Magazine RainMaker Podcast
Million-Dollar Magazine Publishing Secrets with Jeff Gartner & Sean Preston
Unlock the secrets to building a million-dollar magazine publishing business with magazine publishing titans Jeff Gardner and Sean Preston. From selling vacuum cleaners door to door to running an HVAC company, these seasoned professionals share their unique journeys and the invaluable lessons they've learned along the way as they provide answers and insights to these questions...
What's your inside advantage?
What's your #1 Tip for new publishers?
If you were to start over tomorrow what would you do differently to accelerate your success?
How do you defeat the dreaded sales slump?
How have you scaled your publishing business?
This episode is packed with actionable advice for magazine publishers looking to consistently break through the $1 Million Sales threshold.
Magazine RainMaker
MagazineRainMaker.com
Unlock the secrets to building a million-dollar magazine publishing business with magazine publishing titans Jeff Gardner and Sean Preston. From selling vacuum cleaners door to door to running an HVAC company, these seasoned professionals share their unique journeys and the invaluable lessons they've learned along the way as they provide answers and insights to these questions...
What's your inside advantage?
What's your #1 Tip for new publishers?
If you were to start over tomorrow what would you do differently to accelerate your success?
How do you defeat the dreaded sales slump?
How have you scaled your publishing business?
This episode is packed with actionable advice for magazine publishers looking to consistently break through the $1 Million Sales threshold.
Magazine RainMaker
MagazineRainMaker.com
This is the Magazine Rainmaker Podcast. Discover the strategies and techniques to grow a successful and highly profitable magazine publishing business with your host, Charlie.
Speaker 2:McDermott, what do you do when you have two magazine publishing titans in the same room? You lock the door and pull out every nugget of information possible. Fortunately, for this episode I didn't have to resort to locking doors because my guests, Jeff Gardner and Sean Preston, couldn't have been more accommodating in pulling back the curtain and revealing all their secrets to building a million-dollar and our publishing business.
Speaker 3:Today I have two titans of the publishing business the magazine publishing business, we have Jeff Gartner and Sean Preston Guys how you doing Doing pretty good, Charlie, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man.
Speaker 3:Doing well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, good, good, good. Well, one congratulations. You guys are killing it this year so far and we're in June of 2024. And I think you're just getting warmed up. I mean, Jeff, you look like you're just getting warmed up. That's why you're in the tank top right, You're ready.
Speaker 1:I'm ready to blast off man.
Speaker 2:So, hey guys, let's start with a quick background. Your name is all over the BVM world, or I should say names from sales on a consistent basis, but not everyone knows you, and those who do, they want to know about your background. So, sean, why don't you kick us off? Fill us in your background.
Speaker 3:I started selling vacuum cleaners door to door when I was 18 years old.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't experience that much.
Speaker 3:Tell you, teach you, how to deal with rejection. I'll tell you that much.
Speaker 2:All right, so real quick, your number one vacuum sales story. That stands out. What is it?
Speaker 3:I was. You have to have the decision makers present, which we all know in BVM is very important. So the husband and wife or couples, the couple need to be present during your presentation. So I show up at this one presentation and the husband grabs his keys and he goes I'm bailing out and I go, you got to be here for this. She goes, no, no, she can make her own decision. I'm like okay, when in hindsight it'd never go past the video and rebook a second make sure that they're there.
Speaker 3:So, obviously, being so young, I went through it. Of course. He walked back in right as I'm hitting her with the price, and he went into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and he came at me.
Speaker 1:I didn't see that coming.
Speaker 2:No, wow, yeah, okay, but did you make the sale?
Speaker 3:No yeah.
Speaker 2:Could you imagine the?
Speaker 3:daughter was probably about five years older than me and a bit of a bigger girl, so she tackled her dad on the couch and yelled at him, put him in the room. She kind of saved my life to a degree and, yeah, I didn't do it for much longer after that. Good story All right.
