Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Bruce Browning from New York.

Bruce is in an interesting position because he can do anything… well, almost anything. The company he works with, the company he's a distributor for, does literally anything you can think of with digital marketing, printing, promotional products, uniforms… you get the idea, all kinds of promotional and marketing materials.

He has access to an amazing collection of capabilities, so we talked about how to focus potential, and find a focused target audience for the things he does.

We had a great conversation about how to think about your capability and really use it as an asset.

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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 183

 

Dean: Bruce.

Bruce: Dean.

Dean: Is that who we have here?

Bruce: That's who we have here.

Dean: Perfect. So welcome.

Bruce: Thank you.

Dean: I'm very excited. I'm in my evil scheme-hatching chair. I've got my evil scheme-hatching tablet, and this is the highlight of the day for me right here.

Bruce: All right.

Dean: So where are you calling in from?

Bruce: I am in New York.

Dean: Okay, like right in the heart of New York?

Bruce: No, no, right outside of New York City in Westchester County.

Dean: Okay, nice.

Bruce: Yeah.

Dean: So you're holding down the fort and quarantined in place?

Bruce: We are quarantined in place. My mom lives in Manhattan so she's with us too to keep her safe.

Dean: Yeah, right.

Bruce: Yeah, yeah, so all's going well in that regard knock on wood.

Dean: Good.

Bruce: Yeah. Are you guys quarantined as well?

Dean: We are of course. Yeah, I'm in Florida, so yeah, we've been home about six weeks now. Crazy.

Bruce: Yeah, same thing.

Dean: Isn't that amazing how fast it's gone by though?

Bruce: Yeah, yeah, feels like four years, but yeah, it's been fast too.

Dean: So I want to hear the story here about what you've got going on and what you're working on.

Bruce: Yeah, sure. Well, I'm a marketing service provider. I'm a distributor of marketing and production services, so the best... I don't know if you had a chance to take a look at proforma.com.

Dean: I did not. Proforma. No.

Bruce: Proforma. So Proforma is a national organization worth about half a billion dollars in revenue. We have about 600, 650 offices around the country and into Canada.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: We basically are distributors of anything marketing, and so that's part of my challenge.

Dean: Okay. And when you say anything marketing, you mean... like give me an example.

Bruce: So yeah, that's why I point you to that website, so anything with branding, video, direct mail, web development, apparel, it's literally anything in the world of marketing.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: Digital marketing.

Dean: So services, you build websites and produce videos for video production?

Bruce: Yes.

Dean: All of that kind of stuff, okay.

Bruce: Right, right. It's big, yeah. Big umbrella, yeah.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: Yes, exactly.

Dean: Is it a franchise that you're part of?

Bruce: Yes.

Dean: Okay, so you are a franchisee of the bigger corporation.

Bruce: Exactly.

Dean: That's amazing that something that big that I've never heard of. It's interesting.

Bruce: Yeah, yeah. Have you ever heard of InnerWorkings?

Dean: No.

Bruce: That's a public company that is similar, but their business model is they go into large brands, you know, Mastercards or Citigroups, and they install probably the whole production team within an organization that wants to outsource a lot of the other services. They kind of do the same thing. We don't have that business model. We fit more in the middle market, 50 to 200 employees is a good size client for us to book clients. Yeah. And so before I joined them, I was more on the commercial printing side.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: Yeah, I was a partner in a digital printing operation.

Dean: I gotcha. Okay.

Bruce: Yeah.

Dean: What was your reason for switching courses?

Bruce: Well, see it was not 9/11, it was the next phase, 2008, that whole crash really affected manufacturing, so we just pivoted to get rid of all... I mean, we weren't really big, it was like a 4 or $5 million company, so we didn't have that much equipment, just a few pieces, so we got rid of that and went into this model of distribution all that.

So found ourselves really pigeonholed. You know, when you have equipment, you pretty much have to sell what that equipment can do.

Dean: Right, because immediately if you're not at 100% capacity, you are burdened there, right.

Bruce: Exactly. And so you know, we were -.

