Just The Tips, with James P. Friel and Dean Holland

Longtime listeners of Just the Tips know that Dean and I are in an epic race to see who can finish their book first. It was a challenge set by Ken Dunn, our guest on episode 44, and as of this recording, there's no real easy way to put this, I'm mopping the floor with Dean. I may even be able to finish my book and come back and write his. But aside from the friendly competition (which isn't that friendly and which I am winning), putting my thoughts down in a book has been great for me to help organize my ideas around why entrepreneurs hit roadblocks. So on today's episode of Just the Tips, I'm talking about the ideas I'm working through in my book, and hopefully this sneak peek will help all of you if you encounter a roadblock.

Some entrepreneurs feel like they need to do everything themselves. And not only can they not do everything themselves, they shouldn't do everything themselves. And there are three false beliefs that drive entrepreneurs to take on too much. The first is a sort of hero complex, where entrepreneurs can feel like they are the reason the company exists, and everyone else exists to take tasks off of their plates. But once you build a team, you need to identify people who have superpowers that cover your weaknesses. If this sounds like you, you need to tune into this week's episode of Just the Tips.

So let's say you've convinced yourself that you are ready to delegate, what's the next, inevitable roadblock? You're not sure you can afford to hire anyone. I have a very detailed McDonald's analogy in this episode that you just have to hear, but the short and long of it is that every hour you don't have someone who can do something better than you can, you're not making the money you think you're making. You're effectively losing money. It's a difficult thing to wrap one's brain around, and of course it doesn't fix the problem of being cash-strapped, but I think this bit of advice could really help Just the Tips listeners.

When you're thinking of hiring someone, don't think of it as paying them for your time. Think of it as buying back your own time. Because every chance you have to buy back your time so you're not working on low-value tasks frees you up to work on high-value tasks. And if that seems a little selfish to you, think of it this way: Anytime you are not optimizing your time and doing the highest-value work, you are restricting the flow of money to other people, too. As Dean and I discuss on this episode, payday is the best day for an entrepreneur, because you know you're paying people who can then go on to have a good life

So the third false belief, then, is that you can't trust someone else to do a good job. And it's not just that you're a control freak and you want to do everything. It's just that you don't have a feedback loop set up so that you can verify that you're spending your money well. You need to have accountability, and you need to have a way for both you and the person working for you to know they're delivering value. If you have a system in place, then you can ease some of this anxiety. This week's Just the Tips is all about the psychology of being an entrepreneur, and destroying Dean Holland in the book race. That too.

• [2:00] Currently owning Dean in our book competition
• [3:48] Why some people get stuck
• [6:40] The first false belief
• [13:10] The second false belief
• [20:25] Buy back your time
• [30:00] Stop being a control freak
• [36:45] Doing stuff because it's quicker than training someone else
• [43:45] You're a busy fool

Music for "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ
• Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

On today's episode of Just the Tips, we have a bit of a wildcard, who jumped into the show before I could introduce him, and then served as a Don King-style hype man for Dean and myself. But that's Alex Dee, a man who brings enormous energy to everything he does. The origins of this episode may have come from an evening in a hot tub, but Alex actually has an amazing story of triumphing over adversity as he came to America, triumphing again when his life hit the skids, and then turning everything around to help entrepreneurs with his Success Hacks program. You need to listen to the whole episode to hear all about Alex's online entrepreneur academy. Alex is the real deal, and as you can tell Dean and I have a lot of respect for and fun with this guy.

Alex moved from Iran with his family when he was 8 to escape fighting in the country, and moved into an apartment right next to one of the most prestigious high schools in the U.S. So right from the start, his parents valued and emphasized education and bettering yourself, a theme Alex would return to again and again. One of the funniest things that happened to him, though, was his first job straight out of college. He was hired and then fired by a major telecom company within one week. Of course Alex tells that story first, but we got him to tell the story about traveling 20 miles through the desert as his family smuggled him out of the country. As you can tell, Alex is a straight shooter, and this is just the beginning of his journey as an entrepreneur.

