2 - Secret Treasure

In this video, I'm going to talk to you about secret treasure. What that means and why it is probably the single most critical aspect that you have to get right. In fact, I'll say that. It is the most critical aspect that you have to get right in building your agency. If you miss this, if you misunderstand this, if you don't do this, you will fail and it

will be painful. Now in the last video, we talked about why you should create your own market. You should not compete in existing market space, but you should create your own market by tapping into a higher level benefit instead of values of lifestyle on top of your functional capability. We went through all that and we also talked about why the reason most people do this wrong, even

the people who know about it do it wrong is because they don't understand secrets. In this video, I'm going to talk to you about secret treasure tying this back into our boating seafaring metaphor, secret treasure. What is rare, scarce, and valuable on the seas of business, on the seas of the market? What is it that people are after? What is it that drives the market, that drives

all the activity on the ocean? Some money. Money is just a representation of value. What is actually valuable? The secret treasure on the ocean of business is the hopes, fears, and desires of your market. The hopes, fears, and desires of the people you serve. That is the secret treasure. That is what people will pay you anything to solve. You've heard this before, in fact, I hope you've

heard this before, if you're in this course, you've made money with your business, but you've never heard it quite like this. Now I'll get into detail because again, most people misunderstand this. Most people have heard hopes, fears, and desires, blah, blah, blah, but they don't really know the hopes, fears, and desires of their market so they don't have secret treasure. They think they do, which is even

worse. Now obtaining secret treasure takes work. You can't just, you know, the ocean is vast and you can't just throw out an ad and pull up secret treasure. No, you've got to find a treasure map, you've got to find the island, you've got to dig it up, or you've got to steal it from somebody else, and it takes work. This is why a lot of people convince

themselves they already have it. They have the secret treasure. They're ready to go out and build their agency. They just need customers. They just need clients. They just need money, et cetera. That's not what they need. If they had what they needed, that would come. Don't convince yourself you already have secret treasure. Now you might. A couple people watching this video probably do, but most of you

probably don't, and all of you could use refinement. Hell, I constantly refine my secret treasure for my market. Attaining secret treasure takes work. So upfront work and then constant refinement because it is the single most critical aspect that you have to get right in your business. Now here is something critical that so many people get wrong. You do not have secret treasure. You do not have the

rare and valuable thing that your audience wants. You have to educate your market on the value of your service. You should not, I repeat, have to educate your market on the value of your service. You should not have to explain to them why videography is important, why they need animation, why copywriting is what their business is missing. If you're explaining why they need it, you have lost.

You have failed because all of those things are not actually what you're selling. Remember, you're not selling a functional capability, you're selling a higher level benefit. A set of values, a lifestyle, and you shouldn't have to educate your market on the value of that. You know, Apple doesn't say, guys, you should be rebellious. You should be creative. You should be artistic and then sell them that. No,

people are always going to be artistic, creative and rebellious. You just have to be willing to understand that, to be able to understand that and then sell them that. You should not have to educate your market on the value of your service. If you do that, you don't have secret treasure. Now, how do you get secret treasure? What does this work look like? What does it consist

of? What the hell am I talking about? In order to find secret treasure, you have to either dig or plunder. You've got to either dig it up or steal it from somebody. Let's get into these and then we'll get into some examples so you can see what I'm talking about in action, dig or plunder. Here's how to dig for secret treasure. You don't have to actually do

this exercise until you've gone through the other videos because they'll provide a lot more context but I want to start here. Here's how to dig for secret treasure. This is the most important method for finding secret treasure because you're doing it yourself. You can find stuff that nobody's ever found before. You want to interview five to ten people in your market and again, we haven't clarified your

market, et cetera. Watch the other videos first but this is important for you to understand before we even get into that. Interview five to ten people in your market. In fact, you should interview a hell of a lot more than that over the life of your business but to start five to ten people and dig deep into their pains, fears, hopes, dreams, desires, have a real heart

to heart about what matters most in their life. If they were on their deathbed, if they were in the midst of an emotional breakdown, if they were having a nightmare and yelling out in their sleep, what are they saying? What are they talking about? What do they care about? Most of this isn't even going to be business. It's going to be loosely linked to business but it's