Speaker 2:All right, so I'm glad I asked. I'm sorry I interrupted your background. No, no worries. Yeah, I mean sales, my whole life.
Speaker 3:So I'm selling jeans and shoes to polyethylene plastic pipe, construction equipment, lighting systems, gas leak detection devices. You know all the way into started to get into marketing and client retention programs, digital marketing and now into publishing print and digital media. Love it, love it, Jeff.
Speaker 2:how about your humble beginnings?
Speaker 1:So I would say I usually start the story with the personal training. I started personal training when I was 17. Fitness changed my life trajectory entirely. I loved it. It was super fulfilling. I found it hard to get the financial lifestyle that I was looking for so I went into running an HVAC company with two of my partners so we bought into it. When I was in personal training I started with Good Life and then I opened up my own little personal training gym. That was great and it was successful.
Speaker 1:At the time at my age, certainly taught me a lot. I wanted to live a more lucrative life and I had some people in the HVAC world and that was a dumpster fire. I mean, it was like with Sean's knife story. We had cops show up at people's houses before we got there, our call center out from Indonesia, the things that they were saying to get their 10 bucks for our appointment. It was brutal. But what I learned from that is how to run a business poorly and that taught me how to run a business better. And then that led me to BVM. I was only in between HVAC and BVM for about eight months. I tried to do my firefighting thing, went to school. It was great. I thought I would be a firefighter, you know fit guy trying to serve the community, but colorblind. I didn't know that I'd been living this way. Like I can see colors but not like the rest of you.
Speaker 2:Into the final exam Right.
Speaker 1:So I've already paid 25 K for school. I've been there for 12 months, 13 months, and then I do my physical. All the physical side of it, the training, the pulling, the lifting that was all fine for me. But then they do your actual physical and I can't pass the eye exam in Ontario. Luckily for that, because I have a number of firefighters in my world and I see what they go through and I don't think it was. I wouldn't want to spend 20, 30 years doing that. And that led me to BDM, which brought some very enriching relationships to my life, a nice little income and spent the last six years here. Yeah, very, very cool Spent the last six years here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very, very cool. So you guys are both extremely successful, both on track for a million plus this year. This is 2024. We're about halfway through Inside Advantage. What would you say when you look back if you had to pick one thing that you say, yeah, that really makes a difference in my business. What comes to mind? Go ahead, Sean, We'll start with you. Can I answer this first? Go ahead, Jeff. There are no rules in this podcast.
Speaker 1:It'll be cheeky, but it's all seriousness. He's my inside advantage. In all truth, I don't want to recommend everybody become partners, because maybe that's not the thing, but Sean's a killer and he keeps me straight and he's my inside advantage more than anything else, for sure Love it, love it.
Speaker 3:You didn't see when I gave him the 10 bucks before we got on the show.
Speaker 2:That's a tough one to follow up with Sean.
Speaker 3:I think my life in sales gave me an inside advantage of already doing B2B sales before coming in.
Speaker 3:So there's orthodoxy to the way things need to be done, and there's legs to the stool. Networking is one of them, you know. Making your cold calls is another one of them, and going and banging on doors is another one, and I'm good at banging on doors, so I think that was my inside advantage and being tenacious right, just relentless. I did stuff that most people wake out of bed. They can't lift the phone. I didn't do that, I was sick in a snowstorm, banging on doors to try to get in front of people and get appointments, which I would argue is a lot harder, more time consuming.
Speaker 2:What's your mindset then, sean? You sit back and you hear stories like that and we've all done our share of cold calling, which is scary in and of itself. When you're about to bang on the door, you know I walk in the door of a business, do you? Are you nervous? Do you kind of wish you weren't doing it? How do you get through that? I really don't want to be here or do this threshold?
Speaker 3:There's a couple of components to that. I mean one of its mindset how bad do you want to reach your higher? Why, like, why are you doing this? If you don't have that higher? Why you can't? You're not going to get out of bed every day. I want to.
