Have you ever felt like a hamster on a wheel? Constantly spinning and spinning, but not getting anywhere? As the CEO of your business, there are only so many hours in a day and you need to focus on what's most important: growing your revenue and increasing conversions. In this episode of the ROI Online Podcast, marketing expert and founder of Deadline Funnel Jack Born talks about the future of sales automation, the psychology behind creating urgency to convert customers, and how to do it authentically.
Jack is a marketing expert and the founder of several successful software companies, among them Deadline Funnel—a platform that makes it easy to increase conversions and generate more sales with authentic evergreen marketing. Their mission is to help you cross the divide from where you are now to where your business can be.
The internet has changed the way we do business, and small-business owners are feeling the pinch. But don't stress! With authentic evergreen marketing tactics, you can reach your target audience - including millennials - with minimal effort.
Among other things, Jack and Steve discussed:
You can learn more about Jack here:
Follow Jack on LinkedIn
You can learn more about Deadline Funnel here:
https://www.deadlinefunnel.com/
Affiliate link:
https://www.deadlinefunnel.com/?lmref=Vmguzg
Read the books mentioned in this podcast:
The Golden Toilet by Steve Brown
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Yeah, I would say the very most important thing is, is your messaging talking behind that is having a deadline. But I'm the first to say that a deadline isn't going to revive a dead marketing funnel. So if your messaging is completely off, or if you've, you're the only one on planet earth who is in love with this product that you've created. First of all, you're not alone. Other people have been down that road, I've committed that saying, so you know, pick yourself up, you know, you will succeed in the long run, as long as you don't give up. But don't think that you can just add a deadline to it. All of a sudden, things are gonna work, you know, it's really important to dial in your messaging.
Steve Brown:Hi, everybody. Welcome to the ROI online podcast where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown. And this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together. JACK Bourne, welcome to the ROI online podcast.
Jack Born:Yeah, it's great to be here.
Steve Brown:So jack, I'm excited. Your company is deadline phone calm.
Unknown:you've,
Steve Brown:you've been quoted in some books that I've read. Michael Higgs book, storytelling made easy. I love that book is a great guy. I haven't been quoted, and in a book, how did you pull that off?
Jack Born:I didn't know that was gonna happen, really. And so I met Michael Hague through a mutual friend, Andre chaperone, I don't know if does that name ring a bell to you know, you've you've got to, you've got to get on Andres list. So Andre is a good friend of mine, and an absolute genius at email copywriting. And so I've known him for several years, and he has a story coach, I didn't even know I know that you're in the stories. I didn't even know that a story coach was a thing. But he was, you know, I should have known better. There's a coach for anything and everything under the sun. And so, you know, Andre, considers himself a storyteller first, who happens to use the medium of emails to as his canvas. And that's one of the reasons By the way, quick tip why he's so good at it is that he really tell stories. So to continue, like any professional who treats their business like a pro, he is constantly looking to improve and investing in himself and never considers that he's at the top of his game, even if everyone else thinks that he's at the top of his game. So he had a story coach, and his story coach is a guy named Michael Hague and Michael Haig is, as you know, a consultant to Hollywood, they will bring their scripts to get improved or to get feedback. It seems like sometimes they take his feedback, sometimes they don't. But Michael, you know, Michael has been quoted by one of one of his best testimonials is from Will Smith v. Will Smith. So, you know, Michael Hague is the real deal. So he knows how to tell stories. I learned a lot from him. And so I had the opportunity to be on a on a on a co sponsored training with Michael Hague, where he went through one of my emails and gave me advice in a hot seat. And that became the recordings of a of a product that Andre put together. And I also it's, it's like we shared ownership of that. And so that started my relationship with Michael Hague. And I kept in touch with them. And somehow he was kind enough to put me in his book. So yeah, that was, that's really how that happened. It wasn't a grand plan. It was just a great coincidence for me.
Steve Brown:Yeah. So when you're quoted in another book, The 8020 sales and marketing. So it means that's kind of saying you got some games. So how, how did that come to pass?
Jack Born:Yeah, so I'll try to keep the story short, but that one, that one, although my intention wasn't to get into Perry's book, The author is Perry Marshall. For anyone who doesn't know about Perry, I would recommend buying that book at 20 sales, a marketing it's applicable to anyone in business, any entrepreneur, whether you're consider yourself online or offline. And I was Perry Marshall's marketing manager for about six years and about a year and a half into working with him. I was really puzzling on something that just never felt right to me, which is this concept of traffic times conversion equals dollar signs. And I just felt like you know, there's so it feels like there's something missing out of this puzzle and i and i was thinking on it and my brain just wouldn't let it go. And I couldn't come up with what was missing in So one day I went on a run, and it was in that period of not thinking about anything and going through the runner's high that the the Epiphany came to me. And that's when I came up with this concept called the tactical triangle. And if you know, we can either talk about that, but if anyone's interested in what that concept is chapter six of that book goes into it. It's just a very elegant and simple way to visualize your business. And so it added an extra component to the traffic times conversion equals dollar signs and said traffic conversion and economics such as, how are you pricing your products to sell? Or do you have a bump offer? Do you have an upsell? One of the other things that you're offering, what are you doing with the leads that don't convert, like, there are all sorts of different ways you can look at the economics side of your business. But if you leave that out, you can have a high converting funnel selling a $10 ebook, and you're probably gonna have a very tough time, affording traffic to your to your sales funnel to your sales process. So that really completed the triangle in paradise fell in love with it. And he correctly gives me credit for it, and chapter six of his book, but he's really re engineered all of his trainings from his entry level content all the way up to his high level masterminds, and in person sessions around this concept of the tactical triangle, because he believes I agree, but it's, it's just a really super elegant way to look at your business and understand, you know, if something's missing, if you're, if you're not quite sure, where you should focus on your business next. Usually what like, if you need more traffic, you don't focus on traffic, you focus on the conversion of economics, and then the traffic comes from that. So that's, that's kind of the concept behind it. So that's how I ended up in that book.
Steve Brown:I love that. So how did you stumble in all of this? How did you so your company deadline funnel calm? Hoo, hoo, starts to create something like this. There's probably an excellent backstory there.
Jack Born:Yeah, um, so I've, I've been, I've been running my own business, my departure from corporate America. It was it was a mutual mutual goodbye from corporate america happened in 2001. It was shortly after 911. And I just came to the realization at the same time that my last boss did that. We just wanted to get fit. And, you know, one quick thing that I mentioned, sometimes I'm asked like, Okay, how do you how do you build a corporate culture, especially in this environment, where everyone's working remotely, etc. So my team was, was remote even before all of this happened, the pandemic. And so my North Star is actually I call it the George Costanza method of leadership. There's an episode on Seinfeld, I think it's actually two or three, where George Costanza realizes that, if he just does the opposite of what comes like what his natural thought is, like, all of a sudden, he starts to get job offers, and he starts to go on dates, because he's just all his life, like what his natural instinct has been leading him in the wrong direction. So he starts doing the opposite. Well, this is kind of a variation of that, where I just think about all the crap that I've put up with, in my last job, and I'm like, okay, and I told myself before I left, if when I have a company, it wasn't if it was, when I have a company of my own, these are the five or six things that I will never do to the people that I bring onto my team. And so that's just really been my North Star, what would this company do? And I'll do the opposite. And so yeah, that was anyways, I promise, this will be a short story. It's like a tangent. So I'll wrap it
Steve Brown:up. Let's stop there. What are the five things now you've
Jack Born:got to know what those are? Oh, man, I didn't I didn't have these prepared. But here's an example. I'll tell a quick story. So I was I remember very, very clearly that we were we were called in so I was working at a healthcare company. And I was called in to all the healthcare like, well, it was basically phone sales. And so all of us on the team, there was about 15 of us were called into this conference room, the oval conference room, and at the front of it was our manager, Randy and Randy was so excited. He wanted to share the advertising that that the company come up with that was going to go full page ads in the in the industry rag magazine. And so he showed us the two or three variants or variations of these of these ads. And everyone, everyone around the table is going Oh, Randy, that's that's amazing. You know, I love it. I love it. I love it. And I have been reading Dan Kennedy's newsletter and Perry Marshall, his newsletter, like basically direct response, one on one type of stuff. And so he came to me and he's like, jack, you're not saying anything? What do you think? And I'm like, and I wasn't trying to be an angel. I was just like, Well, I think you know that the headline doesn't really have a call to action. I think that you could have a you know, some testimonials there. I think that you could have a specific number so you know, which ad is pulling better. I mean, thought these are really good suggestions. And Randy looked at me like I had just desiccated on the middle of the of the oval table, you know, it's like, what do you like we spent a bunch of money on this, aren't you aren't? Don't you realize this is your opportunity to confirm what what I already believed, like everyone else did. And I'm like, man like this is I wonder if there's a place for me where I can actually give my opinion, that can be a dissenting opinion. I can play that I can play devil's advocate, and it actually be a benefit. And the answer is Yeah, absolutely. And so I tell people, when they're when they first joined my team, I said, Look, yes, I have veto power. But I want to hear your ideas. There's no period of time where you can't call bs or give a dissenting opinion, like, I want to hear your thoughts. We may not necessarily go with your idea, but you have an equal seat at the table, I want to hear your ideas. I want to hear your opinions, if you've got an idea on something that we could add to our platform, or if you think that an idea that I've said, just doesn't gel with your vision of how the audience is going to accept it. Tell me This is not about you telling me how smart I am. I want to hear and you know, tell me that, you know, the emperor has no clothes, you know, I want to hear it.
