The One Where Joe Just Got Back from Necker Island (Again) - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #63

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 and the world famous traveling Joe Polish. Just back from. Where are you? Just back from.

I am back from Necker Island.

How was it?

Richard Branson's private island. And yeah, it was quite a trip. It was. It was awesome in many ways.

How many times have you been to Necker island now?

That was the fourth time, our fourth trip. And, you know, I am still there. So what they tell me, their largest fundraiser and you know, from this trip for Virgin Unite, his foundation, and of course for Virgin, because we do pay for the island. You know, we got them over half a million dollars from this trip, which is cool.

Wow, that's awesome.

Or Virgin and Virgin Unite. Very cool. They like us. I say us. I do this trip with, you know, I started it all back in heck whenever it was four or five years ago. And you know this. For the last couple years, I've been doing it with my buddy, our buddy, Yannick Silver. So he invites people from his maverick group, and I invite people from Genius Network, and we have these awesome people. And this trip was $40,000 a person for people to stay for the week, or 25,000 if they wanted to come for three days. And other than just a couple people, everyone for the most part came for a week. And Richard is with us most of the time. Breakfast, lunch, dinners, hanging out, going sailing and taking, people know, paddle boarding and, you know, all kinds of crazy activities on Necker. Swimming with teaching mostly women how to swim because Richard, you know, swims a lot. And so it was a. It was a pretty cool trip. And so I had some takeaways. Happy to share. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, if you're. If you're a guy, you know, you're probably not as likely to get his attention to, you know.

So how was. Have they rebuilt everything after the fire?

No, no, no. They told us we were the first official group. They've had a few people that have come to the island since the main house burned down. You know, it's funny because people say, didn't the island burn down? Well, no, it's a big island.

The island burned down. Yeah.

Yeah. There was a very large, very cool, awesome house sitting at the very top of it that was called the main house. And, you know, people can see that house, you know, if they do a Google search. They did a show for MTV on mtv.

Yeah, they did MTV Cribs. I remember that.

Yeah. And that whole House actually burned down. And, you know, it was unfortunate because it was beautiful and, you know, Richard and the family lost a lot of, you know, personal things that, you know, were irreplaceable. But, you know, the staff there told me the whole story about, you know, it was really just kind of somber. But then, you know, the next morning Richard said, you know, no one got hurt and we can rebuild. So they're, you know, they're planning on having it rebuilt in about 13 months from now. And. Yeah, so it was still, though, we ended up having a big portion of the group stay on because we only had about 25 people there. So we rent the whole island and, you know, we have like, there's 80 staff members that pretty much serve everybody and do all kinds of cool stuff. And he has a yacht which is a Necker Bell. So a few of the people stayed on the yacht, which is amazing. Then Richard moved out of his actual house and is staying in sort of another house. And Jannik and his family actually took over that house during this trip. Because usually I would stay in the main. The main house master bedroom. That's where I've actually stayed the. The last three previous trips. And this time I stayed in a. In one of the houses called Bally Cliff. And it's overlooking the ocean. I mean, it's literally right on the edge of a cliff. And the bathroom and the shower is literally on the edge of the cliff. It's totally outside. There's no walls, there's no doors. It's pretty funny, you know, take a shower and stuff in the morning and you're like, you know, butt, ass naked, like completely on the edge of a cliff. It's pretty wild. They actually show that on MTV Crypts too, if anyone really wanted to check it out. It's kind of funny, but it was, it was awesome. And the only thing that wasn't awesome was I got mauled by mosquitoes or sand flies. I don't know what they were. And the bummer thing was is I shipped over because I'd gotten bit by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes love me. It's really weird. Some people don't get bit. Bit at all. And if you've lived on the island, like I've asked everyone that works there for the first few weeks, first few months, they get bit and they can't stand it and they hate it and it's miserable. But after a while, the mosquitoes, I don't know, you build up an immunity to them. And there's probably something I should know more about this as to why that happens, and maybe I'd be better prepared, but I obviously am too stupid to have figured it out at this point. But after a while, they just quit biting you. But I had really gotten attacked before in the past and had been no mosquitoes on necker is what they were telling me. What Richard said is, and the day we got there, it rained, and he believes that caused all the eggs to hatch and open up.

Oh, there it was.

Yeah.

So it's starting to get now humid. So we're getting. We're starting to get it here, too. In Florida, it's the same.

Well, I think they're just waiting for me to show up.

It's a little later than you normally go, isn't it?

Yeah, we went. Yeah. Last year, we went about a month earlier than we went this time. And. But I've gone in May. I've gone in April in the past. But I'll tell you the lesson, though, and this applies to businesses. Even with the best preparation, things don't always work out. Meaning I had bought $80 worth of mosquito repellent stuff, sprays that supposedly were really great, although I hate putting any of that stuff on my skin. It's better than getting mosquito bites. And certain devices that you, you know, literally will strap on your belt that will keep mosquitoes away. And I have iPhone apps to keep mosquitoes away that send out a signal. And I bought, you know, some bandanas and clothes from REI to, you know, ward off mosquitoes and stuff, which I wore as much as I could in other places.

You're just irresistible.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, they love me. And the. All of the stuff that I bought, though, I shipped to the island. And somewhere along the way, it got lost and. And it never turned up. And I was just like, unbelievable. And so I have these giant welts literally all over me. I must probably have 35 welts on different parts of my body as a result of getting bit by mosquito. So that was annoying as hell. But even Paul Abdul, who. She's been to the island before, and that's what she was telling me she couldn't stand. She's like, I gotta tag my mosquitoes. But other people, nothing. Nothing. But the island is extraordinary. We had some amazing brainstorm sessions with everybody. And, yeah, I mean, I can share what I think were some of the insights of what came out of it. And I had quite a few. I had at least, let me see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 people that were on the trip were 25k members so knew most of the people. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.

