Cosmos

Welcome back to the show, my fellow extraordinary Americans. For today’s guest, we have John Dyer. John is a marketing enigma, a direct response customer attraction expert who thinks way outside the box. His marketing consultancy business is called the Institute of Wow. And John’s mantra is that one’s marketing needs to wow prospects. He’s also the guy who shocked the marketing world some years back when he convinced Jerry Seinfeld to come out of retirement to be the spokesman for an Australian banking institution, the Greater Building Society. 

Jerry headed up a free-vacation campaign that broke home loan lending records and remains folklore in the global banking industry. Basically, people received a free vacation when they got a home loan. This was probably one of the most successful incentive promotions in the world, resulting in many billions of dollars in extra home loans. 

John helps business owners leverage platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn by implementing targeted, incentive-based marketing offers. His client list reads like a who’s who of business. Includes the likes of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited, 7 11, Westfield Shopping Centers, Walt Disney, KFC, and BP, to name a few. He’s an extraordinary American, and I’m honored to have him on the show. Jd, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. It’s truly an honor.

John

My pleasure. Thank you very much. And boy, with that intro, that guy sounds pretty clever. I want to meet him. I tell you, I got a lot, a lot to live up to because with an intro like that, imagine if I’m now a boring guest.

Cosmos

No, no, don’t worry about that. I think it’ll be more than fine.

But JD, I wanted to ask you about yourself, your story, and background, and how you got started in your industry.

John

Yes, good, not a problem. And look, just so everyone knows, when you refer to ‘jd,’ who is it? My name is John Dwyer, but I get the initials, I get jd. I also get idiot and moron. So I’ll respond to any of those names. Look, I got started back in the 1800s, I’ve been doing this forever, and as you can tell from my accent, I’m down under. I’m from Australia, and I’ve been to America 40 or 50 times. I used to be a Disney licensee, so I visited the United States a million times. Look, I started in my 20s, like everyone else does, and I was an apprentice at several advertising agencies. I came through. What I really think changed things for me was when I was in my mid-20s. I worked for Woolworths, an Australian company. 

And I know that America has a Woolworths, but this is different. This is a major supermarket chain in Australia. They’re probably the biggest supermarket chain in Australia. And when I was there in the advertising department, we tested what we call direct-response ideas. And what that would be is that every time you shopped at this supermarket chain, you would get a stamp. This was pre-digital days, okay? So you’d get a stamp, lick it, and put it on a saver sheet. And. And when you actually saved up 10 stamps, you got cookware or glassware for a crazy price. And that’s what’s called a continuity reward program. And I then thought, hang on, this has got some firepower to it. 

And then we started doing scratch games at Woolworths. We would say every time you spend $10, you get a scratch ticket. And if you scratched out a red $100 note, you would go back to Woolworths and do your shopping there because you wanted to scratch out a yellow and a blue one. Because when you got three of the same colors of that particular denomination, you won that prize. 

And I saw just. It just skyrocketed sales. This, what we call an artificial wow factor, just skyrocketed sales. And I thought to myself, look, I’ll leave and set up my own business and do this. And that’s what I did. Therefore, for the last three or four decades, that’s what we’ve been doing.

Cosmos

Well, so, John, one thing I wanted to know for the sake of the audience, right? So whenever people hear about marketing and advertising, they just think of, like, you know, just the general type of marketing. But what is direct response marketing? Could you explain? Explain that a little bit more?

John

Yeah, sure, sure. And a very good question, because a lot of people, you know, trust their advertising agency to put together campaigns for them. And a lot of the time, that advertising agency overdoses on what we call brand building. And there’s nothing wrong with building your brand. I mean, we buy Kellogg’s because it’s Kellogg’s, and we buy Toyota because it’s Toyota. But if your business is not at that level whereby you can sponsor the Olympics and not be able to measure anything, if you’re in the, you know, the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of turnover, or perhaps under 10 million turnover, then the chance that you would prefer to spend money on Facebook today and get a Result tomorrow. 

And so that’s what we’re all about. We say to people, look, you know, branding is irrelevant if nobody’s buying your product. If you’ve got an ad agency or you’ve got an advertising person in your business, that’s just blowing money on sponsorships and blowing money on, you know, getting likes. I always use the term if I’m speaking at a conference. If you get off on vanity metrics, can you imagine if you’re sitting around the table tonight and you say to the kids, Look, Daddy got 150 likes today. And the kids are going, but, Daddy, there’s no food on the table, right? So you’ve got to be very, very careful when you, you know, go down that branding path. 

And so therefore, you know, if you went to a traditional advertising agency, they would say, Look, what, let us get people. We’ll help you get people to fall in love with your brand so that they’ll taste your product. We flip that. We get them to taste your product so that they’ll fall in love with your brand. And I guess the best example of that would be a seafood shop.

Okay, so therefore, if I owned a seafood shop, I would have hostesses out at lunchtime and dinner time with calamari samples. Because then, when you tasted the calamari sample, there was a chance you might go back into the fish shop and buy something more expensive. 

So our stuff is all about direct response to a campaign today that you’ll get this afternoon. And that’s very different from just putting your face on the side of a bus.

Cosmos

So, John, one thing just for like, our generation, right, like since social media has arrived, like we have Facebook, Instagram, and everything. Is there anything different from, like what, how we’re doing marketing now versus how we’re doing back then in regards to direct response marketing? Again, a very good question.

John

And, no, there isn’t. Not really. I mean, yeah, the same things I was using 30 years ago will work just as well today. It’s just on a different communication platform. I mean, in the old days, it would primarily be TV, radio, newspaper, or magazine. Of course, these days it’s Facebook, Twitter, text, or Instagram. The same ideas will work. I mean, we’ve got a program that we provide businesses. 

At the moment, it’s called the Facebook Contest Leads Machine. And it’s really, really simple. I mean, over the years, I’ve been asked by Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers to do scratch bingos and give away lots of prizes so that they’ll sell more newspapers and the McDonald’s Monopoly style promotions. I mean, all those things are built because they want to sell more stuff, and they realize that directly. I mean, you know, Happy Meal toy. I mean, ask any parent or grandparent: how much is a Happy Meal at McDonald’s? And they probably won’t get anywhere near 50 cents. They won’t even come within a dollar of the price. And the reason is that McDonald’s has been clever enough to take their eyes off the price. For 44 years, they’ve had a toy in that Happy Meal box. And the whole idea of that, aside from, you know, building sales, is to take people’s eyes away from the price. 

And, you know, we have a concept at the moment that, yeah, we call the Facebook contest leads machine. And what happens is that we just say to the business, Look, whatever you’re in, give that away as a prize. We’ll run a contest on Facebook. And what will happen is that you will get a bucketful of people who will enter that contest to win your product or prize. And when you give one away, guess what? You’ve got 99.9% of all the other entries that have already glowed in the dark and said, We want your product or service. You can then ring them up and say, “Look, we’ve got a special deal on. You didn’t win the prize, but obviously you’re interested in our product.” I’ll give you a classic example. We had a dentist only a month ago here in Australia, and we’re doing it for one in Toronto, Canada, at the moment as well. He said, “Look, I want to attract rich parents with children who have crooked teeth because I want to sell the $5,000 Invisalign braces.” Okay? And I said, Okay. So we ran a contest on Facebook for rich zip codes and said, “How would you like to win invisible braces for your children’s teeth, valued at x thousand dollars?” 

So we were attracting the right people because we only put the ad on Facebook in rich suburbs. He got, he spent $30 a day. So we’re talking about a lousy $30 a day. In the first week, he got 991 leads. So he gave one away and had 990 people with a child who had crooked teeth glow in the dark and say, “Take my money.” Wow.

Cosmos

So, John, in relation to this, right, I wanted to ask a little bit about Jerry Seinfeld’s story: what marketing strategy was used with him, how was it so successful, and what are the secrets behind it?

John

Yeah, look, for about 10 years, I think, I had a client, and this was in the 2010-2020 era, a building society in Australia called the Greater Building Society. Now, they were the 250th-largest business in Australia, but they weren’t as big as the big banks like Bank of America or Wells Fargo. 

So they were what I call a challenger brand. And a challenger brand, really, if they want to make money, they take on the 40-tonne gorilla brand and do things differently. So when Virgin Airlines comes along, it takes on all the other airlines and does things differently because Richard Branson, of course, is the ultimate entrepreneur, okay? 

Therefore, they absolutely do things differently from most other airlines because they’re a challenger brand. And in this instance, I said to the building society: ‘Look, you’re a challenger brand.’ You’re never going to win on interest rates. And guess what? The advertising agency that they had before me was doing, they’d come on television and social media and say, get a home loan for 4.8% or whatever it may have been, and guess what? The Bank of America is going to beat that in five minutes. They’ll be 4.7% within five minutes. So why go down that path? It’d be like a little corner store taking Costco on price. They’re never going to win. 

So, therefore, I say to people, look, if you’re not going to win on price, and you never will, because the 40 tonne gorilla is going to beat you all the time, then why don’t you actually value add? Why don’t you do something direct-response, and give people a Happy Meal toy to incentivize them to buy your product or service? I was doing some TV commercials at the time, for a travel discount company. 

So I introduced a travel discount company to the bank and said, “Look, why don’t we do this?” Why not, in the future, instead of giving away a 1% honeymoon rate for the first year, which is what every bank does, why don’t we give that to the travel company, and they’ll give you a $10,000 vacation for $5,000? And that’s what we did. We came on television and said, “swap your home loan from the Bank of America or Wells Fargo, wherever it might be, across to this building society, and we’ll give you a free vacation.” Now, it was cost-neutral because, keep in mind, they stopped offering their 1% honeymoon rate for that first year. They generated $15 billion in additional sales in the first two years. And this idiot, whom you’re talking to, didn’t do a door deal. I provided consultancy services for a monthly fee. 

So I’m not very smart. I’m sorry. About three years into this, after it went absolutely wild, I got Jerry Seinfeld to do their ads. So I flew backwards and forwards to America for three years. And Jerry stood in front of a mock-up building society, holding a microphone, basically doing a street performance. And he would say, Look, get your home loan from the Greater Building Society, and you get a free vacation. The moment that we got Seinfeld to do the ads, can you imagine? It was already successful for the first three years. You put Seinfeld on top of that. Shut the gate. 

And, of course, you know, it was great fun to be working with such a legend like that. But even he said to me, “JD, how do you do this?” And I said, Pretty simple. We take their eyes off the price. Did you know that building society ran that promotion for 10 years, and not once did it ever advertise an interest rate? So they’re the only bank in the world that never advertised an interest rate for 10 years.

Cosmos

So, John, to elaborate on this, how did you actually persuade Seinfeld to do this? How did you meet him, like, in the first place, where you could ask him to do this for this bank?

John

Yeah, look, he’s harder to get to than the Pope. And, it was six months’ worth of just trying to track him down. And eventually I went through his agents in Beverly Hills, in Los Angeles. And his agent is a guy called George Shapiro. And if you watch Seinfeld, at the end of the credits, it says it’s a Shapiro/West production. 

So there was Howard West and George Shapiro. George only just passed away about 18 months ago, I think two years ago, maybe. And so, I contacted George Shapiro and just said to him, “Look, is there any chance that Jerry would be interested in doing this?” It’s just going to be really easy work for him. We want it to be very sarcastic. And, he said, we’ll leave it with me and, you know, I’ll give it a shot. And to my surprise, Jerry liked the idea and came back to say, “Yep, let’s do it.” 

So, it was the coup of the decade from an advertising point of view, at least for anyone in Australia, because Jerry had only ever done two advertising campaigns before, and that was for American Express and Microsoft. And this little bank in Australia was a little bit smaller than those companies.

Cosmos

He’s famous for his comedy.

John

Right.

Cosmos

I was actually curious, like, in marketing and advertising, do you think comedy has, like, a role in, like, boosting sales, or is it just. What’s your opinion?

John

Absolutely, absolutely.  I was only showing, you know, I’m a baby boomer, so therefore, we’ve got. We’ve got six millennial children, and now we’ve got little grandchildren who are, you know, 2, 3, 5, and 6. And it was only yesterday. It’s funny we’re doing this podcast now, because it was only yesterday that I showed them an ad I actually featured in before Seinfeld. What had happened was that we decided to create a nasty bank manager Persona for a TV ad. And people would come in and ask that nasty bank manager, ‘Could they get a free vacation from the bank, or could they get all the benefits you get when you go to a building society?’ And of course, he’s nasty. 

And the actor who was supposed to do the ad got sick. And so, the general manager of the building society said, “Look, J.D., you’re sarcastic and you’re nasty.” Why don’t you do it? I said, I’m not an actor. And he said, No. Well, we’ve got all the camera crew here. Everything’s all set up. The guy called in sick. Then you do it. So anyway, I did it. And one of the ads was that the couple comes in and they’re sitting opposite the desk, and I’ve got the bank manager tag on. 

So I’m the bank manager at Bank of America, for example. And they say, Oh, look at the Greater Building Society. We don’t get charged fees. And I go, well, I’m sorry, it’s not going to happen here. Under the Greater Building Society, we get this, we get that, and we get a free vacation. Ah, can you help us out? And I say to them, “Yeah, we can help you out.” We’ve got ways of helping out very quickly. And then I lead across and I press a button on the desk, and their chairs disappear through a trapdoor, and, of course, come back up empty. 

So it’s really Dr. Evil, do you know that ad, as silly as it was, as, you know, Austin Powers as it was, do you know that that broke records for that month? Now, this was before Seinfeld. When Seinfeld came along, of course, he broke all the sales records. But that just demonstrates that, yes, humor. Even with a serious product like money, humor will always win. Wow.

