Episode 120 – Jeff Beale

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Automated Transcription

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Jeff Beale 0:00
Many of you out there listening probably have experienced this. It usually happens around Thanksgiving. Every year Thanksgiving, we start to sit around and have meetings. And we have meetings where the executive team comes in and tells you how great you have been, how much ROI over last year, you’ve improved. And we’re about to give bonuses, and give bonuses to the executive team, you as a staff member don’t see your bonus. And they tell you how many millions of dollars you have raised this year for the company. But yet, you look at your salary, and it does not increase your morale. Like, I made you billions, and I can’t even get a $2 raise. But yet this executive gets a bonus. But I’m doing the work. That’s where the language is start, you know, they’re like, “Well, when I come back off this holiday break, I’m not working hard. You know, how much just do just enough? I’ve heard this cliche. They said that workers do just enough not to get fired. And employers give you just as much just enough salary for you.” And that’s … that? And so when you start to realize that you can say like with your team, let’s incentivize you by giving you skin in the game. If you can hit the numbers, this is your reward. You know, everybody be on the same page. Or you can have time off. I mean, you know, there’s many different ways to incentivize.

Richard Matthews 1:43
… 3-2-1.

Welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and today I am live on the line with Mr. Marketology himself. Jeff Beale. Jeff, are you there?

Jeff Beale 2:46
Yes, I’m here. Hi. Thanks for having me on the show.

Richard Matthews 2:50
Awesome. Glad to have you here. So you’re coming in from Atlanta, Georgia. You said you said which is pretty cool. And we haven’t been there yet. In our travels for our audience who’s still watching where we’re going. We are still stuck in Kissimmee, Florida for our COVID crisis. Hopefully you guys are doing all right up there and everyone is safe and healthy.

Jeff Beale 3:07
Yes, yes. And you say stuck … Kissimmee is a bad place to be stuck, you’re right around Mickey Mouse and everybody else.

Richard Matthews 3:16
We tried really hard to get, we knew the lockdowns were coming, we tried really hard to get stuck in this particular resort. And so we’ve been quite enjoying our stuckedness, if that makes sense. For someone who’s used to traveling every couple of weeks, every three to four weeks, being here for four months has been a little bit. I don’t know what you call it, you know, we feel a little bit trapped, even though it’s a nice place to be but you know, you take the silver lining, we got a you know, got a nice lake and a pool and the kids are having a good time. So it is what it is.

Jeff Beale 3:47
Yes, yes.

Richard Matthews 3:48
So what I want to do real quick, then is run through a quick introduction for who you are for our audience who may not know you, and then we’ll jump into your story. So, Jeff is a best selling author and marketing strategist, he helps businesses leverage their knowledge to gain authority status, and their industry uses something you call authority marketing to generate higher converting leads. So what I want you to start off with Jeff, is tell us a little bit about your business now. Who is it that you serve? What do you offer them? And you know, who’s sort of your target audience?

Jeff Beale 4:20
Okay, yes, I have the Marketology Group. And what we do is basically we help businesses better strategize, I guess you say build better strategies. Most businesses don’t have a revenue problem. They really just have a strategy problem. And so we help bring to light and make that more practical. We help companies that are looking to emerge in their actual market and build market share. Really, the bottom line is they’re looking at growth. And they need to figure out ways to understand how they can grow where the holes are in the boat. How to plug those holes and move forward. So that’s really what we do, in a nutshell.

Richard Matthews 5:07
Do you do your work for specific types of companies like specific sites or specific industries or anything?

Jeff Beale 5:12
Typically, here’s the thing, we work for companies that are already marked. We don’t work as much with startups and new companies. We work with companies that typically have already have a marketing department or a marketing agency, they already have marketing in place. And they’re looking to advance that typically, these companies brains around, you know, a few million dollars a year revenue. Usually, they’ll have a staff of maybe five to 15 different people in marketing, that they’re looking at being more effective with that marketing and more efficient with their staff. So that’s really the caveat. I know a lot of people go with demographics as far as they need to be making X amount of dollars annual, so over so on. But most of the companies we look at psychologically, their mindset is we are stuck right now with marketing that fails. We know we need to market, we are already marketing. And we need to just take this to the next level.

Richard Matthews 6:17
Awesome. Awesome. And I assume you have a different approach than other people for building a marketing strategy for those companies.

Jeff Beale 6:25
I do. I look at, let’s get into the minds of your audience. Can we? Now this is in line with The Hero Show? Can we telepathically get in their heads? And if we know what they’re thinking, then you can convince them to do different things that you want them to do. Every time I speak at conferences, I tell people, have you ever said something to a friend and all of a sudden you start seeing ads all over your social media in your phone? It’s up on you like, wow, we were just talking about that? Well, it’s not magic. It’s marketing. But how can we do that? The only way we can do that is understanding who our customer is, and how to think like they think to start control only – Well, I wouldn’t say control that’s so such a villainous term, control what they think, but starting to get into their head and giving them, suggesting things that make it seem as if it’s their idea. And that approach is the approach that I take to marketing versus the old marketing, which is push marketing, we’re going to do these ads, and we’re going to do a commercial, and we’re going to keep pushing in your face, We’re the best! We’re the best! We’re the best! Until you submit to us. You know, that’s really the different approach that we take.

Richard Matthews 7:50
I really like that. It’s actually we run a podcasting agency that works with businesses and what type of businesses, and a lot of what I coach is helping them build a content machine out of their podcasts. So they get a lot of goodwill in their marketplace, because of the content that they’re creating. And they’re showing up everywhere. Same kind of approach where you know, we just do a single part of their marketing strategy, which is the content portion. But it’s that same kind of idea that you can show up everywhere, everywhere. And you can do it in a way that provides goodwill into the marketplace. And you know, have it be a good part of your strategy. So it’s really cool to see that you guys are doing that, like I assume on a whole, you know, all encompassing sort of basis.

Jeff Beale 8:34
Yes, is Omni channel. So we look at different channels, we don’t, you know, specify one, like some people will say do Facebook ads, we look at what works for your company, and then capitalizing on what works. And then, what doesn’t work we need to fix it or we did. So fix it or did it? How did it work together?

Richard Matthews 9:00
So what I want to find out then is how you ended up in this place? Where you are working with businesses and doing the marketing work that you’ve you’re doing we talk about this as your origin story, right? Every good comic book hero has an origin story. It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today. We want to hear that story. Basically, you know, were you born a hero. Were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you fall in love with marketing? Or did you start a job and eventually move into becoming an entrepreneur yourself? Basically just want to know where you came from?

Jeff Beale 9:26
Oh, yes. And I kind of wasn’t born a marketer. I was pushed out of my boss’s window and then as I was falling down to plummet my death, I finally learned marketing. So that’s really how it worked.

Richard Matthews 9:43
Parachute on the way down.

