Standing Out in a Crowded Market: Insights from Online Marketing Expert | Daniel Den

#029: Feeling lost in a sea of competition? Struggling to catch your audience's attention? You're not alone. But here's the thing: blending in won't get you noticed. It's time to break free from the crowd and make a real impact. Join us as we explore how to stand out and thrive in the business world.

Meet Daniel Den:
In this episode, we're joined by Daniel Den, a former super affiliate and experienced online marketer. Daniel brings a fresh perspective to the table as he shares his journey to financial success and personal fulfillment. With years of experience in the industry, Daniel has seen it all and is here to share his insights with us.

Finding Fulfillment Beyond Money:
Daniel's story goes beyond just making money. He shares how he found inspiration from a billionaire friend who sought fulfillment through impacting others. This shift in mindset led Daniel to pursue holistic prosperity, where success isn't just measured by money, but by making a difference in people's lives.

00:00:00 - The Beginnings of Real Estate Journey
00:04:23 - Pursuing Fulfillment Beyond Monetary Success
00:08:41 - The Capital of Impact and Fulfillment
00:10:22 - The Journey to Fulfillment
00:12:29 - The Highs and Lows of Business Success
00:13:34 - Unexpected Challenges and Refund Rates
00:16:06 - Legal Battle and Business Impact
00:18:21 - Pursuit of Fulfillment and Success
00:23:02 - X Factor Effect Methodology and Marketing Ideas
00:28:39 - Strategic Differentiation and Customer Understanding
00:29:25 - Ideas That Influence
00:32:57 - Differentiation through Experience
00:35:27 - One for One Threshold
00:40:31 - The Value of Transformation
00:43:28 - Strategic Marketing Approach
00:44:31 - The Seven Elements of a Successful Marketing Message
00:46:16 - The Power of Story in Marketing
00:47:24 - Eliciting Emotion and Creating Stickiness
00:48:07 - The X Factor and Novelty in Marketing
00:54:55 - Differentiation and Breaking Through the Noise

Daniel Den's Link:
IG:  danieldenofficial

Dylan's Links:

• 🎙️Podcast: BusinessConfessionsPod
• 📽️YouTube: @BizConfessions
• 📷Instagram: DylanWillx
• Linked-In: /dylan-williams

Other Episodes you might like:

• 7-Figure Blueprint for Any Business | Chandler Saine
• Building a Unique Online Fitness Empire | Lee Maasen
• Land Investing & Building Multiple Streams of Income Daniel Martinez
• Hiring Top Talent Overseas | Stratton Brown

Past Guests: Chandler Saine, Daniel Martinez, Stratton Brown, Lee Maasen, Nico Lagan, Daniel Roman,Tim Branyan, David Van Beekum, Nick Hutchison, Deirdre Tshein, Sanchez Zehcnas, Christina Lopez, Keigan Carthy, Hemant Varshney, Taniela Fiefia, Jennifer Blake, Nicki Sciberras, John Chan

Transcript

Track 1: 0:00

So this will be a special one today and this is not like we typically do. But before this,

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 0:06

different. It's different.

Track 1: 0:09

Daniel was asking me what I did. He said he's been listening to my podcast and if he's had this issue, I know that other people have had this issue too. So he was asking me Hey, I know what everybody else does, but I didn't hear anything about what Dylan does. So he had asked me what I did and then we went into this whole rant on everything. So I think this would be a good kind of story. So I'm going to rephrase a little bit about this. So a little bit about Dylan. I started in real estate and kind of fumbled on it. I was in corporate America, was not happy with what I was doing. I was working in it for a big company and worked my way up the ladder and didn't really hit a ceiling, but I was in a senior position. my next option was to go to upper management. And I didn't really want, I saw my manager and I didn't really want to. That's not the life I wanted to live, So honestly, I started looking around at what else I could get into, so I ended up stumbling on stocks. So got into stocks a little bit, did some day trading and things like that and figured out, lost a lot of money, figured that's not how I'm going to get out of here, So I ended up. what brought it to me was I went around to some of my friends, parents and dads, and I was asking them, the ones that had money, I knew that it didn't have a normal job or, weren't working like a nine to five. And. I kid you not nine out of 10 of them, something to do with real estate. And I said, that's it. I start from that day. I started reading everything I could about real estate, all the books, all the podcasts, all the, they all, anything I can get my hands on. So I just immerse myself in this. And this was back in like 2017, I want to say. And, so maybe 2016, 2016, 2017 area. So from there, I ended up meeting a friend of mine who was flipping some houses. ended up, I was like, Hey, I'm gonna come work for you for free. I'm going to just do whatever you need me to do. And I just want to learn, so ended up learning about flipping houses. We ended up partnering up, a few years later, we ended up going our own separate routes. I ended up, figured out what wholesaling was and where you can flip a contract to another investor. So built up a whole investment firm, built a. seven figure company doing that. he stayed in, the flipping route and then now he's one of the top builders in Nashville. but built up that company, built up another few companies. We had a holdings company. We had, a call center at one point. We had a remodeling company, and, I had a few other business ventures through that. this is a seven year period, ended up just wasn't fulfilled with anything. or with what I was doing, I was just, I noticed that, and you mentioned this a little bit earlier off air. Is, my, my money needs were met,

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 2:49

Yeah,

Track 1: 2:50

and I was onto that next thing. it wasn't what was fulfilling me, and what I really enjoyed. So shut down a lot of that stuff, hired out somebody to, oversee my holdings company, manage that stuff. So I was left with a lot of time on my hands, try to retire at 30. just got bored, honestly, traveled for a while, got bored. And then.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 3:06

that was one of my goals, by the way. I would tell my mother in law, and she would roll her eyes. I'm gonna retire by age 30. She's yeah, you don't know what you're talking about. But anyway, keep on going. Sorry.

