Welcome to the Join Up Dots Podcast with Phillip Stutts
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Introducing Phillip Stutts
Today’s guest joining us on the Join Up Dots business coaching podcast is the author of FIRE THEM NOW.
He is one of the masterminds behind the curtain of political marketing.
With more than 20 years of political and marketing experience, Stutts has worked with multiple Fortune 200 companies and has over two decades of experience working on campaigns
with billions of dollars in political ad spend and contributed to over 1,000 election victories, including hundreds of U.S. House campaigns, dozens of U.S. Senate campaigns and even three
Presidential victories.
He founded Go BIG Media in 2015 and has won more than 30 prestigious awards for their work with US Senators, Governors, and Presidential Candidates, including a Pollie Award for Best
Digital/Internet Independent Expenditure Presidential Campaign and the Goldie Award for Digital Video Excellence in a Presidential Campaign.
Now if that doesn’t sound like he has a lot on his plate, then lets tell you he is fighting a rare, incurable disease.
Diagnosed in 2012 with the esophageal disease, Achalasia, he spent five years ignoring it.
Frankly, he put his head in the sand, taking medications that did more harm than good, and waiting for the inevitable.
Then he woke up and said no more.
His mission today is to find a cure and pursue a life of constant growth and giving. And he’s making progress.
Stutts has been featured in Inc. and has made more than 200 national TV appearances including Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN.
He has been lauded as a “marketing genius” by Fox Business and “the political guru” by ESPN.
So what makes a man with so much going on, seemingly crank out even more work, when most people would take a breather and focus on themselves?
And where does he see people go wrong in the business world, when it comes to marketing. Speaking the wrong message, or simply directing it at the wrong people.
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Phillip Stutts
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such deep weighty subjects with Phillip Stutts such as:
We discuss why there is a point that so many businesses go for scale for the sake of it. Is this an ego metric, or pure business requirement?
Whether there is a firm reason to only choose to work with people that you personally share the same beliefs with.
Phillip shares his personal belief that social media will be crashing in the next five years. and the reasons behind that belief.
and lastly……
The reason that marketing should be based around one key concept, and why most businesses fail to see this themselves.
How To Connect With Phillip Stutts
Return To The Top Of Phillip Stutts
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy
Audio Transcription Of Phillip Stutts Interview
Intro [0:00]
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling in Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host, live from the back of his garden in the UK, David Ralph.
David Ralph [0:25]
Yes. Good morning to you. Good morning to you and welcome to Join Up Dots. Thank you so much for being here. It’s great to have you because I don’t like to be on my own. I really don’t. But unfortunately, we’ve got we’ve got a guy at the other end. And what we’ve been trying to do in Join Up Dots recently is to vary the kind of content that you really don’t know what you’re going to get. And so it might be a deep dive on one of the movers and shakers, the billionaires have come and gone in this world. Or it might be somebody doing things that quite frankly, just interest me. And today’s guest certainly falls into the latter camp. He’s joining us on and Join Up Dots is the author of fire them now. And he’s one of the masterminds behind the curtain. Yes, the curtain or political marketing. With more than 20 years of political marketing experience. He’s worked with multiple fortune 200 companies and has over two decades of experience working on campaigns with billions of dollars in political ad spend and contributed to over 1000 election and victories. Yes, he’s to blame, including hundreds of US House campaigns, dozens of US Senate campaigns and even pre presidential victories. Now he founded go big media in 2015. And as one more than 30 prestigious awards for their work with US senators, governors and presidential candidates. Now it doesn’t sound like he’s got a lot on his plate. But let’s tell you he’s also fighting a rare NQ incurable disease diagnosed in 2012 with a software called FZ. Accolades Yeah, he spent five years ignoring it. Now for Petty’s head in the sand, taking medications that did more harm than good, and waiting for the inevitable when he woke up and said no more. And his mission today is to find a cure and pursue a life of constant growth and giving and he’s making progress. He’s been featured on 200 national TV appearances you get the drill is good. Now what makes this man we have so much going on seemingly crank out even more work. But most people would take a breather and focus on themselves perhaps and where does he see people go wrong in the business world when it comes to marketing, speaking the wrong message, or simply directing that message at the wrong people? I think that’s pretty good. But let’s find out as we bring on to the show to start Join Up Dots with the one and only Phillip Stutts. Good morning. How are you sir?
Phillip Stutts [2:48]
I am great ever had a crushed it this morning. But studying and reading and I’m ready to go?
David Ralph [2:56]
Well, as soon as I connected with you, you sounded like a guy that was really ready to go I get some guests, but sort of roll up. And I imagine that they via just rolled up because they’re so chilled. Or they’re wearing their pyjamas or their you know, you seem like somebody that really wakes up each morning, puts these feet on the floor and goes, let’s make this day a day worth living.
