Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:32
Yeah. I’d love to hear. Are there any other business mentors or distant mentors in books, Douglas, for you? It’s actually funny because when I, people can look up top resources on Inspired Insider and you’ll see a bunch of these top resources. And I maybe had like five people on at a time, all different types of business owners and people are mentioning apps like, you know, ChatGPT or, you know, LastPass or Textexpander or whatever. And multiple people actually mentioned there’s a Bible app that sends you a verse every day. And so by the end of the year, you read the Bible or something. So it wasn’t something I was expecting people to share, like their favorite app tool, but it is obviously popular.
Douglas Feller: 18:17
It’s popular and it’s needed, you know, other great books and things that I feel, you know, that I like. And man, I’m old school. I don’t want to date myself. I’m not that old. But you know, I grew up on a farm in northwest Indiana. And, we always listened to Paul Harvey. And I don’t know if you remember Paul Harvey as a commentator, but I mean, he has to me, I loved listening to that over the radio, right, of WGN and stuff back in Chicago, which you’re from. Obviously it’s all still there. I mean, you know, this is before we were listening to XM radio and having that, but Paul Harvey was great.
I took some Zig Ziglar courses when I was younger and going through a lot of those to get started. I think Tony Robbins and his books that he’s got out there is great now. You know, I’ve listened and watched a few of the Grant Cardone, you know, pieces. And so another person that really comes across pretty inspirational. you know. So those are a few other ones that I think, but you know, from a, man, I, you know, I’ve learned so much for me of really just the school of hard knocks and going through business and figuring it out and having other, you know, businessmen and women that I’ve met that have really influenced my life and that I’ve learned so much from. But, you know, I’ve, I’ve really, it’s not like I, you know, I don’t have a college degree. I don’t have the other, you know, parts to kind of put down on my resume. I got out there, I started my first business when I was 16 years old and I just learned business.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:47
What was it?
Douglas Feller: 19:47
Well, the very first thing I ever started was before I was 16, was I started my own firewood company in northwest Indiana and was delivering to Chicago. And this was before I had a driver’s license. Right. So that was my first business. And I made tens of thousands of dollars delivering firewood to the Chicagoland area and northwest Indiana area, you know, and so I was cutting firewood off my dad’s farm. But then the main first business I started was a transportation logistics company, and I started that when I was still in high school, and I sold it when I was 21 years old. And that’s really what launched me and got me going. Right. And so, you know, I knew a little about the transportation industry and it’s a whole long story. We won’t get through the whole thing.
But again, I had great mentors around me, of people to kind of, you know, that really kind of coached me and gave me some different, you know, I was trying to be all things to all people when I first started my logistics company, just to give you this as an example. So, you know, I was dealing with, I thought, man, I’m going to do flatbeds. I’m going to do van and refrigeration. I’m going to do tanker. You know, I’m going to offer all the different types of, you know, transportation you can like that’s, I’m going to do it all. I didn’t get into air freight and, and so on and so forth. Right. But I was like, I’m going to handle all of it.
And one of the first things that I was taught by another gentleman’s name was Harold Heinold. He started Heinold Commodities and handled hog markets in northwest Indiana. And Harold said to me, they used to call me the Colonel. And he said, Colonel, and this is when I was like, you know, 17 years old, you know, and he’s like, you need, you know, specialize. I had a meeting with him and I’ll never forget, he was like specialized, you know, don’t try to be all things to all people. Specialize in one thing. So I decided I’m going to focus on fan and refrigeration, and I’m actually going to focus on just the grocery industry. And that’s what I did to build that business. You know, I just really went after those clients that was grocery related and dealing with grocery wholesalers and the manufacturers. And, that was how I built that business of my transportation logistics company. So that’s to give you a little insight there, a little more history on a story, but, man, we could do a whole session on that business and that story, to be honest.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:00
You know, thanks for sharing that. I just had the founder of ZICO Coconut Water and he ended up selling to Coca-Cola for $200 million, then buying his company back. But he said the exact same thing, which is, you know, just go into a very specialized like a niche, right? And even now they do invest in beverage brands. If they see people with too many SKUs or they’re trying to serve too many markets, it’s a red flag for them from an investment perspective. Exactly what you said. And I’ll piggyback. Yeah.
