Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Chris Davis, and if you are a copywriter, web designer, any freelance practitioner, I think you're really going to enjoy this episode because it speaks directly to the situation you might find yourself in.
If you're a great freelancer, a great copywriter, a great web designer, and you're doing your work with clients, but every time you get a new client, you're creating original work and building a reputation with them, and there's no equity in that.
There's not a sense that you're building assets that deliver recurring revenue for you.
Whenever I have a conversation with a freelancer, with someone who's doing client work of any kind on a freelance, or agency or a consulting basis, the conversation inevitably turns to how can we create equity for you?
So this is one of those conversations, and if you are a skilled practitioner that can put words or images on a screen or on paper, or do something that creates revenue, creates value for other people, then we're just a couple of tweaks away from you being able to create assets that you can deploy with the goal of creating recurring revenue for you.
Show Links:
ProfitActivatorScore.com
BreakthroughDNA.com
EmailMastery.com
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 190
Dean: Chris?
Chris: Dean.
Dean: How are you?
Chris: Great. How are you today?
Dean: I am very excited about the day today.
Chris: - I just wanted to say thank you very much for having me on this call and it's a great opportunity. Thanks so much.
Dean: Wow. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Tell me about what's going on here and what we're going to focus on.
Chris: Sure. For about the last three and a half years, I have been a full-time freelance copywriter and marketing consultant.
Dean: Oh, look at you. Good.
Chris: Yeah. I've been kind of growing my business during that time. It's getting better and better. I've had a lot of success with my clients, which is great. I've kind of reached this point where I absolutely love what I do, but I would also like to kind of keep expanding it and want to kind of work in some more leverage and a lot of the things that you talk about on the podcast; being able to kind of have the one work done so that it can be used by more people without me actually having to do it every time. That sort of thing. And making more money, working less, all that kind of good stuff.
Dean: That all sounds good. That sounds very good. Yeah. I could get behind that.
Chris: I thought you might. Yeah.
Dean: How long have you been copywriting?
Chris: Well, a little while. I started a web design business about maybe 12, 13 years ago. Before that, I was kind of studying people like Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham. And then I found you around that same time, so I've been following your stuff for a really long time now. I kind of immersed myself in all that stuff. And when I started my web design company, I was doing all the marketing and all the sales. I started getting really good results and I was able to get lots of clients and I was able to charge multiples of what my competitors were charging. I just saw the power of copy and direct response and I just loved it.
I got to a point in my web design business where I found out that I kind of... I think I heard Joe Polish say this one time, but I found that I kind of liked doing the marketing more than kind of running the web design business.
Dean: Anybody can do the web design. Yeah. That's really the thing, right? And that's the same way I feel. There's a difference between designing what goes on the front of the screen and what happens behind the screen. That's really more of a technical issue. And there's a lot more people who can do what happens behind the screen than can do what happens on the front of the screen. And the front of the screen is where all the money is made on a website. That's the reality.
Chris: Yeah, that's right.
Dean: And so that's what you really became good at. Are you actually a web designer? Is that your background? Do you have design skills as well as your copy skills, or were you-
Chris: No, I don't.
Dean: ... working with graphic designers?
Chris: Yeah. I actually found a person that lived in Romania and he was doing all the graphic design and all the web development. We had this little company and we were making a really good profit on our web design, our web sites and stuff. I loved how I was able to build the company and get the clients with all the marketing and sales stuff that I was doing. And then I just decided at a certain point that I'd like to do that for other clients rather than having to also kind of do all the operations and stuff for this web design company, which I didn't really want to do.
Dean: What kind of websites were you doing? What kind of clients were you working with?
Chris: We actually did a lot in a niche, which was summer camps. We built a lot of summer camp websites. But then we did a bunch outside of that as well. We actually did a website for a nudist resort in -. We did it for food companies, we did amusement parks, kind of all around the map. But we did a lot in that niche of summer camps.
Dean: Okay. Nice. How did you stumble into that as a target audience? Or how did that come about?
Chris: I had a family friend who owned a company that actually owned 15 different summer camps. We did one of their summer camps and then they liked it so much that they started giving us a lot more of those. And then from there we branched out to other summer camps as well.
Dean: I got you. Now you're a summer camp specialist, right?
Chris: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Dean: Yeah. And that makes sense. I mean, that's what happens. It sounds like you were doing custom, every site was different for them.
Chris: Everything was custom. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. Custom drapes, we call that.
Chris: Yep, exactly.
Dean: The thing is. Okay. Then when did you make the switch to just doing the copy?
Chris: I think that was in 2016.
Dean: Okay.
Chris: - three and a half years ago.
Dean: What kind of clients have you been working with since you started just doing the copy?