Track 1: 3:17

Exactly. that, and that was honestly, one of my goals was I said, I want to be a millionaire by 27. And I made this. When I was like 24, this goal, I was, I'm going to be a millionaire by 27 and I didn't hit it. I was a millionaire by 28 though, multimillionaire by 29. it just compounded very quickly after that. but a lot of this stuff is in real estate too. So everybody thinks you're a millionaire. You have a million dollars in the bank. And I'm like, I wish I did, but no, it's not like that. but yeah, that's my backstory. And then I got it. So I was bored, knew that I could not sit still. I could not just travel. I could not just, Not do anything. So I said, you know what, I'm going to start a podcast and talk about business and see where it takes me. So that's, this is the journey that we're on here now.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 3:56

Yeah.

Track 1: 3:57

Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 3:58

That is amazing. Now, everybody listening to business confessions today. This is like today, like this is partially Dylan's confessional

Track 1: 4:10

Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 4:11

and then this is partially my confessional as well. And we're starting off way different. Nobody knows who I am, but I have a very special. story. the only thing I did wrong is, and I was telling Dylan this off air. I said, only thing I really did wrong is I exited what I was doing. That was making the money a little bit prematurely. And now I'm like regretting that I exited prematurely. So the quick one minute story is I used to be a super affiliate around the year 2009, I hit it. for being an online marketer, big, where I started profiting about a thousand dollars a day and I would wake up like around, I have at this time, I have a wife and two kids and then, so I'm waking up. And rolling out of bed at nine, nine 30, 10 o'clock, my numbers, watch some movies, play some video games, check my numbers. Cause if you're a super affiliate and you're buying traffic, a lot of it is you're checking your numbers. I'm putting in a dollar, am I getting a dollar 50 back? And then two hours later, am I still getting that dollar 50 back? And you're monitoring, you have to monitor stuff when you buy high volumes of traffic. Because, if one server goes down when you're buying a lot of traffic, then, and you can, in a blink of an hour, hundreds of dollars, and then that whole day is shot, and then you're like, Ah, man, this sucked. so you have to keep an eye, because there's so many servers when it comes to, Running traffic that you have to keep your eye on this 2009. I even had to keep my eye on ad servers. no, we don't have to usually deal with ad servers nowadays, unless you're running banner ads, but I had to track all that stuff. I had to keep an eye on it. And so anyway, long story short, very much like Dylan. I wasn't being fulfilled. I was monetarily happy. I, relationship wise, wife, two kids, happy. and then when it comes to everything else, we realized Dylan and I, and we were discussing this off air. there is more currencies in life than the currency of relationship and the currency of money and I was conveying to Dylan that I know exactly one billionaire and this one billionaire. pretty sure he still knows my name. like I had multiple meetings with this billionaire. like when I say multiple, like more than 10, like he knows who I am. He should recognize my face at least. Maybe he forgot my name, we were partially intimate at least. And so this billionaire he's Brazilian, actually, his name is Carlos Wizard Marcheans, and he owned. A conglomerate of English schools where it taught the schools taught people how to speak English. And he had these schools all over the world. Most of them in Brazil, he ends up exiting and it's a billion dollar day. he sells these business, a billion dollar check. So on the Forbes list of the billionaires and all this and boom, billionaire, takes a year off. And then, to my surprise, and the surprise of all my friends who also know him, he comes back, and he gets straight back to business after a year of travels. And he ends up, becoming the man the master franchisor of Taco Bell. Which means, if you want to buy a franchise for Taco Bell in Brazil, you have to go through him. He's the master franchisor. On top of that, he's the master franchisor for other franchises as well. this is like big. And Dylan The whole crazy thing here is that he had enough money. had enough enjoyment in life. He had enough relationship, like he knows everybody. And then on top of that, he went for even more fulfillment and the capital he was after. And I think it's the capital that a lot of us are after. Once we've made enough in business is the capital of. when I impact you, Dylan, or somebody else, then it's this feedback loop of happiness the only other way, because I've reached certain levels of happiness, the only other way that I'm going to truly be fulfilled is if my impact in the world makes it so that I can bring other people up to my level. And that's the capital that I think ultimately we all hope that we can eventually make it to in our businesses. No,

Track 1: 9:06

Yeah. I've seen a lot of people now, and I used to hate on this so much, but I completely understand it now. A lot of people, that it's why education is so big now. And then there's some that do it right. And there's some that do it wrong. Some teach that. Stuff they don't even know, but others teach stuff that they do know, but they will teach something because they want to bring up and teach and impact what they've already done and they want to bring that on to others. And I completely get that now. Like I want people to experience what I experienced, cause you could drop a billion dollars. I could be, I could win the lottery. Tonight and tomorrow, I would do the same thing I'm going to do. I have two podcasts tomorrow and I'm still going to dabble in my computer and see what opportunities I can make like that. Still, I'm going to do the exact same thing I'm going to do because I enjoy what I, I don't have any of that and I want people to experience that cause that's. I didn't, I enjoyed what I was doing with business and I always enjoyed what I was doing, but I was chasing something, I was chasing an unrealistic line or goal or finish line. It's just, you, it'll always move, but it's fulfillment is honestly in between a and B or the start and finish fulfillment is actually in between. it's the walk, it's the path that you're taking to get to wherever you say you want to get to that end goal. it's the process.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 10:23

Miley Cyrus was right, man. I think that's what you're saying. It's the ride, right?

Track 1: 10:27

They know where you're going with that. That's good. It's true though. That's so true.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 10:32

You're like, no, I don't know. wait, Miley

Track 1: 10:34

I was waiting on that one, but I love it.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 10:37

Miley Cyrus from at, from Nashville. yeah.

