0 (3s):
Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like I digress. Today, we're pulling a timeless EOFire classic episode from the archives, and we will be breaking down how to make your business irresistible to drop these value bombs. I brought Jeffrey Shaw and to EOFire studios. Jeffrey is a keynote speaker and business coach, and he teaches entrepreneurs how to attract their ideal customers. By speaking their secret language. He is a host of creative warriors podcast and author of lingo. Discover your ideal customer's secret language and make your business irresistible.

0 (44s):
And today Fire Nation, we'll talk about compare and despair. One of my favorite topics, we'll talk about why it's best to say no to people who undervalue your work and so much more value. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs increase profitability by an average of 104% annually, all for less money than what it cost to hire one minimum wage employee all on a month to month basis. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former SBA entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. Wondering what to do when you need motivation. Wish you had a go-to guy when it comes to preventing burnouts tune in to Jenna Kutcher's, The Goal Digger Podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Listen to The Goal Digger Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Jeffrey say what's up to a Fire Nation and share something about yourself. That will find interesting.

1 (1m 44s):
I had a, a birthday recently. I won't say it was a huge birthday, but I turned 54, which still shocks me because I, in my own mind, I still think I'm 28. I think we all have this age caught in our mind. Right. But you know, for unusually, for me, as I was having this birthday, I started thinking about which is so unlike me, I started comparing myself, you know, am I, am I, am I where I want to be at this point in my life, do I have the amount of money set aside that I want? Am I ready for retirement? The way I want, where is this where I should be? And all this stuff is going through my mind, which is totally unlike me. I'm not usually like that, but I guess maybe this happens as we get older and, and making myself feel a little bit better.

1 (2m 24s):
I think I, I found something that I think was kind of unique and that is that not only have I always been an entrepreneur, I mean, I was selling eggs door to door at 14 years old. And you know, I went from that entrepreneurial venture to another one, to another one to becoming a professional photographer by the age of 20. So then I realized not only have I been an entrepreneur my entire life, but that in fact, I actually have never shared expenses with anyone. I've never had a roommate I've had, I've never had a long-term relationship that with someone who also had a job that was contributing to the finances and I've had many, I've had several long-term relationships, but none of them were actually contributors.

1 (3m 8s):
And I realized I truly have managed to create every dollar that has ever come into my life. So regardless of where I am and all those shows, am I where I should be? Do I have the money set aside that I should have, regardless of all that I have to say. I realize that it's kind of a unique journey when someone can look back at their life and say that, and I don't think I don't see this changing, but it's an unusual journey when you can look back at your life and say, wow, I actually created every dollar I ever made. And regardless of where we're, whether I'm where I should be, I'm damn proud of that. Like, I'm really proud that I have figured out how to generate, you know, my freedom and every dollar I've ever made.

1 (3m 48s):
I, that's probably a pretty unusual path.

0 (3m 51s):
Yeah, yeah. I can't say the same. And that is definitely a story. And that is interesting and unique and I appreciate you sharing and there's definitely a wonderful lesson in there. Fire Nation. I hope you're taking away. You know, one lesson that I kind of want to add to this, you know, you're talking about being 54 and comparing and yada, yada, I'm such a big believer Jeffery. And this is for you to Fire Nation is that compare and despair is right next to each other. Whenever we compare ourselves to anybody or anything, we're going to despair on some level. And that goes for everybody across the board, like somebody can compare themselves to Jeffrey and Jeffrey can compare themselves to somebody and somebody can compare themselves to me. And what am I going to Prairie myself to like, you know, Donald Trump or allows a horrible example, actually like mark Cuban or Richard Branson or somebody who I, I actually admire.

0 (4m 37s):
And it has like amazing success and has done some really cool things like it never stops. And so I'm a believer Jeffrey, I'm curious about your thoughts on this, that you should only compare yourself to one person and that's you yesterday, because if you're winning that comparison, you're winning at life. So guess what if you've set more side, more money aside today than you did yesterday? Like you're winning that comparison and you're not always going to win that comparison. You're gonna have some bad days, but if you're winning that more often than not, you're trending in the right direction. What are your,

1 (5m 9s):
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. Like I said, what's took me by surprise is I was even having this thought process because it's so unlike me, I'm not someone that's ever really gotten caught up in comparison and in a way I was comparing myself to, to myself, but you're right. It was, you know, I wasn't looking at just compared to yesterday, I was looking at this, this vision that maybe I had set in place, you know, 30 years ago of where I, what I thought I would be at turning 54, which was already a mind-bending concept for me. You know, I just, it, it was 20 years old when I went into it to what I'll say official business as a photographer. So I thought I'd be retired at 15. And actually in some ways I was, and my son actually reminded me of this recently where, cause he remembers growing up, hearing me say that I planned on retiring at 50 because I thought I was going to be independently wealthy and have everything I needed by 50.

1 (5m 59s):
And when I got to 50, I actually found that's, you know, several years ago, eight, nine years ago is when I started transitioning out of being a professional photographer and in, towards being a coach and an author and a speaker. And although I still do some photography today, I do very, very little so in a way I actually, I actually did retire in a way my son pointed this out to me cause they know in a way you did retire from photography, but what you just didn't see coming was the fact that the whole second chapter to life that, you know, I want to pursue and that I feel I can contribute in the world. So, you know, I think maybe sometimes these ideals are implanted in our heads so long ago that at some point, and for me, it was a huge surprise that this year that I started facing those questions, like, you know, am I where I should be or want to be, et cetera.

