Be a Disruptasauraus – Be Heard and Stand out Online with Mike Koenigs

In this Episode

• [01:43] – Mike talks about being “Chief Disruptasaurus”, and the ways in which he’s a disruptor. He explains the difficulty (and importance) of getting two things from people: their attention and their trust.
• [05:18] – In response to Stephan’s discussion of the railroad industry versus the transportation industry, Mike explains that the winners right now are people who combine disruption with innovation.
• [06:44] – What does Mike think that Tony Robbins’ next big thing is going to be? As Mike answers, he points out that most offers ultimately relate to “getting paid, getting laid, or living forever.”
• [10:08] – Stephan talks more about Tony Robbins and how much information he has. He also mentions Tony Robbins’ Platinum Partnership.
• [11:14] – Mike was never a platinum partner with Tony Robbins, he reveals. He then gives us some insight into his background and how much of an impact Tony has had on his life.
• [13:14] – Stephan talks about the financial cost involved in being a platinum partner.
• [15:20] – Mike offers some insight into how Instant Customer (which he sold recently) was born. In doing so, he talks about how he got involved in direct response marketing.
• [18:00] – Mike transitions into talking about the question of capturing leads and keeping attention.
• [21:07] – Stephan dives deeper into what Mike has been saying about using texts as a marketing tool. Mike then offers a real-life example of how he’s been successful with this.
• [23:33] – Mike clarifies what he means by “micro commitment text messaging,” and mentions his latest book, Money Phone.
• [25:41] – We learn why the strategy Mike has been describing is so successful, which is largely because you’re creating a personal dialogue.
• [27:19] – Once you have attention, interest, engagement, and curiosity, what’s the pathway to rapidly earning trust? This pathway involves being the person to diagnose the problem, as Mike explains.
• [31:04] – Mike offers a workaround for how to record the context of a conversation if you don’t take good notes afterward. He recommends using Rev to record and transcribe the conversation.
• [36:10] – We hear the short version of Mike’s overall process, described in four straightforward steps.
• [37:21] – Mike gives a real-life example of a follow-up video that he would give someone after meeting them and identifying their problems.
• [38:45] – Mike explains why the previous video idea was so compelling, and then offers an example of a closing video.
• [41:58] – “When is the last time someone you met followed up with a personalized video for you?” Mike asks, illustrating why this strategy is so attention-grabbing and successful.
• [43:52] – Mike talks again about Money Phone, his book that explains this whole process in more detail, and offers to give it away to anyone who wants it.
• [45:21] – We hear exactly how to get a copy of Mike’s book for free: go to gomoneyphone.com and sign up. You don’t need to buy anything; the book is a gift.
• [46:58] – Mike describes the cost of printing a book, and how much he charges for his paperback.
• [48:18] – Stephan has just described the wrong way to give away books; what’s the right way? Mike offers a specific and detailed example, describing how he used a psychological tactic to create demand for his book and close deals.
• [52:35] – For years, Mike has been trying to convince his wife to write a book. She finally did: How to Change The World While You Work: The Ultimate Guide for Generating More Revenue by Giving Money Away.
• [54:21] – What was one of the biggest gifts that came out of Mike’s process of dealing with stage 3A colorectal cancer? In his answer, Mike describes the challenges and struggles of coping with cancer and the associated treatments. He then explains how the experience has changed his perspective on time and value.
• [59:23] – Mike expands on the point about the importance of valuing your own time.
• [60:13] – Stephan reinforces a point that Mike made a moment ago: when you pay, you pay attention. Mike then loops back to his earlier point about “getting paid, getting laid, or living forever.”
• [61:52] – How can someone get in touch with Mike to work with him? Options include his website at youeverywherenow.com, emailing him at [email protected], or going to gomoneyphone.com.
• [62:47] – Mike offers a personal rule, which is that he doesn’t study with anyone who’s not in the dirt doing it now. He also describes his “guru test.”

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Transcript

Welcome to Marketing Speak. I’m your host, Stephan Spencer. Today, we have Mike Koenigs with us. Mike is a 10-time Number 1 bestselling author, interactive online TV producer, host of The Mike Koenigs Show, winner of the Marketer of the Year award, serial entrepreneur, angel investor, filmmaker, international speaker and patented inventor. He’s also the Chief Disruptasaurus of the [MyxIV Media Network [00:00:22]. Mike built and sold his last two businesses to publicly traded companies. His most recent exit was selling Traffic Geyser and Instant Customer in October 2014. His first company, Digital Café Agency, was sold to the publicly traded Interpublic Group in 1999. An active philanthropist, Mike has raised over 2.3 million dollars for the Just Like My Child foundation. He’s also a recent stage 3A cancer survivor, completing 9 months of chemotherapy and 33 radiation treatments. His doctor says he’s healthy and cancer free, thank goodness. Mike, it’s great to have you on the show.

Thank you so much, Stephan.

Let’s talk about Chief Disruptasaurus, which I think is an awesome title. Let’s talk about disruption. How do you disrupt and do things differently, be remarkable as Seth Godin describes it in Purple Cow, just do something out of the ordinary that gets you noticed and virally spread online, all of that sort of good stuff.

I think the first thing is if you just look at what’s going on our world today, the first one is Facebook right now is an incredible force. It doesn’t matter if you look at things through the eyes of Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook, Facebook does have collectively the largest audience of active users in the world, well over a billion people log in every single day and over 4.5 billion articles of content gets created every single day. The answer to your question I got to say, here’s what the problem is, the problem is right now there are two things that are harder than heck to get more than ever before and that is someone attention and then their trust. With the amount of noise that’s going on around us with most people walking around like drones, quite frankly, flipping through their lives, looking through the lens of their phone, it’s like we live in an augmented reality world where our phones are an extension of who we are. We believe and we get the majority of our information through our phones and very often through people that we trust. The idea of centralized news, centralized information simply does not exist any longer. On one hand, it’s the greatest moment in human history and at the same time it can be incredibly frustrating for anyone who wants to market themselves. As I like to say, you need, in order to get anything done, if I ask you, ‘What business are you in?’ Someone might say, “Well, I’m a podcaster.” First and foremost, you are an attention getter. If you cannot get attention, you lose. You don’t have an opportunity to do what you say you do. First of all, you need to be able to get 2 seconds of someone’s attention and then 20 seconds of their attention. If you happen to get 20 seconds of someone’s attention maybe they will give you enough trust, enough confidence for 2 minutes of their attention. If you can win 2 minutes and then hopefully 20 to 50 minutes, you can probably persuade or influence almost anyone to buy or do almost anything if you’re good at it. I think part of being a Disruptasaurus is being able to look at what is the present noise window or the shelf that you’ve got to get past, what’s going on in the world of technology and media, what’s happening in your industry in such a way that you can meet your market with the right message using the appropriate medium to get past the 2 seconds, 20 seconds, 2 minutes and hopefully 20 minutes to actually start a commercial journey with them. For that matter look, if you’re selling religion or it doesn’t matter what it is, we all have to get past the hump of gaining attention no matter what that is. I think a great Disruptasaurus understands what that is and turns their daily life into a laboratory and a science experiment.

