Why Are So Many People Attracted to Online Marketing Grifters Supremos?
Are you ready to discover who’s leading the charge in marketing for 2024? This informative video highlights our top picks for drifter supermos—trailblazers whose innovative methods reshape how businesses connect with audiences worldwide. Gain valuable insights into their success stories and tactics that set them apart. Tune in now to find inspiration for your marketing efforts with Special Guest Nicole Ouellette, Breaking Even Communications.
Nicole, if you were building an audience for a course in 2024, how would you do it?
Our List of Best Marketing Drifter Suprmos of 2024
Tony Robins
Marie Forleo
Russell Brunson
Grant Cardona
Sunny Lenarduzzi
Jeff Lerner
Alex Hormuz
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:01.810] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 87. She has a fabulous guest here. We got Nicole Wallet here from Breaking Even Communications, a social media and digital marketing agency that Nicole has been running for several years. She’s got an enormous amount of experience, but she’s got a second ego, a second life.
[00:02:57.840] – Jonathan Denwood
She also runs a very popular YouTube channel that’s growing, where she, with a critical marketing mindset, looks at some of the biggest influences on the internet, especially on YouTube, in her style, which I find very impressive. In this episode, we will cover what Nicole would do if she started a membership business online in 2024. What would be some of the critical steps that she would take for her own company to try and attempt to make it a success? And then we delve, I should say, into the meat and potatoes of the show, where we got a list of some of the most prominent digital marketing grifters of 2024. It should be fun. So Nicole, would you like to introduce yourself and your background briefly?
[00:04:01.720] – Nicole Ouellette
Sure. Jonathan, thank you so much for having me on. I’ve enjoyed consuming your content since we connected, and you have a nice show here.
[00:04:09.310] – Jonathan Denwood
You’re the only person that said that, actually, Nicole.
[00:04:13.870] – Nicole Ouellette
Oh, I’m sure. I’m unique in that sentiment. But I wanted to thank you, even though I’m like everybody else. But yeah, my name’s Nicole and I have a marketing company. I started it back in 2008 when my local coffee shop walked in to get my coffee, and she said, You’re the girl who blogs. And I’m like, Yeah. I mean, I’m sure there are other people in this community who blog, but I’m glad you recognize me from the Internet. And she said, Can I pay you to help me with my blog? And I remember I literally said, You’d pay me to do that? And that was in January of 2008. And so we’ve been here ever since, and I’ve slowly grown the company. And we work with mainly small and medium-sized businesses, but we work with other people, too. I started the YouTube snarking when I was alone one night with a Grant Cardone video, and it was in the middle of COVID-19.
[00:05:07.890] – Jonathan Denwood
You just had enough, didn’t you? You just couldn’t take anymore, could you?
[00:05:11.540] – Nicole Ouellette
You could only go to so many Zoom birthday parties at that time. Do you know what I mean? So I just thought, I’m not doing anything else. What if I just record myself watching this video? Because I’ve been consuming anti-MLM and other commentary content, and I thought, Why is nobody talking about these people and how they do marketing? I would watch that content. I believe you- And so I started just making it. And that’s been about two years now since I began to the Nicole React series on the channel.
[00:05:36.630] – Jonathan Denwood
I think you’re a growing talent. I can tell that you were trying different formats, but I think you found your style now. I think you found your niche.
[00:05:46.150] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah, it took me a bit. And I did prerecord all of them for the first two years because I didn’t want to be too mean because sometimes you say something- I’m English.
[00:05:55.490] – Jonathan Denwood
You can’t be too mean, actually.
[00:05:58.240] – Nicole Ouellette
I like the dry sense of humor And I also can be a little bit dry, too. So I started prerecording them because I was like, Well, I want to be fair. I want to be even-handed.
[00:06:07.960] – Jonathan Denwood
And then- I found there’s only two response… I’ve been living in America for about 20 years, tribe, and there are only two responses I get from Americans about my humor. Either they love it, or they think I’m an absolute dickhead of them, the maximum kind possible. So there’s only two responses that I get, actually, Nicole. So let’s go in. But I almost made a mistake, tribe. Before we go into the central part of the show, I’ve got a couple of messages from our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I was looking forward to this. I want to point out that our significant sponsors have some major special offers. Plus we got a created list of the best free resources to help you build a membership website in 2024. A load of free stuff. To get all these goodies, all you have to do is go over to Wp-tonic. Com/deals, Wp-tonic. Com/deals and all the goodies are there, my beloved tribe. What more could you ask for? Probably a lot more, but that’s all you’re going to get from that page. Sorry to disappoint. I’ve made a career of it, the lovely tribe.
[00:07:42.580] – Jonathan Denwood
Let’s go into the severe part before we get into the accurate fun section, Nicole. If you decided that you were going to build a membership side of the business, that you were going to capulate… I can’t talk, this morning. If you were going to attempt to monetize your YouTube channel a little bit more and offer some real value for the right reasons, blah, blah, blah, what would be some of the first steps that you would Based on your experience, that might lead to some success, Nika?
[00:08:19.620] – Nicole Ouellette
I’ve had a couple of people on the channel ask me if I was ever going to do memberships. I’m not at the point where I feel like I would be good at doing this, but if I was going to be good at doing this, I was thinking about this more. And by the way, I’m just going to assume, if you’re listening to this, that you have built a course or some content that is actually good. Or you’re thinking about doing it and that you’re going to provide great customer service to people after they buy the course that you retain them. I’m just assuming that’s happening, right? But if I was going to start this from scratch, to me, how the marketing would fit into it is I think most people have the storytelling part of marketing downpack. But the other part of marketing, which I think is a little bit less sexy, but is important, is this overcoming of objections. The great news, I think, is that in this day and age where there’s all this really crappy AI-generated content and stuff, people are increasingly wanting access to high-quality content and information. We’re not all going to put glue on our pizza here.
[00:09:34.210] – Nicole Ouellette
So what we want to do is just say, Okay, what are the objections I have to joining a membership website myself so that I can overcome them for the theoretical membership program that I’m making? There’s three questions. The first one is, is this for me? Is this membership for me? I don’t If there was a membership out there for independently-owned car dealerships, to be able to compete with the big guys, to be able to maybe cross-reference each other’s inventory- Funnily enough, There’s a very popular YouTube influencer that’s a car dealership in Maine.
[00:10:21.990] – Jonathan Denwood
He sells membership about exactly the sector that you’re describing.
[00:10:28.050] – Nicole Ouellette
Oh, my God, that’s hilarious. You know what I was thinking is I had to drive my car yesterday to get it worked on at a dealership, and I was trying to think of examples that I was going to talk to you about. I thought, oh, if I could do that.
[00:10:37.940] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s bad, you need some new clients there to pay the bill then, which is going to be massive, isn’t it? Exactly.
[00:10:44.610] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. But if I saw that, and I have a marketing agency, and I see that this is a community or a membership platform for this very specific sector, I’m not in that sector. That’s okay. You don’t want to spend your time talking to people who are not going to be good customers for your membership. So part of marketing is attracting the right people, and it’s also repelling the people that aren’t going to fit. So the first question, is this course for me? What’s the target audience? Blah, blah, blah, and being super clear about that in your marketing. So for example, I run targeted ads specifically to people who list these different independent car dealerships as their employers or people who like specific makes of cars, and maybe I want to say that they’re a administrator of a Facebook page, something like that. I would run my ads to that specific group of people to make sure that they saw.
[00:11:37.060] – Jonathan Denwood
What I think you’re talking about is something that we consistently hit on in this podcast because it’s based on Bootstrap SaaS theory, like this book here from Rob Rowland, which I would highly recommend. If you really want to get some really great advice, folks, really go to the Bootstrap startup community And a lot of the things that they cover, you can apply to building a membership website on. Absolutely. Some of the concepts that Nicole is trying to express, but I keep butting in, is really all covered in this book from Rob Rowland, who’s a personal friend of mine, but he started a number of startups and started They’ve all been pretty successful. The last one, he sold for $20 million, and he runs his own bootstrap community, and he invests in bootstraps. Another book, folks, is The Story Machine. This book influenced my own content production. So there’s a lot of resources in the startup world. And to be truthful, I think you’re going to gain a lot more insight and real knowledge than buying some of the courses from some of the people that we’re going to be talking about later on in this podcast.
