different than Dean's. Dan Sullivan's style is different than all of ours. And so as long as you're taking this content that's proven to work in a number of different industries, I mean, Joe's proven it in the carpet cleaning niche, Dean's proven it in the real estate niche. And not just those niches, other niches as well. And the thing I always tell people in my meetup group or my local mastermind is what I call it, the I love marketing mastermind is the stuff we teach and that we discuss in these meetings are no different than the stuff that's discussed in the 25k meetings or other marketing Meetings. It is killer content. And so all you're doing is you're providing an environment for local business people to come to, to connect. And what's great about it is you're the leader. You're the leader of local entrepreneurs, and you essentially position yourself to be the leader and to be the local sort of rep, per se for the I Love marketing group. So I think it's a great opportunity. You know, the strategic byproducts. You know, I was actually out Friday night with about five members, and, you know, you just start to develop friendships. And when people get together and help each other, they want to see each other succeed. And so, you know, if you're tired of some of the groups of people you're hanging out with, well, sometimes you got to go through your cell phone and delete people and add new people. And what I've discovered, and this has really been a phenomenal way to add some people who are craving personal development, people who are craving more money in their business, people who are really craving to serve people. You know, a couple people in my group, they're. One guy is actually. He's an ASU student and he's in the army rotc. And his defined niche is the nine guys that report to him. I believe he's a sergeant or something like that. And the guy is super passionate about serving these people. Now. He's. He's growing to be an entrepreneur, but. But for now, he's using these. These strategies to help the guys that he's serving. And there's a number of coaches in my group as well, as well as real estate folks. So, you know, you just get to be in a position where you're helping other people. And I think that's the benefit I've seen from it.

Yeah.

So.

What I will add to that is, with all of the connection that people have on the Internet, I think the biggest disconnection is in person. You know, there's books like, you know, Bowling Alone and a lot of books that have been, you know, really talking about how we are. You know, Ned Hallowell does it in his books where he talks about, we're more connected personally than we ever have been in history, but we're more disconnected on an intimate level because of electronics than ever before. And when you, you know, when you, oops, I walked, I stepped away from the mic here. I was kind of leaning back in my chair, talking in the phone and forgetting there's a mic right here. What do you think of that, Dean?

You were leaning back pontificate Yeah.

I.

Could just get a pipe too.

Smoking a pipe. My voice has gotten deeper here. Yeah, I should wear it. You know we were just talking like we did an episode, the last episode I talked about being at the Paul McCartney thing and I saw Hugh Hefner over there and you know he wears the robes. It's very funny. He wasn't wearing a robe that night. But anyway, so just going to a place and meeting people in person is good for your head. And I cannot tell you how many Internet marketers don't leave the frickin house. I mean they just stay in front of a computer all the time. And when someone comes to a meetup group, it's just a great thing. And I think even if someone doesn't want to start their own meetup group or attend an I love marketing meetup group, I mean just getting out and doing masterminding with with other smart entrepreneurs is huge. Especially if you want to get really good at marketing, then you got to devote time to reading about marketing, learning about marketing, executing marketing techniques, having good sounding boards of people doing it. If you have a feedback mechanism, huge. One thing I always love talking about is that the greatest thing about being your own boss is that you're your own boss. No one tells you what the to do, doesn't tell you when to go to bed, when to wake up, where to show up to. And that's great. There's like a lot of independence and freedom that come with that. That's bad. From this standpoint, there's no accountability. A lot of times the best thing about being your own boss is the worst thing about being your own boss is who do you go to for advice, who's your boss, who gives you suggestions, who do you bounce things off of and what we have found every time that we do one of these, I love marketing media groups is there's someone there, no matter how successful they are, that really have not bounced something that's really either irking them or a big opportunity or a big challenge. And you give them an opportunity to talk to the like minded entrepreneurs that are totally focused on building and growing a business and guess what? They walk out of there with solutions. And so I think every week my three favorite words from strategic coach are direction, confidence and capability capabilities. If you're getting more direction, more confidence and more capabilities by attending any sort of mastermind, keep doing it. Because at the end of the day that's what we all want. We want to create simplicity out of the complexity that affects us as entrepreneurs. And we have just found this to be a great way to do that. So, Dean, I don't want to keep rambling here because I know I have the. I really enjoyed stepping over you and not allowing you to talk. So I just want to try to polite for just like maybe 90 seconds and have you say something.