Dean: What level of capacity you would say that you were at with the machinery?

Bruce: I'd say we were at 70%.

Dean: Yeah, okay.

Bruce: Yeah.

Dean: And so that 30% is where that becomes a little more profitable.

Bruce: Exactly.

Dean: That 30% is... and that's pretty good probably to be at 70% for most of it.

Bruce: Oh, well then we were probably under that if that's pretty good.

Dean: Oh.

Bruce: Yeah, probably 60. I mean, if you look at that business model you could do multiple shifts, and that's where you really start... you know.

Dean: That's what I mean, yes.

Bruce: Yeah, exactly. So no, then we were not. We were probably at like 40%. We didn't have multiple shifts. You know, after a while we were just doing other campaigns, so we start doing direct mail campaigns, general commercial printing, a lot of the commercial printing went online, the stuff that's not custom.

Dean: Yeah, right, right. With that excess capacity, if you start to look at it, that excess capacity is what becomes an asset if you're thinking about it that way.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: If you can do everything you're basically, if I understand you right, are an execution provider of executing anything marketing-wise. If you want printing, you can execute that. If you want to build a website, you can execute that. If you want to do digital marketing, you can execute running Facebook ads or pay-per-click or any of that suite of stuff, you actually provide the services. Is that right?

Bruce: Yeah, that's 100% right.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: Yeah. And Frank Kern actually hit it right on the head when he said, "Oh, so you're a done-for-you service."

Dean: Done-for-you service, exactly.

Bruce: Yeah, exactly. So that's pretty much what it is, what you just said and wrapped up in a done-for-service execution, exactly.

Dean: Okay. So what seems to be missing a lot of the time from the execution shops is the ideas, so it's an interesting thing that there are people who... You're kind of... and I want to hear from you that this is true, but it seems like there are so many capabilities that you have that what's happening is that you're depending on people coming with their ideas for you to execute. Is that it or are you doing ideas packaged with execution?

Bruce: Yes, more the latter. It's more the latter, so me personally though. Of all the franchises, some will just wait for one of our vendors or plans to say, "Here's the latest trend. Go sell these upside umbrellas," and they just run with that. Personally, I'm more the later of what you described, so try to find the pain and work with our tool set to fix a client's pain.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: However that might be.

Dean: Now, do you have any pre-figured out stuff that you could plug into a particular business? Are you bound any way geographically or territorially with your franchise or are you free to serve anybody anywhere?

Bruce: Free to serve.

Dean: So you can have clients anywhere.

Bruce: Anywhere, yeah.

Dean: So you're not New York and Connecticut or whatever.

Bruce: Correct.

Dean: Yeah, you can serve anybody anywhere, and all the franchisees are the same thing.

Bruce: Exactly. And it's not even on an account level either.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: So if one franchisee is working with a marketing manager at IBM and there are 15 marketing managers, I could work with marketing manager number two.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: And another franchise could work with marketing manager number three.

Dean: I got you. Okay.

Bruce: We try not to step on each other's toes that way as you can understand, but the way Proforma sees it is if Bruce is not working with marketing manager number two our competitor can, so we'd rather have Bruce as part of Proforma working there and you know, both of them get along that way.

Dean: Gentlemanly stuff.

Bruce: Yeah. Exactly.

Dean: So what's your best situation right now? What's the thing that's working for you? What's driving your business? Is it successful?

Bruce: Yeah, so before COVID-19, things were fine.

And then when we got into this pandemic things were more than fine because we pivoted as an organization and started selling PPE, protective personal equipment.

So the last probably month and a half I've done more revenue than I did all last year.

Right now it's great, but the reason why I booked a call with you, this was like a month or two ago when we weren't in this situation was with all those services that Proforma offers, which I didn't have access to before, I'm a little new to the franchise, I find myself trying to... I can't focus on what to-

Dean: Too much opportunity, yeah.

