Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast we're talking with Aaron McRann from Penticton BC, and Aaron has a really neat product that helps people with wrist pain, to do bodyweight exercises, push ups, and things like that without any pain.
This came out of a personal issue he was having and he figured out a way, with some ingenuity, to create these pushup blocks that allowed him to do pushups and body weight exercises without any pain.
Now the issue is how do we get those in front of people who have this type of pain.
This is a little bit of a different episode than we normally have because it's with someone with a physical product that solves one specific issue.
We had a really great conversation and we went through the Before Unit profit activators and how we would approach this idea of solving all the wrist pain in the world by starting with all the wrist pain in Kentucky and BC.
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 229
Dean: Aaron McRann, hello. How are you?
Aaron: I am good. How are you, Dean?
Dean: I'm good.
Aaron: Awesome.
Dean: Am I talking to the push-up king of Canada, the legend we have right here?
Aaron: That's right. That's the goal anyway, for sure.
I got to tell you it's so exciting to talk to you. I've been following you and Joe on I Love Marketing since the very, very first episode so it's a …
Dean: Wow! That's amazing.
Aaron: … thrill for me to … Yeah. It's a thrill for me to talk to you. Thanks for the opportunity.
Dean: Awesome. I'm excited. It's not often we get someone with some cool stuff like what you're doing. I'm anxious to hear all about it and see what we can do. We're recording right now. We've got the whole hour here to brainstorm and to hack some evil schemes for you. Catch me up. Share with me the McRann story there and where we're going to take off.
Aaron: Sure. What I'm wanting to focus on right now is this new business that I'm starting with a product that I've invented that will help people when doing home workouts and body weight exercises to avoid wrist injury.
It came about as a result of me having injured both of my wrists through various different sports over the years. I got to the point where I was unable to do pushups because of the pain in my wrist.
I actually just woke up one day with this idea in my head. I started sketching it. Then, I built a prototype out of wood. It went from there. I've been using my prototype for six months now. It's awesome. It works really, really well. I'm in the middle of getting more formal prototypes built through a manufacturing company in China. I'm going to start marketing it pretty quick here. I'm just going through the process of figuring out my target audience and all that.
It's a product that I'm patenting, just in the process of submitting the patent right now. I know there's nothing else out there like this on the market in terms of solving this specific problem, in the way that I'm going in, at least. Yeah. It's exciting. I think there's tons of potential. I just want to make sure that I get it right and don't ruin the opening date kind of thing.
Dean: Oh, wow! What's your day job? What is it that you do right now that to…?
Aaron: Yeah. My day job is I run a community foundation in Penticton, British Columbia. We were a charity and we manage endowment funds and we provide grants to other charities in the community. That's the majority of the work. It's all about building healthier, stronger communities and working with partners and municipalities to make that happen. It's a good job. A busy, busy job. Yeah?
Dean: Your product is really an out spring of a need that you had that you're trying to solve a problem, couldn't find anything that actually solved it. What's the issue you have in wrist … Did you break your wrist or what? Kind of mobility in the wrist? Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. Like in normal day-to-day circumstances, I actually don't notice any wrist pain, but I actually … This is embarrassing, but I fell off a unicycle and hurt my left wrist. I was only on it for about a second, but it was long enough to fall off and then hurt my wrist. That was quite a long time ago and it still bothers me if I do things like push-ups. My right wrist, I'd been a very avid squash player in my life. Over the years, it just wears and tears.
Like I said, day to day, it doesn't bother me, but when you're in a push-up position and you've got your arm and your hand at a 90-degree angle and you're putting all your body weight on that.
Dean: Yeah, all your body weight on top of it. Right. Exactly.
I imagine there are a lot of people that have that issue.
Aaron: Yeah. In terms of market research, I've done a lot of research about how to deal with wrist pain and push-ups and stuff like that. There are tons of videos on YouTube about how to improve your push-ups technique and how to make the wrist more flexible and stronger and stuff like that. I've done most of those things and it hasn't solved my problem.
Dean: Workaround. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. They're workarounds. They haven't really done the job. They don't get around the fact that the push-ups position has really got your wrist at an acute angle. Yeah. This solution definitely works for me. I know that home workouts and body weight workouts and things like that are extremely popular on the internet right now.
