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Dan Kennedy Life-Changer. Hi, I’m Brian Pombo welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
Today’s a more of a serious tone. The reason is, is that a writer, speaker, marketing guru, Dan Kennedy has come out publicly and announced that he’s on his deathbed and will be no longer with us within a few days is the diagnosis. By some people’s account, he’s already passed away. I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t.
It’s always tough to tell with Dan, because he’s not online himself.
So everything comes through other channels. So I’m going to talk a little bit about Dan Kennedy and what he’s meant to me. This is not a typical video. I do these every day.
If you’re listening to this via podcast, this is not a typical one.
I suggest you listen or watch one of the other ones, if this is your first time here. Because what I do is I help business owners, and specifically I’m looking for, I’m currently recruiting business owners and executives that are in the self-reliance field.
Meaning you have products or services that help people to become more self reliant. I’m recruiting them to be able to have discussions with them and see if we could do business together over the long run. If that describes you, go to DreamBizChat.com the link is in the description or just type in DreamBizChat.com.
I won’t go through the details of that this time. You can find out about that on more videos. There’s also a video on that page.
Now, this is going to be more about my story of how I came across Dan Kennedy and what his work has meant to me.
We’ll see if I can get through this. Because, he’s made quite an impact on my life.
So in 2012, I was still purchasing books on a regular basis from a physical bookstore.
Before most of us were on Amazon Prime, if Amazon Prime existed back then, it was nothing like what it is now. Every year I would get a pile of gift cards from friends and family to Barnes & Noble, which was, it was kind of an interesting thing because I had worked at Barnes & Noble for a handful of years when I was younger.
For some reason I think it was just a safe, a gift for people to give. And so I ended up with that for quite a few number of years in a row. And so in December of 2011, I received a bunch of these.
I then went in and got a big old pile of books as I would do on occasion is I’d walked into Barnes & Noble, pick out some books that sounded interesting or I had heard recommended from other people.
One of those books is this one is the No B.S. Price Strategy by Dan Kennedy. If you ever see his writings, it’s almost always written Dan S. Kennedy, I think that differentiate him from some of the other Dan Kennedy’s out there and Jason Marrs, this unto itself, if you’re interested in pricing strategy of businesses, is an interesting book.
It is not his best book but it is an amazing book. If you had never run across anything from Dan Kennedy before, which I had not, I had heard about him. Everyone had talked about him for a number of years.
I had been involved in marketing circles for quite awhile. Had never actually read any of his articles or books or heard any of his speeches, nothing of the sort.
When I came across this book, I had heard about it discussed on podcasts and so forth. And so I grabbed it and it was interesting because it has kind of this cartoony cover and everything.
It was very odd. It was very different and it kind of stood out.
I had not seen another book about pricing strategy because it always amazed me is how do companies price their products and services.
Where do they start? Where does it come from?
The answer might surprise you. I’ve had other videos about price and strategy and I’ll talk about that in the future. This book blew my mind.
The writing style through completely threw me for a loop because Dan has a very, direct, frank but very clear way of writing that I just fell in love with. I just ate this book up and I didn’t read it right away. I actually didn’t read it till February.
In February, I was gifted a trip to Hawaii. It was my first time to Hawaii. We were in Hawaii, the big island, and I got to sit by the pool and it was the funnest time ever reading this book by the pool.
It sparked something in me because, a lot of what he talks about are the principles of direct response marketing.
This is where Dan Kennedy comes from and what he’s all about. If you’re not familiar with direct response marketing and you’ve been involved with any other form of marketing, it’s really wild to come across this whole new world.
He opened up a world for me at a time when my business was kind of all over the place and I wasn’t quite sure how to stand out, how to be different, how to provide a really ultimate service.
I could put a whole bunch of hard work in, but I can never feel like I could make a science out of the marketing process. Dan gave that to me. He introduced me to this world. I didn’t learn everything from him, but he directed me to all the other people that I ended up learning from in the long run.
That mindset shift changed my entire life. It changed how I work in my marketing business, but also in other businesses that I own.
Those of you who work with me and other businesses know that I see things a little bit differently than other people in the business in those businesses. It’s because of Dan Kennedy.
