The Greatest Mind Hacks in Marketing History (Craig Clemens Interview)

0:00:08 All right, you’re about to hear a podcast with a guy who does over a billion dollars a year in sales and yet 99.9% of you have never heard of him.
0:00:12 It’s my friend Craig. He is the smartest marketing mind I know, period.
0:00:18 And in this podcast, he talks about the three greatest lines in marketing history and he breaks down why they work.
0:00:26 He breaks down the ads that he used in his business and how he took one business from zero to 127 million in sales in year one.
0:00:27 Enjoy this episode with Craig Clemens.
0:00:36 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like no days off on a road.
0:00:37 Let’s travel never looking back.
0:00:43 Craig, what’s going on, man? We were just having a conversation out there and you gave me this teaser that’s unbelievable.
0:00:50 You were like, well, you know, the three greatest lines in the history of marketing and I had to put the finger up to your lips.
0:00:55 Like, we got to record this. And so we came in here emergency podcast before you tell me the lines.
0:00:59 I’ll tell people who you are. So Craig Clemens, he created he’s done many things.
0:01:04 But one of the things he created is Golden Hippo. It’s a company you’ve never heard of, but it just crushes it.
0:01:09 It’s a e-commerce company. You guys have done over a billion dollars of sales online.
0:01:15 So whenever you’re in a year, a billion a year, billion a year, that’s an important correction.
0:01:19 Every time I talk to you, the marketing part of my brain just explodes.
0:01:22 I just get so much smarter and so you’re one of my favorite people to talk to.
0:01:26 And because every time I learn from you, I can go do something in my business right away that’s going to make more money.
0:01:31 So I always appreciate that. You gave me the teaser, the three greatest lines of marketing. What are they?
0:01:38 OK, so the greatest line in marketing history, if you Google or chat GPT it, is going to say
0:01:42 a line different than what I was going to tell you.
0:01:43 OK, what would they say?
0:01:47 I’m going to tell you what they’re going to say in a minute. Teaser, teaser.
0:01:51 Marketing is a lot about teasers because it is a very strong line
0:01:58 and it’s worthy of discussion, but I’m going to start with my favorite headline of all time.
0:02:01 And that was written by a copywriter named Gary Halbert.
0:02:08 And the way it came about, he was contracted by a woman named Tova Borgnein,
0:02:13 who was the wife of movie star Ernest Borgnein before our time.
0:02:18 But apparently if we went to our parents and grandparents and we said Ernest Borgnein,
0:02:22 they would be like, oh, yes, he was a Brad Pitt type of the time.
0:02:27 So his wife wanted to come out with a perfume and she asked Gary to figure it out for her.
0:02:32 So Gary doesn’t know the first thing about perfume, but he knows a ton about marketing.
0:02:35 At the time, he was a legendary copywriter, had many, many successes.
0:02:39 And so he’s brainstorming on what to do as he’s walking through the mall one day
0:02:43 and he sees a kiosk where there’s like these little oils and things like that.
0:02:44 Did you ever walk by that kiosk?
0:02:46 Of course, there’s always like a very smooth talker right there.
0:02:48 Yeah, make your own perfume, right?
0:02:53 And so he goes up and he’s like, hey, what are these creations of perfume?
0:02:54 Do you make them yourself or whatever?
0:03:00 And they say, oh, yes, the essential oils are put together to make your own perfume.
0:03:02 And he says, is there one of them that outsells all the rest?
0:03:04 And they’re like, oh, yes, China Musk.
0:03:06 China Musk is the best seller by far.
0:03:12 He says, why doesn’t someone take China Musk, put in a fancy bottle and call it XYZ perfume?
0:03:13 And they’re like, well, that’s a great idea.
0:03:14 No one’s ever done that.
0:03:16 He says, okay, give me some China Musk.
0:03:21 So he takes the China Musk and he walks over to the jeweler that he knows and he says,
0:03:26 Mr. Jeweler, I would like you to put this in a fancy glass and gold bottle that is shaped like a tea.
0:03:32 Put it in the bottle and then he sits on it for like three months.
0:03:41 Calls Tova Borg9 and he goes, Tova, I have spent the last three months traveling the world in search of the finest perfume.
0:03:47 And I think finally, after sampling literally thousands, I’ve discovered it.
0:03:50 I want to bring it over to your house right now and have you smell it.
0:03:51 He brings it over.
0:03:54 She’s just in awe of how great the China Musk smells.
0:03:56 And she decides she wants to launch it.
0:04:03 And she wants to do the launch party at her friend Candy Spelling’s boutique on Roteo Drive.
0:04:07 Candy is a wife of Aaron Spelling, the big producer.
0:04:11 And Gary says, that is far too small.
0:04:16 We are going to rent out the entire bottom floor of the Century Plaza Hotel.
0:04:18 And she’s hemming and hollering.
0:04:21 She’s like, how are we going to fill that with people and this and that?
0:04:22 And he says, you know, trust me.
0:04:29 So she actually strokes the check, rents out the entire bottom floor of the Century Plaza Hotel.
0:04:33 And Gary takes it a full page ad in the LA Times.
0:04:36 And the headline is this.
0:04:41 Wife of famous movie star swears under oath.
0:04:48 Her new perfume does not contain an illegal sexual stimulant.
0:04:51 That was the headline in big letters.
0:04:59 And then the subhead said, and she is so confident in this, she’s willing to prove it by giving away
0:05:05 10,000 sample bottles on this day at this time at the Century Plaza Hotel.
0:05:08 So they put it to ad and you’re, you know, will it work?
0:05:09 Who knows.
0:05:14 And the phones at the Century Plaza Hotel just start ringing and ringing by people
0:05:16 wanting to know about this event.
0:05:20 And this kept going and going and they realized it was going to be chaotic.
0:05:23 So the fire department comes the day of and they like shut down the street.
0:05:28 They figure out this way to get all the cars in and thousands and thousands and thousands
0:05:32 of people show up and crowd into the lobby of the Century Plaza Hotel with this big reveal.
0:05:38 He has two in shape gentlemen with tuxedos.
0:05:44 Get a briefcase hand cuff it to their wrist and walk it in through the crowd.
0:05:51 Bring it onto the stage opens it up and in there are the 12 sapphires representing all
0:05:57 12 ingredients in Tova perfume and Tova auctions off each sapphire for charity.
0:05:59 Brings in a few hundred thousand dollars.
0:06:03 The next day the phone rang with unsolicited offers from, you know, Macy’s,
0:06:07 Robinson’s May, all the department stores, The Time, Barney’s Sacks, et cetera, et cetera.
0:06:12 It was the best selling perfume in the world that year and went on for many, many years.
0:06:18 I think now you’ll find it like at CVS behind, you know, photo counter or something like that.
0:06:19 But it’s still I think exists.
0:06:20 Wow.
0:06:20 Yeah.
0:06:22 So look for the tea Tova perfume.
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0:06:56 That’s amazing.
0:06:59 So you love that headline if we break it down.
0:07:02 So it was wife of famous movie star.
0:07:03 Yes.
0:07:04 Social proof right there.
0:07:05 Social proof.
0:07:07 Not using her name.
0:07:07 Yes.
0:07:09 Swear some curiosity.
0:07:09 Yeah.
0:07:11 Which famous movie star is it?
0:07:11 Exactly.
0:07:13 So curiosity and social proof.
0:07:18 Then it was swears under oath, which is like stakes drama, right?
0:07:19 Or how would you describe it?
0:07:20 Is that what you would call it?
0:07:20 Yes.
0:07:26 And then new perfume does not contain sexual, sexual stimulants, which is like kind
0:07:27 of an inversion, right?
0:07:30 It’s like that implies this shit must be amazing.
0:07:31 Okay.
0:07:33 So I need to come up with a name for this because my favorite part of the headline
0:07:39 is the last part and it’s like the secret marketing embed or some shit like that.