1 (6m 45s):
But I agree with you. You can only compare yourself to yesterday. And if, you know, if you're you're taking steps in the right direction, you're putting more money away today than you did yesterday. If you're working harder towards your goals today than you did yesterday, then you're headed in the right direction. Well,

0 (7m 0s):
Thoughts for the first four plus minutes of the interview, Fire Nation, I hope you're still with a Sierra and you know, you're doing your thing. And I actually just realized Jeffrey, you never actually said what's up to Fire Nation. So say what's up,

1 (7m 12s):
Hey, Fire Nation, glad to be here with all

0 (7m 14s):
And Fire Nation. Jeffrey's here today. Cause he's going to be dropping value bombs on an audio masterclass called make your business irresistible, who doesn't want to make their business irresistible. I don't know if that person exists because it's just an amazing phrase for a number of ways. And Jeffrey, let's just dive right into this. Why won't avatars and buyer's personas be enough to gain someone's business in the future. I mean, we've heard this over and over again about avatars and buyer's personas. Why isn't it enough to gain someone's feet to gain someone's business in the future? Yeah.

1 (7m 50s):
Yeah. I love that. You're starting with this because there's so much passion about this for me in, in, in, in writing my book. Well, you know, and you're right, this, these have been the buzz words for in marketing buyer, personas and avatars. And the reason I don't think it's going to be enough anymore is because people want to feel as a business and a brand. They want to feel that you have a deeper connection with them. Then you just know their demographics and their stats, right? Buyer personas and avatars are at best. They're kind of a projection of who we think the ideal customer is. And we kind of painted out and maybe we're even clever. We give them a name, but what, what the recipient wants to feel the re and I say the recipient of your marketing, of your promoting towards them, what your ideal customer wants to feel is that you totally get them and that you get not only their lifestyle and their behavior.

1 (8m 44s):
And of course that's how buyer personas and avatars, especially in today's technology that has kind of advanced too. We know a lot about people's behavior, you know, Amazon and Facebook and Google, they know a lot about our behavior, right? So I think as consumers, we know that businesses are studying us in a way they might know our, they may have developed a buyer persona in our tar. They may even know our behavior, but what we really want to feel before we surrender our hard earned money before we become loyal to a brand or to a business, what we really want to feel is that that business gets us. Like they get our essence, they get our value system that they understand, you know, how we look at life.

1 (9m 30s):
I always say the ultimate compliment that we can receive from our marketing efforts, that ultimate comment we can get is when somebody says to us, wow, it's like, you're in my head. I love that. I love when people, somebody says to me, it's like, wow, it's like, you're in my head. That means I've done the work to really imagine that I am them. You know, that I've really with empathy have really understood how they're walking through life. And I believe in the future that, you know, consumers just continue to get more and more sophisticated. They're getting, of course we're getting more and more used to being marketed at.

1 (10m 11s):
And that creates a little skepticism. And I just believe that people will in the future, if not it's here already. I believe people are demanding a higher level of knowing by businesses and brands. Like, I want you to know what makes me tick. I want you to know my values, not just my statistics and my demographics and even my behavior. I want you to know more about me and what makes me unique. Wow.

0 (10m 33s):
Wow. It's like your in my head. I mean, Fire Nation, that's a phrase the, you need to strive for, you need to be working towards and not just once every now and then, but on a consistent basis, because if your clients, customers, avatars, listeners, viewers, whatever that might be, if they really feel that way, you're winning and you're going to continue winning at a very high level. So Jeffery, one thing that we hear all the time, I feel like it's in movies, it's in books, it's on the show. You know, it was about how everything in the world follows this weird 80 20 rule, like where it's 80% of one thing is 20%. The other thing, you know, like 20% of the people have 80% of the money, like 20% of the flowers.

0 (11m 16s):
Do you know? I have 80% of the reasons why there's more flowers, like whatever it is. Like, it's just like this 80 20 rule for like everything in life. Explain what that 80 20 rule is and then share why you think it's outdated or an outdated way of thinking for today's entrepreneur.

1 (11m 33s):
Yeah. I mean, what you just said there as really key is that I think, I believe it's an outweighed outdated way of thinking for today's entrepreneurs. I'm not going to say there isn't truth to the theory, right? I mean, cause I'd be arguing that would just be too big and then there's truth to it. I mean, our country's economy is largely, you know, greatest percentage of taxes paid by the smallest percentage of people. In fact, many people put, you know, they, they work 80% on only what gives them 20% of results. So there's a lot of places in which the 80 20 also known as the Pareto principle. There's a lot of ways in which the 80 20 rule is true, but I think it's an outdated concept for entrepreneurs because what the 80 20 rule is really saying, if in fact 80% of your income comes from 20% of your customers, what that's really saying is that eight out of 10 customers are a waste of your time.

