Make ‘Em Laugh, Teach ‘Em Something – Then Sell Like a Pro

There’s one thing that all champions have in common. They get shit done, so welcome to the Get Shit Done Experience. Well, well, well, we’re back at it again. This is the Get Shit Done Experience, also known as the GSDX podcast, and once again, I wanna show gratitude. Thank you so much for all of the positive feedback.

We’re getting a ton of engagement on our clips and our full episodes, and I’m extremely grateful for that. Thank you for all your support. Obviously we do this because we know there’s practicality to business. We know that it’s extremely beneficial in creating attention, awareness, and getting messaging out there and promoting brands and.

Hopefully folks paying attention to us just a little bit deeper. Um, but we also get a lot of gratification out of the fact that people actually enjoy it. So thank you so much for that. Today, I’ve got an absolutely amazing guest on, uh, he’s gone through, uh, a very interesting get shit done type of journey in that, um, he started off, you know, at the, uh, the, the very bottom, if you will, much like me, somebody who’s tried the college thing and said, this isn’t for me.

And, uh, had to very quickly figure it out and jump into business and there’s always a, a story behind that. So we wanna pull that story out and then we’re gonna talk about some of the tactics and practical ways that you can build your personal brand and build your marketing messaging, um, and kind of DIY it, if you will.

And this guy’s an expert at doing that. So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one and only, and I mean one and only Alan Stern. Man, I don’t even know what to say to that. How is that for a fantastic intro? I just made that up. It’s, I, it’s crazy. I mean, I don’t even know if any of it’s true. Is that true?

What I said? Uh, it, it is. I mean, I don’t know what’s better, that intro or the fact, as soon as I walk in here, we got the flyer with our headshot on it. The episode name. Dude, you’re rolling out the red carpet. That’s how we do it, man. It’s about creating a brand experience. So, uh, you have. Taken this, this marketing thing by storm.

I know that I met you back at an SBA event, the, uh, Schomburg Business Association, shout out to you, met you at an event. I think that, um, I had been to one event and met you. Uh, and then I actually did a speaking engagement at that event, talked about how I was creating content because we were going through Covid and so on.

And then I think we met at the Christmas party and you were wearing this really loud suit and Oh yeah. We’re, uh, you know, just this dynamic personality and talking to everybody and so on. And I was captivated by you and kind of at a same timeframe, we started, uh, this content creation journey and we’ve gone in different directions, but we’re doing similar things.

And, um, you know, it takes a unique personality to do that. So how did you get started in, in this journey? Right, as an entrepreneur, you don’t just fall outta bed and say, I’m gonna be an entrepreneur. Like, every step that you take is something that you needed to learn along the way. Like everything happens for a reason.

So where did you get started after you left your college, uh, attempt or college journey, or you figured out the college wasn’t really the thing that you thought it was? There’s always savings, but it’s about way more than savings alone. Total Technology Solutions Group, redefines managed print services.

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So as you navigate business and constant change, partner with TTSG for premium advisement and seamless implementation of your technology goals. We set the bar high. Your people deserve it. Peace of mind. Powerful innovation. ttg.com. College attempt is the best way to say it. Um, you know what I, I come from humble beginnings.

My dad, you know what basically said, Hey, we’re not rich. I. We can afford four semesters of college, community college. Do with it what you will. If it’s for you, pass that. It, it’s, it’s, it’s your decision. So at one point I was working three part-time jobs in Woodfield Mall and going to school full-time, which is just complete ludicrous if you really think about it.

Yeah. So what ended up happening before I got into the automotive industry, before I started the DJ business, um, I was a nightclub promoter. So before I was 21 years old, a light bulb went off and I figured out you can either pay 20 bucks to go into a club or you can become a promoter and get in for free.

And the only thing that you have to do is hand out flyers. Yeah. So what ended up actually happening is little by little you befriend DJs, you have a huge collection of underground music, house music, and then the natural progression is just to get a set of turntables to mess around with. So I ended up doing that, and then all of a sudden what ends up happening is when you are a teenager and you have a, uh, set of turntables.

Instead of getting hoped that you get invited to the party, you have an opportunity to DJ the party and get paid. You become, you become the party. Maybe you become the party. Yeah. Why go to a party when you could create the party? Right. So what what ended up happening is my first like actual DJ gig that I got paid for was at a hookah bar.

It’s in Schomburg, exhale hookah lounge. It’s still there. And I think my first gig I got paid $20 for a night’s worth of work. Now I didn’t realize it at the time, but 20 bucks for uh, five hours of work. That’s a little below minimum wage. Yeah. Not so great. Not so great. But I was excited as hell because it was something that I love.

So that was the first exposure to actually getting paid for doing something that you love versus. Punching a clock at the mall. Mm-hmm. Um, from there, that evolved into sweet sixteens. That evolved into birthdays, and then eventually I realized I can work three part-time jobs and make $250 in one week, or I can do a wedding and make a few hundred bucks in one day, and then all of a sudden it gets real exciting and you say, how can I do more of that?

Yeah. So that’s how the entrepreneurial journey started. Nice. So you, you figured out the math on that. And uh, you know, I, I think that the other thing that kind of probably caught your attention was the attention that you were getting. ’cause when you’re the dj, you kind of become the center of attention at that club.

At that party, right? Everyone wants to come up to you and, and request a song. And when you, when you play a banger, man, you’re the best DJ ever. Right? So, um, you start to get that attention. So, um, how did you market that? Because there’s some interesting stories about, and this is what, 10 years ago? No, this was, uh, eight years ago.

This was 17 or 18 years ago at this point. Okay. So pushing two decades ago. All right, cool. So this is, this is way back when, this is straight Gorilla Marketing. Yeah. Gorilla Marketing. So tell us the story. About how you were marketing that business back then. So you, you, you hit the nail on the head with the attention.

Just to, to share with you a little bit about, you know, my, my childhood, I was very timid, introverted. I never really found anything that I was good at. Hmm. With that, you know, especially in your adolescent in teenage years, you have low self-esteem. It happens. Yeah. Especially if you had a DHD in all of this.

So it was a refreshing change of pace to be the man, for lack of better words. But the reality is you find yourself in business for yourself, but you have no business experience. So how the hell do you get the word out? So, one of my friends tells me about a website called vistaprint.com. Which, if you’re not familiar with Vista Print, that’s where you can get like extremely cheap, generic, do it yourself Business cards made, which is a teenager.

Literally, if you’re holding the card up and the wind blows, it might rip. Sorry, Vista Print. It’s, it’s that bad. So that’s all I needed to hear is a teenager. Now, it doesn’t matter how the card looks, if you’re 17 year olds and you have your own business card, your whole identity changes. Oh my gosh. You’re the man now.

You’re really going. You are. So in my case, I was no longer Alan Stern, I was DJ Spider, and DJ Spider was determined to bring the party to you regardless of the occasion. And if you were gonna pay him to do that, he’d make it pretty easy on your wallet. So how did you come up with Spider? It was just my video game nickname.

Okay. It was it with a y. So you were a gamer. I, I was. Absolutely. You see a gamer and you went with Spider with a y, spider with a YI was so cool to spell it normally. Yeah, yeah, of course. So it had to be the y You gotta, you gotta do that. Exactly. So I get the bright idea. I’m like, so I got, you know, business cards.

And now I have to get the word out. So logically speaking, uh, the next step seems to hit the community bulletin board that you find. Yeah, the cork boards. The cork board. So I decide instead of being a decent human being and leaving one business card, why not just pepper this thing? Yeah. Why leave one when you can leave 30, right?

Mm-hmm. So I’ll never forget, I had read some like inspirational quote on MySpace that said something along the lines of, don’t think outside the box. Just think like there is no box. All I got outta that was don’t be scared to bend the rules when it comes to marketing. So what I do is I, there was one day in Speci, uh, specifically I decided to hit five or six Panera Breads, stamp a ton of my business cards, like at least 20 to 30 on each one.

Then take it over to some local coffee shops, really pepper these things. And then I’m like, you know what? Where the money is, is really in the wedding industry. Instead of me just shotgunning, why don’t I take the party over to every target, Walmart, Walmart, and Papyrus, and start dropping my DJ cards in the wedding section, and maybe I’ll get some phone calls.

So after a nice long day of littering, I go home to my dad’s house, kick my feet up on the table, and I say, watch out. Chicago. Yeah, DJ Spider is in the house. The phones are about to start ringing tomorrow. Made it, I’ve made it. Marketing to the masses. Marketing to the masses. And so tomorrow comes. And how many calls do you think your boy DJ Spider got?

One. I got one. You’re right. And it was from management saying, yeah, Alan, we saw you on camera doing this. We’ve thrown your cards away, by the way, don’t ever come back to the store again. Nice. So I got a taste of humble pie at a young age on here’s what you don’t do. And then eventually, you know what, you start failing your way forward and you come up with better ideas.

And I’ll share that whole journey, uh, later on. So as you’re progressing, right, you’re, you’re coming to the realization that like, um, you know, a one man show that’s doing. Uh, DJing and you weren’t like writing your own music and that type of stuff, right? So you’re, you’re like disc jockey kind of DJing, right?

Yep. You’re playing the music of others and we all know that the DJs have become, multimillionaires are the ones that are producing their own, their own and they’re doing concerts and this and that. So you probably come to the realization like, Hey, this is a cool side gig, but I gotta do something else that I can actually really, um, build an income, build a living with.

So, uh, being as much like me without that degree, I. Yep. Right. The receipt. Yeah. Without that receipt, did you, you know, that you’re, you’re part of the matrix. Yep. Uh, you know, you, you, you, you, uh, if you have the right personality type and you’re willing, you find your way into sales. I happen to find my way into like promotional product sales and paintball tickets and cruise tickets, and then eventually small business consulting on straight commission where you eat what you kill, you found your way into car sales, and take it or leave it.

Say whatever you wanna say. Uh, those of you that have ever been in a car sales business, you know that it’s pretty cutthroat and it’s pretty difficult. And those of you that have sat on the other side, while you might think poorly of a car sales person, you also recognize that, man, that is a tough business to make a living.

But you be, you joined it and became extremely good at it. So talk a little bit about how you transitioned from being a DJ and fell into the car business. That decision, believe it or not, was made for me. Oh, okay. So here I am, I’m 21 years old. I’ve dropped out of college and I’m living at my dad’s house rent free.

So I have one goal in life at this point, and that’s to become a big name dj. But my dad has to sit me down and have a pretty tough conversation with me and say something along the lines of, son, you’re 21 years old. Your time is up. You have no full-time job. It’s time for you to go out and actually get a career.

Otherwise, you’re gonna have to find a new place to live. So what happened is, is, um, you know, him and, uh, my stepmom basically said, here’s what we’ve done to make the process easier for you, is we’ve clipped out now hiring sections in the Sunday paper. And guess who’s going to some job interviews this week?

Man, they really wanted you out. Oh yeah, for sure. So, lo and behold, we’ve, we’ve clipped out some, uh, some job positions. We found you some apartments that are open, right? Uh, and, uh, here’s a way for you, here’s a grocery store. Buy those apartments so you can figure out how to feed yourself. I mean, the, here’s the movie company that we’re gonna use to get you out of here.

Right. Actionable next steps, right? Yeah. So, so that conversation happens. And you know what I find out about this place in Glenview hiring? Called Jennings Chevrolet. Now, at this point in my life, I’m thinking to myself, all right, car sales. I’ve had some people tell me that I should go into this. I worked at a store called Brookstone, which is high-end, you know, stuff that nobody really needs, like massage chairs and Tempur-Pedic, so you’re having to convince people to buy it.

Yeah. So I figured, you know what? I have some sales experience from that regard, and I grew up playing grand charisma, so I know a thing or two about cars. Absolutely. It’s a natural fit. This can come easy, right? Yeah. So, so I get hired. Dude, I sucked so bad at this job. I was almost fired multiple times within the first six months.

Okay, so we need to know this. Why did you suck? Because nobody trained me. The biggest issue with the car business is there’s no onboarding. Well, yeah, because it’s straight commission. They just throw you in because they’re gonna find another person to replace you if you don’t work out. Right. So what ended up happening is they put you on a 90 day guarantee.

