Brian J. Pombo Live

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

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

Transcription

Don't curse, bad weather.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Someone is profiting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts on creating confusion with your messaging to your customers.

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

Transcription

Are you confusing your customers?

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

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

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

Life is confusing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because Oh, you don't like this?

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

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

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

Thoughts on controversy and the Mandela Effect.

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

Transcription

Controversy, the double-edged sword.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcription

Entrepreneurs, sleeping well?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcription

What's up with these things in physical products?

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

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

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

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

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

It's extremely simple.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taking a look at some quick tips for those of you looking for some help getting started with basic SEO.

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

Transcription

SEO for beginners, the must-have number one.

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

Let's talk a little bit about search engine optimization. Shin shall we, if you're not aware of what SEO is just a quick background, SEO is not only just trying to get optimized for search engines that are the typical search engines.

So at one time, when in fact, when I first got involved with the SEO world, that the main thing was Google, you were focusing on Google, and secondarily, you'd be focusing on say Yahoo, and Bing, or any of the other, quote-unquote search engines out there.

Nowadays, there are more search engines, there are very subtle differences between them but even beyond just showing up in Google, you got to look at search engines within different apps and different websites.

So you got to think about Amazon, sometimes, depending on what it is that you're trying to get people to do or places that you're trying to get people to go. But you got to think about Amazon, you have to think about YouTube, you have to think about Facebook, they each one has their own internal search engines if you will.

And if you're wanting to show up there, you got to think about that, right.

You got to think about all the different types of media ways you want to show up, and it can be really overwhelming. So here are the must-have, the number one must-have, that you got to think about

is who you want to click, who do you want to click and where are you wanting them to go?

Now you probably already know where you want them to go. That's kind of the point of SEO, you got a website, you got a video, you got someplace that you're trying to get people to, and you have probably something that you're wanting them to do when they get there.

You're wanting them to view a video, you're wanting them to read an article, you're wanting them to purchase an item, what have you, you have a very specific path.

But eventually, you got to get to who it is specifically who you're looking to get there. If you're trying to get everybody there, you're going to spin your wheels a lot, you have to know about who it is that you're trying to get there.

Who are you definitely not trying to get there?

Because if you could define that, then you can define which search engines you need to pay attention to, you know, where does your SEO really need to go?

What are the things that people are typing in?

How are they searching?

And when you know that you know how to put certain things into your pages, into your videos into whatever it is that you're trying to get them to you know how to adjust in order to attract search engine activity, if that makes sense. It's a simple principle. But you can't believe how many businesses I work with.

When they're talking SEO, they're not really thinking about the end customer. They're not thinking about the end-user, the end audience, the end clicker, but you have to because that's everything is determined in SEO, by who that person is and what they're doing. Yes, there's an algorithm.

Yes, there are different ways that Google teaches, I mean that Google does SEO, the way they design their algorithm, and it's constantly changing. And all those rules are things that you do need to know about.

A look at personality and task conflict management.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi8STkoaXSE

Transcription

Conflict Resolution at work and beyond.

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

You're no doubt watching this long after Halloween is said and done. But as in all of our episodes, this one's being recorded on Halloween, that not all of our episodes are recorded on Halloween but, but they're all recorded.

And this one happens to be on Halloween. Okay, but hopefully that makes sense.

It's an interesting thing, because Halloween, everything regarding the horror, genre, and terror and scary things, all has to do with the conflict. And I'm going to tie this into the business realm if you don't mind because we talk about business here we talk about principles and strategies and tactics.

As far as when it comes to business and especially from the perspective of leadership end of the business, which are the people I deal with quite often, which are business owners and executives.

If you happen to be from that realm, one of the things you're going to deal with a lot is conflict resolution. So how do you go about resolving conflicts like it's a funny thing, I'm taking it back to Halloween for a second here?

It's funny, I was just reminiscing and when I was a kid Halloween, at least in my family, it happened on one day, on one day, we went out, we visited a couple of families households, and we hit up a hand and we hit up a neighborhood or block or two, you know, is nothing major, it's just a short period of time on one day, one day a year. Now they people have stretched it out to be multiple days.

