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Transcript of Flex Your Curiosity Muscle to Grow Your Business

Transcript of Flex Your Curiosity Muscle to Grow Your Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Gusto: modern, easy payroll, benefits for small businesses across the country. And because you’re a listener, you get three months free when you run your first payroll. Find out at gusto.com/tape.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Diana Kander. She is a keynote speaker, innovation coach, and co-author of the book The Curiosity Muscle: How Four Simple Questions Can Uncover Powerful Insights and Exponential Growth.

John Jantsch: So Diana, thanks for joining me.

Diana Kander: I’m so excited to be here John. Thank you so much.

John Jantsch: So I’ve been doing this show for about 13 years, hundreds and hundreds of episodes, and I do believe you are the first husband and wife team that I have now had on the show [crosstalk 00:01:04]. Your husband Jason was on a few months ago. So it’s a first.

Diana Kander: Well we like setting records. So on behalf of the Kander family, thank you so much for this honor.

John Jantsch: So the book, The Curiosity Muscle is written as a fable, a business fable about institutionalizing curiosity. So maybe set the plot up for us.

Diana Kander: Yeah, absolutely. I mean the plot is what happens to most companies once they experience success, is they get really comfortable, very complacent, and they lose their curiosity. They start thinking that they know their customers better than the customers know themselves.

Diana Kander: And what happens is you quickly lose touch with your customers and start becoming irrelevant. And this happens frequently with large organizations when they find out that it is much harder to stay at the top than it was to get there.

John Jantsch: And you wrap it around a fictional character. That’s-

Diana Kander: Yes. A gym franchise.

John Jantsch: … And so your previous book, I think you did the same thing. Maybe you don’t have a lot of experience to answer this question, but I was once asked to write a fable type of book on referrals. And I started the process, and I found it so much harder than just telling people what to do.

Diana Kander: Well that’s how I feel about non-fiction books John. So I started writing non-fiction books, and I’m like uh, I can’t really talk about my former clients and what they went through because I’ve signed all these non-disclosures. But if I write a fiction book I can talk about everybody and everything as long as it’s a fictional story.

John Jantsch: And wink, wink. The characters in this book do not represent anyone in real life, right?

Diana Kander: No. They’re an amalgam of lots and lots of companies that have gone through very, very similar experiences. In fact, Jim Collins wrote a amazing book called How the Mighty Fall, in which he describes the same process, but in a much more scientific way. And there’s a very similar kind of loop that companies that go out of business, and this is like the fictional version of that.

John Jantsch: A lot of my listeners are small business owners. And I’m going to tell you one of the biggest problems with owning a business is that nobody promotes you to that position. You pretty much decide I’m going to do this thing. And now everybody thinks you should have all the answers.

John Jantsch: And I think a lot of small business owners feel like they have to have all the answers, and that sort of leads to not only shutting off curiosity but a whole heck of a lot of stress. So how, as a small business owner, do I get over that idea of feeling like I have to have all the answers? Everybody’s looking to me.

Diana Kander: Well I feel like it’s no different than most people who get promoted to manager. They feel like they got promoted because they had the right answers, and so they have to keep generating them.

Diana Kander: So in both of those cases I will tell you that the most successful people ask much better questions than they give answers. And they know that curiosity is the secret to unlocking exponentially better answers than whatever their gut initially says.

John Jantsch: Yeah. As one of those small business owners, it took me a lot of years to learn that. I mean people would come to me and ask me, people who worked with me or were trying to do a project for me, would ask me a question. I felt like I had to tell them what to do.

John Jantsch: In fact, I felt like that’s what they wanted. And I later leaned that they actually didn’t want the answer. They wanted me to say what would you do?

Diana Kander: Right. No. I mean you can get so much further just by asking better questions, is one of my sayings, you know. If you’re unsatisfied with the results in any part of your life, what you need to do is ask better questions, and you can significantly change them.

John Jantsch: So let’s unpack the four questions. I’m going to go over them real fast, but I want to ask you questions specific to them.

John Jantsch: So they are: what are my blind spots, am I prioritizing, am I measuring the right thing, and how can you involve others to get what you want? So we’ll tackle each of those.

John Jantsch: The first one, what are my blind spots? It actually takes a degree of vulnerability to even admit that you have those.

Diana Kander: Absolutely. So most people think of their blind spots. They relate them to their weaknesses. And so they’re like well, I know what I don’t do well, and I’m terrible at showing up on time, or whatever.

Diana Kander: But blind spots are not your weaknesses. Blind spots are things that you think you’re doing well, but are actually impacting your work. And so whatever problem it is that you’re trying to solve, or if you’re trying to understand your customers better, you always have blind spots and what you think you know about them.

Diana Kander: So creating some kind of a process or systematizing staying in touch and understanding your customers, even as they evolve and change, that will help you not have blind spots that, if you don’t uncover them, you might get blindsided one day by your customers.

John Jantsch: It’s a terribly practical thing too. I mean how many people have created a product or a service and packaged it all up and went out to the market, and the market went I don’t need that. What were you thinking? And it’s like-

Diana Kander: The majority John.

John Jantsch: You’re right. Right.

Diana Kander: The majority of people.

John Jantsch: Yeah. And so, really great question. Am I prioritizing? Number two. And boy, this one is so hard because people will have that strategy meeting to come up with the 19 things they need to get done this quarter. And I think one of the best things that question probably begs is what should we not be doing?

Diana Kander: Yeah. I mean they never teach you want to not do as a manager, a small business owner. And you cannot be busy and curious at the same time. You cannot be busy and creative at the same time. You cannot be busy and innovate at the same time.

Diana Kander: And we, as a society, are busier than ever before, and we’re producing less than ever before.

John Jantsch:  And I think one of the things about that idea of not focusing on am I prioritizing is you can make yourself busy. It’s really easy to make yourself busy.

Diana Kander: Super easy.

John Jantsch: Yeah. And so if you don’t take… I mean a couple of years ago I started the practice of taking two days a week where I just don’t do any appointments, no of these calls. They’re supposed to be my kind of focus time. And that made all the difference in the world in terms of actually getting real, important stuff done.

Diana Kander: Yeah. I think about my days as offense or defense. And defense is like when I’m answering email, when I’m doing things that other people have asked me to do. And that’s not when I’m creating valuable content, creating work for my clients.

Diana Kander: And that’s offense, right? Offense is what scores points. You’re not going to get to your goals on defense alone, by checking your email.

Diana Kander: So I always think about my days like, am I having the right proportion of offense to defense?

John Jantsch: Yeah, because let’s face it, defense pays less than minimum wage usually.

John Jantsch: So… I’m sorry for all the defensive people out there. It’s just the truth. Defense does not win championships in business.

Diana Kander: It does not score points. No.

John Jantsch: All right. So the third one, and I think people really struggle with this. Am I measuring the right thing? I mean how the hell do I know? There’s so many things I can measure. How do I know I’m figuring out the one that has impact?

Diana Kander: Well I think this is particularly integral to your licensees and people who do Duct Tape Marketing, and even small business owners. It’s so alluring to measure what are called vanity metrics. And these are numbers that make you feel good about the initiatives that you’re taking. Like how many visits to your website, how many people attended a conference, like numbers that can only go up.

Diana Kander: But they are not related to any actual substantive values for your company. So how do you measure numbers that can actually look bad for you? And to know whether or not you’re actually going in the right direction or whether you should change course.

John Jantsch: Well sometimes, though… And here’s what I struggle with: sometimes I find things that are kind of intangible to actually make… I mean they’re more the marker towards the fact that yeah, you’re making progress. And I know that sounds… I mean because it’s intangible. Right?

John Jantsch: You can’t really put a spreadsheet around how many smiles we got today as something goofy like that.

Diana Kander: Well I like to introduce two questions. I call these failure metrics. So everybody has success metrics for their projects. And those usually take a while to figure out, whether you’re going to be successful or not.

Diana Kander: The failure metrics you can figure out much sooner. And that is asking yourself how would I know if it’s not working and when would I know that? And in that case, you can measure the intangible.

Diana Kander: So if you have a speech that you’re giving, and everybody’s on their cell phones, how would you know if it’s not working? Well people aren’t requesting you to give other speeches. Or they’re just not paying attention to you during your speech.

Diana Kander: So failure metrics are those intangible things that you’re talking about. And you can find them much sooner than looking at your business at the end of the year and figuring out if you’ve hit the numbers.

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John Jantsch:  Let’s talk about failure since you keep mentioning it.

Diana Kander: Yes.

John Jantsch: You know, it’s a hot topic right now in the startup world. And I’m sort of over it. I’m sort of sick of it, because I think a lot of people have used it as this fail-fast. Or figure out, don’t be afraid to fail. And I think that that’s sort of a cop-out. I’d like to turn it around and say figure out how to succeed.

John Jantsch: Obviously if something doesn’t work, it’s teaching you something. But I’m sort of tired of the word failure, so there. I think it’s overrated.

Diana Kander:[inaudible] that entrepreneurship and innovation. You know, all these words that get used. Look, I believe in the growth mindset, which has not yet been really corrupted. And that is, no matter where you are today, you could always be better. And you can’t be better without taking missteps.

Diana Kander: You know, if I meet somebody and then we’re talking about ice skating, and I say have you ever fallen while ice skating? And they say no, I’ve never fallen. It’s amazing. I’m really quite good. Then I can definitively say you are not good at ice skating if you’ve never fallen, right? Because you’ve been hanging onto the edge. You’re not really trying anything interesting.

Diana Kander: And that’s how I feel about failure or missteps. You have to have some things that don’t work out, that push you forward to learn better. But with that said, I believe in the concept of deliberate practice, which is not just failing for failure’s sake, but figuring out your blind spots and what you need to improve at in order to increase the results of what you’re working on.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I know it’s become sort of cliché to say, but I mean to me, there is no failure. It’s just a learning moment. For me, at least.

Diana Kander: That’s right.

John Jantsch: That’s just kind of a mindset, that I’m never going to stop doing what I’m doing. Just hopefully I’m taking in the feedback and using it to get better.

Diana Kander: Yeah, but that takes a really long time for people to grasp and feel that way. And I think that they’re never going to feel that way until they experience some success. And once you experience success in your life, you can always point to a pivotal failure in your life that created it or stems from it.

Diana Kander: So my first book was a very successful book, sold a lot of copies, and kicked off my speaking career. But I never would have started writing it if I didn’t have a startup that was going horrible. And I was so ashamed and embarrassed that I started journaling as a way to deal with my feelings around it.

Diana Kander: So I think every big success stems from some kind of failure.

John Jantsch: Yeah. And we’re just talking semantics at this point. It’s really more like what you do with it that really is the only thing that really matters.

John Jantsch: So I think we’re on question number four, we haven’t tackled yet. And this is actually my favorite, because on the surface it seems pretty simple. But I think it’s more complex than that. How can you involve others to get what you want?

John Jantsch: And what I meant by the more complexity, it’d be pretty easy to say yeah, be a team player. Give others credit. But I think where this question gets really hard is how can you get others to hold you accountable as a business owner. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges. I have nobody to hold me accountable, and that would be a great way to get other people involved in helping me get what I want.

Diana Kander: Yeah. So there’s two parts to this question. The first is exactly what you’re talking about. And that is there’s been research done that if you have a goal and you share that goal with somebody you care about, you are 65 percent likely to reach that goal, which is amazing. But if you setup a regular check-in with that person where you just tell them how it’s going and what you’re planning to do next, you are 95 percent likely to reach that goal.

Diana Kander: And that is the power of accountability, on being able to reach whatever crazy dreams you set out for yourself. So that’s kind of the first element.

Diana Kander: And the second element of it is, back to how everybody puts pressure on themselves to come up with the big ideas. Oftentimes when you involve other people in coming up with the ideas, they’re going to have way better ideas than you. And they’re going to feel an ownership stake in those ideas.

Diana Kander: So if you have a small retail location and you’re trying to figure out how to get customers through the door, rather than you yourself thinking about how to do it, have a meeting with your team. And just have them brainstorm. And sometimes they’ll come up with crazy ideas, and then they’ll work on their ideas in their off time, and feel really, that sense of ownership to execute on them, much more than if you had come up with an idea and put it on them.

John Jantsch: Yeah. And I think that over time particularly, people just stop coming up with ideas if they never get asked or they never get involved. And so it’s a vicious cycle. You kind of shut down the innovation that you could have.

Diana Kander: That’s right. And they’re closer to the customer, oftentimes, than you are. So they’re going to have much better insight into opportunities than you will.

John Jantsch: So, in addition to your writing and speaking, you’re a podcaster as well.

Diana Kander: Yes. I’m a brand new podcaster.

John Jantsch: So you were telling me, and again I’m not sure when people are listening to this, if you’ll have new shows that you’re publishing. But tell me the premise for the show. Because I think, in addition to being incredibly useful, I think it’s a rather intriguing idea of what you’re doing.

Diana Kander: So in the course of writing this book, The Curiosity Muscle, I gave myself a crazy, audacious goal. So one of the subplots was a character in the book was trying to a 10 minute plank. And I thought well I’ll try it. I’m not going to get it, but if I try it I can at least write about it in a much more realistic way.

Diana Kander: And at the time, I could do a one minute plank. So 10 minutes seemed completely ridiculous to me. And I started applying these things, these principles that I teach organizations, to myself. And in four and a half months of struggling with it, but sticking with it, I did an 11 and a half minute plank.

Diana Kander: And when I tasted that level of goal achievement, I was like oh my god, what can’t I do?

Diana Kander: So I sat down with a piece of paper and listed… Okay, here are all of the things that I want to fix about myself. I have confidence issues and I have anxiety that I struggle with. 49 different items of… horrible at making eye contact and terrible at taking compliments. Oh, my god, I have insecurities about being a mom. So everything I wanted to improve about myself as a professional.

Diana Kander: And then I use the podcast as a way to hold myself accountable to working on each of these things. So every week I talk to an expert who will help me uncover blind spots in those areas that I would never have guessed on my own, and try things that I never would have thought to try.

Diana Kander: And you know I’ve been having some very significant results.

John Jantsch: So in addition to being a podcast, it’s sort of a self-improvement project that you have somebody holding you accountable in some ways. I mean, because-

Diana Kander:  That’s right.

John Jantsch: … you’re putting it out there to the world. So it’s awesome.

Diana Kander: I have this formula in my life, John, which is the scarier something is, the more people I need to hold me accountable to it, so the more I’ll broadcast it. So working on 49 different things is very scary for me and very vulnerable, so I just try to tell as many people as possible.

John Jantsch: So Diana, where can people find out more about you and your work and hopefully tune into the podcast?

Diana Kander: Yeah, they can find everything at dianakander.com. Links to books, speaking, and the podcast. And the podcast is called Professional AF, which just means really professional.

John Jantsch: So the AF means nothing, huh? Just-

Diana Kander: People ask me what it means, and it means really, really professional.

John Jantsch: … Awesome. And so that’s dianakander, E-R, .com. And we’ll have it in the show notes as well.

John Jantsch: So Diana, great book. The Curiosity Muscle. You have a t-shirt that I tell people all the time that curiosity is my super power. And I guess I need a t-shirt from you. But I’m not sure-

Diana Kander: I wanted to bring you one, but I only have them in women’s cut. So I can offer them to your daughters or your wife John. I don’t have a unisex version yet.

John Jantsch: … So I have a story, that it may or may not be true. I grew up with… I have seven brothers and two sisters. So 10 of us. And my mom used to tell a story, and like I said, I have no idea if it’s true or not. But when they would take us all somewhere, dad would say you watch the other nine and I’ll watch John. And that’s because I have a very strong curiosity muscle.

Diana Kander: Well I think that can only get you into trouble when you’re young, but get you into a lot of opportunities as an adult.

John Jantsch: I agree. I credit it with… The 30 year journey I’ve been on is just bouncing from one thing I’m curious about to another. So that’s why the title of this book intrigued me so.

Diana Kander: Thank you for being curious about the book and for inviting me on the show, and this is the most fast-paced interview I’ve ever done, but also the most exhilarating. So thank you so much.

John Jantsch: And we didn’t mention this, but you’re just down the street in Kansas City, Missouri. So it’s always fun to interview somebody in my home town, which I don’t get to do enough.

Diana Kander: I know. There’s a lot of us authors lurking around.

John Jantsch: I typically end this show, as some listeners will recall, saying I hope I bump into you soon out there on the road. And I’d say it’s probably more likely with you than many others.

John Jantsch: So thanks for joining us Diana, and again, I will end it as I always do. Hopefully I’ll see you somewhere out there on the road.

Diana Kander: Ditto John. Talk to you soon.

Transcript of Finding Hope and Happiness in a Pessimistic World

Transcript of Finding Hope and Happiness in a Pessimistic World written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by ZeroBounce, an email validation system that integrates with all the major ESPs to make sure, hey, your mail doesn’t bounce. Check it out at zerobounce.net.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Mark Manson. He is a speaker and a blogger at markmanson.net and the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and the new book, Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope. Having thrown my PG rating out the window, I want to welcome you, Mark.

Mark Manson: It’s good to be here, John.

John Jantsch: There is a Mark Twain quote that I love, and when I quote people, I end up paraphrasing. I never get it right, but he advised writers to every time they were tempted to use the word really or very to substitute the word damn because your editor would strike it out, and your writing would be so much stronger, but not so much anymore. Huh?

Mark Manson: Apparently not.

John Jantsch: I’d like to think of these more as concepts than words, but I was walking by… the use of this language anyway. I was walking by an airport bookstore the other day, and there’s an entire section now that I think maybe you started of people using F with some variation of asterisks. With all the issues going on in the world now, is cursing become trifling?

Mark Manson: I guess so. Honestly, I’m fascinated by it too. Clearly, I’ve created a brand, and a bunch of people are jumping into it and copying it, but there seems to be something about vulgarity that the shock value in it or the emotional charge in it that people are getting really excited about for whatever reason.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Well, it might have something to do with some sales that you’ve accomplished as well. Last time I looked, and I’m sure you have it more accurate, but I think I saw somewhere 8 million plus copies of The Subtle Art… Do you have any sense of why that book exploded?

Mark Manson: I think it’s a combination of things. I definitely think part of it’s the title. It definitely grabs your attention, but I also think… I sometimes call my brand of self-help a pessimistic self-help. It’s a personal development that is less about, “Oh, we can achieve anything.” It’s more just, “Humans suck; let’s try to suck a little bit less.”

Mark Manson: I think there’s something about the last few years that I think people are just feeling incredibly pessimistic, and there’s a cultural moment that’s happening where we’re becoming very aware of our own pessimism, and so for whatever reason, my style of writing, my titles, everything, it’s really catching that wave right now.

John Jantsch: Yeah and for those who have… the handful of people who have not read any of Mark’s work, you’re very funny. You tell great stories that are very engaging, and so it’s actually very easy to read. What I enjoy the most is you’re reading along, you’re reading along, and then you just zing us. It’s like in this newest book, the How to Start Your Own Religion, I was like, “Wait a minute. What? Is that… ?”

John Jantsch: I wasn’t sure if you were kidding or not for awhile, and that’s what I love about your style of writing, but I’ve got a really hard question for you.

Mark Manson: Sure.

John Jantsch: Not everybody sells 8 million books. What has that done to your life?

Mark Manson: Oh, well, it’s made my bank account a lot bigger. It’s funny, I was on another podcast recently, and they were like, “Wow man, so tell it. Come on, tell us what’d you go out and buy?” I was like, “Uh, I bought a Nintendo.”

John Jantsch: Well, here’s the reason I asked that. Obviously, it swelled your bank account, but I don’t get the sense-

Mark Manson: Sure.

John Jantsch: … that you’re a person that necessarily seeks fame and seek it or not, you’ve gotten it.

Mark Manson: Yes. Yeah. It’s funny. I don’t think it’s changed my life a whole lot. I tell people that I think being a famous author is the perfect mix because your work is widely known and appreciated, but people don’t really recognize you on the street or if you go into a restaurant or anything, so you don’t really get your privacy invaded a whole lot. I wish I could give you a really exciting answer, but I don’t think it’s affected that much.

John Jantsch: You mentioned the last couple of years seems like it’s been a rough patch. I think every generation probably thinks that theirs has been the worst time in history. Do you find that to be true? I mean you look at some of the divides going on, particularly in the United States right now, and I feel like they’re historically bad. I know you’re an avid researcher. Do you think that that’s the case?

Mark Manson: I do think you’re right. Every generation does because every generation, whatever problems face that generation, are completely new and unexplored. There’s a little bit of I think a sense of specialness that comes with each generation. What is interesting about today is that the level of pessimism or I guess just hysteria that’s going on is not relative to how well we’re doing economically. Our economies are booming; we’re safe; we’re not at war, we’re not being bombed by anybody. There’s not riots in the streets.

Mark Manson: Usually, the type of pessimism that we see right now is accompanied by some sort of massive, tumultuous thing that’s going on. For whatever reason, today it’s not. I just thought that was really peculiar, and that was one of the starting points of the new book is basically if everything’s awesome, why are we so upset all the time?

John Jantsch: How does admitting we’re all gonna die let us live a better life?

Mark Manson: I think facing one’s mortality is a big principle in my work, and it’s one thing I’m constantly trying to make the reader more aware of, I guess their own insignificance. I think while it’s a downer, I think it has a very liberating effect in that it’s only by thinking about one’s own death that we’re able to really get good perspective on what’s important in our life.

Mark Manson: If I start asking myself questions like, “Well, if this is the last year I’m alive, would I still be doing the same thing I’m doing?” that presents a lot of clarity for the decisions that I’m making and helps us avoid traps and falling into habits that we wouldn’t be happy we had in the long run.

John Jantsch: There’s some… Viktor Frankl, certainly… You have a story about Auschwitz in the book, and Viktor Frankl I think was in Auschwitz?

Mark Manson: Yes.

John Jantsch: Eli [Wiesel] was in Auschwitz, and I think… I can’t remember which one of these said this, but that the opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference. Hope is in the title of the book, and you talk about the opposite of happiness is hopelessness. How do we wrestle with that?

Mark Manson: I wrote a book about hope because I think, again, coming back to this pessimism that’s pervading everything today, I wanted to investigate what it is about modern life that is making it so difficult to have a clear vision of where we want to go in the future. I think happiness gets discussed a lot, and we all want to feel good, and that’s great and everything, but really it’s at the end of the day, we need to have some sort of hope for something greater for that happiness to ever emerge.

