This week I'm talking with Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach. Dan and I record The Joy of Procrastination podcast together and in the first episode the perfect opportunity presented itself. Join me as we talk for an hour about marketing and fill Dan's upcoming event...
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 002
Dean: Hi, this is Dean Jackson. Welcome back to another episode of More Cheese, Less Whiskers, and I'm excited this week because I get to hatch some evil schemes with my dear friend and mentor, Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach. We were recording an episode of a brand new podcast that we have launched called The Joy of Procrastination. In that Dan was saying one of the things that he had been procrastinating was the marketing to fill the Game Changer event that's coming up in September. I offered to do a More Cheese, Less Whiskers episode with Dan where we could brainstorm and apply some email marketing strategies to fill the event in September.
We had a great conversation. We got a lot of really great concrete plans for him to implement and it's already rolling, and he's very excited about what's happening so far. Enjoy this episode, and if you'd like to be a guest on the podcast you can go to MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com and just click on the link that says "be a guest." Very clever, right? Enjoy this episode. I will talk to you next week.
Dean: Dan Sullivan.
Dan: Dean Jackson. It's been such a long time.
Dean: I know. It's all very exciting.
Dan: Yeah. Very, very good. I was telling everybody about our new podcast yesterday, and people were just fascinated. I mean I think we've really hit something really big here.
Dean: I do too. I mean I ended up the first morning, woke up on Tuesday morning, I guess, a day after we had spoken, and the first thing I did was I basically said, "Okay, procrastination, what have you got for me?" It had immediate answers. It was right there. It was just like I felt like I've delegated that portion of identifying my priorities.
Dan: Yeah. Put the sucker to work. I mean you have to appreciate that procrastination wants to be useful, and the way we've historically treated it, we've made it a very unwanted guest and we've never given it a purpose, we've never given it a game plan, and I think that's what we're doing is we're taking this whole way that our brain, part of our brain that's the procrastinating brain and we've devalued it. I think what we're doing is that we're taking a resource, an enormous resource that's been at a very, very low level of productivity and we're giving it meaning and purpose in its life. Dean, you and I are the first two human beings to give procrastination a real focus/purpose in life.
Dean: Embrace it. The joy ...
Dan: Embrace it. Yes.
Dean: ... of procrastination. I love it. What I wanted to do today, Dan, is record a More Cheese, Less Whiskers episode ...
Dan: I'd love that.
Dean: ... and do it around the helping you brainstorm this Game Changer event that's coming up, because I know your procrastination was telling you that that's one of the things to prioritize.
Dan: Yeah, and I got up this morning and I immediately did an Impact Filter because I knew I was talking to you on this podcast. I'm pretty, pretty clear about what I want to tell you.
Dean: Perfect.
Dan: I'm not wearing my glasses, so I'm going to have to increase the size of the type here. Now I'm okay. Just one more time here. You know eyeglasses were one of the great breakthroughs.
Dean: Could you imagine what it would be like if you had to ... I couldn't imagine going through life with eyes as bad as I have without correction. Just I mean what a life changer.
Dan: Yeah. I was reading history of ... It actually happened in the thirteenth century in Europe. That's when they really came in, and it went viral. I mean talk about Facebook or talk about all the new things that go viral here, but things went viral back then, and what it did, because most people were in skilled labor at that time. It usually extended the working life of tradesmen and workers of different kinds probably about another fifteen years. Just that one invention. Amazing. All right. Okay.
Dean: What have you got?
Dan: This is a special workshop. I only do a special workshop once a year. All my other workshops are programs, Strategic Coach, at one level or another. Every September, this is the second year in a row, I have a special workshop which is focused on the topic of game changer, and we've really worked out what a game changer is, that a game changer is someone in any area of business who comes up with a new model that is so compelling that even their competitors want to become their customers. That in a nutshell is what a game changer is.
Dean: It was a great event last year. I really enjoyed it.
Dan: Yeah. One of the things I want to get across is that I'm continually exploring this. You're one of my game changers, Dean, and I have about twenty others, and I do probably thirty to forty hours of discussion about what the different game changers are doing every single month. That's how much time I'm spending on it, and I'm just learning immensely more with each passing month about how people position themselves in the marketplace so that everybody who might be their competitor actually sees them as their biggest friend.
