When Laurel started her business, all the “gurus” said she was crazy - and that her strategy wouldn’t work. Years later, they’re all trying to copy her - many of them have reached out and now collaborate with her.

Of course, there is another set of guru’s telling her the next move she is going to make won’t work. And years from now, they’ll be trying to copy her and reaching out hoping to collaborate.

That’s what happens when you operate from sound principles.

Makes sense, right? But it’s much harder than people realize because operating from sound principles means fighting the monkey mind - it means going against every impulse the monkey brain throws at you or tries to distract you with.

We don’t know for certain what will happen. But here’s what Laurel is going and why we think it’s brilliant.

Retention, Referrals, Raving Fans and Brand
An “Over The Shoulder Look” at Laurel’s Strategy

Laurel has been a student for many years and each year she circles back to review Retention, Referrals and Raving Fans (R3). Since she’s mastered the basics, she has moved onto the more advanced stuff. The strategy below is advanced, the basic R3 framework in the book which is free for paid subs here.

Okay. Here we go…

Yesterday Laurel posted this:

It’s a pretty standard marketing post except for a two major things:

1. The reason for the change is to maintain a quality product

2. It’s real. Even if 12,000 people wanted to enroll today, they wouldn’t be allowed to.

Why is this important?

The first one is obvious: quality.

The second is less obvious. The most powerful force in the entire market is supply and demand. It’s the line out the door and the line around the block.

The line out the door and around the block cannot be faked. Not for long anyway.

Which means in order for the most powerful force in the market to work FOR you, people HAVE to miss it. That’s right, people with their credit cards out, ready to pay have to be told…”No, we will not take your money because we are at capacity”…

And for a business owner, turning people away can be the hardest thing to do. Greed and fear creep in quickly.

”I could make more money today, though!” (greed)
“What if they go somewhere else?” (fear)

But…

If 100 people want in and you let 100 people in, there is no “line out the door”, which means the supply/demand curve is not working in your favor.

Of course…

If you’re running a business you need to make money.

The trick is finding out how many clients, customers or members you need at what price point and then:

1. Getting to that point

2. Maintaining it consistently

3. Consider capping it like Laurel is doing

4. If you want to increase supply or capacity, increase it at a rate that is lower than the demand is growing.

Again, it will be difficult to resist trying to meet the current demand. What you give up in short terms sales will come back 100x over from the product quality and growing demand.

The cool thing is that Laurel is focused on quality, primarily. Everything else above is just a byproduct of focusing on quality.

So…

Gurus call her crazy.

They call her crazy because they aren’t willing or able to override their short term fear or greed. As they continue to grow they risk quality suffering . WITHOUT letting anyone miss out, the market forces will start working against them (they will blame ad fatigue, platforms and everyone else).

Simultaneously, the market forces will start working FOR Laurel.

And they’ll be wondering how the hell she did it.

Principles in action, friends.

Live to learn. Give to earn.
Guardian Academy.

If you’re looking to advertise or improve your advertising on Facebook, Laurel is one of the few people we endorse publicly. Her program is here and it’s $7.

If you’re not interested in or ready to spend money, that’s okay. There is a ton of free marketing, advertising, sales and business development stuff here.

• Our “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here.

• The pre-req or “Starter/Self Stay Guide” to understand marketing and sales through the lens of TGA principles can be found right here.

• Most Popular Posts can be seen by clicking here.

• Social Media: Check our our new Instagram for aesthetically pleasing stuff and exclusive video clips. Twitter (Or X) for more frequent updates and insights.

• Forthcoming Event and Experience Dates can be found by clicking here. Nothing compares to being in the right room with the right people. It doesn’t have to be our room with us - just get yourself in proximity to the right people, places and things for you.

  Stay Ahead Of The Game. Subscribe:

In business, and in life, there is this erroneous concept that everything you do is taken up to chance, so you better do as much as you possibly can.

It's the whole "shoot for the stars, land on the moon" idea.

Only, if you approached rocket science with that reckless perspective, you wouldn't land on the moon, you'd likely blow up on the launch pad.

(Turns out in business and in life, that's the same)

But no one tells you this, because there's a lot more money in having you believe all you need to do is push and work and grind and spend all your money and investment on yourself to get what you want in life.

Burn the boats! They will say.

What they won't tell you (partly because most of don't know this), is that in the story of Cortez, where he burned the boats to force his men to fight, the alternative for them was returning home and facing execution.

Nothing is without risk.

BUT

There is always a more certain path.

In The Guardian Academy we often talk about this path like Google Maps. You want to go visit a cafe you haven't been to in a neighboring town. So you get in your car, fire up your Google Maps, hit a couple buttons and then you have a certain path to getting there.

What you probably don't realize,

Is that you need to both know where you are going, AND know where you are now, in order to get that path. Google can't give you directions if you don't input a destination. It also can't give you directions if you don't input a starting point. That's a line with no beginning and/or no end.

