Brian J. Pombo Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVQA9gJOBlY&feature=youtu.be

The power of demonstration and getting people to try your product.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

MyPillow and the power of demonstration.

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

I had to have a little prop here to remind you, if you haven't seen the advertisements that are out there for my pillow. been around for quite a few years now Michael Lindell has been in the news lately is a controversial figure, right?

Been a huge supporter of President Trump, got kicked off Twitter for the things that he was saying regarding the election and so forth. And so I'm not going to get into all that.

But I wanted to use him as a great prop to talk about the power of demonstration. Now, this wasn't even on my pillow that I was using here, just an average pillow. But he went and basically invented this product, and then started marketing it.

And I believe one of the first places he was marketing at ad was at fairs like county fairs and shows and stuff like that. And he would be the one out there promoting it, he was the pitch man out there with his pillow, talking about how great it was, how wonderful how it changed his life and how it can change your life to in here, try it out here feel it here, do you see how different it is, you see this, you see that?

This is a power of something we like to call demonstration in the business, the power of demonstration, if you can take your product or service and turn it into a demonstration, turn it into something that people can either experience virtually, like if you're doing it on video, something like that, or can experience physically can literally experience what it is that you provide.

Frank Kern has a term for this. He says I, I help I demonstrate helping people by actually helping them, you know, and so he'll, he'll always put on these conversations that he has with people out there. And he spreads it out. And showing what he literally does with people when they pay him, by showing them what he does for free.

It was just an interesting concept.

But that's the power of demonstration. This is why my pillow was able to go from once he really worked his pitch well was able to take that onto TV, and do paid advertisements, both the long form and short form on on TV, and then eventually online.

It's a really powerful tool. Many, many, many millions, and billions are made off of the power of demonstration. If you can get people to use try out, feel touch, get involved, interact with what it is that you provide the benefits that you provide, if you get to get them to try it first. So they can experience it.

That's demonstration.

And so you got to think of from your business standpoint, how can we do that? With the products and services that we have? How can we demonstrate it? How can we get people to try it? How can we get people to be involved and interact?

And you can do this on a whole lot of levels. Like I said, you can do it in person, which is a little difficult to do here in early 2021, with COVID, lock downs and all that stuff. But you can also do it online, you can do it virtually, you can do it on a video or an audio broadcast. You can do it on television, they still sell ads there, believe it or not, you can do it in a million different ways.

But what you have to do is have the idea that yeah,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a58frMWQQE&feature=youtu.be

Sometimes the bottom drops out and all we can do as move forward from that point on.

Not matter what, a positive outlook in tough times can serve you well.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

2021 sucks, now what?

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

For a lot of people right now 2021 isn't what they wanted it to be and if you're one of those people, I can tell you one thing…I don't have any answers that are directly going to help you with this.

But hopefully we can start a conversation over it.

Hopefully it can be helpful now that there's two types of people that be watching this one. you're rolling through 2021, with all of its highs and lows and everything that's crazy about it.

And you're surviving your fight, you find a way to be able to make it work.

Things actually, things might even be going well for you. That's one person.

And if you're that person, great, keep going keep doing what you're doing. If you're the other person who's dealing with all this, seeing all this and can't quite find how to get around it.

There's only a few things that I could start to recommend. But it really takes change your perspective, because I know where you're coming from. Because I've been in that position before where it's like, where do you go, when everything seems so drab and dreary. It just doesn't seem like anything could possibly happen that can go good.

It's a couple places I go to First off, and it's going to be very similar to a video we did not long ago, a conversation we had about headaches.

How do you get over that type of thing. And really the first, the first main thing I do when it comes to any type of ongoing depression, that seems to be controlled by outside forces.

One thing I know for sure, which is why I've been able to keep from falling into it too deeply for with these things is that no outside source has control over your outlook. You can allow it to have control and make it feel like it has control.

But they don't really have any control whatsoever over your outlook, you have the ability to be able to control that. Here's what I mean, it's a great book out there, I recommend you get it if you're not a good reader, go and get the audio book version of it is, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

Go grab that book, what what's the book about the book is about a guy that was working his way through psychology and the the all the concepts behind psychology, it was really big, then this was back in the 1930s and was figuring a lot of this stuff out.

Then all of a sudden, you had the holocaust happen and World War Two and everything that happened around that period of time, and found himself in a concentration camp.

And going through all the things that were happening then, and how he dealt with it and how he was able to keep perspective, in the worst possible scenario, having your entire family stripped apart.

I think most if not all of them, died completely dead. And at that point, he wasn't even sure whether they were alive or not. But in most cases, he knew they were probably dead. And but being completely stripped from your kids from your wife.

