Welcome to the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, and wow, what a conversation we've had today! You guys are in for a treat.

Today we’re talking with Mark Flagg. Mark has a tire and auto service company in New York, and this guy is a star. I'm so amazed by his enthusiasm and just raw hustle. That's really what it is, raw hustle and grinding to get it done.

So, we had a really great conversation about, how do you get in front of people who are hoping to go their whole week without ever having to talk to you? If they have to meet you, it's a bad day.

If someone needs to get their tires done or needs to get something done on their car, nobody's looking forward to that. But when you hear Mark, you hear some of the ways he's talking and the things he's doing to embrace this idea of building a lifetime, value-based business with people, really building relationships with people, it's amazing to see what he’s been able to do so far.

We hatched a wonderful scheme for him to test. He's going to go out and test it today and report back and let us know what happens.

You're really going to enjoy this episode. We covered a lot of stuff.

 

Show Links:
ILoveMarketing.com : Daymond John
BreakthroughDNA.com
ProfitActivatorScore.com
EmailMastery.com

 

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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 094

Dean: Mark Flagg.

Mark: Hey, how you doing Dean Jackson?

Dean: I am doing fantastic. Where in the world are you calling from?

Mark: I'm calling from upstate New York.

Dean: Okay, perfect. Now tell me what's going on here for you? I want to hear all about your business. I just read a little bit about what you've got going on, but tell me the whole story, and let's see what we can hatch here.

Mark: Okay. Dean, I'm just so grateful to even talk to you. Believe that, from the bottom of my heart.

Dean: I'm excited.

Mark: Yeah, since I ran across your stuff, it changed my life. And that's real talk. But about me, I've been trying. My first love was with music, and I had some success in that. I started my own company called Flagg 'Em Down Entertainment. I was able to get on some major record label placements and stuff for the artist I was working with that was a management company.

But in that process of me going out and learning and making things happen, I knew there was something that was missing, 'cause I was able to get through doors, but I wasn't seeing ... no really, well I can say process, or I couldn't measure what was going on or nothing like that.

Dean: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, so I switched over to, I got Flagg 'Em Down Auto, I went into that industry. It was during that time that I was doing the music that I found out about you. And I was reading, and I was reading and you were telling me about Clyde Hopkins, you were telling me about Rob Collins, and David Oglevie and all these things and stuff. So I went to reading and I was like, "Wow, he's correct." And so I went into auto mechanic business, and I started applying the things that you've been teaching me, and it's been working, man.

Dean: That's awesome.

Mark: Yeah, it's been working. The garage that I got, Dean, it's a very small garage. I mean sometimes it's like a real ... to be honest it's in a bad neighborhood. I don't want to say bad, it's not the worst part, but it's in a bad neighborhood. Little neighborhood. But, to read your principles that you taught me, man.

When I first went back, there was just a lot of old guys back there drinking and stuff, but when I looked at the place, it was abandoned. I said, "Man, this place. I see potential here." So I see the potential, and I use the principles that you told me, and I invested all my money. I was working 60 hours a week, so I would take my money and I would invest it into the shop, and man. I used what you taught me when I read about what you was talking about, and the place is doing well, man. From the start with nothing. I started with nothing. And now people starting to come through and book, I can't keep up.

Dean: That's great. See, that's the thing is probably nowhere more than in the medical field and in the taking care of your car field do people really crave somebody they can trust. And they appreciate when the find somebody, and they tell other people, and they look to other people to turn them on to somebody that they can trust, because there's so much opportunity for people to be taken advantage of with their auto service, especially if they don't know, if they're not educated. And so that's a big piece. So what kind of services do you offer?

Mark: Well, we offer ... and that's another thing I was going to tell you Dean, 'cause we offer tire service, and we offer automotive services. So we're doing a lot of tires. Matter of fact, just before I got on the phone with you a client called, so I had to run out, and I was like, I got to run out and grab this tire real quick, so I went out and grabbed a used tire, 'cause she needed a tire. So I was like, well I've got enough time to go out there and grab a tire and come back after I'm done with the call and put it on.

But yeah, we do automotive work, we don't do any engines. So I know you said I need to have a target market. So my question was too, I got Flagg 'Em Down Auto and Tire, but I'm thinking should I just focus on Flagg 'Em Down Auto, and then have two different separate entities? So that I did, I did it because I said, "I'm going to listen to Dean. Everything that he's taught me so far has worked."

So what I did, I separated the companies. So when I got the logo made, I got the logo made for Flagg 'Em Down Auto, I got a logo made for Flagg 'Em Down Tires, and then I just bought a tow truck. And I'm going to have Flagg 'Em Down Towing. But right now, I'm into the Flagg 'Em Down Auto, and so what we don't do, we don't pull no motors or nothing like that, no transmissions, or pulling out transmissions. We do stuff like put in inner outer tire rods, we do ball joints, stuff that's not going to take ... big jobs, and stuff, because I don't have the facilities like that, that can do it. To be doing stuff right here, that's the thing.

Dean: All right, so most of it tire work, is that kind of the primary thing?

Mark: No, we do tire work, but just yesterday we did two ball joints, inner and outer tire rods. A fuel pump, you name it. Anything we'll do, we're doing a lot of mechanic work, we're just not pulling out any motors and not pulling out any transmissions and stuff of that nature.

