Tag: Live Rogue

How Important Are Relationships? 👫 (B2B Networking)

Posted on by brianjpombo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Thoughts on the value of relationships and networking after Brian just recorded an upcoming podcast with Grants Pass local, Cat Bonney.

Transcription

How important is relationships?

Hi, I’m Brian Pombo. Welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Today, I wanted to discuss the concept of relationships in business specifically. So it’s all about being relationship reliant for me.

In fact, there are three pillars at BrianJPombo.com.

The first one I like talking about the most, right off the bat, at least, is being relationship reliant.

This is something that came later in life for me, even though I was surrounded by it, and the evidence was everywhere. It didn’t occur to me that the relationships you have the strength of the relationships, but even the loose ties that you have out there in life, or that one of the most important things possible.

That all business is based off of people, you know, like and trust, it’s based off of some form of relationship.

Now, sometimes you don’t necessarily have a relationship with the person, most of the products and services you use, that you spend money on, you don’t know the person behind it. But you have a relationship with that brand.

There is something there, someone has created something, put it forth, and you’ve taken it and exchanged it for money.

There’s a relationship there even at the most crass you know, just financial interaction, you know, even just that there’s still a relationship, and it goes on from there. The strongest relationship you have with someone the people that you paid the most amount of money on the most regular basis.

That’s some of the most powerful stuff and it can tell you something about even the things that you pay a small amount for. It all has to do with the same thing. It all comes back to some form of relationship.

I was reminded of this today because I had a really good podcast interview.

So I have a podcast that’s local. It’s called Grants Pass VIP. And what it does is it covers basically stories of movers and shakers in Josephine County, Oregon. And Grants Pass is the largest town here.

It’s named Grants Pass VIP, because that’s where most of the people will relate to it. Up this past year, about Yeah, about a year about this past year, I’ve been working very closely with the Chamber of Commerce.

Even though a good portion of that year, we weren’t even meeting in person. But meeting over over video chat. So I got to meet somebody that we had known each other kind of at a distance or name’s Cat Bonney.

Cat, she’s just a million different things in town. And she’s one of these people that I finally got to sit down and have an interview with for my podcast, this will be coming up. Not available yet if you’re watching this right away, but you’ll see it soon over at GrantsPassVIP.com.

Cat is a very interesting person, her entire life has been built on the idea of getting out there and making a difference and encouraging other people to do the same thing. And having her hands and a whole lot of different items.

But all around this concept of really making a difference for people and in doing things that that stirs her soul, not just a way to pay the bills, you know, obviously, there’s always that end of it, but you have to have things that really make a difference for you.

Even the short period of time we hung out today at the coffee shop, recording the podcast, even that short period of time I found it really interesting how useful her knowledge is. I mean, just she asked what she can do for me and I just tossed something out there.

And she threw some advice out that I know is gonna save me many hours, and many headaches. And so I thank her so much for that. That’s one simple, subtle relationship that I that I’ve had that I have that I share with her.

You can’t put a price tag on that. But at the same end, it’s going to profit me if you could put a price tag it’s going to profit me greatly over time. If nothing else in the saving of time just for a brief moment, a brief conversation.

These are the things that are true throughout. And if you’re looking to grow things, if you’re looking to look at the world differently, if you’re looking to think more like people who have something that you want out of life.

It comes back down to a relationship. My entire way of building my business for the past, you know, two-plus years, via podcasting, and via the book that I wrote, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

These are things that that happened because of relationships because I connected with other people, sometimes at a distance will originally at a distance online with a lot of people.

And then also in person talking with people and going through it and wanting to reach out and meet certain people that I couldn’t find a way to get a conversation with until I could find a gift that I could offer them.

The gift in this situation was the Podcast, the podcast allows me to offer a gift of publicity to somebody.

In exchange, I get to meet this person to get to know them better, and find out if there’s anything that I can do in their life and maybe even learn something from them. Simple, simple concepts, these simple ideas, but it all comes back to the relationship.

