Create Repeat Customers with Dov Gordon

In This Episode

• [02:01] – Stephan introduces Dov Gordon, who outlines the founding of JVMM in 2009 as a free community for small business owners, consultants, and coaches.
• [13:22] – Dov underscores the value of curation, conversation, and education within the JVMM community.
• [17:13] – Dov details the various events and activities in the JVMM community, such as rapid networking calls and working groups.
• [27:37] – Stephan inquires about the key elements of a successful lifestyle business.
• [32:04] – Dov highlights the necessity of authenticity and precision when communicating with clients.
• [33:05] – Dov points out the drawbacks of using swipe copy and stresses the need to write from a personal viewpoint.
• [38:23] – Stephan and Dov explore the importance of authenticity and precision in client communication.
• [39:47] – Dov reflects on how his Jewish heritage has shaped his business philosophy.
• [44:49] – Dov closes with a final piece of advice, urging us to cut out unnecessary influences and concentrate on our core goals.

Jump to Links and Resources

Dov, it’s so great to have you on the show.

Thanks for having me back.

Yeah, so it’s great to have you back. We’re in the same country now.

That’s right.

I would love to start by explaining how you were able to shift from your previous business model, coaching and consulting, doing a free community for a very long time, and then making that your paid gig or your business where you got some churn or drop off. Still, then you got a whole bunch of new people in, and it’s just been a really great community. Of course, I happily pay and have been since whenever that shift happened. 2019, 2020, something like that. When did you do that?

It might have been 2019. I have to go back and check. I don’t remember exactly.

That was a leap of faith.

Yeah, it was scary. So, I lead the Joint Venture Marketing Mastermind, as you said, JVMM, which I started years ago, probably around 2009 or so, I don’t remember exactly. I started with a handful of people that I’d met online. This was because we were all selling to small business owners, coaches, consultants, agency owners, and entrepreneurs. So, we’re all selling to the same type of audience. Those are our target markets. 

I realized there are two paths to thriving as an independent coach or expert: the charismatic guru and the path of mastery.

We’re selling different types of training, coaching, consulting, support products, and software. We all understand that we have our audience, and that’s who we’re marketing to. We’re sending emails; we’re all using email marketing. So we’re focused on building an email list as well, and over time, it’s also developed as social media developers. We started this when social media wasn’t what it is today. 

The idea is that we’ve all been on someone’s email list, maybe many email lists, and they send an email telling you about a third person, “Hey, you should go check out that webinar or get this free book or free download” or whatever it might be, and what that is, it’s very simple. The idea is that if someone is on my email list, they’re looking for something. They are looking for leadership, guidance, and information to help them move from here to there in some important part of their life for business. The fact is that I may not be the one to be able to provide that.

They may have joined my list because they hoped I could help them with that, but I may not. Or maybe I can help with part of it, but not all of it, because none of us has all the answers. They might instead be looking for Stephan Spencer, right? Maybe Stephan Spencer can provide a piece of what’s missing. So, if I have a group on my email list and I start to say, “Hey, why don’t you check out this thing that Stephan is doing tomorrow? It’s free. And you’ll learn about X, Y and Z or SEO.” People then join your email list to get access to whatever you’re giving away for free. Now, a lot of people are going to be happy. 

First, you might now get a new client from that, which means they found who they have been looking for. I’m happy because someone on my list got what they needed. Depending on our relationship, it might just be a good fit. Or maybe sometimes there’s a commission paid. Everyone has their arrangements, agreements, and way of doing it, and then, of course, the person. So it’s win, win, win. It’s three ways, you know, three ways. So everybody wins. And there could be many people on my list who will never buy from me.

There could be some who buy from both of us, some who won’t buy from me, but they’ll buy from you, and some who won’t buy from me or from you, but they’re still looking. Maybe eventually you’ll introduce them to somebody else, or I’ll introduce them to somebody else, and that will be what they’re looking for, or they’ll get what they’re looking for as part of what we share for free, and that will get them what they need. That’s also fine. So, I mean, that’s the simple idea. 

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I started this years ago when I shifted from consulting for corporations to coaching small business owners. I felt these people were in a similar situation to where I had been a few years before, where I had much to offer. I know I genuinely want to help and have a good perspective, but I struggled for a long time to figure out how to get those clients consistently. 