Speaker 3:I want to live a really good life and I was living that life when I was in the car business, happy I'm not there anymore. That's not something long-term for me. This is, in my opinion, arguably way better. I get to be somebody in my community, I get to leave a legacy behind and I do a lot of goodwill and everybody appreciates what we do.
Speaker 3:So when you're going and you're getting appointments, whether it's on the phone or you're banging on doors I just flick a light switch, just flick the light switch, the lights are going on. That means you're on the dance floor and sales is acting. So you just put on a smile and you have your good days. You have your bad days, but I was in survival mode as well, too, like I needed to make that happen. So it's not like a decision of like oh, I don't want to get out of bed every day. I need to get out of bed every day, but it helps when you're doing something meaningful, so it just makes it more fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, interesting. It brings back memories and having that pain that was greater than picking up the phone. For me it was financial. It was so significant that, even though I didn't want to pick up the phone and make cold calls, it wasn't as painful as the other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, pick your poison right, I have an opportunity to do my dream job and work for myself. I have a history of being bullied growing up, throughout my childhood and through school and even into the workforce, so I got a real opportunity here and before this I was looking at maybe trying to buy in to a business and work on a storefront and at least get the chance to be my own boss, but this is ultimately way better, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. How about new publishers? I mean, we were all rookies coming on board, some with sales experience, some without. Uh, what would you say? What's that number one tip that you would give a new publisher if they would walk through your door tomorrow and say jeff help, sean help, who wants to start this one?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'll go since I have that lens of a manager right, I mean I hire a lot of people. I was lucky enough to bring Sean on and for me, I look at it in two categories. You have your why and then, once you figure out your why, you start tackling the how. I find that too often we just tackle the how when you don't have a strong enough why and you guys were talking a moment ago about the pain of staying sane being greater than the pain of change if you don't have a strong enough why and you guys were talking a moment ago about the pain of staying sane being greater than the pain of change If you don't have a strong enough why to get through those painful moments, if your pain of staying sane isn't greater than the pain of change, you won't do it. So you got to have a strong enough why. Outside of that, before we even get to the how, attach yourself to a successful person. It's been one of the most beneficial things in my life. I find people that are better at the thing than I am and I do whatever I need to do to soak up their knowledge like a sponge, if I have to take them out for lunch, if I have to call them a bunch of times.
Speaker 1:I'm reaching out to a person right now. She's the top person in BBM. Luckily, in BBM most of them will take your call, but she's destroying it and I just hit her up and said this is my situation. You're better at this than me. I'd love to get your help. And now I'm talking to her next week.
Speaker 1:And I did that with you, I've done that with Sean. I have a journal that is about 70 pages. There's about 25 publishers on there about an hour call each that I took just copious amounts of notes that have formed me, molded me into who I am today in the marketing world. So without those people I don't think the steps would have mattered as much. For somebody like me and with the amount of people that I've hired in BBM, most of them struggle with that. If they can just attach themselves to somebody that's better at them than this, take them under their wing. Most of them struggle with that. If they can just attach themselves to somebody that's better at them than this, take them under their wing. Most of us are willing to do that. Man, that can change the game for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'd say it's important. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Charlie. Well, I was just going to say, Jeff, you've really become a student of marketing. I know we've read the same books. I see posts on LinkedIn where you're giving thumbs up on books that I haven't even gotten to yet. How do you do that? How do you fit it all in so?
Speaker 1:there's this great book called the Infinite Game and it talks about gamifying life. If you can turn whatever it is that you're doing into a game, I think it makes it much more entertaining and much more fun. So the big game that I'm playing is the game of life. I want to be an athlete of life, whatever that means to whoever's listening to this. But if whatever you're doing for eight, 10 or 12 hours a day isn't somewhat fulfilling to you, your curiosity isn't getting the best of you. It's arduous and monotonous. I think that's a tough place to become a student of it and to really thrive in that environment.