Well, I'm wondering, in Kevin's experience of having different people at the group, I wonder what the ideal size is for a meetup group like this.

Well, that's an interesting question, because our meetup group started growing out of control, actually, in a good way. So what I did recently was I just did it for paid model. So we're just simply charging $49 a month right now, and half that goes to make a wish. So. And we're getting about 25 to 30 people per meeting, which has been really great because what that does, it gives us the opportunity to have a group discussion, but then I can break it up into groups of, you know, three people, and they could discuss whatever their niche is. Last week, I had people bring in their sales letters and they could get together and read each other sales letters to each other. So, you know, so far, 25 to 30 has been a really good number for us. And, you know, something that Joe was saying too, is, you know, the idea of accountability. And what's been so interesting is that, you know, in the community, it sort of happens automatically, you know, and accountability sort of has a funny feeling to it when you say, I'm being held accountable. It's sort of. Sort of has that negative feeling to it. But when you get into this type of community, people are really looking out for each other and they want each other to succeed. So it's almost like they're relying on each other. So they're almost reliability partners as opposed to accountability partners. And so that's been really great. And also being here at Piranha headquarters, you know, it's sort of a privilege because we get great guest speakers. We had Dave Crenshaw from the author of Myth of Multitasking and Dan Sullivan, and, you know, sometimes we have some folks from the 25k group here speaking. So I sort of have an unfair advantage. But you know what that. What other local meetup groups leaders can do is they can start to invite people in their community, people who are the authority in, let's see, SEO or Facebook marketing, and invite them to the group and just introduce local people and have guest speakers come to their group as well. But, yeah, the accountability has been amazing, and it's just basically the friendships that come out of the group.

Yeah, Let me kind of go over some themes, too, that I would love to discuss that we recommend as part of the discussion topics and study guide. And it says your first meeting will set the context for your I love marketing Media group. And I'm reading this right out of the PDF that you can download off of the, you know, off the site. And the first topic is why do you love marketing? And key questions are important. So we list questions. You can run a whole, you know, group just simply from questions. And, you know, one of them is knowing why you're using marketing for your bigger future is important. And then there's a group discussion. And we always love these questions. Where are you in your business? Where do you want to go, and how are you going to get there? I mean, I can run almost any group just off those three questions, you know, and Dan Sullivan says all progress starts by telling the truth. And so people first need to determine, you know, where are you? You know, where do you want to go? And then how are you going to get there? And if you can at least get people to identify where they're at and where they want to go, and you can, you know, do it. Where do you want to be in a month? Where do you want to be in three months? Where do you want to be in six months? You know, where's your business in a year from now? What would need to happen for you to feel, you know, happy with your results? Then you can start discussing how you're going to get there first. Before you say, here's how to get there, you know, first find out where people are at, you know, and where do you want to go? I mean, it's like, you know, how are you going to get somewhere? Well, I'm going to drive there. I'm going to walk there. I'm going to, you know, I mean, but you got to know, well, where the hell are you and where you want to go? And then what are three things that marketing can help you and those you care about get? What I love about that question is, people are like, oh, I got to do this marketing. Well, you don't have to. I want to lose weight. Well, okay. Well, that's what exercise is going to help you get. If you say to someone, what are three things that going to the gym is going to help you and those that you care about get? Your brain cannot ignore a question. That's the beauty of questions. Your brain can't ignore it. When you get people focused on that, that's huge. And then we have discussions like before, during, after. This is the context in which everything else you're going to discuss in your meetup group fits into. Every business has a before unit, a during unit and an after unit. Give credit to Dean Jackson for coming up with that fancy model. And then the key questions and ideas are explain each of these units and discuss each person's business in terms of the units. What are you currently doing in each unit? What are the key metrics in each unit for you? What, what do you want to be doing? Dollar wise, customer wise, etc. And what are some examples of currently successful businesses that you know about that have great before, during and after units? And can you apply a version of it into your business? And if so, how? That is a really great discussion to have looking at successful businesses. And all of us, for the most part can always easily think of which businesses suck, you know, which ones have failed to follow up or send thank yous or do anything with us, you know, but where other why do we go to certain restaurants on a regular basis? Why do we do business with certain companies on a consistent basis? You know, why do I always buy as many things as I can on Amazon.com because it's easy, you know, I understand the system, you know, I don't have to think, you know, and that sort of thing. And so what can you learn from other businesses before, during and after units that you can apply? And then when you get a whole discussion just around a topic like that and people are talking about it, I mean that's huge. I mean the ideas that come out of there, you'll walk out literally in an hour of a discussion like that with total game changing plans and processes for your own business. So those are some examples. And then of course you can have any discussions around the profit activators like so we not only go over the profit activators, but I'm going to show you. Like this is again, this is in the printed out guide. And even if you never attended a meetup group, if you actually read the I Love Marketing meetup guide and actually filled out these questions or answered them yourself, you're still going to. It's still going to help you get more out of the I Love marketing. However, you know, the reason we created this is to help people do it in the context of a group with, you know, other people. Even if it's just one other person, it's useful to have that. So the first profit activator, number one, narrow your focus and select one Target market at a time. So the key question or idea is who is your ideal target market? What are the ways you can dominate that particular. You know, that market? And then you know the second one, profit activator number.

