The One About Your Annual Marketing Calendar - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #47

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. Yep, that's right.

Did you hear I said that?

What's that?

Did you hear I said that with authority?

You said it with authority. And a slight delay.

There is no authority. There was no authority in that introduction.

We're out of.

Welcome, everyone.

Yeah, we're out of practice because it's been a while. It's been a few weeks. We recorded all those episodes in your hotel room in Atlanta, and now here we are. We're a little rusty.

Craig Ballantyne, John Benson, Ryan Deiss. If you've not heard those episodes, go to ilovemarketing.com immediately stop whatever you're doing.

Even if it's really been an All Star Cavalcade.

Yes, it's been good. And people have loved those episodes.

Yeah.

And those of you that listen to us on itunes, go to. We get so many people that listen on itunes. But there's, you know, there's not an easy way for them to comment unless they just do a random comment on itunes, which I do want to say. There are glowing, wonderful comments.

I looked at them just the other day, and it's really. They're so good. Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, we get a lot of comments just on itunes, People loving what we're doing.

Yeah. And it's in their most appreciated. And I think there's, like, I always go and read the negative ones first because I want to see what people are, you know, complaining about.

Yeah.

And for the most part, there's like, they're just really good comments. One negative one says that we could say what we, you know, say in an hour and 30 minutes, which, of course, is probably, maybe true in some cases, but they clearly have not.

But it wouldn't be as fun.

All the episodes. Yeah, it wouldn't be as fun. And there. There are certainly many. And that usually would be a comment where someone listens to, like, one episode, and then they're like, right. Ah. They could have said this in half the time. But, you know, if everyone listens to all these on a regular basis, you'll clearly see that the hour that we give for the very expensive price of free is worth every penny.

The very expensive. Oh, that's good.

Let's hit it. Let's talk about the subject of today's I love marketing episode between, like, deep discussion with me and Dean on our mobile phones was marketing calendars and how you're gonna really you know, lay out next year. And it's kind of something that I think everyone that is a business owner probably thinks about either in a very shallow way or deeply towards the end of the year. It's, you know, my friend Dave Keck has all these credos called Kekich credos. And one of them is review the basics of your profession at least once a year.

Yes.

And I think it's an important point. And Dean, you know, you're known, between me, people that know both of us know me as the calm, cool, collected one and you, the obsessive, compulsive, crazy, very dizzy. That's so sweet. I always have to calm you down when you've got like an overbooked travel schedule. You got too many things that you're.

Like, right, try to reel me in.

So no, basically it's the reverse of that. So you spend a lot of time thinking about time, about rituals, about routines, about creating friction free sort of environments and activities. And so, you know, all of that sort of ties into, you know, if, if an entrepreneur is sitting there thinking, okay, you know, I did a lot of things this year. Some of it worked, some of it didn't work. Some people are really overwhelmed and busy and don't know how to prioritize and make decisions. And other people are not. I think most people are, that are business owners. However, how do you think about a marketing calendar and how do you think about time?

Well, right now, this time of year, so this will be our first episode in December, and the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's is kind of a time when I think most business owners are kind of, you know, reflective on what happened over the year or they should be to kind of look back and see what worked and what didn't work and what they could, you know, what opportunities they could take advantage of. Because most of the time in, in most businesses there's a real sort of cyclical nature to things that go with the seasons or go with the, the times of year and knowing ahead of time what's the optimal time to start, you know, promoting certain things or to, you know, start planning ahead of time so that you're, you're there when the right time is. So for instance, for, for me and the real estate agents, right now is the time of year when people are most thinking about if they're going to make a change to the way that they communicate with their, with their clients, with their sphere, with their, their after unit, the people who know them, like them and trust them. December January is really the time that feels like the right time to kind of make that move. So on my promotional calendar right now, on my marketing calendar, the, the main focus is the, is getting referrals and the world's most interesting postcard.com as a. The main thing that we're doing. I just finished a report this would actually be valuable for everybody to read. I just finished a report called the Secret Psychology of why People Refer Real Estate Agents and how to be the only one they Refer. And it's just a 12 page report that outlines the psychology of how referrals actually work. And that would be applicable to any business. You could replace the word real estate estate agents and put carpet cleaners in there as you know, the secret psychology of why people refer carpet cleaners because the psychology is all the same. But this time of year, knowing that this is the time, I planned ahead of time to be ready with this report, to email to people, to set up joint venture partners to let their lists know about this free report and to get the word out so that in December and January it's the time to harvest for that particular, for that particular product. Now when we get into sort of the middle of January into February and March, the focus shifts to, to getting listings. That's when most people who are going to sell their house put their homes on the market in the spring in, in sort of that February, March, April, May, that, that's the busiest time of the year for that. So to know that and to see that that's happening and that's a annual recurring thing, it always happens that that's the way it is. My focus shifts to being, to being in that mode of showing realtors how they can get more listings. And so when you look at it, whether you are, you know, if you're a retail store, you shape out your calendar and you look at, you know, what's going on throughout the year, could what, what kind of events are happening that you could plan some marketing around? In January you've got the super bowl, you know, or if you could take advantage of, of New Year's resolutions in the first couple of weeks of the year, you know, people have made resolutions to lose weight or to get healthy or to eat better or to, you know, whatever it is that they've, they've set up in their mind to do, could you take a, you know, could you slant your marketing towards that? The end of the month you've got the super bowl and then in the middle of February you've got Valentine's Day and then you've got, you know, spring break or St. Patrick's Day or you've got Easter coming up. There's always things that you could plan around if you took the time to kind of lay out the calendar and look at what, what's going to happen and up your ideal timelines. A lot of times what happens with business owners is they get so busy just doing the work within the business that these things kind of sneak up on them. And it's, you know, February 1st, and all of a sudden they start thinking, boy, we should really do something for Valentine's Day. And then it's almost too late to really, you know, get that momentum going.