Speaker 1:Whereas I want to become great at whatever I'm doing and marketing for Sean and I takes up 10 or more hours a day and I sleep eight hours a night. There's 18 of 24 hours a day and many times it's 12 or 13 hours. So I do this more than anything else, including sleep. That means it takes a majority of my life for me to consider for one moment that I'm not setting myself up to be good at this means like what am I doing? It's the majority of my life.
Speaker 1:You could say I'm like a part-time sleeper, a full-time marketer. At this point I want to be good at it, because when you become good at something it's so enjoyable and the books have just been instrumental for me. So I make the time. It's just like anything else. Somebody's got kids. The kids are more important than the work. They make the time for their kids. I asked them how they do that and they're like you just do it, you just make the decision. I make the decision to read every morning for 45 minutes. That is a practice of mine that I don't skip.
Speaker 2:Makes sense. Thanks, sean. What's your number one tip for new publishers? Do the work, come on. Where's the easy button?
Speaker 3:You know it blows my mind. People come into anything this isn't just for BBM specifically but they just come in and I'm going to be my own boss and then they just can't do it. They'd rather have somebody tell them what to do. So it's like well, what do you want? You want to have a very fulfilling life working for yourself, making a crap load of money. Like we're not just talking about 10K a month here, we're talking about 20, 30, 40k a month. You have that real opportunity here. And you want to lull around when you first come out of training and not listen to your productivity coach and not pick up the phone. And if you can not attach yourself to somebody successful, not ask for help try to do it only on your own. Like it boils down to work ethic You're either going to do the work or you're not going to do the work. So do the work and you'll get what you want. Hard work pays off. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's most things in life are, it's amazing, the simplest advice.
Speaker 1:nobody wants it, but, man, that really kind of is the secret to all of this, isn't it? You want to get jacked at the gym or become a student? Do the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, give me the magic pill so I don't have to work out, right? No it's not going to work, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'll say on top of that, charlie, it's, it's you guys. You were talking to Sean before about this. How does he do it? And I think one of the main things that we get from doing the work is not the result. If we're making 20 or 30 K a month, whatever it is, that's fantastic. It opens up doors for you. Money is a great tool that provides opportunities that you couldn't have without it. But for me, I want to make a million dollars a year. I want to get to a certain weight in the gym. I want to have certain quality relationships, be a certain type of father, because of who I will become through that process. That's the greatest gift I believe that you get from doing the hard stuff. So you don't want it to be easy, because you'll never figure out what you're capable of. Yeah, that easy path just doesn't reward you in the same way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why the lottery winners we've heard the stories. You had a pile of money and you didn't earn it, and it usually doesn't end well. So good stuff, guys. How about if you were to start over tomorrow with all the knowledge you've accumulated? What would you do to accelerate your success?
Speaker 3:Well, coming out of your first year doing $1.2 million, I think I had my foot on the gas literally the entire time. I listened to the advice given to me, I worked hard, I shot out of the gate. I received information and tools at my disposal at a particular time. If John Preston's closing videos were really instrumental for me to understand branding a little bit more, having tools at my disposal, if I had to go back and if I had that seven weeks earlier, if I had Jeff, when I first came out he had a publisher, a top publisher across our country, come on for an hour and a half. If I didn't have that, that wouldn't have fast-tracked me in terms of my knowledge level and what good habits are and what good people do and help teach me the culture. I came from the car business. I was like a ruthless animal, so now I'm a little bit more reserved and polished because of Jeff and understanding the culture that we have in BVM, which is paramount, and we make sure we try to protect that as much as possible. So I don't know if there was one thing that if I said I could have gone back anything, it would have been collect email addresses, because I never knew I'd be integrating a pretty crazy system to help automate a lot of things and help bring more value to the table.
