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Episode #51

Episode 051: The one about money

  • Dean and Joe share their philosophies about money
  • Dean shares his limiting-belief-busting process
  • Joe makes a secret admission around the 40 minute mark
  • PLUS: How to work with Dean and Joe on YOUR business

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Transcript

Dean: I’m Dean Jackson, he’s Joe Polish and this, is the I Love Marketing Podcast. Hi everybody, it’s Dean Jackson.

Joe: And Joe Polish.

Dean: And look at us.

Joe: Yeah, where are we at, right now?

Dean: Looking at each other, right here in the Strategic Coach studios.

Joe: In Toronto.

Dean: Yeah, this is a pretty, this is a pretty official…

Joe: It’s pretty nice, isn’t it?

Dean: It’s a pretty official studio.

Joe: It’s pretty nice. It was about this time, a year ago…

Dean: It really was.

Joe: …when we started talking about doing the I Love Marketing Podcast. It was just an idea.

Dean: Right.

Joe: Just a dream, a glimmer in your eye, and then I brought it, I made it a reality.

Dean: That’s it.

Joe: And here we are. We’ve got tens of thousands of people all over the world; we’ve got Meetup groups that have started everywhere. The last couple of episodes, for people that have started Meetup groups and people that want to, was the Meetup group in   Tempe, Arizona with me and Mr. Dan Sullivan, who I just got done recording a couple of Genius Network episodes with prior to us doing this. And that’s why we’re here, in Toronto. Literally, we created a global brand, for lack of a better word, with I Love Marketing in less than a year. And we have all kinds of people that have just made a lot of money, gotten better clients, learned how to do effective marketing, have started and launched businesses, right from the very beginning listening to I Love Marketing. We’ve made some really great, incredible impact, and it’s given us an opportunity to insult each other on a regular basis.

Dean: It’s pretty spectacular, isn’t it?

Joe: Yeah. Even out of all the great financial benefits that have come for all of our listeners, I think the greatest thing is the fact that I get to express sarcasm towards you.

Dean: I know.

Joe: On a weekly basis.

Dean: It’s been perfect. It is that. It’s my favorite part, really. And it just adds something when I get to look at you when you’re doing it. It kind of desensitizes me, when it’s over the phone.

Joe: But now, it’s biting.

Dean: But I can see the hurtfulness in your eyes when you actually do it live.

Joe: Yeah, you can tell I really don’t like you. So what are we going to talk about today? We did our I Love Marketing conference, which was incredible. The videos are now released. People are literally watching our packaged-up version of before, during, and after training, along with the 8 profit activators, and along with the big giant manual of killer stuff.   

Dean: You know what’s the coolest thing about that? Is I’ve been watching the videos on my iPhone, which is kind of a cool way that we’ve got it set up online, so that people can see the videos too. You get the DVD’s, but also get the online access, so they can watch on the iPhone. I’ve been watching it on the iPhone; it’s pretty good.

Joe: Yeah, and we have a lot of listeners that are actually going to be part of our Platinum group. We have a Platinum 2.0 group, and that’s literally going to be taking place the last Saturday and Sunday of January.

Dean: Let’s talk about that for a minute, because I really want as many people, the people who are listening right now, who this might be the right thing for, to know what we’ve got, and maybe if it’s right for them.

Joe: That would require me to have to actually start selling somebody something.

Dean: Could you imagine?

Joe: I don’t know. Well, here’s the thing. We’ve been selling people all along about selling yourself on the value of marketing. We’re going to stay true to our core cause and purpose of I Love Marketing, which is always giving people strategies, and techniques and methodologies and education, and hopefully a little bit of fun and humor along the way, for free. We have really accomplished that, and the ratings of our podcasts on iTunes and everything prove that. The vast majority of people that listen to what we share find this extremely valuable, and I’ve had numerous people, we’ve had numerous comments on I Love Marketing that have said, “Yeah, you guys are right. What you give away for free is better than most of the stuff that we charge money for.”

So then the question is what are we charging money for, if we’re going to be doing a high-level coaching/mastermind/brainstorm group, which is called Platinum 2.0. And what it is, is something that I’ve already done for over a decade. I actually   started a coaching program, back in 1998, when I first did the original one, and that was originally over the phone. We still have that. Part of Platinum is we actually do special calls for all of our members, between an hour and 90 minutes, with particular materials and thinking tools to go deep with, and to have some plant. Because some people can listen to things passively, while they drive, while they work out, while they exercise. When we do our monthly calls, we literally want people writing them down, unlike I Love Marketing, where you can work out and listen to I Love Marketing, and you can drive. When we’re doing the coaching calls, we want you literally on the phone, either in front of a computer or, preferably, still writing with a pen and pencil. People have been trained with those technical tools.

Dean: And something happens, though, when you are doing that with a pen. There’s some kind of connection between writing with your hand and activating your subconscious and your brain, and really getting a lot out of doing exercises like that.

Joe: Right. Yeah. So basically, we still have those. But it wasn’t until about, I don’t know, maybe 2000, when I first started doing the official in-person group meetings. So, that’s what Platinum is. Platinum 2.0 is we’re going to have literally 4 meetings next year, and 3 of them will be 2 days at a time, and another one will be literally at the end of our conference. So, we’ll meet 4 times. By meeting in person, the difference is you’re not doing things in slices, you’re literally immersing yourself every quarter, and this is really great because we’re going to have Dan Sullivan actually coming to the first meeting. And it’s right after one of my 25K groups, which is the $25,000 per year coaching group I have for the highest-level marketers in the world. And both me and you, of course, will be there.