Over time, I realized there are two paths to thriving as an independent consulting coach, expert, and so on. There’s what I think of as the path of the charismatic guru. And then there’s the path of mastery, the path of the charismatic guru where somebody is. There are many people like that. They have a strong personality, which helps them grab attention and interest and then move people along their funnel to where people are happy to buy from them. But most of us lack a strong, outgoing, charismatic personality. If we try to be something that we’re not, we look like fools to everybody. Hopefully, we will notice it as well. But we’ve all seen people who are. We can just sense they’re pretending and putting on the show.

It’s an act. They’re trying to be something they’re not. A few things are universally more off-putting than someone trying to be someone who’s not. Just be yourself, do your own thing, stop trying to be somebody else. For some reason, we all tend to find that off-putting. Fortunately, there is another path, which I think of as the path of mastery, which is when you deeply understand why people buy.

Understanding why people buy or don’t buy lets you create a simple, repeatable marketing and sales system.

I think we talked about this the last time I was on, so we won’t go through the whole thing again. It was episode 146, But when you understand why people buy when they buy and why they don’t buy what they don’t buy, then you can build a simple, repeatable marketing and selling system, a process that leads people step by step through phases until they’re where they’re happily buying from you, happy customers. That’s the approach I came to understand and implement and have some success with. 

That’s when I realized that many people like me are looking up at the most visible people and trying to figure out I don’t want to be like that. That’s not me. I just want good clients. I just want to do good work and be well paid for it. The people who are happy with my work and how I help them. I don’t need fame. I’m not interested. 

Again, there’s nothing wrong with that because I think those people who thrive with the charismatic guru path, that’s fine for them. Both paths could be ethical or unethical. Right? So, it really depends on how the person is taking it. But, if somebody has that kind of personality, that’s great for them. The problem is that when the rest of us try to imitate it, we fall on our faces. 

I came to understand that there’s that alternative path, and that’s where I’ve been focusing on helping others who are good at what they do but not natural markers of salespeople. Almost certainly, they’ve been trying this or that and had some success. But there’s this feeling of something missing. Usually, when we go back to the basics, we peel off some layers and say, “Okay, something is missing. Let’s figure out exactly what’s missing for you.” It comes down to fundamental principles. Like I said, “Why do people buy when they buy? Why don’t they buy when they don’t buy.” When you understand that, you can build a simple, repeatable marketing and selling system.

It needs to not overwhelm you. That’s one of the big problems that we all face. I’m one guy, or maybe I have a small business with a small team. We can’t do everything. None of us can. When you wake up in the morning and know that you can help these people with these problems, how do you get in front of these people? And then, even if I’m talking to them, how do I express what I’m trying to say in a way that helps them realize I can help them? 

We’ve got a line around the block of experts, everyone telling us to do something else, right? Podcasting, Facebook ads, search results. Right? And those are all legitimate. And that’s just, you know, publishing a book, public speaking, etcetera. But none of us can do it all. We all need to make our own decisions. 

What’s important for all of us is that we end up with a simple, repeatable process that works for me, for my values, for my personality, but also, at the same time, helps me get my message in front of my ideal clients in a way that, that gets them to recognize, ”Oh, you’re talking to me. You just described my problem better than I could. You just described my frustration better than I could. You must really understand me. What do you recommend?” That’s essentially a very high level, very simplified. That’s the process of what we’re looking to accomplish.

I know I went off a bit long there, but I’ll just wrap up to answer the original question. When I moved from more corporate focus to individual focus, I was looking around: how am I going to reach my ideal target market? I realized that the best way for me would be to have joint venture promotions with other people who already had email lists and audiences of the people I was looking to reach. 

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So I started connecting with, you know, emailing some people I’d met online in various forums or programs I had participated in. This is what I want to do. I want to bring together people selling to this audience and looking to do joint venture promotions. I’m looking for certain kinds of people, not looking for anybody. We started with a handful of people and grew to almost 200 over the years. And that’s when I realized that maybe only about half were active.

And I needed to know who really wanted to be there. It can’t just be that we have a long list of people, and maybe about half are not interested in being there, but they’ve got this library card, which never expires. So I realized that I have to start charging something for it because, at some point, there is a bit of a weight that’s on the community. And so I was, like you mentioned, it was a leap. I was afraid of going from almost 200 members to maybe ten or 20, but fortunately, it didn’t happen that way. 

We lost many members, which was interesting because I was surprised about some people I expected to continue, and they did. Some people I expected to continue, and they didn’t. I was surprised, and some people I thought would not continue, but they did, and I was surprised.  So we really never know how different people relate to different offers because there are always factors that we cannot possibly know until we converse with them. Even then, up to a certain point, we ended up with, as I recall, 45 people.

My aim is that every member earns at least 100 times their annual investment.

