The One With Business Consultant and Author MaryEllen Tribby - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #109

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 a very special guest who actually likes me more than she likes Dean, but she's going to pretend that she likes Dean equally. I'm kidding. It's both our dear friend, Mary Ellen Tribbe, master marketer, business entrepreneur and just all around cool person. So, Mary Ellen, how are you?

I'm great. And thank you both equally, Joe and Dean for having me here today.

Yep, you are welcome. Did you see that, Dean? She sort of said equally but she was leading, slanting more towards, I think me in terms of, you know, my.

Favorite answer to that ever is when we had Tim Ferriss and we asked him, who do you like better, me or Joe? And he very wisely said, I dislike you both equally.

Yes, yes, very true.

Like Solomon. I mean, without even thinking about it. That was very, very wise. Well, here we are.

And in the last episode or the one before that, I can't even remember, we were talking about Mary Ellen and about how smart she was and how we need to be doing an episode with her. So here we go. She's fantastic. And you know, Mary Ellen, I could talk about all of your successes and all the things that you do, but I'd rather just kind of for our listeners, if they've not read any of your books, if they don't know who you are, if they don't follow you online, offline, whatever. Who is Mary Ellen and what makes you so awesome?

You know, the biggest secret to my success is I associate with the right people and I'm a voracious learner. Right. And so for people who don't know me, I've run a lot of big time publishing companies back in, you know, back in my New York days at Forbes, Cranes Times, Mirror Magazines and then of course online, you know, more online info. Publishing companies like Weiss Research, Early To Rise have a company called workingmomsonly.com also have a lot of, well, a best selling book out there and hopefully another best selling book to come out very soon this September.

That's awesome.

Yeah, this is a great thing. When you were CEO of Early the Rise, I always mention this and we did a great interview back in 2009 right when you were launching Working Moms Only. And I think we should put that up as a bonus episode because it's.

Just so darn big.

And.

What'S that?

People still talk about that all the time to me, how much they love that, that interview.

And they should, because it was fantastic. I mean, there was so much useful wisdom on there. I mean, and it's not just, it wasn't like timely, it was timeless. I mean, that interview just has really fundamental sort of, you know, methodologies and techniques and methods, many of which we can probably talk about, you know, on this episode. And you took, when you were CEO of Early Rise, I just think this is a great thing to mention. You grew that business from, I think it was 8 million in sales to 26 million in 15 months. And you know, when you were at President Weiss Research, you took that company, you led the company to 67 million in sales from 11 million in just 12 months. And those are big figures. I mean, we're talking millions of dollars. And a lot of people would find that, well, how the heck do you do that? I haven't even created a million dollar business yet. And so you've got some great experience with not only effective marketing on all different channels. I mean, even your book, changing the channels, you really know how to using a term. You actually said before we started recording was McDonaldized. The business, which is automated. Create it where there are systems in place, where once you've got selling methods, it just works. How the heck does somebody, what does it take right from the, you know, first question I want to ask you is what does it take to be able to do what it is you.

Do, you know, what it is really having a very, you know, it almost for me came out of necessity, right? Because not only do I do I write books and run companies and consult and speak, but I have, you know, I have a husband of 16, almost 17 years. I've got three kids, one in high school, one in junior high, one in elementary school. And so I like to get the most out of my day. And so for me, it is just really, really frustrating and infuriating when people do things, you know, a task over and over, each time they try to do that task, they do something differently that takes them off course. And so for me, it was always about getting the most production out of the day. And, you know, I tell people this all the time now that, you know, I, I don't work a zillion hours a week anymore. I play tennis four or five times a week because I can. So really, in order to kind of McDonaldize, what you need to do is you set up standard operating procedures I like to call SOPs. And I literally have a physical binder that says working moms only. And this is my company in this binder. So for every single thing that happens on a regular basis, there is a sheet of paper there. And of course, we have this electronically as well, but it is literally in a binder, a sheet of paper that says step one, step two, step three, until completion. And people follow that to the T, because these are operational tasks. Right? So operational tasks, it's very different from testing a marketing campaign where you're trying to make things better all the time. You know, when you're dealing with something like deploying an email, there's a great way to do that. Right. And once you master that, you do it the same way every single time. And also, when someone else comes into the company, you can literally hand them a manual and say, here's your job description. These are your tasks, here's how you do it. So it works for training purposes as well. So I highly encourage every single person to put literally a binder together to create your SOP manual. And it will evolve as you do different things. As people add tasks to their daily routine, the manual will evolve. And that's fantastic. And I do go in there and review them on pretty much a yearly basis to see if there's ways streamlining things or new technology comes out or whatever that is. But basically my business is in that binder, and anyone at this point could come in and run it as far as the operations go. For me, like I was saying before, within working moms only, I'm here to supply guidance and advice for my working moms. I'm not here to set up emails or to send files, you know, after, you know, we do things, you know what I mean? It's strictly on advice. That's my function now, is ideas and advice within that company. And that's pretty much it.

You know what's interesting, Mary Ellen, because that kind of ties in with something I've been thinking about a lot lately, is that I think at the top level, as an entrepreneur, the only question that you need to be answering or should aspire to only be answering is the question of what, what should we do? What do we need to do? What needs to happen here, rather than how to do it or that you're the person that's doing it. And so, you know, focusing on what needs to be done or what you want to be done, what your vision is to be done, and then focusing on who is going to do that.

Exactly, exactly.

