0 (2s):
Boom. Shake the room. Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Marketing Against the Grain. Today we're pulling a timeless EOFire episode from the archive, so the giveaway may not be active, and we'll be breaking down from $673 to $100 Million: The Social Dynamic Selling System. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Rylee Meek. Rylee is the founder and CEO of the Social Dynamic Selling System, which turns dinner seminar marketing into a science, starting with just $673 in his bank account. Rylee went on to produce over a hundred million in sales in over nine years.

0 (46s):
Today Fire Nation we’ll talk about how action brings clarity, how the key component is to have a consistently predictable lead generation system funneling into your business, how to create one and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Rylee and our sponsors. Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals, business made simply takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like How to Get Out of the Day-to-Day Operations Without Crashing Your Business. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Is this your year? Visit thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's Business Coaching has helped over 2000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability.

0 (1m 32s):
It’s month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today thrivetimeshow.com. Rylee, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

1 (1m 52s):
Hey, what's up Fire Nation Pump to be on here? Something interesting about me, man, when I was 19 years old, I had recently moved up from, from South Dakota up to Minnesota and I was, you know, young and dumb, but looking hungry for an opportunity. I actually caught a flight to Koala Lumpur, Malaysia, literally the exact opposite side of the world. And I, I flew over there on my own knowing nobody over there. I had communicated with a, a couple people here in the States that were also gonna be flying over and, and spending a couple months over there, but I flew over there, I had a complete panic attack. I had a 13 hour layover in Singapore.

1 (2m 34s):
I finally did get to Kuala Lumpur, but within the day I was on a flight back with a tail between my legs back to Minnesota. Well,

0 (2m 42s):
A couple questions. What was that initial cause for the panic attack and why were you going in the first place? Like what was the initial goal?

1 (2m 50s):
Initial goal, it wa was a business opportunity with, they were opening up operations in Malaysia, so it was the opportunity to gain, right? It was, you know, I was young and dumb and got it, but I was eager, you know, I'm, I'm the kind of guy that like will jump out the airplane and then figure out how to build the parachute on the, on the way down.

0 (3m 7s):
But then the panic attack came because like you're like, oh, I don't wanna actually move halfway around the world.

1 (3m 12s):
Prior to this, I had like hardly ever even been out of the country, right? And it would've been like to The Bahamas maybe, you know? So it was let alone going to a, a country with like, I don't know, the language. I didn't even like the food, you know, it was just like that, that, you know, once that snowball effect, you just, it starts to bad thought, bad thought, bad thought. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm, I'm freaking out and calling my parents begging to buy me a flight back home.

0 (3m 38s):
Well, you can tell Fire Nation, we are gonna have a lot of fun on today's episode because Rylee has lived life. I love that phrase. Fortune favors the bold. And you know, even if you become a little meek afterwards, you know, at least you still took that initial jump to kind of have that story and to kind of expand your horizons. And as I shared Fire Nation in the introduction, we're gonna be talking all about how Rylee went from $673 to a hundred million dollars focusing on the social dynamic selling system. So what the heck is social dynamic selling Rylee? Yeah,

1 (4m 12s):
So social dynamic selling essentially at, at the core of it, it is selling to groups of people one to many in the form of dinner seminars. We've really perfected the dinner seminar marketing in sales model over the last decade. And, and it's, it's unique because everything that I've had, no one in sales prior to doing this is, was always just selling one-on-one. You know, you'd sit down with somebody and present your products or services and try to convince them to, to take action. And it's a, it's a definite different format, a different way to go about it when you're selling two groups of people. But it's a phenomenal way to leverage your, your, you know, not only your your time certainly, but even your marketing dollars.

1 (4m 56s):
And I think that's what's been able, that's what's really allowed us to scale so quickly. And you know, from that, like you said, 673 bucks to over a hundred million dollars over the last nine years now is is because we're able to speak to multiple people at once versus just a, a typical one-on-one presentation.