Yeah, could you imagine me having one of my groups and not being there? That would be kind of lame.   So, we’re going to have some of the 25K members there. We’re going to have a couple of really major surprises for people. And people are going to come there for 2 days, and we’re going to literally set the stage for you to be the best you’ve ever been. We have a contest called, Better Your Best, so we’re giving away my Land Rover LR4 as a prize, a really high-tech SUV. So, people have an opportunity to win a vehicle, amongst other prizes, just simply by implementing what it is that we will teach them. So, the cost is not cheap, but it is free, if you use it.

Dean: It’s a multiplier.

Joe: Yeah, meaning it is the school that pays you to attend, unlike any other sort of educational opportunities. But you do need to come in. This is not like, “Hey, we’re launching a course; buy our course, and just get it,” No, you’re going to come there, and you’re going to work.

Dean: Right.

Joe: And you’re going to do some thinking, and you’re going to participate. And if you’re not one of those people that’s willing to participate, if you don’t have big enough goals and you’re not willing to, it’s not the right thing for you. So, maybe that’s sort of a takeaway sell I’m doing right now, I’m not sure. But what it is, is it’s an in-person meeting where we go really deep on all the 8 profit activators, before, during, and after. You get to meet and brainstorm with other entrepreneurs that are all very much focused and emphasize the value and importance of direct response marketing. You’re going to see a lot of different show-and-tell. You’re going to have a lot of abilities to network with other people.

And having doing this for over a decade, it will simply make you a better entrepreneur. It will accelerate the speed, and the impact of which you actually utilize what it is me and Dean are teaching on I Love Marketing.   It’s kind of like if you think of the sun, and the sun produces light, and it produces warmth, and it produces heat. If you put a magnifying glass down towards the ground, and you get the sun right in there, and you focus that beam, you can literally incinerate something. And sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes that’s a bad thing. What we want you to do is we want you to really have your marketing to be so focused and so impactful, that coming to platinum is literally like handing you the most powerful business magnifying glass, so that you can identify what it is you want to do.

And Dean, of course, he’s going to talk about how to focus, because you are truly great at the Mary Ellen Tribby analogy: one thing done equals money, 5 things undone equals no money. It’s not just about marketing; it’s simply about being a more effective entrepreneur. And one of the things that we’re going to also do, because a lot of people that are in the group, not only have they started I Love Marketing Meetup groups. But almost everyone that’s in Platinum 2.0 is very interesting, because we’ve had discussion with them on the last couple of calls that we’ve, because we have people that have been in this group since I started it. So now, this is the newest version of Platinum. It’s called Platinum 2.0, because I’m bringing you into this thing.

Dean: Right, and yeah, I’ve been doing the last couple of calls, since we did our conference, joining in with the calls.

Joe: Let me mention this, and then I’ll come back to it, you might have to remind me where I was at, but I just want to say this, because I’ve been talking about how long I’ve been doing coaching. You’ve been in the coaching business with By Referral Only, which you created so much of that marketing curriculum for years. So both me and you have spent an enormous amount of time doing coaching. And unlike many “experts,” “gurus,” whatever you want to call those folks that sell how-to stuff to people, we actually eat our own dog food.   We’re here at Strategic Coach headquarters because we’re obviously great friends with Dan Sullivan and all that. We’re here because we’re attending Strategic Coach.

We go to coaching programs. So, I think people that actually coach other people and have groups, but they themselves don’t get any training, to me it’s almost hypocritical. It’s like you tell someone to exercise, but you don’t exercise. Give me a break. So, we are literally here because we are bettering our best, and there’s an added benefit of that. I just did a couple of recordings with Dan Sullivan, and we talked about how I just got back from Singularity University last week, and I became a platinum partner in Singularity University. So it’s cool, I’ll meet yearly with Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis, and half the people that were there, part of the faculty, all speak at Ted and Ted Med, and some of the most brilliant people. We bring all of that stuff. You were playing golf recently with Tony Robbins. We hang out with smart people.

Dean: Yeah, we do.

Joe: So when people come to our group, they get the added benefit of all of the stuff that me and you are constantly learning and sifting through in order to pull out the best gold nuggets. So, you can either figure out how to get picks and shovels and go mine gold yourself, or you can find someone that’s going to show up with bags of gold and just give it to you if you show up to the right place. In a lot of ways, that’s what we’re offering. So, to your point of what, it’s an investment. And if you are interested in it, then I would encourage you to do that. Now, so this episode doesn’t seem like all we’re trying to do is sell you to come into Platinum, which it’s an invitation, you have to fill out an application and make sure it’s a right fit for you. We don’t want anyone coming into this thing if we don’t really   feel that it’s going to be a 10-times multiplier for you.

So, you’re going to get an awesome group, if you’re an awesome person that is a right fit. If you don’t join our group, though, I would still encourage you go to I Love Marketing Meetup groups. Join Strategic Coach, if you’re not going to join ours. There’s great stuff out there, and we’ve been through most of them. We know what is fantastic and what isn’t. And from a marketing coaching group, I truly think it will be one of the best ever.

Dean: And that’s the thing. We’ve spent this whole year kind of really giving great ideas to people. We’ve had great discussions, you and I. We’ve set up this whole framework for everybody, and we’ve kind of revealed this, we’ve talked about it as our consulting blueprint. This is the same blueprint that we use if people are coming to spend a day with us or to spend time. So, the whole year, if this has made sense, the idea of before, during, and after, if you can see how that applies to your business. And you can see how the 8 profit activators could make a difference in your business, even just with what we’ve been talking about on the podcasts, then combining that along with the… There’s a term that I think you used this term, or I’ve heard it before, forced consumption. One of our other friends used that word. But, you’re coming into…

Joe: Don’t pin me with that word.