Jeff Beale 9:45
No parachute, just all wind and sudden death. And then all of a sudden, I was reborn into marketing. I was in the military. And I was in control of the website for the Air Force. And I told my boss, basically, this sucks. And like the website sucks. So he said that you think you can do better, do better. Now, do better was not with better pay, this was just more tasks. And so as I’m getting into the website and learning web design, I said, “Well, we have a symposium. And the way you’re having people register isn’t efficient.” And of course, my big mouth got me pushed back out the window again, do better then. So, I had to learn how to drive more traffic to the website. So from there, I transitioned out of the military into corporate America into an agency that focused on government contracts. So with this, I learned how to leverage relationships and leverage, I guess you say, marketing to the government, from an agency point of view, then I moved to 360i, which was a award winning agency in SEO, and SEM. So I started learning paid in organic search early on, this was around 2000, to 2003. So it was very early on. So I started learning a little bit about that from an agency point of view. And so it’s really there. Oh, yes, different point of view, definitely different way of looking at things. Agencies look at things different than in-house. And that is the beauty of it all, because they’re removed from the politics of the workplace. And they are, have their ear to the ground when it comes to different trends. Well, before a lot of these companies even know that they exist. So we’re in an agency, I learned a lot. That was my going to see Yoda. That was sitting in front of the master in learning. Because you’re, you’re really sitting in the seats of the best, these guys are on top of it. So I learned a lot in the agency world. But in the agency, where I learned that there’s different people in the agency, most people don’t realize the reason agencies cost so much is because you pay all the people. You have the technician, they’re the ones that do the grunt work. You have the specialists, they specialize in certain things, you have the manager that manages them, and you have the account manager. You usually interact with the account manager, and the account manager just has a working knowledge, but they don’t really know how to do it. They just have a working knowledge to tell you, this is what’s being done. Exactly. And so being a manager in an agency, I learned all the components of what it takes to make that work. And make it work for a company and the expectation. That’s the key. And agencies expectations that keep you long term by showing you results, that keeps you paying the retainer, over and over. In-house looking at we just want revenue and results, we don’t really care how you do. The employees of the in-house is looking like we’re only getting paid a certain amount of money, we’re not getting extra for extra results. So we want to minimize the amount of time we have to work for you. We don’t want to work nights, weekends and holidays. But we still want to get the same pay. So everybody’s expectations and agendas are different. And so I started to see that I started to realize that. So moving from agency, I was catapulted into the planet of in-house. So I started working for companies and being their in-house marketing executive. So, I got a chance to see it from an executive point of view, versus from, I guess you would say an employee or a staff worker point of view. So that was really interesting, because the executives point of view is totally different from the employee or the staff member executive, we’re looking at the bottom line, we want to look at revenue numbers. And again, we don’t care what it takes to get it nights, weekends, whatever. And employees like we’re not gonna pay any additional for the revenue being increased. And we want to go home early. And you know, so everybody’s agenda was different. I started to realize the language was different. So have you ever seen office space?

Richard Matthews 14:54
I have.

Jeff Beale 14:55
All right. You remember when the … came in and they asked the one guy, what do you do here? He says, “Well, I take the documents from the technician to the client.” And they were like, “why can’t the technician take it to the client?” He said, “Because I’m a people person.” What he was saying was, the language is different. They are talking one language, and the executive is talking in a different language. And they’re not hearing what each other is saying. So, I was able to speak the language, because now I could speak. I could speak Klingon, I could actually speak with the technicians we’re talking to because I knew how to do it. So, I knew where they were coming from. I could speak executive because I knew what they were looking for. And I said at the meetings, and the board meetings, and so forth, so I knew what they were looking for. I could speak agency, because I’ve already worked at an agency Management Agency. And so I said, “Wow, that’s my power. That’s my superpower.” I can make the marketing practical. Because I can speak in languages in different silos, and make them all work together. Because everyone is not hearing what each other’s saying, because they don’t understand the language. They don’t know what people’s expectations and end goals are. They’re just looking at their own. And that’s when I put my cape on and realize, hey, you’ve got something. So I emerged from the corporate world, and started my own consultancy. And I started consulting and advising with different companies, I’m talking with them and their teams on how they could put together better strategies, keeping everybody’s agenda in mind, and putting in and baking it into the strategy. So it will become what was practical, and I didn’t come up with the practical angle, I literally started hearing that over and over again, from clients. You make things practical, it’s practical, it’s practical, I say, well, that’s the value. The value isn’t the marketing, the marketing strategies, they come and they go, the actual marketing aspect isn’t powerful. If you don’t ever implement it. If you never take the action. It’s never never gonna work. But the reason people aren’t taking action, because they’re not understanding it in a practical term, in a way that everybody buys in, and wants to make it work. And so that’s when I started realizing, building out the strategies and making it practical, is really the strength versus saying, “Let me show you how to do Facebook ads.” “Let me show you how to do this.” And given them the technical aspect of more.

Richard Matthews 17:48
There’s a lot of truth to that. And, you know, I know in my career, I had a similar path where I had, I was working with some companies that would teach me marketing, and then I started my own agency. And then, I got into an executive position as a marketing director, and learned how all that stuff worked on that side, and then went back into my own agency after that. And it was interesting, because one of the things that I did, and you mentioned, you know, not having the same motivations as the Director of Marketing, I was like, “I want part of my compensation to be based on the results that we generate.”

Jeff Beale 18:23
Yeah.

Richard Matthews 18:24
So we. And so it worked out that way. And actually, we were able to build that into the whole marketing team, where so the marketing team was actually compensated for the results. Instead of not being compensated as a practical thing, right. You want them to be as excited as the executive team about the things so we reward them for it.

Jeff Beale 18:46
Yeah, you got to incentivize. I mean, here’s the thing. I know, you know, and many of you out there listening probably have experienced this. It usually happens around Thanksgiving. Every year on Thanksgiving, we start to sit around and have meetings. And we have meetings where the executive team comes in and tells you how great you have been, how much ROI over last year, year-over-year you’ve improved. And we’re about to give bonuses. They give bonuses to the executive team, you as a staff member don’t see a bonus. And they tell you how many millions of dollars you have raised this year for the company. But yet you look at your salary, and it does not increase. Kills morale, be like I made you millions and I can’t even get a $2 raise. But yet, this executive gets a bonus, but I’m doing the work. That’s where the language is stark. You know, they’re like, “Well, when I come back off of this holiday break, I’m not working hard.” You know, I’m gonna just do just enough. I’ve heard this cliche. They said that workers do just enough not to get fired. And employers give you just as much, just enough salary for you not to quit. And that’s the … And so when you start to realize that you can say like with your team, “Let’s incentivize you by giving you skin in the game. If you can hit these numbers, this is your reward.” You know, everybody is on the same page, or you can have time off. I mean, you know, there’s many different ways.

Richard Matthews 20:35
That’s really cool. And I love the discussion of language being your superpower. So I want to introduce and talk a little bit about your superpower, right? We say every iconic hero has their superpower, right? Whether that’s fancy flying suit made by genius, intellect, or the ability to call down thunder from the sky, in the real world heroes have what I call a zone of genius. It’s a skill or set of skills that we’re born with, or developed over time. Sounds like you’ve developed yours, over time working with these, but it’s the superpower that sets you apart and allows you to help people slay their villains, so to speak, and come out on top in their own journeys. So I want you to talk a little bit more about this superpower as a language. Because I always think language is probably one of the most fascinating things that we have. Because it you know, it goes all the way down into how we think and how we communicate. And everything that we do is all based on language, our dreams are all in language. So I’m going to talk a little bit more about that superpower and sort of how you came to the conclusion that language was your superpower?

Jeff Beale 21:35
So I started to, like, realize that I was sitting in two different seats over my career, I started observing how my coworkers looked at different things that were said, and how they approached different campaigns based on how they were directed. And I started to sit there and notice that everybody, even your customers, and audience are self-serving. So if you don’t have something in it for them, they’re not interested. You know, so that was the thing. So as I’m sitting in these meetings, I’m listening to these intelligent individuals. Talk about how great they were in their programs. And so I’m sitting in. I’m looking at that across the board. And then the majority of people I’m noticing in these meetings, are saying my departments doing this, this and this. And we’re accomplishing another and then another department saying no, they’re not that great. We’re doing this business. And the executive, they’re just saying, “Well, we don’t really care, we want to see what revenue you’re bringing in.” And I started realizing the language that they’re speaking is “I want to be acknowledged and appreciated.” And at the end of the day, just like your children, they want to be loved, acknowledged and appreciated by the parents.

Richard Matthews 23:04
So I got a whole pile of me, you probably hear him in the background. So I know that one for sure.

