Amplify Your Marketing With John Jantsch

CEO & Founder at Duct Tape Marketing – John Jantsch

Here’s what you’ll learn from John about Amplifying Your Marketing:

– The ONE thing that actually matters when it comes to your marketing. (And it’s not the latest funnel software.)
– Should you be using Twitter, Snapchat, or any other social media in your marketing? Here’s an easy way to find out which one’s right for you.
– Why you should stop using data and metrics just as a reporting tool and do this instead.
– How to approach marketing like a scientist and design your tests for maximum ROI.
– How to get better referrals on auto-pilot.

Tune in and listen: Amplify Your Marketing With John Jantsch

John’s Website:

DuctTapeMarketing.com – Install a marketing system and the pain and frustration associated with marketing will go away – forever!

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime Masters:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Masters and today on the show we finally had John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing. He's amazing. His latest book is called SEO For Growth. He has a consultant's network we're going to talk all about. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

John Jantsch:	What the heck took so long is - 

Jaime Masters:	No.

John Jantsch:	What I want to know.

Jaime Masters:	I see you on events, I-m like, "Hey." You're like, "Yeah, yeah. I'm still waiting."

John Jantsch:	I know. You kidding me? I kept begging you and finally.

Jaime Masters:	I know. I mean I'm a very popular show, so there - no. It's so funny because I - you were always one of those people that I looked up to when I first started, especially. So, the fact that you actually wanted to come on my show made me super excited, just so you know. So, I know. So, tell everybody - in case they don't know who you are, but they should already - what exactly you guys do over at Duct Tape Marketing.

John Jantsch:	Yep. Well, so - I mean at the core, Duct Tape Marketing is a marketing consulting firm. I started that 28 years ago as a sole entrepreneur, and when out there, and figured out who would pay me for work. And that was about the start of it and I could always hustle and sell stuff. Figured out how to do it later. That really grew to a point where I found that I really enjoy working with small business owners, but they were very frustrating. They had the same challenges and needs - I had big plans too - and while they had their own pain in the butt factor, they generally had budgets and attention spans. 

And so, I decided what I needed to do to kind of solve that frustration, if I was going to work with small business owners, I needed to create a very systematic way. Where I could walk in and say, "Here's what I'm going to do. Here's what you're going to do. Here's the results we hope to get and by the way, here is what it's going to cost." And sort of magically, what I discovered was that in an attempt to solve my great frustration, I actually tapped what is still today - I think one of the greatest frustrations with small business owners. 
It's actually very hard to buy marketing services, at least in a comprehensive way. I mean everybody, every software vendor, every publisher is selling a piece of it. And so, it was very well received and that was actually the genesis of the name Duct Tape Marketing. I felt like if I was going to turn marketing into a product, I had to give it more of a producty name. That then sort of turned into looking at online - this is before. I know some of your listeners have never lived without the internet, but this was before the internet. 

But right at the turn of when that was going on, 2002, 2003, and blogging started. I started just writing just as a way to - figured it was a way to sell my products and that turned into books which turned into really courses. And just kind of a whole evolution which ultimately led independent marketing consultants to kind of come to me and say, "Hey, we want to use that system. We have that same frustration." So, that's 28 years in - what was that? About three and a half minutes.

Jaime Masters:	Boom, perfect. Okay, now I have a thousand more questions to ask you. So, number one, you've seen the evolution of where marketing has come from because I came from offline worlds.

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	And so, when we come online, everyone's like, "Oh, look at this amazing marketing." And it's still freakin' marketing. It was before offline, it is now. Now don't get me wrong, it's different distributions and it changes constantly, so lucky you. But how do you see the evolutions from 28 years of this?

John Jantsch:	Well, I'm in the same camp. Marketing itself hasn't changed that much. Actually, what has changed is buying. The way people find companies, the way people buy products, the way they make decisions has changed. And that's really what is forcing, I guess a lot of marketers, to have to adapt to that journey where the marketers are no longer in charge of, "Hey, here's this year's model. Here's this year's price list. I'm going to send a rep out so that you can get it."

