Crafting the Ultimate Business Persona with James L. Bond

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hello and welcome to Underdogs, bootstrapers and Game Changers. This is for those of you that are starting with nothing and using business to change their stars, motivating people who disrupted industry standards this is the real side of business. This isn't Shark Tank. My aim with this podcast is to take away some of the imaginary roadblocks that are out there. I want to help more underdogs, because underdogs are truly who change the world. This is part of our content for good initiative. All the proceeds from the monetization of this podcast will go to charitable causes. It's for the person that wants it. All right, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Underdogs, bootstrapers and Game Changers. What's funny is I always have to double check the order of that Number five and, as usual, I've been out there in the world looking for amazing people to talk to so you can get some value as an underdog, a bootstrap or a game changer and then proceed on your journey. I've got a great guest today James Bond James L Bond and I'm sure he's heard that one before, and he's got a wonderful book called Brain Glue Also was in behavioral management for a long time, works with the SBA, and then he was his own advertising company for a long time. We've already had a slight chance about to talk about sales and I couldn't agree more with what he had to say. I am so happy to have you here. He's got a couple stories to tell today that I was like man. I got to hear these stories so I figured you should too. Welcome, james. Thanks for being on here.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Oh, Tyler, thank you for having me. You rock and I'm just so delighted. Underdogs, Bootstrapers, Game Changers are you kidding? We need to inspire you guys.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Absolutely yeah. I mean, I came to this like kind of hippie hypothesis that if we can get more underdogs into success, then they're the ones that help change the world.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Absolutely. You know like let's dive right into it. You know like, tell me your favorite underdog success story.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Well, it still comes to. I was in business with my brother. I actually started an ad agency in Montreal. I live in Southern California. I lived here for 37 years. The reason I know that is and I remember that is because we have a son and three daughters and we named our middle daughter. We gave her the initials LA. So we always go like how was Lauren?

Speaker 1: 2:25

Okay, that's the one.

Speaker 2: 2:25

We've been in Southern California. We liked Steeley Dan, by the way, so we named her Asia AJA, which is Steeley Dan song and album. And two years ago she was talking to me and she said I love the name Asia, everybody loves it. Why do you name me Asia? And I said, well, because of Steeley Dan. She listened to it and said, oh, I don't like that. I was like sorry, there's parents, you know, but she eventually started working on her, you know she loved it. I said, no, but we picked it because it's creative. They're so creative and we love creativity, so that's why we gave you this name. Yeah, she really appreciated it. No, kidding. When I started an ad agency and I was in business with my brother for a period of time and it was really I love my brother dearly, my middle brother, John. But family and business doesn't always mix.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:16

And it pissed me off that he could sell me better than I could sell me. I hated selling. I'm a technical guy, okay. I mean I knew advertising and stuff, but I didn't know selling, which is interesting. I learned that how can you not love selling if you're an advertiser? Because advertising is selling, but you know not. You know positively. I would have talked about this before, but Zig Ziglar changed my life because I had to learn how to sell. I'm like, okay, I'm going to learn how to sell and all that stuff. I was taking sales courses but I was in workshops by Zig Ziglar. He was fabulous and he said something that changed my life and he said selling is just a transference of passion.

Speaker 1: 3:54

I couldn't have heard that.

Speaker 2: 3:55

It was like oh, he said nobody has to teach you how to sell. I mean, we're too old in their ways to help you and overcome to get somebody to open up to you. So at least you know what's going on. Sure, but it just became profound for me. So two things happened. That was the first thing was I started to realize I'm passionate. I'm a passionate person, so if transference of passion, if I'm working with a company or a client that has really cool products, if I'm passionate about it, then it's easy for me to build selling. Okay, yeah, I also learned. I had an opportunity. So I worked my way up and we won major clients like Kraft Foods, timex, watches, avon, cosmetics, seagrams or World Headquarters is there and it was really cool. And but a couple of things happened. The first one was I learned that I hated selling initially, and my younger brother sat down with me and went through this and he said well, once you get them as a client, what are some of the questions you would ask them? And I came up with these five questions what do you sell To who? How is it used? What are you competing with and why yours? Why should somebody choose yours instead of the alternatives and it changed my life. The reason it changed my life is I thought of myself as like a car salesman. I mean, I love car salesmen, but you know. But I felt like, oh yeah, I'm just, I got to learn how to sell on persuading and all that stuff. No, by asking the questions up front, I became like a doctor. You know, saying let's figure out what's going on with what you have and then, once we do that, I'll tell you and honestly tell you if I can or can't help you. I think I'm gonna help you. Sure, it changed profoundly. I have this trick. Okay, not a trick, but a question is really powerful. I call it past, present, future and it works this way. It works with advertising, but tons of people use it with other industries. Okay, so when I would meet with a client, I would say have you ever worked with an advertising agency before? And whether they say yes or no, they might say, no, we do all the advertising ourselves. Okay, that's fine. What works for you, what's worked for you and what hasn't worked for you? And they start explaining stuff. You know, well, we do this and this, but we're not sure about all the channels or whatever else. They would say, okay. Then we say, okay, are you using one now? Are you working with an ad agency now or are you doing it on your own? You said, well, they're doing it on my own or I'm using an ad agency. Well, what's working for you and what's not working for you? Yeah, and then we go into the future like what would be the ideal situation for you and by doing that it opened up. It helped me understand what they were. You know what that was important for them, and I suddenly become like a you know, like a doctor, saying, well, oh, that's interesting, I think we have something that could really help you with that. Blah, blah, blah. And it became more fun because now I got, I always felt like I was on the spot. Okay, I'm with a prospect, I got to show them all my work and everything else and hopefully something will resonate. How I won. Seagrams is a good example. Okay, because Seagrams is one of the first companies I started applying these questions on and they the buyer from Seagrams is telling me so we spend like 50,000 to 100,000 dollars easily on the bottles and the labels that we have because, you know, if we have an old bottle, we want to make it look old, but we also want to make it, like you know, interesting enough that somebody's going to buy the product, and so the glass, the shape of the bottle and everything else is really important. Well, in the olden days I would have said gone through all my samples of my portfolio and hopefully something would stick. You know, instead I went, oh, and I had done, I remember, two catalogs for a lamp manufacturer. They had all kinds of plastic and glass lamps and things like really cool stuff. But you have to know how to work with glass and plastic because it's it's tricky. You got to show texture and sometimes you know if it's translucent. You got to show that and so I just pulled out a sample from what we did. I said, well, this was important to us, like I wanted to make sure it is. The texture of it and the translucence of it showed through and everything else. He said, oh, we got to work with you guys. You guys know what you're doing. In the past I would have shown, I would have shown like 20 samples or more. Here I showed one sample and we won Seagrams. Yeah, because I connected with him and it was fun, because I shared his passion, I went like, yeah, I love like glass and plastic. Is you know who started showing me some of the bottles they have? And it was like, yeah, well, yeah, he saw my passion for what was important for him also. Once I learned stuff like that, it just changed my life, you know.

