The One With Craig Ballantyne (Early to Rise) - I love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #45

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 sitting in a nice, comfy hotel room in Atlanta with a very special guest, a very bright, sharp marketer. You may have heard of him, you may have not, but you're going to hear about him right now. His name is Mr. Craig Valentine. Craig, how are you?

Very good, Joe. Thank you very much.

Awesome. If we had a camera in here right now and you could see the positioning of all of us sitting down, you would be very excited.

Nothing unusual. Three guys just sitting in a hotel.

Room, cuddling together, doing an interview. All right, well, first off, we like bringing really innovative, talented people to the Ilove marketing world and sharing with you their capabilities and strategies and methodologies. Today we're going to talk with Craig. Craig Ballantine is creator of a fitness exercise program called Turbulence Training.

They may remember that because we talked about Turbulence Training on the naming episode when we did it from the car. The car cast.

Exactly. Exactly when we were in Toronto. Because Dean lives in Toronto about half the year and Craig actually lives there. And most recently, one of his newest things is he is the editor of earlytorise.com and the cool thing about Craig is the dude is an incredibly good shape. You know, there's a lot of people that we probably have interviewed, not necessarily for I love marketing, but just over the years that we met that sell, you know, ebooks and supplements and stuff, but these are like a bunch of out of shape slobs.

I mean, if I had abs like that, I'd be sitting there with my top off, too.

Yeah. So I don't know.

I can't blame him being here.

Like, this.

Guy likes to take his shirt off.

So we're done talking. Craig.

First off, I only have like two or three shirts.

So who are you?

What do you do? Okay, so I'm just this guy from Canada, and I realized back in 1998 I wanted to sell stuff on the Internet. I originally wanted to work with pro athletes, and then I just got into writing and doing stuff with Men's Health magazine, and I really, really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed being able to reach a lot more people. And I also have more of a holistic view of helping people in more than just the fitness stuff. So that's what I started with. And over time, I really wanted to get into showing other people how to build their businesses and stuff. And eventually Early Rise came along. But I've had that dream of running early to Rise for many, many years. I actually told that to my first business coach in 2006. And I said I wanted to have a business like early to Rise. And literally I said that. And then 2010, I told another one of my current business partner with early to Rise. That's what I wanted to do. And then all of a sudden, this opportunity came up, not just to have a business like early to Rise, but to actually run the business early to Rise. So it was very, very interesting. Almost makes you believe in some of that Law of Attraction.

Secret.

I was sitting in my easy chair thinking, yes, it should just show up.

To the Santa Claus in the sky. Give me the position of editor of early to Rise. Okay, so now what does early to Rise really do? Because actually, a lot of people listening to this may have heard about. I love marketing through early to Rise because you've been nice enough to invite me to be a contributor. And there's some great writers and there's some just great wisdom that shared. And it's done on pretty much what, on a daily basis?

It is a daily basis.

Yeah.

So sometimes we have to get guys like Joe Polish to give us content because it's tough to get stuff out on a daily basis.

When you're in a pinch, you need to see some filler. It's like remnant space.

Right?

Exactly.

Yeah. So we're trying to deliver great content on a daily basis. And it's about time management, productivity, building the life of your dreams, whether it's through simplifying your life or whether it's through building the business that you want that will support the way you want to live and create the lifestyle that you. That you want. So we do do a lot of emphasis on information marketing, but we also try and serve people that have brick and mortar businesses. And, you know, the time management strategy certainly applied to those people. And the general marketing stuff like I Love Marketing applies to, well, every business owner.

Right, right. Yeah. And we'd encourage all of our listeners actually go to early to Rise and subscribe to it because you'll learn a ton of stuff. And it's. It's just like I love marketing. There's a lot of great wisdom that's shared that will help you build your entrepreneurial ventures. So, Craig, you know, why do you love marketing? I mean, this is called I love marketing, but you're clearly a person that has a heavy emphasis and focus and understand the importance of it and you're good at it. So why do you like it or love it?

I guess it all goes Back to what I was trying to do when I started the fitness business, which is I really wanted to help people change. And so I think the best way to help people change is to, you know, convince them that they can do it. And, you know, that's all marketing. I mean, marketing is not just a business thing.

You know, it's.

We see it all around us in the political movements and. And all the stuff that's going on in the world today, whether they know it or not and whether they like it or not, they probably don't like to even think that what they're doing is marketing. I mean, anytime you're trying to persuade somebody to be on your side or to join your cause or even just to, you know, cheer for the same football team that you cheer for, it's marketing. And so really, it comes down to persuading people. And what we do in all my businesses is we try and persuade people that they can do better, they can achieve more, they can have what they want so that they can have a more positive life. And so that's what I get excited about, is being able to use all these techniques and strategies to help them change and to help them make the improvements that they believe, kind of believe they can, but they're very skeptical that they can do it. And so we just come along and we encourage them, Encourage them, and we're just relentless with that, and that's what we do. And, you know, one person once called me an aggressive marketer in the fitness industry, and I would say that's. That's accurate compliment. And. Yeah, right. And I think he meant it as an offhand compliment. And, you know, some people thought it was an insult, but really what it comes down to is I'm not going to give up on somebody. And so if they've gone to the effort of joining an email list or they've watched one of my videos, they've certainly shown a tiny bit of interest. And again, I think it comes down to convincing somebody that they can do it, there's just maybe not enough role models or, you know, there's certainly quite a few good role models in the fitness industry. You know, Biggest Loser has people out there showing them that, look, this person can do it. You know, there's not too many excuses that other people can't do it. So at the end of the day, the bottom line, that's why I really.

Like the marketing aspect of it.

It's kind of interesting. It sounds like your approach is that you really. You care about it more than they do or believe in them more than they do.