0:07:43 You know, it’s like the hidden secret message that even the reader doesn’t know
0:07:47 they’re receiving, but when you read that, you’re like, wait, okay.
0:07:50 It doesn’t contain an illegal sexual stimulant.
0:07:51 Does it contain a legal one?
0:07:54 Like what is in this fucking thing?
0:07:58 You know, and I always wanted to rip that headline and do it for like a new taco
0:07:59 stand or something.
0:08:03 You know, I think it’s universal that you could be like, you know, new restaurant
0:08:07 owner swears under oath his tacos do not contain an illegal stimulant.
0:08:10 You know, as he’s willing to give away a thousand free tacos to prove that
0:08:12 there’s nothing weird in here and they’re just that good.
0:08:13 They’re just that good.
0:08:14 Actually, that’s it.
0:08:16 That’s a great ending to it too.
0:08:17 Yeah.
0:08:21 And then it had actually the sort of the offer or the call to action, which was
0:08:24 giving away so many samples at this time at this place.
0:08:24 Exactly.
0:08:27 It’s proof that this is going to work.
0:08:29 You know, a risk-free offer.
0:08:30 You’re going to get this for free.
0:08:31 Right.
0:08:33 And if you don’t like it, who cares?
0:08:34 You know, so it’s removing all the risk.
0:08:37 It’s making it really easy to go get it.
0:08:39 Have you ever done a remix of that headline?
0:08:39 Have you?
0:08:40 I haven’t.
0:08:42 I had a roommate who was going to open a taco stand.
0:08:43 She didn’t know I’m doing it.
0:08:45 I came up with a name too.
0:08:45 It was going to be in San Diego.
0:08:47 It’s going to be called burro brachos.
0:08:48 So like drunken donkeys.
0:08:49 Yeah, I think it would kill it.
0:08:52 Man, if anyone out there, if you’re watching this, you want to start a taco
0:08:55 stand together, you got to have a good recipe, but I’m in man.
0:08:59 I’ll do all the marketing for your taco stand and you have to name it burro
0:09:01 brach and I get free tacos for life.
0:09:02 That could be amazing.
0:09:04 Um, but no, I haven’t.
0:09:08 But you know, ever since I heard about this, which was very early in my
0:09:11 marketing career, I’ve been obsessed with like marketing in-beds at about
0:09:12 the same time.
0:09:14 This, this came out, I think in the nineties or something like that before
0:09:19 I was in marketing, but about the same time I learned about this, another
0:09:21 marketing in-bed hit the world.
0:09:28 And I think this is another of the greatest lines in marketing history.
0:09:32 And that is, Sean, I’m sure something you can personally relate to.
0:09:38 If you get any erection lasting longer than four hours, call a physician
0:09:39 immediately.
0:09:42 So we’ve all heard it.
0:09:42 Yeah.
0:09:42 We’ve all heard it.
0:09:44 It’s the end of every Viagra ad.
0:09:48 And if you’re a guy that’s having trouble getting it up.
0:09:51 You’re thinking about this and you’re like, fuck, this could actually
0:09:53 give me a four hour erection.
0:09:55 I’ll be happy with four minutes, man.
0:09:56 You know?
0:09:58 And it’s such a great line.
0:10:04 So you think that, so I always heard that as at the end of any info, uh,
0:10:06 you know, pharma commercial.
0:10:06 Yes.
0:10:10 Like you may, side effects may include nausea, vomiting, but I kind of
0:10:10 thought it was like that.
0:10:11 But actually you’re right.
0:10:16 I don’t think that was the mandated, the mandated side effects.
0:10:18 I think that was an in-bed.
0:10:18 Maybe.
0:10:21 I mean, it could have been true also, you know, it shows a way to
0:10:24 workshop things in a way that could be a positive.
0:10:27 Like the, the nausea thing for something else.
0:10:30 It could be like, you know, if you’re, oh, here’s something.
0:10:35 I literally got, um, uh, stem cell treatments last week and the doctor
0:10:41 after he shoots me up tells me, Hey, you’re going to have swelling
0:10:42 tonight and extreme pain.
0:10:43 And that’s great.
0:10:44 That means it’s working.
0:10:45 I was like, oh, interesting.
0:10:45 Right.
0:10:46 Changed the meaning.
0:10:47 You know, yeah.
0:10:50 And when it started swelling and I was fucking howling that it was
0:10:51 like the most pain I’ve ever been.
0:10:52 And actually I was literally howling.
0:10:54 I was like, well, these fucking work.
0:10:56 You know, my knees going to heal.
0:11:01 So, uh, yeah, there is, is a lot of value in being able to turn
0:11:02 positives and negatives.
0:11:04 Joe Sugarman was a master of this too.
0:11:05 He used to sell a lot of devices.
0:11:06 Do you know Joe Sugarman?
0:11:09 I’ve heard the name, but blue block or sunglasses.
0:11:11 So we could talk about Joe Sugarman for, for a hot minute.
0:11:13 Cause he is one of the real name, by the way, or is that kind of like
0:11:14 an admin name?
0:11:15 That’s his real name.
0:11:17 And he was one of the greatest legends in marketing history.
0:11:20 Everyone should read Sugarman and study what he did.
0:11:23 But before he did blue block or infomercial, which was one of
0:11:26 the biggest infomercials at the time, he would do these devices.
0:11:31 And he had one of the early air purifiers.
0:11:35 And back then the way the technology, you think of an air
0:11:35 purifier.
0:11:36 Now, what do you think of?
0:11:39 Thing I put in the corner, a slick box in the corner of the room.
0:11:40 Like, yeah.
0:11:40 Yeah.
0:11:44 This one was in the nineties or something like that.
0:11:48 And it had to have this crazy weird wire coil on top of it to
0:11:51 grab all the negative shit out of the air.
0:11:52 And it was very ugly.
0:11:57 And his ad attacked that head on.
0:12:00 He said, like, you know, the coil that removes the toxins.
0:12:04 And so instead of having this ugly ass thing in your house,
0:12:06 you’re like, oh, that’s that you see that coil and you’re like,
0:12:08 that’s the coil, pulling the toxins out of the air.
0:12:10 You know, I forget what his exact headline was on that, but
0:12:12 it was turning these negatives into deposit.
0:12:12 Okay.
0:12:14 So are we on number two?
0:12:15 Or that was number two.
0:12:16 No, that was number two.
0:12:16 Okay.
0:12:17 Oh, okay.
0:12:17 Okay.
0:12:19 So maybe there’s going to be five, four.
0:12:20 I don’t know how many we said there was going to be.
0:12:20 Okay.
0:12:21 Shout out to another one.
0:12:26 I just remembered that’s really big when infomercials first aired.
0:12:30 The call to action was please call now.
0:12:32 Operators are standing by.
0:12:33 Do you remember?
0:12:35 Yes, I’ve heard these infomercials times.
0:12:36 Yes.
0:12:37 There was a woman a man.
0:12:40 I wish I could remember her name, but it was a female copywriter
0:12:44 that created this and it changed the entire world of infomercials.
0:12:46 And I think the entire world of selling.
0:12:52 And she changed that line to please call now.
0:12:56 If you get a busy signal, please call again.
0:13:01 And if you think of the picture in your mind, you know, of operators
0:13:03 standing there waiting for the phone, right?
0:13:07 No one’s buying this fucking thing to call now.
0:13:08 You, you probably get a busy signal.
0:13:09 Please keep calling.
0:13:10 Please keep trying.
0:13:14 You know, the offer is going to stay around for this many minutes.
0:13:15 Please keep trying to call.
0:13:19 It just gives the image of the phones flying in the room and
0:13:21 everyone’s trying to place their orders and it’s like high demand.
0:13:23 And, you know, it gets you excited.
0:13:27 And you, when you get through and you hear that person answer,
0:13:28 you’re relieved.