Douglas Feller: 22:31
And that’s the funny thing. So I want to point something out real quick. On the other hand, you know, I’ve had this talk actually today, actually a little bit on the phone about this subject and, you know, so no, that is I think that’s super important for people to really specialize and do kind of one thing and do it well and have that niche. Right. And it’s, and it’s worked over and over.
But I can tell you with what I’m building with MyHarvest and what I’m doing, I have taken that to a little bit. I’m not following that model exactly, you know. Because, you know, I had the choice and I was involved with another platform or it wasn’t a platform, but it was a, it was a business to work with. Just justice involved individuals and to have courses for justice involved. And they just. That’s it right there. Lane is like reentry and educational courses only for people that are currently incarcerated or formerly incarcerated or coming out on probation and parole, right? Like that’s it. And I think that’s great. Like there’s a need for that and it’s specialized.
But with what I wanted to build with MyHarvest, I wanted to work with all different underprivileged because a lot of these different groups, we’re talking about individuals in recovery or justice involved or receiving SNAP benefits or so on and so forth. There’s a lot of overlap of some of those different groups, and the main thing they need of hope and confidence. And some of these life skill courses really overlap. So I could have said, I just want to focus on recovery and working with those individuals, right? But I’ve, I’ve kind of bit off a bigger chunk with this whole piece, but I feel there’s such a real need for what we’re doing and that population in that group. And again, there’s so much overlap of those different populations that that’s why I made that decision with MyHarvest. So, just wanted to kind of throw that out there. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 24:17
I mean, it’s kind of an umbrella. I mean, a niche would be under-served underprivileged, you know, and then, you know, who knows, maybe in like five years from now, it will blow up in one of those like niches under, you know, under whatever it is. So who knows? Right. I do want to piggyback on the.
Yeah, I used to listen to Zig Ziglar, you know, audio books, in my car. And I had Mark Timm on who had several successful businesses. And he was talking about how Zig Ziglar was his first mentor. And so he has some really cool stories there. If anyone wants to listen to the one with Mark Timm.
And yeah, I love Tony Robbins.
Douglas Feller: 24:58
I’m going to, I’m going to check that one out. Now that you mentioned it, that would be a great one.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:01
And he did something with Zig Ziglar.
Douglas Feller:25:04
Make a note. I’m gonna make a note. So I do look for that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:07
Mark Timm, you know, Douglas like worked with, I believe one of Zig Ziglar, kids with the foundation to help kind of there. I guess there were a lot of archived stuff that wasn’t out there to bring it out there. So I’m not sure what happened with that. But he did talk about that in the interview as well. But yeah, this is great. Douglas, first of all, thank you for sharing your, some of your lessons, some of your resources. I’m definitely going to have to check out the Don Soderquist.
And what’s interesting about Don when you look at the books and I don’t know why, but like it is the categories on Amazon is religious spirituality, Christian books, Christian living, and then it’s business growth, professional growth. So I don’t know if that’s in the book, but by looking at the book, I wouldn’t know. It just says The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World’s Largest Company, but it is categorized under that.
Douglas Feller: 26:03
And it’s a great quick read. It’s not a long read, but I’m telling you, It’s pretty impactful in my opinion for what’s in there. And, you know, it’s even more special, you know, knowing Don, how I did back in the day, you know, and so, a huge loss not having Don Soderquist anymore, around. He was just a great, great man. And it’s hard to find a lot of, I mean, they’re out there, don’t get me wrong. There’s, there’s, there’s still tons of them and tons of them out there. But, you know, it’s kind of that dying breed in a way of people that really have the integrity that that man had. And in business, right? We see it every day out there in our world, whether it’s politics or so on and so forth. And it’s just such a cut throat thing. And, I mean, I, there’s, there’s so many stories that he shared with me that I could continue to share. And a few of them are in his book.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 26:55
What’s one maybe to just bring us, bring us to the?