I love that. I love what you said about you’re not let say, “____ podcaster.” Whatever it is, but you’re an attention getter. That reminds me, I’m sure you’ve heard this from Tony Robbins and so forth, that the people in the railroad industry back in the day, they didn’t see what was coming with trucking and they thought, “This is the railroad industry.” They were actually in the transportation industry but they thought they were in the railroad industry so they got surprised.

Right.

Yeah.

No, you’re so right. When you mention that, of all the crazy stuff, I literally just got off the phone with Tony Robbins a few minutes before we started our interview today. He has a new book and we’re talking about disrupting the financial industry and it’s specifically about that. It’s like right now the winners are the disruptors who combine disruption with innovation. When you look at what is at a lack right now, what do we need more than ever before? I have a 14 year old kid, it’s like we need innovation. We need leadership. We need people understand getting attention but not getting it for nefarious purposes, not getting it for attention sake, but actually to do something good with that.

I agree. You and Tony are good friends. I know you’ve spoken on Tony’s stages many times. I’ve spoken at Business Mastery too, a couple of times. I’m curious, where do you think Tony’s next big thing is going to be because he’s got such a powerful presence in the world of events, he’s got all of these bestselling books but the future is really evolving quickly. As you said before, augmented reality, it’s our future. So is nanotechnology, so is a whole lot of stuff, AI and so forth. Where do you think Tony should be going next?

His latest book is called Unshakable. It’s all about the financial market. What he’s done is he’s partnered up with a very, very successful, highly ethical business partner who’s helping him help people with financial mastery. Ultimately, achieving financial freedom is something we all ultimately want. I’ll say this in a kind of coarse terms but, in a lot of ways if you really think about this, it’s going to sound a little cookie, most offers ultimately has something to do with getting paid, getting laid or living forever. Get paid, get laid, live forever. I’m not saying Tony has anything to do with this but in a strange, goofy way, what people want is they ultimately want some level of freedom. It’s time freedom, family freedom, money freedom which is really time freedom, quite frankly. The opportunity to have a healthy, longer, high quality life. Being able to live where they want to live, with whom they want. Be able to have their families and also, having some level of status as well which again is money but again, it’s really time. I think the best way to answer your question, getting back to Tony, is he’s always been about personal power, personal mastery, being able to own your brain and understand where your personal energy comes from. What his next step is really partnering up with the biggest brains and the biggest minds in the world and in a way, he’s always done it. He’s always been a high performance coach. He doesn’t just look at the surface level but really what makes it tick. Just last week, he was with Bill Clinton for example. He just finished interviewing and he recently spent more time with Warren Buffett for example. He has access to the biggest brains and most successful people, the biggest earners in the world. Besides bringing how does someone like that think to the rest of the world, he’s also a huge philanthropist. He has a goal of feeding a billion people or providing a billion meals in the next few years by giving away all the money that he makes from his books. He fed over 200 million from his last book, for example. That’s a hard question to just answer because there’s not a simple question. But he’s partnered for example with Peter Diamandis. He’s involved with the XPRIZE. He and Elon Musk recently did a program together and their goal is to educate kids. He just came back a couple weeks ago from, he couldn’t say exactly where it was in the world, but they had brought a bunch of kids and gotten them out of child sex slavery. These are girls that were 9 to 13 years old and brought 30 children back to their families. He’s involved in a lot of things but I think what he really understands is the shape and momentum of human consciousness and the relationship between high performance, technology, economics, and owning what’s in between your two ears. That’s one of the things I love about him. He’s so willing to think beyond the limits. I really appreciate that about them. Every time I’m with him, he expands my brain considerably. I love big thinking people who are doing big things.

A key point here is Tony has access to information that most of us don’t have. For example, he knew about the real estate crash and he told all his platinum partners at the time, “Get out of real estate.” This was in 2007 right before it hit. They had six months to get out. Most of them heeded his warning and did. Access to information, but the right kind of information, is critical and he’s fantastic at that. Bringing together the best people, the smartest minds, Peter Diamandis. I did Platinum Partnership for three years and I just love that financial wealth building platinum trip that you’re referring to. Just a place in Whistler, right? Were you there at that one?

At the Whistler one? No, I was not at that one.

Okay. Bill Clinton spoke at that and Peter Diamandis. A bunch of awesome people, billionaires came and spoke at that event.

So great.

Yeah. Have you been a platinum partner? I think you have, right?

I got introduced to Tony in 1996. It completely changed my life when I was a quarter million in the hole, I was overweight, recently divorced, I was paying my employees with credit card cheques and I was living in a SuperAmerica gas card in Minnesota. The short version was I got introduced to Tony, got Personal Power too and I managed to go to an event, unbelievably, a credit card company gave me another credit card. 90 days later, I turned my life around and less than a year later I sold my first company, Digital Café, to a publicly traded business. I really got my act together. If you fast forward a few years, I got my life in order, got married, and I made my way to San Diego. The first person I called was the first person I spoke to on Tony Robbins’ team, Chris Hendrickson, who is married to Pam Hendrickson, who produced all Tony’s product for 20 years. What wound up happening is Chris and I and Pam became very good friends along with my wife. Our kids were born about the same time. Eventually, when Tony was struggling with his online marketing and in anything, his business is going up and down at that time. Pam called me up and said, “Hey, Tony needs some help with his marketing. Do you think you can talk to him and meet him?” I’m like, “Well, of course.” I ended up going to Tony’s house, set him up with a home studio, a video studio. I introduced him to Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Russell Brunson, Brendon Burchard, all of the original online marketers. We ended up producing a product together. I know I’m not directly answering your question but the bottom line is by the time I got introduced to Tony, I was introduced to him as a friend who helped him and I ended up speaking at the event. I wasn’t really a participant. At that point, I was as a friend of his. I didn’t have to pay for access is the bottom line.

It’s very expensive. It’s over a $100,000 a year to be a platinum partner because there are trip charges. Membership is like $75,000 so, it could be like $130,000 a year.

