July 16, 2025 • 33 mins
Maxwell Finn is an accomplished marketer, entrepreneur, and investor with over a decade of experience in digital marketing. He was one of the first advertisers on both Facebook and TikTok, becoming a go-to expert in scaling businesses with paid ads. His journey started with his first e-commerce company, Startup Drugz, which he grew rapidly before selling it to Russell Brunson, founder of ClickFunnels.
Maxwell then co-founded Quantum Media, a full-service digital marketing agency with Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank. There, he led successful ad campaigns for major clients like 3M, Goodwill, and Sam’s Club. Today, he owns a portfolio of businesses, including agencies, e-commerce brands, and SaaS companies, generating over $250 million in direct revenue for clients and training over 10,000 marketers.
A sought-after speaker, Maxwell has shared his expertise at top events like Traffic & Conversion Summit and Social Media Marketing World. He’s also created educational programs for industry leaders like DigitalMarketer, ClickBank, and Kajabi, helping thousands master paid advertising and digital marketing strategies.
Interview Questions:
- The power of getting to “no” and why it’s essential in client relationships
- How brilliant brands stand out—and how you can apply the same strategies
- Lessons from Liquid Death’s unconventional rise to success
- The compounding advantage of entrepreneurship over time
- How to identify and choose the right mentor to accelerate business growth
- Why doing what others won’t do is the shortcut to hyper success
- The critical advantage of being first in your market or niche
- How human illogical behavior can be leveraged for business success
Resources:
https://www.maxwellfinn.com/
https://unicornadsmanager.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, thanks for joining us today.
Super excited you could be here because today
we're talking about really honestly one of my
favorite topics, which is basically how to get
(00:43):
customers in the door in a scalable way
through ads.
But this conversation is going to take a
unique and different turn because we're gonna be
talking about ads and basically buying psychology in
a way that we've never done so before.
So with us today to have a conversation
is Maxwell Finn.
Now Maxwell is an accomplished marketer, entrepreneur, and
investor with over a decade of experience in
(01:03):
digital marketing.
He's one of the first advertisers on both
Facebook and TikTok becoming a go-to expert
in scaling businesses with paid ads.
And his journey started with his first e
-commerce company, Startup Drugs, which he grew rapidly
before selling to Russell Brunson, founder of ClickFunnels.
Now Maxwell then co-founded Quantum Media, a
full-service digital marketing agency with Kevin Harrington
(01:25):
from Shark Tank.
And there he led successful ad campaigns for
major clients, including 3M, Goodwill, and Sam's Club.
Today he owns a portfolio of businesses, including
agencies, e-commerce brands, and SaaS companies, generating
over $250 million in direct revenue for clients
and training over 10,000 marketers.
Now a sought-after speaker, Maxwell has shared
(01:47):
his expertise at top events like Traffic and
Conversion Summit, Social Media Marketing World as well.
He's also created educational programs for industry leaders
like Digital Marketer, ClickBank, and Kajabi.
Now helping thousands master paid advertising and digital
marketing strategies.
Maxwell, what's up, man?
It's good to see you.
Oh man, I wanted to stop you so
bad.
I was like, 10 seconds in, I hate
(02:08):
hearing my intro.
It's funny because I've seen you at all
these places, like everywhere it is.
I'm like, oh, I've seen you there.
I've seen you there.
You're a brilliant guy, man.
You know your stuff.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, it's like my worst part.
One of the things I used to do
with webinars and why I hated doing them
so much was just the formula you had
to follow.
We hired a consultant seven years ago or
(02:28):
something like that to come in and help
us with our webinar and our pitch for
one of our offers.
And it was like, here's the slides and
you need to make sure you say this
and ask this.
And there is a science behind it.
There are things, if you listen to guys
like Russell talk about it, getting people into
a yes state.
And there's a reason why if you watch
him speak on a stage and stuff, he'll
ask a lot of yes questions.
Do you agree with this?
Yes.
(02:49):
Do you agree with that?
Yes.
Would you assume this?
Because you're getting people to basically, you're programming
them for an hour to say yes, yes,
yes.
Nod their head, just even if they're not
aware of it.
So when you ask them the final question,
do you want this?
There's like a cognitive dissonance there.
It's like, I've been saying yes the whole
time.
I'm like, I'm not gonna say no.
It's uncomfortable to say no.
Like I'm not a no person, I'm a
yes person.
So I'm gonna say yes and buy your
$10,000 thing.
But it was like, got so painful because
(03:10):
it's just like, it's not authentic.
It's not natural for me to speak this
way and give this really long backstory of
who I am and my journey and my,
me, me, me.
And it's like, I just like talking about
cool stuff.
Yeah.
If you don't know who I am and
you don't wanna give it a chance because
you don't know who I am, like, that's
okay.
But anyway, we'll dive in.
(03:31):
No, it's cool.
And what I love about that is that
I've actually started to read more of the
negative side of that now where the power
of no and getting to no and like
the importance of getting to the no before
the yes.
Cause I've always grown up, like you and
I share that passion.
Like I've studied psychology since I can't remember.
I used to go to psychology classes in
colleges, just not even for the degree.
Like I would just go take every psychology
(03:51):
class I could have.
So buying psychology, I think is interesting.
And I've definitely seen this shift from yes,
yes, yes, yeses out there to trying to
get to the no, to like root out
things.
So it's interesting cause I'm seeing both sides
of that coin right now.
No is great.
No is learning to say no as a
business owner entrepreneur is the one of the
most rewarding things ever.
(04:14):
Like that moment you get to in your
career where you're confident and comfortable enough financially
to say no.
It's like, I still remember that transition for
me, that pivot where I started feeling comfortable
with that.
And what I mean by saying no is
like saying no to the wrong client, saying
no to the wrong partner, saying no to
the wrong employee.
When you're in the beginning of your career,
(04:34):
you're so scarce minded that you are so
terrified of not getting a deal, of somebody
not closing with you, of losing that potential
revenue or that partner that you say yes
to things, even though you kind of know
in the back of your mind, like this
is gonna be a pain in the ass
client.
Like they're gonna be terrible.
And they always are.
And they always end up costing you more
time and money than you would if you
just said no.
And so we got to the point where
we're just like, we don't really need this
(04:57):
client.
We don't need this.
So like, if it's not a 10 out
of 10, hell yeah, like this really detailed
checklist for everything, it's a no.
And that's okay.
It's like, hey, it's not a fit.
The wild thing about that, and it's just
for anybody watching, is like scared of saying
no.
People are so, especially successful people.
We've had a lot of, we've done a
lot of audits and meetings with very, very
big names, really, really big names.
(05:19):
Individual brands and like big companies.
They're so used to people bending over backwards
for them.
Like that's their de facto state, is if
I have an agency pitching me, they're gonna,
they want my business so bad because I'm
a big, big name.
They're gonna do whatever I want.
When you say no to them, hey guys,
like this is, you know, we'd love to
work with you, but some of the requests
aren't realistic.
(05:40):
I'm not gonna get the goals you want
here.
Like saying you want a 5X ROAS in
one month, like not gonna happen.
And it says they're gonna get that for
you is lying.
So it's not a good fit for us.
And that's okay.
