Movies, Music, TV – what can you really learn from Entertainers? A LOT!

Posted in: Blog by admin on May 25, 2011

Tonight, I’m going to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean Movie…and I can’t wait.

I love going to the movies, although I don’t make it but a couple times  a year, I always see the “history” makers, or should I say “money makers”.

A close personal friend and client of mine has a “movie night” every  week, and I think it’s great.  That’s a routine I intend to copy someday.

There’s reasons why I enjoy movies so much, but that’s not my point today.

Nope.  I want to talk with you about Entertainment in general.

Movies.  TV.  Music.

The three industries that make the world go round (unfortunately, in many cases).

When it comes to marketing and making money, there’s something you’ve got to pay attention to, it’s like the lesson to end all lessons of earning giant amounts of money.

In every one of these Industries there are people AT THE TOP that we could all name.  Perhaps your kids could name them much more easily than you.

First, let me provide a little dramatic demonstration to prove what I’m about to tell you.

(disclaimer, my numbers will not be pin point accurate because I’m not taking time to look up the specifics, but they’ll be in the ballpark, good enough for my point.)

I am fascinated by the BUSINESS of Entertainment.

So, when a blockbuster movie comes out, I always look to see how much money it brings in opening weekend, and then my curiosity usually drives some further research.

Here’s what I found…

The top grossing opening weekend movies, say the top 25, where all dominated by:

The Pirates, Harry Potter, Shrek, and the number one was The Dark Knight.

Understand with all the Harry Potter movies and the Pirates and Shrek, that made up like 10 of the top 25 or something crazy.

Tonight, when I return from our family movie outing (daughter’s birthday), we will plop down on the couch and watch the recorded episode and finale show of American Idol.

On this show there will be an estimated 30-50 MILLION people watching, maybe more, and those people last night cast votes probably over 100 Million to choose the Idol between two incredible YOUNG people, 16 and 17 years old respectively.

Staying in the Music Industry, take Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga as examples, two of the hottest ‘fan favorites’ on the market today.

Now, if you know anything, you know they are as far apart and opposite as it is can humanly get.  Yet, they have both won the top awards, sold more albums than any artist in recent history and are on top of their worlds – At The Same Time.

How about TV, well, if you want to know how much money Charlie Sheen was getting paid before his infamous collapse and crash course with society, it was something like $10 or $20 MILLION a year, something like that.

How about THE DONALD, my main man, and any entrepreneur who doesn’t marvel and study his every move and every word is simply not that serious about business.

He had a private phone conversation with Bill O Reilly when he was explaining why he wouldn’t be running for President and he said one of his major considerations was it would have been about a 300 Million dollar swing by NOT doing the Apprentice.  Now, I don’t know how many years the contract was and it would have been for about half that number for reasons you wouldn’t know if you don’t follow the political arena, but none the less – the Apprentice who was now moved to ONE regular and ONE celebrity version EVERY year is doing just fine and paying Mr. Trump a load of money to stay on the show.

Okay, let me rub it in for a minute to get my point across.

Take any one example:

The Pirates movie did $90 Million on opening weekend.

American Idol is the most lucrative show on TV.

Donald Trump makes millions from TV alone.

Taylor and Lady Gaga sold more than a million records of their NEW album.

Most business people will not make as much money in their LIFETIME as these ENTERTAINERS will in any given year.

Most businesses will never impact and transact with as many customers in their LIFETIME as these ENTERTAINERS will in any given year, some any given night.

Now – I do NOT tell you that to depress you, I tell you that to IMPRESS you to pay attention to what these people are doing, to how these industries work.

They are marketing and money machines and you should be learning from it.

Let me give you 3 shortcut answers and I believe are the MAJOR reasons that they are successful.

These 3 things are EXACTLY what you can take and replicate in your life.

1.  In every case, in every movie, singer, TV show – the people making the most money are getting paid for WHO THEY ARE.  They have PERSONALITY!  They stand for something, mean something, represent something.

Think Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean

Think Shrek

Think Harry Potter

Think Donald Trump

Think Ryan Seacrest, Steven Tyler, Simon Cowell

Think all four of the final contestants of American Idol, distinct personalities.

You see the – they are all CHARACTERS!

Personality attracts your audience, it attracts money, it makes your curious and people want to follow you, they want to be a part of what you are doing.

I always tell my members and clients, there is only one thing that your competitors truly cannot copy and replicate – that’s YOU!  The examples I’ve used here are in high demand because of this reason.  They are not just ‘somebody’ they are WHO THEY ARE – and you must work on develop that WHO with yourself.

Your Character.

2.  Next, each of these Shows, People, Entertainers, are specifically for SOMEONE.  They have and develop Audiences.  Some of them have more broad appeal than others, but they are still very defined and in our words NICHED.

My example of Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga, each represents something very different, yet stand for something very similar.  But they have a distinct and drastic different way of demonstrating and connecting with their fan bases through their music.

They know who their audience is and they CONNECT.

You must constantly work to connect more with your audience, study your customer, and be strategic in your approach.  You must BE FOR SOME GROUP/NICHE of people specifically.  Remember if you are for everyone, you are for no one.

Once you commit to this, you will win big!  And you’ll know, when you start to repel others you are attracting the ones you want.

3.  Finally, they leave you in suspense, there is always something New, and they have a NEXT!  But you don’t always know when or if it’s coming.

You have to buy the current Album, because it’s new and who knows when they next one will come out.

You have to go see the Pirates Movie, you saw the last one, you can’t miss this one, and you never know what’s going to happen.  It’s suspenseful as soon as the credits roll from that last one.

You want to see who gets fired, what drama ensues.

You have to make your business and interaction with your customers engaging, fun, and unpredictable (in a good way) and always have something NEW, BIG, DIFFERENT that you can share with them and get them excited about.

You can learn a lot from the Entertainment industries, and I could go on with examples.

Today, I want you to see the similarities between the highest paid entrepreneurs on the planet, and work to build yourself and your business with their models in mind.

Be a Character.  Create and serve an Audience.  Always have an unpredictable Next.

Scott.

I must be in a good mood-you’ll see…

Posted in: Blog by admin on May 18, 2011

This week, I’m going to mix up a little entrepreneurial life philosophy with some hard hitting make-you-money-now tactical principles that you can use.

I say I must be in a good mood, because it’s not every day, or any day for that matter, that I’m dishing out this kind of powerful advice for free.

Ah, the sun is shining, life is great, and there’s more opportunity for you and me than ever before.  I figured I’d use our time this week to help make sure you’re getting your share of the ever growing, always tasty pie of prosperity that’s yours for the taking, when you follow our marketing and money making lifestyle.

Here’s 4 of my favor marketing and money making sayings and how you can profit from them:

1.  Thou who shows up the most makes the most money

It’s a simple rule really, one that cannot be broken, by law of the universe.  If you are in front of your customer more than anyone else, you’ll make more money from them than anyone else.

I teach a proprietary and very specific relationship marketing formula that literally transforms my members and clients businesses by making their lists much more valuable and responsive.  This isn’t the place to get into that here, but it follows this principle.

For you, now, the simple approach is to show up more often.  Send AT LEAST a weekly email, and the most successful (making the most money) marketers are showing up daily.

Also, don’t just rely on email, show up in the mail as often as economically possible.  Create your own media, a newsletters, or something else where your customers come to look for and expect your communication.

Another tip, expand your auto-responders, add a step in your follow-up sequence.  Commit to giving people more opportunities to buy.

When in doubt – SHOW UP!

2.  If you don’t offer it, they can’t buy it

This is important.  And something I believe very strongly in, always having an A/B option, or a basic/premium or a standard and an upsell.

This goes to basic selling philosophy.  Your prospect should not have to choose between YES and NO, they should choose between A or B.

Most importantly, if you don’t offer a premium version you are simply leaving a lot of money on the table.  I don’t have time to give you the 80/20 lecture, but, customers like me, we just don’t want the CHEAP option of ANYTHING…and at least 20% of your customers don’t either.  They will pick the more expensive option on general principle.

If you don’t offer it, they can’t buy it, and you’re leaving money behind, and customers unsatisfied.

3.  If there is no money attached to it, detach from it.

You want to know why you don’t make more money, have more customers, enjoy your business more?  It’s because you (and everybody else too) spends more time screwing around with things that do not have money attached to them on the other end.

You’ve got to become keenly aware of how you invest your time and what the results in terms of dollars.  Of course you have to consider short term and long term.  Writing a sales letter doesn’t make you money while you type but it’s a leveraged asset afterwards.

You would be amazed if you stopped everything you are doing for one week, and came back into your office, your business, your life 7 days from now – how little the world would have missed you, that everything’s basically the same.

If you want to make more money – do more things that have money connected to it.

Emails, phone calls, meetings with people that don’t directly make you money, or make you smarter (like reading this) then they’ve got to go.

Force yourself to always do “Money Tasks” first, the other stuff doesn’t matter, and if it does, someone else can do it, or you can, when you get around to it.

4.  Environment is everything

While this one sounds the vague, it’s actually the most specific and the most important.

The longer I do this marketing and money making thing, and the better I get at it, the more I realize that no matter how good I am, environment is always the equalizer that ultimately decides the outcome and sustainability of success.

Who you hang around, the stuff you put in your head, people you follow, and principles you adhere to ultimately determine the level of success you can have.

For the sake of time, I’m going to summarize it this way.

The other day I was meeting with someone who is becoming a good friend of mine and who I intend to leapfrog their business into the 7-figures from a lower 6-figure current business.

I could do this quite easily.  The reason is because, as I explained to this person, THEY are a Level 10 person, have a level 10 opportunity, capable of a level 10 income –

BUT

They are trapped inside of a Level 3 Box…in other words environment.

This environment can be many things.

It can be where you go to get customers.

Who you do business with.

The company you keep, the people you learn from etc.

And always, it has to do with the Business Model.

Above all else, your environment is dictated by the level of people you associate with in a business context.  You can only achieve the level of success equal to the level of those around you.

For one, you probably don’t know any better.  As in this person case, I don’t think they knew that based on who they are, and what they do, they should be making at least 2 or 3 times their current income, automatically.

Now, the only way to fix the environment is to make sure that you have a place or a person that transcends you to higher levels of thinking, higher levels of marketing, higher levels of entrepreneurship.

You must have some catalyst to blow up the box and the environment that you are trapped in and recreate a new and better model to build your business so that it matches with your goals and ambitions.

I work with people all over the country and this is the exact thing that we do.  If you are local to Indianapolis, you’re lucky, and you’ve got a place to come to every month where this will happen.

It’s the only thing holding you back, and the ultimate income leapfrog is elevating the environment, the model, the people, the opportunity that you are building your business in and around.

There you have it.  4 powerful Marketing and Money Making principles, I hope they’ve triggered some thoughts, more importantly some actions!  Take each one and profit from it.

If you use this weekly email newsletter like you should, for inspiration and immediate execution of ideas, you’ll find our time together here will be worth far more money than the lengthy words that I write.

Go forth and prosper.  Your piece of the pie is waiting… for you to come back for more.

Scott

Whats Your Money Comfort Level?

Posted in: Blog by admin on May 11, 2011

Last week at our Chapter Event I mentioned something during a discussion and I always know when it’s something that ‘stuck’, or made an impact on someone because they bring it back up at the end when we go around the room and everyone shares their “ah-ha’s” and committed actions for the next month.

I said, “show me someone who doesn’t like to be sold, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t sell very much…”

I could have gone on to say, someone who doesn’t like to buy, doesn’t sell.

The point was made regarding people being offended by being offered to buy things – period.

The principle is simple, people either appreciate others making money, or they resent it.  All too often I see people uncomfortable by others making money.  I think it’s crazy.

Seriously, how can you operate a business, intending to make money, when you have stupid feelings about others making money.  Talk about a money-repellent.

You might as well not even try.

Here’s one of my favorite lines to tell people when they are first getting involved in “our” world.  “If you don’t want people to complain about your prices, you shouldn’t be complaining about others either!”

The bottom line is – You must embrace money, encourage it’s flow.

I say if you want to make more money, attract more opportunity, get rich faster…

You have to let go of money – let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.

Here’s the best way I’ve found to describe this ‘letting money flow’ thing.

It comes from a Poem or Story about Love that I heard many years ago.

(yes, I’m using Love to illustrate a point about Money…that’ll teach ya, won’t it)

It goes like this:

If you go to beach and pick a handful of sand and you want to hold on to the sand, so you decide to squeeze your hand closed and keep the sand really tight and safe, protecting it.

So you think.

When you open your hand, you’ll be lucky to have anything left at all.  Maybe a few grains of sand, at best.  Your tight grip has forced all the sand away.

This is what happens in a relationship, with Love, and with Money.

Been there, done that, let me tell you!!!  Learned life the same way, I believe everyone else does, the hard way.

The only way to keep the sand in your hand, to keep love in your life, and money –

Is to open your hand, nurture, care for it – NOT suffocate it.

A few weeks ago I told you to “just go sell something dammit”

And today, I say to you, “just go buy something for goodness sake”

Give some money away.

Invest in something you want.

Heck, go blow some cash!

You’ve got to get out of thinking money is limited, opportunity sanctioned, only so much to go around.

It’s not.  Only YOURS is, when that’s how you treat it.

So, here’s a fun little exercise for this week.  Go out and enjoy money.  Watch people spend it, you spend some.  Go find the best sales presentation in town for whatever it is you’re in the market for and have some fun being sold.

You’ll make more money – immediately – because of it.

Here are three things for You to do, to get more comfortable with money.

1 – carry cash.  Borrow, steal, pawn something – I don’t care – but stop walking around BROKE.

I don’t care if you’re a millionaire or trying to be, you have to carry cash.

And if you are selling ANYTHING, ever – which we all are – you got have more money in your pockets than the customer does in theirs.

2 – spend more, give more, find ways to let go.  With the cash you are now carrying, make sure to have at least $20 in loose bills with the sole purpose of giving them all away, tips, gifts, whatever.  (increase amount and frequency for greater impact)

3 – pick something that you really want, big or small, but a financial stretch is the idea.  Then set a date that you want to achieve it by.  If you do it right, you’ll create enough extra money to acquire this item or fulfill this experience, if you have become comfortable with money.

Certainly, I’m not talking about sitting on the floor, lighting candles, humming, and hoping for more money – I’m telling you – if you intentionally, forcefully, and authentically, work towards, and consciously become more comfortable with money

You will:

• Make more
• Sell more
• Earn more
• Create more
• Keep more

Embrace, nurture, accept, enjoy, celebrate this for you and for others.

Life will be so much more fun.

Scott

May 2011 Marketer of the Month

Posted in: Blog by admin on May 10, 2011

Register for The June Chapter Event Now

SuperConference Report from the Trenches

Posted in: Blog by admin on May 4, 2011

I’d like to use this weeks Manning Email, or E-newsletter or whatever Ryan calls this thing that you so faithfully read every Wednesday, to give a few shout outs to some important people in my life and a quick recap on the 2011 Glazer-Kennedy Marketing and Money Making SuperConference, all at the same time.

For starters, Dan and Bill and the GKIC Staff did it once again.  A fabulous time was had by all…life changing an understatement.

As you know, I flew in on Tuesday, conducted business on Wednesday and enjoyed the SuperConference the rest of the week.

There, along with 1200+ of our other closest Entrepreneurial friends, we “went to work” and “built a better business” as that was the theme of this year’s SuperConference, and that’s exactly what happened.

I want to start by saying Thanks to all the GKIC Indy Members who showed up and conquered all.  I appreciate their positive attitudes and team spirit.  I lost track of the times they told me “thanks” for getting them to Chicago, and just how life changing it was.

We had members getting pictures with Kathy Ireland, making international connections, learning, growing, and getting excited about all the possibilities.

Also, Luke Russell and his posse make a killing at their first ever Vendor Exhibit, showing off his one of a kind Facebook Transformations, his booth and expertise was the talk of the vendor halls.  I’m so proud of Luke and his take no prisoners approach to ‘just making stuff happen’ – Luke, through my encouragement decided to pull the booth off just 2 weeks before, and I’m happy to report, this one 3-day event has taken his business places that were only in his  imagination before.

Great job Luke…it’s just the beginning

Not to mention AJ, who headed up Operations T-Shirt that every year helps our group to stand out and get noticed all over the SuperConference venue.

I could go on and on, so many people, making such a contribution to our group.

This is the biggest, most significant event of the year, for the Glazer-Kennedy Universe, and it could not have gone any better.

Of course, it’s the support of our members and the entrepreneurs from Indy who are committed to success – I appreciate each and every one of You.

So – I want to take a minute to recognize one of my closest friends and personal confidants, and a man who has helped me achieve everything that I call “GKIC Indy” as a Business Advisor for Dan and Bill, which, many years ago, started it all…

Mr. Stand-up, Howard Zeiden.  He can work a room like nobody’s business and he been great to me and it’s always nice to spend time with Howard, as it only happens a couple times a year like this, and I look forward to it every time.

Also, I must give a big shout out to Mr. Outrageous himself Bill Glazer.

I’ve been fortunate to continue a developing friendship with Bill and this year we have taken on a project we call the Extreme Marketing Makeover…if you’re a member, you might have caught the live stream playing on Friday.  I look forward to every opportunity I have to work with Bill and to learn from him.

Bill Glazer has had a direct influence on me both through marketing and business development, as well as many other areas of life and business.

I always remember the night that I made the decision to become a Business Advisor for Dan and Bill, I told Bill that I was going to make him proud – he responded without hesitation, that he was going to make me rich.

I’m happy to report we’re both living up to our end of the agreement.  And it all began at the SuperConference and each year it gets bigger and better.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the pictures and reading about our time at the SuperConference.

The morale to this email is quite simple – You’ve got to have a team.

At the end of the day, no one person can get anywhere or accomplish anything, not and sustain it, without other people to support them and assist them.

Life’s too short, you run out of time.

Not surprisingly, every person registered for next year’s SuperConference before they left this years, because the road to the 2012 Glazer-Kennedy SuperConference began the day after this one ended.

It’s where lives are changed, businesses are made, and where leaders gather and bring their teams to grow –

Thanks for another great year.

Scott

Barbara Jones

Posted in: Blog by admin on May 2, 2011

The plan is to bring you more real-life in-the-trenches interviews with people who are kicking the economy’s ass and making money through our marketing methods. Every one of these no BS indy interviews are 100% pitchless, designed to give you great information without asking for your money.

Meet Barb at our Next Chapter Event