It's funny because you hear people talk about creating these manuals and creating these standard operating procedures, and a lot of people have heard that, and they Think, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. But what I'm most impressed by is here's somebody who has built multimillion dollar companies who actually does it. You physically have the binders. It's not just an idea that everybody's heard the term McDonaldize your business and everybody's heard the term create up your procedure manuals and stuff, but very few people have actually done it.

Right. And you know, I was just saying before when we were just talking that I'm launching a whole nother E letter and guess what? What's the difference between working moms only and the CEO's edge? The content, how it's run, how it's run, it's exactly the same. And so I can just go in and duplicate one business that reaches a different market with different content, but how that business is run will be exactly the same.

Uh huh. That makes total sense. It really does.

Yes, yes.

Let me mention one thing that came out of, I've heard you say before and we discussed in our interview, and it's one of my favorite lines from you is one thing done equals money. Five things done equals no money. And you know, what do you mean by that?

So you know, one of, one of the biggest curse you know of an entrepreneur is that they've got, they have ideas and a lot of ideas and they often start a lot of projects. So if you're in the alternative health business, you might have a great idea on vitamin C, right? You've got to take it, it's called a flu season, blah blah blah, and you start writing this special report. But then you know, what I just heard about Coq10 and what it can do for you is so amazing. So that my vitamin C report is 50% done and I start on my next CoQ10 report. Now I'm going to do a report on green tea because my aunt just told me the amazing effects. So now I've got these three reports that are 50% done, but now I have two more ideas. So I've got five special reports that are 50% done that I have put, you know, I've got 50% done, which means I could have had at least one done, but they're still yielding me zero dollars. If I finish that one report on vitamin C, it could be out there earning money for me, but it's not because I just, you know, I didn't take something through fruition. And you know, another thing that I do that I have everybody in my company do is everybody has a project list of projects they're working on. And on that project list, we have a due date, and that due date never changes. On that list, we might have a revised due date. Right, because you have a project and you break down all that project into individual tasks. Each individual task has a due date that never changes. And it does a lot for your team. You know, they see when it's due. But then if you see due dates missed in a lot of revised due dates in that column, you kind of know who's dropping the ball. But, you know, keeping a project task list is crucial to getting things done, and most entrepreneurs don't do that. So when I was writing my book, I had a task sheet for every single chapter. So, you know, I had 20. I have 23 chapters in this book. So there was a, you know, there was a due date for every single chapter, but, you know, and then I just worked backwards with, you know, first draft, you know, edit, final, and assigned dates to them all.

Very interesting. Do you do those on sound like you're big on actual, like, physical printouts of stuff, or do you use something. Do you use a project management system like Basecamp or any of those kind of things, or do you have kind of your own system of the way you do it?

I created an Excel spreadsheet years ago, and that's not only what I use. It's what everybody in my team uses. And the reason for that was that I've tried other project management programs, and then people always wanted their own. And I thought the thing about those programs that were not helpful to me was that they had, like, percent of, you know, percent of the project done. And I never could wrap my head around that, as opposed to saying, here's the date. Right. And plus, I wanted very specific things on this, you know, like, for example, you know, you have a task, you may be the leader of this project, but you're certainly not the champion of each task. And so on my sheet, every task is broken down. We have the champion. You know, we have the status, the due date. We have the status, and we have a revised due date. And so it's just very easy to read. And, you know, and I do. And I like to have those kind of things in my face, so I keep those kind of things on my board. You know, I. You know, a lot of people just like to keep everything digitally because. But I really do like to have it, and I like to highlight it off. There's a real sense of accomplishment when you do that, and it keeps you going. It just really keeps you going.

Very exciting.

Go ahead, Dean.

No, you go ahead, Joe, because I'll just say that's really like, I don't know any entrepreneur who isn't in the process of figuring out or adding to their ability to manage multiple projects.

Yeah, I always remember Gary Halbert would make people that wanted to learn how to write copy. Now granted, Gary was crazy brilliant in a lot of ways, just wacky as hell. And one of the things that he would have people that wanted to learn copy do is he would always say to them, you want to learn how to write world class copy? Okay, well, here you go. And he would, of course, considering himself the world's greatest copywriter. In his mind, he would have them hand write his actual sales letters where they literally, they couldn't type it on a computer. They literally needed to sit in and write it down. And Dan Sullivan was telling me about some study where like 40% of the ability to think about things actually comes from your right thumb. Now, I have no idea what this based on, if it's true, but just the mere act of writing something. And it's interesting to hear Mary Ellen talk about it because I think it really, at the end of the day, it's all about psychology, not technology. And that's why I think you're such a great marketer too, is you just understand human motivation and drive and you're not just a great at systemizing and thinking about automation, but just you really understand psychology and you also know what works and what doesn't. We've talked about this before in past episodes where I remember interviewing a fitness guy named Charles Staley, and he was talking about the space pen that NASA created, which they cost them something like $10 million they spent trying to figure out how to make a pen work in space, you know, with ink, underwater and that sort of stuff. And he's like, well, you know, NASA spent $10 million, but the Russians didn't have that money to spend to figure out how to make a pen work in space. So they just used a pencil and it didn't cost them anything. And so, you know, it's the same sort of thing. I mean, how many people do we know that can never sell anything because they will spend months, weeks, you know, finding out what database to use, how to get their website set up, all that sort of stuff versus like any business cards, right? All the excuses, that sort of stuff. How do you know quickly, Mary Ellen, when you meet with someone, because you've hired tons of people, you've built big teams, how do you Know if someone's got the chops or if they don't, Is this something you can identify pretty quickly, or does it take you a period of time? How do you know who's got the juice? Who doesn't?