[00:13:15.740] – Nicole Ouellette
I agree. I think books are a really underrated resource in general. And honestly, a lot of these people have books. And if you just read their books, you probably would get most of the content that you probably would have gotten in their course anyway. So the first course I ask myself is, is this a membership community for me? And the second question I ask myself is, I look at the people running the course or the person running the course, and I say, Can I learn from this person? Can this person teach me anything? So I’m looking for somebody who not only knows the subject matter, Who knows all about, for example, running an independent car dealership, but also that they’re able to communicate that or teach that stuff, because sometimes just because someone knows the content doesn’t mean they’re necessarily great at explaining it. So I would want to know I could learn from the person. So if you’re going to do a membership website, I think a great way to do that is to show people how you teach stuff. This could be doing a free webinar that people can sign up for so they can see your teaching style.
[00:14:14.680] – Nicole Ouellette
This could be taking snippets of something that you’ve taught and putting it on social media as reels or TikToks or YouTube shorts or something like that. I think people just want to see your style and what a lot of the people we’re going to talk about later. They sell this course and you’re like, you’ll read a a full sales page and you’re like, I still don’t entirely know what I’m going to learn from this. I think if you’re really clear about that and people see that you’re somebody they can learn from, I think that’s a great way to… And really showing that through your marketing. Then the third question is, is this community or is this course worth it? What’s the difference between me sitting down and watching 20 hours of YouTube videos and this? I think a lot of people, you included, you put a lot of value into the membership in the course. You have maybe some additional resources. People can have access to you. I took a really useful course once about running ads in MetaBusiness Suite. And what I really liked about that, besides the content, the woman was a good teacher, is that she had once a week Zoom sessions that you could attend, and you could bring your ad sets to the Zoom sessions, and the whole group would look at them, and they would give you tips on, Oh, maybe You could try this, or, Oh, maybe if you changed your bid to this.
[00:15:35.030] – Nicole Ouellette
And basically, you could learn a lot by doing, and you had access to this person to look at your specific, in my case, ad sets, which I thought was really valuable. So is this course built for me or is this membership built for me? Can I learn from the person who is teaching this? And is this community or course worth it? And we have to, in our marketing, talk about how it’s worth it. So maybe there’s an email sequence that people get when they sign up for your stuff, and maybe they get some stories or testimonials from other independent car dealerships and how they were able to increase their business or how they are able to get ready to be able to sell their business and retire or something like that. These different stories are highlighting the different kinds of people that are in the group. If I see that as part of your email sequence, and I’m an independently owned car dealership, I’m like, Wow, I’d really like to connect with these people.
[00:16:28.830] – Jonathan Denwood
Would you say one of the things, and it comes from the startup world, from digital marketing, is really if you can build some email list, it doesn’t have to be enormous. But it must be focused around that and what the initial course is going to be about in the same field. Now, you can’t build a list of brain surgeons, and then your course is going to be about setting up a second-hand car dealership. That won’t work. But building up and offering some lead magnet to get people on that list and not bombard them, but just occasionally touching them and offering value. Would you agree with that?
[00:17:17.450] – Nicole Ouellette
Absolutely, yeah. My email list is, I checked this morning, is 520 people. I’ve been in business for 17 years. I don’t have a big email list, but it’s the right people. So it doesn’t matter how big it is.
[00:17:33.960] – Jonathan Denwood
Would you… I’d be interested in your thoughts about this. It’d be lovely if your industry, seeing as an industry expert, You’ve got a massive email list. You’ve got your following on YouTube. These are all great things. I don’t actually think, the good news, you don’t actually need all that to get the wheel rolling. But what What you do need, which is bread and butter in the bootstrap startup world, is they say you need product market fit. And I think you need course market audience fit. That’s what I call it. And what I mean is, do you really got to think of the persona? This is 101 of digital marketing, folks, building personas. I think you can take it too far, but I do also think you should not dismiss it. Make that persona individual, the ideal person that would benefit from what you’re offering. And then keeping that in your mind with all the initial marketing content you’re going to produce. So it’s really focused on that individual that you can literally visualize. Would you agree with some of those concepts?
[00:18:58.270] – Nicole Ouellette
Absolutely, yeah. That’s my first question, is this course for me? I’m thinking of it, I guess, from the the audience perspective, but absolutely. You want to think through who is this membership for? And then let’s say that you don’t know enough brain surgeons for your brain surgeon membership community. There’s ways to target these people online, mainly through ads. And for a couple of hundred bucks, you could probably find it. A couple of hundred bucks, send people to the website or the offer, and based on how they interact with I think that will give you some information that you can work with in terms of, have you built something that these people think is valuable?
[00:19:38.300] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, that’s another thing. I’ve got my own view about paid traffic through Facebook or Google Adverts or YouTube. I think trying out that you’ve got the persona correct and put in a small budget is fine. I think it goes wrong is until you’ve really clarified your membership fit, is it really appealing to your target audience? And you get this first batch of students in? I think also that’s really crucial because I think you’re fundamentally going to change the course and the following course is based on the input. Because I know nobody on their business journey that started with the same business, which they started off with. Five years, if they’re still in business, it’s normally completely changed. The business model, even a lot of the offerings, it’s adapted to the wants of the customer base, basically.
[00:20:46.090] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. I think besides using whatever marketing channels you’re using, whether it’s social media, email, your website, paid ads, whatever, to basically address these three objections, I think that also a part of it, and you’re alluding to, is maybe having some beta test group or something to give you that qualitative feedback from your target audience. And I guess the times that I have done courses is When I start with that, and either a free webinar where I just get a bunch of people to it, or I start with a beta test group that I’m working with over the course of a few weeks for them to go through the content and give me feedback, I usually will get customers even out of that, even though that’s the aim of it, because I do get a lot of valuable information that allows me to tweak and say, Okay, where do people need additional support? Or what are the things? I’m running something right now that’s probably going to be a course with a beta group Someone asked me this really basic question that I didn’t… How do I find my engagement rate on Instagram? I am so used to using these social media dashboards that pull in all my data for me.
[00:21:54.360] – Nicole Ouellette
You have to actually calculate your overall engagement rate on meta. If you’re looking at just your meta insights, you have to look at the interactions and divide it by reach to get your engagement rate. I would have never known that unless that person asked me that very basic question the other day.
[00:22:12.400] – Jonathan Denwood
What I’m saying, folks, is I think putting a little bit of budget through Facebook or Google Adverts isn’t a bad idea, so you can get some initial traction. But then I would lay off, even if you had the money, because You’re just going to waste it. I agree. And you’re going to waste it even if you hire somebody that’s got a lot of experience in running efforts because you’re asking the impossible for them because you haven’t clarified your business model yet. You haven’t clarified the elements of what you’re offering that offers the most value. You got to clarify all that before you put on what I call Gasoline on the Fire, which Which is what I see paid advertising as, just to serrate in the process, but you got to get the first things clarified first. Would you agree with that?
[00:23:11.350] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. I find when people work on their own marketing, you end up clarifying it even for yourself because you’re working on these social media posts to communicate about your group, and then you think, Oh, wait a minute. As you’re writing it, I find that that process really ends up clarifying things when I do it anyway, personally.
[00:23:32.290] – Jonathan Denwood
Now, I think one of the reasons why I asked Nicole, because this list of dubious individuals that we’re going to go through, in my personal opinion, this is all my personal opinion, folks. I’m going to be saying that quite a bit. This is my personal opinion.
[00:23:50.220] – Nicole Ouellette
Just to cover.
[00:23:51.330] – Jonathan Denwood
All right? This is my personal opinion, is that I feel some of these individuals and they poster sons and daughters of this particular way of selling. I think in some ways, they have caused some damage and they’re discredited online learning. Because I think it definitely… I’ve joined courses, and they haven’t been life-changing, but they’ve really helped me accelerate my learning process. They’ve been I’ve got around the 500, maximum of $1,000. I’ve definitely got a few things out of them. There have been some that I’ve got less out, and others I’ve got even more. Not only have they’ve met my expectation, they’re well gone beyond it. Others have just met roughly my expectation. But I think this whole subset of people, they are more dream sellers, aren’t they, in a way? Would you agree with that?