Business is about other human beings. It’s about you and other human beings connecting. That’s all it is. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re making dog food, it doesn’t matter what you’re making. I don’t know, why do I always go back to dog food, it’s interesting.

Maybe it’s because I have no experience in the dog food market. And but for some reason, my mind always jumps to dog food when I’m thinking about things. It doesn’t matter what your industry is all a relationship based.

This is very difficult. If you have a task oriented mind, my mind is very much at least on the forefront is initially task oriented. I have a little bit of people orientation back there. But mostly it’s task oriented. And it took me many years to realize the practical benefit of relationships.

I hate to say it that was sounds weird, doesn’t it? If you think like a robot, it’s difficult to put it into words. But that’s a sadly that’s where I come from. So that’s all I got for today.

Go check out my book if you want to hear some more about about how to take relationships and take them to the next level and also meet people that you would have never met before. That can be really helpful to you.9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

AmazonProofBook.com.

And I’m going to be back here tomorrow talking about the second or the three pillars for BrianJPombo.com. Stay tuned for that, we’ll see.

In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Business Hacks For Chaotic Times 💈💼 (G St. Barber Co. in Grants Pass)

Posted on by brianjpombo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Brian talks about the attention a local barbershop (G St. Barber Co.) received from offering free haircuts to those looking for work.

link to article – https://www.kdrv.com/community/free-haircuts-for-those-in-need/article_2a1c3528-a654-11ec-a5f9-e30b527f5a1d.html

Transcription

Business hacks for chaotic times.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Check out this article I found. I also found a video regarding something happening right here in town, you may have something like this happening where you live also, where we have a barbershop that’s offering free haircuts to anyone that is looking to get go out and get a job interview and is looking to move themselves up in the world, but they can’t afford it.

This is just a helpful leg up to be able to help out but what it also is, is an amazing marketing tool is you’re using a situation that everyone’s aware of the crunch of money and everything else and tough times and using it to your advantage by offering something.

I mean, think about a barbershop think about all the time in a barbershop, where you have an empty chair. There are tons of periods of time where there’s just nobody coming in and we’ve nobody’s coming in, no money is being made in most cases, as smarter barbers may have a subscription program or something like that setup but if you don’t, then chances are you need it.

You need all the help you can get even if it’s a free person, because it’s one of those businesses. That’s very special in the fact that people don’t like switching up.

Especially men don’t like switching up where they go to get their hair done. Once they commit there, they’re there for life.

So you get you get somebody to come once or twice to the same barber. If they’re happy with the results, they’ll keep coming.

If they’re even partially happy with the results. They will keep coming, which is a which is a really cool deal.

Congratulations to this fella for setting up this program here locally. It’s something you can do even if you don’t have a barber shop. That’s not even if you don’t even have a local retail shop.

Find ways to offer to make an offer that’s tied to the news that’s tied to the conversation already going on in people’s heads and you’ll go far. It’s a nice quick tip for tonight.

Go check out, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business my book that’s all about how to overcome competition works in into any industry whatsoever. If you purchase this read it and you say it can’t work in your industry. I would love to interview you and I will give you double your money back. So reach out today.

Go go pick up your own free copy. If you don’t want to pay for it, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. Free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

AmazonProofBook.com, all one word.

You have a great night. We’ll see you tomorrow.

In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Advertising Advice & Expectations 📫 (Mail Review)

Posted on by brianjpombo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Brian breaks down some mail advertising pieces and gives some tips as well.

Transcription

Advertising advice and expectations.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I want to talk really about how to apply the principles that we’ve been talking about over this past week. All the last few videos and podcasts I put out had to do with a plot had to do with really the basic principles.

Now I want to take some of that and apply it and show you how so much comes down to both expectations and tracking. So first off, let’s talk about expectations you have to know what you expect to get off of your advertising.

Otherwise, you can determine whether it was successful or not.