We call determining that path, The Solvable Problem™️. It's figuring out where you are, where you want to go, and the most likely path which will take you there.

Laurel Portié has done a masterful job integrating the concept of The Solvable Problem™️ into her ads strategy for businesses.

Because most businesses approach ads with this idea of "more." They have some concept of where they are starting from, and they decide they just need "more." More sales. More conversions. More opt ins.

But "more" is a bucket that can't be filled. "More" is a destination to which you cannot map a path.

And therefore you can never be "successful" (because there's nothing to measure success against).

Working in advertising is a process of navigating many distinct paths simultaneously in order to get to your destination. To do this successfully and with certainty, you must have a clear understanding of your Ads Solvable Problem in order to get there.

Let me show you what that can look like, with this excerpt from Laurel Portie’s book, Super Duper Profitable Ads.2 Laurel’s methodology, program and book are heavy in Guardian Academy principles that she reinvented and improved specifically for her domain - and has become one of the best advertising programs out there.

THE MATH PROBLEM THAT GOT ME TO MY FIRST 6-FIGURES

The sexy thing to do when you start your own business is “stick it to the man” and just go “all in” and grind 24/7. But I had bills to pay and a new wife to take care of, that was not going to be the path I wanted to start my new life with my wife on.

Instead, I carved out a simple math problem.  If I didn’t hit my numbers, I’d forget about this silly idea that I got from “workshop guy,” and I’d continue to live the glamorous life of a TV producer.

The math?

Make enough to pay my rent and my bills, which in downtown Phoenix was roughly about $3,000 a month. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you are making zero, that sounds like a great place to start.

It was realistic and it was a test. I still had my full time job as my safety net but it was also a liability because I didn’t have a lot of time to get this business going so I knew I had to be strategic with my time.

Would businesses REALLY pay me to help them grow using the strategy I was using for the various Television companies throughout the years?

There was only one way to find out, I had to find a way to have conversations with those business owners.

The initial math was easy.  If I needed to make $3,000/month to pay for my bills, I needed to bring in 6 clients each at $500/month.

$3K/Month = 6 ad clients at $500/month

The next math problem was an equation I needed to solve, but once I had the data, it would be easy to solve over and over again.

How many people do I need to talk to in order to sell 6 of them into my ad services?

The equation:

Talk to ____ people = 6 ad clients

I created a strategy that revolved around the 2 things I knew best… video and talking to people. One thing that I learned from some of the best sales people in the television advertising industry is that conversations are the fastest path to cash.  I’ll say that again in bold, because it’s a super important concept that not a lot of people take advantage of.

CONVERSATIONS ARE THE FASTEST PATH TO CASH.

Let’s unpack that for a minute. 

If conversations are the fastest path to cash, why do so many coaches and consultants build huge, elaborate funnels that put so much friction in between them and their ideal clients?

That was a concept I never understood.

So while all my competitors who wanted to do ads for business owners spent time and money building funnels, I focused on a simple strategy that would bring me face to face with my ideal clients, faster and with the least amount of friction.**

For the next 90 days, I consistently created content, posted, and had conversations until I had 100 zoom calls.

MAGIC MATH

After the 90 days, I went back and counted every post, every comment and every messenger conversation that led to getting those 100 zoom calls.

Here’s where the magic math comes into play after 90 days of data.  I can now fill in ALL the blanks in this math problem.

I need _______ zoom calls to sell 6 people.

I need ________ messenger conversations to get on ____ zoom calls.

I need ________ comments to get ______ messenger conversations.

I need ____ posts to get ________ comments.

After knowing this data, I highlighted the types of posts that led to the most comments and only did those types of posts the following month. 

I was able to get 4X the amount of business owners reaching out to me by doing LESS posts.

I have repeated that same math equation every quarter.  Now, with reliability, I can repeat those same actions again and again and get the same, if not better results every single time because I am optimizing to get more conversations with less work.

The process sounds simple, but it’s not easy.

I always tell my students, if you can consistently do this every 90 days, the “magic math” will continue to work in your favor.  The problem is that most people are too lazy to track the data or they want results FASTER.

Remember this.

It’s not 90 days to success (as most gurus will promise…) it’s 90 days to data.  

After I achieved my “magic math” problem, I optimized (did more of the things that worked) the heck out of it the following 90 days and got even BETTER results.

Good news for those of you who are reading this book.  There’s a much faster way to get the data you need.

Little did I know… The answer to accelerating this ENTIRE process that took me from zero to my first (and second) six figures, was sitting right in front of me, the whole time.

I was teaching it to everyone, but neglecting to use this little accelerator, myself.

WHOMP WHOMP*

Are you ready to learn my secret formula to putting this powerful $5 ad together?

Let’s get to work!

The Guardian Academy Principles Applied:

Solvable Problem3

Raise the Floor4 (minimum effective dose / what is enough)

Engage the Field5

Laurel's Ad Strategy is built around FIRST gathering all the data you need in order to solve your problem, and THEN running the ads which will solve that problem.