See, it's very direct response offer prospects to call you.

Key question, what types of offers are you currently using in your business? Are they compelling or can they be improved? And then how. And then another question is, who are some great examples of companies or people who are using direct response offers? And of course, we give plenty of examples on the. I love marketing calls when we talk about it, but that would be an example. Then profit activator number three, the discussion Profit activator is patiently and systematically educate and motivate prospects. So the questions and ideas, how do you educate and motivate your prospects, your clients? Are you currently using free recorded messages in your business? Why not? And what are other robotic ways you can use to educate and motivate prospects? And throwing questions out like that. We'll have people in the group talk about videos that they're using on YouTube. We'll have people talk about what they're doing on Facebook and what they're doing with sales letters and all types of different consumer awareness guides. You know, there's a whole variety of robotic ways that you can, you know, not only attract prospects and stuff, but you can educate ones. You already got it. We've also had this lead into discussions about using robotic marketing for hiring employees and what sort of free recorded messages and videos need to exist in order to find the best JV partners, you know? So it really leads into cool discussions. You know, the fourth profit activators present your unique service offer in a way that makes it easy to get started. The questions are, how do you currently present your service to others, your services to others? Is there a unique packaging you can create to make it more easy for someone to use your services? What is it? And have you created a consumer awareness guide for your business? And if not, why not? Those are some examples. I can keep going. Maybe I should. But what do you think, Dean?

Yeah, we'll keep going through those and then we'll come back and talk about a couple of them. I think there's some really valuable things in.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. All right, so there's even a picture of Dean on this particular page where I keep going. See, there's me. Well, this is good because it came before Dean. On this. This page, page number five has Joe Polish in my bio and it talks about how great I am. And then on the next page, it has a picture of Dean in it just. Just to make him look like he's somehow equal to me. It says a couple things about his focus is what he's an expert in. But I don't know if anyone's gonna.

Buy any of that.

But so then we. You're supposed to chuckle and insult me.

I'm laughing, I'm chuckling on the inside.

