John Jantsch (00:01.71)

So what if the press release isn't a relic of the pre-internet era, but actually one of the most underused tools a small business has right now, especially when AI can help write them, but there's a catch. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Mickie Kennedy. He's the founder of eReleases, a press release distribution service started back in 1998.

After watching small businesses get turned away from PR agencies, it charged a minimum of $20,000. He's since distributed over 150 press releases, more than 30,000 customers. And today we're going to talk about how to train AI to write press releases that journalists actually read and use. So Mickey, welcome to the show.

Mickie Kennedy (00:49.141)

Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (00:50.872)

So I've been in this business over 30 years. And so certainly the press release and PR and media relations were a big component of marketing. Seems like when the web came along, they sort of lost a little bit of their use and usability. And I wonder how you've been in this game a long time as well. E-Release really came around.

kind of when the web was just starting. how have you seen the practice of PR in general and certainly the PR or the press release tool changed dramatically over the last couple of decades?

Mickie Kennedy (01:30.241)

So I think the biggest change I've seen is the proliferation of noise in the PR space. There is a lot of, I guess you'd call them syndication feeds where for $49 or $119 your press release gets replicated on a bunch of websites, but it's usually like a sub domain or a folder on the website. And if you go to the website and you do a search for your company, it won't show up.

John Jantsch (01:36.066)

Yeah, sure.

Mickie Kennedy (02:00.481)

So, you know, humans aren't actually seeing this and it's more of just a, I don't know, an ego lift. And it's gotten to the point that, you know, people don't recognize the opportunity of what a proper newswire is. In the US, it's largely a duopoly between Businesswire owned by Berkshire Hathaway and PR Newswire. And PR Newswire is the oldest and largest. And they also charge, they both charge

quite a bit being a duopoly, around $1,800 for a 600 WordPress release to go out nationally. That being said, all the releases that go out through e-releases go out nationally and it's probably about 25 % the cost of that. The caveat is you have to be a small business or entrepreneur. Basically the type of customer that PR Newswire sells team has no interest in pursuing. And that's sort of what I act as a co-op for small businesses and entrepreneurs. And we move about 30,

Let's see, right now we're moving about 10,000 press releases a year. Altogether, we've worked with over 30, I think right now around 32, 33,000 clients that we've helped. And so we're moving a lot of volume and as a result, we're really helping people. But you know, there are people who have used the other services, then they'll do a press release with us and they'll actually say, we had less impact with you. And I'm like, well, I see you got no earned media.

and you got no earned media with them. They're like, no, we got picked up by 200 links. And I'm like, where? And they're just the syndication links. And I'm like, nobody wrote an article about you. These are all the press release replicated on a bunch of syndication websites. And they, you know, it's just hard to, I find education has become the thing now where we try to get people to understand the opportunity.

John Jantsch (03:51.736)

Well, let's talk about that because in the old days, certainly the press release was a vehicle to get media coverage, even if you were just trying to get it in your town. Then when the web came along, it actually became as much or more of an SEO play than a PR play, right? Yeah, because unfortunately in the early days, those links buried 10 rows deep were getting picked up by the search engines.

Mickie Kennedy (04:07.861)

Yeah, people trying to game that.

John Jantsch (04:18.19)

Even though no people really saw them, they were getting indexed. And so they did actually have some value in that regard. But certainly the search engines now are onto the game and those days are certainly over. So talk a little bit about this idea of earned media versus owned media, because I think we're actually back in a window of time when earned media is probably going to become more important than it maybe ever was or certainly

Mickie Kennedy (04:21.909)

But right now.

John Jantsch (04:46.978)

more so than it's been in the last couple of decades.

Mickie Kennedy (04:49.685)

Right. I think with AI, people are looking for stuff and AI is leaning on credible sources. And believe me, when I tell you it's not this subdomain on a website that no one knows, it's, if you're in the waste management space and you've been picked up in Waste News, which is the industry standard publication, and they've written about you doing something exciting.

John Jantsch (05:03.459)

Right.

Mickie Kennedy (05:17.537)

the AI as well as the search engines are going to know that that's a very relevant publication. And as a result, you're going to stand out. you know, that let's just take that one as an example. I mentioned it because I had a client who did a press release about them where they build facilities for municipalities. And it's everything nuts and bolts from waste as well as recycling. And, you know, a city orders it.

And there's nothing else. They handle everything. They work with the contractors and they build out a complete facility. very, you know, there's nobody really doing that. And so, they sent that press release out. They got one article and waste news, magazine. It's like the perfect magazine, but it was just one article. They were contacted by, a city in Australia and, within six months they were under contract to build two facilities in Australia.

John Jantsch (06:06.136)

Mm-hmm.

Mickie Kennedy (06:15.297)

And it was I think over 30 or 40 million dollars from one article and so And you know, they'll continue to get leads and recognition for that and that's what happens with our media I tell you you know you appearing on a website that no one's looking at nothing is ever going to happen But when a journalist writes an article about you it's like an implied endorsement You know, it's someone has transformed the press release into a written article

John Jantsch (06:18.83)

Sure.

Mickie Kennedy (06:42.977)

You know, during the pandemic, we helped an initiative called the dining bond initiative to help restaurants that were closed during the pandemic. It was sort of like a volunteer effort. And if they you you nominated a favorite local restaurant, if they were able to contact them, you could give money that went directly to them back by dining bonds for like a gift certificate scenario. And it raised over $10 million in revenue, it got picked up in over 100 places. It got

You name it Wall Street Journal picked it up New York Times lots of food publications and I saw over 80 daily newspapers who picked it up and so it did extremely well and again that would never happen on these syndication sites, know, these were all individual articles that people wrote about and I think that you know what people are missing is You know, what's what's the magic sauce and its strategy, you know in this case it was a lot of unknown

John Jantsch (07:21.4)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:27.566)

100 %

Mickie Kennedy (07:40.279)

You know, we were sent home two weeks to flatten the curve and there was an uncertainty. And here was something that was potentially positive news, but it was also actionable. You know, we have, we are powerless, but we could give $50 to the favorite restaurant we go to for our anniversary every year and make sure we're helping them in some small way. And I think that that's

John Jantsch (07:59.896)

Well, that, I mean, I think that brings up a really good point because a lot of times when people think about promoting something, there is like, here's my new product, you know, press release. and you know, that's not very interesting, it's interesting to that person, but maybe nobody else. So how do you find those? mean, you know, the pandemic was kind of an interesting opportunity, but in, in, in the real world, every day of small business, how do you find that thing that, that, that nobody's covering or that

Mickie Kennedy (08:11.329)

No.

John Jantsch (08:27.33)

that's really unique inside your industry instead of just self-promotion.

Mickie Kennedy (08:31.798)

you have to, you know, sort of put your thinking cap on. You have to play the contrarian. You have to look at different angles. Do you have to think and talk to people? Like if we were at a trade show or conference, what are the things you'd want to ask people right now? Have you noticed that this is happening with your company or is it just mine? Those are the things that are ripe for bringing out because often these are industry blind spots that the industry is not reporting on yet.

but you've noticed this trend and now you're looking for verification from someone else. And if you can get that verification, they're like, yeah, I'm seeing that too. You can break that. And that puts you in control for getting that news out there. And I've had that work really well, especially for clients that traditionally aren't very newsworthy. There was a local carpet company in New Jersey and talking to them during a brainstorm, we asked who their biggest enemy was and they says the big box home improvement stores.

And not only are they our biggest enemy, they give consumers a really poor product and a poor experience. And this is why. And so we did a press release about that. And they got picked up in almost every floor trade publication. No one had discussed it ever before. And yet it was something that really excited everybody. And we continued to milk that cow for a few more weeks, talking about different ways of which this company

know, targets and markets against the big box of improvement stores and brings home the value of why having seasoned people install your carpet rather than Home Depot going down a list of saying, here's the list of people who have a certification for home improvement license in our state. And that's the only qualification that Home Depot and Lowe's uses. They,

John Jantsch (10:13.944)

That's a pretty good, like if people are looking for a hook, like find an enemy, right, in the industry, like find a bad guy to kind of rail against. That's a pretty proven practice, isn't it?

Mickie Kennedy (10:27.53)

And also, think putting the spotlight on a customer, you talk about a new product or service, you get greedy, and you want to put the spotlight on you. But often you're not the most interesting story. But if you had someone who beta tested your product or software, and they had an amazing outcome, sometimes putting the spotlight on them and saying, we have this new product or service, here's a company that used it three years in, they lost money every year, looks like they're going to be one of the casualties of these companies that

John Jantsch (10:31.276)

Yeah, yeah,

John Jantsch (10:39.534)

Right.

Mickie Kennedy (10:57.164)

fail in the first five years of business. And by using our software solution to write better invoices that are more profitable, they're now projected to have their first profit ever. And then you have a quote by them. And it's like that shows the stakes. And it makes it so much more intriguing and interesting for an audience. And a journalist is at the end of the day doesn't care about

John Jantsch (11:04.12)

Mm-hmm.

Mickie Kennedy (11:18.518)

whether this is going to make a strong article for you, but is it going to make an intriguing and interesting article that their audience is going to want to listen to or read? And that's the biggest metric. Sometimes I say, you have to take what you want, and that's the pill. And sometimes you've got to put it in cheese to get the journalist to swallow it. And what is that magic thing that you're going to do? And sometimes putting the spotlight on others, it's really just creating a compelling story arc. Because naturally,

John Jantsch (11:25.41)

Right. Right. Right.

Mickie Kennedy (11:47.863)

Journalists like to write in a story arc. It's something that we learn from children onward and having a product or service with a list of features doesn't yield much of a story. So what are the things that you can do to make the stakes higher and to put more of that story arc in there?

John Jantsch (12:05.102)

So another sort of casualty of PR practice was the fact that we could hit a button and send out 20 million. I get pitches every single day. like, who on the planet thought this was relevant to my audience? And so how do you kind of balance that? I mean, in a perfect world, I wrote this press release for you, journalist, in this publication in this city. I mean, how do you balance that?

with the fact that you're probably gonna need to send a few out to get a hit.

Mickie Kennedy (12:36.278)

Yeah. So I think that it's one of the cases where going over a newswire now is more important than ever. And it sucks that it's in a duopoly environment because it's expensive. But, you know, that being said, the newswire is very clean. And so if you go into your log in on PR newswire, you have an industry feed that you've signed up for, and you can actually tailor it to exclude, you know, press releases with certain keywords, make sure that you capture

John Jantsch (13:02.53)

Mm-hmm.

Mickie Kennedy (13:05.89)

and pin certain press releases that mentioned certain keywords that are really important to you. And so it's the opposite of their inbox. know, media databases have become prolific over the last 20 years. And, you know, if you're a golf club company who spent $10,000 for a yearly license, and you sent to 2400, you know, people who cover golf, and they all passed, you now start talking yourself into

Well, know, bankers and financial people like to play golf. So let's send it to financial analysts and reporters. And it's like, they'll never cover golf clubs. But you know, that's happening in every industry. People are talking themselves because it costs nothing to just hit a few keys and blast to everybody. And so I find that with everybody, but perhaps local media, email has become a really difficult way to reach journalists. And I think that the newswire

John Jantsch (13:46.35)

Yep, right.

Mickie Kennedy (14:00.382)

is a better way to reach them. You just have to make sure that, you know, when you're spending money to go over a newswire, even if it's a reduced price with us, that you're really playing with something that's strategic and you're not doing a press release that's like, hey, we hired Judy as the new HR associate or something like that. It's a meaningful press release. And so I tell people to really, you know, put a little bit of effort into the strategy behind the press release.

John Jantsch (14:19.416)

Right.

Mickie Kennedy (14:28.515)

you know, look for ways in which you can make a compelling story and help develop a story arc because almost anything that people do you can sort of play with it and elevate it and try to create nuances that brings out more of a story element.

John Jantsch (14:47.534)

So we mentioned AI and certainly, you know, if hitting the button to send has gotten easier, certainly writing the press release has gotten easier. In theory, you can do one prompt and tell it what your product is and what your company name is and voila, it'll put it in a press release format even for you. How do you actually write, how do you actually use the AI tools to write better press releases, ones that are going to get picked up? mean, what does that look like in practice?

Mickie Kennedy (15:15.267)

So I never let AI decide what to write on. I tell people the metric is about 97 % of press releases that even go through the newswire where people paid $1,700 plus to go out naturally. They do not generate earned media. So what I tell people to do is focus on the 3 % of press releases that do get picked up because there's patterns in there. The story arc is an important one.

John Jantsch (15:40.706)

Mm-hmm.

Mickie Kennedy (15:43.172)

you know, building in an industry survey or study, that's something anyone can do. Nobody owns an industry, you can do the legwork, get a survey in your industry, partner with a smaller independent trade association, not the big one, they'll often because it's a smaller independent one, they don't get a lot of love from the media. So they see it as a win win themselves. And I'd say more than two thirds of the time, they will cooperate with you to send that out to their members. And

you know, focus not on all the questions, but what was the most, uh, the biggest surprise or aha of that, uh, survey that you did and then focus on that, uh, as the press release. then ask AI, Hey, I've got this idea for a press release. Here's me. Here's my company. Do not write the press release. Give me the structure of what you feel would be the perfect press release on this subject. It'll probably write the press release anyways. And I go, okay.

I see you wrote the press release. Now give me just the structure. And then finally it gives you the structure and say, okay, give me eight headline options for this press release. And then if I find one that I really like, I'll get it. Otherwise we'll refine one. It's like number three comes closest, but I want to make sure that this is in there. And then I say, okay, now give me three opening paragraph options using this target headline. And it, this way takes longer. It might take.

John Jantsch (17:07.822)

Thanks

Mickie Kennedy (17:08.355)

I've the most has ever taken me to do a whole press release is 12 minutes. So you don't get it in 30 seconds. But if you take it top down, paragraph by paragraph, and then focus like, hey, I'm the second paragraph, I want to make sure I have a quote. And I want to say something very powerfully, you know, make sure active verbs are used, and that really stands out. And, you know, if you're comfortable,

John Jantsch (17:11.923)

Yeah.

Mickie Kennedy (17:33.88)

being a contrarian, you could even say you can make it a contrarian quote or something like that. like, let's say you did a survey of graphic designers and 80 % believe that they're gonna be replaced by AI in five years. could say, you could disagree with that and say, while this survey shows a lot of people are scared of the industry, I think this is a bit alarmist. And I do believe that those who don't know how to start incorporating AI into their graphic tools toolbox,

they're going to be at a huge disadvantage in the coming years. And you know, that you're not necessarily agreeing with what the survey said, but it makes you seem very thoughtful and rational. And, you know, those types of things. And then, you know, just going top down until you get what you will, you know, get it finished. AI is very good at writing the press release, but the ideas behind it, it's not very good at it'll, it'll make a press release, like you see out there. And you're like, this is as good as that one. Well, that one probably didn't.

John Jantsch (18:23.661)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:28.782)

Well, it's because it's read all the bad press releases, right? That's right. You know, one of the things I think people really under utilize is the deep research aspect of it. I mean, you can get to the point where you could go to just about any industry and ask it something like, what are generally accepted practices in this industry?

Mickie Kennedy (18:31.734)

Right. And it's like, yeah, you're right. It did as well as another bad press release that didn't get any media pickups. So,

John Jantsch (18:53.614)

that nobody is questioning. mean, questions like that can all of a sudden really spark some things that will be polarizing, controversial potentially. And that's really where the gems are, isn't it?

Mickie Kennedy (19:09.56)

Yeah, absolutely. mean, the research capability of AI is so good. And a lot of people also don't brainstorm with it. It's like, hey, what are some contrarian ideas that we could use for my industry and just brainstorm them. And maybe it gives you five or six, and you're sitting there saying, well, I would never feel comfortable saying that in my industry, but maybe number four.

is one that I could get behind and I wouldn't alienate my customer base. But being a contrarian is a really great way to stand out with the media because so many times everybody agrees in one direction. And as a result, stories get written that are one sided. And believe it or not, outside of politics, journalists like to be fair and balanced. So if you're the only one raising your hand and saying, hey, electric cars are bad for the environment, they're bad for right now,

you know, taking a lithium battery fire and getting it under control often involves 12 fire trucks and 50,000 gallons of water and and it burns to X amount of degree. Plus, we don't know what we're gonna do with these batteries at the end of the life. Maybe we could hit pause for a few years until we figure some things out before we embrace electric cars so strongly. And that way you stand the likelihood of every time they discuss this subject, you get plugged in as that rational contrarian viewpoint.

And that's a much easier place because less people are competing for that spot.

John Jantsch (20:40.75)

Well, Mickey, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. Where would you invite people to learn more about e-releases and connect with you?

Mickie Kennedy (20:49.902)

So our website's ereleases.com. I have a free masterclass where I teach people in less than an hour these strategic types of press releases that work, the 3 % of press releases that are actually working. And again, it's completely free and it's a great place for anybody to start. And that's at ereleases.com slash plan, P-L-A-N. And again, it's completely free and you can feel free to call or email my office or chat with us.

You know, we work with people all the time on their first real PR campaign and we're great at holding hands and sort of teaching people the way to do this. And I always tell people, this is something that anybody can do. You don't need to hire a PR firm. This is something that you can do yourself. It just takes a little bit of thought and effort, but it's a way in which I think a small business can sort of implement it and maybe do it quarterly or every other month, you know, find a cadence that works for you.

John Jantsch (21:45.516)

Well again, I appreciate you taking a few moments and maybe we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Mickie Kennedy (21:50.735)

Sounds good. Thank you.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:02.129)

What are the biggest threat from AI? Isn't that it replaces your job. It's that it exposes the parts of you that were never fully developed in the first place. Sound interesting? Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Derek Reddall. He's a true time bestselling author and transformational leader who has spent over 25 years helping people unlock what he calls their emergent

potential, the idea that everything you need to become is already inside you waiting for the right conditions. We're going to talk about his new book, A Whole New Human, 10 Ways We Must Evolve to Survive in the AI Age. There we go. Got it right. Derek, welcome to the show.

Derek (00:48.558)

Thank you, John. It's an honor and pleasure to be here.

John Jantsch (00:50.981)

So we're not, some tells me we're not gonna talk about prompt engineering, at least not right off the bat, are we?

Derek (00:55.374)

Maybe how we have to prompt the AI within us, but not more than the AI outside of us, yes.

John Jantsch (00:59.783)

Right.

So for 25 years, your teaching has started with this idea of emergence. There's a lot of people on here that maybe that's the first time they've heard that word applied particularly to self-development or self-improvement. You want to give us kind of what you mean by that?

Derek (01:21.304)

Sure, I mean obviously in science there's an understanding of the emergent property of things and you know that something emerges that is more than or different than the sum of the initial parts etc. you know oxygen and what is it hydrogen comes together to make water so you get water as an emergent property and so that's one way to think about emergence and what I speak of it it's more about an experience I actually had

after a near death experience where I saw this and I began to see that, you know, in every living thing, it begins with a seed. There's a pattern. There's a pattern behind everything that is alive. And whether it's the acorn, the oak is already there in the acorn. And even from a quantum physics standpoint or a platonic form standpoint, the oak, the idea of the oak is a pattern in the field.

as a part of the superposition. So we can get scientific about it or not, but the bottom line is the oak tree is already there and it's there in potential. It's there in a pattern and the mechanics of its fulfillment are there. It's simply waiting for the right conditions. When the conditions are a match to the pattern within anything, that potential emerges naturally. And when I saw that

not just theoretically, but experienced it and began to consider there was a pattern in me. There was a seed pattern planted in the soil of my soul or whatever and began to ask what that was, you know. And this really brings us back to the Oracle of Delphi and the OG success self-help guru when she said, know thyself or aristocraties said an unexamined life is not worth living.

the fundamental pattern of knowing what I'm really made of and made for and learning what are the right questions to ask. And then to say, okay, this is what I am like a gardener with a seed going, what are there for the right conditions for that seed to thrive? And I began to cultivate the inner and outer conditions that were a match to the pattern that I was discovering within me. And I went from broke

John Jantsch (03:36.999)

Mm.

you

Derek (03:43.385)

broken, literally suicidal in a one-room apartment, living on macaroni and cheese, no kidding, got very good at mac and cheese though, I could make it in a lot of ways. Within the first 12 months, I ended up launching my life's work, growing my business into six and then multiple six figures, falling in love. My whole life began to emerge or unfold.

John Jantsch (03:49.095)

you

Derek (04:09.824)

And what I saw was that before that, I'd been a self-help person trying to improve myself, you know, for years and years and years. And I found that most of our efforts to fix change, heal and improve ourself is a form of resistance against what is naturally trying to emerge. We end up creating conditions that are oppositional to what is really in us. So that's in a nutshell or in an acorn shell.

John Jantsch (04:30.289)

Yes.

John Jantsch (04:38.009)

You

Derek (04:39.128)

basically where the idea of emergence, I read a book on it called Emergence.

John Jantsch (04:41.223)

So we're all just waiting around for the right squirrel to bury us in the dirt? that it? That's right.

Derek (04:46.698)

Exactly. Squirrels are farmers of the forest, right? And they luckily don't have good memory because they forget about 80 % of where they buried it or something. And then we get oak trees as a result. Exactly.

John Jantsch (04:57.511)

So I've had a lot of guests on here, obviously. AI is a topic of certainly the last 18 months or so. And it's typically about tools and tactics. What's the different argument you are making when it comes to AI?

Derek (05:03.192)

for sure. Yes.

Derek (05:07.682)

Yes.

Derek (05:11.724)

Yeah, I mean, obviously I think it's an important thing. We should learn AI. should master the tools. You should know how to use them. Just like you can use internet and use a phone because you won't be replaced immediately by AI. You'll be replaced by somebody who's really good at it. And, but you are going to be replaced one way or the other. So you want to make sure you replace yourself with AI rather than being replaced by it. But basically the approach is, you know, I've spent 25 years, I started off in tech. I was a computer nerd. I built programs.

John Jantsch (05:24.58)

Mm-hmm.

Derek (05:41.357)

I watched war games. thought it was a great idea to build a program to hack into the government and start global thermonuclear war. Don't ask me why. And so I was, and then I got into the brain and was going to be a neuroscientist. And then I had this opening spiritually, whatever you want to call it near death. And I became more interested in consciousness and the deeper dimensions of us. But what I saw is that I've been practicing the inner technologies and

that we have to understand that AI is an expression and a prosthetic of our capacity for intelligence. And from the Tower of Babel to Chatch-EPT, we're still just building these outer tools. And that's OK. But with every new technology, we outsource a little bit of ourselves. And so on the one level, the very real danger, and it's already happening. MIT has studies about this.

John Jantsch (06:30.8)

Mm-hmm.

Derek (06:38.094)

that we're outsourcing the thing that makes us us, the ability to think, to think for ourself, to think deeply, the ability to create, to communicate, to connect, et cetera. And as you outsource something, if you study the technology history, you atrophy that capacity. Exactly, exactly. I don't even remember where I am right now. It's only been a few minutes. No, and so I don't have my GPS to see where I'm going.

John Jantsch (06:55.514)

Can't remember my phone number.

you

Derek (07:05.302)

And so in like GPS, our spatial cognition, our mapping capacity, all these things, and it's important to understand that cognition is not just linear, it's layered. And so as one cognitive ability starts to collapse or atrophy, there's a cascading effect. so we see this over, and I talk about this in my book, kind of the history of industrial revolutions and the unfoldment of technology.

and the outsourcing and where we're heading in a trajectory is to become like the characters in the movie WALL-E that are basically these slabs on a conveyor belt staring at screens with no more agency and no more even concern with what's happening outside in the world. That's not science fiction. There's already a lot of people sitting in their basement just like those characters. And it's especially dangerous with men who need to have

John Jantsch (07:51.441)

Yeah.

Derek (08:02.121)

utility and usefulness and if they don't, they become self-destructive or destructive in the world and that's also happening now. And the second big piece is it will do everything a human can do better, faster, cheaper. And so the big existential question of our times has to be if that's the case, what's a human for? And there is an answer to that, and we'll talk about.

John Jantsch (08:28.603)

Well, you do lay out some ways that we need to evolve or that you suggest we need to evolve. So for the person that's like, yeah, well, my job is my boss tells me I got to go in and get this work done. Here's the tools I use. it's an occupational hazard, right, that I'm doing this. So what are some of the ways that you teach people to counteract that?

Derek (08:33.315)

Yes.

Derek (08:52.451)

Yeah, when you say counteract that, you mean use the AI tools? And you're basically training the AI.

John Jantsch (08:55.993)

Yeah, just the fact that I'm there on front of that computer screen all day long using these tools, you know, because that's my job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Derek (09:00.951)

All that, right. That you're becoming like a WALL-E character potentially. Well, yeah, you know, just using the tools, the danger again, yes, we're using these tools and the danger with AI first and foremost is you have to make sure you use the tool to become a better version of yourself. Not like when we started to use power tool, you know, like the plow and all these different things or the automobile.

