Welcome to the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast. My name is Dean Jackson and today I'm talking with Dave DePula.
We first met over 20 years ago now in Boston, at a ‘main event’, a real estate conference I did for many, many years. He now has a new golf product that makes it easy for people who are frustrated with their golf swing to really let go of all of the mechanics and the drudgery in learning a new mechanical golf swing and helps them get the natural sensation of what it really is to just naturally have a swing they don't even think about.
He has something that creates a result for people and we spent the first part of the call defining exactly what that result is, defining who he is able to get this result for, and then we really talked about how to create what I call the scale ready algorithm to connect all the dots in the before unit and get to a point where he's able to get in front of his ideal target audience, compel them to raise their hand, educate, and motivate them before making an offer that compels or convinces them that this is the thing to help them.
We had a great conversation. There is a lot of psychology in this episode that's applicable to any business launching or promoting something into a marketplace.
I think you're really going to enjoy this episode.
Links:
BreakthroughDNA.com/live
ProfitActivatorScore.com
EmailMastery.com
90MinuteBooks.com
Want to be a guest on the show? Simply follow the 'Be a Guest' link on the left & I'll be in touch.
Download a free copy of the Breakthrough DNA book all about the 8 Profit Activators we talk about here on More Cheese, Less Whiskers...
Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 026
Dean: Dave DePula.
Dave: Dean Jackson.
Dean: How are you, sir?
Dave: Good. Is me being on speaker okay? Do you need me to take it off speaker and do it normal for the recording?
Dean: Yeah. Let's pick up and do it off the speakerphone so we can get a good recording.
Dave: Okay. Here we go.
Dean: Perfect. Yeah, so we're recording right now. We've got the whole hour here to hatch some evil scheme, so I'm excited to hear what you've got going. You know I'm a golf fan.
Dave: Excellent.
Dean: Why don't you tell me what you've got going on? Set the stage and then we can hatch some evil schemes here.
Dave: Excellent. Initially, I was in real estate. That's where I ran into you and Joe and I've always loved by By Referral Only. We'll get to that in a minute. I think we met in, I'd say, near Boston in the early '90s.
Dean: Wow. Brooklyn. Wow. Yeah.
Dave: At a Main Event.
Dean: Yes.
Dave: Your stuff was amazing then also.
Dean: Oh thank you. How did that journey happen, from real estate to what you're doing now?
Dave: Long story short, my wife got sick, I left the business, and then after she died I had to move on. I said, "Do I want to go back and start over or start something else?" I love golf, I love helping people, so it came to that. I've been teaching for about six years and about 18 months ago, I had this epiphany, so let's see if I can do this in a short version.
Dean: Okay.
Dave: I have three students in front of me. I was, just like any other teacher, mechanical, talking body parts. I was at this driving range in Palm Desert. I have six teachers to my right, my three students in front of me, I'm sitting in a chair and two teachers to my left. We're all saying something different, but we're all talking body parts and how to do it. I had a body experience, Dean. I said, "Wait a minute. Nothing in life do we do like this. We don't learn this way." I remember learning baseball, I didn't learn baseball that way. We don't learn how to brush our teeth that way, tie our shoes that way, by micromanaging body parts. I told my students, "Stop. This isn't working."
I didn't know what to do. I was like ... Because if I couldn't help people I didn't want to do this, just like in real estate, and so I met you and Joe. I couldn't help anybody because I didn't know how to do it. I ran into this gentleman whose name is Shawn Clement. His company is Wisdom in Golf, and he's all about that the body performs a task and that's it. You don't figure it out, you just perform a task. I became a director of golf of Southern California. Then I wanted to figure out one step further. I remember how you and Joe and MichaelGerber talked about systems and when you're going to put a structure to it, a system to it, and we came up with the Grass Whip method. We're just coming out of beta testing now. It's absolutely incredible, it works for everyone, there's no technical talk whatsoever. All we do is use the golf club the way it was designed to be used, and that is to cut the grass. Literally we cut the grass and have the ball getting away.
We use this training tool called the Grass Whip, which is again a tool for cutting the grass. We use the tool for cutting the grass, the Grass Whip, and then the golf club, and there is amazing results. I sent you an email with notes on it for this call today.
Dean: Oh, okay.
Dave: That's where we are. Also, I remember the before, the during and the after from By Referral Only. I didn't know that was your brain child, that's awesome. I wanted to do the same thing in my golf business. Before, which would be preparation, and then during, which is the performance, and then after, which is the post-performance. The before unit in this golf, we call it the Grass Whip method, where there's three parts to it. The first part is ... I took your model, I'm actually looking at it right now, of your 8 Profit Activators.
Dean: Uh-hu, right.
Dave: I do numbers and the first three are the before, which is one, the golf club is a tool, the second one is fine-tuning and focus and the third one is shot-making and ball control. There's the before unit. Here's the beauty of it. Once you learn how to use the golf club as a tool, that's the first one, and the second one, once you fine-tune the focus, then those two never have to be done again. Your before unit, once you learn how to do those first two things is just hitting golf shots on the driving range and then going out and play. The during and the after. I just have it in my head and then I'm only caring about that right now. What I need help from you is how to promote this Grass Whip Method and the before unit right now. It literally helps any person who does it.
The problem that I have is that when I introduce it to people they say, "It can't be this simple. It just can't be." but it is.
Dean: Tell me what ... I always like to start off the thinking about it, before we get into the before unit, is to think about what's the result that we're creating for somebody here. How do you define what it is that, if you took a golfer and they just said, "Okay, I'll do whatever you say." What's the result that you could create for them?
