Joe Polish: Entrepreneur & Author of What’s In It For Them

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be, you just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone. It’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show. And I am so so excited to see and chat with my friend, Joe Polish, who is the entrepreneur and author of the most incredible book that is just now coming out. It is his sixth book, right, Joe? Is that correct?

Joe Polish 1:02
Yes. Now my sixth book, my my first mainstream published book in a big way,

Kara Goldin 1:07
there you go. So it’s called What’s in it for them. And it just absolutely incredible. So everybody needs to get a copy of that. We’ll have that, of course in the show notes. But if you have not heard of Joe Polish, it’s probably because you aren’t a marketer, you don’t think you’re a marketer, I should say Joe is one of the most sought after and experienced marketing people out there. And as a marketing extraordinaire, you’re probably imagining some click funnel stuff. Nope, that’s not it at all. Joe is just no nonsense thinking. And all of his books are absolutely fabulous. As I mentioned to Joe, just now, they are books that I keep on my shelf, I do not give them to people. I’m like, No, you have to go buy it, because I want to go back and and look at his books for sure. But like I said, he’s helped literally hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs, and created millions and millions of dollars for so many people. So he’s also been extremely open about his own challenges with addiction and is doing all kinds of great stuff that I’m sure he’ll get into around that too. And one of his greatest strengths is connecting people and teaching others how to effectively market and sell and his experience, which hopefully he’ll chat about where he had started as a carpet cleaning business. And now he is doing so many good things that I’m not even going to do it justice by trying to explain it. So I’m gonna leave it to him. But like I said, his book, what’s in it for them is super, super great. I’m certain that this podcast is going to be filled with all sorts of wisdom. So welcome, Joe.

Joe Polish 2:53
Thank you. Thank you. And I certainly hope so thank you care. And yeah, I mean, I just got done with finishing a book that I spent two years on. But you know, people often write stories to me about all the different things I say different things that I do, why do you do this? Why do you do that. And ultimately, one of the best ways to learn and get better at something that you want to do is to teach it to other people. So I wrote this book for other people, but also wrote the book for myself. And I wanted to help the givers of the world, protect themselves from the takers, because there’s a lot of takers in the world. And there’s a lot of narcissists. And the planet right now has gone through some major global trauma over the last couple of years. And people when they’re in pain, they need connection, when they are disconnected. They do drugs, they are angry, they’re hurtful, and they damage other people, and they damage themselves. And so part of this is a book on capabilities, tactics, strategies, methods, I can certainly share some of those that people can do in order to meet people connect with people make money, do better marketing, and all that. But ultimately, it is a capability book that is designed to help people build stronger characters. However, someone has to have a foundational basis of empathy, they have to really genuinely care about other people. And if they don’t already have that they won’t like me and they won’t like the book because I call out behaviors. And I call out what I think are just manipulative, bullshit ways to treat people you know, in the marketing world. There’s, I’ve met I’ve met some incredible marketers, some of the greatest marketers in the world are personal friends of mine. A lot of them are part of my Genius Network group, which is one of the highest level marketing groups in the world. And a lot of the people in the marketing world are scumbags. They are manipulative. You know, I say to people all the time that hype used ethically is massive, massive enthusiasm for what you’re selling hype used unethically as line misleading. Is it Okay to cuss on here. Yeah, you’re good. Yeah. Well, you know, bullshitting, exaggerate. I won’t use too much profanity but just you know, just basically

stealing, plagiarizing that sort of stuff. So I’m I very much respect other people’s ideas other people’s IP. There’s a lot of disrespect in the world. I’m very much remember who brought you to the dance party sort of person. I’m a very big believer in Domino’s. Like I end every chapter of what’s in it for them with the Domino’s the the core ideas, the principles, the foundational things that will make the biggest difference because you know, Kara is doing what you do building what you’ve built, writing undaunted, that there are books that can be dominoes for you, they can change the trajectory of your life, they can change how you see see things, think about things. And there’s events in life that are dominoes, there’s people that are Domino’s, but Domino’s can be really good, valuable Domino’s, or they can be very negative ones. And so the the negative Domino’s for me or, you know, abandoned men and you know, physical and sexual abuse as a kid that ended up becoming what caused me to go into addiction to try to hide and medicate the pain. And so, you know, so much of what I think about is look for the pain, be the type of person that can be a solution to other people’s pain, and focus on asking the question what’s in it for them, not what’s in it for you. Because if you really want to get the most out of life, the way to do that is to not focus on what you want. But to focus on what the other person wants, help them get that. And therefore, you’ll probably get everything that you add more than you could ever imagine. If you develop and master that with the caveat being Zig Ziglar had this very famous line, you can have anything you want life if you help enough other people get what they want. But my my friend, Martin, how he pointed out to me many years ago, that’s not actually true all the time, and many of the times because you can help other people get what they want, that will not do a damn thing for you. And some of them will abuse you and take advantage of you as a result of it. So you gotta be you gotta develop your spidey senses. And so what’s in it for them is partially getting people directed at how to approach relationships, to develop relationships with people for business, for profit, for love relationships, I’ve enough, I haven’t have a chapter on how to use marketing to find true love. Not a chapter, but it’s within a chapter, a whole section on how to use marketing to find true love, which, you know, we have a great process for that, that an amazing love coach taught me and so we go through that whole process with her in there. And even our bonus interviews if people have the book that they can listen to it. But the bigger thing is, is it’s winning the right friends and influencing the right people, because you can win friends and influence people. But you don’t want to win the wrong friends and influence the wrong people. Because if you share great value with people that don’t care about it, they can actually use it as a knife and stab you in the back. And that’s a really hard thing to accept in life when people go through challenges. And I don’t want the givers the world to become discouraged when the takers take advantage of them. I just want them to be better boundaried givers and I want them to take all of the crap that has happened in their life and transform pain into profits, transform adversity into being a better, more caring, more loving human being. And to you know, have all of us give ourselves some slack because even when I’m thinking from a higher place, you know, some of the most devious people the biggest scoundrels to whatever degree I can give them a little bit of, of empathy, which I do my best will actually give him a lot of empathy. I realized that these people that are hurting other people probably went through their own journeys and their own rap and their own atmospheric conditions, their life created them to be assholes to other people. And so I want people to, you know, feel proud of the value they put into the world. Help people be put more value out into the world to be, I hope we can create givers out of this, I hope we can let people see the way to win in life is not just making a lot of money and having high status. The way to win is to go to bed every night feeling really good about who you are as a human because you’re putting more you’re producing more than you consume. You’re putting out value into the world and at the end of this life, whatever that is, you encourage people you cared about people you love people you took in and if you live that way, why not make a lot of money? Yeah, why not do really well? Well, you know, that’s how you actually earn it. It’s not because people that don’t earn it, they’re karmically extracting and taking they’re not creating and so this is a book for creators, not for takers,