Chris: Everything you can imagine.
Dean: Okay. Whatever it is. You need copy, I got it. Right.
Chris: Yeah. I actually kind of liked that because I like the variety that it gives me. I like being able to work on different assignments with different challenges and that kind of thing. In terms of creating a business that that has more leverage in it and where I have things that are more constant that can apply to people and be able to have them get value from them without me having to do the work every time, I understand that that's got to be a little more focused. I have found that through my copywriting I've worked with a lot of what I would probably call small B2B service company. I've gotten a lot of success for them. And I also -
Dean: What kind of - talking about when you say service companies? What kind of companies are you talking about?
Chris: One that I'm working with right now it's an accounting firm that [crosstalk 00:09:25] small businesses only. They don't do any consumer tax returns or work. Another one would be I had a client who has worked with me a lot and they're an energy advisor. So what they do is they go to small and medium sized businesses and they say, "Look, we can analyze your energy costs and expenses, and we can kind of get you different contracts with different suppliers and save you money." That kind of thing. That's another example.
Dean: Yeah. Okay.
Chris: So yeah. Those kinds of companies, they're basically business facing, they're selling to other companies, and they have a service typically instead of a product.
Dean: I gotcha. What is it that you are hoping to do? What would be the ideal for you? What do you see as the big picture for you?
Chris: Yeah, I actually have a vision. What I did visualize is having... I have kind of a system that I use. I used it with my web design business, and I used it with the B2B service companies that I work with, where it kind of takes you through the whole... It kind of creates all of your marketing and your sales process as well. At each step along the way, it helps you to learn how people make buying decisions, and then it helps you to create a simple but very effective USP or core sales message. And then it helps you to create a highly effective direct response website. And then kind of go through all the different things, including how to set up your sales process, how to create a list of objections and different things and concerns that you might hear from clients when you're talking on the phone or meeting them in person, and how to handle those, so you're prepared for those situations.
It kind of brings a small company through all this so they can create all of their marketing systems and sales process kind of from end to end. And so what I was visualizing was having different courses or many courses that taught each part of this system. So it would be a group of different courses, not just one big course. One of the things I visualized was a membership site that people could join, where they would have access to all of these courses so that they can kind of create all their marketing and sales systems to increase their results and grow their business. I was visualizing two different tiers. And obviously this is all malleable and can be changed, it's just kind of the first initial vision.
The first tier would be access to all of those courses. And so it's kind of more of a do it yourself tier. The second tier would be, you get everything in the first tier, which has access to all those courses, but you also get access to a private forum where not only would other members be available, but I would actually be available to do kind of coaching and consulting and also critiques within the forum. And then in that second tier, you also get kind of two calls per month that would be like hot seats, critiques, consulting calls, where you do group coaching and that kind of thing. I was also maybe considering doing some kind of live or online workshops in that second tier as well.
I think this has a lot of value for people. I mean, this is essentially what I would have bought when I had my web design business. I would have bought something just like this, and that's kind of how I want to create it, because it would have really helped me when I was at that point. And so I'm figuring just to put some round numbers on it. If I was able to charge $100 a month from the first tier, which gives you access to all those courses. And then $200 a month for the second tier, which gives you the coaching and stuff like that, and the direct access to me. Even if I were to get only 50 people in the second tier and 150 in the first tier, I'd be a pretty happy guy making 300 grand a year or something like that.
Dean: Okay. Part of the thing, when I look at that, there's an element of you may have an easier way to do stuff like that. It sounds like what you're describing is a process kind of thing to help people guide their thinking to create their own marketing that's going to drive their business or whatever. You teach them the marketing process in a way.
The challenge with that is that it doesn't get them the result that you can get kind of thing. I look at it right now that we're never... We're in a situation right now where it's easier than ever to collaborate with people and to provide services or results for people. That's kind of leaning towards the way that everybody is wired. When you think about what the outcomes that people are buying, if they're taking part in something like that, what they really want is the actual marketing that's going to get them the result that they're hoping for; to get new clients, to get more referrals, to get more repeat business, whatever it is that they're trying to work on. And you're kind of showing them how to think about it or how to do it as opposed to maybe thinking about creating a way of delivering a result for people. If you take your accounting service for instance, they do local accounting with local businesses in a particular area.
Chris: It's national. It's actually national.
Dean: Okay. Are they scaling that? Are there constraints on that?
Chris: What do you mean?
Dean: Well, I look at it that there are 28 million small businesses in the United States.
Chris: Yeah.
Dean: Why are they doing national as opposed to...
Chris: Yeah. That's kind of just how they've always done it, so -
Dean: I got it.
Chris: ... appointed. Yeah. That's what they've done so far.