Speaker 3:Getting a CRM at the start. Can't do it off of an Excel spreadsheet. I don't care who says what it can be done right at the start. Can't do it off of an Excel spreadsheet I don't care who says what it can be done right at the start. But I had a massive problem afterwards. So I'd have just been prepared to dump 20 bucks a month and do a CRM and make sure I was collecting accurate information from people. I'm seeing the rest of the follow-up and all that stuff was pretty tight.
Speaker 1:I'd like to answer this one as well. You said if we had all the knowledge that we have now, what would you do differently? So if I were to rebuild tomorrow, I would have the CRM, I would have the podcast. I would set a two days a week podcast, set the rest of the mornings to calling. I would work seven days a week, there's no question about it. I wouldn't do appointments on Sundays but I would work on Sundays because, knowing what I know now, what I could produce in six months just grinding, you can take it for six months. You can probably be about two to two and a half years of the average person. Yeah, so I would have my CRM.
Speaker 1:It would be reaching out to people. I would be reaching out to people. I'd be at every networking event available, and there are tons. I'd be calling the best publishers and my days would be maxed. They would be and we're capable, we can handle that. And that would be my first six months and I wouldn't be surprised if that was a, if that was a million dollars. Six months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, that's great, great advice. All right, the dreaded sales slump, you guys have heard of them, right I'm?
Speaker 3:in one right now.
Speaker 2:What do you do? How do you get out of that dreaded sales slump?
Speaker 3:You have a partner to talk you off the ledge when you're going squirrely, add somebody to talk to. You need somebody to talk to. You can't just do it on your own. So grab yourself a support system of what works for you Not your parents A good support system within your own organization. Or if you have a partner that compliments you well.
Speaker 3:You go through sales slumps. You also got to trust the process. I've been in sales for a very long time and it's not the first nor will it be the last time I ever go through a slump. And when you go through a slump you doubt yourself.
Speaker 3:There's been moments over the last six weeks I had done the same thing and say like, am I doing something wrong? What am I doing? You're trying to figure out components to it. You know I put up 200 grand in the month of May. I got nothing to show for it, and it's the one business $131,000 deal goes and talks to her husband and then that's it. Just, whatever that conversation would ever happen, never heard from her again. It's not like I can go to the business. I can't walk in and say, hey, we need to talk about this, so just get gut punched and you're dealing with all kinds of stuff that affects your mental state pretty significantly. And if we had all the time in the world I'd share everything that happened to me, not just yesterday and then today all day, and then you got to put a face on and deal with clients and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3:It's not easy to be an entrepreneur by any stretch of the imagination. So trust in the process, though, knowing and going back to the higher Y grassroots little yelling session in your car, smash your horn a few times, it doesn't hurt at all. But having that communication system and just remembering everything good that you're doing out there, try to focus on the positives, not the negatives. If you're able to see the glass half full and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that, hey, these are my goals, this is where I want to go, if I just keep pushing forward and that's where growth comes from is the struggle comes from? Is the struggle? Because you know, not only are you going to get there if you just keep going and don't quit, but when you get on the other side, like Jeff said, you're gonna, you're gonna be a different person and you'll be a better person the old life happens for us, not to us.
Speaker 1:If I could, charlie, yeah, you can in in addition to what Sean said, so this isn't replacing. In addition to that, I found it extremely beneficial for me, and pretty much every single person that I model my life after has a physical and mental practice which stresses the body and stresses the mind. It allows them to deal with obstacles regularly and they become much less fragile. I would even go as far to say like anti-fragile the more stress you create on yourself, the stronger you get. If you adopt that mindset and if you can just be calm, it allows you to accept these things as part of the process, like Sean said. But that zeroes me in a big way and why I plug fitness and mental practices as much as I possibly can, because there's few things that have provided me as much value.
