Brian J. Pombo Live

Brian gives his direct mail thoughts on some local mail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuXm38DV9-w

Brian goes back to the icebreaker well for tonight's conversation.

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

Transcription

No more books, or no more movies?

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

Today it's kind of a just a goofy night. On occasion, especially when my brain is frazzled. I will go to my little cheap deck of icebreaker starter pack I've shown these to you before.

And there are these little cards and flow questions for icebreaker questions to get an interesting conversation going on with people.

So here's an interesting one that you can pass on to someone. And it this is this is odd one says, Would you rather never read another book or never watch another movie?

That's creepy to me. Because I am very much a film guy. I love movies always have. It's a really difficult question to answer.

In most years of my life, I would pick movies hands down, because there's enough movies out there that I know I'll be able to find enough good ones, it's a lot easier to rewatch a movie than it is to reread an entire book.

The problem is, is that this year, I have read some amazing books. And it just continues to go I continue to run across these just fabulous books, books that I never want to give up books that I'll pass on to my children books that have changed my perspective so much on things that I actually want to reread them, I want to go back through them again, or re listen to them again on audio in audio format.

I know there's a whole lot of books that I still want to rack there are books I own that I still want to read. So it's a tough one. It's a really tough one. If you're going to ask me right now I'd have to nit it sounds pretentious.

But I'd have to take books over movies. I would I just also being that I'm a catastrophist. And I could see a day when they knock out the electrical grid or something of that sort.

And we ended up not being able to watch any movies. And so if I didn't have books or movies, I'd be I'd be really in a bad shape. But books The best thing is, you don't need much for them. I mean, as long as you got a little bit of daylight you got you got the ability to read them.

And beyond that a little bit of candle light or campfire light you can you can read them that way too. So doesn't take as much I like books, I love movies, though.

I mean, there are we can go on and on. I could start an entire podcast just about movies, and compare them back to real life. And and take philosophy from a science fiction movie or anything else. I mean, I have a blast with that.

Next year, it might be back to movies again, I would say in general, I'm more of a movie than a book guy. They're just consumed. Mably consumable, Is that a word?

In terms of their consumeability?

I consume a lot more movies go through a lot more and be able to rewatch them a lot easier than I can read digest a book over again, but picking books for today.

How about you?

I'd love to hear what you think, one way or the other?

Is there something I haven't thought of as far as the way when it comes from between books and movies?

Which one you like the best?

The thing I like I like reviewing movies and books here. And if you're watching or listening to this for the first time, go back and check out some of the book reviews and movie reviews.

I like taking an odd movie,

Thoughts on trends and human behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QxFwO5vM4M

Transcription

Old will always become new.

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

Today I wanted to talk about this concept that I've seen most often in dealing with business. Because I'm a Business investor, I deal with a lot of different types of businesses, I study a lot more than even the ones I deal with and you see patterns.

And these are patterns of human nature.

We get certain concepts of something that's new, that's fresh, that's different, that's odd, that's weird. And it never stays the same.

That odd weird thing, you start seeing more and more and more until it becomes normal.

Then the thing that was normal then becomes odd and weird. Everything old becomes new, and everything new becomes old. And it just this constant cycle.

This is true, very, very much in business. And anyone that's been involved with Ionic Yes, I would say 5 to 10 years doing any type of marketing for business. You'll see this trend over and over and seems to even be speeding up I think with technology.

It's allowed a lot of these societal issues that have always existed to be able to speed up. But this this comic strip, this is from the rubes comic strip. Lee Rubin

Rubin. I think you can find it at rubes cartoons.com I believe that's right.

He was I don't own this comic strip or have rights to it. I saw it in social media, so I figured I'd show it to you.

So for those of you listening, it says the amazing untattooed ban, and this guy posing with his skin with zero tattoos on them.

It posing in a way that was very similar to the sideshow circus act because at one time, a person that had an enormous amount of tattoos was odd was weird, was different, was avant garde.

It was it was a freak, a sideshow freak would only do that.

Through the years and really honestly, within the past 15 years, I would say, tattoos have become more and more popular to wear a person that is fully tattooed.

Just about nearly all their body covered in tattoos is commonplace nowadays.

And it's less common to see someone with zero tattoos.

Now, that's not making a judgment call one way or the other about tattoos. The point is, is something that was odd and really nonconformist has become the conformist and the nonconformist is a person that doesn't get a tattoo.

