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[00:00:24] Jason S. Bradshaw: Our guest today is Isaac Kuhlman. He's an author, entrepreneur, and creator, and that's just scratching the surface of all his talents. Isaac, it's great to have you with us today.

[00:00:37] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah we're having a bit of a chat before we hit the record button. And we were talking about some of your various talents and hobbies and whatnot.

[00:00:49] Isaac Kuhlman: Yeah, I wouldn't say I make any money from it, but it's definitely something I like to do for sure.

[00:01:09] Jason S. Bradshaw: So that's a fairly big claim. I've downloaded the audio copy. Thank you for making an audio copy available. It makes it a faster for me to listen to it than read it. It's a great book. What led you to write it?

[00:01:30] Isaac Kuhlman: Basically as soon as I learned how to do something, somebody's going to ask me how I did it. And as soon as that happened, I started turning from just doing it myself to also helping other people do it. And over time, obviously you get that kind of built up of wealth of knowledge that you're just like... you got to put it in something. And I've got some training programs and stuff like that. And obviously YouTube videos, all the other stuff that's out there, podcasts and stuff like that. But I really just wanted to get a distilled kind of focus version, put it into a book because I do like to write. I've always been a writer. It's one of my other side talents and I've written books of poetry and stuff like that. But this one was, it was more of a challenge in a sense of I'm building an actual book, right? This is a business book. It's supposed to be something that people can take action out of.

[00:02:44] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, absolutely love that it's based on your experience and has so many actionable insights in it. Talking about your experience back in 2013, that sounds forever ago, but it's only, it's only a little bit over 10 years ago, you joined a friend and started to run an Amazon FBA business and had a number of things happen since then.

[00:03:06] Isaac Kuhlman: Yeah. So, I started working with him on his Amazon business, learned the ropes, but he was very hands off. He's actually an Australian from outside of Melbourne and he wanted just let me run it. And he basically didn't give me much guidance, but I knew business. So I knew how to run businesses from obviously being in retail and other stuff like that, and working as a manager, operations manager, general manager of physical retail locations. And he didn't want to do the day to day stuff. So he was one of those guys that said here's this business. See how well you can run it. And literally the day that I got hired actually it was the day before I was supposed to set to start those Amazon accounts got shut down and then we had to start from scratch.

[00:05:29] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, that's great. And you mentioned three online training courses that delivered over a million dollars in revenue each. Probably better than most people's book royalties. Certainly in the business space there's some exceptions, of course. But talk to me, like you mentioned Amazon accelerators. I think there was Sprint to Profit as well. When you think back to those courses what was, maybe the one or two things that for you was a logical thing to teach people on, but most people when they heard it was like, "Oh yeah that's the missing part. That's what's been holding me back."

[00:06:19] Isaac Kuhlman: Like this started back when I was working in a go kart facility here in Las Vegas. I was tasked to be the operations manager there. And, the thing was, they were in a weird spot. Like they weren't on the strip. They were off in the suburbs.

[00:07:00] Isaac Kuhlman: We need them to buy three. Cause that's like the full experience that we offer. Actually, it was so simple. All I started doing was stop listening to myself, greet customers. And I started listening to what the other rest of the team started greeting their customers. And they'd say, hello, welcome to the go kart facilities name. How can I help you today? That was what they said. But every time I greeted somebody, I said, can I interest you in a three race package today? And it became this completely different scenario where I was basically without even me knowing it cognitively or whatever, I was asking them to experience the best thing that we offered. Whereas everybody else was just trying to answer questions. And obviously when you come into a new place, they're going to have all sorts of questions, just like when they come to an Amazon listing or, your website, it's all questions. If you don't immediately just show them what you want them to see and answer those questions upfront, or, give them the thing , that you think is going to best, capitulate them into a sale , or, just give them the best experience it, whether or not it turns into a sale, make them understand that you're there for them, then that's when it turns the table.