0:13:30 You’re like, oh, I got through.
0:13:30 Right.
0:13:31 I’m going to get the special offer.
0:13:34 Is the special offer still available?
0:13:35 Yes.
0:13:35 Right.
0:13:37 It is still available.
0:13:37 Right.
0:13:38 It’s like that feeling of relief.
0:13:39 So that was a big line.
0:13:40 I’ll give a shout out to that.
0:13:46 We did a similar one where for my company, we, let’s say on a normal day,
0:13:50 let’s say when we launch a product, it would be awesome if let’s say 800
0:13:53 people bought the thing, like right when it launches, like the kind of the first
0:13:54 10 minutes or so.
0:13:58 And so I’m like trying to think about how to drum up excitement or whatever.
0:14:02 And so part of the team, you know, first instinct is like, do we discount?
0:14:03 No, no, we’re not going to discount that.
0:14:05 That that’s going to have the opposite effect.
0:14:09 Probably do we free gift with purchase or some kind of limited time?
0:14:11 Like bonus for like the first people through the door.
0:14:11 Okay.
0:14:15 I think we’re on the right track and we did a similar thing where we were like,
0:14:18 I did the founder sent a personal note.
0:14:21 It was like an unstyled email and it was basically apologies in advance.
0:14:25 We expect this to go off, you know, to sell so quickly.
0:14:27 I know that many of you are going to be upset.
0:14:32 And so as a, you know, as, as a, as a make good, you know, I give you my word
0:14:34 that for the next one, we’re going to have more, but for this one, it’s just
0:14:37 going to be, it’s, I know it’s going to be chaos and scarcity.
0:14:38 I’m already worried about it.
0:14:39 Yes.
0:14:42 And immediately we had our biggest day, which we had never had.
0:14:44 Like, you know, 800 would have been a great day.
0:14:48 And then all of a sudden it was like 2800 just by apologizing in advance
0:14:51 because we embedded the, instead of saying like, come get it.
0:14:52 Yes.
0:14:54 We were like, we’re so sorry.
0:14:55 It’s, you’re probably not going to get it.
0:14:56 Yes.
0:14:57 And that just, that reversal really worked.
0:14:58 Embedded marketing.
0:14:59 That’s a book there.
0:15:01 It’s a book waiting to be written.
0:15:05 We’ve like, we’ve like brainstormed three books now in the last 18 months
0:15:06 that like somebody should write.
0:15:06 We want to write these.
0:15:07 All right.
0:15:07 Yeah.
0:15:07 Yeah.
0:15:08 What’s happening?
0:15:08 Yeah.
0:15:12 And actually you and I have been casually talking about writing a book.
0:15:13 Yeah.
0:15:16 And maybe we need some people out there to pressure us.
0:15:21 To pressure us and motivate us because one day we should, yeah, we should do this.
0:15:23 So let us, let us know below if you want to see this book.
0:15:23 All right.
0:15:25 Number three, number three, four.
0:15:26 I can’t remember which one, which one.
0:15:29 They’re eating the dogs.
0:15:32 They’re eating the cats.
0:15:36 They’re eating the pets of the people who live there.
0:15:37 I have that song in my head now.
0:15:40 They’re talking about they’re eating the dogs.
0:15:42 People of Springfield, please don’t eat my dog.
0:15:43 Okay.
0:15:50 This line was said to have lost Trump the debate and possibly the election.
0:15:56 And what happened over the following week, in my opinion, won him the debate
0:16:02 and possibly the election because that line of the 20,000 immigrants that had
0:16:10 been legally migrated to Springfield, Illinois, town of Springfield, Ohio.
0:16:11 Yeah, yeah.
0:16:19 Springfield, Ohio, town of 58,000 was torn apart by the fact checkers, torn
0:16:22 apart by every news station in the world.
0:16:31 These 20,000 legal migrants in this town of 60,000 are not eating dogs.
0:16:32 They are not eating cats.
0:16:35 That is complete BS.
0:16:36 Let me say it again.
0:16:42 These 20,000 migrants that were moved into this little town of 60,000 people
0:16:46 that probably didn’t vote to have them moved in, probably didn’t know they
0:16:47 were coming in.
0:16:48 Maybe some of them wanted them.
0:16:49 Maybe some of them didn’t.
0:16:51 They’re not eating dogs.
0:16:52 They’re not eating cats.
0:16:55 But what does it say to the entire world?
0:17:03 Yes, large amounts of immigration, migration, whether it’s legal or illegal
0:17:08 is happening in small towns and places like Springfield, Ohio.
0:17:09 Right.
0:17:11 I had never known this was happening.
0:17:17 And, you know, some people want that and some people don’t.
0:17:22 And Trump’s base and a lot of moderates don’t want the small town that they
0:17:28 live in or their parents live in or, you know, they grew up in to have such
0:17:35 a huge change in population, in demographics, in, you know, the style
0:17:39 of how businesses are run, et cetera.
0:17:43 And it spread that message worldwide that, wow, there really is a lot
0:17:45 of immigration happening.
0:17:47 And yeah, some people thought it was great and some people didn’t.
0:17:54 But it got that message out because before that you hear about, you know,
0:17:57 oh, there’s, you know, the number was always different, right?
0:17:58 There’s 8 million people that came in under Biden.
0:18:01 There’s 20 million people that came in under Biden.
0:18:01 This is a big number.
0:18:03 Can you visualize 8 million people?
0:18:04 I can’t.
0:18:04 Yeah.
0:18:06 But I can visualize 20,000.
0:18:07 I’ve been to a football game.
0:18:09 It’s 20,000 in the stadium.
0:18:16 And I can visualize 58,000 and I can put the simple math together.
0:18:20 That’s one third, you know, of the population and that is a change.
0:18:22 And so it paints a picture.
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0:19:10 Back to the episode.
0:19:15 Did you read Scott Adams when he was running the first time?
0:19:18 Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, he was one of the first people
0:19:22 back in 2016 to when Trump first came out.
0:19:25 And if you remember, he did the first speech and he was like,
0:19:26 they’re bringing the rapists.
0:19:28 They’re bringing their, their killers across the border.
0:19:30 And it was like, whoa, whoa.
0:19:32 That was like, I mean, this first exposure to like, yes.
0:19:34 It’s like, I saw this tic-tac the other day of like an African tribe
0:19:37 drinking a Fanta for the first time and they’re like, you know,
0:19:38 they don’t even know how to get to it.
0:19:41 They’re like biting the lid off and then they drink a Fanta and they’re like,
0:19:42 oh my, like, what is this?
0:19:42 Yes.
0:19:44 That was Trump.
0:19:46 That was the reaction Trump the first time and Scott Adams came out
0:19:48 and he was like, oh, not only is this not a joke.
0:19:50 I think he’s going to win.
0:19:54 And he goes, I’ve been a trained basically like, and he’s like a hypnotist.
0:19:57 He’s like, I have looked at how you communicate with people.
0:20:01 Not sort of overtly, but like the sub, the, the subtext of what’s
0:20:03 being said and how effective that is at planting messages.
0:20:06 And he called them linguistic kill shots.
0:20:10 He goes, Trump has these linguistic kill shots where he just labels
0:20:13 something or he brings their attention to it in an extreme way.
0:20:15 So like with the eating the dogs or the cats, it’s like, instead
0:20:18 of arguing about the migration, you’re arguing now are the migrants
0:20:21 eating dogs and cats, which forced you to first accept the migrant point.
0:20:24 But if he never said that, you have to debate the migrant point.
0:20:27 And so, and he was talking about like when he, Jeb Bush was the favorite
0:20:30 at the time because it’s the Bush dynasty, the father, the brother.
0:20:31 Now it’s going to be Jeb.
0:20:36 And he just called him low energy Jeb and he labeled him that.