Phillip Stutts [3:19]
I’m Thank you, I appreciate that, I would tell you that I do feel that way I listen. In my business this in the last two weeks, we’ve had massive challenges. I get super pumped and excited. But roadblocks and challenges. And my what I get excited about is I get to deep dive and solve those problems. So this is kind of your you’re catching me in one of these. I’m really excited moments because I’m getting to solve problems. So I know I’m
David Ralph [3:48]
writing that way. But I use somebody because what I see also on the show is when people are really, really pumped, it’s because they’re on that wave. And they might have been paddling in the deep for a while sort of biding their time and then suddenly that wave gets him and the momentum builds and bear they are sort of flying towards me. Are you sort of on the top at the moment surfing the cube? I think they say the kids, I think
Phillip Stutts [4:13]
it’s a little bit more complicated. I love you know, people that are listening to this. You hear a lot of guests and they come in and they tell their their victory storeys. Right. Mine is a different storey mine is. In my business, I have pretty much eaten doo doo for the last year and a half. And in trying to build and grow a corporate marketing division, we have a political marketing company that’s completely separate from my corporate marketing division. In the last six months, we’ve it is exploded, we’ve grown by about 10 times from what we did last year. The problems that I’m seeking to solve are when you scale at that number, when you know how do you scale it that number, I have a model. I’ve done it before with my political marketing agency where we went from one employee in 2015, we have 27. Now we burned 22,000%. And then I I left the data and running the day to day operations of the political marketing from the open a corporate marketing agency. And we’re sort of in the similar path. I like solving the problems of building the team it to me, David, it’s all about the team, I if I build a great team, we will serve our clients, we will grow businesses, all those types of things. And so I like I’m in this moment where we’re in a transition and we went from startup to you know, we have to optimise and grow with our clients. And so that’s the challenge. It took a lot of dirt in my face over the last few months of eating dirt. But it’s really going well right now. And now the challenge is how do you grow it and sustain it and sure the clients have had incredible success, and that there’s no drop off.
David Ralph [6:05]
Now I’m going to put a different opposing view towards you only because I’m it’s something that I’m interested in at the moment. Vat non the scale, the scale sake, everybody’s looking for bigger metrics, and more downloads and more and more fat. And I’m going through a process where I’m thinking to myself, do I need that. And that process is a book that I’ve been reading called a company of one by Paul Jarvis, where he says one issue, you have pressured once you need to have a lovely life, but also pay all the bills, and vain. Do you need more than that? Would that be a view that you could understand? Or is that a view that is so contrary to the way you operate? You think No, I just want more and more and more.
Phillip Stutts [6:52]
So I was that person for 10 years, from 2005 to 2015. I was a one man, police consultant didn’t own any marketing agencies, advised political candidates, nonprofit, some corporate clients. And what I realised there was a point is great by a great question, because I’ve never been asked this and I think it’s just outstanding. So I i’ve you know basic was a one man shop at one point I had seven clients, I was making close to seven figures a year, I was I was just incredibly happy and excited and loving life. And then one day for or two of my political clients decided that they didn’t want to actually run anymore, or raise money to pay the bills. Two of my nonprofit clients lost their funding. And, and within like, literally one week, I’d gone from seven clients and seven figures, to basically three clients and barely making six figures. And I went that that is a scary situation when it’s all on you. And I did a soul searching I mean, I went through years and years of soul searching. And ultimately I found that deep down what’s in the fibre of my body is two very important things is that it actually ends up being the values of the of our company. And it is given grow, give more than you take and always be growing. I don’t have long vision statements. And I need you know, something mounted on the wall that people see and forget. And three seconds Nope, it’s given growth. And for me, that’s not I wasn’t, I would never in my life, I wasn’t always that I’m striving to be that I’m trying to give more than I take, I’m striving to always be growing. But once I understood that that was what drove every fibre in my body, then I put I put all my chips in and said it growth like I’ve got to be growing I’ve got it doesn’t mean like the company has to 10 x every year and all that stuff. I don’t necessarily mean that. But I have to be growing, I have to get smarter, I have to be getting adapting and in taking change. You know, I know you. You love to ask like a great quote, I think Tony Robbins has this great quote, and I would tell you is the quote that sort of defines my life. And it’s the quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably tolerate. And man Does that ring for me because I when when I was a one man shop, I always put myself in comfortable situations trying to maintain my certainty. And when I put myself out there when I took chances, and when I decided I needed to be living more uncertain life and not live as comfortably. That’s when massive growth happened in my life. By the way, I fail all the time. Like literally every day, there’s a some kind of failure some way. It is not like failure is feedback to me. So like, I’m excited right now because I I’m learning from all of my failures all the time. And when you see yourself, take yourself from a failing position, to growth, to success to overcoming that grit side of things, is like you get so much confidence out of it, you know, you can do anything. So for me personally go back to your question is just not ultimately I was I did that it wasn’t a fit. For me. It’s a fit for other people. And I love that. But that for me is not not how I think about things.
David Ralph [10:24]
I’ve only spoken to you for about the last five or 10 minutes, but you seem to be a man who knows his stuff, you know who you are, and you know what you bring to the table. Now one of the things that interests me with you feel it is the fact being in the political arena, and being a political marketing genius, as they say, there must be an awful lot of business that you don’t agree with you can’t believe go along with all their political agendas. How do you balance that in your own mind that you’re bringing messages to the world that actually go against what your personal beliefs? So
Phillip Stutts [11:00]
So do you let me ask you this? Do you represent clients? You do consulting things like that? Right?