Mm-hmm. So they get a minimum salary. They, by law have to pay you minimum wage. So at this point in my life, I’m like, well, this minimum salary is way more than I’m used to making. Yeah. So this is cool. The reality is, if there’s no training and you have somebody that is 21 years old and you say, sit down in your office for six hours and read about this car, and if there’s a computer in front of me, bro, I’m playing video games, I’m, I’m burning time on the clock.

Yeah. So that’s what ended up happening. And eventually I’m on the floor and nobody told me to focus in on asking questions versus trying to sell the fire. Oh, so you were just doing the features of benefits? It’s doing the features. There was no benefits. It’s got rims on it, and it has tires on it, and it has a steering wheel, like you’re just, oh, listing off all the things that it has.

It’s way worse. Okay. It’s way worse. I’ll never forget, and this was one of the, this is one of the, the, the very vivid moments that I can remember back in 2011 when I started there. Is there was a 70-year-old woman that came in that was basically forced to buy a new car. She had like a 15-year-old Buick that, you know her, her kids were making her replace because it was on its last leg.

Yeah. So she comes in and she’s like, I just want something that’s simple. No electronics, nothing. I wish these things, you know what? Still had roll up windows, and then there’s Alan Stern that’s saying, check out this rear view camera. Let me tell you about the Bluetooth, the computer here. Yeah. This is sick.

Take a look at the remote start. She couldn’t leave fast enough. Mm-hmm. So what was interesting though is I don’t view that as failure because that’s truly a learning experience. When you fail yourself forward, you get to collect all this data in the process. So what’s interesting. Is, I was sat down on multiple occasions by management and he basically said, Hey, you have talked to X amount of people this month and you have closed next to nothing.

Mm-hmm. We are going to forbid you from taking any more phone calls, internet leads, or floor traffic until you sell something. Yeah. So, nonetheless, they put me on notice. Um, so were you at the DJ booth and you’re like, Hey, by the way, come and see me at Jennings Chevrolet. I got a car for you. Well, here’s what’s funny is I figured, you know what, I have a nightlife background, so I know a lot of people.

Mm-hmm. This should come easy. Right. I can sell ’em all cars. And then at 21 years old, you are too naive to realize that most of the people that are in the nightlife industry can’t afford your car. Right. Or need a strong cosigner or don’t have any, you know, uh, bankable income that they can get financing on.

And, you know, it’s just, it’s the reality At 21 years old, you’re too young to realize that. But the biggest thing is I was dressing like I was going to the nightclub, loud clothes, spiky hair, got the sideburns, all of this. Yeah. Selling cars in the North Shore. So how do you think that contrasted it?

Probably not so well. Yeah. So what ended up happening is, you know, I got hired in January and at this point, at this point, at April comes along and they’re, you know, attempting to get rid of me. And I basically say, Hey, this is my first full-time job. I, I’m gonna do whatever I need to do to, to figure this out.

And you know what? Whatever this is, can you train me? I’m, I’m, I’m willing to learn. Eventually there were two people. One of ’em was the finance director, the second one was the general manager that said, Hey, you know what? This kid is willing to basically show up to work, take the punches in the face. Yeah.

And he has the resilience that we’ve never seen. We talk about in manager meetings that we can’t find any good hires. This guy sucks, but he’s still showing up. Let’s, let’s invest a little bit of time. And by, by the way, as somebody who’s managed salespeople, like, give me heart over anything else. You can teach the rest.

You cannot teach heart a hundred percent. So for me, that was my first full-time job. After the conversation that, you know, uh, my dad, my stepmom had with me, I’m like, I’m not quitting. You’re gonna have to get rid of me. So I just kept showing up, humiliating myself, getting, you know, laughed at by the employees, getting belittled by, by, by customers.

And then June comes along and we had to have a rolling average of seven cars a month basically to maintain our job. Okay. June, the general manager and I have a sit down and, you know, I professionally wanted to, to part part ways and I said, just gimme one more month to figure it out. If I don’t hit seven this month, please just let me use you as a reference.

He’s like. Yeah. Cool. I’ll give you until the end of June. By the grace of the Lord, I sold seven cars that month. Nice. Because I collected enough data to realize it’s more about the questions that you ask, not what you tell people. I’m shocked. Is this a, is this something that is, is very common in car sales?

Because if you look at somebody like a Grant Cardone, I mean, he’s built an empire, um, starting off with training salespeople you see in the car industry, and you see a lot of other, uh, folks that have built similar businesses with training salespeople. So the d do, the dealer dealerships traditionally not have a sales training program, like an enable enablement program.

They don’t. Wow. Huge problem in the industry. It’s huge. And then that carries over to the customer experience. Well, it carries over to turnover. I would imagine that the, the cost of turnover is crazy, but on top of that, you know, you’re putting a bad sales person with a customer. The customer gets turned off.

The marketing dollars that you just spent to get the customer to come through the door, were just wasted. That customer leaves, goes and meets with somebody who’s actually a pro, right? Gets a better experience, buys the car somewhere else, maybe bought the same exact car, but from another dealership, you know, two towns over.

There’s Chevy dealerships in all towns, right? So, yep. Like, uh, it, it would just seem to me that that would be, that you sell for a living. That is what the industry does. It would seem to me that that would be a, um, a huge part of their budget would be sales training. So the sales managers don’t do like an hourly powow training.

There’s no. Occasionally there’s no pulling you aside, there’s no role playing kind of a thing. Like there’s a Saturday meeting, but that means the Saturday meeting is something that every dealership has, well, that’s a pep talk before go time. Saturday’s go time. It’s more like a bitch session, man. Yeah, because everybody gets, I would, I would think, you know, I would think that they would do like from eight to, you know, they’re open till, what, nine o’clock?

So I would think that there would be like a training from seven 30 to nine o’clock on Tuesday and Thursday, uh, where the finance manager and the sales manager. Maybe the ones that are off. ’cause they’re not always on. Maybe you come in, you throw ’em a little nugget and you go, Hey, you’re gonna train our new salespeople.

Nothing like that, huh? Occasionally. And, and, and by the way, it depends on the store that you’re at. Yeah. Now here’s the thing though. And just to like oversimplify this. You’re a relationship dude. I’m a relationship dude. We are in it for the long haul. We understand that networking and growing relationships is the life load of everything.

Yeah. You attend a lot of networking events. How many car salesmen have you ever met that consistently show up? Never. But I will tell you this, I started off as a transactional salesperson. Much like selling a car, it’s a transaction, right? Mm-hmm. You took a transactional sale and turned it into a partnership style sale over a period of time.

But initially it’s a transactional sale. And so when I first started out, to your point, um, it was all statements. And I had somebody pull me aside and be like, dude, you gotta read this book. It’s called Spin Selling by Neil Rackers. And it was all about how to sell high ticket items. Uh, but high ticket items where the person sitting in front of you decides to buy instead of feeling like they’re sold.

Yep. So it’s all questions. But you start off with situation, problem, then impact, then need payoff. And once you have all that information, you repeat it back to them, and then you essentially go for the sales process. I’m shocked that the car industry doesn’t teach question asking. Now again, it’s at each store’s discre is gonna be different discretion.

Yeah. It, it, it is. Now, when you work for a brand like Chevy, or you know, I’ll share with you later on, I moved over to, to Lexus. In the luxury world there is manufacturer training. Yeah. That’s why I just had Frank Z on. Yeah. And he’s a, he’s a corporate facilitator for BMW. Oh, nice. Yeah. So BMW writes all the training.

He goes and facilitates the training and downloads it into the salespeople. Yep. Uh, but again, that’s from the manufacturer. Yep. That’s product training as far as actual, Hey, here’s what you ask. Yeah. To create urgency. This is how you make it their idea to do business versus yours. Absolutely. There, there isn’t now, there’s a lot of great sales trainers that are out there and you know, fast forward a little bit, I end up investing in a mentor and then my production really, really takes off.

But it wasn’t until I learned the resilience of showing up, getting clabbered in the face, sucking at something, and then eventually getting good at it. So I had the opportunity to learn that. So when did it click for you that you had to start asking questions instead of making statements? I’m really curious about this.

Started reading books. There was a, a book that, um, the guy’s name’s Joe Verde. He probably has hit almost every car dealership in the US ’cause he is one of the biggest names in the state. Uh, in, in, in the country there was a book that most car salesmen have read called How to Make a hundred Grand a Year Selling Cars.

The idea is this guy has a training program that he just basically gives that book for free, no strings attached to all dealerships to give to them staff to their staff. Mm-hmm. From there, there is a, uh, you know, an option to join the training program. Yeah. But I read that book and then I ended up buying the more advanced version and really studied it and realized that sales truly is a mental game.

Because at the end of the day, you know what it is the second biggest purchase that most people ever make. People don’t want to be told what to do. When you sell, you break rapport, but when you educate, you build it. Mm-hmm. The idea is when you get good at this, though, it is a skillset that you can take to any industry and always be relevant.

Where things really, really, really started moving forward for me though, was 2015, I, uh, I hired my first mentor, a guy, uh, also named Alan, Alan Dickey. Uh, I bought his course on, uh, ace selling Systems, attitude, conviction, and energy, and I became, hold on a second. Attitude, conviction and energy. Yep. That is awesome because I mean, that’s the art of sales, right?

The transfer of energy. Yep. And, and it, I’ve always said like the person who is the most convicted in the room will tend to win. I’m not saying the loudest. I’m saying most convicted, meaning they really believe in their product. They really believe in, in service. They really believe in being helpful. If they’re convicted about that, they’re gonna beat the person who is, um, you know, the, the closer right type of person.

They’re gonna beat them more often than not, for sure. You’re spot on. And that’s all the stuff that I learned in that course too. So at this point in my life, we’re in, we’re in 2015 now. What ended up happening, and this is why I believe everything happens for a reason, I started following this guy on YouTube.

There was a group that I was a part of called Sales Talk with Sales Pro, and this guy Alan. Used to just consistently post videos of, Hey, when somebody says this on the phone, here’s how you overcome this. Yeah. And get them into the store. Okay, here’s the line that you say your presence is your best leverage.

This is why I need you in the store. So we could pick out a car and I can point to my manager and say, boss, that car leaves at this number and I can’t do that unless you’re in the store. So you learn these, you know, helpful one-liners and stuff like this. And it was October of 2015, where at this point I’m averaging, you know, about 15 cars a month.

Uh, occasionally 20, 25 ish. Like, I’m just for point of reference, what’s, what’s amazing, what’s good, what like, is 15? I don’t know anything about the industry. Is 15 a month good? Is 15 is respectable? Okay. I mean, it depends on who you’re talking to. If you’re talking, you know, to the, the, it’d be a car, car every other day.

Yeah, if you’re talking like about the, the goats. Yeah. The Ali Ritas, the Frank s the, the best of the best. That, uh, average, average over a hundred to 120 cars a month and have assistance. Damn. That’s like three, three cars a day. It’s insane. These guys have had 30 cars. Saturdays. It’s, it’s, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.

But for your routine sales person, somewhere between 10 and 20 cars a month, that’s respectable. Um, you know, when you’re in that 15 to 25 to to to 30 car realm, at least in the Chicago market, depending on your pay plan, pay plan, uh, it’s a six figure income. Yeah. So in, in 2015, I had had the worst month that I had in about four years.

It was October of 2015. And you know what, I was having some, uh, disagreements with the store that I was at, and, you know, I got nothing but good things to say about him. But eventually the idea is, you know, get in your head and Alan Dickey starts showing up and he basically says, I’m gonna be doing this.

Webinar on, you know, how you can make 2020, uh, 2016 your your best year. So nonetheless, I tune on and he launches his program and that was the, the biggest investment that I’d ever make at the time. It was the first four digit investment I ever made in myself. And what ended up happening is I sold eight cars in October, in November 19, uh, in December 21, January, which is the worst month that everybody has in the car business.

I think I was at like 15 or 16, February 22, March 27th, like people are looking around, they’re like, dude, what the hell are you doing? Yeah, nonetheless, I really got a clear, uh, a clear reminder on what happens when you start investing in yourself and then fast forward a little bit, what ends up happening.

