Today on the Book More Show, we're talking with golf disruptor and author of 'Your Golf Club Lies to You,' Dave DePula, about his novel method of coaching golfers to improve their swing.
Based in Palm Desert, Dave shares his journey from real estate deals to the driving range and reveals his approach to helping people break bad habits by going back to fundamentals.
His book serves as a powerful tool, a testament to the value of joining a conversation that's already brewing in the minds of your ideal clients. Dave discusses the importance of identifying their motivations, understanding their challenges, and the unique value his book brings to the table, sparking meaningful conversations.
With an identifiable market, like golfers, we discussed marketing tactics, such as placement in pro shops or targeted ads, as well as practical methods for building rapport using books.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
- Stuart welcomes Dave DePula, a former real estate agent turned golf instructor, and discusses his innovative approach to teaching golf.
- Dave shares his journey from real estate to golf instruction and how he helps golfers improve their game and enjoy it more.
- We explore a book that addresses the frustrations golfers face with traditional coaching and offers a new perspective on self-improvement.
- The book is a strategic tool that encourages golfers to rethink their approach to their swing and the overall game.
- Dave explains how traditional prescriptive teaching methods are flawed and introduces his training tool called the Pro.
- We discuss how using the Pro can lead to a more natural and effective learning experience, similar to human development processes like learning to walk.
- The importance of visual and physical feedback in learning a golf swing over verbal instructions is highlighted.
- We examine the strategic use of books and other marketing tools to grow a business and maintain engagement with the audience.
- Stuart and Dave talk about lead conversion and the significance of nurturing leads through an effective email strategy.
- Real-world examples are provided to illustrate how golfers can transform their swing and instructors can leverage their knowledge for business growth.
Show notes & video: 90minutebooks.com/podcast/165
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Dave DePula Contact Information:
Website:Sling the Club | YourGolfClubLiesToYou.com
LinkedIn:Dave DePula
Questions/Feedback: Send us an email
Extra Credit Listening: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Stuart: Hey everyone, welcome to the Bookmore Show. It's Stuart Bell here again, and today joined by Dave DePaula. Dave, how are you doing, buddy?
Dave: I'm great Stuart. How are you?
Stuart: Yeah, fantastic, thank you. Okay, today's going to be a great show because occasionally maybe 50% of the time I'm chatting with people who I haven't necessarily talked to before, because they've been through the process and for whatever reason we haven't needed to talk. But what I like about today's call is that you and I have talked lots, so I'm kind of coming to this with a little bit more insight into what's going on. So hopefully we can kind of dive a little bit deeper and bring some of that out. But I guess, to get everyone else up to speed, why don't you give a bit of an intro on you and the background and then we can dive into the book a little bit?
Dave: you and the background and then we can dive into the book a little bit. Yes, so I'm from new jersey. I've been out in california for about 14 years, former real estate agent, and I love that, and now I help people play better golf, lower their handicap and, more importantly and most importantly, have more fun. So I never work a day in my life. I'm out in the palm desert, california, and it's I hate to say it, but like living the dream. Everybody says that it's actually really true.
Stuart: So that's well, now that we've kind of made everyone jealous and they've turned off it's. I'm over in pennsylvania, just outside philadelphia, so it's, uh, chugging it down with rain here today and it's terrible, so you made the right choice in moving out west. The book is. It is really interesting because the whole premise of playing golf it's out there and doing it. So people wouldn't necessarily think of a book as a first thing to introduce people to the idea. But your specific approach to helping people reduce their handicap and play a better game it's almost introducing a slightly new idea. So give people a bit of a background on the product and the process and then we'll get into how the book is kind of bridging that gap sure.
Dave: So let's do a little backstory. I've been teaching, I've been playing golf since I was 30 and so that's about 34 years ago, and I've been teaching it for 14 years and fundamentally most, if not everyone's golf swing hat didn't really change like little fringe stuff, short game stuff. I was only always in the search for how to fundamentally change a golf swing, and not until I met my partner, dan Martin, and we came up, or he has this training tool called the pro, which replaces the shaft with a. So two major factors in not being able to change a golf swing. Number one is the way it's taught. So it's taught prescriptively.
