i love marketing 065
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ILM Episode 65.doc Page 1 of 32
Transcript
Episode 065
“the one ABOUT Dean Graziosi”
Ilovemarketing.com
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Dean: Hey, everybody! It’s Dean Jackson.
Joe: And Joe Polish.
Dean: Well, Joe, we had a great, great interview with Dean Graziosi, didn’t we?
Joe: It was okay.
Dean: He’s all right. He’s okay.
Joe: If everyone’s not listened to it, you’d better listen to it, or it’s going to be kind of like
listening to part 2 when you haven’t listened to part one. We did this before. The first
one, I think, was…
Dean: With Gary Vaynerchuk.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, Gary Vaynerchuk.
Dean: There was so much stuff in what we talked about with Dean, and both of us know Dean
and have observed Dean, and we’ve got a pretty good take on what Dean does. And I
think there are a lot of really applicable lessons you can learn, just from observation of
Dean. I think it’s a model that’s worth really kind of exploring. You know?
Joe: Yeah. No, I agree. I’ve known Dean for quite a while. He was the first person that
ever paid me… Well, I was the first person he ever paid money to.
Dean: Don’t tell that, because Robin Robbins was the first one.
Joe: No, no, no. I’m talking about Dean Graziosi himself never actually paid to go to a
seminar. He never actually paid anyone.
Dean: Oh, I see what you’re saying. I thought you were saying he’s the first person to have
paid you for 25K. But you’re the first person he’s ever paid money to.
Joe: Yes.
Dean: That’s what you’re saying.
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Joe: That’s what I was meaning to say. So, right from the get-go, I’ve watched him take his
company from between $12- to $20-million a year to now over $100-million a year.
I’d like to say predominantly because of my Genius Network mastermind. However,
he’s just a driven, smart dude, and is very much about speed of implementation. He’s
very much an intuitive entrepreneur, in a lot of ways, because he doesn’t read that
much. He says he doesn’t read at all. But he’s read less than like 5 books in his entire
life, although he’s written several New York Times. He’s probably going to write more
New York Times best sellers than he’s actually read books, which is kind of funny.
He’s got probably about 500 people that work for the Dean brand, the way he has
that organization set up. The guy just knows a lot about selling. He immediately gets
thrown into a category because he’s an infomercial guy. However, anyone that’s ever
spent any time with him – and we obviously have the advantage because of 25K, 2-day
meetings 3 times a year, and he comes sometimes more often than that to the groups.
Dean: He’s in our Strategic Coach group, with Dan, in Toronto, so we get to see him every 90
days in Toronto, too, even though he lives right down the street from you. You fly up
to Toronto and we get to see him again.
Joe: What a lot of people don’t know is the building that I own, Piranha Marketing
headquarters in Tempe, he actually leased about 25% of my building about 4 years ago,
for a year. So, I literally saw Dean every time I was at the office.
So, I spend a lot of time with him, and he’s really, truly one of the smartest
marketers on the planet. He definitely understands direct response, definitely
understands leverage. We’ve done trips to Necker Island together, and he knows a lot
of people personally. He’s had lunch a couple times with Michael Jordan. He’s very
involved. He’s raised money for foundations. There’s a lot of stuff that Dean does,
that people would have no clue about.
Dean: Joel Osteen, he’s friends with Joel Osteen.
Joe: Yep. Yep. A lot of interesting stuff. So, why don’t you start with how you want to
frame this?
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Dean: Not a bad-looking guy, either. He’s all right.
Joe: Yeah, he’s an okay dude. When he listens to this, we’ll see.
Dean: His arms of his are just bulging out, with all this weight training.
Joe: Exactly. Exactly. So, how do you want to frame this? We talk about a lot of people
we interview on I Love Marketing calls, but this is only the second time we’ve actually
made one of the calls really carrying on the conversation about so many important
points that we felt would be really useful for all of our listeners to build a business,
grow their business, make shit happen.
Dean: I was thinking about this. And, you know, it might be good: 2 things. You and I can
talk about some of the highlights of the talk we had with Dean, some of the things that
we want to highlight from our episode with him. And then, I thought it would be good,
too, to kind of look at how he actually is applying the 8 profit activators, because
there’s some crystal clear, pretty obvious ways that he’s doing it, that you can see by
observation of his model.
So, I thought that might be a good thing, to see how you can take that. He’s taken
it as far as anybody we know, in a direct marketing business, to getting over a $100-
million business is a pretty serious thing.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah.
Dean: But the model, he didn’t start out as a $100-million business. You don’t have to be a
$100-million business to learn from as a model.
Joe: He started out as a dead-broke auto mechanic that fixed cars. He did a freaking
infomercial on it.
Dean: Motor Millions.
Joe: Yeah, which is so funny. The funny thing is there’s this really young guy, had no clue
what the hell he was doing, but was fixing up cars, selling cars, and actually learned the
methodology of actually packaging up how to do that, and selling them.
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Of course, his original infomercials were hypy as hell and came across as
completely cheesy; although, truth be told, this was just a really young guy that actually
did figure out how to make money selling cars, because he would buy them and fix
them up and sell them. And he’s like, “I could teach other people how to do that, and I
could make money doing that.”
People can watch those old videos and totally make fun of him, be like, “This is
totally ridiculous,” and anyone can pick apart any sort of infomercial.
One of the things that I really want to preface, too, is as soon as someone does a
certain type of marketing that even ekes of anything hypy, or amazing and powerful
and millionaire, you’re immediately going to get categorized as “instant” scam artist.
Dean admittedly, there was a time when he actually sold one of his companies,
and they continued to use his name, and just did poor customer service and everything.
And he literally spent a couple million dollars undoing damage that they had done, in
terms of servicing. From everything I know about it, he just went over and above the
call of duty to do the right thing.
With the current stuff that he sells, I have not ever seen an infomercial company
that does better servicing, better backend, gives more information away for free, that he
does on a daily basis on his blogs and his websites.
