More Cheese Less Whiskers

Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast we're talking with Johnny Hempen from Tacoma, Washington. I've known Johnny for several years, ever since he was a client of our real estate programs despite being a contractor, a painter. He’s been in business for a long time, and we had a great conversation today about how to really maximize his experience, how to turn it into something that’s unique in the marketplace. He's really a student of direct marketing and the 8 Profit Activators, and he has a real love for the before unit, the lead generation and getting people to think new thoughts and raise their hand. He loves the idea of narrowing his focus and we ended up having a conversation about turning what he does to generate painting leads, into a competitive advantage for car dealerships. You'll love how the conversation evolves to that point and the thinking process of elevating what it is you do, into something that’s beyond a commodity. Helping people actually achieve the result they're hoping to get.

There are many ways to find potential customers, but taking a moment to think through the most effective way can multiply your results. Today on the More Cheese, Less Whiskers podcast we're talking with Cody Burch. I've met Cody a couple of times at Nick Kusmich’s events and he's what you would call, an expert funnel builder. He has a really great process that I love the name of, called the ‘One Hour Funnel’ because it promises a big benefit and you know exactly what you're going to get at the end of it. We had a great conversation about this philosophy of making things as convenient as possible for people. We talked about how he identifies leads right now, and how he uses webinars as a way to get in front of people in his own funnel process. We talked about the idea of using a book or gift card to turn people from invisible prospects to visible prospects as a multiplier for his webinar, always driving towards doing something for people as opposed to showing people how to do something. This call went so fast

There is a lot of syndication, or leverage to be found when you start to look at the other relationships your ideal client already has, the people they are already working with. Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers podcast we're talking with Jerry Levinson, who runs a small family business, as he likes to say, in Arizona. He loves to joke about that because everyone in the family is under five foot six. Jerry runs a great a carpet and flooring business, that he's driven by marketing. He loves marketing. He's a legitimate marketing lover, and I got to spend three days with him here in Orlando at our Breakthrough Blueprint event last week, and then today we're doing the podcast. It's usually the other way around. People come on the podcast and then come to a Breakthrough Blueprint, so it’s fun to do it the other way around, and have this conversation on the back of the event. As you're listening, you'll hear how we really start to think about developing the program he's got, a program that focuses on a specific

Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Brian Kiernan from Connecticut, and Brian is an idea man. He's a real student of direct response, marketing, and has a real passion for it. He's also a custom remodeler. That's his day job, the thing that pays the bills, so he uses that as the vehicle to explore and build his marketing knowledge. He applies it to his own business first, and is aspiring to help other remodelers, either by doing lead generation, or their marketing for them. We identified where Brian gets off track, and what keeps him from getting to that point, and had a really great, philosophical, strategic and tactical conversation about how to make that dream a reality. I think there are a lot of people who, once they fall in love with marketing, realize it can be applied to their own business. But they also realize the magic it can do in other people's businesses, and they fall in love with making a business of doing marketing for other people. On the surface it seems like

In a business where everyone is offering the same service, it’s not so much about what you say, but more about the way you say it. Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Arnold Barzak from up in Ohio, where they have a property management company. They work with condos associations, homeowner’s associations and they take care of all of the property management needs of those units. It's a very interesting business. We had a great conversation about how to differentiate in a world where everyone is basically offering the same thing, and nobody's happy. It’s a business where there's a lot of resistance to switching management companies, because it's a whole ordeal. So Arnold was really wondering how to breakthrough? What kind of marketing is going to get people to pay attention? I think you're going to be interested to see where we actually took the conversation, and how much of a difference just one shift in the way you communicate can make. One shift in a word you use to describe wh

Success sometimes comes at a cost and you may find yourself with a successful business, but days full of work you’re not excited to do or feeling trapped trading hours for dollars. Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Bogna Wanda, an architect in the New York Area. Bogna has a successful practice, always busy for over 30 years, and we had a really great conversation about how to transition from being a busy architect, which you could translate to any billable hours professional like, an accountant, a lawyer, a massage therapist, to becoming a business owner where you create something that can generate business, without it being all about your billable hours. Taking more of a proactive approach to the work you do, rather than passively accepting any business that comes your way. We talked a lot about the philosophy of that transition and we really came on a great plan to actually make it happen. I love how excited Bogna is when we start outlining a viable plan that she's excited a

Many people talk about creating a ‘lifestyle business’ but few set out to find a business that meets that goal. Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Alexander Tsymarkin from St. Petersburg in Russia. We had a great conversation. Alex has a very simple business teaching ladies, mothers, who have children how to swim, and it's a really great story because of the way that he intentionally chose the business. How he started by going through the process from a lifestyle perspective, what would be the perfect business for him, and finding the model that met his criteria. We had a great conversation about the choices he made, and then we came up with some really elegant, simple, repeatable ways to grow his business. This is a really interesting episode because he really did start with his end in mind.   Links: Show Notes: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com/095 Scorecard: ProfitActivatorScore.com Email Mastery: EmailMastery.com Want to be a guest on the show? Simply follow the 'Be a Guest' link.

