S4E23 – James I. Bond – How to create Millionaire Dollar Words and Phrases

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Key Timecodes

• (01:27) – Show intro and background history
• (11:14) – Deeper into his background history and strategies
• (19:33) – Understanding his marketing strategies
• (22:18) – How he start his creative process
• (30:10) – Deeper into his creative naming strategies
• (35:56) – How good names can fail and the optimal approaches
• (47:15) – What is the worst advice he ever received
• (48:17) – What is the best advice he ever received
• (49:35) – Guest contacts

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – Intro

Hey this is Sean Tepper, the host of Payback Time, an approachable and transparent podcast in building businesses, increasing wealth and achieving financial freedom. I’d like to bring on guests to hear authentic stories while giving you actionable takeaways you can use today. Let’s go.

[00:00:17.310] – Sean

This episode is really interesting. It’s really focused on names, especially names and phrases around products and businesses and how the smallest change can make a world of difference. For example, he talks about a few different businesses that changed the product name or changed the business name and their revenues went through the roof. One was a company based out of Utah. There was just a couple that launched a new company and their revenues went from zero to 100 million in 18 months, which is ridiculous. Another company was a fan manufacturing company that changed the name of their fans, and their revenues went through the roof to become multimillionaires. So it’s really interesting and makes a lot of sense. But if you can wait to the end of the episode, which is over an hour. So if you can wait that long, I actually do push the guest. I give them a little pressure to find out tactical strategies that you and I can use today. Long story short, it’s a little easier said than done, but I try to put some logical framework on how you and I can apply this forward. But again, really interesting stuff here talking about copywriting around products and businesses. All right, let’s get to it. Please welcome James I-Bond. James, welcome to the show.

[00:01:28.910] – James

Hi, Sean. Thanks for.

[00:01:30.520] – Sean

Yeah, good to have you here. So why don’t you kick us off and tell us about your background?

[00:01:34.640] – James

I’m originally from Montreal. I lived in Southern California for 36 years. We have a son and three daughters, and our middle daughter, we gave her the initials L-A, Lauren Asia. We knew that as soon as Lauren was born, we moved here. We know how old she is. That’s how long we’ve been here. In Montreal, I worked my way up and built an advertising agency and won major clients like Kraft Foods, Timex Watches, Abit Laboratories, Seagrams, their world headquarters is there. Then after many years, we moved to Southern California, and I built one of Southern California’s leading behavioral management firms. We worked with some of the biggest people in the world. Warren Buffett’s team brought me in because I’m one of America’s leading behavioral management specialists and stuff like that. I’m famous for Brain Glue, and so I’ll talk about that. But Brain glue is the most valuable skill you will ever learn because it’s persuasion. It’s a backbone of persuasion. How I got Brain Glue was fascinating for me, for a lot of people, I guess. But when I had an ad agency in Montreal, I had an opportunity to win the anti-drug campaign in America.

[00:02:41.220] – James

We came up with powerful, logical reasons why you should not do drugs. Then I lost, and I deserve to lose. What did I lose to? I lost to a guy holding an egg saying, This is your brain, and cracking the shell and dropping the egg into a sizzling, frying pan. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions? When I saw the ad, I became terrified. Two things. First was this was infinitely more powerful than the logical. This was emotional selling. This was infinitely more powerful than the logic that I was presenting in our ads. But second is I was terrified because I knew logic. I knew how to sell logic and explain logic and everything else, but I didn’t know how to sell using emotion, and it terrified me. The first thing I come up with is, Yeah, what are the reasons why somebody should use the product? Okay, well, let’s come up with logics and reasons. It’s better because of this and that and everything else. Yet here’s this thing that’s emotional selling. I love three-by-five cards, so I wrote on a 3×5 card, Your brain on drugs, so I’d remember the ad. I realized I can’t over-analyze it because I have no idea.

[00:03:45.530] – James

The school doesn’t teach you emotional selling. I created a passion box. Right next to my computer, I put a box. I call it the passion box. Every time I saw an ad or heard something that’s emotionally powerful, instead of rather than over-analyzing it, I put it in my passion box. So your brain on drugs went into passion box. In hopes that eventually I have enough examples that I could look through it and figure out how does emotional selling work. After about 10 years, a little more than 10 years, we had moved to Southern California. I met John gray, and John gray, he was an author and he wrote a book, Men, Women and Relationships, one of the best relationship books ever. He was telling me he was frustrated because people would read the book and it blew their minds. It was profound, and yet he was having trouble getting people to buy the books. Ultimately, he sold 20,000 copies and he was a struggle. You can’t make a living selling 20 if you make a buck or two bucks a book, you can’t make a living on it. But he got this idea, this crazy idea of changing the title, and he changed the title to Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

[00:04:53.250] – James

Then he tweaked the content a little. The same book, but he tweaked the content a little, so it referred to it throughout the book. What do you think happened? He’s telling me after almost overnight, half a million copies got sold, then a million, then two million. In my book, I say he sold 10 million copies, but I know Steve Harrison, who helped him with marketing. Steve said, Oh, you’re wrong. I said, Well, I did the research. He said, No, we have the numbers. He’s already sold over 50 million copies of the book, all because he went from 20,000 to 50 million just because he changed the title. We’re like, Wow. When I got home, so I’m writing Men Are from Mars on axiomatization by a five card. Instead of putting in the box, I realized this is a metaphor he used. Men aren’t really from a different planet. I think there are some people out there that think we’re from a different planet, and I got that okay. But we’re not. Really, we’re not. But it’s a metaphor. I realized that this is your brain on drugs is a metaphor, because it’s not a brain.