In other words, stuart, you do this or don't do this, turn your hips, turn your body, do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that, and humans just don't learn that way. So you didn't learn how to walk that way and you certainly didn't learn how to ride a bike that way. So let's imagine for a moment that a little child I guess you're around one when you learn how to walk I guess I don't have any kids, but let's say that's the case and the child was able to understand the language of its parents, and can you imagine if they said okay, little Stuart, what I want you to do now is lift your leg up four inches, turn your hip to the left, make sure you're. I mean, we'd have the entire human race crawling on the ground because they'd be so frustrated. And that's what I found in the golf industry and it's nobody's fault, but it's the culture like the culture of things. So I had to break away from that culture and it would happen by accident, and that the culture is a prescriptive thing, where this training aid teaches a person A how to be free and B when you learn how to straighten it coming down, starting your downswing, it teaches the body how to move.
Without me saying a word. Matter of fact, the person who's training themselves isn't even saying anything to themselves. It's actually a visual process. And then the body's learning, learning. And again it's like a child eats a, you know, learn how to eat with a spoon or a fork. It's all over the face, it's all over the floor and then, like now, I can do it with pretty much out without dropping it, with some distracted or something. But once again, can you imagine if a baby was taught how to eat and they were told to move their elbow at 45 degrees, nobody would be. It would be sloppy everywhere or slop everywhere. So this, basically, is 180 degrees opposite of what's being taught out there, and the beauty is it's a fun process because it's actual learning and what I'm, my definition of learning is evidenced by a change of behavior, not some information. I can. I could know intellectually that cigarettes are bad for me, but until I stop smoking it doesn't mean a thing.
Stuart: Yeah.
Dave: It's the same thing. So I can read all about the golf swing and what Tiger Woods does. So, like Jack, nicholas wrote a book called Golf my Way. Okay, can't golf his way, I can't golf Stewart's way, I have to golf my way. And this process teaches a person how to literally have an elite golf motion. And once it's trained, once you're trained so it isn't endless golf lessons you train, just like you learn how to drive a car. Now you go from point A to point train, just like you learn how to drive a car. Now you go from point a to point b, you already know how to drive. I'm sure stewart didn't wake up today and say, okay, I need to practice my driving so when I leave the driveway I won't hit somebody. No, so think about how ridiculous it is, but it's hard to. It's hard to see it when a person is inside of it yeah so so it's.
Stuart: I don't say it's my job, I'm just introducing something outside of the culture that actually works that real world feedback, the kind of interaction with the thing and learning by doing it, creates such stronger paths and it's it's interesting as you describe it. You kind of think of all the scenarios where you're trying to tell people how to do things and it's just not landing properly. I was actually thinking of the book business and a lot of what we do is trying to verbally share a message with people. But there's a few things we do around titles, workshops and things which are a little bit more interactive, that kind of get people to think, have an experience beyond just what we're saying. So I should probably revisit that and there's probably some more depth to it.
But from the golf swing particularly so I just want to dive quickly into the tool itself. So the the muscle memory connection in taking that swing and the visual, visual indication of seeing the rope on the device being straight all the way through the swing, that's the thing that is the break for people. It's that consistent golf swing which is replicated by the rope yeah, so I'll explain a little bit more.
Dave: So the golf club is a rigid object and, because it is leverage, can be put on the shaft, on the club, and what that does is that ruins the golf swing. So Bobby Jones, who might be one of the best golfers ever, if not the best, said if you want to learn how to swing a golf club, put a ball at the end of a rope or a string. So basically that's what this is. So in order for someone to have an actual swing we actually call it it's actually a swing like you throw a ball that it just replaces the shaft. I can't jerk this around. It has to be in motion. So it's one entire motion.
So two things. We're overcoming the rigidity of the shaft, which is the problem of every golf shot. So if I admit, if I hit it fat or thin and the golfers are listening to this, they'll know or it goes right or goes left, hooks or slices, all misses are because someone has put a leverage force on the shaft. And then, when I put a leverage force, the equal and opposite of newton's I think that's third law. Newton's third law for every action is an equal and opposite reaction. So if I put a force on the shaft here, my body's move over here differently. When I make this part of body and that's what the pro teaches you it's one entire motion and it's simultaneous, synchronous and balanced, all learned by the body's natural learning system, without Dave saying Stuart, do this and do that, you didn't do this, you didn't do that, and all you see on the driving range all over the world is pure frustration because you can't learn it that way it's impossible.
