Kurt Luidhardt [00:00:00]:
When we work with people, the first thing we do is really talk to them about the people, the audience that we deal with. We want to help them dig deep into the heads and hearts of the conservative and faith based audiences so that they understand them.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:00:16]:
You really want to connect emotionally because this is the third step we will have already. We already know how you feel, what you're selling. We know all about your audience. We know what the opportunity is, how we're going to position you. And so you just need to have a compelling story that really connects, that's authentic, true.
Mike Koenigs [00:00:34]:
So you got to make sure that whatever it is resonates before it goes into the wild.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:00:39]:
Yeah. Before you put your money behind it, you know, and waste it.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:00:43]:
We are a believer. Let's put this message in front of our audience, and let's get their feedback before you put even a dollar behind it. That really is a secret ecosystem of liberty spending influencers, media list brokers, print media, podcasters. And we'll really sit down with you and provide everything you need based on our positioning, our testing to develop the systems to identify those audiences and where you should you spend your time.
Mike Koenigs [00:01:24]:
Hey, everyone, this is Mike Koenigs. I'm here today with two of my favorite people, Kurt and Kristen Ludhart. This is capability amplifier. So let me tell you a little bit about what's coming up. First of all, I want you to imagine that for a moment. If you could just get in front of a bigger audience of perfect fit buyers who love what you stand for, and you're looking for that unfair advantage, that sweet spot of engaged buyers knowing exactly what to say to them, how to say it, how to. How to motivate them to take action and then have access to one of the most concentrated audiences of proven buyers in one place. Now, today you're about to learn about one of the most loyal, engaged buying groups ever.
Mike Koenigs [00:02:05]:
We call them liberty spenders. They literally represent billions of dollars in spend, and most people don't know how to get to them. Now, this episode is for you. If you fit into one of these three boxes or a combination of them, that would be box a, which is growth oriented companies that want to add fuel by accessing a new audience. That's probably you, okay? B is your company has a good offer, but you stalled and you need a new market. Okay? Maybe you've just worn out the market and you're selling to the same people over and over again. They're used to you. Or box c is you can't figure out how to stick out in a crowded sea of competitors, you're stuck in what's known as the red Ocean.
Mike Koenigs [00:02:45]:
You have an undifferentiated product or service like real estate, consumer products, medical supplements, financial services. The list goes on and on and on. So you're going to meet, like I said, Kurt and Kristen Lidheart. They're the masterminds behind campaigns that have helped elect one president, 14 governors, 15 senators, over 100 members of Congress. And they've adapted their system to help nearly any business get elected in virtually any business category, including yours. Now, one of the things that's really interesting about them is they've traveled and campaigned over a million and a half miles across 48 states. They've raised over $500 million from over million transactions. So without further ado, welcome back.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:03:29]:
Great to be here.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:03:30]:
I'm tired now. We've been busy.
Mike Koenigs [00:03:33]:
That was a lot of stuff. That was a lot of stuff for sure.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:03:36]:
No, I was thinking about all the miles we traveled. Oh, God.
Mike Koenigs [00:03:39]:
Oh, yeah. Well, that is true, too. I mean, I can't imagine. You guys definitely put in the work and that's a big part of what we're here today. So who's going to answer this question? What exactly are liberty spenders?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:03:55]:
Well, we think they are the holy grail of buyers for your business. Many businesses, they are the confluence of conservative and faith based buyers with disposable income. And they represent a ton of spend. One of the ways to look at them is just how much money they give away. I think that's a good way to look at disposable income. They're spending it on things they don't need to spend on. They give two and a half billion dollars a year to political campaigns, billions of dollars to churches, and they're some of the most loyal buyers out there. And it also represents just a sizable portion of the US population.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:04:38]:
40% of the US population self identify as conservative in some way. And so this is a holy grail of potential for your business. And we've been speaking to these people for 20 years in the form of political campaigns and communications.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:04:55]:
Yeah. And I would just add to that, you know, we looked at the faith driven consumer market and they're responsible for $5 trillion of spend. That is their buying power. So this is a large group of people and they spend.
Mike Koenigs [00:05:09]:
Yeah. Well, I think the best way to dig into this a little bit further, and you guys have amazing numbers, by the way. I mean, the statistics that we've been gathering prior show, and we'll make sure there are some resources for that. We'll follow up with those. Let's just start with some illustrated stories. And one of them I kind of pressed you for, because Dan Sullivan loves to talk about this, but give us an example of how the liberty buyer behavior kind of rearranged or fixed a clock, let's say, of a big, big corporation, an international corporation.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:05:46]:
Yeah. Well, the most, I feel like, iconic in recent times is Bud light. People know that story. They know what happened. We remember what their typical ads used to be was all about. You know, it was mostly male bros. Exactly. Or someone said bros, balls and babes.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:06:03]:
So sports themed. They also had that time I old enough to remember the WhatsApp commercials. And so, you know, they had a loyal audience and they were trying to attract a new audience. And they picked the transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney as a new influencer. I should say influencer, not activist. But it just did not work. And not only that, but it backfired. Stocks tanked.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:06:28]:
There were boycotts. They lost 27 billion in market share in a month.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:06:32]:
In a month, by the way.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:06:33]:
Yeah, in a month. Yeah. I have those stats in front of me. The company's market cap fell from 134 and a half billion in March 31, when this all started the day before, to 107 billion by the end of May or by May 1. So that's a huge drop.