Track 1: 10:41

Franklin road closer to me.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 10:44

it reminds me of, I forget who, I was probably at Funnel Hacking Live or something. And Tony Robbins reminds me that, the one thing when people retire that determines like how fast they're going to die basically, which super sad, but like true, he's it's if they are doing anything, like if they've set any goals for themselves, once you don't have anything that you're working towards, then. Things feel pretty empty, Yeah.

Track 1: 11:15

Absolutely.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 11:16

and then the cool thing is that it gives us an opportunity where, so you made, you basically, you made it, you got to the point where you're able to basically retire by 30. I didn't, I gave up being a super affiliate, A little bit prematurely, basically, I like, I started working with my business partner down in Brazil and I found fulfillment, but I stopped being a super affiliate because I, my focus was divided. And so we started growing this massive movement down in Brazil and ultimately we helped over 20, 000 students and clients their businesses. And it was amazing. me and Mike, we had. Really big events and the biggest event we had, right before COVID hit was for 7, 400 of our students and just absolutely incredible, like on top of the world. was only one bad, really bad thing that happened, twice in a row. And that was what I call a double pandemic. And so we were on top of the world, 7, 400 people. and we, don't know if you've ever had a million dollar day, Dylan,

Track 1: 12:29

no, I haven't had

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 12:31

but we, at that event with 70, 7, 400 people. so we had an offer and it was, the price was right around 40, 000 Brazilian reals, at the time that was around like 10, 000 and we sold. On the day that we opened cart during the event, it was a three day event. so on day two, we had about I think it was 190 people. So we 1. 9 million, And a day, so 7, 400 people and we got. A hundred and 90 of them to part with about 10, 000 us dollars. so I'm just like, like we were like high five in and I'm like, this is amazing. Like we're on top of the world. like I, this is good. this is. Absolutely incredible. I'm like on my, on the phone with my wife, I'm like, Oh my gosh, like we crushed it. And and she's so like, how much are we going to get paid? And I'm like, I don't know, we're going to have to figure it out. We still have to pay the team and everything. it's something's coming, like pay, like a big amount is coming and my thoughts are, Oh, we'll be able to invest in more real estate and, do the Dylan path. we're there and then. The pandemic hits now, what happens when you sell a coaching program and then a pandemic hit? you can only imagine the refund rates go really high because normally when we would sell our coaching programs, we were looking at maybe a 5 to 10%. no pay rate, which we would consider like a refund rate, like 5 to 10 percent of people back out most people like, like we have a good mentoring programs. People want to stick around. but the pandemic hit and we were helping a lot of brick and mortar businesses. So a lot of these businesses that we were servicing, they, some of them were online and some of them were actually helped a lot by the pandemic. But a lot of them weren't because they were brick and mortar businesses. We're talking people in home service industry. We're talking, even like a few engineers, lots of dentists and doctors and lawyers, et cetera. so the pandemic hits and they have to shut down. A lot of them at least have to shut down their offices. And so we went from expecting a five to 10 percent refund rate to actually getting about a 40 percent refund rate. Now, if you do the math on that, So 60 percent of 190, we still had done over a million dollar day, but

Track 1: 15:04

better.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 15:04

you what, doing an event for 7, 400 people is expensive and maintaining a team of 50 people, which is how many we had at the time is also expensive. I w we went personally from these expectations that we're going to get this big paycheck and then. the paycheck didn't come it was okay, eventually I might get something. And then, so I was just getting my normal salary working with the company, because we needed to make, maintain, the business right through the pandemic. But then a year into the pandemic. Guess what? We had our second pandemic. We call it our second pandemic because out of the blue, one day we get this notification that the bank accounts in Brazil have been frozen. I kid you not, Garrett. I kid you not, Dylan. This is What happened? We wake up one day and the bank accounts are frozen. we're like, is going on? what's going on here? The bank accounts are frozen. Now happened was person that was working on really one really big project. And this is all documented, in, in, in a lawsuit, but that person went to a judge behind our backs told some things to the judge and long story short, that person. And I have to be super careful because this is lawsuit and a lawsuit and then a settlement long story short, a surprise lawsuit happened and it got drug out for a couple of years and, in order for us to maintain our intellectual property, we settled for about 600, 000. And so that was, with everything that went down, we had to fire the team when the bacon cows were frozen, cause there was no way to generate capital and there was no way for us to sell. And so what's interesting about this story, Dylan, is that, I, as if you look at the timeline of everything, I went from super affiliate to. Making enough money and, but not, but missing part of the fulfillment, right? so then I transitioned to something that gives me this massive fulfillment. And, since we were able to settle that business still exists down in Brazil today, and it still brings me fulfillment. We're still helping people down in Brazil. we're slowly digging out of the hole of the, for us, what we would call a double pandemic. and so I got the fulfillment down there in Brazil and then, what working on now, which I don't know, even if we're going to have time on this podcast episode with ideas and influence and everything that I'm launching in the English speaking market. Basically, the goal now, Dylan, is to concurrently run a business that brings both and that cash flows extremely well. That's what I want to do, that pays the bills, that brings in enough money and brings in the fulfillment. Because at the end of the day, if we're missing one of these important in life, whether it's or love, even, sex, if it's actual money, if it's impact and in some way, there's lots of currencies in life. If we are completely missing one of them, makes for a very tough life. And so I think ultimately for everybody that's listening today, Dylan, the best way we can serve them, at least on this episode, I know that you and your And all the guests that have come on have shared a lot of really cool, tidbits, but if we can help people understand that when they find that perfect alignment with the business that they want to run, that helps them generate the right currencies in life, then ultimately that's something that they're going to do for the longterm. And ultimately it's going to just Keep on snowballing that happiness and that impact and obviously the monetary gains as well. That was a lot that I unfolded right there.