Cosmos

I mean, it’s. Yeah, it’s interesting, like how there are so many different strategies.

But speaking of which, J.D., like, I wanted to ask you a little bit about incentive-based marketing. We talked about direct response marketing, but could you tell the audience a little more about what incentive-based marketing is and give some examples of how it is successful?

John

Good. Yeah, look, probably the most well-known incentive-based marketing campaign in the world is McDonald’s, because for 44 years they’ve run the Happy Meal toy promotion. So, therefore, if you buy a Happy Meal, you get a free toy. And there are two reasons why that works. Number one, they’re normally licensed toys. So it’s a Disney brand, or it’s a Marvel brand, or it’s a Warner Bros. Batman or something like that. 

So they’re borrowing the equity of an existing brand, which is very smart. And number two, they produce that toy in China for 22 cents. But when you get it in your Happy Meal, it looks like a $4 or $5 toy, because that’s what it would cost at Walmart or Kmart. Okay, so the secret to incentive-based marketing, if you really wanted to fire, is to find something that’s low cost to your business but high perceived value. 

Therefore, if you gave someone a $50 dining voucher, they would know you valued them at $50. If you give someone two movie tickets, they know you value them at $50. So what you should look for is something with high perceived value. So it’s worth $ 500 or $ 600 or $1,000, but you get it for $50 or $60. Now, that’s not easy, I know. But we’ve got it. Because of what happened as a result of the Seinfeld vacation program, we call it Holidays in Australia. A me just before COVID, and they said, Look, we’ve got access to hotels and resorts around the world. We’ve got access to empty rooms. Would you like to join forces and offer these to businesses as Happy Meal toys? And you pay us a royalty. And I said, Absolutely because they had seen what I’d done for the building society.

 So we’ve got a program now at Vacay, if you don’t mind me just telling you what the link is. I mean, nobody has to buy it, but they can go and have a look at it, vacationsincentive.com, so it’s plural vacations, incentive.com. If you go there, you’ll see how you can get a three to seven-night vacation in Vegas, New York, Orlando, San Diego, and the Grand Canyon, all of these wonderful spots around America. You can actually get, ah, a voucher that gives people a three- to seven-night vacation stay for less than 50 bucks. So, we charge less than $50 for people to use this as a Happy Meal toy in their business. 

So they might say, Use my lawn mowing services, and I’ll give you a free vacation. Buy my refrigerator, and I’ll give you a free vacation. Use my landscaping services, and I’ll give you a free vacation. Now that vacation is worth a thousand dollars because it’s three nights in New York, Orlando, or Las Vegas, but they’re getting it for less than 50 bucks.

Cosmos

So, like, this entire strategy is not just Jerry Seinfeld, but also like giving free vacations for these home loans. It’s like an extraordinary strategy, which is incredible.

I don’t think many people enjoy marketing in that regard.

John

No. Well, I can tell you this: less than 3% of businesses worldwide have ever used an incentive. And AI ChatGPT helped me determine that. 

So most businesses don’t because it’s too easy to drop their pants. Okay? So, when they need to, you know, move stock out of the warehouse or they just need some cash flow, they drop their pants. Well, they drop their prices. I’m shaky, but they drop their prices because it’s easy. And because, you know, I’ve done this for so many thousands of years, it’s easy for me to do. But most people walk away from incentive-based marketing because either A, they’ve never heard of it, or B, they see it as too hard. So, for example, you know, Macy’s has had a Christmas bear promotion for many years now, where if you go into Macy’s throughout December and you spend a certain amount of money, you get a Christmas bear that looks like it’s worth $50, but you only pay $5. 

And you know, for the normal, regular small business that might be doing 500,000 turnover or a million or 5 or 10 million. They don’t know how to do that. It looks too hard, but I can tell you that, as a result of the building society and the Seinfeld campaign, my eyes were opened to the most powerful incentive in the world: a free vacation. Because not only does it suit every demographic, 25, 85 male, female, it doesn’t matter. But of course, it’s something you can’t get enough of. If you give me a microwave oven, I’ll say, “Look, I’ve already got one,” and go. If you give me a bicycle, I’ll say, “I’ve already got one.” But if you give me a vacation, I could have just come back from Hawaii, and I’ll still give you a bear hug. I’ll take another one.

Cosmos

No, I mean, it made like billions of dollars, so it is wildly successful. And I just don’t understand how more people or more companies haven’t thought about this strategy at all. It’s just mind-boggling to me. But it’s incredible, you know why?

