Effective Marketing That Gets Results With Noah Kagan

Entrepreneur and the founder of AppSumo – Noah Kagan

The weird way Noah practices discipline every time he boards a plane. How to succeed even when there’s too much competition. One thing you need to do to add 333 new leads to your email list over the next month. The secret of effective marketing on a budget. Most people are clueless when it comes to scalable and repeatable marketing. Do to this and you’ll be ahead of the crowd. Why you should never start with a landing page.

OkDork.com/podcast – Noah Kagan Presents podcast has LAUNCHED

Other Resources Mentioned in the Podcast:

• AppSumo.com
• SumoMe.com

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript: Download

Jaime:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Masters. And today on the show, I finally have the Noah Kagan. He runs AppSumo, SumoMe, everything that has the name Sumo in it. And he's coming out with a brand new podcast called Noah Kagan Presents. You can check it out at OkDork.com/podcast. Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Noah:	Thank you for having me. I love how white your teeth are, Jaime.

Jaime:	It's all an illusion.

Noah:	Everyone needs to be brushing twice a day. I went on a date, and she didn't brush in the morning, and I was like this is just not going to work out.

Jaime:	How did you know that' I used to work at a dentist's office, so it is now always well curated into my brain. Let's talk about marketing, instead of tee the whitening, unless that's something that you would like to talk about?

Noah:	I think teeth whitening is important, actually. Well, the whole point there, actually two things, one is use Crest White Strips. It's an easy cheap way - because you see these people with horrible teeth, and I'm like better looking people get ahead in life, not just aesthetically, but there's been research. 

[00:07:00] 	And secondly, I think self discipline is very important, which people neglect. Even at any age you can start it, which is just like start making your bed every morning. Start brushing your teeth twice a day. And what I've noticed is that then in other parts of my business, I'm like: well, let me just do it now. Let me follow through with my discipline and my commitments. So it is important to brush your teeth every day and have white teeth.

Jaime:	Great segue. Great segue. Do you think discipline is innate though, or do you think it's curated?

Noah:	I think it's a little bit of both. I think what I've seen most people who are successful do, they're very persistent, and they're very committed. So they have conviction around the things they want, and then they have ? they've built, it's a muscle, where you build discipline and you use it towards your business. I think the people that I've seen succeed the most, like Buffer is an easy example, a lot of people know them, they are people that I was like: you are so going to fail. I can't wait for you to fail. I've got the fail blanket over here for you to cover your tears.

Jaime:	What a nice human being you are.

Noah:	What's that?

Jaime:	I said what a nice human being you are.

[00:08:00]

Noah:	I think I'm a nice person. I don't think I'm like the super nicest, but I think I'm straight up about it. And so with Buffer, I think what they've done, because they're an easy example, is that I think they've persisted through the good and bad times. Where I think a lot of people don't practice discipline, don't stay with something, so as things get a little rough, they don't either have accountability, they don't have support, and they're not convicted about what they're really working on.

	So they're like yeah, I'm done, and then they give up. And that's where I think a lot of people miss it at that inflection point moment. 

Jaime:	It's funny because when you're talking about that I try and - that sounds like consistency more than discipline to me. Like, as long as there are ups and downs, it doesn't matter, you keep going, right?

Noah:	I think it's probably a little bit of both. Like, I try to practice discipline in a lot of like different areas. Like, here's the stupidest one that everyone can do. I don't like eating peanuts on Southwest - I always fly Southwest - or generally any airplane. So this is weird little discipline, but I think basically little disciplines will reflect in bigger ways, and they add up, so if you're doing small, you know other ones that are easier to do. But I won't eat on a - I bring my own food on airplanes. 

	I never buy or eat their nuts. And secondly, I'll never eat airplane food or lunch, if I'm about to fly, until 10,000 feet. And it's like the - it's kind of a quirk, like what the fuck? What is he talking about?

[00:09:00]

Jaime:	Yeah, why?

Noah:	But it's more of like I think when you can practice self discipline, self mastery, you can apply it in a lot of different facets. And that's why I think people like Arnold Schwarzenegger are so impressive. Besides whatever you think about him personally, I think because he was able to discipline himself in the gym, he was able to discipline himself to be successful to be a governor, the discipline to be a successful business man, to be a successful movie star. 

	So there's other reasons why he's able to do it, but I think his foundation of discipline and with consistency from doing the gym every day, and putting in the work every day, was able to help him get that.

Jaime:	Okay. Let's segue then into marketing because this makes perfect sense. So a lot of people are like I can totally have disciple or consistency for marketing tactics that are working, but when they're trying to figure out - right?

Noah:	Yes.

Jaime:	You're like oh, my gosh; I don't know where to go. So what we were talking about before is I want to set you a goal, Noah Kagan. Okay, ready?

Noah:	Yes.

Jaime:	You want to tell these people how they can get to a thousand emails on their email list, ideally a thousand more, so they already have an email list, a thousand more, and the best strategies that they can attempt to do that?

[00:10:00]

Noah:	Oh, anything else you want? Do you want a blueberry scone? 

Jaime:	Yes.

Noah:	Do you want me to make you something fancy?

Jaime:	What else you got?

Noah:	No, actually I love the colors of your fingernails and your dress suit. So here's the thing -

Jaime:	A smart man complimenting. You're very smooth. Please everybody pay attention to the way Noah carries himself and does this stuff, because it is well curated also.

Noah:	It's not.

Jaime:	It is.

Noah:	It's just me just speaking my mind. Anyways, I was going to say pick up lines that someone taught - someone told me a pick up line, like you should just always compliment someone's shoes, guy or girl. And I was like I never really thought of that. But I think it should be genuine, you should actually like their shoes, like I like your color. A stupid random fact, do you know Ron Burgundy from -

Jaime:	Yes.

Noah:	What's that movie? What's he in?

Jaime:	The Anchor - no.

Noah:	Anchor Man, yeah. He always wears a burgundy suit. I just realized it today. I was like it's Burgan - uh, Ron Burgundy. Anyways, so just how -

Jaime:	Wait, wait. ADD in the real life. Just everybody that's watching, ADD in real life. Go ahead.

[00:11:00]

Noah:	Here's the thing, I keep it entertaining, because I think when you're having fun - if you're having fun, it's easier to kind of absorb and take in that material, versus just like here's how you're going to get leads. So let me start off this, before people ask, everyone always wants to do marketing. So let me just - I'm going to go through the plan. I'll give you the exact step by step. You'll get your thousand people or whatever it is. But there's a few things to consider. Number one with marketing, and I'm going to say it very clearly, if you have a crappy product, marketing is not the answer. 

	And that is the number one common mistake I see from entrepreneurs. Like, we have an eight-figure company, it might go back down to seven, it might go up to nine, hopefully it keeps going up, but the point being is that we have something that people want, so it makes it easier for us to implement marketing. So if you're thinking I need better marketing, make sure you have something that people want. Okay, so that's step number one.

Jaime:	The funny thing is, is that, just so everybody knows, I just recorded right before you a call with Billy, where we mentioned how amazing you were. And how you did a better job with the actual offer and product, with AppSumo, than anyone else. Too bad it's coming out after this interview, but just so everybody knows, they can go get the how to do the best offer humanly possible form Billy, so we don't have to cover that, we're only talking about marketing.

[00:12:00]

Noah:	Oh, what did Billy - which offer?

Jaime:	I said AppSumo. So when you came into the market, you offered things that a lot of other people offered, but a way no brainer better deal.

Noah:	Oh, yeah.

Jaime:	So why would people not sign up for that?

Noah:	You know, what's really interesting about AppSumo - and look, I always come back full circle. I don't forget it, especially because I'm not drinking. So if you want to be successful, like as well just stop drinking. Literally, I stopped drinking and everything gets better. But with AppSumo, I think most people forget. Same with Facebook when I was there. When Facebook launched, when AppSumo launched, we literally had 20 competitors. When Facebook launched there was 20 other social networks. Now there's like a few, there's five, and Facebook owns three of them. 

	So there's always going to be competition. And the same thing, there's always going to be restaurants in a city. So don't worry that's there always going to be competition. You got to stay true to you. But we had a product that people wanted, and so for marketing have a product you want. Number two, you have to have a clear target with a clear timeline. So for example, I'm launching my podcast, which you said don't mention the P word, so I won't say the P word anymore, but I'm launching it next Tuesday. My goal for the podcast, so if - oh, I said it, sorry.

[00:13:00]

Jaime:	I know.

Noah:	My goal for the P, Noah Kagan Presents, which I can say.

Jaime:	I said I was annoyed with everybody talking about podcasts. You can say it just occasionally.

Noah:	No, no, I won't. You said you don't like it, and we can go into that in a therapy session at the end. But the point being, so number one, have something people want. How do you know they want it' My simple rule is you have to be able to have three customers in 48 hours. If you don't have that and you're starting a business, go get three customers in 48 hours. If you have a business and you're like I think people want it, you're on the right track. Number two, pick a clear goal. 

	So for my podcast, P thing, I want 100,000 downloads an episode. Here's the second part that's important, number one a clear goal, the second thing is timeline. I want 100,000 downloads by December 31st. So what most people have is they have like some arbitrary thing, like I kind of want to grow, and blah, blah, blah. That just doesn't work for me. So I have a clear goal, and then secondly a timeline. 

[00:14:00] 	So what you do is you take that 1,000. Let's say you want to get 1,000 leads over the next three months. Here's the first thing you need to do, get a spreadsheet. So I use Google Docs, it's free. Everything I'm going to tell you to do today is free today. It's a free day. So go to Google Docs, take the months January, February, and March. And at each of those months, you're going to put the number 300. So 333, 333, 333, so that's how many leads. Or, I guess you want a 1,000 a month, but let's just take it - if you want a 1,000 a month or 1,000 every three months, let's just do a 1,000 in three months. 

	Now, you have to say for the 333 I'm going to get in January, how do I get them? So what I would recommend is pick five specific strategies or tactics, depending on how you look at it, that you want to execute on. So maybe one is advertising. Maybe two is your network. Maybe three is referrals. Maybe four is contests. Maybe five is giveaways. Maybe six is like Reddit. Maybe seven is Facebook groups. Maybe eight is Slack. Maybe nine is PR. Maybe ten is guest posting. So there is literally an infinite amount of strategies. 

	You're not going to hear one from me that you haven't heard from before. The only things I can tell you that are kind of creative or unique, are if you're doing advertising, go find markets or places to advertise that other people aren't advertising. 

, [00:15:00] 	Anytime you advertise in a marketplace, the market is efficient, meaning you're going to spend a lot of money. So Facebook you're like why? Facebook's not working anymore. Do you know why? Because you're competing against me, and I'm spending a lot of money. And you're competing then against like even beer companies, like into it.

Jaime:	What's trending now, like what are we supposed to be - what are the people just getting into it supposed to start with?

Noah:	Yeah. So you've got to look for smaller places where there's not ads yet, or people aren't competing. So Reddit is still affordable. Direct sponsoring Instagram, podcasts, small blogs, possibly Snapchat, anywhere that people -

Jaime:	Is YouTube still cheaper now or no?

Noah:	Instagram?

Jaime:	No, YouTube.

Noah:	YouTube is still cheap depending on who you go to. I think what happens a lot of the time - and I did this when I was doing marketing at Mint. People were like, "Let me go sponsor TechCrunch." And I call TechCrunch and they're like it's $20,000 for something, and guess what, it's doesn't even work. But then I went and sponsored like these super small bloggers that were talking about like tech and personal finance blogs. 

	I spent $300 to $500 a month. And people are always like so what do you mean? I don't understand what you mean. So I went to a small personal finance blog. Let me give you one example, Bargineering.org, which is Jim Wang. I love Jim.

[00:16:00]

Jaime:	I do, too.

Noah:	I said Jim, let me give you $500, put this little badge on your site and put a link in your emails for the next two months. And he was like, "Whatever dude, I don't care." And he was like, "$500 is so much money, I can't believe it." He put it on his site. There's not a lot of ads there at the time. There wasn't a lot of a competition. So your ROI is going to be better. It doesn't scale well, but you're not trying to scale, you're just trying to get effective marketing that is good quality. 

	And then later you'll get a lot of those, so it's good, and eventually you can go to Facebook if you want. But that is what I would recommend in terms of like unfair competition in advertising, you have to go where there's not a market. So coming back - see, I always come back - number one, we have our goal. We have our product we want, then we have a goal, then we have a timeline, then you have your strategy. 

	So for my thing called a - it rhymes with odd cast, that's coming out, if you go to OkDork.com/podcast. What I did, this is exactly what I did. I wanted 100,000 downloads, so I said each month isn't equal to. 

[00:17:00] 	I don't have it be like 333, 333, through. I have it like ramp up. So like the first month I'm going to get 6,000 downloads, the next month 10,000, but at the end it needs to be 100,000 downloads an episode. So for January I listed - I mean, I could pull it up, and I'll go through the list.

Jaime:	So let me ask you this, because that's the other piece, people can't guesstimate what these strategies, especially at the beginning, on what they're going to do. So I actually had a client actually do this. Her goal is 1,000 within six weeks.

Noah:	Awesome.

Jaime:	Very similar to what we're talking about right now. And I had her make the exact same list that we're talking about, when do we want the leads per week, what it looks like, and strategies.

Noah:	Uh-oh.

Jaime:	The thing is, is that she wrote a whole bunch of stuff, which was awesome, except like posting in Pat Flynn's free Friday thing, like got her none. And I was like so that's not enough. So how do people guess what these strategies are, as far as how many metrics we're going to get form them?

Noah:	Yeah, so I'm pulling up mine, so I can go through it. And so for your client, who is looking to get the 1,000 per - does she want a 1,000 per episode?

Jaime:	No, leads, we're talking about leads.

[00:18:00]

Noah:	1,000 leads. So here's what you do. So her number one problem is that you have to do some stuff as repeatable and ideally scalable, which everyone has heard that phrase, but they don't actually know what those words mean. Like, repeatable means you can do it over and over. Scalable means that there's a lot more growth or a lot more people for you to reach when you keep doing it over and over. For example, if you sponsor one Instagram - let me do this and take your client. If she did Pat's Facebook group, can she do that every day? 

	No, it's not repeatable. Can she do multiple Facebook groups every day, possibly. So it could be a Facebook group advertising strategy, which could work. And so here's why this is the marketing strategy I've done for years, it's always worked for me. And so everyone - you know, not everyone likes every restaurant. You got to figure out which ones you want to go eat at. This is Noah Kagan dish. So I'm looking at mine. The key thing about creating this plan, the style that I created, I call it [inaudible] [00:18:53] based marketing.

	It's what I've always called it. Is that it helps you do two things. It helps you prioritize the order of marketing that you do. So for example your client, one of her strategies could be post in Facebook groups. 

[00:19:00] 	And every month she thinks I'll get 30 new people for Facebook groups. Then number two, I'm looking at mine thing, if she thinks Twitter ads, then it could be Product Hunt, it could be giveaways, it could be SEO, it could be webinars. The key thing here is not that you have a list of 1,000; the key thing is, number one prioritizing, because you can't do it all. And what I'm essentially looking for in my marketing is one, maybe two, marketing channels that I can just focus on. 

	But in the beginning I think it's naive for people to be like, "I'm just going to do content marketing." I'm like, "How do you know that's going to work?" "I don't know, I read it in a blog post that this guy went viral."

Jaime:	Ten months later.

Noah:	It's like okay, yeah, yeah. You know, just because someone else bought a lottery ticket doesn't mean you're going to win, too. Yeah, write that one down.

Jaime:	Alright. So they make five, and then they prioritize them.

Noah:	So what I do is I - I wrote down for my podcast launch, I wrote down 15. And I'll do all 15 this month. The point is you can prioritize them and just do five or three. The point though that I'm really looking is for is at the end of January, what I do, is I go back to my spreadsheet, and I put the actual number. 

[00:20:00] 	So the reason I estimate is because like say you estimate, so my estimation originally only had 60,000 downloads. So I'm like: oh, my God, I'm not even at the 100,000.

Jaime:	That's exactly what I told her.

Noah:	So I'm not even there.

Jaime:	So we went through the whole thing, and she started getting data, we started putting in the numbers, and I go you can't get 75 just from that that you - you know what I mean? You start going through and you're like that doesn't add up to what you want.

Noah:	You're exactly right.

Jaime:	It's math.

Noah:	And then at the end of the month, you put in the actual numbers. So like the Pat Flynn thing - and if you're like, "Well, Noah, how do I - they always love asking next questions. Noah, well, how do I know where they came from? You ask them. How did you hear about me? I heard about you through this. And then you put those numbers in.

Jaime:	Yep.

Noah:	And then what you do is - you can even do that sooner. You don?t have to wait until the end of the month. You can do it weekly. Like, at SumoMe, which I should talk about for lead growth and lead capture, but we do it on a weekly basis. We actually do it daily to be exact, but we look weekly how we're doing against our projections, and then we?ll adjust accordingly, which might be sometimes over correcting. 

[00:21:00] 	But basically it's like, I think what people do in marketing too often, is that they pick one channel and they stick with it, whether they know it's working or not. So for us, like at SumoMe, we did Instagram for six months, spent like $10,000, $20,000, and literally it drove zero dollars, zero.

Jaime:	I've been hearing that by the way, also.

Noah:	Yeah. Let me tell you though, we have a client of SumoMe, who is literally making eight figures, from just Instagram.

Jaime:	It depends on the markets for sure, yep. You test it.

Noah:	I don't know how [inaudible] [00:21:28] that it is, but the point being is that - and they're not as shady. They're like a - it's a diet and health company.

Jaime:	Shady.

Noah:	No, just sometimes people are like, "I'm making all this money." And I'm like, "Yeah, it's because you're shady." They are, they're all shady, a lot of these people are shady. And if you're making a bunch of money, you're never - anyways. You got to talk about the profits, not revenue; it's the profit that counts.

Jaime:	Yes, sir.

Noah:	So take your numbers, adjust them, and then the next month you're like: well, let me - so for us, we stopped doing Instagram. We cut that budget from like $1,500 to like $200.00 a month. And I frankly don't want to do it all because it doesn?t drive anything. So that we can use, even an hour a day, or 30 minutes a day, is an opportunity cost, and then you adjust accordingly. 

[00:22:00] 	So for your client and your listeners, number one, make this plan. The second thing that they should probably do is make a plan around their optimization on their site, which we can get into next, but this is for downloads.

Jaime:	SumoMe. I was helping. See, there you go.

Noah:	Dude, that was just such a lead in. do you know what an alley-oop is?

Jaime:	Yes, I do.

Noah:	You know, the thing here with this Jaime, is this literally applies to every single type of business online or offline. If you want a certain amount of revenue a month, if you want a certain amount of customers, if you want a certain amount of like emails, if you want a certain amount of like YouTube views, it's like this - and I think when I say this people get this analogy really well. If you driving somewhere, would you only, like would you say: hey, I really want to drive to like Denver, Colorado, and then not map it out? Or you do a map, but you only map it out to New Mexico. And you're like: yeah, I just figured I'd get there somehow from New Mexico. 

	Yes, could it work, could I build a habit around driving, and try to drive north because I know it's north? Yeah, but I like knowing where I'm going and the route I'm going there. And then if I'm off course because maybe there's construction, or there's weather, or something like that, then you adjust accordingly. 

[00:23:00] 	And that's how I like to live. That's how I like to run my business. And so far, you know, I've had a lot of success money wise, and then I guess externally people think I'm really successful. I am happy with what I've done, and it's following this plan. And this is what I do time and time again, and it's worked every single time.

Jaime:	It's logic, yes. We appreciate that a thousand times over.

Noah:	Yeah, logic, they're really big in that this year. 2017, the year of using your brain.

Jaime:	Well, it's funny that when you're - you can listen to it all day long and be like: oh, that sounds so smart. And then when they actually get to the - they just - people just don't do this. And so that's where the discipline from the beginning comes in now. Okay, so we have the plan.

Noah:	Well, a lot of people, just to add really quickly, a lot of people like yourself are parents with kids. And I don't have that fortunate and unfortunate choice, right? Because you guys have a lot of work, man. I never realized how crazy kids are. Well, I'm kind of - I've been a kid, like I know how that it is.

Jaime:	It isn't the same, yeah.

[00:24:00]

Noah:	But one thing I'm doing this week that I would encourage all your listeners to do, I know you want to get actions and stuff, so I'll give one kind of earlier on. I've been getting up at 5:00 a.m. every day as an experiment to see if I can get more done, if I'm happier, and maybe I end my day sooner. But if you have kids, like try getting up a little bit earlier one day, maybe even half an hour, and dedicate that 30 minutes to yourself and your business. And literally that adds up at the end of the week. And what do you have like two and half hours of work that you can now have more forward in your business.

Jaime:	Again logic. Oh, you did the shooting guns and you got injured.

Noah:	Yeah, you see the bruise, how gnarly that bruise is now?

Jaime:	Oh, yeah. That means you did it wrong, but that's okay.

Noah:	I don't know how to shoot a gun. We went - anyways, I'm in Texas. We went duck hunting, which is definitely weird.

Jaime:	This is why I'm excited for your podcast. You're going to be talking about crazy stuff like this, right, right?

Noah:	[Making noises]. That's my duck call.

Jaime:	This is how duck hunting affects your marketing, ready go.

Noah:	I can bring - no, I don't think I could live that long.

Jaime:	No, I have faith in you. You can do anything. Alright, so -

Noah:	Well, actually I can. Do you want a quick one about it because it's really interesting?

Jaime:	Okay.

[00:25:00]

Noah:	So we got back. This is a really good story. So we got back from duck hunting. And there was this boat next to us that was like; let's just call it the Ferrari of duck boats.

Jaime:	Of duck boats. I didn't know there was, thanks.

Noah:	And they come over to us, this is Southern Texas, they're like, "Hey, man, you guys got any of them, uh, you guys catch any of them ducks? You guys get any of them ducks?" And we're like: uh, yeah, we killed 12 ducks. And then they're like - and I was like, "Oh, how did you guys do?" And they're like, "Man, we didn't get none ducks." And so what I realized though, is we were with a professional guide. And I think it's related to people's businesses where - and this is a concept I've been thinking about, and I'm glad I get to share with your listeners is that, are you, with the businesses that you're running, are you trying to run it like a hobbyist, which these guys were. 

	They didn't catch - they literally were out there six hours. They were longer than us, we were only out there four, and they caught zero. We were out there four hours and we caught 12. And I thought it was a really interesting moment of realizing like there's hobbyists and there's professionals. And it's kind of an interesting thing for people to think about, including myself to be like: yeah, I am a professional here, and that's why I'm taking it seriously, versus these guys that are kind of goofing off as hobbyists.

[00:26:00]

Jaime:	Do you think it's just that, though? Do you think that they need to learn the skill set and all that to feel the confidence in order to be a quote, un-quote a professional, are all beginners hobbyists?

Noah:	I think that's a really good point. Uh, possibly. I think it's also if you are a hobbyist and you want to be professional about something, how are you being professional about it, AKA - well, not AKA. For example, like we had a professional guide with us, teaching us, showing us. And that guy actually came out the day before to scout locations, so that he knew where to take us on the day. Or, for me, I'm playing a lot of chess. Chess.com, my user name is OkDork, O-K-D-O-R-K, if you want to play me.

Jaime:	Do you really? I want to play.

Noah:	Yeah, so add me. Anyone can add me, I'll play everyone. I'm not going to beat everyone, but if I want to be a professional and actually increase and improve myself, increase my FITA ranking, I hired a chess coach. So every Wednesday -

Jaime:	Wow.

Noah:	Oh, it's on. It son. And he's like Russian-ish. He's not even Russian, but he's kind of -

[00:27:00]

Jaime:	I'm going to have my best friend Olga, she's Russian, challenge you by the way. We'll see how good you are.

Noah:	I may not win, but that's the point.

Jaime:	Good.

Noah:	You learn more when you lose. That's something that's been really interesting for me.

Jaime:	Oh, wait. No, no, let me bring that up because I think that was a huge statement. You learn more when you lose. Yet, when you're at the beginning, or you're not feeling like you're really, really good at it, those losing moments knock you off your game, and you don't even want to get back on. Let's say we do the 1,000 leads and you don't hit it and you're like: well, this sucks?

Noah:	So that's actually the most interesting moment because it's like when you're winning and - it's very interesting, when you're doing well, you never wonder why or how you're doing well, you're just doing well. And so what I've done, and this literally can apply to all parts of business, exactly with your 1,000 leads, so when I'm playing chess and I have match through Chess.com and it's recorded, the most interesting thing for me is not if I win or lose, it's after the match, I go review the match. You knew where I was going with it, huh?

Jaime:	Oh, for sure. Go you. I'm impressed, yeah.

[00:28:00]

Noah:	So for anyone's business, like your friend who did the 1,000 leads a month, if you didn't hit it, is it because you drove the traffic, but the conversion wasn't there, or maybe you didn't hit the amount of traffic that you thought you would drive? And now you can start improving from the thing that is actually your opportunity.

Jaime:	See, people don't do that.

Noah:	That's where people don't do at all.

Jaime:	It's painful. So it's painful. So like I did it for speaking. I was like I don't want to watch this. Or, like even the beginning of my podcast, like I don't want to. Oh, my gosh this is painful. People don't want to go back through because it's a failure and they're bringing up a whole bunch of crap. That they're like I didn't actually get it, so they won't go back and do that because it's painful. How can you make them do it, Noah Kagan?

Noah:	So the two things that I can recommend, I can only tell you things that I've done. When people are married, it's easier to stay with your husband, than find a new husband. And so I think the point there, unless you're divorced, which some people are, I'm not going to name names.

Jaime:	Thanks for breaking up [inaudible] [00:28:51].

Noah:	But my point there is, I think number one, it's easier to kind of keep working on things that are already working. So if you have something kind of working, go and like study that for example. Like, reading books, so I always read new books, and I want the next book, I want the new thing, I want the more novelty. 

[00:29:00] 	And someone - and David Catavee, who is a good friend of mine. I love David. He was like you already know you like that book, you got a lot out of that book, why don't you just get more out of that book? I'm like think about the Bible. There's only one Bible, everyone loves it and they just keep reading it over and over. I'm like it must be a really good book. They don't look for a new Bible. That's actually, I've never thought about it that way. 

Jaime:	Deadpool, I've watched that movie a bunch. I get new things out of it every time.

Noah:	It's so good. So if you have failures, I think a few things that I would recommend, we do this - hey, oh, you do have a Deadpool thing, cool. Wow, you really like it. So I'll recommend a few things. Number one, go back to the things that are already working, and that applies in all aspects of business. I think a lot times people always want a new thing. And when they're listening to me speak, they're like, "What's the new marketing channel I haven't tried yet?" I'm like, "What worked six months ago for you?" "Oh, man, I used to get referrals." I'm like, "When's the last time you emailed for a referral?" "Oh, yeah, I stopped doing that."

[00:30:00]

Jaime:	This is what I tell people all the time. You have to slap people around. Like, you go back and go look at data. Oh, wait, double that. Oh, huh, ta-da, that actually works. I'm genius, even though it's just math.

Noah:	Who would have thought? And then they give you credit, like oh, you're so good.

Jaime:	This is why I love my job.

Noah:	Alright, so number one that. Number two, what I do is like, if you have goals, or things like that, it helps you deal with harder times. So like print it out and put it out. So like I have my goals on my laptop. I have my goals on my home refrigerator, like they're everywhere, they're on my stickies. Like, keep seeing your goals, so when you have tough times, you're like where am I trying to go? And that's your destination. Next, in business or in personal, maybe more for business, always do debriefs. 

	So for SumoMe.com, which is our email capture and we'll talk about it, whenever we have like an email promotion, or a marketing promotion, or like things that are not going well, we debrief, and then you try to figure out how do you reintroduce the solution into the process? Because having something happens twice in a business is a failure. One time is a good things, that's a learning.

Jaime:	I like that. I think that's awesome.

, [00:31:00]

Noah:	So we always debrief. You always debrief no matter what. And then so for me like with you just asked how, I think sometimes you've got to start - this is kind of like discipline coming full circle Lion King style, Simba! Man, I'm pretty crazy.

Jaime:	You can sing in an outtake later, okay?

Noah:	How does it go? Anyways, the point there - oh, shoot. The Simba thing, I lost my train of thought.

Jaime:	I like that. I'm so happy. You were talking about debriefs.

Noah:	Yeah, so coming back to like studying the things that are not working out, like with chess, like I go and I re-watch the match. Or with like starting my podcast, like I was like: I never want to listen to one of my shows again, but you got to practice that discipline. So for me, here's a stupid one that everyone can do. Any day that I feel like I've eaten really poorly or I'm fat, I go stand on my scale. And I'm like you're disgusting. You are fat. Everyone hates you. No, no, I'm just kidding. You're like oh, my God.

Jaime:	I know. Go ahead.

Noah:	But the point there is, so like even now I'm doing cold showers, where 80 percent of my shower is warm and the last 20 percent is cold. 

[00:32:00] 	But the whole point of this and the discipline, and the uncomfortable, so disciple and uncomfortable, is that if you practice standing on the scale and facing it, if you practice like when you're not looking good looking in the mirror, if you practice like getting a little ice on your body, then when you have to face harder things it's easier for you to already be ready for that, that like I can get through it muscle. Like, one of my favorite quotes that you can think about is persistence beats resistance. It's a good one I know.

Jaime:	Another [inaudible] [00:32:21]. You're good.

Noah:	My buddy Scott Britain told me that. It's not mine, it's a Scott Britain one, but I'll take credit for him giving me the credit.

Jaime:	Good. He didn't come on the show yet, so just pretend it was you.

Noah:	Oh, Scott Britain's the man. He's just perfect. I could literally have a whole show, like a TV series about Scott Britain. Check him out, Troops.AI, I think it is, or Troops.IO. But anyway, so the point being is that practice facing things that don't go well, so as they get harder, you're already like, your muscle is trained for that. So for me with my podcast, like David's like have you listened to your podcast again? And I'm like no, I do it one - I'm a one hit wonder. 

	And he's like: well, if you really want to improve and be a professional, you have to go and look at your work, so that you can see how there are things that you can improve on it. So now, I'm really just going back and listening to my shows. And I was like: yeah, I didn't like this part of it. I didn't like this part of it. And that's the only way you're really going to improve is by like identifying -

[00:33:00]

Jaime:	I have a question.

Noah:	What's that?

Jaime:	I have question because we only have so much time and I want all of it, okay?

Noah:	I can go until 5:00, that's fine.

Jaime:	No, we're not going to go 5:00. You gave me a hard deadline. So let's say they hit 300 out of 1,000, and they're debriefing, and they feel like crap, what do you tell them to do step by step, quickly?

Noah:	So the two things that I do - so I'm going to give you an example. So I have a guy named Dustin from Fit Fly shaker.com, who sells like - it's like packets you can use at the gym.

Jaime:	I have one downstairs, darn it. Alright, anyway, yeah.

Noah:	You have a Fit Fly shaker?

Jaime:	You gave it to me.

Noah:	Oh, I gave you one, yeah. I love Dustin. So every week Dustin ? so here?s the thing that I would say. One, break your goals down to a smaller edible chunks. So if you have it like monthly goals, that if you check in only monthly it's too late. So you need to have a weekly check in, or a weekly like, if my goal?s a 1,000, that means it's 250 a week. 

[00:34:00] 	So at the end of the week, you can make adjustments sooner than waiting for a longer period of time, so that's number one, if your off. Number two, have an accountability partner, maybe a coach like Jaime, maybe a friend, a business partner, someone who will actually call you on your stuff.

Jaime:	Yes.

Noah:	And give you actual feedback. And you're like, "Well, Noah, who do I go to?" Just go to someone who you like their opinion. Not that they'll just sugar coat it, but someone who you're like: yeah, I always liked their advice, go to them. Or, go to someone you already like and just say: hey, who is someone you think would be good at this? And then they'll give you someone. When I do recruiting I always say, like if someone rejects me, I'm like: well, who is the best person you know? 

	And I've literally hired two people that are amazing from that strategy. So number one, make them digestible, number two, have accountability, and number three, if it's not working, the things I would recommend like for Dustin are a - and I hate this because people know the 80/20, but for Dustin I'm like: Dustin, what's worked in the past? So for Dustin it's literally one by one. And I'll be very clear on that. 

	If you have a number like 1,000, 1,000 is only 30 new leads a day. That is literally not - you could go on the street and find 30 people a day to buy your product, really, that's nothing. 

[00:35:00] 	But what Dustin was doing was very passive marketing, and I just kept - it kept annoying me. What you have to do is like, of the 300, you have to - well, let's take two things. Let's keep with Dustin. With Dustin he was passive, so I was like actively, you only need to sell - he wanted to sell $25.00 a week. And I'm like just go and talk to people on the phone.

Jaime:	Why do people don't do this? 

Noah:	Well, because they have a fear of rejections, that's why they don't do it.

Jaime:	Yeah, and that's what pushes you outside the comfort zone, which makes everything better in your entire life, but people won't do it anyway. I get it, yep.

Noah:	Well, you got to practice getting uncomfortable. Like, everything in business is and ask, right? It's an exchange of money for a value. You're giving money that you've earned for value and time, for value of a product or service. So with Dustin I was like look, because I'm accountability buddy, I'm like: you're, dude, you're not doing this well, but it seems like whenever you ask someone directly it works. And then you have to - and this is maybe lastly, and then we'll come back to your 300 person. 

[00:36:00] 	Another thing to think about is things do work, but you're just - what happens is when things work, you keep doing that plus the other shit, so it is an 80/20 rule. So for Dustin, Dustin did this really interesting thing, where he did a survey. And he said if you take this survey, I'm going to give you the Fit Fly shaker for free, you just have to pay for shipping. And I was like - and he sent it, and he had the most sales he ever sold. And it was like, okay, there's something interesting there, how do you do more of this survey strategy, where you survey people, learn about them, and then you hook them up, because that's working. 

