Epic Real Estate Investing - Marketing Done Right with Frank Kern | 559

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

If you want to know how an automated marketing method based on your prospect's behavior can speed up your sales cycle, stay with us. Today, we are happy to host Frank Kern, the creator of Behavioral Dynamic Response, who is here to share a fresh approach to marketing. Learn how he developed his online selling method, what that method is about, and what has the biggest impact on the growth of your business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a credit card machine salesman, I was door to door. So no one had like invited me to show up at their business in the middle of the day and interrupt them and try to sell them something. So I was never well received. I was like, ah, I got to figure out a way to sell something without having to talk to anybody. And it's not that I'm antisocial or anything, but I equated human interaction with people saying, hey, go screw yourself. I don't want to talk to you right now.

So that's how I got started. Hey, Matt Terrio here on another episode of Thought Leader Thursday, right here on the epic real estate investing. show. Got a hot one for you today. All right. So on today's episode of Thought Leader Thursday, I am joined by the creator of behavioral dynamic response, which is an automated marketing method that speeds up your sales cycle by customizing your marketing messages based on your prospect's behavior. He is one of the most sought after direct response internet marketing consultants and copywriters on the planet. And so please help me welcome to the show,

Mr. Frank Kern. Frank, welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. Man, thanks for having me. That's funny, that intro. It must be true because it says so right there in my website. It does. I'm stellar research. Frank, happy to have you here today. What were you doing just prior to becoming the most sought after direct response copywriting guy on the planet? And what inspired the transition? All right. So I think what you mean is like how did I get started doing stuff online or at what point in my online career? Yeah, I just tried to get really creative with my question. rather than tell me how you got started. All right.

I was a door-to-door credit card machine salesman and hated it, man, because I'm terrible at in-person sales, absolutely hate in-person sales. Probably wouldn't have hated in-person sales if I'd have learned it in a different environment. But when I was growing up, one of my first jobs was a porter in a car dealership, like washing cars and running errands and stuff.

And then one of my first sales jobs was at a car dealership. And I wanted a very confrontational, high pressure method of sales, which I just hated because like nobody likes me on the receiving end of that, you know? And so I was terrible at that. And then, you know, went through all sorts of menial jobs because I have no education or real credentials or anything. And as a credit card machine salesman, I was door to door. So no one had like invited me to show up at their business in the middle of the day and interrupt them and try to sell them something. So I was never well received. And I was like, ah, I got to figure out a way to sell something without having to talk to

anybody. And it's not that I'm antisocial or anything, but I equated human interaction with people saying, hey, go screw yourself. I don't want to talk to you right now. So that's how I got started. I went to a computer and this is before I think Google was the thing. This was in 1999. So I did a search for how to sell credit card machines on the internet. And I saw a banner ad for a course on how to sell stuff on the internet and read the sales letter seven million times and bought it. Finally, I think it's $297 and followed the directions. You know, that was it. I mean, that was it plus 19 years of doing stuff.

Right. Didn't happen overnight. Yeah. So tell me about behavioral dynamic response. Tell me a little bit more about that and why it's important. It is important. It's, well, it's diminishing in its importance as email, as a communication channel, is starting to lose its efficacy.

I like saying words like efficacy, because it makes it. it sounds like I know what I'm talking about, but I don't really do it. I'm a believer. It's got to be, you know, I should put on a blazer and say efficacy a lot and charge more. Yeah, so what it means basically in normal redneck terminology, I'm from Georgia, is you customize what's happening in a marketing funnel based on how people are actually behaving, which means if they click on a link, for example, they'll get a different series and if they didn't click on the link within your funnel, if they open an email, they'll get a different response. versus if they, you know, didn't open the email. And so if you can map out every one of their behaviors, then you can show them customized marketing messages and campaigns based on it,

which means you're hitting them with the right message at the right time, which makes everything work better. Right. Got it. Yeah, so you're just, you're speaking directly to the person and what they're dealing with at that specific moment, right? So it's more relevant. And based on what they do rather than what they say, you know,

I'm a big believer in that, like surveys, and I don't believe, you know, I really base everything on data and what people actually do. So, in online marketing, you know, if you pay attention, you can analyze everything and you can get metrics on everything, like how many people click something, how many people go somewhere. And their behavior can dictate how you respond to them, which makes everything work better if you do it, right? Right. Yeah, I've been following you for a little while, and I see that you do this for yourself. you show others how to do it. You deal with a wide variety of people and a wide array of industries. What do you like most about what you do?

Diagnostics. So it's funny. When I'm working with clients, it's right, you know, they'll come to me and they'll be like, all right, we have this objective. Actually, they rarely know the objective. They're like, we just want to grow our business. I'm like, okay, so here's $5. You've now grown your business.

Is that sound? I actually don't say that. I don't think that would you imagine. I don't think that would be going very well. well at all. So I'll ask them like, all, what's the specific objective? And then that kind of throws people off guard from me like, damn, I never really thought of that. And then when they come up with it, 99.99% of the time, they're like, yeah, so I have this objective. And here's the seven billion things I want to do to achieve the directive. And it's like abandoning all the stuff that

they've been doing and starting something new. So my favorite part is going through the process with people to uncover what they're already doing that's working really, really well. And having them maximize that and focus only on that, which typically leads to a client doing less, not necessarily less work, but less like stressful, overwhelming things, and getting a bigger bang for their energy, so to speak, you know, the energy invested in the business itself. So that's what I like the most is uncovering that one thing. Nice. Yeah, it's pretty fun.

Yes, I can imagine. What do you wish you could talk about more that you don't get the opportunity to? math, which is funny because I was terrible in school. And my math teacher, my first math teacher that wanted to kill me was named Ms. Gordon because I was a bad student in fourth grade. And then every subsequent math teacher, Ms. Poole, Ms. Williamson, oh, all of these ladies' apologies. So I was like horrible and I hated it and was like, I'm never going to use this because I got one of these, you know, and calculators are great, which I still have to rely on those. But in terms of business and marketing. It's very difficult to sell math, to be like, hey, if you want to grow your

business is really in the math, and here's how you find your numbers on stuff, and here's how you make decisions based on numbers. Like, that's very boring to people. It's not sexy, it's not catchy, it's not a new Facebook trick or anything like that. But it is without question, hands down, the most impactful way to grow business is to look at the numbers of everything and then make decisions based on those. And, you know, I don't talk about it because people don't typically like to hear it. They're like, okay, great. So how do we use Facebook Messenger in our ads?

It's like, ah, okay. You know, but if you actually listen to what I told you, you would realize that, you know, the majority of your business is coming from follow-up sales calls to people who made product inquiries or something. The answer to this next question might have kind of been intertwined in what you were just talking about, but I'll ask it anyway. what commonly held truth around business do you disagree with? I think the thing that I struggle with the most when dealing with some clients, not all, is getting them to market more.

So getting them to actually reach out to their database more, giving them to promote more. And in a lot of cases, someone will have a belief that promoting and selling is bad and that puts people off. and it can if you do it in a high pressure, obnoxious confrontational way. But if you don't, then you should be selling constantly. I was watching an interview with my buddy Grant, Cardone, who I'm a huge fan of,

I love the guy. And he was saying, it wasn't an interview. It was a, you know, he's got a dude, follows him around everywhere, you know, so they were in a corporate meeting or something with Ashley Furniture. And he was saying, we don't send out any communication ever that isn't trying to sell somebody on something.

and I think that's the right thing to do. I think it's smart and most businesses are terrified to do that. They're like, oh, my list will, you know, my email subscribers will hate me or people will think I'm this, that, and the other. And if, you know, you're right, if you are obnoxious and uncool about selling, but if you're friendly about it and provide value in that sales process, then you're, you know, you're missing an opportunity to make a lot more money and help more people. Mm-hmm.

What's something few people know about you, but you wish more people did? I have no idea. You know, I never, strangely never think like that. Like, oh, here's what I want people. You know, when I think about what I want people to think about me, there's two things I always want them to think is helpful and friendly. And that's it. You know, and how I can get someone to be like, this guy's helpful and friendly, then I've got a foot in the door. I can demonstrate value to them.

provide results in advance, which is a huge part of my marketing methodology and overall philosophy. And then I have established the relationship. So, you know, I really, I've never thought of that at all. It's like,

I really don't care what they think about it. There you go. It was helpful and friendly, you know. I can vouch for that for the short period of time that we've known each other. You are very helpful and very friendly and a pleasure to be around. It's a pretty easy old demonstrate you can help them by actually. helping them trick. That'll get them. Yep, I've said that before since I've met you more than once.