Jeff Beale 23:08
I mean, we all want it. We all want it. And so when I started realizing that. I started looking at a lot of these guys who are just doing busy work. They’re not pushing the needle that is doing busy work. And they come in and they skew the numbers. So the numbers look good for their department. But they’re not. There’s no initiative for them, besides a pat on the back. So I started looking at first of all, how can we understand the language of the audience, your customers, what do they want to hear? What do they really want? And a lot of times we don’t look at what they want because we’re so focused on what we offer. And honestly, they don’t care what you offer at all. They want the results just like the executives they want with … Fast food is what used to be my guilty pleasure. But it’s not the food. … very seldom that you go to a fancy restaurant say, “Man, that was a gourmet meal. That was awesome.” The food usually isn’t that good. It’s convenient. And you want the convenience.

Richard Matthews 24:24
There’s one one exception to that In and Out Burger makes burgers that are just next otherworldly.

Jeff Beale 24:30
Really we don’t have it out here in Atlanta.

Richard Matthews 24:34
You need to visit San Diego at some point and go to an In and Out Burger and you’ll have the one exception to the rule that fast food isn’t fantastic.

Jeff Beale 24:42
Really dope I’ve heard of it. I need to get out to California. The last time I was out there I think we were what is Jack In The Box? I think Jack In The Box was …

Richard Matthews 24:53
Yeah, Jack In The Box.

Jeff Beale 24:55
But yeah, I need to try to In and Out Burger.

Richard Matthews 25:00
Most of your burgers, fast food, not gourmet food. For whatever reason In and Out Burgers are like, next level. Anyways, continue your point.

Jeff Beale 25:09
They probably have the real, real ingredients but

Richard Matthews 25:13
I’m fairly certain they actually sell crack, cocaine like out there drivers that drive thru windows because you know the line judging by the line at all hours of the night. That’s the only conclusion that I’ve come to is that they sell drugs.

Jeff Beale 25:26
That’s funny because I actually saw a – and this might be it, I saw a TV show when it had weed infused wings. So they literally bake their wings with weed, I guess, mixed into the barbecue sauce or the buffalo sauce? And so we’re loving the wings, but they didn’t know that was the reason?

Richard Matthews 25:50
Oh, no.

Jeff Beale 25:51
That is funny. But yes, I mean, it’s convenient. And really, when you think about it, it’s not that convenient, when you have to drive there, get it and so forth. But you’re looking at, I don’t have to cook, I don’t have to clean up after myself, blah, blah, They’re not selling you good food, they’re selling you convenience at low prices. And so that is understanding your audience what they really, really want. And I had to do the same thing. Bodies don’t want marketing. Do you know what marketing is for my customer base? Work.

Richard Matthews 26:29
Just an expense.

Jeff Beale 26:31
Its work. I mean, I’m telling you to do more stuff and spend more money on this. The benefit is more customers, more revenue, company growth. That’s what they want. They don’t want marketing. And it took me years to realize that because I would tell people how great marketing is for their company, and you should market, and you should do SEO, and you should do Facebook, and you should do social media. But at the end of the day for the employees, that’s more work. For the executive, that’s an extra expense, more overhead. You don’t want that. So, I started to realize that’s really what we’re missing. The audience, our audience, we haven’t figured out what they really want. we’re so busy telling them what they need. And nobody wants to hear what you need.

Richard Matthews 27:29
That’s the whole whole concept. You know, when it boils down to it, everyone just wants to look good naked, right? You know, that’s the, you know, and you just have to find out what is what that means for your customer? What does it mean to look good naked? And for, you know, for companies and marketing, you’re talking about driving sales and driving revenue, and those kinds of things?

Jeff Beale 27:49
Exactly. You know, and if you take that outside into your house, and you say my employees, this is what they want. They want to be acknowledged, they want to be praised. They want to be compensated, you know, they want Christmas cards to their family or … Oh, man, I had this one company used to send us – What is the name of that chocolate company? Swiss, Swiss something.

Richard Matthews 28:18
I know what you’re talking about, but I can’t remember.

Jeff Beale 28:19
Yeah, they would –

Richard Matthews 28:21
… candy? Is it … candy?

Jeff Beale 28:23
It might be that. They would send that to every employee. And you would get a box of that. And it and they would be like, “oh, wow, that that’s me. You know, they appreciate which I mean for the companies because it probably didn’t cost them much of anything too. But you felt appreciated. That’s what they want. The executives at the end of the day are at the end of the day. We look at the executives if they are Thor, Zeus, we look at them like that whole bow down. End of the day, they want to look good for their shareholders. End of the day, I mean, their job is based on how much productivity they can pull in revenue because if they don’t, they’ll get let go. The shareholders control their destiny. So, understanding that I’m, a lot of times we all want basic needs. How can we relay that in our communications back and forth to where we have a win-win situation? Instead of I-win situation.

Richard Matthews 29:36
That’s the basics of marketing right? I tell people all the time that you know like our what would you call it the sub you know our sub headline right for our business. I don’t know what the word is for it, but is basically that, modern day marketing is like alchemy, right? Like the alchemy of old you learn to master it. You can turn your words into gold, and the basic concept is that you have to learn what the other person really wants, what does it mean to them to look good naked, and you just have to communicate that to them. And that’s really what good marketing is: good marketing is finding out what the other person wants, and then finding out whatever you offer, and giving that to them, right, or developing an offer that lets you give that to them one of the two, right?

Jeff Beale 30:25
That’s exactly it. I mean, to be honest, this is what somebody told me early in my years when I first got married. And I was one of those young pups that love to bark, and I’m gonna win this argument. And they said, “know, what makes a happy marriage is if you can make your wife think it was her idea at all times. And you always win.”

Richard Matthews 30:48
That is accurate.

Jeff Beale 30:50
He was like, stop trying to fight and force your way. And this is gonna, you know, my way, my way. No, make it seem as if it’s her idea. As long as it’s her idea, you’ll get what you want every time.

Richard Matthews 31:04
And, you know, we did the same thing with our kids, you include them, and you build them up, and you make them a part of the decisions and the discussion. Even if you know, with children, you’re restricting their decisions. But either way, it’s what you want to go right. But you make them part of it. You get a lot less fight. When they’re involved and their part of the discussion. That’s one of my, one of my goals in life is to, you know, make my wife feel like a million bucks all the time. So –

Jeff Beale 31:34
You have to, you have to and even with, even with children, it’s so funny. One of the easiest ways to make them eat their vegetables. We all laugh about eating your vegetables, is to either show them somebody that they admire eating it, or making a game to where they get you to eat it. And make it a contest be like, you know, you want to make me eat these broccoli, and they’re like, yeah, okay, well, I don’t know, show me how to eat the broccoli, and then I’ll eat some. And its their idea. They’re like, well, I’m gonna watch you eat broccoli. “Okay, I was going to broccoli anyway.”

Richard Matthews 32:17
We do this thing, where we eat vegetables, where we’ll have whatever our you know, the sweet thing is at the end of dinner, and they have to eat their vegetables to earn the sweet thing. And that’s very motivating for our kids for some reason, you know, they got to earn it.

Jeff Beale 32:34
Exactly. And it’s fun, and they want to do it, versus you’re going to eat it. And you’re going to sit there until you do. You know, it is like, “I don’t want to do it.”

Richard Matthews 32:46
My wife has always sort of figured that I have some sort of magical power for when you ever if you’ve ever called the cell phone company, or the cable company or the utility company, and you’re like, have a problem. I need to give it to you. And my approach has always been, what is the person inside of the phone? Like, what’s their motivation, right, and their motivation is they want to go be able to go back to their boss and say, “Hey, I, you know, I saved another customer today. ” Or they want, they want their numbers to look good at the end of the day. So if you go into the conversation, knowing what the customer service rep needs to get out of the conversation, it’s really easy to get them to agree to what you need, right? Because you’re focused on what they want, right? It’s the same kind of thing. And my wife is always like, I don’t know how you do that you always get whatever you want from the customer service reps. And it’s the same concept. It’s just basic marketing, finding out what is it that they want? What do they need, you know? And how does them helping me do what I need, get them what they want?

Jeff Beale 33:41
Exactly. And it really does work, I do the same thing. I’ll say, look, I understand, this is gonna be touchy. But this is what’s going on. So let me give you a backstory to tell you what’s going on. And I understand that you are just doing your job. And we set that that’s done. Okay, so in order for me to be happy, and for you to be the hero, this is what I would like to have happen. You know, “Nick, let me give you the alternative. If this doesn’t happen, and I started writing bad reviews, and I started complaining, and I didn’t go up to your supervisor, you’re not gonna be the hero,” you know, and they start to say, you know what, let me see what I can do. Because you’re like, “Look, I’m gonna be honest, I can fuss at you and curse at you. And other than that, and we’ll start to go back and forth. If you truly have control. Like this is really your account. And you have to understand you’re just doing your job. So now that’s out the way can I get something on my end? Because look, this is frustrating for me. And this is why and if you can help me with this, I’ll be so happy to give a good survey or whatever you need, but just help me out.” And a lot of times they like you right you know, let me see what I can do? I usually don’t do this, we usually can’t do this but –

Richard Matthews 35:05
It’s refreshing. It’s refreshing for them to not get cussed out by someone, right? Someone is actually looking out for what they need, which is cool, right? So the superpower is that language, right? It’s that ability to see what the other person wants and needs to be able to connect what you need, what your offers are, develop an offer for them. That’s your superpower. So the flip side then of your superpower is your fatal flaw. Right? So every Superman has his kryptonite. And every Wonder Woman out there can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad. So you probably had a flaw that’s held you back in your business, something that you struggled with, for me a couple of things, you know, perfectionism that kept me from shipping, right? or lack of self care that, you know, I let me for a lot of years let my clients walk all over me. Or maybe it’s something like, you know, being a visionary, but lacking the discipline to actually like, implement and all the things which is something else I struggled with for a long time. But I think more important than what the flaw is, is how have you worked to rectify it so that you can continue to grow your agency and hopefully sharing us, you know, our audience will learn a bit from your experience on that?

Jeff Beale 36:08
I have two kryptonite, I’m the one overthinking. Overthinking has been a very, very crippling kryptonite out there. I’m always trying to, like you say perfect everything. And not just saying it’s good enough, take action, modify. You know, and that’s been one thing that I’m continuing to work. It’s easier for clients, because they can draw that line in the same they can say, “Okay, let’s just go.” When it’s my own company, I’m the one that makes that decision. So we a lot of times, I’ll look at goals. And I’ll look and say, “Wow, I wrote that down five years ago.” You know, I was planning on doing that, like five years ago, and I still haven’t done it because I’ve really changed and modified it all these times. But the failure to launch, I never did launch it to see if it actually would work. So that’s the one thing that has been a kryptonite.

Richard Matthews 37:19
That’s a tough one, too.

Jeff Beale 37:24
And then the second is kind of in line. And a lot of my clients, I try to guide them out of this. And it’s the shiny new tool. When in marketing you see all these different things that you can use, solutions, software, tools, techniques, and you’re like, “oh,” and then you drop, what you’re doing everything we planned, and we’re going to redirect over to, well, this is going to date our podcast, but TikTok, you know, it’s like TikTok. Everybody’s on TikTok instead of saying, “You know what, TikTok’s new. We don’t know if it’s gonna be around two, three years, you know, and we don’t even know if our audience is on it, and how they react to TikTok. So let’s focus on what’s working, perfect that. And then if TikTok works it’s way in over time, then great, but let’s not drop everything else, because TikTok is the new thing.” And I think that’s the other thing I will sometimes get into. I get … time vortex because I’m looking at all these shiny new things that are out.

Richard Matthews 38:39
I like the way that I deal with that is I like to have a subset of either time or budget that is allowed for experimentation via, right, you know, it’s like 10% of the time or 10% of the budget. It’s like, Hey, we can and then we would call it kind of like, Hey, I saw this cool new thing that we want to try. I’m like that goes into the experimental category. But we’re not going to stop all the stuff that’s working. So we can redirect 10% of the budget to experimental stuff to understanding that it may or may not work, are you willing to throw this money away to see whether or not something works? Conversation is much, much more productive than just letting them throw everything that they’ll be able to stop to try something new.

Jeff Beale 39:20
I need to adopt that, then. Because usually that becomes a meeting after meeting after meeting because they’re stuck in one we want to try it. I’m kind of excited anxiety.

Richard Matthews 39:34
It’s one of those things you can actually get your clients when you frame it that way. It’s like, “Hey, this is the experimental part, we can take no more than 10% of your budget or 15, or whatever it is. For experimental stuff.” You get your clients to pay you to learn new platforms, right and be like, “Hey, this is new for us. And it’s new for you.” And it’s an experimental platform. And if you want us to figure this out with you, we can but this is what it’s gonna be and you have to understand this might be a throwaway budget. Right? And some of your clients will just be like, “yeah, I’m ready. Let’s do it.” And then you get paid to learn something, I get paid to add new services. So that’s always fun.

Jeff Beale 40:07
You’ve given me the shield that I needed. You give me Captain America’s shield that I needed? Because Yeah, that is. And that’s why I get caught into it, because it’s fun. So I’m like, “Cool, let’s do it.” But in the poll strategies put on the … I like that.

Richard Matthews 40:27
You learn how to, because you keep the whole strategy in place, and you learn how you can tie something new into it, right? So it’s, it becomes part of the strategy instead of a distraction to the strategy. And so anyways, that’s the way I’ve approached it. And it’s worked really well for me. So, you know in a slightly different space for the marketing that we do. But yeah, that’s, uh, that’s really helpful. And on the other one, the whole, the thing that you were mentioning first about not shipping. And being an overthinker. The way that I had to solve that in my business, because I’m the same way, like with my clients, we can just get s!@t done all day long, right? Because it’s their stuff, and we need to get it done. But with your own business, is that, you know, I call it the cobbler’s son syndrome, right, where everyone else’s shoes in town are really good. But your son’s shoes have holes in them?

Jeff Beale 41:17
Yeah.

Richard Matthews 41:18
If I had to start bringing in my team members to start being like, Hey, this is the thing that needs to get done. And I need you to either A you know, take it over once it gets to this point, and take it to the shipping section, right? where it actually gets out to market. Or, alternatively, if it’s something that I have to put the finishing touches on it before it can be shipped, that you have permission to bother me until it’s done.

Jeff Beale 41:42
Okay, I’m gonna have to have my assistant do that, you know? Yeah. Okay, yeah, it’s time to get this out.

Richard Matthews 41:51
It’s time to get it out. So I’ll be like, I’ll give them rules I would like so in my head, I have the rules that like, I know, I would be comfortable shipping here. But then when it comes to actually shipping it, I’m like, ah, but I could tweak this, and I could do this other thing. And I could make some changes here. And maybe it could be different. And then you know, two years go by, and nothing’s ever been done yet. So I’m sure you feel that is like, I know what my minimum viable product is. So I’ll let either my assistant or my staff members know, like, “Hey, this is where it needs to be for it’s ready to ship.” And, and then it’s then you know, I’ll either hand it off when it gets to that point. So there’s a couple for shipping. And then I don’t have to, you know, do my whole overthinking game, and put it off forever, or be like, hey, just constantly bugged me about is it to this point yet. And as soon as it gets to that point, take it on me and publish it, or ship it or whatever it needs to happen.