Dean: Coming into a place where you’ve blocked off, on your calendar, 2 days to do nothing but focus on your business and be in the presence of other people who are doing the same thing, and to be with you, and to be with me. And to be there with the intention of building your action plan for the next 60 days or 90 days, before we get together again, and just kind of charting the course. Looking at it, you and I have both seen tremendous breakthroughs that people can have in a very short period of time, by just dialing in one or 2 key elements of those profit activators and applying them in their business, and can have a breakthrough in a very, very short period of time.   

Joe: And as a matter of fact, I have gotten myself to the point where if breakthroughs are not happening on a pretty frequent basis… And when I say breakthroughs, I don’t mean like they need to be world-shattering, turn everything upside-down sort of breakthroughs, but talking exponential sort of impact, exponential sort of growth. I want that happening on a regular basis, and that’s why I immerse myself in certain things. Now, you don’t have to do it all the time. This isn’t any giant commitment. We’re talking 8 days of your, minimum, in terms of focusing. But you know what? You’re going to spend those 8 days anyway. As a matter of fact, I think it will save people time. People are like, “I don’t have the time. I’m busy. There’s so much to do.” And the question always becomes, “Well, are you rich? Is your business really kicking ass and taking names?” “Well, no, it’s not.”

So the question is, “What are you so busy doing that you can’t do the things that are going to get you there?” And are you doing them? And if people are really honest with themselves, no. The best way to predict future performance is to look at past performance. If you’ve done this all on your own, and you’re going to go the next year, that’s why I even say, even if it’s not our thing, my advice here is to immerse yourself into an environment that’s going to give you the highest likelihood of, to use your term, forced consumption. So you actually can get focused, and you can really challenge yourself to have a breakthrough. The invitation is not just to say come to our group. We have it set up. It’s done. If you resonate with this and you believe – before, during, and after – these 3 units actually do exist in your business, even if you believe it or not, they still do. If you buy into that and that these 8 profit activators that we have gone through the last year actually describing and teaching, if you really believe that those are valuable, and you were to devote time to come to an environment where you’re going to be around likeminded, excitable individuals.   

On a podcast that I did with Dan, for Genius Network, we were talking, and one of the things that I said is that there’s people that are fountains and there’s people that are drains. And you can hang out with drains that’ll suck all the enthusiasm out of you, or you can hang out with people that are fountains. I will tell you; the Platinum 2.0 group will be a giant fountain for you, that is going to give you knowledge, capability, clarity, strategy. You’re going to have plans. You’re not just going to go and listen to me. It’s very interactive. And you will be coming there, and you will be planning. And you will walk out of there with – to use Dan Sullivan terminology – direction, confidence, capability, and clarity. How much is that actually worth? If you could spend every quarter, a couple of days, in the best sort of marketing-focused thinking environment, what would that actually do for your business? You know what it will do? It’ll probably increase it a lot.

And, in some cases, it could double or triple it. And in some cases, if your business is struggling and it’s not working, it could save it. And I have seen this. There are countless letters that I’ve gotten from people saying, “I wouldn’t even be in business today; I’d have a job. I’d be broke; I would have lost everything, had it not been for this.” So now, with you added to this mix, it’s just become better and better and better. And I truly think this is just…

Dean: What a minute. That doesn’t sound like sarcasm.

Joe: I know.

Dean: I’m not used to that.

Joe: You want me to through in some sarcasm?

Dean: No that’s fine.   

Joe: Why are you wearing a red shirt today? You’re always black. No, I’m kidding. Dean is wearing his same black outfit with his… Are you wearing shorts?

Dean: No, I’ve got pants.

Joe: Okay, we’re looking at a table, I can’t see.

Dean: I got pants.

Joe: This shows you how receptive I am…

Dean: How much you pay attention to me.

Joe: Yeah, like do I really care, like when you walk in here and gave me a big hug and stuff. So yeah.

Dean: Let’s talk about money. Just in terms of the way people think about money, because I think we can talk about Platinum 2.0, and let’s finish that up, actually, and say what should people do if they want to get more information about that?

Joe: Well, you definitely need to give us your name and email. If you’re listening to this on iTunes or you’re just a subscriber, and you heard it online, go to our website at ILoveMarketing.com, give us your name and email, and you’ll be on our list. But if you want to get specific information about Platinum, then what I want you to do is send an email to Support@JoePolish.com, and put, “Interested in Platinum 2.0,” and a little message that says I heard, “Joe and Dean talk about Platinum 2.0, and I’m interested in finding out more about it.” And you can email there, if we don’t have your email, then I will make sure that my team sends you an application and detailed information about it.

And if you’d prefer calling and asking about it, then just call my office at (480) 858-0008 and say you want to find out more information about Platinum 2.0. But we’re going to send you emails and stuff, because we’re not going to spend an hour on the phone trying to describe it when we’ve got all of this laid out in something that we   can easily send to you. And then you can, at your own luxury, decide if this is something that you resonate with. And mark the dates. It’s the last Saturday and Sunday of January.

Dean: I think it’s the 28th and 29th.

Joe: Yeah, I’ll find it out here in a minute. I’m going to take a peek at my phone here. Yeah, 28th and 29th of January, it’ll be in Tempe, Arizona, and right next to the Piranha Marketing headquarters. And you’ll also be able to come in over to my office and see how we run a multimillion-dollar business doing effective direct response marketing. I think the visit to my office alone…

Dean: It’s exciting.

Joe: Oh, yeah. It’s cool, and it’s got a cool building, a lot of wacky artwork. I’ve got one of the best swipe files and libraries, and you can kind of see how this dead-broke, ex-drug addict guy built a business that provides tremendous value. Not only do we make money, but we do a lot of good stuff in the world, raise a lot of money for foundations.

Dean: And have fun.

Joe: Yeah, have a lot of fun, make fun of people.