Like it catches them so off guard and
it's so different that like nine times out
of 10, they bend over backwards to want
to work with you.
They're like, wait, wait, wait, what can we
do to work with you?
It just totally reframes the discussion.
(06:00):
And so you'll end up getting either, one
of two things happens by saying no.
Either you avoided a lot of headache, you
saved a lot of money and time because
you didn't waste on the wrong client, or
you actually reposition the relationship and now you
can close that deal, but it's closed on
your terms or their terms.
And you can charge more money, set the
bar, set the standards, this is the way
it's gonna operate, the way it's gonna work.
If you don't like it, it's not a
fit.
Cool, no big deal.
(06:20):
But if you do agree, then we're gonna
talk this many times in this timeframe, these
expectations and like, it's a game changer.
So I gotta ask, dad shirt, dad gang
hat.
Yeah, I'm a girl dad.
So like, where does that come from?
Is that can grow?
Not even dad, I just found this in
a bag.
No, it was funny.
I was like, my wife's, we were doing
(06:41):
much laundry this week.
So all my cuts, my built shirts are
out, but I got this for Easter or
something like that a year ago.
And so I was like, I'm gonna just
go heavy dad today.
And then this hat matched this one.
I have like a hundred hats.
Melon is like one of my favorite brands
in the world, both from, I love hats
and they're a great brand, but also from
the marketing side of it, they've been able
(07:01):
to build this massive company selling $80 hats,
which is just a wild thing.
Like an average hat's gonna be 20, 30
bucks.
They came into the market and said, we're
gonna sell half for four times as much.
And just people are gonna buy them and
buy them and buy them nonstop.
But dad gang, brilliant brand.
The team behind it is absolutely amazing that
what they're doing, what they're building is great.
It's also like, when I talk about marketing
(07:23):
a lot, especially in 2025 and beyond, it's
really, really hard to build a business.
It's really hard and it's never been harder.
It's never, it's gonna, we're in this weird
place where simultaneously it's never been easier to
do things because of AI.
Like you can be a one man, one
woman show.
And with a lot of AI tech out
(07:43):
there, we can talk about that as well.
I can use a company like Lovable or
Veo or Replit.
I can build apps, websites.
I can build all kinds of crazy stuff
with no coding knowledge.
I can prototype my first app.
I can get marketing copy with Claude.
I can do all these things as a
one person shop.
So it's easier on this side, but over
here, it just means it's flooded.
It's what's happening financially, economically, geopolitically is getting
(08:05):
harder.
So if you wanna build something, you really
need, in my opinion, either some type of
truly like novel product, something that just hasn't
been seen before, something truly innovative.
Or if you're entering a market that's commoditized,
really competitive, you need a very, very unique
(08:25):
position or angle of that.
Or you need a very specific audience to
build that product around, right?
So you look at a brand like Black
Earth Coffee, came into a commoditized market of
coffee, really, really hard.
Coffee is a very hard market to enter
for a lot of reasons.
One, it's commoditized, right?
It's on top of that, it's ritual based.
So you really, you either need to get
(08:47):
new customers by convincing people to switch from
their coffee to your coffee, really high switching
costs because people that drink coffee, drink coffee
every day and have likely drank coffee for
years or decades with a brand.
So you're saying, hey, switch to that brand
that you're loyal to for 20, 30 years,
or you gotta get customers for their first
cup of coffee.
And so what you really need is like
(09:07):
Black Rifle.
They said, we're gonna put a really specific
skin on this brand and target the conservative
market.
We're gonna make this like an all-in,
ultra patriotic, conservative, military vet base.
And that's gonna be in our DNA as
a company.
And that works really well because that audience
then is willing to say, well, I'm gonna
try this because I'm so passionate about my
identity that I'm willing to try a brand
(09:28):
that talks to my identity.
And DadGang does the same thing.
It's like, how do you get, sell a
hat?
You can make it look cooler, but like
that's subjective.
Well, I can make it, you know, this
dad brand, it's, again, going to cognitive dissonance.
It's like, if I'm the brand that all
the best dads, if you're a great dad,
this is what great dads wear.
Well, if I believe I'm a great dad
and I'm not wearing that hat, I feel
(09:50):
uncomfortable mentally because there's a disconnect there, who
I say I am versus what my actions
are and my identity.
So yeah, they've done a great job kind
of pulling on the heart string and it's
launched lots of copycat brands.
And now there's companies trying to do like
MomGang and not affiliated by the way, but
like, it's a cool company.
It's the only other hat I wear.
So Mellon and DadGang are the two hat
brands.
Yeah, you know, it reminds me of like
Liquid Death.
(10:11):
Like what the heck?
Like, I mean, it's crazy, man.
They came into water industry and just dominated.
Like, I don't even know how that's possible
to do.
Mostly just driven by brand.
Driven by brand, again, Liquid Death identified a
lot of interesting things, right?
They identified that there is a lot of
people out there who want to drink more
(10:32):
water, want to not be drinking alcohol all
the time, but there's this like social stigma
of being at certain places and situations where
if you are drinking water or not drinking
a beer or some of the alcohol beverage,
you're gonna be stigmatized and you're gonna feel
socially awkward.
So, okay, let's make a product that looks
like you're carrying energy to drink a beer
or something.
(10:52):
So you can drink your water, you can
be healthier, but you can also still not
feel socially awkward in the situations.
And they also, they tapped at a lot
of other things, but like really, really brilliant.
And so that's a big market.
There's a lot of people who go to
concerts and go to clubs and go to
big parties and social gatherings and don't want
to drink, but also don't want to feel
(11:13):
uncomfortable.
They don't want to feel like the DD
in the corner.
Like, I'm waiting for you guys.
I'll be here all night just sitting here
watching.
Yeah, it's true.
And I'm that guy too.
I don't drink a lot, but I'm very
big on the social scene.
And so, you know, I'm always at parties
trying to pour, you know, in the solo
cup.
So nobody knows what I actually have.
Don't include IC, it could be anything.
So listen, you've accomplished some amazing things, man.
(11:34):
I mean, you're a young guy.
And when I look at this traffic and
conversion and what you've done to sell in
the company to ClickFunnels and Social Media Marketing
World, doing any, even one of these things
is extremely hard to do.
So I have to ask, like, how did
you do it?
Like, what is your breakthrough where you stand
so far above other agencies?
(11:55):
And is this just kind of a domino,
like one domino falls, like you get in
with Russell and then you get in with
the next and next and next, or what
accounts for this kind of success?
Yeah, it's a challenge.
It's one of the, I don't know if
irony is the right word, but one of
the unique things about entrepreneurship and just, I
would say anything like, I'm not a pro
athlete or anything.
So I can't speak to that, but I'd
(12:16):
imagine other things being like a famous, like
a successful musician or athlete or any of
these careers operate in a similar fashion where
the more successful you get and the more
accomplishments you achieve, the easier it is to
get the next success and the next accomplishment,
because you can piggyback on the previous one,
where like, it's really hard when you're just
getting started to convince a business to pay
(12:37):
you $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, whatever
it is a month to run their ads
when you're just getting started.
It goes, well, have you run ads before?
I have no clients.
Okay, well, come back to me if you
have clients.