Jeff Beale 42:43
You know, it also changes your mind mindset. Because when I think digging into it deeper, or when you’re doing for yourself, you allow yourself permission to not get it done. But when you know somebody else is relying on you, you want to be their hero. So you’re like, I gotta get it done for them. And so when your team is counting on you, now you can kind of push it out and say, I got to get it done for my team members who are depending on me to get it done. Versus I’m doing it for myself. And I get around not to do it because it’s just for me.

Richard Matthews 43:20
So one of the things I’m doing right now, and this is just an experiment on myself, is I got a big long, like, high-end course I want to build, but it’s gonna be a lot of content to create, and creating it for no one, you know, because I don’t, I’m just I’m actually going to the market is very hard to do. Right? It’s very hard to say like, I just need to get it done, because I just need to do it myself, right. So what I’m doing is, I am in the process of recording each little video, and releasing them for free for a limited time kind of thing until it’s finished. And like I read a little intro at the beginning to say “This is part of a big course that’ll be paid at some point. And so if you’re watching this on a public forum, right, Facebook, or YouTube, or iTunes or whatever, it’s going to go away,” right? As soon as I finished, but I’m getting people bought into this idea that like, it’s not even for them. Like it’s just for me that but now you got an audience of people who are like, I’m waiting for the next video, I’m waiting for the next training thing even if it’s only a few people. Now, it’s not just for me, it’s for the audience that I’m building it for. And the benefit they get out of it is they’re gonna get free access to all this really great content. And the … I get the … done, right is actually put in, you know, put out into the marketplace and it should, if it goes the way I plan. I should A get the content done. B has a ready audience of people who really enjoyed the content. And you know, get testimonials out of it the whole nine yards, but it’s that whole concept of like, how can you for me, it’s how do you play with the psychological barriers that you have to make sure that you get the work done, you need to get done, right. It’s the whole idea of like, hey, if you want to remember to brush your teeth all the time. You take a shower every day. Maybe bring your Put your toothbrush in the shower. Right? That’s what I’m doing. I’m putting the toothbrush in the shower.

Jeff Beale 45:05
That and you know, you might transition to a presale model, I have worked with clients that actually have presale models to where you sell the course, before you even start making it. And then that gives you that obligation to make it. So you literally put it on the market at a reduced price. And you, then from there, you start outlining your curriculum and putting dates behind it that day, I’m going to record this. And so it makes it to where, you know, people have prepaid. So their actual customers? And it’s like,

Richard Matthews 45:44
Yeah, we’ve done that before, too. Yeah. So that works really well. It’s the same kind of thing where you’re forcing yourself to get the content done.

Jeff Beale 45:55
Yeah.

Richard Matthews 45:55
So both of those, I think will work really well. This one, I’m trying this specifically because I want to see if I can create a like a huge groundswell of people who are really interested in the content itself. So building audiences with pixels, and that kind of thing, if people are interested in what we’re doing. So anyways, it’s sort of an experiment on my part.

Jeff Beale 46:15
Plus, I mean, it’s good when you’re not talking to yourself, I think that’s the biggest challenge when it comes to creating courses in a vacuum. Because in the back of your mind, you know, I’m only talking to my skull. But when you’re doing it this way, you know that virtually, I’m talking to people that will have feedback. So I need to elevate my game in a sense, versus I’m just recording this video, it’s just me and my computer. And that’s it.

Richard Matthews 46:46
You put you put on your game face, or, you know, like. My wife tells me that, when I get on these podcasts, because she’ll be in another room, she’s like, “I can tell when you go live, because you put on your radio voice.” Yeah. And right. You know, if you’re just recording to the computer, it’s very hard to turn that on. But when you get on with someone else, it’s really easy to turn on that personality, so to speak, you know, turn it up to 11. Yeah, it’s not like it’s fake, it’s just you have to turn yourself up a bit. And that, it’s much easier to do when you actually have real people on the other side.

Jeff Beale 47:19
I think it’s just in our world, I think we’re naturally communicators. And our wiring knows when we are actually talking. And the energy is being passed between two different individuals versus when you know, when it’s not.

Richard Matthews 47:39
Absolutely. So I think that was a really good sort of discussion of language on both sides, right, figuring out, you know, your superpower is language, and then your fatal flaw is actually it’s the way that you talk to yourself, right? It’s sort of like the flip side of that same kind. So what I’m gonna talk about next is your common enemy. Right? So every superhero has what I call an arch nemesis, right? It’s a thing that constantly you have to fight against in their world, right. So in the world of business, it takes on many forms, but generally speaking, we put in the context of your clients, right. And it’s a mindset, or it’s a flaw that you’re constantly having to fight to overcome with your clients. So that you can get them you know, better, cheaper, faster, higher degree of results, whatever that thing is, right? And if you had your magic wand, and you could just start a relationship and whack him on the head with it and not deal with this anymore. What would that common enemy be in your business?

Jeff Beale 48:27
I would say you would be the ready-made gurus, ready-made experts. Those are the enemy. Even though I don’t have any, like, animosity toward them. But a lot of times, businesses will look at these guys that all flash money and they say, “hey, you just do this technique. And you’re going to get rich quick.” And, you know, I always joke about it. You know, I last year, I was on my brother’s couch. And I had no place to go. And then I started doing these Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube bans, whatever the technique. And now I’m a millionaire. And I’ve got this yacht, and I’ve got this beautiful home, and I’ve got this beautiful, you know, first of all, I’m not saying that they’re not telling the truth. But I questioned some of the truth in it being that I have also marketed some of these people. And I know that they rent and lease the homes, and the vehicles and so forth, it’s not theirs, you know, and the money that they’re making isn’t money that they generated for their business. Those that bought the course because they bought the sizzle, they bought the dream. And they made the money off of the dream and not the actual, what they’re selling you per se. So it’s hard when you’re talking to a business because going back to language, their audience is not a business, their audience is – I would say, entrepreneur, solopreneur, entrepreneur, or just somebody new trying to get into some opportunity. They are not looking at an established business. Most of these courses, their methods don’t work for established businesses. And there’s a lot of key words that they’ll say, like they’ll say, I managed millions of dollars in Facebook ads. It’s not your billions, though, you might have had an account like with, let’s say, a Home Depot, or Lowes or Walmart. And yes, they’re spending millions of dollars, but they’re spending it with you in an agency, which you have other team members helping you. You know, it wasn’t your magic that all of a sudden turned everything around, it was the system that they had. Plus, if you know anything about advertisements, the more money you spend, the easier it is to make your money back. It’s harder when you’re doing with your thousand dollars versus $100 thousand. Yes, because a lot of businesses know, at the upper echelon, when you start spending enough money, these platforms actually give you a rep that will do your ads for you. So you don’t really even need another person, you can call them and say, “Hey, we’re not performing the way we should be performing.” And they will have a meeting with you with their ad agency, with their ad rep and say, “Hey, why don’t we modify this? Why don’t you look at changing that,” and they’ll help you optimize your ads. But you have to spend enough money to get it.

Richard Matthews 51:37
We have the same thing happening right now with clients on Amazon, that, you know, we hit a certain revenue point in certain amount of money on ads, and their ad reps from Amazon start calling us be like, “Hey, we notice you’re doing these things. I’ve been assigned your account, my job is to basically make you more money, right? Because the more money you make, the more money we make, right? And once you hit a size that it makes, that it matters –

Jeff Beale 52:01
It goes back to that language, who are they talking to? But these businesses get confused and think that they’re talking to them. But they’re not. They’re talking to people that have a little bit of income, that have a dream and want to get rich quick, not knowing that the process doesn’t work that way, in most cases. Now, you might have a unicorn every now and again, they hit it big, but in most cases it doesn’t. But a business will come in and say “Hey, we need to do this. We need to buy into this. We need to -” And then they like “Why doesn’t it work?” Well, they’re not really looking at a business that’s doing that type of marketing. They’re looking at somebody that’s sitting at home saying I want to quit my job and build my empire. And that’s their target audience. So they’re not speaking the same language at all. But the business isn’t realizing that they’re speaking French. And you’re speaking Spanish. So, that’s really it. I mean, that will be my arch nemesis, because a lot of times the information that they pass, you’re constantly fighting with them to say, “that’s not a good idea for your business.” And they’re “No, no, this is someone so – when they made millions of dollars.” And they said we should do this business, “Yeah, but that isn’t for a business. That’s for let’s say, a solo entrepreneur, that’s a one man show.”

