The WOW Factor With John Dwyer

Founder of The Institute of Wow – John Dwyer

Here’s what you’ll learn from John about The WOW Factor:

– What exactly is “The WOW Effect” and why you should care?
– When does branding become irrelevant for your business?
– Discover how a little WOW Factor magic turned that same old home-loan campaign into a mega success without ever mentioning interest rates!
– How to come up with your “artificial” WOW factor that’s new, exciting, and different? when you’ve ran out of ideas. (Yes, this works for coaches and consultants too!)
– Why John thinks you should never ever run a contest promotion.
– the one crucial thing 90% of all websites out there DON’T have that’s killing their marketing.

Tune in and listen: The WOW Factor With John Dwyer

John’s Website:

TheInstituteOfWow.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I am Jaime Masters and today on the show, I've already been laughing so much, he's thrown me off a few times already, we have John Dwyer. He runs theinstituteofwow.com. He's worked with amazing, huge brands like McDonald's. He's even convinced Jerry Seinfeld to work with a tiny little bank. How the heck did you do that? Thanks so much for coming on this show today. I really appreciate it.

John Dwyer:	My pleasure, Jaime, nice to be here. 

Jaime:	So, like I said he threw me off. Nobody ever throws me off at the beginning. I'm very impressed so far. I even already have a nickname for him, which I will not share. No, I'm kidding. So, thank you so much. Please tell me, in general, why marketing of Wow makes that much of a difference comparatively to regular marketing because it sounds a little like a shtick.

John Dwyer:	It does, doesn't it? It does indeed. Jaime, look, any business owner these days is up against about 3,000 messages a day that we're all exposed to. So, in the old days, when you just had your three T.V. networks and you had your local radio stations and things like that, you probably could find it a lot easier to cut through the clutter. But in this day and age we live in now, with social media and all the other interruptions that we have, depending upon who you want to believe, we're apparently exposed to 3,000, 4,000 messages a day. 

So, my view is, if you go down the conventional path of building your brand and then they will come, you could be on a senior?s pension by the time that you start to get people through the door. My view is that that's fine for Coca-Cola and McDonald's and all those big brands to actually sponsor the Olympics and build their brand and all that sort of thing, but for most small businesses, and I mean small businesses that they're doing hundreds of thousands of dollars up to maybe $50 million, they need to put food on the table tomorrow night. This Wow effect, a marketing technique that I showed people is all about direct response marketing but with some pixie dust on top. 

Jaime:	Oh, I like pixie dust and I really appreciate you saying that too because I remember some of my friends work for Coca-Cola and they were going after impressions and branding and we think as small business owners we need tons of that, but normally we don't for sales, at least incrementally, which is what we're looking for right now. How do we get it right now? So, please enlighten us with the pixie dust, how we can really step through, especially in this online market which is insane. How can we really stand out?

John Dwyer:	Look, first of all, let me say to anyone who says branding is the ultimate, I agree with you absolutely. We buy Kellogg's because it's Kellogg's. We buy Coke because it's Coke and BMW because it's BMW. It's just that if you don't fall into that category where you've got a marketing department of 15 or 20 or 30 people and you've got $20 million here to spend on marketing, then it's just not gonna work for you and you won't be able to break through all that clutter out there just with branding. 

So, what I say is that branding becomes irrelevant if you're not selling anything. This particular style of marketing has five components to it and I'll touch on those if you like. The thing is is that direct response marketing allows you to test Facebook today, to test Instagram today, and to test the local litterbox [inaudible] [00:13:15] today and know tomorrow whether it's working and branding, of course, should go along with that. When are you actually developing direct response marketing then you should bring your brand along with it. 

I'll give you an example. A bank here in Australia, it was the one that I got Jerry Seinfeld to promote, even before Jerry came along, I said to that bank, "What was your acquisition tool for home loans," and they said 1 percent honeymoon rate. I went oh please, every other bank has a 1 percent honeymoon rate. There's nothing different about that. They said, "Well, what do you suggest?" I said, "Well, why don't you actually give that 1 percent honeymoon rate, which on $100,000.00 is $1,000.00 for the first year that we're giving back to the people, why don't you give that to a wholesale vacation company and then give away a free vacation with every home loan?" So, that's what they did. 

If it was a $200,000.00 loan, then they would have had a honeymoon rate of $2 grand. They gave that $2,000.00 to the Hola Bay Vacation Company and they'd get a $3,000.00 or $4,000.00 value holiday because it was a wholesale company. So, we came on T.V., we came online, we came on newspapers and said to get a home loan from this particular bank and you'll get a free vacation. Guess what? We never mentioned an interest rate for 11 years. Not for 11 years did we ever, ever mention the price and in the first three months of giving away a free vacation with a home loan, they tripled the home loans, and then within two years, they quadrupled their home loans and this idiot that you're talking to charged a consultancy fee instead of a percentage. 

Jaime:	I was just about to call you a genius, but I'm glad that you just called yourself an idiot right before I said it. 

John Dwyer:	I'm an idiot! I remember my wife saying to me, Jaime, at the time, because it just took off like crazy, and then when we put sods out on top of that, it was the wow factor on top of a wow factor. It went nuts again. I remember my wife said to me, "Look, you've been working very hard [inaudible] [00:15:04] islands for holiday." I had a head this big at that stage. I thought I was the guy upstairs. I said, "Forget the holiday, we'll just buy the island!" I think God was watching and made sure that I was brought down a peg or two and this - I was hoping the bank would give me a percentage, but it didn't work out that way.