Well, I can't get clients if I don't
have case studies.
But then when you have case studies and
you have clients and you can say, hey,
we've run ads for this company and this
company and this Fortune 500 and this personal
(12:59):
brand and this person and this person, you
can go look at the websites, the testimonials.
It's like, sure, we wanna work with you.
And then on top of that, you also
have the confidence.
So that is the thing, it is a
domino effect.
You get kind of those first initial wins
and those build into the follow-up wins
that you have.
And then beyond that, you get this level
of confidence in a lot of those wins
from previous successes.
(13:21):
So yeah, the domino effect is real in
terms of like, what's my thing, right?
Is there a secret sauce?
Is there a tactic or a strategy that
got me to this point?
It's a cliched answer, but it's also a
true answer, which is just, it takes a
lot of time and a lot of hard
work.
There are definitely things you can do, I
(13:42):
think, to speed up your path and to
increase the odds of hitting successes.
But at the end of the day, it
comes down to, are you kind of naturally,
I think there's an element where you can
learn a lot of this stuff.
I do think there's also an element where
you're kind of naturally inclined and gifted in
something, and then you're building on a foundation.
So I do believe you need to have
something like that, where there's some spark, there's
(14:03):
something already that you're already a creative person,
like in our field, you're already a creative
person.
You can already talk convincingly, write convincingly.
There's a foundation that you can build on.
So do you have that kind of initial
spark?
Are you willing to kind of go all
in on this for a long period of
time and understand that there's not going to
be a lot to show for it for
quite a while?
And it's going to build though at some
(14:25):
point.
In terms of like a shortcut, right?
The things you could do, mentorship is probably
the biggest.
I would say like, if I had to
pick one thing, like one thing that I
could do, it's find the most successful people
who are already at where you want to
be and figure out ways to spend as
much time in, around or near where those
(14:45):
people operate.
And ideally get some of them as mentors.
And it is wild what happens.
Just surrounding yourself with those individuals and building
relationships with those individuals.
And like, that's what happened with our first
agency.
Our first agency was with Kevin from Shark
Tank, right, Kevin Harrington.
And this is going on almost 12 years
ago.
My partner Jeremy had already kind of built
(15:07):
a relationship with Kevin just by asking.
A lot of people are so terrified to
even go up to people like that.
And like, they think there's no way they
want to deal with me or work with
me or anything.
The reality is those guys got to that
point because they've identified where their skills are,
where their strengths are.
And then all the weaknesses they need to
fill, I'm going to find people that I
(15:28):
can work with, partner with, do deals with.
So they, I realized that Kevin was like,
hey, this social stuff, this digital stuff, it's
not my wheelhouse, but I know marketing, I
know business.
I'm going to find these young guys over
here that get it.
They seem to get it, give them a
shot.
And that's what happened.
He gave us a shot with his personal
brand.
We did really well.
Said, let's start an agency together.
I got clients, you guys got skills.
And it had built.
And that relationship over the two year period
(15:48):
with the agency.
And now a quick break to hear from
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(16:09):
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Helped us build our influence and authority much
more rapidly than we would have independently because
everybody went with Kevin.
And so I'm really, really grateful for that.
(16:29):
And then it's the first speaking gig.
It takes a long time to get, but
once you get the first speaking gig, it's,
you know, you get the second speaking gig
and then you get the third.
The key though is, and then we can
pause here because I know this is, I
mentioned before we started, I said, you're never
going to worry about one word answers to
me.
You're going to worry about 100,000 word
answers The key there too is you are
(16:50):
going to at some point, as long as
you're not terrible at what you do.
If you're semi-confident in what you do
and you work really hard, at some point
you are going to get lucky.
You're going to get an opportunity.
It might take a month, it might take
three years, but you're going to get it.
The key is realizing when that opportunity is
occurring and two, being ready when you do
get that opportunity to actually knock it out
(17:11):
of the park.
And so for me, it was like Ezra
Firestone, who's just eternally grateful for Ezra, just
an amazing human being, amazing business owner, amazing
marketer, been a good friend of mine for
a long time.
He gave me that first speaking opportunity.
I had no brand, no nothing every year
Ezra makes an effort to invite somebody that's
kind of an up-and-comer that he's
heard about to speak on one of his
(17:32):
stages, his e-com authors event.
This was in Austin or Dallas back in
2017 and invited me and I was terrified.
It's like, I've never spoken on a big
stage before, never really spoken on a stage
at all before.
Every instinct in me says once they know
because it's scary.
But I said, yes, and I just did
it.
And I got on stage and I spoke
for four and a half minutes or so,
(17:53):
and it went really well, prepared, prepared, prepared,
prepared.
And that then led to me getting invited
to speak at Affiliate Marketing World in Barcelona.
And then from there, got to speak in
Bangkok and got to speak at Social Marketing
World and then Trafficking Conversion and it kind
of just built on itself.
So that's the long-winded answer to a
relatively short, precise question.
(18:14):
Yeah, a lot of great advice.
I believe that kind of the same thing
you said is that success happens when preparation
meets opportunity.
And that's the thing is, what do you
do to prep?
Because you're talking on big stages and you're
all around the world.
So like when you get up there, you
got to know your stuff at a level
that, let's be honest, 99% of agencies,
you're above that.
(18:35):
So what do you do?
Like, how do you hone your skills and
refine them so much that you can get
from one stage to the other, to the
other?
I mean, basically, how do you stand out
so far above anybody else in an industry
to have the success that you have?
Yeah, I mean, to get on a stage,
especially a bigger stage, you need to really
either do one of two things, right?
(18:58):
You either need to be doing things that
nobody else is doing, some type of strategy
or approach or tactic, or you need to
be really early to something.
And that's actually something very undervalued is space
being first or early to a new channel,
new strategy, how easy and quickly you can
(19:18):
build up a large moat and a large
business around that, right?
Like I was pretty, I wasn't like first
to Facebook, but I was in the first
wave of running ads on Facebook.
And that's why I was able to build
my stuff relatively quickly in comparison to what
most people takes to build their name.
And then with TikTok, we were really, really
one of the first and we were able
(19:39):
to build like the biggest TikTok education business
before any, we built it so easily and
so quickly just because we were first.
And of course I had by then a
kind of an authority and influence, I was
able to take that and combine those two
things.
But those are really the two things.
If you're operating right now, it's like, and
you're just kind of middle of the road,
I kind of do the same thing that
(20:00):
everyone else does, the same strategy on Facebook,
I run the same types of images, I
work with the same type of clients.
It's been really like, why would I invite
you to speak at one of my events?
There's nothing unique you're going to deliver.
And so I would be focusing a lot
on like every, like a few hours every
day, like what is new out there?
Like what's popping up that I can get
(20:21):
really good at really fast and incorporate in
a unique way into the current marketing strategy,
into the current business.
But yeah, that's really the big thing.
And I would say in terms of just
the preparation side and how do you kind
of just get on the stage and speak
to these large numbers of people?
It's actually, if you truly like live and
breathe what you do, it's really not that
(20:43):
scary and not that hard.
There's been stages, there's actually been quite a
few that I've spoken on where like, I've
had very, very, very little prep.