I do. I definitely believe in them as much as they do, if not more.

Because a lot of times people, a lot of business owners, I mean, I've been with people who've said, well, you know, they don't. They don't take that really sort of aggressive approach because they say, well, you can't want it more than. And, you know, it just. It struck me that it's almost like it's your job to want it more than they do or believe in them more than they do.

And I think what it comes down to is once you've been in business or once I, you know, you've been doing transformations with people. You've seen people from everything, you know, you know, every single aspect and circumstance, and you've seen them come from the absolute worst position to succeed. So if those people can do it, then that's the message you just want to show other people. And, you know, Dan Kennedy talks about, when you're giving your social proof, you want to cover every single gender, occupation, whatever is within your demographic, and you want to have something. So a person goes to a page and sees someone exactly like them who's done it before. And that's. That's a really big thing.

I've noticed that, too. You must notice that in, like, the health things where they have transformation things, because I always observe the way I respond to things. And you always, you know, I'm always looking for the guy that kind of looks like me in that to see what that transformation, like, it's amazing to me to see, you know, the guys who, who, you know, had a transformation and they lost, like, 20 pounds. And, you know, they went from having a little bit of belly fat to having ripped abs.

But that's not where I was.

I mean, so I'm down 42 pounds now. But I was looking for the guys that were, like, bigger than that, that had a longer way to go.

Yeah. And then, you know, there's some people are looking for the person with three kids, or someone's looking for the person who's just been divorced. Oh, I can't do that.

Four kids. They only had three. Of course they're able to do that.

Well, you know, like, let me ask you about fitness, because you. You've made. Have you always been in great physical shape?

General. I mean. Yeah, as opposed to the average person? I mean, I've gone through ups and downs, you know, you know, the first four months of university or what. That's what we call college in Canada and to university. And so when I was there, I didn't do a lot.

Did you get a degree?

I have a master's degree in exercise physiology. What do you mean by that? You didn't think I had a degree? Really smart. Oh, okay.

From university.

We both feel inadequate because we were both.

No, because I failed operating a small business in a community college. But again, I'm not out there teaching people that require a college degree. You know, as a matter of fact, if I had a college degree in marketing, I'd be inept probably.

Yeah. We're never going to mount anything.

Okay.

So.

No, but my question was about being in good physical shape. Well, the reason I bring that up is that you have maintained, I don't know if you want to call it a discipline or ritual of exercise. And then I think people that are great marketers, like, you know, I'm going to get in asking you about writing because you're great writer and you like to inspire people through writing and you're, you know, that's your, one of the main vehicles, the written word that you use. And I think there is a ritual, a discipline per se, a practice of being a great marketer that I think is very applicable to maybe the same sort of types of behavioral things that need to exist on a consistency basis for exercise.

Oh, absolutely. So transformations. Yeah.

What are, what, what are the things that allow people to be effective? So I mean, you're, you're an expert at teaching people how to more effective with their physical bodies. And at the same time, we're here at I love marketing, wanting to help people be more effective with their marketing. So I'd love to get your perspective on that.

Sure. So just go back to your question before that. Was there ever a time where I wasn't in shape? And so it was those first four months at school where, you know, I stopped exercising as much. I didn't want to go to the gym at university. And so when I got home at Christmas time, I got frustrated with myself. And so that's when I.

The freshman 15. Is that what they call.

Yeah, you know, I didn't, I didn't go all the way to that, but I definitely was in really great shape at the end of high school. And then, you know, first year of school I just got out of habits. And so habits are certainly one of the first places to start. But I think what it really, really, really comes down to in both the transformation side and the business building side. And I was actually just writing about this in an essay this Morning for early rise is planning and preparation. Because if you are trying to lose weight and you don't plan your meals, and so let's say you don't take something for lunch and the next thing you know you're at the pizza place or whatever. And so that's like the major obstacle. And same with writing or, you know, focus on writing or business building, but with writing, you know, setting aside the best time of day for you. And so I call it your magic time. Because there's a time of day where for everybody, they're most creative. You know, there's going to be some arguments about whether someone's more of a night person or an early morning person, but there's going to be that time of day where you can get what I say is two hours of work done in 30 minutes. And you know, for me that is at the ungodly hour of five o'clock in the morning. And I've built my way up to that. But you know, if I tried to do the writing at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, it would literally take me two or three hours to get the same amount and quality of work done that I do first thing in the morning.

And you do it in 30 minutes or you spend two hours.

Well, I'll do about 60 to 90 minutes.

So basically what's happening is kind of like reverse dog ears. He's writing for 90 minutes, but he's cranking out maybe four hours worth of writing.

Right? Somehow that works. And everybody has that, what I call magic time somewhere in their day. You know, for example, our friend Bedros, he can't do work in the morning, but he was just telling me about his daily schedules. In the morning he goes, he does his workout and then he goes and socializes with his staff and catches up with people. And then at one o', clock, that's when he puts the hammer down. That is not the way that I work or too many people that work that way. And then I know other guys. My business partner in a fat loss product, Joel Marion, who will stay up all night and work and you know, he's not an early morning guy, kind of gets going in the afternoon, but it's at night where he does his stuff.

Well, a lot of those fitness dudes, some that you're mentioning listen to, I love marketing and I think kind of compared to you, they're all kind of weak and placid and just not very in good shape. Would you. Is that fair to say?

We call Bedros weak and flaccid just.

For the sake of this podcast, can we. Who do you think?

Oh, yeah. I mean, Bedros is so out of shape.

Do you think you could take him in a fight?

Maybe with some mental trickery, I suppose. Breakdance fighter.

He's a big boy.

He is a big guy.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally. Did he ever tell you about the time someone asked him if he was a ditch digger? No, he was going on a cruise. And so, you know, he's on the cruise and he's a big guy and some guy just walked up and assumed that if you're on this cruise, you clearly paid for it by digging ditches.

