Speaking of Wealth #38 – Behind the Scenes Marketing Strategies

Jason Hartman welcomes Stefanie Hartman, founder of Centaur Strategies, to the show to discuss behind the scenes marketing strategies for experts to better position themselves in their given fields. Listen in at: https://speakingofwealth.com/category/podcast/. Stefanie shares her own expert knowledge in marketing, such as “Thinking Outside the Book,” what to do after your book is written. Jason and Stefanie also talk about back-end sales strategies and copywriting and campaign design. At Centaur Strategies, Stefanie Hartman works with a team of behind the scenes specialists when you need to make the profits happen, including: copywriters, virtual assistants, joint venture specialists, branding experts, media experts and advertising executives. Often referred to as “The Expert’s Expert”, Certified Trainer and Marketing Consultant Stefanie Hartman is a highly sought after Marketing Strategist and Speaker in the niche market of non-fiction book marketing. Whether they need extraordinary sales results for an upcoming teleclass, speaking engagement or product launch, or a complete overhaul of their marketing strategy – Best-selling Authors, Speakers and Entrepreneurs serious about selling Information Products have called her number. She has worked with top industry players such as T. Harv Eker, Matt Bacak, Eric Lofholm and Cynthia Kersey.

Stefanie is well-known in the inner circles of multi-millionaire authors, speakers and experts. She rarely advertises her services as 90% of her business is through satisfied client referrals. Her work often speaks for itself. Stefanie’s marketing strategies contributed to an increase of revenue of $4.3 Million in 24 months for one client. Stefanie’s specialty is customizing and creating marketing strategies that are simple for her client to use, but rapidly increases their profits and sales results. She teaches her clients “why” she recommends specific strategies so they can build their own ‘marketing eyes’. She is very warm and cares about her client’s well-being and success. As she puts it “Your Success is my Business”. In addition to her Marketing and Business background, Stefanie worked in Television both in front (Actress & TV Personality/Host) and behind the camera (Producer/Writer/Production Coordinator). As a result has also coached clients how to achieve their marketing goals with the media.

She has successfully negotiated TV & radio show interviews for clients including a BBC documentary, helped produced corporate videos for Fortune 500 companies and wrote and developed speaking videos. Stefanie Hartman has been involved in several television production companies, television shows, specials and documentaries, including work for PBS, The Discovery Channel, CTV, and The Outdoor Life Network, VTV Channel for Baton Broadcasting. Stefanie created, hosted and produced an international Television Series, Aqua PlanetTM, a travel adventure scuba diving series and was the youngest Senior Production Executive within the company. Stefanie sold the series to multiple markets and countries such as the Sky Network in the UK, Canal Television in Quebec, and The Outdoor Channel in the USA. Using her sales experience, Stefanie successfully negotiated the commercial funding and sponsorship needs for the production company. Stefanie sold, developed and produced many of the television commercials for her clients. Stefanie is an expert at creating profitable products and services from scratch. She did this in the television industry and is proving it now in the Info-preneuring business.

Introduction: Speakers, publishers, consultants, coaches and info marketers unite the Speaking of Wealth Show is your roadmap to success and significance. Learn the latest tools, technologies and tactics to get more bookings, sell more products and attract more clients. If you are looking to increase your direct response sales, create a big time personal brand and become the go-to-guru. The Speaking of Wealth Show is for you. Here is your host Jason Hartman.

Jason Hartman: Welcome to the Speaking of Wealth Show. This is your host Jason Hartman, where we discuss profit strategies for speakers, publishers, authors, consultants, coaches, info marketers, and just go over a whole bunch of exciting things that you can use to increase your business, to make your business more successful and more and more passive, and more and more automated, and more and more scalable, so we will be back with a great interview be sure to visit us at speakingofwealth.com. You can take advantage of our blog, subscribe to the RSS feed and many other resources for free at speakingofwealth.com, and we will be back with a great interview for you in less than 60 seconds.

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Jason Hartman: It's my pleasure to welcome Stefanie Hartman to the show other than having a great last name like mine. Stefanie is a speaker, author of marketing and revenue strategist as well as being a TV host, and we are going to talk today about production creation and joint ventures two very important things for speakers, authors, and infopreneurs, and Stefanie welcome its great to have you on the line here from Vancouver, Canada one of my favorite cities.

Stefanie: Thanks so much, great to be here. Thanks Jason.

