How to Leverage Business Tectonic Shifts to Leapfrog Your Competitors with Nathan Gwilliam: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire! Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Gold Digger. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to leverage business tectonic shifts to leapfrog your competitors. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Nathan, William, and EO Fire Studios. Nathan is a serial entrepreneur who created and sold three digital ventures. He's the host of the Monetization Nation blog podcast and YouTube channel and created and runs adoption.com.

0:35He's a TEDx speaker and a digital monetizer. And today, FarNation will talk about how to identify the tectonic shifts in the world. We'll talk about passion marketing and identifying ideal customers and how good choices aren't good enough. Make great choices your top priority and oh so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Nathan and our sponsors. Nudge, hosted by Phil Agnew, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Ever notice how the smallest changes can have the biggest impact? On Nudge, you learn simple evidence-backed tips to help you kick bad habits, get a raise, and grow a business.

1:13Oh, and it's the UK's fast-growing business podcast. A recent episode on how to win any argument shares decade-long research into persuasion from a world-leading neuroscientist. Listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises, and Franbridge Consulting has guided them. Fran Bridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson, has done more placements than any other in the country and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. Nathan, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:57Hello, Fire Nation. It's so good to be with you today. A lot of business experts teach that we need to figure out what the Goliaths in our industries are doing and copy that, or a lot of entrepreneurs believe that's what we should do. And I think we should do exactly the opposite. Think of the story of David and Goliath. Goliath had a huge advantage. He was stronger and bigger and had better armor and a better sword and shield than David had. And if David had taken Goliath on in a direct hand-to-hand combat, David probably would have lost. And David took Goliath's strength and turned it into a weakness by doing exactly the opposite.

2:40He showed up without armor and he kept his distance and he didn't take a sword. And he was able to stay away so that Goliath's strength with that sword could not be used against him. And from a distance where David could move a lot faster and stay safe, he was able to sling those rocks. And entrepreneurs can do the same thing. We can find the tectonic shifts, those things that are changing and transforming the business landscape and do things differently than the Goliaths in our space. And when we think differently and come at it from a different angle, we can get a competitive advantage because generally those Goliaths cannot move as quickly as the entrepreneurs can in adapting to those tectonic changes.

3:29Well, I love this message that you're sharing and I love the way you shared it, which is within a story. So thank you for that. I think it just brings so much more visualization and emotion into the equation, which is fantastic. And that is what I want to talk about because as you heard Fire Nation during the intro, we're talking all about how you can leverage these business tectonic shifts that are happening right now in the world so that you don't just move up in line with your competitors, but you literally leapfrog them. So let's start by just breaking down business tectonic shifts. What are they and why are they so important for Fire Nation to know about?

4:08So think of tectonic shifts in the world of geology, right? You have two tectonic plates that move against each other. And where that happens, there's massive destruction like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But also where those tectonic plates are moving against each other, we can have massive growth such as mountain formation. And the same thing happens in business. We are constantly surrounded by these tectonic shifts that are transforming our business landscape. Think historically of the tectonic shifts we've all seen, such as the shift from bricks and mortar business models to internet business models.

4:47Or think of the shift from yellow pages to search engines or the tectonic shift from desktop computers to smartphones, right? We're surrounded by them and they fundamentally change how businesses operate. And it generally takes the big companies a lot longer to identify and adapt to those. And the entrepreneurs who can quickly identify those fundamental tectonic shifts and can leverage them can receive a huge competitive advantage over those competitors who have a lot more resources than they have. Agile Fire Nation, be fast, be a first mover, so key for so many reasons. And one thing that Fire Nation does love, Nathan, they love real world examples.

5:33So give us some specific examples of these tectonic shifts that have happened recently and maybe even a ways in the past. I mean, you mentioned a couple of them, like with the yellow pages and, you know, with the search engines and all these different things. But what are some other ways that we can really relate to this and be like, you know what? Wow, I might not even have known that shift was happening. But now that we're talking about it, I see it. A relatively recent one was Uber. Think about how dominant the yellow cabs were in the people transport industry, right? And they just dominated.

6:11And they had all of the resources. They very easily could have leveraged the tectonic shift of mobile devices. I remember back going to one of the most important business meetings in my life. I was in London. I was there for an investor meeting. and I was standing on a curb in London and trying to hail a cab to get to my meeting. And I stood there for literally a half an hour and hundreds of taxis went by me with people in them were headed to go pick someone else up and I couldn't get anybody to stop and pick me up. I started freaking out that I wasn't going to be able to get to this meeting. And that was just one of many problems that I dealt with with taxis.

6:55I remember taxi drivers taking obscure routes to get places and wondering if they were just adding distance and going the long way so they could charge me more. Or I remember taxi drivers charging me a lot more than what the meter said I owed. And I had no way of knowing that. And there was always some extra fee. There were all sorts of problems with taxis. And Uber came along when there was this tectonic shift to mobile devices. And they created an app that literally solved every problem I was dealing with with taxis. And they completely disrupted the taxi industry. And that's a great example of something that happened today where they leveraged a tectonic shift and dethroned the Goliath or the giant that was in their industry.

7:46Let's be honest, Nathan. It is a loud, busy, saturated world. And it always will be. I mean, it's just the reality. I mean, when I launched my podcast back in 2012, everybody was like, there are so many podcasts. How are you ever going to stand out? And now, you know, I talked to everybody and they're like, oh my God, when you launched, there were like no podcasts. Cause you know, everything in the past just seems like it was, there was nothing and everything in the present seems like it's everything. So, you know, saturation, loudness, craziness, it's just going to always be present in our lives.

8:21But capturing and retaining the attention of our customers in a world that is full of these distractions, it's tough and is always going to be a challenge. And it does kind of feel like it's one of these current tectonic shifts as we are being bombarded by all size, ways, shapes, and forms. Talk to us about this. I remember when I built my first website, adoption.com, and it felt like customers would spend 15 minutes going through adoption.com and all the different content and features that we had and figure out what was relevant to them. But it feels like people don't do that anymore. It feels like with the millions of different websites that are out there, people will give me maybe seven or eight seconds.

9:03And if they don't find what they're looking for and I don't hook their attention in just a few seconds, they're gone. And often they're gone forever. And I call this the attention deficit disorder that our customers have today. And with every extra hour or every extra dollar that our ideal customers have, it feels like they have a thousand great or a thousand good things that they could do with that extra dollar or hour. You know, Amazon has 350 million products and there's 48 million podcast episodes out there. And, you know, there's more content created every hour on Amazon than I could, or on YouTube than I could consume, you know, in a year.

9:50There's so much, there's so many good choices that being good is not good enough anymore. And I have to figure out how to make my business a top priority so I can stand out above those other good options. And Fire Nation, that is one of the issues is how do you stand up above some of those other amazing options? And one thing that I was kind of thinking about, Nathan, while you were talking about Amazon and these other areas is it's always important to read the reviews and look at the one and two star reviews. What are people complaining about consistently about these products and services that maybe you're into and how can you bring something to the table that's solving those problems that they're having.

10:35And Fire Nation, we're going to be talking about this and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. We're going to be going into passion marketing and some other shifts that are happening in this world and how you, Fire Nation, can benefit with that knowledge. We'll be right back. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship. More things added to your to-do list every day and less time to accomplish the things that matter most. Add to all that the number of tools it takes to run your coaching programs, online courses, growing team, and your physical product sales, and you've really got your hands full.

11:04Doing business has never felt harder. But what if there was a way to simplify everything, a way to manage your entire business with a single platform? Sounds like you'll need a miracle to make it happen, doesn't it? Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't need a miracle to hit your goals. You just need HubSpot. HubSpot's all-on-one customer platform can make growing your business infinitely easier. Imagine this. A platform that gives you high quality leads, helps you close deals faster, and one that promotes customer loyalty and happiness. And if you're looking for record-breaking quarters, those are just ahead too.

11:38It's not a miracle, it's HubSpot. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today. More and more entrepreneurs and investors are discovering the awesome franchise opportunities that exist across a variety of industries. Franchising can simply be the better path and interest in franchising is at an all-time high. Lucky for you, John Ostenson, founder of Franbridge Consulting and a frequent EO Fire guest, is here to help you explore the premier franchise opportunities today. John and his Franbridge Consulting team are part of the largest brokerage in the U.S. and have vetted the market thoroughly. Franbridge is hands down the premier source for the best opportunities in the franchise world, including both active and passive opportunities from tiny homes to youth soccer, industrial hoses to pets, senior care to mental health, and more.