Dave: Actually I wrote a really decent paragraph and I'll read it to you. The Grass Whip method is a means to an end. The end is to learn how to use the golf club the way it was designed once and for all. The by-product of this will be a rhythmic balance and powerful golf swing that will produce consistent predictable golf shots and, perhaps more importantly, you'll know, you'll have the freedom in knowing from your own direct experience, that there's nothing to fix or nothing to figure out ever in your golf swing. The result is a powerful golf swing, that you can control your golf ball and freedom. The intangible is freedom. Never again have to figure out your golf swing, and our students love it. We're selling freedom and control of your golf ball.
Dean: Okay.
Dave: To say it in four words, freedom and control over your golf ball.
Dean: Okay. How would that manifest itself? You're talking about ... Those are sort of ethereal things. How would that manifest itself if we look at what are the actual outcomes that this is going to create for somebody? If we take their normal shots, is it going to add distance? Is it going to improve accuracy? Is it going to ... What's the measurable, tangible part?
Dave: Absolutely tangible. Definitely increased accuracy, more distance, you'll hit more fairways, hit more greens, absolutely. No doubt.
Dean: Okay. What sort of ... When you look at these kind of things, then the ... How would you prove those things? You've got to look at it that when you talk about it, the golf world is very simple, right? Farther, straighter, more accurate, lower, stay out of trouble, hit more fairways, get more ... I mean, all of the promises are all ancient, you know? Back to Bobby Jones and before that, right? Back at St Andrew's days, who is the founder of golf. That was a give it up to St Andrew because I can't remember the guy's name there. From the ancient days the things, those would be the desires of the golfers, right? It's really interesting to wrap around what attribute or what sort of outcome you can create for somebody and what difference that's going to make.
I remember when for years and years and years the only attribute that people would talk about with golf balls was distance. Longer, farther, right? Then here comes Nike, out of nowhere, for the first time ever in a golf ball coming out with their Tour Accuracy golf ball. Which was just a complete different thing. Straight, that was their attribute that they came onto. That's the one they came into the market with and then they came out with the distance. Far, right? It was straight and far. They really got it down to the primal elements of what the outcome for a golf ball could be. The golf ball, truly, when you look at it, it's really ... You don't have to learn anything to change a golf ball, you're just using the ball, and whatever you're bringing to it you're going to get.
It's always a nice thing that people look for, that this is the magic thing. That your driver is going to make the difference. Then they might move up to the tools that can make a difference, like a driver. Nobody's ever really touting a 5-iron. It's always the driver that is the sexy golf tool that everybody's talking about. Which can add distance and correct your slice or your hook. That's really the state-of-the-art in drivers now. It's almost like you're not even stuck with one driver. This driver is going to adapt to whatever you're doing. You just turn these nobs and tighten these latches and it's going to correct whatever you're already doing. You don't have to change your swing, right?
Then you come into some specialty clubs that are going to overcompensate or correct whatever mistakes you have. The most common next thing is the wedge. You're seeing a lot of advances in wedge technology. We're even going back to the Alien wedge, or whatever the first big wedge that made hitting trick shots and getting out of bunkers and rough around the green easy. That's again, you're not changing anything. It's an instant solution. I think what you're doing is helping people get a handle on their actual swing that's going to make the difference. Now, you're at the very simple thing of it. You're not talking about being technically better like, "Look at your angles and measure ..." very technical approach to the golf swing. You look at, just thinking out loud about the tools that help you get those kind of things right, like the Medicus or the things that really kind of collapse if you're not in the proper angles and stuff.
Then, other specialty clubs ... I did work with Peter Kessler and the guys who did the Perfect Club. Do you remember the Perfect Club?
Dave: I don't remember the Perfect Club. I absolutely get what you're saying. I have to say ... Let me just say this, experience shows that what you're talking about with those clubs and those balls, they don't work. Because if one actually-
Dean: That's my point.
Dave: If one actually did work there'd be no need for any other. If you get a better hammer it makes no difference if you don't know how to use the hammer in the first place. We're literally going back to the basics and saying, "We're going to teach you in a systematic way how to use this golf club, this tool, the way it was designed. Once and for all, you'll never have to learn it again." I can't say that it'll be lower scores, because there's more to it than that. Now, our overall program, the before, the during and after, can say that. Because the during and the after we call the On Course Coaching Method where it's totally integrated, so and so forth. I can't promise or market lower scores, because you can still hit the ball straight and longer and not score any better, because of the way you approach things. It's the mindset so and so forth, is it taking the right club, are you being too risky? That's all in the during and the after.
Dean: I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. I think we're on the same page. All those things that I was describing are external fixes.
Dave: That's right.
Dean: I'm bringing up to where you are right now and eliminating what you're not.
Dave: Got it.
Dean: What I was saying, when you look at the golf ball itself as the perceived easiest thing to change. If all it is is a golf ball, using my same equipment, my same stuff, I don't have to make anything, that's external blame shifting as far out as you can go, starting with the ball. Then we start external blame shifting to the equipment, starting with the driver. Then the wedges and then even the Perfect Club, which had a nice ... The Perfect Club was a utility club that was a fairway and rough tool for people. Where its real sweet spot was, and this was ... You'd be amazed actually. We ran lots of infomercials on the Golf Channel for this for three years, and then it ultimately was bought.