[00:25:07.240] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. I think the problem is I have in part with the people that we’re going to talk about today, there’s just a couple main things that I like that get my hackles up. And one is income claims or any… Which they are usually clever enough to not do in the actual YouTube title or description, but they’ll do it in the thumbnail. One of our I think today, it said, Oh, how to make money doing this, or whatever. And the thumbnail said $250 a day on Instagram reels. So that’s an implication that you’re going to make $250 a day making Instagram reels, which is way more than the average American even would make it a year, if you look at it. And it’s like, does that make any sense? No. So I really don’t like it when they do that. And then I also really don’t like it when they How do I say this? There’s not one thing that’s going to change your entire business. And they always imply that their one method or their one thing is going to change the whole course of your business. But I guess the good news is, if one whole thing can’t make your business successful, there’s not one whole thing that will tank your business.
[00:26:19.040] – Nicole Ouellette
I guess, I don’t know, unless you do something really, really horrible, really horrible. But yeah, so those are my main problems with these people, is that they There’s either some income claims or they act like, Oh, this one thing is going to change everything. Then, Oh, if it doesn’t work, it’s your mindset.
[00:26:38.450] – Jonathan Denwood
If the things don’t work, it’s your mindset. But we must understand mindset. If you allow your mindset to become totally cynical, that’s a problem. But if you’re polyamish about everything, that’s also a problem. It’s finding a balance, isn’t it? But have you got any thoughts? Because Because obviously, I’m English. I’ve been living in America 20 years. I’ve lived in about four to five other countries in Europe and in South America. I find, obviously, if you’re in digital marketing, you quickly understand that you can’t sell ice to Eskimos, that your product or service, there has to be a receptive audience. You can’t. Why Have you got any thoughts? What is it about American culture that makes it so accessible to these messages and individuals? There seems to be a tradition in American culture that has some enormous strengths, optimism. Most Americans that I’ve worked with are extremely hard workers and very family. I know you wouldn’t get this impression from the media, but a lot of Americans are extremely family-focused and very hard workers. But you also got this side that come from PT Wunderman or Henry Kellogg, this Wheeler-Deeeler, bigger-than-life individual. There seems to be a part of American culture that is attracted to these type of individuals.
[00:28:32.210] – Jonathan Denwood
Have you got any thoughts about that?
[00:28:34.740] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, I think… So one of the famous… If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. And this idea of the American dream, right? So our whole lives, as Americans, we’ve been told, if we work hard enough and if we persevere that we can be a millionaire, we can get to the top of the company, we can become a movie star, whatever. I think that a lot of people have been programmed that, Okay, if I work hard, I’m going to get this. And what we don’t see, and what some of these people won’t show us is that maybe they came from money. Maybe they were connected to somebody who made a helpful introduction. Maybe they were in the right place at the right time for this thing to happen. As Americans, we don’t like to acknowledge those things.
[00:29:26.410] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s a lot of variables, isn’t it? Exactly.
[00:29:29.750] – Nicole Ouellette
When we see successful people, we assume that they worked hard to get there. I’m not saying, by the way, all successful people didn’t work to get there. I’m saying that there’s other factors. If they really looked at it, that contributed to their success. Well, most.
[00:29:42.730] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re not great at it. In my opinion, some of the people that we’re going to discuss probably weren’t the hardest workers. Fair enough. In my opinion.
[00:29:52.360] – Nicole Ouellette
In my opinion, too. Like you said, I’m not taking away that typically hard work is a component, but that, as like you said, if we don’t talk about the other things, it’s not really a fair discussion. I think as Americans, when if you’ve worked really hard for 10, 15, 20 years and you’re not successful, you’re thinking, Oh, but if I work hard, I’m supposed to be successful. Maybe I’m working hard at the wrong thing. Then we have a cleverly placed YouTube ad, or this person shares… I don’t want to give away any of their names. Shares a social media post from this very successful marketing guru.
[00:30:30.850] – Jonathan Denwood
Then you’re like, Oh, well, maybe if I follow them and work hard in the way they tell me to work hard, I’ll be successful. The thing they seem to be selling, a lot of them, is their own success, really. Well, So get ready, folks. We’re going to go into our list, but we’re going to go for our middle break first. I think it’s been a great conversation with Nicole. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it. Give us some feedback on what you think so far. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. It’s been a great discussion with Nicole. I also want to point out we’ve got a great community on Facebook, the Membership Machine Show Group. It’s totally free. We love you to go over and join it. It’s a mixture of WordPress and people like you trying to build a membership website or community-focused website. In 2024, we love you to join. I’m always posting my videos and my other content to help you be successful in 2024. Go over and join. Let’s go into it. Let’s start with the big daddy, as I call, and he is big.
[00:31:54.480] – Jonathan Denwood
He’s a big guy. I think he’s 6’4, 6’5. That’s Tony Robbins.
[00:32:03.160] – Nicole Ouellette
Yes, Tony Robbins.
[00:32:05.100] – Jonathan Denwood
The big daddy of this group, I would say. What’s your thoughts about Big Tony, as I would say?
[00:32:11.810] – Nicole Ouellette
Big Tony.
[00:32:12.530] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, I- I’m married with the big smile, the big smile.
[00:32:17.970] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah, I guess money can buy you really nice teeth. The thing with Tony is, I mean, his stuff is very general, but we all know that he uses a lot of psychological tactics, in particular, his live events, keeping people up for 12 hours straight or something. No, well, that’s what I mean is you look into and- I have no idea why people buy.
[00:32:42.800] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, my God. I have no idea why people buy his shit. I have absolutely no idea. I’m sorry. I’ve got to be truthful about it.
[00:32:51.090] – Nicole Ouellette
Right. Well, and to me, Tony Robbins commits one of my guru fallacies, which is that just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you know everything. I would say other In my opinion, he knows nothing.
[00:33:02.430] – Jonathan Denwood
In my opinion, absolutely nothing.
[00:33:05.520] – Nicole Ouellette
His stuff is pretty general. If you watched a three-hour Tony Robbins presentation and I said, Hey, can you summarize that presentation? You probably could do it in two or three sentences. Do you know what I mean? I guess that’s my- But he’s got a skill, and it’s a skill I haven’t got, but I’ve known some people that- He cares about it.
[00:33:22.950] – Jonathan Denwood
Really fantastic sales people, and they can fill an empty space with just Bird salad. But when you analyze it, there’s no meaning to it, but they can just go on and on. Why has he been so successful? I think he… The sidecar, he was in the right place at the right time. I think opera gave him a great break. And also he was into this fire walking. That’s how he got his initial. This sounds bizarre that somebody that reckons he can give you any your business really got his audience by walking on fire. But that’s how he’s… I can’t Sorry. But that’s how he got into the mindset of America, in a way, was this him walking and getting other people to walk on fire and telling them they could do anything. They walked on fire, didn’t they?
[00:34:34.580] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. He’ll do things in the middle of a presentation, and he’ll talk to people in the audience, and he’ll tell people like, Oh, yeah, you need to divorce your husband. Call him right now. He’ll do stuff like this, and you’re like, Okay, you’ve talked to this person for- I did that.
[00:34:47.980] – Jonathan Denwood
I listened to him, and I did thought, That cost me about half a million.
[00:34:54.110] – Nicole Ouellette
So Tony Robbins told you to divorce, and you were like, yes.
[00:34:57.530] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve been sarcastic, but it did cost me. Our divorce did Divorce me half a million. Oh, yeah.
[00:35:01.250] – Nicole Ouellette
Mine too. Divorce is expensive. I do not recommend.
[00:35:04.970] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s my retirement gone, but I’m not bothered because what would I do? I’m not into golf, so I get bored. And I can’t lay on the beach. I get bored.
[00:35:14.930] – Nicole Ouellette
And And I’m an American millennial. I’m never going to retire.
[00:35:18.390] – Jonathan Denwood
There we go. But as long as I can plod along and I work for myself, I’m a happy bunny. Absolutely. It is amazing. He’s got his private island, which I’ve got no problem with, but I just do not understand. But I think now his marketing campaigns, none of them are run by him. And the team that he’s got are pretty slick, aren’t they? The actual marketing campaigns, the positioning, the wording, it’s some of the slickest marketing. But is there anything that we can get from the marketing because it’s at such a volume as such a- A couple of these people I’ve reacted to, not unless we’re going over today, but they’ll say, Well, Tony Robbins is able to do this many videos a week.
[00:36:09.350] – Nicole Ouellette
When you look at, you’re like, Yeah, Tony Robbins has hundreds of employees. But I just tell people, Just because the name of the company is Tony Robbins, there’s hundreds, if not thousands of people between probably his staff and his subcontractors who are doing all that work. If someone tries to shame you and say, Well, Tony Robbins Robbins does this with his marketing. Tony Robbins has a whole staff. There is no way that you as a singular or even me, there’s four of us in the company. There is no way as a four-person company, I can produce the amount of content that a 500-person company can produce. I think it’s just not a fair comparison. But I guess if you wanted to… A lot of his stuff is pretty psychological.