And really having nothing left. Nothing. You have no ownership of anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfOj2lpfBjM&feature=youtu.be

Say one thing but do another? People don't do that.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Customers lie!

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

We do this on a nightly basis, we get together, we have a little chat is about principles, strategies or tactics to help you take your business to the next level. Sometimes it's very personal human stuff that affects everybody and sometimes it's stuff that really has a lot to do with business. This is a little of both today.

Because in general, everybody lies to themselves, if to nobody else, and it's not intentional, it's not something we set out every morning to do. But it is something that happens.

It happens regularly. It happens so regularly that most of us are completely unconscious of it. So one of the conversations that we've had lately is we've talked about how you got to talk to your customers, you got to question them, you have to find out more about them, the ones that are good, the ones that are bad, so that you can start getting away from the ones that are less desirable.

Attracting more of the ones that you enjoy, you're going to see commonalities between those people out there that you have not become customers yet, and the ones that you already have.

And so what you want is the commonalities that are similar to good customers, and not too bad customers, doesn't mean they're bad. You know, beyond beyond just being undesirable customers, it doesn't make them bad people, okay. But there's desirable qualities that you want in a customer. And it may be very personal, but it's your business.

So you got to figure it out, whether you're a business owner or executive, you got to figure these things out or you got good things that people bring to the table, and they're good that you've decided on, and you have a right to be able to decide who to do business with. And so you got to be really careful.

Otherwise, you make a miserable situation, and you make a business that's doomed to fail, if you attract the wrong type of people. Now, when you go out to start questioning them, and start finding out more of what they want, as opposed to you trying to come up with a product and just kind of guess at it and and spend a whole lot of money and put it out there and find out that nobody really wants this, or that nobody wants it based off of how you're marketing it to them.

To find this stuff out, you've got to have conversations. But the one thing you have to know, while having these conversations that I don't like to say straight off the bat, because it's tough enough to get business owners to have the conversations to begin with.

But once you start having the conversations, you got to start noticing something, people lie. And customers specifically lie, they'll lie.

Most time it's not intentional, most of the time, if you ask them what the major issue that they have with the product, they're going to say what they think it is, or if they have a major issue in life that they would be willing to spend money on to fix.

They may tell you what they think it is. But you have to dig deeper the way to get past the lies, you got to keep asking follow up questions. What is it about this you don't like? How does that make a difference in your life?

How does this being a different color affect you? What does it affect other people in your life?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k5GoZfQkf4&feature=youtu.be

Why keeping your cool pays off in so many ways.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

The secret power of emotional neutrality.

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

I'm going to be talking about something that I just spoke about a few minutes ago, and had quite a long discussion.

It's called Brian J. Pombo Live, but by the time you're seeing this, it's probably not live, there's probably a recording. And our last recording, which I gave a great impassioned talk did not get recorded.

But it plays into tonight's topic, okay, emotional neutrality, I talk about being neutral being not one too far, one way or too far another, I'm gonna get into that in a second.

But first I want to let you know I have a book, if you haven't read it yet, you gotta go get a copy. It's called, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

And it's specifically for business owners and executives, people that are in charge, and are able to steer the strategy of their businesses, go check it out, get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com. Or you can get one wherever books are sold, including Amazon.com themselves.

So let's talk about emotional neutrality. Now, this comes back to one of the three pillars of my business.

I'm a business strategist, I help business owners and executives to be able to overcome obstacles and so forth. And one of the big things that I bring people back to is something that I call being reality grounded.

This is one of the three pillars, and it is probably the most important one.

Because if you're a reality grounded, you're not caught up in the emotions, and all the details of the day, you can step back and be able to see things clearly, at least eventually ends. But sometimes you get caught up. Sometimes there's a situation to where you're being tempted tend to be emotional about something.

I'm going to give you a situation that I ran into today. So in addition to writing a number of businesses, my wife has been writing a business since before we were married, which a property management business. And we had some tenants today, who had a plumbing issue that needed to be fixed.

And the plumber, who would normally handled this is not available until tomorrow, it's Super Bowl Sunday, they're probably going to have some people over at their house, they're really big football fans. I knew I needed to get in there and see what I can do see if I can at least try to fix it turns out all that was needed was a faucet need to be switched out.

And so when in there, went bought a new faucet, started taking it apart, and was having the toughest time figuring out how to get the mounting bolt off this thing, just with where it was situated, and everything else could not wrap my mind around how to do it, and how it was installed.

Because I know who installed it and tried to, I just could not figure it out. And all these different scenarios start running through my head, oh, yeah, you're gonna get them upset, or you know, the owner is going to get upset or this or that, you know, I'm gonna have to go back, my wife's gonna be upset.