Kara Goldin 9:58
so much wisdom and what you said We could end the show right here, and everybody should absolutely pick up a copy, you’re gonna see a lot more, but just to give people some framework on who you are, in addition to everything that you’ve done around marketing and helping people and being such a giver, like, how did you get here, so you didn’t have a very calm childhood, you touched on this slightly, but give people some framework of sort of, you know, what Joe was growing up with, and what you faced and people taking from you.

Joe Polish 10:31
You know, it’s interesting, too, because there’s a book written years ago called the culture code, and it’s codes for what different things mean and things that people say it was, it was written by a guy who was, uh, you know, he did a lot of branding for big, you know, fortune 500 companies to come and figure out messaging and stuff, and who you are what you do, like, what do you do when someone says that in America? What that means in America, the code for what do you do is who you are. So we live in a country in America, you know, for those of us that are in America listening or watching this, we our identity is what we do for a living in in so many ways. And so, you know, where I came from, and what I do is kind of interesting, it depends on I sort of analyzed, thinking about those questions. You know, who is who am I? And where did I come from? You know, some days I’m a scared, frightened, insecure, low self esteem question in human other times, I’m confident and I feel really good, and I feel real connected. And I really strived today to be more connected, and I’m doing better. I’ll be 55 years old next year. And this is truly the best time of my life because so much of my life, even though I became a millionaire before the age of 30 was just riddled with anxiety and addictions and pain and angst. And man, if I worked so hard to unlearn the some of the programming that can’t You know, I think unlearning is more important than learning. So anyway, to take where I started, my mother was a former nun. Her name was Virginia. She wrote some of the very first books teaching children how to read using the phonetic method. This is totally present in my mind right now. Because about two hours ago, my IP attorney came over my house to pick up some of my mom’s books to have them scan because we recently got the rights of the books back that she had written. She died in 1972 when I was four years old, and she was a former nun. So the question is all here, what the heck are you talking about? Because I’ve heard all the jokes. My mother left the convent because she had gotten ill she met my father in church, they fell in love, they ended up getting married, she had me and another older brother that I have. And she died of ovarian cancer. When I was four years old, I only have a couple of memories of my mother, I write about those in the book just for just to give some perspective. And then my father was tormented, he never could recover from that. And every year, every two years, my entire childhood, we would move to another town and I was a super shy, introverted, scared, skinny kid that would always get picked on and bullied, I wasn’t good at sports, I had a lot of stress. But I learned how to smile. And I learned if I smiled, people would treat me better, and I wouldn’t get beat up as much. And I wouldn’t get picked on and my father wouldn’t get as angry. So in the beginning, it was a survival mechanism. As I got a little bit older, between the ages of eight to 10, I had quite a bit of sexual abuse, some in the Catholic Church others with male figures in life, I was raped and molested as a kid I was paid money, not to say anything about it. I felt like a just a worthless human. And so when that when, when experiences sexual abuse or different sorts of forms of abuse that can really just create an identity, a level of shame, that is pretty intense. And I’ve done a ton of work on it. So you know, and and I say everything I’m saying here, I also want to preface this care with, you know, I’m really happy in some ways, that trauma is being so discussed openly now, you know, the, like Gabor Ma Tei, who is a dear friend of mine, I’m actually bringing them to my Genius Network event in a couple of weeks. You know, second time, I’ve brought, you know, one of the top trauma guys in the world into an entrepreneurial conference. And it’s important that people deal with their traumas because if they don’t, you’re as sick as your secrets in silent battles are the hardest battles to fight and if you don’t have a way to it’s not the stuff that happens to you. It’s what you do about what happens to you. And when you’re when I was a kid, I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t run away. I couldn’t ask for help. So I repressed that in that repression turned into drug addiction and then ultimately, it led into sexual addiction, which is a connection disorder. It’s an intimacy disorder, because I never knew what a model of love was. I didn’t know what sex was I just thought it was something that people did to get off I didn’t see it as a mutual expression of love and oneness or connection it was just dirty and shameful because of what was done to me and as I say this I very much do my best to never live in wound ology you know, you can I’m not one of these guys. It’s like, Oh, poor me. All this happened to me and stuff. Yeah, it was awful what happened and there were some very bad things. And it was in a really messed up a lot of my life. However, that’s part of it has happened to so many people. And I hear stories daily, because I have an addiction recovery foundation called genius recovery, which is an educational platform. I mean, I hear stuff on a daily basis, I can’t even fathom