Book Club featuring Mike Michalowicz

Come on Life Hello, this is George G and the time is right welcome to our monthly book club. Welcome our author the strong and powerful Mike McCalla wits. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Michalowicz 0:21
George, thanks for having me.

george grombacher 0:22
excited to have you on. Mike is an author and a speaker. He’s the creator of Profit First professionals, the co founder of the preventive group, he is an entrepreneur, his newest book is get different marketing that can’t be ignored. Like, tell us a little about your personal life. Some more about your work and what motivated you to write the newest book?

Mike Michalowicz 0:43
Sure. Married three kids, all adults. So my wife and I, it’s funny. We’re not empty nesters. That’s what she call it. It’s it’s after the empty nest when everyone comes back home from college and still lives there. So that’s it’s the party house, the frat house now nice. And yes, I’m a full time author. I actually own a couple businesses, I have licensees and four more. So I’m operating. Involved in six businesses. I’m a shareholder in six companies, the best way to phrase it. And my full time vocation is an author. The reason I do it is I’ve been entrepreneur my entire adult life, I’ve had some phenomenal successes. And I’ve had some absolute travesties of businesses, not because the business was a bad idea. I had no clue I was doing. And it’s actually after my collapse as an angel investor, I was so bad to call myself the Angel of Death. By the way, I was destroying businesses, not saving, not serving them. I started to collect down everything I thought I knew about entrepreneurship, and challenging it. And I realized I know almost nothing. And what I thought was driving profit doesn’t what I thought generates leads doesn’t. And so I’ve documented things that I don’t understand, and have devoted my life now to resolving them to finding to curating the ideas that do solve that, and then putting in a book to serve others too.

george grombacher 2:08
Nice. I certainly appreciate that. You, you strike me as a very straightforward guy, self self deprecating, and you make yourself vulnerable. How do you how do you think that that’s really helped you to, to, to connect with people?

Unknown Speaker 2:29
For sure, for sure, right? Because I remember going to different events or reading books, and I feel that the expert is almost pontificating, like, almost sharing his extreme ideas. And not necessarily from an ego standpoint, just that it was unreachable. Like, here’s someone on a pedestal and like, that’s amazing. I’ll never be able to do that, though. And so there was almost, there’s almost like a resistance to do things, because I didn’t feel as approachable. And this is not who I feel I am I feel I’m no better than a mouse. I think I’m worse than when I was I think I’m just another guy going through different experience. I actually believe life is a continuum, most like an infinity loop. And we’re all just in different spots of it. So I have success, I had failure, I’ll have future failure or future success. It just, it just revolves. But throughout, there’s a learning for all of us. So I just feel compelled to share it. And self deprecation is just naturally who I am like, I think it’s actually kind of cool to show our imperfections. It makes it just a really are. I don’t get turned on by the guy in his Learjet lighting cigars with $100 bills. Like that is gross to me. It made somebody less aspirational, but that’s gross. To me, it feels almost so consumption oriented, so ego oriented. But what draws me is, is people who are embracing and welcoming, and the best way to be embracing and welcoming is to say I’m flawed. I’m flawed town.

george grombacher 4:02
Yeah. Amen. So, have you always wanted to be an author? Does it? Does it feel good to be able to tell people this, this is what I’m doing? This is who I am.

Unknown Speaker 4:15
It feels good to say to so am i No, I never wanted to be an author. I never even thought about it. I didn’t want to be an entrepreneur. When I was growing up. My father had one job. When he graduated college, he had one job for the entirety of his life. And he retired there, he got the pension. It was the old school way of careers. And so that’s flew I expected like what’s the one company I’m gonna work for, and devote my life to and I couldn’t get that job. I tried to after college when I couldn’t get it. So I worked at a local computer store. And when they one night went out for drinks with our guy, and it’s unbelievable what liquid courage will do. I’m like, I’m smarter than this owner. I can do this myself, and so will boost him I started a business, not a business tip. Don’t Do that. And I had no clue what that guy was going through running that business. I had no clue how hard it is. I was always in the back room just counting money. Oh, no, oh, no, he’s pulling his hair out saying we’re going to get new clients, how am I gonna pay the rent, like, there’s so much I didn’t get today, you’ll be an author’s. It’s a blast. I love like when I get into like an Uber or something, and I’m taking a ride. And sometimes conversation strikes out and you talk to the driver, and sometimes it’s their full career. And it’s amazing what these folks are doing. Other times it’s a side hustle. And sometimes it was Hey, so what do you do? I’m like, I’m an author. And right, whoa, you feel the brakes get pumped? I can author like a real person author. I’m like, Yeah, I’ve never met one. So while many people have written books, I think few people devote their lives to the production of books to to the distribution of knowledge, I think authorship is that is it’s a life’s journey, not the practice of writing a book. And it’s really, it’s really fun to see that response. And I’m very proud of that title.

george grombacher 6:04
Yeah, well, they get super cool. So, so congratulations on that. Thank

Unknown Speaker 6:08
you. Thanks.

george grombacher 6:09
So when when somebody picks up get different? What are you hoping that they’re going to get out of reading it?