Mike Koenigs [00:06:50]:
That's a big oops. That's a big oops.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:06:51]:
Right. So we know about that. But the real story is what opportunity that can bring to somebody. So there was this really exciting entrepreneur, Seth Weathers, and he started ultra right beer as a kind of response and said, we're going to sell 100% woke free beer. And again, that's an example of being in this red ocean where there's a ton of money being spent. How do you stand out? And that's what he chose to do. And he went to a million in dollars in sales just a few weeks after launching.
Mike Koenigs [00:07:19]:
Yeah, good story. Good story. And Kurt, I know you've been dialoguing with a variety of past clients, people you've worked with, people you've done a lot of data work with, just because you've been number crunching and giving people access to big audiences for a long time. So you got another David versus Goliath case study or do you have anything you wanna add to that one?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:07:43]:
Well, that one's such an iconic story, and it's about really understanding this liberty buyer and what they value and that bud light happened to have a lot of those people as customers. But another company that built really from scratch. Appealing to this audience is Black Rifle coffee company. And Evan Hafer founded that company. He's a former Green Beret. Even in the name Black Rifle. He was sending a signal to this type of spender.
Mike Koenigs [00:08:08]:
Yep.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:08:09]:
But additionally, as a veteran, he did a lot of things to support veterans with his company. He hired veterans. And when Starbucks announced that they were backing off of their commitment to hire veterans and instead were going to hire refugees instead of veterans, as a response to some activities that Donald Trump announced when he was president, Evan Hafer stepped up. Stepped up and said, I'll hire those veterans at my coffee company. And that was an inflection point for his business. Fast forward to 2022. Black Rifle coffee Company went public at a valuation of $1.6 billion. And that is their go to market strategy is tapping into Liberty spenders.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:08:55]:
They're primarily sold online. You can sign up for a monthly delivery and they really kill it with this audience. And it's a David and Goliath type story. He's taken on Starbucks and winning. And that's the kind of possibility in this audience. They're willing to buy 1.6 billion. They're willing to make a coffee company worth $1.6 billion just on their support for their values alone. But also, there are other products that aren't taking that type of approach, that are still tapping into that audience because they're selling a product that's a good market fit.
Mike Koenigs [00:09:31]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think what's important when we're talking about this, a lot of people might say, well, does this mean that you have to do something that's divisive? Does it mean that you have to do something negative? And we had a long conversation about this. Some of it has to do with taking advantage of timing, just like you do. There's a turn of events politically, and that enables you to pop up with a new story that resonates based upon some market movement or some shifts that takes advantage of an opportunity and it can give someone a huge pop. And you've got a whole system. I mean, that's part of the five p's that we're going to reveal in a couple minutes. But what I'd love to do is, first of all, any comments about the divisiveness of marketing and bringing people together versus separating? Like, what are your thoughts just on that before we dive into your system and your backstory?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:10:26]:
There are a lot of people successful in this market simply because they're selling a product this market wants. And so you can choose to be provocative. You can choose not to be. Even black rifle coffee. The values they're promoting, which is support for veterans, are not particularly controversial for any political party. But it does give them an opportunity to grow based on free marketing, which is really powerful in this market. This group of people are really attuned to what's happening in the world, and that gives you an opportunity to grow without spending it. The kind of money that you would have to spend to grow a $1.6 billion coffee company in simply earned media.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:11:06]:
Yeah, but to that point, that's not always required. Right. So that's an example and an easy one, but we'll get into that. We have a whole process of working with our clients about that to figure out what's the right lane, what feels comfortable, what feels natural, what feels true to you. And it's just about figuring out your values and where they have naturally aligned.
Mike Koenigs [00:11:24]:
Okay, so before we get into the how to, and I know one of the case studies that you have is another red ocean example where they built this business on basically no advertising. So that should light up. You know, I think that's one of the great appeals, is how can you build a business rapidly without advertising and without a traditional marketing spend just by tuning these five things. So, that's the tease to keep on listening and watching. But why don't we just talk about the backstory? What has led you to this? Why should people listen to you? Why should they trust you? Why should they believe that you got the chops to do all this?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:12:03]:
Yeah. Well, we started our time in politics, 25 years working in politics, and as of last count, we've worked on multiple presidential campaigns. But we're able to elect 114 senators, 14 governors, 15 senators, 100 members of Congress. But it started in the most boring way possible. I was the kind of guy who went to high school carrying a briefcase. That guy, right? That'll tell you everything you need to know.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:12:29]:
Nerd. Yeah.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:12:31]:
And wanted to be president of the United States. I got really interested in news and current events in high school, went to college to study political science, and that's where I met this wonderful lady.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:12:44]:
He's already aging me 25 years. I'm like, wait, whoa, hey, let's back off. Let's back off.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:12:48]:
I'll tell you a lot.