1 (12m 26s):
Now I don't know about you or the entire Fire Nation. I don't know how many of us can afford today for eight or 10 customers to be a waste of our time because every single customer is a whole lot of effort, right? Every follower, every reader, our blogs, our listener to our podcasts, right? It's every customer that walks in our door. There's effort, there's expenditure of energy and money for every customer. Now I've been in business long enough. I can tell you in the eighties, it's like people were throwing money at you like spaghetti against a wall, right? I mean, you just didn't feel that you had to work as hard for every dollar because money was circulating so heavily.

1 (13m 6s):
And there wasn't a high value. I always said there wasn't a high bar for quality in the eighties, right? There was, it was a very label, brand driven culture, right? If you had a brand image that made you prestigious, you could, you know, command any price and people would pay it. And there wasn't as high, a standard of quality where now does not only a high standard of quality, there's a high standard for transparency, ethical behavior, right? So the barriers to entry and what it takes to get a customer today is so much more significant than it ever has been. We don't have time to only have eight, you know, to have eight out of 10 customers, a waste of our time to say nothing of how hard it is to stand out above the noise.

1 (13m 50s):
So all that is to say it is a crazy amount of effort for every customer that the most efficient way to have a profitable business as an entrepreneur today is for all or almost all your clients to be ideal customers. And that's really the goal of my book. Lingo is I wanted to give people a strategy where they were calling forward only their ideal customers. JLD this was, this is what made my photography business successful for over 30 years. I only worked with my ideal customers and so much so that we, years ago I ditched the term average sale because you know, when I I'm a business guy and I'm a numbers guy.

1 (14m 33s):
And when I look at my business, I always wanted to look at well, what's our average sale, which was substantial in my photography business. My average sale was between, you know, Fastly six to $8,000 per portrait session. There was some fluctuation to that, but that was, that was that, that mid range that are aiming for. But I ditched the terminology average years ago because an average sale implies the mathematical formula of a high and a low young, which are usually pretty extreme. And that's when people see evidence that the 80 20 role in their business, when they start averaging out the high and the low, I reframed it to being, I wanted to know what is the typical sale.

1 (15m 13s):
If I draw in, which was my goal, my ideal customer, the client who, you know, made working with them easy, they valued what I did. They were the easiest to work with and they spent the most amount of money. They're the most profitable customers. That's my ideal customer. If I put all my effort into creating systems and promotions and marketing to attract that ideal customer, then I could expect a pretty typical sale that it didn't have to be. I didn't have to run my business on these, the average of a extreme high and a low, but that it could be typical. So to me, you know, this whole 80 20 rule is a way that we have to rethink being in business.

1 (15m 54s):
And I think a lot of entrepreneurs set themselves up right from the beginning buying into this principle because they go into business and they're really prone in the beginning to take whatever work comes along, right? And when you start taking whatever work comes along, it's really hard to get out of that cycle. It's really hard to get out of the, some money is better than no money mentality. And it really isn't in the long run, right? The better the fastest road. It might be a slower start, but to get to the end conclusion, not that there's an end, but to get to where you want to go financially and you want to get the ball rolling. I have the most profitable business. I believe it's best to say no to people that undervalue your work and to believe the mindset that not some money isn't better than no money.

1 (16m 45s):
And instead focus on only working with your ideal customer so that you're no longer buying into the 80 20 rule. And in fact, every one of your customers is an ideal customer, most profitable customer. And we all know this scenario. I mean, I talk to entrepreneurs every day and hear all the time how we jumped through hoops. We go to the greatest amount of effort for people that are the least rewarding financially. And on the other side, we're shocked at how easy it is to work with somebody. They were the most profitable and I made the most amount of money, right? Why not have more of them? So that's what I mean about kind of busting up the predator principle, like reorganizing your business. So that nine out of 10 customers, if not 10 out of 10 customers are your ideal customers and providing you with the lifestyle you want.

1 (17m 33s):
Well, Jeffrey, this is

0 (17m 34s):
Perfect segue to getting to the core of who our ideal customer is. So break it down for Fire Nation. How do we define this ideal customer?

1 (17m 44s):
Yeah. You know, it's funny. I, so I I'll tell you a little aside here. So I spent several writing my book up the entire book written is in the hands of the editor. And of course that's when I started a podcast tour, I did 53 interviews in three months prior. I did a handful of them before launch and a lot of them right. At launch. But of course, as you know, they're recorded way in advance. So that's why the timing was off. You know, the book was written, it was just in the early stages of editor being edited. And I'm already out there talking about my book, lingo on podcasts. And one question kept coming up. So I'm having all these conversations about, as we just had about only working with your ideal customer and host after host would say to me, well, how do we know who our ideal customer is?

1 (18m 28s):
And I realized this was a gaping hole in the book. I wrote an entire book. Assuming people knew who their ideal customer was. And then all the, every host is saying, well, how do we know who our ideal customer is? And I realized, wow, I thought people knew that. So of course I went back and rewrote it and it became chapter two just after the introduction. So in a way it's kind of chapter one in a way it's chapter two, technically, but it's the, it's how the book starts. The real of the book starts is helping people define who their ideal customer is. And I think my method about going about this is the opposite of what most people think. Because when we first ask ourselves the question, who is our ideal customer, we think about the other, we think about the customer.