[00:36:54.190] – Jonathan Denwood
What you could do if you wanted to- He was into this NL. Was it NL? Neurolinguistic programming. Well, If I hear that, I run for the hills. I literally run for that. If I hear anybody spouting that crap, I just run to the hills.
[00:37:08.940] – Nicole Ouellette
But if you wanted to take a nugget from it, let’s say that you sold candles or something. What you could do is you could join some candle-based, whether it’s a Facebook group or a Reddit community or something, and see how people are talking in the group and say, Okay, are they talking about how long the candle burns? Are they talking about Benzie or paraben-free candle? What are some things they’re talking about? And then if you use those phrases and words when you create your marketing content, I guess that’s something we could copy about Tony Robbins that a morally bankrupt thing that we could copy.
[00:37:48.220] – Jonathan Denwood
But he does appeal to a certain size of all minority because they pay a ridiculous amount to go to his live webinars. It’s not a couple of thousand to listen to. He’s very generalistic, dribble business nonsense, in my opinion.
[00:38:07.180] – Nicole Ouellette
He has a very generous affiliate plan. So if you became an affiliate, I’m guessing if you’re like, Wow, all these people are talking great about Tony Robbins. Yeah, all those people are getting at least $500 every time you sign up for one of his things. So I think some of this artificial, wow, a bunch of people are talking good about somebody, check their affiliate program.
[00:38:27.970] – Jonathan Denwood
I think that can apply to a lot of the people. Exactly. On to the next one. Marie, how do you pronounce her? Second name?
[00:38:37.290] – Nicole Ouellette
Forlio. Forlio. Marie Forlio.
[00:38:40.030] – Jonathan Denwood
To me, she’s the female version of Tony Robbins.
[00:38:45.540] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, she used to work for him.
[00:38:49.130] – Jonathan Denwood
They’re all connected. Like Amy, Amy Porterfield. Oh, yeah.
[00:38:54.370] – Nicole Ouellette
They’re all connected. All these people, and that’s the thing, too, if you look close enough, they’re all connected. So they all platform each other. So if you’re wondering why you’re not in… It’s because you’re not in the club. They’re not platforming you because you’re not in their little club. Oh, no, they’re connected.
[00:39:06.690] – Jonathan Denwood
I knew she was a fitness instructor in New York, and she knew she met her. And I think she’s another one that got on top, Oprah, to some extent, and then it just seemed to explode for her. But there seems, in my opinion, to be absolutely no real value or content in anything that she produces that would help you with a membership or set up any digital business. But that’s my opinion. What’s your own views about the content?
[00:39:43.770] – Nicole Ouellette
I used to like her, and then I started digging in, and I was like, Oh, the connection with Tony Robbins. And I mean, she had some… I forgot what it was called, but she had some little show where people could submit her question, and then she would give them very generic marketing advice, which is fine if you do not have that general marketing advice, I guess. But I don’t know. I just think that she runs this thing called B-School, which she initially did with Laura Roder. They started it back when I started, back in 2008, I think. It’s this very expensive six-week program. I think it’s $3,000 or something for six weeks. If you look at the agenda, it’s really basic. It’s like how to figure out your target audience, how to set up an email in social media marketing. It’s just very general stuff that I feel like if you read a couple of business books or worked with your local SBDC or something that you probably could do yourself. Then she’s like, Oh, I have over 300 positive testimonials, but she’s had 30,000-ish people go through it. I’m like, Okay, so point one % of- You point that out with somebody else.
[00:40:56.660] – Jonathan Denwood
When you do the actual mathematics, it’s It’s not so impressive, is it?
[00:41:01.850] – Nicole Ouellette
Exactly. It’s a volume thing. But yeah, the B-School thing, I think is- Well, I think she’s- And there’s- And there’s- The refund policies are awful.
[00:41:10.810] – Jonathan Denwood
I think, like Tony, she does communicate very effectively. She is an attractive woman, and she knows how to communicate, and she got herself into the right crowd. I didn’t know she was one of these work disciples of Tony, like you say.
[00:41:30.060] – Nicole Ouellette
I think there’s a picture of them standing together somewhere even. I don’t know if she worked for him as a salesperson or she was his assistant or something, but there is definitely a Tony connection. That’s pretty direct.
[00:41:44.890] – Jonathan Denwood
So there’s a few of them. What’s the main thing? Is it getting enough budget and getting people that really know what they’re doing around paid advertising that really helps them? Obviously, they learn from Tony to get all the marketing spill at their target audience, but is it then getting backers and getting enough money so they can initially… Or is it they really understand affiliate marketing as well?
[00:42:14.390] – Nicole Ouellette
I think Part of it is they have, and I think also Marie Forlier has a generous affiliate program. And let’s face it, if you paid 3,000 or however much B-School is, and you went through it and said, Hey, if you want to be an affiliate of it, you’ll get a thousand. It’s in my interest as a former student to talk well about it. I’ve already paid the money, and it’s the only way I’m going to get paid back, is if I get other people into it. It’s a little pyramid schemey. But if you look at any one of these people, just open up Facebook Ads Library and type in the name of the company. I want to stress, Marie Forleo is not a person, she’s a company. Type in Marie Forleo, and you will see these people are running hundreds of ad sets at any given time.
[00:42:57.690] – Jonathan Denwood
What monthly budget do you think her operation roughly? Are we talking tens, hundreds of thousands? Probably. Well, tens of thousands per month, but are we talking about hundreds of thousands per year?
[00:43:14.880] – Nicole Ouellette
I’m guessing. You can’t see how much they’re spending. You can just see how many different campaigns they’re running. So you’ll see when you go to the Ads Library, it’ll show you the creative. It’ll show you the image of the video, and it’ll show you the headline. It won’t show you who it’s targeting, it won’t show you how much they’re spending. But if you’re like, Okay, this person’s running 250 ads right now. And what? Each ad set, they’re spending 100 bucks. That adds up pretty quickly. They’re probably spending more than 100 bucks per ad set.
[00:43:42.370] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t see Tony as evil, really, or Marie. My main criticism is the price of the courses to the value. Any value you would get out of the course is very, very in my opinion.
[00:44:01.550] – Nicole Ouellette
I agree. And then I think platforming lifestyle, I think they also artificially show their success and attribute it with this particular knowledge base, which I don’t think is necessarily 100% accurate.
[00:44:14.310] – Jonathan Denwood
Compared to one individual that we’re soon going to be discussing, they’re quite sophisticated in doing that. They really are. Compared to some of the other people, one particular individual that’s on this list. It’s on to the next one. Slightly different because ’cause he’s got his own SaaS product, which he set up with his business partner, who’s the technical lead. And that’s Russell Branson. Owner I’m not going to… I’ve led this. I’m just going to let you set the stage before I add my little bit. What’s your views about good old Russell?
[00:44:54.870] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, Russell likes to read a certain… Has read a certain propaganda to get better at sales. Let’s just say that it is problematic propaganda. Just look up Russell Brunson, Rachel K. Albers into Google Search, and you will see exactly what I mean. I don’t want to get your platform demonetised by saying what it is.
[00:45:16.020] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m not- Okay, no, no, no. I don’t eat money. I don’t eat money. What’s it? Do you mean?
[00:45:23.730] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. Anyway, it has Schmatzies. Schmatzies Yeah, it’s a propaganda. Yeah. And also, the thing with Russell Brunson. So there’s some connections there. He’s also connected with some other problematic people, and he’s connected with some of these other gurus, too. So he owns ClickFunnel, which is a SaaS. I mean, personally, and you’re somebody who knows websites, too. When you look at it, you’re like, Okay, I think this is a little overpriced for what it is. That’s my main thing with ClickFunnel.
[00:45:52.520] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, they had their own troubles because they tried to update it with version 2, and it’s been an ongoing little bit of a train wreck, in my opinion. They’ve lost to other SaaS platforms. I know a couple of people that were really into ClickFunnel, and they were both females, and they’re much pretty hard core digital marketers. A bit cynical, really, but you get a lot of people that have been in a number of years into digital marketing, and they can But they knew their stuff, and they went to a couple of old ClickFunnels.
[00:46:37.860] – Nicole Ouellette
Oh, the events, yeah.