Is, uh, opportunity presents itself to move over to McGrath Lexus in Westmont. Nice. Which, um, top Lexus dealership in the state. Yeah. By a long shot. Great reputation. The place looks like the Taj Mahal. A cafe. You had one point, a shoe shiner, a massage therapist, koi fish ponds, like Yeah. The place is like the Ritz Carlton.

I had an opportunity to join the sales team over there, so I took a huge leap of faith in 2017 and basically, uh, started from scratch. Went from domestic economy cars in the North Shore to import luxury cars in the Western suburb. Zero in common. And I got a life lesson, and that is, you could be great at sales.

But it won’t do you much good until you market and create opportunities for you to sell. Mm-hmm. So the marketing that is done traditionally, uh, for car dealerships is coming from, I would imagine, uh, amount of money that the manufacturer is providing to the dealership to use, plus some of what the dealership is, is taking out of their cost to doing business and, and investing.

You obviously see a lot of TV commercials, you see a lot of general type of marketing and so on. And, um, it doesn’t really, uh, guide buyers to sellers. It’s just trying to get people aware of the dealership and hopefully to the lot. Yep. And then you’re competing with other salespeople to get that customer who comes on the lot first.

Right. For sure. To, so that’s kind of cutthroat. So how do you differentiate yourself from all of the other salespeople? Mainly the salespeople that maybe are just kind of sitting back, they’ve got an established client base, they’re coming back three years later and signing up for another lease, turning in their car, or they’re refer, they’ve got the referrals going because people who buy Lexuses typically hire, uh, hang out with people that have the financial ability to also buy Alexis.

Right? Sure. You know, they, they hang out in similar classes. So we all have a guy, right? We got a guy, we got our car guy, we got our HVAC guy, we got our air conditioning guy. So that’s how the referral base goes. So you get there and you have to start from scratch. How do you differentiate yourself? Yeah, so great, great question.

So what’s interesting here, what you said about the advertising, all of that is for the store. Yeah. It’s not for the individual salesperson. So if you take a look at that. Now you have a walk-in or in the car business they call ’em an up, an opportunity to, to sell a car. You are in the convincing business.

You truly, if you were to boil this down and oversimplify it, you are in the business of attempting to convince a complete stranger who does not know you like you or trust you to part with tens of thousands of dollars in a one-time close, in a one-time close. Now, you can choose to live that lifestyle and be a lot rat, as we used to call ’em, but you get burned out.

It’s no way to live. 87% of the world dislikes something about buying a car. Go and look it up. There’s studies on it. Mm-hmm. So if you have an opportunity to show somebody how to be part of that 13% that enjoys it, you have a customer for life. Now, there’s two ways to do this. For starters though, it needs to take, you need to take the long rate.

You need to play the long game. You can try and slam somebody into something, but they won’t come back. The route that I personally took is I can say, all right, well this is a very high volume store. There’s 20 plus salespeople that work here. Nobody is working the Chamber of Commerce. This is where the training comes in.

Yeah. As a matter of fact, as soon as I was told to join a Chamber of Commerce, I literally said to myself, what is that a fricking branch of government or something? What the hell is that? Everyone thinks that the Chamber of Congress is a chamber of, it’s like the Fed. Ooh, the Fed. That must be a federal thing.

Yeah. It ain’t federal people, right. E exactly. So I’m like, chamber man, that sounds official. So now I, I’m in this stage in my life where, uh, I’m in a new product, new dealership, new location. I know nothing just complete completely different than what I’m used to. I start. Going to these networking events, which by the way, if you don’t know what a chamber of commerce is, it’s a hub of local businesses.

Yeah. And they host events and you can, it’s like a meet people. It’s like a, it’s like a, a business association. Yeah. It’s just under a different term. Yep. It’s, it’s the, it’s pretty much the same premise. Yep. Right. So I start going to these events and these business after hours events are, they’re basically cocktail parties.

Call it what it is. They’re at a restaurant. You can meet the local realtor up the road, the local insurance agent, the business that’s over here. You start building these relationships. Now what’s interesting is I start going to a lot of these, and the majority, let’s just say almost all of the sales staff in the majority of managers are like, dude, why are you wasting your time with this?

Mm-hmm. You’re going to all of these events and you’re not getting a ton of people that are coming in. What, what do you get out of this? I just, I, I, I can’t see it. So what’s interesting is 20 17, 20 18, in 2019 go by and I’m not selling a ton of cars. I. From a networking standpoint, but I planted a ton of seeds building my personal brand because again, when the whole world zigs huge opportunities.

Z, you gotta zag man. Most people don’t have a trusted car salesman on speed dial, and there’s not a lot of them at networking events. So you plant all these seeds and eventually. When you, you, you brand yourself as the approachable authority that people, you know, feel comfortable reaching out to. When the business comes, referrals start really coming.

And so, you know, as a, as a salesperson, if you’re looking at it properly, you’re already running your own business. You’re just a representative of, but if you really think of, uh, the way that you approach this, you kind of approach it from an entrepreneurial spirit that, you know, in order for a business to be effective, number one, it has to have an established brand that people are aware of, that pay, they pay attention to it.

Yeah. It has to have a set of principles, a core values. People need to, to know what those are. Secondly, it needs to have a marketing strategy. It needs to be able to say, uh, if you have this problem and it’s causing this pain. There is a solution and here it is and this is how you get it. And then you have to have a sales formula of essentially identifying your people, taking ’em through the process, educating them, influencing them, persuading them, encouraging them, whatever you wanna say to buy.

You have to have all three. Yep. Most people that are in sales just wait to do the last one, which is sell. Yep. They don’t do the first two, so we’ll foreshadow a little bit. You don’t know it yet. But you are already starting to develop the chops of where you are right now and what you’ve built right now.

Yep. Those chops are starting to develop. Now, I bring this up because I want people that are listening to understand that we’re not here to talk about car sales. We’re not here to talk about, uh, the, the sales process of a car salesman. So stick with us here because we’re gonna bring this all back together.

This is part of somebody’s journey into entrepreneurship and how they, um, you know, got ripped, if you will. They ripped the muscle and, and built it back stronger, right? Uh, and how every little step in your life leads to your destiny. Okay? So your journey just happened to be through this car thing, but you were never destined to really just sell cars your whole life or be a sales manager or.

Or or stay with the dealership. You were learning about branding and marketing and using it to sell, which was causing you to understand the full business picture as it relates to the tip of spear for sure. Here’s what’s interesting too, just to go back a few years, um. On the subject of marketing, I had no idea how to market my DJ business.

Yeah. Like most creatives, they spend their time getting really, really, really good at a skill I spent myself. And that it’ll just sell itself. Yeah. So I’ll give you an example. So I always told myself, again, it may not appear like it now, but in my teenage years I was very introverted, timid. I didn’t want to be out networking.

So when somebody said, Hey, if you want to go and get the good gigs at the clubs, what you need to do is you need to go out and schmooze. You need to go and be a kiss ass. You need to go and, you know, make friends with this person or this person. God, you were getting terrible advice. Yeah. If somebody told me to schmooze, I’d be like, you need to get the hell out of my face.

Right. So it the, that’s the danger of free advice, by the way. Yeah, exactly. So what’s interesting is I told myself, I’m like, yeah, it’s not gonna work for me. I’m gonna spend my time getting so freaking good at DJing, learning how to scratch learning, how to beat match, learning how to read a crowd that when somebody hears me, they’re gonna say, oh my God.

And they’re gonna, this guy tell guy 15 people, yeah, here’s the problem. Nobody ever heard me because I didn’t know how to market myself. Yeah, yeah. So I learned that at a young age, and then in the car business I realized, that’s awesome. I can close. If somebody’s in front of me, it will do me no good unless somebody’s in front of me.

Mm-hmm. And I had no background in marketing, so I decided to go out and start growing these relationships. And now, because I, you know, left a significant income on the table to, to basically start a new business from scratch in chapter two, which was, uh, luxury cars, I started investing in courses on marketing, learning the ins and outs of Facebook ads, learning the messaging, target audience, sales, keywords, keywords, drip campaigns, all of the techie advanced stuff that most salespeople don’t wanna learn.

Mm-hmm. I now started to learn that. Now, what’s interesting, fast forward a little bit, and this is where I think everything happens for a reason. And if you’re, if you’re watching this, really, really hear me. Three years go by 20 17, 20 18 and 2019, I had gone backwards financially significantly in the luxury car business from the outside.

Everybody says, dude, I see you everywhere at these events. You’re selling nice cars. Life is good. I was miserable. Mm-hmm. I’m like, I don’t know how I’m gonna be able to keep the lights on anymore. And as a matter of fact, here’s what I’m gonna do. Um, new Year’s Eve 2019, I’m gonna make a promise to myself that a change has to happen in six months.

What do you think it was, Alan? Do you, um, the demographic changed, demographic change? Do you think that you were, do you think that you were struggling with that demographic of being able to connect with them? Or, or what do you think it was that was causing you in that three year span to not perform at the level that you expected?

Not perform at the level that you had previously performed at, but you know, all intents and purposes, you’re selling a higher value car to a higher caliber economically of buyer. Yep. Right. Economically, meaning they’re not a higher caliber of person, they’re just economically for sure. You know, more capable.

Um, why do you think that you, what was missing? Uh, the connection was the biggest, very, very different audience. Here’s the funny thing about Lexus, and if you have a background in the car business, majority of people will second this. Lexus is a Toyota product. Mm-hmm. When you think of Toyota, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Usually reliability. Yeah. Lexus had almost three times the amount of quality control that Toyota does. So if you’re looking for a car that will last you until the end of time, that will hold its value, that will not smoke you on maintenance. Lexus is the most stable product in the marketplace, which then translates to what kind of customer do you attract?

The very, very affluent one that is hyper researched, that might make 50 to $80,000 a month, but has a heart attack over making a $500 a month lease payments. I’m over here trying to sell a relationship and a lot of them want to buy. And you’re trying to sell a relationship to Analyticals that just wanna make a a, a savvy transaction for sure.

So what’s interesting is that forced me to get clear on, well, hey, Alan, if you love the product, but you just, you know, struggle a little bit with the clientele that it, it draws in, why don’t you take this opportunity to create your own clientele and what does that look like? So now I’m like, all right, well cool.

I bought a course on messaging. How can I market this to the entrepreneur? Because most of these chamber people don’t have a car salesman on speed dial. So I came up with the tagline, I’m going to make sure that you have a car buying experience that’s so smooth that you’ll brag about it. So what does that mean?

You can’t come to me for a car, I’ll come to you on my lunch break. Uh, on your lunch break if need be. We can do a driveway drop off. I’ll bring the car to you, what have you. So I came up with the messaging. But the thing is, you may put that message in front of somebody, but they don’t need a car right then and there, but you still have to keep the lights on.

Yeah. And that’s the thing right now, like a lot of people, you know, start creating content and they fall off because they’re like, well, I thought if I started to create content that people would click on whatever link I had and then immediately be influenced to come in and buy. And I feel like I’m putting a lot of time in.

And what you don’t realize is when you’re putting out your marketing, 97% of the market is not ready to buy. Only 3% is right. So. People look at content as a marketing play when in all intents and purposes, it’s a branding play and a marketing play. And what you have to think is that, uh, you’re planting the seeds over the long term so that people are cataloging you mentally.

Yep. So they may never, they’re quiet buying, right? They’re shopping by watching content and learning about you and meeting you at a networking event. And they’re cataloging that. They’re not immediately making a decision. And most people, when they buy a car, right, they’re buying it on a three to five year finance plan.

So they might have bought it a year ago. They’re not ready to buy one right now. It might be two years until they’re ready to buy one. For sure. So you’re really just trying to stay front of mind. Yep. As much as you possibly can. So here, I love this segue to you, by the way. So the whole, when is this thing going to pay off?

Comments in question that I’m asking myself because three years have gone by at this point. Yeah. I’ve given my all, I’ve worked twice as hard for, for less money. You put money out, you spent money. I’ve put money I it for, for sure. So basically, here’s what happened is, and you should definitely follow this guy, if you’re watching this and you like, um, the, uh, the, the, the message that I’m sharing is a guy named Billy Jean is marketing, which is far as the videos that sell space and the Facebook ad space, and now the AI space mm-hmm.

