Episode 068: The one about reading minds

Dean: Hey everybody, it’s Dean Jackson. Joe: And me, Joe Polish.

Dean: And me.

Joe: That’s me.

Dean: Let’s just call you me.

Joe: That’s what I just did. That’s what I’m about.

Dean: It’s all you really need, really.

Joe: It’s my new brand, me.

Dean: Dean Jackson.

Joe: What’s in it for me?

Dean: Me, me, me.

Joe: Sell me something. Teach me how to be a better marketer, the world is me oyster.

Dean: I just thought of something, when you said that.

Joe: What’d you think of?

Dean: That brand is actually in perfect alignment with all of everybody’s prospects brands, too. Because their favorite brand is me, me, me, me, me.

Joe: And why wouldn’t it be?

Dean: Exactly. Oh, you think that they’re thinking about you?

Joe: No, no, no.

Dean: I meant they’re thinking about them.

Joe: No, no. People think about themselves. It’s their own personal self-interest and how they’re going to be satiated, and that sort of stuff, and what their worries and concerns and every other human need, desire, emotion, feeling, whatever, that we all have in   different ways, shapes, and forms. But it’s all about them. And therefore, if you want to get people to buy into what it is that you are offering, you’d better make it about them.

Dean: You’ve got to read their minds.

Joe: Yeah, as best as you can. One of the things we’ve said before, I don’t think you said it, Dean, and I certainly didn’t…

Dean: Tell me what it is and I’ll tell you whether I said it.

Joe: It’s marketing is applied psychology. I love that saying, “If you want to sell what John Smith buys, you’ve got to see through John Smith’s eyes.” There’s many other little things we talk about, like The Robert Collier Letter Book, enter a conversation that’s already existing in the prospect’s mind, and that sort of stuff. So, me and you are going to go on a little rambling session on today’s I Love Marketing episode and talk about that.

Dean: Talk about reading people’s minds?

Joe: Yes.

Dean: So much of it. You’re absolutely right. The reason that we wanted to talk about this tonight is because I sent you over some examples of some things that I’ve been seeing all over the place, for a company called Fisher Investments. It’s been amazing to me because they advertise on Drudge, like DrudgeReport.com, on TMZ.com, on all kinds of sites. And they must do some retargeting, because everywhere I go, they kind of follow along, so the ads show up a lot. There’s a good chance that everybody who’s listening has probably seen one or more of these ads, too.

Joe: Yeah. They’re good marketers.

Dean: They really illustrate the idea of entering the conversation that’s going on in people’s minds right now, and tying their product, their offer, into that conversation, what’s going on right now.   I sent you over a couple that were sort of election year-related. In election years, one of the things that people always wonder is what’s going to happen. How’s that going to affect the stock market? There’s always some volatility in election years. So, they tie into that, that that’s the conversation going on. We’ll put up samples of these ads on ILoveMarketing.com, so you can go and take a look at them, if you’re just listening on iTunes right now.

The first 2, and this is really all they’ve had to change to join in on that conversation that’s going on, is just changing the headline. They’ve basically got the same ad with a different headline. So, the first headline is, “What could happen to the stock market if Obama is re-elected?” And then the ad says, “If you have a $500,000 portfolio, you should download the latest report by Forbes columnist Ken Fisher’s firm. It tells you what we think may happen in the 2012 elections and why. The must-read report includes research and analysis you can use in your portfolio right now. Don’t miss it. Click here to download your report.” Very simple. Very short. Very unadorned by any kind of graphics or any kind of dancing chickens or flashing lights or anything like that. No flash animation on it.

Joe: And you know, that flashing chicken thing just really tends to pull people in like crazy.

Dean: It really does. I wonder if they’ve tested that.

Joe: By the way – just so I can be interruptive here – to sell things like hotcakes, you’ve heard that before, it’s going to sell like hotcakes?

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: I need you to explain the historical, where does that come from, the selling like hotcakes? Someone told me once, and I just can’t remember.

Dean: That’s one of those things. Do you know what that means?   

Joe: I sort of do, but I know what it means, like the purpose behind it, but like literally, what is a hotcake? I guess it’s some sort of pancake or something. Not only do I not know because I’m not all that bright, it’s not like I can go on Jeopardy or anything.

Dean: Here it is. Thanks to the power of the interwebs

Joe: The superhighway.

Dean: I’ve got the idioms dictionary. The information superhighway, exactly. I have access to a worldwide network. I’ve got access to a worldwide network.

Joe: Go ahead. What is it?

Dean: Sell like hotcakes means to sell quickly and in large numbers. But that doesn’t tell you the beginning of it.

Joe: Why don’t you just pull up the Wikipedia page on the origin of the hotcake? Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll just let anyone that’s listening to this go post comments on ILoveMarketing.com.

Dean: Please standby.

Joe: Yeah. We can do a whole episode next on hotcakes.

Dean: Let’s see if there’s anything in Wikipedia.

Joe: I completely threw you off-subject. Go back to the importance of this changing the headline. “What could happen to the stock market if Obama is re-elected?”

