Did Your Sales Just Slump? Lunch With Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss

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You're listening to Business Lunch with Roland Fraser. This is your seat at the table. Welcome to an extra special episode of Business Lunch. Today is the beginning of a new chapter on the show as we welcome our new co host, Ryan Deiss. Now, if you're a regular listener or you're an entrepreneur in the marketing space, you've heard of Ryan and you know that this is going to be fun. So hold onto your seats. They like to chat and they like to chat fast. But before we dive in, make sure you subscribe or follow on Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening. And thank you for tuning in today.

Hey, everybody. Roland Frazier here and my business partner and now co host. This is where you say Ryan Dice.

This is where I say my name. Ryan Dice. You can tell we're still figuring this stuff out.

Ryan Dice. Very professionally done. Ryan Dice. We are here with another episode of Business Lunch, the newly improved, revised and expanded version of the podcast that you've come to know and love over the last few hundred episodes. And today we are going to talk about some cool stuff. I'm kind of excited to start today because usually it's me getting in trouble, but I think, Ryan, didn't you get scolded a bit online in the Twitters?

I did. I did make a lot funny. I made a lot of marketers mad. I want to talk about that. Is there something we can talk about first, though? I think that's good. I want to talk about that first because I think this is important. Like, that is. I do think people are going to enjoy hearing about how I got into Twitter fights. But something that I think is maybe more important and timely is just man, sales this last week across the board, all of our companies sucked.

I'm, like, unhappy to hear that, but happy to hear that as well, because one of our programs that's done well that I'm involved with for a year straight had its toughest week last week. And so, yeah, that's interesting. Tell me about what you're seeing.

I think, yeah, I mean, so I'll give you theory that's what it is. There's no way that anybody could have this. But I mean, here we are kind of as we're talking about this and when people hear this kind of towards the end ish of May 2021. Right. So just so that we got a little bit of a timestamp on it, I think that the world is healing. And I think what we've seen for the last little bit, certainly anybody selling just about anything Online. I think anybody selling any type of online course, personal development, the whole entire world was shut in. And at the same time a lot of people had a lot of money through like stimulus checks and things like that. And so a lot of folks spent it on personal development, personal improvement, career development. And I think what we're seeing is people are, you know, people are like, oh wait, I can go back outside again, I can go see friends, I can travel again. You know, as we're kind of vaccination, people are getting vaccinated, the world's opening up. I think, you know, it always slumped a little bit in the summer. I think we're getting the combined effect of the normal kind of summer slump with just everybody saying, screw it, I'm out. Right. I mean you and I are texting leading up to this. Do you remember what you were texting me leading up to this?

Yeah, it's like, hey, do you want to go, do you want to go to Mexico for this and this? And now we're going to go to London and then how about a safari? Yeah, it's like, yeah, literally travel up again.

Yeah, yeah, literally. So Roland, you've basically been a shut in for the last 18 months, which is not like you normally you're traveling and now, you know, what are you saying? Like, oh, I'm going to go and I'm going to Mexico, I'm going to go to this resort and then we're going to go to Europe and then, you know, and then yeah, an African safari. And like, I think that's happening. Maybe not at that scale, but I think it's happening in a lot of people. And so look, I don't know, this is one of those things where maybe being a bit of a downer, I think it's one, it's good to acknowledge that it's happening so that you don't just completely panic and think that all of my stuff is broken. Because I know we've done that in the past where we've been like, everything's broken, let's go back and fix it. And look, sometimes maybe you want to test and know your numbers, but we've got stuff like you said, that's been consistently performing the same for 12 plus months and then it just stopped. That doesn't mean that just that headline stopped working or that offer didn't work. You need to go. So just I would caution people, be careful about throwing a bunch of babies out with bath water.

I'm actually happy we kind of rewrote everything the last time So I would be thinking right now if I hadn't done that, like, if I was test. And so this goes to anybody who's testing anything right now, that if I had just done that rewrite this time and I'd be like, oh, man, I'm awful. Obviously I can't create copier offers or things that people want to buy. And fortunately, last month was like, great. So, yeah, that'll be interesting to see how that carries over. If this is a pre summer thing, I mean, it could very well be that we now have four months. What are we? June, July, August. I mean, four or five months of kind of not great sales across the online sphere in a lot of things because people have stocked up on everything they've had their experience of and being in little boxes and watching people like us talk to them and they want to go out in the outdoors now, which also would be interesting to see how live events pick up as well.

So let's talk about. All this stuff is countercyclical, obviously. Being in the event space, as we know, was less good last year, doing any kind of travel experiential thing. Less good. Live meetings and masterminds and those kind of things. Less good. If the theory holds and we're going to see a reversion, then it's good to look at your business and to say, like, did we benefit from this last trend? If so, you may find that you start to become a little bit on the losing end. So what are some things that you can do to kind of go back? Richard and I were talking, so our other business partner, Richard Lindner, he and I were talking about this and he said the same thing that you did. He's like, man, we need to start promoting some of these events that we're doing in the fall. Yeah, right. Because people are like, let's get live and in person. Also, this is. This is a biggie. And I got to give Richard credit for this one. Books, physical books. So. And I'm excited about this because what do we have coming up? Right. Your book offer is coming. Yeah. And books for us have always done well in the summer because people want to buy books, basically thinking, I'm going to go and I can travel with it, I can read it on the beach. Right. This is. I've got some downtime. And I also think that people are going to want physical, tangible things.

Yeah.

So I think it's just important, like if. If you were really hurting, then I think happy days are here again. I think if you were like crushing life you got to know that a lot of what, you know, a lot of what you were receiving was money that was an investment that was not going to other places, that is now going to over index the other one. It's going to even out. But I do think for the summer's gonna be tough.