Like many entrepreneurs, Alex has had his ups and downs. But one down period in particular was rough for him. In 2008 when the financial crisis hit, he lost almost his entire net worth, and he and his wife got divorced. But his lawyer actually had some really great advice for him about how to turn his life around. So Alex started reading every book about entrepreneurship that he could get his hands on, and implementing every solid piece of advice he could grab. And that mindset is what allowed him to turn things around, and then begin to share what he learned with others. This is a really honest story on this week's Just the Tips that you just have to hear.

Alex's story is amazing, but we have him here on Just the Tips to provide one thing: Tips. And the first he serves up is a parable about a donkey that an entrepreneur once told Alex. We won't try to recreate it here, but the thrust of it is that we all want to do everything, but we can't. So we need to focus on one thing at a time and knock each of those out sequentially. This is truly a clinic in how to adopt a successful mindset, and one every entrepreneur needs to hear.

Read any book, ask any person, and you will get a billion different answers to the question: "How can you become happy?" Alex, though, breaks it down in a very simple and amazing idea: creation. Being able to wake up every morning and being able to create something that you really care about, whether it's actually making something with your hands, or creating moments with your friends and family. Alex may be my partner in crime when it comes to pranking Dean, but he's a seriously great guy, who has used all of his life experiences to really make an incredible life for himself. If you're in a rut, you have to listen to Alex on this week's episode of Just the Tips.

• [4:34] Alex's incredible story
• [12:00] How perspective is important
• [14:25] How Alex's gratitude helped him weather tough times
• [19:00] The donkey parable
• [24:58] How to be happy
• [34:42] My epiphany at the racetrack
• [42:02] Alex's online entrepreneurial academy

• Success Hacks on Facebook
• Success Hack Nation on Instagram
• Online Entrepreneur Academy

Music for "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ
• Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

On today's episode of Just the Tips, Dean and I are reunited over the Internet after being together in person for Dean's wedding! After admitting the entire ceremony was a ruse just to get me to the U.K., Dean and I talk about a little cake controversy after the wedding, and all of the podcast fodder that Dean's groomsmen bestowed upon me during their speeches. So today's episode is all about war stories from jobs and companies past. And of course, we kick it all off with Dean selling parakeets. Because he's Dean Holland and that's what he does.

Because it was brought up in one of the speeches, I had to ask Dean about selling parakeets (or as they call them in the UK, budgies) when he was a kid. And so it turns out that young, entrepreneurial, 12-year-old Dean decided that he was going to turn his parents' garden shed into a bird sanctuary of sorts. But Dean quickly realized he could make more money if he bought show birds, rather than common parakeets. But the story took a tragic turn, when he went out to the shed to discover the birds were killing each other. And the story gets even stranger from there! Trust me, there are tips here on this week's Just the Tips beyond "don't be an amateur bird breeder."

I told Dean about how I first dipped my toe into enterprise. When I was about 10 years old, my parents had left me home alone, and I was hanging out in front of my house when a neighbor pulled his pickup into my driveway. After a little chit-chat, he mentioned that he liked my swingset. And boom, I made him make me an offer, and a salesman was born. There's more to the story than that, and this is a really fun episode of Just the Tips, where we tell the shaggiest of shaggy dog stories from our past.

As many of our guests have mentioned on the show, there's something about entrepreneurs that gets them started at a young age But as Dean says on this week's Just the Tips, the idea of seeking help, of appreciating mentorship or studying under a coach, didn't really sink in with him early on. For the most part, he always wanted to figure things out himself. But it was a spark of curiosity in people and what made people do certain things that eventually led him to his current path.

I told Dean this story about a time in college when I was delivering pizzas, and I saw this guy driving this really nice car. So I asked him about it, what he does and how he got to the point where he could afford the car. And not only that, I took a quick break from my work to go chat with the guy some more, and he ended up being someone who gave me a lot of good advice after that, as well. And so you never know unless you start talking to someone, just what you can learn from them. This was a super fun episode of Just the Tips, opening up the closet and seeing what budgie skeletons are in there.