Speaker 1: 8:24

You have so many good points that you just ran across right now I want to make sure everybody caught them. You know, number one it's like we're in business, right, as small business people. Why would we choose anything else than a product of passion? Right, you can have passion for something and make money off of it. I'm like you. I can find passion in things like glass bottles. You know, we did a lot of like manufacturing and stuff over the years. I could find passion in these things. And then when you, when you agree on that and you ask the right questions, you become a consultant. Right, you don't become a salesman anymore. And I'm with you on the car industry. The car industry is actually an amazing way to learn sales and there is some amazing good-hearted sales people out there too, you know, I know we give the car salesman the label, but there's no harder sales in my mind than the car business, and it's great way to actually learn it. And you could be a diamond in the rough if you're carrying compassion and you get to all the questions that you know you're talking about what is the best.

Speaker 2: 9:17

Car sales people don't just sell a car but hook the person that they want to come back every time and they want to refer other people to you because you're so easy to work with and that's why you know. So god, I saw a car really fast. That's a crappy sales person. You know. You might sell a car here and there or whatever, maybe sell a bunch of cars, but nobody's going to come back. What you want is you want to create a relationship, so they go. Oh, you love. You understand what's important to us and yeah, we definitely. You know, hey, joe, you want to buy a car. You got to buy it from the guy that we work with. He is so incredible, or she is so incredible, and I think when you understand that, it's about relationship building for most, businesses.

Speaker 1: 9:55

Oh, thank you so much for saying that too. It's like, I mean, here's the thing. It's like you did a good job with Seagrams and they became your client, you know. And not only that, but they came back because they're happy, right. And now you get to say, well, seagrams is one of our clients, now that's a value add for your next client too. You know, it's like, if you treat it right, it's a perpetuating system of like hey, you know, I'm the good car salesman I knew don't even have to go out of their desk anymore. They have so many people coming their way because they've treated them so well over the years that they don't even have to move. You know, they just sit there, have a conversation with that now who's become a buddy of theirs and, you know, make a little bit of money.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And so life is, you know. You know, I think school sort of turns us off to a lot of things that we want to do. I mean, school is good, but that's fine, okay, but it's just. You know, it's like the first thing they tell us to do is, hey, stop talking. Okay, in life we want to be interacting. What do you mean? Stop talking? Hey, you know, don't look over, you know, don't talk to each other. Figure out the answer yourself. And it's life is about interaction. I mean, I love to say, because I'm, you know, consider one of America's League of Behavioral Management Specialists, which is kind of cool yeah, oh, absolutely you know what's the most powerful tool of human interaction that exists? I'm using it now, aren't I? What am I doing? I'm asking questions. Questions are really powerful because when we hear a question, our brain, it, there's a trigger that wants us to answer it, doesn't it? Yeah, and so when we hear a question, you know there's something that's called simple reflexive questions, isn't it? Doesn't it shouldn't it? Don't you agree our simple reflexive questions, aren't they okay? So if I say I was talking to a friend and you put these on the end of your statement, okay, so I was talking to a friend and I said, man, what a really nice day it is. And he said, yeah, I guess. I said, well, what's wrong? No, nothing, nothing, look, come on, come on, what's going on? I just I hadn't heard enough of my wife and I'm just like I said what, what? And I got to talk to him because I had the simple reflexive questions. When I learned the power of this, like adding this to the end of my statements, I actually started getting better relationships with my kids. You know, I was talking to my, our middle daughter, la, and I was talking to her and she goes like, yeah, okay, so what's wrong? So well, you always I'm a consultant, I've been a consultant for a lot of my life, okay. And so she says you always are giving me advice and you're never just listening. And it's scared the hell out of me. It's like maybe you realize, like, oh wow, I'm just a behavioral management specialist. You know I'm supposed to be. You know she says yeah, you're just, you know, whenever you talk to me, you know, if I start telling you something that's going on, you stop me and you say well, I think you should do this and this and this. You're basically saying you're stupid and daddy smart, so you need to listen to daddy. You know, instead of realizing, I know how to solve problems, dad. I mean, do you understand that? And she was right on. But I, because I had the power of simple, reflexive questions, I was able to hear the change in the tone of her voice and I went like hey, how are you doing Well, okay, so what was wrong? No, no, nothing. You know what? What you all and she started telling me about our relationship. And it's so powerful, and it's this whole issue. That's why I wrote the book Brain Glue, because it helped me understand brain triggers. You know, this is not about manipulation. This is about understanding what things resonate with people. Sure, and it's just, it's so powerful. I was in business with my brother and we went into Avon cosmetics, okay, of Canada, and we're sitting with the buyer and the buyer said to me and John, my brother, he said hey, john, it's between you and this other company, this big contract we had we were trying to get, and it's between you and this other company and, frankly, I'd rather work with you guys, but your price is higher than the other guy. So there's a long pause and my brother leans across the desk and says why do you think the other guy is so cheap? There's a long pause and then, like, spit it out of the text. But the guy goes okay, fine, I'll write you up a purchase order right now. And my head was gonna explode. What the hell? We didn't have to lower our price. We didn't know he's hiring us because our price is higher. Whoa, and it started making me realize. That was the trigger that helped me start to understand that there's a lot about emotional selling that we don't understand. I had the opportunity to win the anti-drug campaign in America. I mean, I worked with major companies and one guy knows another guy and whatever else, and so we had an opportunity to win the anti-drug campaign in America with powerful logical reasons why you should not do drugs right. And then I saw what beat us and it freaked me out because A it was a gazillion times more powerful than what we knew how to do what. I knew how to do what our ad was and also scared me because it used emotional selling, not logic, and it was a guy holding an egg saying this is your brain and cracking the shell and dropping the egg into a sizzling frying pan. Yeah, was your brain on drugs, any questions? This is emotional selling. I had no idea how to do emotional selling and it freaked me out. I mean, it's just like you know, how can I be in business and not know how to do emotional selling? Because it's when you learn emotional selling, sales explode. And so, you know, I created this thing called a passion box, right, and I put it next to my computer and I said I wrote your brain on drugs on a three by five card. So I remember it and I put it in a box and I said you know, they don't teach you stuff in school and I need to learn this. I wanna learn this because I'm passionate about, you know, making a difference. I mean, if you wanna make a difference, not just make sales, but you wanna make a difference, you wanna be able to touch the emotional centers of the brain. And I'm a logical person, as most people are, and so I wanted to figure out how does the emotion work? And so about 10 years later, I met, I moved to Southern California, we moved to Southern California and I met John Gray. And John Gray wrote the book Men, women and Relationship, which was one of the most incredible relationship books ever. But it only sold a few thousand copies and he was struggling, and so he got frustrated and he changed the name. He decided to change the name to Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and then he tweaked the content just a little so it was consistent with the title. So it would refer to it throughout the book, but it's the same basic book. And guess what happened? His sales exploded overnight. Half a million people bought his book, then a million and five million. In my book I say 10 million people bought his book and I know Steve Harrison who helped him with marketing and Steve said now you're wrong. And I thought like ooh, was I too high? He said no, no, he's sold over 50 million books already. All because he changed the name, the title, and it just blew my mind is when I got. So I'm writing a Men are from Mars on a three by five card and I was gonna put it in my box and I said wait a second, this is a metaphor. You know, men aren't really from Mars, okay, I mean some people, I think we are, but it's just. It made me realize wait a second is metaphors, the secret to emotional selling. When this is your brain on drugs is a metaphor, because it's not a brain, it's an egg, okay, and you know so. A shark tank it's not a tank full of sharks. You show up and you know you have to swim through all these. No, it feels like you're on a shark you know shark tank, but it's not. It's not and it's called. I feel it was called something else in Canada. That's where it started, originally something invested in it oh dragons or something right. Yeah, but shark tank is much more powerful because it's a metaphor. But when I dump the passion box on my bed to see if that's if metaphors is the only thing, and I realized that metaphors is one of 14 brain triggers at the heart of emotional selling. And when we use a brain trigger, sales explode. And I'll give you a few examples. So there's a mom in Utah and her son who have no business experience, but she invented this product, which I'll explain in a second, and sales exploded to over $100 million in less than two years. And they have no business experience. All of us guys, you have business experience. You don't know this. You have a disadvantage. They have no business experience and they've made $100 million.

