The School of Greatness featuring Joe Polish - I Love Marketing Episode #246

Hey everyone, this is Joe Polish. And what you're about to hear is a bonus episode that is featuring me. My good buddy Lewis Howells came into Phoenix and he interviewed me for his podcast. And it was a really great interview and got such a good reception from his listeners of his podcast that we decided to put it out as a bonus episode for I Love Marketing. So listen to it and I hope you enjoy it and, and have yourself a wonderful day.

I'm Dean Jackson, he's Joe Polish, and.

This is the I Love Marketing podcast. Foreign.

Lewis Howes here. Welcome to the school of Greatness podcast. I got my man, Joe Polish.

What's happening, man?

In his house. Good to have you here in his house. This is Genius Network.

This is the headquarters. This is our office building. It's 11, 000 square feet. It's pretty cool. It's really nice. A lot of awesome people come here.

Really cool bathroom for the men. So if you ever come visit, go check out the men's stall.

Yeah, we got a special urinal in there. We do.

It's really nice.

Yeah, it's funny.

And Joe is one of the top marketing guys in the world and he knows everyone. He knows all the biggest leaders, influencers. And you teach marketing. You've been teaching marketing for years. Over 20, 30 years.

Right now. Well, since 1990 is when I first got kind of in business. In 1992 is when I first learned direct response. And that changed my life because prior to that, I was a dead broke carpet cleaner, living off credit cards, working hard, struggling, doing a good job, operating with integrity, really cared. But there's no relationship between being good and getting paid. And so until you actually learn how to sell what it is that you're offer, whatever it is, service business, Internet business, being an author, speaker, doctor, it doesn't matter. You're in the marketing business. And in the marketing business, you're in really the relationship business. You can either be a transaction marketer or you can be a relationship marketer. As you know, there's always more money in relationships. I mean, we're sitting here right now. This is being beamed live through this thing called the Internet. Whatever. Because I started doing marketing before the Internet existed. I mean, I had my first website in 1996. It's pretty funny. People can even find it when they go those archive sites and they can see my funny. But yeah, I mean, I learned how to connect with people as a method of not only having a career, but that's how you function better in life. And I grew up Incredibly shy, incredibly introverted. So I'm kind of like a introvert that learned how to talk to people. Because if you don't, nothing happens.

Right. How important is it to be a master at marketing in general, whether you have a business or not? How important is marketing? And what's the difference between marketing and sales for people that don't know?

Okay, well, it's critical. I mean, I think marketing is the most important thing. Just like hold your breath for three minutes and see how well you do. Hold it for five minutes, hold it for 10 minutes. You can't, you'll die. Marketing is like that for business. If people's businesses are struggling, if their missions. And this is not just business entrepreneur, this is every area of your life. I mean, if you have a partner, you did some sort of marketing, there's something you did to meet the person, position yourself. So to answer the question, selling is what you do when you're on the phone or face to face with somebody. Marketing is what you do to get someone on the phone or face to face with you so that they're properly positioned. So the word positioning is really critical. So by the time that they actually talk with you or visit your store or go to your website or see you speak, they're pre interested, pre motivated, pre qualified, and pre to do business with you. And I've said that a million times, and I drilled that into my head. It's all about pre interested, pre motivated, pre qualified, predisposed. And if people are set up that way, the whole job of selling is much easier. Frankly, if you have to rely on talking someone into something, then you just aren't doing any marketing. My buddy Dean Jackson, he says that a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. And let's talk about something that's going on right now. Politics. Okay? A lot of people, what do you think of Trump? What do you think of Hillary? What do you think of all the different candidates? And love or hate Trump? Trump is compelling. He's compelling. Every other candidate is trying to convince they're boring. And so, I mean, even if you don't follow politics, the thing is, if you just look at that as going, why does people. The funny thing is people that don't like Trump, they're like, how is this happening? Why? This makes no sense.

They're giving him more attention than the people they do like.

Right, Exactly.

People that don't like him are talking about him more than the people they do like.

And he's a master of communication. So selling, think of selling is influence. And think of marketing as storytelling. And if you're more influential personally or in business, you're going to get more of what you want. If you tell a better story, people are going to understand more about what you have and you're going to enroll people. So your entire life is. You're going to do marketing your entire life. You're going to be selling your entire life. Everything that I say, everything you say is designed to either attract or. And so if someone's out there not having success with their business, either they have a very boring product or service or they have a very boring way of communicating about the product or service. And rarely is any product or service boring. It's usually the way it's communication.

