The School of Greatness - 67 John Jantsch: The Greatness Sales Strategy

Episode Date: May 14, 2014

John Jantsch knows sales. Not high pressure, slimy sales. We're talking about permission selling. We're talking about creating an experience for the buyer with such great results that they tell everyone how great your stuff is. The key to this selling strategy is to create massive value. It's the best way to do it. Thank you for downloading and we hope you enjoy the show. For resources and show notes, head over to www.lewishowes.com/67

This is episode number 67 with John Jantz. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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. Hey, hey, what is up, greats?

It's a big week to week because I've got a big handball tournament coming up in Toronto. It's the Canadian National Championships and I'm going with my New York City club team up there. So getting ready, training hard for that and very excited about what's to come for our team. So wish us luck as we go up to Toronto to compete for the handball championships up there. Big episode this week. It's all about sales. Now, a lot of you may think, I don't like to sell, or selling is sound sleazy, or selling is for car salesmen, or whatever it may be. But in fact, in reality, everyone is in sales. And if you want to be successful, then you need to understand how to sell effectively.

to be successful, then you need to understand how to sell effectively. And there's ways to sell without being aggressive or out having to reach out to people or cold call or go knock door to door or do anything like that that you don't like. There are ways to actually attract people to you so that you don't have to sell, that they're already sold before they even come to you. Now, what would it be like if you had any type of product, service, or business, and you didn't have to ever pick up the phone once to make a call or ever incentivize someone to buy something or ever discount your products or ever have to hard sell anyone? Imagine what would life be like if all you had to do was be there to answer people's questions and they were already bought and they were already sold on what you were offering. That's what we talk about in today's episode with John.

If you guys don't know who John Jantz is, he's the author of Duct Tape Marketing and the Referral Engine. And he's got a new book out called Duct Tape Selling. Think like a marketer, sell like a superstar. And it's pretty cool. It covers a lot of the different ways that you can really attract potential customers to you as opposed to you having to go out there and hard sell anyone anything. And it talks a lot about the product and the process of sales as well. So I think you're really going to like this episode. John's a straight shooter, a great guy. He's been doing this for a long time, has a lot of experience, has been on the speaking circuit for a long time.

He's very trusted by big companies, small companies, entrepreneurs, everyone. So this one is a good one. And it's all about understanding the sales process. And again, it's not what you think. So make sure to get out your pen and paper, get ready to take some notes. This is going to be a good one for anyone. If you're a creative entrepreneur, if you're a small business owner, if you're in marketing, if you're in sales, whatever you're in, this is valuable. Even if you don't have a business yet, it's important to understand how to attract customers without you having to sell. So I think you're going to like this no matter what position you're in.

Now let's go ahead and dive into this episode with Jon Jantz. thanks again everyone for coming back on the school of greatness i've got my friend john jance on the call today what's up john hey how you doing lois doing great and we uh when did we first connect was it like three or four years ago at a blog world or something yeah one of those conference type of things but obviously i was i was familiar with your work prior to that, but it is nice to actually put a face with the digital footprint. Yeah, yeah. John's been crushing it for years, much longer than I even started knowing about online marketing.

He was doing it like 10 years before that. So he's really the guy that a lot of people go to when they want to learn about online marketing, I would say. You've kind of got it all down from a traditional business sense, offline marketing. You've brought it online. You're taking the online offline. You're really good at doing all that. Yeah, and that's kind of where I started. I mean, I'm actually, you were kind and just said, I've been doing this a long time. I'm really old is what it parted. But, you know, I started my business before we were even doing any of this online stuff.

And so I kind of feel like I have, I don't know if it's a place or it's just my cause is sort of to, you know, make all of this stuff real and not hypey and realize that there are, you know, the accountant out there that's, you know, working in his community needs this stuff the same as that person that's creating apps and wants to make a fortune online. Right, right. And you've got this new book out. It's called Duct Tape Selling, Think Like a Marketer, Sell Like a Superstar. And a lot of people get confused with marketing and selling. And I guess i wanted to ask you quickly what's the difference between marketing and sales yeah well i'm not i'm not really helping that confusion because basically what i'm saying is they're they're they're almost the same thing or at least they need to be so fully integrated that there's no longer this well marketing owns the message and the sales people own the relationship but i think the way that people

