Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Paul Baeppler from Cleveland, where he's a police officer and private investigator.
Have you ever wondered if someone was spying on you, or thought there was a hidden camera watching you, and listening to your conversations? Well, apparently, that's big business, and Paul has a way to help people in that situation.
He does it all the time in person, helping businesses and individuals who are concerned about being surveilled, but now he has a system that can help individuals anywhere, not just locally in Cleveland.
We talked about the psychology of how do you get into the conversation that's going on in the mind of the person who is suspicious or suspects they are being followed, tracked, or spied on in some way?
So we walked through a really great breakdown of how to apply the 'Before Unit' profit activators to this challenge, starting with who's our target audience, what's the thing that's going to get them to raise their hand, and how can we start the conversation?
This conversation was a lot of fun, and I think we hatched a really actionable, practical plan that, if you listened to the ideas behind it, will apply to whatever you're doing as well.
Show Links:
ProfitActivatorScore.com
BreakthroughDNA.com
EmailMastery.com
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 173
Dean: Paul.
Paul: Hi, how are you Dean?
Dean: I am so good. How are you?
Paul: Good, I appreciate the invitation.
Dean: I'm excited to talk to you. How do I say your last name?
Paul: Just like the A is not there, the A is silent, so Baeppler.
Dean: Baeppler, okay, great. Well, Paul, so where are you calling from?
Paul: Cleveland.
Dean: Cleveland-
Paul: Cleveland, Ohio.
Dean: Ohio, okay, perfect. Well, I'm excited. Got the whole hour. We can talk about anything we want. I'd love to hear the Paul with the silent A story and what you think we could focus on.
Paul: Okay, so I've been a policeman for 27 years. I've had this PI business for over 15 years. The other thing that I'm sort of just now getting into is like the spy gear business, so hidden microphones-
Dean: Oh, I love that.
Paul: … and cameras and bug detectors. I'm sort of backing into that. I went and I picked up a domain name called the pitools.com and still figuring out how I'm going to go with it. I did put together a little … What I want to focus on first is just trying to sell these bug detectors. If I can tell you how I backed into that, with my PI business, we've been doing high-end bug sweeps for probably about eight years. I sent one of my employees to a two week training course out of town and invested about $60,000 in gear to do it. We started doing these bug sweeps. Now, we don't do as many as I'd like to obviously, but -
Dean: Is that a common thing? You're talking about … I'm fascinated to hear all about this because I'm not that familiar with this world. Is that a common thing? I mean you see it on TV all the time. We got sweep for bugs and stuff like that but is that a common thing? Is that something that …
Paul: Yeah, it's becoming more and more common. Well, just to tell you when I first got into this business in order for me to buy a covert camera, like one that looks like a button on your shirt or something with a pinhole camera, it was hard for me to find it. I had to go to our intelligence unit on the police department and get an introduction to someone that sold these things because this guy didn't sell them to people, in the public. You had to go to a store to get it. Now, fast forward 20 years later, anybody can get.
Dean: Yes.
Paul: Okay, I didn't know if that was on my end or your end. Anyway, fast forward to today and anybody can get online and have a decent hidden camera, buy one off the internet, anyone with a credit card and have it here tomorrow. They're so much easier to use on top of it. I hate to use a big 50 cent word like proliferation, but that's what's happened because they're still available and they become so affordable and they're so much easier to use - in the past.
We go out there. We do find them. Well, we sell them. We get hired for years. We've been getting hired to put them in places. We use them in our business when we're out doing surveillance on different cases.
Dean: Yeah. Well, I'm looking at these … I just did a quick Amazon search while we're talking. I can get one tomorrow for $29 for a spy camera. Another little one, yeah $30 is one with the picture frame. Yeah, it's totally available. You're right, it feels like in the past, it used to be this kind of underworld that would have to find out about all this stuff.
Paul: Right, so they're out there. Anybody can get their hands on one. You don't even have to be any kind of a technical geek to know how to work it or anything like that. They're out there. Anyway, so when I started, we do our bug sweeps, but we don't do as many of them as I would like to. I was listening to a podcast, where there was a guy that had a spy shop on there and he was talking about his business model. My first thoughts were, “I would love to have the list of all the people that he sells these bug detectors to because 95% of those people aren't going to find anything with that camera, but they're still going to think that there's something out there.” I would to like to have the list, so that I could market for those people.