Totally.

It's all about communication.

So how does someone starting out who has no marketing experience. What are some of the key principles, too? Okay, I've got this product or service. I'm putting it out online or brick and mortar, but I know nothing about marketing. Or maybe they think they know nothing about marketing. What are some of the key principles to get them started?

Okay, well, it's a good question. First thing to do is, if you don't have enough business, you probably have plenty of time. So spend that time learning. I mean, every one of us, you included, I mean, we have had to learn this knowledge of how to do webinars or how to do videos or how to do podcasts or how to write courses and write books and sales letters and run events and, you know, whatever. We weren't just born with the knowledge. Like anything else, you have to learn it. So there's three ways that you can learn. You can learn through the school of hard knocks and get yourself bloodied and beaten up. You can learn through the experiences of other people. You read their books, you go to their seminars, you invest in their courses. And the most effective way to learn is you actually teach it to other people. So once you learn something, like my buddy Evan Pagan says, speed of implementation. As soon as you hear an idea, the quicker you can put it into practice, the more likely it's going to become ingrained and it's going to become part of your behavior. And so this is a behavioral change. It's not just having knowledge. There's certain. Like a strategy or a business plan or a business is a series of to dos done in a certain order that produce a certain result. Everything in life is a strategy. If your life is working, there are certain things you do in a certain way that make it work. If your Life isn't working. There are certain things you're doing that are making it not work. So as it comes to marketing, the first thing to understand is that the distinction between selling and marketing. If you think marketing is like just a brand or a logo, I would encourage you to think differently. Less about the way your company looks and more about the substance of what you're doing for the client. What is the value that you're actually delivering? Even if you're selling something that isn't life changing, like a comedy club, how do you tell the story about the comedy club? The number one thing that I say to people, if you think of it this way, if you have something to sell, write a sales letter. Because a great salesperson is limited by the clock. You can only talk to so many people in a given. The first guy I learned marketing from was a guy named Gary Halbert, who became a dear friend of mine. He passed away about a decade ago, but just a brilliant copywriter. What I learned with copy is copy are the words. Words are what sell and your ability to can and clone yourself. So sit down and write a sales letter. If you do not have a written sales letter, I mean handwrite it. It's not about technology. Even Steve jobs said in 1997 at the Worldwide Developers Conference, he said we first with the psychology, not the technology. That's why Apple did so well, because he really thought about the customer experience, not about the tech. And so many tech companies that swear up and down they had better stuff than Apple, it was just packaged in a way. It's elegantly packaged. And if you look at all of Steve Jobs keynotes in the Apple stores and the genius bars, it was all about education based marketing. So my first thing that I used in my carpet cleaning business, I'll give you an example. Everyone in that industry, we're still the largest training organization in the world for cleaners and restorers. I don't run much of it anymore, but I have someone that does. I still own it. We have thousands of carpet and upholstery cleaners all over the world now. People will be like, well that's not my business. How does that apply to me? If you have to figure out how to successfully sell something nobody wants to buy, it forces you to learn a lot about marketing. So I had like, how do you position something that nobody even really wants to do? It's like they have carpet and it got dirty or a cat pissed on it or whatever. Now I have to deal with it. It's the necessary evil of Owning the stuff, no one likes it. But I had to learn how to sell other than price. So one of the first things I did was education based marketing. And I learned one of the most effective ways to sell something is to simply educate people on how to make a buying decision. Because the number one question in all consumers minds is who can I trust? Your job as a business owner, your job as a marketer is to establish trust and rapport. We both have a buddy, Neil Strauss, and Neil, who's really become a better human being over the last decade. He's really done a lot of work on himself. He's a good friend of mine and he wrote a book called the Game years ago and he talked about building rapport, which is trust with comfort. When you're selling something to a consumer, you've heard every marketer say know like and trust, but those are really good words you want people to know like and trust you. And if they have no relationship with you and you haven't bonded with them and they don't know anything about you, why should they trust you? And so the reason people trust, quote, unquote brands is because there's familiarity. You know, there's a lot of fast food companies, which people should never put any of that crap into their throats. And then you take the largest, you know, brand on the planet, which is like Coca Cola, which is basically, you know, sugar water, and it's not healthy, but it's the, it's the biggest brand. Now our people, they, they know what they're going to get though. And so if you're a small business owner, you're not a big company, you don't have billions of dollars in decades to develop a brand. So focus on how to develop rapport based on the benefits of what makes you so special, and write a sales letter, like literally get people to know who you are. So to give an example so that people can have some real substance here, that if they get this. And I know I'm talking fast, but I know you have to hop to the air. Literally we're just jamming all this in. One of the things that I did was I created everyone was advertising price. And I said I want to advertise something other than price. And, and so I paid a copywriter $1,800 when I didn't even have the money. But I knew that if my personal time could be replicated, if I could canon clone me, I could talk to a lot more people and it would be a really good investment. So I've never had any issue with telling people to invest in books and courses. That's how this works. And if you're unwilling to do that and say you don't have any money. Look, I mean, I've one of the top marketing podcasts on itunes.

