0:02

So the shifts that I made were

0:04

too niche a little bit more and

0:07

to put more of myself into

0:11

my material because let's face

0:13

it, information is everywhere.

0:16

It's prevalent. If you want to know how to do

0:18

anything, you can find

0:20

that on YouTube. But

0:23

what people can't get is

0:25

you. What people can't get everywhere

0:28

is me. When I put my

0:30

own spin on material and when I

0:32

put my personality into it and

0:35

when I become more of the celebrity,

0:37

which is a whole different business model, that's

0:40

when people are going to

0:43

follow you more and of course pay

0:45

for it.

0:46

That was Art Sobczak legendary inside

0:48

sales trainer and author of the book Smart

0:50

Calling: Eliminate the Fear of Failure

0:53

and Rejection from Cold Calling. In

0:55

this episode Art shares what he's learned from creating

0:57

content in many different forms for sales

0:59

professionals for the last 35 years

1:02

and how mastering sales fundamentals helped

1:04

him transition from traditional direct marketing

1:07

to building a thriving business online.

1:09

You definitely don't want to miss this episode, so

1:11

let's jump in.

1:13

You're listening to the content heroes podcast,

1:16

where entrepreneurs, marketers, and creatives

1:18

share how they build profitable businesses

1:21

on their own terms by creating content

1:23

online. And now your

1:25

host, Josiah Goff.

1:28

Welcome to Content Heroes, everyone. I am

1:30

here with Art Sobczak and he

1:32

has been in the content creation

1:35

game for over 35 years, mostly

1:37

focusing on sales training. And

1:39

he has created content in just

1:42

about every form imaginable.

1:44

Thank you so much for being with us here today,

1:46

Art. I really appreciate you being on the show.

1:49

Josiah, thank you so much. It's an honor

1:51

and a pleasure to be here.

1:52

Let's start by talking about your journey and how

1:54

you got into content creation

1:56

and how it's led you to where you are.

1:59

Wow. How much time do we have? So

2:03

a little bit about my business. I focus on

2:06

sales training primarily on

2:08

using the phone in the sales process.

2:10

Way back in the day, when I first started

2:12

my business started at the ripe age of 22

2:15

I left a cushy corporate job

2:17

with the old AT&T when there was just

2:19

one phone company and a partner

2:22

and I went and started a consulting

2:24

company, which really wasn't the smartest

2:26

thing to do at the time because we left a nice

2:28

corporate job with a guaranteed salary for

2:31

a job. Actually , it wasn't even a job

2:33

because we had no clients. We had no revenue coming

2:35

in. So there was a little lesson for anybody

2:38

out there, try to have some revenue coming

2:40

in before you leave the corporate job

2:42

and I know you left the corporate job. You might have

2:44

had kind of a similar story from what I've heard

2:46

about your background. Right?

2:48

I had nothing. Started from scratch.

2:51

But anyway, we were cocky enough

2:53

and naive enough to make it work.

2:55

Being a consulting business, we were teaching

2:57

people how to do telemarketing,

3:00

which at the time back in the

3:02

early eighties was not a bad word. Actually AT&T spent a lot

3:04

of money on showing people how

3:06

they could use telemarketing

3:08

and again, it was business to business inside

3:10

sales as we call it today.

3:12

But my partner left, decided

3:14

he wanted to go to law school and

3:16

I decided I wanted to keep the company and I was going to

3:18

make it work, but I also had enough business savvy

3:21

to realize that consulting is

3:23

not a good business model because

3:25

it's one of those jobs where

3:28

you make yourself obsolete if you do a good job.

3:30

And I thought I need to figure out

3:32

how to get some recurring revenue and

3:35

therefore my first information

3:37

product was born and that was,

3:39

I decided to do a newsletter,

3:42

a sales tips newsletter, and

3:44

actually I started to do that in the first year.

3:46

For the first year I sent it out

3:48

and this was physically mailed. Okay. This

3:51

was on paper because, well, of course there was no internet

3:54

back then. I'd physically mailed

3:56

a sales tips newsletter and build

3:58

up a mailing list to about 300 people.

4:00

And the plan was after a year of people

4:02

receiving this content a nd I was

4:04

going to hopefully get

4:07

people to pay for it. And what

4:09

happened was after a year of sending it out every

4:11

month, I sent out a letter, a

4:13

direct mail letter saying that

4:15

hope y ou've got value from this, I'm going

4:18

to actually ramp it up a little bit more and

4:20

we're going to charge for it. And

4:23

I s ent along an invoice

4:25

saying, of course you're not obligated p ay u p unles you w

4:27

ant to f or $99. And

4:30

s o I had about a 50% response rate. Therefore,

4:33

my first information product was born.

