If you read this before watching, spoiler, Brian's talking about Every Door Direct Mail!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCKS9uRV4Us

Transcription

EDDM, what is it and how do you do it?

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

EDDM stands for Every Door Direct Mail. And this is a sample of it, I'm going to talk about it what is Every Door Direct Mail.

Well, if you're not aware, the post office has had this program for a number of years now, where you can declare a certain area, and it's a postal route.

Within a zip code, there are specific routes you can declare a certain area and you can say I want every door in this area to get a copy of my direct mail.

Yeah, this could be an envelope, this could be a piece of paper like this, this can be a postcard, there's a number of different, you know, ways of doing it, but you're paying for a bulk amount to be sent out.

The idea is that it actually reaches all of those areas.

Now, depending on the personnel in your area, this may work, it may not work, and you've got to really keep an eye on it to make sure that it actually reaches its destination because it's junk mail.

Because the post office knows it's junk mail, some postal employees have been known to skip it, and to dump it off in a dumpster or hide it somewhere, just so they have less work to do.

I'm not saying all post office, all people work for the post office do this or anything of the sort I'm saying it has been known to happen and anybody that's done any amount of work with direct mail knows that flub ups can occur.

Now, with that in mind, though, Every Door Direct Mail may be really useful for you because you can cover a really big area. If you have a message that you want most people to see that it's a great way of doing it.

This is a piece and you can always tell whether something's direct Every Door Direct Mail, by this right up here, I don't know if you can see that. That is showing it actually says EDDM retail us postage paid.

So where a stamp should be, it's going to have this little insignia. And here it says it will not have an actual name it will say a something like local postal customer.

So that's the name this showed up in my mail and said his person probably covered a very wide area be curious, I'd love to know because I'm going to show you all the details of this piece. I'd love to know if you know this person, have them get in contact with me I'd love to find out how well this did for them. I want to know if they got their money back and more.

I want to know if they covered the enter you know county or whether they they covered very specific areas and be very interesting to to know and be able to help other people out. This is what it looks like. Very simple page.

So what was on this side is just what I showed you this is nothing but a piece of paper neon, horrible color.

These horrible colors standout and they get attention that's part of direct mail, you got to get attention.

So even though it technically this is this can get attention as long as I mean, I doubt you get into many of these in the mail every day and on it is a very simple message.

It says Bill's tree service with his phone number. I hope you don't mind me showing his phone number.

If you're in the Southern Oregon area, Josephine County, I imagined bill might be able to help you with your tree.

Brian's 3rd and final pillar, being Reality Grounded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj3IyR8kB1w

Transcription

Are you reality grounded?

I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live. Reality's a funny thing, if you don't pay attention to it, it'll come up and bite you eventually. One way or the other, there does seem to be a reality, there does seem to be things, a system of laws or what have you.

There's a nature that exists beyond us, and beyond what's going up in our heads, you know, going on in our minds and our imagination. And that's reality.

Reality is what it is, it's a mathematical thing. It's beyond human mathematics but mathematics and more mathematical science, directly relates to it.

It's meant to try to explain to us the depth that the depotness?…I can't think of the word, but to talk about how specific reality really is.

That's math and science, get us closer to understanding that. But reality is something that it's undeniable.

If you work enough in business, you realize that it's not about you. And it's not about really what you want in the long run, what really matters, in the long run is what is going on.

Then the way you'd like to have it and seeing what you could do to take it from where it is, to where you want it to be.

Where you want it to be, isn't reality where you want it to be, as is where you think it should and will go. There's an expectation factor in there but you have to know where you're at first, you have to be honest about reality, what is happening in the now not what happened forever, up until now, not even the immediate past.

But what is happening right now?

There's one major thing you got to watch on this and that's not being emotional, not being caught up in your emotions.

Now we're all emotional to some extent, we've got emotions, but being separate enough from your emotions to be able to see as close as possible, the black and white now changes everything.

That allows you to see where you can go next.

