Thinking Out Loud with Dean Jackson

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Lee Iacocca target market Jul 03, 2019

Show notes

I'm in Amsterdam on our summer world tour, and I just saw Lee Iacocca passed away. It reminded me what a master target marketer he was. He put the Mustang in front of the largest baby boom in history right as the leading edge turned 18 in 1964, exactly the young, sporty, affordable car they wanted. Twenty years later he gave those same people the minivan at 38 and turned Chrysler around.

Demography is an inevitability. If something appeals to a huge group and there are millions more right behind them every year, you've got a hit on your hands.

Look at today. We've got 10,000-plus people turning 60 every day for the next 20 years and a massive transfer of wealth underway, while the youngest millennials are just turning 19. Ask what those groups will inevitably need or want, pick one, and get in front of it.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/012-lee-iacocca-target-market/

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Ideas versus execution Jun 17, 2019

Show notes

I'm in Toronto starting a Breakthrough Blueprint, and over coffee with Ross O'Laughlin we got onto ideas versus execution. I've always defended the value of ideas in a world that fetishizes execution. People say ideas without execution are worthless, which is true, but you can't execute nothing either. They're paired.

Grant that something is being executed flawlessly. The only thing that can improve it is executing a better idea. Ross showed me a campaign humming along at a steady opt-in rate, then he had a brainstorm, executed it with the same precision, and the opt-ins exploded. That's the power of an idea.

As I said in the execution arbitrage episode, execution is becoming the commodity. AI and machines can execute anything. Where we win is coming up with the ideas someone has to program the machine to run. That's our trump card.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/011-ideas-versus-execution/

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Love is pain Mar 04, 2019

Show notes

I'm at dinner in Phoenix with Annie Lala the night before our email workshop, and we got onto how you capture ideas and get them into the world. Annie shared something that stuck with me: to experience love, you have to be willing to experience pain. The heart is a muscle, and the more heartbreak you turn into strength, the more capacity you have to love.

Most people run from that feeling in a relationship, the urge to give up mid-conflict. But those are the last three reps, the ones that hurt most and make the most difference. Stay in, keep talking, and you turn conflict into intimacy.

The conversation itself is the lesson in the other thing we were discussing. We spoke this out loud, recorded it, and in minutes it's a podcast anyone can learn from. Talking is the fastest way to get your best ideas out into the world.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/010-love-is-pain/

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The tyranny of convenience Feb 24, 2019

Show notes

I'm outside a packed Starbucks in Orlando, sitting comfortably in the sun while the line curls around the building, because I ordered and paid from the app. It reminded me of a New York Times piece called The Tyranny of Convenience, which argued convenience is the most powerful and underrated force guiding our decisions.

The easiest way always wins. It's the same reason I record these podcasts by telling Siri to start, then speaking the title and description, and it's on iTunes before my drink is ready.

So look at everything you do and ask how you can make it as convenient as possible for the people you work with. Do that, and watch them come straight to you.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/009-the-tyranny-of-convenience/

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Execution arbitrage Jan 31, 2019

Show notes

I woke up with words for something I've been watching for a while: execution arbitrage. Right now you can get almost anything executed on demand, at scale, which means the idea person who sees how pieces fit together is positioned to win. Kylie Jenner runs a $350 million cosmetics company with seven core people because everyone else, the manufacturing, the e-commerce, the distribution, is outsourced.

You see it everywhere once you look. Airbnb and Uber are just interfaces between people who want an outcome and people with the capacity to deliver it. My own Getting Listings program for real estate agents works the same way, push a button and we handle all the execution.

Execution is becoming the commodity. So look at the outcomes your business is paid for, ask how much of that could be handed to someone else, and get paid for the bundle. That's the arbitrage.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/008-execution-arbitrage/

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Specialized data Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

Over dinner in Miami I got thinking about Richard Viguerie, the father of conservative fundraising and the guy largely credited with getting Reagan elected. In 1962 a new law made large political donors part of the public record, so he took six ladies into the records office and hand-wrote 12,000-plus names and addresses onto index cards.