	And then this other stuff you're doing, like he's trying to meet with gyms, and he's trying to meet with nutrition shops, and I'm like: hey, is that selling anything? No. So for your 300 person, be like alright, break down how you got me to 300. And literally 50 percent or 70 percent will be one way, and 20 percent will be another way. And I'm like alright, take the way that works, and then how do we double that for the next period? And it will pretty much always work that way.

Jaime:	Okay. I agree a thousand percent. And, but, a lot of the times people can't go through and figure out what pieces messed up. So let's say they have a landing page that isn't converting for this specific thing to get the leads, they don't know if it's their copy, if it's this, because they just don't know enough. 

[00:37:00] 	Does that mean they throw out the whole thing because it's not working, or they're still trying to figure out what didn't work with that specific strategy? You got that?

Noah:	So there's two things I would think about with that. There are two specific thoughts I have. One would be add live chat to your site. So if you have a site that you're like I don't understand why people aren't buying or opting in, just talk to them. What's really interesting, and what I love about the internet is that it doesn't sleep. The internet is literally always awake; it's an insomniac, right? 

	The internet's like: no, I'll just stay up all night again tonight. I'm like oh, my God, do you ever sleep? That's the beauty, but like the opposite though is an offline business. It's beautiful because you - I mean, the good and bad is that it ends at like, let's say 5:00 p.m., but the beauty of an offline business is your conversions are higher, because they're in the restaurant, you can ask them, or in the store. Hey, why aren't you buying? 

[00:38:00] 	Why aren't you doing that? So you have to try to incorporate the offline things that work, like person to person communication, so live chat works really well. Secondly, depending on where you're at in business, there's two different approaches. But if you are just starting out, don't start the landing page, which is the easy kind of like cheap lazy ass way to do it. I don't know if that's what you say?

Jaime:	No, that's exactly what I say. Because they're like I don?t want to talk to people, so therefore I just do all this. I want to be Tim Ferris and make ads and have everything work, yay!

Noah:	Yeah. And that's just not my - I tell people how to do it exactly. So what you do is you need to go sell people directly and offline, not just in person offline like a panhandler, but go and sell people before you build a website. I think what most people do, and I don't agree with it, is that they put up this website in hopes that it works. Like, for a very clear example, I have a business Gambit. And it was payments for Facebook games. And we were literally doing over $20 million dollars in revenue, processing revenue, a 10 percent profit margin on that, so we were doing pretty well. We had payments coming in for Facebook games. 

[00:39:00] 	We literally had a website that just had a gambit on it, like it literally just had like the chess piece, the knight. And that is all we had for a $20 million dollar business. Look at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathways, they have the shittiest website and they're worth like a $200 or $300 billion dollar company. The point being is that people default to a website when - make sure you're making what people want. Secondly though, I will say if you have a website, you should already know that people want it. And then build the things that like - I don't know. I talked to this guy recently, the founder of Olinia Nick. And Olinia is one of the best restaurants in the world. 

	If you can all get a chance to go there in your life, I highly encourage it. But what he said is that once you have something going, or you're working on something, and I thought this was so powerful, he's like you have to act as if it's going to work. And I was like damn dude, that's so good. That's why you're so much cooler than I am. Like, I hope I'm as cool as him. He's like 49 he said. And I was like man, if I'm half as cool as you at 49, I'd be really happy with that. And the reason he said that is that they spent $140,000 on a table. And I was like how did you have the balls to do it? He's like, "I didn't build the business thinking it wasn't going to work." 

[00:40:00] 	So this is not their first business. This is after they already got something going, but the point being is like validate it smally - smally, that's a new word I'm going to use - but as you're doing a business, as you're growing a business, you can't behave as you think it's going to fail. And I think that's setting you up to be like: oh, it didn't - because what it is, is that you're like not really committed to it, so it doesn't work and you back off so quickly, versus like this will work, like Buffer, like Sumo. Like, Sumo, we've had times, we had to fire 16 people in one day, because we were like not sure we were going to be in business. 

	But we stayed with it, and now three years later we have, I don't know, 40 people, an eight-figure company. And I want us to keep doing well and I'd like us to keep doing well, but it's committing to it actually working.

Jaime:	Good. You know, I'd like us to do well. You have to believe it Noah; did you not just hear what your advice is?

Noah:	Hey, touch?. Yeah, we will do well. And so that's actually why we're meeting at 5:00 on Sunday to work on. And I think for people who are listening, like hey, you're like hey, I'm tired. Well, that's probably maybe why you're not getting what you want, because are you working Sunday at 5:00, or at Friday night you're going out and drinking? It's up to you to decide that you really want.

[00:41:00]

Jaime:	I love it. And since it is right on time, I have to ask the last question. We're going to go a couple minutes over from what you - 

Noah:	No. I got to pitch SumoMe for like literally one minute.

Jaime:	No, that's going to be at the end. Oh, people are waiting with baited breath. I'm not sure if you knew that, but they are.

Noah:	I hope their breath doesn't smell bad.

Jaime:	They brushed their teeth this morning.

Noah:	If they're brushing twice a day it's okay.

Jaime:	Oh, we're so good.

Noah:	What did you say?

Jaime:	That's exactly what I said; they're brushing their teeth twice a day. We're right there together. Alright, so the last question is what's one action listeners can take this week to move them forward towards their goal of a million? And then we'll talk about how great SumoMe is. Okay, go.

Noah:	Should I not give them Sumo Me as the answer?

Jaime:	No, you should totally - no, don't. I will give SumoMe as the other answer later.

Noah:	Okay. So to be a millionaire?