I'm not here to say you should or shouldn't do something, but if it's not useful and it doesn't work, yeah, find a different path. But once again, if all I know is prescriptions and you're a golf, if you're, and you're a golf instructor, and you're telling me something and it doesn't work, well, I need another prescription, and that doesn't work. Then I get another prescription, but it's not the prescription, it's the prescript process that doesn't work. So we're really transcending that yeah, changing the methodology completely.
Stuart: So this is an interesting transition into the book I did, and so obviously, the physical, the physical necessity of having the tool and practicing the swing and getting all of that, that feedback through the body. I think a lot of people might then fail to make the connection into a book, and that's what I really like about this project is it's tying those two worlds together. So talk a little bit about the book and then we can run into how we make that connection between the book and and the real world product.
Dave: But thinking about writing the book and the content that's in there and who you talk, who is being targeted or can make the best value from it, talk a little bit about that audience yeah, so it's basically any person who is a sincere enough golfer and has a desire to change their golf swing, and maybe one of the primary sort of looking for qualifications, if I can use that word, is frustration.
Stuart: Right.
Dave: And once again, if you look at a driving range all across America and the club club where I belong, everyone's frustrated because, number one, they're getting a prescription, whether it's from a YouTube video, the instructor at the club or some book. That will never work. Who reads it or who gets introduced to it? There's a better way. Okay, prove it to yourself. It's not about me saying this is the only way, but prove it to yourself.
One can learn how to do it. If they can literally just get a piece of rope, it would definitely help them. This is it's going to be more of an accelerator because it has a what do you call this thing? A little weight. At the end it's a little, but ultimately it's all about learning for yourself and in yourself and this training aid. Or if one had a rope, basically, if a person, a golfer, was on the driving range and no preconceived notions of how to swing the golf club, they would teach themselves to have a pretty good to swing the golf club. They would teach themselves to have a pretty good golf swing, even though if they, even if they put some leverage on it. But it's when the interference of prescriptions or me telling somebody how to do it. So the book is basically our way of saying there's a better way, check it out and then introduce them to what we have available, and then someone decides for themselves whether they'd like to try it or not.
Stuart: Right, that idea of frustration being the consistent element amongst all of the audience, taking it away from a qualification step of it's not just a golfer, it's a golfer who's frustrated with it. And they're frustrated because what's the saying? There's the unknowns, unknowns, unknown knowns, known unknowns and no knowns, those elements of the stages of frustration. So if you were naively just smacking the ball around and still having fun, well, that's fine, but that's not the audience, it's the frustration element. So the title of the book talk a little bit about the title, because I think that will resonate with people who are in that situation yeah.
Dave: So the title is your golf club lies to you why your golf swing never changes and what to really do about it. So it doesn't change. For two reasons again, and they're equally as important. One is I'm putting a leverage force on a shaft and I don't even know I'm doing it. And number two is everything is prescriptive and someone's telling me what to do or what not to do, and it just can't work that way. I can't.
Even so, if I had a whole list of what to do, the body's moving so fast and the brain is moving so slow relative to the body that I couldn't tell my body what to do in that amount of time. So that's another element of frustration. And let's put it, let's call it non, non results or no results is that I'm literally trying to tell myself how to move my body. So if we were in person and I threw a ball to you, you would just catch it, or if I threw something out, you would stick your arm up and catch it, but if you told yourself how to do it, you get hit in the face. Okay, so it's just amazing how the culture of golf and there's no criticism of it, it's just the way it is how the average handicap never changes, the average golf swing never changes and the professional golfers, despite how much they want to change their golf swing, it pretty much reverts back to what they've been doing. They make a little tweak.
