My guest today is Billy Broas who has been the marketing brains behind some of the top online entrepreneurs and course creators. In this episode, we discuss the following: - Billy Broas Bio - Desire to do your own thing - Starting an online course on beer brewing - How to know if there is a demand for your course - Importance of persuasive copy writing - Leveraging the power of marketing - Focus on your messaging first over distribution - Why having competitors is a good thing - What marketing advice Billy gives to his clients - Billy's marketing framework - Figure out your goals before building an audience - How to contact Billy Broas For show notes, guest bio, and more, please visit: www.designmba.show
Billy got into marketing in 2010, when he left his career to run his home beer brewing website. Since then, Billy has been the marketing brains behind some of the top online entrepreneurs and course creators. His clients include David Perell, Tiago Forte, Kimberly Snyder, and Ryan Deiss.
LEARN HOW TO GET MORE PROSPECTS TO SAY YES TO YOUR PRODUCT
Sign up for free for Billy's battle tested Five Light Bulbs framework and find holes in your product messaging - https://fivelightbulbs.com/
CONNECT WITH BILLY BROAS
CONNECT WITH ME
Namaste and welcome. I am Jayneil Dalal and you are listening to the design MBA which is a real-life MBA program for designers. You will learn how to launch a side hustle and level up your design careers from the interviews rock star designers.
Jayneil Dalal: Today's amazing guest is Billy Broas who is a messaging expert and works with entrepreneurs to really help them find the right words to sell their products. And if you go to the design MBA website designMBA.show, you will see that Abhinav Chikara who runs one of the top online design schools in India, Billy actually coached him too. So, we're really excited for the show.
Billy, welcome to the show, man. Super excited to have you.
Billy Broas: Hey, Jayneil. Hey, thanks for having me. Really excited to be here.
Jayneil: Yeah, where are you based right now?
Billy: I’m in sunny San Diego.
Jayneil: Oh nice. So, you came back from Mexico.
Billy: Yeah, back from Mexico, yeah. My in-laws live down there. So, I go down there pretty frequently.
Jayneil: Well, you speak Spanish or picked that up now?
Billy: Working on it. Growing up, learning languages wasn't a big deal and I took a Latin of all things, which isn't too useful. And this was in Virginia where there's just not a lot of Spanish spoken but being in San Diego and, yeah, now having the family from Mexico, I’m picking it up but slowly, slowly.
Jayneil: That is amazing. I don't know that much of Spanish but I know a little bit basic estoy aprendiendo Español.
Billy: There we go. Yeah.
Jayneil: That’s “I’m learning Spanish” for those who are listening. So, I’m getting curious to know, man, that Billy as a child. Was Billy always into marketing or what were some of the interests that Billy had when he was a child?
Billy: I wouldn't say marketing at all. I would say inventions. I was really into technology, ventures, companies, startups, things that were cool things that cool people were doing in the world. I was really big into Popular Science magazine.
Jayneil: Oh yes!
Billy: Yeah. You know that one?
Jayneil: I know that one, yeah.
Billy: Yeah. My dad would get it. And so, I would read it whenever he would get it. And I would only read the front and the back. So, I would read the front because that section was what they called … I think it's called ‘What's New’. It was all the new inventions, all the cool gadgets coming out, and that was really interesting. And then I would read … I wouldn't really read the articles but I’d read the back because that's where they had the classifieds section. And I thought that was really interesting too because they would sell some crazy products back there. They'd always be selling something, what are they called those things, like gyrocopters, these helicopter kits that you can build and you can fly them on your own. So, it was cool to see that.
Jayneil: Oh yes! I remember that section. It was so fascinating because there's like this mini inventory of all these cool gadgets you could buy and you had to mail in that request or something.
Billy: Yeah. So, studying that … and I didn't realize it at the time but that was marketing, that was copywriting. And so, it's kind of interesting, those two things hooked my attention, the science and technology side of things and the business side of things and that really that carried through, through the rest of my life till this day.
Jayneil: Wow! And then once you started … and then after that, what was your journey after college. I believe you joined a big company, right? You joined a corporation?
Billy: It was actually a small company. It was a 15-person company. It was a small engineering firm specializing in clean energy. So, we worked on a big clean energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency projects, things like wind and solar, that sort of thing.
Jayneil: Wow! And during this whole time, you still had that itch to have your own venture and do stuff on the side.
Billy: Always. Yeah, I always had that and I scratched that itch somewhat through this company because it was all very new stuff, the things that we were working on. Technologies like cellulosic ethanol was cutting edge. So, it certainly scratched that itch. The problem was I was doing it within this organization and, again, a small one where I really felt my growth was limited. And that's what eventually led me to do my own thing.
Jayneil: And that own thing initially was that … what was that own thing like? I believe you started your own small beer brewing course or website. So, was that why you were still working at this small company or was that after you left the company? Tell me a little bit about that.
