Episode 071: The one about answering the important questions

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: Look at us.

Joe: Yeah, here we are, in my office.

Dean: Gazing into each other’s eyes again.

Joe: I’m going to try to just deflect that comment. Don’t move around too much, because Dean’s always beating on tables and stuff, and we’ve got mics and everything. He’s very unprofessional. So, we did a Platinum meeting this week, which I thought was awesome.

Dean: It was great, Monday, Tuesday.

Joe: Yep. And, you know, I swear to God, I just think that’s such a great investment for people. I had so many of the members come up, and they’re like, “Oh my god, I’m so recharged! This is awesome!” It’s one of those things you just cannot really get through to people verbally, without them experiencing it.

Dean: By now, by the time everybody’s hearing this episode, they will have already heard the episode that we did live, at the Platinum meeting, and heard from people, heard from Susan, who’s grown her business 5 times since the conference in October.

Joe: Of last year.

Dean: Of last year. And has just really taken everything and run with it. We heard story after story of people who are just making incredible gains in their business. I love to hear that kind of thing.

Joe: Yeah. So, we’re going to do a conference this year, which is going to be October 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. So, just mark those dates, tentatively. But actually, block the first 2 weeks of October, and you should be good.

Dean: Just block them completely.

Joe: It is literally marketing October is what you should call it. If you just take the 2 weeks of October, and even if you hear this episode like, I don’t know, 5 years from now, it just sounds like a good idea. Block October. It’s Halloween later in the month. Get your marketing taken care of the first 2 weeks. There are all kinds of things going on in October. I have several people I know who have birthdays during that period of time. Okay, everyone. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ve got to drag Dean in here, and I’m like, “Just roll with it.” So, here’s what I want to actually do today. I want to give everyone that listens to I Love Marketing sort of a peek into how do marketers actually think about their business and how do they do prep, if they do prep at all. After you get to a certain point, you don’t really have to prepare.

Dan Fitzpatrick, one of my 25K members, he went to Necker Island and offered to raise some money for Virgin Unite if Richard could actually make a contact with the rock band Journey, because Dan’s a singer. And he didn’t really want to sing with Jimmy Buffett or anyone, but he’s like, “I would love to sing with Journey, because he just loves the rock band Journey. So, Richard is like, “Yeah, I can probably make a phone call to do that.” So, for whatever reason, I have no idea how this got lost in the shuffle, but it just never happened. So, I was talking to Dan, and I was like, “Why don’t you call Steve Sims?”

Dean: I thought Steve was the one that set that up.

Joe: Yeah, he did. And Steve Sims runs the Bluefish, which is Bluefish.com. And basically, he can set up like high-level experiences and things like that.

Dean: And high-end hotels.

Joe: High-end everything. Just everything. Unique experiences, backstage passes, tickets to the Oscars, events, whatever, whatever. So, basically, really cool service for people. He ended up organizing something with Journey, raised $175,000 for autism. I was there, Jon Benson was there. Several of us from 25K went there. What’s funny is he ended up singing 3 songs with Journey. And his original thing was, “We’ll do it during a sound check, before one of their concerts. Well, Journey doesn’t do sound checks anymore. They just have it so dialed; they don’t even need to prepare. Their equipment’s set up, they go onstage, and they perform. And they literally set up this special sound check, just so Dan could come and sing with them. Maybe I can get some of the video footage, and you can put it on I Love Marketing, because there’s a bunch of videos, editing and everything. But nonetheless, took a bunch of private videos.

Dean: Whatever you can get.

Joe: Yeah, I can do that. Make a note, Dean. If it doesn’t show up at I Love Marketing.

Dean: As you pick up your pen and write it in your notebook.

Joe: Because I know you can be responsible at times.

Dean: Okay.

Joe: Anyway, the reason I’m bringing this up is that you don’t always have to prepare. If you really have done things, like the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours, I don’t prepare that much.

Dean: Well, we don’t prepare for these calls, at all. Literally, we text each other what we’re going to talk about, and that’s enough.

Joe: Yeah, but we’ve been studying marketing and preparing for 20 years. So, that’s the deal. Now, the thing is, occasionally, though, I do like to prepare. And occasionally, it makes sense to actually get things in order. We all have our own forms of doing preparation, but the whole thing is I don’t like getting caught up in paralysis by analysis. We’re going to talk about Gary Halbert today, and we’re going to go over some questions that have been submitted. But the reason I bring this thing up is we ended up going to this concert; 25 of us watched this performance with Dan singing with Journey, and it was super-cool. And then a few hours later, it was so funny; it was Night Ranger and Foreigner opening up for Journey, and then Journey came on. So, like 3 hours later, here we are, in this stadium, outdoors, in California, with 30,000 people. It was surreal.

Dean: And he was just on the same stage, singing with Journey.

Joe: It was so funny. So, the point is if you’re new to marketing, and many people are, or you’re new in business, or you’ve been in business for a long time but you’re doing a new startup, there’s all kinds of things you can do to prepare. So, I’m doing a teleseminar later today, literally less than 2 hours from now, and I said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. How do you kill 2 birds with one stone?” So, I’m going to talk about Dan Kennedy sent an email out to his list, basically promoting my XXX Halbert product. And it’s not XXX in terms of like because Gary Halbert uses profanity. But for the most part, it’s this private consultation that I did with Gary Halbert when he was alive, back in 1997, years ago, and I paid him $11,500 to spend 2 days with him, consulting. John Carlton was there, Pamela Yellen was there, Terry, Jim. A handful of people were at this consultation, and I was a young guy – hopefully, think I’m a young guy.

It was phenomenal. I recorded it for private use, but I ended up talking to Gary after the fact, and we ended up distributing a handful of them, but many, many years later I was like, “This would be such valuable wisdom, because Gary, although he was crazy and insane and bizarre in so many ways, was an absolute marketing genius.” So, we sent this email out, and we’ve got hundreds of people that are registered for this teleseminar, where I’m simply going to do Q&A. So, we set up a survey, like, “What questions would you like to ask related to marketing and related to Gary Halbert?” So, people submitted questions, and I’m going to answer some of these questions later. And I thought, “You know, some of the things that I’m going to talk to this group of people, people in I Love Marketing would never be privy, they would not hear that conference call.” And certainly, it’s going to be a little bit different than we’re going to talk about here, because I’m actually going to sell the program.