Stuart: But once it's built, unless you have something that is non-prescriptive, that can, yeah, overwrite those pretty ingrained patterns. What I like about the title and the subheadings that you've got is that it really punches home some of the it's not. There's a level deeper, there's an emotional resonance with it, a level deeper than just the how to in another world it could have been how to improve your golf swing but the idea of people resonating with that, with the words that you're using, the description, I think it's as people are thinking about writing their own books. This idea of we do try and tell people to balance, the idea of not being too clever because you don't want to hide the message and not make it obvious. But yours strikes that right balance of you, the target audience. It's obvious what it does, it's not hidden.
But it also touches on those emotional pain points and and some of the language that is going on in their head already. There there's something's not right element of I'm trying these things but they're not working. We talk quite a lot about the call to action in the book and the fact that there is a job of work that it's trying to do. It's trying to lead people to the next step. So the content talking about the two main frustrations and opening people's eyes to a new way of thinking about something is one, but we do have some commercial intent in the project and the thing that we're doing, so stepping people through to that next step, with your next step being so kind of like physically based Talk a little bit about those where you're leading the audience to.
Dave: Yeah. So in a perfect world, the message that we're sending in the book would resonate so deeply that they would immediately buy the pro. Deeply that they would immediately buy the pro. Or if I was rich and didn't need to pay my bills, I'd give them one for free, because having this in their hands is going to absolutely transform their golf swing in a relatively short period of time.
But I can't force that on somebody, right? So everybody's gonna only do it whenever they're ready, right? So whenever they're ready, so we offer that and that you know a scorecard. But ultimately, if and this is part of like honing my message so it does resonate and it inspires action, not just for me and be profitable as a business and of course I want to do that but for the person who wants to improve their golf swing and their frustration, get out of swing prison, hit the ball farther and straighter and have more fun and lower scores all that is possible, okay, I proved it to myself and my students. However, someone who's just hearing this they might have to hear it a bunch of times or whenever they're ready, they'll do it. But ultimately, honing the message so succinctly, coming from the heart, that, like bam, they get it immediately right.
Stuart: I think that's the thing as well, this idea that sometimes people need to hear things several times or in several different ways. The book has a tool to identify those invisible prospects that might otherwise be difficult to get in front of and then be able to share something immediately useful with them. The end result, the product, is easy to conceptualize. It's not like it's some random formula and pat themselves on the head and tap their nose three times. It's not complicated, but you've got the ability of, once you've captured those details, to share some of this ongoing information for those who aren't ready yet and with it being such a visual element that kind of adds to it, because it's a mechanical movement but there's a visual way of sharing stuff.
So I know you've got a lot of super useful videos and explainers and guides and tips that you can share with people in the meantime just to reinforce that message, and tips that you can share with people in the meantime just to reinforce that message and share that passion, until they go out to the golf course for the last time and try the latest YouTube video that they've watched.
And then it's the straw that breaks the camel's back and they think back ah, dave, had something that I should try. The videos that you've got and the way that you kind of engage with people and share this information is that was that right first time out of the can. You kind of thought I know I need to shoot some videos on it's these three subjects and that will hit the mark. Or did some of it come from feedback from you've obviously been doing this for a few years, so did it come from feedback from all of the interactions over the time and it's more? It was kind of like more user-led content when realized that someone was struggling with a particular thing yeah, so everyone's in it for themselves, right?
Dave: so if I had a video that says the reason why you slice the ball, but you don't slice the ball, you hook the ball, and you wouldn't pay any attention. Okay, so there's people who slice it and hook it and hit it fat, hit it thin. You can use a general term like inconsistent ball striking, but ultimately it's connecting to that one person. So I mean I could shoot it. I could shoot a video and say, uh, are you tired of losing golf balls? And that's not going to resonate. But if somebody went out and played around the golf lost six pro pro Vs, which are very expensive title is pro Vs, a little plug for them. And then they saw a video that said are you tired of losing golf balls? Bam, I just connected with that person.
So each person is going to have their own affliction or problem with a golf club that's leveraged. So a golf club that's leveraged is going to produce all of the bad shots, but each person is going to put leverage on it in a different place, which will have a different result with the ball. So if I put leverage on the top, it'll more than likely slice it. If I put leverage on the bottom, it'll more than likely hook it. What's the answer? Learn how to swing the pro so you don't put any leverage on the bottom. It'll more than likely hook it. What's the answer? Learn how to swing the pro so you don't put any leverage on the golf club and it doesn't matter whether you hook, slice, hit it fat, thin. Those problems will go away after one is trained yeah, and that's a great analogy.