David Ralph [11:05]
Yeah, a bit bit here very I try not to.
Phillip Stutts [11:08]
So with that, in particular, do you? The the companies or the business owners that you’ve consulted in the past? Do you believe everything they believe?
David Ralph [11:18]
I don’t buy believe it? They’re a good person or not?
Phillip Stutts [11:22]
Man, you just nailed it. And we go from me.
So for me, it’s easy to have a stereotype and stereotypes are called stereotypes, because they’re mostly true. But for me, I’ve I’ve been lucky enough to work with people that I truly believe in and want to fight for. Are there people that may not meet everything that I believe in? or want? Absolutely 100%? But do they represent the kind of change that I want to be seen? I don’t want to seem to be made. Absolutely. And so I have no friends problem whatsoever. And I’ll never apologise for it.
David Ralph [12:03]
Because if you see these kind of political courtroom dramas, when somebody’s standing up defending someone, and I always think to myself, I couldn’t do that if I if I knew he was guilty, even if it was my job. I couldn’t do that there’s no
Phillip Stutts [12:18]
one could do that formation of America’s democracy is that, you know, people have the right, both sides of every argument had the right be made. Who are those people that are going to do that? Listen, I don’t think I’ve ever gone out and defended something I truly thought was immoral or unethical. But at the same time, look, their defence attorneys are people are accused of crimes. If they didn’t have defence attorneys, then a lot of innocent people would be in jail right now. So sometimes, the way a scandal in politics is portrayed in the media is is maybe half right, maybe 25%. Right? I believe that politician has every right to defend themselves and get their side of the storey out? Well,
David Ralph [13:01]
well, let’s take away from that into your political journey and your personal political journey. Because I’m always interested in that bit. When the intro is being read. It sounds like all the dots have joined up perfectly. And from the moment that you sort of you came out of the womb, you had a little suit on and a little briefcase, and and off you went a big part of the storey where most people are making it up as they go along. I remember reading Barack Obama’s biography and he spent my whole summer getting stoned and drinking beer because he just didn’t know what he wanted to be. And you think it’s quite obvious, you’re gonna be Barack Obama. Have you had those moments in your life when you’ve been going through college, whatever, and you’re really doubting that you’re on the right path.
Phillip Stutts [13:51]
Now? Well, first of all, I didn’t even know what my path was until I was 23. I’m sitting here right now, in a T shirt and flip flops. You know, again, still tights, David, you’re putting stereotypes on I wear a hat a hat every day, I live on the beach in Florida. And, you know, the last thing I am is probably the stereotype of what you would think of somebody that works in politics is when I was 20, sorry, when I was 22 years old, I had the opportunity to go work on a presidential campaign. And literally as a gopher, and found it to be, always say, working on political campaigns. It’s like smoking crack. So stick with me, Okay, I’m ready. Okay. All right, good. Because here’s the deal. You go in to a political campaign, and you work 24, seven, there was a three year window in my career where I had 22, total days off, I was, you know, you there is no balance in your life, you are going 1000 miles an hour, 16 hours a day, seven days a week. And All you think about is, I’ve got to, I’ve got to get off of this, that I cannot do this, the rest of my life is going to kill me if I continue down this path of working in politics or political campaigns. And then Election Day happens. And then the day after election day, you it’s like, you go off the pipe, you fall asleep, you go, Oh, my God, it’s over. I’m never doing this again. Thank God Almighty. And then about a week later, you start twitching. And you go, man, I gotta get back on a political campaign because you realise that you’ll never feel as passionate about anything in your entire life, as you do in a job where you’re fighting to change the way the country they out, you know, outcome or out the direction of the country that you live in. And so for me, you know, it is, you know, every time I always say every time I try to try to get out, they pulled me back in. Because ultimately, I think you need to be in the fight. I think there are a lot of people out there in the world today, that all they do is bitch and moan. And all they do is say how horrible this person is, and that person does. And then you ask, Well, what are you doing to change the system? And you know, the answer is I’m tweeting. Yeah, that is total BS to me. So if you’re going to complain to do something about it, well, I’m going to do something about it. I’ve been doing something about it for 23 plus years now. And I believe that you got to be in the fight if you’re going to have if you’re gonna have strong opinions. Otherwise, you’re a poser.
David Ralph [16:27]
Yeah, but what you’re battling with all the time, and I will reference I don’t really use Facebook at all, but I put a post on it the other day, just because something was niggling away. And this is exactly why. Why is it on social media that someone says something offensive, political, racial, and the world sits up and takes notice and thousands of comments and likes come forth. But when someone is doing something great for someone, the community charity the world and need help by gaining shares, likes, it’s barely a whisper by get, I hope that we aren’t creating a world where the sensational outscores the positive every single time. But I bet we are. Now with you being so passionate, you’re obviously thinking that you are doing great stuff. But we all know in the political arena, a lot of that great stuff never comes to fruition. It just kind of gets caught up in red tape. How do you balance Vatican right, your efforts are going into a black hole, but actually are going to get suppressed further down the line.