Over the years, we’ve continued to grow back. Slowly but surely. Just about every member has been nominated by an existing member. I’m not out there pushing this and marketing. I focus on serving and helping existing members grow through joint ventures. I never intended for us to be a source of revenue. But now, my aim is that every member earns at least 100 times their annual investment, and the investment is modest. I won’t say what it is because it might change over the years.

$1 million.

It’s not a very high fee. It’s probably not the cheapest, but it’s certainly not the most expensive. But I talk to every potential member. You can’t go on the website and sign up for it and then show up as a member. I do. What I did all along was talk to every member beforehand to make sure it was a good fit.

It’s a very well-curated community. You do a great job.

I appreciate that. I never try to convince anyone to join or stay. People, of course, leave. We have attrition. People’s situations change. People realize that it’s not what they really want for them or for whatever reason. And that’s all fine.

I just stay focused on my three jobs, which are curation, conversation, and education, and I try to curate to make sure that we have the right people in the community. Once you have the right people, everyone’s so busy. So I try to do things to help people get to know each other, to connect, to build relationships, to understand. Stephan, what are you working on? What are you moving towards? How might I help you? And here’s what I’m working on. How might you help me? Because at the beginning of the day, at the end of the day, it all comes down to relationships, and that’s where we can really be most valuable to each other. I do things for, as I said, curation and conversation to get people to talk, to run some different types of events, and then education. We have so many people with such great expertise.

I look for opportunities to help members learn from each other. So, we almost never bring in an outside expert to speak about anything because it’s not necessary. We have just such high-level people. I believe you’ve presented, I think, twice, if I recall, and both times, it was very valuable. People got some real practical guidance from you and some good ideas. That’s what the JVMM is—profitable relationships.

That’s what it’s about.

Yeah. It’s not just one monthly meeting over Zoom. You have these smaller groups that meet. There’s a networking call as well. Used to have all of that in one call, the networking and the educational presentation piece. But you’ve broken it up into multiple calls. I’m just curious how that evolved and what the feedback from the community has been.

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So, everything evolves from feedback. I don’t have the best answers for any of this, so I just start with what makes sense. I run it by certain people, just different members, and then we do something, and then a member comes to me with an idea and says, “Oh, what about this?” And so we’ve had different members like you said, who will lead what we call working groups within the community that are focused on a specific topic. 

I’m not even usually on those calls because it might be in the middle of the night for me or I don’t want to step on the member’s toes. I want to give members opportunities to lead, facilitate, and connect with other members without me being in the way. I’ve really come to understand that when you try to control things that you cannot control, all you end up doing is losing the control that you had. We have very few rules in JVMM. We really have three main values, but we have very few rules.

I just really tried to be there and to enable things to have things running. So that’s the way it works. As you said, we have different rapid networking calls several times a month. We have one that’s intended for America Australia, that’s run by Virginia Muzquiz, usually because it’s one or two a.m. for us, and she volunteered for that. 

We have some really good people who have stepped up. I used to think that I had to do everything because that’s what people expect. And then I realize, well, that’s silly.

People want the results, not me, to do anything. It’s not about me. And then, when I realized that other members would be happy to take on certain responsibilities and that would be valuable for them because it gives them more visibility and it’s valuable for the members because they get more opportunity, then all I need to do is just enable it to provide the infrastructure to make sure things can work in the background. So that’s my philosophy about it, and that’s what we focus on.

Yeah, and you guys came up with another type of call. Maybe it was another member’s suggestion, these Weak Tie Explosion calls, which are a weird name, but what’s that about?

We phased out. I don’t remember exactly why, but we did do that. I don’t remember exactly how we ran this, but it was also another; it was intended for small-group networking. But what we’ve been doing instead now is that we have breakout rooms. We have the rapid network sessions, we have a combination of the full group together, and then we go into small breakout rooms. 

I look for opportunities to help members learn from each other.

People get to meet each other, and then we come back, everyone together, share something you learned about somebody else that we should know or not know but want to know. Then we usually will have three of those over 90 minutes. That’s just a good way to rapidly connect or reconnect with people who are happy to help you promote your business, grow your email list, make more sales, and pay you commissions for helping them. That’s what it is. 

I know that a big part of why it works is that we’re very clear as to who we’re for. There are other joint venture communities, and I know some people running them—good people running good groups. As I said, we are for everyone who has to be selling to coaches, consultants, agency owners, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and so on. 