Mike Koenigs [00:12:49]:
We met in kindergarten.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:12:51]:
I'll tell you.
Mike Koenigs [00:12:52]:
Yeah.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:12:53]:
We met in the college Republicans in college and graduated and started working on campaigns. And the campaign business is fun, but it's also very transient. You're immediately sort of out of work every November. And so the two of us thought we should start a business serving campaigns, because then we won't be unemployed every six months. Well, what it really meant was instead of being unemployed every six months, we lose all of our clients after November. So I don't know how well thought through that was, but we really got to build a cool business. Got married and loved every minute of it, and now, 20 years later, are getting to do something a little different. You know, we started by specializing in digital marketing and campaigns.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:13:43]:
It was new back in zero six when we got going, and there were a few times we thought about quitting.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:13:49]:
Yeah. I mean, 2009, we almost gave it up. Almost gave it up. And it's funny, because Kurt likes to skip right to where we started our company, but the truth was we really got the entrepreneurial bug because we couldn't afford a wedding.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:14:03]:
Yeah.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:14:04]:
And we had to sell. We found a way to sell fireworks as a way to pay for it. We made $9,000 in ten days and thought, this is fantastic.
Mike Koenigs [00:14:12]:
Yes.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:14:13]:
Yeah. So when he makes a joke of, I'm not sure it was well thought out. Well, yeah, we had just had this big high and thought this was a genius idea, but we saw what was possible. And, yes, in 2009, we thought, oh, we're gonna give it one more year because it was really a tough slog. And I'm glad we did. Cause we had a breakout year in 2010.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:14:32]:
Yeah. It was the first time we really elected some folks in a big way, 14 new members of Congress that year. First time we made money. Stopped having to fish through the cushions, stopped having to drive to meetings and sleep in our car and actually could afford a hood. It was a great year. Another cool experience a few years later was working on the Trump presidential campaign. And we got hired in the summer, pretty late in the game on that race, but we were able to raise $60 million for Trump. That was really Kristen's baby.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:15:07]:
She moved.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:15:07]:
Yeah. I embedded with the campaign, and it was just exciting. There's a lot of sophistication, a lot of things to learn. We were running the Trump app and a number of the large part of the email program, but we really saw, again, a shift there in liberty spenders and what they're willing to do and how to tap into that market in a whole new way across the country differently than what we had seen before. And so it's just we've learned a lot over this journey, and we really know this audience well, and we'd love to help businesses connect with them because they are loyal, and they're just a great community to tap into.
Mike Koenigs [00:15:44]:
Yeah. Well, I think when we first met at Tony Robbins Lions and I heard your story, I was like, this is a great idea. First of all, anytime you spend any time at all with Kurt, he's constantly on the phone making deals. Like, while we've been together the past couple days, he's on the phone making deals, and you guys are hungry, and you're just really good at connecting those dots. Part of this is Kurt's organizational genius and his ability to just see the future and see what's possible and connect all these dots, and then your ability to keep the teams on target, build and scale, and keep the wheels on the bus in an absolutely insane environment. I mean, business, frankly, to me, seems ten times easier than politics because you've got at least more predictable moving parts. It's not like a battlefield all the time. With that in mind, let's get into your five steps, because I think for folks to understand the big picture here, which is there's a huge market that obviously get motivated by their values and their ethical viewpoints.
Mike Koenigs [00:17:02]:
And in some ways, you can say, this does not mean this is red and blue and left and right. This is a lot more nuanced than that. What you've managed to do, but being able to identify and target them and give businesses access with scientific precision is quite fascinating. So why don't you just walk through the process, the sample, and then we're going to do some more examples, because that's what lit me up yesterday, because we're going to talk about wealth managers and financial managers, people who are in ordinary red ocean businesses that have a big struggle differentiating themselves. How are they going to use this and grow?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:17:41]:
So take it away by that.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:17:42]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Go, Kirk.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:17:43]:
Yeah. When we work with people, the first thing we do is really talk to them about the people, the audience that we deal with. We want to help them dig deep into the heads and hearts of the conservative and faith based audiences so that they understand them. So there's a little bit of education at the beginning to kind of connect and appreciate, particularly for folks who aren't deep into that community already. Once we get into that, another thing we do for people typically is take a look at their current customers. We already know so much about these types of buyers. We have extensive voter databases that have ideological analysis of each voter.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:18:28]:
It's 300 million.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:18:30]:
300 million people. So it's easy for us to take a look at, say, the 10,000 customers of a business and tell you, hey, you might be surprised to find out that 60% of your people already fit this profile, you're already succeeding in this market. You're just not perhaps really amping it up by talking in their language yet. But you could, and we can also match it up with our known donors, which is a good way to look at a proxy for a buyer. So our separate database, these are the kinds of people who've given tens of thousands or two, $3,000 to a campaign or a small amount of money, so we can give you some quick understanding of your audience and maybe find some low hanging fruit already you didn't know existed. So that's really how we like to jump into it at first.