Jaime:	Ouch! That hurts. That's painful. Lesson learned. I'm sure that didn't happen again later for you. Good old entrepreneurs, we learn our lessons the hard way sometimes, right? So, you tell me, because everybody that's listening, I was about to call you - I was like if we can't have you, the genius, tell us what our wow factor should be, how do we try and figure it out for ourselves?

John Dwyer:	There's a thing called the iPhone and of course it looks like this. I'm holding it up the camera. They don't leave my hold so much and the reason they don't is because they have an organic wow factor. So, that particular product or service is only one of a kind. I know you might say Samsung and everyone else has caught up these days, but the point I'm trying to make is if you've got the Rubik's Cube, there's no need for a wow factor. It's a wow factor by itself. There's an organic wow factor inside there. 

But if you are marketing a wheelbarrow and you think you're going to beat Walmart, then your wheelbarrow better light up in the dark because you're not going to beat them on price. They will just beat you every single time. So, my view is, why, if you are a challenger brand, and most of us are - if you're not the Coca-Cola of your industry, you're a challenger brand, why take on the big guys on price when you're never gonna win? So, why even sit down at the kitchen table tonight with your husband or your wife and map out a marketing plan that's based on price discounting when in fact that's not sustainable? 

So, my view is that what you need to do is you need to consider what McDonald's have done very successfully for about four decades and that is come up with a Happy Meal toy. Come up with a wow factor that's what I would call an artificial wow factor. Get a home loan, get a free vacation. That's got nothing at all to do with a home loan, but that's an artificial wow factor. Why? Because their home loans with money is the same as the Wells Fargo bank or any other bank. 

So, therefore, when I teach people to develop a wow factor for their business, an artificial one, then I say, "Look, I've got six children. They're 18 to late 20s these days, but at one stage, my wife and myself, we were like the Brady Bunch. We had six under 12. Six children under 12. That Tarago van was very noisy. I must have, throughout that period, spent $6 billion on Happy Meals and it had nothing to do with the hamburger."

Jaime:	So, it's like Tom's shoes has their wow factor where they gave a pair of shoes back. Give me some examples, what can we have to pick from because it makes sense to hear their things and it's way different for us to look at, okay, I'm a coaching business that's online, or whatever the pieces are. How do we make a wow factor that's new and different and somebody actually cares about?

John Dwyer:	I'll give you some examples. A turf farm, as in selling grass for your front yard or your back yard, so turf farm - I'm just conscious of the Aussie accent, so when I say "turf farm" I just want to make sure you know what I'm talking about. He had about six miles of turf when he came into my coaching program and he said, "Look, I've just bought this big turf farm and unfortunately the building burned at that time, it was a few years ago. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, so I'm stuck with a lot of this turf and I've got to turn it over so that I can replant for the next season." 

I said, "Who's your target audience?" He said landscapers because a landscaper will actually order two or three homes worth of turf whereas if it were Mom and Dad wanting to replace the grass on the front yard, then yeah, they're very hard to find. I said, "Fine. What do you think landscapers like as a wow factor'" He said pricing. He said, "I'm continually dropping my prices all the time and it's just a nightmare. I'm losing margin because every turf farm's got the same grass." I said, "Good, well in that case, why don't we actually offer them some premium beer?" 

Now, in Australia, we have a premium beer which is the upmarket beer called Crown Lager. It's the beer that you would get if you went to the Hilton Hotel. Now, these landscapers would normally drink normal beer, and you have to be wearing a coat and maybe a tie to drink Crown Lager. So, we sent out an email and snail mail, an invitation that for every homes? worth of grass that they bought from this turf farm, which is about 500 square yards, they would get a carton of Crown Lager. He rang me up six days into the promotion after only sending out the email and the letter to 250 of the 500 landscapers that we rented a list from, and he said, "I've got a problem. I've run out of grass." He said, "I'm actually sourcing turf from other turf farms to keep up with the demand for the beer."

Jaime:	Over a case of beer. Okay, I love this and I love how as human beings, we can be persuaded by so little, which is great. Let me ask you this, one of my clients actually has the opportunity to market wedding dresses. They're overstocked. She's, right now, going through a marketing plan to try and - she's not a wedding dress person. She has a total other company. This is sort of like a side thing. How would you market a wow factor for wedding dresses? I'm totally putting you on the spot, but I want you to walk us through what it would be to try and figure that piece out.

John Dwyer:	First of all, what I say to a client is would you be prepared to give up a 10 percent of your sale price if we could double your business? The answer, always in a heartbeat, is yes. Yet, in the world of Groupon that we live in these days, if you were a hairdressing salon or you promoted wedding dresses and you put a sign outside your business, online or offline, that said 10 percent discount, nobody would come in. Groupon will give you 50 percent, for God's sake. 

So, therefore, I said let's just work on 10 percent. So, if you're selling something for $2,000.00, you'd be willing to give up $200.00 towards a wow factor. They always say yes. So, the question I would ask you, Jaime, or that lady who owns the business, is what would the average sale price for a wedding dress be so that I could think of a wow factor that would be 10 percent of that?

Jaime:	That's a good question. I have an idea. I even talked to her about this, but I'd say like $1,000.00, I'd assume. Is this cost or not cost, sale price?

John Dwyer:	No, sale price and I think, I'm a blokey bloke, so what would I know about wedding dresses, but I think you might find there are quite a few ladies out there that spend much, much more than $1,000.00.

Jaime:	I'm sure. I'm not one in the market, so yes, I totally understand. It could be $10,000.00, but I don't know. I would say $1,000.00 or $2,000.00 so that way we know because they're discounted ones I think. 