Okay. You see how he's. Kevin, how he's just sitting there quietly waiting? Yeah, he's just waiting. Yeah. All right, so profit activator number five, Deliver a dream come true experience designed for your clients perspectives. And the key questions are, do you have raving fans for your business and who are they? What does everyone love about you, your business, your services? What does everyone hate about your business and your services? And then profit activator number six, discussion. Provide after sales services even after you've already been paid. Key question or ideas? Does your company offer after sales services? What are they? And what are some sales service offers you can implement? And then number seven is the profit activator is nurture lifetime relationships and focus on lifetime value. The key questions are, do you know the lifetime value of every client you do business? Do you know what the lifetime value of every client you do business with is? What are ways you can nurture and create lifetime relationships? What ways do you show you appreciate your clients? And how do you know your clients are happy with your services? What's funny, as I go through, these people here will sit and listen to them and say, yeah, those are good questions. I mean, most people would agree that if, if they spent a little bit of time, even if it was like a minute or two on each question that I'm reading here, you would learn tremendous amounts of things that you could do without even having to talk to anyone. I mean, ideas would come to your mind, but most people left to their own devices, won't do it. Which is why if you actually do it in the context of a meetup group and you say that I'm going to devote a year to really figuring this stuff out, that's how you totally transform a business. As a matter of fact, it usually doesn't take a year. It could happen in the span of one good meeting. And then of course, I'll go to the 8th one here, which is profit activator number 8. Orchestrate referrals by giving your clients the opportunity to feel great. Key questions. Do you provide services that makes your clients want to refer You. If no, why not? So think about that, that question. When's the last time you did business with someone that provided a service or a product or an experience to you in a way that you simply wanted to go out and tell other people about them? I mean, you know, how often does that happen? You know, I just went to the. I stayed at the SLS Hotel when I went to the Paul McCartney event, you know, the lifetime achievement dinner that I talked about in the last podcast. And that hotel is such a freak show that I simply want to tell other people about it. I mean, it was just so. The decor was so random and so wild and crazy. They had lamps, you know, with made out that look. I mean, not real rifles, but replicated rifles. And they had glass deer heads. Not real deer heads, but glass. Everything from the bathrooms to the furniture to the restaurant to the decor. I mean, just a complete freak show of total randomness. But it just was, you know, it was eccentric, it was elegant. It was just, you know, contemporary and traditional. I mean, all kinds of stuff just mixed together. It was like, cool. I've told a lot of people about that hotel, and now I'm telling more by having it recorded. Okay, do you have a referral program? What does it consist of? And what are the ways you can actively get referrals? Not passive referrals, but actively get referrals. And why do you think people refer others to you? I mean, really? And then we say, congratulations and best of luck with your new I love marketing media group. Stay tuned in every week. Stay tuned in every week to get more of the best actionable marketing insights around. And then other discussion topics from the podcast. And then we have marketing versus selling. Episode three, more before, during and after. Episode number 26, the magic rapport formula. Episode 29, more cheese, less whiskers. Episode 24, obstacles to getting referrals and how to set the stage for getting referrals. Episode 33, Lead Conversions and how to think about your leads to make the most money. Episode five, five star prospects. Episode six, your list. How often should you mail or email your list? Episode number six, the future of the thank you economy. Episode ten, that's our interview with Gary Vaynerchuk, Tom Shoes founder, Blake Mycowski Approach to giving and business. Episode 12, blogging how often and the right amount. Episode 13, being outrageous in your marketing. Episode 14, video marketing and the three essential steps. Episode Episode 20, logos and branding. Episode 21, copywriting. How to make your writing riveting. Episode number 35. And then, you know, the Last page has an episode reference cheat sheet and it just is filled with all of the different episodes and the one I'm holding in my hand has right up to episode number 50. And you know, so every so often we're going to continue to update this with more content. And then of course we tell people to get your free breakthrough DNA 8 profit activator report. And we would recommend that for your I Love Marketing meetup group, especially if you're charging, you know, print out a copy of the DNA Breakthrough report and give a copy to everyone that comes to, you know, the I Love Marketing meetup group. And if everyone reads that report as an example and you pick any profit activator, any discussion you're going to have most likely a pretty lively, helpful, good, valuable discussion with the group. And more than anything, if you're the leader of the group, the big benefit is because you're facilitating, you're actually really putting yourself in a position of getting really skilled. And if you're someone that is afraid of public speaking, this is actually a really good way to enter into this area. I mean, there's no way to present yourself or do anything that is a growth opportunity unless you somehow can just completely disconnect your emotions, which most people can't, where you're not going to maybe be a little some butterflies in your stomach or have some little bit of fear. I remember the first time I had to do a seminar and publicly speak. I mean, I was scared shitless. I was sweating, I was nervous. But the more you do it, the better you get. And the beauty of I Love Marketing meetup groups is they don't require you to have to be a guru. They don't require you to have to get up there and do a presentation. I mean, you're simply just facilitating a discussion with a bunch of people so you can just use the energy of the group. But since you are the one leading it though, you are in a position to where in a lot of ways it's status. People look up to you and people expect you to help facilitate a great meeting. So I mean, certainly be prepared, know what the heck you're going to talk about and all that. But for the most part you don't have to sweat bullets like, oh my God, you know, people are going to expect you to perform for them. You just simply need to throw out really good questions, use the questions we have here and it takes on a life of its own. At least that's been my experience recently.