If you can't be honest, if you can't see clearly what is happening right now, what your circumstances truly are, you won't be able to go forward because there's a there's a recording playing of the past and your mind.

I'll give you a great example. I was having a conversation with my friend, and he knows who he is. He's actually he's living on the other side of the world. And we had a we had a really good conversation today.

We've been talking for a few weeks now and we had a really good conversation about where he's at and was very clear that he was stuck. And that solutions were completely beyond him.

It's because he was not in reality. He was in this alternate reality that we've all been in.

At some point, you may be in it right now, in this alternate reality in your mind that says, it's not going to work.

Nothing can happen, right?

I'm being punished, I'm this the all these, this garbage is not the words even it's the feeling that comes behind it. And we get stuck in this realm of nonsense. And it is nonsense. It's not reality.

But to be able to sit back and be able to watch that see that is not reality. See that the emotions that fuel it are not reality. If you as you can do that. You slowly start to get a feel for what reality is you slowly start to get a feel for what may be possible.

Even ihave a lofty goal,

Brian talks about his second of three pillars at BrianJPombo.com called, System Based.

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

Transcription

Are systems necessary in business?

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

Kind of a silly question if you've been involved in business at any point, especially managing running a business, starting a business owning a business. There's such importance to systems but I think one of my favorite new ways of describing it.

I found in this book and this isn't a book review, but I wanted to mention this one part. If I haven't before, there's one part in this book, the four disciplines to the excellence of execution by these three gentlemen here.

For one thing, very good book. And we'll get into that another time but I wanted to discuss this section, this is, this is gonna be probably the first chapter when they're discussing the whirlwind. And they talk about this throughout the book, but I love the term, the whirlwind. It's all one-word whirlwind.

Just listen to this part here, it's the real enemy of execution is your day job. We call it the whirlwind, it's the massive amount of energy that's necessary just to keep your operation going on a day-to-day basis.

Ironically, it's also the thing that makes it so hard to execute anything new, the whirlwind robs you the focus required to move your team forward.

So that and they go on to explain that it's a necessity, it's a thing that has to happen.

There are parts and old businesses that are ongoing and those ongoing pieces of any form of business, in the end, you will have different sectors throughout your entire business, no matter how large or small your business, there are sectors that have to have system attached to them.

They work rather mechanically, now, for your business to really grow and be a real living thing, they have to move beyond just the Cyst Symptoms, systems. But you need the systems, you need the systems to allow the room to be able to expand and move on and imagine and grow into new things.

Oftentimes business owners and anybody that's managing a business will put too much pressure on employees, and the other people involved in the business, to not only do what they're currently doing, but also to do more of things that they are new, and to constantly be adding new things without having enough structure. To make the old things predictable.

There are certain parts that have to keep moving no matter what in all businesses, as long as you're bringing in money, there are pieces that have to keep moving, and obviously the most that you could pull humans out of that equation.

So whether you have actual physical mechanics, or software, virtual mechanics, that, that help run things, the machines behind things, the more you could have them take on the whirlwind, take and systemize them a computer program is a system if you think about it, it's it has a has a very predictable mathematical way of functioning. And it either produces what you want on the other end, or it doesn't.

If it doesn't, you got to get in there and tweak it to make it do what it's supposed to do. It's a way of thinking of anything, but it's a machine. And there's nothing wrong with having certain people fill in the parts of that machine where necessary.

But in the long run, you want to do your best to remove people out of the mechanics of business and allow them to be human and grow a little bit further beyond that, when when it's necessary. And when they have the right.

Thoughts on the value of relationships and networking after Brian just recorded an upcoming podcast with Grants Pass local, Cat Bonney.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnsDAF91otA

Transcription

How important is relationships?

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

Today, I wanted to discuss the concept of relationships in business specifically. So it's all about being relationship reliant for me.

In fact, there are three pillars at BrianJPombo.com.

