What area in life are you struggling with today?… Good marketing will solve EVERY problem.
On this episode, Russell talks about good marketing, and why it can solve every problem in your life. He also goes over why bad marketing is destroying the Boise State Wrestling Program and how good marketing could fix it.
Here are 3 cool things you’ll learn in today’s episode:
So listen in below to discover how to solve problems in all aspects of life with the power of good marketing.
---Transcript---
Hey everyone, right now I’m actually in the middle of a carwash and this is a first for Marketing In Your Car. Alright everyone, if you guys can hear me or not, we are in the middle of a carwash. I hope you can hear this; it’s kind of loud outside. I got car washed a week ago and then I had it the other day and it rained, just drizzled a little bit, and then my cars been spotted for the last week and I’m like, you know what I’m going to go and get this washed so that it doesn’t look like I’m driving a car that’s been sitting out for the last 2 weeks or whatever.
That’s where we are at, that’s the water going over us if you can hear that. Now we’re moving to the extreme polish section. Sweet, it’s dumping tons and tons of suds all over me and there’s all these crazy lines of red, green, I feel like I’m in a disco right now. This looks awesome from the inside. This is one of those carwashes you drive in and put your car in neutral and it pulls you through the whole thing while it’s washing everything. I think my wife might be behind me. There’s a car that’s just like my wife’s behind me, which would be really weird. Who knows? Maybe she’s getting her car washed today too.
I’m driving the Corvette, so the guy was staring at me, looking at me he’s like, “Nice car.” I’m like, “Thanks.” Anyway, I have some serious stuff to talk about, but I want to wait til I can hear you and you can hear me. We’re about to pass through to the end. The final scrubbing and wax It says the element of protection is going through, now it’s rinsing off all the bubbles. And now we’re about to go through the part where they crank on the heat and the air, and it’s going to blow all this water away. And here it comes. This is my favorite part. Right now all the water is being blown up the windshield so it feels like, it’s awesome. And check that out you guys, I’ve got a car now that is clean. It’s not completely dry but it’s mostly dry. Oh here comes the last phase, oh, I see flames. Alright you guys, now we’ve experienced a carwash on Marketing In Your Car. It doesn’t get any better than that.
What I’m doing right now, it’s getting loud again. So I’m going to actually pause it for a second, because I gotta go vacuum out the inside real quick, then I got something very important to talk to you about. So that’s the game plan, I will see you guys in a few minutes here. We will pick up where we left off.
Alright, alright, we are back on the road, and ready for an amazing day. So what I want to talk about today is a very important subject, in fact it is the most important subject, arguably that you will have to learn about or think about in your life. And that is very broad, but it’s important and I’ll explain why here in a second. It’s marketing. Marketing matters. I was going to say that it’s the only thing that matters, but that’s not quite true, but it’s the only thing that matters if you want anything in life. So there you go.
Now kind of to explain this; most of you guys know, if not you need to go back and listen to all the other 5000 episodes to catch up with who I am. But, I’m a wrestler. I grew up, was a wrestler in high school, was a state champ, took 2nd place in the country, was an all American. I went to Brigham Young University for a year, wrestled there. They dropped the wrestling program, transferred to Boise State, wrestled here, finished up my wrestling career here and then later went and tried to try out for the Olympics. We kind of built an Olympic training center here in Boise Idaho. I employed half the Olympic team to wrestle when our company was at a big peak, and then the company kind of collapsed, I had to cut the program and that really sucked.
But, there’s my wrestling background in a nutshell. So I love it more than probably everyone on earth. I spent over $600,000 that year on the wrestling program and it didn’t go anywhere, which is a lot of money to throw away. But that’s how much I love wrestling. So yesterday morning I get an email from some of the wrestlers on the team and they’re talking about the Boise State coaches. I wrestled Boise State and we had two coaches. The head coach and assistant coach. The head coach, while he was a really nice guy, horrible marketer. Worst marketer on planet Earth. Can’t recruit, can’t train, can’t sell anybody in anything, somehow he got the head coach job. He’s kind of been there forever so when the old coach left they let him come in there. He’s kind of run the program into the ground, and instead of noticing that and being like, “Hey I should surround myself with great people.” He did the other thing, which is “Let me get rid of everyone around me who knows what they’re doing to make me look better.” And I had that same thing happen…….