They got us somewhere faster. They made us more productive, but we didn't have to walk anymore. We didn't have to use our muscles anymore. And you can study the increase of disease by the fact that we don't have to move anymore. so, so we had to build other industries like gyms and exercise and running clubs to do the things. And that's okay. But as we start to outsource our cognition of these things, we just have to make sure, first of all, we are

John Jantsch (09:36.261)

Yeah. All right.

Derek (10:00.483)

doing hard and challenging things on a regular daily basis, because you were evolved and adapted to be chased by tigers and to chase wooly mammoths. And if you're not chasing and being chased a little bit every day, you're going to get fat and sick and cognitively decline much faster. But the great news is you can use AI to strengthen you. You can, and I talk about that with each evolution. I mean, the first evolution is AI is going to think for you.

think for yourself. So we have to deepen our ability. Right now, this is already happening with kids, happening with students. They're hitting a button, they're producing an essay, and over a semester their cognition is falling off a cliff. And already kids cannot read handwriting. They're losing that cognitive ability, let alone do it. So we have to make sure, and you can, and I show people how, to use it to know yourself better.

to use it to become a better writer, a better communicator, a better creator, a better and a deeper thinker. And again, thinking is what got us out of the trees on the savanna and up into the stars. And if we keep giving it to AI, there will come a day not too far in the future, we literally won't have the ability and we will be forced to bow before our AI overlord. That's not a science fiction trope.

So we have to use it to think deeply. If you're writing a paper or doing research, do the first amount yourself. Write the first draft. Make your head hurt a little bit every day thinking as an example. There's other examples, because it's also showing up in communication. Write that first draft of the email. Really try to communicate with that person. Have a real conversation with a human being every day.

You know, these are skills that aren't just nice to have. You know, they call them soft skills, but they're really very hard. But these kinds of skills also will make you more human, more creative, more intuitive, more alive, and it will make you irreplaceable. Because your lived wisdom, your lived experience, your internal technology, that's the one thing AI can't do.

John Jantsch (12:14.801)

Right.

Derek (12:24.727)

AI will do everything else. But if you can embed that in your work, your words, your world, now you become valuable. The moat of the future is an authentic human being. Everything else will be commoditized.

John Jantsch (12:39.953)

Well, I believe that, and I've kind of made the case for saying, think the people that are thriving in this right now are people that came from more liberal arts backgrounds instead of like a technical training to do a thing because taste and discernment I think are going to be what's left. Yeah.

Derek (12:49.903)

Correct. Correct. Correct.

Correct. Bingo, bingo, bingo, bingo. Yeah. Taste and discernment and everybody has it. They just haven't necessarily developed it. And you know, you have a lived experience. Your greatest wisdom will come from your greatest wounds. Your deepest purpose will come from all the pain and the problems you've worked through. And it builds a story and it builds a perspective that only you have, which creates taste, which creates, you know, real embodied wisdom and

John Jantsch (13:04.444)

Yeah, yeah.

Derek (13:24.685)

That is the new Prada and the new Gucci of the brave new world. Because again, AI will do everything that, you know, we're going to see more businesses started than ever before in history until business loses all meaning. We're going to see more books published, more songs produced, more websites, more apps until it's a tsunami that makes everybody want to tune out and look away and become apathetic. But then there'll be those individuals

who get to know themselves, excavate and harvest the wisdom of their life, have real taste, real point of view, real wisdom, and then use AI to scale wisdom, to scale authentic taste, to scale a singular perspective, to actually scale and magnify an algorithm only they have.

Those are the individuals that are going to become a signal in the noise.

John Jantsch (14:25.095)

So let's talk a little bit. So the emergence model says the answer is already in you, or maybe is. How does a business owner who's listening to this and maybe stuck at a revenue plateau, I mean, how did they apply that idea?

Derek (14:38.317)

Yeah, well, you know, there's different reasons why you're stuck at a revenue plateau. Some, mean, you are the biggest bottleneck usually, but sometimes depending on the business, there's, there's just different things. What got us to where we are, isn't going to, at a certain point, isn't going to get us to the next level. What got you to a hundred thousand won't get you to a million, won't get you to five, won't get you to 10 or 15, et cetera, et cetera, depending. And that's the same thing even in not just business, but I know this is business, but you know, you all have relationships too.

What got you to the first year in your relationship is not going to get you to your five, et cetera. It's something about you that has to change a new model, a new paradigm, somewhere where you have to either delegate or outsource or dig deeper. And, you know, the biggest challenge with, with businesses and it's going to be that now is, you know, it's the Kodak experience, the blockbuster experience, the businesses that were in denial, that we're holding onto an old model.

John Jantsch (15:34.459)

Mm-hmm.

Derek (15:36.515)

because it worked and it was still working up to the moment it wasn't. And so we have to be willing to create, creative destruction on ourselves, but not just on our business, but really, you know, this is, this is what could be one of the, it's the biggest existential crisis we're going to face, but it's also, I think one of the greatest opportunities to become the people we're meant to be and to have a whole new Renaissance. So you have to, again, understand that

John Jantsch (15:39.717)

Yes.

Derek (16:02.575)

There's a guy that just launched, started a, just built a billion dollar business. He didn't know anything about the business he built. He used AI and he built a team of agents, but he had a perspective and he tapped into a current zeitgeist. So he had a bit of wisdom and intelligence to identify that, which is what a great entrepreneurial creative mind does. And then he was able to scale it and build a billion dollar business. I think he just hired his brother cause he was getting lonely.

So they're gonna see a lot of the potential for that. But that required somebody to have a couple things that were human, which is a perspective, a bit of intuition, a lot of courage, some grit, the willingness to work hard. And the problem is once you build something, especially nowadays, again, that's gonna be completely competed away, that particular margin.

John Jantsch (16:56.977)

Yeah, right.

Derek (16:58.543)

The worst thing he ever did was have a New York Times article told about him because everybody's now aiming their arrows at him. what's that?

John Jantsch (17:06.503)

Is that 11 Labs, I'm guessing? Is that the company called 11 Labs? Is that who it was? Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Derek (17:12.067)

No, 11 Labs is something else. I think that's got more than one person. This was all about Ozempic and stuff. He just sold Ozempic, but he's not a doctor. He just was a middleman, built a billion dollar business. I think he did it in like a year. But so there's a lot of opportunity if you're creative and entrepreneurial and you're willing to trust your taste, your intuition and perspective. And of course AI can help you there. But when you understand, just follow the logic that

John Jantsch (17:20.401)

Yeah. Funny.

Derek (17:40.021)

Everything is going to be commodified because AI is just units of cognition and intelligence and it can do everything a human can do. And with embodied humanoids, it'll include the physical. You just have to keep going down the stack or up the stack or whatever and ask, well, what's left? And you want to go where the puck's going, not where it already is. And, and like I said, you're going to, you're going to, unless you have the chips.

or the capex, the money, or the energy, the only thing that's left is the humanity of it all. And if you're a company or a person, the most authentic, unique, bold, willingness to be and be creative and intuitive and also be very flexible, know, like all of those things that are natural state as children and as people until we calcify around something.

John Jantsch (18:10.417)

Mm-hmm.

Derek (18:38.369)

or a business, if it has a founder energy, keeps evolving and then it gets, it loses that and then it calcifies. So we have to get back to that and that will become again, the new moat is to be that flexible.

John Jantsch (18:51.911)

So for a lot of folks, business owners, particularly, who feel like, I'm running as fast as I can to keep up with the AI race, right? So what's the first kind of inner shift that you'd encourage them to make instead?

Derek (19:00.227)

Which is the wrong race.

Derek (19:06.179)

Yeah, again, I understand you want to learn the tools. You want to try to become as AI native as you possibly can as fast as you can, because if you don't, you will be competed out of existence. And you may have a moat for now and some things, the moats will last longer because of regulations and different things like that. And just, you might have a really good brand. And so you'll have loyalty up to a point until they can get the same thing for half the cost or less. So you have some time, but, but, but again, what's you got to think about?

Community, real humanity, real authenticity. Yes, people want stuff cheaper and faster and better. There's no doubt about it. Amazon built Amazon over that. But ultimately we have, you have to ask, what is it about me or the thing I do that is truly irreplaceable? And you, and you have to start to really be looking at, and what's interesting is you'll find

The way you built your business in the beginning often had a lot more for most, a lot, a lot more of that humanity in it, a lot more of that touch. And we're going to have to, it's like what I call a handcrafted humanity. We have to return to that. What people, what's going to be a differentiator. It's why like on YouTube, the people that are the most successful now are the live streamers because it's live.

John Jantsch (20:13.927)

Thanks

John Jantsch (20:33.307)

Mm-hmm.

Derek (20:33.443)

because it's in depth, because people feel like they can trust you, they know you versus all of the AI slop and the highly polished and produced stuff. So something that feels real and authentic and raw and live is going to win above all the polished stuff over and over and over again. So this is the kind of thing we have to start thinking about. Again, if you look back to your roots,

A lot of the ways you lived and the things you valued and the things you did are what made you successful. Then you started building a machine and it became all about scaling the machine instead of scaling the original core and heart of why you were doing it in the first place. Get back to the story. Get back to the humanity. Get back to the community. Get back to real connection. That's going to be most fundamental.

John Jantsch (21:27.203)

Awesome. Well, Derek, I appreciate you taking a few moments to drop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Where would you invite people to connect with you and find out more about your work?

Derek (21:34.275)

Yeah, I mean, they can certainly get my book, obviously on Amazon or wherever books are sold or any of the books, whole new human. They can also go to Derek Rydell, legendary life on YouTube, lots and lots of videos or my website, Derek Rydell D E R E K R Y D A L L. And there's lots of free trainings and support. And then there's my podcast emergence, millions of downloads there. And there's, there's more of this deep dive conversation for sure.

John Jantsch (22:01.287)

Awesome. Great. Again, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Derek (22:06.839)

Likewise, John, thank you so much. been a pleasure.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:02.122)

What are the reasons most businesses fail has nothing to do with their product, their market, or even funding and everything to do with the fact that the founder never learned how to Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Brian Will. He's a serial entrepreneur dropped out of high school, went on to build or co-build 10 companies across five different industries collectively worth over half a billion dollars at their peak.

He's the author of three books, including one we're going to talk about today. No, the psychology of sales and negotiations. So Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian (00:40.654)

John, I appreciate you having me today. It's gonna be fun.

John Jantsch (00:43.348)

So, start with the fact you dropped out of high school, built 10 companies. At what point did you realize that maybe this selling thing has a lot to do with my success?

Brian (00:54.648)

You know, it's funny, John, the first company I did was landscaping and I only did it because I basically had no education and no job skills and I thought anybody could dig a hole and mow grass. Right. So that's what I did. And I did that for 10 years and that company did well until it didn't. That's my one of my favorite things and ended up losing everything. Almost went bankrupt, lost the house, the cars, made a couple of critical errors in business that I carried with me for the rest of my life.

John Jantsch (01:05.683)

Yeah, right.

Brian (01:23.81)

But what was interesting when I got out of the landscaping business is a buddy of mine, he said, hey, you should come sell insurance with me. Now, mind you, I'm thinking, you remember the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray? And you remember Ned, needle nose Ned, and every day he tries to get Bill and one day Bill just knocks him out in the street. That was my internal picture of an insurance salesman. And I did not see myself walking around with a briefcase and a hat, know, chasing people down on the street.

John Jantsch (01:34.856)

yeah. One of my, one of my favorites. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (01:46.048)

Yeah.

Brian (01:51.022)

And I told my friend, no, I'm not selling insurance. Never. I'm a landscaper to start with. So he bugged me and bugged me and six months goes by and he kept showing me big checks. And finally I said, all right, how do I sell insurance? And he said, give me $500. I'll give you some leads. I'll take you on one appointment and then I'll turn you loose. That's the worst way to train a salesperson. I got to tell you.

John Jantsch (02:13.642)

you

Brian (02:15.061)

So that's what we We went on one appointment. We went into this house. We came out. He goes, I just made $500. And I was like, my gosh, that's incredible. So I took these 20 leads and a week later I showed up at the office and I had sold 12 insurance policies. And the guy that owned the agency, I walked in, I put him on the table and he goes, what's that? I said, those are the insurance policies I sold this week. And he goes, how many leads did you get? And I said, I had 20. I said, is that not good enough? He goes, my God.

That's like top 1 % in the country. What did you do to sell those? I remember saying, I don't know. I just sold them. I had no idea, John, I could sell. I tell my kids all the time, you probably have talents you don't know yet. And one of the talents I did not know at the time was apparently I could sell. And within six weeks, I was producing 50 % of the revenue in this agency.

John Jantsch (02:58.421)

Mm.

Brian (03:08.587)

Six months later, I broke off. started my own agency. A year and a half later, I sold it to a venture capital firm. It was my first sale. And we turned it into a company that went public. I didn't know I could sell. I just could, and I don't know why. But then I turned it into a system of selling and sales management and training and wrote the book. And, you know, that's what I do.

John Jantsch (03:30.474)

Well, a lot of people suggest sales can be taught, but it's not a skill necessarily. But you kind of backed into it as like, had that skill. I don't even know what I was doing. So how do you kind of reconcile that with the idea that you're now taking people who maybe say, I don't have that skill and you're teaching them.

Brian (03:44.813)

I

Brian (03:52.654)

You know, it's interesting. Most salespeople fail for exactly the same reasons every single time. Number one, they talk too much. Number two, they act like a salesperson. If I can just get you to learn how to have a conversation with somebody and not act and sound like a salesperson. You know, a salesperson's their voice.

John Jantsch (04:02.442)

Yeah.

Brian (04:15.854)

goes up like an octave and they talk really fast and they're excited. Like, hey, John, how are you, man? I'm glad you came in today. And you're like, dude, you're a salesperson. Stop doing that. Right. And then if I asked you about a product, you have to give me a 20 minute dissertation on everything there is to know about everything about this product. And I don't care because we know that psychologically people only remember 30 % of what they hear anyway. So the more you talk, the less they hear. And then the more you talk, the less they want to listen to you. And now they just want to leave.

So if I can get you to number one, have a conversation instead of sell and number two, learn when to shut up, your safe's closing rates will go through the roof right out of the gate.

John Jantsch (04:55.776)

My father was kind of an old time salesperson. was a manufacturer's rep and he'd go into these towns and go around the square to the stores that were there. I used to go with him every now and then. I remember he was like, really, we got this great new product. I'm going to show this person today. He walks in and he's like, hey, we got this great new product. The guy's like, that is nice. Can I get 10 cases? Got out his pad, sat it down, came to pen.

and left. was like, well, you didn't even tell me about it. He was like, I took the order. And it just lasted with me forever. A lot of people talk themselves out of orders.

Brian (05:35.663)

Oh yeah. And the third thing is they talk too technical, right? I remember I was doing a project out in Seattle a year or so ago and I always, if it's a small sales team, I like to go out with the salespeople and listen. And I out with their top salesperson and he went in to see this customer and they were selling windows and he's like, yeah, and these windows have...

The Belgian slash and the six inch nails and they do this and this and the customers nod their head. And I stopped, said, hey John, can I ask you something? What is a Belgian slash and a six inch nails? That sounds like a band. And he goes, I don't know, I said, and he said something different. And I looked at the customer and I said, did you hear six inch nails? And they go, yeah, that's what we heard too. And if I hadn't stopped John and asked the question, they would have the whole time never known what he said, right?

John Jantsch (06:12.946)

You

John Jantsch (06:27.21)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian (06:28.622)

So you can get too complicated and lose your client so easily. And I tell people, don't use tech talk. Talk at a fifth grade level. Stop due check-ins, know, pause for effect, just like I did right there. And, you know, there are a few things we can teach you to make you better. We may not be able to make you the best, but we can make you better.

John Jantsch (06:54.314)

So you start your, I think this is not your first book with this, the word no. Is there a story behind why you've kind of latched onto that?

Brian (07:04.874)

Yeah, because the most powerful word in the English language is no. Without a doubt. And that's on both sides of the sales process. can't tell. I've got so many stories about the word no. And the Genesis literally, believe it not, comes from Richard Branson. And he wrote a book. And one of the things in his book, he says, is if your first offer doesn't insult them, you've offered too much.

And no matter what, because if you're talking to somebody who's a negotiator, they're never going to offer you what you want. And if you're selling something, you're never going to sell it for, you know, never going to offer it for sale for what you actually want. So we already know right out of the gate, both sides are going to say no. Right. So we start with no. That's what we always start with. And every single negotiation starts with no. I'll give you a, I'll give you a funny example. I own some restaurants. I have a manager that works for me.

John Jantsch (07:36.629)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (07:54.186)

Thanks.

Brian (07:59.791)

And I was sitting in there with a general contractor one day and the manager comes up and he said, Hey, the electrician's here and he wants to fix the outlet and the lamp and he wants $1,200. I said, offer him 600. And the manager looked at me and goes, what do you mean? I said, go back. He's already here. He's either going to take my 600. He's going to go home. He goes, but it's 1200. said, listen to me, just go offer 600 and come back. He comes back. goes.

He'll do it for nine. I said, take the deal. Right. And the manager was like, I don't understand what just happened. And the person at the table goes, do you do all your negotiations that way? I said, yes, I do. Whatever you tell me, it's no.

John Jantsch (08:40.96)

Well, that's an interesting point because the word negotiation is in the title, but I think a lot of people think selling is, have this offer, I give it to you, you pay me or you don't pay me. That negotiation is really not even a part of the deal. It's like, do you want it or not? So, and what you're suggesting is it should be a part of every conversation or at least every transaction.

Brian (08:56.419)

Yes.

Brian (09:04.536)

So you've been to the mall, right, John? To a store, to buy a suit or pants or... Those people are technically salespeople, but they're not selling you anything. That's retail, right? Salespeople are true salespeople that are going out and trying to sell a product or a service, and those things are negotiable, period.

John Jantsch (09:13.524)

No, no.

John Jantsch (09:24.234)

So what do you say to that? A lot of times, mean, a lot of my listeners are, you know, they don't have sales teams. mean, the founder is selling out there. And a lot of times they got into the business because they were good at doing something like landscaping, for example. Right. So how do you turn that person, especially the person is like, I hate selling. How do you turn that person? mean, obviously one of the pieces of leverage you have is the fact that, well, if you don't sell, you're going to be out of business. But how do you turn that person into

Brian (09:43.672)

Yes.

John Jantsch (09:54.519)

you know, somebody who could successfully sell.

Brian (09:57.423)

So my first book, John, is called The Dropout Multi-Millionaire. And I talk a lot about this in that book. And we like to say that every successful company has four personalities. And I don't care if it's Apple Computer all the way down to the guy who just started his own business. You have an entrepreneur who's a big thinker, who's also usually a salesperson, but not always. You have the entrepreneur, you have the technician, you have the manager, and you have the salesperson, right? Most businesses...

John Jantsch (10:01.311)

Mm-hmm.

Brian (10:26.572)

are started by technicians and they're not salespeople. And as I like to say, my books are famous for Joe the plumber, right? Joe's a plumber, he works for XYZ Plumbing for 20 years. He goes out every day, they're paying him 50 bucks an hour. One morning, Joe wakes up and says, why am I charging 150 an hour? I'm only getting 50. I'm gonna start my own business and we're gonna call it Joe's Plumbing. So Joe starts Joe's Plumbing.

If Joe's plumbing fails, it will not be because Joe is not a good plumber. It will be because Joe is not a good salesperson or a manager, one of the two. But Joe thinks that all there is to business is the technician part, not understanding that he doesn't understand how business works. He doesn't understand how insurance works and payroll works and sales work and, you know, managing people. None of that. He doesn't get that. And so that's why most businesses fail is because they're started by technicians.

If you are a technician, understand that you don't know how to do sales, bring somebody in who does.

John Jantsch (11:28.938)

Yeah. No, no, no question. I think a lot of people jump out of, out of work and, decide to start a business and don't realize just there's a lot of moving parts. So, if somebody came to you, they were a newbie in, like a class or coaching or something you were doing, what, would be the basic principles kind of map out the basic principles that you would teach or that have really worked for you over the years?

Brian (11:39.33)

Yes.

Brian (11:55.342)

You mean a new business owner?

John Jantsch (11:56.754)

Yeah, who wants to get better at selling? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian (12:00.374)

better at selling. Okay. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to, and I hate to say this, but I'm going to go out with you on a couple of sales calls to find out what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. And then we're going to develop a system for you to learn how to sell. So there in my book, we lay all these things out, but it's sick. It literally gets into the things we've already talked about, which is you need to bring your presentation down to a few words, not a five minute dissertation.

John Jantsch (12:27.114)

Hmm.

Brian (12:29.934)

You need to quit selling and just ask questions. That's one of the most powerful sales tools there is. If I can find out what you want, why you want it, when you want it, who else you've looked at buying it from and why you didn't buy it from them, you will tell me exactly how to close you. But that's a series of questions. If we want to get into, you know, high level sales, then we'll start talking about

learning who the other person is. You know, some people give and receive information differently, as I like to say. John, if you're an emotional person and you like you live on your emotions and what's going to feel good and do good. And I try to give you a bunch of data. You're going to your eyes are going to roll back in your head. If you're a data person and I can tell that very quickly when I first start talking to you and I start giving you all the emotional reasons why you should do something and you keep going, no, just give me the numbers. Right.

how you receive information, how you give information is how you receive it. I need to pick up that small thing and my sales tactic has to match how you receive information. And then my close ratios will go up. Matching that with not talking too much, asking a ton of questions and letting the person close themselves. These are things we teach that I would try to teach somebody. And then it's learning when to shut up. Like that's the huge one. Just stop talking.

John Jantsch (13:58.314)

So the point you make about reading, you know, how somebody wants to be sold, how they process information, how they learn. Doesn't that take a long time to really get good at? I know one of the things that they teach all the time is just what you talked about. Go in and probe, right? Ask questions, ask questions, ask questions. I don't really like that when somebody comes in and I feel like I'm being interviewed because I'm like, I don't really know you that well yet. I don't trust you necessarily. I'm not going to give you, you know, all this information you're asking me for. how do you...

How do you deal with kind of, I mean, how do you teach people to do that reading, you know, how somebody needs to be, and again, I'm, you know, years of experience, you probably learned it because you've seen everything, but how does that newer person who is really maybe feeling a little uncomfortable with this, like this new approach that they've been taught?

Brian (14:47.982)

Well, these things are gonna all be product specific. So let me just, let me give you one, right? I have a company that does window and door replacement. Okay? So when I walk up to the door, I'm like, hey John, how are you doing? I understand that you're looking to replace some windows today. Is that right? Yeah. But which ones are you looking to replace? Well, I'm thinking the ones on the front of the house. Why do you wanna replace those? I mean, why not all of them? Why just these? And you're gonna say, well, because...

John Jantsch (14:52.382)

Yeah. Right.

Brian (15:16.526)

I either want a bigger window or this one's fogging up or I need a double pane window. So these questions aren't really interviewing you as much as why are you wanting to replace these windows. And when you say, this one's leaking and this one's leaking and I don't want a double pane here or I want a bigger window, I'm like, okay, great. So you're looking at a double pane window, you want to do this and this. Have you shopped with anybody else? And you'll say yes or no. Do you have any idea what windows like this cost? And you're going to say, well, not really.

John Jantsch (15:19.786)

It's all the sun all day. Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:30.453)

Mm-hmm.

Brian (15:46.061)

And then I do what we call, we set the Delta, right? And I'll say, well, just to let you know up in advance, Windows costs, and I know this because I did this with a window company, Windows costs between 300 and a thousand dollars a piece to replace. 300 is going to get you a base level, a thousand is going to get you the Mac daddy. What range are you going to be in? I'm going to set the range. And the reason I set the range is because I don't want you to come in and say, I thought they were a hundred bucks and I just spent a half a day with you.

John Jantsch (16:08.874)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (16:14.922)

Yeah. All right.

Brian (16:16.27)

Right. I also want to try to I don't want to pitch you a thousand dollar window when you say my budget's 200 or if it's in my I never asked somebody a budget. I always give them a range. let them pick in the range. You want the cheapest at 300. You want me to talk about the thousand. Let's go in the middle. OK.

John Jantsch (16:23.882)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:31.508)

Yeah, you know, people ask the budget question. I'm always, you know, what are you looking to spend? That's my favorite question. And I'm like, as little as possible. mean, I'm just trying. It is.

Brian (16:40.174)

Yeah, that's a terrible people don't ever ever ever ask somebody what their budget is and they go why I'm saying because they'll lie to you. They want I don't go into the car lot and say I'm really looking to spend $52,560. Right? I'm gonna lie to you because I think you're to take advantage of me. Now, if that same person says Windows costs between 300 and $800 a piece.

John Jantsch (16:54.898)

Right?

Brian (17:05.646)

Now you know you're not getting it for 200 bucks. You're gonna give me at least, you want me to start at 300, 500, 800, where do you wanna go? Because I could spend all day talking about Windows, but let's talk about what's important to you. And by the way, if we're gonna get into super high level sales, John, if they pick the 500 and we get to the end and they're not willing to commit, this is what we call the drop back and punt. I'll say, well, let me ask you something. To be very fair, I just told you all about the $500 Windows, and those may be what you want.

Would you have any interest in hearing about the $300 window? Because if you say yes, you could never afford the 500 in the first place.

John Jantsch (17:42.504)

Ha

So do you find that these principles that you teach doesn't really matter? The industry, B2B, B2C, doesn't really matter?

Brian (17:52.855)

It is what, look, people are people. I don't care if you are the CEO of IBM, you still go home and fight with your wife and your kids are throwing up on you and you know, you're just a person.

John Jantsch (18:03.914)

So you also wrote the Dropout Multi-Millionaire. What lesson from that book do you wish you'd learned 10 years earlier?

Brian (18:13.55)

You know, I spent my first 10, 15 years in business trying to do everything myself, trying to be the smartest guy in the room. Particularly when you get under pressure, too many entrepreneurs fall back into the red personality zone where they get very autocratic and you will do it my way and blah, blah, And it wasn't until I met my business partner, Steve, who was way more successful than me.

And that even took a year before I broke down and I said, you know what? I'm going to listen to you. And when I did that, we went from zero to we sold our company for $80 million three years later. You know, at some point you have to understand that there are smarter people than you as smart as you think you are. There are people that know more about certain things that you need to listen to.

Finding somebody who's been there and done that, who's willing to come in and help you and tell you, and then your ability to take that advice and listen to it is the difference between your success today or your failure tomorrow, 100%. And I didn't know that when I was young.

John Jantsch (19:28.126)

I think that's a great place to end it today. Brian, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you invite people to connect with you and find out more about your work?

Brian (19:37.484)

Yeah, BrianWillMedia.com. BrianWillMedia.com. My books, my training, everything's on there. You can find everything you want to know.

John Jantsch (19:43.816)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Brian (19:48.943)

Appreciate it, John. Thanks for having me.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:01.848)

What if the reason your team can't have hard conversations with you, with each other, with clients isn't a communication problem, but a values problem hiding underneath one? Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Aiko Bethea. She's the founder and CEO of Rare Coaching and Consulting, an executive coach to Fortune 100 companies and nonprofits and the author.

of a book we're going to talk about today, Anchored, Aligned, Accountable, a framework for transcending bullshit and transforming our lives and work with a forward by Brene Brown. She's a former director of at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a Dare to Lead certified facilitator. So Iko, welcome to the show.

Aiko (00:50.733)

Hi, thanks for having me, John.

John Jantsch (00:52.352)

So, you know, these books, they've become really popular now that have curse words in the title. You know, that's kind of a new thing. And then you put these, you know, you don't want to have the full word. So you put the little aster, or the, what do we call that? An asterisk in there. So how are we supposed to pronounce that when it has the asterisk in it? I just went, blew through it and said the real word, but I always find that funny.

Aiko (00:56.995)

Ha ha ha!

Aiko (01:05.953)

Asterisk. huh. You're right.

Aiko (01:15.257)

Well, one, I think you said it perfectly. When I'm with audiences, oftentimes maybe I'll say BS instead, but you were perfect.

John Jantsch (01:17.006)

Hahaha

John Jantsch (01:21.678)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you have worked with major institutions, Fortune 500 companies mentioned earlier, the Gates Foundation. Now you're working with businesses of all sizes, really. What did you see inside those bigger organizations that made you want to build a framework for something, I don't know, some people might see as unglamorous, like self leadership?

Aiko (01:46.979)

Yeah, I would say that the same thing I saw within organizations when I was supporting them with their culture reflected what I saw in the leaders at all levels. So not just the C-suite that I work with, but also folks who might be entry level. And it was this, what could have been built for them is knowing who they are and who they want to be as a leader.

versus always looking for external validation, second guessing themselves based on whichever way the wind was blowing. Is my boss glad today? Are they in a bad mood? Who do I need to be? Did I get an argument with my partner today? What is the news saying? I remember that voice of my grandmother that was saying X, and Z, but supporting them and getting right back to their own grounding of who is it that they want to be and to have that intrinsic motivation.

versus going any way which the wind blows and feeling insecure or unsupported.

John Jantsch (02:46.158)

When you, we already mentioned the BS in the subtitle, was there a pattern that you were actually naming when you chose that for your framing?

Aiko (02:56.341)

Absolutely. We say the framework itself is very simplistic. The framework for self leadership at home or at work is being anchored into your values, aligned in terms of your actions, aligning with those values, and then being accountable for whatever that impact might be as well. And I would say that just with that alone, it helps people to come back to the forefront. And I had to think about what gets in the way of somebody actually practicing this framework.

And it's what I call the BS. So they could be the things in terms of we all have a community or family of origin, this belief that you need to always be producing to earn your worth, a belief of perfectionism or scarcity, which is like, hey, there's only enough of juice to go around, right? Or here comes John being hired, so I need to either sabotage him or keep one upping him versus thinking there's enough of space for everyone.

And once I go into scarcity, it completely goes, it's like the cousin of catastrophizing. Because once I realize, man, John's a new guy on the block, he's gonna, there's only space for one of us. And I think, wow, you're doing so well and you're outshining me. Next thing I do is I see that I'm gonna be fired. I'm not gonna be able to pay my bills. We're gonna be homeless. It happens like in a second. So the BS is really all of these things that...

we default to and may not always even recognize where they're coming from, but they stop us from being able to be anchored, aligned, and accountable.

John Jantsch (04:28.718)

I love that talking about that because so many people, it's it's cliche, but it's from childhood, right? A lot of the stuff that we carry around. I have nine siblings, so there were 10 children in my family. And so I should have a scarcity mentality, right? But my mom was always, her big thing was up, there's always room for one more. There's always room for one more.

Aiko (04:40.126)

woah.

Aiko (04:48.471)

I love that, yes.

John Jantsch (04:49.0)

And, and, and I think that that just really, you know, I feel like I do have that, like, Hey, I have no competitors. There's like the world's this big place, you know? And so, so it is funny that we do carry that into however we show up.

Aiko (05:02.095)

And that's a beautiful gift that your mom gave you. That's a great gift.

John Jantsch (05:03.662)

So there's a, mean, you're talking about being anchored in values. think a lot of business owners would say, well, yeah, I bring my values to it. My business is all about what I believe and what I value. So what's the difference between having those values and actually, in your words, being anchored in?

Aiko (05:25.155)

Yeah, so I could probably show you better than I could tell you. So I start off with asking people just top two values, because once you get to four, five, and six, it's just dilution. So John, what would you say one of your top values is? What is your top two?

John Jantsch (05:38.51)

top values? Well, I kind of shared one of them, I think that abundance, you know, is that the world's an abundant place is certainly one of them. And then I would like to say also kindness that, you know, that that that's something that's hard to in practice when you're especially as a business owner, when you're forced with like people punching you, or it feels like it. But I would say those those are pretty high.

Aiko (06:04.269)

Yeah, yes. So when you're in an abundance in that value, what are you doing? You kind of told us a little bit, but just say a couple of actions.

John Jantsch (06:15.086)

One, as I said, know, really certainly not viewing in the business context, not viewing people as competitors, but really viewing people as as collaborators, know, partners more often, regardless of how the world might label them.

Aiko (06:30.957)

Lovely and then kindness. What does that look like? What are you doing?

John Jantsch (06:34.774)

Well, probably starts with words, know, really choosing words carefully and not, you know, not letting like the fact that I'm stressed out about a deadline or something of impact, how I maybe show up in a meeting before that or something.

Aiko (06:49.495)

Yes, so have this degree of intentionality about what you say and maybe there are these behaviors that sounds like you maybe even pause before you say or do something. So one of your. You do I want to let you know.

John Jantsch (06:58.582)

I sound like a really good person, don't I?

Aiko (07:04.597)

And if we go back to your question that you asked, you said, why does it get in the way in terms of people being able to be anchored in their values? And because your values are so lovely, I'm going to take a different turn on this of what could get in the way of that is that our values also have a shadow side, like when we over index on them. And so it might be, John, that there's somebody who, let's just say your business, you have somebody who is, you know, perpetually coming in late, leaving early.

John Jantsch (07:09.272)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:20.642)

Hmm.

Aiko (07:34.64)

something and your value is kindness so you want to you know you want to be able to not like be yelling you're being very intentional about the words you use etc and this is not the case for you because I know that you're a mature leader period but what might get in the way of somebody really being in that anchored in that value of kindness might be the shadow side where I'm not gonna give Bob the feedback might land really

John Jantsch (08:01.966)

Mm-hmm.

Aiko (08:03.821)

in a hard place because my value is kindness. And so I don't want to hurt him. I also don't want him to feel like there's not enough space or room at the table for him. So I might not live into truly what that value of kindness is, which you'll go to the impact. Your impact isn't likely that you want Bob to keep underperforming. And if you keep thinking about you'd be like, the impact is I want Bob to be able to do his best.

And so we would have to look at the impact, and you're like, well, if I don't say anything, I'm actually not moving into my value. So that critical self-awareness and curiosity would take you to, wow, actually my value would tell me that I need to give him this feedback. And that's the kindest I could be. Because I want the impact to be that he is able to show up and do his best work. But that shadow side can sometimes deter us from truly being in that value. And instead, we're deflecting

John Jantsch (08:36.493)

Yeah.

Aiko (09:01.101)

or going over indexing in other ways. So that's the other side of it.

John Jantsch (09:06.552)

Well, that's really interesting. talk about that kind of flip side of it, because I will say that I've learned through trial and error that sometimes that kindness can show up in the negative and that I hate confrontation. And sometimes confrontation is necessary, but I avoid confrontation sometimes. that's an instance where it actually having maybe that self-awareness is

Really an important understanding, isn't

Aiko (09:37.968)

Absolutely and you're drilling and peeling back on that value. It's still the value of kindness, but you realize wow kindness means being able to have this impact. Helping Bob to be the best he can and helping you to be able to be honest and authentic versus just sparing somebody's feeling and actually I'm trying to avoid conflict. So that's how values we can live into them by being so clear about it and being clear of the impact.

John Jantsch (09:46.914)

Yeah, yeah.

Aiko (10:04.267)

Usually people don't get to that next point of the check and balance, is, but am I having the impact I want? Wait, I'm not in alignment.

John Jantsch (10:10.413)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I already let the self-awareness term out of the bag. I swear every leadership book that's ever been written, I've had a lot of leadership authors on here. I mean, I can't think of one leadership book that didn't start with the need for self-awareness. If you're going to be a leader, you have to realize all the ways that you're sabotaging yourself or all the behaviors that aren't coming across like you think they are. So how...

I mean, when you work with somebody who is clearly not seeing what's obvious, you know, in a lot of cases, I mean, how do you get a business owner who believes they're in alignment to actually see where the gap is?

Aiko (10:53.551)

Yeah, usually, and there are my coaching practices, I really do go in knowing that and believing that my clients are completely resourceful. I don't need to tell them or direct them what to do. As a matter of fact, me telling them isn't going to help them. Otherwise, they just read an HBR article and do what it says, right? So the idea is that intrinsic innovation so that they are living into who they want to be. So first we'd start with what impact do they want to have?

And what does that impact look like? And if the impact is not correlating, we know there's this motivation now like, well, we've got to do something different. So they can notice what is actually happening in real time and name it. People don't give me feedback. When I ask for ideas, they don't give them to me.

When I actually try to have transparent conversations, people are quiet in the room. They always agree with me. And they're like, but I want people to bring some tension and to be able to give me certain feedback. OK, so you're not getting the behavior you want or the impact. What are you actually doing? How do you want it to be? How are you going to actually get that from people? What could be getting in the way? And then they might learn, wow, I found out in practically getting feedback or observing what I do is that

when you know Beth actually tries to raise her hand or say something I talk over her or I say my idea first and everyone kind of falls in. All I help them to pause to note what are they noticing how do they want it to be and now what do you need to do to get there and why is this even important to you and that's usually when it goes to not only desired impact but what are your values and who do you want to be right.

John Jantsch (12:38.69)

Yeah, and I do think sometimes people, they can identify is the symptoms, so to speak, and not necessarily the root cause, right?

Aiko (12:46.223)

Absolutely, and that's why that working backwards is so important because sometimes just like when you say people to ask people how do you want it to be? They may not even be able to tell you but they're able to say this is what I don't like and this is what I don't want and we can work from there.

John Jantsch (13:01.688)

So one of the true, I think, challenges, but also I think necessary skills for leaders that manage individuals is accountability. In other words, somebody knowing what's expected of them, but then you're holding them to that. But unfortunately, I see it turns a lot of times into like, did you meet your numbers? Like that's the old accountability measure. How do you get people to take it kind of beyond that or actually turn it into what it should be?

Aiko (13:31.0)

Yeah, we asked them, there's a lot of different techniques we use and oftentimes in the book I talk about this thing about looking forward, looking back, looking around, and I use the example of parenting. I think about how do I want it to be and so with my kids I think about what's the relationship I want to have with them 20 years from now, 30 years from now, and am I actually nurturing and exuding the behaviors that would lead to that.

John Jantsch (13:44.333)

Mm-hmm.

Aiko (13:56.836)

where I'm not having kids who are estranged from me, but they actually want me to be around them. And I've curved a lot of things I do in raising my voice to make sure that one, I'm a soft place to land. I'm a transparent, honest place to land. And I'm accountable for.

the ways that I am communicating with them or the impact I have with them. And I'm listening, et cetera. So with a business owner or something, I would want them to think about how do you want it to be X number of years from now? And it's not going to just be, oh, I want my numbers to be here, X, Y, and Z. They want to have some type of impact in their personal life, with their employees. What type of culture do you want? And all of those things go to the how and not just the what. Not just the numbers.

but also how do I want it to be in the organization? How do I even want to feel every morning when I know I'm going into X place? And that helps them to think about behaviors and not just this transactional component of the bottom line and the numbers.

John Jantsch (14:57.326)

You have likely had to navigate some rooms differently than me. You're an attorney, you're a senior leader, you are a woman, you're a woman of color. What did navigating in that way, the challenges that you uniquely faced, what did that bring you to today?

Aiko (15:17.251)

Well, a couple of things. One, and thank you for asking that question, John. It helps me to notice people in the room who might normally be treated as invisible or not seen because I've been on that receiving side going to argue a case as a first year attorney and people presuming that I'm the paralegal. And so I know what some of the assumptions can be and how we can jump to conclusions and it can be demoralizing for people.

John Jantsch (15:36.009)

Yeah.

Aiko (15:43.16)

And it also makes us lose a degree of connection. And that means when I go into a room, can often, I'm often thinking about who has the least amount of power in this room and how could I actually have an impact on people that I don't want to have. So I check my stories. I check, you know, what in the room is going to accommodate people. I realized that me just coming into the room and saying, Hey Beth, team, I want you all to be fully honest with me and transparent.

without me actually naming also that I understand what the risks could be and why that might be scary for you. But I want you to trust that because of X, Y, and Z, this is what I'll do instead. So I might tell somebody, I know that you may feel like you're the only person who X, but I need to hear your voice. And I tell them what that value proposition is and getting this different innovation or different rigor, how it serves all of us and that I will not be throwing you under the bus for X, and Z and recognizing that vulnerability.

John Jantsch (16:12.535)

Thanks

Aiko (16:42.353)

is different for everyone. That also means when you're on a team full of women. So one of the examples I give in the book is about a PTA meeting and there's only one male father who comes to the meeting and they're all women and there's like you know 60 women and they start with the PTA president actually saying well as always there are no dads here no men and it's the women leading the work and where does that leave him? He knows now his voice probably isn't gonna matter. I need to tiptoe.

John Jantsch (16:56.014)

You

Aiko (17:11.617)

and somebody else, another mother comes and apologizes and says, you know what, that shouldn't have been said. I want you to understand the context of why that was said, but it shouldn't have been. And you have as much to add here as everybody else. And I want to hear your voice. So that proactive closing the gap when you recognize who might have more to lose or a larger risk in the room and proactively addressing it.

John Jantsch (17:38.744)

So the term psychological safety seems to be one of those that is really in the boardrooms or in the leadership circles, certainly as part of culture. A lot of my listeners, five and six person organizations, how do they kind of practically teach that to their leaders? What is a version of that look like for them?

Aiko (18:02.755)

Yeah, think probably often modeling it. And when I talk about the terms of safe space, brave space, and psychologically safe space, I say that none of those actually own the idea of power and identity, et cetera. So I'm also a business owner.

I am aware that, wow, they feel like they're talking to the CEO. And this is somebody who who hires and fires. So this idea of one inviting not only critical thoughts or feedbacks that is critical of me in my decisions, but then when people give it to me, that's what's most important is how do I respond? So the idea of just the spirit of gratitude, recognizing, I know that may have felt risky for you to share that with me, but it was so important that I hear that because of X, Y, and Z.

So holding myself, one, as somebody who's going to invite it, and then holding myself accountable when someone says, hey, that didn't land, blah, blah, blah, blah, and saying, man, you know what? Even if I don't agree, I'll say, let me think about it, because I might be missing something. And I'm going to come back, and can we talk about it again?

So they know I've thought with it, I get a chance to sit with it and I can circle back and say, you know what, I got that wrong. And I'm so glad that you told me that. Or I might say, I'm really glad you told me that, but I don't know if I completely agree. So let's talk about this a little bit more. But I want them to feel heard, not to have punishment or judgment because they've said something that brings some tension or rigor. And to hold myself accountable first and foremost in the moment.

John Jantsch (19:40.366)

Yeah, I've actually heard many times that some of the healthiest teams are teams that actually can have healthy arguments or healthy conflict. It's not personal. It's just like, I know I have permission to say that's BS, right? So for a person listening to this, and we've been primarily focused on teams, but there's certainly client relationships that a lot of people have that this applies to. So for the person listening to this and they think, something's really off with that, can't really name it.

Where would you point that person first if they came to you and just with that sort of said something's off with my relationships. I can't really name it. What should I do first?

Aiko (20:19.575)

with my relationships with my clients.

John Jantsch (20:21.786)

clients with my team, maybe, you know, again, lot of it, I mean, parenting, you know, we've been talking about that. I mean, a lot of times it really all applies.

Aiko (20:31.001)

Yeah, so we dig in at that point and we ask, you know, what is it that you're noticing or you're feeling? And sometimes people say, I don't even know, I just feel like the vibe is off. And yeah, so I'll say, well, how do you want to feel? And then they can go back to whatever the moment is. I want to feel like, I don't know, lighter. I want to feel like they can talk to me and I can talk to them. Whatever it is, they can start envisioning that.

John Jantsch (20:40.642)

Right, right, right. That's what mean. I can't name it.

Mm-hmm.

Aiko (21:00.719)

And then I might say, well, what do you feel is getting in the way of that now? Now they're starting to diagnose what it could be. They may be like, I don't know. Well, actually, X, Y, and Z, there was this weird moment where blah, blah, blah. And then we start seeing behaviors and moments. And what were you doing? What was happening? If you wanted to get to X, this delta of I want to feel lighter, I want to feel, what does that mean you might need to do differently?

And sometimes it may not be in that scenario with that person. And we go all the way back and say, tell me about a relationship that you feel like you're in flow with and in sync and you love this relationship. And we go through where the components and characteristics of it. What do you all do? What do you not do? And then we can go back to this other one as a delta and say, OK, is any of that replicated here?

You know what, as a matter of fact, we don't. When I see John, it's high and by and there's nothing else. And then we realize, wow, having that interpersonal connection is important. Or John has never told me anything that was critical of me. It's like he always agrees. So now I realize I have to go and have a conversation and say, hey, I really want you to be able to tell me things that are difficult so I can be better. But those are ways you can diagnose it by contrast and compare.

John Jantsch (22:17.128)

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you would invite people to connect with you and find out more about your work as well as pick up a copy of Anchored, Aligned, and Accountable?

Aiko (22:29.837)

Yeah, there's a few places on Instagram they can find us on at rare rare underscore coach or on LinkedIn under my name. I go with the and also our website rare coaching net.

John Jantsch (22:43.286)

Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Aiko (22:48.506)

Thank you for having me, John.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:01.668)

So what if the reason so many leaders stay stuck is not that they're not working hard enough, but that they keep getting very good at solving the wrong problems. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Kevin D. St. Clergy. He's an entrepreneur, speaker, mentor, and author of Beyond Blind Blaming. Stop solving the wrong problems and instantly unlock results. After building and exiting his own company,

Kevin's focus is work on helping entrepreneurs and leaders uncover the hidden assumptions, mindset blocks, and false diagnoses that keep them stuck. So, Kevin, welcome to the show.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (00:42.382)

Thanks, John. Appreciate you having me.

John Jantsch (00:44.122)

So the term, I want to start with, as I often do, words out of the title, the term blind blaming is, doing a lot of work here. How would you define it? You know, I'm imagining one of my business owners listening to this, sitting at a stoplight right now, wondering why their numbers are flat. So for them, how would you define the term blind blaming?

Kevin D. St.Clergy (01:08.834)

Now I'll start with the story. It's the origin story that everybody likes. I'll be quick. But when I was 10 years old, I was a phenomenal baseball player at a batting average of five 50. And for those of you listening, five 50 is epic. It's great. and people noticed I was going to bat every other time I went to bat Babe Ruth and his hayday three 94, just to give you an example.

so my dad and I went to work. worked with me on my mindset. I mean, I was young, but I love baseball and, we had a buddy who was actually used to coach for the Dodgers who was helping me with my swing in the off season. We practiced every day. And the next season I stood up and I was ready, but something was different because I started swinging and missing. In fact, I missed every time I went to bat for the entire next season. I literally went from here to zero and you probably guess what I heard from the stands. Come on, kid, keep your head in the game, play to win this time. And then can probably really imagine what my dad would give me lectures on on the way home.

John Jantsch (01:50.298)

Yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (01:56.552)

about how bad my attitude was and that's the biggest problem who by the way still thinks that's what it was back then even though he's read the book. But what we found was two weeks after I quit because I'd had enough of the abuse and eventually started blaming myself thinking I'm just not right for this game I quit baseball and I went to a fluke eye exam we figure out what the real problem was I just couldn't see the ball.

Doctor said, sorry, kids practically blind without glasses. And here's the real problem, the adults in my life for that two year stint never stopped blaming me for something that was completely out of my control. And that's what we call blind blaming. And I see it in business, I see it in relationships, I see it everywhere. We all go through it. So for people that are down on their business, they immediately start thinking of things like, well, it must be my marketing, which I know you've taught for years. And a lot of times it's not their marketing, they're just not answering the damn phone when people call.

John Jantsch (02:44.058)

Yeah. It's interesting how many times I've run into that, you know, that exact scenario. It's like, you know, we're just not getting enough leads and, we do call tracking and things like that. And we were like, yeah, you are. We've listened to the phone calls. You know, that's not really the issue, so how does, let's start there. Well, there's, mean, I can go a lot of directions, but since we went there, how like,

Kevin D. St.Clergy (02:56.929)

Yep.

Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:11.938)

If you're working with a client, you're working with a business and you can clearly see that they're blaming the wrong things for the results that you're bringing. mean, how do you circumvent that? How do you change direction with that? How do you help them recognize that they're looking at the wrong? And it's rampant. mean, perfectionism is an example of blind blaming, I think, a lot of times.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (03:31.766)

It's rampant. yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (03:36.812)

Yeah. Well, the book's broken into three sections on purpose. It's awareness. So I'm finding that once people start reading about blind blaming, and they're more aware of it, then it starts to make sense.

John Jantsch (03:42.883)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (03:46.383)

Yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (03:48.342)

Then we teach them the RCD method, which is how they get past blind blaming. It's very simple, but remember simple doesn't always mean easy, but it's simply reflect. RCD stands for reflect. Is there something else going on that I can't see? You've got to learn to ask yourself that question because if you keep solving the same problem over and over again and you're not getting any different results, that's where we lead to insanity. But that's what we go through as small business owners. And even when you get really big like we did with our agency, we had 450 clients with 900 locations, Sean. So I have plenty of scars of people like

I don't think your service is working. I'm really I'm showing 22 leads last month from your call tracking number Yeah, but we only scheduled two. I was like, well, that's not my fault That's blind blaming so But here's where I think people fall down because they'll get their team together and say what do you guys think it is? And they're all in that sphere of influence and everybody else says what must be marketing. It's certainly not us as salespeople It's got to be the marketing. I just don't have enough leads and the leads are generating their crap

So connect is the C stage. You have to connect with an outside source, a mentor, a coach. I like paid coaches. I've had one for 20 years. Just got a new one that's kind of up in the next level because I want to get the nine figures here pretty quick. So I've just needed a coach that's already there. And then I also have mastermind groups. Those are some of my favorite ways to learn. I know you've been part of them. I think you've led them in the past. And I think when you do that, these people can see what you can't see because they're outside of that sphere of influence. You're not tied down with your successes and your failures.