Interesting.

Yeah. Wow.

That's funny. A ditch digger.

I'll ask him that when we go downstairs.

You should. Yeah, but. Okay, so I'm sorry for the interruptions, but we're interviewing the last episode, John Benson. We actually talked to John Benson and he was talking about pattern interrupts. So I'm going to try to throw in a couple of them that have no relevance whatsoever to the content.

Mission accomplished.

Yeah. So, okay, let me ask you about. So you call it your magic time in the day.

Yeah, Magic mental time. I think I've kind of got that phrase worked out too.

The mmt.

Yeah. And I discovered mine when I was training people at 6, 7, 8 o' clock in the morning. I was always, you know, I have five minutes between clients and I would try and steal that time away so I could go and write because that's when the ideas were flying to me. And I noticed that, you know, when I was taking the bus or the subway down to the gym in the morning, that I wouldn't want to get off the bus or the subway because I was in the middle of an article. Middle of something. That was great.

Would you just keep going? Would you stay on the.

Sometimes I've actually missed my stop because I was so engrossed in what I was doing. But no, then I forced myself to go and obviously go and help my clients. So I had to help at that time. But then I realized, okay, I have to do something about this. And I just. Eventually some of those clients happened to move, and so I didn't fill up that space. And. And so when I was training people full time in order to make the transition to doing the full time information, I started with Thursday afternoons off and then Tuesday afternoons off, and they got rid of Tuesday mornings and Thursday mornings because that was the time. And so that was how I eventually cut back. But I was trying to open up that mental magic time so that I was able to get so much done.

I want to highlight this too, because what you just said is really important. We mentioned on a recent episode of I Love Marketing that sometimes in the beginning of learning, marketing, developing, having it created, be it. If you're the writer, it doesn't matter what your method of communication is. If it's, you know, writing, if it's video, if it's online, if it's offline, if it's audio, whatever, that sometimes you have to take two steps back in order to go two steps forward. There's the learning stage of even just understanding what marketing is. Then there's the assembling it and putting it together. Then there's the execution, the actually putting it out there, the testing, the going through things, failures. And what you said is, when you're talking about that transition, see what a lot of people that don't have the growth or ever get to a state of really making money or wealth is. They're not. There's that time, the setup period. You know, I don't think, like we were talking the other day, that I don't think there's an episode where we have not mentioned Dan solo. Right?

Mission accomplishment. Yeah, There we go.

Here we go. Dan's gonna owe us now. Basically, he has that great quote where he says, getting results doesn't take time. It's the not getting results that takes up all your time. And there's, you know, there's like this, this he calls it, you'd like. If you want conditions in your life, you know, if you take a blank sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle, on the right side at the top, you put conditions. You know, I want more money, I want this sort of house, I want this sort of lifestyle, I want this types of relationships, you know, I want to be in this sort of physical shape. Well, on the left hand side, if you wrote setup at the top of it, there are. There's all kinds of things that you need to set up, set up in order to get the conditions. Every person, even if they don't use that language, you know, that's what they have to do. In order to be a great marketer, you need to have certain things in place. A sales letter, a video sales, you know, an email, campaign, technology. And what you just talked about is here you were as a personal trainer, you know, your first business, which you needed to continue to do because it's the cash flow that funds, you know, Craig 2.0, if you want to look at it that way, you know, Every human being has something that you do to make money so you can fund this thing. But you said that you, you looked at the times you were training and you were willing to chisel out times in order to make that transition. And the writing in the beginning was a setup. And we had mentioned on again another previous episode, Stephen Pressfield, the author of the War of Art, he says in the beginning of the book, for the writer, it's not the writing that's hard, it's the sitting down to write. I want you to talk about that. And the reason I'm making such a big issue about this is, I swear that is like, it's that, that space between I have this dream, this idea and setting it up and doing the things necessary. And sometimes that means you're willing to put things on hold. And sometimes you literally, that's what you have to change. You have to change what you do throughout the day. You have to adopt another sort of skill set. And, and what you teach people with exercise and nutrition and working out, that's the same sort of thing you have to teach them. And that's why I want to get out of your head as best as you can explaining how the hell does someone go through that, especially when they're just challenged with it, because that's the big obstacle for so many people.

Yeah, okay. All right, well, let me try and answer that. So another thing that I did when I was in that position where I had to train clients at six in the morning was I forced myself to get up at 4:30 again to take advantage of that time. So 4:30 to 5, I would sit there and crank out as much stuff as possible, then get ready for work, catch the subway downtown and go train. And you know what I found is very, very simple thing is true, you want to get the most important thing done as soon as possible in the morning. Most important thing in your day off the top of your list, your to do list done first thing in the morning. And so that goes back to this old story from Andrew Carnegie, who hired this guy, Ivy lee, paid him 25 grand or whatever, apparently the legend goes. And for this one tip of make a to do list the night before in priority sequence and then start that to do list first thing the next day. And don't do anything else until you've checked off the first thing and then don't do anything else until you've checked off the second thing. And so that's the ideal that's obviously very difficult for people to do. So I guess what I've done is kind of combined the woo woo stuff with that to do list. And so I've gone. And it's one thing to say, okay, at nine o' clock I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna write this article. It's another thing to be actually mentally prepared for it because you can say, well, I'm gonna write this article tomorrow at 9 o'. Clock. But then when you wake up and you go and sit down at the computer, you know you have the blank screen. So you need to have the mental preparation. The outline for the, the desk has to be clear of all the junk and all the clutter and all this mental clutter has to be clear. So you have to have that stuff prepared. You can do that the night before. And then another thing is to let your subconscious do the work overnight if you can train yourself to do that. I'm at the point now where I'll wake up and I'll go right to my BlackBerry and I'll write half an article before I even get out of bed in that time where it takes you like you don't want to get out of bed but you don't want to fall back asleep. I forced myself to write at that point.