Two other books I want to give if you’re interested in finding out more about Dan Kennedy or direct response marketing, either one of these are really good primers.
This is the Ultimate Marketing Plan. This was one of the first ones that I read in this, he discusses the Market, Message, Media Match that we talked about a couple of days ago. That’s a concept that I got directly from Dan Kennedy and to this day completely changes things.
I’ve sat down with politicians, I’ve sat down with business owners, I’ve sat down with leaders of nonprofit organizations. I always bring it back to that concept, that core principle.
That’s the best thing about Dan Kennedy is he focuses on core principles. He doesn’t get caught up in the tactics but deals with core principles and says, start with this and apply this to your business. Apply this to your venture or whatever you’re doing. Very clear cut way of thinking Dan has.
This is also, this is a No B.S. Direct Marketing.
Direct marketing is another way of…..it’s kind of a broader sense in talking about direct response marketing or advertising. This is another great book, great primer if you’re brand new to this world.
My very favorite book from Dan Kennedy is his biography. It’s actually a whole bunch of essays that are autobiographical and it’s called, My Unfinished Business. Great book.
It’s really funny because I was just inspired out of nowhere to pick up this book and…..by the way, this is what Dan looks like. I was inspired to pick up this book a few months ago. I don’t know why. I very, very, very rarely will read a book front to back more than once after I’ve read it once.
Even if it’s a great book, I’ll go back and I’ll look at the parts that I highlighted or, or wrote in. I will go back and look for specific sections.
This is one that I was inspired to re-read front to back. And as I’m reading, I’m going, this is really great stuff. I understand why I’m reading it again. I’m getting more out of it. I’m applying some of it to our videos and so forth. It’s just a very good picture of a of a very private person.
So my unfinished business also a great read, but I highly recommend you read his how to stuff first and get a concept for who he is and what he’s about and see if it speaks to you the same way it’s spoken to me. He has had an organization for a number of years called many different names.
I think it was originally called like Dan Kennedy’s Inner Circle. It was eventually changed to Glazer-Kennedy Inner Circle. GKIC I think it was called that for a great number of years.
When I got involved with it. It was called that. They had newsletters, conferences you can go to. Because of that organization, I was able to meet Dan Kennedy once in a very uncomfortable way, which I’ll tell you about that story another time. And now it is called the No B.S. Inner Circle.
You can go and look that up. They got a great organization. I would highly recommend getting involved with them. I’m looking to get involved with them again sometime it’s just I’ve been so overwhelmed with things to do in my own business, I haven’t needed any extra.
But if you’re needing an inspiration, that’s a great place to look.
Every once in a while you come across one of those characters, these people in life that you never even get to know one on one. He wouldn’t know me from anybody, but has had such a huge impact on my life. So that’s all I gotta say for today.
Tomorrow I’ll bring back more concepts of pieces out of my life that hopefully can be helpful to you. One piece about him that could be helpful to you. And that’s how do you become immortal?
If I had a subtitle for this one, because Dan Kennedy’s legacy will live beyond, and it really comes from being prolific.
So putting a lot of yourself out there, either through writing or talking or videotaping, you’re talking like we’re doing now of being as prolific as possible, getting yourself out there, giving as much out as possible.
And I don’t mean just for free, but giving your concepts as much as possible and charging for them when necessary.
That’s an absolute, you have to do that to be able to make it valuable enough for people on the other side. So your most valuable information you have to charge for it.
If you do those things and you get to the point where you could be honest. Dan is a very private individual, but when he’s honest, he’s really honest about himself and just puts it all out there.
I recommend you do the same and you will connect with people.
You don’t have to be, you don’t have to be outrageous. He’s a very straight-forward, no nonsense, conservative type of guy. But for some reason he’s connected with a whole lot of people.
If you go out and you go to a dankennedytribute.com I’ve got the link in the description also. You’ll probably be able to see what other people have said. You’ll get to see a letter directly from him, which is an odd thing if you think about it.
If you know that you’re going to die and you actually have enough time to be able to write letters and talk to people, that’s….I think that’s a bit of a blessing.
So it’s cool, cool thing. I’m happy you could join me here today and we’ll see you here tomorrow. Get out there and let the magic happen.