In some cases, there's even been times where
I've gotten asked to speak at something like
a few minutes before, and like didn't even
have an agenda or talk, like a slide
show.
But this is what I do every day.
(21:05):
It's very easy for me to talk about.
It's just like anything, right?
If you got put on stage, if you're
a sports fanatic, if you're just whatever the
team is, you're a Yankees or Red Sox,
just fanatic, you live and breathe and watch
every single game.
If you got put anywhere and asked like,
talk about the Red Sox, I'd love to
talk about the Red Sox.
Like it's part of your life.
It's what you talk about, right?
Where it gets difficult is if you really
(21:27):
aren't on the ball.
Like if you're not, that's not like really
your expertise.
If you've been kind of faking it, if
you're like overselling how good you are at
something and you're really not living it, that's
where you see cracks happen.
That's where you see people get on a
stage, get an event and totally flop, totally
bomb because they're dependent on the slides.
They're dependent on the notes.
Everything they're saying came from prepping for that
(21:49):
call and anything outside of that, they just
don't have the ability to answer.
So yeah, I would say, don't speak on
a stage.
Don't speak on a podcast.
Don't speak in any public fashion or forum
if you're not like 110% confident, not
just in the topic, but like the whole
area of expertise.
(22:10):
Yeah, all exceptional advice.
I like that I saw something with Mr.
Beast the other day and he was talking
about getting seen.
He said, look, in order, you wanna get
seen, like you have to do stuff that
nobody's seen before.
And I'm like, I'm thinking about that.
I'm like, well, that's so interesting.
Like your entire business is just to produce
content on stuff nobody's seen before.
Like that's not an easy feat.
One of the things I love about you
is that you're really into neuromarketing.
(22:32):
You're into behavioral like economics.
And I love this because for 30 years,
my passion's been anything to do with why
humans make decisions.
Like I just think it's such an interesting
thing to know.
And then it translates to us being entrepreneurs,
especially to you in marketing, like knowing why
people make the decisions that they make.
You probably know it better than the people
that actually are making their own decisions.
(22:53):
So, but what have you learned?
Like what are some of the favorite things
that you've learned recently relating to these kinds
of topics about like why people are making
the decisions that they're making?
The biggest takeaway is that the average human
being is, try to be polite about this,
but for lack of a better word, just
completely illogical, right?
(23:13):
Like I'll keep it very polite here.
Like the average human being does not make
many good decisions in their day.
They have more confidence than they should in
their abilities and their intelligence and their decisions.
And the problem is that our brains and
our biology develop significantly slower than the things
(23:40):
that we're developing because of our brains are
developing.
Meaning like technology is growing and evolving exponentially.
Our biology is somewhat kind of linear and
logarithmic, like it's not exponential, right?
Maybe to some degree, I'm not a biologist.
So maybe at some point it is, or
maybe I'm just, but it's not the same
level as technology.
(24:00):
And what that means is there are still
a ton of decisions we make on a
daily basis, most of our decisions that are
controlled by kind of the more primal parts
of our brain, the fight or flight, right?
And that's, we spend most of our existence
as a species living around a fire, having
to worry about is the sound in that
(24:22):
bush a deer that I can eat or
is it a lion that's going to eat
me?
And needing to make really, really quick decisions
that if I don't make them quick enough
or I make them wrong, I die.
And we're designed to like expand the species.
So we don't wanna die because we need
to recreate, to procreate.
(24:43):
And so all the stuff we do on
a daily basis that's driven by apps and
stuff on our phone, it's all people that
understand that on the other side, engineers, data
scientists, and they're triggering these micro moments.
So triggering these things that they know I
can fire dopamine whenever I want in your
brain.
And dopamine is a neurotransmitter that's all about
(25:05):
just wanting.
It's just, I'm not gonna like anything, not
gonna love anything, I just want.
And that's why like we are so driven,
especially if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a
highly dopaminergic person, you're so driven to achieve
things and get things because you're just that
dopamine just pushing you.
It makes you feel really good in the
pursuit of that new house, of that new
(25:26):
car, of that new thing.
But it's also the reason why when you
actually get that thing, all of a sudden
you're like, well, this isn't that great.
I want the bigger thing, right?
Cause you just, you're not getting that hit
anymore.
And so great marketers, great businesses understand all
of this.
And every single thing they do is engineered
(25:48):
to capitalize on these brain weaknesses, right?
For lack of a better word, hacking your
brain.
And there are so many insane examples that
I could spend hours and hours and hours
just talking through case studies and experiments and
things, but there's so much that you just
don't realize on a daily basis that you
(26:10):
are being hacked, right?
A little like, I'll give one that probably
everyone experiences and encounters on a regular basis.
You know, if you go to the supermarket
or really most stores, most of them will
play some type of music or audio or
sound.
And most of them are going to intentionally
(26:31):
play music that is at a slower beat
per minute than your resting heart rate of
the average person.
The reason they do that is because if
we hear music that's at a lower beat
per minute than our heart rate, we actually
move slower.
It actually kind of calms us, right?
It's similar to when you're talking to somebody
that's, if you're on customer service and somebody
(26:52):
is really, really angry and irate, if you
match their tone, it escalates.
But if you start talking down here and
start talking really calmly, I'm sorry, I'm really,
really sorry to hear that.
I'd love to just hear your experience.
Just talk to them, you'll bring them down,
right?
We get brought to the levels of the
other person.
And so supermarkets and stores have figured out
that if I get people to walk slower,
(27:13):
they spend more time here.
And spend more time here, they buy more
things.
And so there's little things.
And there's been experiments they've done, researchers have
done, like liquor stores, wine stores, where, again,
just going back to the power of audio
and subconsciously not even knowing why you're doing
things.
They did this study, went to a wine
store over a one-week period or so.
And every day they played music from a
(27:36):
different country.
They played Italian music and French music and
German music and Brazilian music and very, very
subtly.
And they just measured percentages of wine by
countries purchased that day.
And what they found every single day is
there was a noticeable significant spike in that
country's wine being purchased.
(27:57):
When you played Italian music that day, people
bought more Italian wine.
The crazy thing, though, is when they asked
people, why do you decide to buy that
Italian wine today?
Nobody ever said, it's because I heard Italian
music.
It's, I've been thinking about trying this for
a long time, or whatever the answer is.
But it was never that thing.
And so, again, people are going to say
things, but they're gonna do things that are
different.
(28:17):
They're gonna, it's this crazy thing.
Guys like Rory Sutherland, who I think is
one of the absolute most brilliant marketers of
all time and just the best human beings
of all time, he writes a book called
Alchemy.
And you read some of these books and
you follow the guy like Rory, it becomes
so apparent so fast that we as consumers
and people have no chance.
You almost have no free will to a
(28:38):
degree.
You're being manipulated, persuaded, hacked 24-7, 365
by people that just can take advantage of
your brain.
And so as a marketer, it's good to
know that because if you're selling a good
product and you have something that makes the
world a better place, that's a great thing.
More people have it, it's better.
On the flip side, though, if you're doing
something shady, look at guys like Edward Bernays,
(29:00):
the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who's basically the
father of propaganda and a lot of modern
advertising, along with Ogilvy.
A guy like Edward Bernays used all this
knowledge to do a lot of really bad
things.
