Brian shares a story from an old friend and offering a Morgan dollar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvze2KmeW14

Transcription

Why should you use bonuses?

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

I'm holding in my hand something that is nothing more than a piece of paper. But it represents a Morgan dollar, which I don't have next to me right no but it reminds me of a story.

And the reason why this story came to me is that one of my dearest friends, who is one of the people that I think of when I think of veterans because this guy served in at least two wars, he served in Vietnam and in Desert Storm. And he taught me one of my first lessons on bonuses on the power of a bonus.

It's a really simple concept.

Sometimes it can get really complex, depending on what it is that you're offering. Sometimes the bonus becomes the real thing that the person's after, and they end up with the, with the real thing that you're selling as a bonus, it's funny, it's a funny thing.

There's a whole lot of psychology to providing bonuses but the main thing to understand is having a bonus gives you one extra shot of getting a person interested and willing to pull the trigger on purchasing whatever it is that you're selling.

It goes across the board, it doesn't matter what it is. It especially works for higher ticket items, though, because that's the type of thing where people really need to think about whether they want to purchase it or not.

You know that they have to be kind of controlled and convinced into purchasing. And sometimes the bonus pushes them over.

So here was the situation. This was not a high-cost situation. We had a thing where we were reaching out and meeting some new people. They were friends of friends if you might say, third-party contacts, and my friend's name was Richard.

Richard was talking to these gentlemen over the phone and he and he said this a few times, is one of the first nights I hung out with him.

He said, Listen, I've got a Morgan dollar here in my hand do you know what a Morgan dollar is?

And he tells him a little bit of the story about what a Morgan dollar it's a type of silver dollar that was minted by the US. And he goes into that, and he'd say, I have one right here in my hands and it is yours.

If I see you at that meeting tomorrow night, it was like tomorrow night or the night after something like that. And he said it was such conviction. It doesn't matter whether you knew what a Morgan dollar was or not.

It was like, Oh, really, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get this if I go and he has it there. It's sitting there. And he described it over the phone. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I wanted the darn Morgan dollar.

And I didn't even care what a Morgan dollar was. I wanted to say that I got a Morgan dollar because he wrapped such a story around it and such a fantasy about it. It builds a bonus that can be like a talisman.

It could be this magical thing. If you put enough behind it, and you really put emphasis, it's really about emphasis.

If you put emphasis on a bonus, then it can be very powerful.

Even if it doesn't even have all that much of a promise to it or anything else.

It's just the fact that wow, okay, yeah, I want that. I want that thing. It doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to be valuable. It doesn't have to have great resale value.

Tip on getting attention with your message.

link to video referenced in video - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaSJ4LuqRExrxFSnILYEGTm4GQ2MymkvI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEaZyBvd_hY

Transcription

A weird trick for getting attention anywhere.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

I'm going to cheat a little bit tonight.

Last year, I put together a list and I'm gonna tell you what that list is all about in just a second. Before I do, I want to remind you I wrote a book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

Getting attention really isn't as much about getting attention this instant, sometimes it comes from why you're getting attention.

What are you going to do with that tension in the long run?

How do you keep attention is really the major deal and this is one of the major things that I cover in my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, you can find out all those things and more at AmazonProofBook.com, get a free copy of my book. You can download it there, or you could go purchase one at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble or wherever you pick up books, it's, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

Now, let's talk about this is I'm talking about a very specific way to get attention anywhere. If you've already been in this field, and you've gotten attention, you already understand this.

But I'm reaching out to some people who may be new at it and don't realize the power of one thing. And that is the headline.

No matter what you're doing there's oftentimes a headline involved and if there isn't, you have the ability to put a headline out there now headline is a term that comes from the old days of a lot of print advertising.

The idea is that you make one line stand out above all others at the very top, the headline. And right there. That's what pulls people into reading the next sentence and the next sentence so that you eventually get them doing what you want them to do.

Whether it be buying something or raising their hand about something, what have you?

The same thing is true online though it whether you're selling things offline or online, there's always a headline, it doesn't matter if you're if you have a TV commercial, the first thing that comes out of your mouth is the headline. If you're putting out videos on YouTube, the title is the headline.

No matter where you're at any type of advertising that you have out there has some form of a headline, that first thing that hits that is going to determine whether someone pays attention or not whether somebody clicks or not. All of that matters. And it's very important to learn the power of headlines.

Now that thing I told you, I was going to give you a link. And I'm going to put this link in the description. If you're in a place that you can't see the description link, then you want to go to BrianJPombo.com and look this up.