Track 1: 19:30

I have questions now.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 19:32

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

Track 1: 19:35

I just want to know more about the new business that you have going now. Because I got a box in the mail with a bunch of, I would say testimonials in a different way though. They're not put in there as testimonials, but I know for a fact, there's over 60 something, successful businesses that have been helped with a great story on each one of those. So tell me what this new endeavor is now.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 20:06

Ah, thanks, Dev the new Endeavor, basically, when everything, when stuff hit the fan and we'll keep this one, a PG episode, when stuff hit the fan, down in Brazil. I was not even listed on the bank accounts. so I, as you can imagine, like an English speaker. And so Portuguese is actually my second language. so I was labeled as an investor in the business down in Brazil. And as an investor now and I don't want to bore anybody, but. Investors get paid last if there's something left over. That's just the way it is. so you understand that because of the real estate, like you get paid what's left over. If there's nothing left over, then yeah. So that's pretty much how I was getting paid. When the lawsuit happened, all payments to me absolutely stopped while we tried to figure things out. And so I had to transition. But this really cool stuff that we had generated down in Brazil. So we call it the X factor effect methodology. And it's the reason why we were able to help over 20, 000 students and clients. methodology a lot of success stories. We got to the point, Dylan, where we were getting at least a testimonial a day, which is just holy smokes, for the impact level, it's like, whoa, this is amazing. And it gets to the point for me where even when the lawsuit hit, we're still getting like or more per day. And we're broke. There's just a super weird dichotomy. People are like, you changed my life. And then you look at your own bank account. It's

Track 1: 21:48

Mind change too.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 21:49

Yeah, yep. I'm happy and very confused. this is life, like this is a life lesson. So anyway, so I had to pivot and when the lawsuit was settled, was able to take our IP package it in a way where I could impact more than just the people down in Brazil. And so one thing about starting a business in the United States. It's really hard for you to have people secretly go behind your back and get all of your bank accounts frozen. possible, what happened in Brazil theoretically would never have happened here in the States, especially if like I'm the 100 percent owner of my LLC. so I'm able to, now take the IP The impactful knowledge that we've helped so many people with help people break through the noise and their markets. So the whole concept behind the X Factor methodology, is that, when you do things differently in the way that your dream customers love, it sets you apart from the competition and it helps you become a market leader. King or category queen. And so we have nine different pillars that we teach people and we teach people to stack their differences one upon another so that they become this really like unique unicorn inside of their market that their dream customers love. when it comes to the box. The box that I sent you and the book, it's called ideas that influence the whole box. It's actually just one of the nine pillars that we teach. And that's all about coming up with big, bold, sticky, and wildly successful marketing ideas. break through the noise and what we've And after working with 20, 000 students is a methodology for it, like like a recipe for marketing, that's pretty much guaranteed to break through the noise. And what the whole book and the whole box experience that you got Dylan is about. It's all about coming up with those big, bold, sticky and wildly successful marketing ideas.

Track 1: 24:01

I'd love to talk about a few of those, honestly. what are, now, how can I phrase that? let me pull back here. One, let me, I'll take it back even further than that. I want to talk about first, how you're coming up with these offers for your clients. what's the framework on crafting an offer?

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 24:18

So the framework on the main concept, and that's a different pillar that, that we teach, we call it, enter the offer matrix, offer what other people's don't, the main concept here is that, when it comes to commoditization inside of your market. If you do sell the exact same thing as your, competition, there are ways for you to differentiate. There's lots of ways for you to differentiate. we had a really tough client down in Brazil where, he would still, he would sell, coils of He sold steel. And as you can imagine, still. Is a commodity, right? So the question, he came to us and he's I've got this, I sell still, I like buy it in bulk and then I go out and resell it. How do I differentiate? and we're like, huh, you sell still. we took him through all of our methodologies and we're like, okay, so how do we differentiate these coils of and what we figured out his case is that there were some experiential aspects when it came to. The people buying from him that he could take care of and he could differentiate in a way and create offers where he could put create guarantees, about availability of what he was selling and delivery dates and he started selling his still for A much higher price than the competition because he could, he started guaranteeing delivery dates and when he was able to sell for, 20 percent more than the competition, because when people are, they need still to manufacture their cars or whatever it is, if it doesn't in on time, then it bottlenecks their entire manufacturing process. so it actually is a really. part of people's business to have their materials delivered on time. so if you can guarantee that your materials are delivered on time then put a price tag on it, for example, if I'm promising you Dylan, a seven day turnaround time, if you order your still today, then it's delivered to you within seven days. And part of my guarantee is. And if I don't get it to you within seven days, then I'm going to pay you 5, 000. Then you say, Hey, that's a pretty good deal. Okay. I'm willing to pay a little bit more to guarantee that my still arrives within seven days because I need my manufacturing plant or whatever you're manufacturing. Dylan, you're a home manufacturer, so you're manufacturing your homes, right? And you need your still on time. And so there you go. And so I'm guaranteeing that. And so that was one of, one of the ways when it comes to offer creation, where we were like, if we can help somebody, differentiate their offers when it comes to a true commodity, in this case, still, then the sky's the limit. And so we started having people come to us in all sorts of different industries. And we started taking them through the offer creation process and all of the other pillars and the marketing process. And it just so happens to be that there's a lot of different ways that you can differentiate, even if you sell a commodity and the worst thing you can do is say, Hey, I sell still as well, but I'm going to give it to you for a dollar less per pound. the absolute worst thing you can do.