Dean: Wouldn’t it be great? Some people might not be thinking. There are only 4 options here. You’re either an Obama fan, and that’s your primary driver, and you think everything is going to be fine if people will just come to their senses and keep Obama in power. And then you might think that you don’t like Obama and you think the stock market is going to be great if we could just get rid of Obama. And you might be a Republican, and you might be more attracted to a headline that says, “What could happen to the stock market if Republicans take back the White   House?” which is what they’ve changed the headline of that ad to read, and they’re entering a completely different conversation.

It illustrates a couple of things, and there are other examples of this here. There are a couple of illustrations in this that you’re entering that conversation just by the headline. That headline is getting someone’s attention. They’re going to see republicans, they’re going to see Obama, those are things that are going to jump out at people and arouse their interest enough to click to see what is on the other side of that, to find out about, “Well, I wonder what would happen if Obama is re-elected, or if the Republicans take back the White House.” It just goes to show, so often, you don’t have to really change the entire message every time you are going out there. You can just change the headline. It reminds me of even resending the letter that you were talking about, with Bill Phillips, where he had the 3 tractor-trailers full of…

Joe: Myoplex.

Dean: Myoplex or whatever. And you just sent the same letter with an X through one of the things, which essentially changes just the headline.

Joe: Yeah, exactly.

Dean: They either read it or they didn’t. So, there are lots of examples of being able to just change the headline, just to get attention. It’s kind of an interesting thing, to think that you can really reach somebody who wasn’t reachable when you were talking about Obama, they blocked it out or they weren’t interested in it. But then, you talk about the Republicans, and now, all of a sudden, you have their interest. Pretty interesting, that kind of thing.

Joe: See, here’s the thing, too. This is so basic on one level, but so sophisticated on another, that people will have the tendency to totally miss the point. You said you’re going to put this up on ILoveMarketing.   

Dean: Yeah, I’m going to put these up on ILoveMarketing.com. I think we should really beat this into the ground, so that they really do get the importance of it.

Joe: Think about what a smart deal that is for them. Here we’ve just exposed Ken Fisher’s pitch to, basically, tens of thousands of people. Someone could actually seek us out and try to buy something here.

Dean: That is exactly right.

Joe: Maybe we should get them to pay us for like sponsorships or something.

Dean: Exactly.

Joe: Anyway, we’re not endorsing this in any way, shape or form, and we’re not disendorsing it. We’re just showing you the promotional piece.

Dean: Do you want to know what it’s like? One of my favorite weasel words on TV, you know how whenever there’s a paid advertisement for something or a show that’s a sponsored show? The networks always say, “The views in the preceding show do not necessarily reflect those of the network,” unless you like it. If you like it, then that’s our view. But if you don’t, that’s not necessarily the way we feel.

Joe: It’s actually quite funny.

Dean: It is kind of funny.

Joe: Yeah. So, put all of these ads up there. Let people see them. Let’s go through this and dissect it, and kind of explain what’s going on and why it should apply to everybody that’s listening. So, kind of go through the whole thing. Let’s read the copy again, Dean. The first one is the headline.

Dean: Yeah, you want to read it, or do you want me to?

Joe: Sure, I’ll read it. And then, we can go back and forth, and they can see whose voice is more soothing.   “What could happen to the stock market if Obama is reelected?” And then it goes on with the ad. “If you have a $500,000 portfolio” – maybe you should be reading it.

Dean: Selecting your target market.

Joe: Yeah. If you have a $500,000 portfolio, you should download the latest report by Forbes columnist Ken Fisher’s firm. It tells you what we think may happen in the 2012 elections, and why. This must-read report includes research and analysis you can use in your portfolio, right now. Don’t miss it. Click here to download your report.”

Dean: Now, that’s pretty good copy, isn’t it? That’s pretty compelling, as a compelling offer. If you are someone who has a $500,000 portfolio, that’s immediately for you.

Joe: Exactly.

Dean: Probably, a lot of the people who are downloading this don’t have a $500,000 portfolio, too. But it’s compelling.

Joe: Yeah. And people really seem to like my selling evil sort of little video that’s online, “Is Selling Evil,” which everyone needs to go to YouTube and type in “Is Selling Evil.” I haven’t set up the website, which I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. But I actually own the website, IsSellingEvil.com now. Basically, you should come up with a good strategy for that for me, Dean. It’s the least you can do. And basically, one of the things that I say in that 3:40 video is that some sales offers are designed to not attract, but to repel. So, this ad is intended to attract, based on the headline and based on the “click here to download your free report,” but it’s repelling, too, in the very first sentence, right after…

Dean: If you have a $500,000 portfolio, yeah.

Joe: There are only 4 sentences in this entire ad. If you include the headline, you could say 5. But it says, “If you have a $500,000 portfolio, you should download the latest report by Forbes columnist, Ken Fisher’s firm,” first sentence.   The second sentence, “It tells you what we think may happen in the 2012 elections, and why.” Third sentence, “This must-read report includes research and analysis you can use in your portfolio right now.” And then the last sentence is, “Don’t miss it.” And then, click here to download your report.” It’s only 4 sentences, and there’s a headline, but it’s powerful. You know that these guys have really thought through every single word, and they’ve got that body copyright. And then, of course, you’ll see the different headlines that are designed to attract and to repel different individuals and different people for different reasons.