Dean: That's great.
Dan: I think there's a certain amount of competition which I'll call positive competition, which is incredibly good and the game changer supports a certain type of competition which is very, very positive, but there's also a negative competition where you actually want negative things to happen to your competitors and I don't think that's a creative thought. I think you want to be useful to everybody and you want to be so secure that you will always make your money, that you can also help a lot of other people make money and also be creative, because that just makes the general marketplace a better place for everybody.
Dean: Yeah. Exactly.
Dan: That's what we do, I mean if you just go back to our new podcast series, The Joy of Procrastination, this will go right around the world and it'll make everybody more productive.
Dean: I was saying to somebody yesterday that, I may be biased because it's our podcast, but honestly I've never heard any discussion like what we had on that first episode. I've never heard that. I'm very excited about it.
Dan: I shared your diagram with my 10x group yesterday. I had about forty-five 10x entrepreneurs in, and I just very quickly went over the first thing you have to do with any project is tell yourself why this is so important to you, and I said when you do that, you're in great shape, but you may be in very bad shape a moment later depending on what you do as your next step. The next step is to choose fork in the road either to go to the left or go to the right, and what most people do, and just to sum that up, what most people do is to say how am I going to do this, which means that they're a lone individual. They've just set themselves a big project and now they are totally involved in an isolated fashion of how they're going to do it, and they're immediately confronted with all the things they don't know, all the capabilities they don't have, and they're paralyzed by the thought, and that's what procrastination is.
The other one that you did, Dean, was that instead you take the other fork, the right hand fork in the road, and the right hand fork in the road is who is going to do this so that I have to do as little as possible?
Dan: You don't procrastinate. You accelerate.
Dean: I think that's a big thought. That's absolutely right.
Dan: I mean I did it in about three minutes on my smart board in the workshop and everybody said, "Oh, man. That's so true. That's so amazingly true."
Dean: That's really excellent. That's really excellent.
Dan: I mean everybody instantaneously got it. It's amazing to me over the years what a little diagram can do if it's talking about the right things.
Dean: Yes. I think that's really the thing. That's the anthem is who, not how. That's the question of the of the Self Milking Cow’s
Dan: More cheese. More cheese. Less whiskers.
Dean: What's the date of your workshop?
Dan: This is 13th of September in Chicago.
Dan: We hold it at a big event hotel, so it's the Fairmont Hotel, 13th of September
Dean: Same as last year. Same Fairmont. Yeah.
Dan: Yeah. Same Fairmont. Nice big room. Really good staff. Lots of hotels in the area so it's pretty easy if people want to sign on right now. I mean we're six or seven weeks away from the date so there's lots of possibility, and this is going to be amazing.
Dean: How many-
Dan: We're going for two fifty this year. I shot for one fifty last year but we had an overflow of twenty more than we got, and a lot of ... I got letters and notes all through the year afterwards, personal comments, that said, Dan, you had me in the first half hour but by noon I knew that this was going to change my entire approach to the marketplace, and so we got so many great model in Strategic Coach of people changing the game of the marketplace. I think in game terms when I think of business, and if you think of it as a game you don't get stressed out because games are sup-
Dean: That's true. That's totally true.
Dan: Games are supposed to be fun. I think that's another procrastination topic that we should talk about is turn your business into a game where not only you can win, but other people can win too.
Dean: How many spots do you have left of the two fifty right now?
Dan: Right now we're right at ninety. Right at ninety out of the two fifty. I've got seven weeks to go, and usually people have procrastinated. They say they're going to do it, and what we found last year is that there was a big rush right around the middle of August to get in. We know historically that this happens, but I think what we're doing on this podcast of More Cheese, Less Whiskers, Dean, is telling people why they might not want to procrastinate on this.
Dean: Right. I think there's part of the thing. I think we're going to embrace their procrastination. One of the things is that ...
Dan: Yeah. I do. I do.
Dean: Is it all Strategic Coach members? Is it open to other people or is it just Strategic Coach members?
Dan: I'll tell you something, Dean, because this is really an extraordinary opportunity that you're giving me this morning, that if anyone comes through from the More Cheese, Less Whiskers podcast they will be honoured guest to come to the September event.