Billy: I started that pretty early on in the company. It wasn't … yeah, I remember the first day I got that job which I was very excited about but I remember sitting down at that desk the first day, I’d already gotten the tour, I’d gotten up to speed on everything. So, it was time to just sit down and get to work for the rest of my life.
Jayneil: You had a cubicle?
Billy: No, I actually had a pretty nice office. Yeah, it was a small office.
Jayneil: Wow!
Billy: My college town, a beautiful town, Harrisonburg, Virginia, northwest Virginia. So, it's a great office. I had a big desk. I mean, it was a really great career and I loved the people I was working with but I remember sitting down at the desk and thinking “Yeah, my time is limited here.”
Jayneil: Oh my god! And how did you get that … like you just sat down on this brand-new desk and this amazing office at such a young age and you're sitting down there and you get that feeling. What led you to that? Was that something you felt like you look up around and you're like “Oh my god. This for the rest of my life?” Walk me through that feeling.
Billy: Yeah, it was more just knowing myself and just knowing that I was going to get that itch and that that just couldn't … that office couldn't contain me and my interests even though it was probably the best thing for me and looking back on it.
Jayneil: Why do you say that? Why do you say that was the best thing for you?
Billy: Well, I’ll do air quotes, “by societal standards”.
Jayneil: Yes, make sense.
Billy: You got the job, it's a great career, great town, great people. Just be grateful. Put your head down and do the work but I was like … so, I was like two voices. One Billy was like “Yeah, do that. Follow that path. You worked so hard for this.” The other one was like “Nah, you know yourself better than that. You're not going to stay here.”
Jayneil: Wow! I get that a lot like a lot of times it's a tough balance because even my parents would be “Hey, you know, you've got a lot of folks” and I’m from India originally, so they'll be like “Look at some other of our friends and family who would be really like fortunate to even think about being in your shoes.” So, there's always that thing about like “Oh, don't think too much. Just be grateful for that.” So, it's a very good balance between like “Oh, I can do more” and then also being grateful. So, when you had that realization, what led you to say that “You know what? I think I love beer brewing. Let me do something with that.”
Billy: Yeah. So, I got … I blame Tim Ferriss and The Four-Hour Work Week. And that book came out at the … I’m sure you and your listeners know that book.
Jayneil: Yeah.
Billy: That book came out at the perfect time because I graduated college in 2007. I think that's when the book came out or maybe 2006. So, it hit me at the perfect time and I read that and said “Okay. Well, this is my escape route out of here eventually when I want to.” And what he essentially recommends is, and what a lot of other people were recommending at the time because the internet was becoming real big and running an online business, they said “Well, do something you're passionate about. You can build a business around your passion.” And I said “Well, what am I passionate about? What are my hobbies?” And I was really into beer brewing at the time. Got into it in college with my roommate. I really geeked out on it like I do on everything. I read every book on it, started making my own recipes, built my own home brewery, entered competitions, studied and became a certified beer judge like all in …
Jayneil: Wow!
Billy: So, that was the obvious answer like “What am I going to start a website around?” Beer, craft beer and more specifically brewing your own beer.
Jayneil: Oh my god. And the funny thing is, with Tim Ferriss being mentioned here, that's one of the reasons also I got into the podcast world because I was like “You know what …” When I was starting the design MBA podcast, I was like … initially I had some weird names like the Hustle Show or Hustle with Jayneil and all these things and I realized like “Those have already been done by folks like Tim Ferriss or Oprah but there is something lacking for the design or the creative space and especially the combination of design and entrepreneurship and that's where I was like “Okay, this is a niche space.” So, funny you mentioned Tim Ferriss. And thinking about beer, I got to be … full disclosure, I personally don't like beer, don't take it to take it to heart …
Billy: No offence.
Jayneil: But when you say beer brewing, I’m assuming that the beer that comes out of it is just much better tasting than the ones that are just sold off the counter like Corona and all these other big brands?
Billy: Well, it really came on the heels of the craft brewing movement or what was formally known as the Microbrew Movement. And so, we’re brewing these … not many people are brewing Corona at home, which is actually a tough beer to brew. It doesn't have a lot of flavor but it's a tough beer to brew because it's so uniform, all the bottles taste exactly alike and that's really tough.
Jayneil: Yeah, exactly. Uniformity.
Billy: Yeah but no … I mean, I was brewing big IPAs, I was brewing stouts, I was brewing German lagers, I was brewing fruit beers, I was brewing sour beers. There's a ton of different beer styles. So, that's what I would teach, brewing those types of beers at home.
Jayneil: And then you decided that okay, you wanted to make a website about it, but how did you know that “Hey, there's even like a demand for, there's even like a customer segment that would be interested in this.” How did you know that?