The biggest fitness channel on YouTube is all about home workouts. They have, I don't know, 150 million views and so on. There must be, on the Android store, I think there's probably a dozen or more push-ups apps, most of which have over a million downloads. It's definitely a thing. It's definitely something people want to do. I'm sure that people and there's lots of people with wrist injuries.
Dean: Yeah. It's definitely one of those things that people who have that issue are not going to need to be convinced. They're going to be compelled. They're looking for something. They know they've got the issue and if they can help that, it's dramatic.
Just so I get a sense of this. What are you calling your invention here?
Aaron: The working term is push-ups blocks right now. I haven't worked on anything …
Dean: Push-up blocks. Okay.
Aaron: Yeah. I haven't worked at anything more fancy, but yeah.
Dean: Can you describe to me what it actually looks like? Is it a brace that you put on your wrist …?
Aaron: No.
Dean: Or is it some way that you put your hands in these blocks now that you're describing it?
Aaron: Yeah. It's a piece of aluminum that has a hand surface on it, that has a 20 degree downward angle that allows you to grip the hand surface so that you're in a stable position when you're in the push-up position. It forces your hand to the angle downwards towards the floor so that the angle between the arm and the wrist is smaller.
Dean: Okay, but you still get the support. Yeah.
Aaron: But you still get the support, yeah. The way they're designed, they're actually, you can take the two individual hand pieces and pointed them upside down and lock them together into a cube, so it can be stored easily.
One of my other thoughts there is in terms of having the ability to promote these to gyms and CrossFit training centers and stuff, where they can be stored rather than having bits and pieces lying around.
Dean: Okay, great. For you, without the push-ups blocks, what would you rate the pain level of doing push-ups and body weight things with your wrists?
Aaron: I can't do more than 10 pushups without the push-up blocks before I start to get pain and have to stop doing them. I'm at the point now with doing training with the push-up blocks, over the course of about six minutes, I'll do 100 push-ups without any pain.
Dean: Wow! You go from having pain that makes you stop to not having any pain and that's what you can do.
Aaron: Yeah. Like, zero pain. The only thing that stops me now is getting tired.
Dean: Awfully great. It eliminates your pain so it's your biceps that are limiting … Your biceps or triceps or whatever you're using for the push-up, that your arms, not your wrist, that's limiting you.
Aaron: Right.
Dean: Right. I got you. Okay. That's good. Most people notice that on their first set of push-ups, would they notice right away the difference?
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah, they would for sure. Yeah. If they've had any wrist pain, they'd know right away that's way more comfortable to be in that position.
Dean: Yeah.
Aaron: I'm sure. Yeah.
Dean: Have you had other people try? Have you had that dramatic, that kind of confirmations moment? Yeah.
Aaron: I've had other people try my rough prototype just for a few minutes at a time. When I get the actual, official prototypes in the next couple weeks, I'll be sending them out to people to use for a while, but one of the people that tried the really rough one is a trainer at a local gym who does a lot of guided training sessions for women. She was telling me that, when they finished their set of exercises around doing push-ups and planks and mountain climbers, almost everybody in the class complained about having sore wrists. They're not people that have had injuries. It's just that they've been in that position for five or six minutes. It starts to hurt after a while.
Dean: Yeah, yeah. Wow! Sounds like you got something here that going to make a difference for people. That's awesome. Because we always start, everything starts no matter, we talk about the before unit, the during unit, and the after unit, but everything starts with you got to have something that's going to be a dream come true for somebody.
If somebody's got wrist pain to the point that they're limiting themselves by the amount that they can do, like you were saying, you get tired after or sore after 10 push-ups, so you're having to limit yourself, that this is going to be a dream come true for you that you're going to be able to do the body weight exercises that you want to do without the pain.
I like that, when they can make a dramatic difference and if people can notice it right away that, "It's painful if I don't use this and then I try this and it's like, wow! I can really do something here." That's going to be a big win here. That's good even if people don't have … You're saying even if people don't have, we'll call it excruciating wrist pain or injury-based wrist pain, even people with no wrist injury are limited just because of wrist soreness or wrist fatigue, just from the fact of doing it for five or six minutes at a time. This can extend the amount of time that they can actually do stuff, so everybody. It's got all the way from people who are having pain to this is going to stop that to people who are limited just from wrist fatigue. I got it.