4:35

And then also w hat I

4:37

decided I needed to do was

4:40

be in the speaking of business.

4:43

Speaking was a lot easier than consulting

4:46

b ecause I could go out there and give

4:48

a one hour presentation

4:50

or one day presentation or a couple of day presentations. And

4:53

charge as much as we would for consulting

4:55

gigs. The problem was I was

4:57

terrified of speaking. I

4:59

was pretty good at marketing, but I

5:02

really just didn't want to get up in

5:04

front of people. Which was kind of weird

5:06

because I was a DJ actually in college

5:09

for four years. But again

5:11

decided that if I'm going to make this work I need to go

5:13

out and be the best possible speaker I have

5:15

to be. Went out and got all the information

5:17

I possibly could on it and I

5:19

made myself into a great

5:21

speaker and started picking up speaking

5:24

gigs. Then, a nd I know you wanted to

5:26

keep this within like what a four hour time window here.

5:30

So keeping this in the context of

5:33

c ontent production and marketing, I

5:36

also realized that doing

5:38

speaking gigs was a

5:40

pay for play where you

5:42

go out, you show up, you're basically a high

5:44

paid contractor. Although the money was

5:46

great. I also r ealized I needed some

5:48

additional recurring revenue besides

5:50

the newsletter. So then I thought,

5:52

well how a bout training p

5:55

rograms? So what I did then was

5:57

I recorded a audio training

5:59

course on cassette. It was called telephone selling

6:01

skills. I don't even have a copy a ny m ore, but

6:03

it was six c assette tapes i n a workbook and

6:05

sold that I think for about 200

6:07

bucks at the time, which was a fair amount of money back

6:10

in the day. And people started

6:12

buying it. That was the next information

6:15

product and I can keep going here,

6:17

but it's your show.

6:19

Wow, that's awesome. So where

6:21

did you really start to make

6:23

the transition fully

6:26

over into the online content creation.

6:29

When this thing called the internet started up. If

6:33

you want to do a timeline here, we're still

6:35

back in the

6:38

late eighties and the internet wasn't even a thing until

6:40

what,96? 97? I

6:42

was in content creation and content marketing

6:44

way before this internet thing. And I did

6:47

a lot in that time period. So

6:49

here I was creating all this content and

6:51

by the way, I mean the internet is just, you know, online

6:53

is just a distribution medium. Everything

6:56

I was doing back then, I'm still doing today

6:58

just in a different way. It's kind of funny when

7:00

I see all these online marketers

7:02

doing all these things. And they're falling.

7:05

You know Russell Brunson , who is awesome

7:07

by the way. I've mean I follow him, but do you have

7:09

a lot of people who think that these guys invented this stuff?

7:12

This stuff was rooted back in the old

7:14

direct response marketing back in

7:16

the day, and I don't want to sound like the get off my lawn guy,

7:18

but I was doing these things in print

7:21

way back. What I did was I had

7:23

all this content. People say, well, do you have a

7:25

book? Do you have a book? And I thought, well no, I don't have a book,

7:27

but I've been writing this newsletter for five,

7:29

six years. I've got files and files of

7:31

stuff. I decided, well, what

7:33

I'm going to do is I'm going to come out with a book and

7:35

I went through all my past newsletters, categorize

7:38

them by topic, and put my first book together,

7:40

which was called How to Sell More in Less Time with No Rejection Using

7:43

Common Sense Telephone Techniques. And

7:45

basically I just stitched together everything

7:48

that I had already created and sold by

7:50

the way and put it into

7:52

book form. Released that and

7:54

many of the people who had already been getting the newsletter bought

7:56

the book and then other people were buying

7:59

the book and I was selling that through direct response marketing

8:01

and that was before Amazon by the way. That

8:04

was again a another form of content.

8:07

Also, during the meantime to

8:09

generate leads, what I was doing

8:11

was the form of what's known today as

8:13

the lead magnet. I did several booklets,

8:16

like 29 Telephone Tips

8:18

That Sell. It was a booklet. You

8:20

could send me a self addressed stamped envelope

8:23

and we would send that booklet to you , generated

8:26

thousands of leads that way. Of

8:28

course, when we send that out, then we would sell

8:30

them the book, we would sell them the newsletter,

8:33

sell them on speaking gigs. Then I got into

8:35

the seminar business after that in

8:37

addition to picking up in-house speaking

8:39

clients. And by the way, everything

8:41

that today, I still speak on,

8:44

I've done over 1500 training programs

8:46

over the years. Everything that

8:48

I speak on was first

8:50

something that I wrote and put

8:52

into the newsletter, which then

8:55

up in the book. Today, it's in my podcast.