The big shift here was thinking about the utilities, the situations that people are going to be able to get out of with this club. Rather than talking about what are ... The changes that I made to the infomercial, they were talking about how the Perfect Club is designed to hit the ball 180 to 220 yards. I would say, "Well, that's kind of like a broad range." Where we really got down to, trying to get it to a point where everybody can relate to it, was coming down to ... This was the statement that we inserted into that portion of the infomercial, is that most people have a comfort level up to about a 5-iron. What the Perfect Club does is extend that range of comfort for another 20 yards. Whatever you hit your 5-iron ... Most people, once they get to a 4-iron, that's where it starts to get uncomfortable. Nobody really as amateur golfers could hit their 3-iron. That's why utility clubs really became popular.
By putting it into practical terms, "Where does this fit in my golf bag?" Is, "It fits right after your 5-iron. This is going to extend that range of comfort, give you that confidence on those shots and out of the rough, and help you get out of trouble situations." Again, those are external things. Now we start moving into correcting the actual swing, which is where the technical approach and the angles and the tools that make sure that you're in that technical situation and the grip trainer and the club head speed trainers, all of those kind of things are very technical things that are going to train you into a new way of swinging. It sounds like what you're really saying is that this is a natural thing, where if you're just going to ... Once you get the hang of this move, of whipping the grass, that that is going to ... That's it, that you don't need to ...
It's just like you're saying, once you learn how to hammer a nail, you don't have to go and do all those things, or brush your things or do all the other things that require concentrated multi-step movements. I like that as a way to go. It's just conveying that message and seeing where it actually sits in the golfer's mind. That's why I was thinking about the thing. Who is this going to make the biggest difference for?
Dave: Yeah, who's our target markets?
Dean: Yeah. Who's your target market, that's-
Dave: Who's our target markets?
Dean: Yeah.
Dave: I would say the two tangible things that could be absolutely measured without any doubt whatsoever would be, you're going to save time trying to figure out your golf swing on the driving range, which means you can do other things, including just play golf, and two, you're going to save money. How much is it worth to a person, a golfer, if they never, ever, ever had to take another golf lesson again, buy another training aid again or another golf club or golf ball in hopes of getting the results they're looking for, because it's already been taken care of? How much is that worth?
Dean: Right.
Dave: That's the two tangible things.
Dean: Right. Let me set the parameter here then as, what's the price of this? What are you actually selling here? You're selling the tool?
Dave: That's what I wanted to ask you about.
Dean: Okay.
Dave: Okay. Without the system behind the tool it's very easy to take that tool and try to use it like a golf club, try to figure out what your hands are doing, what your body is doing. I can sell ... I'm selling the Grass Whip for $97, if somebody just wants the Grass Whip. Again, I'm just selling to people that I know. Then I shot a five-minute video and had them just give a little training. Without the entire method it's still simple, but it's a step-by-step process. One of the things that we do is when you're cutting grass with the Whip and the club we have them walk. When they walk the conscious mind is occupied. It does two things, it occupies the conscious mind, and number two, it coordinates the arms and the body automatically without trying to think about it.
I have the Grass Whip I can sell separately and then maybe upsell the program, or sell it both together. The feedback I've got from the people who have gone through the program say to me, "You really can't sell the Whip by itself, because without the program it's just another training aid that people can misuse." That's where I am with that. The program and the Whip together, we would sell it for 197. It's going to be an online thing, 197, but I'm currently is, I give, and I learned this from you guys. Joe used to do the half-day workshop, so I do a 60 minute free workshop and then I offer three 90 minute specials, I call them "supervised structured implementation sessions", where I just oversee the learning process for $297. I have 100 percent conversion rate to people who come to the workshop.
Dean: Okay. That's a method certainly for demonstrating it. When you look at ... These are hands-on, like not online? This is at a-
Dave: Yeah, exactly.
Dean: At a club or at a driving range, right?
Dave: I live here in La Quinta, California, so I'm a member of the Palms Golf Club and the TPC in Valencia, California, which is about 150 miles from here. I go there when it gets hot here in the summer. Anyway, yeah, right now we're just getting out of the beta testing, the in-person stuff. The in-person stuff is amazing. I've got so much great stuff from you guys. I have three roles when I'm there on the range. I teach the principles, I coach the people through the process of learning and I oversee the learning process. There we go. I want to take that ... I saw one of your videos about what constraints would I have. Well, obviously there's only so much time in the day, but if this was an online program with the Whip included and I sold it for whatever the market would bear, I could sell an infinite number.
Dean: Right, exactly. Okay. It's just getting people to understand that. The interesting thing is that you've got ... You kind of hit on something in a way that it's difficult for you to say or claim that this is going to improve your score.
Dave: Right.
Dean: Because you're saying there's so many other factors. Which is absolutely true, but what is there that would be demonstrable? What would it be that I would say ... How would I know that this is something that's working? I remember ... I'm a golfer, I'm a 8-handicap and so I love to play, but for me, I'm at a level where I can, I'd say, 80 percent of my rounds are going to be between 78, maybe two. It's that kind of consistency. I don't hit the ball that really far, I hit it straight. I miss a lot of greens. I've got a good short game and I putt well. I can go out and shoot 78-2, 80-2 but there's a difference where ... I'm at that level with virtually that it would require a lot of practice to stay at that level kind of thing.
I've got the swing that I have, because I'm not thinking about my swing in a lot of ways. I started playing really young and I think that's what they say, golfers who start young get the big muscle memory stuff handled when you're young rather than trying to learn something foreign when you're an adult coming into golf. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I can imagine that that's true. Just little things. If I look back on insights that have made a difference for me I can think of three, and I'll describe these three and you tell me how we could maybe get something in this same level here.