[00:46:38.820] – Jonathan Denwood
Live Web. And they were shocked at the aggressive sales techniques at these That even these two individuals that weren’t virgins in digital marketing, they were hard core. They said to me, they never experienced two days of such. And they were selling plans for over $100,000. It was intense. Like I said, the two individuals that I spoke to that went to these events were quite capable of not being responsive. They said at one time, they were actually thinking about it until they flat themselves on the head and said, Wake up.
[00:47:28.860] – Nicole Ouellette
No, and just You see the tactics, but that doesn’t mean you’re immune to them. I’ve been in sales presentations like that, too, where I’m like, I know exactly what’s going on, but for a minute, I’m like, Well, wait a minute. If I move this money from this account… For a second, I think it, and then I stop myself. But yeah, I could see him- You literally smack yourself across the face, do you? I metaphorically slap myself across the face and stop myself. But yeah, I could see him having really strong sales tactics. Also, he’s like, here’s the thing, too. If you look at the ClickFunnel’s, again, their affiliate plan. So if I’m an internet marketer and someone comes to me and says, Hey, I need to set up a landing page that goes into an email newsletter, and I know that I can make a hundred bucks per month for every person. I don’t know if that’s the amount, but it’s some amount like that. If I could make that money passively after referring one of my clients, I could be a pretty great marketer, but I could make a lot of side income doing that if I was willing to do that.
[00:48:32.160] – Nicole Ouellette
And I have some affiliate stuff on my website, but I tell people, I don’t make a ton of money. I mean, I make maybe 500 bucks a year on.
[00:48:38.640] – Jonathan Denwood
The other thing, there’s two other areas. The language he utilizes in some ways isn’t as sophisticated as the two previous because, in my opinion, he utilizes the language of identifying the mark, if you know what I mean, which I find. Secondly, which you can’t blame me, he runs a SAS. He’s the joint founder of a SaaS marketing optimization company. But he over emphasizes, and it’s become a bit of a sickness in digital marketing, in my opinion, that he indicates almost that setting up these elaborate marketing optimizations will actually lead to business success. But you do not spend hours. You only spend hours on marketing optimization when you got enough audience and you can subdivid it to make the process worthwhile. I’m stating the obvious, but I think a lot of people have lost, don’t understand the obvious, do they? Right.
[00:49:56.490] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, and also, I think it’s really tempting when you hear Systematization, automation. You’re like, Okay, this is where my business should go. I have clients who are like, We’ll build on something. They’ll be like, What if I get 100 orders per day? What I tell them is, when you have the problem-That’s a great problem to have, isn’t it? We need some money to solve the problem. We need to start with something. We don’t need to think 10 steps ahead because like you said, your business will change over time. You might start like this, but when you get to 100 sales per day, you might have changed how you’re shipping things. The thing we won’t even work anyway or whatever. So what I tell people is, let’s get, like you said, a minimum viable product that’s going to work. And then you can worry about scaling when you actually have to worry about scaling. People will waste a lot of time. And the thing with Russell, too, if you watch his content, he will hold his camera up and does a lot of selfies. He does a lot of stuff when he’s driving, too. Whereas Marie Forleo, the woman has a blowout.
[00:50:55.800] – Nicole Ouellette
She has a designer dress on. She has a set. It’s profesh. Russell Brunson, he’s sitting on his living room floor holding his camera and not even a tripod in sight and just talking at it. So I think that’s the way being relatable.
[00:51:11.130] – Jonathan Denwood
He’s saying it’s around the affiliate. He has a whole tribe of millennial… They’re mostly men, hardcore marketers. A lot of them are into email marketing, basically cold email, these parasites, as I call them. He has his whole tribe, and they tend to be a millennial young men that are into digital marketing, into cold email marketing, and getting around every email platform that wants to bar them. That’s his posse, isn’t it?
[00:51:52.720] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. Well, and a lot of these people will be in my comment section and maybe in yours too, being like, Oh, you’re just a jealous troll, and you’re I’m not successful, and you just don’t know what you’re talking about.
[00:52:02.040] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m totally jealous. That’s a big show.
[00:52:05.190] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah, I’m like, Yeah, I’m jealous of a bandchild who manipulates people using crazy techniques.
[00:52:14.560] – Jonathan Denwood
I could be much more wealthier if I had no more scrupules. Me too. Actually, it’s a terrible side of me. I wish I could get… I’ve been in therapy for years trying to get rid of any conscience. No.
[00:52:29.780] – Nicole Ouellette
My thing is there’s a French proverb that’s like, There’s no pillow as soft as a guilt-free conscience, and that’s just how I lived my life. I have not prioritised… When someone comes to me and they don’t have money, I cannot try to sell them something. You know what I mean? It’ll come out in the conversation. They don’t need money. They’re adults, but I’m not selling them. Yeah, but I’m also…
[00:52:53.980] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re going real hard core here. We’re going really deep here now. This guy is in a different scale compared to the last three we discussed. But we got to be very careful because he’s suing a lot of people at the present moment. But it won’t stop me. But if it stops you, I take the underline.
[00:53:18.000] – Nicole Ouellette
No, no. It’s- Grant Cardone.
[00:53:21.480] – Jonathan Denwood
I got to tell you- Grant Cardone. Cardone.
[00:53:24.190] – Nicole Ouellette
Oh my God, that guy.
[00:53:25.890] – Jonathan Denwood
Now, I have a couple… They’re not friends, but they’re associates in the WordPress that have been hugely successful. I have one individual that loves Grant, and he has over 300,000 following on YouTube as a WordPress influencer. And he’s also built up two amazing plugin companies, and he’s worth multiple millions, and he loves Grant. And I can’t stand Grant. I literally want to I vomit when I see this guy. In my opinion, he is the worst of the worst. He makes Tony Robbins look… He’s on a different league, but he has been hugely successful, to some degree.
[00:54:19.920] – Nicole Ouellette
Sure.
[00:54:21.000] – Jonathan Denwood
What do you think has been the key to Grant’s success? Because I do not understand it at all.
[00:54:28.700] – Nicole Ouellette
Okay, so He’s a scientologist. He probably knew that.
[00:54:33.750] – Jonathan Denwood
I did. I’m English. I don’t like- No, no, no. It’s the connection side, are you saying?
[00:54:41.960] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, I’m just saying that if you wanted access to a lot of capital, I don’t know. They would be among my top 10 organizations or companies I would think of if I needed a lot of money. I mean, they have a lot of money tied up in property, obviously. They get a lot of donations. They have celebrities. They have properties all over the world, people who work for almost no money for them. I’m just saying they have a lot of money. Their Seagate gets that sign a bee in-year contract, don’t they?
[00:55:18.110] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t even ask my own clients to sign a bee in-year contract.
[00:55:24.870] – Nicole Ouellette
I hope he has some force, wouldn’t it?
[00:55:27.010] – Jonathan Denwood
I think that’s pushing it a bit far, is it? Asking to sign a bee in year contract, isn’t it? It’s so American, isn’t it? It could be a 30-year. You got to ask them to sign a bee in year, haven’t you?
[00:55:39.290] – Nicole Ouellette
I will say in a country that will elect Donald Trump, we have Grant Cardone. I’m just going to just say that.
[00:55:46.570] – Jonathan Denwood
You’re getting me in too deep. I’m just saying they have a similar- I did like you, Nicole, but now I’m going off you.
[00:55:54.480] – Nicole Ouellette
They have a similar disposition. They’re very confident. They show their That’s the thing, too, with a lot of the… Actually, everybody we talk to, if you watch any of their videos, they have what I call a guru trailer, where basically, they don’t say at the beginning, Hi, I’m Grant Cardone. I have a million… They don’t say that. They show their private They have a plane coming in. They show themselves standing on stage in front of a thousand people.
[00:56:18.470] – Jonathan Denwood
And they have a set… It’s been written in a number of these self-help books. And there’s a whole niche of people that look at these individuals and they have a set pattern, don’t they? There’s always an element where they were starving and then they managed through their own self-work. This has a structure that they all adopt, don’t they? Do you think it has some element of the hero journey to it, like Joseph Campbell? Are they adopting that to some Distorting it a little bit.
[00:57:02.690] – Nicole Ouellette
I mean, like I said, so the American culture has told us that if we work hard enough, we can go anywhere. So we can’t just be like, Well, I grew up and my dad had an emerald mine, and here I am now. That’s not a very inspirational piece of- Don’t be nasty to the owner of ex formerly Twitter.