Richard Matthews 53:34
They don’t they don’t have to make payroll.

Jeff Beale 53:35
Yes.

Richard Matthews 53:38
Exactly. Just to put it in simple terms, right. Someone one of the things that my arch nemesis, so to speak in a lot of the business that I talked to, is this idea that selling online, right, so if you’re selling online courses, or if you’re selling masterminds, if you’re selling coaching, if you’re selling services even that you have your you have no cogs, right. You have no cost of goods sold, or like we’re not physical products, we’re not putting solar panels on people’s roofs. We don’t have construction fees, we don’t have, you know, a big warehouse, we don’t have all this stuff. So it should be extremely profitable, right? We’ll spend, you know, $10 in ads, and we’ll make $100 in sales every time. Right? And it’s just that they have this mistake, thought that that’s that’s the way that online sales work. And it doesn’t, right, because, you know, your products and your services and whatnot, all of your big companies, they target you know, 28 to 35% margins, and your business is going to run the same way. Right, you’re going to have a much higher cost of advertising Cost of Goods Sold than a physical product because you’re not selling a physical product. You’re selling either a service or you’re selling a course or you’re selling education, you’re selling something that is not tangible. And the moment the thing that you’re selling is not that tangible the advertising cost of sale goes through the roof.

Jeff Beale 55:04
Yeah, right.

Richard Matthews 55:05
So you’re easily more than making up that, you know, savings, so to speak, on not having all of the physical products style things or physical services kind of things, by the cost of goods sold. And like, that’s the thing that I conversation I constantly have to have with businesses is, you know, you’re not in some magical fairy Wonderland, right, it’s still a legit business, you still have to actually put in the time and the effort, you have to put in the money to make it work, right, you’re gonna, you know, if you make $100, and you managed to get your cost of goods sold, and your advertising cost of goods sold to that, you know, 70% mark, you’re doing really good. And a lot of times you have to experiment and spend to get to that point. So your first couple of things to figure it all out, might you might have a 10% margin or 12% margin, if you’re able to eat on that, right. You have to be able to feed your family and make payroll and those kind of things.

Jeff Beale 56:00
And that’s really, with the information aids, that’s the problem. There’s so much information out there. And there’s so many great stories that are put out there. It’s hard to realize, practically or logically, which makes sense. And it’s like, wait a minute that that doesn’t make sense in business. What it sounds like when on YouTube.

Richard Matthews 56:26
It’s that Instagram life is the whole idea that what you’re seeing is you’re seeing the best version of someone else, right? And you’re not seeing you know, everything that went into make the best version, you’re just seeing the best version, whatever, you know, the filters they put on and the fancy stuff. It’s not you know, it’s their Instagram life. It’s not their real life. Right? And as someone who travels full time and goes all over the world with my kids and stuff like that, I can tell you it’s not all Instagram fancy, right? I might. I’m currently hopped up on Tylenol because I hurt my back yesterday doing normal everyday thing. It’s real life. And the same thing is true in business, right? You have expenses, and you have real world business stuff. And your marketing costs are going to be a lot higher than you expect them up. So, it’s a language barrier, right. And now it’s a visual language where people are they’re looking at like, Hey, we’re seeing these stories of people that are, you know, they’re selling a good story. Right. And selling a good story it’s very profitable. But it doesn’t, it’s not going to translate into good technical advantage or tactical advantage for your business.

Jeff Beale 57:29
Exactly. I want one good example of that is some of these children that have grown these multimillion dollar businesses online? And they’re amazing.

Richard Matthews 57:41
Like Caleb Maddix.

Jeff Beale 57:43
But they’re also LeBron James, his daughter, Steph Curry’s daughter. Oh, yeah, of course. You know, anything they want to deal with would have been successful because their parents have already laid down the you know, but you’re looking at if we can –

Richard Matthews 57:58
… Shoulders of giants.

Jeff Beale 58:00
Exactly, we need to start doing some YouTube shows. Because you know, someone so kids only 11 years old, and they made a million dollars. They could have walked outside so … made a million dollars, … I mean, it’s like, “Look beyond,” I always tell my clients, “there is a real Wizard of Oz.” That’s the reason I love that movie Wizard of Oz. When you get to that yellow brick road in and you pull back that curtain usually is nothing that you thought it was all smoke screens and mirrors. And you know, all of the marketing messages, a good marketer tells you what you want to hear. So cut through all that. Pull that curtain back, see that little old man? And then you can say, “Oh, this is really what it is.” Versus the giant in the sky is talking down to you, which you thought was the wizard.

Richard Matthews 59:01
It makes a lot of sense. So if your arch nemesis is the false stories and the false narratives that people that businesses buy into the flip side of your common enemy is your driving force, right? It’s what you fight for. So just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or you know, Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. We want to know what you fight for. You have a mission. We just want to know what it is.

Jeff Beale 59:26
Well, I really fight for, I would say economic power. I feel that with marketing, if you can show people how they can grow their businesses, how they can grow their businesses and look at things in a practical way in a logical way. Then the mindsets will change to where they can take that to other businesses. They can take that to their own businesses, and then they can teach that to their children and their children can build these businesses, because then looking at it in a way that isn’t, I have to be rich already, I have to do what everyone else is doing. They’re looking at, I know what somebody’s needs are, I hear them, I know how I can benefit them. And I know how I can communicate that benefit to them. And so practicing that with businesses can help me to get the message out there. And hopefully, they take it away with them, and use it in their own life. Because I think once we start teaching our children, a different way of approaching business, they can start building their own empires. And then once that happens, we don’t have the poverty problems that we have today because they know how to turn on a marketing machine to take care of their basic necessities. So that’s really what I guess you would say my Gotham is.

Richard Matthews 1:01:01
I’ve long believed that the solution to almost every problem we have in our world is going to be found in the hands of entrepreneurs. Right? So business can solve generational poverty, business can solve hunger business can solve all the major problems that we have. And I love that you’re using that as a, you know, it’s your push, right? It’s the thing, the legacy that you’re leaving is teaching people how to actually think through and build businesses and marketing is that foundational skill, right? And I remember thinking to myself, when I got into marketing, you know, I was like, 12, or 13, when I really started falling in love with marketing. And thinking that I was like, it’s one of those. It’s one of those one skills, right? Like, if you get good at this one thing, you’ll never go hungry, right? Because everyone no matter what, even if the world falls into an apocalypse, people are going to need to know how to sell goods to someone else.

Jeff Beale 1:01:52
Yeah.

Richard Matthews 1:01:52
… know how to speak that language.

Jeff Beale 1:01:55
Need to know how to sell the bow and arrows to shoot the zombies.

Richard Matthews 1:02:01
Yeah, and even if you’re talking about, you know, I’m gonna trade you my sheep for your bows and arrows or whatever, right? It’s still marketing, right? Doesn’t matter what happens in the world, the ability to communicate with someone else, find out what it is that they need, and how you can either build or develop an offer that meets that need. And you guys can both win in that transaction. It’s what makes the world go round. Right? So it’s, it’s one of those foundational skills that I think more people, the more people learn it and understand it, the better we all do.

Jeff Beale 1:02:33
I agree. I do agree.