Unknown Speaker 6:18
So you get different the opening of the book is a rallying cry that I I’ve been saying for a long time that small businesses, the backbone of the economy is something I’ve been parroting that other people say, and then it hit me about a year ago. Like that’s wrong. I actually regret saying Small businesses are the backbone of the economy. I actually believe small business is the economy, that small business is that pivotal in how everything happens. I mean, it’s so important, you see the collapse of towns because small business is unsuccessful, you see the rise of towns or communities because small business is successful. I mean, that’s how important it is. And when when I do keynote presentations, now mostly virtual, but it’s actually coming back to live. And I ask people that are small business owners? How much do you believe in your business? Are you better than the competition’s? Are you better than the big box stores or the Jiffy jobs of the of the world? And these businesses, they all raise your hand say you’re absolutely we’re better we care more fast respond, I the owner am active in the business. So supporting my clients and my customers. Mike, well, then Damn it, we have to get noticed. Because if if consumers buy from the alternative, which is inferior to us, the client is going to have a problem they’re gonna have a lackluster experiences the client problem, but it’s our fault for not being recognizable, so it can get different. First one, start with a rallying cry that we you and I small business has a responsibility to get noticed. Because if we’re better, we have to get the word out. Then I boiled down to the essence of what makes effective marketing. So I try to do in all my books, I think there’s there’s one thing that can have massive impact. And like I wrote a book Profit First about driving profit your business, and it’s literally one component take your profit first. It doesn’t fix everything, but it has massive positive impact on fixing almost everything. And so, like what’s the equivalent in marketing, I found founder three essential items. If the marketing doesn’t differentiate, if it’s more white noise, it will not be noticed. So doing the best practice of your industry is actually one of the worst things to do because when it comes to marketing, because it’s white noise Secondly, different for different sake is not good. That’s called outrageous that’s called a goofy or crazy it. If it’s not who you naturally are, it’s gonna fall flat. So it has to be different for the consumer, but also to be consistent with you therefore attractive to the right consumer, like Oh, I get this guy or Oh, I love that. It gets noticed and attracts and then finally must have a direct. So the models di D dad, differentiate attract and direct and direct is now you have the attention in the interest of the consumer. What should they do that’s reasonable and safe for them? Don’t don’t have an outrageous request, like hey, you visit my website for 10 seconds, give me a $10,000 deposit on a consultation. But also don’t be ambiguous like saying, learn more. The whole reason once your website was to learn more, don’t make me keep on learning more. Tell me what to do next. That matriculates relationship.

george grombacher 9:15
I love it. Dad, did you it’s that what? They roll their eyes?

Unknown Speaker 9:22
My kids roll their eyes and I can’t tell my dad jokes. Actually. I gotta tell you what. I get dad jokes every day. Like here’s the here’s the the I’ve defined out of the hundreds of dad jokes I’ve reviewed. This is the best one. Here’s the joke. Um, when does a good joke become a dad joke? Oh, no. When? When it becomes apparent.

george grombacher 9:43
Ah, yes, yes.