Speaker 1: 18:10

That's pretty good, you're safe. No kidding, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 18:14

A woman, a stay at home mom. A lot of people spend money on social media advertising, right, how about this one? She spent zero on social media advertising. She's a stay at home mom and she created a Facebook page and it has more than five million fans and she spent nothing. In fact, I'll tell you how that worked, okay? Or this guy who had no money and he borrowed some money from his dad to start a business, but he figured out this one word, one word that was so powerful that he became a billionaire okay, a billionaire, I'm telling you. I gotta tell you. These stories are great, but it's just because everybody understand, like, if you have an idea, so let me give you the Utah mom and her son okay, she's sitting in the bathroom on the toilet. Okay, and it's a great place to learn. Come up with ideas. Like she's sitting in the bathroom on the toilet and she realizes you gotta raise your feet like about six inches off the ground to get the right shape of your body. I don't wanna get too much into that, but apparently if you have the right shape of your body by raising your feet a little bit, it's easier to go to the bathroom. You're lovely. So she was gonna call the product the toilet stool. You think she would sell a lot if it was called toilet stool. They knew, no, that's not a good name for toilet stool. My wife says she should have called it the stool stool. I don't think that would have worked either. But they were thinking about it and they said, well, so what are some other names for toilet? And they started looking for similes or other names for a product that you have. She went through and she said oh, potty. Okay, it's a potty. So what are we doing? We're squatting. She started thinking well, what are we squatting? What do I call it? The squatty potty? The name squatty potty made it explode. People went like they finally even got on a shark tank and the investor stood in line to invest with her because the name triggered with them. They went like, hey, that's the squatty potty, that's really cool. Oh, this is a stupid little stool. I mean I shouldn't say stupid, but I mean you can take a trash can and put your feet on it, you know. And yet they sold a hundred million, more than a hundred million dollars worth of product because they came up with a name that resonates, it clicks in the brain and people go squatty potty.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Oh, that's cool. I gotta get one of those.

Speaker 2: 20:27

Yeah, Okay, and it explains this. So how about the mom? Okay, here's a stay at home mom and she wanted to create a Facebook page. And so she's thinking, okay, I wanna attract other moms, but everybody you know to sort of understand what a mom goes through. So mommy needs time to herself, Mommy needs a rest. Oh, I know what mommy needs. Mommy needs vodka. She created the page. Mommy needs vodka.

Speaker 1: 20:52

Okay, so and how?

Speaker 2: 20:54

did I become a fan? It's just like other 5 million people. So I'm looking. She has good posts, but a lot of people have good posts out there and still don't have a lot of fans. You know you struggle, because how do you get people to your site? Yeah, how do you get people to her site? So 5 million fans? So I must know somebody who's one of her fans and they share the posts with me, you know. So I look on my Facebook page and I see, oh, it's pretty cool post. And I see it's by mommy needs vodka. What the heck's that all about? I click on that. What took me through her page? I looked at some of her posts and said, oh, yeah, she's really cool. I became a fan. Sure, mommy needs vodka. I have an experiment right now. I'm doing stinky cells more. By the way, that's my Facebook page. We're just building content on it now Cause I want to. Stinky is a trigger word, okay, but so talk about trigger words, okay. So how about the guy, the kid, who dropped out of high school, started a magazine, a little magazine, and eventually started a record company and became a billionaire? He became a billionaire because of one term. So I love saying this what does Richard Branson, what do Richard Branson and olive oil have in common? Virgin Virgin. Virgin olive oil and virgin really originally virgin records, and virgin. You know what I mean. It's virgin, it's pops out of the brain, it's like what? So when I think of like trigger words, which is one of the brand new glue tools, think of the word dirty, okay. So would you name your business dirty? Well, think of movies dirty dancing, yeah. You know, was it really dirty? Were they starting to run, make it through the thing? No, but dirty dancing, really, what? How about dirty Harry? You know? Yeah, I mean, clint Eastwood's movie is dirty Harry, you know, I mean, he wasn't really dirty, I mean. But okay, I'm old enough to remember dirty the dirty dozen. There's dirty, rotten scoundrels, you know. So I was trying to get major magazines, the writers of major magazines like you know New York Times, wall Street and stuff like that to review my book, and so I figured these guys must get a gazillion emails. So I decided to add the word dirty. That was my dirty week. I was into dirty. Okay, the headline of the email was the dirty truth about an article you wrote. I said this after about 26 writers and within 24 hours, two of them responded immediately. It said okay, you got me. Okay, I want to see your book, I'm curious. Okay, all, because I used the trigger word. And so when we start to understand the power of some of these tools, you know it blows people's mind. I mean, how about? If the glove don't fit, you must quit? Yeah, oh, yeah, okay, yep, oj Simpson and Johnny Cochran. Johnny Cochran was smart and he recognized. You know, if I say, hey, look, if the glove doesn't fit my client, yet you know you have to find I'm not guilty. But that's, it doesn't resonate with the brain, but rhyme resonates with the brain If the gloves don't fit, you must quit. I remember after the trial, two of the jurors were being asked questions and one of them was responding, while the other one was nodding her head in agreement and the interviewer said with all that evidence against OJ. Why'd you find him not guilty? And without even hesitating, she said we knew if the glove don't fit, you must quit. The glove didn't fit, we had to quit Wild. You know. A motion compared to all this logical evidence, okay, but a motion wins out because it triggers the brain. I love this thing. Say go ahead.

Speaker 1: 24:32

So how? How would Joe, in your opinion let's say we have Joe out there and he's going to open his landscaping company Like what should he is mental dialogue, his social group, be thinking about in regards to a name for that company, in your opinion?