Billy: Good question. Well, I got into social media pretty early. Facebook came to our college fairly early because they started out with colleges. So, we got Facebook my freshman or sophomore year in college. So, I was exposed to it. And there were all these groups on there, these pages. So, I realized you can find these niche audiences. And actually, my first idea wasn't to do a beer blog or beer courses. I was going to build a social network around beer, so kind of like the Facebook for craft beer.
Jayneil: Oh! So, make like a group or a community of people who are passionate like you.
Billy: Yeah. And this was big at the time. Everyone saw the success of Facebook and everyone said “Oh, well, why don't I build the Facebook for X?”, “the Facebook for dog owners.” So, there was a time, I guess it was around the same time, 2008-2009, where niche social networks were very big. However, I realized that it was a real tough thing to build a Facebook like the technology, it's tough to build. I was trying to build it myself and that wasn't going anywhere. And then I reached out to some companies and they were charging 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 dollars to build something very basic. I didn't have that kind of money. And then what happened was it turns out that these niche social networks didn't do very well because you just have the groups on Facebook. You have the dog owners’ group on Facebook. You have the beer brewers’ group on Facebook. So, that's when I really discovered blogging. So, I went from the social network idea into the blogging idea. And then the blogging … so, I started doing that and that had some success. I was on Twitter pretty early. I was on Twitter in 2008 and there was a large craft beer community on twitter and that provided a lot of my early traffic. That and blogging provided most of my early traffic for that website.
Jayneil: And through that website, you said that “Let me just make a course on this.”
Billy: Yeah. So, after a year or two of blogging and building up my traffic and building an email list, that's when I said “Okay. Well, let me try to sell a product.” And online courses were becoming a thing back then. I took a program … one of the main websites I followed to learn all this stuff was, and they're still around, Copyblogger. And they had a course … this was 2009 maybe … called Teaching Sells. And it was a course on how to teach online and make money from it. So, I took that and shortly after that launched my first beer brewing course and, yeah, that was it. That was off to the races.
Jayneil: Oh my god! This is so amazing because while most people read books, which is cool, they take courses and stuff, you actually learned a lot of the fundamentals, nuts and bolts of marketing by actually having your own course, trying to sell it, really you learned by doing it.
Billy: Totally. Yeah, it was all hands-on. And I was having a blast because I liked all these different topics. I’ve always been that going back to Popular Science, reading that magazine with all these different topics. My major was called Integrated Science and Technology it was a combination of about five or six different disciplines. So, I in beer brewing … yeah, I like beer, I love craft beer but it wasn't even so much about the beer. It was about all the different things I learned within brewing beer. You learn about chemistry. You learn about biology. You learn about yeast. You learn about metallurgy for the pots that you use. So, I saw building a website as the same thing and this business as the same thing. It's a hundred different disciplines in one, one of the main ones being marketing which I always had an interest in and I got my MBA to help out with that job but I did not learn this kind of marketing, which is more sales and even negotiation, more psychology, not so much what they teach in the MBA classes, the finance, the accounting, the management theory.
Jayneil: And this is an amazing segment because I’m just thinking about when you're going through your MBA and they kind of like, I think, walk you through all these big case studies as all these jargons, versus here you're trying to sell this course to people, to humans and your copy or your language has to be human friendly, I would say. So, what was that learning for you like instead of like just speaking in vague terms, having a clear copy or the power of copywriting that resonates with people to sell your products what was that aha moment like for you?
Billy: Yeah, I think I always had … I always sort of wrote that way in a more conversational style. It got a lot of red pens in school because that doesn't work when you're writing essays in English class. They don't like that.
Jayneil: Nope.
Billy: And then … and it was difficult for me to write the … to do the type of writing I was doing in that clean energy job because it was all technical reports that we were writing. I was writing … we were writing 120-page technical reports for the Department of Homeland Security. It's like there's not a lot of room for personality in that kind of document.
Jayneil: Absolutely.
Billy: So, I would do that during the day and then go home and write an article about this new beer that came out that's 11% alcohol and made with these crazy hops, right? So, that's a very different type of writing but I was more suited to that … the second type of writing and that's really what copywriting is. It's a conversation in print and a persuasive conversation. It should lead to an action, not necessarily a sale but an action and then eventually to a sale.
Jayneil: I’m literally just stopping myself and thinking about that copywriting is basically a conversation in print. And if you extend that, copywriting is a conversation in the digital era. It can be anywhere. It can be social media, anywhere but it's like a conversation that leads to some kind of action, whatever that is, for that person.
Billy: Exactly, yeah.
Jayneil: Wow! And this brings me to some another quote that you shared with me when we were having just our own conversation. You said “Marketing, if viewed that way, is also sales at scale.”
Billy: Yeah.
Jayneil: And I found that to be such a profound thing because you can have people that are really good at selling or convincing you one-on-one but that also has its own limitation but then you say that marketing is basically sales at scale. Explain that to me a little bit more in detail.