If you’re selling to corporate, it’s not really a fit. If you’re selling to SaaS startups, it’s probably not a fit; it’s a different world. So we’re looking for people who are assigned to the same audience. Still, in addition to that, I’m looking for people who are what I think of as just higher quality people in the sense that they’re really looking for a longer-term relationship, both with their customers, their clients, as well as their joint venture partners. So it’s not just transactional so much as like, “Hey, let’s get to know each other; let me understand what you’re looking for and see how we can support each other.”

Sometimes, it’s just, I’ll promote you, you promote me. Sometimes, it’s more embedded where, “Hey, every time you run this course, maybe I could teach a section on this and that which adds to it.” And then some of those people also wanted to work with me, and then I’ll pay you a commission or something. And then everybody wins.

We like to see more embedded collaborations, so those are all good things to do, but the other things that we’re looking for are as follows: I said they’re looking for people selling to the same audience and people with a certain. There’s a spirit of generosity that I look for, and I’m also looking for people who are not afraid to leave their egos out the door. No one’s here to impress anybody else.

We’re not here to talk about how good, rich or smart I am or anything. I have no interest in that. So it’s just not who I tend to attract. I tend to attract people who are happy to share, learn and contribute, share what’s worked for me and where I’ve failed, where things haven’t worked, intermediate and advanced, and where we’re not for the person who’s just getting started. We’re looking for people who typically will have at least a low six figures in sales. Nothing magical about that number. 

What I’m really looking for is people who have an ongoing business. Our members range from the low six figures to the upper seven or even one or two eight figures. It works because you can have $150,000 on a 5,000-person email list that could be very valuable to a person with a $5 million business and a 100,000-person email list that can still be very valuable.

So that’s what we work for. But like I said, other communities tend to also have a lot of beginners in them, and they tend to have people selling to different audiences. So even if they have bigger, larger memberships, we’re focused; we know our focus. I think that knowing your focus is really important for whatever business you’re in. I also think my competitive advantage, to a great degree, is a lack of ambition, which sounds like a joke. It kind of is. But I’m not looking to build the biggest network. I’m not looking to make millions of dollars from this.

I’m looking for myself. I want mid-six figures, a flexible schedule, and a small team. I don’t want employees. I’ve got one or two who can help me behind the scenes. They’re amazing. I couldn’t do without them. But I know what I want and what I can contribute and serve.

You do not have to be everything to everybody.

I didn’t always know that, and it wasn’t always so clear. I’m just saying this to encourage anybody to wake up frustrated in the morning because you feel like you have to do all these different things to be all these things to all these people. I would just encourage you to question that. Do you really? Because if you’re really clear and everybody says this, you gotta know your niche, right? But it’s really true. You do not have to be everything to everybody. There is a little corner of the world that you could serve, and you could serve them better by only serving them.

You can serve them by giving up the things that don’t actually serve you. For example, when you were doing one-on-one coaching and consulting, it was hard to reach a lot of people and make a lot of impact. I guess. I’m very selective about who I take on as coaching clients. I only take on a small handful. Everyone else I work with is on an agency model. So we have a whole team that does the SEO work for the clients, and I get involved in some of the engagements, but I don’t. But it’s not reliant on me, so I can relax a bit and allow my team to knock the ball out of the park.

Yeah, I still do one-on-one coaching, but I don’t actively market it a lot. I have emails that go out on a regular basis, and if someone bubbles to the top and reaches out to me and it’s a good fit, I’ll work with them. But when I made JVMM my main focus, I stopped all my group programs because I felt like I couldn’t build out the marketing promotion for those groups, execute that properly, and lead JVMM properly. 

Whereas working with people one-on-one, when they bubble up to the top, and it’s a good fit, I can have much more flexibility. It’s largely building on marketing assets that I developed years ago, and it’s very much about showing up, getting on a call, helping them with what they need, and then moving on. So I find that very easy. I recently experimented with something; basically, it’s pay-as-you-go.

So there’s no long-term commitment. It’s one month, like a month and a milestone. The idea is that a lot of people have already spent tens of thousands of dollars on various kinds of coaching, help, and so on, and perhaps help them with a lot. I know that I’ve spent a lot of money, many tens of thousands. I know you spent even more than that. So I know I need some help, but I just. I don’t need another $30,000 for that help for another year-long program. I just need help with this.

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So I just decided I also much prefer it when working with people. For example, I don’t want to enroll somebody in a long-term program because then I’ve always had that on my mind. I’d rather just work with people in a very focused way for limited amounts of time and help them get to a result that’s at the next stage for them, which is a good ROI for whatever we’re charging. So that’s what I do most of now. It’s an option for those who want to work with me in that way. And it’s low-pressure for me. Again, it helps me focus mostly on JVMM, but I also. I’m pretty good at what I do when it kind of shows up; it’s an option. 