Speaker 2: 24:45

Okay, I've got, I got a few really good examples of that, okay. So let me give you two examples. Okay, first, I want to just get this guy's name and I want to make sure I get his name right. I forget his name, but I'll tell you how this works. Okay, it's Sean Feld. Okay, I was looking at this site that has a list of top workout guys, you know, yeah, and it has JoeJohnsoncom, maryhudsoncom and everything else, but the top guy is this guy, sean Feld. I forget what his first name is and his is LookGreatNakedcom. Yep, okay, lookgreatnakedcom. Yeah, okay, I mean that's, isn't that a better? I mean that's a great name. That's because he's trying to sell the message instead of selling himself. Sure, okay, people look on that and they go oh, wow, so I have these three guys. When I first discovered the power of Brayngo, I didn't have the name yet, but I understood the power of this thing, so I started applying it. I had these three guys who were in construction. Okay, well, after 10 years, I had 2 million of sales. It's not bad 2 million of sales. Sure, in one year I took up the 10 million of sales and then, two years later, they reached 32 million of sales. So what did I do? By the way, I took them from 2 to 10 million in one year and they razz me. I said, hey, bond, it was supposed to be 12 million, their goal. I said, shut up, they bought each other the biggest BMW. They're Beamer lovers. They each bought a because they had so much cash coming in. They really wanted cash was coming in, sure. And so what did I do? So I said let's, let me get a, let me work a whiteboard. I love whiteboards it was funny, by the way, just so we can do this. I said I'm going to work with you guys, but I need a whiteboard. And so one of the partners said yeah, and when you're done, you can take the whiteboard with you, because we don't use whiteboards. The second week that I came in there, there's all this stuff written on the whiteboard. I like torturing people so I pulled it on a racer to a racer. There was before a camera on the phone. He goes no, no no, no racing.

Speaker 1: 26:42

Yet I said okay well.

Speaker 2: 26:43

I thought you guys don't need whiteboards and I didn't tell you what happened. I have all these subcontractors at a table and I'm asking them so what are you going to do? What are you going to do? And I figured well, this is great. Why don't I write them down on the whiteboard? Because you got your whiteboard here. I started writing them down and guess what happened? I never saw this before. Every guy that I started writing his what he said his promise was going to be, of what he was going to do the guy was desperately searching for a pen and paper so he could write it down. Yeah, okay, yeah, because they didn't realize that I'm writing it down, so they're going to have the caliber to it. Yeah. So he said no, that whiteboard thing is great. I said, oh, so I don't get to take it home. He said no, and I said so here's what I did. Okay, I said let's make a shopping list of all the clients you've got over the past 10 years. Yeah, the types of clients you've had. So we wrote down the list and everything else Took about an hour. You know, oh, what we forgot about this guy, Whatever else. Okay, and I said let's play a game. Let's pick one client, one type of client, that you're going to go after and you're going to say no to everybody else, you know. And they said, well, no, we don't want to say no to anyone. I said I got that, but we're playing a game. Let's figure this out. You have to choose this one category You're going to go after. Yeah, what would it be? It took them a while and they finally said fire restoration for insurance companies. I don't know what that is, I don't really insurance the construction industry but they started explaining it's a client. You know an insurance company that has a client that has a fire. You know they would bring us in. And we had three examples that we did. One guy had one insurance company had two clients that we worked with and one had one. So we've done it three times but it was really easy because they said it's really cool, because you go in and the first thing you do is you check the frame of the building. If the frame is damaged, you got to tear down the whole building, but if it's not damaged, then what you do is you want to put it up, make sure it's not going to catch fire again and all that stuff, okay, and fix it. And they said well, we'd love to work on fire restoration for insurance companies. So I was thinking about it and I said so what's the first word that comes to the client's mind before they call you Fire, right? Hey, I got Joe Johnson just called and they've got their house had a fire. So why don't we call ourselves fire Fire extinguisher for insurance companies? And we'll get fire exes, the website, okay, what do you think happened? Well, I went with them on the first two prospects to prospects we're talking about what we do. We said just think of us as the fire extinguisher for you guys. And of course the clients would laugh okay, we don't put out the fire, but we fix it after the fire. Is there? That became the trigger, that started. That took them from two to 10 million in sales in one year, because clients laugh. But they would call. You know they go. Okay, joe Johnson has a fire, had a fire in his house. Okay, so we're going to send somebody out. Oh, I'm going to send my fire extinguisher out too. They're doing analysis and hey, firexcom, you guys, you're ready, I've got a client for you. And one by one, they had so much business that they stopped doing work for any other type of construction industry or a construction area because they made so much money. Because what I did was I figured out a trigger and like what does somebody have or what are they thinking of? And can you, you know, can you plug that into what your pitches or your product name, and so they became just massively successful.

Speaker 1: 29:59

Way interesting. Have you heard of? Oh shoot? I forget his name because he's actually not out there that much. He started Sumbum and he was actually the original guy from. He invented the Taco Bell dog. Are you familiar with him?

Speaker 2: 30:13

No, no, that sounds really cool.

Speaker 1: 30:14

Yeah, and his thing was like you're actually like I was I've heard so much out of you in the class a couple of minutes that I'm like I've never put those things together before, actually Like it's like really cool psychology I mean. And like what you're saying is kind of like he said he named Sumbum. Because it's like now you're thinking son, right, and now you're thinking like and so when I'm talking to people about how to name your business which is one of my least favorite things to do because the repercussions are, you know, like you can name a bad business poorly and you're going to suffer because of it, right?

Speaker 2: 30:46

I'm like yeah, I named my daughter. She didn't like the name.

Speaker 1: 30:49

Sure, absolutely, and so like, yeah, naming your business right away. So is that, like when you're starting, in your opinion, the most important thing is the name?

Speaker 2: 30:58

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 30:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:59

Absolutely. I mean, and if you have a name, you don't have to change the name. You're going to have a subtitle describing what it is too. So we have a lot of people that don't want to change the name. I in fact. So I work with, so I submitted my book to Jack Canfield and Jack Canfield wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul, co-wrote it. Okay, yeah, because he actually invented the process. They sold 500 million books, okay, and he was telling me you know for himself, you know he wrote a book. It's got 101 powerful stories that will change your life. Okay, that was the title of the book. It's logical 101 powerful stories that will change your life. Yeah, people will read it. Maybe not. So for a bottom, within about a month he would have sleepless nights. And one day he woke up and he said you know, chicken soup makes you feel good when you feel sick. Yeah, my book makes you feel good when you feel sick. So I should call it Chicken Soup for the Spirit. But somehow the chicken soup for the spirit didn't sound right, because alliteration is one of my tools, the repetition of sounds. I'll give you some examples in a second. So he said chicken soup for the for the spirit didn't work and he said within a few days he realized S-O-U-P-S-O-U-L. Chicken soup for the soul, that's done a really good. Yeah, he's sold 500 million books. He sold 100 million chicken soup for the soul books and 400 million of the other chicken soup for the teenage soul, chicken soup for the cancer and somebody that's going on and stuff. Now, 500 million. In case people don't understand it, think of Apple. Apple computer invented the iPhone, right, yeah, they sold 500 million iPhones. Jack Katz, you'll sold the same number of books. Okay, that's not. If you make a buck a book, if you make 50, if you make 25 cents a book, I'll go for that, jack. Hey, come on, give me money. I mean.

Speaker 1: 32:43

How scary is it that he couldn't have named that, that book, that name and would have went nowhere. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 32:49

Exactly, and that's you don't really so my book. So he read my book. He said he was got pissed off at me. So I can't put that. I couldn't put the damn thing down. I got so many books to read. I'm looking at your book. I started reading it and I'm going like whoa, this is incredible. He's forcing everybody and he's forced, he's forcing this company. He got them a copy of the book and he's forcing them to apply it, not just to read it, but to apply it. Okay.

Speaker 1: 33:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:13

And so I'm listening to him and the title of the book was called sell more with the right brain marketing strategy, which is very logical, not emotional. And so he got pissed off at me. He said, okay, I'll. He's telling me how he loves the book and everything else. I said, can I use that? He said, only on one condition. You've tortured all of us by forcing us to make everything emotional. You got to change the title of your book. I can't even remember the damn name. Your whole book is about brain glue. You got to title it brain glue. You're the brain glue guy, yeah, and I'm like you know, I had like eight reviews. When you get reviews on Amazon, it helps. The more reviews you get, the more Amazon, will you know, promote your book too. Sure, but no, he said, no, I don't care. You got to go back to the beginning. Your book is all about brain glue, and brain glue is emotional. That's what you got to change the name to. And he was right. But it was a pain because like, oh, do I have to change it? But you know you don't have to change your name, but I'm telling you that. So how do you like? How do you like this? Okay, how would you like to invent a product that's incredible and somebody you hate your biggest competitor steals the idea from you and makes so much money that you end up stopping to sell the product because you can't even make a living on that product. How do you like to do that? Okay, so let me give you a great example.

Speaker 1: 34:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:26

So post-serials competes with Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Speaker 1: 34:29

Okay.

Speaker 2: 34:30

So the head of post-serials came up with this idea of, like, taking this little cake and putting jelly inside it or, you know, like a raspberry or strawberry inside it, and then putting it in a toaster and he called it country squares. And so he was so proud of it and so blown away by it that, like two months before he launched the product, he started telling the media I got this new product country squares. It's so amazing. You put it in your toaster and you get this cool cake that you can eat in breakfast or during the day and everything else. So the head of Kellogg's looked at it and said what an incredible idea. He quickly got some guys inside his company to figure out how to make that product same product. But what did he call it? Okay, he said, well, andy Warhol is really popular, so people know pop art right. So let's use that word because it resonates with everybody's brain and it pops out of the toaster. I'll call it pop tarts, genius Pop tarts. He launched it a week before country squares launched. It was exploded. Oh man, I mean exploded so much that they ran out of inventory, okay, and he ran up on apology in major newspapers like New York Times and stuff, saying we are so sorry. We ran on a product because we didn't realize how many people are going to love this, but hold on for just less than a week and we'll have more product for you. So you think people went and bought country squares. No, they waited for pop tarts and they bought pop tarts and country squares sold so few they went out of business. They stopped selling pop tarts. They're a product. Wow. All because they didn't know how to do this. I'm telling you, this is so powerful that you know how many. If you have a crappy product this don't even think of my book go away, okay. But if you have a good product that you're passionate about what you have, you want to transfer that passion. Wouldn't it be great? You know, don't struggle. You don't have to struggle if you can explain it or name it in such a way that people go oh, that's cool. You know, I think of it this way when you leave your home, you're driving down the street and you're passing all these homes or apartments. Okay, wherever you live, you don't look at it everyone. Oh, look at that guy's house. Oh, look at that guy's house. You don't look at them because you drive past it every day and it's like, okay, I got to get from my home to this place. Okay, yeah, one day you're driving down the street and you see flames that are coming out of one of your neighbor's windows. Are you going to go? Oh, nothing. No, you're going to go, oh nothing. His host is on fire. Does he know it? Is that going to burn my house? Trigger went off. Okay, I trigger went off. And that's what you need with your product, right? Yeah, because people see, add, add, add product, product, product, and then they suddenly go. You want to go? What's that matter? From ours, one for Venus, you know? Pop tarts, what, what's that? That sounds really cool. Yeah, we want to grab their attention and when you do that, you have a much better chance of you know, selling your products and ideas.

Speaker 1: 37:22

Oh, it's such a I actually. So I wrote a book. I'm too afraid to release it at this point, but I have a whole chapter. It's basically a step-by-step process. I know how to open a small business for underdogs and I have a whole chapter on naming, you know, and so I pulled as much out there in the world because it's one of my least favorite things because of what I told you. It's just, it's so impactful to your business and you know, like you've given me so much, I hate it even more now. But now I love the thought that you could have the magic one right, so like, and I didn't expect to go. So we're gonna have to do another podcast at some point, but naming is so important so I want to stay on it. Like, if you're storyboarding it, you know, like, what's the best way for, like a bootstrapping team, to be like plug-in to the right? Would you whiteboard all this and be like, okay, let's look at these names and then like, would you then pull an audience? Or like, like, what would you be your process in this? I would love to hear it here's how you do it.

Speaker 2: 38:13

So you're logical. So don't turn off the logic. Let's get the logic out of your system. Yeah, so come up with, first of a clear description of what your product is or does. Like squatty, potty, okay, yeah. Like that's all this tool, yeah, okay, come up with the logical names that you think would be good. Okay then what you do is find analogies or similar as similes. Okay, well, find other words for it. So, like squatty potty, she was toilet stool, okay. So what's another word for toilet? No, no, we send things squatty potty. Well, that's really good, but it works in the industrial things to help a porta potty, yeah, okay. How about JB weld is considered the strongest welding glue that you have, and yet there's their second in command, or third, to guess what? Gorilla glue, yeah, wow, hey, you're right, it is. It might not be as strong as JB weld, yeah, but it's the name, yeah. But so the first thing you want to do is you want to think of, you know, synonyms for your product. So it's a monkey ranch, okay, so monkey ranch, it's a pliers, it's a list, all the names you could think of. Then look for synonyms for those. Okay, what are other words that I can use? Like you know, toilet stool was toilet potty, yeah, okay, think of analogy or metaphor. I'll give you a great metaphor. Okay, so this guy, paul Tran, invented an electric razor for man's private areas.

Speaker 1: 39:35

Okay, I get too much into that, yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:38

So what's it like? So he's thinking of a name and he came up with the lawnmower. Okay, even changing the name of his company to a man's scape, we're manscaping a land with a lot more. Yeah, if I bought, if I bought a lawnmower, okay, I wouldn't share with other guys. And let's start there. Okay, yeah, but I would share the story so I can see telling my friends hey, I just bought a lawnmower, what you have to mow your lawn. No, no, no, it mows my private lawn, it's my private areas. Yeah they start laughing and sharing the idea with other people. Okay, so metaphors or analogies are really good. It's just like and be as crazy as possible, come up with the craziest idea. It's like a naked man running naked through my backyard. You know they have fun with it. Yeah, because when you have fun with it, I mean whoever thought that? He must have laughed like crazy? Can you call it the lawnmower? Yeah, funny. Sure, when they had the guts to say you know what? Maybe I'll name the product the lawnmower. I mean, sometimes you have to have guts to do that. He's made like. He's made over a hundred million dollars. Big companies are trying to buy him out and he goes no, I can make more money some. You know you haven't offered me enough money yet. I think like Braun and all these the shaver companies are trying to buy him up. It's all the power of a name, you know. If you know if he called it the man's I don't what, you start with the simple things the man's electric razor. I don't know what you're called, yeah, but you know what's it like. Yeah, when you think of what your product is like, you could have lots of fun and Also have lots of success, because you come up with something that's emotionally powerful. And I think here's the thing we get in business because we're passionate. Yeah, if you're not passionate, you shouldn't be in business. Okay, I agree. Oh you're selling. Okay, you may not like all the things you have to do and your books and records and all that stuff. You know you may end up doing a bunch of things you don't like to do, but you have to ultimately be passionate about what you're doing, what you're offering, okay. But then school has taught us to be logical. Logic is how you sell, which is not true, okay, so you have to be logical. That's why, like math, you know One plus one equals two. I love saying to have an ad for Jurex condoms one plus one equals three. Okay, I mean, yes, I got that, okay.