Mark Manson: If we’re not able to construct that vision of something greater for ourselves, then we just end up in despair. If we’re angry or we’re sad or we’re anxious or upset or something, that at least implies that there’s hope of something greater. But if we just feel hopeless then that implies that there’s no vision for any sort of improvement.

John Jantsch: I believe at least that a lot of people have hope when they feel they’re in control of their situation. You basically tell us that self-control is an illusion, and that we all pretty much just have to accept our fate. Maybe I’m paraphrasing, but I read that.

Mark Manson: Well it’s not that we don’t have any control over ourselves. It’s that our… First of all, I agree with you that a lot of hope is rooted in a feeling that we have control over our fate. Chapter two is called self-control, is an illusion. The point of that chapter title is that we actually have far less control than we think we do, and we perceive ourselves to have total control over our lives.

Mark Manson: Anybody who’s tried to start using their gym membership or maybe cut something out of their diet quickly finds out that you have less control over your behavior than you typically would like to admit.

Mark Manson: The whole chapter simply discusses why don’t we do the things we know we should do? Why do we seem to have such a difficult time acting on all of the stuff that we want for our lives, that we know is good for our lives, but just for some reason, we can’t peel ourselves off the couch or whatever? It turns out our minds are kind of a messy place, and there’s a little bit of an art to getting ourselves to act the way that we would prefer ourselves to.

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John Jantsch: My favorite part of that chapter is that you told a little story about Tom Waits, one of my favorite singer-songwriters. Old 55 changed my life.

Mark Manson: I love Tom.

John Jantsch: One of the things that I see frequently, particularly, you get to a certain… You’re not living on the streets. You got a nice job. You’ve got a nice house. You’ve got a nice car. We go out of our way to make sure that we don’t do anything that’s uncomfortable. A lot of people anyway. You talk quite a bit about not necessarily the need to suffer, but the benefit of suffering. You want to unpack that a little?

Mark Manson: Yeah. I think in this discussion of why have we seemed to be so [inaudible] pessimistic today, I spent a couple chapters talking about comfort and talking about pleasure and avoiding pain. Essentially, the short version is that I come to the conclusion that the same way we need to… our muscles need to be stressed and strained a little bit on a regular basis to grow and improve and maintain health, I think our emotional and our psychological “muscles,” so to speak, need a certain regular amount of stress and strain to also remain healthy and robust.

Mark Manson: My fear is that so much of the 21st century world is built around convenience and immediacy and instant gratification that we’re not getting those reps, where part of our mental health is essentially just atrophying from a lack of regular exertion.

John Jantsch: Yeah, I read somewhere… I can’t remember actually who the author was, but, and there may be some physiological benefit to this, but you’ve talked about taking a cold shower in the morning, and the benefit of it was that you were going to suffer some right off, beginning of the day, and that was going to then set the benchmark for the whole day. Again, there may be some actual physiological benefits too, but he was talking more mental.

Mark Manson: Yeah. I think there’s a lot to be said. I think the same way 50 years ago we discovered… nutritional science started to figure out like, “Oh hey, you can’t eat cupcakes every day. That’s bad for you,” it’s, I think, we’re starting to discover just in the last few years that some habits that we have, whether it’s phone usage or social media or where we get our information, has the same effect on us mentally.

Mark Manson: I think there needs to be an informational diet in terms of making sure that we’re challenging ourselves, challenging ourselves intellectually, but also challenging our own beliefs, challenging a lot of our assumptions about our relationships in the world and things like that, and that we need that to a certain degree to maintain a healthy and balanced psychological worldview.

John Jantsch: I wonder to what degree we can blame mobile devices and social media for people being so freaked out lately?

Mark Manson: I think this is a hot, hot topic right now, and it’s funny cause there’s a lot of data that shows a lot of really scary stuff. Then there’s a lot of data that shows a bunch of nothing, and the jury’s out, but my sense is that social media is probably only really bad in very large doses or for very young people. That seems to be the most clear pattern amongst the data on social media.

Mark Manson: Interestingly, I think the smartphone thing might actually be a bigger culprit here. I think it’s the constant instant access to everything you want that actually creates more psychological issues and emotional issues than necessarily Facebook.

John Jantsch: I remember when I was growing up, like all kids, “Mom, I’m bored,” and she used to say, “Well, good. You should be. You need to be. It’s healthy.” Now, we we just can’t allow ourselves that moment of boredom, can we?

Mark Manson: Yeah and there seems to be with that unwillingness to be bored a little bit, there also comes this lack of attention, lack of focus, and also this… I think it causes us to be a little bit more emotionally volatile than we would be otherwise.

John Jantsch: I am a big fan of Thoreau’s writing, and I love this quote from… I’m not sure actually where it appeared, but we ignore the God inside us in an effort to venerate the God that would not exist without us.

Mark Manson: Hmm.

John Jantsch: You take on religion a little bit, or at least the organized fashion of religion as a little bit of a, I don’t know if you want to say enemy, but as something that also freaks people out.

Mark Manson: Yeah. It’s funny the… There’s a chapter on… You can’t really write a book about hope without writing about religion, and so I’ve avoided touching religion for pretty much my whole career, but I felt like this book was finally the place to do it. I have a couple of points about religion. One, first of all, I’m an atheist, but I’m not necessarily… I definitely am not super critical of traditional religions themselves.

Mark Manson: I think there’s a lot… I understand why people believe in them and a lot of the benefits and meaning that they get from them. For me, the points I wanted to make with that chapter is one, I don’t think there’s actually… It’s actually the opposite of atheism, which is that I don’t really think it’s possible for us to not behave religiously to some extent.

Mark Manson: You know, even if you don’t worship like a traditional God or go to church, you’re still buying into certain groups and belief systems largely on faith, that they are important, they matter, and that they’re going to make the future better. They provide hope for you. Anytime you buy into this set of belief systems or set of constructs on faith, you end up creating alliances with other people who share those values and then also defending those beliefs against other people. I cast a very wide net in terms of how I define religion.

Mark Manson: Something as simple like something… political parties, sports teams, even being a fan of a TV series, these can all be religious experiences in that there is a mythology that we are putting our hopes in, and then we are organizing ourselves around those hopes together and finding meaning in them. It’s a fundamental human behavior. We all do it, but as with every human behavior, it has a lot of benefits, but it also has a lot of costs.

Mark Manson: A lot of people just over the years and a lot of people… I’m always being emailed by [various] religious people, saying, “Well, X book that defines my whole religion said a bunch of this stuff before you did.” My approach has always been like, “Well, of course it does, because this is just how the human mind works.

Mark Manson: The reason these religions have been around so long is that they manage to help orient people very well towards the world. It’s a little bit of a trippy chapter, and I’ve definitely lost some readers over it, but I’ve been prepared to make that sacrifice.

John Jantsch: I thought we were just going to lose the Catholics, but now we’re going to lose Game of Thrones fans and The New England Patriots fans all in one shot, one chapter. Great.

Mark Manson: We’re probably better off without them.

John Jantsch: The political messages today seem to be everything is screwed up, and it’s not your fault. It’s them. I think that that mentality seems to be at the root in some ways of all this discontent.

Mark Manson: Yep, absolutely. One of my big goals with this book… Because one of the things that surprised me and made me very happy about the success of Subtle Art was that I had very, I have very large fan bases on both sides of the political spectrum and especially, in 2019, there are not many people who are able to speak to both sides without being skewered in some way.

Mark Manson: I very consciously wrote this book to speak up to both sides at once and say, “Hey, it’s not ‘them’ that are causing the problems. It’s us. We are the problem. There’s nothing special about that person you hate or that person you hate. It’s us. This is a cultural issue, and we have to come together to solve it.

John Jantsch: The final chapter, you talk about AI, and I think you even go as far as calling it “the final religion,” when I read that… I’m into technology. I like to know the new things going on, but the further I got into that chapter, I couldn’t decide if I was hopeful or if that actually caused despair, the idea of that.

Mark Manson: Yeah. It’s-

John Jantsch: I couldn’t tell really where you were coming down on that.

Mark Manson: I think I’m strangely… I’m in a very weird spot with AI. I think most people, there are people who are I guess terrified of AI, who think that AI is going to overthrow the world order and we not make it out alive. Then there are AI utopists who think that AI is going to… we’re going to merge with the AI, and everything’s going to be amazing, and we’re going to solve all of our problems.

Mark Manson: The reason I called it the final religion is because essentially, all of these other issues that we struggle with today on all these other places, all these other places that we try to find meaning, once once general intelligence surpasses human intelligence, it’s gonna render all of these other questions either obsolete or it will advance them so quickly that we’re not going to be able to keep up.

Mark Manson: I felt like it was a natural end point. As much as it’s blindsided a lot of readers, I felt like it was a very natural end point for the book, and I personally think AI’s probably going to render us obsolete, but I find that to be very hopeful because, for one, I believe morality is very much based in rationality. I think the best aspects of ourselves come when we are able to sit down and think and be compassionate.

Mark Manson: If the AI surpasses us in intelligence, then it’s probably going to surpass us in its understanding of morality as well. One of the points I make in the book is look, we’re the ones who commit genocide. We’re the ones who beat and abuse and enslave each other. We don’t really, in terms of an ethical argument about AI, we don’t really have a leg to stand on.

Mark Manson: If this greater force comes along that we’re no longer able to comprehend, and they start organizing a world in which a lot of these religious conflicts and us versus them dichotomies fall away, then I think that better for everybody, even if we’re not the ones in charge anymore. I’m like this misanthropic AI supporter.

John Jantsch: Then there are those that would argue that it could actually amplify those things that you talked about as opposed to making them go away. I guess that’s the challenge with any technology.

Mark Manson: It is; it is. It could amplify, and it could amplify up to a degree, and then I think once it surpasses us, maybe it comes back on the other side. The other thing I wanted to explore in that chapter that I haven’t really seen talked about anywhere is that traditional religion emerges from mystery. It’s when humans don’t understand something, we come up with a lot of, I guess, supernatural explanations.

Mark Manson: It’s like if you dance this way, then it’s going to rain next week. I really enjoyed exploring this idea of once AI takes over, we’re not going to have any idea what the hell is happening anymore. Cars are going to show up and drive us somewhere and drop us off at a building. There’s going to be people there, and we’re not going to know why any of this stuff is happening.

Mark Manson: In a weird irony, we might start returning to a lot of this religious behavior of cavemen and stuff. It’s like, “Oh, well if you wear this shirt, the AI gods will will put favor on you, and they’ll take care of your family. Be sure to say this when the car comes.” I don’t know. For some reason, I think it’s hilarious, but a lot of people have emailed me and been like, “Dude, that is dark.”

John Jantsch: Yeah I didn’t find it dark. I think the word you said, mysterious. It just really shows that it could be a different world, which maybe-

Mark Manson: I-

John Jantsch: … is unsettling to some.

Mark Manson: I think it will be. All of this joking and the religious talk aside, I think it really is going to be a different world, and I think it’s going to be different in such a way that we can’t really comprehend what the issues and divisions are going to be when it comes.

John Jantsch: Mark’s books can be found pretty much anywhere. In fact, I have a… This is a personal question. Many of my listeners may not care about this, but I noticed your recent book, Harper brought it back out in paperback and hardcover at the same time. Was there any thought in that?

Mark Manson: Well, they’re doing this thing. It drives me crazy, man. They do these things called Harper Luxe, and it’s basically large print editions. They’re paperback, but they’re large print editions, so it’s like 500 pages. The fonts are blown up really big for people with poor eyesight.

Mark Manson: Amazon keeps categorizing them as paperback even though they’re these special editions for people with bad eyesight, and so people keep buying them thinking that they’re the paperback. Then they show up, and they’re these big fat like 600-page books with giant text.

John Jantsch: I’ve got another funny story for you on my first book published 2007 by Thomas Nelson who is now owned by Harper or they’re all owned by each the same company probably, but my first book, they had very few edits, but one of them is they wanted me to take the word crap out of the texts, so I thought you would enjoy that.

Mark Manson: Wow. How far we have come.

John Jantsch: Mark, it was a pleasure meeting you in this format and learning your thoughts and deeper thoughts on your writing, and people check out Mark’s work. As I said, the books are sold pretty much anywhere you can buy a book, and you might want to follow markmanson.net. Any other places you want to invite people?

Mark Manson: No, that’s it.

John Jantsch: I did it all. All right. Awesome. Mark, thanks so much. Hopefully, we’ll run into you out there on the road sometime.

Mark Manson: All right. Thanks, John.

Transcript of Creating Exponential Growth Through Hard Work, Not Magic

Transcript of Creating Exponential Growth Through Hard Work, Not Magic written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing broadcast is brought to you by Gusto, modern easy payroll benefits for small businesses across the country. And because you’re a listener you get three months free when you run your first payroll. Find out at gusto.com/tape.

John Jantsch: Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Brad Sugars. He is the founder and chairman of ActionCOACH, and the co-author of a book we’re going to talk about today, Pulling Profits Out of a Hat: Adding Zeroes to Your Company Isn’t Magic. Welcome back, Brad.

Brad Sugars: Hey, buddy. Good to be back, good to chat again.

John Jantsch: I’m a little disappointed in the title of this book because you claim that it’s not magic, and aren’t we all just looking for magic?

Brad Sugars: It was funny. I sat down with a buddy of mine at lunch about two years ago, and he says to me, “It just seems like magic the way these companies like Ikea, and Amazon, it just seems like magic the way they all keep growing and stuff.” I sat there and I said, “You don’t really believe that do you because, you know, magic is just a system as well. Magic is just a methodology of getting a result that looks like accidents. It’s just a system that people follow right behind it.” I think that he looked at me weird, and I looked at him weird. I said, “Do you know what, I’m going to write a book on this,” and so here we are two years later.

John Jantsch: I think you hit on a really good point. I think a lot of companies that do things, not household named company, I mean any company that you look at from the outside, and it just you use magic, or whatever term you use. I think sometimes magic, or genius, or growth it involves so many things that we don’t see, or don’t understand. I think the really great companies just make it look easy, don’t they?

Brad Sugars: Oh look, I think that the greatest of anything, any greats in anything, sport, acting, music, business, you name it, the greats make it look easy. My wife makes it look easy running our house with five kids and all of these things going on and stuff. That’s not that easy. It’s tough.

Brad Sugars: But, I think what we found in writing Pulling Profits is that when you look at businesses that are having real growth, and I mean exponential year-on-year growth, you notice something about them that is just different to other companies. It starts with that mindset of it is possible to have that level of growth.

John Jantsch: Let’s unpack that term because I was going to ask you about it because you use it throughout the book, this idea of exponential growth. I mean how is that different from year-over-year growth?

Brad Sugars: Well let’s think about this, so we go into most business scenarios, and you chat with the average business person, and they’re sitting there saying, “Well you know, what we’re looking for here is we’re looking for 20% or 30% growth.” My first challenge to all of them is, “Well, what about 10 times, 20 times, 30 times growth?” They look at you like you’re very weird. Multiplication growth is different to percentage growth. It’s like, “Well, how would we do that? What would have to happen in order for us to do that?” That’s where just that mental change just has to be there for a person to actually understand it. Probably the best example is that… Do you remember the movie, what was it called, The Founder, The Ray Kroc movie? Did you ever see that one?

John Jantsch: I did not.

Brad Sugars: I use the example of that because it shouldn’t have been The Founder. It should have been The Finder. Ray Kroc came along and he found this business, the McDonald Brothers. The McDonald Brothers were looking for annual growth, percentage growth. Ray Kroc comes in, and looks at it differently and say, “Okay, how do we put this on every street corner in America, and eventually every street corner in the world?” It’s looking at it from a different perspective.

Brad Sugars:  For me as an entrepreneur, right, I mean I just bought a company down in Melbourne, Australia. It’s a commercial cleaning business, and one down in Houston, Texas, a property management company. I look at them and they’re amazing businesses with a singular office. They do phenomenal things, great marketing, great sales systems, good culture, all of that sort of stuff. However, at no point are they considering opening up across the US, or across England, or across the world for that matter, and so it’s really just starting with that mindset, I guess, of exponential growth.

John Jantsch: Well, and you used the word mindset. For a lot of people they can’t ever get past this because they won’t allow themselves think that way.

Brad Sugars: I got to tell you buddy, it’s scary to think, okay, what if we went for 10 times, or 20 times growth and missed it? At least at 30% I’m safe. There is no real risk. All I got to do is work a little bit harder, a little bit more, push my people a bit better, train them a bit better, get a few more customers. Do you know what I mean? It’s that safety march. But, when we go and see companies that are growing exponentially, and we start seeing that level of just domination of a market very quickly, people sit up and go, “Oh, I don’t think we could do that.” Well yeah, you can, but there is a systematic methodology to it.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about this word profit. I think one of the things that drives a lot of company is that bottom line mentality. That to reach for 10 times sometimes means maybe you won’t make a profit, or worse maybe you’ll have to kill the profit you’re already making because it’s going to require you to do things differently. You actually take profit on, and say maybe it’s not the sacred cow that it used to be.

Brad Sugars: The interesting thing is that what we look at in most business today, and this is where big business I guess has had this understanding for a long time, it’s the value of the company that we’re looking to build not necessarily the immediate profit of the business. Small business unfortunately lives with a day-to-day profit mentality rather than what’s the value of the business we’re building?

Brad Sugars:  Now, in the beginning I know with all of my small businesses when I first started out we needed that profit. We needed that tomorrow because if we didn’t have the profit we weren’t bootstrapping our way through, so I get that whole philosophy. But, I think that where we’re looking for profit, profit can be defined differently as we go forward in business today. Profit can be defined in retention of employees. It can be defined in retention of customers. It can be defined in how we add value to the community that we’re a part of, so there is many different ways to look at it, and within the book we go through the five main constituents and how you build, so that each of them actually gets a win.

Brad Sugars: Absolutely, I’m an accountant by training. The bottom line has still got to be there. You got to have that profitability for valuation. You’ve got to have that profitability to fund growth to do all those things. That’s an interesting debate, my friend, and I’m sure that we can continue it for years and years.

John Jantsch: Well, it’s interesting. You mentioned, and you talked about it in the book, the companies that do what you describe, pulling profits out of a hat, adding zeroes, do meet a win for all these constituencies. Do you find that companies that do that, do that intentionally, or maybe that’s just built into their mission, or who they are, or what they believe, and then it happens, or does it have to really be something that you sit down in a room and say, we’re going to do XYZ?

Brad Sugars: I personally think it’s about planning it because a lot of the companies we look at when it comes to matching the five constituencies, the five core disciplines, and when I look at the five core disciplines in the average organizations what I start to see is they’re pretty good at two, three of them. But then in the other two areas… And it normally depends on where the CEO or where the C level execs are strong. If they’re real strong in that people side of the business then obviously they’re going to have a fairly strong mission, and people development, and that sort of thing. It’s really a balancing act, my friend. I think that some people naturally stumble across it, but in most cases it’s a planned growth strategy.

John Jantsch: Let’s name them, strategy, business development, people, execution, and mission. I think you hit on a really good point. A lot of founders, solopreneurs, they start a company, they’re good at strategy, or they were great marketers, or they’re good at execution, and there is probably not too many human beings that are just wired to be good at all five of those disciplines, so how do you bring them all together?

Brad Sugars: It’s interesting because now through this book we’ve now developed a program for businesses to do that. What we find though buddy is this, and if I can spend a minute defining each one in a moment, but what we find is this, that in a business where the C level execs all just keep hiring other C level execs like themselves, or with an owner who hires people like themselves, very quickly the business leans in one direction. The differentiation of people is a core to a great team, and that’s a big part of it.

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John Jantsch: We will come back maybe in the course of doing this, or you can outline them all, but one of the things I found interesting, most people start with mission. I’m not saying you necessarily put these in order, but I found it interesting that mission was the fifth of the disciplines.

Brad Sugars: If I’m going to start with a business, the first thing I look at is strategy because without strategy the business and how it delivers… And I’m not talking about are we using Facebook advertising? That’s a tactic. A strategy is the core of the business. Let’s say I went into the music business. I can go into the music business and I can be a drummer in a band. I’m still in the music business, or I can be Spotify, or iTunes, or something like that, or I can be right in the middle and be in a music production house, or something. Do you know what I mean? The strategy within which you attack it.

Brad Sugars: Even if you take iTunes, you go back to Apple’s strategy, their original strategy of make a computer sell a computer, they had to change strategy otherwise they were going to go bankrupt. Steve Jobs becomes a brilliant strategist and goes away and runs Pixar, learns leverage, which is one of the four components to strategy as well as learning great management, and leadership skills, comes back to Apple and says, “Hey, we got to get out of this make at once sell at once business,” and so he went into the music business where… And even more genius than me, Steve Jobs never make a song and sell them forever. I mean my definition of leverage is do the work once, get paid forever. If a business has to fight against leverage, if it’s getting a customer once and then they have to go and get another customer the next time, these are some of the things that fall under strategy.

Brad Sugars: Scalability falls under strategy. If a business today has to have human interaction to make a sale then its scalability factor is limited. We look at how Uber took out the human factor from the taxi business. Instead of having to make a phone call to a person who then dialed out and got another person to answer the phone call and then Uber goes straight through technology, no human interaction, boom, got the sale made. That’s how they can scale so fast.

John Jantsch: Do you know what’s interesting about that example is that technology was available to Yellow Taxi, but they choose not to employ it because it was going to shake up the status quo, and consequently they’re struggling now.

Brad Sugars: Well, the MP3 player was invented by Sony who is one of the biggest music companies in the world. Now, they’re paying 30 cents on the dollar to Apple to sell every song they make on a machine they invented, so just because you… That’s where execution comes in, I guess. That’s one of the five disciplines as well.

Brad Sugars: But also mission, I go back to mission because you mentioned that, and I think that one is really important, and whether it’s fifth, or… Because here’s the thing about the five of them, if I go into a company that’s really good at mission, and really good at say people, and execution, but its business development is struggling then it doesn’t matter what order we put them in because every business is different.

Brad Sugars: Apple, again, another success story on mission because mission is all about the word love in my opinion. Do your customers love buying from you? Do your staff love coming to work? In the days of the lowest levels of employee engagement we’ve seen in a long time, or maybe it’s just measured today, and it wasn’t always, we sit here thinking how do we get our people to love coming to work, and how do we get our customers to love buying from us, not just enjoy it, and not just buy from us because we’re cheaper, or we got better marketing, but because they love doing a transaction with us?