We had a friend of mine come in and do a Facebook marketing demonstration. And he just taught the group how to effectively market to their niche on Facebook. And it was great because I just gave everyone an assignment. You know, go set yourself a $5 a day budget. That's not too much, and go test some ads. And one of the guys came back the following week, and he had made $2,500 off of about $100 investment in ads on Facebook just from one meeting. And then so what you're able to do is, like you said, use it as sort of a think tank and see what works. You can take some of these strategies, go out there and test them, see what works in different industries. Another gentleman came in. He's in the real estate niche. And what they were doing, he shared that they were using Facebook ads, but they were catering to school teachers. And so what they were doing is is taking Facebook ads with the local school mascot. And so, of course, that would grab someone's attention when they're on Facebook. And, you know, just get some really interesting insights from different people's businesses that can work across all businesses. And, you know, there's another thing that's interesting. You know, Joe talks about riffs. You know, every singer has his riffs. You know, his go to songs. When you go to their concerts, everyone goes crazy when they sing their songs. You know, Madonna had her riffs during the super bowl halftime show. Well, you know, Joe and Dean and other folks have their riffs as well. And what happens is you start to pick up on these riffs. And these are again, the truths that I mentioned earlier in marketing. Things that just simply work. And another gentleman in our group came up with a consumer awareness guide and just did some free testing ads out on Craigslist. And he just shared with me the other day, just got a brand new client. Now the lifetime value of that client could be thousands of dollars, all from a free ad and attending an I love marketing meetup group here in Phoenix. And so it's things like that that really energize me. And just watching the breakthroughs and how people transform their business from being very vague to defining a specific niche. And I think that's one of the exciting things for me.

Yep, that's what I'm trying to say. My favorite line, by the way, that is, you know, it's when you're distracted, you're not really listening to what someone's saying. They're saying something that's better than what you could say. You just like, show up and you say, that's what I'm trying to say. And then everyone like laughs, thinks it's funny and everything. And at the same time, it doesn't really, you know, it doesn't really reveal anything. What do you think of that? You can even do an entire meetup group by inviting people that are smarter than you, have them say some really smart shit for a couple minutes and then end and say, that's what I'm trying to say. And then you go to the next person and say some smart stuff. And at the end of the night, everyone thinks you're a genius.

Yeah, you could say things sort of dismissively too.

Like, that's what Kevin does when I talk. No, I'm kidding.

You could just kind of dismissively.

One thing that I hope that comes out of this actual episode is that we have hopefully created enough curiosity for someone that's never been to an I Love Marketing meetup group to either attend one if there's some in their areas. But, you know, this is all relatively brand new. So the vast majority of people that are listening to I Love Marketing there are no I Love Marketing Meetup groups around them. In most major cities they're starting if they've not already been started. But, you know, that's why we really would like the marketers out there to go ahead and just start one and start these things. And one of the challenges we've been having on our website, of course, is being able to link to every I Love Marketing meetup group because I know there's a whole bunch of them that exist that aren't yet linked there. And you know, as long as you have I Love marketing in the meetup.com in the title site, you know, it should pop up, but there are people that have actually started I Love Marketing groups on Facebook and in different things, not just Meetup. And so we, you know, we don't need to keep this just a meetup. It's just that meetup has created a site that helps self organize and is really simple and, you know, really inexpensive. And as far as charging, Kevin, what are your. What are your thoughts on, you know, people doing it for free versus people doing it for a fee? Because so far we've kept it very loose. You know, I don't care if people charge for stuff. What I do care about though is someone using I Love Marketing. And we had one situation where someone. I still don't fully understand what happened, but part of it is someone used I Love Marketing and then try to pitch someone into some other seminar or something like that. So I mean, obviously Be respectful and be smart about it. Don't try to bait and switch people and entice them to come to an I Love marketing group where you can have discussions about marketing and then try to pitch them into something that has no relevance to that. So, you know, we want people that, you know, obviously really, you know, if you're going to use our name, I Love Marketing. Talk about the content of I Love Marketing. Encourage people to listen to the calls. Encourage people, you know, to be into what me and Dean are talking about. You know, talk about direct response marketing and things like that. And so far, most all the groups have been great and the reports that we've gotten back have been fantastic. And so this is sort of our version of open source. Matt Mullenwig, who's my buddy, who's a founder of WordPress, and you can see the episode of my interview with him on I Love Marketing. This is kind of open source. We kind of want to let the community do their own thing. If you want to charge for it, charge for it. And as things come up, you know, we'll address them as best we can as they come up. And, you know, maybe we will make recommendations on different ways to structure and stuff, but in the beginning here, you know, we just want to get it going and we'll.