Jason Hartman: Product creation and joint ventures two vital parts of the infopreneuring business most definitely what do you have to say about those?

Stefanie: Yeah absolutely you know I work as a consultant to a lot of the really famous well known bestselling authors, and I have worked with Mark Victor Hansen from Chicken Soup for the Soul, or I worked with TR Becker of Millionaire Minds for three years.

Jason Hartman: We had Harv on the show.

Stefanie: Oh great. You know so I started of working with a lot of this really big guys and women in this industry and then ended up helping really anyone that has an expertise and helping them turn it into a business. And a lot of these authors and speakers, or people who wanted to create the business what a lot of them do is they just write one book or they have one speech they give and they get paid for that. and basically what I teach them how to do is to create a whole business backend behind theme, so really a brand and a business where they are selling some type of the system, but they are spokesperson for it, so even if its their own baby with their own materials in it, I want to empower them to have it runner mind or empower trainers who can teach the information so that they can go out and teach about it, and they have this huge business running in the background, so product creation is, its pretty huge as a revenue generator it’s the biggest revenue generator for authors and speakers. Those people think that you make a lot of money from selling a book and really the whole purpose of the book is to let people know what your online program. It's basically like a big business card, so in fact Robert Allen who wrote Multiple Streams of Income. He is a friend and colleague of mine and he told me on the phone what it was a $25 million, so his $25 million mistake was and in one of his first books which he took on the road, took him a year. You've probably seen the infomercials or you come meet me at this hotel, and I am going to teach you on the subject of my book. You've seen those infomercials Jason?

Jason Hartman: Oh sure and by the way you should say that many years ago Robert Allen was the inspiration for my real estate career and real estate investments, and I was actually on his infomercials years ago, and back when we wrote nothing down and creating wealth many, many years ago and so its perfect.

Stefanie: That's great and so what he — what he told me on $25 million mistake is then one of his first books he sold, he made a million dollars from his book and he sold a million copies, but he hired a publicist which cost anywhere I mean publicist can from anywhere from $10,000 a month or up to $20,000. I mean it just really varies on the packages that you get. You had to rent the hotel rooms, and build the stuff and so he made him a million dollars but it took him a year and he was completely exhausted, and a lot of travel and a lot of hotels. And then he realized on one of his other books which was deemed a publishing failure and I read from his lips, so and I am not jogging on it that's what he said it was considered a publishing failure because it only sold a few thousand copies, but it was a massive marketing success because and this is power of creating backend products is throughout his book he just had in 15 different places if you want to download this chart that I am talking about, or if you want to see the video of the interview that I am talking about in the book, or you want to see the hidden chapter that never made it in the book through publishing. Go to this website, and it was just basically a his website.com/charge or /video, /free offer. Whatever was in the book so people went to his site, and they put it their name and their email address into this website, and in about a year he had 5000 people buying his $5000 program. This is the weekend event where you could come see Robert, and you learned everything that you learn inside his $20 book.

Jason Hartman: And then that is strictly from the book those 5000 people?

Stefanie: Yeah so it's 5000 people who came, who went through the site, gotten in his list, and then came to his event so 5000 times 5000 its $25 million see that's the difference in having you know having a backend, so its so-so important and so one of the things just started to think about creating a product. A product can be a weekend event. A product can be an online program. It can be a membership site, but if you want to start somewhere the first place to really start is what is your topic, what do you want to teach people, and what do you want them to achieve because most good teachers want someone to do something with the information, right? So it can be anything from so if you would answer those questions then look at your topic and just create something from it even if its just audio recordings plus some templates, and create a four week program where once a week and you are talking about something then giving a little homework and things like that, so [I can't get 0:09:11] all the details exactly how to do. Of course it takes people through the exact process, and then there are things you want to create like lead generating products before that, and upper level products after that, and some type of product that is a continuancy product where simply someone is paying you monthly for some training or support unless if they pay their cable bill every month so that's a great way to, to earn money but if you just start with your core product then naturally the first thing you have to, you want to think about.

Jason Hartman: So I want to talk about joint ventures fairly extensively in this show Stefanie. But before we do that its certainly I think speakers all agree with you nowadays that products are where its at, and it seems like in today's world everybody and their brother is becoming an infopreneur of some sort, and as a consumer you've got to learn to distinguish the weed from the chaff for sure, but what tips do you have on product creation I mean you mentioned event can be products, so when you talk about products you are talking events or products, but how can a speaker really get down and create more products or better products or may be create their first product on who is listening and what their thoughts are on it?