Right on, yeah. In the end, it was nicer because I ended up doing some projects together with him. I met with him. I gave him some ideas and one of them turned into Money Masters which is that video series with all the internet guys. I can’t take credit for it because it was a combination of people, but I did seed the idea for what became Business Mastery as well when I gave him a business plan. Again, I can’t take credit for it. It was more of a collection of us getting together and talking about some ideas but yeah, what a remarkable human being.

Yup and it’s great that you helped him in his evolution too. Kudos to you. I wanted to talk to you about, also, Instant Customer and some other tools that allow marketers to achieve, I actually heard about Instant Customer from Joe Polish, another excellent internet marketer. The context to that was he referred me to using that tool so that I could have people in the audience that I was speaking to from stage pull out their phone and text to get a valuable whatever it was, let’s say an extended edition version of my powerpoint deck or free copy of my book. To do that, instead of sending to them to a website address or emailing my assistant, it would increase the uptake of the opt in rate. Worked out great and I was an Instant Customer customer for a number of years. I’m using LeadDigits service now but I just wanted to get some insight into how Instant Customer was born. What other use cases you want to point out that will drive lots of value for our listeners?

First of all, I’ll frame this and say I sold the company two years ago, Instant Customer and what was Traffic Geyser also. That was my second publicly traded exit. I’ll take you on a small journey because it’ll make this more contextually relevant. I started coding when I was a kid. I barely passed high school and never went to college, etc. I’ve always been good at taking stuff apart, putting it back together, figuring out how things work, and creating useful stuff for other people. One of my first forays into information marketing was studying infomercials. I got introduced to direct response marketing through Dan Kennedy and Joe Sugarman who created the first infomercial for sunglasses. He created BluBlocker sunglasses which sold over $1 billion worth of sunglasses on television shows. When I started putting video on the internet, and this is like in the 90’s, we were doing some of the first movie websites. I had a friend who is involved in the infomercial industry and I’d hear these numbers of these people and at that time Tony Robbins of course, is using infomercials. He is doing this things with Guthy-Renker, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sales. I was always in the back of my head I’m like, is there a way to automate that? This is back before online shopping and shopping carts existed. If you fast forward a little bit, my first information product was called the Internet Infomercial Toolkit. It came out in 2003, 2004, a year before there was YouTube. When YouTube came along, it was like free hosting for videos. You’d watch videos, you’d have to go an opt in page and then you’d get someone to buy something. We started seeing mobile phones start taking off and people using text messaging. I did some research and I found a way, it was a whole bunch of hacks, so this is again we have the right stuff from the grown up, but we figured out how to do a two-way interactive mobile text message where the ideas if you’re watching a video, you can say to someone, “Hey, if you want more text your email address to this phone number.” We ended up craving a two way conversation with people. Not only would the system capture the lead, but then it would maybe ask someone a little bit of information but we’d take that data, we’d visit the internet and we are doing data scrapings so we’d learn about you if you opted in. We’d be able to say, “Hey, are you on Twitter? Are you on Facebook?” We gathered this information, doing social scoring, basically. It was for checking a lead. I think the bottom line was this, ever since I started speaking, presenting, putting my videos online and also speaking on stages, the question always was how do I capture leads? How do I follow up and be able to get someone’s attention and keep their attention? Email, as we know, is horribly ineffective where a mobile text message on the other hand turns out statistically 96% of all mobile text messages get read within 10 minutes of them being sent. As opposed to email where you’re lucky if you’re getting a 15% or 20% open rate, in general. You’re lucky if you’re getting a 15% to 20% click through rate, in general. For a thousand emails sent, you might get 30 or 40 clicks, which is horrible. The short answer to your question was I needed to find a way to capture leads, stay in touch with people, connect with them, get their attention, be able to communicate, and ultimately, sell something. Everyone else I knew needed it too. If I spoke on stage, when I showed this to Darren Hardy and I showed it to Peter Diamandis, I said, “Guys, you’re getting in front of audiences of 5,000 or 10,000 people at a time. What kind of lists are you building?” We’ll tell people, “Well, you can send me an email and I’ll send you something or whatever.” But you’re lucky if a couple of people out of the audience would actually do that. Where if you said, “Hey, if you want a copy of my presentation, pull out your mobile phone, text me your email address right now to this phone number.” Bam! 85% of an audience would text in. Darren Hardy went from having a data base, and if you don’t know him he’s a guy who was responsible for really bringing and increasing the brand value of SUCCESS magazine. He went from having a list of 30,000 to 800,000 people in about a year. Peter started generating 8,000 leads at a time when he was speaking in front of big audiences. The bottom line is the value of a name can be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. People in an audience live have spent money to be there, they’re highly qualified, they’re motivated, they want some kind of a result. Once I started getting into this and we started developing the technology platform, it was like pretty soon we were doing voice mail delivery, we’re doing voice recognition, someone could call the same number and say their name and email address and we’d add that to the database. I’m just a junky with tech. I’m really, really fascinated and interested in it. In my case, I went through cancer a few year ago. I realized that my businesses were killing me and I didn’t want to be in the software industry anymore. I was fortunate enough to find a buyer and I just wanted to change what I was doing. Again, I love tech. I think mobile is the biggest dog on thing. It still is huge. There’s one thing that’s going to be bigger and that’s bots, automated chats, and AI. It’s going to completely shake up and disrupt anything that’s going on in the world of support and the buying process. That’s the next big thing in my opinion.

We’ll definitely dig into those in a bit but I want to make a couple of additional points on what we were just discussing regarding using text messaging as a way in starting the opt in process with a text. One thing Joe Polish had said is, it actually also works for magazine ads. Instead of sending people to website, you have them text a phone number or shortcode, ideally. Any case examples of that have been really successful?

How about this, it just so happens you’re lucky enough that I have my campaigns open because I was actually just exporting data today. I’m going to give you a real life example of how I used, in this case it was Instant Customer although nowadays I’ve been promoting another product and recommending it that does similar stuff. I’m going to actually tell you exactly what the results were on one of the campaigns that I ran, I actually ran a magazine ad in SUCCESS magazine. Here’s one I’m looking at right now, I put an ad in and we got 5,194 leads from one promotion. I actually did something interesting. I had a full page. I had an ad on one side for one offer where I gave away a free book. On the other page, I did another one. On the second page, I got 577 leads. Here’s the case study in the bottom line, if you are using mobile text strategy for print, whether it’s a half page or full page ad, just make sure you’re giving away a book because it’s something that will definitely get someone’s attention. The conversion rates are high. From a free book, it is very easy to push someone and do an automated webinar or just follow up with them because you got their phone number. If you build some rapport with them, you can just positively crush it. Actually, I just wrote another book on the topic of getting and generating leads but actually using short, what I call micro commitment text messages and one minute videos to get people to buy stuff from you. Again, short attention getting and something where you earn someone’s trust very rapidly.