I think you gotta think about changing because I know we have some friends that have masterminds that have gone virtual and events that have gone virtual and they have not yet gone back to physical. And it's time because like I don't go to them. I don't want to sit in front of the box for, for hours watching an event. Particularly for an event that's done traditionally, like where it's an eight hour day and an eight hour day. I just, it just, it's really, really hard and particularly because I spend a lot of time doing stuff like this, you know, as well. So I think that if you are in a business that has gone virtual and you're thinking, oh gosh, that's been great, now I save all the money on having to have that live space and people don't want to travel, I think they do. So that'll be interesting to see as we go. It's definitely time in my opinion to get back out there. And if you're doing events and stuff like that or anything else that you have pivoted to virtual for, I think you're going to want to go total hybrid at this point. From this point forward, what else do.

You think is gonna. Because when I think about the other things that have done really well, like home services companies have done really well.

SaaS, all kinds of SaaS, anything SAS.

Has done really well. I wonder though. I bet SaaS kind of still remains similarly the same. I'm thinking about the thing like so not zoom, like you know, any type of online, virtual event type deal, I think yeah, that's gonna get hurt. But you just gotta know like it all is just moving. You know, it shifted from one area and because there was no spin there, it went to another one. What are some other industries though that you think are going to be either they're going to get a big swing back or you know, they're going to get, you know, maybe get stung a little bit. Like I think we're going to get stung a little bit. I think we're going to be okay. Because what I also think is going to happen is there's been a lot of noise, a lot of new people have entered the market because it was so lucrative. I Think a lot of them are going to die away and it'll get evened out. It's going to force us to do new things and we'll get the benefit of all that. I do think it's going to kind of suck. Like I'm not excited about it, but that's business, right?

Like we have to find those countercyclical things to lean into now.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, we'll do that. We'll figure that out. A lot of our competitors won't. But what are, so what are some of those things? Any other ideas?

I mean clearly everything. Travel, everything, Everything. Entertainment. I think people are just dying to get out and about again. Anything that creates any kind of connectivity. All of the festivals should come back. Bars, restaurants, all that. I know that for us and we were talking in Las Vegas, you know, you and I, when we were had our event last month, it's like, man, it's so great to be out again, you know, see human beings and be in a different location, even just a different location. So to me it's all, all physical businesses are going to do great and I think all virtual everything from shopping, e commerce and everything. Even though it's super convenient and it's been much more widely accepted, it'll be. How much of that is gonna stay? Because people still wanna go to the store. I still wanna go to the store. I'm very tired of all of the wonderfully convenient doordash, Uber Eats, Instacart, all of those kinds of things. They're great. But the truth is that I actually enjoy the process of shopping and looking at things and being out and watching the other people. So having a change of venue, just getting out, live in a wonderful place. Very blessed. But I'm kind of tired of being here so I'm ready to go out. So that would be it to me would be anything people are doing. Any businesses that have been delivering to people at home in any way to facilitate the caged in shut down life are going to I think have a challenge. And any of the businesses that, that are, that were previously impacted by people not going out are going to be experiencing a pent up demand that will last for, at least to me through the summer.

Yeah, I agree. All right, so I think big takeaways, then we can move on. If, if you're finding that your sales are hurting before you panic and go and like undo everything, you know, be sure to look. If it had always worked and it just stopped and you didn't because remember the first question I asked you when this kind of offer we were running, it underperformed like, did we change anything? And it was like, no, we changed a bunch of stuff last month, but it worked better. So we didn't change anything this month. What changed? Humanity changed. Right. So don't panic, don't overreact, but you probably should act and the action should just be asking the question, like, what's the countercyclical thing that we need to pivot to? Exactly Right. All right. What do you want to talk about next? You want to talk about me pissing off a bunch of people on Twitter.

Twitterverse. Because then I can use words like tweet and Twitterverse and so let's talk about that.

I actually want to talk about that next. I've got a question for you. So you were just.

You were just baiting me? No, not really.

I was just thinking, like, I don't know, again, it maybe seems a bit self indulgent, but we had. This is something I think might actually help people because we got a question. Mastermind member is having folks come, like team members come to them saying like, hey, we want equity. You know, having maybe business partners coming and saying like, you know, if they're like a minority, like, I would like to get a little bit more. It's interesting again, as the world is reopening and as people are less kind of freaked out about stuff, I feel like they're a bit more emboldened to come and ask. Right. And this was interesting. It's kind of another aside.

I think also in terms of comp. That people maybe took a hit. Like companies said, we're lowering wages or we're lowering the number of headcount of people. And so people are being forced to take on more and more. And now I know that most of the businesses I've talked to are having a terrible time getting people back. They're like, people are still. Several of them are collecting unemployment still at a higher rate than they were being compensated before, or they don't have to go out and about, or they've simply left for places that cost less to live because they feel they can work remote. So there's an interesting thing going on with all of that.

So. But specific to cause we've gotten this. And I know there's companies that have like equity conversations and there's companies like, generally we don't. Right. I know we've got equity as a function of risk. We also aren't just like actively selling different companies. It's not like we're planning on Going public. So like giving somebody equity in a business that you don't know if it's going to sell, it's kind of to the unsophisticated, it's like, oh, here's some monopoly money.

Right. You know, and then you have minority shareholders and challenges and all.

Yeah. So why make the case? Why, like, what do you say to somebody again? Guy comes to us, employees are asking for equity. What advice you give?

I think the easiest thing is. So a couple of things happen if we give you equity. One is you're going to have an adverse tax consequence immediately. You're going to get taxed on the value of that equity interest without having any corresponding receipt of cash to help you pay for those taxes. So that would be a bad thing for you.