Steve Brown:And that crazy that's like, a value add in, in a great culture.
Jack Born:Yeah, no. So, so yeah, that was Yeah, but that was that was one of the ones that was one of the biggies, you know, you know, make sure that the people that that you develop a culture where people are comfortable telling you what they believe, you know, another one another simple one is, you know, reduce the risk for making mistakes. Now, Jeff Bezos is, you know, one of his concepts is that you want to be running experiments, small bets, big bets. But you don't want to ever find yourself at the you know, where you're rolling the dice, because this last bet is the thing that if it works out, the company saved, if it fails, you're going down the golden toilet. And so and so, you know, how do you develop a culture of experimentation, you make sure that you remove the risk of getting things wrong, you know, you know, calculated risks, but you want to develop a culture where people don't feel like okay, if I get this wrong, or if I admit that I made a mistake, that, you know, my job, you know, my job is it is in danger. And you know, the person next to me is going to slit my throat to try to climb the corporate ladder, that type of stuff. So typical, typical stuff like that. I'm just, you know, I've just tried to remove from that from that from the company culture.
Steve Brown:Yeah. So deadline funnel, comm automation, Sales Automation, I noticed you don't say marketing, automation, but that's not marketing funnels or sales funnels, I noticed. Why is that?
Jack Born:Yeah, I may need to revisit the copy, honestly, because I do believe it is first and foremost, marketing marketing funnel. So perhaps I need to go back and review that we're constantly changing the, like the copy and the design, we're on like the fifth or sixth iteration of how the how the website looks? So no, I would, I would say first and foremost, like, there's a huge difference between sales and marketing. I mean, they're close cousins. But, you know, marketing is putting your message out into the world. And, you know, my idea of sales is where you're dealing with, ideally, prospects who are warm, they're pre sold, they're pre framed, and they're ready to do business with you. I mean, you and I were talking before you hit record, about the huge difference between someone having read your book, and now they're talking with you, versus you just going up cold to someone who might be a perfect prospect if they had just read your book. But when they haven't read your book, they don't have that, you know, they haven't gone through your marketing material, they haven't read your message, they haven't digested it. It's a whole different ballgame. And I think old school sales like I, my past is actually and, you know, face to face, belly to belly financial services sales, where you're going to someone who probably doesn't want to talk to you or doesn't want to talk to you right now. And you're trying to convince them and handle objections. And that's, that's like old school sales and sales isn't bad, like a better version of sales is where you have a pipeline full of leads, and you're answering the final one or two questions. And, you know, just confirming Yep, that's the way that it is, you know, or maybe some slight negotiations on the deal terms. And then you close a deal. You know, but that comes from well done marketing, which is your, which is your message that you put out into the marketplace to find out who is resonating with the message and then helping them find a pathway to your doorstep. And then if there's some final questions, that's the short sales conversation fine. If there's a fit, and then move forward, it should be as simple as that.
Steve Brown:Yeah, I was thinking that when I was reading some of those sales acknowledgement in there, to me, that's, that's enlightened marketing when actually marketing and sales are like working together or on the same page, again, which is like this crazy idea. That's this big competitive advantage, like having an a culture where it's safety first, where you work with people that are working together. How about marketing sales working together to
Jack Born:I remember, so one of my, this takes me back a long ways. I'll tell this quickly. So in when I was fresh out of college again, I was I was, I didn't know what I wanted to do. But I knew that plan A was originally to be to follow my dad's footsteps and be a doctor. But I thought just what didn't work out. So I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I'd read some Zig Ziglar books, I'm like, Okay, how do I get like, how do I become an entrepreneur? So salesperson, so I end up in, of all places, this is 20 years ago, I ended up in the in the financial services world, and back then it was, Okay, sit down. And step one is make a list of 100 people that that, you know, I didn't frankly, at that time, I didn't know 100 people anyways, it was like hardcore, like start start smiling and dialing. And at the time, I there was an interesting magazine, where a guy named Jeff Paul had put out, you know, basically, a full page ad. That just, I mean, he there's some negative things I can say about Jeff, but one of the positive things about Jeff is that he could write copy like nobody's business. I mean, this, this really hooked me and, you know, you know, in my core, spoke to my pain. And you know, I ordered the free report, the free report came, and it was all about direct response marketing. I've never heard of this, my mind was just exploding, like holy cow, you know, I'm 21 or 20, or something like that. And I just can't believe I'm like, Oh, my God, I can actually talk to people who are interested in talking to me, this is this is incredible. And so one of the regional managers came down and he was having sort of a come to Jesus type of thing. It was almost like, a scene out of Glengarry Glen Ross, you know, coffee's for closers. And, and so we were getting like that type of that type of treatment. And towards the end of the meeting, like, again, just me being, you know, an idiot, but not not understanding the context I'm in. I'm like, hey, I've read this thing about, you know, we could actually put out advertising and we could talk to people who want to talk to us, what do you think about that? And he looked at me, like I had, like, he looked at me, like, I had three heads, and he just pauses like this crazy old man. And I'm not gonna say the word that he used, but you can probably figure it out. It's like, you need to stop being a p word. Like, get out there. Get out, get out there and make some sales. And man, I wanted to clean that guy's clock. But yeah, that was, you know, that was that was my first it's, you know, once once I heard that there's this thing, thing called direct response marketing, and you can generate leads and talk to a warm prospect. It's a type of thing. And once you hear it, you can never unhear it, you can never go back to the way it was like, Oh, yeah, well, let's just smile and dial and just grind it out. Like you can't. And so that that was one of the things that set me on my journey, and led me to Dan Kennedy, and then Perry Marshall and then ended up leaving my job and you know, building a website and that's, that's a whole story in and of itself. But Dublin funnel came later. The the genesis of Dublin funnel was that I had been in the marketing space direct response marketing for, you know, maybe a decade or so. And, you know, being a student of what works in direct response marketing. I am being a big believer in lead generation, because now everyone understands, oh, yeah, of course, lead generation get leads, you know, like trust, build your email list, like everyone gets that now, there was a time Believe it or not, where that was a little bit controversial. Like, I don't know, if I should really do that sounds like a lot of work. The ad costs were really cheap, you could get clicks from Google or other places at five to 10 to 15 cents, so why not just send them to the sales letter. So Perry, Marshall was a big believer in this long term idea of cultivating your list, growing your list, having your audience having a bond with you, etc. and sort of like building your 1000 fans or 10,000 fans. And, and so I was a big believer in that too. I wanted to combine what I really believe was one of the most powerful and consistent tools of marketing and messaging and motivating people to take action, which is scarcity, urgency deadlines, but I didn't want to do it in a way that was lying. I didn't want to use some sort of fake timer on a page, you know, hope that no one went to the page next day, etc. Because that's really what was that what existed back then. So I thought, well, you know, we at the time period was using Infusionsoft which now is called Keith But anyways, I thought wouldn't it be cool if when someone came in as a new prospect if we can actually give them a deadline automatic Just like we're automatically sending people this series of same nine emails based on when they sign up, what if we can assign a deadline based on when they started so that, at the end when we when the email said, Hey, this is the last day, it truly was, in fact, the last day even though it was automated. And I just figured, well, obviously, someone has figured this out. So I'll just go find it, and then sign up for it. Turns out, no one had done such a thing. And so I decided to create what then became Dublin funnel. And it was a need that not only Perry needed, but I needed in my business. And so that's that was the beginning of deadly funnel, because I then went through the extra effort of trying to make it available for other people to use and find out that Yeah, a lot of people needed this. So it really is a very, very strong way to get people who are already leaning into your messaging. And that's a key component, people who are already leaning into your messaging, clicking your links, viewing your videos, go into your web page, etc, who are procrastinating for a variety of reasons. One of the main ones being that just as human beings like it or not, we procrastinate and getting them to make a decision, and to make that automated, but to also make it absolutely 100% genuine and that's what that one funnel does.
Steve Brown:So, um, when you think of a deadline, but most funnels are never ending, or they they'll re engage after a little bit. So you think Alright, so what what do you deadline, the price their offer that, you know, I'm curious to what?
Jack Born:Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of Yeah, there's, there's a bunch of different ways to do it. But I'll, I'll name two of them, two of the two of them would be one would be that you're the only there's only a short window of time where you can actually get this. So this, you know, this could be something where you can't go to the website and just sign up at any time. It's only when you're at a certain point in this email sequence. And so you know, what kicks that off might be someone opting in and might be someone who's who's purchased something else, there's a whole bunch of different things that could kick off someone going into that sequence, you know, you can use your own marketing automation, but during that short window of time, that's the only time that they can actually get it. And, you know, it doesn't have to be necessarily individualized for each person, you could say, look, at the beginning of the first of every month, everyone who's gone through this email sequence, everyone who's ordered my book, you know, the golden toilet, say, everyone who's read that or read or opted in for a free chapter, at the first of every month, we're gonna send that cohort, that group of people through the sequence so that, you know, that's not still automation, there's a lot of different ways you can do it. The second way would be, yeah, this is available any time but while you're here, right now, maybe it's because you just signed up for this this list, or, or this freebie or attended this webinar, you are getting a special deal, it could be a So what's a special deal, a special offer could be one or more of the following, it could be a price discount, doesn't have to be, it could be extra bonuses. It could even be how you buy. So normally it's it's I'm just gonna make this up, it might be normally $1,000 per, you know, one time. But right now you can get it for 100 bucks a month, you know, so that you can spread it out over, you know, an easier payment. So there's a lot of different ways to tinker with and structure your special offer in your marketing and say, Look, if you miss this deadline, you can still get it, it's just right now it's an even better deal than you would normally get. And so those are those are a few simple ways. There's more, those are a few simple ways that people evergreen it and then what you can do is it's not necessarily a one and done. Because sometimes no matter how persuasive you are, no matter how good your messaging is, and even with a deadline, sometimes it may be that your that your audience member, it just isn't ready to purchase at that time. So it has to be the right message the right market at the right time. So what you could do is you could say in your automation system, you could say like everyone who didn't purchase wait three months, you know, send them other emails, no, I can trust some other great relationship building stuff. And then 90 days later, put them back into the sequence. And so there's a lot of different ways you can do it. I think of these as you know, you can build your customer journey as sort of a series of Legos and you can sort of click them together. And lots of different ways. You know exactly how you click them together might be different than how someone else clicks them together. And really, you're only limited by your imagination.
Steve Brown:Excellent. So you're watching or you're listening, great conversation with jack Bourne. His company is deadline. funnel.com. So jack, I get asked these questions often being in marketing and there's they seem like simple questions, but they're important questions. And so I know Jack's answers to these right so Number one, what is the marketing funnel? Yeah, so
Jack Born:in my mind, a marketing funnel is a series of messages that are designed to take someone from where they are right now to where they want to be this future version of themselves, it could be, you know, their business 2.0 their love life 2.0, their fitness 2.0, but some sort of future version of where they want to be. And then the process, they're the bridge to get them there is becoming your client. And so it's a series of intentionally crafted sequential messages to reach them where they are. And to take them on that journey, that messaging journey much like, much like a story has a natural arc, your marketing message should have a natural arc, it starts where they are, and then it brings them through a series of well crafted, you know, mind shifts to, you know, bring them to a place where they have a new understanding of, of their of their problem or their situation and the possibilities of possibilities being, you know, your your solution and how you uniquely deliver it. And so that's what I consider to be a marketing phone.
Steve Brown:That's excellent. And I love the 2.0 aspect. Yeah. Alright, so what are the stages of the marketing funnel?
Jack Born:So I don't have a pithy answer of there's eight stages, and here they are. But I would say that the, you know, the stages extend further than most people think, a lot of people when, when you say, you know, what is your marketing funnel, a lot of them would think about where someone who someone who isn't known to them isn't on their on their client list, or on their prospect list, first encounters their opt in form or their web page. So well, it starts with this opt in page, then they watch these three videos, and then they go on this email sequence, and then hopefully, they buy. In my mind, there's a, there are stages before that. So that would include what is the initial message that gets their attention. So it could be a Facebook ad, it could be a YouTube video, it could be this podcast, it could be your book, you know, that is part of your funnel. So for example, taking you know, looking at yours, I don't know every stage your funnel, but what I do know is that the the golden toilet book that you've written is part of your funnel, it doesn't start when they read the book, and then they click the you know, follow the link, and then go to your page, it's not that they've arrived at their funnel 30 in your funnel, that's part of your your messaging. And if there is a Facebook ad before that, that gets them curious about this book. That's where the funnel starts. That's where the stages begin, where you are first reaching out to out to the client when they first hear about you. And by the way, if you're if if getting referrals from happy existing clients, is something that's active in your business as it is for us. That's part of your funnel, you know, you don't have control over what someone is actually saying, you can influence it. But what someone is saying to that stranger, really, that's that's the start of your funnel. It's not when that stranger comes to your website, it's when that message happens. And just to prove that point, if you're there, there are lots of things that you could put into a Facebook ad or YouTube ad, for example, that will get someone to your OPT in page and maybe even get them to fill out the you know, to get on your list. But as you and I both know, there's a huge deal, depending on what you are putting out there as that first action that first problem is that first say freebie or no, the first delivery is really going to impact whether they are a good buyer or not. You know who it's going to attract, and really what their mindset is, because it's a continuation of that conversation that started way back when they heard the referral from the friend, or they saw the ad, or they saw the video. And so, you know, just doing what you can to build your list for the sake of building your list may turn out to bring in people who are not going to be really good matches for your overall business. You know, so if you think about the funnel, just in terms of you know, why need to optimize for in increasing conversion rates on the opt in form, let's say you could, you know, but you're not really tracking it all the way through, and you're not realizing that the whole entire funnel from the beginning message all the way to the very end is your funnel, you can get hyper focused on growing your list, but you grow your list with people who really aren't going to be good buyers and good clients for the long run.