Dean: Right. Let’s red some of the other headlines that they have. It’s “Should you be buying stocks right now?” See, that’s an interesting thing, because it’s the kind of question that a lot of people might be asking right now. “Should I be buying stocks right now?” And then, they just slightly changed the ad. They still say, “If you have a $500,000 portfolio, you should download the latest report.” And then they say, “It tells you where we think the stock market is headed, and why. This must-read report includes our latest stock market forecast, plus research and analysis you can use in your portfolio, right now. Don’t miss it. Click here to download your report.” All of these, the same thing with the stock market, the state of the market, the next headline says, “Are we in a bear market?” So, you’ve got that “Should you be buying stocks right now? Are we in a bear market?”

Joe: What’s your experience with questions as the headline? Because even your magic email formula, with 9 words, you really focus on questions a lot. But then, another one of their headlines is, “4 ways to avoid running out of money during retirement.”   

Dean: Yes. See, that’s the thing. There are the others. They’ve got, “4 ways to avoid running out of money during retirement,” that’s appealing to the conversation that’s going on in somebody’s head, that might say, “What if I run out of money? What if the stock market never turns around, and I never gain back what I’ve already lost? What if I lose more? I could run out of money.” I know that people in their 60’s, right now, who were sort of approaching retirement, thinking they were sitting pretty 3 years ago, or 4 years ago, might be pretty worried about running out of money during retirement. Could you imagine, if you retired in 2008, what you might be thinking? When did the stock market peak? 2007 or something?

Joe: Yeah, probably. Heck, I don’t exactly know.

Dean: In there. But you look at it, and it’s like, “Wow!” Could you imagine people thinking, “This is great! The market peaks, they look at their stock portfolio, they think, “I am set for life,” and they’re thinking, “I’m out of here. I’m going to take early retirement. I’m not going to wait 3 more years. I’m going to retire now.” And they retire, and then all of a sudden the market turns around, and it doesn’t appear like they don’t know what to expect.

Joe: Right.

Dean: 4 ways to avoid running out of money during retirement. They may be scrambling, although, the market’s been in great rebound.

Joe: I want to read the copy here, because they address this. It’s subtle changes. This is the real lesson here, because if you’re listening and you’re thinking, “Okay, this is redundant, this is boring, get to the magic secret,” really, one of the magic secrets is this continual honing and testing. Carl Daikeler and Jonathan Congdon, who created and founded Beachbody.com, they sell P90X and everything, when I had met with them out in LA, he was telling me about how much testing and meticulous tweaking that they had done   with P90X in the beginning, just to get it to work. And then once they have that formula, they’re so scientific and they’re so specific about how they do testing.

Dean: I agree with that. And so much of it is really matching the conversation that’s going on, right now. Like years ago, it was exercising, working out and stuff, really wasn’t the thing. People were looking for the shortcut things. So, like take this pill, or just sit on your couch and hook up these electrodes, and work your abs, get a 6-pack of abs while you’re watching TV, those were all the message kind of thing. It’s like, “Lose weight without dieting, without exercising, without expensive gym memberships, all those things. That was the magic formula. That was what was really popular. And now, culturally, it’s changed to the point where P90X, the appeal of that is really going after the people who have totally embraced the healthy lifestyle, and they’re almost like saying, “You know, this is really hard, and you’re probably not going to be able to do it. And if you somehow do survive it, you probably are going to lose weight and get ripped.” And to some people, that’s the conversation that appeals to them.

Joe: Right. There are a lot less Thigh Master, ab sort of machines, Tony Little sort of gazelle things, than there were in the past. Every once in a while, I’ll see a short-form infomercial where you strap on some belt that will just convulse you, and you’ll immediately get rock-solid abs. But there’s a heck of a lot less, yeah. And I think if you just take a look at what Beachbody has done, they make no ifs, ands or butts about it, you’re going to sweat your ass off, and this is a hard workout. And that’s appealing to a large segment, and that’s why they’re one of the most successful infomercial companies in the world. Okay, let me read this, though, Dean, because there are subtle differences here, and I want everyone to really pick up on this, so they can kind of get what we’re saying here.   So, “4 ways to avoid running out of money during retirement. If you have a $500,000 portfolio, I say it again, download the guide by Forbes columnist, Ken Fisher’s firm. Even if you have something else in place, this must-read guide includes research and analysis you can use right now. Don’t miss it.” So, they say, “Even if you have something else in place.”

Now, the headline is, “4 ways to avoid running out of money during retirement.” So, immediately, if they just said, “How to avoid running out of money during retirement,” that’s not as good as “4 ways to avoid running out of money during retirement,” because it immediately makes your brain think, “What are those ways,” even if you’re not consciously aware of it. And then, of course, I like the credentialization. “Download the guide by Forbes columnist, Ken Fisher’s firm.” They don’t even say, “Ken Fisher,” “Ken Fisher’s firm.” Really small, subtle changes here, but it completely communicates something entirely different than the other ads, although it’s almost the same.