That's great. So what did you do, what did you talk about? Let's stop just self aggrandizing and let's start giving up some value here for the listeners.

Well, one of the things we do with the trip is that it's expensive, it's an experience and people, you know, they literally are paying a tremendous amount of money. It's not real simple to get to Necker. You have to sometimes take, you know, two, three, four flights from depending on where you're coming from in order to get there. And then when you land in Tortella, you end up taking then another boat ride to get to Necker. And so it's quite a haul to get over there. And you know, so why do people do it? And they, they do it because for one, they want to meet Richard Branson. He's obviously one of the most well known entrepreneurs and billionaires in the world. Definitely is fascinating to most people. So they look up to him, what does he know, what can they learn from him, that sort of thing. Instead of just having a trip where you get to meet Richard and you know, people take pictures with him and, and he, you know, is very accommodating in many ways.

Some of the pictures coming across, I.

Know, they're crazy, huh?

Yeah.

And yeah, he actually gave me a really nice testimonial too, which is. And.

It was nice.

Put it up on. Yeah, put up on the. Put it up on the. I love marketing. Along with this episode or something. Yeah. And you know, basically what I do, because kind of similar to what I do in 25k, is we ask people when they're there, okay, what needs to happen this week for you to feel like this trip was worth it? And I say to everyone, you spent not only a lot of money here, but you're devoting a week of your life. What do you want out of this? What's the outcome? And that's just a really good question to ask like daily when you're going to sit down and write a sales letter, when you're going to go to work in the morning. When you live in the results economy where how you get paid is based on results, not time and effort, which is most people that listen to. I love marketing and virtually every entrepreneur, they live in the results economy. It doesn't matter how many hours you put in or how hard you work, you get paid for results. So if you just simply ask yourself, what's the outcome that I'm looking for from this time I'm spending on Facebook, from the time I'm going to spend writing this sales letter, from this sales call, from this joint venture, from this conversation, from this meeting. If you really ask yourself, what's the outcome and get clear on that, you just tend to get right to it. What the hell do you want to have happen? From the very first session, that's what we did. We had everyone introduce themselves in 90 seconds or less, what they do and what's the outcome that they're looking for before we actually had them express that, asked everyone to write it down and to take literally, I think I asked everyone to spend four minutes writing down what are some of the outcomes that you want as a result of the trip? And what was cool is at the end of it, everyone not only got what it is they were looking for, every person there was ecstatic. Almost everyone said, this trip completely changed my life. I'm a new person. I've thought a lot about that. What's the difference between someone that would come to Necker and someone that won't? Well, for one, people that come obviously have the financial means to get there. Although we've had several people that have expressed either during the trip or after that. You know, I mean, I really was taking a major risk, but, you know, I just had this feeling I could do it. And it really made me think about myself. You know, when I was $30,000 in debt, dead broke, carpet cleaner, living off credit cards, no real light at the end of the tunnel from where I was at. And I stumbled across a Gary Halbert newsletter and hired a copywriter for $1,800 to write a consumer awareness guide. And I've thought about that. What sort of person spends money that they don't have going deeper in debt? And the person that, you know, why did I do that? Is because I wanted to be successful, because I knew I wanted to get something out of it. And, you know, what kind of person actually makes that sort of investment? You know, some. Some things you got to pay to play. You know, you. A lot of people want to meet Richard and they want to spend time and, you know, I can't tell you how many people.

