Episode 106
Direct marketing insights for professional services in the age of AI with 'JD' | Biz Bites
Kick off 2025 with marketing insights from John Dwyer (JD) of the Institute of Wow! In our first episode, JD shares actionable direct response strategies for businesses of all sizes, emphasising immediate impact.
He reveals how platforms like Facebook and Instagram can power targeted campaigns, sharing success stories like the "Get a Home Loan, Get a Free Holiday" promotion with Jerry Seinfeld, and even how simple tweaks transformed a local hair salon.
JD provides practical tactics, from high-value incentives to effective Facebook contests, and explores the role of AI in marketing, showcasing how AI-powered robots can boost customer outreach and lead conversion.
Expect an engaging, humorous, and insightful conversation packed with practical advice you can implement today to enhance your business in the age of AI.
Don't miss this informative episode of Biz Bites! Listen to the full episode now and access exclusive bonus content. Subscribe to our channel for more valuable insights and business tips.
***
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/instituteofwow/
Check out his website - https://theinstituteofwow.com/
Check out their special offer: https://fbcontestformula.com/info/
_________________________________________________
Subscribe to the Anthony Perl hosts channel and the Biz Bites playlist for more inspiring interviews and transformative insights.
Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adperl/
https://www.commtogether.com.au/
Learn more: https://www.commtogether.com.au/biz-bites/
Interested in having your own podcast? You can even have Anthony as the anchor of your very show. Check out https://podcastsdoneforyou.com.au or the podcast on this channel @anthonyperl_hosts
#marketing #marketingstrategies #directmarketing #podcastshow #podcasting
Transcript
Essential direct marketing insights for professional services in the age of AI.
Speaker:This is a podcast episode.
Speaker:You don't want to miss with the unbelievable John Dwyer,
Speaker:JD from the Institute of Wow.
Speaker:He has incredible insights to give you.
Speaker:Whether your business is a small business, medium business, or a
Speaker:large business, these are the tips and tricks you don't want to miss.
Speaker:They are going to get you real impact really quickly in many cases.
Speaker:We also talk about AI and the role it's playing and the incredible things
Speaker:JD is doing with AI at the moment.
Speaker:So sit back and enjoy this one with pen and paper in hand.
Speaker:The Institute of Wow.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:Hello everyone.
Speaker:Welcome to another episode of Biz Bites.
Speaker:And my guest today is going to introduce himself, but all I can say is wow.
Speaker:So John, over to you.
Speaker:Oh, you started the whole show with a dad joke.
Speaker:That's terrible.
Speaker:You can't do that.
Speaker:Come on.
Speaker:It's gotta be, it can only go up then from there, isn't it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh goodness.
Speaker:Mate.
Speaker:Look, the reason that he has graciously said, wow, is because my business
Speaker:is called the Institute of Wow.
Speaker:And we're a marketing company, a direct response marketing company.
Speaker:And so we tend to provide the businesses things that, They will get an instant
Speaker:result from and we can't guarantee 100 percent that it's going to be a
Speaker:good result, but they'll get a result most of the time it is, but they'll
Speaker:get a result like within a day.
Speaker:And so direct response marketing is very different from brand marketing
Speaker:where you might be sponsoring the Olympics or you might have your face
Speaker:on the side of a bus or back of a taxi.
Speaker:Direct response marketing is all about putting on Facebook campaigns or
Speaker:Instagram campaigns today or newspaper or brochure, whatever it might be, and
Speaker:knowing tomorrow if it's working for you.
Speaker:It's really interesting, isn't it?
Speaker:Because we've had these titles like social media, right?
Speaker:It's a really obvious title, but sometimes people just don't think
Speaker:about what it actually means.
Speaker:And direct response is exactly as you've just said, right?
Speaker:It's just a direct response.
Speaker:I find it interesting though, social media, how many people in
Speaker:social media completely forget that the term social media exists.
Speaker:That's the foundation of it in the first place.
Speaker:But talk to me about a direct marketing because it's changed a lot.
Speaker:You've been doing this for a while.
Speaker:So talk to me about changes for starters.
Speaker:What have you seen that's changed in over your time doing this?
Speaker:Yeah I've been doing this marketing stuff since 1842.
Speaker:So therefore I remember my, yeah, my, my first, form of transport was the
Speaker:horse and cart, which is the, this is the silly dad jokes that my millennials,
Speaker:I've got six millennial children and they back out the baby boomers just
Speaker:My baby boomer generation bags out the millennial, so they've heard it all.
Speaker:Yeah, we could.
Speaker:There's been huge changes, of course.
Speaker:And the latest one, as Anthony's a I we're getting robots now to basically
Speaker:answer the phone for our clients and then also to schedule appointments and
Speaker:to do sales and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker:So therefore, when it's got to the stage where robots are playing a big
Speaker:role in direct response marketing, you just wonder where else can it go?
Speaker:You think you saw it can't get much better.
Speaker:But I remember, Back in the day, when fax machines came out, my father in law
Speaker:said to me at the time yeah, this is this won't get any better than this.
Speaker:Fax machine.
Speaker:Joe, it makes us both feel old when you start talking about that.
Speaker:Cause I remember the fax machine.
Speaker:I remember, I think I've said before on the podcast when my first, Yeah,
Speaker:paid job was at channel 10 and we still had a typing pool at that stage.
Speaker:You give the scripts to, to the typing pool to type for the
Speaker:news and the, in the evening.
Speaker:If there was, it was different, I'm sure I speak for you and for a whole
Speaker:lot of other people that might be watching or listening to this, and
Speaker:that is, is that we scream if something takes 10 seconds to download now.
Speaker:But to answer your questions in terms of the changes, yeah,
Speaker:look, they've been massive.
Speaker:The mainstream media, as has been proven in the recent US elections, doesn't play
Speaker:the role that it used to for anyone, whether it be a politician or whether it
Speaker:be someone, selling goods or services.
Speaker:And I am not sure how the TV networks are going to stay alive because
Speaker:look at what happened with Trump.
Speaker:If he'd been on the Jimmy Fallon tonight show, then he would
Speaker:have had 4 million viewers.
Speaker:He went with Joe Rogan's podcast, had 54 million viewers.
Speaker:There's not even a close contest anymore.
Speaker:And yeah, it has changed in that respect.
Speaker:It's Facebook TikTok and all those platforms, of course, delivered to you
Speaker:now, like laser targeted audiences in the day that you would spend money on radio
Speaker:or TV and newspaper, the wastage factor was massive because if you are only after.
Speaker:women who were, and you're selling a wrinkle cream for argument's sake, and
Speaker:you're after women who are the age of, 45 upwards and you had an expensive wrinkle
Speaker:cream, so therefore you wanted them to live in an upmarket suburb, then you can
Speaker:laser target that on social media, as but you couldn't do that on newspaper or TV.
Speaker:There was massive wastage.
Speaker:Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it?
Speaker:That it's we've got more and more targeted.
Speaker:I think the interesting thing I've always found is that media has actually
Speaker:led the way and where we're going.
Speaker:I look back and say that the old days where we had, three
Speaker:television stations and that expanded, but eventually we got it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Pay TV and people started understanding, okay, you could choose a bit more
Speaker:specifically about your audience.
Speaker:Then it got more specific because those channels went from just, for
Speaker:example, a lifestyle channel to just to also having a cooking channel and
Speaker:a building channel and et cetera.
Speaker:And it's got more and more specific.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:Podcasting is a great example of that as that it gets more and more
Speaker:specific all the time as well.
Speaker:There are podcasts out there that are just for very particular audiences that
Speaker:might be just skewed towards, females in their twenties, for example, and if
Speaker:that's the audience that you want, you can find that audience quite easily.
Speaker:Look, I wanna set up a network for a DHD people.
Speaker:I reckon I've got it.
Speaker:I've never been diagnosed, but I've got the attention span of a goldfish.
Speaker:And so I figured for people like me who cannot concentrate, if someone
Speaker:gave me a choice of doing a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle or five years in
Speaker:jail, I'd take the five years in jail.
Speaker:We hope you're enjoying listening to the Biz Buys podcast.
Speaker:Have you ever thought about having your own podcast, one
Speaker:for your business, where your.
Speaker:Brilliance is exposed to the rest of the world.
Speaker:We'll come talk to us at podcasts done for you.
Speaker:That's what we're all about.
Speaker:We even offer a service where I'll anchor the program for you.
Speaker:So all you have to do is show up for a conversation, but don't worry about that.
Speaker:We will do everything to design a program that suits you.