Dean: Yeah. It really is. That kind of thing, you asked about a question, “Are we in a bear market?” or a statement, “4 ways to avoid running out of money during retirement,” what they both have going for them is they both have sort of curiosity involved. When you think about not only are you entering the conversation that’s going on somebody’s mind, but you’ve got to imagine the conversation going on in their mind as they interact with the ad itself.

Joe: Yes.

Dean: Hearing that, “Are we in a bear market?” that’s going to trigger some thoughts in their minds.

Joe: Indeed, it will.

Dean: And as they interact, what are they thinking? What are they thinking enough to click on that ad?   

Joe: Let me time out for a minute. So, what, at this point, should everyone that’s listening to this be taking away from what we’re talking about?

Dean: Well, I think 2 things: the first thing that we’re looking at here is that these are great examples of profit activator #2, compel your prospects to call you or to identify themselves, or to ask for something. All this stuff is very compelling, going into just getting them to identify themselves. There’s nothing about invest with us, there’s nothing about do anything beyond download this report. The only thing they’re selling is download this report. The only thing they’re selling is download this report. That’s the whole thing, completely as a lead generator.

Joe: Yep. This is education-based marketing, from the initial standpoint of it. Now, of course, I personally have not read the report. So, I don’t know to what degree. I can’t speak to that. But we definitely know, for a fact, that they are making lots of money because they are everywhere, and they have done a tremendous amount of very powerful, effective promotion. So, the point is it doesn’t matter if this is not the business you’re in. You want to look at the anatomy of what’s going on here, because that’s when it’s applicable to you. So, how would someone take this, Dean? Obviously, I’m asking you a devil’s advocate question. I already know the answer to this, and we talk about this stuff on every episode of I Love Marketing. But, again, reiteration and stuff. Like what if someone’s not in this business, how do they apply it to their deal? Someone listening here, what do they do?

Dean: Well, I think that one of the things that you start looking at is what is the conversation that’s going on in your prospect’s mind. I’ve talked about this before. We talk about it as really the cheese. What’s the cheese that’s on their mind? And what are they really thinking about? What do they really want? So, I look at it that I shared the idea of what we’ve used with offering somebody the free May 2012 report on Winter Haven house prices or Winter Haven   lakefront house prices, where it’s very specific. You’re entering the conversation that’s already going on in somebody’s mind, if they’re thinking about selling their house, what is the first thing that they want to know? What’s the first thing that they’re really thinking about?

Joe: Right.

Dean: Do you want to go through a couple examples? Do you want to talk about maybe some ways of entering the conversation that’s going on in somebody’s mind? How did you use that in approaching carpet cleaners, for instance?

Joe: For one, I was one of them. So, that actually helped. If you’re a skier, you kind of know what being interested in skiing is like. You kind of know what people are going out there buying, because you’re one of those people. And if you’re not one of those people, you’d better learn a little bit about those people, what keeps them up at 3:00 in the morning. I would always ask myself that question. I don’t even know where I got it from originally. Dan Kennedy or Gary Halbert, or something. But what keeps someone up at 3:00 in the morning, with bile in their esophagus, that’s keeping them literally that ridden with anxiety? Is there anything? And if there is, what is it? And that sort of stuff. Now, that would be okay. If you’re trying to sell stuff to carpet cleaners, and you don’t ask yourself that question, a lot of people would be like, “Well, I’m not really in that sort of business. My clients don’t think like that.” But think about it a little. I mean really, what keeps people up? “I sell cupcakes.” You could sell shoes. You sell cars. You sell graphic design. If you really ask yourself that question, what it does is it really forces you to think about that.

So, I used to think like, “What are their anxieties?” I would tend to go towards the pain. What is the pain that is going on in their mind, because if I have a solution, and even if it will help them, if they don’t have enough of a motivation, a desire, or   pain, you can sell with features, you can sell with benefits, you can sell with pain. And pain is one of the best ways to actually approach a situation, if you have the ability to remove it. When people hurt, they don’t want to be in pain. Like we just did a 25K group last week, last Thursday and Friday, and we have Z-Health.net, Eric Cobb and Kathy, a brilliant company, smart people, one of the most unique ways of taking people out of pain. I was introduced to them by Dan Sullivan. What’s funny is like Eric raised his hand, and he’s like, “How many of you in the room are in some sort of pain, right now?” And about 40% of everyone in the group literally raised their hand.

Dean: I was with you, yeah.

Joe: Yeah, like, “Are you in pain?” And it seems like such a simple question. But if you just ask people, “Does this cause you pain? Are you in pain?” And “4 ways to avoid running out of money during retirement” is not a benefit, it’s not a feature, it’s pain. Because running out of money would be painful. And if you don’t know what the hell to do, you’ve got to know what to do. So, the way that I would enter the conversation in their mind is I would always think of the things that cause me pain and anxiety. And I simply was kind of in a good situation because I created the exact marketing course, manual, strategies, instructions that I just wish had existed when I first got into the business, so I could avoid 2 years of sheer hell for me. It was miserable. The first couple years of my business, living off credit cards, being dead broke, doing hard, manual labor and actually paying to do that, there’s nothing fun about that.

