Brian J. Pombo Live

Why it's important to be mindful of highs and lows in life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3bJqNfi4EI

Transcription

Excitement can be dangerous.

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

I want to talk a little bit about excitement, that's a mental state that we're all prone to get into from time to time. We tend to think about the positive sides of getting excited.

In fact, the word itself, we get excited, you know, get pumped, get amped, you know, it's, it has very positive connotations to it in general, most people don't look at the dark side of getting excited.

I've got two quick stories for you today.

The first story is about my oldest son, who is prone to get excited on occasion. And when he gets excited, his whole body lights up. And so that's why everybody knows everyone gets excited.

But you could, you could tell and he always lets it go a bit too far, you know, where he's just not in control of himself when he's in that frame where he's just almost manic.

Sure enough, so I wasn't home for this, but he was in one of these states. And was playing around with his sister threw a metal pot, of play pot, but threw it straight in her head, without thinking, and he was shocked that she got hurt by it and everything else. And he got in trouble and all that.

But we had a talk about it afterward about you know, and we have this talk on occasion, you gotta watch getting too excited.

A lot of people get, especially, so I'm filming this in 2021 in December. So we're coming up on the Christmas season, you know, all the Christmas decorations are going up and everything.

People get excited about Christmas, kids get excited.

And parents tend to play into getting kids excited about getting presents and all this other stuff. It always comes with a low, you know, you always end up hitting rock bottom after you get too high over something.

I think it's something you watch for yourself and watch for your kids and your family in the business. Because this is a business of podcasts.

In business, you got to watch it for yourself that you don't get too excited about the good times, you don't get too wound up.

You always end up doing something stupid when you're excited. That's the real problem. And I'm saying we all end up doing stupid things when we get too amped up and too excited.

If we don't do stupid things, then we will after we crash off the excitement because you know, you get all the hormones and things go into your brain and get you all worked up and feeling good.

Well, that feel-good always has a crash to it.

It doesn't take drugs, it just takes a state of mind that's imbalanced. And you just got to watch him balance whether it's too high or too low imbalances in balance.

It's one of the things that, you know, I have to watch with myself. And I also have to keep an eye on with the people around me and point out once in a while.

There's a great example I that on the other end of things. Okay, on the other end of excitement, for some reason.

Two days ago, I woke up not feeling hot and the day just didn't go well.

Mostly I had jitters I had I don't know if I was sick, or if it was just my state of mind or what it was. But it think it was just one of those days where things just don't work, you know, that nothing seems to work.

Brian talks about a recent interview (link below) that he did with Digital Marketer President Mark de Grasse.

Podcast Interview here - https://www.digitalmarketer.com/podcast/digitalmarketer/184-brian-pombo/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYjVJr1ujgs

Transcription

Digital Marketer and Brian J. Pombo.

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

This is a very special episode where I am promoting someone else's podcast.

That's right. The Digital Marketer Podcast.

Digital Marketer is a company, if you haven't heard of them, you need to find out about them because a lot of the great things that I talk about here they talk about in even better ways and can communicate to more types of people.

Ryan Deiss was somebody that I had met very early on in my digital marketing career, he's been a huge inspiration. As are all the others that Digital Marketer has built up that company, the new president, I've gotten to know Mark de Grasse. He's a great guy.

He interviews me on this podcast on this particular episode this I believe it's episode 184. Go check it out. I've got a link in the description if you're watching this where you can't see the link, go to BrianJPombo.com and check it out or go to Digital Marketer Podcast and check out the December I believe was December 3 is when it came out.

But it's a very special episode where I get to be on their show, which was a great honor. Lots of fun had. And it's just it just amazes me that I've had the ability to be able to get on to their podcasts. It's a great honor, and just go take a listen.

I'm not going to spend any more of your time. I want you to hear it. Tell me what you think.

Leave a comment down below after you listen to it. And we'll be back tomorrow.

In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

What to do when it's hard to get in touch with people during the holidays.

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

Transcription

Voicemail Hell during the holidays.

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

Let's talk about voicemail hell, of what is voicemail?

Hell, well, I am talking about trying to reach people during the holiday season.

It's really, really tough people tend to turn off, sometime after Thanksgiving before New Years a huge portion of the population, even in their business, they turn off.

You can't find them, you can't track them down. Here's my recommendation on how to go about handling that. The best way to handle that is just to realize it's the truth and don't get frustrated with it, you're going to have to talk probably call more people, you're going to have to talk to more people to get in touch with someone that can actually help you move ahead and business.