Billy: Yeah. Well, if you think about it, a long time ago, our ancestors, they weren't really doing marketing. They were doing sales. The setup might have looked something a modern day farmer's market where you have your goods, no digital products back then, you had your goods, you might have your apples and someone comes and they check out your apples they handle them, they ask you questions about them, you answer the questions and the sale is made. And that is really … that is the ideal sales scenario because it's dynamic, it's in person, you can read body language, you can respond to someone's questions very quickly if you're the product creator but then that doesn't scale too well. So, the question is how do you do that at scale where it's not one to one, it's one to many and it's beyond just doing that from a stage because you could do that from a stage and that happens still all the time. You might have a conference and then someone gives a pitch at the end but now how do you do that over a greater distance and also where it's not in real time, where it's asynchronous. And that's really where you need marketing. And so, that's what I mean by marketing is selling at scale. It's one to many and broadcast over a long distance and it can be read, it can be consumed really at any time. And so, that's really how I see it. It's just an extension of the sales process and it's done primarily through publishing, publishing some form of content, some form of communication whether that's written or visual or audio or a combination.
Jayneil: Billy, usually when I talk to designers including myself, a lot of times the objection to that when it comes to, and this might just turn into a therapy 101, is the objections would be something like “But, Billy, I’m really good at talking in person but this whole marketing thing kind of scares me out. I’m not good at that like I’m not good at like the online stuff. I’m not good at that.” So, what do you say to that?
Billy: Yeah, you're going to find people who feel both ways about it. Some say that where they say “I’d much rather speak in person. I don't know about this online stuff.” That's more of the classic sales mindset and people move from more of an old school sales background “What's all this … what's all this marketing stuff? What's all this digital marketing stuff? I’d rather … just get me in a room with someone and I can sell them.” I come across more of the other side where it's “Hey, I’m terrified of speaking to people, of doing sales. I’d rather just sit at a computer and write something that leads to sales.” That was more me. I was interested … I’ve always been interested in new ventures and technology and inventions but I was never a very social person. I’m an introvert. I won't say I’m not social but I’m not the type to go out and sell something. I’m not like … I’m not like Gary Vaynerchuk where he was selling baseball cards, where he was …
Jayneil: Constantly he’s out and about, yeah.
Billy: That wasn't … that would be totally weird for me or my friends to do. We were out playing baseball, not selling baseball cards. So, I was never that kind of an entrepreneur but I always to write. And when I realized that “Oh, there's a thing called copywriting where you can do sales through writing at scale,” that was really interesting to me.
Jayneil: That was insane. And another thing that I learned through this journey having started the podcast also, I would fall in that bucket of people that are extrovert or good in one-on-one conversations but definitely hesitant when it comes to like marketing or doing things at scale. And what I found, Billy, is that I spent so many hours, or wasted would be the right word, on focusing more on “Should I do Twitter? Should I do like email? Should I do like the technique or the …” where to do it rather than, as you say, like focusing on the words. Have you faced this a lot because I know you consult a lot of clients and entrepreneurs and you help them? Have you faced this dilemma well talking to them?
Billy: Yeah, I think a lot of people, when they hear the term marketing, they immediately go to channels, channels, platform, distribution, so Twitter, Facebook, SEO, pay-per-click, even direct mail. Billboards are a medium. The radio is a medium. So, the metaphor I like to use is think about those just as pipes. Those are pipes that carry a message. And if you look at it that way, you realize that there are some questions you have to answer first before choosing the pipes. One is what is the message I’m putting out there because it doesn't matter if you choose the right pipe. If you're sending the wrong message through it, it's not going to resonate with the person on the other side. And then also, yeah, which pipe do you choose? Where does my audience hang out? And that's an important question to answer.
Jayneil: And even an objection or a question to that that you might get, which I’m already going to throw at you …
Billy: Go for it.
Jayneil: … is “Billy, I get this idea that okay, I have this message or something I want to share with the world and then all these platforms are like pipes through which I send them but what if the message I’m trying to send is already being sent by someone else? So, an analogy would be “Oh, I want to create another beer brewing course or something but hey, somebody's already done that.” So, what will your advice be on that?
Billy: That's usually a good thing.
Jayneil: Oh, it’s a good thing?
Billy: Yeah because the most important thing is, and assuming that you're trying to sell a product or service, which is all I’m focused on right now in this conversation, it's a different … and I say that because these days that is often mixed in with the influencer business model. And I don't know that. I just don't know about that. Building a big audience on … building a big YouTube channel, that's really not my area, but if you want to sell a product or a service, then it can be a digital product like a course. That's what I’m talking about. And it's a good thing if you see other people doing it because that means that people are buying that type of product because what is normally the case, and I’ve spoken with hundreds of entrepreneurs, it's very difficult to sell a product. And the reason it is, is because a lot of people create a product that nobody wants, that there's just not … that there's just not demand for. And it's kind of an invention. You see these people go on Shark Tank and they come up with this amazing product, the technology is really cool, but they ask “What are the sales?” and there's no sales of it. And no amount of marketing in the world is going to overcome that. It's a tricky thing to figure out. And I recommend that entrepreneurs think of themselves more like inventors. So, is the product that you're creating, your invention, do people want it? And you really … and if you get that right, then you can figure out all the other stuff but if you don't figure that out, do not pass go. You're not going to get any further than that.