going to be things like I want to feel in control of my life. I want to feel like I have purpose. I want to feel like my family's taken care of. I want to have a legacy. There's a reason I talk about legacy a lot and we'll get into that as an example in a future video. But interview five to ten people and dig deep into what

drives their life. What are the emotional, what is the emotional solar system that their life revolves in? What's their son? What's their mood? What do they care about? Most people never do this. They never have these heart-to-heart interviews with their market. 99% of agencies don't do this. By doing this, you have a huge, huge leg up. Now, when you start to see trends and you feel like

you know these people better than they know themselves, you've found their secrets. An example of this, say you serve chiropractors and you've interviewed seven of them, say by now, going about your ten interviews and you're talking to them and you're still in the initial stages and you're saying, okay, tell me about what you want, et cetera. They're like, yeah, well, I want more patience, you love what

I do, et cetera. And by that point, you already know, oh, well, he says he wants patience, but he really wants to have a thriving business so that he can feel and control his life. Boom. And then you get there and he says that. Yeah, you know, I really, really need more of these awesome patience because then I would feel, you know, I just feel like my

business is out of control and I want to feel and control it. Boom. You already know that. You can predict it. You know him better. He knows himself. He has to figure that out. He has to go, yeah, you know, I guess the reason I want new patience is because I want to feel and control my business again, something like that, and you go, I knew that.

That is when you, you know, he had to figure it out, but you already knew that. You had to connect those dots, but you already knew that. When you start to know your market better than they know themselves, you found their secrets. Don't stop until you get to this point. If you stop short of this point, you haven't hit the secret treasury yet. Now keep a running

document of secrets, continually update it and refine it. Your market changes. Some of the manifestations of their secrets will change and you'll continually dig up new ones that you can profit from. And more importantly, solve to make a positive impact in the world. How do you make a legacy? How do you make an impact? You deliver people's secrets. You step into their emotional solar system, their emotional

realm, and you change everything. So they no longer lie in bed at night, having nightmares, yelling something out in their sleep, because you have solved it. Guys, this is what we talk about when we say higher level benefits. Nobody gives a shit about web design, photography, copywriting, etcetera, I promise you. And the sooner you wrap your head around that, the sooner you're going to win in business.

Nobody cares about it and they never will. What they care about is their secret treasure, the things that they bury deep inside themselves and they're waiting for the right person to dig out and sell back to them and change their life forever. This is how to take for secret treasure and it is the most important method for obtaining secret treasure. Now there's another method. You can be

a pirate and you can plunder. And this is a sneaky method. This is a method that you should also use. Now you shouldn't only use this because a lot of people do it wrong. If everybody constantly steals treasure from each other, we get into what I call fool's gold, where your secrets are not actually secrets, they're not actually treasure. But being a pirate, if you know how

to do it right, can work very well. It can be a very good pirate. Here's how to plunder secret treasure. I'm going to find five competitors in a similar market. And I say similar in the sense of defined by the same, you know, who share the same functional capability because you're going to create your own market. You're not going to have any competitors, not really. But find

quote unquote competitors, people with a similar functional thing who don't suck. Remember, 99% of agencies suck. That's like a law of the agency industry, 99% of them will always suck and they'll go out of business and they'll struggle. You are going to be part of the 1%. So find five competitors in a similar market, you don't suck. They don't suck if it looks like they have secret

treasure. This can be really hard, again, most agencies are really bad. It's actually hard to plunder because it's hard to find people who already have secret treasure. But when you do, when you find competitors that are crushing it, you want to research their messaging, how they talk to their audience, their packages, what they sell, their pricing, how much they charge, their sales funnel, the process they take

people through, their messaging packages, pricing, sales funnel, and pay attention to the language they use and the secrets they talk about. What are they selling back to their customers? What are they actually selling, what is their functional capability, and then what is their branding, what is their higher level benefit that they sell? What are the secrets? Find their secret treasure. Now on top of this, you want

to also research market trends and data, see where the market is moving, what sort of buying decisions people are making, you can find a ton of data about this online, read articles and forums around your market, find other second-hand sources to plunder, books, Facebook, news feeds, all that sort of stuff can work. And this is a shortcut, and like any shortcuts, it has a downside, which is