[00:05:50.320] – James

It’s an egg and going into a sizzling, fryinging pan. But they got the idea when you take drugs, what happens? Well, your brain gets fried. Oh, what else gets fried? Egg. If we’re doing an ad, let’s get a sizzling, frying pan and drop an egg into a sizzling, flying pan and say this is your brain on drugs. I went like, Is that the secret to emotional selling? Well, it turns out it’s not the secret. It’s just one of 14 brain triggers. I dumped the passion box in my bed, and I realized there are 14 brain triggers at the heart of emotional selling, and it blew my mind. Let me give you some examples, okay? Because this is not just about changing the name of your product or service or changing your pitch, although it’s about that also. It is absolutely about that. It’s amazing. I’m going to give you tons of examples of all these people that made a fortune just by coming up with a name that’s a brain clue type name. But it works beyond that. This is about persuasion. Persuasion is the backbone of how we achieve our goals in life. If you’re working in a job and you want to impress your boss, you need persuasion, need to know persuasion tools.

[00:06:54.070] – James

If I show you some of them, it’s going to blow your mind because you’re going to go, Whoa, I never realized that. Suddenly, it makes it easier to sell your ideas. If you want to win clients, it becomes easier to win clients. If you want to win prospects or clients for your products, it makes it easier. Let me give you some examples. Roses are red, violets are blue, 20 and one is 20. I bet most of you are saying.

[00:07:18.580] – Sean

22, right? Twenty-two, yeah.

[00:07:20.690] – James

Twenty and one is how much? You’re a finance guy, Sean. Twenty and one is 21.

[00:07:26.720] – James

Twenty-one, yeah. You said 22 because our brain likes patterns and it falls into patterns. To show you how powerful it is, if the gloves don’t fit, you must have quit. Johnny Cochran got O. J. Simpson off using the rhyme pattern. If the gloves don’t fit, you must have quit. I remember there were two of the jurors after the trials, and they were being asked by a journalist, With all the evidence against O. J, and there was so much evidence, how did you find him not guilty? One of them responded while the was nodding her head in agreement, and she said, We knew if the gloves don’t fit, you must quit. The glove didn’t fit, so we had to quit, because rhyme sticks to the brain like glue. I read this article about the Statue of Liberty. We love the Statue of Liberty, right? When they put up the Statue of Liberty, they were talking about how people hated it. Here’s the Statue of Liberty. They said it’s disgraceful. It’s of no importance. Why are we wasting our time with this huge thing in New York Harbor and everything else? Then Alexander Hamilton’s great-granddaughter promoted putting a sign on it.

[00:08:37.710] – James

What does the sign say? Give me your tire, your poor, your huddled masses. As soon as she had that put up, people fell in love with it just because of changing what it represented, the words, because words are really powerful. We have to understand that. How do you convince people who are against what you’re talking about to be pro what you’re talking about. This is part of what I call anchoring and trigger words, and I’ll give you some more examples in a second. Ronald Reagan, when he was President, was trying to have a missile defense system, and it was a little while after the Vietnam War, so people were not into war and missiles and everything else. But what was popular back then? The movie Star Wars. He called it the Star, we call it anchoring, where you take two things that don’t normally go together and put them together. He called it the Star Wars missile defense system, and people suddenly went, and people became fans of it, people who were against war. But it was the Star Wars missile defense system that became fantastically successful. How about stupid? If you’re trying to convince somebody, would you use the word stupid?

[00:09:49.250] – James

In sales, we know kiss, keep it simple stupid. If they said, Keep it simple, would it stick to the brain as much as keep it simple stupid? How about James Carville helped Bill Clinton become successful with what? It’s the economy, stupid. If he said it’s the economy, it’s the economy. Come on, it’s the economy. You have to repeat it over and over. He said it’s the economy stupid, and that’s stuck in everybody’s brain, particularly Bill Clinton, so he would always focus on it’s the economy. But by adding that trigger word stupid, it became massively successful. There’s a tool called kiasmos, and kiasmos is like a flip. It’s like winners never quit and quitters never win. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. The tough get going. It’s all for one and one for all, okay? Jfk, President John F. Kennedy said, Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. He also said, If mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. Malcolm X said, We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock landed on us. He also said, When you stand for nothing, you fall for anything.

[00:10:59.860] – James

See, these are tools. These are patterns, and the brain likes certain patterns. If I’m talking about brain glue, let me show you some of the tools I use to explain brain glue. Some of the text… Sorry, go ahead.

[00:11:13.180] – Sean

You want to ask something? Yeah, I was going to say, give you context, my audience, they like formulas. They like tactical strategies they can apply today. They’re going to be asking me after this, How do I figure out sayings or words or phrases that can get me eyeballs, that can generate leads?

[00:11:33.310] – James

Let me give you a couple of examples of how I use it, and you’ll see this. I know rhyme works. I was thinking, What are some of the words that relate? I want you to get rich. What rimes with rich? Switch pitch. Oh, switch your pitch if you want to get rich. Okay, that works. That was the beginning of my first one. Then I was thinking, I want to raise desire, the level of desire in your buyer. Oh, desire buyer. I want to show you how to light the fire of desire in your buyer. I’ve got fire, so that’s a good word, but light the fire of desire in your buyer. Brain glue shows you how to do that. That’s one way to do that. But then I also recognize that people want to understand conceptually how brain glue works. I want to come up with a metaphor. It took me a while. I was actually telling people, these women, a joke. My joke was they’re religious women, so I thought I’d give them a religious joke. I said, So a little girl comes up to mommy and says, Mommy, Daddy says we came from Apes, but you see we came from Adam and Eve.

[00:12:40.630] – James

Honey, Daddy’s talking about his family. I’m talking about my family. I told Andy, started laughing. But I realized if I told them in a second time, they wouldn’t laugh because they’ve already heard the joke. Some things resonate and some things don’t. Humor is one of those things. It resonates. When you hear it the first time, you hear it the second time, you might laugh, but you already heard it. It doesn’t have the same impact as it has the first time you hear it. I was thinking, okay, metaphors are really powerful. It helped John gray go from 20,000 books to 50 million books with Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. It also helped Jack Canfield. Jack Canfield loves my book. Jack Canfield wrote Chicken soup for the soul, sold over a billion dollars worth of chicken soup for the soul books. He doesn’t need me telling him anything, and yet this is how powerful it is. He had forged him. He’s forced everybody in his company. He bought copies of the book for everybody in his company. He’s forcing him to apply it, to use it. I don’t just want you reading it, I want you using it.