Most people skip the first step. They don't even understand the problem they are trying to solve, let alone how to build the equation which will allow them to solve it.

Don't be like most people.

If you think paid advertising may help your business grow, Slow Down. Figure out your Solvable Problem. And then go Engage the Field to gain the data you need.

If you'd like a useful FRAMEWORK for finding your Solvable Problem™️ and creating certainty with your ads strategy, Laurel has a very low barrier/cost of entry program built from TGA principles, Ad Coaching for $7.6

Laurel Portié is a Guardian and has been a student of our founder for the last five years. Recently, they did a free training condensing everything Laurel has learned and implemented into five days. All five days are available for free here:

2024withLaurel.com

Subscribe now

• Our “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here.

• The pre-req or “Starter/Self Stay Guide” to understand marketing and sales through the lens of TGA principles can be found right here.

• Most Popular Posts can be seen by clicking here.

• Social Media: Check our our new Instagram for aesthetically pleasing stuff and exclusive video clips. Twitter (Or X) for more frequent updates and insights.

• Forthcoming Event and Experience Dates can be found by clicking here. Nothing compares to being in the right room with the right people. It doesn’t have to be our room with us - just get yourself in proximity to the right people, places and things for you.

Here is a collection of ebooks and PDFs for business growth and development. Most of the content is evergreen. R3 is a simplified and published version of R3 (Retention, Referrals and Raving Fans). The 13 Letter issues span from 2020 to 2021.

Please note that many links will be old, outdated and broken.

Retention, Referrals and Raving Fans by Nic Peterson 
R3 is a high level overview of Allegiance Capital and how to create raving fans and referrals while increasing retention with a few extraordinary touch points. Originally taught live as R3” Retention, Referrals and Raving Fans, Dan G simplified it down to a book. 

R3: Retention, Referrals and Raving Fans

1.14MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Stealth Influence Content Mastery Implementation Guide:

Stealth Influence Guide

234KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Stealth Influence Content Mastery Workbook:

Stealth Influence Workbook (5)

104KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

THE LETTER Archive by Nic Peterson
13 Issues of "The Letter" the discontinued direct mail newsletter that was $97 a month. Please note that many links will be old, outdated and br…

Read more

The community has asked for sales training while also struggling with the volume of conversations suggested in the program. Both are addressed below.

On sales (since it seems to be a sticking point for many):

First, the sexy:

I’ve sold

• $2,000

• $10,000

• $15,000

• $25,000

• $45,000

• $60,000

• $100,000

• $108,000 (weird number, I know)

Without a phone call or a conversation.

BUT

Here is the caveat (and the most important part of that fact)…

The ONLY way to do that consistently is to have more conversations than you can probably fathom right now.

And…

I get if you don’t want to talk to strangers all day, but if you NEVER want to talk about what you do, there is probably something off/misaligned.

• Maybe you don’t actually want to help people

• Maybe you don’t actually know how to answer their questions or help them

• Maybe you don’t care about what you do and its just a money grab

• or any other number of other things…

No judgement, I just think it’s important to understand why there is so much resistance

To get to the point where you do not have to have as many conversations, you have to have a LOT of them up front. Since you HAVE to have a lot of them, it might be best to NOT swim upstream while doing so.

Here’s a super simple framework (Ive taught at Laurel’s event before) to help navigate the convo (phone, zoom or messenger):

The Framework

CASE

1. Compile.
Ask questions about their situation. Get all the relevant data. To give someone a suggestion without the relevant data being collected is malpractice - so you should do this anyway.

People that give advice without collecting information first *generally* look amateur to sophisticated buyers. Even if you already know everything you need to know to make a suggestion, compile anyway. It will give the prospect an understanding that they are being heard and you might discover something new about them.

2. Analyze.
Tell them something along the lines of: “let me take a moment to analyze this information to chart the most efficient path forward for you.” This implies you’re thoughtful and your suggestion is custom to them by making it clear it’s not a copy/paste job.

Then, it would be wise to actually take some time to analyze their situation. More on this shortly.

3. Strategize.
Lay out a step by step strategy they can implement that will solve their problem. Everything they need, everything they don’t need. Everything they haven’t thought about that they should look out for. List out the things they will need help with and the thing they think they need help with but they don’t.

^ This step alone puts out tremendous amount of goodwill.

4. Execute.
Send them on their way to execute the plan.
They will likely ask something along the liens of: “can you help with me this?”
and, in the list of things they will need help in the Strategize section, you can put yourself/your product/service/tool on the list - so it may be a necessary evil to implement the plan you gave them.

In this scenario, they see that they need your thing and have the full context as to where it fits and why it’s important to the bigger picture strategy.

This is not a new strategy, it’s a basic diagnostic/consultative sales strategy - but in my experience it’s a structured way to :

1. make sales smooth

2. put out a ton of goodwill

3. identify the patterns that turn into marketing material(s).

