The School of Greatness - 294 Joe Polish: Master Marketing and Rise to the Top

Episode Date: February 24, 2016

"There's no relationship between being good and getting paid." - Joe Polish If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/294

This is episode number 294 with Joe Polish. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone to episode number 294.

Thank you so much for being here. Our guest today is Joe Polish. And Joe is a good friend that I've known for a number of years. He is the founder of Genius Network, also known as the 25K Group, and is the co-founder of ilovemarketing.com, a highly popular free podcast on iTunes, and is the president of Piranha Marketing, Inc. His marketing expertise has been utilized to build thousands of businesses, and he has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients.

We dive in deep about all these aspects in today's interview. And some of the key things that you're going to take away are the exact steps you can take to market your product or service if you're just starting out in a business, a brand new business, what you should be doing. The difference between marketing and selling that can help you grow your business and create more valuable relationships. that can help you grow your business and create more valuable relationships. Also, a secret to becoming more influential and having a more successful business. The number one action you can take right now if you want to make more money, and also how to create more trust, rapport, and comfort with your prospects and customers. Joe is one of the most connected people that I know.

He has been building relationships with this mastermind for years, and he's connected to so many influencers, billionaires, CEOs, people that are changing the world. He seems to know them all. It's amazing who is in his Rolodex. So there's some powerful notes that you're going to take away from here. I hope you enjoy this one. So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only, Joe Polish. What's up, everyone? Lewis Howes here. Welcome to the School of Greatness podcast. I got my man, Joe Polish.

What's up, man? In his house. Good to have you here. In his house. This is Genius Network. This is the headquarters. This is our office building. It's 11,000 square feet. It's pretty cool. It's really nice. A lot of awesome people come here. A really cool This is the headquarters. This is our office building. It's 11,000 square feet.

It's pretty cool. It's really nice. A lot of awesome people come here. A really cool bathroom for the men. So if you ever come visit, go check out the men's stall. Yeah, we got a special urinal in there. We do. It's really nice.

Yeah, it's funny. And Joe is one of the top marketing guys in the world, and he knows everyone. He knows all the biggest leaders, influencers, and you teach marketing. You've been teaching marketing for years. Yeah. Over 20, 30 you teach marketing. You've been teaching marketing for years, over 20, 30 years, right? Well, since 1990 is when I first got kind of in business. 1992 is when I first learned direct response, and that changed my life because prior to

that, I was a dead broke carpet cleaner, living off credit cards, working hard, struggling, doing a good job, operating with integrity, really cared, but there's no relationship between being good and getting paid. And so until you actually learn how to sell what it is that you're offering, whatever it is, service business, Internet business, being an author, speaker, doctor, it doesn't matter. You're in the marketing business, and in the marketing business, you're in really the relationship business. You can either be a transaction marketer or you can be a relationship marketer. And there's always, as you know, there's always more money in relationships.

I mean, we're sitting here right now. This is being beamed live through this thing called the Internet. Because I started doing marketing before the Internet existed. I mean, I had my first website in 1996. It's pretty funny. People can even find it when they go to those archive sites and they can see my video. It's pretty funny. People can even find it when they go to those archive sites and they can see my video. Sure, sure, sure. It's funny. But yeah, I mean, I learned how to connect with people as a method of not only having a career,

but that's how you function better in life. And I grew up incredibly shy, incredibly introverted, so I'm kind of like an introvert that learned how to talk to people because if you don't, nothing happens. Right, right. So how important is it to be a master at marketing in general? Whether you have a business or not, how important is marketing? And what's the difference between marketing and sales for people that don't know? Okay, well, it's critical.

I mean, I think marketing is the most important thing. Just like hold your breath for three minutes and see how well you do. Hold it for five minutes. Hold it for ten minutes. I mean, you can't. You'll die. Marketing is like that for business. If people's businesses are struggling, if their missions, and this is not just business entrepreneur, this is every area of your life. I mean, if you have a partner, you did some sort of marketing. There's something you did

to meet the person, position yourself. So to answer the question, selling is what you do when you're on the phone or face-to-face with somebody. Marketing is what you do to get someone on the phone or face-to-face with you so that they're properly positioned. So the key, the word positioning is really critical. So by the time that they actually talk with you or visit your store or go to your website or see you speak, they're pre-interested, pre-motivated, pre-qualified, and pre-disposed to do business with you. And I've said that a million times, and I drilled that into my head. It's all about pre-interested, pre-motivated, pre-qualified, pre-disposed. And if people are set up that way, the whole job of selling is much easier.

