Chris and Alan interview Daniel Den and discuss the principles that drove the writing of his book, "Ideas that Influence." This is not a normal book; it is an interactive book that unlocks creativity and helps you create your unique voice with your BEST clients. The Xfactor process promotes group creativity to refine the perfect marketing message to your most profitable audiences. This is a lively discussion full of EDUTAINMENT that promises to drop some gold nuggets your way. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
-----
GOLD NUGGETS:
(08:23) - Creative Marketing Ideas and Stories
(22:27) - Creative Ideas That Influence Success
(32:38) - Focusing On a Single Marketing Idea
(47:04) - Customer Service, Palm Trees, DIY
-----
Daniel’s Links:
Website | https://www.bigideasbox.com/free-box-ideas-that-influence
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012955322478
-----
Books Mentioned: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
-----
Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Dale Cardwell, Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!
-----
If You Loved This Episode Try These!
• Attracting the RIGHT Clients to Your Offering | Lisa McGuire
• Bark to Business! How Brady Foulk is Starting a Dog Training Business
• The Fighter for Truth and Finding the Good in Companies - Dale Cardwell
-----
Have any questions or comments? Connect with me here!
Chris and Alan interview Daniel Den and discuss the principles that drove the writing of his book, "Ideas that Influence." This is not a normal book; it is an interactive book that unlocks creativity and helps you create your unique voice with your BEST clients. The Xfactor process promotes group creativity to refine the perfect marketing message to your most profitable audiences. This is a lively discussion full of EDUTAINMENT that promises to drop some gold nuggets your way. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
-----
GOLD NUGGETS:
(08:23) - Creative Marketing Ideas and Stories
(22:27) - Creative Ideas That Influence Success
(32:38) - Focusing On a Single Marketing Idea
(47:04) - Customer Service, Palm Trees, DIY
-----
Daniel’s Links:
Website | https://www.bigideasbox.com/free-box-ideas-that-influence
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012955322478
-----
Books Mentioned: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
-----
Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Dale Cardwell, Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!
-----
If You Loved This Episode Try These!
• Attracting the RIGHT Clients to Your Offering | Lisa McGuire
• Bark to Business! How Brady Foulk is Starting a Dog Training Business
• The Fighter for Truth and Finding the Good in Companies - Dale Cardwell
-----
Have any questions or comments? Connect with me here!
So I'm old and my uncle's even older and he was losing his hair like I have. My father still has a full head of hair. He does. Sam's just rocking it, yeah, right, so he sprays that. He buys this thing off the back in the day when you only had like four channels and this would be the who was the guy who always did all the Ronco? There's more Ronco. Yeah, so who's the guy who always did all the the wrong way? There's more ronco. Yeah, so he buys it. So I go to his house and he had sprayed his head. So we're, you know. And so I grew up in michigan and my uncle's in buffalo new york's leather in buffalo new york, and it got warm and we're there and all the family. So we're in an italian family. Everybody comes over for sunday dinner right when we were there. So it was a big deal because sam's kids were there. My dad's name was Sam, I was the kid and he had sprayed his head. Well, it got hot and they were grilling and he starts leaking and, dude, it's streaming down his head, going through his nose, coming through his forehead. I was like you know what, I'm never going to be that guy.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountain top. I got an idea, alan. I'm getting crazy. What lord?
Speaker 2:really, what's different now, uh?
Speaker 1:I'm just so excited. No, I've got've got tons of ideas. You're always excited I am. I tell you what we've had a lot of great guests on, and this one is going to be even more fun, I know, because he sent you a toy. He did A lot of toys, you're going to hear me, you threw some of them at me.
Speaker 2:I did already and you even said I've got to keep going, you do not need another distraction.
Speaker 1:So here we are man talking about ideas, and that's what I am. I mean, you know what I don't do? I just have ideas, right, I'm an idea guy. That's my job, right? Okay, yeah, no, shit doesn't happen like that. So I, but I, but I, I tried that line you keep thinking about getting into well, not thinking we're going to get into, and that's to work in the aging and play space, uh, for the biz. And uh, I said, look, I'm glad I got you on the phone, here's what you need to do. And I told him all the three things I need him to do to build the marketing for me so I can start doing the work for him.
Speaker 2:And were you calling him from vegas? No, actually it doesn't go over as well, I'm sure, when you're dictating to your minions from your yacht.
Speaker 1:Right. So this time I was calling them from Keough Island, the Bellagio. So this one is very quaint, right. This is a family island, Of course. You know. That's where Nikki Haley has her place. There's a couple other well-known people that were there as well.
Speaker 2:Have you played the ocean course? I have how people that were there as well. Have you played the Ocean Course? I have how many balls did you lose?
Speaker 1:See, there are 18 holes. Seriously, seriously, the last time I played it, I think I lost six.
Speaker 2:That's actually impressive. I mean, that's the most scary looking golf course I've ever seen. You almost feel like you're underwater.
Speaker 1:Well, you feel like you're underwater. And then, when you're underwater and then when you play if you've ever played the ocean course, which is where they've had a number of pga events is that they actually build in the rider cup. They build up the fairway. So if you go off the fairway you have to go down a series of steps and literally it's it's like it's like a flight of stairs. You go down and so when you look at the fairway, you're like so if I'm two feet off the fairway, I'm going down like into the basement and trying to come out of there and you want to talk about being dialed in or just out of your freaking mind, scared. It's good, and so that's uh.
Speaker 1:So this time, when I went down there this weekend, all I did was go out there and putt with my buddy, uh, in my bare feet, and went back and drank at the clubhouse watching. Else come in going. Oh, you poor suckers, you just, and you're smiling. I love that you're smiling. After a 650 round, wow, that takes five and a half hours. So it's kind of like a pebble beach kind of thing, like it's a, it's a, it's a moment, uh, and so I haven't played in a long time because it's just. It's so maddening as a golfer who's not playing very well right now I just like nah. But the good news was for me it rained the whole time. I was there as I was telling this other guy about his great marketing idea that he needs to do for me and we're meeting next week so he can tell me all the things he's doing since I told him for you right of course, yeah, I mean because, well, that's why we're here, right?