And I was telling my partner, he doesn't get it 'cause I'm so into you and learning from you and I've learned so much, I said, "Dean said that I shouldn't even ... Don Moore," I said, "What is your biggest price?" I think you said something about what is the biggest ting-

Dean: Your biggest paycheck.

Mark: ... right. So and I said, man, maybe we need to just focus on that.

Dean: Well, what is it? What would that mean?

Mark: Well, it could be like I think hub assemblies. Some people call them ball bearings, some people call them hub assemblies. Now, we can get say $100 to do both sides, so that would be $200 for that job. And that job is not hard, we can get it done in a good amount of time, and 10 times out of 10 it's always done right.

Dean: Okay, and so how often does that need to be done? Like, having a hub assembly done, compared to tires?

Mark: Hub assembly should be done maybe, maybe once a year, year and a half, two years probably I'm thinking. And another thing Dean, with me, I got a guy like you talked about in the email, I got a guy that's a technician. And me learning from you, I'm the marketing man, so I really don't know anything about auto management. What I'm doing, I'm bringing customers to the door.

So I got a mechanic, like you said, "If you want some work bro, I can bring you all the customers you want," and that's what I'm doing. So I really don't know nothing about how to turn a bolt or nothing, I just know how to bring the customers to the door. And it's working like gangbusters.

Dean: I love it, that's great. So you know, I wonder if is that something that visible ... how would somebody know that they need a hub assembly?

Mark: Because the tire starts making a whoop whoop whoop sound, it sounds exactly like that. You'll hear a sound.

Dean: Because it's out of alignment, or out of-

Mark: Right, it's out of alignment. And the bearings, that's why they call it the hub assembly, like I said some people call it a wheel bearings too, 'cause the wheel bearings are bad in that mechanism, so that's what makes it go bad.

Dean: So the thing that would all then ultimately manifest as the tires would wear, and that you need new tires ultimately. Then you might find out in the process of changing the tires that you need a hub assembly, that that's the real problem. Or is it a bigger problem than that?

Mark: No, you're correct.

Dean: What is the symptom that somebody might know? Like I know just in life in general, nobody's looking to proactively maintain their tires and hub assemblies and all that stuff. Nobody's thinking about coming out of the house and doing their visual inspection and checking the tires, and checking the stuff, and then going to get things rotated, and do all that stuff that they tell you is the best thing to do to maintain your tires.

The reality seems like, and I'm speaking from my own experience too, that the only time you know you have a tire problem is all of a sudden you get a flat tire. I mean it's like, that's what happens, right? That literally just happened to me a couple weeks ago, and so there you go. And I've got these expensive tires. I have a BMW X5M, with these low profile run flat things that are pretty expensive tires, and they wear out quick. They've only got like 12 or 15,000 miles on them.

Mark: Wow.

Dean: But I don't pay attention to them until something happens. I think that that's probably pretty much what most people do. Now, if I had visually looked at them, I probably could have seen what was going on, but you never ... You know Mark, you come out and you get in the car, and you're not thinking about looking at the tires, and doing all that stuff, right?

Mark: No sir, you're not.

Dean: If you were to think about what preempts this, that's what I would look at, is how do you get people ahead of time? How do you get them upstream so that serendipitously you're kind of there when they have the problem. And so I think about it, like it would be a really interesting thing for you to kind of think about your target audience as all the tires within a five mile radius of your shop there. That's really what is probably the reality. Maybe even a tighter niche than that. Are you in a densely populated area, or a small town?

Mark: It's medium. So it's not like a town, and it's a city. And we're right in the inner city, dead smack in the middle of the inner city.

Dean: Okay. And so how tight of a radius do you think you would draw from?

Mark: I would say, 'cause I live on the east side and I have people come from the east and the west side also too. So what I've been seeing too, I've got people coming from the outer skirts. Yeah, they're coming from the outskirts too, but I would say my main target audience radius would be about ... if I'm on the east side, so the west side, like the suburbs, I say 10 miles.

Dean: 10 miles, a 10 mile radius, okay. And so you look at it that that's going to be potentially true for maybe more likely for the auto services than the tires. When you're doing tires for somebody, are they typically coming to you because they've got a flat, or that something has happened that now they really have to get new tires, or are they proactively coming to you saying hey, can you check my tires?

Mark: No, Dean, they're coming to me like you said, when they have a flat, or if their tires are just so wore out so bad that the metals sticking out of it. 'Cause you know sometimes they wore out the back of it.

Dean: I got it. Okay, so now let's talk about that, then. When you look around, this is something that's pretty visual. And so I always look at the inevitability of something. Joe Polish and I did a Yellow Pages Roulette episode of "I Love Marketing" one time, and one of the businesses that we turned the page to was a roofing company. And I look at roofs as like tires in a way, in that there's a life span of them, and they wear out, and then you've got to replace, them, right? And that they have a sort of fixed time frame. You know you're going to get plus or minus a certain number of miles on tires, and then there's nothing else you can do except replace them, right? So it's inevitable that you're going to have to replace the tires, and you can't operate the vehicle without them, so it's a critical part of it.

And you're surrounded, everywhere we go there are cars all around you that are driving on worn out tires. And they're oblivious to it, they're thinking this is something that is not even on their radar yet. So one of the things that I might think about is if somebody had pointed out to me that my tire was really low or worn or something was going on there, that that would have drawn my attention to it and I would have said, "Oh yeah, that's right," and I would have had Courtney, my assistant go and do something about the tires, right?