What do you mean about micro commitments text messaging? What would be some examples of that?

I’ll tell you specifically what it is. My latest book is called Money Phone and if you want I can give it away. Here’s what a micro commitment is. A micro commitment is a short message that encourages someone to respond back to you super quickly. Here’s an example, “Hey Bill, checking in. Do you need anything from me today?” Maybe you haven’t heard from me in a couple weeks or a couple of months. I’d say, “Hey Stephan, just checking in. Do you need anything from me from me today?” It’s light and the person you’re, going to know in 10 seconds, if they’re there and if they’re paying attention to their phone because you’re going to see the little response meter showing up on your iPhone or your Android that someone’s actually starting to respond to you, right?

Yup.

Suddenly you got their attention, the hardest thing to get. Something that if you had a list again of 1,000 email addresses, suddenly you got the most valuable, hard to get thing and they’re using a phone so, if you encourage them with a couple of micro commitment messages, they don’t have to have an agenda, in this case they do. You’re going to be able to send a couple very simple messages that just start a conversation going. And then you throw something else in front of them which is a way to provide some big value. Another micro commitment message beyond the, “Hey, how you doing?” might be, “Hey, I just was digging through my photos. Here is a selfie, a picture of us. I was just thinking about you. How are things?” Okay, that might be another one. But another message might be, “Hey Stephan, are you still interested in…?” in whatever you big brand promise is. It could be building your audience, building a list, creating a product. Whatever it is your brand promise happens to be.

I love it. That reminds me of Dean Jackson’s nine word email.

Yes, precisely. “Are you still interested in….?” I give Dean full credit for that.

That’s a genius approach. You just leave it open ended, short and sweet. It makes it feel more personal, it makes it feel more real. It’s not some fancy marketing campaign. It’s just you checking in.

Yup, exactly. It’s not contrived, it doesn’t feel yucky. Here’s what’s important about it. It feels like because it is a real conversation with a real person, it’s one on one. It’s like a market message medium. You know how people behave and act on a mobile phone, you’re communicating with them as a friend. Because it’s a dialogue, trying to have a dialogue with email is almost impossible, it’s a one way narrative at best. This is why YouTube Live and Facebook Live especially, and now with Snapchat too, it’s a micro commitment. 15 seconds and 30 second video is enough for someone to watch in a bite size piece. It’s one idea and it strongly encourages a level of interaction whether it’s a like, or comment, or a share. Beyond that, the next step to really get their attention is to get into a diagnosis mode. There’s a phrase, I don’t remember who originally said this, but it essentially was something to the effect of Hiroshi diagnosis, the disease. He’s the first to be trusted with the cure. An example is I’ve got an idea that will help you grow your business or I have an idea that will help you _____, whatever that is. Again, you get their attention, you get their interest, you have engagement, and you have curiosity. The next step is you got to earn trust and there’s a path way of doing this very rapidly.

What’s that path way?

I call them activation videos. Again, I’m going to back up and just tell you how I’ve been doing business and closing deals that vary anywhere from $2,000 to even $70,000 with basically one minute videos. Let’s say for example I went to a live event, or trade show, or somewhere where I’m meeting some people face to face or you can just scrub backwards in time in your phone and look at your text messages. I guarantee you there are people that you met. They’re super high value, you had every intention on following up and reconnecting with them but life stepped in, you got distracted and you forgot. But if you turn off or put your phone in airplane mode scroll backwards and create it a list of high value prospects that have a challenge and you know what to solve their challenge, you just follow up with using the micro commitment. The next one, I’ll give you a real life example. It’ll be, “Hey Bill, we met at JJ Virgin’s Mindshare event. You mentioned a challenge that you’re having, closing prospects and leads at trade shows. I’ve got a solution that I think can work for you. This thing has been used by Darren Hardy from SUCCESS magazine. It’s being used by Peter Diamandis, founder of XPRIZE, who’ve grown their list over a 100,000 people in 6 months. I’m pretty sure, in fact, I’m positive this will work for you too.” Based on the numbers that you shared with me, again, I’m making an assumption that Bill and I had a conversation at a trade show, and he told me that he’s getting about a 150 leads a day at the trade show but he’s only connecting with 20 after the event is over. “I have an idea that’ll double or triple the response rate you’re getting. It’ll take you a less than five minutes to fill you in on the details. I just got off the phone and I have five minutes right now before my next call. We’ll right now, work for you or you’d say, just let me know and I’ll send you a one minute video that describes everything you need to get started.” That whole little mini script I gave you is less than a minute. It’s probably about 40 seconds. Again, let’s make this assumption. I’ve already engaged with Bill or with you. I know you’re there and I just said, “I’ve got an idea. Are you interested?” He said, “Yes, of course I’m interested in that.” At this point, I just gave him a diagnosis of his disease. He told me what’s wrong so he’s not going to get live and mean that. He was really specific. I’ve got a solution. And I just said, “Are you interested in more?” It’s almost like another trial close. It’s genuinely like a one on one sales conversation but what’s different is you could be doing this and I have done this with 10 or 20 people all at the same time. I’m making these short little one minute videos that are highly engaging and they’re activating people based on a challenge they have. In the grand scheme of things, if you think about the work you gotta do, let’s say you’re marketing online, your marketing with Facebook for example and you’re spending money. You got to get someone’s attention, put him through a funnel, have an imperfect conversation over a period of time, and win their trust. This is so direct that 100,000 views on Facebook might not result in a $70,000 sale. This is something that you could have with less than 15 minutes of total conversation interaction with someone that you met at an event, for example. That’s the activation and diagnosis.

You got to get someone’s attention, put him through a funnel, have an imperfect conversation over a period of time, and win their trust. Share on X

That’s powerful. What if you don’t remember the context of the conversation and so forth. This presupposes that you take good notes after you meet people and you put it into your CRM.

Actually, I’ve got a total work around. I’ll tell you exactly what I do. You want to hear this one?

Yeah, of course.

Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll walk up, and again, I happen to like trade shows and live events because that’s how we reconnected, right? It was at, I can’t remember which event was that.

Bulletproof.