All these different silly things that pop in your head at the time that seemed more important than they actually were. But I was able to pull back from the emotions and just go, you know,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPOBBW4Excs&feature=youtu.be

Thoughts on headaches.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Four ways to fix a headache.

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

Why am I here to talk about something that isn't typical, we usually talk about business issues here, ways to handle business handle people in business, and so on, so forth. And today, I want to talk about something that we all have in common, and that's our human bodies and in most cases, if you've got a body, you've got a brain, and if you've got a brain, you have what we refer to, at least in America as a headache on occasion.

If you're anything like me, you don't get headaches that often. If you do, it could be a chronic issue. And this is in no way meant to help you self diagnose or anything like that get to a doctor could do a brain specialist, check it out, and figure out what's wrong with you if it's happening on a regular basis.

I know a lot of a lot of hormonal issues and everything affect headaches, a headache is your body's way of telling you that something ain't right, I mean plain and simple.

If you're getting headaches at any time, something is off balance in some way. And so I got four things that I tend to look at when it comes to having a headache. Why am I bringing this up?

Because for the last couple days, I've had a very, very light headache that has come and gone and I'm not exactly sure what it is. So we're waiting, I'm kind of taking my time with it. And it just occurred to me that I never discuss things like this, even though this affects everybody.

This is for things that usually help out extremely, I usually get over headaches pretty quickly, when I when they do come about, like I said, I don't get a very often. First thing, first thing I always check, especially with me, it's hydration.

If you're dehydrated in any way, I think it's one of the most common issues that people have today, is being dehydrated, and they don't realize it, it took me years and years to realize that a big portion of my I have, I have generally low blood pressure. And a whole lot of that comes from being dehydrated.

As I became a little bit more healthy, who lost weight and everything, I focused on keeping myself hydrated and not just by drinking water by the gallons, but in being careful about not having too much caffeine.

In making sure that I have electrolytes, which is something we don't talk a whole lot about in society that they when I was a kid that was always Oh, well you don't have to worry about electrolytes unless you exercise a lot, and I never exercised. So I never worried about electrolytes and in that case, you have Gatorade.

I mean, that's that was just how it was, I didn't know what an electrolyte was, or anything else. One thing I found out is there about three main ones that you got to watch for it. So sodium, magnesium and potassium. And I have magnesium every single day.

Take it with my vitamins in the morning and I take some magnesium, it makes a big difference, especially if you have if you're on a low carb diet, you tend to flush out a lot of minerals a lot faster. And so because of that, I gotta always replace it with magnesium. So I'm good on that sodium is salt and I tend to I tend to take a lot, I have a high salt diet.

And so that it's actually pretty helpful for me, potassium, I add a little bit of potassium into my drink in t...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DIDsiusny0&feature=youtu.be

The power of being a good listener.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Better to be interested, or interesting?

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

This is a, it's becoming a common saying I've heard it around quite a bit. I don't know who came up with it. But the the real question is, is is it better to be interesting or interested?

And the real answer is, it's better to be interested in. So what's that mean?

What are you saying, Well, when it comes down to is, when you're talking, especially in a business relationship, even especially when you're starting a business relationship with somebody, is it more important to be interesting and to put on a nice big show for them, or is it more important to be interested in them, where they're going what they're doing, I heard somebody make a reference to this in terms of coaching, they do something similar to me, I'm a business strategist.

So I work with business owners and executives, to help them explode their businesses. And one of the main things that I do is I ask a lot of questions, everything is all about that person, or that team of people, and where they're looking at taking things. And if they don't have a clear way that they're taking things, and don't want a clear way of taking things, you can't really go anywhere.

But it takes time to be able to figure that out to be interested enough in people to not just ask a questions, but to listen to the answers. And to be able to ask proper follow up questions.

I have a list of questions I normally work with initially that kind of gets the conversation going, but the conversation can then go anywhere from there. It all depends on what the answers are. And the questions are what bring out the, the answers.

One thing I've learned is it's not anything having to do with me. And it's not just in this business, it's not just me as a, as a strategist, that this is true, this is true in any situation, the customer, the whole concept of being customer centric, is to put them as the star of the show, is to find out what they're after.

See if what you have can help get them there. That's the whole point of commerce itself. So if you spend more time being interested in them, which is a lot more difficult to do when it comes to like e commerce and things of that sort where you're, you're distant from the customer, you need to try and bridge that gap as much as possible. Yes, surveys, yes.