Dean: He really, really, sincerely cares for the people that he works with.
Joe: Right. He’s really set a lot of standards. And in spite of saying that, there will still be
people that are jealous of his success, that want to attack, and want to attack anyone
that’s an infomercial guy.
So, the point is the lessons that he talked about, even if you like infomercials or
not, it’s all applicable to everything. We have seen Dean, countless times, teach people
in nonprofits and restaurant businesses, every sort of mom-and-pop business under the
sun, nail salons, that he’ll literally give them advice and tell them how to run the
business, how to use principles, even if they never do an infomercial, go on TV, or do
any of that stuff.
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I think all of the things he talked about were very principle-based success
strategies that anyone could use, and that’s why we’re doing this follow-up call about
him.
Dean: What stood out for you, in our episode with Dean?
Joe: One of the things that always stands out, with him, is speed of implementation, how
quickly he will take stuff, but the term “marketing stamina,” which we kind of talked
about.
Dean: Yeah, that was on my list, too.
Joe: That’s probably the #1 thing. When we interviewed Frank Kern, a few episodes ago,
his 2 rules, which are very vulgar and very Frank Kern-ish, one is “Thought shall not
fuck around,” and the second one is “Don’t be a pussy.”
Basically, some people probably don’t like those as maybe success rules. A lot of
it has to do with just, for one, knowing that if you’re going to be successful in anything
in life, you’re going to have to have stamina. Some days are good days; some days are
bad days. Some things work, some things don’t.
I spent a year hiring a high-level person once, in my organization, did everything
to follow a very smart principle of hiring, which is hire slow and fire fast. Take your
time to get the right person, especially in high-level positions, where it really matters,
because a miss-hire can cost you a bloody fortune. And I had a 6-figure, very high-
level individual that I hired, that seemingly had all the credentials, and I’d spent a lot of
time grooming the person.
After I hired him, this person literally was unethical, and cost me a lot of money
in losses, opportunity costs. I did everything that I could think of. Even looking back
at that situation, even with the best preparation in the world, I hired very slow. As soon
as I found something was just wrong, I had to severe it, because rotting food doesn’t
get better with age, it gets worse.
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But in spite of that, if I didn’t have stamina in that area, that sort of stuff could
crush you. And I think a lot of success in life has a lot to do with just simply your
ability to tolerate stuff.
When I look at very successful people, some of the things that would have killed
them when they were first starting out, you build tolerance to. You just handle it.
You’re able to deal with the treadmill of crap that comes your way as you become a
more and more successful entrepreneur, taking on more responsibilities, taking on more
staff, taking on more overhead, taking on more projects. You build up stamina.
So, as it goes to marketing stamina, stamina’s important for physical fitness, it’s
important for a lot of things to stick through it. Anything worth having is worth going
through the ups and the downs. And as it relates to marketing, since our whole podcast
is called I Love Marketing, and we’re training people in direct response marketing,
we’re having conversations about it, I’m going to do a seminar to Robin Robbins’
group. I’ll have done my speech by the time we probably put this episode up. I think
the next day after I do the speech.
Basically, I’m going to tell the audience that, “As much as you want an ELF
business and as much as you want to be an expert marketer, don’t think that you’re
going to sit through a 3-day seminar and instantly you’re a marketing expert, you’re
done.”
This is an ongoing thing that requires testing. Now, the alternative is you go out
of business, you never become wealthy, you have a shitty business that doesn’t really
allow you to build the life of your dreams.
There’s obviously the value of having marketing stamina and figuring it out.
That’s where all the rewards come from. It’s just that people have to have it in their
mind not to give up. And most people that aren’t successful, they just give up. They’re
not willing to put it through. That’s a contextual thing, too, because sometimes the best
way to get out of a hole is to quit digging.
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So, this whole thing about never give up, there’s a lot of things that… What’s
that?
Dean: Put down the shovel.
Joe: A lot of things, you should give up on, if they’re stupid, if they’re not working, if
they’re not taking you to where you want to go. If you’re going down the wrong path,
all the effort and all the persistence in the world is like moronic.
So, for marketing stamina, though, really being able to go through the testing
stages and really learning, all the stuff that Dean talked about, about the psychology of
entering a conversation that’s existing in the prospect’s mind, which is a Robert Collier
quote from The Robert Collier Letter Book written years ago, that anyone serious about
copywriting should really read that book, it’s a classic, he talks about that.
You don’t learn about the mindset of people instantaneously. You need to
converse with them. You need to dialogue with them. You need to write letters to
them, and emails, and shoot videos, and see what they respond to, and ask them what
their danger, what their opportunities, what their strengths are. That takes time.
So, marketing stamina. I can ramble on, probably for the entire episode, just on
that alone. But I’ll shut the hell up, so you can give your take.
Dean: You talk about stamina, and we’ve talked about like he’s never missed a day on TV
since 1999, or however long it’s been that he’s been on TV every single day, and doing
something, doing marketing. Not with the same message, but fixing and constantly
reinventing the message to match what is responsive right now.
You look at the history of some of the books that he’s done, like the Be A Real
Estate Millionaire book was the first show, that was really what it was all about, be a
real estate millionaire. And going into the next one, where now it was Your Town,
Your Real Estate Profits, where it’s like rather than being a big, broad audience, to your
town, your real estate profits.
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I think in a little bit, we can talk about how he kind of niched down the
infomercials, even, on a localized level.
And then his other book, Profit From Real Estate Right Now. And then, the one
he’s got now, his new book, 30 Days To Real Estate Cash, which is speaking to the
people who want to make money quickly in real estate. A lot of times, people think,
“Well, it takes a long time to make money in real estate. I don’t have time.” Maybe
people look at it as a buy-and-hold, long-term, wealth-building strategy, as opposed to
a short-term, moneymaking strategy.
Joe: Let me point out something, too, that I think is really important, I think one of the
reasons that you and I have had success in areas where other people have tried to sell.
There’s a ton of carpet cleaners, as an example, that have bought my stuff. Many
of them want to go into the business that I’m doing, selling stuff, thinking it’s just so
easy.