John

Look, most successful companies, well, not, I won’t say most, but many companies, regardless of their turnover, are managed or owned by a left-brain thinker. In other words, someone who has come from an accountancy background or an operational background. I’m very right-brained, as you could probably tell. So, therefore, I’m going to be on the Steven Spielberg creative side of the brain. Okay? 

So spreadsheets scare me, okay. And by the way, throughout my career, I wish I had been looking at the spreadsheets more closely because we had a few close calls, right? Nonetheless, you know, a lot of businesses are run by left-brain people. So they’re very, very good. They’re very skilled on the operations and financial sides of the business, but they don’t know where to go to stimulate sales. They just don’t know where to go. And if they go to an advertising agency, they’ll find their face on the side of a bus or the back of a taxi, or they’re sponsoring the local football team or basketball team. And that brand building is good, but it’s not going to put food on the table tomorrow night. 

So really, what we do is fill that gap. As a direct response marketing agency, we can spend hundreds, if not thousands, of leads a week for them because we’ve got all these techniques. And I have to say to you, if anyone is interested in really spiking their sales quickly, like tomorrow, have a look@vacationsincentive.com. 

Because even if you don’t get anything from us, just the idea itself, you’ll see how we do it. And you can even just swipe the idea. And if you want to go off and do it yourself, then do it yourself. But you’ve got to take their eyes off the price.

Cosmos

I was about to ask you that question.

J.D., so, like, taking the eyes off the price, how important is it that you get the customers to not focus on the price? Because a lot. Because a lot of marketers need to understand that, you know.

John

Yeah. Ah, look, you know, my business is called the Institute of wow dot com. So it’s all about wow factor marketing. When people say to me. Me, look, why did you call it that? I said, well, you know, really, at the end of the day, if your marketing doesn’t have a wow factor, why, why the hell are you doing it? 

So that’s why we called it the Institute of wow dot com. And look, it’s pretty straightforward. I mean, it’s easy for me to say because we’ve made a living out of doing it. I know it’s not easy for most people, but it’s just essentially making sure that if. And if you’re in a me-too industry, and most people are. Ah. Therefore, if you’re in the solar industry, there are plenty of other people in that industry. If you’re in the furniture industry, there are plenty of other people. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a plumber, a butcher, or a baker; if you’re in a me-too industry, then you don’t want to be selling on price. Because whatever you do in terms of dropping your price, the guy down the road can beat you in five minutes if he wants to. So that’s why you’ve got to think about a wow factor. 

And in the instance of iPhones, okay, which I’m talking to you on right now, it’s got a. The Apple iPhone has a unique design. They don’t really need my help. I mean, there is only one iPhone. And you can argue there are lots of other, you know, wannabes out there, but really, there’s only one iPhone when you do not have an iconic, sorry, a, like an organic wow factor within your business.

 So you’re not the iPhone, but you’re in a Me Too industry. You’re very much like every other competitor. That’s when you need a wow factor. Now, Amazon does it, okay? If you become a member of their Prime Club, you get free shipping, free movies, free music, and all sorts of other benefits. And so, they actually give you incentives to upgrade to their Prime Club. You’ll find that, you know, a lot of the fast food chains will do it. Subway does it, for example. What you will find, though, is the local little coffee shop down the road’s probably doing it, and you don’t realize it. They will give you a coffee card. And when you get a coffee, it’s stamped. And if you get 10 stamps, you get the next coffee for free.

 So if a little coffee shop can do it, you can, too. And really, at the end of the day, if you don’t take their eyes off the price, then you are always going to be subject to the guy down the road being able to beat your price in five minutes.

Cosmos

No, for sure.

J.D., and is there a proven formula or a formula that marketing people or advertising people can use for doing this type of marketing?

John

Yep. I’ll give it to you right now. It is five steps. Number one: This is a direct-response marketing formula. Okay? Number one, what you’ve got to do is that you’ve got to highlight someone’s problem. Number two, you’ve got to aggravate that problem. Number three, you’ve got to provide the solution. Number four, you’ve got to provide proof, which is normally testimonials. 

And the number five, you’ve got to have a strong cta. The CTA stands for call to action. And to give you the best example, it’s basically a problem solution. If you wanted it in two steps, that’s problem-solution marketing. But to go through the five steps and give you an example: say a weight-loss company. 

Number one: highlight their problem. So on your Facebook ads or whatever communication tool you have, you would say, Are you overweight and not feeling good about yourself? 

And then number two, aggravate that problem. Do you know that summer is just around the corner? Do you want to look good in your swimsuit? Okay. Number three, provide the solution. Join my diet program and you’ll look like a supermodel in a month. Number four, provide proof. And that’s normally a testimonial. So a lady would be a photograph of her when she wasn’t feeling well and she was overweight, and four weeks later, she looks like a supermodel. 

And you get her to say that. And then number five, a strong call to action. And that is join my weight loss program this month, and guess what? They’re going to get Cosmos a free vacation.

Cosmos

That is so awesome. You just make it sound so simple. But I think most marketing companies and advertising agencies are not doing this.

John

No. Well, they want to make it sound hard, so you pay them more money. And I have no issue with you paying them more money as long as they’re getting results. But if they’re putting your face on the side of a bus or the back of a taxi, or they’re getting you to sponsor the local football team, chances are, that is not going to see a return for quite several years. Whereas in our instance, we’re all about quick returns, advertising on Facebook today, and making sales tomorrow.

Cosmos

So, for which businesses is direct-response and incentive-based marketing ideal? And who should be doing this?

John Dwyer:

 Pretty much everyone. I know that serves my purpose to say that because, obviously, I’m talking to a wide audience on your podcast. But really it is. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it suits every single business. And, you know, like, the thing that really amazes me is that, you know, car dealerships, for example, who are selling BMWs or Mercedes that might be high in motor car sales, some of them would turn their nose up at direct response marketing. They say, Oh, look, you know, we’re up there with, you know, the Hilton hotels. We don’t want to do direct response marketing. But we had a BMW dealer here, down under in Australia. 

And he said to me, Look, I, you know, I’m more than happy to do it. What do I do? I said, Well, why don’t you do this? How many cars do you sell out of every 10 test drives? And he said, 3.5. Said: “Okay, well, you just want more test drives, don’t you?” He said, Yeah, sure. I said, Good. So, how about we do this? If they come in and have a test drive, you give them a free vacation. 

And his head exploded. And he went, of course. So that’s what we did. We marketed on social media and to the list he had, and a database came in and test-drove a BMW. And if you do that, when you bring the car back, we’ll give you a free vacation. 

And, he, now that’s a forced test drive. Therefore, his hit rate wouldn’t be 3.5 out of 10. It dropped to 2.5. But guess what? He ended up doing about 400 test drives. And for every 10 of them, he sold 2.5 cars. And he gave him a man hug. He was pretty happy.

Cosmos

For sure. This is amazing.

And John, what was the greatest lesson or revelation you had during your time doing marketing and advertising?

John

Do not hang around people who say, Why? Hang around people who say, Ah, why not? Because in my 20s, I made the mistake of hanging out with a lot of operational people. And because I was a bit crazy, I would float these ideas to them. Not as well planned or sophisticated as they are now because I’ve got a few decades of experience, but I would say, look, why don’t we do this? 

And it was all marketing. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we do that? That? And they would just go, Why? You know, why would you do that? And they’d come up with all of the speed bumps to basically try to talk you out of it. And then I realized, look, this is just stupid. I’m hanging around negative people. 

And then, all of a sudden, I joined a few small networking groups of crazy entrepreneurial thinkers, and everything changed. And, you know, an entrepreneur realizes that, you know, a hit rate that might be one in five is pretty good. And so, you’ve got to have five ideas for one to really take off, and that’s what I did. So I always say to my kids, I’ve got six millennials. I don’t know whether they listen to me, but I say to them, Look, hang around people who say, Oh, yeah, why not give that. Give that a shot versus people who go on. Why?

Cosmos

No, for sure. And I. I would say that having the right community of, like, positive entrepreneurial people is so important because we are the. You’re the five people that you hang out with the most. You know, you got it.

John

You got it. Yes. That’s a famous Jim Rowan saying. And that is you are the average of the five people you hang around with.

Cosmos

No, for sure.

And J.D., can you tell me in the audience a little bit more about your Institute of Wow and the premise for how you got this started?

John

Yeah, yeah. So, therefore, because we are into incentives and providing wow factors, then, you know, obviously, the name of the institute of whale.com, you know, goes with that. And really, what we do is that we help people create an artificial wow factor for their business. Because most clients who come to us are in the Me Too industry, they’re the same lawn mowing company as any other. 

They’re the same builder, concreter, electrician, plumber. And so, we showcase to them how they can distinguish themselves from any other business. And, you know, the free vacation thing is, you know, the number one, I guess, you know, successful promotion I’ve ever had my fingers on. I mean, that’s unbelievable. 

But I’ll give you another example. We’ve got a turf farm that was a client, and they sell grass. And so his turf farm was about two miles wide with grass. And he said to me, Look, can you help me? And I said, yeah, sure. He said, “Look, every time a landscaper asks us for a home’s worth of grass, I will say our price is $6 per square meter.” And he’ll say, I can get it down the road at the other turf farm, for $5. And he said I’d have to drop my prices. I said, We don’t want to do that. You want to take their eyes off the price. I said, so who’s your target audience? 

He said, landscapers, he said, because they will buy, you know, two or three homes worth of grass for the front yard and the backyard. And I said to him, Okay, well, what do you think? Landscapers, who are 99% men, what do you think they love? And he said, I don’t know. You tell me. I said, Beer. They love a beer. 

So this was before the vacations. I’d probably take the vacations now. But I said, so why don’t we give them a carton of Prestige Beer? Not the normal working man’s beer that they’d be used to, but Prestige Beer. And in Australia, it’ll be nothing to you guys in America, but it’s called Crown Lager. And Crown Lager is a very prestigious beer. And you would get a box of 24 of these beers for probably $60, $70. All right? So we sent out a. We rented a database from a list company containing 500 landscapers in the city where he was. And we sent out not 500, but 250 direct mail letters. 

And we hit them with email as well. But bank landscapers, the letter probably worked better than the email. And we said, look, look, for every 500 square meters of grass, which is an average home, we will give you a carton of beer. Prestige Beer. He rang me up five days into the promotion and said, “Jd, we’ve got a problem.” And I went, oh, God, here we go. What’s the problem? He said, We’ve got no more grass. I said, What? He said, We sold two miles worth of grass within five days. He said, I’m telling you this. Take their eyes off. The price is incredible. He said, I had a guy who was the biggest pain in the backside I’ve ever met. He used always to ring me and say, ‘Look, I want three homes’ worth of grass, but I can get it for this price down the road.’ He said. He rang me and said, Look, I need 18 homes’ worth of grass. I don’t care when the grass gets here. I need the 18 cartons of beer by Friday. I’ve got a party. Wow.

Cosmos

Wow. So beer and vacations, 

John

Well, yeah, we have a. We have a class. We have a client on board that’s a butcher, and he owns, like, he’s not just your normal butcher shop. He owns 23 butcher shops, right? So he’s doing 19 million. And he saw me speak at a convention, and I relayed that turf farm story. And so he contacted me and said, What do I do?

But he said, My audience is women. I said, Just do the same thing. He said, but they don’t drink beer. I said, No, no, you do it with wine, you idiot. And so, therefore, he does the same thing, but with a box of wine. So, therefore, not a box of 24. A box of four, I think it is, wines. 

And so he says, Look, every time you spend $50 in one transaction, you will get a point. And when you save up 10 points, which means they’ve spent $500 with him, you will get a box of wine. I think there are two bottles of wine. I think it’s two bottles in a box. 

So all it is is stopping yourself from thinking, okay, I’ve got to drop my pants. I’ve got to drop my prices. What you need to do is think, okay, who’s the target audience? What would be an incentive that would suit them? 

And then do it. Like, for example, I’m a baby boomer. If I walked into a menswear shop and wanted to buy a sports jacket, and the guy said, “Oh, we’ve got a special deal this week.” You get a skateboard, it would be stupid. That’s not going to suit my age group. So, you’ve got to have what we call a message-to-market match. You’ve got to have the right message to the right market. 

And because we do it 24/7, it comes easily to us. But if anyone wants to look at case study after case study after case study, just go to the institute of wow.com and you’ll see one of the menu bars up the top, and one of them will be case studies. If you click on that, you’ll be there for a day. Okay. There are case studies after case studies.

Cosmos

Well, this is such good stuff. And I would definitely recommend my audience check out the website, look at the case studies, and study how incentive marketing is done. Because this is, this is so amazing. I just don’t know why more people are not doing it.

Jay, do you have any projects right now that you’d want the audience to get a glimpse into that you’re working on?

John

Well, one that is about to launch in America next week. And I think anyone watching this would be very, very interested. As you probably know, Microsoft ceased providing any help to people with Windows 10 in October. 

So they do that because they want you to buy Windows 11. And if you have an old computer and you’re happy with Windows 10, you’re going to have to go out and buy another one. Because if you can’t get assistance from Windows when you have an issue, and they’re not going to help you protect all your files, your photographs, your family, and so on, then, yeah, you’re going to have to go out and spend another 1500 or $2000 on a new computer. A guy who used to work with me many years ago, who’s a computer genius, knocked on my door three months ago and said to me, “Listen, J.D., I’ve come up with another operating system outside of Microsoft’s Windows.” I went, right, go on. And he said, Look, I’ll give you a third of the business which he’s done, if you can market it, because it won’t go anywhere unless it’s marketed properly. And I said, Yes, okay, I will. 