Bruce: Yeah, and at the same time I don't want to say, "Well, we do everything," because then I feel like you're master of nothing, jack of all trades.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: Right, and so you're whole thing of pick a target marketing... So when I hear about picking a target market one at a time and drilling deep into that, whenever I start to sit down and think about that, I think, okay, am I going to pick a vertical market or am I going to be an authority in a certain product. Some franchises are an authority in business apparel and uniforms, like they've built multi-million dollar companies just on outfits for organizations.

And then would I be an authority in the type of target audience, like marketing folks need a certain amount of products and services, but the human resource folks, they have a whole different language.

So when I start thinking about that, my eyes glaze over and I kind of move on, so that's when I said, "I better ask Dean for some help here."

Dean: What do you love? What has your curiosity or gets you excited?

Bruce: I just love working with people and solving the pain that might be there. And I guess that's the problem, it could be maybe they want to save money, maybe they have... Like I'm speaking with a company now, it's a large insurance company and they have some internal employees that are handling the mail in the mail room, and there's some pain there because it's inefficient, they want to get it off their plate. You know, I can just take that over and run with it.

But it's totally unrelated to a multi-channel marketing campaign that I would run for someone else, that we're doing IP targeting and direct mail and tracking. And so I guess my background and my ability can go between a few different digital and tactile services and products, and sometimes they don't always make sense.

Dean: Right.

Bruce: So I don't know. I struggle with finding a target audience or target service, you know?

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: And maybe I shouldn't pinpoint it. One Proforma person, she must have been struggling with this same thing, she said, "Don't try to be everything to everyone, try to be everything to someone."

Dean: Right.

Bruce: So I guess that kind of makes sense. So if I focus on nonprofit, because I have a bunch of nonprofit clients, I guess I could just be everything to that vertical. I don't know. What do you think?

Dean: Who's your favorite clients that you work with now?

Bruce: Well, I mean I have stories to tell in the trade show space and digital management that put on events and nonprofit. If I had to pick, I really enjoy working with those folks.

And their needs seem to line up with what I can offer. They'll run direct mail campaigns and digital campaigns, so it would be abnormal for them to say, "Oh, you can run multi-channel campaign, and we can get apparel from you."

Dean: Right.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: - the question that I was asked, when we start applying the eight profit activators to situations here, you look at, you're during unit is full of every capability that you could imagine, right? So it sounds like everything is done... You don't have to get involved in the actual doing of the actual execution, they have... the networks that do everything.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: And you kind of are the account manager or the dispatch or the project manager-

Bruce: Conductor.

Dean: Conductor, that's the right word. So you're the front of house, and everything is happening behind the wall there, behind the curtain is all done with the big machine of the Proforma connection.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: So everything can be done. So if you were to have somebody who says, "I want to get a website, you work with them on what level does Proforma, would they then have somebody work with them on what their needs are and the design and everything, or are you involved in that part of it and handing it off to the Proforma? I just want to see how much involvement you actually have in the process of it.

Bruce: Yeah, that's a great question. The owner could be very involved, or the franchise could be very involved, or completely handed off.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: So me personally, I'm very involved in working with the client on the strategy and then some of the tactics, and then execution and tracking whatever it is. And a lot of the franchise owners are like that.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: So essentially you're buying these services at wholesale prices kind of thing and you have a markup on them, plus whatever your portion of the service wants to be, you could do that.

Bruce: Exactly. So if I was a designer, I could design the website and then have someone code it, or you know, work with a client hand-in-hand, design something, and then have someone at Proforma in our network code it for, I could hand off the whole thing. It doesn't really matter. It's based on your own capabilities and your own knowledge.

Dean: I gotcha. So are you a problem solver would you say? Do you get the joy out of, let's say, a nonprofit coming to you and saying, "We need help to raise money"? Do you enjoy the process of the consulting that goes with that or figuring out what would be the best thing for them, what the best strategy would be for them to do?

Bruce: Yeah. In that example probably not because there are people in the nonprofit fundraising world, that's all they do, so I wouldn't be a good go-to for something like that.

Dean: Okay.