And I’ve had other people that have said, “Oh, I understand marketing. I’m going
to start selling stuff to other carpet cleaners,” and there has yet to be any information
marketer expert, guru, whatever the hell you want to call them, individual that’s even
come 1/20th…
Dean: My favorite is the people who have taken your stuff or taken my stuff and become
really good at applying that stuff, and then think that now they’re going to go out and
teach other people the stuff that we taught them.
Joe: Exactly. And they do that all the time.
There are 2 types, though. There are some that actually learn it and say, “Hey Joe,
hey Dean, I have a twist on something, a derivative, some sort of original, unique twist
on what I learned from you,” and they have ethics. They have integrity. And they’ll
say, “Hey, can we do something together?” and they’ll present not only the strategy and
stuff, but here’s how we’re going to promote it,” so we don’t have to think about if we
want to do a JV. “Here it is, here’s how it works,” that sort of stuff. And they actually
come to us and say, “Hey, can we work together?”
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The most ethical, honest, awesome people that sell other stuff in the niches that I
sell to, that learned originally from me, I’ll do joint ventures with those people, if they
truly have something unique, something that’s really cool, something that would be a
real value-add.
The worst types are people that actually buy the stuff, learn it, plagiarize it, try to
create their own derivatives of like the same stuff, and they don’t really understand it.
They think it’s just about copy the website, copy the emails, copy the sales letter, throw
a hypy headline on and get nice graphics on an ebook, or put some binder together with
a cover that says, “Marketing Secrets,” and that is what it takes.
As this relates to Dean and as it relates to us, I think there’s a huge difference
between having to learn how to market because you need to make your business work
and then you teach those strategies to other people, versus just, “Hey, I’ve never done
any of this stuff, but I’m going to write a book on how to be successful or how to be
whatever, and throw it out there.”
And over the years of doing this – I first learned marketing in 1992 – me and you
both came into the direct response world right around the same time, and we describe
all of that in the very first episodes of I Love Marketing.
So, people that are brand new to I Love Marketing, you’d really be well served to
go back and listen to the original episodes.
Dean: The first 5 episodes.
Joe: Yeah. We did all those ones on the phone, so the recording quality isn’t as good as it is
now. But it’s still killer content. The transcripts are there, all that sort of stuff.
Anyway, the point being is that marketing stamina is not shortcutting that. Don’t
go out and call yourself a marketing guru or a whatever guru and tell people you’re
going to teach them things you yourself have never done.
Can you do that and make money? Yeah. Can you knock people off? Yeah. If
you can sleep at night being that level of a scumbag, I guess that’s your life.
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But what I will say, though, is Dean really did learn how to buy and sell real
estate.
Dean: And still does.
Joe: Dean buys and sells millions of dollars worth of real estate every year. And the reason
I bring this up is that I’ve seen other people that sell “How To Make Money In Real
Estate,” they literally study his infomercials, they transcribe them, they get
teleprompters, and you can just tell they’re reading and trying to reenact, with changes,
to his exact message, and they never get it to work anywhere near Dean.
The difference is just like when you really understand the mindset of the person
you’re selling, when he said, on the call, “I’ve thrown away all of my teleprompters, I
just do it right from the cuff,” that really is a pro. That is the end result of marketing
stamina.
Dean: You and I have both been there, in his studio, when he’s been shooting a show, and
seen him do several takes of just no teleprompter, no script, no nothing, just speaking
from the heart.
Joe: I’ll tell you, making infomercials work is a tough gig. With Dean, I have recorded an
interview 4 times, people, for an infomercial, and tested it to see if it would actually
work or not. And just getting the numbers we want that would make it worth a rollout.
We had it happen once out of those 4. And the funny thing was one of them was me
interviewing Dean. And he tested it in a small market, and it was pulling. It was
working like crazy.
He did one, and I think he got, in a lot of ways, the ideas from when I first
introduced him to flip videos, when flip videos first came out, and he started sending
them out and incorporating all that, homemade videos, into the professionally-produced
infomercial, and it just worked like gangbusters.
But he actually interviewed himself, talking direct to camera, and another one in a
car. The whole infomercial in a car. And it beat the results of me interviewing him.
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So, even though I had a successful show, him just talking direct to camera was
better.
So, I’ve never been able to get the infomercial. None of that was ever done more
so than just me being interested in seeing how this whole thing works. We never even
had a signed deal on paper.
Dean: I wonder if he’d give us that video to put up on I Love Marketing.
Joe: I’ll tell him to listen to this episode, and see if he wants to. I don’t know if he’ll do
that. But we’ll see. He might. It would be kind of actually funny.
Dean: Thanks in advance, Dean.
Joe: The point is I did a really great one with Ned Hallowell, who wrote a fantastic book
called Crazy Busy. But it didn’t hit. It didn’t hit right. But I’ve still not given up on
that one, because I think Ned’s the top ADD/ADHD psychiatrist.
The problem with doing an infomercials, if it’s a hit, he’s going to be more
famous than every psychiatrist and doctor, and that pisses off everyone in academia,
because they’re like, “You shouldn’t do infomercials.” “Why?”
An infomercial’s a delivery system. Where would Tony Robbins be without
infomercials? You’re buddies, you’re real good friends with Tony. How many
psychiatrists and therapists think he’s just the biggest quack in the world?
Dean: Exactly. The interesting thing is you take guys like our friend, Wyatt Woodsmall,
who’s one of the geniuses of NLP, one of the founding fathers of NLP, basically, and
he’s actually the guy who did some of the early work with Tony, on modeling.
But it shows the power of marketing, because that is really what Tony has taken.
Maybe he simplified it. He took it to the mass audience, and really has passionately
spread that word for 30 years now.
Joe: Exactly. If you look at Tony Robbins in the early days, versus where he is now, talk
about a guy who’s really worked.
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Now, I wouldn’t want to trade my life for his, because that guy freaking is driven.