These are the 35 proven…let me see if I've got it right here. These are the 35 proven headline things. Of course, I say another thing is it's good to be prepared. I thought I had my finger on the right page, and I did it. So this is from tested advertising methods by John Caples.

This is why I don't do any editing just to make myself look as idiotic as possible.

The 35 proven formulas for writing headlines by John Caples. It's a specific chapter in this book, chapter five. I go through each and everyone on a separate video.

Thoughts on switching things up in your work environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQJ8A1-Dovs

Transcription

Change up your surroundings.

I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

Today I'm coming to you from a place that I refer to as the cave. This is a friend's office that's down the road. Sometimes when I need to get away from the noise at home, I'll come out here. I'm not sure if I've done any dailies from here before.

But it reminds me of just a concept of changing up your environment as often as possible. You know, even if you just have a handful of different places that you'll go to change it up, move your work around a little bit. Sometimes it really helps, especially if you get caught in a rut or you feel kind of stuck in your brain.

For me, it really makes a big difference.

I also want to recommend my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

They've hard-bound copies, but they're really short. So it's a good book, you go grab it on Amazon.

And if you just want to check it out without purchasing it go to go get a free copy AmazonProofBook.com change up your environment.

Sometimes you can move your brain around quite a bit with just a quick tip for tonight. You have a good one. We'll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Brian talks about his old record from the 80's and the value of recording your work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9fYDE9FGFE

Transcription

Record everything.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

I have here, my handy dandy cassette recorder from the 80s.

Had to have been the 80s. Does this have a date on it?

Would've been late 80s I'm guessing and I would it has a little microphone right here. So I record like this and hold it out and ask people questions with it.

People who grew up around me will remember this exact model because I've had it all these darn years.

Recording everything, what am I talking about when it comes to business?

It's been a huge theme throughout my whole life and when I started recording on little cassettes, audio cassettes, I saw there's a huge value in having things recorded.

You could go in a million different directions with it. And it's just so natural that I fell into this area where I work a lot in content marketing, helping people and businesses get into the content, marketing space, and build things off of it.

It all comes from the concept of recording everything.

And deeper concept. The reason why you should be recording everything in your life. And I'm not just saying record audio, I'm saying record video, record audio, record your thoughts as words on paper, record, type it out, whatever.

Record ideas, concepts, procedures, record it all.

It's all useful to some extent, and the stuff that isn't useful, it's easy to get rid of, especially with digital, the fact that we everything's digital now.

When I was growing up, all we had was just regular photography. So when we when it came to taking pictures, we were careful about what we took pictures of because pictures weren't cheap.

I started getting a little bit cheaper with disposable cameras and so forth. But even then you felt like you had to be careful about what you took pictures of.

I remember taking a bunch of pictures with a disposable camera, that these were the cameras that you would that you literally you could if the film stayed inside, and then they broke it apart to get the film out once the whole camera was done, the whole, the rest of the camera can be thrown away. I love the concept.

Most of the time when I took pictures with disposable cameras, they never turned out.

So I always felt like that was a huge waste of money.

But that nowadays with digital, there's no end to what you can hold on to space in terms of the amount of space on a phone or a computer or, or a thumb drive. It's so inexpensive and getting less expensive all the time.

It's so easy to hold on to things, that there's no reason why you shouldn't be recording everything. In businesses, it's extremely helpful and it comes down to this concept of system.

This is one of the three tenants of BrianJPombo.com, is the concept of being system-based, you have to have a system-based business at some point.

If it's anything you're ever going to walk away from, if it's anything that you're ever going to sell, if it's anything that you're ever just going to want to take a vacation away from you have to have procedures and processes recorded.

You've got to have this down somewhere you got to show people how it's done in as many ways as possible.

Thoughts on habits and how daylight saving time can blow all that up for a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI7LYywLh4w

Transcription

Habits and daylight saving time.

I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

And yes, I did say daylight saving time all the people go nuts if you say savings, even though we all grew up saying it that way, but supposedly the correct way is daylight saving time.

Let's talk about habits and how they apply.

Habits, we talk a lot about habit-building here, especially if you're early on in your entrepreneurial journey. And you are learning how to teach yourself to do the right thing to do the things that matter in business and trying to grow your business habits really matter a whole heck of a lot and learning how to build habits.

So you don't burn yourself out just trying to plow through everything with willpower, you know, eventually that energy runs out. And you have to have other things that help make up the difference.

I was pretty lucky early on to not ever be really good at willpower, I burn out real fast if I'm just trying to force something. So I'm very protective of how much force I put into things.

I've gotten good, not gotten good. I'm in the process of getting better at building habits and realizing what works and what doesn't work, what allows me to start, but also what allows me to keep going.