Speaker:From the strategy right through to publishing and of
Speaker:course, helping you share it.
Speaker:So come talk to us, podcast done for you.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:au details in the show notes below.
Speaker:Now back to biz bites.
Speaker:Look, I want to set up a network for ADHD people.
Speaker:I reckon I've got it.
Speaker:I've never been diagnosed, but I've got the attention span of a goldfish.
Speaker:And so I figured for people like me who cannot concentrate, if
Speaker:someone gave a choice of doing a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle.
Speaker:Or five years in jail.
Speaker:I'd take the five years in jail because I've got, there's no way I'm
Speaker:going to put a jigsaw puzzle together.
Speaker:So I reckon if we sit and maybe you can go house with me, Anthony,
Speaker:we'll set one up for people like me who've got a low attention span.
Speaker:You only have to make one or two shows cause I'll never watch
Speaker:the whole end of it anyway.
Speaker:Just loop the shows.
Speaker:I'm with you there.
Speaker:It's like, when you think about it though, how many people sit there?
Speaker:I get frustrated when I watch my, when I watch my kids watching TV.
Speaker:If I've decided to put my phone down, cause I don't want
Speaker:work coming through anymore.
Speaker:And then all of a sudden, you're sitting there and going, are
Speaker:you actually watching this?
Speaker:If I actually changed the channel, would you even notice?
Speaker:Because they're on their phones and doing 600 other things.
Speaker:It's it's crazy.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:And we're having six Millennials and I know you've got,
Speaker:you've got two or three, two?
Speaker:Two.
Speaker:Two.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're just not like us real humans, are they?
Speaker:They can multitask where they've got a laptop, a phone
Speaker:and the TV in front of them.
Speaker:How do you do that?
Speaker:I don't know, I really don't know, I'm like you, I get easily
Speaker:distracted on one thing to the next.
Speaker:It amazes me too, that their ability to binge watch stuff at the same
Speaker:time, that's almost counterintuitive with the fact that they're doing
Speaker:500 other things at the same time.
Speaker:Yeah, no, you're dead wrong.
Speaker:The thing that I probably should have answered when you said, look, what
Speaker:do you see in terms of changes with direct responsibility just marketing.
Speaker:When people ask me what direct response is, aside from saying
Speaker:it is what the name says.
Speaker:But the other thing is that most advertising agencies will tell you get
Speaker:people to fall in love with your brand so that they will taste your product.
Speaker:And what we do is if we flip that, we get them to taste your product so
Speaker:they'll fall in love with your brand.
Speaker:And I just think that's a very significant difference because if the seafood
Speaker:shop has a host or hostess outside at lunchtime and dinnertime, handing out
Speaker:calamari samples, that's a very smart move because they are getting people to
Speaker:taste test their product with calamari.
Speaker:And presumably, it's nice.
Speaker:So therefore, there's a percentage of those will come in and buy the
Speaker:barramundi, which is much more expensive.
Speaker:So we flip that model of getting people to fall in love with your brand.
Speaker:So they'll taste your product to get them to taste your product.
Speaker:So they'll fall in love with your brand.
Speaker:I think that's the easiest way to explain it.
Speaker:It's a great analogy.
Speaker:But I wonder how you know, you talked about AI, how is AI going to change that?
Speaker:Because, AI is almost In the way at times for that, does it create more
Speaker:opportunities for those that are willing to go the traditional routes
Speaker:or is it that you have to adapt?
Speaker:Look, the example I just gave you was bricks and mortar, of course,
Speaker:being a super chop, if you've got an online business and, or an
Speaker:online component for your business.
Speaker:The wonderful thing with with, robots on, we're down the path quite
Speaker:considerably with that is that they can do the taste testing for you.
Speaker:So therefore, they can ring 1000 people.
Speaker:And in America, Robo calls are not able to be made unless it's to your database.
Speaker:And so you can't randomly make robo calls in America.
Speaker:That's what they call them robo calls.
Speaker:But in Australia is still the wild west.
Speaker:So if you want the robot during 1000 random people, you can still do that
Speaker:until someone comes in and decides that put a government rule in place.
Speaker:But yeah, so we've got that happening whereby, we've got clients who could
Speaker:have only ever wrong, maybe, 20 or 30 people in an hour to now being able
Speaker:to bring a thousand people in an hour.
Speaker:And that robot who sounds like a human, so very few people would even
Speaker:detect that it's a robot, is actually asking questions and delivering taste
Speaker:testing and whatever that service or product is in that phone call.
Speaker:So talk about being able to Like, expand your reach and it's absolutely crazy.
Speaker:And it's if anyone's not using it at the moment, and there's plenty of people
Speaker:not, not you and I do because we're in the marketing advisory field, but for
Speaker:an everyday business owner who's not using it, either, learn it yourself
Speaker:or get someone like you will need to.
Speaker:Teach you how to use it because it is just the future.
Speaker:There's no question about that.
Speaker:How do you think you kind of, battle that difference between,
Speaker:particularly a lot of my audience of professional services based business.
Speaker:So they're providing some level of service and service by nature
Speaker:is Generally done by human beings.
Speaker:And I think there's a lot of these services will still be, although
Speaker:assisted by I perhaps in the background.
Speaker:So how do you balance between where the I should begin and end,
Speaker:particularly in that human facing?
Speaker:Role.
Speaker:Like reaching out to people.
Speaker:Is there a benefit in still having the human facing or it's just
Speaker:not economically viable to do it?
Speaker:If you're in the service industry, they want to talk to you.
Speaker:There's no question about that.
Speaker:So therefore, if you build up a reputation for yourself, Anthony,
Speaker:and and you have and so have I, mine is bad, but yours is good.
Speaker:So that
Speaker:someone said to me the other day, we use Cheeky as a child.
Speaker:I said, let's put it this way.
Speaker:I'd only have to walk out.
Speaker:I went to a Catholic De La Salle school and the brothers were pretty
Speaker:strict and we got the strap and all that stuff back in the day.
Speaker:It went a bit like now of course.
Speaker:Can you imagine anyone giving someone a leather strap these days?
Speaker:Not a chance.
Speaker:They would just go to jail.
Speaker:I copped that every day.
Speaker:But I got to a stage where the teacher, the De La Salle brother,
Speaker:when I walked into the class, he'd just say, do I get out?
Speaker:I haven't done anything.
Speaker:So I know that you're going to do something.
Speaker:So just get out, I spent most of the time outside the classroom.
Speaker:So if you're doing stuff like you and I, where you're providing people with advice,
Speaker:there's no question, of course, that people want to talk to you, not a robot.
Speaker:However, What the robot can do, which is what we're doing at the moment.
Speaker:We've got great results from it.
Speaker:Is it and I'm sure you've heard the name, a guy called Frank Kern in America.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So he's quite a well known direct response marketer and he has a
Speaker:phrase that he uses quite often.
Speaker:And that is, if you want to help people then, Just help them.
Speaker:In other words, if you want to demonstrate to people that you've
Speaker:got the answers to their problems, then just give them an example.
Speaker:Give them a sample like the calamari outside the fish shop.
Speaker:So what we've done is we've put together a model whereby instead of doing a
Speaker:gazillion dollars on Facebook and getting bad leads, what we do is that
Speaker:we actually choose to business types that we know I can help in particular
Speaker:because there's some that stand out.
Speaker:And what we do is we actually invite them to come to a free one
Speaker:hour group session with me on Zoom.
Speaker:And so what happens then is that they actually get a call from the
Speaker:robot once we get the details, and they get text messages as well.
Speaker:But nonetheless, the robot rings and explains to them, look, I'm
Speaker:Susie from the Institute of Wow.
Speaker:I just wanted to know if you'd like to have a free Zoom
Speaker:call, a brainstorm on Zoom.
Speaker:With this guy who understands marketing, his name is JD,
Speaker:blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And the hit rate that we're getting from that is surprisingly good.
Speaker:And we've only had, let's say out of 500, every 500 calls, you only
Speaker:get about 5 percent of people who detect that it's a robot.
Speaker:That's it's amazing, isn't it?
Speaker:Because I think in, in, in the phone call state and it, look, it will change
Speaker:as people get more used to it, but we're so bombarded with, call centers that
Speaker:call us whether they're legit or scams.
Speaker:We all get a number of them every day and it's actually almost refreshing to
Speaker:get something then that is sounds human and just gets to the point and he's
Speaker:clearly not clearly not a call center.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Look, if you're flogging something.
Speaker:Then I would be a little more hesitant, but we're not.