Stefanie: Yeah the first thing that I do is I go through the kind of product plan with people so we look at their expertise and then we get really, really specific on their target market because you need to know who you are talking to because if you say your projects for everyone then virtually its for no one. The reason I say that because people need to when they are listening to you they need to know who you work with. They need to know what your product is for. That's really the first thing to look at, so to figure out your target market one of the questions I ask people is if you could work with anyone who would you love two work with? If you could hang out with anyone on the Tuscan hill side drinking glass of wine, and spend the weekend with chatting with, and you get excited about it. Who would it be? I mean for me its entrepreneurs so that's the group. I love entrepreneurs. I think they are courageous. I think they are exciting. I love their ideas their innovation still is the people that I just get so much energy being around so that's my target, but you know you may be in the travel industry let's say and you — and so you are thinking well maybe the travel industry could be my target I mean that's great. And let's even get more specific. And then there is a podcasting expert that I am working with who is a client of mine and he is got podcasting, but he is found a great little niche going after retail businesses then he may another niche going after non-profits. Then he may have another niche going after small business entrepreneurs, and may be break that down into like real estate agents or so the more you can break your niche down then you will really know who you are talking to, and that's really finding out what are the pains that are going on, what are the problems, what are they feeling, what is the situation that's happening to them that's bringing them to you or your product. You know when I think about my target market, I think about them in two ways. One is really okay let's identify them specifically like age, sex, profession, married single all of that stuff. You really get sort of a three dimensional picture of them. Do they have kids? What's their income bracket? All of that then I think of them kind of like situationally so emotionally what's going on in their life that they are coming to you for this solution or they are looking for you in the solution what has happened to them with them trying to buy products that are similar to you. I mean if you answer these questions then you will get a better feeling and they will become more human to you like for example I work with a lot of baby boomers, so I know that certain things about that demographic but I also know that this is the time where people had spent their entire lives you know working for someone else, and now they want to do something that's just for them, so any business that they are going to create online, whether it’s a book they are going to write, and any products they are going to create it has to mean something to them. And if it doesn't have still some sense of purpose for them, and it really incorporates them in their personality to it, they are not going to be interested so I made sure that when I talk about I say hey, this is a great business. It's inexpensive to start. You are your own boss. You worked your own hours. I'm going to teach you how to build your business based on your personality strength so that it’s a business you love, so if you love speaking we are going to add that in. If you don’t, we are going to with an online business. I mean we can really if you like the travel we can add that in. If you don’t you know we can change that in the business model like in the different business models how to do it, its customized for them, but the biggest part is I say this isn't really about the money. The money is going to be great for you, but the bigger reasons we are doing is really reinventing yourself and becoming the person you are meant to me, and really for selling the dream that you have, so its really knowing and all those things are really true, really there to why I create things too, so its just really listening to your customer figuring out your target market and seeing them as a person and that's the first place I would start so even on a sales page, and I have hired copywriters are some more incredible, but I found I hired a copywriter cost me like $15,000 and I have — this is the first time I ever did that, and my sales actually went down on the side, and I rip it all off, and I just spoke from the heart, and I started to identify my customer and I said look, if you are an identified all the stat, the age, the group, the profession all of that in there, and then I said, and this is what you are thinking and going through, and if you ever felt this and that and then here is the solution and that was the way that I helped developed my product and also the way that I am thought about I am marketing my product, and I find now and be able to talk about this. Let me talk about joint ventures is that people hear the truth. It's just so different than what anyone else is marketing and creating, so when you are creating your product it really recognized that you are in this to hear it and that cuts of the B.S. factor and there is a lot of that going out on there.

Jason Hartman: That's for sure Stefanie, to your earlier point about really getting to know who that audience is so that you are in their shoes, and you really know them. I mean one brand that comes to mind I don’t know if it's too such a big brand anymore but it was — I was reading an article I think was in Forbes about Tommy Bahama, the clothing line. Tommy Bahama there is no such person that exists with that name, right? But all of the employees as part of the corporate culture sort of view this fictitious person as a real person. How would that person think? What would they do? What would they like? What would they dislike? And this is the fictitious Tommy Bahama character and it's an interesting point because in targeting and really developing narrow audiences is what its all about nowadays it’s a concept of the long tail and the long tail concept basically says that look in the olden days with storefront type of businesses it was very hard to specialize like you can today because you existed in a geographical neighborhood or maybe with some mail order or things like that, and you couldn't reach that very, very niche narrow specific audience that specific buyer that specific consumer like you can now on the internet so someone can type in. I can't think of an example of the top of my head, but they can go, and they can search online for a single mom speakers whose kids are into soccer and they can then write a blog before that and create info products this sort of that audience.