It was at the Bulletproof event. Okay, yeah. Bulletproof is really good. If you think about that Bulletproof Coffee, first of all it’s a cult brand, really high value people. Everyone there has spent around $1,000 on a ticket plus they took time away from home, work, office and they’re motivated for information and probably, deals. The next step then is let’s say I have a conversation with someone. I know what they’re there for. Bulletproof people are all about human optimization. It’s about feeling better and being able to be hyper performing with their brains and their bodies. They’re open to nutrition. I know everything about them. I know what the messaging is. I walk up to someone and again, I’m going a little bit deeper which is anyone who has a booth at a trade show is a highly motivated prospect. They’re there to get leads and close deals. Every single script that I wrote in my book came from real life examples. I’d walk up to someone and let’s say there’s one of the guys who became a customer of mine, his name is George and he has a business, he sells mushroom extracts and supplements. I walked up to George and when I met him I’m like, “Hey, tell me about your business, blah, blah, blah. Who’s your audience? What’s the biggest challenge that you’re having right now?” He starts talking to me and I’ll say, “You know what, I’m pretty certain I’m going to be able to help you out, but is it okay with you if I record this conversation?” He was like, “Yeah it’s fine.” I pull out my mobile phone and I’ll turn Rev on, it’s rev.com. Let’s just record an audio and then you can send it for transcript or I’ll have a full conversation and after I’ve pretty much diagnosed him, who are you? What do you do? Who do you do it for? What’s your biggest challenge? What’s working now? All these diagnostic questions. At the very end I’ll say, “You know what? Let me think about this for a little while. I’m going to follow up with you but I’m certain I’m going to have about three or four really good ideas that’ll help you grow your business. Is that okay if I follow up with you?” “Yeah.” Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to shoot a short little video and I pull out my phone and I’ll say, “Hey, this is Mike. I’m sitting here with you George and you just told me about your business. Here’s the three things that you told me. You’re having problems of following up. You’re getting about these many leads. You’re closing about these many things, blah, blah, blah. Is that right?” “Yes it is.” “Cool, alright. I’ll follow up by the time this event is done, cool?” “Cool.” “Great.” Boom! I’ll say, “Let’s take a quick selfie too.” Inside of a half a day, I can walk around and probably meet and generate 12 to 20 highly qualified targeted leads at an event, who all have paid a lot of money to be there. Every one of those represents a $10,000 to $25,000 deal. Easy. You think about it, I could go to four events a year and probably close $250 million worth of business at each one. That’s $1 million worth of business with no marketing department, no shopping cart, no follow up thing. I’m using my mobile phone. It’s crazy. Again, this exact same process can be done and you can apply it to doing it with Facebook, for example, just by building rapport and building a connection with someone. It’s so powerful. Again, I gave you a lot of detail but that’s the activation and diagnosis. This is the trust builder. You end up sending the close video which can be the same video that you send everyone. Once they say, “Hey, yeah I want to talk to you.” Or “Yeah, just go ahead and send the video that tells me what I need.” You’ve got that open invitation. Again, you have all of their attention. They’re not going to go anywhere because it’s all about them.

It’s so great that you’re doing this via video and personalized video so that you bypass the email inbox. It’s so crowded. It’s so chaotic and busy. You got co-workers, their boss, their direct reports, their spouse, their family members, kids, all screaming, all the newsletters and everything like, “Hey, I need your attention, I need your attention.” You avoid all of that by texting a video. I love it. That’s fantastic. You have one sales video. You basically prime your prospect to receive videos from you because when you meet them in person you’re asking them for permission to create a video for them right then and there.

Precisely, yup. The process at this point is first of all you’re going to generate your leads. They look through your past text messages or go to a live event where your prospecting and gathering and meeting with the right people. The second step is connecting with micro commitment messages. The third is activating them which is sending them the one minute activation, what I call the diagnosis video, that’s where you earn their trust in less than a minute. The fourth step is where you send a close video. With the close video, you’re basically saying, “Hey, great. I’m super glad you want to move forward. The system I’m talking about is blah, blah, blah. Here’s what it’s going to do for you, here’s how it’s going to work, and here’s how to get started.” That’s essentially all there is to it. You’ll notice that when we did the activation video, I never talked about me and my product. I talked about them and their problem. I just restated what they told me, right?

Yup.

Again, I’ll give you another example that would be a real life one. Actually, if you want, do want me to give you an activation video and then a close video?

I’ll love that.

This is real life. Again, I’m going to contextualize it. This came from a real customer and I’ll actually use a real product too. Her name is Shanda and this is a real life person. I changed her name but I met her at JJ Virgin Mindshare event. I went to this event. I spoke there. I was already considered an expert and I give away my books whenever I’m at a live event where I talk about some things and I’m there to solve problems. Here would be my follow up video. I met Shanda and inside here I’ll embed all the challenges that she told me. “Hey Shanda, you and I met at JJ Virgin’s Mindshare Summit event. You told me that you’re struggling to get good leads, close deals with high quality customers, attract the attention of live event promoters, and get speaking gigs. You also want to get more media attention, you want to get on TV, and you often struggle with telling your elevator pitch effectively. You also mentioned that you’re still scared to make some of your own videos and are confused about how to use Facebook live to promote yourself and your business. I have an idea that will help you solve these challenges. It’s a quick way to generate qualified leads, get Facebook traffic and promote your book and coaching business. If you want to know more, just text me back and I’ll send you a one minute video that will describe everything you need to know or if you want it will take a couple of minutes, just text me back and I’ll give you a quick call.” Alright, that’s the video.

That makes me want to sign up.

Yeah, exactly. Here’s the thing I made it all about you and about the stuff you talked about. Now here’s the close and again, this is a real life thing that we do. You’re going to notice that I’m not going to mention any names in here because it can be the same video. Whenever I make my videos, my pitch videos, I do them in the same place so it looked right. Of course, they’re customized but at this point I know what most people’s challenges are. I know which one of my four primary products are right for them. Here’s the pitch, “Great, I’m glad you got back to me. Here’s the big idea. It’s going to help you get attention, get on stages, close more deals and finally start generating leads on Facebook in less than three days. That is also a way for you to get media trends so you’re super camera confident. You’re going to get a sizzle reel that you can use to either get or close speaking deals and get on stages. It’s also something that event promoters will play when you walk up on stage. That’s also a great way to get video that you can use on social media and look like you’ve been on TV for three years. You’re going to get professional photos and head shots, video infomercials that establishes your credibility, your authority, and celebrity status and you can use it for generating leads to promote your book, your product, your services and business. Here’s what’s cool. When someone from the media sees your sizzle reel or your infomercial, they’re going to want you on their show because you have instant credibility and authority. The solution is something called the celebrity boot camp. You’ll come to our studio in San Diego. I’m going to get you camera confident in one day. I’m going to promote you to my entire social following. With that, you’re going to be able to get leads and sales right away. I’m going to give you a link so you can see some of the interviews and testimonials from some people who’ve started exactly where you are right now. We’ve got an event scheduled next month. There are only three seats available. The place to go is at yen.tv/bootcamp or again, just give me a quick call and I’ll get you on ramp right away but you’re going to walk away with a hard drive with your commercial, great photos, and a sizzle reel in three days. Most people spent about $75,000 in three years doing it. We’re going to get it done it three days. Just let me know what you want to do.” That was little bit longer than a minute and I kind of made a little bit of that up. You get the idea that I restated the challenges, I restated what I heard them say, and I really made it personalizes so they can imagine themselves doing it in there. But again, it’s all about market, message, medium. I’m meeting them in their space. That’s what I’ve been doing lately and what’s great about it is when you’re having this conversation through your prospects. Now, you’re figuring out what kind of videos you want to make your short videos for Facebook Live, for example. You’re just talking about problems people have and what they need. It’s just the diagnosis.