[00:13:40.310] – James

It’s easy to use because I show people how to use this. How do I describe how brain glue works. I need a metaphor. I’m thinking, okay, when I leave my home, you leave your home, you drive down the street, you pass homes or apartments, whatever you’re passing, you’re used to looking at it. You’re not going to look every day, Oh, look at that guy’s home. Look at that guy’s home. You don’t. You ignore it because you’re going from here to work or wherever else you’re going. But one day you’re driving down the street and two houses down from you, there’s flames coming out of the guy’s window. What are you going to do? Trigger goes up, Is this house on fire? Does he know it? Has he called 911? Is he going to burn my house down? A trigger goes off, and that’s what brain glue is. It’s a trigger. We look at ads, ad, ad, ad, ad, ad. You want flames coming out of your ad. If you have products, product, product, product, product, flames coming out of your product. You want to wake them up because we’re half asleep mentally when we’re going through life.

[00:14:43.250] – James

You might be talking to me and trying to sell me something, and I’m thinking, Did I forget to close the windows on my car? Is it going to rain? Did we just lose a client? Is my wife pissed off at me? Are we going to go through a divorce? Or I got a stomachache. Try to sell somebody who has a stomachache for your product or service. There’s a good chance they’re going to go, It sounds really good, but I’m not really interested. Why aren’t they interested? Because you didn’t trigger brain glue. You didn’t trigger the parts of the brain that went, I have to do this. If they’re saying, My stomach is hurting me, and say, Well, I’ve got one of the few things that you could take this tablet right now and your stomach will not hurt. I don’t know if you have a stomachache, but if you know somebody who does, Yeah, I have a stomachache. Can I try it? What you want is you want something that’s going to… We’resames are going to come out of it so that you grab their attention enough that they’re going to look at what you’re doing.

[00:15:37.460] – James

When you use a tool like a metaphor… Metaphor is a good one to start with. Everyone out there, I want to give you a great example of a metaphor in use. But my product or service is just like blank. What’s it like? Then be as crazy as possible and start there. Paul Tran invented an electric razor for man’s private areas. I don’t want to get too much into it, but for man’s private areas. He’s thinking, I need to come up with a name for this that’s not going to offend people, but make it easy to understand what my product is. He was thinking about it, and he said, It’s like a lawnmower. Why don’t I call my product The lawnmower. In fact, let me change the name of my company to Landscape. We’re going to landscape man with a lawnmower. If I bought the lawnmower, I haven’t, but if I did, first, I wouldn’t share it with my buddies, okay? Let’s start there. But I would share the story. I’d say, Hey, guess what I just bought? What did you buy? The lawnmower. The lawnmower? What do you have to mow your lawn? No, no, no.

[00:16:33.790] – James

It shames my private areas, and it’s called the lawnmower. What? Hey, hang on a second. Hey, Mary, come here. Guess what James just bought? He bought the lawnmower. They’d start sharing it, and word of mouth would take off like crazy. That’s what we need to do is we need to understand. When I was young, I remember many years ago, I’d see kids walking across the street doing texting on the phone. Now I see old people walking across the street texting on the phone, not even looking at traffic. It’s because we’re so used to being bombarded with information and knowledge that we have to work if we’re marketing to get our name or the product name or whatever it is we’re offering to stand out from the crowd. If we can do that, we have a much better chance of selling it. But it also has to be related to what the product is. We see ads for… I’ll give you a really good example of an ad that everybody knows that actually most people do not understand that it’s a failure, okay? Got milk. What a fabulous product ad that was. No, the only reason we think it was fabulous is because they use movie stars.

[00:17:38.250] – James

I have an article in Business Week about 10 years ago, and the article says, Got milked. After the $385 million campaign, sales still continue to decline. Why does sales decline? Everybody knows, Got milk and milk mustache. First, they had $385 million to spend, so they can stick it in our brains. Also, they had big movie stars, so they did that. But also, why did people stop drinking milk? I’m old enough to remember that my parents or grandparents used to have milk delivered to their doorstep. Everybody drank milk. Why? Because it has calcium. But you can get calcium from spinach. I mean, you can get calcium pills and all this stuff. You don’t need milk to get calcium. It’s the first thing. The second is a lot of people have lactose intolerance. Lactose intolerance, where you could drink milk and you feel sick. You might take a few minutes or whatever, but you get lactose intolerance. Now, I don’t have lactose intolerance, but because I know about lactose intolerance, I limit how much milk I drink in case, which is ridiculous, but it’s how the mind works. If you have lactose intolerance and I say, Got milk, are you going to buy milk?

[00:18:46.650] – James

No, you’re going to love the ad, but you’re not going to buy milk. I have one of my daughters has a poster for milk mustache with someone she loves on it. That’s why you’ve got to sell your product. In and Out Burgers still has a good burger. Squatty-pottie still explains what the product is. This is a squatty-potty. They can tell the story of why it works, is because it changes the shape of your body so you could actually have a better chance going to the bathroom. Oh, that makes sense. Hey, squatty-potty. What happens is two things. One is it sticks to the brain, which is what you want. It’s easy to remember. Two is it triggers parts of the brain that make you interested enough that you want to buy it. Let me give you one story just on this, okay?

[00:19:29.600] – Sean

Yeah, give me one more, and then let’s look at this from an approach, because you’re an ad agency guy, and let’s say we want to walk through this scenario. Let’s say a company is coming to you with a new product. How do you take a logical approach to coming up with copy that can pop, that can stick, like brain glue, essentially? Anyway, go for it. Give me this example.

