# It’s Not The Thing… It’s The Marketing Of The Thing That Counts

- Link: https://jarvislegacy.com/podcast/its-not-the-thing-its-the-marketing-of-the-thing-that-counts/
- Published: 2017-11-27T22:28:38-07:00
- Author: anchorwave

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It's Not The Thing... It's The Marketing Of The Thing That Counts

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A conversation I had today explains the reason why most businesses end up suffocating
and dying.

On today’s episode Russell talks about something awesome he witnessed with his kids
school. He goes on to talk about discussing marketing with another parent at school
and why he considers it the lifeblood of a business. Here are some of the insightful
things in this episode:

 * Why marketing is the lifeblood of a company.
 * How cutting back on marketing in a business is like putting pressure on the carotid
   artery in wrestling.
 * And how to get a successful business by tripling down on your marketing.

So listen here to find out why you need to become obsessed with the marketing of
your product, rather than the product itself.

—Transcript—

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets
podcast. I hope you guys are doing amazing today.

Alright everybody, it is the day before Thanksgiving. We have 20 bubble soccer balls
being delivered to my house; we’re going to be playing a huge bubble soccer game
on the smurf turf, which is really exciting. Or the Astroturf, we call it smurf 
turf because of the blue here in Boise. Looking forward to that.

But everything’s getting ready. We had wrestling practice this morning with the 
kiddos, and I had some cool experiences that happened there. One that was just a
special moment that I want to share with you guys and one that was the reason why
most people aren’t successful in business. So I’ll give you both and hopefully you’ll
learn a lesson from the two.

So number one, it’s really cool. At the kids school, there’s a kid, it’s kind of
a crazy story. Apparently his mom and him both found out they had cancer about the
same time, together. It’s a cute little family, a little kid named Nico. So at the
Junior high, or middle school, whatever you call it, it’s gotten around this story,
and trying to help them out. It was just cute, all the kids wear Huskies for Nico
t-shirts. Dallin had a shirt on today that said Huskies for Nico. They do fundraisers
for Nico and all these things, it’s just such a cool thing how they’ve gotten the
school behind this one person, this one cause or movement.

And its cool, I always talk about building mass movements and things like that, 
but I think a lot of times these little private, intimate movements that mean so
much to people and really help people to become something more. And it’s just cool
watching this and watching my kids participate in this movement for a little kid
in their school named Nico.

So today at wrestling practice we got all these, probably 60 or 70 wrestlers out
there training to be warriors, trying to be tough and everything. In the middle 
of practice Nico and his dad came in, and when he walked in the whole room went 
silent out of respect for him. It was just one of the neatest experiences that I’ve
witnessed in a long time. I got chills sitting there watching and all the kids sitting
there looking at him and talking to him. They came in and they presented him, because
Nico was a wrestler as well before all these problems happened. So they gave him
wrestling t-shirts and sweatshirts and stuff like that. And then they had Nico lead
a cheer. So they brought everyone in and did their cheer. And it was such a special,
such a cool thing. So anyway that was a fun thing that happened today.

And then afterwards I was talking to one of the dads, and the dad’s a successful
real estate dude here in Boise, and it’s kind of funny because he’s like, “Hey I
recognize you. I see you in my newsfeed every single day.” I’m like, “Sorry about
that. Wish I was better looking.” But it was kind of funny because he was in there
and we were talking for a while afterwards and it was interesting because there’s
a big reason why more people aren’t successful. It’s a mindset little tweak and 
it’s something he had, definitely. So I want to share with you because if you’re
stuck in this mindset tweak, it’s what’s keeping you back.

I did a podcast episode, I don’t know a hundred podcasts ago talking about not outsourcing
your lovemaking, and in there I talked about if you look at a business, it doesn’t
matter what you’re selling. If you’re selling houses, cars, supplements, it doesn’t
matter what you’re selling, you’re selling. That part doesn’t matter, it doesn’t
matter what business you’re in, the marketing is the only thing that matters. It’s
the only thing that’s actually the lifeblood of a business. It’s what drives leads
and customers and sales. It’s the only thing that actually matters.

I could take my marketing systems and plug them into any business and it will work.
Because business psychology’s insane, how we can get leads and it’s the same, how
we convert those leads is the same. So we’re talking to him and he’s like, “Yeah,
I saw Clickfunnels. I just haven’t done it yet.” I’m like, “Oh, whatever.” It doesn’t
affect me at all. And he’s like, “Can I ask a question? Do you guys do stuff for
real estate agents? I watched the viral video with the squirrel and the prospector,
sounds like it’s only for selling products.” I’m like, “No, it’s for, it generates
leads, sells products, whatever you need it to be.” And he’s like, “Oh, do you have
anyone in real estate doing it?” I’m like, “Yeah, we have tons of people.” Off the
top of my head we have like a half a dozen people or so that are killing it, real
estate agents using it.

In fact I even told him, “There’s a guy that’s got one of the biggest brokerages
here in Boise, he’s using it.” He’s like, “I hired some marketing company to do 
that for me and they’re trying to get us leads.” And I’m like, “So is it working
good?” and he’s like, “No, not really. I wish we could just get rid of all the leads,
but all the other agents underneath us, they want the internet leads so we have 
to do that and I don’t like it. I just think it’s done. Right now we’re selling 
about a hundred houses a year, if we got to the point where we had 200 houses a 
year, then we could afford to hire a full time marketing person to generate leads
and stuff.”