Stefanie: Yeah or car loves you know you don’t have to see how many car lovers are around my neighborhood. Its people from all over the world that's what makes this business so successful, and the second reason is really to report them out.

Jason Hartman: But it's better than that because it's not just car lovers it's what kind of car, what year of car, it's like really narrow nowadays which is great yeah absolutely.

Stefanie: And to figure out what type of the last thing I would do is and of course this is the big process that I take people through to a whole month just on this topic alone, but to figure out what your product is going to be just to simple it down to really simply it down to really simply is find out what they want like you said what do you think about your customers in three dimensional format what do they want is this is the reasons why they are going to come to you then what do they need because you know things that they need that they don’t even about yet. Add those in and then figure out what's the best way for this particular group to get this information from me. Is it in person? Is it online all of those things because that can really help change whether this is something that's online or is it an in-person process as well.

Jason Hartman: Well, hey now that we know our customer and I have some very good insight into that. We know who we are looking for. We know who our target market is, and we've developed products to give them what they want. How do we spread the word and create additional influence by joint venturing now and may be distinguished for the listeners if you would Stefanie too what is the difference between JVs and affiliate marketing because affiliate marketing obviously you know a huge online industry of having affiliate sell your products but as you think about ventures there are some distinctions, right?

Stefanie: Yeah absolutely and in fact I created a whole network called the Private JV Club, and it's really a club of CEOs and people that are there that want to partner with each other, and are looking for around the world it's really cool. We have people from Starbucks to Oprah to regular Joes in there but really one of the JV — a JV is really two people or two parties coming together for a common goal so with the Joint Venture and this is actually been called by Price Water Cooper House we get this report every year they interviewed the top CEOs who made multi millions of dollars in the companies, and they find out what is the biggest thing that's made the biggest difference inside your business, and Joint Ventures has come across as part of the top. And you know even Forbes is even talking about it is a good buy merger and acquisitions you know in the global market types you get it by the internet, Joint Ventures are proving a more productive way to keep companies growing and Thomson Financial is actually called the most powerful trend in the history of business, and the reason why Joint Ventures are so powerful because its really one of the top marketing strategies and Hughes Corporation we know this for years that entrepreneurs are just learning about it. Now, and its you can actually as a entrepreneur sell products with no money, no customer list, and no risk, and the reason that you can do this is because in a lot of type of joint ventures you can find promotional products that will promote your product to their own customer list, so if you don’t have a customer list they will promote it for you. there is no risk you are not paying them to do it where if you placed an ad in the newspaper, right if you will read a front page ad in the newspaper costing may be 10 grand and you know your product is there its no ones fault. You know you can't go back to the newspaper and oh, you know I didn’t make money on that ad so I am not going to pay you know right? I mean they would throw you out of the office, right? I mean it would have never happened, but in joint ventures many, many times in fact almost a 100% of the time no one puts any cash upfront and you both sell products, or your partners is selling your product for you to their customer list and you pay them a commission based on the products sold, so its not even money that you have. Its money that your customers send you and until not, until you don’t pay them until you even get the part to your customers, you know lot of times three days is up and then you pay your partners, so it’s a really economical and fast, fast way to get your name out there, and the other benefit of using someone else's customer list is now all of a sudden you are not going to a cold market which everyone hates. You are going to a warm market, you are immediately welcomed into a warm market because the person that owns that customer list is actually has a big relationship with their list, so its like bringing a friend into a party where everyone else at the party is friends, and you walk in, and he says, hey this my good friend Jason who has got this great part and let me tell you about him, and everyone says oh hi Jason great to meet you like blah, blah. It’s a completely different situation than you walking into a room and trying to talk about yourself. It’s a really different way and you've seen a lot of the powerful like we were talking a bit about there seems to be like a lot of businesses where they thought five or six trends all of them are joint venturing and promoting each other. I mean that's very common in this industry and in fact you could do time campaigns which is just a way of structuring your JV where you probably seen an email comes through and says so and so is launching a product and if you buy it by X date you will get whatever bonuses, and you get five or six emails like that saying the exact same thing from completely different people.