Speaker 2:Yep, huge, I'm with you. Great tip. How about? What have you guys done to scale your publishing business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. Well, we uh we signed up with you, charlie. We've uh we've learned to scale uh things in our business. I'll let Jeff talk about some of the details. I'll talk about the uh, the podcast a bit, giving an another opportunity. Again, it doesn't replace the other pillars within BVM of how we go out about and get more business or get sit-downs with clients, but it's a big value add and it's an entire system that funnels prospects that maybe you weren't able to get a hold of on the phone. Maybe, and try knocking on their door, you can get a hold of them. Maybe it's a business that you really want to get, but you have a hard time getting through a gatekeeper and it funnels them in to bring them on to a show that we give away for free and we get to tell their story as a business owner, who are the people behind the business, and then connect them all over the digital world across social media, every podcasting platform where you can. That gives so much value and that frees up a little bit of extra time, and that little bit of extra time is a lot of extra time.
Speaker 3:Uh changed my life. I'm able to have more time back for my clients and more time back me. I still work hard and still work long days, but less fuzz of like. Oh my God, I didn't get my three yeses this morning and I didn't get them at the end of the day and I didn't get them for two straight days. I still at the end of the week. I maybe only need to hustle for a few and in most cases not at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I know we talked about this in a previous video, but you're able to generate most of your leads through referrals, correct, yeah.
Speaker 3:When you have something of value that is valuable enough that people want to consume it or want to be a part of it. We've been fortunate enough to utilize the platform to be valuable, because the system is one thing but the hosts of the show are another component to it and we both have two different, very distinctive styles. Jeff is super deep in thought and he's got his counseling background. He fits in like a dirty shirt into any conversation he gets into counseling background he can. He fits in like a dirty shirt into any conversation he gets into.
Speaker 3:I can certainly hold my own, but I'm a little bit different with my experiences. I may be a little bit more humorous or I'll joke around or I'll push the boundaries with people. Uh, when it comes to joking around and stuff like that, uh, try to have a fun time with them. Maybe a little bit more frugal for talking about drinking on the weekend or something like that. If I catch them talking about that, for sure I'll jump in and have a little conversation around having a good party and having a good time and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:How about, jeff? Anything you want to add?
Speaker 1:About scaling.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:We were talking about this in the last one practicing what you preach. From starting we went from everything was outbound. We had to connect with them outbound through some way. There was nothing. There was no marketing machine out there for us to leave impressions on people's mind like we teach them to do for their business. Since the podcast, we're now creating our own clothing. We now have our own networking events and a lot of people show up to them. We are at other people's networking events. We have our email list that is going out. We have our social media dialed in like we post more than most people and every single month we try to refine that. So we are getting so much attention now because we finally became marketers who market themselves, practice what they preach the Jack Fitness Trainer analogy that I gave before.
Speaker 1:It was just something that nagged at me constantly in the brain. It just wouldn't go away until it finally said when you're an HVAC, you had to market yourself. I marketed myself when I was a personal trainer. How can you be a marketer and not market yourself? Yeah, practice what you preach. And that has changed tremendously for us. And we are barely scratching the surface right now. The video creation that we're about to venture into our social media again it's just scratching the surface. Our clothing, all that kind of stuff. Give us a year and check back in with us and see the difference. And that will all be because of scalability.
Speaker 2:Now, months into this, you have businesses coming to you rather than you chasing them. Is that an accurate statement? Getting there?
Speaker 3:Good point a bit yeah. We're trailblazing right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We don't mind doing that. But I think what you'll find if we have this conversation in a year from now, the narrative is going to be different. So it's pretty bold to say that. But we know where we're going with it and we know the power of the value of what we do. And drinking I like to say drinking our own Kool-Aid, because it sounds kind of funny, right, but we, we drink our own Kool-Aid and say, hey look, I did this and I did that and showing people how to do it. That's a difference between a peddler or a salesperson and a marketer. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So they, they say the. The worst number in business marketing is one right, just doing one thing, whatever it is networking, cold calling, emailing, and then the best number. You know what the best number is and I'm just making this up. I'm sure it's been said and it's. It's indicative of what you guys are doing. One more it's like you've mastered this. Let's do youtube channel okay, got that. Next. Let's do the social media okay. Next. Let's do the videos okay, next the podcast. Now you guys are relentless and it's rewarding you and in a number of ways. I'm not just talking financially, but but your energy, you feel great, your conviction, your confidence, and yet the impact of ripple effect is having on your clients. So good for you guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, next is the networking right and using the system to blast it out. Minimal changes need to be made within the system to alter when they go out. Only four emails need to go out, then it's paying somebody who's already doing something within need to go out, then it's paying somebody who's already doing something within what we're doing. So it's minimal and here's all of the businesses.
Speaker 3:They participate with us in the networking events. People nominate other people to host those networking events. They have the conversations. Now they go and do it and we're going as far as putting together a massive networking event. That's more of a community than it is networking, but we're combining it both. So my magazine is the Art of Bluffs and so in the Art of Bluffs there's a big park there and we're doing an Art of Bluffs community super soaker block party. We're going to line a soccer field with business owners. We're putting an obstacle course in the middle. We've got a professional event planner who's helping organize it.
Speaker 3:I just got off the phone with the radio station today. They're coming to support getting a fire truck there. We're going to have a bunch of kids. We're going to have sponsorship opportunities for business owners. Our clients get a first crack at it. Only 40 spots, a big sponsor who shares with our brand and they're going to be the two between us and them. The main sponsor and whatever comes in covers the cost and then 50% of the proceeds go towards a chosen charity in our local community. It's an opportunity for the kids to come have some fun. Everybody dresses down. I told our clients to dress down because I bought a new super soaker, charlie. I got to show it to you. It's pretty bomb.
Speaker 1:They're putting me on a dunk tank, charlie. They're pitching me up on a dunk tank just sitting there like a peasant. They're going to throw balls at me and dunk me. That's my participation in all this.
Speaker 2:How fun. Talk about being different, standing out, and this is his brainchild, for sure, you know. You think people will be talking about this for years, and is this going to be an annual thing, do you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's going to be lights out good, and then we'll do twice a year, then we'll do one in Jeff's distribution zone and we'll do one in ours. It's going to reinforce the magazine, it'll increase readership and then the people who get first crack at it are the people that are advertising in it. So it only makes sense. So you know what things can you do as a publisher to stretch the marketing dollars. We say that very often and we try to come up with cool ways. And when you have a platform like we have and thanks to the help of you, that goes a long way of being able to elevate yourself in a different limelight and not be viewed as a salesperson but be viewed more as a community member. So we're a part of our very chamber of commerce. We are ambassadors there. We help new businesses come in, we help connect people together.
Speaker 3:The more people that you can meet, meet, the more people you can connect and then have platforms like this. You can put forth that goodwill and it's just more good will, more goodwill after another over time makes what charlie makes people feel good about your business, right, yeah, and that's what branding is it's making people feel good about your business and staying top of mind. So that's what we do day in and day out. We love what we do and then, over the course of time, people are going to start coming to us. It looks like they already are and we're super excited to keep doing what we're doing in our community. If I had a mic, I would drop it now.
Speaker 2:All right, and on that note, any final thoughts, tips, advice, before we end this.
Speaker 1:Tips would be just do the thing. Whatever it is that you're doing, just do the thing. And, you know, reach out to people that are better than you at this. Just call them. If they don't pick up, who cares? And then I tip my hat to you, charlie, because I made that first call to you and I knew right away that you read some of the stuff I did. You've read some of the stuff I haven't read and you've built businesses and you are better at this than I am and that's what I needed.