You got it.

I mean, you probably found that with, with people, with their, with carpet cleaning too, right? There's probably different reasons why people would get their carpets clean. I mean, now, you know, probably October, November was the perfect time for people getting their carpets cleaned for the big Thanksgiving dinner, right now, getting a clean for Christmas parties, maybe in January, getting the cleaned. Cleaned up from all the Christmas parties that they had, or some of the spills and stains and whatever, or, you know, then spring cleaning. And there's probably a lot of different things that, that motivate people to, to get their carpets cleaned by the calendar, you know.

Right. Well, you know, there's. People get their carpets clean typically because of an event, and that's going to be kids going back to school or Thanksgiving or the holidays or it's seasonal or there' emergency spot spill something along those sorts. Well, the reverse is almost true with how you're planning out your marketing. Marketing and selling is rarely an event. It's a process. And if you don't plan that process out and you do it very episodically, you're going to run into situations where, oh, I could have done that. There's many people that had they started thinking about a holiday promotion during Christmas or Thanksgiving, they could have really capitalized on it in a great way. I mean, many businesses, you know, they operate on this in many ways fascinating launch day called Black Friday, where they just prepare all of these sales activities usually built around price discounting. And, you know, it's, it's just, it's kind of funny. But, you know, there's a lot to be said about planning things out. And if you, if you don't do it, you know, the whole cliche, everyone's heard a million times, if you fail to plan, plan to fail sort of thing. And if you, you know, it's, it's true, it's true. I mean, a lot of it, you can, you know, you can run by your, you know, shirt tails all the time and you can be very episodic. And some people thrive under, you know.

It'S a good word that you just, you've been, you've used it twice now, but it's a great word. I wanted to point which. Episodically.

Yeah, episodically.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

There's episodic marketers and then there's planners. And if you want longevity, it's really hard to do longevity when you are completely episodic because that's really typically required of a person being in tip top shape at the time of the event. Meaning like a boxer as an example or any sort of athlete. They have to be well prepared in practice to just be put on the field or put into the ring and expected to perform at their peak. Well, the same thing goes with a marketing campaign. If you just drag a boxer out of bed and say, hey, by the way, you were partying last night in Las Vegas and I know you're hungover, but we're going to do a match for you tonight. I hope you do well, he's probably going to get the shit kicked out of him. Well, the same thing goes with. If you just throw your marketing together and just expect it to happen because you want it, versus giving yourself some practice time, giving yourself some time to set it up and turn it into a process, you're really going to do well. Because the problem with being episodic is once the brilliant person is not there to just operate on a dime and there's no system in place because you haven't thought it out and you haven't planned it out, then you're really, you're just lucky if it works.

Well, you start to think about that. But you and I both just got an email from Eunice. Pick enough dates for certain events next year and picking a date already for, for the I Love Marketing conference next fall, which is already months and months away. But it takes that kind of, you know, with that kind of time and preparation. It's, you know, you think through the calendar of how that's going to play out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, the, the, the way that, for instance, you know, we have our first platinum, which is a brand new version of a coaching program that I have ran for over a decade, and I give away, you know, I'm giving away a Land Rover next year, you know, really dialed out Land Rover LR4, my personal vehicle. And I've given away 10 different vehicles in the past, from Mercedes to Jaguars to Corvettes to all kinds of crazy things. And I incentivize people for bettering their best. And now me and you have discussed this with opening it up for everyone. That was at the I Love Marketing Conference. And we've got an event that's going to be me and you and anyone that's in platinum. And it's a program that's a monthly program where we deliver. We just me and you and Tim Poulson, who's the coach in it, and several other people on my team. We have calls every month and materials and everything that people get as part of it. And we've got Dan Sull speaking at it. Dan rarely does stuff like that. This is the top coach in the world to successful entrepreneurs, and he's coming and speaking about how to set up your year. So it's just going to be phenomenal and awesome. And this is the best entrepreneurial coach in the world. Both of me and you are part of his program. He's part of my 25k group, and we're doing a 25k meeting two days prior to that. So on January 28th and 29th, we got that meeting going on. Well, you can bet right now there's all kinds of activities that are going on with people that were at the I Love Marketing Conference, including delivering the program to them, the stuff we do monthly. But there's. We know we have a whole year that needs to be planned out and a whole level of curriculum to not only provide tremendous value to those people, but to also put other people that want to be coached by me and you and Tim into that particular program. And, you know, you just can't snap your finger and make programs like that happen.

Right?

I mean, they need to be. They need to be planned out. People need to be sold into them, and they need to be, you know, you need to deliver stuff, you know, constantly, just like, you know, any other business, just different ways that we provide service, ways we sell it, way we deliver it. But our marketing calendar right now is filled with the emails that are going out, the actual snail mail, letters that are going out, videos that need to be recorded, you know, and that's. That's just how it works. That's how any.

By the way, we should invite. Let's invite the people who are listeners who just listen on itunes. If you haven't already gone to ilovemarketing.com and downloaded the Breakthrough DNA report with the eight profit activators you can trigger in your business. Right now, right there on ilovemarketing.com, leave your name and your email address, and that will put you in our world here. So you'll. You'll hear from us, you'll get our communications, you'll find out all about our platinum program that's starting in January, and you'll get all that information and have a chance to join us. So if you haven't done that already, get over to Ilove marketing.com and do that so that you are the first to hear about all these things.

Exactly. Plus, we have the I love marketing product is actually done now.

Is it done? Perfect.

Videos. It is done. It is ready.