You know, you never actually know until you've got them in your office. But like you said, I've hired hundreds of people, and I have a pretty good track record. And I have a first few things that I just are golden rules for me. You know, someone comes into my office, one, and they don't smile in the first five seconds, they're done, they're out. Because I want people who want to love to come in in the morning and love to, you know, accomplish something. That's one. Another question that I ask people all the time is I say, what do you do when you're not working? What do you like to do for fun? And I love people who tell me they love to read about what their career is. You know, if that person is there and they're. Because, you know, Joan, what we do, we do it all the time. It's not like we do this from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. We, we do it when, you know, all the time, because we love it, you know, and I tell people all the time I have purposeful activity, right? Some of it yields me money, some of it does not. But my life is very blended. Like when I go up to Disney and I see a great marketing idea, I write that down. You know what I mean? I don't just, I'm not saying I'm on vacation, I'm not going to write down this great idea. But so I love people who tell me they love to continue their education, then I will ask them who they read, who they read in their field. If they're a copywriter, do they know who Gary Halbert is? Do they know who John Carlson is? Do they know who Clayton Makepeace is? If they don't, do they know who Dan Kennedy is? Then we've got a problem. If they're an online marketer and they're not following certain people. So those are the kind of questions because anybody could bring samples into you, anybody could bring spreadsheets into you. So it really is those kind of things. Also, I let people ask me questions, and if the questions they ask are, what time do I have to be here in the morning? How many holidays do we have? Those are key. So it's really important to let people ask you questions when you're interviewing people. And, and a lot of entrepreneurs make that mistake because they love to talk. They love to hear themselves talk. They have good ideas. So they don't let the other person ask enough questions. And the answer is always in the question.

Yep, totally.

Well, Dean, I'd like to get into some marketing stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. I was saying to Mary Ellen that we were just wrapping up a series on email marketing. We've done four episodes about email marketing marketing. And I know you've had a lot of experience, Mary Ellen, with email marketing as one of the things of a multi channel approach. But I'd love to get your perspective on some of the baseline things and the most successful things. Best advice you have for people with email marketing.

That'S great because email marketing, like we all know there's many channels of marketing, but email marketing is the channel that most people will start out with today, with what's going on today. And so one of the biggest things or the biggest mistakes that I find people make with email marketing, any direct response marketing, is they don't understand testing and tracking and rolling and rolling out a campaign. And Dean, since you mentioned this, I will tell you that when I was with early to Rise at the time I had a campaign there, that one single sales letter brought in $17 million. And Michael Masterson came up to me and said, if you weren't here, this sales letter would have brought us in probably 3 or 4 million. And the reason for that is that most people don't understand the most important thing. The most important element in any campaign is the list, right? Is the list that you are going to that there are three elements in any direct response campaign, right? Your list, your offer, your copy. And unfortunately, most people think copy is the most important element, when in reality it is the third most important element out of the three. Your list is responsible for 60% of your success. Your author is responsible for 30% of your success, and your copy is responsible for 10% of your success. And that is because you can have the best copy in the world. But if you send it to the wrong group of people, you will have zero response. You can have mediocre copy going to the right people and you will have responses. Okay, so one of my favorite things is you don't sell lingerie to lumberjacks. Right? You have to. You have to.

Not most plumber jacks, right?

Yeah, there's a few. Right. So you have to understand who you're talking to. And you have to. And also the biggest thing in direct response marketing is riding that wave that if you see something working, then you roll and when we say roll, we mean rollout means that your campaign is larger than the rollout is larger than the test that you just did. And again, people don't understand rolling out properly. So the rule of thumb there is that if you have a response, you can roll out five times of what you just sent out. So a lot of people make the mistake and send out the exact same amount, or they send out too many. And, you know, beyond the five times, when you go beyond five, you're not going to get the same statistically valid results. Okay? And if you go just, you know, one, you know, you just do the same, you're going too slow. So you can go up to five times, and if you want to be conservative, then go three, three and a half, you know, so you don't have to do the five, but don't go more than five, and certainly go, you know, go up to at least three. So that is key in making things happen fast. Also, what people don't understand in, I think, in any channel of marketing is that you have a doubling date. And what that means is that you have, you know, if you have a certain response at a certain time, you can double that, and that will generally lead you where you'll end up. And so, you know, in direct mail, your doubling date is either 10 days or 14 days, depending on what kind of package you're using. Online, your doubling date is literally, you know, four hours. So generally, you know, after what you see in there, four hours, you know, four more hours, that's where you're going to end up. So if you're kicking butt after four hours, you know, or if you're 75% of what you thought you would be, you're probably going to be double. So go. Don't think, oh, I'm only 75% there, so I'm holding back. So you have to understand, you know, kind of your metrics. Every single thing we do in life pretty much can be, you know, the success of that can be determined by a number. Whether it's your health or your bank account, it can be determined by numbers. And the same is true for all your marketing results. So you really need to understand those kind of metrics. And most marketers get enamored with the copy and the excitement and the creativeness, but they work. They don't go into the numbers. And if you don't know your numbers, then you don't. If you don't know, you can't grow.

I wanted to tie that back to what you were talking about. With the five reports that are halfway done are not giving you any money. And then I want to get your opinion on when you've got, say, five similar products. Let's say that these are going to be products for sale. That, that the tendency among entrepreneurs a lot of time is to get the product done, get the initial campaign out. Yes, that worked. And then move on to the next thing, rather than really like, run that as much as it.