8:58

I guess the lesson for any content creator

9:00

here is that anytime you create something,

9:02

you can deliver that in all

9:05

different mediums. And

9:07

no one is going

9:09

to get your content and consume

9:12

it in all of the various ways. Because

9:15

one thing that you probably have found

9:17

out is that you have some people who say

9:19

, there's just not podcast people. I've got

9:21

other people who say they're not readers, which

9:23

blows my mind, by the way. Whatever

9:25

we create, we can re-purpose

9:28

in so many different ways. I mean, I'm kind of the King

9:30

of re-purposing. I just don't create something

9:32

once. I'll probably put it out in five or six or

9:34

maybe 10 different formats.

9:36

Wow. So what is your primary

9:38

format these days? Are you still doing writing

9:40

first or are you recording audio video

9:42

first? What does that look like?

9:44

Well, I would say yes, but

9:50

However, it comes out.

9:52

Well, I'm not sure what's first because

9:54

today what my business looks like

9:56

is I still speak for clients. I still

9:58

do the high paid speaking gigs, not

10:01

on the road as much because I can do what

10:03

we're doing here. Can be in front of a camera and

10:05

a microphone, which I do all the time. Delivering

10:07

webinars, delivering seminars, still

10:09

doing some speaking. Little bit pickier

10:12

about what I take on there. And right

10:14

now doing the third edition

10:17

of my flagship book, which is called Smart calling:

10:19

Eliminate the Fear of Failure and Rejection from Cold

10:21

Calling, which really was the first

10:24

book I did with a major publisher. I

10:26

had self-published four of my own books

10:28

before I did one with a major publisher.

10:31

And by the way, major publishers are not in

10:33

the business of selling books. They're in the business

10:35

of printing books. They want us as

10:37

celebrities and speakers and authors to

10:39

sell the books, which I have over the years . So 10

10:42

years after the first edition of that came out.

10:44

I'm doing the third edition right now

10:46

and everything that I'm updating

10:49

in that book, which is about 30% of the

10:51

book is not surprisingly

10:54

everything that I've written since

10:56

the second edition came out seven years ago. And

10:59

I'm stitching it together. I mean, why would I reinvent

11:01

the wheel. And I've got so much more material than I

11:03

could possibly put in that thing. Other

11:05

formats, I've started doing a podcast,

11:08

funny story on the podcast. I did my first

11:10

podcast when the iPod, who

11:13

has one of those, first came out,

11:15

which was probably 10 years ago. Back

11:17

in the day, I just simply did some

11:19

audios, some mp3s,

11:22

and I put them up online. I'm

11:24

not even sure how people were able to download

11:26

them. I gave up on that because

11:28

it wasn't a thing back then. But then

11:30

of course, obviously over time podcasts

11:33

became more popular. Actually

11:36

it exploded in popularity and

11:38

I still was telling myself this story of

11:40

, you know, been there, done that, tried it. But

11:42

then I'm hearing from other people going, Art, you

11:44

have to be doing podcasts. So

11:47

about a year ago, I finally

11:49

looked into it more 'cause a friend of mine said, no

11:52

gotta do it. And I looked at it and thought, oh

11:54

yeah, I should be doing this. As we had

11:56

discussed before, I went from idea

11:58

to first episode in about three

12:00

weeks and now we're about a year into

12:02

it. Well, that's another format. But just

12:05

about, as you said in the introduction,

12:07

I've still got every other format out

12:09

there. I still do a monthly newsletter that

12:12

I started doing 35 years ago. So it's

12:14

like writing a term paper every year for 35

12:16

years. So still

12:19

doing that. We're not printing it anymore.

12:21

We're just doing it as a PDF. I've got

12:23

a Facebook community. I've got a membership

12:26

site where I do a

12:28

monthly webinar. We do a coaching

12:30

call. What else do we do?

12:32

They get the newsletter. As part of that, I've

12:34

archived almost everything that I've

12:36

published over the past 10 years. I've got

12:38

that into another product. Still

12:40

selling our books both in print and

12:43

digitally. I know I'm probably missing

12:45

something else here. A

12:48

blog, an email newsletter

12:50

that goes out every week, just constantly

12:53

publishing content. And one thing I've learned over the

12:55

years is that the more you give,

12:58

the more people are going to want of

13:00

you if you're truly providing value.