12:24John has served as an Inc. 500 franchisor and is a multi-brand franchisee himself, and he does more placements than any other in the country. Sign up for a free consultation call with John today or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. That's FranBridgeConsulting.com. A big reason why Kate and I moved to Puerto Rico back in 2016 was because we were ready for lifestyle freedom. We love to travel and we love new experiences. So we decided to shake things up. After living here for over eight years, it turns out Puerto Rico has introduced us to way more than we ever expected, including becoming hosts on Airbnb.

13:07That's right. After traveling off-island for months at a time during the summer, we realized that we could Airbnb one of our homes while we're away. So when we travel to Maine and California in just a couple weeks, we'll be looking to share the beauty of Puerto Rico in one of our homes with travelers from near and far. So it turns out we had an Airbnb and we didn't even know it. Our own home. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. So Nathan, we're back. And as we were talking before the break, we're going to really be focusing now on passion marketing.

13:44This is something that you have made the focus of your business. And it is something that Fire Nation can really take and run with based off everything we've said today. So what is passion marketing? So passion marketing is identifying what our ideal customers are most passionate about. What are those, we call them level 10 passions. What are those highest level passions that drive the lives of our customers? And then we build our entire business, our products and our services and our marketing messaging and our social channels and our content, everything around those level 10 passions. And I've done this for consulting clients over the years, and it's a very successful strategy.

14:27You look like a genius, but the core strategy is just finding what our ideal customers are really passionate about and then building everything around them. Build everything around them. And that's the focus of passion marketing, Fire Nation, is you need to draw on what moves their emotions, what gets their pulse to move quicker. And you do have some examples of when you've actually leveraged passion marketing. So talk about those. And then, of course, let's be honest. It's time to brag a little bit about the success you've had with this. Sure. One story that I loved was for a media company located in Utah.

15:08And they have a newspaper and a TV station and a radio station. And they were focused on this market of Utah. And at the time, there were just a few million people who lived in Utah. And there was a new CEO that was hired for this organization. And his board gave him the mission of reaching hundreds of millions of people with light and knowledge. That was his objective. And he knew there was no way, even if he reached 100 % of the people in Utah, that he could ever reach hundreds of millions of people with light and knowledge. It was impossible. And so he hired me and he said, Nathan, your top priority is to figure out the strategy of how we're going to achieve this goal.

15:56How are we going to reach hundreds of millions of people with light and knowledge and then execute that strategy? And so I was blessed to be able to work with that. It was a very fun project and I loved working with that CEO and that team. And we started off by bringing in a focus group of their ideal customers. And we used an exercise that Toyota developed as the five whys strategy exercise. And you basically ask them why they would use the product or service. And then whatever they answer, you ask them why to that answer five times. And when you get to the bottom of that, to the fifth why, you've usually found the core reason why people do what they do.

16:38And then you take those level five answers and you turn them into passion statements. Passion statements usually start with I love, I want, I need, I am. If it's something negative, it might start with I hate or such and such sucks. And so we did the focus groups for this media company and we found the level 10 passion statements. And there were things like, you know, I want a more loving marriage. And they were very different than the focus of the social channels and the marketing messages that had been the primary focus overall. I remember the person who had been running the social channels for that company didn't even follow the social channels for that company.

17:28Because they were taking all of the messaging on all of the different topics and pushing it all through one channel. And when you push everything to everybody, you know, 90 % of what you're pushing out, nobody's going to care about. They only care about a small portion of what you're publishing. And so once we found those passion statements, we redid the strategy of that organization. And we started building marketing channels based around those passions. And then we started creating content around those level 10 passions. And then pushing the level 10 content into and through the level 10 passion channel.

18:06So you were taking the – you were getting people to sign up in groups around what they cared most about. Then you were creating the content and pushing it out just the content they cared about to the people who cared most about it. And we went from less than 100 ,000 social follows to more than 110 million social follows. And they reached that after I left as they continue to execute this strategy. And they reached more than 40 million comments, likes, and shares per month. They told me afterwards that Unmetric told them they had the most engaged social channels of any publisher in the world. And it was all by focusing on passion marketing.

18:48Fire Nation, all focus on passion marketing. And these are the type of stories that you should be listening that Nathan's having this success with and then saying, how can I apply this to my business, to my life, to the marketing that I'm doing, to the business that I'm running? So let's talk about tectonic shifts. I mean, we're going to keep with this theme because we've been talking about it this entire episode because this is what's happening in the world today, Fire Nation. So what are maybe one or two other shifts that are happening and how can actually businesses recognize and leverage these specific shifts?