John Dwyer:	Okey dokey, so, therefore, what I would do is that I would do something like we have a hotel here on the Gold Coast - I live on the Gold Coast in Australia, which is like the Orlando of America where it's all the theme parks and the beaches and things like that. There is a six-star hotel here called the Palazzo Versace, it's the Italian brand, and it is six-star, marble everywhere. If you know the right people, you can sometimes get the rooms there that are normally $600.00 a night for a good rate if you actually play your cards the right way. 

So, often, when I've got something like this, which is an experiential product, a wedding dress is there for the one - well, maybe more than one these days, but the one occasion. So, therefore it's going to be enhancing the experience for that lady getting married. What I would suggest is that you would actually enhance further that experience by saying you get your wedding dress from me and even when you come back from your honeymoon, because obviously, we don't try getting involved in organizing someone's honeymoon, that's their own personal thing, but when you come back from your honeymoon, you and your husband will stay one incredible night at a Palazzo Versace. You'll have a beautiful dinner, da-da-da, you'll be pampered, you'll have chocolates on the bed, the whole thing, in this exclusive hotel. 

You won't get that from any other wedding dress company. So, it's an example off the tip of my head, but the thing is that it's all about actually working out what would a 10 percent discount normally be and transferring that across to a wow factor.

Jaime:	And how good at negotiating you are with getting the sweet spot of trying to get something really freaking amazing to give to it. Is it always like a package thing? Is that what works best? Like when this happens, you get this?

John Dwyer:	My view is there's no one in Australia, at least, that would have run more sweepstake contests than me. I've done every scratch bingo game for the newspapers, I've done all the McDonald's scratch games, I've done all those sorts of things, and made a few dollars out of it over the years. But I would recommend to anyone now to never, ever run a contest. Never, ever run a contest. 

You're talking to someone who made their career out of creating contests, but the reason I say to never run a contest is because if you asked any of your friends, Jaime, how many times was their purchase decision in the supermarket or anywhere else influenced by a contest, they'd say never. Just as I've never met a human being that's bought anything off the side of a bus, anything off the back of a taxi -

Jaime:	Right?

John Dwyer:	Yeah, I've never met a human that's bought anything on the electronic signs that run around the NFL games on weekend, yet there are tens of millions of dollars being wasted on that every weekend. So, what I say to people is if you are going to have a wow factor, just simply work out 10 percent of what your sale price is and then look for something that you can provide to them that will take their eyes of the, guess what, price. So, 10 percent discount will keep their eyes on the price, so will 50 percent discount, but if you actually put a toy in the bottom of the Kellogg's breakfast cereal, then price doesn't come into the equation. 

Jaime:	No kidding! Kids will just bug the crap out of you for the crappy cereal because the healthy ones don't have the toy. Such a pain. Why don't the healthy ones have a toy? Come on! They should just do that -

John Dwyer:	That whole "living longer" thing, it's all -

[Crosstalk]

Jaime:	Right? Give them the sugar. Then I have to deal with them. You have a ton of children, so you know what that's like.

John Dwyer:	Yes, I've had to deal with quite a few of them. 

Jaime:	So, tell me, how can more of an online business that's not necessarily a product type? So, you're a coaching consultant business in general, what do you give? Do you give something as a wow? You tell me a little bit more about how you market something that's a little more intangible like a service. 

John Dwyer:	You're talking B2B or both B2B and B2C?

Jaime:	I would love to have examples of both if you don't mind.

John Dwyer:	Okay, so in my own instance, the people who are listening to this program or watching the program I should say, would probably be very familiar with the Dan Kennedys of this world and the Ryan Deiss?, and the Frank Kerns, and the Joe Polishes, and all those cool kids at lunchtime. I've been a member of all their clubs and so forth and I was a consultant up until about four years ago. At the latter end of our career, I said to my wife, "Look, I've got all this IP that I've been giving all these big companies," and I got a big sick of dealing with boardroom semantics and so I said, "why don't we cut this IP that I've got, Intellectual Property, up into bite-sized pieces and make it available to the smaller businesses?" 

I had no clue what it was all about when it came to holding seminars and all those sorts of things. So, therefore, that's why I got into the environment where I learned from the Dan Kennedys and the Joe Polishes how to do all this sort of stuff. As I said to you, Jaime, I think before we kicked off, it was just my luck four years ago when I decided to swap over to providing all my services to smaller businesses and have a seminar style business model, the seminar started going south. This thing called the internet was alive and well and so, therefore, you won't be jumping on a plane go all the way interstate to go to a seminar when you can watch it on a webinar. So anyway, that was an interesting learning curve. 

But what we do is we actually guarantee that when somebody comes to our event, they will walk away with this 5-step system whether they decide to become part of our environment or not. Over the time that we've been doing this now, and I think we're okay at it now, we've collected testimonial after testimonial after testimonial, video and otherwise, so we find it very easy now to actually create an organic wow factor, not an artificial one. So, nobody comes into our seminars with the chances to win something. We actually guarantee them the wow factor that they will leave with a marketing system that they can join the dots with regardless of whether they're doing the team or with me. 

The reason we are able to do that is because we always make sure that nobody leaves that room on the day that they're there without walking in front of the camera and saying what was it that they got out of that function. You know what, Jaime? The crazy part about it is that so many people in the service industry have got this unbelievable opportunity these days with their iPhones to capture all those wow factor comments, but hardly anyone does it. 

The thing that is crazy in the world that we live in, if I was working for McDonald's in America today, and if I was to take over the business, I would sack their marketing manager within five minutes because you know that today you'll have 27.5 million people go through McDonald's and McDonald's have no clue who any one of them is. 

Jaime:	Wow, really? Yeah, that's a very valid point. 