Okay. Most of the people that you have tried this were all enthusiastic supporters of it and say, like, "Hey! I want two of these as soon as you're done with them," kind of thing?
Aaron: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. It's been very positive responses so far. The only complaint I've had from people is about the dimensions of the rough blocks that I've built, but I was limited by the size of my saw basically. I knew they were …
Dean: I got it.
Aaron: … a little bit too small so the official aluminum prototypes will be a better dimension that I think people will feel more stable with.
Dean: I got you.
Aaron: Yeah. They're going to be anodized aluminum so they'll look like mountain climbing gear in terms of their looks. Yeah.
Dean: They'll be more, whatever. Yeah. Uh-huh (affirmative).
Aaron: Yeah. Exactly.
Dean: I like that. Then, they'll package into a cube.
Aaron: Correct.
Dean: Yeah. Nice! Very well thought-out. What about the economics of it? How much are they going to cost you to make and how much are you going to sell them for?
Aaron: I expect them to cost when I produce a thousand of them at a time, I'm expect them to cost about $7.50 per pair and based on the market research I've done, I'm very confident I can sell them in the 30 to $35 range without any trouble. What's interesting is if you look on Amazon at all kind of different push-ups devices, you can find very simple, basic push-ups bars for anywhere from $15 to $150, but generally speaking, they're in the $30 range, I would say. I think that that's a good price point, for sure.
Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative). It seems right on track, then, that you'll be able to either sell through a wholesaler or through retail or there's room to sell them through partners or sell them online yourself. You've got all kinds of opportunities there or licensing them even, as I know you mentioned that might be a possibility, too.
Aaron: Yeah. That's part of what I'm trying to figure out. I'm definitely leaning towards selling them myself online and making a business out of it and trying to obviously take as much profits as I can myself, but making it a long-term profit generator as opposed to one and done.
Dean: How big of a cube is this, if it were to package up? How many inches? Is it a square?
Aaron: When you put them together, it's about five inches by five inches, five and a quarter. Yeah.
Dean: Okay. That's a, yeah, pretty good size cube there. Okay. There's probably some good branding opportunities on there, too, on the surface of them.
Aaron: Oh, yeah. for sure. Yeah.
One of the things I was thinking about was also going to certain groups like some of the big YouTubers, for example. I could have the blocks colored in their particular colors, right?
Dean: Yeah. Right.
Aaron: If they're blue and white, I can do one blue and one white and package them together as a set. That kind of thing is easy.
Dean: Okay. Part of the thing now is getting the right people to know that it's available. That's really the thing. A lot of this is going to be once people understand that it's available, once people understand it's there, that they've got this opportunity, but they don't have to have this pain. You've got the chance to capture that on video.
I think about this thing where somebody's getting this reaction to these where they've got wrist pain. Then, they're trying the blocks and there's no pain. It's funny. Our friend Joe Sugarman started in the 80s, sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of BluBlocker sunglasses with just an infomercial that was literally just going out on the street and letting people try on the sunglasses and just recording their reaction. Everybody was like, "Wow! This is amazing!" It created this sense that you've got to try these. Then, the science behind it was pretty amazing, too.
You've got some opportunity, I think, to create this kind of demonstration for people. It's really about capturing that confirmation moment for people this is actually going to work.
I don't know whether I've talked about this on the podcast before, but one of the things, when you have something that somebody's going to experience something on first use of your product, it's amazing thing to future pace that and let people know what's coming or get them a sense that this is the experience and. Some of the examples I use when I talk about this is Procter & Gamble, for instance, in every one of their commercials, they have their 30-second commercials, they're all heavily featured on what they call this confirmation moment, that proof that this is working.
If you think about commercials like they have some laundry, Downy ones where the confirmation moment is when you take the towel out of the dryer and you bring them up to your nose. You get that fresh smell of the new fresh towels and the look on the faces of the people who are taking them out of the dryer is that confirmation moment, or the Swiffer, where you see somebody demonstrating how the Swiffer actually works. Then, the confirmation moment is when they take that Swiffer, turn it upside down and look at all of the dirt that that Swiffer picked up. That's that confirmation moment that this worked.
If there's some way of capturing the look of elation or relief on people's faces when they're trying push-ups without the block. Then, you give them the block and they can try it. That's the thing that is going to confirm for people that this actually works.