Stuart: I was actually talking with someone earlier this week about this idea. It was a new client we were working with so I was describing the analogy I used was imagine it's a like a strip mall with five different business doors or five different doors in there, but as you get to the other side it then opens up into the one business. So each doorway, each entrance is exact, as you said. Everyone's in it for themselves. So the doorway number one that talks about hooking the shots, that will resonate that group of people. Doorway number five that talks about losing balls, that will resonate with those people. But on the other side it all opens up into the same place, which is the don't need leverage on the club at all, and this is the way you do it. So I think once the a lot of of people we talk about creating the books in terms of a campaign. So I don't think about traditional books, think about conversation, starting books in a campaign sense. But then that kind of locks people's thinking into oh, it's good for this particular campaign. The next level of thinking around it, the next situation, is to think okay, we're thinking about it in terms of campaigns, but that campaign can have multiple entrances. So, just as you described, once the book is created as an asset that serves a number of those entrance points but within the same general problem, then you've got lots of different ways in. So the five facebook ads that talk about the five different swing problems, all leading to a book called your goal, complies to you, then that makes the asset much more leverageable to put over my words today makes it much more leverageable and useful in lots of different ways.
The fact that you can interact with people and the scorecard, as you mentioned, is one of the follow-up steps in the book. So as they're answering those questions, you see what the results are. You hear them talking about a particular frustration. Last week you recorded a video that was useful on that. Three years ago you recorded another video that was useful for someone else.
But this idea of being able to use all of these little assets within the overall campaign toolbox makes it so much more valuable and, like we say, a book has a disproportionate amount of value that's given to people, or people assign a disproportionate amount of authority to it compared with those exact same words just in a different format. The fact that you can follow up with a book, talking to people, give them a copy of the book as a next step. It's just very, it's very easy to use it as a leveraging asset. So on that point, I'm talking about the different ways of using it. Obviously, facebook ads targeted around golf courses to particular demographics of people who are likely to be the ideal customer is is the first way that springs to mind, but I guess you've got the opportunity to use it physically in some cases or in different.
Dave: Yeah, so I don't have the, so it's brand. So the book literally just came out less than a week ago, so I only have the electronic version and we are running Facebook ads Now. We started in the local area but now we expanded it to the 20 most popular cities for golf. We have the Facebook leads down to like $1 and 61 cents. It's amazing. And the ad is just, and we tried one with the picture of the book. That wasn't so great.
Now there's just a video of me saying your golf swing isn't broken, there's nothing to fix. It's lying dormant inside you waiting to be revealed and then offering the book. And that's just a general thing to say. We're not even saying read this, if a general thing to say. We're not even saying read this if you slice the ball. We're not even doing that. Yet. We'll try those, the physical books. I'll take them to cigar shops and literally, like you know, get permission to drop them off different country clubs and golf courses that will allow me to do that and give them to my current students, have them in their bag and somebody says, hey, how did you, how did you hit the ball so well, like you used to be terrible.
Stuart: And then he's handling the book yeah, that, actually that can imagine a scenario where someone's been playing with someone for years and suddenly their golf swing improves and someone says to them how the heck did you do that? And I can imagine a scenario where they're pulling the book out but then kind of tucking it away or giving it to their friend and ripping the back page out, or I can. It seems to be that I don't play golf but I've got friends that I like to wind up about things, so you can imagine this scenario where the, the referral, the referral world in the rest of the world is, is you haven't got the same opportunities to kind of give it to your friends in quite the same way that you do here. So I can imagine lots of fun stories coming out about that.
What you were talking about a second ago, though this car shop as an example, this idea of complementary, non-competing businesses where their audience is your audience I always try the default go-to when I think about this example is always kind of like chiropractors and physiotherapists and people in that space.