As a marketing guy here, I wanted to grab the guy and be like, “What are you…how
do you not understand this?” it’s like saying, let’s say you’re struggling in your
marriage and you’re like, “My wife and I when we start having, when marriage gets
good and we’re happy and everything is perfect, then we’ll go to counseling.” No,
counseling or whatever it is, is what gets you there. It’s just funny, when we’ve
grown high enough that we can afford someone to generate leads, then we’ll generate
leads. No, you can’t afford not to. You should stop everything you’re doing and 
the only thing you should do is generate leads.

It’s funny because he’s like, “The biggest person in town, they sell a thousand 
houses a month, but they’re doing all of it online and generating all these leads
online, but they’re able to do it because they’re selling so many houses.” I’m like,“
No, you don’t understand. It’s because they’re doing that they’re able to sell so
many houses. It’s not because they have so many houses they can do it. It’s like
the chicken and the egg. It’s like you’re trying to cut off the oxygen to your brain,
your brain will stop. So don’t, it is the lifeblood….”

And he’s like, “Can we hire you guys to do that stuff for me?” I’m like, “No, we
certify people that can do it, but if you really want to be successful, you have
to become the head of the marketing. You cannot outsource your lovemaking. You can’t
do that in business and expect it to be awesome. In your marriage if you’re like,
okay this is my wife, I’m going to outsource the lovemaking to somebody else, your
marriage is going to fail. It’s the same thing in your business. It is the lifeblood,
it is the thing that gets customers into your world and gets them to like you and
believe you and trust you and give you money. It’s the most important part of business.”

I think the biggest problem, it’s funny, if you listen to the Emyth by Michael Gerber,
he talks about this. People are technicians and they have an entrepreneurial seizure
and they think they want to start a business because they work at a cake factory
and they see the dude who runs the cake shop and they’re like, “This guys a moron,
I could do a better job than that.” So they start their own business and they’re
not entrepreneurs, they’re dudes that build cakes. It’s like, the dude that builds
the cake, anyone can build a cake. You can hire a lot of people to do that. It’s
the person who is going to actually sell the crap out of the cakes that runs the
business. If you don’t have that, your business dies.

It’s funny, in 2008 when the economy crashed and all these companies were crashing,
I see all these people in the companies that their first instinct was not, let’s
lower costs on stupid stuff. They all cut their marketing and their sales budget.
I’m like, okay we’re struggling, let’s cut off the lifeblood to our head.

Like in wrestling, when I’m wrestling somebody, there’s a little, for those watching
the video, right here on both sides of your neck there is a thing called a carotid
artery. And if I’m wrestling someone and I get them in a front headlock, if I put
a little bit of pressure right there, against the carotid artery, that fast the 
blood flow stops to your head.

It’s not like someone chokes and eventually you die. But with the carotid artery,
if I touch it right, that fast you will black out. It’s really fun when you’re wrestling
somebody, when you’re getting it, you get it and boom, and his whole body goes limp
and you flip him over and you pin him. Because it’s the blood that goes to your 
brain. If you cut off the blood, it’s like a second and you’re out cold. And I take
it back off and the blood keeps coming and you’re back alive.

So companies go and cut off the lifeblood and then the company dies that fast. That
is what’s keeping you alive. In times of bad economy, triple down on the advertizing,
triple down on the marketing. You guys all know that. I’m preaching to the choir
here. But for everyone else, I just wanted to kind of talk about that because I 
thought it was so funny.

I told him that and he’s like, “Oh, lead generation for me is nurturing the clients
we have and things like that, and we can’t outsource that. That’s my lovemaking.”
Or something. Anyway, so that’s all I gotta say. I don’t even know what to say. 
If you want to grow a company, focus on the marketing and sales of the thing. I 
know most of you guys are in business because you love the thing you do. That’s 
awesome. But if you want to have a lot of people use that thing, you’ve got to become
obsessed with the marketing of the thing. That is the key, the marketing of the 
thing is the business. The business is not the thing.

The thing is the fulfillment of whatever you want to do, but the business is the
marketing of the thing. And that’s the only thing that actually matters because 
without that, your company dies. With that, the lifeblood goes off to your brain
and instantly you’re out cold. That’s why I look at us versus other SAAS companies,
other SAAS companies are focusing on hiring these huge teams of people to do whatever,
I don’t know what they even do. We focus on marketing, marketing drives it.

So there you go guys. I hope that helps some of you guys who are thinking and wondering,“
I’m going to hire a marketing team.” It’s hard to do. You can do it, but if you 
really want to grow, you’ve got to become obsessed with the marketing of your thing.
You’ve got to not try to outsource your lovemaking and realize that that is the 
business. And if you want to be in business, you want to be an entrepreneur, like
the entrepreneurial seizure you had trying to start this cake company or your whatever
thing is that you sell. If you want that baby to survive and to live, being obsessed
with the thing is not going to do it. It’s being obsessed with the marketing of 
the thing.

So I hope that helps, I appreciate you all. I’m going to go, I got a couple of hours
to work, get my to-do list killed, crushed so I can have a Thanksgiving that’s not
stressful. For those who know, us entrepreneurs, my buddy Alex Charfen always says,
we’re all about momentum.  So it’s like, Thanksgiving scares me because there’s 
no momentum. I gotta get so much momentum over the next four hours; before I gotta
go back home that it will knock down any dominoes tomorrow that are standing up 
when I’m trying to relax with the family. So that’s it you guys. I appreciate you
all, have an amazing day. Bye.