• [6:13] The value of vacation
• [16:23] The early days of enterprise
• [20:20] Learning to accept coaching
• [22:30] Follow your curiosity

Music for "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ

Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

For all of the many skills an entrepreneur applies to their work and life, often taking care of their financial well-being isn't one of them. Planning for retirement and making sure you are "financially healthy" can be intimidating to think about. But on today's episode of Just the Tips, Dean and I talk with a guy who knows how to talk with entrepreneurs about money. Bradley Gibb is the co-founder of Atlas Wealth Solutions and CashFlow Tactics, and as he told us in this week's episode, entrepreneurs often get into the field because they have a great idea or they love sales or business, but that doesn't mean they're great at managing their money. Bradley understands all of this, which is why you have to listen to this week's episode.

As Bradley says, he and his company step in to help entrepreneurs when they realize they've been hustling and grinding for five or ten years to build their business, and they're looking around and realizing they need to be able to hang onto this money they're making. So entrepreneurs either blindly trust whatever advisor is in front of them, or they put their heads in the sand and don't think about it. If this sounds like you, if you think you land in one of those two camps, you need to tune into this week's episode of Just the Tips.

One of the biggest problems with financial advice, Bradley told us, is that often we think a "cookie cutter" or "silver bullet" approach will work. But the fact is we all are in different stages of our lives and our businesses, and there's no one piece of advice that's going to work for everyone. The other thing we, as entrepreneurs, need to remember is that financial products are products. They have marketing budgets and customer avatars and they're being sold to us whether or not they solve the specific problems we have. That's not an evil thing, that's what we all do, but that also means we have to be very selective in who we trust and what advice we take. But of course, you can trust everything I say, and about 30% of what Dean says, ons Just the Tips.

Because this show is called Just the Tips, we had to ask Bradley for some good, fundamental advice for entrepreneurs. His first answer was actually somewhat surprising: It's that entrepreneurs should remember that they have a superpower that no one else has: They print money. They literally make money. And so step one is to re-invest in yourself and your business. And so if you have the mindset to do that, you have the mindset to make great decisions with your money. And as Bradley continues to roll out the advice, it's so clear that he understands exactly the needs of entrepreneurs. This is a really great episode and one you have to listen to if you own a business.

• [4:00] Transition out of hustle mode
• [7:30] Financial advice is not one-size-fits-all
• [11:30] Bradley's story
• [19:25] Fundamental principles of good financial health
• [28:00] Best tips for investment strategies
• [33:30] The playbook

Music for "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

• The Atlas Wealth Solutions Playbook

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ

Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

On today's episode of Just the Tips, Dean and I chat about the importance of taking breaks, going on vacation, leaving the grind behind and resetting. This is a really important episode for anyone who is feeling the burnout, or who is eyeing an upcoming vacation with anxiety because they feel like they just can't step away. Dean talks about how he sometimes realizes he's a bottleneck in his business that's unplugged once he's unplugged, and I tell a story about an epic vacation decision that demonstrates how important it is to surround yourself with the best people.

When we recorded this episode, I was just back from a vacation, and as I told Dean, even though I know it's true, I'm always surprised by how good vacations are for me. It can take a few days to reset, but eventually I get there. And Dean agreed, saying that for a time, he wouldn't allow himself to take vacations because he wasn't happy with where his business was at the time. So he'd just plow through, not recognizing a break would do him good. This is all part of something we've been talking about: When you own a business, the goalposts are always moving, so there's a good chance you're always going to feel there's "more work to be done." If this sounds like you, you need to tune into this week's episode of Just the Tips.