A lot of golf equipment or golf stuff is sold that way, where they'll go out to a driving range. They'll give somebody a new club and let them try the club. It corrects what they've done or they'll show them one tip and they'll do something or they'll try this training, they'll try a few swings with this training aid. Then, they'll go out and hit some drives that are straight and longer than they've ever hit. You capture all of that on video. I think that's really what you got going for you here that you'd be able to demonstrate it, but in a way that confirms it. That would go a long way, I think, on your Facebook ads.
I think we're focused on the things that we already know we have a need for, in a way, or a desire for, like a pent-up desire like in the back of your mind, if you have had or experienced any kind of pain when you're working out, then you see something that is going to relieve that pain. It's going to come to the front of your mind because you're like, "Oh, yeah. I have pain when I do push-ups. This could be really helpful. Let me see what this is about." I think that's going to go a long way when you get that in front of the right people.
When you look at even doing Facebook ads to that audience, to the audience of the people who are in the right world, especially if you're saying the guys on YouTube or even free roll YouTube ads targeted specifically to those videos, that's going to make a difference on doing it yourself.
Aaron: Yeah. For sure. One of the things that I'm wondering about is I know for sure that there's, like it's easy to tell the story about helping ease pain for a target audience that has had wrist pain. I would speculate that probably people over 45 would generally benefit, whether they've had wrist pain or not because they start to scuff it up a bit and stuff. I'm 47 and I definitely noticed that certain exercises that used to not be a problem are more difficult from a joint perspective, not so much a muscle perspective.
I'm trying to figure out my target audience, but automatically it make sense for me to go after people that are wanting to be fit and they're over 45-ish. If they've had wrist injury, that's another segment.
Then, I wonder, I think there's potential for gyms and process facilities and stuff like that where people get a lot of over-use injuries because of the intensity of the workouts. Then, I worry that if I was to start with my target audience, as the over-45 dads who are trying to get in shape at home, is that going to be so uncool to the CrossFit folks that I market myself out of a potential windfall, you know what I mean? I'm not sure how to deal with that.
Dean: Yeah. I think you go with everybody because risks are risks. Anybody's going to have this. It's not that it works better for a 45 year old than it does for a 25 year old who's got repetitive stress injury on it or different than somebody doing, as part of their aerobics workout or whatever. I don't think that that that's going to be the issue.
I think that if anybody who has wrist pain because they're not going to necessarily only ties it to the age. It's the outcome that we're looking for more than anything. Sometimes, it's like, for the right people, if you look at it right now, there's a big group of people who have this need and just don't know that they're even a product available for them, that they just don't … If it was available and they could try it and it would be no more wrist pain, that's pretty amazing. I think there would be a big group of people like that.
It's just kind of that awareness. It's interesting when we're presented with things that are exactly in the wheelhouse of what we need or what we want. We're compelled to want to take action and get that thing. Right now, I'm writing notes here on a reMarkable tablet. You've heard about these?
Aaron: reMarkable what? Sorry.
Dean: reMarkable tablet. It's like a tablet that looks like an oversized Kindle that's got a screen and a pencil that looks like the iPad pencil. It's the tablet that's designed for people who really like to write on paper. It's not like writing on an iPad where you're writing on glass and it's tap, tap, tap. That kind of thing. This is for that feel.
I literally, 45 seconds after I knew this existed, I was buying my reMarkable tablet because it came through my news feed. I saw what it was. I watched not even the whole video was, I said, about 45 seconds of the video. I knew that it was something that I wanted.
I bought this and it's like five or $600, this thing, but it was something that I've been very interested in something like that. I just had to have that awareness of it. If there are people who have wrist pain and you're able to demonstrate and show them how this work, then maybe just the fact that it works, that it's supported with the science of it, of elevating it takes so much of the pressure off you … You must have some scientific reasoning for why this actually works and how much pounds of pressure that this takes off of your wrist per degree that you slanted and why 20 degrees is the optimal thing. There's some science-y kind of reasoning behind it. That's going to explain why, for your scientific part, but nothing's going to be as compelling as seeing people in the gym in the situation experiencing it. That's really going to be, I think, part of what's going to package the awareness.