Phillip Stutts [17:27]
But let me answer the the Facebook post that you had. I just wrote a piece. I have a subscriber list. And I wrote a piece two weeks ago about the looming social media market crash, I believe that the exact post that you had is the reason social media is going to have a market crash sometime in the next five years. I believe that when everybody is trying to beat their chests and show how important they are, you know, people will say like, literally I know people that live early post I’m against rate, because they want people to clap and bet pat him on the back. And like, Who’s for rate? David? Like, I don’t understand these things like, yeah, no one’s for that. The only reason people posted something like that is that they want people to like them more. And I think it’s a, it’s the Doom of society, one of the reasons I admire you is that you’ve kind of sworn off some of that stuff. I’m the same way I post on social, but by the way, I never get on it. I mean, I rarely get on it, because it’s so toxic. And when it’s so toxic, and I know this these companies, because they’ve tried to bow to all the censorship calls, that ultimately there is going to be a massive market correction for social and it’s coming. The second part is how do you tap into that emotion in a positive way? You know, so one of the ways that we’ve done it, one of the ways I do it in marketing, and look at me, I’m transitioning. I, one of the ways we’ve done this is you’ve seen maybe it’s on the American side, maybe it’s over on your side of the pond, but you’ve seen political ads that are negative ads, correct? Yeah, absolutely. Great. Here’s what we’ve done to sort of reverse engineer those. So I’ve done negative political ads, I’ve made them I’ve won awards for them. I’ve personally, I kind of like them. But when we’re working with corporate clients, if you take that principle, and apply it to a company that runs and add a comparison ad, right, we can call it going negative, but it’s a comparison at but the comparison at a thins no one and builds stronger and deeper Connexions to the company that is producing the ad by the customer, that is a win all the way around. So it’s taking a negative and turning it positive. I’ll give you an example. We work for a dietary country dietary food company, they are an eight figure company, this is on the corporate side. Ever, we are I fancy our corporate marketing agency is actually a marketing intelligence and data company because we use data to make all the decisions. And so we went into this, this dietary food company, and we we overlaid their customer base on with, you know, to overlaid all their decisions. And we follow those people for a month. And you can say you did and I’m like, Yeah, everybody does in the data world. But we followed everything I did. And we came back after 30 days, and we had a complete and psychological understanding of their entire customer base. their customer base was 50% vegetarian or vegan, the customer base hated and we found this in the data, they did not like they hated soda. seems obvious. But until you look at the data, and you follow them around, you’d never know. And so we ended up creating ads. And the ads said, you know, don’t you know what it was like a crush soda can and it said something to the effect of, you know, don’t succumb to the soda industry by these clean unhealthy foods, right? That’s a comparison ad. What did that ad do? Well, we also tested it against some positive ads against the top rank positive ad that we tested against it had it at a two x click through rate, and it 20% conversion rate where the customer bought a product based on the comparative ad. Now, no one in that customer base is offended that we went after soda, because everybody in this company’s customer base hates soda. So what we did was we use the negative turned it into a positive built a deeper connexion. And we see this over and over and over again, comparative ads on the corporate side, or if done effectively, are the most successful ads, you can absolutely run in this day and age. And that’s because you were tapping into the very thing you wrote about in that Facebook ad, but in a different way. And you reorganise it in a different way, and you use it for a positive effect.
David Ralph [22:12]
Well, okay, we’re gonna play some words now, then we’re gonna come back to back because I think this is a nice segue into the business element of Join Up Dots is Oprah.
Oprah Winfrey [22:22]
The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, Oh, I got all of this. What is the next right move? And then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move, and not to be overwhelmed by it. Because you know, your life is bigger than that one moment, you know, you’re not defined by what somebody says, is a failure for you. Because failure is just there to point you in a different direction.
David Ralph [22:53]
Why? So taking those words and what you said about the data and the marketing, somebody listening service, they run a small pet shop in Nebraska, we say, and we’re thinking I need to know more about my customers, I need to appeal to the right customers. I’ve tried Facebook ads never got anywhere, is this is something that you know, vape can jump on and take your learnings and transition into their own business, or is this something that literally, you’ve got to have not the one person shop, but a whole business to have?