When we do a bug sweep for a client, it's usually a higher end type of thing. The price point on that is going to be between $3,000 and $10,000, depending on the size of what's being searched and if we're going to also search their cars for GPS trackers and things like that. As I started thinking about that and I actually ran into a couple dead ends, about getting the list, I thought, “Well, I wonder if I could put something like this together myself?” I actually put together a Shopify page and put it together and came up with an idea for a lead magnet. Then, I thought, “Well, all right, well how can I … Using your principles, what can I give them or show them?” Well, the fact is 90% of any hidden bugs can actually be found with a physical search, as long as you know-
Dean: Oh-oh.
Paul: … what you're looking for, if you know what they look and you know where people might be hiding them. If you have a systematic way about looking for them, you're going to find 90% of them without any kind of a bug detector or any kind of expensive bug sweep service.
Dean: You're mostly now talking about hidden video cameras, right? Not just like-
Paul: Right, cameras and listening devices, both of them.
Dean: Okay, right, yeah. Feels like now everything's so small that the ... Yeah, what used to just be listening devices, probably more video now too, okay, all right.
Paul: Right, it's both. I put together probably like a 25 page guide o what a hidden camera or a microphone might look like, where one might be concealed, what they look like, where you might find them. Then, sort of a systematic way, the way that my guy that does our bug sweeps that he was trained to do a physical search that's how he was trained when he went away to do a physical search in a systematic way. We sort of put that together and put it. I thought, “Well, this could be like a good, what do you call it, a trip wire that maybe I could sell for $5 to $7 to fund Google Ads or Facebook advertising, whatever.”
Anyways, I put that together. Then, as usual, life got in the away. I have a hundred different excuses why I didn't put it all together and get it out there, mostly because I have ClickFunnels and I've been paying for it for years and I have your service, which I do use GoGoClients, but I just didn't get it together. More recently, I got together with the people at Get Leverage, are you familiar, Ari Meisel?
Dean: Yep, Nick Sonnenberg now is running it.
Paul: Right. I thought, “I just got to get this done.” We're in the process right now. They're hooking up ClickFunnels or whatever other mechanisms to try to get it out there. That's where I'm at with that. I still have the PI business, which I have a few employees to do most of the … I have a girl that runs the business for the most part and handles the phone. I'm so pleased-
Dean: How big a radius is your PI business? I mean is it mostly within Cleveland?
Paul: For the most part, it's in Northeast Ohio, but a few years ago, I had a client that sent me to New York City for a case that was going on and on. It took me a while before I discovered you had to be licensed in New York State to work there. We got licensed there. We opened up an office in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. We do a little bit of business there, but not as much as I'd like to. When I retire, I'd like to expand on that a little bit more, but probably, most of our business is right here in Ohio, probably 80% of it's right here in Northeast Ohio, Cleveland, Akron. We're right between … I mean halfway between where Dan Kennedy lives and where Dan Sullivan grew up.
Dean: Okay. When you look at all the people, who are hiring you for these sweeps, what's the profile of that person? Primarily what are the top two or three reasons that you're being hired to come out and do a sweep that it's worth 3,000 to $10,000 for them?
Paul: Right. Well, a lot of them are business people that are suspicious that there's-
Dean: Espionage.
Paul: They're hearing things that … Yeah, there could be like someone that's concerned that union people have got … They're knowing things that they shouldn't know and they don't know how they're knowing and they've narrowed it down to conversations that took place in a conference room or something like that. That's a good deal of them. We have a few attorneys that hire us to do it on a regular basis, just so that they can have the peace of mind and they can tell their clients who are nervous about bugs that “Well, this conference room is safe and - regularly swept.” Probably most of it is people that are … It's someone going through a divorce that, some kind of a strife that and they believe that the other person is knowing things. They're saying things back to them or they're hearing things that they're just thinking that there's no way that they could have known it, unless they're-
Dean: Known that.
Paul: Yeah, known that. Then, it's like they have two or three instances like that where things are coming up that are being said like that. That's probably the most common, marital or ex-boyfriend or …
Dean: Yes. Yeah, I got it. I mean in some cases, so it must be like financially … There must be some financial implication for them if it's worth the $3,000 to $10,000 to do it.