what some humans have gone through, and the ones that have, you know, just the repeated abuse and the abandonment and the humiliation that humans go through, and then I’ll see the ones of how they overcame it. And my God, it’s like, it’s so inspirational when you can see someone that has gone through such adversity, and it’ll wreck their life, oftentimes, it’ll put them into a spirals for a period of time, but the ones that, you know, the Phoenix that rise from the ashes, I mean, that’s what is the motivation that, that keeps me going, when I oftentimes don’t feel like going and it took years of 12 Step groups and therapy and working through it. And, you know, until I finally even started to love myself, because I never heard I love you growing up as a kid until I was maybe 18 years old, and my father, you know, I was so pissed at him for periods of time, and he just some of the stuff he would often do. And you know, he died in 2002, from lung cancer, predominantly from smoking and stuff. And I look back, and it’s like, the poor guy just had a hard life. I mean, he just had a really hard life. And, you know, even though, you know, I had good work ethics, even though I was disappointed in things with him, I look back and go and you know, if the atmospheric conditions of his life, which is a term I got from one of my Genius Network members named Dr. Don, Don, would if you understood the atmospheric conditions of somebody’s life, it will make sense why it is that they do what it is they do, doesn’t excuse violence, it doesn’t excuse people doing awful stuff. It just gives a perspective of how things happen. And it’s so at this stage in my life, I believe, you can change the atmospheric conditions of your life and you can help influence people through books, through learning through love, through compassion, through focusing on being a pain detective and reducing suffering, you know, asking what’s in it for them, you can really help people. And so I did that with business. I did that with marketing. I was an entrepreneur. In what I mean, I was an entrepreneur, I don’t know if entrepreneurs, I’ve had certain conversations like my buddy, Gino Wickman, who wrote the book traction and different people about is an entrepreneur made are they born and we live in a world right now where it really fetishize his entrepreneurship, people like being an entrepreneur or be an entrepreneur. And I don’t think everyone’s built to be an entrepreneur. I mean, you know, some people they lead from behind, they don’t want to run their own companies. They don’t want to start their own ventures. And it’s not about what’s right or wrong. It’s it’s about taking your capabilities and putting them into action. So the original definition of the word entrepreneur, the first recorded use of it was an 1804 by a French guy named John batteas Say. And he said, An entrepreneur is an individual that takes resources from a lower yield to a higher yield from a lower level of productivity to a higher level of productivity. And so I started out as a dobro carpet cleaner, and I didn’t take a volunteer I was just trying to pay my bills. I was just trying to survive. And I learned marketing because I needed to eat I needed to survive. I never thought I’d write books to run I transformed the entire carpet cleaning industry in the 1990s I built the largest training organization in the world for carpet and upholstery cleaners, after living on credit cards, going deeply in debt, cleaning carpets myself 1012 1416 hour days, and paying money to go broke. I’d be in these, you know, urine infested apartments where cats were peeing all over the place and I’m allergic to cats and I live in Arizona. And I remember in the middle of summer I would like run an extension cord down to lower three level apartment complexes because there was no there was no electricity in some of the units and it was like doing hard manual labor labor in a sauna, cleaning carpets with steam, heating it up and making it more humid and wheezing because I’m allergic to cats. It was the most miserable sort of thing and I would say to people, you know, after I learned how to actually make the business work, and I did that crap for a couple of years, I was like, you know, there’s so many ways to go broke that are more intelligence and doing hard manual labor, cleaning carpets, sit in front of a TV and eat potato chips and just you know, that’s a better way to go broke than doing that. But but you know what, Kara? I was an entrepreneur. It’s like, dammit, I didn’t want to work for anyone. Yeah, I wanted to, you know, so I was willing to do these insane things that to the outside world would make no sense. But it’s like, I just wanted to figure out how to I hated being controlled by other people. And I was controlled my whole life. I was humiliated. I was abused. I’m like, fuck this, I don’t, you know, I’m not gonna live like this. And that’s what caused me to just work really hard. Even when it wasn’t working. It wasn’t working at all, but I just kept at it. It wasn’t because of inspiration. It was because of pain. I was in pain and I needed to get out of it.

Kara Goldin 20:35
I’m from Arizona as well. So I know some of the lakes around Arizona that you were up at Soro Lake, I was there many, many times, probably around the same time, we probably passed each other on the salt river or tubing or somewhere on the overlay.

Joe Polish 20:51
That’s exactly what we yeah, we would go out these tubes is a funniest day. I have a great story, if you want me to

Kara Goldin 20:57
tell. That’s what I was gonna say that some friends really changed your mindset. And we’re really kind of laying into you a little bit about, you know, you were having a pity party, about your cleaning business. And I’d love for you to share that story.