Douglas Feller: 27:01
Know, one story. and man, it’s this, it’s been obviously so, so long since I’ve heard him tell me this story. So I’m going to try to get it as close to being right as a disclaimer as I can. But, you know, Don was, he was sitting in his office and, you know, this is when he was COO and one of his, regional managers, I believe it was or VP, you know, came running into his office and he had because he had been flying through private airports, you know, checking on stores and, and, you know, going through and they were flying private. So they were in one of the FBOs and one of their competitors there. And he didn’t, I don’t remember which competitor, but one of their large competitors, had this whole like, you know, big booklet that he left behind in the FBO sitting there, you know, like before he was getting ready to get on his plane. Right. Well, this Walmart guy that works for Don Soderquist, that’s a high up, you know, regional manager or whatever. Found that book and it had like every.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:01
It’s like finding the other sports teams playbook.
Douglas Feller: 28:04
It’s exactly what it was, right. It was a playbook for. And I believe it was Kmart at the time. I’m not 100% sure of that, but I know it was one of their major competitors and, walked into Don’s office and is like, look at what I found. Look at what I have. Look at all this. And he said, I want you to call to the guy. We’re not copying it. We’re not, you know, we’re not taking anything out of it. I want you to call him and tell him that what we found and that we have not done anything with it, and I want you to deliver it back to him. He’s like, we’re not, we’re not taking that. This is not the right thing to do. And you know, the guy’s like, what? Like, what do you mean? You know what I mean? Like, I didn’t steal it. Like I found this and he’s like, no, you know, like, that’s, it’s just, you know, that’s how we’re going to operate. We’re not going to, you know, we’re not going to steal their intellectual property just because we stumbled on to it. And it’s like our good fortune. And we found it.
And look how many of us would probably really do that. Would we not want to at least have a sneak peek or make like copies of the book or, you know, maybe you know, half of the pages or something out of it, you know, it’d be really hard not to. And so, you know, and that happened actually, I think two different times or so, very similar to that happened two different times to Don. And in both cases, you know, that’s what, you know, he did with it. And I mean, so, you know, just that might not seem big, but that’s really a man of integrity. And like, you know, I’m, I’m not trying to shortcut or even, you know, I’m not going to steal. Like most people would say, well, that’s not, that’s not stealing, that’s not taking something from somebody.
But, you know, it is. And Don saw that and that was the message that he led to his organization and his group, you know, so, you know, I think that, you know, and I’m not good at telling that story, hearing him tell that story personally, and I can still kind of hear it. As I was saying, it is was so much more powerful, you know? So fantastic to hear Don Soderquist tell that story to you.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:02
First of all, Douglas, thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing the story, the lessons. Everyone can check out MyHarvest.org and some of the resources that Douglas shared. And Douglas, thanks so much.
Douglas Feller: 30:14
Yeah. And hey, real quick, if you don’t want to just go to MyHarvest.org, you can download it on the Apple Store, MyHarvest, or you can go to Google Play. And so either way, you can, you know, have this in your phone, right in your fingertips. So Jeremy, thanks for having me on. It’s great to see you and best of luck.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:31
You too.
Douglas Feller: 30:32
Awesome.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:33
This is part of the top resources series. Great people. I say, Tom, great people, great resources. I’m here with Tom Ruwitch and you can check him out. We’ll pull up the website in a second. StoryPowerMarketing.com, Implementum.net. And we’re going to talk about Tom, someone I highly respect in marketing and business. We’ve met through the Brian Kurtz Titans group and we’ve had a lot of overlap and he’s been to Perry Marshall events. So I wanted to hear what his favorite top software that he uses. Also some of the books that he recommends, and things like that. Before we dive into that, Tom, just tell people about your company and what you do is you do that.