[Crosstalk]

John Dwyer:	The only ones, Walmart have no clue who anyone is. You can go through any of the big franchise chains, who you would think would be smart marketers, and they are on the surface. They are on the surface, but none of them collect data. The reason that I've just gone off track a little bit there is because I think one of the things - I'll give you the 5-step system in a second if you're interested in that, but one of the things that you need if you're going to have a wow factor and if you're going to stimulate competitive trade is you need data. 

The crazy part about it is that 90 percent of websites don't have any free report or free download to collect data. You and I would because we're in the game, but most people don't. The other thing is, in the offline world, it's the same thing. You can go into any restaurant in America tonight, you can spend $200.00, and they'll let you leave without taking any data. 

Jaime:	Yes, in the future, that's all that it's gonna be about and they're gonna have the same issues that you had when you were like, "Oh, I should have." Right?

John Dwyer:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Except theirs would be a lot more painful, I think, on a wide scale. So, tell me, how is it enough to have a wow factor with the testimonials and in general, when you've got that wow of the people really, really excited, how do you ask them the right questions for that? Because there's a lot of people online that are coach consultants, I have a lot of testimonials, we've done a lot of stuff like that, how do we make them be our wow factor?

John Dwyer:	I know that in the United States, we don't have this rule in Australia, but in the United States, Frank Kern has to say that hardly anyone that comes under his program will make any money. He has to say that. He says that and I know that there's a rule whereby you have to say that 98 percent of people that come onto this program will not do anything. It's not Frank's fault. He's got a great product and great service, but the fact is that most people just don't roll their sleeves up. You know that. I know that. 

Regardless of the fact we don't have that ruling, if I had to say that in Australia, I'd say it gladly because the point is you're never going to join the gym and develop muscles if you don't go every week. That's the way it is. But what we do is we give an extraordinary level of proof that we are very different from what they might perceive the normal seminar person is because let's face it, the industry is fraught with you-know-who's and basically, people who fake it 'til they make it. 

So, the first thing I say when I go onto a stage or I speak at any presentation is that I'm not a seminar speaker. I absolutely make that clear. I say, "Look, I've come from the corporate world. The only reason I'm doing this is because selling once to many seems like a pretty smart move." Then, I teach them to replicate that because whether those webinars or podcasts or whatever it might be, sold once to many makes a lot of sense, [inaudible] [00:30:53] making some money at that over the years. 

So, the thing that I do when I'm talking to any of these businesses and they're asking me who do we get the local wow factor, I ask them to go through a 5-step system. No. 1, who's their most profitable customer, and then all you do is basically look for more people who look like him. Pretty simple. Not all woman, no, we want to know women, is it 35 through the 54, they drive a certain car, they shop at this thing, and they have an adjoining income of whatever, and they've got 2.3 children. So, it's all about drilling down to your most profitable customer. 

No. 2, creating a wow factor to take their eyes off the price. No. 3, use a problem/solution formula which the Nurofen company does very well. You got a headache, take a tablet, it's gone within 15 minutes. No longer do they tell us what's in the tablet. We don't care. You can put whatever you want in there. 

Jaime:	Yeah, exactly. It works now, okay.

John Dwyer:	No. 4 of the 5 points is fix your worth for website because most people have an absolutely disgusting, awful website, and of course most of them, if you said to them what's the most important page on the magazine, they'll tell you the front page. Then, you said why do you have the ugliest front page in the world for your website? Why is that the case? If you know that the website is your director of first impressions, you better have a good front page. The fifth component of the system that we have is build repetitive trade, and the only way you can build repetitive trade is to collect data in the first place. Nobody collects data in the first place. That's the crazy part about it. 

Jaime:	Yeah, thankfully I live in a world of most of my friends that actually do because we're in the game like you said. We're like okay, we've been there, done that. A lot of people are figuring out lead magnets, and this is why all those guys that you mentioned make a ridiculous amount of money because nobody really gets this industry right now. So, when we're going through, and this is the other question that I have on your 5-steps, yes, of course, we need to know who the No. 1 most profitable is. When we're trying to figure out what that wow factor is, how do you, especially here in the states, or on the internet, I guess I should in general, how do we try and make the videos or whatever it is more different, key differentiator-wise, than everybody else? 

So, for me, I talk about money and everybody does the same thing: more time, more money, more happiness. Those are the three things that everybody specifically wants, but there are 17,000 systems that could get you those same three things. So, how do we get them to take the eye off the price, you know what I mean, to try and sell them when there's literally - you could hire me, you could hire you, you could hire Ryan Geiss. You have to hire a bazillion people for the same "cost" with lots and lots of really amazing pieces.

John Dwyer:	I'd like to think the reason we do okay is because we're just down to earth, whereas most of the coaches and the advisors out there are anything but down to earth. They'll show you all the stories - I mean, I actually did work with Seinfeld for three years and I've got lots of evidence of that. I didn't run up to him and do a selfie because I spoke on the same stage as him. 

So, therefore, basically in Australia, I don't know if you have the same term, they're wankers. That's what we call - we call them dickheads or wankers. That's why the first thing I do when I come onto a podcast like this or a webinar, I say I'm not a seminar speaker because I make sure that they understand that this is not a get rich quick scheme. There are many of my clients that get an incredible result virtually overnight like within weeks because they were so silly before, it was really easy to trick up their business. But nonetheless, it's not one of those get rich quick schemes where Google are gonna slap you. That's where, I think, from an advisor point of view, if you are a consultant or you're an advisor, for goodness sake, get rid of all that rubbish about you're gonna spend more time with your family, we're gonna hug each other, you'll get hard nipples, we're gonna do a conga line, all this BS. 