John Jantsch: Yeah. I think one of the things that’s tough for a lot of companies is some of these things, some of your disciplines require investment that maybe doesn’t drop to the bottom line, at least not immediately. I mean we all know it does.

Brad Sugars: Yeah.

John Jantsch: You’re happy engaged employees drop to the bottom line whether, or not they’re making a sale. I think that isn’t that one of the challenges for a lot of people? I don’t want to say it’s a leap of faith, but it’s a hey, we’re going to invest in mission and in people, and those may not immediately make a sale.

Brad Sugars: Yeah buddy look, for many years investing in my team, and investing in the humans in my business because that’s if you look at the discipline of people and try, and describe it real quick it’s how you build your people determines how they build your business. And if you don’t build your people then don’t expect them to… You can’t expect people to outperform their training. Let’s just make it that blunt.

Brad Sugars: I remember as a young man going to my dad, I think I was about 20, or 21, and I said to him, “Dad, I just can’t get good people. I can’t hire motivated good people.” He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Son, you get the people you deserve. You’re an average manager running an average business. The highest caliber of employee you should expect is average.” I’m like, “Hey, thanks dad. That was really, really great advice,” and it was. At the time, it stung like anything. I mean it was like thanks, wow.

Brad Sugars: But, what I’ve had to learn and what a lot of people have to learn is that if you don’t build your people… I mean how you recruit, hire, train, induct, mentor, manage, lead your people today determines where your business is at tomorrow. The longevity of business is all about building great people who build great businesses. I think that whole section of the book is quite eye-opening for a lot of people about how they want to build long term.

John Jantsch: I think it really comes down to how the leader of said business views those disciplines because there are a heck of a lot of business owners that I talk to that still think marketing, or business development in this case is a cost and that people are a cost as opposed to an investment.

Brad Sugars: I love that you bring that up because you and I every day agree on this wholeheartedly. The reality of marketing is if you’re doing it wrong it is an expense. If you’re doing it wrong it’s the dumbest thing you can ever do in your business, but if you’re doing it right it’s the world’s best investment, business development, your sales, your marketing, your customer service. I love that you use the word discipline now with me because we put it in this book as a discipline of business development and [inaudible] five disciplines because it’s not something you got right once and then you can just let it run. Your sales team needs to be trained daily, and brought up to speed daily because the markets shift.

Brad Sugars: I was with someone the other day and I said, “Tell me, do your customers know more about your competitors than your salespeople?” He said, “Oh, probably.” I said, “Well, then you’re out of business.” He looked at me and said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, if I’m a customer and I know the benefits of your competitor better than your sales people do, you can’t sell me. I can sell you, and what I’m selling you is that you can’t help me,” so yeah. I mean I wrote that whole book, Buying Customers, to teach entrepreneurs and executives about the whole principles of how much money you need to invest to buy customers.

John Jantsch: Does what you’re outlining in, Pulling Profits, change the role of the typical leader?

Brad Sugars: Dang buddy, that’s a tough question. I don’t think it changes it. Actually, I’ll give you an answer that I got. I was in Dublin last year giving a speech. She was a fun one because before me was Lady Michelle Mone who is a baroness and after me was Sir Richard Branson, so it was like the lady, the convict, and the lord. Sending an Australia up between a lady and a lord is funny. But, I got offstage, shook Sir Richard’s hand. He went up and did his gig. There was a question for him that said, “Have you had to change your management now with millennials?” He said, “No, we’ve always done good management.” I thought about that for a minute. To answer your question, does it change, no, it just requires you to actually do it. A great CEO, or a great entrepreneur will cover all five disciplines. I think that’s probably the simplest way to answer it.

John Jantsch: My follow-up to that really is, and I’m sure you hear this sometimes, it’s going to continue to evolve, it’s not… none of these disciplines are static as the company changes. I mean how do you keep this alive and fresh and engaging because it… I mean let’s face it, it’s exhausting to constantly be juggling all five of these balls?

Brad Sugars: Yeah, so is parenting. I got five kids. Juggling that is the same, I guess. I think it comes back to a very simple understanding and that is that do you remember Bill Gates did an interview many years ago where they said to him, “Are you every worried about somebody?” He said, “Listen, there is a kid in a garage somewhere and trying to put Microsoft out of business.” He was right, but it was two kids in a dorm room, Lowrie and Sergei, and they almost got him.

Brad Sugars:  The point behind that is that, that’s what I love about business. I love the fact that it’s always changing. I love the fact that it’s always growing and stuff. I can wait and follow, but the problem with imitation, or following someone else is that you’re second. The view don’t change too much, second, or third, but imitation doesn’t get there, so you’ve got to fall in love with the fact that you’ve got to keep growing and changing. I think the greatest execs and entrepreneurs do love that about business.

John Jantsch: Brad, where can people find out more? Obviously, at actioncoach.com, but also about the book itself?

Brad Sugars: The book, they can jump on pullingprofits.com, or any great bookstore, buddy, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you name it. It’s sitting on their shelves I’m sure, and they’re selling them for me, or they can jump on any of the social media platforms. You’ll find me on Insta, and Facebook, and LinkedIn, and You Tube, and all those, probably not Pinterest, no you won’t, actually definitely not Pinterest. I’m not that crafty.

John Jantsch: One of those things I meant to point that I forgot, one of the things I love in chapter six you show each of these disciplines we’ve been talking about. You actually had an assessment for us, so we can not only fully, or more fully understand the discipline, but also measure where we are in that. I love books and resources that do that because I think in some cases maybe we learn better by doing that kind of assessment.

Brad Sugars: Yeah, it’s interesting. When we sit with businesses, and they fulfill that assessment they start to really understand a bit of a benchmark as to where they’re at versus other businesses not just within their own realm because sometimes the challenge is we can’t see the forest through the trees. We might think, okay, we’re doing great at the people as a discipline, but then we go and do the tests and we realize, hang on, we’re not keeping up where the market is today.

John Jantsch: Yeah. It’s hard sometimes to… You get really lulled to sleep sometimes in your own business, and it really does take a look outside to, or somebody else, a third party come looking in to help out.

Brad Sugars: Hence, ActionCOACH, buddy. That’s probably the reason why ActionCOACH is still around for that exact reason. It’s hard to see what’s in your own business.

John Jantsch: Pulling Profits Out of a Hat, co-authored by Brad Sugars. Thanks, Brad. Hopefully, we’ll catch up with you sometime out there on the road.

Brad Sugars: Hey John, great to be here. By the way, anyone listening to this for the first time please subscribe. I love what you’re doing, John. I’m really a fan of all of the podcasts. Thanks, buddy.

Transcript of How to Think About Hustle

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John Jantsch: Hey, this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Rev.com. We do all of our transcriptions here on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast using Rev.com, and I’m going to give you a special offer in just a bit.

John Jantsch: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. My guest today is Neil Patel. He is the co-founder, creator of some tools that many of you use; Hello Bar, Crazy Egg, Kissmetrics. Also, the author, creator of an awesome blog called Quick Sprout that I send people to frequently, and somehow or another, he finally got around to writing a book. That book is called Hustle: The Power to Change Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum. Neil, thanks for joining me.

Neil Patel: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I actually had Robert Cialdini on the show recently, and he’s the author of Influence, and has another book out currently, and there was 30 years between those two books. I had to ask him, what took him so long, but I think there’s probably a lot of people wondering, why is this Neil Patel’s first book?

Neil Patel: I just haven’t had the time. It was funny, after this book came out-

John Jantsch: You’re too busy writing other content, that’s the problem.

Neil Patel: Yeah, blogging. The funny thing is, after the book came out, I’ve had so many people ask me if I want to write another book, and I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, I just got one out there, I’m not ready for any more books at the moment.”

John Jantsch: Yeah, actually, you’re in that window where I swear I’ll never write another book. That kind of, after you’ve come out of it, now you’re doing all the hustle of promoting it. Let me ask you this then, why was now the time for you to write a book?

Neil Patel: I just thought that it was a great point in my time to try to capture a new audience. I have, especially online, I have most people who are interested in learning about marketing, at least online marketing. Right now, I’m trying to just help people who want to start businesses, and I was like, “You know what? Why not try to write a book, it can reach a really broad audience.”

John Jantsch: Yeah, I actually really like that, because you’re right. You’ve written almost anything, somebody who wants to generate traffic, or things like that. You’ve written a ton about that. Another book by you maybe wouldn’t add that much to it, but I really like how you’ve taken, in a lot of ways, your life experience, your business experience, and said, “Here’s what I’ve learned through the years.” Now, you have a couple of co-authors on this, how did that come about?

Neil Patel: Yes. We were all thinking about this similar idea. Jonas, Patrick, and I, we’ve known each other for a while, and we were just like, it’d be really great to write a book that just helps people find the passion to rise, succeed at whatever they want to do and not just necessarily entrepreneurship, it could just be that they want to improve in the corporate workplace and climb the corporate ladder, or they feel like they’re stuck in life and they’re not sure what they want to do next, and they just feel like nothing is progressing and life sucks, right?

Neil Patel: We just want to help people accomplish their goals, and it’s not necessarily financial goals, just whatever makes them happy.

John Jantsch: One of the things, you break the book into three sections, which I like. To me, it kind of guides it, so it’s heart, head, and habits, and in some ways, that’s kind of the progression maybe of how somebody learns that they’re on the right path as well, and how to stay on the right path.

John Jantsch: One of the things that, in the first section, that took me, because it’s a little counter-intuitive, a lot of people think in terms of people starting businesses, is that’s like the ultimate risk. I think that you turn that on its head a little bit and talk about, if you’re not doing what you were meant to be doing, if you’re not starting a business, if you’re miserable, that that’s actually riskier than creating some venture that you could be passionate about.

Neil Patel: Yeah, you just need to go out there and do something, right? The big philosophy about going and trying different things, not necessarily doing a whole venture, but just the whole concept of trying different things, it’ll help you, it’ll lead you to your passion, and what you love in life.

John Jantsch: Yeah, there’s so many books out there that talk about, you have to sit down one day and decide what you’re passionate about. That’s really, I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t think that’s how it’s done is it?

Neil Patel: No. It’s not really how it’s done. It’s so funny, I was speaking to someone earlier today, and someone was telling me, they’re like, “You know when you’re a kid and you dream about being an astronaut? You had to think that as you grow up, you want to be an astronaut, but most people don’t really do what they’ve dreamed of as a kid,” and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s true.”

Neil Patel: They were like, “Do you think we should all go back and do what we dreamed up as a kid? Because most of us are not happy.” I was like, “No.” They were like, “Why not?” I’m like, “Well, as a kid you want to be an astronaut, even though that may seem awesome as a kid, as an adult, if that’s what you dreamed up, the chances are you’re not going to love it, and what you should just be doing is trying out different things, and it’ll … Two things will happen.

Neil Patel: “Either one, you’ll find out what you dislike really quickly, and two, you’ll eventually be led down a path on what you love from that.” For example, my first venture was a job board. Failed miserably, but from that, I realized that people just don’t come to your website and I learned how to market it. I fell in love with marketing, so I decided to get into consulting. From there, I realized that I hated consulting, even though I love marketing, and it wasn’t for me, but through consulting, clients had issues. One of the big issues was that they couldn’t figure out what made people convert on their own website, so we created a software company from that. I didn’t care enough to say create software, I love the concept of it, but I found my passion and that passion was marketing my own businesses.

John Jantsch: Yeah, one thing you pointed out that I want to go back to is that idea of it’s okay to find out what you don’t like too. In fact, that’s part of the learning process. A lot of times when I’m interviewing clients and trying to get them to decide who their ideal client is, it’s a lot easier for me to say, “Okay, who don’t you want to work with?” Because that sort of rings truer or at least comes to mind faster.

Neil Patel: Yeah. No, you got it right. It’s process of elimination. If you quickly figure out what you don’t want to do, eventually, you’ll narrow down what you could be potentially doing.

John Jantsch: You introduce, or at least use in this book a couple terms that I want to dive into. One is, I believe it’s pronounced hormesis. The idea of stress for success. I wondered if you would try to apply that to why you believe that’s an important element of growth?

Neil Patel: Yeah, sure. When you’re not stressed out, think of it this way. If everything in your life is fine and dandy, what happens? [inaudible 00:06:44], right? So you’re on Duct Tape Marketing, if every day of your life is easy, and you never had anything to stress out, what’s going to happen in your life?

John Jantsch: Probably get pretty complacent.

Neil Patel: Yeah, and when you get complacent, do you have anything that’s driving you to do better, keep learning more, growing, et cetera?

John Jantsch: Right, right.

Neil Patel: When you have some sort of stress, it’s good. You need to get out of your comfort zone, because that stress makes you think, makes you be creative, makes you take action, right? Causes momentum, all these types of things. When you don’t have stress and things are really easy, and I see this a lot with trust fund babies, in which, I have a ton of friends in New York, I’m in New York right now, who have generated quite a bit of income just from their parents, in which they didn’t necessarily have to make that income, but they just got their income truly from their parents, right?

Neil Patel: Like got 100 million dollars, or whatever it was, but large amounts of money. They’re bored in life, and they want to create these ventures, and they want to do things, but their life isn’t stressful, and it’s so easy that there’s no pressure for them to learn, innovate, succeed, they’re just like, “Whatever happens, happens.” That’s not how you grow as an individual.

John Jantsch: Yeah, I mean, look at the countless stories of people that really had their back against the wall, they were down to their last dime. They just had to either sink or swim and those are some of the people that … That’s your rags to riches kind of story, come about, because they were in that position I think.

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John Jantsch: So, another term. This was actually something I’d heard some economists talk about, but never necessarily applied it to business, and I love when terms come from other areas, and you can apply them to businesses, but obliquity. The idea that there is no … You can’t sit down and just say, “Here’s my vision for my business, I’m going to take that path there,” but that success actually is more indirect than that, isn’t it?

Neil Patel: That’s correct. Yeah, because when you see a path and you’re just like, “This is what’s going to happen,” chances are usually not what’s going to end up being the end result. I see this all the time with venture capitalists. I’ve been in San Francisco for years, raised money, and you know, one feedback or piece of advice that every single investor has told me? They’re like, “Yeah, when we invest in a company, we invest in the people.” I was like, “Why is this?” They’re like, “The vision, the path that you take to succeed,” right? The original picture, original concept is very rarely what you end up with. They never really see the end company being the same one that was originally pitched.

Neil Patel: You learn, you have to adapt, market conditions change, competitors arise, et cetera. For that reason, the way you get to the end is typically an indirect path. It could be from learnings, or you learn business shortcut, or there’s a more efficient way, or you may end up learning that the business model won’t work, and you’ve tried many different paths, and it isn’t going to happen, and then from there you can spin up a different business.

Neil Patel: For example, Twitter came out of Odeo, or Audio, I forgot what it was called, but it was about a podcast site, and from it, they weren’t doing well at all, but they built Twitter [inaudible] though, like, “Oh, this seems like a much better idea,” and yeah, people could say Twitter is struggling right now, but they’re still a multi-billion dollar company.

John Jantsch: Right. Why the term hustle? That comes pretty loaded with some ideas, presuppositions. How does that term play out for you?

Neil Patel: Yeah, so the way we see hustle isn’t like most people. During my dad’s age and time, when the word hustle was used, he was like, “Oh, you’re going to go and sell drugs on the street corner.”

John Jantsch: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, or you’re going to get hustled. That’s a term too, that … Yeah, yeah.

Neil Patel: Exactly, but if you’ve been looking up the last, in which you have, if you look at the last five, 10 years, the concept has been changing, right? You’re seeing people everywhere out there being like, “Well, I’m going to make something happen, I’m going to hustle.” Right? It’s the act of doing something, and trying to be more efficient at it, and figuring out how to get what you want, in maybe unconventional ways. You’re seeing everyone talk about it.

Neil Patel: For example, one of the biggest authors in our space is Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vaynerchuk is interestingly known for using the word hustle, right? We want to change the meaning, or what everyone perceives it. It’s actually not that hard, right? With the younger generations, there’s not much to change meaning wise, it’s more so with the older generation.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and actually there’s a very positive connotation when you think of how people apply to say, sports. Athletes, you know, that you out-hustle somebody, you’re just willing to work harder and try something different as opposed to really just resting on your laurels.

Neil Patel: Yep, you got it right.

John Jantsch: There’s another concept that I really like, and you think about it, makes total sense that we should be doing this, and it’s your personal opportunity portfolio, or POP, I think you call it throughout the book. The portfolio, like the graphic designer shows up for the job interview with their portfolio, but I think you’ve taken that concept and said, “Hey, everybody ought to be doing that.”

Neil Patel: Yeah. The other thing I want you to think about is, companies and IPO’s. A company can grow their value and they can IPO and they can keep increasing and growing, why can’t individuals? You yourself can keep building up your brand, your portfolio. You can increase your value over time.

Neil Patel: A great example of this is Kim Kardashian. If you look at her over the years, she’s increased her POP, and now, companies will pay an arm and a leg to just go out there and post something on Instagram, or Facebook, or whatever it may be, because she’s such a powerful brand out there. In essence, she has built up a really strong POP. Why can’t individuals out there do it? You don’t have to be in the celebrity space.

Neil Patel: Now, for me, I built up my brand through content marketing and blogging. Not only does it help me drive business, but I can get paid to speak, I can get paid to write books. The possibilities are endless and so many doors are opening, and you have a similar journey as well, right? Through the podcast, through the blog, it’s probably opened up a lot of doors for you.

John Jantsch: You bet. Absolutely. Another concept that I think is really interesting. I’ve heard other people talk about this, now we’re in the habits I suppose, this idea, but the 10 minute rule. You want to explain how that has changed your life?

Neil Patel: Yeah, so we all have goals. If you want to achieve your goal, just for 10 minutes, try doing something that will help you get closer to it. Once you’ve done it for 10 minutes, evaluate. Has that helped you get closer to your goal? If it has, do more of it. If it hasn’t, shift your approach. It’s just, taking little actions can create drastic changes in your life. It’s usually not one thing though, it’s a lot of little things that add up. We’re teaching you by just taking little actions, that you can get further into accomplishing what you’re trying to achieve.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and I think it also, sometimes just getting started is really all you need. You use the example in the book about exercise. There are a lot of times when I just feel like, “I don’t really want to do this,” but then I kind of force myself to do it, and within a few minutes, I’m like, “I’m glad I did this.” I do think that it has a little bit of that getting started, the initiative it takes to get started.

Neil Patel: Definitely. Yeah, and when you look at it as 10 minutes, it’s not overwhelming, right? You’re like, “Oh, I’ll only have to do this for 10 minutes,” not a big deal. If I tell you to go do something for hours, it’s like, “One hour, that’s a lot of time.”

John Jantsch: Now another thing I’m going to dive into, a lot of people I think really try to be the best at what they do, and that’s a noble goal, I don’t have a problem with that, but I think you also talk about a lot of people end up succeeding by … I don’t want to say they’re intentionally mediocre, but maybe they’re sort of mediocre at a number of things that they can combine.

John Jantsch: I would never tell anybody I’m a great writer, or a great speaker, but I have written five books and 4,000 blog posts, and done four or 500 presentations. Now, partly because I just wanted to do it, and I started to do it, and being kind of mediocre, I’ve certainly, hopefully gotten better, but being kind of mediocre at a number of things, has actually allowed me to excel aggregately, if that makes sense, and I wonder if you feel like that’s been your journey to some extent?

Neil Patel: It has. I’m not necessarily great at one thing. Yeah, people can say I’m really good at marketing, but I’m probably decent at a lot of components at marketing, when you combine them it makes me dangerous. Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule, in which, if you do something for 10,000 hours, you become an expert. What we say is, there’s a lot of things that you’re going to suck at. There’s going to be some things that you’re mediocre at, and you’re going to have a natural talent.

Neil Patel: When you try different things, you’ll figure out where your natural talent is, and if you spend time perfecting your natural talent, and usually if you’re talented at something, you should love it, because what’s easier for you is typically the thing that you fall more in love with. If you start trying to improve it, you can actually make a career, a living off of it, right? Especially when you combine it with your other abilities.

John Jantsch: So, you have put together a website that you actually have a few of the tools that you talk about. You have some resources there at hustlegeneration.com, is that right?

Neil Patel: That’s correct.

John Jantsch: Anywhere else you want to send people to find out more about you and the various things that you’re doing?

Neil Patel: Neilpatel.com.

John Jantsch: Great. Well Neil, thanks so much for joining us. Hustle: The Power to Change Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum, is available everywhere, and I suggest it is just the nuggets, such a handful of nuggets that you can pull out of it in a quick read are well worth the price of the book. Neil, thanks for joining us. Hopefully we’ll see you out there on the road.

Neil Patel: Thanks for having me.

Transcript of How to Give Your Content CPR

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John Jantsch: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Laura Belgray. She is the founder of Talking Shrimp, and co-creator of The Copy Cure with Marie Forleo. She brings a mixed bag of [inaudible] experience, and I mean that in the best kind of way. Today she’s working with entrepreneurs to create copy that isn’t boring.

John Jantsch: So, Laura, welcome.

Laura Belgray: Oh, thank you. I like being described as a mixed bag.

John Jantsch: Well, you know, in doing the bios, you know, a lot of people have the 100 word thing that’s very crisp, but you’re just all over the place. You’ve done a lot of things and that’s awesome. But that was my best way to describe it.

Laura Belgray: Thank you. I’m so the opposite of crisp, I’m soft batch cookies.

John Jantsch: So, Talking Shrimp. You know, I’m sure a lot of people ask about the name, but it’s obvious, right? I mean, you were … you had a dream that you were swallowed by shrimp, and you started talking, and that led you to … you’re supposed to stop me here, because I’m just babbling here.

Laura Belgray: No, I just wanted you to fill it in for me, because what other explanation could there be? The name Talking Shrimp, everyone asks about that. A lot of people think that I deal in, you know, flash frozen shrimp and seafood. I do not. The really boring answer is that my husband and I had a CPA who told us to incorporate, and we needed a name, and the URL was available. We basically wanted a name, he’s in restaurants and I’m in copy writing, we wanted a name that could apply to either of us, and could mean absolutely everything and nothing at the same time, and I think it does.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and all the other crustaceans were taken, right?