buy now has changed so thoroughly that those two really have to be almost one in the same. They certainly have different functions, particularly in a larger organization where there is a sales department, there is a sales team. But what I'm trying to promote in this book is that it's all about the buyer's journey. And we have to, both in sales and marketing, kind of act as a guide in that journey. And we've got to be on the same page. We've got to be together to do that. And really, I started out writing this book because the traditional salesperson, I mean,

in a lot of ways, we don't need him anymore, right? I mean, we got access to all this perfect information. And so we don't need somebody to show up and tell us what this year's features are on the product. We need somebody who can really add value very early on in the process, stand out as an authority, as an expert that we can actually find and go to and say, okay, how can you help me think bigger about this problem as opposed to how can you probe for solutions to the problems that I already know I have? And you probe for solutions to the problems that I already know I have. So when you think of the ultimate salesperson or saleswoman or man, what does that person look like today? What do they do to guide you through this selling process?

Yeah, I think the first part of that equation is it's probably a different person than we traditionally think of as the outgoing. Like the car salesman or whatever. Right, right, right, right. You know, the people person kind of person. Because actually, I think some of the most effective salespeople today are engineers and technical people and service people that are really good at educating, perhaps, and really good at thinking analytically about problems or, you know, are very good at research. And they're actually helping me understand problems that I haven't encountered yet.

So I think that, I think companies, and I talk about this in the book, I do think companies need to rethink a little bit the profile or, you know, who they hire. But after that, I really think that it's that person that really can offer, can dig in and produce content, you know, build a reputation. Think about building a reputation for expertise. So they're getting up to a podium and speaking. They're writing blog content. They're aggregating and curating all the best of the best that's out there on the web or

in an industry. And they're digesting it for a prospect or for a customer and really spitting it out in a much more concise or insightful way. They're using all of these social tools and social networks to really connect, not to necessarily mine and prospect, but to really go deeper in companies and start finding ways to not only connect with people at a company, but maybe connect their connections together. And really, that, again, I think if I could boil the whole book down, I talk about all

these practices, it's really the person that's the most useful, delivers the most value that wins today. I mean, that's really how you could boil it all down. Yeah, I really feel like whoever can solve your problem in the easiest way and make it seem so simple for you and take the pain away from you, whether it be the information you need, the time, the energy, the solutions, whatever it may be, whoever can solve the problems the easiest, the fastest, I feel like is going to generate a sale on whatever it is they're selling or they're offering. Yeah. I think there's no question that that is true. Although I think that, that the real superstars are actually going out and making people's problems visible and quantifiable that, that in some cases they didn't even know they had, right. Here's your problem that you don't know. They weren't even looking for, you know, necessarily, or, or actually saying, look, you called me up because you said you want to be at two times.

What if you thought about 10 times? What would that look like? And I think that that's sort of guiding and consulting and pushing in some cases and really even saying – there's another great book that I cite a couple times in my book, The Challenger Sale. There's another great book that I cite a couple of times in my book, The Challenger Sale. I mean, that kind of person that's out there saying, hey, I know you said you needed X. And again, it's not just being contrary. It's actually saying, have you considered this? Did you think about thinking bigger there? And I think that a couple of things.

I think we provide more value to the people that we are in business with when we do that. But I also think it clearly differentiates you. I mean, if you're actually defining the problem, there's a lot of, you have a much better chance, I think, of being the solution for the problem. Right, right. Now, why has the world of selling changed? And I know you talk about this, I think, on page 233, but why is it changed? Yeah, I think I talk about it in multiple places, actually. I think the bottom line is because the world of buying has changed. Why has that changed? Well, I mean, because some of the things I talked about, I mean, the fact that

not only do we not need a salesperson to show up and tell us the features and benefits, I mean, we don't really want that anymore. I mean, we, I think most buyers want to go online. They want to interact with the content that's out there. They want to see what their friends like or, or, you know, get referrals from people that, that they trust. And I think we want to gather our own information that way. It doesn't mean we won't then need somebody to help us implement a solution. But I think what the waiting around, I mean, there's a statistic that I cite from some research from the CEB board that says 57, they surveyed 2,000 B2B buyers and they said 57% of them actually make a purchase decision, significantly move down the path of making a

purchase decision before they ever contact a company. So today, if you're going to be a salesperson, you're going to wait around for marketing to say, hey, we scored this lead. It's ready. It's a hot prospect now. There's a really good chance all they want you to do now is show up and tell them how you can give them a lower price. So if you're not out there, if you're not being found as a salesperson, or if I'm not seeing you speak at a conference, or if I'm not reading your blog post, or if you're not providing value to me before I ever start talking about buying something, it might be too late. And that's why you create so much content, I'm assuming, online, right? Yeah.