Mike Koenigs [00:19:15]:
Yep. And I'm going to just stop there because what that means to me is, so if I'm engaged with you and I say, okay, you guys, I want you to take my database, tell me more about them that I might not know because, you know, like, I don't want to take too much of a risk. I don't want to hang out there, but if I found out 85% were Liberty spenders, I'd take a lot more risks in the type of conversation, or I'd segment my list and my audience and do a campaign that I know would resonate. And I know we're going to get into the messaging side shortly, but I also, if you came back to me and said you've been selling to 10,000 or 1000 or 250, whatever it is, we know where there's 800,000 just like them, and exactly what to say to them to get them to raise their hand and buy, that's a huge unfair advantage.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:20:04]:
Yeah, it absolutely is. And let me tell you something, had Anheuser Busch done this, yeah. A year ago, they might have made some different decisions because they would have had a better understanding of the leanings of their audience and they would have said, look, we want to expand our audience, but let's be careful not to piss off 80% of our people, which they clearly did.
Mike Koenigs [00:20:23]:
Yeah. Oops. Yeah, but they won't do that again.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:20:27]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:20:29]:
Well, they're still cleaning up the mess a year later. And that was a billion dollar mistake.
Mike Koenigs [00:20:35]:
Yeah, a lot of billions. Well, in terms of market cap, it was 40. What was it, 47 or 42 billion? I mean, roughly off of 150 million, basically 30 some percent, it's 27.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:20:47]:
27 billion.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:20:48]:
I mean, let's be honest, the costs are still racking up. Some of these consumers that will never come back.
Mike Koenigs [00:20:53]:
Yep, you're right. You're right. Okay, so let's do. So basically you've got a 300 million entire voter database plus the concentrated liberty spenders. You can look at this and say, I know who's more about your customers than you do through this combined psychographic demographic lens. Let's do number two.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:21:17]:
Yeah. So next, what we want to do is take some time to talk about how to position you to this market so you now understand who they are. You understand your existing audience. And that's now talk about how we position you. And we believe there are three boxes you could choose that run the gamut from really how willing and how aggressive you want to be in talking about political issues. So all the way from bold and maybe a little controversial to I really don't want to touch on it. And so box, what is ideology? And you, when we talked about ultra right beer, that's a company that's marketing as a conservative beer company, and they are using ideology to get it done. There's a second type of position that you might choose to be in is an issue oriented approach.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:22:12]:
That's how we look at Black Rifle coffee company. Somebody who's using an issue, not really taking a partisan position necessarily, but they have an issue that connects with this audience.
Mike Koenigs [00:22:22]:
Yeah, but you can, you can. The dog whistle, the tone, the tonality of the message is clearly know what they stand for without them saying it.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:22:30]:
Absolutely.
Mike Koenigs [00:22:31]:
Yeah.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:22:32]:
And then there's a market fit approach. And this is, you're already selling a product that conservative audiences or faith based audiences wanna buy. You don't have to talk about politics to get it there. You just need to learn how to get in front of that audience. And so that's an important positioning decision that you need to make. And you want to emerge from this step understanding your approach to the market as it is. How are you going to appeal to this audience? What's true for you already? We're not trying to change who you are. Where is the true opportunity? How comfortable are you with this? What can we take advantage of? And we want to, and there's an opportunity to succeed, really in each of these examples.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:23:18]:
And one I think trap you could fall into is the only way to get into this market is to say, I want to tell people that my company is a republican company or my company's super partisan. It doesn't have to be that way. And we have a couple of clients ready to just kind of chat about how they approach it more from a market fit standpoint.
Mike Koenigs [00:23:42]:
Well, let's do another example because I think you can illustrate this. You guys have been working with the Agora for a long time. Anyone who doesn't know who they are, they are massive. But why don't you talk a little bit about that, Kristen, how you've managed to do this and at no time are politics ever mentioned, but you know what they stand for because you're appealing to a certain value.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:24:06]:
Yeah, I think in market fit, it's not even about appealing to the value. I mean, there's some of that and how they communicate, but, yeah, the agora, they just have. They love our audiences and we do a lot of business with them. And the key thing is they have products or services that just resonate, so they have something that our audience wants.
Mike Koenigs [00:24:24]:
What are some of those products?
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:24:26]:
So they sell financial newsletters, coins, medals. I think some of their emails, they'll sell. I'm trying to think.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:24:35]:
They don't ever do financial newsletters. Financial products, gold and metals.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:24:39]:
Thank you. Metals. Yeah.
Mike Koenigs [00:24:40]:
And I also know, um, get more clients, grow your business with better marketing and messaging, make more money and get a better life with more freedom of time, money, relationship and impact. Learn more about our three day one on one done with you reinvention workshop. Visit connecttomike.com to book a conversation with me right now. All right, back to the episode real estate. Because one of the companies that is associated with them, we've actually done business with and built a relationship. Now, I'd never know it's the agora and it never was about, but basically, the messaging that resonated with us is get your foot in another country, have a plan b. And even that wasn't explicitly stated, but, you know, we were sold on the value of having property outside the US, which really appealed to our. Yeah, what if.
