Brian J. Pombo Live

Brian goes over a Great Clips Promo he got and talks about the value of connection with customers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq558gdIxPo

Transcription

Promotional gifts for business.

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

Today I want to talk about promotional gifts and how they can be useful in your business. And they can be useful year round.

This particular thing was, it ended up in my kids his bags for Halloween this past year.

They're not too fond of the little candies that came with. So I snatched this from them, and set it aside to be able to talk with you about it.

It's got the quintessential little peppermint candies in it, which I don't know, most kids don't really like this, but maybe that's on purpose because this is definitely a gift more for parents as opposed to for kids.

Because very few kids are going to be interested in hair cutting information about haircuts, you know, get most kids that couldn't care less, it came in a little baggie with a little promotional.

This is from Great Clips, you got the Great Clips to comb here, you got save time, every time online, check-in for Great Clips hear nothing about where they're at.

They've got the website, and that's about it.

This looks like a one of the ones that they use across their company. This is if you're not aware of great clips, I believe they're a franchise or if not a chain, but I'm pretty sure they're a franchise. It very interesting company, how they run things.

Of course, a coupon. Okay, any haircut $2 off. Great, Great Clips.

Couple things they could have done better. I could have had a more of a, a real stand out coupon and maybe made that put that out in front so that you could see it.

But without having open the bag, so that you're really drawn into it.

Having a comb is pretty cliche, although it did it does get you know, pay attention more than more than you would typically see in a Halloween gift.

But at the same time, if you had a really big outrageous thing that grabbed attention, even if this coupon was based toward the outside $2.

What is this and if you look a little closer at it, they could have they could have, you got to make things dead simple for people. So for this, getting a haircut is a physical thing to do, and to pull people in for the first time.

That is one of the things that they found, if you've ever looked in the haircut business model. If they can get you to show up once or twice, they got your basically for life type of thing.

They know that they can keep bringing you in over and over and over again. Because your car will find its where they are automatically. Because people habit just for the sake of habit just for the sake of not having to try out a new place.

Even if you don't, aren't that crazy about what you're getting, or the price you're getting it for you will keep going back to the same place over and over and over again.

Just because a habit just because you're used to it.

The whole thing is to get people in there.

What I would say is a free haircut, anything to pull people in to get great clubs does a relatively decent job of pulling information from customers, which most businesses don't do. Which we'll talk a little bit about tomorrow is the importance of having leads.

Opportunities can come at anytime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6N1CiJCcG4

Transcription

Number one secret to never missing an opportunity.

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

Today I had an experience where I got to sit down with a friend who doesn't live that far from here. And he got to show me his business and his business model showed me the ups, the downs, the goods, the bads, and is basically looking for a partner.

I was very impressed and very happy that he came and talked to me. It brings up this idea, which is what I call the third pillar of BrianJPombo.com.

That is the importance of being reality grounded and there's some distinction here too. To be able to point to one thing about being reality grounded is being very aware of the known facts, the known knowns.

You sit back and you look at everything that you do know about a situation about that situation about my own situation.

Being able to really look at those cleanly without any, you know, you got to be able to strip away all the emotion or anything that could possibly be getting in the way and just look at it for what it is the numbers, the pluses and the minuses.

Being able to see things clearly that way first, that's very important. The most important thing, is that part of you that allows you to see what's real and what isn't real.

That's also the party, I'd like to call it the intuition, you know, you've got an intuition.

You have to be plugged into it to the point where you can sit back and really listen.

Not to anybody, not to anything around you not to read not anything else, you just sit back and pay attention.

The easiest way I could describe my intuition is it isn't a voice. But it's more like a stoplight.

So you get red, this is don't go no matter what you don't go this direction.

You've got a green, it's like hit it floor it right here, go right now.

Or there's a yellow.

A yellow is what's normally at you know, it just proceeds with caution.

Proceed with caution, slow down, be careful. Red is coming.

And that is innocence how my intuition relates with me. Maybe people who are more advanced with that side of themselves.