You can just wait and see what happens but if you’re doing anything more than that at all in regards to either advertising or word of mouth or anything else, it sometimes it’s tough to be able to track it and know where one started and the last one ended and to really know if it was worth your effort and money to do it.

So I’m going to give you an example that direct mails are a fun one because it’s one of those that really can be tracked. And you can really good a good get a good idea as to whether it worked or not. Or my favorite things to send out as postcards.

Here’s a postcard, this is from a local lady who’s doing real estate and I don’t get that many real estate postcards or letters or anything.

There are hundreds of it and probably close to 1000 Real Estate people that cover this area and it’s a small area but there are tons of them there’s everyone in their brother’s a real estate person but very few of them advertise directly.

So I got to first off give her name is Suzie. Give Suzie props for putting this out now we’re going to talk about what worked in this and we’re going to talk about what didn’t work but once again this has to do with expectations.

You know and whether you’re tracking it if you’re tracking it and you’re getting back more than it was necessary to be able to constitute it working then you keep doing it you find a way to keep getting it out there or get it out to a broader audience or what have you.

I don’t know why I was placed on the list but here it says thinking of selling your home.

Okay so there’s the headline, it’s not super clear yet. I’m not sure if you can read it from where you’re at. It’s not super bold white on a dark background doesn’t do as well as a dark color or black on a white background.

The little picture of a teacup and some flowers, there’s not a chair but there is a little watermark symbol.

I just happen to know that I believe this is dream time the website that you can purchase and if you don’t purchase it there watermark stays on there so that’s that doesn’t look that hot. I’ve just noticed that now for the first time I didn’t notice it the first time.

Not that that’s going to deter whether people are interested or not but doesn’t say anything about a home I mean obviously this is on the inside of a home but besides that, and it’s a little beat up.

One of the letters fell off here but it says call for your complimentary market analysis. So that’s the basic pitch that’s what they’re going for. They want you to make a phone call.

See what your home is worth today, John L Scott real estate. So this is the main site and then you’ve got the address side and the rest of the copy here which is interesting.

That says if selling your home is on your mind, or you just want to know its current value, I would be happy to help.

I believe in old-fashioned customer service call me to receive your no-obligation market analysis and her phone number.

Suzy Matney PC broker-owner license in the state of Oregon or phone number and her website, there she is right there. And then it says something about you know, some offices are independently owned and operated.

If your home’s currently listed with another broker, please disregard this letter, all this type of thing that you probably have to do legally, if not ethically.

So pretty typical yet typical picture name of the real estate company. And that’s it. It’s a very straightforward pitch. And let me talk about what works or what does work.

She’s got a call to action, she’s got more than one way to contact her. If you don’t want to use a phone, you go to her website and go specifically to her. Not just someone else at the real estate office, which is good.

And I didn’t go to the website to see what the presentation is there that can matter to you got to make sure you are asking for something very specific. But this is specifically asking for people who want to sell their homes.

Now, what are the chances that she’s going to get my business versus all the other people that never asked me?

If I was interested in selling my home, if she caught me on the day or week, this might pique my interest?

If I paid attention to it long enough. There’s not a whole lot drawing you in here. It’s pretty boring, pretty straightforward.

There’s no glitz or glamour, but maybe that’s all that’s needed.

Once again, expectations come to, does this produce the results?

Is she getting people contacting her because of this piece or does she have to send out multiple amounts to be able to build up familiarity?

This is the first time I remember seeing her now maybe we’ve been I apologize if that were the case. But this is the first time I recall seeing her in regards to real estate and selling homes.

There’s a lot of things you could do you could do, you can have a little bit more standout pictures. It could be it could stand to be a little uglier.

Honestly, I mean, if it were more ugly, bolder, you will get more attention that way. If you offered something for free to be able to, I mean, seeing what your home was worth, for the most part, I would think that most people would know that you’d be able to look online to get a lot of estimates like that.