Speaker 2:to serve you.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's all about big dad, that's right. Let's get back into this. Daniel den the rainmaker has a book out there called ideas that influence. I'm going to put that up. That's for our youtube audience. If you haven't checked us out on our youtube channel, which is blowing up, by the way, everybody you want to go see us online because one of us may be really animated on youtube and the other one might just be sitting there watching the guy who's pretty animated and I I keep telling alan man, can you calm it down just a little bit? I mean, for the love of god, alan, please so, daniel, it's all about balance.
Speaker 2:I just want the the listeners to look at the mind of chris. The book is like twisted, like this. How long have you had it? A week two.
Speaker 1:I uh, so daniel did a great all these notes it's like the beautiful mind scribbles all over it.
Speaker 2:I did, I scribble all over it.
Speaker 1:I got. I got sticky notes there. I actually had a pad going with all my notes. You just liked it, though I did. I tell you what. This is a good book. Everybody ideas that influence. It's an easy read and I and I mean that in the best possible way. Daniel, you didn't dumb it down. Okay, maybe a little bit, but you did do a lot of historical references in there and told some really great stories. Oh, I like that, yeah, and that's what keeps your attention right. So, daniel, jen, we've been talking the whole time. Thank you for coming on. Tell us how the hell you came up with this book.
Speaker 3:Oh, we have a guest, alan and Chris. Thank you, cheers. Uh, speaking of vegas, because you guys mentioned it, it's just an honor to be able to split eights with you guys. Let's go nice.
Speaker 1:All right, dan, you brought it up. All right, I gotta tell you the story. You ready, I'm out there. Last time I was out in vegas it I was on a heater, had a great run out there with the boys nfl weekend the last night I'm playing and I've been up and I was like, okay, cool, you know, I'm just gonna settle in. And I was like literally like two or three hands away from going home, going to bed and being up. A winner. I did a winner, you would have been a winner, I would have I got eights. Here we go.
Speaker 3:Evil, evil, evil.
Speaker 1:I get another eight I split again.
Speaker 2:Suddenly there's a little bit of a stir in the crowd.
Speaker 1:Oh, and my boys over there are like you have to, and then I get an eight. And then I get Dealt me a two, got a double, got a double. So I double down. At that point the entire table went oh, and the two guys I'm with who are friends from Michigan that I only see, like you know, once or twice a year, are with me, and this is like the last time we're going to be together. So just remember that.
Speaker 1:So down goes to 10. Boom, I get, so I got 10. I double down. Uh, shows, I get 7, so I got 17. We come over to the other 8 10, I get 18. Looking good, right, go to the next one. Another double down card. I got an ace. Instead of taking the 19, like I should have, I doubled down again. She pulls you ready Four. She shows Six, six. She then pulls Ace. No, she pulled 19. So I lost it. All of them, all of them. So I looked up, I went fuck you. And I walked away from the table and I never talked to my friends until I texted them the next morning going hey, did you make your flight? Wow. So, daniel, thank you for coming here and splitting eights with us. Buddy, we are not walking away losers and I am not going to end this episode telling Daniel hey, did you make your flight Until next time? So, daniel, the Rainmaker, ideas that Influence, talk to us about this book and why you came up with it.
Speaker 3:Well, so, speaking of you, you made the joke that you're an ideas guy, but you know, obviously with you know the trusted toolbox and everything that both of you do, obviously you guys are massive action takers of you do. Obviously you guys are massive action takers. Um so, for like my whole life, like I've been just like really good at coming up with ideas and when it comes to the marketing side of things, I come up with amazing marketing ideas and I'm super creative and I thought that everybody sat around all day and came up with great ideas.
Speaker 2:And you realized no, wait a minute, this is kind of unique.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I was like, huh, I actually have to figure out, because everything that I've done over the past 10 years I'm basically a business coach and we help people with our X factor effect methodology but and we have over 20,000 students and clients and I figured out like I have to figure out how to teach creativity when it comes to the marketing side, because we have too many people, like students of our own, where we're telling them hey, you got to do things differently.
Speaker 3:Like you got to, like it's got to be creative, it's got to, you know, break through the noise, it's got to be exciting, whatever. Like we've got, like all these things that we're teaching and just you know, just mediocre stuff just kept on being put out. So I was like we have to come up with a process, like we have to show people, like here is you know, from A to Z, how to come up with wildly successful marketing ideas, that all that break through the noise, that are exciting, that captivate the attention of your dream customers. And so about six years ago, I was sitting around with my business partner down in Brazil and and, and we, we came up with this methodology.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, hang on no wait, whoa, whoa, big daddy hasn't been to brazil yet. Oh, dude, oh, you're traveling, right, right, all right. Where the hell were you in brazil?
Speaker 3:oh well, well, I've been to. I I don't know I've been to. I've been all over brazil. I've been to brazil probably 15 times, so all right, call me jealous.
Speaker 1:All right, continue with your story you and your business.
Speaker 2:He's not gonna listen to a thing you say.
Speaker 1:From now on, in fact right now, I just grabbed my phone and go why the hell have I not been to brazil? I'm on the phone with amex right now.
Speaker 3:No, no, I'm back, all right, so you're down there you guys are talking about most of the time when I go down it's to sao paulo, but I I've been to lots of other states as well. I've been up to the northeast. I've been to rio, I I've been, I've been uh to uh bahia. I've been to lots of other places you speak portuguese I speak portuguese yeah well, that's yeah, there we go that helps.
Speaker 2:He's way cooler than we are and better looking chris way to go and I feel like crap every time, right every time I know I go home, just humiliated, right.
Speaker 1:so I got one word in portuguese Actually, it is clean, bom dia.