Track 1: 27:55

Yeah.

27:58

Guys, real clear. Think about this. Share this episode with someone. It could create an ideal and you'd be responsible for that. You never know what opportunities that could create. All right, guys, I'll let y'all get back to it. Thank you.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 28:13

And yeah, if you fall into the trap, that trap and don't know how to escape that trap, then the writing's on the wall. You're probably going to go out of business. That's just the sad truth.

Track 1: 28:25

It's a race to the bottom at that point.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 28:27

Exactly. Exactly.

Track 1: 28:29

You want to break nobody's. I don't know where I heard this. I read this in a book or something. nobody knows about the person who's second cheapest, but somebody knows about who's the most expensive, and then it's, why are they the most expensive? It must be that much better. So

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 28:43

Yeah. Dan Kennedy says there's no strategic advantage

Track 1: 28:46

Dan, can you, the one who said that? I believe. Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 28:49

you go. It's, there's no strategic advantage in being the second cheapest. There's all, okay, that's it. And, hail to Dan Kennedy, the mastermind words of wisdom. And but that is, that, that is, that's it right there. there's too many businesses where just, I think it's, Lack of understanding of what the customer really does want the end of the day, because there's so many different, hidden ways to differentiate inside of your market that your dream customers will love. And by the time we take people through all the nine pillars, it's just clear as day, there's a lot of things that we can do to be different. Even if you're selling houses, like whatever it is, there's a lot of different ways. I know that a lot of the listeners here on business confessions that they're, info marketers, or they do something online, lots of people doing e commerce, When it comes to an e commerce example or an info marketing example, I did the same thing with ideas that influence. ideas that influence right here, the book, I wrote the book and the book is amazing. Like it's what we teach our students, For coming up with big, bold, sticky, and wildly successful marketing ideas. And here's my confessional Dylan, the book was originally just going to be a free plus shipping book. I split tested the title of the book ideas that influence that's the winner. So I took the advice of four, four hour work week and split tested and did a bunch of surveys. And that was the winner. That's why it's called ideas and influence because that was the name people like the best. Out of my, 50 different names. then I also, I went on 99 designs. I got I don't know, like 80 submissions for the cover I took the top five and once again, I split tested and this cover was the winner. I had a slightly different, a slight advantage because I had a name that people liked. And I had a cover that people liked, but those at the end of the day, when it comes to the info marketing world, those are baby differences. want big, bold, sticky, wildly successful differences that break through the noise. And so for me, I could have launched ideas that influence as a free plus shipping book, and it could have done. Okay, launching a free plus shipping book works like, but I actually have friends that have free plus shipping books and they only, they don't, they're like underwhelmed with how many copies they're getting out, even though it's a free plus shipping funnel. And so I said, holy smokes. A free plus shipping book funnel used to be something that's super different. So if we're going to go back in the history books of marketing, I think it was right around 2015. That Russell Bronson launched his free plus shipping book for. com secrets. I believe that's the year it came out and it just sold like wildfire. like everybody and their dog was grabbing. secrets, free plus shipping book. is 2015. guess what he was selling in a very unique way. It was a differentiator. And so and, I was sitting in a mastermind just a couple of years ago and I had pretty much finished writing the book and I realized I was about to launch a book just like everybody else, because a lot of people have free plus shipping books. So I said, how am I going to differentiate this? And I was sitting next to some amazing friends and, in a mastermind in Mexico it dawned on me. And this is in the middle of the lawsuit was still being taken care of and I'm poor and everything. But amongst everything with my own personal cashflow being off, I knew that I needed to differentiate, to break through the noise I needed to differentiate. And so I worked with my good friend, Mark Stern, and we came up with this concept of the first free plus shipping interactive book box experience. And inside of the box. People open five experience envelopes open at certain times inside of the box and it gives them special gifts and special tools that they go through they're reading the book and people, like I asked people about this. I would tell, I said, Hey, I'm coming up with this cool concept for my free plus shipping book funnel, where I'm going to do this box experience. It's going to have the five, five experience envelopes and people's eyes got big Dylan, like massive. They're like, that is cool. I've never seen anything like that. People will absolutely love it. So I took it on faith that people weren't lying to me. Cause when you ask your, when you do an ask campaign and you ask your a dream customers, what they actually think of your ideas, sometimes they don't tell you the truth, but, the reaction, when I would talk to people face to face, Dylan was just so like excited for me that I was like, okay, all right. I think this is a good idea. And I went forward with it and, we, we got it all produced and everything. And sure enough, here's the actual results of me specifically doing something different. One out of every three people, Dylan, that buy the book have been posting about it on social media. We're talking about Pictures, unboxing videos, stories, all of it, like one out of three customers, which is just absolutely phenomenal. if you can get one out of three of your dream customers that buy your product or service to post about you on social media to post about your product, that is massive. that is absolutely incredible. long story short ideas that influence the experience and the box and everything that we teach, not only does it generate people results, helping them come up with their own. Big, bold and wildly successful marketing ideas, the box and the funnel in and of itself also an idea that influences a big, bold, sticky and wildly successful marketing idea.

Track 1: 35:06

Man, that's good. I even posted on my. My Instagram actually. cause I got it and I was like, Oh, I'm having an interview with this guy and look at what he sent me. So I went through all of it and talked about it. Yeah. So that's regardless of even that, the eyeballs that I pushed out, and I didn't even think about that too. You just said that the amount of people that the interaction with it, but you just got, an extra couple of thousand people who just saw that too.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 35:28

thank you, Dylan. I didn't even see that. I gotta go look at it now. Thank you.

Track 1: 35:33

yeah, I just put it on my story on there, but yeah, that's awesome.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 35:37

That's amazing. Thank you, brother. Ah, man, I appreciate you.