Phillip Stutts [23:30]
So, listen, I think, pursuant to what Oprah was just saying, it is one step at a time, and 90% of times that business owners that comes in, and then talk to me and say we need you to do your marketing, they try to go for the get rich, quick pill. It never works. David, I’ve heard you say this before you hate marketers, or you hate marketing 95% of business owners hate marketers, or marketing. They look at it as a cost. They look at it as an expense, not an investment. Done, right 90% of your business should be marketing. But because there are so many nefarious characters out there. And there’s so many people that see, oh, my God, this guy ran a Facebook page ad I should run a Facebook ad. And I wrote my book called fire them now because I wanted to point out the unethical behaviour of marketers in the industry. What the step by step approach that Oprah talks about in there. For me, it’s very simple. Anybody that works with us, any company, they have to undertake this, this, this, we call it the undefeated marketing system, we’re going to trade marketing it right now. And it will probably be my next book. But the reason it is because it works, every client that has come in and done this particular step by step process has grown their bottom line, every single one. Now I’ve had plenty of clients that start the process, and then go, I don’t want this, I just want to get rich quick pill, I don’t have that they fall off. But the way you do it is you and you must have deep understanding of customer data or your ideal target market, you must get that you must understand what the data says about the way they think they feel, what the top values in life are, how they’re motivated, what platforms are on the chronological order of the platforms they visit. And from that, and so you know, whether it be politics with voters, or whether it be you know, corporate marketing with customers, or clients, I’ve done over 3000 campaigns. And all I’ve ever done is looked at data and been able to read between the lines to say this is what this means. This is what that means in your data. From that you’ve got to build a strategic plan, not on a bunch of guesses, but on what the data tells you. So that’s step two, then you have to rebrand your company in the way that the customer wants to listen and hear from you. Not in what you just want to say. But what the customer wants to hear. Does that make sense? Not? Yeah, yes. And we know that from the data. Then step four is you go out and you test all the data, all the messages that the data gave us, like the the case study I just told you about, about going negative with the supplement and dietary company. Once we figure out the after we test all these concepts and these messages that the data tell us will work. We’ve always found what works, what we find in the testing processes, the 10 concepts we test, they all work, but two or three, go crush, I mean, they go through the roof, then you go to the business owner and you go, let’s make a real investment in your marketing. Now. The point is, is that marketers have should absolutely should take the risk off the table for the business owner, the business owner should win before the marketer wins. And unfortunately, the way the rule the unwritten rule is now as the marketer gets paid, whether the business owner grows their business or not. And what I’m trying to tell you is the process I just laid out is to how you win back, that game of marketing. In addition, one of the lies I taught so the I talked about the seven lies Digital Marketer selling my book, I’ll give you one. And it’s counter counterintuitive to what you’re probably thinking. But it is this if you are a business owner, and you hire a marketing agency, and that marketing agency says you have to sign a six month, three month 12 month contract. That is unethical behaviour, in my opinion. And 23 plus years of marketing, every contract I’ve ever signed in the history of my career has been month to month. Why? Because that mark that business, that politician can fire me anytime, if I’m not producing for them. Now, the reason that’s important is every month My ass is on the line. And either I’m producing results, or I’m gone. How much faster do I move? And how quickly do I innovate every single day for my clients that that’s my mindset. And unfortunately, that is not the mindset of the majority of marketers out there in the world today.
David Ralph [28:22]
What you’re saying makes so much sense to me. But there’s also a fear, there’s a fear that most people will see because I’ve had their fingers burnt many, many times. How do you overcome that when somebody comes along to you and says, like, I say, oh, I’ve tried this, and I’ve tried but you know, I’m not interested.
Phillip Stutts [28:41]
I’d say stop running tactics and in get proof. And if you don’t believe me, the you know, everybody that works with has to undergo this, this data research report, it takes about a month because we have to track their target market for a month online to see what they do. It’s not what they say, the customer base, it’s what they do. It’s two totally different things. I’m interested in what they do. And we partnered with the largest data collection company in America. And we’re the we have an exclusive agreement with them. And we have a licencing agreement with them. And I got that licence agreement. So I could offer it at a much discounted price for my clients to use so that they could understand their customer base better and win the game of marketing. And one more thing I do is that if you hire me to be your marketer, the first month you work with us as 100% money back guarantee. So you have no risk in the first month. And every month after that is month to month contract. I don’t know how else I can put the risk on my shoulders and prove it every day. That’s that’s what we do. I tell you how many other marketers put that much risk on their shoulders before they work with a business? And I’m not sure many do.
David Ralph [29:54]
Let’s move to a conversation you had with Gary vain HR Gary, vain at people out there, you’re going to be under a rock really not to see Gary very much. But um, he said something quite interesting. The other day, he said, You know, I have been hitting it hard for 10 years, I have been everywhere. I’ve been doing keynotes I’ve been doing everything I possibly can. And if you ask most of America, nobody would have heard of me. How do you know where you’re channelling the right energies in because he is a man who knows what he’s doing. And he’s doing extremely well. But as he says, most of these efforts are just going totally up into the clouds. How do you know where you got to channel?
Phillip Stutts [30:40]
Well, I’m not trying to be a star, I’m trying to run multiple companies and improve the outcomes of my clients. And that’s my focus, then everything I do is channelled towards helping them not
David Ralph [30:52]
you personally but you come in and you deal with a client? How do you know where their angle is? Is? You from the data, there must be some kind of intuition. There must be, you know, experience that comes into that every now and again, you look at it and go well, actually, I think the data is lying to me.