Now I would think about how could you get in front of people before they have that problem, so that you're the only one that they're thinking of, right? Because if it gets to the emergency part, they're going to think about where's the closest tire place so that I can go and get this handled? But if you sort of proactively, I might think about what it might look like to do mobile tire inspections, in a way. If I were thinking about it, to maybe go to an office tower, or go to a shopping mall or a grocery store. A grocery store probably would be a good one, because there's lots of cars in the parking lot are turning over all the time.

But to go through and have somebody like in your Flagg 'Em Down polo shirt with the name tag and what not, going up and down the aisle doing visual tire inspections, and having a flyer, or a sticker, or a post card, or pamphlet, or something to leave in the driver side window or on the windshield of the cars. Like leaving a note on the cars that have really damaged tires, you know? And that might be something that I think about as something that a teenager could do? That you've trained them to look for low tire tread.

Mark: Wow, yes.

Dean: I wonder what percentage, and you think about it. What would it be? And I'm talking about like a minimum wage position kind of thing for a teenager, or somebody who might be working at McDonald's kind of thing to come and just visually inspect the tires. Just walk up and down the parking lot, and if they see tires that are low like that, to leave it there.

Mark: Wow, amazing.

Dean: Another thing that I might look at is doing something that is going to get you in a favorable light. Like, are there gas stations around where you are?

Mark: Yes.

Dean: Yeah? And are they all self-serve? Here in Florida, there's very ... I can't even think of one in Winterhaven that does full-service gas. Do you have those, or is it...?

Mark: No, I would say all of them in my area is you got to pump your gas yourself, Dean.

Dean: Okay. And so I wonder if there might be in this same vein as I'm thinking about creating. Remember I would look at the before unit as separate business from your ... a separate unit of your business, right. Like you're sitting there at the shop, that's where the during unit starts. Soon as people roll in, you're there ready to help them with their tires, and the before unit is what are we doing to find those people? So what are doing? And that's going outside of the box there, but what if you did these minimum wage kid again, who is ... If you maybe arranged with one of the local gas places, to allow them to offer full-serve gas pumping and do a tire inspection. You know, the real purpose of course, is to do the visual tire inspection while people are getting their gas filled. That's what it used to be, that's the whole thing about the service station.

I used to run a painting company in college, and my friend Neil and I started another company named Name Droppers. And what we did was we had college girls go out in the evenings and on the weekends in the neighborhoods and do surveys of homeowners looking for people who were going to do any home improvement projects over the summer. So we were looking for if they were going to get a new roof, get a pool. Get siding, or windows, or deck, or driveway, or any of the number of things that could happen. And we would of course be looking for people who wanted to get painting as well, but we ended up making more money often on referring the leads that we would generate for other businesses in addition to finding the people who have a need for painting.

So we were generating our painting leads at a profit. If somebody was getting a pool, and we were getting a referral fee on the pool, we would end up making more money than we would if we had profit-wise done the painting at their house. And so I wonder if I take that kind of thinking and apply it to the tire business, or even the service business, if your kind of offering something that people are going to be surprised and delighted to receive, meaning the full-service at the self-service gas station.

And in addition to that, while they're filling the tank and doing the windows, and checking the car. Doing the visual inspection for the car in a way, just the exterior stuff, and seeing do they need tires? Maybe in addition to that looking, do they have a chip in the windows? Is the paint bad, is it rusting? What would be some of the other things that maybe some of your other unrelated auto service colleagues would be interested in finding?

Mark: Okay. That sounds good, Dean, I like that. Sounds real good.

Dean: Then they do that, and hand somebody ... it's an interesting thing if you put together. Like, you're trying to make that you're the call they get. You're the call when it's time, right? And so if you're doing that kind of thing on a busy Saturday morning, or some time or even in the mornings or in the evenings having somebody out there with a full-service complements of Flagg 'Em Down Tire, that would be a cool thing. Plus the kid would probably be getting tips for doing it. And if they recognize that the person needs tire service, that could be a good way to introduce them to you.

Mark: Wow, I love it. I love it.

Dean: Just pointing it out to them. If somebody had pointed out to me, "Your right driver side tire there is really low."

Mark: Right, exactly.

Dean: And especially if you are doing it, it would be really neat if you were doing it at the gas stations that are within eyesight of your place. If you're just down the street, or across the street, or around the corner, then they could just literally go right over there. That would be a really valuable, potentially problem solving, catastrophe avoiding thing for somebody, too.

Mark: Okay. Yep, that sounds good Dean. I like that. That's good. So like you said, offer a full service for pumping people's gas at a gas station that's close to my facility, and while we're pumping the gas we can have them do an inspection on the car. An inspection on the car, and we'll involve the tires, a visual inspection, seeing if there's rust in the paint or anything else that I can use to ...

Dean: Do you have colleagues or friends who own other types of car services?

Mark: Yes, I do.

Dean: And so when you think about that, that may be something where ... Let's say that you're going to pay $10 an hour. I don't know what the minimum wage is in New York, but if it's $10 an hour, let's say if there were five related businesses that are going to chip in and pay two dollars an hour each for someone to do this, where you're now getting it for free.

Mark: Oh, okay. With other businesses ... okay.

Dean: You know what I mean? Like if you just ask the things, then maybe everybody who gets the free gas gets a little coupon booklet or something that has offers from all six of you. Related to whatever the ... just thinking about out of the box ways to get in front of somebody right before they have the need.

Mark: Okay.