You see these things, and this always happens, this happens in everything. This happens up in your talking media's of marketing.

So at one time, there, you had piles of junk mail, in your mailbox, I'd say 20 years ago, I pull out some pile out of my mailbox on a daily basis, a huge pile of stuff.

So much so that you it was, it wasn't that effective, there was ways to be effective. But it was tougher back then, because there was so much competition.

Obviously, some of it must have been effective. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been spending money on it. But it just seemed like such a waste, such a waste and paper and everything else.

Most people were sick of junk mail and I was when I was younger. And nowadays, you don't get that much unless you have a whole lot of subscriptions unless you're you donated somewhere or have have are used to receiving a whole lot of mail, you probably don't receive that much.

Thoughts on Direct Response Marketing expert Brian Kurtz book, Overdeliver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwyTSf6hxDo

Transcription

Overdeliver, by Brian Kurtz - book review.

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

This book I just finished, I've had it for a while. It's one of those I knew needed to be read.

Every once in a while, I get these ideas of books that need to be read. I know who Brian Kurtz is, I've been following his career a long time.

When he came out with this book, I was one of the first people that ran out and got it.

It really was one that I wanted to read. The problem is, is I have most of the books I own, or books that I want to read.

Although a lot of these I've read, and a whole lot of these I haven't read yet, or haven't read all the way through some oftentimes books is a really good book, sometimes I won't read cover to cover.

But I use more of the textbook, or I'll go to it, it's so rich, that I'll go back to it from time to time and look in a random spot, or look up something very specific that I'm looking for.

I consider those great books and good books to own.

This is one of those that really should be read front back. But at the same time has very much a textbook appeal to me, especially if you're interested in it.

Let me put it this way, if you own a business, and you plan to own businesses for the rest of your life, and you're passionate about getting a message out there, this is a book you need to read the philosophy alone is worth reading it.

But for all the specifics he goes through with the ideas of direct response and direct response culture are so important. The subtitle here is to build a business for a lifetime playing the long game in direct response marketing.

If you're unfamiliar with direct response marketing, this may not be the first book you read, but it's one gonna be one of them that you want to read. So buy it and start reading it.

If it's confusing at all to you, you might want to start with something else.

We've discussed some of those, he also has an amazing list of titles. Also in this book for other reading. It's one of those textbook elements he covers so many other areas and places for you to go to.

This should definitely be in the beginning times of your studying. This is one of those that isn't a classic book, even though it's not that old, it's only a few years old. Brian Kurtz he worked at Boardroom Inc. and worked with Marty Edelston for years and was their list guy.

He is one of the smartest people you will ever find on the concept of running and grow starting running growing a list a customer list a client list, an ongoing list that you go back to over and over again.

How you go about nurturing that list and taking care of that list and taking it and taking care of it so that it takes care of you in the long run.

He goes through so many concepts of that and what the reality is really behind it.

The humanity behind it having a base of customers that you treat like family, so many important ideas in this book, especially if you got to get all the way to the end.

Some of the final chapters, I found just really captivating.

I'm not going to go into too many specifics, because I'm going to pull out some of this stuff from time to time and have a special episode just on some of the concepts,

Elon continues to get press for trolling other big companies.

Link to Article - https://www.thestreet.com/.amp/technology/elon-musk-cant-wait-to-see-disney-lose-an-iconic-character

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTjlXITS4RI

Transcription

Elon Musk versus Mickey Mouse.

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

Today we're discussing this article that came out, I've got a link to it in the description, you can go check it out, has to do with Elon Musk making some comments on Twitter and elsewhere over time, but more recently about Mickey Mouse and about Disney losing their rights to Mickey Mouse.

So what's the story all about?

So a little bit of background. When it comes to certain intellectual property, there are these rules that have been set in place, many of them very, very old, intellectual property going all the way back to the founding of the country, and the Constitution itself.

And for many, many years, it was considered that 56 was the number of years that something could stay under the format of intellectual property, this particular type of copyright that Mickey Mouse has set under, over the years that's been extended.

There have been special laws passed to be able to extend that especially in terms of that now, not specifically to Mickey but definitely lobbied by the Disney Corporation for Mickey all the way up to what it currently is, is 95 years.

And they no doubt are trying to get it extended even further, in some way to be able to keep their not just mascot not just character, but their company symbol.

Logo really, that their logo was something different.