Mike Koenigs [00:25:31]:
What if. Right. It's tapping into the uncertainty. And that's very nuanced and subtle. It doesn't have to be in your face.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:25:38]:
Yeah. Their content's not political in nature, as you hinted at it. It's just that they know they're tapping into the desires, the concerns, the needs of this audience in a very specific way.
Mike Koenigs [00:25:50]:
Yep. Good. So that's. That's the market fit. Kurt, why don't you talk about an ideology example?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:25:57]:
Yeah. The best one, and I think the most creative, is Patriot Mobile, who've really built a business worth nine figures right now. They're not publicly traded, but I suspect they are worth a sizable amount of money. Advertising is the all american cell phone wireless company, America's only christian conservative wireless provider.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:26:17]:
Right on the nose.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:26:18]:
It's right on the nose. Very ideological. But what I like to point out to people is that's the reddest of the red oceans, right? If you're going to get into the business of selling cell phone service, you are marketing and challenging billion dollar companies, maybe trillion dollar companies, really, who could bury you in every possible way. And to be able to match up with them and sign up 100, 2150 thousand customers and build a massive value is because they've been able to differentiate on the basis of their values. And what's also really cool about them is they are masters of using conservative media and free media opportunities to promote their products. They are everywhere.
Mike Koenigs [00:27:03]:
Give me some of the examples because this is, I think there's so much brilliance and nuance here. It was so smart that I know a mobile company. I'm like, hey, I've got someone to.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:27:14]:
Partner up with here.
Mike Koenigs [00:27:15]:
Brainstorming. I'm like, we're starting to swap client opportunities because I want to refer people to you to do this because it's such an interesting, brilliant way. And if you can lower your cost of acquisition by learning the messaging and having conversations with media appearances, it's basically podcast shows, right?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:27:36]:
Yeah, that's what we're doing. I mean, there is a ton of, there's an ecosystem of conservative media. Now, all of us know Fox News, but many of you don't appreciate the size and the scope of, say, the Dan Bongino show or Dana Loach. These are shows that Patriot Mobile's on, sometimes sponsoring, and their listeners 100% fit the liberty spender model. And they're 100% the type of customers that Patriot mobile wants to talk about. And they are everywhere. They're showing up at conservative and political convention type activities, sponsoring and doing what you might look at as a, like a trade show, right? But it's all sort of earned media. It's not big, gigantic paid media.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:28:20]:
These guys have probably never run a television commercial, but they've learned how to tap into this audience in a way that cost them almost nothing to obtain a customer. It's really powerful and it's because they've had a very bold, very ideological message. So that's in the terms of positioning, that's the sort of ideological, really bold as opposed to Agora, which is, look, we just have a product. We know this audience wants. We want to hit this audience, we want to know maybe how to talk to them. But we never want to really say we're the right wing financial newsletter people. They never say that, but they've mastered that audience. And Agora has built another billion dollar company based a lot on these types of people who buy.
Mike Koenigs [00:28:59]:
Yeah, I know a lot of the copywriters for agora. I've known them for over 20 years. And what they pulled off, and they know so much. But it's all built on top of this mindset. So that leads us into, okay, so now you know who they are, you know they exist. You compare them against your existing customer base, find out there's a larger audience, then you determine what you stand for and what you're willing to reflect back, which is something that's 100% accurate and real. This is not about making stuff up or purposely pissing people off. I think that's.
Mike Koenigs [00:29:35]:
I want to really reflect that. Now, of course, if you're willing to polarize, it means people are going to know a lot faster what you stand for. And some audiences will buy faster.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:29:44]:
Right.
Mike Koenigs [00:29:44]:
But let's talk about the storytelling, because that's really the third step, is how do you capture that passion in a way that resonates and gets those hand raisers and for that matter, for those media channels to say, I want you, instead of you having to chase them down.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:30:01]:
Yeah, yeah. That third p we did, we picked passion. And it works well because you really want to connect emotionally. And I think because this is the third step, we will have already. We already know how you feel, what you're selling. We know all about your audience. We know what the opportunity is, how we're going to position you. And so you just need to have a compelling story that really connects, that's authentic, true, and you really want to make your case.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:30:27]:
And so you just have to do a better job. And this is where we see the opportunity. And from all of our experience in politics, right. It's because it's all about telling that story and connecting on an emotional level in a way that gets those people to be loyal, be your brand activist, the people that are referring you, that are rating you higher, that are frequently buying. And so figuring out what that is is really powerful and important. And it's beyond just what's the right price point, right. Or what's the right offer in terms of your discount or something. So what we're talking about is thinking about how are you messaging that in a very specific way that's going to connect and let people know that you're the right product or service for them.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:31:08]:
Yeah, we want you to be interesting, and that could be something about you as the founder, could be something about the product or service you have, it could be something about a benefit or something you offer to your employees. So it really runs the gamut of what story is going to connect. And in this step, we're really starting to think about copywriting. We're starting to put together some materials and really deliver a package that you can take to a market.