I think if we take what the optimal thing is, if there were some way to get in front of every person with wrist pain who likes to do or wants to do push-ups or body weight workouts and limits themselves in some way, if there was a way to individually, at the moment that they go to do this, show up to them and say, "Hey, try this," and they tried it, that there would be a very high conversion rate on that. If they're going through it and they see, "Well, I can continue to struggle or limit myself or go through this pain, or I can, for $30, have this dramatic transformation immediately, I'm going to pay the $30," right?
Aaron: Right.
Dean: That way, getting to them individually. Since we can't be at that moment individually, we want to be at that moment for people. We want to legitimately capture their … I'm thinking about just the way that on that golf course that, if we're in a golf product to do it, you'd want to go up to people who are in the moment experiencing their frustration that they slice their drives or they do hook their drives or whatever the problem is and then they try this club and it automatically corrects it, that's a dramatic moment where somebody who's not attached to it is legitimately experiencing something like the BluBlockers where people out of Santa Monica Pier, they're working along or on Venice, on the walkways there and, "Here. Try these glasses." Everybody's like, "Wow! What a difference." You know?
Aaron: Yeah.
Dean: That kind of thing is getting people's candid and immediate reaction to what a more comfortable way of doing push-ups this is. That's going to be the key. Yeah.
Aaron: Then, if I was to take an ad like that and specifically target it for a YouTube video that talks about wrist pain and push-ups.
Dean: That's exactly right, yeah, because there, the problem or the challenge is that there are people with wrist pain are invisible prospects, right?
Aaron: Right.
Dean: Yeah. We don't know. Not a list of them, but they're aware. We get in front of them where they're likely to experience the pain. If you think about the world of that or where they're … The ones who are the real target audience are the people who want to do the push-ups, want to do the body weight exercises and are doing them anyway regardless of the fact that it hurts, but it's a frustration to them that this is going to make it easier, those people are even more, I think, of the target audience than the people who just don't do push-ups because of their wrists, right?
Aaron: Sure.
Dean: They might use it as an excuse. "Oh, I can't do that. My wrists are too bad," so then, that gets them out of doing the pushups. They don't want to, which is a real …
Aaron: Yeah. I'm not trying to convince them to do push-ups. Yeah.
Dean: Actually, that's the thing. We want to get in front of the people that are already doing the push-up, you know?
Dean: Yeah. Right.
Dean: You want to do it first of all in Penticton. It's like all of the people with wrist pain at the gyms or in homes or wherever they are in Penticton should definitely know that's where you're going to get the best feedback. That's where you'll be able to be right where they are when you go to any of the CrossFits or you go to any of the gyms or studios or any of the things. Even I wonder if it makes sense in some of the yoga studios or I think the one things that they do with yoga are wrist-related, but I think they are. Yeah.
Aaron: A lot of the positions have wrist issues, too. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. Wherever these kind of wrist issues, wherever somebody's supporting body weight. If you're there and recording and capturing the natural reaction to this, you're going to build up a pretty nice collection and you're going to see that somebody's going to see themselves in this, not that you're limiting it to 45-year-old men but there will be some 45-year-old men and there'll be some 60-year-old women and there'll be some 30-year-old guys who tape their wrists or do all these things, guys who've had other kinds of injuries. When you start to see the spectrum of who all is being aided by this, that makes a big difference.
Aaron: Right. That makes sense, for sure. Okay, so I don't have to narrow my target audience.
Dean: It's pretty simple. No, your target audience is built it. Your target audience is baked into people with wrist pain and all of the individual types of those people, where they are, it could be that. It could be crossfitters. It could be people who are doing that body weight, but what we need to do is look for a way to educate and motivate these people and make an offer. All of this can happen very shortly like this. When you're selling a product like a single purchased product like this, like the reMarkable, like I was sharing there, but this whole cycle can happen in a very short period of time.
I'm not sure what targeting, what's selected to reach me in my newsfeed about this reMarkable tablet, but I know that when it showed up, it was something that I was interested in. I watched the video that educated me that this is even, that it's there, it ticked all the boxes for everything I was looking for. Then, it was available to buy right now and I bought it. It wasn't that it even was a discount or anything. There was no special offer for it. When you've got something that solves an issue, you've got a great opportunity there. Yeah.
Aaron: Great.
Dean: I wonder, if you might experiment with the pricing of it, too, that I think I suspect that if it's worth $30, it's worth $60 to solve this problem, you know?
Aaron: Right.