Frankly, if you have to rely on talking someone into something, then you just aren't doing any marketing. You know, my buddy Dean Jackson, he says that a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. And let's talk about something that's going on right now, politics. Okay. A lot of people, you know, what do you think of Trump? What do you think of Hillary? What do you think of,? What do you think of all the different candidates? And love or hate Trump, Trump is compelling. He's compelling. Every other candidate is trying to convince.

And so, I mean, even if you don't follow politics, the thing is, if you just look at that as going, why does... The funny thing is, people that don't like Trump, they're like, how is this happening? Why? This makes no sense. They're giving him more attention than the people they do like, right? Exactly. People that don't like him, they're talking about him more than the people they do like. And he's a master of communication. So

think of selling as influence and think of marketing as storytelling. And if you're more influential personally or in business, you're going to get more of what you want. If you tell a better story, people are going to understand more about what you have and you're going to get more of what you want. If you tell a better story, people are going to understand more about what you have, and you're going to enroll people. So your entire life is you're going to do marketing your entire life. You're going to be selling your entire life. Everything that I say, everything you say is designed to either attract or repel. And so if someone's out there not having success with their business,

either they have a very boring product or service, or they have a very boring product or service or they have a very boring way of communicating about the product or service. And rarely is any product or service boring. It's usually the way it's – Totally. It's all about communication. So how does someone starting out who has no marketing experience, what are some of the key principles to, okay, I've got this product or this service.

I'm putting it out online or brick and mortar, but I know nothing about marketing. Or maybe they think they know nothing about marketing. What are some of the key principles to get them started? Okay, well, that's a good question. The first thing to do is if you don't have enough business, you probably have plenty of time. So spend that time learning. I mean, every one of us, you included. I mean, we have had to learn. This knowledge of how to do webinars or how to do videos or how to do podcasts

or how to write courses and write books and sales letters and run events and, you know, whatever, we weren't just born with the knowledge. Like anything else, you have to learn it. So there's three ways that you can learn. You can learn through the School of Hard Knocks and get yourself bloodied and beaten up. You can learn through the experiences of other people. You read their books, you go to their seminars, you invest in their courses. And the most effective way to learn is you actually teach it to other people. So once you learn something, like my buddy Evan Pagan says, speed of implementation. As soon as you hear an

idea, the quicker you can put it into practice, the more likely it's going to become ingrained and it's going to become part of your behavior. And so this is a behavioral change. It's not just having knowledge. There are certain, like a strategy or a business plan or a business is a series of to-dos done in a certain order that produces certain results. Everything in life is a strategy. If your life is working, there are certain things you do in a certain way that make it work.

If your life isn't working, there are certain things you're doing that are making it not work. So as it comes to marketing, the first thing to understand is that the distinction between selling and marketing. If you think marketing is like just a brand or a logo, I would encourage you to think differently of less about the way your company looks and more about the substance of what you're doing for the client. What is the value that you're actually delivering? Even if you're selling something that isn't life-changing, like a comedy club, how do you tell the story about the comedy club? So the number one thing that I say to people, if you think of it this way, if you have something to sell, write a sales letter because a great salesperson is limited by the clock. You can only talk to so many people in a given day.

The first guy I learned marketing from was a guy named Gary Halbert who became a dear friend of mine. He passed away about a decade ago, but just a brilliant copywriter. What I learned with copy is copy are the words. Words are what sell and your ability to can and clone yourself. So sit down and write a sales letter. If you do not have a written sales letter, I mean, handwrite it. It's not about technology. Even Steve Jobs said in 1997 at the Worldwide Developers Conference, he said, we first start with the psychology, not the technology. And that's why Apple did so well because he really thought about the customer experience, not about the tech.