Laura Belgray: That’s right. Can you believe Talking Shrimp was free?

John Jantsch: No, I cannot believe it. So, you have a done a lot of work, as you bio suggests, in television. So are you still doing TV?

Laura Belgray: I am. I would say it is a smaller part of my business, it’s the little arm. I’ve got two arms, and they’re uneven sizes. So the bigger arm is entrepreneur, small businesses, private clients, and then I do still do a bunch of TV stuff for different networks, and sometimes for production companies. I focus on promos, which are the little commercials that you see for the shows.

John Jantsch: Yeah, the thing that tries to get you to stay on before the commercials.

Laura Belgray: Yes, exactly. I mean, sometimes it’s a big poster that you see on the subway or at a bus shelter on the side of the bus and the tagline that goes on that.

John Jantsch: So, do you have to be a whole different person dealing with entrepreneurs than you do with the TV world? Or is there a lot of similarity?

Laura Belgray: That’s a good question. I’m always the same person, and I-

John Jantsch: You’re just playing a different character though.

Laura Belgray: Yes, playing a different character. I would say that the job is very different, because with entrepreneurs, we’re writing really direct response copy, we’re writing copy that makes people make a decision right away. For TV, we’re mostly writing copy that helps them make a decision over time. They say, “Oh, I get what that network is about, or, oh, that looks like a funny show, I’ll have to remember to look it up when I get home.” Or, you know, when they’re watching TV, “Oh, I got to check out … I’ll have to remember to set my DVR for that.” But they don’t necessarily make a decision right away.

John Jantsch: So, I’m going to ask you a few questions about copywriting that are things that I actually hear all the time, because they’re just sort of generic problems, challenges, when it comes to marketing. I’m sure you hear this all the time too. So, if you’re going to write copy that gets somebody to make a decision now, and hopefully it’s exciting and moving, you know, but then I hear all the time, “But what I do is really boring.” You know, how do you make that spicy?

Laura Belgray: Yeah, well, can you give me an example of someone’s job that’s really boring when they say, “What I do is really boring.”

John Jantsch: Well, again, this may … I’m not saying it’s true, I’m saying that’s their perception. But, you know, yeah, so let’s say a plumber that, you know, is looking for local clients, and they know that they need to be online, they know that they need to be doing stuff. They’re obviously not selling a course, or at least in this example, they’re not selling some of the same things that you might do in a direct response environment. But they are trying to get somebody who has a problem to call them, or to think that, “Yeah, this is somebody that I want to engage, you know, in an ongoing basis.”

John Jantsch: So, there’s my example. Can you work with that?

Laura Belgray: That’s a … okay, that’s a great example. So, they think, “Okay, what I do is really boring. I don’t really have anything to talk about at dinner parties.” But, on the other hand, it is something immediate and relatable, and that solves generally a dire, urgent, problem. I mean, when someone’s … somebody’s toilet is stopped up, they need a plumber pretty badly, they need one now. These aren’t … A plumber’s not working … that what they do is not something that people say, “Oh, I’ll fix that, you know, next week, two weeks from now, next month.”

Laura Belgray: So, I would say that … So that’s a really specific example, but everybody with a legitimate business solves a legitimate problem, something that people need to fix, or something that … or offer something that delights people, or that people want. So, even if it’s something mundane, it’s not truly boring if people want it.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think that anytime you’re talking about the human condition, I mean, just relating stories, can you imagine some of the stories plumbers must have? You know, that probably would make for some pretty good narrative on a website.

Laura Belgray: Yes. Great narrative on a website, great, you know, depending who you’re sitting next to, dinner party conversation. I’ve got a strong stomach, so I would want to talk to that person, and great material for ongoing correspondence. They could, you know, be writing to their email list on and on, and be … you know, they could be offering information, like what to do when there’s no plumber around and your toilet is stopped up.

Laura Belgray: Someone will click that open, because they know it’s a problem that’s going to happen to them, and that plumber will be top of mind when they do have a problem they can’t fix themselves.

John Jantsch: So, just in reading your website, I think people could make an assessment that your writing style is, let me choose the right word, snarky. How’s that? Is that a good one?

Laura Belgray: I would say, well, sometimes it’s snarky. When I write for … okay, go ahead.

John Jantsch: Yeah, I was going to say, that’s not really the point. The point I … main point I’m making is do you, as a copywriter, have to, I mean, definitely get into the voice and into the ideal client’s head, and all that of the client that you’re working with, and to some degree, adopt or adapt your style to that, right?

Laura Belgray: For sure. I would say one thing that remains consistent about my writing, no matter who I’m writing for, who I’m helping, is that I’m always conversational. I will never go into stiff, boring, buzzwordy business mode, because that’s just against everything I believe in, and I don’t think anybody wants to read it.

Laura Belgray: But, I help businesses sometimes who have a way more earnest tone, and need to, they might be dealing with delicate issues. Maybe it’s about … I haven’t worked with someone like this, but maybe they do end of life care. It’s not going to be like, “What’s up, girlfriend? Got a friend who’s dying?” You know, that’s not going to-

John Jantsch: I would call that ad, I’m sorry. So, I think you ought to rethink that one. No, I totally agree. Totally agree. So, what kind of challenge does that present you? I mean, I write a lot of stuff, but I write a lot of stuff that’s just me. So, do you have to sometimes turn me off?

Laura Belgray: So, I would say the biggest challenge for me is really when the client doesn’t know what they’re selling, and cannot … no matter how deep we dig, they can’t come up with the concrete details of what they do. So, for instance, someone who’s got a really vague woo-woo life-coaching business, and I say, “So, how exactly do you help people?” They say, “Well, I help them to become their most vital, joyful, selves.” I say, “Well, how do you do that?” “Well, we work through blocks and break through their self-limiting beliefs.”

Laura Belgray: I’m like, “Okay, so what do you … what are the results that they get on the other side?” “Well, they have a feeling of inner peace and joy, and they become … they step into their most vital selves” I have had this conversation. They say to me, well, you know they jump out of bed, they override that annoyance that they feel when they see the dishes in the sink, and instead of snapping at their husband, they hug him.

Laura Belgray: If they give me concrete details, I can work with that. If they have no picture, nothing that’s … no picture that they can describe for me, then I can’t … then I have a hard time channeling any voice, mine or theirs.

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John Jantsch:  What place does humor have in business writing? You know, a lot of people use it brilliantly, a lot of people shy away from it because it’s hard.

Laura Belgray: Yeah, I mean, I think that if you are … if you have a sense of humor, then you should show it in your business. Because remember, part of the job of our copy is not just to get people to make a split second decision, it’s not just to convert on the spot, sometimes it’s about building a relationship over time, it’s about building the know I can trust factor.

Laura Belgray: We are drawn to people, especially if we have a sense of humor, we’re drawn to people with a sense of humor. So, if a business has a sense of humor, you’re more inclined to like it and trust it, and say, “Oh, there’s a human behind that.”

John Jantsch: Right. Yeah, I love getting … you order something in the mail, and you get a little insert in there that just goes on, you know, sort of self-defacing, you know, humor about, you know, all the care that had gone into getting you this package. I mean, they’re clearly over the top being funny, and I just … all of a sudden, I … you know, that makes me like that company more.

Laura Belgray: Yeah, exactly. I mean, you see … I’m sure you’ve seen how successful the Squatty Potty ad was, right? That’s gone a long way, I think, towards getting people to order a little stool that fits around their toilet. The fact that they used a unicorn pooping rainbow ice cream, and it’s hilarious. People like the company, and they say, “Okay, the company gets me, they don’t take this too seriously. This is a human thing that we all do, and I’m going to get that thing.”

John Jantsch: So, one of the things I encounter all the time, especially with business owners, they can talk for days about everything they do and how awesome it is, and the benefits that people get. Then you put a blank sheet of paper in front of them, and they, you know, they freeze. Why do you suppose that is?

Laura Belgray: I think because a lot of people grew up thinking, “I’m not a good writer.” I think there are two different things. One, are people who think, “I’m not a good writer, I suck at writing, I always got D’s on all my papers, I can’t put words together, or I’m dyslexic, I’m not good at that.” Then … So they freeze up, and then there are the people who are great writers, or think they are, and decide, “This must be the most exquisite piece of writing I’ve ever put out. I’m putting on my beret, and I am dipping my feather into a quill of … my quill into some ink, and I’m going to write a poem about what I do,” and they freeze up.

John Jantsch: So let’s talk about what kind of moves people. I mean, I think the best, certainly persuasive copy, you know, gets people at an emotional level, which moves them. So, I know when I … I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know when I started going out to business owners and saying, “We need to hear more about you and your personal story about, you know, why you do this, and what you overcame.” You know, were thought … at one point, people thought, “Oh, no, that’s … there’s no place for that, you know? Nobody wants to hear about me, they want to hear about the products and the services and all that.”

John Jantsch: But now, it seems like personal stories are really in now. Is that your take, as far as, you know, one of the ways to move people?

Laura Belgray: For sure. I think personal stories are great, because we all love story, we want to find something relatable in the person who’s selling to us, and it brings us closer to [inaudible] I think it, you know, it gets us closer to the person who’s talking or writing, when we know something about them, and we’re drawn in by their story. On the other hand, I think some people go overboard, some business owners go overboard, thinking that they have to write their whole life story.

Laura Belgray: You know, they might sell [inaudible] phone chargers. But then on their About page, it’s like, you know, “Do you ever feel frustrated, down on yourself, lonely, because you can’t find a phone charger? Well, I get you, I’ve been there my friend. You know, I was in a downward spiral, I was in the darkest place of my life.” Then they talk about how they got therapy, and how they found themselves, and left a lousy cubicle job and started selling phone chargers, and now their life is great. That has nothing to do what we’re getting from the phone charger.

John Jantsch: So when you sit down to write a particularly persuasive … let’s just say a sales letter, where your hope is in 1,000 words or 2,000 words or whatever, somebody is going to go through a range of emotions, and, you know, ultimately decide, “This is the most awesome thing, I have to have it today.”

John Jantsch: Do you have a … I don’t want to call it a checklist. But, I mean, are there kind of a set of principles, is there a narrative, or a journey even, that you’re trying to, you know, “First we have to take them here, and then we have to take them there.” I mean, is that … am I being too sort of formalistic about it?

Laura Belgray: Well, no, I wouldn’t say you’re being too formulaic, I’d say … for a sales page, I definitely have a scale of 10 that I like to use, sort of a framework, which I call the GUSTA Framework. We teach this in our course, The Copy Cure. Marie and I do. I can give you the very bare bones of it, but it is … so the G is for get attention, and that you want to do with your headline. The U is for understanding. So you do that by showing you get what this person wants and what their frustrations are, you get exactly what they are feeling.

Laura Belgray: Then the S is for solution, is where you turn it and say, “Well, what if it could be like this? You know, what if there were something that would do this for you?” Then the T is for … so, I mean, the T … oh, sorry, the T is for trust, duh. So that can come from testimonials, it can come from your credentials, your story, all that. Then the A is for action. That is your call to action, the buy now.

Laura Belgray: So there is a flow to that. But I would say for any piece of copy that you put out there, whether it’s short or long, whether it’s on, you know, a Facebook post, or a blog post, or an email, or your homepage, it all has to have what we call CPR, clarity, personality and resonance. So it has to be super clear about what you’re offering, what this is and who it’s for, it has to sound like a human, and hopefully reflects your personality or the personality of your company, has some sort of … a vibe to it. You would know, “Oh, this is, you know, this is so clearly their brand.”

Laura Belgray: It has to resonate, it has to make the person say, “Yes, or yay, or yikes, I better fix that.” It’s got to hit home and meet the person reading it where they are. So it has to … you want it to speak to what they want, not to what you want them to want.

John Jantsch: I think there’s a fine line, a lot of times you’ll see great examples of this where, you know, and I hate to point anybody out too much, but certainly the internet marketing crowd, of particularly of old, that, you know, that use this formula very well, but also used it, you know, with a number of sort of emotional hot buttons very cleverly.

John Jantsch: Where’s the fine line between manipulation? Particularly, I mean, I hate to say it, in some cases they were selling stuff that was very expensive and promised a lot things that didn’t deliver. You know, where’s the fine line between figuring out these how to influence through emotion, you know, for good or for bad?

Laura Belgray: I think it just … to me, it all depends on whether what you’re offering is good or bad. I think that if you can get someone … if you get the right person to invest in the thing that’s truly going to help them, then great. Sometimes you do need to speak to them through their pain, or through their fear, because that’s what’s going to motivate them.

Laura Belgray: I heard … I keep hearing this ad over and over on TuneIn Radio. So I’ve been addicted to all the political coverage last couple of months, so I’ve been listening to TuneIn Radio on my iPhone wherever I go. The commercials are constant, they’re driving me bananas. One that I keep hearing is about safety. It’s some ad for safety, some safety something, I don’t know what. The voiceover says, you know, “Hey, I’m John, and I love safety. In fact, safety is my middle name. Just went to the DMV to change it today. You know, first name John, middle name Safety, last name exclamation point, because I love safety. When I want safety, I go to these guys, whatever, for safety.”

Laura Belgray: I’m just thinking, “Who’s motivated …” I don’t know even know what kind of safety he’s talking about, and who is so excited about the idea of safety, that they’re going to run out and invest in safety? You have to be motivated by fear, like, “Oh my God, that could happen to me.” Whether it’s car seat safety, like, “My kid’s life could be in danger if I just take a sharp turn,” or home safety, like, “Could someone break into my house and take everything? Things that I’m not even insured for. I would be screwed if somebody came in and took my photo albums and my computer.”

Laura Belgray: So, those kinds of fears are what are going to motivate somebody to invest in safety. You have to … sometimes you have to speak to someone from a point of fear or pain.

John Jantsch: So, tell me about Italy.

Laura Belgray: It’s this wonderful country with delicious food. You mean my writing retreat in Italy, which I held for the first time in the end of May, beginning of June, 2016. It was a wonderful three-day writing retreat in Cinque Terre, a town called Riomaggiore, which is on the coast of … near Tuscany. It’s just beautiful there.

Laura Belgray: We held the classes in an ancient castle at the top of the hill, and it had amazing patio overlooking the water. I taught a group of 30 women writing. Not just copywriting, but also creative writing for three days.

John Jantsch: Yeah, I looked at it a little bit and you had … I think you had a whole blog post on this about the power of details in your writing. That’s really one of my favorites.

Laura Belgray: Right. Well, that is my favorite thing to focus on. So we do a lot of that in Italy, or anywhere that I teach. Details are everything.

John Jantsch: Some great hikes in that area too.

Laura Belgray: Some great hikes. I’m ashamed to say I never did the hike.

John Jantsch: You didn’t do the hike, huh?

Laura Belgray: I was going to. There was one morning I got up early and went to go do the hike, and then I couldn’t find the beginning of the trail.

John Jantsch: It’s a little treacherous too, because it’s pretty … it’s on a pretty steep … a little …

Laura Belgray: Yeah, you see … it is a little steep, and not really a lot of railing there, there’s not a lot of safety regulations. You see a lot of Germans with fancy shoes and walking sticks.

John Jantsch: So, I mentioned in the intro that you have … of course people can find more about you at Talkingshrimp.com. But, give us the 10 second pitch on Copy Cure.

Laura Belgray: Copy Cure, which I created with my friend, Marie Forleo, who is also the creator of B-School, is a all-in-one program to help you find your voice and sell your anything. So, first of all, it’s under five hours, so it is completely binge-watchable. It’s in video form, but you can also download it as PDF, or however you’d like to learn. We consider it the Breaking Bad of copywriting courses, because you’ll probably want to watch it all in one go, and not come out of the house till you’re done.

Laura Belgray: It really focuses on parts of copywriting that I find other courses don’t, and that’s why we created it. There are tons of courses out there that give you templates, you know, “Here’s how you have to stretch your blog post, here’s how you have to stretch your sales page, here are the techniques to persuade somebody.” But they don’t tell you how to make things conversational, how to sound like you, how to really understand who you’re talking to, how the secret to getting more clients or getting more buyers is to get your clients, and really get your buyers.

Laura Belgray: So we go into all of that so that you have the power to write anything better, and hit home better, and get people to click and like and buy.

John Jantsch: Is that just CopyCure.com? I can’t remember.

Laura Belgray: TheCopyCure.com.

John Jantsch: Great. Laura, it was awesome visiting with you, and I encourage people to check out both Talking Shrimp and TheCopyCure.com. Hopefully I’ll run into you next time I’m in New York.

Laura Belgray:  Thank you so much. I’ll be on the lookout.

Transcript of The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

Transcript of The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: Hey, this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Rev.com. We do all of our transcriptions here on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast using Rev.com, and I’m going to give you a special offer in just a bit.

John Jantsch: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Jenny Blake. She is a former Career Development Program Manager at Google, and she is also the author of What To Do When You Need To Move Out of Your Parents’ Basement … No, that’s not it, we’ll get back to that one. The book we’re going to talk about today is Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One. Jenny, thanks for joining me.

Jenny Blake: John, thank you for having me. I wish I wrote What To Do When You Move Out Of Your Parents’ Basement, that sounds like a great title.

John Jantsch: I was talking one time about something to do with some sort of newish technology, and some, I’m guessing 25ish-year-old, said, “You’re old, what do you know about that?” So I had to write back to him and say, “Come up out of your parents’ basement before they take away your Atari,” or something like that, I can’t remember. Some snipey remark.

Jenny Blake: Oh my goodness. That, and the alternate title for Pivot is How To Not End Up In a Van Down By the River.

John Jantsch: So before we get into your latest book, what does a Career Development Program Manager do at Google?

Jenny Blake: I was there for five and a half years, and halfway into my time there … During that five years, the company grew from 6,000 to 36,000 employees, and one major issue became retention. You’ve hired all these smart recent grads from Ivy League schools, how do you then keep them once you get them there? That was becoming an issue where these people were hitting plateaus one or two years into their time at the company.

Jenny Blake: And so, under the People Operations Department, they created a Career Development team, and I had been doing side projects related to this. So my biggest project was launching a global drop-in coaching program. But in general, our charge was creating programs that would help people learn and grow within the company and map their next move within the company, so they didn’t feel that their only option was to leave.

John Jantsch: Yeah, it’s funny, I imagine in an organization of that size, which by the way I’ve never even come close to working in, there probably is a whole lot of career moving that happens internally. In fact, probably the day you show up you start thinking about your next move internally.

Jenny Blake: Yeah, and internal mobility is not always an easy nut to crack. At one point, there was a sentiment that it’s easier to get hired here in the first place than it is to move to another team, because there are a lot of variables that have to happen internally. Even just the visibility of what roles are open, and how do I grow into them, and how do I have those conversations with my manager. Because it can be kind of scary to bring this stuff up.

John Jantsch: Yeah, not to mention the politics too, which … We won’t go down a rabbit hole here, but I’m sure there’s plenty of that too, of people who unfortunately don’t want to see people grow beyond where they are today in some cases. But again, like I said, we won’t go down that rabbit hole.

John Jantsch: The term pivot is used quite often today in startups, in fact it’s sort of a joke that you’re expected to come out with your product, and then you realize nobody wants it, and so you now are this kind of company. So you pivot. How are you applying that now to careers?

Jenny Blake: At first, I started to ask, “How can people be as agile as startups?” And then quickly, as I got to writing … And also I wanted a term that was judgment-neutral and gender-neutral when it came to career change. Because previously we’ve just called them a mid-life crisis or a quarter-life crisis, there was no word for this thing that’s now happening every few years, where we’re all asking what’s next much more often than in the past.

Jenny Blake: I recognized that what’s different from the business context of the word pivot is that when startups talk about pivoting, it’s because plan A failed. The original direction didn’t work, and now, as you said, they have to pivot the business. But in our career, pivot is the new normal. It’s not just plan B, that we screwed something up, we hit pivot points all the time.

Jenny Blake: Sometimes we choose to pivot, sometimes we get pivoted, and truly now more than ever, change is the only constant. So I wrote this book to create a method to more efficiently answer the question, “What’s next?”, given that we’re going to be doing it much more often.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and again, you’re not saying it’s a generational thing necessarily, but I see that in my kids that are in their 20s. The balance and scales of what’s important seems to have changed in a way. It was at one time very important that you had this stable job, that it had a title, that obviously it had the money and the perks and things.

John Jantsch: And I see a lot of folks in their under-30s that the idea of, “I want to be really happy, I want freedom, I want to be able to do the things I want to do,” is sort of coming up higher in the decision making factor. Which maybe has some of them saying, “I’m going to change completely what I’m doing because I’m not happy.”

Jenny Blake: Yes, and on the flip side there are 10,000 people turning 65 every day for the next 15 years, and many of them don’t have any plans to stop working altogether, or just go golf for the next 30 years. So you have millennials who saw many of their parents get laid off, or re-orged, or be very unhappy when the recession hit in 2008, and so they kind of stepped back and said, “What am I doing climbing this ladder that I don’t know if I want to be on?” And then again, all the way to boomers who are saying, “I love what I do.”

Jenny Blake: I’m sure for you John, you’ve pivoted your business many times, and I don’t know how you think about retirement, but I just think for so many of us we’re like, “No, I love what I do. I don’t have any plan to cut it off cold turkey just because I turn a certain age.”

John Jantsch: Yeah, and my listeners know I’m 56, so I’m getting up there where some people start thinking about that. And I’ve certainly changed what I do, I take a lot more time to go play and things of that nature. But yeah, the idea that I’m going to just stop? Maybe never. I’ll probably be writing books in my 70s and 80s.

Jenny Blake: That’s how I feel too, and of course we can say it’d be nice if finances were an option at that point, we’re not having to work incredibly hard just to survive. But this creative output … My friend, Neil Pasricha, maybe you know him, he wrote in The Happiness Equation about the Japanese term ikigai, the reason you wake up every day, and working on creative pursuits.

Jenny Blake: So when I talk about pivoting, it is age and stage agnostic. It’s that we’re all constantly wondering what’s next, and that’s not a problem, that’s not a personal shortcoming the way that I think we’ve sometimes viewed it in the past.

John Jantsch: You answered a question I was going to ask, who’s this book for, so you’re really saying it’s for anybody who’s still thinking about what they’re doing that is making a living. A lot of times people don’t even realize they’re unhappy, and they’re just going along, they’re not looking for the next thing. Do people typically have a pivot moment, or event, that kind of says, “I have to change”?