Which we’ll get to. Probably the biggest guy in the name. So it’s New Year’s Eve 2019 going into 2020. And I make a promise to myself, I say, you know what, I’m gonna max out every credit card that I have to buy a one year membership of the School of Genius program, which is basically a high ticket mastermind where you learn the ins and outs of paid traffic sales funnel, there’s mentorship sessions, all of this.

And by June of 2020, I will have left the car business. And gone full throttle and started a social media marketing agency. Mm-hmm. So stick with me here. All of a sudden, this little thing called COVID-19 happens. Mm-hmm. This little, little small thing. Yeah. And now all of a sudden the whole world shuts down.

Now all of a sudden we had been given, uh, basically an, an, an option and it got a lot of respect for, you know, the McGraths, the owners of this dealership for, for doing this in, in management. They basically said, Hey, the whole world is haywire right now. So if you would like to, uh, take the FMLA and you know, get the unemployment boost, we respect it.

Here’s what that looks like for you. But if you would like the opportunity to work, we’re gonna give you that opportunity, and as a result, here’s your enhanced pay plan. So now here’s what’s interesting. Just like this thought process of almost every customer completely changed. The whole world is haywire.

Yeah. They’re not coming to the lot anymore. They’re looking for you online. They’re looking for trusts. So all of the seeds that I planted now, what ends up happening? My phone is ringing left and right. Mm-hmm. Now, the insurmountable amount of credit card debt that I had from starting a new business for those three years, I’m able to chip away at and pay off month by month, by month.

Now we’re having great months now. I’ve never worked so little, but made so much for a little bit because it was kind of the gold rush. So what’s interesting is. In your business journey right now, no matter where you’re at, just know that everything can change in a couple months. And what then ends up happening is life is good.

And I decide, you know what? Because my phone is ringing, and the majority of these people that are calling me now are either referrals, repeat customers, or lease renewals, because at this point I’m three and a half years in. Mm-hmm. So the people who did three year leases, they’re coming up for renewals.

Yeah. They’re coming back. I’m like, why don’t I, in the sake of my own mental health insanity, why don’t I just say I am going to move to a repeat and referral model? Success for me in the car business was never burning 60 hours a week at a dealership and trying to convince a stranger. It was the ability to work by repeat and referral business only and eventually appointment only.

So I did that in late 2020. Now, what’s interesting is for about a year, maybe a year and a half for any networking group that existed, there was this really strange hybrid model where sometimes it was. Virtual meetup on Zoom sometimes, you know, whatever it was, it was just, it was strange. So there was a course that I bought, and you wanna talk about the best 40 bucks I ever spent.

There was a course called Closer Memes that I bought that was all about creating memes that you can use as advertisements. So I’m thinking to myself, the whole world’s haywire at this point. And, uh, a lot of people could use a laugh, and if I could turn these into to, to advertisements, you have my attention.

So I learned how to make memes, and here’s the kicker. I had had an opportunity to, actually, I did not have an opportunity. There was somebody that will remain nameless, that knew that I sold Lexus and promised me an opportunity when they were ready. And I’m scrolling through Facebook and I see a picture of their brand new Lexus, and I’m thinking to myself, what the hell, man?

Mm, this sucks. This stinks. Now, as you know, I’m a huge craft beer guy. Mm-hmm. I’m having a beer, I think it’s like a Wednesday or a Thursday night or something. And this is right after I get done taking this memes course. And the next thing I see after that picture is an Allstate ad that says, protect yourself from mayhem, because bad things might happen.

I’m like, oh dude, how cool would it be to make memes of bad things that happen when you buy a car without calling me first? And what’s interesting is right there is where persona marketing was formed because I started making these memes and then fast forward a little bit, networking events, resume, I start hammering these memes multiple times a day to the point where I solidified that brand.

Mm-hmm. That if you don’t call me for a car, bad things might happen. So now I go to networking events and I’m talking shop with people and people start approaching me that I’ve never met before. Hey, you’re that guy that I follow on on social media. I feel like I you, yeah. I feel like I know you. Like, that’s so cool.

Oh, hey, by the way, Nick meet Allen. Allen. Meet Nick. You definitely have to follow Allen on social media. And I’m thinking to myself, holy shit, what is happening right now? So, hold on, let me stop you here for a second because mm-hmm. This is, I just launched an episode, uh, last week. Seven video, um, ideas, seven types of videos that you could create and, and the people, the audience that I was really talking to for this.

Because remember, I’m a sales person by heart and training. I didn’t elect to get into branding or marketing. It just kind of happened. And it happened because I was trying to figure out a way to get the phones to ring when Covid, when covid happened, I was selling promotional products, branded apparel and all these things.

Well, what happens when covid happens? All the events stop. All the trade shows stop, everything stops. Well, guess what? People aren’t buying coffee mugs and t-shirts and stuff to hand out at these events that shows because they don’t have events that shows. So I gotta figure out a way to get the phones to ring, to be able to, to, uh, adjust.

So running in parallel with what you did here. Is as a sales person, you recognize that you needed to become your own marketing for sure. You needed to become your own brand because if you are going to max out your sales capability, the first step to that is people have to know who the hell you are.

Absolutely. The second step to that is people have to trust and like you at once. They know you. No, like trust. They have to like you. The memes are funny, the memes are repetitive, so you’re over and over and over again hitting with a message. But the message is entertaining. It’s not, here’s a discount.

This car is in stock at a lower, uh, a PR, whatever. It’s not all the stuff you hear, like the analytics, it’s not the safety stuff. It’s funny. That is entertaining. It gets people’s attention. So now they like you because you keep showing up every day on their feed. They grow to trust you because they see what the networking events and they have a chance to talk with you.

And they come to realize that how you show up online is exactly how you show up in person. They go, now I really trust this person. He’s nice, I like him. He is funny, he’s smart, he’s intelligent. All these things that you’re able to transfer through your marketing. Now all of a sudden you become this.

Essentially you became your own TV commercials that the dealership wasn’t paying for, and you found a way to create them on a very small budget. What happens to your sales now? I love it, man. And I’m gonna break down in depth what you just said because that’s the heat method. It’s all about getting people to warm up to you over time, so you become the approachable authority.

Mm-hmm. And I’ll break down exactly how that works because heat stands for humor, education, adding value trust. So now what ends up happening is my numbers are great. Not only are my numbers great. It’s all self-generated business. So guess what? People aren’t no-show in my appointments. Mm-hmm. I’m not getting the, Hey, yeah, I’ll be there at two o’clock, four 30 comes along.

Yep. I’m on the way. You’re not having to wait for the person to casually stroll onto the lot and you’re outside and catch ’em at the right time. Right. Like you’re booking appointments. For sure. Not only am I booking appointments, the deals that I’m bringing in are resulting in referrals because you know what?

It’s one thing if somebody doesn’t like you, they’ll say, Hey, go beat up your manager for an extra thousand bucks off this. Mm-hmm. If it’s somebody that likes you, I can say, Hey John, I’m happy to ask if you don’t mind me asking you, we spend on average blank amount and advertising per customer. Could you help maybe line up a couple referrals for me while I’m asking for the discount?

That way I can sell my boss on doing it. Mm-hmm. You’re a lot more likely to say yes. Absolutely. So the idea here is now all of a sudden things start going good. Now I’m going to networking events. People are coming up to me because I’m the approachable authority because. The humor breaks down the walls.

Mm-hmm. The humor allows you to have a, we get each other moment. Now you go from the stranger category to the person of interest category. So what ends up happening is I start doing these networking events more and more and more, and I start hitting every chamber that I possibly can. Eventually an idea goes off, and this is where the DJ comes back in, I say, okay, so I have this awesome venue, McGrath Lexus specifically.

Westmont is the most beautiful dealership that I’ve ever seen. Yeah. It’s like a spa. It it, it is. So for me, I look at the three showroom floor that, uh, the place has with koi fish, ponds and waterfalls and all of this. And I say, man, I can throw a mean party here. I’m a part of five different chamber of commerce.

So eventually a light bulb goes off and I say, instead of going to these events, why don’t I just host them? Why don’t I host these business after hours at the store? And I started doing these huge multi chamber business after hours where I would have between a hundred and 150 people that would come in, and now everybody’s at the dealership.

I would collect a whole bunch of leads and it became a whole thing. Mm-hmm. Eventually, word got out. So now I start asking myself, all right, well, what other organizations can I be a part of now? Transitioning into how the whole speaking engagement thing actually got started. IT. Decision makers, this might sting frustrated with IT issues, security threats, and the stress of your technology infrastructure.

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Your technology should outpace your business operations to allow for growth and proactive strategies should prevent issues before they arise. Get back your time and your money with GSD Drive business forward. Leave the technology to gsd GSD now.com. Yeah, this is another, this is another part because you start to show up to the networking events enough, and those networking events are always looking for a way to stimulate, um, the event.

One of the things that I have a problem with a lot of networking events is you go to the events, it’s the same people over and over and over again. Likely they’re a solopreneur trying to sell their service. They’re not looking to buy a service or their salespeople looking to sell their service. They’re not looking to buy a service.

And so when you go there as a seller, you’re kinda running into people that are trying to sell as well, and they may not be interested in your service. So you’re, you’re looking for value outside of that. So what a lot of these networking events will do is they’ll, they’ll book a speaker, um, and in many cases they’ll look for people within their community to be a speaker and you would start to build this formula.

So how does that tie, like how did you become a speaker? Because now you’re, I I look at your LinkedIn and like. Twice a week, you’re somewhere doing a speaking engagement. Yeah. So, and, and here’s kind of the whole journey. So at this point, you know, the timeline is still 20 20, 21 ish. And re remember just walking this back, I had made a promise to myself that I would’ve left the car business June of 2020.

But now all of a sudden I’m like, you know what? Now I’m making money. Now I’m making, now I’m making money. Let’s take a coffee break. Let’s, let’s do this. Let’s not forget that this is a goal. But ultimately, let’s focus in on enjoying life a little bit, because the Covid, you know, madness, a lot of people, you know, stressed out.

So there was this group, and I’ll give ’em a shout out because this is how it all started. There’s a lady named Yvonne Heller, who was chapter director of a company called Engaging Speakers. Mm-hmm. In their Schomburg location. Now, Yvonne at this point had bought a couple cars from me. So I had known about this.

I had met the owner of that company who’s Gail Brown several times at networking events, but I had just never went to it because I’m now on the appointment only model. I’m looking for new places to be a part of. Still no desire whatsoever to be a speaker. Lemme just clarify that. But Yvonne is in for service and we start talking.

She’s like, Hey, you know what? Um, I took over chapter director role and would love for you to check his out. I’m like, you know what? You have bought two cars for me and supported my business, I’d love to support yours. Mm-hmm. What does your membership cost done? We’ll do it. I come up to the next, uh, the, the next meeting, which I think was like three weeks later.

And you know, like every other group in 21, they’re in the rebuilding stages because half of the people are like, Hey, we’re doing the Zoom thing. And the other half say, screw this zoom thing, man. I want in-person networking, which by the way will never go away. There’s no substitute for in-person networking.

There never will be. So I start going to these and you know, I realize they have a keynote speaker that closes out each meeting and she tests me on the shoulder. She’s like, Hey, you have a DJ background and a sales background, and, um, I think people would love to hear what you have to say if you ever wanna do it.

So at this point, it’s either late November or early December of 2021 and I’m like, you know what? What do I have to lose? Yeah. I’ve had a lot of people ask me about these memes and how to market yourself, and I’m all about just trying something new and screw it. I’m gonna step outta my comfort zone. So I say, yes, I’m gonna go ahead and do a speaking engagement.

I don’t know what it’s gonna be on, but I’m gonna do it. So here’s what’s interesting. I go home that night, and this is just the beauty of craft beer. Mm-hmm. And any, any beer guy will appreciate this. Yeah. So I’m having a beer and I’m like, I’m not gonna do it on DJing, and I’m not gonna do it on car sales.

I’m gonna do it on marketing. What do I call this thing? Now there’s a local brewery here called Microphone. Mm-hmm. Are you familiar with them? No. I don’t drink anymore, remember? Oh, that’s right. Okay. So forgive me. So they have a beer. Their whole branding is their, they’re beer focused around music. Cool.