We talk about that a lot because I've even. I've been with you. And people. People even have said, hey, can you get this to Richard for me? Or they just want you to connect them.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And of course, we did that magic rapport formula episode on I love marketing. Which kind of. Anyone that's not listening to that there's an episode. I think it's episode 23. I can't remember, but if you type in Magic Rapport into the search box. I love marketing. I kind of go through the whole process of how I connect with people, how I actually met Richard Branson and many other people. And what's my formula, if there is a formula? Well, there is, actually, and I broke it down as best I could on that. And people come to me all the time. Oh, yeah. Will you get this to Richard? Oh, I've got the greatest thing in the world. Not realizing that he gets so many things and probably the very best things on the planet sent to him, proposed to him. I mean, the guy has access to a lot of people. It's funny, I was riding around, sailing around Larry Page's island. Larry Page just bought the island right next to Richard Branson. Yeah. Because he got married on Necker island and fell in love with the British Virgin Islands and then literally made an offer to a person there that didn't want to sell the island, but he went back to him, I guess, several times and just made him an offer they couldn't refuse. And so now Larry Page has an island right next to Richard's. And I was going around on a sailing around the island with one of the team members and one of my very best who was with me, and we were kind of sailing around, and I said, so who are some of the coolest people that you've met? And she said, Bono from U2. When I first started working with Richard, we spent a whole day with him, and he was just a really cool person, and he was asking me questions about my life. And just his insight on life and business and humanity is so profound. And, I mean, I've always been a YouTube fan, but I thought he was just a cool rock star, but he's such a deep human being. She was just telling me all these people. It's like Richard has access to everybody. And people think that, oh, yeah, they've got the greatest idea in the world, and they may, but these are many people that won't put a penny forth into going to a place to actually meet him, let alone go to Necker Island. And a lot of people want access to things, but they're not willing to put money into it. You know, sometimes, obviously you don't. You're not at a stage financially where you can do it. But when I wasn't at a stage financially where I can do things, I still figured out how to do them anyway. I mean, you know, And I did it on credit cards in the beginning. And I think in a lot of ways what got me to even doing this sort of stuff is just a mindset, you know, it's a mindset that if you can't put in the money, you know, what are you going to put in? And some people, they just won't go the extra mile. Woody Allen said 95% of success is just showing up. And I really believe that it's being willing to do the things that most people aren't willing to do. And part of it is, how badly do you want to succeed? What's it worth to you? And so I've thought a lot about what sort of person does that. And there's many things that are free in life and there's many things you can do, and some things you just got to pay to play. And I think it says a lot about the person. And you look at all the stuff that people will spend money on. And the cool thing about people that pay to go to this trip, I mean, they want something out of it. I mean, you're not going to drop that level of money and not want something out of it. So when someone's there in the very morning, we say, what's the outcome that you're looking for? And have everyone express it. And what we ended up finding out after we went through the outcomes, one of the exercises that we did was we asked everyone a question that I asked everyone in 25k, which is $250,000 ideas. And so we had everyone kind of think about for an evening, what are your best $250,000 ideas that you use or have used in your business that have made you at least a quarter million dollars? And then we go around and, and we share so everybody gets to hear what everyone else is doing that has been worth at least a minimum of a quarter million dollars. And there's a few people that had ideas and strategies and models that had been worth millions of dollars to their business. A guy named John Ratliff, who owns a company called Apple Tree, has a $30 million plus company. And he just talked about his process of building and growing his business, how to develop a vision and create a culture. And he got up and did about a 10 minute presentation on it. And everyone changed the whole way that they looked at their business because you just asked the person the question. So anyway, what I want people listening to this to think about, what if you asked yourself questions like that on a daily basis, a weekly basis, a monthly basis, what am I doing that made me at least a quarter million dollars. Or say you're just a very small entrepreneur just starting out. What have I done that's made me 5,000? Or what have I done that's made me 10,000? And am I really leveraging it? Am I still doing it? And if you're brand new in business and you have an opportunity to sit down with a business owner, ask them what are the best practices or the best strategies or the best models that you've used that have been worth X to you. And you ask several people that you're going to get recipes and it's awesome. That's what I think is really cool about I love marketing meetup groups is you have people get into a room and they talk about recipes. In the past, I love marketing episodes. We're always talking about recipes. And so in a lot of ways on Necker island, it's just another place to discuss recipes. You know, how are you fishing? How are you? But I'm really talking about catching big fish. What is the bait that you're using? What's the strategy that you're using that is allowing you to really succeed in your business? And it creates an expanded vision of possibility for everyone because they get to see it. And the bigger thing about it too is that having gone to Necker island, you know, four times now, I was even asking Richard, I said, you know, like, what about doing another location and everyone that's come there for the first time, no, no, we want to come back to Necker. We want to come back to Necker. And it's just like, you know, I've already been there four times, I've kind of get it and it's awesome and it's cool. Other than the mosquitoes, because mosquitoes suck. But beyond that, you know, I like just going to, I like really getting out of my comfort zone and I like going to places where it expand my vision of possibility. And when I was totally broke, I would go to look at really nice houses, I would go look at really nice cars. And you know, that may sound materialistic and stuff. It was just to me, it was a way that it motivated me to see things that I wanted that cost more money than what I had. And I wanted to actually just use it to kind of window shop so I could expand my desires, expand my possibilities and really motivate me. In a lot of ways it motivated me to make money. In the same way that if you want to get in greater physical health, you may put a picture of what you consider the ideal body. Or if you want a certain sort of spiritual life, there are certain imagery and there's certain things you may know, you may want to put on a wall or things that remind you of what you want your life to be like. In much the same vein of I know I'm being successful when. Which is your great process for coming up with characteristics and things that must exist in your life. It's just a different way of doing that. And so going to Necker island and doing very experiential things and sitting down with people that are more successful than you in different areas and just talking is I think one of the greatest ways to build and grow. And one of the things that we learn is that entrepreneurs really want and need a community of like minded people. And the ones that avail themselves of that I think are happier, I think they do better and I think they have less problems than people that don't. And one of the things that comes up over and over again with successful entrepreneurs is that they don't have accountability. They're usually in positions of telling their employees and everybody else what to do, but they don't have a boss. So where do you get that accountability? Usually it's not going to be created by you. It's going to be sort of a community that you develop for yourself. It's one of the main reasons I go to strategic coach. And if you done so for over 13 years, it's an accountability system. It's one of the reasons people are in our program that we have or 25K, it's accountability. And the second is entrepreneurs are isolated. And what was interesting during the discussions we had a lot of people share that. It's like, what are you getting out of this? It's like, well, it's lonely being an entrepreneur, it really is. And there's suffering with that. Even when people have a lot of money and because they have financial means, people think their life is just easy because they have money. And not realizing that in order to have money there are certain trade offs in terms of responsibilities that you take on that most people won't take on in terms of hours and sometimes really incredibly hard work. Maybe not hard like digging a ditch hard, although that does exist for some people. But hard in terms of mental work and obstacles and challenges and stress levels and operating with a sense of urgency and dealing with criticism and vicious things from competition that's fair competition to outright evil competition and just taking all that on. And if you don't have real sounding boards that you can talk with and stuff. It makes it very, very difficult. And this trip just reinforced to me just how important it is for the people that came on this trip and everything that we're doing to just have conversations about it. I mean, I think one of the reasons people resonate with me and you doing, I love marketing, is that, you know, they get to hear, you know, two guys that run into business every day talking about how they do it, you know, And a lot of times it just lets them know they're not alone, you know. And what this trip really reinforced in my mind, not that I didn't already know it, but it just continues to reinforce. It is just how valuable a community is for people to come to and just be like, hey, you know, I'm really not insane, because in my town, in my city, there's very few places I can go and sit around with a group of people that all accept me and totally get me, and they're not asking me for loans and things like that where they may encounter in their own hometowns, which is kind of funny. So I'm sort of babbling here, but is that.

No, no.

Is anything I'm saying useful here?

Yeah, yeah, it is all useful. I think it's all useful to set up the. The need for that. But what I'd love to hear is some of the insights that you got from the conversations that you had on this trip particularly.