I’m going to, I’m going to pull up the websites.
Tom Ruwitch: 31:18
Sure, sure. So coaches, consultants, professional service providers, anyone who’s packaging their expertise for sale to serve clients hires us to transform their content from boring to brilliant, from prospect repelling to client attracting, so that they can stand out as the human to hire in their niche. That’s the content marketing Story Power Marketing part of our business. But what we also have recognized is that a lot of business owners are trying to wire together the different elements of a great business strategy, including content. Tech, you need great tech if you want to scale and team who’s going to do the work without you working yourself to exhaustion. So what we’ve done with Implementum.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:10
What if I like working myself to exhaustion?
Tom Ruwitch: 32:12
Yeah, well, some people do. God bless them if they do. And, so the idea with Implementum is we wire together all three things strategy, tech, and team in one place so that you’re not constantly trying to connect the dots, all three pillars connected into a single system so that you can build the client attraction machine that you need to attract clients. So strategy the tech to implement the strategy and the team to actually do the work for you all in one place.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:53
So speaking of that, on the tech side, what are some of your favorites? I know you’ve created stuff throughout your career. Actual software throughout your career. So it could be some of those and also just some of your tech stack that you like to use.
Tom Ruwitch: 33:06
Yeah. So I’ll start by being very open about the fact that at the heart of my tech stack is HighLevel. And in fact, the tech platform that is Implementum’s is a white label version, an agency version of HighLevel, where we have completely customized it with tools that reflect the proven strategies and the funnels and the landing pages and so forth that work really well for our clients already built in. So if you’re familiar with HighLevel as a sort of a go to all in one marketing automation platform. What we have with Implementum is that is the foundation with a whole lot built on top of it.
And then I’ll point to another thing that I, you know, is really central to what we do. And that’s Claude. Claude is our go to and favorite AI tool. And, you know, I probably, that’s no secret to any of you who are out there using AI. Claude, Open AI, ChatGPT and so forth are the big ones, right? But what we really love about Claude is that AI tools and AI applications that we’ve built now can work seamlessly inside of Claude. So what we have been doing, and a really central part of my own tech stack is taking AI applications that I’ve built that have been trained on, for example, the copy creation framework that is central to Story Power Marketing that have been trained to write great content, that have been trained to know the difference between AI generated slop and just content that will convert. And we’ve woven that in so that when now I log into Claude, I’m not getting, you know, generic Claude. I’m getting Claude with the brain that I wanted to create. And one of the things we love about Claude and the reason we chose it, over OpenAI is our go to AI solution is the flexibility and our ability to customize it in that way.
Because one of the things that we teach and emphasize for our clients is that if you’re just pressing the AI easy button, logging into Claude, logging into ChatGPT without training the robot, without applying frameworks that you know, and that you, that you proven, well, then you’re going to be at the mercy of these robots that have trained on the internet, where the internet is loaded with gold mines and garbage dumps. And most AI doesn’t know the difference or all AI doesn’t know the difference unless you train it on that difference. And so when you press that easy button and say create content, you’re going to get a lot of the time, a bunch of garbage, it’s going to be dressed up really nicely. It’s going to sound authoritative and sound good, but it’s not going to be so good. So, that’s a couple of them. I could go on forever.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:21
Yeah, I want you to keep going with the software, but I want to just say one thing. I think that maybe the title of your next book, like, you know, use AI or something as a subtitle, gold mines in garbage dumps or whatever, something like that. Yeah. you know, on that note, just so I get to make it clear with Implementum, you know, you’ve basically kind of built a whole infrastructure inside of Go HighLevel, which you’ve customized. So instead of just sign up, people get everything out of the box, get everything out of the gate that you’ve kind of created, inside what has worked. I’m just curious what has like what, example, what are some of the biggest mistakes people make with Go HighLevel or anything that they’re building out that you’ve built inside of Implementum?