0:20:40 And then no matter what Jeb did, if, if Jeb was just being Jeb,
0:20:42 he is kind of low energy looking.
0:20:45 If he suddenly got vivacious, Trump would be like, good job, Jeb.
0:20:46 You’re, you’re like, you’re doing it.
0:20:48 And he, and so Jeb couldn’t win.
0:20:52 He tied him up and neither path was like viable.
0:20:54 And he, he just had to like remove this sticker off him.
0:20:57 And nobody in politics was doing that to each other, right?
0:20:58 Crooked Hillary.
0:21:01 He was just coming up with these linguistic kill shots where visual
0:21:04 words, every time you saw the person, that’s what you saw.
0:21:04 Yes.
0:21:06 And Scott called that out pretty early on.
0:21:10 And, and whether again, whether it’s natural, that’s just how
0:21:12 he is, or it’s like strategic, I have no idea.
0:21:15 But I think at this point, it’s pretty, it’s pretty clear that
0:21:17 that is an effective way of communicating that he does.
0:21:17 Yes.
0:21:17 Yes.
0:21:20 He’s a, he’s a showman, like with the McDonald’s thing.
0:21:21 Right.
0:21:26 When he went to work at McDonald’s, a lot of people didn’t know
0:21:28 why he was going to work at McDonald’s.
0:21:34 And then they found out, oh, Kamala has a questionable history.
0:21:36 It’s in debate whether or not she worked at McDonald’s.
0:21:37 You know?
0:21:42 And he did something else where he was interviewed at a conference
0:21:45 and he said, I think Kamala is black now.
0:21:46 I thought she was Indian.
0:21:49 Everyone’s like Trump’s a racist, blah, blah, blah.
0:21:53 And it’s interesting because not when he says these things,
0:21:56 it kind of does make him look bad in a way.
0:22:01 It does in a way make him look like a schoolyard bully.
0:22:02 Right.
0:22:03 But it’s effective.
0:22:05 It’s weird, right?
0:22:08 Yeah, he creates the frames that then you have to participate in.
0:22:08 Yeah.
0:22:11 And the garbage truck, he did the same thing when Joe Biden called
0:22:13 his supporters garbage.
0:22:14 He went and got in a garbage truck.
0:22:19 He’s like, I’m going to milk this moment and make sure that I dominate
0:22:20 the news cycle.
0:22:23 That was the really interesting thing I realized in this election
0:22:27 is you could feel in the news cycle who was winning and then you could
0:22:29 track it on polymarket.
0:22:32 So like the news cycle, whoever had something positive, their odds would go
0:22:36 up on polymarket and then Trump did the rally at MSG and he had Tony
0:22:40 Hinchcliffe did the diss and the Puerto Ricans and like the polymarket
0:22:43 starts going down and like Kamala is owning the news cycle and then
0:22:46 Biden says the garbage thing and it goes back to Trump favor in the
0:22:48 garbage truck and Trump’s odds go up.
0:22:50 It was wild to see these two things tracking.
0:22:53 So let’s do another one of the greatest lines.
0:22:53 Okay.
0:22:56 So now we can go to the chat GPT line.
0:22:56 Yeah.
0:22:56 What would they say?
0:23:02 And it really is and this is something that everyone knows about,
0:23:04 but not a lot of people know where it came from.
0:23:11 So you’ll know the line instantly when I say this, but you know, in the 1940s
0:23:16 only about 10% of brides got a diamond engagement ring.
0:23:20 De Beers diamonds had an interesting run.
0:23:26 They were quite popular in the early 1900s as like a flex, not as a
0:23:30 wedding ring, but you know, in other jewelry or on like a lapel or you
0:23:31 know, necklace earrings, things like that.
0:23:33 And then the depression happened.
0:23:37 Around the same time as diamond mining got really good.
0:23:42 So they had an oversupply of diamonds and then they had people losing
0:23:45 money and then we should talk about Joseph DeVine to the greatest art
0:23:49 dealer of all time because he invented the American art market.
0:23:51 So people were spending money on art and things like that, you know,
0:23:56 and so taking more away from that luxury sector to go into another one.
0:24:03 And it was a female copywriter Francis Gehrity who was at an agency
0:24:07 that De Beers hired and the story goes is like she was frustrated and she
0:24:12 was like, you know, I don’t know at her last last down her last penny
0:24:12 or something on one night.
0:24:15 She is working on this campaign and can’t think of anything and then
0:24:17 wakes up in the middle of the night with this line.
0:24:19 A diamond is forever.
0:24:27 And what is interesting is that was the tie in to engagement before that
0:24:32 the engagement ring would be like a plane band, a gold band, you know,
0:24:37 sometimes it would be like like an offering like a cow or like a land
0:24:38 or things like that.
0:24:39 An engagement is temporary.
0:24:42 Anyways, like by definition, an engagement is like a temporary period of time.
0:24:44 So diamonds are forever.
0:24:44 Yes.
0:24:46 Is like an exact contrast to that.
0:24:47 Yes.
0:24:53 And it’s an embed because it then shows that if someone doesn’t present
0:24:55 a diamond, maybe they’re not in it forever.
0:24:56 Right.
0:24:56 Right.
0:24:58 And what woman wants a half commitment.
0:24:59 Right.
0:25:01 Ladies out there, do you want a half commitment from your man?
0:25:02 Yeah.
0:25:07 So and from what I remember reading about this, they went to Hollywood
0:25:13 and they basically were giving directors diamonds saying in the key
0:25:17 moment in the climax moment where the man professes his love.
0:25:21 He’s got to give her a diamond ring and they embedded it in Hollywood
0:25:26 in movies by literally bribing the directors in order for them to show
0:25:26 that.
0:25:29 So then you’re watching the movie and that’s now become that now
0:25:31 influences culture that I guess that’s how you do it.
0:25:35 The big romantic gesture is to literally get down on one knee and
0:25:36 hand her a gold, you know, a diamond ring.
0:25:37 Yes.
0:25:41 That became used kind of top down influence also to do it.
0:25:41 Right.
0:25:42 And then scarcity, right?
0:25:43 Because they limit the supply.
0:25:46 So all the core marketing things, you know, influence, social, social
0:25:50 proof, that frame diamonds are forever scarcity.
0:25:51 They kind of used all of it.
0:25:52 Yes.
0:25:56 And now there’s this big debate going on between lab grown diamonds
0:25:57 and mine diamonds.
0:25:58 Have you heard of this?
0:25:58 It’s fascinating.
0:26:01 Because I think they’re 10%, 20% of the price or something like that.
0:26:04 There’s probably price control among the company.
0:26:05 50 to 80% cheaper.
0:26:06 Okay.
0:26:07 It’s the exact same rock.
0:26:09 You could look at them under a microscope.
0:26:10 In fact, they could be argued it’s more perfect.
0:26:11 It’s nicer, right?
0:26:12 It’s a more perfect thing.
0:26:14 And so you can get a big rock for this.
0:26:19 But then the smartest, the thing that I guess DeBeers did was that
0:26:21 they, so there’s a big problem.
0:26:24 They’re like, okay, if there’s lab grown diamonds that don’t have
0:26:27 these social issues with mining blood diamond type of stuff.
0:26:28 Yes.
0:26:30 And it’s just as good if not better.
0:26:31 This is a problem.
0:26:34 And so what they did, the genius of their business strategy was
0:26:37 they got into the lab grown business and just flooded the market
0:26:39 with cheap lab grown diamonds.
0:26:43 So they lowered the price intentionally like crappy ones.
0:26:44 Good time.
0:26:45 Good library diamonds.
0:26:47 But they just lowered the price so much more that then the
0:26:50 consumer’s mind became a perception like, oh, wow.
0:26:54 Like, yeah, if it was just like 20% less, something like that,
0:26:55 it might actually be more competitive.
0:26:59 They made it so much cheaper that they like took away the value,
0:27:02 the perceived value, the prestige of the diamond doing that.