you're not talking to your audience yourself, you'll always get the best information by talking to your audience yourself, and that is the only way to find something that nobody has ever found before. But on top of that, in order to deepen it and give a context, and also figure out how not to be like everybody else, you need to learn how to be a pirate, and plunder

secret treasure from your competitors. Not as your main source of income, or not income, not as your main source of treasure, you don't want to just be a pirate, but you want to also be a pirate. Okay, now, be aware of full gold, this is the danger, this is why you don't want to just be a pirate, because most people don't understand secrets, they don't understand what

we're talking about, they don't understand that the only way to truly win a business is to figure out what people scream out in their nightmares, and then make that screaming stop, or to figure out what people think about on their deathbeds, and sell it back to them, and change their life forever. Most people don't know that, because most people are selling websites, or digital marketing retainers, shit

that nobody wants. So be aware of full gold, full gold is when people think they have secrets, they think oh, you know, I know what people want, people want Facebook ad funnels, a lot of people, so many people out there, maybe you're one of them, think that people want Facebook ad funnels, nobody wants a Facebook ad funnel, in fact people don't even want to think about Facebook

ad funnels, unless you're some marketer who spends all day doing that, nobody cares about Facebook ad funnels, what they actually care about is something far deeper that you're going to have to dig for, but so many people have fulls gold, they think they understand what their market wants, but they're still struggling because they don't actually understand secrets. Be aware of fulls gold, it will be the death

of your business, and it's the reason you don't just want to be a pirate, because you could end up with fulls gold, you know, if you have secret treasure and you know what it looks like, you know when you're plundering it right, if you don't have it and you're just a pirate, you can think you have it, but you actually have fulls gold, now, let's use a

couple examples, because this is extremely important, we'll start with electricians, this is an example, one of my mentors used to explain it to me, electricians, let's say you serve electricians with your agency, that's your market, that's your niche, now, here's some fulls gold, this is what people are trying to sell to electricians, they think they want digital marketing, they just have to explain, you know what your

business needs, Mr. Electrician, you need some digital marketing, you need to get into the current age, you need to be in line with the trends, you know, everybody's doing it, you should do it too, they don't care, they don't care about digital marketing, they're already worrying about rewiring houses and providing for their family and going out with their buddies or, you know, starting up that side project,

I don't know, I don't let me know, electricians, but I know they sure as hell don't care about digital marketing, SEO, just a specific example, with, you know, with integer marketing, they don't care about SEO, you're not going to be able to sell somebody SEO, you're not going to sell an electrician SEO, just think about how that conversation would go, well, you, you know, let me tell

you something, Mr. Electrician, you need some SEO, what the hell is that, well, you know your website, you need more visitors, you need to be on the top of Google, because then more people will visit your page and more people visit your page, they'll see your services more and they'll get more curious about you and you'll, you know, eventually get more customers, they're not even going to

get that far in the conversation, they're just going to zone out, they don't care about SEO, here's the most insidious, full as gold, now here's where we're getting into, we even when people understand blue oceans, they misunderstand secrets, they think they want more jobs, more electrician jobs, more, and by jobs, I mean like clients, more, if you hire an electrician, they're doing a job for you, right,

they're getting paid for that, that's the lifeblood of their business, they say, you know what, I'm going to be clever, I'm not going to sell them digital marketing, I'm not going to sell them SEO, I'm going to sell them more jobs, that's what they really want, now this is better, you can actually start a moderately successful business doing this, selling jobs to electricians, but you're not going

to start an insanely successful business, because as much as they don't want jobs, or as much as they want jobs, they don't actually just want jobs, in fact, this is why you have to dig, because you don't actually know what they want, you need to talk to them, you need to have a hard to heart, and here's the example of electricians, if you sit down with most

electricians, they'll tell you, you know when this research was done, when this digging was done, they said they wanted more full house rewired jobs, you know, they don't like fixing light bulbs, light bulb sockets, blah blah blah, they don't, they don't like that stuff, they don't get paid much, they have to travel around from house to house for like hundred bucks, it's not worth it, what they

want is more full house rewired jobs, you know they make five grand, takes half a day, super easy, the lifeblood of their business, they don't want more jobs, they don't want to fix more light bulb sockets, they want more full house rewired jobs, that's what they really want, that's what they lie in that thinking about it, if only I could get more of these 5k full house