Dean: Give me another example of a service business that you're working with that maybe serves a local market or serves a specific niche market.
Chris: Yeah. The energy advisor company I was talking about, they serve pretty much only a New Jersey.
Dean: Okay.
Chris: Of course in New York.
Dean: Right. When you look at this, the energy advisory business for instance, it's not going anywhere, right? It's an established business. It's not just limited to New Jersey, there are people businesses everywhere that use a service like that, right?
Chris: Yeah.
Dean: What I look at is that there may be some efficiency in you creating what I call Syndications, right? Where if you are to package up to create all of those elements for an energy advisory business, and then you've already got the sort of modular pieces that you can use in every state, for instance, to license to energy advisory firms. One in each state or one in each major city, or what would make the most sense geographically-wise. You've got the system there. Then it becomes not about coaching people through how to create the unique things that they need, but how to implement the things that you've already figured out.
Chris: Yeah. I just thought about this, and I've actually thought about this pretty long and hard. The thing that finally came up for me is that you talk... One of the things I've heard you ask people on podcasts like this is what would be the dream come true for you first, right?
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: For me, the kind of business you're describing feels more like the web design business that I had. The dream come true for me is to... Another thing I've heard you say is that... I think you said this. You were talking to Dan Sullivan and he asked you, "What do you want to do for the next 50 years?" And you said, "I just love talking to people and kind of figuring out strategies and evil schemes and that kind of thing." I think that's what you said.
Dean: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: I'm kind of the same in that respect. I really like the coaching and consulting aspect of what I do. I really like the fact that it's varietized. Meaning I get to work with businesses in different industries and with different challenges. While what you're describing might definitely be easier for making more money faster or succeeding faster, I think that the thing that I'm describing would make me happier about the work, if that makes any sense.
Dean: Right. I'm not suggesting that you're going to continue just working only with energy advisor firms, what I'm suggesting for you is that you think about packaging that up so that you can create the business around it that does it. What would be really great for you is to have sustainable recurring income that doesn't depend on your work. You're not getting any residual value of what you're doing right now. You're doing custom drapes. You're doing custom work for people and they love it and it works, and you get fulfilled because you've cracked the code for them. But then you've got to go on now and crack the code again for somebody else. And it is energizing. And I get that.
But what I'm suggesting is to think about cracking the code that you can build a business around, that somebody can take that and run with it, but you still get the value of it. I mean, that's the thing about the... Being entrepreneurial, people think that it's about just constant forging ahead and doing the new thing. But ultimately the best sort of entrepreneurial outcome is to replace yourself, to build a system that you're not involved in anymore.
The things that I built, for instance, so let's take 90 Minute Books as an example. That is a business idea that I developed from my way of doing books for myself. And I was explaining to people how to do it, showing them the tools that I was using to outline and then do the interviews and to get the transcripts and to do all this stuff. I was sharing that with people, but they were having a hard time getting it so I started putting people in place to be able to do that for my Mastermind clients or my consulting clients. And then it became a standalone business that now we help thousands of people with books, but I'm not involved in the process in any way. But I'm leaving in my wake. I leave things that are sustainably recurring.
Gogoclients.com are our CRM and autoresponder and landing page tool. Usually I can pour myself into things that there's a wake behind. And so that's all I'm suggesting for you. It's just as easy for you to pick something that now there's a system, because it's much easier to teach someone how to implement a system that you've already developed that you know works.
Chris: Isn't that this thing you're talking about that I know that already works and teaches them how to do that? Isn't that the courses piece of my vision?
Dean: Well, the course that you were describing to me was a course that helps people create their marketing stuff, as opposed to a course that is about implementing the system that you've already created, which, by the way, once you know how to do it for somebody else, it creates another opportunity that somebody could do that for someone. I guess what I'm looking at is if you can get to a point where you create things that create a result for somebody, that they can install and preferably have no involvement in it, where they can just push a button and get a result.
Chris: Right. Obviously easier. Yeah.
Dean: Right. And that's the thing, that's what people really want. And I've been doing courses and training and doing things for 25 years now, 26 years, I guess, right? That started out with me doing things in my own business, figuring out how to systemize package them, and then started licensing the things that I was doing in my real estate business to other real estate agents. So my thing for all these years was figuring out, why don't people do what they could do, kind of thing. I shared these visions that I showed them what they could do, but the reality is that people in general, because I thought it was just real estate agents, but then as I started working with all kinds of entrepreneurs and franchisees and people, what I've realized is that it's not just real estate agents that don't do what they could do, it's people don't do what they could do.