Do you Write on your BlackBerry?

Yes.

That's a trip.

Well, you know what, it's very interesting because I was watching you earlier do it. You know, you kind of are. You've fast thumbs like that. But I read our song yeah, yeah, with Deepak Chopra that he writes all his books on his BlackBerry.

Really?

Yeah, like he. Because he's constantly on long flights and you know, but he's always got his BlackBerry there and he types, types like that. But you said something earlier that was. I have found that personally the most useful thing is to know what you're going to write before you get to the time that you've blocked off for writing. Because just like you said, if you block off the time but you can't go into that time and then have to wrap your mind around well, what am I going to write? Because you've got all these options and we have video on. I love marketing called the 50 Minute Focus Finder. And it's all about that, about setting aside those blocks of time where you're uninterrupted from the reactive activators, people and telephone and Internet. And you know, I show my evil scheme hatchery and I've got a cork board where I put the writing projects on index card and put them up on the, on the board. So I know in order which ones I'm going to write. So I take one of those tickets and go in. And I know what I'm focused on for that period of time.

That's cool.

You know, going back to the writing on the BlackBerry thing, I actually don't use my phone for phone calls or email.

Just for writing.

Just for writing. So I. So when I was in the seminar this weekend, people think I'm texting and being rude, but I'm actually. That's how I take notes. I don't actually write it on paper because I just.

Well, you're holding it in your hands right now.

That's what we were looking thinking.

This guy's.

He's really busy, a lot of texting.

Didn't care about what we're, you know, saying here.

So. So going back to your Deepak story is the way that I started doing this is when I would ride home from the gym at night, I'd be in the subway. And subway in Toronto at night is just crammed full of people. And so I'd be in the back and I'd be like this, you know, with the BlackBerry right up to my chest, and I'd be writing programs and articles on my BlackBerry instead of in a notepad because you didn't have room to have a notepad.

Wow.

And so that's how I got into this stuff. And then, you know, going back to being prepared for the writing, you have to have the ideas before. And so I've written. I have another blog called Internet independence.com, which is all Internet marketing. And I've written a couple articles on there called How My Brain Works. And so My Brain Works. And there's a lot of commonalities here. You know, people get their ideas in the shower. And so you have to be able to not lose those ideas from when you're in the shower to when you get out, because those are my. Some of my best ideas from my articles. And so those get written down. Like, you have your ideas written down.

You know what Brian Tracy told me? Brian's a friend of mine, and we're having this conversation. He said, you know the reason why people actually get ideas in the shower? Not because he's going to make a joke or something. He's like, well, I have no idea if this is, like, valid.

This is what he told me.

He goes, when there's water coming down, it's producing ozone. And he goes, and so therefore, you have more oxygen going into your brain. So therefore you think clearer. So the actual Physical reason is when the water is, like, hitting your head or whatever, you're in an environment where there's just.

Yeah, but you've also eliminated. You've also eliminated those reactive activators. You're not getting sucked into the Internet. You're not taking phone calls, and there's no people. So you're right there. It's just your thoughts. Yeah, that's what happens.

There is some research, I think, on that, that says, you know, you get your ideas when you go to a park, you know, and it's because you are away from your regular environment. And so that's why coming to these events, you know, in the airport, I'll get more ideas sitting in an airport where I'm not in front of my computer. Well, I am in front of my computer because.

On my lap.

But I mean, you're just in a different environment. And so you are. When you're in the shower, you're just not distracted by that other stuff.

Right, right.

And so I also get a lot of ideas when I'm in the gym. So a little bit caffeine, a good workout. You're gonna get a ton of great ideas. And so that's another place that you.

Oh, that's so funny. Let's just. Let's just answer anyway, because one of.

The things you gotta be prepared to.

The I love marketing podcast calling. What's going on?

And so we'll keep talking, right? A little loud music and caffeine and workout and a shower. And that's where I get my ideas. And then I take those and put them into play with.

Let me build in the phone call just so everyone knows where it's at. So here's the deal. I need it. We're in, like, my room, unfortunately. You know, it's terrible because I had to hide a lot of weird stuff.

But basically I see some of it. You do not it that well.

Why am I on the bed?

No, it was just done.

So I, like, had to call room service. And this hotel is actually very conscientious. She just was calling. I just wanted to make sure your room was clean, you know, so. Well, it was great that it was clean, but it didn't help for the. So I just wanted to kind of highlight it.

So.

Sorry for the interruption, folks.

We're gonna edit it.

You know why? Because you didn't pay enough for us to edit this. This is a free. Just be happy with it.

Just be happy with the new sound quality.

Yeah, yeah. At least make a donation and make a wish or Something, be nice, caring. Because if you don't pay, you don't pay attention. And my concern is, because this is a free podcast, you know, you're really taking the incredible wisdom that Craig is sharing right now and seeing the value.

And that was your pattern interrupt right there.

Exactly. It was planned.

So in the mornings, you've blocked off that time to go and you've, you've patterned that now.

So do you just.

What, do you just roll over, grab your BlackBerry?

Yeah, I do that. So I do that until I can force myself to get out of bed. And then now I just roll over to the computer. And when I'm here in hotels, obviously it's very easy. When I'm at home, I do it until my dog just gets too restless that he needs to go outside. And so that's when I'll stop writing. But I've got that set down sort of about 90 minutes, you know, like kind of the ebb and peg has the, you know, the 90 minute time block. So that's what I do.

Yeah. And for those of you that don't know Evan Pagan, I mean, we've mentioned before, Dean, actually, you're really responsible for Evan's success since you taught in every way. Yeah, I mean, he's well read, everything. But honestly, is he that smart? I mean, anyone can read like 4,000 books and then quote him.