13:03

And things have changed though

13:05

dramatically with this

13:07

internet thing. I say that jokingly,

13:10

where there's so much more information

13:13

available today, it's more

13:15

difficult to sell that

13:17

it was when people

13:19

just couldn't go in and type a couple of keystrokes

13:21

and find more information than they could possibly

13:23

ever consume.

13:25

My friend Jeffrey

13:27

Kranz who runs Overthink group, we

13:29

just recorded an episode. There's a really great

13:32

post that he's done on what is content

13:34

marketing and how does it work? And one

13:36

of the things that he touches on in that is

13:38

just that shift of power

13:40

from the businesses into

13:43

the consumer because now the consumer

13:46

can go and find as much information as they want and

13:48

they're making 90% of the decision

13:50

before you even have a chance to know that they

13:53

exist. It's interesting how that

13:55

shift is sort of affected the whole landscape.

13:57

Well, I'll tell you what it changed

13:59

for me and when

14:02

I noticed the sales starting

14:04

to go down probably

14:06

in the, gosh, maybe,

14:09

late 2000, 2009,

14:11

2010 I thought,

14:13

man there's just so much information

14:16

out there and so many more people are giving

14:18

stuff away for free. I've

14:20

got to make some shifts here. So the shifts that

14:23

I made were too

14:25

niche a little bit more and

14:28

to put more of myself into

14:31

my material. Because let's face

14:33

it, information is everywhere.

14:36

It's prevalent. If you want to know how to do anything,

14:39

you can find that

14:41

on YouTube. But

14:43

what people can't get is

14:45

you. What people can't get everywhere

14:49

is me when I put my spin

14:51

on material and when I put my personality

14:54

into it and when I become more

14:56

of the celebrity, which is a whole

14:58

different business model, that's

15:00

when people are going to

15:03

follow you more and of course

15:05

pay for it, which is really all that matters because

15:07

last time I checked, my mortgage company

15:10

would not take followers and likes as

15:12

payment.

15:14

So much there and it's great that

15:16

you have such a

15:18

higher level perspective on the whole industry.

15:20

Having gone through that transition of pre-internet

15:23

days into the internet days and then

15:25

making those shifts where

15:28

I feel like some people couldn't make those shifts

15:30

and fell off the radar, but you've made

15:32

those shifts and you've adapted. Your

15:35

business seems to be thriving as a result.

15:38

There's a lot that I wanted to touch on there in

15:40

that whole journey. Can we go back

15:43

to the podcast? One

15:45

of the things that you talked about was how

15:47

you went from idea

15:50

to first episode in what you say three weeks?

15:53

Yeah.

15:54

What did that process look like for you? What was kind of

15:56

going through your head? Because I know a lot of

15:58

people get really hung up actually taking

16:01

that leap and committing to it. You've

16:03

been doing this for years, so was that still

16:05

a challenge for you or did you just sort

16:07

of jump in? What did that look like?

16:09

No, I think I had a little bit of an advantage

16:11

because I have created

16:13

so many different types of products

16:16

and I've tried so many different things and not

16:18

everything worked. So number one,

16:20

I didn't care about

16:22

possible failure because it really wasn't

16:25

even a thought for me. I thought,

16:27

okay well other people were doing this, I

16:30

can make it work. It can't be that hard

16:32

and whatever I need to know I'm

16:34

going to go find out how to do it. I

16:36

had the content part covered 'cause I knew

16:39

that I have tons of content and

16:41

I also had contacts all over so I knew

16:43

guests weren't going to be an issue. And

16:46

what I also didn't want to do was

16:48

to go out there and copy other podcasts.

16:51

I listened to a few and I knew what I didn't

16:53

want. What I didn't want was

16:56

to waste people's time with

16:58

fluff and that's always been

17:00

a big motivator for me. And

17:03

anybody that's heard me speak or fall away

17:05

material will know that because I'm big on the how

17:07

to not the should do. Oh , you

17:09

know you should do this and you should get to

17:11

decision makers and you should ask questions. I'm

17:14

going to tell you exactly what to say and

17:16

how to do it. As far as the podcast,

17:18

whenever I start something new and I recommend

17:20

this strategy, I go into mass information

17:23

accumulation mode. When I started my

17:25

blog 10 years ago, I went

17:27

out and bought every book available

17:30

on Amazon on blogging. Probably

17:32

20 of them. Some were good, some were not.