I tell everyone when they come into our seminar, you will not be hugging anyone and you will not be touching anyone. There'll be no conga lines. You're just gonna walk out of here with a marketing system that can absolutely turn your business into dynamite. Trust me, this is not going to be a personal development seminar where you hug people. I love Anthony Robbins, I think he's fantastic. I just don't like all the wannabe Anthony Robbins. 

John Dwyer:	Everybody. Though I do want to hug everyone, but me hug them, they don't have to hug each other. Tony Robbins, that was weird. Everybody wanted to hug me with all these random people I just met. I don't know, I'm not okay with this! 

Jaime:	You've got it. Look, the thing is, there is a time and place for everything and I know that going through a personal development coach, you're looking for people with anxiety and depression because that's happy days. We're just not into that way. What we say is that No. 1, you will never make money out of poor people and so, therefore, if you are a wellness coach and you're going down the path of just helping anyone, whether they've got money or not, then good luck. I'm a Christian, I always absolutely believe that we should look after those who are less fortunate than ourselves, but the best way I can do that is to make money out of richer people and then give that money like Robin Hood did to the poor people. 

I have a lot of people come into my environment and they're a one-man band and they'll say, "Look, we're out there to help everyone." I go, "Please, either put up with my sarcasm or leave because your feelings are gonna be hurt." You can't help everyone. Help people with money and then you can give some of the money you make from them to the poor people.

Jaime:	I just need to highlight that. Anybody that's listening right now, think of who you're marketing to at the moment. It's so funny and so easy for us to say because we look at it and we're like, "Well, they're not paying you." Well, yeah, because they have no money. It's so logical when you're looking at it from the outside, but the hard thing is that they're also sold the dream where they're like, "It doesn't matter. You can make a business out of anything anybody will buy." 

Because I'm a data freak, you run the numbers and you're like, "You need this many people to pay you this much money. Do you know how hard that is online to get that many people in your email list' Even if you were stellar at everything, you wouldn't make very much." 

John Dwyer:	Jaime, you're right, because there are so many people that go to these sorts of events and they hear this speaker up the front, of course, who's showing all of the beautiful slides of the castles that he owns in Scotland and they always have a Miss World wife. I don't know how that works out because they're normally - 

Jaime: 	Yeah. 

John Dwyer:	But most of these male seminar speakers are ugly, but they got the Miss World wife. I don't know how that works out. I was doing one in Dubai, in the Arab Emirates about 18 months ago and I don't do many of these multi-speaker things because who wants to be in a gladiator pit for God's sake. Anyway, I was sitting behind the stage and the guy that had just been out on stage in front of all of these people had just been showing his Miss World wife and Maseratis and all the rubbish. 

He's having a coffee with me and he said, "J.D., how's everything going for you?" I said, "Not bad, okay." He said, "Not real good for me. I'm down to my last $21,000.00," and he's about my vintage, by the way, so he's not a young kid. I said, "Why'" He said, "Oh, I've just been through the third wife and things are real tough," blah blah blah. He gave me the whole horror story. He had just been out on stage 10 minutes earlier, telling everyone that he was a multi-gazillionaire, and that's the thing that really upsets me because I think we make a dollar because we're just down to earth. 

Jaime:	I loved that rant. I thought that was absolutely - and I'm so thankful now that we have the internet, that can really start to spread the message of people that actually have authenticity like my friend, Pat Flynn, who has a site called Smart Passive Income. Everyone's like, "We just love him as a human." We want to go to his site because we care about him as a human instead of the "I will deliver you every flashy piece of gold whatever-it-is that you want in your life." Because, as we know, unfortunately, behind the scenes, a lot of it's not true, and we have to sort of - 

John Dwyer:	But you're right. We have in our environment, tomorrow I have a two-day master class workshop, so the people who come into our things, everybody's got a master, we call it the master class, the Marketing Master Class. So, then when they join, three times a year, we have these two-day events and they're anything but a hug fest. They're lots of sarcasm, lots of fun, lots of wit, but lots and lots of good content. 

I know what'll happen at the end of tomorrow afternoon, the first of the two days, because it happens every time. It's that I'll get one or two of my members who'll come up to me and just to take the you-know-what out of me, will go, "I didn't enjoy today, J.D.," and I'll go, "Oh god, here we go. What's wrong?" They'll go, "You never insulted me." That's when I say, "Well, stick around for another 5 minutes." 

They want an environment, every business owner wants to make more sales and so, therefore, if you can help them do that with a proven system, of course, they're gonna be interested, but they also want to be entertained, not just trained. The way I think about things is that I just overload them with case study after case study after case study and that means then that they know that I haven't just been to the United States last week and went to a Facebook seminar, grabbed all the notes, and came back and became a Facebook expert. 

Jaime:	Exactly, and it's tough because there is the whole - when you're new, you're trying to learn stuff, I just like people saying, "Hey, I'm new. Just so you know, I'll give you what I can." Transparency and honesty is kind of important nowadays. That's my own thing. Okay, so tell me more about -

John Dwyer:	Jaime, just before we go on to the other numbers, can I ask you, in your environment, the people that you're dealing with, do you have a lot of service industry people say they would be coaches and they would be advisors, they might be chiropractors and doctors and dentists. Do you have a lot of those within your environment?

Jaime:	Yep, definitely. I mean, they're definitely a [inaudible] [00:40:50] of a product base, but there's a ton of Amazon sellers because that's a trend right now. But a lot of them are like marketing firms and or sort of in the service space in general, landscapers, all sorts of stuff. So, when we're looking at No. 3, the Problem-Solution Formula, can you explain that a little bit more? I get the idea, but what are we trying to do on that stuff?