Well, you know, in terms of. I could go into strategy, but I don't, you know, some of the strategies, like Jeff Siegel was there, and we're, you know, $250,000 idea. And, you know, one of his things was, you know, the video sales letter that he did for the diet solution. I mean, it's just made millions and millions of dollars. And it was, you know, one video sales letter. And, you know, Robert Hirsch and Mike Dillard were there from the Elevation group, and he did a 90 minute, basically video on one take, and it has made millions of dollars. And he just got it right. And the thing is, it just reinforces the power of canning and cloning yourself. And what was really funny is there were a few people there. I won't name their names because they were getting, like drunk as hell every night and just acting like complete goofballs and having a great time. And, you know, at least while they were in the morning, I didn't think they were having a great time, but they were having a good time and just acting like complete goofballs. And I made a couple comments going, you know, if in your business world, the intensity that some of you operate at is your method of decompressing is getting all freaking liquored up. Not all of them, because there was a couple that I was sort of picking on, and I said, you're looking like complete jackasses, because at night you dance around being complete goofballs, but in your business world, you're very professional. Several of the people had hundreds of employees. They have this business hat that they wear. And during that time, they're very intense, they're very focused. But what was really a driver was they sat down and they actually wrote a sales letter, or they created a system, or they hired the right people and they put it together. And once that was put together, it allowed them to take off. One of the guys that was there was. Was literally buying another company while he was there on Necker. I mean, a multimillion dollar deal and he wasn't even involved. It was fascinating. The cool thing was because the guy set up a system in order to do it, and he could totally goof off in the middle of a trip in Necker island while his company was buying another company. The big takeaway was leverage. You know, what have you set up that is really working without you having to, you know, maintain it? And the thing that I picked up the most, and, you know, maybe that's just what my eye sees, is all the marketing systems. So, you know, Vishen, who owns a company called Mindvalley, was there. And, you know, the big takeaways were they all had either a video or a sales letter or a website or a webinar model. Jeff talked about one of the ways that he created his recipe books is they would go out to their whole community of people, which they have upwards of just hundreds of thousands of people that visit their site. They literally would just send out three emails saying, what are your favorite recipes for salads? What are your favorite recipes for breakfast? And they would end up making these. They would select the very best recipes and then they would write these cookbooks that their community would buy. And all they did was pick the top recipes that people submitted. And it was like how to actually write a course that your whole community will purchase from you, all your clients will purchase from you. But you didn't really have to do it. All you had to do is read the emails and then pick which ones were the best.

Right?

And it's kind of like, wow, people support what they help you trade. Exactly. That was a big takeaway. Another big takeaway was doing the right Thing is different than doing things right. You can do a lot of things right, but they don't necessarily mean the right thing. Like you can spend all day, you know, organizing your office.

You know, that's. That's interesting. So let me write that down again. So doing the right thing is more important, is that what you say is.

Different than doing things right.

Okay.

You could also say doing the right thing is more important than doing things right. But, yeah, doing the right thing.

It's interesting because that, you know, when you said that, that kind of reminded me of, and I think we've talked about it here, that the, you know, the idea of execution or ideas, which is more valuable, I think that really, that supports it. Because if it's, you know, execution is about doing things right, and an idea is about doing the right thing right.

You know what? I'd actually like you. We've talked about this before, but I think it's one of those points that I don't think people can ever hear too many times. Give your take on that, because I love the way that you explain it. And for people that have not heard.

It before, something that, you know, Evan's CFO and I would have conversations about the, you know, execution versus ideas and, you know, all kinds of people in operational roles and things will always say that, you know, an idea is useless without execution. And I'll grant that. I mean, you have to grant that. That's absolutely true. But they use that as the trump card is as if saying, that settles it, you know that. Well, of course, because if you didn't execute the idea, then it's useless. But nobody really goes to the next level. And you look at it and you say, well, okay, I'll grant you that. If you'll grant that there, that we can measure flawless execution, that you could say, yes, you know, you can execute something flawlessly. And the mechanics of anything is really about execution. I mean, there's no doing a direct mail campaign is about the mechanics of getting your list and getting the package printed and getting the postage applied and getting it in the mail and getting it out and going through all the things that are required to get that marketing campaign out there. That is execution. You could have a great idea for a. For a direct mail campaign, and they're absolutely right. If you don't mail the postcards or you don't mail the letters, it's useless. But if you look at it, that you can measure flawless execution of anything. And we'll use the direct mail campaign as an example. The only Thing that makes flawless execution better is executing a better idea. You know, having better, you know, a better offer, a better list selection process, a better. Those things are really, you know, ideas that really make something. Make something special.

Yep, yep, exactly.

Like for instance, leverage, you know, I mean, like writing a book. What makes, what makes, you know, the four hour work week, you know, an incredible success and what makes, you know, what makes all of all the Brendan Burchard's books, New York Times bestsellers, you know, it's. It's not the mechanics of writing the book and getting them printed and getting it out there. It's. It's the, it's the ideas, you know?

Exactly. Brendan, as an example, like, if this is not painful enough with my travel, I'll share the reason. I'm going to San Francisco, maybe on a future episode, but I'm going to keep it on the down low this week. But I'm flying to San Francisco.

I'm going to San Francisco and I'm going to keep it on the down low.

No, I'm going to go meet with Peter Diamandis and Brendan Bouchard and I'm flying there tomorrow. So I'm in town for like a day and then boom, I fly there. But I'll share the, what the outcome of that meeting is. But you know, we've been helping Peter Diamandis with his awesome. And it really is an awesome book, Abundance. The Future is better than you think. And it's been on the New York Times best seller list since it came out a few weeks ago, which is incredible. And also because we have been helping with the marketing because it doesn't matter how great a book is or a product or service or anything, if there's not good marketing behind it. And you know, Brendan's getting ready to do something really incredible. One of the biggest book launches in his genre probably in history. And he's going to speak at an August event that I'm doing August 8th and 9th, and he's going to reveal everything he did and how he did it and that sort of thing. But when it comes to very best practices and formulas, why is something successful? Well, because people really that have success with it think this shit through. They don't have the mindset that build it and they will come. I mean, that does happen once in a while. People think that they're going to just be lucky, but it probably happens as someone actually wins the lottery compared to everyone that buys a lottery ticket or tries. Anyway, there was something I was going to say behind that Because I heard you say Brendan and I totally spaced it. I just wasted, you know, 90 seconds.