Bruce: But once they figure that strategy out and they say, "Now, we need to execute it and we need to reach this audience," then I can step in and help them execute that and help them find that audience. So I could work with a consultant that would work with the client.

Dean: There's an interesting element right there. That's exactly what I'm trying to get at. So you have the capabilities that someone of these consultants don't have.

So is that a thing where in the situation like that, a consultant might be a good partner for you where you could partner with a fundraising or nonprofit consultant who helps people map out their strategy and their initiatives, and whatever they need whether it's direct mail, website, digital marketing, that whole action plan, and then that's the deliverable from the consultant. But then they leave it at that because they don't have the relationship to execute it.

Bruce: Right. Yeah, exactly. That would be a great fit. And same with an agency. So an agency is selling a lot of these services to their clients, but if they have me behind the scenes saying, "Okay, Bruce, we need to run a digital campaign, can you run with this? And by the way, I have another client that needs 5,000 shirts for an event, can you handle that?" That's a really good fit.

Dean: That's a good fit -.

Bruce: And it's interesting, I have none of those clients.

Dean: Ah, no, but it sounds like that's the voice... Even just the inflection in your voice describing that is it sounds like that's what you really like is being handed, "This is what we need," and you being able to source them and deliver that as a person to-

Bruce: Right.

Dean: And sense the same energy in helping people figure out what they need.

Bruce: Yes.

Dean: On the strategy side it seems like you're more energized by the execution side than the idea side.

Bruce: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think so, because the confidence is there on the execution side with -.

Dean: If you need this, I know how to get that done.

Bruce: Exactly.

Dean: I can get it done. Okay.

Bruce: Exactly.

Dean: Yeah, so now it becomes a you can become a valuable part of a lot of different consultants and people who are serving all these markets with marketing advice that don't have the execution component of it.

Bruce: Yeah, exactly.

Dean: That's an interesting thing. In a situation like that, what kind of margins d you have that you would... Are you able to share an affiliate type of situation for those consultants. Ideally if someone was to act as your before unit where they're bringing you jobs that are shovel-ready as they say projects, ready to go, and this is what you need and you execute that, are you able to or do you offer an affiliate or a joint venture relationship or a revenue share? How do you work with companies or people like that?

Bruce: That's a good question. Typically an agency would probably have to give them, or a consultant/agency, I'll just call it agency, we'd probably have to give them a discount because they're going to mark it up and resell it to the client.

Which would be similar to... but maybe I should look at a different way, like what you're going towards, because someone reached out to me, I ran a LinkedIn marketing campaign about PPE, it was a Messenger campaign to my contact, so one of the contacts said, "I don't need any of that PPE stuff, but we're looking for a partner in our association." So he's heading up the marketing/business development for an association that has 143,000 members, and he did a survey recently and he said, "The association members came back. We asked them what they would like to see in some of the member benefits..." You know, they have Ford and car dealers, and Apple computer and Dell. You know, if you buy a computer you get 5% off a Dell computer and whatnot.

Dean: Right.

Bruce: So the association members came back in a survey and said, "We could really use someone that provides branded merchandise to help us promote our businesses.

Dean: Yes.

Bruce: So they sent me an RFI, and the whole business model there, which I guess is common in associations, which kind of lines up with what you're referring to as a venture share in the revenue is that they would like me to offer services to their association members at a discount, something higher than 10% gets them moving a little bit, and then the association would like to share in the revenue that I generate, so they want X amount.

And then whatever that amount is, that percentage, it goes back to the individual chapters around the country, help them promote their own chapter in the association.

So I spoke to someone that I know that's in the business of working with associations, and they said it's a very common model to give a percentage back to the association.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: So it's pretty much what you were just hitting on. It's not a consultant at an agency, but it's the same concept. They're bringing the clients. They would promote me to their clients. They're not handing me projects, but pretty much the same thing. They're giving me a captive audience. They're endorsing me. They're pretty much, "Bruce, sell what you want." So yeah, I should focus on that.