And we've as I said, we've discussed this a lot on this channel, you could watch other videos about it, one of the things that I'll throw people off, though, is a change at all in schedule.

Your body gets into a rhythm with time, you know, during, if you have a certain time of the day that you take a nap, your body starts shutting down during that time, if you have a time of the day that if you have the time at night where you go to sleep, your body tends to go to sleep at that time, that there are certain rhythms and the older you get, I think I could be wrong on this.

But at least for myself, the more ingrained these rhythms get, and the more specific my body gets about doing things in a very specific rhythm. I don't know if that's the case with you, too.

I mean, leave me a comment and let me know if you're any different. But as I've gotten older, I really do have to stick to more of a schedule, or at least I have to acknowledge that there's a schedule there, that my body is trying to go one way when I'm trying to go another, nothing is more true than when we switch times, back and forth.

Those of you in Arizona and Hawaii, I know you don't do that. I don't think Hawaii does it. I know Arizona doesn't and that's fabulous.

I wish we could institute that countrywide for those of you in the United States. And I know a whole lot of the world still practices, daylight saving time where you switch up an hour or back an hour throughout the year drives me nuts, drives my body crazy.

My whole family goes bonkers because we send the kids to bed at a very specific time every night. And when that gets thrown off there and they go nuts for, you know, a couple of days, because their bodies are off. They're not used to it.

In any habits, I build up the slightest change in schedule in terms of what I things I'm used to doing, when I start really messing with that all of a sudden habits get thrown off and I forget to do something that I've built a habit of doing.

So how do you fix that?

How do you make sure that you stay in rhythm even though ...

Brian talks about an old saying he was told back in his days growing up on cattle ranches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDz-2KO9_L8

Transcription

Don't curse, bad weather.

Hi Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I've got a real quick concept for you today. Nothing new, but maybe something to help back up any good thoughts you may have over the bad thoughts you may have.

If you can say something of that sort. The one thing I've found, and it comes from coming from a family of farmers and ranchers is that no matter what the weather is outside, as the actual weather, no matter what the weather is it's good for somebody.

I remember, you know, one year the rains were just out of control crazy, just washing away a lot of people's crops and everything else. And people were saying, oh man, well, because of the weather.

I think it was the hay that year was destroyed. So the price of hay went through the roof because the supply was so low because of the bad weather. But it was bad because we saw it like that.

But there were other things that were extremely low in price here. And the hay growers were happy the ones that that had hay because they were making money, they had the highest price, it no matter who you're talking to.

And whatever the circumstance, and doesn't mean just like the weather itself it's the weather of life, no matter what happens.

Someone is profiting.

It's like people talk about a good economy or a bad economy, there's really no such thing as a good economy or a bad economy.

There are times when certain things are more expensive than other things there are times when even the dollar itself is a higher low. And somebody somewhere at all times is profiting, okay, they're not profiting at all times.

But somebody somewhere is, at any given time someone is profiting off of a circumstance that you may see as bad.

But in reality, it all depends on how you have it set up. And in some cases, a lot of people are able to profit most of the time, while at the same time that they're losing out on something else because they hedge their bets.

They make sure that they cover enough areas, enough different areas, that when one thing is low and other things high and vice versa. This happens across the board, this is life.

Business is one of those things that allows you to see life a little more clearly. Because it puts it into these black and white concepts of winning and losing and profiting and, and loot and not profit, you know, having things go bad.

So it's one of those ideas that you really got to not curse the bad weather because the bad weather leads to the good weather. And the bad weather oftentimes will create something that you didn't see happening. So here's an example, a little over 20 years ago, I was I got involved in a business that I still have running today. And it has not usually been good weather.

Most of the time, it hasn't been good weather, I have learned more in that business than all my other businesses and business ventures combined. And the reason why is I'll give you a great example, the supplier that we have dealt with, through the years has much of the time ended up being a huge issue with us.

So we started out with a supplier and within the first six years, we ended up losing that supplier and we thought that the businesses and ideas a concept was over because we were so dependent on that one supplier,

Thoughts on creating confusion with your messaging to your customers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMuce06Tg4U

Transcription

Are you confusing your customers?

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

Let's talk about customer confusion, shall we? 4

And sometimes it's not your current customers, sometimes it's customers, you don't have yet your prospective customers prospective clients. It's really easy to confuse people nowadays because people are inundated from every angle, every direction, they've got stuff coming at them.

Life is confusing.

It's not easy to know what the right thing to do is at any given time. And so people can be misled, people can be bamboozled and what have you. And it's easy to be just plain confused about the process.