John Dwyer:	Very good question. Yeah, problem-solution is a stimulus, an emotional stimulus that not many businesses use. By the way, Dan Kennedy was probably [inaudible] to this quite a number of times, less than 5 percent of all businesses in the world use direct response marketing. The crazy, crazy thing is, and you've only got to scroll through your newsfeed on Facebook and see all the wasted money on sponsored ads, most of them are providing advertising marketing in front of their target audience that doesn't have any of these wow factor techniques and doesn't even have a call to action. So, it's just crazy the amount of money that's being wasted. 

My view with the problem-solution thing is have a look at what any of the weight loss companies are doing, all the headache tablet companies, and you'll see that they're going through a 5-steps - I have to give you another 5-step system. My god, I sound like a seminar speaker. But the emotional direct response formula is a.) give them their problem, highlight their problem to them"Are you overweight?" Then, the second part of that is aggravate that problem. So, you say, "Spring is just around the corner. Do you want to look good in your swimsuit?" You aggravate the fact that they're overweight. 

No. 3, then what you do is actually provide the solution and that is "Go on my Jenny Craig weight loss program and you will look like Elle Macpherson or one of the supermodels within four weeks." Then, you show a photo of the supermodel. 

No. 4 is you provide proof and that's what we call "before and after" or if you don't mind me being a little crass, it's what we call in the advertising business "shit to gold." So, therefore, the fourth component is providing proof, whereby you show the before and after photo, simple as that. Was not healthy, not looking real well, overweight, and then within four weeks, she looks like Elle Macpherson and if she doesn't then just show a photo of Elle Macpherson. I'm joking.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime:	Exactly, but there are crazy people out there. Anyway, go ahead. 

John Dwyer:	Then, No. 5 is a call to action which is going to JennyCraig.com or whatever it might be. If you think about that holiday or the free vacation with the home loan, we did exactly that with all the home loan ads. We would just say, look, you're with a bank at the moment and they're not treating you very well? Yes, I am. No.2, we'd aggravate that by saying, you know what? A bank is charging you all those fees and charges because they have shareholders and they need to give a dividend. We're a mutual because we're a building society, so basically, all the funds that we make go back into helping you. 

No. 3, if you swap your home loan from that nasty bank to the nice building society, you'll get a free vacation. Heavenly music, white doves. Then, No. 4, we basically show them proof and it would be husband and wife who said, "I used to have my home loan at this bank and they didn't know my name. They treated me like a number. When we swapped across to the Greater Building Society, not only did they treat us better, but we got a free holiday to Hawaii." Then, No. 5, if you're interested in doing the same as these people, then go to Greater.com. You know what? It's as simple as that. If you follow that procedure, you just watch what happens to the cash register. 

Jaime:	That's the funny thing is that it sounds so - but it's also proven for many, many - this is marketing. Whether it's online or offline or whatever it is, we are humans and we respond to this, which I think is really important. But it's way easier to sort of go through <p data-wpview-marker="%5Baudio%20cuts%20out%5D">.</p> and it's harder, especially for a smaller business owner to not get swayed by the Facebook ads, new marketing thing, or the whatever it is because we've got a bazillion distractions, and completely forget that you told us about this whole thing. 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime:	And make something and be like, oh wait, there was - I mean, hopefully, my people have made a call to action at the end of theirs. But how can we make sure we're using and implementing this stuff in every type of advertising that we do?

John Dwyer:	I think just ask yourself a question and that's a regional 5-step system. I've absolutely overloaded everybody with 5-step systems today, but the original one, identify your most profitable target audience, look for more people who look like them, create a wow factor to take their eyes off the price, No. 3, problem-solution, No. 4, fix your website and we can touch on what components that you need to include in your homepage if you like, in a moment, and then No. 5, of course, you collect data so you can stimulate repetitive trade. 

If you ask yourself those questions every time you're about to launch an advertising campaign, you can't go wrong. Because if you say is this being targeted, is the language and the imagery that I'm showing, whether it's Facebook or whether it's a magazine, is the imagery and the message that I'm portraying here or communicating here, is it going to get the attention of my most profitable target audience? If it's not, don't do it. Don't do it. 

So, if you go through those five steps, do I have a wow factor? In other words, do I have an organic wow factor? I'm the only guy with a Rubik?s cube, or do I have to put a bonus on top of that? "Our gift to you is interest-free" if they're buying a [inaudible] [00:46:00] or whatever it might be. If you don't have a wow factor, make sure you have one. 

The thing I find that is really interesting with a lot of business owners, Jaime, is that they've come up with a stupid name for their business. It's just crazy. Mine is a wanky name, okay, it's theinstituteofwow.com and of course you know I'm not an accountancy firm. The business I had before this was called the Dynamic Ideas Company. Again, it's a creative term. You know I'm not an accountancy firm or a law firm. 

Yet, there would be so many people - I had a guy that came on board yesterday in my program and he's come up with a name called Zealify. I said to him, "What do you do?" He said, "I provide consultancy to hotels, as in drinking, bars in hotels." I said, "Why do you call yourself Zealify?" He said, "I went to a branding expo." And I went, "Oh, here we go." He spent $50,000.00 on coming up with a completely stupid name and I said to him - I just went onto one of the net registries whilst I was talking to him on my scout call. I said, "Jim, do you know that hospitalityacademy.com is available?" 

Because that's what he does, he teaches them Disney-style customer service for their hotels. I said, "What do you do?" I said, "I provide Disney-style customer service advice for the hospitality industry." I said, "Do you know that hospitalityacademy.com is available?" And he said, "You're calling me a dickhead, aren't you?" I said, "Mate, you've got the Academy Award."