Dean: Or certainly $49 or whatever that is, that you're talking about a … It's not a gimmicky thing. It's solving a real problem and that I think that you can experiment with pricing. It doesn't have to be what other things sell for when you've got a real baked-in problem.
I have a book that I wrote with a marriage counselor 20 years ago now called Stop your Divorce. You can tell by the words that, as soon as somebody hears those words, if that's them, they're very self-motivated, interested in the solution there, but this book we sell as an e-book for $79. We've been selling that since 1998 online. We've sold over $5 million of that one book. It's just an evergreen thing. I think that you're going to find that this issue is an ongoing thing. It's not going to be like a fad. You've got something that can solve this issue for a long, long time. You're saying that stopped your wrist pain. It's like that's your core message, when you get right down to it.
Aaron: Yeah. Exactly.
Dean: Yeah. It's an interesting thing, for the people who have that average pain to even know that there's a solution. I wonder what the elevation has to do … How did you come up with that 20% incline? Did you get some help mechanically with that or biomechanically or what was the …
Aaron: I didn't know. Mostly, it was just experimentation, actually. What I found was less than that didn't provide enough of a change to take away the pain. More than that, made it too hard to stay on the slope and not feel …
Dean: I got you.
Aaron: … unstable.
Dean: I got you.
Aaron: It just ended up being a sweet spot that worked. I think, yeah, I can easily justify mechanically why it's a good thing, but I did go through a mechanical engineer to figure that out. It simply was trial and error. Yeah, if it was too much of a slope and you just felt like you were going to slip off …
Dean: I got you. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. It worked out well that way. It just happened. Yeah, just happened to work. It happened to be 20 degrees, which is a nice, round number.
Dean: Yeah. Ah! Perfect. I like it.
Aaron: You always talk about the before, during and after units. One of the questions I was wondering about was should I be thinking hard right now for an after unit for this particular product or because it's like a media purchase type of thing, is that less of a concern to you?
Dean: I was going to ask you the same thing is where does this go? Where does it go? Could you partner with or what are people doing before and after because of what they've done with you. Now, if they're doing this, do you have other products or is it okay that it's one thing, just realizing that that's what it is.
Aaron: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I've competing priorities. I'm not really interested in building a massive company with tens of employees. I'm more interested in a lifestyle business that I can automate and run with a small team, but at the same time, I know that if I get people back into home workouts where they now have an interest in home workouts so maybe I can partner with a blogger or something to send them regular information.
Dean: But it might be the other way around, too. It might be that the distribution because that's really … Whenever anything that I've been talking about is about creating what I call the scale-ready algorithm. The scale-ready algorithm is how do we go through the before unit profit activators with one person? We've selected a single target market, somebody who's doing push-ups now experiencing pain and could be helped by the push-ups block. Getting in front of them is what we're looking at with the Facebook ads or initially going into the gyms in Penticton where you are to capture that, to show that.
I wonder how many people, if you look at it that and this is often a thing that I share with people that, even though this is going to be able to help people all over the world who are experiencing this and it is a global thing. People in the UK and Australia and all the other countries are experiencing this as well, that even though that's true, the very best thing is to think about how can I reach the people in Penticton because I can even go right out to the gym and find them right now. I think if you just went out, you can … How many different gyms or yoga studios or CrossFits or exercise places, training rooms would there be in Penticton right now that are having that experience?
Aaron: There are at least 20 different versions of a gym or studio, for sure.
Dean: Sure. I think if you went there, just even to do almost like demos in a way. This is early on. We're not talking about that this is the most effective way to sell these automatically or at scale. What I'm talking about is the education of this, of understanding what's the thing that what do real people say about the kind of pain that they're experiencing, if you're doing literally just like, "Hey, I noticed you doing some push-ups there. Do you ever get wrist pain? Do you feel like they may say, "Oh, man, my wrists kill me all the time?" I have to push through and do them anyway," because it's the only way. No pain, no gain and all these things. Those are the real soldiers, right?
Aaron: Yeah.
Dean: The ones who are going to get the result no matter what, even if it hurts. It's supposed to hurt. That's just weakness leaving your body. All of those kinds of people are the ones that now, if they tried this and they're like, "Oh, wow. Like, that's dramatic and different," then that's what you're looking for. It's just capturing those moments and hearing in their words what are they saying about the difference and what are they saying about the things. What you're looking for is for people saying, "Can I have these," or, "Where can I get these?"