But the deal is look at the stamina of a guy like Tony Robbins.
Dean: We’ll talk about that with him, when he comes on.
Joe: I’m leaving that up to you. This interview with him keeps getting rescheduled, and it’s
Dean’s fault. I just want to let everyone know.
Dean: I’ll just tell you this: I promise you that Tony Robbins is going to come on this show
with us. I forward you the emails, Joe. We know that he’s a hard guy to nail down.
He’s going to do it.
Joe: I know it. We at least got him to promote Peter Diamandis’ book, because he’s good
friends with Peter Diamandis. And if everyone listening to I Love Marketing has not
yet got a copy of Peter Diamandis’ Abundance, or watched his TED talk, or watched
my interview with him, which we have that on I Love Marketing, you’ve got to read
this book. It’s awesome.
But we at least got Tony to do that. So now, the next I think most accomplishing
thing that Tony will do is an I Love Marketing interview. Really, seriously, he’s
spoken at TED, but he’s not done I Love Marketing.
Dean: This will take him to a whole new level and just blow him up.
Joe: He’s helped presidents and everything. But until you are literally a guest on I Love
Marketing, I just don’t think…
Dean: In the presence of Joe Polish and Dean Jackson, together.
Joe: …you’ve just not made it. You know what I mean?
Dean: Right.
Joe: Okay. So, regarding Dean.
Dean: Back to Dean.
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Joe: Yeah. The thing is being able to practice what you preach, I think, not always
necessary and, certainly, I have a love/hate relationship with the self-help industry
because I learned, long ago, that if you ever invalidate the message because of the
messenger, you’ll never read another book or attend another seminar.
So, I know there are a lot of people that are doling out fix your head, get rich, self-
help, blah-blah-blah stuff, that they themselves do not live the life they write about, talk
about, teach seminars about.
However, the people that I know, that make the most money, that make the most
impact, that actually care about what it is they’re doing, are people that literally are
byproducts of their own system. They walk the walk and talk the talk.
Dean: We talked about Dean owns and has invested in hundreds and hundreds of homes in the
last 12 months, and he’s still a guy who’s out there doing what he’s teaching. He’s
doing it every single day.
Joe: So, how do you think all that translates to someone that’s listening, that has a
restaurant, or a graphic designer, or is a life coach.
Dean: That’s a great segue. So, let’s talk about the 8 profit activators and how Dean is
applying them. You look at it, you select a single target market, Dean’s got a very
focused market: make money in real estate.
Now, it’s a very focused market even though it’s a very broad audience. You can
have a broad audience with a narrow focus, and that’s one of the most brilliant things
that he has done, is he’s just happened to pick a single target audience that happens to
be millions and millions and millions of people, that has mass appeal.
So, a lot of times, people misinterpret that picking a single target market means
picking a small market. But it doesn’t have to be. Look at Dean’s got a very focused
message. It’s not about how to make money in real estate or cars or selling things on
the corner. It’s not about all those. It’s not a fragmented message; it’s a focused
message, one thing. If you want to make money in real estate, you’re his audience.
That’s the person he’s talking to.
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Joe: Yep. And I think that pretty much says it all.
Dean: But once he’s got that audience, and it may even be that the potential audience is
anybody who’s older than 18 years old in America could really be somebody who
could potentially make money in real estate, and they might not be looking for that as
an opportunity, but that’s where compelling direct response advertising can identify,
out of all of the millions of people who are exposed to his message every month, every
week, every day that he’s on television, the compelling message, the compelling direct
response that he’s doing with his infomercials is getting people to raise their hand.
And he’s not on the infomercial selling, like he told us he has a $25,000 or
$40,000 coaching program. He’s selling a $19 book. That’s what he’s selling on the
front-end. He’s making it very easy and compelling for people to identify themselves.
Now, if you look at that, he’s got that message of making money in real estate. I
think the infomercial that he’s doing now, he’s including the book 30 Days To Real
Estate Cash, and Your Town, Your Real Estate Profits. That’s really the driver of it all,
is it’s getting people to kind of raise their hand. Out of all of the millions of people,
somebody who would buy a book like that is setting the big audience.
Jay Abraham, and this was a pretty impactful idea for me, when I really got it, and
Dean’s really applying it masterfully, is the idea of concentric circles. Do you
remember Jay talking about that, where there’s a broad audience?
If you look at one big circle of all of the people who have potentially seen Dean’s
message there, the people who are willing to spend 30 minutes watching that
infomercial and listening to Dean’s message, which he masterfully shows people
exactly what his message is, how they can do it, how other people just like them are
doing it. That’s where the brilliance of using those flip videos to let real people shoot
their own video and tell Dean how they’re doing, to let people know, “This is what you
can do.”
So, the subset of the big group of people who are watching it would be a smaller
group of people who are willing to spend $19 to buy the book.
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Now, that’s the entry level into Dean’s world. That’s where people are
identifying themselves, giving him their credit card, calling in, and starting the process
of investing in real estate.
That is really where, now, Dean has the opportunity to educate and motivate
people to take action, to really go above and beyond just passively reading a book and
getting some knowledge. He, all the way down, knows that a certain percentage, a
subset of the group of people who are willing to pay $19 for a book, would also pay
$197 for a little advanced training and some tools that will help them get started.
And the people who are willing to pay $197, there’s a subset of those people who
will pay $3,000 or $5,000 to be part of a coaching program. And there’s a subset of
those people who would pay $25,000 to be at the highest level that they possibly can.
Dean doesn’t limit himself, in any way, to only selling $19 books. The truth is
that in that business, the model is that they don’t make any money on the $19 book, and
maybe even lose $2 or $3 or $4 on acquiring somebody who’s willing to pay $19 for a
book, but to go all the way up to the people who are willing to spend $40,000. And
that’s how you get to a $100-million company from selling a $19 book.
Joe: Exactly. And even if someone doesn’t have aspirations to do anything even remotely
close by that, the point is it follows the 8 profit activators.
Dean: It really does.