[00:19:57.920] – James

Let’s get tucked. Absolutely. I’m going to give you a brain glue example, my book. But I want you to understand this. This is the tool every one of us has to do. If you’re a logical person, as most of us are, if you’re in business and you’re logical, that’s how you solve problems. The problem is people buy for emotional reasons, not for logical reasons. In marketing, we say we want people to know, like, and trust you. Why? Because if they know if they like you and they trust you, then that’s emotion. But you don’t get that luxury all the time, and you can’t just depend on that. My book was called… Jack Canfield loved my book, but it was not called Brain glue, because I’m a logical guy. Here’s what did I call my book? Sell more with the right brain marketing strategy. First is such a long title, no one could remember the title. But I was trying to say, I want to explain, I want to teach you logical or right brain selling, emotional selling if you’re a logical person. That’s what the whole book is about, okay? How to become a blockbuster of success by taking your logic and applying it to an emotional title.

[00:20:59.960] – James

Let me give you the tool first. The tool is you always start with logic. You have the toilet stool. You start with a logical description of what your product or service is or idea. Then you start applying the emotional tool of the brain glue. I said to John gray, he started telling me, I love your book. He said, I couldn’t put the thing down. I’m forcing everybody in my company to buy it. I said, Oh, wow. He said he got pissed off at me. He said, I got so many books to read. I got pissed off at your book. I said, Oh, I’m sorry. He said, No, I couldn’t put the damn thing down. I have all these other books to read, but it’s relating. I started writing down tools that I can use right then and there to sell other books that I’m selling. I said, Of course, I apologize. I’m sorry I made you do that. I said, But can I get that as a quote? He said, On one condition, you got to change the damn title. You’re forcing us to understand emotional selling, and you’ve got a logical title on your book.

[00:21:57.630] – James

Your whole book is about Brain Glue, yet it’s called Sell more with a Right Brain Marketing Strategy. How dare you? I’m like, Do I have to? He said, Yes, you want my quotes? I’ll give you video quotes. I love this thing, but only if you change the title to Brain Glue. He was right. We have to understand that you always start with logic.

[00:22:18.410] – Sean

What do you do? You go to a Word doc, an Excel sheet, you write out the logical description of this product or the business. That’s where you start.

[00:22:26.260] – James

Absolutely. You have to start with that. Then you start looking at words that rhyme, like switch or pitch if you want to get rich. I want you to get rich. What rimes with rich? I’ll start looking at words like that. Light the fire of desire in your buyer. Well, I recognize I want to make people desire what you sell more. I said, Brain blue is about. Desire, I started looking for words that rhyme with that. One of the things you can do is you can look at phrases. I saw this show, and that’s the first thing you want to do is you want to look at rhyme. But I have other tools like kiasmos, which is a flip. Once you understand the first tool, you want to start doing other tools. To me, the two easiest tools are metaphor. What’s it-like metaphor analogy? It’s just like, and have fun with it, and rhyme. Those are two easy ones, but there are lots of other ones. Let me give you an example. I’m watching a Discovery channel. I record stuff, and we’re looking at it. There’s a bio on Bobby Flay. I’m going, I know who he is.

[00:23:33.670] – James

I don’t really know who Bobby Flay is, and so let’s check it out. I was talking about Bobby Flay. He’s a chef who became world famous. He’s on the food network. What was the name of the show? It could have been… He called it Boy Meets Grill. Well, we know the phrase, Boy Meets Girl. I call it anchoring. You take a phrase that already exists and you have fun with it where you can tweak it slightly. Boy Meets Grill, he was going to talk about grill food. He came up with the phrase, Boy meets grill, and it really stands out from the crowd. I’d say to people, I’d say Bobby Flay, he was on a show, Boy Meets Grill, and it’s amazing how many people go, Oh, yeah, I remember that. I remember that show. In the show, he talks about Jamie Oliver, who is the naked chef. The naked chef, what does that mean? He was running around naked? No, but because the name, he used a trigger word, it stood out. That’s why when you understand, I’m a chef, so I’m going to talk about grilling. Okay, grill. What does grill sound like?

[00:24:32.380] – James

Grill is like girl. Boy meets girl. Boy meets grill. There we go. I have the name. When you start going through these phrases, we think it sounds subtle, but it’s not subtle. It is subtle when we say it. Now, can you imagine changing the title of your book from Men, Women and Relationships to Men Are from Mars, Women from Venus? It went from 20,000 to 50 million. Not 50,000, guys, 50 million. Okay, 20,000, 50 million. Because these seem subtle. Then when people apply it… Let me give you one more example on this, okay?

[00:25:04.590] – Sean

Yeah, one more, and then I’ll dive into questions here.

[00:25:07.040] – James

Okay, absolutely. When I first realized how brain glue works, it wasn’t called brain glue initially, but I understood the patterns of it. It’s called brain glue because it sticks to your brain like glue. I wanted to practice it because we come up with a theory, we understand or discover something, and then we go, Oh, okay. I have clients. Let me start applying it with a client and see what happens. I took a construction company. There were three guys who had a construction company who, after 10 years, had two million of sales. It’s not a bad two million of sales. In one year, I took them from two to 10 million in sales, and they reached 32 million in sales two years later. I’m like, Wow, I can’t believe this works so well. How did I do it? I said, Let’s play a little game. I love whiteboard. I said, Let’s make a shopping list of all… Over the past 10 years, you reached two million of sales. Let’s make a shopping list of all the different types of clients you’ve worked with. Took us about an hour. I had to go through invoices and stuff like that.