Have you seen one like, you have them in. In the office right now?

I just saw it yesterday, and they look spectacular.

What are you waiting for? Get me one. Get over. Get it over here. All right.

Yeah, well, they just came in, man.

So just hold your horses.

And you're always the. Yeah, look, you know, just because you're, you know, half of I love marking with me doesn't mean you're entitled to see the stuff that we.

Oh, is that. I'm on a need to know basis. Yeah.

That is funny. All right, so I was so half tempted right now, but I, you know, we're recording. I don't want to have to have. Have you do any weird editing here. Like, there's a person who, you know, is a really sharp marketer, and he's a really good speaker, and I've done some products and stuff with him in the past, and this guy's like, you know, he'd end up taking stuff that we did together, and he would, like, put it in different formats, and he would package it in certain ways, and he would never even send it to me. And I'm like, what the hell is wrong? You, like, you know, do you want a sales prevention department? You've been talking to them, and they don't, you know, if I saw some of this stuff, we could probably, you know, anyway.

That's right.

Yeah. That's one of the beauties of partnerships. So one thing that people should put down on their marketing calendar is also, if you really want to work with someone, then build it into your schedule. I mean, if you want to develop a joint venture, if you want to launch a new product line, a new campaign, it will not happen by itself. And there, you know, I don't know about you, Dean, but I am a big believer in seeing things that are visual. I mean, my team uses electronic calendars I mean, they all have places from like basecamp, from 37 signals and various other online.

Just started using Basecamp too.

Yeah. And, you know, I do that because I interviewed Jason Freed for Genius Network, you know, the founder, just such a smart guy, and he wrote a really great book called Rework. You know, just, I really like that company. I just think they're cool. And, you know, we have a lot of different electronic tools. I'm a huge fan, though, of seeing something on a wall, because when, you know, you can walk into. We have a room that we just identified this week that's going to become the new marketing calendar. Kind of like, it's kind of like a war room. So I can just walk in and it takes up an entire wall space. And the early version of this one for next year is just simply PR out on 11 by 17. Each monthly calendar, thicker stock paper and putting it on a cork board so I can see the entire year, including, you know, the remaining month, December of this year. And I see it up on the wall and I can just look by what is already, you know, on there, you know, and every time there's new stuff added electronically, it simply is, you know, print out another piece of paper, put a thumbtack in the cork board, and boom, you got the most recent recent calendar.

I mean, right.

It requires nothing. Right. And you know, for me, I can look at that and visualize out, you know, oh, here's what I want to do here. Here's what I want to do here. And for me, that's helpful. Some people, they just want to be glued that, you know, they can operate and somehow retain it in their mind by staring at like a smartphone or.

Oh, yeah, no, no, I'm totally like you. I, I, the visual stuff is from. Well, you've seen my office, like the whole, the way I organize everything on the cork board there, you know, helps me keep on track. Yep.

So that's, that's what I recommend, you know, if someone doesn't have some sort of visual representation, you know, and if you don't have a large company and you're not dealing with, you know, many different people on your team and, you know, because I like the fact that my team can walk in and just put something on it and, you know, we have another wall that has a particular space where they writing down what their activities are.

I've seen yours where you've got their names on there and they've got their top five projects on the dry erase board there.

Right, right, right, exactly. You know, What I'll do in the. I'm not going to promise it to be up on. I love marketing. Right away. Maybe next time you're down there or when we're doing the. For any. I know a lot of our platinum members listen to this and if, and I'll just point this out. If any of our platinum members or anyone that's going to be down in January, at the end of January want to actually see it. Where we're going to hold the platinum meeting is at a hotel right next to my office. I'm happy to walk anyone over there and they can literally look at how I run my company and they can see what's up on the wall and they can look at all that stuff. I'm happy to show that to everyone. Some people that have virtual companies where they have outsourcing people all over the place. You know, we realize you might need to do all of this from a computer screen, but I will say whoever is the main person that's planning marketing campaigns, if you're working out of your house, I still think you'd be well served to have, you know, some visual thing up on a wall that you can just look at and you can just sit there and think because it's, it's, you know, planning things out is really thinking time. And I think being on a computer is distracting. I think most people aren't going to think as effectively as, you know, just like in your evil scheme hatchery. I mean when you go there, sometimes you'll take your laptop, but other times you're just sitting there with a yellow.

Pad and you're looking for in front of you and you're just thinking, yep, that's exactly right.

Let me ask you, because you've worked with so many people over the years and what is the best way to plan? I mean, this sounds like the most basic sort of question, but how do you think about planning? You know, what is the most valuable?