The first one I like talking about the most, right off the bat, at least, is being relationship reliant.

This is something that came later in life for me, even though I was surrounded by it, and the evidence was everywhere. It didn't occur to me that the relationships you have the strength of the relationships, but even the loose ties that you have out there in life, or that one of the most important things possible.

That all business is based off of people, you know, like and trust, it's based off of some form of relationship.

Now, sometimes you don't necessarily have a relationship with the person, most of the products and services you use, that you spend money on, you don't know the person behind it. But you have a relationship with that brand.

There is something there, someone has created something, put it forth, and you've taken it and exchanged it for money.

There's a relationship there even at the most crass you know, just financial interaction, you know, even just that there's still a relationship, and it goes on from there. The strongest relationship you have with someone the people that you paid the most amount of money on the most regular basis.

That's some of the most powerful stuff and it can tell you something about even the things that you pay a small amount for. It all has to do with the same thing. It all comes back to some form of relationship.

I was reminded of this today because I had a really good podcast interview.

So I have a podcast that's local. It's called Grants Pass VIP. And what it does is it covers basically stories of movers and shakers in Josephine County, Oregon. And Grants Pass is the largest town here.

It's named Grants Pass VIP, because that's where most of the people will relate to it. Up this past year, about Yeah, about a year about this past year, I've been working very closely with the Chamber of Commerce.

Even though a good portion of that year, we weren't even meeting in person. But meeting over over video chat. So I got to meet somebody that we had known each other kind of at a distance or name's Cat Bonney.

Cat, she's just a million different things in town. And she's one of these people that I finally got to sit down and have an interview with for my podcast, this will be coming up. Not available yet if you're watching this right away, but you'll see it soon over at GrantsPassVIP.com.

Cat is a very interesting person, her entire life has been built on the idea of getting out there and making a difference and encouraging other people to do the same thing. And having her hands and a whole lot of different items.

But all around this concept of really making a difference for people and in doing things that that stirs her soul, not just a way to pay the bills, you know, obviously, there's always that end of it, but you have to have things that really make a difference for you.

Even the short period of time we hung out today at the coffee shop,

Thoughts on the value of having the right plan of action before you fill in the rest of your team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w-zDFjYqLk

Transcription

Hire the planner first.

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

You know, I was having a conversation with some folks couple of days ago, they're looking at basically developing a new, a new section, kind of a new marketing and to their business.

It was a very interesting conversation because we were discussing how one would go about doing that. And the one thing about how I go about doing it, but it's because I have the instincts of a planner.

I plan things out pretty easily and can organize things and I can also move with things if they don't turn out exactly right, you know, and so forth. So, it was interesting to me to talk about that because as we were discussing, I realized that most people when they're putting together a team of people, they don't necessarily take that into mind.

Because there are so many different pieces that you need to attain, one of the main pieces you need is an organizer. The funny thing is, is a planner, a strategic kind of visionary mind, is not oftentimes the same person as the organizer, the organizer, the follow-through person.

The person who can keep everything going all these different plates spinning, you know that I always use that term plate spinning, I realize a lot of people don't realize what I'm talking about.

on The Ed Sullivan Show, and this comes from the old vaudeville days where they would, they have the plates on the end of a long stick, and it's balancing on there and they spin the plates and the plates are spinning on the end of.

The only thing that keeps them going from falling off is the fact that they're spinning, so they get one going, and they come over here and they get some more going, then they have to go back and get that one moving, get this one moving, then they'll start the third one.

And pretty soon they have a whole bunch of up but they're having to constantly, it's a juggling act, in a sense, you're having to go in circles to keep the momentum running. And so I talked about a lot of people use the phrase spinning plates.

And that's what ends up happening is certain personalities can handle the spinning of plates, they can handle watching tin, watching over 10 Different people with 10, completely different functions, and realize how each of those all work together. It's not my thing, I'm not very good at that. I know what needs to happen.