This is selling from a place of presence instead of pressure.**

In my experience, it works better for most people and it generally has a longer shelf life - the goodwill from presence creates a positive flywheel in the same way that the damage from high pressure creates a negative flywheel.

Hope that’s helpful.

If not, disregard 

Additional Thoughts

**On Pressure: All purchase decisions are a byproduct of pressure. The difference between selling from a place of presence and selling from a place of pressure is the source of the pressure.

When you sell from a place of pressure, the pressure to purchase is external - it’s coming from you. When you sell from a place of presence the pressure is internal, it comes from inside of them.

Delivery:

You can apply the CASE framework to sales in messenger, on phone calls, in person or pretty much any other medium.

Here is my personal favorite application:

The Diagnostic

Generally, I don’t recommend calling it a diagnostic. Blueprint, roadmap, GPS, etc all sound more compelling - but they’re basically the same thing. It’s made up of two phone calls, in person visits or conversations:

1. Conversation #1:

   1. Compile: The only purpose of this convo is to compile relevant data/info. No consulting, coaching, or suggestions.

2. Time between conversations

   1. Analyze: “I am going to take a day or two to sleep on this, wrestle with it, maybe make some phone calls and think deeply about the most efficient path forward for you.”

3. Conversation #2:

   1. Strategize: Lay out the strategy, cover everything you can think of. The most important parts of this are:

      1. The list of things they will not need. This will save them time and money immediately.

      2. The list of things they will need on their journey. You can put your own product or service on this list. You can also give them recommendations as to where to get the resources recommended, yourself being one of them.

At the end of the conversation, give them the roadmap as if to send them on their way.

Here’s why I like this…

There is a clear start, a clear end and a clear deliverable. The sales process itself is built like a high quality product (if you get good enough at it, you can charge for the diagnostic piece). Because it has a clear “end” it doesn’t feel like a weird sales call, just a delivered product and, in order to recognize the benefits from it, they’ll have to follow the steps you’ve laid out.

Those steps should have your product or service baked into them IF it really is the best option for the prospect. If your product or service is not the best option for them, I would recommend telling them that and telling them why.

There are nearly infinite ways to make a sale. I’d be wary of any “one method to rule them all” nonsense.

This is the one I prefer because it feels the most helpful and complete. It can also become a high value product in and of itself. Guardians and Success Circle Members will get a deep dive and workshops on how to turn the sales process into a product (which means people paying you to have a sales conversation).

Comments are enabled for paid subscribers to “engage the field”, ask questions and share their experiences.
**Any comments not directly related to this post will be be deleted. **

• Our “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here.

• The pre-req or “Starter/Self Stay Guide” to understand marketing and sales through the lens of TGA principles can be found right here.

• Most Popular Posts can be seen by clicking here.

• Social Media: Check our our new Instagram for aesthetically pleasing stuff and exclusive video clips. Twitter (Or X) for more frequent updates and insights.

• Forthcoming Event and Experience Dates can be found by clicking here. Nothing compares to being in the right room with the right people. It doesn’t have to be our room with us - just get yourself in proximity to the right people, places and things for you.

Live to learn. Give to earn.
Guardian Academy

Here's the thing.

If you've got a business and you're thinking about running ads, whether it's to sell a course, sell your coaching, sell a physical product, an info product, whatever it is ...

I'm willing to bet that you'd really like to make that happen NOW.

The human mindset is like that.

We see a possibility, we want it immediately.1

Our world experience of "get everything we want as soon as possible" makes that all the more real because we're so used to getting everything right away.

This causes two problems.

One - you enter into your ads strategy with an expectation that you're going to get results FAST.

Two - when the results you get don't match up with your expectation, you think you've failed, the strategy has failed, something isn't working and you give up.

We see these problems repeat in a multitude of domains. Advertising included. It holds you back from gaining the real tangible extremely valuable benefit that you can receive from a proven system.

What can you do?

Shift your perspective.

Your goal, especially when you start running ads for the first time (but really anytime you are testing something new), is NOT to make a successful ad ...

It's to collect data.

I know, I know. You want the shortcut. THIS IS THE SHORTCUT.2

The data that you need in order to clearly define the path you are going to take with your ads strategy.

Let me show you what that can look like, with this excerpt from Laurel Portie’s book, Super Duper Profitable Ads3: Laurel’s methodology, program and book are heavy in Guardian Academy principles that she reinvented and improved specifically for her domain - and has become one of the best advertising programs out there.

Anyway, here we go…

90 DAYS TO DATA

When I started out, I made it my goal to talk to 100 business owners over a zoom call over 90 days.

I was going to lure them in with Facebook live videos, the only problem… I needed to figure out how to get these videos in front of those business owners.

Over that next week, I went LIVE on Facebook every single day and I found local chamber groups who would allow me to post my videos as long as I didn’t promote my services, which was cool…

But I kept wondering, how will I make money if I can’t promote?

What I started doing, was just adding a whole bunch of business owners as friends.

