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Podcast

The Path to Cash: The Door Opening Strategy with Caryn Kopp

In this episode, we had the privilege of hosting Caryn Kopp, a seasoned expert in sales messaging and business development. Caryn’s extensive experience has made her a master of opening doors to new business opportunities, and her insights are invaluable for anyone looking to enhance their sales strategies.

  • Discover the Power of Value: Caryn emphasizes the importance of focusing on the value your product or service offers rather than just highlighting differentiation from competitors. Learn how to craft compelling messaging that resonates with prospects.
  • Unveil the Right Prospects: Targeting the right prospects is critical. Caryn discusses effective methods to identify and engage prospects who are more likely to convert, saving time and effort.
  • Overcome Objections with Confidence: Caryn shares proven techniques for anticipating objections and crafting responses that address prospects’ concerns. Gain insights into handling objections to move prospects closer to a sale.

Tune in to this episode to gain insights into refining your sales messaging, identifying prospects, and handling objections with finesse. Unlock Caryn’s expertise and take your sales strategies to new heights.

Whether you’re a business owner, a sales professional, or anyone interested in mastering the art of sales messaging, this episode is a must-listen. Elevate your sales game by understanding the value-centric approach, prospect targeting, and objection handling strategies shared by Caryn Kopp. Don’t miss out—listen to the full episode now to transform your sales approach.

Connect with Caryn Kopp!

LinkedIn

Twitter

Websites:
koppconsultingusa.com 
koppconsultingusa.com 

Watch the episode here

 

00:00:00 Chief door opener shares strategies.

00:07:55 “Sales messaging is powerful”

00:15:27 Hiring experienced openers is crucial.

00:19:27 Right target, right message.

00:26:51 Right target, right message.

00:30:56 Sales success requires effective execution.

00:35:01 Referrals and email require careful execution.

00:41:10 Identify ready-to-buy prospects efficiently.

00:48:09 Know your why for success.

Listen to the podcast here

Unveiling the Art of Sales Messaging and Prospecting: Insights from Expert Caryn Kopp

Are you seeking to elevate your sales strategies and open doors to new business opportunities? Look no further than the latest podcast episode featuring Caryn Kopp, a seasoned expert in sales messaging and business development. With years of experience under her belt, Caryn shares her invaluable insights, shedding light on the art of crafting compelling sales messages, identifying the right prospects, and overcoming objections with finesse.

 

The Power of Value-Centric Messaging

 

In the podcast episode, Caryn Kopp emphasizes a paradigm shift in sales messaging—focusing on value over differentiation. While many businesses aim to highlight what makes them different from competitors, Caryn highlights the importance of communicating the value a product or service offers to the prospect. By resonating with the prospect’s needs and demonstrating how your offering can bring tangible benefits, you create a compelling reason for them to engage further.

 

Targeting the Right Prospects: A Game-Changer

 

One of the major takeaways from the episode is the significance of targeting the right prospects. Caryn delves into effective methods to identify prospects who are more likely to convert, saving valuable time and resources. By understanding your ideal customer profile, leveraging trigger events, and aligning with prospects who are ready to make a decision, you increase the efficiency of your sales efforts.

 

Mastering Objection Handling: A Strategic Approach

 

Objections are a common stumbling block in the sales process. Caryn equips listeners with strategies to anticipate objections and provide thoughtful responses that address prospects’ concerns. By proactively addressing objections, you build trust and credibility, nudging prospects closer to a favorable decision. Caryn’s insights guide listeners on turning objections into opportunities for meaningful conversations.

 

Why Caryn Kopp’s Expertise Matters

 

Caryn Kopp’s wealth of experience and expertise in the realm of sales messaging and business development make her a pivotal figure in the industry. Her insights have helped numerous businesses refine their sales approaches and establish fruitful connections with prospects. Caryn’s deep understanding of the nuances of value-centric messaging, prospect targeting, and objection handling has proven instrumental in driving successful sales outcomes.

 

Don’t Miss Out: Elevate Your Sales Game

 

Whether you’re a business owner, a sales professional, or someone keen on mastering the art of effective sales strategies, this podcast episode is a treasure trove of insights. Caryn Kopp’s practical advice and actionable tips offer listeners the tools they need to revolutionize their sales messaging, approach prospecting strategically, and navigate objections seamlessly. By tuning in to this episode, you’ll gain access to the expertise that can take your sales strategies to new heights.

 

Caryn Kopp’s expertise shines through in this enlightening podcast episode, where she shares her secrets to success in the world of sales messaging and business development. From crafting value-centric messages to honing in on the right prospects and skillfully addressing objections, Caryn’s insights are transformative. Embrace the opportunity to learn from a true industry expert and unlock the potential to drive meaningful connections and successful sales outcomes. Listen to the full episode now to embark on your journey toward sales excellence.

Discover your WHY.os now for 50% off! Click here to purchase today or visit whyinstitute.com/why-os-discovery/ to learn more!

If you love the show, please don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you are using. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you in the next episode.

 

About Caryn Kopp

Her Door Opener Service has helped thousands of business leaders and sales people secure initial meetings with executives in almost every major company including P&G, Pfizer, GE, Merck, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner, Kraft, Target, CBS and more.
Caryn Kopp has been dubbed the Chief Door Opener because she gets her clients “in the door” with their prospects. Many business leaders and sellers say that when they’re in front of the right decision makers they close the sale most of the time, but they just can’t get in front of enough of the right prospects. Caryn’s team of senior business developers known as Kopp Door Openers find the right opportunities and secure initial meetings for their clients.
As a best selling author, nationally recognized speaker, and an expert in Business Development, Caryn can be seen in Inc., Fortune Magazine, Forbes and Newsweek and has been interviewed on The Wall Street Journal Morning Radio Show. Caryn is also the Sales Messaging Coach for the Scaling Up Coaches Worldwide. She is the author of The Path to the Cash!® The Words You NEED To Bypass Those Darned Prospect Objections, a Go-To Book for getting in the door with prospects.
Caryn earned her MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business and her undergraduate degree from Babson College. She has held board positions for the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), National Speakers’ Association (NSA) and Enterprising Women Magazine. Caryn is also a member of the Women’s Presidents Organization (WPO). Caryn has also received leadership awards including the Enterprising Women of the Year and the Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year.

Categories
Podcast

Growth Hacking with Contact Marketing: Lessons from Stu Heinecke’s Playbook

Stu Heinecke is a renowned author and a pioneer in the field of contact marketing. His expertise lies in using creative and personalized approaches to connect with high-profile clients and decision-makers. Through his innovative strategies, he has achieved remarkable success in getting meetings with almost anyone, resulting in significant business growth and opportunities.

Delve into this episode to learn more about:

  • The power of contact marketing: Discover how Stu Heinecke’s unconventional methods, like sending personalized cartoons, can break through barriers and secure meetings with even the most elusive prospects.
  • Nurturing valuable connections: Learn the art of building and maintaining strong relationships with key individuals in your industry, leading to fruitful partnerships and collaborations.
  • Implementing creativity in marketing: Uncover the importance of creativity in your marketing campaigns and how innovative ideas can give you a competitive edge in the market.

Don’t miss out on this insightful episode as Stu Heinecke shares his remarkable journey and imparts invaluable wisdom that can revolutionize your approach to marketing and business growth. Tune in now to gain exclusive access to the mind of a marketing maverick!

Connect with Stu Heinecke!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuheinecke/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stu.heinecke.1

Websites: https://stuheinecke.com/ 

Watch the episode here

00:01:39 Seeking better ways to innovate.

00:09:33. Cartooning and marketing combination.

00:12:18 Humor is about revealing truth.

00:21:18. Cartoons increase visibility and engagement.

00:24:12 Successful personalized direct marketing campaigns.

00:31:09 Contact marketing can yield high response rates and ROI.

00:45:51 Weeds thrive in adversity.

00:46:26 Collaborate to grow your business.

00:54:07 Question conventional wisdom, embrace possibilities.

 

Listen to the podcast here

Unleashing the Marketing Maverick: A Journey with Stu Heinecke

In the dynamic world of marketing, where innovative strategies and creative approaches are the keys to success, one expert has consistently pushed the boundaries and achieved remarkable feats. Meet Stu Heinecke, a trailblazer in the realm of contact marketing, renowned author, and talented cartoonist. In this blog post, we embark on an enlightening journey with Stu Heinecke, delving into the power of contact marketing and its impact on building invaluable connections with high-profile clients and decision-makers.

 

The Power of Contact Marketing

At the heart of Stu Heinecke’s extraordinary achievements lies his mastery of contact marketing. Unlike traditional methods, Stu’s approach involves personalization and creativity, using tactics such as sending personalized cartoons to potential clients. The result? Astonishing success in securing meetings with some of the most elusive and sought-after prospects in the business world. By implementing his unique strategies, Stu demonstrates that genuine connections are far more effective than generic sales pitches.

 

Nurturing Valuable Connections

Through this podcast episode, Stu Heinecke emphasizes the significance of nurturing connections once they are established. Building meaningful relationships with key individuals in your industry can unlock a world of opportunities for collaboration and business growth. Stu’s insights will guide you on maintaining fruitful partnerships that can elevate your brand to new heights.

 

The Creative Edge in Marketing

Stu’s journey not only showcases the power of contact marketing but also underlines the importance of creativity in marketing. In today’s competitive landscape, innovative ideas can be the differentiating factor that sets your brand apart. By thinking outside the box and infusing creativity into your campaigns, you can capture your audience’s attention and leave a lasting impression.

 

Why Stu Heinecke?

Stu Heinecke’s contributions to the marketing world have been nothing short of revolutionary. His pioneering concepts have redefined how businesses approach client acquisition and retention. Moreover, his expertise in contact marketing has challenged conventional norms, proving that human connections lie at the core of successful marketing endeavors.

As we conclude our journey with Stu Heinecke, it’s evident that his impact on the marketing landscape is both profound and lasting. By implementing contact marketing and nurturing valuable connections, businesses can unlock doors that were once seemingly inaccessible. Embracing creativity in marketing further enhances your chances of standing out in a crowded market. Stu’s wisdom serves as a beacon for marketers and entrepreneurs alike, guiding them towards success in their ventures.

Don’t miss the opportunity to gain exclusive insights from this marketing maverick! Tune in to the podcast episode now and discover the transformative power of contact marketing with Stu Heinecke. Let his remarkable journey inspire you to revolutionize your marketing approach and drive unprecedented growth for your business.

Discover your WHY.os now for 50% off! Click here to purchase today or visit whyinstitute.com/why-os-discovery/ to learn more!

If you love the show, please don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you are using. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you in the next episode.

 

About Stu Heinecke

Stu Heinecke started his career combining marketing with a one-in-a-million mentorship with top cartoonists from Playboy and The New Yorker, resulting in a new genre of direct mail and hundreds of record-breaking campaigns for some of the world’s biggest direct marketers. A twice-nominated hall of fame marketer, bestselling business author and Wall Street Journal cartoonist, Stu’s first book, How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, was named one of the top 64 sales books of all time.
His latest release, How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed, lays out a complete model for explosive business growth, based on the strategies, attributes and tools weeds use to grow, expand, dominate and defend their turf. The Total Weed Award from Stu’s book is a new collaboration with the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center and a major business news outlet, to recognize weed-like growth among entrepreneurs, startups and investors.
Stu has collaborated with several of the world’s top management, ideation, sales, branding and publishing experts to produce a series of small-group/high-dollar strategy sessions in bucket-list locations, including Dubai, Salzburg, Sedona, Morocco, Iceland, Bora Bora and Sedona.

Categories
Contribute Podcast WHY

The Persuasion Paradox: How to Get People to Say Yes Before You Ask

Watch the episode here

00:00:09 Persuasion is about pre-suasion.
00:08:35 Use an effective opener for persuasion.
00:17:02 Small changes can have big impacts.
00:26:00 Small bigs make a difference.
00:34:08 Use ethical persuasion techniques effectively.
00:42:24 Think well of others.

Listen to the podcast here

Dr. Robert Cialdini, a renowned expert in the field of influence and persuasion, is the guest in this episode. With extensive research and expertise, Dr. Cialdini has authored books and developed principles that provide valuable insights into understanding human behavior and how to ethically influence others.
Three major things you will learn by listening to this episode:
  • Differentiating influence from persuasion: Understand the psychological aspects of influence and how to create a favorable state of mind in your audience before delivering your message.
  • The power of small actions and cues: Discover how something as simple as a smile or the shape of a smile can significantly impact people’s decisions and preferences.
  • The importance of ethical application: Learn how to apply the principles of influence in an ethical manner to build long-term trust and loyalty.
To gain valuable knowledge from Dr. Cialdini and delve into the art of influence, listen to this episode now!

Connect with Dr. Robert Cialdini!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robert.cialdini
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertCialdini
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teamrobertcialdini/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertcialdini/

Unleashing the Power of Ethical Influence: Insights from Dr. Robert Cialdini

Discover the art of ethical influence and the fascinating world of human behavior in this captivating podcast episode featuring Dr. Robert Cialdini. As a distinguished expert in influence and persuasion, Dr. Cialdini shares his extensive knowledge, providing invaluable insights to help you master the art of persuasion. Whether you’re a business professional, marketer, or simply looking to enhance your communication skills, this episode is a game-changer.

Unveiling the Guest

Dr. Robert Cialdini, the renowned authority on influence, brings his unrivaled expertise to the forefront of this episode. With a plethora of groundbreaking research and best-selling books to his name, Dr. Cialdini is a trusted source for understanding the psychological factors that shape decision-making. His contributions have made a significant impact on professionals across diverse industries.

Unleashing the Secrets to Ethical Influence

Explore the essential elements that differentiate influence from persuasion, and how they play a vital role in achieving successful outcomes. Dr. Cialdini delves deep into the psychology behind effective messaging, teaching you how to prepare your audience to be more receptive to your requests. Gain a thorough understanding of the principles that underpin persuasive communication, enabling you to ethically influence others.

Harnessing the Power of Subtle Cues

Discover the surprising impact of small actions and non-verbal cues on decision-making processes. Dr. Cialdini shares intriguing studies that highlight the significance of a smile and its shape in shaping preferences and choices. Uncover the potential of leveraging these subtle cues to create lasting impressions and drive desired outcomes.

Ethical Application for Long-Term Success

Ethics and integrity form the foundation of ethical influence. Dr. Cialdini emphasizes the importance of maintaining trust and authenticity when applying persuasive techniques. By aligning ethical practices with the principles of influence, you can build long-term relationships, foster loyalty, and achieve sustainable success in your personal and professional endeavors.

Why You Should Tune In

Don’t miss this exceptional opportunity to gain invaluable insights from Dr. Cialdini, a true authority in the realm of influence. Unlock the secrets to mastering ethical persuasion, establish stronger connections, and drive favorable outcomes. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a passionate learner, this episode will equip you with actionable strategies to make a lasting impact.

Don’t wait any longer! Immerse yourself in the realm of ethical influence by listening to this transformative episode now.

About Dr. Robert Cialdini

Robert-Cialdini-BYWP-square

Robert Cialdini, a thought leader in the fields of influence and persuasion, has spent his career publishing scientific research on what causes people to say “Yes” to requests. The results of his research, his ensuing articles, and his New York Times bestselling books have led to his election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Science.

His 7 Principles of Persuasion have become a cornerstone for any organization serious about increasing its influence
significantly, while doing so ethically.

As a keynote speaker, Dr. Cialdini is renowned for his ability
to translate the science of influence through valuable and
indelible stories that lend themselves to long-term business
applications.

His books, including his New York Times Bestselling Influence and Pre-Suasion, have sold more than seven-million copies in 44 languages. As a result, he is frequently regarded as
“The Godfather of Influence”.

Categories
Contribute Podcast WHY

The Art of Influence: Small Things That Make a Big Difference with Godfather of Influence, Dr. Robert Cialdini

Watch the episode here

[00:00:13] The Seven Principles of Influence.
[00:06:01] Next in line effect.
[00:08:50] Power of Persuasion.
[00:13:13] Communication strategies for groups.
[00:21:17] The power of “because”.
[00:26:33] The definition of influence.
[00:28:39] Rule for reciprocity.
[00:33:55] Give something to clients first.
[00:39:29] Principles of Persuasion.
[00:43:28] Influence and Consistency.
[00:49:18] Social Proof and Usability.

Listen to the podcast here

 

Dr. Robert Cialdini is a renowned expert on influence and persuasion. With his extensive research and expertise, he has become a leading authority in understanding the psychology behind human behavior and decision-making. His work has helped businesses and individuals unlock the power of persuasion to achieve greater success.

Tune in and learn from the master himself!

  1. The seven universal principles of influence: Discover the key principles that significantly increase the likelihood of getting a positive response in any persuasive message, such as reciprocation, liking, authority, social proof, scarcity, commitment consistency, and unity.
  2. The power of giving first: Learn how providing value, benefits, and positive attitude to others can create a sense of reciprocity and increase the chances of them saying yes to your requests.
  3. Strategies for effective persuasion: Gain insights into practical techniques like finding genuine similarities, giving compliments, leveraging authority and social proof, highlighting scarcity, and promoting commitment and consistency to enhance your persuasive messaging.

Listen to this episode to delve deeper into the fascinating world of influence and persuasion, and learn how to apply these principles to improve your copywriting, SEO, and marketing strategies. Gain valuable insights from Dr. Robert Cialdini, an expert in the field, and unlock the potential to achieve better results in your business endeavors.

Connect with Dr. Robert Cialdini!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robert.cialdini
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertCialdini
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teamrobertcialdini/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertcialdini/

Unleashing the Power of Persuasion: Insights from Dr. Robert Cialdini

In the world of influence and persuasion, few names carry as much weight as Dr. Robert Cialdini. As a renowned expert in the field, Dr. Cialdini has dedicated his career to unraveling the secrets behind human behavior and decision-making. In a recent episode of the Beyond Your WHY Podcast, hosted by Dr. Gary Sanchez, Dr. Cialdini shared valuable insights into the art of persuasion and the seven universal principles of influence. Join us as we delve into the highlights of this episode, exploring the importance of Dr. Cialdini’s work and discovering how you can leverage his expertise to enhance your copywriting and SEO strategies.