[00:57:20.200] – Jonathan Denwood
He could help you. His dad was fabulously rich. Could he? Yeah.
[00:57:25.240] – Nicole Ouellette
But no one… It doesn’t make a compelling story, right? And it doesn’t reinforce this idea as Americans, we have that if we work hard enough to get anywhere. I guess what I’m saying with Grant Cardone is where do you get his money?
[00:57:36.010] – Jonathan Denwood
Compared to British society and other Europe, it is more free, isn’t it? To some extent.
[00:57:42.590] – Nicole Ouellette
I guess. We don’t have I guess we don’t have royalty or anything, but we have people who just make a lot of money and have a lot of power in society because of it. But yeah. So my question with Grant Cardone is, where did he get his money? And what I would challenge anyone to do. There’s no Wikipedia page about him, which I think is interesting, or there wasn’t when I recorded the initial couple of videos I did about him. There’s only a Scientology equivalent of Wikipedia. And if you listen to, I’ve watched and reacted to three of his longer format videos, his timelines where he talks about his life do not line up.
[00:58:22.090] – Jonathan Denwood
You were quite detailed about your dive.
[00:58:26.970] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah, that’s my thing too.
[00:58:28.250] – Jonathan Denwood
I can’t do that because nothing about him appeals to me at all. Absolutely. Actually, he’s less sophisticated than some of the others that we’ve spoken about. I just find I just find the whole presentation, it’s less sophisticated, it’s even more in your face. And I just find the whole thing, in my personal opinion, semi-revolting. But that’s my English Maybe that’s my Englishness.
[00:59:02.240] – Nicole Ouellette
He’ll notice he’s pivoted. No, and he’s pivoted from marketing to real estate and to taking people’s money to invest in real estate. He will talk down about, Well, a bank will only give you money. I’m like, Yeah, banks have to follow very specific rules about money. They have to keep a certain amount of money on hand.
[00:59:24.700] – Jonathan Denwood
They’re so honest, these American banks, aren’t they?
[00:59:27.200] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, no, but at least they have regulations around them. If I give Grant Cardone money, the FDIC is not ensuring that. At least I don’t think they are. But yeah. Well, also, too, when he presents information, if you want to say, Listen, I think he’s an upstanding man. Fine. Try to follow one of his presentations. I don’t know if he’s got some a neuro-processing thing or something, but he cannot stay on a topic.
[00:59:59.630] – Jonathan Denwood
I think I’m not going to… I had one of the people that works for me, really fantastic guy. And we’re having a chat with him because I don’t watch American television. I stopped watching it about eight years ago. And it’s really had a… I’ve gone on to something much worse. I just watch YouTube. But the only thing with YouTube is you don’t get all these crime shows because there’s only so It’s only so many murders that your psyche can take, isn’t it? It’s a bit of a bummer, isn’t it? All this murder, isn’t it? I stopped watching it eight years ago, but The individual I was talking, and I brought up Grant. I said, I can’t. He said, Yeah. He said, But I watched one of his TV shows where he was sent to town with only one dollar. And the series is it sends these entrepreneur types to somewhere where they got no network and they got no money. And in a period of time, they got to make a million dollars. And seemingly, he did it. And I started laughing. I said, You do How do you realize that this is television? This isn’t reality.
[01:01:19.400] – Jonathan Denwood
This was a story, and it’s not real. I think we’re still all, don’t know how sophisticated how sophisticated we think we are, it’s just part of the human condition. We cannot accept that most what is put on our computer, our tablet, or on our TV screen has no reality to it, has it?
[01:01:49.430] – Nicole Ouellette
Right. Well, and even in that show… The fun thing about that show is you hear Grant Cardone talk about it, and he is mad about the way he was portrayed. I don’t know if he sued them, but he He’s definitely threatened to. So he’s mad at this.
[01:02:03.030] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, there’s not many people he hasn’t threatened to sue, is he?
[01:02:05.160] – Nicole Ouellette
But it’s like this production company gave you a national platform. Do you know what I mean? Obviously, they’re going to edit things the way they want. But the other thing, too, is if you watch that show, because I watched it. So part of when he got there, he found somebody who let them live. I think he lived in someone’s trailer, they weren’t using it or something. And so throughout this whole thing, people help him. And what I really don’t like about this whole American narrative, I made it on my own. No, you didn’t. Even if we say, I made it on my own, okay, well, my community, I have a paved road in front of my business. I have electricity running into my business. My family were my first customers. I’m just saying that we all have had help. So these people who are like, I’m going to go there and I’m going to do it myself. The reason he’s able to do it is that other people were willing to help him. So let’s not pretend that we’re all just little islands completely detached from one another. We need to help each other. So yeah, the way that whole thing was portrayed was ridiculous.
[01:03:12.370] – Nicole Ouellette
But I think it’s on YouTube, that show, if you ever want to watch-Oh, I won’t watch it.
[01:03:16.230] – Jonathan Denwood
I didn’t watch it. Obviously, you have. Oh, no. I watched it too. I’ll give you gold stars for forcing yourself to watch it, actually.
[01:03:24.950] – Nicole Ouellette
I made it for two, and I didn’t react to it because I thought, Oh, if this was on a I network or something. I just didn’t want to… Part of why I react to stuff that’s on YouTube is it’s stuff that is freely available, and these people have put out on their own platforms. So it’s not like behind a paid gateway or something, so they can’t get mad about it. But yeah, Grant Cardone, what a guy. You never forget your first. Here’s my first reaction. It was a dozie.
[01:03:51.440] – Jonathan Denwood
I could go somewhere there, but I’m not going to. I’m too much of an English gentleman at heart. On to the next one. Sunny Lenarduzzi. Sunny Lenarduzzi, I think, yeah. The Ducey. I’ve taken some of her concepts and actually stolen them, not like Picasso.
[01:04:12.780] – Nicole Ouellette
I don’t think all of her content is I would say in terms of the list- No, it isn’t.
[01:04:17.740] – Jonathan Denwood
She’s definitely in a different league to some of the other individuals that we’ve discussed. Absolutely. I just think there are some… Some of the concepts are totally fine, and obviously, it all has to lead to them hiring her and her team. I’ve worked for myself since I was 21. I’m on my third business. All of them I’ve managed to sell them to somebody. So there must have been some success because somebody gave me some hard cash to sell it to them. I was reasonably comfortable until my divorce, but there we go. I get it. There is a heart in my body. I’ve tried to remove it as much as possible.
[01:05:12.740] – Nicole Ouellette
I can’t get mine out either. It makes you feel any better.
[01:05:17.030] – Jonathan Denwood
No, this is the conscience of the heart. These are problems if you want to be successful, isn’t it? Having a heart and a conscience, isn’t it? Absolutely, yeah. But A lot of the things, there’s definitely more meat on the carcass with what she provides to these other- I agree. My only concern is the claims. They’re not direct claims, they’re indirect around what you’re going to get in giving her a substantial chunk of money, isn’t it?
[01:05:52.610] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, she has two YouTube channels, okay? So one of them is Sunny Leonard Doosy. So if you look her up, she’s got like half a million YouTube subscribers But there’s one, I think, is it called the Agency Accelerator? Yes. She has a separate channel called Agency Accelerator Reviews. So she has taken her claims and just moved them to another channel that has less followers. But she’s talking like, Oh, we’re talking to the video I reacted to. We’re talking to this person who made $30,000 in 30 days and then quit her job. To me, even if you don’t say- Based on my experience, this doesn’t sound I can’t.
[01:06:31.960] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t really want to get sued. But in my own opinion, based on my over 30 years in business, this doesn’t taste right to me. It doesn’t pan out. I’m sorry.
[01:06:47.500] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, and when they’re talking about testimonials, that’s fine. But when you put testimonials, the part that they don’t actually say is, and you can too, but it is implied.
[01:07:00.350] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s the way. There is a lot of stuff in her content that is applied, isn’t it?
[01:07:05.270] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. And that’s the thing is they’re not saying… A lot of these people aren’t saying directly, You can make a million dollars. Although the last guy reacted to, Did you know that you could make a million dollars drop shipping in 2024? The e-com king thinks you can. I’m just saying there are these things- Well, that was your last review, which I thought was very fair, which was a specialist in e-commerce and utilizing I’ve forgotten the name of the gentleman.