0 (5m 17s):
I gotta be honest, by our nation, I mean this selling one too many, this delivering one too many. It's, it's just such an amazing opportunity of the world that we live in. I mean, you know, frankly, would podcasting exist if I just got on the mic with Rylee and it was just him and I talking like, it'd be a great conversation, but that's just one-to-one. But now that our conversation can literally be one-to-one, but then having the listeners that having Fire Nation be listening and having this one to many education knowledge shared just as expanding of the universe, that's the power. And we can take advantage of that both in virtual and in in-person settings. And now I love the fact that you're talking about, you know, how you've done this kind of, of in a dinner format.

0 (5m 58s):
So kind of expound upon that a little bit more and then show us why this works. So gosh darn well.

1 (6m 5s):
Yeah, man. Absolutely. So we use the, the dinner format for a number of reasons. Nu number one, I think there's just something special about breaking bread with somebody just that that relationship that you're building and that exchange and conversation that you can have. But we also use it to our advantage of getting them to show up. And I really call, call it like more what we do is we fish with corn dogs. And what I really mean by that is, you know, there's not a fish in nature that could sustain a quality life on corn dogs, right? If, if they, if that was their only diet, they're gonna be malnourished and ultimately die. But there, there, if you put a corn dog on a hook and you throw it in the lake, there's not a fish that isn't going to bite that hook, right?

1 (6m 50s):
And so we, we fish with corn dogs by offering a free steak dinner or a chicken dinner or whatever it is, because there needs to be a premium to get them to actually show up and listen to what you have to, to say and offer. So once we get the, you know, once we hook 'em and we get 'em in the boat, so to say, now it's, it's the presenter or you know, the, the sales rep, whoever it is that's talking now, it's up to them to feed them, to nourish them and then ultimately convert them to, to a client or a customer. So I think it works so well just because, you know, we're, from a marketing standpoint, we're getting people there utilizing that premium of offering a dinner seminar, a free dinner essentially.

1 (7m 31s):
But then once they're there, they're in your, I call it like, it's your circus and now you're, you're the ring leader, right? And so the whole point of doing this format is not to rah rah rush to the back of the room and buy this $48, you know, real estate course or whatever it is. It's more about the the good old no, like, and trust, okay? We're, we've established you as the authoritative figure, the expert in your industry. And now we just, we, we take people through an emotional journey on, on the presentation that we teach and, and get them to, by the end of it, they're gonna know you, right? Hopefully they like you because you're, you're a nice enough person. And then ultimately they, they trust you because people want to do business with those that they trust.

1 (8m 16s):
And we do this by offering the law of reciprocity is in place. We're buying them a nice free dinner, we're educating them, we're providing tremendous value. And then at the end, it's simply asking for that next follow up appointment. If you did a compelling enough job, they're gonna just naturally want to give you the, the time to present price or talk about the proposal or whatever it is, the product or service that you're actually selling.

0 (8m 41s):
There are things, Fire Nation that human beings will always resonate with telling stories around a fireplace. We all have great memories from that breaking bread together. I mean, this is something that we as humans have been doing for 70,000 years. And what are these things doing? Like what are these activities resulting in building no lake and trust that law of reciprocity that Rylee was talking about that is real Fire Nation that is r e a l real, the law of reciprocity is so real when you use it in the right manner. So, Rylee, without going on too long of a rant, let's keep this next part really tight because I, i, I have a lot that I want to get to today, but give us just like a really quick abbreviated example of one of these dinners you've given what it looked like, how you got people there, what the dinner itself was, and then what that offer at the end was, you know, what that next step was.

1 (9m 35s):
Sure, man, I'll try to keep it short. So dependent upon the product or service, it, we always start with the end in mind on like, who are we trying to attract? Who is our true client avatar, and then what source of media can we use to, to attract them? We do a lot of direct mail. A lot of people think that's, you know, dead, but it is alive more than ever.

0 (9m 56s):
I look at every piece of mail that I get, it's just an honest thing. Like when you have a mailbox and you go out to your mailbox, yeah, there's junk mail and you throw it away, but you look at that mail, I mean, I have now my inbox set up like my email inbox Rylee, where like everything goes to spam. I don't even see those things, you know, at least I see that direct mail. So I'm with you. I mean, Fire Nation don't count out these things like test, test, test.