Dean: Well, so not that model when you start to think about this, all of this stuff comes together, and we're in an age right now where it's never been more conducive to this type of arrangement, where, you know I talk about it... Kylie Jenner is a billionaire because of a white label relationship that she has with a company that makes and distributes her cosmetic ideas.

Bruce: Hm.

Dean: It comes down to there's three components of it. There's vision, there's capabilities, and reach. That's what we're looking for right here right now. So when you look at it that Kylie Jenner had the vision that she wants to create a cosmetic line. That was her idea. That's what a vision is, right, idea that she is going to do this.

Now, she didn't have the capability to do that, but she found a white label partner who has the capability to do it, and partnered with them so that they make all of the stuff, they distribute it. Her mom's company does all of the business administration of the business, and Kylie focuses on the vision, the ideas. We're going to make lip kits. These are the colors that we want. This is what we're going to name the colors. This is what we want the packaging to look like, to work with the designers to get it all laid out.

And then Kylie has the reach to get that word out to her 150 million social media followers. So she's linking, she's got vision and reach with no capabilities.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: So coupling that is an amazing outcome. You know, when you look at that, she became a billionaire with that model. Now, the company that makes her white label stuff actually does it for a lot of people, plus they have their own brand called ColourPop, which is a huge cosmetics brand, and they do everything under one roof.

Bruce: Wow.

Dean: So that sounds like... If you look at what you have is you've got this enormous capability factory.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: At the ready, just ready for you to feed ideas into.

Bruce: Exactly.

Dean: Somebody's coming you ideas, so you either need to come up with the ideas yourself and get the execution at a discount, like your own capabilities at a discount are an advantage competitively.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: Because if you and I have the same idea, if I have an idea, but I don't have the capability, I have to go to somebody like you who's got the capability and pay your margin on top of what it actually costs you to do the execution to get that out there. But if you've got the capability, if you have the idea yourself, you've got a competitive advantage because you have access to the execution at a discount.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: Right.

Bruce: Right. Yeah, exactly.

Dean: You either seek out the ideas and back them and get behind them and participate in the profit of the venture or you act as a vendor and make a discounted margin on the execution of the idea.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: The idea and the reach are what provide the profits.

Bruce: Exactly.

Dean: The big payday comes from the idea and the reach. The execution is a commodity. And I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, I just mean that it's available for purchase.

Bruce: Exactly.

Dean: Execution can be done by so many people.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: Right.

Bruce: Right, right, right, exactly.

Dean: So one of the great things that might be an opportunity for you is to either seek out people influencers, YouTubers, TikTok would be a great place to look right now for things like that, and to create, get ideas of what would it be to get Charli D'Amelio, the number one girl on TikTok to come up with some branded merchandise or something that she could offer to her followers, because she's got the... You know, if you've got all the capabilities to do stuff, could you do plush toys? Could you do tee-shirts? You can do any kind of merchandise, any kind of thing that you're talking about that if she came up with maybe thinking about what her idea would be and you're able to help her execute her ideas, and all she... You know, she's got the vision and I'm just using her as an example for anybody who's got influence, anybody who's got an audience, you could create that opportunity for somebody like that.

Bruce: Right. Yeah, yeah.

Dean: Who might have the idea and the yearning to do it, but not know, but they're crippled by, "I don't know how to execute that or how to do that. I don't know how to buy plush toys or make plush toys or make t-shirts or make whatever."

Bruce: Right, right. A trusted partner that could all that, make it into a store, take the payments. There's like 15 steps to... yeah. My son came home with a shirt-

Dean: Yeah, then all she had to do was expose it to her audience. They have a built-in audience that way, right?

Bruce: Right, exactly. Yeah. That's interesting.

Yeah, I was going to tell you my son, he had a cat shirt on one day. I said, "Where'd you get that?" He bought it from a YouTuber that he watches that plays cat videos. That's exactly what you're saying.

Dean: Exactly. Yes. That's the point.

Bruce: I said, "That's interesting, Oliver." But yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm going to look into that. It's basically just plugging me into someone that has a reach and can scale, and I don't have to worry about scaling.

Dean: Right.

Bruce: I just have to worry about the execution.

Dean: Yes.

Bruce: Just like the association, just plug me into an audience of 143,000 people and it's done.

Dean: Yes.

Bruce: You have the reach.

Dean: Yes.

Bruce: And they're constantly searching for new members, and they're constantly searching to reduce membership drain.

Dean: Churn.

Bruce: Yeah, exactly. So they're constantly spending the time and energy on all of that. In one hand I can help with that because it helps everyone.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: Interesting. Well, you solved it. See? - podcast.

Dean: It's one model. When you narrow down what you have now and what your desire is that you've literally got those capabilities. If you can start to think like a... You know, a term I've been using is like a venture collaborist as opposed to a vendor.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: Where you're looking to you're trying to be a catalyst for ideas to happen rather than waiting for people to come to you with an idea that yes, you can serve them, you know?

Bruce: Right.

Dean: Looking for opportunities to invest your capabilities, you know?

Bruce: Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That clarifies it a lot because it fits the business model that I have, you know, access to all these services, and it erases that whole need to focus on a vertical or... I mean, I guess I could still go that route. That's, I'm sure, final. Like if I want to focus on healthcare, because they just happen to be big spenders in this space. But I like the venture collaboration better.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: Yeah, much better. Much better.

Dean: It's also less work.

Bruce: I mean, not work, I'm not afraid of work, but if I was to focus in on healthcare and try to drill deep into there, I always try to find and utilize some of the advice that you have and others have that, okay, we have to create a lead magnet or what's the pain? You have to research what the pain is in this department of the hospital, and that department of the hospital, and then create a lead magnet and figure how to get...

You know, I don't offer really... I mean, someone doesn't wake up and say, you know, "I need to find a new vendor for my direct mail."

Dean: Right.

Bruce: Unless something has happened, they don't wake up and say, "Let me go find a new vendor for our e-commerce branded merchandise. Let me go find someone for direct mail." So that's how I've been getting most of my business is, I mean, I do some advertising. Like right now I'm doing advertising mostly through email and it's generating a lot of leads to the point that I have to hire a couple people, and I have to turn off the advertising, but it's very unusual. Yeah, that's very unusual.

In the real world, pre-COVID I could never do that, because it's not you know, kind of of a neck-bleeding service that I have.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: It's a business-to-business need. Every business needs it, but unless they're actually searching for it... I guess that's why I got most of my leads over the years through organic search, because someone would go there and search for marketing company in New York, and for whatever reason I appear on the first page, and so I would get leads that way.

Dean: Yes.

Bruce: But yeah, I like the whole venture angle much better.

Dean: Yeah. Now the other thing that might be another model for you is to take your execution, your ability to do the execution, which is typically like bespoke where you're doing a specific project for someone, "What do you need and we'll make a specific solution for you." That another opportunity with this kind of execution is to one of the winning formulas that I've used is syndication where if you can solve a problem or create an opportunity for a particular business or niche or a turnkey sort of result getting engine, that you could plug into somebody's business, that they don't have to even bring any of the creative work to it.

I've done a lot of work in real estate, that's where I started out. And one of the things that was my winning formula that's truly any wealth that I've built has come from the ongoing recurring revenue from thousands of people using something that I did one time, meaning I have figured out how real estate agents can get listings.

So I have a complete turnkey system for them where we've got the postcard that they mail to send people to the landing page where people leave their contact information and then all the follow up newsletters that people send to the people who respond, and a book called How to Sell Your House for Top Dollar Fast. All of that turnkey system is plug and play for thousands of real estate agents who just execute that plan.

Or in a lot of cases, most of the cases we just execute it for them.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: So if you have figured out a system for a... You know, you think about all the people who want to do local marketing type of things like chiropractors or dentists or anybody looking to grow their business locally that they're only working within a 10-mile radius kind of thing, right?

Bruce: Right.

Dean: So if you solve the problem or create a turkey suite of solutions for them that can then be duplicated in all of the 10-mile radiuses in the country, that becomes a sustainable, long-term, durable wealth builder, you know?