And because of that, and especially because my kids aren't as sugared up as I was as a kid. And so they're not as used to that much candy all at once. Not that we just give them carte blanche, but they're going to get a little bit of candy on around the holiday what appears to behold a week now.

That happens and the whole temperature of the household changes, I mean, just everybody is on a different level. And so you get relative conflict.

As you would imagine, it's really not that big a deal but you got to know how to handle that at home. And you got to know how to handle that at work.

One of the main tips I can pass along that I've learned and how it popped up in a book that I'm reading right now, and I'll tell you more about that in the future. Because I think it's going to be a really good book.

And just so far, I've gotten a lot out of it. They discuss differences in conversations that come up. That specifically regarding goals, and I'll get to that in a second but just in dealing with any people, there are certain things where you're arguing with somebody, but oftentimes you're arguing about two completely different things, although you're using similar words.

For example, most arguments when it comes back to personality theory, which is one of my favorite things to get around conflict is to understand what that person's personality is of what yours is.

And one of the main pieces in there is a thing that is task versus people. So just about any conflict, you're either going to be talking about a task conflict, or a people conflict. So the emotional, interpersonal thing.

He looked at me this way, he said that thing she said that she said this, the people thing is very different from the task thing. And sometimes someone will be arguing from a task perspective, while the other person's speaking from the people pers...

Brian talks about Orson Welles class War of Worlds that used to be played on the radio during Halloween.

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

Transcription

War of the world's content marketing lesson.

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

I want to talk with you a little bit in celebration of Halloween.

Famous Halloween episode that gets played every year on live radio and you can always find a copy somewhere on YouTube or anywhere else online of Orson Welles, classic War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

I want to talk about the lesson that you can learn for your business. Okay, if you're doing any form of content marketing whatsoever,

I'm going to recommend that you step back and really look hard at your strategy. Okay, because of how you build that out. And I want to get into what War of the Worlds has to do with that, I've always had an interest in old-time radio.

So all the stuff that was all the drama that was played out on radio before television came about. So we're talking 30s 40s 50s. And so I have a really strong interest in this. But if we're talking content marketing.

Content marketing is one of those things that requires a plan, it requires really distinct, planning out and looking from a distance and having a good idea about where you're going with it and making sure that it actually gets there.

One of the books I wrote a book called, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

It's all about this process from a kind of a wider view of kind of determining what you're going to do with your content marketing, and why even though it doesn't say content marketing in the title, but go grab yourself a copy, you can get a free one, if you want.

They're available right now Free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

Let's talk about the war of the world, shall we?

Orson Welles was a natural at publicity.

He just understood this stuff. It's amazing that he did not do more of it throughout his lifetime. I think he got shy because of a lack of funding for his movies and so forth. But in general, he understood it to some extent, especially when he was younger.

And he definitely understood it when it came to his radio show Mercury Theater on the air.

This wasn't the only time he had done anything that was outrageous. He was trying outrageous stuff all the time, anything to get attention, anything to get a headline, he was always trying to get the press to pay attention, and to get and he knew that by doing that he would automatically get attention well, even if it's initially considered negative.

Now there's a whole lot of mythology around War of the Worlds and a whole lot of that is because Orson Welles created it from the very beginning.

He and throughout the years throughout his whole life went back, and when talking about it, he would throw in extra items that weren't discussed earlier on. So it's tough to tell what's true and what's untrue.

In later years, he would say that the police showed up and tried to get them to stop broadcasting. When I was a kid, they always talked about this huge, widespread panic across the entire country over this one episode.

And there are bits and pieces about that, in fact, I'm going to put a link in the description, which, depending on whether you're listening or watching this, you can also find at BrianJPombo.com.

Under this, this blog post,

Brian uncovers an interesting quote from P.T. Barnum from his book The Art Of Getting Money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP6PwEUP-mo

Transcription

Who you doing it for?

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

And that's the question who are you doing it for? I come to this question by coming across a quote by P.T. Barnum.

P.T. Barnum of, you know, the circus and so forth, he wrote in a book called, The Art of Money Getting.

And in that book, he said, "If all the world were blind, except myself, I should not care for fine clothes or furniture."

And it's a funny way of looking at it, if you really consider the idea.

Okay, everyone's blind.

Now, except for you, would you still be wearing the same clothes, driving the same car?