Jason Hartman: I know I get them all the time. It seems though I am on every list, but the question is Stefanie the $64,000 question is how do you do that if someone is really wanting to get into this and may be they have been speaking, may be they have written a book or two, and they have done sort of that traditional thing. Now they are moving into the joint venture internet marketing world. What's in it for the other party? I mean people aren't just going to hand over their customer list to you obviously.

Stefanie: In fact you probably won't get their customer list, but the biggest thing is the new currently, really the new economy is relationships so your first job is really building a relationship and the first thing I would think of when I want to create a JV and figure out well, who can I JV with? Is the first thing to know is who is your target market and we already talked about this you know who is your customer. Think of them as a whole being. What do they buy? You know there is another great question. Where do they hang out or what do they like to die? You know let's say for example if you've got a great product that's great for the boomer market you might, you know that they like to hang out at golf resorts. They like — they are instant boating. They like lifestyle product, so you might even joint venture with someone like that. Thinking this way actually expands your partnership possibilities which is the first thing you need to do to be successful in joint ventures, so think also what business or products do they use before or after they come to you. A great example of that is the JV marriage of FedEx and Kinko's. I mean if FedEx thought about this. They think okay so I am shipping a lot of products. What do we mostly ship? Documents okay where well are the people you know where do people get the documents from? Well, they go and get them copy to Kinko's right? Kinko is thinking about what our customers do when they leave our doors? They go to ship off there, they are on their way running to FedEx and hoping they will make it in time, right? So those two guys got together and said look, you know we will capture way more of the market if we work together and commingled our offices we can share retail space so we are sharing the cost in half. Immediately say a huge amount of money in that in their both businesses. You know the staff is half. The retail space is half. They could even double all their offices in different locations and using the same amount per year for expenses and they are both getting more customers because people can easily do both services at one. They could shift the documents. They can copy the documents, so you mentioned affiliate marketing and affiliate marketing is really, is kind of a different beast. Its a little relationship oriented. It's more or like how many products can I sell, and it's about and finding the affiliate is huge to promote your product is always a good thing, but if you think of joint venture is more in a much bigger way. Who could I build a life long relationship with that would be a good partner that could bring customers to me, so the really next one question to think about is what companies currently have a relationship with your target market? Right because that's the keyword I said there is a relationship so there may be companies, there may be entrepreneurs, there may be services, there may be charity organizations, there may be big corporations who already has a relationship with your specific target market. If I've got a product that I want to sell the dentist, I a going to start creating a relationship with the Dental Association. I am going to find if there is any dentist that are authors to see if they have a database and promote to them. I am going to look at the magazine that cater to dentist. I am going to look to see if there is any TV show, so I am going to look and see if there is any charitable organization that help with the kids with getting their teeth fixed all of those things. The insurance companies that work with dentist and assure them what about the companies that supply the equipment to the dentist office. You know if I can put a promotion note to them they've already got a database list of all the dentist that use their all other machines, their medical equipment all that stuff those are potential partners.

Jason Hartman: Let me take a brief pause. We will be back in just a minute.

Introduction: What's great about the show is you will find on jasonhartman.com is that if you want to learn more about investing real estate in different markets there is a show for that. If you want to learn 17 rich people think and act differently, there is a show for that. If you want to know how to get paid to borrow there is a show for that. And if you would like to know why Amsterdam doesn’t take dollars or why pools are for fools there are even shows for that. Yeah, there is the show for just about anything only from jasonhartman.com or type in Jason Hartman in the iTune store.

Jason Hartman: So the question is though I get the partners and that's those are very good thoughts. How does one offer the partner value the target partner is it to say well, I will give you 50% of the sales that's what the affiliate marketing world does?

Stefanie: Which is really not normal in the real world?

Jason Hartman: I agree with you. That's a high number.