Dean: I wonder if you just did a random ... like it would be easier to execute the parking lot scan, just because if you take that as an example, going to the grocery store or the retail stores or the mall, or something very close to you. As the cars are coming in that they ... or as they're parked or whatever, but the guys walking up and down and looking at the tires, but what would the other things that you could discover visually? What other businesses would that make sense for as well?

Mark: Right.

Dean: Tires for sure, painting.

Mark: Collision shops, yeah, painting. Yeah, collision shops. People that replace windows too.

Dean: Yep.

Mark: Yeah, windows.

Dean: Yeah, dents, looking for dents.

Mark: Yeah, looking for dents. What else would be a visual inspection? Also, too, if people that has, 'cause in New York state you have to have an inspection every year. So if you see an inspection if it's a 2017 or 2018 and you see where they're going to need an inspection in a couple months, or the inspections already due, you can. 'Cause it tells you right here on the window.

Dean: That's a good one too. Yeah, that's a good one.

Mark: 'Cause you can look at the inspection, you can see that they need one or one's coming up real soon, and you can refer that to somebody that does inspections.

Dean: Do you do those inspections, or?

Mark: No, but I was thinking about it, but I was just trying to stick with what you said, Dean. Don't try to be everything all, just stick a niche market right now and concentrate on that.

Dean: Yeah, exactly. And what I'm sharing with you too, I'm just thinking, no matter what just even for the tires it makes, sense. Right? 'Cause it would be a valuable thing. I just wonder how many. Like, if you just do some raw math on it, I wonder what percentage of tires are at that point. If we were to walk in a parking lot and look at 100 cars, how many of them would have a tire issue right now?

Mark: Oh, yeah.

Dean: What would you guess?

Mark: I would guess at least anywhere between 25 and 35 percent.

Dean: Yeah, I bet you're probably right. And so you look at that, and I think that that might be a really good thing. You're getting in front of the right audience, and I love that it's kind of like a street level outreach kind of thing. So kind of a lower ticket thing in terms of what the value to you is, in terms of it's harder to compete with some of the biggest chains on outreach, like advertising wise.

Mark: Yeah, but what I've learned from you Dean, is that I think I can teach them something now from what I learned from you.

Dean: You say what, sorry?

Mark: I say I think I can teach them something now from what I learnt from you. Dead serious, man.

Dean: That's right.

Mark: Because what I've been doing, like you say the before unit, the during unit, and the after unit. I'm very good with social media too. What I've been doing, 'cause I don't have a lot of money, so what I do, I take your stuff that you taught me, and I might do like an Instagram story, I do a Facebook story. I put stories, I put a testimony in there. And then what I do, I tell stories, so my before unit is me educating them and showing them what I'm doing.

So also too, "Are you having car problems?" That would be, if I did a video on Facebook, I use little tools that I've got, and I would put at the beginning of that video, "Are you having car problems?" Before, I used to think about putting my logo up there and showing off all about me, but no it's not about me, it's about customers. So what I'm doing is I'm showing them the benefits, how can I help them, so they're seeing the visuals. But before the video comes out, the first thing it said is, "Are you having car problems? Call 585-232-6237," then the next video will be a video too, and will show me in the process of doing this.

I'll even show when I went out and got the tire out at the junkyard. So it's a whole visual, so it's almost like a carousel, but I'm doing it organically, and that's how I'm getting a lot of people and I'm using these like I said, so I don't have an email. What I'm doing is what you told me, but I'm using the different aspect, I'm using the social media aspect instead, and it's working.

So again, I will say too, "PS, if you know anybody that's having car problems, call me." So your, PS thing is working, and then also too in Facebook stories, when you go to Facebook stories, so by me having the testimonies up in there, when you go on Facebook stories you're able to see how many people ... You see the faces and the people that seen your story. So that's what I've done too; once I find out the people that seen the story, I'll go back then and DM them, and say, "Hello Dean, how are you doing? I hope all is well. If you know anybody that's having car problems, make sure you please give me a call."

Dean: I feel bad for you.

Mark: And guess what Dean?

Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative)?

Mark: When I did that, I seen this girl, right? She came, I said, 'cause I'm always asking, I said "How'd you hear about me?" She said, "This girl named Sylvia told me about you on Facebook," and I knew that the only way Sylvia knew, I knew that's when I asked her in that story. That is the only way she knew that.

Dean: That's so great.

Mark: And I said “What?” I said, "Whoa, wait til I tell Dean this."

Dean: Oh, that's awesome. You could have a whole Jay-Z thing in there, "If you're having car problems, I feel bad for you, son.”

Mark: "Son. I got 99 problems but my car ain't one."

Dean: "I got 99 problems but my tires ain't one."

Mark: You know, and Dean, listen man. Like with your storytelling, I'm killing it. Even now Instagram, they've got stories. I'm up in there, man. And the only thing I'm doing is educating, and I'm doing a lot of storytelling. Storytelling online.

If you go to my page, if you go to Flagg 'Em Down Auto, and go to my business page, go in there and look and see what I'm doing, you will see. But I'm doing everything that you told me, I'm just doing it on a social media level because I haven got into, like you said, the leads and stuff like that. The lead things that you were talking about what you did with the eyelashes, because like you said you don't have to do the landing pages no more, because you can go directly. Like you said you did with the girl, I forgot there was a story you told about that.

Dean: Yeah, with the gift card. $100 gift card.

Mark: There you go.