As much as it can go right in that situation. It really shouldn't be an either. Or if something works, then you should have someone in your organization who can maximize that campaign while that entrepreneur kind of goes on to that next great thing. Because there will be a fatigue factor at some point. But that's kind of how I always set up companies that basically I have someone who kind of builds and launches a product, then somebody who maximizes that product, you know, and that could be a profit center manager or a product manager, but they're responsible then for kind of that franchise within it. But your product development person or team is the person who kind of goes out there and gets it ready for launch. And those are, again, they're kind of two different skill sets too, especially when you're in a big company that they're very different skill sets at that point, that you have somebody who you want to be very methodical, very organized, going out and hunting down lists and different ways to maximize that campaign, whereas let the creative factor take place over here. Building something new and getting that ready for launch.

Yeah. Joe's got a great analogy of running a relay race. And as entrepreneur, you got to figure out where your leg is. And most of the time we're quick starts and we like taking it out of the starting gate and getting it the first hundred meters. But then you got to have somebody at the 100 meter mark to pass the baton to, or you end up with this big pile of batons at the hundred meter mark.

Exactly. And as you know, you know, unfortunately, a lot of people like to hire people like them. But when you're hiring, you've got to hire people to, you know, to complete your organization, you know, not just like you, because then, like you said, you're going to have a hundred batons in that same spot.

Are you familiar with the Colby Index?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

What are you.

What's your Colby?

Okay, I shouldn't say this to you guys because I am that person who has never, ever taken it for the reason that I think I'm. I'm something. And I don't want to know. I like what I do works. And I don't hear that it doesn't work, you know.

Okay, I gotcha.

Yeah, she has taken the crazy index, though.

Yeah, she has taken the crazy index. She's certified in the crazy index.

Crazy entrepreneur index.

Right, right. I love it.

But what I'll tell you is that I have different people, like, you know what I call my braggable network for different areas of my business kind of my go to people that if I want to talk about ideas or if I want to talk about procedure, if I want to talk about copy, you know, that I can go to. And that's what I said in the very opening, is that I've always been good about associating with the right kind of people.

Your genius network.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I think too many entrepreneurs, you know, deal only deal with people just like them, which doesn't help them build their business. It helps them come up with more ideas that they don't really need to, you know. So you've got to understand the different kinds. Like he's like, you know, I certainly know the Kobe, you know, the Kobe index and what the different kinds of people there are. And I need people in my organization who can see something to prove, you know, through. Right. And that's how I, you know, that's how I hire, because I can do that. I love to brainstorm and I love. But I love to lead. You know, I really do love to lead. And so, and I love to teach. And so I can teach these different kind of, you know, or pick out the people who belong in these four different categories and then help them in their category.

So, Mary Ellen, why do you love marketing? Since this is an I love marketing episode, why do you love marketing?

Because marketing is the thing that makes any company run. Right. I love marketing because I love business. And if you don't have marketing in a business, you don't have a business. And I, you know, Joe, you've heard me say this, that everybody in your company is a marketer. It is the most important thing in a company. And if you've got anybody in an organization who ever says, oh, I can't stand marketing, I can't stand how you guys talk about this and that. You get rid of them. I don't care if it's the accountant, because the accountant's gotta love marketing. They have to recognize that it is the fuel, that is how they are getting paid, because there is marketing in that company.

Yep, you are absolutely right.

And the marketing is just so Exciting because you can break it down into, like I just said before, into your list and your offer and your copy and each one of those things in itself has so many exciting little nuances within it that there's so much to learn and to do. And marketing is always evolving, always evolving and always, always so exciting. But those fundamentals that we know so well, Joe, from 120 years ago still hold true. It's just how you put that twist on it. So it is by far the most creative thing that you can be doing.

You talk a lot about list and that's so important for people. What's your thoughts on accelerating that process with online? Let's say of creating, you know, building your own opt in list or buying lists or what's your best thoughts on list building that?

Well, basically what I love about building lists is that you've got, you know, you've got three ways to do it and then you've got paid ways to do it. And what I've done since, you know, for online always is I love to be able to subsidize all of my paid methods via free, meaning at the end of a day, at the end of a campaign, on that front end, I'm at a break even because yes, I went out and I bought media, but I also did things like article marketing and content syndication and viral PDFs or press releases, you know, and so I understand how to subsidize my paid methods. And I always have a goal, an assumption in mind. So when you have a business, most people will understand that you have a front end of the business and you have a back end. You have somebody getting a customer in the door and then having them buy more from you. So where your profits come in. And that's something I'd like to talk about in a little bit too, the difference between revenue and profit. So for me, you know, I love buying media because I'm a detective, right? I love, you know, dissecting lists, looking at different selects. And so this is what most people don't do. They don't go into a data card and look at selects and what makes sense and opening up your universe. The reason people don't go out and buy a lot of media is because they feel like they don't have a big enough universe. But if they just played that detective role a little bit longer and really looked at a data card which contains, you know, basically tells you what your list is about and really looked at that, you will always be able to find something there. So yes, I love building lists through paid media because when I do this, I can get my recoup, my money generally between 14 to 30 days. That means be back to where I, you know, I was, I was on that front end and now I'm profiting on the, you know, on that customer.

Already and forever or for a long time. Yeah, right now you've built an annuity that you've already broken even on by the time they're 30 days old.

And they pay me over and over. Yes, exactly.

I like that.

So for people out there that do not have a list, you know, I mean this could be a loaded question because, well, what are you selling? Who's your market, what's your solution, that sort of thing. But let's assume that someone has a product, a service, there's definitely a want and a need for it. They just don't quite know how to locate who it should go to, who is the best list, where do they start, what do they do?