1 (19m 11s):
We think about the buyer persona, the avatar, when really it begins with us, right? Who are we? Who, what are our, what are our innate skills? What are our, what's our, what our skill sets, what are, what's our talent? What is it that we have to bring to the table? All right. That's of course important. I also think it's really important to look at our innate characteristics. Just what makes us who we are. And, and this is, I think completely undervalued as far as people seeing that as a leverage point on, on determining who their ideal client is. And it also, if you kind of use and leverage your innate characteristics, it also is what makes being in business pleasurable.

1 (19m 56s):
You know, so many entrepreneurs, particularly creative entrepreneurs, right? They love the creative side, but they don't like the business side or they don't think they can be good at the business side. And I think it's often because we, we think we have to depart from who we naturally are, where if we tap into what our innate characteristics, the title of this chapter, by the way is called, who will love that, which I know should be home ship. It love that. But I, I decided to go real English, not grammatically correct, but the question that's the founding, the foundational questionnaires who will love that, right? Who, what makes you, who you are? What are your innate characteristics? What's your skill set? What do you have to offer people and then ask yourself and who would love that?

1 (20m 38s):
Right. So that what you're doing here is you're building a business for your ideal customer, by starting with it kind of a self study. First, I'll give you an example. I am a complete, neat and organized freak. Like I know where everything is in my life does no clutter in my life. I'm extremely neat and organized, which might explain why I've had multiple long-term relationships. You said it not, I know you're thinking everybody has the same reaction. It drives people crazy. Like it's not easy to live with somebody that's so buttoned down. I'm also not a procrastinator. Everything gets done ahead of time, you know? And it's not because I'm better than anybody else.

1 (21m 18s):
It's actually, because I'm incredibly insecure. And I don't like to not be ready or I, I, I live in fear of being asked, like, where is something? And I don't know where it is. Right. So I'm just innately, ridiculously neat and organized. Well, you know, if I were to ask myself the question, well, who would love that? But you know, who loves that really affluent people that I photograph, like the affluent people that whose families I photographed, they love. That's probably, that was probably my number one selling point to them because they knew as a photographer that they never had to worry about their clothing, not being perfect in the photograph, their hair being at a place they knew.

1 (21m 59s):
I saw everything. I saw mismatched socks. And you know, your socks don't really go with your slacks. You know, I just have to say to some men and make them change their socks. There was a no, there's nothing I don't see. Right. And I'm incredibly neat and organized. They'd never had to worry about the fact that I would be sending, you know, very expensive gifts on their behalf to family members and friends. They never, they didn't even have to see it ahead of time. They, you know, they just never had to worry about everything being, I'll say perfect, but it wasn't as much as perfect as much as it was highly organized. So that innate characteristic in me, you know, why is it, it served no purpose of my childhood.

1 (22m 41s):
It drove people crazy. In my personal life. I found a place in life and in a huge market of people that saw tremendous value in that innate characteristic of who I am. And I often make the comparison with comedians, right? Some comedians are clean, some are really foul mouth. And you realize that, you know, no one's for everyone, right? Some people have a tolerance for the foul mouth comedian, some don't right. So you want to kind of, what is your style? What is your innate characteristics? What makes you, who you are? That's a big starting point to determine who would love that, which then determines who your ideal client is. Of course, what is your skillset? What is it that you have to offer?

1 (23m 21s):
What is it that people are going to benefit from your skillset? That of course is a really important, important part of defining who your ideal customer is. So I think the way I go about this differently is, as I said so often when posts are the question, who's my ideal customer. People look towards the customer first. And what I suggest is look towards yourself first, identify who would be greatly served by who you are. And you have to offer that defines your ideal customer. Now you can begin to build a business for them that speaks to them that speaks their lingo so that you're being found. If you feel well by your ideal

0 (23m 58s):
Fire Nation, one simple sentence in who would love that it can go a long way. And if you think Jeffrey's done dropping value bombs, we get the five steps of building a secret language. His strategy coming up after we get back from thanking our sponsors, some business owners refer to it as building and growing sustainable customer relationships, maintaining unique customer needs, even personalizing the customer experience. HubSpot calls it being customer centric in a HubSpot CRM platform is designed to help you do just that build, maintain, and personalize your customer's experience into a remarkable one.

0 (24m 39s):
How do they do it? Well, for starters, HubSpot has game changing payment tools like native payment links and recurring payments. And you can directly embed these into HubSpot's quoting tools in emails for easy delivery and collection, hoping you build a seamless payment experience with your customers. They also offer custom feedback surveys. So you can easily capture feedback, unique to your business, share insights with your teams and grow your understanding of your customers. Learn more about how a HubSpot CRM platform can help build, maintain, and grow your customer relationships at hubspot.com. That's H U B S P O T.com. Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs increase profitability by an average of 104% annually, all for less money than would cost to hire one minimum wage employee all on a month to month basis.

0 (25m 29s):
Fire Nation meet Clay Clark Clay has been coaching businesses since 2006. Yep. Even through the great recession and he does it for less money than it would cost to hire a minimum wage employee Inc. Magazine reports that by default 96% of businesses will fail within 10 years. Yet Clay clients grow by an average of 104% annually. How's this Hema possible Clay only takes on 160 clients. So he personally designs your business plan. Plus Clay's team helps you execute that plan with access to graphic designers, Google certified search engine, optimizers, web developers, ad managers, videographers, workflow, mappers and accounting coaches visit ThrivetimeShow.com/fire to watch thousands of testimonials from real entrepreneurs who Clay's helped over the years.