Dean: Perfect. That will help us out too then. What I want to look at when you say you have ninety people attending or you have ninety spots left so far.
Dan: No. We have ninety already signed up, so I have a hundred and sixty ...
Dean: Okay, so ninety people signed up.
Dan: ... to go. Yeah. We have our sales team that's working every day, and they're coming in at probably about fifteen to twenty a week now as we're moving towards the date. In all honesty we will be filled up by the end of August.
Dean: That's good. I think that one of the things that helps embrace this procrastination, and I didn't think about it that way when I was executing this for our I Love Marketing conference. When Joe and I did the big conferences a few years ago for I Love Marketing we had five hundred people, and then we had a few hundred people streaming. One of the things that you always have to overcome is exactly what you described, that people they are thinking about it. They're having intention of coming, and they're just going to put it off. They just haven't yet done it, and so I think that if there was a way to send, like starting with the highest probability group and going backwards from that using an email strategy, is I might start with the people who attended last year and send a quick email to those people and just say, "Hi, Dan, are you planning on coming to the Game Changer workshop in September this year?" That's it. Like a very-
Dan: That's the main message, the body of the email.
Dean: Yes. That's it. I would put as a subject kids just a neutral subject line saying "Game Change Workshop," and then just having that short message, "Hi, Dan. Are you planning on coming to the Game Changer workshop in September?" That's it. Nothing else. Short, personal, expecting a reply. Part of the thing that we have to overcome with email is something called bystander apathy, and when you broadcast an email to a group, the thing that often happens is it doesn't get received as an individual communication. It looks like a corporate announcement going out to a group of people of which I'm one of many getting this email.
It's like, I often talk about it, you know, if you take a CPR class the first thing that they teach you is if you're the first on the scene is don't just yell out, "Somebody get a blanket. Somebody call an ambulance." Because somebody is somebody else. What they teach you to do is to make eye contact and point at somebody and say, "You, get a blanket. You, call an ambulance." The odds of that happening are exponentially higher when you've made eye contact and the communication was received directly by them. Another analogy that I use for this is if we were to, you know, you walk into Starbucks and in that Starbucks you recognize somebody in the lineup as one of the people who was at the workshop last year. This would be the equivalent of that. You're recognize that-
Dan: Are you coming-
Dean: Yeah. Are you planning or are you coming to-
Dan: Are you coming to the Game Changer again this year.
Dean: Yeah and you would look at them.
Dan: Or are you coming to the Game Changer on September 13th.
Dean: I don't even think you'd have to be as specific as September 13th. You'd say it in conversation. You will appreciate this, but they say like in jazz sometimes the not that you don't play is the note that creates the atmosphere of it, and so by not being so formal as written word, like "September 13th at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago on ... " Like all of those kind of detail type of things. You would say in conversation to somebody, "Are you planning on coming to the Game Changer workshop in September?"
Dan: That's right.
Dean: That to those people will get them to say yes or no. They're going to feel, Dan, like they have to respond to it just like if you walked into Starbucks and looked them right in the eye and asked them that question. It would be very awkward for them not to say anything.
Dan: It's kind of interesting and I'm going to tell you another approach to that type of situation, which I think totally supports what you were just talking about right there, and that is let's say somebody died. You have a friend and a close relative died or maybe a spouse died, and everybody wants to be helpful, and what they usually say, "If there's anything I can do for you, just let me know." I mean you've often heard that, people say that.
Dean: Uh-hmm.
Dan: It puts the burden on the person who is already overwhelmed, now to think of a way to make you useful. Instead you say, "Is there one thing that I can do right now today that would help you out?" The person says, "Thanks. Yeah. Can you pick up my dry cleaning?"
Dean: Very specific. Yeah.
Dan: Yeah, so very specific, and I think this is what you're talking about because you've just made it absolutely personal between two people, and the one person now knows one thing that they can do. The truth is if they really want to be helpful they can do that seven days in a row with seven different things.
Dean: Yes, and in our situation here with what I like to do is separate the decision from the logistics. If I send a personal email to all the people who attended last year and said, "Are you planning on coming this year?" There's some of them that they are thinking about it, or for some reason it's slipped past their communication. They don't the date. They don't know the thing, or they're unclear or it's on their mind that, yes, or they're procrastinating it. They have intention of coming. This is just the way of getting that decision. If they say, "Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm planning on coming." I've created this kind of email equivalent of Amazon's one-click ordering. It's like all I want is for somebody to say, make the decision, and then we can handle the logistics.