They don't have that issue and they've got something a little bit more clear. But for me, that's what it comes down to. It's not it's not visual. It's that gut feeling.

You know, there was a movie called Double Indemnity. And one of the detective played by Edward G. Robinson.

He said, says I got a little man on the inside a little man that gives me gives me indigestion when something's not right, you know, hey, so he's discussing, he's discussing the intuition. Or if you haven't seen that fabulous movie, it's for its time, it's even a little bit graphic for kids that in your window and everything else in it.

But in terms of just in general, great movie, just fabulous movie, Double Indemnity.

It's from the 40s I believe. And so it's all about that, that little man, we've all got that, that Jiminy Cricket on the inside that kind of gives us direction. And you got to follow that.

Because it's gonna see the unknown unknowns, the things that you don't know, that you don't even know about.

The best thing you can do is listen to that. I'm going to with this project, so so far,

There's a difference between these two words and Brian is here to tell you what it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD_z91UKMBE

Transcription

Systemic or systematic?

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

I'm a Business investor, we talk about business things here, mainly for business owners and for executives, the people who run businesses.

So I want to one of the three things that I talk about the most here on Brian J. Pombo Live, is being system based.

It's one of my three pillars of BrianJPombo.com.

Being system based, is all about being really having a systematic business.

I use that word a lot. And I get corrected, like in real life when I use it.

So I went and I looked it up, so you don't have to, alright, and just so we can get this completely out of the way. Every time I have an argument with people, I can just send them this video. It's simple, right?

Systemic is different from systematic, you can go and look this up if you don't believe me. But systemic basically means when something is throughout a system, it's an adjective that describes something that is all encompassing, it is, throughout something, it is systemic.

They talk about systemic racism, and so forth. It's everywhere, it's throughout a particular system. That's what systemic means.

Systematic means that something is like a system, or has the qualities of a system or is leading into a system, almost like a verb, to become more systematic at me, it's not a verb, but kind of it's a verb or a noun.

I mean, there's a lot more action when I use the term systematic, that's how I'm referring to it.

I oftentimes talk about making businesses more systematic. If you have more system, within a business, you have a better situation all around in the long run.

In the short run, you may not you may have a bad system but a bad system is better than no system because you can change out a bad system for good system, or you can make tweaks in it.

But it helps employees, it helps partners, it helps consumers, it helps everybody if it's done right. And it's predictable.

You have a beautiful scenario, right?

And sometimes it's only most of the time, if a business is systematic at all, it's only partially systematic in certain spots.

Hopefully, it's the spots that most people can see it's there out in the open for the consumer to see, because consumers like systematic things, they like predictability, right?

That gets brought about by being systematic but sometimes behind the scenes, there's chaos. There's zero system.

It doesn't mean that everything about a business needs to be predictable, and machine like and absolutely.

That if you've ever seen the original metropolis, the old silent movie, I always think of that as everything is very machine like and fascistic.

I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about having everything in a predictable way that can be predictable, that you make it predictable, so that you can allow people to do what people do best in each of their positions.

In some cases, especially when you got a visionary in charge of the company, they're all over the place, they get a million different ideas, but you have to have, and that's good, that's very good.

But you have to have parts of the business that have a predicta...

Thoughts from a Simon Sinek talk (linked below) on trust and performance.

link - https://www.instagram.com/reel/CYT1lV1oeVm/?utm_medium=copy_link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M96tDpYGZA

Transcription

Trust versus performance.

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

Today I have a quick little snippet of video from Simon Sinek.

If you haven't seen Simon Sinek he's known for a lot of things, but one of his top books was, Start With Why.

Excellent book, I've discussed it other times on here, definitely one to go out and look at.

I was sent this little snippet of video of Simon Sinek, given a talk regarding this concept of trust versus performance.

This was sent to me by my friend David Medina. Thank you, David.

I wanted to show you kind of give you a synopsis of it, I've got a link in the description if you want to go check out that video.