But if you're talking about Mickey Mouse as a character, and them having full control over that character, then they're going to do everything they can to hold on to that. But if that doesn't happen in because Mickey Mouse was born in 1928.

In 2024, he will be of age to be let out in the public domain, meaning anyone can use Mickey anything at any time without any fear of lawsuit.

Elon Musk was opining the fact that this is just fine, that the laws had been extended way beyond what they were meant to be.

So forth when it comes to intellectual property.

I tend to agree with him in general, I don't think it's hurting anybody that certain intellectual property is held this long, but at the same sense, it's not necessary.

It certainly isn't necessary, Walt's been dead since 1966, I believe, or 65. And it's been a long time.

It's necessary for everybody to keep profiting off of everything that he's done. They, they've come up with new stuff, and they'll continue to come up with new stuff, this isn't gonna slow them down much.

In fact, it might actually, here's the funny thing about this.

Everyone wants to hold on to these type of rights and it's very important early on, when you're trying to promote a character or an idea that you have those rights of property rights of intellectual property are very important to a burgeoning a young burgeoning business.

But when you get to the point to where you're already successful, it's really in my mind more profitable for you to let people own what you have to put it out there and let them do whatever they will with it.

Because it only promote you more,

Discussing from a quote by Eric Hoffer.

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

Transcription

Imitation is rampant.

Hi, I'm Brian Pombo.

Welcome back to Brian J Pombo. Live.

Today I want to show you this quote, by Eric Hoffer.

If you're not familiar with Eric offers work, I mean, this guy's been gone for quite a while but he has had some amazing pieces of work out there where he discusses human nature. It as a whole in terms of especially people in crowd how they affect one another.

Here's the quote, he says, When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

So what's this have to do with business?

Well, for one thing, you have to recognize the truth of this quote,

All right, it's just the plain fact of the matter. But if you take it in, and you look at you look at business, how it works for one thing, well. I'll get into that in a second, look at look at businesses, I can tell you an experience that I have going into the doctor's office, and you will find it very similar.

Even if you live on the complete opposite end of the country and in some cases, you can live in a completely different country and have the same experience.

So let me tell you the experience, the experience is, I need an appointment, to see a doctor, guaranteed, I need an appointment to see a doctor.

That's not unusual for most people, I have to call in, I have to schedule an appointment, I'm not talking to the doctor directly, I'm talking to an assistant, the assistant is the one that does the scheduling, it's usually pretty far out into the future, I can't get it at the same day.

When it does happen, I show up early, I'm expected to show up early, I go to the front, I go to a waiting room and then go up to the front desk.

Oftentimes it's it's through an area where they're cut off from everybody else, and they have to open a little window, they oftentimes will hand you something to fill out.

Or they'll run you through the system and make sure that it all works out, they'll let you know whether the doctor is actually on time or not. And then you are you're expected to wait.

Now just that one process is almost typical across the board, no matter where it is that you're seeing a doctor and then you could say, well, that's because of regulations and everything else will take take something that's that's highly unregulated, like a car mechanic.

Why do all car mechanics work?

Almost, I mean, almost all of them work identically the same, you have the same situation, no matter where you go.

Now, sometimes you obviously have higher quality or lower quality, you will pay higher price or lower price.

But in general, if I went through the same scenario of what I go through with a car mechanic, you'd see something very similar.

Why is that?

Because when people get into a certain industry, it's just natural for them to imitate everyone else in that industry.

It's easier to do that than try to come up with something new, especially if you've never been in business before. If you're coming straight out of college or you have no or or you learned as a as a situation as a car mechanic.

Oftentimes you'd learn working in another garage and another mechanic shop. And you do what you were taught because it worked for them.

What is an expert, really?

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

Transcription

Expert or aggregator? My dark secret.

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

It's been an ongoing debate that I hear coming up over and over again, especially from people who are professionals out there that have made a living in a particular area.

And then they go on to, you know, teach about that particular area, and carry themselves as experts as they should.

They have background in it, they have success in it, and then they go about teaching it.

This has always held up very highly and more higher above somebody that does not necessarily have the same experience.

This is a really common thing that goes back and forth and I can never quite pin down because I could always tell you that me personaly. There's a whole lot that I talk about that I do not necessarily have direct experience with.

But the real thing that's a problem is when people pretend to be something they're not, when they pretend to have a whole lot of success and a whole lot of things going for them that they don't or tend to have experiences that they've never had.