Stefanie: Absolutely yeah pretty much the ratio if someone is throwing your product and they are a well known online marketer its pretty much 50% if its something that is like an online program may be a workshop, but if its consulting time or something like that that's very, very time based that you are selling and its usually 10 and 20% so you can negotiate down on the backend. And in the beginning it’s a good way to start because even if you are giving away 50%, 50% you didn’t have before and you are getting that database leads what I would do on top of that is give away something for free so you capture a database leads or a customer leads of people that didn't buy your product as well from the partners that you are working with that may be a good way to so offer for ebook, offer a contest, offer anything you can so that you can gather those leads, and there is lots of mobile marketing things that you may do, or people could type in their phone and contact you as well as going online, so there is lots of ways to do it, and I help people to figure that out. But one of the kiss of death is that I got when someone wanted to partner with me, and this is one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they are approaching. I joined venture partners like you are talking about is I have someone that was phoning up my office and wanted to meet with me, but wasn't happy meeting on the phone, wanted to meet in person and I said look, I am really busy and I don’t want to — I don’t know anything about you, and then all the stuff. You know I am not going to drive all the way so to have lunch with someone that I don’t know you, right unless there is some type of a compelling reason because you don’t get those calls every single day, and was calling my assistant for about two months and then finally I said okay persistent wins out, alright I will come and I will meet you. lets have coffee for 20 minutes right and so I go in, I drive into town, I come into the coffee shop and the first thing that he says to me when he sit down is he says, oh thanks for coming out and seeing me and I said sure no problem. And he said so can you tell me a bit about what you do? And that drove me insane because here is the guy that's been after me for a month to meet with me and this is what he says, and nothing will piss somebody off faster than you don’t know what they do, and they don’t know who their target market is. You don’t know what they are selling and all of that. So the first thing what you want to approach a partner is research, okay.

Jason Hartman: Right, you want to know who and why you are approaching so that you can offer the value proposition right away, right.

Stefanie: Yeah, so in order to figure out the value proposition you want to know is who what you are offering them let's say it's your proj or something that you are hoping that they will promote for you. If it is not a match to their target market, they are not going to be interested. Even if your product isn't sensational, you know so that's the first thing you need to know. You need to really know who they are targeted. Second I would just be on their list or jump on their company websites, and learn what you can about the person incharge, or the CEO. What is their agenda for this year? Are their any charities that they are involved in? Do they have a mission this year? Are they going it in a new direction? What do they really want to get out there, and promote? And then second evolves think not what you want to need but how you can help them because that’s the biggest thing. If you can come across to someone that helps them out, then you will completely distinguish yourself from everybody else. And that you don’t have to worry about the values as much, I will talk about that in a little bit second because I'm still getting to there, but the number one mistake and this is the biggest complaint. I interviewed like 100s of you know the most exceptional people in this business, and ask them tell me privately like what upsets you and when you get JV proposals either by email or on the phone, and why do you decide to go yes with someone because there are some people that if you are the right person and you come across the right way even if you just starting, they will take you under their wing, and they will do you know they will promote you even though you don’t have a huge list, so you don’t have anything huge to offer them in return, but here is the first thing you need to do is build report, that’s your first mission. You know may be at first one is the research. The second one is build rapport, and so after you do the research you have to find out there are a match for you, then build rapport, and here is the thing, most I kind of reckon JVs as dating so you are back into the dating world. And what most people do when they open up a conversation and they send in an email, they duly equivalent over this. They walk into a bar, and let's say Jason you know you see this pretty girl sitting on a bar stool up there. And imagine yourself as you go up to her, and you say hi, my name is Jason Hartman, and this is what I do, and this is what I sell, and here is what I think we should do. I think we should get together, I think we should get married, I think this is where we should have our house, and this is the exact dog we should get.

Jason Hartman: She would run for the hills.

Stefanie: Yeah and here is what you are going to get out of it, and you are going to be so happy, so you know so we can have a deal.

Jason Hartman: Right.

Stefanie: Yeah, she would think you are insane, right.

Jason Hartman: Yeah of course.

Stefanie: And you get the huge bodyguards coming up but this is what people do everyday when they meet business context. And the thing that I tell people is you've got something in your mind you are like look I would be so excited if so and so company would promote me, promote my product. You just send email out or have me up on their stage or promote me to their newsletter or may be even we co-create a product together. Well, I usually suggest is have that in mind. Let's go there with an open mind. Your first thing to do is build rapport so when you find out what's important to them then you can have conversations with them. And you could say look I noticed that this is one of your goals. I have got a contact here that I would like to shoot your way. I could set that meeting up for you. Would that be something be of interest for you, and they will go yeah, that would be great, and you just come out of the blue, and I go this cool. I'm kind of doing this, this is me. And then you could say you know secondly you know I have been watching yourself for a long, where I saw this new product that you are going to be launching next year, I think it would be really great. I talk to the same demographic, and you know this is what I think your product is going to be so hot, and so great with them, and I would love to introduce your product to them, and may be we can find a way to make that happen. And they say yeah, yeah may be we can't find a way to make that happen say yeah and you know I am working on something too, and this is what it is, and I think it would complement and not compete with what you are doing because if it's this way, and if there is someway we can may be sometime in the future or something we could talk about that. I would love to do that, and it's funny. I had a conversation with a woman that is famous for never doing joint ventures. And she says on our website, don’t contact me.

