Episode #542 - The Secret Behind Effective Marketing Messages with Matt Shoup

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

So if I'm going to kind of mention some takeaways that occur to me that I would like people to be thinking about, first of all, with kids, if you got kids, you know, we think about educating kids and they come home with good grades. But if these little suckers never learn how to make money or they don't even have it in their mind about developing skills, about there is a real world out there. In that real world, you have to make money. And so, you know, like, I may have money, you know, I may have a big car, but you don't. That's my house, that's my car, you know, and so don't worry. You know, a friend of mine said, is his son came and said, you know, dad, you know, people, the kids at school, you know, it's like, like, you know, they, they're always talking about how I'm spoiled and how I'm, you know, rich with a, you know, nice cars and nice houses. My friend told him, he said, so that's, that's not a problem for you at all. He said, you got nothing.

Yeah, that's mine, not yours.

It's like Nick Saban says to the after, after they win national championships, he has a big team meeting and they celebrate, you know, all the team in there and celebrate the victory and has have the graduating seniors get up and go out and say, you guys, you know, national championship. They go out of the row. And he said, now, you guys, you got nothing. He said, that was their championship. You got to go, you got to go with your own. And that year starts right now. And so, you know, that's important and to create experiences. So somehow, some way the light bulb can go on in their mind about making money. And then that's a good thing, you know, and because it speaks to being independent. And if you can get them to correlate, working hard, making money, being independent, because I can do things with it on my own, that's going to be as important as any other thing happens to them in education. Because once you get degrees, when you go to class, you know, we got to think about this thing logically. They're loading up their heads with information they're probably not ever going to use much. And if they do use it, it's because they're to the degree that they're motivated, you know, to do a bunch of things and then they'll tap into that educational base. But if they're not really motivated, they're just looking for a job and going through like, you know, you hear people, they, they get married and their spouse, you know, some of the females out there, you know, my, my husband is a real go getter until we got married, right? And now, what a, what an incredible dud, you know, like, what happened to the man I married and everything. So the thing is, if you can work on that, you know, even, you know, I talk about this all the time. Even the lion, female lion, the mother has to teach the cubs to hunt. They don't hunt naturally. You know, they get the taste of the kill and, you know, like all of that gets it in to activate those natural impulses and everything. So hopefully we're doing that. But also, I, I don't want to get too far away from this whole thing. Was kicked off from your love of music wanting a boombox?

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, I share too. You know, my, my daughter, she just turned 11. She'll be 12 here in a couple of months. And right when she turned 11, you know, all of her friends in school, you know, fifth grade, they're getting cell phones. She goes, dad, Dad, I want a cell phone. And I told my son, who's a little bit older, the same thing, you know, a few years prior. I said, yeah, those are a thousand dollars. And they, they both said to me, well, you, you have a thousand dollars. I said, yeah, I do. You don't. You can go figure out a way to, to make that money. And it was really interesting. I don't ever want to like push business on my kids. You know, I did, I did the little cash flow, Robert Kiyosaki's cash flow quadrant. I said, hey, you go work for somebody. Work for yourself, Start a business. Go invest. And my son, he decided to come work hourly at our company. Just doing things right in the office, you know, he worked his butt off for an entire summer, made that money. My daughter, you know, a little, she's wired a little bit differently. She goes, well, can I do a business? I go, sure, you can start a business. What do you like to do? Well, I love to bake cookies. So she started a little cookie baking business and then found, you know, found a way. We really worked a little marketing plan. She sent these cute little emails to people and tracked the return. And over about that same time period that my son had spent, she made her thousand dollars and now they both have their cell phones. But they earned them. There's a value that they see there. And there was a real proudness that they had that they earned that in their own way that they loved.