Mike Koenigs [00:31:36]:
Right. And I would suspect then that also means that you're meeting with the founder, whoever the spokesperson is, and you're tuning them and teaching them what to say, what not to say and how to say it. Or you are matching them up so they can have the conversations with the owners of the media and build rapport. You guys have spent 20 years, spent hundreds of millions of dollars with all these companies. Your ability to just walk in and say, I've got something for you, you walk in with credibility and authority, and you got to make sure that whoever you're working with doesn't make you look like a fool or step out and have that person not trust you or their audience go. Things can backfire with the slip of a tongue. Yeah.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:32:26]:
I mean, you want to be sort of an authentic believer in what you're doing here. And so really thinking about how you want to do that is essential. You know, one good example of this that I think is a little off the beaten path is, is how we took Hollywood and made them interesting to a conservative audience. And that's a little bit of a man bites dog kind of story, because getting those la based California people to say, you know what? Why don't we market to a conservative audience in the midwest is a little off the beaten path. But a few years ago now, we were approached by Hollywood studio to help promote a failed movie that they had produced and was losing money. Went straight to DVD at the time when DVD's were a big thing. And we immediately saw the opportunity to approach this liberty audience to promote this movie because it had some christian themes, had an actor in it with a history of being a conservative personality. And simply putting their movie in front of that liberty audience brought them into profit.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:33:37]:
They sold a ton of DVD's in Walmart and target. And so having that right story, knowing how to tell it, could make a big difference even in a Hollywood production.
Mike Koenigs [00:33:49]:
Yeah. And what's the, what happened? I mean, so basically you took it on, you told the story in the right way, you took a dead movie from what happened.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:34:00]:
Yeah, they were losing money. Everyone was going to lose cash in it. We promoted it a little old fashioned, and we emailed people and said, this is something you need to take a look at this is a movie that supports your values. And so many people went online and bought the DVD's that it encouraged all the big retailers to say, this is something people want. And then their orders went up and so flip the script for the guys who funded the thing who were, you know, shaking in their boots for how much money they were going to lose, and they ended up making a profit on it. And I think if it works for a left wing Hollywood type of audience, it can work for your business, too. And it's a good example of you don't have to be a right wing partisan to find a way to connect with this audience.
Mike Koenigs [00:34:53]:
That's great. So at this point, we've found the audience. We've matched, we've merged, we've figured out who they are. We learn more about the people we're already selling to and how big the audience is. We figure out how to position and match on the basis of ideology, issue, market fit. Then we craft the story. And you'll craft multiple stories for multiple appearances and usages. And this also means it's a multimedia story.
Mike Koenigs [00:35:24]:
It can be audio, video, print, direct mail, email. You don't care about the media, but what's the fourth step?
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:35:34]:
Yeah, well, because we, I mean, everybody likes to have numbers and data, right? Nobody likes, everyone loves to.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:35:40]:
I don't want to waste money.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:35:41]:
Right. Nobody wants to do that. But that's especially true with our background is, you know, we like proof. So that's our fourth p is proof. So as part of our step, what we've figured out and is that utilizing our research team, we can actually take. So now we have this message, and now we're going to do a test and we're going to prove that it's viable and prove that there's a lift. And that's what we're really excited about doing that for businesses.
Mike Koenigs [00:36:04]:
And you've been doing that in the political world for a long time where you got to test out a message, and if it gets out in the wild, you could be screwed. Right. So you got to make sure that whatever it is resonates before it goes into the wild.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:36:17]:
Yeah. Before you put your money behind it, you know, and waste it.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:36:20]:
We are, we are a believer. Let's put this message in front of our audience and let's get their feedback before you put even a dollar behind it. So every one of our customers is going to go through some process. Some cases will do the dials like they do on Fox News. Let's play your marketing video, your collateral, and let people rate it. I feel great about this. I don't feel good about it. Or we'll put it, put you in front of a virtual focus group and let people tell you whether or not your marketing message is generating a higher intent to purchase or not.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:36:53]:
And let's do that. Before we do anything, let's also test multiple messages against one another. We may find that there are four or five different ways we think you could appeal to this audience, but one of them is gold and the other ones are not as good. So our belief is in proof. We're going to get you here. But before we turn you loose and say, go with God. Make this happen. Let's prove it works, let's imbue you with a sense of certainty.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:37:21]:
This is 100% gold. Before you go out and put it in front of the wild, as you.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:37:28]:
Were saying, in politics, we like to say there's no second place and so nobody wants, there is no second. You win or you lose. And so we really care about this step and think it's critical.
Mike Koenigs [00:37:39]:
All right, so let's move on into number five. So we've got. All right, all of it together. We've got multiple messages. We've tested it out. We know what's hitting now. We've got a. Now it's time to make money.
Mike Koenigs [00:37:50]:
Real money.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:37:51]:
Yeah.