I mean, that's how people bought before. But now what happens is we go, we search, we look at networks, we find all the data, we find all the reviews, and we make a decision in many cases. And then we call the company and say, "How can I get this cheaper?" Or something. I mean it's really - the buyer is now in many ways in charge. And companies that have figured that out, and have really adapted all of the ways that they communicate, and serve their clients are the wins that are winning.

Jaime Masters:	So, how do we do that? Especially when you're a marketer in general because I deal with small business owners.
John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	And it is - it's this like spray and pray. Like, "I'm going to try the new latest trend and cross my fingers." 

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	So, what do you suggest for business going through this up and down craziness thinking that it's a new tactic that's going to give them the sweet spot and then feeling really defeated right after because you know this.

John Jantsch:	Yes, I absolutely do. I think that's it not about the channel. It's not about the tool or the network. They can be started from a point of view and this is going to sound really philosophical, but if you start every decision or thinking about every decision about a channel. Is it good for the customer? Will this be a great customer experience? Will my customer appreciate that I'm communicating in this way or through this means? And if you use that filter, you're probably not going to go wrong. 

You're probably not going to look at something like Snapchat and go, "How can I make a million dollars on that?" Well, you can only make a million dollars if using Snapchat is good for your customer and I think that helps people actually really eliminate not only getting involved in a hundred things and not doing any of them well. It also allows you to use a tool like Twitter, for example. There are a couple of very small uses of Twitter. 

Following your own customers, following your competitors, making lists of people that you would like to have be customers. You don't have to use it in the way that you see Taylor Swift using. You can use it in some very micro ways that are all about your customer and that, to me, that sort of set of glasses allows me to help people really focus on doing what they be doing. In fact, I spent a great deal of my time getting people to do try to do less.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, I agree with this a thousand percent. Just do what works, but better. But how do you prioritize that piece also? Because it's still quite a bit. There's still literally [inaudible] be everywhere. I was like, "Don't tell people that." Because then they think they need to go like this wide.

John Jantsch:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	And it's not about going wide, especially at first, but going deeper on specific channels. But how we do we figure what channels or what pieces are going to actually fit together?

John Jantsch:	Well, if you're just starting out, I mean one of the challenges is - I mean, you do want to do at least enough research to say, "Well, here's where people are. Here's how I can reach - here's my ideal customer. Here's where I can reach them. Here's how I can reach them." I mean that's sort of the first hypothesis. But there is going to be a need for some experimentation which maybe feels like a little bit like the everywhere, but I think you do have to actually prioritize. 

And the easy way to prioritize is to say, "Where does my customer or who I think my potential customers are going to be? Where do they get their information? What's their trusted resource or preferred medium?" I mean some people love listening. Some people like to view. Some people like to read. You kind of have to figure some of those things out. Now if you are an existing business, one of the things that you should pay great attention to is where are you getting your customers today? 

I'm just floored at how many people go, "We need to be over here." It's like, "Well, all of your customers actually come to you today through here. What if you found ways to actually amplify your sales channel?" I find so many companies that all of their businesses built on sales and they don't t do anything to use social media or to use content marketing to actually help sales. And so, that to me is the route that we always advise.

Jaime Masters:	A thousand times yes. And it's so funny how logical that sounds. Everyone listening, they're like, "Great." But whoever's listening right now, you probably haven't done it, just so you know. I make them make a list. Now the funny thing is though a lot of times, especially when they're smaller, like less than 10 grand a month. They're dealing with, "Oh, a lot of it was referrals." And even if we go to those people and ask, 'Okay. Where are there hanging out?"

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	"Did they hear me about? What blogs or wherever that they're going?" It's like there's so few pieces of data that they can't make decisions very well. How do you help somebody like that?

John Jantsch:	Well, somebody like that, that feels like they don't have the data, part of it is because nobody - everybody I work with wants to figure out the system and then go figure out how to track it. And actually, it's kind of backwards. Figure out how you're to measure before you figure out how you're going to track, and then build the system intact. Because the data will actually tell you what's working and what's not working, but most people want to use data as a historical reporting tool as opposed to a strategic guidance tool.

Jaime Masters:	I ask people and they're like - I'm like, "So, how many customers did you get from that?" They're like, "I think it was," like, "Do you know?" "Well, I felt like it was like this." And sometimes we'll go back and be like, "You were so wrong. You were not even close on the spectrum." But because it's at least measured beforehand, that's good. If they have no data from before, they can't actually - the feeling can be completely incorrect. But how do you align - go ahead.