Yeah, no, that's a great question because I always do this, this time of year, like right now before Christmas, I'll do this as I'm planning out the year is that, you know, like you and I both have unlimited ideas for projects for things to do, unlimited opportunities presented to us, but other people's opportunities that they want us to work on with them and stuff on our own. So there's all kinds of things. And so really what I do is just like what I explain in the 50 minute Focus Finder video is I'll sit down for 50 minutes and I will Write an exhaustive list of every project I can think of. Everything that I've got on my mind, you know, whether I'm going to, whether I'm doing it right now actively or not, it's holding a space in my mind. And so I will go through and I'll get that list. Not so much, you know, in the very beginning, like the first 10 minutes of doing that 50 minute focus finder. What you end up with are the things that are tasks that are on your mind that you've got to. Things you need to do right now. And then as you sort of get those tasks out of your brain, you have an opportunity to kind of think through what are the projects that I've got. The, not the tasks that I've got to do right now, but the open, open projects that I've got. So, you know, if I look at it. So even just with the things that, that you and I have would be, you know, that I love marketing is a, is a project context. You know, what Dave David Allen would call a context. You've got the, that as a project and every week I know that that means we've got to record an episode, we've got to maybe talk ahead of time and think when we're gonna, you know, schedule to do the, the recordings. But the big picture thing that I would write down would be I love marketing the podcast. Another project would be, would be platinum. The, the, the implementation program that we're working on. So putting that as a, as a project, then putting the, the isle of marketing DVDs would be another project that has a set of things that need to be done to get that out. I love marketing Live. The live event we're going to do next fall is another project. These are things that not necessarily that we're going to do anything right this minute about them, but they're things that are, that are on your mind. All the possible things that you could do whether, whether you're going to do them or not. Now honestly, when I do this too, I've got projects that have been on my list for a long time that I, that I have yet to do anything with, but they're there as a, as a potential product or project. So what I look at then when I get that list done, here's how I kind of evaluate them. I know that you can't do them all now. You know, where that really came to my mind was that, you know, I think that I saw that Quentin Tarantino has done, I believe, eight movies maybe so far. And you think about this guy as like this prolific, you know, movie maker, but the reality is he's. He's done eight movies in, in his career. And it struck me that, you know, that that model, that whole Hollywood model of that those guys are working on, you know, one movie at a time kind of thing. You can't, can't shoot three movies at once, you know.

Right.

And so it's just I look at them as those projects and I ask myself, is this going to be a good idea in 12 months from now? Is this going to be a good idea in two years from now? Like, is it an idea that is, you know, only valuable right now because it's timely and topical? Like, is there a timeline on it? Or is it something that's going to be a perennial that will have, you know, long term reaching value? And sometimes that, you know, I look at it and say, so I don't feel like I need to do anything about it right this second, you know, because you get so. The most terrible position to be in, mentally, it's draining, is to be in a position where every project has equal weight and you're not, you know, moving forward on any of them. You know, where you get all these projects where you've got so many things and it's hard to really kind of make a decision on which one is the one that you need to, to dedicate your time to. Right. So when I look at it, I'm looking at those projects, I'm asking myself, is this, is it going to be a good idea in 12 months? Is it going to be a good idea in two years? How much money is this going to be worth? How much is this? What. What's the upside of this? If this really works the way that I think it's going to work, is it, is it a small opportunity? Is it a big opportunity? And I'm using those words because it's what's small or big for you or I, or, you know, somebody listening to this are different numbers, but contextually, is this a big financial opportunity or is it a moderate financial opportunity or is it, you know, a small, you know, sort of short term promotional opportunity? And I look at them and you're. I'm kind of getting a sense of which ones are the most valuable projects to work on. When you and I are at Strategic Coach, one of the exercises that Dan has us go through all the time is called money on the table, where you're looking at the projects that you have right now and how much money they could be worth as a way to kind of discriminate against which projects might be the ones that would be the most valuable to work on over the others. And so going through your own version of that is a very valuable thing to do because it helps you get clarity on which projects are the ones that will be the most valuable investment of your limited time. And you know, going through that and that's just sitting down in an environment where, you know, you talked about my evil scheme hatchery and I talk about in the, in the 50 minute focus finder video of where to, you know, to find a space where you can remove yourself from the reactive activators. So when I go into the evil scheme hatchery, I've removed myself from the Internet, I've removed myself from the telephone and I've removed myself from people, people. So the only reactive activator is my thoughts. And so that's what I'm there to harness. I'm trying to round up all those free range thoughts that I have to gather them in one place, get them to in. As David Allen would say, get them to in so that I know I could see everything that I've got to work with, all the potential projects that I could work on and, and to then go through and evaluate which ones are the ones that I'm going to be able to work on. You want to hear something cool, Joe? I just came up with a new. Because I've been thinking a lot about this project management and that's really one of the things.

Do I have a choice? If I don't want to hear about it, can I say no, I don't really want to hear about anything. Cool.

I could tell you a joke instead.

No, no, let's hear it.

Okay, so go ahead. So I've been thinking a lot about this project management because when I look at it that, you know, that is one of the areas that could be that I've got room for improvement in. You know, and I mean every. I say that, that I've got room for improvement, but everybody has room for improvement at that. But I'm looking at, for me, that's the difference. If I really were to improve my ability to manage multiple projects, that is, that would be a big win for me, you know, and for the people that I am involved with, the people that I hang out with, that'd be a big win for you too. You know, if we. Yes, it would work together better on managing multiple projects.

You know, you can say, you can say that again.

That's. So this is going to be. Yeah, because you're such a glowing model of it. This is the. This will be good for us because. So here's my thing is that I came up with.

I'm a pinnacle of structure.

I came up with the. With the COD model of project management because I always love to name things like that. So, you know. Yeah, it's good stuff.

Okay. Cod.