Phillip Stutts [31:10]
Well, the data doesn’t lie. I don’t know how else to say that. Like I’ve every we’ve done over 700 data and research reports for clients. Not one of them has ever said this doesn’t make sense. Everyone’s like holy cow. That’s exactly what I’ve seen. And I’ve never thought about it that way. So where’s my intuition comes in is once I see the data, I know how to message it. And it’s not listen, it’s not checkers, it’s chess, it’s how do you read between the data to tap into a deep emotional connexion? Here, here is the big Miss right now in the world. And again, I know you get this, the big myth is every everybody’s out there saying that there is a cell phone in front of everybody’s face 24 seven, and it’s true, the problem is that no one gives a shit about your pop up ad, your Facebook ad, if they don’t know who you are, and you haven’t built an authentic connexion with them. And so what we do is we use the data to build a deeper connexion to our creative. And then once we do that, we optimised within that customer base to continue to, to get them to become loyal partners, loyal customers, and then utilise the loyal customer base, to become the biggest advocates and to spend the most the most time of the company’s marketing should be on the current customer base. Because if you can get them to be recommend recommending the product or service, you’ll grow your company a lot faster. So what we do is use the data. And my intuition is how do I read between the data to build deeper Connexions? Let me give you an example what that means, in politics. The first thing I do when I sit down with a politician is I say, What do you believe, then write out the 10 things you believe them. And that politician writes out this 10 things. And then I go, and this is a simplified explanation, but it gets the point. And then I go, and I take a poll in that particular state, district, country, whatever. And the poll will tell me what the voters thing. And then I take the voters in what they believe in what they are the biggest issues for them. And I take the candidates top 10 issues, and I find the two or three where there’s total alignment. And then from that point on, that politician talks about nothing but those two or three things, because that is where they have alignment with the customer base, that is where they make a connexion with the customer base, then the politician meets the voter out on the street, knocks on their door talks to them in person, does it town hall meeting, does, you know, walks in parades and meets voters and builds deeper and more meaningful Connexions and talk to the voters on the issues that they care about. The deep connexion is all I’ve ever known and marketing, because that’s the only way to win in politics. How does the politician build a deep connexion with the voter? So what I’m trying to do is take the data to figure out how do we build a deep connexion with the customer or the client? And my intuition is I know how to read that data and create concepts that will make those customers or clients go, I want that I want to purchase that.
David Ralph [34:30]
Well, okay, so this is fascinating. And I think I’ve got it. So in a sort of layman’s terms, we’re we’re kind of grooming people where we’re finding so much information out about them, we’re narrowing it down to maybe two or three things that they’re really passionate about, that we can present to them. And we get them to a point where we’re not having to sell to them, they actually want to buy.
Phillip Stutts [34:54]
Absolutely, because the human brain can’t take more than two or three things. In fact, the greatest campaigns run on one thing, but for the most part, you can go two or three,
David Ralph [35:03]
something that that that I love, because I go over to so many websites, and I think mine is guilty of this as well. And it’s getting cleaner and cleaner, that it’s like they throwing the kitchen sink at it. There’s There’s things going everywhere, there’s links here links, bear, and you really don’t know, the core branding, you don’t know what that business is all about. So you’re saying that for people out here, they should really sit down and get focused on the one thing and how they convene, present position that through everything they do. That’s the ideal of branding
Unknown Speaker [35:39]
100%. And I just
David Ralph [35:43]
just for a moment I let my I let my guard slip, and I sounded knowledgeable.
Phillip Stutts [35:48]
Know your brain. And I’ll give you an example. We went through this process with a one of the largest Pest Control companies in the world. And we found out that they had been really running a lot of their marketing on the discounts. And they had grown their bottom line over the last few years. And all of a sudden, their marketing strategy a discount stopped working, and they started losing business. And so we came in, did the data report on their customer base found out that their customer in this crazy economy, looks at discounts is cheap. They don’t want discounts, they want to be made to feel smart. They also because they make money now they want higher standards. And so we went oh, wow, that you can sell at a normal rate. But you have to brag that you your particular pest control company has green products, which they do, because they wanted safe, they wanted high quality. They never had marketed that. And so we created a very humorous ad and put it out there. In this took a four month process to get to this. It wasn’t overnight, I don’t have a get rich quick pill, I have a get rich the right way pill. And in May, just this past May, they had the with with our data and our testing finished and then launching what we knew worked. We launched an ad in that ad converted more customers than they had ever had in the history of their company. I loved you, didn’t they? Well, it’s not me. It’s their customer, they now understand the customer. I’m just the vehicle that puts them there. But they love that they now are serving the customer based on what they care about what’s relevant to them. Not Listen, I’m a passionate business owner, I’d love to sit here and even tell you all day long about how great my businesses that may not be what your listeners want to hear. So I need to tap into what is it about marketing that drives people crazy that they want to see, this is why we eliminate risk. I point out what people need to do avoid unethical behaviour, all these things. I know this because every business owner, I interviewed over 100 business owners from fortune $502 million small business owners, and found out what was the most frustrating part about marketing for you. And they all came back with the same thing. They had a marketing agency, they said run these Facebook ads, they had no ROI. They were locked into these long term contracts. They couldn’t figure out there, you know how to get out of the hole, they had to pay out the wazoo, they did not have any growth or return on investment. But the marketing company made money. And I just said, Man, that’s just not how we do it in the marketing world of the political marketing world. And once I applied those standards to the corporate marketing role we took off
David Ralph [38:45]
well, let’s play some words. Now from a man who used to think differently, it became that whole branding, Steve Jobs,
Steve Jobs [38:52]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leaves you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [39:27]
So listening to those words, are you in the right place? Is this just part of your dots joining forward? Or do you look at this thinking? Yeah, this is this is where everything’s got the perfect synergy.