You could do this by just going through your Facebook friends list, your LinkedIn connections and just systematically reach out to them. The equivalent of Dean Jackson’s 9 word email, asking these open ended questions, short and sweet, getting the micro commitments and moving them forward by adding value each step of the way.

Right. The funny thing is ever since I’ve been teaching this process, I got people who are doing this process for clients now. Think about it like this, when is the last time someone you met followed up with a personalized video for you?

Yeah, like never.

Exactly. When we started this conversation about what it’s like to be disruptive, this is highly disruptive. It’s so stupid simple, it’s crazy. The illusion that most people have and the excuse they make and believe me, I’m in the business of smashing excuses and overcoming objections, we all are, that’s what it takes to be a successful marketer a successful business owner, but the excuse that you constantly hear is, I don’t have a list. I don’t have an audience. It’s like, look, you can have a list an audience of one. If you diagnose, listen, pay attention, and you genuinely have a solution and you put an offer in front of them, that’s fair and reasonable, you’re going to close that deal. How many deals do you need to make a really good living, change a lot of people’s lives, and achieve a level of financial security or financial freedom? The answer is it’s not that many, especially if you’re selling bigger ticket product and services. Clearly this isn’t what you do. You don’t go through this effort to sell a book. But from my line of thinking, the season you write books is to establish yourself as that expert, that authority to get speaking gigs, to in get in front of more people, and to give them away to put them into your marketing funnels so you’re given the opportunity to present your offers. Ain, win the trust. It’s pretty simple stuff when you break it down and you think it through from that lens.

You have a book that details this whole process?

Yes.

The name of that again is?

It’s called Money Phone: How to Turn Your Smartphone into a Six Figure Money-Making Marketing Machine and Close BIG Deals Quickly and Easily with Mobile Text and Video Marketing. Just using this as an example, first of all, I’m not here to sell any books. It wasn’t my intention. We just started talking today but I’ll give the book away to anyone who wants it. What’s important about this, and the reason I wrote it is I have people who come to me, and they’re like, if they’re flat out they have no money, they’re completely broke, they’re starting from scratch. I’m not going to in good conscious try to sell them something. It’s not just right. I say, either get a job or get yourself out of the hole that you’re in. Also, this is a great way to do that. I give away a video that’s 45 minutes, that explains step by step and I give people the scripts. They can either do it for themselves or they can do it for someone else. But then, these guys are running $20 million, $30 million a year companies and they hate their lives. They don’t like their companies anymore. They’re like, “I just want to simplify. I want to do something that’s a little less complicated.” I show them this process and they’re like, “Holy cow men, I’m inspired enough to just stop doing what I’m doing, walk away, hand my business up to someone else and just do smaller things like this.” Because they see the possibility and the potential really fast.

That’s a generous offer that you’re going to give away your book Money Phone to my listeners who want it. What’s their process for getting it?

Crazy, crazy easy. All you gotta do is just go to gomoneyphone.com and there’s an opt in right there. You don’t have to buy the book. You just enter your contact info. You’ll get the book, you’ll get my training video, and you’ll get what I call the quick start guide which is two pages, one page on each side. That includes the entire process. Step one, which is getting the lead. Step two, is the micro commitments. I give you the scripts. Step three, is the activation video. Step four, is the pitch. And then, I include some sample pitches that you can modify for your business. If you like being taught on a meta level, you’ll see exactly how I use books as promotional tools. For example, in my book I’ve got a catalogue of services. I include bios in there. I include, “Hire Mike to be a speaker at your next event.” What I like teaching people how to do is think on a meta level where they turn every interaction into a way that build and create value, but also to build and grow a business at the same time. Do it with the one tool that out of anything you can ever do for a business. A book is a 600 year old solution that people still like, they trust, and it’s the one device that people will still take you to bed with them in an intimate way, without requiring power.

Right. They won’t throw it away. They might gift it to somebody but they’re not going to put it in the recycle bin. Books are too valuable.

Yeah. That’s exactly right. They cost $2 to print. One of the things that I’ve been doing is I set the price of the book when I sell it on Amazon so low that it’s such a no brainer. This thing is less than 100 pages long. Statistically speaking, short books get read more. I can actually price it at less than $4 when I sell the paper back. If you got an Amazon Prime, you don’t pay anything for shipping. Less than $4 for the book, it’s crazy. The thing sells itself every single day. It’s beautiful.

Yeah. There’s a right way to give away books and there’s a wrong way. The wrong way would be you have all these books with you at conference, you hand them out when you asks different trivia questions during your talk, or whatever like, “What was Google called before it was called Google? Somebody says, “Backrub.” You’re like, “Correct, here’s a copy of my book. Enjoy.” You got no value out of it. You gave the value but there is no value exchange there. What’s the right way?

That’s a great question. I’m going to tell you something. You’re really good at this, because we have no agenda ahead of time, I’m really impressed, you’re navigating. I’m going to give you the juiciest one that people are going to love you, they’re going to trust you, and you’ll make money by giving money away at the same time.

I love it.