So there was a beer that was gifted to me that was sitting in my fridge called the. Barrel aged one man wrecking machine. Ah. And it had a, that’s how that happened. Oh yeah. Okay. It’s, it’s great. So I’m like, what do I call this thing on? Do it yourself marketing. And I go to grab a, grab a nice cold one, and I see this bright green label staring me in the face barrel aged one man wrecking machine.

I’m like one man wrecking machine. How about how to become a one man content machine? Mm-hmm. And now all of a sudden, at this point, I had like, just kind of figured out Canva. Yeah. Because if you can put text over a picture and make a meme, that’s really, its basic graphic design. Mm-hmm. You ask yourself, what else can I put text over a picture on?

So I go and make this mediocre flyer on Canva about how to become a one man content machine. Here’s what you’ll learn. Memes, gif, testimonial, graphics, infographics, audiograms Free event. February 1st, 2022. I have zero expectations at this point. I’m like, we’re just gonna post it and we’re gonna see if anybody wants to go.

If nobody shows up, cool. If people actually show up, great. Zero expectations, dude. The day is January 6th, 2022. I posted on there. Within 72 hours there’s over 300 engagements and about 55 people said, I’m in. Send me the registration. So now here’s what’s interesting. This is where things get really, really cool.

So I don’t even have a presentation done at this point. I just have a flyer. And now I’m like, all right, there’s some, there’s some demand on this now, now this, now the pressure started to kick in because you’re like, how do I take all this stuff in my brain that I’ve just been doing right? And actually turn it into a course?

This is before ai, by the way. Yeah. So now all of a sudden, here’s where things get really interesting. True story, by the way. So one of my coworkers husbands owns a, uh, a, a roofing company. Not a massive one, but they do eight figures a year. Yeah. And you know, he reaches out to me, he is like, Hey, Alan, um, I saw that you made this post on.

How to become a one man content machine. It doesn’t seem like anybody’s doing this in the commercial roofing space. Um, I would love for my guys to go to your events, but there’s only one problem. And the one problem is the fact that your event is February 1st, and so is the International Roofing Conference.

So, um, we can’t come to you. Can I fly you out to New Orleans and you do the presentations for my guys? And I’m thinking to myself, are you kidding me? Yeah. What the hell just happened? What the hell is happening? Yeah. So now I got Grant Cardone in my ear because I’ve consumed enough of his content. Commit first, figure the rest out later.

Just say yes, say yes, and then do it. Just say yes, and then do it. Yeah. So now I’m like, all right, cool. He’s like, well, what do I pay you? I was like, pay me what? Uh, just fly me out there, man. This is the coolest first story. Like, whatever. So now I start working on this thing, and January 31st, uh, here I am, before I had done this engaging speakers presentation.

Here I am in New Orleans for the International Roofing Conference. And by the way, I’m not speaking at the conference, I’m speaking at a host. You’re speaking at a company, a speaking at a company. There’s a total of four people there. Mm-hmm. Including me and the owner of his company, I think. So this is a none the like.

Yeah. But the social proof dude, outside of our engagement picture, the social proof of me being able to take a selfie in, in the background as the one man content machine flyer and say, here was the journey. It was the first time I had ever had 400 plus engagements on something. Mm-hmm. So that’s January 31st.

There’s a crazy snowstorm that’s happening in Chicago and the next day. Uh, I have to be back home so that I can give this speech on February 2nd. Mm-hmm. So February 2nd comes along, I think, at that, uh, engaging speakers, uh, meeting. There was like 60 people that showed up and I’m like, dude, this is fricking awesome.

Snap a picture of myself with a huge crowd saying, saying, with the crowd behind you, with the crowd behind you. Now the social proof is there. And I put it out in the world that I’m doing this. So now not only did I do something in New Orleans, I did an engaging speakers one, two weeks later. I have at that point, the biggest multi chamber business after hours that I’ve ever hosted at the dealership where I had a bought 150 people come in.

You also took a bunch of pictures at that and posted those. Yep. So now all of a sudden I become a person of interest. People are like, what is Stern doing? Mm-hmm. I, I, I’m, I’m watching this guy. It seems like you make yourself sticky. Made myself sticky. A hundred percent. So now that happens and I start getting opportunities.

Hey, we saw that you spoke here. Would you be willing to speak here? I’m like. Sure. Okay. Yeah, I’ll do it. Uh, would you be willing to speak here? And I just repeated the process and eventually here’s what ended up happening. And some of you might be wondering, well, how are you monetizing this? Forget monetizing it.

I didn’t wanna be a speaker. Mm-hmm. I’m just like, how can I get in front of more people to sell cars? Yeah. You’re like, how can I create leads? Right. So the positioning here was this, and by the way, don’t hold on. Don’t, I don’t wanna lose that for a second. Okay. Because there’s a lot of folks that are listening to this that, you know, own businesses, maybe even, you know, go to events and are a speaker.

Um, there’s a lot of folks that, uh, run coaching programs. There’s, and. Are not capturing those moments and creating that social proof. So I just ta spoke to somebody this morning that has this amazing business concept, and they’re, they do this amazing stuff and it’s j they’re, they’re just like, uh, well, you know, I’m kind of a humble person and I don’t know if I really wanna put myself out there.

And I, I, I don’t know if my business is interesting enough and if people would really like that. And I just thought to myself like, my gosh, like if you would just take a picture or just do a little video with some of the clientele that you’re hanging out with immediate social proof to land you the next opportunity and the opportunity after that, and the opportunity after that.

And in many cases, it’s without you having to make a phone call, it comes to you instead of you having to go get it. Yep. You just, you’re just continuing to plant the seed. So you’re planting all these seeds. People now are coming to the events. Now you’re a person of interest. Now all of a sudden, uh.

People that are building out speaking, like traveling, speaking programs are starting to see that you do this and then boom, take us from there. Yeah, definitely. So now all of a sudden the light bulb goes off, much like the events at the dealership versus going to them. I’m like, all right, option A, I can go to a networking event, maybe meet five, seven, mm-hmm 10 new people, 12 if I’m doing really good, or I can do a speaking engagement on a topic that benefits everybody and frame it like this.

Here’s something that would benefit all of you in the room. Do it yourself marketing. So how to market yourself without spending any money. I learned this as a result of selling cars. By the way. Call me if you need a new car now I’m in front of. So you’re giving them a secret sauce to benefit their business.

Yep. But you’re using, you’re not monetizing it in the form of like charging for the speaking engagement or charging for the information that you’re providing to them. You’re providing them that to them because it’s a proven formula that you’ve worked in your own sales game and you’re seeing this as an opportunity to create demand and lead generation.

Sure. From the audience. Yep. And here’s the strategery. All right. As far as monetizing, it’s great. George, George Bush, Jr. It’s great, great work. Put it in a locked box. So, so, so here’s the, uh, the, the strategery is now you have a service, and this is where I come back to DJing, is you have a service that you can sell or you can choose to donate.

At that time, I was donating it. Now what’s interesting is you can go to each organization, which by the way, there’s nothing stopping you from doing this, by the way, if you like this, um, you can go from chamber to chamber to chamber to chamber to group, and you can say, normally I charge money for this, but I’m actually willing to speak for free if you comp a membership for me.

Costs you nothing and you get a speaker out of it. Now you monetize it because you didn’t have to pay. Mm-hmm. Several hundred dollars to be a part of that. So that’s the first thing. So now I start using this as a tool to generate leads for car sales. Eventually people start saying, well, uh, Alan, could I like hire you to consult for my business?

And I’m thinking, yeah, I guess meaning they want you to teach their sales team and their marketing team how to do this. For sure. So little by little by little, I start a business out of accident now. Mm-hmm. What have you seen me see outside of Break the Mold, which I’ll get to in a little bit, but did you see me once at Bell Works or did you see me twice because I did two that stuff.

I saw you one, I saw you the, the very first one that you did because at the organization I was in, we were in the, the, uh, location off the balcony and I saw these chairs getting set up and da da da da da. So I, I walked outside, like to go get lunch and I looked down and I see, I see, uh, Alan Stern, who I’ve seen at many networking events, and I see, you know, Jason Stel and, and uh, and Ragu and a whole bunch of these people that are kind of in the networking game and Steve Long and I see all, yep.

And I’m like, what is going on here? So, um, was that the 2022 or the 23? Because the 20, it was probably the 2022 because I. No, it was the 2023. Okay. Yeah. So December 7th, 2022. I remember this day very well because this is the first time that I’d ever pulled 125 people to hear me speak. Yeah. Um, the interesting thing is from January, no, from February until December, I had probably at that point, maybe spoke 15 times.

Mm-hmm. Maybe let’s just call it 10, um, 10 12, somewhere around there. But I had never really had a venue that I can just pack the house. Now again, this is where my life goes full circle. Mm-hmm. Before there was the speaker, there was the car salesman. Before there was the car salesman, there’s the dj.

Before there was the dj. There’s a nightclub promoter. I know how to get people to events. I got very good at that at a young age. Now, side note, there is a lot of parallels between being a DJ and a speaker. The DJ says it’s going down Saturday night, 11 to one at the club. The speaker says it’s going down Tuesday morning, 8:00 AM at the chamber.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s the same thing, man. People want to have bottle service with the dj, half price shots or half price free coffee donuts. It’s the same thing. The DJs dropping heat at the club, the, uh, speakers dropping heat at the country club. This is the exact same thing. So nonetheless, I had opportunity at Bell Works because I knew one of the leasing agents, um, and they were doing this, this series called The Morning Motivator.

And I figured at this time, this place has some room. So when I was speaking with the gentleman, Jake, who put that together, I was like, Jake, lemme ask this. Jake, Jake Klan. Great dude. Yeah. So I I, I’m like, Jake. Honestly, how many people can this place hold? He’s like, well, I think we could probably hold a hundred twenty five, a hundred fifty, two hundred people.

I’m like, if I can pull a hundred people, can you get me a stage? He’s like, do you really think you can pull a hundred people? I’m like, well, I’m not gonna toot my own horn, but here’s the events that I do at the dealership. Mm-hmm. Based off of the momentum. I think I could. He’s like, I don’t have a problem doing it, man.

Um, but just, just make sure you can deliver. So nonetheless, I tapped my buddy Jason Stalet on the shoulder, um, who had basically been there and seen this grow from the start. Mm-hmm. He filmed, uh, a, a bunch of my first few events and I’m like, Hey, I wanna use you guys for video. I am. I, I reached out to my buddy Travis with Visual Film Works, get him on the pictures and I’m like, you know what?

This is gonna be a free event. I’m going to take a bath on this thing, but boy if I can pack the house and get some pictures and video the social group. Now you’ve got your media kit. Yep. So what’s interesting is. I do that now directly after Jason and I do a podcast, and things are really moving at this point.

Mm-hmm. Um, fast forward a, I wanna say nine weeks later, um, we put together a summit in the area. Mm-hmm. Myself and four other speakers, which I believe you went to the second, which I attended. I think you went to the second one, right? Yeah. You did 2024. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so we, we put together this, uh, you know, she’s now actually more of a business partner.

Carolyn Linton had an idea to put together a half day summit with five speakers. So her, myself, Dave Avio, Scott Tillman, and Amy Helmi was the first year we put this together. We sell the thing out at, uh, a hundred tickets and we put together this, this half day summit, which had never been done before with workbooks.

With lanyards. We lost our tail on that as well. Mm-hmm. But we, we, we had, uh, social proof. So now all of a sudden. We are in the person of interest category because we start delivering on things that had had, had hadn’t been done. Fast forward a little bit now, what ends up happening five months after break the mold, Jake and I reconnect and I do the second event at Bell Works, where I’m like, you know what?

I’m gonna try something out on this. I’m actually not gonna make this a free event. Mm-hmm. Because people are starting to get on my case about speaking for free and this, that, and the other. So I’m like, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna invest some money on this, I just don’t wanna lose my tail. I’m going to really blast this out and I’m gonna try and pull 150 to 170 people there and we’re just gonna see what happens.