He did things like he helped the US
government have a coup in, I believe, Nicaragua.
He did all kinds of crazy stuff.
(29:21):
So it can be used for good, it
can be used for bad, but you need
to know it regardless.
Yeah, a great book called Meet Your Happy
Chemicals.
I don't know if you've read that before,
but for those watching, if you haven't, it's
worth checking out.
It really hits on some of these things
with the chemicals in your brains and what
they do.
And you should know that because, to your
point, man, it's a complete manipulation.
Like, it's really astonishing if you really look
(29:43):
into it and read.
But I think a lot of you and
I are reading a lot of, it's astonishing,
like you said, how little control over your
decisions you're making and how many biases you
have that you think you're making good decisions
that are completely controlled by biases that you
do not even realize.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, thanks for joining us today.
Super excited you could be here because today
we're talking about really honestly one of my
favorite topics, which is basically how to get
(00:43):
customers in the door in a scalable way
through ads.
But this conversation is going to take a
unique and different turn because we're gonna be
talking about ads and basically buying psychology in
a way that we've never done so before.
So with us today to have a conversation
is Maxwell Finn.
Now Maxwell is an accomplished marketer, entrepreneur, and
investor with over a decade of experience in
(01:03):
digital marketing.
He's one of the first advertisers on both
Facebook and TikTok becoming a go-to expert
in scaling businesses with paid ads.
And his journey started with his first e
-commerce company, Startup Drugs, which he grew rapidly
before selling to Russell Brunson, founder of ClickFunnels.
Now Maxwell then co-founded Quantum Media, a
full-service digital marketing agency with Kevin Harrington
(01:25):
from Shark Tank.
And there he led successful ad campaigns for
major clients, including 3M, Goodwill, and Sam's Club.
Today he owns a portfolio of businesses, including
agencies, e-commerce brands, and SaaS companies, generating
over $250 million in direct revenue for clients
and training over 10,000 marketers.
Now a sought-after speaker, Maxwell has shared
(01:47):
his expertise at top events like Traffic and
Conversion Summit, Social Media Marketing World as well.
He's also created educational programs for industry leaders
like Digital Marketer, ClickBank, and Kajabi.
Now helping thousands master paid advertising and digital
marketing strategies.
Maxwell, what's up, man?
It's good to see you.
Oh man, I wanted to stop you so
bad.
I was like, 10 seconds in, I hate
(02:08):
hearing my intro.
It's funny because I've seen you at all
these places, like everywhere it is.
I'm like, oh, I've seen you there.
I've seen you there.
You're a brilliant guy, man.
You know your stuff.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, it's like my worst part.
One of the things I used to do
with webinars and why I hated doing them
so much was just the formula you had
to follow.
We hired a consultant seven years ago or
(02:28):
something like that to come in and help
us with our webinar and our pitch for
one of our offers.
And it was like, here's the slides and
you need to make sure you say this
and ask this.
And there is a science behind it.
There are things, if you listen to guys
like Russell talk about it, getting people into
a yes state.
And there's a reason why if you watch
him speak on a stage and stuff, he'll
ask a lot of yes questions.
Do you agree with this?
Yes.
(02:49):
Do you agree with that?
Yes.
Would you assume this?
Because you're getting people to basically, you're programming
them for an hour to say yes, yes,
yes.
Nod their head, just even if they're not
aware of it.
So when you ask them the final question,
do you want this?
There's like a cognitive dissonance there.
It's like, I've been saying yes the whole
time.
I'm like, I'm not gonna say no.
It's uncomfortable to say no.
Like I'm not a no person, I'm a
yes person.
So I'm gonna say yes and buy your
$10,000 thing.
But it was like, got so painful because
(03:10):
it's just like, it's not authentic.
It's not natural for me to speak this
way and give this really long backstory of
who I am and my journey and my,
me, me, me.
And it's like, I just like talking about
cool stuff.
Yeah.
If you don't know who I am and
you don't wanna give it a chance because
you don't know who I am, like, that's
okay.
But anyway, we'll dive in.
(03:31):
No, it's cool.
And what I love about that is that
I've actually started to read more of the
negative side of that now where the power
of no and getting to no and like
the importance of getting to the no before
the yes.
Cause I've always grown up, like you and
I share that passion.
Like I've studied psychology since I can't remember.
I used to go to psychology classes in
colleges, just not even for the degree.
Like I would just go take every psychology
(03:51):
class I could have.
So buying psychology, I think is interesting.
And I've definitely seen this shift from yes,
yes, yes, yeses out there to trying to
get to the no, to like root out
things.
So it's interesting cause I'm seeing both sides
of that coin right now.
No is great.
No is learning to say no as a
business owner entrepreneur is the one of the
most rewarding things ever.
(04:14):
Like that moment you get to in your
career where you're confident and comfortable enough financially
to say no.
It's like, I still remember that transition for
me, that pivot where I started feeling comfortable
with that.
And what I mean by saying no is
like saying no to the wrong client, saying
no to the wrong partner, saying no to
the wrong employee.
When you're in the beginning of your career,
(04:34):
you're so scarce minded that you are so
terrified of not getting a deal, of somebody
not closing with you, of losing that potential
revenue or that partner that you say yes
to things, even though you kind of know
in the back of your mind, like this
is gonna be a pain in the ass
client.
Like they're gonna be terrible.
And they always are.
And they always end up costing you more
time and money than you would if you
just said no.
And so we got to the point where
we're just like, we don't really need this
(04:57):
client.
We don't need this.
So like, if it's not a 10 out
of 10, hell yeah, like this really detailed
checklist for everything, it's a no.
And that's okay.
It's like, hey, it's not a fit.
The wild thing about that, and it's just
for anybody watching, is like scared of saying
no.
People are so, especially successful people.
We've had a lot of, we've done a
lot of audits and meetings with very, very
big names, really, really big names.
(05:19):
Individual brands and like big companies.
They're so used to people bending over backwards
for them.
Like that's their de facto state, is if
I have an agency pitching me, they're gonna,
they want my business so bad because I'm
a big, big name.
They're gonna do whatever I want.
When you say no to them, hey guys,
like this is, you know, we'd love to
work with you, but some of the requests
aren't realistic.
(05:40):
I'm not gonna get the goals you want
here.
Like saying you want a 5X ROAS in
one month, like not gonna happen.
And it says they're gonna get that for
you is lying.
So it's not a good fit for us.
And that's okay.
Like it catches them so off guard and
it's so different that like nine times out
of 10, they bend over backwards to want
to work with you.
They're like, wait, wait, wait, what can we
do to work with you?
It just totally reframes the discussion.
(06:00):
And so you'll end up getting either, one
of two things happens by saying no.
Either you avoided a lot of headache, you
saved a lot of money and time because
you didn't waste on the wrong client, or
you actually reposition the relationship and now you
can close that deal, but it's closed on
your terms or their terms.
And you can charge more money, set the
bar, set the standards, this is the way
it's gonna operate, the way it's gonna work.
If you don't like it, it's not a
fit.
Cool, no big deal.
(06:20):
But if you do agree, then we're gonna
talk this many times in this timeframe, these
expectations and like, it's a game changer.
