The One Where Dean And Joe Talk About Genius Network New York - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #126

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. Look at us.

They can't look at us. They're listening to us. It doesn't even make any sense.

Oh, that's funny.

All right, here we are.

I was gonna say this is like our. Here's what I did this summer episode. Yeah, it's been a while since we've. You and I both have been traveling like crazy. Last I saw you was at 25k in New York, the annual event. The blockbuster annual event. It was a killer event, by the way. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Great job.

Yeah, it truly was. It was the best one we've ever done. And everyone was, like, thinking it really was.

I mean, and yeah, that's not. Not. You don't say that lightly because last year's was phenomenal. And I can say, yes, this year's was better. It did top it. You're right.

No, it was tough. Well, first off, as we start this episode of I Love Marketing, one of the things I learned early on is that if you want to keep growing and getting better, you always try to outdo yourself when you provide or produce or create or invent or whatever, do something that the deliverable is from not your perspective, but from the perspective of the client, is world class, is awesome, is amazing, exceeds their expectations. A lot of people are like, oh, let's stop there. Or they're already. On a scale of 1 to 10, they're at a 9. We can probably skim a little and make it an 8, and they'll still be happy. I mean, you'll see maybe someone at a restaurant, you know, will they have a portion size? And they're like, well, let's decrease portion sizes by, you know, 5%. No one's going to notice it, you know, and maybe no one does. But, you know, in my world, I always try to keep doing it better. Keep doing it better. And not from a, you know, perfectionistic standpoint, because that could be counterproductive. What I'm saying is, like, if you truly can put positive pressure on yourself to outperform yourself, if you're in the quote, unquote, performance business, then do so. You know, I mean, in some businesses, you want consistency and you don't want surprises. But I'm talking about, like, theater, you know, I mean, if you're doing a show, you know.

I mean, it was so. There were so many great 10 minute talks.

Yes, there was just.

I mean, and I moved up Three spots in the, in the lineup this year. Didn't. Didn't. Wasn't the very last.

Right. Which I think. Who was the last one?

I don't remember. I was so surrounded by people who wanted to talk to me after mine.

Yeah. I think the. Well, JJ Virgin might have been one of the last ones. Yeah. JJ Virgin wrote.

She was great, too. I mean, she was great. I mean, just go down the list. I mean, good Lord. So I thought. I mean, Peter Diamandis, of course, was amazing. It was great. Yeah. I mean, you know my favorite thing, you know, when you hear all these words, you hear gamification all the time. But when he actually showed videos of the real examples of what, how gamification works, like. Let me share, I'll share just the examples that. A couple of them that were like really game changing for me in the terms of my understanding of it. And I've had, I've retold this story a few times now because it was really kind of profound. But when he showed the. The garbage bin in the park as an example of gamifying something that was a problem and making it fun to pick up the garbage by installing a little sensor that when people throw garbage into it, it made, you know, a sound like a bottomless hole. Like you. And then.

Right.

And you could just. The looks on people's face when they would throw a piece of garbage in and they'd hear that noise and they'd back up and look in there and then they'd look around and see if there's something else for them to pick up and put in the bin. And you know, the results of that being that that bin generated four and a half times more garbage than any of the other surrounding bins or any other bins in the park was a really great example. I got it on a deeper level what gamification is making something just making it more fun to do.

Yeah. Then there's the other example of how to get more people to walk up the stairs versus the escalators. And you actually. They lay. And this was in, I think, Europe where they put piano keys on all of the stairs so that people can actually, while they're walking up, they actually can play music. And some people were walking up and down the stairs twice.

And it literally, it was amazing to see. It was amazing to see the single file escalator completely packed with people going up the equivalent of maybe 20 stairs or something. I don't know how. It wasn't that many stairs. Right. It was, it wasn't like this long, long thing, but maybe 20 stairs. And then this wide staircase that could accommodate five or six people. Wide, completely empty as everybody single file goes up the escalator. And then as soon as they switched over to the. Making it look like and sound like a piano to see the people running up and down the stairs, making noise, playing tunes, that was quite stunning. It was really something.

Yeah, yeah, it was very cool. And so, you know, there was. I got a list here of all the speakers, and I'm just going to brag for a minute about how awesome it was. Well, first off, this was the annual Genius Network event for what's also called my 25k group. People pay 25,000 a year. People that are in the group come to the annual event, and people that this is the only event where people that are not 25k members can actually come for 10,000 doll. We sold the event out about a month before the event. We hit the 200 mark. We had the event at the Intercontinental Hotel. It was completely packed. We got a waiting list of 60 people at the very end, literally.

And you couldn't have fit that.

We could not have fit them in. And I was turning down a big chunk of revenue, which I have never been in that type of situation ever, where there's that much money that literally we're turning away. And so the entire time I was in this supply and demand quandary in my head, because I'm a marketer, and so I know the value of supply and demand because, you know, when the demand exceeds the supply, everybody wants to buy. And the moment we have this thing sold out, it just works this way. Then all these people that have been sitting on the fence were like, hey, can I go to the event? Nope, sorry, we don't have any room. And, you know, people are like, oh, you're just kind of making that up. And, you know, people realized that we had, like, nope, you know, we can take a deposit for next year, whatever. And it was. It was totally bizarre. And I liked it. And there's another side of me that I was, like, having a real psychological dilemma with it because, like, damn it, I want that money. Right? You know, and so I'm like, well, how do I, you know, how do you, you know, toe the line? You know, how do you.

What Ted does, you know, Ted has their alternate room, you know, where you can come be on the site and stuff, but you're in a room with a video simulcast.

Yeah, well, people were saying, well, you're going to livestream it and you know, and I thought about it, but we decided not to. Because the real value of that event is not just the presentations, but it's the people in the room. I mean, it's really, really high level. And so we had our first billionaire join Genius network. I'm not gonna mention his name. Cause it's a very smart dude and this is a guy that like is really private. He's very, very wealthy. And you know, he has like three people whose full time job is to keep him out of the media. And so that was spectacular. And you know, I mean, we had longer presentations from Brendan Bouchard, as usual. He talked about three campaigns that led to 10 million DOL. And Dan Sullivan, as usual, gave an amazing talk. He talked about the 80% progression. And then we had.