Okay, like I said before, you've got to have an asset. You have to have something. So let's just talk about information publishing. An asset would be your content, your intellectual property, your ip, your advice. Right. And so you've got that. So that is worth something. Okay. And so what I would like, you know, if we're going to talk about paid media, you know, I like to see people putting their asset down into a special report, into a video, into something of value and then going out and defining who their ideal customer is, their target market, and looking for those like minded lists that are out there. So there are resources like srds, right? This is a big essentially list of lists, you know, every list you'd ever want. There are other free resources like nextmark that you can go to and do a little keyword research like plug in your niche or your industry and up will come a bunch of lists that you can purchase. Which means that you can go and you can say I'm going to send my free report or a squeeze page for somebody to opt into my free report so that I can start building my list. And again, there will be some marketers who will challenge me on this and I will beat them. Every time that when you are building a list, you always go for an opt in as opposed to a sale. If you're savvy, you've got your sale at the, you know, right after your opt in through your funnel. Right. But you've got to build that list because you don't want to pay for the same names over and over. To see and see a sales letter, something they didn't want the first time around. Okay, so you want to build that list and then you can go ahead and you can start bonding with that list so that maybe the next time they see that sales letter, there's a little bit of trust there and they'll buy your product. But you've already got the name and you know, as you know in the information publishing in any business, your list, your customer list, your prospect are your most valuable asset. The money is in the list. You have got to build a list. But a qualified list. You know, I say this all the time, any monkey can build a list, right? But you've got to build a qualified list of people who are like minded. So you know, that's why, you know, for me, Joe and Dean, you guys know that I think, you know, the Inbox magazine is the best online business model in the world because of that bonding element. And you know, once you've got your list going, you're continually speaking to your people, continually talking and sharing with your, with your customers. They're so much more likely to buy from you because you've been, you know, you're a friend, now you're their friend.

What's your approach to sort of the, you know, calendar or the, I don't want to put words in your mouth. How you approach once you've gone through that first period. Like often people will get an opt in and they put so much emphasis on, you know, the first 21 day their, their gauntlet sequence and then they basically don't ever communicate with them after. If they didn't buy right away then they're kind of, you know, they just maybe send affiliate promotions to them or something. But they never, you know, bond with that list or have any other kind of communication. What's your thought on that?

Oh, it's just such, oh, it's terrible. It's a terrible, terrible thing to do. People need to get to know you, like you and trust you. And so, you know, for me again, that's why I have, we'll use working moms only as an example where they hear from me twice a week, where I give them useful, actionable content free twice a week. So we're building a relationship here. You know, basically what, what you just said, Dean, is that if somebody, if you meet somebody and you ask them to marry you and they say no, they want nothing to do with you. Where this the way I just spoke about, we're building a relationship. We're meeting and now we're building a relationship. So, and because of that, you know, I could attest to my open rates being five times stronger than the average kind of online open rates. I can attest to my clicks and my response rates being so much stronger because of that bonding relationship I have with somebody. So when you do something great, another saying is there's a big difference between doing something and doing something right. So when you treat people correctly, they will buy from you as long as they're targeted to your community. So don't write them off. You know, 21, you know, hell, you know, people might be away for two weeks out of those 21 days. I mean, there's so many things that could be going on.

I don't know if you've heard me talk about this, Mary Ellen, but one of the things that we talked about in this series that has been it's just an instant goldmine for people who have a list that maybe they haven't communicated with that is sending them, we call it the amazing nine word email that revives dead leads. And it's just a short email. I discovered it with our real estate clients. If they hadn't been communicating with a prospect or heard from them, to just go back and send them an email that said, hi, Mary Ellen, are you still looking for a house in Winter Haven? That's it. And that, you know, we've had so many people adopt that just short personal thing to so many different types of situations and always been able to kind of re. Engage with people.

Yes, yes. Because you just asked them a very personal question. They're like, well, yes, of course, I.

Am completely relevant to why they opted in in the first place. That's kind of, I think, where you were going that you got a relevant list that everybody's got. If you control what they opted in for, then you know that they're all at the very genesis, interested in the same thing.

Right, exactly. And that's what most people don't do. They want. Because online they want that immediate gratification. And like I said before, if I'm making back my money in 14 to 30 days, I'm golden. Right. So, you know, and so, you know, but I talk to them, I just don't send them promotions. I'm talking to them and I'm giving. It's, you know, it's that reciprocity that makes a huge difference in response rates.

You know, let me, let me ask you about that too because like, certainly me and Dean are known for giving away so much content. We hear it all the Time, if we're ever at conferences. I can't tell you how many conversations that I've had and that Dean's had where people walked up and said, what you guys give away for free on I love marketing is better than most things that I've ever bought on marketing. Why do you guys do that? What's your angle sort of thing. There's something to be said about. Again, me and Dean know the free line model inside and out. We've been doing this for years. It's just. Is there mistakes in terms of just continually giving, giving, giving, but not having staged asks for offers or putting it out there? Meaning, do people come to have an entitlement attitude in your experience? If you're just giving, giving all the time, and then when you go to offer or sell something, they're thinking, well, they're so used to giving it away, why are you trying to sell me something?

Now?

I kind of know the answer to this, but I want to hear your. Or at least not. I know the answer. I have opinions about the answer. I'd like to get your perspective on that.