rewired jobs and fewer sockets, what that would do for my business, or maybe they don't even think about that, but if they heard it, they would be like oh my god, that would completely change my business, again, it's something so deep that maybe they don't even take up, guys most people don't understand secrets, they don't just understand the level of nuance, nuance and depth that you need

in your secret treasure, electricians don't want digital marketing, they don't want SEO, they don't even want more jobs, they want more full house rewired jobs, that is their secret treasure, okay, let's use another example, family doctors, a lot of digital marketing agencies and agencies have tried to target doctors, again, full school, what do they not want, a lot of people think they want digital marketing, you know,

they don't care, you know, I've seen a lot of people try to sell them branding and website, you need a better brand, you need a better website, they don't care, you know, not really, if they look like they do, it's because somebody told them their website sucked and they lost a customer, again, they won't even care unless that's one of their best patients, which we'll get to,

they don't want digital marketing, they don't want branding or web design, they don't care, that's not something they think about, they already have plenty to think about, they're not going to let something else come into their emotional solar system, none of these things even matter, they're beyond the asteroid belt, they're, they're nothing, they also don't want new patients, that's what a lot of people think, they'll think,

I'm going to be clever, I see all these digital marketing firms are trying to sell them digital marketing or these agencies are selling branding and website, I'm going to be different, I'm going to sell them new patients, that's, you know, it's better, it's a step in the right direction, it shows you've moved from kindergarten to first grade, but guys, we want to be in high school, we

want to be in college, we want to be building a six, even a seven figure agency, very rapidly, and there's only one way to do this and it's to find out the real secret, for example, and this varies depending on your actual niche and the doctors you talk to, so don't take these secrets and run with them, they evolve in their nuance, this is why you actually

have to dig, you cannot get around this hard work, most people do, you are not most people, you are going to win, their secret, their secret treasure is that they want more office worker patients, people with life insurance, no problem paying, routine checkups, they don't really have any, they rarely have big problems, pretty routine, maybe they get sick every once in a while, they come in every

year, like clockwork, their own retainer, these are the lifeblood of their business, they're easy, you know, they can talk to them, they can joke about football games, etc, all this stuff that nobody really talks about, but can you imagine that, can you imagine selling a doctor, patients that they can talk to football about, that's so deep, I've never heard of anybody sell something at that level of

depth, if you, if that's actually what they want, I don't know if that's actually what they want, because I haven't started a business in the medical initial, though I've helped clients grow agencies in this niche, if you, if you're able to say, hey, you know, I know you don't want new patients, I know that you want patients that, you know, come on, let's be honest, you, you

want to be able to, you know, drop some comments about the latest football game, you know, you don't want just the old lady down the street, you got to sit through and be bored with, they're going to be like, yeah, man, you're totally right, you know, I can't talk about this with anybody else, but you're right, that's the, that's a secret. So, the secret I have here,

you can even get more in depth from, again, you can always get deeper, you can always refine more, you can always use more of their language, but doctors don't want new patients, they want more office worker patients, or they want patients that pay them a lot of money and they can talk football with, that is their secret treasure and you need to go out and dig for

it. Now, here's another example, and this is, this is my niche, online entrepreneurs, people who start online businesses, most of my customers are, it's not all of them, but most of them. Here's the full scope, here's the people try to sell them, they think they want online courses and coaching, yeah, everybody's buying online courses and coaching, everybody's selling an online course and coaching package or something like

that, they don't, they don't care, you don't care, you wouldn't, you know, you know what I'm talking about, if somebody said, I have a new online course, you want to check it out, you just zone it out, you'd have to get your attention with something else. Now, a little better, but still bad, they want sales funnels, a lot of people try to sell sales funnels to entrepreneurs,

you know, that's, that's what I sell with my, with my agency, but not really, that's what I deliver, it's not what I sell. People think they want sales funnels, they don't give, you know, they don't, they don't give a crap, they don't care. Now, let's get into the good, but insidious, this is good, but it's not great, most people stop, it could, they want more clients and

cash, they think entrepreneurs want more clients and cash, agencies want more clients and cash, well, they do, but not really, it's not actually what they care about, you know, it's better, though, though often buy from agencies that were from businesses that sell them clients and cash, just because nobody else is doing that, not enough people are doing that, because it is something that they, you know, sort