Which was great.

Yeah. Peter Diamandis just talked about his. He's got a new book coming out called Bold, that'll be his next book. And so he talked about thinking big and bold and showed all kinds of different examples. One of the total surprises which didn't have to do with per se money, although you can apply it, is my girlfriend, Rene Area Flip your flaws. Standing ovation.

That was like a stunning, stunning presentation. Yeah, she was. I mean, that was just amazing. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room.

No, no, it, it was awesome. And I was so proud of her and it was killer. And we'll put that, we'll put that presentation out as a bonus so that people can watch it because it literally blew. It blew people away. And so what else? I mean, we had John Haglin, you know, who basically he's in charge of, you know, runs the David lynch foundation, you know, tm.org, the transcendental meditation. Brilliant guy. He talked, you know, about achieving and sustaining peak performance, you know, brain based approach. Then of course you, you talked about, you know, a system for finding and creating breakthroughs. And I'm looking through the list here. We had Clayton Mask, who's the, you know, founder of infusionsoft. He talked about Lifecycle marketing.

He did a great job too.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I mean, it's kind of funny because I don't know if I should have you point out things that were learned from this or just kind of rattle off about, you know, because I want this to be instructive too. I mean, a couple of interesting. Like Slava Rubin from. He's the founder of Indiegogo, which is the largest, you know, crowdfunding platform in the world. And, and it's open source. And so anyone can do a campaign there. I mean, there's a kid named Mikey who had a campaign, and I just learned about the power of even my network, which is already. I already know, is pretty powerful. But he had a campaign that he was trying to raise $25,000 to get to a hospital to find a specialist because he's 6ft tall. Anyways, I think he weighs 75 pounds right now, and he's dying.

Oh, my goodness.

And so I literally went out to 25k members and went out to my list, and this, you know, this crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo was going to, you know, it had 12 hours left on it when in the morning when I saw this. And the goal was to raise $25,000. He needed another $12,000 and some change in order to make the 25,000 mark. And we went out and I said, anyone that donates at least. I shot a video and said, anyone that donates at least $1,000, I'll literally give you at least $1,000 worth of knowledge products for this. So I'm not asking everyone just to do a handout because everyone gets hit up for different causes and charities at time. And I'll literally, I'll reward you with something if you make $1,000 contribution. And within 12 hours, we raised by ourselves, just in our group, $25,000. So the total campaign ended up raising $37,000 for this guy in one day. And it was on Indiegogo. And although Slava came there and talked about Indiegogo, which was an awesome talk, I mean, I really like that guy. He's funny. He created something really cool. It really showed me the power of crowdfunding, not just for projects that you want to fund, but for anything. He made this really interesting comment that there's even people that are using Indiegogo to try to raise money to create a platform that they say is better than Indiegogo.

Right, Exactly. That was funny.

Yeah. And anyone could put something up there. So if you want to fund a campaign or just look at really interesting things, you know, go check it out and, you know, go to Indiegogo.com and see. See what that's all about. And then we had, you know, Jared Cohen, who wrote, you know, a New Digital Age with Eric Schmidt, you know, the current, you know, Google dude. And Jared is the director of Google Ideas, and he gave a great talk. I thought I was very impressed with him. I did an interview with Tim Ferriss about investing, and, you know, he's big on angel investors.

That was a great interview of Tim's. Tim's idea of like micro angel investing.

Yes, yes.

And how he got started breaking down, you know, setting aside money that he would have spent on going to Stanford Business School and using that and the two years as his fund to start angel investing with ten and twenty thousand dollars investments. There's some really good insight there.

Yeah. And so we'll probably put the Tims out also, because I think that was really useful for a lot of people. We had a guy named Solly Brakes, who One of our 25k members, Jason Gaynord told me about and introduced me to. And Sully lives in the UK and he's a spoken word artist. And if you've not seen any of his videos, just type in Sully S U L I breaks B R E A K.K. s into YouTube and just watch some of the videos. He's got like, I don't know, three and a half million views on his videos. And the kid is really smart and really creative and he loved it. He came for the whole event. He opened up the event and just. I didn't even know what the hell he was going to talk about. But I just before the event I said, do you. There are things where he can do one of his talks or he can just kind of gauge the audience and then whatever the heck is on his mind, he can just start speaking. And he said, I prefer just to do what I want with not being told what to do. And I'm like, all right, go for it. And so I just let him. And it was awesome. And then Ned Hallowell, he's the mind of the entrepreneur. What to love, what to watch out for. He gave a great talk. Neil Strauss did a great talk on, you know, passion and your career and writing and all the crazy shit that he's always talking about.

Writing tips. That was really great. Yeah.

And Scott Hoffman, who's the guy that got Brendon Bouchard, you know, $2 million advance for his last book, you know, he talked. He gave a talk called how to get into bed with your customers. Literally. And you know, Shannon Waller talked about team building and yeah, I mean, Paul Culligan talked about podcasting. Mike Koenigs talked about and recorded a.

Live podcast right there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I should mention that. Yeah. Paul Culligan got up and talked about podcasting and his talk became a nine minute live podcast.

It was great.

Yeah. And then Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, how to become a key person of influence. I Thought his talk was phenomenal. Marie Folio, how to Get People to Care. She was great. You know, Jay Abraham talked about On Thinking Differently. And Brian Kurtz, he talked about direct mail. And Ben Altadana, I loved his talk. It was wonderful.