0:27:03 I didn’t know that.
0:27:05 They were like involved in that, that process pretty crazy.
0:27:10 You put me on to an incredible marketer, Gary Bencevenga,
0:27:11 who I had never heard of.
0:27:15 And he has this little example, little exercise that I love.
0:27:17 I want to share, which is like, I don’t know if you remember
0:27:20 this from, from learning his stuff, but he gives this example
0:27:22 of kids going fishing.
0:27:25 So it’s like a lemonade stand type of example.
0:27:26 So it’s like kids are going fishing.
0:27:30 There are, they go to the fishing area and they want to sell bait.
0:27:32 They want to sell worms.
0:27:37 So they go V1 is basically like, basically worms for sale, 99 cents
0:27:38 or whatever, right?
0:27:42 And so they go there, not much sales, come back home.
0:27:44 Luckily, the neighbor is a copywriter.
0:27:45 It’s like the story.
0:27:46 Neighbor’s a copywriter.
0:27:49 He says, Hey, you know, why don’t we level this up?
0:27:52 And he goes, you know, first lesson of marketing.
0:27:53 You don’t sell the product, you sell the benefit.
0:27:57 So buy these worms, catch more fish.
0:28:00 So they go back day two, sell a little bit more with buy, you
0:28:02 know, these worms will help you catch more fish.
0:28:03 Now they have a benefit.
0:28:05 It goes, okay, they come back to like, Hey, what else you got?
0:28:06 How can we make even more?
0:28:10 And then they go to the next level where they were like, he’s
0:28:13 like, well, why do they catch more fish?
0:28:17 And I think it’s Ogilvy who has this great quote that he was
0:28:21 all about like the reason why marketing and they go, Ogilvy,
0:28:24 you seem to be a big fan of this reason why marketing.
0:28:26 And he goes, is there any other?
0:28:30 Like, is there any other way to sell this besides that?
0:28:34 It’s all, you know, that’s crazy if you don’t use that.
0:28:37 So then the kids go out and they’re like, well, why would I,
0:28:39 why do our worms catch more fish?
0:28:42 Oh, because these are local worms from the local soil.
0:28:45 And what you don’t know is that fish prefer worms that are
0:28:48 from their local soil, it’s more attractive to them.
0:28:51 Not these imported things that you find on the shelves.
0:28:54 We have the local ones start selling more, right?
0:28:56 And then they go to the next level.
0:28:59 He just shows like layering on these like master marketing techniques.
0:29:00 I love that example.
0:29:05 It’s an end with like, like, you know, buy two cans of local worms,
0:29:08 get a free bobber.
0:29:08 Exactly.
0:29:09 It’s like, there’s like an offer.
0:29:11 So he’s like, you know, use it with an offer.
0:29:14 And I think maybe I’m mixing up two of the stories, but like he
0:29:18 did a kind of a sensational headline too, which was like local
0:29:22 fishermen accused of cheating because he catches the most
0:29:25 fish reveals, reveals his simple secret, right?
0:29:28 And it’s like, oh, well, we got to know because there’s a guy
0:29:30 who catches way more fish than everybody else.
0:29:33 So people accused him of like, you know, using nets and other other
0:29:34 methods. No, no, no.
0:29:37 He’s just fishing like the rest of us, but he uses the local worms.
0:29:37 Right.
0:29:40 So he gets to the best of it.
0:29:40 Yeah.
0:29:43 I love Gary’s persuasion formula.
0:29:44 He’s got this very, very simple thing.
0:29:47 And it sounds like when you first read it, you’re like, okay, I
0:29:48 didn’t I didn’t get anything revolutionary.
0:29:49 Then I go look at my ads.
0:29:51 I’m like, okay, I’m not doing any of these things.
0:29:52 And then you start doing that.
0:29:52 Yes.
0:29:54 Euro as starts going up.
0:29:56 So he’s got the five P’s.
0:29:57 And so the first one is problem.
0:30:00 So what’s the problem that the person has?
0:30:02 And he says, no problem, no sale.
0:30:05 Like you can’t sell someone something that they don’t have some
0:30:06 Advil.
0:30:06 I’m not hurting.
0:30:07 Why would I want your Advil?
0:30:07 Yes.
0:30:08 So problem.
0:30:10 Then the next one is promise.
0:30:13 So what’s the promise benefit that this product is going to give
0:30:15 you proof that it works.
0:30:17 Then there’s proposition, which is your offer.
0:30:21 And then I call I call the last P products because he talks
0:30:23 about the cracker jack secret.
0:30:27 And he talks about how in a box of cracker jacks, they always had
0:30:29 like a gift at the bottom and he’s like, you know, even if you give
0:30:32 someone the cracker jacks and then they’re not hungry right now
0:30:34 or whatever, he’s like, I’ve never seen somebody just throw it
0:30:37 away and not get the little gift out of the bottom.
0:30:40 And he’s like, so you want to have the cracker jack secret in
0:30:41 your in your ad.
0:30:42 Basically that was his thing.
0:30:43 And then you can juice them up.
0:30:44 Right.
0:30:47 So those are the P’s and then he’s got to use and if you if
0:30:50 you stack those together, he literally has a formula where it’s
0:30:51 like urgent problem.
0:30:54 And that’s 25 points unique promise.
0:30:55 That’s another 25 points.
0:30:57 Unquestionable proof.
0:30:59 Another 25 user friendly proposition.
0:31:00 That’s the last 25.
0:31:04 And then the cracker jack secret is the bonus 20 points.
0:31:06 If you stack that whole thing together, you get to 120.
0:31:06 Love it.
0:31:07 Amazing.
0:31:07 Amazing.
0:31:08 So good.
0:31:13 New York City founders.
0:31:14 If you’ve listened to my first million before, you know, I’ve got
0:31:18 this company called Hampton and Hampton is a community for founders
0:31:21 and CEOs, but a lot of the stories and ideas that I get for this podcast.
0:31:24 I actually got it from people who I met in Hampton.
0:31:27 We have this big community of a thousand plus people and it’s amazing,
0:31:30 but the main part is this eight person core group that becomes your
0:31:33 board of advisors for your life and for your business and it’s life
0:31:36 changing now to the folks in New York City.
0:31:40 I’m building a in real life core group in New York City.
0:31:43 And so if you meet one of the following criteria, your business
0:31:47 either does 3 million in revenue or you’ve raised 3 million in funding
0:31:50 or you’ve started and sold the company for at least $10 million.
0:31:52 Then you are eligible to apply.
0:31:55 So go to join Hampton.com and apply.
0:31:58 I’m going to be reviewing all of the applications myself.
0:32:00 So put that you heard about this on MFM.
0:32:02 So I know to give you a little extra love.
0:32:03 Now back to the show.
0:32:06 Who are the other admin that you liked?
0:32:07 Let’s do that first.
0:32:10 So you, uh, you were telling me about an admin that I don’t, I’ve
0:32:12 never heard of or marketing.
0:32:13 Yeah, yeah.
0:32:17 So I actually studied non admin now because I think I’ve gone
0:32:18 through all the admin.
0:32:21 So we talked about ever Bernays the last time I was on your show,
0:32:25 but the guy I’ve been really geeking out on is actually an art dealer.
0:32:26 Okay.
0:32:28 Edward Bernays was a PR guy.
0:32:32 Joseph Devine is known as the greatest art dealer of all time.
0:32:37 Devine’s run was around like 1880 or 90.
0:32:40 I think he died in 1935.
0:32:46 And he came from a family that had a shop that sold like porcelain
0:32:50 goods and tapestries in London, England.
0:32:52 And they were pretty well established.
0:32:54 They sold to the queen and things like that, you know, so they
0:32:58 were the go-to place, but these tapestries and ceramics would
0:33:04 sell for like three to $5,000, which I think in that day’s money is
0:33:08 maybe like six figures or you know, something around there.