Mm-hmm. So we do that. That’s the one that you attended and here is where I got a lesson on the power of going wide versus going deep. So many people in business, they try to just line their pockets and go deep, which means sell a ton of stuff to one person. Mm-hmm. If you can work exponentially. You can make, sell small stuff to a ton of people.

Yep. So here’s what ended up happening. Got a, I wanna say about 157 people that are at this event at Belt Works, packed house. Two days beforehand, I get the bright idea to say, you know what? I’m gonna just create a slide. I created this whole thing on accident, put it into the market, saw what people said.

I’m gonna create a slide that says the content machine three day class, uh, crash course. If you liked what you heard today, here’s three one hour zoom calls where I’ll do it with you. Now I make one slide and I put a QR code on that, and I say, if you’re interested, it’s 300 bucks. I have zero expectations at this point.

It doesn’t cost me if I anything, if nobody signs up. I look at my Stripe account afterwards, which is a payment processor. Mm-hmm. 15 people signed up and I’m like, hold on a second, let me do the math on this. 300 times 15, this event just got really cool. Yeah. So what is stopping me from, from, from doing this?

And I’ll tell you what really, really, really blew my mind. Getting back to Billie Jean is at this point chat, GPT is a thing, and it starts making some serious noise. So I end up taking this crash course for 500 bucks on how to use AI for marketing. The crash course was 500 bucks. Naturally, I do what any business owner does, and I say, all right, this thing’s virtual.

I paid 500 bucks to be here. How many other people are on this call? Let’s do the math. Let’s see what this dude made. There were over 2000 people on that call. Holy cow. So I do the math on this. I’m like in this, this was on your call or Bill Jeans? This was Billy Jeans. Okay. So I’m looking at this and I’m like, people in America, we lose our minds and we glamorize this six figure number in one year.

This guy made seven figures in one week. So what ends up happening now is I get a taste of AI and I get a taste of what it’s like to be first on the scene. I. The first person to really make some noise about an industry that’s hot because I was the only person locally in the area that had a sizable audience that started talking about ai.

And now I realize something, and this is where persona marketing is born. I take, Billy Jean offers a 16 week course on ai, very expensive, 16 week high intensity course on how to start a marketing agency that charges a retainer in a pretty steep one-time setup fee. And then I realized something, I have an audience, but the whole business model for this course is to basically put somebody on Facebook ad retainer for like two grand a month.

And if you’re talking about solopreneurs at the Chamber of commerce level and local networking, it’s not gonna work. It’s not a budget. No, they’re not gonna do that. So I get the bright idea to say, you know what? If every marketing agency under the sun is selling the same thing, which is done for you services, why don’t I teach you how to fish?

Now I’m a market of one. Now. I’m not just selling, I’m serving, I’m empowering. And one of the things about the world that we live in is I truly believe the only people that should be in power are the ones that empower. And it seems like the complete opposite nowadays. Mm-hmm. Well, that’s one of the keys to branding.

It’s the absolute highest levels. If you can empower your customer, uh, you know, there’s, there’s satisfaction, there’s delight, and then there’s empowerment. And when you have an offering that empowers your customers, then you’ve hit the ultimate branding play and you could sleep good at night. Yeah. So what ends up happening is I’m like, I should actually turn this into a business.

I should incorporate, I should come up with a name. And, you know, persona Marketing, which is the name of my company, was founded on the belief that before people buy from a brand, they buy from a person who represents a brand. So if you work on your personal brand first, and you can communicate clearly to the market, what makes you unique?

It doesn’t matter if times are bad. It doesn’t matter if times are good, it doesn’t matter how powerful AI gets. The reality is there’s only one of you and that’s how you brand yourself as a market of one. So I incorporated it as far as the brand colors was very intentional. We were talking about this before the call, uh, before the podcast today.

We live in a tense time right now where a lot of the world has adopted this us versus them mentality. A lot of people see the world one of two colors. Mm-hmm. And that’s either blue or red. But what is red plus blue purple? What color do we all see in the business world? Green. So I decided to make purple and green my colors and empower the little guy to do their own marketing, leveraging ai.

Love it. So the challenge that folks are having with AI is it does come across as ai. Um, so what is your advice on how to effectively use ai? Why you should use ai, and how do you do it in a way. That you keep it humanized so that people are still getting your personal brand. But what you’ve done is you’ve ultimately used AI the way that it should be done, which is to speed up the process and to be able to hit more people with your message in a, you know, a more humanized way.

But the mistake that many folks are making is they’re just letting the AI do it and sending it out. For instance, I got a DM today, uh, on LinkedIn. Yeah. And I could tell you why I know that it’s a, it’s a, it’s an A IDM. Yep. Because, uh, the DM essentially said that this person, um, ran programs for IT companies.

Now we have an IT company called GSD Technologies, but they ran IT programs for in, in the Middle East and Europe. And the amazing work that the Get Shit Done Experience is doing tells them that people would absolutely love our service in, uh, the Middle East and Europe. And I of course responded with, gosh, I can’t wait to do podcasts in the Middle East and Europe, because obviously they have no idea who they’re sitting.

Like, what the hell are you even talking about? They just, it’s just a blanket AI generated DM that’s sent out. And they’re just hoping to God that they hit the right spot. This is going to annoy the hell out of people for sure. It already is. It already is. So how are you, I know you’re a big advocate for ai, but you also are talking about persona marketing and personalizing it and having the professional and personal touch to what you’re doing and humanizing it and being the the approachable thought leader.

So how are you smashing the two together to create the best experience? I’m gonna drop some really, really, really, I like when you drop really, really, really, really tactical stuff here. So if you’re watching this and you’re an independent sales rep or a solopreneur. Please do what I’m gonna share with you and let me know how it works out yourself.

And by the way, if you’re a solopreneur, independent sales rep and like you’re not willing to make these changes, you’re just gonna stay the same. I hope you understand that. And the people that are doing what Alan is doing and what I’m doing and what so many others are doing, those that are doing that, that are making the change and coming to realize that they don’t just have a sales job.

And just because you’re an owner doesn’t mean that you’re just a tactical process, uh, customer service person who actually has to execute the job. When, when solopreneurs and salespeople come to the realization that they are the brand, they are the marketing, and they are the sales, and they start creating in order to create their own leads and to create their own energy and to create a vibration about themselves, that essentially becomes attractive to the marketplace and becomes a lead generator.

If you’re not doing this, like you are missing out because so many people are starting to catch onto it. But here’s the cool thing, not enough. We’re catching onto it. So you still have an opportunity to be one of the first in and capture that benefit of being first in. So how are we smashing it together?

Here’s how we do it. Two things every business is gonna need. Number one, you’re gonna need a personal brand because now not only are you competing with humans, you’re competing with technology. Now, your personal brand, it’s simple. It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. This is how you get in rooms that you’re not actually in.

But it doesn’t matter how good your personal brand is, there is only one of you. There’s only 24 hours in the day, and unless you have a team, you are cap by time. So I refer to AI as the best employee that is not on payroll because that’s exactly what it is. So think of it like this, truly, regardless what industry that you’re in, when you’re watching this.

Imagine a time in history. Imagine a time where every industry has been so fricking rattled over the past five years. They collectively we’re all, we are all thinking the same thing. And that is, how can I accomplish more with less, buy back some of my time and get a strategic ad on, on my competition?

Imagine having this opportunity and squandering it, and you can do it for free. And all you need is an internet connection and a free account on chat, GPT. So here’s the idea is in order to create content that converts, we first need to figure out who the hell it is that we’re talking to. Now, if you’re watching this, there’s probably a chance that you’ve struggled to create a niche at some point in your life.

So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna demystify how to do this in two minutes or less using chat GPT. So the difference between AI in the form of Google. Chat, GPT, Claude Microsoft’s copilot is, these are all tools, but instead of just giving you suggestions, like if you go on Google and type in restaurants near me, it gives you suggestions of websites to look at.

These actually give you answers, which means pretend. Go back to the, uh, the college days we were talking about. Let’s say that you actually went the route and got really, really, really good at math. You hired a tutor and you wanted to be the best in the fricking school at math. If I gave you this long ass math problem, you might be able to do it, but if you went up against the calculator, you will lose every time when it comes to speed.

The same applies now with ai. So if you wanted to create a niche and let’s freestyle on this, just gimme a random industry. Uh, electrician. Electrician, I can go on chat. GPT. Again, this gives you answers and I can say, what are five problems that would cause someone to consider hiring? An electrician. Why is the problem important?

Because we exchange money to solve problems. We exchange our time and our money to join a chamber of commerce to solve the problem of lack of visibility. We exchange our money to go to a car wash in winter to solve the problem of not having to do it ourself in the freezing cold. So the problem creates the situation.

The situation is what drives the sale. Mm-hmm. So now I have a problem that causes the phone to ring. I can follow that up and interact with chat GPT and say, give me an audience that is most likely to experience said problem. Which means if you and I met and I was an electrician at a networking event, and you said, elem, I’d love to help your business out.

Who’s a good referral for you? And I say, anybody who needs electrician, who do you think of? Nobody. Mm-hmm. But if I say, I can best serve this audience who experiences this said problem, now somebody might come to mind. So that is on the target market side. Back in the day, we used to call these things focus groups.

Which I gotta wonder how that industry is doing right now with all of this. Yeah, probably not so well. So I’ve now gathered data that makes the phone ring and I have an audience. Now, what I’m gonna share with you is something that I like to call the 32nd sales letter format. If you’ve ever wanted to start a blog at some point in your life, but you’re like, Hey, I don’t have the time, here’s how you do it.

You can go on chat GPT and use something called the APE Format. There’s three parts, audience problem, explanation. So let’s say that I wanted to use a car example. I can say create an article to an audience. Of owners of older vehicles who experience the problem of high maintenance repairs, explaining why now is a great time to, uh, replace your car.

And now what I’ve done is I’ve fed it all of the data that it needs to, to turn that into a sales letter. Mm-hmm. So if you’ve ever wanted to start a newsletter, that is the easiest way to do it. Now, on the subject of making it sound personalized, we are at a point, I am not naive. We can absolutely tell when something’s written by Chad PT Oh my gosh.

Yeah. And man, by the way, like it the emojis and the placement of the emojis and this and that. Like, we know you didn’t do that. Right. It’s like, we know you didn’t take the time to do that. And by the way, just stop. So, so I just stop. So I believe fully in the idea of ai, because I’ve seen it work where it’s like, man, I don’t have time to write this job description right now.

I mean, I know exactly what the employee’s gonna do, but. You know, I’m dyslexic. I gotta touch a deficit. If I write it the way that I write it, it’s gonna, it’s not gonna come out across well. So like being able to type into AI and then take that and then edit it and modify it so that it sounds like me or has the right tone.

Or to go back to AI and go, Hey, change the tone. So it’s more joyful. A little funnier. A little more exciting. Yep. Right. And then, and then adjust it like that saves so much time. Yep. Which allows me to then go do the thing that I need to do. Here’s four dead giveaways that something’s written by Chad GPT number one on the article side.

If it starts off with. In a world where, oh my God, you, you, you already know from an email standpoint. Have you ever started a con like, Hey, how are you doing? Oh, in a world where I’m not doing well, dude, it’s so bad. Like nobody’s ever said that. Come on. It’s, it’s so bad. Another dad giveaway. I hope this email finds you well.

Oh God, you, you automatically know. You already hit the nail on the head with you. Well, by the way, by the way, if that’s ai, it’s bad. But if you actually as a human being, write it like that, that’s even worse, right? Like if you are saying, I hope this finds you well on an email. What are you doing, man? What is this?

1930? Are you Mark Twain? Like, what is happening? Nobody says that now. It’s, it’s hilarious. And then the, the overuse of emojis, that’s another one. Yeah. And then I think the technical term for this is called an mpa. It’s like the, the longer hyphen, instead of using a comma, if you over, if you oversee that, you can absolutely tell that Chad GPT wrote it.

Now here’s what’s interesting, and this is, it’s a super long hyphen that this, oh my god. Here, here’s, here’s the easiest way to solve that, though. Is it gives you something and then you ask for a variation. Now, what some people don’t know about chat, GPT is you should, you can actually ask it what prompts you should ask it to get the best results.