Oh yeah, Ben was really good. And Mary Ellen Trevik.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were awesome. I want to mention Ben's talk because it's a really good title. Why Unique Abilities Require Unique Marketing. And I thought that was just so true because so many people have really great abilities, but they don't know how to market their abilities. And then they're frustrated that, you know, they just think, you know, they should get paid really well because they're really skilled. And as any marketer ends up learning is that, you know, being good and getting paid are completely separate non related issues in many cases. And you have to be good at communicating something and having people understand it with your marketing, even if you don't do any advertising. Because I think a lot of people misconstrue marketing as being advertising. Although advertising is a part of marketing. I mean, you can be a phenomenal marketer and never spend any money on, quote, unquote, external marketing. So anyway, it was a really, really killer event and I think it set the stage for just how powerful Genius Network is and the type of deals that were made. And you know, people kept coming up to me and saying, man, you know what's, what's interesting about your event is that the people here that are giving these great talks, they're like staying here and they're watching everything and they're taking notes and.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. I mean, that's true. Yeah. Laurel Langemar. I don't know if you just said Laurel.

Yeah, Laurel was, I mean there was. Who else was there? I mean there was like so many.

David Bach was there.

Yeah, yeah. He didn't even give a talk.

Didn't even talk.

What's that?

Yeah, I mean, that's. Well, when you think about that too. How many like New York Times. Well, I don't know how many New York Times best selling authors were in the room, but there were quite a few.

Quite a few.

Some of them weren't even talking.

Yeah, and I think it was a funny thing we were doing that. Like who had the most New York Times bestsellers? I mean, I think Neil's had seven and I think David's had nine or something.

Ned has had. I don't know how many Ned's had.

But yeah, I mean it was like a whole contest of who's had the most New York Times bestsellers.

We should have had like arm wrestling. Who could take them in an arm wrestling?

Yeah, yeah. I mean next year there's all.

Maybe next year that's how. See, we're coming up with ideas to top next year.

Yeah. So the point is, and the takeaway for people listening is that, you know, your knowledge is totally built around your genius network. I mean it really made me realize that anything and everything that I could ever want in terms of capabilities and relationships and know how and access and dealing with complexities and it's all to be found in my genius network. And I have spent many years figuring out how to be useful to other people. And now I have a business model that has 135 people currently that are paying $25,000 to be. I shouldn't even say paying. They're investing to be in this group and it's a huge lever. I mean it's all in the, you know, the relationship. So that's that. So let's talk about what you've been up to for you just got back. I mean I got so much more that I did right after New York. But I don't want to, you know, we can go back and forth here. What the hell did you do in Australia? What did you learn that would be useful for our. I love marketing listeners to hear about.

Australia is beautiful. Have you been to Australia?

Yeah, twice. Not in a long time, but it's a great country. I always found the people to be super friendly, super cool, very entrepreneurial.

That's what I found. Yeah, yeah, I like really kind of cool. So I spent. So I did a breakthrough blueprint in Sydney and was right, right downtown Sydney, right by the Opera House and the harbor. And what the cool thing is that you can take a ferry to this place that's about 15 minutes by ferry or 30 minutes if you take the slow ferry called Manly. And it's where James Schramko lives actually in Manly, right on the ocean. Just the most beautiful beach. And everything is just about 500 paces away. You know, every kind of cafe and restaurant and movie theater and anything you could want. You never have to drive anywhere. And of course then you can walk and get on this ferry and in 15 minutes be right in Sydney harbor and from there, you know, be in anything. Sydney's really kind of manageable downtown, but it was just, just a beautiful environment. It's winter. They're coming into spring now. So the weather was just stunning. But this is the first time I've ever been. And I was really kind of surprised at. I did. I wasn't expecting the flight to be as easy as it was because, you know, I get, I've never been on a plane for like 15 or 16 hours, you know, but Qantas does a great job. They've got the lay flat pods where you can, you know, you stay awake for a few hours and then you sleep and then you wake up and it's a few more hours and you're there and it's kind of, it was kind of effortless really. I was really kind of shocked by that.

But wait, wait, hold on a minute. Why are you guys taking pictures of your freaking feet propped up somewhere? I mean, what.

I know it's become this thing, isn't it? It's my. They're like the traveling gnome.

Well, they're the I love marketing shoes. Right?

That's. Oh no, these ones are, they're, they have those too. I have the I love marketing shoes that Eric from the draw shop gave us. And these ones are some different. These are some orange laceless chucks and they've become like the Travelocity gnome. I always take a picture with my feet up wherever I am. And some of those views from Australia just, I mean, beautiful Australia doesn't suck, that's for sure. No, no, I was really kind of interested though that I always pay attention to examples of the profit activators in action. And you know, there's quite a few really cool things that I observed on that trip. So I'm always kind of observing things. And one of the things is, you know, a during unit thing where Qantas, if you're flying business class or first class, they, you can, they will send a limo to pick you up. And so you just book online, you tell them where to pick you up and they come and get you and take you right to the, right to the terminal and then they'll meet you at the gate and take you wherever, wherever you want to go. And that as a, you know, a during unit experience is really a great thing. I've had really great experiences this summer of seeing those kind of architected experiences in action. You know, Virgin, I went to London in June and flew Virgin Upper Class. And they have the same sort of arrangement. But what is really kind of cool about the experience of flying on Virgin and Qantas is just how effortless they make the, the actual during unit experience. And you know, Virgin in the Virgin Lounge in London. It's, it's absolutely beautiful. And, and you know they have, like a full buffet, and you get whatever, anything you want. You can get massages and the manicure or, you know, anything that you want in the lounge there. And the password for the wireless network is effortless. That's the password. And I thought, what a great word for that experience. You know, like when, if you really think about it, that every touchpoint, everything along the way was architected with that in mind, that this if. And having even just one word says it all. If anybody on the front line, I mean, they've got thousands of employees, thousands of people, they work for the airline. And if everybody knows that the single word for the user experience, the dream come true experience in the during unit is effortless, just think about what a guiding word that is. You know, it's like, because most airlines, they're not looking to make things effortless, right? You know, they're not looking to do that at all. It's like our friend Dan Sullivan always says, the airline, their total philosophy is, we're not happy till you're not happy. And, you know, that's definitely not happening with Virginia. And I flew Delta a lot this summer, too, and was seeing. Now some of the Virgin partnership is rubbing off on them because they're really ramping it up in just looking at the customer experience. I took. I hope I have it in my bag here. I took. I just got off my flight from Delta a couple of days ago. And when you get off the plane now, there's a sign that says need help in question. You know, big question mark. And then there's a take one box with a card on it that outlines. Here's what to do if you need help right now. Like, if you need a connection, you need to change a ticket, you need anything, or help finding your bag, or all of these things are right there. And what. I mean, just the thought process of architecting the during unit experience to look at one of the elements of the during unit experience is what happens when you get off the plane and you're entering into the terminal. Everybody's going to come through that thing. And what a great use for that. You know, right there, somebody's gonna maybe need some help. And there's the anticipation of that need manifested right there with a sign. And, you know, it started. I always just pay attention to those things because there's so many opportunities in our during units. And we don't really talk about the during unit as much as, you know, proportionate to the opportunity that's available in the during unit because there's so many things. Just kind of looking and observing your own during unit process as a participant. I gotta give you a hand that in New York, having the charging stations at the back of the room for people to charge their smartphones, that was a brilliant thing. You know, very nicely done.

