Episode 070: The one Live from the Phoenix Platinum 2.0 event

Dean: Hey, everybody. It’s Dean Jackson.

Joe: And Joe Polish.

Dean: And listen, for this week’s episode, we’ve got some amazing news for you. It’s kind of stellar news. Kind of galactic news. Would you say, Joe?

Joe: Pretty galactic, if I had to say so myself.

Dean: Here’s the cool thing. We have been hard at work, and we are putting together, right now, as we speak, the very first I Love Marketing book. And what we’ve done is we have taken all of the transcripts from the first year of I Love Marketing, the first 50 episodes – we had over 1,600 pages of transcripts – and we’ve gone through and we’ve edited down those 1,600 pages to 425 pages of the very best of the first 50 episodes of I Love Marketing. And we have put that together in an incredible coffee table-size book that is a grand compendium of all of the wisdom in the first 50 episodes of I Love Marketing. So, we thought, “What are we going to do to celebrate this? How are we going to launch this book into orbit?” And then we got to thinking, “What would be better than to actually launch this book into orbit?” What do you think about that, Joe Polish?

Joe: Well, you know, hey, considering I have my connections, that’s exactly what’s being done. And not only is the book being literally launched into space, there’s a balloon that is going to float this book – and this is not a joke – along with figurines of me and Dean.

Dean: Stop that! Figure sounds so feminine. Action figures of you and me.

Joe: Yes, action figures. They are action figures. I’m glad you actually stepped in and made that more manly. They are action figures of me and Dean, along with our friend – if he can make it, if he can make it up there – Peter Diamandis, as an action figure. So, we’re going to all go up into space along with the I Love Marketing first amazing book.

Dean: A space edition.   

Joe: Yes.

Dean: So, here’s what we’ve decided to do. We’re going to actually issue a limited edition space edition of the I Love Marketing volume one, with the first 50 episodes of I Love Marketing transcripts. And you can be part of this. Here’s what we’ve got for you. We’re only going to print as many of this limited edition as we have space cadets taking part in this space mission. Now, here’s the thing. Timing is of the essence. The launch is actually taking place this week, on the 27th. Is that the date?

Joe: I think so.

Dean: So, we have to have all of our space cadets onboard with the mission here by the 26th of May. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to send this special book into orbit, and we’re going to have, in this special edition, the names of all of the people who took part in the very first I Love Marketing space mission.

Joe: I like it. It’s very good.

Dean: It’s pretty exciting.

Joe: It’s very exciting.

Dean: How much would you expect that people would have to pay to take part in a space mission like this? I know you can go to the space station for $20-million, but that seems a little bit out of line, doesn’t it?

Joe: Yes. And also, considering the great expense that we’re going through in order to make this happen, it is not a cheap endeavor in order to do this. You can’t even really place a monetary value on it, though. Because if people actually utilize what’s in this book, the numerous best practices and strategies and methodologies that are proven to make money, it could be worth millions of dollars to somebody.

Dean: But we’re not going to charge them millions of dollars, are we?

Joe: No. No. Not at all.   

Dean: Not even $1-million.

Joe: So, what’s the catch, $500,000?

Dean: Richard Branson would charge $200,000. But that’s actually to take you into space. Right?

Joe: Right. And you certainly wouldn’t get any of the strategies you’re going to get with this book.

Dean: That’s very true.

Joe: You’d go into space, and you’d be like, “I went up into space, but I have no marketing strategies.”

Dean: Right.

Joe: Exactly.

Dean: How about $10,000? Do you think that would be reasonable?

Joe: It would definitely be worth that. That would be more than reasonable.

Dean: How about $99?

Joe: That’s way too cheap. That’s way, way… It’s almost like it would have to be someone’s lucky day to ever get an opportunity anywhere near that, and to know that they’re part of history-making.

Dean: That’s exactly. Let’s do it, then. It’s settled, $99 it is.

Joe: Okay. Here we go.

Dean: I’m very excited about this. So, today, before you listen to today’s episode, here’s what you need to do: go to ILoveMarketing.com, right now, and click on the link to join our space mission.

Joe: That’s it. That’s all you need to do. And your life will never be the same.

Dean: I think that goes without saying.   

Joe: So, there you go.

Dean: We’ll be back with mission control updates.

Joe: Yes, exactly. Now, enjoy the upcoming episode of I Love Marketing. Anything else you want to say, Dean?

Dean: I couldn’t have said that better myself.

Joe: Awesome.

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

Joe: And Joe Polish.

Dean: Here we are.

Joe: Here we are. We are here live. What are we doing right now, Dean?

Dean: We are right here, in the Embassy Suites ballroom, in Tempe, Arizona, with our Platinum 2.0 crusaders here.

Joe: Give it up for everybody. Alright, awesome. Thank you all for being here, of course. We dreamt this idea up yesterday, and we decided that we would do an I Love Marketing episode live, with everyone in Platinum 2.0, and have everyone that would be wanting to come to the mic and ask us a question to say who they are. Basically what has happened since the last gathering we had for Platinum 2.0, and what is the question you would like to ask me and Dean about anything, preferably that we can perhaps give some guidance and direction on. Awesome. Let’s start with who you are, and then take it from there.

Jeff: My name’s Jeff Moore. I’m with International Pacific Seafood and Wild Thing Seafood. International Pacific is our importing and processing arm that we sell to food service, primarily a one-focus customer, Sysco Food Services. They do about $40- billion a year in sales annual.   

Joe: $40-million a year? Alright, cool.

Jeff: $40-bill.

Joe: Oh, $40-bill!

Jeff: And a little over $2-billion in seafood purchases.

Joe: What are you at, right now, your company?

Jeff: With Sysco, we’re at $25-million. And in total, we’re about $36-million. The big aha that came for me was while I was here, and then having some subsequent meetings. I was inspired put a mastermind group together at Sysco, that took my $25-million, which is basically 1.2% of total sales for Sysco and doesn’t do enough to have the janitor even open the door for me, and put myself in charge to lead and conduct a mastermind group of seafood suppliers that are very similar to me and that are highly focused on Sysco. And put a group together that we can “come together in the spirit of cooperation, to improve the benefit yield of our sales calls, sales training, and the solutions we provide their sales reps and sales managers in the pursuit of portico, penetration, and account penetration in general. I put this group together, and the group, collectively, we call the gang of 6, and we finish with gang signs and stuff like that.

Dean: Just a bunch of wild and crazy seafood importers.

Jeff: It’s either 6 or guys with nipples, whatever that means.

Joe: Wow.

Jeff: This gang of 6 actually represents over $650-million in sales for Sysco. So, I’m the leader of this group, and I’m setting up weekly calls and all sorts of things. And when we did this meeting, I was smart enough to know when I was getting lucky, that I had the meeting held at Sysco corporate, didn’t invite any of the Sysco people, by the way, just needed their room. But in the room next door, they were doing profit planning. So, every C-level executive at Sysco was in the next room. And they   were poking their heads in, going, “What’s going on in here? I don’t see any Sysco people.” So, finally, they were like, “Who did this? This is like the most amazing thing in the world!” And they kept going, “Jeff Moore did it!” And they’re like, “Who the hell’s Jeff Moore? Does he do business with us?” “Hardly, but yeah.”