And I have an idea in general what each person needs to do. But knowing where each person is at each point, and keep it on top of them to make sure they're in with the schedule. That's never been my thing, I have a difficult time keeping my own brain on track, as opposed to trying to keep that many people.

But one thing I'm good at, like I mentioned is the planning stage of things. And so seeing what they were looking at doing, I said, you need someone that knows what the end game is has kind of a big picture.

And what I'd recommend is hiring that person first. And then having them hire or, or be involved in the hiring of the organized mind the person that is going to be in a sense, the project manager as as one person put it.

So we had a great conversation, it was a great introduction, it was one of those things that something to keep in mind when you are building a project out, make sure you have that visionary person first, if you've already got that person on staff who already h...

When enough is enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2XvXXclp9k

Transcription

Oops, I peaked.

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

Yesterday, I had a really good day. And this morning, had some coffee, had a really good day going.

I started organizing everything, which is unusual for me. Started kind of redesigning a lot of what makes up BrianJPombo.com. And started really organizing my entire life and got some really big breakthroughs.

Had a really good conversation with my wife, we just kind of lined up the next six to 12 months. And then somewhere in that I hit a wall. Everything went downhill, just brain-wise.

It's like I peaked at one point.

And I was just like, okay, got it all and there was just nothing left.

So I don't have anything, anything positive to tell you, or anything new to bring to the table today. But sometimes that happens in the world of content marketing you so you just have to roll with it. So hopefully, you allow me to apologize.

And also, don't forget to check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business going on its second year right now and having a lot of fun. While it's pretty close to it's at one now. We're ending its second year pretty soon here in the next handful of months.

So, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com. And we'll be coming out with a new book soon.

After that After its second birthday, I've got a new book coming out. So be ready for that. That's all I have for tonight. You have a good one. We'll be back tomorrow. So come on back. Let's have a good discussion.

If you have any comments, or questions about anything that you've seen or heard here on the show, I'd love to hear more and you're welcome to see all the back episodes watch, and listen over at BrianJPombo.com.

We'll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Earning your way instead of it being handed to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSx62RBUTMQ

Transcription

The power of earning.

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

I have this little card set of icebreakers, which I did a episode on earlier this week. And it on it has little questions that you could ask other people, but I like to use it.

I'm going to start using it once in a while to bring up ideas to be able to talk with you about this was one of them.

The question was, what was the first thing you remember buying with your own money?

And that's an Okay, question. But I think what a better question that I'd like to answer is, what is the first thing I remember buying with the money I earned, because that was more important than anything else, all the other money, you know, you get money for your birthday, or for Christmas and stuff, and it builds up you find change under the couch and different things as a kid.

But it wasn't until I started earning money, that it really mattered to me. And then it meant something to me. And it was truly mine. Right?

It wasn't just handed off. And there's, there's magic there. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you that story. The story was my dad got me mowing lawns.

That was actually mowing, mostly, I think, for the most part just by grandmother's lawn who didn't live far away from us. And, and he actually did, did a lot, a lot of the work also, but I mowed the lawn and we were doing it in California when that's when it was hot and back then you can actually like water, your grass and so forth.

So it needed it often, we were there every weekend to mow the lawn during the height of the summer. And in doing that I earn money and earn money I just slowly built up and built up and built up. And then you saw eventually you got to the point to where you can buy something.

But from the very beginning, he had me pick what I was planning to buy and it was a bike. I wanted a new bike. So I had had one bike, since I just I had started riding a bike. That was a gift. And that was great. But I wanted a more advanced bike, something that I could use and ride around with friends and so forth.

And that's what it took, what it took was I knew about how much it was going to be we went looked at bike so we knew how about how much it was going to cost.

And so calculated it, I knew that, you know, in a very short period of time, I could save enough money to get that bike.

That was the first big purchase I had that made the biggest difference to me just right off the bat. But it's just because I earned it. It was because I put in the time, it's because I sweat a little bit and get out there and got it done.