One was understanding the plane. Somebody had an article where he was describing the plane as imagining this three-foot plane of glass that runs perpendicular to the ground and straight through your golf ball to the direction that you want it to go. Then lean that plane over to be parallel with your golf club when you address the ball, and that the goal is staying on plane or to not come over the top, is to come in at that plane or below. I understood that, because part of one of my habits would be to come over the top, and that cured that. Once I had the sense of the feeling of what that was, that made a big difference.
Then I remember there was a program that AJ McLean had, which was "AJ on golf". Do you remember those?
Dave: Yes, I do.
Dean: Okay. That was a series that he had, and his idea was to imagine the golf club as a hammer and that you are hammering a spike into a big wall. That was a sensation that made sense. It was similar to what you're talking about. You sort of imagine that you're hammering that spike and the golf ball's getting in the way. That made a difference sensationally.
Then I did some lessons with my pro here and I have a tennis background, so I played tennis for a lot of years. When he described it as similar to hitting a two-handed backhand with top spin, that was the same kind of ... That just stuck with me. I got that sensation and I got into that. All those things made a ... That insight really made a difference. I think that what you're describing would fit in those veins. It's nothing that wasn't anything technical related, so I can see how that would make a difference in the way that you feel, but I think it would also make a difference if you were to set up some controlled testing that you could demonstrate in a controlled environment. That it does make a difference, that people ...
Because I think that when people are looking at this, and part of the good news is that you've got this opportunity to basically now, with the web, you could have essentially an infomercial on your website. That you can demonstrate through videos and through things that convince people that this makes a difference. They can experience it through the eyes of somebody else.
Dave: Absolutely. Again, I learned this from you, but meeting people where they are. Depending on what your task is, the plane will change the very next swing. If your task is to hit the golf ball with the golf club, the best way to do that is to come over the top. That's just the best way to do it, and that's why most golfers come over the top, just to hit a golf ball. That's what the body wants to do to hit a ball, is to come over the top of it. Also, to hit a golf ball, to not miss a golf ball, the best thing to do is not move very much.
Dean: Right.
Dave: Okay? If the task is to cut the grass, first the Whip and then with the golf club, the plane changes instantly, because you're cutting the grass in front of yourself, where the golf ball would be. You cannot cut the grass with the Grass Whip or a golf club with the golf stuck behind you, if you know what I mean?
Dean: Yeah.
Dave: Okay. Behind your right shoulder if you're right-handed, left shoulder if you're left-handed. The club automatically stays in front of you, so the empirical evidence that I have on video already is that the very next swing the plane changes if the task is "cut the grass" versus "hit the golf ball". Absolutely the next swing. The rub is, and this is where the second part of our program is, it's fine-tuning and focus. That ball, and we've been training ourselves to hit a golf ball all our golfing lives, whether it's five weeks, five years, 50 years, that ball demands to be hit. It wants to be hit. It's mesmerized. In our program we train our students, they train themselves, to stay on task. If at any point during the swing, during the cut, they lose their task of cutting the grass, it automatically defaults to a hit. I go on the golf course, I lose my focus on my task because there's water left and out-of-bounds right, because isn't the golf course designed to take your attention away?
Dean: Right, yeah.
Dave: Anyway. Then I'll turn into a hit. Now, my hits are better than most's, not necessarily tour players', but most all golfers'.
Dean: Right.
Dave: Having said that, you can see with video and if you're just watching in person live, that person's swing changed the very next swing. You'll also notice when it's a grass cut that the ball does pretty much what you want it to do. Those two things are what you'll see immediately. The very next swing.
Dean: Right. That demonstrating that is pretty easy to imagine. You can see that through other people. I can imagine part of the thing is that it's just compelling enough. Those things that we talked about earlier are universally compelling things for a golfer. They want to hit the ball straighter, they want to cure their hook and their slice, they want to hit it longer and they want to hit it more accurately on their approach shots. That's, I think, enough or basically that is the end game, the big things here. That those things then give you the tool kit to address the other parts of the game that are really about scoring, strategy and all that stuff, course management and emotional management and all that stuff.
Dave: Yeah, all that is ... Yeah, go ahead.
Dean: Yeah? What were you going to say? All that?
Dave: All that is true and again, taking from ... Did you come up with the five, six and seven, or is that Joe's stuff?
Dean: No, that's neither of our stuff. The deeper levels of something, yeah, yeah, that's from-
Dave: Yeah, okay. The five, six and seven is what golfers don't even know that they wants. That's really the freedom and the fun. I initially called this the Grass Whip method - 21 days to golfing freedom. The feedback I get from the students who go through the program isn't, "Oh, I scored 65, 75, 85, 95." It's, "Dave, I had so much fun today, because when I missed a shot I never thought about my golf swing and what I needed to do, what I needed to fix. I know there's nothing to fix. I just go get the ... I go to the ball and just do it again." That's what they love the most, so intangible. How do we sell that? That is what people love.
Dean: Yeah. I think that's absolutely there's something there, when you start to look at the different levels. I look at that as ... For me, being able to go out and shoot 80 or 82 at any time, that, I'm okay with that. I play with guys that are better than that and when I'm playing with people that can't do that it's frustrating for them to ... I think that's where the big thing is, that I get enjoyment out of that, my swing is what my swing is and I'm going out to have fun. I know that's it's reliable enough, that I could take months off and go right back out and just do the same thing.
What I'm wondering here then, how and who is the person to present this to so that they would want to do this? That they would want to buy something like this? Have you gotten into analysis of who's actually buying this right now? Who it's most appealing to?