0:33:15 And he noticed as a teenager that fine artwork at certain times
0:33:18 was selling for like $75,000.
0:33:22 And so his uncle and father who own the shop brought him when he
0:33:26 was 15 years old to New York with them to do some business and
0:33:32 he sneaks out from them, goes to Fifth Avenue and leases a little
0:33:35 warehouse with like an upstairs and a downstairs and he comes
0:33:38 back and he’s like, dad, uncle, I got us a shop.
0:33:41 And actually I should preface this by saying, I don’t think
0:33:44 15 years old then was like 15 years old now.
0:33:47 I think 15 years old then is when you’re going in the real
0:33:47 world.
0:33:49 Yeah, yeah, you’re going to get your your shister.
0:33:54 I think was it George Washington led his first caravan of
0:33:58 soldiers at like 18 or something and he’d been a surveyor and
0:34:01 a scout since like 15 years old.
0:34:05 DuVeen was a hustler from from an early age.
0:34:08 He books this thing in New York because he has this realization
0:34:12 when he’s there and that is that Americans for really the
0:34:14 first time have tons of money.
0:34:17 This is when Rockefeller was coming up and JP Morgan and
0:34:22 Industrial Revolution Europeans have tons of art.
0:34:24 Americans have tons of money.
0:34:26 Europeans have tons of art.
0:34:30 So in Europe, you’d go to the Duke’s house, right?
0:34:34 And the Duke would have his family portraits up.
0:34:37 There’s no photographers and so you’d have to have a painter
0:34:40 catalog grandma or grandma as a baby or whatever.
0:34:42 So it would be on the wall and it would be like Raphael painting
0:34:45 grandma because Raphael was the portrait guy at the time.
0:34:47 I don’t know if it was specifically Raphael, but people
0:34:50 like that are Gainsborough or you know, some of the people
0:34:54 that are now the biggest artists of human history were just
0:34:58 you know, flooding the walls of the Duke’s house and these
0:35:01 Dukes like anyone else would go bust those sometimes and
0:35:02 they’d be looking for money.
0:35:07 So DuVeen in his first big deal, he went to this Duke and
0:35:09 the Duke was kind of broke and he’s like, yeah, I’ll figure
0:35:12 out how to get three million dollars for your entire art
0:35:12 collection.
0:35:16 And that at the time was like, you know, 300 billion or something.
0:35:19 I don’t know huge, but he bought the Duke’s entire art
0:35:22 collection and it was some of these old masters Rembrandt’s
0:35:23 and things like that.
0:35:29 And he brings it to America and he starts shilling it and his
0:35:33 sales methods are just like unbelievable.
0:35:33 What was he doing?
0:35:34 How did he do it?
0:35:37 So I mean, so some of these had some prestige, but like the
0:35:40 first thing he does as he gets this painting, I think it was
0:35:43 Gainsborough’s little blue boy.
0:35:47 It’s been a year since I read the book, but he acquires this
0:35:51 and he makes this huge deal that this great institutional
0:35:54 landmark of London is coming to the United States.
0:35:57 And when it comes, he arranges to have all the reporters
0:35:58 waiting on the deck.
0:35:58 He has no airplanes.
0:36:02 So you take the cruise liner over all the reporters are
0:36:02 waiting there.
0:36:05 It comes in and now it’s on American soil and it’s going to
0:36:09 be presented at this amazing spa, you know, and builds the
0:36:15 gravitas around this, this artwork, and then he has a pool
0:36:18 that he decides is going to be the buyer pool.
0:36:20 They don’t know yet, but he’s talking to people like Henry
0:36:24 Frick and Andrew Mellon and John Rockefeller about this
0:36:24 thing coming.
0:36:28 And they’d be like, you know, oh, is this going to be for sale?
0:36:32 I’m like, the crown jewel of London for sale.
0:36:33 Are you, are you kidding me?
0:36:36 No, absolutely, absolutely not at any price.
0:36:39 But if you want to make an offer, I could bring it to
0:36:41 someone, but it’s not for sale.
0:36:45 So he’d bring this thing and then he sold it for like $225,000,
0:36:47 which was record shattering at the moment.
0:36:50 You know, it’s in every newspaper in the world that this
0:36:51 paying soul for this much money to this person.
0:36:55 And through a couple of these things, he creates the American
0:36:58 Art Market and he has all of these industrial revolution
0:36:59 Titans, right?
0:37:01 You know, all the names, right?
0:37:08 Literally, you know, Rockefeller, Mellon, Morgan, Vanderbilt.
0:37:13 All these people become his clients and his sales methods are
0:37:14 just like next level, man.
0:37:21 Like, so there’s a story of, I think it was a guy who made
0:37:25 a fortune in California in the oil business and he comes to
0:37:27 Devine’s in New York and he wants to buy art.
0:37:30 And this guy’s like a new money guy and he’s not really in
0:37:31 the New York click.
0:37:36 He brings him to the shop and he has the guy show up at the
0:37:38 time he says, and Devine takes 90 minutes to show.
0:37:40 These are waiting there for 90 minutes.
0:37:43 Finally gets the guy and he’s like, okay, come on upstairs
0:37:45 with me and he walks them into this corridor and there’s the
0:37:48 five paintings there that are stunning and he walks them past
0:37:50 and he’s like, I’m going to show you some of the things in
0:37:51 the in the back.
0:37:53 The guy’s like, wait, wait, wait, what about these things?
0:37:56 Like, sir, those paintings are reserved for Mr.
0:37:58 Mellon come this way.
0:38:02 We need to get you something that will be more suitable for
0:38:02 your collection.
0:38:04 Tell me again, what’s in your collection?
0:38:07 Oh, I have not heard of any of those artists.
0:38:09 That’s cute.
0:38:12 Let me show you a nice starter work.
0:38:14 He’s like, well, what about the what about the pieces?
0:38:16 You know, like how much is Mr.
0:38:17 Mellon paying you making him feel small.
0:38:18 Yeah.
0:38:22 How much is he paying you and you think that he would do
0:38:22 this as a rivet.
0:38:25 He really didn’t sell the guy the paintings for Mr.
0:38:25 Mellon.
0:38:28 He made him buy this starter piece and is like, I can work
0:38:30 on one of those and then he’d call him a few months later
0:38:34 and be like, look, you know, I think I might be able to wrangle
0:38:36 one of those paintings loose from from Mr.
0:38:40 Mellon, but the price is going to be outrageous.
0:38:46 And Duveen saying was when you overpay for the priceless,
0:38:47 you’re getting it cheap.
0:38:49 That was this quote that he propagated.
0:38:51 We’re just kind of like a diamonds are forever.
0:38:52 Yeah, exactly.
0:38:55 And so he’s got all these imbeds that he does in just his
0:38:58 everyday behavior, you know, like putting people in tears
0:39:01 and things like that and propagating the saying that
0:39:04 overpaying for the priceless is like the best financial move
0:39:05 you can make, you know.
0:39:08 And the things he does is just next level.
0:39:10 I mean, on the sell side, it’s fucking crazy.
0:39:12 He’s so relentless.
0:39:18 He would go on cruise liners and back then the boat from
0:39:21 London to New York was the big thing and it was different
0:39:21 levels or whatever.
0:39:24 And your deck chair is like your baller spot, right?
0:39:27 And so he’d go on there and the way he met Andrew Mellon
0:39:32 is he greased the staffer to seat him next to Mr.
0:39:34 Mellon and then he gets there and he finds out that Mr.
0:39:37 Mellon is a recluse and doesn’t like going outside and
0:39:41 only stays in his room and he’s so mad that he greased so
0:39:42 much to get the deck chair.
0:39:45 But what he does is he starts kind of stalking the elevator
0:39:49 and he times it to get in the elevator at the same time.