Paul: Yeah, on the business side-
Dean: The way I'm … Exactly, okay. This product that you're talking about, you're looking to show people how to detect the stuff at home, like are you looking for this to be something outside of Cleveland, like a national type of thing or what's your hope for that?
Paul: Yeah, we actually have … I've sent my guy out of town a number of times to do bug sweeps, to do real bug sweep. I think that there's enough of a market even for these, lower-end bug detectors, like you were saying that there's one time Amazon that you can buy for … I've seen those for 30-
Dean: Cameras, the camera, yes. I just typed into Amazon, hidden camera.
Paul: the detectors, you can get them on there for even as low as $50 to $100 that they call them bug detectors. Now, they're not that reliable, the ones that you're going to get on there. For $200, you can get one that's … I can demonstrate it. I was going to put together a little bit of a video to show the difference between the ones that you get on … Because 90% of the ones I see on Amazon - they're all the same thing, they're just relabeled. They all look exactly the same, but for just a little bit more money, you can get one that's going to be a little bit more reliable.
Dean: Oh, I see that.
Look at this, bug detector. I wonder, this is going to be amazing, what starts showing up in my newsfeed and my recommendations now after searching-
Paul: Exactly.
Dean: … cameras and bug detectors on Amazon. We'll see how far reaching that is, very funny.
Paul: Right, so anyway that's where I'm at with it. I'm going to do some … Want to drive some traffic there either with Facebook and/or Google Ads.
Dean: How much is product that you have?
Paul: 150 is that one … Well, it's 200, but the ones that I sell are a little bit higher quality. The person that sells them that I get them from that I'm drop shipping them from, we're not allowed to sell them for less than 149.95 or something like that. - anyone that's … There’s a few other people that are selling the ones just very successfully selling the exact same ones that I'm going to be selling. My thinking is is that, by first selling them, what do you call it, the trip wire that guide on where to look and how to look and all that that I can then get my foot in the door and do some follow-up marketing with them. I should keep coming at them. As you say, most people don't buy it right then are going to buy it later on.
Dean: Yeah, right. Have you done any research on the keyword volume and stuff like that? How many people are searching these terms?
Paul: No. The people over Leverage are helping me with that with the market research.
Dean: Okay, all right. You have-
Paul: I probably should've done that beforehand, but …
Dean: No, that's okay, but are you doing anything right now lead generation wise to find people who are looking for this?
Paul: No. This is all brand new for me. The only thing that I do as far as follow up marketing is for the PI business, for integrity investigations for that. My main business is using GoGoClients, we have a web form on a page that says, “We put out a price list of how much it costs, what the costs are,” because if you do actually go out there and look for any kind of price, no PIs put that on their website.
Dean: Exactly. I say that to people. It's one of the best things you can … That people are most willing to trade their information for. We found that out like on with several different gyms or workout studios, where we test on the home page, a PDF offer for fat burning or weight loss or muscle gain or anything like that. The thing that out performs it is the membership pricing program.
Paul: Wow.
Dean: That's the thing that gets the most response. People are very interested in the price of things. I think the important thing about it is that sets the context for how they look into something, whether it's out of the realm of possibility for them, then they don't need to go any further and be convinced they've already eliminated themselves or they say, “Oh, that's okay, that's affordable. Now, what do I get here?” Now, you can start investigating these things.
Paul: Exactly.
Dean: Here's how I would start thinking about it then is is there any other sort of things that you could do remotely to help somebody in a situation, where the things that they hire you to do while you're in Cleveland here, like coming to do the physical sweeps and things like that, is there anything that you could offer in addition to just the product that would help somebody remotely? Like could you consult me in Florida here about, in addition to the equipment and you consulting me or coaching me on how to do this that would be useful?
Paul: Well, yeah. Well, the only way that I've come up with is this guide on how to do a physical search, since 90% of them are done, can be found with a physical search. That goes into what you're looking for, what it looks and where it would be hidden. That's been the only thing that - checklist.
Dean: Have you got videos demonstrating these or showing?
Paul: No, I have not. I started off planning to do a video and then, I thought, “Let's just do the guide first, -
Dean: Yeah, right, I got you.