It’s something that’s common among wrestlers and among leaders who aren’t necessarily great leaders. So instead of trying to up their skills they fire and they cut the people around them and make them look better. Which by the way, horrible management idea. To anyone that’s followed my podcast, or what I believe. I’m the other way, I surround myself with A player geniuses that are smarter than me, because they make me look good. That’s kind of the opposite. But for him the idea was, “Hey, I’m gonna cut people around me who are doing good stuff because it’ll make me look better.” So yesterday he actually fired the assistant coach, which is insane because the assistant coach ran the whole program, did all the recruiting, did everything. But because of that, it made him look bad, so instead of being grateful and appreciative to that person like he should have been, he instead fired him, so that it would make him feel more secure in his role.
Now there is a huge uproar in the wrestling community here. So I got on this email chain that went on back and forth and back and forth all day long with people who want to get our coach fired. Trying to talk to the administrator and all sorts of things. Reinstate the assistant coach in place of the head coach and all sorts of crazy things. I just mentioned really quickly, “Okay, I agree there needs to be a change. I don’t invest money in the Boise State wrestling program anymore, because of some issues. And I would love to invest money back in the program. I love wrestling, I love Boise State, but I haven’t because a lot of the issues that everyone is talking about right now.” So one of the guys messages me and he’s like, “Well as a potential investor, what things would you like to see that would make it so you would be willing to give money.” They said, “Please be brutally honest.”
So that should be an entrance way to give me the ability to say what I really believe, and then should listen, they should shut their mouths, listen because you asked me to be brutally honest. So I went through and I was brutally honest. “These are the reasons I would not give money to the Boise State Wrestling program today.” And I gave the reasons, boom, boom, boom, boom.
A marketer would have looked at that and said wow, if you guys came to the funnel hacking event, it talked a lot about how, “Here’s the 3 step process to build the business. Step 1 find a market, step 2 ask them what they want, step 3 give it to them.” So you’re trying to figure out how to get money from me, so I say here are the reasons I’m not giving you money. The smart thing a marketer would say, “Wow, he told me exactly how to sell him.” And you come back and say, “Russell, sweet. You want this, I will do this.” And you would give me what I asked you for, and I will give you money. It’s so simple. All you need to do is just listen to what I said, and then give it to me and you get free money for doing nothing. That was what should have happened.
Instead, this guy, bless him he’s a wrestling coach….I don’t know. I love wrestlers, but…….anyway, he came back on every one of the reasons why I said I don’t currently invest and instead of saying “wow, let me fix that so you will give me money for free. Came back and fought me on every single one, and insulted me on multiple of them. I was just like, “Are you freaking kidding me.” I am telling you what it will take for me to give you money and instead of saying, wow let’s do that so you will give me money. He came back and fought me on every single point, insulted me on multiple ones and basically told me I wasn’t a true wrestling fan. I was like, “Are you freaking kidding me. Four years ago I spent 600,00 on wrestling here in Boise to make Boise wrestling better. In the last 12 months I’ve spent I probably won’t say, but insane amounts of money. More than the entire budget of the Boise State wrestling team for the next five years on my own wrestling room. I love wrestling more than anyone. Period. The end.
For you to come in and attack me and insult me like that, now I sure as heck don’t want to give you money first off, second off, your problems are all business issues you’re struggling with. And you’ll have a bunch of wrestlers that don’t know anything about business trying to solve these business issues. There are a couple of people in our little community who are business owners who actually know how to build a business and help solve these problems, but instead of listening to people who actually know how to run big organizations and made tens of millions of dollars doing it, you insult them because we don’t agree how it’s been run up to this point, which obviously hasn’t been a good job and that’s why it’s gotten to the point it is today.
It was just kind of interesting to me. In all of my points, the things that I wanted so I would give them more money, were nothing like, “Russell needs a statue of himself in the wrestling room.” Although that would be pretty dang cool. All of them were like, “I didn’t know about any of the events last year. I only went to one match because I didn’t know about it. We don’t market to our own people. If me, Russell, who is obsessed with wrestling, who spent $150,000 to build his own wrestling room in his backyard, doesn’t know there’s a match coming up, there’s a problem there.