You look at it that you have to kind of get it down to, what are they likely to do? And then if you're going further is, what will they do? That's where the real thing is. Is if you can get to what they will do, and you've got a system that is designed there... I mean, it was funny. I was sharing with a franchisor that I work with, that if the thing that we need for the franchisees to do in order for this system to work for them, if the thing that we need them to do is nothing, then we can get 100% compliance on that. If we can create a system that delivers the new clients to them without them having to do anything, that's the biggest win. That's the problems worth solving.
And for you, as a marketer, as a creative curious problem solver, that's a problem that is a fun thing for you to solve. The first thing I did was I have a program for real estate agents called Getting Listings.
Chris: I actually bought that program.
Dean: Did you? Okay. So years ago. Yeah. Yeah. When I look at that, that that's something that the only thing that... We've got it now to where all people have to do is point on a map where they want listings, and then we can do the whole thing for them. Because I know that what real estate agents will do is they'll go see somebody that says, "Can you come over and help me sell my house." And I can make everything up to that point happen without them even getting involved in it. They just slow down the process. You'd probably find the same thing, right? You probably, when you're working hand in hand with a business owner, your biggest frustration is probably watching the mis-execution of the plan that you helped them build, right?
Chris: Yeah, I'd say that happens a lot. But in a lot of cases, they do do well though too.
Dean: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Chris: I think what you're describing probably happens more when someone takes a course, rather than when someone hires someone one-on-one, but it still does happen. You're right.
Dean: Yes. I'm fast forwarding for you with the course, but that's exactly what happens, right? You imagine that your able to hold their hand and get it done. It's kind of an interesting thing if you were to think about what are the results that you can create. What are the results that you could create for somebody? Because that's really where you get the full challenge that you love, the entertainment of it, which is really, what do you like to do? But the whole sustainability stuff puts you in a position where the money, you get to do that, but you're not dependent on the money that comes from that in a way.
Chris: Yeah.
Dean: You know?
Chris: Yeah. I'm just thinking them over. But yeah, I know what you're saying. What you're suggesting is that I should kind of pick one type of company, like energy advisors or accounting firms, and basically do an N of one experiment, get someone to work with me, right?
Dean: Yes.
Chris: And get someone to work with me and then crack the code on that, with the understanding that I'm going to be using what I do with that company to sell it to other companies, and then to basically go and sell that marketing system to others and have it be such that they need to do the least.
Dean: Yeah. This is the big danger, often when we're looking through that lens, we're seeing that everybody is like us, but they're not. And that there are people just as much excitement and joy as we get out of creating and solving the problem, right? And creating the marketing and getting the right strategy and doing all of that. There are people that get just as much joy out of helping somebody install a system that's already created. They don't have to think about the creative stuff, they just have to help people get it done. And that's a big thrill for them. They're teaching a curriculum or a method, a system. And they don't have to do any of the creative work to solve the problem. They just have to know. They just have to be a subject matter expert on how to install your proven system.
Chris: Yeah.
Dean: It's an interesting thing because then you're creating opportunities for other types of entrepreneurs, right? To take that and run with it.
Chris: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. And that way, you still get the joy of doing the new stuff, unless you enjoy the constantly having to create new stuff. I think the reality is the courses and the things like that, that you still have to continually sell them and bring people into them. Any of the recurring things, there's a lot of... Everybody's able to do the math, all I have to do is get to 150 people, but there's a lot-
Chris: You still got to do the marketing. Yeah.
Dean: Yes, exactly. To get to the 150 people, and to keep the 150 people.
Chris: How is that different from what you're describing? Don't you have to still do that with what you're describing?
Dean: When you're going through something that is tied into. Everything that I do with the real estate world right now goes through my GoGo agent platform. I've got all of those things that are both the strategy and the tools that they need to do it. It's not now that I'm teaching somebody how to do those things, we've got all the tools. If you're going to do these things, you need to have a landing page, you need to have auto responders, you need to have text marketing numbers, you need to have a CRM. All of that stuff makes it very sustainable. That people stay because when they've implemented the system, now it's the system that is continuing to operate for them.
Our best thing is to try and get them set up. One of the most popular things that we offer is what we call our Easy Button, where we show people how to do stuff but if you don't want to do it, then just push the easy button and we'll do it for you. We can do all of the implementation for you. And once it's implemented and running, then that's the sustainability. I mean, we've got people that have been through from my money making websites days, which we've rolled into GoGo agent as well. I just had my Realtor Academy in February, and we've got people that have been with us for 20 years. I started that in 2000. That - that have been with us that long.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I guess maybe I just want to check one thing, just to make sure that I was clear, and it probably won't make a difference. But just to make sure that I was clear in the beginning, which I don't think maybe I was. When I was describing my vision as the two different tiers, the second tier obviously has a lot more involvement and work on my part. There's the involvement in the forum and then doing the critiques and the coaching and that kind of thing. And there's also the phone calls, group coaching phone calls.