Phillip Stutts [39:39]
You know, I don’t hear I man. I love when you play that clip. But here’s my thing. I’m where I’m supposed to be in the moment, I’m supposed to be whether good, bad, ugly, beautiful. The universe tells me where I’m supposed to go at all times. And that’s how I move forward is what is the universe telling me? You know, you talked about this in the intro in the show, I have a rare, incurable disease that a few years ago, I was for the first five years of the disease, I literally did not did not Google the name of my disease, I had my head in the sand so so much I I was paralysed with fear. My own life and health was on the line. And I did nothing about it for five years except listen to the doctors which they told me to have 15 minor procedures and three major surgeries on my oesophagus. And I did. They told me take these medications, because they help in the short run. But in the long run, they will give you dementia. And I took them. And at a certain point, I said no more. And so I went on this crazy journey over the last two and a half three years that I said I was going to cure a rare disease with no research dollars behind it. And I said I do it in five years. And within two and a half years, I had found a doctor that wanted to help me in this and the soft geo doctor, he put a team around me, we started the process of getting approved by the US government and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland to start the first ever one man clinical trial where they would extract stem cells out of my thigh muscle and grow them for six months and then inject them into my oesophagus to try to get it to work again, my oesophagus is dead, it will never work. So eating is really hard for me. And so that all happened because I got off my ass and I decided I was going to be the disruptor instead of being disrupted. And so in April, I started the clinical trial, the first ever one man clinical trial to see if the sir has never been done on animals. We don’t know if it’ll work. We don’t know if it won’t work. We don’t know if there’s a chance that it goes completely sideways and they will remove my oesophagus and I’ll be put on a feeding tube the rest of my life. But I’ve just decided I’m going to go for it. And in July, I got an email from the doctor. And it said that the biopsy they took in April that they were growing my stem cells in a stem cell clinic and Pennsylvania, that the there was a contamination in the clinic. And we have had to scrap the clinical trial. And we’re going to have to start all over again. And so many people came up to me when I told them this and like oh my god, I’m so sorry. Oh, you okay? And I went, I’m totally fine. The universe told me it’s not my time, the universe. There’s a reason for this. There’s always a reason for this. The dots have connected in on life, because there’s a reason for it. And so that is old summit lane what I believe that the dots are connected. I’m supposed to be where I am today, because of all the dumb mistakes I made along the way. And I’m okay with that. And does he give you
David Ralph [43:15]
that? Does he make you okay? Are you sort of just relaxed by or do sometimes you sit there thinking, oh God, if only if only?
Phillip Stutts [43:26]
I’d never do. I never look back and say Why? Why did I do it? I’ve made so many horrendous decisions in my past, from the way I treated people to the way I treat my own family. And I’m talking about years ago, at a certain point the disease saved my life. It didn’t take my life, it saved my life. Because it made me focus in realise that life is too short to be a crappy person, and then an ethical person. And ultimately, I had to change the fabric of everything in my body. And that is where I am now. And I don’t regret my crappy behaviour. I wouldn’t be the father and the husband. I am right now. Had I not done a shit head a long time ago. And so I’m good with it.
David Ralph [44:14]
Army grab a drunk go in Spain. And that’s about the only thing
Unknown Speaker [44:23]
I could have.
David Ralph [44:25]
I could have done better on that one.
Phillip Stutts [44:28]
I appreciate you.
David Ralph [44:30]
What I heard from you there really resonated with me strongly about how you’re almost a lucky man. I read a biography on Michael J. Fox. And
Phillip Stutts [44:39]
I’m not an almost a lucky man. I am a incredibly lucky man. Okay, you are on the move my oesophagus tomorrow and I’ll never eat food again the rest of my life. I am blessed beyond words. So I am I lucky man.
David Ralph [44:55]
Yeah, no, I can understand that. And he’s biography Michael J. Fox is called a lucky man. And he actually puts his illness his Parkinson’s disease as the biggest change into a world of positivity and making a difference up to that point, he was chasing the hit film, he was drinking too much he was he was, you know, on that Hollywood roller coaster. And he’s got exactly the same mindset as yours. Now until I went back, I might have struggled with your appraisal and thought, okay, you’re just saying that because you’re on a podcast. But I can totally see that now. It’s that ability to stop and reassess, isn’t it?
Phillip Stutts [45:33]
Yeah, here’s a here’s a question. I’ll ask you. But I’d love for your listeners to ask themselves this question. Right. Dave? Do you invest your money at all? Do you invest in anything?
David Ralph [45:47]
Um, I try to Yes, I buy a bit of land.
Phillip Stutts [45:50]
What’s the most? What’s the biggest? What’s the best stock in your portfolio?
David Ralph [45:58]
You know, I couldn’t even tell you about but then land. Land is man’s about the best thing, isn’t it? Because it goes up all the time?