Paul: … then, I'll do that.” Yeah, I haven't gotten that far, but -.
Dean: I'm just trying to see where … Like what I was looking for was how we could bundle some other things because what you're dealing with-
Paul: Yeah that’s a great idea.
Dean: Yeah, what you're looking with is you have invisible prospects, right? You can't buy a list of people, who are suspicious that their environment is being bugged. There's no list of that. That's something that's going on in somebody's mind. You can narrow down some particular circumstances that that might be going on. On the high end, if you think about business environments, would you say that it's more business or more personal?
Paul: Personal. It's more-
Dean: More personal.
Paul: … more personal, yeah.
Dean: Okay, so if you're thinking about someone who would be interested in this, you've almost got two sides of the whole equation, right? You've got someone who is suspicious that someone is spying on them, whether it's a spouse or whatever. That kind of suspicion is going to drive them at some point to do some kind of searching or it's on in their mind, right? We need to get in front of that person and have what's the conversation going on in their mind. Now, when you look at it, part of the way to get in front of people like that are two ways. When you've got invisible prospects, you can choose Facebook Ads. I don't know whether there would be any restrictions or any kind of guidelines on Facebook about this particular type of topic, whether you could do things that would be the genesis thought that somebody has about what's going on. If you were - people how to tell if someone is spying on you, for instance or how to tell if there's a hidden camera in your home or car or how to tell if someone's tracking your car or … There's a lot of those kinds of things that would be in that family of being tracked, right, like on their phone, which probably the most common thing that people would be concerned about or suspicious of that somebody has put some kind of tracking thing on their phone.
That would be kind of the next level up of somebody bugging their physical environment?
Paul: Correct.
Dean: In terms of putting things, so you want to sort of get somebody who's in that world and that's why I'm more a fan of using a free lead generator than a tripwire generator. I'm always looking, especially when you're trying to identify hidden people. Tripwire things are usually I would use something like that if it's going to an already high volume list that you already have their name and their email address as opposed to running ads to find somebody and then, the offer being the trip wire.
Paul: That makes good sense.
Dean: I would rather have the free information that gets them to raise their hand. Now, if you had this thing … You had a book or a report or a guide, something that was how to tell kind of thing, not as in depth, but just that would open up the door to the next steps of that where it's here's this guide on how to and this tool on how to actually sweep your environment that somebody could buy, going from the first thing being just to raise their hand.
Paul: Yeah, I think you could be right on that.
Dean: Because it's valuable, right that you've got this, because now you know that over time that suspicion is either going to percolate or it's going to come to a boil or it's going to dissipate, right? That suspicion that they have at that moment that it's enough that they're drawn to it, they suspect that somebody might be following them, they may not even know that it's possible to detect or that it's possible to … Or that it's as big a thing or how easy it is for people to do it, right? They may be unaware of what and this may amplify their suspicion or their fear or their desire to do something about it. Then, we're at the ready with the, “Whenever you're ready, here's three ways I can help you.” I think that when you look at it that the polarity that we're looking for is that their life and their whereabouts and their privacy is an open book.
Then, on the other end that’s on lockdown that they're a completely on lock and nobody can know anything about them that they don't want them to know kind of thing, you know?
Paul: Right, for sure.
Dean: That would be where people want to go. That would be what they're hoping. Then, if you showed up people all the vulnerabilities that they have or if you kind of demonstrate, you've got the perfect pedigree. I mean you're long time police officer, long time private investigator, hundreds of instances, where you've done these things, you're an expert. You've got inside information and just personal anecdotes, case studies of things that are going to be fascinating to people, you know?
Paul: Yeah. I would agree. That’s true.
Dean: If we just take the, because you're in the early stages here, the before unit profit activators. We got to select a single target market. We got to compel your prospects to raise their hand. We've got to educate and motivate them and we need to make an easy to get started offer. Those four things, when we select the one, like let's say on the personal side is it … I mean you've got the opportunity to divide them to be specific men and women, rather than just somebody. This is part of the thing about some of the creative that you'd be able to do. I think that certainly if you took a … Especially in Cleveland, there's some wisdom in starting there simply because you'd have a way to escalate it to … You could do something for them physically right there. It's a good kind of lead into your main business.