That's what you're really looking for is how can we get this to get the pitch for it and the introduction of it to the right people in the right situation captured and then look for ways to distribute that.
It's funny that that's the way. My buddy, Kevin Harrington, we've had on I Love Marketing. He's the guy that is largely one of the pioneers of creating the infomercial. When he discovered this guy at the state fair doing demonstrations for his knives. He thought, "Man, if more people could see this, they would buy this." That's where he got the idea for the infomercial.
That was capturing and watching a live demonstration of these Ginsu knives to then put that on video and get that out to the world, but you don't know that until you get out and see what's actually the language and the words and the ways that people describe the situation that they're in and the difference that this makes after they try your product. That really, I think in Penticton, we should be going out …
Aaron: Sorry. We cut out there, Dean. I didn't hear that.
Dean: Okay. Go and get the focus on help those in pain in Penticton and then Vancouver or other areas, but it can get all out through the whole thing. Then, focusing on distribution of a product could be the perfect thing that would fit into the after unit of all of these people who are in the body weight workout or ships or their videos or all of these things that this could create a revenue opportunity for them since they've already got people who are doing these kind of exercises. As an affiliate type of relationship with them, that would be a good way for them to make some extra income as well.
Aaron: Dean, you cut out there. Hello?
Dean: It's cool. Can you hear me now?
Aaron: Sorry, Dean. You cut out there.
Dean: Yeah. Wondering what getting in front of the influence people who already have people, that can make a big impact because it gives them opportunity to have a brand new… Another pillar, another thing that they can offer that's going to enhance the relationship that they have with people. Even if you show that it increases their performance ability that they can do more.
Aaron: Right.
Dean: You can hear me? That you can, in the performance ability, even if you don't have risks, actually better, more in the position to get the right angle because I'm at a 20% distance can change the angle of approach from the effecting the muscle, but we working on …
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely lots of potential ways that it can be used to enhance a workout as well. That's something I definitely want to promote as well.
Dean: Yeah. Okay. You've got such a thing that could be an evergreen. I would definitely test the pricing. When I mentioned the book, that Stop your Divorce book we sell as a new book for $79, which is probably three or four times what a book would normally sell for, but it's the real, it's the problem or it's solving the real problem and if people act like why is it so expensive? It's expensive go get this book in front of people at just the right time so that they can find it. It's like this. Your thing is a … If you think about it as a term of, almost like a piece of medical equipment in a way, like what would clinical risk braces actually cost?
Aaron: I have looked at that and that was anything that's sold in a physio clinic or in some kind of pharmacy-type medical environment, having everything as triple the price of what you would find at like an online discount type thing. It's true.
Dean: Yeah. That's the thing. I wonder, even if you look in Penticton, what type of a doctor would be the type of doctor that somebody might get referred to if they were experiencing this type of pain, like if they've been working out, doing these things, would it be a physio or would it be a …
Aaron: Orthopedic surgeon, maybe?
Dean: Yeah. That they're looking at those things, that even getting them on board, I just think you need some really good, just some education type of things, but not even too much. I mean, it's not really … The message is that you've got wrist pain. This helps that and here's why. Look at what it did for these people. Here's how you get it. That's really the formula that you're running right here, right? Nothing has to be too complicated. It's something that they don't really need a lot of education about it, but it also comes with a great guarantee.
Like any of the golf things that are sold like that is, "Straighter drivers in three swings." It's like, the guarantee would be, "Take it to the driving range, hit three balls and if they're not the three straightest balls you've hit all year, send it back and we'll give you your money back." That's really the guarantee could be. A bat is, "Try them, get them home. If you can't do more push-ups under less pain than send them back." You're easing people's minds, making it risk-free to try so they're not going to … It either works or it doesn't and send them back.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That sounds great.
Dean: I think you got something here. What did you hear? How's your coming or your recap here? Maybe what your actions thoughts or is there anything that, any other questions kind of thing? Yeah.
Aaron: I think your points about having some educational clips and some live demo type of clips is really important. I appreciate your comments about the target market because I was really trying to figure out what to do there. I'm excited that you agree or you've made the point that it's really anybody with wrist pain so I don't have to narrow it too much. That's exciting.
I think I haven't thought of doing, recording demos in Penticton and seems pretty obvious when you say it, but that's great. I'm looking forward to doing that. I think that'll be fun. I also, I was pleased to hear your comment about the pricing because I was struggling with the same thing. I know that that other products are in the $30 range, but this is definitely different. It's going to be higher quality material, all those things. Yeah. I think you've got a point there, too.
Dean: I don't think there's going to be a functional difference between at least between $30 and $49. I would test that kind of thing, but even if you did the … If I were looking at this, I would take this to Penticton. Soon as you get your shipment of them in … When are you going to have them, by the way? When is this actually going to be ready for market?
Aaron: I'll have the prototypes from our final design in the next two weeks. I'll have 18 pieces or 18 sets. Then, from there, as soon as I place the order for 1,000, I can have them in about three weeks.
Dean: I love it. I would take those 18. I would take it to the streets. Take it to Penticton and just tell them everything. Demonstrate what's going on. Interview people before they try them, what's going on. When does it hurt you? What kind of pain have you had? How long do you have it? On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain? Just basically questions like that so you're standardizing things. Then, try this. Then, they show them actually doing the thing. Get those, "Wow! That feels so much better. I feel like I can keep going with this." Then wait and watch for people going, "Where can I get these," or, "How much are these?" Maybe ask people, "How much would you expect to pay for these?"
Maybe you can ask people, "Fill out a survey," like you're doing that thing where people can fill out a survey and put what they would expect to pay for something like this. You could have maybe not even a range of prices, but have people just write down a number because as soon as they're going to be biased if you put $19, $39, $49, whatever. If you just put a blank, how much would you expect to pay for them? That's going to give you a … People are just putting down one number. That's going to be a good indication of where people's initial mind is around them without any sort of buy-in, you know?
Aaron: Right. That's a good idea, for sure. That's a great way to access the price.
Dean: Absolutely. Then, once you get these testimonials and all these confirmation moments on video, that's really where you can craft it all together. Then, you've got the opportunity to either get that in front of people.
That's where having a good margin is going to help, too. The higher the margin, the more you can spend to make a sale, but if you're willing on going with an affiliate or with a wholesaler to sell them, that's really going to give you the opportunity that yourself online, too. The difference between because you've got 750 that's going to cost you. Then, you've got the difference up to $49 or whatever the ultimate price is going to be.
Aaron: Mm-hmm. There's definitely some room in there to do the marketing, for sure.
Dean: Yeah. It's all very exciting.
Aaron: Yes, is it. I'm super excited.
Dean: Yeah. I can't wait to see. When you get everything in, will you send me some of the videos so I can see what's happening? We'll keep people updated.
Aaron: I absolutely will, for sure. Yeah. I definitely will do that. That's great.
Dean: Awesome.
Aaron: I can't wait to do that for you.
Thanks very much, Dean. This is amazing.
Dean: Thanks so much. It's been really great, Aaron. Yeah. You'll listen back again and you'll hear some different things that some people always tell me when they listen back, you'll hear things differently than even just listening to it live like we were right now.
Aaron: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I will definitely listen to it multiple times. I really appreciate your input. This has been just amazing.
Dean: Awesome. Thanks, Aaron.
Aaron: Okay. Take care. Thank you very much.
Dean: Thanks. Bye-bye.
There we have it. Another great episode. I always love having these kinds of conversations. I love when we can work through something new. It's amazing how universally applicable the eight profit activators are, especially when we're starting with this idea of creating a product or a service that is really a dream come true for a very specific group of people. That's our single target audience.
Then, what are we doing to get this message in front of people? How can we show them that this is something that's going to be a benefit for them? We educate them and motivate them and make an offer. It really is what it comes down to.
I think Aaron's got a lot of really cool things to work through. He's going to have a really great experience going through this and getting some real feedback on the streets right there in Penticton and I can't wait to see how it all plays out.
If you'd like to continue the conversation here, come on over to MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com. You can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book. If you'd like to be a guest on this show, just click on the Be a Guest link. That will tell me a little bit about your business. We can pick a time to hatch some evil schemes for you.
If you want to see how the eight profit activators are affecting your business, go to ProfitActivatorScore.com. We have an online score card. We're just going through and answering the questions or finding yourself in the questions is really going to give you awareness of where the big opportunities are in your business than what's either growing or slowing your business right now. That's at ProfitActivatorScore.com.
Have a great week and I will talk to you next time.