He's done okay. I mean, he's taken the limited, you know, things that have really set him on the right track and really just kind of execute.

You've been like his daddy, I think.

Yeah, kidding.

All right, so, well, let's talk about writing, because you are a very persuasive writer. Now, before we get into that, when I first met you, if you want to call it that, because you're not very talkative guy, and I was like, I couldn't really read you well.

Like, is this guy just talkative I've ever seen him.

But here's the thing. You know, you talk to probably millions of people, I guess, at this point, considering articles that you've read for, I mean, read written for, you know, mental health and early to rise and turbulence training and all that. So you communicate with tons of people. But are you an introvert or an extrovert? Okay, yeah, so, but here's the reason I want to bring this up, because there's a lot of people, you know, I can't sell and be successful because I'm literally, you know, they're afraid to go out and talk. It's very uncomfortable for them. And I think marketing gives introverts the ability to be heard in ways because there are some very quiet people that have incredible wisdom and knowledge to share with the world.

They don't.

Until they learn marketing, they don't know how to convey that to the world. And that's one of the things that I think introverted marketers, you know, have discovered is like, wow, Dan Kennedy.

Exactly.

You.

Yeah, me.

Yeah, exactly.

So what's the difference between selling and marketing, in your opinion? I mean, I have my own definitions of stuff, but like, you know, what's the difference? Because you're not like a guy that going out talking to people and getting knocking on doors and getting rejected and going to networking parties and meeting people. I mean, you're not at events trying to hand out business cards. You're just kind of silently and quietly sometimes sitting back there, taking it all in. But then you, you know, go. You have your magic, you know, focus, time and what's it called? Magic.

Magic Mental.

Time.

Mental.

Let me write that down. So I'm not a dumbass and, you know, misquoted you. Yeah.

It might just be easy to call it magic time.

Yeah, that's something.

Joe has some magic.

I'm a little slow. Get me beyond two words, man, I.

Start getting all squirrely.

So, difference between selling and marketing, in your opinion, is this a test? No, no, just like, how do you look at the difference of it?

I mean, I guess the only.

How would you define marketing?

I think marketing is the innumerable ways that you get your message out there and are in some act of persuasion. I think the only difference between marketing and selling to me is when you actually go and ask somebody to go. Going to buy something. So, you know, this is part marketing. We're not asking about you to buy anything. We're sharing and giving information and we're.

Positioning me as being smarter than Dean, hopefully.

I guess it's not successful marketing, but it's marketing nonetheless.

So in this environment, I'm Batman, he's Robin. That's sort of how the listeners are.

That's how it works.

Yeah, sort of Halloween and stuff. We dress up. It's weird.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. So marketing is just sharing of the message to me, I suppose all the many, many things that you can do and selling is when it actually comes down to making the transaction, getting people to take the action.

Okay, so one of the biggest obstacles I think exists, and tell me if you agree or disagree with this, that exists for people being great marketers is Underestim the value and importance of it. I, you know, like, if you were to go to a business owner and say, hey, you know, if you could name, you know, five things that if you had a huge advantage on, would, you know, allow you to be more successful? Because I've done this a lot. A lot of people never even mention marketing just better products. So I, you know, just that sort of stuff.

Sure, yeah. I would say more customer, more traffic. Yeah, whatever.

However, what many don't realize is that the vehicle of getting that is market. Because I think everything's. I think every department of a company, if you're even in a company with big departments, you know, with many staff and stuff.

Well, every. To me, almost every communications market.

Yeah.

Again, you go back to whether you want somebody to believe in your cause or whether you want somebody to watch a football game with you. You know, you're marketing to that person, they want to do something else, and you want them to go and watch that football game with you. What you're doing is marketing and persuading to do that.

So, like, I think I'm trying to. When I was interviewing a guy named Ted Nicholas years ago for Genius Network, you know, I asked him about copy because he's a copywriter. And you would consider yourself a copywriter?

Sure, yeah.

And, you know, someone goes and reads early to rise, they're going to read some great copy and they're going to see, you know, not only educational stuff that's going to teach you stuff, you're going to see sales pitches. That is persuasive copy. And he said this great line where he's like, copy is the oxygen that allows your marketing to work. And I think an organism without the ability to breathe doesn't exist. And I think without copy, the effectiveness.

Well, you see, it kind of fits too, because the copy is something. What Ted Nicholas was talking about is direct mail. Same thing with email. It's got that in and out kind of thing. You breathe it out and it brings back customers and it's that constant back and forth.

Right, right.

So.

So I want you to kind of maybe go through what are the elements of successful words because, you know, you inspire people through the written word. I asked you before, you know, we started recording, I said, you know what, Craig? Do you really think you do effectively? And you said, you know, I inspire people through the written word. And you do. And I'd like to get, you know, your perspective on. For one, I'd like to our listeners, some are pros, some are brand new at this, to understand the importance of the written word. And then secondly, how do you assemble the right words together? What if someone's not a great writer? You know, I mean, how do you. How do you do this? Sure.

Well, the first thing that I like to do is, or recommend that people do is to kind of put themselves in character and, you know, what approach are they going to take to writing? And I realized that over time, the way I write is almost like the way a preacher preaches. So I consider myself a preacher. And it's because when I was a young kid, my mom made me go to church. So I listened to so many sermons. And from my family background, there is some preachers in there. And so I realized that's the way that I write. It's a lot of the inspirational stuff. I believe that you can do it, and I do. And so, you know, obviously not everyone's going to be like that. You guys are passing notes back and forth in front of me.

You're what we're talking about. You were looking on your BlackBerry. We thought it's only right that we sort of try to look disinterested.