Paul: That's, yeah, which was the whole idea of it because the truth of it is is most people that think that it's going on are never going to be satisfied unless we do find something. They're going to do that physical search. Then, they're not going to be satisfied. My thinking was, so I'm a bug detector, even if I to only make-
Dean: That’s exactly right.
Paul: … $50 on it, but now I still have the list, I can follow up. Even those people, most of them aren't going to be satisfied unless they find something, which most of them aren't. Then, I can still follow up with them with a big product.
Dean: Yes. Then, it almost be [inaudible 00:30:56] a suite of … If you're introducing somebody to that world that's the gateway into it, that there's other services or other products that people might be interested in. They may want to turn the tables themselves or to protect, so you could have a hidden camera in your environment to see-
Paul: No, we've done that.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Once somebody gets down that road, it's like you got a passion, engaged audience because it's … Imagine that like you said, they're going to scratch that itch until they're satisfied, just because they didn't find one that feeling is not going to go away with, “Oh, I guess there's nothing.” They're going to want to not leave any stone unturned, right?
Paul: Right, I mean it's super gratifying part of the business to help someone, to give people that confidence or that certainty that that's not going on, but it's even better, believe it or not to then show them how they don't have to be the victim here. They can turn the tables just as you said. It's great to watch people turn that corner and feel that instead of being victimized, it's almost like the shoe’s on the other foot at that point.
Dean: Yes -.
Paul: Yeah, those are great ideas. I can't tell you how much … A couple of years ago, I bought the nine word email, I can't remember how you called that program, the audio program, but-
Dean: Email Mastery, yeah.
Paul: It's hard … Right, yeah, Email Mastery and put the nine word emails, the only thing I really got out of it. As far as the PI business, when they fill out that web form for the price list, so we give them the price list. Then, a few days later, we send them a confidentiality agreement, if they're going to hire any PI, they might want to consider getting this filled out. Then, two days later, we'll send them some checklists on what to look for on a PI’s website or what to say to them, what questions to ask the PI to make sure that they're not a charlatan or anything. Then, three weeks later, were you still interested in hiring a PI? It's amazing how much - is generated.
Dean: That's awesome. Do you use our super signature in the email?
Paul: No, I don't. I don't have any - not doing it. I listened to that audio, but I really honestly-
Dean: -. Yeah, part of the thing that you have is you've got the opportunity like when you're getting opt-ins, even though on your page right now, what you send immediately to somebody is going to be the big opportunity. That is what become the elements of your super signature, right, where you're giving them the thing that they asked for. Then, you're also saying, “Then, whenever you're ready, here's three ways I can help you.” You list the next steps for people, right, what they need or want to do next. Then, the morning after that first thing, you can welcome somebody and ask them a question that's going to engage with them. You download … Let's apply this to what your … This new situation that we're talking about. If we take a target audience of … Would you say it's primarily men or women? Is there a difference or is it-
Paul: Yeah, it's more women.
Dean: More women that are suspicious, they're being spied on. Women, let's say that we select that. We do Facebook ads, we've got an offer for … It really comes down to is the headline and cover of the information that they would really say, “That's for me.” If it was something as simple as how to know if someone is spying on you or how to know if someone's watching or listening to your private conversations or how to know … When you go through that thing, if that's a thought in somebody's mind and here's this thing that can talk about how to know if someone's spying on you or watching you or has a hidden camera and we could come through and wordsmith the right exact words. This is the sentiment of it that how to know whatever their suspicion is and they just click.
A thing we've been using now is the Facebook lead ads, which are the easiest thing because all they have to do is click and their name and email is already filled out. All they have to do is press click to send and they're subscribed. We use that. It's integrated all the way, so it goes right into your GoGoClients account, so that you've got them now and you can trigger the autoresponders. When you look at that if you build a list of people who … The one thing they have in common is that they're so suspicious that somebody is following, listening, watching them that they asked for this guide. Now, you've got a list of visible prospects because now it's not just, “I suspect that there are people within Cleveland that are having this feeling.” Now, it's Mary1376@yahoo.com is worried about this. That's the way. Now, we've got a visible prospect and we can imagine …
I always look at it that the moment that somebody asks for something, like the moment somebody downloads something from your website opts-in, we treat that moment like it's a magic portal to your office. It's as if that the moment they press submit, they're magically transported and arrive at your front door of your office and they knock on the door, poke their head in and say, “Hey, I'm here about the how to tell if I'm being spied on book.” What would you then say to that person if they show up just like that? That's how we craft what happens in Profit Activator 3. It's all about that conversational conversion process. You're an expert in that. You've had years and years of those exact conversations that probably start out, “I think somebody’s spying on me.” What do you say in those conversations to kind of-
Paul: - right. That - next question would be, the very first question would be, “Well, why do you think that?” That just opens it up. I mean that's the big opener. Some of the other questions are how long do you think this has been going on, questions like that. The number one question for almost anybody, calling the offices, why do you think that? Then, -.