Go listen to it for free.

Yeah, I mean, what I'm describing right now is what we're doing, right, which is education based marketing. You're giving people really perspectives, strategies, mindsets, methodologies, processes, ways to think about it. When you do your podcast, you're sharing your success. You're bringing other experts. They may not be experts at all and all. An expert is someone that knows a little bit more about one subject than you do. Anyone could call themselves an expert. There's a lot of people that call themselves experts that are dumbasses and there's a lot of people that don't call themselves experts that are brilliant. They just have enormous knowledge. One of the first things I did was I created a consumer awareness guide and it was how to sell carpet cleaning. Think about it. Something as boring as this consumer guide to carpet cleaning. Read this guide and discover eight mistakes to avoid when choosing a carpet cleaner. Seven questions to ask a carpet cleaner before invite them into your home. Six costly misconceptions about carpet cleaning. Crawling critters and crud. A guide to the slime, grime and livestock that's seeping, creeping and galloping through your carpet. How to avoid 4 Carpet Cleaning RIP offs. Which method cleans best? The importance of value and price and how to get your carpet cleaner to 100% guarantee they're worth. Now what I just described there is a template. It's a recipe. So if you're a web designer. Eight mistakes to avoid when choosing a web designer. Six questions to ask how to avoid getting ripped off by website design. If you're a chiropractor, if you're a personal trainer, if you're a speaker. I mean, it's a template. So it is a formulaic method of describing things that people don't know, that they don't know. If all they thought is, I have a dirty carpet, how do I hire a carpet cleaner? What's the lowest price? When people call up and say how much you charge, the reason they ask that is they have no other way to make a buying decision. So if you're, if you don't have a method and a criteria for how to sell what you're selling, you're at the mercy of the consumer system for buying, which is always price. And so people always default to Price. And if you want to know if someone's not doing a very good job of positioning and marketing themselves, it's when they're getting a lot of people asking them how much you charge. Now, eventually we all want to know how much this shit costs. Like, if I'm going to buy one of your courses or if I'm going to hire you to be a speaker or whatever. I need to know, what does it cost? But if, you know, my buddy Richard Branson actually sent me an email saying, I saw this guy speak, and he's awesome.

That's why it's more irrelevant.

Totally. Exactly. So in many cases, you don't want people that are asking you a bunch of questions. You want to answer all of the objections, all of the questions, all the fears, everything, as much as you can in advance with your copy, with your video. So when I say sales letter, a sales letter could be a podcast, it could be a video on YouTube, it could be a video sales letter, it could be a webinar, it could be a live presentation. I mean, the only time I ever actually sell face to face is usually when I'm in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people. I mean, last year I did a presentation to 5,000 people and I made a sales presentation, but it was still. But like, I could have said the same thing to one person, but it was infinitely more effective when there were 5,000 people, you know, so that's the way in. The same thing with the podcast. I mean, how many millions of people have downloaded your stuff? My stuff. I mean, and so we just educate people, and by doing that, you're creating value. Now. I know I'm rambling. No, it's good.

We've got like three minutes left, so I want to ask you a couple questions. If someone could invest in design or copy and no design, which one should they put their first efforts into?