[00:08:58] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of times the criticism I get is if you ask a customer what they want, they'll say a faster horse, not a car, right? But it's not about whether the customer can articulate in a short sentence, I want a car. It's... what are the things they are looking for? What are those signals that they're giving you in the data to help you work out like you did? Actually they're here for not a transaction. They're here for an experience, which means- the best experience we can give them is a three package. So let's lead with that versus leading with the product that's most likely going to leave them dissatisfied, right? They'll like, yep, I've ticked the box. I've done go karting. I never want to do it again versus, Oh my gosh, I can't wait to tell people about my experience and, possibly do it again or bring them along. Fantastic example there.

[00:10:22] Jason S. Bradshaw: So how do you define sales beyond that statement is the first question or the first part of the question. The second part of the question is how do you get people into that mindset of service versus selling?

[00:11:11] Isaac Kuhlman: They always say you don't want to be a used car salesman and go up and then, Hey, can I help you today? What, and just be like on top of somebody, right? The best way to help somebody achieve what they want from you is to guide them, but don't force them. Don't push their hand. Don't give them those pushy sales messaging, nothing like that.

[00:12:20] Isaac Kuhlman: Obviously don't go out there and say- oh, you know what I would explain or what I would suggest is this top of the line thing. If they're clearly saying to you, I don't want that before you get to that message. Be flexible, be versatile, explain that. But in reality, you're just trying to make it as easy for them to meet the goal of them buying whatever, thing, product or service from you as possible. So you know, it does always comes back to the customer experience. It always comes back to solving the problems. It's those two statements. When you marry them together, you will have a high conversion rate in sales almost every single time.

[00:13:01] Isaac Kuhlman: Yep.

[00:13:12] Jason S. Bradshaw: Great way of looking at it. Now, the book title itself is very provocative. You're A Great Marketer. You Just Don't Know It. How do you make that claim? Like I know some people that think they're great marketers and I'm not sure I'd agree.

[00:14:44] Isaac Kuhlman: Like they just can't type it. They can't write it. It's that extra distance. It just doesn't make sense. But if you ask somebody why would somebody want to use your product? They'll have an answer. They might not write it down very clearly, but if you just keep asking them what do you mean by that?

[00:15:13] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah it's like the young child always asking why, no matter what answer you give back, they, they ask why they want to go six or seven levels deeper. And when people have that conversation that you're talking about- it's about getting it out there so then you can craft the message. I absolutely love that.