Track 1: 35:41

Yeah. I didn't even think of it like that.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 35:44

yeah. Yeah, Hermosi, he says that There's this threshold. Now, I haven't crossed it, but the threshold is this, and I've heard them talk about this more than once. If you can magically get to the point where it's one for one, meaning you sell one, and that one refers at least one, it's game over. yeah, That means if I push a hundred boxes out, then those hundred refer another hundred and those hundred refer another hundred. So that's the threshold. That's the ultimate goal of can you differentiate yourself to the point where you can get the one for one. And that was part of what, got me through like the finishing, the creation of the box was when Hermozy said that because, and we're talking about Alex, not Layla, when Alex Hermozy said that, I'm like, if I can get one for one and that's why I started tracking it right when I launched, I said, all right, people are posting. This is great. This is good. We've practicing what we're preaching. We're being different in a way that our dream customers love. People are posting about it. Are we have one for one? no, we're not one for one. one for. A third or something. So if I sell, this means what I go out and I sell, over the next few weeks, another a hundred boxes, then out of those hundred, I'm probably residually going to get another 30 sales from it, which is incredible. It is great. It is, can't complain because this was my first intent at. super differentiated info product, like as differentiated as I could make it. so what people, since we have so many infopreneurs listening, Dylan, what people need to realize is that, and when I first heard this, I don't know, 10 years ago, I got down, I was like, Oh no, phrase is information wants to be free. You've heard that phrase, right? Dylan

Track 1: 37:52

Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 37:52

information. So what that means is inherently. Information wants to be free. Information wants to get out there, which means, and since we're in the information age, that theoretically people have all the information. Okay. So as infrapreneurs, how do we fix that? How does Dylan's podcast take off? How does my book take off? How does anybody selling a course off? The trick is. have to realize that even though the information wants to inherently be free, that there's a lot of things that aren't free that people are willing to pay for. one of those things is the experience behind how that information is delivered at least. And so when people jump on and they listen to business confessions and we start the podcast with Dylan's story about how. By age 28, he became a millionaire. What people got from that was more than just information. from it was an experience listening to Dylan's story today, and what they were able to do was that they were able to put themselves in Dylan's shoes and say, you know what, if Dylan can do it, then maybe Dylan can help me do it. And if I can do that. a seven year period, then what else can I do? And what lessons can I learn from Dylan that are going to help me if I do, or when I do hit my goals within seven years, it sounds like this Dylan guy, he hit the goal that I'm trying to hit right now. But now he's at a different crossroad where there's even more lessons to learn. And that's super interesting. And so that in and of itself and all these stories and anybody that jumps on and shares these amazing stories, the deliverable is way more than the information. It's the stories, it's the experience that we're having on business confessions. And through those stories and experiences that we're having with Dylan and with all the guests, it puts us in a different state. And it makes us believe certain things and it gives us different aha moments and paradigm shifts. it makes us believe certain things and it makes us fill a certain way. And you can't really put a price on that feeling and that feeling that we get. Yeah, I like, I can do it. starts to become like a feeling of transformation. when it comes to, one of the unique things we teach inside of the X Factor effect is called the experience hierarchy. When it comes to the experience hierarchy, the top of the hierarchy, the experience hierarchy is a transformation. And when you can get people to the point where whatever you're delivering inside of your business delivers a true transformation, people are willing to pay Like everything, like they will write you a hundred thousand dollar checks. If you can deliver that transformation. And so when people are jumping on the business conventions podcast, and they're starting to have a transformation inside of their business, that's where the value is, where it's way more than information,

Track 1: 41:19

It's the blue banana and I'm not going to give away the secret on that, but it's the blue banana. I

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 41:26

it's the blue banana.

Track 1: 41:27

love that. I love that though. That's the, that's what tied it in for me, Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 41:31

that, can't, we can't reveal

Track 1: 41:33

I know.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 41:34

and the,

Track 1: 41:35

Yeah. You have to get the box to understand it, but once you do, you're going to be like, Oh my gosh, that's so good. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, we're coming up on time here. I want to respect your time. do you have a hard stop?

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 41:46

no, I'm good. I'm good.

Track 1: 41:48

I'm good for a little while too. So we'll just keep this thing going, man. I got some more cause. Okay. So we've talked about, we've talked about the message, crafting that, how to differentiate herself on that end. I want to talk about more of the, Marketing tactics that you guys have used in the past. So let's hear about some of those.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 42:05

Yeah. So this goes deeper because like I said, ideas that influence in the box and everything, that is one of the nine pillars. So we do have a methodology. It's okay. Conceptually, here's the problem we like, they, to a recent Forbes article, we're all exposed to about 4 to 10, 000 different marketing pieces every single day. And that's just like 4 to 10, 000 things like trying to capture your attention and that's just insane. what Dylan, if you think about like yesterday. Like with all the ads you saw, is there anything that kind of broke through the noise that like stuck in your head? Now, don't worry if there's not, sometimes there is, sometimes there's not. If you want to think about it for a second, was there anything that like stood out to you?

Track 1: 42:54

somebody hit me with a retargeting ad and that's the only reason why I like listen to it for more than five seconds. it was a retargeting ad that I'd already been on this guy's page that I've looked at before. That's the only thing that pulled me back because it matched the message that I was looking at before. That's the only thing.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 43:09

One ad out of everything that you saw yesterday, caught your attention

Track 1: 43:14

Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 43:14

about five seconds. That's it.