Okay, good. All right. So anyways, so once you've got that character and voice, and that's a real tough thing for a lot of people who aren't comfortable with writing. They don't want to put that voice into it. You know, they just come across as a bit of it's here's the facts and nothing else, and that's the way I speak. So when I do presentations at seminars, because it's not something I enjoy doing. Well, I enjoy doing it, but I am not. I don't enjoy the physical act of speaking. Right. And so I come across as a matter of fact person because I don't want to put that extra effort into doing stuff like what Dan does, where he just basically tells stories. I just want to get this information out. And so a lot of people do that when they're writing because it takes work. I mean, the best way to become a better writer is simply to write. I've been writing emails since 2003, and I literally have a spreadsheet where I've kept the name of every email, how many it was sent to, the open rate and the sales from it. And it's like at 3,700 entries now. So I have this invaluable spreadsheet on my computer that I can go and look and say, hey, this headline here, it worked.

And so that's why this is a perfect.

Yeah, I think this would be a perfect sidebar right now because out of those 3,700, then what would you say in observing it? What would you say the one or two or three things that you've learned that consistently get the best results?

Yeah, great question. So in a real simple, straightforward, factual way or example is, you know, three tips to XYZ and five tips to xyz. But even better to supercharge that one is people want to be told what not to do more than they want to be told what to do. And so for promoting Jeff and Isabel's diet solution program, the best headline ever is the four foods not to eat. And they use that in their ads. We use that in our headlines. Yeah, I'll get a 20% open rate on that compared to a 13 or 15% open rate on anything else I sent out lol yesterday. And that's been really good. So now I'm finding. And you know, Bedros is big on this too, is, you know, what kind of headline would you write to your friend if you were going to write even a subject line in there? And so lol. Hey, you know that type of stuff.

Pedro shared at the I Love Marketing conference, a thing of adding at the bottom of the right under your name sent from my iPhone.

Yeah.

Was an incredible boost.

Yeah, I think Joel Marion might have.

Done that the first time.

And so he's done that.

What are your thoughts on tricking people with those sort of little techniques?

Well, I don't think you're tricking somebody if you tie it into. Oh, with the iPhone one. I don't know. I don't do it. So I mean, whatever. But with the subject line, like the LOL I tied into, the next thing was a picture of me. These three screenshots of me from a workout I'd just done. And I was in a lot of pain from the exercise. And so the three screenshots look like I'm doing some crazy dance because my legs are so sore.

Really?

Yeah. And so lol. I mean, look, I literally laughed out loud at that picture. And I'm sure you will too. And then it went on to a bit more about the workout and that sort of stuff. So that type of stuff is good. I also wrote a series of emails called Personal Notes, and they were literal personal notes. They were inspired by Dan Kennedy's Unfinished Business autobiography, which is a book I highly recommend reading. And I was just about to write an email to my Internet list about this. You know, when you read that book, and if you are Committed to having a personality based business, which is what I have. So this might not apply to everybody, but if you read that book, it's. That book is the writing equivalent of burning the ships. You know, when the old stories about the, whether it's Cortez or whatever army invaded the country, they burned the ship so that they had nothing to go back to. And so a lot of people are just too scared to put any personal information in their writing. And so it just becomes that factual stuff and there's never the connection. But as soon as you are willing to say, you know, here are my flaws, you know, here's everything I've screwed up, then look at the connection that people get. I mean, people want to see that train wreck. And who's the, the biggest, most successful, richest train wreck in the world?

Boy, there's a lot of them. Who is the biggest?

In my opinion, she's not a train wreck now, but her childhood was.

Oh, Oprah.

Yeah, absolutely. And so why do people connect with Oprah? I say, I mean, she obviously has a lot of great people on, but she connects because everybody's seen exactly what we talked about at the start of the podcast, where if that person can do it, I can do it too. If Oprah can come out of that hell, I can come out of that hell. And so that's what I think is really important. When you read Dan's book and he talks about the alcoholism and being bankrupt and stuff, that really inspired me to go and write these personal notes. These personal notes are personal notes. Whenever I put that in a headline, a subject line, I get a much greater open rate and I get feedback from people who I had studied, thought had stopped reading my emails five years ago. And so that type of stuff is very, very valuable to me and very effective. And it also makes writing very, very easy and powerful.

You know, Jeff Walker and I were just talking about that concept of he looked through all of the things that got the most interest or the most attention. Were all the personal things that he was sharing that, that had the most, they got the most attention, the most interest.

Yeah, well, it's funny too, because I start, you know, I never used to talk about, like when I was pretty much like a drug addict when I was, you know, 18 years old. And the fact that I, when I first told that from stage, I can.

Recite the story and you've told it maybe once.

Yeah.

And so sorry to interrupt, but I mean, Dan, whenever Dan does a call on Glazer Kennedy or whenever he tells the story up on stage. He'll even say, you'll forget everything. Except for, you know, this part about how the toughest thing for me is to drive around town and not get a donut. You're gonna forget everything else on this call except for the story.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And people started coming up to me and saying, God, you know, thank you for sharing that. And what it made me realize, you know, I know a lot about, you know, that which is most private or seems most private is most public. You know, that people go through shit in their lives. And I think the more that you're able to reveal yourself, you become human. Because the reality is, if you want to persuade humans, you need to be a human, you need to talk like a human. You know, people. And I didn't come up with this. I just heard it originally from, again, Dan Solman. People don't buy from you because they understand what you do. People buy from me because they feel understood. And if people can have a real human connection, then you just elevated yourself and I mean, when you first started writing, were you good, mediocre, great, or did you just suck?

I was bad in the way that I had a master's degree in exercise physiology. And so I was writing these articles which were actually good for the audience I had at the time, who were.

A lot of people who went to.

