Thinking Out Loud with Dean Jackson

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**Thinking Out Loud with Dean Jackson**

Dean Jackson thinks out loud about marketing, referrals, positioning, and the small ideas that quietly change how a business grows. Short, unscripted episodes. The raw thinking behind BreakthroughDNA and the 8 Profit Activators.

Latest Episodes:

Proving is More Convincing Than Convincing Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. We're still going through My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins.

And back in 1997, journal number seven, this was a recurring theme. I kept writing about the books I was going deep on.

So I'm calling this little series My Life Applying My Life in Advertising.

And here's a line from Claude that has shaped so much of what I do.

A good article is its own best salesman.

Think about what he meant.

The salespeople selling door to door, in a closed room, the thing they always did was sample.

Claude said it's uphill work to sell goods in print or in person without samples.

See, if you've got a product you know is going to get the result, a product people are going to love... you can feel confident letting them experience it.

Let them prove it to themselves.

I've done this again and again.

Take the mosquito control.

Awareness is already sky high. We all know mosquitoes exist. We're all annoyed by them.

But we've also all been disappointed. The citronella candles. The blue light zappers. None of it really works.

And then the Mosquito Authority comes and treats your yard, and instantly there's nothing. They stay gone for three weeks.

I live in Florida. My courtyard is a breeding ground.

And when they treat it? Nothing.

So all we have to do is get somebody to know that for themselves.

Especially when it's a recurring thing. A restaurant you want people to come back to. A food product. A SaaS subscription.

Getting them to experience it for themselves is the best proof there is.

Here's what strikes me about Claude's world.

Those companies would never dream of sending a salesman out without samples.

But they'd spend fortunes on advertising to urge people to buy without ever seeing or trying it.

And persuasion alone is vastly more expensive.

So I evolved this into one of my go-to moves.

If there's some way to get somebody started, and preferably get them a result in advance... that's the best advertising you can do.

So much so that I made my own little rule out of it.

Sometimes it's less expensive to get somebody a result than it is to convince them to give you money to get that result.

That was the whole idea behind Project Cyrus.

We all have an unlimited appetite for results. For wonderful things in our lives.

And once somebody has the good experience, they keep going.

Once you've lived mosquito free, you don't want to go back.

So instead of convincing somebody, give them a free experience. Let the experience convince them.

It removes all the risk.

We've done it with free facials.

Clients have built out entire aesthetic spas on this. The incremental cost of one facial is almost nothing once you've got the chairs, the staff, the equipment.

We've even given two free facials. They come once, they book the second, and then they book into a package.

You've built a client for life.

Same with restaurants. Come for free. Or here's a $25 gift card, come experience it.

And at the highest level, that was the whole basis of Money Making Websites.

Come in, I'll build your website, I'll show you how it all works, I'll teach you everything. And you pay when you get the result.

There's an unlimited appetite for that.

And this whole thing traces back a hundred years. To Claude Hopkins in 1927.

If you've got something that gets results, something people love...

Stop convincing.

Give them the result first.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/112-proving-is-more-convincing-than-convincing/

Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast

Before You Spend Thousands on Marketing, Run This $100 Test Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. And I'm excited, because this kicks off a little series I've been promising.

All those books I was reading in 1996, 97, even earlier in my journey.

Because by 1997 I'd only been turned on to direct response advertising for five or six years. My true marketing education starts around 1991, 92.

And 30 years later there's one book I still read at least once a year.

My Life in Advertising, by Claude Hopkins.

If you follow any modern marketer worth following, there's a through line that runs all the way back to Claude.

I learned about him from Jay Abraham. And Jay is kind of the modern day Claude Hopkins. One of the greatest to ever live. I owe him a lot.

So we'll call this little series My Life Applying My Life in Advertising.

And right there in chapter one, on the very first page, is one of the things that has guided everything I do.

A conservative approach to advertising.

Here's the great thing about direct response. It's predictable. It's formulaic. Once you find an appeal that works, it's durable. You've seen the ads I made 30 years ago that still run today.

But they only work because I tested them.

And Claude has this line. All advertising disasters are due to rashness, needless and inexcusable.

Not failures. He's careful about that. We all attempt things that can't be done, because we're dealing with human nature. Wants, prejudices, idiosyncrasies.

But disasters? Those come from incaution.

And I've seen it again and again.

People come to me and say, we spent $70,000 on Meta ads. Or YouTube. Or direct mail. And it didn't work.

And honestly, it makes me cringe.

Because I can't imagine it. Direct response works right away if you've got a winner.

So here's how this evolved for me.

I think of new marketing almost like a pharmaceutical model. You're testing new drugs, so you run clinical trials.

And thanks to Meta, you can find out immediately whether you've got a winner or a dud.

We do it in four stages.

Stage one is the $100 test.

Because to sell anybody anything, first you have to generate a lead. Find somebody who might be interested. That's the bottom line. Do you have an appeal people will respond to?

So we come up with a book title. A report. A catalog. Some offer. Can we identify the invisible prospects and get them to come to us?

Here's a recent one. I use Winter Haven as my little laboratory. No need to do anything grand.

We made a book called Air Fried Carnivore. Beautiful cover, an air fryer with a bounty of meat in it.

We go to a meat shop here every day, so the idea was to run this and generate business for the shop.

And the test is simple. $20 a day for five days. A hundred dollars.

And right away you can see. How many people respond. What the leads cost.

We could generate those leads for $1.68 each. Sixty-eight leads out of a hundred dollar test.

That's enough to move to stage two.

Stage two, we generate 100 leads. Should cost less than $200. Then we watch their first 100 hours. Are they opening emails? Clicking? Replying? Watching a video?

We want 50, 60, 70% engaged. Only then do we move on.

Stage three, we watch 100 days. Maybe $2,500. Twenty-five dollars a day for 100 days.

Do the leads stay stable? What happens to conversion from day one to day 100? That's the critical part.

Generate the lead. Spot the five star prospects. Educate and motivate them across those 100 days. And you get conversions.

Then it becomes a scale ready algorithm.

And it all started with Claude. Never do anything until you know the outcome.

Once you crack a code, it keeps working. I don't know why, but it's one of the most amazing things. Ads that run for years at the same cost per lead. Predictable.

And here's the funny part.

Somewhere along the way, entrepreneurism got equated with risk taking. Big bold moves.

And the more successful people get, the more daring they get. They've got money, so they'll waste it on something big because they think they need a bold move.

It almost seems ridiculous to walk into a multimillion dollar company and say, let's run a $100 test.

But that's exactly how you build a fail proof system.

You limit your downside. The winners are going to be the winners. And you'll know in a week either way.

Don't bet the big money.

Spend the hundred first.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/111-before-you-spend-thousands-on-marketing-run-this-100-test/

Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast

The Internet Changed Everything… Except Why People Actually Buy Sep 21, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. It's Tickle Trunk Monday.

And I was thinking about yesterday, when I was going through all those old school tools.

Print ads. Recorded messages. Direct mail. Then the phone.

No digital anything.

And here's what hit me.

We were building funnels back then. There just wasn't an Internet.

The psychology of staged attention... that was the big win.

And honestly? I think we had more immersive attention back then.

Fewer distractions. Fewer options.

We're so used to TikTok now. One little scroll away from the next dopamine hit.

But when you're flipping through a home magazine, there's only 30 or 40 pages. Not much pulling you away.

So when you drop a pattern interrupt in there, a direct response ad in a sea of ads that all look the same... you get people.

And I found one in my Julie Matthews file.

Remember Julie? My little prototype lab here in Winter Haven. Everything I was developing for Realtors, I tested right here first.

This ad was for the USDA zero down program. Government money.

Running it back in 1996.

And picture it. You're in the homes magazine, everything looks the same, and then...

Free recorded message reveals how to use free money from the federal government to save thousands when you buy your first home.

Then the callouts. Why saving for a down payment doesn't work. How to buy a home with absolutely none of your own cash.

Same chassis I still use to this day. The book, plus the callouts underneath it.

So they call. They listen to the recorded message. And when they leave their name, we mail them the book.

I found the actual words. The whole explanation of how USDA works, pictures of homes, walking them through getting a $150,000 house with zero down.

And tucked in with it, a fax-back form for a free Market Watch newsletter. Updates on every new home that hit the market.

Remember, there was no other way to get that information. Pre realtor.com. Pre Zillow. Pre Internet.

We were giving people an experience of the thing they actually wanted.

And we sent renters little letters with real pictures of homes.

This one's dated September 1997. Thirty years ago now.

Dear Mr. Jones, I'm writing because I want you to stop paying rent and buy a home instead. You're probably paying at least $450 a month, and you could be living in a house like the one in the picture for the same or less.

Call this number and you'll hear a 24 hour recorded message that explains exactly how. No obligation. You'll be glad you called.

Signed, Julie.

And here's what gets me.

Attaching what you do to a government program. Secret information that gives people an advantage. Packaged up so you can offer it as information.

It's not just real estate. We're real estate heavy because that was my whole world back then.

But I've run the same thinking on reverse mortgages. Social Security. Medicare.

Even the ridiculous ones. A client who works with scrap metal dealers, some special IC-DISC program. I have no idea what those words mean.

But I took the same chassis and dropped it right on top. There's government money you're missing because you don't know the secret. Here's how to get it.

Learning the mechanics of this matters.

Back then people had to want it enough to pick up the phone and listen. That earned us a couple minutes. Then the booklet earned us thirty. Then the weekly update kept the relationship going.

Such a durable chassis.

And nothing has changed about the psychology.

Now we run lead ads. It shows up in the feed, one button, the form's already filled in. We get the email automatically. Almost no friction.

But lots of competition.

So you have to be genuinely valuable. Give people information worth having.

Start packing your own tickle trunk.

So you've got something exciting to pull out 30 years from now.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/110-the-internet-changed-everything-except-why-people-actually-buy/

Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast

The Real Money Is in the Relationship, Not the Transaction Sep 20, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. Here we are again, journal number seven, 1997.

And something new shows up on the page today.

For the first time in all of these journals... the Internet.

Back then only about 17% of people in the country were online. Email was the one thing that actually worked. The one thing that delivered.

But here on the page is where a domain first enters my life. livinginwinterhaven.com.

And I can see now, looking back, that almost everything I ever built was just two or three things stitched together. What I was reading. What I was experiencing. The tools that happened to be around.

Here's what I was chewing on.

As a Realtor, only about 5% of the people in Winter Haven are going to buy or sell a home this year. Maybe 7%.

So most of the town is not your customer this year.

But they all own homes.

And they're going to need all kinds of things over the course of the year.

See the shift?

The transaction is a sliver. The relationship is the whole year.

So I started thinking about advocacy. Being the one person who helps somebody get through everything that comes with owning a home in this town.

And I mentioned the seven categories that every budget in America contains.

Home. Auto. Food. Health. Kids. Money. And me.

That's every budget. All of it.

And one of the most reliable strategic moves you can make... is to elevate yourself to leader of a category.

We saw it with the wedding guides. 101 Great Places to Have an Outdoor Wedding in Toronto. The party rental company was just one piece of it.

But take it all the way down. It's one bride and one groom, walking an 18 month process.

A venue. Flowers. Catering. A dress. A limo. A DJ.

Many, many people. One relationship guiding them through.

That's what I wanted for real estate.

Not just an advocate for the buying and selling. An advocate for living in Winter Haven.

Because it's the relationships that matter.

And think about where we are now.

Everybody's asking, do we even need Realtors? Is AI just going to sell the house?

And maybe. Maybe the individual jobs get easier.

But the collective... being the guide, having the discernment, the wisdom, piecing all the details together... that's not going anywhere.

The opposite. It gets more valuable.

Here's the thing I want all the time. I say it to the home services companies I work with.

I want to live in my house like I'm a guest in your house.

I just want to live there. And I want everything else handled.

And I'm not alone in that.

So picture one person who steps up. Almost like estate management, but for regular homeownership. Managed ownership for the people who live in your town.

That's a business all by itself. Outside the transaction entirely.

Gathering those relationships. Directing people to whatever goods, services, improvements they'll need as a homeowner. Introducing them to other people who serve the way you serve.

And it would grow the number of transactions you do too.

So I'm not giving up on this idea.

It was true 30 years ago. It's just as true today. And it's going to matter even more over the next 30.

Stop selling the transaction.

Become the person they call all year.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/109-the-real-money-is-in-the-relationship-not-the-transaction/

Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast

Old Marketing Tools Still Work Just Fine Sep 19, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. We're heating up, working our way through the journals.

Journal 7. Summer of 1997.

And what jumped out at me today was a heading I'd written to myself.

What are the tools I know, or could know, how to use?

Because here's the thing about a tool.

Once you know how to do something, it ratchets in.

It goes in the toolbox. And it stays there. Ready to draw on whenever you need it.

So I made an inventory.

And what struck me reading it back... how many of these still work today.

First on the list. Direct response display ads.

The fastest way to get in front of the right audience.

Want to reach the whole town? Georgetown had two weekly papers, Wednesday and Friday. Run an ad, everybody sees it.

Want to reach specifically interested people? A page in a targeted magazine.

And now we take all of this for granted with Meta.

Meta is the new general display advertising. Same as putting out flyers to the whole population... except now you can target exactly who you want.

Here's the beauty of a display ad. When you find one that works, you run it again and again and again.

We had the book, How to Sell Your House for Top Dollar Fast.

In 1998 we contracted the newspaper to run the same half page ad every single week for a year. Paid it all up front. $10,000.

No changes. Same ad, fifty-two weeks.

We did $80,000 in commissions that year from people who responded.

And then another $80,000 the second year, from people who responded in the first year and sold later.

That's a display ad.

Next. Direct mail letters.

One of my favorites. You can mail a letter to an audience of one.

If you know exactly who you're trying to reach, you go directly to them.

People call direct mail old school. Postcards, letters, self-mailing booklets.

You could make a twenty page booklet, tabbed, mail it for one ounce. Eben Pagan and I would sit around dreaming up titles for those.

Classified ads. Little ads pointing to a free recorded message.

People call, leave their info, we mail the booklet, then follow up.

And the recorded message. 800 numbers.

Why did those work so well?

Immersive attention. In the moment they're listening, there's no distraction. Nothing to click. No way to skim or fast forward.

They hear it in the order you chose, at the pace you chose.

The modern equivalent is the VSL. The video sales letter. Get their attention, get them watching, let them take action right underneath.

Free books. Still my favorite thing to this day.

Using a book to say exactly what your audience would love to see.

Seminars. Getting people in a room live was the most efficient way to deliver a message on mass.

I started my homebuyer workshops as a realtor back in 1992. Ads, get people to the library, walk them through the process.

That became my six steps to home ownership show on public television.

And the model. Direct mail to a free seminar, to a paid seminar, to a coaching program.

That model built several businesses. Joe Stump, Eben, Terry Hunnefeld and me. Joe Polish did it with carpet cleaners. Dan Kennedy was action central for the whole thing.

That was information marketing. New at the time. From the early 90s to the late 90s, it was the thing.

Business reply mail. Another tool I knew how to use.

My very first postcards went to apartment complexes offering a book on how to buy your first home. A little coupon, drop it back in the mailbox.

And I'd get these stacks of cards. Because there was no website to send them to.

And here... on this page... is the first time I even mention the Internet.

In 1997, about 17% of homes had online access. That's why it isn't the whole story yet.

The one viable thing on the Internet in 1997 was email.

Websites were painful. Every pixel loaded slow, an image could take minutes.

But you could collect an email and send to a list. Autoresponders were becoming a thing.

And a sneaky one. Password protected disks.

Almost everybody had a computer. Almost nobody had the Internet.

So you'd mail a disk with the whole thing on it. A book, a course, templates. All locked.

They call in, leave the credit card, get the password. Now they unlock it.

And credit card processing itself was brand new. Figuring out how to take cards was a big deal.

That was state of the art, 1997.

And here's what hit me.

If I was limited to just those tools... I could build an empire on them alone.

They're still viable today.

So make your own inventory.

What are the tools you already know how to use? What can you deploy right now?

And then... what's the message you'll put through them?

Grab a pen and write your list today.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/108-old-marketing-tools-still-work-just-fine/

Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast

If You're Going to Run an Ad in the Next 6 Months, Watch This Sep 18, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. You clicked on this.

And you clicked because the headline said, if you're going to run an ad in the next six months, watch this.

See what just happened?

You just experienced the exact thing I want to talk about.

I'm looking back at journal number seven. It was 1997.

And this is where the whole formula started for me.

The headline context formula. The most responsive headlines I've ever written.

Here's how it works.

We had a book called How to Sell Your House for Top Dollar Fast.

But the ad that generated the leads for it never started with the book.

It started with, if you're going to sell your house in the next six to 12 months.

Thirty years later, we still run that exact ad.

Because it draws in exactly the right people.

That's the whole job of a headline. Bring in the right person with a directive.

Not a question.

Think about the difference.

Selling your house? With a question mark. That's weak.

If you're going to sell your house in the next six to 12 months. That's a statement. That's a directive.

And you can't stop there.

Because your brain won't let you.

There's a thing called the Zeigarnik effect. Your brain can't stand an open loop.

You can't leave a mystery unsolved.

So you close the loop. If you're going to sell your house in the next six to 12 months... read this.

And now they have to read it. To find out what they're supposed to do.

We've used this everywhere.

Financial advisors. When someone's turning 62, they've got a decision to make about Social Security.

Take it now, or wait to 67, or wait to 70.

So we mailed 61 year olds who were six months from their 62nd birthday.

That's the beauty of direct mail. You pick the exact person at the exact age.

And the headline said, if you plan on collecting Social Security after... and then a date six months out.

And here's the subtle thing happening in their heads.

My whole life the story has been the same. Social Security is running out. It won't be there.

My generation never really expected to get it.

So when someone reads if you plan on collecting Social Security after September 2026... their brain fills the void.

I knew it. I knew the minute I got close it would all change.

What's going wrong? How is this going to hurt me?

So you read on.

And then we offer the Social Security benefits guide. What you're entitled to. What to do.

We never argue them into anything. We just say, if you're going to do this, you probably need to know this.

Here's the information.

We've used it a dozen ways.

If you're going to buy your first home in the next six months, read this.

One of my favorites was the Mosquito Authority.

If you or someone you know has been bitten by a mosquito in the last 30 days, read this.

Right when the CDC puts out its spring warning about mosquito borne illness.

And it looks like news. Not an ad. Just information you need.

So think about whatever your people are doing at the start of their thing.

If you're looking for a bigger house, read this.

If you're looking for a great lakefront house, read this.

A directive. An open loop. The right person leaning in.

It's been my go to for over 30 years.

So before you write your next ad... start with what your person is about to do.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/107-if-youre-going-to-run-an-ad-in-the-next-6-months-watch-this/

Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast

"The Secret To Life Is One Thing..." [Evidence Inside] Sep 17, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. Journal 7, September of 1997.

I had dinner that night with another entry on my Mount Rushmore of mentors.

You've heard me talk about Joe Stump. About Dan Sullivan. This one is Jim Morton.

Funny thing. I met Jim Morton and Joe Stump one day apart, in the same year, back in 1993.

We've been friends ever since.

Jim was a realtor and a broker in Las Vegas. Then he trained with Floyd Wickman as one of the sweathog trainers. Then he launched Jim Morton Seminars.

And the first thing he taught me was language skills. Dialogue skills.

He'd run an 8 or 12 week program. You'd meet once a week, drill the dialogue, go implement it, come back and share.

And I remember the immediate difference. When you know exactly what to say to somebody in exactly that situation... everything changes.

His whole idea was this. The realtors who make the biggest difference are the ones who know what to say in the moment.

Dialogue skills are the lowest cost, highest return thing you can develop.

So we'd drill patterns. What to say when somebody wants you to lower your commission. When somebody wants to sell their house on their own.

Always agree with them. Take them to a safe island. Then walk them logically to the right conclusion.

Directing the language like a chess master.

And those skills are still with me to this day.

But here's the part that opened my eyes at that dinner.

Jim was in an evolution of his own.

Because when I met him, his whole life was flying from one city to the next city to the next city. Live workshops every week.

And he started asking... what if I created something I didn't have to travel all over the country for?

So he looked at what was happening in the mid 90s. Desktop publishing. Suddenly people could make their own marketing materials.

And Jim created hundreds of templates. Brochures, flyers, postcards, ads. All ready to customize.

Then he'd train people how to use them and sell the kit.

One disc. A little owner's manual. Shrink wrapped in a cereal box sized package. For $245.

To me that was the most elegant thing. A disc in a box.

But that's the power of thinking about what's actually valuable to the people you're helping. Show them everything to do, then hand them the tools that support it.

And he built a fleet. Six or nine people out doing office presentations. Highly scripted. Exactly the same every time.

Go in, do the training, sell the box, send the money back to headquarters.

That brought home the power of packaging. Of making something duplicatable.

You've heard me say what Joe Stump taught me. Custom drapes versus ready to wear.

This was ready to wear. One thing, one audience, one duplicatable process.

And that word. One thing.

Jim always personified that.

He used to tell me everything you need to know about life is in the movie City Slickers.

Remember it? The old cowboy tells Billy Crystal the secret to life is one thing.

And Billy says, what's the one thing?

And the cowboy says, that's what you've got to figure out.

Well, look at the path Jim built. Prospects Plus is now the preeminent postcard mailer for the whole real estate industry.

An empire on one thing.

We've done great joint ventures together. Getting Listings Sold, still sells today. The world's most interesting postcard, mailed to your top 150 to generate referrals.

People all over the country have mailed those for twelve years now.

So here are the two lessons.

First, find yourself a mentor. Be open to it. People who are ahead of you on the path you're on.

It's funny. Joe Stump and Jim Morton are both exactly ten years older than me. They'd already walked where I was heading. Dan Sullivan is 22 years ahead.

Second, find your one thing.

Go find yours today.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/106-the-secret-to-life-is-one-thing-evidence-inside/

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Copy This Plug & Play System To Sell More Of Almost Anything Quickly! Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. The moment I've been waiting for is here.

We're moving into journal number seven.

And all through the earlier journals you'd see me presencing this idea of a Porsche 911. That was my dream sitting in there.

And journal seven is where it all happens.

Because this is where I met a gentleman with a really unique business.

All he did was sell 4 and 5 year old Porsche 911s. Exclusively. Ones coming off lease or on trade.

He had a private investor who gave him a half a million dollar line of credit. He paid 1% a month on it.

So he'd have eight to ten Porsches at any given time. Buy them, flip them in 30 or 40 days, make three or four thousand a car.

I went to see the place. A warehouse in an industrial plaza. One of those metal garage doors that rolls up.

And inside, wall to wall 911s.

It was like walking into a candy store. Straight out of a gangster movie.

So I asked him about advertising. How did he find the buyers?

And he said, I've tried running ads in the newspapers. Nothing happens.

Now I was fresh off playing with a model I loved. The horse for sale model.

We'd done it with loft condos in San Francisco. Selling one of something.

That's the most reliable playbook I know. It acts quickly. And it applies to almost anything.

Here's what it is.

Instead of selling the category... you sell one specific thing to the one person looking for exactly that thing.

So we ran a little classified ad.

1993 Porsche 911. Low miles, excellent condition. Zero down. Assume low monthly payments. Must be sold. 24 hour recorded message.

And we gave the number.

He'd never gotten people to call on his ads before.

One insertion. All these people calling and leaving their info about the one 911 for sale.

Because we found the one person looking for the one car.

And here's the beautiful part. The recorded message.

You have their undivided attention for a short period of time. You get to say exactly what you want.

So when they called they'd hear Steve.

Thanks for calling on my 93 Porsche 911. My specialty is finding low mileage 911s and getting them below wholesale.

Most dealers are all over the map. Cars from the 70s, 80s, 90s.

But I specialize.

I can show you how to get a 93 coupe, low miles, no down payment, payments under $500. In fact I have four cars right now.

I've written a book. How to get the best deal ever on a used 911. I'll send it to you free.

Leave your name, address and daytime phone number after the beep. Your book gets mailed today.

That was it.

Then we experimented. A second version said, I'll tell you about four cars you can see this Saturday afternoon.

And that became a weekly cadence. You find the people this week looking for the one thing.

See, the one ad gets attention. The recorded message does the talking. The book gives them a reason to raise their hand.

We did it with loft condos in San Francisco. Harborfront condos in Toronto.

And most recently with an electrician who sells generators.

Instead of get your generators here... a candid photo of a generator. One Generac whole house generator for sale. The kilowatts, the basics. Click learn more.

Leads for people looking for a generator.

So if I had a car dealership today, I'd do the same.

Find the category people are actually searching for. Minivans. SUVs. Pickups.

Have the one thing that one person is looking for. Get their attention. Then show them options.

We've even done it with franchises. Instead of selling a franchise system... we offer one business for sale in one market.

So here's the whole thing.

The horse for sale, attached to a repeatable audience, attached to a recorded message or a book they can get.

That's the win.

Let me know in the comments if this is something you could use.

And next time you go to sell the whole category... sell one of something to one person instead.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/105-copy-this-plug-play-system-to-sell-more-of-almost-anything-quickly/

Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast

Why Trying Harder Isn't The Answer Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. I was in my journal today and I found a list of my top 12 books to document.

This is 1997, remember.

I've told you about some of them. Influence. The E-Myth. The Seven Habits. The One to One Future.

But this one is different. It's a book called You Squared by Price Pritchett.

I'd never heard of him. My friend Joe Stump introduced me to it.

And I've read it probably a hundred times.

This was one of the books that got me thinking bigger. Getting out of the way and letting things happen.

A couple of things stood out.

First, it's small.

I own a company right now called 90 Minute Books. And part of the genesis of it was realizing how impactful a little book can be.

Because I know how impactful this one was for me. You sit down and read the whole thing in one sitting.

And it's one of those books where you don't need to do anything. There's no seven step process.

You read it, you get the insight, and you're changed because of it.

Here's how it opens. He's telling a story.

He's sitting in a quiet room at the Millcroft Inn. A peaceful little place hidden among the pine trees, about an hour out of Toronto.

Funny thing. The Millcroft Inn was fifteen or twenty minutes from where I was living at the time.

It's late July, just past noon, and he's listening to a life or death struggle a few feet away.

There's a small fly burning out the last of its energy trying to fly through the glass of the window pane.

The whining wings tell the whole story. The fly's strategy is try harder.

But it's not working. And the struggle is part of the trap.

It's impossible for the fly to try hard enough to break through the glass. It has staked its life on raw effort and determination.

And this fly is doomed. It will die there on the windowsill.

Across the room, ten steps away, the door is open.

Ten seconds of flying time and this little creature could reach the world it's looking for. With a fraction of the effort it's wasting now.

The breakthrough is right there. It would be so easy.

So why doesn't the fly try something dramatically different?

How did it get so locked in on this one route?

What logic is there in continuing until death with more of the same?

No doubt it makes sense to the fly. And that's the idea that kills it.

Here's the line. Trying harder isn't necessarily the solution to achieving more.

Sometimes it's a big part of the problem.

If you stake your whole hope for a breakthrough on trying harder than ever... you may kill your chances.

Now think about when I first read this.

I'd just lived it.

When I started out as a realtor, I made a hundred cold calls a day. That's manual labor.

And the second you stopped, it stopped working.

Then I got introduced to direct response. To marketing.

And I figured out I could put words on a postcard, on an ad, and have people call me instead of me calling them.

My entire life changed.

And I see it everywhere now. People in real estate, in any business, trying harder and harder at the traditional, manual thing.

When there are quantum leaps sitting right there. Just from a simple shift.

But you have to be open to it. Aware there might be an easier way.

And sometimes that awareness builds its own momentum.

Go find the book. You'd really enjoy it.

And before you try harder today... look for the open door.

Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/104-why-trying-harder-isnt-the-answer/

Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast

Why I Plan My Future Around What Will Never Change Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

Good morning. I'm at Celebration Florida this morning.

An amazing community, built in 1996. Right next to Disney World.

It's a Walt Disney vision.

I'm here doing one of my Breakthrough Blueprint events for the next three days.

But here's the thing that got me.

There's a page in my journal about this place. I'd come here years ago to see a movie with my friend Mike Hardwick.

And when they were building Celebration, you'd walk into the welcome center. The topographical map. All the floor plans.

And they'd sit you in a room and show you a film.

Walt Disney himself, welcoming you to the community of the future.

Now this is 1996.

And your Disney historians already know... Walt Disney wasn't alive in 1996. He'd been gone about 25 years.

So sit with that.

He had the vision for this place 25 years before it happened.

That's the length of vision I'm talking about.

And it hit me how much your context changes with age.

When I wrote that journal, I was 31 years old.

So 30 years was my entire life. I had no frame of reference for it.

In high school we called 60s music the oldies. Now I think of 80s music as my jam. Like it was yesterday.

And here's what I do a lot in my journals now.

I make a list of things that are not going to change in 30 years.

Because if you're trying to prepare for what's coming... there's no way to know.

We couldn't have seen any of this.

I could not have told my younger self that I'd get in my car, tell it where I'm going, and it just drives me here. While I command music out of the air.

But that's exactly what happened this morning. My Tesla and Spotify.

I'm going to record this video and people all over the world will see it within 15 minutes.

You cannot tell what's coming.

So don't build on what's coming.

Wrap your vision around what you know won't change.

The sun still comes up. You still get 24 hours. You still need to eat and sleep and do the things you want to do.

That holds still. You can build on that.

I'm so glad I started journaling over 30 years ago. These little time capsules are an amazing exercise.

But here's the part that surprised me.

Reading them doesn't feel like 30 years ago.

What I realized is... this is today.

Every one of those entries only ever happened in a day.