Jenny Blake: It can happen so many ways, I call them pivot points, when you finally realize, “I’m at a pivot point.” For some who maybe have been ignoring the signals, your body starts to push back, and maybe they get sick more often. My friend was getting panic attacks every time she got off the subway on her way to work, that was a clear sign she was at a pivot point.

Jenny Blake: Like you said, for others it’s more subtle, it’s a more subtle boredom or dissatisfaction. Some people are very proactive, they’re just looking for what’s next. And then sometimes we get pivoted. There are layoffs, or a re-org, or we lose our biggest client.

Jenny Blake: So all of these are moments where we can say, “What’s working, how do I double down on that? And what’s next?” I think when we get better at pivot as a mindset, and the method itself, the pivot points are less sharp, they’re less shocking, that we don’t see them coming and we feel blindsided. And that’s when it is a crisis.

John Jantsch: And I think probably one of the biggest challenges for people, even if they know they need to make that pivot, it feels like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff. Maybe you have to quit a job, I don’t know what I’m going to do next. All those things kind of hold people on. I talk to lots of people that are kind of sort of thinking about wondering if they could start a business. But they just can’t jump because, maybe sometimes they’re afraid, but other times there are practical realities about the commitments they have.

Jenny Blake: Yes, I have a whole chapter in the book on pivot finances. Because money is a very real constraint on pivoting, and I would never pretend otherwise. We also, my editor and I, were very, very purposeful in not using language like leap or jump.

Jenny Blake: Actually, by running small career experiments, I call them pilots in the book, and by doubling down on what’s working, people can methodically work toward their next move. And eventually, I call it a launch, eventually there may be a launch moment of quitting your job and starting the business. But by running small experiments, you do reduce risk along the way before you make that final launch decision.

John Jantsch: I have concluded over the years, in interviewing hundreds and hundreds of people, that one of the greatest secrets to success is self-awareness. So this whole idea of doing what makes you happy, I contend that most people don’t know that, and don’t know what that looks like, and consequently don’t know how to find it. Do you have the magic potion?

Jenny Blake: I think that people are clearer than they give themselves credit for. A lot of times when I ask someone, “What do you want, what makes you most excited?”, they first might say, “I don’t know,” and then if I say, “Just guess, what does your gut say?” They always say things, they have so many things to say. So I think sometimes it’s actually just a fear of saying it out loud that holds us back from saying it.

Jenny Blake: So just giving space to admit and explore what success might be, and what might bring you joy, even if you don’t know how to get there yet, that’s really important, separating out the vision piece from the how, the whole how as I call it in the book.

Jenny Blake: And John, I’m actually curious, because we talked offline and a few questions ago you brought up getting pivoted. You and I were talking about when September 11th happened. I’m really curious how you responded in that moment with your business, because there’s a great example where you did not choose that event, none of us would in any scenario ever, and yet it affected so many people, it sparked so many pivots. So I’m actually curious to hear about yours in your business.

John Jantsch: At that point, I was still on the path of what I would call a traditional marketing consulting agency. We had a handful of employees, and a handful of accounts that we did pretty much whatever they said they’d paid us to do. And as you mentioned, 9/11 came along, and I think this happened in a lot of places, it’s not a direct correlation. I think it was partly a lot of things. Change maybe needed to happen, and that was a catalyst.

John Jantsch: But we lost our two biggest clients, partly because of what was going on in their business that was related to some of the downturn in the economy that happened, but again, is probably too complex to try to even figure out. The bottom line was we were sitting there now staring at 60% revenue loss or something overnight.

John Jantsch: I had already been working on this idea of Duct Tape Marketing, this idea of working exclusively with small businesses where I could create a system and say, “Here’s what I’m going to do, here’s what you’re going to do, here are the results we hope to get, here’s what it costs.” And so, to your point about pivot, in a lot of ways I was dragging my feet on that, but when we lost our clients, I said, “That’s what I’m meant to do, so I’m going to go do it.”

John Jantsch: It did actually involve, in many ways, tearing my business back down to me, and starting from scratch for the most part. But I can sell anything, so I knew that wasn’t really going to be an issue. It certainly was a pretty dramatic pivot, but it was one that I actually knew I needed to do anyway, and I really just needed the push.

Jenny Blake: It’s so interesting how, yes, these moments like losing two of your biggest clients can turn out to be a blessing in disguise, even if at the time it’s the most stressful thing you could possibly experience.

John Jantsch: This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Rev.com. They are so many ridiculously valuable reasons to order transcriptions. You can write entire blog posts, heck, you could write an entire book, by just speaking it and having Rev put together a transcript that you can then just bring on home. If you want to record a meeting so that you have notes, again, over and over, there are so many good reasons. If you just want to take notes when you’re listening to something, and you just want to record those notes. It’s amazing the reasons you can find for doing this.

And Rev gets those transcripts, as I said, they do our podcast, they get those transcripts back to you lightning-fast. And I’m going to give you a free trial offer. If you go to rev.com/blog/dtm, that’ll be in the show notes too, you’re going to get a $100 coupon to try them out. And I suggest you do it.

John Jantsch: So you do have, in the book … I actually think so many career advice books tell you what you should be doing, but don’t tell you how to do it. And I think you have a really great methodology for how to identify, how to get there, how to figure out what you do that might signal what’s next, like, as you mentioned, how to finance it.

John Jantsch: So talk a little bit about this kinda search for … Let’s say I’m just unhappy and know this isn’t what I was meant to do. How do I start breaking down the hypothesis, so to speak, for what I’m meant to do next?

Jenny Blake: The biggest mistake that I made when pivoting that kept me stuck for a lot longer than necessary, without, by the way, a paycheck to fund this stuck-ness, my bank account was going very quickly to zero, was I spent way too much time looking at what wasn’t working, what I didn’t want, and what I didn’t yet have.

Jenny Blake: My aha moment came to me, I sort of thought about this analogy of a basketball player. When they stop dribbling, one foot is firmly grounded in the floor, it’s very stable, and that’s what I call the plant foot, the plant stage. And then their pivot foot can scan for opportunity.

Jenny Blake: One of the most effective ways to get unstuck is first to look at what’s already working, what are my strengths, what are my interests, and again that question of what does success look like. Now you have bracketed the pivot with where you are now and where you want to end up. Then you can start scanning for options, people, skills, and opportunities that are compelling.

Jenny Blake: It’s when people are scanning … Most people when they think, “I’ve hit a pivot point,” they go straight to scanning what’s out there, and they fall into compare and despair and analysis paralysis, they feel they’re wasting time, and they are because it’s not rooted in anything, it’s not grounded in those plant components. Everything starts from that plant stage, and then you’re scanning.

Jenny Blake: And then a real key is the piloting, small experiments. Because we don’t know, we don’t know. I love metaphors, they just help me, so think about pilots. You have all these racehorses at the starting gate, and you don’t know which of your small career experiments are going to take off and emerge in the lead.

Jenny Blake: So career pilots, because that’s kind of a newer concept, to think about experiments in a career sense, in your business that could be piloting a new pricing structure. It could be piloting a new type of client. It could be taking a class. It could be launching a beta version of a program or workshop before you roll it out to your whole audience.

Jenny Blake: A pilot could be calling your previous clients, which I know, John, is something that you advocate, and asking, “What can I create for you? What do you want?” And then try something in a scrappy way before you pour six months of work and $5,000 into it.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and I think what’s really cool is, in this gig economy or world that we live in, there’s a whole lot of things you can freelance and do on the side even, to maybe finance some of what you’re doing, but probably more than anything else give you a sense of what that would be like. Because I know a lot of people get this idea of, “Here’s what I want to do,” and they jump into it, and then they go, “Oh, that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I’ve figured out now.” There’s so many ways you can test this, aren’t there?

Jenny Blake: Yeah, and I feel like even within the broader career umbrella, let’s say you and I are running businesses, we could still be piloting different income streams within that. Now, you’re the king of this, so I’m curious, what is one pilot or two that you could share, that you’ve got going in addition to the core elements of your business?

John Jantsch: Well, my point of view is that you’re constantly piloting. I learned long ago that if I locked myself in a room and worked on something for six months and then rolled it out and said tada, there was about a 90% chance that people are going to go, “That’s not what we want.”

John Jantsch: So our method for developing any new program or tool or course is to go to people that we know already understand the value we bring and say, “We’re kind of sort of thinking about doing this. What would that look like for you?” And then come back and say, “Here’s what it looks like based on your feedback. How much would you pay for that? Try this out.”

John Jantsch: Anytime we develop anything, it is really with our clients or with a market. And again, there are certainly people that have had tremendous successes creating stuff that people didn’t even know they needed. But I find the really safe route is to go to a market and let them kind of develop and create with you.

Jenny Blake: Yes, I love that too. And then it becomes such a co-creation. You’ve talked so much about that in your books too, it’s having one ear to the ground. That’s one of the things about the scanning stage, it’s not just about trying to guess and pull things out of the ether. It’s about listening and doing, in the design thinking community they call it empathy interviews, which is just getting to know, exactly as you just described, what people actually would love help with.

John Jantsch: And I really think, again, it’s like having these board meetings and planning strategy. You have to actually go out there in the real world and experience strategy, or experience what you’re planning, and then know that it’s going to evolve, rather than to simply throw a dart at a board and say here’s what I’m doing.

Jenny Blake: Yes, and I think any good experiment will test what I call the three Es. One, do I enjoy this potential new direction? Two, can I become an expert at it? And three, is there room in the market to expand? So sometimes a pilot will hit on two, but not the third. If I love underwater basket weaving, and I’m a pro, but nobody wants to buy those classes from me, it’s no good. So I think part of it is just continuing to see what’s really going to catch on all those fronts.

John Jantsch: Is there a risk … I see a lot of folks at organizations that have been there two years and it’s like, “What’s wrong with you? You’re going to get stuck.” Is there a risk of too much of that thinking, to the point where people are just constantly looking elsewhere rather than maybe upping their game where they are?

Jenny Blake: Absolutely, that was something that I thought long and hard about with this book because I don’t advocate just changing willy-nilly, or pivoting, or job-hopping the second things get hard. I have a section where I talk about unrealized gains, and on the other end of the spectrum diminishing returns.

Jenny Blake: Unrealized gains are where you don’t stick with anything long enough to get any value. You’re leaving gains, whether it’s financial, reputation-based, or results-based gains. If I had left Google when I first entertained the thought two-and-a-half years in, it would have been a huge mistake because I wouldn’t have created this global coaching program that’s now mentioned on the cover of my book. I got a lot of experience capital from staying.

John Jantsch: Plus a bunch of stock options.

Jenny Blake: Yeah, a few. Not enough so that I didn’t have to worry about my next pivot in two years. But I know, I wish I had started pre-IPO, maybe I wouldn’t even be on this podcast, I would just be on a beach in Tahiti.

John Jantsch: No, we just would be talking about something different. But you’d want to be here for sure.

Jenny Blake: True, true. So I think that a part of it is also recognizing that we can pivot within our current role. Whether that’s within your own business or you’re working for someone else, pivoting is not always these drastic shifts, it’s just a method to work your way into what’s next.

John Jantsch: So what are some kind of quick, you can make them either dos or don’ts, whichever way you want to go, some quick things for people that either sabotage their ability to pivot or keep the ground fertile at all times.

Jenny Blake: Yeah, one of the biggest pitfalls, again, is not looking at what’s already working. Another pitfall is trying to stretch too far. There’s the comfort zone, stretch zone, but then sometimes people will have a move that sends them into their panic zone where they’re just paralyzed and not taking any action at all. That’s a sign that your experiment is too big, or your turn is too sharp. If we look at the pilot on an angle from where you are now, it’s too sharp. So I’d say those are the biggest mistakes.

Jenny Blake: And then another mistake is taking a pivot personally. We talked about this a little bit at the start, but seeing a career plateau as a problem, or a personal shortcoming, when actually it’s fine. Maybe some of your listeners know about the S-curve, which often we refer to in terms of innovation cycles. There’s this natural tapering that happens, and then you start over.

Jenny Blake: I’m sure even everyone who’s self-employed, you’re in a growth spurt, and then it tapers because of your success, not because of anything you did wrong. You just hit these natural plateaus.

John Jantsch: Yeah, in some ways it’s probably important to continue to look for things that excite you, if nothing else, because if you’re going to put in the work, why not enjoy it?

Jenny Blake: Yeah, absolutely.

John Jantsch: So where can people find out more about Pivot and the pivot method?

Jenny Blake: The website is pivotmethod.com, and then they can also listen to the Pivot Podcast, anywhere you subscribe to casts. John Jantsch has been a guest on my show, so that will be coming out soon. I’m on Twitter @jenny_blake.

John Jantsch: And of course, the book can be gotten wherever people get their books.

Jenny Blake: Yes.

John Jantsch: Awesome. Well, Jenny, thanks so much for stopping by today, and hopefully we’ll see you soon out there on the road.

Jenny Blake: John, thank you so much for having me, and a big thanks to everybody for listening.

Transcript of Creating a Winning SEO Strategy

Transcript of Creating a Winning SEO Strategy written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: Hey, this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by rev.com. We do all of our transcriptions here on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast using rev.com and I’m going to give you a special offer in just a bit.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Brian Dean. He is the founder of Backlinko.com a place where you can get actionable SEO advice. In fact, I so highly endorse it and his work, that you can find my picture on the homepage saying so.

John Jantsch: And he’s coming to us today from the little country of Genovia, somewhere in Eastern Europe. So, Brian, thanks for joining me.

Brian Dean: Hey, good to be here John.

John Jantsch: You missed the joke. Where are you really calling from?

Brian Dean: I’m in Lisbon.

John Jantsch: In Lisbon.

Brian Dean: I was just going to let it slide. I was like…

John Jantsch: Genovia is a fictitious country, surely you know this, in Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway. Great movie.

Brian Dean: And Andre the Giant.

John Jantsch: So no pop culture reference. Just went right by you.

Brian Dean: I would keep those out of the rest of the interview.

John Jantsch: I did actually have a question, this is my own curiosity, a lot of SEO folks do… you have a lot of clients in the U.S. I’m assuming.

Brian Dean: I actually don’t do client work.

John Jantsch: Oh, right. You have gotten out of that.

Brian Dean: Just courses.

John Jantsch: So if somebody was in your shoes or just even somebody like myself. I live in Kansas City, Missouri. I have clients in Canada and different places. What’s the best way to localize results? In other words, if you’re trying to check on results and track results, sometimes it’s a little challenging if your IP address is in Kansas City, Missouri. I was just curious if you were doing work for U.S. companies, are there tools out there that would or hacks that would allow you to kind of see what people in Kansas City, Missouri would see or people in Canada would see?

Brian Dean: Yep. Yeah, there’s a couple ways to do it. If you just want to get U.S. results and you’re not that concerned with the very geographic area like a state or a city, you can use a site I use all the time. It’s like if you open your browser and it suggests the top sites you go to, this is how much of an SEO nerd I am, it’s called proxysite.com. I wouldn’t even link to them in show notes, John. It’s kind of a shady site, but what it is basically is it’s like a web proxy so you can go to Google, use an IP address that’s in the States and search through it, and the cool thing is is that it’s not a VPN so it doesn’t have your browser history or any of that stuff implementing it. It’s almost like a virtual machine, like you’re using some other computer so the results are really good. They’re just totally unaltered by anything else. When I think of where do you rank, that’s for me the gold standard.

John Jantsch: Yeah, because a lot of times people don’t realize your browser history. I search all my favorite sites all the time and so in my view of search, they’re going to probably rise to the top, aren’t they?

Brian Dean: Oh definitely. That’s a big part of it, especially a page that you’ve visited before, Google will bump that up big time. You definitely want to go… that’s the easiest way because you can just check. If you want to get really into the nitty gritty, like someone searching in Kansas City, you can use a VPN, like… I don’t want to endorse any, but there’s tons of them. You can just find the city and state that you’re in or near and then search through an incognito window in Chrome or a private window in Firefox, and that’s basically what that person would see if they search for that.

Brian Dean: Rankings fluctuate all the time and all that stuff, but you’re getting a really good idea of what it looks like.

John Jantsch: I’m bummed out sometimes because I see pages of my own. I think, oh look, that’s ranked really high and then I do an incognito and it’s like not on page one anymore. I’m like dang it.

Brian Dean: Yeah, that happens to me. That’s why I go to ProxySite because it’s really fast and I only check through there because then I don’t have that… I’ve had that happen to me a million times.

John Jantsch: We’re in the middle of 2019 when we’re recording this show and you have a new course, or you’ve relaunched your course on SEO training. I guess the question, just because there is some evolution going on all the time, what’s kind of new big news in the world of SEO in general?

Brian Dean: I’d say the big shift that’s happening right now is user intent and Google’s ability to measure that and the importance of creating your site with user intent in mind. Basically what that means is the better your site can match what someone wants when they search for something, the higher it’s going to rank. All the traditional stuff like including your keyword on the page and getting links and having a brand and all that stuff will still help you, but at the end of the day, Google is getting really good at figuring out what people want from a search and making sure those results get bubbled to the top and those that don’t drop.

Brian Dean: Actually, over the last year we increased our organic traffic by like 80% just by going back to old content and totally changing it for user intent. To give you an example, we had a page that was optimized around the keyword SEO campaign, so John when you think of someone searching for SEO campaign, what do you think they are looking for?

John Jantsch: I would say that they are probably… they could be looking for somebody to run the campaign for them, they could be looking for an example of a campaign maybe, they could be looking for tips.

Brian Dean: Exactly, yeah. It’s good that you said that because there’s no one user intent usually for a keyword, there’s multiple. If I’m searching for keto desserts and you’re searching for keto desserts, we might want two different things, you know what I mean? There’s always going to be multiple user intents, but the point is what I had on the page didn’t really satisfy any, so it was… what it was was one example of one link building strategy, not even SEO. Just one guy how he did a link building strategy that I had taught and how it worked for him. I kind of shoe horned that keyword in there because I knew that people search for it and all the other traditional stuff, and it ranked for a while.

Brian Dean: Then about two years ago, it looked like the page got penalized. It went from top five to nowhere and it’s been hanging out in the third page ever since. I was like man, what’s happening? It has the keywords, it has links, it has all the traditional stuff, but it didn’t match user intent. People searching for SEO campaign were landing on it and they wanted what you said. They want an example, they want some sort of template, they don’t want a link building case study. It doesn’t make any sense. So I went back and totally reconfigured the page where now it’s a step by step how to create an SEO campaign.

Brian Dean: I included some of the stuff in the old post in there, just so I didn’t have to delete it all, but it’s literally 90% different and now it ranks number one for that keyword. Literally the next week it was number one. Google was able to measure, people reacted to it differently, it had the updated date which helped it get a temporary boost, and it stuck because it satisfied user intent.

John Jantsch: And you just said a whole bunch of things there that I think come under the category of going back and repurposing your content, because there are a lot of people that listen to folks like you and me and they started blogging a long time ago and they’ve got 100 blog posts that they wrote 10 for the last eight, ten years that they haven’t really gone back and looked at. They haven’t seen ways to sort of internally link them and so I think for a lot of folks, they could get a huge boost just by going back and refreshing old content, couldn’t they?

Brian Dean: Definitely. I would even put that under the category of what’s big right now in SEO, because I just came across an agency that’s all they do. They’re an SEO digital marketing agency. At the end of the day, it comes back to SEO as you know. They’re basically an SEO agency and all they do is update your old content. They position it a little differently. They do X, Y, and Z because there is kind of a lot to it, but the point is that when you sign up as a client they don’t create any new content for you, they don’t set up your social media, they don’t optimize your site.

Brian Dean: All they do is go back to your old stuff and reoptimize it and make it a better fit for user intent, and they’re getting awesome results because it’s so much faster to do that than to start from scratch and okay, let’s come up with 100 keywords. Let’s hire freelance writers. Let’s make sure we have screen shots and then publish it slowly over the course of weeks and months. You can do it in days and you’ll get a huge lift on some important pages.

Brian Dean: I would even put that in the category of what’s working right now at the top, and if you combine it with updating it but also saying how can I make this better and better match the keyword what someone wants, it’s a winning combo.

John Jantsch: I would add to that restructuring too, because I tell you where we’ve gotten huge, huge mileage is by taking that content, updating it, but then linking it all together, I mean in a logical way. So creating what I’ve been calling hub pages that are like the ultimate guide to local marketing and I basically create it as an outline or a course table of contents almost and then link all that content back together so that it becomes a little separate hub on the site and I think that that restructuring, we aren’t even doing as much as we should be doing to refresh the content, but just that restructuring immediately sends it through the roof.

Brian Dean: Nice, yeah. That’s another thing is the internal linking. I’m not… I usually don’t… I would say I don’t recommend internal linking but I don’t say you don’t need to internal link, because most sites don’t have the authority to make it worthwhile. Duct Tape Marketing does because it’s a huge, respected site with tons of links and it’s been around a long time. So when you internal link from page A to page B, it’s sending a lot of link authority to page B, but with most people they just internal link and nothing’s really going around. You know what I mean? It’s like a pipe with nothing in it.

John Jantsch: I was going to say the further part of that though is the structure. It’s not just an internal link. I mean, you’re right, those are nice, but we’re setting these up almost as table of contents for a topic that makes sense. I mean there’s probably 2000 words on that page, but then links off to in a very logical way. I think what a lot of times people, we get so fixated on the SEO value and we forget sometimes about the utility of that for the person who actually comes to that page who then clicks on 10 pages, bookmarks it, shares it, dwells on it for an hour, and I think that to me that’s the part that sometimes people miss when we start talking about SEO is that when you get actual users what they do on the page is so important as well.

Brian Dean: Yeah, that’s a really good point. It’s almost like a resource page 2.0 that you’re creating. The page itself has content to help you but it’s an intro to something greater, your other resources that you already have. Yeah, I’m looking to do more of that myself. I did a little bit of that, I have a guide called how to learn SEO, and it does link out to some other sites but it’s mostly my own stuff and it’s for that exact reason.

Brian Dean: If someone wants to learn SEO, I didn’t have a page to send them to be like here is the stuff you need to read. There wasn’t one place to send them, so now there is. So yeah, it’s a really good idea. I plan on actually doing more of that for these different topics, because that worked really well, kind of similar to what you saw when we approached it with this is a valuable resource, but more importantly it links to all this other stuff so it’s like one stop shopping.