Joe Polish 21:12
No, I’m glad I’m glad you brought it. I’ve actually I wasn’t even thinking of that one. But it’s it’s a really good story. And this guy was one of the first mentors and one of the biggest influences and I can’t remember this guy’s name. I really wish I could if I could have ever gone back and thanked him I would have. But a friend named Pat called me up one day and I was like, in the middle of my trying to make my carpet cleaning business work. And I no idea how to really run it. But I had bought with money I had saved literally delivering papers, one of my jobs in in I went to New Mexico and I went to New Mexico State for a couple years never got a degree in anything. But I really went there just to get sober from being a drug addict. Because when I was 18 years old, and my worst state, I weighed 105 pounds from freebasing cocaine for three months straight. And I was a total wreck. You know, you take a male who’s 510 and weighs 105 pounds, my average weight was around 120. But there was one week where I just had not eaten hardly anything. And I went to you know, as I went to 105 pounds was my lowest weight. And I was a total wreck. And so I went to New Mexico, and you know, got got sober, but I didn’t get a degree and then I you know, saved up some money. And ended up coming back to Arizona a couple years later and buying a friend talked me into starting a carpet cleaning business, I spent, you know, the $1,500 I had saved up and got a steam cleaning portable machine and business cards that said professional carpet cleaner. And while I was a professional this, this and my friend that I started the business with after two months of him getting drunk every night and not doing pretty much anything. I took his name off the business account went out on my own, I was like how am I going to figure this out and I was bumbling my way through doing door to door sales cleaning carpets at these apartment complexes, like I mentioned, and they would pay me every 6090 120 days. And it was just terrible work. But it was consistent as the only way that I was like even eating. So my friend calls me up. He’s like, you want to go jet skiing? And I was like, Nah, I’m busy. I got a lot of work to do. Because when you have no discretionary income, and you’re broke, and you’re living on credit cards, it’s not like you have a lot of like, you know, available time and money to go do anything and I’m just trying to, you know, stay alive. And so I said, Well, you know, I’m busy. I got to do work this weekend. But thank you. He’s like, Well, you know, the guy that owns a jet skis, this multimillion dollar real estate investor as soon as he said that, I was like, Oh, that you know, that’s interesting. Maybe I can you meet this rich guy and he can tell me what this is like?

Kara Goldin 23:53
Carpets, right? I mean,

Joe Polish 23:55
exactly. And so I was really my attitude at that time care was like, I gotta get the hell out of this business. But I don’t really have any other options. I’m trying to figure it out. And so you know, it was an accidental industry. I didn’t you know, I have no college degree. I mean, I did end up going to Chandler Gilbert Community College, and I got a C minus and principles of marketing. And I failed owning and operating a small business. I even report I put a printout of my report card in one of my books, which is the average Joe’s marketing book, which is actually not yet released. I’ve shared it with Genius Network members, but I have no college degree. So I go on this jet skiing trip, I drive my piece of crap pickup truck there. And my buddy Pat is there and then this rich guy has two jet skis and he has one of his friends with him. And we’re, you know, we packed up our trucks to Saguaro lake and we have these jet skis and this is an Arizona like you mentioned. And finally I had a chance to just meet this guy sit down on the back of a tailgate of pickup truck. Well, Pat and his other friend, we’re out on the two jet skis. And I said, Well, I hear you do really well in business. And I have this small carpet cleaning business. And I’m looking to try to go into some other industry where I can, you know, make better money. And I was wondering if you have any recommendations of another business that you would recommend that someone go into when they’re just starting out? And he said to me, he goes, Well, is there anyone else in the business that you’re in? That’s doing well? And I said, Well, you know, there’s a couple of companies because I told him about a carpet cleaning business. And he, I said, Well, there’s couple of companies in Phoenix that make over a million dollars a year and at the time, to me, that was like a lot of money. And he said, Well, young man, if there’s other people in your business doing well, and you’re not, there’s nothing wrong with the business you’re in, there’s something wrong with you. Oh, no, it’s like, okay, well, that’s not the motivational speech, oh, here. And I said, Well, I go, Well, I’m certified. I’ve gotten trained, you know, I volunteered to become the Arizona director of the carpet and fabric Institute, which was true, I was actually helping to bring education to Arizona, just trying to learn how to make this business work. And he, he said, well, and I get a lot of these companies, they do bait and switch advertising, I really care about my clients, I do really good work, I’m certified. So I do a good job. But it’s it’s not a good industry to be in. It’s really competitive. And he said, Well, if there’s other people that are doing well, in the business, and you’re not there’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not the business, it’s you. And so if you’re going to go into another industry, another business, you’re going to spend another six months, another year, another two years learning the technical skills of another industry, so you can go out and repeat the same bad business habits that have caused you to be a failure in this one. And, like, it just it just burned into my head what he was saying, because I was like, you know, it was so so not what I’d ever heard anyone say most people would be encouraging me in this net, and he’s like, gone. No, you just, you’re just not yes or no, what the hell you’re doing. And so, you know, I argued with him a little bit, but I really, you know, but then I realized, you know, he’s right. I mean, other people know how to do something, I don’t know how to do it. So he said, If you want to go into another business, you need to learn fundamental business skills. And so because if you try to go into another business, you’re going to just learn how to make a business work. So I left that trip, sunbird is hell but I have this vision in my mind saying, I’ve got a lot of anxiety, I have a lot of difficulties mentally, but I’m, I’m a hard worker, I care about people I’m driven, I live in America, I’ve got the use of all my limbs. There are people that are making more money than me that don’t seem to work anywhere near as hard as I do, and don’t seem to care as much as I do. So I also realize there’s no relationship between being good at what you do and getting paid is unfortunate. But there’s a huge relationship between being good being a good marketer and getting paid. And if you are really good, you really will be well served to learn communication, and marketing and connection and how to develop relationships with people. Because if you are really good, it will help get that goodness that giving that value that you put out into the world into the marketplace, and then you can make money with it. And so I made a decision that I’m going to stay in this carpet cleaning business until I figure out how to make it work. And not give myself a cop out by running away thinking that the grass is going to be greener on the other side. Because the you know, the grass may be greener on the other side. But there’s also a lot of bullshit on the other side, too. So it’s like, how do you play it where it lies? You know, how do you really find the acres of diamonds, which is a book I read early on, where you know, you find the diamonds that are already sitting where you’re at? So

I started on a path of saying someone knows how to make this make business work. And how do you do that. And one of the first books that I had read was The E Myth by Michael Gerber, which was funny because this is probably about 1992. And it was a book about Systemising your business and automating it. And he talked about the technician, the entrepreneur, and the manager, those three personalities. And what’s funny is that book provided no advice on how to market a company, which is what I needed, but it gave me a framework of how to like I started thinking, Well, if there’s any area of business you want to automate and systemize is one area of responsible for bringing in money, which is sales and marketing department. And then another friend gave me a newsletter written by this crazy but brilliant copywriter named Gary Halbert, who said in this newsletter can include yourself, you want because if you’re selling face to face, you’re limited by the clock, but with the right ad, the right sales letter, you can talk to 10 people, 50 people, 100 people, 1000 people, a million people. So I thought How do I replicate? How do I can include myself? So I started to learn about copywriting, I started to learn about words, I started to learn about marketing. And if someone listening to this is not a brilliant copywriter, and most people aren’t, I’m certainly not in your selling something even remotely more exciting than carpet cleaning, you can probably take what I learned and apply it in any business, because people are like, Well, you’re in carpet cleaning, I do something like you know, I’m a consultant, or I’m a web developer, or I’m a chiropractor, or I’m a real estate, you know, they, whatever industry they’re in, and I’m like, Well, you know, if you have to figure out how to successfully sell something nobody wants to buy, which is carpet cleaning, it actually teaches you quite a bit about how to be clean and how to be persuasive. And so I was like, how do I make my marketing valuable? So I created a consumer guide for carpet cleaning, and this was before the internet. This is in 1992. My very first website I had in 1996. But even then people weren’t doing much web commerce, there was no social media, there was no Facebook and people today, it’s like, it’s so hard to get a message out. It’s like, we have to spend money on stamps, we had to lay out ads, we use whiteout sometimes to edit some sure No, it’s It’s like people have no idea, the difficulty of getting messaging out. So I started teaching people how to, to educate educated prospects on how to make a buying decision. With my very first consumers guide to carpet,

Kara Goldin 31:25
you what you’re talking about really is, you know, the difference between marketing versus selling. So I’d love to have you just quickly touch on that. Yeah,

Joe Polish 31:37
so So great question. So selling is what you do when you’re on the phone or face to face with somebody, marketing is what you do to get someone on the phone or face to face with you or to your website, or to your social media site, you know, if you’re a brick and mortar business, where you’re fully online, whatever, is to have people show up engaging with you as much, or your team or your technology as much as humanly possible, where they’re pre interested, pre motivated, pre qualified and predisposed to do business with you. And so one of the ways to do that is to offer them something of value for free, or to educate them, because the number one question in all consumers minds is, you know, who can I trust? And so when you’re thinking of what’s in it for them, you have to, you know, I mean, part of my book, is to get people to quit thinking about what you want, you know, don’t just think about your brand, if you think your brand is valuable, go to the bank and say I have a really valuable brand, I have a lot of followers on Instagram, or this or that or that how much money you would give me. I mean, they’ll laugh at you, you know. So building a brand also has to come with creating something that people actually want. And so I the type of marketing that I utilize and learn was direct response marketing, which is using compelling copy, putting out specific offers guaranteeing your work. The way that I did it, I ultimately started thinking of it as elf marketing. Where do you want to elf business, which is easy, lucrative and fun? Or do you want to have business which is hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. So I wanted it because you can have a hard, annoying, lucrative and frustrating business. But I wanted things that are else. So marketing, make selling easy and ideally unnecessary. Because if you don’t have any effective marketing, to deliver to you people that are again, pre interested, pre motivated, pre qualified and predisposed to do business with you, then you have to rely on a lot of manual marketing. And so for carpet cleaning, I hired a copywriter. And I had just an idea. I was studying all of these books and courses on How to sell using direct mail. But I wasn’t selling anything through direct mail. I was selling carpet cleaning, but it taught me about how do I actually weave together offers How do I say things in a certain way to compel people. And so one of my very first things that changed the whole trajectory of my business, and has been used to generate several billion dollars in revenue for my clients over the years and I’m talking several billion not million. Yeah, I mean, we can track this too. This is not made up stuff. I everything I’m talking about is not an idea. I mean, it’s been proven with hundreds of 1000s of people. And it works. I mean, we’ve transformed so many businesses, including my own the beauty was is I’m a convert in my own system, though. I never sold anyone anything to anybody until actually had done it myself. I mean, I created the recipes for me, I never thought I’d sell recipes, or recipe books or teach courses and stuff sighs You know, going back 1992 are a copywriter 1800 bucks, sit down with this guy in person. few phone calls? No, there’s no social media. There’s none of that and basically teach him about how to choose a carpet cleaner so he can help me put together my first formulated consumer awareness guide and I’ll say this in a way so that everyone out there think of what you’re selling and how you can apply the same and thinks even though I’m talking about it, in the context of selling carpet cleaning, it is an educational guide to help people make a buying decision. So it said, read this guide and discover and I have all this through memory, I’m not looking at anything, I’ve just done this crap for so long it just embedded into my brain. Seven questions to ask a carpet cleaner before you invite Him into your home. Eight mistakes to avoid when choosing a carpet cleaner, six costly misconceptions about carpet cleaning, crawling critters, and crowded guide to the slime, grime and livestock that seeping creeping and galloping through your carpet. How to Avoid for carpet cleaning rip offs, the difference between value and price, how to get your carpet cleaner to 100% guarantee your work. And that was on the front page consumers guide to carpet cleaning. Now most carpet cleaners were like, you know, 595 a room whole house $29. And they would use low price, and they would get into a home and then they would do bait and switch advertising or they would just advertise really low price. And I learned that the worst offer you can make is no offer at all. The second worst offer you can make is a price offer, because there’s always going to be someone that is going to be cheaper, or at least is going to try to present themselves as less. And so I started advertising, you know, you know, Are you fed up with your dirty carpet call and request this consumer awareness guide, or free guide reveals how to get your carpet cleaned properly, you know, things like that. And people would call me up and they would request a consumer awareness guide. And I would physically mail it to them printed with stamps and mail it to them. And then I would include a certificate for a free room of carpet cleaning up to 200 square feet. And I would do a carpet audit. Because everyone else was given away a free estimate and a quote and I didn’t want to be a free advisor, I wanted to do something different. So I offered a carpet audit, where we would come in and we would evaluate the condition of the carpet. And then we would give them a prescription on how to best take care of it’s completely different than when I saw I changed how I packaged and presented my services, which is what marketing is it’s how you package and present your services. And I did that and all of a sudden people were calling and not saying how much do you charge they were calling to request the consumer awareness guide. And when they got the guide, some of them would call me up and say you’re very professional, I’d like you to come over and let’s try the free room of carpet cleaning. And while I was doing doing it, I would give them a carpet audit and then with a estimate of what it would cost to do more of their carpet. And it always came with 100% money back guarantee. If they weren’t happy for whatever reason for any additional services they chose to purchase. It came with a guarantee. So I took all of the risk out of doing business with me. And it started working. There was a problem though some people will call me up and they’re like, Well, I would love to get your consumer awareness guide. But I want to get my carpets clean tomorrow or quickly. So I turned it into I went back to the copywriter, I helped him put the consumer awareness guide into a free recorded message. And then I started running ads and said free recorded message reveals, you know, seven questions asked to call this free recorded message and discover seven questions that’s asked a carpet cleaner before I invite Him into your home, how to avoid for carpet cleaning rip offs. And then they would call it said call anytime 24 hours a day, seven days a week and they would call and they would hear a robot me basically with a 10 minute recording, teaching them everything they need to know on how to choose a carpet cleaner. So I made my advertising valuable. I thought what’s in it for them even before I thought of it is what’s in it for them. So it’s like I want to get my carpet clean. They didn’t know there were seven questions ask a carpet cleaner, a costly misconception six mistakes. You know, I switch that around once in a while it was eight mistakes to avoid in six costly misconceptions. That’s how I had it written. And even with my memory, I sometimes switch those ones around. And basically I taught them how to make a buying decision because they would open the guide or they listened to to the recording and it said, Dear homeowner choosing a carpet cleaner isn’t easy. Why? Because you’re bombarded with confusing claims simply bad information. They’re worthless methods. How do you ever find a qualified competent carpet cleaner you start by reading this guide or you listen to this message. And with this information, you can make an informed intelligent decision and that’s all people want to do. They don’t want to make uninformed, idiotic decisions they don’t want to be ripped off. They don’t want to feel like they don’t know they want to make informed so I educated them on how to make a buying decision. I gave them the reasons why. And I made it available for free if you can make your advertising in your selling in your marketing valuable, they will have trust and rapport with you because trust is rapport with comfort. And that’s what you want. You want to establish. You know you want to establish trust and rapport with people so they feel comfortable with you guarantee it and I transformed my carpet cleaning business and then I packaged it up and started teaching it to other carpet cleaners and by 1997 I was on the cover of the largest trade magazine in the United States at the time called Clean fax I was on the cover of the Australian trade magazines. The the the UK trade magazines I was the most popular person in the world never gotten me data or anything because I didn’t have like groupies like a rock star. But I transform the entire carpet cleaning industry, even Michael Gerber hired me for consulting and at the time said it was the best day of consulting he’d ever spent with a marketing person. So it’s so funny how things come full circle when you apply yourself. And I

Kara Goldin 40:23
think you not only showed what’s in it for them to other businesses, but also to consumers. So you were actually really knocking off two big things that I think any business, any business person who’s listening to this might start thinking about, and of course, the book, what’s in it for them. That’s how you’ve always thought about things. And I think it’s, it’s incredible, I feel like you shared a lot about your life as well, and how authentic you are. And people got to know you more through your stories. And obviously, through some of the different stories that you’ve heard through addiction to they really are the same principles where you’re giving so much, and people are going to return that and sort of share a lot of their stories. But I think a lot of people lose sort of how do I actually turn that into something that I use in business? And I think that that’s something that you have, and obviously, you’ve you’ve written many books that cover this, but I think that this is one of the best ones that you’ve written. So in the book, you share nine principles for getting what you want, by helping others can you share? I don’t know if you’ll remember all nine right off the bat. But can you share a couple of them? Well,

Joe Polish 41:38
I do happen to have the galley of the book here. So I can always go to the Table of Contents here. And I could I could use myself. You know, it’s funny though, you write a book and you spend so much time with it. And the beauty of documenting it is you can’t always remember every aspect of a of a book, especially something that took me, you know, two years to put together put a lot of effort into this book. But I Yeah, the let me say this too, I actually give away a book. And I would recommend everyone do this strategy, because it works really well. I have one book called Life gives to the giver. And people can download that book for free at Joe’s free book.com. And it’s very similar to what I did with carpet cleaning, I would give away a consumer awareness guide or I have people call free recorded message. And a lot of people will give away a free book in the marketing world and they hammer people with these upsell funnels. And they give away a really crappy book just to get people to opt in into lead generate, I actually give away a really good book. That’s, that’s very short 123 Page chapters, and thought bubbles of different things related to business life health, in in addiction recovery, and I give that away for free so that people can just, you know, have a have an understanding of what it is I do. And then we send out three emails a week. And each email is just a you know, a short insight, sometimes a strategy, sometimes a lesson, give people perspective. And then we end each email with you know, PS, here’s three ways or four ways that we can help you. So it’s not how we I play the long game, you know, I mean, I’m not trying to hammer people it’s like if they like me, they’ll look into the stuff that I sell, they’ll look into the stuff I do, but I want to bond with people. And so that’s what I recommend that anyone listening to this, if you have something, package it up, so that you can offer some of your best stuff that you can give away for free. And if people find that valuable, they will actually want to maybe buy something from you. Because most people will care that benefit from what I do. They don’t run a business that you know, someone to come to genius simulcast to make at least a million bucks a year to join my group. Most people that benefit from my work never pay me anything. They just listen to podcasts, you know, free stuff. So I recommend just be useful, grateful valuable, which is one of my chapters. So the first chapter is how are they suffering and how can I help and what I go through in that chapter is to be a pain detective because I believe most problems in the world there’s a solution for most of them some there isn’t. Oftentimes if someone’s you know, I’ve had oh boy this is hard to even describe this. I’ve had the fortune to sit with several people while they’re dying. I’ve been the primary caretaker for two people when they were dying. And when you lose someone close to you a family member or a friend it is man it it really gives you a perspective on life and we live in a culture that hides death and you don’t make people unless you’re you know, my my my girlfriend is a is a surgeon. Many people never even see a dead body unless you go to a funeral or something or happened to come up upon an accident or some You know, it’s hidden. And there’s many lessons in suffering, there’s many lessons in pain and how someone leaves the world I hope I can do it with with grace, it could be tragic, I have no idea. It’s just when you when you sit in rooms, addiction recovery things where you go to treatment, or you go to therapy, or you’re sitting around human suffering and some stuff, I can’t even fathom wars and things that people experience on a daily basis. If you can help identify the pain and help relieve it, not only can you deeply bond with somebody, but you actually can, if you have solutions to pain, it’s it’s so powerful. It’s what the world needs. And so if you think of a business, most businesses are how they make money as they solve problems for a profit. And so I’ve learned to look for the pain, look for the suffering with the intention of reducing it, or lessening it or eliminating it in some situations, you know, if you have enough money to solve the problem, you don’t have a problem. And if people have enough money, like if you’re hungry, that’s bad news. If you can go to a restaurant, that’s good news. If you break your ankle, that’s bad news. If you can go to a doctor and can help you with that. That’s good news. If you’re bored, that’s bad news. If you can buy one of your books, listen to a podcast, go to a movie, go dancing. You know, that’s good news. And so how do you transform other people’s bad news into good news? Well, for one, you have to be able to see that wherever there’s anxiety, there’s opportunity. That’s the one of the things my my friend Richard Rossi says. And so if you train yourself to be a pain detective, then you can very quickly not go into a situation in relationship of what do I want, you can go into, oh, how can I be helpful? Now here’s the caveat. Some people will use that to manipulate some people utilize that will use that to gaslight, I’m a big believer, don’t use people utilize people truly connect with people be a connector, not a connector, there are people that con people into connection. And that is not how you want to utilize empathy. You want to do it in a very caring way. So being a pain detective is one of the things in the chapter. And you know, by doing that, I have been able to, for one, really listen in here and learn so much about others, and about myself. And then you know what, I’ll even read a little bit out of the book, it says, Domino, be a paint detective to connect with others focus first on the other person in their suffering you and your possible solutions comm second question for you. How has your discernment of people’s emotions helped you create connections in the past. And so in life, we’re either communicating, we’re just talking, we’re connecting where we will really feel a connection with another person, we’re on the same wavelength you’re leaning in, you’re interested in what they’re saying. They’re interested in what you’re saying. And then there’s trying to escape. And those are the things people go through. And I often will like I spoke at our friend Jay Jay’s event, and I shared this with the audience. I said, everyone, how many of you, and there was about 450 people in the audience. And I said, How many of you came to this conference by yourself a whole bunch of people I said, I used to go to conferences a lot by myself and often still do. People think I’m like this extrovert. I’m not really extrovert cocktail parties freak me out. I get nervous. I it’s uncomfortable. But I’ve learned you’re either, you know, you’re either frozen stiff, or you’re moving scared. So I put myself out there, I do things because I’ve learned you know, anything that scares you, is probably worth doing intelligently. That doesn’t mean running in front of traffic like an idiot. It means if you’re afraid of public speaking, can you get up and speak if you’re afraid of asking someone out? Can you do it the whole Wayne Gretzky thing you know, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. And so I look for the pain, I find a bond if I can truly bring bring relief, and sometimes that relief is a solution. Other times it’s laughter other times it’s just being a companion, you know, in addiction recovery, you know, someone someone’s wrecking their life, you know, oftentimes it’s just sitting and talking to them. It’s just being a companion and being a person to them. When someone’s dying, you know, you may not have the solution if they’re if their bodies are riddled with cancer. You know, what do you know you’re not a surgeon? I mean, oftentimes it’s they’re dying, but the love in the care and the concern, and the looking in the eyes and in the presence is often what is there those are deep personal situations from a business thing. It ain’t that hard to make money with this stuff. You just need to care a little bit more than most people and most people don’t give a shit. Most people in the service business don’t even understand what service is. I mean, look at how terrible in America, sir. service has been since the pandemic. I mean, we have created a culture of entitlement. We’ve created a culture of wounded people. And so if you’re the type of person that shows up and you got all these, you know, to use the neck or totally line, you got all these people in their pain bodies. And you show up with that. That’s a good thing. So that’s one. Another is I talked about Tammy, where you can let me stop and make sure. Because

Kara Goldin 50:23
no, no, I think I think just as rolling along here, this is amazing. And I want people to pick up the book, because I think more than anything, you know, you’ve got amazing lessons in here that you can touch on these, but there are, you know, incredible things that people need to sit with and reread them. So that’s the sign of a great book. And that’s really what I’ve figured out with you. And I think more than anything, Joe, I mean, like I said, I could sit here and talk to you not for two hours, but three hours, because you have so much to contribute. But you have really identified kind of the maybe the obvious stuff about how people make these connections, and why connections are so important. But more than anything, why they’re so important today. And I think that your book is just 1,000% relevant for what we’re all experiencing today, and really figuring out what’s in it for them. And also, what are the pain points, more than anything? So, like I said, we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna wrap this up now. But I want, I want to have you back as you’re starting to get going on, on getting this book out here too. And sort of, I’m curious, like, as you start to talk to people about this, and the connections, you know, and the problems that you’re helping them solve, that would be an amazing podcast, to to start to really see that you’ve already, you know, obviously seen this through a lot of interviews that you’ve done, but I bet there’s a lot of people who maybe are listening to this podcast that haven’t met you before, I don’t know you because you’re known for being a marketer that I think could actually be really, really energized by everything that you’re saying. And I just want to thank you more than anything for all your wisdom, and also your vulnerability because I think that people listening will have a little bit more in the show notes to about all the work that you’re doing around addiction and really supporting people. That’s incredible, too. But more than anything, I just wanted to really highlight that as well, because I think that that’s super, super unique about you. So

Joe Polish 52:41
can I say this to care? Yeah, thank you. And if in a sense, I did bring up addiction, if anyone is struggling with addiction, genius, recovery.org is a site I have, it’s purely education, nothing is sold there. And we were talking before the show, we’re funding a study at Stanford right now with Professor BJ Fogg on connection and addiction in Stanford and learning about a deeper connection, the proceeds of what’s in it for them go to genius recovery, they go to addiction recovery, so and if anyone’s struggling, I wrote a short letter, if someone just types in genius recovery, open letter online, they can read it. And you with your book undaunted, and with your life experiences so much that I know you’re going to be sharing in the world, it is more critical than ever, that people the most expensive information in the world is bad information. So I try to advise people you can get, you can be really directed in wrong ways. By stuff that’s free online, you can be manipulated, you can be gaslighted. And when you come across someone, I always try to tell people that if they’re new to you as an example, you know, I’m not trying to be famous. I mean, I pursue growth, not status, I could care less about it. I’ve worked with all kinds of famous people. I know a ton of billionaires, I mean, people can you know that. That’s what the number one thing, how do you meet this person? How do you meet that person? Meaning that person has nothing to do with reality. Some of the best heroes in the world are hospice nurses, single mothers, you know, people that are out there every day that the world doesn’t even know who they are. And you know, you are a true success story of a person who’s fought numerous battles, and still fights them and literally, you know, amateurs wait for inspiration professionals do it with a headache. And so I I often will tell people go deep with someone’s work and if someone’s new to you absorb everything they can get from Kara. You’ve already developed the relationship of you. Yeah, you can read my book, if you want to get what’s in it for them. Please preorder buy it, it’s the website is what’s in it for them that you that’s the name of the website and buy it on any place. But the thing is, you know, you’re better off mastering one book than reading 50 books. You’re better off going deep with one person’s podcasts. In this particular case, I’m recommending everyone that’s one of your listeners go deep with everything you put out there. Because most people in the world right now go very shallow. They don’t go very deep. Deep. And I want people to go deeper with themselves go deeper with relationships, that’s where the gold is. That’s where the real juice is. Don’t just listen to something and 10 times speed here, it’s not about consuming just a bunch of information. It’s about mastering, you only need a few tools in your toolbox in order to do well. And that’s what the world needs the world. And I want to give those tools to givers not takers, and to protect the true givers of the world from takers. So I really appreciate you having me on. Yeah, I love it love to do a follow up when the book is out in the wild.

Kara Goldin 55:30
That would be terrific. Well, thanks again, Joe. And thanks, everyone for listening. Have an awesome rest of the week. And like I said, everything will be in the show notes to connect with Joe and we’re best place to get the book and everything that Joe does. So thanks again, Joe Polish.

Joe Polish 55:47
You got it. Thank you.

Kara Goldin 55:48
Thanks all for listening to this episode. We hope you enjoyed it. And I want to thank all of our guests and our sponsors. And finally our listeners keep the great comments coming in. And one final plug if you have not read or listened to my book undaunted, please do so you will hear all about my journey, including founding, scaling and building the company that I founded. Hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks everyone for listening and goodbye for now. Before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara Goldin and let me know. And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at Kara Goldin. Thanks for listening