Instead of saying, “Wow, you’re right Russell. As someone who’s marketing and sold tens of millions of dollars a year in your own products and services, would you mind giving us some advice on how to market this?” I would say, “I would love to donate my time and my energy to a cause I believe in which is wrestling.” But instead they come back and say, “All the true fans know when the matches are, those who don’t we should probably try a little harder to let you guys know about it.” Are you kidding me. I’m saying I will give you more money if you will effectively market your business, that’s what I told them and instead of asking me the best way to do that, they fought back on every single one.
My dad started this All-star Match in Utah to be able to fundraise for Utah Valley Wrestling. When BYU dropped the wrestling program, I was there, they dropped the program and my dad came back and built the coalition and teamed it, “Save wrestling in Utah” and they actually started a new wrestling program called Utah Valley Wrestling at UVU. My dad’s All-star match is running for 18 years, makes about $25,000 a year through this All-star match for the thing. I said, “You guys should run an All-star match.” I told them this a couple of weeks ago, and they’re like, ”We have. We’ve run one for two years in a row.” I’m like, “Really, how much money did it make.” “Last year it did $3 grand and this year $4 grand.” And I asked how they ran it and they were running everything wrong. So I asked my dad, “This is what’s happening in the program. You’ve been running one for 19 years, what would you do differently?” and he told me, “Here’s all the issues. First off, you guys are doing it after the wrestling season, which means…..this issue, this issue….” And he went on all the issues and he talked about how he marketed it and how he got coverage in the newspapers and all this stuff. And my dad marketed it and successfully. It has become a huge fundraiser. Raised over a quarter of a million dollars for the wrestling program through this thing he did.
So one of my things was like…and Boise State, they fundraise every year by doing a golf tournament, I was like, “We’re wrestlers, we should do wresting stuff to raise money for wrestling. I’m not going to go to a golf tournament and give my money to wrestling. That’s stupid. We need to use wrestling. We need wrestling camps, with junior wrestlers coaching these camps. That’s just common sense. Things that revolve around wrestling to raise money for wrestling. We had an All-star match, apparently you guys from last year, has been a complete bomb. If you want my money we need someone to run a good allstar match. My dad has run one successfully for 19 years in Utah and raised $25,000 a year. Not one person has ever asked him how he did it. If you want me to donate my money, we’ve gotta become business owners and marketers and focus on those things.”
So Instead of him saying, “Wow, can I talk to your dad” He comes back and says, ”First off, we’ve run this thing two years in a row and it has not been a failure, it’s been a huge success.” Then he starts going and getting defensive and talking about all the reasons this thing was a big success. I didn’t even respond. I just pushed it off. I’m using this podcast as my way to vent because I was frustrated. But I was like, Okay, what constitutes success for you? Was it a good wrestling match? Probably was. Did the athletes have a good time? Yeah, probably did. Did the few people who actually knew about it have a good time? Yes, they did. So from your standpoint as a wrestling coach it was a huge success. As a business owner, making $3000 from an event like that is a huge failure, horrible failure.
If my employees ran that, I would have fired them. I’m not saying from a, we ran a good event standpoint, it wasn’t a good, I’m sure it was. But as a business venture, it was ran horribly. And just from my 5 minute conversation with my dad I know 8 things they did wrong. If they just would have asked they would have known. I didn’t even know that we had an All-star match in Idaho until I told them they should start one. Oh we have for two years. How have I never heard about it?
These guys are missing the whole point. So what I’ve found in my life, and I think its true is almost every single problem in life can be solved with good marketing. That’s it. And until people understand that and embrace that, they’re going to continue to suffer from mediocrity. Think about any aspect of your life. Let’s say you’re like, “I don’t have a girlfriend. My life sucks.” How do you fix that problem? You learn how to market yourself. That’s it. If you don’t have a girlfriend or a wife or a spouse or a husband, or whatever the issue is, it’s because you suck at marketing yourself. That’s it. Any other excuse you give yourself is just BS, you suck at marketing yourself. “No one’s coming to my business. No one’s buying my products.” There’s only one problem, you suck at marketing your products. That’s it. That’s why nobody’s coming to buy your thing. “No one’s coming to my wrestling tournaments.” Because you suck at marketing. “No athletes want to join our team. “ Because you suck at marketing.