Richard Matthews 1:02:36
Cool. So I want to talk about some practical things real quick. I called the Hero’s tool belt. And just like every superhero has their tool belt with awesome gadgets, like batterangs and web slingers, or laser eyes, or big magical hammers. Talk about one or two tools that you couldn’t live without in your business. Could be anything from your notepads, your calendar, to your marketing tools, or something you use for your product delivery, anything that you think is essential to getting the job done top one or two things that you’re like, I use this every single day, it helps me do what we do.

Jeff Beale 1:03:09
That is great, I would say everyday email, email, forms of communication, I mean, is one of the tools necessary.

Richard Matthews 1:03:27
So what’s been your favorite form of communication, since this whole lockdown COVID crisis has been happening, how’s that sort of changed for you?

Jeff Beale 1:03:35
I’m still doing email. But I’m starting to get more and more into like, teams and other communication platforms. I’ve been with Zoom since the beginning. So this is not a new thing for me. And I love doing Zooms, but are also those shiny new tools. There’s teams, there’s other platforms out there. So, I love video communication. I think that that’s the new new way. So that is another tool, so many.

Richard Matthews 1:04:12
It’s one of those crazy things. I was just talking about this with my wife the other day, the whole video communication thing. Her sister called her the other day, right called her like on the phone like the legit audio phone thing. Like children thought it was broken. Right? They were like, “Why can’t we see her?” Like, what’s going on? Can she hear me like how do we know she can hear me? We can’t see your face.” That kind of thing because like for our kids video is the baseline. And I remember like when I was their age video was science fiction. It wasn’t the thing that happened.

Jeff Beale 1:04:47
It was Star Trek or James Bond. And it’s funny.

Richard Matthews 1:04:53
We live in sci fi.

Jeff Beale 1:04:55
Yeah, my little one. She’s so technologically advanced and you know, it is amazing. Now it’s like if you’re not doing video, you literally have children that are not even in kindergarten yet. But they know how to do video chats with people. And record TikToks and stuff like that. It’s amazing.

Richard Matthews 1:05:18
My three year old knows how to FaceTime grandma.

Jeff Beale 1:05:21
Wow. I would say communication is definitely one of the tools. So many other analytical tools, of course in marketing. If you’re not looking at data, you’re not seeing the true picture.

Richard Matthews 1:05:39
If you’re not measuring it. You’re not measuring it, you can’t improve it.

Jeff Beale 1:05:44
Yeah, it’s not the true picture. It’s just guesswork at that point. That’s not one of my favorite because I like it. But it’s a necessity.

Richard Matthews 1:05:52
So just out of curiosity, how much of your life is dictated by your calendar?

Jeff Beale 1:06:02
The majority of it. The majority of it is dictated by the calendar. It helps me keep –

Richard Matthews 1:06:12
It’s a very common thread that I’ve noticed among entrepreneurs. A calendar is fairly, it’s one of their everyday uses that manages their whole life kind of tools.

Jeff Beale 1:06:21
Yeah, it has to, because if not you’re going tangents and you’ll get off out of focus. It has to, and you’ll be able to start analyzing this scene, where some of your time vampires off, because you say, wait a minute, I’ve been having all these meetings about nothing, or I’ve been doing all these things. And now, my task list is a bunch of busy work. So yeah, calendars are very important. And assistants that keep you on your calendar are also important. My assistant be like, “Hey, you know, you have this meeting coming up in a few minutes. Are you ready?” That really helps, too.

Richard Matthews 1:07:03
Absolutely.

…

So I want to talk a little bit about your own personal heroes then. Right so every hero has their mentors, just like Frodo has Gandalf. Robert Kiyosaki had his Rich Dad or Spider Man has his Uncle Ben, Who were some of your heroes. Were they real life mentors? Were they speakers or authors peers for maybe a couple years ahead of you? And how important were they with what you’ve accomplished in building your agency?

Jeff Beale 1:09:01
Wow, that’s great. I mean, I would say real life heroes I have my – I call it Rich Uncle in the sense of uncle that’s successful in business. That provides me a lot of insight, a lot of wisdom. He doesn’t invest in me, but he gives me investment in knowledge, which is still great. I have other marketers that I’ve met, that little things that they do are just amazing. And learning from their wins and learning has meant … So that really, really helps. I would say also, there’s a lot of unknown, the unknown heroes out there that mentioned me that are just in the business community. Just people like yourself and so forth that are doing it in the business community that keeps you whenever you’re feeling like, “I don’t really feel like doing this today,” you can kind of pull from and say, “Well, you know, I love hearing your story, you overcame this” or, or “You’re doing this very well.” And that makes me energized to say how can I, you know, modify my game to increase my game to a better level. So like, with athletes, certain athletes say that they play better when they’re playing against better athletes. So those are really the ones I stay on podcasts, ebooks, don’t do books as much as I used to, because I love doing videos and ebooks only, so I can multitask. But, you know, learning from others, I love listening to documentaries. Because I’m looking for the true story. I’m not looking for the media hype of it, the Instagram of it, I want to know, like, what did they really do? What did they really overcome? Who did they leverage the true story, and I listened for that, you know, there’s little things they’ll say, and you’ll be like, wait a minute, this is really why you, you know, catapulted to this level of success. It wasn’t because you were doing this, this and this, it was because you aligned yourself with this person, or you know, you adopted this method. Or you know, a lot of it has to do with those littles, behind the curtain wizards that you’re like, “oh, that was how you were successful.” And so I love learning from that. So there’s a lot of mentors, and even some of my clients are mentors, by learning from them what they do, what they don’t do, what worked, what didn’t work. Those are the people I pull from.

Richard Matthews 1:12:13
Makes a lot of sense. And I always like hearing what other people’s thoughts on the heroes in their life, because you realize, at least I have, that they’re always there. Like, there are people that probably don’t even know that you’ve had that they’ve had an impact on your life. For me, it’s always been like, it’s that thought that you know, I don’t know who I’m going to impact. So perhaps I should always act in a way that I’m worthy of that title, right, that I’m worthy of the title of a hero. So anyways, that’s some of the reasons why I asked that question. I always love that, love to hear other people’s answers. So I want one last thing, sort of as we wrap up this interview, and it’s your guiding principles, right. So it’s one of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he always brings some Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up, I want to talk about the top one or two principles that you use regularly in your life, maybe something you wish you had known when you first got started in your agency.

Jeff Beale 1:13:09
I would say, if you don’t have a purpose, none of your profit is going to be enough. And that’s one thing I had to realize. I mean, early on, it was such a money chase. I wanted to be rich and powerful. And I think one of the things that I realized is if you’re doing and you have no purpose, besides the profits, then your profits will never be enough. And the second I would say, is, being honest with yourself as a person, and as a business. Being truly honest, to be a free-thinker for yourself and say, “This is what I believe in what works for me,” versus “This is what I should believe and what everyone else says should work for me.” I’m not saying not taking their opinions you know, in consideration, but at the end of the day, having them, I guess you would say for the enhancement. That’s the word I’m looking for, to say, this is what works for me, this is what works for my business, because everybody’s journey is different until you hear the entire journey. You don’t know that this person had a certain thing that made that work for them. Like I was saying earlier in this, you don’t know that if you spend enough money, you can get a rep from the actual platform you’re spending money on to actually help you optimize your ads. If everybody knew that it would be a game changer. They’ll say, “All we need to spend $10,000 a month and I can make sure my $10,000 a month will give me $100,000 then I need to put 10,000 instead of 9000 because 9000 won’t give me the rep. And I’m doing it myself and making all these mistakes.” So I think that being, you know, observing and saying, “This works for my business, I understand all the information overload is out there. But I can say this is true. At least for us, this is true for me.” And that’s one of the things I say we evaluate will take you a long way. Because if you always say what I always say, chasing Amazon, you’re not gonna win. A lot of people chase Amazon saying they want to be the next Amazon. But a lot of stuff you see right now, Amazon has not only done, but changed their model 5, 6, 7, 10 years ago. You’re, you’re saying what they did years ago -Now. You’re not even seeing what they have coming out in the next six months or a year. And you’re chasing the ghosts of the past. You can’t win a race doing that.