So, I understood the pain, the anxiety, the desire to want to run a successful business and thinking you’re doing everything right, and treating people ethically, and still having bait and switch carpet cleaners doing better than you financially. And wanting to throw in the towel, but not having any other options of what you’re going to do anyway, going deeper into credit card debt. I kind of lived through that sort of situation, so I think I had the ability to speak to it.   But while I was living through that sort of situation, I had not discovered the power of words. I understood the pain, but I didn’t know how to get myself out of it. And it wasn’t until I actually started studying marketing for, of course, turning my business around, that it really sort of made sense.

Once I started communicating with people in their ads, the beauty of running ads, if you pay attention and you use direct response, like “Click here to download this guide,” if you’re running AdWords. If you’re paying for any sort of advertising, the marketplace are the ones that are actually telling you if they’re resonating with you or not, by clicking on your stuff, requesting your information, calling your free recorded message, responding to whatever response mechanisms you have. Because all direct response has a response mechanism. So, you actually can figure out what’s going on in people’s heads based on if they’re responding to your marketing or not. And if they’re not responding to your marketing, guess what? You’re having a conversation that is not relevant to them at all, or you’re fishing with the right bait in the wrong lake. You can sometimes have the right bait; you’re just fishing in the wrong place. Or, you’re fishing in the right place with the wrong bait.

So, the key is fish in the right place with the right bait, and you’re going to have the highest chances of success. After I, of course, had started having lots of different conversations through “marketing,” I got into things like the DOS conversation, from Dan Sullivan. What are the dangers? What are their opportunities? What are their strengths? And I would start asking people, “What do you want? What frustrates you about this? What do you need? If you could wave a magic wand over your business,” because I was selling to business owners, “and have 3 things come true, what would those 3 things be?” To this day, I use that question all the time. If I was selling something, “In the ideal world, what would you want something like blank to do for you?” If you could   wave a magic wand, your prospects, if asked in the right way, will tell you. If you simply don’t know how to get in their heads, ask them.

Dean: Yeah. Especially in a business-to-business situation, it’s pretty clear you’re not getting into the really deep subconscious reasons why somebody is influenced to buy something or why somebody is persuaded. And that’s the whole way. It’s just thinking, “What is it that they really want?” If you look at our Stop Your Divorce, really, all you need to do is say those words, “Stop your divorce,” 3 words, and that, speaking to the right person, is exactly what they want.

Joe: Dude, I’ve got a computer here. Let me see if I can look up some Spice Girls. What’s that song, “Tell me what you want, what you really, really want?”

Dean: I don’t know. If you want to be my lover.

Joe: Yeah, if you want to be my… Come on, sing it for us.

Dean: Yeah. I don’t think so.

Joe: Want To Be? I think it’s “Want To Be.”

Dean: Yeah, I think so. “Want To Be.” Yeah.

Joe: I’m trying to find the video. Yeah, it’s called “Want To Be.” This will be good. Yeah, yeah. That’s right, baby. If you want my future, forget my past. Anyway, I think we’ve lost about half of our ILoveMarketing listeners.

Dean: We’ve really gone off the deep end, now.

Joe: If we track the podcast, like listenership right now, it just dropped off the cliff = which is good, because the best part is about to come.

Dean: Now, here it comes, exactly. Now that we’ve gotten rid of the new listeners, then we can talk.   

Joe: So in your particular case, what are some ways that you have gotten inside people’s heads? What I’d like to actually cover on this episode is your process for sitting down, and mostly your evil scheme hatchery because that’s where you do most of your thinking, and kind of go through it. It’s funny about the process, too. I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Tim Ferris yesterday, and at the time you’re listening to this podcast, if you listen to this right when we publish this episode, which some people will, some people won’t, he has a video, 30 minute episode that Morgan Spurlock did on him.

Dean: I watched that. “A Day In The Life.”

Joe: Exactly. You can go find that on Tim’s blog. He kind of goes through his process, which is funny, and his new book that’s going to be coming out, 4-Hour Chef, is really about how to figure out how to learn, basically. It’s going to be how to learn anything, because he goes into particular different categories and stuff like that. He talks about his process a little on that video, but this book is going to be really about a whole other process. But, I want to hear your process, because I think you’ve got very unique, applicable ways that people do it, and we’ll remind people that are brand new to I Love Marketing to go to the search function and type in “50 minute focus finder,” if you’ve never watched Dean’s video. It literally is one of the best, totally usable, immediately will produce results for you in your thinking in 50 minutes. It’s a fantastic video that we put up in the very beginning, when we started I Love Marketing, and it’s absolutely worth watching.

But anyway, Tim is going to speak at my New York event along with Mark Thompson and Ned Hallowell, and Arianna Huffington, and Peter Diamandis, and all of that. So, what I’m doing right now is plugging that. It’s a $10,000 event. And if you want to come see a bunch of really amazing people in the highest level brainstorm, it’s in New York, August 8th and 9th, 25Kgroup.com/NY.   There we go. That’s my plug. Do you have anything that you are selling, Dean, that people should really go look at?