0:39:50 Andrew Mellon gets in the elevator.
0:39:53 He’s like, how do you do, sir?
0:39:54 Literally an elevator pitch.
0:39:57 What’s the intent of your travels to London and Mr.
0:39:58 Mellon’s like, oh, I’m here in this business.
0:39:59 You know, how about yourself?
0:40:03 And he’s like, no, you know, having a brunch in the Duke of
0:40:08 Carnegie’s home, not sure what else, you know, but just drop
0:40:09 something like that.
0:40:12 And then, you know, where else are you going to be on your
0:40:13 travels and things like that?
0:40:15 And he’s like, oh, you’re the, you’re the person who founded
0:40:19 this, I forget what Mellon did, steel or something, you
0:40:22 know, would you like to join me for brunch at the Duke’s
0:40:22 house?
0:40:24 He’s like, oh, sure.
0:40:26 I would love to meet because royalty was the thing, you
0:40:28 know, and Duven really did have these connections.
0:40:31 So he brings Mellon to a brunch at the Duke’s house.
0:40:35 When you go to a Duke’s house, the dukes have the art on all
0:40:38 the walls and it’s from all of these old masters.
0:40:43 And you’re like, oh, if I want to become a dynasty like these
0:40:46 royal families that are dynastic families, I need to do
0:40:47 what they do.
0:40:50 And that means having these old master paintings on my wall.
0:40:56 So he sells Mellon so well that he becomes a top client of
0:41:01 his. And when you became a top client of Duvenes, you’re no
0:41:04 longer allowed to use your own architect as a rule for him
0:41:05 getting you the great pictures.
0:41:09 You have to use his architect to design your house, to have
0:41:11 optimal viewing, to give these pictures justice.
0:41:12 Otherwise, I’m sorry, Mr.
0:41:15 Mellon, but this picture cannot be in your collection
0:41:18 because it does not to be showcased in a side room or
0:41:18 something like that.
0:41:20 And he would have his architects design their apartments
0:41:23 with like very little windows and huge wall space, but way
0:41:25 more wall space than they would ever need.
0:41:27 And then he ran into an issue.
0:41:32 The people just didn’t buy enough real estate to hold all
0:41:32 the paintings.
0:41:34 And this wasn’t like crypto art.
0:41:35 We can store it on a wall.
0:41:36 You know, you got to have walls to put it on.
0:41:41 And so he started convincing them to open museums.
0:41:45 The National Gallery in Washington is founded by Andrew
0:41:47 Mellon at the urging of Joseph Duvene.
0:41:51 And he said, the key to your immortality is building this
0:41:55 gallery and having your work live on beyond you in it.
0:41:58 And we’re going to build it 30,000 square feet.
0:42:00 And so he does this.
0:42:03 Mellon builds the National Gallery and then Duvene is able
0:42:06 to sell him way more art, you know, stuck up all those walls
0:42:08 plus all of his houses and shit like that.
0:42:08 Right.
0:42:12 Mellon passes on and then I think it was Henry Frick.
0:42:15 He’s his next big client.
0:42:17 He’s like, you know, Mr.
0:42:20 Frick, if you really want to achieve immortality, you could
0:42:25 add on to the National Gallery a bigger wing than Mr.
0:42:27 Mellon made and stack it with your art.
0:42:28 And he did.
0:42:31 He fucking did, you know, and bought all this art from Duvene.
0:42:32 I mean, the guy was so ruthless.
0:42:36 He another of my favorite Duvene tricks he would do is when
0:42:39 he’d be at Andrew Mellon’s house, there was a couple other
0:42:42 competing dealers, you know, you’d ride the horse and carriage
0:42:43 over there, right?
0:42:44 It’s not like a car.
0:42:50 He greased the staff to tell him if they find out that another
0:42:52 art dealer is going to their house.
0:42:55 So he’d find out when the the competitors go into Mr.
0:42:59 Mellon’s house and he would show up the same day and he’d
0:43:04 be like, just passing through the Hamptons, you know, happened
0:43:06 to, oh, you know, hello, Mr.
0:43:08 Peary, fancy seeing you here.
0:43:10 I was just visiting my client and he would go and just sit
0:43:13 there all day and you can’t like reschedule the meeting
0:43:15 because that person probably traveled several days to get
0:43:18 there, you know, who’s just relentless, man.
0:43:20 On that section, I know you have a lot of young kids in
0:43:22 your audience and I did an experiment recently.
0:43:25 I was at a mastermind where everyone paid 250 grand to
0:43:28 attend and I asked them, I said, you know, I’m just
0:43:29 curious about this room.
0:43:31 You guys are all established people.
0:43:35 How many of you in your youth had some sort of sales job
0:43:38 that required you to be relentless, like 200 phone
0:43:42 calls a day or knocking on doors and almost all the room
0:43:43 raised their hand.
0:43:45 I think it’s something that really shapes them.
0:43:47 Did you ever have a job like that?
0:43:50 I don’t think I had that kind of, I’ve noticed the same
0:43:53 thing, but like, you know, so we, we’ve talked to people
0:43:55 who are a lot of Mormons who go on missions.
0:43:56 Oh, that’s the best dude.
0:43:59 You have to spend two years in complete solitude,
0:44:03 isolation, not talking to your family, selling Jesus to,
0:44:04 you know, whoever, right?
0:44:07 You’re selling religion to people who didn’t ask for it
0:44:09 necessarily, you’re knocking on doors, you’re facing tons
0:44:12 of rejection and day after day you carried on.
0:44:14 Like that is such a formative experience.
0:44:17 My, my uncle had told me one thing about he used to sell
0:44:20 textbooks door-to-door, like textbooks, textbooks companies.
0:44:22 I guess there was a couple of them in America that were
0:44:23 really big that way.
0:44:25 And we recently just had another person on the, like we’ve
0:44:29 had several people on the podcast with this one same job
0:44:31 which is like door-to-door sales, whether it’s textbooks
0:44:33 or knives or whatever it was.
0:44:36 And yeah, the hit rate on those is really high.
0:44:38 Brian Johnson, who was going to be here at the event.
0:44:40 I was just watching his documentary.
0:44:40 Same thing.
0:44:44 His first job was door-to-door credit card processing sales.
0:44:44 Hmm.
0:44:46 I was tail marketer of credit card processing.
0:44:48 You were too amazing.
0:44:50 And so you, he, he rejection, reject, figured out, figured
0:44:53 out how to sell, figured out how to carry on in the face
0:44:55 of rejection, got numb to rejection, just started, started
0:44:55 to see it.
0:44:58 Like my uncle told me, he goes, you know how I, I go, how
0:44:59 many did you actually sell?
0:45:02 Your selling text was like in a day, knocking on a hundred
0:45:04 doors, how many do you actually sell?
0:45:07 You’re walking through the hot Atlanta like neighborhoods
0:45:07 sweating.
0:45:10 And he’s like, oh, you know, like one or two or three would
0:45:11 be like an amazing day.
0:45:12 Yeah.
0:45:13 And I was like, I wasn’t telemarketing too.
0:45:14 It’s about 200 calls.
0:45:18 Uh, shitty day as one, five sales is an amazing day.
0:45:19 Right.
0:45:21 Which is just like, even if you hear those numbers, go, go
0:45:24 actually do something hard where 97 times out of a hundred,
0:45:26 you just get slammed in the face.
0:45:28 And he goes, the way I did, it was very simple.
0:45:31 He goes, I just did the math and I realized actually, I know
0:45:33 I have to knock on a hundred doors to get the two sales.
0:45:37 So actually, I don’t just count the revenue from the two
0:45:37 yeses.
0:45:40 I just assigned a price to every no.
0:45:42 So he’s like, a no is worth 50, 50 bucks for me.
0:45:43 Every time I collect a no.
0:45:44 All right.
0:45:44 That was fit.
0:45:45 That was a 50.