Because that’s what this whole audience came in from. They actually watched my presentation from Dan Kennedy’s, where I had the highest close in Glazer-Kennedy history, and everyone that’s gotten this product loves this product. But it’s going to really do a value-add. So, it’s going to be, “How do you actually sell?” You sell by teaching. That’s the model I’m going to use when I do this teleseminar tonight. So, here are the questions in front of me, and let’s just talk about them. Now, I’m going to answer these tonight, but I’m going to use your brain to actually go through these questions, see what you have to say. If you have anything that’s, even more, smarter, then I will say it tonight, on the call, and everyone will think it came from me.

Dean: And you take credit for it. I love that. That’s a brilliant plan.

Joe: Isn’t it? Now, how does this relate to everybody? Here’s the deal. Here’s the deal. Thomas Edison is quoted with saying, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes on coming up with the right question and 5 minutes on the answer.” So, as long as you have great questions for yourself, you can always use that to prepare. If you ever need to sit down and create a consumer awareness guide or a sales letter, just simply sit down either with yourself and record it, or have someone ask you questions, or do a survey to your prospects and your clients, and ask them, “What is it that you want?” So, in front of Dean and in front of me, these are the questions. There are a few of them. We don’t need to answer all of them. But with the time we have, let’s go through it and let’s talk about it. So, how do you want to do this? Do you want me to read the questions?

Dean: Sure. We can alternate. We can alternate reading, whatever. Do you want me to read the first one?

Joe: You do it. Go for it.

Dean: Is Dan going to be asking these questions?

Joe: No, no.

Dean: It’s just you on the call.

Joe: It’s just me on the call. I’m going to be introduced. Jon Benson is actually going to introduce me, because we used a video sales letter in Jon Benson’s voice, so he’s going to be on there. See, the questions were submitted by the audience. He said, “Hey, I’m going to do a special Q&A call. What questions would you like to ask me?” So, all of these questions came in. I didn’t even select these. So, Rachelle, who works for me, went through all of the questions, found the ones that she thought would be most applicable to everyone, based on which ones were kind of like the most similar ones, and she compiled them together.

Dean: Okay. So, 1) what is your #1 tip for someone with no leads or clients, to getting more business leads and sales now?

Joe: Okay. So, what is your #1 tip, with no leads or clients, to getting more business? What I would say, think about this, Dean, it would be like, “Go to the first profit activator, which is narrow your focus and select one target market at a time. If you don’t have any leads, and you don’t have any clients to get more business leads or sales, you need to say, “Okay, who do I want them from?” So, marketing is basically the right list and the right offer. What is the right list? So, if you don’t have your own list, then you either need to create your own list by putting out offers. Let’s take I Love Marketing. We create our own list by people that are obviously interested in marketing. But how do a lot of people find out about it? Well, other people that have relationships with groups of people have actually notified their clients and told other people about it. So, JV’s, joint ventures. Who has a list of clients that could recommend or endorse your business? And it would be in their best interest in order to do it.

Dean: That’s what I was going to say.

Joe: Give me some of your thoughts.

Dean: That’s the first thing, is if they don’t have anything, certainly, if you don’t have any leads or clients, you hopefully have the product or service, or whatever it is, and just like you just said, the easiest, fastest way is to find somebody who already has your client, your ideal prospect, and strike a relationship with them to introduce your product to them, hopefully a non-competing but complementary product.

Joe: Now, if someone didn’t have, which almost everyone has that, but I’m going to play devil’s advocate here, if someone didn’t have any leads or clients or joint…

Dean: So, let me get this right, they’ve got no leads, they’ve got no sales, they’ve got no clients, they’ve got no product, and no service.

Joe: Say they had to advertise or say they had to actually set up a lead gen system. What would you tell them? If, literally, they were prohibited from joint ventures, what would you tell someone to do?

Dean: Well, I think that I would definitely select a single target market, narrow in on who would be your ideal client, figure out some way to get in front of them. If they’re searching on the Internet, if they’re searching on Google, I would use Google AdWords to get in front of that audience right at the time they’re searching for whatever it is that you have. And if they are a group that you can identify by their demographics or by their interests or associations, then I would look at Facebook ads, running Facebook ads in front of them. But in order to do that, you have to select your target market. But now, you also have to have a message that’s compelling. I would look at like the Fisher Investment ads that we talked about a few episodes ago, to think about what is the conversation that’s already going on in their mind, that you could compel them to click and ultimately to leave their name and their email address, so that you can give them something of value that would start that communication, that’s ultimately going to give you the opportunity to educate and motivate them, so that they’ll buy something.

Joe: I like it.

Dean: Me, too. This is fun.

Joe: So, what I’ll do, I may say some of that later, say that I came up with it.

Dean: Right. Of course, you will.

Joe: I don’t even know why both of us are even needed here, because we both are like Pez dispensers. Just kind of pull the head back and bah, out comes a sweet peppermint or something. When’s the last time you actually bought…

Dean: Had a Pez?

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: The funniest thing is that certainly at Halloween last year, there was some Pez.

Joe: Like trick-or-treating? What are you talking about?

Dean: I have Pez dispensers.

Joe: When’s the last time you dressed up for Halloween?

Dean: I think I had a Batman Pez dispenser.

Joe: Really? When’s the last time you dressed up for Halloween?

Dean: It’s been a while. People dress up as me for Halloween. And people immediately know who I am, because they wear a black hat and a long-sleeved black t-shirt.

Joe: That is comedy. We’re thinking about putting our I Love Marketing book into space. So, we had a conversation yesterday, with this goofball friend of mine, who’s actually…

Dean: Sending things up into space. Did you watch the video about that?

Joe: Not yet. I’ve seen pictures.

Dean: It’s a big balloon that they send up, with all these. Imagine like a big coat rack, like you see in a store kind of thing, like the circular racks. So, imagine that, with the big balloon attached to it, and not like a giant balloon that you see in Napa or something, like going up on a big hot air balloon ride. Not like that, at all. Not much bigger than…

Joe: Come on, spit it out.