So what's this have to do with business at all, you have to remember that if you're especially if you're a business owner, and if you're earning your money, if you're doing a lot of work, and you're you've worked your way up, that as you're trying to help people try not to make it a gift, try to give them a chance to earn it means more to everyone if they earn their money. It doesn't have to be anything outrageous.

My friend, Tyler Libby, he paid his for them to earn their way through college.

He he paid them to read certain books and give a report back to him on them the books that he had already read and they knew they will be good for his his children to read. So he had them read them. And it was still an earning as a different type of earning.

Brian talks about systems and looking for creativity from a Jordan Peterson talk he saw on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-NLoc6A9g0

Transcription

corporate systems, and creativity.

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

I'm going to do something a little bit different today, I'm actually going to play a video that was on Instagram.

And it's a clip out of one of Jordan Peterson's talks.

I'm not sure if you've heard of Jordan Peterson or not, you've probably seen him around, relatively controversial person. Says a lot of wild things, whether you agree or disagree with them.

This is one of those that I wanted to toss out there and kind of discuss because it has a lot to do with what we talk about when we're talking about business.

Take a watch at this real quick.

Do employers look for creative people?

No, not generally, there's increasing demand in corporations for creative people. But the problem with being creative is that you're useless at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy.

You're not there to think outside the box, you're there to learn what you're supposed to do and implement it and creative people.

That isn't what they do. What happens though, to companies is that because they filter all the creative people out at the bottom, and then people start to rise up to the top, you really need creative people at the top, because they are the entrepreneurial types.

And they're the ones for example, in law firms, the more entrepreneurial ones are the ones that bring in all the business, but it's also very difficult to nurse them within any system.

Because systems do not nurture creativity, the artist is always the person who stands outside the structure or maybe builds his or her own structure, which is also why it's hard to evaluate creative people, you can't if they're operating within the confines of a system that has an evaluative structure, they're not creative.

So that's it. Do corporate that's really the question is, does the typical corporate structure with the top down issue that businesses eventually if they're growing, they eventually become somewhat of that structure?

Does it stifle creativity does it automatically tend to destroy itself by having a lack of creativity because it can't have it within the system that it ends up building?

I think that's true. I think it's prettytough to disagree, if you've worked in any type of large corporate business, if they are not relatively broken up into subsections. And have, in a sense, smaller companies within a company, if they don't work that way, then what you end up having is creativity being stifled.

You have a you have a certain amount of creativity at the top at least early on. And then over time, because they get very good at doing a certain thing. It gets to be kind of a rote process, to where people don't necessarily believe it, they do it because that's what they were taught. And they were taught what they were taught, and so on and so on. It goes on.

And then as people rise up to the company, like, like Jordan Peterson said, you end up with a lack of creative personalities, you you take away a whole lot of that spark that created the company to begin with.

Because entrepreneurse to have that that creativity, but they also need system in order to allow for growth. So it's a it's a balancing act. It's a dichotomy.

Brian shares an experience he had at Les Schwab.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5LzZFXvEiI

Transcription

Do you make it easy to start?

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

We meet here on a nightly basis. And we discuss different items that have to do with running a business, owning a business and really taking things to the next level. You know, whether that be whether you're planning to sell your business, whether you're buying to keep your business, whether you're planning to revolutionize your business and take it to the next level. That's what we go through here.

I'm a Business investor. So I've got some background in this, both doing it with my businesses and with other people's businesses.

So I wanted to bring up a really great point here that it's shown quite often in terms of when you're following anybody that has to do with marketing, they like to cover these type of deals, I'd like to talk about it a little bit differently.

So the other day, I went in, took my wife's vehicle in to get a tire looked at, because we had, we had a tire that had a leak, and it was just enough to make it annoying, it wasn't enough to leave her stranded anywhere, just enough to where it was, it needed refilling too often.

So we took it in. And I had forgotten that they had this deal. So we took it into it, we have a local chain here called Les Schwab tires, maybe you have them in your area, but one of these very high-end customer, very customer service-centric models.

