The Secrets to Success with Goal Setting W/ Dan Kuschell

0:00Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Cutting-edge conversations on business and personal success, as well as how to level up. Here's your host, number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars. This week, you're going to get blown away. Dan Cushel, 22 years helping people grow businesses, a marketing extraordinaire. But his philosophy on success came from his career back in baseball. So written the books, built the companies, father, husband, all that stuff is definitely on his list. He had a false alarm in 2007, thought he was going to die, everything reset it, and built a business that makes him happy and helps him thrive.

0:42So many great lessons. The stuff he does in our second segment on marketing will blow your mind. His formula for marketing is phenomenal. I love his football analogy too. Then we dive into the short quickfire round and he probably has one of the best quotes on success at the end of this. This is the Big Success Podcast. Let's get straight to it. And we're here with Dan Cushell. Dan, welcome to the Big Success Podcast. It's awesome to be with you, Brad. Fantastic to have you. Now, my first question is always a simple one, but not really that simple. What is success to you? Uh, success to me, I would say it's being able to live your fullest potential mentally, physically, socially, spiritually, emotionally, and then financially.

1:28Yeah. Fullest potential define that for us. Cause I think that's kind of a unique way to look at this thing. Well, one way I would, I think I would define it is, you know, getting clear on values, right? So the Confucius quote, Brad, it says, know thyself. And I've got all kinds of quirks. You ask my wife, she'd say, Dan, you're a bull at a china shop. You have two speeds. You're either 100 or you're zero. There's no middle throttle to what you do. So number one is being clear on your own values of where you stand. So my three core values, which are similar to our company, is number one is lead with hyper growth mindset.

2:10to stretch the status quo. I've always been kind of that black sheep, probably like you, the pioneer at heart, the innovator. You see things that others don't see and or test things or experiment things that most people won't do. So hyper growth number two is collaborative teamwork. Coming from my sports, I'm so grateful, Brad, that my dad introduced me to personal development when I was 10. I went to my very first seminar when I was 10 years old. He was a coach for baseball. It was a clinic and a boot camp or whatever, a couple day boot camp. But I was the only kid in this thing. And I started hearing about PMA, positive mental attitude.

2:53I can picture the page in this manual I got from Eastern Michigan University, which is where this clinic was back in the 1970s, 1979 to be exact. And it said, your success in sports, baseball, and life is going to be 90 % mental and the rest will be physical. And that's always stuck with me. And so, you know, how do you get things done? Like in sports, like, you know, playing baseball, like someone's a pitcher, someone's a catcher, like you can't leave both, right? So you got a team, you got coaches, you got, I had, as I played college ball and semi-pro baseball, you know, I had all kinds of coaches.

3:29I had a throwing coach, a running coach, a hitting coach, et cetera, et cetera. So teamwork collaboration can get way more done than just trying to, you know, be that, you know, person that does it all by themselves. And then the third core value, Brad, is, you know, related to impact, being impact driven, like leaving people. I think the simplest way is leaving people in a better place than before we met them, right? Any way we can, whether it's just putting a smile on there. I always like, probably like you, I'm always fascinated going out to different restaurants and places and getting into conversation, like of a simple thing.

4:06Like I ask a waiter, waitress, say, you know, they do the four validities, right? We were together, like, you know, one of your favorite places with one of your favorite friends and, you know, just, you know, the waitress came over and she goes, you know, how are you? And, you know, does the four validities, how are you? And I like stopping people in their tracks and ask them a question that most people don't take time to ask, which is, well, when they say, you know, my day's good, well, what is good about your day-to-day? And it stops them because like, I'm imagining they have hundreds of conversations a week and very few people ever go, and that, you know, it puts a smile because you make them the most important person in the room.

4:44So if you know, let me relate that back then, be developing your full self. I guess you've got to know yourself. Those values are important. Yes. Huh. Yeah. And then, okay. So now how do we apply those values to, you know, mental, physical, social, spiritual, emotional, financial, it's like, okay, what can I do today? I wrote about it. One of my first books is mentally, what can I do today to be hyper growth minded, to be collaborative too, right? Then physically, what can I like, you know, I've since lost about 80 pounds, hired a new trainer about two years ago, you know, do this, you know, no extreme fitness, no extreme diets and let this weight go.