Speaker:We're giving something away for free.
Speaker:So the script goes something like, look hi, it's Lisa here
Speaker:from the Institute of Wow.
Speaker:We're a direct response marketing company.
Speaker:We've noticed your business has ABC products or services, and you
Speaker:probably Would love some of the direct response ideas that we have.
Speaker:And as it turns out, we have a free group zoom session, which
Speaker:has no more than 10 participants.
Speaker:So we make sure they know it's not a thousand people on board.
Speaker:And this guy who's worked with Jerry Seinfeld and looked after marketing
Speaker:for 7 Eleven and Westfield and Walt Disney and so forth, he's actually
Speaker:providing 60 minutes of his time for free, where you can ask any questions
Speaker:you like, would you like a free ticket?
Speaker:And that's different from trying to fog something.
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:And I think it is the key, isn't it?
Speaker:Because so many of those things that call those people that call you, they feel
Speaker:like they're trying to give you something.
Speaker:They're not really, straight away they're onto it.
Speaker:And they just don't take you off the list either, which is absolutely frustrating.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We make sure that she hasn't got an Indian accent.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:It's on that though.
Speaker:When you say that there are 5 percent that might detect it because you're
Speaker:getting what the scripts afterwards and seeing the responses of what people are
Speaker:saying and if people are asking that question, if they do are have you got it
Speaker:trained to be up front and say, yes, AI?
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:If they ask, then it says yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:A little bit like when you were at a conference with me last week,
Speaker:you would have seen the sample.
Speaker:And if the person who says, look, am I talking to a robot?
Speaker:You can't tell a fib.
Speaker:No you, the girl who's, we've just named Lisa, but you can call her
Speaker:whatever you like says yes, I am.
Speaker:I'm an AI robot that's working on behalf of the company.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And look, in terms of knowing the statistics because all the calls
Speaker:are recorded and transcribed if we wanted them to be, but they're
Speaker:recorded, then we can tell how many people are asking, are you a robot?
Speaker:And it's less than 5%.
Speaker:Now whether some of the others detect that it's a robot and they just
Speaker:don't ask, but less than 5 percent of people ask, are you a robot?
Speaker:Tell me how much programming is there in terms of the car, being
Speaker:able to adapt to the different questions that might get asked.
Speaker:Is it constantly evolving?
Speaker:And how much did you have to start with to train it?
Speaker:Yeah, constantly evolving.
Speaker:But what we get the AI agent robot, call them what you like, to do is to
Speaker:scale through the website, through Facebook pages, through anything
Speaker:we possibly can about the business.
Speaker:So that if it's answering a call, for example let's just say
Speaker:we've got one at the moment on board, which is a trade business.
Speaker:It's an electrical services business with air conditioning and ceiling fans and
Speaker:putting power points in and so forth.
Speaker:It's a 5 million turnover business and they got 10 trucks on the road.
Speaker:And so therefore, when you ring that now the robot will say to
Speaker:you, look, how can I help you?
Speaker:It's ABC electrical services.
Speaker:And you say, look, I'd like a quote on three ceiling fans and an air
Speaker:conditioner in my lounge room.
Speaker:It will have a conversation with you with regards to, okay where do you live?
Speaker:And it'll make sure that it responds by repeating that address back to you.
Speaker:And then it will say, okay, when are you available?
Speaker:And if you don't say, at particular time, it'll say how's Thursday at 10 o'clock.
Speaker:sound.
Speaker:And then if the person says, Oh, look, can I just ask a question?
Speaker:Although I'm asked after ceiling fans and an air conditioner, is
Speaker:there a chance that you might be able to put PowerPoints in for me?
Speaker:So it's a left field question from where the conversation started.
Speaker:The robot will then be able to answer that because it's already learned from
Speaker:the website and from the Facebook page, all the facilities that business offers.
Speaker:It's just incredible.
Speaker:It's crazy.
Speaker:It's amazing.
Speaker:Isn't it?
Speaker:I know following from that event, we went to the other day and I
Speaker:posted about this where I fed.
Speaker:A whole lot of content from a number of my podcasts into the AI and it
Speaker:produced a three and a half minute.
Speaker:audio review of the podcast itself and the value of the podcast.
Speaker:And it was a conversation between a male and a female talking
Speaker:about it completely unscripted.
Speaker:I, it didn't take very long for this to be generated.
Speaker:I was completely blown away and people who are listening and now you check
Speaker:out my LinkedIn posts and you'll find it, but it's a very interesting.
Speaker:That information can be taken and used and does it sound like an AI?
Speaker:I think it still does, but I don't think that's a bad thing.
Speaker:I think there's always going to be a degree of an AI that's going to feel
Speaker:different to what the human experience is.
Speaker:And I think that's the difference.
Speaker:Like we've bumped around here and I think we, we talked just before we started
Speaker:recording the podcast where I said, look, we're just going to see where this goes.
Speaker:And that's where, that's human nature to be able to feed off stories and
Speaker:we'll tell different stories or even different versions of stories,
Speaker:depending on how people respond and the the time you've got and the feedback
Speaker:you've got an AI can't really do that.
Speaker:It hasn't got that human nature to it.
Speaker:And I don't think it ever will have that ability to suck in all of your stories
Speaker:and then to utilize in your content.
Speaker:in a conversation way.
Speaker:I certainly hope not, but what we try to do Anthony to make it as real as possible.
Speaker:Not that we are fibbing, we're not lying to anyone.
Speaker:It's just for them to determine if they think it's a human or
Speaker:robot or whether they even care.
Speaker:But when somebody asks a question, because there might be a half a
Speaker:second or one second lag for the robot to be able to find the information
Speaker:to answer that question, we have a noise effect of tapping a keyboard.
Speaker:With a call center in the background.
Speaker:And that's one of the facility, that's one of the options you can
Speaker:choose when you go down this path.
Speaker:And so therefore, it does really infer that there's someone from
Speaker:a call center answering because you can hear tap on the keyboard.
Speaker:So so that really does disarm if you're like a person thinking that it might
Speaker:be a robot because they, sometimes it takes a second for it to answer.
Speaker:So let's talk about a few other things because the AI part, I think this is
Speaker:the important thing just to finish on the AI thing is that there is,
Speaker:it is at this level now where you can experiment with it and do it.
Speaker:And you can turn to people like yourself who are, who have got that set
Speaker:up to be able to offer it to people.
Speaker:But that's at a certain level of business, right?
Speaker:There are certain some of the smaller businesses may struggle to be able to do
Speaker:that, to afford someone else to come in.
Speaker:But it is the kind of thing where you can still play with it.
Speaker:But yeah.
Speaker:Talk to me about some of the other options that you've got going on, because I know
Speaker:you've, and we won't dwell too much on it.
Speaker:But if for those that have not heard of JD, and we'll include all the
Speaker:links to all the stuff in the in their most famous, is it what I would I
Speaker:say most famous for bringing Seinfeld up and probably the big thing that's
Speaker:That's that everyone talks about.
Speaker:No, I'm famous for a lot of stupid things.
Speaker:It was just that one, I've milked the daylights out of.
Speaker:Why wouldn't you?
Speaker:Why wouldn't you?
Speaker:And I think that's, those sorts of things are great things to really wow
Speaker:at a bigger scale on a bigger audience.
Speaker:But when you're talking about businesses that are, not quite at that level, what
Speaker:are the wow things that, can be done to start making impact in a direct response?
Speaker:Yeah, no, good question, man.
Speaker:Just so that at least the Seinfeld thing gets out of the way because we've
Speaker:teased everyone by mentioning that name but didn't tell them what happened.
Speaker:I had a client some years ago called the Greater Building Society.
Speaker:It's now a bank, but it was a building society at the time.
Speaker:And I came up with an idea for them to take on the big banks by
Speaker:simply giving away an incentive.
Speaker:So we actually stopped the honeymoon rate, which every bank has.
Speaker:And we just gave that money to a travel company that was a wholesaler.
Speaker:And we came on TV and social media, and we just said, look, get
Speaker:a home loan, get a free holiday.
Speaker:And the thing went nuts.
Speaker:They took an extra 15 billion worth of home loans in the first few
Speaker:years, and this idiot who you're talking to didn't do a door deal.
Speaker:I did a consultancy for you, right?
Speaker:What a moron.
Speaker:And so therefore, about four years into what was a 10 year
Speaker:promotion like people ask me, how long should you run a promotion?
Speaker:I said, McDonald's have been doing Happy Meal toys for 45 years.
Speaker:Just rinse and repeat if it's successful.