John Jantsch: And then as you pointed out, we do link to some external resources and then we’ll reach out to those external resources and say, “Look at this amazing page that ranks really highly and we linked you. You ought to link to it,” and amazingly some of them do.

John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by rev.com. There are so many ridiculously valuable reasons to order transcriptions. You can write entire blog posts, heck, you could write an entire book by just speaking it and having Rev put together a transcript that you can then just bring on home. I mean, if you want to record a meeting so that you have notes, again, over and over, there are so many good reasons. If you just want to take notes when you’re listening to something and you just want to record those notes and get it. It’s amazing what the reasons you could find for doing this.

Rev gets those transcripts, as I said, they do our podcast. They get those transcripts back to you lightning fast and I’m going to give you a free trial offer. If you go to rev.com/blog/dtm and that will be in the show notes too, but you’re going to get a $100 coupon to try them out and I suggest you do it.

John Jantsch: Let’s debunk some myths. Are there any myths still hanging around from kind of first version of SEO that people are still propagating?

Brian Dean: That’s a good question. I mean, there are so many the issue is choosing one. I mean there’s 100. The thing is SEO, it got people kind of crazy. You were kind of getting there before when you’re saying you’ve got to remember users at the end of the day, but it’s easy with SEO stuff to completely forget users and just kind of act crazy. I was there. I’m not coming from a judgmental place because when I started in SEO, I launched my first site in 2008. I lived in a little apartment in New York. My favorite marketing book was Duct Tape Marketing. I had it in my bedroom believe it or not back then. And I was SEO, you need to do SEO. I didn’t even think about creating an awesome site, creating awesome content. It was all about tricking the algorithm and I didn’t really break that bad habit until 2012.

Brian Dean:  To answer your question, I would say the number one myth that people have is that Google likes a site that has a lot of content coming out all the time, this kind of big site, fresh content, need a lot of content myth that Google somehow has this preference for these big sites. It’s really not true. I’ve worked with sites that pump out 10 articles a day. I’ve worked with some that publish once a week or once every two weeks and there’s no correlation. It’s all about creating stuff that Google users want.

Brian Dean: Sometimes if you can swing it, like if you have a staff and you have a writing staff and you have an editorial process, you can put out multiple pieces of content a day that all check those boxes, but for most small businesses, including mine, it’s better to stay small.

Brian Dean: I’ll give you a good example. Like you mentioned, John, we just had a launch in my course and to do that we sent a lot of emails so we didn’t publish anything on the blog for about a month now, or three weeks, almost a month, and organic traffic has actually stayed remarkably consistent across the month. It’s like 0.5% higher than it was before without publishing anything. So Google doesn’t care that we didn’t publish anything because everything we already have is satisfying users and it continues to rank and that’s where most site’s traffic come from. I’m not saying don’t publish anything ever again, but the idea that you need to have this pedal to the metal publishing philosophy, I think it does a lot more harm than good.

John Jantsch: It actually taught people to publish crap.

Brian Dean: Yep, exactly. That’s what it came… exactly. Because it was Thursday and you’ve got to publish on Thursday and you don’t have anything good to say so it’s five reasons why X is important type of stuff. Yeah, and because it did actually work for a while. There was an update called Google Caffeine back in the day, it was probably 2006, that did give a preference to not just fresh content but sites that were putting out stuff, but then blogs blew up and it didn’t make any sense because every site was doing that. It didn’t need to be in the algorithm anymore.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and it really became important for them to start focusing on quality, them being the search engines, to focus on quality and I think that that probably goes more towards this idea of less but better.

Brian Dean: Yeah, exactly. Because you think Google 2006, 2007, if you searched for a really niche keyword, like how to write a press release or something, there were some results but there weren’t that many. They didn’t have 10 awesome results to put on the front page. Now they have plenty. It’s all about curating the best 10 and if you just put out the 50th best, you’re going to be in 50th place in Google, but if you work the extra mile to make the best, you have a shot of hitting number one.

John Jantsch: Okay, Brian. Not of course in the last 10 years or so, but did you ever put any words on pages and make them the same color as the background?

Brian Dean: No. That was one thing I… I’ve done black hat stuff, but I never did that.

John Jantsch: That was always my favorite. You’d go look at a website and you’d look at the source code and you’d go what is all this stuff?

Brian Dean: They just had the same keyword like 100 times.

John Jantsch: But you couldn’t see it.

Brian Dean: No, I never did that. I’ve done blog networks and whatever. But if it worked, I would have done it but by the time I got into SEO that was already kind of old hat.

John Jantsch: Since you mentioned blog networks, Google has explicitly said they’re a no-no, particularly… there are some ideas that it’s good content that’s curated but there certainly are people that are doing it just as an SEO play and Google is saying no, no, but it challenges… they can’t police it that well and it works. So how… I run across small business owners all the time that have been sold stuff like that that Google is saying we don’t approve of that, but it’s hard to sell them off of it because they’re like, “Well, look at the results it’s getting.” How does one sort of handle the fine line between what works and guidelines?

Brian Dean: It’s a tough one and the funny thing… good rule of thumb that I like to keep in mind is when Google says not to do something it’s because it works. If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t have to warn you, right.

John Jantsch: But I guess it would also eventually signal that they’re going to spank you eventually, right?

Brian Dean: Yeah, it’s kind of a shot across the bow. They warned people for years before 2012. They had an update called Penguin that just destroyed websites, including my own from back in the day. But at the same time they wouldn’t warn against it. So if they’re saying don’t do this, it means it’s working. If it is, they know it and they’re like, “Hmm, well we can’t really stop it with the algorithm so we’ll warn people until we figure something out that the algorithm can do.”

Brian Dean: What I would say to people is just the risk usually isn’t worth it. What I like to do, I usually say, “You know what? It’s up to you.” I don’t want to get on my high horse and start telling people what’s right and wrong. I say, “Look, it’s your business, it’s your site, it’s your call. If I were you, I wouldn’t risk it because what you’re doing is you’re getting a tiny boost in organic traffic and a lot of times compared to what you would do if you put in the same effort with white hat stuff, but you have this sort of Damocles above your head that one day you could wake up and it goes to zero and as someone that’s been through that, I can tell you it’s devastating.” That usually at least plants a seed where they’re like, “Hmm, maybe there’s something to not doing this.”

John Jantsch: Yeah, and it’s a shortcut that is probably zero benefit for your customer and there are a lot of businesses out there, the SEO folks, they’re trying to get their folks to rank, that turns into customers, but that’s the way I always view it is like is this something that would make my site more useful to customers and if the answer is just flat out no, I think that’s a pretty good rule of thumb too.

Brian Dean: I agree. Another one I sometimes… I don’t know where I heard this but it was basically like white hat SEO is when, which is a legit way to go about ranking, is where you could show Google everything you’re doing and they’d be fine with it. Anything that’s not that is probably a black hat. Like you’re getting away with it, but if Google did some sort of audit that shows everything you do with SEO and there was something you couldn’t show them, that’s probably something you should get away from, in my opinion.

John Jantsch: I wonder if we could take about five minutes, and I’m going to put you a little bit on the spot for a case study type of idea, because you can read a book how to do SEO, but the fact of the matter is what your business does, what your business objectives are is going to dictate maybe what your priorities should be in SEO. So for example, a B2B national company that sells say like software as opposed to a B2C local company that does I don’t know, basement waterproofing. Their SEO needs, challenges, priorities are probably different. Given that example, could you kind of say, “Yeah, that national software company needs to focus on X, Y, Z, whereas that local company probably needs to make sure they focus from an SEO standpoint on A, B, C.” Is that enough for you to kind of give us some guidance?

Brian Dean: Plenty. Yeah, the B2B software company I would 100% focus on creating content that your customers, around keywords that your customers search for. You’re a SaaS company, you hopefully [inaudible] and customers all the time. It’s a matter of figuring out what they’re searching for when they’re not searching for your software.

Brian Dean: So HubSpot is a great example. Very few people are searching for CRM software or CMSs, the stuff that they actually sell. Most people that are HubSpot’s customers are small business owners that are searching for stuff like how to get leads, how to blog, how to run Google ad words campaigns, how to run Facebook ads, all that stuff and HubSpot has completely crushed by almost ignoring these buyer keywords, which are only a tiny [inaudible] focusing instead on these information [inaudible] in front of their customers as a lead and then closing them on the phone. That’s the whole business model and it works really well. That’s what I would focus on as a B2B sales company, just tons have grown this way but HubSpot to me is the best example because they’re just absolutely crushing it.

John Jantsch: I think the key there is they focus not… because nobody wants what we sell. They want their problem solved and so they focus on what all the problems are, particularly problems early in the journey that can sort of endear them and get them [inaudible] who are these HubSpot? That’s a real key. Most websites are optimized for that person who’s got their credit card out ready to buy because they think your product or service solves their problem and I think they miss the entire journey up to that point.

Brian Dean: Those people, and you should have pages on your site dedicated to them, but it’s a slice… it’s a tiny drop in the ocean. If you look at the number of people who search for CRM software versus how to get customers, it’s like 10,000 to one. So for every one customer you’re going to get from this direct credit card in hand type of person, you can get hundreds from the how to get leads and how to get customers. It will take a little longer, you’ll have to nurture them, but that’s where the real money is.

John Jantsch: HubSpot is a great example. So on this B2C, this basement waterproofing company that just does business in their town, what do they need to focus on?

Brian Dean: They should focus 100% on local SEO, so Google Local, not… creating content makes no sense for them. For people searching for how to finish a basement or how to prevent leaks and all that stuff, a lot of companies do that because they’ll take the HubSpot approach and apply it to their local business and it just makes no sense. They just put out…

Brian Dean: I had a guy email me last week. It was a locksmith and he emailed me with this article, oh, I’m a locksmith and I just created this awesome post that I know people will share if only I could get the word out. What should I do to promote it? I don’t know, I was kind of bored, so I checked out. I looked at the post and it was like five ways to not get locked out of your house. Like the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. Something like don’t forget your keys and just nonsense. First of all, no one would ever read that, but even if it was good, it wouldn’t really help him. You know what I mean? He’s in a local area and the odds of that person in that area searching for him, needing a locksmith, it just doesn’t… the stars just don’t align.

Brian Dean: I’d focus on Google Local and getting awesome reviews. At the end of the day, [inaudible] sorry. Google My Business, they change their name every week, but yeah, the one they’ve stuck with lately Google My Business, so local SEO. So people searching for your business in city. The reviews are a big part of that and [inaudible] are part of it but you don’t need [inaudible] nearly as many to rank. Instead of like HubSpot creating a blog about this and that or about basements and man caves and all this stuff I’ve seen people do for basement companies.

Brian Dean: All you really need is like one or two pages that people will want to link to. It could be a list of places to visit in your town. It could be… it’s just link bait. Customers will never probably even see this. If they do, they’ll be like, “Oh, this is great. This is helpful.” Things to do in your town or other vendors or have a partnership or go to an event or speak at your chamber of commerce. These are all things that aren’t really content as we usually see it. They’re just pages to get some links that can help your overall website rank higher. That should be the goal for that company.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Unfortunately for a lot of businesses, particularly the consumer businesses, if you’re not showing up in that maps listing, which is kind of small these days.

Brian Dean: It’s a three pack now. It used to be seven. It was called a seven pack and now it’s a three pack. There are instances where you can do, like if people search in Google Maps, you can somehow, it depends on what they’re searching for, you can see more than three, but you’re right, John, for most keywords that are directly in Google if you’re not in the top three, you’re kind of invisible.

John Jantsch: And the 70% of people that are visiting those sites on a mobile device today, that’s the whole screen. It makes it even tougher. I think you’re absolutely right. I’ve been saying it for years and Google now… I do think they’re set on this one because they’re actually investing in it and adding to it and tweaking it so I think… in fact, here’s my prediction. I think they’re going to start rolling out features to make that a social network. In a community, I think your clients are going to be able to actually talk to each other at some aspect through your Google My Business page. That’s just sort of my prediction.

Brian Dean: That would be interesting. So more than just reviews, they’d actually be able to say, “I had this problem. Did they help?” Things like that.

John Jantsch: Exactly. They’ll have the question and answer feature, they’ll have the upload your finished your basement to it. I think they’re going to make it… I don’t know if it will ever be a social network, but I think that’s going to be their approach to network small businesses together.

Brian Dean: Cool. Yeah. I could see it.

John Jantsch: One… this is unfair because this is my last question I’m going to ask you and we could have done a whole show on this, you’ve invested a lot recently in video and so again, thinking of those two… let’s just use those two B2B, that SaaS company and that waterproofing company, how would video help them in telling their story and their SEO play?

Brian Dean: The B2B company, it would be really similar to the content strategy. The only difference would be what are your customers watching on YouTube, instead of what are they searching for on Google. But it’s the same idea. There’s a huge difference, in some cases, between those two things. Because YouTube is a big search engine, yes, but most of the views on YouTube come from people browsing around, come from suggested videos, the home page, so it’s important to create videos around what people tend to watch and not just what they search for, so both.

Brian Dean: With the B2B company, it’s a SaaS company, I mean it depends on what it is, but you basically take those same topics you found for your blog content and see if people are watching that stuff on YouTube. If so, great. If not, it’s time to get back to the users and kind of figure out what they’re watching on YouTube. As long as it’s somewhat related to your business, you can do well.

John Jantsch: Can you do keyword research while just using YouTube for that type of thing or are there some tools that somebody needs to employ to kind of get that discovery made?

Brian Dean: You mean to find search volume, people searching or people browsing?

John Jantsch: Yeah, what people are actually looking at.

Brian Dean: So for the search volume stuff, there are some tools that can do it. Google doesn’t really provide YouTube search volume really so they do impressions and things like that. It’s tricky to know how many people have searched for something on YouTube. It’s not like the Google keyword planner where they tell you a range. It’s really… there are some tools that can guesstimate but none are super accurate.

Brian Dean: What I like to do is just look at how many views those videos have on that topic. If you search for how to write a press release and the number one video has 3800 views and it was from five years ago, it’s probably not… no one’s watching that stuff. But if it has 200,000, it’s like oh, well there’s something here. That’s usually how I determine whether to make a video. If there’s already a video on that topic that’s done well, that’s a good sign.

Brian Dean: So for the basement company, what I would actually recommend is looking to see if there are any keywords that people search for in your local area that have videos that show up. This is an old trick that used to work and it still does in a lot of local areas. I see lawyers use it a lot where what they’ll do is they’ll basically create a keyword optimized video about their service or maybe more helpful, like how to help with the situation, and then the YouTube video will rank in Google results. Then you have two results in Google, you have your three pack or regular organic and then you have YouTube.

Brian Dean: So what people would do for example with a basement company, a lot of times they would create this fluff two minute video about how great they are, show the guys go into the house, hey, how’s it going, go downstairs, they’re fixing the basement, it’s amazing, they fixed it, blah, blah, blah, and you can have some of that stuff but it shouldn’t really be a commercial. It should be some content that is helpful and will keep people engaged. That way YouTube and Google see that people are engaging with the video and they’re more likely to put it on the first page.

Brian Dean: That’s more of a play to get on Google. It’s not really like you’re trying to get in front of your target customer while they’re watching videos. They’ll only need you if something’s wrong with their basement and they’re not going to remember your video from two years ago. It doesn’t work like that, but if you could show up on Google, it’s another spot, more real estate for your business which is important at that point of purchase time.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and then of course that person probably should be buying some ads, too. But that’s a topic for a whole other day.

Brian Dean: Oh yeah. That’s true.

John Jantsch: Well Brian, thanks so much for joining us. You can find everything about Brian Dean at Backlinko. It’s like link with an O dot com. Anywhere else or any other resources you want to share today, Brian?

Brian Dean:  No, that’s a good one. I would head over there and hop on the newsletter. That’s the only thing I’d recommend.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and take a look at how Brian structures his site and focuses on his site because you learn a lot just from paying attention to that. So Brian, great to catch up with you and hopefully all is well and the weather is good in Genovia.

Brian Dean: Thanks, John. I’ll remember that for our next podcast.

John Jantsch: Take care.

Transcript of The Secrets to Impactful Speaking

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John Jantsch: Choosing the right domain name is critical to ensuring the success of your small business, but it’s gotten a little harder. Now you can choose a .us domain to help your business stand out. Reserve your .us web address today. Go to launchwith.us, and use my promo code, PODCAST, for my special offer.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Allison Shapira. She’s the CEO, and founder of Global Public Speaking, Communication Training Farm, and she’s also the author of Speak With Impact, How to Command The Room, and Influence Others. So Allison, thanks for joining me.

Allison Shapira: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: So, I’m going to ask you a seemingly silly question, but I’d like to hear you frame this. Who needs to speak with Impact?

Allison Shapira: Everyone, in one word. My idea in the book is that every single day you have an opportunity to speak with Impact, whether you’re at a parent teacher conference, or whether you are sitting next to someone on an airplane who might potentially fund your next venture. We never know who we’re talking to, and every day we have this opportunity to make an impact.

John Jantsch: So, I’m sure in some of your work, particularly when it comes around to say working with you, and that’s going to cost somebody a fee, and there’s trying to judge the ROI on this. I mean, how do you first get somebody to realize maybe what not speaking with Impact is costing them?

Allison Shapira: Usually someone comes to me, because something has happened that is not good. Let’s say they [inaudible] presentation, or they didn’t win business that they were hoping to win, and they realize that it’s their communication that’s the problem. Or perhaps that because of their communication skills, the real value of what they do is not coming through. And so, usually by the time they get to me, they’ve already realized there’s a problem, and they’re taking steps to fix that problem.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I guess that’s usually the case, right? We have to admit there’s a problem for wherever we’re going to seek a solution to it, isn’t it? Because, I suspect there’re a heck of a lot of people out there that have risen to CEO ranks, or leadership ranks in big companies, and they are really holding themselves back, or holding the impact back, because they either assume they don’t need this help, or they just don’t bother to get it.

Allison Shapira: Right. And, my business model is based on finding the people who already realized they have a problem as opposed to going up to someone, and trying to convince them there’s a problem that they don’t see. That’s a much harder sell. And luckily, there are plenty of people who recognize they need help. And that’s kind of inward looking leader that I want to work with.

John Jantsch: Yeah. So one of the challenges I’m sure for a lot of folks that are… They’d realize that, and they’re coming for help is public speaking makes people nervous. And frankly, I do a fair amount of public speaking, and I can’t say I certainly suffer from getting nervous the same way I used to. But I think one of the real tricks is probably getting over looking nervous when you’re trying to have impact. How do you help people through that whole fear component?

Allison Shapira: Everybody feels nervous before they speak in public, and this could be having an important job interview with one or two other people, or it could be standing on stage addressing a huge crowd. Regardless, everyone gets some degree of nervousness, or feel some degree of nervousness. The goal is not to completely eradicate that fear. That’s nearly impossible, and unproductive. The goal is to help you overcome that fear, and harness it to create a positive energy that you have when you give the speech, or go in for that interview, or for that presentation or pitch. So, the techniques that I use start with trying to find the source of that nervousness.

Allison Shapira: What are the variables that you can control? Are you’re nervous, because you don’t know who’s going to be in the room? Walk to the room early, and start to meet people. Are you nervous you’re going to forget what you’re going to say? Well, prepare a particular type of bullet points that you can bring with you, and easily use if you lose your place. So, the more you can control the variables, the more comfortable you feel. And then, when you add to that reading techniques, relaxation techniques that I learned as an opera singer, then you can start to use those to calm the nerves to some extent. And then again, harness that energy in a positive way.

John Jantsch: You know, I’ve done this show for almost 15 years now, and you’re only the second former opera singer I’ve had on the show.

Allison Shapira: I’m not the first?

John Jantsch: Oh, maybe you are actually. I’d have to rack my brain, but I think you may indeed be the first former opera singer that I’ve had in my show. So, I know the quality of our connection, even though it is pretty good. It’s still analog, and digital, and whatnot all right? I’d have you sing something.

Allison Shapira: Yeah, like the credit, the sound is not optimal for an operatic performance right now. Nor have I warmed up for such a performance. So, maybe we can provide a link to a video of me performing.

John Jantsch: We will, I promise listeners, go to our show notes, and you’re going to find a link to that, among other things that we discuss today. So in your work, I’m curious how you fall down on this. Obviously in creating a speech, or speaking with Impact. There certainly is the content, and there is delivery. So how much of it is that? How much is the content, how much is the delivery?

Allison Shapira: There is no specific breakdown in terms of which is more important than the other. There are figures that are often cited. Those figures are usually wrong. And so, it really depends on who the audience is that you’re speaking to. And are they going to resonate more with the content, or the delivery of that content. As a general rule, we need both. The lack of one cannot be made up for by an abundance of the other. So, if you have really powerful content that you’ve crafted in a way that’s clear, concise and compelling, and you deliver it in a way that’s engaging, and authentic and confident, that’s when you have an impact, a positive impact on others, and you can’t compromise on either one. You need both.

John Jantsch: Okay, so let me ask that a different way. In your experience, what do people generally need more help with? Content or delivery?

Allison Shapira: Both. It’s really both. There are people who need help with the messaging. They ramble, they can’t get to the point. They are unable to clearly articulate what they do, or the value of what they do. And then there are others who have a clear value proposition, but they mumble it to the floor instead of looking in the eyes of their audience, or their voice is so scratchy because they don’t know how to project, and they don’t know how to protect their faults that it sounds like their words are falling into the back of their throat. And so, we don’t get the full power of those words. At people need both. Some people need more than, more than… one than the other, but it’s such a solid breakdown of both.

John Jantsch: All right. So, if I’m trying to create this clear and concise speech, is there a roadmap? Is there a template for what needs to be in it, or what boxes need to be checked? If I’m trying to figure out, “Okay, how do I do this?”

Allison Shapira: Yes. And in the book I outline a particular roadmap that you can use in a short amount of time. That starts with asking yourself a series of three questions. Who’s your audience? What’s your goal? And most fundamentally, why you? And by why you, I don’t mean why are you qualified? Where did you go to school? What PhD do you have? By why you? I mean, why do you care? What gives you a sense of purpose in your work? What are you proud of in your work? And when you can respond to that question, and answer into your speech, or presentation, or into the introduction of your pitch, then all of a sudden you connect with people on a much more personal, much more authentic level. And no matter how professional the situation we’re in, we’re human beings connecting with other human beings, and we have to bring our authentic self to that relationship.