Yeah, we want to encourage people to do it and, you know, to. And to think about it as not a. Not just an event, not just that they're going to go to 1, 1, you know, 1 evening. Think about it as if you're setting up a group that you're going to rely on, that you're going to meet with regularly. And I think, you know, you would say that, Kevin, that, you know, the group that you have, the core group are there, just like you said, like a reliability group, in addition to being an accountability group that, you know, these are people who, the more time you spend with them, the more time you share what's going on in your business. There's a lot of equity built up in that, a lot of equity in those relationships that people have invested time in getting to know you, getting to know what your business is about, and you're getting to know what their business is about, and you become a very valuable group and get to share exciting results with people. It can be, it can be a very rewarding partners, too.

That's one thing I see that's happening in my group, is that people go out, they start to really deeply understand because you're having deep discussions about your product, about your customer, about your specific niche. And so like I mentioned last week we did this reveal where everyone sort of revealed who their target niche is. Well, when you do something like that, you're letting the world know who you are and who you're catering to. And so then you have 25, 30 other people who know exactly while they're out in their business, the kind of client that you're looking for. So you actually it's a great way just to do some networking as well as masterminding. So it's a great place to get together with other business owners and really understand. And another thing that I see too is when people get the opportunity to discuss their business, you know, they get to hear themselves pitching their own, their own products and they get the feedback right there. But so when you kind of hear yourself talking about your business, sometimes light bulbs will go off. And one of the things I do at the meetings here, similar to what we do in the 25k group is I have hot seats and so I have people, they get 20 minutes in front of the group and they have to again they're squirming. Oftentimes they bring an opportunity or challenge or problem they're having in their business and they get to talk about this with 25, 30 other entrepreneurs and they get feedback and the feedback is amazing.

Yeah. And you know, one thing that took place, you know, several times where ones that come in, example that I'll mention some I won't, where they'll actually bring clients of theirs to the I Love marketing meetup group because they have a vested interest in their clients getting better at marketing. For instance, Chris Frederick and Kathy from Z Health have brought not only people that work with them in the organization, but people that they've actually certified. For instance, Chris is stretch to win and stretch to win.com and Z Health is Z Health.net and they actually certify like personal trainers and different people in their methodologies of improving human performance, you know, reducing or eliminating injuries, you know, in the area of stretch, in the area of you know, neuro muscular issues and things along those lines. And a lot of the people that will go to them for certification in their sort of methodology still have to actually sell and market them that so they actually bring them to the meetup group so that they can actually learn more about marketing so they can take their methodology back to their own businesses and be better marketers at it. So for instance, if you're in any sort of business that helping one of your clients, partners, vendors, JV partners, whatever, be A better marketer. They may be giving you money, but one of the ways to enhance it is actually bring them to, to a meetup group or start a meetup group with all of them. You know, one thing I didn't mention here is like, you know, if you're in the real estate industry and you have a bunch of referral partners, be it, you know, plumbers or be it interior designers or people that actually refer your real estate business, you can do your own meetup group just for your own clients and vendors, partners, sphere of influence, etc. And just really keep it focused on your niche. I mean, there could be an I love marketing group for someone that caters to, you know, chiropractors and dentists. I mean, whatever. And so be creative in the way that you use the discussions. The main thing is, you know, one of the great ways to have discussions is great location, great topics, great questions, you know, great people. And if you put those elements together, you're going to have a successful meeting. And, you know, it's just in the best way to get started is to get started. And so I don't know how much more I could say to, you know, make it easier other than, you know, go to ilovemarketing.com print out the I love marketing meetup guide, you know, your quick start guide to leading your very own I love marketing meetup group in your community and do it, you know, get, get set up and do it. And if you, you know, feel more comfortable attending one, go ahead and attend one and by all means go attend other meetup groups and kind of see how they're run. If you, if you really just still feel sort of like, God, I'm not sure how this is going to work. You know, go to meetup.com and just scroll through all the different, you know, topics that they have. And one of the things that's on my list is to track down the, you know, the founder of Meetup.com and do an interview with him and, you know, kind of just asking questions about what the hell did he start meetup for, you know, what is he discovered? Because I'm sure that would be a fascinating sort of discussion. But in the meantime, it's just a great system that's set up and it works. And we would like all of our listeners to expand their knowledge of I love marketing through facilitating.