Bruce: Right, right. So subscription model.

Dean: Yeah, that's another way to structure the ideas that you have maybe, you know?

Bruce: Right, right.

Dean: Because looking for syndication opportunities like that, that would be a big win because then each of the front end of that is really then finding all the chiropractors.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: And you can find that there are in every niche, there are people who are providing information to that niche, like giving the ideas. Then it comes back to just what we were talking about with the being the execution end of that. You're putting somebody who's in the advice/idea distribution business to now allow them to be in the result/distribution business when they package it with the execution.

Bruce: Right. Yeah. Exactly. Wow, we've got the noodle working.

Dean: Yes.

Bruce: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Dean: Because that gives you some scalability rather than trying to do custom work every time.

When you create something that you've put in all the work up front to create 90% of it, and then the 10% of the work is just to customize it or personalize it for the person, the next person...

Bruce: Right.

Dean: All the work went into the first one, but the next 10 are a fraction of the cost, but they still have the value of the first one.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: So the margins become so much greater on something like that, because now you're selling the result capability rather than a margin on the effort, the execution.

Bruce: Right, exactly. Exactly. And the products and services just happen to be an add-on when you're selling the result. So we're going to get higher response for the chiropractor. These five ways of how we're going to do it, it's not... Yeah, exactly. You're selling the result. I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good.

Dean: That's the winning formula. If you can think about all of these capabilities that you have, if you can narrow a portion of your thinking, and again, your time and your attention and your effort is limited. You've only got let's say, if you're working full-time, you've got 2,000 hours a year of your time and attention that you're willing to invest in something. And so to get this, your opportunity as an entrepreneur, your duty as an entrepreneur, is to invest your time and attention in the things that are getting the highest yield for it.

Bruce: Right.

Dean: And so you're pursuing your best customers. You're pursuing the ones that are going to generate revenue, but it would be an interesting transition for you or a thought for you to start thinking about allocating maybe 20% of your time, or 10% of your time to think of it as your capital allocation to invest in opportunities rather than sell them as a vendor.

Bruce: Right. Yeah. I like that.

Dean: Because rather than getting people to pay you up front for the execution, you could get much more revenue by participating in the outcomes.

Bruce: Right. Exactly, because without that type of syndication model, or without thinking in the venture collaboration angle, it's hard to scale one-off custom projects.

Dean: Right.

Bruce: It's just difficult to scale it. It's very difficult to scale it.

Dean: Right.

Bruce: I mean, it can be done, but you know, I think it's more efficient to do it the other way, these other models that you're saying.

Dean: I always talk about that as... I learned from a friend whose father owned a drapery company that they were making custom drapes is a very... You know, you're one-of-a-kind type of things is a slow and margin-based type of thing, but making ready-to-hang drapes for standard window sizes is very efficient and profitable because you just make, make, make, make all the drapes, and then anybody can hang them on that ready window size, you know?

Bruce: Right, exactly. Yeah, I like that.

Dean: So you think about you solve a solution, you create a whole marketing suite for a chiropractor and then make that whole suite available to all the chiropractors as a ready-to-deploy...

Bruce: Yeah, exactly. Exactly, yeah.

Dean: That's a great model.

Bruce: Yeah, that's a great model. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My brain is just thinking. That's why I'm a little quiet right now.

Dean: No, right, I get it.

Bruce: It's scheming, you know, at 100 miles an hour right now.

Dean: Absolutely. That's the kind of thing is what you've got, just think about the capabilities that you have, and not so much about who can I sell these capabilities to as a vendor, but you start to think what are the best results that I could create with these capabilities. Who would be the greatest beneficiary of this? And so you start to think about influencers like that, like we talked about. Like starting to look for do these influencers have... What would you do if you had the reach that they have?

If you went and looked at every YouTuber with a million subscribers, what would be the possibilities for them, you know?

Bruce: I'll know in about two hours after this call, yeah.

Dean: Right. Exactly.

Bruce: Maybe an hour and a half.