Tom Ruwitch: 37:12
Well, I think the biggest fundamental mistake is that when you log into some of these tools, and it’s the same with HighLevel or Infusionsoft or HubSpot or any of these tools, they come with a lot of templated stuff, and the templated stuff is pretty ordinary. And it’s often not very good. And the thing that every great direct response marketer will tell you is that you have to go through a constant process of adjusting and learning and testing and, you know, beating the last control and going from there. And so what we’ve done, for example, we work with a lot of authors and, and we help authors turn their books into clients. And so one of the key ideas there is if you write a book and then fall into what I call the Field of Dreams syndrome, if you build it, they will come. Just hoping that I wrote a book, the clients are going to find me. You’re setting yourself up for failure. If you write a book and recognize it as a lever to attract leads, and then recognize that you need to nurture those leads to get them to appointments, to conversion events, whatever the case may be. Then you’re beginning to put your book to work.
Well, how do you do that? You do that with different systems, different funnels. An early bird funnel where you can put your book out there, draw people to get an early sneak peek version of the book. That funnel, I’ve spent years testing version A, version B, how to do it, what the right way to do it is, and how to design the QR code. And so when you log into Implementum as an author, you’re going to get funnels that are pre-built that are not generic. Just here’s a lead magnet funnel, but here is a lead magnet funnel for authors who want to run an early bird campaign. Same if you want to do a campaign for a free PDF download of your book, or if you want to do a free plus shipping, funnel of the book.
So my recommendation is that if you’re going to use one of these all in one marketing automation platforms, throw in with someone. There are others out there who do similar things. Throw in was somebody who has not just plopped their logo at the top of the software platform and said, you know, buy my version of the software. But throw in somebody who understands marketing, understands how to convert, understands the difference between what works and what doesn’t. Has tested things and has rolled those things into the software, or has offered service that can make sure that what you build inside the software is going to work.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 40:12
You mentioned Tom, so I’m curious what has worked for you. What are some things that authors test or that you recommend? Free PDF, early bird free plus shipping? Are there other offers that you found work for authors?
Tom Ruwitch: 40:27
Yeah. I mean, so providing excerpts from the book. I’ll talk now. This is a good segue into social media. Because a lot of people who have written books act as if the sale of the book is the goal. And so they’ll pitch the book. Hey, I wrote a book. Go buy it. Here’s a link or reply here on LinkedIn and I’ll send you a link. And, and so on and so forth. Social media is a great way to make initial connections with contacts and build some relationships with people, but it’s not a great conversion platform in many cases, there are a lot of social media people who will say, well, it depends on the product and service. And I don’t disagree with that. But for an author whose back end, whose business is really built on selling a service or a premium product of some sort, then what works is using social media as a place to tease or excerpt or show. Demonstrate bits of the book where you can then drive them to a landing page where you’re giving away a free excerpt, or even a free PDF version of the book, or giving away an audio version or audio excerpts of the book.
Or there are lots of things that work. And perhaps my first answer to your question was, well, it depends, and you can test it. But all of these things have worked with authors that we’ve worked with. But the idea is to use that book as a lead magnet to draw people into your email list, then use your email list to nurture and to convert. That is a proven and winning formula for authors. The second part of that formula, nurturing and converting, is where some authors kind of lose steam and lose momentum because they think, wow, I work my tail off to write that book. And now you’re saying that in order to turn that book into clients, I have to start writing a whole bunch of stuff. Well, yeah. But here’s the beauty of it. All of the raw material that you need to create that content is probably already sitting inside that book. And so one of the things that works most well for authors is developing systems where they can repurpose the content. AI is especially valuable and helpful for this. Take that book, carve it up into the social posts I describe. Carve it up into videos that you can post on YouTube to build a following there, and then use all of that content as a stepping off point to join the email list and to get those emails, which again, can be repurposed content or content inspired by bits in the book itself.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 43:45
Yeah. I mean, Tom, to your point, like someone could get ROI from their book without selling the book, right? I mean, they just put the content and someone like this is interesting. The person never has to buy it, but they’re like, oh, what does this person do? Oh, they’re a wealth advisor or whatever service they offer. And then they start engaging with them. So yeah.