Dean: All of the realtor stuff. That’s what’s been great is the things that we are talking about here are really about really getting in the mind. You can think through what is it that your prospects really want? So, I know that what real estate agents really want and need is they want listings. I have a program called GettingListings.com, and guess what you get there? A complete, turnkey way to get listings. I know that realtors need to find buyers, so we’ve got a website called FindingBuyers.com, and guess what you find there? A whole turnkey system for finding buyers. I know that realtors need to get referrals, so we’ve got a website called GettingReferrals.com. All crystal clear.

Joe: It’s really confusing for people to really know what means. GettingReferrals.com, GetttingListings. Why don’t you call it Dean Jackson Enterprises? You ever thought of ILoveDean.com?

Dean: I Love Dean? That’s pretty good.

Joe: I don’t, and I’m saying if it was a dot-com. Let’s go through these other ones, including what’s going to happen. Let’s do the republican one. That says the Ken Fisher ad, “To investors who want to retire comfortably,” is another one. “If you have a $500,000 portfolio, download the guide written by Forbes columnist and money manager Ken Fisher’s firm. It’s called the 15- Minute Retirement Plan. Even if you have something else in place right now, it still makes sense to request your guide. Click here to download your guide.”

Dean: That’s all it is. That’s the whole thing. The lesson in that is going into their minds that they’re looking at the reason, “Why am I going to do this here?” And you keep them   completely focused on “because I want to know what’s going to happen if the republicans take the White House back.”

Joe: Right. That’s the next ad.

Dean: It’s not, “Here’s what we’re going to do.” It’s not what we’re going to do to sell you on using our firm as your investment advisors or getting you to open an account with us. That’s not what it’s about. There’s plenty of time to talk about that. That’s the distinction between profit activator number 2 and profit activator number 3, compelling your prospects to call you and then educating and motivating them to meet you. You’re not doing them at the same time. You’re sacrificing selling, right now. You’re sacrificing the educating and motivating just to focus on compelling them to identify themselves.

Joe: Did you say this right? You said, “There’s plenty of time to sell them later.”

Dean: There is. Absolutely, once you know who they are. If you know that somebody has come to your website and they’ve asked for a report, and they have asked for it on the basis of responding to the ad that said what’s going to happen when the republicans take the White House, you’ve got a few really good pieces of information that you can use to continue that dialog with them. When you look at the whole thing, you know that there’s a good chance that they have a $500,000 portfolio and that they’re politically activated, they’re motivated by or interested in, curious about political ramifications of the stock market. If somebody asked for a report on how to avoid running out of money in retirement, that might be somebody who has some interest in or concern about their portfolio. They might already be retired. They might be very close to retirement, debating retiring. By virtue of what they respond to, it can carve the path for where you are going to go with that dialog.   

Joe: Here’s the reason I wanted to bring that up, the whole plenty of time thing. I think one of the reasons that people don’t develop and use funnel campaigns and put the time and effort into getting it right is because they’re so either impatient, but it’s not because they’re impatient because they want to be impatient, they just desperately need business. They desperately need to sell something. I don’t know if you remember that old black light velvet poster with 2 vultures that are sitting on a branch, and one of them says to the other one – there’s a little bubble over it’s head – it says, “Patience, my ass! I’m going to kill something.” Do you remember seeing that one?

Dean: No.

Joe: You can probably find it, literally on Google, if you type in “buzzards, patience my ass,” you can probably find the actual graphic. If you can, Dean, you should put it up on ILoveMarketing.com.

Dean: Or you can find it. You have Google out in Arizona, don’t you?

Joe: People think that I made it up. No. I remember seeing it on a black, like something that would be sold at Spencer’s, and people that live in other parts of the world. We’ve got a lot of listeners all over the world. They’re like, “What are you talking about?” Basically, there’s plenty of time to always do this stuff right, if you actually start doing it. The reason I think it’s difficult for some people to immediately start using the most effective marketing – not just effective marketing – certainly, if you get it absolutely right, you can just run an ad and people will call you and buy. If you’ve got such a demand for what it is you’re selling, it’s going to sell like hotcakes. However, if you’re not in that particular situation, you’re going to have to develop and nurture a relationship with people the same way that you’re going to plant a seed and you’re going to water it and you’re going to take care of it before you get a harvest.   

So, marketing is the same way. It is not an event; it is a process. If you literally develop the process, you actually can have all of the time in the world to actually educate people and compel them to actually call you. The point that I want to make and why I think it’s such an important thing is that if people think, “I can’t do this stuff, Joe and Dean. I don’t have enough time. I just need to run an ad, I just need to go out and sell,” the problem with that sort of thinking is you’re never going to run any sort of campaign or promotion that is going to be anywhere near as effective if you actually do these multi-steps. You don’t want to add additional steps in order to sell something to somebody just for the sake of adding steps and having to create follow-up sequences and stuff. You want to do it because it’s the most effective way to fish with a net, versus fishing with a pole. You know what I mean?