Joe: That’s why the 8 profit activators apply to anything that involves intelligent, nurturing,
selling, prospecting, educating. It just is the way that you develop rapport from initially
getting attention by knowing who you want the attention from, and positioning it so
that they come to you, and then you start providing them with education, some for free,
some for a fee. And you just continue to move people along.
Dean: And then, what you’re doing there, you’re presenting your unique service offer in a
way that makes it easy for people to get started. Just presenting people the opportunity
to take the next step. Just assuming that somebody really wants to go all the way, and
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taking them by the hand and leading them exactly where they want to go, and helping
them get there all the way.
And that’s why, Dean, when you hear him talking on our episode about the client
experience, how much he agonizes over every detail of that client experience, to make
sure that people are really having an incredible experience, and taking them by the
hand, you look at all of the things that he does, when we talk about deliver a world-
class experience, that’s what Dean is absolutely committed to on every level of his
organization. Even though you’ve talked about that there are 500 people, ultimately,
that work under the Dean brand, a lot of those are in partnership with other companies
that partner with him, but they’re all representing the Dean brand, and he’s done such
an incredible job of unifying that experience, so that everybody has a world-class
experience, that it’s a dream come true.
Joe: And just because of how poor my self-esteem is and how I constantly need to give
myself credit in order to feel like I’m a worthwhile human being, his top partners are in
my 25K group.
Dean: Of course, they are. Why wouldn’t they be? Anybody who’s anybody would be in this
25K group.
Joe: Exactly. That is the real message that needs to be taken away here.
Dean: 25KGroup.com.
Joe: Exactly. I just want to subtly point that out.
Dean: This episode sponsored by 25KGroup.com.
Joe: Oh, my gosh.
Dean: There’s always something great at 25KGroup.com.
Joe: We’re allowed to say that. It’s not like this is not free advice here.
Dean: And there’s the thing, Joe. I always tell people we don’t charge extra for them to watch
us give them our very best pitches.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 18 of 32
Joe: Exactly.
Dean: We don’t charge extra for that.
Joe: You know what I do want to say, though? Because I’m listening to you here, you’re
talking about going through the 8 profit activators. If you have not yet read
“Breakthrough DNA,” which is available for free on ILoveMarketing.com, go and
download it and study it.
I think people would be well served to spend less time reading a bunch of books
and more time mastering like one or 2.
And Breakthrough DNA, which really goes through the 8 profit activators, if you
literally read that on a regular basis, internalize it, study it, really study it, really get it,
anything that you need further explanation on, we have done I Love Marketing calls on
every one of the breakthrough activators in depth.
And if you really want to immerse yourself in training and you realize that,
“Wow, this is like really worth investing time and money into having the very best,”
and you want tons of different samples of letters and promotions and campaigns, there
is one thing that we actually sell on the site, which is the product, the I Love Marketing
DVD’s.
If that doesn’t make you 10 times what the heck we charge for them, send them
back. We’ll give you the money back. It’s not a big deal. We know the stuff works.
The point is that what we’re talking about is not like you’re going to have to go
seek out how to figure it out. If we’re not giving you enough just from this one
episode, which there’s only so much we can give, we’ve got all of these episodes at I
Love Marketing, and it’s all free. And you can listen to all this stuff.
So, master all of these methodologies, and that’s the whole purpose of us putting
together I Love Marketing, is to know that the vast majority of people are never going
to buy anything from us, and some will. And that’s why we are doing this.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 19 of 32
That’s what we’re telling you. Even with Dean, the thing that most people don’t
realize about the infomercial business, if you don’t have a really kick-ass book, and you
don’t have a really kick-ass program, you’re not going to be in business for a long time.
Dean has been in business for years. Hypy marketing is only going to take you so
far. You have to have real substance to what it is you’re selling, because, on the front
end, you run an infomercial for the cost of media, for cost of production, almost
everyone that actually has successful infomercials, including P90X, in the beginning,
cost a bloody fortune to figure out how to get the offer exactly right, how to get the
pitch right.
But secondly, if you don’t have a backend, you’re usually going negative on the
front-end. So, you have to come up with ways to introduce people into what it is
you’re doing, but have a way to monetize it on the backend.
Dean, if me and you didn’t have real businesses, where people paid us real money,
you can’t pay your bills giving everything away for free.
What you want to do, though, is you want to give away stuff that’s so freaking
good, that people are like, “My god! If we’re getting all this good stuff for free, I can’t
imagine how good the stuff they actually charge money for actually is.”
And then, if you actually take that approach, the stuff you really do sell for money
has to actually live up to that. I’ve seen many people where the best thing you ever see
from them is their sales letter. Then you get their product, and the product sucks. But
they did a great job on the sales letter.
What we’re saying here is do a great job on everything. When Dean says,
“Deliver a world-class experience,” that doesn’t mean deliver a world-class sales pitch
and then a shitty experience. That means carry the whole thing all the way through.
Dean: Right. There’s the thing. You listen to the episode that we did with Dean, and he talks
at length about everything that they’ve done to really camp out in the mind of their
client and experience the experience like they would experience it, go through their
eyes, their goggles, looking at the lens that they are experiencing it.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 20 of 32
And then, we talked about the above-the-line experience being that method of
looking at things, only from what the client actually experiences, because so often what
happens below the line, in that experience, is invisible.
We kind of look at all the stuff that’s going on behind the scenes, and even though
there’s a lot of work going on and there’s a lot of diligence and effort happening, if
there’s a delay in the actual experience that the client is having above the line, it’s
clouding their perception of what they’re actually going through.
But if you’re going above and beyond, like Dean was saying, having somebody in
charge of client relationships, and to have that department be the one who calls people
right away and makes sure that everything is great.
The next profit activator is providing after-sale service, even after you’ve already
been paid. And that is something that Dean does brilliantly.