Dean: Let’s talk about money, then, because I was thinking about all the things that we’ve talked about, and we haven’t really talked philosophically about money. And I think that would be a great topic, because I know we maybe think about money a little differently than most people.

Joe: Yeah. Of course, I will give you the caveat that by no means would I consider myself this dramatically wealthy individual.

Dean: Right.

Joe: I know people that make a heck of a lot more money than I do. And heck, I even took Brendon Burchard to the Gate’s Foundation thing here recently, with another friend of mine, Mike Cline and then Eunice Miller, who’s my assistant of 16 years.   And we’re there with Bill Gates and Malinda Gates and Brendon. I’d met Bill before, so we went up to Bill. I wanted Brendon to spend some time talking to him, because Brandon’s a really sharp dude. And this is one of the richest men in the world. Bill has real money; he has a lot of money. Most people that are listening to this, that’s not what they’re ever going to do. There’s just a handful of people like that in the world. Now, when it comes to money, though, I think me and you would probably fall in the top 1% of income earners, right?

And basically, what I believe about money is that there’s an abundance of it. There’s not a lack of it, and I don’t operate with a scarcity mindset. And a poverty mindset is a sales killer. It is something that will thwart and disable all of your efforts to actually make money. And call it whatever you want to call it. The way that I look at is kind of like deservance issues. If you really don’t believe you’re worthy or capable of making money, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just like the Henry Ford line, “If you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you’re right.”

Dean: You’re right.

Joe: Part of it, it wasn’t until I learned marketing that I actually truly believed that I was capable of making money. Now, I think I heard Deepak Chopra, years ago, like in a speech say, “A belief means you’re just not sure,” which is kind of funny. “I believe this.” Do you really? Or are you just not 100% sure?” I got to the point though where I actually believed that I could make money. Do I still have self-doubts that creep up into me? Yeah. Do I still go back to my childhood, which I wasn’t incredibly poor, but I don’t even know if we were lower-middle-class. I lived I in trailers half my life, growing up. I didn’t have a lot of money, saw my father struggle tremendously, trying to build his locksmith business.   My mother died when I was young, so my father had to support me and my brother.

So, I was never around anything that really instilled sort of wealth habits. All that came as an adult, later in life, and it came through reading other books and inspiring myself externally, not internally, until I can get to the point in myself where I believed I could do it. Even though I was reading, Think And Grow Rich, and even though The Power Of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale, I was reading all of those types of books before I ever made any money, because I was trying to, “Well, how to make more money?” I’ll tell you, though, Dean, it wasn’t until I actually learned how to write a sales letter, how I learned how to put a marketing message out there, and people responded to it. To where I actually, not only believed, but saw, “Yeah, I actually know how to get money from people.”

When I say get money, it wasn’t about like taking it from people, it was about simply making an offer, that they wanted something, and they would give me money. That’s a getting-money methodology. And all of the stuff we talk about at I Love Marketing is really about getting money. The bait is here. The fishing poles are here. The techniques are here. The question is, are you going to fish? The question is, do you believe you can do it? There’s a lot I have to say about this, but I could, as you know, talk endlessly. So, what are your thoughts on money? What does money mean? What are your philosophies on it? Why do people make it? Why do some people not make it? I want to hear what you have to think about, all that sort of stuff.

Dean: Well, here’s the thing. You and I have talked. We talk privately a lot about money over the years…

Joe: Let’s not talk about the other stuff we’ve talked about.   

Dean: You’re saying you feel like there’s an abundance of money. I feel exactly like that. One of my favorite things to say is, it’s only money, and they’re printing more every day. It’s everywhere. Spend as much as you want; they’ll make more. They’re not going to run out of it. There’s nobody limiting the amount that you can have. The only limitation to the amount of money that you can make is your own desire to make the amount of money and your own mental ability to give yourself permission to make that amount of money.

Joe: Do you really believe that, thought?

Dean: I’m not sure!

Joe: No, I’m playing devil’s advocate here. But people are like, “No, you don’t understand my situation, Dean.” And you know what? And you may be right, if you believe it. But you may not. So, part of it is I’d like even people that are saying, “I’m a single mom. I have to take care of 4 children.” And there are real-life circumstances, granted, that make things very difficult. This is not some Pollyanna, like life is sweet and pretty forever. We know that. However, let me say this, as you continue on this path, because I do want you to continue down this path. I just wanted to try obliterate any objections that exist. Just for the sake of the remainder of this episode, try to suspend any doubt that you can’t accomplish, or at least do better.

Dean: Or at least question it.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: And I’ll tell you something that I’ve done. This is very interesting for me to talk about this, because recently I found, well, I’ll tell this story before I tell that story.   One of the things that I experienced almost a year ago now, I was doing a little series of year-end planning calls with some of our clients, who were real estate agents. And I was kind of talking about this idea. This is actually a couple years ago now. I was talking about this idea of; I was going to kind of have a little small group and kind of work through some things with them to help them have their best year, to start really thinking about that. And it was interesting to me that one of the questions that I asked them is, “If you could envision, if you could take off the filter that looks at the logistics of what it would take to do something. And just answer the question of how much money would you like to make, what would be your aspiration?” It was very interesting, because these where guys that were making, let’s say between $150,000 and $300,000 in their business, at that point.

It was very interesting to me that the numbers that they were coming up with were like bumping up to $350,000, or bumping up to $600,000. And it was kind of interesting that without any sort of filtering, I made the real conscious effort to ask the question not in a way, like not saying, “What do you realistically thing you could make next year, or what do you think would be possible for you next year?” I just asked the question of, “How much money would you like to make, if you could make any amount of money?” And it was very surprising to me, the limitations that people put on themselves, of really like filtering through. They start thinking about the reasons why this would be the amount.