We may have one of the most popular meetup categories on meetup. I mean, we've got, I'm looking at the map right now. We've got 29 groups with 1043 members. You know, I don't know, we may be creating something pretty special even within meetup.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And Kevin, what are we gonna say?

No, that's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm trying to say. There we go.

Now you got it right.

You know, another option for, for starting a meetup group too is to start, is to think about maybe a regional group of people who are in your specific niche. Just like there's value in getting perspective from people who are in other businesses locally. If you're starting one right in your own town, you're starting one with people who could be potential people who could refer business to you or joint venture partners with you or, you know, collaborators with you. That could be a great group to start. But it could also be a good idea to, like I said, regionally start a group of, you know, non competing people in your same niche. People. You know, if you were a vet, you might start a regional group of meetup group with, with different vets, or if you're a realtor, with different realtors from, you know, 10 or 15 neighboring communities where you're not directly competing with each other, but you are, you know, in exactly the same business and you can feel great about collaborating on things that all of you are going to, to benefit from. And that's the real beauty of that, is that, you know, the, the breakthrough DNA report, the eight profit activators are really, you know, we do talk about them as those, you know, stem cells, the DNA cells that are going to, you know, thrive and manifest themselves differently in every business. But to have a group of chiropractors who you're getting together to crack the chiropractor code of breakthrough DNA, that's a very valuable thing.

Dean, is this part of your diabolical conspiracy to take over the world?

It's the first little step.

All right, so, Dean, okay, so now that we've got everyone that's listening fully committed to immediately get off this phone call, go to meetup.com and start their own I love marketing meetup Group. What next? What do we have? What are the last famous final words that we have for all of our loyal, committed, driven listeners?

I think, you know, here's the great thing I think that we've got right now as of this moment, as we're recording this, there are 1043 meetup group members.

Well, there's more.

Now.

Those are just the ones that are updated even on the site. But let's, let's go on the map as an operating number.

That's what I mean. That's the one that'd be our measurement. That's the one we can see here. And so I think that literally we could overnight double or triple that number before the end of the month even.

You know, that would make Dean very happy.

It would make me very happy, but it would make me happy. Our listeners very rich. And that's even more important. Important to me.

Yeah. You know what? Look, with all the joking and all the goofy stuff aside, the reality is what we're sharing here is really significant. Important in business advice. And I have had countless people, you know, even the letter from Jeremy, which you know, I read a couple episodes ago. You know, the 22 year old kid who actually came to my office when I spoke to a group of graduate students who actually turned down an opportunity and a scholarship to go to I think Stanford because of what he's learning from. I love marketing and applying it in his own entrepreneurial startup. The fact is that had something like this existed when I was first starting my business, I personally would have jumped on it because as soon as I learned direct response marketing, I jumped into it headfirst because I was like, wow, this totally makes sense. I started testing strategies. Lo and behold, they actually worked. And this is after getting to the point of total frustration, reading books, trying things that just simply weren't working, but just knowing that I want to be a successful business owner, I want to figure out how to make this stuff work. When you find strategies, when you find methods, when you find plans and paths and formulas that produce results, go deeper with them. If someone has been listening to I love marketing and they're getting ho hum results, it's not the strategies. I know these strategies work my whole life. I'm a convert in my own system. I know this stuff works. If you want to multiply and magnify your business, then you need to multiply and magnify the focus and the involvement you have in that particular area. On a scale of one to ten, if you're only putting a two effort into something, you're probably going to get a two effort results. But if you put a five or six effort into something, you're just going to multiply it. Even a 5% increase of focus in any particular area that is going to produce better results for you, you is going to be worth it. And so that's what we're asking for, that's what we're recommending, that's what we're encouraging and we've set up this process. Just follow our proven plan and path, and we kind of leave it up to you. I mean, we give you a structure, but we don't force you to do anything. No one's signing legal contracts with us here. We're giving you all this incredible content that you can go out and speak to and talk from. And I think it's a pretty. I think it's a pretty cool offering.

I love it.

Yeah. So, Kevin, last. Last thing. What do you have to say for yourself?

That's what I'm trying to say.

That's what I'm trying to say. That's perfect.

That's it. That, that. That is truly all you have to say?

I mean, this really is.

You guys. I mean, I'm with the masters. I'm with the Marketing Buddha and the carpet cleaning King. Come on.

You know, the marketing Buddha sounds higher status. Now I'm getting all self conscious. All right, so if you haven't listened to our last episode where me and Dean talked about the survey process, the barriers to success sort of thing, we also have our platinum group and people believe, well, what's the difference between Platinum and a meetup group? Well, the difference is for one, total immersion paved for higher level focus, two full days straight. So there are. Although we speak to many of the same topics and stuff on. I love marketing and the episodes and the things that we write about and all that. The thing is, when you actually join a particular group, you just immerse yourself even deeper. So it's like, how far down this path do you want to go? And I think many of the people that have become Platinum members are starting meetup groups because they realize by being in platinum that one of the best ways to even expand what they're getting out of platinum is to actually be doing their own. I love marketing meetup groups and it actually creates a much faster, accelerated sort of marketer. And so one of my rules of thumb is whenever I throw time, money and energy at anything and it produces exponential results, I want to spend as much time and energy as it makes sense for me to do that. You know, there's a point, there's a balance. Just like if you get great results out of working out in the gym, you know, an hour a day, you know, working out two hours a day doesn't necessarily. Isn't necessarily productive. In many cases, it could be over training. So you want to find a balance in how you actually do learning. I mean, I would much rather have someone not spend the entire day preparing to do Something versus just getting out there and doing it. So everyone's got to find their own balance. But the thing is, the more that you invest into getting the techniques and the methods down and doing them right, I think in the long run it will absolutely pay off. And there is a learning stage. I mean, there's a setup phase. And I think the worst meetup group you'll probably ever do is the first one. And the second worst one, maybe the second one. But you know, if you keep doing them, you keep doing them, you get pretty good. And a lot of people have been asking me, you know, how do I do what you do? How do I run a coaching group? Well, you ever ran a coaching group? No. You ever joined a coaching group? Well, no, not really. Well, it's like, well, maybe join one first. I tell people all the time, you know, when I refer my high level marketing friends to strategic coach, you know, it's like, well, you're, you know, you're out there telling other people to, you know, join coaching programs, but you yourself aren't in one. I mean, that's kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. It's almost hypocritical. So if you ever want to start teaching other people marketing, then start teaching other people marketing. You know, if you want to get paid for it, you know, do it for free. I mean, I remember in the very beginning when I was learning marketing, I mean, one of the best ways that I actually, I mean, the reason I ended up getting into this was I actually started teaching other people what it is I was doing just to see, just to validate in my own mind what's working for me. Will it work for other people? And when you can actually prove to yourself that, wow, this stuff is formulaic, this stuff is replicatable, I mean, that's a pretty exciting sort of thing. And then all of a sudden you realize, man, think about all the business owners out there that would actually pay money for this. So one of the best ways to actually get paid to teach other people marketing is to start a meetup group and to start teaching other people marketing. And if they start learning how to make more money by being part of your meetup group, guess what? They're probably going to give you money. If that's the business you're in, and if that's not the business you're in, but you're in a business where they can refer you to other people, they're probably going to refer you to other people. So I mean, you know, there's a lot more, I could say, but I think that that makes it pretty obvious.

And I think one of the exciting things, too, is the brand's new. The brand's been around, what, a little over a year now?

Yeah.

And it's. It's exciting to be a part of sort of an entrepreneurial venture, which I love marketing is. It's. And I think one of the interesting thing is when you learn something incredible like Joe was just saying, you're almost obligated to share it, you know, so through these, I love marketing podcasts and through all the. Through the communities, the events we have, if you learn something great, you know, I think it's almost a human obligation to go out there and share it with other people. So why not do that to other entrepreneurs who really need the help and really need the community more than anything? Bring them that structure, that information and that ability to connect with. With one another.

Yep. So there you go. So, Dean, the last words go to you.

This is what Willis was talking about right here.

You're talking about will be completely confused right now.

Perfect.

They have to find it. They have to do a Google search.

That's exactly who doesn't know what Willis was talking about.

Okay, we'll. Well, you're supposed to have last word, so you need to say Dean, to everyone that will join you on the next episode of Ilove marketing.com and that perfect polish.

We'll join you on the next. Yeah, we'll join you on the next episode of I love marketing and Joe polish is awesome. Amen. Amen. Good night, everybody.

Goodbye, everyone.