Mike Koenigs [00:37:52]:
What's the process that you do that you've learned after 20 years of being in politics? That's different?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:37:57]:
I think this is the real absolute amplifier right here. We're going to work on a product rollout plan, and this is where we bring a ton of value. The thing that you're going to struggle with the most, particularly if you decide I'm going to give this a try, is accessing the secret might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it really is a secret ecosystem of liberty spending influencers, media list brokers, print media podcasters. And we'll really sit down with you and provide everything you need based on our positioning, our testing to develop the systems to identify those audiences and where you should you spend your time, should you do it the way Patreon mobile does it? Should you get on this kind of media? Should you do some paid digital targeting? Should you hit email list? Should you partner with a spokesperson? So we're going to build that program out with you and help you understand the right way to roll out your product. And we can make it this one. We'll get into some topics like timing. What's the right timing. What's maybe something that's happening out in the conservative ecosystem that you can tap into.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:39:12]:
There's literally hundreds of options that we can sift through, hundreds of partnerships, joint ventures, different things that would be attractive in this marketplace that we'll put together as part of our fifth and final step of working with folks.
Mike Koenigs [00:39:28]:
Yeah, I think one of the things that I saw this just with you yesterday, you know, we were brainstorming, and you were already on the phone with a bunch of providers and suppliers, pitching them some new ideas. And, you know, you're the one phone call away. So I've always said for a long time, you know, if you think about it, you're one phone call away from ten x ing your business. It could be one relationship, one domino customer. And you don't. When I get a call and someone says, hey, and I literally had this happen two weeks ago, someone said, hey, I've got this idea. Can you put it in front of Tony Robbins? And it's like, no, first of all, it's a stupid idea. You are so unprepared.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:14]:
And even asking that question shows how absolutely ignorant you are. You're not ready.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:40:18]:
Okay?
Mike Koenigs [00:40:19]:
You're so not ready. And he wouldn't listen to you. Everything about it is badly formatted. You gotta go to school first and know what to do. And you can't start by pitching Tony Robbins first. You gotta get in front of ten or 20 or 30 other audiences. And yesterday when we were brainstorming, you pretty much said the same thing. It's like I told you about someone who's a great client, and you said, I'm not gonna put him on the Glenn Beck show, not right away.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:44]:
I'm not gonna make that call until he's been in ten other places first. But talk a little bit about earning the right to be in front of certain audiences and what a phone call from you is compared to. Like, I mean, you can go to Google or Facebook, but they don't have access. Like, you have access. This is about having human relationships. It's not something an AI can do. Not yet.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:41:09]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the part we're most excited about. And not to go off the path of what you were trying to ask, but just making this happen faster for people, you know, we have just been talking to these people for so long. We have loved our business, and, you know, but we just have such a passion for small businesses and the american dream and all of that. And so the ability for us to take this and. And like you said, make it be the amplifier for people is just so thrilling and so exciting to us. And so that's what's just when we started thinking about how we could craft this, that's where the lights went on, and we just got excited because we have that. We have earned that.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:41:49]:
We've been in this space for a long time, and we can deliver. You know, we have to figure out that what makes sense. Like you said, you have to get up to a certain level for some of these media opportunities to make sense. But we can determine that with you. We can partner with you so that you feel like you understand and you have someone that's guiding you through this process. You're not wandering around aimlessly or feeling alone. You've got some people here that can walk you through that.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:42:14]:
Credibility to these audiences are important. Demonstrating that. Demonstrating that you're committed to their values is important. And so that's why it's introducing yourself and what you're doing in the right way is so essential.
Mike Koenigs [00:42:30]:
Okay, so let's talk a little bit. I want to do a real life story here, because a lot of the viewers and listeners of this show turn out. They're in the financial industry, wealth management. They're also in what I would consider red Ocean. So I do want you to take on a financial advisor example, but I want anyone who's listening watching this could be you. If you're in a highly competitive space and you're like, okay, how can I make this work for me? What's the art form that I want to tap? So, let's do it.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:43:05]:
Wealth advisors, I think, is an interesting example. My mind immediately goes to an Ohio based company called Strive that's doing this elegantly, in my opinion. And if. If you go to their website, their pitch is, we are your true fiduciaries. We're in the business of making money for you and not pursuing any sort of political agenda. So if you're investing with Blackrock today, there's a good chance they're turning down highly profitable investments because it doesn't fit their climate change agenda, or they're choosing not to invest in oil and gas gun manufacturers, whatever that thing might be. They're not being your true fiduciaries. We are.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:43:48]:
We're here to deliver you results. If you would have invested in their, quote, ESG funds, you would have lost money last year. If you invested with us, you made money. I think that's a really good pitch that's attracted to this audience, and it's not outright political. It's just saying, look, we're in the business of making you money.