John Jantsch: And, I think you just went a long way towards answering the fear question too, because I find that a lot of speakers just getting started. The fear is based in, they’re looking at me, you know? I have to perform. And, I think that where you really get over that is when you… Just what you mentioned there is, how am I here to serve? What do they need to hear that’s going to help them? And so, when you turn the focus on kind of serving the audience, whoever the audience is, or how big it is, I think that, I think a lot of individuals that really kind of takes away the fear because it changes the dynamic completely.

Allison Shapira: Exactly. It reduces the fear because it reminds you that you’re not just getting up to look good, or show off or show how many, how much you know. You’re getting up in the service of others, in the service of a mission that has others in mind, and not trust yourself. And, we may not like to be the center of attention, or we’re not. Our idea is the center of attention. Our audience is the center of attention. And once we reframe the purpose of speaking as not to show off but to serve others, then all of a sudden that sense of mission overrides our fear, and makes us stand tall, and animates our body and our language in a way that engages the audience. So, what we find is the right content, and the right mindset drive the right delivery.

John Jantsch: You know, I love sharing tips and resources with small business owners, and one of them is, you’ve got to choose the right web address for your business. And it’s gotten harder. All the good names are gone. But you can take a short relevant .us web address, and maybe come up with the best possible name for your business while it’s still available. And you’d be in pretty good company with some big hitters like zoom.us, and mastercard.us. I want you to reserve your .us web address today. So, I’ve arranged a special offer for my listeners. Register your .us domain for just $1.49 for a year. Plus you get free website builder, and hosting services for six months. So to go get my special offer, go to launchwith.us, and use my Promo Code, ‘podcast’. That’s launchwith.us, Promo Code, ‘podcast’.

John Jantsch: So when it comes to the performance, or delivery aspects of it, what are some of the really common things that you see so many people do that they need to clean up?

Allison Shapira: I see a lot of people who don’t recognize the power of their voice, and this is something I’m particularly sensitive to as a singer. And by voice, I mean the physical voice. They don’t take care of their voice, they’re at a loud networking event the night before, they their voice, and then they wake up early on chug coffee, and the caffeine is drying out their throat. So, I don’t see enough people recognize the power of their voice, and the fact that their voice is an instrument that needs care, and nurturing. And a lot of… What I write about in the book, and a lot of what I teach is about how to care for that voice. And then how to use breathing, and breath support to project your voice so that it reaches every single person in the audience. And it’s not about creating a false performers voice that’s different than your day to day speaking voice. It’s about finding your most powerful natural voice, and making sure it’s the natural voice that goes on stage, not the nervous second guessing voice, which is what we hear instead.

John Jantsch: When I network with a lot of professional speakers, and professional speakers that are getting paid 10, 15, $25,000 for a performance. Quite often, we’ll actually hire and employ a vocal coach, just for many of the reasons you’re talking about.

Allison Shapira: Exactly, but it’s not only professional speakers who need this. When we think of the fact that every single day we have an opportunity to have an impact through our voice, whether on a conference call, a phone call, a pitch, a difficult conversation, because of that, because we use our voice every day, then we have to care for it every day. And, more and more of us regardless of what industry we’re in, are flying on airplanes, we’re taking the train, we are always on the road, and that takes a toll on our physical body, which takes a toll on our abilities than to speak, and to have an impact. And so, we all need to recognize it, whether or not we get paid for speaking, we all need to take care of our voice.

John Jantsch: How much, and I know that this is sort of reliant on how high the stakes are, but for a presentation that you’ve got a lot riding on it, let’s say, how much is rehearsal a part of that?

Allison Shapira: Rehearsal is a significant part of it, and there are different ways of rehearsing. In fact, I talk about six different ways of rehearsing in the book. It’s not simply about reading the speech over, and over, and over again, and memorizing it. That’s not what I want people to do. There’s the process of reading it out loud to make sure it sounds good to your ear, and you can pronounce it comfortably. And then, there’s reducing it to bullet points so that you don’t have a script in front of you. You have bullet points that you can clearly refer to if you need to. There’s practicing in front of other people to make sure it has the intended effect, and you see other people’s reactions.

Allison Shapira: And then, there are unique methods that I recommend such as mental rehearsal where you sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and then visualize the presentation word for word in your mind, and visualize it going well. And that’s such a powerful way of practicing, because it tricks your mind into feeling like you’ve already given the speech successfully. So you’re building up repetition, which builds your confidence. So there are different ways of rehearsal, and I recommend people choose at least three methods of rehearsing according to the speech, and the audience.

John Jantsch: So, you are in the DC area, so I’m guessing you work with maybe more politicians than some speech coaches. Am I wrong on that?

Allison Shapira: You’re wrong. I actually don’t work [crosstalk 00:15:30].

John Jantsch: You don’t. Oh, okay. I thought you just might because of your-

Allison Shapira: It’s a fair assumption, but actually I’m not passionate about politics, more passionate about individual businesses having an ability to make impact in their own way. And so, I love working with business, and with the nonprofit sector, and all different sectors, but I don’t work as much in politics unless, I know people running for office, and they ask for my counsel.

John Jantsch: Well, the point of my starting down that track was, I was going to just get your opinion. Is there something that really good polished politician who speaks a lot, typically can have a lot of impact, and a lot of influence? Is there anything that you see that the business owner could learn from sort of the eye that’s on politicians so often? That was the point of my question, but you may not have an opinion on that.

Allison Shapira: I do actually based on why I do, or don’t work in politics. What politicians do really well is, they focus in on core messages, and they repeat those messages, and they stay on message. And that’s something that a business owner of any size business needs to keep in mind. What are the three main messages that I want to keep repeating? Because, whatever I say becomes the talking points of my company that my employees will use, that will determine what our clients say. So this idea of having clear, concise messaging, and staying on point is very important for business owners. Where I don’t want them to sound like your stereotypical politician is in this sense of overly polished, inauthentic delivery style, which is something that politicians are challenged by.

Allison Shapira: How do you come across as genuine and authentic and not overly perfect and polished. And so, for the business owner I want them to know it’s okay to make a few mistakes while you’re speaking to have a few ums, and uhs. It’s okay to lose your place as long as you bring your authentic self to the speech or presentation, which is what the question, why you helps you achieve. And that’s something that we don’t see as much of, but I wish we could in politicians.

John Jantsch: So, you mentioned ums and uhs. There’s an App for that, I understand.

Allison Shapira: There are several. There’s one in particular, there’re a couple actually that I really like. There’s one particular app called Orai, that you can use to practice your fillers, and get feedback, and they have great interactive exercises that will help you reduce the use of ums, and uhs and other fillers like Kinda, and sorta, or minimizers like just, or I think. That’s a great practice tool. There’s another app called Like So, that also helps you connect with your, or identify your fillers and start to remove them. Those are two that I really like, and use personally with my… for myself, and that my clients will use as well.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I really didn’t think that I’d use them that much until I started getting recorded. And then I was like, “Holy Mackerel.” I use those a lot more than I thought I did. And so, I think a lot of people probably suffer from that, watch yourself videoed, and all of a sudden you will maybe be horrified but, I’ve realized that there’s things that you do instinctively.

Allison Shapira: That’s right. And there’s nothing wrong with one or two fillers here or there. They’re genuine, they happen. Nothing wrong with that. The challenge is when you have [inaudible] of them, that they undermine your credibility and your authority. So, if every other word is um or so, it looks like you’re making up your message as you go. The content could be perfectly credible, but too many fillers will make you appear unprepared. And so, that’s why we want to be aware of them. We don’t often hear them when we’re doing… when we’re speaking them, which is why you hearing yourself on a recording is what it takes to prompt your awareness of them.

John Jantsch: So, you mentioned breathing as well. And, a lot of people probably don’t consider that an aspect of speaking, because I mean we all breath, right? But again, going back to my experience, I remember when I first started, that was a serious issue. I’d get about three force the way through making a point and go, “Oh my God, I have to get a breath. Breath in here somehow I’m going to pass out.” And, I think a lot of people underestimate how important that aspect is. How do you start recognizing that and working on that?

Allison Shapira: Breathing is critical. And as you said, it’s something that we all know is important and we do instinctively, which is a good thing. The challenge is, when we get nervous, the first thing that goes is our breathing. We stop breathing, or we constrict our breathing, which means we’re holding ourselves back from getting the nourishment that we need to relax ourselves, and to keep going. So the breathing techniques that I use are [inaudible] to help you use breathing in a very intentional way to relax, to calm down, to center yourself before a speech or presentation. And, the phrase I use with people all the time is called Pause and Breathe.

Allison Shapira: Pause and breathe is what you do before you’ve given a presentation. When you have 40 other things on your mind, and all these unanswered emails, and employees asking you questions that you don’t have the answers to, pause and breathe. And then, that’s what you do in the moment when somebody asks you a question you didn’t anticipate, or you lose your place, pause and breathe, and then keep going. And that’s also what you do before you let all the fillers come out, pause and breathe, and then you’ll reduce the use of fillers.

John Jantsch: Sounds like good life advice anyway.

Allison Shapira: Exactly. It is.

John Jantsch: So, Allison, do you have a great number of resources related to the book on your website, and it is allisonshapiro.com, and we’ll have links to the resources, but do you want to tell people where they can find out more about your coaching work, and obviously about Speak With Impact?

Allison Shapira: Absolutely. The website I’m sharing with people is, speakwithimpactbook.com, and that takes you to a very specific page on the website where people can sign up for a free download of a chapter of the book, watch a video about the book and also learn more about all of the ancillary services.

John Jantsch:  Allison thanks for joining us, and hopefully I’ll see you someday out there on the road soon.

Allison Shapira: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, John.

Transcript of Creating Customers Who Are Loyal for Life

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John Jantsch: Hey, this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by Rev.com. We do all of our transcriptions here on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast using Rev.com and I’m going to give you a special offer in just a bit.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Sandy Rogers. He’s the leader of the Franklin Covey loyalty practice and also a co-author Leading Loyalty: Cracking the Code to Customer Devotion. So Sandy, welcome.

Sandy Rogers: John, thank you. I’m thrilled to be here.

John Jantsch: So customer loyalty is one of those things that seems to have maybe gone out of the buyer behavior vernacular. I know my grandfather would about every three years go buy a Chevy Caprice because he was a Chevy person, but now I look at my kids and not so loyal to the companies and the brands that they buy from. Is that part of buying behavior gone?

Sandy Rogers: Well, it’s interesting. Some people argue that loyalty is dead. It’s easier to switch, right? Gas stations, restaurants, you can buy the same clothes from all these different places. But we find loyalty is alive and thriving in so many organizations. And it comes down to the behavior of the people and how they treat us.

John Jantsch: And I think that’s a great point because it was actually harder to leave. You had to go to that one place a lot of times because you didn’t have all the opportunities or the ways to find. So I don’t think that people are less loyal. They just put up with less, right?

Sandy Rogers: Well that’s right. And the competition for our business is definitely greater. Technology is playing a bigger role. But I think good old fashioned how we’re treated can really differentiate organizations today. But it’s all about putting their people into a position to do the things that we describe in the book Leading Loyalty.

John Jantsch: These loyalty programs have been around for a long time. In fact, you spent some time with a rental car company and they, airlines, rental car companies have these loyalty programs. Do those still work to foster loyalty or are they just kind of a holdover from the past?

Sandy Rogers: Well they certainly can help. But they’re easily copied by competitors and everybody’s got these loyalty programs, reward points, discounts and so on and what we’re talking about is not the loyalty that you get with inertia or momentum. We’re talking about the fierce loyalty that is [inaudible] in the heart. The kind of loyalty that gets people to go out and tell their friends about an experience, or about a brand. It’s… they describe these companies and these people as, “I love these guys!” And that doesn’t come from a rewards program. That’s from a personal interaction.

John Jantsch: Yeah, my favorite promotion is the promotion for new customers, right? I’m loyal and I’ve been with you for 10 years and the new person gets the discount, I don’t get anything. I almost think those are disloyalty programs. So since you kind of opened up this idea of the heart being at the center of loyalty in some ways, what role then does company culture really play in customer loyalty?

Sandy Rogers: Well I went to business school years ago and we learned a lot about strategy, right? A brilliant strategy to beat your competitors and be different in the marketplace and I love years later reading Peter Drucker’s comment that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” And you know been at Apple and at Proctor & Gamble and at Enterprise Rent-A-Car and now Franklin Covey I just can’t agree more. And also seeing the impact of culture across so many organizations. Companies that do the same stuff, but they deliver such different results because of their cultures. Take Southwest Airlines or Chick-fil-A or Enterprise or American Express or Zappos, there are tons of examples of businesses that are one on the surface because yeah, that’s a commodity business and yet the outcome for customers is very different as a result of culture.

John Jantsch: I wrote a book called Referral Engine was one of my books as a lot of my listeners know and I wrote a line in there about referability and I think I said something like, “Your employees are probably treating your customers exactly like they’re being treated.” And I think that kind of goes to… I mean it makes total sense, doesn’t it? I mean the front line people are going to go out of their way… some of them are just going to go out of their way because they’re nice people, but most of them are going to go out of their way because they really believe in the mission.

Sandy Rogers: Well exactly. My friend Shep Hyken who’s written a number of books about customer service, and he says that, “The customer experience rarely exceeds the employee experience.” And Jack Taylor, the founder of Enterprise Rent-A-Car understood that so well. We were out visiting branches one day. I ran the branches in our [inaudible] operation. He was asking people, “Are you having fun?” And I said, “Jack, ask these people about their sales numbers. Ask them about their customer service scores.” And he kept introducing himself and saying, “Oh my gosh, are you having fun here?” And I said, “Why are you asking if they’re having fun?” He said, “Because Sport, if they’re not having fun, nothing else really matters. We’ve got to first earn the loyalty of our employees which then leads to the loyalty of our customers and then sales growth and then profit. And it has to happen in that order.”

John Jantsch: So the title of the book is Leading Loyalty so how does… I mean clearly the leader sets the tone for that. So how does a leader create loyalty?

Sandy Rogers: A leader creates loyalty by first adopting what we call a loyalty leader mindset. And our mindset, the way we think about the world, affects our behavior. And our behavior has to adhere to these three core loyalty principles that we talk about in Leading Loyalty. These are empathy, responsibility, and generosity. And principles are these things that you can’t ignore. If you ignore or violate these things, you’re not going to earn the loyalty of the important people in your life.

John Jantsch: So the principles are a great starting point. Unfortunately that’s where a lot of books end. One of the things that I like about this book is you also have a pretty detailed process. You want to kind of give us the high level view of what the process for earning loyalty of your customers is?

Sandy Rogers: Well it is. So we teach in the book the three core loyalty principles, empathy, responsibility, and generosity, but we teach how to bring those to life through two practices. So for example, the way that I have empathy for someone is that I need to understand their story so I’m feeling what they’re feeling. I accomplish this by first making a genuine human connection and then listening to learn their story. So those are the two practices that go with empathy. With responsibility, I’ve got to discover the real job to be done and then follow up to strengthen the relationship. And with generosity I’ve got to share insights openly in a generous way and surprise people in unexpected ways. And so you’ve got to do all of these things. The process we describe in the book is a series of 11 huddles, you and your team carve out 15 minutes a week to talk about these principles and practices and most importantly celebrate the people who are doing what you talked about last week in your 15 minute huddle.

John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by Rev.com. There are so many ridiculously valuable reasons to order transcriptions. You can write entire blog posts, heck you could write an entire book by just speaking it and having Rev put together a transcript that you can then just bring on home. I mean if you want to record a meeting so that you have notes, again over and over there are so many good reasons. If you just want to take notes when you’re listening to something and you just want to record those notes and get it… it’s amazing what the reasons you can find for doing this. And Rev gets those transcripts, as I said they do our podcasts, they get those transcripts back to you lightning fast and I’m going to give you a free trial offer. If you go to Rev.com/blog/dtm and that’ll be in the show notes too but you’re going to get a $100 coupon to try them out and I suggest you do it.

John Jantsch: So one of the things I see all the time is that a lot of times customers don’t remain loyal because nobody asks them to. I can’t tell you how many small businesses I’ve gone into and they’ve got a list of 1,500 customers that they haven’t contacted in two years. So what role does just simple follow up play in loyalty.

Sandy Rogers: Chapter Seven and Huddle Seven, so each of the chapters has a huddle at the end, is about following up to strengthen the relationship. And that’s what responsible organizations do and certainly ones that want to earn loyalty. One of the reasons John that I think people avoid following up is that they’re afraid of hearing about problems. And this is not something to be afraid of. In fact this is one of our best opportunities to turn a customer who may be a detractor into a fierce promoter. And so we talk about for example, if you come across a problem, use the five A’s in effective follow up and we borrowed these from the Apple Store. The five A’s are one, assume the other person has good intent. Assume they’re not trying to rip you off. They’re the 99 out of a hundred that are good people. Align with the person’s emotions. You don’t have to agree with them, but at least get on the same side of the table as they are. Apologize with no defensiveness. Ask how can I make this thing right? And assure the person that you’re going to follow through and do it. And so in Chapter Seven in the huddle you learn about these things, you practice. I mean these scenarios are great. It’s mostly fun to be the angry customer but then the other person uses the five A’s, make the person happy.

John Jantsch: So you mention two concepts that I want to go a little deeper in. The one is make a genuine human connection. I think that in some cases the online world we live in, social media we live in, in some ways we’ve lost that art a bit I think maybe just a touch. I mean you can run businesses today without actually ever meeting a customer. So how do we bring that back. I mean you actually have a process that you train people on, but how do we maybe bring that back into the business.

Sandy Rogers: Well we… You’re right. Many businesses that we are loyal to, we don’t talk to people. I’ve bought lots and lots of stuff from Amazon. I do lots of things with Southwest Airlines, and I might do it myself. I do a lot of things with my bank by myself. But when there’s a problem, even Amazon, I had a problem last year, and I found the phone number I needed to talk to a human being, and I was blown away by how well they took care of it, which gave me tremendous confidence to continue to serve myself and use the wonderful app they designed. But this idea of making a human connection happens in the products that we design. We decide when we use the app for the first time whether their designer was doing so with the principles that we talk about. Do they have empathy for me? Are they taking responsibility for what I’m really trying to get done, which is quickly change my flight to a different day. Are they being generous with my time or are they asking me for things they should already know because of my 10 year history with them. And in real life when we’re interacting with customers, that genuine connection is as simple as eye contact. It’s smiling and it’s acknowledging people.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Do you… I know you do a lot of training and I’m sure that organizations bring their teams, their retails staffs to you. Do you find that… I’m going to make all my younger listeners mad here, but do you find that that’s a generational thing that those basic things that maybe we were taught are not taught and expected as much in a younger generation?

Sandy Rogers: Well we know that Generation Z and Millennials have a lot of confidence interacting online with their thumbs and we through this book, one of our goals is to make sure everybody’s equally comfortable face-to-face and not picking on one group over another but it certainly helps to address what you’re describing. And just a little [inaudible 00:12:39], you could be the third person in line and I could be working the host stand and just with my eye contact and a smile and an expression I can let you know I see you, I’m so sorry you’re having to wait, I’m going to take care of you. And you know what? That’s going to make you feel okay. You’re going to be like, “All right. Good. The guy’s acknowledged me.” What is crazy is when people pretend like they can’t see us, like we’re invisible or something.

John Jantsch: One other thing that you mentioned that I want to go back to because I’ve heard this term before and I’d like you to maybe define it a little deeper. Understand the real job to be done.

Sandy Rogers: Well now an example I frequently give, a man comes into a hardware store, “I’m looking for a wrench.”

Sandy Rogers: “Oh, they’re right over in Aisle 14.”

Sandy Rogers: That’s not taking responsibility for anything. So instead, “Come with me. You’re looking for a wrench. What are you working on?”

Sandy Rogers: “Well, I’ve got this old fence in my backyard and I’ve got to pull these rusty nuts off these bolts so I can get rid of the fence.”

Sandy Rogers: “Well sir, do the nuts and bolts look like any of these?”

Sandy Rogers: “They look just like those hexagonal ones there.”

Sandy Rogers: “Ah, to grip the rusty edges of those nuts so you can pull the bolts out and get rid of your fence, you’re going to need a set of box wrenches and this should do the trick.”

Sandy Rogers: And so that’s the real job to be done is to help the guy get rid of his fence, not to sell him a wrench. And so many businesses miss that opportunity to ask a question that would allow their customer who they want to be loyal to explain what job they’re actually trying to do.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I’m almost laughing because particularly you go to your local neighborhood Ace Hardware, and that’s the approach that those old guys have always taken. But today you go to the sort of box store and let’s face it, they’re having trouble actually getting folks. Maybe that person’s been there a week and so how do you… I mean it really… it’s very difficult I think to… well here I’m answering your question instead of asking a question. Does it become difficult for an organization that maybe has high turnover because of the nature of their business to kind of keep that vibe and that culture alive?

Sandy Rogers: Well, you’re right. I mean why should I get in my car and go to some store if I’m not going to do any better than just buying it online and having it delivered to the comforts of home? So what’s going to differentiate that in-store experience are the people. And front line people have notoriously high turnover. They’re the least trained. They’re the lowest paid. They’re the least engaged according to Gallup. And yet they’re the most critical for defining that different between a good and a great experience, right? So it’s all about people and the behavior. So the first thing we’ve got to do is treat our people with the same principles that need to be applied to the customers. We’ve got to earn their fierce loyalty first and the secret to that is to put them into a position to enrich the lives of their customers. Rather than tying them down with scripts and policies they hate, instead encourage them to say, “Hey look, this is the mission.” Jack Taylor for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, founder of the largest car rental company said years ago, “It’s real simple. When people walk out that door they should feel like wow, that was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.” And so that’s what we got to get more retail stores to be doing with their folks.

John Jantsch: So at FranklinCovey you do leadership, or I’m sorry customer loyalty training. What does that look like?