Steve Brown:That's a great perspective. And that's where part of that triangle you were talking about. You start pulling the economics aspect of it.
Jack Born:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that would Yeah, that would be part of it. Also would be the you know, be the conversions but you know, part of part of what you would Want to take a look at, you know, anyone who's run ads. And, you know, you and I were talking offline about the value of someone, the lifetime value of someone who's read your book is way, way higher than the lifetime value of someone who maybe clicked on a Facebook ad in general, on average. And so every single traffic channel that you have, is going to have their own sort of lifetime value their own sort of economics, if you will, of, of that of that funnel. So yeah, it really comes down to understanding your numbers and being able to, you know, to measure, you know, just because let's say, let's say that you've calculated that the lifetime value of someone who's read your book and becomes a client is $1,000. If you then just blindly took that number over to Facebook and said, Hey, here's how much I can spend, based on the assumption that the lifetime value of my client is 1000 bucks. You, you might be in for a rude awakening, because you might find out that what you have to say on Facebook, in order to get them to opt in for some freebie doesn't then lead them to become that 1000. It doesn't attract the $1,000 buyers and same way that the book does, you might still be able to make Facebook work. But it might not be that Facebook leads are the same value as book buyers. Does that make sense?
Steve Brown:Yes, absolutely. All right, here's another one. So it's related to what you were talking about. So how to create a high converting sales funnel? I always get that asked that.
Jack Born:What's Jack's out? Yeah, my answer is that the most important thing that you can do is to really focus on messaging and, you know, understand the, you know, what, what is the conversation that you're starting and think of it as I said before, in the same way that a story, if you're a student of stories, the way that you and I are, we understand that there's a story arc a good story has to go through certain stages, or else it's just not a very satisfying story. In the same way, you're, you're taking your your audience through a certain arc. And so the messaging there and how you say it, and the words that you use, is really, really important. Just like Andre, I'm continuing to invest. I mean, just an hour before this, I ended up buying one of my my own clients, copywriting courses, because I was, I heard her on, I didn't even know she was a client of mine. But I heard her on a podcast called the copy chief podcast, and went and checked out her stuff and ended up buying, buying her course, like I'm constantly reinvesting in my skills to try to find something new or remind myself of something that I've forgotten regarding messaging, because I really don't feel like you can ever get to the point where you There's nothing to learn about messaging. So yeah, I would say the very most important thing is, is your messaging, you know, coming back to like, I think second behind that is having a deadline. But I'm the first to say that. And I said this all the time, you deadline isn't going to revive a dead marketing funnel. So if your messaging is completely off, or if you've, you're the only one on planet Earth, who is in love with this product that you've created. First of all, you're not alone, other people have been down that road, I've committed that saying, so you know, pick yourself up, you know, you will succeed in the long run, as long as you don't give up. But don't think that you can just add a deadline to it, all of a sudden things are gonna work, you know, it's really important to dial in your messaging, the deadline is really to get everyone who's resonating with the messaging, but they're just procrastinating or feeling overwhelmed, and they need that extra little push to get off the fence and take that leap. And make that final journey, you know, step across, you know, the thin, the very important membrane of lock client to client. You know, a deadline is super effective at doing that. But it's really the one two punch of really dialed in messaging, and then having a deadline, which is really super, super important.
Steve Brown:Hey, I wanted to pause right here and tell you about a book that you need to get today. It's the funniest book on marketing. It's called the Golden toilet, stop flushing your marketing budget into your website and build a system that grows your business. And guess who wrote it? That's right. I wrote it. And I wrote it just for you because I want to help you get past the last hurdles of setting up your business and getting it squared away. I wrote it so that you can avoid time wasting time wasting money, wasting frustration, get the book on Audible. You can get it on Kindle. You can get it on Amazon, but get the book take advantage of the insights in there. And let me know what you think. And now back to this excellent episode. That's awesome. So we're listening to jack Bourne. He's the his company is deadline funnel com. JACK. So I always like to ask this question. What's one question you would love to answer that nobody ever asked you?
Jack Born:Oh my gosh. stumper. What is one question? Um, yeah. So, one question that you that I don't get asked very often has to do with how did you? Like? I guess the question, I'm trying to think how the question would be phrased it would be phrased something along the lines of what is what is one of the most important one of the most challenging, but important things you did in your business? And to which I would answer Finally, understanding how to build a team and how important it was. Because, for me for the longest time, so I, so I read the, you know, a long time ago, version, one of the four hour workweek when it first came out, read it loved it, thought, great, this whole idea of hiring VA sounds amazing. Of course, I went to, you know, oDesk, or wherever it was, like, you know, and hired very cheaply, like, Hey, $4 an hour, sign me up, that sounds great. You can probably predict what happened, it just didn't work out that well. And so what I eventually, and so I thought, okay, I don't know why it's working for everyone else, but it's just not working for me. And, and so I really struggle with it, I really fell into this, this belief, false belief that, you know, I was just gonna have to grind it out as a solo entrepreneur, and maybe every so often, I would hire out a task or two. And a good friend of mine, Brian guy who has had built up a really huge and successful paid advertising agency named Mike Rhodes, really got my head straight on this, and really helped me understand exactly how to change my thinking about my business. So I started to bring it like one of the key shifts for me was to really understand that, especially you don't, it's not necessarily that because you hire someone who costs a lot that therefore they're going to be good. But you typically get what you pay for. And you need to be searching out a player's and being willing to invest in your business to have these eight players on your team. And so one of the one of the big things that happened for me was when on my first trip to Australia in 2016, or 2015 2015, had to be 2015. It was a six week trip. And at the time, I had someone who was a real go getter. And still with my company today, just an amazing guy. And at the time, I was paying him hourly. And he said, Look, I, this is amazing, I love working with you. But I just I need more revenue, I need more income from this, I said, well, as it just so happens, I'm going on the six week trip six months from now, and I am holding on to too many tasks, I don't want to be up at two or three in the morning, dealing with this stuff. And I also don't want my business to suffer. So let's talk about how I can let go of some of these things and really set up an on ramp, where more month by month by month, you're taking on more of these responsibilities, and I get more comfortable working with you. And then that way you get what you want, I get what I want and see where it goes from there. And I was really like taking force, I know that we can't take vacations now. But if we could take holidays, I would recommend that everyone go, you owe it to yourself to go book a six week holiday somewhere on the opposite end of the globe, where it's just gonna be almost impossible for you to work on your business for six weeks. And that will be scary and it will be frightening. But it will force you to really let go of the things that you need to let go of. So that you can be a CEO in your business and to attract the people that you feel comfortable, really, you know, handling your your your company, at least for six weeks. Because once you get over that initial hump, you know, it's really the sky's the limit, you know, it's just a matter of continually to invest in, you know, additional team members and building the culture that you want. But that that was such a huge shift in my business I can't even explain.
Steve Brown:Sounds like you really have a passion for your culture and developing a team. And I think that something that many businesses struggle with and the folks that listen to this podcast, that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to put out the fires run the business, but to try to backfill and set up a support team to grow that but we make so many mistakes along the way.
Jack Born:Yeah, and I've certainly made mine and I'm certainly not perfect. You know, and that and that again comes back with being willing to be wrong, you know, are you willing to take you know, take feedback, that is sometimes painful to hear, but you need to hear. And if you're not hearing it, how are you going to improve? So I think it's really, really important to be constantly working on yourself and letting your team know that you're constant work on yourself, you know, a quick tip that I can share with everyone that is really easy to implement. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs overlook it, is really taking the opportunity to share the the client successes, not just with, you know, don't just put them on your website, which I'm a huge believer in social proof, if you go to Dublin funnel.com. And look at our case studies, I love social proof, in forms of video, testimonials, etc. So I'm a huge believer in it. But there's another place for this, which is super, super important, which is to share it with your team. So for example, I have a lot of developers who don't really interact with our clients. And so it's, I find that it's really, really valuable to share with them when when we get client feedback, which is quite often, and I love to share it on in Slack, it's inside the company, and I will specifically main people, if possible, who went who participated in the development of that, you know, the the people in the design team, the people in the development team, and so I will share with them, Look, we are changing, you are changing lives, this is the type of work that you're doing that is really having an impact on these entrepreneurs, it's helping them enjoy their lives more, spending more time with their family, being able to grow their business. One recent case study, you know, Lauren, she had a had a great funnel on Facebook, but guess what the Facebook ad costs kept going up and up and up, Zuckerberg needed to buy another yacht or something. So you know, the Facebook ad clicks kept going up. And, and she was able to increase our conversions and bring that cost per client acquisition way down using Dublin for like, that has a real, you know, beyond just, you know, hey, now I'm able to afford those Facebook ads, again, you know, there's an impact beyond that, so that I can spend more time with my son so that I can, you know, hire additional people on my team and have the business that I always dream like, that's the impact. And I love sharing those stories with my team, because there are certain members of my team where they're down sort of, like in the engine room, they're doing the work, and they don't actually interact with the clients up on the top deck of the of the cruise ship. And so I want to make sure that they understand, like what you're doing is having a huge impact and sharing that with them. So that they see I think it's really important that everyone on the team understand that it's not just about, you know, ticking the box getting the task done. It's what impact that's having on the end user.