5:31Pretty simply, it's probably one of the easier things I've ever done by, you know, focusing on the physical side of things and having better rituals around that and hyper growth, et cetera, right? So then emotionally, having coaches, like I've always, probably like you, I've invested hundreds of thousands, now millions of dollars over years, coaching, consulting programs, et cetera, in 30 years doing this, et cetera. So it's just stretching those things. And like, what can I do today to be better mentally? That question is a great question to just ask. What can I do today to be better emotionally?

6:09What can I do today to be? So let's take it back then. When in your life did you choose success? When did you like, was it as a kid? Was there something that happened? When did you choose Dan is going to be successful? That's a great question, Brad. I think I can remember back a few very instrumental times. I grew up in the inner city of Detroit, right? So we were on welfare a few different times, which can move you one way or move you another. And for me, it moved me away where I was like, I don't ever want this to happen to me. Was there an experience or a trigger that you said, you know what, I choose that direction?

6:53Because I've always found that unless you choose success, it doesn't happen for you. That's right. That's right. And so one was, I thought sports was going to be my way out to take care of my family. right baseball was heading that way and i had a bunch of injuries and no longer than short i just wasn't good enough at the end of the day i can do all right but it was to me outside of business it's the greatest personal development platform in the world and so it built a i mean i feel so blessed that my dad encouraged me to sports he pulled he didn't push and you know it became really this foundation of success yeah right so that was the start but watching my dad you know He put his heart into a big, giant company in Detroit, worked there, worked a lot of hours, and then all this uncertainty and layoffs and then us being on welfare.

7:41And then he tried his own business. And my dad was just a good guy, and he still is. He's a great human being. But in business, he was a little too nice. Like he had this sales rep named Jeannie. I can remember I was 13 years old because I used to go at his printing company and help him. And she was a sales rep. And so he paid her commissions, of course, but she convinced him and I'm 13 watching it as he, she convinced him to pay the commissions on, on credit. Like things had not been collected. Like it's, it didn't make, and ultimately, you know, that business went bankrupt because my dad just didn't understand business.

8:19And that's part of why I do and pursued what I have is, you know, to help. I see a lot of people like my dad, good, hardworking people. They have so many gifts, so many talents, so much to offer the world, but they just don't know how to create a marketing and selling system to bring things in. And we're going to get to marketing in this in a little bit. But I want to ask, you touched on a little about how success happened with knowing your values and doing that stuff. What is your formula for success? How do you make sure success happens? I mean, it's just getting up every day and following a certain set of rituals.

8:56So, you know, those key areas, mental, physical, social, spiritual, and, you know, following those, I bookend my day, Brad, with a couple simple, I'm a pretty simple person these days. I used to be a lot more, you know, I am perfectionist driven, but I've learned to let go a lot of those habits because I found they, they created a lot more stress than I, than I really needed. So I bookend the day with, I wake up and I do an exercise ritual for an hour. And I'm usually watching some course or some program or pieces of it. And then after I do that exercise, I do some journaling. And I like to ask three questions at the beginning of the day.

9:32What am I grateful for right now? And come up with five to 10 things. Yep. Even just the gift of waking up is such a gift today, right? Yeah. What am I happy about right now? Cause it's easy to kind of look at like the glass half empty. What can I be happy about? And then what have I done well in the last 24 hours? Right. And kind of reflect on like, what's working, what's going, going well. So I start the day with that ritual. And then I close the day with, you know, something very similar, similar. And then, you know, now we've got my kids included. So we like to just, you know, before they go to bed, I like to ask them, well, what are you grateful for today?

10:12Yeah. Yeah. And regardless of what happens, it could be chaotic, it could be messy, which, you know, if we're building business, let's face it, there's a lot of chaos. Everybody would like to say it's all perfect structure. But if you're building a growing business, there's chaos all the time. There's never a period where there's not chaos unless you just are settled. So bookending the day for me, like if I just get these couple of things done today, now it wasn't this way 20 some years ago. But today, if I get those to me, that's I've had a successful day. Love it. Love it. So let's flip it over then.