Dean: Well the interesting thing is then, you've really got the opportunity to maximize what's happening in your after unit. Because if you're that conscientious about keeping up with the social media and realizing that once you have a client, that you're going to keep them. That that relationship that you're really focused on the lifetime value of a new client. How many people do you have right now that would be that you have there, and you could do the whole thing on Facebook really, how many do you have that you can communicate with?

Mark: Man, all my Facebook business pages? Flagg 'Em Down Auto, that's what you mean?

Dean: Yes.

Mark: Yeah, it's 117 of them so far, and it's steady business, yeah.

Dean: That's great. And you start to look at this, and you start to think about how can we equip them to be your ears and eyes when they are in there every day? Because a lot of times nobody is building a personal relationship with their clients, like you sound like you could do. I don't have a personal relationship with a tire guy, that's not in the world there.

And so I think that if somebody really ... When you start this with someone, that the lifetime value of your relationship with them both in terms of them coming to get other services that you offer, and them telling their friends that you're a good guy, that that's where they should go if they have a problem. You just got to kind of presence it, you know.

Mark: But that's what's happening Dean. Listen, when I'm on Facebook man, they got a thing called "Recommendations". So a person can go on and say "I'm having a car issue, who should she call? Next thing you know my phone blowing up. "Mark Flagg, Flagg 'Em Down." People referring me, and these people did not already served on them. Like this morning, as soon as I get off the phone with you, I got about five, six jobs lined up, and I only got one guy. And it's all coming from people referring me, 'cause of the stuff that you taught me. This is all organically, I haven't even paid for a Facebook advertisement yet.

Dean: Oh, good.

Mark: This is all happening, so yeah, they're calling me. As soon as somebody is on Facebook and they need anything with their tires or their car, and it tags you, and it says, "Call Mark." And what I do, I go over there, and I jump "read" on it, and I go to them like, "What's going on," I hear the response, and then I take care of them.

Then what I do after that, then what I ask them to do, I get a testimony from them, and like I said I do that, but then, while my process ... Say somebody call me for a flat tire. I say, "Well, I'll go online," I say. "Well Brian just called, and said they're having a car problem, they're having a flat tire. I'm on my way over there."

And then I always say, I tell the whole story. I say it like this: A client of mine just called and said her elderly mother is having car problems. She had a flat tire and she's stuck. I'm going over there to help her out, 'cause I know she needs her car to go to her doctor's appointments, she goes to church on Sunday. So I tell all the stuff that she needs for this elderly lady, and I'm the hero to go over there to make sure that she’s...

Then at the end of all that, and I'm telling the truth, 'cause that's what happened, I'm just explaining it, and then at end of that, I'll say, "PS, if you know anybody that's having car problems, then give me a call." But then later on that day, they'll see a testimony from that same old lady, or they'll see the whole thing, 'cause I might have went live. I went live and I'm talking through the whole thing, so it's like I'm like a movie. They're seeing me just like how you was Dean, when you was in people houses, and you will go there, and you say, "Well, let me go turn on the television set," and there you was right there on TV.

Dean: Right, exactly.

Mark: Right.

Dean: Yeah, that's great. So, this could be really a great social media thing. You're really doing all the right moves, here, and it comes naturally to you. A lot of people don't think that way about really utilizing the tools that you do have.

Mark: Dean, you know what man, I was diagnosed with ADHD man, and ADD. God is just so good man, that's why I trust you. I've always struggled with learning, but I didn't know. But now I'm reading stuff like you said, I've got "Deep Works" in front of me right now, "Willpower Doesn't Work." "The Advertising Solution." I mean, all this stuff that you told me man, I've got all the stuff. "The Secrets to the Sale," all this stuff right in front. Even your boy James DeMarco, I got his joint. You know what I'm saying?

Dean: That's great. That's awesome, yeah.

Mark: I study you man, and you the first person. And that's just keeping it real man, you're real brah, and what you doing man, it's changing lives, man. I'm not just talking. I'm taking Flagg 'Em Down Entertainment. I started off with Flagg 'Em Down Entertainment, Flagg 'Em Down Auto and just like you said, with the guy who was blue fishing, that's his thing. Blue fishing. So Flagg 'Em Down Auto is me, Dean. And with the stuff that you taught me, I see it's working. And Flagg 'Em Down, I look at Flagg 'Em Down like I look at Sir Richard Branson, what he have, Virgin? I look at Flagg 'Em Down with anything that I touch, anything with that brand, is going through the grace of God and with people like you, it can happen. 'Cause I'm seeing it happen already on a low level like this, bro.

Dean: That's amazing, that's so great. Very exciting.

Mark: And also too, what I like too Dean, was now up in that Facebook TV, that Facebook Watch? I can see doing a reality show, 'cause basically that's what I'm doing right now. That's where I-

Dean: Did you ever see that show? There was a show in Miami called Miami Tow, or Miami Towing. It was a reality show on TV a little while ago. And you're right, anything can be fascinating. Anything.

You are acting like a superhero. That really you're protecting the community from everything that can go wrong tire wise. Nobody's proactively out there proactively trying to protect the community. Everybody's kind of sitting back waiting for them to come to you.

Have you ever done anything like monitoring keywords or hashtags on Twitter and Instagram?

Mark: Yeah, I got hashtags. Flagg 'Em Down, I got the Flagg 'Em Down hashtag, Dean.