As you know, we're all about systems here. But Dean brought up a good point. When you have everything running on systems, theoretically it should be easier to step away. But you also become systematized, and it can be difficult to unplug yourself from your work. For me, it's less about feeling like I have to stick with the system, and more about the guilt I feel for not working. When you've been pursuing some sort of work for most of your life, the guilt is real when you take time away. And as Dean says, sometimes when he steps away, things progress rapidly and he realizes he was the one holding things back. That's more a Dean thing than mine thing, but still, it's a salient point. It's a less-talked-about aspect of owning a business, and an important discussion on this week's Just the Tips.

Dean and I chatted about how you empower people on your team both in your absence and in their day-to-day jobs. I told him this story of an executive coach I had early in my career who had a philosophy of a "six-inch putt." And what he meant was that it was his job to make the final decision that something was ready. So in golf terms, it was the team's job to drive the ball, chip it up onto the green, get it within six inches of the cup, and then when it's a sure thing, he can tap it in. But if it's not at that point, then it's not his job, and it is someone else's. So that's how you empower people, you get them to see their role as important to getting to that six-inch putt.

I told Dean this story about my vacation, where I was hanging out with a great group of friends who are all doing amazing things and really pushing boundaries. On the last night of the trip, we were in Albuquerque, and it was the birthday of one of the guys on the trip. So we were trying to figure out what to do for it, and I suggested something kind of crazy (Sorry, you have to listen to find out). Everyone quickly got on board, and we made an amazing few days happen. As Jim Rohn says, you will become the average of the five people you hang around with the most. This is a really great episode and fun conversation with a guy I try to limit my time with, Dean Holland. Check out this week's episode of Just the Tips.

• [1:15] The value of vacation
• [7:55] The dark side of systematizing
• [14:14] Empowering your team
• [19:30] The six-inch putt
• [26:05] Hero syndrome
• [29:37] The importance of your peer group

Music for "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ
• Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

On today's episode of Just the Tips, Dean and I punch above our weight a bit by having Richard Chapo, a lawyer specializing in internet law for businesses, on the show. Richard is a business lawyer in San Diego who has been practicing for 25 years and advises small and large online businesses on how best to comply with laws applicable to conducting business online. We dig into some pretty gnarly legal stuff this week, including GDPR, collecting sales tax, and what's up with Apple and its back taxes. This is a great episode of Just the Tips that you won't want to miss.

Sometimes the Internet may feel like a lawless land, so I had to ask Richard what he means when he calls himself an Internet lawyer. And he said that when he started out, it was just a pretty simple thing, but it's become increasingly complex over the years, including sophisticated privacy statutes like GDPR, shifting sales tax questions and copyright issues. If you have an online business, or even just an online component to your business (as many do), you need to listen to this week's episode of Just the Tips.

Richard, of course, watches the space closely for any legal issues that may pop up, and it's fascinating to hear him run through examples big and small of mistakes people make online. He cited everything from Apple owing massive back taxes in Europe, to very small companies making mistakes early on that become huge problems as they scale, to casinos failing to properly disclose information in promotional videos. The legal world is, as always, a minefield, but luckily Richard knows where the mines are buried. This is truly a unique and fascinating episode of Just the Tips.

Of course one of the most prominent laws impacting online businesses this year has been GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation passed in the EU focused on data protection and privacy. As Richard says, the right to privacy in the EU is as valued as the right to free speech in the U.S., and GDPR is the enforcement of that right. As Richard says, a company's decision to comply with GDPR should be based on the cost of compliance. If you have only 10 sales in the EU, but the cost of compliance is $10,000, maybe it makes more sense to not sell in the EU than comply with GDPR. We think of the Internet as a worldwide thing, but regulations like GDPR could actually segment it. Really interesting stuff from Richard on this week's episode of Just the Tips.

One of the big decisions to impact businesses that sell online was South Dakota v. Wayfair, a case heard by the Supreme Court in June. As Richard says, the legal precedent on whether businesses in one state that sell to another state have to pay the sales tax in that other state came from the 1970s and was based on catalog sales. And it held that businesses did not have to pay that sales tax. But things have changed, in June the Supreme Court reversed that decision. What does that mean for your business? Well, Just the Tips is always here for the free legal advice, so you have to listen to this episode!