Speaker:And that's what happened with this one.
Speaker:I get a home loan, get a free holiday.
Speaker:It just went nuts.
Speaker:We stole that much business from the Commonwealth Bank
Speaker:and Westpac and so forth.
Speaker:It just wasn't funny.
Speaker:And about four years in, I got Seinfeld to do their ads.
Speaker:And so that's where that.
Speaker:And so for three years, I went backwards and forwards to New York and we got
Speaker:Jerry Seinfeld to get on TV saying, get a home loan, get a free holiday.
Speaker:And of course, if it wasn't already successful, it just went through
Speaker:the stratosphere when you've got someone like him involved.
Speaker:And as a result of being able to pull off, which, if I do say
Speaker:somewhat it's, pretty big deal.
Speaker:Then I've milked the crap out of it for the last 10 years.
Speaker:And why wouldn't you?
Speaker:And why wouldn't you?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, with regards to other things, what we say to businesses whether
Speaker:they're advisory or whether they, bricks and mortar retailers, or whether
Speaker:they happen to be doing an e commerce business, if you're in a me too industry.
Speaker:And that means your solar panels look like the other guys or your refrigerator
Speaker:looks like the other guys, or your lawn mowing service is pretty much the
Speaker:same as all your competitors, then you probably need the likes of what, we
Speaker:preach, and that is wow factor marketing.
Speaker:You've got to come up with a wow factor that distinguishes
Speaker:you from your competitors.
Speaker:Because if you don't, then the only marketing plan that you
Speaker:can have is to drop your prices.
Speaker:And if you drop your prices, the guy down the road can do the lawnmowing,
Speaker:cheaper than you in five minutes.
Speaker:So we say to small businesses, if you think you're going to win on price
Speaker:and you're a hardware store opposite Bunnings, then you need some serious
Speaker:psychotherapy because you aren't, you're not going to beat the 40 ton gorilla,
Speaker:but how you can beat the 40 ton gorilla.
Speaker:If that hardware store across the road from Bunnings says, look for
Speaker:every hundred dollars you buy from me, I'll give you a pitch fork or I'll
Speaker:give you a leaf blower or whatever the the Happy Meal Toy might be.
Speaker:Bunnings would have six months worth of committee meetings to try
Speaker:and work out how to combat that.
Speaker:You would just beat them hands down.
Speaker:So what we do for smaller businesses, because we realize that they're pretty
Speaker:good technicians, but they might not have skills in marketing, is that
Speaker:we provide them with exactly that.
Speaker:We provide them with concepts that, Will distinguish them from their competitors.
Speaker:So whether that's how you can win 500, 000 if you spend money with us, and that's
Speaker:an insured price promotion that they only pay a few thousand dollars for, or whether
Speaker:it be fuel discounts or whether it be free vacations, we give the opportunity
Speaker:for them to give away a free vacation and we charge, 50 bucks for the vacation.
Speaker:But it's a three to seven night vacation worth 1000.
Speaker:We package all that stuff together for small businesses so that
Speaker:they can just plug and play.
Speaker:Because what I found coming from the corporate world of doing all this
Speaker:sort of stuff for bigger businesses, like the building society and
Speaker:obviously advertising got Woolworths and all of those sorts of things.
Speaker:They've got a marketing team that can make it happen.
Speaker:But if you're a small business, you're a good technician, but
Speaker:you just want the package.
Speaker:So what we do is that we just give them the package.
Speaker:Which is amazing for people to be able to have that.
Speaker:And I think this is the, and I think what's important is that businesses
Speaker:of any size, whether you are You know, really small or whether you're, in the
Speaker:category of the, I suppose any upwards of a couple of million dollars a year
Speaker:turnover and start getting bigger from there, then there are things that
Speaker:you can be doing to make you stand out and get an immediate response.
Speaker:And that's an important thing to be doing.
Speaker:At any time of the year, I think there's a lot, people get sucked
Speaker:into, Black Friday is a good example.
Speaker:Often wonder why people get, thrown into that basket with everybody else
Speaker:and doing exactly the wrong thing is what you're saying, which is heavily
Speaker:discounting, which means that we all know there are certain places we
Speaker:just have to wait for those one or two times a year when the prices get
Speaker:completely slashed, that's when we buy.
Speaker:All they're seeing is an artificial spike at a particular time of year
Speaker:where they've lowered their prices.
Speaker:And that, to me, doesn't seem like a logical way to go.
Speaker:There are these things where you can stand out, aren't they, on an ongoing
Speaker:basis and run it at your own pace?
Speaker:Look, the reason I'm shuffling here is because I wanted to show you Exhibit
Speaker:A, and Exhibit A looks like this, okay?
Speaker:It's a holiday voucher, okay?
Speaker:It looks like that.
Speaker:And I know if you're listening, you're not seeing this, but it's an
Speaker:A4 voucher, which allows people to have three to seven nights a week.
Speaker:Pretty much anywhere in Australia and around the world.
Speaker:Vegas, New York, Orlando, Grand Canyon, Bali, Fiji, Europe, all that.
Speaker:And what it is that when I did the campaign with Seinfeld, a travel company
Speaker:contacted me not long after, because it's pretty hard to keep it a secret when
Speaker:you've got Seinfeld doing your ads, and they said, look, we're a travel company.
Speaker:We get access to unsolved hotel rooms at four star hotels around the world.
Speaker:We're not a marketing company, but we've seen what you do.
Speaker:You look like you've got half a clue.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you want to join forces and offer this as a Happy Meal toy?
Speaker:My words, not theirs, but offer as a Happy Meal toy to businesses.
Speaker:And I said, Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:So what we've done is the last few years we've done that whereby businesses can buy
Speaker:these vacation vouchers offers for less than 50, but they're worth up to 1, 000.
Speaker:You try getting three or four nights at a hotel for less than 1, 000.
Speaker:So that's why they're valued up to that.
Speaker:And they give it away as a Happy Meal toy.
Speaker:And I always say to businesses, let's just say you were selling
Speaker:something for 500 in the world of Groupon where it's 50 percent off.
Speaker:Do you think if you held a 10 percent sale, anyone would care?
Speaker:10 percent or 500, but who cares, but if for that same 50, which is
Speaker:10%, you gave someone a thousand dollar value holiday, shut the gate.
Speaker:So that's where, an incentive will always be the price discount.
Speaker:As long as the incentive is a low cost to the business, but a high perceived value.
Speaker:And that's why McDonald's toys work because that toy gets
Speaker:produced in China for 20 cents, but in Kmart, that's worth 5.
Speaker:So that's why the Happy Meal toy works.
Speaker:It's a low cost to McDonald's, but a high perceived value.
Speaker:Does some of it have to be scarcity as well?
Speaker:Because some of those toys that might be in a McDonald's thing, for example,
Speaker:you can only get in a McDonald's.
Speaker:And so it's depending on what it is that there, is that because I'm
Speaker:looking, thinking about particularly a couple of the supermarket chains
Speaker:that have done these little toys and they try to create an element
Speaker:of scarcity with it that they've got them there, but you can only get them
Speaker:here and it's only for a limited time.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:My mantra to any business.
Speaker:Is that first of all you gotta have an offer.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So if you're doing less than a couple million dollars And you spend
Speaker:money on brand building then I think you're Yeah, you need some therapy
Speaker:because, Coca Cola can do that.
Speaker:McDonald's can do that.
Speaker:Nike can do that.
Speaker:Kellogg's can do that because they're a big business.
Speaker:But if you're only doing less than 2 million, and many businesses are
Speaker:doing much, much less than that.
Speaker:In fact, 96 percent of Australian businesses do
Speaker:less than a million turnover.
Speaker:Then you shouldn't be in the brand building game.
Speaker:You want to build your brand, don't get me wrong.
Speaker:But you want to build it and sell stuff at the same time.
Speaker:And so therefore I always say to people is that when you are going
Speaker:to be on Facebook wherever it might be, your message has to be an offer.
Speaker:Like I've got a client at the moment that just said to me, when I gave me
Speaker:the Copy yesterday for his Facebook campaign and it was we promise to
Speaker:try to beat wait, not to beat, but to try to beat any other quotation.
Speaker:Why don't you just give Mark Zuckerberg a check and say, don't even run the
Speaker:ad because that's not going to work.
Speaker:It's got to be an offer.
Speaker:And as you said, it needs to be an offer with either a time deadline.
Speaker:deadline.
Speaker:And and so you're spot on.
Speaker:You can only get those McDonald's toys at McDonald's.
Speaker:You will never find them in K Mart.
Speaker:Do you subscribe to the idea of the guarantees then?
Speaker:The, I've heard a lot, there's books and plenty of things being
Speaker:written about, Oh you must provide some guarantee with your business.
Speaker:And usually it's something to try and make you stand out or what people want.
Speaker:I've heard it suggested to me as a, selling the podcast done for you.
Speaker:Oh, you've got a guarantee that you'll have 10, 000 downloads in 90 days.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you'll double your amount of sales.
Speaker:And if anyone's listening and thinking, I welcome you.
Speaker:I want to talk to you about doing a podcast for you.
Speaker:But if you think that is going to happen, then none of that is real.
Speaker:It's, that's those kinds of guarantees tend to, I don't understand
Speaker:that still works for people.
Speaker:They just seem so false.
Speaker:Yeah, most of that is BS and the people who are in the information
Speaker:marketing game, which is the selling programs online of, how to be a better
Speaker:soccer player or, how to be a better builder or how to be a better computer
Speaker:scientist or whatever it might be.
Speaker:They do it.
Speaker:Because they know already there's skepticism and so therefore they dilute
Speaker:that skepticism by giving a money back guarantee and they know by statistics
Speaker:that there will only be ever one or two or three in a hundred that will
Speaker:ask for their money back and because it's a digital product there's no cost
Speaker:involved anyway, so therefore if they sell a hundred three grand products and
Speaker:they get Two or three that come back again, they want a refund or so be it.
Speaker:But in the game that you and I are in, where we're offering
Speaker:advice, I could never, ever do it.
Speaker:And the reason I can't do it is because, I cannot guarantee that the
Speaker:client, the business owner is going to implement what I tell them to do.
Speaker:I'd be like a doctor saying that, I'll guarantee that you'll
Speaker:get better if you stop smoking.
Speaker:And then he looks out the window and the guy that just visited him is
Speaker:lighting up a cigarette in the car park.
Speaker:So if there are ways that the business who, you give advice to,
Speaker:can get away with not following it, then you can't offer a guarantee.
Speaker:And I always say to people, I don't know whether you're wearing an ankle bracelet.
Speaker:There's good reason why when you're offering advice,
Speaker:you can't give guarantees.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And look, as I said, it flaws me that people still fall for that.
Speaker:And and that there are still agencies out there pushing for that.
Speaker:I think it's really interesting to me.
Speaker:Jokes aside, you've got enormous amount of credibility for all of the things
Speaker:that you've done over a number of years, but it's it's getting harder
Speaker:and harder to stand out in a space that has so many scammers out there.
Speaker:There's just so many of them.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Oh, look, I I have to say that one of my Children went to the New York Film
Speaker:Academies in his mid twenties, and they had to at the end of the course
Speaker:pitch a TV idea, a sitcom idea, and he pitched one of what was like The Office,
Speaker:but because he's heard all my seminar stories, he called it The Seminar.
Speaker:And if there was a tagline, it would be BS on steroids, because I've stood
Speaker:in the green room behind some of the stages of these conferences and
Speaker:seminars and Yeah, the guy that was just out on stage before I go out would
Speaker:be telling you that he owned a castle and he had the Miss World Wife, of
Speaker:course, and he had a Maserati and all this stuff that comes up on the screen.
Speaker:And when he comes off the stage and I'm having a drink with him behind
Speaker:the stage, I said, Oh, wow, things seem to be going pretty well for you.
Speaker:He goes, Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Jadu, that's showtime.
Speaker:And I think, I said he said, I'm really down to my last 20 grand.
Speaker:I went, What?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:So I've shared these stories around the dinner table over the years.
Speaker:And of course, this child of mine, who's interested in video and film,
Speaker:filmography says, Oh, Dad, I've got this fantastic sitcom idea.
Speaker:I said, Don't you dare use any of the characters that I've described to you.
Speaker:Yeah, so the seminar game has certainly got some yeah, it's got some baggage.
Speaker:There's no doubt about that because the phrase I believe for the seminar game
Speaker:is yeah, get them high, make them buy.
Speaker:Yeah, I can believe that.
Speaker:I can believe that.
Speaker:I wanted to ask you as well, because it touches on some of the things
Speaker:that we've been talking about is this whole concept of gamifying.
Speaker:The things because in a sense, what you're talking about with, winning
Speaker:a holiday and it's a game, how important is gamifying these days
Speaker:in incorporating that into business?
Speaker:Because it's a term I think we're hearing more and more all the time.
Speaker:Is that real?
Speaker:Is it really working?
Speaker:Is it?
Speaker:Is it something that's going to continue to work?
Speaker:Or has it had its day already?
Speaker:Yeah, there's a yes and no to that.
Speaker:Look, you're talking to someone who's probably Run more contests and
Speaker:sweepstakes than anyone, certainly in Australia, but maybe even globally.
Speaker:I've spoken at some places in America and when I've told them that I did
Speaker:all the scratch bingo games for Murdoch's newspapers, and I've been
Speaker:involved in McDonald's and KFC and all the fast food chains doing scratch
Speaker:games and all sorts of promotions they were blown away in America.
Speaker:So maybe I've done more contests than anyone.
Speaker:But if you said to me today, would you recommend that a business holds
Speaker:a contest whereby People have the chance to win versus something whereby
Speaker:if they purchase, they get a reward.
Speaker:Not might get, but they get a reward.
Speaker:I will always go for the latter.
Speaker:Despite the fact that a large part of my career, some years back, we were doing
Speaker:at one stage, 14 million a year in the nineties, which is, for a small business.
Speaker:And now we I don't know, 20 employees at the time, but that
Speaker:was a reasonable sized business.
Speaker:And that income was all doing scratch bingos for newspapers and, scratch
Speaker:games to win 50, 000 for blockbuster video and all that sort of thing.
Speaker:But if you said to me, would I recommend that?
Speaker:I'd say certainly in some instances, but in most cases I would recommend to
Speaker:businesses to give away an incentive.
Speaker:So that means is that, if McDonald's said, look, buy a Happy Meal and one out of
Speaker:every five boxes will have a toy, I don't think they'd sell that many Happy Meals.
Speaker:And Kellogg's likewise, if they said buy Corn Flakes and one out
Speaker:every 10 boxes will have a toy.
Speaker:They've woken up to the fact that you buy, you get, will always
Speaker:beat you buy, you might win.
Speaker:But it leads me to this is that if you don't have a happy meal toy that you can
Speaker:give away with every purchase of your service or your product, something that
Speaker:we've been experimenting with and it's just like mind boggling in terms of the
Speaker:response to it for small businesses is what we call a Facebook contest formula.
Speaker:And so therefore we've developed a program that we sell to businesses or
Speaker:they can swipe and do it themselves.
Speaker:And when I.
Speaker:You describe it now, whoever wants to grab it, just go and do it yourself.
Speaker:But if you want it done properly, if you want it done professionally,
Speaker:then we have a package.
Speaker:And what it is that you give away your product or service as
Speaker:a prize on a Facebook contest.
Speaker:You will get a gazillion entries.
Speaker:Let's just say it's lawn mowing services for a month.
Speaker:Win my lawn mowing services for a month.
Speaker:And you give that away as a prize on Facebook, they click the ad to go through
Speaker:to your landing page and on that landing page, which is the entry page, of course
Speaker:they leave their details, and then you give one away, and you've got, let's say
Speaker:you've got a thousand entries, you've got 999 people who have just put their hand
Speaker:up and glowed in the dark and said they need So you, you then ring them or text
Speaker:them or email them, however you want.
Speaker:You say, listen, you didn't win the contest, but I've got some good news.
Speaker:I've got a special summer deal on at the moment whereby we can
Speaker:do this, that and the other.
Speaker:And if you order by Friday, I'll give you a free holiday or whatever the bonus is.
Speaker:Shut the gate, it's all over because, I was talking yesterday to tutors.
Speaker:It was a webinar for tutors, Maths tutors, English tutors, Chemistry
Speaker:tutors online and these are mainly women and they're sitting at home
Speaker:behind their computer tutoring people.
Speaker:And I said to them, if you ran a contest where you gave away 10
Speaker:Maths tutoring lessons, I said Maths because it was American without the S.
Speaker:If you were to give 10 sessions away for Maths tutoring, who do you think
Speaker:would enter that contest on Facebook?
Speaker:And of course the answer is, mum and dad who have slow learners, children at maths.
Speaker:I said, if you've got 300 entries, you gave one prize which was 10
Speaker:sessions, do you think it'd be nice to have, 299 people you contact and say,
Speaker:look, you've got a child obviously that's slow at maths, I can help you.
Speaker:It's just so easy.
Speaker:It's one of those things that's so obvious, but no one's ever used it before.
Speaker:Isn't it obvious?
Speaker:I think that, I think the challenge for some businesses is that lawns
Speaker:is an obvious one because you're not going to enter a competition
Speaker:to win a free lawn mowing for a month if you don't have a lawn.
Speaker:But One of the problems with it with a number of businesses, of course, is
Speaker:that they might be a consulting type service, and they offer a service,
Speaker:and it might be valid for a particular business, but and for many of those
Speaker:businesses, but ordinarily they couldn't afford to actually do it.
Speaker:So this is how much of a pre qualified do you need to put into that?
Speaker:Or do you, you don't, you can't afford to do that?
Speaker:You because the old theory was just when you want people to get their details.
Speaker:Ask for as little as possible, because the more you ask for, the less
Speaker:likely they are to complete the form.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't go along with that, because the thing is that I don't want to talk to
Speaker:anyone who's broke, and that's not because I'm not a Christian, I am, and I would
Speaker:like to help as many people as I can, but I've got to put food on the table as well.
Speaker:Yeah, making sure you prequalify them like crazy on that
Speaker:landing page is so important.
Speaker:But we are so evil that when we're doing seminars, and since COVID, it's mainly
Speaker:webinars, but when we're doing seminars, we would ask for their turnover, and
Speaker:we still do that now with webinars.
Speaker:And so it will say zero to 250, 250 to 500, 500 to a million, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And when they turned up to the seminar, we would color lanyard
Speaker:them based on their turnover.
Speaker:And so therefore, if they were doing less than 250, they got a red lanyard,
Speaker:which meant stop to me, right?
Speaker:If they were doing over a million, they got a gold lanyard, which
Speaker:meant that I'd give up my first born to talk to them, right?
Speaker:What would happen, because traditionally, and I told this last Thursday when you
Speaker:and I were at that function, there was a guy in the room, Who worked for Tony
Speaker:Robbins for 20 years, and he was at the function that you and I were at.
Speaker:And anyway, we got talking and I told him about this technique that we used
Speaker:where I could easily, when I stepped down off the stage, and of course, you think
Speaker:you're Justin Bieber at these things, because everyone comes up to talk to you.
Speaker:When in fact you want them to go down the back of the room to have smoke
Speaker:coming out of their credit card.
Speaker:And I couldn't work out who had money and who didn't because at
Speaker:the end of the day you'd give them free advice for eight hours.
Speaker:You don't want to spend another hour just talking to people who no way
Speaker:they're ever going to buy from you.
Speaker:So that's what we did.
Speaker:We color coded them based on their turnover and it made it so easy
Speaker:for me to work out who to talk to.
Speaker:And he was with Tony Robbins for 22 years and his jaw dropped.
Speaker:He went, Shady.
Speaker:That is insane.
Speaker:I said, Yeah, it's pretty simple.
Speaker:It's as simple as the red and green lights in the car parks at Westfield.
Speaker:Why didn't that come in 20 years ago?
Speaker:It's only come in the last five years.
Speaker:But he said, I said to him, does Tony Robbins not do?
Speaker:He said no, we don't know how wealthy they are.
Speaker:We've got no clue.
Speaker:I said it's pretty simple.
Speaker:So yeah, you want to pre qualify them.
Speaker:You don't want to be talking to people who just are not in with, in
Speaker:the lawn mowing thing, of course, you make sure that they own the house.
Speaker:They're not a renter.
Speaker:And you make sure they're not living in an apartment.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Because it is an important thing.
Speaker:And as particularly for all those people listening out there at the
Speaker:moment that are thinking, okay how does this work for my business?
Speaker:But it can, if you put a bit of pre qualifying in there.
Speaker:And I think the message is that if the prize that they're going
Speaker:to get is worthwhile, then people will submit their information.
Speaker:If the prize is ho hum, I don't really care.
Speaker:Then feeling like they're putting their life away.
Speaker:Is it is an interesting one.
Speaker:And then I think the next part is which I think because the laws in Australia quite
Speaker:different to where they are almost in the rest of the world now regarding the
Speaker:collection of data and utilising that.
Speaker:And most people Just, I've seen it over the years.
Speaker:You go to a networking function, there's an exchange of business
Speaker:cards and all of a sudden you're receiving 500 emails from that person.
Speaker:So in Australia, it's been the case that pretty much anyone
Speaker:can end up on a database.
Speaker:But if you're operating on it in a global sense, and I am, you are
Speaker:those laws are quite different depending on where you are.
Speaker:So how important is it to then be, asking them to tick a box as well
Speaker:that you can send them other stuff.
Speaker:Is that the necessity now?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Or not even necessarily tick a box.
Speaker:Although that's an easy one, but at the top of the page, it says that
Speaker:should you fill in the form below, then you are giving consent for us
Speaker:to forward other details, to you.
Speaker:But you know what, if you come across Mother Teresa style, whereby
Speaker:you are giving value in everything, then no one will complain.
Speaker:When someone that webinar that I held yesterday for tutors,
Speaker:okay, mainly in America, but they were in other countries as well.
Speaker:When a tutor was and it was it came about because there was a lady in America
Speaker:who had me on a very similar thing to this podcast and she coaches tutors.
Speaker:She used to be a tutor, but she's now, moved on to be a coach of
Speaker:tutors and she interviewed me.
Speaker:And when she was doing what you're doing now, Anthony, she was quite impressed.
Speaker:So she said, Oh, what else can we do?
Speaker:And I said, Oh, if you like, I'll teach tutors how to do that Facebook contest
Speaker:because it's just so easy for them.
Speaker:It doesn't cost them to give away five or 10 sessions.
Speaker:And of course they got to attract people who need tutoring or
Speaker:their children need tutoring.
Speaker:And so when we were talking yesterday about it on the webinar.
Speaker:They just said to me how do we prequalify them?
Speaker:I said it's pretty easy.
Speaker:You don't have to dig too deep.
Speaker:It would be first of all, are you absolutely the parents of children?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:If it happened to be a, a math tutoring thing how old are the kids?
Speaker:So you know exactly how old they are at school.
Speaker:Specifically, what are the symptoms that you see in terms of, I guess
Speaker:lacking in math skills, and I don't know what they are, but a tutor I would.
Speaker:Tick A, B, C, D, whatever it might be, so you give them the options.
Speaker:And then just your contact details thereafter.
Speaker:That's all you need.
Speaker:And that means is that when you give the prize away, you're going
Speaker:to have a database from heaven.
Speaker:It's not a database.
Speaker:It's the world's most valuable database, because people who entered the contest
Speaker:for their child to, get tutoring for languages, they have a child that
Speaker:they know wants to learn languages.
Speaker:It's pretty simple.
Speaker:Yeah, it's amazing how simple it is.
Speaker:I wanted to ask you a couple other questions before we have to wrap things
Speaker:up, we could speak for hours and hours on so many things here, but I'm intrigued.
Speaker:You thinking outside of the square is the big thing of what you I think what you do
Speaker:and trying to come up with these things.
Speaker:So firstly, let me ask you, what's wowed you in recent years?
Speaker:Oh, gosh probably Elon Musk.
Speaker:Over the years I've, when people ask me, do I read books?
Speaker:I say, no, I haven't got time to read books, so if I did, I'd
Speaker:just go to the last chapter and find out what was happening.
Speaker:I just watch the movie, I watch the movie of the book
Speaker:because it's over and done with.
Speaker:It has to get the AI to give you the summary.
Speaker:That's all you know.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I remember before the HSC, the higher school certificate back in my day,
Speaker:back in the 1800s we were just, I just bought the crib notes before, we went
Speaker:for the exam and I'm exaggerating for the sake of humor, but yeah I'm, I'll
Speaker:read autobiographies, no question about that, but yeah, just a fiction
Speaker:book, not a chance in the world.
Speaker:So the thing is that I used to, be.
Speaker:I guess driven by the likes of anyone that was super creative.
Speaker:So that would be Walt Disney and that would be Richard Branson.
Speaker:It would be Spielberg and people like that.
Speaker:And I'm sure anyone who's right brained and that's the creative side of your
Speaker:head would be probably the same.
Speaker:You have to hold those people in high esteem.
Speaker:I've been to all the Disney parks a hundred times and, My wife hates me I'll
Speaker:be measuring the bricks on Main Street to make sure they're the 3 quarter
Speaker:size, to enhance the fantasy feeling.
Speaker:And she's going, would you just get on the ride, but these days, yeah, Elon Musk.
Speaker:When you, you look at who's, At the moment, probably the most innovative,
Speaker:creative being on the planet with a massively high IQ Elon Musk.
Speaker:No question about that.
Speaker:Yeah, it's, it, isn't it amazing to watch?
Speaker:And I think the great thing is too, that you can watch some of these people.
Speaker:You don't have to agree with everything that they do or say, but their ability to
Speaker:think outside of the square and to come up with something that really is next level.
Speaker:And so that's what I wanted to ask you about is that how much of.
Speaker:What you're doing these days is a balance between coming here.
Speaker:We'll do it for you versus inspiring people to be able to do it themselves.
Speaker:And how do you actually inspire people to, to think outside of the square?
Speaker:If they're not in that part of their brain, most of the time.
Speaker:Great question.
Speaker:And probably 80, 20, 80 percent packaged and 20% advice.
Speaker:I can't say inspire because I'm not a consultant.
Speaker:All of my Clients say that I'm an insult and a marketing insult and I love that.
Speaker:That's funny, because if you are either gifted or cursed with sarcasm then what
Speaker:happens when you are holding an event or group webinars or zoom calls and
Speaker:this, that and the other You can't help yourself but be sarcastic and I often
Speaker:cop it back as a contest so that, and in fact, I had one event on the Gold
Speaker:Coast about a year ago, and we had, 60 or 70 clients in the room, and at the
Speaker:end of the two day conference, I said does anybody want to make comments?
Speaker:And one guy put his hand up and said, JD, I've been here for two days.
Speaker:Yeah, I want to make a comment.
Speaker:I said, what is it?
Speaker:He said, not once have you insulted me.
Speaker:I said, and he goes I want to make a complaint.
Speaker:You've insulted everyone else.
Speaker:And I said hang around for another 10 minutes.
Speaker:So it's all a joke, but we get on pretty well.
Speaker:It's the Aussie sense of humor, of course.
Speaker:I have to say that Yeah, probably 80, 20, 80 percent businesses
Speaker:just want it done for them.
Speaker:And so we do for example, that Facebook contest formula.
Speaker:You can run off and do that tomorrow yourself right now.
Speaker:But we had a client last week who just came on board and he runs a landscaping
Speaker:business and he gave away a 2, 000.
Speaker:value landscape makeover, and he spent 290 over three days and got one entry.
Speaker:And when he rang me to say, JD, that didn't exactly work.
Speaker:I looked at his ad, it was just awful.
Speaker:And I explained to him that we had another company come on board about a
Speaker:week earlier who has medical equipment.
Speaker:people.
Speaker:So they're walking frames.
Speaker:And we gave away a wheelie walker, which was worth 500, which is a
Speaker:walking frame for older people.
Speaker:And we put it on Facebook and because of the, yeah, I guess
Speaker:just, the little tricks that we play, he got 822 leads in one week.
Speaker:And he spent, Not much more than what this guy spent.
Speaker:So therefore, 822 leads versus one.
Speaker:I think it might be best if you've got a sore tooth to go to a dentist, and
Speaker:the inspiration thing I have to say to you is that because of my sarcasm,
Speaker:I don't know how inspirational I am, but with the advisory staff, normally
Speaker:that's the business that has someone in their business that can execute.
Speaker:The advice is not much good.
Speaker:If I give it to the butcher and baker who's just there with
Speaker:his husband or, sorry, with her husband, or, it might be if it's a
Speaker:husband, he's there with his wife.
Speaker:They want the done for you.
Speaker:They haven't got time to be inspired.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's an interesting point.
Speaker:And I think also hopefully the podcasts and other things are good ways of
Speaker:inspiring people to do those things.
Speaker:I wanted to ask you one final question on that subject before
Speaker:we have to wrap things up.
Speaker:But I.
Speaker:Get there and you've got someone who's got 822 leads.
Speaker:How does someone on that size cope with 822 leads?
Speaker:Because most people, that's dream stuff that they're going if we actually
Speaker:had, 20 legitimate leads, so we could ring, four or five a day, we'd
Speaker:actually be quite happy with that.
Speaker:When you suddenly.
Speaker:Get those kinds of numbers.
Speaker:How do you actually not do yourself a disservice and actually manage that?
Speaker:Do you need the AIs to actually be part of the package to, to be able to implement?
Speaker:What do you do?
Speaker:Mate, the reason I'm smiling and giggling at this end, because I
Speaker:only just got off the phone with him before we got on to do this.
Speaker:And he said to me, JD, had you not implemented what we did a week ago,
Speaker:then he didn't know what he was going to do because he said to me when this
Speaker:came in the first week and he used a couple of colorful words to say
Speaker:what the so and so am I going to do?
Speaker:And I said because he's only got five people working for him but he has a
Speaker:warehouse of all of this equipment, wheelchairs and scooters and walking
Speaker:frames and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:Then we just got the robot.
Speaker:So therefore the robot just rings all of the people to say, look
Speaker:and most of these people are in their seventies and eighties.
Speaker:And the robot rings and says, look, you didn't win, but we've
Speaker:got this special deal for you.
Speaker:You obviously do.
Speaker:have some sort of interest in this Walker.
Speaker:But it's not just with the Walker.
Speaker:We've got other things.
Speaker:They've got CPAP, machines, they've got all sorts of things for older people.
Speaker:And what we're happy to do is that we'll give you the equivalent,
Speaker:if you like, a second prize.
Speaker:And that is a hundred dollar voucher that you can put towards
Speaker:any of these other things.
Speaker:And the interesting thing is that the robot, because he had run a few himself
Speaker:beforehand, by the way, and then he realized he'd never get through 800.
Speaker:The robot is beating his conversion.
Speaker:So I said to him I said, mate, that shows you how bad you are as a salesperson.
Speaker:A and it's the truth, isn't it?
Speaker:Because so many people get into business because they're good at
Speaker:what they do, or they're passionate about the product or service that
Speaker:they're selling, but they're not necessarily great at the sales process.
Speaker:And I'll be the first to put up my hand and say, the selling part is not my forte.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I know that the efficiency is one thing too, isn't it?
Speaker:Because.
Speaker:The AI is going to be quite efficient in how it handles things and what it does.
Speaker:It's not going to get sidetracked.
Speaker:It's not going to turn a, what should be a five minute call into
Speaker:a one hour call, which can happen.
Speaker:I've, I've had those, I remember walking, I think the classic was
Speaker:because my business, name that most people will know is come
Speaker:together and which is a great name.
Speaker:And it's also got, it's linked back when I originally thought of the
Speaker:name, it had its roots immediately to the Beatles song come together.
Speaker:And that often triggers people.
Speaker:And I had this conversation with someone.
Speaker:And he said, Oh, the Beatles come together.
Speaker:And he started singing to me and we just went off on this tangent.
Speaker:And after an hour, I'm just going, what the hell have this guy's vocal been doing?
Speaker:Where did I go?
Speaker:It just went wrong.
Speaker:The robot would never have stood for that one.
Speaker:We've called our robots AI journey.
Speaker:So we have a business called AI engage journey.
Speaker:com and essentially we tell everyone, aside from the wizardry of the
Speaker:technology, she doesn't get sick.
Speaker:She doesn't take days off.
Speaker:She doesn't have any relatives that pass away and she doesn't get in any moods.
Speaker:Imagine if you had an employee like that.
Speaker:Goodness, man, yeah, it's a way to go, a way to go.
Speaker:So we've got to, we've got to wrap things up.
Speaker:So I'm going to do something.
Speaker:Look, I'm going to ask one question then I'm going to get a,
Speaker:get, ask you one other question.
Speaker:Normally I just finish with this question.
Speaker:And the question is what's the aha moment that people have when they come
Speaker:to work with you that you wish they knew in advance they were going to have?
Speaker:What's the aha moment, is that what you said?
Speaker:Yeah, that's an easy one to answer.
Speaker:And, it's just how.
Speaker:How obvious this stuff should be to them because really, whilst I thank you very
Speaker:much for your kind compliments, and we've only known each other for a short time,
Speaker:so it was lovely of you to say that, and I've got a reasonable track record, not
Speaker:everything I touch turns to gold, but there's a reasonable track record there.
Speaker:The aha moment that they get is how simple The concept is and yes, is
Speaker:there some inherent DNA of creativity?
Speaker:Of course there is.