So, after going through that exercise, I kind of did that for myself and kind of went through the exercise of thinking. Because I’ve not been driven by money, but driven by lifestyle, and the lifestyle that money buys. Because for me, money buys freedom from all kinds of things. We’ve talked a lot about my “I know I’m being successful when…” list, and my top thing is that I know I’m being successful when I can wake up every day and ask, “What would I like to do today?”   I started examining that. I started looking at myself, and I started thinking back over the timeline that we’ve talked about, when you first start out, that $100,000 seems like that’s a lot of money. That’s most people’s first aspiration. And then, you start thinking about half-a-million dollars, then a million dollars.

So I’d gotten to that point where we’ve made more than a million dollars and been sort of, I want to say plateaued there, but I’ll organizationally structured there, to be at that level, and to be repetitively be able to do that. So, I started thinking to myself, “If I thought about $10-million, what would it be like to make $10-million?” Honestly, what came up for me were limiting beliefs about what it would mean to make $10-million year. So, I started thinking about that, and I journal a lot, so I had the pages in my journal where I was writing about what where the limiting beliefs that I would have about making $10-million. Things came up to me like, “Well, I’d have to work harder than I work right now. I’d have to work harder to make $10-million. I’d have to build a big organization to make $10-million, because we run a lean team. There’s not many people. It’s a pretty low-stress operation that I run. I’d have to take a lot more risk to make $10-million.” I’m just sharing with you guys the stuff that came up for me, what that meant. And then, after I got all of those limiting beliefs out there, all, and I’m calling them limiting beliefs because they were the reasons, what I would have to do to make $10-million a year.

So, I started going through, and then I asked myself the question, “Is that true? Is it absolutely true? Is there any example of somebody who makes that amount of money without having to overcome that particular limiting belief?” So, I look at would I have to build a big organization, do I have to build a big team? And I started thinking about my unique ability or the thing that I do better than anything, is I think, and I organize thoughts into a structure or organize thoughts into a context and can share those things. And writing is probably one of the outlets for that, or talking, or doing programs like this, or teleclasses or live events, or whatever. Management is not one of my unique abilities. I’m not good at finding people and hiring people and managing people, and doing all those things.

Joe: That’s why you’ve got me doing it all for you, you lazy bastard.

Dean: Exactly, because you’re so good at it. And then, I started thinking like, essentially, there are a lot of people who make $10-million, who don’t have big organizations, who don’t have to work harder than I’m working. I started thinking about different writers. It just so happened at the same time, I was in Barnes & Noble, and I saw this boxed set of J. K. Rowling’s, Harry Potter books, all 7 books in one box. And it struck me, because I had just read an article about her, that she had just become the UK’s first billion-dollar women, first women to ever be a billionaire in Great Britain. And I thought to myself, “There’s a lady who has turned ideas in her brain, through her hand, onto pieces of paper, hand-writing her books, and turning into a billion dollars.

And I bought these books. I haven’t opened any of them, just bought the books as an inspiration, as a reminder, that there’s a woman who has basically turned her ideas in her head into a billion dollars. And when you look at it, when you look at that box, that’s what a billion dollars looks like. It’s crazy, all the stuff that has organizationally come on around that, that other people have taken her ideas there and built them into this multibillion-dollar outlet. So, it was kind of an interesting breakthrough exercise for me, to kind of go through that, just to start thinking about that, for every limiting belief that I have about   money. And I’m sure it’s true for everybody, there’s a direct example of somebody who has overcome that particular thing, that it hasn’t been a limitation for them.

Joe: Yes. It is about breaking through something, because unless you’re born rich, and most people that I know that are wealthy, were not.

Dean: Right.

Joe: They were, “self-made,” and many of them went through incredible adversities. Progress, I wouldn’t say 100% of the time, but usually, progress is a continued effort to swim against the stream. And the stream that you’re swimming against, first and foremost, is the one that exists in your head. It’s all of the things in that are saying, “You can’t do it.” Some people have tsunamis of self-doubt, other people have rivers of self-doubt. Other people, it’s like they have some self-doubt. It’s different for different people. What I will say, though, is it is possible.

And one of the best ways to progress is to put yourself into situations and circumstances when you’re going to be around fountains and not drains, you’re going to be inspired, and you’re going to be encouraged, not discouraged. If you’re discouraging to yourself, if your life circumstances are discouraging to yourself, there are always ways that you can improve it. And some people’s goals are not to be super-rich or super-wealthy. Some people, they just don’t want to have to struggle financially, they don’t want have to sweat payroll and worry. Quite clinking with your watch in the background, because we’re in a nice studio and it picks up every bit of noise. So, the people listening, it’s Dean’s fault.

Dean: Sorry.

Joe: One thing I want to mention, just as in aside from this, is we’ve gone through I Love Marketing all of this time, and who is the one that is the hurtful person here? I never hear you say anything bad about anyone, and I’m damn sick of it, I need you to start.

Dean: That’s so funny, because…   

Joe: You’re always such a nice, pleasant person and I just need you to stop it.

Dean: Do you know what’s so funny? I’m glad you noticed. I do, I make a conscious effort to build people up.

Joe: I don’t make any conscious effort.

Dean: I know, you really don’t. Even though you keep trying to be so hurtful to me every time I talk to you on the phone or every time I call you, it’s always something nice.

Joe: Yeah, no, look I’m probably more of a jerk than you are, in some areas, but I would like to think I’m a nice guy.

Dean: You really are.

Joe: I would like to think I’m helpful and generous.

Dean: I’ve always said, when I described the pod, people always comment about what a great chemistry we have. And I always say to people, “It’s because we have the perfect balance of respect and disrespect for each other.”

Joe: Correct.