I also think that’s just another way of doing it. Many people are very happy to say, “Yeah, okay, I’ll pay for x over four weeks. We’re going to work to get a very focused outcome.” I’m going to help them with that. Then there’s no automatic renewal next month. If you want to continue next month, we will come up with the next very focused milestone. Or maybe you don’t need help after that. You can keep moving, and then maybe six months later, you’ll return for another one. So I just came from my own. I’m just rambling, but I think that some of these thoughts will be helpful to somebody, probably in their own journey.

One of the things that I will definitely admit that I’ve struggled with as a coach is taking on too much responsibility for the client’s outcome. Even though I remind myself of a wonderful quote from Abraham Lincoln, who said, “The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do for themselves.” you can’t do for somebody else what they’re meant to do themselves. You can’t carry their end of the stick. I can carry my end of the stick, but it doesn’t work. If I try to carry the client’s end of the stick, they have to do their part. 

But it was hard for me if they weren’t getting everything they wanted, even if it was totally unreasonable. Even if I’m investing a large amount with a coach for myself, I would never have those unreasonable expectations. I know this may not make any sense, but we all have things in our heads that don’t necessarily make any sense that we all have to work through and work out of. Everything takes effort, right? Everything.

All the work on ourselves takes time and effort, and we have to choose what we are going to work on. I also realized I didn’t want to worry about that at some point. I don’t have to work on that. I’ve got other things that I want to work on and other areas of improvement that I need to work on. So, I’ll just frame my engagements with people to enable me to have a very focused promise and responsibilities. I just walked, and that’s what I ended up with and what I’m doing right now. 

So JVMM is my main focus, and then this is on the side when somebody shows up wanting some help, and that’s that. So the main idea is that really we all need to think through what’s a good fit for us. When someone describes their big team and how I see people involved with lots of different projects and things all at once, I can’t do that. I do much better with doing fewer things and going deeper; I just don’t do well with many different projects. Some people clearly could do just fine with that. For me, it’s just I can’t. And the better we understand our strengths, weaknesses, and interests, the better we can do.

Yeah. You’ve created a really enjoyable lifestyle business by working in your gift and unique ability most of the time. That’s cool.

All the work on ourselves takes time and effort, and we have to choose what we are going to work on.

Yeah.

So let’s talk a bit about some of the JV partnerships, promotions and embedded collaborations that you see happening in the community and just generally things like joint webinars or co-marketing initiatives, providing things like guest articles and being a columnist on the merchants or the affiliate’s website, that sort of stuff. What sort of things do you see working the best, and what things are not working so much anymore?

Everything you said is what I see. In terms of what works the best, I think that it’s not so much that email doesn’t work or podcasts don’t work because every tactic could work and every tactic could fail. What I have seen is that certain people run their businesses for a period of years, and then they start to notice that they might be doing the same thing they did three, four, or five years ago, but the results are dropping off. 

I see there are two main causes of that. Number one is they are burnt out. They’re doing what they’ve always done, but they’ve gotten into a routine that works for them, but they’re not passionate about it like they used to be, and because of that, they’re unable to continue to innovate. They’re not bringing the same energy that was working. Maybe we can’t even articulate what difference it’s making or how it’s making a difference, but it comes across and makes a difference, which is a big cause.

I talked to somebody in JVMM about a month and a half ago, and he asked me, “So, what am I hearing from different members about what’s working now?” I talk to members all the time, and I try to have one-on-one conversations all the time. I like to talk to every member at least a couple of times a year to get to know everybody better and understand what people need to be helpful.

Those are actually really helpful laser coaching sessions, too. They aren’t just like, “Hey, just checking in.”

Yeah, and I don’t charge extra for it. If for clients, there’s a nice fee there. But for members, I know that every member who’s even a little more successful raises value for everybody else. So I mean, that’s my focus. What I like about it is that people usually renew it year after year.

As you said, it’s a lifestyle business. I’m fortunate to have a lot of flexible schedules. So that’s very important to me.

We all bring our energy, values, and something a little hard to define for what we’re doing. It’s often that which makes a big difference.

So, people, they’re kind of burning out. And this guy said to me, he’s like, “What am I seeing working?” And I talked to him a few months before that. I knew that he really wasn’t that passionate about what he was doing anymore. I asked him a few questions, and I said, “Look, it’s nothing about this type of webinar or that type. I think you first have to ask.” He just shared with me that his whole business, to this point, had been built on serving these people in this way. But he really wants to serve that type of people in this other kind of way. That’s what he wants to do.