But the idea and he got this from working with the Navy Seals, and they said that it's an interesting dichotomy. This idea of, you've got people that you could raid on, on performance, and you've got people you can write on trust, but trust is not one of those things that people pay close enough attention to.

Here's what they're saying.

Obviously, if you've got someone that's of low trust and low performance, that's not someone you're after, right?

But if you've got someone of high trust and high performance, well, that's the ideal, that's a unicorn.

But in reality, that's kind of tough to find.

So if you had to choose one over the other, which would it be?

So if you had a high performer, but was when we see here, high performer, that was low on trust, which I believe would put us here?

No, wait for a second high, high performer, low on trust.

They were saying this as a toxic personality, that they're going to destroy your team, everything else because they're really good at what they're doing. But if you can't trust them, then you're really in trouble.

Because they do a good job but there's something not right character-wise.

Whereas if you've got a high trust personality, that is a low performer.

That is more ideal.

It's a better situation because if you trust them, you can at least you can still train them, you can get your brain performance up.

But you can't train for the character, you can't train for trust. And so you'll they'll look for more medium performance versus high performance if the trust factor is higher.

Now, how do you rate that?

How do you rate trust?

Well, it's a difficult thing, and nobody ever talks about it. And so we talked about on here a lot is how important trust is to every relationship, not just the employer-employee relationship.

But in terms of a consumer to a product or service. Trust is one of the main things.

It's one of those areas that most people don't pay enough attention to. Dan Kennedy has a book on the NOBS guide to what is NOBS guide to trust-based marketing.

This was one of the first times I had heard someone specifically talk about trust,

Just what is a lead magnet and how can it be useful to your business?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtGWb4mwWNE

Transcription

Lead Magnet ideas?

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

Why am I holding in my hand a pocket constitution?

There's a reason this can be used..well, let me back this up.

Let's talk about lead magnets a little bit, okay?

What's a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is when, when you're in the process of building your business, you start to realize that having the leads, meaning having an understanding of people that are most likely to be interested in what it is that you're selling, is one of the most powerful things in the world, especially if you have a list that you can continue going back to.

Now those leads can take many forms, it could be a snail mail address list.

It can be an email address list, it can be phone numbers, it can be text numbers, it can be anything that you have had some type of, or somebody that you have purchased this or has a prior agreement that you're able to talk to these people.

Otherwise, you start getting into spam rules and everything else, which is a whole nother issue.

But if you've got a prior agreement that you can talk to these people from here on out, then you've got a way to be able to send your commercials to someone on a regular basis, or something that leads to a commercial.

That's where the lead is the person that's most likely to be eventually a customer of yours, even if they aren't right away.

So a lead magnet is that thing that attracts that type of person and allows them to give you their information so that you can then use it and treat them as a lead.

The most common one you see online is people giving away whatever digital products most of the time, PDFs above have an e-book or a not a quick audio program, maybe a mini-course, you know, there's a number of things that people will give away just for the ability to be able to get a lead.

Now there's a step up from that, if you have an inexpensive product, which a lot of people have referred to as a tripwire and marketing, you have that inexpensive product to help really identify the best of the best of the leads out there.

That's another story, if we're just talking leads off of a free product, a lead magnet, there's a whole bunch of different options out there.

This actually was used or is currently being used by the Cato Institute, which is a political Think Tank, that they use this as a way to be able to find their right people and they they don't give these away from my understanding they charge a small amount for them.

But it allows them to identify the right leads.

But you could do the same thing.

Here's what the interesting point is that I'm making, it's not that you should go out and start printing up constitutions and give them out to people. How much of this did they actually write most of it the stuff that people want out of this. They didn't write any of it. The only thing that's been added to this is there's a preface, this is by the founding director of the Cato Institute.

So I will preface and then they got the Declaration of Independence in the Constitution stuff that is completely free.

Anybody can go and look for it online if they want, and can get a million different websites coming back to them telling them word for...

Finding simple ways to connect with your customers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz6PEQcm84M

Transcription

Tiny business tip.