0:45:47 I wasn’t just coming up with the zero.
0:45:48 I wasn’t coming up empty every time.
0:45:52 He was a psychological trick that allowed me to like see
0:45:55 the nose still as like progression because I’m just getting
0:45:55 closer to that.
0:45:56 Yes.
0:45:58 That was, you know, the one out of a hundred or two out of
0:45:59 a hundred that are going to happen.
0:46:02 And, uh, so I’ve actually used that in fundraising, for example,
0:46:04 where it’s like, all right, I’m raising funds for a company.
0:46:08 It’s when investors reject your company, it’s a very personal
0:46:08 thing.
0:46:10 And what ends up happening is people don’t raise money.
0:46:11 And then you ask them, well, how many calls did you make?
0:46:12 How many meetings have you had?
0:46:13 And they just have a funnel problem.
0:46:16 It’s like, you guys haven’t had enough conversations because
0:46:18 you’re afraid of rejection or you’re avoiding rejection or
0:46:20 you tasted some rejection and it scared you off.
0:46:20 Yeah.
0:46:22 Um, but it’s a numbers game.
0:46:25 And like the way to do it is put a dollar value even on nose.
0:46:26 Yes.
0:46:26 Yeah.
0:46:27 That method.
0:46:29 I was going to ask you one last thing, which is what’s the
0:46:31 best way to get great at writing ads?
0:46:33 If I wanted to go from, you know, okay, to good or good to
0:46:35 great, what do I do?
0:46:36 I do a lot of it.
0:46:38 I’m assuming practice is a big part of it, but is there a
0:46:39 better way to practice?
0:46:39 Okay.
0:46:40 This is funny, man.
0:46:41 You have to be studying ads.
0:46:46 So right now, uh, uh, we’re at a, we’re at an event.
0:46:46 Yeah.
0:46:46 An event.
0:46:47 We call it hoop group now.
0:46:49 Hoop group, high level group.
0:46:53 And I meet this guy who’s got a 13 million YouTube channel.
0:46:54 And I’m like, what’s your channel?
0:46:55 And I go to type it in.
0:46:57 There’s like five people behind me and they type it in and
0:47:01 they see the ad pop up and they’re like, come on, Craig,
0:47:02 you don’t subscribe to YouTube, right?
0:47:04 You can’t afford the 50 bucks or whatever.
0:47:09 You know, and I’m like, are you fucking kidding me?
0:47:13 And advertising guy is going to turn off the ads.
0:47:14 Right.
0:47:16 Fight with one arm behind my back.
0:47:20 YouTube topics to get the ads on purpose.
0:47:22 Like I would watch the ads all day long if I could, because
0:47:24 I need to know what the lay of the land looks like.
0:47:28 One of my best friends who’s a great marketer and is made
0:47:32 probably personally made, I don’t know, $200 million and his
0:47:33 businesses all are just Facebook ads.
0:47:36 But like that’s like his take home that he’s probably made.
0:47:40 And he switched his gender and age on Facebook.
0:47:42 So he’s a 45 year old woman.
0:47:45 And I was like, why do I have a 40?
0:47:46 Why does it say you’re a 45 year old woman?
0:47:49 And he was like, so I could see the ads dummy.
0:47:52 Why would I want to see the ads of a 28 year old dude or
0:47:52 whatever?
0:47:54 You know, like that was that would be terrible.
0:47:58 Yeah, I’m I know who I need to sell to the golden customer.
0:48:00 And like, I need to I need to have my faith.
0:48:02 I need Facebook to be showing me what they’re what they’re
0:48:02 seeing.
0:48:03 Absolutely.
0:48:04 I was like, wow, that’s genius.
0:48:05 Yeah.
0:48:08 And then I also hang out in a lot of biohacker circles.
0:48:10 So I find the things that people are doing at Burning Man
0:48:12 and on Venice Beach.
0:48:15 And when they catch fire in these little circles, right, you
0:48:17 can tell they’re like ready to go mainstream.
0:48:18 I like it.
0:48:21 You know, and sometimes I get on the trend and sometimes
0:48:23 I don’t like mushrooms was one of them.
0:48:26 And you know, that’s a massive category.
0:48:29 Now I think, you know, our mushroom supplement with
0:48:33 Gundry MDs right sells okay, but it’s not like a category
0:48:34 creator.
0:48:36 Like the mushroom coffee did really well, really well, right?
0:48:37 Like the mudwater type.
0:48:38 There’s a few that have done it.
0:48:40 A four-sigmatic is owned by a friend of mine.
0:48:41 It’s a great brand.
0:48:43 I take those products myself.
0:48:46 Yeah, there’s a few mushroom brands that are amazing.
0:48:52 Yeah, sometimes you catch it and you can, as I say, like create
0:48:53 the wave.
0:48:58 Sometimes you’re riding the existing wave and I think too
0:49:00 many people start businesses trying to like ride the white
0:49:01 water.
0:49:04 You know, there’s a supplement company.
0:49:09 I won’t say that say the name, but you know, they launched
0:49:13 with a epic celebrity and then the product looks like every
0:49:18 other product out there and it’s out of business now because
0:49:21 they had this great celebrity who was certainly a scroll
0:49:25 stopper as I like to say, but they’re offering a product that
0:49:29 everyone else has to they could just, you know, learn about
0:49:31 from the celebrity and they go on Amazon by a cheaper one.
0:49:34 You know, you got to get things that are unique and that’s
0:49:36 why the probiotics was so great in 2014.
0:49:39 I don’t have a probiotic now that’s, you know, doing big
0:49:41 numbers like that because probiotics have become commoditized.
0:49:42 Craig.
0:49:44 Amazing as always.
0:49:44 Thank you for doing it.
0:49:45 Impromptu.
0:49:46 Paula Craig on Twitter.
0:49:47 Craig Clemmie.
0:49:48 Yeah, this is the impromptu.
0:49:49 This is our conversation.
0:49:51 We just moved it over here with the microphone.
0:49:51 So thanks for doing that.
0:49:53 I always love chatting with you.
0:49:54 All right, let’s get back to it.
0:49:55 All right, see ya.
0:49:57 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:50:01 I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like the
0:50:03 days on the road.
0:50:05 Let’s travel never looking back.
0:50:10 Hey, Sean here.
0:50:12 Quick break to tell you an Ev Williams story.
0:50:15 He started Twitter and before that, he sold a company to
0:50:17 Google for a hundred million dollars and somebody asked him
0:50:18 this and have what’s the secret, man?
0:50:21 How do you create these huge businesses, billion-dollar
0:50:21 businesses?
0:50:23 And he says, well, I think the answer is that you take a
0:50:26 human desire, preferably one that’s been around for thousands
0:50:30 of years and then you just use modern technology to take out
0:50:31 steps.
0:50:33 Just remove the friction that exists between people getting
0:50:36 what they want and that is what my partner Mercury does.
0:50:39 They took one of the most basic needs any entrepreneur has
0:50:41 managing your money and being able to do your financial
0:50:43 operations and they’ve removed all the friction that has
0:50:44 existed for decades.
0:50:47 No more clunky interfaces, no more 10 tabs to get something
0:50:51 done, no more having to drive to a bank, get out of your car
0:50:52 just to send a wire transfer.
0:50:53 They made it fast.
0:50:54 They made it easy.
0:50:55 You can actually just get back to running your business.
0:50:57 You don’t have to worry about the rest of it.
0:50:59 I use it for not one, not two, but six of my companies right
0:51:03 now and it’s used by also 200,000 other ambitious founders.
0:51:06 So if you want to be like me, head to mercury.com, open
0:51:09 up an account in minutes and remember Mercury is a financial
0:51:10 technology company, not a bank.
0:51:13 Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and
0:51:15 Evolve Bank and Trust members, FDIC.
0:51:16 All right, back to the episode.
0:51:19 (upbeat music)