Outline of This Episode

• [3:28] What is an Internet lawyer?
• [4:44] What do business owners need to watch out for online?
• [7:39] What mistakes do people make?
• [16:38] Complying with international law
• [21:28] GDPR
• [29:00] Supreme Court and the sales tax
• [29:47] How Erik audits a company's marketing
• [38:36] Don't let this stuff stop you from selling online

Musicfor "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

• Richard Chapo

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ
• Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

On today's episode of Just the Tips, Dean and I welcome one of the best copywriters around, an award-winning designer, and a guy who knows his way around conversion rates and online marketing. Erik Stafford has won several AAF-ADDY Awards and ARDA Awards for his work, and now heads up Stafford Marketing, where he helps businesses define their brand, their tone of voice and all of the personality attributes a company needs to connect with their audience. This is a great episode of Just the Tips that you won't want to miss.

Many of our guests start out in the corporate world and then get the bug to become an entrepreneur, but Erik has a truly unique background. His grandfather was a Russian immigrant who came over and worked his butt off and was the type of guy who would come home and tell his wife "Hey, I bought a circus today, or I bought a leather store today," says Erik. So it was always in his blood. But growing up in Chicago, Erik took up graffiti art, and made money airbrushing jackets and more for gangs. But then he went to college as a fine art major, became a graphic designer, and eventually got into web design. All of this happens in the first five minutes of this episode of Just the Tips, so you know you're in for a ride.

Erik did get a job as a web designer at an agency, and he learned quickly how to make beautiful websites and online content. But just as quickly he learned that he was making "beautiful online brochures" that would just sit there and no one would see. So he started digging around and learning about direct response marketing, and realized there was a better way to do things. So he was able to combine his experience doing brand strategy and brand voice, with the more action-driven angle of direct response, making him a Swiss Army knife of marketers.

One of the fascinating things that Erik says in this episode is that he works with companies on building empathy maps. And what he means by that is creating an understanding of what motivates people, and what core emotions they're looking to experience. And from there he builds a narrative that helps connect a company to that intended audience. The first step is building credibility, and from there it's really fascinating how it all unfolds. Find out how on this week's episode of Just the Tips.

Erik actually applies a Hollywood three-act structure to his clients' work, meaning he tells them a story in a way that feels familiar to them, and ends with the action, the conversion, the company wants. It's act one, the setup and the premise, act two is the climax or the confrontation, and then act three is the resolution. When you take an arc like that, that builds drama but has a payoff at the end, it's something everyone recognizes even if they don't realize they're recognizing it. It's a really fascinating breakdown, and the results speak for themselves. Listen to the episode!

Outline of This Episode

• [3:44] Erik's origin story
• [8:26] How he became a brand strategist
• [10:35] What is an empathy map?
• [12:33] How storytelling is important
• [16:19] The three-act structure
• [23:15] How story archetypes play out in marketing
• [29:47] How Erik audits a company's marketing
• [40:21] Be an ethical marketer

Music for "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

• Stafford Marketing

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ
• Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

On today's episode of Just the Tips, Dean grants me a new nickname that I actually earned back in the day when I worked in London, The Loud American, but I quiet down a bit to listen to a good friend of mine, Shawn Lynam, tell his story of how he went from the corporate world, to the real estate world, to internet marketing. Shawn really knows his stuff, and in this episode we talk about how to not complicate matters, how to model your success on others, and how to position your offer to make it really sing. This is a great episode of Just the Tips that you won't want to miss.

Shawn's story of how he got into entrepreneurship generally and internet marketing specifically may be one that's familiar to you. He took a job out of college with Lockheed Martin, working up the corporate ladder. But when his sister handed him a book (no spoilers) that also changed my perspective at a similar point in my life, Shawn started getting into real estate. He eventually became so skilled at real estate investing that he quit his job, and then after 10 years of doing that, with a family on the way, he decided to switch it up and start down the path of internet marketing. Since then, he's killed it in yet another industry. If you're interested in getting into internet marketing, or looking to step up your business's online effort, you have to listen to this episode of Just the Tips.