What I was envisioning with that tier was really only allowing in maybe 50 or 75 people into that tier at a time. So that my workload was actually very, very light on that front. And this is obviously all speculation. I may end up hating all of this stuff, who knows.
Dean: Right. Right. Right.
Chris: But it seems, at least right now at the idea stage, that if I had that many people in that tier, that I would get enough of a shot in the arm of that kind of work that I like doing, but also have the leverage of the courses and people who can join that end of it to provide that recurring stream of income and have the value delivered to them without me having to do the work. That was kind of the thinking behind it. I don't know if that part of it was clear to you, but I think that I just wanted to tell you that.
Dean: Yeah. I think it's a healthy balance. I think I'm being an advocate for you getting the most out of the stuff that you have already done and the stuff that you do already know how to do. That's part of the thing is to separate the idea of what you're doing for entertainment and what you're doing for sustainment. My life's metaphor, 20 years ago exactly almost 1999, I went through a process of defining a perfect life for me, what that would be. And I went through that whole process of defining it. One of the things that I realized is that those things that I really like I'm better at them when I have a base of recurring revenue. My top three ways that I finished that I know I'm being successful when statements are that I can wake up every day and ask what would I like to do today? Which gives me the variety. I get to work on what I like.
But the number two thing in order to support that was that my passive revenue exceeds my lifestyle needs. That means that I'm never having to do something today because I feel the pressure that I need to pay the bills next month. I don't know where you're at on that scale. But I think that you, as a creative artist, my life's metaphor for that was thinking what would it be like if you could live your life like an artist with a $50,000 a month trust fund.
Chris: Yeah. That's good. I like that.
Dean: Yeah. And so getting to work on creating the trust fund is the thing that gets you in that. And I don't know whether you're the kind of artist that can only create when you need to pay the bills, when you go, "I got to do something." So you spur yourself into action. I don't know. It happens with a lot of creative people who tend to also be procrastinators and creative thinkers.
Chris: Yeah. I'm not sure.
Dean: But all of that said, the part of the thing that I would look at is just thinking about even the course that you're going to create. Is the packaging up the course to solve a specific challenge or a specific industry. If we look at the Eight Profit Activators, the breakthrough blueprint idea. Those Eight Profit Activators are a universal context that I overlay on every business. That's the way that I think about it. The way I operate. And so all of-
Chris: It's actually interesting because I actually came up with a framework like that too, that I believe applies to every business. I think that's part of the reason why I was thinking to approach it this way. But go on. Sorry.
Dean: No, that's great. If you've got that, that becomes the framework that everybody... You've got to have some unifier, right?
Chris: Yeah. That's something.
Dean: Yeah. Something that is fixed.
Chris: Because my system is more geared to a smaller subset of a piece of business, it's really kind of more geared toward the before part of the business, which is getting more clients because it's marketing and sales focused. My framework is more about understanding how people really make buying decisions, which applies to any kind of business.
Dean: I got it. And so that's good. Then it's not something that in the courses that you... Would create for people that there... What would be the outcome of an engagement with your course there? What are they coming away with?
Chris: What they're going to come away with is a couple of things. Number one, it kind of solves the problem that most people have, which is that I don't know what to write in my marketing, and I don't know what to say when I get on a sales call. When you know how people make buying decisions, those things become a lot easier because you can align your marketing and your sales with how people make buying decisions. And it tends to amount to you connecting more with your prospects, and getting them more of what they want. And so that's the first thing. And then the second thing is, is it makes all your marketing and sales a lot easier to do. And then from there it also makes all your marketing a lot more effective.
Dean: Got it. You're creating almost like the legend or the thing that is... And by legends, I mean the cheat codes or whatever. The thing to understand what your clients think so that you can pick the right words to match what their things are.
Chris: And make the right offers and get their attention in the right way because you know what they want and what's the conversation going on in their mind, all that kind of stuff.
Dean: Yes. I love it. Do you know Alison Capio?
Chris: No, I don't.
Dean: We did a 90 Minute Book with her. She helps people understand the desires of their customers, get inside their heads kind of thing. We did a 90 minute book called Shut Up and Take My Money. Is how to understand your client's needs and give them exactly what they want, or something like that. The ultimate outcome is that you're resonating with them so much that people are saying, "I get it. Okay, shut up, take my money." Right? You don't need to say anymore.
Chris: I like that.
Dean: I've heard enough. Yeah.
Chris: That's exactly what I mean. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah.
Dean: I got it. Okay.
Chris: The other thing that this does, my system does, is it gives you a really easy way to kind of audit your marketing and sales too. The way the system is set up is very simple to see kind of what's in your marketing and sales that's not connecting with your customer.