We should have, we should get Brendan on in the next few weeks here because his new.

Actually, yeah, we will, we will. And you know, let me just. Because I brought it up though, everyone really, you know, yeah, we'll do an episode with Brendan. And the dude is very, very freaking smart and he's very strategic and he's a really good marketer and he actually has really good content. And people would be well served to, to follow what he does and how he does it. Like for instance, there was one thing that I think it was Vishen talked about on Necker where he reads biographies and then he reverse engineers them. And he was talking about how one of the best ways to learn.

Are you giving an example?

So I mean, he'll read like the book on Steve Jobs or he'll read Lee Iacocca's book or. I'm trying to think. There was one particular book he had talked about. I'm trying to think what the hell it was. And he'd read about the strategies that these successful people had used and then he reverse engineers them to say, okay, really? How did they do that? And how can it apply? And so he does it a lot with like Zappos and what he actually puts in place in his own company. And so what we were doing is when we were talking about the top $250,000 ideas and strategies, we would actually say, okay, well how do we reverse engineer this and actually apply it to our own particular situation? And so I just thought what a great way to actually really think about different ideas and different books that you read and, you know, kind of lay out all the steps so that, you know, you can apply it yourself. You know, one thing that I thought was a really good discussion about delegation because one thing that Richard has done a really good job of is, you know, obviously hiring people to run his companies. And one thing that he said was when he had only one company, he would, you know, go to the office more frequently. But once he had multiple companies, he couldn't really go to the office because the companies were in different places. And therefore he could. He literally could. He lived on a houseboat for quite a while, you know, and most of his life he has spent working out of his house, you know, and, you know, now obviously Necker island, he owns a. He owns a frickin island. And part of it is the environment. And one of the discussions that we had as part of the $250,000 ideas was one of the people there was sharing a story about how they were in a building and they were wanting to lease another floor because they had grown. And the person that owned the landlord was literally over I think like $3,000. It got down to just trying to make them pay more money in order to do this really multi hundred thousand dollar lease. And at the time they really couldn't afford to go to a bigger new building. Literally they didn't really have. It wasn't quote unquote smart in order to do it, but it was a much. It was more expensive, but it was a much nicer environment in the building that they were in. The person said it was a crappy environment, but they needed to add more people and it was within their budget and they could pull it off. But the landlord was being a jerk and they just said screw it. And because of the person really kind of holding them to this, what they considered an unfair sort of financial deal, they just told the guy to screw off and they literally moved out of the building, moved into a place that they really couldn't afford. But it forced them to kind of get their shit together and perform at a higher level. And he said it was the best decision they ever made. He said, because if you're in a crappy place or a crappy space, you attract crappy people. And he said once. It was a really interesting statement. And this is a guy that has hundreds of employees. And he basically said that once they move to that nicer space, the amount of like better people that applied to work there, the type of clients that they brought on was like huge. And I thought, you know, what an interest, you know, doesn't that apply to everything?

It really doesn't. It?

Yeah, I mean, it totally does.

So when you're saying that, you know, I'm envisioning like the difference between like a crappy basement, you know, below level, you know, windowless, just cheap office space versus a really inspiring all glass, lots of windows environment. I mean that was what my mind, you know, came to. And you're right. As more inspiring environment.

Right. And I'm not saying, I mean, you.

Know, the importance of that. You've got a really cool office too. I mean, did. What was your experience when you. Because you went up significantly from, you know, you had a 3,000 square foot office building and you went up to the office building, you have now 11,000 or 12,000 square feet in a really killer environment. But what did you find in making that jump?

You know what is interesting? I never even really thought about it here, but I sure as hell have a lot more, you know, I charge more money right now than I ever have. I've got, you know, lots of people that pay $25,000 a year to be in my 25k group. I hold very high level events and I never used to do that when I was in my other environment. You know, I never even really, honest to God, I never really thought about how it correlates, but I think it does because when people come to my.

Building, you know, I think we're maybe onto something here. You kind of reverse engineer things. Like you and I both have been around for years. The Strategic Coach offices in Toronto, which I would, I would call that a pretty inspiring space.

Totally, totally. Here's all I'll say about environment. Environment trumps willpower.

You know, that's pretty profound right there.

No, I mean, it just does. No, no, I actually heard that somewhere. I'm trying to think who I actually first heard that from. You know, I mean, for instance, if you have a drinking problem, you really shouldn't work in a bar, you shouldn't hang out in bars, you shouldn't go where alcohol is. If you really have. I'll even tell you, Bill Phillips, Body for Life guy, he loves junk food, he loves sweets, and when he goes to hotels and I don't know if he does this every single time, but I've heard him talk about this several times when I've had him speak at my conferences and stuff. He will literally ask them to remove the room of either the refrigerator that's filled with all the junk food or the little mini bar. Doesn't want that in the room because he doesn't even want the temptation because he knows that if it's there, the likelihood of eating it is just going to put pressure and temptation that why do you even need it? Just don't have it. I think environments are the same way. And if you're in an environment that is not conducive to focus, if you're in business or distractions on a personal level, if it just doesn't make you feel good, what's the point? Barbara Hemphill says, have nothing in your home that you don't know to be useful, think to be beautiful or love. And it's kind of a neat statement. And I want everyone to kind of get this in the right context too. I mean, when Jeff Bezos was starting Amazon, I mean he very, very frugal, you know, I mean, they would have card tables and they would, you know, they would use furniture and he just treated it like a startup, but not because he wanted crappy stuff, but he wanted to make a point that, you know, we're not here to piss away money. So, you know, you got to understand how to take this, that sort of message in the right context.