Maybe they don’t and maybe this works great. Once again, it comes down to expectations or tracking. And what are the results are what you want them to what I would test against this is maybe a little bit more to the offer, maybe offer, you know, see all that off the top of my head, I can’t come up with an offer right off the top.

But there are so many more different ways of doing this. This is very bland, but don’t throw off bland. bland may get the job done.

That’s the real question, in the end, is whether it gets the job done and what you expect back from it. And whether you’re planning to do more than just one so I’ll let you know if we see more from Suzie.

Suzie, I recommend continuing your direct mail out there to the community because you’re one of the only ones that I’ve seen this certainly in the last few years.

So hopefully that’s helpful to you in kind of taking some of those principles that we talked about and kind of reverse engineering them based on a piece of advertising that we saw, hey, I want to also recommend my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business if you have a business if your business owner or an executive in charge, and you want to make things completely competition proof is my book.

You go get yourself a copy off amazon.com or anywhere books are sold or you get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com. AmazonProofBook.com.

We’ll be back here tomorrow night. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Snatching Customers, With Trust 👨‍👧‍👦 (Boatnik – Grants Pass Oregon)

Posted on by brianjpombo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Brian shares a story of transfer of trust from a ride his two youngest kids went on at the Boatnik Carnival in Grants Pass.

Transcription

Snatching customers with trust.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I would talk about how you can go about snatching customers using a little thing we call the trust transfer. Okay, this is a fun story because I’ve got three kids.

I’ve got Tyler who seven, Alexandra, who we call Allie is four, and Lucas is two.

We were at the carnival today. So every year during Memorial Day weekend. I’m in Grants Pass Oregon, Grants Pass Oregon puts on this, this big ol festival called boatnik.

Like beatnik, except it’s boatnik, I don’t know where they came up with a name. But the whole idea is they have these boat races on the river.

And they’ve got a big old Carnival and whole thing set up in the park alongside the river, the river that runs through Grants Pass.

So it’s one of these situations where it can be kind of a big thing. Sometimes it’s so big that nobody can even do anything there. But this year with COVID have slowly been been receding back. They were able to put on this event and everybody can come out, and so it was it was well worth it. It was fun.

We went out, I had the podcast producer Sean E. Douglas with me along with his family. I’ve had my kids who are just at that age where they the carnivals a magical thing for them. And so that was fun.

We got to have them go on a few rides. And you know, it’s fun, goofy carnival rides.

One of them was very small, very mild ride. And all my kids were a little bit tired.

They were a little bit beat up by the sun, which hasn’t been out for a while. And is this coming back with with a vengeance here in here in springtime.

And so they’re all kind of dazed.

There was this little ride in one of these little worms that goes in a circle. And Allie wanted to go on and and my youngest Lucas wanted to go on it with her.

So I go in, I sent him in there.

You could tell he’s uneasy, just uneasy.

He doesn’t know what this is, this is the first ride he’s been on at this place. Doesn’t remember going on the rides. We’ve had him on rides at places before but he everything’s new when you’re that age, you know, you don’t remember anything.

So he’s there, he’s like, I don’t know what’s going on. But you could tell he went with it because Allie was having a good time, his big sister was there and so he trusted her.

And by trusting her, he trusted the experience.

He can go along with it now, in complete opposite to that we were later on we were he wanted to go on the carousel, the merry go round.

And so we went on their, Allie got up, Tyler got up, and I brought Lucas on. And I said oh well, maybe we could fit Lucas and Allie, they both wanted somebody to be there with them when they were on the horses, and they’re both kind of small. so I’ll just combine them. I’ll put them both on the same horse.

So we did that, and the guy said, “I’m sorry, only one kid per horse.”

Okay, so I had Kate, come on my wife, she was with Allie.

And I took Lucas and put him on his own horse. Well, he wasn’t he wasn’t cool with that.

When he’s with his big sister, he’s fine.

He’s fine, because he trusts her and he’s right next door. So she wasn’t there. He’s half asleep. Anyway, he’s past his naptime and everything. And he’s just like, I don’t know, I don’t know about this, I don’t know and just crying and he’s a two year old, you know?