Oh, definitely the words. Because you'll see the term that a picture is worth a thousand words, a mental picture is worth 10,000 words. Writing the picture. Yeah, you literally tell the story. And then if you're ever going to use animation, you're ever going to use photos, you're going to use logos, you're going to use design. You want that to enhance the copy. You want the copy to enhance it. It's all dances together. All of this is simply about alignment for people out there. Just literally create. Answer the questions that people don't know that they don't know, and give them that information in advance. Because since you're the one that is providing that to them, who do you think they're going to trust? If someone is thinking like, I want to buy this car and you're a car dealer, that literally tells them all of the things you need to know about the car and how to buy that car, how to not get ripped off by a salesperson, who do you think they're going to trust to go sell them the car? This is so counterintuitive. It seems like, oh, I can't tell my prospects because all my competitors are going to see it. One of the things I created was a 24 hour free recorded message. Now everyone's so gung ho about the Internet. I love direct mail and everyone carries a phone. We have phones right here on Periscope. This is being shown live. The thing with phones is I have a carpet cleaner who recently bought one of our marketing programs. And one of the strategies is use a 24 hour free recorded message that says on the back of their van warning, don't call any carpet cleaner until you listen to this free recorded message. Call anytime, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Learn how to avoid four carpet cleaning rip offs. Seven questions asked before you hire a carpet cleaner. People are driving and following this cleaner. This person spent a few thousand dollars having beautiful design color like families, baby crawling on the carpet, carpet wand all over the van like five years ago buys our marketing program. Simple thing, put van lettering warning, don't call me carpet cleaner. Free recorded message. 10 minute recording on how to choose a carpet cleaner. Calls us up after two months. Well, sends us a letter two months after this saying I've gotten more jobs and more calls in the last two months than I've gotten in five years because of the offer. Every person watching this have a free recorded message. Put it on your business card. Instead of handing out a business card that says name, rank, serial number, hand out business card that says, yeah, if you want to learn about my clothing design business, if you want to learn about my chiropractic services, call this 24 hour free recorded message. And that free recorded message will educate people 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's robotic marketing. That's what I call ELF marketing. Easy, lucrative and fun. You can have an elf business or you can have a half business, which is hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. So I try to strive to make my marketing elf, my relationships elf, and even the people I hang out with my whole life is like, is this elf? Nothing is elf. Immediately you have to learn stuff. You have to go through the works, you know, you have to learn. But if you. But life should not be a struggle. You get to a point where, like, you learn a skill, you apply it, and you automate it. And so, I mean, you're using technology to do that. That's why, I mean, look at your book. Bestseller. Look at how many people listen to you. I mean, you're doing robotic things. So think about how to automate your communications, your business, and utilize technology. But understand that biology is critical, but psychology is the most important. I love this.

Okay, we gotta wrap it up. Two final things. Can we use your template? Can we give them your template for the resource guide?

Yeah. Yeah.

Is that online somewhere?

Can we link it somewhere? I can give you a couple of things that people can utilize to actually think through. Here's what I'll do. Actually, we have a thing called a consumer guide generator, and literally, it comes in my Nightingale Conant program, which sells on Audible. And people, you usually have to pay for this. I will give it to you so you can share it with people. And all I ask is, don't sell it. Just use it in your own business and then share with, like, Louis, you know, and I think it'll be incredibly useful to you.

We'll have that linked up. I'll tell you guys where to go in a second. The best book. If someone's like, okay, I understand the importance of using words and telling stories and copywriting. If you can only have one book to go buy and read to learn how to become a better copywriter, you recommend. I know there's hundreds, but for the beginner, the intermediate, or the advanced, what would that book be?

You know, my buddy Dan Kennedy wrote a book years ago, which is one of his older books called the Ultimate Sales Letter. And it's just a great book, and it's written probably 25 years ago. He's got a lot more current stuff. Listen to my interview with him on my podcast that I love. Marketing is good. But that's just a great book.

It's relevant today.

Absolutely relevant today. It's timeless. Totally timeless. It'll get you. And then I have to give one other recommendation. My buddy is not on copyright, but just a great book book. I've read over a thousand books. We're sitting in this. There's 2,200 books in this room. But my buddy Steven Pressfield wrote a book called the War of Art, and it's just a great book. I just love that book.

Okay, cool. Final two questions. Three questions.

Sorry.

What are you most grateful for? Recently in your life?

Oh, my girlfriend who I met the other night. She's amazing, she's wonderful, she supports me. My life has been kind of up and down. I've had, in spite of what many people consider success, I've had a lot of struggles because I was a horrible drug addict when I was between 16, 18 years old and struggled with addiction my entire life. So I'm grateful for so many of the people that have been supportive in that arena. And she's wonderful. And my team, I've got a great team here at my company.