So I gotta ask, dad shirt, dad gang
hat.
Yeah, I'm a girl dad.
So like, where does that come from?
Is that can grow?
Not even dad, I just found this in
a bag.
No, it was funny.
I was like, my wife's, we were doing
(06:41):
much laundry this week.
So all my cuts, my built shirts are
out, but I got this for Easter or
something like that a year ago.
And so I was like, I'm gonna just
go heavy dad today.
And then this hat matched this one.
I have like a hundred hats.
Melon is like one of my favorite brands
in the world, both from, I love hats
and they're a great brand, but also from
the marketing side of it, they've been able
(07:01):
to build this massive company selling $80 hats,
which is just a wild thing.
Like an average hat's gonna be 20, 30
bucks.
They came into the market and said, we're
gonna sell half for four times as much.
And just people are gonna buy them and
buy them and buy them nonstop.
But dad gang, brilliant brand.
The team behind it is absolutely amazing that
what they're doing, what they're building is great.
It's also like, when I talk about marketing
(07:23):
a lot, especially in 2025 and beyond, it's
really, really hard to build a business.
It's really hard and it's never been harder.
It's never, it's gonna, we're in this weird
place where simultaneously it's never been easier to
do things because of AI.
Like you can be a one man, one
woman show.
And with a lot of AI tech out
(07:43):
there, we can talk about that as well.
I can use a company like Lovable or
Veo or Replit.
I can build apps, websites.
I can build all kinds of crazy stuff
with no coding knowledge.
I can prototype my first app.
I can get marketing copy with Claude.
I can do all these things as a
one person shop.
So it's easier on this side, but over
here, it just means it's flooded.
It's what's happening financially, economically, geopolitically is getting
(08:05):
harder.
So if you wanna build something, you really
need, in my opinion, either some type of
truly like novel product, something that just hasn't
been seen before, something truly innovative.
Or if you're entering a market that's commoditized,
really competitive, you need a very, very unique
(08:25):
position or angle of that.
Or you need a very specific audience to
build that product around, right?
So you look at a brand like Black
Earth Coffee, came into a commoditized market of
coffee, really, really hard.
Coffee is a very hard market to enter
for a lot of reasons.
One, it's commoditized, right?
It's on top of that, it's ritual based.
So you really, you either need to get
(08:47):
new customers by convincing people to switch from
their coffee to your coffee, really high switching
costs because people that drink coffee, drink coffee
every day and have likely drank coffee for
years or decades with a brand.
So you're saying, hey, switch to that brand
that you're loyal to for 20, 30 years,
or you gotta get customers for their first
cup of coffee.
And so what you really need is like
(09:07):
Black Rifle.
They said, we're gonna put a really specific
skin on this brand and target the conservative
market.
We're gonna make this like an all-in,
ultra patriotic, conservative, military vet base.
And that's gonna be in our DNA as
a company.
And that works really well because that audience
then is willing to say, well, I'm gonna
try this because I'm so passionate about my
identity that I'm willing to try a brand
(09:28):
that talks to my identity.
And DadGang does the same thing.
It's like, how do you get, sell a
hat?
You can make it look cooler, but like
that's subjective.
Well, I can make it, you know, this
dad brand, it's, again, going to cognitive dissonance.
It's like, if I'm the brand that all
the best dads, if you're a great dad,
this is what great dads wear.
Well, if I believe I'm a great dad
and I'm not wearing that hat, I feel
(09:50):
uncomfortable mentally because there's a disconnect there, who
I say I am versus what my actions
are and my identity.
So yeah, they've done a great job kind
of pulling on the heart string and it's
launched lots of copycat brands.
And now there's companies trying to do like
MomGang and not affiliated by the way, but
like, it's a cool company.
It's the only other hat I wear.
So Mellon and DadGang are the two hat
brands.
Yeah, you know, it reminds me of like
Liquid Death.
(10:11):
Like what the heck?
Like, I mean, it's crazy, man.
They came into water industry and just dominated.
Like, I don't even know how that's possible
to do.
Mostly just driven by brand.
Driven by brand, again, Liquid Death identified a
lot of interesting things, right?
They identified that there is a lot of
people out there who want to drink more
(10:32):
water, want to not be drinking alcohol all
the time, but there's this like social stigma
of being at certain places and situations where
if you are drinking water or not drinking
a beer or some of the alcohol beverage,
you're gonna be stigmatized and you're gonna feel
socially awkward.
So, okay, let's make a product that looks
like you're carrying energy to drink a beer
or something.
(10:52):
So you can drink your water, you can
be healthier, but you can also still not
feel socially awkward in the situations.
And they also, they tapped at a lot
of other things, but like really, really brilliant.
And so that's a big market.
There's a lot of people who go to
concerts and go to clubs and go to
big parties and social gatherings and don't want
to drink, but also don't want to feel
(11:13):
uncomfortable.
They don't want to feel like the DD
in the corner.
Like, I'm waiting for you guys.
I'll be here all night just sitting here
watching.
Yeah, it's true.
And I'm that guy too.
I don't drink a lot, but I'm very
big on the social scene.
And so, you know, I'm always at parties
trying to pour, you know, in the solo
cup.
So nobody knows what I actually have.
Don't include IC, it could be anything.
So listen, you've accomplished some amazing things, man.
(11:34):
I mean, you're a young guy.
And when I look at this traffic and
conversion and what you've done to sell in
the company to ClickFunnels and Social Media Marketing
World, doing any, even one of these things
is extremely hard to do.
So I have to ask, like, how did
you do it?
Like, what is your breakthrough where you stand
so far above other agencies?
(11:55):
And is this just kind of a domino,
like one domino falls, like you get in
with Russell and then you get in with
the next and next and next, or what
accounts for this kind of success?
Yeah, it's a challenge.
It's one of the, I don't know if
irony is the right word, but one of
the unique things about entrepreneurship and just, I
would say anything like, I'm not a pro
athlete or anything.
So I can't speak to that, but I'd
(12:16):
imagine other things being like a famous, like
a successful musician or athlete or any of
these careers operate in a similar fashion where
the more successful you get and the more
accomplishments you achieve, the easier it is to
get the next success and the next accomplishment,
because you can piggyback on the previous one,
where like, it's really hard when you're just
getting started to convince a business to pay
(12:37):
you $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, whatever
it is a month to run their ads
when you're just getting started.
It goes, well, have you run ads before?
I have no clients.
Okay, well, come back to me if you
have clients.
Well, I can't get clients if I don't
have case studies.
But then when you have case studies and
you have clients and you can say, hey,
we've run ads for this company and this
company and this Fortune 500 and this personal
(12:59):
brand and this person and this person, you
can go look at the websites, the testimonials.
It's like, sure, we wanna work with you.
And then on top of that, you also
have the confidence.
So that is the thing, it is a
domino effect.
You get kind of those first initial wins
and those build into the follow-up wins
that you have.
And then beyond that, you get this level
of confidence in a lot of those wins
from previous successes.
(13:21):
So yeah, the domino effect is real in
terms of like, what's my thing, right?
Is there a secret sauce?
Is there a tactic or a strategy that
got me to this point?