You know, good customer service that asks good questions and, and spends time with the people. That's helpful. But if you as the business owner and executive if you could be in contact with them. A little difficult right now. We're in early 2021. And still, under a lot of lockdowns have to do with the COVID-19 crisis.

But there's ways there's ways to be in touch with people, there's ways to be a human with them. You can open yourself up to, to video chats, and live on Facebook or over zoom, where you open yourself up to your customer base, do it, get to know them. spend less time talking about yourself and spend more time finding out more about them.

Hopefully, that's helpful to you be more interested than interesting. And I think you'll get a lot of success out of it. If you'd like more concepts of things that can really blow your business up in a good way. Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business you can get a free c...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V12iDuzqJ1M&feature=youtu.be

R E S P E C T goes both ways. Some thoughts on why the customer isn't always right.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Time to fire your customers.

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

I don't mean all your customers, but you do need to fire some customers more than likely.

In fact, one of the things when I come in and I end up working with companies, one of the first things we do is we identify who the best customers are. And we identify who the worst customers are.

And we do everything in our power to get rid of the worst customers. And we give them a chance we let them leave nicely, or we give them a chance to become better customers. But you can't act like it isn't a two way street.

I think so much of the issues now, even in society. And I don't just mean the United States where I where I reside here, we're here in Southern Oregon. I don't just mean here, I mean, around the world, only, I think in in America, in North America, you United States of America, I should say.

It's more obvious, right, it's more clear cut, because there's been such a huge difference between both sides, both different ways, the world has changed so much in such a short period of time, that there's a there's a big thing going on, and it comes back, I'm going to bring this back around to your business and your customers.

But it comes from thinking that we're all owed something, and that our side is better than their side, you know, and oftentimes, this is this happens in business all the time. It's, the employers owe something to the employees, the employees owe something to the employers, the the customers that very rarely do people think that the customers owe the person that is selling the item, but it's a two way street.

If you're selling it, you have the ability to make a price and and define the quality. And then the customer can pay that or not pay that.

But it's a two way street, it's not one is not better than the other one is not more powerful than the other, it takes two to make the engagement happen. And way too often, we keep acting like one side has power over the other, they only have power in the sense that they may have one side may have more power over one resource or another. But that doesn't mean they actually have power.

Because that side wants something from the other side, and they either get it or they don't get it. And if they don't get it, they can go and get the same thing somewhere else. So don't fall for it yourself as a business owner, or an executive of a business.

You should not fall for the idea that the customer because they're our customer are somehow better than you. They're a human being. They want something and hopefully you have something that they want, so that they're willing to exchange their money for what you have. I know this is just basic 101 economics, but it's the thing that most of us Miss.

And we fall for all of the jealousy and envy and all these things that occur in society nowadays, that try and pit us against each other. If you just see people for being people, regardless of all the other entanglements, all the other physical features and everything else that we get wrapped up in.

If you just see a person for being a person, and that includes seeing yourself on on a level, you don't have to put yourself down to bring someone else up and you don't have ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf2CmXlDF8o&feature=youtu.be

It's hard to sell someone on an idea they don't want.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

They have to want it.

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

Every once a while I find myself in a situation where I'm talking to somebody who was not necessarily set up properly to want, what I have to give. And the same thing is true in your business.

If you own a business, if you're an executive of a business, you will oftentimes be in front of people, either through your marketing or in person, where they don't necessarily want what you have.

Now, I'm not saying they don't need what you have, they probably do need what you have. I know a lot of people that offer things that everybody needs, but very few want.

What gets sold is not what people need, what gets sold is what people want. Now, sometimes they're in the same place at the same time. Sometimes what they need also happens to be something that they want. But it's not going to matter whether they need it or not.

What matters is whether they want it because one thing is going to cause the motion that is going to make that thing be bought, whether that thing is a service or a product or what have you, it's all about your end customer wanting it.

I was having a conversation with some folks earlier today. And I don't think it's not necessarily even that they didn't want what I was able to provide, but that it hadn't been exactly clear as to what that was and if that's not clear, then they don't want it. They don't want it. They don't if they don't know where you're trying to take them.

If they don't know the destination, if they don't know the benefits of what you're providing. What's in it, for me is the question that they all have on their minds.

What am I going to get out of this, if you can't give that to them ahead of time, they're not going to want to go through all the rigmarole, especially if you have a process like mine, which is relatively detailed and thorough.

They're not going to want to go through that process. They have to know they want what you're providing. Or they at least have to have an idea that they want it. And if they don't, you're going to get resistance.

This is where so much resistance happens, both before the sale and after the sale because the sale is only the beginning.