Dean: It’s not much bigger than like 4 times the size of us kind of thing. It’s a long, narrow balloon.

Joe: Me and you are not the same size, in case you haven’t noticed that.

Dean: If we were like hugging and cuddle up together, it would be about 4 times that size.

Joe: Okay. Wow, that’s scary.

Dean: So, it would be 8 times of… and it’s got these little things hanging down, like little fishing wire, hanging things, and they send up balloons.

Joe: You know what I think is just funny about that? The stuff people come up with just to do things.

Dean: I know.

Joe: His name’s Logan, and he’s a young guy. So, one of the things was put our I Love Marketing book up into space, with figurines of me and you, with Peter Diamandis, a figurine of Peter Diamandis, and the I Love Marketing business card, my business card, up into space. Alright, let’s get back to something serious here. So, basically, the second question. This is a devil’s advocate question. “Email delivery rates are down, opt-ins are down, people are at an all-time skeptic mindset. If you track any online metrics today, you know this is true. Things are changing. I see all of the big-time marketers, including yourself, selling and giving away old-day products. Old-day.”

Dean: I love where this is going already.

Joe: “So, my question is why should I, or any other marketer, follow the gurus of 5 or 10 years ago, and what are you personally doing to change your advice to be effective today, as in 2012, not in 2004? If your response is ‘being magnetic,’ well, I can read Success magazine for those tips.” Well, if he gets this in time, he actually can read my article in Success magazine, and my interview, which is going to be in the upcoming issue of Success magazine. I think it will be in the July issue. And all I talked about in there was being magnetic. No, I’m kidding. Anyway, here’s my response to that. Henry Ford actually had that really great line. You know what it is, Dean?

Dean: Henry Ford had the great line? The great line?

Joe: He had many great lines, but one of them is, “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Well, that’s how I would respond to that.

Dean: I agree with that.

Joe: If he didn’t come up with that, who said it?

Dean: There are so many presuppositions there. Like there are so many, many erroneous presuppositions.

Joe: Yeah, he’s talking about things that are irrelevant. It’s kind of like, “Well, should you listen to anyone who’s been a professional bodybuilder 20 years ago? Would he have any advice on getting in better shape or building muscle?” No. Only people today, after 2007, really know what they’re talking about when it comes to marketing. So, it’s actually one of those things to where the biggest thing, he’s like, “People are at an all-time skeptic mindset.” Well, the real answer is he or she – because I don’t know if this is a he or she – is at an all-time skeptic mindset, because the entire question is really about “this won’t work.” And here’s the thing. One of the things we mentioned in our Platinum meeting – I mentioned it, not you, because you should have come up with this – one of the things we talked about was if you play the game to win, versus playing the game not to lose, you’re going to get a completely different result. It’s either coming from a scarcity mindset or coming from an abundance mindset.

So, some of the most principle-based things on selling did not come from modern-day marketers. They actually came from people 100, 150 years ago. You’re talking about them all the time. Claude Hopkins. It’s psychology. Marketing is applied psychology. Marketing’s the quickest path to the sale. Some of the best things you’re ever going to learn from are from salespeople, back in the day, that had to go knock on doors and sell encyclopedias. Most people today, they don’t realize that a change in ad, back in the 70’s, if someone wanted to typeset an ad, they’re using an exact-o knife and whiteout in order to lay out an ad to run in the newspaper.

Dean: But the psychology doesn’t change. The psychology is the same. And you look at the thing, I just fundamentally disagree with a lot of the presuppositions in there. But the thing is let’s take Gary Halbert as an example. One of the things that Gary is most famous for is his theory that people sort their mail over the garbage can, the A pile and the B pile. And that directly translates to the way people sort their email. They sort their email with their finger over the delete button. There are, if you think about this same thing, there is A pile and B pile email. People look through emails, and if it looks like an email coming from one person to one person, which is you, your emails always get through to me, and opened and read, and responded to – sometimes.

Joe: Sometimes.

Dean: So, you look at it, and it’s like we just had an example. I mentioned that we’ve been running all kinds of marketing programs for the LivingInWinterHaven.com website from our office. We just sent out an email to 32 people who had responded for something in January, as a check-in with those people. So, we sent in the email and, out of 32 emails that we sent, we got 27 responses and 2 listings from an email. So, when you look at it, if you look at that email delivery rates are down, opt-ins are down, that may be true if you’re talking about the old days where you could just send a million emails to somebody and just the sheer novelty of getting email, “you’ve got mail, you’ve got mail,” can you imagine how annoying that would be now if, every time you got an email, your in-box, “You’ve got mail!” Back then, it was interesting to get email, and it probably got read more. And that’s why spam worked so well. And now, it’s getting to the point where the things that are working right now are the same things that are psychologically sound communications, talking to one person.

Joe: One of the things I’ve heard Richard says, “Wherever there’s anxiety, there’s opportunity,” the things that are always shifting and changing are the DOS of your clientele. It’s Dan Sullivan’s, Dangers, Opportunities and Strengths. So, as life changes, the dangers change, the opportunities change, people still have their strengths. And the fact of the matter is a lot of the things that have worked by the old-time guru’s direct mail, they still work. It’s just people abandon them because they want to trade in like a new technology or whatever.

We still make a killing with direct mail. We just did a campaign out to Kennedy’s list, and in the last 5 days, I’ve sold thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff. People love the product. It’s a great product. It uses powerful, punchy copy. It comes with a 100% money-back guarantee. It’s an awesome product that was recorded in 1997, but we actually show people how it applies to today. So, I don’t really know what the question is. There’s just a whole bunch of random thoughts. “My question is why should I or any other marketer follow the gurus of 5 or 10 years ago? And what are you personally doing to change your advice to be effective today?”

Dean: The lesson that you can take from that is to look at the gurus, if you want to call them that, from 5 to 10 years ago, and ask yourself, “Are they as successful today? Have they adopted the new technology? Have they adopted the things that have come on? Have they changed the way that they’re doing business? And are they still successful?”

Joe: And if they’re not, then maybe they haven’t stayed up on top of it. As far as I go, we’ve continually not only maintained success; we keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Our clients keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I have one of the highest-level mastermind groups on the planet for some of the top entrepreneurs. I didn’t attract these people because I was magnetic. I certainly don’t consider myself magnetic. You, maybe. Okay, the next question is, “What’s the best way to buy, re-reach and build lists super-quickly? You want to go first or do you want me to?

Dean: Why don’t you go ahead first?

Joe: Have a solution to a problem that people are desperately, ardently wanting to fix, and communicate to those people effectively, with powerful copy. So, how do you reach those people? If you can buy or joint venture or build a list, then you’re golden. You have people that are looking for a solution to a problem. Can you find them? Where are they? What are they reading? What are they members of? Are they on Facebook? Where are they at? Of course, they’re on Facebook, but can you reach them? Can you nichify what it is you’re looking for? Do you know somebody that has an already existing list that your product or service will very much be a fit for? And do you have messaging, video/audio print that communicates in a very powerful way what the heck you can do to solve their problem or to help them reach their opportunity? Those are some of my thoughts. What would you say?

Dean: This is very similar to what I suggested for #1, that the fastest way is to do a JV with somebody who already has it. That’s certainly a way, and it’s a good way to test the effectiveness of your offer, to test the funnel. Once you’ve got a proven way of converting somebody who leaves their name and their email into a paying client, then now you can take that and buy traffic to do it. The ultimate, the most valuable thing that you can ever have is a reliable way to turn $1 invested into buying traffic into $2 or $4 or $10. It’s the best thing that you could possibly have. We were talking about Stop Your Divorce last night, StopYourDivorce.com, since 1998 now. So, 14 years now – 14 years of consistently being able to multiply paid traffic.

That’s the great thing about Google and the great thing about Facebook that you can get your message in front of people and do it in a way that you only pay when they take an action. And when you know what you can afford to pay for them, that makes it much easier. I’d recommend that people listen to our interview with Ryan Deiss, too, because that’s the whole focus of everything they do. His whole goal is to have the highest earnings in the first 30 days, the highest customer value in 30 days, for paid traffic, because if you can have that highest value, you can spend more money. If you can spend more money than any of your competitors, you can get in front of more people.

Joe: Yeah, totally. Awesome. Why don’t you read the next one?

Dean: “Do you have any time management suggestions on staying on track and productive?” I just happen to.

Joe: Yes, and so do I. Why don’t you go?

Dean: So, my thing is to really concentrate on blocking off time that you’re going to just focus on doing what your next, most important thing is. We’ve got a whole episode on ILoveMarketing.com called “The 50-Minute Focus Finder.” And it gives my entire approach to getting stuff done. I call it “spending more time playing GOLF.” We’ve got a Goal, you’ve got an Optimal environment, Limited distractions, and a Fixed timeframe. That is a 50-minute video. If you can set aside 50 minutes to watch it all at once, it’s going to change the way that you approach getting things done.

Joe: That’s what I’m trying to say. One of the things that Gary talks about in the XXX program is gold coins. He was brilliant. He’s like, “People will spend their time stepping over gold coins, so that they can pick up the bronze and the silvers. When we ended the Platinum meeting, one of the last things I said, last 5 minutes of the meeting was, “Okay, you’ve been here for 2 days. You’ve got a lot of ideas. You’ve got a lot of new perspective. We had everyone have a sheet that said, “$10,000 minimum ideas,” and they were recording elegant ideas that were worth at least $10,000 to them. And we had a handful of people do the 10-minute talks with their best practices and stuff.

I said, “Go through your whole list, if you need to, and figure out what you can eliminate, because one of the first interviews I ever did with Tim Ferriss, right when The 4-Hour Workweek came out, one of the things we talked about on an interview was that elimination is a far more effective method of getting things done than organization. Becoming better organized is not going to free you up in the way that eliminating things that don’t allow you to reach your highest and best use of your time. So, elimination versus organization is a better time management tool.

Dean: You and I both talked about the whole not-to-do list. What I look at, one of the things that I talk about in that 50-Minute Focus Finder is to take 50 minutes and write down every single thought that you have, everything that you need to do, everything that you owe people, things that you’re behind on. I call those kind of things “time debt.” When you’ve got things that are behind or that you owe somebody, even if you just didn’t take on anything new, you’ve still got a certain amount of time it would take just to clean up all the stuff that’s currently unfinished or unresolved. Getting it all out on one piece of paper, in 50 minutes you may be able to get through 4 pieces of paper, 4 pieces from a yellow pad or whatever.

What I always look at on these is I find it so mentally freeing to put a timeframe on things and to look at it and say, “Is this going to still be a good idea in 90 days from now? Do I need to do something about this right now?” You really start going through that evaluation process. One of the things that I look at is the longevity of the idea. Is it something that I don’t necessarily have to do right now, and it’s still going to be a good idea 90 days from now, a year from now, 2 years from now? I’ve got some ideas that I’ve had, that I haven’t done anything with, that I’ve had for 10 years, that are still a great idea.

Joe: So, when are you going to get off your ass and do them?

Dean: Exactly. So, the thing that having that not-to-do list is to acknowledge that you have this idea, you’ve captured the idea, you’ve got it on paper. It’s not saying that you’re not going to do it, but to give yourself freedom. It’s almost like you look at this table, and we’ve got all kinds of stuff on this table right now, and it’s almost like if you imagine this table as your next 30 days here, if you were just to clear everything off that table mentally, clear it all off and only have the thing that you’re working on now, it gives you such mental clarity. It gives you such breathing room. You don’t feel like everything’s kind of oppressing you or closing in on you. That’s what I find, is that 90-day not-to-do list almost takes all that stuff and kind of pushes it away, gives you a buffer, like some room, where now all you’re going to focus on right now are these most-important things.