And so I’m holding them going, it’s okay, just hanging there, this is gonna go up and down trying to explain to them what’s happening. And see, there’s Tyler, there’s Allie, there’s mom, everything’s okay. We’re gonna be fine.

He made it through and he had an okay time. But the transfer of trust was not quite there. I wasn’t on it with them. I think if I was up there with him, it would have he would have went with it. But I don’t think adults were allowed.

Either way, the both of us couldn’t ride at the same time. And so it was one of those things where it wasn’t quite there. He didn’t quite trust it.

And Sean pointed out to me, he says, isn’t that just how things are, it’s the transfer of trust.

And I knew exactly what he was talking about, because we’ve talked about it so many times in business.

You have this situation, to where oftentimes over and over again. And when you start seeing it, you start seeing it everywhere, you start seeing it with everything that you do, you don’t realize that so many of the things that you do. From the type of business you went into the industry you’re involved in, the type of partners you brought on.

Especially a lot of your original customers, they come by referral, they come by, this person knows that person. Everything is trust based.

People will never do anything with you unless, you know people do business with people they know like and trust. And the more you can get to that third one, trust, the better.

That’s because that’s the clincher.

That’s what makes it if they trust you, it’s great, because then you can transfer that trust anywhere you want it depending on how deep that trust is. And at the same end, if you know somebody who who is trusted by others, they can transfer that trust to you.

So you want to snatch up more clients find somebody who has a trusted crowd, who has people that already trust them, and have them endorse you, and endorse what you’re bringing to the table.

So you probably wouldn’t look for a competitor, you look for somebody with something similar to what you’re doing that plays to a similar crowd to what you’re doing.

And then come in and offer something different and have them introduce you to them.

That’s how all business works like this. Normally, all you have to do is orchestrated, you have to get in there and find places to where you can build trust and get trust instantly from others. You can make it happen.

There’s a lot of ways that this has happened, but it’s ingrained in humanity.

You’re never going to get rid of this principle. It’s an automatic principle.

Find a way to make it work for you. There’s a lots of ways to do this.

I talk a lot about this on almost a monthly basis here. So follow subscribe wherever you’re at, and listen up because we go through this I love to hear your stories about this and your questions about trust.

Because it’s such an interesting topic, and it’s one of those things that is not discussed enough. If you’d like more ideas on how to grow your business and how to make it completely competition proof.

Check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com that is all the time I’ve got for tonight.

You have a great one. Get out there and let the magic happen.

How to Fight The Big Boys | Josephine County Eagle 🦅

Posted on by brianjpombo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Thoughts on a new local paper to the Grants Pass, Oregon area named, the Josephine County Eagle!

For more ➡️ JoCoEagle.com

Transcription

How to fight the big boys.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

What does it mean how to fight the big boys?

Why would I even be talking about this?

Well, it really comes down to right now we’re in a really crazy time of transition. And you can see it all around you. There are situations to where people are flexing their muscles, and they’re doing it through their organizations, through their companies, through the government, everything else.

And there gets to be a point at which it feels as though there’s monopolies in certain sectors. So social media, there are certain big people on the block with social media. And they kind of run the show.

It’s really tough to work around them because they become big, because they were first because they were best, because they provided people what they wanted, and no one else was able to compete with them.

They were able to get a foothold on the regulations and so forth. That helped keep the small guys small, and everything else. This happens, no matter what industry you’re in, it eventually happens everywhere.

Everyone always freaks out as if it’s the first time in history this has ever happened. This happens. Every time in every industry that touches most people’s lives.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking big oil, or big tech, or big media or big anything, there’s always going to be a handful of those that rise to the top, they get better at it than everybody else.

That crush the competition every chance they get and make it extremely difficult for new people to enter the market. So want to pull this back to something very local going on hearing Grants Pass Oregon, which is where I’m filming this from. And we have a situation ever since I started visiting.