[00:26:07.530] – James

Everybody. Who else? What other clients have you worked with? We made a shopping list of all the different types of clients they work with. Then I said, Let’s pretend you’re going to focus on just one and you’re going to say no to everybody else. Who would it be? They went, Well, we don’t want to turn out way clients because they do construction for anything. We said, I don’t care. We’re just playing a game. Let’s pick a client you’re working with, a type of client you’d like to work with that if you were just working with that type of client, you would be successful. They thought about it for a while and they eventually came up with fire restoration for insurance companies. I don’t have a construction background, so they had to explain it to me. They basically said, We had two insurance companies that gave us three clients. One gave us two, one gave us one, where they had a client whose house burnt out, had a fire. When we go in there, the first thing we check is the frame. If the frame is damaged, you have to tear down the whole house. But if it isn’t damaged, then you fix it and pick it up and everything else.

[00:27:06.190] – James

I said, Okay, so when you’re going to prospect to insurance companies, what are we going to call you? The word fire is a trigger word because that’s fire. They have a client that had a fire. Why don’t we call you guys the fire extinguisher for insurance companies? Why don’t we come up with a little website called Firex. Com? I went with them to two clients, to two prospects, and we said we start talking to them. We said, We’re the fire extinguisher for you guys. Every time you have a client that has a fire, call us. We’re your fire extinguisher. We’re not going to put out the fire, but we’re going to fix the property. Clients would laugh, but the phone started ringing and it couldn’t stop ringing. That every time one of the insurance companies had a fire, guess who they called first? The fire extinguisher. To me, it was so subtle. It was like, This worked better than I thought it was going to work. We took them from 2-10 million in one year. In fact, they had Razmix. I said, Hey, Bond, it was supposed to be 12 million. My comment was, Shut up.

[00:28:06.230] – James

They bought each other the biggest BMWs. They’re BEMER lovers. They bought each other a gift. But it’s just when you start applying this, it just takes off like gangbusters. We want to understand. There are a few things you want to understand. You always want to start with logic. You have to start with logic. We’re logical people.

[00:28:24.150] – Sean

We cover that. Start with logic, description of the tool, the product, whatever you’re working on, the business. Then what I’m hearing is you want to come up with a few options that are either rhymeing words or flip words. Is that correct? Yes. Correct. Yeah, that’s a good way to do it. Can it be both or do you pick one or the other?

[00:28:42.330] – James

Yeah, it can be both.

[00:28:43.830] – Sean

It.

[00:28:44.060] – James

Can be both. But don’t try to find something that’s both to start with.

[00:28:48.190] – Sean

But yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it sounds like you keep it simple. Is there a third step or is it really just two steps to arrive on copy?

[00:28:55.350] – James

Well, there are more because there are 14 steps. I’ve got 14 tools that people start using. They go like, Wow. But I’ll use Rocky Road ice cream as a good example. Rocky Road ice cream uses metaphor because you don’t open up, Hey, look, there’s rocks inside. It is chocolate ice cream with nuts and Marshmallows. The second tool they use is alliteration, the repetition of… It’s bumpy, like a Rocky Road. They call it Rocky Road. They actually stole the name from somebody, Dryers Ice Cream. But they became a blockbuster of success during the Great Depression. The first thing they did was, Okay, it’s bumpy. It’s bumpy like Rocky Road. Hey, let’s call it Rocky Road. The second one is it uses alliteration, the repetition of sounds, rr, rr, Rocky Road, just like Coca-Cola, Best Buy, PayPal, TikTok. You think if TikTok was called the Chinese social media platform, it would be as successful as TikTok? No. No, okay. That’s the second one. Then the third thing they use is humor, because they were launched during the Great Depression, and a nickname for the Great Depression was a Rocky Road. Their concept was we’re all on a Rocky Road anyway.

[00:29:58.250] – James

We might as well have Rocky Road ice cream, make.

[00:30:00.980] – Sean

People.

[00:30:01.440] – James

Laugh, like Bing, Bing, Bing, Ding, Ding, Ding. When you can use multiple tools, it absolutely works, too.

[00:30:08.210] – Sean

Okay, so it sounds like you’ve got 14 different framework-ing tools on how to write better copy or create better names that stand out. Yes. So we just really went through two or three, right? Yeah. Okay. Just to reiterate or you start with your logic. You can use rimes, you can use flip words, kiasmos. Is that… Am I saying that correctly?

[00:30:32.820] – James

Yeah, kiasmos is the flip.

[00:30:33.630] – Sean

That’s right.

[00:30:34.200] – James

Yeah, chiasmos. Okay.

[00:30:35.780] – Sean

Got it. We don’t have to go into more detail here. I think the book will be worth a read. I do have to say this, though. I feel like this is going to be really cheesy, but I always loved Rocky Road growing up. But what if it had a name like Bumpy, I don’t know, Bumpy Mellows or something? It doesn’t have the same ring, but somebody could think it does. I feel like landing on the right phrasing is almost like a shot in the dark. How do you test what is working? Do you run with the naming convention for a while and see if it sticks? Because again, I think you could write down 100 phrases and one would pop at best. That’s my opinion.

[00:31:18.650] – James

So Jack Canfield told me how Chicken soup for the soul came about. He came about, okay? Chicken soup sold 500 million books, okay? But originally, they were going to call it 101 stories that will change your life, 101 motivational stories that would change your life. That’s logic, okay? But it bothered him because other people can come up with motivational stories, too, and it doesn’t really stand out from the crowd and everything else. He had about a month of sleepless nights, and one day he woke up and he said he was thinking, Chicken soup makes you feel good for a lot of people if you have an upset stomach or something like that. It would be fun to call the book Chicken soup for the spirit. It doesn’t really work yet, but Chicken soup for the spirit because that’s chicken soup and metaphor analogy. And he said he didn’t know brain good. Now he knows what… He didn’t understand why he was doing this, but it was troubling him because it didn’t sound right. And then he said after a few nights, he said, Better than soul is spirit. It’s chicken soup for the soul instead of spirit, because S-O-U-P, S-O-U-L, it’s alliteration.