If you have especially if you work one on one with people, one on one with clients, the long in the long run, the sale is ongoing, you're always attempting to get them to re-buy in mentally to the process. And if there's resistance at any point, it just won't work.

Especially if you're doing something that's really helpful to people. Oftentimes it requires work on their end, it requires them buying in to some extent. And you got to have that ahead of time.

If you don't have it ahead of time, you're going to have resistance, and that resistance causes stress on both ends of the relationship and you end up with unsatisfied customers and clients. So just a nice quick reminder, give them what they want. Find out what they want, show them how to get it if at all possible. If you want to find out ways to be able to go go about doing that.

Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You can find a free link at AmazonProofBook.com. We'll be back tomorrow night. In the meantime,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAnx9PEUhhI&feature=youtu.be

How to people view your business and what can you do to change it, if needed?

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

How is your business perceived?

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

How is it perceived? If you have a business, which a lot of the people watching do, how is it perceived? Especially by your ideal market, the ideal person for you, your ideal client customer, what have you.

How do they see your business?

If they see your business, if they don't see your business that's a whole nother ball of wax. But if they are noticing you, what do they think about you?

Do they have a perception? Is there a perception placed around you?

And is there just something that you, is there a way you want to be seen?

Or is there a way that you're actually being seen do those two things match?

So there's two points about this, I want to bring up first point, how do you find out, right.

You find out by asking your customers, you ask them, you find out from the people that already know you, especially if they know you like you and trust you even better. But you find out from them.

You got to sit down and talk to them, you got to call them up, you got to email them, you have to conversate with them on social media, you have to ask, when you think of my business, what do you think of?

What do you like best about it?

How did you find out about us?

If you had to compare us to something else, what would you compare us to?

And it's not an easy, these aren't easy questions to ask. And they're not easy questions to answer. It really takes digging to find out where, where how they see you.

Are there other people providing similar products that you would compare us to? Are there other things, you know, if you're providing, I'm just making something up? If you're, if you're creating cat food?

Is there a dog food company they know that then compare you to? These are all perception things?

They're very much their subconscious, right?

They're below the surface, it takes a little digging to figure it out. But if you figure that out, then you can figure out how to change it.

Now, if you want to go around that, let's get to the second point. The second point is how do you go about changing it? How do you instill a perception about where you're at?

Well, you have to surround you your brand, with other brands, with other ideas, other concepts that people are already familiar with, that they can relate back to you.

And sometimes this means becoming a celebrity, which we talk we have a whole chapter about about being somebody and, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. That's my book, go get your own free copy at AmazonProofBook.com, you can go download it right now.

You may need to be a celebrity, you may need to be your own thing. And it's something I definitely highly recommend, but to to promote that process, you have to be seen in the same way that celebrities are seen.

You have to be around other celebrities, you have to be you it's all about the perception is it's a very, very difficult thing to explain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Y0mG6wRc8&feature=youtu.be

Brian shares some thoughts on the entrepreneurial journey.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

In business, you're never alone.

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

Well, these videos tell you nothing, they tell you that you are really never alone. And this thought kind of came to me, when I came across a quote, The quote is by Jay veal, he's a speaker and author. And he said, I learned that anything I feel or experience as I take this journey has been felt or experienced by my predecessors.

Maybe not everything by everyone, but each thing by someone. And I think that's something we it's, it's really difficult to keep your mind in that and to realize that everyone's been through something that you're going through. And in business, it, it can really feel lonely, because you have so many people around you that don't even know the first thing about business.

And so it's really important to have some people on your team that can help you out with that, and can be there can at least hear where you're coming from. Even if they don't have an answer, they may have some clues as to where you can go next. But it's important to realize it's, it's it's all been figured out before.

So someone else has been in some very similar situation. Yeah, we've got new technologies, we've got the internet, we've got this, we've got that we got social media, and maybe someone 100 years ago didn't have to deal with all these things.

But they're not that drastically different humans haven't changed that much. And the fact that humans haven't changed that much. It doesn't take much a little bit of twisting here and there to be able to work things out between your and you, you and your business. Really doesn't take that much, you just have to have the right perspective.

Be able to be separate enough from your emotions, that you can see things the way they really are, and have some people on your team that can help keep your frame of mind in the right place. I always offer my services. I'm a business strategist. This is what I do for a living.

If you'd like to find out more about me and my thoughts on some of these ideas, and some bigger strategies that you can use in your business. Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You could buy it anywhere books are sold, or you can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com

AmazonProofBook.com get your very own free digital copy, or like I said physical copies at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com everywhere that books are sold.

So we'll be back tomorrow with another tip, either a principle a strategy or tactic that can help you explode your business. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.