That's a real problem.

That's fraud on a certain level. You've got to be really, really careful those types of people, especially those that really prop themselves up, right?

Expertise, the nature of expertise is an interesting thing. Because what is an expert, who defines an expert, who qualifies an expert, doesn't mean you have to have a degree doesn't mean you have to have a specific experience, How much experience do you need to have?

And all those things are extremely subjective.

These ideas, they're very subjective.

So but it's always been something that's kind of I've pondered about and never been able to quite pin down. But I'm going to give you two historical figures here from I would say the success slash self help industry, if you will.

These two examples are two people that are relatively well known by people who know their history, or are somewhat well read when it comes to success.

The first one would be Napoleon Hill, and the second one would be Earl Nightingale.

These two guys had, well, let's talk about Napoleon Hill. First. He went and wrote, thinking grow rich and a whole lot of other books. But that was his, his magnum opus, that was the one that got him.

Absolutely famous.

To this day continues to sell millions and millions of copies of this book. And it's one of those things.

We'll get back to that in a second, but let's talk about Earl Nightingale.

Earl Nightingale has a whole lot of material out there starting an entire company that not just promotes his material, but other people's material. Nightingale Conant.

He actually passed away in 1989. His company lives on his name lives on the legends of these people live on.

What were these people actually experts in?

This is this is kind of interesting, because I've heard recordings from other people that discuss this in and I just recently heard an older recording from Dan Kennedy, the martyr who's absolutely marketing expert has great background in this.

There was a time when he wasn't, but held himself as an expert. But that's another story.

He amazing,

Part 9 of a series on Robert Bly's book, The Content Marketing Handbook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maz0rQg7Bks

Transcription

Number Nine function of content marketing.

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

We are covering this is the final step of the nine functions of content marketing, as outlined by Bob Bly in the Content Marketing Handbook.

Great book, check it out.

This isn't the first chapter, I'm not given a whole lot of way about this book, but I'm hoping to interest you. I don't get any kickback for this, I just hope you hope you go check this out, especially if you're studying content marketing, this is a great way to be able to dig into it.

As I was kind of putting together some materials for my upcoming course training, what have you all about whether you should do content marketing or not?

I came across a couple of great sections from this book. And this was one of them, is the nine functions of content marketing, what's number nine. Now he doesn't have these in any particular order, from what I can tell.

But nine is a very simple one.

It's one that just about everybody's after, to one extent or another, you're going to see a lot more people who grow on an international basis, are going to be more concerned with number nine.

But really, even if you have a local based business, or nonprofit or anything of that sort, number nine is going to make a big difference to you. And number nine, is it drives web traffic.

So we're talking about what content marketing does for you, it drives web traffic. Pretty simple. Let me read you a little the little snippet he has in here about this. He said search engine discovery, which we talked about, talked about in the last episode, combined with social posts that point to your site can increase your web traffic considerably.

According to HubSpot, if you got 51 to 100 pages on your website, consider each blog post to be a unique page, you'll generate 48% more traffic than if you had under 50.

Increased traffic means increased engagement means increased revenue, see, content marketing can increase your traffic.

If you are doing anything on your website whatsoever, to sell anything, or drive anyone to make any type of purchase whatsoever.

Increased traffic can only make that better, right?

As long as you have something that support that people actually want. Right.

So that's where content marketing plays into this. It's another piece.

It's another function of what content marketing does.

I don't think these nine are the only functions and a lot of them can be broken down into into more specific functions.

But these are some of the main things that most people are already after most people already want more traffic to their website. Most people already want to be established as an expert, or they want to get new customers.

So we went through all those nine, be sure and go back and watch or listen and listen to the other episodes. When we discussed this. We did nine all in a row. You can go check them out at BrianJPombo.com. Great stuff.

Robert Bly really knows what he's talking about.

This is this guy's a copywriter, marketing expert.

It's been around a long time been in the business a long time. You check out any of his books,

Part 8 of a series on Robert Bly's book, The Content Marketing Handbook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpwmsO1UkM

Transcription

Number Eight function of content marketing.

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

What is the number eight function of content marketing?

Is it SEO?

Well, let's go back to the book Content Marketing Handbook by Bob Bly.

It's great stuff.

It's got a lot of good important ideas in here. And he in it, he has the nine, the nine functions of content marketing, which we've been reviewing here on the show, if this is your first time, go back and see the first seven.