Joe: That’s always how it starts, when you do something. “Who the hell is Joe Polish? Who the hell is this person?” Two guys were sitting around one day and said, “Hey, let’s create Harvard.”

Jeff: Hugely nervous, before I started that thing, and had a tremendous amount of support from friends, and I really appreciate it.

Dean: There’s a big lesson in that, though, in that nobody was waiting to appoint you to the position of the leader of the gang of 6.

Jeff: No. Leadership’s assumed, not granted.

Dean: In the same vein, nobody was there to stop you. Right? You self-appointed yourself as the leader of this gang of 6, and now you are the face of not $26-million, $650-million of business, which is a little bit more.

Jeff: Bigger.

Dean: Yeah, exactly.

Jeff: It would be more than, wouldn’t it?

Dean: That’s fantastic. So, what was the exercise? What was the thought that lead you to doing that?

Jeff: It was a confluence of things. But I actually wanted to share something else and get a question from you guys, because I think it was so big on my way out here, that I actually missed the turnoff to get on the 60. And it was from something, Dean, that we did last time, with the “Would you like a cookie?” And I used it, the “Would you like a cookie?” and gave $25 worth of free fish out to people who were on our customer list.   And as I’m driving out here, I’m thinking, as I’m listening to another Gary Halbert thing, good Lord, that I’m like, “Would you like a cookie?” and then I’m like, “Wait a minute! This cookie contains steroids.” Now, I’m thinking to myself, “Why wouldn’t I give the cookie or the gift card to realtors or landscape architects and all these people, and give them a $25 gift card and say, “If you would like to give your clients free $25 gift cards, we would happily supply them to you. However,” mafia offer coming up here, “if you would like to up this and give your clients a $100 gift card, we would happily sell you those $100 gift cards for $50.”

And now, that’s like a huge value. We’re giving 4 times the value for only half the cost. Then, I’m sitting there talking to some people on the way out here, the naysayers, and I’m going, “What is actually the redemption rate of a gift card that’s given to somebody?” And I think it’s only like 62%. So, we’re already making money from the sale anyway, so the capturing of these clients is so inexpensive, but is in such a great way that they get used to using our system, and everything is going to funnel. So, I’m like, on the way out, going, “I’ve got to meet with Infusionsoft, I’ve got to do blah, blah, blah,” all the way. And as I’m blowing right past the 60, I’m like, “I’ve got to do this, and I’ve got to do that.” But as far as systemizing that type of stuff, obviously that’s a great cocktail napkin conversation, but systemizing it, making sure that the card goes out, that it’s in like a gift card concept, in a blue envelope, that goes maybe in a priority mail, all that type of stuff.

Dean: Yeah. You’re going to love the exercise we’re going to do today, because we’re going to talk about architecting the experience of using this card, of receiving it or getting it. But you’ve got an idea there that the temptation is I’ve got this idea, I’m just going to get this going kind of thing, and then go on to the next idea.   But that idea right there, if you took that one idea and just went really deep with it, there are so many different applications to that that could be huge for you.

Jeff: Endless, yeah.

Joe: Okay, so how many of you see an application of that in your own business?

Jeff: I was thinking what you were just saying, “A million-dollar idea is only determined after it’s been implemented and a million dollars been earned.”

Dean: Right. Exactly. But that certainly has at least that. Yeah.

Jeff: And maybe you could offer that to your clients, Dean, that same kind of thing.

Dean: Yeah. See, this is the kind of thing where that’s a mafia offer, especially for the people who are receiving it. You get this $25 gift card; you’re going to use that. There’s no risk in that. It costs you whatever it costs you. But the trade is that now you’ve got a relationship with somebody that was super-easy for them to start, and now you’ve got somebody who is a seafood lover. You know what their preferences are, because they’re going to use their $25 or their $100 on their favorite things. And if they do it once, they’re very, very likely to continue doing it again, especially if you’ve got a system in place to make sure that they continue to build. That’s the kind of thing where you could have that as one division, and have somebody staffed to run and take that idea, and just take that as far as they can.

Joe: Basically, I’m starting to feel sensitive for the people standing in line. Peter Diamandis has this great line, which is really worth thinking about: “The day before a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.” So, before you have sort of breakthrough, it’s always a crazy idea, and I really love that. So, what’s your question?

Dean: That was his question. You weren’t even there.

Joe: I wasn’t here.   

Dean: I anticipated your question, skillfully handled it.

Joe: Do you have any other thing you’d like to ask?

Jeff: I have so many, but I’m going to respect the people standing on the wall here.

Joe: Before you take off, you have really kicked ass. There are so many things you’ve done. Me and you have had a really great email dialogue going on. What would you recommend to everyone here, on how to get the most out of this? What would really make their time investment and their money investment here just as valuable as humanly possible? Because you’ve really taken this on.

Jeff: I think, and I do this with my mastermind as well, the more you interact, the more you put out into this thing, you’re going to get 10 times back because it’s going to inspire you, the reactions, the responses that you get from the people there. But I would tell you if you’re not in your own kind of Q&A process mental thing that you’re having conversations, I had a conversation with a CFO last Wednesday, we do offsite twice a month, and we’re talking about hiring an executive marketing assistant for me, and all of the qualifications and things. And she’s like going, “Well, I think you do it this way, and I think you do it that way,” and I go, “Let’s get somebody else in this conversation.” Beep, “Gina Delong, please.” And literally, I go, “Watch this.” And she just went, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, and we can do this, and we can help you with this. Maybe you should go this way, and you should look at 2468.com/rockstar, and watch the way Joe did this, and do this.”

And I’m telling you, the secret to that thing is the Piranha Marketing team. This is great, this is inspiring, and this is fantastic. The utilization of stuff that you do between this, between the game, if you will, at Piranha Marketing, and the utilization of that staff and utilization of Piranha Central and all those things, and taking the guides and using them as your resources, you possess this. It’s not just them and you, it’s yours. They’re the most generous people with their time and their information, and their inspiration.   So, the access there, take advantage of that. It’s like a tool that you don’t use, and then all of a sudden you go to Home Depot and buy the tool again. You feel like such an idiot, when you go back into your garage and go, “Oh, shit, I already had that tool.” The search is over. There’s a saying that says, “When you find the truth, stop searching.” You’ve found it. And keep using this. And like Dean was just talking about, run with it. Run with this one. Utilize it to the max.

Joe: Thank you, so much. Thank you. What’s up, Bill?

Bill: Hey, how are you, Joe?

Joe: Good. Good.

Bill: Bill Martin here, from Boca Raton, Florida. Thank you for having me. I’m here to talk about a friend of mine’s mining project in Arizona. It’s called United Mines. It’s a public company. He has been working on this project for like 8 years now, and he took it public in the last 2 or 2½ years, but he never had a market maker. So, he’s got a real deal. At one time, it was owned by Colt Firearms in the mid- 1800’s. It was the largest-producing silver mines in the world, at the time. But he’s kind of dead in the water. My job is to help him get funding, so that he can get the mines in production. So, that’s part of the reason why I’m here. Actually, it’s written about in this book that was produced. It’s called Samuel Peter Heintzelman and the Sonora Exploration Company. It was written by Diane North, from Arizona here, 20 years ago or so. But there’s a whole chapter on it. We actually produced 50 of these silver coins, to help put the word out. It’s a commemorative to Sam Colt.

Joe: And you’re saying you want to give me one of those, is what you’re saying?   

Bill: I do have one for you, Joe.

Dean: Oh, perfect.

Bill: Really, I’m here to sort of network and figure out the challenges. There are a million deals out there, and there are a lot of silver mines, too. And, this is a public company, so you have to be kind of careful about how you go about raising money. And you’ve got to be careful what you say, and this, that, and the other thing. But it’s a real deal. It’s right here in Arizona. He’s a good guy, Glen Martin – no relation to me, Bill Martin. But nevertheless, I’ve known him for 10 or 15 years, and I want to help him raise money, because he’s going to do a lot of good things with it, too. He’s already given to charities and what have you.

Joe: So, your question is how to find VC’s?

Bill: Yes.

Joe: Okay. The caveat would be that is not my area of expertise at all. But what I would do, in that particular case, because I have investments, right now, in about 9 different companies and I’m learning quite a bit about that, and I’m realizing that my skill set actually really does help advise people. Because even when we measured the amount of revenue, back in 2001, it was written about in Psycho-Cybernetics, just in the cleaning niche at that point in time, my advice had generated over $800-million of sales that was trackable. And at this point, what we can track, it’s a little over $2-billion. But I never had equity in any those companies and stuff.

So, I’m really taking a look at the power of advice, the power of relationship equity, and things like that. What I would recommend you do is, on Tim Ferriss’ blog, the current blog post, there’s an hour speech with him and a panel of 3 other dudes, talking about VC. And I would recommend, literally, watching that, on how to approach investors, how to find them, how to set it up, that sort of thing.   Now, having said that, do you have any elegant ideas that you would offer them?

Dean: Sure. When you’re thinking about that, if venture capitalists are the target market, what I’m looking at are individual investors.

Bill: More individual investors. It’s too small for venture capitalists.

Dean: I gotcha. So, when you look at it, immediately, my thought process for any kind of interaction like this is to look at the 8 profit activators and start at the beginning, and go through who is my ideal target market for this. Now, there are different target markets. Who would be, if you could describe somebody who would be ideal investor?

Bill: Good question. The ideal investor would be like one or 2 people who could write a check for like $1-million.

Dean: Do you know who they are?

Bill: No.

Dean: If you thought about it, could you identify what they really look like?

Bill: Yes, I could probably identify them. There are a lot of people out there with a lot of money, I’ve just got to get the story out, is the bottom line.

Joe: So, here’s the thing. You can start putting together the story, and as we go through stuff here, you can use these couple of days to put together the story and actually think it through. I would also read the book The Startup of You, by Reed Hoffman. Just came out. He’s the founder of LinkedIn. I’ve met him a couple times in the last 3 months, because he’s part of Singularity University and stuff, which I’m now a platinum partner and everything. But that book would be really helpful to you, right now. What we can best help with is the messaging, because it doesn’t matter what it is. There are 3 things you need   in order to sell something. This is nonprofit investing or running just your own business, mom-and-pop shop, to a gigantic corporation.

There’s the product or service – in this particular case, it’s the investment. The second thing is the sales pitch or the marketing message, which is the story. And third is the delivery system. If you go through the 8 profit activators, virtually everything runs through those 8 profit activators, once you select and narrow your target market. So, kind of use this to formulate that story and put it together. There are some things I’ll think about, that I’ll tell you during break. I just need to get the exact titles and stuff, things that I think would be useful for you.

Bill: Awesome. I also want to say it’s got one of the lowest amounts of stock out there. It’s only like 15.3-million shares that were even issued, and only $1-8-million in the float. But I’m here because I think it’s awesome, and I’m anxious to implement what I learn.

Joe: Awesome. Thank you.

Bill: Thank you for having me.

Joe: Absolutely. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Please, give these to me on every break, too. I will take them. Thanks a lot. This is cool.

Susan: Hi, I’m Susan Lobsinger, and I have a company called USA Mobile Direct Testing, out of Oklahoma.

Joe: Can you test him for drugs while you’re here?

Susan: Yeah, absolutely.

Dean: I’m juiced.

Joe: Good. Because I think the I Love Marketing episodes, I swear, half the time…   

Dean: I’m completely juiced.

Susan: But just to give a brief update on where I started, whenever I started following your evil scheme here, and the 8 profit activators, which was – I think – about 8 months ago. It was at the I Love Marketing conference back in last September. My average revenues were $5,000 a month. And last month, I hit $25,000.

Dean: Good for you! That’s awesome.

Joe: Got to love it.

Susan: 5 times in 8 months. And, my most recent project that I started, I’m kind of at a point where I’m scared to move forward with it – not because I don’t think it’s a good idea, but because I feel like I created such a big thing, that I need just the confidence to go forward.

Dean: What’s the one or 2 things that you’ve done to go from $5,000 to $25,000?

Susan: Well, I started an email newsletter list, and I started building the list through that, kind of using the “would you like a cookie” type stuff, and then doing some ethical bribes to get people to sign up for the newsletter, that are from my target audience. I just got the template finished to do a hard copy of the newsletter also, that’s going to go out to people, because people intake their input different. The one that I specifically want to talk about now, that I’m kind of stuck on, is a joint venture. And the way that this whole thing started was, first of all, I was having a hard time thinking how I could do a joint venture and whom the best person to do a joint venture would be with. And what happened was I had 3 separate clients that I’d signed up, started to take them through my process and all that sort of stuff, which ended up me writing a policy for them to start a drug-free workplace program. And I basically got taken out at the knees 3 different times, and it was really frustrating to me. And then, I accidentally figured out that whom I was being taken out at the knees by was an attorney group that was all the same attorney group. And it happened   to be the biggest attorney group in the state of Oklahoma that deals with employment law issues.