Dean: Yeah. I agree. It’s interesting. I had one of our listeners stop by – I won’t say who or what kind of business they’re in – but he was showing me all of the things that they were doing. And they are testing all of these different things, and he was showing me, “Well, this one we sent a couple hundred of these and we got this kind of response,” and one of them was like a 4 or 5 times return on investment. But just as they would tell me, they went on to say, “And then we did this one, and we did this one,” and they’re going back and forth, going and testing things without really rolling it out. All you really need is one and go with it all the way, rather than thinking about all of these different ones. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about connecting all of the dots, all the way through. That’s why when we go through all of the 8 profit activators; we begin with the end in mind. What is it that they’re actually going to be doing? What’s their dream-come-true scenario that you’re going to create for them? Knowing that that’s where it’s headed, so that if you do that right, you can string and weave this common theme all the way through every step.

Joe: Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Dean: That is what you’re trying to say.   

Joe: That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. Read a couple more of the ads here and then I want you to go through your process, so we can leave everybody with a process on how they can sit down and take everything we’ve talked about, they can get into the minds of their prospects, and they can actually just start multiplying the effectiveness of what they’re doing, what they’re trying to sell.

Dean: My process, it really is just like we talk about, going through the 8 profit activators, starting with selecting that target market. Who is it that you’re really trying to attract? When you’ve really got an open book as to who you could attract, there’s so many different people that you could attract. When you get inside that mindset, when you identify whom it is, it makes it so much easier than to really get a picture of what might be going on in their conversation. I think I’ve maybe talked about one of the examples that we used with real estate, of doing the just-listed and just-sold cards. Most people send out just-listed cards and say, “Hey, just listed this one,” with a picture of the house, and a logo of the company, and a picture of the agent and all of that stuff, really looking at that being as self-serving, not being something that is compelling.

So, we thought this through as to what’s going on in the mind of somebody who you’re trying to attract. If your target market is the 50 neighbors around that house that you just listed, who might be thinking about selling their house right now, or know somebody who might want to buy that house, then you get into that mindset. And you imagine them coming out in the morning and going to the end of the driveway to pick up the newspaper and wiping the sleep from their eyes and looking across the street, and there’s a “For Sale” sign. Now, what if they got a postcard that said, “Did you know what your neighbors at 22 Greystone did last night?” That’s kind of more like the conversation that’s going on in their head, and we go on and paint that story. “The Johnson’s have decided it’s time to sell their house, and they’ve listed it with Joe Polish,” and you’re having that conversation very much like somebody would be having the conversation with their spouse, when they come back in the house.   And then when the house sells, we have the conversation of your neighbors, the Polish’s, got exactly what they deserved, and it could happen to you next. A carpet cleaner could use that, right? “The Johnson’s got exactly what they deserved, and it could happen to you next.”

Joe: I had a variation of that that one of my clients did in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, years ago; put a flyer out that says, “Call and hear what my carpet cleaner did for me.”

Dean: “Did to me.”

Joe: Yeah, that’s what it was.

Dean: Neighborhood alert.

Joe: He got a ton of complaints, too.

Dean: Really?

Joe: I’m not kidding you, 20% of everyone in the neighborhood called the free recorded message. It was so over-the-top and he got so many calls, but there were so many complaints because some people were scared. Now, of course, that’s where you actually have to test it, because it’s a contextual thing, and you could just shift a couple of words, but we’ll talk about that later, because of timing and stuff. It was such a powerful, compelling piece of copy. Make a note of that, that we’ll talk about that as a future episode, because I can probably find the exact flyer they used and everything. But it was off the charts. I said, “Just keep tweaking it, and add some different verbiage, so people aren’t thinking it’s like a ‘beware of the carpet cleaner’ sort of thing.” It was so powerful, though.

If people really want to be entertained, they can actually do YouTube searches for “Joe Polish 20/20” and see the episode I did years ago, on ABC’s 20/20, as anti-bait-and-switch carpet cleaners, because I’ve been on TV 5 different times doing stories that teach consumers how to avoid getting ripped off by carpet cleaners. I haven’t done one for years. It’s been a while. I was very active, for a long time, teaching a lot of my members – which, to this day, still do it – getting a lot of local PR,   educating consumers on how to choose a company using education-based marketing, consumer awareness guides, and things along those lines. Dean, is there any other ad here that you want to talk about, or do you want to just post them up at I Love Marketing?

Dean: I’m going to post them all up. We talked about the headlines and how that can go. Sometimes, it doesn’t even require a clever headline. It doesn’t require a creative headline. To a certain degree, to a certain segment of the population, you’re already speaking, they already are committed and want to buy. Sometimes, the best headline to sell a horse is “Horse for Sale.”

Joe: Right. Or corns. You ever seen those? Corns.

Dean: Yeah, corns.

Joe: Or warts. I know these aren’t sounding very exciting and all, but sometimes you just need to say what the heck you’re trying to say.

Dean: I’ll tell you, that’s one of those things that the conversation often can be going on without it ever being a public conversation. It’s not something that we’d even think about otherwise. I remember Joe Stumpf had a bone spur in his heel one time, and he was waking up and would go to stand on it and it would hurt, like you read about. It would really hurt. And I told him about this website, BoneSpur.com, and it’s kind of an ugly site, but it has a solution for bone spurs. It just goes to show you that when somebody is in pain, they look through all of that stuff. They look through and the conversation is that you’ve got a solution.