We've worked with people in the past who have helped cyclists and some other groups, but the idea of of chiropractors or I can't remember whether that's a UK term or a US term, but physiotherapists, that type of world, because what you're offering doesn't compete exactly with them, but their audience crosses over with your guys.
So I think I'm going to try and remember this as that example of competing, non-complementary, non-competing audiences, because there are going to be a lot of chiropractors or PTs who have got golf playing clients, who have potentially injured themselves on the golf course. You're not offering any competing service to them. You're offering a service that can for the, for the PT or the chiropractor can give them a copy of the book and say, hey, we'll get you sorted out. And actually this is Dave's book talking about the swing itself, because the problem that you've done is from putting leverage in and tweaking your back or pulling something and it just seems like such a nice it's a nice way of amplifying and adding value to their audience without being competing. So, anyway, that, I think, is a great opportunity and it's the example I'm going to use going forwards, because it's pretty obvious to people yes, which gives me an idea where I can actually go to different chiropractors and personal trainers and to have a mailing list.
Dave: Say, look, I want to send this out like it's totally free, it won't cost you anything. And then that gives them something to offer, yeah, as a added value, and it gets me out there when somebody already has a list yeah, exactly, you can imagine, I always compare it to, I always think about it in terms of, like the affiliate marketing world.
Stuart: That's not the world that I play in at all, but when you see good affiliate campaigns set up, they'll provide all of the assets to the people to make it as as easy as possible. So you can imagine drafting a email copy or a letter or a introductory thing that reinforces because you've got a copywriter's head on your shoulders you can reinforce the, their value, you can kind of play up them in a thing that is actually delivering your thing. So there's a lot of way of binding that message in to really give the benefits on both sides. We should do a kind of outside of the podcast but we should do a bit of a brainstorm idea on this complementary competing group of people. Sure, because it's so non-competing it's, it really seems like there's a big opportunity to open that.
Open that yes, I agree I was actually just got back from florida last night. I drove down there, had to see a client halfway down, so they boat manufacturer, super yacht manufacturer. So we were talking to those guys and they were going through a load of assets and there was a whole load of visual elements going through it, their brochures. But as we were leaving the town that it was in north carolina was this little cute little town out in east north carolina and, um, as we were leaving, michael the guy gave me the book it's downstairs, gave me the book on the town. So it's kind of almost like a little memorial book of the town, but it was actually generated by a realtor in town. So this idea of Michael adding value to the conversation I was having with him talking about the town, and this third-party realtor had written the guide and the history and some nice illustrations. So again, this idea of other people being able to amplify your message because what you've created gives value to that audience, so many opportunities to drill into that a little bit more.
Okay, off on a bit of a tangent there, sorry. So this we talked about the next steps and the idea of people will. We've got that hook that captures their passion and the frustration and the thing that resonates with them. We talked about a couple of the advertising marketing places to intersect with where that audience is. They kind of receive it and the next step, hopefully, is that they'll be very frustrated and order a pro in order to be able to fix this issue that they've got For that group of people who aren't ready to move today. So it's for most businesses. It's the minority of people who aren't ready to move today. So it's for most businesses. It's the minority of people who take action straight away. But then, if we can stay in touch with them over the longer period and intersect again when today's the day that they've just hooked it for the last time, what steps do you either have in place at the moment or think about putting place in order to stay in contact with people?
Dave: yeah. So, keeping in line with Dean and Jackson's stuff and your stuff, we have the first 100 days. So when someone gets the book, they immediately get an email and says thank you for downloading the book. If you didn't get it, here's a link. I didn't put that in there yet, but I'm going to Grab a cup of coffee. It's a great read. That was one of Dean's things. And then the very next day uh, I hope you're enjoying the book. How often you get to play golf. So the goal is to strike up a conversation. I have so far I have 46 leads in less than a week and I think four or five. I have conversations started and then after that, every seven days, an email goes out with a super signature which is a call to action. So whenever you're ready, there's four ways I can help you Come to a workshop, buy a pro, get the scorecard, or come see me one-on-one at the driving range. We'll splash in the tub. So that's what we have.
Stuart: Yeah.
Dave: And then it'll be the flagship where, again, once every week after that, there'll be an email. So where I am right now is the book is to have somebody raise their hand. It's already working beautifully. Now it's honing the process of converting those leads Right, and initially the emails are like a part of the book put in there.