Let's, let's, I don't want to, let's push the pause button there for a second because I think it's worth making the distinction there too, that, that could be because it's a different type of, of business. You know, like, I wouldn't call what, I wouldn't call Amazon like a creative business or a, you know, I would look at it more like, you know, an executional type of, of model where the efficiencies are what, provide the profit margin. Just like Walmart. Everything about Walmart, I mean, they've got, you know, the same kind of things, really inexpensive office environment, really inexpensive office furniture, and everything is about driving prices lower. So the whole culture is about, is about that. And I think when I look at it like, you know, you're, we're talking about things that are like, we're creating money out of nothing Paul Zane Pilzer would call economic alchemy.

Right? Yeah.

And inspiration is a lot of that.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you really got to look at what is the most important way for you to set up the business in the beginning, create the culture and obviously work with what you have. I mean, I don't know if this is true. I just remember hearing about this a lot in the early days. You know, Bill Gates would fly coach instead of first class because he just didn't feel it was a good use of money. Well, obviously you're not going to see Bill Gates on even a commercial airline. And he's guarded and stuff nowadays and flies private. But, you know, in the beginning, you know, he did things in a certain way. And so there are stages. But I, you know, in terms of how people put together deals, you know, going back to the example of the person on our trip, he attracted a better quality employee and better quality partners when he was in a place that didn't look like a danger zone, it didn't look like a ghetto and he couldn't afford it really. But what it ended up doing was it just was a catalyst for him having a much more successful business. And I think there are certain things.

Where that does make a difference. Here's another example that we, I have a client owns a mortgage company and when, you know, 10 years ago, I think we Were talking about this concept of the largest check. What Dan Sullivan's concept and at the time, you know, is the average largest check for, you know, commission, like on. On average was his average loan was I believe, around. They were making around $6,500 per loan. But the largest ones that he had done were. Were $18,000. And they were, you know, average loan amounts of a lot more money, $650,000 average loan amounts and stuff like that. And the entire. When he really got that and started gearing everything towards getting that the larger checks, getting the largest check, he looked at the whole environment. Their environment was they were in C class office space, wearing khakis and polos and, you know, dealing with the average loan candidate. They, within a year they had switched everything to being more going after those higher loan amounts. They moved into an A class office space, started wearing suits and ties, and within a year had completely transformed the whole operation to get those larger checks by creating an environment that supports it.

Yep, yep, exactly. You know, I mean, there's a. There's a good article in Fast Company, the current issue of Fast Company, about Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg? It's not about Mark Wahlberg. It's about Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg, yeah.

Geez Louise. I met him before too. I met him at All Things Digital. It's the same place I met Jeff Bezos and Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch. What an interesting, weird, strange sort of dude. But obviously in the articles, I was like, what you think of me now? It actually talks about how he would show up looking like just a complete goofball with his sandals and his pullover sweatshirts and stuff. And then he got to a point where he would wear obviously a tie to work after he was saying that now Facebook is here to do some serious business. And about how the transition of how he represents. I don't think so. But there was a period of time.

Still the jeans and flip flops.

Yeah, well, there was a period of time there. And it actually writes. It's in this article. Yeah, it's a really good article, actually. And there's a great article in there about Elon Musk, who I just met for the first time about three weeks ago. And I'll actually be in a brainstorm session with him in two and a half weeks from now in la. But there's, you know, it's about where Tesla is at. Fast Company has, in the current issue, has some great artists. And basically there's one thing on the wall at Facebook that says, keep Calm and hack on. And, you know, part of it is like, you know, Zuckerberg, he actually, you know, didn't buy a house and lived in this dumpy apartment and everything and didn't really care about making money. And now that he's actually built up their new campus is, you know, stellar. It's killer. It's totally creative and stuff. But, you know, now the environment and everything takes on a different form as the business grows. And I think in a lot of ways, you know, more than anything, the big message is create standards for yourself. And if you, if you operate at a higher standard, I think you're just going to operate differently and look at the environment that you're in and say, is this environment the best thing for me for what it is that I want to accomplish? And are you willing to take chances? Are you willing to do the things that most people are not willing to do? And if you're smart, and when I mean smart, I don't mean like you got a college degree smart. I mean if you're just. If you're really strategic about how you approach things and even if things are a big risk, are they intelligent risks? Are they risks that you can pull off? Are you committed enough to actually making it work? And with the necker trip questions early on in the beginning produce great results and experiences. I didn't ask people for their $250,000 ideas and stuff at the end of day the, the trip. I asked them in the beginning of the trip and I asked them, what's the outcome you want in the beginning of the trip? And we gave people questions to really focus on. And so they had a whole week to actually think about these things. And we didn't have a lot of brainstorm sessions. I mean, we had four of them. And the vast majority of the entire trip were people goofing off and sailing and having lunch and having fun and hanging out and dancing and staying up until the wee hours of the night and, and having conversations with Richard and everyone else. But what it is, is I put into their minds questions to ask themselves. And because they're entrepreneurs and because they're creative, they actually, their experience was altered and directed as a result of the questions. And so great questions are in many ways more important than answers because the answers that you get are relative to the questions that you ask yourself and the environment that you put yourself in and the experiences that you expose yourself to. And your ability to get out of your comfort zone has everything to do with how your future is going to show Up. And I actually spent an hour on the airplane with a friend of mine on the way back from Necker. And we were on a plane with. There was a few of us on the same plane coming back. And this person created two years worth of content of their blog, of their audios, of everything in less than an hour on an airplane. Because we just sat there and said, okay, what are all the questions, all the topics that you could cover for your niche? And we just sat and came up with 173 different topics. And this all happened in literally the span of an hour. And this person was like, oh, my God. And it's like, your brain can do incredible shit. I mean, and this is something that will be worth thousands.