Jason Hartman: Interesting, so she is like got the signup I don’t want to date anybody.

Stefanie: I don’t want to date anybody, and it's true, and it's because she gets these crazies that come up to her in the bar, and to have that conversation with her all the time. And she just — it's like people pulling on your skirt or your pant leg, and saying here is what I need, here is what I need, here is what I need, right all about me, me, me. And she is got all of these goals. She has got this busy business, she is trying to do al the stuff so I just tested this out, you know even and on this conversation, and she had the same name. First name is me, and I won't tell you her last name, so you will figure out. Well, she had this same first name as me, and then we talked about that, and I said I have been hearing about you from so and so colleagues, and they are always saying we should cut necks, and I just looked at your product well. It looks so hot, and started talking about it and getting her engage in what she is interested. And I said you know what are your plans for the next years or is there anything like one major product you are really excited about. And then I said to her, I think I will really be able help you in some way, let me know. You may be I can help you in any one of these three ways. And they have nothing to do with what I currently do. It could be a contact. It could be hey if you want advice, it could be anything, or why don’t I find a contact that could help you with that. And you try to find someone that can help them if you can't do it.

Jason Hartman: Everything you are saying reminds me of this story that Earl Nightingale used to tell about the person on the white horse. During the Great Depression employers put up signs in their windows are not employers, but businesses that were still in business put up signs in their windows that said no help wanted because they were just inundated with people coming in saying do you have any jobs. I need a job, and there was one person the man on the white horse who would find a business or industry that he wanted to be in and he would research it, learn about it, and make the call on that that company and say I understand the problems your business faces, and I believe I have the solution for you and that's what every business owner wants to hear, right instead of I need a job and its just the way you approach it exactly what you are saying that's a great point.

Stefanie: Yeah and really with that its just having short conversations and if you think about it if I can have like a rapport building two minute conversation is probably turning to a little longer. I had someone I met that wanted so much to get in and talk to Steve Wayne from Las Vegas you know at the Wayne Resort and Wayne said you've got five minutes. Well, he knew what Wayne's interest were, and he started talking with them and it end up being a two hour interview, and now we've got contact and he build the huge relationships so my number one tip is, is don’t go in there thinking you know exactly what the joint venture is going to be between the two of you because you know what once you build the relationship and rapport with that person they may even have a better idea of how you could work together may be your product could be a bonus for their paid client who bought their customers, and you just — they pay you a wholesale rate for that what you really want to get to, and you can get to it quickly is having people co-create with you because if someone co-create something then they will support it. You can have a more powerful sales launch if you have even one partner that it's super on-board with you than a 100 smaller affiliate partners who don’t really know you. They don’t really care if your partner goes or not. They are setting out the emails, and may be doesn’t go to everybody or they forget to send it out all of that. but if you have one person or two people that's really supporting you in getting it out there you know that's because you have a relationship with them, and you want them, you know ask them how could we — here are some ideas I had, but what do you see — what do you think you know how would this work in and you give them the power instead of being all over that you are talking of them like an equaling and the last thing I just want to make and almost all the time is about the value is you bring tremendous value. I mean one of the things you could even bring is knowledge on the subject which may be your product that they don’t currently offer to the client, but its something that they need may be you are the FedEx to their Kinko, so may be you've got a computer program or system or something that's brand new you have been insulted and only want to take a due if someone has a huge database, but if it helps them say you know what, I know you got this product on Twitter. I have actually have a program that could probably help you fill more of those books if we even tie them together that would be an interesting conversation for him to have. He would be very interested in it plus if it took up very little of his time, and one example of a very simple JV just to get you thinking is there is a woman who wrote this book? You know when you go to a party and you make a speech, right and you are in toes so she went through the process that I talk about who was your target market. Well, there are people at wedding, at giving birth I mean all of these big events, big parties where people are giving toast, so who else is targeting that customers? Well, sparkling wine and champagne companies are. She was a self-published author. She had no connections and she started writing the letters to every single sparkling wine and champagne companies she could have, and she suggested that alright a co-creation JV where she said I've got this book on toast, and it’s a 101 toasts. You can give at a party and here is why I love your sparkling wine and I think it would be perfect to the event, and there is something that we could do together to promote. So she had a company that said yes. They didn’t know her from anyone. Had a company that said yes, and here is what they did to her. They first of all what they did is they bought 10s of 1000s of her books done. One phone call done. Now she charged them a wholesale rate plus five, six books, right? So she made money right there. Then what they did is they packaged it and then they had a promotion. She says; let my book help promote your book. Remember the theme I said let my product help promote your product and what you are trying to do, so they came up with a concept that if you bought two bottles of champagne you got her book for free which is great, right? So instead of people buying one bottle they buy two bottles, and you could imagine all the best man and all the brides and all these things going and running out to the parties been getting this, and so they actually bought her book. She didn’t have to pay for the drivers to hall the champagne bottles to hall the book. She didn’t have to pay for the retail space in the liquor stores or their shopping stores that or selling them. She didn’t have to pay for all the advertising promotion that the company was doing. She didn’t have to pay for the staff in the liquor store to stock the shelves and put the books up. She didn’t have to pay for any of the advertising on TV or radio or newspaper and anything that had this big promotion of if you buy two bottle for champagne you get this for free.