0 (26m 12s):
Do your research. If you thousands of documented success stories from real people, like you ThrivetimeShow.com/fire, then schedule your free consultation with Clay himself to see how he can help you with proven business coaching on a month to month commitment basis, ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. So Jeffrey we're back and I'd love for you to break down those five steps that I mentioned before the sponsor break those five steps of building a secret language strategy, go through those one at a time, break them down for us. We'll do.

1 (26m 44s):
And you know, so I want to preface, I guess, by saying that I've been using this terminology secret language, because this was a huge awareness for me. When I was shifting my business at 23 years old, I had a failing business on my hand. I've been out there for three years trying to, to make a photography business work in my hometown. It wasn't working. I realized that, you know, I could say I was barking up the wrong tree, but really I was speaking the wrong language, right? I was, I was speaking the language of long-term value and, and having portraits to hand down from generation to generation. And I was speaking that to a community, which I grew up in, like, you'd think I'd know this, but I was speaking to that to a community that didn't know if they're going to be able to pay their rent or mortgage that month.

1 (27m 26s):
Right. They can't think long-term, there was no value to them in thinking about handing down photographs and preserving their children's memories. They're worried about paying their rent, their mortgage that month. So I decided, you know, I knew I needed to make a shift. And what I realized is that I needed to, that I was a luxury product and I had never seen myself as a family photographer as a luxury product, because to me it was something you had to have, but the fact matters. Nobody really needs family photographs. It's not a, not a must have. So I, once I determined that I was a luxury product at 23 years old, I knew I needed to completely reinvent this business.

1 (28m 8s):
And I realized that with the affluent market, the problem was I knew nothing about the luxury or affluent market. Absolutely nothing. I grew up lower middle class at best. So I set out to understand the, the mindset, the value system, the essence, and you could say the lingo of the luxury market. And so I went to Bergdorf Goodman that's I tell that story in the book so that I, in a lot of flagship stores, a very high-end brands, not so I could such stomachs so much study the brand, but I wanted to study what brought people there. And I did this with a great deal of empathy. And that's why I'm sh what I'm stressing here, because when I use the terminology secret language, cause I realized, man, when I entered the world of high-end brands and affluence, I entered a brand new world and I realized there's a secret language going on.

1 (29m 1s):
There's a secret language to the way high-end brands connect and communicate with their affluent clients just as there was in my childhood, going to low end department stores, right. Different language. But I think what's important to understand here, as we go through these five steps is that this is based is coming from a place of empathy and a deep desire to really understand with empathy the, the, your ideal customer's world. Right? So as soon as the word secret language is introduced, I think people can start with, well, is this conniving? Is it messing with people's heads? No, not at all. It's actually done with empathy. And so the five steps, the first, which explains why went to Bergdorf Goodman, the first of these five steps, which by the way, need to be done in order, the first is perspective, right?

1 (29m 49s):
So perspective is having a willingness to understand the world perspective, the perspective of your ideal customer. So in my case, I had determined by looking at my skill set, looking at my innate characteristics, looking at the fact that what I was offering was a luxury product. I had determined that my ideal customer was affluent and a luxury buyer. Like I said, the problem was, I didn't know anything about them. So my job then became, if I wanted to build a business for them, if I wanted to be a build a business that spoke to their lingo, step number one is to understand their perspective. What does the world look like from them?

1 (30m 30s):
If you're not from that world, how could you possibly know what the world looks like? That's why I went to high-end brands as a customer. So I wasn't studying the brand. I was, I was being the customer to the best of my ability with what limited money I had. I was being the customer in that world. So I could look around and see what it looks like, what it feels like. And that's how I honor all the other steps that we're going to go through. But it has to start with the willingness to have a perspective. And here's something that I think a lot of people don't understand, almost all businesses, whether you're building a product or creating a service, almost all businesses are serving people that they don't necessarily share that exact same perspective with at this point.

1 (31m 18s):
So I'll give you an example of that. Let's say you've created a technology that solves a problem while you created that technology because you previously had a problem that you wanted to solve, but from where you are today, you no longer have that problem because you created the solution, but you created it for people who still have the problem, right? Millennials curse. There's a lot of conversation in business today about the psychology of millennials, right? As a business today, if you don't take the time to understand the perspective of millennials, you're in big trouble, right? They're a unique generation. They have a different perspective of how they look at things, what they want, if you want to serve your business well, while you damn better, take the time to understand their perspective without judgment and without assumption, by the way, which we hear a lot of, there's a lot of really angry 50 and 60 year olds who think that millennials are just entitled and blah, blah, blah.

1 (32m 11s):
And I don't think that at all. I, I personally think millennials, I have, by the way, I have three of them. So maybe I'm a little, little favoritism towards millennials, but I think that the first generation to have the audacity to not settle, like if they don't like a job, that's melted, they'll make a job. They don't, they want to travel the world. They've, you know, they, they're not going to stay in relationships that don't personally fulfill them. You know? So I think they're an amazing generation. The first, maybe the first generation to really have the balls to not settle and say, I want it all. And wanting it all might seem entitled from somebody else's perspective, but from their perspective, it's not about being spoiled and entitled from their perspective is, Hey, we only live once, right?