Jaime:	And you're like now you owe me $50,000.00. 

John Dwyer:	So, therefore, if you're coming up with a name and people say to me "what should I call my business?" I say Toys R Us. Some of the idiots will say, "But I'm not a toy store." Metaphor, okay? 

Jaime:	I love that you insult them while you're doing it. I think that's great. It is funny, I just had a branding expert on the show a little bit ago and he also said coin terms aren't nearly as good for small business. Like the people that have the money and the marketing, it's way easier than it is otherwise and I really appreciate that because way too many people spend way too much money on that sort of thing. 

So, I know we have to start wrapping up in a minute, but tell me more about fixing your website. I'm a geek. I have a degree in computers. This speaks my language, especially on the direct response side. So, tell somebody how they can fix their website because, again, you're right, most of them are kinda danky. 

John Dwyer:	A number of components, No. 1, they have to have a problem-solution headline or a benefit-driven headline. So, some people will say, look, we just don't want to go down the problem-solution path. Fine, have a benefit-driven headline. In my instance, for example, the headline on my website, I haven't looked at in the last few weeks, but I think it says something like "Are you looking for killer proven marketing system that can give you an avalanche of prospects?" and that's what everyone is looking for so that's a benefit-driven headline. So, there's not just a silly headline without backup, obviously, I've got backup. 

So, No. 1, a benefit-driven headline or problem-solution headline. No. 2, you must, must, must, must have an explanatory video. In the day and age that we live in now, if you asked 10 people if they prefer to watch a little 2-minute video versus read reams of text, they'll tell you the 2-minute video every time. That video can't be Esme Beryl or Dorothy going, "Hello, welcome to my website." It can't be that. 

[Crosstalk] 

John Dwyer:	"I just want to tell you, I set up this business in 1882." Oh, kill me. 

Jaime:	I was gonna wear a bonnet. That's not good? 

John Dwyer:	Grandma Jaime, yeah, that would really suit it. Look, it's gotta be interesting and if you're not interesting, just wake up to yourself and admit that you're not interesting and get someone, a presenter, to do it for you, or maybe a doodle video. On my registration page, I have these seminars and - I don't think anyone's gonna fly from America to Australia for my seminar, but have them look at this page. It's called explodeyoursales.com.au. 

Now, that one has a dot a-u at the end of it, which stands for Australia, so explodeyoursales.com.au. If you go on there, you'll notice that I took me off the welcome video and put a cartoon version of me. You know the fast whiteboard animations, the doodle videos? Guess what, my registrations went up 31 percent. 

Jaime:	They didn't want to see your face, what? 

John Dwyer:	It really pisses me off because that cartoon version of me did better than me, which really upsets me. Anyway, if I get 31 percent more people in the room, I'm happy. So, think about that. Think about if maybe you can have an engaging video of either a presenter or maybe a cartoon. No. 3, you need a data collection facility, which means you need to give away something for free. Jaime, you're all over this, of course, because of the gang that you're in. But whether it's a free record or a free video tutorial series or whatever it might be, give them something that they will then give you their name and contact details so that you can annoy them until they buy or die. 

The other thing that you need is video testimonials. Do not put them on your testimonial page. Nobody goes there. We've do the heat mapping, we know that. So, therefore, choose your top two or three or four videos testimonials and put them on your homepage. Then, the other thing that you want to put on your homepage is the three biggest benefits that people will experience if they come and buy from you, whether it's your service or your product. 

That just probably covers what you need on your homepage. You put that sort of stuff on your homepage, a.) you'll keep them sticky because you've made your homepage compelling, and, hopefully, b.) that'll encourage them then to go onto subpages. The crazy part about it, Jaime, is that 90 percent of the people coming to my environment don't even know what their bounce rate is. 

Jaime:	Really' It's usually probably pretty bad anyway, not that any - sometimes you have to explain what a bounce rate - I'm a geek so - but I've explained bounce rate quite a few times from a lot of people, just in general. For us and a lot of people that create content, a lot of people are coming not on the homepage anyway, so now we have to pay attention to every single other page and where they go and the whole sequence. It can get a little nutso. Can you explain to me though the three biggest benefits, like what is typical of the three biggest benefits that you want to make sure is there?

John Dwyer:	Let's say it's an anti-aging cream, for argument's sake, you're going to have your before and after photos throughout the homepage. If you've got half a brain, that's what you would do. So, you might say the three biggest benefits is No. 1, this is an organic product, so there are not any chemicals or other sort of colorings in there, so you can feel very safe that this comes in an organic format. No. 2, it actually reduces wrinkles within 10 days or whatever it may be and the fact of the matter is is that I've got evidence of that on your website. 

No. 3, in terms of the wrinkle cream, it may very well be that are you are supporting a particular foundation or charity where a lot of ingredients of this cream are coming from the jungles of Africa or what have you, and you're looking after the communities there where you've actually cut down their trees and got whatever you had to get out of the trees. So, I'm not making that up on the spot, but the whole idea is to zero in on the top three big benefits. Rather than saying - how many seminars, Jaime, have you been to where you want to kill yourself when the speaker says, "I've got a 28-point system," and you go oh, no? 

Jaime:	I don't make it that far, usually, listening to somebody. 

John Dwyer:	So, three. In my instance, I'm going to show off here, but if you're going to be in business, you have to be different. So, therefore, you've had quite a few guests on your program over the years, I'm sure, and they will tell you that they've just written their latest little book and they'll show you whatever it might be. We do things a bit differently. I'm going to have to come back from the camera here. 

Jaime:	Oh, yes, that's a little bit different. 

John Dwyer:	So, this is when people come to my seminars, I say to them, "Listen, if you want the last 28 years of all my best ideas, it comes in this tabloid-sized book, leather bound. It's got the gold-tipped edges on it. Immediately, when you do something stupid like that, something silly like that, then you can't" 

[Crosstalk] 

John Dwyer:	You can see some of these people, when they get it, they've got it like that and they go, "Oh, my god. I'm gonna jump in a plane and go home with this." I said, "No, you've got a sign a form because if you fall asleep in bed tonight reading this, there's a chance you'll break a rib and I don't want to be sued." So, at the end of our interview, I thought I'd show off and throw that up there because the advice that I would give to anyone listening to your podcast, webinar, whatever, is hang around with some crazy people. I think, Jaime, you and I probably fall into that category because of what we do for a living anyway. But hang around with people who say "why not," not people who say "why?" 

I'm not getting too mushy here because I'm not Anthony Robbins, but one of the things I find with most of the people that come into my environment that is holding them back is that they're hanging around morons. They're hanging around "can't do" people. You want to hang around "can do" people. 

Jaime:	I agree a thousand percent. I've moved from Maine because everyone around me was sort of that 'uh' and it feels like something is on your shoulder holding you down. Even though it's all mental, it still makes a huge difference. I know we have to start wrapping up, so I want to ask the last question that I told you about at the beginning when I was off my - I almost didn't tell him, which would have been your own fault, by the way. I kind of wish I didn't now. It better be good. What's one action listeners can take this week to help them forward towards their goal of a million?

John Dwyer:	I really do come back to that formula. I call that formula the Wheel of Wow because it's an easy thing just to draw a pizza pie and put those five pieces in it. But the first piece of that pie identifying your most profitable customer and they're looking for more people like him or her is absolutely the most important thing. You can do problem-solution, you can fix your website, you can come up with a wow factor and all that sort of stuff, but none of that will count for anything if it's based in the very first instance of being disciplined to identify your most profitable customer and then look for more people who look like him. 

I would say more than 50 percent of businesses just don't do that. They have a broad idea of who their customer is. They'll say all females, but no, you've got to drill down much further than that. I'll give you just one example. There's a guy who came on board not long ago and he's a little country town in Australia. He's an aluminum back fence produces, so he produces metal fences. A lot of the people in his area are in older homes where they got the older, paling wooden fence falling over. So, he put out his brochures and it did nothing and I could see why because the letter box brochure was just awful. He didn't do a very good job on that. 

He came into my program and he said, "Oh if only I could find the people who've got the falling down back fences because a lot of people who - the husband might be a handyman and he's looked after it. So, I'm wasting my letter box brochures in their letter box, but I can't go around checking everybody's backyards." I said, "I think we can do that pretty easily." 

We went to the radio station, the local little country radio station, and we offered them a $5,000.00 fence makeover, which of course, would only cost him next to nothing if they ran a contest which was called "the ugliest back fence in Australia contest." You had to take a photo of your ugly falling down back fence and post it to the radio station's website for the chance to win the makeover. He had two years? worth of leads within three days. 

Jaime:	That is very, very smart. So, while in general, you didn't like contests, that's genius. That makes perfect sense for something like that. Because we only have so much marketing dollars in general and it makes them go like this and I don't think most people think that way in general. 

John Dwyer:	We've taken that to the next level now for kitchen renovators. We just do Facebook advertising for them now and Instagram, where we invite people to post the photo of their ugly kitchen that desperately needs a makeover and, of course, there's the chance for them to win that makeover. These people are getting one or two years? worth of leads within a week because we're flushing out their most profitable customer, which, of course, are people with bad kitchens. 

So, if you know how to do this stuff, it's relatively straightforward, but the first and foremost thing that someone has to do in their own business is identify who they make the most money out of and then look for more people like them. 

Jaime:	I love that. Thank you so much. Where do we find more about you? Hopefully, we can't order that huge book all the way to the states, but where can we get the rest of the information all about you and follow you online?

John Dwyer:	The huge book and all of that is available online, so, therefore, they can actually get the electronic version because these days, as you know, with our page-flippers, it's just as easy to read it on your computer. But thank you, Jaime, for giving me the opportunity to have a shameless plug. The name of my business is the Institute of Wow, so it's just theinstituteofwow.com. If you go on there, you'll see a whole bunch of case studies. You can swipe ideas and if you chose to contact me, then that's fine too. So, theinstituteofwow.com. 

Jaime:	Did you see what he did there' He called it out that it's a shameless plug in advance, so now we don't think he's a skeezy - anyways, I'm just saying, he uses his own stuff. 

John Dwyer:	Damn it! You -

[Crosstalk]

John Dwyer:	I am a schemer after all! And by the way, Jaime, if you just run to the back of the room, we've got some stuff. First ten people get some steak knives. 

Jaime:	Send me a video of your running to the back room, but only if - 

John Dwyer:	And by the way, we only have 11 left. 

Jaime:	People are gonna email you like, "Wait, I wanted it. I was so close. Did I get it?" Thank goodness my audience is smarter than that, but I so appreciate you coming on, especially early in the morning over in Australia. Of course, let us know if you need anything, but thank you so much for taking the time to come on today. 

John Dwyer:	My pleasure, Jaime. Thank you for having me.

Tags: branding, building a brand, business goals, Challenger Brand, customer value proposition, direct response marketing, Effective coaching, entrepreneur podcast, Executive Coach, how to be a leader, Interest Rates, jaime masters, John Dwyer, marketing, marketing techniques, millionaire entrepreneurs, top entrepreneurs, Unique Selling Proposition, Wow Factor

Categories: All, Business, 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