I mean, it's the tough part, obviously. And one of the things I address in the book is that a lot of the things I talk about, some companies don't want their salespeople doing, or they're not measuring them on things like social networking and producing content. But I think that if you're going to get ahead today, you need to build, you know, even if your company's not supporting you, and obviously the perfect world is your company is in lockstep sales and marketing or, you know, are working together in all of these, you know, inbound marketing and inbound selling tactics. But if not, the individual salesperson,

I think, needs to think in terms of building what I'm talking about as an asset, their own platform that in many cases can really move with them if indeed they either have an organization that won't embrace that or that's making it difficult for them to make a living. They can take that asset to maybe an organization that will appreciate it. I think it's really not much different than somebody going to night school to get an MBA, right? I mean, they're putting in the extra time around their family because they're trying to advance their career. And I think you can look at some of the things I talk about, like blogging and listening and creating customized content as really a way to advance your career. My question is, how do you, where do you get your ongoing inspiration to create this content that you do create? And how does someone get, you know, stay inspired or find new things

to talk about when maybe they've already written about it or created content about it? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And it's one that I hear all the time. And the good news is, and I actually have a whole section of tools and ways that I get that inspiration, but for a lot of salespeople, quite frankly, what are the questions that your customers or prospects are asking you on a daily basis? That's job number one, is if you're going to start writing content, why not write content that really parallels the questions that you get asked frequently? Because there's a really good chance that other people are interested in the answers to those questions as well. So to me, that's the most kind of on-target content that you can create.

After that, I think that, again, listening is the first step. Subscribe to 100 blogs in your industry, in your clients' industries, in industries related to what you do. Maybe in industries that aren't related. I mean, one of the ways that you can provide value is helping your clients in things that maybe aren't related specifically to your line of work. A great example is there are a whole lot of businesses out there still struggling with social media and what to do in their marketing. And I think that a lot of individuals can make themselves more useful that even if their job is to sell XYZ software solution, if they can actually become an expert in some other areas that they know their clients struggle with, I think they can add a tremendous amount of value by coaching in some

of those other areas as well. And I really think that while that's kind of counter to the close deals, make calls mentality, I think that's how you build long-lasting value or at least a reputation for delivering value. Right. In Chapter 7, you have the title is Teaching Sells. And you say that teaching sells today. You must attract leads, community, and opportunities by publishing educational content. And this is something that I learned learned kind of stumbled upon early on, which is what I realized teaching really does sell. And I never thought of myself as a teacher. You know,

after I was done playing football, I never thought, Oh, I'm going to be a teacher, but really that's what we are. And anyone who's doing online marketing, we're we're teaching, we're educating, we're creating content and showing, showing how to do something or how to solve something. Yeah. And think of the people that were attracted to that, right? Whereas if you just said, hey, I want you to come sit in front of me for 45 minutes while I sell you something. Right. Exactly. Not a whole lot of people are attracted to that, but I want you to come and I want to share this

incredible information that I figured out on how to solve this very specific problem that you have. And then you pour your heart out and you give that information and they walk away saying, God, that Lowe's guy knows what he's talking about. And I think that that's, for some, I mean, you and I have been doing this for a long time. And I think for us, it's like, well, duh, of course. But I think this concept is still fairly new, particularly for people who have been told, go make dials, go make calls, knock on doors, cold call.