If you go to DeanGraziosi.com, every single week Dean’s posting up incredible
wisdom videos. He’s posting a community of people who are like-minded and out
there doing real estate every week. They’re communicating and they’re participating
on the message boards, and they’re helping each other. And Dean is hosting that
experience for people, by providing incredible value, even after and even if they’ve
only bought the book, or not even bought the book. You don’t even have to buy the
book to get the free training.
Joe: Right. And one thing I want to point out about that, too, is he built a social community.
And through the process of building that, if people don’t really understand how
someone’s running a business, they just think, “Oh, he just has a successful
infomercial,” what they see is they see the tip of the iceberg, but they don’t see all the
backstage stuff that’s been built. And that’s why when we had the conversation with
Dan Kennedy, on our interview with Dan, where it’s like by describing yourself by the
channel of which you sell. Like an Internet marketer, it’s not a smart thing to call
yourself an Internet marketer, because the Internet just happens to be one of the
many…
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 21 of 32
Dean: Any more than you would call yourself a sign marketer.
Joe: Right. Exactly. So, Dean is very prepared for if TV was to be taken over by the
Internet, and infomercials just don’t have the impact. He’s very prepared to shift gears.
The thing is you may see him on infomercials, and that’s what he may be known
for, but Dean uses a variety of modalities. He uses direct mail, he uses teleseminars, he
uses webinars, he uses online video. He has a social community. He does text
messaging.
There’s a whole ton of stuff. But he’s also built a community of people to where,
at this point, even if he decided to not run infomercials anymore, he would still have a
multimillion-dollar business simply by communicating with the existing clients that
he’s already taught how to make money in real estate, he’s already taken through
coaching, that all love him.
His whole thing is know, like, trust. Know, like, trust. Constantly getting all of
the people to know, like and trust him.
The world is shifting. Me and Peter Diamandis and Brendon Burchard, a few
days ago, had a meeting with Solar, the CEO of YouTube, at YouTube headquarters.
He’s telling us about what some of their initiatives and goals are with YouTube. It’s
amazing, what is going on behind the scenes, that people just have no idea about.
To be fully poised and ready and stay on top of this stuff is important. That’s one
of Dean’s things, is he doesn’t rely just on one channel, although he’s going to exploit
the heck out of what he has.
If you’ve learned to fish in a certain way, in a certain lake, one of the big reasons
people don’t really do as well as they could is they just don’t roll out.
Dean: They don’t keep fishing, getting more lines. You look at that, and Dean is constantly
expanding that message.
How many speakers did he say that he has, right now? I don’t remember.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 22 of 32
Joe: Actually, I can’t remember, either. I don’t know the full amount. But talk about that,
because you mentioned you were going to say something about that earlier, about
localized.
Dean: Yeah. Absolutely. We had talked, a few years ago, Dean and I, over dinner in
Toronto, about this idea of localizing. I was sharing with him that…
Joe: Can I say something real quick?
Dean: I’m going to take responsibility for a good portion of his success, right now.
Joe: Who really introduced you to Dean Graziosi?
Dean: Oh, no doubt, you introduced me to Dean Graziosi. So, ultimately, you’re going to
blow under the master umbrella of me shining this light on Dean, here. So, it’s really
going to reflect better on you than on me. Don’t you worry, you’re going to get your
props.
Joe: See, you’ll still be perceived as the non-arrogant one at I Love Marketing, so you at
least have that.
Dean: You’re absolutely right. I have to just say, right now, that Joe Polish introduced me to
Dean Graziosi. I’m eternally thankful for that.
Joe: I’m totally saying that for humorous purposes. Seriously.
Dean: It is pretty funny.
Joe: Okay, don’t let me interrupt. Please carry on.
Dean: Okay. So, we were here at dinner in Toronto, and I was asking him, “How granular can
you get with the infomercials? How tight can you get?” And he was saying, “By city,
you can get that, you can get down.” And I was sharing with him the idea from the
Robert Collier Letter Book. This was pretty interesting. I’ve done something very
similar to this myself.
But he would send letters and he would talk about the prominent people in that
city who were wearing these raincoats. Do you remember this? They were talking
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 23 of 32
about the mayor of this town or another prominent businessman, and they’re name-
dropping, in the letters, of these local people who are using these raincoats.
There’s something about getting things narrow, getting things down to your area.
One of the things that Dean had done was he switched to the idea of your town
real estate profits, because one of the things that Dean does brilliantly is observe what’s
going on and observe the feedback that he’s getting.
When you start to see that sometimes people might think, “Well, yeah, be a real
estate millionaire. That would be great if you live in California or if you live in Texas,”
or whatever area that’s not right where you are. That seems like it’s a better situation
for people farther away.
So now, with being able to take the message of your town real estate profits, and
do a little intro to the show based on the local market, “Hey, Florida, it’s Dean, and
we’re going to talk about how people right here in Florida are making money in real
estate. You guys have an incredible opportunity.” And just kind of doing that on a
local basis, getting it down to now you have attention. And then, taking that message
right in to them, where he’s got dozens of speakers, right now, all over the country,
who are doing local real estate events, training people on how to make money in your
local market.
It’s the same message, but it’s delivered on a way that really makes it relevant to
people.
When you start thinking about it in your local area, it’s much more compelling
that way.
Joe: Exactly.
Dean: So, that’s how I helped Dean really become the success that he is today.
Joe: Yeah, I agree. He should listen to this and, really, I think there should be statues
erected for both of us, at least in his office.
Dean: At least in his office.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 24 of 32
Joe: With like me in the Batman outfit and you in the Robin outfit.
Dean: Wait a second, now! That’s not how I remember it.
Joe: Are you getting all insensitive now? What’s going on here? Is this like a posturing?
Are we going to start posturing now? You’re going to really say that you somehow are
Batman?
Dean: We’re going to have to have a breakdance fight or something.
Joe: Let me rattle through a few things that stood out, because I know we’re a little limited
on time, and you know I ramble.
Dean: We can make time. We own this place.
Joe: That is true. It is our house. Okay, a couple things he pointed out that are just phrases.