And so many tech companies that swear up and down they had better stuff than Apple, it was just packaged in a way. It's elegantly packaged. And if you look at all of Steve Jobs' keynotes in the Apple stores and the Genius Bars. It was all about education-based marketing. So my first thing that I used in my carpet cleaning business, I'll give you an example. Everyone in that industry, and we're still the largest training organization in the world for cleaners and restorers. I don't run much of it anymore, but I have someone that does. I still own it.

We have thousands of carpet and upholstery cleaners all over the world. Now, people will be like, well, that's not my business. How does that apply to me? If you have to figure out how to successfully sell something nobody wants to buy, it forces you to learn a lot about marketing. So I had like, how do you position something that nobody even really wants to do? It's like they have carpet and it got dirty or a cat pissed on it or whatever. Now I have to deal with it. It's the necessary evil of owning the stuff. No one likes it. But I had to learn how to sell other than price. So one of the first things I did was education-based marketing. And I learned one of the most effective ways to sell something

is to simply educate people on how to make a buying decision. Because the number one question in all consumers' minds is, who can I trust? And so your job as a business owner, your job as a marketer is to establish trust and rapport. We both have a buddy, Neil Strauss. And Neil, who's really become a better human being over the last decade, he's really done a lot of work on himself. He's a good friend of mine. And he wrote a book called The Game years ago. And he talked about building rapport, which is trust with comfort. So when you're selling something to a consumer, you've heard every marketer say, no like and trust, but those are really good words. You want people to which is trust with comfort. So when you're selling something to a consumer, you've heard every marketer say, know, like, and trust, but those are really good words. You want people to

know, like, and trust you. And if they have no relationship with you and you haven't bonded with them and they don't know anything about you, why should they trust you? And so the reason people trust quote unquote brands is because there's familiarity. You know, there's a lot of fast food companies, which people should never put any of that crap into their throats. And then you take the largest, you know, brand on the planet, which is like Coca-Cola, which is basically, you know, sugar water. And it's not healthy, but it's the biggest brand. Now, are people, they know what they're going to get, though. And so if you're a small business owner, you're not a big company.

You don't have billions of dollars in decades to develop a brand. So focus on how to develop rapport based on the benefits of what makes you so special and write a sales letter, like literally get people to, to know who you are. So to give an example, uh, so that people can have some real substance here that if they, if they get this, and I know I'm talking fast, but I know you have to hop to the end. So we're literally, we're jamming all this in. Um, one of the things that, that I did was I created, everyone was advertising price and I said, I want to advertise something other than price. And so I paid a copywriter $1,800. I mean, I didn't even have the money, but I knew that if my personal time could be replicated, if I could can and clone me, I could talk to a lot more people, and it would be a really good investment.

So I've never had any issue with telling people to invest in books and courses. That's how this works. And if you're unwilling to do that, and say you don't have any money, look, I mean, I've won the top marketing podcast on iTunes. You'll listen to it for free. Yeah. I mean, what I'm describing right now is what we're doing right now, which is education-based marketing. You're giving people really perspectives, strategies, mindsets, methodologies, processes, ways to think about it. When you do your podcast,

you're sharing your success, you're bringing other experts, or they may not be experts at all. And all an expert is is someone that knows a little bit more about one subject than you do. Anyone can call themselves an expert. So there's a lot of people that call themselves experts that are dumbasses, and there's a lot of people that don't call themselves experts that are brilliant. They just have enormous knowledge. So one of the first things I did was I created a consumer awareness guide, and it was how to sell carpet cleaning.

