Explore every episode of the podcast Thinking Out Loud with Dean Jackson

Every effort to sell creates resistance. Write like you're talking to one person, offer a real service instead of a pitch, and people respond. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/116-the-secret-to-writing-so-people-respond/

A discount tells people your price was never real. Paying for their first result keeps your price intact and turns one try into a long-term customer. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/115-before-you-offer-a-discount/

Ask someone to take a chance on you and you get resistance. Offer to take a chance on them and the way is easy. Here's how I built a rocket ship on that. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/114-how-to-make-it-ridiculously-easy-for-people-to-say-yes/

Claude Hopkins taught me every purchase is made by one person. So stop broadcasting to the mass. Here's how I turn an opt-in into a one-on-one conversation. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/113-how-to-make-your-marketing-feel-like-a-one-on-one-conversation/

A line from Claude Hopkins in 1927 changed how I sell. Stop convincing people. Just give them the result first, and they convince themselves. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/112-proving-is-more-convincing-than-convincing/

A book from 1927 taught me to never spend big until a $100 test tells me I've got a winner. Here's the four-stage clinical trial I still run today. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/111-before-you-spend-thousands-on-marketing-run-this-100-test/

An ad I ran in 1996. Free government money, a recorded message, a mailed book. Zero internet... and the exact same psychology still works today. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/110-the-internet-changed-everything-except-why-people-actually-buy/

Journal seven, 1997. Only 5% of the town buys a house this year. But everyone owns one all year long... and that relationship is the real money. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/109-the-real-money-is-in-the-relationship-not-the-transaction/

Journal seven, 1997. I made a list of every tool I knew how to use... and thirty years later almost every one of them still works just fine. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/108-old-marketing-tools-still-work-just-fine/

That headline you clicked on? It's the same formula I found in journal seven back in 1997. A directive, an open loop, and exactly the right people leaning in. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/107-if-youre-going-to-run-an-ad-in-the-next-6-months-watch-this/

Dinner with Jim Morton, back in journal seven. He built an empire on one thing... and City Slickers had the answer all along. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/106-the-secret-to-life-is-one-thing-evidence-inside/

I found the Porsche 911 dealer in journal seven. All he did was sell one car to one person. Here's the playbook you can plug into almost anything. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/105-copy-this-plug-play-system-to-sell-more-of-almost-anything-quickly/

I found a little book in my 1997 journal called You Squared. A fly trying to escape through a glass window. Ten steps away, the door is open. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/104-why-trying-harder-isnt-the-answer/

I'm at Celebration this morning, the town Walt Disney envisioned 25 years before it existed. Build your future on what will never change. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/103-why-i-plan-my-future-around-what-will-never-change/

Mid-1997 I filled thirty pages with affirmations of the life I wanted. Thirty years later almost all of it came true. Write down the simulation you want. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/102-if-were-living-in-a-simulation-this-is-the-playbook/

I wrote a parable about the circus in 1997. Seven marketing lessons from the greatest show on earth, starting with a free parade at eleven every day. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/101-how-i-funnel-hacked-the-greatest-show-on-earth/

Generating leads is easy leverage. The work is the detective pass that sorts who's really moving, and a follow-up list you never take anyone off. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/100-how-to-get-your-buyers-to-call-you-instead-of-chasing-them/

A five star review just sits there. A testimonial built as your customer's own story reaches the next person living that exact situation, and moves them. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/099-google-reviews-are-killing-your-business-try-this-instead/

My cousin Steven worked twelve hours a week after school, and it left me doing only what only I could do. So what would you do if you could count on you? Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/098-what-would-you-do-if-you-could-count-on-you-to-do-it/

Ned Hallowell told me to run my days like a bobsled run. Too constraining. So I turned mine into a freestyle slalom instead... and just ski the gates. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/097-how-i-gamify-my-day-for-structure-freedom-as-an-adhd-entrepreneur/

A page from journal number six, 1997: a list of everything that brings me joy. Thirty years on, most of it still does. Make one and you get the joy twice. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/096-how-to-plan-optimize-for-daily-joy/

Profit Activator 8, and the finale. Nobody refers as a favor. They refer to be the hero of their own tribe. So stop asking people to talk about you. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/095-getting-referrals-the-secret-psychology-of-why-people-refer/

Profit Activators 6 and 7. If a law said you could only sell to people who've already bought from you, what would you build for them? Then go and ask them. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/094-what-would-your-best-customers-buy-if-you-were-smart-enough-to-offer-it/

Profit Activator 5, part two. Your During Unit isn't one transaction. Add a birthday club and a wine pairing, and the same hundred guests are worth more. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/093-how-to-multiply-the-value-of-every-first-time-customer/

Profit Activator 5. Storyboard the whole experience benchmark by benchmark, then ask two questions at each one. Where's the wow, and where's the friction? Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/092-how-to-create-super-happy-customers/

Profit Activator 4, part one. Risk reduction still leaves them holding it. Reverse the risk instead, and send the horse home for thirty days. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/091-how-to-make-your-offer-irresistible/