Jayneil: This is mind-blowing because usually, one way to think about is that you want to be the first to market, you want to be the only one to sell that kind of specific course but then what I hear from you is so empowering because I’m like “Oh, you know what?” … because I felt this when I started my podcast, Billy, I was in a similar situation where I was like “Oh, I’m not the first one to do a podcast. I’m super late.” And then I got similar advice where someone said like “Oh, that's a good sign that people want to hear a podcast.” So, I think that's really insightful just to see that there's other people, the market is big enough to accommodate multiple players, so to speak, in that space.
Billy: Totally, yeah. And then the trick becomes differentiating yourself. So, I think … of course there's exceptions. You have the Steve Jobs types who are just so visionary, they come out with something where you couldn't figure that out just based on market research alone. That's the exception though. So, set that aside. Don't try to be Steve Jobs or Henry Ford but look for where there's demand, where customers are buying things. And customers will switch. They'll switch products very quickly. So, find that product that's being sold where there's demand for it and then put your own spin on it, do something different, take a different angle, different approach.
Jayneil: And the differentiator, one of them would be finding the right words, the copywriting.
Billy: I would say that's where you convey your difference is through the words … and words … yes, I would say more broadly the message which includes the words, the design, the graphics, all of that.
Jayneil: And, Billy, you coach a lot of entrepreneurs that have amazing ideas, amazing products, you've coached our mutual friend, good friend Abhinav Chikara as well. So, when you come across these amazing entrepreneurs that have amazing ideas that have some sort of traction or are thinking about going there, what are some of the frameworks that you really help them correct like “Oh, you know what? You're on the right path but this small thing, you know, if you just tweak that a little bit,” what are some examples that come to mind for you?
Billy: Yeah. One you mentioned earlier about being more human in your copy. And that's an important thing and that can get you pretty far, just being more authentic. A lot of people put on their marketing hat when they go to create marketing material and they think they need to become something else and they'll ask questions “What's the right thing to say? What's the script? What's the email template?” And that stuff can help. It can give you direction but there's really, and it sounds kind of silly, but there really is nothing more powerful than honesty and authenticity in marketing and it comes down to trust because you can tell when you read something, when you read some sales copy or a document, anything, if that's person with their marketer hat on, their professional hat, someone trying to sound business-like or if that's that real person, that's their real voice. We can sense that, right? You read Warren Buffett's annual sales letter and … I don’t know what's it called … annual letter to his shareholders.
Jayneil: Yes.
Billy: Have you ever read those?
Jayneil: Yes.
Billy: Yeah. And it just … it comes right through. And it's a very formal type of document. You read all the other ones. They sound nothing like his but when you read his, it sounds just like a personal conversation, it sounds like that letter was written right to you. And so, don't skip over that because that's really important. And it's not as easy as people think. It’s just a matter of letting your guard down and be willing to be authentic and be a little bit vulnerable and let yourself shine through. And that is not easy for most people and it takes a lot of practice.
Jayneil: I’m thinking about this right now because I had the pleasure of working with your client and now friend Abhinav and I remember vividly that, for folks listening in, if you go to 10KDesigners.comm it's one of the top online design schools in India. So, Abhinav's made the updates that you shared with him in your coaching calls. And I had seen the website before that, which was more of like falls in the traditional one like most people when they try to sell courses, it’s usually like the product benefits and it's just like chunks like “Oh, I got to throw this on the wall. I got to throw this. I got to throw this” and that's usually what they end up. And then the after that, I’ve seen also when he made your updates, which is more of like … it's like a story like he's telling a story like how he got the idea to why he wanted to teach people design in India and what are you going to walk away from it, what are the transformations like what can you expect to see in yourself or what are you willing to gain because you're paying this amount. And the amount is not small either. So, that kind of narrative storytelling is just amazing. Can you share if you had do like … I mean I know it's hard to speak at … but kind of that framework, a little bit about that?
Billy: I think a story is a good way to think about it because we're wired for stories. And what does a story have? It has a beginning, a middle, and an end – here's where I was, here's what happened, and here's where I wound up. And so … and that fits very well into selling and to making a persuasive argument. So, for someone Abhinav, “Here's where I was” and he talks about his backstory and what was going on and the need that he saw in the marketplace, “Here's what happened” and this is sort of his “I couldn't find it. So, I built it” story, “it wasn't … no one else was out there doing it.
Jayneil: Nobody was, yes.