But I'm actually gonna, I'm actually gonna hone the message so succinctly and it's going to be so short. A message like, for example, prescriptions, like the truth about the golf swing prescriptions don't work, that's it. And then ask then, like I want it to be more of a question and not even a question that's going to be answered to me, but to themselves Stuart, why do you play golf? That's the like, not me educating them on the swing. Every single email, maybe it's again. So I don't know what the process is. Let me rephrase that I don't know what the process that works is but a probing question. Then a little information about what we do and another probing question yeah, right, so, and so right now we're in the we're in the converting. I'm in the converting the leads process of seeing what works and what works best yeah and I always think.
For me personally, I think less is better right because people are time constrained.
Stuart: I mean long. I've never been a fan of long form landing pages because I don't know how far people get through them. The long form emails it just gets a little bit too much. The ability to consistently or regularly do less, because us as the insiders, we kind of see every email that we write and we kind of sweat over and give attention to it. So our view of our own outbound marketing is seeing 100% of the big picture. But the recipient, even the most engaged clients, you know yourself from your own mailbox, even the people who you really want to read their message and you're really in tune with it, and in a perfect world you'd consume every single one, even those people you don't open every single email because you're out on the golf course when one comes in and then three hours later when you get back it's gone in the stream. So I think more regular but shorter and more consumable is the better way around of doing it rather than just hoping that there's this one mammoth one that will do all of the work.
Dave: So, yeah, I completely agree. And also it's a matter of how well does the email connect with the person that's reading it? So, for example, I read every single one of your emails and every single one of dean's emails because it has value to me. Okay, and I've been getting dean's emails for years and years and I've definitely, like I bought email mastery and I bought the a profit activators like online program, but then it was years before I did anything else, so it could be literally a year or two, but as long as the content that's being sent that person has value to them, they're going to open it yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stuart: A funny story that we tell sometimes is one of the realtors up in, payann Kenny, who's a good friend of ours. He we've told this story before, but he purged his list once. So he's been around for I mean decades. He purged his list and said okay, anyone who hasn't opened a message in or hasn't haven't had any contact with in five years, I'm going to purge them off. I don't know why, because it's no more cost of keeping those people and purging them. But anyway, he was in a spring cleaning mood so purchased the list and then about eight months later got a voicemail which got a phone call which went to voicemail, so he was able to play it to us next time. He was down in fort lauderdale in uh, in winter haven and the message was hey, kenny's Bob here. I hope this is the right number. I don't know what happened. I must have done something so I got off your list. I used to get your message all the time. Anyway, my sister passed away recently, so we're selling her oceanfront home. We've got an oceanfront home that we want to sell and then we want to consolidate and buy somewhere a little bit further inland now that we're getting older. So anyway, I hope this number is yours. I actually had to find another realtor in town to get your number, so anyway, I'm really hoping this finds you.
There's kind of the backside, the back end of that story is everyone assumes that leads are dead after a certain point. But this person, just as you said, had been happily consuming the stuff for a period of time until they were ready. Ready, and then the point that they were ready because kenny had purchased the stuff months before. They had to jump through several hoops in order to get back to the person who they felt was their guy. It's just that kenny had no indication that he was their guy for them. But how many people on that list never went to those steps? Are we ready to sell our house? What was the name of that realtor guy? Oh, you know, I don't know, but I don't get his emails anymore. Okay, well, let's just pick up the yellow pages and call someone down the street.
So, idea of separating out the collecting of the leads from the converting of the leads and then the converting of the leads it's only either today or not today, and it's not. If it's not today, all we can do is keep putting stuff out there and hopefully on the day that is the day it will intersect. So yeah, great, great insights on the life of lead conversion. I always also like that story because I kind of imagine it from the point of view of the intermediate real estate agent that got the call. So he kind of answers the phone and the guy there says, oh yeah, I'm trying to sell my two oceanfront homes and buy another one. And the guy rubs his hands and say, oh, fantastic.