Dean: Why do they think that? What do they say to that, “Why do you think that?”
Paul: Well, almost all the time when we're talking about bug detectors or bug sweeps, things are being repeated back to them that they're thinking only could have been known by this person that's saying it to them if they had been listening in, if they had a listening device or if they were listening to their phone or they know that, someone's somewhere … Or as far as like GPS trackers, “How could they have known that I was at that spot or how could they have known that I would be there? “Someone keeps showing up at the spots where they're at, -. They could have known that they would be there. Especially, if it happens once or twice that's one thing, but if it happens three or four or more times, then there's a problem. The GPS trackers that's a whole … It's part of the same family, but I mean I know that they're out there. We have a dozen GPS trackers out there for clients at any given time. Most people aren't even hiring a PI to do it. They're just doing it, they're buying one on the internet and putting it on there. Well, they're out there.
Dean: They're buying those - locators right or whatever the things, yeah that are cleverly being positioned as never lose your keys again kind of things with just showing how small it is that all you need to do is activate it, so the thing, it'll always tell you where it is. It doesn't take much to make the leaps that “Well, if I hid this in somebody's back seat or under their seat in their car or something, I could know where it is.” There's so much of that. I bet you're right.
Paul: The other thing is that I've gotten a lot of mileage out of … I borrowed this from Joe Polish, but the Eight Most Common Mistakes that People Make When Hiring a Private Investigator and all of the mistakes that they make are designed to knock out all the competition. Either they haven't been -
Dean: Yeah, sure.
Paul: … - or they don't have good reviews or make sure they're not subcontracting out the work, all that stuff, which is-
Dean: I think -.
Paul: … -. That's another one.
Dean: Joe and I've talked about this on podcasts that the consumer awareness guide is an amazing Profit Activator 3 tool more than it's a lead generation tool because it's so at the level where people are already kind of evaluating the decision of hiring a private investigator. Whereas, what the Profit Activator 2, what we're looking to do is identify people who are maybe even earlier in the process than deciding that they need a private investigator or that thought may not even be in their mind right now. They're focused on … You may even plant that thing, where they're not thinking about taking action on it, but they see in their newsfeed, [inaudible 00:43:34] how to know if somebody's spying on you or tracking you, following you, watching you? Whatever the things are, however we wordsmith that sentiment that that's going to identify. That turns the invisible prospect into a visible prospect. Then, along with the information that we send to them that they asked for, we send them the consumer awareness guide, which is an amplifier as well because now that they're a visible prospect, we need to do everything we can to educate and motivate them, so that when we make an offer, they're already predisposed to do business with you.
Paul: Yeah, for sure. I know this one … Is it Vivian, is your assistant's name?
Dean: Lillian.
Paul: Lillian, yeah. When I got that email from her yesterday, I had to work the rest of the day, but this morning I got up early. I started going over the 8 Profit Activators, which I haven't looked at in a couple of years. I thought I was on fires with all these ideas of things I should be doing in my business, which you're talking about right now. That is genius.
Dean: That's kind of a cool thing. I mean that could be like where it really makes sense is it might be … My mind often thinks about syndication opportunities and what I mean by that is you're a private investigator in Cleveland. I look at this kind of thing as a potentially great way to really expand your business in Cleveland, in your local area. As such, could create an opportunity to show other private investigators how to do the same thing in their local markets, which could be-
Paul: Yeah. That's why I bought the domain picoach.com.
Dean: Yeah, exactly.
Paul: Someday, I could do that.