All right, so why is that? Because I think a lot of people do. I obviously do. Because, as you know, I'm just skilled in legal, all things legal, tax, accounting matters.

Quite.

No, I'm just kidding. I'm not. But I do. Like, this is one of those. I don't think a lot of people realize that very often when you give somebody equity in your company, if you don't do it right, what you're really handing them is a big fat giant tax bill, no matter what jurisdiction you're in.

Yeah. So just generally, as a rule, if you receive something in compensation for services that you did or are planning to do, then it's considered taxable. Whether it's cash or not is really irrelevant. If you are receiving anything of value for your services, then you're going to pay ordinary income taxes on it when you receive it. So since companies that are already in business have a value, they are an asset that is worth something that a piece of is being given to you in exchange for your promise to perform services or to honor you for performing services in the past. So that means that you're, you're being paid, but you're not being paid in cash. And so the taxing authorities will look to what is the valuation at the company at the time you receive your interest. And they'll multiply the valuation by the percentage interest you get and they'll say that's pay. That's like compensation and you have to pay taxes on it now. So the downside is that.

How does it work, though? How does it work though? Like, because when, if somebody goes and works for Google or Facebook, you know, they'll get options and they don't necessarily option grants. They don't necessarily have to pay taxes. You know, there. So options Are exception.

Right. Options to acquire equity in a company are not generally depending on how they're created, they're not considered that you're receiving the equity in the company at that time because you're not. You're receiving the right to acquire equity, which is different. So as long as the options aren't, there isn't a market for them so that they can trade, then you're not receiving something of liquid value and they'll wait on that. But so the first thing is like just giving equity or taking equity in a company, generally not a good idea unless you have some cash to accompany it that's going to allow you to pay the taxes, or it's new enough that the value is so low that you're okay doing that. Then we get to are there alternatives to that? And the answer is yes, one of the alternatives is options. But then the options, there are plans that you have to do. They're kind of complex and you have to deal with managing them and tracking them and all that. So I think the best thing to do, like what we've decided is it's easier just to do variable comp and say, look, based on the profitability of the company, we have some benefits that'll come to you in the form of income because we don't plan to go public ever. We don't know if we're going to sell any of the companies that we've got. So it's kind of a dubious benefit to get equity versus getting income. So how about we give you income in terms of some sort of variable comp instead? So that, that's kind of, to me, the case for not doing it. Also, as an owner, I don't want a bunch of minority shareholders that are. That have minority rights that might interfere with the plans that we have for the company and the things that we want to do. And equity is the most expensive thing you can ever give. So rather than doing that, I would pretty much choose almost anything else.

Yeah, I think people don't realize how easy. It's like marriage. Right. It's super easy to give somebody equity. It's really hard to take it back. Yeah. You basically have to buy it back. And even if they leave, so people like, oh, we're going to do some vesting. This equity can vest over time. I guess that's one way to maybe help mitigate against some of the, okay, I got some equity and then I'm gone. But I don't know, I just, I personally like as an entrepreneur. Right. You know, which is what we are. Like, we. We start things. Like, we go out there and we, like, we build some stuff. It's really hard for me to say, okay, because you're. Because you were there, right? Here's a piece of the company, right? Like, I just emotionally. And that's not a good reason. Like, this is me, like, you know, Ryan therapy hour. But, like, just. I don't like that. That's obviously not a very sound legal argument, but I don't feel good about that. I've always thought about equity. Like, this is a function of risk, right? What risk are you taking? Cause if somebody. If somebody is there and they're getting. It's one thing. If somebody comes in and like, I'm gonna work for free. Yeah. Okay, cool. You're working for free, or I'm working at dramatically below salary. Like, I could go anywhere else and make $250,000. I'm gonna come here and make 50.

Well, then they're effect. So they are putting a risk, right? They're taking on some risk there.

Absolutely. But when somebody just says, okay, here's what I want, I want fair market salary, plus I want unlimited vacation time. I would like for you to have snacks delivered to my house. And oh, yeah, by the way, I want equity in the company too. I guess if you're one of these. I guess if you're a Facebook, a Google and Amazon, Apple, and you're. And you have to do that to get the best talent, then you have to do it.

At this point, Google doesn't have to. Google could just. But Google's publicly traded, so it's become a commodity. I think that's the big thing is that when equity has become a publicly traded commodity, the market's valuing it up or down. There's liquidity for everybody. Then it's just a form of. It's really like Bitcoin, right? It's a form of cash that doesn't require actual dollars to leave your company. But when you are not a public company, then there isn't a market for all of that stuff. And a lot of people, I think, look to, like, it's just in our culture that there are the Googles and apples and things like that. And so people have a startup culture mentality around giving equity. And so people ask for it, and you don't have to give it. You just say, no. Why? This job pays this? And they're like, but I'd like some equity too. But this job pays this. And so then they can decide if they want to go Work for one of those other companies or if they want to work here. And that that's how you do it. I respect people who do not just cave. You know, we've had this with CEOs and top management and recruiters and stuff. And in our companies and companies we advise that, say that they just come in, they go like, well, you know, of course they're going to expect about 5, 5 to 6% of the company. As a CEO, I'm like, why? What are they doing? Well, they could go do something else, then let them go do it. You know, there's plenty of companies that don't do that, and I respect that. Like, Sarah Blakely still owns 100% of her company. She didn't give away a bunch of stuff just to have somebody come. As a matter of fact, she had a CEO come in, and for whatever reason, that CEO left, and Sarah is the CEO again. And she would have this person she would have to buy out. Why? You know, that's like, the value that they bring to me is just seldom anywhere close to the equity they get. So unless I think I had a company that was a publicly traded company where I'm effectively using a different kind of currency, I just don't think so. I don't want to have to deal with it. And I don't think that people deserve it who aren't taking the risk, as you said, and acting as entrepreneurs. I think that if they have an upside that they contribute to the company, there's a way to compensate them for that. In dollars, not equity.

Yeah. And that's what I've said when we've been asked, because we get asked oftentimes in job interviews. Right. You know, oh, is there an opportunity to earn equity? And I said, well, I believe that equity is a function of risk. Right. If you own equity, then you're a partner. I don't want people who are partners only on the upside and not on the downside. So in general, we're not selling equity in the company right now. But we'd be happy to have a conversation with you if you're interested in, like, buying shares of the company. But no, we don't just give it out for free. What we do is we pay people at or above market rate and provide an amazing culture. And what we do also do is have a variable comp program so that you can benefit and so that we can, you know, so that as the company grows, you know, you can, you can participate in that, in that as well. But it's like, I Mean, and I've told people to straight up, like, I want you to make a lot of money. Happy to.

Yes.

Yeah, happy to. But I don't necessarily want you as a business partner because I don't know you yet. Right. Yeah. I don't know you. And that is important. So I think the biggie is just make sure, because I know I've been guilty of this. I thought that giving equity was like how you play. That's how you look like you're a big company. Right. Because that's what the big companies do. And I think a lot of times small businesses, entrepreneurs, they get in this thing where they're like, oh, I just feel like we need to do it. And they don't want to admit it. But really what you're kind of doing is just kind of playing big company. Right? You sort of. You're playing big, but there's not really any benefit. It's only a whole lot of downside. So, yeah, don't do it. And if that means that you can't get somebody, my guess is that there's other folks who can do that job too. Agree. Anything. Anything else you want to say on that?

Yes. If you do decide that you want to do it. What's the pro side? We didn't talk about that. The pro side is you can attract people that you might not otherwise be able to afford. And so that's why it's very popular in startups, is we don't, we don't. We are bootstrapping. We're starting without a ton of money. We're gonna have to pay. As Ryan mentioned, this developer's gonna cost. Actually, one of the companies we're working on acquiring right now is. Got somebody that was at a giant company and they came in for a dramatically reduced rate. And so they have acquired some equity in that company. And that's great. Now the downside is we now have to deal with that person as well when we're working at acquiring part of that company. The benefit to them, though, is they didn't actually. They would never have had someone of that quality. So they would have never been able to get to the level that they are at right now if they didn't have that person there. So they just made a decision and said, hey, the trade off is fair. I think that's it is really make the decision consciously. Don't just give equity by default like Ryan said. You know, I guess that's what everybody does. They give equity. If you don't have to, don't do it. If you can afford to acquire and attract the talent that you need to provide the product or service that you want at the level of quality that you want, and you can do it without equity, you should, because it's so expensive. Just like you should never sell equity to somebody else to get money, because once you do that, you have them forever. So you would definitely rather, if you can afford it, take debt than take equity. So I think that's, maybe that's the guidance that we leave people with takeaway wise is just don't do it without actually consciously thinking about it and think about the true pros and cons. And if that person was a top developer at Amazon and you can only get a person that was the top developer at Shopify, but the Shopify person you can afford without equity, and the Amazon person, you need equity, then you have to say, are they going to bring that much more value? And if you decide they are, then maybe it's worth it. And if you decide they're not, then go with the other person.

Yeah. And don't get guilted into it. I think that was the thing. Right. People turn into this, like, moral thing. Like, you're a bad person.

No one deserves.

If you don't give away. I hate that crap. That pisses me off. And you see this a lot. Like, like, oh, you know, you're a bad person because you didn't give people equity in your. Like somebody says, you know what? Then start your own damn company and give equity to everybody. You're free to do that. You didn't start this one, so you don't get equity in it.

Yeah. One thing, a resource that I'll mention for people because I like the book is called Slicing Pie and Slicing Pie, he talks about a way that you can go about really fairly in a startup scenario, giving equity. And you can extrapolate to if you're doing an acquisition or if you've got somebody that works with you as well, where you establish an amount, that's a pool that you set aside. And then how does that work out? And he's got all kinds of free documents online. I think it's. I think it's slicingpie.com so that'd be something that might help you if you're going to go and give some equity.

Yeah. But generally don't.

Yes, I agree.

All right. You want to close it off with the stupid Twitter thing?

Yeah. What's going on?

So I. So the other, the other night, you know, I was reading, you know who Ted Nicklaus is yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brilliant guy.

I don't know why. He passed away recently and I was actually, I can tell you exactly what I was doing. I had a lot of work that I needed to be doing, and so I decided to procrastinate by, like reading old books.

Excellent.

And yeah, it's a good strategy. So I was. And I was just going through my library at my house and just like, oh, my gosh, I haven't opened this book in, you know, 10 years. And it was this old Ted Nicholas book. I think it was like, you know, turn, you know, turn mail into money or something like that. I mean, just like a classic, like just hardcore direct response, you know, book. And one of the points that he made in there is how. How dangerous it is for a CEO to just hand off all things marketing. Right? And I was like, this is really good.

I've only seen that every time in our experience as well.

Oh, yeah, no. And I was like, this is a good point. I need to as clearly somebody with, like, you know, emotional issues now that I have thought this thought, I clearly need to share this with the world. Right? That is. That is the only logical thing. And so I did.

Waiting to hear these thoughts. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. With bated breath. So I went out to little site called Twitter and I posted what's the biggest mistake CEOs make? Delegating the marketing strategy. You can delegate 99% of the execution, but never, never, never delegate the strategy creation itself. Now I thought, all right, that's a nice, cute little thing. And look, I mean, is it lacking in nuance? Yeah, it's Twitter, right? I mean, is it maybe a bit too.