It's a cliched answer, but it's also a
true answer, which is just, it takes a
lot of time and a lot of hard
work.
There are definitely things you can do, I
(13:42):
think, to speed up your path and to
increase the odds of hitting successes.
But at the end of the day, it
comes down to, are you kind of naturally,
I think there's an element where you can
learn a lot of this stuff.
I do think there's also an element where
you're kind of naturally inclined and gifted in
something, and then you're building on a foundation.
So I do believe you need to have
something like that, where there's some spark, there's
(14:03):
something already that you're already a creative person,
like in our field, you're already a creative
person.
You can already talk convincingly, write convincingly.
There's a foundation that you can build on.
So do you have that kind of initial
spark?
Are you willing to kind of go all
in on this for a long period of
time and understand that there's not going to
be a lot to show for it for
quite a while?
And it's going to build though at some
(14:25):
point.
In terms of like a shortcut, right?
The things you could do, mentorship is probably
the biggest.
I would say like, if I had to
pick one thing, like one thing that I
could do, it's find the most successful people
who are already at where you want to
be and figure out ways to spend as
much time in, around or near where those
(14:45):
people operate.
And ideally get some of them as mentors.
And it is wild what happens.
Just surrounding yourself with those individuals and building
relationships with those individuals.
And like, that's what happened with our first
agency.
Our first agency was with Kevin from Shark
Tank, right, Kevin Harrington.
And this is going on almost 12 years
ago.
My partner Jeremy had already kind of built
(15:07):
a relationship with Kevin just by asking.
A lot of people are so terrified to
even go up to people like that.
And like, they think there's no way they
want to deal with me or work with
me or anything.
The reality is those guys got to that
point because they've identified where their skills are,
where their strengths are.
And then all the weaknesses they need to
fill, I'm going to find people that I
(15:28):
can work with, partner with, do deals with.
So they, I realized that Kevin was like,
hey, this social stuff, this digital stuff, it's
not my wheelhouse, but I know marketing, I
know business.
I'm going to find these young guys over
here that get it.
They seem to get it, give them a
shot.
And that's what happened.
He gave us a shot with his personal
brand.
We did really well.
Said, let's start an agency together.
I got clients, you guys got skills.
And it had built.
And that relationship over the two year period
(15:48):
with the agency.
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Helped us build our influence and authority much
more rapidly than we would have independently because
everybody went with Kevin.
And so I'm really, really grateful for that.
(16:29):
And then it's the first speaking gig.
It takes a long time to get, but
once you get the first speaking gig, it's,
you know, you get the second speaking gig
and then you get the third.
The key though is, and then we can
pause here because I know this is, I
mentioned before we started, I said, you're never
going to worry about one word answers to
me.
You're going to worry about 100,000 word
answers The key there too is you are
(16:50):
going to at some point, as long as
you're not terrible at what you do.
If you're semi-confident in what you do
and you work really hard, at some point
you are going to get lucky.
You're going to get an opportunity.
It might take a month, it might take
three years, but you're going to get it.
The key is realizing when that opportunity is
occurring and two, being ready when you do
get that opportunity to actually knock it out
(17:11):
of the park.
And so for me, it was like Ezra
Firestone, who's just eternally grateful for Ezra, just
an amazing human being, amazing business owner, amazing
marketer, been a good friend of mine for
a long time.
He gave me that first speaking opportunity.
I had no brand, no nothing every year
Ezra makes an effort to invite somebody that's
kind of an up-and-comer that he's
heard about to speak on one of his
(17:32):
stages, his e-com authors event.
This was in Austin or Dallas back in
2017 and invited me and I was terrified.
It's like, I've never spoken on a big
stage before, never really spoken on a stage
at all before.
Every instinct in me says once they know
because it's scary.
But I said, yes, and I just did
it.
And I got on stage and I spoke
for four and a half minutes or so,
(17:53):
and it went really well, prepared, prepared, prepared,
prepared.
And that then led to me getting invited
to speak at Affiliate Marketing World in Barcelona.
And then from there, got to speak in
Bangkok and got to speak at Social Marketing
World and then Trafficking Conversion and it kind
of just built on itself.
So that's the long-winded answer to a
relatively short, precise question.
(18:14):
Yeah, a lot of great advice.
I believe that kind of the same thing
you said is that success happens when preparation
meets opportunity.
And that's the thing is, what do you
do to prep?
Because you're talking on big stages and you're
all around the world.
So like when you get up there, you
got to know your stuff at a level
that, let's be honest, 99% of agencies,
you're above that.
(18:35):
So what do you do?
Like, how do you hone your skills and
refine them so much that you can get
from one stage to the other, to the
other?
I mean, basically, how do you stand out
so far above anybody else in an industry
to have the success that you have?
Yeah, I mean, to get on a stage,
especially a bigger stage, you need to really
either do one of two things, right?
(18:58):
You either need to be doing things that
nobody else is doing, some type of strategy
or approach or tactic, or you need to
be really early to something.
And that's actually something very undervalued is space
being first or early to a new channel,
new strategy, how easy and quickly you can
(19:18):
build up a large moat and a large
business around that, right?
Like I was pretty, I wasn't like first
to Facebook, but I was in the first
wave of running ads on Facebook.
And that's why I was able to build
my stuff relatively quickly in comparison to what
most people takes to build their name.
And then with TikTok, we were really, really
one of the first and we were able
(19:39):
to build like the biggest TikTok education business
before any, we built it so easily and
so quickly just because we were first.
And of course I had by then a
kind of an authority and influence, I was
able to take that and combine those two
things.
But those are really the two things.
If you're operating right now, it's like, and
you're just kind of middle of the road,
I kind of do the same thing that
(20:00):
everyone else does, the same strategy on Facebook,
I run the same types of images, I
work with the same type of clients.
It's been really like, why would I invite
you to speak at one of my events?
There's nothing unique you're going to deliver.
And so I would be focusing a lot
on like every, like a few hours every
day, like what is new out there?
Like what's popping up that I can get
(20:21):
really good at really fast and incorporate in
a unique way into the current marketing strategy,
into the current business.
But yeah, that's really the big thing.
And I would say in terms of just
the preparation side and how do you kind
of just get on the stage and speak
to these large numbers of people?
It's actually, if you truly like live and
breathe what you do, it's really not that
(20:43):
scary and not that hard.
There's been stages, there's actually been quite a
few that I've spoken on where like, I've
had very, very, very little prep.
In some cases, there's even been times where
I've gotten asked to speak at something like
a few minutes before, and like didn't even
have an agenda or talk, like a slide
show.
But this is what I do every day.
(21:05):
It's very easy for me to talk about.
It's just like anything, right?
If you got put on stage, if you're
a sports fanatic, if you're just whatever the
team is, you're a Yankees or Red Sox,
just fanatic, you live and breathe and watch
every single game.
If you got put anywhere and asked like,
talk about the Red Sox, I'd love to
talk about the Red Sox.
Like it's part of your life.
It's what you talk about, right?
Where it gets difficult is if you really
(21:27):
aren't on the ball.
Like if you're not, that's not like really
your expertise.
If you've been kind of faking it, if
you're like overselling how good you are at
something and you're really not living it, that's
where you see cracks happen.