1 (10m 20s):
Absolutely true. Marketers test everything. And in direct mail being it's just an uncluttered a less cluttered platform versus just email or, or other campaigns. And it's, it's, you know, undisruptive, a lot of times when you're getting popups and things like that, it's like they're, they're disrupting your behavior, right? So true. When you go to get the mail, like you're looking at it, you, that's specifically what you're doing and why we get such a better response rate when we're using that. So first off, it's, it's getting them to respond. And with any campaign, whether it is mail or Facebook or whatever, we're getting them to respond. We're we're, they're, they're calling into rsvp. We are certainly following up to con confirm prior to the event. They, they show up at the event you've already, you know, been there.

1 (11m 3s):
You've got the room set up specifically, so everybody's facing forward. You've, you've already talked with the wait staff on timing of when to have the dinner come on out so there's no interruptions cuz that's key, a key component to keep people's attention. And then we de deliver the presentation. And after, after, you know, the dinner, I like to have dinner come on out about 45 minutes into the presentation so people aren't, you know, getting grumpy and, and growling stomachs. And then you, you final, you, you, you can have dinner with them and then you finalize by asking for that follow-up appointment that evening or the next day creating sense of urgency because people need a reason to make decisions.

0 (11m 44s):
I love that actual phrase Fire Nation. So really let that sink in and absorb it. People need a reason to make decisions. You need to be giving them that reason. Like, always think about that when you're creating your hook, your offer, your funnel, I mean, those words are so wise. And if you think we're even close to being finished dropping value bombs, Fire Nation, we have a lot of surprises in store for you. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors, we all want the same things for our business. More leads, faster sales and better insights so we can serve our customers at the highest level. One thing, we all don't want to waste time and money trying to figure these things out. So, what's the solution? A CRM that's easy to set up and customize sounds too good to be true, right?

0 (12m 25s):
But this CRM exists, and it's called HubSpot. What sets HubSpot apart is it's easy to use and integrates instead of wasting days or even months trying to figure everything out. HubSpot gives you tools like their AI content assistant, which helps you save time on tedious manual tasks right away. Looking to step up your game with email broadcast and landing pages? HubSpot’s drag and drop builder makes it easy to create attention grabbing emails and pages in minutes, and that's only the beginning. HubSpot has 1300 plus integrations that you can add for customization like you've never seen before. HubSpot CRMs powerful tools will help marketers wow prospects, sales teams lock in deals and service teams improve response times and overall service.

0 (13m 5s):
Get started for free at hubspot.com. That's hubspot.com. Are you ready to grow your business now? What if you could learn the proven systems and processes that have been used to grow thousands of multimillion dollar success stories at thrivetimeshow.com. See testimonials of how Clay Clark's proven business coaching has helped over 2000 clients to increase profitability dramatically. Clay's proven business coaching program is month to month and less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. Sound too good to be true? Go to thrivetimeshow.com to see over 2000 documented success stories because Clay only takes on 160 clients, he personally designs your business plan for you. Then Clay's team of talented designers, videographers, web developers, workflow mappers and accounting coaches will help you implement that proven plan.

0 (13m 51s):
See over 2000 verify success stories and schedule your free one-on-one 13-point assessment with Mr. Clay Clarke himself today at thrivetimeshow.com. Knowledge will not attract money unless it is organized and directed through practical plans of action. Become the next success story. Schedule your free 13-point assessment today at thrivetimeshow.com. So Rylee, we're back and before the break, we're kind of teasing about some really cool things. We're gonna be chatting about some surprises that we're gonna reveal for the rest of this episode. And some things that you are pretty passionate about and also good at doing are creating predictable, sustainable, and scalable operations.

0 (14m 32s):
So talk about that. What do you mean with those three words?

1 (14m 36s):
This was key because early on I was always selling one to one and, and I was just that constant feast and famine type lifestyle of where my next lead is gonna come from, where my next sale is gonna come from. And it's just, I mean, if you're in sales, you, you get it. Like, if you don't have a a consistent, predictable lead generation system funneling into your business, you're, you're dying, right? So it was it that was the key, a key component to me. And I wanted it to be able to not just, you know, call upon friends and family and, and things like that. It's like I wanna drive cold traffic. I wanna speak to people that have no clue who I am. And so, and, and I know that we have this down to a science now really because of all the measurables that we have within any of our campaign where we can create predictable revenue by literally, you know, throwing a dart at the map and, and finding a, a town or city in a local restaurant and, and buying the data, the list of the people that, that are co that we're trying to attract.

1 (15m 36s):
And then crafting that message, that invitation to get them to take action. And so I know in all of our campaigns, we, our goal is always to have a 300% ROI with what you're gonna spend on marketing and dinner. We want to be able to create a 300% roi and, and we're able to do that by always starting with the end in mind. So that's the predictable portion of it. It's like if I go to the casino and I for every third quarter that I put into the, the slot machine, I'm gonna get a dollar back. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm never gonna not do that, right? Like, I'm just gonna keep pumping those quarters in there because I I'm getting that return on investment and you know, that, and that's really the sustainable portion of it.

1 (16m 15s):
Our goal, like most of our, our clients, our customers, even my own companies right now, we are, we're hosting events every single week. Like we, I have over 20 sales reps that are, that are hosting events every single week. So it's sustainable in that aspect. Sure, you may have, you know, better, some better weeks than others from a sales standpoint, but it's sustainable because the numbers always work out. And really the scalable portion of it is, is, like I said, I could throw a dart on a map and, and have a live audience, you know, ready, eager to listen to what I have to say in in regardless of if I have any brand or recognition or anything like that. And that's really how I was, I was able to take my first company from, you know, zero to 2 million within our first six months to over to over 12 million that year by starting with just me 673 bucks to 26 sales guys across 38 states.

1 (17m 9s):
And that's why it, it's the, it's scalable from that standpoint.

0 (17m 13s):
Fire Nation in sales, your pipeline is everything. Your pipeline is your lifeline. So you need to always be doing things to stack and to front load that pipeline. And I love that phrase that Rylee used Fire Nation. I really hope you caught that because man, how exciting is that? If you could say this for yourself, that I could throw a dart on a map and have an eager and willing audience ready and waiting for me. I mean, what a powerful piece of knowledge to have. I mean, how much confidence would just that just feel like for, for you to have that kind of knowledge that, hey, I could go to Boise, Idaho, I could go to Tallahassee, I could go to Savannah, Georgia, and within a week I could have an eager and willing audience who is ready to have me share with them some value so I could build that no, like, and trust and then take them to that next level.

0 (18m 9s):
So what I really want to move into next Rylee, because frankly a lot of people listen to these type of episodes and they hear your success story from $673 to a hundred million plus and they're just like, well that works for Rylee in his industry, but that would never work in my industry. So what different industries have you worked in? What would you say to that person as well that says, this might not work for my industry?

1 (18m 35s):
Everybody's probably heard of this concept. Dinner seminars, you have financial advisors, attorneys they've been doing it for, for years. And so I don't, I can't say it that I've created or invented anything here, right? But what we've, what we've perfected is the process for marketing to the actual sale and even the follow up. And we've done this personally. You know, I always, I hate that, that that comment that those who can't teach, like that's definitely not the case here, right? Because I've started seven different businesses, seven different industries, wow. And taking them to seven and even eight figures on a couple of them within the first year of, of, of this. And, and those industries are all over the board. A medical, you know, dental, cosmetic surgeries, home remodeling, construction, investment clubs, sub sub like subscription based products like home warranties, things like that.

1 (19m 26s):
So it's, it's really all across the board. The product is irrelevant and that's, that's when, when I had that realization, the product's irrelevant. What works is the system. And if you can have that predictable, sustainable, scalable selling system, it, it's, it's, I mean, you do need to have a a if you are selling a $48 widget, this with no additional lifetime value to, to your customer, that's probably, this probably isn't the best format for marketing for you. I'd be the first to tell you that we need to have a decent amount of profit margin, probably at least of a thousand bucks or more to really make this work to, to get that proper r o i. But if you have that, your product is irrelevant, we can create a compelling story to take people on that emotional journey to ultimately make that buying decision.

0 (20m 12s):
Let's break this down right now because a lot of people, they say that the only thing that matters in business is sales. So let's talk about product, let's talk about service. Do those things also matter?

1 (20m 25s):
Absolutely. I mean, to an extent, like I said, just the product or service is irrelevant in what you, what you have or offer, right? It's, it's, we need at that profit margin to be high enough to have a proper return on investment. And that's why we always start out with a strategy call with our clients to, to, to make that determination ver rather than just you, you know, throwing money against the wall and hoping it sticks. We wanna make sure that this actually makes sense and if not, we can at least direct you to the right source of, of what your, you know, what a proper marketing format would be for you. But again, if your product or service you have at least a profit margin of, of a thousand bucks or more, we can without a doubt put together a campaign that would make sense based upon you know, what you have to offer.

0 (21m 12s):
So Rylee, you've shared a lot of value throughout this entire episode. What's one thing that you really wanna make sure Fire Nation gets that we walk away with from everything that we've talked about today? What is that one single value bomb?

1 (21m 26s):
With action comes clarity. And if you're just sitting back hoping that the phone's gonna ring, hoping that you know someone's gonna find you online, that isn't gonna happen, right? And if, if it does, it's probably a bad thing because then you're gonna expect that to continue happen. You need to have a continual source of leads coming into your business because if you build it, you can have the greatest product and service in the world. But if nobody knows about it, if you build it, they do not come. You have to have a system in place to generate that, that steady stream of not only leads, but ultimately sales to continue to drive your business.

0 (22m 6s):
With action comes Clarity, Fire Nation with action comes clarity, because with action, then guess what? You're gonna get feedback. You're going to get people sharing with you their thoughts, what they like, what they dislike. You can pivot, adjust, improve, because now you actually have clarity on what your ideal customer wants. So Rylee, what do you have for us today? How can we find out more about you? How can we consume more of your content? If you have any gift for Fire Nation, now's the time.

1 (22m 35s):
Yeah, man, I do. So, I've written a book actually called Food for Thought:How to Use Dinner Seminar Marketing to Grow Your Business in Ways You Never Thought Possible. It's for sale on Amazon where it's an Amazon best seller now, boom. But what I've done is put this in a, in an electronic version and my, my marketing guy was like, are you sure you wanna do this? But I put it in electronic version and we're offering it for free. It's not like the gimmicky free plus shipping thing. This is gonna be for free if you just go to socialdynamicselling.com/fire. Of course. So socialdynamicselling.com/fire, we'll, we'll email you over the full electronic version of the entire book.

1 (23m 20s):
It lays out the, the marketing campaign, the entire process, six different steps that we take our clients through is all laid out within this book.

0 (23m 29s):
Fire Nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with and you've been hanging out with RM and JLD today. So, keep up that heat and if you head over to eo fire.com and type Ryley, r y l e e in the search bar, his show us page will pop right up with everything we've talked about today, links to everything. But remember, your direct call to action Fire Nation is to go ahead and snag that incredibly generous free gift Food for thought over at socialdynamicselling.com/fire. Get over there Fire Nation. Take advantage of these wonderful free gifts that people like Rylee, who he's put all of his, you know, energy time experience into a book like this.

0 (24m 14s):
I mean, this is why these kinds of compilations of knowledge are so powerful, why? It's literally pressing the fast forward button because you're taking all of his lessons, learned, all of his mistakes, and the failures and the adjustments he made as a result and the lessons he learned and you're getting to consume it in one concise direct format. socialdynamicselling.com/fire. Rylee, thank you brother for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, today's value bomb content was brought to you by Rylee and successful entrepreneurs, they accomplish big goals. And that's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in just 100 days.

0 (24m 58s):
Fire Nation. And we are talking step by step guidance. Visit thefreedomjournal.com, use promo code PODCAST for a $15 discount as a thank you for listening to my podcast. And I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals Business Made Simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like How to Get Out of the Day-to-Day Operations Without Crashing Your Business. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Is this your year? Visit thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability.

0 (25m 45s):
It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today at thrivetimeshow.com.