19:24I love it. I think there's three most important tectonic shifts that I like to talk to people about. And the first one we just talked about, and I think passion marketing is the most important first tectonic shift because we've got to get our core foundation right. We've got to make sure our products and our messaging and And our marketing channels are all aligned around that passion. Once we have that, I think the next most important tectonic shift for us to address is credibility marketing. 25 years ago when I started my first business, the way marketing seemed to work is businesses would buy as much advertising as they could get their hands on.

20:05And then they would use that advertising to tell the world how awesome they are. And that strategy really doesn't work or doesn't work very well anymore. The vast majority of our ideal customers don't trust what businesses say about themselves. And so if we spend our marketing dollars, our advertising dollars, trying to use our voice to tell people we're amazing, they're not going to believe us. And so businesses over the last few years have made this tectonic shift to credibility marketing. And credibility marketing includes a bunch of sub-strategies such as influencer marketing or reviews marketing or word-of-mouth marketing or customer success story videos.

20:48And we get these other credible voices to communicate to our target audience in a way that's more credible than us saying it ourselves. And so I think that's the second most important tectonic shift. And that's probably the most important tectonic shift happening today. but we can really only leverage that once we have passion marketing taken care of. And then I think the third most important tectonic shift happening today is the shift to recurring revenue. And I'm to a spot in my career where I will not start a new business unless it has a recurring revenue stream at the core of it. You look back at all of the major companies and what they've been focusing on, especially during the pandemic, and it feels like so much of their focus is on recurring revenue.

21:35For example, look at Disney. They've had declined in most of the revenue areas of their company, except for one. And that one area is Disney Plus, which is a recurring revenue stream. And it feels like that is a tectonic shift that all of the leading players are leveraging very well. Fire Nation, that is what's going to happen to your business over time. You are going to see shifts. You're going to see cycles. You're going to see things emerge and things detract. Keeping your finger on the pulse of these shifts is absolutely key. So, Nathan, I want to give you the mic now. Share with Fire Nation the one key takeaway of everything that we talked about here today.

22:19Also, give us a way that we can connect with you, that we can work with you, that we can learn from you, that we can consume more of your content because Firing Nation, Nathan's actually a partner here of Entrepreneurs on Fire for the next couple of months. We're doing some really cool things together. So listen to this person, take action on his calls to action. You will benefit as a result. So Nathan, take it away. One of the ways we can identify and leverage tectonic shifts in our businesses is to be able to follow content and media channels that are talking about these tectonic shifts. And we learn what other people are doing in their industries and then we apply it in ours.

22:59And so if people want to do that, they can follow the Monetization Nation blog at monetizationnation.com, the Monetization Nation podcast or YouTube channel. So if they need help implementing their monetization strategy or specifically their passion marketing strategy, they can learn about my consulting services at monetizationpartners.com. And if they specifically want to learn more about passion marketing, they can download a free e-book at passionmarketing.com. fire nation a lot of great ways to connect with nathan here i definitely encourage you to take advantage of following what he's doing consuming his content reading what he's putting out into the world you will benefit as a result because you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with you've been hanging out with ng and jld today so keep up that heat and if you want to head over to eofire.com and just type nathan in the search bar the show notes page will pop up with all the links we've been talking about here today, as well as all of the links that Nathan just mentioned.

24:10What was that last link, Nathan, that Fire Nation can go to download that book? Passionmarketing.com. Passionmarketing.com. And of course, everything, Monetization Nation, Fire Nation, the podcast, the blog, follow it. I've been a guest on the show. It's a great show. I had a really enjoyable conversation with Nathan on that. And I just want to thank you, Nathan, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your fire with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you, John. Thanks for the fabulous difference you're making for entrepreneurs like us. Hey, Fire Nation.

24:47Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Nathan and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and I have created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and your fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit uncommonsuccessbook.com and you can order your copy today.

25:26I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Nudge, hosted by Phil Agnew, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Ever notice how the smallest changes can have the biggest impact? On Nudge, you learn simple evidence-backed tips to help you kick bad habits, get a raise, and grow a business. Oh, and it's the UK's fast-growing business podcast. A recent episode on how to win any argument shares decade-long research into persuasion from a world-leading neuroscientist. Listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises and Fran Bridge Consulting has guided them.

26:02Fran Bridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson, has done more placements than any other in the country and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising at franbridgeconsulting.com.