AHA! I thought…Surely the requests for me to hop on a free zoom call with them would start piling in as soon as they started seeing my content.

Cue Sad Trombone

That wasn’t the case at all.  My videos were hardly being seen by anyone.

I had to figure out a way for my videos to get MORE reach, MORE engagement and most importantly… more conversations with business owners.

I noticed a strategy that was very popular at the time by multi-level marketers.  They called them “comment ladders.”  They would ask people if they wanted to see how they could work from home and make a “gazzilion dollars.”

The comments came pouring in on every single post I saw.  

That got me thinking…what if I used the same concept in my videos? 

If I gave something away of value during my live video….would my ideal clients comment to get it so that my video would get more reach and most important, more engagement?

Sure enough. 

Within just 7 days, my videos were getting 50+ comments of business owners wanting everything from advertising checklists to strategy, and they even started raising their hands for a free strategy session.

I was finally starting to get some traction. 

Every morning I woke up at 5am and went live.  I took free strategy calls during my lunch hour and then planned my next day’s content.  The entire process took me about 3 hours a day on top of my normal day job.

I’m telling you this, because I am no one special. 

I didn’t have any extra time in my day. 

I created a math problem that I could easily solve with the right strategy.  It wasn’t perfect. Most of the time I rolled outta bed with bad hair, but I was disciplined in my simple little strategy.

Everyday I planned my videos, added business owners as friends and consistently went live.  

It wasn’t until later that summer, when I applied a little copywriting framework that took my video strategy to the next level, that I quickly hit my 100 zoom call goal, booking myself out with Facebook ad clients who were looking for a more budget-friendly strategy.

A little nuance you may have missed in my story… I only focused on one number. That was getting 100 zoom calls with ideal clients.

Here is a visual recap of what I did for those 90 days.

Step 1. I went LIVE on Facebook, teaching an ads tactic or strategy.

Step 2. I asked people to comment for a free checklist/cheat sheet that I now call a “value bomb”

Step 3. I reached out to everyone who had commented in messenger and asked them a few questions to help them diagnose an ads problem they were currently having.

Step 4. I proposed a free ad audit with everyone, while giving them the checklist or cheat sheet they were asking for under my LIVE video.

Step 5. I had free 15-20 minute zoom calls with people who booked.

Step 6. I sent everyone who asked to work with me a paypal link

The steps above are actually a sales funnel, it’s just not the typical sales funnel that most gurus talk about.  That exact sales funnel made me my first and second six figures and didn’t cost me a dime.

People make excuses that they don’t have “this or that” and that’s why they aren’t successful, but the secret to success really depends on 2 things.

1. Being specific in your goal and having a measurable number attached to that goal

2. Only doing the activities that lead to that goal over and over again.

I did the same exact things for 90 days, over and over again.

When something didn’t work, I optimized it and tried it again. I didn’t change my goal, nor did I change the specific activity.  I focused on optimizing the activity that I was doing, over and over again until I got the result I wanted.

Because of the 90 days of consistency, I now have data that reveals a winning formula that I can replicate again and again.

The lesson?

Don't make successful profitable ads your goal.

Make consistency for 90 days your goal. (This is making the process your goal)

You WILL succeed. You WILL get data.

And you will find the right path if you follow through.

If you'd like a useful FRAMEWORK for that consistency with your ads strategy, Laurel has a very low barrier/cost of entry program built from TGA principles, Ad Coaching for $7.4

Laurel Portie is a Guardian and has been a student of our founder for the last five years. Recently, they did a free training condensing everything Laurel has learned and implemented into five days. All five days are available for free here:

2024withLaurel.com

• Our “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here. The pre-req or “Starter/Self Stay Guide” to understand marketing and sales through the lens of TGA principles can be found right here.

• Most Popular Posts can be seen by clicking here.

• Social Media: Check our our new Instagram for aesthetically pleasing stuff and exclusive video clips. Twitter (Or X) for more frequent updates and insights.

• Forthcoming Event and Experience Dates can be found by clicking here. Nothing compares to being in the right room with the right people. It doesn’t have to be our room with us - just get yourself in proximity to the right people, places and things for you.

Like anything, mastering marketing, advertising and sales requires a based-knowledge from which to reason.

Below is the pre-req/base knowledge for The Success Circle, a business development curriculum and mastermind based on TGA principles. Studying, reviewing, and practicing these concepts will improve all of your marketing efforts.

1. Bumpers: The foundation of figuring out where you’re at and where you want to be. Bumpers will help give your pursuits meaningful direction.

   1. Buy on Amazon

   2. Download free copy

2. Engaging The Field: The ONLY way to be successful in business (or anything else that matters) is to step into the Arena and Engage The Field. This is one of the most important workshops and resource collection of all.

   1. Engage The Field Free Workshop and Resources

3. Learning and Intelligence: A practical definition of intelligence, how to learn and why smart people have a hard time learning.