17:34

I took the best and then just

17:36

jumped into it. Too many people get paralyzed

17:39

by, oh my gosh, well what if this doesn't work

17:41

in this and that? As opposed to what's

17:43

the worst thing could happen if I just do it right? But

17:46

do it from an informed perspective.

17:49

So I went out and I joined one of the

17:52

popular membership sites. It was John Lee Dumas

17:54

on podcasting, which was great. You picked

17:56

up great stuff. A lot of it was for somebody

17:58

who's been doing marketing for a while . It was common

18:00

sense, but for someone who has it, it was golden.

18:02

It was step-by-step. And a

18:05

lot of this stuff, I mean, I already had the technical

18:07

stuff. I mean, I've already set up, I have a studio

18:09

gear, I've got microphones. I've been doing audio for

18:12

over 20 years, so that was not an issue.

18:14

The software, as far as getting it up, that

18:16

wasn't a problem. Yeah , I do the artwork

18:18

. Sometimes people agonize over omg

18:21

get the colors just right. Nobody cares. It's

18:24

a podcast, right? Let's just get that first

18:26

thing up there. Then they agonize over,

18:28

well, you know, if nobody's listening, well, nobody's probably

18:31

going to be listening for the first few. Who cares?

18:33

I was lucky. I've got a list of 25,000

18:36

people and followers, so immediately

18:38

I started getting people listening. I've got a Facebook

18:40

group of over a thousand, so I had a built-in

18:42

audience already. It wasn't

18:45

that difficult, but if somebody is out

18:47

there saying, well, you know , geez , I don't have

18:49

all that stuff. So what? Most people

18:51

don't, but everybody

18:54

has to start somewhere. As

18:56

we were talking before, once

18:59

you start and you put things in motion,

19:01

then the road appears. Once the journey

19:03

starts. Many of the things that we

19:05

fear are unfounded because

19:08

they never happen anyway. So if

19:10

anybody's thinking about doing it, go out,

19:12

educate yourself, but then get in motion

19:14

and you're going to find that it's not as

19:16

difficult or as imposing

19:19

as it looks.

19:20

That's great. I'm curious, you

19:22

talk about really valuing

19:24

the how-to, the action steps.

19:27

What would be some of your

19:29

key action steps for actually launching

19:32

the podcast? And I'm half asking because

19:34

I just launched and I want to kind

19:36

of pick your brain a bit about how do I go about

19:38

promoting it and growing that audience. If you're just starting

19:40

from scratch, how do you get started?

19:43

What would be the steps you would take?

19:44

I'm not sure if I'm the best person to ask because

19:47

again, I had

19:49

the advantage of an audience already and in the people

19:52

that I studied who are doing extraordinarily

19:54

well, they already had a list. The

19:56

ones that didn't have a list, I mean, I'm not sure

19:58

how big your list is here. I'm not sure

20:00

how you would go about doing

20:03

the marketing on that other than

20:05

if you're going out and getting some

20:07

big names, of course you want them

20:09

to promote for you. I know some people have

20:12

started that way and they got some traction

20:14

to begin with. I would say be consistent

20:17

and don't get down. I saw,

20:20

what was the number? Maybe you've seen this. Most

20:22

podcasts don't make it past the first 10 episodes.

20:25

Well, what's going to happen is once you have

20:27

self integrity and consistency,

20:30

it just becomes non-negotiable.

20:32

You continue doing it and you put a promotion

20:34

plan in place. You're a savvy promoter

20:36

just based on what you've told me so far to get

20:38

the reviews that you've gotten, I would continue

20:41

doing that. I would get people

20:43

to share with their

20:46

audience and share this with mine.

20:48

You're going to get some traction that way.

20:51

There's a number of best practices out there.

20:53

I'm not the expert on this. I would encourage

20:55

you to like you have is go

20:57

get the books, go study the people that

21:00

do this for a living. If you already

21:02

have an audience, blast it out to them

21:04

at every opportunity and I'm not beyond

21:07

begging for people to share. As

21:11

I do in many of my episodes. And that

21:13

the thing is that if we truly have a message

21:16

that needs to be heard, we need

21:18

to, as both of us follow Jim

21:21

Fortin, as Jim says, we need to go to the top

21:23

of the mountain and scream about it. Not

21:25

just keep it to ourselves.