Think about it. Something as boring as this is. Consumer Guide to Carpet Cleaning. Read this guide and discover eight mistakes to avoid when choosing a carpet cleaning, think about it. Something as boring as this is. Consumer Guide to Carpet Cleaning. Read this guide and discover eight mistakes to avoid when choosing a carpet cleaner, seven questions to ask a carpet cleaner before inviting them into your home, six costly misconceptions about carpet cleaning, crawling critters and crud, a guide to the slime, grime, and livestock that's seeping, creeping, and galloping through your carpet, how to avoid four carpet cleaning ripoffs, which method cleans best,

the importance of value and price, and how to get your carpet cleaner to 100% guarantee their work. Now, what I just described there is a template. It's a recipe. So if you're a web designer, eight mistakes to avoid when choosing a web designer, six questions to ask, how to avoid getting ripped off by website design. You know, if you're a chiropractor, if you're a personal trainer, if you're a speaker, I mean, it's a template. So it is a formulaic method of describing things that people don't know that they don't know.

If all they thought is I have a dirty carpet, how do I hire a carpet cleaner? What's the lowest price? And when people call up and say how much you charge, the reason they ask that is they have no other way to make a buying decision. So if you don't have a method and a criteria for how to sell what you're selling, you're at the mercy of the consumer system for buying, which is always price. And so people always default to price. And if you want to know if someone's not doing a very good job of positioning and marketing themselves, it's when they're getting a lot of people asking them how much you charge. Now, eventually, we all want to know how much this shit costs.

Like if I'm going to buy one of your courses or if I'm going to hire you to be a speaker or whatever, I need to know what does it cost. But if my buddy Richard Branson actually sent me an email saying, I saw this guy speak and he's awesome, that's really… Price is more irrelevant. Totally. Price is more irrelevant. Exactly. So in many cases, you don't want people that are asking you a bunch of questions.

You want to answer all of the objections, all of the questions, all the fears, all the everything as much as you can in advance with your copy, with your video. See, so when I say sales letter, a sales letter could be a podcast. It could be a video on YouTube. It could be a video sales letter. It could be a webinar. It could be a live presentation. I mean, the only time I ever actually sell face to face is usually when I'm in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people. Right. You know, I mean, last year I did a presentation to 5,000 people and I made a sales presentation, but it was still, but like I could have said the same thing to one person, but it was infinitely more effective when there were 5,000 people, you know? So that's the way in the same

thing with a podcast. I mean, how many millions of people have downloaded your stuff, my stuff? I mean, and so we just educate people. And by doing that, you're creating value. Now, I know I'm rambling. No, it's good. We've got like three minutes left. So I want to ask you a couple of questions. If someone could invest in design or copy and no design, which one should they put their first efforts into? Oh, definitely the words, you know, because you'll see the term that a picture is worth a thousand words. A mental picture is worth 10,000 words. Writing the picture.

Yeah, you literally tell the story. And then if you're ever going to use animation, you're ever going to use photos, you're going to use logos, you're going to use design, you want that to enhance the copy. You want the copy to enhance it. It's all dances together. All of this is about simply about alignment. You want that to enhance the copy. You want the copy to enhance it. It's all dances together. All of this is simply about alignment. And so for people out there, just literally create, answer the questions that people don't know that they don't know.

And give them that information in advance. And because since you're the one that is providing that to them, who do you think they're going to trust? If someone is thinking, like, I want to buy this car, and you're a car dealer that literally tells them all of the things you need to know about the car and how to buy that car, how to not get ripped off by a salesperson, who do you think they're going to trust to go sell them the car? So this is so counterintuitive. It seems like, oh, I can't tell my prospects because all my competitors are going to see it. Like one of the things I created was a 24-hour free recorded message. Now everyone's so gung-ho about the Internet. I love direct mail, and everyone carries a phone. We have phones right here on Periscope.

This is being shown live. The thing with phones is I have a carpet cleaner who recently bought one of our marketing programs. One of the strategies is use a 24-hour free recorded message that says on the back of their van, warning, don't call any carpet cleaner until you listen to this free recorded message. Call anytime, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Learn how to avoid four carpet cleaning ripoffs, seven questions asked before you hire a carpet cleaner. People are driving and following this cleaner.

This person spent a few thousand dollars having beautiful design, color, like families, baby crawling on the carpet, carpet wand, you know, all over the van, like five years ago. Buys our marketing program. Simple thing. Put van lettering, warning, don't call any carpet cleaner, free recorded message. 10-minute recording on how to choose a carpet cleaner. Calls us up after two months. Well, sends us a letter. Two months after this saying, I've gotten more jobs and more calls in the last two months than I've gotten in five years because of the offer. Every person watching this, have a free recorded message.