Track 1: 43:17

Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 43:18

Dang. So Dylan, your attention is pretty dang valuable. If out of everything that was thrown at you yesterday, one person through a retargeting ad, five seconds. Okay. Okay. here's the thing it's just getting with marketing, it's just getting absolutely insane. that's the whole, that's the whole reason why ideas and influence and inside what we've basically realized is that when it comes to marketing, there's a few different camps that people are in Dylan. One camp is quickly test 50, 70, a hundred different ad creatives and let's see what sticks. Don't get me wrong, it can work, because of the 80 20 rule, okay, it can work, but it's not very fun testing 50, 70, or 100 ads to see 3 it's just not fun. What we do is, we take, we're in a different camp, and we say, let's be very strategic. the overall marketing message. And then within that super strategic marketing message that we're trying to get out there and use to break through the noise, then let's test different ad creatives based off of that winning concept. And so there's seven main concepts that we teach inside of ideas and influence. Inside of the book, we help you come up with just tons of really cool marketing ideas for your business. And then at the end, towards the end of the book, we have this, what we call an ideas filter. you might've seen it when you opened one of the envelopes, Dylan, the ideas filter, it talks about the seven elements and what we encourage people to do is rank their ideas for their main marketing message. if you can get five. 6 or 7 of the elements checked off for your for what you think might be a really good idea. Then that's a pretty good sign that it's probably going to break through the noise in some way. And so I'm not going to go through all 7 elements. But for example, One of the elements is, does it provide an aha moment? it make people think right? Does it create that paradigm shift? So today on today's podcast. Our hope was, Hey, that makes a lot of sense through Dylan's story. What he was talking about. okay, that's an aha moment for me. like you Dylan, I've been to a lot of business events and I got to the point where, because I've consumed so many books and gone to so many events, I got to the point where. I started becoming a collector of not the information that was shared, but a collector of aha moments because it was the aha moments that were shared that moved me and that moved me the most and that stuck in my mind. So that's one of the seven elements. Aha. I don't know if that's ever happened to you where it's like the only thing you remember from the whole event was like this one story that somebody told. Yeah.

Track 1: 46:17

Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 46:17

what was it? Yeah,

Track 1: 46:19

it's that one little nugget that you get, a lot of things, a lot of, I can't say fluff, but that's all it takes, it's all it takes is that one little bitty thing to completely just change the trajectory of your business. it's one little nugget, one, one aha moment, Yeah.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 46:36

so that's one of the things like, can your marketing message generate like that light bulb moment, that aha moment. another big thing, that we like to talk about is the power of story. So yes, one of the seven elements is story. So if you've ever heard, Russell Brunson talk about hook story offer, it's Yes, the stories are extremely important. And the reason why is because you put yourself in the shoes of that person in the story and it moves you to take action. another one of the big elements is it sticky? Is it shareable? So we go pretty deep inside of the book when it comes to the concept of sticky. how can you get something to stick in people's minds? How can you be that one ad? That catches Dylan's attention for 5 seconds, right? and stickiness is 1 of those elements that can do it. 1 of the big things that we teach is that it needs to evoke emotion in some way. at the end of the day, it's Let's just be honest, too many of the ads out there evoke zero emotion, and that's the reason why they're dead in the water before they even get launched. And that's what happens a lot of times when people take, in the other camp, they say, hey, let's launch a hundred ads and see which three work. most of those are emotionless ads. that's why none of them are like breaking through the noise. and then, not to reveal all of them, but I'll just reveal one last one. it's. there an X factor? And is there that, is there something that is different because the human mind is addicted to novelty. So is there something different about that ad that caught your attention? And so it's really easy to see, at least like on Facebook and Instagram, a lots and lots of examples of products that have an X factor. It's basically all of the e commerce ads that have, it's whoa, how the heck did this e commerce ad get 20, 000 likes? because it's a really cool, different product. So if you have, if what you're launching has an X factor, and you can exhibit that through your ads, it's a very easy way to break through the noise. One of my favorite examples is, those. those gifts, like Day gifts, where it's like a cake in a box and like you open the box and then like butterflies fly out everywhere and they just show a bunch of reaction videos of mothers opening the Mother's Day gift and the butterflies are flying everywhere and they're like, Oh my goodness. then it's Whoa, like that was different. And that was. Entertaining. There was emotion and it's definitely an X factor because how often do you open this box and butterflies fly out everybody everywhere and scare and people, not scare people. guess it scares some people. And that's part of the why those get reactions, but those are the few of the elements. so conceptually, Dylan, if we can hit on enough of those elements, and check them off with our main marketing message, then it's okay, we're This is gonna work. if you can get to the point where like the ad's gonna work, but you just don't know how well it's gonna work, or you know that your marketing message is gonna work, you just don't know how. that's the starting point that we want to get people to with ideas that influence, because the starting po point when most people launch ads is. Yeah, we're just throwing stuff up against the wall and seeing what sticks. And we're saying, no, let's be strategic and let's launch something that we know is going to work a marketing message and then start tweaking from there. And it's a night and day difference.

Track 1: 50:13

Yeah, that's really smart because that's the opposite of what people teach. But like you said, with the 80 20 rule, if you throw 100 ads on there, you're bound to have one that works a lot better than all the others at least. So that one's going to stand out and that has a more success rate for somebody just trying to push that. So that's really smart. And that's made me think about what I'm going to be pushing, on that end. That's good.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 50:32

yeah, we basically figured out with everything with ideas and influence and all the studies of because we studied a lot of ads and a lot of marketing and we saw a lot of what worked amongst our students and we saw these commonalities and it's these seven commonalities and then when you get when you don't need all of them, but you need a lot of them. if you have just one thing that's different, sometimes it works, but if you have six or seven elements that like, it's like all like the complete package, example, one of my favorite, examples as, when I was, when YouTube first started getting super popular, you ever seen the video dumb ways to die?