Sandy Rogers: We help organizations that want to dramatically improve their customer loyalty. And it’s built off the work I did at Enterprise years ago where we measured customer service across all of our branches and then we held people accountable for improving and over the next 10 years we went from delighting 66% of our customers to 80% of our customers across thousands of branches and we reduced the variation which is always the biggest problem in a chain from 28 points down to less than 12 points. We tripled the sales in this 10 year period from two to $7 billion. And this story got Fred Reichheld at Bain & Company to create the Net Promoters Score. It inspired the creation of NPS. And so our work at Franklin Covey in the loyalty practice is to help organizations do what we did at Enterprise. Measure their customer service accurately so they know who on their front line needs to get better at customer service and then give them a training process which we describe in the book so that everybody does these loyalty principles more often.

John Jantsch: Visiting with Sandy Rogers, author of Leading Loyalty: Cracking the Code to Customer Devotion. You want to tell people where they can find out more about the book itself and certainly about your training practices.

Sandy Rogers:  They can learn about the book at their favorite bookseller, certainly at Amazon, Leading Loyalty: Cracking the Code to Customer Devotion. They can go to our FranklinCovey website and learn about what we offer in the area of loyalty and certainly find me on LinkedIn.

John Jantsch: Well Sandy thanks for joining us and hopefully we will run into you someday out there on the road.

Sandy Rogers: Thank you so much.

Transcript of Getting Salespeople and Prospects on the Same Side

Transcript of Getting Salespeople and Prospects on the Same Side written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: Hey, this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by Rev.com. We do all of our transcriptions here on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast using Rev.com. And I’m going to give you a special offer in just a bit.

John Jantsch: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Ian Altman. He is a leading authority on accelerating business growth and sales. He’s also the co-author of the best selling book, Same Side Selling: How Integrity and Collaboration Drive Extraordinary Results for Sellers and Buyers. So, Ian, welcome to the show.

Ian Altman: John, thanks for having me back.

John Jantsch: So, let’s just get the title out there, there are a lot of sales books, lots of sales methodologies, what does Same Side Selling kind of bring that’s new to the world of sales?

Ian Altman: Well, it’s really a modern approach. If you think about it, almost every sales book that’s ever been written either uses a game metaphor or a battle metaphor. And in a game, you have a winner and a loser. And in a battle, the loser dies. And then we wonder why we end up in this adversarial position between buyer and seller. And the model that we put forth in Same Side Selling is a puzzle metaphor that says, “Look, with your client, you have a bag with puzzle pieces in it. They have a bag with puzzle pieces in it.

Ian Altman: Unless we sit down side-by-side at a table and put our pieces on the table, we don’t whether or not we have a fit. So it’s not about persuasion or coercion. You can’t coerce somebody if they’re puzzle pieces don’t fit your puzzle.” And so, it’s much more even-handed. It’s not a beauty pageant, “Pick me, pick me.” It’s more, “Do I have something that’s of value for you? And can I help you better than somebody else?” And if so, we have something to talk about. And if not, may not be worth our time.

John Jantsch: So, I’m picturing the person who just got their quota for this quarter who is listening to the show saying, “Yeah, but … Yeah but … I …” Right?

Ian Altman: Sure.

John Jantsch: I mean, so how do you get that person to think … Because this is probably a long-term approach, right? I mean, you’re saying there are times when you have to say, “We shouldn’t be together. We shouldn’t play together.” So, how do you get that person who’s being driven to make a number?

Ian Altman: Well, so here’s the interesting part. We have all these case studies in the second edition of Same Side Selling that profile companies that achieved extraordinary growth, while actually pursuing fewer opportunities. So, old school was a sales and numbers game. You just have to make so many phone calls. And our approach is, it’s not about … If you recognize that it’s not about persuasion or coercion, it’s about finding the best fit, then instead of just saying, “I want to speak to anybody with a pulse.” You say, “You know what? These are the three problems that a business … as a business, we are really good at solving.”

Ian Altman: And if I can find people who are facing those challenges. I’ve got a pretty good chance of capturing their attention. And these are problems that are significant enough, they’re likely to spend money to solve them. As opposed to the old school was, “Let me get anybody with a pulse. And now that I’ve got them with a pulse, let’s hope that maybe I can get them to slip into a coma and they’ll accidentally sign a contract.” And it’s just a futile way to go about trying to grow your business. So, in many cases, it’s about narrowing your focus, rather than broadening your focus.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I’ve been saying for years that I think a lot of times the company that can explain or communicate the problem the best, is probably the one that’s going to get invited. But what about … I mean, I do also know … Like I get calls all the time, “I have a broken website, come out and fix it.” Well, that’s sort of the problem, but it’s not the real problem. You know?

Ian Altman: Yeah.

John Jantsch: And a lot of times our clients don’t know what the real problem is. They just know where it hurts.

Ian Altman: Yep.

John Jantsch: So, how do we define where it hurts in a way that ties back to what we can do to bring value?

Ian Altman: Well, so for example, let’s say that somebody offers IT services to law firms. So, they could say, “Well, we help businesses that have problems with their IT services.” And the problem is, everybody who does IT service is going to say the same thing. But what’s actually going to move the needle for the law firm? Well, what’s really going to move the needle for the law firm is once they recognize that they’re losing billable time, once they realize that their technology issues are impacting their ability to attract and retain younger associates who they want and need to grow and have succession planning.

Ian Altman: It’s understanding that they might be impacting their firm’s reputation when things don’t go well. So, I wouldn’t say, “Oh, I fix IT issues.” If I was them, I would say, “Well, our clients come to us.” And this is something we refer to in the books as a Same Side pitch. “Our clients come to us when they’re facing one of two or three major problems as a law firm.” One is that they’re having IT issues that’s causing them to lose billable work and billable time. So, they’re partners and associates are getting frustrated because they’re spending time on something. And then it gets lost. They have to recreate it.

Ian Altman: The second thing that causes is, all of the sudden they now miss deadlines. They potentially could lose those clients longer term. And the third thing is that man … because they have all these IT issues, the newer and younger associates they’re trying to attract say, “Man, you guys aren’t relevant. How come I can’t just access this stuff from anywhere, anytime? That’s what we’re looking for?” So, for the right firms, they tell us that we’ve got a solution that streamlines all that, so those problems go away.

Ian Altman: But the way we approach it, “Man, it’s not the right fit for every firm. So, I don’t yet know if we can help you. But if that’s something you’re facing, I’m happy to learn more to see if we might be able to help.” And the whole idea is that at no point am I really talking about the technology.

John Jantsch: Yeah. The fact it’s almost still relevant, right? I mean, if you could fix those problems, I don’t really care how you do it.

Ian Altman: Exactly. If my solution was, I have 1500 gerbils in a back room. You’d have two questions. One is show me 20 other firms that are getting results from that. And the second is, is it legal? Right? And if both of those pass muster, you’d be like, “Dude, you don’t even want to know how we solved it. But our IT is humming.”

John Jantsch: So, one of the kind of core foundational elements of this book or your approach. Is this idea of finding impact together. So, you want to unpack that idea?

Ian Altman: Yes. So, the idea of finding impact is that we used to have this notion of always be closing your ABC, made famous by Alec Baldwin and Glengarry Glen Ross. So, always be closing. And instead, we want to think about finding impact together. Meaning, if let’s say, and using the same example, if someone at a law firm said, “Oh, we have IT issues.” “Well, yeah, but is that really causing enough angst in your firm to make it worth solving this?” So, what we’re trying to do is uncover, is that issue driving enough impact?

Ian Altman: Is it important enough to solve, to make it worth our time to help them find a solution? Because there are some things that people face that are kind of a nuisance, but they’re never going to spend money to try and fix them. And the most frustrating thing in a business is when somebody appears to be interested, and you spend weeks or months working with them. And you lose to a non-decision. And they just say, “Nah, we’re going to stick with what we have.” And you think, “Why did I waste my time with these people?” So, finding impact together is a series of questions that we ask to figure out, is this problem likely something that they’ll spend money to solve?

John Jantsch: So, I can hear Alec Baldwin, “Sit down, coffee is for people who find impact together.”

Ian Altman: Yeah. That’s right.

John Jantsch: Something like that. Anyway. So, one of the … As a fact, you dedicate an entire chapter to this, this idea of finding people that are sufficiently motivated to invest in a solution. Because I think they’re … It’s really easy to find people that are leaking oil. That part’s actually pretty easy. But how do we find the difference between those people that clearly need us to help them and the ones that are motivated to invest in a solution?

Ian Altman: Well, so it’s simple questions. It’s things like … So, someone says, “Yes, we’re having this IT issue.” And you say, “So, what happens if you don’t solve that?” And what you’re trying to do is be curious to see if they can convince you that the problem is really worth solving. So too often what happens is someone says, “Oh, I’d like to solve our IT issues.” And people come back and they forecast it at 90% because someone said, “Oh, they contacted us about IT issues.” But if you ask the question, “Well, so what happens if you don’t solve it?” “Oh nothing, it’s been going on for years. And no big deal.” “Huh, okay.”

Ian Altman: So, that’s a big challenge that if you don’t have these sorts of questions, you can be chasing rainbows all day long. So, you were talking before about, what does the person who’s got a quota, deal with? Well, the reality is, that that person who’s got a quota, needs to recognize that you can … What if they could double their growth rate while pursuing 40% fewer opportunities? And we have case studies of companies who have done that. So it’s just about narrowing your focus to the people who matter the most. And having a method for doing it. Because candidly, the way most people evaluate a good business meeting today, doesn’t really give you good insight. And it’s kind of funny how people do it.

John Jantsch: Well, it’s funny. Again, I go back to my example that happens to me every day, is you know, people will call us and say, “Yeah, we need a new website because the old one’s really outdated. But we’re not probably going to pay that much for it because we don’t really get any leads from it anyway.” You just want to like go, “Well, I know why you don’t get any leads from it.” But you know, that’s one of those cases where I’d rather not even pursue that person. Because even if we … because I think the …

John Jantsch: Of course, a lot of the folks you’re dealing with are sales folks and sometimes they … you know, once the contract’s signed, they walk out the door. But in my world, where maybe we are going to actually deliver as well, the worst thing we can do is sign a client who doesn’t have the proper motivation. Because they’re going to be a pain in the butt.

Ian Altman: Yep. Well, and keep in mind, what you could do is when that person calls up you can say, “So when people call us, they’re usually looking for a solution at one of three levels. At the basic level is ‘Hey look, we know exactly what we want with our new website, we just want someone to be able to execute exactly what we want.’ And that’s what we call the Effective Level. The next level, we call this The Enhanced Level. The Enhanced Level is someone who’s going to introduce some new ideas to you, some new concepts and maybe some new technologies to bring your website to the next level. At the highest level, is what we call The Engaged Level. This is where somebody is tied in with your business goals and objectives. And will recommend digital marketing strategies that can help achieve those results that are measurable and repeatable. So, which level are you looking for?”

John Jantsch: We call those in my world, Build, Grow, and Ignite.

Ian Altman: Yeah.

John Jantsch: Exactly what you just described.

Ian Altman: Yeah. So the idea is that then what you’re doing is say, “Well, so what are you looking for?” Because guess what? The person who just wants billed, probably doesn’t matter. Right? The person who just wants effective, may not be your ideal client, but they may be great for somebody else, just not for you.

John Jantsch: The episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by Rev.com. There are so many ridiculously valuable reasons to order transcriptions. You can write entire blog posts, heck, you could write an entire book by just speaking it and having Rev put together a transcript that you can then just bring on home. I mean, if you want to record a meeting so that you have notes. Again, over and over, there are so many good reasons.

John Jantsch: If you just want to take notes when you’re listening to something and you just want to record those notes and get it. It’s amazing what the reasons you can find for doing this. And Rev gets those transcripts, as I’ve said, they do our podcast. They get those transcripts back to you lightning fast. And I’m going to give you a free trial offer. If you go to Rev.com/blog/DTM. And that’ll be in the show notes too. But, you’re going to get a $100 coupon to try them out. And I suggest you do it.

John Jantsch: So, another significant change I think in the world of selling is that because the buyer, in a lot of cases, has access to a lot of information. Some of it’s really good. Some of it’s misleading. But nonetheless, they feel like, in a lot of cases, they’re pretty educated. So, how does a salesperson now, bring their value up by teaching?

Ian Altman: Well, so there’s a couple concepts behind this. A lot of it comes down to helping the client understand, not only, what the other impacts could be to their business of not solving this. But also, how other people may be seeing results that may or may not resonate with them. And so, if we can give people a structure for these meetings, it works really well. Like I said, what happens historically is, somebody comes out of a meeting, and we’ve all heard the sales rep who’s excited about a meeting they go, “Oh, John, I had the best meeting. We had scheduled to talk for only 15 minutes and the meeting lasted for an hour. And oh my god, man, the two of us, man, we got together and we just clicked. We connected. It was amazing. It was magical. And we’ve already agreed that next week, we’ve already set up a time to meet again.”

Ian Altman: And the problem with that is that it would be a fantastic way to summarize a good meeting if it had been set up on an online dating site. But it’s not a good way to evaluate a good business meeting. And so, one of the things we added to Same Side Selling is this notion of something we call the Same Side Quadrants. And in the Same Side Quadrants, the idea is that it’s a method for taking notes in a meeting so we can have mutual understanding with our client about what might be important.

Ian Altman: And the idea is, on a blank sheet of paper we draw a vertical line down the center of a page, horizontal line across it, creating four quadrants. In the upper left, we take notes about the issue that they were interested in talking with us about. And that might start by just saying, “Hey, what inspired you to meet with us today?” “Oh, you know what, Johnny, we’re just thinking about getting a new website.” “Okay.” And you might ask questions like, “How long’s this been going on? What have you tried in the past? What’s working? What isn’t? Great.” And then we ask this great question that says, “So, what happens if you don’t solve that?”

Ian Altman: And now we move from taking notes in the upper left quadrant of issue, now we move over to impact and importance, which is the upper right quadrant. And that’s where we’re trying to quantify the impact of their organization of not solving the problem. And also try, and discover how important is this compared to other things on their plate? So, we’ll get information about that. Then, we have to acknowledge, and I know that you speak about this as well, that just because you pass money, doesn’t mean it’s successful.

Ian Altman: So, what can we measure together? What are the tangible results that would be meaningful? So, that we know we’re successful. Because gee, if at the end of the project I want to have a high-five moment with you. I want to make sure that you and I both agree that it’s high-five worthy. So what does that look like? And that’s in the lower left quadrant. And then the lower right quadrant, we take notes about who else might need to be involved. And of course, sales people have been taught to ask the worst questions on the planet about who else needs to be involved.

Ian Altman: Because they ask a question like, “Well, who’s the decision maker?” When you ask that question, it’s kind of like saying, “So, John, I realize the company wouldn’t possibly entrust that this to you. So, who is the decision maker?” And it creates this instant adversarial tension. Instead of … But what if instead, they said, “So, John, who else would have an opinion about the impact of the organization? Who else is most directly impacted by this problem? And who else would have an opinion about how we measure this? And who might think we’re totally crazy for measuring the things you and I already discussed? Who might chime in at the 11th hour, we haven’t heard from before?”

John Jantsch: Yeah, because a lot of times there are people in companies that maybe don’t have to approve a deal, but they can sure kill it, right?

Ian Altman: Exactly. So, those people, to know who they are. And then ask a simple question which says, “So, what’s the best way for us to include those people in a way that’s comfortable for you?” And so now what we have is we have this sheet of paper that … We actually produce these journals that people can use, these Same Side Quadrant Journals. And the idea is that people can take notes in all these quadrants and at the end you have what amounts to a concise business case for that client that determines whether this makes sense to move forward or not.

John Jantsch: Yeah. And I’m guessing you also advise. I know that I’m sitting here thinking, if I was going to go through that process, I would make sure that that was in a proposal as well. That we agreed on these things. And that’s why …

Ian Altman: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s what we call a concise business case. There’s a whole template and a format for it that we tell people. So this is what you send to the client afterwards, which is all their words. So, it talks very little about your solution. It talks, almost exclusively about here’s what you shared with me. And the funny part is, that the client will often say, “You know, we had never thought about it that way before. But, man, you guys totally get us. This is awesome. We can’t wait to move forward.”

John Jantsch: So, you’ve already provided value, maybe more so than anybody else that’s tried to sell them anything?

Ian Altman: Exactly. So, in terms of educating them, you’ve now helped them understand why this problem is worth solving. Now, keep in mind, you educated them using their own information. But now, they walk away, because here’s the thing, they’ve just convinced you that this is a really serious issue. And guess who else they convinced? They convinced themselves.

John Jantsch: You know, and what’s interesting when you talk about that impact, you know, sometimes you get somebody to see that the impact of growth revenue and profit and whatnot. But we work with a lot of small business owners that are getting the life sucked out of them and if they could solve a marketing problem, maybe they could actually sleep better at night. And I think we could … Sometimes we underestimate the value of those intangible things that have impact.

Ian Altman: Absolutely. I mean, people who are wealth managers, for example, most of their message, because they can’t guarantee a return for people. I mean they’re precluded form even talking about returns. But what they can do is say, “Look, people come to us because they’re just … today they don’t feel like they have a plan.” So, it gives them a lot of angst. They’re looking for peace of mind.

Ian Altman: They want to know that they have a plan laid out that they can count on and rely on. And, “Gee, so zero to 10, how well do you feel you’re positioned for that today?” And it’s like, “Oh, I don’t know, like a five.” ” Okay. Why five?” “Well …” Right? And now the waterworks start. “Well, because I can’t do this. I can’t do that. I’m not sure if my kids are going to be able to go to college. And blah, blah, blah.” “Okay” Now, we got a real conversation.

John Jantsch: So, one of the things that I’ve certainly discovered over time doing this, you know, I have no problem asking hard questions now. Because the opposite is terrible. But somebody starting out, sometimes they may not feel the posture to be able to get in a conversation about impact with somebody because “Hey, I’m just theoretically here to sell you XYZ. Do I have permission to ask about impact?” I’m just suggesting that that’s probably a problem that people feel. Is that?

Ian Altman: Well, so here’s the thing, if I tell somebody your job is to go out there and sell this stuff, whether people need it or not. Then, I’ve just created my own problem. If I say, “Your job is to determine first and foremost if these people have a problem worth solving.” And you can be totally transparent with the clients and say, “Look, we just don’t know whether or not this is going to have enough of an impact for you to make it worthwhile. And if this problem is significant enough to make it worth solving, so, I just want to ask you some questions. Because the last thing we want you to do is spend money and buy something that isn’t worthwhile for you.”

John Jantsch: Yeah. And that should right off the bat, let somebody put their, sort of, salesperson shield up, down, right?

Ian Altman: Exactly. Yeah, because it’s something we refer to as … So, the Same Side Pitch follows the model of Entice, Disarm, and Discover. So, in that example before, when I said, “Well, gee, our clients, these law firms come to us when they’re facing these issues.” Notice that after I describe the problems that we solve with great results, I said, “But, not everyone we talk to is the right fit for how we solve that.” And allows someone to say, “Oh, so you’re not like all those sales people who just swear that ‘Oh yes, we have the perfect solution for you. What’s your problem again?’”

Ian Altman: It’s kind of like if a surgeon came to you and said, “Hey, John. Listen, I can get you a great deal. I can get you in next Tuesday for this tennis elbow surgery.” You know, like, “Well, I don’t think I have tennis elbow.” “Okay, what if I discounted it? What if I can get you in on Monday instead of Tuesday?” And I mean, it’s like, “But I don’t think I have tennis elbow.” “What if we did both arms for the same price?” And it’s like, “Dude, I don’t think I have the condition that you treat.” “What if I got your spouse involved too?” It’s like, you know, just … That’s what it feels like. It’s awesome.

John Jantsch: But I think one of the things that you’re saying and I’m not saying it’s implied. But I think it’s worth reminding people. Is I think we have to have a good handle on what it is that we’re actually good at. What problem we solve, the right situation. I know, again, after years and years and years of doing this, you know within … Excuse me. Five minutes or so I can sort of say, “Yeah, this is going to be a good fit or it’s not. Or we can really help this person. Or we can’t.” And I think that comes over time. But I think that that’s something that people really have to spend some time wrapping their head around. You know, a client that’s not a good fit is probably not going to be profitable, it’s probably going to turn into a detractor at some point.

Ian Altman: Sure.

John Jantsch: So, how do people … This is a simple question but I think, you know, how do you advise that people get a real handle on what they’re good at solving?

Ian Altman: Well, it’s funny you say that. It’s one of the most challenging questions that I ask people. So, I’ll say this to one, “So, give me one of the problems that you solve?” And most often, their response is the description of their service. So for example, if I said to someone, and it wouldn’t be on your team because your team understands this. But if I said to somebody who did digital marketing, “So, what problems do you solve?” “Well, we build websites and social media campaigns.” “Okay. I don’t think that’s a problem. That sounds like a service that you offer. But what problem does that solve?”

Ian Altman: And so the example that I give people is using a term that a buddy of mine Bob London coined called an Elevator Rant. So, the idea of the elevator rant being the upside down version of the elevator pitch. Is that you get on an elevator, the doors are about to close. Right before they close someone sticks their arm in, the doors spring open. Two people representing your ideal client get on the elevator with you. The doors close. What would they be complaining to one another about something that when you hear it, you think, “Man, we can solve that better than anybody else. In fact, they’re lucky to be on the elevator with us. Because we can really help them.”

Ian Altman: And so, if you put yourself in that context, they’re not going to say, “Oh, you know, I need a digital marketing firm because I google digital marketing and nothing came up.” Right? That’s not going to happen. But the might say, “Man, I’m sick and tired of spending all this money on advertising and marketing. But it’s not affecting how many people walk through the door and how many people buy our products.” Or, “I’m tired of spending money on stuff. But I’m not sure which stuff is working, which stuff isn’t. So, I feel like we may be spending money in areas that don’t matter and not spending enough in areas that do make a difference.”

John Jantsch: So, Ian, tell people where they can find out more about your work and Same Side Selling. And you’ve mentioned a couple tools and I think you have those on your website as well.

Ian Altman: Absolutely. So, if you visit SameSideSelling.com you’ll hear all about the book. And there’s the bonus material and case studies and the like. And then, I’m impossible not to find on social and online @IanAltman. So it’s IanAltman.com. And on just about every social media platform it’s Ian Altman.

John Jantsch: Well, Ian, thanks for joining us. And hopefully, we’ll see you out there on the road. Or maybe, somewhere in the Midwest even, soon enough.

Ian Altman: Oh, let’s hope so, John. Take care.