Dan: Dean, when from your experience, because you've been doing this for yourself for a long time, when they get that kind of message what do they do then? They just reply to the email and say, "Yes. Let me know what the details are." Is that what they do?
Dean: They're either going to say, "Yes. I'm planning on it. What are the dates again? How do I sign up?" The other thing would be they might say, "NO. I'm not going to be able to make it this year because of this. I'm going to be in whatever, or I'm ... " Wherever they are. They might not reply at all, and that's really the three options that are going to come out. Some of them are planning on it and so when you've got-
Dan: They'll probably take immediate action if they're planning on it.
Dean: That is exactly right, and then it just gets forwarded to, who is the event coordinator?
Dan: Eleonora Mancini.
Dean: Okay, so Eleonora. Who would be the likely person to send that email?
Dan: Eleonora.
Dean: No. I mean who would it be from? Would it be from Eleonora?
Dan: It would be from me.
Dean: From you. Okay. Perfect.
Dan: Let me ask you a question here because my preference is that they not come back to my email address but they come to Eleonora's email address, so maybe it should be from Eleonora.
Dean: No. It can be from you. I do that all the time. I do that all the time. It's from you. This is the thing, it's like I have expanded my definition of automation to include automation. If I'm not doing it, it's automated. That's my definition of automation. It's who, that's because I've learned to go down that path of who not how. If I say I'm just using the technology and another person to do what I would do if I could count on me to do it. That is, I think, a good thing if the email is coming from you, and when people respond you set up not your personal email, but an email address that is yours specifically for this purpose, that when people reply that the replies will go into a specific mailbox. You can set that reply field from whatever you send out the message.
That then once somebody says, "Oh, yeah. I'm planning on coming. What are the details?" If they say yes then it can be forwarded right to Eleonora and say, "Hey, Eleonora, Dean is going to join us in Chicago. Can you get him all the details." Now you've anchored the decision and you've just put the logistics of it onto Eleonora which is making it very easy for me.
Dan: At the top of the email it's to so-and-so, and then there's a from line. The from line is this new email address, right?
Dean: The email address, the from line would be Dan Sullivan, but the from address would be whatever email address you set up for these replies.
Dan: Good. Yeah. Okay.
Dean: Okay, so that way when the replies come in, Eleonora will be monitoring that. She'll see that people have replied and can get them all the details including the link to where they go to register. The great news is that it's all done by ... You've gotten the decision by email, and now it's just the logistics that are standing in the way kind of thing. Most of the time people will follow through with that. I would kind of look at this and go almost like if the bullseye of the board that we're looking at here is the people who've already ... We got ninety people who have already said they're coming, then the one level would be the group of people who came last year, the hundred and seventy that came last year, but have not yet said they're coming this year.
Dan: Yeah. There would be ... I think it's probably about half and half, so of the ninety there's forty-five who are repeaters from last year. It's a hundred and seventy minus forty-five, so you have right now a hundred and twenty-five ...
Dean: Hundred and twenty-five.
Dan: ... who have not responded. Who would be in this very top echelon group that you're talking about. That could happen. I mean I'll be in the office in two hours and I'll just sit down with Eleonora, we'll set it up, and we can send it out to those hundred and twenty-five today.
Dean: Perfect. Then the next level out that I might send that to are the people in your workshops.
Dan: 10x. The 10x group.
Dean: 10x. Yeah. Then that same email ...
Dan: That's over five hundred so, again, in the neighborhood of five hundred, so taking into consideration what we just said about the people who are already there and people who have already signed up, so we would go down to that next list. Would that be the same message?
Dean: Yes. Same message. Are you thinking of? I would change the level now to thinking from planning because we're, in the group-
Dan: Right, so first person.
Dean: The group that came last year, we're just assuming that of course you're coming again; are you planning on it. That's one level. Then the next group if they're in your 10x group and they haven't enrolled yet, we want to know if they're thinking about it; are you thinking about coming to the Game Changer workshop in September. Again, the temptation is always to add more to the emails, but we just want to ask that question.
Dan: But don't do it.