   1. Teaching Smart People How To Learn

   2. Open Loops

   3. Learning and Intelligence

4. The Adaptive Dilemma: Technical problems x solutions, adaptive problems x solutions and how important it is to know what you’re dealing with and how to approach it.

   1. Part 1 Read, watch or listen

   2. Part 2: read, watch or listen

   3. Part 3: read, watch or listen

5. The Two Tyrants of Leadership: Most people get knocked out of the game of growth by the Two Tyrants of Leadership. We learned this from Bill Gate’s senior advisor in the 90’s.

   1. Read and watch

6. Frequency, Intensity, Purpose: Finding purpose, re-discovering motivation and a process to do both.

   1. Watch

7. The Rocky Road (From Action to Intention): Ever wonder why the best products don’t always win? The best communicators do, and communication with peers is very different than communication with a market. Understanding the Rocky Road can help make you a master communicator (and marketer)

   1. Watch

   2. Read

The rest of the business/marketing/sales foundations are in the free five training linked below:

Additional Resources:

A Swift Kick In The Pants by Laurel Portie (Audio)

You can see these principles in action in the FREE five day free training with Nic Peterson and Laurel Portie at 2024withLaurel.com

Be in the room for workshops, events and more: GuardianDates.com

Digital workshops for paid subscribers and ambassadors1:

We recommend that you actively engage the field2; don’t just read, watch and listen but journal, observe and implement.

Live to learn. Give to earn.
Guardian Academy

Subscribe now

• Our “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here.

• The pre-req or “Starter/Self Stay Guide” to understand marketing and sales through the lens of TGA principles can be found right here.

• Most Popular Posts can be seen by clicking here.

• Social Media: Check our our new Instagram for aesthetically pleasing stuff and exclusive video clips. Twitter (Or X) for more frequent updates and insights.

• Forthcoming Event and Experience Dates can be found by clicking here. Nothing compares to being in the right room with the right people. It doesn’t have to be our room with us - just get yourself in proximity to the right people, places and things for you.

Part of the new marketing and advertising section of the Guardian Academy will simply be publishing real-time data from our companies, partners and Guardians.

We’re kicking that off today with an “over the shoulder” look.

A couple weeks ago, we helped Laurel Portie kick off a five day free training. Then, the recording were archived as an “evergreen” version.

The Landing Page:
(2024withlaurel.com)

The landing page is simple. We find that trying to get cute or creative with copy can be more a distraction than anything.

Opt-Ins:

1,011 opt-ins. This is entirely organic, so Laurel did no pay for the leads. Laurel just turned on a little bit of paid traffic, so we will be able to provide/publish that a data later.

Here’s the magic (and it’s super simple):

Email #1 Open Rates:

88.5% of emails were opened, 57.5% clicked and 28.2% replied. Obviously, email is NOT dead. But… it also can’t be done without thought.

How and Why Email Open Rates and Engagement are so high:

Like we said, super simple.

It starts with the confirmation page:

First, the ONLY way you can get the thing you want is to go dig it out of your email.

Second, they were told the subject line and who the email was from so they could go search for it and open it immediately. Even if it ended up in spam or an “other” folder, they were told exactly how to find it.

Third, they sequence was set up so that you only get the second email if you open the first. You only get the third if you open the second, and so on. After setting it up, it’s made explicit on the page:

“…go and find it in your inbox and OPEN IT.

If you do not OPEN IT, you will NOT get the next email with all of the replays, resources and bonuses.”

And that’s it.

Little things, but important things.

The more emails that get opened, engaged with and replied to, the higher probability of good deliverability later on. In this case, the email is not selling anything so it’s not a “make more money now” thing, it’s is a version of protecting the golden goose - email deliverability. (That’s also why it doesn’t send emails unless the previous one was opened)

Key principle:Allegiance Capital
You can learn allegiance capital in the five day training above or a version of it here.

• Simple landing page

• Reason to go open email as soon as possible on the confirmation page

• Make it easy to find the email by telling them the subject line and the address it came from

More Interesting Data

The first email in the sequence gets an 88.5% open rate.

The open rate and engagement on the second email in a sequence is typically a byproduct of what the first one said to or did for them. We would expect to see open rates lower with each email as people get busy, distracted, etc.

Here’s the stats for email #2 in the sequence:

Again, the evidence suggests email is NOT dead, as long as it’s thoughtful.

Hypothesis:

Our hypothesis is that the open rates will decrease with paid traffic. 88% is absurdly high and we would expect a regression toward the industry average. However, we also expect the open rates to stay well above industry average.

If you want the published results straight to you inbox, subscribe to marketing and advertising section of this newsletter.

If not, don’t =)

In the meantime, go through your communications and look for little hinges that can swing much bigger doors.

The strategies above are derived from TGA principles including, but not limited to:

• Scientific Orientation > Dogmatic Orientation (The Adaptive Dilemma1)

• Stealth Influence

• Allegiance Capital

• Micro-Stepping

How to learn more about marketing and advertising using TGA principles:

• 2024WithLaurel.com

• TGA Ambassador program

Live to learn. Give to Earn.
Guardian Academy

• Our “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here.

• The pre-req or “Starter/Self Stay Guide” to understand marketing and sales through the lens of TGA principles can be found right here.

• Most Popular Posts can be seen by clicking here.

• Social Media: Check our our new Instagram for aesthetically pleasing stuff and exclusive video clips. Twitter (Or X) for more frequent updates and insights.

• Forthcoming Event and Experience Dates can be found by clicking here. Nothing compares to being in the right room with the right people. It doesn’t have to be our room with us - just get yourself in proximity to the right people, places and things for you.

The marketing and advertising section will be heavy in marketing and advertising (duh). Every now and then we will break the rules and post something that we believe will be immediately useful to a handful of Guardians.

With his permission, we are re-posting an article from Nic Peterson from this Cash Now Strategies stash:

This was posted previously but never sent as an email. It’s being sent as an email now because I am breaking all the rules.

Read about the Letter. It will be obvious how it’s breaking the rules of the “creator economy”. Then, circle back and read below, which explain why I love breaking the rules.

Read about the Letter here.

Breaking the rules isn’t new. See below, another excerpt from the old/retired direct mail newsletter:

Cash Now: Placement and Social Proof

I’m in the middle of building a top-secret program. Part of the process is tracing my steps from the day I opened my first business until now.

What I'm looking for are the levers that led to quantum leaps so I can dissect them and extract the core principles. Then, apply the same principles to the industries I am currently in.

Of course, I’ll also be breaking down the things that I missed. I would have made different decisions then if I knew what I know now. If I can pass it along to you, it might save you some time, effort, and energy.

As I was compiling information, I came across and set of old photos of Christmas cards hanging in my office. It triggered some glorious memories, so I crafted up this email:

Subject: That Time I Was A Total Idiot And Didn't Get A Return On My Investment.

Dan Kennedy always tells the story of a beauty brand that was struggling. They went to all the beauty trade shows and were advertising in all the beauty magazines they were "supposed to" be in. Yet, they couldn’t figure out why they weren’t getting ahead in the industry.

Well, it’s tough to get ahead when you do the same thing as everyone else, no? [I’ll share how they found the magic bullet for the business in a few minutes]

Years ago, before I had any B2B or coaching/consulting stuff, I still owned a majority of my nutrition company. We were doing well enough that we could pick and choose how we wanted to market and who we wanted to market to. In the nutrition space, we were somewhere between “a little too high” and "outrageously high" priced.”

Anyway, it occurred to me that I should join a high-ticket mastermind for high-ticket internet marketers. I had no intention of changing the price or internet marketing, so the idea was met with some resistance:

Do we really want to learn Internet marketing or be like Internet marketers? Why wouldn’t we join a program or mastermind specifically for fitness professionals?

No, of course, we don’t want to be like internet marketers. And no, I am not interested in joining a program specifically for our niche.

Counterintuitive?

Stick with me here.

I paid about $40,000 for the mastermind, broken into payments of about $3,400 a month.

I didn’t watch their training modules.

I didn’t show up to most of the live calls.

And I never downloaded their share funnels or built the strategy they were teaching.

All I did was show up to events.

I heard things like, "Bro, your stuff is so cheap, how can you even make money?" And... "Are you even getting a return? You don't even have an offer that would make sense for this mastermind." [This is also when I realized that I was making way more than them at the time. They couldn’t figure out HOW it was possible to make profits with a model other than their own. Which should have been an obvious red flag.]

At the time, our offer was a $1,500 setup fee for the first month of front-loaded support and then $900 a month ongoing. We had never paid for traffic or needed salespeople and had 300-400 active clients at any given time.

I attended four events that year and enrolled seventeen people from those events into our program. It was an easy sell because $1,500 was “so underpriced" to this market. It was also non-competitive with anything or anyone else in the room. It was a solution they didn't have but might benefit from.

So... ...I was paying $3,400 a month.

Enrolled 17 members at $1,500 setup each and a year of support at $900 a month.

17 x $1500 = $25,500 in set-up fees
17 x $900 = $15,300 a month recurring

That means we spent $40,000 and made $210,000. That doesn't account for the second, third, and subsequent years they stayed on as clients. It doesn't count the referrals they sent.

So... You tell me. How did I make money which such a cheap offer? How did I get a return since I wasn’t blindly following their strategy?

There are a few lessons here.

The first is the conclusion to the Dan Kennedy story:

I am paraphrasing here, but he calls it his “placement strategy”.

He told them:

“Go set up your beauty supply table somewhere like a farm equipment convention. They have money to spend, there is nothing else like it thers and you will stand out in a big way. Also, many of the people there had to be away from their families for a weekend. They’ll want to be sure to bring something home to the wifey.”

Second, what makes sense to most people doesn’t make any sense to a strategic mind and vis versa.