Mm-hmm. So if you’re like, Hey, I’m a realtor and I wanna have a price reduction conversation and have a email that is written, what prompts should I feed you to get the best results? It will actually tell you, yeah, right. In this tonality address, set objection. Create urgency. Insert this data. So your output will only be as good as your input.

Mm-hmm. But the idea here is you want to show your personality and your marketing while demonstrating your expertise. And that’s where the heat method comes in. Yeah. And that is the fricking game changer for anybody who needs a brand result. So you’re using AI to get you started to help you with the meat of it, to to help you to identify your ICP and how to communicate effectively with them, how to find them.

Mm-hmm. Maybe some of the key words that those folks are looking for, where it should be placed, but the. The heat method is essentially the way that you’re editing, so you need it to, it needs to come across with humor, right? What’s heat is humor, education, education, adding value and trust. Okay, so, so those are the four things you need to consider in the way that you’re editing it.

Is that what you’re saying? Well, so it’s actually more of a content strategy, and this for the people are like, that’s a content strategy. But I’m talking about when you’re editing what AI has giving you as like you put in the question, you asked it the proper way kicks it back to you. Yep. You don’t just copy and paste that and send that out.

For sure. You want to ask for variations and then you wanna make it your own. Yeah. So the idea is, let’s say that, you know, I use that APE format to create an article or an email or whatever it is. I can follow that up. By saying something along the lines of, give me a variation of this, but make it shorter.

Make it longer. Yeah. Address, set. Objection. Also, if you’re wondering, it is called chat, GPT, because you can chat. Yeah. With it it’s conversation. Dialogue. It’s conversation. It’s like a virtual assistant, like. If you were gonna give a virtual assistant a task, it would probably be a really good idea to be very specific so that they can execute that task in a way that meets your demands and you get the desired outcome that you’re looking.

Forche. ETP is very much the same. It’s a essentially a virtual assistant that you should be very clear with your vision, your expectation, the desired outcome, and, um, you need to really instruct it as to the, the way that you want it to look. And it’ll pretty much nail it. And then if you modify it so it sounds like you, so it shows up the way that you would show up in person at a networking event, then you really nailed it.

For sure. And, and here’s what’s interesting too, is you always wanna make it your own. Yeah. I, I, I’m responsible to you, not for you. Mm-hmm. What you do with what I just said. Yeah. But people, especially your warm network, they know the way that you talk and the way that you write. So if you are somebody who uses a lot of slang and a lot of humor, and now all of a sudden you have this article that has your branding on it, by the way, that looks like it’s written by a fricking Harvard professor, they know it’s not you.

Now, the other thing too is these are tools. They’re great, but sometimes they’re wrong. Mm-hmm. If you stamp your branding on something and it’s wrong, you will lose all credibility. Yeah. On the other hand, let’s say that it gets everything right and somebody references it and you haven’t even read it.

Somebody comes up to you and says, John, that article you posted, oh, God was amazing. I love what you said in the third paragraph sentence too. And you’re like, you look like a fool. What the hell is in it? Now you look like a complete sch merick. So the idea is you wanna make sure that you at least check your work and you have it.

The heat method. Is the content strategy that allows people to warm up to you over time. It’s your cadence. Well, so like I have a cadence of inspire, inform, influence, right? So inspire is gonna take into consideration the emotions of things like people want to know, they wanna feel something, whether it’s they want to be moved, they wanna laugh, they wanna cry, they wanna feel something.

So the majority of your content should be inspiring or inspired. It should. It should have feeling, it should move somebody. It should be very human, right? And then the next is inform. You call it educate, right? Inform. Educate. It’s at some point you have to tell people what you do, for sure how you do it, and hopefully why you do it.

Probably lead with that. And they need to understand that if you have this problem and it’s causing this. This product or this service will create this solution if used appropriately, and then influence. Because if all of your content is, um, a call to action. Asking people to buy something, click something, do something, take some sort of action.

Eventually you’re going to sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher. You’re gonna wear them out. They’re not gonna listen. So you really have to have a cadence of all three, which is why I like your cadence as well, because yeah, I’m gonna make you laugh, but there’s also a little message in there. Then I’m gonna come with some thought leadership that’s gonna educate you, and I’m gonna give you the secret sauce.

I’m gonna teach you a little bit, right? Um, and you’re just gonna kind of go through that process and you’re gonna work it on a cadence. So not everything you’re putting out is gonna be humorous. Sometimes you’re gonna put something out, maybe you’re gonna be humorous at two o’clock on a Monday, but at nine o’clock on Tuesday, you’re giving ’em something highly educational, and then you’re gonna come back on Thursday and hit ’em with some humor again, and it’s just gonna cycle ’em.

So you kind of keep ’em off guard, but you keep ’em interested and they’re along for a ride. You’re giving them something to latch onto because again, sometimes they’re not ready to buy. They don’t wanna be informed. Sometimes they went to social media just ’cause they kind of wanna laugh. For sure. The majority of the time people are there to be entertained.

That’s it. That’s absolutely it. So the idea, and, and this is good to know, you may already know all four of these, but uh, if you’re watching, here’s four marketing stats that everybody should know right now. Number one is the amount of time that we spend on social media. Oh my gosh. Hit ’em with this before I go there.

I think the number’s up. Uh, before, before I go there. Do you, do you know what the number is? Yeah. It’s 36 days. The equivalent of 36 days a year is how much time we spend on social media. And I think that number has increased. It’s getting close to 40 days per year we spend on social media. It’s nuts. So there’s a bunch of studies that’ll second this too.

So they, they, they all will come back right around two and a half hours a day is what we average. Mm-hmm. Screen time is longer on phones, but social media usage, two and a half hours a day add that up over the course of a year. 864 hours. Mm-hmm. Which is the equivalent to 36 full days a year. That’s crazy.

So I bring this up to remind you that if you’re not at least posting a handful of times a week. What are you doing? Yeah, what are you doing? It’s where your audience is. It’s where the people are. Like, like if, if, if you, if you sold, uh, you know, a product, like let’s say you sold popcorn, right? At any given point in time, somebody might have an impulse to want to eat some popcorn.

Yep. So it’d probably be within your best interest if you, if you sell it like fresh, to go to a place where there’s a ton of people, right. Because impulsively, somebody’s gonna go, I’m hungry, Hey, there’s popcorn. Well, that sounds good. I’ll have that. Well, what The same thing holds true with social media.

It’s where a huge population of people are at any given point in time. For sure. That within that amount of people, that pool of people, somebody might be interested in your electrical contracting services, your HVAC services. Like if you’re not showing up there every day. Well, like, what are we doing? For sure.

Here’s the other thing too. Here’s stat number two. The amount of times a day that we check our phone, oh my God, do you know that number or no? I don’t know the number, but it’s like, it’s literally in the thousands. Uh, well, I mean the one that I saw, I, I think that’s touched the phone, is somewhere in the thousands, according, I think it’s either reviews.org or Orbit Media.

205 times a day is what we, averagely sounds about accurate. Check our phone. So we have two and a half hours a day that we spend on social media, and we check our phone 205 times a day. But we have to be strategic because we on average, see between 4,000 and 10,000 ads every single day. Ugh. So half of the battle marketing is getting noticed.

The other half is getting remembered. No wonder we’re split in half and hate each other. Oh, it, it’s insane. And then look at, look at how transactional we’ve gotten. 1.7 seconds according to Facebook is what we spend on a piece of content from a mobile device. Oh my God. I think that number’s two and a half seconds on desktop.

But I mean, why take your chances? So if you take a look, this is the business climate. So how do we stand out? And I was told also the average, uh, attention span is 8.2 seconds then. Yep. Uh, which is less than a, uh, goldfish. Yeah. By the way, do you a side note, do you know what you call a, uh, fish with no eyes?

Uhuh. That’s bad. That’s so, that’s bad. Super bad. So the idea is we have to have some strategery to get people to warm up to us over time. And that’s what the heat method is. So let’s say that we just met. Naturally, people are skeptical. We live in a world of scams. So the idea about using human, your humor in your marketing is actually not about being funny.

It’s about creating a connection. Take a look at this. So what happens when you use humor in your marketing is you serve somebody’s brain a cocktail of hormones. Mm-hmm. For those of you who took psychology, you can check me on this, but there’s three of ’em that I wanna point out. Number one, oxytocin is released.

That’s often referred to as the trust hormone. And if we do business, again, you said it, not me. No. Like and trust. Yep. By making somebody laugh, you essentially speed up that process. The second one though, that is released is dopamine, often referred to as the feel good hormone. Mm-hmm. They might forget what you said.

They won’t forget how you make ’em feel. You make somebody feel good. And then the third is cortisol. Cortisol is the stress hormone, and that is lower and in a time right now, where to give you some stats on that. 90% of Americans when CNBC did their study say that finances impact their level of stress.

Inflation’s kicking everybody’s ass right now. Yeah. Which means they’re looking for a release. They’re looking for a release. People are experiencing workplace burnout. I’m sore as how right now. My neck hurts all the time. My knees hurt all the time and I It’s not ’cause I’m getting old. You be quiet out there.

I am getting old, but you don’t have to agree with that. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s that cortisol buildup from stress, $350 at the grocery store on a Sunday, knowing that in a week you’ll have to be back ’cause you have three growing boys. Yep. That’s stressful. It’s extremely stressful, especially when the same exact amount of groceries cost $125 two years ago.

A hundred percent. It’s very stressful. So the idea is. Don’t ever underestimate the power of giving somebody a smile. Yeah. ’cause you might make their day. Now the idea is that takes you out of the, Hey, we just met once category into the, this person’s cool. Like business aside, I would go and have coffee with this person.

I’d hang out with them. I might not need their service now, but if I was in the market, I would at least give him a shot and a sales person, I love that. We used to, we used to, um, in the hiring process, the third interview that we would do was offsite. We would go somewhere social, a restaurant, a bar, somewhere social.

And the reason for that is because if we were going to hire somebody for any position, we want to know that they were somebody that we would enjoy hanging out with. For sure. So think about that in terms of if you’re gonna buy from somebody, especially if it’s a beyond a transaction or it’s a big transaction.

But if, especially if it’s a partnership where maybe it’s a. Two year agreement or three year agreement, you’re gonna have to have several interactions. You wanna buy from somebody that you would be willing to break bread with, that you would have over, that you would not be embarrassed by, that you would enjoy, that you’d be entertained by.

For sure. So the most, the more you can show that before you even have the first interaction with ’em, yep. The stronger likelihood you have of getting to the sale faster for sure. Humor is very easy to use in your marketing too. Uh, image flip.com, img flip.com is the biggest database of memes on the internet.

And I’ll give you an example. Let’s just stick with the electrician example. This is the art, by the way, of visual storytelling, which, you know what, on, on its own. This is how you stop the scroll and this is how you accomplish a lot in a little period of time. I want you to envision an image of a burning dumpster fire.

We can all envision that right now. Yes. And then just throw a caption over that says. How it feels when, plus a problem that causes somebody to reach out to you. Now, that just became an advertisement. Mm-hmm. Regardless of industry. So the idea is the humor breaks down the wall. Now somebody is willing to hear you out, but it’s very easy to get lost in humor.

We now have to let people know how you can help them. What does we actually do? So the idea of using education in your marketing is very simple. I got this from a book called Ultimate Sales Machine. When you sell, you break rapport. When you educate, you build it. When you start using education in your marketing, you’re no longer viewed as a salesperson.

You’re viewed as a resource. When you’re a resource. People want to pick your brain. When they pick your brain, you’ve just now generated a lead, but you’ve done so by being able to solve a problem. So are you familiar with a guy named Alex? Her? Yeah. One of the best books I’ve ever read. He gives the secret sauce.

Gives the secret sauce a hundred million dollars leads to quote this book. People will give you time before they give you money. My spin on that is people will pay you with their time before they will pay you with their money. How do they do that? By consuming your content to figure out if you are the right fit to hire.

Okay, so to this point, if I was a repair shop mm, and I was going to create social media content, what I would do is I would pick a topic. Today we’re gonna show you how to change a battery. Now, if you’re a repair shop, you’d think to yourself, if I show people how to change a battery, they’re not gonna come here and get their battery changed.