Dave: Yeah. It's appealing to ... Basically the person needs to be frustrated, confused and they don't know where to turn. Let's take a single target. I mean, we could take any market, but starting one at a time. I belong to a club, so if country club members from 40 to 60, doesn't matter what their handicap is, who are looking to play better golf. They don't even know that what I have for them is way beyond what they're ever even thinking that they need. As I said, the first thing that they tell me in my emails when I get to testimonials, is, "Dave, I mean, I shot better today, but that wasn't even the most, the best part of it." Give me any golfer, any age. Someone who has frustrated, has to be that, and willing to do a little bit of work.
Dean: What about somebody who's ... Let's go to the other hand here and talk about something like a beginner, a brand new person to golf.
Dave: Okay.
Dean: Would this be a accelerator for learning the golf swing? In a sideways kind of way? Is this something that ... When you take ... Because golf is an intimidating proposition for most people. If they didn't grow up with it and they'd like to take it up, it's kind of ... Everybody feels like, "Ah, I'm going to have to take a bunch of lesson and I have to be frustrated and I'm going to lose a lot of golf balls and I'm going to look stupid and I'm going to be frustrated." and all that kind of thing. What would be the accelerator kind of thing that this could be for a brand new golfer? Have you had experience taking somebody who's never swung a golf club and getting them hitting balls and understanding the basics?
Dave: Coincidentally I'm just working with someone now who is not a brand new, but a person who golfs maybe once or twice a year, maybe for the last year, year and half, two years maybe. He's going through the program now as we speak and he absolutely ... I'm giving him the accelerated version, he's only here for a week, he's from Calgary, but anyway, he's absolutely loving it and the results are amazing. On video I can see the difference, like I can see with the person live, but you can see the difference of, as I said, when the task is hitting a golf ball versus cutting the grass and the ball play is what you're looking for. The ball goes to the target without any control. One of the things is that we're doing is, we're relinquishing control of the golf club to get control over the golf ball. The answer is yes, it can work for them and it does.
Dean: Okay. It's interesting. I've got a friend who is a barefoot water-ski instructor, and he has a DVD series on how to teach people how to water-ski without falling. That's the no-fall barefoot method kind of thing, how to learn to barefoot without falling. Because that's something that people are afraid of. If you think about what would be somebody's standard way of going about learning to golf and who would be interested in that, would be parents who are avid golfers who'd love to introduce their kids to golf or introduce their wives or their husbands or their boyfriends or girlfriends or whatever, that they want to introduce them to golf. That could be a pretty simple thing.
Are you looking to go straight to the consumers with this, that they're going to buy it and go through this period of learning? Is it something that if I bought it I would use it for a short period of time, I'd get the insight and then I wouldn't pick it up again? Or is it something as a training aid that I would use consistently to improve my swing or embed that habit?
Dave: Actually it's both. It's, "Here's the Grass Whip. It teaches you exactly what needs to happen in your golf swing with regard to playing. What your arms do, what your body does, what your hands do, all automatically, without ever thinking about any body part whatsoever." Again, there's a structured system to it. The third part is all about shot-making and ball control. You don't have to go to the actual program anymore, but to have that Whip in the bag and just feel what it feels like to cut the grass with the Whip, you could always have that. It can never hurt.
Dean: It wouldn't be something that you would say that repetition with this tool is going to make the difference? In the same vein as a training aid?
Dave: No, because, again, experience shows that there is no such thing as muscle memory. It's what task are you performing in this particular moment? I could swing the Grass Whip 1,000 times and, "Oh, this feels so beautiful. This is what I need to do in my golf swing." Step into the golf ball and try to hit the ball and that goes away, because my task has changed. That's why we call this, and I use this word intentionally, it's a training tool. Because once a human learns how to use a tool they never have to learn how to use it again. Aids cannot work, by definition. This is a tool that once you learn it you never have to learn it again. Now, let's say you haven't hammered a nail in 10 years, you're not going to be able to forget how you do it. You may be not as proficient, it may take you a little while to get warmed up again, but you already know how to do it. You would never take out the iPad and draw lines that that your elbow was too high, your shoulder was too high kind of thing.
Dean: Right, exactly.
Dave: It's kind of like ... I can't even say how amazing this is. What can I say. It's nothing that I get, I sort of stumbled about it. Actually this Grass Whip was introduced way back in probably the '30s or '40s by the name of Wild Bill Mehlhorn. He was on the first Ryder Cup team and he was friends with Harvey Penick, Harry Vardon, all those people. Harvey Penick and him had a ... They said once they gave the Grass Whip to their students they never needed them again.
Dean: Right.
Dave: Again, one of the things that as a marketing, "Hey, you will never need me again." Just for the swing itself, I mean obviously there's other parts of the game.
Dean: That was why I was asking you about are you looking to go straight to consumers or is this something that the golf pros would want to have in their arsenal to help with teaching people golf?
Dave: That's a very good question. I actually am registered to go to the PGA show in Orlando in January and if that's the case then we can do it together. If it's sold as a training aid alone with a short little video, then the answer would be yes, but the whole program pretty much eliminates the need for a PGA pro. I can put people out of business and they're not going to like me very much. People are not going to like my very much if I ever sold 100,000 or 200,000 or a million of these things, if that ever was the case. Because they're not going to need them anymore.
Dean: Right. Well, you know, I mean that-
Dave: Sounds crazy.
Dean: Right. I understand that, that the golf pros, they're kind of ... You've got a rallying cry there. There's an enemy there, in a way, an approach there, that "things that the golf pros don't want you to know" kind of thing. They want to keep it complicated and technical because that's how they make their money, by keeping you confused and coming back.