[00:32:20.860] – James

It’s a repetition of sound, soup soul. Chicken soup for the soul, soup for the soul. There’s something he said, I didn’t understand why I was doing it because subconsciously it was there, but it sounded much better. Once I came up with chicken soup for the soul, suddenly it took off because people went, Oh, I can relate to that. Oh, wow, it’s emotional. Blah, blah, blah. It took off like that. Mine is a short book. I want to say that. I guess point, point, point, point, point, point. People love it. It’s funny. It’s got humor because humor works with us also. But almost everybody’s telling me they read through the book once, now they know the tools, now they go back through the book and decide which tool they want to use. The reason is becauseor the multiple tools. He used metaphor and alliteration. He said, Chicken soup for the spirit. It’s getting close, but it’s not quite there. What are some of the other tools? As you go through the tools, you can suddenly apply it and it becomes easier. People are telling me they’re coming up with blockbuster names and some of the crazy names.

[00:33:20.470] – James

I have this woman who’s selling, she has a million dollar company, she sells candles. She did candles for Ellen DeGeneris, a brand named candles and stuff. But she’s been struggling a little bit with her company, so I’m teaching her how to develop branded products. I love saying, what does Richard Branson, Madonna, and olive oil have in common? Virgin. Virgin. Now you got it. But if Richard Branson will tell you using the trigger word virgin helped a kid with no money who had to borrow money from his dad to become a billionaire because he used a trigger word. But here’s one of the biggest problems we face, and that is because we’re logical people. We come up with an emotional title that we think is really good, but we’re afraid to apply it. That’s one of the biggest issues that who would come up with an electric razor, call it a lawnmower? You’ve got to cross your comfort zone, because our comfort zone is logic, logic, logic, logic, logic. Then you’re going to be like pop tarts, is that you’re going to come up with a fantastic idea and somebody’s going to compete with you but come up with a better name.

[00:34:28.980] – James

I don’t want that. I hate that. That’s why I hear people telling me that J. B. Weld is better than Gorilla Glue. But Gorilla Glue outsells J. B. Weld by a gazillion dollars. You can go to… It’s because you came up with a product, okay? Smells like Teen Spirit. Remember that song?

[00:34:48.290] – Sean

Yeah, that’s their product.

[00:34:49.330] – James

What does Teen Spirit smell like? Kurt Colbain understood brain glue. Emotional people understand it, us logical people don’t. That’s why once we get exposed to it, we start laughing because we go, Oh, that’s using brain glue. Oh, that’s using brain glue. We start to recognize it all over the place.

[00:35:07.000] – Sean

Let’s take a quick commercial break. Are you a beginner investor and want to increase your confidence with investing? Tykr EDU is now live, which includes investing courses. The first course is titled Stock Investing for Beginners, which includes over 60 videos that take you through modules including Overcoming Myths, the difference between stocks, ETFs, index funds, and mutual funds, Investing versus Trading, the number one reason why stocks go up and down, knowing when to buy, knowing when to sell; increasing confidence, how to invest your first thousand dollars, and real-life examples. It’s like looking over my shoulder to see how I buy and sell stocks. Simply go to edu. Tykr. Com or go to Tykr. Com and click the courses link at the top of the page. Okay, back to the show. There are certain things that people come up with these kitsy little phrases and cutesy phrases, and they don’t go anywhere. So it’s not like an if, then, I’m very logical as you can tell. So not an if, then statement. If you do this with writing code, it will do this 100 % of the time. This is not that. Like an Excel, it could come up with 100 phrases that are cute and fun and punchy, filled with metaphors and rimes and whatever.

[00:36:27.250] – Sean

I tell you what, you really don’t know what’s going to work until it gets out in the market. So you could be at it for years. How do you compress the time to find something that you know works? Because Brain glue, I will admit, I have never heard of Brain glue. I have never heard of this. That’s your brand. But it’s not like the.

[00:36:49.670] – James

Guest fans. I’m going to tell you the secret, and here’s the secret. You might be a logical person, but you’re passionate. I can see you’re passionate because you’re trying to come up with.

[00:36:57.520] – Sean

An answer to this. I want a formula so my can apply to their business.

[00:37:01.570] – James

To get the book, it’s got a formula. But what I’m saying is people buy for passionate reasons. When you come up with something, if you develop the software, think of Apple Computer. Who are they competing with? International Business Machines, Control Data, and they came up with Apple. Apple? Because he wanted to be human. He wanted to be.

[00:37:24.330] – Sean

Totally different than- It could have been pineapple, it could have been Orange. How would we know what fruit, in this case, would pop? Oh, apple just saw. You know what I mean? You could be trying different things and most probably won’t work. How do.

[00:37:41.370] – James

You – This is what resonates. Are you a passionate person?

[00:37:44.700] – Sean

Well, I think everybody’s passionate about something.

[00:37:47.050] – James

Okay, there you go. Zigg Ziggler told me early on because I had to learn selling. I hated selling. He said, Selling is nothing more than a transference of passion. You need to develop a name for a product or service that you’re passionate about and then it becomes easier to sell. Jack Canfield, he wanted a name that was passionate for his book, then he came up with Chicken soup for the Spirit. It didn’t really work yet. He knew. I didn’t have to tell him. You didn’t have to read the book. He knew it’s not working yet. The good news is that it’s a book.

[00:38:18.640] – Sean

Is it because Spirit is a two-syllable word and soul is singular? Or how did he arrive at soul?

[00:38:24.630] – James

He didn’t know. He said, Now I’m reading your book. He said, I’ve read your book, and now I understand how I came up with it is I knew here that it didn’t sound right.

[00:38:35.370] – Sean

It didn’t sound right. Yeah, it sounds like there’s an emotional decision. There’s a hunch and he’s taking a bet, and that bet just so happened to work.