So, it was really frustrating to me, but at the same time I was like, “I know there’s a lesson in this. I know there’s a lesson in this. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? So, through my email newsletter list, I sent an email to the head partner of their employment law division at this law firm, and asked him to comment on something in my newsletter list, and told him who my subscribers were, which were his exact target market also, let him comment in my newsletter about a specific law. And then buttered him up a little bit through it and told him what an awesome attorney he was and how they should all call him if they ever have an employment law issue. So, he was super psyched about that. So then, I emailed him, and I said, “Do you guys write drug-free workplace policies?” I did the kind of “Do you want a cookie?” instead of trying to pitch them right away, or whatever. They said, “Yeah, we do,” and he told me how much they charge. I said, ‘Do guys enjoy writing drug-free workplace policies?” And he said, “No, not really.” And I said, “Yeah, I’ve read some of yours. It’s basically the same policy you give to all your clients.” He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Do you think there’s any value in there being customized drug-free workplace policies?” He said, “Yes, but the time it takes to put those together is very challenging.” I said, “Would you be interested in looking at a DVD project that I’m putting together, that’s basically going to help educate the businesses on how to put together a great policy and basically help them write their own policy all by themselves?” And he said, “Let’s do lunch.” And I expected him to be just like, “I’m interested,” or something like that. So, we went to lunch, and we talked about it, and he’s interested, and I’m putting their stamp on it to give me more credibility. But now, I need to finish the project. And man, I feel like so much pressure. I need to get past that.   

Dean: You’re on the right path. It sounds like everything’s going the right way. The thing that you’ve done brilliantly is, rather than look at it as an obstacle and be confrontational about it, like Zig Ziglar says, “You can get anything you want in life if you have other people get what they want in life.”

Joe: Which is exactly the approach you took. And you mentioned something when you just said, “Pressure.” So, think of it this way: anything worth doing, that is bigger than something you’ve done before, unless you’re completely disconnected and can compartmentalize it, which most people can’t, including myself, will be a little scary and sometimes overwhelmingly like, “Wow! How do I actually take this on?” But, how are diamonds made?

Susan: Pressure.

Joe: Pressure, right? And pressure, treated right, is a gift, because you will not get shit done in your life if you don’t have it – at least anything important. And Dan Sullivan has this great line where he says, “Irritated oysters make pearls.” So, out of every irritation, frustration, irk, challenge, opportunity, overwhelming obstacle, there’s a pearl, if you create and not complain. So, obviously, the fact that you’re even getting up and talking about is you want to do this. You’re just trying to do it right, not mess it up, make sure you can pull it off. So, what’s stopping you? What capability do you not currently have in order to pull this off? Or is it simply just confidence, and you wanted us to say, “Go for it?”

Susan: Well, I know I can do it. I have some time commitment issues, because I am doing too much administrative work. And I was trying to hire an administrative assistant by myself, and I realized that I don’t have the time, and all that sort of stuff to do that. So, right before I got on the plane to come in here, I hired a staffing company to do that for me. So, I’m hoping that that will work out, and really free me up to really commit to the projects that really get me going and that make me feel creative, and can   grow my business. Because I’m stuck at this $25,000 mark, right now, per month, which is awesome, but unless I free myself up, I can’t grow it further.

Joe: Okay, first off, thank you for sharing that. Sometimes, when you have to triage, when you don’t have enough time, and people need to get stuff done, elimination is a far better method of getting things done than organization. And Tim Ferriss writes about that in The 4-Hour Workweek. When I first interviewed Tim, right when The 4-Hour Workweek first came out, within the first 2 weeks of The 4-Hour Workweek coming out, I did an interview with him way back when. Basically, you hired an assistant, which is great. You have a lot of administrative work. One of my processes for getting stuff done is I simply just ignore shit, and I let things fall through cracks. And I don’t get back to certain opportunities or people that just simply aren’t going to get me to where I want to go. And if some big, gigantic opportunity presents itself and I know that that one thing is going to be worth 1,000 times more than something else, and I simply don’t have the time to delegate or do whatever, you know what? I just drop it.

Will there be consequences? Yeah. I don’t ever let anyone high and dry. I’ve never screwed anyone out of money. I’ve never declared bankruptcy. I’ve never had a situation. From my perspective, I really do my best to make sure no one’s left holding the bag or something. Most of the time, I’ll make decisions that if anyone’s really affected, it’s maybe my desire to do something. But now, something bigger, better, whatever came along. So, in a lot of ways, you just may need to cancel appointments, you may need to say, “You know, I’d love to get this thing organized or set up this database, or do this and that; but if I do this right now, this becomes worth 50 times more than all the other stuff.” So, a lot of times, people just organize, organize. And a lot of times, just eliminate. Just eliminate it. Sometimes, you get a new game that you’re going to play, and that new game is better than all of these other games that you think you need to do, but you’re wired to just do them because that’s habitual. That’s how you do stuff.   

And more than anything, sit down and create a not-to-do list, because getting results doesn’t take time, it’s the not getting results that takes up all the time. That’s one of my favorite Sullivan quotes. The other thing to use for a lot of these questions that aren’t really simple questions, like there’s no simple answer we can give you for this, the one thing I will say is to give you a way to think about it. And Dan Sullivan says, “The problem is not the problem, the problem is how you think about the problem.” If you had the free time, how many hours do you think it will take you to actually put together what is possible right now, with this opportunity, if you simply just had the time? If I waved a magic wand over you, time stood still, and you were granted X number of hours, what are the time and other capabilities you need to make this happen?

Susan: I think 10 hours of focus-finder time, to where there’s no phone, no computer, just me in a room, highly-focused, with the ability to take those 20-minute breaks. That’s what I think it would take.

Joe: When do you need to get this done by, or it’s going to disappear?

Susan: Yesterday. No, I’m just kidding.

Joe: Yeah, or it’s gone.

Susan: Definitely, by the end of this month.

Joe: Oh. Can you block out 10 hours?

Susan: I will figure it out. I will work it out.

Joe: Of course, you’ll figure it out. But the question is, can you?

Susan: Easily? No.

Joe: Can’t or won’t? Can you literally not schedule that time to do it?   

Susan: I can. I think the problem is who answers the phones and who handles the ongoing business.

Joe: But what if you got sick next week, and you just got sick. You wouldn’t still be doing that, if you broke your leg or something.

Susan: Yeah. I think 2 hours a day of the focus-finder, for the next week, just has to happen.

Joe: Do the very best you can. See, that’s the only way you’ll get yourself out of that trap anyway, because you need to now go pro. You’re already pro. Like in Steven Pressfield’s thing, he’s going from amateur to pro. Part of this is just moving yourself up the ranks a little. You’re getting another degree in your black belt. And part of this is you just need to be resourceful. And you already are. You’ve increased your revenue in your company from $5,000 to $25,000 a month in 8 months. You’re kicking ass! You’ve got a lot of stuff going on.

So, at the same time, don’t even beat yourself up, because you are kicking ass. Is she not kicking ass or what? She’s kicking ass. Right? Anyone here that’s going to increase their revenue by 5 times, most companies don’t do that in 5 years. Most companies actually go belly-up. They don’t increase their revenue like that. But you took this on, so just keep going, and be as resourceful as humanly possible, but block the time. When people are like, “I’m not reaching this opportunity,” you’ve got to ask yourself, “What am I so busy doing, that I don’t take the time to do the things that matter the most?” On a scale of one to 10, how would you rate this, 10 being the best, one being the worst, in terms of opportunity and multiplying your business to where you want to go? How would you rate it?