Speaker 1: 41:40

I don't even heard that one when this one plus one, not equal one.

Speaker 2: 41:45

You know, you have a flock of birds and other flock together, you just have the bigger flock of birds.

Speaker 1: 41:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:51

So, but we're taught logic. But you want to have, you want to Communicate emotionally, you want to trigger the emotion parts of the brain, and so, if I'm passionate, I created this stool because I think it's gonna make a difference in people's lives. Yeah, I call it the squatty potty. Huh, now, it's fun to sell. Sure, because people relate to the squatty potty. Oh, I go. Okay, I got it. You know, it's just so, that's you know. Start with logic. Get the logic out of your system, write them down or whiteboard whiteboards are great for it, by the way, if you don't have a whiteboard, use a mirror, and you can use whiteboard pens and wait, erase it off mirrors. Okay, yeah, a lot of people don't know that, but but, yeah, it's just. Or window, but but just Write down everything. Get it out of your system and then start thinking of what rhymes with. What are the some of the other words I can use to describe this? What's an analogy or metaphor? It's just like and be as crazy as possible. And then use alliteration. Yeah, you know, like. You know, like a Coca-Cola best buy PayPal. Tick talk. You think it's a coincidence? They use a repeating sound. You know if tick talk was called the Chinese social media platform. You think they would be as successful as tick talk? Probably not, you know it. Just, these are, you know, a lot of people say, well, those are rich people. You know, no, a lot of them started I mean, that was tick talk is started with a lot of money. Yeah, a lot of them started with almost no money. I scream yeah, you open it up, it's got rocks inside it. Yeah, it's got nuts and marshmallows. Yeah, but it's like you know, they're using a metaphor, but they're also using the alliteration rocky road. It's like a rock, you know, at rocky roads it's, it's a repeating sound and it works. So, yeah, it's just, it's fun when you start people and it's easier than most people realize Because you're, if you're, a logical person, you just go through the process and once you, you know, Once you go through it once or twice, you start realizing how much fun it is and it helps you Like the fire of desire and you buy. I've got two terms. Okay, switch your pitch if you want to get rich and bring who lights the fire of desire at your buyer. I went to chat GPT and I said so. I started showing some of the things. I haven't trying to get a tool. I'm trying to get a phrase and most of them are stupid. Had like a hundred really stupid ones. But it said why brain glue? Because plain glue doesn't stick to the brain. I went oh, that's a cool one. But yeah, but that's the. That's. The secret is, you want, you know, you want to have a name or description for your product or service that will resonate enough with them, like I you know the service I had with a fire extinguisher for the, you know, for the construction company. You just want to have something that sticks in the brain. Yeah, when it sticks to the brain, you have a better chance of getting them to buy your product or service and you know for those out there that's never named a business before.

Speaker 1: 44:41

I'm up to like 20 or 30 now and then helping other people name their businesses. You know it like this is a master class in it. That's why I wanted to stay on it, because it's not like to me. It's not very easy and actually you're making it sound like now like a little bit more exciting than I ever been about it before. Right, because now I start to see, think about it as dollar signs more and more. It's like how much marketing budget do we get to negate just by choosing the right name? And that's kind of like to your point, right?

Speaker 2: 45:09

Absolutely, absolutely. It's just I'll go back to pop tarts. You know he came up with a better name and therefore he was able to make a ton of money while the other guys start, why should you struggle? If you, if you invented a product or develop the product or service, it's really good. You know you're talking about a landscaping guy. Okay, I mean, so they can come up with names that are really fun. So what landscaping? You know I'm I can't think of some now, but you have lots of fun with you work on a whiteboard. It's really good. You start, you know, coming up with all names land, because I'm thinking of that's what. The only reason I can't do landscape right now, because I'm stuck with manscape. You know, go on landscape, homescape, but you can have lots of fun.

Speaker 1: 45:47

It's crazy too, because from an underdog standpoint too, it's like you can come up with the lottery rating right name, and you've given several examples already. It's like so oh, I'm an underdog, I can't do this, I'm not gonna be able to compete with the big dogs, or whatever. It's like choosing the right name. You can compete, right, you get ahead and then, like we haven't even delved into, like what the PR potential is around that and what the Free marketing potential is, and you know not only that, but you put a video out on social media with the right name and then people are clicking on it because they're like what the heck is this thing? I got to know just because of the name and a secret to bring good.

Speaker 2: 46:20

This is all important understand is this is meant for people to have almost no money to spend on marketing, and yet you want to take on the Giants. I'll give you one quick example. Okay, I live in Southern California. So there's a family that wanted to start a hamburger place. They could afford you know enough that they could make it, take out, but they couldn't bring people in because they couldn't afford a big location. So what are they competing with? They're competing with McDonald's, burger King, wendy's. These guys spend tens of millions of dollars, you know, just in Southern California alone, on advertising. So nobody's gonna see your place. So they came up with kiasmus. I'll tell you quickly what that is. It's an opposite. So Rhymes a, b, a, b, kiasmus is a BB. I'll just give you two examples and I'll show you how it worked with them. Winners never quit and quitters never win. When they're going to stuff, get going. You know, martin Luther, president JFK said that's not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country. Okay, so it's a flip. Okay, we also said mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

Speaker 1: 47:22

Yeah, you got it.

Speaker 2: 47:24

So this restaurant place. They said why don't we call ourselves in and out burger? Okay, first, in and out means sex for a lot of people. Okay, and they and they got a good location. They could afford a good location, but it was a small location, it was a drive-thru. Their sales exploded. They're still there. They're now in California and they're moving wet at East. Okay, there's, it's a family business. They're competing with people, companies that spend tens of millions of dollars and more on advertising. But you're driving by and you're going in and out. In and out burger Because you know, for a lot of people mean sex. You go like, but in and out, okay, what is else it drives through? Okay, check it out. Now, if they had a crappy product, it would help them short term, but long term they got a business because they have a good product. But there are tons of people that have good products and yet they still struggle. But these guys came up with the name In-N-Out Burger. The only thing they could afford in advertising was a sign. So they put it on their sign In-N-Out Burger. And people were like again, flames coming out of the window of something down the street. You're driving down the street and you go In-N-Out Burger. What's that? My wife and I were just driving by. We have one nearby and I'm amazed they always have lines of cars going through.