It's good when you find this out, though, and you want to find out whether your customers are confused. And the one main reason is if you see a large percentage, not taking the next step in your process, where you get movement, movement, in every funnel, every marketing funnel, you start with a lot.

Then every step that you have them taking, you're going to have a huge drop-off, right just across the board, it just comes with the territory.

One of the things they always talk about when it comes to websites is every time you have them click to another page, you should expect at least half of them to drop away, if not more, right, which is why you want to limit how many times you have a person clicking to get to the next step, the more initiative that is required from your customer, the less likely they're going to make it to the end of the yellow brick road and get in and purchase something from you.

So one thing you need to do is watch every step. And how many people are making it through every step of the process?

And this, this goes for online or offline, wherever it is from the point at which someone finds out about you to the point at which they purchase and where are the drop-offs?

Where are their huge drop-offs when there shouldn't necessarily be and there are points in which you can orchestrate the drop-off?

Early on, I like to do it as early on as possible. I like to put off people who will not be good customers, or cannot afford what it is, whatever it is that I'm selling, I try to get that out of the way as early as possible.

So that the rest of the time, they're more and more likely to be the ideal customer as we go along. But that's up to you. I mean that these are all things that you have to strategize in the process.

But you have to know at which point you want people to be able to fall off to be able to exit. And at which point you want to be able to capture them so you can remarket to them, bring them back in re-explain the proposal, or offer them something that you haven't offered them before.

Because Oh, you don't like this?

Well, how about this, okay, these are things you have to keep in mind. And oftentimes, if you're reaching a situation where you where people are not responding the way you want, quite often they're confused.

They're confused about how to buy, they're confused about what it is you're selling. They're confused somewhere along the line, they don't understand what's going on. And it's much easier to move on.

Or to get distracted by something intentionally or not, if it's easy to pull them away if they're confused.

Thoughts on controversy and the Mandela Effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx2l6KJMiEo

Transcription

Controversy, the double-edged sword.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

I'm going to tell you about a very specific circumstance that I went through dealing with controversy. So when you're doing any type of content marketing, this is something that will be a temptation.

As time goes on, I'm certain, I'm sure it will for you because you'll see that there's a whole lot of advantage to controversy, to having things that are outrageous that makes you stand out.

In today's world, it's really easy to take advantage of this and you get a whole lot of views. If you're doing video you'll get a whole lot of clicks, if you're doing any type of blogging or texting you'll get a whole lot of listens, if you're doing audio, any type of audio podcast or what have you.

But here's the thing, with today's search environment and with organic clicks that come through, depending on where you're at and which format you're using. But in general, you could have a whole lot of people paying attention to you for a split second, that doesn't matter to your end game.

So you have to know who you're trying to reach and you got to find the controversies that will attract them. That's where the controversy really comes in useful.

But let me tell you about a story where it wasn't that all that useful. So this time, I believe it was nearly two years ago to the day that I put out a video. And the video had to do with the Mandela Effect.

I haven't rewatched it recently and I don't remember how I tied it back in with the business. But if you're not aware of what the Mandela Effect is, it's when you have a situation where you have a memory in your mind.

That's very crystal clear about the way a certain event happened or the idea that somebody is dead when they really aren't dead and it becomes so specific.

And not only that you talk to other people and other people have a similar effect.

So it's a common misconception that goes across the board to the point where there are people that believe, and you may be one of them, that that there's actually some type of multi-universe or something of that sort going on, or that there is some conspiracy where they have switched history on us. And some people remember it the right way and what have you.

So there are a million different ways to be able to look at the Mandela Effect.

It's a very interesting idea in terms of psychology, and in terms of reality if you will. That wasn't really what my post was about, I tied it back into business and marketing. But that didn't stop a huge portion of people coming to that post and still gets views to this day, where people will discuss will come on there. And they want to discuss my perspective of the Mandela effect.

How I'm making fun of it, or I'm mocking it, or what have you. And then you could go and look on YouTube. And you can see all my comments and everything else from that one, created a whole lot of controversy created a whole lot of views.

But it did very little from my understanding, to be able to expand my reach with the audience that I was looking for people that wanted to discuss business and marketing and so forth.

Now it may help in the overall big scheme of things. So you know, you get more views on YouTube, it gives you more reach, even just organically, it gives you the chance to be able to reach more people.

Brian talks about how stealing his kids Halloween candy and eating it makes him tired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKb9ro4s3ao

Transcription

Entrepreneurs, sleeping well?

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

You know, it's the little things that make a big difference in life, especially when you're talking about the personal journey of an entrepreneur or a business owner of the person that's making the things happen.

And I was getting ready to talk with you this evening and found myself dozing off quite a bit early. And I'm like, I'm never this tired this early, what is going on?