I really want to give people food for thought. That’s one of those episodes that’s worth
listening to a second time, especially if you hear our interpretation of it and then go
back. You’ll hear it differently. It’s kind of like if you’ve seen a really good movie
twice, and you picked up things, and you still happen to like it, or you read a book and
you’re like, “Wow, I never heard that the first time I read it, or saw that,” or whatever.
So, looking through the client’s glasses. He talked about that. That was really
good. Understand what’s going on in the customer’s head. Being a secret shopper,
where he actually shopped from himself. Very smart thing to do.
Dean: Did you see that big wall, that big white board that he had Phil working on?
Joe: Uh-huh. He’s a big boy.
Dean: But going through and mapping out, it wasn’t an easy thing, but they took a huge white
board and mapped out the entire experience, with all the branches of where it could
potentially go or what was being said.
Joe: Just another reminder of people that I’ve introduce him to, sitting there in his office,
mapping out how to make millions – of which what will I get? A freaking $25,000
membership. Unbelievable.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 25 of 32
Dean: You introduced him to Phil, did you?
Joe: No, no. The other people we were meeting with, which we won’t say because that
deal’s not inked. And, there’s a very famous celebrity that he’s going to be doing a big
thing with, that I won’t say anything until that’s…
Dean: It’s all very exciting.
Joe: Yeah. It’s just Joe Polish, making his connections, doing his genius networking.
But no, the thing he said about secret shoppers, that is really, really important.
When you’re talking about the white board, mapping things out, Dean actually maps
out and mind-maps things literally with like butcher paper and stuff, and thinks it
through. It’s a great process.
A couple other things he said, “Pitching a tent.” He talked about, in 25K, how he
actually drew a tent, because camping out in your client’s minds, I thought that was
really great.
Another really important thing we talked about is when it comes to what you’re
selling, if this was your favorite uncle, would you make him wait 3 days before you
followed up, if he bought something? Would you try to sell something to somebody if
you weren’t proud that your very favorite uncle would buy it?
I’ve heard him say this numerous times. “If I wouldn’t sell this to my mother,
why would I be selling it to anyone else?” And, of course, that’s assuming you like
your mother.
So, it’s one of those things to where it really is useful, when it comes to how you
communicate, how you follow-up, how you do everything before, during and after,
treating it as if this is like your best friend, someone that you really care about, totally
shifts the way you look at stuff. Then, you’re no longer, “Oh, we’ve just got to sell
some shit to these people.”
Examine all the marketing, appeal to the people that are scared to death.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 26 of 32
When he talked about having conversations that most people won’t bring up, he
made that analogy, “The light is 10 times brighter when you try to stuff something,
when you don’t talk about it.” I thought that was a really important point.
Then, one of the last things he mentioned on the episode was, “Think less, and
do.” This is a doing business.
So, I thought those were all pretty cool, and I just wanted to share those things
that really stood out for me, before I let you say anything else, basically.
Dean: Before I take over.
Joe: Yeah, before you just dominate, like you always do. You’re always talking over me
and stuff.
Dean: Where were we on the profit activators? We were talking about what he does after the
sale. Provide after-sale service, even after you’ve been paid. So, if they only just buy
the book, all of the training, all of the information that’s available on
DeanGraziosi.com, and all of the weekly wisdom videos that he does, and all of the
access to other people, that community is really building an incredible relationship with
them.
And then, in the after unit is that nurturing lifetime relationships with them.
Nurturing lifetime relationships and knowing what the lifetime value potentially is, of
all of those people. Somebody who buys a book may not, right now, be in a position to
join a $5,000 or a $10,000, or a $25,000 coaching program. But if they can take action
and do the things that they can have access to for free there, it’s going to create money
for them to be able to take advantage of those things or to come to Dean’s annual event.
Those kinds of things are nurturing lifetime relationships.
Now, I don’t know what Dean’s doing in profit activator #8, to orchestrate
referrals, but I think there’s probably a lot of great opportunity there. I don’t know that
that’s something that he’s actively doing. Do you know?
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 27 of 32
Joe: I think he does a little bit of it. Had a really good meeting, several years ago, with Joe
Stumpf. There you go. Your partner, your former, past partner, lover, whatever you
guys were doing.
Yeah, he does some stuff, but to the degree, I don’t know.
But there’s the thing, though. There are always additional things you can do.
And that’s why good enough will work for a certain while.
Dean: But you can see, too, that this is never done. You’re not going to have to reinvent new
stuff, you’re just going back and layering over these 8 profit activators. You’re
continually adding, at each level of it, something that is going to improve and enhance
and make it better.
Joe: Yeah. You know what’s funny about this, too? David Ogilvy, who was brilliant, wrote
a great book, Ogilvy On Advertising, which I think everyone would be well-served to
read, including Dean Graziosi, but basically he talked about don’t get into the
advertising business, the direct response business of creativity, if you cannot handle
anxiety. Because the field of advertising breeds anxiety. It’s very chaotic, constantly-
changing. Like you said, it’s never done.
Dean: It’s constant change, right? What motivates today is not necessarily what motivates
tomorrow.
Joe: Exactly. And you start going down one idea path, it can go in a million different
directions; which, again, is more of a reason to follow the 8 profit activators and select
a single target market. Just really focusing that way is the best you can do in an
incredibly disruptive sort of industry.
But see, that’s more of a beauty of why, if you become an expert in this area,
you’ve got such an advantage over every other business owner, by really becoming
skilled not only in knowing, but practicing direct response marketing, because knowing
about it, reading about it is completely different than actually doing it.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 28 of 32
One quick story I want to share with Dean. Several years ago, when flip videos
had first come out, I was over at my house with Dean. We were in my kitchen. I was
showing him this flip video, and I was kind of going through an idea of how to use flip
videos. And Dean, like that evening, we were talking about contests and everything,
because I’ve done contests for many years, based on the work I did with Bill Phillips,
and I’ve given away cars for over a decade every year, and stuff like that.