Steve Brown:I love that that's a great reminder. So jack, we didn't talk about this. But I'm curious if folks that are listening, they want to go sign up for deadline funnel. Is their affiliate link? Or is it our day? What's the best way to go about that?
Jack Born:Well, we could we could create one for you with a special deal for your audience. So we'll just we'll just create one on the spot. What would you like the URL to end with? We'll make a deadline funnel comm for it's actually let's do it on your website. what's your website?
Steve Brown:So it's ROI? online.com I had to remember my website.
Jack Born:For it listed. Let's make it forwards. Can we do forward slash deadline funnel? Let's do it. Okay, and that will that will anyone who's listening to this who's interested, we will make it a longer trial so that you have even even more time. You know, one of the part of the culture, I'll just mentioned real quick part of the culture that I really make sure that my team hears over and over again, to the point of of being sick of hearing about it is that I want my team to understand. And I want everyone listening to know that we know that no one woke up this morning saying Gosh, I hope that there's yet another tool that I can sign up for monthly or annually. Yeah, like I get it. Right, I get it. And yet we've got 1000s and 1000s of clients who love us and talk about us and rave about us. So why. And the reason is because we really think about happy clients as part of our big flywheel. Which by the way, a huge book recommendation Jim Collins. I think it's turning the flywheel something the flywheel. It's a very, very short book. Really, really powerful. And Jeff Bezos credits credits this concept with some of Amazon's huge success. So quick, quick slide there. But you know, so So we, we understand that our job is to help clients go from the business like the business or funnel that they have to the one that they want. And that's not just lip service, the way that that shows up in our business that your typical software company does several things that we tried to do the opposite of. And one of those is that anytime that you mentioned some other software company to the software company that you're asking for help from they go, Oh, you know, you need to go talk to that and like we can't help you with that. Right. So one of the ways this is not a sexy description of my company, but one of the one of the ways that I think about it What we do is we're sort of the Zapier of urgency and deadlines. Like we connect with all these different email providers and landing page providers. And so when someone says, you know, for some reason, you know, XYZ is not working on, you know, Infusionsoft or kajabi, or something like that, you know, we don't go, Oh, well, you're gonna have to talk to them. We help them through to the extent that we can we help them through. And sometimes we will point out little gotchas or little little tricks or shortcuts, or workarounds that help them with this other person software with this other company software, because our job is to help them reach get across the finish line and succeed with evergreening their business. It's not to say, Well, hey, listen, our job is to teach you about doubling funnel and anything outside of that we're not we're not here for so that's, that's one of the big ways that we, that we differentiate ourselves. So the reason why I brought that up is during this longer trial that you'll get through the ROI, ROI, online.com forward slash doubling funnel is that you will, you will be able to set up a 15 minute screenshare onboarding call on totally free before you've paid us one red Penny and our team will answer whatever questions that you have. Because we just want to make sure that you know, if you've got something that's holding you back, you know, again, we want to turn you into a lifetime client of ours. So we're more than happy to do that. So anyways, go check it out. If you're interested. We've got lots and lots of clients, check out our case studies. If you're like, what, what is this thing that I've just heard of? And who else uses it, go to our case studies page, and I think you'll be blown away?
Steve Brown:Yeah, so that's deadline funnel. com. JACK Bourne, you've been an awesome guest. I appreciate you so much. How can folks reach out or connect with you?
Jack Born:Yeah, so you can go to well, Dublin funnel calm, first of all, but the other the other way to connect with me would be on my website, which hasn't been updated in some time, jack bourne.com. That's just JCK BRN. It's not spelled like Jason Bourne or anything like, right. So I do think I have some links to you know, my social media and stuff like that. I do not post very often. But when I do, it's probably going to be a video of me kite surfing. So you know, it's not gonna, it's not gonna be, you know, your typical Instagram stuff. But if you're, if you want to follow me, the links are there. So that's it.
Steve Brown:Alright. I love the name, jack. Boy. I mean, who gets to walk around with that kind of name? Right?
Unknown:Yeah.
Steve Brown:You've been a great guest on the ROI online podcast.
Jack Born:Thank you so much for having me.
Steve Brown:All right. And that's a wrap. Thanks for listening to another fun episode of the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat, and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, that golden toilet at surprise, that golden toilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI online podcast.