Yeah, like a laser.

Totally, totally. And I want to share one other thing, too, because one of the big takeaways from Richard is that, you know, hiring delegate. And I've told this story before about how it was the trip last year. I was in, you know, this kitchen of Richard's house last year, and I said, you know, Richard, when's the. When's the last time you went to a grocery store? And he's like, I don't ever think I've been in a grocery store. And I'm like, what do you mean you've never been in a grocery store? He's like, I don't. I'm like, he's like, I don't think I've ever been in a grocery store. And I'm like, when you're starting out with the student in your newsletter, you had to go to grocery stores? Like, no, not really. And. And I'm like, well, have you ever done laundry? No. I said, when's the last time you did your laundry? And he's like, I don't think I've ever done my laundry. I'm like, what do you mean you've never done. What about when you're a kid? He goes, my mom did my laundry. He's like, joe, you got to delegate. And I'm like. And I don't know if he's bullshitting me or not or if he really can't remember, whatever, but it's quite. If there's anyone that it's possible that guy's never done laundry or gone to a grocery store, it's probably Richard Branson. He gets everyone to do everything for him. And the thing. So we had this whole discussion about delegating and setting up this system where you're not doing that. One of the people who was very successful there said, get everything tactical off your list. All these little tactical things that other people can do, just don't do them. Don't spend your time doing tactical things. Anything that you can literally get someone else to do, even if you can do it better, even if you know you can do it, even if you think it's saving you money. They're like, that's not how the most successful business people operate. They just don't. And so one of the things Brad.

Fallon and I were having dinner in Chicago a couple of years ago and we were talking about that. I forget what book it was that he had recommended, but it was somebody who had studied billion dollar book companies, like people who had become billionaires and you know, less of the first, like job number one is you, you have to stop doing anything. You can't do anything if you're going to build a billion dollar company. Yeah, just what you were saying about the tactical things. You can't actually do anything in the business too if you're going to build a billion dollar business.

Right, right, right. And of course I say right, not that I've ever built a billion dollar business, but I've hung around enough billionaires and it seems to be that's how they operate.

It seems that they don't do anything.

Yeah, right, right, right, exactly. It's true. I mean, it's true. I fortunately have become friends with a handful of billionaires and they operate at a much different level. And you literally need to step out of the normal world because they don't operate like normal people, which is why they don't make the incomes of normal people. That's why they have intense wealth. One of the things we're talking about with employees and all the mistakes that have been made is do not hire anyone into a high level position that for one does not absolutely respect, admire, adore and appreciate the industry that you're in. For instance, I'm in the direct response world and, and some of the biggest mistakes I've made in the past is I've hired people in high level positions that did not respect, understand or appreciate direct response marketing. And that's the stupidest thing to do is to have a marketing business where you have people that for one don't even get marketing. And I can't tell you how many people I've seen that have business cards or titles of director of marketing, VP of marketing that don't know jack shit about marketing. I mean, most big corporations have.

I would venture to say that 85% of the people who have director of marketing. Business cards are not people who know anything about marketing.

Exactly. I mean it's unfortunate, but that experience. Yeah. And I think that's why marketing gets such a bad rap. Because you know, marketing happens to be one of these words that, you know, some moron can actually call themselves a marketer and they couldn't sell them their way out of a paper bag or they couldn't write, they couldn't write a sales letter if their life depended on it. And they are working in positions where. Here's the real key to know someone understands marketing. A sales letter is like one of the most important things that you could ever have. A free report or video or an audio. And if they don't have that, I wouldn't call them great marketers. They shouldn't even have the. If they haven't read Claude Hopkins Scientific Advertising or Ogilvy on advertising, if they don't even know what those books are, they should never call themselves a marketer. So again, that's my opinion. But nonetheless. So the one thing is that they got to appreciate it. Secondly is people in high level positions, no entitlement. If they have entitlement attitudes, get rid of them. If they think that they should just have things because they think they're cool, not a good fit. People that create black boxes where they're the only ones that know how to do something and you can't figure it out and they don't set it up in case they got sick or if they ever left, very dangerous to put those types of people that operate that way in certain positions. Now, it may not be their fault. I mean some entrepreneurs actually create people like that. However, some people, the way they protect themselves is they create black boxes because they don't operate out of abundance, they operate out of scarcity. And so, so they do things to entrap the business owner very bad. And then of course the famous Jim Collins sort of philosophy out of good to great is if you find yourself managing people, you've probably made a mishire. Great people need to be led, they don't need to be managed. Great people will manage themselves. But you need to provide leadership. And if you're not providing leadership, you have to do that first because the fish rots from the head down. So you've got to be, you got to be a person that actually cares, a person that leads, a person that will create the culture because no one's going to create it for you. But beyond that, entrepreneurs have got to own the vision. And if you own the vision and you can communicate that, then you can attract the very best people. There were a lot of things that came out of Necker, but to reiterate is I think entrepreneurs really get so much value out of great environments. And so when I put the trips together for Neckers, I want people to be blown away. I want them to come to something that totally expands their thinking. And I want to have great discussions because I think a formula for just great brainstorms are great people, great location, great food, and great questions, great discussions. And if you, if you put those in there, then you can do that. And so that's one of the things that, you know, that's what I do. You know, I mean, I'm gonna subtly plug it here. I'm doing a $10,000 event, 25k meeting for non 25k members. People that want a taste of 25k but either don't qualify or they, you know, don't want to sign up because they don't really know what the hell it is. But they, you know, so we're, we're going to do this event in August, and I've got Peter Diamandis speaking, I've got Dan Sullivan speaking, I've got Brendan Bouchard speaking. And I can't confirm these other people are going to be there because we haven't confirmed it yet. But Peter Diamandis is going to invite Arianna Huffington, Steve Forbes, Ray Kurzweil and a couple others to come to the meeting, and we'll see which one of those people actually come. And, you know, part of it is creating that sort of environment. And it's like an annual thing that I've done before.