Understanding the Seven Universal Principles of Influence

Dr. Cialdini’s extensive research has identified seven universal principles of influence: reciprocation, liking, authority, social proof, scarcity, commitment consistency, and unity. By grasping these principles and integrating them into your messaging, you can significantly increase the likelihood of eliciting a positive response from your target audience.

The Power of Reciprocity: Giving First

One of the major takeaways from the episode is the importance of giving value, benefits, and positive attitude before making a request. Dr. Cialdini emphasizes that by going above and beyond for your audience or customers, you create a sense of reciprocity, leading them to feel obligated to reciprocate your actions.

Strategies for Effective Persuasion

Dr. Cialdini provides actionable strategies for effective persuasion. He highlights the significance of finding genuine similarities and offering genuine compliments to build rapport with your audience. Leveraging authority and social proof can help reduce uncertainty, as people tend to follow the recommendations of experts and the actions of their peers. Additionally, highlighting scarcity and promoting commitment consistency can further enhance the persuasive impact of your message.

The Importance of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Work

Dr. Cialdini’s research and expertise in influence and persuasion have revolutionized our understanding of human behavior. His work has not only influenced the field of psychology but has also made a significant impact on marketing, sales, and business strategies worldwide. Through his groundbreaking book “Influence,” Dr. Cialdini has become a trusted authority, guiding businesses and individuals toward more effective communication and persuasion techniques.

The Beyond Your WHY Podcast episode featuring Dr. Robert Cialdini offers invaluable insights into the power of persuasion. By implementing the seven universal principles of influence and incorporating the strategies shared by Dr. Cialdini, you can enhance your ability to engage and persuade your target audience effectively. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn from one of the foremost authorities on influence and persuasion. Unlock the secrets of persuasion, elevate your copywriting and SEO efforts, and start achieving remarkable results in your communications. Tune in to the episode today and unleash the power of persuasion in your endeavors.

About Dr. Robert Cialdini

Robert-Cialdini-BYWP-square

Robert Cialdini, a thought leader in the fields of influence and persuasion, has spent his career publishing scientific research on what causes people to say “Yes” to requests. The results of his research, his ensuing articles, and his New York Times bestselling books have led to his election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Science.

His 7 Principles of Persuasion have become a cornerstone for any organization serious about increasing its influence
significantly, while doing so ethically.

As a keynote speaker, Dr. Cialdini is renowned for his ability
to translate the science of influence through valuable and
indelible stories that lend themselves to long-term business
applications.

His books, including his New York Times Bestselling Influence and Pre-Suasion, have sold more than seven-million copies in 44 languages. As a result, he is frequently regarded as
“The Godfather of Influence”.

Categories
Podcast

How Education Helps You Become A Great Business Owner With Brad Sugars

BYW 47 | Great Business Owner

 

No one is born to be a salesperson or a leader. They learn to become one. And isn’t it heartening to know that you have the power to be great? In this episode, our guest believes that the only way you can out earn someone is to outlearn them. Putting that philosophy to work, he shows his WHY of Better Way through business coaching with ActionCOACH. Dr. Gary Sanchez sits down with its founder and owner, Brad Sugars. Brad shares with us his amazing career journey that taught him lessons on the power of education and coaching. He also talks about the franchise model of his business, why it works, and why he finds it better in keeping ActionCOACH relevant, top of mind, and state of the art. Join this episode to learn more about Brad and why he thinks business is a profitable enterprise that works without you.

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

 

How Education Helps You Become A Great Business Owner With Brad Sugars

For this episode, I have Brad Sugars on the show. He is the Founder and Owner of ActionCOACH. They have 1,000 coaches around the world. They’re franchise owners. He’s going to talk about why he picked that model. He’s going to talk about many of the businesses that he owns and how he uses that experience to continually improve and find better ways to keep ActionCOACH relevant, keep it top of mind, and keep it where it’s state of the art. He writes books on this. He studies it. I was fascinated because I didn’t know how much expertise he has. He is going to dive into it during this interview. You’re going to love it. I can’t wait for you to read it.

We’re going to be talking about the WHY of Better Way to find a better way and share it. If this is your WHY, then you are the ultimate innovator. You are constantly seeking better ways to do everything. You find yourself wanting to improve virtually anything by finding a way to make it better. You also desire to share your improvement with the world.

You constantly ask yourself questions like, “What if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way? How can we make this better?” You contribute to the world with better processes and systems while operating under the motto, “I’m often pleased but never satisfied.” You are excellent at associating, which means that you are adept at taking ideas or systems from one industry or discipline and applying them to another always with the ultimate goal of improving something.

I have a great guest for you. He is internationally known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs. Brad Sugars is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and the number one business coach in the world. Over the course of his 30-year career as an entrepreneur, Brad has become the CEO of nine-plus companies and is the owner of the multimillion-dollar franchise ActionCOACH.

As a husband and father of five, Brad is equally as passionate about his family as he is about business. That’s why Brad is a strong advocate for building a business that works without you so you can spend more time doing what matters to you. Over the years of starting, scaling, and selling many businesses, Brad has earned his fair share of scars. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy road, but if you can learn from those who have come before you, it becomes a lot easier than going at it alone. That’s why Brad has created 90 Days to Revolutionize Your Life. It’s 30 minutes a day for 90 days teaching you his 30-year experience in investing, business, and life. Brad, welcome to the show.

I like your intros. They’re fantastic.

That was a mouthful, but an amazing mouthful. I loved it. Let’s do this. Where are you? Tell everybody where you’re located.

Home for me is Las Vegas, Nevada. I am Australian by birth. I married a Boston girl, so I ended up in the only city in America fun enough for an Aussie to live in. That’s the way I explain it.

I was thinking about that as I know you have an accent. Are there a lot of Aussies in Las Vegas?

There are. The hospitality industry and the casino industry are very big in Australia. There are a lot of professionals from that sphere that move here, about 600 families all up.

Take us back to what you were like. What was Brad Sugars like in high school, and where was that?

High school for me was in Australia. They were two different high schools, in fact. It was in Adelaide, South Australia, and Brisbane, Queensland. My high school that I finished at Sunnybank State High, we always joked that if you survived high school, you didn’t graduate. It was a big school. It had a lot of kids. For me, high school was pretty easy. Being a student was pretty easy.

I’m auditory by nature. In those days, the school was mostly auditorily taught, and that made it pretty easy for me to learn. Most of what I was like in high school is I tell my kids I was a bit of a nerd. I always loved that Bill Gates quote, “Be nice to us nerds. You’ll probably end up working for us.” That was me. I loved getting good grades. I loved doing well, but always also had part-time jobs or part-time things. I was always trying to make money here and there.

At age thirteen, I remember getting in trouble. We moved from Darwin to Adelaide. I’m going to age myself and maybe you. The cool thing was Levi’s 501® jeans. Do you remember that phase in the world? My mom didn’t understand cool. She understood what we could afford, and that was corduroy jeans from Kmart. I remember when I got into a fight with a kid at school blaming those jeans. It was the noise that they make as you walk. I remember at age thirteen deciding I would always have enough money to do whatever I wanted. I would never be in a position to not have something that I needed again. I went to work for doing things. I was doing whatever I could to make some money to make sure I had 501s at the time.

That’s awesome. Were you into sports?

Sports and boy scouts. They were the two things. In Australia, I played cricket and rugby under Australian rules. I eventually moved into volleyball. Volleyball and beach volleyball became my sport. Also, as a young man, boy scouts was a big thing. It was camping, hiking, and doing all those sorts of survivalist stuff. I enjoyed those things.

You graduate from high school. Were you off to school after that?

Yes. I studied to become an accountant at the Queensland University of Technology. I wanted to be a lawyer but didn’t get the grades to get into law school, so I got stuck with accounting. That’s what my dad did, so I was like, “That’s what I’ll do.” It was luckily a great grounding for being an entrepreneur later in life, understanding the numbers.

I do not see, based on your WHY.os, which WHY being Better Way, HOW being Simplify, and WHAT being Contribute, accounting being a good place for you.

I didn’t last in accounting very long. In fact, I never once had a job as an accountant. I interviewed a couple of new accountants. I’m not going to be an accountant.

Let’s think about this for a second. Had you chosen and been an accountant, how long do you think you could have done it?

I could have done it for my entire life, but I would’ve done it differently than most. That’s the thing. An innovator is an innovator. It doesn’t matter whether you are innovating in accounting, marketing, sales, or boy scouts. If you’re an innovator, you’re an innovator. If you want to make stuff better, you’re going to do it no matter what. If I was in the accounting field, I would’ve found a better way. I might’ve ended up in accounting software and done what the Xero guys have done.

That’s the thing. We sometimes fall into a field or a business and we didn’t plan to ever be in that industry. I never woke up one day and said, “Do you know what I want to do? I want to write business books. That’s what I want to do. I want to be a teacher of business. I want to buy companies, build them, and sell them.” There was no dream of doing that. It’s not like I want to be a firefighter-type thing. I fell into this.

Someone said to me that one of the biggest challenges you have in life is finding where you fit in and finding that place where it’s natural for you. Finding your calling was the word he used. It’s important that once you find your calling, you realize that it is your calling and then go for it. This is why I love what you do. A lot of people spend so much time trying to find their purpose in life, not realizing that they probably are already somehow on that purpose. It’s a matter of recognizing it.

It’s the old saying Buckminster Fuller used to teach us that the Bumblebee never knows its true purpose. It never knows its real job is to pollinate the world but it still gets on with its job-type thing. Sometimes, your calling is given to you. A friend of mine has a young son with autism. His calling was given to him. He didn’t ask for that calling. He didn’t request it, but that was his calling. As a man who represents parents with autism all around, sometimes, you are given your calling. You don’t get a choice in it.

I love that. Let’s go back to when you got out of school. You decided on accounting because your dad was an accountant, and then what happened to you? That’s not where you are.

I went part-time in college about halfway through because I wanted to work. I wanted to do stuff and make money. I went into sales. I tried sales. I was selling, advertising, and all sorts of different things. I tried announcing. I tried being a DJ. I enjoyed being a DJ. I tried radio announcing. I was like, “Good times and classic, it is 4VO. You are in Charleville.” That was the station I worked in one summer in West Queensland, Charleville. I was the guy that shut the station off at 12:00 AM. That’s how small our town was. We turned the station off.

I tried a bunch of different things. I got into a bunch of different businesses, everything from pizza manufacturing to wholesale and beauty salons, and started teaching. I was lucky enough to work with a gentleman by the name of Paul Dunn. Paul is still a legend in the business development world. He runs a very large charity out of Singapore called B1G1 or Buy1Give1. It is phenomenal work he is doing with his partner Masami. I learned from Paul about the whole business development world, the whole area, and that sort of thing. I was running a business and thought, “How do I learn this stuff?” Paul was phenomenal.

From there, I developed the Yearn to Learn. In fact, I was sixteen when I first met Jim Rohn when I developed the Yearn to Learn. I was lucky enough to have won the Rotary Youth Leadership Award in my area. The Rotary Club sent us away for a weeklong training on how to be successful. I came back to town, saw this thing about this guy Jim Rohn, and thought, “I’m sixteen. I might as well go.”

It was $595. I didn’t have that money. I called up, and the guy that answered the phone probably gave me a great lesson. I said, “I don’t have that $595. I’m sixteen. Is there a student price, a scholarship price, or something like that?” He says, “There’s not. You’ll make as much learning by getting the money to get here as you will by getting here.” I had to find a way to find $600 as a sixteen-year-old kid. I sold one of my bicycles that we bought, painted, and done up. My brother and I used to pull our bikes apart a lot, fix them, paint them, and stuff.

I got there and got to do it. That Yearn to Learn is still with me. I don’t get in a car without an audiobook playing. I don’t go for a walk or a run without an audiobook of some sort. I have great earphones that I can swim. I love swimming laps to keep fit. I put the headphones on and they play the book as I’m swimming laps.

When you say you got the teaching bug or you got to teach, what do you mean by that? What kind of teaching were you?

You’ve heard of him because he became pretty famous, Robert Kiyosaki. He and Sharon Lechter wrote the book Rich Dad Poor Dad. Sharon is still a great friend. She’s gone on to become the number one bestselling author in the history of non-fiction books on finance and stuff. Robert brought me to Hawaii to teach. We met when I was 20 or 21, I can’t remember exactly, in Sydney.

BYW 47 | Great Business Owner
Rich Dad Poor Dad

I went down to take Robert’s course on how to present from the stage. At one point during the activity, they’d bring all the guys in. You all have to wear your best suits. I was twenty. I didn’t have a best suit. I had a suit. It was a little bit big and stuff. They stood you around the room and said to all the women in the room, “Go and stand in front of the guy that you would take home to mom, and then stand in front of the guy you’d take home but not to mom.” They then said, “Stand in front of the guy if you had a $100 million a year business that you would want to run that business.”

There was one woman in the room who did have a $100 million-a-year business. She stood in front of me with a whole bunch of other women. It was all these guys that look like me with all the gray heads, no heads. I was a 20-year-old kid or 21, I can’t remember which. Robert pulls me aside, puts me up on stage, and says, “These are the things. If you don’t hurry up, this guy’s coming for you.” Me being the smart ass that I was at that stage in life, I said, “When I finish, Robert, I’m coming after you,” and he laughed. There you go. Here we are.

Is he still alive?

Yes. He’s still out teaching and still doing stuff.

All the ladies lined up in front of you. What happened after that? You can’t leave us there.

That’s when Rob invited me to speak. He asked me to teach because I’d helped one of his promoters in Melbourne and one in Brisbane with the sales and marketing of his events. I tripled their sales by teaching them certain marketing techniques and certain sales techniques. He invited me to speak to all of his promoters. If you teach 50-odd seminar promoters how to increase their business, amazingly enough, they want to put you on stage and teach their customer base. I fell in love with teaching. About a year later from there, I invented ActionCOACH. When you’re on stage teaching, a lot of people are asking you the question, “How do I do that? Can you teach me that? Can you help us with that sort of thing?”

I’m probably a bit of a slow learner. After 100 people asked me to help them with it, I finally said, “Maybe I should start a business doing that.” At the time, I had photocopy shops that I was running. It wasn’t in my mindset to do that as a business. I was still doing speeches and things here. ActionCOACH will be 30 years old this August 2023.

Something popped into my head there. What do you see as the value in learning how to speak? I have a friend of mine that owns commercial real estate in New Mexico. It’s probably the biggest one there. We were talking one day and he said, “The turning point in me going from being one of the many to being one of the few was when I learned how to speak.”

Whether it’s speaking or one-to-one communication, how you communicate is so massively important in leadership, sales, and marketing. In any form of a business transaction, there’s going to be communication. What being a speaker allows you to do is to move to leverage. It means instead of motivating one person at a time, I can motivate thousands at a time. It means instead of educating one person at a time, I can educate tens of thousands, but so does all my books. I write all these books and things. I can educate millions at a time. I can educate them while I’m sleeping. We produce podcasts and YouTube. All of that helps educate people while they’re speaking.

Someone taught me many moons ago that if you’re making money while you’re asleep, that’s wealth. That always caught my mindset of, “How do I create things?” Buckminster Fuller said, “You create models and artifacts.” That’s why every time I teach, it is based on a model. I have the 5 Ways to Multiply Your Profits, 6 Keys to a Winning Team, and 9 Steps to Systematizing a Business. I create models.

The reason I create a model is that it’s easy to teach and easy to learn. There’s no hidden agenda behind it type of thing. Artifacts mean videos, podcasts, books, training courses, and franchises. You create those because then you leave something behind and it’s not dependent upon you. Most people when it comes to their own success in life, it’s dependent upon them and only them.

If we look at some of the best examples of translating great skill into great fortunes, the number one that comes to mind is Shaquille O’Neill. Shaq goes from being a guy that created good money by being a basketball player but all the time studying to end up with a doctorate. Here he is, possibly one of the largest owners of food-based franchises in the United States. He puts his face on the ring cameras and takes a shareholding. He puts his face in front of Papa Johns and becomes a shareholder. It is those sorts of things. You’ve got to take your best skill and turn it into lifelong income, not just a one-off.

You've got to take your best skill and turn it into lifelong income, not just a one-off. Click To Tweet

Who taught you how to get on stage? Was that Robert Kiyosaki? Who taught you how to get on stage, how to present, how to pull the audience’s attention, and how to take them on a journey?

That was the first part of it. From there, I kept studying the art form and watching. One of the great things for me is I get to speak on a lot of stages around the world. I get up there and have Gary Sanchez go in front of me. I sit there, watch, and go, “That’s a good strategy. I like that strategy.” It is by watching all of the great speakers and seeing how they do it. Success leaves clues is not a new statement. If you’re unwilling to study someone who’s successful in your industry, don’t complain. The old joke of, “Don’t complain to me about the results you didn’t get for the work you didn’t do,” is still alive and well.

You talk about Jim Rohn. One of my favorite things that he talks about is setting a goal for what you become in order to achieve it. That’s what I hear you saying.

I reverse that even and say, “The moment you set a goal, it is not possible for you to achieve it.” When I was sixteen, I met Jim Rohn. From him, I set a goal of retiring at age 25. It was a financial retirement because retirement’s not a function of age. It’s a function of finances. When I set that goal, my buddy, Leon, who lived around the corner on Pompadour Street, his dad sat us both down and told us how that was not possible. I told Leon and he told his dad that we’re going to retire at 25. His dad was an engineer in the city, so he knew exactly what that looked like.

The thing was Leon’s dad was right. Sixteen-year-old Brad could not financially retire, but I was willing to learn and grow into that goal. That’s where my formula is with dream-goal-learn-plan-act. You got to have dreams because without dreams, and W. Somerset Maugham said it best, nothing if not at first a dream. It’s not something, but nothing if not at first a dream.

Dreams become goals. Dreams are 10 to 20 years out. You have no idea how they’re going to be achieved or if they’re going to be achieved. Goals are like that from tomorrow to five years type of thing. The most important goal is the daily goal, in my opinion, then it is a weekly goal, and the monthly. Having a five-year goal is irrelevant if you don’t have daily goals. Daily goals make you achieve your weekly goals, which makes you achieve your monthlies, quarterlies, annuals, etc.