Sometimes someone says something so simple, you smack your head for not coming up with it first. But when I asked Shawn how to make a great offer, he said: "Sell what's already selling." And what he means by that is do your research: Know the market for what you're selling, and analyze the demand for what you're selling. You can't come up with a successful product out of thin air and make people suddenly want it. Now, what exactly does that mean? Sell what someone else is already selling, or sell something slightly different? You'll have to listen to this week's Just the Tips to find out.

Shawn and I actually conducted a really interesting experiment a couple years ago, right before the election, where we started selling election-related hats. We built a funnel and decided to see if anyone would buy, and then suddenly there was a deluge of sales. It was such an enormous rush that we actually had our account frozen for processing too many sales. So I had to open up a new account, and I made one rookie mistake that I'll never make again: I put my cell phone number down as the contact info. It's a funny story, but as Shawn says, it's a legitimate problem that a lot of people run into. Find out how he gets around it on this week's episode of Just the Tips.

Shawn says something so smart about halfway through this episode, during a discussion about not reinventing the wheel. As he says, "funnel hacking" isn't really hacking at all, it's funnel modeling. So you take something that works, and you take those fundamentals, and you apply them to what you want to do. You don't have to dream up a new way to do it, you just have to model your success on others. We also dive into the importance of positioning and how that communicates the value of your offer to your customers. Listen to the episode!

Outline of This Episode

• [4:00] Shawn's entrepreneurial origin story
• [6:13] Sell what's already selling
• [10:33] Case study of what went wrong in a funnel
• [14:45] Don't reinvent the wheel
• [18:00] Positioning is so important
• [24:00] The red rose guarantee
• [27:00] Do your homework
• [31:30] Always be learning

Music for "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

• Shawn on Facebook

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ
• Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

Today's episode of Just the Tips finds me recovering from an accidental 22-mile walk, but that doesn't stop me from getting excited about our guest, Chris Dayley. Chris is a mastermind at conversion, having done more than 1,000 split tests in his time, and applying psychology to marketing to really help businesses dig into what makes customers convert. On today's show we talk about the assumptions people make about websites, how most of them are wrong, and how to run a proper test to grow those conversions. This is a hugely valuable episode of Just the Tips that you won't want to miss.

Chris's story of how he got into conversion is a really great lesson for anyone out there trying to parse what analytics mean the most to their business. He was in-house at a company and focused on organic traffic. And in fact, his team tripled the company's organic traffic in just six months, which is a phenomenal climb. But as the traffic rose, the conversions remained stagnant, and no one could tell Chris why that was. And as Chris says, if you're getting lots of organic traffic but few conversions, there are basically two problems: Either you're showing up for an irrelevant search term, or there's a problem with the website. And so Chris created a split-test that looked worse than the current website, but worked better. Why? That question has fueled Chris's career, and provides the launchpad for a fascinating episode of Just the Tips.

What Chris found so fascinating about his test is that the page he created looked, aesthetically, way worse than the current site. So much so that the designer said he would never put it on the site. But still, it converted better. We often make the mistake that the most important thing about a website is that it looks good. But really, you want something that works well. Chris tells a really interesting story about something he calls "an existence test," which you'll want to hear about. It's really savvy stuff you'll hear on this week's Just the Tips.

Chris told us about how he helped a client sell $25,000 more in one week through one of his split-tests. How? He says that businesses tend to make a lot of dangerous assumptions about their customers and websites. And sometimes there is data behind those assumptions, but the data doesn't tell the whole story, or we read into the data the story we think is correct. The other assumption people make about websites is that they think they need to put everything on there: Dump everything onto the site so that there's something for everyone. But as Chris says, his split-tests have shown that old theory is wrong.