Dean: Well that's definitely … I mean that's all it takes is you look at something like this, if you've got away to find those people and you become known as the local, the guy, you've got an opportunity to make money on the sales of the products, but you know that that's also going to, in a lot of cases, lead to somebody hiring you, you know?
Paul: Right. Yeah that's for sure. That's some good stuff here. You mentioned that the Facebook Lead Ads.
Dean: Yes.
Paul: Can you run through that real quick? I'm not familiar with that. I've done no Facebook advertising.
Dean: Okay, so when you look at your Facebook news feed, like as you're scrolling through your home screen, about every fifth screen is a sponsored post, which is an ad. You can buy those sponsored posts and you can run what they call a lead ad, meaning, the purpose is to generate leads. The purpose is to offer. I run ads for business owners. We offer a free book called The 50 Minute Marketing Sprint. I want to get that in front of people, who are interested in marketing. It starts out that way that they will download the book. Now I've turned an invisible prospect into a visible prospect. We engage with people and then, I send everything that people probably know me for or that I'm on their radar is all really Profit Activator 3 stuff? I do podcasts, I send three emails a week. Every one of those has a super signature that says, “Whenever you're ready, here's four ways I can help you grow your business.” It's always as that list becomes the driver for everything and that's what I was looking for you is that you're known first of all in your primary market as the go-to guy.
Paul: For that type of thing, in my case for the bug detectors, like the lead ad there would be something like do you think that someone's listening or something like that or-
Dean: I think that’s our audience right there.
Paul: How to know.
Dean: Yeah, how to know. That's an important thing because we're speaking and this is a kind of a subtle, but a big difference is that often people will say in an ad, they'll ask the question, “Do you think somebody is spying on you,” which sounds like that's you speaking and you're kind of forcing them to engage with you. Psychologically, it's a different thing. It feels like you're engaged, but when you can kind of get in front of them and present them with something that would be appealing to them, if they thought they were. If we say, “do you think somebody is spying on you,” and we use spying as spying maybe a general term for this, but if you'd get specific, do you think somebody has put a tracking device on your phone or a hidden camera in your home or a listening device in your home or whatever the specific things are that if you ask somebody that question and they say, “Yes,” then let's just cut right to the chase and present the information that would be appealing to somebody that the answer to that question is yes.
Well, if I think that somebody is doing this, then they come across this opportunity for how to know if somebody is following you or spying on you or whatever the right language we can use is that's going to be something they can - in on. You've already answered the question. There's a prescription in it, right? You asking the question is kind of the setup to a sales process in a lot of ways, right?
Paul: Right.
Dean: Presenting the information as education of how to tell whether somebody is spying on you is a valuable piece of information that somebody can immediately download. It's a pattern interrupt. They see it and it's going to happen below the surface because you didn't draw their attention to it with the question, which is kind of revealing in a way.
Paul: Just so I didn't miss the point there. In a Facebook Lead Ad, would you make like primary lead be on that the Facebook feed, would it be, “Do you think someone is spying on you,” or would it be-
Dean: No, it wouldn’t be that.
Paul: … “How to know that somebody is spying on you?”
Dean: Yes, how to tell because the person that we want is the person who would answer yes to that question, right?
Paul: Right, got it.
Dean: Let's just not ask the question and let's go present the information that they would want if they did feel like that. Now, it feels like “Holy cow, I was just thinking this.”
Paul: Right, entering the conversation.
Dean: Right, you're entering the conversation that's already going. You're not trying to stimulate the conversation. Do you think somebody is spying on you? There's no way they could answer that question no. When you're presenting this, how to know if someone is spying on you, there's no way to answer no to that because they're either interested in it or they're not.
Paul: Right and would that be just generic. It would be no branding or anything. It would just be like -.
Dean: Exactly, it's right. It's information. That way now, when they get the information, now we're going to educate and motivate them all about you. I mean why are you writing this because you've been a police officer, you're a private investigator for 15 or 17 or however many years you said and you every day work with people in Cleveland to find, get to the bottom of what's going on. Here's some easy ways that you can quickly determine if somebody is doing it. Here's the checklist. First of all, do a physical inspection. Look for this and then, this and then, this. Here's a picture of what something might look if that's the case. If you really want to get to it, then the next level of this is to use this detection device. Then, the next level is if you're still not satisfied, if you really want to know for sure, I can come out and do it for you.
