Full Written Transcript of The Episode

MATT: Just because you’re good at one thing does not mean you’re good at everything. This is important for every business owner to accept and understand. We’re talking about that and why perception is all that matters in marketing in this episode of Midwest Mindset.

Welcome back to Midwest Mindset, the podcast that makes marketing easy to understand and simple to do. I’m your host,

Matt Tompkins. Here in the Big Chair. We have a newly revamped new and improved Midwest mindset. We have branded bottles of water. We have branded cups to pour the water into. We are not conserving plastic.

BEN: We made that water ourselves.

MATT: Yes, it’s a filtration process and I’m actually doing right now while I’m hosting the show. Oh, yes. All right. All right, so we need to introduce everybody who is here on the show.

Everybody from the Two Brothers Creative Ensemble here. So first up, we have the man who’s behind the scenes. He’s running the switchboard. He’s editing videos. Nobody can pronounce his name.

He’s the man who’s never had a golden tan. He soars through the digital skies like a mythical creature of old. He’s a master of puns. Really bad puns. They’re pretty bad.

They’re pretty bad. They’re really bad. He doesn’t just edit videos. Edit videos. He conjures them up with his weaving his digital skills, leaving you spellbound. And if you haven’t, if you haven’t caught on yet.

He is named after Merlin the Wizard and his name is Myron McHugh. Myron in the control booth there. We didn’t give Myron a microphone, so you’re not going to hear from him, and that’s intentional. Next up we have. Next up we have the the new guy on the crew. He’s the the newbie. What do we do?

What do they call him like the rookie. He’s the rookie fish. He’s the fresh fish. Fish. Oh yeah.

BEN: They say in prison. Yeah.

AUSTIN: Better than fresh.

MATT: Meat. And this is similar to prison. This this company working here at least.

So yes. We now present you a legend. He dwells on a dwells on a homestead where apparently he has chickens, ducks, pigs, dogs, rabbits who all dance in perfect harmony. I think he has some kids there too, right? Yes. I mean, you wrote this, so you just left your kids out of the mix?

AUSTIN: I did.

MATT: I did care more about the pigs than the chickens. He’s no ordinary farmer. He’s a masked maestro of multimedia. He’s a video editing virtuoso.

And you can tell him Austin wrote his own intro because you’re really talking yourself up here. Wow. You’re like a month into this gig and you’re just like, I’m setting the bar high.

AUSTIN: I was I was watching old videos of, you know, like in the day from A Knight’s Tale and they really just talk up the intro. So I just went on, okay.

MATT: Yeah. He’s also he this is true. He actually challenged Piers Morgan to a shirtless showdown once. And I don’t know that the world, anyone in the world wants to see that, I don’t know.

AUSTIN: I probably have the only copy because it’s not online anymore. It’s on VHS. Is it really just.

MATT: You standing next to like, an image of Pierce?

AUSTIN: No shirt off. So. Oh man, this is a story. But anyways, I ripped off my shirt in front of 11.5 million people on America’s Got Talent and Nick cannon goes, he’s getting naked and he’s pointing. So I have a picture of my shirt open with Nick cannon pointing at me.

Oh, wow. And then and then I slapped my belly. I was like, you want some of this, Pierce? It all happened right before I went on stage.

The producer handling me said, by the way, Piers Morgan doesn’t like stand up comics before I perform live. No good on America’s Good Motivator channel. And then. So that’s where it all went down. Well, he’s.

BEN: British. Yes.

MATT: So next up we have the the other brother of the two brothers. There are two brothers here, two brothers, and the other one is named. Well, I’ll get to his name here in a second. He’s a man who adores his cat. He swears he’s plotting world domination.

Dominion, dominion over the domination. I think that’s how it works. That’s my dominion. Yeah. Um, this cat is. I think Ben is, too. He is the ability to fall asleep anywhere at any time.

That’s true. Watch out for that. If there’s a moment of silence, he’s probably taking a nap. You can also bend his fingers all the way back like a fresh pretzel. Yes, that’s.

BEN: That’s how I got my wife to go on a second date.

MATT: Yeah, I’m sure that’s. What did it give it up for Ben Tompkins, everybody. Ben Tompkins, Austin Anderson, Maya and McHugh.

BEN: I feel like my intro wasn’t anywhere near as hyped up. It was. It was pretty. Well, Ben.

AUSTIN: Here’s the thing.

MATT: It gets weird in here. I didn’t want to read all of it. Just got really intimate and weird. And I’m like.