Dave: Yeah. Just being that person on that side of it, and now I'm only ... Let's say I'm the fish in the water, now I'm out of the water looking at the fish and it seems so ridiculous to me now. That's not a criticism of anybody else, because I did it just up to 18 months ago. These people are just as sincere as me. They want to help people just as much as I do. I see it, and I have lots of friends who do this, but I was watching ... I was actually watching an instructor the other day at course and this woman was so frustrated because what he had this person doing is just not natural, number one. Number two, and that's another thing, this is all about being natural. Number two, you can't think about doing it while you're doing it. You don't learn things that way. It's totally 180 degrees different than what's out there.
If something was out there that actually worked there'd be no need for anything else. All these training aids come down the pike. Why? Because they don't work. It's not that they're not sincere about it. I don't think these people are sitting there saying, "Okay, I'll happily rip other people off now." I don't think that's the case, but it just doesn't fact that most people never get better at golf. Period.
Dean: Right, exactly. I think right now the main thing is that when people feel this and experience it for themselves, then they'll buy? Is that the way it's going right now? How have you sold them from the workshops?
Dave: Here's a real world example. I told you I have a friend down from Calgary and I'm working with him. We go to the short game area at our club and we take the Grass Whip out and he's using it, he's loving it. Then I set the Grass Whip down and we just walked away from it, maybe 30, 40 feet and just started cutting the grass with little short shots. As we were walking back to the Whip and to our golf cart, some guy picked it up, he said, "What's this?" I said, "It's a Grass Whip." He said, "What is it?" I showed him what it does. Literally right there he said, "How do I buy one?" I say, "I go to my car and get it and you give me money. That's how we do it." He did.
Dean: I love it. "I go to my car and get one and you give me money. Done."
Dave: When you get it, when someone gets it in their hands it's an amazing feeling, and it's just totally different than the golf swing or their golf swing, most likely. Not always. There it is.
Dean: I love it. It's got that. Now is that a message that would make sense to just set up through clubs or driving ranges? To go on tour with that?
Dave: Yeah. That's why I wanted to talk to you, because you're the pro. If it's just the Whip alone with a short little video, three minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever, then I could go to, and there's about 95 golf courses in a 50-mile radius here, I could go as someone who has a training tool, formerly known as an aid, and help them and say, "Hey, can I do a demo day?" and put up my tent and sit there at a private club and have 10, 20, 30 people come and whatever. Versus do I sell it together as a the method with the tool, or both? I don't know. For example, this guy who bought the tool, I sent him a video and then when the program's ready, because he lives in Sacramento, I can say, "Hey, we have this Grass Whip method now, it just accelerates the process. It'll accelerate the process, this is what it'll cost, blah, blah blah." My question to Dean Jackson is, "Do I sell the Whip only and then upsell the program? Or put it together? Or test them both?" I have no idea.
My problem is this, and I watched one of your videos the other day and I was like, "Oh my god, Dean's like me or I'm like Dean." I'm so creative. I have all these ideas, 100s of them, and I'm not an implementer. I'm a one ... I went online to the Kolbe site, I didn't actually take it but I was like, "Yeah, I'm a one implementer, or maybe a minus one. I have all these ideas but I need to get something going."
Dean: Right.
Dave: I love the before, during and after and all that. I love what you're teaching. Do you teach the result stream model?
Dean: Yeah, that's all part of ... That's a time management kind of approach from Dan Sullivan, this idea of the three days and focus days and buffer days, or results and remodel and recovery days. That's an approach to getting stuff done. I've done a video with a program called The 50 Minute Focus Finder.
Dave: I saw it, that is great.
Dean: That's how I get things done. I look at this, is that you've got ... In order to scale something, you've got to get the scale-ready algorithm right.
Dave: Okay.
Dean: What happens there is that that means, how are we going to identify the target audience? How are we going to get in front of them? We just described one viable method of picking a specific country club or picking a specific city or a town. It's kind of the way, we, Joe Stumpf and I, that's the way we built By Referral Only. It was just a big machine that we ran for 15 years the same way. We would pick a city like Boston where we're going to go and do a Main Event, which was the three day paid event.
Dave: That started as a half-day free workshop, Main Event-
Dean: Exactly, that's the result.
Dave: You guys were amazing. It was half-day free workshop, I think you guys did it a month or two or three in advance. Then the three day Main Event which was absolutely fantastic, and then you guys had the people in the back of the room selling the coaching club.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Dave: Now you guys did a Done For You. Are you still doing events?
Dean: Yeah. I did an event with Joe in August in San Diego.
Dave: Now he has the Done For You stuff and the seven essentials. So many times I wanted to go back and do it. Everything was so real estate focused and do you know Dan ...
Dean: He works for Joe, Dan ... Terrace?
Dave: Yeah, exactly.
Dean: Yeah.
Dave: I was working with him, and he loved the idea that it was something different other than real estate, because he would really get creative.
Dean: Yeah.
Dave: All the Done For You stuff. Then I said, "Wait a minute." I saw that days ago and said, "Wait a minute. Dean Jackson's ..." Then I went to I love Marketing and I went to Breakthrough DNA and I'm like, "Oh-oh, he's my guy." You're my guy.
Dean: Oh, that's great. I know that this, what I was describing as a viable model for you, is to ... If we were to use that kind of Main Event model, was that we'd pick a city like Boston, and three months ahead of going in we would start a marketing campaign to invite people to a free half-day workshop. We'd pick 10 places around Boston, meaning we would go ... Within Boston we'd probably do two or three events or four quadrants of Boston. Just in the suburbs. Then we would go either to within a two-hour drive, the biggest cities that would be a two-hour drive from Boston. Then we would maybe expand out to, in the outer ring, a direct flight into Boston.