Would your house look as nice?

Would you even have the same items or would it matter at all?

I mean, you still got all the same relationships, everything else that people can't see. And it brings up the concept of who are you doing it all for?

You know, what's it all about for you, in the end, and you eventually have to get to that point anyway, best you get to it as quickly as possible, is who are you doing it for?

Now, there is advantages, especially if you're looking to encourage people to do what you've done, to have some very visible evidence of that. I mean, that's really necessary.

If you're training people to do the same thing, you kind of have to put on a bit of a show. And as long as you realize that, that's what you're doing if you realize that your life is a show and that the certain things that you purchase aren't for you that you realize that really is for other people, and you're okay with that, then that's fine. Most of us don't think about it, what we end up doing is we end up including it into our psyche of everything that we want.

And everything that we want to do and want to have and want to be, it's all tangled up with what other people think about us, even after you've been relatively successful, there's still a little bit in there.

Sometimes the people change, it may not be the people you went to high school with.

Now it's the people at work, or it's the people who are making who are at a higher stratosphere of money-making than you are perhaps, you know if you're looking to become a millionaire, you want to impress the millionaires, if you're looking to be a billionaire, you want to impress the billionaires.

And so there's always tends to be a little bit of that there. It's I don't think it's that important to, you know, completely rid yourself of all of that. I think it's important for you to know what your motivations are.

And realize that pleasing other people in terms of or making other people jealous, depending on how you look at it shoving in other people's faces that only gets you so much of a high.

Then after that you're gonna come down off of it, regardless of whether you're driving around a Rolls Royce or whatever.

And you're left with okay, what's, what am I doing for me?

And what am I doing for the betterment of, of all that is good in the world, or whatever, you know, you have to come back to the idea beyond that.

Because no matter what, you're going to be left with that anyways, at the end of the day, you're going to be left with just what you got in front of you.

That title make you do a double take?

Yup, same for the producer of this podcast.

Looking past Brian's colorful selection for a show title, we take a look at an interesting similarity between strippers and newscasters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYzOVrEnqF8

Transcription

Strippers versus newscasters, or how are strippers like newscasters.

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

This is an interesting concept but once you think about how our strippers like newscasters and specifically those newscasters that you see in cable news, alright.

If you've gotten to watch much cable news, they're worse now than they've ever been in terms of doing a very specific thing that strippers are also known for doing.

In fact, it's so built into the idea and you don't have to have ever been to a strip club to understand the process here, okay?

You've seen movies, everything else, you understand that the strippers' job is to tease, they're teasing. They're teasing a process. That it's teasing. Something that the person's not going to get, they legally cannot get it, you know, in most cases, they're not going to get it from that person.

They're teasing their product, they're pushing it right in the person's face.

And that there's something very interesting about the psychologically to people.

Not just men, and women to the tease attracts.

The tease gets a person hooked, to go to the next step in whatever process you're talking about. And what are we talking about here, we're talking business, okay, this is a business show and we're talking about business concepts, things that would help a business owner or executive to be able to move things forward.

And you got to understand the real magic.

If you're looking to take someone, what we talked about yesterday was advancing.

If you're looking to advance somebody, if you're looking to advance a complete stranger into becoming a possible lead for your business, if you're looking to take a lead and turn them into a customer, if you're looking to take a customer and have them buy something more or to opt-in to something that is going to be more of a continuity product that they pay on a regular basis.

If you're looking to take them from a continuity product, on to a higher-end product, it doesn't matter, the same thing is true no matter what part of the quote-unquote funnel that they're in. And that's a tease.

It's one of the best uses of attention-getting of anything in the world.

It's the ability to say something without actually saying that and without giving all the details. It's it's open. It's an open loop. It's the concept of putting something out there and leaving something missing, purposefully leaving something missing.

So that they feel the need to go a little further and find out a little more and see what's missing.

So how are strippers like newscasts?

Well, newscasters do the same thing on cable news. So they'll say we're coming up at 11 This and this, this and this, this and this, and they say something provocative to get you to go on to the next level, both newscasters and political commentators.

So you'll see this on the political shows, they will say something outrageous, you know, what has Joe Biden done again today that has outraged half of America, you know, that they'll say something in order to get you...