And what you've done there is you struck the fire of internal motivation. You know, there's a carrot stick motivation that will allow you to get through life just because you have to do certain things and, you know, do this, you get an award. That's all external, but the greatness comes from internal motivation. You know, when you're following your gut and things that get you excited and that you want to do, because those are the people that do the extras. And what you were talking about there is lighting that fire of internal motivation. Like I can accomplish things, you know, and also the thing about, make it the idea of education, we're trying to get people, you know, the kids to grow up, have some confidence and be able to think of their feet, stand in their feet, know how to solve problems, you know, and it's not the lack of education, it's the lack of critical thinking, being able to, you know, problem solving at all. But if they don't have the motivation, they're just sitting in there playing video games all the time, you know, where's that, what's that going to lead to? You know, and so hopefully a career as a professional athlete because they've got plenty of time to play video games when they're not traveling or actually on the field, you know. So anyway, when you. The other thing that I'd like to point out is you took advantage of an opportunity to get some real world skills from that painting opportunity, you know, because a lot of things come along and we don't take advantage of them. But if you, if you somehow get it in your head, then I'm going to need some practical skills. You know, Mark Cuban is really good at explaining this because he talked about when he. All the jobs he did along the way he was accumulating, he had it in his mind to accumulate skills. So he wasn't. Mine wasn't on what I'm doing in there. It's like, I want to learn this business. I want to learn what they do, what they, you know, how they do it. And I want to get, you know, develop my skillset, practical skill set, you know, customer service, solving problems, getting to know people, building relationships, you know, competition, things like that, and figure out how things work and how you turn around slumping businesses or get out of a slump. You know, he, you know, he was Using all of that. And that set him up for incredible success at a young age. And we can use those same. The purpose of this podcast is to let people hear from real world successful people who've used real world knowledge, not just dead information out of a book that somebody has heard from somebody else and really have no clue. You know, it's like second or third hand information and it's not from the horse's mouth. The person who actually has used it and done something with it. And when they say these things, it sounds different, you know, it rings a bell, it inspires. Whereas before it's just like, okay, I remember to say that, you know, but. And so you did that and you had, I don't know what other kind of education you got at school, what your degree and everything was, but you went back to that real world experience. And it really doesn't matter where you start, Matt, does it? Because you know what business you had started on. The main thing is that you started, you got something where you could get going on. Because you can always morph into other businesses, can't you?

Totally. Yeah. No, the businesses can pivot and change direction and yeah, you can, you can jump laterally into other businesses as well. So, no, it's been great. But I think the big, yeah, the big lesson there, and I mean, I talk to my kids about it, is the whole thing theory versus practice. Like, hey, you're gonna, you're gonna learn something. Like, my son, he's not, he's not fond of math. He's like, dad, why do I have to sit here and do these math problems on, on paper? This is stupid. I'm never gonna use this. And then we actually took him out on a, on a painting proposal once. And I'm like, hey, here's where you use, you know, measuring the area of a triangle or measuring area, something like that. And he goes, okay, now, now it makes sense. And he goes, well, this makes more sense. He goes, I, I love this. This is fun. I just don't want to sit here and study something is going to be seemingly, seemingly useless. But yeah, it's just when you get in and you do it and you get, you get the reps, you know, I'm fluent in Spanish. I spent a semester over in Spain while I was in college. And I tell people, you know, I spent, I spent 10, 11 years through middle high school, college, you know, learning in class, a little bit of Spanish out of the textbook. And then you get thrown into that environment where you have to do it. You like you have to use it or you don't eat. Literally, you'll learn it pretty fast and it just sticks. And you learn it at a kind. At a different kind of level.

Yeah, I've got a friend I've been business with for decades, and he studied Spanish, high school, Wake Forest University. But one summer he got some kind of internship or something down in Columbia. And he said, they drop you off the bus in the middle of Columbia and you've got the name of this little family that you're going to be staying with for the summer, and that's it. You got to learn figured out. You got to figure it out. But when he came back, he turned into a. He became a translator for the university. You know, they used. Because they had all these international forums and this, that and the other. And. But he said, without that trip to Columbia would not have had real world experience is what we're talking about. And I remember, you know, I got a degree in building construction from Georgia Tech. I didn't know how to build a birdhouse, but I had a degree in building construction. But where I got the thing, the education was when I got out of the job and we're building houses and it's like all of a sudden you learn what building construction is all about, the real world. And so as you came through, how did you get into the mortgage business? Would you say expanded, or was that a mark of insanity or just being fed up with the paint thing or it's like, I gotta find something new or what? What drove that?