From your goals, then you have to determine your learning plan. If I set a goal to double my revenue, I’ve got to go and study ten books on how to double my revenue. I’ve got to go and study ten companies that did double their revenue. I’ve got to go and study ten people that have taught how to double their revenue. It could be podcasts or books. You name it, I’ve got to study that.

From that study, I then write the plan. I set a goal to run a marathon. If I go and get no new knowledge and write a plan on how to run a marathon, I’m not going to be that successful at it. If I set a goal to get a marathon, I got to join a running club. I’ve got to read books on it. I’ve got to read and study. I got to listen to podcasts. I got to study people who’ve run marathons, learn how, create a marathon plan, create a training plan, and all that stuff. That’s where people are unwilling to do the learning work.

The learning work of success or learning work is the hardest work because it involves growth. It involves personal growth. It involves personal knowledge acquisition. The crazy thing is, and Jim Rohn said this in a roundabout way, “I guarantee you if you read a book a week for ten years, you will achieve the life you want.” If I said to someone, “You got to read a book a week for ten years or you got to work a job where what you do is shovel poop for ten years,” people are like, “I might shovel poop for ten years. That seems easier.” It’s crazy to me. I always say if you want to out-earn me, you got to outlearn me. Learn becomes before earn.

If you want to out-earn me, you got to outlearn me. Learn comes before earn. Click To Tweet

Step one was dream. Step two was goal. Step three was plan.

It is learn then plan.

There are four steps?

The fifth is act, so take action. If you build that dream, the dream’s got to be turned into a step-by-step goal at some point. The goals have got to be turned into a learning plan at some point. When I meet someone who wants to do better at business and they want to increase their sales, they make a statement like, “I’m no good at sales.” I’m like, “How many sales training courses have you attended?” They’re like, “None.” I’m like, “How many sales books have you read?” They’re like, “None.”

I’m like, “How do you know you’re bad at sales?” They’re like, “I tried it once and I was really bad at it.” I’m like, “You tried something you had no training in and you are bad at it.” They’re like, “That makes sense.” If you’ve had no training in playing golf, you’re going to be bad at golf. We expect to be good at certain things because it’s like, “You’re born a salesman.” No one’s born a salesperson. You learn to be a salesman. No one’s born a leader. You learn to be a leader.

I remember I was 20 or 21 and running my own business. I went to my dad and said, “I can’t get good people.” He looked me dead in the eye and says, “You get the people you deserve.” I’m like, “What?” He said, “You’re an average manager running an average company. The highest caliber person that wants to work for you is average. If you want great people to work for you, you better run a great company, become a great leader or a great manager, and then you can attract great people.” I’m like, “Thanks.” You can see where I got my motivational streak from, can’t you?

Exactly. It sounds like learning is such a big part of continual learning. I bet you see that over and over in the clients that you worked with as well as the coaches you work with.

My coaches generally are learners because that’s the nature of the person that wants to be a coach if that makes sense. For our clients, in a lot of cases, the reason they are where they are is they’ve given up learning or they never even took up learning after high school-type thing. They learned how to be a great hairdresser, not a great business owner. They learned how to be a great plumber, not a business leader or a business owner-type thing.

What I say we do at ActionCOACH is help people become great business owners. My definition of a business is a commercial profitable enterprise that works without you. If you have to be there, it’s not a business. It’s a job and you work for the idiot. Let’s be clear about that. When I first started in business, and you hear it a lot with the old hustle and grind, I thought my job as a business owner was to be the hardest working one in the room. I wore it as a badge of honor, like, “I worked six days a week. I worked sixteen-hour days. I even sleep in my office. That’s how hard I work.”

BYW 47 | Great Business Owner
Great Business Owner: A business is a commercial profitable enterprise that works without you. If you have to be there, it’s not a business. It’s a job, and you work for the idiot.

 

Little did I realize how stupid that was because me working that hard covered up all the problems in my business. It covered up that the sales systems weren’t that good. Rather than building a business that worked without me, I built a business that if I left, it died. I built a trap. I didn’t build a business. I built self-employment. There is a big difference between the two.

That’s where a lot of the business owners that come to us as ActionCOACH, we sit down with them and explain to them, “Your job is to finish your business. Your job is to build it so that it can work so you don’t have to. Your job’s to build an asset that is saleable, not to build something that means you have to work 60 to 80 hours a week.” Richard Branson used one of my quotes one time. It was this quote that said, “Entrepreneurs are the crazy people that will work 80 hours a week so they don’t have to work 40 hours a week for someone else.”

There’s that badge of honor that we misplace or put towards that like it’s a gift for us to work so hard. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to work my rear end off, so I get that. I’m sure there are a lot of people that are there as well that are reading this.

It’s where I started because that’s all I knew. I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know that my job was to create an asset, something that ran without me. Here we are. If the business still was based on me, the most we could probably do was tens of millions. Doing hundreds of millions a year is because it’s not based on me. It’s based on my team and based on what they do and how they do things.

How do you get a business owner from the mindset of, “If it’s going to happen, it’s up to me,” to, “It’s going to be up to we. I’m the smallest part of it.”

It’s gradual. It’s step-by-step. The old, “No one can do it as good as me,” and, “You can’t get good people,” all of that stuff has to shift. We’ve got to teach them to let go. That also means there’s a lot of skillset development in that person. When you’re a self-employed business owner, especially if you’re a solopreneur, every job’s yours. Sales is yours. Marketing is yours. You make the sale and do the work. You’re in that seesaw level.

Eventually, you move up to manager. You get on that merry-go-round of you employ the people and think they’re going to make your job easier when, in fact, in the beginning, they make your job a lot harder. That’s because you don’t have systems. You don’t have recruiting systems. You don’t have training systems. You don’t have proper planning systems, cashflow systems, and all of those things that we need to develop. The building of a business owner is teaching that knowledge.

As a business owner, you’ve got to become a great business owner. I then take that one step further and teach people to be investors and then entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur doesn’t own one business. They own many. The millionaire wants to be the CEO of one business. Billionaires want CEOs to run their companies for them. I don’t want to be CEO. I like chairman. I like the title of chairman. I love being chairman. I meet them once a month. I give them all of the things to get done and the way they go.

BYW 47 | Great Business Owner
Great Business Owner: An entrepreneur doesn’t own one business. They own many. The millionaire wants to be the CEO of one business. Billionaires want CEOs to run their companies for them.

 

In fact, most of my CEOs are so strong. I’ve coached them to be strong CEOs. Most of them come to me with all the things that need doing and ask me 1 or 2 questions for advice. I then sound out about 2 or 3 things that I’m noticing and they say, “We need to look at that,” and off they go. I run 11 companies 2 days a week, and I build content on the other day of the week. I work three-day weeks because that’s what I like. I have five kids.

Let’s talk for a minute about ActionCOACH. That started many years ago. How did that start? Why did that start? Take us on the path that you’ve taken ActionCOACH on.

It started back with that story of Rob Kiyosaki when people kept asking me to speak. People were, from there, asking me to help them. I said, “I don’t have the time. I’m running my own thing. I’m doing these speeches. If you call me every week, I’ll coach you through whatever I can.” That was it. I didn’t even charge them for it in the beginning. I didn’t know. Eventually, I built a team around that. We were one of the first-ever white-collar franchises in the world because we wanted to expand fast. At the time, there were only two other white-collar franchises, ERA or Expense Reduction Analysts and a tax franchise group. We evolved across the world pretty quickly with that.

Our franchise has grown to the point where most of our franchise partners around the world have large teams of people delivering the coaching and the education. All business owners are part of our educational membership program. We find a lot of business owners who need the knowledge. They’re willing to do the work. They just need someone to give them that extra bit of knowledge as to how they do that.

When I turned 50, it was COVID. What are you going to do? I built a TV studio. I went into my TV studio and did 30 days for 30 minutes a day on everything I knew on how to grow a business, and then another 30 days on everything I knew about success principles and the theories of success and life. I then did another 30 minutes a day for 30 days on wealth and how to invest and stuff. It was like, “I got nothing else to do. I might as well go and teach everything I know and put it down.” I get messages probably every other day on Facebook or Instagram from someone that says, “We sold our company for this, and this happened. We want to thank you for everything you taught us back then.” That’s the exciting part for me.

Why did you pick the franchise model?

When you look at business, the strategy of a business or the business model is usually flawed for most business people. The strategy of a business has to have four things. 2 of them are business models and 2 of them are industry. The two business model ones are leverage and scalability. There must be leverage. My definition of leverage is to do the work once and get paid forever. In every layer of the business, there must be leverage. If you get a customer once, you keep them forever.

Everything you do has to be about the long-term, not about one-offs. I would never go into a pool-building business, but I would invest in a pool maintenance business-type thing. If you get a customer, keep them for life type of thing. The most expensive thing in business is getting a customer. The most costly thing in business is losing a customer. Repeat business equals profit is what I teach all of my team around the world. If you got repeat business, you got profit. No repeat business, no profit. It is pretty simple that way.

The most costly thing in business is losing a customer. Repeat business equals profit. Click To Tweet

The second part is scalability. My definition of scale is that the next sale costs less and is easier. Franchise number one was a lot of work and a lot of money to get it up in development. Franchise number 1,000 has cost me a lot less and is a lot easier to sell than franchise number one. As we get bigger, it gets easier and less work, not more work.

Back in the day, and I’ve sold out of it since, we had a rental business renting out fridges, freezers, TVs, and white and brown goods or stainless steel goods. If you looked at it, the first refrigerator we rented out took a lot of work. Number 100 is less work, less cost. Number 1,000 is less work, less cost. Number, 10,000 is way less work, way less cost. It’s all about that.

There are only eleven types of business models that have both leverage and scale. Franchising is one of those. Another is the rental business. When you look at that model, you must pick a model that has leverage and scale. You then look at the other two segments of strategy, and this is all in Pulling Profits Out of a Hat. The other two are marketability and opportunity size. Marketability means that the market already buys the product. It sells itself.

I have a commercial cleaning business. Why? It’s simple. If you have an office, a gym, a store, or something, you know it needs cleaning. You don’t have any say in whether it gets cleaned. All you have a say in is who cleans it and how often type thing. You have to get it. You have a budget for it. All we have to do is convince you to buy from us, not to convince you to buy. That’s the marketability side of it.

The opportunity side of it is how big the marketplace for that is. Unfortunately, a lot of people go into business. They might live in a small town and there are twenty restaurants. If the entire annual spend is $10 million in 20 restaurants, the average one’s going to be doing $500,000. You can’t survive on that sort of thing. You’ve got to look at it. That’s why geographically, you sit back and see it.

I find a business that is a great little business in one city, one town, one state, or maybe even one country. I say, “This business here in Melbourne, Australia, should be everywhere in the world.” We had a property management company we built and sold. It was based in Houston, Texas, in one location. We built it up across Texas. We’re about to go to the rest of America. We had a Silicon Valley company come along and want to offer Silicon Valley multiples. We said yes.

Listening to you riff about this, it’s fascinating how much thinking you’ve done versus doing. Do you set up a time every day or every week periodically? How do you do your thinking unless this is what you learned from somebody else?

There are three ways. Number one, I write books. I wrote a book called Raise Your Hand Marketing because the way marketing has shifted around the world. I’ve spent the last few years studying the shift in marketing because it’s so different than it was back when I first started in marketing. The tools are different. The market is different. The way we do it is different. When I’m writing that book, what I have to do is work out, “What is my formulaic methodology? How do I do that?” What Raise Your Hand is all about is how I offer something that gets a prospective buyer to say, “I’m interested.”

BYW 47 | Great Business Owner
Raise Your Hand Marketing: How to consistently & predictably buy lifetime customers

I do eBooks, downloads, podcasts, webinars, and so many different things. I have billboards that offer my book for free if you’re a business owner. They raise their hand and say, “I’m that book.” What does that mean? It’s, “I’m a business owner who’s interested in growing my business.” That is a great prospective customer for us.

We do one where we interview business owners. We say to them, “We’d like to interview you for our business spotlight series on how you grow your business.” If they say no, we know they’re not interested in growing their business. If they say yes, we know they’re interested in being publicized and growing their business, so we interview them. At the end of it, they ask us, “How does this business coaching thing work?” We do a lot of Raise Your Hand and stuff on that sort of thing.

The second thing that I do to learn it is teaching. I put on seminars, webinars, or that sort of thing. I find to teach, I have to think through more to be able to state how I do it. The third is I create a model. I mentioned this one, which is from Pulling Profits Out of a Hat. In that, it’s the five circles of discipline. What are the five circles that create exponential growth? If you’ve got all five of these circles working, you get exponential growth or you don’t get exponential growth.

Those are the three things that I don’t put aside specific time for it. If I was to add a fourth, it’s I buy companies and I do stuff. This isn’t, “Let me sit and postulate in my university office and teach what I think.” This is, “We bought a marketing agency in London last year. It’s scaling at a rate of about 30% quarter on quarter.” We’re sitting there going, “What things do we have to confront in our businesses?”

I’m getting my partner in our catering business and we’re going to a new solid site. He’s asking all the questions about leasing, and I’m having to go, “How long has it been since I did a lease? My CFO does all the leases these days.” You got to think back. Being a mentor to people makes you think more than being a student.

If people are reading this and they’re not familiar with ActionCOACH, tell them a little bit more about ActionCOACH.

It is very simply put. Business ownership is the loneliest job in the world. Owners struggle with either team, time, or money. They’re either struggling with people, working too many hours, or money, or a combination of all 3 or 2 of those sorts of things. What we do is work with those business people to help them become better business owners. We coach them, educate them, and put them into a community of other business owners because we want to get rid of that loneliness factor.

Business ownership is the loneliest job in the world. Owners struggle with either team, time, or money. Click To Tweet

I always found as a young man being a business owner, I couldn’t talk to anyone about my business problems. My friends didn’t understand. They didn’t own a business. My family wasn’t business people. I couldn’t talk to my banker. In fact, I’d probably try and hide everything from my banker. By building that community and that education and giving them the accountability of coaching, we find that builds the results for those people.

No matter what size of business you are in, we have a program for you. We coach the top fortune companies in their executive and their CEO coaching programs. We work with the smallest brand-new startups and young Millennial that are very excited about the business and who have an idea and want to get the education for it. We’ve built programs to go from one end of the spectrum to the other to help the entrepreneur and C-level executive to take the business to where they need it to be.

This is the last question for you. What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve ever been given or the best piece of advice you’ve ever given?

I’ll do both if I can.

Sure.

The best piece of advice I was ever given was from Jim Rohn. It was, “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job. Never wish life were easier. Wish that you were better. If you get better, life gets easier.” It’s the same as sales. If you get better at sales, it gets easier. If you get better at marketing, it gets easier. The flip of that is from me. The best piece of advice I can give anyone is your job in life is to be the best version of yourself. It’s not an average version of you. It’s an okay or a just-get-by version of you. How do you be the best dad, best friend, brother, sister, parent, or leader? How do you be the best version and show up as the best version of yourself? That comes with the theory of creating the best version of you too.

Your job in life is to be the best version of yourself. Click To Tweet

I love it. For people that are reading, if they want to follow you, learn from you, join ActionCOACH, become part of ActionCOACH, or hire an action coach, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?

Go to ActionCOACH.com or BradSugars.com. Go to any of those. If you hit any form of social media or that little thing called Google, you’ll find us anywhere. I don’t try and hide. I’ve even got a Pinterest and a TikTok account. I don’t dance. Interestingly enough, my number one TikToks are me writing out handwritten quotes on a note, putting it to speed, and then leaving the meme of the quotes. Whenever I explain anything on TikTok, I write it out. I do it as a video writing it out. In my Five Ways to Multiply a Business, I handwrite it and away it goes.

That’s awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time and spending it with us. I appreciate it. I look forward to staying in touch.

I love being on the show. I love what you’re doing. For anyone reading for the first time, make sure you subscribe to this thing.

Thank you.

It’s time for our last segment, Guess Their WHY. We’re going to pick Betty White. I wonder how many of you know who Betty White is. If you’re in the 40-plus crowd, you probably know for sure who Betty White is. She’s been around forever. She passed away in her 90s. It seems like she was going to live forever. She was always doing things differently. She was always pushing the limits. She was always reinventing herself. She was always a lot of fun. Sometimes, she would show up serious. Sometimes, she would show up as wacky in a certain way. I’m going to say that Betty White’s WHY is to challenge the status quo and think differently. What about you? What do you think her WHY is?

Thank you so much for reading. If you have not yet discovered your WHY, you can do so at WHYInstitute.com. You can use the code PODCAST50 to discover your why at half price. If you love the show, please don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you’re using to tune in to the show. Thank you so much. I will see you next time. Have a great week.

 

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About Brad Sugars

BYW 47 | Great Business Owner

Internationally known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs, Brad Sugars is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and the #1 business coach in the world. Over the course of his 30-year career as an entrepreneur, Brad has become the CEO of 9+ companies and is the owner of the multi- million-dollar franchise ActionCOACH®.

As a husband and father of five, Brad is equally as passionate about his family as he is about business. That’s why, Brad is a strong advocate for building a business that works without you – so you can spend more time doing what really matters to you. Over the years of starting, scaling and selling many businesses, Brad has earned his fair share of scars.

Being an entrepreneur is not an easy road. But if you can learn from those who have gone before you, it becomes a lot easier than going at it alone. That’s why Brad has created 90 Days To Revolutionize Your Life – It’s 30 minutes a day for 90 days, teaching you his 30 years experience on investing, business and life.

 

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Build Your Brand With The Right Messaging And Marketing With Michael Fishman

BYW 46 | Brand Marketing

 

There are just so many things written about marketing that it becomes even more complicated to figure out how best to do it. Great thing that this episode’s guest has the WHY of Make Sense, and he is driven to solve complex situations, especially in marketing. Join Dr. Gary Sanchez as he interviews Michael Fishman, a growth advisor to founders, leader of Consumer Health Summit, and a strategic angel investor. Here, Michael lets us in on how he helps companies with their marketing as well as build their brands through the right message. He wades through the complexities and shares the most important word you need to know in marketing. Hint: it’s not the word “free.” Full of insights on business and psychology, Michael gives us a show full of wisdom to add to our tool belt. Don’t miss out on them by tuning in to this conversation!