Dean: Yeah. That's funny.

Bruce: Yeah, yeah. That's great. Yeah, I like that. I like that.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: I mean obviously I have my client base, but like you said on the side I'm going to look at these ventures that I can establish. I think that's a great idea.

Dean: If you take 20% of your time, it's one day a week let's say.

Bruce: Yeah.

Dean: That you kind of look at that as your thing. Or maybe if you're really excited, you could deploy some of your moonlighting time to it. If you're fully booked with your 2,000 hours on the main job, maybe you get that two hours three nights a week doing that kind of thing, thinking about that, or a Saturday, you know?

Bruce: Right.

Dean: That's the freedom. That's where your wealth-building is going to come.

Bruce: Yeah.

Dean: You know?

Bruce: Yeah, exactly, because if you stay on the path of becoming a vendor, which can work for some people, but you're working much harder. I mean, when I look at it, if you grow this way you're hiring more people, and honestly, it's that [crosstalk 00:56:15] more headaches. Exactly. The business can rely on you even more at some point, at least in the beginning at this scale until you hire someone to manage it.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: I like the other angle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, Dean, good.

Dean: Oh that's funny. I love it.

Bruce: Jesus was at the first consulting podcast you've done. Good.

Dean: Oh, that's funny. I love it. Are we doing a podcast? Is that what this is? I get lost in them. I don't remember that we're doing a podcast.

Bruce: Yeah.

Dean: I'm just getting excited about your opportunities here.

Bruce: Yeah, I like that. That's really great advice. So that's my takeaway is doing that.

Dean: Yeah, so unpack it a little bit for me. What's kind of brewing for you?

Bruce: Well, I think the first... I'm going to try to get on board with this association along the lines of the business model we just talked about, the syndication, at least the venture collaboration. I'm going to try to get on board with this association, see how that goes. That'll be my first foray into that, 143,000 audience.

And then the world is full of, or let's just say the U.S. is full of associations. And if that goes well, I could just focus on building that model out.

Dean: Yes.

Bruce: Or...

Dean: And.

Bruce: Yeah, and, yeah. Because there's only so many hours, but I really like the whole productizing packaging services and then scaling that too, so I'm going to focus on both. And. And.

Dean: Yes.

Bruce: And, not or, and. That's my takeaway.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: That is my takeaway.

Dean: Well, that's awesome. Well, I really enjoyed that. That went fast.

Bruce: It did. It didn't seem like an hour, but yeah, it was really packed, and I appreciate your advice.

Dean: Yeah, this is going to be fun to watch unfold.

Bruce: Yeah, I'm going to let you know.

Dean: Yeah, for sure, because I think there's so much potential there. If you've got truly a factory that can make anything, you've got endless opportunity. I think that's awesome. And the company's been around a long time. They've got lots of great reviews and everything's... You're confident in getting behind it, sounds like?

Bruce: - Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Dean: - that office and their capabilities, right.

Bruce: Exactly, yeah. They are a machine.

Dean: Yeah.

Bruce: So yeah, you used the word engine in this conversation. They are a real engine that can just execute, execute, execute, so that's great.

Dean: I love it.

Bruce: We don't have to worry about that. It's just, like you said, the ideas and the scale.

Dean: Yeah. I love it. Well, I've enjoyed our time together. I can't wait to watch it all unfold.

Bruce: Yeah, definitely. Me too, Dean. And I'll be in touch in a little bit. Maybe a couple months I'll shoot you off an email, let you know how things are going.

Dean: Okay, that's perfect. Yes, stay connected. I'd love to help any way I can.

Bruce: Thanks, Dean.

Dean: Okay, thanks.

Bruce: Catch you later.

Dean: I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

Bruce: Okay, bye-bye.

Dean: And there we have it, another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation, want to go deeper in how the eight 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 eight profit activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process. And you can download a book and a scorecard and watch a video all about the eight profit activators at breakthroughdna.com, and 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.

So that's it for this week. Have a great week, and we'll be back next time with another episode of More Cheese Less Whiskers.