We were talking about contests, and he, being such an implementer, that night,
wrote a letter, the next day had FedEx’d 20 flip videos with a return envelope, to all of
his top clients, saying, “Please videotape yourself sharing your best success story, and
whoever is chosen as the best one, we’re going to use – potentially – some of your
video footage on television. And whoever sends me the best video, you’ll probably get
rewarded with spending the day with him.” I think that’s what it was. I’m not 100%
sure.
The point is share an idea with him, the next day it’s in the mail, FedEx. And that
was the starting point of how he started collecting success stories onto a video. He
literally would ask them to send the video back, they would strip the video footage off
of it, and he’d send them back the flip video, so they could keep it as a gift. And now,
obviously, it’s easy just to email the file.
The point is, though, I have told ideas like that to thousands of people, and that’s
the reason why Dean has a $100-million-a-year company, because he just does shit. He
doesn’t over-think it. He just does it.
Dean: You’re absolutely right about the speed of implementation. We were up in Toronto
with Dan Sullivan, our last workshop, just weeks ago, and Dan shared with us a
concept, shared a one-page thing about coming out of scarcity, and literally Dean,
within a week, that was the next weekly wisdom video. Just right there, he takes it and
immediately applies it.
That kind of currency and urgency about the messages that he’s sharing with his
audience is really building an ongoing dialogue that he’s the leader of.
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 29 of 32
Joe: Exactly.
Dean: All that is just that speed of implementation. It’s fantastic.
Joe: Yeah. So, the thing I really want to point out to everyone is like when you hear an idea
and you really like it, and it resonates with you, the quicker you can put it into action
and do something with it.
It is a lot easier to maintain momentum than it is to create it. And once you have
that momentum created in your mind, turn it into action steps as quick as humanly
possible.
The moment you get life’s feedback mechanism, which is you get a reward, build
upon it. Keep building upon it. Keep building on it. That’s how you maintain. It’s
like working out. The first initial, if you’re lifting weights, you’re going to be sore.
It’s not going to be ELF, easy, lucrative and fun, in terms of working out in the
beginning. It’s going to be hard, and you’re going to hurt.
If you keep at it, though, you’re going to get tolerance. You’re going to build up
strength. You’re going to grow muscles. And building a business is pretty much the
same way.
And then, you get into a state of flow and everything’s killer. And you can just
tell by Dean, he’s passionate about what he’s doing, he’s totally on fire, things are
working.
A lot to be learned.
Is there anything else you want to say about this one? Because I think we did a
really good job of giving our take on…
Dean: Yeah. I think to learn, to really kind of bottom-line takeaway from this, is that you
don’t have to have a $100-million company to apply those 8 profit activators. You
could take Dean’s exact model, which is right there in the 8 profit activators for you.
Select a single target market. Compel them to call you. You don’t even have to sell a
book. You can give away a book to identify your best prospect. You can then educate
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 30 of 32
and motivate them to want to meet with you. Then, present your unique service offer
in a way that makes it easy for them to get started. Dean’s book, $19 is an easy way for
people to get started on the path to becoming a real estate millionaire; $19 sounds like a
pretty good deal for that.
Then, delivering a world-class experience. Think about that experience that your
clients or your prospects are going through. And think about it from their eyes. And
always know that you’re not just going to let it end at a $19 sale, or whatever your
front-end initial sale is, knowing that you’ve got the solution to provide those
concentric circles, every level of service that anybody who starts the process could
potentially want.
Then, provide after-sale service, even after you’ve been paid. Just go to
DeanGraziosi.com. Model exactly what he does. Take an incredible lesson from how
active he is in participating in that community. And really, that’s anything that you
could do.
And then, in your after unit, nurture lifetime relationships. Think the long road.
Think about it as a lifetime relationship and how much you could potentially serve
somebody and how much you could potentially offer them.
And then, always be thinking about how you can orchestrate referrals. It’s a
model that anybody can practice, at any level.
Joe: That’s what I’m trying to say.
Dean: That’s exactly. That’s what you taught me how to say.
Joe: Exactly.
Dean: I think I did a pretty good job of memorizing it all.
Joe: Yeah. It was perfect. You don’t need a teleprompter anymore.
Also, I need to mention this. Occasionally, there will be times where me and
Dean cannot talk to someone at the same exact time that we want to interview. I
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 31 of 32
believe our next episode is going to be one of those with me interviewing Brendon
Burchard, who is also a 25K member, by the way. That’s 25KGroup.com.
Dean: And a super guy.
Joe: Yeah, and a very smart guy
Dean: I’m going to be with him. I’m leaving, actually, the day we’re recording this, I’m
leaving tomorrow to go be with Brendon in New York City, for his 10X NYC event.
Joe: I’m very proud of you.
Dean: I know you are.
Joe: That’s very nice.
Dean: You’re going to down holding it down with Robin. Right?
Joe: Yeah, exactly. I’m having dinner with Lou Ferrigno next Friday. It’s going to be
pretty interesting. The following week, I’m going to meet Larry Page and all these
bigwigs. So, it’s all good. Lots of cool stuff going on.
Basically, we occasionally will have interviews with just Dean and someone else
or me and someone else. But just know that Dean is there in spirit.
On this particular episode, we’d love to hear your comments at
ILoveMarketing.com. Let us know what you thought about it, what your takeaways
were, that sort of thing.
Read Breakthrough DNA, if you haven’t already done it. If you don’t have a free
recorded message set up, then what are you thinking? What’s wrong with you? Go
click and get a free recorded message set up. It costs nothing – peanuts. And it’s a 24-
hour salesperson that will work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Can and clone
yourself. Dean Graziosi does it through infomercials. We do it through free reports,
consumer awareness guides, sales letters, webinars, and even I Love Marketing
episodes. Can and clone yourself.
Dean: Podcasts! Imagine that!
ILM Episode 65.doc Page 32 of 32
Joe: Yeah, imagine that. So, any final words, Dean?
Dean: God bless America.
Joe: Exactly. Alright, goodbye everyone. Thank you.