Speaker 3:There you go.
Speaker 1:Bom dia, bom dia.
Speaker 3:Bom dia, bom dia.
Speaker 1:That's all.
Speaker 3:I got, since this afternoon it's bom dia, bom dia.
Speaker 1:Bom dia Okay.
Speaker 3:Now, you know two Now you know two, which is technically now you know three words, because boa is good and then dia is day. Oh, now now you know multiple and then targi is afternoon. So there you go. Now you know like four words.
Speaker 1:There you go now I'm gonna put that on my resume and I'm also multilingual. I'm conversant in portuguese oh my gosh, so funny, uh. But that's awesome that you actually so. All right, so I know the listeners like all right, chris, can we get to the point? I mean, can we talk to the kid for a minute, let's find out what the hell's going on.
Speaker 2:That was kind of my fault.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, let's go Shall we Brazil, brazil. I've already written it down Brazil, moscow.
Speaker 3:There you go. The stories are the fun part. Like everybody, you guys love the small business safari podcast is because Alan and Chris aren't going to bore you with a 20 step process on each episode. It's jam packed of really exciting real life stories and that's why people love the small business safari podcast. That's just the truth.
Speaker 1:Hey, man, love that. All right, let's go back. So you're Brazil, I got ideas and you're telling your business partner and he's is he not the idea guy?
Speaker 3:He's like no, he's an idea guy too, like we've got tons of big ideas but it just comes natural to us, just absolutely like hey, like here's an idea that'll work, all right, let's test it. Okay, it worked Right. And then we said we take, we tell our students all right, make sure it's different what you're doing and that it's different in the right way that your dream customers love. And like that's the standard, like that's what's going to work, that's what's going to break through the noise.
Speaker 1:And you say that and people don't know what to do. Right, exactly Right, because you say that. But you're coming from the creative spot and they're sitting there going. I'm getting my dick kicked in every week trying to run my business. You're telling me to do something different. That's why I'm paying you, man. Tell me how to do something. Doing different make me laugh, funny guy. So exactly.
Speaker 3:And so they're like hey, you tell me the thing that's different. And we're like what the hell, man, we can't be sitting around all day telling you the thing that's that's different because it, you know, you know your dream customer is better than we do. So what like? What are we like? What are we going to do so? So we had to come up with this process, and it's through the process that we were able to basically show people, through all these really cool stories and examples and a proven process, that here's what the makeup is of creative and wildly successful marketing ideas, and here's a bunch of ways that you can come up with ideas, brainstorming by yourself and with your team, and then we can filter those ideas and then we can pinpoint the winners based off of the elements that are the most likely to break through the noise, because that's another part of the problem. Hey, daniel Pedro, alan, chris, I've got 20 ideas. Which one's the one that's going to break through the noise? Well, first, we're not sure until you test, but second, there is a way to filter it, and so we had to kind of show people how to do it.
Speaker 3:So we had this event for mentoring students down in Brazil and they just absolutely loved the process, just like they were. Like that was so incredible. And I was like you know what? I think this is a book. And so I wrote the book and, inherently inside of the book, like it was amazing. You know, amazing stories, amazing process. There we go Ideas and influence. But I was like you know what? The only problem with the book is that if I launch the book the same way that everybody else launches a book, then I'm not following what I teach in the book.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm cute. Do as I say, not as I do, do.
Speaker 1:Look, I got the ideas because that's the first thing I did. I was like a little kid that the light is on, all I'm doing is clicking the light and, uh, when I first got the thing, I'm like, oh my god, yeah you look and I went like this about a half hour of just clicking the light.
Speaker 1:I did. I swear to god, I got the thing open. I open it. I'm like, oh my god, first of all love the sticky notes, and that's what I did when I rolled up, when I sent my book. I sent sticky notes to people saying, hey, use this, you can mark it up. But I started clicking the light that you sent us and I was like a little.
Speaker 2:Only imagine when your folks got their first car that had power windows and locks you must have freaking driven nuts. How about the first those?
Speaker 3:were some cool buttons, those old silver buttons that oh, yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 2:So I gotta ask a question. There's a lot of business people who are great operators but may not consider themselves to be very creative. So what you're saying is you can take somebody who's never really had a creative bone in their body and but they're great operators, and you can run them through this process and think good ideas will come out of it.
Speaker 3:Yes, especially if they involve their team. One of the first things we cover in the book is the mistake that a lot of business leaders make is they try to be that charismatic leader that's the ideas person and and the only font of this, you know godlike guidance, and they think that they're the only ones that can come up with the good ideas.
Speaker 2:Well, the truth is a little close to home, chris I.
Speaker 1:I don't know what you're talking about. My name, by the way, they call me zeus, uh, hello, uh, you, I'm Catholic too, so you may call me the beginning, the end and the afterlife. I am the father, the son and the Holy Ghost. Thank you very much, but no, I do listen to my people. Keep going. So operators need to include their team to get great ideas, so let's go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So most I'd say if you're the type of CEO that's one of the most successful types of CEOs or business owners, that's the most successful type. You actually are good at listening to your team, because your team is just this incredible fountain of ideas.
Speaker 1:That's a hard thing, but that's a gold nugget as you build your team, especially as you're a small entrepreneur. When you start at the beginning, you don't get a team. When I started I was a team of one and now I have 35 people in my company. But I consider my team 21 strong because I bring them in to do things. You're right, and so you've got to involve your team. You've got to know when to do that.
Speaker 2:um, but it's also a humble pie uh, yeah, you got some professional maturity, doesn't it? It does you really?
Speaker 1:you've got to sit back and let everybody else talk before you talk, and, and, and. That's a big one, and I think that's that the gold nugget there is. You got to get your team using their brain because they're going to tell you something you didn't even think about. Yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:Well, and if the idea comes from the team, then there's more likelihood of buy-in from the team.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, the buy-in factor. Yeah, there's so many reasons why.