Billy: “So, I created it. I released it to the world. Here's what happened. I got these results for people and now it's available to you.” And it includes these modules and it includes support and it includes yadda, yadda, yadda. So, there we go. So, it's the story. And the sales copy is woven into that story but when you read it like that versus the way you were describing it before – “Here's the product. Here's the benefits” – like an engineer wrote it …
Jayneil: Yes.
Billy: Right? Or like you would see on a lot of product pages on Amazon or like a Sears or Macy's type of website for a shirt, just the technical details – “100% cotton. Made in the US. 30-day refund policy.” Boring, right?
Jayneil: I know.
Billy: And so, that's why you see in that example a company like Jay Peterman. I don't know if you're familiar with that or your listeners are. They sell … they'll sell that same shirt as Macy's but they'll still tell a whole story around it. If you read the product copy on their website, it's 90% this story around this character that they came up with. And then the very bottom of that is “100% cotton. Made in the US. 30-day refund policy.” So, yeah, we're just wired to read and connect with stories.
Jayneil: And, Billy ,if I may use an example that's so in mind that I think about this because you're talking about marketing and copywriting and storytelling, I think one of the examples of a company that does this at scale is Apple because when you historically look at Windows Computers like on Dell website, it's usually, like you said, you go to the website, there's like 16 different laptops and it's just like rows or tables of comparison like i9 processor, i7 processor, 16 gigs of RAM, 500 gigabytes of storage. And you really have to be a nerd, like a tech nerd to understand what that means but the average consumer is like “Is i7 better? Is i5 …” And you look at Apple's website, it's like it never really touts just the specs alone but it says 64 gigs RAM to help you handle multiple applications. So, it kind like of talks about the functional benefit of it like what it can do for you. And when I go to the website, it’s always about photos of what artists are able to do with the Macbook rather than “This is what the Macbook is.” And I find that to be so powerful like “Here's what you can do if you buy this product” versus “These are the amazing things about this product.”
Billy: Yeah, that's a great example. Yeah, I have this framework that I use to think about marketing communication, really all communication, and I call it “What to say and how to say it.” And it's very simple but you can say the same thing, you can say the same thing about that shirt, about the computers, the what is the same, the same thing you're trying to communicate but the how is going to be different. And the how is where the beauty is. The how is where the romance is. It's where the storytelling is. It's the difference between the Apple website and the Dell website. I mean, there's a reason why when movies come out, we don't just read the plot summary.
Jayneil: True.
Billy: Right? That's sort of like … that's the equivalent of Dell's technical specs.
Jayneil: Yeah, we watch the trailer.
Billy: Yeah, yeah. And then we go to the movie even. So, the movie takes that skeleton which is the plot and it puts meat on the bones, right? There's color associated with it. There's music. There's visuals. There's dialogue. And a lot of people want to think that we're just robots and when you're selling something to someone, you can just communicate to someone as if they're a computer and they can just download the information and process it but that's never been how humans have operated. We've always communicated important information through stories, always. So, it's really … I don't know … naive to think that we'd be anything different than that. If you look at the oldest stories from the Bible to the Torah to the Quran, all the ancient religious texts, it wasn't just a manual on how to live. It wasn't like “Okay. Here's exactly what you should do.” It was told through stories and those stories embedded the wisdom. So, the stories were the how, the wisdom. The nugget of wisdom in each of those stories is the what.
Jayneil: Oh my god! So, help me pronounce this word. I always get this wrong. You know that children's story book that Aesop's Tales?
Billy: Yeah, Aesop's Fables.
Jayneil: Aesop's Fables, yeah. So, they have a lot of nuggets of wisdom but it's always through the story of an animal, a fox and the sheep and the lion. And I remember those stories because of that and the wisdom was ingrained in it but if it was just “Here's like 100 timely stories of all,” I don't know, “forever applicable,” I don't think I would have read it.
Billy: No, no. And there's a reason why you remember those stories and you probably don't remember the technical specs of some product that you bought years ago.
Jayneil: Wow! So, figuring out basically what you want to say and then focusing on how to say it. Now, how does one drown out the noise because currently what's happening is the current advice, so to speak, one can glean is just everyone's just like “Oh, create this mass following. Create this like massive YouTube, Instagram and stuff” and really without even focusing on the messaging … I mean, I fell a victim to that too where just you're like “Okay, just produce content. Get these followers.” And I think that's not really helpful because … I don't know if you saw one of those like funny stories going around where this Instagram influencer had a million followers and then they tried to sell their own T-shirt or something and they could barely even make 100 dollars in sales because I don't even know if that audience connected with them and that really opened up my eye that “Hey, I’d rather sell a product that has a genuine story, even with a smaller following, rather than build this mass following that's not even going to buy any of my products.” That's the goal.