Most people get stuck on the form of a thing; how it looks, the labels, the name. A strategic mind focuses on the function of a thing.

Had I joined a fitness-specific mastermind, I wouldn't have gotten any clients from it because I’d have been selling a similar thing as them and at a much higher price. Best-case scenario, I would be learning the same strategy as everyone else...

If I implemented what I learned I would be more like everyone else - which is the exact opposite of what I want.

The best place to be, strategically, is often where you think you don’t belong. And if you get it right, it won’t make sense to anybody else.

If you need to learn skills, learning them from others that have done it can shortcut your process. But if you already have the skills, think about breaking away from others doing the same thing.

Placement matters.

If you are doing the same thing in the same place as everyone else, placement is likely working against you.

Can see little half-brained action there, no? This is the challenge I am facing - transferring concepts from one domain to another in a way that is palatable and high utility to you. I think I’m up for it.

**READ: This post called “Half-Brained” and the below section will make more sense to you.

For now, let’s just talk placement, duality and inversion.

Placement, Duality and Inversion

The concept is super simple. What is your industry doing? And what is the opposite? here is an example":

See.

Simple.

Some of the inversion may not make sense - but that’s okay. You are training a muscle/ developing the skill of inversion. I would do this to every aspect of your business. It will make you a better problem solver.

And it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone except your bank account.

You can also just list strategies your competitors are deploying and invert them:

This could go on for hundred of columns. Grab a pencil and some paper and get to work. Or, you can just download and print these:

Inversion

57.7KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Onward

Nic

Core Guardian Academy Principles at play:

• Function Over Form (and functional fixedness)1

• Invert/Inversion (Advanced TGA Concepts)

If you need help, drop into an event2 and we’re happy to talk through what this looks like for you. If you’re just getting started, we will have more for you soon, you can also check out the free stuff Nic and Laurel put together to help small business owners put together a marketing and sales plan for 20243

Live to Learn. Give to Earn.
Guardian Academy

Welcome to the Marketing and Advertising section of the Guardian Academy.

These are key skillsets to learn for business owners looking to increase their income, reach and/or impact through their business.

The section will have strategies, tactics, lessons and tools from the team, partners and Guardians of the Guardian Academy about marketing, advertising and sales. We have some world class marketers inside the Guardian Academy that have agreed to share their insights and strategies derived from Guardian Academy principles.

FIRST….

If you want to learn marketing and advertising in order to increase your intelligence, it’s helpful to be clear on how you define learning and intelligence.

This article breaks down the most useful and practical definitions of both we’ve ever seen.

Adopting the definition in the article above will likely lead to much better results.

Posting Schedule:

At this time there is no posting schedule. Once we find a cadence, it will be shared here.

At least once a month we will be posting a breakdown of the marketing sane advertising strategies and metrics we are using to grow the Guardian Academy.

If you want to master the core principles/operating system these strategies were derived from, you can subscribe to and study the main Guardian Academy page and curriculum.

**IMPORTANT UPDATE**

**The Marketing and Advertising Section got so much demand, we decided to split it out into a separate publication. This allows us to increase the frequency of posting without flooding the inboxes of those that do not find it relevant to them, right now.**

See the new publication here

Guardian Principles Applied: Marketing and Advertising

Learn how to market, advertise, sell, and grow your business using Guardian Academy Principles.

By TGA Marketing and Advertising

Over The Shoulder:

We will have Guardian Laurel Portie run her ad strategy1 for the Guardian Academy and publish updates - strategy, tactics, metrics, etc - monthly so you can see what we are doing, why we are doing it and how it’s working.

Jospeh Robertson, the Guardian Academy writer will be sharing his copywriting and content writing tips, tricks and secrets.

Resources:

2024 With Laurel Five Day Free Training

Guardian Laurel Portie and TGA founder Nic Peterson did a did free five day training on how Guardian Academy Principles help Laurel build a 7-figure business and lay the foundation for you sales and marketing game plan for 2024. The recordings and resources are free. You’ll pick up the TGA principles and see their application immediately:

GET ACCESS HERE

Laurels book2 is a great place to start for those looking to start tinkering with or scaling paid advertising. Bumpers3 is the foundation of building anything new.

Pre-Req/Self Study Resources

If you want to learn how to market and advertise using TGA principles, the pre-req to get started is a self study resource you can get for free right here.

We will be adding more resources soon, be sure to check back.

Live to learn. Give to Earn.
Guardian Academy.

PS. Bonus marketing, sales and audience growth resources will be available to paid subscribers and ambassadors4. You can learn more about the ambassador program in the footnotes.

• Our “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here.

• Most Popular Posts can be seen by clicking here.

• Social Media: Check our our new Instagram for aesthetically pleasing stuff and exclusive video clips. Twitter (Or X) for more frequent updates and insights.

• Forthcoming Event and Experience Dates can be found by clicking here. Nothing compares to being in the right room with the right people. It doesn’t have to be our room with us - just get yourself in proximity to the right people, places and things for you.

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