Jason Hartman: Much, much better business model much easier and wow what a hit that's perfect.

Stefanie: And across the country insistently because she had a national partner on that and just works they are going to do it again and again and again. Think of another fun way of how to work there so that's just a quick example of how she used all of these pieces and came up with model. And she was — she had self-published book and she wasn't a celebrity at all.

Jason Hartman: Excellent point Stefanie. We are going to have some special offers at speakingofwealth.com/offers. I will repeat that speakingofwealth.com/offers, and your website stefaniehartman.com. Stefanie you wanted to offer like a free workbook or something like that on there?

Stefanie: Yeah I absolutely did because this is a really big subject, and I have a course on this, but if you want you can actually get a free membership into the JV club where you can meet partners, just got match making technology that can actually its like the dating site for business, and you can get in for one month free, and then if you want to continue you can and you could also get a 63 page workbook that really talks about what is a JV? It gives you ton of examples where you want to go to tradeshows for free. I got my clients all over tradeshows for free. I got celebrity endorsements for their tradeshow booth, and they within two weeks of then going to the tradeshow that cost them nothing. How to get a national sales team with no expense? How one woman partnered with one person and went from a $300,000 year business to a $1.3 million year business two people going to the same market just put their products and really why this is working to staff even about why this is working in this economy now, and talks a little about charities and corporations too, but then there is the workbook where you can really punch in all of the things about you, and you will be able to walk away after you read this and fill it out of knowing exactly who you can partner with, how you are going to approach them, and almost everything you need to do it, and that's going to be there on that website that you mentioned so you are welcome to that. I sold that at $97 and I had 2000 in 24 hours for that book and it's really the wave of the future, and you never have to work alone anymore, and this is the big thing. Collaboration is really the ways of the future.

Jason Hartman: It did really is. So it always works so well historically too, but nowadays even people that you consider people of businesses that you consider and some of your competitors I love the title of the book that addresses this several years ago Co-Opetition because in today's world one plus one does not necessarily equal two sometimes it equals eleven that's the power of this collaboration you know.

Stefanie: And my new book coming that was going to be called Six Degrees of Wealth and its really about the Six Degrees of Separation that we have, and it will blow your mind how close you are to the contacts that you really want, and there is a study that actually proves this, and I am going to be talking about that a bit more time I would give it, but I mean its really the wave of the future and you will be able to identify too even by just reading the free workbook of who is an abundant thinker, who is a lack thinker because you don’t want to waste your time doing the JV deal with the lack thinker and those lack thinker. And those lack thinkers are their businesses are going down right now. I have seen in the last three year a major decline in the industry of lack thinkers, but abundant thinkers working together and collaborating are just doing amazing.

Jason Hartman: That's great, so Stefanie Hartman thank you so much for joining us the free workbook which was $97 before and a couple of thousand downloads. Thank you so much for your generosity in offering that. That will be at speakingofwealth.com/offers as well as the links for the free 30 day trial of your business matchmaking group and those are just excellent things. Thank you Stefanie for the words of wisdom and for those generous offers, Stefanie Hartman from Vancouver thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it.

Stefanie: Thank you so much and thank you everyone for listening.

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The Speaking of Wealth Team


Transcribed by: Renee’ Naphier