John Jantsch (05:11.29)

Yes, yes.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (05:12.181)

And finally, once you know what it is, this is where D comes in. You got to decide to do something different. In fact, it was pretty cool because.

I was a little worried about this in the chapter because it does use the F word and even Jack Canfield, he's only the second guy I read the book. He's like, man, I even love your effing part. And I'm like, my God, I just got Jack Canfield to say the F word on video, but it's MFD make an effing decision. Because once you know what it is, I see a lot of people are like, no, maybe not. Let's go back and review this again. Do something. And that's a great story. Cause when we came up with this, it was actually one of my clients. She was debating on whether to go with one or two loans to double her business. And she's like, Kevin, what do you think I should do? And I just told her straight up.

up, Kayla, I think you need to make an effing decision. But I didn't say effing. I've known her well enough. I helped her start a business seven years ago. And she's like, okay, okay, she comes back a month later. And I always like to start coaching calls off these days with what's going well. And she's like, Kevin, I'm MFDing all over the place. You changed my life. Even my husband's noticed and we're doing things. We got the loan. We bought the business. We've doubled the size. We're doing great. I'm like, MFD, what are you talking about? She's like, make an effing decision. What you told me to do on the last call. I'm doing it. And I was like, Kayla, do you mind if I use that in my book? Because I love that.

John Jantsch (06:16.378)

Hmm.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (06:18.018)

And that has turned out to be the biggest thing I was worried about has turned out to be the thing that people mentioned or remember the most. Cause they'll come up to my booth after a talk and say, man, I love the MFD part. You're right. I've got to make some decisions and make some mistakes.

John Jantsch (06:30.276)

So how you think about the entrepreneur, mean, there's more to get done in a day, every day, seemingly than they possibly can. So, you know, they get really wired for go, go, go, go. In some ways you're saying, wait a minute, slowing down is actually a more aggressive approach than, just constantly going at full tilt. How do you get people who recognize that, you know, that our part? Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (06:55.968)

I do a schedule audit and I see do they like for me 5 to 5 30 a.m. I get up early I didn't used to because I worked in a bar all through grad school but now I get up and from 5 to 5 30 is my quiet time I grab a cup of coffee I do not look at a screen and I just journal and try to come up with ideas and I can see it on their calendar when they're working six days a week and trying to see customers or patients whoever you're working with because they keep losing people and they don't give them some they don't give themselves time to think

John Jantsch (07:16.312)

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (07:24.78)

Right. How do you get them to do that? How do you get them to do that? That's... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (07:25.87)

And so I make them, well, I make them schedule the time. Just like yesterday, we had a client, I'm like, where's your admin time? He's like, well, I've got administrative assistant. I didn't mean for her, when are you working on your marketing? She's like, what do you mean? I'm like, wrong answer.

John Jantsch (07:39.226)

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (07:41.934)

So at the end of the call, we had her physically book these two Fridays in a row that she was gonna take four hours to work on this. And she's so excited, because then she's like, well, what do I do? So we had to actually lay out what she needs to do. So first you gotta schedule the time. What gets scheduled gets done. Then you need a personal assistant to protect you from yourself, John. This is like Christina Cann, who I think you interacted with, she booked this.

John Jantsch (07:57.988)

day.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (08:04.909)

Christina's constantly protective for myself because I say hey booker there. No, that's your time to work on marketing for us to keep the company going I'll find another space for that person So a lot of times I'll find entrepreneurs who are just GSD getting us done and they're not focusing on time for themselves nor do they have a personal assistant and that's usually one of the first hires that I have people do when they're a solopreneur

John Jantsch (08:27.268)

Yeah. And, know, for years I've, I actually just blocked that time out every week, that I'm going to do, you know, cause there's a lot of things that you actually, you can't get done between, you know, podcast calls, right? I mean, there's, need that three hour ramp, if you're going to do it. And so I've, I've just had that on my calendar and, know, the nice thing is you can't schedule over it. You know, other people can't schedule over it.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (08:29.357)

.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (08:41.355)

Right. Yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (08:51.757)

No, and I like, yeah, I agree. And I like having breaks. mean, Christina is really good about a 10 a.m. break from 10 to 10 30. That's my walk and my snack from 12 to one. I do take a lunch. I didn't used to take lunches. I worked through it. Just power through as a mistake. 30 minutes at three o'clock to three 30. And I usually wrap up my day between two and two and three o'clock these days because I start pretty early.

John Jantsch (09:06.967)

Yes.

John Jantsch (09:13.427)

Yeah, same here. So when you're working with a client, have you started to recognize specific patterns of language particularly that kind of tip you off that like, this one's in blind blaming mode?

Kevin D. St.Clergy (09:16.077)

.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (09:25.613)

Yeah, it's the stories they're telling themselves. And I'll give you a great example of somebody recently. She's like, I can't wait to work with you. She was really excited. It our first call. We had a great interview. And she's like, was like, what do you think your biggest challenge is? When we got to that point, she says, well, I'll never be as big as you, but my biggest problem is marketing. And I said, wait a minute, let's stop. Let's go back. It's not your marketing.

John Jantsch (09:27.45)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (09:43.988)

Hehehehehe

Kevin D. St.Clergy (09:50.036)

Why did you say you'll never be as big as me? She goes, because I just know it. I know I'm not going to be as big as you, you know, I'm like, okay, well, let's work on that. So we spent the first call working on mindset because our coaching program we called M3 mastery. It's mindset, margins, momentum. I just find if we build the business owner that builds the business, we've had a lot of success with that over the years. And a lot of times just giving them a way.

to dream bigger and think big makes a huge difference. We were at dinner a couple nights ago. I was on a big podcast, live podcast here in Austin with a bunch of people and one of the people was one of my customers and she had been invited too. And she's like, you know, before I met you, I just thought I'd be happy with just a million dollar a year business working, know, Monday through Friday, eight to five. And I never thought that I'd have a $3 million a year business working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and taking Thursdays and Fridays completely off.

It wasn't until you taught me how to think bigger that made the big difference for me. So build the business owner that builds the business and start thinking big. I mean, that's why we're, you know, we had an eight figure exit. I want a hundred million dollar exit next. That's my next thing. So the bigger you think, the bigger you'll get.

John Jantsch (10:51.417)

if

John Jantsch (10:59.354)

So, let's go back to that marketing example. I totally agree with you. Walking that back to mindset certainly was the place to go. But we work with a lot of agencies and I mean, so I hear this story all the time. You deliver, results are still flat, everyone blames the agency. So you've probably heard that exact situation. How do you get people to walk that back? Because they're basically making that

Kevin D. St.Clergy (11:01.933)

you

Kevin D. St.Clergy (11:22.285)

.

John Jantsch (11:28.686)

decision, if you will, that blame based on what data they can see or what data they think they have and that data is we're not growing.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (11:32.066)

Yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (11:39.342)

Yeah, so they, I mean, we call it the three fatal falls of blind blaming. So the first one, we have these cognitive biases, John, that you're well aware of, because I've been following you for years, and you've helped me a lot over my career, so I could say thank you in person, by the way. But.

John Jantsch (11:51.799)

You

Kevin D. St.Clergy (11:53.838)

I think the first fatal flaw is there's this thing called availability bias. And these cognitive biases are there to help us make decisions quicker and do things better and faster, but they can be getting away and hinder our success as well. And the first one is called availability bias, which means the first thing that pops into an entrepreneur's head about what's wrong with their marketing, that's it. It's got to be their agency and the people that have agencies that are working with customers. Cause I had a marketing agency for 17 years. I know the scars. I've got the deep wounds. For those of you who do choose to read the book, you'll see those wounds in the, in the book with some of my

examples. But once they do that then the next fatal flaw comes into play where it's confirmation bias. They become a treasure hunter to prove themselves right and they start looking for data to back that up. Well I'm definitely slow. It was my slowest month ever and I wasn't slow before I hired you guys so it's your fault.

And so then finally, you're too busy looking at the wrong problem, you can't focus on the right solutions. So that's the third fatal flaw. So what we do though is, especially for like agencies, when working with agencies, I just share with them what we did when we changed our whole model from just providing digital marketing services to a business growth company and started including coaching, because I was getting so frustrated and so angry of generating leads and then them not converting those leads to appointments. And so we created Front Desk Academy.

Then I was getting really frustrated because we were putting the leads in front of them and then they weren't closing them. And of course it's still our fault. Couldn't be them, it's not their sales process, not another sales training. I had a recent customer and she said this online out loud to everyone that when I mentioned that we really need to work on your sales process, she started crying. So it was, I was like, I didn't want to make you cry. I said, no, it's not you, you're right, I need to fix this. So.

I think what agencies need to do is they need to pivot a little bit and they need to start looking at the results that they get and what it really does. Because people, don't think people want to sign up for more marketing. They don't want to spend money on marketing. What they want is to make more money, grow their business and have more of an impact.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (13:47.534)

And that's the change we made in 2018. When we became a business development company that provided digital marketing services, and no matter what they did with us, we would help them grow. Because let's face it, you've done this, John, some marketing works, some doesn't. Some digital marketing takes months to get going. But what we did is we developed a business assessment to help them identify holes in their bucket, and then we helped them fill it. So weekly, we were coaching them for the first eight to 10 weeks they were on board with us, where a lot of people got a return on their investment before we even started their marketing, before it got going.

John Jantsch (14:17.412)

Yes.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (14:17.665)

That's when we quadrupled the size of our company. We did really well. We weren't even looking to sell. Our broker came to us and said, look, I think your business is worth this. And we started laughing. And then he got that. So it was kind of a blessed day. Anyway, I hope that answers your question in a good way.

John Jantsch (14:21.924)

Yes.

John Jantsch (14:29.242)

Yeah, no, absolutely. That's really where we've been for years. mean, the only thing when people engage us, it's not to do their marketing, it's to do what we call strategy first, which is a very set engagement that has set deliverables that we work on their business objectives first. We work on the founder and finding where they're getting in the way. and I tell you from a marketing standpoint, it changes the whole relationship too.

in day one not seen as a vendor. We're seen as a trusted advisor and all the other stuff we want to recommend, they're like bring it on because you've changed the relationship.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (15:01.046)

Yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (15:09.279)

Yeah, and I love it. Yeah, because you've become a partner and when somebody comes in with a lower price, they're like, yeah, but I lose John and his team. That's what we learned. We just did it. The story is in my book as well. But yeah, I agree. And I love that you're doing that.

John Jantsch (15:13.433)

Yes.

John Jantsch (15:16.761)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:23.62)

So symptom fixing versus root cause thinking. How do you get people, most people are in symptom, you know, this hurts, you know, how do I fix it? How do you get people to start thinking way beyond the symptom to, you know, wellness, if you will, if we're going to use the analogy.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (15:41.174)

Yeah, so back to that. We teach them the process. We teach them how to move beyond blind blaming with making them aware that blind blaming exists and they're suffering from it. Then we take them through the RCD method, but a lot of times they don't really know how to dig a little deeper. So we've been really big on if we're working with coaches or agencies, helping them develop an assessment that does go deeper.

And then that's how we identify things. We have them take a small assessment that helps them step out of the box and take a look at the way they're doing things. For some reason, I mean, when I used to do it in person, it worked okay, but when they have them do the assessment and they see the results with the AI stuff we have today, it's made a huge difference. And they're like, man, I knew exactly when I went through this assessment what's really going on.

And now it just helps my coaching go a lot faster. Don't know why I'm not, I don't, it was just something that I learned to do at a conference and we started using it and then we started teaching our clients to do the same and they're seeing the same thing. So having an assessment that helps them step out of the box and look at the way they're doing things to identify some other things it can be is one of the first things. But a lot of times just if you're working with a good coach like yourself, who's got a lot of experience and you've seen the same mistakes that entrepreneurs make every other day when it comes to their marketing, we know.

Cause I love it when people tell me like, well, I definitely need to rebuild my website. And I always ask why. Look, I had a digital marketing. My company's job was to produce some doubt so that you would switch to us. But I always instructed our practice advisors as we called them, cause we were in the medical field to ask them how many leads a month before you switch and come to us, how many leads a month are you going? And you can probably guess what we got, John. What do you mean?

John Jantsch (17:16.922)

One, two, yeah. Yeah, well, that's true.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (17:18.253)

I have no idea. No, most of time it was like, I don't know. I just know I need to switch because my business is down. And then sometimes we wouldn't let people come on board. like, listen, no offense. I'd love to earn your business, but you're getting like 30 leads a month from your current marketing company. I don't think you have a problem with this. And we used to secret shop their clinics before we'd get on the phone with them. I like, listen, your problem is your front desk. In fact, you know, when we said how much are your hearing aids, she said they can be as much as $7,000, but you probably won't need those. Great script.

No, they would hang up and go away. And I said, guess who scored worse on these secret shopper calls? Do you think it was the front desk or the owner? The owner. They're the worst. So anyway, that's, that's some of the things that we do is help them step out of the box and take a look at other things.

John Jantsch (17:52.922)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:00.1)

So, I mean, you're in the personal coaching mindset space. So you probably quite naturally get, mean, some of your engagements probably get personal pretty fast. and I think, what I think is interesting about that and where there's, see a lot of resistance, particularly from service providers. It's like, I'm just here to do this, you know? but what I've seen is that I think what people are craving now, just what you said, they don't want.

more marketing stuff. They don't, you know, they don't want to basically go, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've talked to somebody and they've had like five agencies and they've all done the same thing. You know, it's like you're hiring them to do the same thing. You know, what did you, what did you expect? And, and what I think people are craving today more than ever is transformation. Um, and I think that we have a real opportunity as service providers or whatever we want to call it to actually go so much deeper and help them evolve.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (18:39.021)

yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (18:42.519)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:58.552)

not just as a business, but as a person. And that's a space that I think is wide open, quite frankly, in the marketing world.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (19:05.229)

Yeah, I agree because we, as I said, we found that we in our big masterminds where we charge 25 and 50 grand a year. It's very interesting to me to go from a digital marketing company charge of $900 a month.

John Jantsch (19:15.63)

Yeah, right.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (19:17.549)

and having this, have you done for me today to 25 and 50 and then soon to be $100,000 level and have people go, I can't believe this, you changed my life. I can't wait for next year. Let's, they're re-upping. We have a 90 % up rate, re-up rate at the end of the year. It's fascinating to me because we changed the way we focus. We talked about that transformation and what's happened with other clients. So yeah, totally with you. And it's, it's just amazing to me. If we can get more agencies to focus on that transformation, John, uh, cause that's what we just trademarked heck out of this, but we call our program M3 Mastery from Trans

John Jantsch (19:34.852)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:39.46)

Peace.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (19:47.456)

transactional to transformational and that was my big lesson when we really focused on Getting some transformation in their business not just what we did or the service provide That would that made a huge difference and sometimes as you said We'd find that the owner has a health problem that when I am diagnosed for years Like just recently we had somebody who has a very large eight figure a year of business, but she was miserable I was like, long has it she been to the doctor? She's about 43. So she's getting up to you know in that age She's like, you know, I read your book and I've got an appointment

John Jantsch (19:49.38)

Nice.

John Jantsch (20:13.742)

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (20:16.981)

And so she came back and she's like, my God, my testosterone is low and I had no idea. It's been that way for years. My doctor never run the test. And once we got that fixed, she exploded. Her team culture completely changed. Everything came into place where the coaching finally started working. Cause she was getting frustrated with me and I'm like, look, I think there's something else going on that you're missing. Let's go back to that assessment. Cause we look at five different areas. We look at their health, we look at their purpose. We look at their relationships, not necessarily their personal relationships with the people, how they react with people.

John Jantsch (20:22.468)

Hmm.

John Jantsch (20:32.985)

Hmph.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (20:46.895)

people at work and a few other things like a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset and then we make sure they have the right resources and usually in those five areas it's not about finding one thing in each area John it's about finding that one thing and for her it was low testosterone which is something that I went through a couple years ago so I put in the book.

John Jantsch (20:46.906)

Sure.

John Jantsch (21:00.396)

Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. Well, Kevin, I appreciate you taking a moment, a few moments to share with our audience. Is there someplace you'd invite people to find out more about your work and certainly get a copy of the book?

Kevin D. St.Clergy (21:12.011)

Yeah, you bet. Yes, sir. I always recommend people go to the website blindblaming.com.

We have for 15 bucks, have all four copies of the book that you can get plus a bunch of bonuses. It's just a great way to get in our funnel and you'll get invites to some of the challenges and things like that that we do as well. So blindblaming.com is the best place to go and just from the feedback I've got the last couple of years on the book, the book. You can listen to it whether it's audio, PDF, or if you're a book book person like I am because I'm older, you can get all four copies and I think it'll change your life.

John Jantsch (21:42.854)

I appreciate it. And again, hopefully we'll run into one of these days when we're out there on the road. In fact, I'm going to be in Austin.

Kevin D. St.Clergy (21:51.38)

great, I'd love to see you. Yeah, come up to the compound. We'd love to have you. So we got indoor golf, we got a garage, Mahal, we got a casino, we got a wine cellar. So we got some fun up here. Come see me.

John Jantsch (21:51.537)

maybe I'll stop by.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

Sara Nay (00:00.996)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Sara Nay stepping in for John Jantsch and today my guest is Stephani McGirr. Stephani is the founder of EGS Marketing Solutions and Amplify DTPC where she helps direct primary care practices grow through smarter marketing systems and strategy. With more than 20 years of experience, she brings a unique mix of healthcare insight, agency leadership and practical.

marketing expertise. Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Stephani McGirr (00:31.817)

Hi, thank you for having me.

Sara Nay (00:33.912)

glad you're here. So I know we've spoken previously because I've gotten to know you in different business settings. And one of the things that you shared with me early on is that you decided at some point to focus on a very specific niche for your agency. And it's been a really positive decision for your business. So I would love to hear what drove you to focus on a niche specifically and how that's been beneficial to you.

Stephani McGirr (00:57.516)

Yeah, actually I started working with this industry just because I love it. And I am a patient of a direct primary care clinic. It's how I got started. My own provider was asking me, hey, can you help me with some things? I know you do marketing. And the conversation started and we just went deep and I've helped her grow from one to three practices. It's been a fun journey to be given that opportunity. And then referrals in the industry started coming naturally before I was helping

just any local based small business owner, right? The small local service area, different services. So not e-commerce or physical stores, really focus on the service industry. And by being able to niche down into this one area, it really helped us focus our efforts and become really streamlined not only with our processes and what we do for campaigns and strategy development, but also being able to stream

all of the processes on the client side and help them get really good at what they're doing. So referrals started coming in for this one industry and I thought, you know, I really believe in what this industry is doing and if I can do nothing but help them grow, then I'd feel really good about what we do and I went all in.

Sara Nay (02:16.964)

Yeah, I love that. I've been in the game for about 16 years myself and whenever we're working with businesses that are doing good and making an impact in the world, it just gives you so much more drive in the work that you're doing. So I love that. Thank you for sharing. One of the things that you noted is niching down has helped you develop your processes, but also your clients processes. And so in the small business space, what I see often is people are kind of just making it up as they go when it comes to marketing and there's not a lot of systems and processes behind what they do.

And so can you talk to me more about how you come in to a client of yours and help them build out their systems and processes a bit more?

Stephani McGirr (02:54.349)

Yeah, so it kind of starts to giving a deep dive into what tech pieces are you using? Where are you? How big are you? How involved is tech in the management of the practice? Some people are doing everything manually. Some people have literal multiple systems connected together or spreadsheets and the tech stack that can be. And so we first analyze what's going on and then what is essential to move over,

they have to keep, we started using Go High Level as an agency, which is our Amplify DPC platform. We started using it for service-based clients at first. I had no intention of selling it as a separate software on a different name. It helped us streamline everything we were doing. So instead of logging into a different system for every client with a different process, we were able to streamline our inside.

SOPs. And then for the clients who didn't have a tool, they were given a tool to be able to manage their practice. Just as we put more and more clients in the same industry on the system, we realized that we were custom creating sales funnels and workflows with every single person. And a lot of these things were something that every practice could implement, like a patient onboarding workflow. So what's unique about the DPC industry is that they don't take insurance in their membership model of health care. So you pay one

flat rate and you have unlimited access to your provider with no co-pays per visit. Some people refer to it as like the streaming for your healthcare like you do for online movies and TV shows. But so with that analogy, the onboarding process and the retention and the referral process in that industry is really big. And so we just had all of these workflows that were working across the board and

realizing that as this industry is also very new, it's been around a long time, but it's still new enough that direct primary care is not mainstream, right? People aren't looking for direct primary care. They're still looking for just a doctor or a healthcare provider. So the education piece of that is also really big. And when I'm gonna stop, I'm rambling and I lost track of where I was going.

Sara Nay (05:15.295)

Okay, no worries.

Stephani McGirr (05:18.497)

You were asking me, I wanna get back to the point, and I just realized I went off in a different tangent.

Sara Nay (05:23.172)

That's okay, that's okay. We can always edit it as we need. So I was asking you really about bringing systems and processes to your client was the focus of the conversation. Yeah, of course.

Stephani McGirr (05:31.265)

Yes, thank you. And I went completely the other way. OK, so I'm just going to start stop back and I can just start that question that answer over again. I remember where I was. I am so sorry. All right, thank you for editing this. OK, so how have we created systems and processes for clients or why? OK. Yeah, OK.

Sara Nay (05:39.194)

Of course, yeah.

It's okay, no worries.

Sara Nay (05:51.578)

Yep, essentially, Yep, because I was talking about how a lot of people, like lot of small businesses in general, kind of playing a guessing game with their marketing without putting a lot of systems and processes in place. And so how do you bring that structure to your clients?

Stephani McGirr (06:03.105)

Yes. Yes. OK. Well, all our clients are kind of all over the place because we work with smaller direct primary care startups and larger practices that have multiple providers, multiple locations. So being able to figure out what tool they need and how to simplify and automate their practice, those are the two goals. Simplify their their business.

and practice procedures and then automate as much because a lot of these practices are small and they don't have a large office staff. They work outside the traditional insurance world so they don't need a large staff to be able to handle the billing and insurance processing and a lot of them are just the provider and maybe a supplemental staff member. So by being able to give them a tool to handle the administration side of things and automate the business processes in that way, it's been

really helpful that they can grow their practice, focus on patient care, and not have to spend extra time on admin. That's where we focused on the tool implementation.

Sara Nay (07:12.056)

Yeah, that's great. And so I went through things a bit backwards based on that first conversation asking about tools and processes where typically when we're coming in and working with clients, we think about the strategy and then we think about the processes and tools. And that's where I actually see a lot of small businesses get stuck when it comes to marketing as they bring in a platform, they bring in a process, they start executing marketing without taking the step back and saying,

as a practice, what are we trying to accomplish strategically and what workflows do we need in place and all of that good stuff. So I believe you are a believer in strategy as well. And so when you're working with a client, how do you get started with them to understand what they actually need to do before you even start talking about specific tools?

Stephani McGirr (07:57.25)

Well, we use a tool for our clients. So when you become a client of our agency, we give you our Amplify DPC tool. That is a benefit of working with us. It is part of what we do for you, because when we run our services, we're running it through the system. And then you just get to use all of the features of it. Amplify DPC is a go high level.

as a white label. it is the tool that's built for marketing automation, the one tool that has all of the pieces for you. So it simplifies subscriptions and it reduces the cost in all of these other ways, as well as simplifies their processes and the number of systems they're having to log into. So it helps us and it helps them. And the reason why we sell it separately outside of services, because this was not our first intention, right? We were just implementing it for actually

our services and for the clients that we are supporting. But then we realized there are so many startup practices in the industry that need the help, need the tools, need the guidance, but they don't have the budget to pay an agency. And so by being able to provide them the tool, then we're just helping another level of providers in a larger group until they are large enough with a budget to be able to support somebody to help them along the way.

Sara Nay (09:17.368)

Yeah, okay. And so they might come in and start with a tool, but let's say they're ready for more strategic guidance and leadership. What does that look like in terms of your services for clients?

Stephani McGirr (09:27.405)

We would, everything starts with a conversation, right? We have a consultation, we talk about what are your goals, what are the struggles that you're currently having, what are the processes you're currently implementing, and then we look at, you know, what's working, what's not. I love to do that strategy first piece where we're really digging in deep before we commit to a specific plan.

of action. So that way we know everything that we're going to implement is for what they need in their unique practice level.

Sara Nay (09:58.902)

Great. One of the elements that we're thinking about and talking about a lot when it comes to marketing right now is the need for marketing leadership. And so not just necessarily always more people doing marketing, like yes, the doing needs to get done. But where a lot of businesses are seem to be struggling right now is having someone actually leading their marketing. And so is that an avenue that you've stepped into for your clients as well?

Stephani McGirr (10:21.237)

Yes, I also offer the fractional CMO services. And so in this aspect, it's really helpful because it's a personal struggle of mine being an agency owner as well. We offer a set plan for somebody who doesn't have the additional funds to be able to have a fractional CMO or that strategic oversight, but they need the tasks to be done, right? They have to get the work completed. So we do offer that.

But what I don't like about that is the inability to customize it according to what they need. And when you're a practice owner, you are the service provider, right? You are the healthcare provider. So you're not the person with a marketing degree, business degree, all of that. And that's what's interesting with this industry is they're leaving one system and they're joining a new or creating a new way to run their practice. It's a different model.

outside of the standard industry norms. And it's like they're escaping their frustrations with the system that they've been in. They've started their independent practice and then they discover that they're in a new world of frustration. It's a business owner frustration. It's the entrepreneurship, right? Wearing all the hats, exactly.

Sara Nay (11:30.232)

Yeah. Yeah. It's all the hats that they're wearing now.

Stephani McGirr (11:37.166)

And the last time I was at a conference and this conversation actually came up, they're like, the struggle for DPC, right? You have to do this, this, that, and the other. And I just, I stepped up to say I want to...

kind of give you some reassurance, this is not a DPC problem. This is a business ownership problem. When you are the business owner, the CEO, if you don't have the support staff or the means to operate your business more streamlined, then you are going to be overwhelmed, busy doing all of those things. So it was...

I felt like it was really encouraging for them to realize they're not alone in their industry. It's just, it's that business owner problem and being able to take that understanding and say, okay, this is normal. It kind of gives a little bit of relief. And then they can focus on what the next step is to overcome the overwhelm, how to streamline, how to automate. And so we do focus on both sides. And then from that fractional CMO side,

coming in, being able to support them in that more in-depth way, and then helping them work through what's right for their practice and their situation.

Sara Nay (12:50.712)

Yeah, that's great. We often say, you know, helping the business owners stay in their zone of genius versus doing all of the things. And so as entrepreneurs, you know, oftentimes you get into a business because you're passionate about something and then all of sudden you have to become somewhat passionate about finance and marketing and sales and managing team and hiring and onboarding, all the things that go along with it. And so it's, it's overwhelming. And I would agree like they're not alone. That's just a common.

Stephani McGirr (13:18.412)

Mm-hmm.

Sara Nay (13:18.572)

struggle in the small business space. That's great. Thanks for sharing your perspective on that. Next question is because you've been in marketing for 20-ish years, I believe at this point.

Stephani McGirr (13:29.805)

Yeah, experiencing marketing, learning marketing. I did run a different business earlier on and I was learning marketing by running my own business because I was the business owner doing all the things. I was collecting more certifications along the way because I was learning by doing. Yeah.

Sara Nay (13:33.274)

Great.

Sara Nay (13:38.872)

because you needed to.

Sara Nay (13:45.624)

Yeah, that's great. I've worked with lot of marketers over the years where they were in a business, they ended up having to learn marketing, they kind of enjoyed it, got the hang of it and then transitioned to helping others. So think it's fairly common path. Okay, so being in marketing over the years though, regardless if it was in your business or working with others, how do you feel like the landscape is changing right now versus in previous years?

Stephani McGirr (14:13.237)

Of course, it's all around AI, right? This new tool, new technology, people don't all accept it yet, but some love it and are willing to dive in. So I think it's almost like DPC itself. DPC is not mainstream. People don't get it. People don't understand it, but it's growing, right? So right now, what's changing the landscape most is AI. And people don't understand it yet. And trying to figure out ways to...

Sara Nay (14:33.412)

Yeah.

Stephani McGirr (14:42.375)

still keep marketing human, the message human, the connection human, but being able to use the tool to be able to be more efficient at what you're doing. That's, think the biggest piece of it.

Sara Nay (14:51.982)

Yeah. And so for you and your agency and your fractional CMO services, are you using AI as part of your team or are you empowering your clients to use AI? How are you approaching it specifically?

Stephani McGirr (15:06.797)

Yeah, a little bit of both. So we have some clients that don't want AI anything and we make sure that we write the content and we're really in on that. But for the most part, our clients are even giving us feedback. Hey, I went to chat GPT and gave me this. Can we do something like this? They'll bring their ideas, run it through AI and then give us the idea. And that's how we kind of start the...

Sara Nay (15:25.454)

Yeah. Yeah.

Stephani McGirr (15:33.856)

ideation of a new concept that they want to implement. So it's really hit or miss depending on what the client wants, but we are incorporating it in our processes. I think it's smart, you know, just being efficient. I don't believe we're at a place yet where AI can do what it needs to do without human oversight. So I say it's a tool, not the end game of using it and relying on it. Yeah.

Sara Nay (15:59.982)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a great tool, I would say, but it can be misused and overhyped in many ways. And so I think a lot of people got into AI of like with the original thinking of like, we don't have to hire anyone and we can have super lean teams and we're going to like have all these agents and automation set up. And maybe that's where marketing is going.

Maybe, but right now I still believe as you said, human on the front end, human on the back end, approaching things strategically, editing, feeding AI all of your story, like all of that stuff still needs to happen from humans at this point too. Yeah.

Stephani McGirr (16:40.023)

Right, right. And I always use the analogy of the dating relationship for marketing and the customer journey, right? So having that relationship is important, especially in the industry I work with. It's a very close relationship model of healthcare where the providers really get to know their patients on a deeper level because they spend time with them. They're not rushed in and out. They take longer time and...

Sara Nay (17:03.108)

Yeah.

Stephani McGirr (17:06.921)

that model just allows a deeper connection to grow. And so I bring that into the marketing concept of it. Well, that should start with leads and the lead to conversion into membership cycle. It shouldn't start once they become a patient. And the right tools and automations can help you streamline your work, but stay personal and stay relational.

Sara Nay (17:26.938)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And imagine for the practice that you serve, you know, it's a lot of awareness and education on the front end when it comes to marketing, but then a lot of retention and probably some referrals on the back end when it comes to marketing where, know, lot of doctors offices out here, I'm in Idaho, like it's hard to get into doctors offices, like to get an appointment anytime soon. And so they're not really having to do a lot in terms of retention. Then people call them when they're sick and they come in.

with this model where it's more membership based, I imagine you're doing more of like ongoing education events retention type of marketing. Is that a correct assumption?

Stephani McGirr (18:04.117)

Yeah, absolutely. You these practices are not getting patients just because they're on an insurance plan. So they have to actually be visible and they have to let the public around them know that their practice exists. And then once they do become aware of the practice, the education part is huge and the lead to conversion time is typically longer just because it's so different. The questions are, why don't you take my insurance?

Sara Nay (18:08.995)

Yeah.

Stephani McGirr (18:30.219)

the monthly membership, why do I have to pay, what if I don't come in every month, little pieces like that. And so it's the education of the value of the membership, what you get above and beyond a single visit. And then once somebody realizes that they have that level of healthcare, they're more likely to go in to see their provider because it's not gonna nickel and dime them for every visit and they get better healthcare and results because of it.

Once the model is more well understood, think that lead to conversion time will definitely lessen and go much higher, but there's a lot of education involved. Yeah.

Sara Nay (19:03.066)

Yeah.

Sara Nay (19:06.862)

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Where do you see marketing going in the next year or two? Any major shifts or changes that you're thinking about or considering either for your business or for your clients?

Stephani McGirr (19:19.893)

Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. You know, at this point, honestly, I'm kind of along for the ride and I feel like the sky right now with the way and the speed that technology is advancing and changing. I can't honestly say if I could pinpoint one idea or another, but it's it's I feel like if we don't embrace the AI technology, we will get left behind. And it's it's smart. It's speed.

for implementation and research. So I think those pieces of the tool are important to use and know and be aware of, and then being able to take advantage of how to use it.

Sara Nay (20:01.774)

Yeah, I think it is hard to predict the future right now when it comes to marketing because stuff changes so quickly. I was on a podcast recently and someone asked me where I see marketing being in 10 years and I'm like, your guess is as good as mine in 10 years. Who the heck knows? So I can relate. Well, if anyone's listening today and you want them to take away one tip or piece of insight from our conversation or maybe it's something that I didn't ask you that you think would be helpful.

Stephani McGirr (20:16.461)

I know what I feel like.

Sara Nay (20:31.7)

anything comes to mind that you want to double tap on.

Stephani McGirr (20:35.437)

I think the only thing I can think of right now is, if you're talking from an agency perspective, don't be fearful of AI. Don't be fearful of being squeezed out of a job market. I think if you're embracing it in the right way, if you use it the right way, that strategic human oversight will never go away. So being able to stay relevant in the market is more important.

Sara Nay (20:49.156)

Yeah.

Stephani McGirr (21:03.499)

Yeah, just don't let fear drive your efforts, but use it and learn with it and grow with it.

Sara Nay (21:12.11)

Yeah, I often, you know, in the personal growth journey that I've been on is, if something scares you a little bit, it's usually worth looking into or at least exploring a bit more versus completely shutting it out altogether. Well, I you also recently went through our fractional CMO certification. And so anything you're willing to share in terms of a takeaway or anything that was beneficial from that program as we wrap up.

Stephani McGirr (21:36.628)

Yeah, it was really interesting for me because I've been working as a fractional CMO for much longer than before this certification program, but I still decided to take it because I liked the interesting aspect that you guys brought to it and the way it helps guide the services after.

not just big campaign concepts. So I've been coming from the bigger campaign concepts, these bigger pieces, and then rolling into regular retainers. And so this is really helping us customize and really get very specific to those business individual.

use cases. So that's what I really love about it. And also you bring a lot of AI implementation knowledge into it. And that's helpful because I love learning from different people, different tools and ways to implement AI. So it was all very beneficial.

Sara Nay (22:35.706)

Great. Thank you so much for sharing and for being on the show. If people want to connect with you online, where can they find you?

Stephani McGirr (22:42.125)

Sure, you can find me under EGS Marketing Solutions as the marketing agency or Amplify DPC as the software. And I'm on LinkedIn as well.

Sara Nay (22:52.308)

and we'll put those in the show notes as we publish this recording. So thank you so much Stephanie for being here and thank you everyone for listening to the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. We'll see you next time.

Stephani McGirr (23:02.008)

Thank you.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:01.651)

So what if the real opportunity with AI is not replacing human creativity but expanding it by turning entrepreneurs into better editors, directors, and decision makers? Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jon Benson. He's a copywriter, entrepreneur, and AI pioneer best known for creating the video sales letter, one of those terms that people just use like it's been around forever.

A format that shapes modern digital marketing. is long centered on ethical persuasion and authentic connection. And more recently, he developed BNSN, an AI platform trained on high converting campaigns for small businesses. So John, welcome to the show.

Jon Benson (00:29.9)

Yeah.

Jon Benson (00:47.212)

Hey, John. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (00:49.585)

So let's, I assume you have to do this a little bit of your time when you go on shows like this, but the term VSL, you know, is kind of entered the, the marketing vernacular. Talk to me a little bit about, I've been doing this for 30 years. That was probably 12, 15 years ago, really, when that kind of burst on the scene as an innovation. You want to talk a little bit about what that's done to your trajectory, I suppose.

Jon Benson (00:55.202)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. yeah.

Jon Benson (01:02.04)

Mm-hmm.

Jon Benson (01:16.216)

Yeah, believe it or not, it's 20 years old this year. So 2006. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. It's, mean, it was, it, yeah, everything changed that the, day that happened, the 30 days later, everything changed from my offer that I did it for, you know, we went from like struggling onto my second book that I wrote in, in fitness and then went to a million dollars.

John Jantsch (01:18.537)

20 years, okay.

Jon Benson (01:39.886)

a week and a month rather in traffic cost, you people buying that kind of money and going up to even higher than that. So it was crazy. And then, and then all of people started calling me and asking me to write VSLs for them. And I'm not, I wasn't a copywriter. that's not, never been my claim to fame until after this happened. And then I had to get good at writing copy. So that's what happened.

John Jantsch (02:01.939)

That's funny. So you said you had written a book about gym ownership? Is that what you said?

Jon Benson (02:10.663)

I've written six books in fitness, so weight loss, fitness, bodybuilding, yeah, so that whole thing has been a passion.

John Jantsch (02:12.947)

Fitness, fitness, okay. Okay, so are you one of those people that that was your passion and you just had to learn how to do marketing? And so this whole idea of studying persuasion and conversion and innovation, is that something that was really just picked up because you're like, I better get good at that?

Jon Benson (02:24.748)

Yeah.

Jon Benson (02:34.478)

It was picked up specifically for copywriting, yes, but I studied persuasion in college. Actually, I was studying MLP in college. I was fascinated by how you can basically get people to listen to you and hear what you're actually trying to communicate and motivate them to make changes based on things that you believe at least are good for them. So you're not trying to manipulate them. You're just trying to motivate them. And I was always into like, how can I motivate and connect with people deeper? So I studied the MLP back then, way back then.

John Jantsch (02:39.731)

Mm.

Jon Benson (03:03.22)

and mail order course from, from Bandler. And that got me into Tony Robbins and that led me into even deeper persuasion issues. And, and just was always really fascinated by it. And that led to me being into the advertising world. And that would, that led eventually to writing a book with it. Yeah. I actually would have the book thing came about because I'd always been passionate about, bodybuilding and fitness and things like that growing up and athlete. I was an athlete most of my life. And then

ended up sedentary and got ended up obese in my late 20s and early 30s. I had 50 inch waist and had a heart attack at 38. So I was like, it was like a train wreck of health. And that got me back into it. So that's the Fit Over 40 book was written based on that, on turning that around. And then I interviewed a bunch of other people because I didn't think I was enough for a book. So I did 52 people that did the same.

John Jantsch (03:55.283)

So I'm curious, this is a question, unfortunately, I feel like I'm asking almost every guest these days, but how has AI changed that element of copywriting for good or bad?

Jon Benson (04:00.942)

It's

Jon Benson (04:08.494)

So my goal with AI and copywriting, I've been doing copywriting software since 2010. So this is going to date me a lot, but in AI, in early nascent AI in 2017 and working with early LLMs in 2019. So very, very, very early into this thing and trying to convince everybody, this was the thing that we wanted to do. And the reason why is because I was, I had these courses that I would teach people how to write VSOs and I knew how hard it was for me to learn all the copywriting in and outs and

and develop my own style, which I did. And I said, well, what, what if I could have software that would do it for them? And the average business owner doesn't have time to do that. They just want the copy that converts. So I've seen it from 15 years away going, I know this is going to happen eventually. And so we decided that the software is pronounced Benson. That's not my last name. It's just my last name without the vowels. And, and yeah, yeah, but it's, cool that you can spell it out. That's all right. and so we did Benson originally, it was going to be called,

John Jantsch (04:56.529)

okay. Not BNSM like I butchered it, okay?

Jon Benson (05:06.35)

It was going to, because it was the first AI to actually write a long form VSL. And I was working with, with Jasper at the time they were called Jarvis, but I was the first guy in the copywriter to train anything on an LLM. And they ended up with a 62nd VSL out of all the training. I think, yeah, I think we can do this in a different way. And we ended up being, you know, having a 7,000 word VSL come out of our AI and it sounded like a real VSL.

John Jantsch (05:14.729)

Sure, yeah.

Jon Benson (05:32.663)

It didn't sound like chat, GBT, it didn't sound like Claude, it sounded like a real VSL. And so that was our claim to fame. And since then we just, of course got, we were very early into the agentic phase. So we've just gotten better and better at that. And so my goal was to replace myself. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to say, if I can, if I can use this to write a VSL, which I have, sells pages for my own stuff, which I have, then I know that it's going to be good enough to, for prime time. And that was the, that was the goal to do. yeah.

John Jantsch (06:02.549)

So talk to, obviously we've got more to explore in AI, but talk to me a little bit about the VSL itself. mean, it has become very mainstream. I mean, you hear people talk about it, whether they know what it is or not. They talk about it as part of their funnel, you know, today. So is it overdone? I mean, is it over?

Jon Benson (06:06.094)

Mm-hmm.

Jon Benson (06:10.316)

Mm. Yep.

yeah.

Jon Benson (06:21.806)

Yeah, every year I hear that I've heard that for 20 years. So it literally 20 years. So the first year I came out with it and said, Oh, it's already and then Ryan Dias, who's a good friend of mine made the mistake of saying when he came out and promoted his own little mini VSO course and he later gave me credit for which was really nice of him and everything. But he said, Oh, sales letters are dead. You'll never do another sales. And I'm like, dude, I've never said that, you know, I think everything works if you let it and VSO is just happened to keep on working and they just ask, ask Agora.

John Jantsch (06:24.157)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Benson (06:51.022)

They work. I mean, yeah, they work. They work really well and now people are using BSLs in feed So you've got the meta ads that are basically short BSLs that use the same psychology Just compressed into five two to five minutes. So we've been doing that for 15 years as well So yeah, and then they go to a longer BSL So they they still work just as sales pages work just as webinars can work everything can work It just depends on what you're wanting to sell and how you're and how you approach it But the words are the consistent thing

So if the words aren't there, if the words don't reflect an actual human underneath it, people sense it a mile away, which was our goal with Benson was to create humanized AI. How do we do this? How do we create AI that doesn't sound robotic? It doesn't sound like, you know, chat GPT writing an email, it's asking a rhetorical question. And the very first sentence, you know, this kind of really bad AI copy that we see all the time. How do we do this and actually sound like a real A-list copywriter? And that was, that's been our focus for three and a half years now.

John Jantsch (07:20.456)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:48.413)

You know, initially the large innovation was that it was not a talking head on video. It was the words. Is that a key component of it?

Jon Benson (07:56.174)

Mm-hmm.

Jon Benson (08:01.113)

You know, it depends on what you're trying to sell. We have seen split tests with video beating words only, and we've seen words only beat video. It really depends on what it is. And what works today, a year from now, will be something you want to reverse. So for a while there was like my friend Craig who writes for Golden Hippo, and he's done amazingly well building a billion dollar company from, he's an amazing writer. But he was one of the first guys working with Gundry to do a lot of video.

on the front end of a VSL, but talking to him behind the scenes, so to say, we know that it's still like a Google Doc and the words are everything. So he slaves over the words, man, getting the words just right. So all the video in the world is not gonna save you if your words suck. It just isn't gonna happen. So the words are still the most important.

John Jantsch (08:46.077)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So one of the knocks on AI, of course, is it's made it very easy for people to create really crappy content. you see it all the time now, right? It's like volumes of really bad content. So why can't people create better content? What's the mistake they're making? Is it simply just a matter of being lazy?

Jon Benson (08:54.831)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jon Benson (09:11.983)

No, it's the matter of the LLMs or the in our case, it's the agents not knowing you. And this is where it gets a little bit a little bit hairy for people, because there has to be an element of your personality that's OK to be known. as the same thing would be true if you went and hired me as a copywriter. Like I would ask you if you had an offer and you wanted to whatever your offer would be. I would start asking you lots of questions that you probably don't think is related to your offer.

John Jantsch (09:19.719)

Yeah, yeah,

Jon Benson (09:40.336)

Now I'm not talking about like when asking all these really intensive personal questions, but I want to know what your values are. I want to know where you stand. Who do you want to attract as customers? What are you against? What are you not just what the, what the product does? Cause the product or the offer, whatever it does, I that's, that's not that difficult. Um, what's difficult is to make that story resonate with people that will automatically hear and go, Oh, that sounds like something that I can automatically relate to. And that's what a really good copy. does. We don't try to sell people that are

not interested or just completely need to go from a level one to a level five awareness, that's really not what we wanna do. We wanna target people that are already there, because you got plenty of people like that, but if you write, if you go into a chat or clod or whatever and you say, write me an email or write me an ad or rep me a VSO, and they don't know who you are, they don't have a good feel of your words, feel of your personality, it's gonna write stuff that's schlocky, because it's trained on the internet. So if you just think about this for a moment, and everyone listening to me will get this,

John Jantsch (10:35.294)

Yeah, yeah.

Jon Benson (10:39.043)

It's like, can you imagine training anyone to do anything by telling them, go read the internet and get back to me tomorrow? That's what we've done with LLMs, right? It's like, well, that's going to give you a lot of knowledge, but most of it sucks. mean, so most of what's out there in copy is terrible. So it's learning models have been terrible. So that's why specialty AI is like ours and in our, in our industry, you have to have it to where the people that know what they're doing actually trained individual.

John Jantsch (10:46.665)

Right.

Jon Benson (11:06.487)

in our cases, agents that use not one LLM, but a dozen, you know, can use as many as we need one model rather, but you know, doesn't whatever models are we know are going to be the best ones for the right tasks. So that takes that. And then what we do is a little different. We ask people to go through an assessment to figure out what are their values? Where do they stand? Who are the people they want to attract? And how do they want their their words to appear? So we take care of the persuasion element, but also we see that with the words and phrases that

John Jantsch (11:14.739)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (11:25.885)

Mm.

Jon Benson (11:35.681)

are closer to who they are as a person. So it starts feeling more human. It's important.

John Jantsch (11:40.457)

Yeah, it's interesting. know as we've worked with clients, you know, a lot of them have a fairly large body of work of them talking about things, explaining their products, being who they are. And that element, you know, allows you to build that voice or that brand. But then there is a technical framework element to it as well, isn't it?

Jon Benson (11:58.348)

yeah, totally. mean, if you go too far outside that framework, you're going to lose a lot of the things that we already know work so well, persuasion wise. So the goal is not to try to convince somebody of something, it's to compel them to take action on what they already hold valuable. So all you're doing is aligning your offer with what they already hold to be valuable. And that's the skill of copywriting. that's something that AI is, I think, obviously I'm biased.

John Jantsch (12:05.639)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Benson (12:27.481)

So I'm gonna say we're kind of the exception, but AI in general has gotten a little better at this. I'd like to think we've led some of the way in that, to getting to where there's more of that human element involved.

John Jantsch (12:39.091)

So talk a little bit about that because there's certainly a lot of people, creatives in particular, that have felt like they have this special sauce, this special talent to create that content, to create beauty, to create things. And maybe AI has kind of taken that. I mean, it's eventually going to get good at doing video and graphics and things. So where is the human element, know, remain?

Jon Benson (12:57.314)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

So think of it as like, I look at it as the difference between using a hammer and using a jackhammer or something that's a powered hammer, right? It's a pneumonic hammer or whatever they call those automatic hammers. So you've got an automatic hammer and there's a skill to hitting a nail with a hammer, right? The question is, as a carpenter, is that really what you want to be known for is I strike a nail head perfectly with a hammer every single time.

Or if you could have that done for you instantaneously with something that just tapped it in, what would you do with the time that you have left now? You would probably spend that doing the creative portion of things and like, I can do this, I can build this. And this is what the same thing is true of AI and copywriters. It's like, we're not trying to put people out of business. We're giving them the ultimate power tools. So a lot of the grunt work, a lot of the research, a lot of the structure you don't have to worry about. Then you can go in and finesse it.

and everything sounds so much better when you do that. We want people to do that. there's still a knowledge factor that I think that copywriters need to have. And sure, some people do use tools like Vinson. They just don't think about it. They click a few buttons and they go, because it works. But the copywriters, they want to put their signature on it. And this just gives you the ultimate way of doing that. It's like hiring the best ghostwriter you can think of. So if I hired a copywriter to write something for me and they sent it back and I read it, went, wow, that's just freaking fantastic.

Jon Benson (14:26.768)

then I could find these little bitty things in there that I only know or that I primarily know. And then I'm gonna go, oh, you I'm gonna change this over here. And then I might find a creative thing that he said or she said that I wouldn't have thought of. And that now becomes a campaign. My mind goes, oh, wow, I didn't think about that. I can turn this into a campaign. Well, that's not AI, that's me, right? So if the AI wrote it or a human wrote it, wouldn't matter. And so that's what we do that's a little different because we coach people live once a week so that we can help inspire them to.

Use the words that are coming out and how can we use it to help market their business more effectively.

John Jantsch (15:01.011)

So I think one of the areas that obviously is a breakthrough is in testing. Obviously, any copywriter worth their salt is like, I think this is good, but let's test it, right? And now we can test 200 versions for not much more time than it took us to create that one beautiful one. What do you think that that is going to ultimately do in terms of people's effectiveness?

Jon Benson (15:07.088)

Mm-hmm.

Jon Benson (15:15.087)

Right.

Jon Benson (15:26.992)

If people knew what the guys that are making hundreds of millions of dollars at this stuff do, if you knew the amount of testing that went into it, most people would just give up. would stop. I'll give you an example. I have a good friend of mine that is the top of their industry on meta and they flew out to meet the actual real meta heads of ads because there's the ones that they give people and there were ones that give these people.

You know, they give them $100,000 to spend just to play with just because we want to see what your new creative team can do. They will run 800 ads at a time in any given month. They're running 800 versions of an ad. So there's just no way to do that effectively without AI. that's when they were the early adopters to this. Now they can run those kinds of things. And it's like, they can figure out what works and guess what? One or two might scale or three. It's, it's, doesn't matter how good the writers are.

It's like some hook, some angle may work and that angle if it works can just skyrocket a business. So I think it's one of the best things about AI is the ability to split test leads of a sales letter or VSL, the split test, obviously campaigns and then add campaigns and things like that. It's very helpful.

John Jantsch (16:37.907)

So you've spent a lot of time building a reputation about ethical persuasion, but it's not a very far leap to go to things that are maybe not that ethical, right? To go from just what you talked about as getting people to do something that they want to do or that's good for them and they just, they need to hear it, to manipulation. So, and I feel like

Jon Benson (16:43.12)

Mm-hmm.

Jon Benson (16:55.346)

yeah.

Jon Benson (17:01.796)

Right.

Right.

John Jantsch (17:07.503)

AI doesn't really care in some cases. how do you, what are the guard rails that you really use to kind of stay within what, you you talked about beliefs, your beliefs.

Jon Benson (17:10.072)

Mm-mm. Mm-hmm.

Jon Benson (17:20.24)

Yeah, well the guardrails I use that we actually that's a technical term and we use specific guardrails in our agents that are that when somebody sets up Benson correctly, we use it's called a buyer alignment profile that we have people go through. In fact, I'm going to give it to your listeners for free that could go through that and get their buyer alignment, which is a 15 page report of the words and phrases you should use and not use. And that exactly fits that bill of that sets up guardrails. It's like use this because I value X, Y and Z. What do the words of I

value X, Y, and Z translate to in copywriting lingo? Because it doesn't mean like if I value freedom, you don't want to use like, hey, since you love freedom as much as I do, then you're going to love so and so shoes. That doesn't make any sense, right? And so it's just too hamfisted and heavy handed and all that stuff. So what phrases do people that love freedom as a core value? What usage would they use and what would they never say? And it's what they would never say that the Garbrills of that. So in other words, that prevents the

John Jantsch (17:58.441)

All right.

Jon Benson (18:16.913)

AI from going over the balcony, so to say, when it comes down to overly persuasive language.

John Jantsch (18:23.251)

So for some of the folks that you've worked with, you've probably started to catalog kind some of the biggest mistakes people are doing, making right now using AI. Where do you see people really need to make a shift to make AI more effective for them?

Jon Benson (18:40.579)

it's it to stop thinking of AI as the answer and start thinking of it as a tool is a huge step in the right direction. Also to train whatever AI you're using. Ours is built to be trained, so it's copy paste kind of thing. But if you're going to use Claude or chat GPT or whatever, you need to be able to train it with who you are, what your values are, how what words or phrases to use, what not to use. And you'll find that the memory on this is pretty short. So.

unless you know what you're doing and then we can get into things like instances of open claw and the clawed code and all that stuff. That's very technical and most people don't want to go down that rabbit hole. mean, our guys go down that rabbit hole because we're kind of geeky when it comes to that. But most people want just the best answers that they can without having to become a software engineer. so to do that, yeah, it's a lot of knowledge. It's a lot of like time to say, here's who I am.

John Jantsch (19:08.713)

Mm.

John Jantsch (19:15.774)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:29.822)

me

Jon Benson (19:33.774)

And here's what I want you to do. Now, you can do that to a limited degree in chat and cloud and tools like that. You can do it to a huge degree in our tool because we built it to do that. And that's super important to get the language patterns down. But also, and this is the last thing I'll say, but this is true of copywriting in general. So when people used to hire me, because I don't write copy anymore. I'm solely focused on Benson. when people used to hire me, it was very expensive. I was like.

the probably the most expensive guy in the world for like five or 10 years. And they're certainly one of the most expensive guys in the world. And they would hire me and I would give them a first draft of something like usually a BSL or a sales letter. And they would say, this doesn't sound like me. go, yeah, I know. It's because you suck. Yeah, you don't want to sound like yourself, man. You really don't. it's and it's like, I, I mean, that in kind of a funny way. It's like you're the copy they were writing was just terrible.

And so they were trying to make their terrible copy kind of polish, you know, a poly put, put lipstick on a pig's episode. So you can't do that. You have to like be able to understand some basic persuasion and then work in. And this is what I didn't do when I was a pro when I was writing early days of copywriting work in their values. I figured this out later in my career. It's like, I can work in their value statements and figure out what the words are. But that was just tons of research. We'd charge like 15, 20 grand just to do the research to figure out like

John Jantsch (20:33.415)

Mm-hmm.

Jon Benson (20:58.491)

What are the words we should use and shouldn't use and phrases and all that stuff. And unless somebody came along that was like an identical client, we'd have to do that all the time. Now it's automatic, which is fantastic.

John Jantsch (21:06.473)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, John, I appreciate you dropping by the duct tape marketing podcast. Is there someplace you mentioned that you had a gift you wanted to invite people? And obviously I'd love to know where they can find out more about Benson.

Jon Benson (21:15.471)

Yeah. Yeah. Sure. If you go to free buyer profile.com, that's free buyer profile.com. You can take our buyer alignment profile, which will test to figure out your core values, help you figure them out. We use a lot of different standardized testing models in these questions. And in about 10 to 15 minutes, we'll get you a report.

that you can use in your marketing that will tell you words and phrases that you should think about using and words and phrases you should definitely avoid. will give you all the NLP, all the magic sauce while still sounding like you and will also help elucidate what you already hold valuable and the people that

John Jantsch (21:53.481)

Great tool for training any AI tool, suspect, that you're going to use. Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you dropping by. It's freebuyerprofile.com and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road,

Jon Benson (21:57.125)

Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you, John. I appreciate the time.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:01.46)

What if the real growth constraint inside an agency is not lead generation or fulfillment, but the way client relationships are managed after the sale? Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. My guest is Taylor McMaster, founder of Dot & Company, a business built around helping digital marketing agencies improve client retention through better client account management.

Rather than focusing on campaigns or delivery, Taylor specializes in the client facing side of agency growth, onboarding, communication, meetings, project flow, and account management systems. She also hosts the happy clients podcast and her experience building dot and company is a specialized acquisition ready business gives her a unique perspective on retention, specialization, and creating an agency model that can grow beyond the founder. So welcome Taylor. So, you know, as I read that,

Taylor (00:51.554)

Thanks for having me, John.

John Jantsch (00:54.784)

We are talking about agencies here, but quite frankly, account management, there's lot of types of businesses that have that function or should have that function. Is there something that you saw really convinced you that that was really a core growth issue and not what most people focus on getting more clients?

Taylor (01:14.616)

Yeah, I would say in the beginning of starting Dot and Company, it was mainly a pain point for the agency owners that I knew. They were all working so hard on building their marketing funnels and getting leads on their calendar and closing those leads, but they didn't have the time or energy to think about keeping those clients around. And they knew in their heart that they needed somebody to do this job.

but they almost approached it as more of a butt in the seat. They were like, I just need to hire an account manager and then my days will be free and I won't have to talk to clients ever again. But they didn't realize that account management really is part of the whole picture. It's retaining your clients, keeping them around and in turn, that really affects your bottom line. yeah.

John Jantsch (02:02.612)

Yeah. And you know, there's another element to that too. I think it's easy to focus on retention, but like we retain our clients forever. mean, my longest running client is 22 years. And so we've been through a lot together. But we keep our clients for years. But where we sometimes struggle is our model is pretty much retainer based. So it's like, what can you afford to pay me for the rest of your life?

Taylor (02:13.229)

Wow.

Taylor (02:16.526)

Mmm.

Taylor (02:29.87)

Yeah

John Jantsch (02:30.048)

But then we find out like three or four years later, we're like, well, we need to actually charge more. And so how can client management, account managers, you know, actually be put in sort of the role of selling?

Taylor (02:44.642)

Yeah, yeah. Upselling is a huge part of our role. And the way I always look at it is as an account manager, I am responsible for the whole client experience. And so that is not just onboarding a client and managing their project. It's making sure I'm doing the best that I can for that client, because at the end of the day, I'm responsible for that relationship and keeping them around. And keeping them around means giving them the best outcome.

and making sure that we're helping them hit their business goals. And oftentimes when we as agency owners are working with a client, those business needs evolve and there's always something that is changing or we need to layer on top of something. And my job as the account manager is to be looking for those things or finding these opportunities that I can continue to help my client evolve. And we want to be a part of that. We don't want this client to outgrow us. We want to grow with that client. So that's a huge part of our role and responsibility.

John Jantsch (03:41.44)

That's almost a culture point, isn't it? I mean, because I think a lot of people are like, well, that's not my job. My job is to make sure that this stuff goes out the door. so it really has to be that, that almost need, I mean, that not almost, that needs to be part of the job description, doesn't it?

Taylor (03:46.56)

Absolutely.

Taylor (03:56.717)

Yes, it does. And I think you see this all the time, John, I'm sure, is in our industry, I find people are so siloed in their roles and they put a box around themselves. like, well, that's not my job. I'm not doing that. But what I have always, how I've always worked is I'm just a person who wants to get my fingers into everything. And I want to help with sales and I want to help with operations and all this stuff. the way we've kind of packaged up our account manager,

expectations within the role is that you need to want to help the other teams and help the business grow or else that's why are you here, right?

John Jantsch (04:36.596)

You mentioned the word expectations and I was going to bring that up. feel like anytime we've lost a client over the years, it's really been a mismatch in expectations. Our clients, we've basically said, look, the next 90 days, we're going to be doing strategy or whatever it is. And the client's like two weeks in, they're like, how come the phone's not ringing? How do you actually work on managing communication, expectations, trust throughout the process?

Taylor (04:55.395)

Mm-hmm.

Taylor (05:04.502)

Yeah. You know, it's, I wish I had a SOP for this, but really it's, my methodology is over communication, proactive communication. And to me, proactive communication is not just, hey, we're doing strategy for the next 90 days and then hoping that the client understands that. It is every day over communicating and making sure that we are on the same page over and over and over and over again.

John Jantsch (05:14.058)

Right. Right.

Taylor (05:31.565)

because that client doesn't know anything generally about what in the world you're doing. And even though you have sold them on this story of the outcomes that you're going to get them, they don't understand how we go from here to actually hitting those goals for my business. So we need to consistently reset expectations every day, whether we feel like we need to or not. So my methodology has always been,

we need to be proactively communicating with our clients. the biggest thing I see, and I see this even when I'm working with other businesses, is every day that goes by that I'm not communicated with, I think they're doing absolutely nothing, right? Like we're human beings, that's just how we work. And so if you're not constantly proactively updating them, reiterating the next steps, reiterating the expectations, that client thinks,

John Jantsch (06:16.702)

Right. Yeah.

Taylor (06:29.08)

Well, I just wasted another 10 grand.

John Jantsch (06:31.328)

Yeah, absolutely. So I will tell you, we have a very formalized onboarding process. We have a very different process in that one of the first things, most of the people we work with are our owners, founders, and we dig into their business objectives before we ever start talking about marketing. And one of things we've discovered early on, I mean, to me, it just made sense. It was logical. But one of the things we discovered very early on is most people don't do that. And having a formalized, structured

onboarding process is even a unique experience for a lot of folks. And what I've discovered is that's one of the secrets to our long-term retention is how a client starts with you is certainly going to determine a ton about how long they stay with you, what the relationship looks like, whether you become an advisor or a vendor.

Taylor (07:18.99)

Yeah, and I think that starts in the sales process too. know, we sometimes, you know, we'll struggle when working with agencies when their sales team is not setting the right expectations and we're not getting the information that we need to kind of pull that over the line. So what I love to do as an account manager is working directly with the sales team so that I understand what this client needs and wants right from the beginning so that

John Jantsch (07:21.596)

It does, 100%.

Taylor (07:47.157)

When I then take them on under my wing and I'm managing this relationship, I know the backstory and I'm not trying to catch up or just take their word on it. I want to know everything. So getting an account manager involved in that sales process is super helpful.

John Jantsch (07:53.119)

Yes.

John Jantsch (08:02.57)

Well, I tell you one of the things we learned a lot of time too, because when I started my agency and I've written a couple of books that were very popular, some people would be attracted to us, but they were really attracted to me. And so naturally I would close them and go, by the way, have you met Taylor? And one of the things that we discovered early on is bringing those folks that are going to work with them in, like you said, in that sales process, they don't feel like they're handed off anymore. They were like,

Taylor (08:13.23)

Mm-hmm.

Taylor (08:30.324)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

John Jantsch (08:31.11)

mean I get the team, you know, as opposed to, now I get the B team. And boy, it made such a huge difference.

Taylor (08:35.65)

Yes.

So John, I'm curious, when your account managers came into the sales process, were they on every sales call or how did you structure that?

John Jantsch (08:46.976)

Fortunately, most of our leads are inbound just because we've been around so long and a lot of stuff's out there. So we close, especially for strategy, most of the time in one call. so consequently, try to get those folks involved. I mean, it may be a second call, like now we're going to have a call for discovery as when we'll bring that and we'll definitely make sure that everybody's going to be involved.

is there so that they see what they're getting. And then we will also, you know, our first step always starts with something we call strategy first. So it's a very scripted, structured process and deliverable. And we actually have everybody on the team deliver a part of that to the client. And so they get a kind of a full blown experience, you know, within the first 30 days of everybody they're going to work with.

Taylor (09:37.75)

Awesome. That's really cool.

John Jantsch (09:40.221)

So

On that same topic, we actually have a network of over a hundred agencies that we work with and train and have licensed our methodology. And one of the struggles they quite often have is as they start to grow, it's like, I want to add account manager. But then they really have trouble letting go. It's like, okay, I hired an account manager or maybe even a lead consultant.

let's call them that. And yet that they still micromanage every element. And it's really, really tough. I hate to answer for you, but I have a feeling I know what your answer is going to be. How do people get to the point where they can feel like, okay, the client's getting the experience I would give them?

Taylor (10:27.916)

Yeah, I mean, I think it's totally valid to feel that way as an entrepreneur, a business owner. get it. You know, we've all gone through that where we have to pass over relationships because it's the only way that we can grow and scale a business, right? It's to not be on every Slack message and every Zoom call. But I think the biggest thing is obviously hiring the right people. That's just a no brainer. You know, you have to have the right people, but trust comes over time.

John Jantsch (10:34.868)

Right.

Taylor (10:56.596)

And it's not something that you have to rush into. And it's not something that has a 30 day expiry. You have to be at a client calls within 30 days. You can build that trust over time. Maybe it's a six month runway and the account manager comes in and they shadow and then they take over a little bit and a little bit more until clients go to them first instead of you and clients realize that.

know, Betty's getting back to them way faster. And even though you're still there and still in the background or maybe still on the strategy, Betty can still be there and do a great job. And so once you start to build that trust, then you get to a point where you're like, I shouldn't be here. I should not be in the account manager seat because Betty's doing a way better job. And then you can then go focus on more important things. But until you get to that pivot point where you're...

John Jantsch (11:29.024)

Yeah.

Taylor (11:46.809)

you're feeling really good about that account manager, for a lot of agency owners, you don't have to run away yet. You don't have to close your eyes and hope for the best. It can be a gradual thing. And so I think when you're thinking about hiring for an account manager, stop thinking about it as just a butt in the seat and stop thinking about somebody just replacing you, because nobody's going to replace you, but somebody can come in and support you and support your clients to give them a really great experience.

John Jantsch (12:04.777)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (12:09.13)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:15.616)

Well, and the other thing I would add to that certainly and why this is such a challenge for most of the agencies we work with is because they've actually never created a process. It's all here and it's all got and it's like, how can you get, expect somebody else to replicate that? You can't. And it's a ton of work to get from here to wherever you put it. But the payoff is huge. I don't do any sales calls. I don't do any client work.

Taylor (12:27.15)

Yeah.

Taylor (12:37.056)

Absolutely. Yep.

John Jantsch (12:44.956)

in our business. And I spend an inordinate amount of time innovating our processes is what I do. Part of these because I like it, but it is the most valuable work I can do. But it's tough to magically snap your fingers and get there. But that should be the goal, I think, for most of us.

Taylor (12:53.486)

Mmm.

Taylor (12:59.905)

Absolutely.

Taylor (13:08.044)

Yeah, and I think it depends on what your goals are, right? Whenever I'm chatting with agency owners, like, I need an account manager because I want to get out of the day at day to day, but really they don't. Like they actually don't want to, right? So, you know, a lot of the time it's understanding where you want your business to

John Jantsch (13:12.168)

Yeah, yes.

John Jantsch (13:20.126)

Yeah,

John Jantsch (13:27.252)

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I think that's, that's probably the challenge too. Cause you know, the founders are really bad at, you know, once they get to a point where like, I really kind of like to get in there and mess with WordPress and, you know, cause I really enjoy doing it, but it, mean, it's the lowest payoff work you could possibly do. Right. But, but it's so fun, you know? And so that's, that's a real challenge a lot of times.

Taylor (13:47.278)

But it's so fun.

John Jantsch (13:56.576)

How do you create, especially in today's world? I was meeting with a group of agencies in our network today and they were complaining a little bit about the fact that their work clients were actually taking their work and running it through chat GPT and saying, you know, is this good? Is this valid? You know, where are the mistakes in this? And I think that we're increasingly going to face that, right? Because everybody's advertising, you know, replace your agency for free.

you know, with all these AI tools. So how do we actually rise above that and, and not only create like this high touch experience, but really become this trusted advisor and, really not be seen as that vendor.

Taylor (14:42.156)

Yeah, I mean, it's we're we're in it right now, right? We're we're in the blender trying to figure out how things are going to shake out. I think the biggest thing that I see, especially coming from the account management side of things, people are going to crave this human experience more and more and more, but they're going to expect efficiency. They're going to expect more for their money. They're going to expect better results.

John Jantsch (14:45.738)

Yeah.

Taylor (15:10.326)

So I think even though we see all this noise about AI replacing my agency, I think that's not going to happen. I think it's just changing our expectations when we work with clients. And so I think the value is still there. I think we just need to shift to more really consultative, making sure that clients feel heard, they feel understood, and that we're a partner versus just somebody running their ads. And I think the...

the expectations of our clients are going to continue to evolve in the sense where they're going to demand us to take it all off their plate. Like what business owner wants to stay on ChatGBT all day, trying to figure out marketing, even if it's through ChatGBT. They don't have the time or energy or expertise to do that. So it's just really making sure that they understand the value of what you're doing.

John Jantsch (15:54.112)

They don't at all. Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:05.024)

And trust me, we don't want a client that wants to be on chat GPT all day. So what led you to kind of choose, I mean, you're in the agency space, but in kind of a narrow lane in the agency space, what made you decide to go there instead of the broader kind of agency?

Taylor (16:08.499)

No, we do not. No, we do not.

Taylor (16:22.924)

Yeah, really kind of boring, but it was just what I loved. I loved account management and I didn't love what I thought running an agency previously because I started running my own small agency and then pivoted into just doing account management. I think as that started, I started to realize that there was this blue ocean. There was this huge need in our industry for great account managers and done differently because we are fractional account managers.

John Jantsch (16:43.178)

Hmm.

Taylor (16:52.674)

what everyone else is doing in the industry is hiring full-time people. And so we were just doing things differently. And so as the business started to grow, I realized there was this, yeah, this huge opportunity to specialize and to create something really awesome and to be known for that. Being a general agency, just couldn't, I couldn't get excited about it. So yeah, it just kind of took off. And once I saw some traction and we started to get the demand,

John Jantsch (16:55.988)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (17:14.992)

A.S.

Taylor (17:22.786)

We just really went all in on the processes. Like you said, John, it was like where I spent all my time was like operationalizing everything from hiring to training to onboarding, offboarding, sales, everything was systematized and it paid off. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:37.566)

Yeah. So, so talk to me a little bit about the fractional approach. We, we have gone both ways. mean, we, we actually provide fractional CMO services and we teach people how to do that. sometimes the disconnect is, you know, there, there's a lot of like, yeah, fractional, can save money. It'll be, you know, I don't need a full-time person, but you know, a lot of ways they still want a full-time person, right? They still want you in all their silly meetings, that, that, they have. So you do have to, obviously that's one of the

beauties of having a scope and a methodology. like, here's what I do. Here's what you get as opposed to what do need, right? But on the fractional account managers, do you find that there's a challenge in somebody being there fractionally or maybe doing a couple clients is really not going to be as motivated to be a team player, to want to do all the sort team building that really helps an agency. How do you kind of straddle that?

you know, that divide, especially since we're all distributed these days.

Taylor (18:37.836)

Yeah. Yeah. I would say the, when I started the business, was an, I was the account manager at DOT. So naturally I got to choose how I wanted it to look and feel. And for me, for me to be motivated working inside of these agencies, I needed to be a part of the team and a part of the culture. So early on I was going to the team events. I was flying in for the weekend. was doing the team calls and the cocktail hour and

John Jantsch (19:07.124)

Yes.

Taylor (19:07.502)

That really made me feel like a part of the team and it made me stick around for a really long time working in these agencies. And so as soon as we started to hire account managers and duplicate this model, we made sure that that was the expectation. We want these account managers to feel like a full-time team member. We want them in your Slack, in everything as if you hired them full-time. We want them to feel like that, not just for you, but for our account managers as well. want them to feel a part of the team.

we approached it very much so like, yes, we're fractional, but it feels full time because that's how I think it should be. Sure.

John Jantsch (19:45.504)

Okay, I'm going to throw you a softball. Are you a sports analogy person? Okay, but you get it, right? It's a bigger ball than a little ball. It's easier to hit, okay? So I can hire somebody for $20 an hour in the Philippines. Why don't I just do that?

Taylor (19:51.043)

I'm not, but I'll take it. Yeah.

Taylor (20:07.628)

Yeah, you definitely can. But the majority of the agencies we work with are looking for specialists. They're looking for people who they don't have to manage, they don't have to train, they don't have to worry if they know what they're doing. They want somebody ready to go. So essentially they need somebody to parachute in and save all their problems, fix the processes, keep their clients happy, and continue to grow and scale from there. So

John Jantsch (20:10.528)

You

Taylor (20:36.012)

We really approach ourselves as specialists. This is the last time you're ever gonna have to go and look for an account management solution because you're covered when you work with us.

John Jantsch (20:47.69)

So I'm curious, your business was acquired fairly recently. Looking back, is there a part of your company that you think made it more attractive? mean, revenue is always going to be a piece of it, but was there anything that you think made it more attractive to a buyer than the typical business?

Taylor (21:06.286)

A big piece was that I was removed from the day-to-day operations. Yeah, that was definitely attractive from a risk perspective too. You know, they didn't have to worry. Exactly, there you go. And then the second thing was specialized. So, you know, they were buying something that was very specific and had a very specific scope process, everything like

John Jantsch (21:09.908)

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

John Jantsch (21:17.79)

Like any dummy can run this business now, right?

John Jantsch (21:33.633)

And you're still involved in the business, though. Yeah, that was just part of the deal.

Taylor (21:37.078)

I am, I'm not involved. Yeah, I didn't have to stay on to be honest. It wasn't a requirement. I'm not involved in any of the operations. So you won't see me on a team call unless it's like high level. I'm more so a consultant strategist, you know, and I really wanna stay around and see.

John Jantsch (21:43.32)

okay.

John Jantsch (21:49.61)

Awesome. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Taylor (22:02.388)

see the growth in DOT and also E2M, the company who bought us. I absolutely love them, what they're doing. So yeah, I'm excited to be a part of kind of this bigger picture now. Yeah.

John Jantsch (22:11.186)

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking a few moments to drop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you'd invite people to connect with you, find out more about your work?

Taylor (22:18.848)

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn all the time. So feel free to add me on LinkedIn and connect or check out our website dot and company dot co.

John Jantsch (22:27.88)

Awesome. again, I appreciate you taking a few moments and hopefully we'll run into you soon out there on the road.

Taylor (22:34.093)

We will. Thanks, John.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:02.104)

What if the real barrier to building a thriving practice is not just talent or expertise, but the outdated rules we've accepted about how business development is supposed to work. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Deborah Farone. She's a founder of Farone Advisors and a longtime leader in legal business development and marketing. She previously held senior business development roles at major law firms and her new book.

Deborah Farone (00:13.368)

Thank you.

Deborah Farone (00:30.586)

you

John Jantsch (00:30.84)

breaking ground how successful women lawyers build thriving practices. That's what we're going to talk about today. Welcome, Debra.

Deborah Farone (00:36.858)

Thank you for having me, John.

John Jantsch (00:40.398)

So for listeners, we're not going to talk about legal stuff. We're not going to necessarily. I think a lot of the things that I was going to share today will apply to anybody, particularly in professional services, because really the business development is very, very similar. So you've spent many years, I suspect, helping firms think about business development. This book focuses specifically on women. Is there a gap that you saw that you think made this book necessary?

Deborah Farone (00:44.852)

Thank

Deborah Farone (01:08.794)

There was, you know, I think that most lawyers and most professionals develop business in very similar ways, but I felt that there were some women out there who either didn't have the role models because there are fewer women at the top of the organizations and law firms, or they didn't know how to have the skills to develop business. So that's why I really wanted to help them. But in doing the book, I realized that so much of what I was learning was applicable.

John Jantsch (01:15.746)

Right.

Deborah Farone (01:37.7)

to anyone who wanted to develop business. It's just my sample set happened to be women.

John Jantsch (01:43.214)

Yeah. So I think many people suffer from this, regardless of the industry, but certainly in professional services, I think it is more so. that people, don't even like the term sales, right? I mean, it feels salesy. It's all the bad things they associate with what they see it. But you certainly talk about, and I know that this is a thread running through the book, that it doesn't have to feel salesy. Why do you think so many...

Business professionals, sales professionals really resist this.

Deborah Farone (02:15.674)

think most of them went to school to learn a profession, whether it was to learn to be an accountant or a consultant. No one ever said you were going to have to go into sales. So it sounds like all of a sudden they have to have this new way of thinking. I really don't think that's the case. In fact, most of the successful people that I've worked with, whether they're consultants or lawyers, don't find themselves asking for the business. They never really say, can I have that business from you? They very often

John Jantsch (02:19.608)

Yeah, you're right.

Deborah Farone (02:44.492)

let people know what they've done. They offer to help. They use words like, I support you? But they're not in sales mode. I think they really do want to help these potential clients. And so that comes through. And I believe you need to be more authentic than you do a salesperson when you're trying to build a practice.

John Jantsch (03:08.238)

Well, think there's a lot of things that certainly I've learned in selling professional services. That idea of give value, provide value, provide support, and eventually that business will come around. But when you tell that person that is just getting started out there and they're like, that's great. I'm all for the long game and for investing, but I need to eat. So how do you kind of thread that?

Deborah Farone (03:36.206)

think it's important to have relationships and I really try to get young professionals to concentrate on that. And even if they don't have a big budget in a firm, get your senior people to come and train the younger ones. Give them the war stories of how you've won clients or how you've met people that have developed business. think that that's very important. And I think even for people that are still in school to start thinking about your network and your network isn't just

John Jantsch (03:50.21)

Yeah.

Deborah Farone (04:05.486)

the people that you go to class with. It's who you met at your summer jobs, right? It's the people in your first job who work in ancillary positions. They might not be a consultant if you're a consultant or an accountant if you're an accountant, but they're the people that you've met. And those folks become part of your network. And I think we're seeing with sales what we often see with job hunting that those contacts that end up hiring us are not necessarily that

first degree circle of people we know, but very often it's the people that they know. So it's important to have a large diverse network of contacts out there.

John Jantsch (04:46.424)

Yeah, I tell, I wrote a book on referrals actually. And I always tell people, you know, not everybody's your prospect, but everybody knows your prospect. You know, at least one of them, right? Yeah. So you did a lot of conversations, had a lot of interviews, focused on a lot of successful women rainmakers. Did you see that there are patterns that show up that are maybe different in how men and women build trust, visibility, and opportunity?

Deborah Farone (04:49.338)

Thanks.

Deborah Farone (04:55.29)

It's true.

John Jantsch (05:16.684)

A follow-up question you can answer, is one better at it? Are those different approaches serve one? So let's go back to the first question, since I butchered that. What patterns did you see showing up in particularly how women build trust, visibility, and opportunity?

Deborah Farone (05:24.346)

You

Deborah Farone (05:28.058)

Thank you.

Well, I wasn't so much studying men versus women as I was just looking at this group of women, but I do find that they like relationship building, that that's something that comes naturally to them. And what I did find that is maybe true with men as well is that you need to be authentic in your marketing approach and how you develop business, that there is not a one size fits all. Not everyone fits into one of four categories.

John Jantsch (05:36.238)

Right, right.

Deborah Farone (06:02.52)

I think we all find our own way of doing it based on our personality, what works for us. And so people like Susan, I and D Baker McKenzie, who I spoke to for the book, loves exercise. She loves being outdoors. And so she invites her clients and her colleagues and contacts whenever they're in town to go with her on a hike. That's not going to work for everyone. But she doesn't like this idea of having the formal cocktail party and inviting people she knows. So.

John Jantsch (06:17.998)

Mm-hmm.

Deborah Farone (06:31.393)

I think it's a matter of finding what works for you because that's going to be what you want to repeat. And also that's what your clients are going to see that you enjoy. And clients can tell if you're taking them golfing, but you really don't like golf.

John Jantsch (06:45.506)

Yeah. So I think that you just hit on really the secret is finding what works for you and being yourself rather than looking at like, this is how everybody in our industry does it, or this is how everybody in our firm does it. You really will be more successful doing something that works for you, which is probably going to be something that you also enjoy. Would that be, yeah.

Deborah Farone (07:06.903)

Yes, and I try with the people that I know and I'm sure you do too. You know, want to really get to know them and figure out what are their proclivities? You what are they like? I worked with someone who was a classical musician and she loves the opera. And so she lives in Milan and what she does is she takes her clients and their spouses and families to see a short opera and then for a wonderful dinner.

because she enjoys it and they can tell they know that when she's taking them that they're having a good time and so is she. And so I think that that's really important is figuring out what it is that you enjoy. What's the best way for you to develop business and it might not be the same way as the person next door.

John Jantsch (07:35.927)

Yeah, right.

John Jantsch (07:53.358)

So what do you say to that client maybe that you're working with that, you know, I think a lot of people think in terms of to be successful business development, you have to be that outgoing, charismatic, you know, networking, you know, kind of person. What do you tell that person who's like, that's just not me? You know, I don't feel comfortable doing that. You know, how am I going to succeed?

Deborah Farone (08:09.688)

Yeah.

Deborah Farone (08:13.923)

Right, think, know, well, first of all, I tell people don't take giant leaps, take baby steps. And that's the best thing to do so that if you're not used to talking about yourself and your practice, do it with a family member, you know, then do it with a colleague, then do it with an associate at your firm, and then eventually you can do it with the client. So I think, you know, Jeff Klein, who's a well-known lawyer in New York said marketing is muscle. And I think it's true, you get better and better at it.

John Jantsch (08:19.362)

Nice.

John Jantsch (08:25.368)

me.

John Jantsch (08:40.952)

Yes.

Deborah Farone (08:42.393)

But I also don't think that you need to be out having lunch every day with people if that's not your thing. You know, I love coffee. I mean, I love any kind of coffee, right? So I love meeting people for coffee. It's perfect. I don't have to think about what I'm eating. I don't have to think about any variables. I'm happy at a Starbucks or a fancy hotel for coffee. And that's what I love. You know, so I do coffee meetings.

John Jantsch (08:53.016)

Thank

Deborah Farone (09:09.677)

But other people find their ways. And I think you have to do what feels authentic to you.

John Jantsch (09:16.91)

So what, and maybe you don't keep track of this kind of thing, circling back a little bit to the gender aspect of your work, what's the percentage of women in leadership in the legal industry, you think?

Deborah Farone (09:31.129)

It's very low. mean, we have less than I think 30 % or maybe around 30 % that are actually partners. And if you look at the American Lawyer 100, the top firms, fewer than 25 % are being led by women. And so you have a real issue with diversity on all levels, and even fewer are women or people of color. And so it's a real issue when you talk about looking for role models.

John Jantsch (09:32.547)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:00.588)

Yeah.

Deborah Farone (10:00.91)

I think professionals, particularly lawyers, like to look at role models because they're interested in precedent. They want to know what has the other person done that's been successful. And if they don't see people who look like them in those roles, it's a lot harder to figure out how they're going to get there.

John Jantsch (10:09.614)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:18.734)

Do you feel like that system, if you will, still quietly works against women then? When it comes to business development, mean, particularly.

Deborah Farone (10:26.033)

I do. Yeah, I think women and minorities have a tougher time because there are not those role models. I think there are other issues at play like unconscious bias. But, you know, my focus really is on business development. And I feel that, you know, if we can teach people how to develop business, whether they're in the professions or even if they're in something like advertising.

If you have the ability to sell yourself and to develop business, it gives you so much more ability to write your own script and to do what you want because you're going to have more advantages as far as rising within an organization if you're a business developer that we've seen. And you can also kind of develop the clients that you want to develop and develop the practice that appeals to you. And that's great. That gives you a sense of independence that you wouldn't have otherwise.

John Jantsch (11:08.491)

Yes, yes.

Deborah Farone (11:21.483)

So that's really what I want to encourage people to do.

John Jantsch (11:24.846)

You can probably take that on the road to another firm as well as within your own firm.

Deborah Farone (11:27.449)

You can. Absolutely. It allows you freedom. It's a type of currency, isn't it? You know, that you have that capability.

John Jantsch (11:34.892)

Yeah. Yeah.

So we've been talking about applying this to law, but for consultants, agency owners, other experts, what do you think your book could teach them about building practice around relationships rather than self-promotion?

Deborah Farone (11:53.405)

well, I think the authenticity issue is very big. Also trust, I cover how you build trust. And it seems to be three elements. It's expertise, it's the authenticity piece, and it's empathy. And I go into a lot of detail about that because I think being yourself amongst your clients is not something we're trained to do necessarily. But I try to show people examples of folks who have done that.

and why they've been successful. And clients want to work with people who are believable, who come across as humans. I told you when we got on the call that I might have a coughing attack. I don't pretend to be perfect. And I think people like people more when they are themselves and they admit that they're fallible. And so there are lots of different things for other professionals, I think, to learn from these lessons.

And the other really is to develop a niche. think developing a niche is so vital regardless of what you're doing in the world because figuring out what you really enjoy and then figuring out if you think of it as a Venn diagram, what makes economic sense or sense for the firm that you're with. Finding where those overlap is just a vital part of being able to market yourself.

John Jantsch (12:54.679)

Hmm.

John Jantsch (13:15.662)

And then going very good and deep and becoming an expert at that thing, right?

Deborah Farone (13:20.632)

Right, absolutely. But I think we all have a tendency to jump into the tactics before we do the strategy. And I really would recommend that people think about the strategy and how they want to be known and what they want to do before they take an immediate jump into giving lots of speaking engagements or marketing themselves.

John Jantsch (13:27.779)

Yes.

John Jantsch (13:40.15)

Yeah. So most professional service firms expect partners to grow the practice. So where do you see the firms themselves getting it wrong in terms of not really equipping those, you know, just saying, go out there and do it.

Deborah Farone (13:56.131)

Yeah, I think they need to train people. I think training has to start when someone is very young in business. I think you can train an older person. You can teach them new tricks. But what happens is, and we see this in so many professions, if you're not training them when they're associates or when they just start, not only are they losing whatever seven or eight years of building good habits about business development and marketing and relationship building,

But they're losing those contacts that they could have made. So they've not been trained, they don't have the contacts. All of sudden you make them partner and you say, okay, it's time, go develop business. And it's much harder at that point.

John Jantsch (14:37.998)

All right.

Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. So is there anything in the interviews that you did, particularly with the women, that kind of challenged some of your own assumptions about business development, even about leadership?

Deborah Farone (14:57.728)

think finding that there were cultural differences, there were more cultural differences than I thought there would be around the world. So I spoke with women in Botswana. I spoke with women in Milan and Paris and Asia. And there are differences that I think I just see generally as a difference with culture, whether it's men or women. But in parts of Asia, you would never be direct and say, I want to do

Business with you I want to work with you unless if you really do know someone very well and the same is true with even portions of Italy and Europe. You know London is more like America as far as you can be a little bit more direct. But Latin America is also different and that they want to take time and get to know you and so I think the cultural differences were were really interesting I was aware that there might be some but.

John Jantsch (15:49.006)

Mm-hmm.

Deborah Farone (15:55.657)

the ones that I heard about just reinforced how important it is, especially if you're going to another country, that there are to be cultural differences. And even if you're going to another firm, another company that you're trying to sell, you have to just be very empathetic and really understand the culture of that company. So that was reinforced.

John Jantsch (16:19.864)

So if, and I'm sure you've been brought in from time to time to work with somebody who's really good at what they do, sort of hesitant to put themselves out there. Do you always, I mean, is there a first step that you say, well, just do this, it won't kill you, this'll get you started?

Deborah Farone (16:35.352)

I think so much of it is getting to know someone because everyone's going to have their quirks. And so while I do work for large companies and large firms, I will take on about eight coaching clients a year. And I really need to start with getting to know what they do, what they love, what they hate about work, all of those things. And then we can figure out where they want to go. But I really do believe that that's strategic.

John Jantsch (16:39.726)

Yeah.

Deborah Farone (17:04.344)

part has to come before they start selling themselves. And very often the selling themselves part starts with how they sell themselves internally at their company. Are they making the right contacts? And are they helping other people? And are they creating a good reputation for themselves? Those things matter so much and they're so easy to overlook.

John Jantsch (17:15.278)

That's a point,

John Jantsch (17:30.722)

Yeah, that's interesting point. I'm sure that when people, especially young associates inside of professional service firm, especially a larger firm, part of the job is start your networking here, right? mean, go meet these partners or go ask somebody how they got to where they got and find a mentor maybe even. that's all part of that's business development, frankly, isn't it?

Deborah Farone (17:54.648)

It is and you know I spoke I guess maybe two or three weeks ago at Columbia Law School and I said to the law students it's really important that you know everyone in this room because one of you is going to be the next Sam Altman or one of you might be the head of an architecture firm or a law firm you just don't know and so it really needs to start at that level it needs to kind of

John Jantsch (18:00.92)

Thanks.

John Jantsch (18:07.276)

Yeah.

Deborah Farone (18:21.451)

reach people who are still trying to figure out what they want to do. Develop a network, think about who is in your network, and make sure that you're empathetic to what they're going through.

John Jantsch (18:28.781)

Yes.

John Jantsch (18:33.294)

It's funny, when I started my business some 30 years ago, all my first clients were people I went to high school and college with. So, all right, you wrote Breaking Ground. What do you hope firms and individuals, professionals will do differently as a result of reading?

Deborah Farone (18:40.573)

I'm not surprised. That's great.

Deborah Farone (18:51.029)

I think one, start training people early. Don't wait until they become a partner at their firm. And also realize that everyone develops business in a different way and can develop business in a different way. So have room for people to do it authentically. Give them a budget, give them some guardrails of what they can and can't do if you need to, but allow them to find a way to develop business that's right for them.

So I think those are two things that I would start with.

John Jantsch (19:24.014)

Well, Deborah, I appreciate you saying that by the DuckTait marketing podcast. Is there somewhere you'd invite people to find out more about breaking ground and certainly to connect with you?

Deborah Farone (19:25.833)

It's particularly.

Deborah Farone (19:32.865)

Absolutely. Well, breaking ground, they can easily order through Amazon or through my website. There's some links for discount codes and things like that. And my website is deborahferrone.com. And most of the time I live on LinkedIn. I guess if you can say, where do you live as far as social media, I'm on LinkedIn at Deborah Breitman-Ferrone.

John Jantsch (19:50.19)

Great.

John Jantsch (19:55.694)

Again, I appreciate you stop by and maybe we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Deborah Farone (20:01.053)

John, thank you so much. It was fun speaking with you.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:01.39)

So what if the reason smart entrepreneurs still feel anxious about money has less to do with math and more to do with the habits quietly running their lives? Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Mike Michalowicz. He's a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and long time champion for helping business owners take back control of their time, money, and energy. He's the author of many books, Profit First, Clockwork,

fix this next all in, but today we're gonna talk about his latest, the money habit, the worry-free way to financial independence. So Mike, welcome back to the show.

Mike Michalowicz (00:41.31)

John is amazing. You know, we've known each other, I think, 17 years. We're almost approaching 20 years of knowing each other. Isn't that amazing? Yeah.

John Jantsch (00:47.586)

Wow, dang. I got sneakers older than that though. That's nothing.

Mike Michalowicz (00:53.29)

Those Chuck E. T's that you wear. I love those things.

John Jantsch (00:55.854)

So, all right, you're back with another book about money. The Profit First book is pretty much legendary. mean, you've sold six gazillion and have lots of people practicing that. And you brought that to a lot of entrepreneurs. But why are you going back to the well on a more personal book now to help individuals? And I'm assuming there's a lot of cross-ups.

Mike Michalowicz (01:24.618)

There's a lot crossover and it originally started off with helping the entrepreneur, but there's another larger community that it's now serving and I'm focusing on or paying more attention to. But the entrepreneur, I found John is some folks deployed profit first or in some other ways move their business forward so that the business was highly profitable. But their lifestyle started gobbling away at the business and they weren't managing the numbers at home. And therefore, the home leached off the business.

And I also saw the reverse. I've seen some people prepare for retirement, future, and then they start an entrepreneurial endeavor and it doesn't do well. It struggles and leeches off the home and both collapse. So I had the awareness like, if you're not nailing numbers at both sides, the business and the home front, you're screwed. And then I realized this was the biggest aha. I got a call from a business owner that was doing profit first.

And he said his employees are coming to him asking for raises, seeing if they can get in advance. And he goes, I want to accommodate that. By a certain point, the business will no longer be sustainable. They need help managing their money because most people believe that the solution to financial struggle is more money. And the reality is the solution of financial struggle is authority and control over money. And then more money helps, but you need to assert that control first. And that's why I the book.

John Jantsch (02:45.794)

Yeah, and it's interesting, but I mean, you even in the subtitle, have worry free. mean, so there's stress and behavior issues. people grow up with real, you know, I grew up not wealthy at all, lower middle class. I have nine siblings and so money was always an issue. so I kept, you know, my parents really struggled to spend any money because it was like, we got to buy milk or we're going to do this.

And so I think a lot of people like that kind of grow up almost with a unhealthy relationship with money. I mean, it's like the last thing they want to even talk about.

Mike Michalowicz (03:25.706)

There's no question there's generational financial trauma and we are programmed. There was an article that broke from USA Today. I think it was in August of 2025 that really shocked me awake and it said financial worry has become a part time job. And it went on to explain that for the typical American that we are worrying about some kind of financial consequence for hours a day on average.

John Jantsch (03:29.475)

Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (03:54.618)

And that's devastating because it eats away at us, not just emotionally, but physically. mostly, yeah, you're distracted at work. So your productivity declines. It becomes to some degree a vicious cycle. So what we have to do is we have to learn to make not make do with what we got. We have to assert control over what we've currently got first. And then we start building from there.

John Jantsch (04:01.09)

Yeah, you don't sleep. mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (04:21.654)

Would it be safe to just call the money habit basically profit first for personal finances or am I missing something?

Mike Michalowicz (04:29.49)

I was missing something actually, because originally that's what I wanted to call it. was profit first personal. And then I realized this is a radically different book. So when I started interviewing people, the biggest difference is that the majority of income earners or not entrepreneurs have a predictable income or no income. So you're humming along and maybe get a little raises over time incrementally. And then someone else can turn off the switch and all of a it stops and you start up again.

John Jantsch (04:32.577)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (04:55.698)

an entrepreneur's trajectory is much more volatile up and down. You have a banner year and you're walking on water and then you have a devastating period after that. Prop first was designed to work for volatility. The money habit is designed to work with potential predict more predictability, but also understanding that the climb won't be as fast and hopefully the decline won't be as fast either as entrepreneurs expect. So I had to integrate that.

and how to work with different income levels. The average American earns $50,000 a year. So this book is designed to work on the average or serve the average income earner and people can earn more and people can earn less. And why designed is as your income changes, we need to change ratios for what we're addressing. If you own less than the average earner in the US,

You're going to focus more on the essentials of living food shelter. If you are earning more than the average, you may be able to orient more toward future dreams, some aspirational things you have.

But the other thing is a lot of people come in with different mindsets. Some people are recovering from debt. Other people are preparing for future events. Classically was retirement, but now it could be just activating funds like taking the family on a two year sabbatical. That that is like a mini retirement before you officially retire. And there's other goals. So I call these seasons. And so the book speaks to.

John Jantsch (06:14.147)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:19.084)

Hmm.

Mike Michalowicz (06:20.744)

tiered income levels, more predictable income levels, but what to do when you lose your income. And it speaks to the season that you are in currently. And that's not in profit first.

John Jantsch (06:32.78)

So there are other mentors books out there, Dave Ramsey comes to mind and it's like, pay off your debt. Don't get a latte, just have discipline. mean, are you essentially saying that but just in a nicer way?

Mike Michalowicz (06:40.958)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (06:46.57)

No, I first let me start by saying Dave Ramsey's work has been personally transformative for me. I love it. Yet this is not a translation of that or an expansion of it. It's a different perspective. For most people, discipline becomes a form of one of two things will trigger retaliation. So depravation discipline becomes deprivation. Deprivation becomes retaliation.

It's classic in diets, like don't eat anything with sugar and we don't until it's all you think about, right? And you retaliate. The other scenario, which is far less frequent is the Scrooge mentality. When you go into deprivation, there's a certain point that says that your identity shifts enough you say, I will never spend money. Then why are you earning money? And so there's people who have accumulated a lot of money and it's all about the fear of losing that money. So they live like paupers. So I found deprivation works for very few.

John Jantsch (07:14.584)

Yeah, that's all you can think about.

John Jantsch (07:36.046)

Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (07:40.712)

So this system is nothing like, in this case, Dave Ramsey system. What it does is it's based upon what I call behavioral intercepts. Commitment devices is the technical term in behavioral psychology. Understand your current natural path of behavior instead of trying to change how you behave, deprivation, these external spreadsheets or apps or whatever. Instead, look at what you're naturally doing and put commitment devices in that pathway that assure that you will get what you want. And the beautiful part is

You don't need to change yourself. Just keep doing what you're doing with a system that directs the outcome that you desire.

John Jantsch (08:16.974)

So in Profit First, to be one of the things that you introduced that, you know, I hate to like go, well, duh. But for a lot of people, you know, everybody goes like, pay yourself first, have, you know, put away for taxes. I mean, everybody gets that, but you created the bucket or envelope system for that, which was basically just what they should be doing, but you kind of enabled it and put it in front of them. And all of a it was like, no, it became a habit. Is that...

Mike Michalowicz (08:28.018)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (08:39.39)

Correct.

John Jantsch (08:45.134)

The same thing that you're talking about in a lot of ways that that that it's habits It's not like I'm never gonna spend this it's I'm gonna have a set of habits that are gonna serve my objective

Mike Michalowicz (08:54.984)

Yeah, so I've deployed established systems. In fact, the envelope system goes back to biblical times. It's in actually all the religious, significant religious books and manuals. Tithing is a concept or prepaying and allocating for an intention before you quote benefit from it. And other systems like pay yourself first. That's the same idea is reserving money for an intention first. The envelope system is carving money up.

What I did was I modernized it by realizing the path that most people follow. So it's funny. I just did a presentation to a large group and I surveyed the audience. said, what's the most common money app today? And I heard rocket money because it's advertised so aggressively. heard, it's spreadsheet. I heard why NAB you need a budget, which is a great system.

John Jantsch (09:40.302)

Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (09:45.226)

I okay, I said, what do you log into most to manage your money? And the response was my bank. said, your bank then is your app. The most used app in the world is our bank account. And for many people in that room, they were logging in daily or multiple times a day to see how much money you have.

John Jantsch (09:55.266)

Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (10:04.456)

So what I did was I said, okay, there's established systems out there that work, but why aren't we all using them? Because we know they work because they don't, we don't stumble over them. They're not forced down our gullet. So that's I realized this needs to be done at the bank level. And that's why it's there.

John Jantsch (10:19.662)

So you mentioned the word budget in talking about one of the apps, but you, you, you kind of take it to task a little bit, right? I mean, that as, as far as why budgeting failed for the traditional person.

Mike Michalowicz (10:32.947)

Yeah, yeah.

This is the money habit is a real time budget. So when you spend a dollar from an account, so let me just kind of set the stage. We understand we have multiple accounts at our bank and ultimately you can get very specific, but you could have more generic ones like my essentials needs my my lattes out or whatever people like to talk about. And that's the wants. These are the mean luxuries and so forth. But you can be very specific. My wife and I have a mortgage account, for example, and we allocate money to that account every day.

John Jantsch (11:00.578)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (11:04.584)

Well, what happens is it's a real time budget. So when I log into my bank account, if the money is there, I know exactly how much is there. Once the money gets transferred over to pay my mortgage or I go out and have that latte or whatever it is, I only use debit cards. I will see that money instantly withdrawn and next time I log in, I know what's truly available. So it's living with you at a real time. I do want to add one little asterisk. I say I only use debit cards. I only use debit cards linked to those accounts.

I do still use credit cards. think credit cards can be a valuable tool when managed right. So I'm not rejecting.

John Jantsch (11:32.44)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:39.086)

Yeah, those airline points. mean, I love them. All right. So, talk a little bit about that idea. You hinted at it, but first people don't know the idea of separating money by purpose. know, instead of, so you are literally talking about, instead of like, here's my checking account, it's here's my aid accounts that are separated by purpose and I'm making allocations, which probably freaks some banks out. I mean, it's hard to open an account in some banks.