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

Today I want to talk about a really tiny business tip, but it, it has a greater principle involved in it.

So I'll tell you the story my friend Joe runs a company called, Common Sense Wellness Worldwide.

And this looks like a postcard and it has the same it has same cardstock as a postcard would only on the on the opposite end is an invoice so well not an invoice a packing slip, I should say.

It's a sticker packing slip that you'll you have oftentimes when you have automatic programs, if you run any type of e-commerce company, and where you do have any type of deliverables, they probably have some type of packing slip, and a lot of packing slips have to peel off it on them so they can stick on other things.

That's what they did here, they take the packing slip, they put it on one side, and on this side is a quote, here's what they do.

So real simple idea.

Every month, they have a different little postcard and oftentimes it's related with the holiday of the month, or what have you, at least the look.

Then they'll have a really nice quote that goes along with it. And this one says it's the dream that gives us the journey.

But the journey that gives us the joy Debbie Dixon, with their little logo on there, is simple, simple, feel-good stuff.

It's one little tiny thing that a person can do but if you can get the principle behind this, every little thing that you can add to your company and the day to day monotony of your company, your relationship with your customers and your vendors and your staff and everybody else.

Every little thing that you can add a little bit extra to give people reflection to give people a smile, to give people a laugh. Every little thing draws more connection back to you, between the customer, the person, the in-person and the company, or the people that run the company so to speak.

That's what this is all about is this alone isn't going to change worlds. This added on top of other things within your company can make a big difference. It's the little tiny things taking something as simple as a packing slip and turning it into something that you feel like putting up on your fridge or something of that sort. Which they've sent a couple of, I've ordered from this company for a while.

They've sent a couple more, I'm like this is pretty cool, I'm going to put this up pin this up on my corkboard or whatever.

So simple little ideas that help bridge the gap.

That help does make you distinct from everybody else. That's what causes connection causes connection, which eventually leads to a belonging sense with other people when they have that same connection with that same brand that same company, and what have you.

Simple ideas are not mind-blowing, but they're simple things that can make a big difference.

If you can pay attention to these types of things, I try to point these types of areas out on a pretty regular basis on a few times a month, I'll bring up some examples for you.

So if you follow like what you're watching or listening to here, you'll be able to pick out more and if you watch for those things yourself, you can build up quite a what they call a swipe file.

Brian offers some tips when using lump mail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8AaAW9gimM

Transcription

The problem with trash can mailers.

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

Today, I want to discuss trashcan mailers.

What is a trashcan mailer?

Well, this is a plastic trash can that comes in multiple colors, you could find these in plastic, you could find them in metal.

There's a bunch of different designs out there.

This was a common one, this was part of a mailer that we sent out for one of our clients.

And this is an interesting story because the whole point, the reason why you do a mailer like this. And it's literally sent out just like this, okay, you put your letter on the inside, anything that you're going to be mailing on the inside.

You tape this thing up and you get a fix onto here, the address, return address and postage, and you mail it as is, you know, as long as it's you can't open it and everything.

They do work.

That what's the point of doing something like this, the point of doing something like this, it's to, is to get gain attention.

If you really want to be seen, no one is going to ignore a hot pink trash can coming their way, whether it's showing up at their place of business or at their home, people are going to open this.

The toughest thing with any form of physical direct mail is getting people to open it.

So you do something like this, it makes a big deal. here's the only issue I found with them.

It really depends on where you're at, and how well, you know, the postal system in your area. In the area that we were at, when we mailed these, we had quite a few going out all at the same time we sent them, we brought them all in in one large, large amount.

We did, I was being very careful and I tested it.

So I had a couple of them going to the location specifically just to test and make sure they arrived on one piece and everything else.

Those pieces never arrived at the test locations. Not only that, we never received a single response.

It was a deal on a response that was really, really should have gotten some attention got zero attention, the people that we were able to call on ask they had not received one. So you need to follow up. That's interesting.

It's an important thing for any direct mail campaign, that you have some type of follow-up. So that you're making sure make sure you have tests sites and test people that you could send it to it just so you know what's making it there.

Stuff like this annoy the heck out of certain people in the mail industry.

I am quite certain that they took our large load of little daily bobs and they put them all in the trash or put them all in storage somewhere every once in a while. I don't know if you've heard these stories where they find large amounts of undelivered mail.

For years and years and years this happens. This is just part of that, you know, I know, most of the postal industry doesn't function this way.

Most of the time, the things you send out are going to get sent out but on occasion, when you're trying something a little bit different.

Make sure that it actually makes it there other than that, these are great little things that you can't throw them away.

Thoughts on the value of finding quiet time in your day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH6wmWR50DU

Transcription

Do you practice quiet time?

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

Today's a little more easygoing. This topic is one of those that most people hardly ever focus on when it comes to business. The concept of mindset, most of the time we're focused on how can we be more productive because it seems to be a thing that's the most difficult for most people.

I'm not laughing at it because I haven't had my issues, I have certainly had my issues with being productive and keeping focused keeping on track, making sure you're paying attention to the right things and not the wrong things, that you're not obsessing about the wrong things, but you're paying enough attention to the details.

But so much of what's going on, and this is a good time of year to talk about it.

So I'm recording this in early 2021 and the thing that is best to really keep in mind when all this motion is happening, you know, everybody's moving. Everyone's focused on the next thing on keeping up with their goals and they're, you know, all of your annual plans, you know.

The tough thing is setting some time aside, to be quiet, to just be calm by yourself.

Not reading, not watching, not listening to anything, setting the phone aside, setting the computer aside, and just be quiet, in a room by yourself with not sleeping, you know Blaise Pascal, this thing said something to the effect of, you know, all of humanity's problems are based on the fact that we have an inability to sit in a room alone.

I think that's true, I think a whole lot of what we're missing in life, is the ability to let your brain idle.

The more I do it, the more I see that I should be doing it more often, you really should do it a couple of times a day.

At least just pull back, your brain is gonna keep running, it's gonna keep thinking of stuff, but you don't just quit playing with it, and you back away from the thoughts and just chill out.

You don't need to empty your brain, you just let it run its course. And don't follow along with it.

When you find yourself falling along with you pull back out of it. And you just, if you can just keep easygoing and keep everything in perspective, because we just don't have a whole lot of time here.

That's been a theme over the last couple years. With all the people in my family and people that I've known I've been close with that have passed on. It's just very clear that we don't have a whole lot of time.

We just got got this little split second to do stuff on Earth, and you do what you can. And you'll let the rest go.

You just got to sit back and it's nice to just sit back and just pay attention. So simple idea. I don't know if you call it prayer or meditation or whatever you have going. It's a simple idea.

So my friend Patrick reminded me of it this morning on one of his latest podcasts and I just wanted to pass it on to you. It's a good good reminder.

A good thing to keep in mind. Something I don't probably don't talk enough all talk about often enough because it's certainly a key to me not completely going insane and running off to the circus or what have you.

So, quick idea. Hopefully it helps.

When you're done taking some quiet time go get a copy of my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

Thoughts on the power of words when it comes to sales.

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

Transcription

Words, control buying.

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

I'm holding here a book that I've talked about in the past. But it's always a good one to bring up again, words that sell Richard Bayan.

Such a good book, in terms of giving you the type of words, giving you an idea of the type of words that you could possibly use in your advertising and your marketing.

That is the reason why it's really good power words, and so forth.

If you read it, you kind of gets an idea and the one thing all it does is it tells you the positive words, positive words that you can use, that will encourage people to purchase something, okay? It's not a guarantee. But it's helpful.

And it's great, because it's really is like a thesaurus. It's a piece of reference material, this will always be in my library, or something similar because it's so useful in that sense.

Now, what I want to talk about more today is not as much the words that are going to encourage people to buy, but the words that stop people from buying, and there are different ones, for everything that people purchase.

My question to you is, what are those words or phrases in your industry that stop people right in their tracks from moving any further with the business relationship?

Whether you have a service or what have you, I'm working with a group of network marketers.

It's a very interesting industry.

One of the things that you'll see in this industry is, especially for people who are working in the business side of things, it really much takes on the business opportunity feel.

If it's an industry all unto itself. And the real issue is, is that if you're trying to find people that are the right fit for a business opportunity.

It's a long-running thing, it's not just something you sell to them, and you make some money off of them and you move on.

If you're talking about a long term relationship, then you really need a very specific type of person, it's the opposite of the person that normally is attracted to business opportunity, it's actually somebody that's a little bit more responsible, is in it for the long haul, willing to put in hard work, not looking for a quick, rich, quick thing.

To find that person, you want the words that you don't want to use is the word opportunity. Because opportunity will turn off the right kind of person, the type of person you're looking at.

They hear opportunity, and they say, Oh well, that's one of those things, you know, one of those fly by night, get rich quick things.

That's the exact opposite of what you want.

Now, it's not true in every single case.

But in many, many cases, that is the case and there's a number of words that they have to be careful about using, every industry has it no matter what you're selling or what you're putting out there for people that you want them to do because that's really what it's all about you in one way or the other.

You're wanting other people to do something that they're not currently doing or to stop doing something that they are currently doing. And if you're trying to communicate that message, you have to know what the words are that you've got to stay away from.

That's,

Some thoughts on a wild cat and advertising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a5ILY66DSQ

Transcription

Advertising is in the eye of the beholder.

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

I have for those of you who are listening, rather than watching, we have this little meme that I popped up, shows a cat has shredded this chair, it's just a picture of the cat sitting in this chair in this office chair and it says, designed chair and the designer for sale type thing.

And so it's a funny idea, but it really brought me to the idea of how art can be anything your cat can shred a chair, and you can call that art.

In the right circles, you'd be able to sell it for a lot of money. A lot of us laugh about that type of thing. But really art really is in the eye of the beholder, it all depends on what it means to the person who's purchasing it or beholding it.

When it comes to advertising, it's the same thing. advertising can be anything, it can take any format. It can be paid, or it can be free. It can be this guerilla-style marketing.

Or it could be, you know, a person waving, you know, swinging a sign on a corner, which I remember when that started becoming popular back in, I believe it was the 90s when you started seeing, you know, large that I saw, we started seeing it in Northern California around the time when there was a huge real estate boom.

You had a lot of new houses available for sale and housing developments and you'd see these guys on the corner waving their signs there.

That was the first place I recall seeing that being done, where people were getting paid specifically for standing there and swinging in a professional sign. And that was always interesting to me.

But it's advertising, everything can be advertising if you want to get somebody to do something else, you're taking part in advertising and advertising has kind of a bad connotation.

But when it comes to being an entrepreneur or business owner, somebody that kind of is in charge, you know, if you're an executive of a company, it's the same idea you have to be willing to see anything and everything as being advertising.

It doesn't matter whether it comes through the mail, or whether it shows up on your phone, doesn't matter if you have a communication with somebody trying to get them to do something else your advertising, you don't even have to be in business.

It could be a church, it could be a nonprofit, it could be anything. If you're trying to get somebody to do something, and you're doing it more than one person at a time, you're you're committing advertising, I hate to tell you, but that's how it works.

It's an interesting concept because it only takes place in a free society. Okay, if you don't have a free society, you can't have persuasion.

Persuasion only works when you're on when I'm talking persuasion, I'm talking nonforce persuasion, okay.

Persuasion only takes place in a society where force is not allowed and that's you know, we live in a time period and a place where that's not as much the case as it once was but if you talk to anyone who's from a country where force was how people got things done.

The government forces people to do this or a tyrant or, you know, a local mobster, whoever, there's always somebody trying to force people physically force people to do what they want.

As soon as you remove that element, or to at least a large extent, you remove that element,