1 (32m 55s):
Something that fascinated me early on about perspective, the millennial perspective was the whole Snapchat mentality. And then along came Instagram stories and Facebook stories. And I remember asking my kids, I'm like, why are these the stories disappearing in 24 hours appealing to you? And again, this is coming from the perspective of a photographer. Who's all about preserving memories. Like why is suddenly temporary good? And yeah, they're like, cause we're living in the moment. I don't need to hang on to this moment forever. As it just a moment I want to live stream and share with my friends. I'm at a concert, that's all

0 (33m 30s):
Realness to it as well. There's like a realist to the fact that you know, that whatever you're looking at happened within 24 hours, maybe within an hour. And that's really like, I remember when Ussein bolt had just won the a hundred meter dash and he was holding up his phone. I was like that dude's doing a Snapchat right now. I went on and boom, I was like in his phone, like a second later when he was on Snapchat. So it was like a better view than the TV had. And it was all through Snapchat. So Jeffrey take us to number two, which is

1 (33m 58s):
Familiarity, which I think is probably one of the biggest emotional cues of, of human nature. That's underrated in business. And what I mean by that is familiar. Familiarity creates comfort, right? So if you understand, as you need to buy, now, you first need to understand the perspective of your ideal customer. Once you've got that, you then can figure out, well, what emotionally feels familiar to them. You're not copying other brands or other businesses, but you know, if what feels familiar to them is, you know, high-end simplicity. You don't want to create a website that's cluttered and noisy, right? So you want to, you want to, you want them to have the opportunity because familiarity is that not only it creates comfort, but it also stands out.

1 (34m 38s):
I challenge anyone if you are, if you're traveling in Europe, try to not see a Starbucks logo, like try to not notice it. You can't, it's so familiar, right? There are certain icons that are so familiar. The story I tell them the book was actually a couple of years ago, I was coming back from podcast movement. I don't remember where it wasn't that I think it was in Fort worth that year, coming back, get on the plane. I go to sit down the, my seat seatmate on a plane next to me is reading the book of a guest that was just booked on our show. Like the day before my team had let me know while I was away, Hey, we just booked those guests. He's kind of hot right now. Here's his book. I hadn't read it yet. And I go to sit down and the guy next to me is reading the book.

1 (35m 21s):
So of course that sparks up a conversation because that book is now familiar to me a day before I would have paid zero attention to it. But on this day that was familiar to me. It's like, Hey, how's the book that sparked up a conversation. And to this day we're, we're, we're good friends. We became business peers. It all from the nature of familiarity. And I think I said, I think it's an underutilized and extremely powerful emotion in marketing and branding is to, you know, create an atmosphere of familiarity from familiar to people. When I, I recently moved to Miami beach two and a half years ago from Manhattan, my first appoint with my accountant. I said to him, well, so much so saving money. My rent is the same here on Miami beach, as it is in New York city, which got a lot of people, think they're moving to Florida save money.

1 (36m 5s):
And he says, well, you do know that you moved into the neighborhood designed to attract New York money. I'm like, well, what do you mean is while the park is modeled after battery park in New York city, there's a Smith. And Wollensky in the park, which is a well-known steakhouse in New York city. And when he said this, I was like, oh my gosh, I was duped by my own strategies. Like I bought into this area, this neighborhood entirely because it felt for reasons unknown to me, it felt ridiculously familiar to me. And if I'm going to move away from home, I wanted to bring a piece of home with me. And that's the power of familiarity when it comes to marketing and strategy is what can you create in your business when you understand their perspective that isn't copying, but gives them the feeling they've landed on a website or they've seen marketing materials that, gosh, this just feels really familiar and comfortable to me.

1 (36m 56s):
This is where I belong. Some people might be more familiar in home Depot than a high-end store or vice versa, but you have to understand their perspective so that you can then present yourself in a way that feels familiar. Third step is style. Style is the decision maker. It's it's plays in the area of familiarity, but it's also very different. And that style is just a little more surface level. But style is actually the style that you present yourself, the style of your branding, the business that you're presented, you have a brick and mortar, the style of your brick and mortar, your email marketing, whatever it is, the style in which you are presenting your brand allows people to make a quick decision as to whether they want to know more about you.

1 (37m 41s):
And it is kind of a little more surface level, but we just have to face the reality. This is how people make decisions, right? We walked down main street USA. We walked down malls. An example I like to give is, you know, we, we go to a discount store like TJ max, and we flip through all the medium-sized shirts on one rack, but there is a mixture of designers. So we're not buying by label. We're buying by style. We'll flip through that rack of shirts. And what causes us to stop is when we feel like, wow, that shirt is speaking my language, it's my style. It's it resonates for me, right? That's how we make decisions. So when people come across your marketing materials, your website, anywhere that your front facing branding is being shown, you want to, you want to get people quickly.