Okay, so C is. Is Collect. That's like collect all of the. All those projects that I. I could work on, you know, get them all into. Onto paper, get them into a. I put them all into Basecamp after I've. After I've gone through the list and I narrow it down to the. The, you know, the top projects, the ones that I really want to advance, the ones that I want to move forward. And so when you start looking at that, collecting is about getting all of that together, all of the materials, all the things that you could possibly do, whether you're ever going to do it or not. If you've. If you've got the idea for it, write it down, you know, collect it, gather it all in one place. And it's like the only way that your mind can be free to focus on the thing that you have determined is the most important thing that you could be working on is to be absolutely confident that there's nothing that you're forgetting that could be more important. So it requires that you go through that collection process to get all the possible projects that you can work on out onto paper and. Or out into your planning system. So the C is for Collect, the O is for organize. And that is where a tool like, like Basecamp, which is what I use, and I guess that's what you use too, or your team uses Basecamp. And so I'm really starting. I've committed to Basecamp as the way. As my project management tool. And so I'm. I'm really making an effort to organize everything within Basecamp. And that means that I set up the projects and set up the, you know, they. It's really organized very intuitively because, you know, they've got a master calendar. But then each project has its own calendar within it where you can put, you know, benchmarks or due dates or, you know, special events or things that need to be scheduled on the calendar. You can make to do lists that are broken down into the, you know, know, tasks or components of a project that need to be done. You can have a to do list for a different person on. On that team. You can associate the people who, on your team are going to be involved with you on that project and invite other people who might not be on your team but are in other companies to, to be part of that project on Basecamp. And so it's a great tool to organize everything and organize your thoughts onto what needs to be done and when and who needs to be doing it. And then so that leads to the D in the COD project management method, which is, I called it dispatch or distribute the products, the project, the tasks. Tasks, the accountabilities, the deliverables. You're dispatching on or distributing who's going to do what and when. And that is a, that's kind of the way that when I put those tickets on my, on my focus board in the evil Scheme hatchery, that's what I'm doing is organizing after organizing those projects so I know which ones need to be done first. I'm dispatching them to whoever needs to do it. So if I'm, if I'm. Like I said right now a main focus is the world's most interesting postcard. So you know, if I've got a project manager, Tracy, who runs that whole project. So I'm in a lot of communication with Tracy right now and we communicate on Basecamp. I'm putting things on, on her to do list. She's communicating back and forth to me on what's happening. She's updating the calendar on when the mailing packages have gone out, who she's spoken to. So we're really kind of managing that project back and forth. And it's only me and Tracy and Jesse who are on that project. That's all that we need to have involved in that one. And Sony is on that one too because she's been doing some of the web stuff with that. So that's all the people on that. If I've got something with our Project Cyrus project, that'll be me and Nikki and Sony. And that whole project is self contained that it's just us working on that project. So it's really, you know, a great way to kind of organize everything and dispatch what needs to be done and when and kind of keep track of it, you know. But it all happens as a result of really taking the time to, you know, do a 50 minute focus finder. And it may take two or three 50 minute focus finders to really feel like you've got it all out there. Like you've got, got. You've collected all of the possible projects that you could, that you could work on and get them set up as in Somewhere, wherever you're going to organize them. So for you, you know, sounds like your preferred method is to organize them on. On visual things, on pieces of paper in your war room to. To outline where everything. That's where you choose to organize everything, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I tend to. That's where it starts. I mean, a lot of this ends up electronically. I also will take a lot of notes and stuff that I do and I will transcribe them or I will take pictures of things on that I'll draw out on flip charts or whiteboards and someone on my team will actually type it up and fit it into the right places and that sort of stuff. But I'm definitely a starter, not a finisher, so. But when it comes to thinking and planning things out, yeah, I prefer big visual stuff. And a lot of that has to do just because I'm, you know, I'm add. So, you know, there are certain types of ways that my brain interprets stuff that other people don't. So people that are kind of like this understand exactly what I'm saying. Other people like, huh. But that's the difference, you know, people are different and everyone has.

Has.

If this sounds like you resonate with what we're saying, adopt what you like and don't take what you don't like. But the point of this is do something to really think it through. Because without being reminded of this, most people will forget how beneficial it is to actually do it. And I think if you just need to get yourself into the mindset of doing it. Even reading a book like David Allen's Getting Things Done or something along those lines.

Yeah, I would think certainly watching the 50 minute focus finder video, reading David Allen's book, Reading Rework is a great book for that. Getting yourself a basecamp account, like really getting. Making a commitment to being someone who gets stuff done.

And by the way, if I'm just thinking out loud, Dean, if anyone that is listening to I Love Marketing, I've got not enough to obviously, because we've got thousands of listeners to love marketing now, but I've got. If you. Actually, I'm trying to think of what I can do to ethically bribe people to give us a video on what they think of. I love marketing. So here's what I'll say. If anyone wants me to send them a copy of David Allen's book. David Allen's a friend of mine. He wrote the book Getting Things Done. I will send you a copy of that book for free with this in exchange for this, you post a comment on the one or two ideas that you got from listening to us talk. Just they could be ideas you got from us or just something that you thought of that would be beneficial for a marketing calendar for planning out your year for better utilizing your time. Post a comment on I love marketing and make a video of your thoughts on I love Marketing. What you get out of the whole series. Just I love marketing in general. And post a link to that video on I love marketing and there's a Facebook add in there. Or you can just post a comment with a link to the video and we'll use that video. If they're really good videos and stuff, just send an email along with the video. Also, if you're an itunes person and you've never made a comment on I love marketing, if you send it to ginaopolish.com with your mailing address, I will physically send you a copy of the book Getting things done. And it's a good book to read. And we'll get that out as, you know, soon as we can. So give us between, you know, so just real short video. Here's what I think about I love marketing and make it public on YouTube so other people can hear about it. And that would help us. And that will help you.

I love it. That's great.

Yes. Yeah.

So that's all they need to do. Just comment. Just comment on this episode right here.

Yeah, comment on this episode and then shoot a little video about what you think about I love marketing because more than anything, I just, you know, we get. We hear about it. You know, I recently went to. I was speaking at Brendan Bouchard's Expert Industry association event, the first one. And I'm one of the founding members of that now. And at Dan Kennedy's recent event, you know, we as, I mean, literally, we probably had a hundred people come up to us at the. That event.

That had eight in Atlanta. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. That listened to I love Marketing. And it's, you know, they never comment, you know, so you would think that by the amount of people that just told us there, that there are just so many people that have, you know, and they share great things. I had so many people. How much money they've made.

Oh, yeah.