Thought back and looked over, looked over the past 48 hours or so. And I realized yesterday I did something that I haven't done for years, I really haven't. Okay, every once in a while, I will grab one of those tiny, tiny, smallest pieces of candy and eat it when my kids have some from Halloween or Christmas or what have you and not very often.

The reason is after I really cut back on the amount of sugar and carbs that I take in, I just don't crave it that much. But every once in a while, I'll have a piece, no big deal.

Nothing, it doesn't do anything to me anymore. At least nothing too visible.

Well, yesterday for some reason, and it was one just lack of yet easily edible food in the house. And just I don't know the string of things, I ended up gorging myself on Halloween candy, just I'll freely admit it, I just I had a way more than I've had, I mean, probably well over a year worth, because I don't need it.

I had over a few years worth in one afternoon, because at one point, I live in so much at this point, and there's no reason to stop. I'm gonna condense the misery as much as possible, the pleasure and the misery into as much a short period of time as possible.

Surprisingly enough, it did not hit me too hard. Except for today, I have been extremely tired.

It's caught up with me in that way as the dip that comes afterward, you know.

And so I sleep it made me realize, once again, sleep is a major deal.

I've gotten really, really good at handling my sleep and regulating it over the past few years. And just knowing a few things that make it overwhelming.

And that makes it make it to where I'm not sleeping enough, or I'm sleeping too much or too deep. I'll just a couple of a handful of tips that I've learned over the years. And most of the stuff you already know.

But sometimes it just takes somebody tapping you on the shoulder and reminding you at least for me it did. And it comes down to what are the things that allow me to sleep so that I don't have to worry about it the rest of the time, and there are a few things I do. One, if I'm exercising regularly, then sleep is not an issue. I don't sleep as much when I exercise. And when I do sleep, I sleep well. I get it out of the way.

It's interesting when I exercise a lot, I don't need to nap. But this is a second thing if you're not exercising. If you don't have that built-in somewhere in your weekly schedule.

You probably should nap just toss in a nap in the middle of the day somewhere.

For me, it's in the afternoon, and literally 15 to 20 minutes. That's all I need.

I've gotten really good at power naps. Now I've met people that say they can't do a power nap. But the power nap is just a quick nap that just energizes you and get you through the rest of the day.

Brian talks about an offer for a T-Shirt he got from Sequence for Kids Board Game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veMUDMTNLEo

Transcription

What's up with these things in physical products?

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Oh, this is gonna be a fun one for those of you listening to the podcast.

So we have a number of people who are watching and a number of people who are listening. And what I'm holding up here for the people who are watching is a card that says, "Sequence for Kids T-Shirt."

Now what sequence for kids is a board game. So this says the Sequence brand.

So brands of board games that have a million different versions, basically the same game over and over again, just with different versions. And this one's for kids.

It's extremely simple.

It's a board game where you have a bunch of different animals on the board, and you're trying to match up the cards that you draw. So that you can get a sequence of four in a row either diagonally one way or the other, kind of like connecting four separate pictures.

This was a game that we found in a thrift store, while we were traveling with my family. It had all of its original didn't look like it had been played with very often. And it had all its original papers and directions and everything.

One of the things you see this in physical products every once a while they will toss in a little slip of paper.

Oftentimes, you see it being a warranty of some sort, limited warranty, or especially in electronics, and so forth or send away for a specific thing, a specific item that may have something to do with the item you purchase.

So this is a board game and they have an item which is a T-shirt, with the board game printed on the back of it and the name of the company printed on the front.

The smaller little logo section says this durable white t-shirt is made of 100% cotton. The back of the shirt features all your favorite sequins for kids' friends and full color as if this is like a thing that everyone goes searching for is more items that include animals on them and so forth.

This is not that popular thing but there's a reason behind this. And this is very telling, and something that you can understand in use within your business.

You can order direct from them and they've got the address, please send me a blank number of sequence for kids t-shirts at 1995 each case, you're going to pay 20 bucks for these things, including shipping charge, check or money order only in the amount of blank is enclosed. Now this is a slightly or older game, it's about 10 years old or something, indicate quantity next to the size desired and then ship to and you print your name and address and so forth on this. So why are they really trying to get people to walk around with t-shirts with their logo on it now?

I mean, partially there may be something there but how many of these do you think they actually get and what is the real value of it?

Well, I'm not saying that everybody at the company understands this. And I think some companies copy what other companies do without really understanding why they originally did it.

One of the main reasons why warranties and all these other items. Ask for additional information.

It is not so that you can get what they're promising you. They're offering what you can get because they want your information.