This is why I don't want people to wait too long before they go for that sale. Because for me, if somebody has that mentality, you know, they really want to hear my answer. It's kind of like, you know, you go out and you buy a magazine, right? You pay money for that magazine off the newsstand. That magazine is loaded with ads. As a matter of fact, it has about 40% ad to content, you know, ads versus 60% content, right? 40%. And you've just paid anywhere from 3 to 5 to. If you're buying Harvard Business Review, you know, I just spent $17 right on that. Okay, so, you know, my answer is, this is your ad. I'm giving you free, useful, actionable content twice a week. You can opt out if you so choose, but you would be silly to do. So essentially, this is my ad, and I'm doing this because the majority of my community wants it. And I would be doing a disservice to my community by not promoting a product that I can't give you at this point. You know, I'm giving you so much. But again, this is a business. This is a business. And so if I did not, you know, if I didn't supply my community with this kind of product, they would be buying inferior products from somebody else. It is my duty to sell you these products.

Is your philosophy on that to separate the content and the ads? Like, if you're sending two times A week, you're sending them content. Are you in along with that email, are you sending them ads to or are you separating that the communication that you send them is just to get them to buy or just to educate them.

So within my, you know, inbox magazine, within my online newsletter, I will have a small ad. Okay. So the ratio there would be 95% content to an ad within my newsletter. Then I. The rule of thumb that I like to use, for every piece of content you send to someone, you could send up to two separate emails. So if I send two pieces of content a week, I could send four promotional emails. I do not. The most I would send would be two. One to one.

Gotcha.

When you go beyond that two to one, you're really pushing at that point. Okay. And you're just becoming, you know, you're yelling at them now as opposed to talking to them.

Interesting. One of the things that I like to do is in the sort of PS or footer of the email is to include what I call a super signature where you can have, if you've got your core offers that are paid things that you have little, almost like little classifieds for those in every email that you send.

Sure, sure. I put it in what I call my check it out section that I mean.

Right. Exact same kind of thing.

Yeah. It would be silly not to do that because you've got their attention. And also that if you just talked about something, it's generally relevant to that subject there too.

Right.

So they're into it, they want more. And again, like I said, if you have a real relationship with your list, you will be doing them a disservice by not selling them something.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about what you mentioned earlier. Gross versus net profits and your comment. It is a business. And at the end of the day, all of this activity, all of this operating procedures, all of this methodology is designed to accomplish creating a profitable business. I like to think of solving problems for a profit is what we do. A lot of entrepreneurs, if you want to call them that, really don't even put very much emphasis on the fact that all of this stuff is designed to fund your life, build an asset, build something that one day you may be able to sell. It's not. We're not doing this just to do it. I mean, we're doing this to be effective. And being effective has to do with the ability to make and make money.

Right, right, right. So every business for me is all is always about that three P's I like to call it's passion, purpose and profit. Right? So when you marry your passion and your purpose, generally the profits will happen if you do it correctly. Again, doing something and doing something correctly are unfortunately often two different things. So everybody likes to talk about revenue. Well, you don't put revenue in the bank. The only thing you put in the bank are profits. So you have to understand, you know, again, it goes back to the key metrics and your numbers. And most entrepreneurs and most marketing people won't look at a P and L. They won't scrutinize a P and L. So in business, we know you have your fixed cost, you know, you have your variable cost. I like to kind of combine them and say, what are my keep the door open numbers? So that means how much money do I need to make every single day to keep the doors open for my business? So I like to take all my fixed costs, I like to take my variable cost, add them up, and then divide it essentially, you know, you know, added up for the year divided by 365. Because I, you know, I have an on, you know, life, laptop, lifestyle. So it's an online business. I like to divide it by 365 and then I need to know that I need to make, make X amount of money a day. Right now, when I do that, my salary is already in there. And again, another big mistake. Most entrepreneurs do, they start a business and they don't give themselves a salary. So my salary is already included in those fixed costs. Right. Entrepreneurs, you don't take what's left over. You take your salary. Then when you make beyond that dollar per day that you need to, you start banking.

That's pretty interesting.

You're right.

A lot of people don't do that. Talk a little more about that because I think that's, this is like really valuable baseline stuff here.

Right, right. And so like I said, if you're not paying yourself, you know, what's going to happen is you're going to be so disengaged from the business. Right. And if you're not looking at those numbers, you're not going to know what's going on. But when you know that keep the door open number, and now you've made, you know, that first, you know, a month later, you've made $100 a day more than you needed. Now you're able to bank that hundred dollars a day and put it back into your business. Because I'm that kind of person. I don't like to go out there and I don't like to raise money. I like to start businesses basically, you know, on like a shoestring budget. Right. I started business, I don't, I don't owe anybody anything. So I want my business to be self liquidating as soon as possible. The only way to do that is to be extremely disciplined and say, here are all my costs. Too many entrepreneurs have their head in the sand and they don't want to look at their cost because they just can't deal with it. As soon as you know these things, you're so much more empowered to really run your business and then you're not working in your business, you're not a slave to your business at all. Kind of like what I was saying before that I, you know, I don't run working moms only anymore. I supply content. I give it to my profit center manager. She just takes it and she goes, you know, I meet with her once, I meet with her once a week, you know, and that's it. I mean, I don't talk to her every day on the phone. We meet once, we have a standard meeting once a week. Again a kind of another sop of how I run my day and how I do meetings, you know, during the week. So. But you've got to pay yourself. You've got to know all your numbers, know that keep your door open number, you've got to know that number. It's the most important thing in your business. And that means I know, I mean, I know exactly what my hosting bill is, what my infusion bill is, what my, you know, ACCU conference bill is, what, you know, I mean, you know what all my, obviously the salaries I'm paying people, you know, I mean those, I know that number off the top of my head so I can look at sales coming in and say, what the heck or yeah, great.