Mike Michalowicz (11:41.438)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:08.302)

So I know you've also developed some banking relationships too.

Mike Michalowicz (12:12.828)

I do. And we have a website called money habit bank calm. So you can find a

banks that support this. There's one bank in particular that's really aggressive. It's called Dream First. And when I say aggressive, they're actively supporting this and love it. And they focus on personal finances. But if you go to moneyhabitbank.com, that's the site. Yeah, some banks will resist it. Here's the irony is when people use Profit First, and this is a derivative of Profit First, it's not total.

Totally new. Prefers, we have over 1.1 million deployments of it. So we have a lot of case studies under our belt. Money habit is now starting to get some serious momentum. have, we think about 10,000 books in circulation. It's kind of hard to measure, but so the deployments are coming in, actually the emails are coming in actively of what we ask people, when did you set it up? us, tell me. And what we're finding is,

Some banks say, why are you saying all these accounts when you do in person, but when you're online, that friction's gone away. You just click and you click and you click and click. And it's surprising how many banks, particularly regional small banks, will do no fee, no balance necessary accounts. So do it online. You won't experience that.

John Jantsch (13:14.51)

That's true.

Mike Michalowicz (13:27.114)

But I also suggest you start off slow. think setting up eight accounts or five or ten, whatever you want, is a little overwhelming. You can actually start the money habit with just one account. And I call it the worry or wonder account. And it's real simple. Whatever is the most frequent financial concern that you have for some people, it's like

Can I cover the rent or the mortgage for other people's like, Hey, can I pay groceries today? Can I afford that? And for some people, and it seems pretty common is retirement. Like do I have enough money to retire? Whatever is the thing that comes to you most frequently or the first thing that pops your mind, set that account. And let's just for easy sake, say it's mortgage. And let's just say is $4,000 a month, which ironically is pretty close to my darn mortgage, but it's 4,000 bucks and say I get paid once a week.

John Jantsch (13:50.007)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (14:06.862)

You

Mike Michalowicz (14:10.758)

Every week I'm going to allocate $1,000 to the mortgage account to assure I cover the nut. Now what's interesting is that starts alleviating some of worry because I'm always worried if I can pay the mortgage. Now I know with confidence, but the magic isn't there. The magic's in the remainder because what you start seeing is, I only have XYZ available for the rest of my lifestyle. It starts bringing subconscious kind of

John Jantsch (14:29.827)

Yeah, right.

Mike Michalowicz (14:34.94)

reaction to conscious consideration. And that's the goal of the money habit. And that's where financial independence happens. When you assert authority and control over money as opposed to it having control over you.

John Jantsch (14:45.912)

So we've kind of touched on this, but how do you begin repairing people's, you know, that have kind of this guilt and this fear and avoidance over money? Do you feel like just equipping them with this tools enough or is that going to take some deeper work?

Mike Michalowicz (15:03.742)

Yeah, for me, my wife and I took some deeper work, we came from very different perspectives. She grew up in absolute abject poverty. I grew up in middle middle middle class to upper middle class. So the whole perception was radically different. And it would cause

frustration and arguments between us. What happened was I asserted the control over money and my wife would then ask me, hey, Mike, can I go out with my friends or do I this available? And I either say yes or no, almost like a parent child relationship. The beauty of the system is it's just numbers, man, they're in front of you, you face it and you have to consider it. So when you do this by yourself, or you do it with a partner, which many people do, it gives you absolute clarity and you start teeming against it or with it.

The other thing is to start slow because if you come from a money trauma situation, it's quite appropriate to be very skeptical if this is going to work. So just start with that one account. See how it serves you. See the emotions it brings about with the awareness it brings about. Then try another account and then another account. But it's so interesting with this absolute clarity. I often find out that people are very capable because of the system. The last thing I want to share on the subject is I was at this event

And someone's like, yeah, it was like 700 people in the room. There's one guy, he grabs a microphone and goes, yeah. He goes, really interesting system. He goes like, you're already good with money because I suck with money. I'm not good with money. This isn't going to work for me. I said, hold on. In that question, you said something that's not true. I'm not good with money. I've never been good with money. I found systems that are really good with money. And so I'm perceived to be good with money, but it's because of the system. So it's very capable of working with people that aren't good with money. That's not the goal.

John Jantsch (16:29.613)

Ha!

John Jantsch (16:48.91)

I'm going to allow you to be very self-serving with this question. If somebody's got profit first, heck, maybe they're even a quasi-practitioner, do they need this book too to apply to their personal situation?

Mike Michalowicz (16:55.422)

Can you borrow a few bucks you won't borrow $1,000.

Mike Michalowicz (17:11.338)

The big question is maybe, or the answer is maybe I should say, I'm surprised how many people struggle to translate profit first to another application because a lot of us just want to follow the script. And if you're the type of person, and most of us are, I'm that type of person, I want to the prescription, then the money habit will help you because it addresses the nuances of lifestyle and income in a home, which is different than a business.

At the same time is some people have translated this on their own. That's actually how this kind of came about. I got a call from an entrepreneur who said, hey, I'm doing this in my house and it's working for me, but my employees are struggling. Can you help my employees? And that's when I realized I needed to adjust the book a little bit. for in John, in your case to support me, get the book. Just get the book.

John Jantsch (18:00.11)

That's really all I wanted you to say, So, all right, for the business owner listening right now, feels very profitable on paper, but maybe anxious in real life because that's a little bit of what you're describing. And maybe that's just the common state for entrepreneurs, right? You're always like, when's the shoe going to drop? You know, no matter how good it's going, right? Or how well it's going. So, where should they start?

Mike Michalowicz (18:03.37)

You

Mike Michalowicz (18:22.376)

Yeah, my god. Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:29.031)

Because probably the first step is like, how do we relieve some of that anxiety? So where should they start?

Mike Michalowicz (18:36.535)

with their business? Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:38.092)

Yeah, or really with this concept and you know, this week, like, you know, I've got this like anxiety in my business. Or, I mean, I feel pretty good about my business. It's going pretty well, but I've got this anxiety on the other side of my life. Where should I start?

Mike Michalowicz (18:41.086)

This concept, yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (18:49.257)

Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (18:54.844)

One of my colleagues, name's Erin Moser, said something great. We had an event and we're on stage and someone asked a similar question and she said, she looked around, she goes, if in doubt, add an account. And that's become like a mantra. And when there's concern about something, create an account that addresses that concern. For many business owners that don't have profit first in their business or they're not using the money habit at their home,

John Jantsch (19:06.986)

funny.

Mike Michalowicz (19:19.812)

it's runway is the biggest concern. Like I don't know if the other shoe is going to drop and what to do. So in that case, we often set up a profit account to ensure they're profitable. We also set up an account we call it the vault and the vault is a reserve to cover expenses for your business. Should the other shoe drop for an extended period of time months. So in our case, it's a year. That's how vaulty I am. We've ensured that our salary for every employee is covered for one year in a specific account. and the other shoe has dropped.

So, it was so interesting is when the shoe drops for us, there was a lawsuit that was ridiculous and cause off guard. there was a slowdown in business. You know, there's all these things that happen when those things happen, without having some kind of cushion or runway, we become highly reactive. That's where people do desperate things. But since we had that, we were able to move through those steps very methodically and recover to an amplitude.

John Jantsch (20:10.734)

Sure.

John Jantsch (20:18.207)

I'm curious, in some of your other work you have created a licensing or a network of folks that are practitioners of what the book preaches. Is that in the works for this on a personal level?

Mike Michalowicz (20:29.898)

It is it is money habit mentors and we have 40 certified mentors already. so money habit mentors dot coms, the website is actually part of our profit first professionals because these these programs, the money habit and profit first run so in parallel. That's the umbrella organization managing it.

John Jantsch (20:42.563)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (20:48.118)

Nice. Awesome. Well, Mike, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by. Is there any place in particular you invite people to learn more about the money habit and connect with you?

Mike Michalowicz (20:56.168)

Yeah, if you if you want to learn about the book and learn about me, it's Mike motorbike dot com. No one gets public. How low it's got to be clear motorbike like the motorcycle. Some people confuse it with some other stuff. But Mike motorbike dot com. All the resources, the books, even pictures of me and you together at events are on that site.

John Jantsch (21:12.972)

No way. Awesome. Mike again, it's always great to catch up with you and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road.

Mike Michalowicz (21:19.839)

That would be good. Thanks, John.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:01.184)

What if the very thing most adults dismiss as frivolous is actually the key to better ideas, deeper connection and more resilient work? Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Piera Ghilardi. You know, I'm going to do that over again because I practiced that and I got it wrong. So yeah, Ghilardi, like gelato or something.

Piera Gelardi (00:23.822)

It's like hair gel, it's gel already. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, like gelato, exactly.

John Jantsch (00:31.636)

Yeah. Okay. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz and my guest today is Piera Jalardi. She's an entrepreneur, speaker and co-founder of Refinery29, whose new book, The Playful Way, argues that play is not a distraction from meaningful work and life, but a practical mindset that can help us navigate creativity, change, relationships, and even adversity.

with more curiosity and possibilities. So, Piero, welcome to the show.

Piera Gelardi (01:03.886)

Thanks for having me. Let's play.

John Jantsch (01:05.546)

So I'm sure one of the first questions that you get asked all the time is, because so many of us, especially people of my generation, it's like, you didn't get to play it till you got your homework done. And so how, or when for you, I should actually ask it that way. Cause you argue that it's not something that we earn, that it's actually something that enhances how we work. When did that become true for you?

Piera Gelardi (01:30.776)

So I was fortunate to grow up in a really playful family and to have parents who were playful while they navigated growing businesses, having families, dealing with illness and loss. And so I got to see how playfulness could, and the curiosity and creativity that comes with playfulness could actually weave into every aspect of our life. So playfulness was something that was sort of baked into me. But then of course, like most adults, I rubbed up against

know, teachers that wanted me to do things a certain, you know, straight line way, wanted me to, to, you know, sit still and go from point A to point B. I went into workplaces that also expected a certain degree of seriousness and, you know, seriousness in terms of rigidity. And so I did definitely rubbed up against places that, you know, told me that play and playfulness was something frivolous with something that we do, you know, after our homework is done, after our hard work is done.

But what I found in my life and in my work was that integrating play created the best results. It created the most innovative ideas, the best relationships, and the most resilience for me to work through the problems that came up.

John Jantsch (02:44.028)

Is, I believe you a hundred percent and totally agree with it. Is there any research that you've done or that you've studied that kind of backs this up scientifically as well?

Piera Gelardi (02:54.466)

Yeah, there's a lot of research about the power of play. also there's research about play deprivation, which is something that I experienced in a period of work where I was trying to present in a serious way. So I packed up my playfulness and tried to kind of show up in a way that was zipped up in my serious suit, basically. And

Play deprivation leads to us being less resilient, having less of a solutions minded attitude, having less of a big perspective on what there is in life. And so we end up not having that intrinsic motivation that helps us to drive us forward, that helps us to feel, to find joy and excitement in our day to day, to find connection with each other. There's also a lot of science also around like the neuroscience of.

sort of that playful experimental mindset and how when we try something new, you know, these neural pathways are reshaping our brain. So when we're in that play state, we're in a much more open-minded experimental framework where we can actually learn and grow versus getting really stuck and being set back by failure, which is when we're in that perfectionistic, serious mindset, we're trying to control the outcome. We're trying to, you know,

get it exactly right, we tend to be less open-minded, we tend to not be able to deal with the change, the uncertainty, the setbacks in the same sort of pliable, resilient way that we can when we're in that playful mindset.

John Jantsch (04:32.893)

So, I think a lot of business owners, we've come a long way, I think a lot of business owners get the idea of doing creative exercises, kind of opens up dialogue and different things. But when you use the word play, do you sometimes get pushback because people have a bias about, that's goofing around, that's not serious, that's not who we are? mean, so does the word play itself actually cause some issues for you?

Piera Gelardi (04:57.676)

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of anti-play sentiment because we sort of associate play with one mode of play, but there's a lot of ways to be playful. So we sort of think of, and in the book I have these eight archetypes of play. So I think the one that people most associate with play is the joyful gesture, right? That's like the class clown. That's the one that, you know, making things light, that's bringing humor.

John Jantsch (05:00.661)

Yeah.

Piera Gelardi (05:22.594)

And that person actually can be so powerful in diffusing tension and helping to relieve stress and helping us to laugh so that we can actually get to a solution faster. But they're definitely the one that people feel is, I think it's the most controversial in the workplace. And though they really are powerful and there's also a lot of research about the power of humor in problem solving, in stress relief.

in relationship building. But there's so but there's that's only one way of being playful, right? That being humorous, being light, there's, you know, curiosity is a huge element of play. So there's the curious question that someone that asks a lot of questions that's intellectually going down these rabbit holes, and they're really powerful to have in the workplace, because they help you to think differently by introducing, you know, introducing questions and new ways of thinking.

There is the visionary dreamer. That's the person that is, you know, we might think of them as having their head in the clouds, right? They're often the negative side as they're seen as the dreamer, the unrealistic one, but they're also the one that's looking beyond what is immediately in front of us. They're not trying to just replicate the same thing over and over again. They're really opening up possibility in new ways. So there are lot of different ways to be playful. And so I think

One thing that I'm trying to do is educate people about these different modes of play so that we can understand how to value them and how to bring them into the workplace in different ways.

John Jantsch (06:57.184)

So I imagine a lot of people, one of the use cases a lot of people probably can relate to is the idea of team building. You there's nothing sort of, you let your guard down, you're vulnerable, you do something that's not you necessarily, you don't think it's you and team building. But talk to me a little bit about innovation because I'm guessing that that's a place where this really shines as well because, know, innovation takes meaning.

You can't fail. can't make a mistake. And you know, I think that that's probably inherent in some play, isn't it?

Piera Gelardi (07:32.172)

Yeah. So I think of it sort of, there's the pressured way and there's the playful way. And the pressured way is when we're trying to control the outcome. We are rigid. We might feel like tight in our body. and that is often like when we're really zipped up tight in our serious suit and we're very, very afraid of failure. the playful way is when we have that curiosity to us, when we're looking at a problem from multiple different angles.

John Jantsch (07:36.746)

Mm-hmm.

Piera Gelardi (08:01.218)

we're floating unexpected ideas. And it allows us to really find these innovative ways to move forward. And so, yeah, play is the, mean, the most effective brands and companies integrate some sort of play into what they do. The companies that are the most innovative know that that's how you create experiences that people feel. That's how you go outside of the cookie cutter idea.

Often when we go in that pressured way, we're just replicating past, you know, past success or replic or copying other people's formats. We're not creating something new. And when you think about a kid, right, like they're looking at a cardboard box and they're seeing that it can be a pirate ship. can be, you know, it can be a spaceship. It's a closet. It's all these different things. And that's divergent thinking. And of course that's, you know, we might not think that's a very practical example in the workplace, but

If you're looking at a problem, you want someone that can think about all the different ways you could go about it. And so what play does is it opens up our minds to that divergent thinking. And that's where the big solutions, the big unlocks come from.

John Jantsch (09:12.118)

So I imagine, I'm just guessing, that you have a series of exercises that you could bring to people and say, OK, for the next 10 minutes, we're going to do X, Y, and Z. Can you showcase a couple of things that you find to be really effective at getting people to do whatever behavior it is the company's trying to support?

Piera Gelardi (09:32.662)

Yeah. So a couple of really simple ones, you know, that I, I did a lot at Refinery29 were, one is actually a physical shake break. which, you know, can be controversial in the workplace because people feel really self-conscious and, know, it can be hard to get people to move, but honestly, I found it to be so effective because so often you're going into a meeting, right? And you're holding onto whatever frustrating conversation you had, or you're still thinking about.

you know, how you're going to deal with the thing on your to-do list. Also, there can be a power dynamic, like often when people were coming into my office, have a meeting with me, you know, I'm the boss, they're feeling, you know, nervous about like, are they going to say the right thing? And so as the leader, I think it's really important to be the one that's making a fool of yourself to a certain extent, you know, doesn't have to be huge, but you, yeah, you need to be vulnerable. You need to be the one that shows that it's okay to play.

John Jantsch (10:25.398)

Lead by example.

Piera Gelardi (10:33.541)

because that's the only way to get people to do it. I would, when people would come into my office, I would say, okay, we're gonna do a 30 second shake break. I would do this improv exercise called crazy eights where you shake, you count down from eight, like shaking your one arm, the other arm, one arm, one leg, the other leg. And what would happen is, know, it was like I'm...

I'm being silly, so then everyone else is following suit. And at the end, no one's cool. No one is serious. And we all kind of have let our guard down. It evens the playing field. It opens us up. It allows us to create a certain space where ideas can flow a little bit more easily. I'm also a big fan of just simple curiosity questions. So these can be, you know, these can be.

really silly and just unexpected or they can you know, they can be on topic but introducing questions that force people to You know think in a new way I think is a really simple and sort of low stakes way to bring play in Another one is imagination. So a question I loved to float to my team was what would what would need to be true for this to happen?

Because so often we're sort of stuck on a problem. We're stuck on the old ways of doing things. We're stuck on the obstacles. So sometimes, yeah, why it won't work. So sometimes asking a question like that, like what would need to be true in order for us to do this is a great way to open up that possibility, that possibility thinking.

John Jantsch (11:58.186)

Yeah, right. Why it won't work.

John Jantsch (12:17.12)

Talk to me a little bit about Refinery29. I know the book is kind of drawn from some of your experiences there, but talk a little bit about what Refinery29 does.

Piera Gelardi (12:28.194)

Yeah, so Refinery29 is a global media company focused on 360 degrees of a woman's life. So everything from health and wellness to beauty, fashion. we started as a, we basically essentially started as a blog and we grew into a company that was doing experience, these huge experiential events across the US and internationally doing video film.

John Jantsch (12:39.99)

Mmm.

Piera Gelardi (12:56.942)

all kinds of different media outlets. So yeah, it started, you know, it started, I started it when I was 24 and it was this small niche thing and it grew into a company that had a hundred million dollars in revenue and 500 employees globally.

John Jantsch (13:00.67)

And so.

John Jantsch (13:15.274)

So did some of the work that shows up in the book, did it come from those experiences and from how you kept those playful and energetic?

Piera Gelardi (13:25.612)

Yeah, so the book is full of stories from a lot of different moments in my life. But some of the ones are from my time at Refinery29, the problems that we solved and the innovation that we unlocked through bringing play into the workplace.

John Jantsch (13:44.032)

So I'm sure there's a fine line. mean, people may listen to this, read the book and go, you're right, we need to bring more play in. How do you make it part of the culture and not a gimmick? We've all seen that. The CEO goes off to a conference and listens to a workshop and the next thing you know, for five minutes we're doing this now. So how do you bring it in as something?

that has value, that's not forced, that's not gimmicky, not performative.

Piera Gelardi (14:14.99)

Yeah, that's so critical. think so often companies when they want to integrate play, they sort of do that forced fun. The moment that employees feel is forced fun, right? And it's a one-off thing. In the book, I really talk about how play is something, you we think of play as sort of this time out or this thing that we do as a reward for hard work, but play is the most effective when it is integrated into the day-to-day in small moments. So I think...

One is understanding the different modes of play and starting to understand within your team what the different archetypes of play that people are so that you can really leverage those and you can understand, you know, what is going to light those, light those people up. you know, a curious questor who's, who's following those intellectual threads and curiosity is going to be, you know, going to light up from something really different from a mover and shaker that's more someone who finds

who finds play in their physical body through movement. So there's very different modes of play. So I think the first thing is understanding within the team, what are the different play strengths that people have? What are the powers of play that you have that you're working with? The next is to, I do this thing called plork, which is how do we fuse play and work in small moments? So that can be really small. can be, you know,

John Jantsch (15:15.595)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:35.722)

Mm.

Piera Gelardi (15:41.55)

introducing a curiosity question at the beginning of a meeting. can be renaming meeting invites with something that's a little bit more whimsical. So it doesn't feel like an anxiety attack when you see your calendar. It's these little moments that you commit to and you brainstorm as a team. So you think about, okay, once you understand these powers of play that the team has, how can you integrate those day to day in small ways?

John Jantsch (15:52.352)

Right.

Thank

Piera Gelardi (16:11.554)

what are those play plus work moments that become part of the culture so that you are really integrating it and finding those moments of connection, creativity, curiosity in the day to day versus just putting a play bandaid on like at that one offset.

John Jantsch (16:29.352)

Right. Yeah. It's interesting. I hadn't really thought of people having play personalities, but it sounds like that's a bit what you're describing. So we've talked mostly about internal team and culture. How could people use this in a marketing sense? So in other words, be more playful in their public, you know, what they're putting out there to be perceived as, you know, a fun and playful company.

Piera Gelardi (16:34.861)

Yeah.

Piera Gelardi (16:56.002)

Yeah, I think in terms of bringing it into a marketing context, it's really about how can we do something different? How can we bring an experimental mindset to how we market? I tend to find that when we think of things as an experiment, and again, there's this neuroscience around this, but when we think of something as an experiment, we open up a lot more possibility and we stop.

John Jantsch (17:09.206)

Mm-hmm.

Piera Gelardi (17:24.13)

having it stops feeling so high stakes that we can't fail that we can't try new things. So I think one thing is, you know, thinking about what are the experiments that we want to run here? What's something that would be interesting to try? You know, can we try it in a can we try it in a small way? And then build off of that. That was something we did a lot of refinery. We were constantly experimenting. So we'd say

You know, for example, we did this huge experiential event called 29 rooms that went to seven cities, hundreds of thousands of people came through. but it started from just one event where we said, you know, we're noticing this behavior of how people are using Instagram. And so why don't we do, why don't we do something in our photo studio at the office where we invite photographers to come in, we give them all kinds of props, access to models and access to clothes and let them, you know,

express their creativity and tag us. And so that was the experiment, was just doing that. So it was a very low stakes, low cost experiment. And we saw this huge Instagram sharing that came from this one office event. And so then we said, okay, do we do that again and make it a little bit bigger? So then we did it in partnership with.

museum in New York, we brought in a fashion brand to provide the looks and we tried it again and we again saw this huge like exponential return from it. And then, you know, then it was like the next piece, okay, like let's pop up an event. It was a smaller scale event. Again, saw huge success. And so that was when we decided to take the gamble and put on this huge, this huge event where we brought in brands, celebrities, you know, it was like, and that that became something that was

huge, we were hugely known for and that became really copied. was on every, you know, every brand was referencing it and trying to replicate the 29 rooms, you know, effect. So, but it came from that experimental mindset of saying, okay, what if we tried this and what's the smallest, what's the smallest way we can try it within our resources to see if this has legs.

John Jantsch (19:18.901)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (19:31.638)

All right, now that you've written the book and it's, upon when people are listening to this, it's going to be out there for public consumption. Is there anything that you hope, especially adults, relearn about themselves by considering this topic?

Piera Gelardi (19:50.306)

Yeah, I think in adulthood, through the course of having the strict teacher that tells you to sit still, having the boss that shuts down your humorous aside, there's through feeling the weight of responsibility and thinking that play is antithetical to being the responsible adult. There's all these moments where we start to shut down our playfulness. And as a result, we lose that curiosity.

we lose that resilience and we lose the flexibility that play brings into our lives. And that makes us lose touch with ourselves really. It makes us like lose touch with our true essence. when we think about our relationships too, right? Like what are the things that you remember the most about your friends, your family? It's often these inside jokes, these silly moments, these playful pieces.

And so when we start to become that very serious adult, we start to shut down what really makes us authentic, what makes us connect authentically and what makes us come alive. So, you know, in adulthood, starting to reconnect with that playful spirit, you know, even just in small ways, I tell people, go back to the lost and found. Like think about your childhood and what made you lose track of the hours, what completely immersed you.

and see if there's something in there that you want to re-explore. So, you know, maybe it was dancing when you were a kid and you want to like think about going to a dance class again, or maybe it was beach combing and you were just like, loved looking at, you know, looking for sea glass on the beach. You know, is there, do you want to go for a walk in your neighborhood and see if you can, you know, turn it into a wonder wander and find, you know, these moments of delight. So re-engaging, like starting in small ways, but just.

being open to the fact that playfulness is going to unlock a lot of richness and joy and aliveness in your life. So it's really worthwhile to pursue it. Play is not the opposite of seriousness. It's what makes seriousness bearable. It's what makes you find joy in the day to day and the mundane.

John Jantsch (22:09.178)

Well, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the podcast. Where would you invite people to find out more about your work? Find out where they can pick up a copy of the book.

Piera Gelardi (22:19.522)

Yeah, so they can pick up the book, The Playful Way. It's at all major booksellers starting April 7th. And you can find me on Instagram and Stub Stack at Pierrealuisa and my website, pieragillardi.com.

John Jantsch (22:33.878)

Awesome. Well, again, Pierre, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we're running into you one of these days out there on the road.

Piera Gelardi (22:38.646)

Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks for playing.

Sign up to receive email updates

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.