It was. It was funny. I got. I got in and out of it pretty quick. It was a short, short period of my life. But, you know, I was chasing the, the seemingly, you know, sexy dollar, right? So, like I said, made a bunch of money in college. And a lot of the group that we were running around with in the college painting company, like, they were all very motivated by money. And, you know, the, the kids that ended up being successful and made it to the end of the summer in this program, like, they all did well, made good money. So it was just very appealing. You know, I didn't grow up with a lot of money. I had to learn how to make my own. So I'm like, you can make good money in the business. And then I bought a house, right? So never should have bought a house. I was like, I said, six figures in debt. I got a mortgage. The bank actually paid me to buy a home, so I'm already upside down in it. But the guy that did my mortgage, he was A young, friendly, very successful guy. So when we sat down, he's like, hey, Matt, you know, it looks like you've done very well for yourself in. In the painting business. He didn't talk to me at all about debt, right. He wanted to sell me the mortgage. He goes, you know, you might really like this business. So as we're going through the process of him helping me buy my home and do the mortgage on the home, he's like, hey, why don't you come hang out with me one day? I'll kind of show you what I do, right? So takes me out to lunch, a little bit of whining and dining, Right. Come to. Come to find out, possibly trying to, you know, recruit me to his. His mortgage team. But, you know, it just looked very appealing. It looked one way from the outside. It looked like you just kind of hung around eight lunches all day, you know?

Right.

Went to networking event, had drinks and made a bunch of money. And then when I actually ended up working in the business, I worked for a very, like, B C paper telemarketing. You're doing 200 phone calls a day. And they were really taking advantage of people, you know, I asked too many questions, you know, because again, I'm a math guy. So I'm like, you're consolidating all of their debt into this supposed home equity, right. That we find out a lot of them really didn't have anyway, and. And lowering their payments, but you're spreading them out over 30 years. So I just remember a guy says, you know, do you want to. Do you want to ask questions or make money? You can't do both. He's like, just do what we tell you, you know, do with this trainer, you know, the internal company trainer tells you to do, and you'll make money. If not, get out. And then I. Then I left that business and I went to, like, the totally opposite side. Like I said at the beginning of the interview here, very conservative bank, where I come in there and I go, hey, are we consolidating debt and equity and doing this and pushing value on appraisals? Like, I didn't know what any of this stuff meant. Yeah. And they're like, whoa, you, like, what are you talking about? That's. That's not okay. And I go, okay, this business isn't what I thought it was. And, you know, I got. Like I said, I got fired. And, yeah, I'd never go back to that side of things.

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Well everybody, this is, this is the difference between a racket and a service and people that are, you know the time that you need to ask questions is when you're the client and you're full skeptical thing because they can't talk, they're talking fast and you're, they're confusing you. It's not by accident, it's by design. And you can never get into financial products that you don't understand the basic. And if the person cannot explain those to you simply and clearly, it's not any place you want to be and that's not the kind of person you want to do business with. So what did you. So you found yourself. How old are you at this point?

41.

And you went back into the painting you're saying at that stage?

Yeah, so I was, you know I painted the four years in college and then it was a little less than two years kind of transitioning out of college and then yeah 2005 was when we founded our, our painting company and then that, that, that grew. You know that took off pretty, pretty quickly. You know again I love the marketing. So was, was really exploring creative and different ways to market. Then I overlaid the, the awards steps and, and kind of that process and framework that I used to win awards and yeah we've had our company now this year in business.

So talk about creative and different ways of marketing. What did you learn about ways that you. Because one thing about learning new ways is it keeps you stimulated. You know what I'm saying? It's like keep doing the same old thing over what One of the things that people. When you're running a business, the hardest thing. I heard this a long time ago and I still think it's probably true. The hardest thing you have to do is to keep yourself really motivated because if what follows from that is to keep your team really motivated but you're dead out of the door if you, if you don't walk out of the door, super motivated. And so one thing that keeps you as a leader motivated is doing things quicker, better, faster, more fun. And there's, there's something really invigorating about an exciting new idea that actually works.

Yeah, yeah.

And so talk about, talk about some of the ways you found a market that gave your business an edge.