of want, doesn't line up with what they, you know, they might fall in bed thinking I need more cash, I need more clients, but it's not really their secret. So here's, here's the secret for my, my niche. And, and this could, this varies even within online entrepreneurs soon. Again, don't, don't steal this stuff, you have to dig, dig for yourself because the nuance is where the power

of secret treasure comes in. So here's the secret, secret treasure for online entrepreneurs. They want six figure incomes and legacies of positive impact. The reason they want cash on clients, the reason they do sometimes listen to that is because they care about their legacy, they care about the impact that they're making on the world, they care about having a six figure lifestyle, they want to have that

Instagram lifestyle, they want to be able to post, excuse me, they want to be able to post pictures of their vacations in Bali and in Thailand and traveling around the world or with their family or expensive dinners, they want six figure incomes in the lifestyle they provide, and they want more importantly, legacies of positive impact for their children, for their, their families. Here's their actual secret. They

want six figure incomes and legacies of positive impact. They want six figure incomes so that they can travel, have freedom, they want to be able to post pictures on Instagram, then press their friends. They want to post pictures of their expensive steak dinners, their vacations in Thailand and Bali, their new Teslas, their new cars, and more importantly, more importantly than any of that, they want legacies. They

want lives for their children and their, you know, their spouses or their girlfriends or whatever, their family, they care about positive impact, they care about how they're remembered. This is what they're going to think about on their deathbed. This is what they're going to roll over at night thinking about their purpose, their legacy. A lot of people are trying to sell online entrepreneurs clients and cash. Very

few people are selling them legacies, and that is why my business sells legacies. So that's their actual secret. That's what a lot of people don't tap into about entrepreneurs. Again, varies depending on even the segment of your market. So to do this taking yourself, don't just steal it. Don't just be a pirate. You can steal it later once you've figured out their actual secrets for you to

contact in nuance. Here are their actual secrets, their actual secret treasure. They want six figure incomes in the lifestyle they provide and legacies of positive impact. Six figure incomes because they don't want to worry about money. They want to get off the hamster wheel and have enough savings. They want to be making 10k plus each month. And they want the lifestyle that provides the ability to travel

or take a month off or do whatever they want or take a vacation in Thailand or Bali and post pictures of it on Instagram have expensive steak dinners and press their friends. And more importantly, even than any of that, is they want legacies. They want legacies of positive impact. They want to be remembered after they're gone. They want to be remembered for the life they lived and

the value they provided and the impact they had on people. This is what they actually want. Most people watching this video will fall under that category. Guys, as much as you care about clients and cash, what you really want is a legacy. That is the secret of most online entrepreneurs that I target. They want six figure incomes, the lifestyle they provide and legacies of positive impact. And

the reason they care about cash and clients sometimes is because it helps them get there. Again, the nuance of this, the specific manifestation of this secret treasure varies depending on the entrepreneurs that you target. So if you sell to entrepreneurs, again, don't just steal this, do your own research. And then once you've done your own research, you can come back and use this as new ones. But

that's the secret treasure for the online entrepreneurs that I target. Now, just a reminder, because this is incredibly, incredibly important. You should not have to educate your market about the value of your secret treasure. You shouldn't have to tell them why they should want it, why they need it, what they're missing without it. You shouldn't have to tell them any of that. You don't have to explain

to, you don't have to explain to somebody why they should want to be remembered as a legend, as a great for having the legacy. You don't have to explain, well, it's great because it puts you up there long Steve Jobs and all these great people. You don't have to explain that. People get that. It's so deeply wired into the human operating system that you don't have to

explain it. You don't have to explain to, you know, electricians, why they want full house rewire jobs. They might have to explain it to you at first, but then as soon as you say it, you know, I know what you need, you need more full house rewire jobs. They say, how did you know that? That's incredible. Nobody's ever said that. I can't even talk to my wife

about that. She doesn't understand that. They automatically get it. You don't have to educate your market about the value of secret treasure. They already know they spend their lives thinking about it. All you need to do is dig deep enough to find it. All right. Watch the rest of the videos and then get digging and plundering you pirates.