Tom Ruwitch: 44:03
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And you know, here’s a way to think about it because I’ve had more than a few conversations with authors who, when I start saying give away the content or provide the paperback book as an example for with free plus shipping, don’t send people to Amazon. They’re like, well, wait a minute. You know, I get 17 bucks every time I sell the book on Amazon. Okay. 17 bucks on Amazon. And after Amazon scrapes its share and then some, and Jeff Bezos goes and builds a rocket with a few of your pennies, you’re getting five bucks, maybe six bucks ,seven bucks. Okay. How many books do you need?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:42
Also you don’t own the data either, right? So like.
Tom Ruwitch: 44:46
You don’t, you don’t see the data. You know, somebody buys a book on Amazon and you don’t know who that person was unless that person writes a review where they are identifiable and still you don’t have their email or they read the book, they love the book and they reach out to you. And that, my friends, is what we call hoping and praying marketing. You know, you put your book out there, you hope you pray that somebody is going to act on the book and call you. And hoping and praying is not a great way to build a business, nor is building a business one $5 sale at a time.
Now, to your point, Jeremy, somebody on social media or on a podcast or wherever, tell people go here, get this book. That person now becomes part of the email list and they are being nurtured. And as a result of building that relationship with that reader. And oh, by the way, they may not even read the book. Building that relationship, the odds of that person becoming a $5,000 client, a $15,000 client, a $50,000 client depends on what your business is, of course. But you know, how many $5 sales do you have to make before that one reader at 5000, 15,000, 5000, becomes, you know, before that becomes more valuable to you than that one client.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 46:27
Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about the $17. Basically.
Tom Ruwitch: 46:31
Exactly.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 46:31
So we talked about Go HighLevel, obviously Implementum has a lot of the pre-built stuff that people can use out of the box, which is great. Claude, what are some of the other tools, software that you like to use? It could be on your phone. It could be on your computer too.
Tom Ruwitch: 46:48
Yeah. So, I love, I love Fathom, in combination with Zoom, although I have to admit that we’re getting to a point with the AI tools that we’re building that we probably can do away with Fathom. However, I’m going to describe it and sort of model out the productivity gains that it’s afforded us. For those of you who don’t know, Fathom is a tool, free. you can pay. There’s a paid tier as well. And honestly, I don’t recall the difference. But, Fathom is a tool that is an online, it records your Zoom meetings, so it shows up with you in a Zoom meeting. It records and creates a video, but it also is transcribing it on the fly. And then I think this is where you get into the distinction between the paid and the free. The free version will take that transcription and generate an AI generated summary of the transcription.
If you go up to the paid version, which is a few bucks a month, I forget what it will create different kinds of summaries depending on what kind of call it is. If it was a sales call, it will give you, you know, what, what were the pain points that the prospect identified? What were the objections? So it’s going to organize the notes in a way that a sales rep would find most valuable. If it’s an operations meeting or a software development sprint, it’s going to organize the notes accordingly. So the big takeaway, whether you do this with Fathom or whether you do this with something that you cook on your own using AI and other tools is that every time you are having a conversation, there is an incredible and valuable pile of stuff that you are exchanging and to, you know, we’ve all been in a world where we’ve written notes and then those notes get set aside and they collect dust and we never act on them.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 49:02
And you mean like these ones that I’m writing right now?
Tom Ruwitch: 49:04
Like those? Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 49:06
About this.