Dean: Don't do it, Dan. Don't do it.
Dan: This is really great for me because copy writers want to write. I'm a trained copy writer and I've written…
Dean: As am I but here's the thing, Dan. Copy writers with ADD and a ten quick start don't want to write ...
Dan: This is true.
Dean: ... so we look for shortcuts.
Dan: If we could come up with a one word-
Dean: I want to get the results.
Dan: If we could come up with a one word message that would be sort of the ideal copy.
Dean: I would love that. Nine is as good as I could get it.
Dan: That's really great. Okay, so after that the-
Dean: It's the minimum.
Dan: After that, Dean, I have I could probably segment it three or four more times but the group after that would be people who are not in my program, but are really planning over the next year or two years to be in my group, and I would say that's pro-
Dean: Okay.
Dan: I would say that's probably five hundred too.
Dean: Okay, but what might work is to take the other people who are at the higher level in Coach but going through the program with another coach, and perhaps-
Dan: Yeah. That's who I'm talking about.
Dean: Okay, and perhaps have that email come from their coach.
Dan: Okay. A little bit more logistical because we'd have to contact them. We'd have to ... Okay. Right. Okay.
Dean: You could. It could come from you but I think from a-
Dan: I actually think from me it would have more power because one of their aspirations is actually to have me as their coach.
Dean: Perfect. I agree. That would be perfect.
Dan: Very good.
Dean: I think that with this thinking-
Dan: That's thinking. That's thinking also, right?
Dean: Yeah. One of the things is that this group may not know about it. They may not know what the details are, so I think it would be valuable to have an email that explains a little bit about what you're doing. I went online, just anecdotally, I went online to StrategicCoach.com yesterday looking to see any information about it, but I didn't see anything on the site about the Game Changer event. Is there somewhere online?
Dan: No. We send out a first contact about four weeks ago explaining what the program was. We would want to put it right online on the website.
Dean: I think that part of it is somewhere where the people who are thinking about it. We're introducing this concept. If they're thinking, "Oh, what's this? I don't really know about it." Do you have a video or do you have something where you just describe what the Game Changer event is?
Dan: I do. I mean I'm going in for a video session this afternoon. I could knock one off this afternoon.
Dean: I was just going to say. Okay, well if you've got that, then there's the answer. Let's do a ...
Dan: Five to eight minutes maybe.
Dean: Yeah. Just like that. "Hey, I'm glad you're thinking about coming to the Game Changer workshop. Let me just share with you a little bit about …
Dan: Because the ...
Dean: Because that will be the perfect fit, right? It'll be congruent.
Dan: Yeah, the Impact Filter that I did this morning is a perfect fit. I mean it's perfect. A perfect thing for this. This is great.
Dean: What would you say in your Impact Filter while we've got an audience of people who are potentially might want to come to this event? What's on your Impact Filter? Describe it.
Dan: You know the structure of an Impact Filter, so the purpose is to bring you up to date of the last twelve months of 10x marketing and organizational innovations that are the emerging foundation of a new Game Changer level of the program that starts in April 2018, and it's eligible to everyone who scores above an eighty one the Game Changer scorecard. That's confusing because what are you eligible for. I can leave that out, so I just did that. Yeah. Anyway, that's my first thing, and then the importance of a fundamental conceptual breakthrough in how you, one, permanently eliminate the cost, time, and effort of attracting and cultivating the best possible lifetime clients and customers, and, two, eliminate cost, time, and effort of attracting and cultivating your best possible team members. That in essence is the value for the day as a short thing.
The ideal outcome is a single remarkably simple game plan that already produces faster, easier, cheaper, and bigger results during the September 13th workshop, and which immediately deepens, integrates, and expands the practical value of the Strategic Coach concepts and tools that you've already mastered.
Dean: Here would be my coaching for the video of this, like saying that thing. Let's imagine that you ran into one of these second or third groups that you're emailing to at Starbucks and you said, "Hey, are you thinking about coming to the Game Changer workshop in September?" They say, "Oh, you know, I'd heard about it. I'm not sure what that's about." I think that the great tone for it would be, "Oh, well, let's grab a coffee and I'll share with you what it's about." How would you in that conversational way have a conversation that lets people know what it's about and who it's for and what the outcome would be. That may be best done by sharing some of the outcome from last year, or a story about highlighting some of the game changers, but doing it in a way that's very conversational, you know, just like if you ... I would look at that video as your chance to kind of get the coffees, sit down, and spend five or eight minutes.