1 (38m 29s):
You don't have a whole lot of time. You have a matter of seconds. And we're generally making that decision whether to stay or not based on whether we feel like that style resonates for us. An example, I've given the book I interviewed Tamsen Webster. Who's a brilliant marketer. If you will. She, she has a thing. She called the red thread where she helps people pull out their, their red thread, their, their core message, their, their, their singular line in a talk. If you will. She trains a lot of people for, for Ted talks. And she almost always publicly seen wearing a Diane Von Furstenberg dress.

1 (39m 10s):
That's something she's, you can, you can, but Diane Von Furstenberg as a designer has a very specific look. And when I was interviewing Tamsen, I was like, well, why, why are you so focused on that designer? Why, why? I want to understand the brand loyalty and what she came to realize in our conversation is that everything, as she had said, in our conversation, the descriptors that one would use to describe Diane Von Furstenberg designs is exactly the way she wants people to describe her work. It's smart. It's a good choice. It's well, styled, but gets to the point, right? There's just a, there's a level of sophistication about it. And I always say Diane Von Furstenberg is like a designer for intelligence.

1 (39m 51s):
Like she, she definitely, you imagine women wearing her dresses, sipping a cocktail in a wood-paneled library, right? There's an intelligence about her style. And that's exactly how Tampson wants her work to be described as intelligent. So we choose styles based on what's speaking on our behalf, which is why people make such quick decisions about whether to do business with you or not based on style ready for the fourth. Freising psychology. VB. Yeah. Gosh. I mean, there's hardly anything more powerful than pricing psychology and what people have to understand that pricing creates perception and gives you a, I can actually just as easily say pricing gives you power because you actually have the power to decide where in the marketplace you want your business positioned based on pricing psychology, because we all know we form opinions about prices.

1 (40m 45s):
If something is priced too low, we assume it must not be very good, right? If price something is priced high and there's evidence that people are buying it, we just assume, well, it's for somebody it's just not, for me. You can literally decide where you want your business positioned based on how I give the example in the book about restaurants, you know, what's the perception we get. If we go to a restaurant that doesn't have prices on the menu perception is that it's very expensive. You know, what's the perception of dollar meal at McDonald's very different, right? So, and, and pricing psychology is not only the dollar amount itself, but it's also how it's presented visually.

1 (41m 30s):
It's very interesting to see how we get a different impression of the price of something, whether there's a dollar sign in front of it or not, whether it's followed by decimal points and zeros, because if it's just a, a three-five $35, let's say for price a steak, if it's just a, three-five, that's a different impression than dollar sign, three, five decimal 0.00, which brings up then, which is one of my biggest awareness is when I was at the story I told earlier about being at Bergdorf Goodman. This was one of my biggest light bulb moments. I walked around this high-end store and was flipping over prices and realizing they were all just like these vague rounded off numbers, $500, a thousand dollars, $3,000.

1 (42m 13s):
There was no, you know, 1997, it wasn't 1435, right? That's, that's a cost conscious mentality that that would be the Walmart psychology of pricing, right? Because that's who they are speaking to. They're speaking the language of cost consciousness. So if you're speaking the language of cost consciousness, you want to be very specific with your prices. If you're speaking the language of value, then you want to be kind of vague about the prices, which is why, when people ask me, should I put prices on my website? I said, it depends on who you want to speak to, right? If you're selling value, if you're a value based business, you can, you, whatever you're doing is transformative for people.

1 (42m 53s):
Then I wouldn't put prices, right? If what you're offering is a good deal, then put a price, put it specifically. So when you understand the minds of the biggest breaks, what drives me crazy, but I see it all the time is entrepreneurs that come to me for coaching and, and they, the break in their business is that they feel like their customers are constantly trying to get a discount complaining about the price. But then I'll look at their pricing structure and their pricing structure will be a classic, you know, 4 97, 1 97. It's like, well, if you've got to call attention to the fact that $3 makes a difference, you can't be a surprise that people are going to ask you for a discount, right.

1 (43m 37s):
Which I know is a popular thing to do, because somehow we think 1 97, it's cheaper than 200, but the, the good $200 client already sees through that. So what's the point. Does that make sense? So there's, you know, the more you draw, the other example I love to give, or just the position of cash registers, which is a literal, a little literal display of pricing psychology. Because if you go into your typical department store, target Walmart, their cash registers are lined up at the front of the store, like cattle corral, right? The first thing you say, this is a transactional experience. We're focused on the exchange of money here. It's cost conscious, as opposed to you go into a high-end store and Neiman Marcus, a birder of Goodman, a Ralph Lauren flagship store.

1 (44m 22s):
You go into a Hyatt. You won't find a register they're hidden, they're tucked away behind merchandise, or sometimes even in separate rooms, right? Same thing with diners. You go to a Greek diner is going to be a register and a bowl of mints greeting you. When you walk in, you could have a nice, fine dining restaurant. There's not going to be a red, be a host to stand, not a register when you walk in, right? Because it's not, you're not bringing consciousness to the transaction and to the cost. So pricing psychology, again, has to be aligned with whom you've determined your ideal customer to be. That's when that's why the on perspective comes first so that you can then say, well, if I were they, how would I perceive the pricing when I'm working with coaching clients and they want to determine the price.