Yeah, you know, I think we, like, even here at my office, you know, one of the things I always hear people comment on in the restrooms, we have disposable toothbrushes, and I always keep a stack of disposable toothbrushes. Like, I don't like going in bathrooms anywhere if there's not Kleenex, you know, especially a restaurant. And, you know, so part of it is like thinking through every little thing from flowers to, you know, things that actually, you know, can make an impact, that can make people feel like, ah, you know, someone's actually paying attention to their needs. So, yeah, I mean, I very much. We have some of the best checklists that we've developed over the years of holding an event. What's really funny is we have. I won't mention her name. We have a friend that, like, has been doing events for, like, 20 years, and she saw the checklist of how we run the before, during, and after aspects of our, you know, genius network events. You know, because people like, well, how, you know, how the hell are these things so good? Well, like, every year we look at what worked, what didn't work, how do we improve it? You know, how do we. You know, there's. There's some things that.

The impact filter.

Yeah, Well, I mean, we have, like, really good checklists. And so she was asked. I had lunch with Eunice yesterday. It's the first time I literally have been back in town where I could spend time with Eunice because I've been traveling like crazy. And. And she made this comment. Yeah, she made this comment to me. She's like, oh, so. And so actually asked if, like, she could not only, you know, use our checklist, but can I speak at her next event about holding events, about it? And Eunice is like, I'm not a speaker. I don't even. You know, Eunice has been my assistant for 18 years. And, you know, I'm like, well, do you want to do it? She's like, I don't know. But, you know, I go, well, you know, have her do an interview with you on the phone if you're. If you're into that. Because Eunice really has no interest in public speaking or doing her own thing. I mean, she likes working and being my right Hand person and you know, the backstage aspects, that's what she does and that's what she likes. And so, but it's, you know, the point is you can, if you like what you're pointing out, if you see another company doing a really great experience, like really smart business owners, the way they run really great businesses is they pay attention to what other great experiences and great things are happening and they incorporate them to whatever degrees they can into their own companies. If you can learn a really good service technique, where and how could you apply that in your own business in order to make it better, more effective, more profitable, more pleasant? I mean, the effortless thing that you pointed out, I mean that's huge.

Mm. Yeah. And you think about like, what would be the one word that would, you know, that would stand for the experience that you want people to have with your company, you know, doing business with you? That, that's just, that's such a great thing. Can you sum it up in one word? You know, because it's not, you know, it doesn't happen on its own. If you leave it on its own, it's chaos. You know, somebody has to architect these things, right?

Yep, exactly. So what else, what else you got?

Oh wow. Well, let's see what else. I've got another during unit experience situation from Australia. Just observing things. It's nice when you go to different, different countries, different continents because you see things a little differently. I mean, there were so many of them there. It's very interesting how in tune with strategic objectives they seem to be in the other thing, you know, so when in the hotel room, every night I was at the Marriott Circular Quay in Sydney Harbour there and every night when I would come back to my room after the event, there would be a door hanger on the, on the door with a little, you know, die cut thing where they could put, you know, business card size cards in. And it was always, you know, some different things, some different restaurant or some different thing where you could get, you know, they would buy you a drink or buy you some appetizers and you know, it was just like using that experience. Well, what, what's going to happen in the. During your expert? Well, there people are going to come back to their room every night, you know, and it was really kind of, it was nice to see all of these things in action, you know. And it really, really kind of highlighted for me how much opportunity there is even in just the little things. When you look at your, when you look at your during unit, when you look at the Timeline and break it into the segments all along the way of how to, how to really make those things their most profitable. They're most enjoyable, they're most effortless for your, for your client. And just that process is never ending. I mean, that's not a process that you, you know. Oh yeah, got that handled kind of thing, you know.

Right, right. It is never ending.

It really is. Why, you know, why should it be on and on?

Exactly.

That's the whole point. The during unit is really your opportunity as an entrepreneur to put your fingerprint on something. I mean, that's your. This is where you're creating a signature experience. Even if you're not creating it, you know, you're not delivering it yourself necessarily. But certainly you can have your signature on it. You know, Richard Branson isn't out, you know, manning the front lines and, or greeting the customers or doing anything, but you can certainly see his fingerprints all the way through everything.

Right? Yep, yep.

So.

Oh yeah, I got to tell you about an experience after New York. So we get done with New York and it's pretty awesome. And Jeff Madoff, who did a great talk also, he does all the Victoria's Secret commercials. Victoria's Secret commercials. And we have an I love marketing episode with him. So if you've not listened to that one, it's actually a video. Watch it. It's good. And so, you know, had dinner with him a couple times after the event, hung out with a few of the people. It was just really cool. Went to moma. I always love the Museum of Modern Art. It's cool down there. And then I was going to take a week off. Me and Rene were going to take a week off. But then I decided, you know, I got a client who I've been helping with marketing of a big project that he's doing. And he had an all day meeting related to this particular project. And so I decided that I would, you know, fly down to Chicago and sit in on it. And it was painful, I mean, incredibly painful because this is the first time in probably a decade that I actually sat in a room with someone who was on like a corporate client. And this guy has a gigantic multimillion dollar company and there was this guy who is one of the vendors and people that they work with who knows nothing about marketing but is put in one of these positions where he's like the sales and marketing manager. And I'm trying to explain how to do the most effective marketing in a particular environment that no one in the world knows more about than Me, I'm purposely kind of protecting the names for the. That sort of thing. So that's why I'm kind of talking if it's appears vaguely. And this person is the closest I've come in years to telling someone, fuck off. I mean, like in a room full of people. And the guy was such an idiot, and he was rude about it. And this is a person who also was in a position to greatly benefit from what it is that like, literally, it's like someone that is dissing you, that needs you, and you're simultaneously doing something that's going to tremendously help them more than they could earn ever do on their own, simply by association. He's involved with my client. And it annoyed me so much after the fact that I realized that my client doesn't embrace and engage with the marketing. Although we've had all of this marketing and stuff created for this person. He's a great guy. I went into this thing with a primary reason to help and assist him from losing his shirt on this big thing that he's taking on. And what I realize is no good deed can go unpunished. You know, like whatever the saint is. And then I really.