John Jantsch:	I was just going to say that you have to go in this mode that you're a scientist. And what scientists would do is have a hypothesis about a channel and or about a message and what they think could happen there. And then they put a little bit out into the stream and say, "Did that happen? Okay. Yes, let's do more or no, why didn't it?" And you don't have to - a lot of people listen to that and they go, "I can barely get the whatever out the door in the day. How could I be doing all that?" And it just has to become a habit and you have to just say, "Okay, this month we can test three things." And just do them well instead of just throwing your arms up and saying, "I don't know what works."

Jaime Masters:	Okay. So, tell me more about how they know whether or not this works because - or how long to test it to know if it's - like it doesn't work. So, that's the other piece. People will be like, "Well, I did Facebook ads, and I spent this much money, and I didn't make anything."

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	And so, there's so many nuances. It's simple, but not easy because there's way too many nuances to judge and if we're not experts, we don't know.

John Jantsch:	Well, for - boy, this is a 25-part answer.

Jaime Masters:	Besides hiring your consultants, go.

John Jantsch:	One of the things that we do - so, part of the challenge is that everybody gets in full on tactic mode and they don't develop enough strategy. And for us, strategy is, "Who's your ideal client? What do they do? How can you spot them?" All those kinds of things. Then it's also like, "What's our message? What problem are they having that we can promise to solve that's going to get their attention?" 

But the very next thing and I - because I think a lot of people at least academically get those two parts. But then we have to understand how do they make buying decisions? What-s their journey like? Where do they go out and find information? What does trust look like to them? How do they want to be educated? And I know all of that sounds like kind of textbook marketing stuff, but if you don-t understand the questions that they have and the goals they have at each of those stages. Then just throwing a Facebook test up is probably not going to generate much because they don't know you, they don't like you, they don't trust you. 

Why would they buy from you, right? So, you actually have to design all of those tests around an objective. And so, an objective might be we want to create awareness. That was our goal with this Facebook test, to get people to read this blog post and maybe, maybe if they love it, give us their email address. That journey has to be designed every bit as much as the test.

Jaime Masters:	Well and that's thing, I feel like - no offense - we're in this popcorn culture where everyone's like, "Oh, this is what we do." And they bypass the foundational stuff because that's super unsexy. And you're like, "But that's the reason why this part isn't working. Let's back it up.' And it's tough because, especially if you haven't done it before, and this is your first business, or even if it's not. But you're marketing a different way, that message matters so much and they don't know what is, "Right." Does that make sense? How long would it take for you to walk somebody through that whole customer piece? Because we also think it's so huge, it'll take us years to -
John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Figure out the messaging.

John Jantsch:	Well, it depends. I mean we were with organizations that have departments, or marketing and sales, and customer service, and engineering. So, bigger problem there because they're never talking to each other and then - so, huge gaps in the customer journey. But with somebody who the entire department is you, it is actually just understanding what those stages - I mean, we have seven stages that we use. And so, that's kind of our methodology. It's no, like, trust, try by repeat, refer. And we want to design all of our marketing, all of our content - in many cases - around intentionally moving people through those stages. 

And so, I've sat down with somebody in a couple hours and been able to help them figure that out. Now that doesn't mean - sometimes the conclusion is, "Boy, we don't have any content that addresses the awareness or the no stage," because we were so bent on telling people how to buy from us. And so, it creates projects. But at least mapping it out helps understand where the gaps are. And for all of companies, especially sole openers, we're so exhausted by the time somebody finally said yes that the experience erodes immediately. And so, one of the places when I get brought into a lot of companies and first place - I look in two places. 

It's the buy and repeat phases because I can help them convert a lot more clients than they're doing now because they're just spraying and praying right now. So, I can help show them how to have fewer leads and convert more of those leads to clients. And then, retain more of those leads and generate more - retain more of those customers and generate more referrals because we focused on actually what happens after they say yes. And that component is so lost. There's all these people online - this is my soapbox moment - that are selling these 473-part lead generation machines and funnels on Facebook. And a lot of people I talk to need six or eight more clients.

Jaime Masters:	Seriously. No, it's alright. Thank you for the soapbox, so appreciate it. Okay, so that's the point, right? So, we're sold this stuff that people say, "This will work for you.' And in reality, "Oh, but no.' And it's tough because apparently, they're really good marketers because these people are buying that up like crazy going, 'This is going to be the solution to my problem.' When in reality like you said, it's way more simplistic.

And doing small tweaks will make all the difference, and change your freakin' life over three months for somebody who's a sole entrepreneur. Instead of trying to go so big right now. So, tell me more about the referral side of things because this I love and I highly recommend all my people do this too. Creating that as a system and just letting that go, huge. So, tell us what you really do to try and get the best referrals, ideally, automatically.

John Jantsch:	So, the first one - and this is a disappointing part when I have a book called The Referral Engine and so I speak on referrals quite a bit. And I really disappoint people because I tell them really the secret to getting more referrals is to be more referable. I mean that's step number one.

Jaime Masters:	I knew you were going to say, "Man, we don't like that one." Yeah. 'Oh, you actually have to be really good. Oh, and people want to tell - perfect, thanks.'

John Jantsch:	[Inaudible]. Exceed people's expectations. Surprise them. Those are some of the first things and the good news is the bar's not that high because nobody's doing it. So, that's the good news. But then you have to think intentionally. What happens is most people think about referrals as an afterthought. It's, "Oh, if I do good work, people will like it, they'll refer me, or maybe occasionally I'll ask somebody for a referral.' But what if you started thinking about referrals in the conversion process, in the education process? What if you started telling people, "Look, Jaime. We know you're going to be so thrilled with what we promise to do today that after 90 days, we're actually going to come back to you. 

We're going to make sure you're thrilled. And then we're going to ask you if you know two other people who would love this same result." Well everybody you ask that, first of all, is going to say yes because you just promised they were going to be thrilled. You promised you were going to come back and make sure they were thrilled. And then you were going to help them introduce you to two other of their friends who need that same result. So, if you start thinking about referrals way, way before somebody even becomes a customer, it's incredible just what that simple mindset does. Now - 

Jaime Masters:	Who knew? Okay, perfect. 
John Jantsch:	Now the other component is to just stay top of mind with referrals too. You can have the happiest customers in the worlds, but they have lives, and they're busy, and they're doing stuff. And so, setting up some sort of club for them. or some sort of champion event for them, or sending them a gift certificate once a quarter that they can give to a friend. I mean these are all kind of little things that you can do to keep referrals coming from people who want to refer you in the first place.

Jaime Masters:	I'm supposed to get - when you have those people that just automatically give you referrals. Like levelling that - I get sent wonderful things in the mail. I give referrals to everybody because - 

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	It's hard to find good marketers. It's hard to good - it's hard to find good people with integrity that actually know what they're talking about, unfortunately on the internet. Even though we have Yelp and all this stuff, it's still really hard to find somebody that's right for you. And so, a referral to me, is still the best sweet spot of doing that. So, I think the internet is changing with Yelp and everything like that too, hopefully.

John Jantsch:	Yeah, yeah.

Jaime Masters:	How's that going to change moving forward for you? Especially with people on Facebook, and what I see moving forward, we're going to be able to know who our friends specifically recommend without even having to ask for a referral.

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Essentially.

John Jantsch:	Yeah. Well, and one of the things that you just tapped into is understanding that there are people out there that are first of all, just wired to refer. There are definitely people who like to talk about when they had a great experience, or when somebody exceeded their expectations, or that they got a really smart deal on something. People like to talk about that. But I think also, people like yourself have recognized that you - by making referrals, good, solid referrals, you actually enhance the value you have with your community or that relationship by being able to do that. 
People come to you. People stay with you because they know that you're going to steer them to some other places. And that's a mindset that a lot of marketers need to have. We talk all the time about kind of building almost a formal platform of best of class providers that you can consider your team, so that you can actually refer those people in because as a business owner, one of the greatest ways to get referrals is to make referrals.

Jaime Masters:	Okay. So, we talk about strategic partners and stuff like that too. How can you find a strategic partner that actually works out well? Because I know sometimes it's like, "Well, I referred them a ton and then they didn't refer anything back," or you know what I mean? Those pieces.

John Jantsch:	Well, I have a decidedly metaphysical answer to that in that as long as that person is helping your clients, the universe will keep score is - 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

John Jantsch:	Part of my answer to that. However, one of the ways that - where I think people - they just assume that people are going to do that. I think it's okay to have a conversation about why you're referring them and educating them on what it is you do and how they would spot your ideal client. I think that's all a part of teaching them how to actually get more value and provide more value to their clients. 

So, I don't ever tell people to shy away from that. But as far as finding your best of class, sometimes it's just - you research, you ask your friends on that. I'll tell you my favorite place - is I tell people to ask their clients. Who else do you love? Who else do you refer? Who else exceeds your expectations? Because then you've already got a shared sort of data point with that potential strategic partner. So, that to me is one of my favorite places to find - 

Jaime Masters:	Amazing introduction too. So, easy. Okay, I love all this. So, I want to switch a little bit because - talking about the consultant side of things because you were a firm and an agency. And I don't know how big on that agency side you got. What made you make the decision to go and do the consultant certification in the way that you did? Because then that takes your system and allows people that you don't necessarily know. I mean I know you've met them, I'm sure. But then it's out of your hands a little - 

John Jantsch:	Yes.
Jaime Masters:	Bit more than having employees.

John Jantsch:	Yeah. I guess I saw some people that did the employer ad - I'm actually - Michael Gerber is a friend of mine. He wrote the Duct Tape Marketing - the emits. And he built kind of the same sort of model of all the inside consultants. And I saw kind of the struggle that he had with that and it's public. I'm not sharing anything that - it kind blew up at one time and he left the organization. And to tell you the truth, he's outside of [inaudible] organization, so I don't really know what they're doing. So, I suppose that might have been an impetus for me to go the licensing route. The other thing is I really just didn't want to have a big organization. At my biggest, I had about 10 employees. 

This was back in the 90s. I had about 10 employees and a couple of things happened. Some of them out of - certainly out of our control. 9/11 came along, I lost a couple really big clients and it was - I was already leaning towards this, "I want to go lean and I want to do this where I can do a lot of this online. And I can do - just what the internet - the promise of the internet today." So, I started kind of moving that way anyway as my own organization. And then, I really - at the heart, as corny as it sounds - I want to help small business owners. I see a lot of small business owners that are in pain doing what I think is the most freeing thing in the world. 

And so, to me, the way to help a lot more small business owners was to try to clone myself without kind of having the same organization. So, I mean we have 150 marketing consultants in 14 countries that are installing the Duct Tape Marketing system. And so, we-re now working with thousands of people, thousands of business owners at time. And to me, that just felt like an easier way to scale. I now have an organization that - I have five employees and seven or eight kind of fractional folks around the world that provide varying services for us. And I-m really happy. I ride my bike to work and I go camping for four-day weekends all the time. And I feel like I-m making my little dent in the world that way.

Jaime Masters:	I love that we can do whatever the heck we want. Like instead of going, "You have to build a company like this and this is success." Because especially when you have a large company and something blows up, you-re on the hook for it. And that can create - and I-ve talked to people on the show, and had friends that stuff happened, and that sucks. So, tell me more about this model because I don-t think a lot of people talk about the licensing route. So, I-ve had a couple of clients start going to this and in different industries, it-s very different.

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Especially regulated ones. But how did you go down this path of figuring that piece out and making them really good at what they do also? Because I'm sure you care about that quality also.

John Jantsch:	Yeah. So, at one point, I was thinking three ring binder weekend training, go out and get them. And pretty quickly found that first off - I-m not sure where to start with this. So, if people were very attracted to this idea of a system. When I began, it was 10 years ago that I actually started licensing this. When I began licensing it, the biggest challenge I had is I didn-t realize how much of it was in my head. 

That I could go and look at something, I go, "Well, do this, do that, do that. It-s obvious, pull this lever. Okay, you-re good.' And actually, getting that out in a way that somebody else could use it proved to be, probably the most difficult part. After you-ve been doing this for a long time, you don-t realize how much of it is sort of unconscious.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

John Jantsch:	And that you can-t really write a manual that allows somebody to go into 747 different situations and know exactly what to do, right?