Joe: Exactly. With the time we’ve got left, I just want you to give some suggestions on a process of how people can put themselves into the best possible advantage, best possible state, in order to get inside the minds of their prospects and clients and actually produce an ad, a message that will work.   

Dean: Here’s how I’m going to answer it. Step one is select a single target market. Think of all of the people. Don’t limit yourself in any way. Spend some time. Spend time; get every single possible target prospect that you could imagine out on paper. Go ahead. Go crazy, as if you could serve everybody. Write them all down. Then, pick one of those people. Pick a single target market. Pick that market and get a picture of that person in your mind. Get right into their mindset. Think about them, and then jump up and start thinking about what would be a dream come true for that person. We bookend the profit activators. We bookend the compelling and educating and motivating and the presenting your unique service offer. All of those things are steps along the way, but they are based on your understanding of what would be a dream come true for your specific target audience.

When you’ve done that, when you’ve got that one target market, you’ve got that one person, I see that where people struggle is that they’re reluctant, even on paper, even for the sake of doing an exercise, they’re reluctant to limit themselves in any way. They’re reluctant to limit themselves to a single target market. So, I’m saying just go through the exercise with that one person. Go through and think through what would be a dream come true for that person. And then, when you come back to profit activator number 2, compel your prospects to call you, think about what would be the one piece of information that they would be willing to identify themselves to get. What would they be willing to trade their name and their email address or their name and their mailing address to get? When you do that, you start thinking about that piece of information. And then, how can you get that person to raise their hand because of it?

Sometimes, the more you take your personal self-interest out of it, because your self-interest is to get to profit activator number 3 and profit activator number 4, educate and motivate them to meet you and then present your unique service offer, your mafia offer. You want to get to those steps, but the path to get there is to set your desire aside, for now, and focus only on their desire. When you’re doing that, you’re going to be able to really get the words, the compelling thought, the offer that’s going to get somebody to identify themselves. And then, when they’ve identified themselves, now you’ve got the opportunity to provide what you promised, educate them as to all of the information that they would want and need to know in order to make a decision, and then motivate them. Motivating them means using something that is compelling to them, that makes it easy for them to get started. Don’t just leave it up to chance.

I felt like the Fisher campaign here, when I ordered the report, and I don’t have it here in front of me but I did order the report, and I got it, and it was interesting. It was kind of a consumer awareness guide. It had a cover letter that went with it. But the motivating part was not really that motivating. What they offered was just a conversation. “We’d like to have a conversation with you. Would you like to speak to somebody about your portfolio?” That kind of a thing. It wasn’t really as compelling as it could have been. That’s where, when you really start thinking through the process, there’s lots of opportunity for you.

Joe: Endless, endless amounts.

Dean: Endless.

Joe: I have a friend who actually sent me – you ever seen the SomeeCards.com? They do these crazy and pretty vulgar ones? There’s one that’s a guy that’s sort of like a Ben Franklin talking to a Lincoln character, an animation, and it’s a cartoon. And he’s saying, “Why is patience a virtue? Why can’t hurry the fuck up be a virtue?”

Dean: That is perfect.

Joe: In the process of talking about how to break multi-steps and doing all of these sequences, get in the mind of your clients, hurry up and just figure it out. Get it right. Don’t be reckless. But at the same time, get your marketing right, because every day that goes by that you’re not constructing effective marketing that works, you are   literally keeping yourself from making money. You are keeping yourself from creating value and providing solutions to all of the people in the world. You could have the greatest product and service on the planet, but it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference until somebody buys it. So, in order to get somebody to buy it, you need to engage with them, and so you need to enter a conversation that is existing in their minds, get them to engage with you, start sharing with them very powerful, compelling… And when we say very powerful, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist here. I’ve got no formal education in pretty much anything, and it’s going out and figuring out how to communicate with people in ways that’s about them.

That’s a whole thing, too. Just make it about them. If you start thinking about them and focus on them instead of focusing on you, it makes the whole process of creating advertising that works way more beneficial. We are starting to get lots of really great comments on a lot of our episodes, so we would encourage you to please share your thoughts, please tell other people about the I Love Marketing podcasts. We really strive to have conversations and talk about things that make sense or common sense that everybody could do. If you’ve not read “Breakthrough DNA” recently, download it on the page. And if you want to really give yourself the highest advantage humanly possible to be a great marketer, go back and listen to some of the episodes that you’ve not listened to. That’s it. What else, Dean? What else do we need to say and then we’ll let everyone go, hurry the hell up. I’m trying to not use the f-word more than once. I’m so weird. I need to do therapy or something, just on this issue, because I get all sensitive. What am I worried about here? It’s a free podcast.

Dean: Your profanity issue.

Joe: People are going to quit buying our free podcast.

Dean: Our free podcast, that’s right.   

Joe: I want a refund. You use the f-word. Trying to behave a little. What else have you got for us?

Dean: Sometimes, the question isn’t what else. Sometimes the question is, is that enough?

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: I think this is one of those times.

Joe: It is enough.

Dean: It is enough.

Joe: That’s it, Dean. Until next time, everybody, have a great day, have a great evening, and goodbye.

Dean: Thanks, guys.  

Hidden content