It's your last day. Many years down the line, everything you've ever created has been erased and all your friends and family are there sitting by you, loving you. It's all good. You're pain free, but you're about to go to sleep and it's your last night and they ask you. We have nothing to remember you by except for our memories. But all your work is deleted. Here's a piece of paper and a pen. Can you write down three truths that you know to be true about your entire life experience? Something you'd pass on as a guide.

For us to live by?

Three truths.

Okay. Well, I would say life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. So always be a giver. Really focus on encouraging others and encouraging yourself and reduce human suffering just as much as you can. People go through the world with a lot of pain and a lot of agony and you could alleviate a lot of that and by being a contributing individual. And I think a lot of people give a bullshit thing about how nice they are and how kind they are. Look, I mean, I have a lot of my own self interest. I want to make money, I want to build a business. However, the thing that truly you can make all the money in the world, but if you don't have people that respect you and appreciate you and that you can make their life easier, so put a smile on people's face and so reduce suffering. So I always focus less on how do I sell something to somebody or where's the pain points in their life that whatever it is that I'm selling or whatever it is that I'm doing is going to reduce suffering. Because if I can take that pain away, the people that will make the most money and make the most progress in the future with this complex, overwhelming world that we live in. When I say overwhelming, I mean information. So many choices, so much opportunity poisoning are the ones that bring simplicity to the complexity that exists in people's lives. So it's not just reduced physical suffering. It's about reducing mental suffering. And that's why I'm putting a documentary together on addiction. I mean, I really want to just help addicts. And the way you do that is these are traumatized people in pain and how do you, you know, how do you help them? So, yeah, those probably longer answers. Good. I like it.

Final question before I do ask it. Where should we send people to check it out? Ilove marketing.com the podcast. Right.

Well, everything is listed@joe polish.com my name, Joe Polish. If you just. If you just do that, you can find Genius Network and my podcast and all that stuff. I appreciate it.

Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Joe, for how you lift everyone up around you. You're such an incredible connector. And every time I talk to people who are in Genius Network, which I know I'm going to be joining soon, they always say that he's so giving. You say life gives to the giver, takes from the taker, that you're always so giving. So I want to acknowledge you for your service, for your ability to give freely without being afraid of not getting the credit, without being afraid of not getting the opportunity yourself if you're giving it to someone else. And I think it's incredible that you bring so many people together in an inspiring, positive way to help lift everyone else up around you. You make stars around you. So I want to acknowledge you for that.

Thank you.

Yes.

I mean, I appreciate it and it makes me happy to do that.

Yes. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

Definition of greatness is when you have true respect and admiration. Not ego, but true love of yourself. Greatness is like, can you truly love yourself? Do you love the vessel that you're in? Have you taken care of it? One of my favorite sayings, my buddy Christian, CEO of HeroX, said it's a proverb. He who has their health has a thousand dreams. He who does not have their health has only one. If you really respect yourself, my ambitions, my ability to build a business, my ability to talk to you right now has to do with the fact that I'm not laid up in a hospital bed. I can still function. And you cannot take that for. Well, I guess you could take it for granted, but if you do, you're going to live a miserable life. If you don't take that for granted, if you really respect life, life is the only thing worth living for. So if you're going to have a life, everything you can do, even if you're in pain, even if you're in depression, even if you're in struggle. I mean, life can be incredibly difficult. The thing is, those are all signs where something is trying to tell you, pay attention your life really as much as you can create joy in yourself, love yourself. That's how you're going to be more helpful to other people. That's how you're going to have a lot of friends, that you're going to have an opportunity to make money. In some cases, you won't make money. I mean, some people are not here to make money. They're here to have great families and they're here to people that work in hospice centers. There's so many things that humans do that are amazing. But at the end of the day, if you want to be a million dollar racehorse, you don't run it into the ground. You don't feed it crappy food, you don't never let it rest. You literally take care of it if it's going to win million dollar races. You feed it well, you nourish it well. You don't let it hang out with toxic people. You don't have it hang out in toxic environments. You take care of that million dollar racehorse because if you do, it will perform very well. So that's the way you know, greatness is literally taking care of yourself. And in the process, then you're able to take care of others because you can't fix the world with broken hands.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Awesome.

Appreciate you.

Great talk with you. This bonus episode of I Love Marketing is a replay of the School of Greatness podcast with Lewis Howes. When Lewis interviewed Joe, more information about Louis, his podcast and his interview with Joe can be found@linktogenius.com Louis that's linktogenius.com Lewis.