 

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Build Your Brand With The Right Messaging And Marketing With Michael Fishman

This is a great episode you’re going to love. I get to interview Michael Fishman. He is a marketing strategist. You will find him fascinating. He helped companies like Bulletproof, Athletic Greens, Thrive Market, The DNA Company, BrainTap, and Prevention Magazine to build their brands through the right messaging. His specialty is messaging. In this episode, he shares with us how he does that and the most important word that you need to know in marketing. It’s not the word free. You will see what it is in this episode. I have seven pages of notes from listening to Michael Fishman. You’re going to love it. Let me know what you think. Enjoy this episode.

In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the Why of Make Sense to make sense of things, especially if they’re complex and complicated. If this is your why, then you are driven to solve problems and resolve challenging or complex situations. You have an uncanny ability to take in lots of data and information. You tend to observe situations and circumstances around you and then sort through them quickly to create solutions that are sensible and easy to implement.

Often you are viewed as an expert because of your unique ability to find solutions quickly. You also have a gift for articulating solutions and summarizing them in understandable language. You believe that many people are stuck and that if they could make sense of their situation, they could develop simple solutions and move forward. In essence, you help people get unstuck and move forward.

I’ve got a great guest for you. His name is Michael Fishman. He’s a growth advisor to founders, the leader of the Consumer Health Summit founder community and a strategic Angel investor. From his early twenties after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and Biology from Binghamton University, he knew that helping companies that help people to feel better, perform better, and live longer would be the focus of his professional life. This is his purpose to advise founders for whom the currency of success is impact, with valuation and financial awards, a natural by-product.

For many years, he has been a leading advisor to founders on marketing, positioning, and accelerated customer-centric business growth, helping to grow businesses, many from inception such as Bulletproof, Athletic Greens, Thrive Market, The DNA Company, Suggestic, BrainTap and Rodale Prevention and Men’s Health publishing brands, as well as many of the leading personal brands who serve large online customer communities. Michael, welcome to the show.

I’m honored to be here, Gary. Thanks for the honor.

This is going to be fun. There was a lot more to your bio that we’re going to get into because it was about a page and a half long, but I would rather have us talk about it than read about it. Michael, tell everybody where are you at. What town are you in?

I’m in Paradise Valley, Arizona, which is adjacent to Scottsdale and Phoenix.

Let’s go back to your life. Let’s start with when you were younger. Where did you grow up? What were you like in high school?

I grew up in Queens, which is part of New York City. In high school, I was insecure, shy, tentative, and cautious. I had a bunch of friends but not the cool kids. I was on the tennis team. That was a passion. That sums it up.

You played tennis. Were you much of a problem solver at that time? Did your close friends come to you and ask you to help them with different things that they were dealing with?

I don’t think so. I started to develop a sense of self and the ability to be introspective and to learn what was residing within my heart, my soul and my range of capabilities came early in my college years. I had a few friends in high school. I could see the beginning or the germination of that part of me, but it certainly wasn’t well-developed nor did it have a lot of self-expression.

BYW 46 | Brand Marketing
Brand Marketing: I started to develop a sense of self and the ability to be introspective and to learn what was residing within my heart, my soul and my range of capabilities.

 

When you were young, let’s say 5 to 10 years old, was there a time when you had to grow up fast and solve problems that might be coming that a typical kid didn’t have to deal with?

I think so. I don’t know how well I solved them with your prowess and training. Some of what I experienced, I turned against myself or located or experienced some feelings of insufficiency. My dad is still on the planet. He wasn’t physically hurtful but he was very loud and scary. I learned at around that time to sense people’s physiology, their faces, their voices and all the nuances of how people show up.

I was looking for danger signs, which is something, as you can appreciate, that I still have a sensitivity for. There were some survival skills there handled very poorly or not at all. Every child has something. What I experienced wasn’t tragic but at the same time, it was consistent and hurtful in many ways, and something to dive into and explore later on.

That’s what’s common about people that have the why of make sense. That’s why I asked you that. For those of you that are reading, I didn’t pull that question out of nowhere. It’s very common for somebody good at solving problems and figuring things out quickly. At a very young age, they had to do that. Oftentimes, it was a situation like what you’re talking about where a parent was a challenge in one way or another.

When they come home, you’ve got to quickly figure out, “What’s happening? Are they having an issue or not? What do I have to do? Whom do I have to protect?” It’s all that stuff. The reason I asked you that is that oftentimes, that then translates into how they are in middle school and high school, but you were saying that maybe in high school, that hadn’t come out quite as much yet until you got to college.

It’s interesting because in middle school, I was quite talkative. I was always academically quite strong. In my house, you had to be. That was the focus of everything. I would get very high marks academically and then I would get a U for Unsatisfactory Conduct. There was a talkative and garrulous side to me that was consistent in middle school. It felt like it surfaced in middle school around the time of puberty but then in high school, I went back underground because it resided within me. It wasn’t like I was editing it or containing it. I closed it and threw out the key. It’s that kind of survival tactic.

My mom in high school at 15 or 16 noticed me getting frustrated, tense, or angry. She would see me grip my teeth and stuff those emotions, whatever they were because there was no space to say them. There was no safety or space to express it so I would bury it. I’m always committed to allowing to be open and allowing for that healthy self-expression and not being loud and not disproportionate expressions of anger but allowing myself to feel and to say what I’m feeling in an effective way.

You graduate from high school. You went off to college. Where did you go to college?

Binghamton University, which is one of the state universities in New York.

What was that experience like for you?

That was a great experience. That was my first taste of what we could call freedom being on my own, living in the dorms for two years and then in a rented house in my junior and senior years and making friends, a few of whom I still have. I went to university at seventeen and a half. That was fantastic. At that time, I considered myself to be sensitive, which was a euphemism for a victim.

That was when I began to go inward, feel and express inside of a frame of locating myself as the victim of my childhood and situations. Instead, I later learned to be the effect to be at cause, and also to not interpret or assign different aspects of insufficiency to myself as an outcome of things that had happened. There’s what happened and then there’s the story you tell yourself about what happened. That’s very familiar to you. I later learned about the facts, the story we attached to the facts, and the power of the collapsing of the two.

Do not interpret or assign different aspects of insufficiency to yourself as an outcome of things that had happened. Click To Tweet

What did you major in college?

Environmental Studies with a focus on Biology.

Why did you pick that?

I was always a science student. I was a decent writer in English and so forth, but science seemed to be the natural affinity for me like biology and chemistry. Nobody pushed me there. It was always the focus even in high school. That’s where I did any specialty work that I could. One of the summers during my undergraduate years, I studied at Cornell’s Marine Laboratory, which is about 10 miles out in the ocean off of Maine. That was my academic major but I took as many electives as I could in Shakespeare, jazz history, writing, and other sorts of things. That appealed to me very naturally because I have a right-brain and left-brain bridge in many respects. Art, design, creativity, writing, and music light me up big time.

You graduate from college and then off to your career. What was your first job out of college?

My first job was working in a number of record companies. During my university years in addition to my academic work, I was involved with the radio station. I was on the air for four years with a regular show of jazz programming. I worked for a number of record labels in New York. I was writing record reviews and interviewing musicians for several different music magazines at that time. That lasted about a year.

If I knew then what I knew now about perseverance and stamina, I would have stayed in that field. I certainly have no regrets but when I was 22 and the music business looked even then quite precarious, I pivoted and did something else, which led to where I am, which was to take an entry-level job in a marketing agency in New York.

You’re off to New York from there. What marketing firm was that? Was that one of the larger ones or an entry-level all the way around?

It was a very small marketing. This is pre-internet. This is in the early ’80s in direct response marketing and principally direct mail, which is in many respects a more sophisticated science than internet marketing because of the cost of physical mail. When you mail millions of pieces, you have to know you’re not going to get hurt. This was a firm in the mailing list business that was in a commodity mindset. There wasn’t a lot of thinking going on there. I didn’t have any mentors there but I found my way into marketing by realizing all on my own. It was hidden in plain sight. It was right there to see.

I saw it. It’s understanding what people will do when presented with a piece of mail or an ad online. What is that mechanism? What is that interface? What do the eyes do? What does the brain do? What is that person aware of? What are they not aware of? It’s all the conscious and unconscious dynamics of that moment when that piece of mail comes out of the mailbox at that time. The psychology and the dynamics of that were fascinating to me. When I dove into it on my own, self-taught, it enabled me to develop a reliable predictive power to understand what audiences would respond to what offers. That was the beginning of my work in the marketing world.

What do you mean by what audiences will respond to?

As an example, there are still magazines around although they’re not quite as robust as they used to be. When we open up a copy of Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, or whatever your readers are enjoying, there are ads in the magazine. That’s ad revenue to that publisher. Companies pay money to put ads in magazines. In a very similar way, companies can pay for that same media. Let’s say Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, or whoever. Other advertisers, instead of taking an ad in the pages of the magazine, can mail it to that readership and go direct to their mailbox.

As an example, one of my early clients was Prevention Magazine. It’s still a flagship product in the category. One of my first assignments was helping them to locate new prospect lists to mail and offer for Prevention Magazine. There were many lists of people that were reading other health publications. It stands to reason. If they’re reading this other newsletter on health, they have an interest in health. They might say yes to Prevention but the other thing that I came to realize also is that, unlike a lot of things we could mention like birdwatching, quilting, or woodworking, those are niches.

If you want to sell something in those categories, you need to find people who do it because you’re not going to convince anybody to start by asking them to read your magazine but we all are going to deal with health at some point. You can start taking good care of yourself in your 20s, 30s, and 40s to prevent all the stuff that could happen later or maybe you’re 60, 70, or 80 and you have certain health challenges. Either way, I was able to show them even in my early twenties. I thought, “Health isn’t a niche. Health is everybody sooner or later.” We can mail to other kinds of lists other than lists having anything to do with health.

Health isn't a niche. Health is everybody sooner or later. Click To Tweet

We know that the people on that list are the same set of characteristics that read Prevention. Let’s say they’re women in their 60s or 70s. Let’s say they have been known to purchase something through the mail before, which is an important behavioral precedent. I was able with a high degree of accuracy to help them grow their business and ultimately grew a $400 million book business behind the Prevention flagship brand by understanding, A.) Health is not a niche and B.) What other kinds of prospect lists can we mail to or promote that will say yes in numbers as robust as mailing a list of people known to be reading about their health?

You figured out a better way by thinking outside the box to come up with something that’s going to work better.

They had a number of limiting beliefs. The most suffocating of which was that they had to locate people who had previously expressed an interest or shown an interest in their health. To me, that was unnecessary because I surmised that everybody deals with their health sooner. If you’re in your 30s, for the most part, you’re preventing things. If you’re in your 60s, 70s, or 80, you may have a challenge of 1 or more kinds. That one realization doesn’t mean I’m brilliant. I just noticed what they hadn’t noticed.

Once you did that for Prevention Magazine, did you stay at the same firm? Did you go to another firm or start your firm? What happened to you next?

I was at that firm for another year or two and then I moved over to another competing marketing firm. I was there for about twenty years before going out on my own a couple of years into the internet in the early 2000s. Amazon got cooking in ’97 or ’98 as a benchmark. In the early 2000s, I left the firm that I had been with for a little over twenty years and have been on my own since then.

At that time, I migrated over to eCommerce as well. The tactics and the specifics of the internet are very different from the tactics, specifics, and dynamics of offline marketing but the psychology is the throughline. As long as human beings are constituted the way we are, psychology will always be the constant that we can look at and rely on to communicate clearly, compassionately, and effectively.

What are some of the things that you’ve learned about psychology that are similar to offline and online marketing? Give us an example.

Every field has its lingo and jargon. No matter what field you might be in, there’s the tribal language and the language that the practitioners know. Newcomers are more than likely less fluent. As an example, I have a couple of guidelines for clear and compassionate communication, meaning not being nice to people but speaking in a way that they can understand and appreciate the value of what’s being said. One is to be not easily understood but impossible to misunderstand, which is a huge difference.

Another one is you want your prospects to understand you. You also want them to feel understood by you. It’s a big difference. The way that happens is they can understand you if they understand the words that you use to describe your business or the way you can help them. They feel understood by you when you use the words that they would use.

If you use a lot of words they never use, let’s say the phrase optimal wellness, there’s not a human being that ever went to a doctor and said they wanted optimal wellness but brands use the term all the time because it’s generally used in a desire to sound smart or legitimate to prove something. People might understand what optimal wellness means. They could understand you if you say that but they don’t feel understood by you because you don’t speak the same language.

If you say, “We’re going to help you feel so much better,” I get what that means and that’s how I would say it too. We’re connected because we linguistically are a match. Here’s another aspect of this. When we put words in front of people that they understand but don’t use, there’s a break that can understand you but they don’t feel understood by you because you’re not speaking the same language.

The other piece is if you put a word in front of them that they do not know. They don’t know what the word means. They don’t blame you or the brand that used that word. They blame themselves because that brand gave them a piece of evidence that day to confirm their feelings of insufficiency around their intelligence. If you use a word they don’t know at all, they don’t blame you. They blame themselves. They leave. They’re gone. We can all appreciate that any reminder of our feelings of insufficiency around intelligence and any experience that we’re not smart enough for is not a good feeling. No one would hang out for that.

These are some of the dynamics of language and being clear and compassionate that either engage people where they identify the relevance to them of what is being promised. The prefrontal cortex identifies relevance. The amygdala is where the fight or flight response generates. It tells that human animal, “You’re safe here.” The front of the brain and the back of the brain both give a green light and that brand, coach or person online has earned the right of the next few moments of that person’s life to say a little more but it requires the marriage of a green light in the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.

It’s relevant. The animal experiences safety. A rattlesnake and a typeface can both be dangerous to the brain. Danger is danger. Consciously, we know a rattlesnake can hurt us. A picture on a website or a typeface can’t hurt us but there still is the amygdala with the fight or flight response to contend with. People don’t sit around conscious of that. They leave websites.

I hear you using the word feel an awful lot. That’s maybe not what is typically talked about or thought about when we’re talking about marketing. A lot of people are like, “How do you get them to take action? How do you get them to buy? Let’s get them to buy.” You talk a lot about feelings. Why is that?

Thanks for noticing. I hadn’t noticed. Most businesses are online or at least have an online component. Whether you’re serving 100 clients or millions of clients, I see that business, not as your property, is a dialogue between the brand or the individual and each person that comes to that web platform. In a relationship, there are feelings of safety, relevance, hospitality, compassion and kindness.

BYW 46 | Brand Marketing
Brand Marketing: Business is a dialogue between the brand or the individual and each person that comes to that web platform.

 

Part of it is feelings because you can ask people, “We got the supplement on time. It helped your headaches. You got it on time. It did what it was supposed to do. How do you feel about the relationship with this business? Did you feel that they took good care of you? Were things happening for you? Were things happening to you? Was there service? Was there hospitality? Did you feel honored throughout that process?”

That’s what creates the continuation and ultimately the longevity of relationships. I would suggest it’s how people feel about it. Even if they don’t sit around thinking about it or say it that way, that’s what’s required. “I feel this is valuable. This product helped me.” I love the question. Thank you for noticing. A lot of the continuation of business relationships is either with consumers or professional relationships in a coach and a client or a lawyer and a client. If we look, people stay in those relationships or don’t because of how they feel.

People care how you make them feel. I don’t think that most people notice that or pay attention to it. I’m sure that I don’t enough because it’s not in the forefront as you’re talking about. It sounds like there are certain questions that you ask before a piece were to go out, publicized or put out to the market. There are certain criteria that it has to pass before. I need your blessing on this, Michael. Are there certain things that it needs to pass to get by you?

I haven’t touched a piece of direct mail in many years. Everything I do is eCommerce but still, the answer is yes. Here’s a very interesting thing. No matter what the offering is, it could be coaching, a health product, a fitness product, legal services, or house cleaning. The special point of differentiation is what I call the flag on the moon. You go to the moon and put your flag down. You’re the only one there. It’s just you. What is your flag on the moon? What is your point of differentiation that makes you special, unique, different, better, or whatever that point of superiority or something in the marketplace that’s different, new, and more effective?

However, if you articulate that point of differentiation in a way that still sounds like all the noise out there, you become dismissible because the newness and the innovation in what you’re describing get missed. The voice of your brand or the board the voice of what you’re saying even as a professional sounds like the rest of the clutter and noise that’s out there. Not only is it important to express the point of differentiation but to say it in a way that stands out and doesn’t sound like the whole chorus that’s out there. You can be different but still, be dismissible if you sound like everybody else. I’m always looking for the point of differentiation. Does it stand out in its category by having contrast to all those voices that are out there that sound similar?

What I heard you say was you need to have a point of differentiation said differently.

You said it better than I did. Thank you.

You said that but I wrote it down. I don’t know if you said that but it’s interesting. It’s a point of differentiation said differently. Would you have an example that you can think of? I’m catching you off guard but is there an example of one that you can think of or a company that was struggling before in standing out and differentiating themselves and then they went through and worked with you and you created a different way to differentiate them?

We’re working with a company in what we call the ready-to-drink space, meaning you can go to Whole Foods and buy a can or a beverage. This uses the ingredient kava, which is a plant product. It’s not a recreational product. All it does is have a relatively minor calming effect. The language we’re working with at the moment is, “Connect at your best.”

You can connect at your worst by consuming all kinds of other things. It’s the contrast to doing anything at your worst, intoxicated, messed up in some way or even disproportionately angry. Connect at your best. It tracks the origins of the product in the South Pacific, what it’s known for and some of its connections to spirituality, at least in terms of its origins from where it comes from.

That’s one example. I have so many. I’m advising a doctor in Florida who treats men. The message there is, “Be your absolute best again.” Any man 40 or 50 at least can point to something even minor, “I used to be stronger. I used to have more stamina,” or whatever it might be. Be your absolute best again. Another great example is no longer in use but it worked and measurably performed for many years for women’s hormones. As we have all heard and hopefully not experienced, when women’s hormones are in dysregulation, there’s a lot of physical and emotional discomfort for her and many times the people around her. This tagline was, “For women, at home in your body, at last.”

For a lot of women in that position, their body feels like an opponent, almost like enemy territory. The words, “At home in your body,” are soothing. “At home in your body, at last.” What did the two words ‘At Last’ mean? They’re acknowledging all the years of frustration, pain, and discomfort when the problem was not handled. Those two words ‘At Last’ are a huge acknowledgment of the months or even years when the problem wasn’t effectively addressed.

I’ll say one last thing if I can about that. A lot of marketers or people in marketing will tell you, “The most powerful word in marketing is free.” I know all about this. I grew up in free in direct response but starting things with free creates an expectation ongoing in that relationship. People have an expectation for more free, discounts and this sort of thing.

Not only individuals but brands have a soul. Brands have a voice. For me, the most important, effective, and powerful word in marketing is ‘Let’s’ because it immediately indicates a partnership, “Even if I never meet you, and I read your blog, or I buy your online course, let’s get you healthy again. Let’s get you all the success you ever wanted. Let’s have your relationship be happier.” Anytime someone sees ‘Let’s’ without thinking about it, they know that we’re going to do it together, “Let’s go skiing. Let’s go to the movies.” There’s togetherness and partnership. It immediately takes away from that person that they were in it alone.

BYW 46 | Brand Marketing
Brand Marketing: Not only individuals but brands have a soul and a voice. The most important, effective, and powerful word in marketing is ‘Let’s’ because it immediately indicates a partnership.

 

When did you realize how powerful ‘Let’s’ is?

I don’t use it every day, but it’s always one of my number one favorite words. I don’t put it everywhere that I go as an advisor. I’m going to say it’s easily a decade. I was working with a woman who’s a founder of a health coach training program. This line is no longer in use either but it was extremely met and measurably productive. Her field or area is nutrition, fitness, and weight loss. The line that we came up with was, “Let’s discover what you’re really hungry for.” Really was in italics, indicating it’s not food.

It’s love, affirmation, and safety. Love, affirmation, and safety pretty much cover it. Acknowledgment. As you can appreciate, those don’t sound like the stuff you run into all day long in those categories. You can’t look away. Once you hit that line if it’s relevant to you, there’s a pattern disruption. You’re not scrolling or swiping. All of that frenetic energy stops because it pierced your heart and soul.

I’ve got six pages of notes that I’ve had since we started.

I’m very flattered. I hope they’re yours to use.

Thank you. How do you go about helping someone discover, develop, create, manifest or whatever word you use for their tagline?

I’m very grateful for the question. It’s a very important question because most coaches, advisors, professionals and brands either sit in a boardroom or go to the Bahamas for three days and brainstorm it on a whiteboard. It’s all well-intended. I’m not knocking it. There’s a better way. Others will pay an agency a lot of money to say, “Please tell me who I am.” In my experience, because I always work with a scoreboard, I want the measurability that what I’m doing is performing mathematically and financially.

I don’t believe taglines are composed. When they’re clever or kitschy or when they sound like they came from a boardroom, they don’t. There’s plenty that came from a boardroom that is out there working but by and large, especially since every company has a voice and a soul, I would suggest taglines are at their most powerful and penetrating to the heart and soul of the reader if they’re not composed so much as they are revealed.

Taglines are at their most powerful and penetrating to the heart and soul of the reader if they're not composed so much as they are revealed. Click To Tweet

If it was you, Gary, I would say it lives inside you. In the next few hours or the next day or two, we’re going to locate it like an archaeological dig. You brush away the sand and the pebbles and then you find the gleaming jewel that was buried in the sand. I’ve done this probably 40 or 50 times in recent years. This isn’t the gospel truth. A fly on the wall would not see this but it’s a way to hold the process. We’re not composing it. We’re revealing it because it’s a deep inquiry into the heart and soul of the founder and why she or he is doing what they’re doing. There’s always a reason. I used the word feel quite a bit. I work with people on their taglines.

When I go through this process, let’s say I’m with someone and I hear a woman use the word freedom in a period of a few minutes. I’ll say, “I want to acknowledge. I’ve heard the word freedom a number of times in the last few minutes. What does freedom mean to you?” What does Feel mean to me? I’ll say, “What does freedom mean to you?” It’s partly hearing that word and noticing the pattern. It’s partly noticing their physiology. Are they joyous or somber? Are they crying? What do I see on their face that’s connected to the words that are coming out of their mouth, especially when there’s a pattern? I’ll say, “What does the word freedom mean to you?” We will go down that path.

I’m always listening and watching for patterns. Usually, the tagline will come out of the person’s mouth. They don’t even know it. They’re in a flow state. They’re speaking. All of a sudden, I’ll say, “What did you say? Say that again.” A lot of times, lightning hits the room. It’s done because it got revealed. It’s a promise to the world. It’s very clearly articulated. It passes every test some of which I shared. It passes every test you could throw at it. It originated in the heart and soul of a human being with a purpose. That’s why it lands so powerfully with the reader. How it reached the eyes and/or ears of the prospect connects as deeply as it originated.

It’s interesting because where we started is almost where we’re finishing. As a kid, you were put in a position of trying to figure out, “What’s going on here? What do I notice? What are the little things I’m picking up on to try to figure out what’s happening here? What are we trying to say here?” That’s what you’ve done your whole life. You’ve got systems and processes for it but you were doing it as a little kid.

Thank you for noticing that. I had not put those together. I’m very grateful for your observation. Thank you.

We do our why our whole life. It’s why I would choose you and what makes you special. For those of you that are reading, Michael’s why is to make sense of the complex and challenging. He does that by challenging the status quo, thinking outside the box, thinking differently, and pushing limits. Ultimately, what he brings is that trusting relationship where others can count on him. Michael, we’re running out of time so I want to make sure that you get an opportunity. If they’re saying, “I want to work with him. I want to follow him and see what he’s doing,” what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you? What kind of people would you like to get in touch with you?

I typically coach and advise founders not limited to but principally in wellness, fitness, or personal development on messaging, positioning, and business growth with some of the tools and things we have discussed. I’m advising a woman who in turn coaches executives and other people who get in front of other people on media and speaking skills. I’m advising an eCommerce site and golf apparel. They’re way up. If anybody feels an affinity for this work, I would invite you to reach out.

You don’t need to be in wellness, fitness, or personal development. If you’re on purpose and you’re passionate about what you do, it is a calling for you, and the currency of success for you is impact, I would be honored to talk to you. Please know that. My DMs are open on both Instagram and Twitter if you’re on either of those platforms. Most people have one or the other or both. That would be best.

Michael, thank you so much for being here. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I have seven pages of notes. You got me thinking differently. The little things or the choice of a word is so powerful that I’ve got to think more about it so that it’s on purpose versus not clear.

Thank you, Gary. I’m honored about this visit, for this conversation, and to have made a difference if I have. I point out things that are hidden in plain sight. Thank you for this honor. I enjoyed it.

It’s time for our new segment, Guess the Why. I’m going to pick Snoop Dogg. I don’t know a ton about Snoop Dogg. He’s a rapper. He has stayed relevant for a long time. He’s in a lot of commercials still. He’s well-liked by a lot of people. He doesn’t seem like he’s a big troublemaker or that he’s caught up in being a gangster and all that stuff, but that’s just my impression. I’m not sure. If I had to go with what Snoop Dogg’s why is, I’m going to go with contribute. It seems like he wants to help, be part of it, and help other people do better as well. It’s not only about him.

That’s my impression, and I may be wrong. I would love to hear what you think Snoop Dogg’s why is. Thank you so much for reading. If you’ve not yet discovered your why, you can go to WhyInstitute.com with the code, PODCAST50. Discover your why at half price. If you love the show, please don’t forget to subscribe below and leave a review and rating on whatever platform that you’re using because that will help get us to more people. I enjoy bringing the why and the WHY.os to the world so that we can have a bigger impact and help one billion people live their life on purpose. Thank you so much for reading. I’ll see you next time.

 

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About Michael Fishman

BYW 46 | Brand MarketingGrowth advisor to founders
Leader of Consumer Health Summit founder community
Strategic angel investor
From my early 20’s, after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and Biology from Binghamton University, I knew that helping companies who help people to feel better, perform better, and live longer would be the focus of my professional life. This is my purpose, to advise founders for whom the currency of success is impact, with valuation and financial rewards a natural by-product.
For over 30 years, I’ve been a leading advisor to founders on marketing, positioning and accelerated, customer-centric business growth, helping to grow businesses, many from inception, such as Bulletproof, Athletic Greens, Thrive Market, The DNA Company, Suggestic, BrainTap, and Rodale (Prevention and Men’s Health publishing brands) as well as many of the leading personal brands who serve large online customer communities.
Harnessing insights into psychology and linguistics, many my own, that enable compassionate communication and committed customer engagement has been my passion and a significant lens through which I view business growth.
Along these lines, how the founder’s origin story and personal work on their trauma history might impact their abilities to lead, articulate and craft work culture, and pivot their model when necessary, are strongly considered.
Also, I created the Consumer Health Summit founder community in 1994 as a private, invitation-only group for leading and early-stage founders who operate customer-centric businesses with both purpose and prowess. I’ve been leading the community and curating the participants and faculty at this annual gathering ever since. Business categories include fitness, supplements,
food/beverage, apps, wearables, health tech, home diagnostic testing, and others.
Members include founders of Bulletproof, Thrive Market, Oura Ring, ChiliPad, The Spa Dr., Jigsaw Health, Microbiome Labs, Upgrade Labs, Equi.Life, and The DNA Company. Revered faculty include partners from Mayfield Fund and Rothschild and Co., as well as psychology academics from Stanford and Harvard universities.
As a speaker, I share how the founder’s origin story, clear messaging, customer care and work culture combine to take companies from merely good to the admired best at what they do.
Categories
Podcast

Implementing A Better Way: Working To Improve And Change Lives With Dr. Scot Gray

BYW S4 1 | Change Lives

 

Dr. Scot Gray knows that there is always a better way. Ever since he opened his own chiropractic practice, he has always worked towards finding ways to impact the lives of others, to make their lives better. Dr. Gray focuses on training people smarter than him so they can deliver services that impact others.

Join Dr. Gray as he is interviewed by our host, Dr. Gary Sanchez. They talk about how Dr. Gray got his start in the practice and how he learned to take risks and let go of the reins of his business so he can do what he loves: helping others.

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Implementing A Better Way: Working To Improve And Change Lives With Dr. Scot Gray

Welcome to Beyond your Why. We go beyond just talking about your why and helping you discover and then live your why. Every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. We’re going to be talking about the why of a better way.

If this is your why, then you are the ultimate innovator and you are constantly seeking better ways to do everything. You find yourself wanting to improve virtually anything by finding a way to make it better. You also desire to share your improvement with the world. You constantly ask yourself questions like, “What if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way? How can we make this better?” You contribute to the world with better processes and systems while operating under the motto, “I’m often pleased, but never satisfied.” You’re excellent at associating, which means taking things from one area or business and applying them to another always with the ultimate goal of improving something.

I’ve got a great guest for you. His name is Dr. Scot Gray. He is the father of two wonderful girls and husband to his beautiful bride, Jen. Dr. Scot is a serial entrepreneur and author. He has been featured on ABC, NBC, Lifetime Network, and other television shows. He built and sold a successful chiropractic practice, the Ohio Neck and Back Pain Relief centers in Marion, Ohio. Dr. Gray owns several medical offices in Ohio and Florida, a physician referral network called Konnect Relief, and has helped many doctors. Dr. Scot focuses on building teams of people smarter than him to run and deliver services in these businesses in order to change the millions of lives of patients and doctors. Dr. Scot, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Gary. Great to be on here with you. Good to see you.

This is going to be a lot of fun because there’s a lot more to you than that short bio. You and I are in a mastermind group together. I’ve gotten to know you there, but I’m anxious for the rest of our audience to get to know you. Take us back to where were you born and where’d you grow up? How the heck did you get into chiropractic?

I’m originally from Columbus, Ohio. Born and raised right in the middle of the state there. I’m a Buckeye fan, just like most folks there in Columbus. Honestly, the chiropractic thing was interesting. I knew from a young age that I always wanted to help people. I wanted to get into some type of medicine or be a doctor in some way. I didn’t know anything about chiropractic for years.

In high school, I started talking with one of my family friends. One of the friends that my parents went to high school with was a chiropractor and I started talking to him. I got in a car accident, of all things. I was going to school one morning, and I was on the highway, and I got rear-ended at about 55 miles an hour. I was sitting at a dead stop, so it basically destroyed my neck and my back.

Where did I go? My mom told me to go to a chiropractor. I literally had never been before. Dr. Glenn Ives over there in Dublin, Ohio was another big influence on me saying, “Scot, the way a chiropractor does things is a little bit different. We’re looking at the cause. We don’t like to cover things up with medicine or ‘That thing is fine.’ We look at the person holistically. Everything that’s going on, and look at how we can help that person improve.” I just love that model better. That spoke to me and connected with me. I’m a big believer of the power that made the bodies, the power that heals the body. When I started learning about it, it just connected and off to the races I went. That’s how I got into chiropractic.

Chiropractic school and building your chiropractic practice was not an easy thing for you. Is that right? It wasn’t like, “Everything was paid for. Everything was simple. You just fell right into a beautiful practice, and it was all roses from there.” Your story was a little different.

It was a little rockier than that. I was that typical kid coming out of school with a lot of loans, a lot of debt, and nothing to my name. My parents didn’t have money to open a practice or even help us through school and that type of thing. I had to how to figure out how to do it on my own. I went through school with my brother. My brother is also a chiropractor. We were together for years, literally every single day. Luckily, we get along pretty good, so that worked out well.

BYW S4 1 | Change Lives
Change Lives: In school, you get all the clinical stuff. You learn how to diagnose, how to treat, and all that, but running the business and how to get your name out there and share what you do with the world? You don’t learn any of that.

 

What happened was, after chiropractic school, I went to a program where you would call it an apprenticeship, a preceptorship, where I worked with another doctor. He showed me the ropes of how to run a business and how to see patients and all that stuff that you don’t learn in school. In school, you get all the clinical stuff, how to diagnose, how to treat, how to do all that, but running the business, how to get your name out there, and share what you do with the world, you don’t learn any of that.

I went with this group. What he decided to do is, he said, “Scot, we’ll do this program. When you’re ready to go, we will find a spot and I’ll help pay for your way to open your practice.” I go through all this. We go through the program. I’m getting ready to get my own place. I literally have a contract in hand in the new place. We’re going to sign on this thing and we’re going to open this practice.

He’s going to help me, and then I would pay him back over time. What happened though, was his business went bankrupt, and all their investors pulled out. Everything disappeared overnight. It went from, “I had a weekly paycheck. I was going to open a practice. Scot, there’s no money. You literally have no income. You got to figure out how to do it from here.”

My brother and I went through school together. We had decided, “We’ll open our practice. It is separate. Let’s not mix business and family.” When this happened, he was also in that program. He was in the same boat as myself. We decided, “Let’s figure out how to do this together.” It’s the only way. We both have a lot of debt. We didn’t want to work for somebody. We knew we wanted to have our place. We’re bound and determined to figure this thing out.

February of 2004 was when we were dropped from this program. We went from bank to bank. I was 24 at the time. My brother was 26, 27. A couple of twenty-year-old kids going in and asking for a bunch of money with a ton of debt. Most banks just laughed us out of the establishment, but we kept going. We’re trying to find out how to do it. It’s crazy. We did everything from. I would watch his kids while they would go and work nights just so we could pay the bills.

We lived together. It was my brother, his wife, two girls, two dogs, and myself in a two-bedroom apartment. That’s how we started. We did that for probably at least a year where I would watch the girls at night and on the weekends, they would go to work. We would do other things just to make money on the side so that we could get this thing going and profitable. What happened was, we ended up finding a chiropractor that wanted to move and start a practice and do something somewhere else.

We’re able to come in and secure a loan with a company from a small local bank for $50,000, enough to get us started to pay for payroll for the first few months. That was in June of 2004 that we got that started. From February through June, we were scared. We had no income again. We’re doing side jobs, and then, even after we started the practice, we still did those side jobs because the practice did not pay us enough to get the thing going. It was a struggle. We had our ups and downs.

By 2008, my brother decided to go off and do something else. He wanted to do a nerve conduction test, EMG, NCV, these different tests that were more neurology-related things. He went and got more education and went to do that. He still does some of that stuff to this day. I ended up buying him out of the practice and took it from there and went a different direction.

For the people that can’t see you, and even those who can, how tall is your brother?

Seth is 6’4”.

You need to make yourself redundant in your business so that you're not needed. Click To Tweet

How tall are you?

6’6”.

Seth is a 6’4”. You’re 6’6”. A wife, two little girls, and two dogs?

It was crazy. It was a wild place. You got to do what you got to do. We wanted to make it work. Rather than get a comfy job where we knew we could pay the bills, we wanted to take that risk to be able to have a bigger ceiling, an opportunity to help people and create change.

You now own this practice by yourself. What was it like when you bought it? How long did you own it? What happened? Take us on that journey with you.

It was an interesting time when I bought the practice in May of 2008 because I was just getting over an injury. I had a bad cough for several months and I pulled a rib away from my sternum. I couldn’t adjust for about 8 or 9 months. What happened is, the patient visits started going down. The business was suffering. I ended up buying it from my brother, and we’re seeing about 110 patients a week. I went nuts. I started to realize like, “I got to get out there, and I got to meet people. I got to go out and share what we’re doing.”

I was totally focused on the practice, focused with my team on growing this thing. We tripled the size of the practice within about twelve weeks after I bought the practice. A lot of that, when it’s painful, and you’re scared and worried, you go out and you do everything you possibly can. That’s what I was doing. We did that and created a successful practice, and then I started hiring associate doctors to work with me so I could grow it even more and start focusing on running the practice the way that it should be.

Running a practice takes a lot of time in and of itself, on top of the time you’re spending with patients. That allowed me to focus more on that. Eventually, we got two associates in there. I was out of practice. They were doing all the adjusting and I was just working on growing it and doing everything we could to help more people.