21:26

Yeah. I love that. I love. One of the things that Jim

21:29

says a lot that has really changed the

21:31

game for me is we get into

21:33

this sort of comparison game comparing

21:35

ourselves to other people and that's what

21:38

keeps us from taking that leap

21:40

a lot of the times and a mantra

21:43

that I've adopted from Jim is stop

21:45

asking myself if I'm good enough and ask myself,

21:47

what does the world need? And by shifting

21:49

that focus off of me and onto

21:51

like how I can serve people that just

21:53

dissolves that whole fear because it's not about me anymore.

21:56

And then I can show up and I can let

21:58

whatever needs to happen happen and facilitate

22:00

it where I can, but then just still stay

22:03

detached from it so that I don't

22:05

get caught up in my own head. I love

22:07

that.

22:07

And that is such great advice. There

22:10

are so many people who are sitting

22:12

in the sidelines right now who had

22:14

the same idea that you did and

22:16

still have that idea. And they're not doing anything

22:18

because they're worried about what

22:20

some people may think. People they don't

22:22

know who they will never ever talk

22:25

to. Why in the world would

22:27

we care about them or they're

22:29

comparing themselves to some of the biggest podcasters

22:32

out there. I'm looking at this

22:34

as again, just an additional

22:36

mechanism where I can help

22:38

more people and I am to the point

22:40

in my career where the money

22:43

is great but I'm not doing it just

22:45

for the money. And I truly do think

22:47

about how many more people can

22:49

I help? If I compared myself

22:51

to some of the huge podcasters out there,

22:53

I'd probably say, Oh , what's the use ? Um

22:56

, less than a year into it, we're going to hit 100,000

22:58

downloads. Probably next week. Jim

23:01

hit a million already. And he's been in less

23:04

than a year. If I looked at that going omg I only have a tenth of that. Who cares? I mean

23:08

, because I'm looking at all the people

23:11

that have already contacted me saying,

23:13

omg, I got this idea and this one

23:15

helped me close a big deal. There are so many

23:17

more people out there, so I would encourage

23:19

anybody listening to this. If you're sitting back

23:22

and you're worried about - what is somebody going to

23:24

think and am I good enough? Like Josiah

23:26

just said, if you have a message that you

23:28

feel is worthy of broadcasting

23:30

out there, go out there and scream about

23:32

it. Don't worry about what somebody

23:35

might think about you.

23:36

That's awesome. One of the things that you said

23:39

that I found is really interesting is that you're still

23:41

doing the newsletter. How long have you been doing the newsletter

23:43

for now?

23:44

We're in our 35th year. Longer

23:47

than you've been on the earth.

23:50

That's it. Oh, that's amazing.

23:53

The format changed a little bit though because you're emailing

23:55

it out now.

23:56

Yeah. Originally it was printed on paper

23:58

and let me tell you how we published this back

24:00

in the day. People are going to laugh. It wasn't

24:03

typesetting like they used to do in the day. We actually

24:05

had a printer that was a Daisy

24:07

wheel. You might be able to look this up. It

24:10

was a Daisy wheel that actually looked like typewriter

24:12

print. We were printing out the copy

24:14

and then we would cut it out with scissors

24:16

and then paste it up onto a template

24:19

and then take that

24:21

to a printer. That was our typesetting and

24:24

then in I think the late

24:27

eighties, Xerox

24:30

came out with this software called

24:33

Xerox Ventura , which was the first typesetting

24:36

software, which I know today

24:38

to people they're probably saying, what the hell is he talking

24:40

about? But I invested in that, which

24:43

was probably about $2,000 at the time,

24:45

which was probably like $10,000 in today's

24:47

money. And got the software, which made it look

24:49

like magazine print. It was amazing.

24:52

Then after that of course then we

24:55

just followed the technology. So I've always been kind

24:57

of a technology geek. And

24:59

actually we just stopped mailing it out

25:02

physically probably within the last

25:04

three or four years, which I'm not totally

25:06

sure that I might not go back

25:08

to mailing it out. Because if you think

25:10

about it, mail is not dead. Physical

25:13

mail, if it is something that someone's

25:15

interested in, we open up first

25:17

class mail. If it's something that

25:19

we subscribe to, I mean I still get some physical

25:21

newsletters and I mean I will rip

25:23

those things open and start reading them as soon as I get them.

25:26

Yeah, it's interesting how that

25:28

has shifted back a bit to where

25:30

everything was just pushed online

25:33

until we've just oversaturated

25:35

everything online. As soon

25:37

as something new comes out, we just oversaturate

25:39

that. I've heard that, too. Like

25:42

people have started supplementing their

25:44

online campaigns with more physical

25:47

and they'll actually like mail out packages and put

25:49

little, I think John Jantsch had talked about

25:51

this putting something bumpy inside of

25:53

it. So they actually open it up. They've seen really

25:55

great ROI on getting

25:57

that sort of thing in place. So it's interesting

26:00

how it's getting a resurgence.