Dean: I like it. Perfect. And yeah, so that I think is a pretty cool thing. Have you heard of Frank Luntz?
Chris: No, I don't think so.
Dean: He's a Republican message master. He's a wordsmith for the Republic Party basically. He wrote a book called Words That Work.
Chris: Oh yeah, -.
Dean: Essentially what he does is create... he has a testing mechanism for understanding words that resonate with people. And so they're the ones that came up with the idea of... Because when people were trying to get state tax reform, nobody would understand what... A state tax sounds like something that involves rich people and not involving us. But they renamed it, reframed it as a death tax. And that everybody could rally behind that. That, yeah, we're going to get rid of the death tax. You mean they're going to tax me when I die too? Everybody could rally behind those words. It's an interesting thing.
That's a fascinating thing. And then another is Clotaire Rapaille. Have you heard of him?
Chris: No.
Dean: He wrote a book called The Culture Code. And this goes a little deeper into the real reasons that we buy things that we buy. It's very expensive, the work that he does, but what he'll do is he'll create a a syndicated solution where for instance, he did some things for the diamond industry, for jewelers, on what's the imprint for diamonds? What does this mean for people? What motivates people to buy diamonds? How do you resonate with that ultimate message, right?
And rather than one client, he invites people to take part in that, where anybody who's got a stake in understanding the code of diamonds that he goes through that process with them and they can share the cost of the work. I mean he gets millions of dollars for these things. Nestle hired him to help them break into to Japan with coffee. This was 25 years ago.
One of the things that he does to help understand it is he goes all the way back to people's first imprint about a particular product or category, or what is the driver of it. And what he realized is in Japan because they're culture more than a coffee culture, is that people don't have a first imprint of coffee. And so his suggestion-
Chris: Create that first impression.
Dean: His suggestion to them was to create a coffee flavored pudding or dessert for children, to start that build a new... In 15 years, build a new crop of coffee drinkers. It's kind of amazing, the thought of that. The way that kind of works. I wonder if some of the things that you're doing could go along that way.
Chris: Yeah. Maybe. I mean -
Dean: Understanding. When you think about what are the high stakes things for financial advisors or for energy people? When you start to think about what are the big primary things that happen. But you're on the right track. So right now you don't have a course like that, that you're looking to-
Chris: No.
Dean: ... create. Do you have a list of people?
Chris: Not yet. No. I have a book that's probably about half done on this particular framework that I've been telling you about. I was going to take that and maybe start doing some Facebook ads, offering that as a lead magnet like you suggest, and then kind of getting people on the list that way.
Dean: And that's got to be the part of the thing, your process. If you name your process and name the elements of it and sequentialize it, and have the common language that everybody can use as they refer to it. So everything I do, if you want to think about the way that works or how I apply it, is the Eight Profit Activators are the universal thing that I use. I divide the business into the before unit, the during unit, the after unit. If you're talking about this messaging, if you have a name for it or a name for the process. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, I have all of that. I can share it with you if you want.
Dean: Yeah, of course.
Chris: I call it the Four Questions. The basic premise of it is that everybody makes buying decisions in the same way, and the way they do that is they kind of hold these four questions in their mind, and they subconsciously interpret all the information they get from people's marketing and sales into answers to these questions. Then they judge the answers to each of the questions, each of the four questions. And whoever is supplying the answers that makes them feel the best about using them is the one that they hire.
Dean: I gotcha.
Chris: That makes sense so far?
Dean: So far, yeah.
Chris: It's a subconscious process largely. But the four questions are, can you help me get what I really want? And so an example of that would be, so a person doesn't buy a Ferrari to get from point A to point B, right? What they really want from a Ferrari is not safe and reliable transportation, right? And so it can go deeper than what it seems like on the surface, so it might be status, or it might be symbol of my success, that kind of thing, whatever it might be. That's the first question-
Dean:- say that's exactly what Clotaire Rapaille is talking. What I'm talking about there is, why do I say that I want an energy or a fuel efficient car, and then I buy a Hummer, right?
Chris: Right.
Dean: Because -, right? And that's really the thing. Why do I say one thing but do another thing? And it's because our subconscious, the reptile always wins.
Chris: That's right. - subconscious process.
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: That's an example of the first one. The second question after that, and there actually is a sequence in which people do this. The second question is, can I trust you? And the third question is, is what I get worth more to me than the money I have to give to get it? You can even generalize it more. I usually generalize it more. It's like, is what I get worth more than what I have to give to get it? And this could actually even apply to something like opting in to an email list, right?
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: So like, is this book with this title that I'm getting worth more to me than giving my email address out to someone else again?