Jaime:	Yes.

Noah:	Well, I'm going to go through a few, because that's just the way I like to be.

Jaime:	I know but you don't have time, so one.

Noah:	Okay. Has someone already given the advice to just hang out with a millionaire once a week?

Jaime:	I think you just did, but go ahead.

[00:42:00]

Noah:	Has anyone ever done that one?

Jaime:	We've had 400, so I don't know for sure.

Noah:	As the advice for the listeners?

Jaime:	I don't remember. Go ahead.

Noah:	Okay, well, I'll take the credit for that. well, I have two of them, but I think the number one thing is like if you really want to be a millionaire, just literally this week, think who is the wealthiest person you know, and do whatever it takes for them, like literally just go set up an interview with them, pay for an expensive dinner with them, go work for them for free, whatever it takes. 

	Like, I am a millionaire. And so this month I'm doing a no apology month, so I'm not apologizing for doing well. So yes, I'm a millionaire. So if someone's trying to be a millionaire, they should be like hey, hit me up, I'm not going to respond to you.

Jaime:	I know everybody is now going to hit you up because of that comment.

Noah:	Well, I'm not going to respond. Unless they're a single Jewish woman, I'm not going to respond. Even that, I don't want a gold digger. So the point being though is like go hang out with a millionaire every week, every single week. And I promise you - because think about this, if you want to go somewhere, why don't you just ask the person who has already done it. 

[00:43:00] 	Like, I can tell you tactics. I can tell you like strategy, help a million people and then you'll get a million dollars. Yeah, I know that one. But if you just go to someone who has done it, they will show you there path and their planning. You can choose to follow it, and it will likely get you to where they are.

Jaime:	Why do you think I have this show? Yep, okay. So you tell me, where can we find out - because you literally have a thousand - did you not brush your teeth this morning? I mean, come on, Noah.

Noah:	I get my teeth cleaned every six months. Is this recorded, is the video recording?

Jaime:	Yes, it's video recording.

Noah:	I have fluoride, and I just don't let the fluoride specks on my teeth after lunch.

Jaime:	This is hilarious. You're wonderful.

Noah:	It can record. I don't care.

Jaime:	I know. This is when we're supposed to be pitching SumoMe and all the other wonderful things that you guys do.

Noah:	It's not even a pitch.

Jaime:	I know. Okay, wait, let me say this. I'm going to talk, okay?

Noah:	It's your show. You should do whatever the fuck - freak you want.

Jaime:	I can. So the funny thing is that we haven't had SumoMe on, which was silly, right? So when we had the new site, we put SumoMe on. I didn't realize that my tech had only put it on a couple of health most popular pages and that was it. So Mathew Paulson, who I think you know, I've interviewed a couple times. He wrote a book all about leads called Email the Best Fight or something like that. The first thing he said is how come you don't have SumoMe on every single page of your site?

[00:44:00]

Noah:	Dude, this guy's good. Mathew Paulson for President.

Jaime:	That was his main thing, seriously. And I was like I thought we did. And he's like no, you don't. And I didn't even realize, which is not good. But yeah, so he was going over my entire site and that was the number one thing that he said I should do, there's your testimony.

Noah:	Wow.

Jaime:	So now you can tell them where they can get it.

Noah:	For anyone out there, who is like I want to grow my email list. I want marketing tools to grow my business. Like, we have AppSumo. AppSumo is a group on for geeks. And it makes a lot of millions of dollars a year. All the tools that we use dot grow it, we've put into a package called SumoMe.com. It's free to start. It's the tools you'll need to do marketing, and most importantly for a lot of you grow your email address. It's got all the tools you'll need to get that going, so that you can accelerate your business. 

	It's like if you're Tiger Woods and you have a kind of cool business, you don't want to swing with a wooden club. You want to swing with the best clubs. And so we give people the best clubs, the best tools to use, to grow their business online.

[00:45:00]

Jaime:	And where do we get it?

Noah:	SumoMe.com.

Jaime:	I love it and highly recommend it. Also, because they're pretty, I don't have to -

Noah:	You're awesome.

Jaime:	Well, I mean, it actually did totally increase our conversions also, so I'll try and get the numbers afterwards. Now that it's on all of the pages, I will try and come back and let everybody know. It was ridiculous. Anyway, so it has definitely helped, so everybody should check it out. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm five minutes after the time you told me, so I'm a little late on that, but I hope you had fun.

Noah:	I respect it.

Jaime:	You said it was okay. So you're awesome Noah, we already know that. I want to have you back on the show at some point. Everybody go to SumoMe, yes it is awesome. But go sign up for his podcast, OkDork.com/podcast, because he's trying to hit a goal here people, and he needs help. And I know you already listen to podcasts, and he's going to be ADD and entertaining, so why would you not? Was that a good pitch for you?

[00:46:00]

Noah:	You can pitch however you want. I don't think it's ADD, I just think I got a lot energy.

Jaime:	That's what your mama told you.

Noah:	My mom? I've got like the best most supportive mom ever, it's unreal. I don't know if everyone else? mother, if you don't have a supportive Jewish mother, you need to go find one. Like, Jewish mothers are just unreal. She's like, "You are the greatest. Oh, I watched your show. Oh, it's so good." 

Jaime:	Can I adopt your mother?

Noah:	People just need to find someone who like loves the crap out of them, and then you're going to be awesome. Because then it gives you the confidence to try these things out because you know that you always have this unconditional love.

Jaime:	That's the sweetest advice ever. On that note, thank you so much for coming on, Noah. We do this when we get in person, we go on random tangent forever, so I'm not going to let you do that right now.

Noah:	I'm going to set up for my 5:00.

Jaime:	Have a wonderful day.

Noah:	You, too.

Jaime:	Bye.

Noah:	Bye.

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

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