Someone recently told me that they, you know, we've solved their collection problems with the collection letters that we, you know, talked about on a recent episode and, you know, that sort of stuff. So people are getting tremendous value. But I just, you know, so comment on this episode. But really, just in general, what Does I love marketing do for you? What would you say to someone and create a video so that other people could watch it because it just continues to help us share the love?

Yes. Perfect. Yeah.

All right. Did I interrupt your train of thought with any of that?

No, it's all. It's. It's fluid, let's call it. It's a fluid train of thought. You can get it right back on track.

Okay, so for this particular month, Dean, like December, I'm going to spend the last couple of weeks really thinking through what I want to prune and eliminate out of my schedule because I always have to say no to stuff in order to open up room for better things. Better in terms of more financially better, more of a use of my unique abilities, you know, more passion that's involved in them, eliminating any sort of messes which could come in the form of physical messes, mental messes, project messes, people messes with, you know, people that I really don't want to continue to, you know, have a relationship with, things like that.

So you're trying to tell me something?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I was trying to do that subtly, but so, you know, having to weed the garden, like, you know, if I have to remove, move, you know, like this whole policy we have now deal, other than the I love marketing calls, we don't talk to each other.

Right.

Like, we like each other. Don't you like, like movie stars? You know, it's like, oh, the movie was great. You guys were so pat.

That love scene.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We weren't filming the love scene.

They would tell you guys really love each other.

Yeah, no, so could you imagine? I mean, I would never want to work in a condition like that where I know you're literally getting, you know, there's all kinds of books on how to deal with difficult people and stuff. And certainly learning how to interact with people without wanting to kill them is probably a smart thing. However, if you have the choice, which most entrepreneurs do, I really think you should eliminate any negative or toxic people, environments, or anything from your life. My friend Barbara Hemphill, the organizational expert, has this great saying that says, have nothing in your home which you don't know to be useful, think to be beautiful or love. And it's a great. It's a great line. I literally have it up on my wall. Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, think to be beautiful or love. And so whenever, you know, I'm walking around my house and I see some object or something, I'M like, do I, Is this useful? Do you know, is it, you know, do I love it? Is it, is it cool? And if it's not, you know, give it away, get rid of it, you know, like, why, why keep stuff around that's not serving you? Because I think. Do you remember that Nicholas Cage comic book interview thing you originally told me about?

Yeah.

Where could you, could you talk about that?

That.

I think it has a, it's a, There's a great lesson in that.

Well, I forget now. What was the point of it?

Well, I, I can remind. Okay, well, Nick is being interviewed about his comic book collection.

Right.

And the interviewer was, you know, I've never read this interview. I mean, I'm could be saying this completely. I can almost swear you're the one that told me this. And so if you can't remember it, I'll, I'll say it. And maybe. But I think it was you, I think basically where he had, like, had collected like a big comic book collection for years, I guess, starting in his childhood. And as he got older, you know, basically he decided one day to get rid of it. And the interviewer is like, well, why'd you get rid of this comic collection that you actually loved? And everything he said, well, you know, I realized that I didn't own the comic books. The comic books owned me.

Right, Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Are you the one that told me that?

I did. That was a while ago that I told you that. Because that's a while ago. Yeah.

I have selective memory, man.

You really do. It's like a genius.

I can remember quotes and dirty jokes and things like that, but if you ask me what I did yesterday afternoon, I don't really know unless I look at my schedule.

Yeah.

So there you go. All right. So what I was saying is, so as we're at the later part of this year, I want to leave our listeners off with just some suggestions and recommendations on what's going to set up 2012 to be the best year for them ever. And part of that is really, no matter what me or you say, most people actually do know things that will be really good for them to do. It's really more of just encouraging them to probably look at all the habits and skills and rituals that have served them well in the past and, and have served other people well in the past that they know and do those things. And the things that you know that don't serve you well, quit doing them. And as an example, I went the last few days not getting enough sleep and I got a lot of sleep last night. I actually was running really long sleep. I felt like crap physically yesterday.

That's true. I mean, I talked with you yesterday and you sounded completely different than you sound today. Today.

Yeah, I was stressed and I had not gotten enough sleep. You know, I went without work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't work out. And I typically work out every day. And it's like. And I just went to bed early last night, like earlier than I ever really go to bed early. And I slept probably 10 hours and I just felt infinitely better. And you know, and I already know this, I mean, I can say this a million times over, but it just occurred to me, like at a very deep level how damn important it is to get sleep when you can. I mean, there are certain types of situations where you just push through because you have like a lot of stuff going on. However, given the option, you know, if you have the ability to get sleep, get sleep. You know, most things are not a crisis. You know, I recently finally finished, you know, my buddy Neil Strauss's book Emergency, which you were one of the original people that even read the book before he published it. And you know, and I was talking to Neil yesterday about, you know, all kinds of different, you know, now that that book is enough to freak anyone out and kind of make a paranoid about the potential end of the world and all kinds of stuff. It's just a great book to read. And the thing though about it is, you know, until things are really an emergency, don't set your life up to where everything is an emergency because all you're going to do is stress yourself out and prepare yourself. So if an emergency really does come, you're strong. And one of the ways to prepare yourself before you read any time management books or any sort of learning activity or skills, if you're. Anything you're doing on lack of sleep or in a fatigue state is just not going to be done as well as. Even if you execute properly. If you execute properly in a state of being tired, you're just simply not going to execute well. Right. And so, you know, one of the biggest things I would recommend if you're one of the people that does not get enough sleep, exercise and nutrition, those are the fundamentals. I mean, fix any of those areas or all three of them, and everything that you're going to do next year is going to be better. It just will be. So I just wanted to say that, and the rest I'm going to leave up hopefully to you to say some smart stuff.