Joe: Right. I like that. The thing that always helps me, like when I do a Focus Finder, and I go through all the lists of stuff too, one of the things – and when I say, “You,” I’m talking about myself and many, many entrepreneurs – is the ADD creative mind, where you’re just like lots of different stuff, and it just bombards you, and you can’t stop your brain from churning out new thoughts, new ideas, new desires, new whims. One of the things that helps me, I told people at the last 5 minutes of Platinum, is if you’ve got a giant list, as Mary Ellen Tribby says, “One thing done equals money; 5 things undone equals no money,” and go through all of them. And one of the things I do is I put G for gold coin, S for silver, B for bronze…

Dean: I like that.

Joe: …next to things. And it’s like, “Okay, first off, let’s identify what are the gold coins.” And then next to them, I sit and think, “Okay, is this possible?” Well, anything’s possible. And the example I used at the meeting was, “It’s possible that I’m going to play professional basketball. But it’s not probable, unless I own the team.” So, there’s possibility, and there’s probability. What really is the likelihood? And even your question about will it be a good idea 90 days from now; it’s just a good way of looking at probability. So, I think there are always ways to narrow it down, which is still a process of elimination. So, as Dan Sullivan says, “The problem is not the problem, the problem is how you think about the problem.” So, really taking a look at all of the things that you’re doing and, instead of trying to manage a lot of stuff, manage things that are worth managing. My favorite Peter Drucker quote is, “There’s nothing more useless than doing really well that which need not be done at all.”

Dean: I was having a conversation with Dan Sullivan a couple of weeks ago, and I was sharing with him that I’ve discovered that my brain doesn’t care what it thinks about. My creative problem-solving, my brain, the uniqueness that I bring to something, the way that I think about something, solving marketing problems or bringing our unique perspective to something, it doesn’t care what I’m thinking about. If you direct it in the right way, that’s really what it becomes about, is getting your brain to focus on one thing. We were sharing that with one of the people at Platinum, where his dilemma was whether to focus on going into a bunch of different markets or to go deep with one market. And that whole thing, your brain wants to just solve problems and be focused, and get the answers to whatever you direct it to do. So, if you’re focused and you can get it to focus on one thing, all the better.

Joe: Yep. Exactly. See how you’re doing? Okay. So, the next question is, “How do you evaluate JV’s (joint ventures), prospects and clients before accepting them, to find out what they really want or need?

Dean: I always look at it where I’m doing the sorting ahead of time. Because the first thing I see is select a target market, and I try and engineer it so that I’m attracting the right people, that I know what they want and I know where this is going. I’m thinking like a chess master all the way down the line. In the real estate example, I know that if somebody asks for the May 2012 report on Winter Haven lakefront house prices, I know that what’s going to happen is they’re going to get that report, they’re going to get the booklet, “How To Sell Your House For Top Dollar, Fast,” they’re going to get a cover letter that offers them 3 next steps, and every month they’re going to get a top dollar newsletter that’s educating and motivating them to take the next step. I know where that’s all headed, so I don’t need to sift and sort people. I’m not just casting so wide a net that I have to kind of evaluate what people are looking for. So, to solve that problem, engineer it in right up front.

Joe: Exactly. Well, there’s so much more I could say to that, but you’ve pretty much summarized it. That’s the whole point of marketing. Marketing is selling in advance. It’s sifting, sorting and screening the right people, that are pre-interested, pre-motivated, pre-qualified, and predisposed to do business with you. And a lot of people, they hear that and think, “Oh, okay, that works when I’m advertising,” or “That works when I’m doing some sort of campaign. But I’ve got joint venture partners that are trying do things with me. Well, why couldn’t you use the same mechanisms with them? You know, we have a recorded where anyone who wants to do a joint venture with me can actually come to that and listen to it, and they can hear a criteria of how I actually do joint ventures. We have HireJoePolish.com, which kind of explains my process and has people fill it out.

Before anyone joins 25K, they actually have to go to 25KGroup.com, and they have to fill out an application and apply. Do they meet the financial criteria? Is there a right fit? And not just, “Oh, do all this legwork before we’ll accept your money. Part of it is when you set it up right, it actually helps people determine if we’re a right fit for them. It’s not a one-way street here. It takes 2 to tango. So, if you’re going to dance with somebody, it’s going to be nice to know what sort of dance style do they have. Are you interested in dancing with them? Is it a right fit? Is your product? Is your service? Is your value system? Is it aligned? And when it comes to joint ventures, the worst way for somebody to approach me, different for other people, it’s the best way to approach other people, and some people, is like send me a letter saying, “Hey, we can make a lot of money,” or “Here’s how much we’re converting.” It’s like what about the freaking product? You don’t need to tell a marketer about great marketing. The great marketer will already kind of see that and know that.

The thing to show up is, “I’ve got a great product or service that I think is totally aligned with what it is that you’re offering your clients. It’s non-competitive, so it’s not going to cannibalize anything that you’re doing. And if you offer it to your clients, it’s going to make them a better version of what you’re already helping them with.” If I can ever offer something to my clients in a way that they’re going to absolutely thank me, because it’s going to make my clients better, great. And even if somebody has that, there’s also another thing to factor, which is timing. Some people come to joint venture partners with maybe the right product or service, but at the wrong time. If you look at clothing stores in the middle of summer in Arizona, they’re not selling coats.

Dean: Did you notice I switched to short sleeves?

Joe: Yeah, black. Exactly. But that’s the deal. You’re going to sell certain things. This isn’t selling snow cones to Eskimos sort of thing. So, there are a lot of thoughts I have on that. I won’t go too much into it. The whole point is if you’re really good at marketing, that’s not going to be a huge problem for you. And if it is a huge problem for you, with how do you evaluate them, well, for one, is it a right fit? Is it ELF? ELF is one of my evaluation systems. Is this easy, lucrative and fun? Is this person easy, lucrative and fun? Is this joint venture person easy, lucrative and fun? And the best contract in the world, the best sales letter in the world is not going to overcome a person who’s a pain in the ass and not aligned with you. So, if you sense that sort of stuff… You need to put your phone on… Did you hear that vibrate? That was from Dean. It was very hurtful.

Dean: I apologize to everyone.