Mike Koenigs [00:44:04]:
Yeah.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:44:04]:
We're going to go where that is. And we're not in the business of pursuing our political agenda. It's almost like an anti political market or approach to it. It's a very powerful, I think, way to look at this, where you could differentiate yourself as a financial advisor without really, you're not saying anything about your political viewpoints. You're just simply saying, we're here to deliver you results, and that's what we care about.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:44:28]:
Yeah. And I think about other examples. We were talking about this, about figuring out what makes. And again, it could be something just in terms of how you speak about your values, how you founded your company, what drives you, what made you want to get into the business, what's unique about your employees. And so it doesn't have to be, again, like an issue or anything like that. It's just where can you connect on a deeper level and where you're tapping into something that these people really care about.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:44:55]:
Love it.
Mike Koenigs [00:44:57]:
So let's talk a little bit about working with you, what that looks like. And we've got some, some goodies@libertyspender.com that we put together. So for you watching, listening, there's some great gifts that Kurt and Kristin have assembled on their website. One of them is a partnership guide, another video. It's a masterclass. So it's a five step system. It goes through this in even more detail. There's an opportunity to schedule a strategy session, and they have a full program and a product that leads you through this entire process step by step, where in under eight weeks, you'll actually have a full plan ready to roll out.
Mike Koenigs [00:45:36]:
And they've got a great couple of bonuses as well. But why don't you talk a little bit about what it's like to work together? Who wants to take that one?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:45:45]:
Well, you know, when you work with us, you, the first thing we'll do is just some basic discovery calls. We'll do an onboarding session. But really, it's a week set of meetings where we'll take you through step by step, all of the p's. We'll do it with you. We'll work with your marketing team. We'll work with your in house folks. We're not interested in supplanting the talented people you already have. We're here to give them some gas and we'll walk them.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:46:12]:
We'll walk you as the founder and your team through how to position yourself, how to understand these people, how to talk about your story in a passionate way. In that period, you'll have done the proofing, you'll proven the system, and it's a very straightforward. Our idea is to be here with a result quick. We don't want this. There's not a six month maybe it'll work later program. This is, let's get this done in a few short weeks.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:46:43]:
Yeah. And I think the key to that, the key to success is being willing to put in the effort yourself, you know? So that's one thing we talk about that we've learned again in politics is, you know, we've taken on clients before, and they're not willing to do the work. And so we really want to find people that are willing to do this work with us. We can only help people that give us information that they need and do the homework in between each session, each week so that we can really dive in and make sure we are doing the absolute best job for you.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:47:10]:
I love it. I love it.
Mike Koenigs [00:47:11]:
I think it's. Well, I'll say this. I've known Kurt and Kristen now for. It's going on a year, and first of all, they really know what they're doing. They've been in what I'd consider one of the hardest businesses to survive in, which is politics for a long time. But they're also great entrepreneurs. They also have a really cute ice cream shop in their hometown.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:47:34]:
You had to bring that up.
Mike Koenigs [00:47:35]:
I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it. But they've got so many great small business stories, too. That's really where their love is, is small business, real America. I think that's where I really got to appreciate them. But this is a great, great opportunity to work with them. And some of their bonuses include they've got access to these huge databases, they've got matchmaking. They've got access to huge, massive.
Mike Koenigs [00:48:00]:
Like everyone you can think of in the industry of the liberty spender, they're a phone call away. And if Kurt doesn't have him on speed dial, one of his friends does. So once you've gone through the program and you've got your story straight and you've been able to test out your message, they can get you in front of massive, massive audiences quickly. Is that fair to say?
Kurt Luidhardt [00:48:24]:
Absolutely. And that's one of our things. We want to deliver results for people quickly, and I think that's a unique thing about this audience, by the way, it's not true all the time. Sometimes you get a little extra boost from the right timing. Like our friends at black rifle coffee company. But there's really an opportunity to scale businesses fast. And we could sit here and walk through time after time after time again, businesses that launched and achieved velocity quickly in this market because it's such a tight knit group of people, they're all talking to each other. The media personalities all talk about that same topic.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:49:02]:
And so people like Seth Weathers, with a million dollars in beer sales overnight, are not as crazy as it sounds, even for your business.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:09]:
Yeah, business is worth sharing. Right? Okay, so anything that you want to add before we wrap this up, Kristen?
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:49:16]:
No, just that we're excited to help people. And like you said, this really is our passion now that we're shifting towards. And we'd love to talk to you and just find out what makes sense.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:26]:
Awesome. Awesome. Well, at this point, I'm going to say head on over again to Libertyspender.com, and that's where you're going to get the free goodies. You're going to get some additional materials, the video, the downloads, and an opportunity to take and do a strategy session with Kirk Christian or someone on their team. They are so smart, and they're going to be able to tell you right away. Yep, you're a right fit. We can help you out. And there's some great tools on the site as well.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:51]:
So with that, let's say goodbye.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:49:53]:
Okay.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:54]:
All right.
Kurt Luidhardt [00:49:54]:
Bye, everybody.
Kristen Kuidhardt [00:49:55]:
Bye bye.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:55]:
You've been listening to and watching capability amplifier. We'll see you in the next episode. Make sure you share this with some other business owners who can take advantage of what Kurt and Kristen have to offer and also this knowledge. Thanks again.
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