I said, “I don’t think that you’re going to fix this with the question of what’s working because I think you need to ask yourself if that’s what I want to be doing, then what are the steps to get there? How do I start selling this type of thing to that person?” Then, your natural enthusiasm will make a really big difference and help make it work because of all these different types of webinars, there’s no magical formula that I just plug this into my business, and suddenly I’m making money. Suddenly, people are buying. If we’re that easy, we all know it’s not that easy. 

We all bring our energy, values, and something a little hard to define for what we’re doing. It’s often that which makes a big difference. Of course, yes. If your message is more precise or more compelling, it’ll make a big difference. Yes. But you’re much more likely to arrive at that compelling message based on an insight into your ideal clients, which we discussed in the previous episode. 146.

So we explain how to do that. When you’re passionate about the people you’re looking to serve, it’s really hard to sell to people you don’t care about. I’m talking about most of us; I’m not talking about sharks. I’m not talking about someone looking to take advantage of people.

Energetically, though, I believe this business karma thing is real. And if somebody is being manipulative, sharky, salesy, pushy, not only does that come off in the person’s energy, but it also creates a karmic blowback for them. They don’t get away with it. 

Yeah.

As an example of how it would show up in a very practical way, people would probably leave that person’s email list because they just keep getting sold repeatedly. It’s one offer and then another offer and another offer. It’s offer after offer after offer with not a whole lot of value. And they’re trying to push other people’s launches or their money-making campaigns. It’s just it doesn’t feel very good.

That’s another thing you asked me. What are some things I’m seeing that are working or not working? I talked to another person who has been growing very nicely but was promoted to his list. He was looking to add more people to his list, so he was thinking of starting to do paid ads. I asked him many questions, and I realized that he was sometimes promoting more than one other person a week, maybe two people in a week. 

I said I think you’d be better off if you were more selective in your JV partners, promoted fewer people, and built more of a relationship with your email subscribers. Because I kind of alluded to this earlier, they’re coming to you for leadership. They’re coming to be led in some area of their life to help them get a better result, whether it’s some personal business, whatever it is, and they’re coming there to join your list because they thought that you could help them with something. 

You don’t have to teach someone to be authentic. You just help them permit themselves to be authentic.

At some point, they start getting promotions after the promotion of other people. It’s not what they’re there for. Similarly, when somebody swipes a copy, it is where the person you promote is. If you’re going to promote me, I’ll usually send you some kind of swipe email. Swipe copy means you could just copy and paste it and send it to your list. I wouldn’t recommend it, and I never do that, almost never, because what you should be doing is looking at the swipe copy, the swipe email, and getting from that a hook or an angle or an insight, a better understanding of the core messaging that I’m looking to get across. But then you take that and write your own. 

You combine that with your perspective and what you see, then point people to it and the offer. But when people just essentially copy and paste swipe, most of us can tell if you’re just copying and pasting swipe, even if we don’t know that’s what you’re doing. Even if we have never heard of the term swipe copy, but when we’re reading these emails, we can tell that the meter goes off, and I realize, “Okay, you’ll just send something to me that somebody else sends to you and says, send it. So you’re not the leader that I thought you were.

As you said, I don’t think I want to be on your list anymore because you’re not seeing me for who I am as a reader. You’re taking advantage of me or taking me for granted. You do not appreciate that by signing up for your list. On some level, I’m really exposing that I need some help with something, and you’re taking that for granted. I try not to take that for granted.”

Remember years ago, I struggled with what we called finding your voice and looking at how different people talk to their audiences? I remember thinking I was watching more of a charismatic guru type. Do people really buy from this? And apparently, many people do.

Until they get outed by Coffeezilla.

Yeah, he’s. He’s good. It never ends. It’s a YouTube channel, in case anyone’s curious.

Yeah.

He’s courageous. So, his focus has evolved over the years, but he did. He used to call out fake gurus a lot, but even so, why do people send fake gurus their money? Why? I think because, on some level, we all want to be told what we want to hear. Right? 

We want this wonderful cartoon, like a one-panel comic strip I’ve seen. I think you’ve probably seen it, too. There are two lines in front of two booths. One is a really long line, and it says satisfying lies. You know, it’s like his offering or something like that. It’s like, I’ll tell you satisfying lies. And the other one is painful truths. And there’s one person waiting to get the painful truth.