Dean: I think that’s absolutely true. We know each other well enough that I know that’s your way of saying you love me.

Joe: Pretty much, yes. And I’m going to try to shy away from that because that’s a little uncomfortable intimacy here. No, but here’s the thing, though. Along those lines, this is kind of my way of looking; it’s like a Kekich credo. My buddy Dave Kekich, who’s been in a wheelchair for over 30 years. I always mention in the wheelchair because he’s a guy, in spite of his ability to not walk, not run, not do a lot, he can’t have sex, he’s paralyzed from the chest, he’s still an incredible human being. He’s in his mid- 60’s. He believes in life.

Dean: And in great shape.   

Joe: Yeah, and he just, he has this credo where it’s like life is seldom as bleak as it seems when it’s going bad, or seldom as great as it seems when it’s going good. Lighten up; you’ll live longer. So, part of that is just kind of bringing a fun attitude towards things. Part of my busting on people and doing stuff is, more than anything, I find it funny, so I want people to laugh and all that.   And it’s funny, because Dean right here, for those of you that are listening, he’s getting a phone call, his iPhone is on silent, and it’s Tellman, Tellman Knudson calling him. We should just answer that live, that would be, oh, it’s too late.

Dean: Too late, thought about.

Joe: Put it on speaker. That would be really funny. It’s Tellman. But yeah, part of it is to add some humor to it. And I’ll tell you, when I was struggling the most, going through the most miserable stages in my life, it was humor that was my currency. There’s lots of different currency. There’s lots of different capital; there’s physical capital, there’s financial capital, there’s mental capital. And I think that since we’re talking about money, I think the ways that you actually get to the money is you set your life up, so it’s as ELF as humanly possible. Because it becomes more lucrative when things become easier. I didn’t have any confidence to make money when I was broke, because I didn’t understand how to go and get it. And the thing that helped me learn how to go and get it was marketing.

And once I learned marketing, I’m like, “Wow, oh, I really can weave together words and make an offer.” And even if someone doesn’t own a business, there’s plenty of really great, struggling businesses out there that don’t know how to get customers, and salespeople are the highest-paid people on the planet. Look at Steve Jobs; he was a salesperson. Look at Bill Gates. Look at Martin Luther King. Look at all of the people that have had impact. The one commonality? Sales and marketing. I can point out a million experts with PhD’s and tons of education that the world has never heard about, that have really great ideas, but they lack one thing, they don’t know how to get people interested. They won’t go out and develop the skills to carry their message to people that can actually give them money.   Money is the exchange that people, use in a capitalistic society, to get stuff.

And if you want people to get your stuff, you need to make your stuff really appealing, and you need to fish with bait that the fish want to bite on. Only the hungriest fish will snap the crappiest bait. And if you think you have really crappy bait, well, then you can use really good marketing to sell that, but that’s not a good deal. You want to have really great bait, and you want to fish for really great fish. And you want to put the 2 together, and you get rewarded very well, if you do that. If I had to start this all over again, and I didn’t even have a business, but I had the marketing know-how, you and me, we have spent enough time learning and developing the skills of direct marketing that if our businesses shut down today. As an example, we couldn’t sell the stuff that we sell today, me and you, assuming we’re not brain-damaged, we still have the ability to think, we could go out and we could tell people, “If you did this, this, this, and this, you’ll sell more.” We do it on every episode of I Love Marketing, to a certain degree, except that I’m goofing around the whole time.

But to take these methodologies, if someone took our DNA breakthrough report, which is for free on ILoveMarketing.com, and just went through there, those are methodologies. And if you get really skilled at those methodologies, you can go out and consult with businesses and say, “Hey, will give me a dollar for every $10 I help you bring in? Will you give me a dime for every dollar that you aren’t going to make otherwise, if I teach you how to do this?” We could go out, and we could talk to all kinds of businesses and take a piece of the action. The money is out there. The customers, the clients are out there. It’s just the mechanism that is going to get it. And that mechanism, from our standpoint, is marketing. I wouldn’t say everyone, but I think most people have kind of the hammer that they solve all their problems with. Our hammer happens to be marketing. And I believe…   

Dean: It’s a good hammer.

Joe: It’s a great hammer.

Dean: It’s a good hammer.

Joe: If you give me like I want to be the organize hammer, or I want to be the management hammer, or I wanted to be the technology hammer, I want to be the marketing hammer, I’m going to take the marketing hammer all day long.

Dean: Absolutely.

Joe: You give me that hammer, I can put in a lot of nails. And if you want to be a skilled person with a hammer, join our Platinum group. Come to our meeting in January, if you really don’t have the skill to get there. One of the things, people will beg, borrow and steal to get the things that they want. And that’s unfortunate. Because once you have the real ability to communicate effectively, you don’t have to beg, you don’t have to borrow; you don’t have to steal. You just go out and create value in the world and people will reward you for it. They just will. If you’re one of the people that are listening and you just have life circumstances, you don’t believe that’s possible, if you’re able to, and this isn’t a marketing technique. But I’ll tell you, if you’re ever feeling bad and that you’re not feeling inspired, go and volunteer at a hospital. Go to an AIDS clinic, go to a nursing home. Go to a burn clinic. Go to a pet shelter. Do anything that will give you a perspective shift, so that you realize. I think the thing that really makes people feel good is the ability to contribute to other people.

Just literally going out and, if that’s a food shelter, anything that will give you some sort of contribution is a great way to see like, “Wow, contributing makes me feel good.” Honestly, as crazy as it sounds, one of the reasons I really like marketing is because, for one, I contribute to lots of people. Both me and you have contributed, and   do so on a monthly basis, to the lives of thousands of people, most of which don’t really give us any money, or just a little bit of money. But the mere act of doing that feels good. And when we feel good, the stuff we do do that makes us lots of money; we actually perform that better. It’s counterintuitive. I don’t know if I’m explaining that well, but it’s like if you just go out there and be a bigger contributor to the world, the world will give you more. It is the life gives to the giver, takes from the taker thing. And you can do it being a goofball. You can do it without having a tremendous amount of “acting.”