[00:15:42] Isaac Kuhlman: It's a great question because every person, I paid for a lot of marketing experts to explain this to me. They basically came back with this template of a customer avatar. I'm sure you're familiar with that idea that you have to know what magazines they read, what TV shows, how much money they make their house, their car, how many kids, all this stuff. That's a customer avatar. It's a demographic, right? And that's great for advertising, but advertising is only half of marketing or even maybe a third of marketing, really, because customer messaging, understanding customer experience, that's all part of the other part of marketing. Now, what I found was there was a huge gap in customer avatars versus who my customer really was, because I could make up a customer avatar. Peter Pan can be my avatar, right? But it doesn't help me sell anything to Peter Pan, or it doesn't help me even offer anything to Peter Pan. So what I did was I reeled back and I said who's most likely to, purchase the product? The first thing that came to mind is who's most likely to use the product. If they're going to use the product, they're most likely going to be the ones purchasing it. Even if on their customer credit card, it's a woman and it's the guy using it. Maybe it's the Amazon seller central account or the Amazon buyer account is under a woman's name, but a man's buying it. I'm not trying to focus my attention on who's buying it- what that credit card statement says, right? Or the email says, or the name says- I'm focusing on who's most likely to use it. It doesn't have to be man or woman. It could be, I talked about the example of a garden shovel. Who's most likely to use a garden shovel? It's probably a landscaper, a gardener, somebody working in home repairs, something like that. Something with having to deal with digging holes, I even jokingly said, maybe a mafia mob member, right? So like they go out and dig a hole for a dead body or whatever. But basically the idea is you have to know who uses the product. You think back to when you were a kid, when you watch Saturday morning cartoons, you saw the sugary cereal ads on tv. Were those talking about who's gonna buy it or who's gonna eat the cereal, right? It was always focused on the kids so that then they'd ask their parents to buy them lucky charms, tricks, whatever. I don't know all the cereals in Australia anymore, but I know, you guys have sugary cereals as well. But they were talking to the kids because they're the ones that are going to use it. They're the ones that are going to ask for it, right? So even if the person who sees the cereal on the shelf and buys it, is the parent, that's not the person using it. So you always want to try to focus on who's using the product, how they feel when they're using it, what would they feel if they didn't get this product and use your product, right? What's their current experience? Like, how does yours make it better? So that's the person that you're really talking to. That's almost all that matters is who's most likely to use it. Once you figure that out, your messaging becomes so much easier because you're not trying to sell to every single person. In fact, I made this meme of, Batman slapping Robin that kind of got posted out like 10, 15 years ago. And I'd say, don't try to sell to everyone and it's Batman slapping Robin. And I use that as a meme because basically if you try to sell to everyone, you run the risk of selling to nobody. Nobody's going to want it if you try to appeal to, 80 year old men and 20 year old females, active people and decrepit people or whatever. There's going to be some sort of disconnect. Like TikTok, for example, if they just said, this is a platform for everyone versus, hey, this is a platform where all the cool people hang out. Same with Apple, right? Apple's for all cool kids. Microsoft was for the geeky nerd people who wanted to use their workspace computer or whatever. It's clever marketing because you're not distancing by age or race, demographic of gender, nothing like that. It's - do you want to be like this or do you want to be like that? And so if you can control that narrative and to say users who use our product want to be this, even if they're not currently, that's all you know, if you're not currently a gardener, but you want to get into gardening, this is that shovel for you. We're going to talk to you like you already are in that space, even if you're just a want to be for that space, right? Again, it comes back to who is most likely to use it. The people that are currently using it for -digging holes and people who also want to dig holes, but maybe aren't currently doing it. So craft your message around that. You craft your experience around that. You craft your buy, post purchase email sequence around that or whatever. Everything's going to be... hey, understand that you're probably digging a hole with a shovel, right? So, talk to them like you understand how to dig a hole with a shovel, and then they're going to trust you a lot more. And you should be the one that they come to because you should also be the ideal client in that scenario. Generally, people are like I sell products that I don't use. You're probably not going to be very good at the marketing then because you won't understand anything about the products, the problems people have. And I would say if you want to be, the best version of the marketer within you, you have to understand your ideal client and usually you have to be your ideal client. So that kind of helps as well.

[00:20:21] Jason S. Bradshaw: So you get that full spectrum of enthusiasts through to expert, but they still wanna be part of that tribe or that community. So I think that's a great way of looking at it. And I also love the point that you made around, if you don't know your product, how can you possibly know how to talk to it, how to sell it, how to provide insights and be trustworthy to your audience.

[00:20:48] Jason S. Bradshaw: Some great golden nuggets there for everyone. Thinking about your book, we could talk for days. I think on every chapter there's so much gold in there.

[00:21:08] Isaac Kuhlman: I think one thing they should probably avoid is starting with the mindset of people don't want my product. People don't want my service. If you start with that, you probably shouldn't have started the business or started selling anything in the first place. Running a business or being, a marketer or, any of this stuff isn't for everybody. You can do something else with your life. There's nothing, there's no shame in not having your own business. But I think when people go in there and say I can't do this because I'm not a business person, but you are, you started a business, you are now a business person. Get good at this, keep an open mind. So if they come in with that negative mindset of- it's not going to work, then it's not going to work, right? You put it like many people, Tim Ferriss, a lot of other people, a lot of famous, entrepreneurs and, coaching leaders yourself included, will talk about the power of words and they really are powerful because a lot of people don't think, just because I say something doesn't mean that's how I feel or if I say something a thousand times, that it's not really reflective of the truth, it becomes the truth. When you say things repeatedly, even if you didn't believe it at the start, it now becomes the truth. Whether or not it was true when they first started saying it, now they believe it because they've said it so many times. And now it becomes this narrative. Instead of focusing on what that little tiny detail was that maybe you could have overcome that origin story, if you will. Now you've got to backpedal on all these negative things or all this other stuff that you started in your own mind and in your own experience of, you can't do it because 20 years ago, you started this mindset burden, right? So I would just say, keep that open mind. If you're going in with a negative mindset, nothing's ever going to work, you're always going to prove your own confirmation bias by, saying it's not going to work because I can't do it. You can do it. I've seen the absolute, what I would say, least likely candidates for making this work, make it work. So if they can do it, I'm very confident almost everybody can do it. And I say almost everybody, because there will be people like that negative mindset and you can't control the effort and the input.