Here’s what I did. I was at an event, I spoke at it but I wasn’t allowed to sell, actually I was able to do what we call room grab. In other words, people texted in and they gave me their contact information. I did that but here’s what I did, I did my presentation I said at the end and I knew how many people going to be on the room. The first thing is you got to have the psychology of less or not enough. There are 350 people in the room, I ordered 300 copies of the book. I said now, “Here’s the deal. I know there are 350 people in the room and I only have 300 copies of my book. Here’s the way you’re going to get it. I have used an example in my presentation. My wife has a foundation, non-profit, it’s called Just Like My Child foundation and she does a program called girl power, she’s been educating and feeding and keeping girls from being sold as slaves in Uganda, but now she’s rolling a US based program. Again, I used that story in my presentation. I said, I told you about my wife’s foundation so what I’d like you to do if you like a copy of my book and I’m going to be signing books as long as you’re here. It was like I was the last presentation that day. I said what you do is run to the back. I’ve got fewer books and there are people in the room and donate whatever you want for that book. We had a big glass jar up there so you could visibly see the money. Of course people ran to the back, they started stuffing their money in to get a copy of the book and then be able to take a picture with me and have me sign it. That got the table rush happening and people were putting in $100 into the jar. No one put less than $5 in there for sure, because at the end of the day I had thousands of dollars. Not only did I have the money which I donated 100% of it to the foundation, I told everyone look, I am going to match whatever you give to the foundation. I’m going to double whatever you’re giving away. Of course, that created a challenge for people to put some more money in there. We ended up by the time it was all done, something like $6,000 or something like that. I had this huge stack of cash. I was able to hold that up the next day and thank everyone from the bottom of my heart. But then, during the time that I had this huge line up, people who were lined up to get the autograph and the photo with me after the speaking opportunity, I’m standing there at the desk with a sharpie, people are in line and of course, we small talked them and just having a little conversation. Eventually, someone’s like, “How can I work with you?” Or “What do you have?” Or I’d ask him a question, “Hey, are you a bestselling author? One of my programs of course, I teach people how to be bestselling authors.” I had order forms right there. I closed $22,000 worth of deals just from that little line up. With short conversations, because someone would just say, “How can I work with you?” Or whatever it was. I would say, “Here’s a great way, you can come. I’ve got an event coming up. You can just fill out this form and I’ll take great care of you.” Boom! Raised $6,000 for my wife’s foundation, made $20,000+ from a free speech. By incorporating the value of the book with a way for them to actually help people and make a difference, that just pushed people over the top. They felt like they’re participating in something larger than themselves.

Yeah.

That’s one of the many great ways. But it’s also super effective when you use books as lead generators with ads online as well because you don’t have to say, “Hey, you can get a copy of my book for free.” Start out with a little video and as soon as they opt in, you can do free shipping and handling books. You say, “The book is free. Just pay for shipping and handling.” You end up breaking even on the ad plus the book.

The technical nuance here though is that you should call it shipping and processing because handling is very restrictive in what you are allowed to charge for.

Yeah, good. That’s a great tip, shipping and processing. Yup.

I love this. You’re actually tutoring philanthropy into marketing and the marketing into philanthropy. It’s a genius, it adds value in the world as well as to your audience, makes them feel like they’re making a difference and they are. You’ve got a bigger mission. It’s great, just beautiful.

My wife who’s the founder of this, I’ve been on her rear end for years saying, “Turn this into a book, turn it into a class.” Everyone is like, “Hey, they want to know how to start their own non profit.” We always tell people, “You don’t want to start a non profit. You want a partner with a non profit because the restrictions, the legal considerations, it’s just… The government treats you like a criminal.” She finally took my advice and she wrote a book called How to Change The World While You Work: The Ultimate Guide for Generating More Revenue by Giving Money Away. As of right now when we’re doing this interview, she is going to be in Las Vegas this Thursday in front of an audience of 5,000 people. She has to present an offer from stage and with the offer she’s about to make, my prediction is she could very easily get 1,000 of these people to give her $500 each. That’s $500,000 with one presentation. Just think about this from the point of view of the day my life changed as a marketer when I realized that 1,000 times 1,000 is 1 million and 333 times 3,000 is 1,000,000 and anyone can sell 333 things for $3,000. It’s not that hard to sell 1,000 things for $1,000.

Yeah, fantastic. One final question, you went through quite an ordeal fighting cancer and it changed you. You’re a different man from before because of that journey you went through. What was one of the biggest gifts that came out of that whole process for you?

It’s interesting you use the word gift because when I went through it, I called it my gift for a little while. I’m going to frame this by answering the question so you can have it in perspective. The first one is I was diagnosed of stage 3A colorectal cancer which is a horrible, horrible place to ever get cancer. Colorectal cancer moves very,very quickly through your body. If it turns to stage four, there’s a high probability you just simply won’t live. It was already in some of my [01:00:55]. I had surgery removing my sigmoid colon, 1/3 of my rectum. I’m stapled together. The good news is my part still work. The bad news is I also went through chemotherapy and radiation therapy to reduce the chances of it. I had a young son. My wife and I, we got unbelievable care and advice and what I did is I traded in the potential of longevity in exchange for living because I had a young son and I thought, “Okay, to me, being present while he is young was more important than quality of life later on if there was damage done by the treatments.” I made some decisions there. I think just that conversation that I had to have about what’s more important and who’s more important is super valuable. I got to look through that through a different lens. The other things that happens is when you’re being treated and you have something like cancer, your body’s going through an enormous amount of pain. You learn to differentiate pain and become a non-judgmental observer. I lost an enormous amount of weight. I was 130 pounds. I was about 90 at my peak. I lost two thirds of hair. Everyday, I’m waking up in a pile of my own hair with less than an hour of strength. I spent most of my time on the toilet. You have no strength left. It’s horrible. But during that time, I felt as though I aged 80 years in a period of 90 days while I was going through the worst of the treatments because I became disassociated from time. From a meditative perspective, I couldn’t work. The truth is my life didn’t fall apart, it was just fine. People came in and they took care of me, they took care of my business, and took care of what was important. When I got out of there, the way I value time is very different now. When I am with my son for example, he’s 14 years old. He still holds my hand when we walk together. That is precious. Anytime someone walks up to me and says, “Hey Mike, can I pick your brain? Can I take you out for lunch?” Can I whatever, which basically means, can I have free consultation from you? I show them a picture of my boy holding my hand and I say, “Here’s the deal. I only work with people who are committed to their success and understand the value of great coaching. If I sit down with you and give you free advice, you are not going to value what comes out of my mouth. You probably won’t implement anything because you have no skin in the game. This boy and I have skin in the game. I will not trade a moment of intimacy with my boy for any money in the world. If we’re going to spend time together, I don’t work with people who are cheap on their way to success. If you don’t pay, you don’t pay attention.” I asked for and get $30,000 a day for my time. I charge $5,000 per hour. I wouldn’t trade $5,000 for a chance to hold my son’s hand because in 3, 4 years, he’s not going to hold my hand anymore. What’s that worth? The short answer is I value my time now and I see it as being the most precious, irreplaceable commodity you can ever have. The quantity and volume of time isn’t what’s important. It’s the concentrated emotional experience that you’re able to have and the level of intimacy and connection you have with another human being is what’s most important. That’s how I make a decision. I love business. I love helping people but you can have my books for free, you can watch my videos for free, but if we’re going to engage, I’m going to give you a 3 to 10x on your investment back. If I’m with my son, I’m going to get a 1000 times my investment because I don’t know how much longer I’m going to last. I don’t know if some of the damage that was done when I had my treatments and there aren’t any visible ones. I don’t have any cancer on my body. I’m fine right now. But I think about that so I’m very conscious of every second that goes by and how I’m investing it and who I’m investing it with.