Jaime Masters:	Okay. So, tell me more about that because that's a - I keep going, 'I just need a robot to download my brain and then we'll be fine." But how do take those nuances of that many years of experiences? Because there's so much in that.

John Jantsch:	There is. It's been a process. I think you go back and talk to any of the consultants in the network and they will tell you we have evolved and I was very upfront with them. I said, "I'm not done. I don't know that I'll ever be done with this." I will say though that we started with a point of view and the point of view is marketing's a system. Start your strategy before tactics. And so that foundation, I think, allowed us to evolve, but never change if that makes sense. The other thing that we did very early on is - while it's very difficult to write a manual that explains every way that you're going to get back links or something is part of a tactic. 
We worked very hard on methodology. So, the Duct Tape Marketing system was what people sold, but our methodology was actually how they got results with it. And that's where I see a lot of people drop the ball. They have, "Well, here's our great approach." But if that great approach isn't around, "Here's how we educate a prospect. Here's how we convert a prospect. Here's how we onboard a prospect. Here's how we discover what they need. Here's how we do research. Here's how we do implementation." And those are the parts that we have worked diligently on documenting and systemizing. 

And I think that's made all the difference in the world because then it allowed us to actually go back and create tools and packages where a consultant who had maybe very little marketing consulting experience could walk in and confidently sell a $3,000 a month engagement that had set deliverables to a set tool and set resources. And it's all based on that how we deliver those, that methodology is - and I know I'm kind of talking in generalities - but that's probably the biggest key, and that's the part that took me the longest, and was the hardest actually to figure out. How did I actually do this?

Jaime Masters:	I love this, especially because it isn't - marketing changes so quickly and this is the thing that?s tough or I should say the tone of it with all these channels and, "Oh, this is new and now this. Oh wait, that's dead. Oh, wait this is it." The industry that you're in is a pain in a butt compared to like old school kind of business stuff or finance. There's only so many nuances with a lot of that.

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	So, when you're going through and you have this new person, you're literally giving them a marketing degree. It's probably better than a four-year marketing degree, nowadays, my gosh. But when you have, how do you - what does the licensing structure look like? And how do you, "Certify them," so they feel like they're one of you?

John Jantsch:	So, that has evolved as well and one of the things - again, as we started - in the beginning, we felt like it could be, "Oh, we'll teach them. We'll have bimonthly webinars and everything will be great.' And what we found was - we were attracting a lot of people from the promise of a systemized approach to marketing was very, very attractive. Well unfortunately, part of the reason it was very attractive is because I had no idea how to do it. 
And so, we have a tremendous amount of infrastructure around - and I would tell anybody that's trying to do this - I think you have to take one of two approaches. You have to take the, "Here's your binder, here's the training, you're certified, go get them." Or you have to commit to a significant amount of infrastructure. And so, we do - we have an onboarding process that involves an online course or online certification course, but they also have a guide in that course. We then do a post-certification program where they actually have to design an entire marketing plan and they have to present it to me.

Jaime Masters:	Good. I'm sorry. Good, they should.

John Jantsch:	We still do those meetings one on one. Then we do - four times a year we do in person boot camps and those will just be a weekend where we?ll pick a topic and we?ll lock ourselves in an unsexy airport hotel just to work on some aspect of their business. We do an annual summit. We?ll be out in Colorado this year in Denver where we?ll bring speakers in and do three and a half days working on their business. We do bimonthly training calls where I will have somebody in to talk about Facebook advertising or whatever kind of topics that make sense. 

So, we have built quite a bit of infrastructure. We have two full time employees that all they do is take care of the network and make sure that they know where stuff is. We have a whole learning library of course that is now massive because one of the things that we do is we have a whole set of tools that we use. And then, all the consultants over the years have submitted their proposals for this type of business and they're templates for this type of business. And so, it's kind of beast. But I will tell you that our retention is 90 percent - 

Jaime Masters:	Oh, wow.

John Jantsch:	And the only people that we lose decided they didn't like selling, which that's a big part of the job. So, they went back and got - 

Jaime Masters:	No money - no sales, no money. Okay.