Dean: What I'm thinking about is on Twitter for instance, being able to search for keywords of "flat tire." Or "tire," or whatever. I'm not really that involved on Twitter now, but it used to be that you could search in a zip code and look for every incidence of the word "tire" being used. And I wonder if that would be a thing that you could set up to monitor occasionally. It would be an advantage if there was a way that when somebody put in, "I got a flat tire," on Twitter, that you immediately sweep in, "I got you," and give them your phone number kind of thing.

Mark: I got you. Got you. Yep. Okay, so keywords on hashtag searching on twitter.

Dean: But it's interesting that that's what you want for ... Your after unit opportunity is really about programming people who the moment that anybody around them has a tire issue, they get excited about telling them to call you. And they're getting it from all angles.

You're so enthusiastic Mark, what would make it that the getting a flat tire is like a blessing, because now you get to experience Mark. You know, you get the Flagg 'Em Down flat tire experience, lucky for you.

Mark: Man, that's what's happening. 'Cause like you say, and the automotive service business and all that stuff like that and tire, you got a lot of snakes out there, and they're beating people, and if you can get somebody that you know, like, and trust you, especially in that world. And then all these people that I've already searched, so like you said ROR, return on your relationship, you get to that in your corner, I got it man. But it's thanks to you. I didn't have a lot of money to spend, but I use these principles that you taught me, and I put them in the social media world and I'm killing it. You ever heard of Quick, Dean?

Dean: Of ... no. Tell me about that.

Mark: Quick, it's an app, and you can go on there and you can put like ... I go in there and I'm recording like I'm on a service call with a tire, when I might have to go out to junkyard and grab the tire. So I get all the video together, and then I can put them into this app, and it makes it into like a freaking movie, with the sound. I mean, it's like, oh my goodness.

But then also, I remember what you said about when you watched the show about they make helmets, you told me you sit down and you watch, and you said "You watch this show, and it'll tell you all the process of how to make a helmet or whatever, gumball-"

Dean: "How It's Made", yeah, "How It's Made".

Mark: So listen. So I've been using that. So I might go through the whole process with the tire, so I'm showing where I went and got it at, and I'm showing how we take it off. It's the whole thing, but in this app I can write all this stuff in there like I said, "Are you having car problems? Are you having tire problems?" That'll be at the beginning of the movie. Then they'll show the whole process of me taking that whole tire off from the beginning to the end, boom. "PS, if you know somebody that's having tire problems, call ...” you know.

Dean: Yeah, this is great. Flagg you down, Flagg 'Em Down.

Mark: Flagg 'Em Down, baby.

Dean: I just think that's so awesome, you know. There's something about this that really what you're delivering is you're making what could be a bad news experience into good news. Into a blessing kind of thing.

You've heard of Zappos, the shoe company. So Tony Shea, I know Tony, and he's got a book called "Delivering Happiness". And it's a pretty good thing, because they're really about the experience of interacting. They're in the business of delivering happiness, but they've just chosen the shoe business to accommodate that. And that's an interesting thing, you've just got such a great spirit and a great enthusiasm. And you know, you want to build relationships with people, when you start to think about you've just chosen this auto category as a way to surround yourself with amazing people, starting with 117 of them right now that you're just hanging on and building that relationship with them.

Encouraging, I mean it's great. And I think with that proactive approach, like if you think about this, not just waiting for people to come in, but then go out and actively seek them out, I think those kind of mobile tire inspections would be a good thing to get.

Talk about selecting your single target market. You can target the market of people who are clearly moments away from needing new tires, you know.

Mark: Right, absolutely. And also Dean, I'm getting a lot of young women between the ages of I would say like, 20 and 35. I'd say 20, to like, 32, or 35 if you just want to ... Nice women, working. Yeah, so get a lot of those.

Dean: So here's the thing is that you know that at some point in the next 12 to 24 months for certain, 18 months let's say. You know that almost every single person is going to have some tire issue. Something that needs to be done in the next 12 to 18 months, right? Everybody. And so it's about building that relationship first, so that you're the one when it happens.

Mark: And Dean also, if I did a score card, and I know this for a fact: you know I love the way you send me your emails. When I see an email from you it's like boom; I'm stopping what I'm doing and I'm reading it. Like with my pastor unit too, I need a system. I think you got GoGoClients, or something like that, where I can...

Dean: Yeah.

Mark: I need something because I got the people, I got to find a way to communicate with them. What's that called?

Dean: That's the thing that is going to be the foundation of everything. When you look at what GoGoClients does, it's a FCRM that you can deepen the relationship with the people. If you've got their email address, their contact information, you can flag them with what they've had done. You keep notes on everybody.

Mark: Right, exactly.

Dean: You keep track of their referrals within there. It's got a referral tree generator to show you who have referred who, and their lifetime value. You've got the landing pages, and the texting. Imagine that if I were thinking about this mobile tire inspection idea, that if I were thinking about how that would go, I want to replicate the experience of "I just happen to be a tire expert, or a tire service provider, and I happen to be walking by your car, and I noticed that your tires need attention, or your tire's really low, and if I just hand wrote a note for you, and put that on the windshield, almost like if I banged into your car."

If I was leaving a note like that, say "Listen, I was just walking by your car, I noticed that your left tire is really low or the tread is really low, and you may need to get that fixed. I'm happy to help you with that." And put your name, and it's on your Flagg 'Em Down note paper.

Mark: Okay, okay. Okay.

Dean: That would be, I think that would be a really high value. I wonder what that would be. I wonder what would happen if you put 100 of those on somebody's car, that if you had picked 100 people that have a tire issue, and you put a note like that on their windshield, or on the driver's side windshield. Like folded it, and kind of slid it right there by the door handle, so when they get in they're going to see it. I wonder how many calls you would get from 100 of those. That would be a really cool experiment to do.

Mark: Well I'm going to do it before the weekends out, I tell you that much. So I'll let you know, 'cause I'm definitely going to do it. And what I should do is like you said, huh?

Dean: Let's write the message. Let's wordsmith the message right now. What would we say? What I'm envisioning is a note pad. Do you have Flagg 'Em Down note pads?

Mark: no, I don’t have anything. Nope, I don't.

Dean: Do you have a Flagg 'Em Down, do you have a logo, or letterhead?

Mark: Yeah, I got a logo, yep, I sure do.

Dean: Okay, so what I would look at is taking that logo and doing up what a notepad would be like a four up on an eight and a half by 11.

Mark: On an eight and a half by 11.

Dean: Is a regular piece of paper.

Mark: Okay.

Dean: And I think you just need something that's the size of a quarter of that, right? So you could do four of these on one page.

Mark: Oh, okay. Four of these on...

Dean: So they've got ... yeah, they're oriented so that they're taller than wider, and you've got your Flagg 'Em Down logo at the top of the page, with your phone number and your stuff. Or maybe, I might even put that on the bottom, actually, instead.

Mark: Okay, put the logo on the bottom.

Dean: Yeah, put the logo on the bottom 'cause I'll tell you why, along with your phone number.

Mark: Okay, logo, bottom.

Dean: Yeah. And then on the note itself, I would say, what would you say? Do you have good handwriting?

Mark: Yeah. No, not really. It's okay.

Dean: But you can print readably, nicely, right, yeah?

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: Okay. So I would say "I was walking by-"

Mark: "I was walking by ..."

Dean: "... your car-"

Mark: "... your car-"

Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative). "... and noticed-"

Mark: "... and noticed-"

Dean: "... and noticed your-" and I would put that-

Mark: Hold on. I'm listening.

Dean: Would you say that a ... 'cause I want to be specific on this. Would you say that typically people have more of an issue with front tires, or rear tires?

Mark: Front.

Dean: Okay. So I would look at that and say, because now it seems more specific, right? "And noticed your front tire-"

Mark: Hold on. Okay, "I was walking by your car and noticed your front-"

Dean: "... front tire-"

Mark: "... tires-"

Dean: "... tread." Uh-huh (affirmative), your front tire ..." I think I would just even say one, right? Like how it would be that you're ... 'cause then they're going to look at both. They're going to draw attention to the tire.

Mark: Okay. So, "I was walking by your car and noticed your front tire tread ..."

Dean: "... your front tire tread is really low."

Mark: "... is really low."

Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative). "I'd be happy to help you with that."

Mark: "I'll be happy to help you with that." Okay.

Dean: And I would go maybe dot dot dot, "We're ...” I mean, I was going to say if I was doing it real. But let's use it something. I was going to say, "We're right down the street," or "Right across the street," or, you know what I mean. But I think this opens up for you to do it, and then just sign it "Mark," and then-

Mark: "Mark."

Dean: And then point with an arrow to your phone number.

Mark: Okay, point with an arrow to my phone number. Phone ... number.

Dean: And that was it. Yep. Just like you would write that by hand, right? "I was walking by your car and noticed your front tire tread is really low. I'd be happy to help you with that. Mark." So print up the letterhead with this handwritten note already on it, duplicate that four times.

Mark: Okay.

Dean: I love these guerrilla marketing strategies.

Mark: I love it too. Thank you, man.

Dean: This is something that you can do that is like just straight guerrilla, you know.

Mark: That's what I like. I like the grind, Dean. I love it.

Dean: I love it. And that's the thing, where you should hire-

Mark: The only person, man. Huh? I'm listening.

Dean: This is the kind of thing, where I know that as soon as we hang up you're going to be out doing these.

Mark: Oh for sure, you already know. You better believe it.

Dean: This is the kind of thing of thinking through that you could have somebody be your tire patrol. You know, the tire squad. That if you've got people, who are out looking, and you're empowering them, and it's Mark, or you put whatever their name is on the thing, so they start calling, "Is Todd there? Is Jason there?” or whatever. And you know who has been the procurer of it, and you pay them an affiliate fee, or a commission or something, you know. That now you got an army of people out looking for the most run down tires within five miles.

Mark: So Dean, I'm going to give them my regular number, right? So I wouldn't give them a number off my system, like GoGoClient or something like that where they do call-

Dean: No, so you can do that where you can have the number on there be your GoGo. Included in GoGoClients is a phone number. There's no per-minute charges. They can text or dial, and you can set up a recorded message-

Mark: Like your pre-recorded message you were telling me about, right?

Dean: Yes, that's exactly right.

Mark: Okay.

Dean: So when they call, now it's tracking that you know who's called.

Mark: Right. Right. That's amazing. Okay, so let's run it back Dean. "I was walking by your car, and noticed your front tire tread is really low. I'll be happy to help with that." Sign Mark with arrow pointing to the phone number.

Dean: Yep, that's exactly right. And now where I was going-

Mark: A call to action. Huh? Should we say "call", or just phone number, not "Give me a call,"-?