1 (45m 4s):
And the first thing I asked them is how do you want your business to be perceived and let, how you price yourself, support that

0 (45m 11s):
Fire Nation. We're going over the five steps of building a secret language strategy. We've already talked about perspective, familiarity style. Number four is pricing psychology and a little teaser. If you want to get to number five, you're going to have to get Jeff's book lingo. And he's also going to be diving into the difference between the old niches and the new niches mindsets and practices for success, and so much more. So Jeff let's really kind of tie this audio masterclass up with a bow, give us kind of a overall parting piece of guidance from this master class, and then give us the best way that we can connect with you in any goodies you might have for since then, we'll say goodbye.

0 (45m 56s):
Awesome.

1 (45m 57s):
So I think my parting wisdom would be kind of what you touched on the difference between the old niche and the new niche. And I love bringing this up because I always create some controversy because you know, a lot of businesses are still focused on niche marketing and find the one that, but typically in the old niche definition, it means determining the one thing that you do and probably even to one audience. And here's how I believe this has shifted. And quite honestly, that that can be in today's marketing today's business world. That that can be a very restrictive model, right? Because God forbid, you know, if you picked one thing to do to one audience, what if that shifts, what if that, you know, what, if that audience shifts, what if a technology comes along that changes your positioning, you could be completely out of a business, right?

1 (46m 43s):
So to me, it's a risky business model and, and it is restrictive. Now. I'm not saying it's not effective for many people and that it can't, you know, perhaps choosing a clearly defined direction is a great place to start. But what I define as the, the new niche is the idea that really what you want to does a niche you want to find in yourself is your area of authority, or what is the area of authority for which you can become known. And that's how people recognize you. Imagine you're walking down the street and you walk past two people having a conversation. And one person is saying to the other, oh yeah. That John Lee Dumas, he's the go-to expert for blank, right?

1 (47m 24s):
Or, oh yeah. That Jeffrey Shaw I've heard about him. He's the go-to expert for blank. Right? So that's when you become known for your area of authority, right? So when you've got that, then you're looking at what I consider an expansive business model. The old, the old model would be the classic phrase was a inch wide mile deep. Well, what I say now in the new niche model is, you know, maybe an inch wide, maybe six inches deep and a mile wide. Because when you define your area of authority, you can then start identifying multiple audiences that can benefit from that authority. So now you've got an expansive business model and it may be that you start with one audience, but you see that you can expand on your business.

1 (48m 10s):
You say, well, this is another audience that would be served by that. Oh, and here's another one that would benefit from my skillset and my innate characteristics. So I love introducing for those that are kind of still feeling the weight of pressure to pick one thing into one audience. I love to, to open up the possibility that when you can define for yourself and market to others, your known area of authority, that what you find is that there there's, it's an expansive model and there are multiple audiences out there that can benefit from your area of expertise.

0 (48m 44s):
And what's the best way to connect with you.

1 (48m 46s):
I would say the best way to connect with me is we've, I've put together this, this idea, I'm doing a, an ongoing video series about lingo, where I'm going to review people's websites and give them some feedback on where their lingo is working, where it's, it's broken. I'm going to do this to throw a whole video series. Obviously I can't. Yeah. And I'm really looking forward to it. I could talk this stuff all day long. You can probably tell. And you know, I can't, I can't serve everyone, but if I, all the applications that come in, those that I can't do on video, a select number of them, I'm going to invite to a personal call at 30 minutes. Like, let me hop on the phone with you and show you where your lingo is working for you more than likely, and more importantly, where it's broken, because that's usually the bigger problem.

1 (49m 27s):
So we've put this together an application to submit your website for consideration at jeffreyshaw.com/fire

0 (49m 36s):
Fire Nation. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with JS and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com type Jeffrey in the search bar. And his Shawna's page will pop up with everything that we've been talking about today, all this great stuff. And yes, we even are going to put in that fifth step of building a secret language strategy in there, which you can see once you go over to EOFire.com and get to Jeffrey's page. And of course, take Jeffrey up on this Fire Nation. Take him up on this. I mean, you might be one of the lucky people who get that video strategy of what lingo you're using correctly and incorrectly on your website.

0 (50m 18s):
This is incredibly valuable software. You might even be getting on a 30 minute phone call with Jeffrey, which is near priceless. So head over to Jeffrey shaw.com/fire and apply. This could literally be your lucky day, which could take your business, your website, everything to that next level. We're always looking to go to that next level again, going back to the beginning of the theme of this episode, if you're comparing yourself to you yesterday, and you're winning that comparison, you're winning at life. So just make that happen. Fire Nation and Jeffrey. Thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation.

0 (50m 58s):
Hope you enjoyed our chats with Jeffrey today, and you ready? Are you ready to discover your big idea in just three hours? We'll have created an amazing system that will get you there in three hours, and then the sky's the limits. The best part is it's $1 million just getting it's free. It is 100% free. So visit your big idea.io, your big idea.io, and I will catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs increase profitability by an average of 804% annually, all for less money than it would cost to hire one minimum wage employee all on a month to month basis.

0 (51m 47s):
Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former SBA entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. Wondering what to do when you need motivation. Wish you had a go-to guy when it comes to preventing burnouts tune in to Jenna Kutcher's, The Goal Digger Podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Listen to The Goal Digger Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.