John Jantsch:	They went back and worked for slave wages. Sorry. 

Jaime Masters:	Oh, oh preaching to the choir over here, totally get it. But that's impressive because you have to attach your name to it and that's the thing that people get scared of like, "Oh, and then I let my baby go, and then the other people that are savages take it, and run. And that's not what we want." So, I love hearing this.

John Jantsch:	Again, this is part of my philosophy; I have 125 or 130 consultants doing this. I have 3,000 unlicensed consultants that are using the Duct Tape Marketing system. I guarantee you because I put everything out there -

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

John Jantsch:	And it's in my books and it's not rocket science to figure out some of the things that we do because I explain them in great, great detail. And I feel like they're not hurting anybody, obviously, if I was really, really greedy, I'd sue half of them or something. I don't know what I would do, but I feel like they're still providing part of my mission. I'm not getting paid for it, but hey, nobody's -

Jaime Masters:	They're probably making their customers at least a little happier, go you. Come on, at least the content is amazing.

John Jantsch:	And I actually feel like - even the consultants that come in - I guarantee you that we have consultants that are much more effective at getting results for their clients than some others. But again, the bar is so low. I do a lot of website reviews as a part of the work that I do and I just want to smack myself and think, "How can people think that this is going to help them?" And so, somebody who has just a little more knowledge is going to help them in some ways. And so, I spend more time fretting about are our consultants making a living then I do, are they using Duct Tape Marketing in its purest form?

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, that's amazing. Okay, tell me this and I don't? know if you think about this because then we have to start wrapping up in just a few minutes. Where do you think marketing is going? Because to me, I am super geek. And when we talk about AI and moving forward, I'm hoping one day that I don't have to create the headline and then move it into infusion soft and then send the stupid email not that I do that, my team does. But still, it's - 

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Simple processes that technically could be done by computers in the next 10 years. 

John Jantsch:	Yeah.
Jaime Masters:	So, tell me where you think that is going because you've been in the game for such a long time.

John Jantsch:	Well, my belief - and this is probably never not been true, I think it's just more apparent today. I think all of that stuff is just technological advances that will allow us to focus us on something else maybe. But to me, where I think we're headed and never coming back from is everything. Everything is customer experience. Everything in your business is customer experience. And if you start looking at it that way and I'll give you some proof. Google looks at it that way. 

If you don't have your data right, if your address is wrong or your phone number is wrong in two places, Google has decided that's a bad customer experience and they're not going to show your Google My Business Page. If your site doesn't load fast enough, Google has decided that is a bad customer experience and they're not going to show your page. So, I mean think about those couple of examples. The focus on customer experience is going to be in everything we do. And so, the expectation that a customer has is just getting higher, and higher, and higher. 

I have kids that are all millennials and I mean they will leave a site so fast if it doesn't do what they expect it to do. If it's not mobile friendly or whatever, I mean that's not just a bad experience that - grumpy like me will fight through it and I'll figure out what I want. They're just like, "Forget it, I'm onto the next person." So, that I think is probably going to be my mantra for the next five years. That everything we look at, we have to - even if we think, 'This is just some little technical behind the scenes thing. This is how we get a bill sent out." It's all customer experience.

Jaime Masters:	And what's so funny is that because we're not putting an importance on it, people will go back through later and be like - we did an onboarding implementation webinar and people were like, 'I didn't realize that's what that looked like." And you're like, "That's what everybody's sees." Even though it's not a lot them, it's your customer that are giving you money. And so, it is making the time for that is huge.

John Jantsch:	It's not just little companies. I mean I've sat with department heads of $50 million companies and the sales people say, "Well, wait. You mean when we send an order in, you guys don't do it anything with it until we do this?" They're literally sitting there talking in the room like no idea what the customer is experiencing, but obviously uncovering huge gaps. 

And I think - one exercise that we try to do with people is - turn yourself into an order. Turn yourself into a customer somehow and make yourself go through the experience or recruit an actual customer. Give them your product for free if they will journal every touch point. If they will journal everything they were feeling, thinking, and doing while they were buying from you or somehow in your care. And it's amazing what you'll learn.