Speaker 1: 48:40

Oh, they're always busy.

Speaker 2: 48:42

And they're competing against the Giants, and that's the secret Naked juice. They were competing with Adwala. Adwala was owned by Coca-Cola, I think they still are, and Coca-Cola is unlimited funds for advertising. And yet Adwala was dominating the marketplace until Naked came along. You're driving, you're walking into a store. You're going OK, here's Adwala Naked. What's Naked Juice? You're going to pick it up. You have a better chance of buying it if you have it in your hand. Ok, they understood that you've got to have flames coming out of your product somehow. So people are going whoa, chicken soup for the soul. What the heck's that? And when you do that and it's easier than most people realize that's what's so great about this. My book is not a gazillion pages. It's short. It gets to the point, goes on, gives you stories, gives you jokes. You can actually use brain-glued for jokes. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal of bottom. Where I'm old enough for this to relate is I'd rather wake up in P than P than wake up OK. This is a phasmas, ok, it's a flip, just like in an Uber, ok. But when you come up with a name like that, you're right. The name is so important because it gives people an opportunity to understand whether your product is going to be successful or not. And a good example of somebody whose product failed because they had a bad name was Pink Slime. Pink Slime was stuff that companies like McDonald's and Burger King used because they would mix it with the hamburger and it had low-fat hamburger, so it reduced the fat content of the hamburger. But basically, all the leftovers from high-end meat like really high-end meat would be they would grind it up and then they would put it into this thing, but they call it Pink Sludge, I think they call it. And so people started going ew, they're putting Pink Sludge in our products and our hamburgers. That's gross. And they actually got them. The company almost went bankrupt OK, even though it was a positive thing that went under the products. They have. The company the Wonder Bread invented sliced bread. A lot of people say, well, that's the greatest thing since sliced bread. You don't realize you're actually talking about Wonder Bread because they were the first bread that actually came out sliced. But they bleached their bread so they had a. We have COVID. We had COVID. They had this thing called a pelagra, which is an absence of vitamin B3, gets you sick and you die. A lot of people would die and so their competitors came up with a slogan. What was the slogan? The whiter your bread, the quicker you're dead. And it took for 10 years. Wonder Bread dominated the bread market Almost overnight. They almost went bankrupt. They actually had to invent when you add vitamins and minerals to food. They added niacin, which has lots of vitamin B3 in it, so it wouldn't be a problem. But they literally almost went bankrupt because of the phrase the whiter your bread, the quicker you're dead. So we understand that when you understand the power of emotional selling, there's so many ways you can use it. I mean, it's just this list. So much fun.

Speaker 1: 51:56

No, I'm in. This is the best stuff I've heard around naming ever, absolutely, and I've tried to pull in my book is all about my mistakes that I've made. It's like, hey, here's the way to do it, because here's the way I did it wrong, and so in learning from it. But honestly, this is a masterclass on naming your business. It's the best stuff I've ever heard, all in a row.

Speaker 2: 52:15

Thank you so much?

Speaker 1: 52:16

Oh, absolutely, and I live for this stuff. And how will? We can help business owners and it's so achievable. Right to be clever and think of a good name. It's going to take some time to get me wrong, but I've listened and pulled a lot of things out in the world. The guy that started Zillow he talks about that and they just kind of randomly put a bunch of stuff on the board and he's like that's one way to do it. The other way is we hired out to an executive company and all they do in life is make names. It's like I mentioned the Sunbump guy. He's like you could talk about in your analogy too. It's like you use what it is as part of the name right Now you're automatically thinking about it. Or there's the Google, right. It's like now we're inventing a word which is harder, right, because it takes longer to develop that traction, but now you can be synonymous for what we do when we search something. So these are the best things I've ever come up with until today. You know like wholeheartedly, you've got me bought hood light and sticker into that and it's like it's so simple. It's like it's developed some emotion around your brand so other people can have emotion towards it Can.

Speaker 2: 53:25

I tell you one last thing. Yeah, it's important to note this, ok, sure. So we look at a lot of companies and we think, wow, their name is really great, or how they market it is really great, but they spend a fortune, ok, and it's easy to get fooled. So let me give you an example of a lousy an advertising campaign that everybody thinks is fabulous but is actually terrible. Ok, are you ready for this? I'm ready. Got milk, ok? Ok, here's an article from Businessweek about 10 years ago and it's called Got Milk, ok. After more than $385 million, sales still continue to decline. Ok, why? Because milk used to be delivered to our doorsteps I mean, our grandparents' doorsteps, ok, and it used to be. Because milk helps strengthen your bones and all that stuff. Because of calcium. But you can get calcium from spinach when you're already getting, and there are a lot of things you can get calcium from, not just milk. But a lot of people have lactose intolerance, where if you drink milk, you still feel sick, and so I don't have lactose intolerance, but I sort of feel like maybe I could a little bit. So I'm limited myself as to how much milk I drink. So if I have lactose intolerance or afraid of it and they say Got Milk. I love the campaign. I've got the Milk Mustache. One of my kids had a Milk Mustache poster with a famous person on it that they wish he loved. The Milk Mustache and Got Milk campaign were fun, but they didn't sell milk. And so when we're coming up with a name that's what's very important or a description, it's got to be something that resonates with the brain. If Kia cars had this one, they said I'll see you in a Kia. That doesn't tell me why I'd want a Kia car. And so we get fooled because we look at stuff like Got Milk and think, well, I got to come up with a campaign like that without realizing that's not working. It didn't make it. They were struggling because fewer and fewer people were drinking milk. I mean, not everybody. People still drink milk, but compared to how many people used to drink milk, they ran an advertising campaign to try to get more people to drink milk and less people drank milk, not more, even though they loved the advertising campaign. And that's because we get fooled. We see McDonald's ads and we go, oh wow, we got a copy of McDonald's, but they've got like almost a billion dollars to spend on advertising. We don't. That's a wonderful point and that's why we want to pick things where somebody who had no money and suddenly made a ton of money Like in our burgers and like you're squatting, potting and some of these things, because these guys Jack Canfield they say, well, he's rich, he sold 500 million books. He started out poor. They maxed out their credit cards, they had no money and then suddenly they just got lucky and it transformed and suddenly he started making a ton of money. And that's what you want to look at is who had almost no money and then came up with a blockbuster spending almost no money. And I go back to mommy needs vodka. She's spent zero and she's got more fans than most people have spent a fortune.

Speaker 1: 56:34

I couldn't agree more, because that's the perception too. We always think that the big wigs are going to be the smartest and the people that have the most money are always going to be the most in the know. It's not necessarily true. David beats Goliath all the time and it's just a clever idea away from being able to do that. So the assumption that big business always knows these are such good points, like you've made such amazing points around how an underdog can actually use all these things that you're talking about today and honestly, people don't think about it enough either. The bureaucracy around these big companies, right. So even if somebody in the room comes up with an amazing name, that's kind of fun maybe they're afraid to say it for one, or it gets nixed by everybody, and that would have been the one that really hit the wall At your own small business. You get to make that decision.