We would pick a database of ... We would get 50,000 real estate agents and that would be our single target audience there. We would do through direct mail and email and postcards, inviting people to the half-day workshops. They would come to a three-day half-day workshop and pay then from that to come to the three-day Main Event, which was 45 days away. That would be our system. We would constantly keep that machine rolling, all through the country. We built a huge business around that.
I think there's that same viability for you, of picking a specific market and then doing marketing to get that awareness. Now, with all the great things now, with Facebook and online and all the easy ways to get in front of people, it wouldn't be ... It's a less expensive proposition to do something like that, but when you get people to the clinic then you've got a proven track record that when you demonstrate it, when they get to feel it and see it, that they'll buy it. Have you done anything similar to a group ... Because you were saying you had 100 percent close rate, but what would be the numbers on that? What would be the right size of a group to do that?
Dave: It's a small sample, about 18. The most at one time was three. Yeah, everyone did it, everyone bought it.
Dean: Okay, but that was just demonstrating it for three people, not for-
Dave: Not for 50 people, no.
Dean: No, okay.
Dave: Then most of the other ones, or all the other ones, were one-at-a-time. That's just the way they came to me. Again, it was pretty much just either word-of-mouth or someone I ran into who said, "Hey, what's that?" I say, "It's a Grass Whip?" "What's it all about?" I say, "Hey, come to a workshop tomorrow at eight o'clock, eight to nine o'clock, it's free and I'll fill you in." That's basically what it's been.
Dean: Right.
Dave: Are you recommending that, for the time being, just do the market in a specific location? One of the things that I'm going to run into, problem-wise or challenge-wise, is that PGA pros don't want you to stomp on their territory, but I do have two places here, again, in La Quinta and then also in Valencia where I can do as many workshops as I want.
Dean: Right.
Dave: Are you recommending that I do this, the in-person stuff? Get more empirical data?
Dean: I think that's going to give you some ... Right, that's going to give you some real hands-on experience of what actually is hitting a nerve with people. What actually you can see the light bulb come on, where they're convinced that this is a viable thing. "Oh, this does feel different. This does make a difference." That's when people are going to make that decision to buy. Just like the guy you described, one-on-one. That's the thing is, when I talk about that, I use that term of a scale-ready algorithm, is figuring out that what does it take to convince one golfer that this is the thing for them? Then we start to branch that out from there. That that, the learning that you get from that, is really something that will be transferable.
Dave: The answer is ... Go ahead.
Dean: The answer is all of it. Ultimately it would be great to get to a point where the word spreads and that you could have mass ... Just the numbers of people that you're able to convert through mass media makes a difference.
Dave: Absolutely.
Dean: But you've got to have the compelling evidence that this is going to work. That we have to be able to convey that feeling to somebody through a non-hands-on experience, right?
Dave: Yes, because the answer to the question was, what convinces them? When they get it in their hands.
Dean: Yeah.
Dave: Even the free. "Oh my god, this is amazing. I'm not thinking about my golf swing. This is fantastic." Then they'd be able to convey that online, so and so forth, but first you're recommending, if I'm getting you correctly, do it like you and Joe did it, locally. Again, I have two places with tons of golfers in both places where I can start marketing in and just fill up my free workshops and just fill up the program.
Dean: Yes, and I would say, get some ... I would start experimenting to see what sort of physical evidence you could gather too. One of the things, if you have somebody hit 10 balls for accuracy, without, "Just use your current swing, let's see what's going on. Hit these 10 balls with your 5-iron or your 6-iron or whatever, and let's see how far it goes and how dispersed it is from a line. We'll drop a line all the way down and see, this is what your current situation is. Now let me show you this." Just take then the moments to go through the thing and let them experience the Grass Whip difference, just to get that insight. Then let them hit 10 balls after they've had that experience and see how much of a measurable difference that made. That would be compelling, if you have evidence like that. That's where you want to wring every ounce of value out of doing these.
Dave: That's excellent.
Dean: Yeah.
Dave: What I'll do is, when someone comes to the ... Whoever comes to the workshops, I have them loosen up, warm up, and then I'll have each person hit 10 shots, whatever, let's do a seven or whatever, 7-iron hits, then we document it all. Then they go through the program, just the free part of it. Then when they're done have them hit 10 more with the 7-iron and see what we have.
Dean: Yes.
Dave: Perfect.
Dean: That, for your purposes, just to do that as an experiment, it builds evidence for you. You're really building the building blocks of saying that your confidence level, to be able to say, "This is the difference that it makes. People before this, they were hitting their 7-iron 146 yards on average. After this it was 156 yards on average, and it was this far from the line." Whether it was right or left, that they were slicing 70 percent of their shots and then they ended up closer or left of the target 70 percent of the times.
Dave: Excellent.
Dean: That would make a difference, if you've got those kind of evidence things. Because with that one experiment and their feeling. If it's miss hits or if it's their feeling or frustration and their visual ... Because if you're documenting all of this like a scientist ... Whenever you're doing anything in a mass way you've got to be able to have ... It doesn't have to be beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's a better standard if you can, but as long as there's the preponderance of evidence that, "That guy has a swing like mine, and look at what happened for him." That kind of-
Dave: Yeah, and I get-
Dean: Yeah.
Dave: That's beautiful. I can video as each person is doing the 10 swings before and then video the after. Not only the swing itself but the reaction, "Oh my god, this is great. I love it. Blah, blah, blah."
Dean: Yes, that's it. That's great.
Dave: You're recommending do the in-person stuff, get that up and rolling, get some more empirical evidence, get some more confidence that it's actually working and then worry about the online?
Dean: Right. Not worry about it, but that that's going to build-
Dave: Then go in that direction. Not worry, yeah.