That's the thing.

Yeah. Our friend Jarrah has this line which is, you know, for those that get it, no explanation is needed. For those that don't, no explanation will do. And it made me realize that, you know, like, I thought of that Gary Halbert line that Gary told me years ago, which is, some games in life, the only way you win is you don't play. And I realized that I no longer can be involved in helping with the market. Although I was paid 100 grand up front as a retainer, which I'm giving 100% of the money back because I just want nothing to do with this project at this point of executing and implementing stuff that we were doing. But it required me literally sitting in a room and being reminded of something. That is a huge lesson. And the whole reason I'm bringing this up, because I'm not bringing this up just to rant. There's a huge, huge lesson that I want to share with our listeners, which is do never attempt to help someone with marketing. That for one, doesn't have a genuine interest in it. Secondly, doesn't respect the art form, and third, is not willing to let you do what they're hiring you to do. Like, I have a friend, Richard Rossi. We both do. I remember him saying this to me. Of course, I'll use profanity in this, because this is the best way to convey it. But he said, you know, if you ever get hired to help someone with the marketing, like, truly, like, especially if they're in a corporate environment, he's like, two rules. One, they have to admit that they don't know fucking anything about what it is they're doing with marketing, and two, to shut the hell up and do everything that you tell them to do. He's like, now granted, of course, that advice only applies to people that truly are competent and can give proper advice and have the best interest and are doing things that are legal, moral and ethical and all that. I mean, that's of course a given. But what I ended up doing was taking on a. And I've always said something that I first heard from Dan Kennedy, which is two things in business. You don't delegate. You don't delegate the checkbook and you don't delegate the marketing unless you have checks and balances on them and you have people that really know what they're doing. And me and you have had conversations like this many times where I don't know any successful people that abdicate the marketing. I mean, you can delegate it and be involved and have checks and measures, but people that are like, oh, I just don't like this marketing stuff, so I'm going to go find someone else to do it for me. Now, not that someone can't succeed on their own strength of personality or, or the fact that they have something really good or whatever, but I've never seen anyone blow it out of the water. I mean, I've never seen anyone absolutely achieve optimal levels of success that despises marketing. I mean, it just. I've never seen it, and I've certainly never seen anyone delegate, you know, that hates marketing, doesn't want anything to do with it, and they just like, oh, I'm going to let someone else deal with it and see them operate at optimal levels. I mean, you know, if I'm sure it exists, I've just never seen it. And so it's, you know, I got. I got involved in one of those situations and I was having the hardest time with, like, you know, because here I am wanting to help the person. The person's counting on me. I know that they're, you know, I know they're basically in a bad position, like without me. And I've created everything that they could ever needed more. They're just not executing. I mean, they're simply not executing. I've even brought people in that to help with the execution, and they screw Things up, not intentionally, but just by how they are being with the person, even implementing anything effectively. And, you know, I talked to Dan Sullivan about it and I said, what would you do? Because Dan knows this individual and Dan's like, do an impact filter on it. Just do an impact filter. And it's this tool that they offer in Strategic Coach, which is why everyone that, you know, makes these certain income levels should join Strategic Coach because it's an awesome program. I did an impact filter on this thing and it took me about an hour because I really thought it through. And I mean, absolutely just clarified it in my mind that doing this project was a very bad decision. And I just felt like I got a ton of weight off my chest by, you know, thinking. Thinking this whole thing through and realizing in now I'm going to create a criteria of. Because I'm in a fortunate position of what I've done, that I have a lot of people that not only want to work with me and hire me and do stuff like that. I mean, more than I actually have the time or bandwidth for. I have people that are wanting to do equity deals with me and want me to help them with the marketing and be an advisor and stuff. And I've got a couple that could be really big. But I've been kind of like, there's something at a gut level. I'm having a hard time going, yeah, I don't know if this person really kind of gets it. You know, I mean, they. They want all these sales, they want all this marketing be done. But when I talk to them, they, you know, they don't really. They don't really have like a respect for marketing. They kind of look at it like.

Some dirty sort of.

And you.

And I've had conversations together with some of those people.

Right, right. And so what I realized is after the, you know, not per se even firing a client, because I'm still going to offer, you know, I'm going to give this person all of this marketing that, you know, has already been created for them and just say, you know, which is all I was, you know, basically brought on for in the first place. But by default, someone hate marketing so much, they're expecting me to like implement it and do everything for them. And you can get sucked into these traps really easily. I mean, you know, and so one, creating really clear boundaries. Two, creating a criteria of what is a really elf deal. Because I preach easy, lucrative and fun versus hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. And I found myself in like, this is not an elf deal. I Mean, there's nothing elf about this. This is hard, annoying, lucrative and frustrating and it ain't lucrative yet because none of the marketing and advice and things I'm doing is getting implemented. And there was a conversation with Tim Ferriss in New York and he talked about Derek's Sivers, the guy that, who we've talked about on, you know, I love marketing in the past, he's a founder of the company CD baby. And when it comes, it reminds me to. What's that follow?

I'll follow up with him because I talked with him about coming on. I love marketing. But he's probably ready now, so we'll. Let's try and set that up.