BEN: Ben wrote his though.

AUSTIN: To ask him what he wanted in it.

MATT: Okay. All right. Yeah, he’s a man who pinned a rock opera with highlight that highlights the very moment dinosaurs met their fiery end. That’s actually true.

BEN: That’s what he told me to put in there. That’s true. Why would you not include that, Matt? Why would you skip over that part?

MATT: Because that’s all you ever talk about. Is this musical maestro about dinosaurs until you release it to the world. We can’t talk about it.

BEN: Lovelorn dinosaurs.

MATT: Let’s get to what matters here today. We’re talking about. Just because you’re good at one thing doesn’t mean you’re good at everything. All right, I want to ask you guys a question here. Herschel Walker, Herman Cain, Ben Carson. Yeah. What do they all have in common?

BEN: Um, they’re they’re all Republicans. Nope.

MATT: That’s not it.

AUSTIN: They all had one profession and then went into politics. Nope. That’s.

BEN: Come on, guys, they’re all black.

MATT: Ben.

BEN: Well they are.

MATT: Yeah, I guess that’s true, but no, no, they are all good at one thing, and they try to do something else and were horrible at it. All right. Do you remember like Herschel Walker he just ran for. These are all politicians. But Herschel Walker ran for office. He’s an incredible football player.

AUSTIN: Oh, yeah.

MATT: I would not want him running a McDonald’s, let alone a state in our country. Herman Cain, Ben Carson, remember, Herman Cain, he is the godfather’s guy.

Yeah, yeah, Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon. He’s a neurosurgeon. And you think we attach this false credibility to people when they’re really good at one thing? We do it to ourselves as well.

So with Ben Carson, he’s a perfect example. He’s a neurosurgeon. He must be smart at everything. You know, we do this with money. People have lots of money.

They must be good at everything. Let’s listen to their advice.

That usually does not end well. It doesn’t end well. And so we do this with ourselves as well. When it comes to running our business, and especially with marketing our businesses, because we assume, okay, well, I got a video to go viral or I got a bunch of views or likes or, hey, I’m on all these social platforms.

Obviously, I know what I’m doing when it comes to marketing or even just in this general business sense.

We say, okay, well, I had a good idea here. That means every other idea or business venture I’m going to have. Like, I’m really good with this cat pet store that I have. I’m going to open up a Taco Bell. Like, those are two completely different things. They require two completely different skill sets. Although now that I say that, I wonder if Taco Bell is.

AUSTIN: Makes their tacos from cats.

MATT: Because if you spell taco backwards, it’s oh cat, oh cat.

AUSTIN: Oh that’s true.

MATT: Okay, okay.

AUSTIN: Sometimes I mean I love talking about sometimes I go there, I think it smells like cats.

BEN: You’re not allowed near my cat anymore. Now, Matt, which one of those was the pizza guy?

MATT: Herman Cain? He was the Godfather’s. He had the whole 999 thing. It was like 9%. So I don’t even remember what it was. But like, yeah.

BEN: That was like a tax plan.

MATT: We do this all the time. It’s hard not to do it to yourself because you get good at one thing and especially if you’re like really, really good at one thing, you know, our egos get in the way.

And so we get this false confidence in ourselves. And this happens a lot with like just running a business because business owners will chase down ideas and we will not let them go, even though we know that it’s a bad idea, we know it’s a losing idea.

Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and say, listen, this didn’t work right.

AUSTIN: You think you have to be honest with yourself about what you’re good at and then just be able to say no? Because I think that, like in Herschel Walker, I bet someone came up to him and said, you know what? You would be great in politics. And then they start going, you know what?

I think I would be too, you know? So if you have people approaching you and asking you to do other ventures, you kind of got to be have your ego in check and then also be able to say, no, this is what I’m good at. I’m going to I’m going to stick with this. But then that’s part of it.

BEN: Part of it also is that some of those, like in those cases, some characteristics that help you build a good business might apply to being a good politician also.

So it’s easy to maybe buy into that idea. I don’t know if with football with Herschel Walker, I mean, I guess the discipline and the dedication that it takes to be a standout athlete might you could apply some of those characteristics to, to politics.

But with running a business, you saw that with Trump everyone equates he’s this great, great business, this great business person.

That means he can run the country, because running the country is just like running a business. So of course there’s some things that are not true, but there probably are things that are true about that too. I mean, well.