That's where you see people get on a
stage, get an event and totally flop, totally
bomb because they're dependent on the slides.
They're dependent on the notes.
Everything they're saying came from prepping for that
(21:49):
call and anything outside of that, they just
don't have the ability to answer.
So yeah, I would say, don't speak on
a stage.
Don't speak on a podcast.
Don't speak in any public fashion or forum
if you're not like 110% confident, not
just in the topic, but like the whole
area of expertise.
(22:10):
Yeah, all exceptional advice.
I like that I saw something with Mr.
Beast the other day and he was talking
about getting seen.
He said, look, in order, you wanna get
seen, like you have to do stuff that
nobody's seen before.
And I'm like, I'm thinking about that.
I'm like, well, that's so interesting.
Like your entire business is just to produce
content on stuff nobody's seen before.
Like that's not an easy feat.
One of the things I love about you
is that you're really into neuromarketing.
(22:32):
You're into behavioral like economics.
And I love this because for 30 years,
my passion's been anything to do with why
humans make decisions.
Like I just think it's such an interesting
thing to know.
And then it translates to us being entrepreneurs,
especially to you in marketing, like knowing why
people make the decisions that they make.
You probably know it better than the people
that actually are making their own decisions.
(22:53):
So, but what have you learned?
Like what are some of the favorite things
that you've learned recently relating to these kinds
of topics about like why people are making
the decisions that they're making?
The biggest takeaway is that the average human
being is, try to be polite about this,
but for lack of a better word, just
completely illogical, right?
(23:13):
Like I'll keep it very polite here.
Like the average human being does not make
many good decisions in their day.
They have more confidence than they should in
their abilities and their intelligence and their decisions.
And the problem is that our brains and
our biology develop significantly slower than the things
(23:40):
that we're developing because of our brains are
developing.
Meaning like technology is growing and evolving exponentially.
Our biology is somewhat kind of linear and
logarithmic, like it's not exponential, right?
Maybe to some degree, I'm not a biologist.
So maybe at some point it is, or
maybe I'm just, but it's not the same
level as technology.
(24:00):
And what that means is there are still
a ton of decisions we make on a
daily basis, most of our decisions that are
controlled by kind of the more primal parts
of our brain, the fight or flight, right?
And that's, we spend most of our existence
as a species living around a fire, having
to worry about is the sound in that
(24:22):
bush a deer that I can eat or
is it a lion that's going to eat
me?
And needing to make really, really quick decisions
that if I don't make them quick enough
or I make them wrong, I die.
And we're designed to like expand the species.
So we don't wanna die because we need
to recreate, to procreate.
(24:43):
And so all the stuff we do on
a daily basis that's driven by apps and
stuff on our phone, it's all people that
understand that on the other side, engineers, data
scientists, and they're triggering these micro moments.
So triggering these things that they know I
can fire dopamine whenever I want in your
brain.
And dopamine is a neurotransmitter that's all about
(25:05):
just wanting.
It's just, I'm not gonna like anything, not
gonna love anything, I just want.
And that's why like we are so driven,
especially if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a
highly dopaminergic person, you're so driven to achieve
things and get things because you're just that
dopamine just pushing you.
It makes you feel really good in the
pursuit of that new house, of that new
(25:26):
car, of that new thing.
But it's also the reason why when you
actually get that thing, all of a sudden
you're like, well, this isn't that great.
I want the bigger thing, right?
Cause you just, you're not getting that hit
anymore.
And so great marketers, great businesses understand all
of this.
And every single thing they do is engineered
(25:48):
to capitalize on these brain weaknesses, right?
For lack of a better word, hacking your
brain.
And there are so many insane examples that
I could spend hours and hours and hours
just talking through case studies and experiments and
things, but there's so much that you just
don't realize on a daily basis that you
(26:10):
are being hacked, right?
A little like, I'll give one that probably
everyone experiences and encounters on a regular basis.
You know, if you go to the supermarket
or really most stores, most of them will
play some type of music or audio or
sound.
And most of them are going to intentionally
(26:31):
play music that is at a slower beat
per minute than your resting heart rate of
the average person.
The reason they do that is because if
we hear music that's at a lower beat
per minute than our heart rate, we actually
move slower.
It actually kind of calms us, right?
It's similar to when you're talking to somebody
that's, if you're on customer service and somebody
(26:52):
is really, really angry and irate, if you
match their tone, it escalates.
But if you start talking down here and
start talking really calmly, I'm sorry, I'm really,
really sorry to hear that.
I'd love to just hear your experience.
Just talk to them, you'll bring them down,
right?
We get brought to the levels of the
other person.
And so supermarkets and stores have figured out
that if I get people to walk slower,
(27:13):
they spend more time here.
And spend more time here, they buy more
things.
And so there's little things.
And there's been experiments they've done, researchers have
done, like liquor stores, wine stores, where, again,
just going back to the power of audio
and subconsciously not even knowing why you're doing
things.
They did this study, went to a wine
store over a one-week period or so.
And every day they played music from a
(27:36):
different country.
They played Italian music and French music and
German music and Brazilian music and very, very
subtly.
And they just measured percentages of wine by
countries purchased that day.
And what they found every single day is
there was a noticeable significant spike in that
country's wine being purchased.
(27:57):
When you played Italian music that day, people
bought more Italian wine.
The crazy thing, though, is when they asked
people, why do you decide to buy that
Italian wine today?
Nobody ever said, it's because I heard Italian
music.
It's, I've been thinking about trying this for
a long time, or whatever the answer is.
But it was never that thing.
And so, again, people are going to say
things, but they're gonna do things that are
different.
(28:17):
They're gonna, it's this crazy thing.
Guys like Rory Sutherland, who I think is
one of the absolute most brilliant marketers of
all time and just the best human beings
of all time, he writes a book called
Alchemy.
And you read some of these books and
you follow the guy like Rory, it becomes
so apparent so fast that we as consumers
and people have no chance.
You almost have no free will to a
(28:38):
degree.
You're being manipulated, persuaded, hacked 24-7, 365
by people that just can take advantage of
your brain.
And so as a marketer, it's good to
know that because if you're selling a good
product and you have something that makes the
world a better place, that's a great thing.
More people have it, it's better.
On the flip side, though, if you're doing
something shady, look at guys like Edward Bernays,
(29:00):
the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who's basically the
father of propaganda and a lot of modern
advertising, along with Ogilvy.
A guy like Edward Bernays used all this
knowledge to do a lot of really bad
things.
He did things like he helped the US
government have a coup in, I believe, Nicaragua.
He did all kinds of crazy stuff.
(29:21):
So it can be used for good, it
can be used for bad, but you need
to know it regardless.
Yeah, a great book called Meet Your Happy
Chemicals.
I don't know if you've read that before,
but for those watching, if you haven't, it's
worth checking out.
It really hits on some of these things
with the chemicals in your brains and what
they do.
And you should know that because, to your
point, man, it's a complete manipulation.
Like, it's really astonishing if you really look
(29:43):
into it and read.
But I think a lot of you and
I are reading a lot of, it's astonishing,
like you said, how little control over your
decisions you're making and how many biases you
have that you think you're making good decisions
that are completely controlled by biases that you
do not even realize.
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