Unknown Speaker 9:46
Oh, yeah. That’s the best dad joke ever is so bad. It’s so

george grombacher 9:52
that that is solid right there. All right, so don’t don’t so the first one is I I wrote down the D. It’s It’s It’s differentiate, attract and direct. Correct. Is so I’ve worked in personal finance for 20 years, and it’s super easy to create white noise in in that space. But that’s probably true of every industry. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 10:23
Yeah, it is true of every industry and I’ll give you an example. Have you ever received a Hey, friend email, George? Sure. Yeah. Okay, so have I, and maybe respond the first one the same way. The first one I got. It started off with Hey, friend, and I was like, oh my god, I got this friend who’s so friendly. They don’t even call me by my first name. Wow, what an amazing friend. Who is it? It really evokes curiosity, and I started reading through it as like a smarmy, irrelevant marketing. Here’s what’s interesting that happens. Our mind. So I was interviewing neuroscientists, behavior analysts, psychologist, there’s, there’s this component of our mind at the very base of the brainstem. It’s called the reticular formation. Its job is actually to block out inputs, it blocks out 99.9999% of stimulus. But when something unexpected presents itself, it allows the through set first Hey, friend, my mind goes wide. Who is this? It’s unexpected. And it actually stimulates the mind and we start evaluating, but then we put it into a category. Is this something that serves me? Is it something that threatens me or is it something that’s ignorable? Well, that one went into the ignorable. And so the second heyford that came through I was very suspicious by third one I’ve never read one again and probably chances are you haven’t either it goes right into the spam box. And that is white noise. And you see in every industry you know, personal finance. Your the method may be to do a lunch and learn or you know, there’s a million ways but lunch and learns the best practice. Well, what happens is the prospect hears luncheon learn. For the first time it’s remarkable, it’s different, blank brain is stimulated, they consider it now needs to be attractive, you need to direct them what to do. But the second one here, if it what didn’t serve them if they said it as ignorable, they’ll ignore it. And the third one, though, ignore that. And you can see in junk mail, you know, we can rifle through junk mail at at lightning speed, recycle, recycle, recycle, oh, check for me recycle, recycle, we move that fast. So, the key is to do something for your community that no one is doing. And here’s the the sounds pretty extreme. Really, how do I figure it out? The best thing to do is look at other industries that are doing stuff. And if it’s not being done in your industry, r&d, those ideas, rip off and duplicate those ideas, take those ideas, translate your industry and do it. The other thing is different has a shelf life. Like it once once other people are doing the Hey, friend equivalence, it’s gonna burn out. But if it’s, if it’s really thought out, well, it’s unlikely people will copy it. It’s the things are only mildly different. It was easy to change. Hey, George, Hey, friend, so I didn’t have to know your name. That was such a small knock was changed, that everyone replicated it. And it became irrelevant within days of the first person doing it. But other marketing that other people won’t replicate because it’s too much. There was a gym in our area right down the street from me. We live in like a very colonial type town here in New Jersey. And they’re all storefronts. And it’s one section there’s there’s three fitness studios, I’ve taken over former retail stores, and to actually share an adjacent wall there that packed into each other the common noise that they’ve been using as you walk down the street and you see before and after pictures, like you know, schlubby person ripped person schlubby wrapped over and over again. everyone ignores and walks by it because that’s the common white noise. So once these places said, hey, I can within minutes we can figure out something that’s different and change the marking right away. None of them were willing to take me up on it. I also found a company in St. Salt Lake City who did it they were a gym. And what we did is we got mirrors from like a funhouse, ripoff and duplicate took an idea from elsewhere. I noticed that when you go to a fun house, people love taking pictures of those mirrors that stretch you out and make you look like an alien. We put them in the window front and this this business. And so one of them actually made you look at kind of squat and flat. Another one made you look tall and lean. And above this, the squat one we put before the words before or the mirror and the other one put after. So now people are walking by the storefront and you see yourself in a mirror. And what do we do we start looking before after we start taking pictures. It’s fun, it’s engaging. So it’s different. Who has funhouse mirrors in a gym? It’s attractive. We’re seeing ourselves we’re engaged. And then there was a direct there’s a sign next to it says now that we transformed you in the mirror, let’s transform you permanently in your life come inside and your foot traffic more than quadruple. No and I’ve been talking about this no one has replicated it. Different. Is is scary. until you do it and realize it’s not scary. It’s actually the best marketing in the world.

george grombacher 15:05
Yeah, I love it. So those other two gems, do they like shake their head? And they’re like, Darn it. Why don’t we listen to that guy who came at

Unknown Speaker 15:17
you think they would though the other gems. So there’s, there’s these three gyms here that they all declined my thing. They still don’t do it because they they do the gab but like, yeah, it works for them. But I don’t know if that will work here. Yeah, but it might be embarrassing. Yeah. But there’s a devil on our shoulder and there’s an angel, there’s an angel saying, we need to stand out and get noticed. If your business is superior to the alternatives, you have a responsibility to market. It is the ultimate act of kindness, marketing yourself, you’re better. There’s this devil saying it’s embarrassing. People see that you’re doing this and get noticed, they may reject you. This is actually a reptilian part of our brain that does this. There was a survival mechanism. There was a reason why we wouldn’t want to stand out in the past because that was certain death. Like if, if you and I were in the tribe together, and you’re like, the leader of the tribe, and like, Hey, let’s go hunting for a woolly mammoth. And all the tribes people are Yeah, now like, No, I want to go for a saber toothed Tiger. I’m dead, I’m as good as dead because I’m rejecting the desire of the tribe and we must work communally to survive. Therefore, I’m kicked out of the tribe on the tundra, and I’m dead, because there’s no one supporting me and I ain’t gonna take on a saber toothed Tiger by myself dead. And so that reptilian barber mind still says, standing out, rejecting the community means death. This side says standing out rejecting the norm means getting noticed in business. So there’s this weird bipolarism saying, I want to get noticed without being noticeable. I want to stand out without having to stand out. And these businesses, they see it working, and then they’re like, No, I will die. Truth is, of course they won’t, their business will boom. And someone’s gonna catch on like that different mirror is working. And someday someone else will copy is usually when the second or third person does that, Hey, friend, everyone’s like, Oh my God, these Hey, friends actually work. And that’s when it’s dead. If you’re the first, even if you’re sometimes the second, as long as your prospects is new to them, it’ll keep winning until everyone replicates it.