MATT: There are characteristics and qualities that make any one person successful, like, you know, okay, I’m going to have dedication. Discipline is probably the hardest trait for any success in any industry. And anything you do, who’s going to have the discipline to get up every day, you know, two in the morning and work out and every single day you’re obviously obviously been the.

AUSTIN: Example that say that. Two discipline is the hardest thing to master in all areas of life.

MATT: It is. So yeah, there are core characteristics, but this gets to something else that’s at the core of marketing, and it’s truly what marketing is all about. And it is the number one reason that I love marketing because marketing is life. And so you mentioned Trump is perfect example.

All that marketing is, is perception, right? So in the sense of business, like you, you’re good at one thing. That doesn’t mean you’re good at everything.

And it’s going to be a major mistake if you’re a business owner to just assume I’m good at everything. Right? Well, I’m good at even the thing you’re good at. Oftentimes business owners are terrible at for themselves, like for marketing.

Marketing people who are really good for doing marketing for other clients are usually bad at it for themselves. Right? They don’t walk the walk, but they don’t follow up with what they tell people to do. But marketing is all about perception.

And so we we have these perceptions. And politics is just pure marketing. That’s all the marketing is. The facts do not matter and they never have mattered. We always try and convince ourselves that the facts matter, but they don’t. And so Trump is a perfect example of a guy who he literally checks off every.

Every single law in the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, which is a great book. You should read that if you want fantastic about marketing. He checks off every single one. It doesn’t matter whether or not he’s really a billionaire, whether or not he’s really a success, whether or not he’s gone bankrupt several times, which he has. You know, it doesn’t matter.

All that matters is the perception. And he established that perception. He was in the law of marketing. He was first in the mind of his prospect, his prospect being the American citizens.

And he did that with The apprentice. So he was first in the mind as a success, as a billionaire, as a person who makes the big decisions, makes the big calls in the big chair at the top of the building. And that’s why people attach that to him.

AUSTIN: With his name on the.

MATT: Building forever. Yeah, with his name literally on the building in gold. That’s that’s why people will always you will never shatter that. And that’s important thing to understand. When you’re on the inside looking out, you need to be able to look at yourself and be honest.

Because let’s be honest, it’s just you, right? You know, you suck at something, Austin. You know you’re good at something. Austin.

BEN: That’s what this is really. This is this.

AUSTIN: Is where it pivots. This is where.

BEN: We have to talk to you.

MATT: We need to talk. You’re really. You’re fired, you know? So. So it’s important to be, like, honest with yourself internally because we let our egos get in the way.

Right. And we know like, I mean, last night I was having a conversation with my two dogs, Burley and Teddy, and I’m like, they were making some great points. You know, it’s like just about observations in my life about, okay, maybe I’ve heard.

AUSTIN: This thing with the Son of Sam, too. When I read his book, I just, I just.

MATT: I just haven’t killed anybody yet. No, but I do. I have full I don’t care. I talk to myself out loud, I have full conversations, I talk to dogs. And. But it’s just so therapeutic because I’m like, you know what?

You’re right, Burley. Like I did let my ego get in the way when I made that decision. Like, that’s a good observation and you have to keep yourself in check.

And if you’re not being honest with yourself, you can’t be honest with anybody else. You’re not going to be honest about your business. It’s just going to hurt you more than anything.

So there’s that kind of internal component. But externally it’s important to understand marketing is all about perception. And this proves the point.

Like on the outside looking in, the public doesn’t know shit. They don’t know anything. They see Herman Cain, they see Ben Carson, they see Herschel Walker. I’m sorry. I’m just thinking of all the crazy things, you know?

But they attach the perception of success and authority. And once you’ve been, once you’ve done that in your first in the mind of your prospect, you cannot shake it. And that’s why you’ll never shake somebody who loves Trump. You’ll never shake somebody who loves Biden.

You’re never going to win an argument based on the facts, because the facts don’t matter. Not just in politics or news, just in marketing, anywhere. The facts only matter internally when you’re looking at the numbers, like when you’re marketing, all that matters is the perception.

And this proves like, you know, you you. Just because you’re good at one thing doesn’t mean you’re good at everything. But to the public, they can’t distinguish. They can’t distinguish what you’re actually good at.

AUSTIN: A really good example that popped into my mind is that the first televised debate of all time between JFK and Nixon, Nixon was hideous and sweating and had fake makeup and JFK charismatic, handsome, all that.

And then right after the debate, there was newscasters and people going, oh, well, this has never happened. We just we just elected our president after the first debate because the perception was like, this guy’s got it all. Jfk has all the looks, you know, it’s just perceived. And it took him.

MATT: A lot of work an assassination, a president stepping down for Nixon to even have a chance of getting back to where he wanted to get it is so much work to try and change the narrative that is already established in a prospect’s mind. So much work, so much money. Like, you know, everybody says like, oh, first, first impressions matter, first impressions last forever. Like that is true.

And it’s true in marketing, especially on social media, like the content you put out, the post, you put out the perception of you that you put out.

You know it matters because that’s the perception somebody may have of you forever, forever, and you may never be able to change that.

So when you’re thinking like, I’ll just do it the cheap way, the quick way, I’ll just do this cheap quick thing, throw it up, have it be done, I don’t care. We’ll, you know, learn how to fly the plane later.

Well, you may not have a plane later. And you’re going to literally show your sell yourself short out of potentially millions and millions of dollars in the long run here.

Just because you’re not you’re not sticking to this core element. Perception is all that matters. Perception is everything.

And you have to be honest with yourself. I think internally, like just because you’re good at one thing doesn’t mean you’re good at everything.

And we see like we’ve seen this, I mean, just not in like with clients we work with necessarily, but just across the board.

You have so many people think that they’re great at marketing and they don’t really even understand what marketing is. They don’t even understand how important it is that it’s the core, essential foundation to growing any business.

AUSTIN: But when you’re talking with someone, a client or a business owner and you’re trying to explain marketing and you know that they don’t really get it, but they feel like they do, what is it? What do you say to them to kind of.

MATT: It’s you have to describe it in like you have to kind of it is hard because it’s like we see all the tactics of marketing. We see all the tactics, like social media is like Facebook is a tactic. Instagram is a tactic.

Social media is a tactic. Seo is a tactic. All these things are tactics. And what gets what muddies the water. As we start talking about we, we mistake a tactic for a strategy and we think, oh, this. What’s your what’s your marketing strategy?

Well, I’m posting on Facebook three times a week. Well, that’s not a strategy. That’s just something you’re doing. That’s an action you’re taking. And so it is tough because people also assume marketing is your sales. People think, I’m going to spend money on marketing,

I’m going to make money, and it’s just going to come in like I’m going to have customers walking in the door. But if you don’t have sales, if you don’t have a way to onboard said this or take advantage of this pump that has been primed.

That’s what marketing really is. Marketing is there to get you discovered, build awareness, build relationships, and trust. It is priming the pump so that you can make the sales.

That is really what marketing is. And so, you know, that’s why that perception is what matters. You know, the overarching, you know, key component there.

But people often mistake it. Is this something that it just isn’t. And that’s I think that hurts businesses probably more than not doing anything is assuming it’s one thing, and then investing a lot of time and resources in that one thing and having it not produce results.

Because, I mean, you can’t grow your business, any business without marketing, because marketing, even referral word of mouth, that’s referral marketing. Like you people have to know you exist. They have to discover you. They have to know, like, and trust you to want to do business with you. Right? So if you’re not marketing yourself.

AUSTIN: And and like your business, you know, if you obviously plan on having a business for your entire life, maybe passing it along to your kids, you marketing never stops. It’s a continuous thing and it’s for the life of your business.

And I you know, you guys have radio background, so do I, and I sold radio for a while, and I would have to explain that to potential clients that like, you see Coca Cola commercials. Right.

Well, everyone on earth knows who Coca Cola is and you would think that they wouldn’t need to advertise, but they still do. Relentless. They spend billions of dollars on it because I would have people telling me like, oh, everyone in the community already knows who we are. You know, everyone already knows that we’re here.

And it’s like, all right, well, everybody knows that Coca Cola is a soda.

MATT: But yeah. And you get to a point where it’s like you need to be discovered and then you have to remind people that you exist. It’s just staying present in their lives. Yeah.

I mean, how many times have you like somebody, like, if I said to you like, hey, recommend the best burger joint in Omaha, and I give you one second to answer, you throw out something, probably Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, and then you would stop and like, well, wait a minute, that’s not the best burger like, but that was just the first thing that came to mind because they’re the ones who are in your mind. They’re the ones staying present.

AUSTIN: They got that real.

MATT: Estate, they got that real estate. And so yeah, I think, you know, marketing, it’s like your clothes, it’s going to evolve it. Not one action or one thing lasts forever. There is no such thing as set it and forget it.

People are bombarded with literally thousands of ads every single day, and let alone all the content that we consume.

The average American spends anywhere from 2 to 6 hours per day on average on social media alone. So just think about how much they are consuming and then how are you breaking through that noise, you know, how are you establishing the perception, even if it’s an accurate perception of what your business is right for these people.

So you can’t just set it, forget it. You can’t just sit there and like, you know, you can’t get high on the hopium drug and just hope this is going to work, you know? Yeah, everybody has hopium.

BEN: I’ve been doing this wrong this entire time. What’s your business? My cat tree store is I’m not doing it right. I’m not. I’ve just been.

MATT: You have a cat.

BEN: Tree store, I yeah, I build my own cat trees for cats to.

AUSTIN: Climb. So why is a cat tree important? Sell me a cat tree.

BEN: Because it’s extremely comfortable to sit on with you and your cat. It gives you.

AUSTIN: You perch on there.

BEN: It’s a human and cat cat tree.

MATT: Oh, see, you’ve.

BEN: Got the.

MATT: First. You’ve established a new category to be first in. That’s what you’ve.

BEN: Done. Now I just need to change the perception of what everybody thinks a cat tree is. Yeah, they think it’s just for a cat, but it really could be for a human too.

But that to that point with Trump’s a great example of this, of the perceptions. I mean, you say be honest there with Trump, it’s kind of the opposite of being honest. And he’s also the opposite of of somebody who doesn’t. He says he’s good at everything.

AUSTIN: Yeah. No.

BEN: And that’s and that. So that perception is you can change the perception. I think you can you can use the perception. To your advantage, but you can also manipulate people with that too.

And as a business, you have to decide what avenue do you want to take. And then also, as a marketing company, it’s extremely easy to take advantage of businesses.

MATT: Which most unfortunately do. I mean, we are surrounded by snake oil salesman types in the marketing industry because of those things. It is because that’s, you know, manipulation. It’s usually seen as a negative thing.

But that’s really what we’re all all we’re doing all the time.

That’s all perception is. We market ourselves every day. When I walk up with a smile and I shake your hand and I say, how are you doing? You look great today, Ben. I’m manipulating. I want you to. I want to have a good impression.

You’d have a good impression of me. I don’t really think you look good.

BEN: You say that every morning, I do. I do the highlight of my day.

AUSTIN: And now you know.

MATT: So now you.

AUSTIN: Know that it’s nothing but lies.

MATT: You know. And there’s also the with the politics, like all politics is, is all marketing, you know. And even though Trump you’re right like there are mistruths across the board with politics and Trump.

Trump is probably most notorious for this just blanket just wildly exaggerated statements. But that is the perception is that he’s just like sticking it to the to the man. That’s the image and the character he is crafted over the years.

Yeah. And so there is a truth to it. He stays consistent to his truth, even though all the things he’s saying maybe aren’t the truth. And the problem with politics,

people get in there and they they need marketing experts to come in and just tell them, like, quit arguing the facts because that does not nobody buys anything or makes any decision based on the facts. We use our our our feeling brain, not our thinking brain to make these decisions.

And when you are arguing that the facts somebody who has an emotional attachment, you know, be like, Ben, your cat has attacked you literally 12 times. You had to go to the emergency room because your cat bit him in the finger and they had to, like, do a whole like an.

BEN: Iv treatment for a while. Yeah. Cat teeth are full of nasty bacteria, dude.

AUSTIN: Cat teeth terrify me.

MATT: And and the wound seal shut afterwards. Yeah, but Ben is still with the cat. Why? Because he has an emotional attachment.

BEN: My grandma’s cat.

AUSTIN: Cat doesn’t have teeth anymore.

BEN: But it doesn’t. It lost 11 of them.

AUSTIN: You had a bull, Ben.

MATT: Pull them out.

AUSTIN: Just gums me now.

MATT: All right. Thanks for joining us here today on Midwest Mindset. The key takeaway here today just because you’re good at one thing does not mean you’re good at everything.

Just because Ben is good at building human cat trees does not mean that he’s good at building dog parks. Well.

BEN: You haven’t seen a dog park that I’ve made.

MATT: If you’re struggling with your marketing and you’re sick of social media, just stop and let us do it for you. With the easy box, you give us 30 minutes, we give you 30 days of content. It is marketing made easy.

Check out the link in the show notes here. Today of this episode we made that easy too. You can just click it.

All it requires is one finger. You don’t even have to use a finger. Matt. Use anybody. You can use any body part to click on the link right now.