Well, you know what I think that a great thing to do between now and the end of the year is to do is to schedule and complete four 50 minute focus finder sessions. And I'm going to share with you what those for. What I would recommend for you is, number one, is to do a 50 minute focus finder on your before unit, on everything that you do could do. The projects that you know from listening to the I Love Marketing podcast, things that you had notes that you would like to implement, get all of that out. Just spend 50 minutes focused and getting all of your thoughts about your before unit out onto paper, collecting all of your thoughts about the before unit. Then do the same thing for your during unit. Go through and look at your current customer experience timeline so that when you're looking at it, what are all the things that are reality now, the things that you're actually doing and delivering and then looking at the ideal of what you could do, the things that you know that you could do. You know, by the way, one of the greatest books that you can read when you start thinking about your during unit is the Ken Blanchard book Raving Fans. You know, it's an easy book to read and just reading it and going through it and creating a little narrative that describes the experience that you want your clients to have when they go through, when they go through your, your process or they come into your environment or they go through a transactional process with you, all of that stuff. Look for the projects, the things that you could do in your during unit that would have the big, the biggest impact and then the same thing in your after unit. You know, the things that you can do to communicate with the people who know you, like you and trust you so that you can nurture lifetime relationships with the ones that you're already in relationship with and orchestrate referrals so that they introduce you to people who you, you don't know, who they know, you know, people to orchestrate those referrals for you. That's a great a, that's a great thing to focus on in your after unit. So if you spend, you know, a 50 minute focus finder on each of those three, then the fourth would be what I call your me unit, you know, the Dean unit or the Joe unit. You know, because we talk about the before unit, the during unit, the after unit, and the me unit is the things that are going to make your life better, the things that are things that you could do, like focusing on getting more sleep. What could you do to your sleep environment that would improve the level of comfort that you have. You know, is it time for you to get a new bed? I've switched a few years ago to the Tempur Pedic mattress. And, you know, now I've got one in every room. Basically, we've got them in both of our houses and in both of my offices. And they're just such great things that add a wonderful experience to my sleep. And, you know, what kinds of things could you do to improve your sleep or to make your life better and just start paying attention to the things that are. The friction in your life. I was just having this conversation with someone yesterday about this idea of kind of paying attention to the things that kind of show up in your world that are little irritants, the friction. For a long time, I used to lose my keys all the time. I could never. You know, when I'm getting ready to go, I could never find my keys. And so I decided that to. To solve that problem, I would get a bowl and put it on the table. We have a little chest of drawers in the front entrance where, you know, we keep stuff in. In the little drawers there, stuff for the mail or change or anything like that, but have a bowl where as soon as I walk in the house, I put my keys in that bowl. And the moment that we implemented that little system, I've never had a problem with losing my keys. So when you start looking at, you know, looking at your life there then, and looking at the opportunities that you have to remove that friction, you know, your life starts to get pretty cool, you know, because you really can have an incredible experience when you start going down the path of lifestyle design. And that's. You know, our friend Tim Ferriss is really big on that. It's one of the favorite things whenever we're together, that's one of the things that we always talk about is lifestyle design. You know, making.

That's what I'm trying to say.

Making your life as friction free as possible. You know, it got. I was going to share one thing about.

No, no.

Well, you really just can't get me to. You really just can't get me to shut up tonight, can you? It's just. I'm like, overbearing.

No, it's easy. I just start. I just start interrupting it for a minute. But keep going.

Finish your thought. Like. So one of the things in my. In the me years, when I was doing the live seminars for realtors with Joe Stump, we would go around and we do a big real estate seminar once a month. Somewhere in the country. So I was doing traveling every month to get to main event. And I started looking at that experience and thinking what would be the ultimate experience for that. And I developed this whole friction free travel program where I would, you know, I had a list of things that I knew needed to be packed for me to go to the event. So we would, you know, pack up, Sony would actually pack for me, pack up all the stuff. I never had to have any involvement in it because I would always take the same things. And I would started using FedEx to ship my bag to the hotel where the event was. So I, you know, two days ahead of the event, we FedEx would come and pick up my bag and ship it right to the hotel. So I never had to check a bag or carry on a bag to go to the event. I got a computer like a Mac MacBook that I would keep with the gear that the at the seminar. So I didn't have to even carry my laptop with me. I got a clear pass for the getting past the security lines at the airport in Orlando. I would drive up and because I never had any bags, I was able to print my boarding pass ahead of time. So I never had to go check in. I would just have my boarding pass right there. I would valet park at the Hyatt Hotel, which was attached to the airport. So I would drive right up, up, just go up two floors in the elevator. And then literally nine paces from where the elevator let me off would be the clear pass lane to get to the gate. And I would just go right to the gate. Then at the end of the flight, I'd walk right off the flight, get straight into limo, go to the hotel, check in, and they say, oh, Mr. Jackson, you had a package arrived. Would you like us to bring it up to your room? Well, yes, that would be great. Great. And I'd walk into my room and then they'd bring up my bag for me and there it was. Never had an ounce of friction in that travel. But what got me to that point was examining that process and looking at where is the friction. Because if I was doing a connecting flight, there was, you know, when we did 200 main events, 200 times I flew out and did an event. And there were times when my bag didn't make my connection. And there were times when even on a direct flight, I would get to the airport and then you'd have to wait for 20 or 30 minutes sometimes for my bag to come out. And those are things that were just little, you know, Friction elements, but examining them, thinking about them, looking for the opportunities to make my life better, better, which is what your ME unit is all about, gave me the opportunity to really kind of design the optimal experience and remove that friction from my life.