I love it. You know, there's so much good marketing strategies and stuff on the interview that I did with you. So I do want to put that up as a bonus. We'll put that@ilovemarketing.com for anyone that's listening to this on itunes or elsewhere. One of the things at a recent 25k meeting you had sent over this blanket that you had with these things called the success indicators. You literally had them printed on a blanket. And then there's an iPad case that I'm holding in my hand that you put together. And it's one area, it says successful people. And it's all of the characteristics of a successful person and unsuccessful people. And I wanted to kind of Go over that for successful people. Maybe we can get a picture of this and post it up on ilovemarketing.com or else we can tell people, Mary Ellen, where they can get this. But it's the success indicator by Mary Ellen Tribbey, and it's have a sense of gratitude. These are successful people traits. I won't read all of them, but some of them have a sense of gratitude. Give other people credits for their victories, read every day, want others to succeed, keep a to be list continuously learn, keep a to do project list, exude joy, forgive others. And then those are just some of them. And then the unsuccessful people. Some of these things are criticize, have a sense of entitlement, blame others for their failures, hold a grudge, think they know it all, operate from a transactional perspective, secretly hope others fail, never set goals, hoard information and data, fly by the seat of their pants, things like that. So you've really studied a lot, written a lot about successful and unsuccessful people. So why did you put that together, the success indicator?

I'm so happy you asked this because this is a great marketing lesson after we talk about these kind of characteristics. But really it was from studying different entrepreneurs and noticing the difference in those characteristic traits of successful people versus unsuccessful people. And it really hit me hard when I was having dinner with Steve Wozniak, and he had the biggest sense of gratitude for being able to create technology that brought people so much. He contributed so much to the world, and he was so grateful for that. That. That just like, stood out to me that when I looked at other people that I that were my mentors and who I believed were really successful, they all had that quality. And the same, you know, the same went for victories and responsibilities, you know, that they all like that. They all accepted responsibilities for failure. And you have so many people who said, you know, oh, I've never failed in marketing. And, you know, my response to that either is, you know, is either you're, you're, well, you're about to very soon, or you're lying because you cannot have great success without a certain amount of failure. You know, and that when you look at, you know, failure, you don't look at as you are a failure. You look at it as this project was a failure. You learn from it and you move on, but you accept the responsibility. You learn, you move. And so that was, you know, so when I studied people, these were just the things that really jumped out at me. And it was funny because I originally wrote an issue in Working Moms Only where I had this in a chart and it got so many comments about how they loved the chart that I then put it on an infographic, right? And I sent the infographic out to everybody in the working moms only community as a holiday gift and you wouldn't end up. And this is just kind of like taking an opportunity and running with it. That I sent this out for free to everybody on my list and working moms only, everybody in the community as the holiday gift. And the number of people who called to say or sent an email and said, can I please buy this, you know, as a poster from you? I mean, I just gave it to them free, but they want to buy it as a poster. So I again, I jumped because money loves speed, right? I jumped on this and we set up, we set up an account with Cafe CafePress and we just put it on anything you wanted, you know, and I loved that blanket. You know, I love the blanket. I love the iPad case because, you know, you carry those around with you. So it was a great marketing idea just to get it out. Like people asked for it and we just delivered it so you could put it on a T shirt, a bag, a mug, on anything. But it was just people asked for it, so we delivered it. So really this whole success indicator just evolved and now I'm actually turning it into a program.

That is awesome. I have given Dean a hello Kitty blanket because he has a hello Kitty wallet. We actually both do.

So does my daughter.

Yeah. Well, that's great.

You should be.

I'm a big hit with the 8 year olds. You pull that out at a place where there are eight year olds around and you're going to draw a crowd, I'll tell you that. Right?

So I think now we need to give. Well, how does everyone get one of these things from you or, you know, tattoos or whatever else you have this thing put on?

So you can go to workingmomsonly.com and under the shop tab you can just scroll down and you can print the success indicator out. There's a nice PDF and you can print it out in a poster size in a 8 and a half by 11, 8 and a half by 13, whatever you'd like. Or you can go to CafePress.com and go under CafePress Working MomsOnly and then you can put it on anything. And you know, I have, I have the blanket, the iPad case, the Mac, you know, computer cover, you know, the beach bag. So, you know, it really, it's nice for your brand that you could just Take it anywhere. But it really is a nice reminder too for you that when something happens to see how you react, you know, it kind of it's a night. It's nice to have it with you.

Yeah, totally.

I love it.

You know, I'm sitting there thinking, you know, we need to create some I love marketing we wallets or something.

Dean, that'd be great. I wrote down the same thing that we could get our because we've got mugs and stickers and stuff like that that we've done. But putting it up on CafePress would be an easy way for everybody to get it.

Exactly.

Cool.

Well, look, we are getting close to the time and there's so much more. So here's what I'd like to do. I want to see if Dean has any other burning question, question or anything that he wanted to ask or talk about. And then I want to have you, Mary Ellen, give our listeners just contact info for reading your stuff, finding out more about you, any other final recommendations. And I also want to put our episode, the genius network interview that I did with you, which is freaking awesome and it will add to everything that we discussed here. And as a standalone, it's just a fantastic recording of great entrepreneur, business and marketing advice. We'll put that up as a bonus on ilovemarketing.com so start with you, Dean. Anything else you want to ask, Mary Ellen or anything you want to wrap.

Up, I'd like to hear you summarize, Mary Ellen, your top couple of things that you would take away as action items from what we've talked about.