[00:38:46.010] – James

I’ll come back to this issue. Selling is nothing more than a transference of passion. Rocky Road Ice Cream, once he had the name Rocky Road Ice Cream, he said, Ben and Jerry, do you ever see the flavors they have? The titles they use for theirs are like, whoa. It’s just- It’s fun. Yeah, and it’s fun because you’re buying ice cream. It’s like a squatty-potty, okay? I’ll pick another one. How about Porta-Pottie? The guy that developed Porta-Pottie, he’s never trademarked it. He couldn’t trademark it. I’m driving under a tunnel with my six-year-old grandson, and I say, Hey, look, what’s that? He said, Oh, it’s a Porta-Pottie. He’s six years old and he knows it’s a Porta-Pottie. They could have beentheir brand and they could have been successful. Instead, everybody calls it a nickname of the Porta Potty, because they started calling it the Porta Potty without thinking, Hey, maybe we should trademark that. But we know these things. When you come up with a name, it smells like Spirit for Kurt Cobain.

[00:39:46.900] – Sean

Kurt wasn’t. Yeah, he wasn’t trying to. I’m a rock guy, so I know these people think. It’s like you’re never coming up with something that’s going to be popular. You’re making something because you want to get something off your chest. Because you’re passionate about it. You’re passionate and you want to get something off your chest.

[00:40:02.250] – James

Exactly. But I.

[00:40:04.090] – Sean

Know what you mean. Do you walk people through a logical approach? Like, if you have a product, here’s how I would approach this, like a workshop session, because I’m going to go back to Excel here because this is where I would probably create 100 different names. I would use the hyming and the flip word and all the metaphors as I could. And then what do you do? Do you put a ranking system, like rank them one through five? Yeah, that one’s maybe a little catchier than this one, and narrow them down from there. So you take 100 down to 20, 20 down to five, and then five down to, All right, this is it. It’s going to be one of these. Is there a logical approach on how do you arrive on something that works?

[00:40:51.720] – James

Yes. If you want to take someone who’s really, really logical like you, what you do is you do a test group is what you do. You want to share it with friends and family and other people, and they’ll tell you right away, Oh. I said, sell more right away marketing strategy or brain goes? They’re brain going, Duh. They started telling me, We had so much trouble with your name because we couldn’t… Your name is James Bond, so they couldn’t even find you on Amazon because they get Sean Connery instead of you. You know Sean Connery because your name is… They said, No, we can never remember you. We love your book, but we couldn’t remember the damn name. But Brain glue is like a stick. Yes. But yeah, just because I ran an ad agency, we’d come up with a crazy name and then we’d share it with people. Then we’d share it with people and you see what they respond most to. They respond, I mean, Chicken soup for the soul. This is a book, Chicken soup for the soul. What?

[00:41:49.980] – Sean

What I would do is I would probably approach it with the Excel sheet, come up with names and options. Then that’s where I was going to ask you earlier in the episode if you use focus groups, because I’ve worked with ad agencies in the past, and you’ll come up with something and it’s like, Well, before this goes to market, we need random people, not friends or family, random people.

[00:42:10.830] – James

I want to take something because you’re an investor. I want to talk about this.

[00:42:14.880] – Sean

Of.

[00:42:15.370] – James

Course, people love Warren Buffett because he has great lines. I love his line, Only when the tide goes out do you realize who’s best let me know. I love that. But what he does, and he says this about investing is, The first thing you want to do is love the company. If you don’t love the company, then don’t invest in it. He loves Coca-Cola, so he invested in Coca-Cola. He loves the company. What’s he talking about? He’s talking about passion. He’s like the richest investor on the planet. Yet, what did he do? His buddy just died, which is a shame. But anyway. But he recognized that passion has to be a part of it. I saw this guy with a T-shirt that said, Life sucks and then you die. I’m like, No, this is life right now. It can’t suck. You have to be passionate about it. I’m a logical person who has to learn emotional selling. You’re a logical person. Most of us out there are logical, and yet passion is what drives us. I don’t buy the cheapest car that is out there, maybe a used car or blah, blah, blah. I buy a car I like.

[00:43:14.990] – James

Hey, it’s just passion drives us. You want to understand the tools of passion, and that helps you when you’re trying to sell your boss, you’re trying to sell a client over to your product or service. Yeah.

[00:43:30.550] – Sean

I understand that the process of arriving on something that has that phrasing or that imagery, that does take a lot of time and iteration. I always break the fourth wall, talk to the audience here. You approach this with caution, I would say. Don’t just come up with one phrase, go to market, and you think you’re good. Some of these exams we provided, I’m sure there are some iterations happening behind the scenes, but I see the power, but yeah, the process getting there, it’s not going to happen overnight, for sure.

[00:44:06.180] – James

Well, and I come from advertising. You got to test it. Don’t just.

[00:44:10.000] – Sean

Run- Absolutely.

[00:44:11.120] – James

-but most people, many people don’t have the money to test it. They don’t have the money to advertise like McDonald’s has and everything else. If you don’t have the money to talk to somebody, you still want an edge, you want to understand here’s the edge. Now, hopefully you’ll understand it enough that you’ll be able to apply it. That’s one of the things that I focus on with my book. There’s actually a little game that you get to play.

[00:44:35.070] – Sean

Of course. Okay. Yeah. All right, well, let’s jump into the rapid-fire round. This is the part of the episode where we get to find out who… Here we go. We get to find out who James really is. If you can try to answer each question in about 15 seconds or less. You’re ready? Okay. All right. What is your favorite podcast?

[00:44:53.710] – James

Joe Regan. I like Joe Regan. I recognized him as a comedian first. But yeah, I love Joe. Joe Regan basically says, screw you to people, meaning they don’t like who he’s interviewing or what he’s talking about. He still gets to talk about it. I think we want open minds. I heard this great idea of an open mind is like an open… Your mind is like a parachute. If it doesn’t open, you’re going to miss out or something. But we need to be inspired.

[00:45:26.210] – Sean

All right.

[00:45:26.760] – James

Second question. I love your podcast, by the way.

[00:45:28.240] – Sean

Can never-My podcast rocks.