School with me or were really hardcore exercise people. And so they're very science based and very factual and with not a lot of humor and not a lot of personal stuff. And so that served me okay for a while. But it wasn't until one of the biggest mentors for me in email writing is Matt Furie. I mean, Matt Fury writes incredible emails, and in a specific way. And so that was very valuable to me, was learning how to write kind of more like his style. And so, I don't know. I mean, it really depends on how you want to classify writing now. Ever since taking over early to Rise, you know, I thought my. My email writing was pretty good. But early to Rise is a complete different animal than the writing I'd done in the past. Because writing I had done in the past wasn't necessarily grammatically correct or had a lot of bullet points and lists and stuff. But early to Rise, as taught to me by Michael Masterson, who we took it over from, he said the best communication is based on the power of one. One idea communicated only. So not like, here are the nine steps of a product launch, which is one of the emails that I sent out to my Internet independence list. But an entire thousand word essay on one topic. And it's taken me three and a half months before I finally just this Friday, wrote an email about the number, the most important list you need in your life, which was a contact list, you know, list of people that you contact. You know, make sure you contact one person from the list every day and follow up with them and add value to them. And I wrote this essay and it really, it has brought me some of the most feedback, that positive feedback that we've had on some of the essays in there, because it was just focused on really drilling down to one topic. So with early to Rise, I'm writing essays as opposed to emails that I write in my fitness business and in the Internet marketing business. So I guess in one way I'm now a better essay writer. And it has taken quite a bit of work to polish them because to write an email, it's kind of like if you have a block of concrete and you're hammering it down into something vaguely resembling a sculpture. But to write an essay now I'm like actually polishing these things, which is difficult for me because I'm a very impatient person. And so I can bang out an email, 500 words, no problem, all day long. But to actually write these essays, I'm actually going through, you know, two or three drafts of these things now. So it's, that's how my writing has changed.

But it's really interesting that, you know, when you talk about like that one topic and going kind of deep on it, that that thousand words that you've written has legs now and life for a long time.

Right? And the big thing is that I've noticed from, you know, we're part of the Agora system now with early to Rise, is that when you write something like that, then it can become something that can be published in other email newsletters. And if you just write an email that has all these different topics and it's all over the place, you can't get that republished. And it doesn't have, like you said, the legs that then gets new readers into your business. So there's a lot of value to be said to having that essay. And so if someone was doing an email business and wanted to incorporate this, then I would say, well, maybe try and write one really good essay every week in addition to your emails. And then that way that essay can, like you said, have the legs that we get more search engine optimization because it's longer. And that's what Google wants now. And then also it will be the Thing that could actually spread. And it also is much more powerful in promoting your mission and your vision.

Yeah, especially, you know, you think about it, for all of our. The businesses, all the people who are listening, it's. There's probably, you know, 10 different essays that they could write for their business that would be very valuable for them. Do you have any sort of categories or things that you think might be.

Well, what I teach, you know, some of the clients that we have in our fitness info business is I teach, I recommend that they come up with what I call a blog post of a lifetime. Like, if you just had to. If, you know, if you could just write one blog post for the rest of your life and you wanted to get your most important message in there, write that thing, that should be the very first post you come up with for your blog. It's like the keystone blog post. You know, like, Tim Ferriss is a great example of having a lot of blog posts of a lifetime in one location. And so that is like your stump speech, what, you know, Dan calls a stump speech, which is. That's the speech you go around and give on tour. And I think it's really important to have that message. And I'm highly influenced by this guy, Bill Bonner, who runs Agora and writes Daily Reckoning. And if you read, he writes an essay every day. That man is such a prolific writer. I mean, he makes me look like a guy who puts out ten words a week. But, you know, and.

And if he writes a thousand words.

A day, every man, you must be 2000 words a day with all this stuff. But, I mean, if you read the one today, it wouldn't be that much different than the one 17 days ago. It's always kind of on the same themes and stuff. But really we do need that repetition in order to understand what he understands and. And to be. I hate this word, but indoctrinated into the belief that that business has. And so a lot of people want to be writing on all these different things all the time, but there is a lot of value in having a one main message because there's so many messages out there that have a one.

Diamond that you're constantly polishing and taking the different facets of it. It really then starts to shine when you've got all those different perspectives on it on the same theme.

Well, first off, I love the blog post of a lifetime. I think everyone listening took that as a very serious, like, exercise, a goal to actually do that, and just sat down and created it and started knocking it out and put yourself into a new, I mean as quickly as someone you know to speak to. Evan Pagan, you know, his whole concept of speed of implementation. You know, if you really want to get something out of any sort of learning situation and get value out of it, you know, the quicker you can take the idea to actually doing it, your chances of success are going to go up exponentially. And this is one of those elegant ideas that I think everyone listening, block it in your calendar right now. If you can do it today, do it and at least start on it. Sure. And go from there. Well, we've just got a few minutes left. And so one of the things, things I'd like to do and I do want to actually give people some websites to go out. So if someone wants to get any of your materials on exercise and fitness or start reading early rise, we'll mention that at the end. Just any final words of advice that you would have for people that are great marketers already and want to become better and people that are new to this. What are just some of the either fundamentals to do's or mistakes that would get in the way of them multiplying, building and growing their entrepreneurial ventures.