How long did that take you to go from buying it to then just running it?

May 2008 is when I bought it. I had this epiphany. I’ve got a mentor by a guy named Vinnie Fisher. He said something to me in October of 2015. This is seven years later. He said, “Scot, you’re never going to grow your business and affect the number of people you want to affect if you keep adjusting patients.” I realized that if I want to help more people, I have to stop seeing patients.

BYW S4 1 | Change Lives
Change Lives: My mentor told me, “Scot, you’re never going to grow your business and affect the number of people you want to affect if you keep adjusting patients.”

 

It was this weird idea that didn’t make any sense to me at first, and then I’m like, “That’s it.” I went back from that meeting that I had with Vinnie, and I told my staff that I’m done seeing patients. I’m going to work on growing the practice and helping more people. It took me a little bit of time, a couple of months. It was December 17th of 2015 that was the last time I saw a patient in the chiropractic office. It took me 7.5 years to get there. It worked out. My associate was with me for six years already.

I had a great guy working with me. He still runs the Ohio offices that we have. He’s just an awesome guy, that I love to be a business partner with, and does a great job. I worked hard to train him and get him to where he could just run it on his own. The beautiful thing that that did is I was able to move on to the next phase of my life and sell the practice. That was in 2017. This was about 1.5 years later. One of the things that the bank loved about it is that I had not seen a patient for 1.5 years. Nothing was going to change.

Gary, you know that with the mastermind that we’re in, one of the things that they always talk about is like you need to make yourself redundant in your business so that you’re not needed. That was one of the biggest things that helped me there to be able to do that and move that along to him. Also, it’s better for the practice because nothing changes and it’s just smooth sailing. It was that seven years. It’s funny. I have thought about it, but I never thought I would get there. I didn’t know how I would get there.

It was just certain things like that with Vinnie speaking that to me, and then it was our mentor, Randy. I had a bad day, a stressful day at the office. He asked me, “Scot, are you happy right now? Do you want to keep the office or should you move on to what you want to do?” That was that word to me of, “I need to focus on what I love, what I want to do to be able to help more people.” It’s created an amazing amount of freedom in my life.

I went through this same thing. If I’m a doctor, or a lawyer or a chiropractor reading this and I want to do the same thing, how did you do it? I understand the concept. I understand what you’re saying, but what did you do to go from being the producer to being the promoter? From being the one who does everything to one that builds everything? How did you change that?

I started to phase myself out. The first thing you have to do is get good people and train them. Spend time with them. I would train my team at least an hour a week. Different little things every single day. I went through so much stuff with Dr. Dave, who took over my practice. We would read books with them. We would go through different mindset things. We would talk about case studies with patients. We spent a lot of time. I put a lot of time into my team and the training into how you do something. You’re always training on, “How could you do this better than me?” because that’s what you always want to find.

I interviewed one of the founders of Pixar. That’s what they said the secret to their success was. It was just hiring the smartest people that were smarter than them even when it was scary that they might take their job or be better. That was the key. Find people that are better, who can do things better than you, and train them up, and you’ll see them surpass you.

One of the things with chiropractic, especially, maybe the same in dentistry, I don’t know, is that when someone sees you, maybe you’re the first person to treat them, adjust them, or meet them, they get used to you. What I wanted to do as fast as possible is have that first encounter to be with Dr. Dave and not me, so that they like being with Dr. Dave and not with me. That was one of the biggest shifts.

When I was able to get to where he would see all the new patients and start with everyone, I’m the odd guy out coming in if he’s out of town or whatever. It used to be, “All I want to see is Dr. Scot.” Now, it’s “I want to see Dr. Dave.” I would deal with that, but that was one of the biggest things. It’s the expectations, too that you have. I would get this question a lot. They would say, “Scot, how do you get your doctors who work for you to do so much?” It blew my mind that I don’t understand how they, “You don’t have them do a lot. You’ve hired them, you should be training them and giving them the most experience you can.”

A lot of docs will do this. They’ll say, “You’re with me for 2 or 3 years in this contract. You better not go out, try to start a practice, and take my patients.” They tried to put the handcuffs on them. I did the complete opposite. I said, “I’m going to teach you how to have a great practice. I’m going to teach you everything you need to know. If you want to go open up a practice somewhere and have your practice, awesome. Go do it.”

Everyone says they're too busy to train others, but the problem is you'll always be busy if you don't train them. That's the reality. Click To Tweet

My thought process was if he wants to leave, he’s going to leave. Why would I want to keep somebody there that doesn’t want to be there? That’s a toxic thing. I just said, “If you want to take this out and do it on your own, go ahead and do it.” The biggest thing was training, letting them have the freedom to want to learn, to want to do good, almost planning to have their own practice because if they don’t plan for that, they’re not going to try to achieve it.

I said, “If you want to achieve it, you’re going to have to work your butt off just like any of us who own a practice.” Having then the faith to hand that person off to them and trust that they’re going to do a great job with them because that’s the hardest thing. Vinnie told me, “One of the things you have to be okay with is that sometimes you have to be okay with the 70% version of yourself because no one’s going to treat your business the same way you do. It’s always going to be your baby. You’re going to have to be okay with maybe they don’t do quite as good.” What I found is that if you train the right people in there, a lot of times, they can do better.

It seems like most of us bypass that training part. Both of them, the training and the freedom.

Everyone says they’re too busy to train them, but It’s like the promise, you’ll always be busy if you don’t train them. That’s the reality.

How was that on your ego because you went from, “The guy. Everybody wants to see you. Now they want to see Dr. Dave?” How did you handle that, “I went to school. This is my place. This is my thing?” Now, it’s more, “I want to see Dr. Dave.” Was that tough on you or was that just an easy transition?

It was an easy transition. I don’t have an, “I need to be the guy.” Honestly, it’s funny, because I promoted the practice that way. I did a lot of videos. You could YouTube me and see that I’ve done a lot of videos. I’ve done a lot of TV stuff. I’ve written books, and it was always about, “Dr. Scot comes to,” and honestly, to get out of the limelight was awesome to me. I’m more of an introvert. I forgot if it’s Randy who says the situational extrovert. I’m that situational extrovert where, what I need to be, I can be extroverted.

Most times, if you were to leave me to my own devices, I’ll just sit over in the corner and be quiet, and I’ll be completely happy and content. In our group, I’m not the most talkative guy. I’m way more of an introvert than most people. The ego thing was nothing. I’m always focused on results. I want to have the best practice. I want to have the best team. I will have the best results. Whatever that looks like, that’s what I want to do. I don’t think that I have to be in the center of that for that to happen.

I feel like my superpower is more of having the vision of where we can go, and creating a better way. That’s what I’m always thinking of like, “How can we simplify this? How can we make this better? How can it be a better experience for the patient? How can it be a better outcome for the patient?” I’m always trying to think of that stuff.

When I’ve got all the providers treating the patients, I can be back doing what I’m best at, what I love, and have a fun time, too. I was going through pain management literature just to see if there’s something that we could add or tweak that would be beneficial to our patients. How can we make it simpler? How can we make it better and more effective?

I’m thinking, “We’re working on the system that we have to connect people with doctors across the country to get pain relief and other relief that they need.” I’m that guy. I’m totally happy being behind the scenes doing that stuff. I just like to see the results that patients get and the jobs we can provide all that stuff. That’s the more fulfilling part for me.

BYW S4 1 | Change Lives
Change Lives: One of the things you have to be okay with is that sometimes, you have to be okay with the 70% version of yourself because no one’s going to treat your business the same way you do.

 

You had one practice. You were running that instead of being the doctor in it, and then how did you grow from there? Take us on your journey through that to where you are now.

This was not planned at all. What happened was, I sold my chiropractic practice in 2017. I had another practice that was doing regenerative medicine in Ohio. I was just behind-the-scenes vision, had a great operating team, great medical doctor and nurse practitioners. They’re running the whole show. I didn’t even have to show up. I was just doing the things in the background that I needed to do so that we had great company and things are moving along well.

Scot, for those that don’t know, what is regenerative medicine?

Regenerative medicine got big when people started talking about stem cell therapy. With the way the FDA is changing things, we don’t do stem cell therapy in the US anymore. There are great people that we can connect you with within other countries like Mexico that do stem cell therapy. This is using stem cells from, sometimes, your own body. Sometimes they use them from an umbilical cord. A mother will donate the umbilical cord.

Basically, there are two things they’re going to do with it. Either they can donate it or it’s going to go in the trash. What’s going to happen is they can donate it and obviously, goes through all kinds of testing and sterility to make sure it’s clean, good and usable. After all that, they can take those stem cells, those Day 0 cells, that are just amazing.

What they can do for the body is they can release all these cytokines and growth factors and things that help regenerate tissue in the body. There’s this amazing regenerative function in the body, and people see amazing results. When we first started doing it, stem cells in the US were becoming a bigger thing. We’re part of that movement. What that changes now, we can use tissue allografts to where we can help people. We can use tissue that has stem cells in it, but we’re not doing stem cell therapy in the US anymore.

Our offices are based more on insurance-based things like hyaluronic acid, PT, and different things like that. There’s still is a regenerative medicine aspect that we can do but it’s not the old stem cell therapy that we love so much. We still send people down to folks in Mexico that have great programs. Regenerative medicine has just been great.

I’m skipping around here a little bit because I got to be careful. I don’t want to make claims and things and act like it does more than what it does. We want to be careful how we talk about it. You can look up studies from all around the world and what it does, and how it helps people. In other countries, they’re treating things like rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s, lupus. They treat all kinds of crazy stuff down there because they can do things differently than we do in the US. Here, we focus on helping people with joint pain, back pain, knee pain, those types of things. Regenerative medicine is an amazing thing. I wish we could do more of it in the US, but things have changed.

I know you’re dancing around it. I don’t know if I can ask you this question or not. Why has it changed so much? I know a few years back, it was okay to do “stem cell therapy” and suddenly, it’s not okay to say that you do stem cell therapy. Why the change? Is that something you can talk about?

I feel like a lot of it is abuse by doctors that go out there and said, “This thing was a silver magic bullet that was going to heal everything in your body.” There are crazy people out there, doing crazy stuff with it, saying stupid things, so the FDA has to come in and regulate it and say, “We got to talk about what we can and can’t say here.”

Marketing and advertising are really just psychology and math. It's understanding people. Click To Tweet

Even when people say stem cell therapy, there’s way more to this than just stem cells. They’re saying, like, “You are talking about it wrong. You’re making claims that aren’t true. We don’t have double-blind studies.” The FDA basically gave us a window and said, “We can test this out and see how it works, but at the end of that, we’re going to have to come in and set up regulations around this as to how we can use it, what’s being said, and what products you can use.”

They came out on May 31st of 2021 and changed things up. They said, “This is what you can say. This is what you can’t say. This is what you can do. This is what you can’t do,” and no one was talking about the risks involved in it. Anytime you get a surgery, anytime you get any procedure, any injection, there’s a consent form. We did that all along.

There are bad players out there. There’s always going to be players like that in the market where FDA had to come in and say something to do something. Unfortunately, it hurts a lot of other people that were doing it right and had good processes down. One interesting thing about that, though, is that what we did here, we can manipulate the cells. What we mean by that is you may have been able to get like 10 million, 20 million stem cells here. In Mexico, they can expand those out to 100 million, 200 million cells.

What you’re able to do in those other countries is even better than what we were able to do here. It may not even be a bad thing. We just love being able to do it. We love helping people. We never made claims. We always told people, “This is experimental. There are no double-blind studies, and there are risks involved with it.” We went through the consent form and we did those things. Like anything, there’s always going to be people that blow it up to say it’s stuff that it’s not and it creates a problem and then regulation has to come in.

You went from one chiropractic office to multiple chiropractic offices, and then to multiple regenerative practices. Is that the path?

I have the chiro office, and then I had the regenerative office at the same time, so just those two. I then sold a chiropractic practice and had the regenerative practice. At that point, it was basically running on its own. I didn’t have to be there all the time. I had the opportunity where I could come back and be there every once in a while, do stuff on Zoom, and all that before everything was really big on Zoom.

My wife and I decided we wanted to move to Florida. We moved to Florida on a whim. We said, “Our girls are young enough. Let’s do it before school. Let’s see if we love it.” We’ve been talking about moving to Florida for 3 to 5 years. We just love it down here. That’s where I am. I’ve said, “I could do some regenerative medicine down here. Let’s see who I can team up with and build a team down here because I didn’t want to just sit around and not do anything.”

I obviously was working with the team in Ohio. I was like, “I could do it here at the same time.” I met with a doctor down here and said, “Can I rent space from you? We could do something together.” Long story short, we ended up partnering together. We have six offices down here and building that out. What started as regenerative medicine is something totally different now. It’s changed through the changes that we had to make but that came out of nowhere. I wasn’t even planning it.

It was a great opportunity to work together and help more people. I bring my assistant down here and do what we do so well. Once we got that going, then in Ohio, they said, “Let’s do some more offices here.” We’re opening our fourth office in Ohio. That’s how it happened. We have great teams that love to do this. They love what we’re doing. They love the mission. We just keep expanding and working to help more and more people.

One of your specialties that I know of is marketing. You have learned from some of the best and you’ve implemented many of the things they share with you. You’ve taught me a lot of stuff. How did you become proficient in marketing?

BYW S4 1 | Change Lives
How to Win Friends & Influence People

When I first started, I realized, “These patients are not knocking down my door to come and get adjusted.” It was a rocky start. I started reading. It was out of necessity. It was, “How do I do this?” I bought a program from this guy named Ben Altadonna. He was big in helping chiropractors learn how to share the message of their office. I started doing some of what they call direct response marketing of sending stuff out, sharing what we can do, and having people respond and find people that need us that we can help.

I just loved it because one of the big things why I went to Louisville, Kentucky, is it’s where I did that program, my preceptorship, my apprenticeship. I’m an introvert, so I started reading a ton of books on communication because I didn’t know how to start a conversation with people. I’m not like the life-of-the-party guy to be able to just strike up a conversation with everyone. I got to learn how to do this. I got to learn how to talk to people. I’m trying to think around here. I still have it. I have this old program called How to Start a Conversation in 90 Seconds or Less. It’s like this little audio thing. They’re trying to learn how to talk to people.

I started loving the whole concept of communication, which is what I feel marketing and advertising is, is how do I communicate with people on a super high level to help them understand what we do and how we can help them and understand them, what they’re dealing with and what frustrations they have. I just fell in love with it.

I’ve got hundreds of books. I’ve probably spent over $1 million just in courses, going to seminars, being in masterminds, and learning from the best people in the world how to do marketing. When I say marketing, I feel like it’s communication with people and it’s being able to create a community and get the message out that helps more people.

What is the best book you’ve read? If you were going to tell the audience one book they just can’t miss they got to read it on marketing, what would that book be? What’s had the biggest impact on you?

If I take it back to communication, probably the most profound book to me was just the old classic, How to Win Friends & Influence People. That one changed my understanding of how to talk to people. Before that, I just didn’t know what to do. If I could cheat and give a couple more, I would say, The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes was one of the best books I’ve ever read on how to run a business. That includes marketing and advertising.

One of the things that people have said is that marketing and advertising are just psychology and math. It’s understanding people and then it’s making the math work to where, “If I spend this much on marketing, I’m not going to go bankrupt. I’m going to make money on it,” because you can’t just keep spending money if you’re not getting any money back in the business. Those are the two big things.

The reason I say that is because one of my favorite books is the Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. That book was, you talk to any marketer, it’s just understanding basic concepts of human psychology. I was such a novice to this. Those early books were huge to me, and to some people, it may be simple concepts, but to me, it was earth-shattering.

You recommended a book to me that we’re utilizing quite a bit called The Conversion Code.

By Chris Smith. That was good for understanding the psychology of, nowadays, a lot of people are doing online advertising. This is from the guy that was probably the most successful with my understanding. He worked for Quicken Loans. His job was to handling incoming leads off of Facebook to Quicken Loans. He goes through what it takes to connect with an online lead and how to handle that, and understand the psychology of that.

It’s different from someone that read a newsletter or saw you on an infomercial. Understanding where people are when they come in, and raise their hand and say, “I’m interested in what you’re doing,” the way you speak with them, what you say to them, and how fast you respond to them. There’s a lot of things that go into it that a lot of people just don’t understand. It’s like simple concepts. You just got to know it. You got to read about it. You got to learn it, and then you got to implement it.

There is a better way to fix your pain. There is a better way to get relief. There's a better way to be healthy. Click To Tweet

I could read The Conversion Code and say, “That was a great book,” and then go read another book. I’m notorious for I outlined books when I read them. I read a book with the intention to implement everything that I read in that book. That makes sense to the business. When I read The Conversion Code, I literally have a whole presentation that I gave to my team. “This is how you use it.” One of the things I do also is I used to hold quarterly seminars, and I would train doctors on how to run their practice in business. I would take these and put them into presentations and transform them.

You talked about a better way to take something from somewhere and puts it somewhere else. I do that all the time. I take this concept from Quicken Loans. How do we do that in medical practice? Anyone that ever sees anything that I’ve done will find out quickly that I’m a huge Disney fanatic. Gary knows this. I try to take every concept of what Disney does and what Walt Disney did and put that into our practice. How do we give people a better experience in the practice? The better way thing, when you started describing that, when I first met you and learn about all the why. It’s like, “That’s me in a nutshell.”

That’s why we connect is I see the same world you see. It’s got to be a better way. What you’ve done, I love that, how you outline the books and then give a presentation to your team so that you can implement everything. I can read a book and then jump to the next book. What’s the next one I got to read? I love the way you’re implementing. It’s the whole thing.

Yes. Here’s the thing, too. My video library is fast. I literally have a university for my team to watch. One of the things that a lot of people do is they’ll teach that stuff, but then they have to keep teaching over and over again and reiterating it. We do have to do that in business as the leader is the visionary. They say in the Bible when the vision is gone, the people perish. There’s got to be a vision. You’ve got to reiterate it. Most people forget about it within 30 to 45 days and your company, if you’re not going over your vision every month, everyone’s lost. They’re just doing day-to-day stuff. They’re not on point.

What I’ve done is document it so that everyone new coming in can see that and you’re creating clones for lack of a better term. That’s what I do with Dr. Dave. My whole point wasn’t just to say like, “Dr. Dave, look at this cool concept.” It’s like, “No, how do I teach this?” Have that person do it and have it become part of their routine. If it becomes part of their routine, it becomes part of our system. Anyone new that comes in, that part of the system is now there. It can be taught. They can take it and put it into practice.

How do I learn it? How do I disseminate it down? How do I get them to then do it? Now, I’m hands-off and I don’t have to do that again. They can just take it and then, what do we want them to do? We want them to train the next person so they can move up so that they can train. Of course, when they train, they get better at it. There’s a whole system that I focus on to take it and implement it and help other people implement it.

That’s my goal is to get other people to implement it because that’s the only way you’re going to get the leverage that you need, which is a big word that we focus on. How do you leverage your time? When you see successful people who can have multiple clinics and multiple things going on, I could never do that if I had to see every patient. If I had to manage all the staff. I had to know its leverage. How do I train this so that they’re basically becoming a clone, doing these things as part of the system? It’s making yourself redundant in the business and you’re just leading the way.

It’s interesting because this all came from pain on your side. The pain of not having the practice, of not having the ability to just go out and buy it. Maybe a better word would be resourcefulness.

I wouldn’t have been that resourceful if I had the money. I had to figure it out. Once you do that, then you start to have more confidence like, “I can do this. I can start a business. I built a business. I can build another one. I trained that person and sold that business.” Stuff that you never thought you could do. All of a sudden, you’re starting to build chops and build your confidence up as you do these things. That’s one of the things where money can be a killer because it can kill your resourcefulness. Look at most immigrants that come over here that become successful. Talk about resourcefulness. They couldn’t even speak English. They have $1 to their name. Resourcefulness is the name of the game, not money.

What’s next for Dr. Scot Gray?

BYW S4 1 | Change Lives
The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies

I’m trying to help a billion people get relief from their pain and their suffering. I’m building a network of doctors that will have approved, certified treatments that we approve of. We help certify their team so that we know that people are getting great care. Another thing that a lot of people don’t know about me, I served as president of the city council for a couple of years in my town. Unfortunately, in my town, we had a big opiate and heroin problem. I became aware of how huge an issue this was, how it was destroying families. It was destroying people’s lives. It was just killing the people of Ohio.

Unfortunately, we were on the national news because our state was so bad. Our town was literally one of the worst in Ohio. We were in the pit of this thing. People went around and put signs up in my town and said, “Heroin is our economy.” It was that bad. I started to see this and I became passionate about pain relief.

I feel like the way that we treat pain right now is like caveman days. I feel like we’ve done this for years. We’ve been brainwashed that when there’s a problem and a symptom, there’s a pill to fix that problem or that symptom. Just take the pill and go about your day. That’s completely inaccurate. My goal is to educate the world, educate people to understand there’s a better way.

It goes back to that, that there is a better way to fix your pain. A better way to get relief. There’s a better way to be healthy, especially in these times where health needs to be at our forefront. There are viruses. There are things out there that are dangerous. People need to understand that the healthier you can be, the better your ability is going to fight off anything that you get, too. If we’re on that morning cocktail of medications, what is that doing to our immune system and our ability to fight things off?

I could get on a big soapbox here, but that’s what’s next for me is building this program called Konnect Relief. I want it to be like the home advisor of pain relief, where we’re almost like a WebMD in information where you can get great information, but in the new way of taking care of your body, your mind, your spirit, all those things that you need to do. Putting the medical side into it and what’s available, but things that aren’t dangerous.

Things that aren’t going to destroy your immune system. Things that you can do quickly to get out of pain and dealing with some underlying symptoms and issues, not symptoms but issues that are there causing you to have pain. My passion is to be out there, connecting people to the best practitioners to find out why they’re having pain and to be able to get rid of it. If not, anything to reduce medications and opiates and things like they’re on so they have a better, healthier, happier life. That’s my mission.

If there are people that are reading that want to follow you, is it KonnectRelief.com? How do they connect with you, follow you, and see what you’re doing to keep up with you?

You can go to KonnectRelief.com, or you can go to DrScotGray.com. I always tell people that the hardest eight-letter name to spell in the world. I should be putting all the things up there that I’m doing. I’ve got a podcast as well. That is going to be moving over to that page. We’ve interviewed one of the founders of Pixar. We’ve interviewed all kinds of great people like the founder of the Orlando Magic and all kinds of good stuff. We talk a lot about this thing. Gary, you and I are like-minded in this stuff. We love talking about it. We love figuring out how we can help the world with our information and what we do.

The last question I got for you is, what’s the best piece of advice that you’ve ever received, or the best piece of advice that you’ve ever given?

The time is now. I’ve lived by that since that day, October 2015. That’s when I heard those words spoken for the first time. That’s when Vinnie said, “If you want to have the impact you want, you got to get out of practicing.” I went back and I stopped practicing. I stopped seeing patients, and when I realized I needed to sell the chiropractic practice, I made the decision and I sold the practice.

People need to understand that the healthier you are, the better your ability is going to be to fight off anything that you get to. Click To Tweet

When I started thinking, “Maybe we could move to Florida. The time is now. What am I waiting for? I’m not getting any younger. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I want to live in Florida. Go do it, Scot.” I did it. Amazing things have happened. I just live by this. It’s one thing to hear it, but again, I’m a guy that I like to hear it, then I like to do it.

I say, “The time is now.” Whatever that one thing is that you’ve been waiting to do, that you’re making all kinds of crazy excuses as to why not to do it, I’m telling you, do it. I’ve made that decision over and over again. It’s just been such a blessing to myself, my family, and the people that we’re helping. With all the clinics, I’m helping way more people than I ever could have helped before. The time is now. Take action today.

Scot, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I know we see each other every quarter, at least, but there’s a lot I learned about you that I didn’t know. I’m glad we got a chance to talk. I love that the time is now because I’m going to use that myself. I’m stealing a lot of your better ways stuff and applying it to my better way stuff.

That’s how we do. We got a swipe and deploy.

I love it. Thanks so much for being here. I look forward to staying in touch as we continue on our journeys.

Thank you, Gary. I appreciate you.

Awesome.

It’s time for our last segment, Guess the Why. For this segment, I want to use Michael Jordan. What do you think Michael Jordan’s why is? I’m going to take a stab at what it is, because if you remember, he was the guy that tried out for his basketball team as a junior. He didn’t make it, went back and practiced and practiced and found the right way to do things. He then made the team and became a superstar. He went off to North Carolina and became a superstar there. He went to the NBA and became the best of all time.

He was always that guy that was willing to have a tantrum. He was willing to go out on a limb. He was willing to do what was necessary in order to get the results that he wanted. I’m going to say that Michael Jordan’s why is to do things the right way in order to get results. Practice over and over the same shot, the same layup, do the same things over and over because they’re going to get results.

People with the why of the right way follow processes and systems that work. They stick to things that work. They’re willing to get in people’s faces, yell at them, have a tantrum, have a fit if they’re not getting things done the right way. I see this in Michael Jordan. What do you think Michael Jordan’s why is? In the comments, let us know what you think Michael Jordan’s why is.

I want to thank you for reading. If you have not yet discovered your why, you can do so at WhyInstitute.com. You can use the code PODCAST50, and you can discover your why at half price or share that with your friends. If you love the Beyond Your Why show, please don’t forget to subscribe below and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you’re using or listening to so that we can bring the why to 1 billion people in the next five years. Thank you for reading. I’ll see you soon.

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About Dr. Scot Gray

BYW S4 1 | Change LivesDr Scot Gray is the father of two wonderful girls and husband to his beautiful bride, Jenn. Dr Scot is a serial entrepreneur and author. He has been featured on ABC, NBC, Lifetime Network and other television shows. He built and sold a successful chiropractic practice, The Ohio Neck & Back Pain Relief Centers in Marion, Ohio. Dr Gray now owns several medical offices in Ohio and Florida, a physician referral network called Konnect Relief, and has helped many doctors start clinics in multiple states. Dr Scot focuses on building teams of people smarter than him to run and deliver services in these businesses, in order to change millions of lives of patients and doctors.

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Podcast

The Why Of Mastery: Why You Should Ask Better Questions With Ben Baker

BYW 40 Ben Baker | Why Of Mastery

 

Ben Baker knew he had to shift careers fast, so he asked himself the question “Is there a better way?”  

Ben’s Why of Mastery led him to find the solution to save his marriage. Today he helps companies streamline internal communication to expand their unique value.  

Tune in as Ben talks with Dr. Gary Sanchez about living your Why of Mastery. Shift your mindset to be a learner. Because masters don’t think they’re masters. They’re lifelong learners! As a learner, you always ask vital questions. Keep doing that and you’ll live your Why of Mastery to the fullest.  

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

The Why Of Mastery: Why You Should Ask Better Questions With Ben Baker

Welcome to Beyond your WHY Podcast, where we go beyond talking about your why and help you discover and live your why. If you’re a regular reader, you know that in every episode, we talk about one of the nine why’s and we bring on somebody with that Why so you can see how their why is played out in their life. We are going to be talking about the why of mastery, which is the most rare why. If this is your why, you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge but not at a superficial level. The thirst is all about exploring the depths and intricacies of a particular subject.  

Masters never think they're a master. They consider themselves lifelong learners. Click To Tweet

You’ll pursue this goal until you are viewed as an expert in your subject area. You find enjoyment in the sheer act of immersing yourself in something new. You are fearless when it comes to learning about new subjects or ideas but often cautious when it comes to expressing your thoughts and feelings. You love to peel back the layers of the onion. Always going deeper and looking for subtle differences on any given topic. Short answers to questions are a challenge for you because you know you won’t get to the depths needed for someone to truly understand the subject being discussed. We’ve got a perfect guest for you on the way of mastery. His name is Ben Baker.  

Ben has been helping companies and the people within them understand, codify and communicate their unique value to others for more than a quarter of a century. He is the President of Your Brand Marketing, an employee engagement consultancy. He’s the author of Powerful Personal Brands: A Hands-on Guide to Understanding Yours, and Leading Beyond a Crisis: A Conversation About What’s Next. He’s the host of iHeart and Spotify syndicated YourLIVINGBrand.live Show with more than 250 episodes behind him. Ben believes that if companies understand, live, and build cultures around their purpose, employees will engage, stay and want to grow with the company. This takes great leadership, communication, and awareness of the brand.  

Please welcome, Ben Baker. 

That introduction gets longer every time I hear somebody read it. I want people to say, “Here’s Ben Baker.” Gary, thank you for having me on the show. I am excited about this. 

This is going to be fun. Ben, take us back in your life. Tell us the quick version of your life story. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? How did you get into developing your branding process? 

I was born in Minneapolis and moved out of there in 1974. We decided that we wanted to thaw a little bit. My mom was originally from Winnipeg. Her sister, her husband, and the kids all moved out to Vancouver. My mom wanted to be near her sister, so she said, “Let’s move out to Vancouver or out to the West Coast.” Back then, the Canadian dollar was worth more than the US dollar, so we ended up moving to Canada. If it had been the reverse, we probably would have ended up in Seattle. Back in 1974, we moved up to Vancouver and I went through elementary, high school, and university up in Canada.  

Through all that, I did a lot of traveling. I went to the University of Victoria. I lived in LA, Seattle, Toronto, and New York for a bit through university. I lived overseas but Vancouver is always been home. I’ve always had a box of my stuff somewhere in somebody’s basement. It’s like, “Can you hang on to this stuff?” You have a few choices. We have books and knickknacks and stuff like that but that stuff ended up back at my house in probably about ‘96 when we got married. I’ve been back in Vancouver since about ’95. What happened was when I came back to Vancouver in ‘95, I was brought back on a contract.  

I was still in the high-tech industry. I was brought back because one of the major companies in the distribution area had a problem with a client. They said, “Can you take over the account and be able to help us resurrect it?” I said, “Sure. No problem.” It was a $100 million account. I spent probably about 1 or 1.5 years flying across North America, meeting with people, changing things, challenging things, and bringing things back to normal. About a year and a half later, I met my wife and we got married. We both realized this was a divorce waiting to happen. I was in the air 200 days a year. I was gone 250 days a year.  

Circumstances changed, so I went up to my boss and said, “You have two choices. You can either double my salary to pay for the divorce or you can cut myself my travel days in half.” He said, “Why don’t we buy you out?” I said, “I’m listening.” He says, “Stick around for 30 days. Help us hire your replacement. Fly them around for 30 to 45 days and we’ll pay you a six-month override.” I said, “Done.” He says, “Do you need to check with your wife?” I said, “No. Trust me.”  

They said, “One more thing. We’ll pay for you to take the What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up training,” because they knew that every job that was comparable to the one that I had that was good allowed me to make the same money. I was going to be doing the same amount of traveling. It didn’t matter if I was working for Intel, Epson printers, Hewlett Packard, or whoever. Everybody was going to want the up on a plane. They realized this was bad for me, so they were generous enough to sit me down with an industrial psychologist, run me through the Myers-Briggs and all those types of tests and come up with some solutions. It came up with two different things.  

One, you’re good at helping people tell their stories. Number two, work with large corporations. Don’t work within large corporations. They realize that what I’m good at is finding the solution, fixing the problem, and leaving. That’s what I do well. See what their problem is, understand the challenge, help them fix it, and leave them to be able to move on their own. I don’t want to be there. That’s the person who’s there for the next 10, 15, 20 years doing maintenance on it. I’m the fixer.  

That’s where my new career began. I ended up in direct mail. I ended up working for a large direct mail firm and we ended up doing an enormous amount of $500,000 to $1 million piece runs. I killed a lot of trees. What it came to the realization was that a lot of my clients were in the grocery, the casino business and they were reactive. They were like, “Our competitors are like this. We need to put something in the mail right now.” I’m like, “Let them chase you instead of you chasing them.”  

That came down to understanding brand, strategy, vision, market and getting to putting together a year-long plan for them. Every time they drop something in the mail, somebody else had to react not them reacting to somebody else. It worked well up until 9/11. We were a Canadian company working with US clients. Good, bad, or indifferent, the US companies decided, “We want to deal with American folks.” Because the Canadian dollar was getting stronger and there wasn’t as much value, the factor of the American first wanting to deal with Americans, that business started to go away. I started to look and say, “Where can we go from here?” That led to promotional marketing, tradeshow development, social media development, and your overall branding.  

How do you brand a company? How do you understand what their story is? Where did they come from? Where are they now? Where do they want to go? Who are their clients? Why do their clients care about them? What differentiates them in the marketplace? Being able to help my clients tell their stories through various types of mediums. In 2008, at the beginning of the crisis, I left the company I was working for and started out on my own. It’s a perfect time to start a company but my clients were large and substantial enough that they said, “We don’t care who you work for. You take care of us.”  

They have supported me and that’s what got me through those first three years of chaos. It was looking at my clients going, “You guys don’t have $1 million to spend anymore. You have $500,000 to spend. How can we take that $500,000 and get the most out of it? How do we enable you to tell your story as effectively on a smaller budget where everybody else was saying, ‘You guys spend more. You guys spend more.’” I’m going, “No. They only have so much money to spend. Let’s take what they have and be able to figure out how to do more.”  

BYW 40 Ben Baker | Why Of Mastery
Why Of Mastery: Most companies are good at telling their story externally, but they’re horrific at telling their story internally.

 

That led me to work with clients and understand their philosophy and what they are. A few years ago, I came to the realization that most companies are good at telling their story externally but they’re horrific and telling their story internally. Their internal clients and employees don’t know the brand story. They don’t understand the genesis of the organization. Why was it started? Beyond the dates and the times, they don’t understand what the impetus was of who, what was the original problem these people were trying to solve, and how did it move from where it was to where it is to where it’s going. For the last few years, my mission is to help clients communicate more effectively inside, get rid of the silos, break down barriers, have more effective communication across different divisions, and allow them to be more successful because they’re not wasting millions of dollars through ineffective communication. 

What was that moment when you realized that companies don’t tell their internal story very well? What was going on? What were you seeing and how did you come to that conclusion? 

Here’s a perfect a-ha moment. I used to work with a lot of government clients and a lot of health authorities. We did a lot of work with smoking cessation, alcohol awareness, and drug addiction programs. One of the health authorities that I belong in and work with is 200 or 250 square miles. They spread out all over the place. I was doing by tour de force, going out and you’re checking on the track line and talking to a whole bunch of different divisions and having a bunch of meetings.  

At the end of the day, I started realizing I went, “I’ve had this conversation before today.” I realized that there were three different groups that had a similar problem, slightly different audience but the same thing that they were trying to achieve basically and none of them knew each other. None of them had the budget on their own to be able to solve this problem. They are all saying, “What can you do for cheap?” I’m like, “We don’t want to do cheap.” What I did is, I got all three groups on a conference call together. 

I introduced these people and I went, “You’re all talking about the same problem.” We’re like, “We’re going to have to change the logo and we might have to change the message a little bit but we can buy in bulk and be able to create something that’s going to work for all three divisions. Gain it all together and make it work effectively.” Ninety-five percent of the message was exactly the same. They were able to take the three budgets, put them together, and do something better than any one of them wanted to do. None of that would have happened because none of them even do the other teams existed, let alone they were working on a similar problem. That happens time and time again, Inc. Magazine says companies that have 100,000 employees or more wastes an effective $62 million a year because of ineffective communication. The number is staggering. 

Ineffective communication means that everybody gets into their group, does their thing, and doesn’t get outside of their department to find out what’s happening? How do we look at the big picture, instead of our little picture? 

The left hand, not knowing what the right hand is doing. Here’s the perfect example. You have a job that goes from ideation with a sales team through marketing, product development, into the hands of operations, and out through distribution. Do these five groups ever get together and look at this thing as a unit and say, “What is this going to take to get this out the door?” You have packaging people that are not talking to your production people that are not talking to shipping people. What are the little things you need in order to make this thing work? How many of these boxes are going to fit on a pallet? What are the things that we need to do to make sure that the box isn’t going to crash when we ship it along?  

How do we make sure that these things are being able to be done on a production line versus having parts of it hand done? Because the different departments are not talking to each other and finding out what the other department needs, I hand it off from one division to the other division to the area division. That can happen in accounting, legal, and finance. It can happen anywhere. It’s people not understanding what other people need. When I give this to you, am I giving it to you in a way that you can use it or do you have to totally repurpose it to make it work with the systems that you’re already working on within the same company?  

What about this problem that you’re solving? Why is this interesting to you? What is the excitement over solving those problems?  

The older you get, the less you know. Click To Tweet

For me, it’s all about watching companies become more effective and profitable. I’m a lousy chess player. I wish I was a better chess player because I don’t play the game as much as I used to. I like watching the whole board. I’m that 50,000-foot person that likes to see how the different pieces come together. How do you make sure that you can look three moves ahead and make sure that things work effectively? It drives me crazy when you see ineffective policies, process procedures, and miscommunication because a lot of it’s due to laziness.  

A lot of it’s the fact that you’re too lazy and embarrassed to ask the question you think you should know better, or you think you do know better, which is even worse and therefore, things that should go smoothly. Things that should go effectively, things that should cost X end up calling X times ten by the time they get out the door, and nobody’s stopping to realize this, oh, okay, cost $100 instead of $10, where it could have easily cost $10, if people took the time to reverse engineer things. 

If they had more detail and depth and that they knew more about it. When your why came up as mastery and you read about mastery like what I read to you, how did that feel to you? 

It truly made sense because the one thing that you were telling me about a master that you didn’t mention is a master never thinks that they’re a master. I consider myself a lifelong learner. I consider myself always sitting there going, “Is there a better way? Is there a different way? Is there somebody that I should be aligning myself with or consulting with or talking to that may know more about a specific part of this than I do?” I may understand things from a grandiose point of view but when it comes down to the weeds, the nuts, and bolts, I want to talk to the person who’s doing that.  

When I was in the printing business, if I wanted to know the challenges of putting something on a press, I would talk to the pressman. If I need something about how do we convert something from a great big piece of paper into a box or into a package or something like that? I talked to somebody who’s writing the converting line or the dye maker. They’re going to have insights into things that I didn’t even know what questions to ask, let alone know what the answers are. Maybe being over 51 years old gives me a little bit better ability to not have the ego to think that I know everything. The older I get, the less I know. I don’t see that as a weakness. I see that as a, “How do I find the answer?” “How do I find somebody who knows the answer and bring them on board for us to be more successful?”  

You started helping companies communicate better. How did you get from doing that to podcasting? I know you have your own show. You help people tell their stories. How did you get there? 

I’ve been podcasting for years. I’ve had my own podcast, the YourLIVINGBrand.live Show. I’m over 250 episodes or I might be over 270 episodes by now but I’ve been on podcasts for a couple of years before most people even knew what a podcast was. People were inviting me to be on their podcast to sit down and talk. I know some of the grandparents of the podcasting industry. People sit there and go, “You’re an old man of the podcasting industry.” I said, “You don’t even know.” These guys have been doing this for fifteen-plus years or longer.  

A few years ago, I got into my podcast and during COVID, a couple of different things happened. I speak around the world. February of 2020, I had speaking gigs lined up in Australia, Europe, the Caribbean, and across the United States. Three days in March, it was wiped out. Everything was gone. Not only the years’ worth of speaking gigs that I had but probably the next year of speaking gigs because you go to one gig, somebody taps you on the shoulder there and says, “We’ve got an event coming up. Could you come and speak to us?” I sat there and said, “I have two choices. I can either grab my knees and rock back and forth or I can figure out what’s next.” What I realized is that there’s a lot of large organizations that are either trying to do podcasting and doing it poorly or they have no idea where to start. 

I created the podcast host for hire program. What it is, is for the most part, these are internal-only streams-only on a secure platform podcast. Allowing companies to have an internal communication message that’s asynchronous and allowed to have communication across multiple divisions, multiple people, multiple projects, and allow to have better insight into the company. I help them with strategy. I voice the podcast for them and help them with the entire distribution channel, the editing, and everything.  

That became a COVID baby but it’s starting to become fairly successful. There are companies that are reaching out to me going, “What would this look like? Can we try a six-month trial to see whether it works?” People asked me three months ago, “Three months isn’t going to give you enough time to understand whether it’s going to work or not. We need to do it in six.” There’s a lot of companies out there where productions and conversation with a variety of different people doing test markets for them to see how this works for them and how this is making it better for them. So far, the information that I’m getting back is fairly positive. 

Give us an example of a company that would want to have its podcast. 

I can’t mention names because everything I do is under NDA, nondisclosure, but we’re talking about hundred million to multibillion-dollar corporations that are across different cities, different states, different countries, maybe they have multiple divisions. They probably have 1,000 more employees and they have multiple projects going on simultaneously because we’ll work on things like change management, culture and purpose issues, diversity and inclusion issues.  

If you’ve got a new division, project, or a new thing that you’re trying to get out into the marketplace, we’ll work with you to build a launch strategy for that through podcasting, so everybody knows. Everybody is on board and sales prepared to sell this thing when it goes out the door, so those are the types of issues that we deal with. Bangalore main has no idea what LA is doing and they readily admit it. That’s where we tend to get involved. 

They bring you in and say, “Ben, we need to create our own podcast. This is the goal for it. We need you to help us set it up and to get the right equipment.” If you’re reading and you want to set up your own podcast for your own company or how about if you want to help someone start their podcast business, would you be somebody that they should call? 

BYW 40 Ben Baker | Why Of Mastery
Why Of Mastery: Many organizations are either trying to do a podcast and are poor at it, or they have no idea where to start.

 

Not if they want to start their own podcasting business. If you’re looking to start your podcast, there are two different ways. If you’re a small to medium-sized business, I’ve got an online course called YourSuccessfulPodcast.com/launch. That’s a course designed for small to medium-sized businesses to teach themselves how to podcast effectively. It’s everything that they need. There’s a resource page, what do you need to do every day for your first 30 days to make sure that you’re successful. I host a monthly Zoom chat for anybody who is a client that they can come up and ask me anything. I have an email that people can email me if they’ve got questions. It’s designed for that.  

The next level is the companies that are sitting there going, “We want to start a podcast. We’re not do-it-yourselfers. We don’t want to do this. We want somebody who can grab us by the hand and help us through this.” That’s where the magic is. It’s to help them. Either I can host the podcast for them. I can co-host a podcast and teach somebody how to become a podcaster or I can train the person and give them the tools that they need to be able to be on the air themselves and be successful moving forward. My goal is to enable your company to shine on your own and for me to be there in the background like that security blanket. If you need me and how you need me, I’m here for you. I’m not going away but use me as it makes sense but let me help you set it up properly and get you up and running.  

That would have been so great when I was setting mine up for the first time. I had no idea what I was doing. I was winging it and doing a bunch of poor ones at first until you started to figure it out but I know there’s something about you that our audience doesn’t know, which I found fascinating. I’m going to ask you this question because I know you have an interesting answer. Why would I choose you for somebody to help me with my show because I know what you’ve been doing the last five years as far as being on other people’s podcasts? 

You would use me because I’m the person who’s going to have the details. I’m the person who’s going to be looking ahead. I’m the one who realizes that there are 2 million podcasts out there. In 2018, there were 500,000 podcasts and now there are over 2 million podcasts. Seventy-five percent of those podcasts fail within ten episodes. The reason for that is, people don’t understand why they’re podcasting, who they’re podcasting to, tone of voice, strategy, what they’re trying to achieve from the podcast, and how to set it up for success.  

For me, I’m all about the process and understanding you as a person or you as a company and no two podcasts are going to be the same. You and I could talk about the exact same type of things on a podcast. We could have the same audience, and your audience and my audience are going to get different insights out of the same information. We can even talk to the same guest and we’ll interview that person differently. That’s the beautiful thing about podcasts. You’re not in competition. What you’re doing is providing long-tail communication, building trust, and relationships with your audience, that eventually you’re going to sit there and go, “We should talk to them about the project that we’re working on. This isn’t advertising. This isn’t an immediate call to action thing. This is about know, like, and trust.”  

How do I know that you know all these details? That’s what I’m getting at because you told me something that surprised me. I was like, “You do that?”  

I’m trying to remember exactly what it is.  

You’ve been on 50 podcasts a year.  

That’s what you’re getting at.  

I was like, “Who goes on 50 podcasts a year to find all this information out?” Why are you on those podcasts? 

It’s true. I go on somewhere around 50 podcasts a year. My goal is 50. I made 57 in 2020. During COVID, it was a little easier but my goal is to find out what do people do, what people do not do well, what are the new and innovative things that people are doing like different intros, exits, and cadence that people have. They have a different tone of voice. People have different questions people ask and all that stuff gets built into a repository in the six square inches between my ears. It enables me to sit there and go, “Do this but certainly don’t do this. This will work for you but it won’t work for somebody else.” I’ve got somebody that we ended up putting the strategy behind the podcast and it’s a rock and roll podcast.  

It’s all upbeat heavy music and all that but that’s his audience. I would never listen to this thing in a million years but once we realize who his audience was, his audience is the young Turks. They’re the guys that are out there storming the walls in the business community. The guys want to work 80, 90 to 100 hours a week. The go-getters, the wannabes or call them whichever you are but that’s who this guy speaks to and that’s who his audience is. That’s who he relates to because he’s one of them. 

For me, it’s a podcast for these people, so the podcast needs to reflect that. I knew the perfect piece of music and perfect intro for him. I knew what we should be talking about who the first five guests should be. A lot of that came down to the fact that because I’ve been on 50-plus interviews a year besides my show, but plus the shows I do for other clients, it gives me insights into things that most people don’t have. 

In our case for you and I, when I knew I was going to have you on the podcast, you sent me an email and said, “I was listening to one of your show and you need to get a new microphone.” I’m like, “What?” You’re like, “It sounds like you’re underwater.” 

I felt bad about that. I never liked giving that advice to people because I’m certainly going, “I’m costing somebody money,” but I’m going, “If you’re doing one interview, you had a bad mic but not having good sound on a podcast is horrific, because nobody listens to it.” If people are fighting through the sounds of being muffled and stupid and nobody can understand what you’re saying, people are going to tune out. Nobody cares. You can be as brilliant as you want to be but if it’s not easy for people to listen to, they’re going to go find somewhere else to be. 

For the readers, Ben was going to be on the show and he sent me the email that said, “You need a better microphone.” I have a good microphone. The one I’ve been using all these years was at that time when I got supposed to be one of the best ones but he said, “That’s mid-level. You need to get a better one.” I ordered a new microphone, so I’m using this new microphone right now and I waited until I got it. In fact, I postponed our interview until I got it so I could have the good mic, so I wasn’t going to get a post podcast interview email that said, “I wish you had a better microphone for our interview.” I got a nice one here and hopefully, we sound better. 

Here’s the thing. You didn’t pay $500 for that. You certainly didn’t pay $1,000 for that mic. How much did you pay for that?  

About $150.  

For $150, you sound 100 times better and it’s not about spending a fortune. The mic that I’m using right now is $150. The new mic that I have on order is about $450. I’m ready for that next level of mic, but I’ve been using this mic for almost a few four years now and it’s time for me to take that next level up but for most people, a $150 microphone is all you’re ever going to need for your podcast. That’s going to make you sound good, it’s going to be crisp, it’s going to be clean and it’s going to allow you to be able to sound good to your audience. 

What’s interesting is I have headphones plugged into the microphone so I can hear my own voice in my ears where I couldn’t do that before with my other. I could do it. But I didn’t know that I could do that, so I didn’t know how I sounded. I’m sure this microphone is still better than what it was when you heard it, I didn’t have it in the right place on the right settings and I didn’t know that. You had me buy this one and I realized that I could hook my headphones up to it to hear myself. That little tweak was valuable, so you’re the guy that dives in deep, looks for all of the nuances and little things.  

That makes a big difference. That’s the whole thing with the why of mastery because that’s the question I asked you. If you remember, I said, “Your why of mastery, give me an example of an area that you have a lot of knowledge about.” You said, “Podcasting.” I said, “What do you mean?” That’s when you started talking about the 50 podcasts a year that you’re on, so what works so you see the nuances because it’s the little things that make the big difference is what you told me. It’s super valuable. 

I don’t need to know everything. There are a million things I don’t know about. My son is brilliant at Physics. My wife is brilliant at other things. Neither were the things that they’re interested in are not things that I want to spend a lot of time working on because I know if I have a question about it, I know where to go for the answer. My thing is, the things I want to know about, I want to know a lot about and because those are the things that are not only going to help me but are going to be helping to help my customers and my customer’s customers and that’s where I focus. 

Ben has half of his screen and on the other half of his screen, he has his logo and it says “What’s Your Story?” Tell us about that. What do you mean, what’s your story?  

What’s your story logo came out of Your Brand Marketing real logo. It’s two people sitting there talking to each other. That came from the show YourLIVINGBrand.live story but the first question I asked everybody is, “What’s your story?” I may not ask it directly. I may not sit there going, “Tell me about what your story is.” A lot of people ask us, “Where did you come from? Where are you? Where are you going? What are the things that are important to you? What are the challenges that you’ve had? What are the insights? What have you learned along the way?” That’s your story. The more we can understand people’s stories, the more we can understand what they’re passionate about, what they believe in, what’s the hill that they’re willing to die on, and what are the things that are so important to them that they’re deal-breakers.  

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If we can understand that about people, we can help them better if we assume that everybody wants the same things that we do. As we all may be part of one race, the human race, but each person wakes up every morning with their own hopes, wants, needs, fears, and desires. It’s our job to understand people on their own terms. We don’t have to agree with it. We don’t have to believe what they believe but we need to understand and empathize with them because if we can, that’s how we can help them. That’s what your story is all about.  

Is there a way that you like people to tell their story or is it however you want to tell your story? 

I let people tell their own stories. It’s interesting. I do a show weekly. I know the first question that I’m going to ask somebody and I know the last question we’ve asked them as they walk up the door. Between that, it’s a conversation. It’s like, “What did you mean by that? Can you elaborate on that? Where did that take you? How did you feel when that happened?” The more I can sit there and listen not to interrupt, not listen to ask my next question but to actively listen to care and to go understand what their internal motivation is, the better the conversation is.  

I have guests ask me all the time, “Can you give me some prepared questions?” The answer is no because I don’t know what the questions I’m going to ask are and I tell them that. I said, “I don’t have a clue what I’m going to ask you until I ask you. I have done the research. I’ll comb through your social media and your website. If you’ve done other interviews, I’ve done that. If you’ve got a book, I’ve read the precis.” I never come into an interview unprepared but I don’t care where the conversations are going as long as I understand where we’re going. To me, I understand where I want to get to, this is the angle, and these are the things that we want to discuss. How we get there or what happens along the way doesn’t matter as long as it helps us achieve our goal. 

The last question I’m going to ask you. What’s the best piece of advice that you have ever given or have ever got from someone else? 

I teach it at universities all the time and I find that these 3rd and 4th-year students are smart but they have no idea how to tell their own story. I tell them, “You need to understand who you are. Don’t worry about a job title, career path, or any of that stuff. Understand what you’re passionate about and what you’re good at and they are different. Just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you’re good at it and vice versa. It’s got to be the combination of the two. If you can understand how you can solve people’s problems, listen, understand how to listen and understand people, and fix people’s problems, you will always do well, and your career will blossom regardless. It’ll go in directions that you never thought it will.” That’s the biggest piece of advice I probably give every 3rd and 4th-year student that I come across. The best piece of advice given to me is that a lot of what you see on stage is an illusion. Our job as speakers is to touch hearts and souls.  

If we can touch hearts and souls, they may not remember 90% of what we said but if they feel it, internalize it, it means something to them, they see how it benefits them, and see a clear path to success, that’s when you’ve got them. That’s when they’re onboarded and running with a check on their hand towards you. That’s what I do. Every time I’m on stage, it’s like, “How do I connect emotionally with this particular audience and how do I give them what they need to succeed?” Maybe not what they want, but what they need. 

Ben, if people are wanting to get in touch with you, they want to set up their own show, they want to connect with you, what’s your story, or the podcast host for hire, how do they get ahold of you? What’s the best way to connect with you? 

BYW 40 Ben Baker | Why Of Mastery
Why Of Mastery: The better you understand people, the more you can help.

 

The repository is YourBrandMarketing.com. Everything is there. There are 50 different websites that all push to one central location but the central hub is YourBrandMarketing.com. That is where my podcast is. That’s where all my programs are my workshops. Anything and everything that you want to know even free chapters of my two books are on there. People can download it for free. I don’t have a paywall. You don’t have to give me your email address or anything. You can even sign up for a free 30-minute conversation. I’m more than happy to talk to anybody. Find out what you’re trying to achieve and if I can help you, great. If I can’t help you, I’ll try to find somebody who can. 

Ben, I appreciate you taking the time to be here. I look forward to staying in touch with you as we continue on our journeys. I know that I was on your podcast, so that was exciting. I’m looking forward to staying in contact. Thank you for taking time out of your day to be here. 

Gary, I loved every minute of this. Thanks for being such a great host and I’ve enjoyed sharing the mic with you.  

Sounds great. Thanks, Ben, and thanks for my new microphone.  

You’re welcome but don’t send me the bill.  

Take care.  

Thank you all for reading. If you have not yet discovered your why, you can do so at WhyInstitute.com. The code for that is Podcast50. You can discover your why for 50% off. If you love the Beyond Your Why Podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and rating on whatever platform you are using. I’ll see you all. Have a great week. 

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About Ben Baker

BYW 40 Ben Baker | Why Of MasteryBen Baker has been helping companies, and the people within them understand, codify, and communicate their unique value to others for nearly a quarter of a century.

He is the president of Your Brand Marketing, an Employee Engagement Consultancy, author of “Powerful Personal Brands: a hands-on guide to understanding yours,” and “Leading Beyond a Crisis: a conversation about what’s next,” and the host of IHEART and Spotify syndicated YourLIVINGBrand.live show with more than 250+ episodes behind him.

Ben believes that if companies understand, live, and build cultures around their purpose, employees will engage, stay, and want to grow with the company. This takes great leadership, communication, and awareness of the brand.