Whatever you're trying to get accomplished. You just have to double up because you can't do anything about that. I know I'm in and out, as I talked about before the brain fog that happens during the holidays is heavy.

You just have to be patient, work your way through it. Keep going and realize that it's a factor, but it's a temporary factor.

It's a temporary factor that will come to an end sometime after New Years, people start waking up and then that's when all the great explosions happen. All of my best business explosions happened during very specific times of the year.

And one of the times it's right after New Year's, that's when people start saying yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talk, let's talk What's that they got no more excuses, really, people. People get this far.

They're like, just get me after the first sometime, you know, it's a reality. You just have to deal with it.

When you do get someone on the phone, though, just say, Hey, thanks for your time. I know we're in the middle of the holidays and everything. Sometimes you got to give them an out.

If you think that if it starts to feel like they're not tracking with you say, Hey, how about I give you a call after the season sometime in early January.

We'll touch base on this, I just wanted to just want to call on wish you happy holidays and hope you have a good one. And then just leave it, set it up for later set up meetings for later. If you're getting voicemail, come up with a clever message to leave forum that's easygoing and nice.

But just a way to touch base with people. Sometimes it's just all you need to do is just touch base. Just toss it out there and say hi. And leave the rest behind.

Don't worry about it. This is just how it happens.

It's just a little pep talk not just for you, but for me. So I had to kind of say it, I have to hear it from myself so that I can keep going and keep. If you're not making phone calls during this time of year, it's a good thing to do.

It's a good way to get in touch with people. Yeah, a lot of people still send holiday cards and Christmas cards and all the rest. And you can do that.

But having that personal touch that you actually took time to do makes a big difference, especially if they're those people, either business-wise or otherwise, that you just haven't talked to in a really long time.

This is a perfect excuse to contact them say hey, just saying hi and Merry Christmas and all that jazz. So hopefully that helps.

What's the deal with fickle subscribers anyway?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaIyJCibN2M

Transcription

Why are subscribers leaving faster than they're coming?

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

When we're talking subscribers, we're talking about anybody doing any type of membership out there. And this idea, I just recently heard on an older podcast from Russell Brunson, where he had mentioned that Dan Kennedy had brought this up one time.

It's a really, really good point, and that is that almost any business that runs off of a membership model, where you have something that you're selling on a regular basis, oftentimes, it's a monthly basis, but could be an annual basis, or what have you.

If people are paying for something on a predictable, ongoing basis, then you have a subscription model-style business.

In that case, you really have to look at, okay, who's coming in and who's going out. What you'll end up finding is, you have to really speed up, the people coming in to make up for the people going out.

This is because of a disconnect in most business owners' minds when it comes to these type of membership ideas. Because there's a huge thing, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense initially. But after you've been involved in the business a while and you've had a lot of interaction with customers, you start to see this over and over again.

That is that people initially subscribe or buy into something for one reason, but then they stay, if they actually stick you whatever your stick rate is, whoever is sticking, they're sticking for a different reason, almost always, almost every single time, it's going to be a different reason than why they came in.

Sometimes they don't know why they're staying. But it can be found out by really getting to know as many of your stick customers as possible, whoever sticking around for the longest, you have to constantly probe them and find out what do you like the best? What what do you really get out of this.

What you'll see what I've seen most often with the clients that I've had, and the people that and the subscriptions that I've I've kept oftentimes you get involved for something flashy, something, something that's that that's exciting, you know, something that gets your blood flowing a little bit, that, you know, that maybe it's it's being around or in the presence, or having direct communication with a charismatic figure, you know, that's a common thing.

Maybe it's the fact that there's a product, a consumable product that is tied to it that you, boy, you, you just want to have as much of that product as you can. And so that's why you initially do it.

People don't stick off of those things, because those are all impulse-based buying, very emotional-based buying, and that stuff eventually fizzle out, we fall out of love. We fall out of excitement, and we eventually come off of it is that whole concept of buyer's remorse.

How does Why does buyer's remorse happen?

Buyer's remorse happens because people get high off of the purchase and then they eventually get a low off the high, they drop off of out of after skyrocketing, they drop.

That drop becomes something we call buyer's remorse and it happens just as often, if not more often in a subscription model.

So really, you end up seeing over a very predictable period of time, most people or a good portion of people dropping off of your subscription, you'll see it you'll see very,

Brian talks about the hangover that comes from holiday fun.

Also, for those of you who've watched BJP Live over the years, the return of the Christmas Story Leg Lamp is here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy0IXUkp4qg

Transcription

Holiday brain fog.

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

On the holiday start coming around. I get the equivalent situation as I got in high school that we called senioritis. So as you start getting closer and closer to graduation, you quit really caring. You start and you start getting a little fuzzy in the head.

And that's how I get.

I get this brain fog that will come on and it comes anytime that my regular schedule is messed around with do you get brain fog?

It's so bad that I really don't have much to talk about today.

Other than that, and so I wanted to just kind of put it out there.

Do you get brain fog?

Do you get it around the holidays?

How do you get around it?

I'd love to find out. Leave a comment down below wherever you're watching or listening to this and go check out a doubt go download a free copy of my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. AmazonProofBook.com

That's all I got for tonight. You have a good one.

Get out there and let the magic happen.

Back home from a family trip to California for a few weeks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAobztgsn4g

Transcription

Make them feel at home.

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

I am back at home.

For those of you who don't know, this is the home office of Brian J pombo.com. What I call the headquarters. And it's good to be back.

It's about 10 o'clock at night, and all the kids have been put to bed and we're just happy to be home. For those of you who are maybe new, the last couple of episodes I was at Disneyland and Legoland before that, celebrating Thanksgiving with family.

And so a whole lot of traveling via car, a little bit of traveling via plane and just go go go for 10 days straight kind of a marathon for me and my family. So it was it was fun.

And what I like about traveling, I like getting out and doing something new.

I love going to new places.

I love going to places I've been before I just love getting out there and moving and shaking things up, I really do.

But the funny thing is, is there's nothing quite like home, especially after you've been away a while. There's nothing quite like this getting back at home, it's just that comfort zone. That just feels right.

And everything's where you want it to be, you know, or where you at least expect it to be, you may not even want it there. But you're you expected to be there.

And everyone's got that in someplace. If it's not the place where you live, sometimes the place you know, where your parents live, or where you grew up, there's always a place that you consider home where you feel the most comfortable.

This plays back into business because ideally, what you want to create for your customer base is a feeling of home, all of those types of comforts.

Obviously, this can be taken too far and done in the wrong way and create horrible addictions and everything else by feeling that comfort. But I don't want to get into that I want to talk about just the easygoing idea that people feel like this is where they belong.

If you can create that belonging concept in your business, it makes a big difference. And you got to think of it as the same way you feel when you've been away from home and you come home.

That feeling if you can somehow duplicate that in your business. That's a really useful thing. I talk about it a little bit in my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business by a little bit.

It's one of the nine ways is how to create belonging. And it's I dedicate a whole chapter to it. It's at least a start in talking about this idea it kind of exploring it for you and your business.

So I highly recommend you go check that out. If you haven't yet, gotten yourself a copy, you can always just download a free copy, go to AmazonProofBook.com.

It's been a long day and a long week in so I'm gonna I'm gonna you know, have a cup of herbal tea and get to bed relatively early.

So I can have a nice full day tomorrow because we've got stuff to do tomorrow. Certainly stuff around the house, a little bit of business, and a lot of fun.

So, we'll see you then come on back.

And in the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Brian's family trip continues as the fam gets set for a trip to Disney's California Adventure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzSdT3GVJCk

Transcription

You don't have to be famous to be effective.

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

Today I'm coming to you from Anaheim, California. I'm staying at the Paradise Pier Hotel and I have had a great day. We've had a couple of days, you know, if you've been following we've had a couple of days of chaos and turmoil. Not a bad way.

So one of the fun types of turmoil, okay.

Today we got to start our day in California Adventure Disney California Adventure is the strange wording of it, but just understand it's the second Park in Anaheim, California, straight across the way from Disneyland from the original Disneyland that Walt Disney built.

It's great that they've done a whole lot with it, it was started in a really odd way.

California Adventure on discussing will start in a very odd way. And they've maneuvered around it over the years to create somewhat of a storyline and to start having a newer character and so forth in there.

One of the major changes that they made was that they took a lot of the story of Walt's life and created lands around it in order to make these lands that were originally created when the when California venture first came out and have a make a little more sense of the first place you walked down is a little bit like the main street, USA type deal.

Except they changed it to call it when a Vista Street and Buena Vista Street is the main concept of it is this is LA in you know the 20s, late 20s, early 30s, when Walt Disney first arrived on the scene.

He already had a rough go at it he had he had a situation where he completely lost a whole lot of his staff, he lost the character, he was working with everything else.

He was looking to try something brand new and so is in LA for the first time. And there's all these casts of characters in places and everything that go along with it.

So this is where this, I've got this picture I want to show you. First off give you a little bit of background when we first walked down the street, it's very quaint, it's very cool. We're going during the holiday time, so they're playing Christmas music and Christmas music of that time period or that style at least.

And walking down is really nice.

In the center circle, kind of like a hub. What they have, because of COVID they have the characters that got Mickey Mouse, they had Minnie Mouse, and Goofy dressed in you know, 30 style garb.

But you can't go up and hug them and talk to them and take pictures with them directly. And because of the whole COVID thing, so that got him kind of distant behind a chain-link fence and not chain link fence but a chain behind a chain where kids can't come up and touch you but they're encouraged to come up and take pictures.

So my kids all run up and take pictures with Goofy and they all run up and take pictures with Minnie Mouse. And then along the other side, I noticed two other characters who I the only reason I know who they are is that I'm a nerd about this type of thing.

I understand what the point is behind them but these two characters are standing there and not many people are taking notice of them at the time. I asked my wife I could go over she didn't mind if I go over I don't need to ask my wife's permission but I asked her if she didn't mind if I go over for a second and take a selfie with these ...

Brian's family trip continues as the fam gets set for a trip to Disneyland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV4l4C3NNcU

Transcription

Disneyland and COVID-19.

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

We had a great day at Disneyland today not really a full day, they were closing early and we got started a little later than we expected, or than we wanted to I should say it Was pretty much what we expected and so we squeezed as much out of the day as we could a day at Disneyland with a wife, my and also my mother along and three kids, all under the age of seven, lots of fun, we had a good time.

A lot of interesting things that you can take, as I've mentioned in the past three or four episodes that you could take off of vacation, especially when you're going to a money-making place like Disneyland, where the whole thing is designed to separate you from your money as much as possible as quickly as possible.

And it's a really tough thing to do.

I'm not really sure what the answer is but you can really see a huge change that has happened.

I mean, as in everywhere but especially at Disneyland with COVID-19. And a lot of this goes back to the history of Disneyland, it's a very interesting idea of how it was put together.

How Walt Disney very specifically referred to the staff at Disneyland as not just staff or security or this or that job. But as cast members, they call them cast members.

So he came from the entertainment industry, right.

But he saw that if they see this as more of a show that they're putting on, and that they are cast members, and that the people that are there are guests, and they are putting on a show for them in a sense, if they realize that, that that that brings on a completely different field than any other job, especially in the amusement field, right.

So it that's interesting.

So you've got, you've got a job, you take a job at Disney at Disneyland, you are a cast member so you're an entertainer of sorts, you are fulfilling a need as a member of the cast, whatever that need is, even if you're sweeping, you know, crumbs off the ground like I saw someone do it today who didn't seem too thrilled about it.

I mean, who could be right? It's tough to make that look joyous.

I've seen it done but it's rare that you see somebody do that. But you see a situation where you've got to perform, you're always on.

You realize that and really that's true of any customer service position or any position where you are in the public eye at all. You really are a cast member in a sense. But Disney Land has always made that a point of what they do.

Now, I've never been a Disney cast member. So if there's anybody out there, if there's anything I'm saying that's off base, please put me in my place. This is all from the outside looking in.

From all the stuff I've read about Disney and spoken with other cast members about so I could be off on some of these ideas but you're a performer in a sense, you're also a servant to them, to all the guests that are there.

This is one of those things that's very much drilled in, in and Walt Disney himself from what I understand he said something to the extent of, you know, we work so that the guests can play.

That's the idea that that's the idea of being a cast member really putting it all out there and doing everything you can for each individual guest's experience.

Brian's family trip continues as the fam gets set for a trip to Legoland in California.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agP7IvEhVy0

Transcription

What are you really selling?

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

I'm still here at Legoland California, late at night, out here visiting with my, well, taking my family on a little vacation I should say. And have been having a good time learning a lot.

As I mentioned last night, there's a whole lot of business inventions that you can gain from, from looking at businesses that work because businesses that work because they feed people, they feed people something that people want, good or bad, they they do their job.

They provide something valuable to people for money and if you can take that and translate it back to your business, look at what's actually being sold.

The real question is, what is what are you really selling?

If you're in business what are you actually selling?

I don't mean the product. I don't mean the service itself. I don't mean all the features and the way you would go about describing it. I'm talking about what you're actually selling.

And here's an example.

So is from a customer standpoint, right?

My wife and I are here with my three kids. And I said this really weird thing.

So we're staying at the Legoland Hotel.

It's this place here.

It's pretty wild. I mean, this is in the middle of the night, everyone's while middle of the night.

I think is nine o'clock or something but everyone's asleep.

The kids have gone to bed, and everything's nice and quiet but it's still lit up and everything else, it's still pretty magnificent to look at.

But back to my story. If you think about what we're actually getting from all of this. I sat back and was talking with my wife and I said, You know what, the thing that I've gotten the most out of this experience is, this is probably the calmest I've ever been being out in public with people and my kids.

And I was trying to put my finger on and that occurred to me most of the time.

So I've got three little kids, I've got a seven-year-old, four-year-old, a two-year-old and they're chaos.

Not necessarily in a bad way. Most of them, they're good kids, but they're's chaos.

They're just chaotic little beings and everywhere you take them, you're trying to keep them from either hurting themselves or causing destruction everywhere they go.

And that's not a bad thing. It's just part of having kids and being in public with other people. And people who don't have kids, they didn't understand it.

It's tougher, even if you've had kids at one time. I know my parents they are not as patient the with the kids necessarily as we are because they're just not around them as often and every little thing irks them a little more, you know.

And so it's one of those things where you're always kind of on edge when you're out in public with the kids, you're trying to keep them from hurting themselves because the world is not childproof.

You're trying at the same time you're trying to keep them from getting in the way of everybody else. You try and keep them from being getting lost and running off and getting into this and that. Here, this whole place is relatively childproof.

Brian's family trip continues as the fam gets set for a trip to Legoland in California.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nay1E235p28

Transcription

Legoland for business owners.

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

I have not walked in this place yet. Here it is late night.

Late night on, let's see, what is it Sunday.

And I'm here to take my kids tomorrow morning to Legoland.

I'm staying right over here, at the Legoland hotel in California.

It's been a fun experience. The hotel itself is very interesting how you can take if you're looking at this from a pure business perspective, how you can take a toy, a relatively benign toy, little plastic bricks that you could put together to create different things, you can create a theme park out of it, you can then produce a hotel out of it.

Let's promote the theme park, you can then have a second hotel, they got a little Lego Castle over here.

You could put all those things together and end up with something completely beyond what the creator could ever possibly imagine, including movies, everything else, you ever want to look at a huge business story in terms of being able to what would you call it, repurpose.

And take a very simple idea and move it over multiple multiple formats and backgrounds with The Lego Movie, though I mean, just everything that Lego touches all the other areas that they touch, including, you know, Star Wars and superheroes.

I mean, is there anything that does not do not have a Lego version out there.

Incredible what they've been able to do, what they've been able to get away with, and how they can print money off of taking one simple idea and duplicating a million times over. It's something you can learn from something you could do in your own business.

But here's how it really goes back to your business. Take your kids to places like this and look at the whole thing. This is what was talking about last night about combining business and family time.

Well, you can do that. Because it's difficult to be in a place like this without any kids. Maybe if you've got a friend or two that are willing to come along with you, it won't look as nefarious.

But if you're just a single person walking around Lego, and everyone's gonna look at you kind of strange, because it is very much a younger person's, I mean, very younger audience that we're dealing with here and so you might want to have some kids.

Now, if you don't have kids, here's the trick, the real trick is if you don't have kids, what you got to do is get somebody else's kids and take them.

Okay, and here's how I would do it. Because I spent many, many years as a single white male, and did not have kids of my own.

I and I never had to do this directly, because I always had nephews and nieces and a good relationship with their parents. So it wasn't, it was never an issue. And I went a lot of places with them.

But what I would recommend you do, if you don't have that is, is think about the people you know, who do have children, and including yourself in those activities as much as possible and just tell the parents, hey, directly, I really would love to check out Legoland.

But I have a hard time figuring out how to do that is just as just a single person. And so how what I'd love to do, I'd love to take your kids now if you've got the money, take their kids and pay for the whole darn trip.