That’s so important that everybody who’s listening really gets this message that they need to value their time. You never know when your card’s going to be pulled. It’s important to be mindful and intentional with how you make your decisions about where you spend your time.

I was going to say it sounds trivial. I’ve talked that one thing. I’ve just told that story a number of times now, a variation of it to people who walked up and say, “Of all of the stuff I’ve ever learned from, you’ve helped me make hundreds of thousands of dollars, you’ve done this, that changed everything for me.” People, just from that conversation, they double what they charge in a day. They work less. They make more money and they spend they spend their time with people who they want to spend time with. It changes the game and it changes the rules. That, I think, is really even more valuable to me, anyway. Again, someone else thinks it’s just a bunch of BS. Yeah, whatever, it’s cool.

It’s not BS. I think my listeners are on the same bandwagon too. One other point that I’ll re-enforce here, that you made, is when you pay, you pay attention.

Yeah.

So critical. I had an employee who I gifted Unleash the Power Within ticket to and he skipped out on day four. I was like, “What? Seriously?” That’s the day where you’re going to learn to extend your life an extra 5 or 10 years because that’s all about health and wellness and you had something else to do?”

Yeah.

When you pay, you pay attention. I fully believe that.

It’s like, “What?!” Getting back to the statement I said earlier. It’s getting paid, getting laid, living forever. Really, a short investment in time can completely transform your life so you can bring so much more to your partner, whoever you’re spending your time with. The value you bring to other people so that you get more time, you can genuinely buy more time by providing more value and seeing what you represent to someone else, what a great gift that is. To do that internal insight and be given granted the gifts of knowledge and wisdom. We only have a short period of time here. It goes by really fast. If you get your nose in your phone, sitting on TV and playing video games, it isn’t adding value to the rest of the planet.

Yup, order yourself, really.

Yup. It’s wasted breath. Pay close attention because they go by so fast.

If somebody wants to work with you, like get coaching, or consulting, sign up for one of your programs, what’s the next step for them?

Sure, my website is youeverywherenow.com or yen.tv. You can see the line up of my product and services. I’ll give you my email address, [email protected]. My assistant watches that. I watch it. Just go ahead and reach out to me and of course go grab the book. That’s a great way to at least figure out if you want to work with me. Watch a video and if you feel like it adds value and you want to go the next step, it’s easy to find the rest from there. That’s just gomoneyphone.com.

That’s awesome and you’re going to provide us with an example. I’ll have a checklist of action items to take based on what we discussed in this episode on marketingspeak.com as well and a full transcript of the episode.

Rock and roll, man. Here’s the thing, everything you need is right there because I’ve been thinking about this so much and I use it myself. I actually update the book live. Right from the gomoneyphone website, I’m updating the quick start guide, the scripts, I’m rewriting them, I’m testing this every day. I have a personal rule, this maybe the one last thing I’ll leave you with. My rule is I don’t study with anyone who’s not in the dirt doing it now. The value of knowledge decreases in value very, very rapidly. Anytime I hear about a guru, my guru test is, first of all, if you just did it once and you did it for you and you haven’t been involved with and like built and sold a real business, because you have of someone who is like teach and list building or whatever and you find out that they did it once and they took their good luck and try to turn it into a product. That doesn’t make anyone a guru. It meant they got lucky, so I want who’s done it repeatedly. They’re making money, they’ve done it for other people other than themselves, and they’re doing it right now. Frequency matters. I judge myself the same way, which is I’m thinking about my customers everyday. I’m listening to the chatter, their objections, their fears, their concerns, and their worries. I’m trying to diagnose the disease, create the cure and put myself in their spot as well. I’m not going to sell anything that I’m not doing myself. I’m not using myself. I don’t need the money that badly. To me, it’s a scorekeeping measure and I love finding out what people value. Anyway, I don’t know if that made sense but get in the dirt, baby. Make a difference and if you’ve got plenty, give it away to other people who need it worse than you.

Yeah. Money is energy. I love that it’s just a way of keeping track of how much value you are creating in the world because it really is just energy. People put too much story into what money is and what it isn’t and how valuable they are as a person because of the amount of money they’re making or not making.

So true.

Thank you so much, Mike. This was awesome and I loved it. I bet our listeners did as well. Again, the episode show notes and everything is all on marketingspeak.com. Listeners, go check it out there. We’ll catch you on the next episode of Marketing Speak. I’m your host, Stephan Spencer, signing off.

Important Links:

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

☑ In trying to get potential clients’ attention, focus first on getting their attention for 2 seconds, then 20 seconds, 2 minutes and then hopefully 20 minutes. Start small and build from there.

☑ A text message is more likely to be read than an email. Check into texting services rather than email services to ramp up my marketing outreach efforts.

☑ Get ahead of the curve – research about how bots and AI will impact the future of marketing.

☑ To re-engage people on my list, try a simple approach, like sending a text or email asking them, “Are you still interested in _____?”

☑ YouTube Live, Facebook Live and SnapChat are great way to gain micro-commitments from followers by engaging them for a short time. Test out the different channels to see what resonates with my fans.

☑ In closing new clients, sending a personalized video is an excellent strategy. Brainstorm about how I can use personalization to grow my business.

☑ With each personal interaction, think of a way that I can not only build and create value, but also how I can build and grow business for myself or my company at the same time.

☑ Be conscious of how I spend my time and what value I’m getting out of it. How do I prioritize relationships with the ones I love over work? When I’m working, am I spending my time valuably?

☑ In my personal relationships, think about how I can add more value by being attentive and not being distracted by my phone or TV.

☑ Visit gomoneyphone.com to get Mike Koenig’s new book, Money Phone, for free.

About Mike Koenigs

Mike Koenigs is a ten-time #1 bestselling author, interactive online TV producer and host of the “Mike Koenigs Show”, winner of the “Marketer of the Year” award, serial entrepreneur, angel investor, filmmaker, international speaker and patented inventor. He’s also the “Chief Disruptasaurus” of the MiXiV Media Network.

Mike built and sold his last two businesses to publicly-traded companies, his most recent exit was selling Traffic Geyser and Instant Customer in October, 2014. His first company, Digital Cafe Agency was sold to the publicly-traded Interpublic Group in 1999.

An active philanthropist, Mike has raised over $2.3mm for the “Just Like My Child” foundation. He’s also a recent stage 3a cancer survivor, completing 9 months of chemotherapy and 33 radiation treatments. His doctors say he’s healthy and cancer-free.