Profit Activator 3, part four. Nine words to everybody who inquired and never went ahead. Ask if they're still looking, then don't add a single thing. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/090-the-amazing-9-word-email-that-revives-dead-leads/

Profit Activator 3, part three. Nobody helps themselves to your fridge. Offer the cookies you already baked, and people take the next step themselves. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/089-convert-more-leads-what-to-say-to-prospects-so-they-all-convert-themselves/

Profit Activator 3, part two. You can't tell who'll buy from a name and an email, so the first hundred hours has one job: find the five-star prospects. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/088-how-to-know-which-leads-are-actually-going-to-buy/

Profit Activator 3. Only 15% of the people who buy do it in the first 90 days, so 85% of what your hundred leads are worth hasn't happened yet. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/087-100-leads-are-worth-more-than-you-think-heres-the-math/

Profit Activator 2, the visible half. When you can list your prospects, don't shine the light on yourself or on them. Shine it over their shoulder. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/086-how-to-find-a-1b-honey-hole-of-your-best-future-customers/

Profit Activator 2. Compelling isn't convincing. All you're doing is getting exactly the right person to raise their hand at the earliest possible moment. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/085-get-more-leads-how-to-choose-the-words-that-get-you-all-the-leads-you-need/

Day one of the eight Profit Activators. Selecting a single target market isn't about who you include. It's about deliberately leaving almost everybody out. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/084-why-you-make-more-money-when-you-stop-trying-to-sell-to-everyone/

There are at least ten million dollar ideas in these journals. Here's the test that tells you early whether the one you're holding is one of them. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/083-how-to-know-when-you-have-a-1-000-000-idea/

The coastal condo guides were fully formed in my journal in 1997. What stopped them wasn't the idea. It was that somebody else had to do the work. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/082-if-you-have-great-ideas-but-struggle-to-execute-them-watch-this/

In 1997 staying in front of the people who raised their hand meant mailing them every two weeks. Now it's free, it's infinite, and they can reply. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/081-how-to-stay-in-front-of-your-customers-without-spending-more-money/

In 1997 a lead generation business card cost five cents and landed at random. A static Meta ad costs less and lands on exactly the people you choose. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/080-these-old-school-marketing-plays-actually-work-better-today/

In 1997 Jerry Ballinger told me people don't do what they could do. The fix isn't better instructions... it's building for what they will actually do. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/079-news-flash-people-are-lazy-heres-how-to-build-your-business-around-it/

A magazine spotted in an airport lounge became a finished, printed kit for By Referral Only members. One idea, carried all the way to something you can hold. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/078-how-to-actually-finish-the-ideas-you-start/

When everything feels urgent, ask what's real in the next 100 hours... then the next 100 minutes. A five-minute journal exercise from 1997. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/077-how-to-find-clarity-on-what-matters-when-everything-feels-urgent-in-5-minutes/

Most people who see your ad are interested but not ready, and a buy-now-only offer gives them nothing to say. Jeffrey Lant's egregious error number 13. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/076-how-to-get-the-most-people-to-buy-now-and-later/

Eight tiny yellow postcards, mailed weekly into one neighborhood ahead of the fall listing wave, took Julie from zero to five of the next 25 listings. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/075-how-to-show-up-right-when-people-are-ready-to-buy/

A 1997 journal page that turned Cialdini's six weapons of influence into a worksheet, and the ad for six Muskoka lots that fired all six at once. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/074-how-to-use-the-6-weapons-of-influence-to-sell-anything-fast/

A page in Dean's 1997 journal, one phone call to the local cable company, and the $500 TV show that meant he never lost a listing on the nights it aired. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/073-how-taking-action-on-your-intuition-actually-pays-off/

Gamal Aziz looked at a perfectly good $4 million restaurant in the MGM Grand and asked how high is high. The answer took it to $11 million a year. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/072-how-one-idea-turned-a-4m-yr-restaurant-into-11m-yr/

The 1997 Dan Kennedy keynote that laid out the right message, the right market and the right media, plus the three-step campaign Dean built from it. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/071-how-to-get-new-customers-in-any-market-in-45-days/

Ten rules from a 1997 journal page for who Dean would take on as a client, and why constraints on who you work with are a multiplier, not a limiter. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/070-how-to-use-constraints-as-a-multiplier/

A bus bench that proves itself, a billboard behind trees, and the headline formulas from a 1997 journal page that Dean still uses to this day. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/069-how-to-write-headlines-that-attract-your-very-best-prospects-samples-inside/

Russell Oliver built a Toronto empire on four words. Stop Your Divorce did it in three. Here's how to find the three or four that say what you do. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/068-how-to-say-what-you-do-so-clearly-it-sells-itself/

A 1997 journal page, a book about arguing like an attorney, and the six questions that get you inside your prospect's head before you write a word. Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/067-how-to-figure-out-why-people-actually-buy-your-stuff/