Dean: That creates the building blocks of it. Ultimately we're getting to a point where it's ... You want to get to a point where word starts to spread and it becomes the sensation. That that's the thing where everybody knows about it. I think that these are the ... If you're going to be The Beatles, everybody thinks about how The Beatles just came out of nowhere, but nobody realized from 1959 to 1962 they were playing in Hamburg and weren't in the news and stuff.
Dave: Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.
Dean: Think about these as the Hamburg years, the La Quinta years, of just building this thing. The great news is that it's not ... Doing it this way, taking this kind of approach is getting it out of the fad sort of thing. Where it's like, these are the fundamental things that golfers, for as long as people have been playing golf, are interested in. No matter what, they want to hit the ball farther, they want to hit it straighter and they want to feel less frustration about it. Those are universal things and that's something that you're able to help people with.
Dave: Excellent. Okay. Now the question is, what is my next best step? Do I buy BreakthroughDNA online and work that, or hire you, if I can afford you? Do I do the book? Do I do the Email Mastery? Do I go to Breakthrough Blueprint and Celebration? I need you. Period.
Dean: Right, absolutely.
Dave: Somehow.
Dean: I think that the BreakthroughDNA, that'll give you the foundation and the building blocks of everything. Because there's all the exercises, all the workshops, all the things to create your blueprint. Of how to compel people to raise their hand. Because that's a model of taking this to a live format with people. You could do some things that you could do pretty quickly. You could figure it out. We could run some Facebook ads to golfers in a specific area. There's lots of ways to get in front of local golfers there. The online program would be a great place to start. Email Mastery is really for a little further ahead than you are right now. This would be for businesses that already have a list of prospects and a list of clients, that are already generating leads. You're at the stage where the Breakthrough Blueprint would be the thing.
If you can accelerate it and want to come to the Breakthrough Blueprint Live, I've got one coming up in February.
Dave: February.
Dean: Yeah, February here in Orlando. That would be a good full immersion environment. People coming to the Breakthrough Blueprint live, you actually get the Breakthrough Blueprint online program included in that, to go through before we actually get together in Orlando. We would be able to spend the time then doing the live brainstorming and working out the actual messaging and the process here, the blueprint.
Dave: I love the idea. I get so much stuff from you guys. I love the idea that I'm in a room with you for three days, the question is can I afford it. I'd rather go there and do that than go to the PGA show with no direction or whatever and just go around like a chicken without a head.
Dean: This is the thing. You look at the difference, is the ... That PGA show's going to be there, that's not the thing that you ... You're not ready to make that kind of impact at the PGA show yet, I would say. If you were to look at spending this year getting all of those ducks in a row, getting everything together and showing up next year at the PGA show with this scientific evidence of the impact that this is making for golfers and your complete marketing models together, that would just open up so many opportunities for you.
Dave: Excellent. That's perfect. Now, how do we get the details on the live stuff? Do we want to do it while we're recording or do you want to-
Dean: Sure, no. Well, I'll send you everything. It's $5,000 to come to the live event, and, like I said, you get the online version of it as well. I'll send you all the details and I think this would be the perfect jumpstart for you. Because specifically where you're at, you've got everything ready to go, you've got your result getting ability. It's just now let's get it in front of people and get them to understand it.
Dave: Send me the stuff and then Dean, this is amazing. You are just absolutely amazing. I can't wait to get started.
Dean: Awesome. I'm excited. I love golf, so this will be a cool thing.
Dave: Thanks a lot, Dean.
Dean: Okay, Dave. Thanks.
And there we have it. So many great levels in that conversation. When we were talking about creating a formula for launching something new and I talk about a scale-ready algorithm, what I'm talking about is getting all of the pieces in place so that you can now scale this solution that you have for a very specific audience through technology. It has to happen by understanding the mind first. You've got to get crystal-clear on the result that you're able to achieve. Next you've got to get crystal-clear on which of the existing desires that are already in the marketplace, the problems, the hopes, the desires that your audience already has and are familiar with you can attach to, to then convince people that what you have is a solution to that problem, or a path to that gain that they really want.
There's no better way to do that than on a small scale first, where you can really get belly-to-belly with the people who you are trying to reach. Knowing that you're over-investing in spending time and energy on having that conversation with them, figuring out what is it about this that resonates with people? Where do the lights go on and they get convinced? To document the results that you're able to create. Because really if we have an opportunity to solve a problem for a very specific group of people, we're able to demonstrably do that in a measurable way by documenting everything that happens in working with people one-on-one and in small groups, that all creates the foundation for then being able to do it on a mass scale.
I joked about The Beatles being ... Before The Beatles were the best band in the world they had to become one of the best bands in Liverpool to get invited to go to Hamburg, to become who The Beatles became. That's really what we're looking at here, is what do you have that you could get some results for people, document, so that you have indisputable evidence that what you have is going to help them solve a problem that they have, reach a solution that they've been looking for, or get the dream-come-true experience that they're looking for. I'm excited. It's kind of fun to hear Dave's enthusiasm. I'm really looking forward to getting together with him in Orlando for the Breakthrough Blueprint.
If you're at that stage where spending three days in an environment very similar to what we do on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast here, to spend three days in a small group where we're able to really go deep, applying all of the eight profit activators to your business in a very intensive environment, and coming out with a real blueprint that we can use to go out into the marketplace, that's really the most exciting thing that we could do together. If you would like to join us you can send me an email to dean@deanjackson.com and put "Breakthrough Blueprint" in the subject line. I'll get you all the details about the event coming up in Orlando and maybe we could see you there.