Dan: Yeah. I go and visit in the workshops that the other coaches coach and I'll have lunch and immediately people want to know what I am up to. I could say, "A lot of people would like to have a day at the level of thinking at the 10x level, and basically have a day, and so what we've created is a day which is a very special workshop. It's really open to everybody who is interested in thinking through their present company from the standpoint that they could turn it into a game changer in their industry. In other words it's a business that is so remarkable that lots of people who you would consider your competitors just absolutely think I'd live to go and learn about how he actually does that or how she does that."
It's eight hours and it's compact, and I've taken all my learning from the past year of working with dozens and dozens of people who are game changers, and we've actually formalized what the unique things they were doing, and how they're approaching things remarkably simply but just totally differently strategically, and we've sort of codified this and put it into a formula. In eight hours you can learn something which if you were doing trial and error might take you five years."
Dean: That's conversational and clear. Very good. It might be a good idea along with that video to have the Game Changer scorecard right on the page there.
Dan: We sent that out. I mean we got a hundred and ninety people, so a hundred and ninety people who actually filled in the scorecard, and so Eleonora is following through. Some of them have signed up, but probably a hundred and forty of them filled in the scorecard [completely 00:39:12], but they didn't sign up. She's following through because it showed a level of engagement that they were really interested in finding out about that, so that would be another group. Since we have those people is there a kind of a different kind of email that we would send, or is the thinking it, planning and thinking the approach with them too?
Dean: I think those were the two.
Dan: Those were the two. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah, I mean it's like the planning and the thinking all kind of lead to the next step of convincing, and when we say convincing it's like where are people at that they need convincing to come. What would that look like? If people are unclear about what it is, that's kind of not conducive to making a decision and that leads to that delay of, "Oh, I'm not really sure what that is or what's the ... " I've got to figure out what that is, different than if they have absolute clarity on something. It's kind of like what we talked about in The Joy of Procrastination. The things that cause delay are often not being clear on something, not having all the information.
I look at it and so my ... Let me look at my calendar. I think what was my procrastination on this is, my personal procrastination is that I'm getting back from Australia on the 11th of September, and so to be ...
Dan: You'd be whacked out.
Dean: ... able to turn that around and get then to Chicago for the 13th is ... Maybe we could call those ninety people and if we could just move it to the 20th that would work better for me Dan. You think we could just ... I'll write the email.
Dan: Yeah. That should be easy. I mean we've got a workshop scheduled that day, but I think you're a very important person, so I think that we could inconvenience about fifty people and their teams just to make this a little bit easier for you.
Dean: Make that happen.
Dan: Yeah. Make a little bit more cheese. A little bit more cheese here.
Dean: Yeah. That would be super.
Dan: Yeah. I'll go into the office and talk it over. This should be pretty easy.
Dean: Yeah. Thanks. You got the power to green light that.
Dan: I mean they're only paying me five thousand dollars a day each of them to did this. That's just two hundred and fifty thousand dollars cash flow for the day, but who cares. I think we have a lifetime friendship that ranks above everything else.
Dean: Perfect. I think that those, you know, if we just think about addressing in that video. I really think that, Dan, because you've been talking about it and you talked about it last year, and is this kind of the thing that you are ... Are you planning on every September doing the Game Changer similar to the way, like the annual rhythm of abundance or is this something that would be an ongoing thing?
Dan: Yeah. I think I would. I mean I think it would change because the following year in April of [2008 00:43:32], so I would certainly do another one in 2017 kind of like the one I'm doing, but after that we will actually have the Game Changer Program going so I would use it as a way to really showcase some of the shooting stars that are in the pro- ... I mean we've got people who are just doing amazing things with technology, and everybody is doing extraordinary things with teamwork and so I think it would shift its emphasis, but I think it's a neat day. We do everything else out of our workshop rooms which are a certain limited size, in the sixty area, but this is a chance for me to put a whole bunch of people together who never really see each other and who have a place where it's just one day.
I never do over what I did before. I always consider it a challenge that if they're coming for a new thing, I want to give them new things.