You know, I tell, I tell companies kind of, kind of two things is. Well, a couple of things is marketing. You know, in my eyes, it's all about having a message. You know, a method of media to literally interrupt a conversation that somebody's already having, right? So you're, you know, you're doing daily life. You're driving your car around town, heading to work, whatever. You get your, your eye and your, and your phone on your social media, and you're having this interaction with the world and boom, you've got to be, as a company, something or someone that interrupts that message. So a couple of ways to do it. Initially, I use the whole R and D, right? Which is rip off and duplicate. So I jump into the painting business and I said, what. What are these other. What are doing? Right? So back in 2005, they were competing for space in the phone book, right? Believe it or not. And that was funny how that literally changed right before my eyes. They were dropping, you know, signs and flyers and door hangers. There weren't too many that were knocking on doors. I did a lot of door knocking and I tracked the return on that. So there's, you know, the R D, there's ripoff and duplicate, and then there's like, hey, what is your industry doing? And then what is something totally different, totally off the wall that everybody says is crazy, this would never work. Like, I love trying stuff like that. You know, I tell people I'll try anything once. And as I was knocking on doors and I really established some good metrics, right, I knew if I spent this much time and energy, I would land this much business. Like, literally down, down to the dollar. I was driving around town, right? So I'm just driving, driving to the bank one day and I would drive this, this one route and I'd see a guy dressed Statue of Liberty standing on the corner shaking a sign. And I'm like, that is the stupidest thing. Like, I, I thought to myself, I'm like, that is the dumbest thing. I, I can't believe people do this. Who would do business. Like, I thought all these things. Who would do business with a company like that? This guy's embarrassing himself. He's dressed up like a Statue of Liberty. And. And then it kind of clicked. It's like, yeah, you just said all the things that, that I'm now telling you you should try, right? Like on, on your podcast. So my wife and I were joking one day, she's like, matt, you always say you and said, what do we have to lose? You know, like, let's give it a try. It was literally Statue of Liberty. And then home builders back kind of in the building, boom. They had like high school kids standing on the corner. So went down to a local high school and they had a school dance team, like a hip hop dance team. And I said, hey, is anybody looking for a job? I need somebody that is, you know, doesn't mind being in front of a bunch of people and wants to just go dance on the corner, hold a sign, make some money. This kid raises his hand and his name was Ben. Put them on the corner between 4 and 5 o', clock, and I'm out doing estimates. My wife Emily's working in the home office, and she goes, matt, the phone is blowing up. She goes, why is everybody calling us between 4 and 5 o'?

Clock?

The phone never rings between 4 and 5 o', clock, you know. And I said, well, Ben's out on the corner. And I said, make sure we're asking people why they're calling, where they heard of us. And it was that. So, I mean, just something crazy like that, you know, Totally, totally landed. We actually just recently did something super interesting in the roofing business, too, that I'd love to share. I don't know if you have any, you know, contractors that are. That are listening.

We might have some. We might have some. Usually you have, in any industry, you have people that are thinking about it, in it, or trying to get out of it, you know, so the thing is, in any industry, you got, you got people going in that would be great. They're in it, they want to do better, or they're saying, how can I migrate out of this? Or how can I flip this into something else? So, yeah, we have people that are interested in improving.

No, and that's awesome. So, I mean. But, you know, depending on, like, on, on your listener base, you're like, well, Matt, that's great. Nice story. I. I don't do anything that has to do with residential paint conching contracting in neighborhoods where, you know, the method in which you're interrupting a conversation. It doesn't matter in my industry, right. I'm in B2B sales or, you know, whatever it is. So I really, you know, I kind of, I created a framework. I tell people, I said, like, look, there's no magic bullet. I don't go tell everybody, hey, go knock doors. You know, in real estate, like, you can knock doors as a new realtor. But that I didn't find for me was the best method. But what I, what I tell people is find that one thing. And I think as entrepreneurs, we get very impatient. So we're constantly, you know, as we're doing life and business and we're trying to interrupt a conversation with a customer, now we have like, I was getting more phone calls from marketing companies trying to sell me marketing than I was customers wanting to do business with me when I started my business. Oh, hey, we can do your SEO, we can do your whatever. So you're, you're getting constantly pulled in a million different directions. And I say, look, look, find out who your customer is. You know, think about that, that demographic, that avatar, where do they spend time? Where is their attention? And then how can you creatively, uniquely, differently get into that conversation in front of them and come up with one method, right? So for me, knocking on doors, that was my one method. I'm not going to do anything else. I'm going to spend 90% of my time knocking on doors. And just because 30 people slam the door in my face, I mean, I've had doors slammed in my face, I've had dogs bite me, I've had guns brandished, like weapons brandished at me, all kinds of stuff, right? But you just keep going and do it a hundred times, do it 200 times and you'll start to see some consistent patterns. But we get distracted and we give up too easily. So I would say to anybody, any industry, you've got a client, their attention is somewhere, find a way to interrupt it and it's guess and check. You might try to interrupt the conversation 200 times and get zero. You know, tried another hundred, tried another 100. Maybe you get zeros again. Okay, maybe now you need to try a different, a different method, but you've got to establish something tangible that you can track.

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