Also, we have to be sure that the CEO does know something about marketing.

Yeah, right. Like, and that was the point that a lot of. That was the point that a lot of people made, which is fair. But oh, my God, like, I still thought this was fairly safe. Some people got super pissed off at me. They're like, how dare you? And so there were kind of these different camps where there was some people who were like, hey, just for clarification, what if the CEO doesn't know anything about marketing? Which that's a fair retort. There was also a camp that believed that this is bad. A CEO should not do it. A CEO should absolutely just have their marketing person do it. I think that that is completely wrong. And I'll say, why? And then there was another camp that said, this, this probably applies to small businesses, but it doesn't apply to Fortune 500, you know, and above I still think that's wrong. And I'll say why I think that is wrong as well. So, you know, kind of the first group are like, what if they don't know a lot about marketing? I wasn't necessarily saying that they should be the ones who set the strategy alone. So if you're a CEO of a small, small business and you're not a, you know, marketing juggernaut powerhouse. Yeah, you need to surround yourself with really great marketers. I mean, we've got, we've got a program at Digital Marketer. We have our certified partner program where we teach people how to be fractional CMOs, precisely to do just that. Go into these organizations that don't know marketing and help them create the strategy. But I'm big when we're talking to our, to our partners. Like, you need to facilitate, you know, these teams. The people, they know their brand better than anybody else. They know their products. They should know their customers better. And so I'll just tell you, if you are a CEO, yeah, you should have great marketing people around you, but their job should be to extract. But then ultimately you're the one who is responsible. So look, what's a better word to use than delegate? Abdicate is probably a better word, right? It's probably more accurate. Don't abdicate, you know, completely. You should delegate, certainly a lot of the help. So I'll give people that one. They can have that one. The next bit was like, no, you should, you know, the CEO should have nothing to do with it and it should just be completely handed off. Like, you need to let them, let your marketers, you know, be marketers. I, I think that's super dumb. But I will also admit that I am. And what was interesting is the people who were most offended were marketers. And they were telling me, like, I don't, Some person was like, I just don't think you understand what marketing work, how marketing works. And I was like, I don't think you know what I've been doing for the last 20 years. I written books on it and junk. Have a. Started a site called digital marketer.com. but anyway, that notwithstanding, I think that's super. What do you think about, like, what would you say to that? Because I know you're not. You're definitely. You're a good, you are a very, very, very good marketer. You're kind of a polymath in that thing where you're good at everything, but you're not a marketer first.

No, definitely not.

So what do you Say to that, like, do you think that CEOs should just completely just hand it over to the marketing thing if they don't know anything about it?

I have some experience that informs my decision or clouds my opinion, depending on your perspective. And so I am an interesting distinction, I am absolutely in your camp of believing that, that it's just not marketing. I believe that it's true of everything. I think that. I definitely believe that it's important, the distinction, to meddle in things that you have some experience and knowledge about and don't meddle in things that you don't. But you also have common sense. And surprisingly large numbers of companies make decisions that seem to be devoid of any common sense. So as a CEO, to be the leader that you need to be to guide your company and use what you know about the niche that you're in, the vertical that you do, the experience that you've got, bringing all that to bear to help have discussions with the people who are reporting to you that you manage, I think is really, really important. And communicating that down your vision. I mean, the CEO's job is really to liaise between the company and its operations and the board of directors. And the board of directors is responsible for creating the vision of where the company is going. So if you're not participating in communicating that vision and then acting as a bit of a marshal to be sure that the troops are doing the things that the board has said are the vision, then you're not really doing your job. So I do like the distinction between abdication and delegation, because if delegate means, hey, most of this stuff you're supposed to do, but it's not delegation without supervision, then I like that. I think those are good distinctions. And so the people that said that, I think they helped the discussion, but the people who were saying, well, I don't want to be micromanaged by my CEO in which Facebook ad to place or run, and that kind of stuff. I think, again, it's, it's. What are we talking about here in terms of the level of supervision? Should they be saying, you're not using the right color on the button? No, that should be completely not.

But that's not strategy, right?

No, I agree. Yeah, I agree. But I'm just saying, because. Because we said marketing. We didn't say marketing strategy. We said marketing. No, I did, I did.

I said marketing strategy.

Ah, okay. Well, then, yeah, then screw all that. So then we get down to, okay, great, but. But then I'd say look at, at the biggest success stories those Are Steve Jobs, brilliant marketer, sure as heck had a big impact on Apple. Warren Buffett surely had a big impact. Richard Branson surely had a big impact. Sarah Blakely, Carl golden, all of those folks that we know have had dramatic impact on marketing strategy have been an integral part of it. And the new new is that you have a spokesperson CEO who has their own personality and brand that they imbue the company that they're working with and that enhances the company and its appeal. And they've got to have some participation in marketing strategy. So I mean even down to like the new things, because marketing is a lot more than just getting leads. It's also when we think about esg, the environmental, social, governance aspects have really come into an important role and everybody's crowing about them right now and saying esg, ESG is the big thing. Well, that's going to go into marketing and all that's going to be something the CEO is going to be like the environmental impact. That's not for the marketer to decide or communicate. That's something the CEO and the board are going to be talking about with consultants in other parts of the company, the governance of the company. But people care about governance. That's definitely the board and the CEO because that's exactly what they're about. And then social, same thing. So like they're all the companies aren't isolated to the point where marketing strategy could ever be responsibly abdicated and 100% delegated, particularly marketing strategy.