Dean: Look at you.

Joe: I’m talking about me.

Dean: How did you like that? That was a little sarcasm for you. Merry Christmas.

Joe: You could improve it more than that, thought. Seriously, you can be a little more hurtful than that. No, but that’s a whole point. It’s there. It’s right in front of everybody. I’ll tell you; I was blind to it for the longest time. I had to get myself into such a crappy situation, totally in debt, living off credit cards. We talked about how we both got into marketing in the first episode, so if this is the first time you’re listening to I Love Marketing, you can listen to the beginning ones, where we tell our story. But I was a dead-broke carpet cleaner, living off of credit cards. I didn’t want to work for anyone, because I already had a bunch of jobs in my life that sucked, and I hated those jobs.

And I was trying to live the “American Dream,” whatever, and I wasn’t doing it. I was not successful with it. It wasn’t until I actually immersed myself in direct response marketing and said, “Wow, I actually do have powers that I never know that I had.” And one of my first initial things, Dean, as crazy as it sounds, when I first created the free recorded message on how to hire a carpet cleaner, and it was working really   well, I was initially afraid of advertising it too much because I thought my competitors would see it.

Dean: Right other people would do it.

Joe: They would realize what a great idea it was, and then they would knock it off and use it against me, because they would do a better job of building it. I used to actually believe that ridiculous notion that, “If you got a great idea, hold it to yourself, don’t share it with anyone.” Now I’m like, I tell the greatest ideas and the greatest strategies in the world, that I know will make people tons of money, and most people still won’t do.

Dean: That’s the thing. It’s like, I’ve learned that, too. Because I couldn’t understand why people would not do something that we’ve talked about, or that I would share with them. But you just realize, it’s like man, I don’t know what it is.

Joe: It’s like a virus of self-doubt. Think about this. How many people, even to this day, will come up and say, “Hey, I’ve got a marketing problem. What do I do?” And do you know what the real answer is? Listen to I Love Marketing. Get our I Love Marketing program on DVD. Come to our conference. Join our coaching program. If you really want to know what to do, that’s what you do. “No, no, no, tell me what to do.” I just told you what to do.

Dean: When you think about that, what’s the maximum amount of money that somebody could give us? They could buy the home study, the DVD’s; it would be $997.

Joe: Yeah, $1,000.

Dean: They could come be party of Platinum.

Joe: Yep, for a $1,000 a month.

Dean: $1,000 a month, so $12,000, $13,000 and they could come to next year’s conference, so they could spend maybe $14,000 or $15,000 with us. That’s the maximum.   

Joe: Right.

Dean: So you look at that, and it’s kind of interesting how that mindset, when you start looking at what could that turn into over the course of the year. Because a lot of times, people look at, “Well, that expense,” and that’s how they use that word, because that’s how people look at their marketing. They look at the money that they’re spending on advertising or direct mail or website or anything like that, and look at it as an expense. And look at their current budget, look at the money, and kind of make the decisions based on their current reality sort of thing, without looking forward at what could be a multiple of that.

Joe: And people will be more apt to spend money on things that don’t have any sort of return, like the ones that could, and they won’t even think twice about it.

Dean: You talked about how it can be free, any kind of education stuff can be free if you use it. I have that same conversation with people about our Getting Listings Program for realtors. It’s a whole postcard program. It’s a one-year thing that they do to get listings in an area, and you look at the whole amount of money that it costs to do the program for a year, if they’re mailing to 1,000 homes kind of thing. They might spend $3,500, or $4,000 on postcards and mailings throughout the whole year. Now, one listing is typically $5,000 or $6,000 or $7,000. But I had this conversation with one of our clients, who happens to be the guy who spends the most amount of money on sending out postcards. And because we had a conversation, he realized that you only have to put up the initial money to mail for the first few months, and when you get that first listing, it’s now self-funding, it’s self-perpetuating. So, you look at it like little profit centers or oil wells, I called it.

So, just reframing this mindset, somebody thinking about a $12,000 coaching and mastermind program may sound like a lot of money; but if you look at it that it’s going to be $3,000 or $4,000 in the first 3 or 4 months. And coming to 2 meetings by then and having the whole implementing stuff, that it’s crazy to think that it’s not multiplying itself by the second meeting.   Just that mindset and thinking about, that’s really how you have that unlimited marketing budget. It was always fascinating when Gary Halbert used to always talk about that, about snowballing things, about mailing a 1000 letters and then getting orders and taking the profits and mailing 2,000 letters, and mailing 10,000 and getting up to where you can mail 100,000 letters a week.

Joe: There was always some great wisdom with Gary, and he’s who both of us learned marketing from originally in the beginning. I used to spend a lot of time with Gary. After I became friends with him, he’d come out and freaking stay in my house. I’ve got some crazy Gary Halbert stories. And he said that most people, if you said to them, “There’s a location you need to go to, and there’ll be $1,000 waiting for you. You need to be there by 8:00 in the morning and you need to do it every day, and if you just get there by 8:00 in the morning, you can pick up your $1,000, and you’re done with the day.” He would make the analogy that it’s like if you just have a really great sales letter and send it out, it’s the equivalent of, once you get it, once you get it down. You might have to work your butt off, in the beginning, to get the right offer, get the right response.