Billy: Yeah. And you nailed it with that last sentence there if that's the goal. It depends on what your goal is and you really have to get clear on that. And it can't just be “I want to make money” because there's all different ways to make money. So, for example, I’m not very big, I do training, consulting, coaching. I am not trying to monetize through being an influencer, just not of interest for me. I don't have an interest in having a big YouTube channel. I don't like being on social media all that much. I’ve tried all the platforms. I don't have an interest in doing Instagram stories or anything that. That excites a lot of people. And maybe, Billy, when he was 20 would have been more into that. And I was more into that stuff. Like I said, I got into Twitter back then. So, you have to figure out what kind of business you want to have. Do you like doing Instagram stories? Do you like doing YouTube and all that? If your goal is just to make money, that's definitely not your only option. There's a guy, a famous copywriter who started … very successful, started launching his own brands mainly in the health markets. And they have, I believe, a nine-figure company, so at least a hundred million dollars and up. And it's very difficult to find anything online about them. It’s very … like no one even knows their brands … unless you're their customer, you don't know about them.
Jayneil: Oh my god.
Billy: And it was like “Why is that?” And it's because they're very efficient. You don't know about them because they don't want you to know about them because if you know about them, they're wasting money because you're not their ideal customer. They're so efficient … they buy ads and they're so efficient with their traffic and who they target that a large percentage of the people who see these ads buy. And if anyone's seeing the ad who's not a good fit, that's considered waste. So, they would never just build an audience, this company, for the sake of building an audience. That'd be extremely wasteful. They start with the problem that they're solving, the product they want to sell and then go out and find the perfect people and measure things very closely to make sure that they're reaching them. Now, that's not to say you should do that either because a lot of people do … it depends on your goals, right? A lot of people do want to be visible like a lot of my clients, yes, they're selling a product but they also want to publish a book one day, they want to do public speaking, they like the opportunities that they get from being public. So, it's more complex than people think.
Jayneil: And, Billy, I really think this is like Therapy with Billy going on because I’m just going to share some details. So, I spent about a year also thinking that that's the way to go, try to build a following on Twitter and LinkedIn and try to do like YouTube. And this advice was given to me by people who were successful doing it. And I did the whole thing like every weekend I would do like a YouTube live stream and stuff. And to your point, the people who are successful are doing it maybe enjoy this way more than I did because I felt I was miserable. I’m old school, man. I don't like social media that much. Sometimes I’m like What am I?” I mean, I do like the benefits but I don't … I realized that my heart wasn't in growing that following but my heart was on this connection that we're having right now, that building relationships and that one-on-one. That's where I felt like I really enjoyed it and I really realized that I was in the wrong business like my goal that I had set out for me was this like “Build an audience. Let's monetize that? but I realized my heart wasn't there. And I realized there's a better way for me to make money by actually having a 9-to-5 job which lets me … gives me the freedom to then have these conversations with you without the whole thing of like “How many downloads is this going to get? Is this going to become number one on the podcast list?” or “How much money I’m going to make?” All those conversations went away and, to your point, I had to have that honest conversation like “Am I doing it because so and so people that I know are doing it or because your friends or clients, Thiago, David Perel are doing?” and I’m like “Oh, they're doing it, I should do it too” without realizing that “Is that something I really wanted to do?” So, that was a really eye-opening thing for me to realize … and even now, for me, what really gets me excited about the podcast is this one-on-one conversation although, in disclaimer, I do have to say that even though I don't focus so much on marketing, the one thing I did luck out on is the name and the SEO like design MBA is like a thing a lot of designers search for apparently. So, having that name and then creating transcripts for this does bring in a lot of inbound organic traffic, so to speak.
Billy: SEO is great. My beer site, I was saying earlier, had brought me a ton of traffic over the years. So, yeah, kudos to you.
Jayneil: So, yeah, that was just a rant like just me getting it off my chest because just hearing you talk about is this even the thing you want to monetize, is this something even you want to continue doing, and then the point you said there's better ways to make money. So, have you ever had that conversation with upcoming creators and stuff where you had to tell them like “Hey, you know what? You've got this cool idea but there's other easier ways for you to make money than do this.”
Billy: That's a good conversation we're having. I think that … I think the modern generation could really benefit from studying sales, by reading sales books, books about selling. I think that we've sort of lost that and we're caught up in the social media influencer world. And, again, that's fine for some people who really know what they're getting into and enjoy that but I think a lot of people … I think a lot of people just want to sell a good product they believe in and they're willing to do the media thing like just I’m willing to come on a podcast and speak and. And I do … I write an email newsletter, I’ll do some videos from time to time, but I know what I offer. I have a business. It's a business and that's … and I have my business life. I have my personal life. I have my spiritual life. I have my … you know, I focus on physical fitness. I play music, right? They're all in different departments. And I think a lot of people who get caught up in the social media and influencer thing, it consumes everything and that becomes their whole life.
Jayneil: Yeah.
Billy: And I don't want to put myself at risk of that. So, that's another thing too is I’m not beyond falling prey to that. And if I were to go into that and try to become an influencer, I think it corrupts a lot of people and I don't even want to mess around with that.