Track 1: 51:16

don't waste it.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 51:17

And there's this jingle dumb ways to die.

Track 1: 51:20

Yes, I have. what do you call that compilation? I guess I would say of just different ways. Yeah, I've seen that.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 51:26

so basically it's an ad and it's by, it was put on by like Metro of London or something like that. And so the whole point of the whole video is don't step out in front of trains. You have to watch till the end of the video in order to figure that out, but that's the whole point. this is like one of the most viral videos of all time. ways to die. So many dumb ways to die. the whole, the reason why I love this example is it checks off everything like on our list. So it, it's super sticky. It's super shareable. The whole jingle shares a story. It evokes a lot of emotion. It's an X factor because it's these cards, it's this cartoon and it's showing, All these little characters, like dumb ways to die. It's focused on a single big concept or idea. It like, it checks off everything. And it's like this perfect storm of, there's no reason why it wouldn't. through the noise, if that makes sense, and what we can do with our with whatever product or service that we're trying to market is we can get to the point where we can rank our ideas for our main marketing message. And we can get to the point where it's like, there is no reason why this won't. Work well, like this is going to work. And it's like this, not only logically, but like emotionally, and then Oh, it checks off everything. this is going to work. We just don't know how well, and then you start split testing from their different creatives then it's just makes things so much easier. one of the, so with the box. So I paid, a hand model basically to create an unboxing video of ideas that influence, and I use the inserts on my video on bigideasbox. com and it just. Like visually, I'm like going through the box and everything. It just looks so like visually appealing that it's like, Whoa, like are going to love this. And sure enough, whenever I post the video, people are like, Whoa, like that's cool, like that caught my attention. so that's the point where you want to get to, instead of just always throwing stuff against the wall, because what happens when you throw those hundred ad creatives up against the wall and three of them stick, you're usually with three. And sometimes you know why those three worked, and then sometimes you don't, because you haven't strategically figured out why those three worked. And when you really understand, what breaks through the noise, then it just makes a huge difference. It's oh, that's why, not only did those three work, but the, this is why it worked. then, because we know why those three worked. We can tweak glows and make them even better and add to those. And then your marketing gets elevated to a whole new level where instead of, seeing like a 50 percent ROAS or even a 100 or 200 percent ROAS, you might start seeing a 500, 600, 800, 900 percent ROAS because marketing message checks off all the boxes.

Track 1: 54:42

I'd love to see that.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 54:43

Yeah, let's go.

Track 1: 54:45

Do you go over all this stuff in the book?

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 54:48

All of it's in the book and then the envelopes, when you open up the different envelopes, it helps you go through the whole process. It originally was a process that we taught to our mentoring students. at a two day event and they just absolutely loved it and came up with all these ideas. And I was like, Hey, this could be the book. And so now it's the book.

Track 1: 55:09

Yep. Just lead them once to get, give them everything they need, have them create that one step that's perfect. I'm going to link, the box in our description. Is that okay for them to,

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 55:19

Thank you. Yeah.

Track 1: 55:23

it too, because I bought, I'm on chapter two, I think. Your book right now. I've been reading that too. but I'm going to go through that. Yeah, I know. I need to figure out something to sell first, to you guys before I can do something like that. But, no, I just love that stuff. I love marketing. I love all that, but the, what you can gain from that's, I feel like that's an activity everybody needs to go through because it just to think outside the box, especially nowadays, it's so important, but I know it's that time. what do you wanna leave the listeners with today?

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 55:48

Like for us, the big thing is be different in a way your dream customers love, like, got to differentiate it. The temptation is. To see what's look to what's working and Oh, I'm going to borrow an idea from them and borrow for ID from there when you borrow an ideas from your competitors and you mix them all up, you end up looking just like your competitors. If you are fine, getting the same mediocre results as your competition, then go for it. But the sad truth is the average of your competition is probably going out of business within five years. just the sad reality. And so it's okay to look at what your competition is doing. It's okay to mimic what's working, but on top of that, you got to layer some differences that make a difference. You got to exit the sea of sameness. can no longer hang out in that sea of sameness. You got to break through the noise four to 10, 000 ads. If you're ever going to get Dylan's attention. Then yesterday, the only one thing caught five seconds of Dylan's attention that he could remember. And the same thing goes for me. It is very rare where I see an ad where I'm like, Oh, that was good. That was good. And when I notice it, when I spot it, and I know you listening and spotted it too. You're like, Oh yeah, that's going to work. I bet that works like gang up gangbusters. And you're right. It does work like gangbusters. And the reason why is because it checks off enough of the right boxes strategically it was meant to break through the noise before it even launched. There wasn't 50 million split tests that needed to happen. It was to break through the noise the beginning. And that's what we laid out for you. Is this step by step creative process for coming up with these big, bold and sticky and wildly successful marketing ideas that break through the noise. So there you go.

Track 1: 57:49

So if you want to know those steps, if you want to even know how to even, where to even start or the framework to even break through those, that noise and get that it's in the book, it's in the box, get the box. I'll put the link down below.

daniel-den_1_04-02-2024_162923: 58:01

Woo. Let's go.

58:03

Hey, if you're still listening, hopefully you got some value out of this or amusement. Either way, I really appreciate you for listening. My goal with this podcast is to build something of value while also showing others that it's possible to do the same. And what I mean by that is, I'm not perfect at this. I fumble, I stutter, and I just want to show that it's okay. If you've been putting something off, This is me telling you to go for it. So I need your help in growing this and there's two main ways a podcast grows. One is through ratings and reviews and two is through word of mouth. So I can only do it with your help. If you can leave me a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify as well as post this to your social and it doesn't grow without you. Thank you. Talk to you all next week.