I love it. I'm just like, get some every time. Yes. No, by actually helping them trick. The whole evil scheme thing, right? Be nice and friendly. If you were, I'm going to ask a little bit more of a self-serving question and more for myself and as well as my audience. It's an audience of real estate entrepreneurs, heavily emphasized on the real estate. But they, are entrepreneurs. If you were a real estate investor, Frank, and you were looking for distressed properties, whether it was a distressed house or a distressed owner that's in a certain situation financially or personally, what's the first idea that comes to mind with regard to how you would use your marketing and copywriting powers to find them? So I like to keep things really, really

basic and go after lowest hanging fruit. So I would run a series of ads. I might even start with the newspaper, believe it or not, which I know, like from an internet guy, people are like, dude, what is this crazy? I'd probably run a local ad in the paper that said, if you need to sell your house fast, read this. And then it would say, you know, it'd be like a sales letter, like, dear friend, sometimes you've got to sell your house fast, but then you've got all of these insert, whatever they're worried about here, like, you know, sketchy real estate dudes trying to steal your property from you

or whatever, well, you don't have to deal with that. You know, if you're looking to sell your house fast and you don't want to deal with someone that's going to put all kinds of high pressure on you and try to trick you, then give me a call. I can't guarantee I'll buy your house, but I can guarantee I'll offer you a fair price on it if it's something that I can use, and I can also guarantee that our experience together will be beneficial to you regardless because you'll get a very good idea of what to expect going through this process, et cetera, et cetera. So, again, relying on the old demonstrate you can help them by actually helping.

Right, right. Addressing their actual situation or their problem. and then revealing or discussing, bringing their fears to the surface, and then showing them that you can actually help them by actually helping them. It's crazy. And being up front of them, you know, I can't guarantee that I'm going to be able to buy your house. Right. If I can, I'll offer you a fair price for it.

And worst case scenario, then, you know, I'll give you some free advice on how to navigate this situation and what to expect and what to watch out for. Like, I would talk to them, like, I would want someone to talk to me if I were in that situation. Right. That's fantastic. That was very helpful. Thank you. If there were three guiding principles for your success, Frank, what would they be?

All right. That's a good one. Number one is work, all right? So the more effort you put into, at least for me, the more effort you put into trying to avoid the work part, the worse everything gets. So just accept it. Hey, all this stuff is hard, you know, to like, I don't know, make a couple hundred grand a year. It's not hard, but to really do something, you know, and to get a business into the multi-seven figure, eight-figure margis.

It's a lot of freaking work. So that's thing, number one, be prepared. So I always hold that to be true. The second guiding principle is simplify. Always for me is I try to eliminate as much complexity as possible. You know, our funnel, so to speak, for our private client group in the business is one web page. And if someone puts their name and email address in there, they get three emails.

And that's the entire thing. Right? And then like, that we either approve the application or we don't, and then we talk to them and they either become a client or not, and that's it. And that's an extremely lucrative funnel. And by that, it's, I think we acquire a member of that group. It's a $40,000 annual membership and we spend a five grand in advertising to get somebody. So as real estate investors can appreciate it. That's an 8x return on the investment. But because it's simplified. And the final thing, which it's easy. said than done is always keep 80-20 in mind, which is be looking for that big lever. I believe very firmly in the 80-20 principle. It's been revolutionary for me and just constantly be on the lookout for, okay, how can I 80-20 this situation? You know, where is their waste? Where's their wasted energy?

Where is the real gold? And how can I redirect that energy to the most important levers? And all of that stuff is like sounds really easy. and maybe it is for some people. For me, it's not. It's a mofo. It's a daily struggle. I would love to go downstairs and play sniper elite four all day.

You know what I mean? I'd love to make some new product for the sake of creating it and making. To be like, yay, there's a new thing. But this takes a tremendous amount of focus. Like, no, don't do that. Or copy, promote this thing that's been working forever, you know, focus. So. I appreciate you sharing that because you sure make it look easy.

It's not. It's a bitch. Yeah. It's a pain. But it's not like physically hard. It's here. You know, as your mind, like just pain like, brain. Shut up, dude.

Thank you for being creative and everything. But just give me a minute. Let me focus on the task at hand and keep the main thing, the main thing. That's awesome. Frank, it's been a pleasure. If someone wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that? They could go to Frankkern.com and read articles. And I think there's links to videos and stuff on there.

And I think there's a contact for it. should know these things better at marketing myself than I do. I should follow my own advice to clients. But yeah, go there and follow me on Facebook or get some of my free stuff. And if you like it, then reach out and maybe become a client. Love it. Thank you. Let's do this again. All right. Don't ask hard questions next time. Well thought out questions. It was like, damn, I don't know, dude. You know, I suppose this is the third podcast I've been on. So this is a good one. Is it? Yeah, I don't really do. You know, blessed. I mean, weird. I'm like, damn. I'm like, No, strangers.

Well, perfect. Thank you very much. All righty. So God bless to your success. I'm Matt Jerry. I'll see you next week on another episode of Thought Leader Thursday right here on the epic real estate investing show. Take care. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network.

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