I mean, it is a great environment. You know, I was with you in New York last year with Paul Zane Pilzer and Ned Hallowell. I mean, it was just an incredible two days.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is. And that's a $10,000 event. But, you know, it's one of those things to. What else, you know, what else could you possibly start, spend that type of investment on and be exposed to that level of discussion that is life changing? There was a guy there named Zach who actually didn't qualify for 25k. And it was like a big risk for him to come. And so one of the things he did was he's like, okay, well, I'm going to spend ten grand. I really, this is like. It was a big fear for him to do it, and he didn't qualify for $25,000. He was very open about. He's like, one of his goals is be a 25k member. So he said he's going to join next year. And so he came to the one that we did last year. And basically what ended up happening, he's like, okay, I'm going to create a coaching program myself. And he ended up making $30,000 as a result of launching his coaching program because he needed it as a motivator of how he was going to make the 10 grand in order to come to the meeting or at least make it back. And so just making that jump forced his brain to actually put into action what he needed to do in order to do that. And I'm always careful about telling people I don't ever want anyone mortgaging their house or taking stupid risk because I don't think anything should be a gamble. I think it should be strategic. I think it should be well thought out. And at the same time, I think you need to push your limit. And I never would have got out, I never would have hired a copywriter to write my first consumer awareness guide for 1800 bucks on a credit card when I was already in debt and going deeper in debt if I didn't want it to work. But it was a smart. It wasn't just a risk. It wasn't, here's 1,800 bucks. It's not like blowing it on an image ad or something. It was really thought out, but I knew that I could leverage it. People ask me, how did you do this, the Necker island thing? Well, before I could even have the conversation with Richard about doing trips to necker, I mean, people can go to necker. I mean, it's fifty something thousand dollars a day to rent the island. Anyone can go do that if they want, but it doesn't include Richard. And the way that I pulled it off was I personally had invested over $250,000 out of my own pocket as giving to his foundation in order to get to the point where we could even have those discussions. Because, you know, Richard's a billionaire. And I even asked him on this trip, I said, will you shave your head? How much money would it cost for you to shave your head? He's like, my. No, he said to shave is what I said. He goes, you mean my beard? I'm like, no, no, no, your head. He goes, you mean, what about my body? I'm like, no, no, your blonde hair and your head. He's like, ah. He goes, well, when I was. He goes, when I was first starting out, I would have done it for 50 grand. He goes. But now he goes, $5 million. I'm like, so you'll shave your head publicly for. We can video. He's like, yeah, $5 million. And so now I'm thinking, should I try to put together something in order to get him to shave his head for $5 million? Not sure yet, but.

Right.

You know, there's. But. But the point is, let's have.

Let's check. Let's do a comment check.

Yeah, exactly. Let us know what you think.

Ilove marketing.com. leave your comments.

Yeah, and also. Yeah, please leave your comments and what you think. If you've got any great ideas, you know, maybe I can. But. But it's on the table and I can maybe pull something off with this. And. Oh, also, one of the things during the brainstorm session, there's a. There's a documentary that is like, I think it's. It's called Manifest this that they videotaped me for. And basically there's some footage that we recorded. They really liked a lot of the things that I said. And the guy that was filming the documentary actually gave me some of this footage and he gave me some clips. There's one that we actually put on YouTube is selling evil. And I actually played this. It's under four minutes. It's on YouTube. It's selling evil by Joe Polish. Everyone really liked the way that I described it, and I would like you, Dean, if you could, to put that with this podcast up on ilove marketing.com so people can watch that video. And I think it'll give people a perspective of what I think about marketing and selling. And I'd love to have people give their comments on if they agree with what I say. And because I believe marketers that create value in the world are saviors and do great things. And one of our main discussions was obviously using marketing to be an awesome entrepreneur and create tons of value in the world while you make a boatload of money, because that's a good thing. So, anyway, there's more. There's more. But we can. We can always. You know, we do this every week. Right?

We're not going to run out. We got lots more time to talk. That's it. But we have. We've gone over an hour already here.

Okay. So I should shut the hell up.

Well, I. You know what I mean? I've really. This has been a good conversation.

Yeah, yeah. And.

Yeah, yeah.

And I, And I, more than anything, I. I want people to remember that you really can create incredible business models. Incredible Strategies great success in a very short period of time. If you just start with, what's the outcome that I want? What are the questions that you need to ask yourself? Questions are great. Thomas Edison would say that if I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes on coming up with the right question and 5 minutes on the answer. What I'd like everyone to take away from this call is that if you think about this week, what's the outcome that I want? And look at all of the activities that you do in your day to day business and are they producing the outcome that you want? And if they're not, then you need to shift gears. And the reason people get caught up is they don't even ask themselves that. They wake up every day and they kind of do the same sort of shit. And when you go to a place like Necker island, it completely pulls you out of your comfort zone. Even very successful people. I mean, there are people on this trip that almost everyone on this trip is running a multimillion dollar business and it completely pulls them out of their comfort zone. And they feel like, man, I've not accomplished anything. And so everyone goes back and kicks ass and takes names. And the people that have been there in the past, going there in the past, they don't think of it as spending 40 grand. They think of it as, this is one of the most incredible investments ever. And I think that happens with, when someone goes to any of our groups. It just puts them in a much different place. And so that's where I'd like people to go. So go do something that takes you out of your comfort zone. Go experience something awesome. And next time you're hanging around a really successful business person, ask them were their very best strategies that they do and how do they do it. And, and you're going to get some, most likely some good advice if you ask them the right questions, maybe even.

Ask yourself, reflect back on what you've done. It's awesome.

Exactly.

Well, welcome back.

Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. And so until. Until next time, Be cool, Dean.

Okay? I'll try my hardest.

All right, thanks everyone.