Joe: We’re going to have to edit this whole entire episode and do it over because of that. And then, who do you want to be a hero to? I always love that, Dan Sullivan’s thing. If you want to really be passionate about what you’re doing, work with people that you respect, that you admire, that are smart. And if it’s simply a money thing, be aware it’s simply a money thing. I just don’t think all money’s created equal. There are certain people that, even if there’s money involved, if I have to tolerate nonsense, I’m just not going to deal with it, kind of like you. I can only handle you in doses. Today’s going to be a tough day, because I’m going to be with you for like hours. Jesus! Alright, you want to read the next one, or do you want me to do it?

Dean: Okay, lots of newbies are asking this: “How do I start up a company while working a full-time job? What are the first steps?”

Joe: You want me to go first, or do you want to do that?

Dean: Well, I think that starting something is, in a way, with the luxury of having not to depend on this new venture to bring in money for them is something extra that they can take their time and do the right things, and allocate some of the money that they’re making from their current job to investing in and funding things that they’re doing for their business. You talked about Mary Ellen Tribby, but there’s a great book called Ready, Fire, Aim, by…

Joe: Michael Masterson?

Dean: Yeah, exactly. That talks about the concept of taking one product, one thing, and learning how to sell that one thing. Even if you’ve got bigger visions for your company, of the business that you plan on building, there’s a lot of value in selecting that single target market and taking one product or one service that you’re going to offer, and learning how to sell that predictably. I talked about setting up somewhere where if you can multiply money that you can invest in paid traffic, that is your ticket to freedom. Because if you can learn how to turn $1 into $5, it’s the same mechanics to turn $1,000 into $5,000 and $10,000 into $50,000. It just scales up.

Joe: I hear you. When it comes to leverage, I think if you learn marketing, marketing is the ultimate leverage. And marketing allows you to can and clone yourself. So, if you’re working a full-time job and you want to go into something else, how do you actually duplicate and replicate yourself without you physically having to be there? What is a system that allows you to do that? If you’re got something to sell or if you’ve got something to share, if you’ve got a message or a movement or a nonprofit, or whatever you’re trying to do, if you can capture yourself at concert pitch, communicating it in a way to people that are going to financially support it, support it with volunteer, whatever. Sometimes, I always throw in these nonprofit scenarios, because a lot of people somehow get hung up on the making money thing. I wish everyone was more focused on making money and not taking that out of context, because people take that out of context.

What you’ve got to understand is that if you want to set up a company, the #1 thing your company has to do, in order to survive, is make money. It has to profit. It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned you are, if you don’t have any money to pay for things and to fulfill on the product or the service you’re delivering, you’re not going to get it working. What I would say, too, is it requires courage in order to start a business. It requires taking on certain levels of responsibility. And you may have to, in the beginning, work your ass off. You may have to endure things that most people don’t want to make that tradeoff.

Dan Sullivan says, “There’s 2 types of suffering in the world: there’s long-term and short-term. You just need to decide which one you want.” And the short-term suffering may be doubling up your efforts and working your ass off in order to get out of a job that you don’t want or isn’t the highest and best, fulfilling thing in your life, to start up a company. You may have to risk humiliation. You may have to risk really getting – metaphorically speaking – kicked in the nuts a lot, while you figure stuff out. So, what I would say is give yourself a pay raise. Work in the results economy or on someone else’s dime. If you’re already working for a company and you’ve already got a job, put yourself in a situation where you can add more value, and they will pay you more money.

Dean: To the current company.

Joe: To the current company, yeah. People are like, “I’ve got to escape this one, so I can go do what I want.” I read something recently. It’s like, “I had this dream of I was in my 9-to-5 job, where I could get out of this 8- to 9-hour-a-day grind and run my own company. So, once I had that, I was working 12 to 16 hours a day.” It’s like, “Hey, welcome to the real world.” The fact is – and I say this all the time with ELF – rarely is having an easy, lucrative and fun business what happens the day you open your company. That comes after you build the foundation. But here’s the thing. People can get to ELF, in many cases, if they’re intelligent and they actually do it within their own existing company, on someone else’s dime.

Who is someone that is successful? What’s a company that is successful and makes a lot of money, the kind of money you’d like, but also, as my friend Sean Stephenson says, “Who are successful people that are not only successful, but that you want to live the life they lead, not just they have a lot of money, or they have all the trappings of wealth, but is actually a happy human being, that actually does what you want, and apply that to a company.” Who has a company that’s not only a cool company, but you totally admire it? Then, go and add value. And if that’s your existing company that you’re working for, go to the person in charge and say, “Hey, right now I’m paid by the hour. Right now, I’m paid by salary. What’s important to you where I could actually get paid on results? Because if you’re not able to produce results in an existing company, for one, you might want to get another job. Or secondly, you might want to learn a few things on how to do that, because the time-and-effort economy is where the vast majority of people with jobs actually exists, and that’s where they’re always going to exist.

In the results economy, you’re not paid for time and effort; you’re paid for results. And if you have to work 20 hours a day in order to get those results, that’s what you may have to do. Don’t recommend it. I think it’s very unhealthy. I think it’s stupid, and I think you have to be very ineffective if you’re working that many hours. However, you could work half an hour a day or half an hour a week, if you produced a fantastic result, and it has nothing to do with time and effort. So, get out of the time-and-effort world, into the results world, and do it on someone else’s dime. If you’re learning marketing, because this also leads up to sort of another question here that’s coming up, basically, how can you take what already exists, the acres of diamonds in front of you, and mine it for more diamonds? And if that doesn’t exist there, then find something else.

If you’re just buying yourself time, you’re listening to I Love Marketing; you’re obviously trying to learn how to be entrepreneurial. So, I would even venture to say anyone with this sort of question, which didn’t even come from I Love Marketing, I’m just saying if this question applies to anyone here, they’re already doing it. I know a lot of the people that listen to I Love Marketing are in this situation. We can tell that by the comments. We’ve even had several people, since we started this, say, “You guys gave me the know-how and the confidence to leave my job. Thank you very much.” We’ve had dozens of letters and emails that have come to us, saying people have literally started their own businesses. And we have many people that work for companies, that use I Love Marketing because they’re in a results-based entrepreneurial position, even though they may not own the company. Those are my thoughts. Anything else?

Dean: That’s all great.

Joe: Okay, let me read the next one. “What advice do you have for someone who is new in business and building social proof? What do you use to build credibility in the meantime?”