A lot of people want to be told what they want to hear. They want to be told that it’s not your fault. You could have all this, but it’s someone else’s fault. That’s a classic marketing hook. That hook can be used responsibly, but it can also be used irresponsibly. There are different people. Some people spend tens of thousands of dollars because they just want to rub shoulders or elbows with people they think are cool people. That’s what’s being sold in many ways. 

You also signed up and will be with all these cool people in this room. You’ll also be like them. But the fact that you’re not really going to learn any foundational skills, you’re not really going to experience any kind of change or transformation by being with these people. We’re all in our own growth phase and come to that understanding sooner or later.

I came to realize that maybe people do buy from that type of hype and from being talked to in that kind of way, but not me. I don’t want to appeal to those kind of people. I want to appeal to people who recognize that I’m responsible for my results. And, yes, I need some help. And then if you can help me, I’d like to pay for your help, because that’s fair. But I got to do the work. That’s what I want to appeal to, so I don’t want that. So, I had to find my own voice.

It just came down to realizing that I just write how I would want to be talked to or spoken to in a just way. I don’t like the word, but it is authentic. I don’t like the word because it’s been harnessed for all kinds of unauthentic things. It’s become you don’t have to teach someone to be authentic. You just help them permit themselves to be authentic. You help them realize that, “Oh, I don’t have to be something else. I don’t have to live up to somebody else’s expectations. I don’t have to live up to someone else’s standards. I could actually just say what I want to say. I can be who I want to be.” That’s magic. Now you’re authentic. 

The more precise somebody is with their language, the more specific they actually want people to understand them.

It’s more about cutting away than learning how to be authentic. It’s just, don’t do these. Don’t be somebody else. Don’t feel pressured to perform a show you don’t want to. That’s all. Now you’re authentic, magical.

That reminds me of something similar. For example, if somebody keeps talking about their integrity, that would be a big warning sign because that’s the natural state of integrity. If you’re out of integrity and you’re trying to fake us out, then you talk about being in integrity all the time.

That’s right. The more precise somebody is with their language, the more specific they actually want people to understand them. As opposed to political speak, where all these vague words sound good but have no specifics, there’s a good chance they just want you to feel good. Still, they don’t want to be held accountable for anything actually changing, and it’s disrespectful to the listener.

Yeah. So all this, what you’re saying about precision and what you say and how you present yourself, your products, integrity, and authenticity- all that I think are examples of Judaism applied in business. Right? So where you’re not, let’s say, defaming the competitors because it’s in Hebrew, it’s called Lashon Hara (Evil Speech). So you don’t do that. You don’t do that in business. You don’t do that in your personal life. And so those sorts of principles, I think, are incredibly powerful and helpful in running a successful business. What do you think?

I think so. I mean, I am Jewish. I don’t talk about it with anybody because I’m not here to push anything on anybody. But obviously, it’s definitely my whole worldview that is coming through. So, you know, that’s how I was raised, and that’s how I try to live. I think that another really important thing is when you actually believe that all of your money comes from God through people, right? Through serving people, but it’s not from the client. It really enables you to, let’s just say, to grow. One of the things that kills sales is neediness.

Right. If you feel like, I need to make clothes, this sale and I’ve been there, but over the years, as I grew as a person and my understanding of, let’s just say that the Judaism view on how God runs the world and in kind of my relationship with him, I realized that you start to see repeatedly that I think that I need this client. Then this person doesn’t go ahead. You were sure they were going to, and the deal you expected to go through folds, but suddenly, you get it from somewhere else; it shows up from somewhere unexpected. 

I can’t control the results. The only thing I can control is my efforts.

When you start to notice that happening repeatedly, you start to realize that you have to show up and make efforts, but I’m not responsible for the results. I mean, I can’t control the results. The only thing I can control is my efforts. When you know that it’s not you and it’s not, then you also know that I don’t have, there’s no reason to lie, cheat, steal, or worry about if a deal doesn’t go through. We all have our ideas about how things will develop. We invest a lot of time and effort into certain things.

We want things to work out. But I think it’s very helpful to take a step back and realize that I want them to work out in the end, but not to become too tied to this or that means, and I’ve definitely become more relaxed, calmer, and happier over the years. When you let go.

Yeah, let go and let God. One principle I love and want to point out from Judaism as it applies to business is that your income is predetermined at the beginning of the year. So, the beginning of the year in Judaism is Rosh Hashanah. And if you are stressed out over where the money is coming from, then you’re not operating in a place of faith, and you’re pushing away all that abundance, all the prosperity already predetermined for you for that year.