Stay tuned for the last final one tomorrow. But number eight is improved search engine ranking and discovery. Okay, so how do you go about doing that? Well, that's what SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

If you're not familiar with it, I'll give you a little, a quick little story. So when I first started doing a lot of online marketing, I was actually working for a company.

I fell upon some secrets of search engine optimization and this was during the days when it was extremely easy to get ranking in Google, even.

But I remember even at that time, they said, well, it was a lot easier in Yahoo days. Nowadays, it's tougher, but there were always ways to go about doing it.

All you had to do was know what the ways were. You can get better and better, and I fell upon it accidentally myself.

Then I started hearing a lot of internet marketing gurus and so forth, talking about these things, and discussing what all of the mean, and why Google treats certain things the way it does.

That's how I was introduced to a lot of marketing concepts was through this position, I went and started my own firm, it started out not as a business investment firm, it actually started out as an SEO firm, I was doing search engine optimization for the first handful of years.

It was all actually open to the point of when Google started, really cracking down on organic search and trying to encourage more and more people to do paid search, you know, pay per click, and so forth.

All Up until that time, I was SEO all the way, it was the only thing I knew it was the only thing i i really promoted hard.

I understand the concept behind it to this day, organic search, or, which is basically anything you show up in Google, or any other thing you would consider it a search engine, some people consider amazon.com and search engine or YouTube, a search engine, anything you show up in via a search function that can be improved by how you title something, or how you code something.

That's all considered search engine optimization.

So with that in mind, what he's saying here, improved search engine ranking and discovery, just by putting out content on a regular basis, you will be improving search engine ranking, ranking, and therefore, your discovery, you're going to be found a lot more often. And he goes through some details.

As far as that goes, I'm going to tell you another story.

As I was moving along with my business early on, the name of my business was branded Web Solutions.

That was the main push I wanted a very autonomous group that was separate from me, where I can hire on other people, maybe eventually even sell the business.

As I was going along,

Part 7 of a series on Robert Bly's book, The Content Marketing Handbook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T5jWXXxiuY

Transcription

Number Seven function of content marketing.

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

We're reading a little section out of the Content Marketing Handbook by Bob Bly. And this is number seven is a really good one.

This is because it's the first one people think of. And I just really liked the way that he puts this particular section. So number seven is drive sales.

That's really what it's all about, most of us would not be doing content marketing, if there wasn't a sale at some point. But that he, he breaks this down a little bit. I like how he says it.

I'm gonna read this to you real quick. He says content can be strategically disseminated at various steps in the buying cycle, helping to accelerate each step and ultimately increasing sales.

I want to stop for a second and say, he says at each step, so we're not just talking at the very beginning, we're not just talking partway through, we're not just talking right?

Before they make this up, we're talking to all of it.

And not only that he doesn't go into it right here but content marketing never ends.

So if someone's already bought from you, it will help them to buy from you again.

Or help them to be to continue purchasing and continue being part of a subscription or a membership. Because it seems, hence the trust factor, which is necessary if you're going to have repeat business, if you're going to have that relationship versus just a transaction, then you've got to have some form of content marketing that's taking place throughout.

It has to keep going, it has to be part of the process and obviously, there's different people to do it in different ways.

We'll get more into that later but let me continue reading.

He says the sales funnel takes most buyers through four stages, getting their attention, gaining their interest, creating desire for the product, and asking for the order.

What's that's the famous, the famous Ada, AI, da. acronym, which gets used a lot. You know, it's from Glengarry Glen Ross, and all these other things, it's famous throughout time, especially within the world of sales, you know, the attention, interest, desire, action are asking.

That's what he's talking about there.

So it helps propel person through that process. Each stage can use both selling copy, and education content.

Really, it's selling education is just as you could just as easily say it.

When you're talking content marketing, or education, selling is what really is education, selling is content marketing, this is a great way of discussing it.

A great way of looking at this thing that shouldn't be simple. This idea of driving sales, we think of it in very, very straightforward, transactional, I have something you want, give me money for it, and it's done. But people don't really work like that.

There's all these back and forth, there's, I don't know, maybe I will, maybe I won't.

Much of that comes back to a trust factor, a proof factor, you're gonna need a lot less proof if there's trust involved, especially if it's a personal situation, or a trust in brand, or brand identity.

And so it's just there's a whole lot that content marketing helps move the ball psycho...