Dean: You know what the answer is? What I’m going to say is that you use your own confidence in what you can do, and guarantee it.

Joe: That’s great.

Dean: You have to be willing to take more risks than you’re asking anybody who’s going to buy something from you is. You have to be willing to do that, especially when you don’t have a track record yet. It only makes sense. You’re saying the reason that they’re asking that question is, building social proof, that they’re all credibility builders, that people are going to feel confident. But nothing is going to be as confidence-building as a completely risk-reversed guarantee.

Joe: I love it. And I, of course, talk about guarantees all the time. I love your line on them. I’m actually going to use that, when I do teleseminars. Your own confidence, and guarantee it, because I think competency starts with guaranteeing your work. And if you believe in what it is you’re doing, guarantee it. And if you would still give someone their money back if they didn’t like whatever you offered, then you still offer a guarantee, but you’re getting no marketing value out of it if you’re not making a big deal about it on your website, in your campaigns, wherever you’re messaging it. I will also say that believability is far more important than credibility. And when I say that, important to the buyer. See, there’s a lot of people that buy things that aren’t very good, but the offer’s very believable. So, if you’ve got a really great product or service and you actually can back it up with a guarantee, and with delivery. You have to be believable in results that you can produce for yourself and others.

Dean: You look at that, and a lot of people are not willing to do things as if they’re only going to get paid if they get the result. But you have to be able to do that. And the only reason that kind of a guarantee will trump any type of credibility builders that you could have anyway, any kind of testimonials, anything like that, those are all just kind of indicative. But still, what people are looking for is 100% confidence in taking action.

Joe: We have a trademark headline in Piranha Marketing, that came up from one of my early clients, that has just helped so many professional cleaners, which is “the most thorough cleaning ever, or it’s free.” If it’s not thorough and they don’t love it…

Dean: It’s pretty clear, isn’t it?

Joe: Very. I’m also going to say, when I do the teleseminar, I’m going to tell people, “Rely on charm. Rely on wit, talent, intentions, luck. All those things help. But tenacity and backing up and doing what it is you say you’re going to do means the world. Yeah. The next one. Why don’t you read that one, #8?

Dean: “When do you fire your clients? How many suggestions or solutions do you offer your clients, and if they do not implement yet still want you to meet with them to brainstorm when do you draw the line on preventing a waste of time?”

Joe: That’s an interesting question. There’s obviously somebody that is letting people in too much, that they have passed the point of utilizing them, and they’re using them, it appears, or they’re feeling used by them. Or they simply are so nice, that they don’t know how to say no or they set it up to where people can call them at any time, and they give people their personal contact, and all this.

Dean: But I think the implication in this is that they’re not getting paid for this. What would be the problem if they are getting paid? This seems like Dan Sullivan’s ideal clients: slow learners with money, who want to get together and brainstorm. That’s fine, isn’t it?

Joe: I charge $25,000 for 25K, but I target it at people that have money. They’ve got to have money. Here’s what I would say in something like that. Do you remember Value-Based Selling, the book, Bill Bachrach? He said, “There’s 5 types of clients: the first one is great clients, the second is sometimes worth helping, the third is fun but hopeless, the fourth is uses you for information, and the fifth is doesn’t trust anybody.

Dean: Never trusts anyone.

Joe: So, part of it is he said that there’s only like 2 groups, really, that are potentially your best clients. There’s the great clients, and then the second, or sometimes worth helping, that can hopefully be turned into great clients. The other people are the fun people, but they’re hopeless. They’re never going to make a lot of money. Others, they use you for information. And the third is they’re just so damned skeptical; they don’t trust anyone. And their whole mindset is everyone’s out to get them. If you happen to get those sort of people into your world, do the best you can to just deliver what you need to deliver and be done with it.

Dean: It’s funny that the problems that you have really come down to what your standards are. I guarantee you, Dan Kennedy doesn’t have this problem – people draining him for information.

Joe: It’s like Marlene Green, in her book. She says, “Whenever someone says, “Can I pick your brain?” you’ve got to look at it like they’re picking your pocket.” Are they willing to pay for your brain? I really don’t like that line, when someone says, “I’d really like to pick your brain?” “Oh, really? What do I get out of this picking?”

Dean: This is interesting, because I had a long-time client, and this is the thing, where you become friends with your clients, and you become buddies with them kind of thing. I had a long-term client, one time, call me up and the beginning conversation was, “You know, without spending thousands of dollars for you to write a sales letter for me, what would be your best advice on this?” My initial thought, and I said it right to him, “So, can I ask you a question? Why would you be so violently opposed to paying me tens of thousands of dollars to write a letter for you, if it could make you hundreds of thousands of dollars?” And it was just interesting that that mindset is pervasive there.

Joe: It’s so pervasive.

Dean: Right. And it was just kind of funny, to start it out like that. Anyway, it was really kind of interesting.

Joe: Peter Diamandis is a great friend of mine. I’ve done a tremendous amount to promote his book, because I believe in it. And he’s done a tremendous amount to help me. Like as of yesterday, because of Peter’s introduction, we’ve got Ray Kurzweil speaking at my August event. We’ve got Steve Forbes coming to the August event. Arianna Huffington has agreed to be. We’re just waiting on confirmation from her. We’ll probably have that by time this episode goes out. So, we do things for each other. And he’s speaking at one of my events. He’s a paid member of 25K, but he’s also speaking at one of my events, and I’m like, “I’m going to pay you.” Now, he would just do it because we’re friends. But I wanted a benchmark, because all of these people see that I do stuff for Peter Diamandis. He’s a very big deal, right now, big New York Times best-sellers, all over television. And people like, through me, said, “Oh, can I get an interview with Peter? Can I do this?”

And I’m just like, “First off, you should get paid, because that’s what you do. Even though we can scratch each other’s backs, we’ll always do that, but why wouldn’t I pay you? And secondly, it sends a message out, “Don’t expect people to do things for freaking free, if you can’t create value for them first.” And even if you can create value for them, if you’ve got the money and the ability, you know what? They’re going to bring more of their game to it. I don’t want to squeeze somebody when I can pay them. And at the same time, if you put out a lot of good karma, you’re created a lot of karmic debt and people actually want to pay you, great. Let them do favors for you. Let them do stuff.