Dave: How my two oceanfront homes and buy another one, and the guy rubs his hands and say oh, fantastic, how can I help you? Well, do you have kenny's phone number? And then the other side of that story is and this definitely resonates with me, because I used to be a real estate agent or a broker and finding out someone that I sold let's say, I sold them a house, just sold their house, or listed their house, and they didn't call me, but I never sent them one single thing right, yeah, yeah, yeah, how many times the opposite of it yeah, yeah, you think that it's easy to think that, okay, I'm the person that they know I they.
Stuart: Why would they not call me next time? But if someone else, it's so in the moment, like even with people's best will and intention. If it's like with referrals you hear that all the time. Oh, you know what? You just mentioned something about the golf swing. I was with someone last week who was complaining about their shot all the time. I should have said something.
Well, we can't rely on other people to be as into our business as we are, so to be able to consistently send them something of value. The fact that we've got a tool that helps them opt in makes that invisible prospect visible. But now we've got something that we can refer back to. And I like your approach of linking back to things that are mentioned in the book because it does give that consistency and it doesn't have to be every message, but at least kind of re-anchoring it every so often. It helps people understand and remember what the message is like.
Point three on why that swing currently sucks. They might not remember it haven't just read it once, but after three or four messages where you're illustrating or iterating on the point. It just helps people kind of remember and that element sink in. So that just means that they're more likely to remember you at the day when it becomes the day, that is, today, or if they're talking to someone else. They've got a framework in which to remember you by um time. I say I think this is my standard wrap-up for podcasts. I always say that time goes fast, but but it really has done. Again, I want to make sure that people can follow along and see what you're doing and if they are a player, then do something to improve their swing themselves. So where's a good place for people to go to to find out more?
Dave: yes, so they can go to YourGolfClubLiesToYou.com, and that's where they can get the book. Or they can go to SlingTheClub.com, which is my personal website, which they can also get the book there as well, and some other goodies that they. If they see, uh, the value in that, I'd offer a little advice to someone or so anybody listening who's a golfer, whether you get a pro or not, learn to teach yourself without anybody giving you instruction, and you'll be far the better for it at least you kind of got that consistent message in your head and there's not kind of all of these different conflicting messages coming in if you do it that way around yeah, well, I would say, like, the person who's going to learn the fastest is one who doesn't have any preconceived notions how to do it right, yeah, yeah, yeah it's.
Stuart: I just remember I've changed vehicles recently and put a uv tint on the windows to keep some of the heat out, and on the company's website it was there was a price for doing it fresh, and then there was a price for doing it if you had an existing film on there, and the price for removing the existing film was like three times the price of the actual job. It illustrates that point that trying to remove someone else's work or trying to over bad habits, it's a lot harder than just going in fresh and learning to walk by taking the steps rather than, rather than, consuming which leads, which just reminded me of something.
Dave: So the truth, which is what we have here. So this is the truth about the golf swing, and my workshops are going to be called that. As a matter of fact, I'm going to shoot an email to the 46 leads I have and say, hey, we're doing a workshop. The truth about the golf swing. Would you like to join us? The truth is always a subtraction to the least common denominator, the simple, and that's what the pro does and that's what the swing is to get rid of everything. That's not your true swing, and what's left is your true swing.
Stuart: Right. That's such a great way of thinking about it and I think the majority of business owners out there who are on our list because they've thought about writing a book in some way, that's true for them as well. Less is more, in a certain way, and just taking that one step at a time towards being able to help someone. But the simplifying it's a busy world out there, so the more simplification the better. Dave really appreciate it. Everyone that's listening. We'll put links through to Dave's two sites in the show notes and in the podcast player, so definitely check out those and follow it through. Dave, thanks again for the time today. It'll be really great. Let's circle back in a few months and see how things are converting and what that follow-up sequence is turned into. Because I think what that follow-up sequence is turned into, because I think this will be valuable to share with people some of the ideas that we test out there thank you.
Dave: Story had a lot of fun. Thank you fantastic.
Stuart: Okay, everyone, thanks for listening. Again, as I say, check out the show notes and follow the links through to dave stuff and where. If today's the day that it's good to get your book started, then obviously just reach out to us and we'll be here to help. Okay, thanks everyone. We will catch you in the next one.