26:01

For some people, it's never gone away. And

26:04

again, I built my business originally

26:06

using direct mail. And

26:09

a person who I can actually call a friend

26:11

because I knew him since way back in the

26:13

day. And he's in ill health right now. Hopefully he's

26:15

gonna make it as Dan Kennedy. And Dan

26:17

Kennedy to me is one of the greatest

26:19

direct marketers of all time. And Dan

26:22

coined the term lumpy mail, which is

26:24

what you're talking about. Which is

26:26

putting something in an envelope that is

26:28

three dimensional. Some people call it 3D mail.

26:31

When you get something in a package that

26:34

just looks a little weird naturally it's going

26:36

to create some attention

26:38

and get open. And that's the goal of all

26:40

direct mail first, get open, then get read .

26:43

Yeah. I've even seen that even without the bumpy

26:45

mail, some local businesses

26:48

have actually handwritten on

26:50

the envelope or have stuck like a sticky

26:53

note on the inside that they handwrote on

26:55

top of their printed thing. And I opened

26:57

it and I read it like it totally

26:59

worked. Even if it's not like really

27:01

personalize, it feels personalized because

27:03

there's just that little touch of handwriting on it.

27:05

I actually have to laugh because those things were

27:07

being used in the

27:10

late seventies, early eighties. The

27:14

sticky note and another one is

27:16

you get something that looks like actually a

27:18

page torn out of a magazine or newspaper,

27:21

an ad with a sticky note on it

27:23

saying - Josiah, I thought you might find this

27:26

interesting, And of course it's all planned

27:28

and it's all automated, but it looks like it's

27:30

personalized. And again, those things have been going

27:32

on forever. And yeah, they're

27:34

making a resurgence. And and why is that?

27:36

Because they work. You're right. I mean I've

27:39

been around and have used most of every

27:41

new shiny object that's come out

27:43

because it's the new thing. Let's

27:46

face it, the fundamentals work.

27:48

Yeah, absolutely. So we've

27:50

covered a lot of stuff, starting

27:52

off doing direct mail

27:54

and then the newsletter and speaking

27:57

and consulting and then

27:59

transitioning more online podcasts

28:01

, Facebook group. Do you have a YouTube channel.

28:05

My big question here is like how do you keep track

28:07

of all of that? Do you have a team behind

28:09

you ? You have like a bunch of processes in place? What

28:11

does that look like logistically?

28:13

I have to say that I am

28:16

not a good business person

28:18

in the sense that I delegate

28:20

a lot. Over the years I've

28:23

going from having staff,

28:25

I mean an office building and

28:28

I learned really early on that

28:30

I was a great salesperson, a

28:33

great marketer, a great speaker,

28:35

not a good manager, and not

28:37

a good delegator. I really

28:39

didn't like the thought of having to manage a

28:42

lot of employees. And as a

28:44

result of that I didn't get to be as big

28:46

as I probably could have been with

28:48

a hundred employees and you know $100 million in sales

28:50

and all that, but that's okay because I've done okay. It's not

28:52

how much you make, it's how much you keep. To

28:54

answer your question, right now

28:57

I am pretty much a one man band

28:59

with some contractors

29:02

and having some virtual stuff done.

29:04

I do have a lot going on, but

29:07

the thing is that there is

29:09

no such thing as time management. There's

29:11

only priority management. And

29:13

people waste so much

29:16

time by not

29:18

doing things that actually

29:20

give them a result. It's not that tough

29:22

to throw up some posts. It's not that tough

29:25

to write something that

29:27

is going to provide some value. Once

29:29

you have a process in place, it's not that tough

29:32

to do a YouTube video because you don't

29:34

have to reinvent the wheel every single

29:36

time. Plus again,

29:38

once you create something, you

29:40

can put it out there in a variety of

29:42

different mechanisms and you can use

29:45

the automation for a lot of it, as well.

29:47

I'm not sure if you're doing this, but with the podcast,

29:49

I've got some software that as soon

29:51

as the podcast goes up, it actually

29:53

creates a blog post and WordPress

29:56

that it actually creates a

29:59

YouTube video and it

30:01

actually creates a Facebook post. So

30:03

all that's done, once I hit publish

30:06

in my podcast software.

