Episode description

Create Better Messaging And People Will Beg You To Take Their Money
 
 When you are positioned, packaged, and branded with great messaging, you can charge premium prices and be seen as an industry leader. I want to be seen as the highest priced solution in my business category. Don’t you?
 
 My co-host Dan Sullivan and I have produced many, many different kinds of knowledge products and intellectual tools to help entrepreneurs over the last several decades, and we’re constantly being asked, “What is your process and thinking behind it?”
 
 A friend of mine recently said something to me that profoundly affected me. His name is Stewart Emery, he's 78 years old, and he's gone through many, many reinventions. He said, “I have been fortunate enough to follow my curiosities for my entire professional life and monetize a fair number of them.” Stewart happens to have been one of the creators and founders of EST, which eventually became the Landmark Forum.
 
 I approach everything through the lens of curiosity and market interest. Historically, my brands and businesses have largely revolved around my own capabilities and interests. I have to be fired up, inspired, and motivated to actually do something.
 
 I also pay very close attention to upcoming trends. Then I think about how I can amplify, multiply, and automate them. Something else that’s REALLY important to me is finding interesting people that I actually want to do business with. 
 
 From there, it’s a matter of market testing. For example, this year, my wife, Vivian, and I decided to do something we call “SuperBeing Dinners.” We invite really fascinating, interesting people to our home, bring in a caterer, create a great night, and start a conversation that you don’t get to have anywhere else. People LOVE them. It’s a way to see people’s responses and their perception of value.
 
 It really comes down to how you create messaging, an experience, and a feeling for people so they wind up raising their hands and saying, “Yeah, I'd like a little bit of that, please!” 
 
 One of Dan’s passions in life is to just ask questions of people and have them tell him about their experiences (most of the time they've never actually described these experiences in their life so, in many ways, they're creating the experience on the spot). 
 
 Questions can be super powerful and that’s Dan’s approach to branding. It’s never about him. It's about what's going on in the mind of someone else. It's about asking better questions of better people.
 
 Every week, Dan and I give away cool prizes to voters and commenters and that might as well be you!
 
 Enjoy!