Speaker 1:If you weren't, we probably wouldn't be in this right now. You have more business experience than me and you've built bigger businesses than I have, and you've been in the same world as us. So you've been on both sides of the coin and you put something special together that you know for hungry people that get it, that are willing to work, because that didn't come easy. We worked at that system that you gave to us because we wanted to expand it so much, not because you gave it to us half finished. It wasn't half finished, but yeah, I tip my hat to you, man. You gave us the opportunity to take it to multiple next levels, like it's not just the next rung of the ladder. It's probably the next five to 10. Who knows what will happen in the next few years, but now we're out there and we know how to get out there through all these different mediums, and you are a big part of the catalyst for that.
Speaker 2:Well, well, thanks, jeff. That's what it's all about, right? Just just those rising tides raise all boats and you guys are a big part of Magazine Rainmaker and I really, really enjoy spending time with you and helping you and I'm excited not only for this year but man to see what you guys have going on next year and the year after. You're full of surprises and I know a lot of publishers really appreciate what you just shared and probably going to be getting some phone calls, so you ready.
Speaker 3:For me I'd say, Charlie, like you know, everything that Jeff said is bang on. You know, it's how people view each other, how how they view themselves when they do this job, because most people don't view it. The way we view it right, if you view it at your, at the goodwill.
Speaker 3:You know, like when I try to explain the magazine to somebody, I say I tell them. Like when you go walk in your neighborhood you don't whether you have a dog or not. You walk by somebody who has a dog and you know the dog's name, but you don don't know their name. And when people talk to each other they don't look at each other in the eye anymore and you wouldn't trust your 16 year old daughter to go babysit the person who lives seven houses down the road anymore. You know the world's upside down. The digital age took a lot of things away that were important or that are less existent as they are today.
Speaker 3:That sense of community and people knowing each other. This thing called the neighborhood watch was, like very much more prevalent than it is today. That goodwill of bringing people together with the magazine does it's, it's. It's amazing, and if you're a publisher, that you need to embody that in what you do every day. You don't just make cold calls and sell ads, you're a marketer, and all the new suites of products that you're coming out with, bbms coming out with, I think they all compliment each other.
Speaker 3:And so when you're going out there you need to do networking, you need to be a referral partner. People don't understand that. They just think it's sales, it's sales, it's sales. A lot of success is defined on that leaderboard and, as much as I relish being up there because I'm a bit of an attention whore I think most people have figured that out by now.
Speaker 1:I like to win, I'm competitive.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, I think success is also defined in a lot of different ways, and so what we're doing in our community that people don't see on the board, that's the stuff that we care about the most, because that's the most impactful stuff than being on the top 20. So it's nice to be there, but I'd much rather do what we're doing. Hey, if we can be up there and do what we're doing. Still at the same time, I'd say great if I can have my pie needed too. But it's that goodwill that we're doing out there at connecting people together and remembering the people that we sit down with, doing networking events, going out to network events, finding somebody that's out there that we know and who would be a good referral person, and knowing another business and bringing them together and introducing them and explaining to both of them what they both do in their jobs, and then walking away and they go do business together.
Speaker 3:The power that we hold a lot of people know that but when you start figuring it out and understanding what this job really is, at being able to leave a legacy behind that people can remember you by and putting someone's kid through school because you gave their business that visibility it needed for people to know and feel good about them so that they buy and they grow over time. It's super special. Like where else do you go and get a job like that? It?
Speaker 2:doesn't exist.
Speaker 3:Trust me, I looked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, same. In fact, I delayed for a year because I thought, man too good to be true, that's not possible. Well, guys, sean, you're cracking me up, both of you guys. I know how exhausted you are. It's basically 630 at night. You both had long days and I know if I let it go, this would continue for hours, because the longer we go go, the more passionate you guys get. And you're not only passionate about helping other business owners in the community, but but really what I appreciate and I know the listeners do here is you're passionate about helping all publishers as well. You want to see them all succeed, just like you all, and that's the point of this podcast. So thank you both very, very much. And to have a night, you still have a meeting to go to Holy cow. All right, guys. Thank you, thanks.
Speaker 3:Charlie, Thanks Charlie.
Speaker 2:Take care man.