Well, you do that. And if I'm going to leave that up to you because we'll see how much power mighty Dean Jackson has when to it comes comes to getting. I'm pretty powerful, I'm better. But we'll see how. We'll see how. But so, you know, when I was interviewing Tim Ferriss, you know, he made this comment about something that Derek says. When it comes to deals and opportunities, he's like, it's either a no or a hell yes. And when I was going through the thinking on this, I was like going, this is. There's nothing hell yes about this deal. It was a yes in the beginning and it was cool because I was helping someone. And then after you create this stuff, there's like, it's an Emerson quote that's you ask for a new idea when you haven't used the first one that I gave you. And there's some fundamental things about how some people are. It's like they keep asking you, oh, I need help with this. I need help. Well, have you done the first thing? And if they haven't, don't help them with the next thing. Unless the first thing you gave them really wasn't all that helpful, wasn't all that doable, or was it realistic? I mean, you know, there's, I mean you gotta, you know, sometimes someone can be a really shitty marketing consultant and think they did really good marketing for someone. And you know, they can take my conversation that I'm saying here and saying, oh yeah, I have people like that, but, you know, you might just suck, but assuming you're really good and what you're providing is awesome. If people aren't biting, you know, it's like the best way to get out of a hole is to quit digging it. And, you know, I realized that, yeah, you know, here I am in a situation that is Just not good. But it caused me to go there in a pretty fatigued, tired state where I should have been taking a vacation. But see, here's the other trap. Like, after New York, I was like, you know, I got this client. This is a pretty important thing he's working on. They're going to have a meeting on it. I should be there, and I really shouldn't have been there. I should have been taking a vacation at that time. I should have taken free days during that time because it was so close to this performance that I did. And I ended up going there. But because I was in that state, it really made me get to reality. And then there's one more thing that Halbert said that reminded me of something which is sort of similar, but he says what a lot of people think of as wisdom, as people get older in life, it's not wisdom. It's just simply fatigue. And sometimes you need to be in a fatigue state where you look at the shit that you're making decisions of, what you're doing with your time, who you're devoting your time to, and you're like, you know, like, really, is this giving me the payoff that I really need? Is this worthy of my time and my talent and my intentions and my effort? And so that was a huge takeaway. And so right now I'm in the process of unraveling that arrangement and leaving my friend because I do want to preserve the friendship and the relationship in the best state humanly possible. And, you know, basically, this person needs to take responsibility for their business. They need to take responsibility for their project. And, you know, and I provided every. Dan Sullivan said this one thing to me too, because I was like, you know, I feel bad because without me involved in this thing, this guy is going to freaking hemorrhage money. And I was. I've done everything that I know within my power to try to avoid this. Create everything he wanted, give him the resources and everything. And he said to me, he goes, joe. He goes, joe Polish in the meanest, worst state on a crappy day is 10 times more valuable than most other people. He's like, you always over deliver as much as you can from my experience of knowing you. And he's like, don't worry about it. And so, you know, it's like, so the takeaways of what I'm trying to convey. You know, some games in life, the only way you win is you don't play, don't do deals with people, don't hire people, don't get involved with people on anything related to that involves marketing, which is most things that don't have a love and appreciation for it. And someone doesn't have to love marketing. Some people just don't get it. Like some people don't get financials and that's okay. What you don't want those people that have disdain for it, people that like, don't respect it. You know, it's like I'm not a, you know, I'm not a huge fan of, you know, dentistry. You know, I mean, I, it's not something that I care that much about, but if, you know, I respect the, the skill of a dentist, especially when I need one, you know, and so it's like a lot of people really, you know, hating marketing. You know, the analogy I always make is like, it's like hating oxygen, that damn marketing stuff. You know, I can really use some, some oxygen. I can't breathe. You know, Fucking marketers. Oh, you know, it's, it's like that sort of stuff. And there, there are a large percentage of people on the planet that have that attitude and it's stay the hell away from them. And this is coming from someone that thought I knew better. And I got myself again into it because I violated one of my, you know, one of my rules, which is, you know, don't attempt to help, you know, people with marketing that don't have a love and respect for it. You know, I thought I learned that lesson when I hired somebody at a very high level that cost me a boatload of money because of incompetent decisions that the person had made. And this person like, you know, was in a very high level of my company and just really, you know, didn't, didn't really like, like us marketers that much, you know. And you know, so anyway, sometimes it never makes sense until you have to go through it. But that was one thing that happened. But then everything became amazing again. I, you know, a couple weeks ago I flew to Portland, me and Renee flew to Portland and we went to the Russell Brand concert. If you, he's on tour right now, he's going to go to Europe, he's going to go to Germany.

So funny.

He is. Not only is he funny, he's twisted. It's a very vulgar show. Yeah, but he is a frickin genius. And the guy is just a cool dude. And so John Hagelin and the people at, you know, tm, you know, Russell does tm and basically they set up a meeting with me and Russell and so we Flew to Portland. We hung out with Brendan while we were there also because Brendan Burchard lives in Portland and we met with Russell after his show and talked about doing stuff to help people with addictions because he's a former addict, very outspoken about it. He's been sober for eight years from drugs. He has this great documentary on YouTube about recovery, which I highly recommend watching. It's really, really good. And I think we're going to do, I think we're going to collaborate and do some projects together. But he's in the middle of his tour.

Oh, that's awesome.

So I'm going to try to get him to.

He's coming to, he's coming to Orlando in a couple of weeks.

Go see it. And by the way, I can get you backstage too because you know, you know me. But he is, he's really. Check out his, his website, Russell Brand and go see the show. It's not for the faint of heart. Okay. But it's, it's called the Messiah complex and it's frickin genius. And then, you know, so we did that and then we came back. And then over the weekend I was in Austin, Texas and I flew up and had a three hour meeting with John Mackey from Whole Foods. And people are like, well, how'd you meet John Mackey? Well, here's the story. When I was in New York, I went and met.

I remember sitting right beside you as it's all unfolding.

Yeah. So I go to Charity Buzz and charity buzz is charitybuzz.com and I met with the founder and CEO of Charity Buzz and they do all these cool things to create unique experiences and raise money for different charities and stuff. And at the time there was a thing to meet Warren Buffett and I had bid, it was really low. I mean, it was like I bid something like 40 something thousand dollars on it. I mean that's like nothing because there was a lunch, I think, I think it was on ebay or something.

Over a million.

Yeah. And so I bid like 42,000 and it happened. But my 25k meeting was starting the next freaking day. This is how much of a hustler I am though, at times. Because that day, the day before 25k in New York, there was a strategic coach intro. Dan Sullivan was doing an intro.

Right. You're sitting there bidding while the coach presentations.

Exactly. And so. Yeah, yeah, right. That's what you meant by unfolding. I thought you were just meeting odds. Yeah. But you, you were watching this. And so all of the, the Deadlines for these things that you could bid on are happening right in the middle.

Bidding on, like, could you tell, like, who else would be. We were bidding on Martha Stewart.

Yeah, Martha Stewart, Morgan Spurlock. What the hell was the other one? Anyway, several things, but let's talk about.

The one you want.

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so I met right before the workshop. I went and met with the CEO of Charity Buzz. They happen to be right down the street from the hotel by the Intercontinentals. So I go there and I ended up bidding $13,000 on a lunch with John Mackey. And it was one hour, one person, and I was like going, you know, but John is great. I mean, his book, Conscious Capitalism is awesome. I love his perspective on capitalism. I think he's one of the most articulate people in. Except explaining it. I listened to this cd, which was one of his speeches, and then an interview with the lady that owns Sounds True, which is called Passion and Profit, or Profit and Passion, I can't remember. But it's totally worth listening to. And I had heard that before, so I already had a really good background understanding of John's philosophies. I mean, he's controversial, he's attacked by certain people. And, you know, he's an interesting, very bright guy. So we go down there and, you know, I just really wanted to know about his rituals, about his practices, about how he deals with rough spots and hard times and criticism. And it ended up becoming. And Rene went with me and he was just the nicest, most gracious, cool dude. And we spent three hours, you know, and he sat there. I showed him the Is Selling Evil video. He watched that on my iPhone. He thought it was great. He commented. He goes, man, we share a lot of the same ideas. He's like, I think me and you are very similar in terms of our philosophies on business and life. And so he's a really cool dude. So I think I'm going to have him speak at the next 25k meeting if he could make annual event, if he can make it. And I'm sure we're going to do an interview with him at some point. But we totally hit it off. And I asked him about marketing. I'm looking at my little notes here in this book that I had. I want to share what he said. One thing that I thought was really cool, where he talked about pricing. He's like, you know, sometimes, you know, people accuse us of having our prices that are too high, you know, but he's like, the reason that we're able to maintain the quality, the type of staff that we have. Everything is simply because, you know, we know what it costs to actually run a business. And, you know, anytime someone.

That's a premium experience. Yeah, yeah.

And he's like, in the store in Austin, I mean, if you've never. If you ever get an opportunity to go to that. Whole Foods in Austin, I mean, I thought it was just great.

That's the original one, right?

Well, I mean, not the. Yes, that's where it started. So. And he's got a great story, too. I mean, when they first started, there was a giant flood that totally bankrupted him. I mean, they were bankrupt. They're totally out of money. And his customers love the store so much that they started bringing in things to help them, and they got him through. I mean, they literally. They kept them in business because they love the store so much. So it's a great story. Now, granted, you know, he's got 80,000 employees now. They do 13 billion in revenue. I mean, they're gigantic. And so, you know, that's a big, you know, ship to steer, and it's impossible to keep everyone happy and, you know, that sort of thing. But he's. He's just. I was impressed. I was really impressed. And so he talked about, like, the main things that they do to build because they don't spend money on advertising. He's like, the first thing they do is they focus on satisfied customers. He's like, we just want our customers to be happy. Second, he's like, we're really. We're really big on pr. He's like, you know, I will publicly go out there and talk about stuff, and we do a lot of pr. He's like, third, social media. He said he thinks they're the biggest in terms of, like, a store following on Twitter. And then they do a tremendous amount of community networking, and they do all kinds of things with their suppliers and their chain. You know, they have, like, a micro lending division, so they do a lot of really cool stuff. And, you know, I asked him about, you know, being criticized, and he said, well, you know, Michelangelo had a thing where it's like, you know, you know, deal with criticism by creating, you know, just continue to create. And, you know, he was. He was just a. He was just a really gracious, cool, smart entrepreneur that was a little quirky. And I just. I was impressed. I just thought he was great. When we were walking around the store, you know, I could tell from customers and that, you know, this is a guy that really, really cares about his employees and really cares about, you know, his customers. And so, you know, I have a whole new perspective and respect and appreciation for Whole Foods. And another thing he said about pricing, and then I'll quit rambling about this, is that he said he likes. He likes prices, he said, because price prices allow you to know how much something cost in order to exchange something. His viewpoint on when you give things away for free, he goes, the challenge with it is it attracts a lot of parasites. And it made me think about. I love marketing. I mean, believe it or not, where how many people. Now, me and you go to conferences and we are personal friends with and we like people in Strategic Coach. We know a lot of the people that listen to our stuff. I mean, we're in a situation where we get feedback from our listeners on a regular basis, and we may get a skewed feedback because we have a lot of our clients and customers that pay me and you money, and they listen to our stuff and they love it. I wonder how many of the thousands of downloads that we get every day are from people that will never buy anything, but they'll take it in. But they kind of have this entitlement sort of belief. And it was interesting with his belief about pricing, where it's like, you know what? I think it's good just to charge for stuff, because then, you know, you know, you know what the value is when something. When you charge for something, because if you don't charge for it, you kind of leave it up to someone to determine the value. He's like, you know, some people will appreciate that and they'll understand the value. But a lot of parasites get attracted to free stuff. And I was like, that's. That's very interesting if you think about it. So it caused me to. To decide. It's like, how do we really look at making the biggest impact with people with our podcast? Now, certainly, I want to continue to do our podcast. And like we've said from the very beginning, we're going to put out more valuable stuff out there for free than what most people charge for. What I'm starting to think about, though, is, like, ways for people to really step up and say, okay, if you're giving somebody, like, truly golden, valuable, useful best practices and strategies and advice and ways to think about stuff, do they truly place value on it if they're not paying for it? Because I know that if people pay, they pay attention a lot more than if they don't pay. And so it was a really interesting conversation that's causing me to think about a lot of things differently. And I guess what I will say to our listeners is that would apply to anyone out there, no matter who you are, is. I started in my marketing career giving away a free room of carpet cleaning. But I also coupled it with a presentation so that as I was giving something of value for free, I also had a mechanism in order to step it up to the next level. Level. And I really think there's something to be said because I think some people can put themselves into a situation where you really are a good person, you really want to be helpful, you really want to be useful. And I get off on the fact that I know there's thousands, tens of thousands of people that have made money and that are running their businesses and that are building companies that will never pay you or me a penny. I mean, they just won't. It's not a right fit. What we sell isn't right folks them, but they're able to take what they. I mean.

Oh, yeah.

I feel really.

Dude, I. I can't tell you. So I was at. I was at Evans Evan Pagan's event in Chicago right before your 25K. And, you know, I was speaking at the event, but I was there for the whole event. And literally five or six times I got in the elevator or coming off the elevator, and people that I've never met or had any kind of interaction with literally took out their earbuds and said, I'm just. I'm listening to you guys right now. Like, they were out for a walk or they were out and about and they were listening to I love marketing. Right. And I'm walking off the elevator and there they are. It was just kind of. It made me realize how wide that impact is. You're absolutely right. Yeah.

And I met. I met a couple of guys that have a company called crawfordandobrian.com and they ran into me in a coffee shop yesterday in Tempe. One of them had come to one of our. A couple of our I love marketing meetup groups. The other guy I'd never met before, and he basically, he's like, I've listened to over a hundred of your podcasts. He's like, we've used them to build our whole company. They're a new startup for web apps, so check them out. I've not even looked at their site yet, but it's Crawford and o'. Brien. But, I mean, they recognize me. And it was kind of interesting, too, because when someone has heard your voice that much, but You've never met them. You know how weird that is. Exactly. What they say that again.

Yeah. No, I get you. And just the conversational nature of how you and I banter on the calls.

People.

People listening. It feels like they're part of this conversation, you know?

Right. And they really are.

And I hope it's different than, like, one of us lecturing, you know, for an hour. It's a different. It's a different experience. And there's. It's a very intimate experience because you're, you know, alone. We're alone with them. And people, people. Right now we're listening. There's probably people out walking their dogs, or they're out, you know, walking on a treadmill, or they're driving somewhere and we're keeping them company, you know.

Yes. And hopefully I'm better company than you are. No. In spite of the fact that you never say anything like, you know, it's very rare for you to say a bad word about somebody or, you know, I mean, you just. You're just not like that. However, I still think I. I still not think. I hope people still feel more highly about me than you. I mean, there's just something. There's this. I don't know what you would really call that. Personality disorder. But, you know, just.

I hope that too, you know, I mean, it's just.

It's not even like I hope bad things about you, you know, because certainly I would. I. I hope the very best for your life. I mean, I mean, you're always in my thoughts. I think I do a lot of stuff to try to be helpful and useful to you. I just want people to like me more than they like you. I mean, not for. Because I deserve it or entitled, just.

Simply because I like Brian Tracy.

It does.

Not a lot. It doesn't even have to be a lot. It's just that leading edge, just a little bit more.

Oh, my God. I'm just talking shit. I mean, everyone disregard everything I just said as just nonsense. All right, so look, here's my takeaway, though, on that, with the whole free thing, is that obviously, be incredibly useful, be generous, go out and be helpful to people. Don't think that you always have to get paid for everything. Don't hold everything back until people pay you. I mean, don't go through life with that level of unwillingness to share. However, don't think that giving something away for free is an excuse for closing deals or for salesmanship or salespersonship to keep this politically correct. I mean, you need to ask for the sale if people are not flocking to your door buying whatever it is you're selling. And a lot of people that are nice people are afraid to like make an offer. They're afraid to ask for money. They.

Profit activator three, right, it's profit. Profit activator three is educate and motivate. And then profit activator four is make an offer. And the better offer that you make, the more people are going to, you know, move into your during unit.

Yeah, exactly. So and you know, it'll be really interesting when I mean it almost made me think of like okay, let's, you know, we have given so much advice. I mean if someone truly listens to these episodes and implements. I mean we didn't. We weren't totally strategic today. I mean a lot of it was just talking about what the hell we've been doing for the last month and a half. However, we have very strategic, very specific content on all aspects of your business. We've interviewed some amazing people. I mean there is enough wisdom on the I love marketing, you know, some of them on like two or three of them to build a million dollar business like the strategy wise. And so it'll be really interesting to see the following, how, how many of the people out there are willing to invest versus just listen and hear and things like that. So yeah, read Conscious capitalism by John Mackey. I think you'll get a lot out of that book. And that's it for now. I'm looking down at the timer and I have exceeded my allotment for speaking today.

Perfect. Well, good to catch up.

Yeah, yeah, good to catch up. And by the way, everyone, if you've not listened to or watched the Larry Winget interview on his new book grow a pair, we put it up as the last episode. It was a matinee. Although that interview is great and people have been telling me that they love it.

I'm going to take the audio, I'm going to take the audio from it and send it through our itunes feed. So even people who are just listening on itunes can get it.

Yeah. And if you're listening on itunes, go and watch the video on. I love marketing.

Yeah, it's fun to watch.

It's great. And buy Larry's book.

Larry's a watch kind of guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, his book is great. It's called grow a pair and it's hardcore and it's funny and I just think you'll like it. And so go to Amazon and buy Larry Winget's book Grow a pair and watch my damn interview with him. Everyone that's watched it has told me they freaking love it. So that's it for now. And we've got some really good stuff coming down the pike for everyone, so pay attention. Tell all your friends and neighbors, and that's it.