You can see this, this is actually a screenshot from her phone, and it says tire repair, we flat out take care of you whether your tire is looking a little low or it's downright flat, bring it to your leer nearby, Les Schwab. We patch plug or fix most repairable tires free of charge to get you back on the road. And then you scroll down the page a little bit and it says free repairs come standard.

If your flat tires are repairable, we'll fix it for free on most noncommercial passenger cars and light trucks. Most tires are fixed in no time flat.

So we'll get your tires repaired as fast as possible just come by any Les Schwab location or make an appointment online.

So they want to get you in quickly, right. You don't have to make an appointment. But you're welcome to if you want to. Tires made as good as they were before. Every year we mend more than 1 million tires, we guarantee that each repair will last the life of the tire. That is a very interesting deal.

So they're asking for no money exchange whatsoever.

Why?

And I want you to think about this. This is very helpful in terms of thinking about how your business runs, do you have the type of business that people make a habit of using.

So for example, if you're a tire repair place, once someone goes there once, maybe twice, they're going to go there continuously until they have a reason not to, they will just continue going there, their car will find their way back to you.

Because it's familiar, because it's easy. Dry Cleaners also work in a similar way. Hair salons also work in a similar way. And so on and so on.

There are certain types of especially when you're talking physical retail locations that work this way.

But you can also have online locations that work this way. Why does Amazon do so well? Is it because of the low price leader?

No, because they're not the low priced every time.

Brian give a product review from Bestself Company

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjwu3avTZak

Transcription

Icebreaker starter pack a review.

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

I don't know how I came across this somewhere on Amazon, perhaps, maybe it was an ad or something that I followed it on to Amazon, I don't recall. But this is a it says a starter pack 150 prompts.

It says a tool for breaking the ice and forging meaningful relationships.

So what is this thing?

What this is, is it's all about questions that you can ask people. And it could be people, you know, well, it could be people you don't know well at all.

It could be complete strangers, but it has 1,2,3,4,5,6. 6 different sections, you can see the different colors there and you can go and mix these up if you want. But each of these sections has a different, here's a little key here.

It shows, you know, there are questions about life, ones that are random ones that are deep ones that experience, ones are if you could, and ones would you rather.

So let's, uh, I'll just give you a little bit of an idea of what these are about.

So I take one out at random well, not completely at random, I grabbed one of these red ones. And these are the deep questions. So what's something you disagree with about the way you were raised? So that's how you get in a deep conversation.

You're like, okay, Brian, where would I possibly ever use these?

Well, I'll tell you what, the concept of conversation, the concept of having an interview, the concept of getting to know people, is central to all business, no matter what business you're in.

If you have customers, clients or people at a distance, even whom you don't communicate with, this is a good way to get to know them. This is a way I'm not saying you got to walk around with these cards, I'm saying, if you, you need to have someone on your staff that's in charge of knowing where the customers at knowing a little bit more about them.

And they have to be talking to the people that are running your marketing. Because if you know some of these things about your customers, I'm not saying just things in here I'm saying anything, the more they know about the humanity of your customers, the more they'll be able to communicate with them, the more you'll be able to find more people like them, and so on, so on, so on.

So everything is an interview.

And it's one of the main reasons why the other two podcasts I have our interview-based podcast, I love interviews because everything starts that way.

And it's a way Well, honestly, it's a way to get get the monkey off my back so that no one so I don't have to come up with fancy answers. I can let someone else come up with fancy answers, even though I do love talking.

So here's experience out of the experience. One is just a random one I pulled out of that section.

What's one of your pet peeves?

Thank you could you can go on forever with with with some of these. And some of these aren't as clever and some of them certainly aren't as deep.

This is the if you could section if you could pick up a skill instantly, what would it be?

Imagine talking with a complete stranger, perhaps going on a blind date or something and just pulling these out and saying, Hey, I got I got something crazy.