[00:23:00] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yep.

[00:23:03] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yep.

[00:23:26] Isaac Kuhlman: The reason why you're in the position you're in is because you have these beliefs and these thoughts. And you're sabotage a lot of your own self and I've done it in the past. I know exactly how. As soon as I watched that movie, Yes Man with Jim Carrey, I don't know if

[00:23:37] Isaac Kuhlman: that one.

[00:23:38] Isaac Kuhlman: I just, I thought it was like bull crap, right? I was like, whatever. Like tried it. I was like let's just see. So then it was like, it started out very innocently, like somebody asking, Hey, do you want to go out? And I was absolutely like, no, I don't want to go out. But I did anyway. I was pushing myself to just do stuff. And then it started becoming like job opportunities and career opportunities. And I just didn't say no. My new motto is- "Say yes at first until you can't say yes anymore." And what that means is basically if it's really just not something you can do, and say yes to the idea, but maybe you have to say no to the logistics of it - oh man, I just, I can't make that work this time. Like I've had former clients of mine be like, "Hey, do you want to come visit us in Oklahoma or Texas?" And I just said, yeah, sure. No, what day works. And I was like, look and I have visited clients of mine just because of that. And I'm not going to say no and I've worked with them. I know them. They're good people. So it's like, why not? We can be friends, and most of them aren't clients anymore just because business ebbs and flows and they go do their own thing. And maybe they didn't work out on that thing. And a lot of them are, businesses only last a couple of years anyway, but we're still friends because of it. And so those are things that just, had I stayed in that negative mindset that I started before watching that movie, I would have just said, no there's no way like, oh, that's thanks for the offer. But I don't think that's appropriate or something like that. And I found a way to say no, but I just say, look, say yes to a lot of things until you can't say yes anymore, or maybe logistics don't work out.

[00:25:10] Isaac Kuhlman: Yep.

[00:25:20] Jason S. Bradshaw: Sure. It might not look as shiny or as pretty. It might need two clicks instead of one click compared to your competitors. But if it's done, at least then you can start serving your customers versus dreaming of having those customers come, right? As we come to the end of the show, I've got two last questions for you.

[00:26:16] Jason S. Bradshaw: So what's the one common thread through that or one common piece of advice that would work across all of those industries that you would give to someone listening today to help them grow their business?

[00:26:57] Isaac Kuhlman: Even if you're not the ideal customer, pretend you're walking in the door or you're coming to your site or you're looking at your listing. Is what's there in front of them, what should be there for you to understand exactly what you need to see. Right away, right? So and it all comes back to metrics and data and all that stuff because, customer experience is reflective of conversion rates, traffic, all that other stuff, right? How much they purchase customer lifetime value. So all that stuff is related, but don't look at the data first. Just look at it. Take a step back and soak it all in. Understand exactly and pretend you had nothing to do with creating in the first place. Look at it and then just think, is this, clean slate? If I'm personally looking for this thing, does this make sense to me? Could it be clear? Could it be more enjoyable? Could it be funnier? Could it be whatever that person's looking for on this thing? And then generally speaking, that's, what's going to drive you to the more successful version of whatever you're doing currently.

[00:28:10] Isaac Kuhlman: Yeah, you can head to my website, it's IsaacKuhlman .com. You can actually download a free like intro to the book. I think it's like the first chapter and a half or preface and first chapter, something like that. So you can get an idea of it. You can purchase the book. It's totally up to you, but more than anything, I think even if you just go to Amazon, you can read it on Kindle for a discount price, or I think it's on if you've got Kindle unlimited, you can read the whole thing right now. If you have any other questions about any of this stuff, you can always reach out. I've got my email to reach out there. You can reach me and I will answer every email personally.

[00:29:10] Isaac Kuhlman: Thank you very much.