Welcome to the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, and wow, what a conversation we've had today! You guys are in for a treat. Today we’re talking with Mark Flagg. Mark has a tire and auto service company in New York, and this guy is a star. I'm so amazed by his enthusiasm and just raw hustle. That's really what it is, raw hustle and grinding to get it done. So, we had a really great conversation about, how do you get in front of people who are hoping to go their whole week without ever having to talk to you? If they have to meet you, it's a bad day. If someone needs to get their tires done or needs to get something done on their car, nobody's looking forward to that. But when you hear Mark, you hear some of the ways he's talking and the things he's doing to embrace this idea of building a lifetime, value-based business with people, really building relationships with people, it's amazing to see what he’s been able to do so far. We hatched a wonderful scheme for him to test. He's going to go out and test it toda

Dialing in your target market is one of the first things we talk about, but having done that, there is further opportunity to be found in thinking about your customers experience, and creating custom solutions for those groups. Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Ben Dykstra from Seattle, and would you believe it, he is a woodworker. I mean what are the odds that last week's episode we were talking with someone who has written the book called The Six Figure Woodworker, and then the very next episode we have someone who actually is a woodworker from Seattle. We had a really great conversation. Ben specializes in building bunk beds and we spent an hour having one of the most creative conversations I think we've ever had on More Cheese, Less Whiskers. We talked all about not only some ways to immediately improve the results he's getting marketing his existing bunk bed business, but some really creative ways that open up new higher end market opportunities for him within the bunk be

Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhisker.com podcast we're talking with Thomas Arrigo and Thomas has one of the best book titles for a lead generator, The Six Figure Woodworker. It was the title we came up with together on a book title brainstorming call we did for our 90-Minute Books service, and today we talked about the whole process of using a book like that as the beginning of a relationship. We spoke about selecting an audience; people who are aspiring full-time woodworkers or people who want to make more money with their woodworking, then how to build a community, and how he can lead into an academy type situation where he's able to help people set up their six figure woodworking business. We ended by talking about the end game, and the millionaire woodworker… You can see how this is all about speaking to the right person. You just need to say the words Six Figure Woodworker and people are crystal clear on what it's about and what they will get from it. There’s a lot in this show and we covered all the bases

Today on the More Cheese, Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Paul Bowman, who lives not far from me, right here in Winter Haven. We actually kind of serendipitously met at our local Starbucks and struck up a conversation. He runs some fitness boot camp’s here in Winter Haven. We talked about what he was doing to fill his boot camps and he laughed when I asked if he was on the ‘transformation crack’. I wanted to help him break to habit, so we jumped on today’s call. He's been working on some alternatives over the last few months and we got a chance today to talk about the most compelling, easy way for him to fill out his roster. He's got space for 150 recurring members in his facility and he's at 83 right now. We talked about the fastest possible way, with the least friction as possible, to fill up those remaining 70 spots. You're going to like the conversation and what it led to.     Links: Show Notes: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com/091 Postcard Program: TheWorldsMostInterstingPostcard.com Referrals Manife

Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast we're talking with Jill Harrington from just outside of Williamsburg, Virginia. Several years ago, she wrote a book called The Lupus Recovery Diet. It was very successful, and she's helped lots of people. Her passion is really spreading the word and helping people adopt a whole food, plant-based diet nutrition program. We had a really great conversation about the target audience of people who need and want to reverse heart disease. She has a great program that can help people, so my question was, "What would you do? What's the result you can get for people?" We had a whole conversation around it not being just about the information, but about the execution, and the implementation of that information. Then, rather than looking to reach everyone, we narrowed the focus to her local area, and you'll see how the conversation unfolded to think about a pilot project to prototype, before duplicating her programs all over the country. You're going to enjoy this episode, e

Joining the conversation your customers are having, before they start having it with all your competitors, is a great way to ‘be there for them’, before they even know they need you… Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers Podcast we're talking with Kirby Virden who owns a sign company that helps businesses with their outdoor signage. We had a really great conversation, talking about the mistakes people make with their signs, what works, what doesn't, and really looking at what’s the purpose of signage. When you think about it, if you're focused on the outcome, the job of work you want that sign to do, it's a different kind of thinking than just putting your logo and your company name up there. He has a great knowledge of the business and hatched some great plans, talking about how to find people who are thinking about getting signs, earlier in their thinking… before they ever get to the point of submitting requests for proposals from every sign company in town. How can we find those people earlier? There’s a

If you're already successfully converting leads, then the very best thing you can do is find a way to introduce more people to that process, and separate the identifying from the converting. Today on the More Cheese, Less Whiskers Podcast we're talking with Geoff Edie from Toronto. Geoff's company is involved in many different ways of helping Canadian’s maximize their wealth. Tax savings, investments, retirement accounts, a strategy they have for freeing up people’s RRSP. We had a really great conversation about the front end of his business and how to get the conversation started. They've got a great model in place, inviting people to workshops followed by a ‘big summit’ where a lot of people end up becoming clients, so we talked about the best way to streamline the front end and get into conversations with as many people as we can. Guess what my recommendation was…   Links: Show Notes: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com/088Create Your Book: 90MinuteBooks.com Scorecard: ProfitActivatorScore.com   Want to be a guest

Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast we had a great conversation with Dr. Phillip Yoo. Phil is in California and he helps people with knee pain, shoulder pain, back pain, spine stenosis, a whole list of conditions they're able to relieve with stem cell therapy. It reminded me of the episode we did with Malton Schexneider, back in Ep023… Both had the same model of using ads to invite people to a workshop and then educating people about the process. From the workshop, people will come to the office, get evaluated and then choose to do some 'laser guided' stem cell therapy. We talked about the importance of identifying your ideal prospects and turning invisible prospects visible by using a book instead of using the workshop as the way of first getting in touch with them. This is a great episode and really reinforces what we talked about with Melton. I think you'll enjoy it, especially if you're using workshops as a lead generation source.   Links: Show Notes: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com/087Create Your B

Today on the More Cheese, Less Whiskers Podcast we're talking with Tom Casey. Tom owns a home services organization, three separate companies in Connecticut, South Carolina, and Florida, all revolving around home services, HVAC, and all the things that go into making a home comfortable. One of the things this conversation really took on was how do you get into a relationship with people, to be 'their guy' before you've ever had an opportunity to do business with them? Especially in an industry where it's an emergency that brings them to you. Nobody's excited about taking preemptive action to get a new air conditioner or a heating system in advance of needing it, and everyone else is going around screaming, trying to be the one they call right now. We talked about taking a longer term approach and filling your 'before unit' by adopting people as if they were in your 'after unit'. It's a great way to think about digging a well before you need it and establishing yourself as 'their guy' before they need you.    

Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast we're talking with Ben Byrne from Halifax, Nova Scotia. A fellow Canadian. He's got some really great ideas. He's an enthusiastic copywriter who's looking to break into the market of helping financial advisors with their marketing. We talked a lot about 'scale-ready algorithms', syndication, and the baby-steps in the process of helping and finding those people who want to, need to or are looking for help with their finances. We talked a lot about some of the different strategies he could apply to crack that code which is where the real opportunity come from. Being able to solve the problem once, and duplicate those results breaks you away from reinventing the wheel each time. There is a lot here and you're going to enjoy this episode.   Links: Show Notes: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com/085Create Your Book: 90MinuteBooks.com Scorecard: ProfitActivatorScore.com Email Mastery: Email dean@deanjackson.com with Email Mastery in the subject and I'll get you all the details

Today on the show we're talking with Dave DePula. Dave is a second-time guest on More Cheese, Less Whiskers. You may remember we spoke back on episode 26 about the golf training method he had developed. On that show, and in our Email Mastery program, we figured out a really great way to get people to come to his website and leave their name and email address by asking for his 21 Days to Golfing Freedom book. We then created an engaging dialog method to engage those people and offer the program he created to help them improve their golf game. Well, fast forward over a year now, and he has a new method that's even better than the previous one, so now he’s wondering… how does he make that transition? This is a great conversation talking about the results he had, and about how and what exactly we need to change about the approach he's taking now. I think you might be surprised.   Links: Show Notes: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com/084 Scorecard: ProfitActivatorScore.com Create Your Book: 90MinuteBooks.com Email Mastery

Today, we’re talking with Monsieur Henri Cousineau, from Montreal. Henri’s a real estate broker focused on leasing office space in the Montreal market. He's been a realtor for a very long time and online since 2000! We talked about some of the evolution during that time, and focused in on the chain from getting eyeballs to his website, then people leaving their name and email address, then bonding with them over time, and finally meeting with them face-to-face. We discovered the weakest link for him is in getting people, once they come to his site, to leave their name and their email address. We focused on that because from there, he's really got a great business dialed in and has been very successful in helping people once he’s able to be in contact with them. This is a really good episode with a lot of transferable takeaways. You're going to enjoy it.   Links: Show Notes: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com/083 Scorecard: ProfitActivatorScore.com Realtor Tools: GoGoAgent.com Create Your Book: 90MinuteBooks.com Email

On today’s show, we're talking with Jesse Ibanez. I've known Jesse for, probably 20 years now. He owns a real estate and mortgage company in San Diego called the Greenhouse Group, and they really get behind this whole idea of the green lifestyle, and sustainability, and you know, they're in the right area for that. A lot of people, especially in Southern California, and around the country, resonate with that message, and he's opening up a brand new office to server these people in an area he'd like to do more business. We had a great conversation about how to integrate or marry the resonating purpose they have with their business and the economics of it. How do you make sure this is something that's going to fit with the sustainability of your business rather than be something that's just going to entertain you? We worked through some really great questions to ask yourself and hatched some really viable evil schemes to attract more business that stay true to their real passion.   Links: Show Notes: MoreCheese