But he goes, “You have this technique, you have this method,” he goes, “it’s like giving some like a $1,000, where they can just go and get it every day.” And he goes, “You know what’ll happen?” He goes, “Every day, for like a week, they’re going to get there, and then maybe they might do it for 2 weeks, but then they’ve got the money, so they think they’ve got it down. And then one day you’ll call them, and they’re like, “Well, did you get the money?” It’s like, “No, I had a flat tire today, I couldn’t make it.” And he’d be like, “Well, why didn’t you call a cab? It costs less than a $1,000.” And he’s like, “People will spend their time stepping over gold coins so that they can pick up the bronze and silver.”   The whole thing is like, when it comes to making money, are you going to have to take risks? Yeah. It does take some cahonies. And if you’re a woman, you know.

But it does. And frankly, a lot of people don’t have it. They’re so risk-adverse, they so live in fear, and most of it is self-made. It’s artificial fear. It’s like what the hell? The bullshit excuses that people come up with for why they can’t get ahead in life. It’s like, “I’m too busy.” Too busy doing what? Being broke? Talking to your dumb-ass friends, are things working for you or not? So when I say that, it’s not like I want to insult people because they’re not buying stuff from me. Part of it is I want to say like, “Wake the hell up!” If you want your life to be better, do the things that you need to do in order to make your life better. If you don’t have a particular skill, go and get the skill. We live in this amazing world! We have technology available at our fingertips. I just interviewed Peter Diamandis for his new book, Abundance, that’s coming out, which everyone needs to pre-order on Amazon. Abundance, by Peter Diamandis, the founder of the X prize.

Basically, it’s like people in Africa, right now, with phones, have more technology available to them than the President of the United States had 10 or 15 years ago. Literally, in their hands, the access to stuff. There is abundance everywhere. But, you’ve literally got to go out and get it. And we’re going to wrap this up here in a minute. One of my clients, Bob Runyon, actually sent this to me a while back, when he bought my carpet cleaning course. And he’s like, this is a real letter he wrote, and I have this in front of me because I pulled this out.

Dean: I can certify that, indeed, that is a real letter Joe is holding in his hands, right now.

Joe: I had it, and that’s why some people might have heard that shuffling of paper noise earlier. I was trying to find this.   And it says, “Joe, writing to let you know how big of an idiot I am. I was telling a friend of mine, that is also in the carpet cleaning business, about one of your strategies that involves giving out free rooms of cleaning to past customers I have not heard from in a year or more. He told me I am a total blooming idiot for giving away free rooms of carpet cleaning. I am really glad he set me straight, not. I sent out 380 of the 3 letter sequences that you gave me in my membership, making the special offer. Here’s the rundown: 380 times 3 letters; envelopes $11.40; letters $93.10; postage $364 and change; labor $324, for a total of $793.” “Well, here’s the real bad news, I brought in $7,258.29 in profits off that letter. Boy, do I feel like a complete idiot. You should have seen me, the biggest laughing all the way to the bank idiot. I love it; I love it, I love it. Just think, this is only one of the 105 strategies. Joe, thank you for everything. You got me interested in my business again. It’s really great helping my clients.”

And the point is, Dan Sullivan says you can’t have excitement without fear, and you can’t have fear without excitement. And you know what? If you’re excited about something, there’s probably some hesitancy. If you see an attractive person you want to go out with, and you want to go and ask them out, you know what? You’re excited, but you also have fear. If you don’t go and at least make the request, if you don’t go out and do it, is it scary to say, “Yeah, we’re going to sign up for a $1,000-a-month program, or we’re going to come to a conference and we’re going to invest in,” but you know what? Like our DVD’s, as an example, I don’t even know why anyone wouldn’t take us up on that offer. It comes with a guarantee. If you don’t like it, send it back.

Dean: Right.

Joe: Listen to the whole thing and watch it and rip us off, if you’re a scoundrel. But for the most part, what’s the risk, other than like I’m afraid to be successful, I’m afraid to break out of my comfort zone sort of thing? That is the number one thing.   Look, I can go on and on about this, but I know we need to wrap. And I want you to actually send our I Love Marketing listeners off for the new year. I personally want to thank everyone that has been with us from the very beginning, that is an avid I Love Marketing listener. Next year, we are going to continue to deliver really awesome stuff. I’m now a Platinum Partner in Singularity University, so I’m even going to be bringing very interesting…

Dean: Sounds fancy.

Joe: No, but it’s very interesting because I’m learning all kinds of cool stuff about nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, and all kinds of crazy networks, and the most wild stuff I’ve ever been introduced to. So, we’re going to bring some incredible capabilities, skills, technologies, and sarcastic conversations to everyone in the future. So, Dean, what is the final sending people off into the new year with, the Dean Jackson money fairy?

Dean: The money fairy.

Joe: What do you have to say?

Dean: Well, first of all, it’s been an incredible year. I can’t believe how fast it’s flown by, when you look at what we’ve done, we’ve got now 50 episodes, we’ve spent 50 hours, you and I, either right in front of each other or on the phone, and another 3, 4 days in a row onstage, talking about our favorite thing: marketing.

Joe: Right.

Dean: I’m as energized going into next year as I was when we first started. We’ve got 50 hours, and we have yet to run out of stuff to talk about. So, I’m really excited about that.   I look at the numbers, the thousands and thousands of people, tens of thousands of people listening every week, to I Love Marketing, and we started with one idea, putting it up on iTunes. And here it’s grown into this movement, with people all over the world starting Meetup groups. I just feel like this is laying the foundation that next year is just going to be an incredible year for everybody. I’m excited about moving forward and continuing the conversation, because that’s really what it is.

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. So thank you. And thank you to our listeners, and thank you to all our Meetup group people. Go to a Meetup group, more than anything, and give us your feedback. Have a wonderful, safe, happy holiday. Dean Jackson is the man.

Dean: Happy New Year.  

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