Speaker:But when I give the answer and I, you were at the event last week and I gave
Speaker:this very simple example, a little country town we lived in in country,
Speaker:New South Wales in the Hunter Valley.
Speaker:It was just a little main street and there was a hairdresser there
Speaker:that had been there forever.
Speaker:And my wife would go there to get her hair done.
Speaker:And the hairdresser's name was Kimberly.
Speaker:And she said to go.
Speaker:Would John have any of that wow stuff because I'm in trouble and my wife said
Speaker:to her, what are you talking about?
Speaker:She said, I've been the only hairdresser in town for a thousand years and all
Speaker:of a sudden there's a lady that's opened across the road, directly
Speaker:across the road from me and she's stolen all of the men because men don't
Speaker:care where they get their hair cut.
Speaker:And she has 10 haircuts for men.
Speaker:And she said, I charge 55 for a men's haircut.
Speaker:So either I've got to drop to 9 or I've got to do some
Speaker:heavy advertising on Facebook.
Speaker:And can John help me out?
Speaker:Is there any wow factor idea that he has?
Speaker:Because I've lost all the men that just walk across the road for 10.
Speaker:They're going to get the haircut there.
Speaker:So Gail comes home and of course this was a freebie.
Speaker:And I went, Oh, thanks Gail.
Speaker:Another freebie, and but I knew Kimberly, so I thought I'd do it.
Speaker:And two days later I came back to her and I said, look, here's the answer to it.
Speaker:And what we did is put a sandwich board outside her hairdressing shop.
Speaker:And the sandwich board said, we fixed 10 haircuts.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I know the story of the event that you're at last week.
Speaker:And so therefore Kimberly's aha moment was, Oh my God, it was that simple.
Speaker:But of course it's not that simple for people who are not in the marketing
Speaker:or advertising or the ideas game.
Speaker:And so I always say, when you are a dentist and you go to university and you
Speaker:come out with a dentist certificate, did they ever teach you how to get clients?
Speaker:Answer is no.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it doesn't matter whether it's a builder, or a doctor, or a dentist,
Speaker:or a butcher, or a baker, they all go and get the certificates from,
Speaker:college or university, but no one ever teaches them how to get customers.
Speaker:And therefore, that's where we fill that gap.
Speaker:They are very good technicians.
Speaker:They're just not marketers.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Now to wrap things up, two things.
Speaker:One is that you've got to show us the book.
Speaker:I know you've shown me the book.
Speaker:We've got to, we've got to see the book.
Speaker:Now, unfortunately for people who are just listening in and missed this, and
Speaker:I encourage you to go back and watch the video on YouTube if you haven't.
Speaker:Take a look at this book.
Speaker:John, tell us about the book.
Speaker:Yes, it's it's, we are called the Institute of Wow, but because I do
Speaker:things like this gigantic tabloid sized book, which is leather bound with gold
Speaker:tip edges and all sorts of things, most of my clients and most of my mates
Speaker:don't call it the Institute of Wow, they call it the Institute of Wank.
Speaker:So therefore I'll take that, I'll take that as a compliment.
Speaker:This book, if you're not watching on video, but you're listening, it's the
Speaker:size of the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, so it's the size of a tabloid newspaper,
Speaker:and it's called The Wow Manifesto.
Speaker:And I released this a few years back because I thought, okay if we're
Speaker:going to write a book, and everyone who, has some degree of knowledge is
Speaker:expected to write a book on whatever their knowledge is, in this it's
Speaker:just case study after case study.
Speaker:So this is really A gigantic swipe file, okay of just direct
Speaker:response ideas that have worked.
Speaker:Everything from the puppy dog sale, through to how to win a million
Speaker:dollars if you buy this product.
Speaker:And yeah, there's basically, look, if you do get this, and I'll show you how
Speaker:to get it in a moment because that's our evil plan, of course Anthony.
Speaker:But yeah, if you do get it, it'll be a swipe file from heaven.
Speaker:You'll be able to go through this book and just swipe ideas
Speaker:and use them for your business.
Speaker:And the reason I'm happy to give Do that is because, as Anthony, I live to give.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And and we're going to include all the details on how to get in
Speaker:contact with JD and to be able to get ahold of the of the book as well.
Speaker:Can I just say to you, Anthony, the way that they can do this,
Speaker:and this is my evil plan.
Speaker:And and this is absolutely wrapping up all the stuff that we've just discussed.
Speaker:Remember I told you in the early part of the interview that I have
Speaker:this robot phoning the right people, not people, but the right people
Speaker:and inviting them to have an hour.
Speaker:Zoom webinar with me.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I'm gonna do that and whoever has the zoom webinar with me, you'll be on with
Speaker:half a dozen other business owners.
Speaker:So it's a group call, but whoever that has that with me gets the book.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Digital version of the book.
Speaker:Do you mind if I just give you the URL.
Speaker:Absolutely good.
Speaker:It's . This is sounded really corny.
Speaker:This is terribly, I can't believe I came up with this domain name, but anyway,
Speaker:get more jd.com . Now, if that's, if that's not ridiculous, I dunno, is, but
Speaker:anyway, get my name is John Dey, but I get called jd, so get more jd.com.
Speaker:If you go to that page, then you will be able to just simply register to have
Speaker:an hour with me the following week.
Speaker:So we don't mess around.
Speaker:It'll be the following week and it'll be you and half a
Speaker:dozen other business owners.
Speaker:And I will give you the book.
Speaker:Fantastic.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:So the last thing that I've got to do is in the spirit of it because you
Speaker:alluded to it before when you're at the conference and you did it last week.
Speaker:So beautifully, I'm going to get you to wrap up what the podcast has been, what
Speaker:your experience has been on the podcast.
Speaker:This is like Johnny Carson just telling a guest to wrap up the Tonight Show.
Speaker:That's unusual.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Why not?
Speaker:Yeah, full marks to you.
Speaker:That's fantastic.
Speaker:You're out thinking outside the square and that's my sort of person.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Look, I'd like to say Anthony, I, to wrap everything up and, you've run this
Speaker:webinar, sorry, you run this podcast.
Speaker:Now for how long, mate, would this be 12 months you've been doing podcasts or?
Speaker:This podcast is now into its second year.
Speaker:After two years, we've done it.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:I have been a guest on podcasts to the tune of probably between five and
Speaker:10 a week for the last six months.
Speaker:And so I've been a guest on a lot of podcasts, so I can compare you against,
Speaker:a lot of them, and some of them have claimed to be in the top five podcasts.
Speaker:Podcast audiences with matchmaker FM and with pod match and all these things.
Speaker:But I've gotta say to you all of all the podcasters that I've I've been a guest
Speaker:of, I'd like to say this was the very best run podcast I have ever been on.
Speaker:You'd like to say it, I'd like to say that, but I can't.
Speaker:, I said See your line then should have been Oh, thank you, jd.
Speaker:I no.
Speaker:Don't thank me.
Speaker:I'd like to say it was the best, but I can't.
Speaker:It's pretty ordinary, to be honest with you.
Speaker:Oh, I love it.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:But it reminds me, and I'm going to finish up with this.
Speaker:When I was when I was at university, I went to university out at out at
Speaker:Bathurst, at Charles Sturt University, and a couple of years before me had
Speaker:finished a very well known a very well known radio personality, Andrew Denton.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And Andrew wasn't big on coming back.
Speaker:He made it big on triple M in those days and everything.
Speaker:And somehow they got him to come back and they, we got him on the
Speaker:local community station said, would you record a promo for us?
Speaker:And his promo was very simple.
Speaker:He said, when I'm in Bathurst, I choose to listen to two MCE.
Speaker:However, fortunately, I'm only in Bathurst once every 10 years, and it was very
Speaker:spontaneous and very well delivered.
Speaker:So I love a bit of sarcasm.
Speaker:So fantastic.
Speaker:JD, thank you so much for being an incredibly entertaining
Speaker:guests on the program.
Speaker:And I know that everyone's got so many things out of this, which I've loved.
Speaker:So as well, so much for being part of it.
Speaker:My absolute pleasure.
Speaker:Pleasure.
Speaker:And all sarcasm aside, it's been very enjoyable.
Speaker:You've been a great host.
Speaker:Thanks, man.
Speaker:Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bytes.
Speaker:We hope you enjoyed the program.
Speaker:Don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Speaker:Biz Bytes is proudly brought to you by Podcasts Done For You, the service where
Speaker:we will deliver a podcast for you and expose your brilliance to the world.
Speaker:Contact us today for more information, details in the show notes.
Speaker:We look forward to your company next time on BizBytes.