Susan: Absolute 10.   

Joe: 10. Make out a sheet of paper, then, and we’ll talk about this throughout the couple days. Anything else that’s in your life that’s not an 8, 9 or 10 opportunity, get it the hell off your plate, so you can focus on the 10. You can’t have an 8, 9 or 10 business when you’re dealing with one, 2 or 3 people, 3, 4 and 5, 4, 5 and 6 opportunities. You’ve got to deal with 8, 9 and 10’s, and you’ve got to treat your time that way. And if you’re going to bring someone in, bring someone in and do your best to make sure they’re 8, 9 and 10’s. And if they’re not 8, 9 and 10’s, fire their asses and get somebody else.

Susan: I’m learning that.

Joe: Of course! And you know what? I could be right where you are, and you telling me the same thing. Part of this is just having a sounding board and reminding you of what you already know.

Susan: Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Dean: Congratulations.

Greg: I’m Greg Neal. All I can say, right now, is that my life has changed so dramatically this year that I’m all about paradigm shifting from paradigm to paradigm, to paradigm. I’m in a position now where I basically put my disaster recovery business up for sale. Does anyone actually clean carpets in this group anymore?

Joe: Oh, yeah, yeah. How many of you have cleaning and restoration companies? A lot of them.

Greg: I was just curious. I was impressed that things have shifted so dramatically, because they have for me too. In basically November of last year, things shifted kind of dramatically with my disaster restoration business, and I decided to get into a whole different venue. I actually bought 6 goldmine, 6 gold and silver mines. We got involved with selling gold bullion and coins and vintage mining items, and things of that nature.   

Joe: I may invest in Peter Diamandis’ asteroid mining company, by the way.

Greg: I’m reading a book, it’s pretty amazing. A little too science-y, the way he wrote it. I would suggest the next one be a little bit lighter.

Joe: Hey man, as marketers, we’ve kept that thing on the New York Times since it came out.

Greg: I know. I bought 10 of them.

Joe: Awesome. There’s the next book underway.

Greg: Is it? I forget who it was. But I’m here today, literally, to just glean. Every single time I show up at one of your meetings, and I’ve been involved with Piranha since almost the very beginning, it’s me just showing up that makes such a dramatic change, just coming up here and just sharing my heart and throwing it out there. I don’t know you, sir, but I get that we’re going to get to know each other. I know you have amazing ideas and concepts that will assist me, as well as everyone else in this room. But I’m here to make connections. I’m here to just put it out there that I’m open and teachable, and I’m ready to glean.

Joe: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.

Man: Hello, guys.

Joe: What’s up, stud?

Man: How are we doing?

Joe: Good. Good. How are you doing?

Man: Thank you, so much. This is my first Platinum 2.0. I’m an avid I Love Marketing attendee, as well as I listen to a lot of the podcasts. So, thank you so much. What I want to talk about today is I have Vizzoni Consulting, which basically helps business owners tell their story and create systems. But I actually came up with an idea, and it’s actually for a phone app.   Interestingly enough, it was after I watched Peter Diamandis’ 25K group information, and then I actually did a 50-minute focus-finder afterwards. And I came up with the idea of Recordable. Recordable is this app where it basically takes inspirational quotes, and it kind of makes them a little bit more mad-libby. So, you actually take different words that you create and basically comes up with its own interesting quote. So, the long and the short of it, the reason I’m here today, is I put myself into a 90-day challenge, and I want to generate $118,000 to charity as a result of selling this app. And I’m sitting, right now, at an email database of zero for it. So, what I’m really trying to do, I’ve done the math, and it looks like I basically need to reach about 10-million people through traditional email, so to speak. That’s the number that I’m really looking to achieve. I’m wondering if there’s any other strategy or suggestions that you might have, that might be outside of the email side, to get to my goal of really reaching the number of people that I need to reach, so that I can donate that amount to charity.

Joe: What’s the charity?

Man: Feeding America.

Joe: Feeding America? Okay. I’m thinking viral video, YouTube scenario, something here. But go ahead.

Dean: There are all kinds of stuff. But guess where I’m going to start? Profit activator #1: who’s your ideal target market for this?

Man: Ideally, it’s really anyone who’s really into inspiration quotes. But if I need to get more specifically…

Joe: Yeah, you have to get more specific. I don’t know why I’d advertise for people that are into inspirational quotes.

Man: I would look at more people who attend a lot of the personal development seminars.   

Joe: You need to get a little more specific than that. There are all kinds of personal development seminars around this specific topic.

Dean: What’s your picture for the app? Tell us, what’s the app going to do? What does it do? When you take these things, the whole process, select who’s your ideal target market, what would be a dream-come-true for them? Who’s the group of people that are sitting around saying, “I wish there was an app for…” what?

Man: I guess that’s where I need to get focused.

Dean: How would you answer that right now? What does it do?

Man: If I could answer right now, like of the top of my head, I’m really thinking, specifically, I would say the Tony Robbins seminar attendees. As far as looking at what they’re going to get from it, it’s a way to be inspired and also kind of have a fun opportunity to share something that they created, as well.

Joe: What I would say is if you want to kind of get to Tony, he’s very good friends with Tony Robbins, plays golf with him and stuff. Does this app exist?

Dean: Currently, it’s within a couple days of me receiving it, yes.

Joe: First off, if it actually works, and it’s cool, and it’s kick-ass, and people would want to share it, that’s one thing. It has to be a great thing. Secondly, I would pre-populate it with your selected target market people that have relationships with many other people, and put their quotes in it, and Tweet them and Facebook them, and get it to them, get it to their assistants, get it to everyone, and just have them be like, “Wow! That’s pretty cool!” And have it start being shared. If you actually got Tony to Tweet it to his list because you quoted one of his whatever, “Live with passion,” whatever, how would you take “Live with passion,” and what would your app tell it to do? Would it Yoda-ize it or something? Have you ever seen the Yoda apps, where it takes anything you say and turns it into Yoda language?   

Man: No. That’s awesome, though.

Joe: You’ve got to do a search for that and see that, because there are literally millions of people that use that nonsense. I’m serious. Like there’s a giant community of people that are into freaking Yoda.

Man: What’s the app that I need to look into?

Joe: I don’t even know if it’s an app, although I know online it’s a converter. It’s a language converter on Google. If you convert anything in Yoda, it’s hysterical. Just don’t ever drink or do anything weird, because you might stay there for hours.

Dean: But the danger that I’m sensing, and it’s not something that’s unique to just what you’re doing, you’ve got your objective of you want to raise this money for charity, and it almost sounds like, when you’re saying that, that that should be enough. That’s going to take it, isn’t it? But the reality is the vehicle that’s going to get that still has to depend on the selfish needs and desires of your target audience. In order for anybody to do anything, the only reason they’re going to do it is for their own selfish reasons. Right? So, it’s a fine line, when you’re doing something for a charity, that you think, “Oh, well, that puts it in a whole different category.”