Jayneil: That's so deep because I don't know if you recall but in one of our very early conversations, I had asked you like “Billy, you got this amazing niche of clients that you have. Why not become like this global behemoth? Start like a billion-dollar company out of what you're doing.” And I think I remember, if I’m correct, the words you said is “I don't want to do that. I know that I’m happy with what I have.” And I think that awareness is so rare like knowing that “Yes, I could get this other thing out there but I’m happy where I am and no, I’m not willing to pay that price to get there.”
Billy: Totally, yeah. Yeah, it's the ultimate life hack is to have enough with what you have right now.
Jayneil: Oh my god! And without turning this into a whole spiritual or a self-help thing, one thing where this really helped me is like one of my friends that I hang out with, he's really fit. When I say fit, he's really shredded, he's got those six-pack abs, the washboard abs. And having been a good friend, I’ve seen what he eats. I’ve seen him weigh even the tiniest amount of fruit on like the small weighing scale. And that's the price he pays to maintain that physique that he wants. And I realized like as much as it's aspirational like social media like “Oh, you're kind of nice to have like …” you know, like this … I don't know, like that selfie or something where you can see those glistening abs and stuff but at the same time, I realized, Billy, that I’m not willing to pay that price. I want on the weekend to just eat a cookie for god's sake. I want to be able to eat that cookie, maybe three or four of those, instead of worrying about the calories.
Billy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we have to choose the sacrifices that we're willing to make and … yeah. So, that's how I would look at it. If your goal is to, like I said earlier, just sell a product or a service that you believe in and you enjoy and you enjoy delivering with people that you enjoy working with, start with that and then layer on the social media if you want as it supports that but I wouldn't just start with the social media. I’ll take that back. It can be beneficial if that's the thing that's going to get you started. So, what kind of trumps all this is just getting started and doing something, not so much getting the business model right out of the gate, not getting it perfect out of the gate, but you have to get some momentum before you can change course. And I kind of started going down that route. I was doing YouTube in 2008. So, I could have built a pretty big YouTube channel by now …
Jayneil: Yeah, it was super early. Yeah,
Billy: … on beer brewing but I just … I didn't enjoy it. I didn't feel very connected to the people in the comments. I was much more connected to my email list. And I prefer writing. And, frankly, it's a pain in the butt to produce video versus … I’d rather … I’m lazy. I’d rather just spend 20 minutes knocking out an email versus 20 hours doing a whole video series. So, that was part of it as well.
Jayneil: And, Billy, you don't have any regrets because someone could say that “Oh my god! Billy, you were in YouTube in 2008? Oh my god! You could have started on anything and you would have become super famous now.” So, you're at peace with that now.
Billy: Oh, I have no desire to be famous, no. When you said that I was like … I recoiled. I was like “I don't want to be famous.” And now, if I become well known for something that I create, that's really valuable, awesome, but I think it's important to separate, and your audience, I think understands this, the art from the artist. And so, I want my art to be very valuable and to be something that really helps people and I want people to value that but not so much be attached to me, right? If I’m the guy that created it, great, but I think that becomes a problem in a lot of cases where people don't make that separation and even the person themselves, they don't make that separation and then people start to idolize them. And then what happens? They turn out to not be this perfect person, something comes out about them.
Jayneil: Yes.
Billy: And then they throw out the whole … the baby with the bathwater. It’s like “No, everyone is flawed. Don't expect anyone to be perfect but let's look at their art separate from the artist.”
Jayneil: That is insane, Billy. And how can designers listening to this, if they want to just … is there a website they can go to, to get an idea about some of your free courses or just get better at marketing, where can they go or where can they find you?
Billy: Yeah. I don't have any free courses. I talk about marketing a lot in my newsletter at BillyBroas.com. And then what I think it helped them is this new messaging framework that I’ve worked on for the past few years and I’m just now publishing more about it. It's been behind closed doors in my programs. It's called The Five Light Bulbs and you can get to that from the 5LightBulbs.com. And so, the reason I created it is really because so many of my clients including myself were overwhelmed by marketing because you get confused about the message and the channels like we were talking about earlier, what's the difference. I went upstream of those channels and said “Okay, let's get the core messaging in place first and then we can distribute it through these different marketing channels but we need a framework to figure out what that core message needs to be” and that's what the five light bulbs are. They're the five check boxes you need to check on your core messaging. And it can work for any type of product or service.
Jayneil: Awesome. I’m going to link to that messaging framework in the show notes so folks, if you're listening, you can check it out. I just want to say, Billy, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Billy: Thank you Jayneil. Yeah, you do a great job with this podcast. Keep it up.
Jayneil: Thank you.
If you made it this far, you are what I call a design MBA superfan. And I’ve got a gift for you, my superfan. Head over to designMBA.show where you will find my email address. Email me one thing you learned from this podcast episode and I will get on a 30-minute call with you and help you in your career goals.
See you in the next episode.