I mean, it's almost foreign to think, hey, go show up and give the cookies away, and you will build so much goodwill that people are going to start asking you to come in and solve their problems when they have them. And for some people, that's a leap of faith. Yeah, Yeah. I do have a, I want everyone in when they get the book on page 104, why have an advanced copy? So maybe a different page, but page 104, I want everyone to mark in an additional resource and it says your personal listening list and my podcast isn't in there. So I want everyone to go in there and add the school of greatness you know yeah i i think i don't i don't think i launched it before you

wrote this book well that's that's what the world that's exactly where i was going you know people don't people don't realize this book process is like i know i know and i just i started this a year ago so i completely get out just teasing you um let me see what else we got here what um what is the marketing hourglass what does that mean i saw that on page 65 and i wasn't sure what that meant yeah that's something that i've actually been evangelizing or i'm not sure if that's the right word but it's something i created probably about 10 years ago. And what it is, it's really this idea that, you know, it borrows kind of from the marketing funnel. But the difference here is that I believe that people, you know, no longer kind of travel this linear path of, okay, come into my,

you know, marketing funnel and I'll drop a bunch of content on you and then we'll throw you over to sales and then you'll buy from us and then we'll throw you a service and you'll be a loyal customer. The idea behind the marketing hourglass is that I believe that there are really seven behaviors that people actually want to exhibit in the companies that they buy from. And those seven behaviors are know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer. And so the idea behind the hourglass is that we need to build, I keep using this term customer journey, but that we need to build content and processes and campaigns and touch points to really logically move people down that set of behavior, that path of behavior. And that organizations that really do

that, that look at, okay, once somebody comes to know us, what are we going to intentionally do to make sure that they want to know more, that they like what they're seeing? Or what are we doing to intentionally build trust? What are we doing to get them to try our products and services? Obviously, once they buy, what are we doing to keep that experience as high as everything that led to that point? What are we doing to make sure they get the results that we promised? What are we doing to make sure that they're so thrilled that they want to refer us? And companies that think in terms of that journey, and frankly, you can build this kind of thing into a CRM system, but at the very least, it needs to be something that you really look at the touch points and say, okay, we need to build these intentionally. So many organizations, you know,

they're trying to make the phone ring. They're trying to get that lead. They're trying to get somebody to a landing page. And then once they buy, we sort of forget about them, you know? Sure. And a lot of what I actually talk about, and I think salespeople need to be involved in this process as well, is that what if we started with the assumption of rather than how do we make the phone ring, what if we started with the question, how do I make sure that 100% of the people that buy from us also want to refer us? And if you started from that point of view and worked backwards, the whole phone ring thing would be pretty simple. that point of view and worked backwards, you know, the whole phone ring thing would be pretty simple. It's so interesting because, you know, when I was starting out, I didn't, I was just learning and trying, you know, I was trying to get sales. I was trying to just get an income generating sales. And then I was like, okay, how do I get new sales? And all I was looking for were new buyers,

but I wasn't really cultivating the current buyers to, you know, ask for referrals, create other products and service for them, figure out what they what else they needed. And it took me about a year and a half until I started doing that. And I realized I probably missed out on a big opportunity. But how does someone, you know, what do they do to go about figuring that out? You know, they're looking at you're starting out trying to just get sales for one product you have, what do you do with those buyers next? Well, yeah, I mean, again, I talk about working in reverse. So that idea of, you know, what would it take for everybody to, you know, be so happy they would refer us? One of the things that I think that that, so let's say you create that one product. I like that idea,

though. You know, if you start with that, you know, wouldn't you start saying, well, if they're going to refer us, we should give them this and we should make sure that we have this touch. And we should make sure that 90 days after they buy, they're doing this and they're getting this. And I think that if you design your products and launches that way, I think we would add a lot more value. And consequently, that's how you actually then turn around and generate more word of mouth than referrals. So you should actually think about this before you create the products is what you're saying. I think so.

I mean, some of my most successful products are ones where instead of saying, what's the copy? What's the sales copy for this going to be? We actually started with, what do they get after they've been a customer for 90 days? Interesting. I like that. After 60 days. After 30 days. So what do you think? I mean, okay. So I've got a customer for 90 days. Interesting. I like that. After 60 days. After 30 days.