Yeah. And so you're going to, you're going to go, okay, cmo, go figure it out and tell me what to do. It's like literally, if my primary job is to communicate the company's vision and values, and I would say that that's what marketing does, then you're going to just tell somebody else to basically tell you what to say. Good luck, good luck. And a lot of these folks were like, oh yeah, but when that happens, the CEO gets involved, they meddle, and then when it doesn't work, they fire the marketing department. Well, I'll tell you, if the CEO wasn't involved from the get go and they had no ownership over it, then you better believe you're going to get that, it's going to get fired. So that department is going to be in trouble. So I don't see how that helps anything.

I can't even take a devil's advocate on that one because I believe so strongly that that's the job. That's what a CEO does. That Connectivity is really, really important. And if you say strategy on top of market, that's what that person does. They set the strategy and then the people who are in the position of CMO execute the strategy.

They should have input, by the way. I mean this is important. It doesn't mean that because the CEO is responsible for the setting of the strategy that they don't receive input, but it is too important to just delegate. And I guess that's the point. You can delegate a lot of the research, you can delegate a lot of the data gathering, you can delegate, hey cmo, make a recommendation. But you cannot delegate the setting of the strategy. That needs to be made at the top level Executive at the top executive.

But you can replace the word marketing with financial. Should the CEO delegate the financial strategy of the company? Heck no. Should they do pick any of the things that are important, any of the roles, they've got to be involved. That's why they are in the position that they're in. So yeah, to me, I think what you got is a bunch of marketers not wanting to be micromanaged and second guessed and not really thinking through what you meant when you were saying marketing strategy.

Yeah, well, in general, especially on Twitter, everybody's always going to tell the worst possible version of whatever it is that you said. Like I was walking around looking for new and exciting ways to get offended and ding, ding, ding, I found it. Yay. So there is one area though, somebody made a really good point. They said, I think you're right. At small business, I don't think this applies to kind of the Fortune 500. And my reply was, you're probably right. I'm generally not talking to Fortune 5000 and I'm pretty sure they're not listening to me. So if any of you out there, Fortune 500 CEOs, feel free to hit me up and let me know if I'm wrong. But in general, right, we're mostly talking to people like us, the entrepreneurial founders, the accidental entrepreneurs. Like those are the them's our peeps. Right. But what was interesting is so one of my wife's best friends, you know, my wife Emily, you've met from time to time. One of her best friends came over to our house last night just to drop something off. I don't remember what, hadn't seen her in a while. She went to like Harvard Business School, been a top level executive at a number of different companies, now is reporting directly into a CEO at a massive multi billion dollar public company. And we were having this conversation because she follows me on Twitter, which I don't know why, but she does. And she said, I saw that. I thought that was really smart. And I said, okay. Do you agree with it, though, for your CEO? And she said, no, actually, I don't. Because he doesn't really get involved in the. In the marketing and the product. Most of you know, his time is really spent talking to institutional investors. Like, he is on that. On that finance side. And I was like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. I guess I could see that capital allocation, making sure that you're raising money, keeping that stock price up. But then I realized something that's still marketing.

Yes.

The difference is for that particular company, their customer, what the CEOs decided. My primary customer is not the person buying all these services. My primary customer is the institutional investor.

Absolutely.

And so that's just, you know, they've. Which is probably accurate as a public company. Right. Your stock price goes up and down these days less and less by the actual performance and more just the people believe the story that you're telling about why your valuation is this insane multiple on the street. Right. And if they believe the story, well, guess what? They're going to keep buying, you know, loading the stock in their mutual fund or their, you know, pension fund or wherever it is who's buying those stocks. And if they don't, then the stock's going to crater and the CEO is going to get fired. So I still think it applies. I just think that the market, that their marketing messaging shifts because their primary customer is not the end customer. Their primary customer is the shareholder. Yes. But it's still the freaking marketing strategy. So I guess what I'm saying is I was right.

Okay, fair enough.

I like it.

I agree.

I'm both intelligent and humble.

The most humble person I think I've ever met.

No, I will tell you, it was cool. A lot of people made some really, really good. I did very much enjoy the discussion, especially from the people who disagreed. And they disagreed in a way that pointed out I gained a lot of clarity from that as well. So for everybody who did that, if you see them, there were some folks who were like, the worst mistake that CEOs make is listening to Ryan Deiss.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, Like, I don't really feel like that added to the discussion, but. Burn.

I have one more thing I want to talk about, and it'll be kind of fun because it is something that I think that we can't possibly understand. And so I like starting to talk about things like that. So this Was Friday, two of our War Room Mastermind members and friends of yours and mine, Jim Doo and his wife Mimi, they came over, we had dinner, we were talking.

I saw, by the way, we need to drop in the show notes, some of the bottles that y' all killed that night, because I was very, very. What did you drink that night?

We drank probably the best California Cab that I have that I've had in a long time, which is the 1994 Araujo, which is a R, A J, O, I think. Isley.

Yeah, yeah, the Isley.

Right? Yeah, the 94 isley, which I have a couple more bottles of, and you and I have to drink the next time you're here, because it's phenomenal. And one of my Somme friends said it was the best wine that he's ever drank in his life. And so I. I got some.

And so it's just that perfect moment.

It's just so good.

Yeah, I. I'm not going to say the name, but there's. I open a bottle of. Of. It was A. A 2010, so not that old, but I'm a. I fear that it has peaked. Maybe it'll come back. But it was. It was one that I love, love, loved. I'll tell you offline. I don't want to, because I love.

I think you got to say it. Dude. Come on. Let me guess. And I guess. Can I guess?

Yeah, you can guess.

Cardinal.

No.

Okay.

I feel bad because we know. We know the winemakers where they're. They're good people, and they've. They've hooked us up and they've gotten us into lots of great places, and their wine is amazing. Just this particular one, I don't know. And so I'm now getting freaked out that any of my wines that are.

What was it? What was it?

I'm not going to say.