[01:07:33.330] – Jonathan Denwood
And he’s very like Sonny. There was more meat. There was. The things he was saying were not misleading. What was misleading is that when you did the basic math and you worked out the amount of hours you would have to put into this in the slog. But the whole niche of drop shipping, there There’s still some possibilities there, but it’s been well-whipped this horse, hasn’t it? Yeah.
[01:08:09.930] – Nicole Ouellette
I guess all I’m saying is that if you are making income claims, even if you’re platforming, if you just want to say, Hey, this person started this business, let’s talk to them about it. That’s fine.
[01:08:22.400] – Jonathan Denwood
She’s too Ponyana-ish to me. I’m English. So she rubs me up the wrong way anyway, Nicole. She’s too smiley and Anyway, I come from a country where it rains for seven months of the year, Nicole, and she’s just too happy, isn’t she?
[01:08:39.090] – Nicole Ouellette
She’s too sunny.
[01:08:46.880] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m not going to let you get off that. That was bad, actually. On to the next one. I think this would be the last one because we’re over it.
[01:08:55.160] – Nicole Ouellette
Okay, sounds good.
[01:08:56.060] – Jonathan Denwood
You got better things. How are you? Trying to make a living. So, Old Jeff. Jeff, how do you pronounce it? Lena?
[01:09:06.270] – Nicole Ouellette
Jeff Lerner.
[01:09:07.230] – Jonathan Denwood
Lerner. Good old Jeff. Good old Jeff. I’m not going to say… What would you say about Good old Jeff?
[01:09:19.040] – Nicole Ouellette
What would I say about Jeff? I still don’t know how to pronounce Jeff’s learning company. Is it… Entrée… I don’t know.
[01:09:32.020] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s- Don’t ask me. I’m not the kid of pronouncing. I’ve made that quite obvious during this interview.
[01:09:36.260] – Nicole Ouellette
No, but he has this entre learning or… I don’t know if it’s entre or entre, the way it’s spelled. I don’t know. Anyway.
[01:09:45.590] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, isn’t that 101 of marketing? You actually need the name of your company that’s pronounceable.
[01:09:52.130] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, I’ve only ever seen it written. And he’s never said it at the beginning. He’s not like, Hi, I’m Jeff Lerner, and my company is blah. I haven’t found him pronouncing it, really. But it’s like some e-learning platform. And he decided that he wanted to build a bunch of courses about marketing because he thought he should help people with marketing. I’m like, Has this guy been on the internet for the last 20 years? If you want to say, I’ve seen the courses about marketing and I have a different approach or something, but to pretend that there’s no part that- So revolutionally setting up lead magnet pages for people. Yeah, basically. His overall character is interesting. He just talks about basically this idea of the persona. But when he talks about people, he’s very like, Well, I can think of a middle-aged dad who is overweight and is just not happy in his life. I used to be that. So he very much like when he talks, it’s like, he’s up here and the audience is down here. And when you think that way, when you talk to your audience, it definitely can come across. But in one of the videos, the whole video was called How to Get Your First, I forget if it was thousand or million or something, followers on Instagram.
[01:11:04.230] – Nicole Ouellette
And he proceeded to not talk about it at all, which was just really funny.
[01:11:08.540] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s so obvious. Well, he admitted it, June. I did watch that video, and he admitted that he hired a… What was unbelievable with that video, but bless his little heart. He actually said he actually had hired an agency and actually had bought paid subscribers. That’s in the video.
[01:11:32.460] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. And then after I did that video, he posted some Instagram thing that I happened to see, and it was like, I deleted 70,000 of my Instagram followers. Here’s why I did it. I just wanted to concentrate- Because you told me you were so inside in your video to tell people.
[01:11:50.670] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s why you idiot.
[01:11:52.200] – Nicole Ouellette
I don’t like, did Instagram delete them? Do you know what I mean? Where they bought followers and the Instagram just did a major clean-out. But if you want to just go on a wild ride, just go to his social blade stats and just look at the follow-er changes. There’s these huge spikes and dips. And then if you just go to a normal… If you go to your followers, there’s a slow, steady, normal… This guy, it is literally a roller coaster if you follow the graph. It’s funny.
[01:12:20.110] – Jonathan Denwood
But you’ve consumed much more of his stuff. Unfortunately, he just appears in front of me for his utter enormous spend on YouTube. He must spend over 100,000 on YouTube, I’ve heard, wasn’t he? I wish I wasn’t reporting the one I thought. So somebody’s buying this, in my opinion, somebody’s buying this garbage from him. But there’s nothing. You’ve watched more of his videos. Is there any serious content in what he’s producing? No. I do have more problems with Sonny, but there is some truth- There’s content there, at least. There is some content, which is… She’s the only person on this list. I was on two minds to put her on the list, but it’s the claims that she makes. That’s my problem with her. That’s my problem is for her, too. And some of the video testimonials that she’s got are hilarious. They’re not the best. This is where the will falls off the marketing wagon, doesn’t it, for her? Yeah, for sure. But compared to some of these other people, she’s a saint, isn’t she?
[01:13:37.960] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, and some of the people I react to, like I said, there’s actual nuggets you can take from it. I think you take what you… A broken clock is right twice a day. You take the things that you’re like, Oh, that’s a cool idea, and incorporate it in your marketing and leave the rest. If these people already are an eight-figure business owner, don’t give them any more money. They I don’t have money, clearly.
[01:14:02.230] – Jonathan Denwood
Do you want to finish the list or do you want to be off?
[01:14:06.060] – Nicole Ouellette
Oh, no, no, let’s go. I think there’s only one more for Chris.
[01:14:08.540] – Jonathan Denwood
Alex, let’s talk about Muscle Man here. The bearded wonder.
[01:14:13.350] – Nicole Ouellette
Alex Harmosi.
[01:14:14.820] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. What’s your views on this, Geeza?
[01:14:16.680] – Nicole Ouellette
Oh, my God. One of my clients loves him, and that’s how I found him.
[01:14:22.900] – Jonathan Denwood
But there are all these people. I know rational people. That’s what I see. I know rational people that love one or two of these people. And I don’t get it because normally, they’re more successful in business, and they still like these people, and I don’t get it. I thought I needed therapy from the Queen of Insight of these people.
[01:14:45.910] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, I don’t know about the Queen of Insight. Like I said, I just have- You are becoming a bit of a niche star, actually, Nicole. No. I have a few hundred people on Instagram, and I’ve got a thousand-ish people on YouTube. I am not at all a giant influencer. I’ve just only been doing marketing for 18 years, and I’ve worked with about 500 different businesses at this point. So I just have seen a lot of marketing from the other side.
[01:15:11.830] – Jonathan Denwood
Tell us about Alex then.
[01:15:13.330] – Nicole Ouellette
Alex Hormozy. Okay, so he started a gym, and now his main thing is he has acquisition. Com, which is lead generation sales funnel, the usual stuff, right? He has books I think one of them is a $100 million lead something. And like I said, his whole brand is he’s an in your face gym guy, and he is like, You got to do the work. You got to do the work. You got to just be producing more content than everyone.
[01:15:49.730] – Jonathan Denwood
You shouldn’t be getting them at 5:00 AM. He’s a fuller of a check, is he? You got to work about 100 hours. He is very similar to a Gary Vienertruck type character.
[01:15:57.320] – Nicole Ouellette
You have to work hard.
[01:16:01.850] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, that’s a funny thing because you got that guy’s hat. What’s his name? The four-hour person. Oh, Tim Ferrace.
[01:16:08.630] – Nicole Ouellette
I don’t mind Tim Ferrace. Pardon? Sorry. I don’t mind Tim Ferrace.
[01:16:12.510] – Jonathan Denwood
I can’t stand him. I think if he’s just rich and he goes down weird rabbit holes, and I think it’s funny.
[01:16:20.010] – Nicole Ouellette
I’m like, it’s like a weird guy.
[01:16:21.670] – Jonathan Denwood
Is it possible to put more adverts into your podcast than what Tim Harris has mainly done? No.
[01:16:27.480] – Nicole Ouellette
I don’t listen to his podcast.
[01:16:29.370] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t I don’t think it’s possible, folks. Probably not. He must put in a 30-minute podcast, he must literally attempt to put 30 minutes of adverts in it. Oh my God.
[01:16:41.660] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah, it didn’t surprise me. I’m saying content-wise, I Don’t mind him. But yeah, I can see where you’re coming from.
