Business coach Dan Sullivan and marketing and advertising geniuses Joe Polish, Dean Jackson, and Mark Young have all been friends and business colleagues for years. Now, they’re teaming up as the Super Partners for a very special podcast episode where they talk about what marketing really means and provide examples of elegant ideas that entrepreneurs can use to better engage their audiences.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• Solutions that mean no more cold calls or door-to-door sales.
• The purpose of advertising.
• How advertising can be used to help people.
• The difference between marketing and sales.
• Why selling has gotten a bad name.
• What’s changed since Dan founded The Strategic Coach® Program 35 years ago.
• Why direct mail is still the greatest form of marketing in the world.

Show Notes:

Everyone who has a business is going to have to do marketing and selling.

One elegant idea is worth more than 1,000 semi-good ideas.

Perfect has become the enemy of good.

Anything you put in front of somebody is marketing.

Only the hungriest fish snap at the crappiest bait.

Once you figure out marketing, it's the ultimate leverage.

Marketing is the aggregate of all the steps you take to go from somebody not knowing you all the way to them being engaged in a relationship with you.

Once you figure out a marketing algorithm, it works again and again.

You can create control in your future if you learn how to put a message out there that causes people to want to give you money.

There are businesses that die of starvation, and there are businesses that die of indigestion.

The average person receives between 5,000 and 24,000 advertising messages daily.

Part of sales is just connecting with someone.

People don't buy from you because they understand what you do. People buy from you because they feel understood.

Dan’s definition of selling is getting someone intellectually engaged in a future result that's good for them and getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result.

Resources:

I Love Marketing podcast

10xTalk podcast

American Happiness podcast

Cloudlandia podcast

HYPNO-TI$ING by Mark Young

Video: “Is Selling Evil?” by Joe Polish

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy

The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy

10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy

Strategic Coach®

Mark Young

Jekyll + Hyde Labs

Dean Jackson

The 8 Profit Activators

Joe Polish

Genius Recovery

What’s Your Cleator?

What if taking more time off could actually grow your business? Todd Ellis, a financial advisor and Strategic Coach® veteran, shares how a 15-day sailing voyage—completely unplugged—taught him the power of taking time off. Discover why stepping away to develop new skills builds confidence, strengthens your team, and fuels unexpected growth. The secret? A Self-Managing Company® that thrives when you disconnect.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How Todd discovered his passion for financial services—and why helping people drives his business.
• The surprising ways Todd’s company creates real impact for clients and team members.
• Why taking true time off accelerates success.
• The importance of making sure you have the capacity to handle a situation (before you’re in it).
• How Strategic Coach helps entrepreneurs and their companies grow.

Show Notes:

The more free time you take, the more your income will grow.

Taking free time flies in the face of workaholic culture, where burnout is worn as a badge of honor.

Gaining a new capability gives you a new sense of confidence.

To take time off, you must have a company that can develop and grow while you’re away.

Once you have your own company, you get to decide how you’re going to serve the public.

Many people measure their success by how many clients they have, but having fewer clients allows you to really invest in yourself.

Taking a break from technology allows you to be with your own thoughts and experience what’s around you.

A Free Day™ is a 24-hour period that's uninterrupted by any work-related activities.

When you step inside Strategic Coach, you get to be surrounded by like-minded entrepreneurs who are eager to support your growth.

Entrepreneurs share common issues, but every entrepreneur is unique.

Resources:

How Free Days Keep You On Your Side Of “The Line”

What Is A Self-Managing Company®?

Unique Ability®

What if the traits you’ve been told are disadvantages are actually your “unfair” advantages? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and engineer-turned-ADHD-advocate André Brisson reveal how entrepreneurs thrive by rewriting the rules—not following them. Learn why your unique way of thinking is your greatest asset and how to build a business (and life) that rewards it.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why entrepreneurs feel like misfits in traditional learning environments.
• The program that helps high-achieving ADHD entrepreneurs understand themselves better.
• The surprising truth about who The Strategic Coach® Program was designed for.
• Why Strategic Coach® members instantly “get” each other (and how this community transforms isolation into confidence).
• How André built an engineering firm that breaks industry norms.
• How André’s ADHD has fueled his biggest challenges—and his biggest wins.
• The #1 insight André learned in 14 years at Strategic Coach.

Show Notes:

Entrepreneurs are shortcut creators—your ability to bypass inefficiencies is what makes you invaluable.

The systems that frustrate you exist because most people prioritize rules over results.

The real trick for entrepreneurs is to break the rules and get paid for the shortcuts they create.

Everything that works in your life is the result of having created a new solution for yourself. If things don’t work, it’s because you're trying to fit into someone else’s system.

What you do and the way you do it is the center of your life, and you can keep expanding that throughout your entire career.

Your Unique Ability® isn’t just what you’re good at—it’s what energizes you while delivering exponential value.

Once you decide that the way you do something is the right way for you to do it, you’ll find the customers and clients who appreciate that.

If you’ve been trained to do things a certain way, you might get stuck in that way of solving problems.

As long as you’re continually hitting a new Ceiling of Complexity™, you know you’re growing.

Freeing up your time to work at a higher level is a lot of fun.

Underutilized and overutilized strengths are actually weaknesses.

Resources:

The Impulsive Thinker™

Kolbe A™ Index

CliftonStrengths®

PRINT®

Unique Ability®