Oh, come on. There's. Because there's great. Like, I'll tell you, I love, love, love, love Checkerboard, for example. But there.

It was a checkerboard.

Ah, okay. All right. So, love Dennis, the whole team there at Checkerboard. Fantastic. But sometimes, you know, and it could be how it was stored. There's a million things it could be. What year did you have?

I think it was the 2010.

The 10. Okay. Yeah. You know, well, so I. I know we've had a couple of bottles of that, and it has. Maybe the last one was last year, and it was still good. Does it seem like it's. It was just getting a little thin or something?

Yeah, it's exactly what it seemed like.

Yeah.

And I'd had it before. I'd had a couple years ago, and it was great. I was like, this is amazing.

So you're 11 years in, right? Yeah, 10 years is so. Yeah.

That's why I said when you got a 94, like, I kind of was like, I'm glad. It's okay. Got a little. Got a little twitchy. Anyway, so you had that. What else? Because you also had a scarecrow.

Yeah, we had a. We had a 2016 scarecrow, which is way too early to drink it, but. But they had never had one before. So we were in my wine cellar and I had. I had some cases of scarecrow that I just got that, you know, from the latest vintage that were piled up and they're like, oh, we never had that before. And I was like, all right, I got you. I found the old kidnut here because most of it I store off site. Then we had a 2003 Cheval Blanc, which is from San Emilion, where you and Emily and Don and I were not that long ago. We got to get back there and hopefully in October you'll go. And then we had a 2002 Bouchard White Burgundy, a magnum of the court on Charlemagne. And they were all outstanding. It was really funny because the. We're going to have a wine Segment now, the 94 isley was generally the favorite of everyone, but it was neck and neck with everybody with The Cheval Blanc 2003. So considering the, what, nine year age difference there, that's pretty good for the Cheval Blanc. I personally probably would say I like the Cheval Blanc a just a sko better. But the. They were neck and neck and neck. The Scarecrow compared shockingly well given its young, you know, age to those fantastic wine with food. I'd lean more towards this, more towards the Cheval Blanc. And the Isley without food probably would say they're all great. But definitely the scarecrow is better there because it's not. It's. It's got a very big fruit ness to it. And the. And the 2002 Corton Charlemagne was just perfect. It hadn't got to that oxidized, kind of overly nutty.

Hadn't gotten the funk. Yeah, exactly.

So I do have more of all of those here even as we speak. So, you know, I'm just saying, get out here.

I'm there, I'm there. All right. So you're. Yeah. You're hanging out with.

With. We're hanging out with Jim and Mimi. And Jim and Mimi. And she was telling too much, my wife, about. I think it was like the. We were talking generally about that she actually had the idea to start the business that they have now, which is a wealth management business, a fantastic business.

Not surprised in the least. She's much smarter than Jim. Keep going.

I mean, we tell him that all the time. He'd agree. It was her idea. And she was, you know, she's had success. Success. Success came from nothing, from a Korean family that, you know, was an immigrant family, and, you know, has worked hard multiple times risen to the top. She's very impressive human being, very impressive business person, yet she gets disregarded all the time when they go out. And people will have complete conversations with Jim completely ignoring her. And my wife was talking about. We go to restaurants, and they're like, oh, Mr. Frazier, it's so nice to have you back. And she's like, I've been here. I've been here with, like, for eight years, and why are you saying that? And she went through the gate to one of the restaurants that you and I like at Rancho Valencia the other day. And the person at the gate who had worked there for a long time waited on us many times there. She said. He said, you know, okay, are you meeting someone? She said, yeah, I'm meeting my husband. Who is it? Mr. Frazier. Oh, great. Do you know him? He's so great. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, they say that about everybody, I'm sure. But she's like, I know you. You've literally waited on my. On me and my husband 100 times. I mean, I'm not kidding. 100 times. And she didn't say that, of course. She's very, very nice. But so we were just talking about that. It's still such a challenge. And so Mimi was saying that I met her and Jim, and I do my best. I'm sure I'm not as good as I could be, but I do my best to talk to everyone, whether it's. Whoever you are. To me, everyone is of equality value and deserving of your attention and respect. And so then we met the second time at the Wizard Academy, where you are, I think, currently the chairman, right, still.

Yeah, Yep.

And. And I sat down next to her. I was like, hey, Mimi, how you doing? And she's like, she. I was, like, shocked. She's like, he's actually talking to me. He remembers me, et cetera. And I'm like, that stinks. That, like, I get props for that. Instead of the, like, the bar is so Low that I get props for having recognized the female in the relationship as being equal to the male or maybe superior. And instead of that, that should be always. You should always just assume that everyone is contributing at least equally, unless you're specifically told otherwise. And even so, everyone still brings great things to the table. And so we were talking about that as kind of a persistent problem. And when you go to events and things like that and how do you deal with that? Like, how do you try to, I guess, like to treat everybody the way they should and also being aware of that challenge.

Yeah. So, I mean, honestly, yeah, I bet I fail at it more. I do make a conscious effort to engage everybody as equals because I remember talking to my wife one time coming back from a, you know, from a business thing, and I was always afraid, like, I didn't want to appear, like I was, you know, being flirty or whatever or, you know, that my, you know, I didn't want my wife to be, like, mad. So I almost brag, like, you know, Yeah, I didn't talk because we were having. It was a business dinner and one of the people there was from the fitness industry and was definitely an attractive woman. And I was like, almost bragging to my wife, like, yeah, did you notice I basically ignored her the entire time and she expected to be like, yes, thank you, my, you know, knight in shining armor, as though I have to be there to protect her, you know, dignity and things. She's like, yeah, you seem like a real. I was like, what? I mean, I was completely taken back. She's like, yeah, like, don't do that. That was another bit like, I can't believe that, that you did that. I was so annoyed at you the entire time. And I was like. And like the 800,000 time in my, you know, married life that I thought I, I was like, I did good. I did good.