Tom Ruwitch: 49:07
Right here. There it is in my. So, we’ve done that and what digital transcript collection and AI analysis can do is it can get you from conversation to implementation in warp speed. And so, I’ll just, we were talking about frameworks earlier and building, you know, copyrighting frameworks into your AI. The core copyrighting framework that I emphasize and teach as part of Story Power Marketing is promise, lesson, anecdote, next step. The PLAN framework. And so the idea there is that every piece of great content, marketing content, is going to have at its heart some kind of promise, a transformation, a before and after for the client. If it doesn’t, they’re not going to tune in there. You know, why are you telling me this is going to be sort of the mental play for the prospect. But if there is, you know, here is why you should care. This is why this matters because you’re going to go from stuck to released. You’re going to go from overwhelm to clarity whatever the promise may be. Then there is a lesson. There’s what do you need to know or have or do in order to achieve this promise?
So a great example would be an executive coach who writes an email about delegation. Here are five tips to delegate effectively. Well, those are lessons. Those are things you need to know and do. But oftentimes you’ll see content out there where here are five tips to do such and such. And there’s no promise. There’s no, well, why do I need to know this? But if you write the piece as an executive coach, you know, you want to escape the hamster wheel? Want to, you know, no longer have the weight of the world, on your shoulders where everything relies on you and you’re working 80 hours a week as a result? Well, here’s a solution. Learn to delegate. Here are five tips to do it.
That’s a great example of promise combined with lesson. But what it’s missing is an anecdote. Storytelling. When you wrap the promise and lesson inside an anecdote, you have in effect a parable, a lesson that’s memorable that sticks and so forth. And so promise, lesson, anecdote, next step and is next step. What is the thing that you’re asking for? What should they do next in order to achieve said promise? The reason I got off on this tangent, the PLAN framework is that one of the things I do whenever I am talking to a client, but especially when I’m talking to a prospect, I will bring Fathom into the room or some other mechanism to record the meeting, and I will then run it through AI that has been trained on the PLAN framework that we have trained to understand this framework. And I’ll start to ask it questions. Well, what promises, what was the prospect saying to me about their before and thereafter? What are the core promises that are at play? And what things do they want to know or do they think they’re missing? It might be a testimonial video. What were the things that I’ve done or shared with them or they’ve gotten from me that are most valuable, which extracts some stories.
And what am I doing? What I’m doing is gathering the promises, lessons, anecdotes, and next steps which are, in effect, building blocks that I can use in other content that I can use in my proposal back to them that I can use in all sorts of ways that instruct how I communicate, not just with the individual whose meeting I recorded, but with the broader audience as a whole. So a tool like fathom or any other tool that records and then helps you analyze in combination with Claude, ChatGPT, whatever the case may be, is a really valuable part of my tech stack.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 53:45
No, thanks for sharing that. Tom, I took a lot of notes because that applies to anything. It could apply to someone creating content, someone creating an offer, someone, a book in general. That’s a great format for a lot of things. And Fathom’s, I’ve probably tested all of them like you have. Like Fathom, ReadAI. I had the founder of Sembly.ai, which connects directly to these MCP. You know, they can create tasks right from it. into some of these AI tools. So really, you know, there’s a lot of tools out there that people can use.
So I know we have a few minutes, but I do want to hear some of your favorite books also. I’m sure we can talk for the next three hours on software, but, obviously, you know, you have a book so we could talk about that. And then what are some of the other books that you like from a business perspective as well?
Tom Ruwitch: 54:36
Yeah. Well, thank you for mentioning my book, you know, shameless pitch. My favorite book is Story Power Marketing by Tom Ruwitch. But, beyond Story Power Marketing by Tom Ruwitch, I love The Go-Giver series, Bob Burg, John David Mann, those are great books. Those are, they are parables, written as parables. And if for no other reason, the whole mindset and philosophy behind The Go-Giver is critical. And I’m a big believer in being.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 55:12
I think I’ve had Bob Burg on twice for two different books. So people could check those episodes. Yeah, yeah. Go-Giver. Endless Referrals, I think was the other one I had on.
Tom Ruwitch: 55:23
The Art of Persuasion. Bob is a great sales guy. His co-writer, who really was the writer of the books, is John David Mann, who also is a fantastic guy. But the underlying philosophy of The Go-Giver is great. But also if you just want to get a feel for how to structure a parable, how to structure a story, how to use storytelling to deliver an important business idea, reading The Go-Giver books, very short, very simple is, I think, really terrific.