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: And then the last question is... This is kind of a weird one, but it's, can you help me defeat the voices in my head?
Dean: Wow.
Chris: And what that means is for example, one of the voices that comes up in our heads when we're considering making a buying decision is, if I buy this, will I get screwed? Will they just take my money and they won't help me out and I'll kind of get screwed? One of the ways to defeat that voice is by offering risk reversal or a guarantee of some sort.
And there are a bunch of different sub questions under each one of these questions. Another example of, can you help me defeat the voices in my head, would be, I don't want to buy this right now, let's just wait and see what happens. That's kind of the procrastination voice, right? You can help me defeat that voice by giving me a reason or some urgency or scarcity or something that's going to defeat that voice and help me to buy now.
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: And then what I said before about the sequence was, somebody doesn't care whether your offer has value, if you haven't already demonstrated to them that they can help you get what they really want and that they can trust you. Because if someone feels like you can't help them get what they really want or that they can't trust you, they don't care what you're offering is at that point.
Dean: Right. Right.
Chris: That makes sense?
Dean: Yes.
Chris: That's kind of an overview of my frameworks.
Dean: I like that. The thing that will go well for you is to get your kind of hidden book together, so that people buy into this as the process, once they understand that these are the four questions. I almost look at the visual I had with that, that I used for the before unit, it's like a four number combination, right? You got to dial in these four things for ours. Just got to select this single target market. You got to have a way to compel them to raise their hand. You got to educate and motivate them. And then you've got to make an offer that makes it easy for them to get started. And so I look at your things is you've got to address those things. And so part of it is the outcome. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. After I teach people that framework, then I say, "Okay, now here's how you use your marketing and your sale to give the answers that people are really looking for with that."
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: Because there's a way for them to do the marketing and their sales so that they can communicate to people. And this is not manipulation, this is really just answering the questions that people have already in their mind that they're focused on. There's a way to do your marketing and your sales that communicate to somebody, I can help you get what you really want and I know what you really want, you can trust me. The trust one is huge because what I find in so many of my clients is that they're doing things in their marketing and especially in their sales processes that they don't even realize are breaking trust with people. They've got to find those things and isolate those things that are breaking trust, and they've got to stop doing them, because that can kill the sale just based on that.
Dean: Yes. Yes. That's all good. I like that. I think that part of the thing is getting the... If we overlay my model over top of it to apply it for your situation, my thing is you've got to have a way to get people to lean forward, that this message is interesting to them, right? If you have a book that you can use as an opt-in to get people kind of leaning forward, now you've got the way to kind of lead them to the next step here. The first thing about creating a course like this is to maybe create it live kind of thing as you go.
Chris: I was thinking about that. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: I was thinking about doing that beforehand, so that I didn't have to build it all first, that I can get people in and-
Dean: Dan Sullivan always said that you sell the tickets before you write the play, because if nobody buys the tickets, you don't need the play. Let's see if you got a play that people want to see.
Chris: Yeah.
Dean: And so a way to do that is to apply your system here to your own market, right?
Chris: Right.
Dean: And then be transparent in the way that it's happening. It's really pretty interesting because it's not different than the model that I use in terms of opting in, having a system for people. If you get people aligned around, let's just call it the Four Questions for now, they believe that this is going to help them get what they really want. Yeah. If you're demonstrating ways that you're helping people using these four questions to get what they really wanted, that's going to build the trust for you. And if you're demonstrating that-
Chris: One of the ways that I was going to do that was to do what you and I are doing right here.
Dean: Yeah. Podcasts. That's the model that I'm kind of laying out here, that you could do that, demonstrate it, help people walk through that, because there's an infinite number of ways to... You're not in danger of telling people too much about the four questions.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Not at all. I was going to do-
Dean: Just like I'm not in danger of telling people too much about the Eight Profit Activators.
Chris: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So I was going to do basically the same thing you do, which is demonstrating the power of the framework and demonstrating that I'm helping people in the same way as doing consulting calls for each of the podcasts, just like you do. I think it's a great model.
Dean: Yup. So then the great thing is when you get a list together, then you can start engaging with people through the process.
Chris: Yeah. I like it. Maybe I can do-
Dean: Have you been through my email mastery program?
Chris: I haven't yet. No.
Dean: It's the same kind of ways that we did that. I was running full page ads in Success magazine talking about the nine word email. Yeah. And then when people would opt in, I would engage with them and invite them to come on a call on Tuesday night. It's like, "I'm getting together with some people on Tuesday to brainstorm some nine word emails and subject lines, would you like to join us?" And I would get people-
Chris: I love it.