So what do you – I mean, okay, so I've got a product I'm launching in the next couple weeks, an online course about how to generate six and seven figures with webinars. And it's something I've been doing for a long time and been really successful at myself and teaching other people how to do. So what would you – just give me some – if you were me and I haven't created the whole course yet, so I've still got time to, you know, do this, what would you implement in terms of like a 30 or 60 day plan, maybe just one or two little things that you would throw in, in order to have the product almost sell itself because people want to refer it so much? Well, the big thing, as you know, maybe from the courses you've purchased and certainly from other things you've sold, I mean, they're not going to refer, no matter how good the course is, they're not going to refer you if they're not actually taking action

on your advice and getting results and all those. So I think you need to build in what are some ways that I can build some accountability into this, maybe some gamification, you know, some, something where they earn extra rewards by, you know, actually participating. Um, I think that's probably the, the, the biggest, uh, missing ingredient from a lot of, uh, online courses I see. I mean, they could have tons and tons of great information, but if, if they can't get people to consume and use and take action on the information, then the person's not going to get a result. And so then it's like, well, that stuff of Lewis's is no good, right? Because I didn't do anything.

I didn't do anything. Sure. So ensuring they take action. Yeah. So putting some accountability loops in and make some games out of them taking quizzes or submitting their homework or something of that nature. you know submitting their homework or you know something of that nature having you know having whether it's weekly or you know some sort of q a session where they can like drop in and say i just didn't get this part lewis you know how do i fix this or how do i do this and i mean and and that's the part that i think starting with this you know how how do we get them a result and

working backwards i i think it ends up making you build more value into the product, which obviously costs you time and energy and whatnot. But I think in the end, they're going to get a better result. And that's what's going to lead to people saying, hey, this is the most awesome stuff in the world. Gotcha. I like that idea a lot. And I think that's something we can all do when we're creating or launching our products and services is to think about, you know, what they're going to get in the next 30, 60, 90 days to ensure they love it so much. They're getting the most out of it that they're going to like rave about it until three or five of their closest friends who would want to buy it as well. And I would, I'll tell you another strategy on the

front end of that too, is that, you know, I think a lot of, one of the mistakes, a lot of particularly product or course type of people make is they go out and they design the course end of that. Two is that, you know, I think a lot of, one of the mistakes, a lot of particularly product or course type of people make is they go out and they design the course and they write it up and they say, oh, this is great. This is great. This is great. I'll put this module here, this tool here. And then they launch the course and people are like, well, I don't really get it or, you know, I don't really, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here, or I don't really want, you know, that module. That doesn't mean anything to me. And so another great strategy, I think, is on the front end, go out to your kind of A

customers or anybody that you think is your target market and start saying, hey, I'm kind of thinking about designing a course that looks like X. Would that be a value? Would you want that? And so then the people that say, well, yeah, that would be a value. Then it's like, okay, here's the outline for the course. Would that be a value? Would you want that? And so then the people that say, well, yeah, that would be a value. Then it's like, okay, here's the outline for the course. Would that be a value? Okay, here's the beta for the course.

You want to take a look at it. And I will tell you that I know in my own personal development have really gotten such incredible insight and feedback and what the heck, they catch the typos, stuff like that. But I think the real thing is you really kind of find out the rhythm on how to build this, how somebody is going to use it. Now, it's not scientific research. You're not necessarily going out to thousands of people, but you really can find, you can figure out what works, you can figure out the size of the content, you can figure out what people will do in a way before, and it's not just a way to save yourself time and money. I mean, it's a way to make sure that when you do launch it to the bigger world, it's been something that's really been developed with

your community instead of for them. I think that's brilliant. And that's definitely something that everyone should take into consideration when they're doing any type of product or launch. The only thing I would advise you is don't, I've seen people do this, don't make the mistake of saying, would you pay $49 for this? $79 or $149 because they have absolutely no idea. And they'll say they'll spend $1,000, but then when you ask them to buy it, they won't spend that much. The only thing that matters when it comes to price is exactly the case you've built at the moment. They're reading. Exactly. Yeah.

That's interesting. What is your thoughts on pricing then? Get as much as you can. Um, what's your, what's your strategy for like pricing psychology, how to price something, how to know what something's worth. Do you test it out first at a certain price you think the market could handle or do you? Well, you know, I was gonna say, I'm not sure I'm the world's greatest expert at that. What I really my philosophy is build so much value that you can charge a premium. Yeah. And that's really something that you have to kind of do on your own. And I will say that most people underprice what they're doing, but that's due in part because they're not willing to put the work in to either build the value or the reputation,

you know, on the front end. Sure. So I think that's a, that's a big piece. I tell you, there's a great book, irrationally predictable.