Okay, so I think first of all one, you just have to be doing stuff. You have to be testing, you have to be practicing. If you want to be a good writer, you just have to write your brains out. I mean that's what writers do. They sit down, they force themselves to write, read the the War of Art to see what a writer goes through. And then just in terms of marketing, testing, testing, testing, doing stuff, you know, getting stuff out there as quickly as possible, taking action. I just wrote about this in one of my emails the other day is like I was here on Wednesday for a pre seminar event with Dan for this opportunity marketing thing that I was at his seminar was a bonus seminar here. And I asked a stupid question. Well not, it wasn't a stupid question, but I had some stupid replies to his questions in this Q and A session. And it made me look like a bit of a dummy. But just by doing that, you know, in my opinion I looked like a dummy, but in the opinion of other people that were in the room all of a sudden now I was a guru at this information that Dan gave me. Just because I was bold enough to ask a question, I was bold enough to take action. And you know, because 90% of the people in the room had questions but were too scared to ask them. And so they were asking me the questions after because they were saying, oh, that was a question I was going to ask too. I'm really glad you asked it. So all you have to do is just do something. You know, Dan says, be somebody, be somewhere, do something. And it's very, very valuable information. So just practice, test and pick your mentors and learn from them. Not a lot. Just, you know, figure out which ones you want to model their businesses after. And for me, it's Bill Bonner and Dan because they're, they're guys who just write a lot. And I would love to create a business just by writing. So that's what I do. And so, you know, you might see product launches and stuff and think they're the greatest thing is since sliced bread. But, you know, for me personally, I just don't have the personality to do it. So I don't even try and do it. I partner with people who do that type of stuff. But you pick the thing that you're really, really good at, you leverage the process that you're going to be an expert at, and somehow you build your business out of that. So that's the one thing. The last thing I want to say is the most popular post that I've ever written on early to Rise is something called the 12 rules that I Live By. And so I believe that everybody should have what I call personal philosophies. And this ties into both fat loss and to living your life. And I came up with the first for the transformation people because, you know, if you're in a transformation contest and you're going to lose the most weight in the next 90 days, then you have to have philosophies like, I don't go to the donut store with everybody at 10 o'.

Clock.

That's just a rule. I do not break that rule. And so I came up with all these rules and philosophies for people that were in the fat loss one. And then I realized, well, I should have one for my own life. And so I came up. There's 12 rules that I live by and I try and stick them every day. Obviously you're not always going to stick within the rules, but they should govern how you're going to live, what kind of schedule you're going to keep, who you're going to hang around with. And you make these rules for your life. And then it makes living so much easier. Because if you have a rule, for example, one of mine is, I don't drink caffeine after one o' clock and I don't drink alcohol three hours before bedtime. So I just follow those rules and then it just eliminates stress so I don't have to think about should I have a beer or should I not have a beer at 10 o' clock at night? Well, here's my rule. And you know, 99% of the time I'm gonna follow that rule and it's gonna serve me well because I'm gonna sleep better and I'm gonna be able to get up tomorrow morning and work and write and get all this stuff done. And you know, another one of my rules is I do not argue with people on the Internet. You know, if somebody is upset with me, I right the wrong. If I can control it and then I move on. And there's, there's no more time spent debating somebody. I just move on. And so that saves me time and allows me to have my head clear for more important stuff. So that you'll find that blog post on earlytorise.com, the 12 rules of it.

Similar to I know I'm being successful when.

Yeah, yeah, let's put that link to.

Those of you that listen to his.

12 Rules to Live by. We'll put the link so you can read Craig's article on Early Rise and we'll put a couple links to the articles that they've been put in there so far from me. And we just have one who we're actually going to do an episode with here, one of the sexiest people, at least in the room, which is Mr. Ryan Dice. So, Ryan, you're going to be on a future episode here, so we might as well give everyone a teaser. What are you going to share? Because I can't imagine you're even going to be able to compete with Craig Valentine here.

I didn't know I was even going to be talking. So, Diane, there's no way I can compete with that, certainly from a sexiness perspective. No, I'm just talking about kind of the. I obviously sell stuff on the Internet, right? So I'm going to be talking about kind of the criteria that, that I use when selecting that because I think that's where a lot of people go wrong. And really kind of my number one big kind of tie together business goal. Anytime I go into a new market, the one thing that I look to do that if I can do that, I know for a fact I'm going to win. And if I can't, I'm pretty much hosed.

So that's awesome. So that's a cliffhanger for you.

That's what you call cliffhanger.

Mr. Ryan Dice. Okay, so, Craig. So people obviously can go to earlytorise.com Also, one thing that I think is really cool about some of the stuff you put out there, a lot of people that listen are speakers, and they're authors, and they travel a lot. You've put together complete workouts on literally, how to train in a hotel room, what to do when you're on the road, and also obviously, what to do in all aspects. So how do they get some of your fitness materials?

Sure. I think the best way to do it would be to start just by going to my Facebook page. Turbulencetrainingfanpage.com no, I'm just positioning you to.

Get closer to the mic.

Yeah, that's what I thought. So. Turbulencetrainingfanpage.com and there. That's kind of like the best little community we got going on right now. And then we can direct people to the right stuff, and whether they want to watch the YouTube videos or they want to get the turbulence training workouts and body weight, whatever set them up. So I'm so less passionate about that stuff right now than I am about the early stuff.

But then the beauty is you wrote it when you were passionate.

Oh, I'm still really passionate about it, but. But I'm all about the early to rise thing right now.

Yeah, no, that's awesome.

Thanks for stopping by.

You know what, dude? Yeah, this was great. There was some.

You can bring your shirt back on now.

Yeah, well, anytime you get invited to Joe Polish's hotel room, don't say no.

Yeah, yeah. That's why Ryan's here.

I mean, you know, this is the second time I've been in a hotel room with you two guys.

It's pretty scary.

It's pretty scary.

That's right.

It's a Hazelton. Yeah.

Awesome. All right, well, everyone, thank you for listening to to our episode of I Love Marketing. If you're on itunes, then go to the website ilovemarketing. Com so you can actually read Craig's article and put any other materials up there. And please leave us your comments. Thank you, Craig.

Hey, happy to help.

Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Dean. You're sexy. Thanks, Jeff.