Joe Polish: Hello everyone, it’s Joe Polish and this is Dan Sullivan. Here we are 10xtalk, ready to go to phase two of the last episode, you’re asking me a bunch of questions about-
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Genius Network, because Joe, my whole life for the last forty years has really been about entrepreneurs just creating something almost out of their imagination and out of their passion. We have many examples of that. Both you and I just attended the first conference that kicked off the program Abundance 360 with Peter Diamandis, who was introduced to me through your great networking skills. Literally, Peter created a fabulous book, which I consider probably one or two most important books of my entire life, which is called Abundance, where he’s just done a masterful job of summing up all the exponential technologies that are available in the world right now, the new kinds of exponential resources and opportunities that are being created. It’s just making life incredibly better than it’s ever existed on the planet. A lot of people don’t know this because the news media is strictly about bad news and how things are getting worse. It was just a pleasure.
I know, Joe, you and I were just spectators, really. I’ve done a lot of work with Peter, and you’ve done a lot of work with Peter before the conference. Just to see him in an entirely new theater for him and an entirely new stage in process for him was just incredibly enjoyable. I was sitting there and I was just saying, “This is the incredible reward you get for helping other individuals actually take their uniquibility and put it in a form where, in many ways, the whole world can get it.” I know you share that pleasure, and I share that pleasure. I think what Genius Networking is really about, it’s not what can the geniuses do for you, but actually what can you do for the geniuses. Which in the act of contributing to them, you actually get a new capability yourself.
Joe Polish: Right. The beauty of what you just said there too is, what we were able to witness and be so happy for Peter, and all the people that were there, because it was so incredibly valuable, is that is a bi-product of Genius Network and Strategic Coach.
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: Peter admittingly, from the audience, even said that. The original idea came from me, the amount of people that you brought into that room, the structure, the format was totally through Peter working directly with you and your team.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Being in Strategic Coach. We talked about strategic bi-products at the very end, which is when I started my interview series, which Genius Network was just an interview series, and then it became in-person meetings. Now it’s the highest level group in the world for industry transformers and people that have intellectual property and unique packaging and focus on the area of marketing.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: There’s no other group like it. We have a billionaire that joined the group, and so basically, Peter’s event all came out of Genius Network, when he came to the very first 25K meeting.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: The book Abundance was just getting ready to be launched. Through the network, it not only put together the people in the campaigns that spend nine weeks on New York Times, but this is what has become of it, and that is available to anyone.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: That not only accesses the Genius Network, or develops their own.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: See, here’s the cool thing, too, I mean, you were totally helpful with Peter. There’s no money being exchanged for that event, other than Peter’s a paying member of Strategic Coach and a paying member of Genius Network. Peter is also doing these other events and I’m a paying member of that. I became a platinum partner of Singularity University.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Which is one of the first things I did with Peter. Now you have done and created something that I think is infinitely better than anything I’ve ever seen him done in any environment.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Which is the Abundance 360. This is really a mechanism on how to better your best, is to think of who are the people in your world, business and personally, that are the multipliers.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I just want to talk about something because a lot of people really, really don’t understand this principle. There’s many, many unique ways of getting paid in this world besides money. Actually, if you take money off the table as the way you’re going to get paid, it actually opens the doors to some really unique ways of getting paid that most people don’t even think about. You mentioned it before, that every one of the interviews that you do, which no money is really exchanged when you do these interviews with other people, they get paid because they get massive exposure through your contact list. I think that one of the developing trends that I see in the world, and I think it goes right to the heart of Genius Network, Joe, is that what we’re discovering in a world where every dollar you can make can be taxed and it can be observed by Government, I think there’s a real movement on part of the entrepreneurs to create all sorts of valued creation capabilities and networks and everything else, where in fact, money doesn’t get exchanged, but enormous value is being created by everyone who’s involved.
Joe Polish: Right. Right. Yeah. See, people that get that, they realize that there is this amazing gold mine of rewards that doesn’t show up financially on the front end.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: But will show up financially down the road, if that’s the goal. Is this your whole thing? You know, the five ways you get paid.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: Reward, utilize, appreciate, refer, enhance. The psychological paycheck for me is more important than the financial paycheck with the caveat being, you got to have money.
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: Money is critical and once you have the mechanism of brining in money, all money is not created equal. I always love referring to things as ELF. You can either have easy, lucrative and fun opportunities, or you can have hard, annoying, lame and frustrating, or hard, annoying and lucrative and frustrating. You know? You can have ELF business or you can have a HALF business. There are ELF individuals and there are HALF individuals. I really, I mean, my relationship with you is ELF.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: I mean, the relationship we have with Peter. Peter’s relationship with you is … you know, and me, is the biggest ELF business Peter’s probably even been involved in.
Dan Sullivan: Sort of the image I’d like everybody to have in their mind is that, when you go to a sport stadium, or an arena, and you look at the game, there’s two experiences that people are having throughout the game. One of them is what’s actually happening on the field, or on the ice, or on the floor. Then there’s the scoreboard. A lot of people have narrowed their life down to the only thing that they really think about is the scoreboard. If you just studied scoreboards all your life, it wouldn’t tell you a thing about the actually game that’s actually taking place, that’s getting everybody thrilled, and where all the emotion is. People who only think about money, they are scoreboard watchers. They don’t know anything about the actual experience that’s actually creating the score.
Joe Polish: Right. Right. (laughs) Yep. There’s so many lessons just in that. Here’s one thing also- because you just mentioned the scoreboard thing. This reminds me of the type of people that I like dealing with and the type of clients I like working with. It’s the people that are actually in the arena. You know the Theodore Roosevelt quote of the man in the arena?
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: There’s a lot to be said about working with, and dealing with people that are willing to play the game. I saw this sign in front of a storage unit business when I was driving through Arizona, it was in Wickenburg. There was a sign that said, “You don’t build a great reputation by talking about what you’re going to do.” I took a picture of that. I was like, you know, that’s great. I just really like people- you know, look. Talk about what you’re going to do and do it.
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: Or talk about what you’re doing as you’re doing it. Don’t sit and talk about, oh, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that, and then don’t do it. I mean, any moron can do that.
Dan Sullivan: Let your achievements do the bragging. I mean, it’s along the same line. I mean, if you have the achievements, you don’t have to say anything. The results are actually the biggest loud speaker in the world.
Joe Polish: Totally. Totally.
Dan Sullivan: Talking about the arena and what’s going on in the arena, let’s talk about the arena of the actual form right now that you’ve created, Unique in the World, transformative you know I do it six days a year. It’s four years next month that I finally was able to arrange my Strategic Coach workshop schedule, which back then was really intense and it was year long. I was able to free up a situation where I could actually come and spend- three times a year, I could spend two days with the marvelous environment that you’ve actually created. Let’s take aback now to the actual official beginning. Because in our previous recording, we actually went over all the build up to get to the point where you actually launch this. Let’s start right there today.
Joe Polish: Okay. Going back probably, oh, the conversation was about- the time we were doing this, was about nine years ago. I had been running a platinum group, which was a thousand dollar a month to upwards of seventeen thousand dollar a year different versions of that, coaching group where people that were in mostly service businesses, but a variety of different businesses, would fly to Arizona and they would be either in a one day or a two day meeting with me several times a year. We would have contests for people, they would engage in a thing we created called Better Your Best. I was very successfully doing this and just having enormous results. What I learned was, you can teach people goal setting and stuff all day long, but the moment you start incentivizing them and giving them a vehicle to increase their intensity, is how I like to refer to it-
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: People would just produce much better results. I did a little bit of consulting here and there. I would never heavily promote it. I still do to this day. I have a site set up for it, called hirejoepolish.com and that sort of stuff. I really do my best to talk people out of doing any sort of in-person consulting with me and joining one of the groups, because I think it’s more bang for the buck. Plus, I’d rather do groups of people than one-on-one consulting. I just prefer it. I had a client named Robin Robins, and she is the top marketing expert in the world to the IT industry, people that are in the IT business for computers.
Dan Sullivan: Robin is the master of retaining customers and clients.
Joe Polish: Yes. She is awesome. She just is so smart and so talented and creates so much value for her clients.
Dan Sullivan: Kind of Reba McEntire, I mean, if people have a picture of who Robin is, it’s kind of Reba McEntire.
Joe Polish: Exactly. Yeah. Totally.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Like Reba is her most wealthy sister.
Joe Polish: Right. Right. Robin is a bulldog. I mean, she is tenacious, she takes no shit from anybody and she has really, really good stuff. I mean, she knows her stuff. She had hired me for a two hour process called An Opportunity Realization Road Map. ORR is how we would abbreviate it. It would consist of me sending out some questions to someone and they have any sort of opportunity that they want to launch, or an existing business that they want to change, or get out of, i mean, whatever someone wanted help- needed marketing and strategy figured out. I’d send them out a list of twenty-five questions and it would require them to do some pretty serious thinking. Then they would get on the phone with me for a couple of hours and I would talk to them for a couple of hours. I was charging six grand for that. Now I charge twenty-five grand for half a day to do that stuff.
Basically, she had hired me. At the end of two hours, she said, “Joe, why don’t you create a platinum group for information marketers?” Information marketers would be people that are book authors, speakers, coaches, people that sell kits, on-line programs, product launches, things like that.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Because that’s what she was. She would do seminars and she would sell courses and training and that sort of thing. She made that comment to me, she’s like, “Why don’t you create a platinum group for, you know, info marketers?” I said, “Well, it’s not like I haven’t thought about that, but like anything else, you got to put it together. It takes time. You got to market it.” I go, “I’ve thought about it, I just haven’t done it.” However, on the last episode, Dan, remember I mentioned I listen to what people say?
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: I said to her, I go, “However, though, if I ever did do it, what would you suggest I charge for it?” She’s like, “Well, I just paid you six thousand dollars for two hours and I got a ton of value out of this. I would, you know, pay you twenty-five thousand dollars a year if you started a program like that.” I said, “Okay, so what you’re saying is you would pay me twenty-five thousand dollars a year if I did it?” She goes, “Absolutely. And I would refer other people to the group.” I said, “Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. Let me think about it and if I ever decide to do it, I’ll let you know.”
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: We hung up the call. I kind of sat there for a couple minute and I thought, huh, this is interesting. I really like doing brainstorm sessions and I would always do them at my office. I would bring down the original that I had learned marketing from, John Carlton and Gary Halbert. I would always have lunch with a guy named Dan Kennedy when he used to live in Phoenix and you know, Dan’s a curmudgeonist, very smart marketer. I used to have lunch with Dan almost weekly when he was in town, for two years straight. I would always have these brainstorm sessions at my office. They would only happen whenever I decided to pull it together, but they would be so great and we would come together and people would just talk. They would talk about stuff that they weren’t talking about with anyone else, and they would share what they’re doing in their own worlds. It would be really useful for everyone else that was there, but there was no structure to it. There was no business built around it. I thought about it for about a month.
Then I called up Robin and I said, “You know, I think I’m going to start that program that you said do a platinum for, you know, information marketers and I’ll call it the Genius Network Mastermind.” She’s like, “Perfect.” She FedExed me a check the next day. I get her check and I call up several other people and I basically say, you know, “Robin joined this thing. This is what I’m thinking about doing.” These were all people that I would call them for advice half the time, which was really funny. I had created so much value for them and they knew how useful coming and meeting with me was.
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: Especially because I would bring in all these other geniuses. Because I’m a curator of really smart people.
Dan Sullivan: Yes. Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Everyone I talked to, they’re like, yeah, I’ll join. I’ll join. I started it. What’s funny is, I had everyone pay in the beginning with checks so that I could take a copy of their check, photocopy it, we would put a black marker through the account number and their signature and stuff.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: We would literally reproduce it. We sent out a letter showing other people that these other smart, well-known people were actually cutting me a check, so they didn’t think anyone was getting comped into this group. Because I had made it real clear, everyone pays, there’s no guests. The only time we ever have a guest is if they’re a speaker, or if they work for me, or if I have equity in their company. Beyond that, everyone pays.
Dan Sullivan: Joe, I just want to say something here because over the last six months you’ve brought up this subject. What I want to really do now is, create a hundred thousand- 100K group. I just want to broadcast right here for the world, that when the day that you announce that, Babs and I are the first people to sign up for it.
Joe Polish: I love you, Dan. You’re awesome.
Dan Sullivan: I want to bring up the subject here because we’ve had- Joe, you and I have talked about this over the years, that the winners in the world consider every check they write an investment and the losers of the world think every check they write is a cost.
Joe Polish: Right.
Dan Sullivan: Okay? Paying a hundred thousand dollars to you, personally for myself, I don’t see anything about that a cost. I see it just pure investment and I’ll tell everybody here, I came to your first group. You said, “This is how it works. You’ve paid me twenty-five thousand. If in the first year you don’t get an idea that at least takes that investment ten times, then I’m not going to let you back for the second year because you’re a real dummy and I don’t want to fill up my room with dummies.” I know after the first half hour, and we have this on record, it’s no video record, I walked up to the front of the room. I’ll tell you, I told Joe, I said, “I just got my two hundred and fifty thousand dollars back.” And that would be just the beginning. That single idea that I got, just from you talking about the investment and the ten times return, launched an entirely new program for me and as near as I can figure right now, the return after the third year is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the about twelve or thirteen million dollars.
This is part of entrepreneurism, is that the entrepreneur never looks at their outlays as costs, only as investments. We could do a whole session on that, because people are saying, jeez, who would pay twenty-five thousand? The people who look at the world as cost would never pay it. People who look at the world as an investment would pay twenty-five thousand.
Joe Polish: Yes, exactly. I think I’ve always had that mindset, because if you treat knowledge, or you treat strategic bi-products, you create really elegant solutions and elegant ideas and game-changing individuals and strategy as a commodity. I mean, it’s the Henry Ford thing, if you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: It’s a real scarcity mindset to be- real players don’t value information by the pound. They value it by the value of the information applied, and what it does for their thinking, what it does for their life. I already know the individuals that are in 25K, the way that I structure it, unless you really don’t have your act together, there’s no way that you’re not going to parlay the twenty-five thousand dollar investment into many, many multiples.
Dan Sullivan: Oh, yeah.
Joe Polish: One of our very first people that joined was doing between twelve to twenty million a year in revenue.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: On average, the first year he joined. Then last year, his company did right under two hundred million in sales. Dean will be one of the first ones to tell you, yeah, most of the strategies and the relationships that have allowed him to build up that company came out of being in 25K. I’ve got numerous videos of him talking about that. It’s not just the money that has improved with Dean. The quality of his services, the way he’s presented himself, the success stories of his clients. I mean, it’s exponentially-
Dan Sullivan: His whole service attitude and everything, you know? The constant expansion of value creation around what- in that kind of world would be seen just as a transaction. I think over the years, that what Dean has produced, that is not a transaction. It’s a transformation. Transformation comes from massive amounts of extra value. Transactions are transactions, but what’s around that transaction that would make it into a transformation.
Joe Polish: Right. Right.
Dan Sullivan: I want to say something right here, since we’re making promises on air here, is I know Dean wants to be number one in the new group, and you have to promise here, right Joe, that we get twenty-four hours advanced notice before Dean.
Joe Polish: Actually, I would love that because I will rub it in his face all the time.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Tell him it’s just a matter of love, Dean. You know? It’s just a matter of love. The people I love most get the first crack to pay me a hundred thousand dollars.
Joe Polish: Hey, look. I’ll go on record and say that I think you’re cooler than Dean anyway, so that’s not even a question.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: No. That’ll be great, too. I mean, he’s very competitive. That’s the funny thing about Dean. That’s what the thing is with entrepreneurs, too. I mean, we have very competitive people in 25K, they’re not competitive in terms of they’re not sharing. It’s one of the most chummy, sharing friendship oriented groups where the vast majority of people there are applauding everyone’s success, they’re happy to see it happen. It’s just a very unique group. I think a lot of that comes from how I run it, how I select people to be in the group and the type of people that we attract to it. For people that are listening to this, the takeaways are- you know, there’s many. The things that I will point out is, for one, always continually focus on how you can continue to add value. With the 100K group as an example, I’ve had four people tell me that as soon as I start a 100K group, they will join. It’s not because they just want to stroke a check for a hundred grand. I mean, that’s a lot of money.
In order for me to do that, I don’t want one year where I get a bunch of people to pay a hundred grand and they don’t want to renew.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: I mean, I am very focused on- in order to have someone invest a hundred thousand dollars into an educational format, into a platform, it really needs to bring a return. Not just money, of their time.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: These are very successful people that are doing this. I am very clear about- some people just want to figure out how much money they can sell something for. It doesn’t take a genius to have a great marketing campaign and get people to pay money. I mean, the real success is the longevity of the clientèle.
Dan Sullivan: I always say to my sales people and everything in Strategic Coach, I says, “What we are selling is a lifetime relationship here. So don’t treat it like a transaction.” You don’t talk to people that you’re offering the possibility of a lifetime relationship the same way you’re doing a one off sale. You got to really appreciate it, you got to be committed to that. Joe, if you had to pick three things that you’ve learned most since you started that very first meeting that Robin was a part of, and I think Dean was a part of, what have really emerged, and almost in a surprising way for you? What has emerged as the three strongest attractors to the genius network, now that you’ve had a whole number of years? What was the start year, if you can remember the start year?
Joe Polish: Was it 2005 or 2006?
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. You’re almost pushing a decade. If I said you could only pick three things that have been the biggest major forces that have made Genius Network so powerful, what would number one be?
Joe Polish: I’ve actually asked 25K members what they get out of it. There’s different things for different people. From my perspective, it’s definitely the community. It’s the camaraderie.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: The relationships, the networking, the individuals, the sounding boards that the group represents. It’s being able to go to a place in their world, these ideas and their visions, will get size from the people that work for them sometimes, or their family members will think they’re crazy, and they come to Genius Network and they’re celebrated and they’re applauded for their big visions and for their industry transformative methods and products and services and stuff. That’s one thing. Just the community. The second is that I have learned, and I do my best to convey this, is that one elegant idea is worth more than a thousand semi-good ideas.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: That really successful people, they like ideas, they love ideas, or they hate ideas because they got too many of them in their brain. Some people’s brains manufacture continuously, ideas.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: The focus on the more successful and the smarter and talented and skilled somebody is, the less they need ideas. What they want is elegant ideas.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: I mean, you’ve learned this, too. You do a great job at Strategic Coach helping people filter through all of the random thoughts going through their head, is that the more successful they are, the less props they need.
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: They need less stuff. We’re not doing monthly conference calls, we’re not sending out a ton of stuff. I’ll send out a red box several times a year. We have a red box where, in that red box will contain a CD or a strategy, or something that we feel will have at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of value. I’m very focused on the ten times return. That would be the other thing, is just the emphasis on thinking about two hundred and fifty thousand dollar qualifiers that will multiply.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
Joe Polish: The way that we get there, the mechanisms that we get there are, we do three person hot seats.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Where people focus on problems, challenges and opportunities.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Then as a group, we have all these smart people that they will get together with, and they will solve their problems on the spot.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: Or come up with a strategy to reach their opportunities. That’s big. Then, of course, one of my greatest innovations was the ten minute talk format.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Can we talk about that? Because I’m just amazed at the power of that one little simple structure. I’m in the business of looking for things that really work fast for entrepreneurs. Because historically, we’ve had about sixteen thousand entrepreneurs who either have attended or are still active in Strategic Coach. On the ADD spectrum, attention deficit disorder structure, and this is pretty well consistent with entrepreneurs, I would say sixty percent of them are somewhere on the spectrum. If it doesn’t happen fast, if they don’t get it right away and it’s not actionable, they’re not going to buy it. Talk about the insight that led up to that. I agree with the community, and the big thing, going back to the previous recording, where we talked about the great thing about when people are in that room, they don’t tell lies, they don’t cover up, they don’t hide their mistakes. It’s all out in the open. I think that’s why the community is so united, because you don’t have to put on an act in there. The second thing was this one simple structure that you’ve created, which I find just amazing. Talk a little bit about it. I know, to a certain extent, one of the ideas came from TED.
Joe Polish: Yes. I watch a lot of TED Talks. I mean, I’ve attended a boat load of events and seminars. I’ve read over a thousand books. I’m a big consumer of getting an edge, how to do something better. I want to learn tactics, I want to learn strategies, I want to learn other people’s stupid human tricks. I want to help people share their stupid human tricks that aren’t really stupid, actually, they’re brilliant human tricks, with other people quickly, in a way that someone could use it. I love TED, by the way. I mean, I think there’s a lot of really incredible TED Talks, and there’s some that might be interesting, but how useful are they? TED has this tag-line which is, ideas worth spreading. I started thinking a lot about, well, I’m charging a lot more than what it costs to go to TED. I have people coming on a continuity basis, they’re developing deep relationships with everyone. How are we going to always have something that’s new, better and different, to use words from you, that continually gives people confidence and clarity, and allows them to just multiply?
So I started thinking, all right, since I have this twenty-five thousand dollar a year program, what if I could have people share, in ten minutes, a best practice or strategy that has been worth at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more to them in their business, and do it in ten minutes so that by the time they’re done, the people in the audience get it, and they actually can take steps and do it, they can’t use it. Where every minute would be worth twenty-five thousand dollars. Part of it was like creating a value of, I charge twenty-five thousand for the year. What if I could have a ten minute talk during one of the two day events, where that alone, every event they come to, they’re going to walk out of there with at least one two-hundred and fifty thousand dollar elegant idea or solution, or maybe several? How useful would that be? I mean, who would not want to be in that program?
So it’s my constant desire to blow people away and deliver in experience. You know? I interviewed Nathaniel Branden, who’s the father of self-esteem psychologist, many years ago. He’s a friend of mine.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Several years ago I interviewed him. He made this statement, he said, “You know, when someone goes to therapy, they’re not going for an explanation. They don’t want a therapist that’s going to sit there and explain to them a psychological issue.” He’s like, “When someone goes for help, they’re not going for an explanation. They’re going for an experience.” I always loved that line.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Because people aren’t coming to this seminar to be entertained. I mean, these are people that run seminars, these are people that write New York Times best-selling books, these are people that run multi-million dollar businesses. I mean, they don’t need an explanation, they need an experience. So I wanted to deliver people that sort of thing. So I started thinking, how about ideas worth using? I tested it out. I created a whole process where people will spend more time filling out and clarifying their subject matter in their content in a one page form. Then they are prepared to deliver a ten minute talk. We started testing this out a couple of meetings. This was back in the beginning of 2012. Low and behold, the people in the audience, including you, loved it. I mean, we had some people get up and do some ten minute talks. Then I created our very first- we were doing annual events. I had Richard Branson come, Bill Phillips, you would speak at all of them. You always speak at all of them because you’re awesome. I decided to do one in New York, where I would allow people that weren’t in 25K to actually come to the annual event.
That’s the only event that I do once a year with people that aren’t officially 25K members, that pay twenty-five thousand a year, can actually come to the event, and I charge ten thousand dollars for it. During that event, we had thirty-six or thirty-eight people, at the 2012 event, give ten minute talks. Then in 2013, we did it again. The 2013 event, we actually sold out. We had two hundred and six people.
Dan Sullivan: You know what I notice, is that because you had prepared people for the 2012 experience to get good at this ten minute talk thing, it’s a lot easier to give a half hour presentation than it is to give a ten minute presentation. I mean, it’s really, really interesting the discipline and- you can’t talk about yourself in a ten minute talk. You can only talk about that audience. That’s a great discipline for anyone who wants to market. Don’t talk about yourself, nobody cares. I just notice such a quantum leap in the quality of the ten minute talks one year later, because you’re actually creating this brand new form in the world for people to organize themselves and basically get their act together in a remarkably short period of time and get it across in a very powerful way. I can’t imagine anyone- I don’t care whether you give the ten minute talk or not, if you’re just sitting there for two days and you’re getting the benefit of these, each of them which is a big energy charger, energy booster, that your whole communication style wouldn’t be immensely improved just by being in the audience and listening to them.
Joe Polish: Oh, and see, that’s one thing that people in 25K have told me. We’ve now had people that filled out a ten minute talk form that had no intention whatsoever of doing a ten minute talk. I’m like, well, we want you to fill this out, because think of any best practices strategy. For one, it causes people to think about what they are doing, or what they have done in their business that has been worth at least a quarter of a million dollars. So it’s a real heavy emphasis on what is working, how are you strategic? Some of these have to do with like money-making strategies. Others have to do with health. Others have to do with rituals. Others have to do with the way they do relationships.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Some of them have even gone into things like meditation.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: How they spend time with their families. We’ve had people give talks on how they’ve gotten injured and were forced to have to figure out how to make work work without them working.
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: How to make their business work and how that ended up making their companies even more successful. There’s all kinds of incredibly useful things that come out of it. The more that we do this, the more we realize, wow. The people that have been doing these ten minute talks, I’ve had some that have turned into articles, into knowledge products, into brand new seminars, and several of them right now, meaning 25K members, are actually writing books that first started as doing my ten minute talk form.
Dan Sullivan: Oh, yeah.
Joe Polish: It is great to see the seeds that are growing into all of these different strategic bi-products.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: So now, when I do 25K meetings- I mean, the 2012 meeting, we had all kinds of well-known business people. We had Arianna Huffington, and Steve Forbes, and Tim Ferriss, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Peter Diamandis, and Ray Kurzweil. It goes on and on and on. The one this year, we’re moving it to Newport Beach in 2014.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: That’s going to be August 14th and 15th, at an incredible, beautiful resort.
Dan Sullivan: Pelican Hill, rated one of the top luxury resorts in the world.
Joe Polish: Exactly. So 25K is not just speakers. I mean, it is incredible speakers, incredibly honed content, incredible networking opportunities, great sounding boards.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: It’s awesome.
Dan Sullivan: One of the things that I just observed last year, because there’s a real spectrum, and I created a scoring system for rating all the speakers, which I gave back to Eunice on your team. I said you should actually use this as a basis for developing your own scoring system so that people can actually qualify for the main platform. One of the things I just noticed is that ten minutes isn’t the same amount of time, depending on the speaker, and that if the speaker spends ten minutes talking about themselves, it’s the longest ten minutes in the world.
Joe Polish: Yeah.
Dan Sullivan: If they spend ten minutes talking about the audience, it’s the shortest ten minutes in the world.
Joe Polish: Right. Right. Very true. It really forces people to become much more powerful communicators. What’s even more funny, you’re absolutely right when you say it, it’s harder to do a ten minute talk than it is a thirty minute talk. We have people that are incredibly bright, but they’re not speakers.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: They don’t go out and give presentations. They’re kind of like, you know, I’ve never done a ten minute talk before, so I’ll give it a shot.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: Because they think it’s only ten minutes. In reality, they have to think about it.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: We have now taken people that have incredible knowledge, that are never going to write a book, they’re not going to do a seminar, that’s not their thing, and they are actually sharing, in a logical format, how they can do that.
Dan Sullivan: I asked you for three points, you gave the community, you gave the ten minute talk, and probably the way to round out this particular presentation is just to talk about the third thing you’ve gotten. One thing, just possibly a trigger for you, is that I’ve just noticed what’s happened to you over the last eight or nine years as someone who can handle a huge room with a great sense of style and ease. I don’t know if that’s your third point, but I certainly see it.
Joe Polish: I’d say the networking and certainly the way that people do business there is one of the key points. What I would say, people want elegant ideas, they want a great community and they want to meet incredible people. I mean, there are people that like meeting very successful entrepreneurs. I also know- you take new things. When we first started talking about this on that previous episode, like what are the things that are coming down the pipe that are going to be really important? I’d say a lot of things that are being discussed with Peter, as an example. Crowd-funding.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Incentivized competitions are huge. Automation, things like text messaging and doing product launches.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Using video on-line, using technology for your messaging and doing it in an automated way. Reaching people on all of their communication devices, not just computer, not just email, but mobile devices, text messaging. Those are the things that I think are going to be the big game-changers. You know, 3D printing and manufacturing, how that’s going to change everything. So having continual conversations about the latest and greatest newest technology.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Because you can’t get really overwhelmed by all of the new gadgets out there.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: When you come to 25K and you see somebody that is saying, “Okay, there’s a thousand different softwares, and there’s all kinds of different technologies, but here’s one that I’m using that’s added, you know, a million dollars to my business in the last three months.” People want to hear that stuff. The very strategic elegant ideas, I think, are just so key.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: You can’t get that from … people can go on Netflix, and for seven dollars and ninety-five cents a month they can access TED Talks, incredible documentaries, all kinds of stuff in a very organized format. Just providing people with content on-line. You don’t have to pay anything. I mean, you can listen to 10xTalk.com right now and you’re getting incredible, useful business stuff.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: I Love Marketing. There’s all kinds of useful stuff that’s out there. Coming to a meeting is where players come to get better and better themselves.
Dan Sullivan: There’s a great value, and the value is getting greater from on-line content. I have to tell you, it’ll never replace the actual being I the presence of other people. Humans communicate on about twenty more dimensions when they’re together, than would ever be possible on-line.
Joe Polish: Exactly.
Dan Sullivan: The right people. I’ve met some people where I would prefer the on-line experience. (laughter) You know? I could name a lot of people, I wish my only experience was on-line where I can click after five seconds. You know?
Joe Polish: Let me say this, too, Dan. Because I want to make sure- while I got this in my head is, you were talking earlier about people that look at something as a cost versus an investment. One of the things, I’ll recommend Strategic Coach to so many people. I mean, you know that, I’ve done that for years. They’ll be like, “Well, how am I going to make the time? You know? How am I going to go to 25K? How am I going to go to- you know, I’m super busy. I’m already doing a bunch of stuff.” I’ll say, “Well, you know, it’s either going to take your time or it’s going to make you time. It’s going to multiply you. It’s going to produce results. It’s either going to cost you money, or it’s going to make you money.” Going to Strategic Coach, going to 25K doesn’t take any extra time. Are you going to have to block out days of the year? Absolutely. Yes. You’re going to have to fly. You’re going to have to sit in a room. You’re going to have to engage with other people. Now, if you’re completely a disengaged human being, I mean, you shouldn’t engage in anything, because what’s the point?
If you’ve got electricity running through you, and you want to power yourself in a much greater level and multiply yourself, everyone that I’ve referred to Strategic Coach, that actually goes to Strategic Coach, it doesn’t take them extra time. What they learn there, on how to organize their life, organize their business, think about things, eliminate shit they shouldn’t be doing, go to a much greater level of performance and productivity, while taking time off, it frees them. These things don’t cost people money. They give people freedom.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: They make people money. That’s a mindset, because half of what someone gets out of these sort of investments of time and money is half of what we provide and the other half of who they show up. If you’re the right person, this will make sense to you. The right people will hear this and they’ll be like, “Yeah. Strategic Coach is right for me. 25K is right for me. I mean I’m really clear just from hearing Joe an Dan talk about it on this level that I definitely can leverage that.”
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
Joe Polish: There’s other people that are like, “Uh, what are they talking about?”
Dan Sullivan: I tell entrepreneurs 25K and I said, “You’ve blown more money on really bad hires. You know? You’ve hired someone, then you had to fire them. You’re spending all sorts of money on things which actually do turn out to be incredible costs because they were never an investment in the first place.”
Joe Polish: I have one person, I won’t say his name because I don’t want to embarrass him. Several years ago, he was contemplating, he wanted to buy like a hundred thousand dollar sports car. He ended up buying this sports car and two years later finally joined 25K. After the first meeting he’s like, “I’m such an idiot. I put more emphasis on buying the hundred thousand dollar sports car than paying twenty-five grand because I felt that was a bigger investment, and I could’ve bought ten of these sports cars if I would’ve done it.” I’m like, there you go.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: I mean, it’s easier for some people to spend a hundred grand on a freaking Porsche than it is to twenty-five thousand or whatever on Strategic Coach that could make them millionaires and give them a hundred free days a year.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. There’s people who pay a hundred thousand dollars a year to belong to a golf club, where they hang out with people who are very, very incredibly boring. The main thing is, what’s going to multiply you as an individual? What’s going to multiply your future? Really great investments are multiplier investments. I don’t live in a world of class at all. I live in a world of investments. You know, not all of them are good investments. Just like buying stocks. Nobody would consider investing in the stock market at cost. It’s an investment. They just have some bad experiences, and we all do, and that’s the world we’re living in. The biggest investments that you can possibly make is in your increased clarity, confidence and capability about who you are in a world of almost unlimited opportunities, if you’ve got the right mindset and you have the right approach and you have the right networks. Genius Network is just the best network you could possibly use to multiply yourself in the future.
Joe Polish: Thank you, Dan. I really appreciate you obviously fulfilling any conversation which allows me to talk about the group that I love, and that you’re a part of it. The last thing I would really say to everyone is, our friend J.R. has this great line, for those that get it, no explanation is needed. For those that don’t, no explanation will do. There are people out there that just get it. If you’re one of those people that get it, I mean, great. Because the getting it is what you want. We’ve talked on previous episodes where you say entrepreneurs make it up and then they make it real. In order to take your ideas and turn them into reality, I mean, you need strategy, you need direction, confidence and capability. You want to surround yourself with people that are going to champion and tell you, “Yeah. Go for it. This is awesome. This is incredible. Tweak it here, tweak it there. Little hinges swing big doors.” You also want to people to say, “You know, you’re completely going down an idiotic path. I mean, you might want to rethink this before you self implode.”
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Because I will tell you, it’s not about what it costs to go to Strategic Coach or Genius Network. People will piss away and lose far more money by not accessing what we have available to them, than what it costs to even be in it.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: Not just in money, but in time. I know people that would’ve saved their businesses, had they been in Strategic Coach, that have not blown hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Dan Sullivan: Or their marriages, or their families, or their health.
Joe Polish: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: I will say that Genius Network, not just mine, but your genius network, and having that community. If you’re an individual listening to this and you’re a brand new start-up and you wouldn’t even qualify to come to Genius Network, or go to go Strategic Coach, do the same thing that I think me and you did. I mean, we learned from the experiences of others.
Dan Sullivan: Right.
Joe Polish: Me and you have collectively developed our own schools, when we didn’t have schools that we could even go to. We’ve read a lot of books, we are in the arena. If you’re going to be in the arena, I tell people that are in the coaching business, if you’re going to go out and coach other entrepreneur and business owners, but you’re not in a group yourself, to me, it’s almost kind of like hypocritical. There’s almost like an arrogance about it. Like, I’m so smart, I’m too cool for school. I’ll tell people that, look, if you’re in the coaching business and you’re successful at what you do, if you’re in the how-to business, go to Strategic Coach, go to the 25K. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to use that? I mean, name a professional athlete that’s at the top of their game, that does not have a coach, that does not have someone, or a group of people that I would call their genius network, that they can gave everything, too.
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
Joe Polish: I just really believe in the whole concept.
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Joe Polish: It’s worked for me and it works for other people and that’s why we’re talking about it. Thank you. That’s all I have to say. That’s my rambling for today.
Dan Sullivan: I just want to thank you, because I know most of the story, but I’ve got an incredibly bigger overview of how this whole thing’s been created since you first started doing the interviews in 1995. This is fabulous for me and it helps me kind of tell other people about what you do, Joe.
Joe Polish: Yeah. Thank you. It is collaboration. My whole thing is, you keep collaborating with people that you’re aligned with, and you will both grown and multiply. That’s just the way the world works. So thank you, Dan. For all our listeners, please give us your comments at 10xTalk.com, share this with everyone you know that would be a right fit and thank you for listening. I hope you found it useful. Thanks, Dan.
Dan Sullivan: Okay. Bye.