Now, I’m not a techie. He is. And he’s so brilliant that the Australian government had him employed for 12 years protecting all of their websites because he could stop the KGB agents from getting in. He’s that smart. He’s very, very smart, this guy. So he’s come up with this alternative to Windows 11 for a very modest $197 per year. You don’t need Windows 11. You can have this program that is 25 times faster than Windows 11. So that’s one big thing. And of course, it actually puts ownership of all your data and everything in your hands, not Microsoft’s. If anyone wants to have a Look at it, go ahead. And the URL is sprintcentral.com. 

So if you go to Sprint Central, Sprint as in running fast, sprintcentral.com, you’ll see how unbelievable this is. And guess what? It’s not going to come as a surprise to you, Cosmos. If you actually take out a subscription for a very modest $197 a year, not only will you never have to buy another computer, but it will also keep your old computer running. Therefore, you don’t need Windows 11. But also, what do you think you get as a free reward when you buy into this program? A free vacation starts with Z.

Cosmos

 I see.

John

So, it’s funny because the computer guy who came to me with this said, “Look, look, can you put together the campaign, put together the name?” And I came up with the name Sprint Central dot com. And you know, how are you going to market it?

I said, mate, you don’t need to be very smart to market it. Every day, The Today Show and the Current Affair program will want you on because you’re taking on Microsoft. I mean, you’re taking on a pretty big 40-ton gorilla. But I said, what we can also do is sweeten the pie for anyone who’s sick of Microsoft and sick of all those, the, I guess, limitations they have with Microsoft. Please give them a free Happy Meal toy. 

And he said to me, A Happy Meal toy. I said, No, no, metaphorically, we will give them a free vacation. So yeah, look, anyone who’s listening to this, if you want to have a look at it, go to sprintcentral.com, and I think if you are sick and tired of the games that Microsoft plays, it might be very interesting for you.

Cosmos

 Wow, this is like the one thing that’s coming to mind: free vacations, because, yeah, it’s so true. Like, who will, who wants to refuse that? You know? 

And if somebody wants to connect with you and get to know more about you and everything that you do, or if they want to hire you for their marketing or advertising, basically, how do they go about it?

John

About doing so, it’s really easy, just email me, john@theinstituteofwow.com. So, I mean, obviously, if you go to the Institute’s website at wow.com, you’ll see how to contact us. But if you just want to shoot off an email, yeah, I mean, the crazy thing is, Cosmos, I see all these speakers on stage around the world, and when it gets to this stage of the podcast, and the podcaster says to them, Oh, how can people contact you? 

They just send them to their website, which is nice, but I just think it’s so much more personal if you just give out your personal website. I think they all think they’re too big to share their personal websites for some crazy reason. 

So look, I’m, you know, I’m more than happy to have a chat with anyone. If you just give me an email at, yeah, John, at the institute of wow.com, we can set up a Zoom call, and I’ll be more than happy to, as they say, shoot the breeze.

Cosmos

Wow, this is awesome. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast with us and share your wisdom and knowledge, especially about the free vacation in centers. 

Because, man, I just don’t know why more people don’t do that. Like beers and vacations, you know, that’s like the.

JohnWell, actually, Cosmos beer and vacations do go hand in hand, don’t they? Yeah. And by the way, the other thing is just. I know I’ve said it a couple of times throughout the interview, but if they wanted to look at the vacation promotion, just go to VacationsIncentive.com. So that’s vacations, plural, Vacationsincentive.com. 

And yeah, all the details are there. You’ll see in America, because you guys have such marvelous destinations. You know, the destination choices are Orlando, New York, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and San Diego. In Mexico, they go to Cancun for five nights. I mean, can you imagine if you give someone who buys your product or service, no matter what that might be, a $50 dining voucher? 

They know you’ve just valued them at $50. You give them this, and you’ll find that, you know, they’re going to love you because basically you’ve given them something worth a thousand dollars.

Cosmos

No, for sure. Like that is.

John

By the way, even though I’m in the car, I did have one here. That’s what they look like. 

So we send them to the businesses in PDF form, but if they want to print them, they can. I know if someone’s listening to this on audio, they’re not seeing it, but if you’re watching this, then yeah, it’s basically a quarto-size voucher, and you just hand it to them. 

So either that or you email the PDF to them.

Cosmos

Wow, this is so awesome. JD and Jay, I do hope you take the time to come back at a later time because this was. This was amazing.

John

My pleasure. Thanks, buddy.

Cosmos

And I want to conclude this episode by letting my full extraordinary Americans know that, hey, there’s an extraordinary within every one of us. It is our duty to awaken it and unleash it. Until next time. Bye for now.