Speaker 1:That was a dud. I thought it was good. I know you know.
Speaker 3:That was a nugget.
Speaker 2:No, it was so good, I just stunned you both.
Speaker 1:That's what it was. We were stunned like a shark in the water when you touched my nose. I just stopped. All right, so you get your. You call them your, not your clients. What did you call those guys? Your students? But they're CEOs of their own company and so in their domain they have to be the king of the jungle, they have to be the dominant. You teach them to get the creative process rolling. Do you teach them they have to sit in the back a little bit and kind of listen to everybody else's ideas?
Speaker 3:Well, that's one of the big like aha moments inside the book. We actually talk about studies where the most successful business owners and CEOs they are a little bit more on the introverted side and, as a result, they listen more, they let their team talk more, they let their team lead more and overall it makes for more ideas that get heard, more collaboration within your own organization. So that's just one of like you know what Chris heard?
Speaker 2:there was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, what I heard is that, oh, you know what Weak CEOs don't like to talk. I'm like you know. No, all jokes aside, alan has been awesome on this, and when I do I do, I do strategic offsite meetings and then quarterly updates with my team. I off-site meetings and then quarterly updates with my team. I actually channel what ellen has talked about. Who is? He is, admittedly, an extroverted introvert, uh. So he gregarious introvert, gregarious introvert. Uh.
Speaker 1:So when I go there, I absolutely shut down and let them go and they don't know what to do. So I have to preface it the whole thing with guys. If you think I'm going to jump in like I do during the day at work, I'm not. I said I'm sitting back because I need your beautiful minds to tell me what I'm missing. I said and today, nothing you say will be wrong today. If you want to say I'm an idiot, I said, don't worry, I've already told you guys all that. But I want you to tell me what's the best thing, and that's. It starts in the beginning, especially a couple of newer people kind of like not sure, not sure. And then they say something that's like really controversial and they look at me and usually right, the damn adults. But I'm over there going mm-mm and I'm listening, because that's where that comes out right, that's where creativity happens.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. There's a great book called Creativity Inc, ed Catmull. Oh my goodness, he talks about the concept of the brain trust At least I believe that's what he names it the brain trust, creativity Inc. We want all these big juicy ideas so that we can throw them all together and then we can start to filter with tons of examples and everything, and we and we show like the seven main elements of what great ideas that break through the noise look like, what great marketing pieces that break through the noise, what they look like right, so so this is the big thing, because we've been talking about it and I'm waiting for you to do this, because that's the thing I've really loved about your book, and the interactive part of this is that it is easy for people who are creative to say hey, man, you gotta be creative.
Speaker 1:And it's really easy for you to tell people hey, by the way, if you want to be creative, get your team involved and then sit back. But no, let me show you some examples and let me give you some things you can play with your team and and you get them them interactive. And that's the part that starts to get, I think, for me, I was like, oh man, I I'm totally z. I was just loving this stuff, which is why I beat the shit out of this book as I read it at the beach, looking for nikki haley, but um, no, I just yeah.
Speaker 2:Imagine what you'd be looking for if you were in a beach in Brazil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not going to be looking for a whole lot. That's why I asked about Brazil, and then I don't have to tell my wife I went right. I don't think so. Good, perfect, that's what I want, and everything that happens in Brazil stays.
Speaker 2:Can you give us a couple of cool examples?
Speaker 3:That's Vegas, that's Vegas.
Speaker 1:Give us a, give us a couple examples of, uh, some ideas that have come up. Yeah, creative ideas, just for our listeners to go oh yeah, take an example of one you've done and you're like, and you boom, you saw something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is awesome yeah, well, I mean, uh, the first time we did one of our big events down in brazil, uh, we were able to get a thousand people in a room and, uh, and we eventually the the biggest event that we were able to do, um, was for 7 400 people and I got this really cool thing, this picture that everybody still just talks about and loves today. I still have students coming up to me and talking about how I did this amazing rap song on stage and during the speech. I got three standing ovations during the speech, rapping on stage and doing all this cool stuff.
Speaker 1:So I did not know.
Speaker 2:We had eminem in the house yeah, well daniel den eminem, I'm telling you right now, if you start rapping, I'm not hosting the podcast anymore. You would try it though but, but I know you would, of course, I would sorry go ahead no, you.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to hear you know what no, you don't, don't, you really can't do it. No, I watch I think eminem is actually a poet uh and rap, uh, again in this form, and what it's about. So, but daniel den rapid, I want to hear daniel den eminem. So, all right, so you get up there. Sort of rapping in front of people, were you? Ready ready for that, or did you get it planned out?
Speaker 3:Oh, we planned the whole thing out. It was incredible. People still talk about it today. That was in 2020, right before the pandemic hit. But the big thing people ask us is how did you go from first event, first big event that you did, how did you get 1,000? And then how did you eventually get 7,400? And so there's an answer to what we did, and we talk about it inside of the book and I actually don't even use it as an example inside of the book. But what we did was we created what we call a core belief and we sold that core belief to our audience before we asked them to buy any of our products or services or come to any of our events.
Speaker 3:And when I talk about this concept of selling an idea to your dream customers before asking them to buy, some people say, well, I like the direct marketing approach. I'm a Dan Kennedy fan, whatever it is, and, don't get me wrong, I'm a massive Dan Kennedy fan as well and I love direct marketing. I want to sell you as fast as possible. But direct marketing did not build our movement of over 2 million people on social media. It did not get us 7,400 people in the room. Them adopt that idea that we sold them before getting them to buy our products and services. That's what grew the tribe that grew the following, and then that's what helped us sell like crazy and that's what helped us get so many people into our events and that's what helped us build this massive tribe.
Speaker 3:So, to finish this example now people are like well, what's the core belief that you sold them? What's an example of this core belief? The core belief we sold was pretty simple the way to become a leader in your market, or a category king or a category queen, is by differentiating your business. That was the whole belief and that's why we created this whole X factor effect methodology and that's what, like, grew our whole movement movement.