Paul: Right. You got it.
Dean: That conversation all starts with what's the easiest way to get somebody to respond to that?
Paul: How to know -.
Dean: - I mean, yeah, how to know. We've used that with mortgage companies when interest rates were first really going down and everybody was refinancing, right? They've been so low for so long now that lot of people have refinanced. When in the beginning, everybody was screaming, “Rates have never been lower, refinance now. Rates are going down, refinance and save money,” all these things. The reason that people didn't do it is they didn't know whether it would make sense for them. We leaned into that conversation and we offered a report called How to Know When it Makes Sense to Refinance Your Mortgage. That was the magic thing for people that now that makes sense, we're not screaming at you, trying to convince you to refinance. We're joining the conversation, where you are already at. You're at a point of, I don't know whether it makes sense for me to refinance. That now, whenever you're saying, “How to know,” you're implying that there's a way to get certainty about something. The language is very powerful, but subtle.
Paul: Right, I love it. It's good stuff. Now, I'm going to have to go educate the people down there at Get Leverage.
Dean: That’s so funny. Well, going to get them to listen in on the podcast. That's funny.
Paul: That’s right. - that's a good idea.
Dean: Yeah, for sure.
Paul: - appreciate it.
Dean: I think you're doing a great thing there. You got a great upside for all of this, both in your own business and then, for other PI businesses. How many PIs are there would you say?
Paul: Well, I don't know. A few years ago, I knew what it was. Just here in the Cleveland area, if you were to put in a private investigator, Cleveland, Ohio, in the Google, you'd come up with about a dozen in Cleveland. There are more than that, people that don't have websites or people that don't really know how to get their website up there in the top. There's about a dozen guys that are marketing themselves as private investigators. There's other people, it's not so easy to become a PI in Ohio. In other states, it's a little bit easier. In Ohio, you have to have been doing investigative work for two years in the immediate, previous three years in order to even sit for the exam. There's not as many here as you would find in New York or California.
Dean: Is there any organized national brand of private investigators or like network of-
Paul: - different networks or associations or groups. There are a few very, very large, like Pinkerton's -.
Dean: I can say Pinkerton is the only name that I know, but that goes back a hundred years or something, doesn't it?
Paul: Yeah. That goes back to before Abraham Lincoln, believe it or not.
Dean: Wow. Isn't that amazing?
Paul: Yeah, he's got some neat stuff. He was a real entrepreneur. He was a real marketer. Yeah, there's all kinds of different opportunities and ways to go about the business. My problem is as you keep saying in your material, I got to narrow my focus. That's my big problem. I just constantly am taking this wide approach and that's not smart.
- get down there.
Dean: Yeah. I was - that would be a fun thing to talk about because you got the whole gamut.
Paul: Yeah, but I want to come down to Florida and visit you and maybe do a weekend down there a couple days and try to learn it.
Dean: That's awesome.
Paul: - you're teaching there is -.
Dean: Yeah. Well, take your-
Paul: I appreciate the phone call. I appreciate your input here.
Dean: Take some vacation time. Yeah, I've got in February and March and May would be the next three Breakthrough Blueprints, so be a good thing.
Paul: You're doing it in Australia too, right?
Dean: I am, November.
Paul: Wow. Well, good deal Dean. Thank you very much for your time. I wish I had more and better questions for you. I didn't-
Dean: No that was good, thank you.
That’s okay, but I think you got a good opportunity and it was fun to talk about.
Paul: I'll report back to you what kind of results we get here. I appreciate everything.
Dean: I love it. Thanks Paul.
Paul: Thank you, bye.
Dean: Bye.
There we have it, another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation or go deeper in how the 8 Profit Activators can apply to your business, two things you can do. Right now, you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book and you can listen to the back episodes of course, if you're just listening here on iTunes. Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the 8 Profit Activators are part of the Breakthrough DNA process. You can download a book and a scorecard and watch a video, all about the 8 Profit Activators at breakthroughdna.com. That's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business. That's really the way we think about Breakthrough DNA as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there.
That's it for this week. Have a great week. We will be back next time with another episode of More Cheese, Less Whiskers.