So, let me see, by the way, you asked about software. I’m scrolling through my catalog of books that I keep in Notion. I love Notion as a note taking sort of back end database system. So I’m, I’m scrolling through, I’m a big fan of Ann Handley. AnneHandley, wrote a book called Everybody Writes, and there’s a new, revised edition of that book. Anybody who wants to get more comfortable in writing consistently effective content in a systematic and human way and is great. She has a great email newsletter that I think comes out weekly, maybe every other week.
I like to follow artists who write about creativity, and one of my favorites is a guy named Austin Kleon. and he’s written a trio of books, one called Keep Going, one called Show Your Work, one called Steal Like an Artist. And if you want to develop a creative mindset, those are really.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 57:27
Is this him right here?.
Tom Ruwitch: 57:28
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and he just released this one. Don’t Call It Art. Yeah. He has a great substack. So, the free version is fine. The paid version is awesome. Also along the lines of creativity and so forth is a book called, the power of noticing and I’m forgetting the author’s name, but if you.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 57:59
I’ll find it.
Tom Ruwitch: 58:00
Yeah. Jeremy’s kicking ass here, finding these books. The power of.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 58:05
Max Bazerman is that.
Tom Ruwitch: 58:06
No, that’s not it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 58:07
No it’s.
Tom Ruwitch: 58:07
Not… Hold on. Maybe it’s not the power of. The Art of Noticing. The Art of Noticing. Yeah. The Art of Noticing. Let’s see.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 58:21
Rob Walker.
Tom Ruwitch: 58:22
Rob Walker.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 58:23
Okay.
Tom Ruwitch: 58:24
Fabulous book. And here’s, I was just talking to somebody else on a podcast interview this week, and I am often asked this question, you know, what’s the number one skill that you recommend that people develop in order to be a better marketer? And I will often answer that by saying curiosity. And what I mean by that is, you know, there’s all sorts of buzz around storytelling in marketing, right? And my business Story Power Marketing, a mistake that a lot of marketers make is that they think that storytelling is all about them.
Me me, me. Tell my story. My origin story. I’m going to tell you about the garage that I invented, the widget I’m going to tell you about the ditch I climbed out of, you know, whatever. And it’s not about you.
It’s about your prospect. And great storytelling is about evoking images and stories that reflect their journey, their emotional journey, showing up with empathy, understanding where they are now and where they want to go, and providing stories that help paint the picture of how you can help them get there. And so great marketers are the ones who are more listen and less tell, who are more noticed and less show. And so developing a sense of curiosity, developing a sense of looking outward as opposed to inward and constantly, telling and telling and telling and pitching and pitching and pitching is a skill. It’s a muscle to develop.
And this book Art of Noticing is actually by a guy who’s both a businessman and an artist. And he surveyed 100 artist friends and said, what are things that you do on a regular basis, the exercises in your life to be better at noticing, listening, paying attention to the world around you. And I’m a big believer that those of us who practice this and learn this and get better at it are better business people, better marketers, better leaders.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:00:42
And that goes into one of my favorite books of all time is How to Win Friends and Influence People. And it’s a lot about being curious about others and, same premise actually. And so, I just bought the book as you were talking, by the way, so thank you. I’m going to listen to it. Yeah, it’s only like four hours and 52 minutes. So on two times speed, I’ll be done in like 2.5 hours. So that’s great.
Tom Ruwitch: 1:01:06
Yeah. After you have dinner, call me, let me know how you liked it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:01:11
And so I do, first of all, thank you, Tom, for sharing your lessons, books, and software. I want to encourage people to check out StoryPowerMarketing.com, check out Implementum.net. and we’ll see you next time. Tom, thanks so much.
Tom Ruwitch: 1:01:27
Greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Jeremy.