Dean: ... people on those calls. And then I would ask them, "Would you like to work with me on your email sales process?" And they'd say, "Well, how would that work?" And I would say, "Well, I'm putting together a case study group where I'm going to work with a handful of people over a period of time. We're going to work on applying all these email strategies to your business." You can do that same model there -.
Chris: What would you do on that first call? You would brainstorm? You would kind of have a little bit of content and a little bit of back and forth, and then at the end you would kind of invite them to work with you?
Dean: No, there was no pitch at all on it. It's a really interesting model. I mean, the next morning then I would just ask the question, would you like to work with me on your email -?
Chris: Oh, I see. - the call.
Dean: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that's -.
Chris: Great. So that call would just be kind of a mini teleseminar course or? Not in course, but like back and forth that kind of thing?
Dean: Yeah. That's what it was. But what was amazing was when I started the whole approach that I took with the ad even in Success magazine was I taught people like it was an article, the nine word email. They had everything they needed to know to apply that. And so what ended up happening was people would come on the call can start talking about the results that they got from sending the nine word email, which is just one of 20 different email strategies that we have in there. It made sense. And now I've been doing that email mastery academy now for seven years, six years, seven years, something like that.
Chris: Yeah, I should join that. It sounds great.
Dean: Actually, that would be the thing for you right now. If I were going to make a prescription for you, that would be the thing that would be most helpful for you because you can model it exactly for your four questions.
Chris: Yeah. I can quickly engage with people and get them kind of rolling after the opt-in, right?
Dean: Yes. That's exactly right.
Chris: Yeah. That's great.
Dean: In email mastery, I've got the whole sequence employed for you to do that. You would adapt it for your four questions, but all the hard work of it is already done.
Chris: That's great.
Dean: Yeah. Well that sounds like the answer for you. I mean, that would be great. But now that I get your thing, that's very cool. And that could lead to you documenting stuff, because that's going to be the beginning, the jumping off point for people. They're going to have lots of needs for other things from that now that they're armed with the book. I think it would be cool to have some outcome that they have, which is the DNA report or the thing that inside their mind, the word palette, all the things. The understanding of it. Their chart. Yeah. And I think you need a word for that to create the outcome.
Chris: Actually, I don't know if I understand what you mean by that.
Dean: I don't know what to call the end result of going through all of this process. You're helping people get inside the minds of their clients to say, what do they really want, right? Clotaire Rapaille calls it the code.
Chris: Oh, okay. Right now you have the code or something, right?
Dean: Yes, exactly. But now that you have to code, that's the jumping off point for creating the actual marketing now.
Chris: Right. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I like that.
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: I was also thinking at some point, and it sounds like I'm completely copying your business, but it just seems to work really well. And actually I try to do a gut check when I'm interacting with people like you. The way you have things set up just feels really good to me. It just makes me feel easy and comfortable, but I'm getting tons of value. That's primarily why I want to do some of the same things that you're doing. Down the line, I think I might love to do some of the things that you do like the business breakthrough workshops that you do. You used to do in different cities, but now you do virtually.
Dean: Yeah.
Chris: Those seem really cool to me. And I think I would enjoy that process too.
Dean: Of course, you would. They're awesome. Yeah. And that's the whole point. Part of it is that it's a model, a platform that can be applied. You bring your stuff to it. But that's exciting. I think email mastery would be a perfect thing for you. I do live calls in there, so we can wordsmith and do it together too.
Chris: That's great. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. Well, that's very exciting. How did all that land? What's your summary here?
Chris: Well, I think I'm very excited. I think I got a lot of good ideas. I liked the idea of kind of digging in a little deeper with you in the email course, mastery course. I think kind of modeling your business model, I think. And to get confirmation from you of that, I think it was really good for me, because I think I was planning to do very similar stuff that you normally recommend, which is based in your model, which is start with the book, get the opt-in, engage with email, and then after that get them into more valuable things.
Dean: Awesome. Well, it's been fun.
Chris: Yeah. Thank you so much, Dean. I really appreciate your time and allowing me to be on the call with you. And like I said, I've learned so much from you over the years. I really, really have benefited tremendously and I really appreciate everything that you do.
Dean: That's awesome. Perfect. I look forward to working with you.
Chris: You too. Thanks again, Dean.
Dean: Thanks, Chris. Bye.
And there we have it, another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation or go deeper in how the profit activators can apply to your business, two things you can do. Right now you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book, and you can listen to the back episodes, of course, if you're just listening here on iTunes.
Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the Eight Profit Activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process. And you can download a book and a scorecard and watch a video all about the Eight Profit Activators at breakthroughdna.com. And that's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business. That's really the way we think about breakthrough DNA, as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there. That's it for this week, have a great week. And we will be back next time with another episode of More Cheese Less Whiskers.