Dean: I think this is really stealth. There's the thing that you're the Good Samaritan here, right? So we can test different ones, but I-

Mark: No, no. I got you.

Dean: I want to experiment with this with you that what I might do with this, is I would do half that say "front tire tread," and half that say "rear tire tread."

Mark: Okay, now hold on. "Half front tire and half back tire." Okay.

Dean: Yeah, and that way when you've got one that's back you put the back note, when it's the front, you put the front note, and it's not just "I saw your tire was really low," you know.

Mark: Now hold on, I'm confused. Now you said the back note? What you mean by that, the back note?

Dean: So you're walking by the car, and you look and you notice that it's not the front tire treat that's really low, but it's the rear. You wouldn't put that front tire message if it was the rear tires.

Mark: Oh, okay. So I'm going to get two things printed up. Okay, so the front and for the back. I got you.

Dean: Yes, exactly. So you can do it on the same page, right. 'Cause you're going to do four of these on one.

Mark: Right. And then I can just clip them off, just clip them and make them separate right, like four different ones?

Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right.

Mark: Wow, man. Thanks Dean, man. I'm going to implement this ASAP.

Dean: That's great. Let me know what happens, because let's keep. We'll report, I want to see. This is like a really stealth guerrilla tactic-

Mark: Sure, that's what I like, man.

Dean: Put a hundred of them out, see what happens. How much response you get from a hundred? And these are a hundred people that actually have low tires, you know.

Mark: That's right. That's right. Believe me, I'm going to do it ASAP man. ASAP, Dean. Yep, ASAP. And I'm just so thankful for you man, like I say. You know what? My ultimate goal is like you say, you call it syndication. Now that you've opened my eyes Dean ... like yesterday, I was at a couple spots, and I looked at the advertising. I be like, "They have no idea, man." You know what I'm saying?

And I went to a shop yesterday, I'm saying to myself, “Man, I've been coming here, and this guy here, and he thought his bin is way bigger than mine, and I'm in a doggone garage, behind the house behind the house," and I got people in that neighborhood, to be honest with you, they thought I was doing something illegal. I said, "No man." I'm telling you, that's what they said, “What you doing back there?” I said, "Man, I'm fixing all these cars come back here." And they like, "Man what are you doing back there?” They thought I was doing, and I said, "I'm not doing anything illegal”. Then they saw what was like, "Oh my God, that business coming like that?” They said the last guy that was there, they hardly got anybody."

Dean: I love it. Man, you're a star.

Mark: You know? What you say Dean?

Dean: I said you're a star.

Mark: Oh, no. You a star. I thank God for introducing me to Dean Jackson, brother. You know what I'm saying? Because Dean, you got a natural born hustler mentality about you, and then like I said, you went old school with the OGs man. When you introduce me to them OG's man, your man Carl Hopkins, man. I never heard any doggone Carl Hopkins and Danny Oglevie, and Gary Halbert. When I went to Reno, didn't you tell me about, what's the other dudes name, with the beard, what's his name?

Dean: Oh Dan Kennedy, yeah.

Mark: Dan Kennedy, and all those cats man. Gary Abraham, I didn't know that, but when I first talked to you, and I'm telling you, the way my brain works. It's like, no. I'm looking at this stuff is like, "Man, okay." I'm seeing the hustle, I'm like, "Oh, okay." Then we try it, and when I tried it, I was like, "Damn." But it was all from you, all credit. I can't wait, as long as I can help you out with Tuesday, you let me know.

Dean: Let me know. This is what we'll do, everybody will report back with a field report for everybody with what happens when you put out a hundred notes like this. I think this is going to be exciting.

Mark: I'll be doing that tomorrow. Believe me.

Dean: Let me know.

Mark: Okay, I will. I promise. Dean, I look forward to coming to like a group or something that you got. I want to come. I'm just trying to get my bread up. Once I got my bread up we'll come through, I'm telling you.

Dean: I love it.

Mark: All right.

Dean: Okay, man. Thanks Mark.

Mark: Thank you Dean, I appreciate you, man. God bless you man.

Dean: Thank you. Bye.

Mark: Bye-bye.

Dean: And there we have it. That was one of my favorite episodes ever. That conversation and just with a truly enthusiastic lover of marketing, I think Mark is going to really go places, and so I can't wait to see what happens. I love that there's always, always a way to think from the really grass roots way of how do you impact one person?

You know, we didn't talk about the Damon John's book, "The Power of Broke," but a lot of these strategies we're talking about would totally fit with that. Joe Polish and I did an "I Love Marketing" episode with Damon that would be a good thing for you to listen to, and I think that you will see a lot of the parallels here in what we were talking about with Mark. But all we're looking for is a really simple, easy to duplicate method that will get in front of people who are going to need your service. If you have a service that is inevitable, that there's going to come a time where they have to work with you, you may as well start building a relationship with them now, or dig your well before you're thirsty, as they say.

So I can't wait to see what ends up happening. I think that the long term story of watching Mark's journey is going to be a fun one to follow along. So there we have it. We talked about GoGoClients as a tool for him to execute all these things, and you can check out GoGoClients at GoGoClients.com. It's got all of the tools that you need to do any of the stealth marketing things we talk about. Landing pages, auto responders, email broadcasts, texting, pre-recorded messages. All wrapped around a really great CRM to keep your clients all organized. So that would be a great place for you. Check it out, and that's it for this week, and I will look forward to next time. Bye-bye.