Jaime Masters:	See, I had one of those millionaires and I interviewed a young kid at the time. He's, of course, done more and more things. Had a product and he's like, 'Will you do it right now and I'm just going to video you." I'm like, "This is huge, why are you asking me?" He's like, "You're like my perfect target. Will you just do it?" I'm like, "Sure, okay great." He was constantly looking for that which is so impressive because it is. It's the main thing that matters and yet, we don't put time and attention. We go, "I just want to spray and pray and have as many people know me as humanly possible." 

And it makes all the difference in the world, especially moving forward. So, thank you. And I know we have to start wrapping. I literally could probably ask you a thousand more questions after this because we could get into the nuances of everything. But instead, it's also on your website. So, we'll talk about that in a second. I'm going to ask the last question that I always ask to distill everything down. What's one action - I know this is tough - besides hiring your consultants or reading your book - is one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million.

John Jantsch:	So, can I have two answers?

Jaime Masters:	You- 

John Jantsch:	Sort of.

Jaime Masters:	Definitely can.

John Jantsch:	Okay. So, I'm going to split my answer into two camps. If you don't have customers yet today, what I would say is the one action is to look at everything that you do in your business or that you believe you want to do in your business and figure out what you can delegate. Figure out what you can't do, shouldn't do, won't do. For me, it starts with bookkeeping, but you may have your other choices. So, that's - the sooner you do that because that's [inaudible], Jaime. People wait until they're, 'Oh, we've got so many customers. We need to start delegating." And then it's like, "When are you going to find time to do that," right?

Jaime Masters:	Yes.

John Jantsch:	So, do it before you need to do it. And then if you have customers, my thing that I have - I've done this now with thousands of businesses and they always come back and say, "That was the best thing we've ever done.' Find six or eight of your ideal clients and get them on the phone. Don't send them out an email. Get them on the phone or take them out to coffee and ask them a bunch of questions about their experience - about why they buy from you, why they stay with you. 

Get them to tell stories too. Don't just say, "Well, you provide good service," because that won't be helpful. What you want to say then is, "What does good service look like? Tell me a story about a time when we provided good service?" Because the verbatim comments and themes that you'll hear in those interviews or those discussions will be pure gold.

Jaime Masters:	Okay. So first, I loved how you clarified on avatar for your answer. Go you. And anybody that's listening right now, especially that has customers, do what he says. Mark it in your calendar. The thing is I feel like people won't do that because, "It's calling, blah, blah, blah. We just want to send a survey." That is so dumb. You will make so much more money from that one thing that he just said people. If I can slap them in person, I totally would. So, thank you.

John Jantsch:	And stop thinking of it as scientific research. You're basically just trying to find stories that help clarify your message. That's all it is.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, ask. Who knew it was that simple? But it is. So, thank you so much. Where can we find out more about you? You have a podcast - like everything because you - 

John Jantsch:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Have so many pieces.

John Jantsch:	Well, so - it's really all housed at Duct Tape Marketing. So, it's D-U-C-T-T-A-P-E marketing.com, and the blog, and the newsletter, and ebooks, and podcasts are all there. You can go to the network of consultants, but I have a separate site for them. It's just ducttapemarketingconsultant.com. If you are a consultant coach, somebody who wants to get into starting a consulting business, take a look at that.

Jaime Masters:	And how many times in your life have you had to spell Duct Tape Marketing? Sorry -

[Crosstalk]

John Jantsch:	A lot of times that I can tell you, I also own D-U-C-K marketing. I own D-U-C Tape Marketing. So, a lot of times I've had to spell it and clarify it. But I do own all the misspellings I could find too.

Jaime Masters:	I love it. Go test out the misspellings people. No, go visit his website. Make sure you check him out. What he teaches is gold, so please listen to him. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, John, finally.

John Jantsch:	My pleasure. I'm just glad that we were able to get this done before I retired.

Jaime Masters:	You're amazing.

Tags: Business Owner, data analytics, entrepreneur podcast, eventual millionaire, jaime masters, John Jantsch, marketing, metrics, millionaire entrepreneurs, podcast, social media, start-ups / startups, startup entrepreneur, Systems, top entrepreneurs

Categories: All, Featured Millionaire Interview, Marketing, Millionaire Interviews

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

Learn More