Speaker 3:So when we had people start adopting that belief and believing that the key to becoming a market leader was to differentiate your business and to stack those differences in a way where you become a unicorn in your market, a unicorn that your dream customers love, when we got people to adopt that belief before they bought from us, then they said okay, I believe. Okay, differentiation is the key. Whatever scene you're talking about with the X factor effect is the key. So now help me, because I lack the know-how or the creativity or whatever. Now, help me to stack my differences that make a difference. Help me to stand out in the sea of sameness so that I can become that market leader that I want to become. So that was how we did it. Personally and that's one big example of ellen's supposed to be picking up and writing all this- time and you're supposed to be talking because, dude, you want to talk about unicorns.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's like unicorn farts, you can't find them.
Speaker 2:A beauty unicorn do you just say? Unicorn fart yeah, that's even more, uh, rare. It's more rare than a unicorn, right? Wow, right, didn't think about that right.
Speaker 1:So self-worth by the bottle, that's right, which reminds me of a meme. I just saw it on social media, says me so uh, daniel, do you have kids?
Speaker 3:yeah, four kids you have four.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, wow, and you got all your hair and everything. Oh, look, look at you. Yeah, well, I filled it in with those fiber things.
Speaker 3:So that's my trick. You know those fibers. Yeah, I cheat.
Speaker 1:Actually my uncle way back when used the hairspray.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Spray the hairspray Like silly string. Oh no, do you remember this? So I'm old and my uncle's even older, and he was losing his hair like I have. My father still has a full head of hair. He does. Sam's just rocking it. Yeah, right, so he sprays, he buys this thing off the back in the day. When you only had like four channels and this would be the who's, the guy who always did all the Ronco. There's more Ronco? Yeah, so he buys it. So I go to his house. And there's more Ronco, yeah, so he buys it. So I go to his house and he had sprayed his head. So we're you know.
Speaker 1:And so I grew up in Michigan and my uncle's in Buffalo, new York, florida, and Buffalo, new York, and it got warm and we're there and all the family. So we're an Italian family. Everybody comes over for Sunday dinner, right, and we were there. So it was a big deal because Sammy's kids were there. My dad's name was Sam, I was the kid, and he had sprayed his head. Well, it got hot and they were grilling and he starts leaking and, dude, it's streaming down his head, going through his nose, coming through his forehead. I was like you know what? I'm never going to be that guy, and I was. I was Mr Comb-Over for a long time until I went comb over.
Speaker 2:Oh, you got one.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, go to Trustdale TV. That's when it was on. That's when I went all right, I'm done, but back to being the unicorn. So, daniel, oh my gosh, four kids.
Speaker 1:So this meme that I saw was before you had kids. I will never lie to my kids. I will always be right. I will not be that dad be right. I will not be that dad me after two kids and I had two, you know what? I just had a conversation with santa claus, easter bunny, um, the power rangers and, uh, spider-man and they said if you don't start acting right, I'm gonna have to take out another unicorn. I just felt like, absolutely, you want to talk about you know what? Before I was a dad, I would never lie to my kids. I will always tell them the truth. I will always be right. After you have kids, you're like nah, it's going down. Why? Because there's unicorns out there that might die. I would say it all day long. Really, I did too. It was cold, I was hey, I could have hit him, I didn't, what? All right, so back to Daniel and his creative ideas.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember why you threw the balls at me. All right.
Speaker 1:Daniel. So back to the book, this book and, by the way, everybody, you can get ideas that influence. We'll pitch it all later. You can buy the book and the interactive book experience or you can go online and you can do this yourself. But one of the things that we've talked about, uh, that you, I want to talk about it for him. Okay, just a minute. So that's the way you like it, right, because it's bumpy. So, daniel, the, the idea we're talking about is, uh, one idea easy to catch, a couple ideas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, catch them that's why you threw the balls at alan and I, I did, I threw 15 of them at once and I caught like three and I did. I said, dude, catch my balls. I'm like and I said that right in front of this lady I'm like, I don't mean it like that. He did, did this lady just literally, just about as five minutes ago and we found out later she used to teach middle school kids I was like alan, catch my balls. Uh, well, I don't mean like that necessarily, you know, I'm saying okay so what's the?
Speaker 1:idea principle with you. Oh yeah, mister, so talk to us about the idea of one ball versus many balls the balls, the balls, the balls.
Speaker 3:So yeah, inside of the box experience. People get a bunch of bouncy balls. The experiments are really fun. Um, if I throw you alan one ball, the likelihood that you're gonna cash that one ball 100 really really high, like 97 98, I got, I got hands wow you got hands. I mean it's a hundred, it's a hundred, it's a hundred.
Speaker 1:He's an athlete bro.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not saying now, if I throw two at you at the same time, um, sometimes you get people that are like the athlete type and they'll they'll catch both. Um, a lot of the times people drop both, and sometimes people drop uh, catch one. So two people do all right with now the second. You go three balls throwing at you at once, you usually drop all of them. If I throw you six balls all at once, you usually drop all of them. If I throw you six balls all at once, you usually drop all of them. If I throw you 12 balls or 15 balls all at once, you usually drop all of them and catch none. And when you do catch something, it's usually one. That's what happens.
Speaker 3:The concept here is that we're all missing. Because of the overload and the amount of information going on in the world. We all only have enough RAM inside our heads random access memory to focus on one thing at a time. There's just too much noise out there, and so when it comes to your marketing message, there's a quote I love from Perry Belcher If any Perry Belcher fans out there.