That list was an asset nobody else had. He rented it out, kept gathering every donor from every campaign, and built an empire on being first in and the only one with that information. What struck me was the willingness to do the hard, unglamorous work almost no one else will do.

We've done our own version of this, hand-correlating the 2,100 lakefront homes in Winter Haven, the homes with mountain views in Paradise Valley, oceanfront condos in other markets. In a world where everyone's using the same algorithmic data, that qualitative information you have to work to gather is a real advantage. Don't be afraid to put in the effort.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/007-specialized-data/

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When is a diet pill worth $153 Jan 20, 2019

Show notes

I still think about the Leptoprin infomercial that opened with when is a diet pill worth $153 a bottle. Everyone who'd already tried the $19 and $29 pills and given up perked right up, because finally here was one expensive enough to have the good stuff, and one that told them it was too powerful for vanity dieters.

Then I saw a knockoff, Leptopril, running the pharmaceutical generic play, and dug in. The same company owned all of them. Thyroid ATC for undiagnosed thyroid, Estrin D for menopausal women, each one speaking to a very specific reason someone believes they can't lose weight.

The lesson is about friction. If someone doesn't have that particular frustration, they're blind and deaf to the message, but name the exact thing that's stopping them and they perk up and think that's me. Get specific about why people are delaying, address it directly, and they line up for the help you can give them.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/005-when-is-a-diet-pill-worth-153/

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Working backwards Jan 20, 2019

Show notes

Gamal Aziz ran the MGM Grand, and his approach stuck with me for years. He broke the hotel into all its components, restaurants, entertainment, retail, and for each one asked how high is high, then counted the difference between that and current results as a loss.

They had a profitable $4 million restaurant, but he watched guests leave every night for celebrity restaurants elsewhere. In his mind they were losing $4 million a year, so he tore it out, partnered with Michael Mina, and did $11 million the first year. Same story with entertainment: a $28 million show became a Cirque du Soleil doing $120 million. Even $40 haircuts became $400 stylings.

He called it working backwards, and it's the opposite of chasing a 20% annual improvement. It's instant and radical. Go through your own components, ask how high is high, and treat the gap as money you're actively losing. That framing gets your attention in a way that a comfortable profit never will.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/006-working-backwards/

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What's in a name Jan 18, 2019

Show notes

This one came out of a discussion at the I Love Marketing meetup about naming products, and my view is simple: naming is everything. A name that telegraphs exactly what your product does beats a clever one every time. Dan Kennedy turned Formula 489 into Kills Weeds Dead, and suddenly it's obviously the right product on the shelf.

There's a photographer in London who skipped the generic commercial photographer label and built weshootbottles.com, nothing but beautiful shots of bottles. If you sell a product in a bottle, they head and shoulders beat every generalist. And when they want cans, they just spin up weshootcans.com. Same studio, same lights, new specialist.

Sometimes the product doesn't change at all. Excedrin Migraine and Excedrin Extra Strength are the identical pill, but the Migraine box sells for up to a 30% premium because it names exactly what someone's looking for. Any time you can narrow your focus to the person you most want, that's where the benefit lives.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/004-what-s-in-a-name/

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Live referral field report Jan 11, 2019

Show notes

The day after I recorded the referral episode for Michael Bernoff, he demonstrated the whole thing at lunch without even realizing it. Somebody asked for a restaurant, mentioned they liked sushi, and Michael instantly thought of Sushi Roku, pulled out his phone, and set up the reservation with the double royal treatment himself.

That's the position we want to own in a client's mind. Sushi comes up, one place fires, and he didn't just recommend it, he handled everything so the other person gets treated like an insider. Michael becomes the guy with the guy.

This goes back to how we're wired. Adding value to the tribe raises your status, and we're built to keep the exchange even. So the real work is programming your clients to feel like insiders with your business, and giving them the trigger words so they know exactly when and how to send someone your way. We're not training salespeople, we're training givers.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/003-live-referral-field-report/

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