Killed it.

No, you didn't. But it was a good lesson. She said, look, that's, you know, don't worry about me. You know, you're not like, that's not flirting, that's just treating them like, you know, like an adult, like a business person. And that stuck with me. I also remember you and I were at a business dinner with another well known entrepreneur. I mean, an entrepreneur who's been featured on tv.

I know this person at this time you're talking about.

Yes, yes. And yeah, it was a business dinner and there was a number of female entrepreneurs there and he just ignored all of them. And my wife said, did you notice this? I did and so I think it's one of those things where you have to almost overdo it.

He came back, and this has happened a few times, including with both men and women. So this is interesting, because this is something that's a trigger for my wife is he came back there and said, well, he apologized. Something like, all the girls don't want to hear us talk about business, or you girls don't want to hear us talk about business. And that set both of our wives up. And there was instantly phones up and a flurry of fingers, which is a good indication if you're talking and somebody and that happens, you have totally screwed.

Up, because they're right.

But that happened also. It does from time to time, and with both men and women, where they're like, oh, we're talking about business. The truth is that. And you and I have talked about this with our wives as well, that we don't like to talk all business all the time. And so when we're in a social setting, we talk about some business and we talk about a bunch of other stuff, but it's never like business is off the table because you wouldn't understand. Like, if you say that, if you imply that at all, or you're not interested in this kind of stuff that's like, incendiary, don't do that. But I guess the reason I wanted to bring it up for anybody that's listening is we try to be aware of it. It's like I have conversations with people who want something from me, and they look at me the whole time and don't look at my wife or my kids or the other people that I'm with. And it makes me uncomfortable to the point where I start looking at the people I'm with so that they will start looking at them, too.

Yep.

The things that you can do, I think the biggest thing is be aware. Let the people know that you're with, that it's important to you that everybody gets, you know, that everybody is treated equally and keep the perspective that you can learn something from everyone. There is no. Really, there is no smartest person in the room with respect to everything. So if you do that, then you can stay, I think, humble enough to believe that. That everyone that you're talking to should get at least equal attention. And then I think eye contact, sharing your eye contact, looking at them, asking their feedback when you're speaking or listening, having them involved in the conversation. To me, it's just generally good manners to do that with everyone, whether it's somebody's child or parent or spouse or whatever, of whatever gender or anything else. Right. That's, That's, I think, how you have to do it. What are your thoughts? What do you do to. In those situations where somebody's doing something like that, where you can try to help?

Yeah, I think what. Well, so I think what you said is dead on, like introducing them. So how you can help the other person be less of a jerk is if you're there, like, I'll always be like, you know, introduce the person that you're with. And if you bring up conversation, almost like even asking the person you're with, like, what do you think? So involving them in the conversation. Because I think a lot of times, especially when you have like two entrepreneurs talking and one of them is there with their spouse, like, it starts by, you know, by one partner ignoring the other partner.

Yes.

And so the other person is really just mirroring what you're doing. So I think making sure that you're, like you said, inviting them. I think if on the receiving end, just being very, very intentional about just being a nice, normal, like you said, just it's manners. And I was so impressed. I remember we had Richard Branson. I know you know this speak at Traffic at our event, Traffic and Conversion Summit a couple years ago. He came into the green room and my oldest son was back there, you know, and he's just kind of hanging out. He walked in and introduced himself to us, and he had just gotten off a really long flight, as you recall. He wasn't feeling well. Yes, he was a little bit. Feeling a little bit sick. Such a pro. Nobody on that stage would have known that he was running 100 plus degree fever, but he went around and introduced himself to everybody in there and then actively engaged my son in conversation. Right. He didn't have to do that. Yeah.

And your wife and my wife as.

Well as like every same kind of thing.

That's just being a good human. Yes.

Right. So if Richard Branson can do it when he doesn't have to and he frankly isn't feeling like it, so can you. The other thing, I'll say, even if you don't want to do it just because it's the right thing to do and just being a good human, you should do it because it's a smart thing to do. Because I can tell you, and I know we both experience this as well, if I'm talking to somebody and they're ignoring my wife and she's there when that person walks away, she's like, that Person's a selfish. Don't do business with them. And look, it's like, all right, I'm not. I won't.

As with most things, the most selfish thing that you self interested thing you can do is be good to everybody else.

Right. Isn't that weird? Right. Like if you're just nice, generally nice and cool to everybody, like it has a way of being really beneficial. But I do think that it's worth doing. I'm sad to hear that that's been especially, you know, you think about. I don't want to happen to anybody. You think about Mimi who is so active in the business.

Yeah. I mean smart. I mean, the business would not. Would be half of what it is without her. It's like truly, she's, you know, it's. It's just so unfair.

Yep. Yeah. So hopefully, hopefully we'll help some, some of the gentlemen out there and you know, maybe some ladies will be more cool and generally help the world be a brighter, better place.

That's the goal. Sweet. Well, cool. I'm glad we got to talk about that because I think it's. It's good to be aware of.

Yeah, me too. I agree. All right, well, I got, I don't have anything else. You got anything else?

I got nothing.

All right, well, let's wrap there. I'll see you next week. Bye, everybody. Oh, hey, subscribe comment. Nice stuff. Only give us like five stars. No, like good reviews.

And I would support Ryan, you know, with hashtag CEOs. Don't delegate marketing.

There you go. Thank you. Very short.

It's going to catch.

Perfect. All right, see you, man.

You've been listening to Business Lunch with Roland Frasier. If you're enjoying the show, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review. And for more information, go to businesslunchpodcast.com thank you for listening.

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