Dean: I mean last year's was great. It was really great. There's enough awareness around it in those groups of people that we talked about, that just individually asking them, that's the equivalent of what we're doing here with that email, that I think is going to accelerate the process. I'll tell you something that we did that was really pretty interesting is the second event that Joe and I did for I Love Marketing, I sent an email to, this email that I was just describing to you, to all of the people who were not in North America, so Europe and Australia and South Africa and everywhere saying, "Are you thinking about coming to the I Love Marketing conference in October?"
That email got so many people responding and the answers that they were giving. Some of them were saying, "Oh, yes. I'm thinking of it. What are the details," kind of thing, which we were able to immediately get all the details and follow-up with. We got responses from people saying, "Oh, I wish I could. I can't come. I'm in Brussels," or I'm in wherever they were, right, I'm in Australia. They're apologizing with a reason that they can't come. This was months ahead of when the event was, but I had this plan that knowing that what I was going to do was the last two weeks before the event, because we were going to be streaming the event, we sent an individual email, so if you're in Brussels we would respond to your email saying that you couldn't come because you were in Brussels, saying, "We're coming to Brussels." That was the subject line.
It said I know that there were so many people who wished they could have come to the I Love Marketing conference that we're doing a livestream of the event and you can watch the whole thing right from your living room in Brussels. That was the offer that we were making for the streaming of the event. We ended up having almost as many people streaming the event as were attending the event.
Dan: You know what I was thinking here, because you're really talking to prospects. We've got a list of seventeen thousand who are what we call members of the community, and our definition of a community is that if you've done one year of Strategic Coach you're in the community for life. People who maybe just did a year in 1995, and they identify themselves to me, like we're at some sort of function and they say, "You're Dan Sullivan." I said, "Yes. I am." And, "I just wanted to let you know I had a year with one of the coaches back in 1995 and I want to tell you what a big impact."
Our rule is we always treat them like they're an active member. The other thing is if people decide to leave the program we always tell them, "Well, as far as we're concerned you're still a member of the community for the rest of your life so I just want you to know that." We're in contact with them at least four times a year with just what we're up to and what the information is and everything else. At the same time was have probably about thirty-five thousand prospects who get communicated with, and I could just send one of those emails out to the thirty-five thousand prospects, couldn't I?
Dean: I would say do it a little bit differently, but I think with the people who have been to workshops, people who are Strategic Coach alumni ...
Dan: Community.
Dean: ... or members. Community.
Dan: Community.
Dean: Yeah. Community members. I think that would be an opportunity to say to those people, "Hey, John, I'm doing a one day Game Changer workshop in Chicago that's open to all of the Strategic Coach community. We are going to spend a full day talking about highlighting the members that are, you know ... " The thing that's dangerous here is when you start talk like this and doing the conversational type of email that you get the tone of what I'm saying there, but just asking people then would you like to join us. That's it. Saying essentially what it is, very similar to the way that I do my Breakthrough Blueprint events is I say, "Hi, Dan. I'm coming to Chicago for a marketing mastermind. We are going to spend three days going deep and applying the eight profit activators to your business. Would you like to join us?" That's it.
It would be the same type of tone where these are people that they don't know about the workshop. They don't know, but they know you. They know that this is a once a year type of thing, a one day event, and that you're just asking would you like to join us. The responses that you're going to get are, "Oh, yeah. Tell me about that. When are the dates? What are the details? How much is it? Oh, I can't. I'm hiking the Himalayas in September," or whatever. They're going to definitely feel the need to reply to it somehow.
Dan: Even if they can't make it they're telling you keep me in mind and contact me earlier next year.
Dean: That is exactly right. That's the point. I think that that would be, and, again, these are sort of concentric circles here. I would start with last year's attendees. You do have this limited supply of a hundred and twenty-five spots, and so let's back out from the most likely to take them, out a little bit further. This isn't the kind of event that I would imagine we need to go much further out than just the community, and the very smart people who are listening to More Cheese, Less Whiskers podcast, the opportunity that they have even if they're not part of the Strategic Coach community.
Dan: In this case we'll give them Eleonora's contact information here and they just identify themselves as a friend of Dean Jackson.
Dean: Okay. Perfect. How do they reach out to Eleonora?