Just relax and trust and let things just come to you. It doesn’t mean sitting on the couch; it means actually making your efforts, your 2%, but then God does the 98% that gets you the rest of the way there.

Right? Yeah. These are complex topics. Actually, I’m working through them myself right now, and I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers. I don’t think any others are. But yes, some things are predetermined for that year’s beginning of the year. At the same time, as you said, there’s a degree of influence that we can have on any day on whatever it is that’s predetermined is delivered. So. Yeah, and that is exactly where those boundaries are. I’m a student of that, and I’m not qualified to teach.

And at the end of the day, this is all God’s money anyway, so we’re just shuffling around. God’s money. It’s not 10% is his, the tithing part, it’s 100%. We’re just a steward of it, it’s his business, it’s his money, and we’re just trying to be a good shepherd, steward of whatever, you know, abundance that.

The more you give to charity, the more abundance you’ll get back.

Don’t take it to the grave.

Yeah, right? The more you give to charity, the more abundance you’ll get back. So, this powerful principle is not meant to be used retroactively. Okay, I did pretty well this year. What’s 10% of this year been? Okay, now I’m going to do my donations. It’s all right. I want to pledge this amount over the next twelve months, but it’s a stretch. God, please help me; help me make what I need for that to be 10% or whatever, not 50% of my income every year. And it works out. It’s like magic.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. There’s a great video about this principle and how it works. It’s kind of like a little mini documentary. Berel Solomon.

Yeah, I saw that a while back. It was very good. Yeah, he did a good job on that.

Yeah. I know we’re running out of time here. So, what kind of last nugget of wisdom do you want to share with our listeners?

Don’t allow other people; this is a growth thing to stretch. Let’s say it this way: we’re all influenced by other people, whether we want to be or not, whether we want to admit it or not. The issues arise for us when we’re kind of bending ourselves into pretzels in some way in our life because of other people’s influence. We end up doing things, spending time on things, or committing to things we’re not really committed to. Not really. Don’t really want. It’s not really who we’re trying to be. It’s not really what we want.

As you start eliminating, identify where that’s true for you and eliminate it small step by step; it’s transformational. It’s remarkable and beautiful, and the effect is immediate, so that’s a good thing. And it’s life advice that applies to everything. And I’m not saying I’d master that. I’m working on it. It’s an ongoing thing.

We’re all students in earth school.

Yep. We need to be aware of the people who claim to have figured it all out.

Right. Well, why don’t you share the website with the JVMM community? If you want to share any socials as well, where should we send folks?

Profitablerelationships.com is for anybody interested or qualified for the JVMM. If anyone is interested in my approach to generating a consistent flow of clients, just add profitablerelationships.com/themanual. And there’s an excellent book, a free PDF, that I used to sell for $97 for five years, but you can get it for free.

It’s very generous of you to include that book for free. And I appreciate you, Dov. I appreciate the community that you’ve built, and I appreciate your heart.

I appreciate you as well. Thank you. Look forward to seeing you in person soon.

Yeah, likewise. All right, well, take care. And you, listener, take care as well. Have an amazing week. Make it an amazing week and be a light in the world. We’ll catch you on the next episode. I’m your host, Stefan Spencer, signing off.

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Your Checklist of Actions to Take

Know why customers buy or don’t buy. This is crucial in building a marketing and selling system that converts.

Focus on attracting good clients and doing quality work rather than seeking fame because not all guru’s methods work for everyone.

Develop a simple, repeatable process tailored to my values. It’s key for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs.

Collaborate with those who share my target audience with the intention of mutually boosting my reach and credibility.

Carefully select who enters my community. A well-vetted group ensures productive interactions and meaningful connections.

Foster engagement through regular educational events and networking opportunities. It keeps the community active and valuable.

Be genuine in my message and approach. Authenticity attracts and retains the right kind of clients.

Adapt my strategies and offerings based on member feedback. This ensures my business evolves to meet real needs.

Incorporate giving into my business practice. More charity often leads to greater abundance and fulfillment.

Visit profitablerelationships.com to connect with Dov Gordon and download his free manual, How To Systematically & Consistently Attract First-Rate Clients.

About Dov Gordon

Dov Gordon founded the JVMM, which stands for Joint Venture Marketing Mastermind. He started it in 2009. It’s become a vibrant community of thought leaders and entrepreneurs since 2018. He ran it for over a decade for free, but it eventually evolved into a paid community. As the saying goes, when people pay, they pay attention. Its focus is to assist thought leaders in growing their business via joint ventures.