[01:16:46.440] – Jonathan Denwood
No, I see where you’re coming from. The monetisation might be too aggressive. But this idea, I consistently hear this, that I just want to set up everything evergreen, Jonathan. I want to sell, I want to do a million dollar business and live on the beach. I was thinking, Well, you’re in the wrong game here, folks, because this is business.
[01:17:09.820] – Nicole Ouellette
And all these people who are implying that, they’re not living on a beach. They’re producing all this video content, and they’re spending all this money on ads. I’m like, Okay, if you’ve made your fortune, why not just go lie on a beach somewhere?
[01:17:22.800] – Jonathan Denwood
Then you got Vennercheck, the other extreme, where he wants you to work 20 hours per day. That Where does that lead? I’ll tell you where that leads. That urgent care, that ends up in the urgent care center with a massive freaking heart attack. That’s where that ends up.
[01:17:41.220] – Nicole Ouellette
Sorry. Yeah. He got divorced a couple of years ago, and Yeah, it’s been… He’s got a bit of a… His brother and him started a marketing agency, and it seems like that’s the relationship screen. I’ve gone on a bit of- I’m just saying it seems to have cost him a lot of money.
[01:17:55.380] – Jonathan Denwood
He made a lot of money. Let’s go back to Alex. Alex is this gym guy. It’s all about the work, but is there any real content in anything that he provides in your opinion? I’m trying to think.
[01:18:10.320] – Nicole Ouellette
I think his approach to short form video content is interesting. If you wanted to take that from it, if you wanted to take that from it. If you wanted to read his books, that’s fine. I just think that the whole, I hustled so hard and now I have a… I don’t know. I don’t really like this guy personally. I mean, Sure.
[01:18:30.390] – Jonathan Denwood
I can’t stand him either. I can’t stand it either.
[01:18:34.450] – Nicole Ouellette
Right. And he was one of my top three videos last year, and I got the most hate comments I have ever gotten on that video. Because I’m just a fat middle-aged troll who is not successful. And I’m just like, Okay, did you watch the… And I think someone’s like, You didn’t mention social media as a driver of website traffic. And it’s like, Yeah. And I made a video about why, which is that social media doesn’t typically directly drive a lot of traffic, but we should still do it. But the average website- I got a comment on my last interview.
[01:19:10.310] – Jonathan Denwood
That was yesterday. It’s an individual called Kevin. Kevin has been on my show about 2-3 times. He has a successful business where he advises web designers around modern CSS and coding. Oh, nice. He’s a martial arts expert, this Geezer. He run his own… What do they call it? Not Studio. Okay, yeah. Dojo. Dojo. He’s a true martial, karate, judo. I was a black belt in judo myself many years ago. Not now, though. But he’s a hard core. This guy can look after himself. And somebody left on my channel, you interrupted too many times with Kevin. You were a bit rude. I said, Thank you for the insight. I was so tempted. I think Kevin can look after himself, guy. He could literally go through the computer screen, grab me, and sort me out instantaneously.
[01:20:21.330] – Nicole Ouellette
I mean, it’s a conversation. There’s going to be some back and forth. That’s part of it. That’s why we didn’t pre-record our sections. But yeah, I don’t know. Then Alex Harmosy is married, and his wife is also a hustle person, but she gets a lot of feedback because she has a deep voice, and she’s, I think, a taller woman, so people are like, Oh, is she trans? I want to just say I don’t want to- People are so horrible.
[01:20:44.840] – Jonathan Denwood
They’re even worse than us. I know.
[01:20:46.140] – Nicole Ouellette
People are awful. Being a person on the internet and just being… And that’s the other thing with some of these people, too, is it’s like, okay, some of this, too, if you’re attractive, that also will help you sell things, too.
[01:20:57.410] – Jonathan Denwood
Can we just- You don’t say.
[01:20:59.960] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. It’s like, yeah, why are we pretending that’s not a factor? It is a factor when you sell things. But it’s not the only factor, but it is a factor. But yeah. So I wanted to say I don’t I can’t done any… I don’t…
[01:21:20.240] – Jonathan Denwood
Are you switched to the mic?
[01:21:20.980] – Nicole Ouellette
It’s not because… Yeah. No.
[01:21:23.700] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t like her- Basically, this is a very long-winded- I don’t condone anything about her. This is a long-winded way of saying you don’t find much value in what you need to do. No.
[01:21:31.950] – Nicole Ouellette
All right. I don’t. Sorry. Sorry, Alex, for me.
[01:21:35.970] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t feel free. I think we’ve had a good bitching session here, folks. I thought I just wanted to get somebody who has spent a lot of time watching all these people.
[01:21:45.660] – Nicole Ouellette
I spent hundreds of hours watching these people.
[01:21:48.270] – Jonathan Denwood
For her duty here, Nicole needs some support, folks, because she’s gone beyond the core duty. I couldn’t do it myself.
[01:22:00.880] – Nicole Ouellette
I did have to take a mental health break for a couple of months because it was starting to get to me a little bit. But I got some videos in the queue, and I’m coming back.
[01:22:11.270] – Jonathan Denwood
Carrying back, bro. Nicole, what’s the best way for people to learn more about you and what you’re up to?
[01:22:20.150] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah. If you want to go to the YouTube channel, Breaking Even Communications, I have a playlist called Nicole Reacts to Online Marketing Gurus. If you’re going to… I try to interrupt periodically and make stupid jokes to pass the time. You can check that out if you’re going to see my general approach. The website, breakingeveninc. Com has a list of our services, and some of our clients. I have probably, I think, about 1800 blog posts on there, too. I probably blogged about it at some point in the last 17 years, if I blogged about it at all. I would say that any social media was pretty much everywhere breaking.
[01:22:56.740] – Jonathan Denwood
Regarding your agency, I get the impression you help quite a diverse group. But are there any particular types of businesses that you particularly like helping out?
[01:23:12.530] – Nicole Ouellette
Well, because I split my time between two small places. I have a lot of clients in the general areas, and they are just people I know in real life. I like doing work with people that I know I can pop by; I can help them get content done or something. I can work remotely, too. But I’m just looking. I like working with intelligent people who know what they want because then we can have a conversation, and people who see me as a partner. I think one of the videos I have cued up about Alex is he talks about how the agency is trapped. It’s like, I’m not trying to trap anyone. I’m trying to provide marketing. It’s like, oh, in my video, like, Oh, the trainer trap. Oh, yeah, you go to the gym.
[01:23:55.060] – Jonathan Denwood
I can insure people. I’m not trapping anybody. I’m not trapping anybody. You also thought You asked for a specific list of services that I’ll give you a price.
[01:24:05.240] – Nicole Ouellette
Yeah, I’m not going to trap anybody. If you’re a smart business owner and know what you want, we don’t have minimum retainers. I like working with, like I said, people who I find easy to work with. So, if you need some help with marketing and want to talk, please feel free to reach out.
[01:24:23.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. It’s been a blast. It’s been hilarious, in a way. That’s That’s the other thing before I end. I don’t know if you agree. I know you have a lot of these people, they haven’t got much humor, have they? They don’t seem to… Tony got a great smile. He seems to laugh a bit, but the rest of them they’re not that.
[01:24:45.690] – Nicole Ouellette
They’re not? They’re not? Yeah. Well, what I love about it, is the male MLM trainers. So there’s Eric Worre. Let’s see; I’m trying to think of the other ones, but these are male multi-level marketing trainers. They’re always saying, Oh, yeah, and I use humor in my training. I’ve watched, like I said, hours of their training, and I’m like, Have you said anything funny this whole time? Maybe, like I said, I have a certain sense of humor. I do a little amateur stand-up, so I have a sense of humor.
[01:25:15.080] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, I would have never guessed, Nico. I would have never guessed.
[01:25:19.600] – Nicole Ouellette
But I’m not constantly being like, Oh, yeah, and all my trainings, I’m so funny. I don’t know. It’s like show, don’t tell. I don’t know. I’ve never heard these people say anything particularly funny. Honestly, objectively. But they all say, Oh, yeah, I have a great sense of humor. Okay. Would you want to show it to me sometime?
[01:25:40.490] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re going to leave it like that, folks. I hope you found this 16. It’s a folded show. Interesting. We covered some great stuff. I think I’ve got a couple of great guests like Nicole coming up in the next few weeks. We’ll see you next week with some insights about how to build a membership or community-focused membership website in 2024 and get the success for yourself and for the family and the freedom that you’re looking for. We’ll see you next week, folks. Bye.
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