Speaker 2: 57:21

That's right. That's right. That's why $5 foot long exploded sales for Subway sandwiches. But that was developed by one of the franchises and the headquarters didn't want to do it because they didn't come up with the idea, and so they fought it forever. And then suddenly so many of the franchises were coming up with $5 foot long and they finally said, ok, fine, they started promoting it, but they didn't want to do it. I mean McDonald's breakfast. The Egg McMuffins wasn't invented by corporate. It was invented by this guy in Pasadena, one of the franchises, because he said nobody's coming here in breakfast time and he invented the Egg McMuffin. That's why it's us guys and gals we want to figure out stuff. You want to come up with a solution to something that's really valuable for people, but you also want to name it in such a way that people go, oh, that's cool, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to be part of that. And that's what underdogs, bootstrapers and game changers. You don't have to have a lot of money, and that's the secret. You don't have to have a lot of money, you have to have creativity. Replace it. I work with craft foods. They got money to throw on it and if it's a lousy product, they're still going to throw a ton of money on it until they finally decided we don't want to sell it anymore. We don't get that luxury and so we don't have a lot of money. So we have to use creativity and creativity. If you have a really great product or service that's going to get you the greatest products in the world. I mean Steve Jobs. That's why we love Steve Jobs. He didn't start rich. You know. They invented stuff out of their him and Wozniak's garage. You know. I mean, that's what's fun. The greatest inventions came out of a garage or a kitchen table or a toilet like a squatty potty, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 59:03

You know Walt Disney and you know like getting his last character stolen and he events a mouse on the way home and you know that changed the world, literally changed the world, and then he got the idea.

Speaker 2: 59:13

He made his brother and investors rich, and then he came up with the idea for Disneyland and they didn't want to invest in it. You have to start, go on to ABC television and start a show, and they're watching the show. And he went oh, that's what he's talking about. Oh yeah, I mean yeah, I mean even the Disney couldn't sell his brother, who he made rich, and investors, who he made rich. He couldn't sell on his idea. That was a blockbuster idea.

Speaker 1: 59:38

That's why his story is so crazy to me is because it's like you finally make it right. He finally makes it with the mouse. It's a home run after like being destitute, have all these failures, everything else. And then he's like I got this idea. It's Cinderella, it's the first you know fully feature film of all time. And everybody's like no, no, walt Can't, no, I'm doing it anyways. So he risks everything, does it. It's a smash hit. And to your point, disneyland, same thing. You know, no, walt, not a good idea. Boom, you know, it's like. It's one thing, like that's what I like admire about him especially is like how do you like struggle and struggle and struggle and make it and roll the dice again? Like that is bravery, that is some entrepreneurial bravery.

Speaker 2: 1:00:17

Yeah. And creativity, I mean, yeah, a lot of people are creative and not brave. You got to be both.

Speaker 1: 1:00:22

Yeah, oh, this has just been like I can't believe an hour or so up already. Like this is James. This is some of the most amazing stuff I've heard around. Naming emotion Like this is a wonderful tool for and I was like I dared hope a little bit, you know, because of some of your stories. But then, like, like this, folks you're not going to quite understand this yet because you haven't been through 20 businesses and things by now. But take every bit of advice James said today Like this is something you can have, is an ace in your pocket to start your business, and start your business like with a, with a bang. Right, it's like that's why it gives you more reasons than to be Joe's landscape business. Right, it's like Joe's landscape business is great. You're Joe, you know. But think about creativity and how you can use some passion, like James is saying, and some emotion around that. I'm already like man. I just started four companies in the last couple of months and I'm like I wish we would talk sooner. You know, like I'd probably be redaming some of them.

Speaker 2: 1:01:16

That's why Jack Hanfield got pissed at me because he said chicken soup for the soul was great. But I have all these other books that I could have used pretty good for them. Oh yeah, he's forcing us to. But yeah, just, it's easy and that's the big. That's. It's easy and it's fun when it's a little work, but it's not as much work as you think. And then when you come up with something, you know, suddenly it becomes fun. You know the selling part becomes fun, not just a creating part, and that's, you know, that's how you grow your business.

Speaker 1: 1:01:44

You know, I like to think of myself as a creature of growth. You know, sir, I've been doing this for quite a long time now, you know, and I've been evolved, like I said, with even naming and things like that, quite a few times, and it's always been a dreaded thing. You know my business partner I talk about it all the time. We always hate the naming part, you know it's like. But today you actually shifted my mind. It's like let's start looking forward to the naming part, let's see how creative we could possibly be and let's try to hit that lottery winning name Right. I think it's a lottery winning name because it could do that for you, and that's. You've provided so many examples along those lines and along those lines of interdisciplinary thought. The great idea could come from anywhere. You know, like some of my favorite stuff, today you've hit. You've hit amazingly. We're going to have to have another discussion. I haven't read your book yet, but I promise you I'm going to, and like I'm fascinated by it, and I'll probably, you know, with your blessing come out with a couple of clips here and there around what I've learned from it. You know, and so, and yeah, we should get back to that, get you back sometime, because I feel like we got on name, which is so important, and I, I, like I said, I see very little good information on naming a business out there and like I've been pulling from it. That's why I want to stay on it today, but I think we got to talk again sometime and we'll get on a different topic too. Thank, you.

Speaker 2: 1:02:56

Thank you so much. Well, you want to change the world. I want to change the world. Hopefully, people will buy a book, but, you know, because it makes it easy. But whether you buy the book or not, you and I want to change the world. And you know, being an entrepreneur is the greatest thing in the world, the greatest mankind has grown so much because of people that are entrepreneurs. You know, in business I mean it's just you know, and, and yeah, and so the more we can help you guys and guys out there, I mean that's the greatest gift that we get, I think.

Speaker 1: 1:03:23

Oh, thank you so much for saying that. You know, I appreciate that more than you know, and you're right, it takes a village, you know, and so, and like I'm glad to have a fellow Kimterd spirit, you know out there, you know trying to help these, these folks, get out there and change the world, because business there is no greater tool to do it. You know especially you underdogs come from. You know like systems that aren't great, right and so, and you have a heart for those. So let's find you some success so you can change those things Absolutely. Is there anything else you want to get out there in the world before we say goodbye today?

Speaker 2: 1:03:54

No, I just. I mean, if you guys want to check out the book, if you can go to yesbraingluecom and it has a bunch of stuff and it has Jack Canfield talking, so he's really, he's really great. But no, just you know, just be. You know, transfer your passion. Okay, if you're passionate about your product and service, communicate that. I'll go back to you know, I learned from Zig Ziglar is selling is nothing more than transference of passion and that changed my life and I think it will change your lives too. Be passionate and communicate that passion and and have fun.

Speaker 1: 1:04:29

I couldn't agree more with everything. Wonderful episode of underdogs, you know. Thanks for tuning in today. Check out James and his book Brain Glue. I'm going to read it myself. I'll be back with some feedback on the things that I loved from it and, like I said, name your business. I'm glad we got on this topic today because it's not the easiest thing in the world and you can see like it's another thing that we can have as a tool for underdogs if we just think about it. Thanks, see you next time.