Joe: Yeah, we don’t have to market it.

Dean: We don’t have to market it anymore. It’s for charity. Everybody’s going to do that. But you still have to really think through the process of who is this for. What would be a dream come true about this type of an app for that target audience? What would be the thing that they would really want? How can I compel them to come check this out? How can I educate and motivate them, so that they’ll want to download this app, to use it? Incidentally to that, his money is going to get raised for your charity.   That’s the thing. Doing something for charity is not a bypass to really doing the work of creating an incredible product and doing the great marketing for it.

Joe: Yeah. So, put together something absolutely kick-ass, identify a target market, and put together an awesome video that explains it. It’s one thing to have an app, but there are a million apps out there. So, literally put together something really compelling, that is like, “Wow, I’ve got to actually use this and assemble it, so anyone that sees it thinks this is the bomb.” Because if you don’t get that, it doesn’t matter. Does that help?

Man: Yes, that’s perfect. That’s what I’m really looking forward to doing over the next couple of days.

Joe: Yeah, and I look forward to seeing this app, because it sounds really interesting.

Man: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Joe: Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. What’s up, dude?

Nate: Hey, I’m Nate Parson. How are you doing, Joe? First time I met Joe, I met you back at Eben Pagan’s guru boot camp. The first time I heard about you, Dean, was on Print Persuasion Master Class, with Eben Pagan. So, I got a lot of value on that. So, I started a company, an organization called The Center For Confidence, and I’ll tell you how I got to here. A couple years ago, when I was 19, I started my first how to make money eBook. I was in the biz op niche. I sold several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of that product, but it didn’t really fulfill me in the way that I felt like I could give value. So, I started traveling the world. I met a girl, immigrated her to America from Poland, and we got married. But then, it didn’t work out, and that totally destroyed my business. My focus went off. So, I decided to walk away from that business, so that I could pursue something I’m actually more fulfilled with. So, I closed the door officially 18 months ago.  

Then, I started doing coaching. Started coaching on Internet marketing advice, because I got really good at copywriting, through this product I launched. And then, I started coaching on dating advice for men. And then also, breakup advice, because I was trying to get over my breakup. So, I figure teaching it, you learn how to do it. While I was coaching in these 3 niches simultaneously, I had a Meetup group, last year, 3 of them. I learned that in all 3 of these niches, there’s one profound problem that was ever going through them, and that was a lack of self-confidence. And it was disempowering beliefs that cause lack of self-confidence. So, I studied a lot of Eben, and he says, “Follow the stream up and find that gold nugget that you can target.” So, that was it, the lack of self-confidence. So, I spent a lot of time researching how to build self-confidence and self-esteem. Miraculously, last year, I found a method for eliminating beliefs that cause any sort of disempowering emotions, and I’ve tested it with 50 people now, and it works 95% of the time, so long as they’re willing to play this game – which is why I founded the Center For Confidence, because I’m committed to empowering self-confidence and high self-esteem for everyone.

So, where I’m at right now is I have a dilemma between my 2 product ideas. I’m creating a product on how to get over a breakup, because I realized that pain caused by a breakup is simply due to a belief, usually like “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not worth it.” And the breakup just reminds them of that. So, I can apply this method to that, and I started doing that. But I also want to take this bigger, and I want to create like a practitioner’s method, that other practitioners can use this method on. So, the question for you is what do you think would be a better approach? Should I narrow into this breakup niche, because there’s a real need that’s being unmet here? There’s all this stuff about how to get into a relationship, how to thrive in a relationship, and nothing about how to transition after a relationship ends, versus creating this into a practitioner’s method and letting people do it however they do it.   What do you think would be a more effective long-term business model?

Joe: Well, for one, there’s this strategy method, which Dean can really speak to based on what he did with Stop Your Divorce. The other part of this, though, before we get to that, is if you could only work on one of these for now or for the rest of your life, that you could put the most energy, belief, who do you want to be a hero to sort of question, which one would you choose? Which one are you more excited about, when you think about both of them? You can decide which one, if it was simply a money issue and what’s the more hyper-responsive niche. You test it in the marketplace and see. It’s like write an ad, put it out there, see who responds. If you get more into the breakup versus the other… But if it’s simply like what do you want to do, are you right in the middle? You just have the hardest time deciding?

Nate: I’m more passionate about just talking about beliefs and building confidence as applied to all niches.

Joe: Why?

Dean: Simply because there’s no place to go to learn how to build self-confidence.

Joe: You want to hear an interesting statistic, too?

Dean: Who doesn’t want to hear an interesting one?

Joe: Funny, huh? Do you know what group in America has the highest levels of self-confidence? What group? Guess.

Dean: Millionaires?

Joe: Black males.

Nate: Black men?

Joe: Yeah. Who has the lowest level?   

Nate: White men?

Joe: Jewish white men. Who makes the most amount of money? The Jewish white men. Who makes the least amount of money? Black men, statistically.

Nate: Interesting.

Joe: There’s a lot to be said about does the making of money have anything to do with not having a lot of confidence. So, it depends what you want the result to be. Now, most people don’t talk about this shit. But it’s really quite interesting, if you actually think about it, because you think about what drives people. Is it fear? I don’t know. But I think feeling really good about yourself and having confidence allows you to excel in particular areas. And it’s where the confidence is applied. Because you can have confidence with picking up women, as an example, but have no skill whatsoever of making money or maintaining the relationship.

Nate: Totally.

Joe: So, having said that, picking the thing that you’re most interested in, I think, is really, really critical. Now, saying that, you literally are a master of this sort of stuff. So, what would you tell him to do?

Dean: Well, part of the thing, I can sense, because I know I’ve been there in that same situation, that sometimes you’re torn between what you know is financially the best path and then what you desire as intellectually stimulating as perhaps the best path. Which is to apply this to the broader feel, to take that as wide as you possibly can, even though you know that in the short-term, meaning focused effort on one path, is the most financially rewarding initially. It’s easier for you to take this self-confidence idea, go as deep as you can, and completely dominate the breakup market. But, it’s not maybe the thing that’s the most stimulating to you. And I always have to remind people that there’s a balance that you have to reach in that, a lot of   times, people are in business more to entertain themselves than to sustain themselves. And entertaining yourself is a luxury that you can pursue after you’ve set a baseline of sustaining yourself on a perpetual or permanent basis.

So, if you can overcome and harness that energy and desire you have to be broad with something and channel it into going deep with something that can lay a foundation for you, so that now, for the rest of your days, you can focus on doing whatever entertains you, because you’re already sustained. Now, I don’t know what your financial situation is, but if you’re in a situation where having a long-term, sustainable income base that’s going to provide for your lifestyle needs long-term, or permanently, that’s a much better place to come from. Most often, especially when you’re not at that place, when you’re at a place where you need to bring in money, where you need to create money, sometimes the desire to be broad is counteractive to that.

Joe: Totally.

Dean: So, I look at it that sometimes running a successful business is boring, sometimes. It’s not the most entertaining thing, especially if you are a guy who loves to be challenged intellectually and figure out how does this apply. In your mind, you’ve already cracked the code for the breakup situation. And now, what’s intellectually challenging is how can I apply that to weight loss or to the next thing, or this applies here, or this applies here. You want to go wide, about an inch deep, all the way around the whole universe. And you get to that “I don’t want to own all the land, just the land that’s next to mine.” There’s no end to that.

Your mind honestly doesn’t care what it’s thinking about. You have a mind like I have a mind, like Joe has a mind, of infinite capacity for challenging ideas and to come up with ideas and solutions. But your mind doesn’t care what you focus on, and it’s just as challenging and stimulating to focus on the next challenge within that niche, than it would be to go broad.   So, that would be my take on that.

Joe: That’s what I’m trying to say. Here’s the thing, too. For the time you’re going to be with us, really think this through, because I think it will help get some clarity. And that’s one of the reasons to actually come here and spend a couple of days, because you have some things you can think about. Also, Dan Sullivan is the one that actually told me the stats about the black men and white males, and I want to get the exact thing because I’m not sure how much of it was self-confidence and self-esteem, but it’s self-esteem and confidence. I want to get it exactly right. But I would get that, because I think that would be really useful, just for you to know the statistics of how people actually feel about themselves. And I actually think, because we talked about this, the heartbreak thing at the Meetup group the other day, I actually think you can really help a lot of people if you get it right and you get the marketing down, and you set that system up. But you’re also a very creative dude that my take is you just want to do a bunch of shit and things that are the most interesting to you.

So, let your misery be other people’s advantage, from what you’ve gone through and stuff, but figure out the best model. And all of this is testable. I think you’ve got money to play with. Act intelligently, but don’t piss away things too much. One thing that I think is really important is don’t ever lose your audience. Once you’ve got an audience that you want to cater to, make sure you nurture them. As Dean said about a business being boring, Craig Forte really drives that home. I have a friend named Craig Forte that just has made so much money and is such a smart guy, and he sticks to his knitting. And if there’s any mistake that I’ve made in my career, I tend to just pursue things because they’re really interesting and really cool.

Now, thankfully, I’ve stayed with some things that actually consistently have always made money. But be careful of that, because there are a lot of people that will   say, “Yeah, once you get it to a certain point, it can be kind of monotonous. But it depends: do you want to be well-known or well-paid?” And that’s a distinction everyone needs to make: do you want to be well-known or do you want to be well-paid? And there’s a lot of ego that comes with the advice-giving sort of business.

Nate: You made a very valuable point, though. I’m definitely more committed to making a profound difference in a specific area, such as the breakup advice niche. So, if I was to choose, I would definitely choose that.

Dean: If you can take that and solve that, that largely is a local business. People are going through breakups in every city in America, every city in the world, really. That could work on the practitioner level, as well. One of the things, the provocations that you might have is… Where do you live?

Nate: Just down the street.

Dean: Here in Phoenix.

Nate: Yeah.

Dean: So, one of the provocations you might have is what if my business was only in Phoenix? What if I only could work with people who were going through a breakup in Phoenix? How would I do that? And when you crack that code, when you get that method, now you’ve got not only the advice and the solution that you can offer to other practitioners, but you’ve got a way to market it, to get them people to help, which is far more valuable than even just giving them some kind of certification or some kind of training, undoing this. So many times, people will have certifications or courses like that, where they teach people how to do something, they don’t teach them how to get people to actually help, if you crack that code.

Joe: Okay, have you noticed the time, Dean? We are already over.

Dean: Let’s go. We’re not over yet.   

Joe: Yeah, we are.

Dean: No, we’re not.

Joe: We’re 4 minutes over.

Dean: No, we’re not.

Joe: See that red thing right there? It’s time for a break.

Dean: We’re plus 4 on our break, but we’re not plus 4 on our episode. I’m keeping the episode time.

Joe: Can you guys go for about another 6 minutes? Is that okay? Then, we’ll take a break. Alright, is that helpful?

Nate: That’s very helpful.

Joe: We’re going to be seeing you a lot anyway, because you’re coming to all of the I Love Marketing Meetup groups. So, frankly, even if you’re more confused now than you were before answering the question, that’s fine by me.

Nate: Thanks a lot.

Joe: No, has it been helpful?

Nate: Very much.

Joe: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We’ll do these ones, guys, as quickly as we can, so that Dean is satisfied, and that all of our I Love Marketing listeners are, hopefully, happy.

Justin: I appreciate that. My name is Justin Starbird, from East Bay Marketing Group. Flew in last night from Maine, so it was a long flight last night. My partner and I, we started working, this year, with the Edison Awards. And full disclosure, we just became members of the Piranha Marketing group in January or February, so this is our first one. So, I know I didn’t quite follow the rules. But we’re real excited to be here.   One of our clients, the Edison Awards, work to recognize and honor innovation and innovators from around the world, year after year. This is their 25th anniversary, and we were fortunate enough to be their official nominations partner going forward. We’re going to talk about this. We took part in your sprint, as well. So, he’s actually going to talk a little bit about that this afternoon. So, we’re excited about that.

That said, we’ve had the opportunity to talk to Fortune 10 companies, Fortune 500 companies, and guys in their garage, for the last 6 months, to introduce them to the power of Thomas Edison, helping and working to leverage the awards based on celebrity. Edison started off in his garage and he created an empire – 5 different industries, 1,093 patents in his lifetime. He had a team behind him to do that. Well, we look at ourselves, we’re part of that team. In fact, they asked us to roll up our sleeves and be a part of the event. In fact, what was kind of cool during the event, there was a “meet the innovators” forum and then the awards gala. Chris Anderson, from TED Conferences, was the Achievement Award winner. I was fortunate enough to put him in a new Fisker Karma, this year, to get him picked up before the event, drive all over New York City. It was a lot of fun. We’ve had a really good time.

So, the awards are done, and we pick them back up in September. We established means to bring in new nominations this year. We developed some strategies and systems to do that, so it’s not just me or him picking up the phone, calling these cool companies like IBM, Watson or CBS, or whomever. What we’re looking for, now that they’re over, is Edison Awards seals, is what we’re working with, and how to leverage winning an award, gold, silver or bronze, and how to work with those companies. We had CBS on the phone on Thursday saying, “Alright, we won this great award. Now what?” They paid a whole bunch of money to be a part of it, so now we’re working with them to leverage how to use that seal of approval or seal of winning.   

Joe: So, that’s your question?

Justin: That’s the first question. It’s 2-part. How do we leverage those great relationships that we’ve made, literally? I met Leslie Moonves, the CEO of CBS, a couple weeks ago, as well. How do we leverage those 2 things: 1) for our client and the award winners, and then 2) for East Bay Marketing and all of our new contacts, into new business?

Dean: Ultimately, what is your business? Where’s the money?

Justin: That’s one client. What we do is we work with small businesses to get new customers. We get paid upfront, but there are also commissions in doing their sales and marketing. So, we’ll either do it all for you, and that’s really what our core business is, is developing a system and being part of that for them, and earning commissions ongoing.

Joe: And do people execute on what you teach?

Justin: Yes.

Joe: And they get results with what you teach?

Justin: Oh, yeah. With the Edison Awards, we doubled their size this year.

Joe: And you have compiled case studies, and you can show how people actually utilize what you do, that they produce a particular result? You can show that to these people?

Justin: Well, with this particular client, the Edison Awards and leveraging their winnings, this is our first year doing this. We just finished the awards last week. So, the next step is working with them to leverage that. And that’s where we have some ideas, but we’d like some guidance or advice.

Joe: Well, the way that I do my contest, Better Your Best, is there’s an incentive for somebody to win something, if they follow a particular process. And the reason I actually started doing Better Your Best contests, truth be told, I needed a way to get rid of a car that Bill Phillips had given me. I didn’t need to get rid of it, actually. I just thought it would be a pretty clever way to incentivize people to better their best.   So, I came up with the Better Your Best thing, and the model is offer a prize, offer a recognition, so that people can be recognized, because when people do good things they like to be recognized. That’s where gold medals and prizes and everything come from, is Peter Diamandis, X Prize incentives, “Whenever you incentivize in a competition, people simply just work harder. They put more of themselves into it.

So, there’s not, per se, a magic formula. It’s literally just defining what it is, what’s going to happen when somebody competes, and it always makes people better. Anyone here that’s not doing the Better Your Best contest, literally, you’re shortchanging yourself by not doing it. I guess in the time we have available, which we’re already past time, I can almost say when you start seeing us go through the sprints and you see people up here, a lot of the answers on how to do what you’re doing, you’re actually going to learn them here. You’re going to kind of see ideas. So, part of my thing would almost say it doesn’t help people listening to I Love Marketing, but it does create some pain as to why they’re not here.

Dean: They should be here.

Joe: Yeah. I actually think your question’s going to be answered more so as you kind of sit back through the next 2 days and you’ll kind of see. I think you’ll actually see a model that is quite applicable. And as far as approaching the person, it’s the same way you do any sort of joint venture. What’s in it for them? Why should they back it? And being able to have the languaging of that in print, on video, and that’s how you enroll them.

Justin: And what about like using, for example, Lowe’s? We’re helping them do an aisle display for other products, like for maybe the startup, how do you build value to that? We’ve done stuff with Kroger before.

Joe: You see which ones are already working successfully, and whoever in Lowe’s makes the decision to do that, you simply have a conversation and say, “Here’s what I want to do. What are some things that have been done in the past, that have worked   successfully?” And then, obviously, have your act together before you make that presentation. I would throw the same thing back to you. How does it help them?

Justin: It’s a third-party distinction that’s quite recognizable and has a lot of value behind it. That’s our pitch to the company, why they should purchase it. What we’re looking to do is what are ways in which they can use it and leverage it to help them generate new business for their customers? Like CBS EcoMedia, they’re a giant company, but how could we position that as a branding opportunity for them in the partnership? Those are the things that we’re looking for. And if that’s going to be answered in the next couple days, that’s great. That’s why I’m here. That’s why we became members. That’s why I was looking for some pointed advice, as well.

Joe: Yeah, I think it will. Is there anything else you’d want to add for now?

Dean: I think it all has to begin with the end in mind. Like part of it has to be, when you’re engineering this, who’s going to be as a recipient, somebody who can really take advantage of this, and how can you help them take advantage of it? Yeah, we can definitely talk about some things that you can do over the next couple of days.

Justin: Thank you very much.

Joe: Cool! Thank you. Thank you. Why don’t we do this? I feel very bad, Jeremy, if we take a break. Well, let’s answer their question. But can we do it after break?

Dean: Sure.

Joe: I think if we keep going, there’s going to be people in the room that are going to be very mad because they have bladder issues.

Dean: Exactly.   

Joe: Is that okay? Sorry.

Dean: Let’s wrap up for the people at home.

Joe: Everyone at home, we’re going to wrap up. And that’s going to basically take this process. Dean’s going to do it. What are you going to say? Wrap up.

Dean: Dean’s going to do it, because we’re going to hurt people’s feelings. Is that it?

Joe: It’s your fault that this has to come to an end like this.

Dean: I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode.

Joe: Did you guys like the Q&A? Was that useful?

Dean: Now, imagine we’ve got 100+ people here, who we’re going to spend the next 2 days going deeper into processes, we’re going to go deeper into ideas and sharing, and masterminding, and the value in being around a group of people who are taking their business and 5-timesed it since being involved. It’s a great room to be in.

Joe: Yeah. Where’s Kevin Donahue? Is he in the room? Where’s he at? He’s out there somewhere. We were having a conversation about what sort of person has success with learning environments and with tools and templates, and things like that. And it’s people that are willing to actually do something with it. And he was talking to someone; I don’t even know who, that’s why I was asking if he’s in the room, where he was explaining my story. When I was a dead-broke carpet cleaner early on, I spent $1,800, in 1992, to hire a copywriter to write my first version of a consumer awareness guide, and I had no idea what was going to happen. But I did know that the canning and cloning concept would change my life. And it has. It’s been one of the most instrumental things.

So, part of how do you figure out how to do anything, everyone here would not come here if they didn’t have a bigger future goal in mind. Everyone here is for different reasons as to why they’re here, and many are here for the same reasons.   Like how many people in the room are here because the getting of money and making money is one of your objectives? Okay. How many of you are not here because you don’t want any more money? How many of you, there’s another reason why you’re here, other than make more money? Shout out. What would some of those reasons be? Free time? What else? Plan the future of your company? Implement? Give back?

Dean: Impact.

Joe: Oh, okay. I hope you don’t say, “Give back.” I hope you’re greedy… No. Impact. Absolutely. The point is you’re already doing what you need to do in order to get to where you want to go. I swear, after having read so many books and so many seminars, and so much personal development, I literally think half the battle is simply showing up. It literally is that Woody Allen thing: 95% of success is just showing up, because the process is just going through it and showing up here. So, most of the things that you could ever think you have challenges with can be either completely figured out how to eliminate them, not that you’re going to eliminate them in 2 days, but you’ll get the roadmap and the blueprints on how to do it simply by showing up here. So, if there’s anything I can advise people, don’t try to over-think it. Just put yourself in the environment. Be a great sounding board. And when we take a break, go and talk to people and think about the very best practices that, if you had them, if you put them in place in your business, would totally make the big shift.

Dean: There you go.   

Joe: That’s it. Thank you all.  

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