Phillip Stutts [46:05]
Well, I would tell you, my best stock is me. And so I’m going to invest in me over and over and over and over. Oh, it was a
David Ralph [46:14]
question. Mr. Starts You, you, you phrased it in a clever way to send me down the wrong path.
Phillip Stutts [46:21]
I don’t know. I’m just saying to anybody listening out there you all the best stock in your portfolio. So whatever it is that you you’re trying to overcome, or be better as a business person or an employee or whatever it is. Make the investment in yourself, and you will win every time because when you push the chips in on you, then it’s on you to produce. And when I quit blaming other people in my life when I create kept, yeah, literally, yeah, I would say this, there was a period of my life where I was the worst kind of narcissist ever. I was the norm. This is that blamed everybody for everything, you would never want to be around me, right? If you made a mistake, boy, you knew you made a mistake. If you did something, right, I took credit for the worst. This was who I was for a long time. And as soon as I stopped doing that a lot because of the disease. But when I started saying, you know what, I’m just going to start betting on me. And I’m going to start investing in me in investing. When I say me, I mean, like, I’ve surrounded myself with teachers and coaches and masterminds and places where for me personally that I needed to get better. I went to therapy for seven years, I’ve done ungodly amounts of hours in therapy, all because I want to grow and get better. And I know, deep down that if I invest in me on I’m the most highest yielding stock in my portfolio. And so I just double down on what I’m doing, and trying to get better. Every time
David Ralph [47:59]
I get kicked. You asked that question again. And I edit out my response. So I sound Yeah, yeah, let me
Phillip Stutts [48:05]
Sorry about that. Let me let me read it. Day, tell me this. What’s the best stock in your portfolio?
David Ralph [48:09]
I don’t even have to think about a minute. I think it’s me.
Phillip Stutts [48:14]
You’re brilliant.
David Ralph [48:15]
I’m striking now. And I know all the answers. Yeah, perfect. Well, this is the part of the show that we’ve been leading up to. And this is the part that we call the Sermon on the mic, when we’re going to send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could go back in time and speak to the young Philip, what age would you like to speak to him? What advice would you give him? Well, we’re going to find out because we’re going to play the theme. And when it beats you up, this is the Sermon on the mic.
Phillip Stutts [49:05]
I would talk to the 22 year old Philip and I would say my man, Don’t be impatient. Follow where your route goes in life. Listen to what the universe gives you. Your path is your path. You’re going to make a tonne of mistakes. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you’re always going to be climbing the mountain. Enjoy the ride.
David Ralph [49:27]
Right advice? Great advice, what’s the number one best way that our audience can connect with you, Phillip,
Phillip Stutts [49:32]
I’m a go to Philip stutz.com. And if you’re a business owner, you’re in the United States, we can help some companies and Canada. But if you’re in the United States, your business owner and you’re like, what can I do on my marketing to improve? I absolutely offer this for free. to your audience. It’s we’ve created this five minute marketing audit. It’s a 25 point checklist. And we will go my company, my team for free will go and you fill this five minute marketing audit out my team will spend two business days poring over your publicly available digital footprint. They’ll tell you what you’re doing right. What you can improve, will deliver this report to you. And we’ll do a free 30 minute call to walk through and answer any questions you have. You do not need to hire me. But if you if you say to yourself, man, this is incredible. How can we work together we can talk but that is not the purpose of this The purpose of the this is to give value and to help those business owners or those marketers out there that need help.
David Ralph [50:38]
That is incredibly valuable. I think that’s the most valuable thing I’ve ever seen.
Phillip Stutts [50:43]
Well, thank you, I appreciate it still ups.com backslash audit. Yep, we’ve we’ve now we’re in over 500 of these to the to date since my book came out a year and a half ago. And you just the cool thing is, from my standpoint, we have learned about every type of business in world through this audit. And we’ve helped everything one of them. And that’s cool for us to
David Ralph [51:09]
we will have over links in the show notes to make it as easy as possible to find you find it. Thank you so much for spending time with us today, joining up those dots. And please come back again when you have more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is the best way to build our futures finish. Thank you so much.
Phillip Stutts [51:28]
Hey, thank you listen, when I talk about deep connexion and how you do that, in marketing, you are the epitome of that in the sense of people, you for free, you were doing this podcast to give value and service and connexion to others. And it’s an honour to be here and talk to your audience. And I’m just grateful for that opportunity.
David Ralph [51:49]
Appreciate it. Thanks very much. Data marketing. Now we’ve heard that a couple of times we had a guy a few weeks ago called bill buys it make so much sense to me, you know, and there is so much data out there. Now, when we look at the Facebook ads, which is the kind of the first stage that we all dabble in, you can do the demographic you can do when it’s their birthday. You can do whatever you want. Just keep on going keep on going and once you get that and you can read between the lines like Philip does vein, Wow, you really are cooking on gas, I can see that work in big time. Go over to his website. That’s an incredibly valuable two days of business poring over your data free of charge, whether you want to work with him or not powerful stuff. Until next time, thank you so much as always for being here at Join Up Dots. And we’ll see you again. Cheers. Bye bye.
Outro [52:41]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self you are wants to become so he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to Join Up dots.com to download this amazing guide for free. We’ll see you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.