Have you read that? But Diana, Diana rarely, I pretty much all my books on those topics, Derek Halpern reads, and he just gives me the cliff notes so i i just asked he's read every he's read dan's book i'm certain yeah yeah but uh that is really a great interesting book about um about pricing and just about you know irrational behavior that people you know kind of do that you'd think really they chose b um in that option but think, really? They chose B in that option,

but it's really fascinating, fascinating book. Because people buy more on emotions than they do on anything else, right? Yeah, there's no question about that, but some of them are just irrational. I mean, you know, that's what's so fun about reading that book is that, you know, he sets up all these tests and he says, well, you know, would you do A, B, or C? And most people are like, oh, C, no question. You know, but then he's got the research that really backs up why people end up choosing, you know, option B. And it just has-

Something like outrageous price or something or- Well, or just weird little things like, you know, one of the examples I remember off the top of my head is, of course, you know, Amazon just kind of rocked the whole world with free shipping. Yeah. Right? And so they're charging $5 more than everybody else, but you get free shipping. And so logically, you'd think it's the same price, or maybe you're even paying more for Amazon. But that free shipping thing just trips everybody's trigger.

It's the emotional, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so all of a sudden, it's like I'm no longer comparing because they've got free shipping. They literally forced the online world into free shipping. It's crazy. Nobody had a choice anymore. It's crazy, yeah. Interesting.

I love this stuff. Okay. What about building an email list? This is, in my opinion, and I'm sure you're going to say one of the most important things that any entrepreneur or small business owner can do is build your list. And it doesn't matter how great your content is if you're not really building that potential customer list. What did you say? Yeah. And that's one that I've been on a long time, online a long time.

And that's one that's really kind of evolved and changed. And it's been in and it's been out. But I started building an email list because in, say, early 2000, there was no social media. We didn't have followers and fans and things. And it was pretty interesting that there's no question that that is, and all kinds of research to back up that from a conversion standpoint, still, even know, even with open rates, you know, down, you know, I used to get 80% open rates. Can you imagine that back in the day? I mean, even with, with open rates, you know, down to, you know, next to nothing, still the highest converting form of any kind of marketing or advertising that's out there. But, but, you know, what, what really makes it pay is when you do, and you mentioned Derek Halpert. Great example of somebody that not only obsesses about getting email subscribers, really delivers a ton of value.

People open – I would suspect that he has one of the higher open rates out there because he's just so over the top with delivering value. And really his community really relates to him. I mean he puts his personality into everything for good or bad. No, I'm just kidding. Right. Um, and, and so, you know, it's not just, it's not just put forms all over your stuff. So the people will subscribe, obviously you have to have good content. That's what will attract people. But I think it's also the, the, the way when, when you realize how valuable it is, you put the effort into keeping that list. I see a lot of people that, I won't name any names, but I work with really large organizations all the time and they'll do, yes, we have a mailing list of 350,000

subscribers and like two of them will respond to a deal that they put out. And it's because they've just so abused their list. It's a big company. They do lots of promotions. So they get lots of subscribers to download their free white paper or something. But then they just so abuse them that they basically either unsubscribe or they just completely ignore everything they send out. Yeah. Interesting. Okay.

But you say the list. Yeah. So. Okay. But you'd say the lit, but yeah, so, so go back to, you know, I guess I should actually answer the question, but, uh, but, but no question, um, my most valuable asset. Um, but one of the things that's really changed is now we have all these other, other avenues and vehicles like Twitter and, and Facebook. And, um, the thing is though, I still contend that what you want to do with any of those mediums is get somebody into your community in a way that they can hear from you frequently, they can spread the word, they can share. And so participating in all those social networks is very valuable. But I think you also need to think in terms of integrating that

participation into other elements, including email. I, four or five years ago at Social Media Marketing World, I guess it wasn't four or five years ago, it was two years ago, it was the first one. At Social Media Marketing World, I stood up in front of a whole bunch, a room full of social media, you know, folks that were all, you know, jazzed up on Twitter and Facebook and said the prime or the best reason to participate in social media is to capture an email address. And you just thought I had committed heresy. But the point I was trying to make is that that sort of bringing people into the community in a way that they not only want to subscribe, but they want to hear from you in their email inbox.

I don't care how many apps and, and, you know, mobile devices and, you know, everything else that we end up creating today, you know, email is still king. It is. Yeah. And what are, what are just a couple, you know, keys or strategies you have for building an email list besides, you know, you talk a lot about it in here and the content and creating the content, but what are just some tips for you? Well, I, you know, this, I'll start off with a controversial one, um, that, uh, obviously when somebody, if you're driving traffic, if people are finding, it's people finding your content, they're coming to your website,

you know, you want to make sure that, that that person who is reading something they think is valuable is also called to subscribe to your email list. And so, you know, the kind of standard stuff like a form on every page, you know, that's, you know, in a sidebar or something, I think that's pretty obvious. But I still believe that, you know, the pop-ups do, and again, I should define that. I mean, the old world pop-ups were pretty obnoxious. But some of the more stylish, clean pop-ups, they're actually pop-overs that kind of take over the screen. They can be smart, too. I mean, if you've come to my site in the last 30 days, I won't show you the pop-up. I won't show it to you because you click around on every page i mean you know there's there's ways to make these you know more intuitive you can have

them um you know somebody's got to scroll down farther in a page and read maybe half the content before they get it so it's not just in their face right away but there's just you know as as much as some of your listeners will write to you lew, because of this and say, I will never, again, talk to anyone who has a pop-up on their page because people are passionate about those. I've tested them and seen two and three and 400% increase in subscribers. Now, the content's got to still be good. People have to want to receive your content or it doesn't matter how many subscribers you have. But that's certainly one of those that I think people should take the time to test before they count them out. The other kind of simple things, I mean, I use on my site a really simple plugin called WP Subscribers that allows me to put a box at the end of my content.

So somebody's read through a blog post. And I've got one of these sites that's been around a long time. I've got 3,000 blog posts. So I mean, I have people coming in from content from 2004 and 2005. And that's the only page they came to, right? And so I want to make sure that at the bottom of that, they thought that was great. I give them the opportunity to say, hey, you never want to miss this great content again. So I think you want to explore all of those kind of ways to be capturing leads. But I think you also want email addresses. But obviously, the bar has been raised to a degree. People don't want to give their – people don't want any more emails, so they think long and hard about who they give an email address up to.

And so even though it's free, it better be worth it. Right. Now, I mean, 3,000 blog posts, that seems like so much. Do you outsource any of this or do you write it all yourself? You know, I have started running – we run one blog post one guest blog post a week been doing that for about a year but uh um i actually started uh blogging in august of 2003. wow so going on close to 11 years was i born then yet yeah that's that's that is that's a really good question that's amazing yeah that was like before blogging was even new.

Well, it was really when it was created. We didn't call it blogging. Actually, it was a web blog that I created. And truthfully, I had a product I wanted to sell online. It just seemed like a really easy way to write content. I had already concluded that writing good content was how I was going to get SEO traffic. That part probably even in the early days was true as it is today. And so it wasn't like I had this crystal ball and said, this blogging thing is going to be huge.

I just saw it as a tool that would make it easy for me to create content. Right, right. That's interesting. So you are doing some of the content outsourcing then now with blogging. Yeah, and I really recommend that people do that. I don't have the bandwidth to do a lot of guest blogging myself. It's out to other people's sites. But I really recommend it for a lot of businesses

as kind of a networking tool. So don't just think of it as, oh, I need four blog posts. Let me get some poor schlep to write some for me. Think in terms, I really get a lot of traffic and a lot of links from when people do write a guest post for us. They link back to it. They talk about it. They share it in their social networks.

And so I think it's great for a lot of people. It certainly does help with the content production, but I think it's also, it's really how you get the best links, I think it's great for a lot of people. It certainly does help with the content production, but I think it's also – it's really how you get the best links, I think, today is by people pointing out your blog content. And one of the ways you really incentivize that, if you will, is to have people that are in your industry that make sense, that want to write for publications to contribute content. Right. Now, a couple questions left. What are some habits that marketing and sales leaders embrace that you'd say? And how do you encourage your team or how do you encourage anyone to develop those habits?

Well, I think you're talking about the third section of the book. How do you encourage anyone to develop those habits? Well, I think you're talking about the third section of the book. I actually spend the entire section on the sales, what I call sales coach or the sales manager or the VP of sales. Or quite frankly, it can be the owner of a business that has a salesperson or two. And really a couple of things that I talk about is that in a lot of organizations, it is habits that need to change, but it's actually an entire culture that needs kind of a shift. And so a lot of what I talk about is who they need to hire probably needs to change, but also how they coach. And a lot of organizations have salespeople that they went to them tomorrow and said,

you need to start blogging. First off, they might not even know what it is, or they certainly would think, I'm not a writer. I have no business doing that. So I think that a lot of this, you don't flip a switch and have inbound sales professionals. I think a lot of the habits that need to happen is you need to start cultivating sales, you know, leader in an organization needs to be the one to bridge the gap really back to marketing in a lot of organizations to say, hey, we know more about the us than you do. And really start building kind of cross-functional autonomous teams where sales and marketing and service could actually work on building revenue

as opposed to working in specific departments. So I spend a lot of time talking about really those kind of changes in the entire culture of an organization. Sure. And before I ask you the final question, I just want to let everyone know to make sure to check out the book,

Duct Tape Selling, Think Like a Marketer, Sell Like a Superstar. You can check it out over at ductapemarketing.com. I think it's also ductapeselling.com as well, right? Yeah, and one of the things I'll tell people, whether you get the book or not, I talk about a couple hundred resources in the book and people and tools and things. And so you can check out at Duct Tape Selling, I have a resource page. It goes kind

of chapter by chapter. So if you have the book, I don't know if you've ever been one of those people, you're reading a book and they list all these cool tools and you think, oh, I need to check that out or I need to check that out. Yeah. So now you can just read along and just go, okay, I can jump over to pay, you know, chapter 17, the tools and start checking those out. Again, even if you don't buy the book, it's probably a good page to visit. And I can assure you that Lewis Howe's podcast will be on that. There you go.

I appreciate it. So the final question that I ask everyone, which is what is your definition of greatness? Well, gosh, you know, have you had anybody just say, I have no idea? Probably. Probably. You know, to me, it's probably significantly different, but then you'll turn around and say, no, every entrepreneur says that. But to me, greatness, personal greatness, at least for me, is really just the ability

to feel like you're doing your best work. You're working with the people that you really respect and people that you enjoy spending time with and that you enjoy respect and people that you enjoy spending time with and you enjoy getting a result for. And consequently, you wake up at 5.30 in the morning and think, yes, I get to do this again. I love it. You are one of the hardest working guys I know in the business and one of the nicest and most humble. So I appreciate you, John, for gracing us with your wisdom, your information, for all the amazing content

that you continue to create year after year. And I cannot wait to see you sometime at the next event soon, my man. Well, I really appreciate you bringing me to your community because I know that anytime somebody does that

and opens up and brings somebody in, you are lending your trust. And so I appreciate the trust that you've shown in me. Of course. You're the man, John. I appreciate it. And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you want to learn more about what we covered, go head over to the show notes over at lewishouse.com slash 67. That's lewishouse.com slash 67. You can get all the notes that we talked about. I linked up everything there,

have all the resources we covered in this episode. So make sure to check that out. And if you enjoyed it, go ahead and share it with your friends over on Google Plus, on Facebook, on Twitter, and tag yourself on Instagram. You guys know how much I love getting pictures with where you are in the world. A lot of you are sending pictures of you at your work and how these episodes are supporting you to get in the zone and in flow during your work. A lot of you are doing it when you're working out. You're sending these amazing, beautiful pictures on the top of mountains

and at CrossFit gyms around the world. So continue to post those pictures over on Instagram, at Lewis Howes. Would love to see what you guys are up to. And it's a blessing to be able to have this platform and connect with you each week. So I'm gonna continue to do more episodes each month. I was doing one a week before. And as you can see, we're doing about six a month right now, and I might step it up to

eight a month. So keep sharing this, promoting this. Make sure to subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Stitcher, and leave a review over on iTunes as well to help us increase our rankings and get the message out there to increase the greatness around the world. Thanks again, guys. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music Bye.