Put it on your business card. Instead of handing out a business card that says name, rank, serial number, hand out a business card that says, yeah, if you want to learn about my clothing design business, if you want to learn about my chiropractic services, call this 24-hour free recorded message. And that free recorded message will educate people 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's robotic marketing. That's what I call elf marketing. Easy, lucrative, and fun. You can have an elf business, or you can have a half business, which is hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. So I try to strive to make my marketing elf, my relationships elf, and even the people I hang out with. My whole

life is like, is this elf? Nothing is elf immediately. You have to learn stuff. You have to go through the works. You have to learn, but life should not be a struggle. You have to learn stuff. You have to go through the works. You know, you have to learn. But life should not be a struggle. You get to a point where, like, you learn a skill, you apply it, and you automate it. And so, I mean, you're using technology to do that. That's why, I mean, you know, look at your book, you know, bestseller. Look at, you know, how many people listen to you. I mean, you're doing robotic things. So think about how to automate your communications, your business, and utilize technology, but understand that technology

is critical, but psychology is the most important. Right. I love this. Okay. We got to wrap it up. Two final things. Can we use your template? Can we give them your template for the resource guide? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I got online somewhere. Can we link it somewhere? I can give you a couple of things that people can utilize to actually think through. Here's what I'll do. Actually, we have a thing called a consumer guide generator. And literally, it comes in my Nightingale Conant program, which sells on Audible. And people, you usually have to pay for this. I will give it to you so you can share it with people. And all I ask is don't sell it, just use it in your own business and then share with like Lewis,

you know, and, and, and I think it'll be incredibly useful. We'll have that linked up. I'll tell you guys where to go in a second. The best book, if someone's like, okay, I understand the importance of using words and telling stories and copywriting. If you can only have one book to go buy and read to learn how to become a better copywriter, I recommend, I know there's hundreds, but for the beginner, the intermediate or the advanced, what would that book be? You know, my buddy Dan Kennedy wrote a book years ago, which is one of his older books called The Ultimate Sales Letter. And it's just a great

book. And it's written probably 25 years ago. He's got a lot more current stuff. Listen to my interview with him on my podcast at I Love Marketing. Marketing is good. But that's just a great book. It's relevant today? Absolutely relevant today. It's timeless. Totally timeless. It'll get you. And then I have to give one other recommendation.

My buddy is not on copyright, but just a great book. I've read over 1,000 books. We're sitting in this. There's 2,200 books in this room. But my buddy, Steven Pressfield, wrote a book called The War of Art. And it's just a great book. I just love that book. Okay, cool. Final two questions.

Three questions, sorry. What are you most grateful for recently in your life? Oh, my girlfriend. I met the other night. She's amazing. She's wonderful. She supports me. My life has been kind of up and down.

In spite of what many people consider success, I've had a lot of struggles because I was a horrible drug addict when I was between 16 and 18 years old and struggled with addiction my entire life. So I'm grateful for so many of the people that have been supportive in that arena, and she's wonderful, and my team. I've got a great team here at my company. Nice. Okay. It's your last day, many years down the line.

Everything you've ever created has been erased. And all your friends and family are there sitting by you, loving you. It's all good. You're pain-free, but you're about to go to sleep, and it's your last night. And they ask you, we have nothing to remember you by, except for our memories, but all your work is deleted. Here's a piece of paper and a pen. Can you write down three truths that you know to be true about your entire life experience,

something you'd pass on as a guide for us to live by? Three truths. Okay, well, I would say life gives to the giver and takes from the taker, so always be a giver. Really focus on encouraging others and encouraging yourself and reduce human suffering just as much as you can. People go through the world with a lot of pain and a lot of agony, and you can alleviate a lot of that by being a contributing individual. And I think a lot of people give a bullshit thing about how nice they are and how kind they are. Look, I mean, I have a lot of my own self-interest. I want to make money. I want to build a business. However, the thing that truly, you know, when you, you can make all the money in the world, but if you don't have people that respect you and appreciate you and that, you know, you can make their life easier. So put a smile on