Speaker 3:He taught this concept way back in the day and I super appreciate it because it's like the one big thing that I remember learning from him. He said if you try to sell your product or service and you try to pitch two or three big ideas instead of one in order to try to sell your product or service, and you try to pitch two or three big ideas instead of one in order to try to sell that product or service, then you usually cut your sales in half. So the trick is to just focus on one big idea, one big benefit. So, for example, if I'm going to sell a weight loss program or a meal plan, for that matter, I could say hey Alan, hey Chris, so this, this meal plan, it's the reason why you want this, because it's low calorie, it's high protein, it's organic and because it's paleo.
Speaker 3:All right, four things right.
Speaker 3:If I try to sell you on all four of those big concepts all at the same time it's low calorie, it's organic, it's high protein and it's paleo you're not gonna receive that message very well, because I'm trying to throw too many big ideas at you at the same time.
Speaker 3:It's okay that my meal plan has those benefits, but if I try to sell you on all four of those big ideas at the same time, then I'm going to at least cut my sales in half. Well, if I pick one of those, hey, it works because it's low calorie and I focus on that, it's low calorie. Or if I pick that, oh, it works because the paleo diet is amazing and this is why you should go paleo with our meal plan. If I focus on that one big idea, it's really easy for you to catch that idea, adopt that idea and then buy my product or service as a consequence of you adopting that idea. So that's the whole concept of single focus. So every single time that people go out with their marketing messages, the large majority make this mistake of trying to sell multiple big ideas or concepts inside of their marketing campaigns, instead of focusing on one big idea that people can easily adopt.
Speaker 1:So it's hard because you just said pick one, yeah, and you'd be afraid because you'd be afraid you picked the wrong one.
Speaker 2:You picked the wrong one and nobody's going to buy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you've got lots more bullets in your gun, right? So I'm out there like a freaking howitzer. I mean not a howitzer, what's a gambling gun? Yeah, that's right and so, but, but Daniel brings up a great point.
Speaker 2:We've talked about this all the time that the discipline of staying on one is so much harder than the ease of going really complicated and trying a million things. But he said something very early on which I was like, okay, he's a very creative guy and he comes up with a great idea all the time and then he tests it. And I think a lot of the people out there who maybe aren't as creative and then maybe they come up with they might be afraid to test it. But okay, so you've got four or five things that are pretty good about your business and you focus on one. Talk to me about what that test looks like. And then at what point do you, you know, cut bait and move to the next one?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, cut bait and move to the next one. Yeah, Well, we, we talked about seven big um, seven big elements for wildly successful marketing campaigns inside of the book. And so when you filter through all of your ideas, let's say your ideas are low calorie, paleo, organic, high protein, right. What you want to do is you know and obviously that's a really broad, like you know, that's not a full idea in and of itself, but you get the idea.
Speaker 3:So we teach the seven elements and what we do inside of the book is we say, hey, let's rank these ideas based off of the elements that are proven to work. And if you have five, six or seven of the elements, then you're pretty much in a good spot to test and there's a really high chance that that marketing message is going to break through the noise. So, before we even have people throw money at anything, we say, hey, let's make sure it has enough of the right elements of a winning marketing message. And then, once you've figured out what your best ideas are, then let's go through that testing process and let's do a minimum viable product but apply to your marketing. So, minimum viable product in the sense of, hey, let's just do like a mini test for your marketing campaign and see if it does actually catch the attention of your dream customers. And then, once you see what is sticking, what's working, then you start to scale it from there.
Speaker 2:Do you help people figure out what their dream customer is, because you've mentioned dream customers a number of times yeah, uh, we do.
Speaker 3:The book covers that in a small way, but one of our big things with the x factor effect methodology and it's actually the first thing it's the boring thing that everybody talks about is, yes, you do have to dial in your avatar, and that's why you hear everybody talking about it whenever they jump on the podcast you just gave chris the warm fuzzies using like oh you gotta do the avatar.
Speaker 1:Why do you? Look at the circles in the book why do you think I, I, why do you think I kept reading his book? He used my term baby avatar, because I have is it your term now, did you just usurp the term? You know what? Uh, back to the internet. I am l core. I developed the internet. I developed your avatar I even got you that one.
Speaker 3:I knew that would be good it's unavoidable though right, alan and chris, like the whole avatar concept if, if you don't dial that in first, like what? Like sometimes it's like why even bother with any other step in any other process?
Speaker 2:because well, how specific should that avatar be?
Speaker 3:how specific should it be?
Speaker 2:well, you know because also I'm a plumber and you know, anybody that needs plumbing is my avatar, right, bullshit oh, let's, let's use an example now wait, well, you're not he's gonna go back to a fat example.
Speaker 3:Watch this, or a bald example if you're confused, alan he does commercial real estate. He's not a plumber. But if alan was a plumber, not a plumber.
Speaker 1:Thank you, actually, he's very handy, but okay if alan was a plumber?
Speaker 3:I love to use the example of benjamin franklin plumbing. You guys have that in Atlanta.
Speaker 1:I don't have. Well, yeah, they're here, but know the concept and know that people have started it. Yep.
Speaker 3:Okay, so Benjamin Franklin plumbing. One of the easiest ways that they have niched down is their avatar is people that need plumbing, that care about the freaking plumber being on time.
Speaker 3:They are the punctual plumber They've got this amazing guarantee where, for every minute they are late, they will pay you $5 and they'll pay you up. It goes up to like $500 or something. They're guaranteed. So they are the punctual plumber. They are pretty much always on time because they will pay you money or discount your service, however you look at that, and so their avatar is the people that care more about the plumber being on time rather than the price, which is the most genius avatar in the world when it comes to plumbing, because who cares about the plumber being on time the most?
Speaker 3:The affluent customer. But yep, exactly.
Speaker 1:Time is money, time is money.
Speaker 3:Chris, the affluent customer cares the most about that plumber being punctually on time. So, in addition to that, the whole appearance, the whole avatar for Benjamin Franklin plumbing is all is dialed in even better because of the way they have their team present themselves and the way they interact with the customer. And to give you a quick example, it is required for the plumbers that work for Benjamin Franklin Plumbing to put the covers over their shoe. It's just part of their SOPs. And so not only are they the punctual plumber, but they are the very professional and clean plumber, which, once again, what's the avatar for that?