That would be crazy. You’re completely wrong. Here’s the reality. They want the entertainment and the education of knowing how to change a battery while they’re watching that entertain, they’re thinking to themselves, I don’t want to do that. I could never do that. I don’t even want to try that. That seems complicated.

Look how easy they made that appear. I should probably go to them when I need a new battery. Moreover. When you go, when you need a new battery, if you go to the repair shop, they get the battery for you. If you do it yourself, there’s another element that you have to figure out what kind of battery do I need and where do I get it?

Right? So then you gotta go get the battery. Now you have multiple steps. Yep. But by showing them the secret sauce, like if somebody put a video up, showing me how to re repair, how to repair a tire, I’m not gonna try and repair my own tire. I know I’ve, I’ve like, my time is more valuable than that. Plus I know I would screw it up, but what I would know now is what it looks like to have a tire change, which is pretty entertaining.

Pretty cool, pretty fun. I would also know that you know how to do it really well. It shows that you’ve done it, and I would know that you could do it super fast. Which means that if I have that issue, I’m gonna come to you because you do it really well. You do it super fast and it’s gonna get done right.

And I don’t wanna bother with it a hundred percent and I would just beat the marketplace over the head with that type of content. Yep. Repair shop after repair shop, uh, you know, you’re fixing things all day. Show me how to take a tire off. Show me how to screw bolts on a tire. Show me how to change a headlight.

Show me how to change out a battery. I’m never going to do it, but now I know you can and I trust you because I watched you do it. You have the credibility and you entertain me. I’m bringing my car to you. That’s biological branding right there is when you demonstrate that you’ve actually done it and your face is attached to it, it doesnt have to give a super sauce for sure.

It doesn’t have to be on video. You can do this with graphics on Canva when your face is associated with a result. Now you are branding and educating at the same time. So what’s interesting is you put the humor and the education together. Your audience who may have just met you once they say, this person’s cool.

But they know their stuff and they can actually help me. Mm-hmm. If you just do that, just do those two and don’t even do any of these other ones that I’m gonna tell you. Now, all of a sudden, you’ve become the approachable authority. But here is, and I love this segue by the way, here’s what’s interesting.

We’re, we’re sitting here talking about education and delivering value. Add value is part three of the heat method, my friend. Yeah. So the idea is, again, before people pay with their money, they pay with their time. When you give value, you earn trust in the process. Give by giving goodwill. Now all of a sudden people start to feel like you’re looking out for them.

What’s reciprocity? It’s the, it’s reciprocity. So if I give you these three things, would you gimme one back? Right. This is, this is the whole method. I’ve taught my kids this. ’cause my kids will go, Hey dad, can I get new shoes? Right? And they don’t need new shoes, but they just want new shoes. And I go, well, first off, you shouldn’t approach me that way.

The way that you should approach me is, Hey dad, I just cleaned my room. I just cleaned the garage. I just took the garbage out and I got an A on my test. Since I did those things, do you think you’d be willing to take me to get new shoes? That’s great. Right? That’s a great setup. So I tell ’em that, guess what ends up happening?

They now learn that they need to do those things. So I get those things accomplished before they come to me. Now I don’t have to have an argument with ’em. And that’s essentially what you’re saying? Well, that’s one facet of it. Yeah. So I can spend an hour talking about this on its own, but just know.

Adding value. It’s a strategy, it is a tactic, and it is a mentality. And I’ll show you all three. The idea here is on the, the concept and strategy standpoint, we live in a world of scams. Mm-hmm. It’s 22, it’s April of 2025 when we’re, when we’re recording this right now. And it seems like every week that goes by, there’s a new data breach, there’s a new scam, somebody’s getting burned, and we are jaded.

And by the way, uh, this episode is sponsored by GSD technology. So if you have data breaches or scams or cyber security issues, please call John Morris who can hook you up with Nick Zillow from GSD technologies to make sure that your organization is protected. I digress. Go ahead buddy. How about a perfect segue on that?

That’s synergy’s. That’s, it’s like, like you just cart ide that thing. I just boom slam that. A fricking gold medal. That beach ball right there. That was bumps that spike. So the idea is there’s always a new scan that comes out and people are j jaded and skeptical. And you could use that to your advantage because again, when you give free value, now you get goodwill.

Mm-hmm. When you get goodwill from the community, people start to say, Hey, this is a good person. Mm-hmm. They’re looking out for you. And here, for those of you who tend a lot of networking events, this will allow you to own the room and get everybody talking to you. This will allow you to get people so excited to meet you that they don’t even know how to introduce you to somebody else.

Now, the idea here is when you introduce something of value to somebody, they associate that value with you. Mm-hmm. For example, if we met at a networking event and somebody says, John, how did you meet Alan? Well, we met at this networking event. Now all of a sudden, whoever hosted that event got free advertising.

Mm-hmm. So if you are the one who is the central hub to your network and you make introductions to this person, this person, this person, and this person, now all of a sudden when somebody says, how do you two know each other? Well, John is the one that connected us. Or I met through Allen. Take that. Put it to the side in the business aspect.

We can do this with our hobbies, and this is where things get really, really, really cool. So I know you don’t drink, which this may be the wrong example to use, but huge. Feel free. It doesn’t bother me. Go ahead, dude. I’m a huge craft beer guy. I love it. Yeah, go ahead. Craft beer is my thing. Love. Use your analogy.

So the idea is what does that have to do with business? Nothing. But it makes me approachable and relatable. But it also means if I’m a resource, people can pick my brain about beer. I have a do it yourself marketing company, and I have a software company, microsites. So what does that have to do with beer?

Nothing. But if somebody hits me up and I’ve probably had 50 to 70 people over, over the years, say, Alan, I’m going to this city, or I’m going to this brewery. What do you recommend that I get? Now I am top of mind in a cool way without spending any money. Hey Alan, it’s Super Bowl Sunday. What do you recommend that I bring to the party for beer?

I recommend go and get this. Now all of a sudden, they are thinking of me. On the other hand, I can use this to my advantage for DJing. Because I have a Friday night residency at a restaurant called Foxtail on the Lake out in displays. Give ’em a quick plug. Definitely check that place out. But I record every set that I do there because a lot of people ask me for the music, if I give you a mix and you’re listening to it, who are you thinking of?

Mm-hmm. Top of mind, cool way without spending any money. Yeah. You can do this with documentaries, you can do this with books. Mm-hmm. Recipes, hotels, do it yourself, credit card, uh, program. Like all of these things you can do it with. And now you have delivered so much value that you have earned the ask.

Mm-hmm. You have said, well, what you’re doing too is you’re creating advocates and fans who may never buy from you. But when they run across somebody who needs something and they’re aware of a person that can offer that, the nature of human beings is to want to solve. So what they’re gonna do is they’re gonna go, Hey, I know somebody who could help you with that.

Let me make the introduction. So now you’ve got advocates and fans out there that are essentially marketing and selling for you. For sure. While you’re doing something else. It’s amazing. So the idea, just to back this up, the humor. It shows your personality, Hey, the robots, the ai, that’s cool, but you know, here’s, here’s who I actually am.

You know, I have a sense of humor. Just like you, the education says, all jokes aside, I can actually help you adding value. It shows that you are serving, not just selling. Yeah. It shows that you’re there to, to make a relationship and free value leads to trust. Mm-hmm. According to Nielsen, one of the biggest market research companies in the game, if not the biggest 92, my sister was the president there.

Oh, seriously? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. They’re huge, huge company. 92% of people say they trust recommendations from friends and family over any sort of ament thousand percent. So nobody can sell you better than a satisfied customer. You can do the first three, the humor, the education, and the adding value. You can completely botch that and people will still do business with you if they trust you.

So the idea is reviews are important, but who actually sees those reviews is of equal importance. If you’re a big networker. It’s a big world, but it is a small world. If you go on LinkedIn and ask for a recommendation, which is basically a personal review, if you’re not familiar with that now in one place, as soon as people hit your profile, they can see what the whole community’s saying about you.

Mm-hmm. So when you meet somebody in person one time, you connect with them on social media. Weeks, months, years can go by. They warm up to you over time. So when your marketing goes cold, all you gotta do is drop some heat. Yeah. I wanna tell you this too. This is part of the concept of why a podcast.

Because if I bring somebody in as a guest, right, they bring a following with them. They have their own following, they have their own network, right? I have my own following my own network. When you smash the two together, my network now sees your you and becomes part of your network. Your network is now gonna see me and becomes part of it because we are interacting the way that we are.

We are essentially saying that we trust each other for sure. So now my network is going well, John trusts him so I could trust him too, and vice versa. So this is the reason why collaboration is so important as well. Collaborate with really cool people, doing really interesting things. Make content together.

Promote each other’s businesses, and show that you trust somebody and they’ll show that they trust you back. And then all the people that are watching that go, I trust both of them. And it just, it, it just solidifies that even stronger. 100% trust is huge and um, but trust doesn’t come overnight and trust is earned.

And nobody needs to offer you the, uh, trust. Just like nobody needs to give you respect. You have to earn respect. And you do that by showing up every day. That’s the same way that you’re gonna earn trust. You’re gonna create every single day. You’re gonna show up every day, and you’re gonna repeat a positive and informative message every single day.

And you’re gonna give education, you’re gonna give value every single day. And what ends up happening is people just come to know what to expect and when the rate to buy, they’ll buy. They associate your face with value. They see that you’re an actual person just like them. There’s a connection. I mean, we are living in times right now where if you really think about it, in the history of the world, we’ve actually never been this connected.

Mm-hmm. Everybody, for the most part has a smartphone. It might be a, it, it, it might be backfiring. We’ve never been so connected and we’ve never been so angry at each other. That was the second part. This is why the content’s gotta be fun and funny and not political. It’s gotta be. Entertaining and educational and inspirational and, and humanized and stop this BS of creating content that is dividing for sure.

We’re more connected, yet we are more disconnected. Yeah. Anytime in the history of the world. So sad. In, in, in, in the, and on the AI side, the crazy part is this is as bad as it will ever get. Mm-hmm. Chat. GPT got released in, what is it? November of 2022. Look how fast. Look at how fast it is. So things in the history of the world have never moved this fast.

The scary part, they’ll also never move this slow again. Alright, Alan. So, um, if I’m a solopreneur, I’m a salesperson, um, I have a very, you know, uh, a very, uh, important job to do. I’m trying to scale, I’m trying to grow. Uh, I know my products and services are amazing. This is the reason why I sell ’em. It’s the reason why I’m a solopreneur, but for some reason I’m just kind of stagnant.

You know, I sell the leads that come in, but. We all know that more leads, uh, typically if everything stays constant, your closing percentage stays the same. More leads means you’re going to sell more, more opportunity. By the way, the more leads also means more reps. It means you have more opportunities to sell your thing, which means that you improve at selling that thing, which means your closing percentage eventually goes up because you just have had more reps.

So how do they get ahold of you? How does somebody who is, is building a very, uh, you know, is building a small business? Maybe they’re a solopreneur right now, but they wanna scale and get to 3, 4, 5 employees. And they, they gotta do it on a tight budget. How does a sales person listening to this right now, um, that wants to hit budget and go to President’s Club and, and, um, you know, set up their family for an extended period of time to have that financial, uh, wealth?

How did they get ahold of you? Uh, two things. Number one, I got, uh, freebie, just no strings attached. If you, if you like the content today and you want a deeper dive, I’ll give you my free ebook. Just go to get alans book.com, G-E-T-A-L-A-N-S book.com. Uh, to get ahold of me, uh, my micro site is connect with alan stern.com.

All social media handles are there all the links to everything that I do. Uh, it’s all there. Connect with A-L-A-N-S-T-E-R n.com. Perfect. Alan, give us a final thought. Give us something inspirational. Leave us with something of, uh, that’s positive and inspiring no matter how. Advanced AI gets no matter economically how bad things get, no matter how good they get.

At the end of the day, before people buy from a brand, they will always buy from a person. Who represents a brand. So do everything that you can to sharpen your skillset and make yourself the approachable authority. Love it. It’s all about people. Be an amazing human, do amazing things, get shit done. Alan, I wanna remind you, sir, you got shit done.

Congratulations. I love it, brother. Appreciate it. Cheers.

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