Well, there you go. I mean, there's, that's, that's. No, that's quite instructive because I think people can look at their lives and look for friction points and things that can be removed and set up your life in order to, to eliminate them and to have it work better. And that is just simply going to make everything work better. The little bowl you talked about with the keys, I do the same thing. I actually learned that from Dan Sullivan, of all people. We kind of always mention him, don't we?

Yeah, we do. Every episode.

We have to. Well, here's what's really cool is we're going to have a special upcoming episode of I Love Marketing is going to be a video of Dan Sullivan when he was in town for 25k. I was doing a meetup group one of the evenings and Dan actually came and spoke and we're going to make that a, you know, just a couple of episodes for everyone on I Love Marketing. And for those of you that need.

Let's do that next. Let's do that, the next episode because we're going to be. You and I are going to be up in Toronto with Dan.

That's true. And plus, I'm going to be in a couple of days, I'm leaving for Singularity University, which I'm going to be there for a week. Peter Diamantis, one of the founders of Ray Kurzweil, he is a friend of mine. And I'm going to Singularity University. If you guys want to check that out, I would recommend. If you guys want to. When I say you guys, I mean you guys and gals. The list. And I love marketing. Watch the trend. Transcendent Man, Ray Kurzweil. You can get it on Amazon, you can rent it on iTunes for $4.99. It will blow your mind. It's called Transcendent Man. But I'm going to singularity. The letter U.org is Singularity University. Pretty cool stuff. But basically, yeah, let's put the episode up with Dan Sullivan. Dan is going to be a speaker for us at our first platform Platinum 2.0 meeting which is going to take place January 28th and 29th. And since you mentioned it earlier, Dean, if you want to find out information about that and all the cool stuff, we're up to then make sure we have your name in your email, which you have to go to ilovemarketing.com and enter that information. So we have it and we'll get that information to you. And the other thing I was going to say, you mentioned that, which is kind of frank funny, the mattress, you know, you switch to the Tempur pedic, which I do have a tempur pedic at the bedroom at the office headquarters.

Yeah.

We actually have people always ask me do I live there? And no, I have a house. But basically I have this really funky bedroom and I have a Tempur Pedic mattress on a bed that's made out of a 1960 Lincoln and the headlights actually turn on. It's pretty crazy. People can probably find that on YouTube and there's some videos up there. But there's a lady that. Actually, those of you that are very much into organic stuff and you don't want any of the chemicals that are on conventional commercial mattresses, you can actually get an organic mattress. They're not cheap, but they are one of the most unbelievably comfortable beds on the planet. And you can shoot an email to Puma P U M a like the animal Puma, my friend, pumamaracegrove.com and she'll have no earthy idea how she's getting emails randomly. So just say that you heard. And I love marketing podcasts with, you know, Joe Polish. And he said, you know, you sell organic mattresses and she can hook you up.

What kind of mattress is in. In my room at your house?

Oh, it's. It's. It's a Tempur pedic.

Yeah. It's nice.

Yes, of course it is. Yeah. My guest bedroom. When I was like, for a minute, I had to think about that. Like, what are you talking about? About. So, yes, the guest bedroom in my house.

I just call it my room.

You mean that couch I have you sleep on? That is funny.

Yeah.

Okay, so we need to wrap up Dean. So, you know. Yeah, we'll have a couple of episodes of Dan Sullivan for all of you that are doing meetup groups. Keep going. I have one tonight that I'm going to be doing at my office. And so, yeah, they're. They're doing, you know, they're going really well. And we really appreciate those of you that have started meetup groups all over the world. We have our people in Germany and Japan and Australia. And you can see the different locations@meetup.com some of them are listed on ilovemarketing.com. but because of the updating and linking, people have to have I Love Marketing in the name of the I Love Marketing meetup group in order for it to populate on our website. So please make sure those of you that are starting I Love Marketing meetup groups that you are doing that. And if you do want to start an I Love Marketing meetup group, just click on the meetup tab@ilovemarketing.com and there's a whole PDF of how to do it and how to set it up, along with themes and ways to run the meetings. And yeah, we just get such great response from people that are holding them and how much they're learning and it's helping their businesses and it's great genius networking that's taking place.

Place.

All that good stuff. So, yeah, what else, Dean, what else?

I think this was a good, this is a good thing to talk about.

Yeah. Yeah. And when we, and when we come back, we will, I'll, you know, I know I'm gonna come back with this brain filled with all kinds of stuff related to nanotechnologies from going to Singularity University. And we, you know, we're gonna be with Dan Sullivan. We're gonna be together. So I know we're gonna be recording some more stuff while we're together up there. And so yeah, those are those of you that got some great thoughts and ideas from this. Please comment at I Love Marketing for this episode. If you do and you shoot a video of what you're getting out of being a rabid listener of I Love Marketing, please make a short video, pop it up on the YouTube, post the link on ilovemarketing.com and send an email to ginaopolish.com with your mailing address and the video and I will send you a copy for free of charge. I'll even pay for the book and for shipping to send you David Allen's book Getting Things Done. And I'll include my Genius network interview with David link to that if you, if you want to listen to that also. So there you go.

There we go.

That's it, Dean. That's it. So until next time.

Until next time then. We should have a sign off. We should have some kind of like, you know, what could we use as like our official sign off?

I don't know.

Let's think about that.

Good night. Good night. You know, you know what it is? I'm sitting there looking out my backyard right now, and it's dark and I see a flashlight. And for a moment I'm like, freaking out and it's my pool guy.

You see somebody out there?

Yeah. I mean, can you imagine at the end of an island marketing call? This is the sign off. So this shouldn't be the consistent what we do, because I can't replicate this every every month, but for a minute I was like, what is going on? All right, so there you go.

There you go. All right, Joe.

All right, everyone, have a wonderful week, and we will talk with you next time. Thanks, Dean.

Bye.