Grants Pass probably was close to 20 years ago when I first started visiting. And I had some friends in the area and everyone would be complain about the local newspaper.

There’s one local newspaper that that covers Grants Pass specifically. And everyone would always complain about how they were this they were that. So well, why hasn’t anyone else risen up and donate that?

Well, it’s so difficult.

They have that they have the name and they’ve been around for so long. And it takes money to start a newspaper and you have to have influence and all the other things that go along with trying to beat out the big boy.

The one that’s in charge the one that’s that’s been around the longest. And I have heard these complaints from right to left, center aisle, everybody.

It’s not just a philosophical issue. It and because it actually the paper has gone through a number of different editors and so forth in these throughout these years.

No matter what there’s always been heavy duty complaints about the fact that this newspaper is really has a monopoly on local news in terms of news, you know, typical that, you know, the average newspapers, they aren’t lasting, they’re all going online, and so on, so forth.

So the fact that this one’s even lasted this long is amazing. But it also goes to the fact that we have a very mature population in terms of age, and so forth. So you still have a lot of people getting a physical newspaper delivered to their home in the same way they always had.

Now they have the Online Edition and everything. But that does seem to be a huge bulk of what’s still going on. And people still expect all those things that they got from newspapers 20 4080 years in, in the past.

So it still has a huge amount of ability to promote or not promote one agenda or another. And so a lot of people have talked for years about buying the newspaper about building up a new one about having an online version that that beats it out, and so on so forth.

Nothing’s really gotten close enough to really make a dent, and then just resell that now there’s been a few people. There’s been a local paper and I don’t have it right here that has been going directly to homes now it and it goes to everybody.

It goes through Every Door Direct Mail, I believe, which is a program by the post office which allows you to send it out to everybody. And it’s called the sneak preview and it’s done. It’s done very well.

But it’s it tends to not spend too much time on the political end of things, which is what a lot of people are interested in and interested in challenging and it hasn’t really taken a whole lot of positions that are contrary to the local paper.

Well, a handful of people and I’m hoping to be able to interview the editor. And in publishing staff of this one that just came out Josephine County Eagle.

So these guys just started sending it, this was a secret. I heard the editor speaking about this, that his daughter called him up and said, does this have something to do with you?

It was so secretive, his own family did not even know about the fact that this was going out. And this is a it’s on newsprint, but he got sent to every door. And I believe throughout the entire county, and they’re looking to challenge the status quo.

Now, why is this? Why is this important? Why does it matter to you?

It matters to you because they didn’t just go into the newspaper business the same way the current newspaper is set up, which is already having struggles at any local newspapers going to have struggles, difficulty to stay up, get their head above water.

So they they did it a different way. They have a smaller paper, they have it going to every door, they went directly and got people to advertise in it.

It’s fully paid for by advertising.

There’s no subscription fees, it least as of yet. And I believe they have an online edition at that as well.

And they at least have a website set up. I haven’t looked in all the details.

They’ve gone at it slightly differently, but at the same time, are putting themselves somewhat in competition, but making themselves completely different at the same time.

This can be done, I don’t care if you’re talking social media, I don’t care if you’re talking big media, I don’t I don’t care who the competition is, you can defeat them.

If you don’t play by their rules. You have to go around the rules, you have to bend it to make it work for you.

Competition is always possible in the end. But it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be you’re going to look and sound and feel exactly like the competitor. You have to go around the competition by being making them irrelevant in a lot of ways.

This is what these guys are attempting to do. I know that and I’m looking forward to having that conversation. You could find out more about that by watching and listening to our show Grants Pass VIP over at Grants PassVIP.com.

It’s a local podcasts that I have. But if you want to know how to really do this for your business and be able to make competition completely irrelevant.

Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You get a free digital copy over at AmazonProofBook.com. We’ll be back tomorrow night with a tip that either has to do with a principle a strategy or tactic that can help you explode your business. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.