Richard Matthews 1:16:06
And I love that concept that you mentioned of if you don’t have a purpose, the profits will never be enough. Because I experienced that in my own life, right. So I remember when I early in my career, I was like, I had a revenue number. I was like, I want to hit this revenue number. That’s the magic gold revenue number. And it’s everything in my life that I want, that I think I want. And it was all about hitting that number. And it was funny, it was like, on the way to that number. I realized that I didn’t actually need all of that. Right, that I had all the things that I wanted before I hit that number. And I was like, “Well, what the hell’s the point then? Right, I already got what I wanted.” And so I had, I had to shift, right, I had to shift to an actual purpose, right? What is it that I actually want to do with my business? And who do I want to help? And how do I want to have a legacy for my family and for myself? And like having that purpose? And then what’s interesting is like, after making that shift to chasing the money, to chasing a purpose, chasing a legacy, I hit that number.

Jeff Beale 1:17:07
Yeah. And you know, they say more money, more problems, and most people don’t realize what that is. And then more money, more problems. And it’s a catchy cliche, but it happens. The more money you have, if you don’t have a purpose, you bring on that particular level of money problems. And you’re not used to that level of problem, finances. A lot of people, if you hit the lotto, all of a sudden, you got a problem of new tax problems you’ve never had before.You have business opportunities that you know nothing about that you never were presented before, that are trying to get in your money. You have friends that you never mess with, never knew hung around. And all of a sudden, all in your business, you got new found family members, that never – You got all these people coming to you all the time, that never used to come your way. And it’s more money, more problems, because you got more things you got to think about. Because you’re protecting money that you never had. And it becomes frustrating. You start to, you know, you start to get frustrated, because you’re like, but you have more money, you have a lot more money, but you have no purpose. There’s nothing that you wanted to do. But get rich, but you didn’t understand rich people’s problems. And they have many. They really do. Let’s talk about business. We all wanted to be entrepreneurs, the boss, executives, but when you was in the executive, executive problems are much different than staff member problems, aren’t they?

Richard Matthews 1:18:45
They are. Right up there with them.

Jeff Beale 1:18:50
Yes. Until I became an executive, oh, the title was great. The salary was great. But the problem is more mental than physical. And you’re like, “Oh, I got to think about like you said, payroll.” I gotta think about that. I got it. And it stuck. It’s like, wow, this is more than I thought. They didn’t tell me this in the manual.

Richard Matthews 1:19:15
I remember, specifically, when I worked for one of the companies I was in, I reported directly to the President and I was the head of the marketing department. And I remember him telling me at one point that it was like, my primary concern is I have 100 families, that if we don’t make revenue numbers, starve.

Jeff Beale 1:19:34
Yeah.

Richard Matthews 1:19:36
That’s the reason I work every day is I’ve got 100 families that are like their wives and their children and their livelihood is based on us thriving.

Jeff Beale 1:19:47
Yeah.

Richard Matthews 1:19:48
And then he was like, directly to me was like, the marketing department is the front of that engine. Right. You’re the beginning of that, the whole train. And everything follows behind what you’re doing. And I remember like, as the marketing executive being, like, being not that he was passing that responsibility to me, but that he just wanted me to understand that’s part of the role that you have is that you drive, what you do drives this ship. Right. So like, you know, it’s the engine, right? You know, he’s the captain, but marketing is the engine, right? It’s the one that’s driving the ship, and if it’s not in tip top shape, we all go down.

Jeff Beale 1:20:30
Yeah, and it is more when you start seeing people that you have become, you know, cause you’re with, and you got to let them go. Because y’all aren’t hitting numbers. And it’s like, we got budget cuts, we gotta let people go. That’s a hard conversation. Knowing that they wouldn’t get to know you –

Richard Matthews 1:20:50
Different levels of problems.

Jeff Beale 1:20:52
Yeah, and we look at TV, we look at your fired is if that’s, like, easy to say, you know, easy to do, but it’s not. It really isn’t.

Richard Matthews 1:21:05
So, I think that’s a, that’s a really good wrap to our interview. And I do finish off every interview with something I call the Hero’s Challenge. And it’s a simple little thing that I do as a selfish thing, right to give me access to stories I might not otherwise find on my own. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your network or in your life that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine, and why do you think they should come share their story with our audience on The Hero Show?

Jeff Beale 1:21:35
Oh, wow. So many. All right, so I’m going to run them down. So there’s one Marv Cox, she is a cheese with Yes, Success, she is a marketing diva, and her story is a great story. To have Avery Brooks, he’s a mastermind behind a lot of these information marketers that you know, and his language is so exciting. Because he mixes his terminology, you’ll bring in terminology that’s food related. That’s so exciting. And here’s another, let me see who else, Erica Hill, she’s like a motivator that helps you understand mindset, we’d have conversations all the time about mindset. And I keep telling her that the average business and the average person don’t really know what mindset is, until they get a little bit advanced, they’re looking at the end result, they’re not looking at you change your mind, fancies, if you’re talking about wealth, they want the money they’re not looking at, you have to change your mind to get the money. Change the way you do things to get out there, like we didn’t with the money, you know, but she has a great mindset. consultant. The list can go on.

Me, let’s keep

Richard Matthews 1:23:04
going. So that’s, that’s plenty we can reach out afterwards and see if we can connect with those individuals and get them on the show. Thank you so much for that. And so the last sort of thing I want to do here with you is what I call the send off, right and comic books, there’s always the crowd of people who are cheering on and clapping for the acts of heroism for the heroes. So as we close, what I want to know from you is where people can find you if they want your help in their business. So if they’re one of those companies that needs help with their marketing, where can they go to light up the Bat signal so to speak, and say, “Hey, Jeff, I’d really like your help.” I think more importantly, who are the right types of companies to reach out and say, “Hey, you know, Jeff, I really need your help.”

Jeff Beale 1:23:43
Sure, they can go to https://mrmarketology.com/, that’s https://mrmarketology.com/. And they can reach out to me there, like I said, I’m looking for companies that are looking to take their business to the next level that are already marketing, and they just need a better strategy and an understanding of where they’re, I would say, falling short, and how to understand their audience a little bit better and position themselves better. So you know, that his company’s, you know, I usually like innovative companies, companies that have a vision. It’s not just that I want to make money. So I mean, we all want to make money but that can’t be the reason. And then as far as other things, I’m actually building a community called https://marketologygroup.com/ to where I am teaching different marketing strategies. So these will be actual strategies laid out from A to Z. And I have programs to where I can actually be your guide. I don’t like to say consultant or coaching that I am actually your guide to where I’m walking you through the whole process. And we are working together to build your strategy out. So that’s ways that you can get in touch with me. And I would love to help you if you have the need.

Richard Matthews 1:25:11
Awesome. So if you are one of those people and you have a company like that company with a vision, make sure you reach out to Jeff and say hi to him. Tell him how you heard about him here on The Hero Show. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on the show. It has been a fun and engaging conversation. Really appreciate that. It’s always fun. We have someone else on the line, he’s fun to talk to you. So just sort of as we wrap this before, hit this little stop record button here. Any final words of wisdom for our audience?

Jeff Beale 1:25:37
Well, I think that you know, you’re doing well if you do so, keep continuing to market, keep continuing to get out there and really, that Wizard of Oz is so true. Look behind the curtain. Don’t get caught up in all the smoke screens. And next time you see me in my big mouth and get pushed out the window talking about you, figure it out, and you see me falling catch me. That’s that’s pretty much it.

Richard Matthews 1:26:05
Awesome. Cool. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Jeff.

Jeff Beale 1:26:08
Thank you for having me. It’s been a real real pleasure, a real blast.