Dan: Eleonora is, first of all, we have a North American 800 number, 18003873206, and they just ask Eleonora. That's Eleonora, last name Mancini, and Eleonora is the full time focus manager on this project. It's EMancini@StrategicCoach.com.
Dean: That's perfect.
Dan: This is terrific, Dean.
Dean: I was just going to say, yeah, we've got about five minutes. What do you think.
Dan: I'll tell you, I mean just by talking with you, you know, I've been aware of this approach from your various presentations at Genius Network, but just being able to think it in terms of my concentric circles. This is the real cheese. The mouse is in the hole and you got to get him to poke his nose out, and so don't send him a cat.
Dean: No whiskers.
Dan: No whiskers. Don't want to see any of those whiskers.
Dean: That's exactly right. That's it, personal communications are key.
Dan: It's personal communication using very powerful high powered technology.
Dean: You know what is really interesting? I was just thinking about it as I was telling you about the sending to the Europeans about the I Love Marketing event, is the very next workshop that I was at in Toronto, our friend Tim White who lives in Vienna said to me, he says, "I know that you send those emails to everybody, but every time I get them I feel like I have to personally respond to you. Do you actually get the responses that ... " I mean it was just so funny that here's a guy who's very in tune with energy, to say that the energy of the email is such that it feels like it's only meant for him. I think that's the real point.
Dan: It's a marvelous approach and I think it's, speaking of game changers, I think it's a game changing approach because everybody else is playing a very, very iron whisker approach to the marketplace. Anyway, this has been a terrific hour. I love what you do on this podcast.
Dean: I'll tell you, I'm excited. I love this format of ... It feels like the time just flies by, but I think we got a good winning strategy [here 00:56:18].
Dan: Yeah. I think a lot of people listening in will be able to apply this to things they're doing almost immediately. I mean it's so easy.
Dean: Can I put up, Dan, the Game Changer scorecard with this episode?
Dan: Yeah. Absolutely. We'll just send you the link, and I'll have Eleonora, when I get in, she'll just send you a link and people can actually do it. I mean it's a marvelous scorecard because it takes you through thirty-two different statements about where you are in regarding to be a game changer, and there's a numbering system where you can actually get yourself a score. A first score, where you think you are right now, and then what we call an aspirational score where you aspire to be, where you would like to be. We usually do it on a yearly basis; this is where you are this year; where do you want to be next year on the scorecard. This scorecard, by the way, Dean, is actually the structure of the entire Game Changer workshop.
Dean: Perfect. That would be a perfect fit then. Lots of people will get to see. If you want more of that, that's the place to get it.
Dan: One last question. This is very precious time here I have here, and you have much cheese to deliver today so I just want to make sure I do it. Now with just the short message ones like are you planning or…, you do not put the link with those messages, right? Because ...
Dean: No. No. All we want is the ...
Dan: ... you want them to get back in touch with you.
Dean: We want them to engage. That's exactly right.
Dan: Right. Okay. That's fine.
Dean: Now it's like instead of just this group of people, we've turned invisible prospects into visible prospects. Because you've got the hundred and seventy people minus forty-five, a hundred and twenty-five that attended last year, and what's happening right now is that we don't know which of those are planning on it or not, and so this way we at least identify who those people are. You know?
Dan: Yeah. One last thing, Dean, I gave the 800 number but now I'm thinking worldwide because this is going to be heard by people, so you have to dial in the North American, you know, the code from outside North America, so that code then it's area code 4165317399, and, again, you ask for Eleonora Mancini, and, again, the email number is emancini. All small letters, E-M-A-N-C-I-N-I@StrategicCoach.com.
Dean: Perfect.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: There we go.
Dan: Wonderful morning. I was deeply in the grips of a procrastination here, and you've allowed me to turn something that was not doing much good into something that's going to do a great deal of good, so thanks a lot, Dean.
Dean: I love it. Awesome. Thanks Dan.
Dan: Okay. Bye.
Dean: There we have it. Thanks for tuning in for another episode of More Cheese, Less Whiskers. If you want to keep the conversation going, go to MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com. You can download a copy of the More Cheese, Less Whiskers book, and if you'd like to be a guest and hatch some evil schemes for your business, just click on the "be a guest" link at the top of the page and you could join me right here.cc