people's face and so reduce suffering. So I always focus less on how do I sell something to somebody or where's, where's the pain points in their life that whatever it is that I'm selling or whatever it is I'm doing is going to reduce suffering. Because if I can take that pain away, the people that will make the most money and make the most progress in the future with this complex, overwhelming world that we live in, when I say overwhelming, I mean information. So many choices, you know, so much opportunity poisoning are the ones that bring simplicity to the complexity that exists in people's lives. So it's not just reduced physical suffering. It's about reducing mental suffering. And that's why I'm putting a documentary together on addiction. I mean,

I really want to just help addicts. And the way you do that is these are traumatized people in pain. And how do you, you know, how do you Right, right. Yeah, that was probably a longer answer. That's good. I like it. Final question before I do ask it, where should we send people to check it out? ilovemarketing.com, the podcast, right? Well, everything is listed at joepolish.com. My name is Joe Polish.

If you just do that, you can find Genius Network and my podcast and all that stuff. Perfect. I appreciate it. You can find Genius Network and my podcast and all that stuff. I appreciate it. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Joe, for how you lift everyone up around you. You're such an incredible connector. And every time I talk to people who are in Genius Network, which I know I'm going to be joining soon,

they always say that he's so giving. You say, like gives to the giver, takes from the taker, that you're always so giving. You say, like gives to the giver, takes from the taker, that you're always so giving. So I want to acknowledge you for your service, for your ability to give freely without being afraid of not getting the credit, without being afraid of not getting the opportunity yourself if you're giving it to someone else. And I think it's incredible that you bring so many people together in an inspiring

positive way to help lift everyone else up around you. You make stars around you. So I want to acknowledge you for that. Thank you. Yes. I mean, I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. And it makes me happy to do that. Yes.

Final question. What's your definition of greatness? Definition of greatness is when you have true respect and admiration, not ego, but true love of yourself. Greatness is like, can you truly love yourself? Do you, do you love the vessel that you're in? Have you taken care of it? You know, what, one of my favorite sayings, my buddy Christian of the CEO of HeroX said is it's a proverb, you know, he who has their health has a thousand dreams. He who does not have their health has

only one. And so if you really respect yourself, my ambitions, my ability to build a business, my ability to talk to you right now has to do with the fact that I'm not laid up in a hospital bed. I can still function. And you cannot take that for granted. Well, I guess you could take it for granted, but if you do, you're going to live a miserable life. If you don't take that for granted, if you really respect life, you know, life is the only thing worth living for. So if you're going to have a life, you know, everything you can do, even if you're in pain, even if you're in depression, even if you're in struggle, I mean, life can be incredibly difficult. And so the thing is, is those are all signs where something is trying to tell you pay attention.

You know, your life really, as much as you can create joy in yourself, love yourself, that's how you're going to be more helpful to other people. That's how you're going to have a lot of friends that you're going to, you know, have an opportunity to make money. In some cases you won't make money. I mean, some people are not here to make money. They're here to have great families and they're here to, you know, people that work in hospice centers. And I mean, there's so many things that humans do that they're amazing. But at the end of the day, you know, if you want to be a million-dollar racehorse, you don't run it into the ground. You don't feed it crappy food. You don't never let it rest. You literally take care of it. If it's going to win million-dollar races,

you feed it well. You nourish it well. You don't let it hang out with toxic people. You don't have it hang out in toxic environments. You take care of that million-dollar racehorse because if you do, it will perform very well. So greatness is the way, you know, greatness is literally taking care of yourself and in the process, then you're able to take care of others because you can't fix the world with broken hands. Thanks for coming on, man. Awesome. Appreciate it.

Great talking with you. And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure to head back to the show notes, lewishouse.com slash 294, and share this with your friends. You'll also see the full video interview there and all the other notes that we talk about from this episode. So make sure to head back to lewishouse.com slash 294 for that. I appreciate you guys.

I hope you enjoyed this, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great Thank you.