Every problem in life can be fixed with good marketing. I’m convinced of it. I don’t care what it is. You give me any problem, anything, it’s because you suck at marketing. That’s the issue. That’s the overlying issue. I look at the problems I have in my life, even in the ones in my personal life. If I was to be completely honest and look back at myself and ask myself a question, my question was, “Russell, why are you horrible at this aspect of your life?” and if I was honest with myself it’s because I sucked at marketing myself in that aspect of my life. That’s it.
So for you guys, who may not be wrestling coaches or people who care about that, but care about other aspects of your life? If you are not successful at anything that you want to be successful today, it’s because you suck at marketing, and it’s time to up your game and start becoming a student of marketing. Someone told me one time, “Russell, you are so smart. That’s how come you’re a multimillionaire.” And I was like, “It has nothing to do with being smarter.” This guy was a doctor. I’m like, “You are a million times smarter than me, infinity times smarter than me, maybe ten infinity times smarter than me. The only difference between me and you is I focus my time and energy on something that produces cash. Marketing. You focus the same amount of effort on how to become a doctor. Unfortunately while doctors get paid a lot, you don’t get paid nearly as much as someone who focuses on marketing. It’s just how the world works.” So for those of you guys out there who want to solve any area of your life, business, relationships, everything, the most important thing you can do is up your game in marketing.
It’s time to become a student of it. It’s not time to quit dabbling like, “I read an e-book, I read the blogs…” It’s time to become a student of marketing. If you come into my office, you will see ten walls wrapped in books from top to bottom, every marketing and sales book known to man. I’ve upped my game. It’s important to me. I love marketing and if you don’t love marketing yet, it’s time to step up your game and become a student of it and to become someone who loves it. If you love marketing, you love this game; it’ll transform your life in all aspects. Business, financially, if you want to raise money for charity, whatever it is that you want to accomplish in life, all those problems, the issues, the headaches that you’re struggling with will all be solved with good marketing.
So that is my message and my rant for today. I’m hoping that the wrestling team will see the light of day. A bunch of guys are going to talk to the administrators. My goal, what I hope happens, is that they clear house, let go of everyone, bring in a new team and allow people like me and a couple of other people who run successful businesses to come in and run this thing like a business. If we do that Boise State Wrestling will be saved and become an amazing program. And guess what? Our athletes will win. And they’re not going to win by having better wrestling coaches. They’re going to win because they have better marketing. That’s how you get good recruits. You get good recruits with good marketing. You get people to show up to your matches because of good marketing. Everything comes around with marketing.
I look at guys like Dan Gable the greatest wrestler in our sport. Not only was he one of the best athletes of all time, he’s the best coach of all time. After he won the Olympics, he went and started at Iowa State became head coach of the Hawkeyes, won 23 national titles in a row. Something crazy like that, and if you go to an Iowa Hawkeye event, there’s the entire auditorium is completely filled and you’re like, “Man, How did Dan Gable do that? He must have been a really good wrestler.” Yes, he was but that’s not how you fill events. You fill events by being good marketers. You become national champs by being good marketers and recruiting the best talent in the world to where you are at. I would say Dan Gable was probably the best wrestling coach in the world, and he was definitely the best wrestler marketer in the world.
I was talking to a bunch of the guys and they talked about how a lot of schools will wrestle and they’ll ride people, they’ll turn them over and pin them. While that’s good from a wrestling standpoint, it’s not fun to watch. If they drilled them like…..if we want to get fans to show up we have to have a wrestling style that’s fun to watch. We need to dominate people; we need to push them over. If we’re going to get people to show up, this is a show. This is show business; we gotta give them a good show. You give them a good show and people show up.
So I did that, and they went from being this sport that nobody cares about, if you go to an Iowa Hawkeye event, you’re looking at 30 or 40,000 fans going nuts, because they built it as a show because Dan Gable is a good marketer. That’s it you guys. Good marketing solves all problems. Not some problems, solves all problems. That’s how I really feel. So there you go, you guys. Rant over. I’m heading into the office, get some stuff done. Go up my game with some more marketing. I gotta learn, I gotta educate and prepare. I gotta be good enough to accomplish my tasks. That’s my plan for today; I hope it is for you as well. That’s it you guys. Talk to you all again soon.