One thing that Chris said that really stuck with me is that you have to build the site that your audience wants. They need to tell you (through their behavior) what they want in your site. So even though simplicity is often good for a site, sometimes your audience may not want the site to be so simple. It's all about throwing out the assumptions that we make without doing the hard work of split-testing. As Chris says, even customers may not know what they want. You can't ask people what they want on the website. You have to run the test. Listen to the episode!

Outline of This Episode

• [5:15] How Chris got started studying conversion
• [9:26] What looks best doesn't always convert best
• [12:45] An existence test
• [17:41] The psychology of conversion
• [24:45] Why our assumptions are so bad
• [29:43] What's a good conversion rate?
• [32:50] Chris's toolkit

Musicfor "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ
• Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/

On today's episode of Just the Tips, Dean comes through with the promise of something he teased in an earlier episode, which is a hugely successful marketing strategy that he's implemented for his own business. In the last episode, Dean said he was working on the strategy that had been crushing it, but then he turned it into an episode of Zero Tips and wouldn't tell us what it actually was. Well, today the wait is over, and we can now hear about what Dean has been up to and how he's been killing it lately. Dean apparently has been getting death threats since the episode aired for not saying what the strategy was, so we're here to clear both the air and Dean's good name (what's left of it). And as a bonus, you get the inside scoop on a killer approach to marketing.

Dean told me about how he has a number of lists from all of the different projects he's done over the years, and of course the most valuable of those lists is the customer list, the one comprised of people who have purchased something from his business. So he surveyed those customers and one of the most common bits of feedback he received was that business owners have invested all they can, and they don't have more money to put into another offer. And rather than just accept the answer that they didn't have the money to spend, Dean thought about how his offers could actually help these people. So he followed up, sending another survey, to figure out where these people were stuck. This is pretty remarkable, the amount of attention Dean is giving to his customers knowing full well that there may be nothing in it for him, in the end.

Dean spent a week poring over the answers to the survey questions, and looking for commonalities, what pain points his customers shared. The end goal was to sell a coaching program that could help them bypass those pain points. But people don't want to hear they're being sold a coaching program when they're hurting for cash, even if that program could help them. So all he said was, "I've read over your feedback, and I'm considering putting together something that could help you. If you think I should do that and you'd be interested in it, reply to this email." And what's fascinating is that when he emailed the list saying he was going to create this, he had more people respond to that email, than to his initial email. And that is how you know you've hit on something. This is a really fascinating case study on this week's Just the Tips, that you have to hear.

Now that he knew he had something people wanted, Dean had to create the something. So what he offered them was a day-by-day plan, where they could actually watch him tackle their problems as if he were in their shoes. So for one hour a day, he would act as though he were in their position, and show them exactly what he would do to get over the hurdles. Now how he got the people to sign up is a stroke of brilliance that includes lowering the offer price, creating exclusivity, and building an offer that sells out in just a couple of hours. This is truly a clinic in how to get people to buy into what you're selling, and it's a great story that Dean shares on this week's Just the Tips.

One of the most important lessons Dean shares on this week episode of just the tips is that the important thing in any marketing campaign or any sales how about selling that initial service for initial product. It's about building a long-term relationship with a customer. And so after that initial offering Dean emailed the 50 people who had signed up and said "I'm thinking of continuing this program now that it's over, would you be interested?" And 35 said they were. Now that is a return and it shows how Dean and really created something of value to his customers. This episode is no exception and you have to hear it, to hear how Dean pulled it off.

• [2:29] The basics of Dean's approach
• [11:54] The subtle offer
• [15:55] How he got the sign-ups
• [22:00] The real takeaway
• [26:15] You must over-deliver
• [35:00] Everyone is a buyer
• [42:40] Everyone has a problem to solve
• [46:30] Talk to your customers

Music for "Just The Tips" is titled, "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

James P. Friel:

• AutoPilot Entrepreneur Program: www.jamespfriel.com/autopilot
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autopilotentrepreneur
• Site: www.jamespfriel.com

Dean Holland:

• Blog: www.DeanHolland.com
• FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ
• Digital Business Entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalBusinessEntrepreneurs/