Episode 3-44: Drill For Oil

This new season of the podcast is called Hard Talk in My Soft Top. Soft Top Hard Talk because I’m talking to you from my brand new, new to me, convertible Mustang. The dream car that I got with my ClickFunnels affiliate money, and I got something to talk about with today you guys, and I’ve titled the podcast episode Drilling for Oil.

When you hear the word drilling for oil, I want you to think of this story, there was this guy and he claimed he was a psychic and this old woman came to him, this old widow in Texas, very wealthy woman. She came to him and said, “I need your help. I need you to help me predict where I should drill for oil.” The guy, this pretend psychic saw an opportunity and so what he advised her to do was drill, I think it was something crazy like 50 different holes in these oil-rich fields of Texas. As he was re-telling this story to his friends he said, “You know, you drill enough, eventually you’re going to find oil.”

That is the same kind of though process that I want you to have has you are thinking about publishing, as you are thinking about doing seminars or other live events, as you are thinking about doing a direct mail campaign. Any of the marketing ideas that you have, it’s like drilling for oil. Yes, there’s effort involved. Yes, there’s investment but what if, what if this is the thing that gets you over the hump?

People talk to me about my own marketing campaigns. One of the questions that I get is, or one of the notes that I get is, “Alex, well, it’s easy for you ’cause everything you do works.” I have to laugh because the honest truth is, more campaigns that we run actually don’t work than the ones that do. It’s just that we have learned to iterate, tweak, and optimize things. If it doesn’t work right out of the gate, I don’t consider it a failure, I consider it a lesson. I tweak what I’m doing. I continue to modify the message or the offer or the audience, and then I relaunch. To the outside eye, it may look similar but the reality is, is that we’re making changes on the front end or the back end so that we can strike gold.

We also try a lot of different things. I’ve done a lot of blogging. We are very active on social media. We do a lot of publishing of videos. Why do you we all that? Because we have been able to track what is working, what brings us clients, and then we’re able to make adjustments. When you see as a doubling down, when you see the same ad over and over again on your newsfeed, know that you are seeing the results of us running a campaign that has born fruit, that is just constantly producing, and we’re doubling down, we’re tripling down.

When we look back and we said okay, where did our very best clients come from? They came, and for us, they came from our videos that they watched. Videos on Facebook, and videos on YouTube. What did we do? We just continued to push. We continued to drive home videos. We’re producing a lot of videos. We’re coming at marketing angles from different sides and trying a lot of different titles. We’re about to start syndicating our videos on multiple platforms. Why are we doing this? Because we’ve seen videos work, so we’re doubling and tripling down. We’re going big.

We’ve also noticed that when we send direct mail to our clients that are refunds, our chargebacks and everything else is great reduced so what are we doing? We’re now going big on direct mail. We’re doing a lot of fun stuff with direct mail outreach. We’re even trying, which is going to sound crazy, we’re even trying a cold mail outreach, which is … I’ll let you know how that goes. What’s the point? The point is we keep drilling for oil. This month, the Branning Group has been … I’d have to look at the numbers, but probably one of the best months ever. It’s in the to three. We are doing absolutely phenomenal right now and one of the reasons is because we have just, we continue to do what’s working.

I listen a lot to other people that help me influence my business decisions and one of the people that I listen to is Frank Kern. I love the saying that Frank repeats often. He says, “I’m not where I’m at,” because he’s at the pretty top of his game in the internet marketing world, he’s way up there, he’s doing really good for himself. He said, “You know, I didn’t get here by trying a whole lot of different things and then just keep on trying a whole lot of different things.” He’s like, “I tried a whole lot of different things until I found something that worked. Then I just kept doing that over, and over, and over again.” That’s what we’re doing here at the Branning Group. We have found stuff that works and we just continue doing it over, and over, and over again to bring in new clients, to get our clients to keep coming back to us, to keep them staying with us, and to support them at a higher and higher level.

One of the things that we do that you’re going to start seeing a lot more of is more drilling for oil. We know videos works. We’re going to keep drilling those wells. We know that direct mail works. We’re going to keep using that. We know that social media engagement works. We’re going to keep doing that. We know that our low-end offers are a great way for us to find buyers at a low level and then earn that relationship, so we’re going to keep putting out low-end offers to attract in some of our bigger fish. We’re going to keep doing those things.

We’re also going to try some new things. We’re going to try going live in our groups on a regular basis. We’re going to try our cold direct mail that I mentioned before. We’re going to try that, see how that works. Specifically targeting our ideal client with a high value message and seeing if we can get people on the phone. We’re going to continue digging more wells, and the reason we’re doing it is because we know that there are so many more people out there that we can help.

When I look at the Branning Group as an agency and I see all the success stories … We’re doing a lot of case study videos right now … When I look at those case studies, when I see what we’ve been able to do, yes I’m proud but I also look at it and go, “Man, I really wish that the other people that I see online that are struggling and they’re running ads that I know are not converting, I really wish I could help them as well.” We’re just continuing to push in, to show other people that we exist, because if they don’t know we exist, they can’t hire us. We’re looking to increase our exposure.

One of the things that I want for you, is I want you to look at all the untapped markets as like it is your … If they don’t talk to you, then they may talk to somebody else that’s going to swindle the, so it’s your responsibility to do as much marketing as you can so that your ideal client is not served by someone who doesn’t have their best interest at heart like you do. Your marketing outreach is your responsibility, your direct followup, your persistence in reaching out to them and offering your services, that’s your responsibility. Double down on your effort and just keep going.

Remember, nos are no big deal in sales. One of the things that I hear a lot from my coaching clients that I work with on a one-on-one basis is that they get tired of hearing the word no. I actually look forward to hearing the word no because I know that prospecting as a rhythm to it, just like any other song, prospecting has a rhythm. The prospecting rhythm is no, no, no, no, yes. You’re going to get nos before you get a yes. Go after those nos. Make offers even if you’re going to get rejected. Obviously, don’t make an offer just to make an offer. Make an offer that you know is going to support and serve that client at a high level. That’s going to meet their needs that they’re asking about, but make the offer because the worst thing that can happen is you not making the offer and the prospect that you were talking to have no idea how you can help serve and support them, then they go looking for it somewhere else and end up getting taken by somebody when you could have served and supported them, done a great job for them, and delivered them exactly what they need.

What is my Hard Talk right now? Keep drilling, keep going, keep prospecting, keep following up, because if you don’t do it, somebody else will. You’ll miss out on the client, and they may have a bad experience. This has been my very first Soft Top Hard Talk episode coming at you again later on next Monday and we’re going to be talking about another topic that may be hard to discuss but you got to hear it. This is Alex Branning, your marketing coach. Have a great day you guys.

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