george grombacher 17:16
Love it. So, if you don’t mind, I’d love to hear about your process for writing. Do you write a certain amount every day? Do you wake up at a certain time and talk? Talk me through that?

Unknown Speaker 17:27
Yeah, I write every day. I start at 6am, including this morning. Till 7am. I write with other authors. This is actually a key hack is we do a sprint group. So we hopped on zoom this morning, and we do it every morning. And listen, I’m on the East Coast. This is 6am East Coast, there’s some west coasters that joined at 3am. It’s like you all are sick. And we just say what are you working on today? Quick dialog. Most people are kind of droopy eyed. And then you start cranking. And then we take a break halfway through, say how you doing? And we go again. And as a result, I produce 800 to 1000 words a day in in that kind of writing sprints. That’s what I call my offseason, the offseason was I’m just starting as an offseason when my books is on season is when I have a book deadline now pending, I have a commitment to my publisher something, then I write four hours a day on average. And I’ll bang out 3000 to 4000 words. That being said, it’s not always writing, it’s actually more of it is cutting and trimming and editing. That’s actually where real writing happens. There’s a there’s a book I’m sure you know of it’s called on writing well, and the opening sentence says the essence of writing is rewriting. And I’m like that is it. That is it. The first one, honestly is a is vomit like literally you’re vomiting words. The second go around, it’s like Oh, is there anything digestible in that puke? And, and then you start cherry picking out there’s there’s a couple tidbits there and in restructuring it. For me. The final part about writing is it takes me about five years on average to write a book sometimes a little bit longer, sometimes 10 years. I do produce a lot of books because I write in parallel. So I have four books in process right now at different stages. So I’m able to produce a book one every one or two years, but it’s because I’m working on multiples at the same time.

george grombacher 19:21
Do you like one part of that process? Better than than better than the next like the puking part or the cleaning up the puke?

Unknown Speaker 19:28
Yeah, I like Yeah, I like the cleaning up the puke. Okay. sounds hard. So it’s not even that it’s it’s it’s like all of a sudden there’s like, oh my god that hasn’t been digested yet. It’s like like puking out. It’s like, oh my god, there’s a full full blueberry in there that didn’t get digested. That’s beautiful. And you wash it off like oh my god. This is actually consumable. There’s so I do a lot of testing so that the writing is that hour. I do a lot of testing. And in fact, what we’re doing right Now actually as a testing element, I’ll likely go back and listen to this and and see where people are commenting on your podcast your show and say, Oh, that part really resonates. That’s something I got to cherry pick. I do a lot of presentations to masterminding, and so forth. I even host an event in my office just totally free. If you’re a reader, and you want to come, come, but your job is to tear me apart until we find those nuggets that are good. And I’ll just do a verbal vomit. But when I find one of those nuggets that work, I found one just a week ago, so I’m like, hyped up on this right now. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, emails from people that were at this last session we did. And they’re like, Holy shit, that thing I’m applying it is working big time. And it’s like, Yes, I got one page for the book now.

george grombacher 20:48
So that’s awesome. I love it. I appreciate you sharing that. Well, Mike, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? Where can they learn about that, that drop in you just talked about and working to pick up a copy of get different marketing that can’t be ignored.

Unknown Speaker 21:04
So the best place to to get different is go to website called Go get different.com. And the reason I suggest you start there is if you go to go get different.com You will find resources for the book that are freely available. But one of the resources my favorite, it’s dozens and dozens, I think is like 60 different marketing strategies that you can do it for no cost a little costs, that are different experiments. One is invisible email, another one’s a way to use Wi Fi to market your business. There’s always things that cost basically nothing or near nothing. And if you started go get different calm. You’ll also be able to connect with me further go to my kind of master website and all these different things. But the the epicenter is go get different.com

george grombacher 21:48
Love it. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show Mike your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to go get different calm and get into Mike’s world pick up a copy of get different marketing that can’t be ignored and I can personally vouch for the quality of everything that Mike puts out and the work that he does. It is excellent. So thanks again, Mike.

Unknown Speaker 22:14
Thank you, brother.

george grombacher 22:15
I appreciate this church. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai