Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what's next? Welcome to the Tony DUrso Show. Join in a great conversation today with some of the world's great influencers as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game changers they are today. Now, here's Tony DUrso. ______________ Jordan Goodman

Tony:

Welcome, I'm your host, Tony DUrso. I interview some of the most successful people in the world and I thank you for joining us. I broadcast every Friday at 2:00 PM Pacific on VoiceAmerica Influencers Channel and you can listen to all of our shows on most podcast platforms. If you have Apple Podcasts, please subscribe. And before we get going, here's a big thank you to some amazing sponsors of our show. Please stay tuned for an important message from Rothys about women's shoes, which my wife says are the best she ever wore and coming up as a significant message from Pantheon to build, manage, and optimize your most important brand asset, your website. More Info on them, just ahead. So please stay tuned. Today's show is about Money Answers and Billion Dollar Brands with Jordan Goodman and Rick Cesari. All right, here's some info on Jordan. Jordan Goodman is America's Money Answers Man because he's been answering financial questions for over 40 years. He's written 13 books and is the host of the Money Answers show on VoiceAmerica business and is a frequent guest on radio and TV shows across the country. Here we go. Welcome to the show, Jordan. It's so good to have you back on again.

Jordan:

Great to meet with you again, Tony.

Tony:

And once again, Jordan, the honor is all mine. I love having you on. There are so much value and information and advice that we give to people on helping them with their financial solutions a common problem. This is, it's been a while since you've been on and I have more members in the audience that may not be so familiar. Let's go first things first. Jordan, how did it all start for you? What's your backstory?

Jordan:

Well, I've been doing Personal Finance Journalism for almost 40 years. I was at Money Magazine for 18 years. I've done 13 books on different aspects of personal finance. I've got the Money Answers, radio show moneyanswers.com is my website I love to take emails. I've just been in this field helping people make financial decisions for many, many years and just love doing it.

Tony:

I love that too and we've helped so many people in past shows with so much information on handling their credit cards, dealing with mortgages, things, people, you just never even realized how easy it can be to just rearrange things. In fact, let's just jump into it so people can experience this right now. First thing I have on my mind is credit cards. So let's ask, how can we get the best credit cards for our specific needs?

Jordan:

A lot of people have a lot of credit cards and they spread their spending out over all these different cards and make all kinds of mistakes all the time. And what they want to do, Tony is to concentrate their spending on say two or three cards that give them the best rewards for their specific needs. Say they want to be taking trips, they can use a frequent flyer card of some kind on the airline they use the most. You go to Disney World, they could get Disney points and use that there. Are they want to buy a car, are they may want to get a cash rebate back on whatever their spending could be up to 5% cash rebates. There's a free website (and we will give a lot of websites during our time together here at Tony) called guidetocreditcard.com and you can find all the different cards and then you pick the one for you and needs and sign up for that one and then concentrate your spending there. If you have bad credit, you can get what's called a secured credit card, which means you put up a certain amount of money, like $1,000. They'll give you a thousand dollar credit line and then you can kind of reestablish your credit over time and graduate from a secured card to an unsecured card in about a year. So depending on your needs, there are different kinds of cards. You may want a 0% balance transfer offer to move your balance from a high-interest one dot zero there's loads of them there. So there's a free website. You get all the best deals for yourself guidetocreditcard.com

Tony:

Thank you for that Jordan and I am going to have this in the show notes and in the transcript of the show. So the audience, if you need just go to the show and click on the transcript and you'll see all of this information because we are going to give you a few great resources, completely free to help you. And now Jordan, I like to talk about something that just blew me away when we first went over it. I couldn't believe the strategy that you had for mortgage equity optimization, helping people pay their mortgage so much faster. It's astounding, can you please give us all the details on that?

Jordan:

Sure. So mortgage equity optimization is a strategy that allows you to pay off your traditional 30-year mortgage in roughly five-six, seven years depending on your income, on your existing level of income. You don't need more money, you just flow the money in a much more efficient way. You use a home equity line of credit or what's called the Heloc, which is a liquid line against your house. You could put money in, you can take it out whenever you like and the idea is, you're making progress on your principle every day. With a traditional mortgage, you make one payment a month and you're making very, very little progress for a very long period of time or there's a free website. You can actually model it for yourself, which is truthequity.com you can do what's called the personal profile and you put in your house value, your mortgage, your income, your expenses. It's going to say what you're doing today. It's going to take you 28 years to pay off your mortgage with the numbers you just gave us. There'll be 6.2 years, whatever it comes out to be. I show you step by step how to do it. I imagine a couple of Tony who's 35 years old or so, whose mortgages paid off by 40 instead of 65 if I wanted a different, does that go and make in their life? And that's what's possible when you implement mortgage equity.

Tony:

I can't get over that; a 30-year mortgage can be paid in five or six years. Absolutely amazing. Everyone in the audience, please check this out. And one more time, the name of that site to do this.

Jordan:

The site is truthinequity.com and it goes into all the details and shows you exactly how to do it so that your money is working for you. And so the back it is a revolutionary idea.

Tony:

I love it and speaking of mortgages, we have the American heroes, the people in EMS, emergency services, doctors and so forth. We have something special for them to help them save money when they buy or sell a house or refinance. Tell us about it Jordan.

Jordan:

That's right so, an American hero was defined as anybody in the medical field, a doctor, nurse, dentist, anything like that. Military, either current military or veterans, policemen or homeland security, anything like that. Fireman, EMTS clergy and teachers. All those are considered American heroes and you're right, there's a program called Heroes Come First, which will allow them to get big discounts on mortgages and rebates of commissions on when they buy a home or sell a home on that. You'd say you're buying a home, you get a rebate of one-quarter of the real estate agent's commission, which could be thousands of dollars and the same when you sell your home, you'd get a rebate of a quarter of the real estate agent's commission. You got a lower mortgage rate and all the closing costs that are involved in buying a home, escrow, lawyers, fees, appraisals, all those kinds of things should get big discounts on a website. To find out more about that is heroescomefirst.com. They've got a phone number too, Tony (888) 437-6114 and they will refer you to realtors and mortgage companies and lawyers and all that in your area who will get you the best possible deal and save you a ton of money. It's a way of giving back to people who put themselves on the line for us all the time.

Tony:

Very, very interesting on that. And again, for all you heroes out there, check it out to save money. You've helped us, you put your life on the line, you help us in our need. You help our families in need. So this is a flow back to you. Take advantage of it. And now let's talk about the vehicle. Sometimes it just happens, you know, in the olden days, let's call it one would get a car and by the time that car's paid off, it's time to buy another car and it's just kind of rolls that way. What do you have for people that want to pay off their car faster or refinanced their car at an affordable level?

Jordan:

So people have taken on some really big car loans at very high-interest rates recently. That's 7 million Americans are more than 90 days past due on their car loans. That's a lot of people out there who took on cars I really couldn't afford. So if they could either get a lower interest rate or change the maturity of the loan, stretch it out so that the car payment goes down. They can afford these car payments in a much better way and there's actually a website can help them. We finance and get either a lower interest rate or stretch out the payment and that website is my loan gen Gen, #myloangen.com. It's a free website and you put it on there. Everything about your existing car loan, the interest rate, how many payments you have, how much you owe, all those kinds of things. And then it gives you a choice of where you want the maturity of the loan to be and what they want the interest rate to be. And then you click on what's best for your button. You click submit and a bunch of credit unions around the country compete for your business to get you more affordable car loan because you really don't want a car loan you can't afford. What happens today, Tony, is that the lender will put what's called the defeat device in your car and if you don't make your payment, they can disable your car remotely even though you're driving along the highway somewhere and it's kind of dangerous and then to the GPS, they know exactly where to go pick up your car. You really don't want to be dealing with the repo- man picking up your car in the middle of the night, something like that. And this will help you avoid that.

Tony:

We definitely want to keep our car, we like our cars, so let's pay them off sooner and let's get the rate at something more affordable if that's what's necessary because in this day and age, face it, we need to, transportation. Bicycles are good, but they don't necessarily get us to work and to market back and forth easily and swiftly. I like that, but 7 million people, that is a lot of people in trouble. We've got to help them.

Jordan:

That's right. Because of I, in many cases, very, very high-interest rates. 14%-15% on a car loan and a car is a depreciating asset. It's not like a home that appreciates over time. You know the car is going to go down in value. You may not know how much, but it's going to go down in value, so you're paying them very high-interest rate on depreciating assets. That's not a good combination. So this can help you pay it off quicker. At least make the payment something that's more affordable for your budget.

Tony:

I liked it now for that high rate of the vehicles, is that connected? Because we have issues with our credit score. I mean my own credit, I don't even bother because there are different people on there. There's different where to t's. I don't take out loans or anything like that these days, but it's just, it's just a hassle. Is there something simple that we could do to just take care of that? And therefore when we do need a loan, we'll get a much better rate.

Jordan:

Correct. So there are tons of errors on people's credit reports, therefore making their credit scores a lot lower than they should be. There's a law called the Facta Law, the fair and accurate credit transactions act, which basically says you have the right to challenge errors in your credit report after your regional accreditor that put it on there. Can't prove it's an app in 30 days. It has to come off. Well, that's the theory, but it's a procedure to actually enforce that and get errors on your credit report. They can try doing yourself, but most people kind of give up or just too difficult. So there are places that can do that. My favorite one is at tourdecredit.com- tourdecredit.com. It's a place called qualified and they also got a phone number, (888) 533-8138. And what they do is they challenge errors on credit reports, and therefore get your credit score up by a hundred, hundred and 50 points. And then when you do apply for credit, you're going to be able to get better interest rate and get approved more easily.

Tony:

I love that. I think everyone needs to, so that's Tour de credit tourdecredit.com

Jordan:

t o u r d e credit.com, Correct.

Tony:

Perfect. Excellent. All right. Just next one is an eyeopener for those with life insurance policies. Instead of letting them lapse. Listen to Jordan, this is going to blow your mind. Take it away, please.

Jordan:

So a lot of people have life insurance policies they'd been paying into for many, many years. The premiums may have gone up to levels that aren't affordable or they just don't need it anymore. Say they were doing this for kids and the kids are not self-supporting. So they don't really need the life insurance policy anymore. What most people do is they let it lapse. Okay and so all the money that is given in is basically gone. What they don't realize is they can sell life insurance policy for sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in what's called the life settlement market and the people who buy the policy become the beneficiaries and take over paying the premiums and then when you do die they get the death benefit. But meanwhile, you got a ton of cash right up front as a website that can help you see if that might work in your circumstance, which is fundinglife.com. They've also got a phone number, (877) 485-6681 and what they do is they put together buyers and sellers of life insurance policies in your case who would be a seller of the policy. Now Tony, the older you are, and frankly the sicker you are, the more money you're going to get for your life insurance policy. So say you have a policy with a million-dollar death benefit and you're 75 years old and you've had a heart condition or something like that, you may get $300,000 for that. Right now, the people paying $300,000 get the million when you die. But meanwhile, it gives you money to live in retirement. So for older people who don't think they've got a lot of assets, it can be found money that can literally be hundreds of thousands of dollars and there's no cost in doing it. They're selling it for you and it's actually a very active market today. There are lots of people who want to buy these policies. So that's what these people at fundinglife.com can help you do

Tony:

Very interesting and it helps give the person a better quality of life to take care of their needs now and take care of bills and other expenses and so forth. And I know this scene all too well, so I really urge you guys to take a look at this and see if this is right for you. This is the Tony DUrso Show just ahead the chat continues about money answers and billion-dollar brands with Jordan Goodman and Rick Cesari. But first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. This is the VoiceAmerica Influencers Channels; be inspired. I got a pair of Rothys shoes for my wife. The box is a great presentation in itself with the beautiful royal blue tab that you pull along the perforation to open the box. Over and over she said they're the best fitting shoes she's ever had ever. They were so comfortable that she didn't want to take them off. She wears her Rothy's around the house and says they massage your feet. I'm blown away by her response and we'll be getting her another pair asap. They're definitely worth every penny plus some, you know, Rothys coming to a wide range of colors and patterns and they're available in four different silhouettes. Plus they're constantly launching new styles, so you're guaranteed to find a pair or three you love. Another major bonus, they're fully machine washable every time they need to refresh, you can simply toss them in the washing machine. It's like getting a fresh pair every laundry day. Check out all the amazing styles available right now at rothys.com slash Tony- r o t h y s.com/tony these are the shoes you've been waiting for. Head to rothys.com/tony today. We don't follow; we lead. Join us the VoiceAmerica Influencers Channel. You are listening to the Tony DUrso Show with key influencers. We'd love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony at tonydurso.com. Now back to Tony and his guests.

Tony:

All right, we're back on the Tony DUrso Show. Today's show is about Money Answers and Billion Dollar Brands with Jordan Goodman and Rick Cesari. Some of Jordan's better-known books include Fast Profits in Hard Times, Everyone's Money Book, The Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms and Master Your Money Type. Alright, and now back to the chat with Jordan and for the younger crowd, or should I say the older crowd? It's confused now. We haven't forgotten about you and student loan debt, it seems sometimes Jordan, we're paying way, way too long after graduating than we should on the debt. What can we do to handle this?

Jordan:

The average student loan is about 30 years and the average person who's graduating today with about 38,000 in student loan debt, it's just crushing to a lot of people. Totally in the result is a lot of people are graduating and going back and living at home again. Something like half of our graduates are going back and living at home again, even if they have a decent job because they can't afford to service the student loans and rent an apartment and buy a car and kind of have a family and get on with their life to some extent. So one thing you can do is to refinance all your student loans into one at a lower interest rate. This is combining any federal loans you have with any private loans. The private loans are going to be a much higher interest rate. The place I think is best to do this is called Splash Financial and their website is splashfinancial.com\money answers, they got a phone number two (800) 349-3938 and they've got a whole bunch of different lenders willing to give you the best possible deal today. Depends on the situation you can get between 3% and 4% on a loan. You'd have one loan to pay at a lower interest rate instead of many loans to pay at much higher interest rates so it doesn't make the loans magically disappear, but consolidating them into one at a lower interest rate can certainly help you pay them off quicker.

Tony:

I like that we are for that. All right, and now let's move along. We have a good size business audience in the, in the crowd here. Some of us have creditors that they want their money and they hound us and some people are financing their own business or bootstrapping it and so forth and all in all it's just a lot of debt. Some of us have to deal with what can we do?

Jordan:

Some businesses get piled on they're in debt very quickly. Today there's something called merchant cash advances, which really trapped a lot of businesses quite quickly. They'll say you can get money in a day unsecured. And what they do is they take over your credit card processing and charge extremely high fees and interest rates could be like 400% interest rates and some crazy math. So you get quickly the business can get buried in these loans and really be a big problem. So I want to do is use the strategy of what's called depth prioritization, meaning you want to pay the debts that have the biggest leverage over your business first. What typically people do Tony is they pay the credit, scream at them, allowed us basically, and that's not the right way to do it. And they'll say, you have a lawyer did a contract three years ago that you never went through with, he doesn't have a lot of leverage over you, but your electric utility company that can turn your lights off tomorrow has a lot of leverage over you. So you'd be paying more to the utility than to the lawyer in a case like that. So you could try yourself. Most small businesses to get overwhelmed with creditor calls and there are places that will do this. There's a place called Corporate Turnaround that does this and their website is helpwithpayables.com. They got a phone number too (877) 377-3669 and what they do, they've helped thousands of businesses prioritize all these different creditors and then you make one payment a month to them. They distribute the money to the creditors and they're making deals with the creditors. The guy that has a lot of leverage over, you might get 80 cents on the dollar in three months. The one that has very little leverage on you might get 10 cents of the dollar in a year, something like that. And once the creditors have agreed on what they'll accept, they get paid that way and you basically have to run your business and make one payment a month. They've helped 75 to 80% of the businesses that they've involved with avoid going out of business basically because it's a huge problem and growing all the time because of these merchant cash advances that are trapping all these small businesses. Tony, I call these merchant cash advances payday loans of small business because that's kind of what they are.

Tony:

Very interesting and thank you for that. I like the idea of just a one to one check a month just to cover and get all the calls and all the hassle soft. So if you're having trouble in your business, small, medium or large, check it out. See if this is a solution for you. And now there are also in between chairs, there's a group of people or some percentage that have a lot of medical debt and their medical coverage only covers so much. They have the copay and then it gets confusing. I don't even understand it exactly myself. I let my wife take care of it and then there are people that have to pay everything out of pocket. It just gets really tough out there. What solutions do we have for this?

Jordan:

Well you're right, this is a huge problem. Medical debt is rising, very sharply. There are billions of dollars in medical debt out there and because you no longer are mandated to buy health insurance, a lot more people are kind of going naked, I guess you might say without health insurance. Well, if you don't get sick, that's fine, but the moment, some major thing happens, you have a heart attack or a car accident or something, it can wipe you out financially. So what people don't realize is you can negotiate with health care providers, whether it be a hospital, a doctor's office, medical equipment, suppliers, drug companies, whatever it may be, but it's hard for the individual to do that. So there are so-called health care advocacy organizations out there that will negotiate on your behalf to cut that bill down to pennies on the dollar. My favorite one is called Health Care Advocates and their website is healthcareadvocates.com there phone number (215) 735-7711. They are in Philadelphia, actually visited them recently; He showed me that was for $200,000 for a guy who had a heart attack and he settled it for $ 3,000.

Tony:

I liked that.

Jordan:

These are people who do not have a clue how to do this themselves. The first thing they did was to audit the bill and they find all kinds of mistakes in there. They charge $80 for an aspirin, they'd double charge for things and they kind of get the bill down to what it really should be. And then the healthcare institution would rather get something than nothing. So they often will agree to settle for these smaller amounts, but it's not something the average individual can really do on their own. So hopefully that will help somebody of you folk who has medical bills, healthcareadvocates.com.

Tony:

I like that, and we have room for one more. For our businesses out there, back to business. Sometimes we need some credit. You've given us a solution there with payday loans and things like that. But what if they're denied by regular banks is there and they need some credit. They need some access to cash to grow their business because they can do it, but they need some help. How can we get that help?

Jordan:

So there's a whole alternative way of getting small business loans, not the merchant cash advances like before. Those are bad ways. But for example, hedge funds are willing to lend to small businesses if the small businesses are vetted up front to make sure that they're going to pay it back. So, there are these kinds of clearinghouses that'll help small businesses get loans. In the past, it really would be very difficult to do. And getting them from traditional banks, it's very different and can take a long time. Banks typically want an inventory, they want widgets. Something they can see is if you don't pay the loan, well, a lot of businesses today, Tony, are not widgets. Their apps, their virtual has nothing to seize in a certain way. So that doesn't really work for them. And my favorite place is called Corporate Capital Direct. Their website corpcapdirect.com they've got a phone number, too 800-261-6478 and they will help you. It might be vendor financing, it might be equipment financing, it might be payroll financing, lines of credit. There's just lots of different places you need to go and they know all the different places and they will vet your business, presents you to lenders and get you a pretty good loan at a good rate that you could actually qualify for.

Tony:

Absolutely love it. Jordan in just a short amount of time you have help with great solutions to counter problems and I hope it helps a lot of people in our audience on their loans, their mortgage, their business and everything else. Jordan Goodman, America's Money Answers Man. I thank you so much. You can find him at moneyanswers.com.Money answers that's what the necessity and moneyanswers.com Jordan, thank you so much for spending time with us.

Jordan:

Thanks so much, Tony. I hope we really helped your listeners a lot, appreciate it.

Tony:

This is the Tony DUrso Show just the head of the chat continues about money answers and billion-dollar brands with Jordan Goodman and Rick Cesari. But first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment.

Websites Phone Number Help with Credit Card: guidetocreditcard.com Help with Mortage: truthequity.com American Heroes: heroescomefirst.com (888) 437-6114 Correct Score: tourdecredit.com (888) 533-8138 Insurance Policy Funding: Fundinglife.com (877) 485-6681 Student Loan: splashfinancial.com\money answers (800) 349-3938 Paying Business Loan: helpwithpayables.com. (877) 377-3669 Medical Debt: healthcareadvocates.com (215) 735-7711 Getting Business Loan: corpcapdirect.com (800)-261-6478

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Tony:

All right, we're back on the Tony DUrso Show. Today's show is about money answers and billion dollar brands with Jordan Goodman and Rick Cesari. And now we have Rick Cesari joining us. Rick's been a pioneer in brand response advertising since the early nineties he helped create the concept of selling while your brand and has been the force behind the creation of many of today's iconic consumer brands, including Sonicare, The George Foreman Grill, Oxiclean, and many others. Here we go, welcome once again, Rick. It's so great to have you on the Tony DUrso Show again.

Rick:

Hey Tony, thank you for inviting me back. We had such a great interview the first time around. I'm glad that I was able to come back and talk to you a second time.

Tony:

Yes. I think it's the interview that never answers so much to talk about. Sometimes especially when you talk about branding and helping others build their business. It's so much that we can talk about and I've got such a great audience. It's so interesting in this and you know what Rick, we have new people since the last time. So maybe we kind of do a little recap here first things first, tell us a little bit about your backstory.

Rick:

Sure, I'd love to. I've been in a direct to consumer marketing or direct response marketing for about 25 years now and help used some of those principles to build brands like the juice man juice extractor, that George Foreman Grill, oxy clean, Sonicare Toothbrush, Clarisonic Face Cleaner and more recently the GoPro Camera. And we're working on some new projects as we speak right now. And kind of, when you said there's a lot to talk about when it comes to marketing, things are always changing so quickly that once you learn to do something, all of a sudden the market changes and they're using new technology or whatever. So it's, it's very interesting business could be and to figure out the best ways to reach consumers because it's always changing and it's something I really enjoy doing if I'm working with good products.

Tony:

That is so true, Rick. This industry changes so much and so fast that if one doesn't stay current on it, you're just out of touch.

Rick:

Absolutely. You know, one of the things I did since I, I started doing more podcasts since we had our original interview as a way of promoting my book, Building Billion Dollar Brands. But I went to a conference in Orlando called The Podfest and I got exposed to the whole world of podcasting, which you're really good at and big in that world. And it was really fascinating. And I went down there to attend because there was a youtube day they set aside for how to build a youtube channel. And that's something that I want to be focusing on for both myself and my clients moving forward.

Tony:

That is very interesting and very cool on The Podfest. It is such a growing industry and I really like it. I get asked periodically putting, going on TV, doing videos, and I do, but I find podcasts so easy for people to listen to while they're driving the car. They're walking the dog, they're hiking, they're on vacation, they're wherever you're on a plane. It's just so much easier to listen to a podcast and it just grows so well

Rick:

And you know what's nice about it, uh, Tony already know this. There are so many podcasts and yours is one of the better ones. That adjusted address information where people can tune into it the host day, like or subscribe to your podcast and they know that you're going to be bringing some interesting guests and interesting subjects and they're going to be learning something and be able to listen to it when it's convenient for them.

Tony:

That's right, on-demand is beautiful. I love it. Let's jump into some things. You've got a great book, I'll call Building Billion Dollar Brands, which is a little bit of a tongue twister and I'm gonna kind of take a little odd point of view, right? A little bit of point of view. It's like as soon as I look at that, let's say from the startup or the entrepreneur or the small business owner, the first thing that comes to my mind is, oh my gosh, doesn't branding cost a lot of money?

Rick:

Put it this way, it can cost a lot of money. One of the things I want to go back to, and I'm sure it'll come up several times in our conversation today, is the concept of direct response marketing or direct to consumer marketing. A lot of bond liner digital marketers call it performance marketing and it's really a mindset that says if you're going to spend a dollar on advertising, you're trying to get $2 in return. So we don't set out necessarily to say we're going to build a brand per se. We really focus on creating sales for the product and then as we're selling the product and generating revenue, we're using that revenue than to do the branding and build the brand as the company is growing and as sale is growing, and that's a little bit different than a lot of agencies are people do. People think, oh, I have to have a brand and I have to have certain colors and everything perfect, and they don't focus on the most important part of building a brand. And that is generating sales, getting your product or service into people's hands so that they can use it and give you feedback and you can continually get that feedback loop to make your brand better and keep improving it. But you can't do that if you don't have any sales. So that's one area that we focus on when we're working with new inventors, small businesses are people that have a product they want to introduce into the marketplace.

Tony:

That is not only interesting, but it's also an age-old point that I run into in terms of marketing promotion and branding is being able to tell the sales from any particular activity, especially if one does multiple brands across multiple platforms. I'm just going to make these up billboards and bus ads and magazine and print and radio and TV and all these different methods that one would use to reach their audience, but it's not always so easy to be able to tell what methodology, was the best, what got the most bumps. Unless you do very tight controlled. So let's go into that a little bit. How does one see that one gets sales from his brand name?

Rick:

Well, you have to be able to measure, where the revenue is coming from and what revenue is being produced. So let's just go back to some of the examples you mentioned. There's a sign on the bus, there's a billboard, there's an advertisement in a magazine, there's a radio ad, there's a Facebook ad, you can skip. It doesn't matter what the marketing channel is. When you talk about direct response, you have to have some type of offer where your people are responding to what they're seeing. And that's really the biggest difference between brand advertising and direct response advertising is we're giving the people some way to respond to the product that they're seeing. Either go to a website because you can measure that. You can measure visits, you can measure conversions, you can measure sales. So everything we're doing from a marketing standpoint is measurable. And that's really a good way of talking about direct to consumer marketing or direct response advertising, is that you can measure the effectiveness of every media dollar regardless of the channel that you're using to reach people. And that's why if you understand those underlying principles, it doesn't matter if you're advertising on Facebook or Instagram or a billboard or a newspaper Ad, if you can find a channel that works, that people respond to, and you can measure that from a sales perspective, then keep using it and spend money in those channels, you know, reach the people where they're at is kind of one of the things I believe in.

Tony:

Okay. Rick, I'm getting it. I'm getting this in my head. Let's take another look at this. Let's talk about maybe some simple branding ideas that we can use that we can implement, perhaps maybe not so expensive, but if it gets the sales, then the expense doesn't matter, right?

Rick:

Yeah. So that's a really good idea, Tony, is that you don't necessarily have to spend a lot of money to create a brand. And probably the biggest and simplest and least expensive thing you can do to establish your product or services or brand is come up with how are you going to differentiate your product, your service from every other product or service in the marketplace. And I talk about this quite a lot in the book and there's an old marketing concept called the USP or Unique Selling Proposition. But really what it boils down to is what makes your podcast different than the other podcasts out there? How do you build your brand? Why should I tune into your podcast? Well, the same thing would go if you are selling a new type of iPhone or a new type of coffee maker. If you're just the same as everybody else in the marketplace, you really have no way of differentiating yourself except on price. And then that becomes a race to the bottom. So really the first step and for me in branding is figuring out what it is that makes your product or service different or better than anything else in the marketplace. And then that's the message that you need to advertise to people. So, that they'll respond to it.

Tony:

This is Rick Cesari Building Billion Dollar Brands and you can find him at rickcesari.com and I'm going to spell his last name, c e s a r i.com. Rick let's talk about creating product offers that make people respond. We all want that response. How do we make them respond, please?

Rick:

Well that's a great question and it's usually different for different products. And one of the things that you need to do, and I recommend this to anybody, and let me just backtrack one little second because it goes back to the title of book building, billion-dollar brands. I don't want that number to scare people away because the book is written for small businesses, entrepreneurs, people just launching products in the marketplace. But I do several case studies in the book of startups that grew that big using the same principles that are available to you. And I outlined those principles in the book. So, one of the things we talk about in the book is how do you create an offer that people will respond to? And you really have to look at it. I mean there's, there are different things in, in that, I talk about what you've probably responded at some time, whether you're shopping for groceries or buying a product online or buying a product from Amazon. You know, there's a buy one get one free, there's a discount, there's a gift with purchase and there are a lot of different ways to create an offer. And again, this is another way of differentiating yourself from everything that's happening in the marketplace, just through the offers that you have. And you might be selling shoes, look at the shoes that were just out in the marketplace, like Tom Shoes where you buy one pair of shoes and they give away a second pair for free or donated to charity. That's a differentiator of everything that you're doing. So you just have to be a little bit creative and look at what other people are doing in the marketplace and see if you can do it a little better.

Tony:

Very interesting, that reminds me of when I would try to shop and compare and I say try to shop and compare various products, especially electronics. Their packages are so varied and different. It's so hard to be an apple to apple sort of thing because the packages make it so different. You have to go into what value the packages are because you can't just look at sometimes on a linear level as to what you're getting and the price and what someone else has on the price because of the different packages. So that really does change that person that's looking into debt just kind of changes that whole process where it then I think brings out what's the value of the product or services.

Rick:

Absolutely, and let's go back a good example is a company called Zappos that Amazon bought for, I forget how much, a couple hundred million dollars or more. This is the Tony DUrso Show just ahead the chat continues about Money Answers and Billion Dollar Brands with Jordan Goodman and Rick Cesari. But first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. We don't follow; we lead. Join us The VoiceAmerica Influencers Channel. Would you like a lot of people checking out your sales page, your branding page, your podcast like a lot of us are just trying to do it all yourself? Are you taking webinars, seminars, and workshops to learn how to grow your social media and how to bring visitors to your site? Are you downloading free ebooks, buying books, buying classes, doing this and that? Just to learn how to get more sales, more people, more exposure, been there, done that. Why not just get good targeted traffic and cut to the chase? Skip the extra steps and get the visitors you want now. Imagine how you would feel if you had thousands and thousands of consumers coming in each week and checking out what you have, including downloading your podcasts, watching your videos, checking out your webinars, reading your stuff and so forth. Most people can't do it all. The learning curve is too steep. You need help to get it done. My roots are lead generation and marketing and I have cut through the chase to get a sizable audience. I've learned from some of the best these people, the real deal, organic. That's what you want. Let me help go to Tony d u r s o.com and find clicks on the Navbar. Follow the link and let's set you up for a trial. That's Tony d u r s o.com and find clicks on the Navbar. C l. i. c. .k s. Here's to your success. Hey, check out my other great interviews at tonydurso.com. This is the VoiceAmerica Influencers Channels; Be inspired. You are listening to the Tony DUrso Show with key influencers. We'd love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony at tonydurso.com. Now back to Tony and his guests.

Tony:

All right, we're back on the Tony DUrso Show. Today's show is about money, answers and billion-dollar brands with Jordan Goodman and Rick Cesari. Rick's newest book, Building Billion Dollar Brands, puts his experience with winning companies in the hands of everyday business owners, marketers, brand managers and more. And now back to the chat with Rick.

Rick:

And the only thing that Zappos did, they sold shoes. Well, Nordstrom sells shoes and lots of other stores sell shoes. But what they did was they brought a level of customer service to the shoe business online that had never been there before and that was their differentiator. So it doesn't always have to be a great exciting offer, it's just you have to do something better than everybody else's. Another example is, I don't know if you've ever heard of a company called Native, the name of the company is Native, a San Francisco based company, they grew to a couple hundred million dollars in sales and basically they offered an all-natural underarm deodorants are both men and women and online business where they would ship you the pot product on a subscription basis and you didn't have to shop for those types of products in the store anymore and just made it very convenient for the end-user to get the product. So really just look at what other companies are doing and see if you can apply those same techniques when you're starting a business to differentiate yourself in the marketplace.

Tony:

Good point. Rick, you mentioned something earlier did, I'm going to swing back to slightly humorously here on behalf of all the TV, radio podcasters in the world, we want to know Rick, how to get more people to check out our great shows. We would love some tips from you.

Rick:

Well that's a that's a good question. I'm just thinking if there's like a kind of a blanket answer I can give to help with that. And I know Tony, you're really good at this. Um, when people are launching their product or service in the marketplace, one of the first things to do is we have them build a nice website. So when people, and it doesn't, and nice doesn't necessarily mean expensive. When I say Nice, it's a place where there's a lot of information. Like if I could go there to that a website or landing page, I can find out everything I need to know about a business or service and then we have to figure out how do we create more awareness for that. And that's I think the essence of your question. How do we create awareness for your podcast and other people doing podcasts or our whatever service? And I don't want to make this sound like a, like a pat answer, but one of the first things we do after we create a nice website where there's a lot of content also that people have a good experience. We use some very simple, social media to drive people to the website or expose them to the podcast or the product being sold or the service being sold. And I know social media isn't a new thing, but it's something that's been working more and more effectively as a way of creating awareness for products or shows or services.

Tony:

Very true. All of the above, the podcasters and people with TV shows that I see do a lot of social media and unfortunately, it seems too many podcasters fail. From what I understand, the statistics are over 50% easily after like seven or a dozen shows, they just quit because they're not getting the audience that they want. And it's quite a bit of work. And I think Rick, it all goes down to as you're saying, as we're saying here, the promotion, driving the traffic, getting the information in the right place that can reach the audience that one wants. I think that's the biggest trick. You've nailed that down. You're the king guru of this and how to get that message across. I'm sure it's in your book Building Billion Dollar Brands. It's just how do you reach those people the most effectively?

Rick:

Yeah! You know what, I took away from them, from the podcasting conference, I didn't know what to expect going down there and they had some of the top podcasters in the, in the country as speakers and they all had one thing in common and it struck me, the ones that are have been very successful. And you hit the nail on the head where you said some people do seven episodes, 12 episodes were the consistency of creating the shows. And, I like to compare it to rolling a snowball down the hill. It starts out very small, you'd start to roll it, it gets a little bit bigger, it gets a little bit bigger and it's really just the consistency of putting out the shows. And eventually, people listened to it, they liked the podcast, they tell a friend about it and then it slowly, slowly built. So that's the old fashioned way of doing it. And just making sure you're doing a podcast on a regular, consistent basis. Where people know what to expect and like every Friday they're going to tune into it to a certain show or whatever and the fact that they know that when they go there they're going to be able to listen to it. So consistency is one and then just making sure you're sticking to it. Then when the marketing comes in, which is once you know that you have the content in place and you're making these shows, how can I drive more people to, to listening are buying a product or buying a service? And again, I cover a lot of those areas in the book I didn't mention to you Tony, that since we talked about my latest book Building Billion Dollar Brands, I actually just finished a transcript for my third book, which is called Video Persuasion, which I'll be releasing in September. And then you can find that on Amazon and that's how you use video to grow your business, our service and how you can use video to build your brand, grow your business, create powerful testimonials. I think in another answer to what your question was is I'm a huge believer in creating testimonials and having people talk about, and again, we're using podcasting as an example. Somebody's saying, honest, authentic testimonials saying, I love that podcast. I've listened to it every week or I try to tune in whenever I'm in my car that's going to get other people interested. If you have many people doing it, you will naturally every business or service or product or podcast will have those type of people, those dedicated listeners, those dedicated buyers or those customers get their testimonials and then those are the people are testimonials that deploy on the website or through social media and people respond to that type of marketing. It's a really simple thing, but something that's very underutilized by a lot of people in businesses.

Tony:

Rick, yes, it's all about traffic to the site. Well-targeted and I love everything that you've said. Great points here with the testimonials and so forth and for me, for my show, I'm finding as a tip to the audience as well. I have spoken about this before. I'm finding social media is the place for me to tell people about my show and it brings many more visitors checking out my show and number of them stay and they tell others and it's the simplest thing, but then it's, but it's also a point of having the size of the social media. I mean if you've got two or five or 10,000 or whatever, it's not necessarily going to be enough to grow, but it's a start. So everywhere and wherever you are, it's a start. And I find it seems that on social media are the people that are the best candidates for my show. Even though there's, of course, the keyword targeting, you know, whether it's marketing or entrepreneur or whatever that I can also use. But I find those people on social media and I think it's well used and people know it. It's just a matter of how to use it and it just a lot of skills. Do you use a lot of social media in building your billion-dollar brands?

Rick:

We do. I usually use a few different marketing channels. So if I were going to take you through the process of launching our product and we talked about some of this, we'll build a website. If you picture of a wagon wheel and your website is, is the hub of that wheel, the trade in the middle, that's where your content is. That's where your product offers are. If you have more than one product, it's the information people can go to find out more about you or your product or your service. So then the spokes of the wagon wheels leading into that. One of them is social media. If it's a product that you can sell, one of them is Amazon, one of them is traditional PR, one of them is digital marketing and Facebook and Instagram advertising, but the very first thing that we put into place once the website is up is a good social media program and I'm not a social media expert, but I work with different people are companies that I know do a really, really good job at it. And I bring them in and you can start to see the benefit right away. We just launched a new product in the marketplace. It's a workout fast using resistance bands called slipped in and I just followed this same thing. We built a website, very simple website, inexpensive, but it shows you everything you need to know about the product. There's a video on the website which shows you how to use it cause the video is such an important component. There are testimonials which are social proof that the product works. And then the very first thing we did was layer in a social media program where they have a youtube channel and Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram. And I don't do that myself, but I worked with, a small company in this particular case called Online PR Success. And they do a really good job. And then that's how we start generating traffic to the site and creating awareness for this new product. And if it's a good product, people buy it, they tell their friends and pretty soon a sales start to take off. At the same time, we built them an Amazon site because over 50% of people now start their online searches on Amazon. So if you're selling a product, I know this doesn't relate to a podcast, but for a product or service, if you're not on Amazon, you're missing out on 50% of the business. So there's kind of a step by step formula I go through in the book that tells you the steps we talk whenever we launch a product or a new business.

Tony:

This is Rick Cesari Building Billion Dollar Brands. That's a tongue twister.

Rick:

Yes. Say That three times fast Tony.

Tony:

I'd rather say rubber, rubber, baby buggy bumper, butt.

Rick:

Wow

Tony:

You can find him at rickcesari.com that's C. E. S. A. R I. Amazing stuff. I highly encouraged, require and I recommend everyone to listen to this. Again, there are amazing gold nuggets here. Huge gold nuggets, big ones and a lot of important stuff. Check it out, it's in here. And just Rick, thank you so much for giving us all this information and I really look forward to talking with you more about Timeless Marketing Tips and Video Persuasion, which is coming out. I can't wait to find out more about that.

Rick:

Yeah, that's a good one you'll like that. You'll pick up some tips from that book about how to incorporate a video that will enhance what you're doing.

Tony:

Rick, thank you so much for joining us today.

Rick:

Thanks, Tony.

Tony:

And for my amazing audience, thanks so much for listening. Remember, success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds be righteous. Join me on the next episode of the Tony DUso Show We hope you've enjoyed this week's edition of the Tony DUrs Show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 4:00 PM Eastern Time, 1:00 PM Pacific Time on the VoiceAmerica Influencers Channel.