But really learn the difference between someone using you and utilizing you. And also, understand that you train people to treat you the way that they treat you. If you just make yourself available all the time, you’ve created a precedent. People are going to take you at your own appraisal. And if you don’t appraise yourself highly… So, you just simply, in this particular case, fire a client, I fire somebody when they are abusive, when they’re unethical, when they’re unreasonable. And if they’re nice to me but they’re abusive to my staff, we fire them. We don’t do it in a vicious way.

Dean: That’s such a high priority for me, in my “I know I’m being successful when…” list, when one of my “I know I’m being successful when’s” is there are no whiney people in my life. I would consider that kind of thing as like a whiney person.

Joe: How do you respond when I whine? How do you handle that, psychologically?

Dean: It is a struggle.

Joe: I mean do you cry? Do you cry, privately?

Dean: Privately? I go to bed at night, I get in the fetal position, and rock myself to sleep.

Joe: Look, I have emotional breakdowns all the time. I’m certainly not going to talk about them here, but I’m just trying to find out if I cause emotional breakdowns for you. Do you go to your wife and you’re like, “I can’t handle it! Joe’s just crazy”? Do you do any of that stuff?

Dean: Yeah, all the time. All the time.

Joe: Do we need to go see somebody about this? Do we need to talk to them?

Dean: I think this is a nice start, that we’re like in-person, and we can look in each other’s eyes.

Joe: No. The first way to conquer any problem is awareness, that it exists. Like Ned Hallowell says, “Don’t worry alone, get the facts, and have a plan.” If you’re worrying alone about this, we should really have a plan for us.

Dean: Actually, yeah. Let’s have some secret dinner or something.

Joe: I think we’re at the time. I’m goofing around here. So, one last question. I actually don’t think there’s an answer accurately to this. But let’s respond anyway. “What are your top 3 headlines, right now, for marketing to existing versus new clients? Like what are they?” Well, it depends on what you’re selling? There’s no such thing. What am I going to say, “Here’s the 3 top headlines that are working for me,” so someone can go and knock them off? What is the deal?

Dean: I look at subject lines as headlines. The things that always work as a good subject line, to people who know you, is their name. I often send an email with just “Joe” in the subject line.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. “What is your 9-magic-word email?” is a great example.

Dean: Right. Exactly.

Joe: Let’s just share that with everyone here. At least they’ll have that.

Dean: Right. The thing I developed this for, realtors, to send to all the prospects and the clients, and the prospects they’ve talked to but haven’t yet bought a home, maybe sometime may have come through an Open House or come into their office, or called on an ad, or emailed them an inquiry. Gather them all up. And if it’s been more than 90 days, just send them a quick email, with “Joe” in the subject line, and say, “Joe, are you still looking for a house in Phoenix? Dean.” That’s it. The temptation is that you want to finish that thought. The temptation is to always say, “Let me know,” or add something. “Because if you are, I’ve got blah, blah, blah.” You want to solve the mystery for them. The thing that makes messages responsive is when you have an element of mystery around it. Your mind is compelled to solve mysteries. You can’t have open loops.

Joe: Exactly. So, here’s the deal. The reason that we went through this…

Dean: Did you get anything you could use?

Joe: Of course! So, here’s the thing. This gave me an opportunity to share some answers to questions to I Love Marketing members, that wouldn’t have heard them otherwise, because we’re going to do this in a special teleseminar. And these are all applicable, which is why I wanted to do this.

Dean: So, they’ll have to tell us who had better answers.

Joe: Right. And then secondly, it allows us to talk about Gary Halbert. I’ve got a whole list of Halbertisms, that I’m going to talk about, And I’ll just say them real quick. The teleseminar I’m doing is going to be 90 minutes, not 60 minutes, like this episode, which is now over that. But, “Idiots value content by the pound.” That’s something that Gary Halbert would say. “You’re in the arithmetic business.” “The money isn’t in your service or product, it’s in the selling of your service or product.” I’m going to add another one here, that I used to love from Halbert. “The most expensive information in the world is bad information.” Another one is, “Any problem in the world can be solved with the right sales letter.” Another one is, “What you need most is a hungry crowd.

When he said, “Find a hungry crowd, it doesn’t matter how good your hamburgers are if you don’t find a starving crowd.” So, find a starving crowd, and you can pretty much feed them what they want. “Don’t worry about offending the dogs, when you’re trying to attract the foxes.” His whole thing of saying, “You’re going to offend some people.”

Dean: Focus on the foxes. I remember he had said that. I always say, “Focus on and treat people like they are 5-star prospects, until they prove that they aren’t,” versus treating them like they’re not 5-star prospects until they prove that they are.

Joe: Yep. And the other one is, “Add some theatre to your marketing.” Finally, when it’s all said and done, we can use this one. We could almost end every I Love Marketing episode with this. “You’ll accomplish more through movement than you will through meditation.” So, if you heard an idea, you heard a thought, speed of implementation is critical. Put it into play, and keep studying marketing. Keep learning it; keep listening to I Love Marketing. So, what we would really appreciate, right now, if you got any value out of this, is give us a comment on ILoveMarketing.com, and please Tweet, Facebook, Google+, carrier pigeon, whatever you need to do to share this sort of useful, valuable, moneymaking marketing information with other people that you feel love marketing, don’t understand marketing but would love it if they did because marketing actually makes everything better, then please share it with them, because we would very much appreciate it, and that’s what allows us to continue to do the I Love Marketing episodes, not just for our health but for the fact that people are out there appreciating it, utilizing it, and making money. Anything else, Dean?

Dean: That’s perfect. I can’t wait to hear this call tonight, too.

Joe: Yeah, yeah. It’s going to be awesome. Last thing. This was a setup. This was a prep for everybody, to hear how I actually am preparing for something. So, in your own endeavor, if you just need to kind of get your thoughts organized, try this.

Dean: Perfect.

Joe: Alright, have a good day, everyone. And, Dean, you’re a handsome fellow.

Dean: Thanks.  

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