You know, the biggest thing that I would like people to really get a hold of is understanding the fundamentals of direct response marketing. Because when you understand the fundamentals of direct response marketing, you can put that into any channel, multiple channels, and you will be successful. When you just understand tactics and you're good at a tactic, but you don't understand the fundamentals, it really is like building your dream house on swamp land. But when you understand, you know, the fundamentals of direct response marketing, now you're building a dream house on top of solid foundation that's going to last you forever. And that's how you want your business to be. You don't want your business to be a bunch of tactics that you're always scrambling for the next tactic you really under want. You want. You want to understand those fundamentals.

Yeah, and I must mention this too. You actually took the article branding equals bullshit that I wrote with the question mark and you put it on your you put it on your site?

Yep, I sent it out there. Yeah.

Yeah. And I thank you very much for that. And like on the interview that I did with you before, you know, we did a. We talked about branding and we talked about. About why super bowl ads don't work. And we won't go into deep detail here. It just has to do with. If you're listening and you actually want to make money, it's not just for yourself. Understanding the fundamentals. The other thing is, when you're an entrepreneur, you have a ton of people that are always trying to sell you methods of advertising, marketing, client generation, whatever, that are going to send you down a path that not only will waste your. Your money, but will waste your time. And it will, in a lot of ways be one of the biggest dangers. Simply understanding the fundamentals allows you to not be an advertising victim. It allows you to not only make smart decisions for yourself, but not be influenced by all of the idiots that you will encounter. Because Gary Halbert used to say the most expensive information in the world is bad information. And if you don't understand the fundamentals, you're just. You're open to really being sent down paths that can destroy any likelihood of you having success in business.

Amen.

That's right. So I just stopped right there, Dean.

Because, I mean, it was brilliant.

So, Mary Ellen, where are the. What do you recommend? Either from you, or for even other things that you'd recommend that people do in order to learn the fundamentals and just continue on with what you have shared with us today, which we greatly appreciate. Any of your websites, anything that you recommend, books of yours that people should read, things that are coming out in the future. How do people get more. Mary Ellen?

Sure. Okay, so right now you can go to workingmomsonly.com and sign up there. And I want to put this out there for everybody, that it's working moms only because that's where my advocacy came in. But 30% of our community are men, because men want. Right. Men want solid business lifestyle advice, and they want a better life like working moms. So please don't feel like you have to be a working mom to be a part of our community. Mary Ellen Tribbey is launching in the next month, and at that point, I'll be launching the CEO's Edge, my new Inbox magazine. And you know, I was saying before, my book, Reinventing the Turning youg Dream Business Into a Reality, comes out this September. It's published by Wiley, so it'll be out in September. I do want to tell people that I would like to give people a couple of my very favorite books that really helped me in business and in life. And one of my very, very favorite books is called the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. And I love this book so much. I literally carry it around with me every day. And I think that's another, just another tip, Joe, that I think you probably do all the time, which is I reread when I read something I highlight. And so when I reread, I can go into those highlighted sections, which of course saves me time. And it's really amazing to me how much you get, how much more you get out of a book, the second or, or third or, you know, or how many times you're reading it. So don't just read a book once. I mean, it's, they're so valuable. And if you're like me, like, I read a book every, every week that, you know, I love to go back into it and find something new. So that I would like to share that tip with everyone as well.

Love it. Great book. And you told me about that book a while back and I got it and it's, it's absolutely fantastic.

Good, good.

Well, Dean.

Send us off into the sunset.

Wealthier. Send us off into the sunset. I think get a heaping helpful of all the things that Mary Ellen has shared with us here, go get yourself the full helping everything she's recommended. I appreciate you being here with us. Mary Ellen, always a delight.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much. You're awesome. And everyone listen to give us your comments on Ilove marketing.com Share this Interview with anyone that you think needs to hear it. Also, if you know any working moms, working moms only can change their life. I mean she has really helped thousands of mothers and entrepreneurs just simply be better, more effective. And that's really, really important. You know what, one last thing and I just completely screwed up by saying let's wrap this up. And I'm going to ask you one more thing. What advice, what advice would you give to parents for their children as entrepreneurs, if any, what would you say to parents out there if they really want to do the best job for you? Have children? What would you say?

That is a great question. If you want to do the best job for your kids, teach them about entrepreneurship and starting a business. Now all of my kids understand this and now they want their own businesses and that really is the best career for them that I, you know, my parents, you know, when I was growing up, my parents Said, oh, you could be a nurse or you could be a teacher. You know, both very, very honorable careers. But I wasn't interested in either one of them, even though I liked teaching. But I knew that I wasn't going to make the kind of money that was going to supply me with the kind of life that I wanted. And so now I am able to teach, but by being an entrepreneur. And so really get them started now. I mean, kids today have so much more than we had, and they're so computer savvy. And really having an online business for me, you know, is the best thing that you can do. It's just the best business in the world because you can do it anywhere in the world. And, you know, it doesn't require a lot of employees. You can start by yourself. You can make it as big or as small as you want. So, you know, make sure that your kids understand they have the choice to be anything they want to be. And for me, as a parent, that's the best thing that my kids can say about me is that they know that I believe they can do anything they want to do. So don't limit them. And also the same thing, the one thing I make all of my kids do every single night is read. I mean, and my two. My two girls, I don't have to make them. They love reading. My son now, what I've done with him is I print him things out that I know he's interested in, but I just keep them reading and learning every single day. And every single night, we talk about what they learned that day. So that's awesome.

That is awesome.

Well, you said speed loves money. And if you heard any idea here, go and share it with someone else, too, because that's the best way to integrate it and make it part of your bean and to make sure you use it. So again, thank you so much, Mary Ellen and Dean. You're a funny guy. All right, everyone, give us your comments. Thank you. Talk to you next time.

Bye. Bye, guys.