Speaker 2:The more affluent customer right, don't touch my shoe, you will pay more.
Speaker 3:If you pay Benjamin Franklinlin plumbing for your plumbing services, you're going to pay at least 50 more yep don't quote me on that not 50.
Speaker 1:But uh, the point is, yeah, it's, it's a. If you have to ask the price on them changing out your water heater or them uh fixing a leak in your home or them uh replacing a sink fixture, uh, you're, you're a water heater, or them fixing a leak in your home or them replacing a sink fixture, you're not their avatar, their avatar, which the first time you actually said it like that, and actually I know some of the guys over there. So that's an amazing dialogue and example of the avatar of the book. It is ideas that influence. Let's make it happen.
Speaker 1:Daniel, this has been awesome. We're starting to run out of time. Don't want to keep everybody there because you guys are in your car, you're listening, you're on your walk, maybe you're on your run, maybe you're doing the 50.5 million walk thing. I don't know. I heard there's 50.5, an ultra, ultra. Yeah, I was like 50.5, yeah, so that was my joke was like if we do a 50.5 ultra race, I'm like is that 50 steps? Like down to my mailbox? Cause, that's about as far as I'm going, bro, this fat boy is not running.
Speaker 1:It's a big hill down there.
Speaker 2:It is a big hill, I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I work it out.
Speaker 2:I put you breathing hard when you get back with your mail.
Speaker 1:I you know Well right now, an allergy season, daniel. How can everybody find you? Because they want to become a student of what you've talked about. They want to get the ideas, the influence book. How can we find it?
Speaker 3:The easiest way to get into everything the Daniel Din world with the whole X factor effect concept is to grab a free book. Actually, it's available at bigideasboxcom. It comes with a box. It comes with a five experience envelopes that we alluded to today. But yeah, it's free plus shipping. You just pay shipping and handling and I'm going to send you out the whole book and the whole box experience. So bigideasboxcom is where you can grab all of that.
Speaker 2:That's a good deal.
Speaker 3:Of course that's a big deal, I mean that is an action-packed box.
Speaker 1:You get little light that chris won't stop clicking on and off, I don't know balls you can throw at people and have fun with them. Keep throwing balls, everybody, just the light guys. Do it right. It's worth it. It's worth the shipping and handling. Just get sticky notes. But honestly, guys, it's an easy read. It's an easy way to get into getting big ideas and get your team involved. Love the stories he talked about.
Speaker 2:It's an easy read. But obviously it's a great read because you've got all these goddang sticky notes and circles and underlines and and you start writing notes on a separate piece of paper right, you should see my uh issue of war and peace.
Speaker 1:I'm still on page two, right, like wow, this is hard boy. This is very different.
Speaker 2:So much better for that. Pictures at least you broke it.
Speaker 3:At least you broke open war and peace.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's a hard one pause for that daniel, we can't let you go because we got to keep telling stories. What is a favorite book you prefer to all of our listeners? Oh yeah so it's not yours, by the way yeah, that's not mine.
Speaker 3:That's not mine, uh. So, um, all right, pop quiz for you guys. There's young man and he goes on this amazing adventure about life and at the end he's a winner. His name is Santiago. Which book is it?
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 3:That's a tough one. That's a tough one.
Speaker 1:Shit, I'm going.
Speaker 3:He tries to go to Egypt.
Speaker 1:Santiago. Go on, he's not tilting the windmills, right no I don't I give up. I give up too it's the alchemist oh, didn't read it too hard.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness cerebral that is, I've not read the alchemist. It's my favorite. It's my favorite book so I'm doing it.
Speaker 1:Why, yeah? Why is your favorite?
Speaker 3:um the journey, the life journey, that santiago, and they only mentioned his name once. That's why it's a. It was a tough pop quiz it was a tough pop quiz, but santiago.
Speaker 3:We failed miserably he goes through this journey. It's all about life and he's trying to find his treasure in life. And and I um, I've read it probably. I mean and when I say I've read it, I've listened to it like 10 times, um, and probably cried half of those times while listening to it. It is, um, it's lots of people's favorite book audible here I come.
Speaker 2:You're doing it. How do you like to cry?
Speaker 1:I've learned that. No, I don't like to, I just happen to because I'm a very emotional guy. I actually cried earlier. You know what? Jim Valvano said this If you've laughed and you've cried and you just enjoyed life throughout the day, that's a full day. Enjoy your day. You know what I was like. He said that when he was, uh, his cancer thing right, the cancer jimmy belvano speech. He said a couple other things and, uh, every time I watch that one, yeah, I go, yeah, you can't watch that without crying. Oh, my god, it's the best. All right, alchemist, that was awesome. But now we got to talk about what's the favorite feature of your house as a remodeler, I want to hear this I love fixing people's houses. I love people's houses. What's the favorite?
Speaker 2:feature of your house. I'm going to say it's a proximity to disneyland, disney world that's cool, that's a good, that's a.
Speaker 3:That's a good guess. But my favorite feature is we have a freaking palm tree, a massive palm tree in our front yard, so if I need a killer background or I want to take a cool selfie, I just have to go to from my front yard because you make everybody hate you instantly.
Speaker 2:Who doesn't have a palm tree?
Speaker 1:so I had a buddy here in atlanta. Uh, when I, you know, I moved here in 2001 and uh, he does his backyard, he puts palm trees in. I'm like you know I came from. I had lived in north carolina for nine years but it came from Michigan. I was like dude, I didn't realize palm trees could make it. He goes oh yeah, they make it. We had this hideous goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's last year.
Speaker 1:No, this is back 2003, 2004,. Something like that and he lost the whole thing. Oh my God, and it incredible expensive plant that comes from south florida. Pick them up. So, palm tree. You're right, you're making us all jealous, but go check them out on facebook, daniel den. Go see the palm trees. Go see what he's posting out there.
Speaker 3:I think I've seen that palm tree, daniel, so that's pretty cool well, yeah, in one of my videos I was just like I need a good background. Okay, I'm just gonna use the palm tree again that's awesome.
Speaker 1:All right, Alan and I talk about this all the time. We are huge into customer service. I created the Home Service Institute. I believe that home service companies have got to get better at home services all the time. You've got to get better at customer service because customer service is it. But when you're out there and you're the customer, what is the customer service pet peeve of yours? Because we are crazy about and we're freaks, are we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolute customer service. Freaks, we're customer service.
Speaker 3:Right there with you. Michael cut that.
Speaker 1:He won't by the way, All right go.
Speaker 3:I said, we talk about the fact that we're in the age of experience. In the age of experience, people have enough stuff. They value customer experience over the stuff that they have. That's why so many of us are spending our disposable income on experiences. So it's all about providing that amazing experience, and it's one of the.
Speaker 3:It comes to customer experience and customer service is pretty much any time I visit a tourist area, because every single time I go, I am blown away at how everybody just feels like because there's so much volume of people coming through that they can get away with bad customer service. And, um, then when you have the really smart business amongst all of the ones that are lacking customer service, when you have that really smart business inside of the tourist area that's got the five-star reviews and like they're doing everything right, they're the ones that are like well, everybody, everybody has business, but they're like super like, hopping, like, and so my pet peeve is that so many tourist areas think that they can get away with bad customer service and they just end up hurting their own brands and even though they're making some money, they just don't realize how much more money they could be making if they provided an exceptional experience, along with their exceptional location, because that's what they have is their exceptional location, right?
Speaker 1:so daniel's in the orlando area. We went down when our kids were in high school and my daughter starts looking up the incredible uh orlando experiences and of course I you know I used to go down there quite a bit for work knew that we wanted to get out of the tourist area to try other stuff. And what did she look up? She found this great sushi place because their reviews were phenomenal and so we drove away. We actually took an uber out of uh disney world to go to this place, one of the best times we ever had, really. Yeah, it was an amazing sushi place.
Speaker 1:Of course I can't push them I can't tell you their name right now because I was long for the ride, but looking back on it, it was one of the best things. And back to your point great customer service will trump location. You want location, location, location, but if you're a shitty location provider, you will lose at the end of the day and you will find out that you've lost money because we could have stayed right there and got great sushi. I'm sure I'm not picking on disney world. I'm just saying that we, we did that and that was like the best experience we had the entire weekend we were there.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a whole other podcast topic of how do you continue to provide excellent customer service when you've got more business and you know what to do with.
Speaker 1:Oh, all right, yeah good point, all right, but before we go on to that good point, I want to. I want a diy nightmare story. I want to hear about a contractor. I want to hear what did you do? And we love death, dismemberment. Actually we said death and it happened. I was like oh shit, yeah, I just want dismemberment like fire ambulance cops were called something like no death.
Speaker 1:But we just, we had somebody go oh well, this guy died. I'm like, well, yeah, so we're gonna skip that topic bro. Yeah, well, yeah, bring us down so that's good, I guess.
Speaker 3:Good news I don't have death. Um, one of this is a not normally what people would share when you ask that question, but we were in an Airbnb in an apartment in like a rundown apartment complex in the Northeast. I'm not going to, I'm not going to throw the whole city under the bus because I don't want to, like, hurt tourism for an entire area, but it was in the Northeast.
Speaker 3:Philly Boston philly boston, so we'll do it for you. With the ac units, there was these massive gaps all around the apartment complex. The interior looked good, but there was these gaps, and so we found out pretty quickly that the entire complex had this rat problem, and so I went and I bought all the sticky traps and that wasn't mentioned in the reviews.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was, it was, it was, I think. I think they only had one review at the time and so we were taking a gamble and so twice a night I would hear the little squeaking and have caught. You know, I caught another mouse and like just the whole family was just freaked out. But there was like literal gaps to the outside world and so it was really easy for these rats to just jump inside and like start going through the trash and then blame them I would catch about twice.
Speaker 3:Twice a night I would wake up and have to take care of the trap and go outside and smash it so that I'm humane and just get it out of its misery and then throw it in the trash. So anyway, don't leave massive gaps in your AC units.
Speaker 2:Don't stay at Airbnbs with no reviews.
Speaker 3:And yet, if it only has one review In the UK, aka Philadelphia, boston. Yeah, freaking, yeah, all right, everybody On that positive note.
Speaker 1:No, we've got to pick it up Everybody. If you didn't learn something, that's on you, because ideas that influence the X Factor methodology, being creative, involving your team, dan, you brought the heat.
Speaker 2:You brought the heat you brought the power, he's gonna send him a free box of good stuff you get a free box for this podcast bro, you can say catch my balls and throw balls at him.
Speaker 1:You know what? Send me back that video. I want you to throw in something and go, hey, catch my balls, because that was the best. I wish I would have had that on video because she was so horrified. And then I find out later that she's been a lifelong educator. I'm like, yeah, I pretty much got expelled, didn't I? All right, dude, this has been awesome. You guys, we spent some time. Hopefully you've enjoyed this time with us and if you made it all the way to the end, awesome, hey, don't go, forget to go out there and you know, maybe do a review and follow us, tell us your friends about us, or whatever. I'm begging now. Fuck it, I don't why are you begging?
Speaker 2:we're in 15 continents, we are galaxies we're in the top 10%.
Speaker 1:Actually, knock on the 5% board. That's right. I don't care. I'm not begging, you know what it's on you. We're doing this for you guys, because we're just going to sit here and keep having fun, but it's up to you to implement some of this stuff. Let's keep going up that mountaintop, because eventually we're going to get to the top and success is yours.