30:08

I knew you could do some of that automation, but I

30:10

definitely have not taken it to that level yet. So

30:13

much great stuff here Art.

30:16

Before we start to wrap up, one

30:18

last question. You've done so much over

30:20

the course of the last 35 years. For

30:22

the people who are early

30:24

and just kind of getting started today, what

30:27

would be the one, two, three

30:29

things that you feel like would

30:33

help them the most to really

30:35

start crushing it with online content?

30:37

That's a great question and

30:39

it's different today than it would have been 15

30:42

years ago. So here is what

30:44

I would suggest. Number one,

30:46

there's that old phrase, there's riches

30:48

in the niches. And that is so true.

30:51

Because there's so much noise out there today

30:53

because there's so much free information.

30:55

I would suggest that you pick

30:58

an area that you can own.

31:00

Okay? And you may not be the best at

31:02

it , but you don't need to be the very best at it. But

31:05

you should strive to become the

31:07

best at it. And I mean better

31:09

than excellent, become the guy

31:11

or the gal who is

31:14

going to be known for that particular

31:16

area. You don't need to

31:18

pick a big niche. I mean you can pick a small

31:21

niche. Pat Flynn talks about

31:23

how you can make a business with a thousand

31:25

super fans and actually I think he

31:27

got that from somebody else and that's true.

31:30

It is amazing to me. If you Google anything,

31:33

what you can pull up because there are people

31:35

who are interested in the most obscure

31:38

stuff. So pick a niche, become

31:40

a specialist, and just become frickin'

31:43

awesome at it. Then

31:45

what I would suggest is

31:47

do not be afraid

31:49

to go out there and put yourself out

31:52

there. People will say, oh my gosh,

31:54

you know, I'm not good at video

31:56

or my voice. People don't care.

31:59

Okay, what people want is

32:01

they want to relate to you. And

32:04

that's one thing that it took me awhile

32:06

to actually embrace. And

32:09

actually I was kind of forced into it because I had to

32:11

differentiate even more. There's

32:14

only one of you. Anybody

32:16

can put out the same kind of information

32:18

as you, but there's only one of you. Now,

32:21

there were people, for example, in my business

32:23

who have built huge businesses

32:26

based on their celebrity. And

32:29

their material isn't any better than mine. Matter of fact,

32:31

I'll put my material way above

32:34

theirs, but they're tremendously successful

32:37

because they've made themselves into a celebrity. How

32:39

did they do that? They put themselves out

32:41

there and they were different. And

32:44

I'm not outrageous, but you know,

32:46

I'm not saying don't do it yourself. 'Cause

32:48

there are some people out there, they're known

32:50

for screaming and ranting and raving

32:52

and you're going to get some followers. So whatever

32:55

your shtick is, I would suggest

32:57

that you have something that differentiates

33:00

you. Some people could say that's your brand.

33:02

Again, whatever that is, that

33:05

is one thing that nobody else

33:07

in the world has. So if you combine

33:09

that with awesome, awesome

33:12

content in a niche. Now

33:14

you've got a formula for just

33:16

crushing it out there. And

33:19

if you have all those things, the world needs you.

33:21

So you need to make sure that you're out there

33:23

and telling people about it. Screaming about

33:25

it.

33:26

Awesome. Oh, this has been so great

33:28

art. Before we sign off.

33:31

Will you just share with us where

33:33

everyone can find you online?

33:35

Yeah, they can find me all over the place. But

33:39

if you want to contact me directly

33:41

I would say start at my blog

33:43

site, which is smartcalling.com. Smart

33:46

Calling is my flagship book and

33:49

product. We're transitioning actually over to

33:51

that, so go to smartcalling.com. I've

33:53

got tons of free stuff there. You can

33:55

connect with me on LinkedIn. My

33:58

name is Art Sobszak S-O-B,

34:00

you remember the S-O-B part, C-Z-A-K.

34:04

Connect with me there and if you do, mention

34:06

that you heard me on the podcast because

34:08

I'm big on non-generic

34:11

LinkedIn connection requests. Matter of fact,

34:13

I have a video, a YouTube video on

34:15

how to do that.

34:16

Art, this has been so great. Thank you so much for

34:18

being on the show. We really appreciate it.

34:20

Josiah, my pleasure. Let's do it again

34:22

and I know your podcast is going to

34:25

crush it out there.

34:26

Hey everyone, thank you for listening to the Content

34:28

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34:30

a second and let you know that we have some amazing

34:32

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