[00:45:30.690] – Sean

I mean, hey. No, I always tell people, It can’t be mine. There’s a few other podcasts out there.

[00:45:36.220] – James

Well, we’re hard to try to get on your podcast. I saw your podcast, I listened to the episodes, and I just fell in love. I almost was late today because I was listening to one of your interviews. I mean, just no, your.

[00:45:46.980] – Sean

Podcast is off. I appreciate that. Thank you. All right, next question here. What is a recent book you read would recommend?

[00:45:54.800] – James

Predictably Irrational.

[00:45:56.300] – Sean

I love that book. Dan Ariely.

[00:45:58.080] – James

Yeah, he’s a fanatic. He’s talking about human nature. It’s like predictably irrational. You think people are going to do this, but they don’t. They do that. But that’s predictable.

[00:46:09.180] – Sean

I love Predictably Irration. Great book. All of his books highly recommend.

[00:46:12.370] – James

Yeah, and his talks.

[00:46:13.780] – Sean

All right. What is your favorite movie?

[00:46:19.120] – James

One of my favorite… I should say James Bond movies. Let me start there. I love Sean Connery.

[00:46:24.730] – Sean

I got to call you out. Which one?

[00:46:28.000] – James

What do you call it? Goldfinger. Goldfinger, me, James Bond. It was fabulous. But I love the other great movies, too. But my favorite movie, one of my favorite movies is The Martian.

[00:46:43.670] – Sean

I.

[00:46:44.510] – James

Love that movie because it’s like here he is on Mars all by himself, and he’s got to figure this. I love that. There’s so many layers. That was just great.

[00:46:51.520] – Sean

Yeah.

[00:46:52.100] – James

All right. Also, I’m hidden figures. You know hidden figures? But the three black women in NASA, if you didn’t see it, you have to see it. It’s fabulous. Hidden Figures is three women in NASA who had to work hard and became famous inventing stuff, and it gives you the beginning of the space age and all that stuff of our flying into space and stuff. But it’s a fabulous movie. Yeah.

[00:47:16.240] – Sean

All right, we’re going to deviate here a few other questions. What is the worst advice you ever received?

[00:47:22.670] – James

Be logical. I am a logical person. When I was in college, I actually… I was in mechanical engineering, and I was a bad boy because I fell in love with art, which I never had access to my right brain, that’s part of what started me, and psychology. I love psychology, and art was great. People said, Oh, you’re taking art classes. You get to have naked models. I said, William, that helps. But no, that wasn’t the reason. I was really fascinated by this whole creative side of the brain. But I loved psychology. I fell in love with psychology so much so that they said, Okay, you used up all your electives. You can’t take psychology. Any more psychology classes. I’m like, Oh, so I was a bad boy in college. I would sign up for engineering classes, and then at course change, I would go in and change into psychology classes. Eventually, after two and a half years, they’re like, Hey, Bond, you can’t be doing that. But yeah. Okay.

[00:48:17.620] – Sean

With that equation, what’s the best advice you ever received?

[00:48:22.020] – James

Selling is nothing more than a transference of passion. To me, that really resonated so much with me. It’s like, Yeah, you got to be passionate about something. Then nobody has to tell you how to sell. But you’ll know how to sell because, Oh, this is so amazing.

[00:48:35.830] – Sean

Right. Then last question here is time machine question. If you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say?

[00:48:44.810] – James

I don’t think I would, and I’ll tell you why, because I’ve had so many things happen to me in life, mistakes included. I’ve been screwed in business a few times and stuff like that. I would go, Oh, I wish I wasn’t. But I’m glad I was, because you get cocky. I work with business owners who have success, and they just think everything we touch turns to success. It doesn’t work that way. Maybe you were just lucky. I think for me, I love the learning process, and it comes from experience. If you have lots of experience, I couldn’t have come up with brain glue unless I ran into the wall where I started to realize I have no idea how to do that stuff, but I recognize that it’s really powerful. Instead of running away and hiding from it, I was passionate. The scientists in me came out and said, I got to figure this thing out. Nobody’s about this. Can I figure this thing out? I wouldn’t change anything.

[00:49:35.850] – Sean

That’s good. All right, and where can the audience reach you?

[00:49:38.880] – James

Well, the easiest place is if you go to yesbrainglue. Com. Go to Amazon. I’m on Amazon for brainglue. Com. But if you go to yesbrainglue. Com, it gives you a lot of insight about Brain Glue. It has Jack Handfield talking about it too, but it gives you insight as to what Brain Glue has and how it works and all that stuff. I think it’s blowing people’s minds. You’re missing the boat if you don’t understand Brain Glue, because brain glue is not about just selling, it’s about persuasion. It’s about selling your ideas, not just selling your products. It says once you start to understand that first, life becomes more fun because you can pick bigger issues that you wanted to sell or bigger ideas you wanted to sell, and suddenly it becomes easier and more fun to sell. But also you make a lot more money. Say, What can I say? I got so many millionaires that they… Give me feedback, please. No, for those of you who apply and start having tremendous results, it really helps to share with everybody so they understand how powerful and how easy. This is easier than most people realize.

[00:50:40.950] – James

So yesbraind glue. Com, that’ll really help.

[00:50:43.820] – Sean

Awesome. All right. Thank you so much for your time, James.

[00:50:46.460] – James

Oh, Sean, thank you so much.

[00:50:48.130] – Sean

All right. We’ll see you.

[00:50:49.430] – James

Okay, take care.

[00:50:51.090] – Sean

Hey, I’d like to say thank you for checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts out there you could be listening to, so thanks for spending some time with me. And if you have a moment, please head over to Apple Podcast and leave a five-star review. The more reviews we get, especially five-star reviews, the higher this podcast will rank in Apple. So thanks for doing that. And remember, this show is for entertainment purposes only. Only if you heard any stocks mentioned on this podcast, please do not buy or sell those stocks based solely on what you hear. All right, thanks for your time. We’ll see you.