10:48How do you how does failure teach success? Like, how do you learn from your failures and turn them into successes? Yeah, thank God. Again, baseball taught me a lot because, you know, in baseball, you're a major success when you fail 70 percent of the time. And a lot of people that attach to, you know, they didn't make that sale or they did that campaign didn't work. And so, but coming from this background of baseball where, I mean, failure is like part of the deal, like you're not going to succeed more than you fail, just isn't going to happen. So it gave me a grounded place to connect dots, Brad.

11:25And, you know, all I look at failure, you know, failure is not failure. It's really just learning. Yeah. It's an at-bat. It's an at-bat. That's it. And it take more at bats. And I think like people have sometimes asked, well, like, what do you think's your greatest talent? I, I take more at bats than most people. And I don't necessarily get hung up on the fact that I might've broke a bat. I might've swing and missed. I might've popped out. I just get way more at bats than most. And I'm not afraid to strike out. I'm not afraid to, you know, pop out. I'm not afraid to, you know, look silly and a batter.

11:58Here's a good example. my senior year of high school this is going to sound a little strange my senior year of high school I got a little bit bored with the game I was being recruited heavily at the time I had some pro scouts looking at me before these injuries happened and I kind of got bored and I decided and I was a right-handed hitter and just out of the blue I just decided to start switch hitting. I started switching left-handed. Why did I do it as this hyper-growth mindset? I can get very bored with certain things that are the same all the time, which is why having a good team is really good, especially around the creator.

12:40I wasn't great at it. I had to relearn how to hit the baseball left-handed because I had not done it before other than screwing around a little bit. And I became a better left-handed hitter in a matter of 18 months than I was as a right-handed here when he packaged the whole game. That's crazy. That is crazy. He's the author of Champion in the Making. We're going to be back with Dan Cruschel on marketing, lead generation, how to build more business into your business in just a moment. In 30 minutes a day for 30 days, 30X Business will take you through the exact hard-won business principles that Brad Sugars has personally developed over the past 30 years as an entrepreneur, investor, and business advisor.

13:26Join Brad and his team and 100 other entrepreneurs who want to start building a successful business today. You're back on the Big Success Podcast. Dan Cushel, let's talk about marketing. Your company, Breakthrough 3X, is like the virtual CMO business. You provide marketing to so many great companies. What is marketing to you? How does it work? Because a lot of people misunderstand what marketing really is. Yeah. So two ways we could look at it. It's like a football field, right? So what is marketing? We all do marketing. Some of us just better than other. Like you're one of the best in the world at it for what you do with Action Coach and all your franchisees and the systems you've set up.

14:07But it's, you know, in many ways, like it's like a football field. You know, and imagine that I'm going to catch a kickoff at the goal line. So you kick off or your team kicks off to me. I catch the ball at the goal line. And because I'm in my 50s and I'm old and slow and, you know, my body doesn't move like it used to. I go about four yards. I'm giving myself a lot of credit here, Brad. And I absolutely get pummeled by the opposing team. So I've gone four yards. Right. Well, what does that mean? well in business point my marketing took me four yards and now what do i have to do to get a sale well i got to go 96 yards in other words i gotta sell really really really really hard to you know really create a client in this case if i don't have good marketing on the other hand you know let's say we're kicking the ball to you because you're more athletic you're more spry you stay young all the things you do we kick off you catch it you make a move go about 10 yards make a cut to the left head to the sideline you go down the sideline you go 84 yards and somebody pushes you out of bound from behind now you got 16 yards to go in this example so your marketing took you 84 yards how much selling do you really need right so so good marketing is about field position in your business.

15:32And what is that field position? Marketing helps you. I believe I heard this from Joe Polish. He says, marketing is what you do to get someone on the phone or face-to-face in a selling situation where they're pre-qualified, pre-motivated, pre-interested, and more ready to do business with you. That's what good marketing will do. And then selling is what you do when someone is in front of you pre-motive. And if you think of that football field, in either case, they're in that place. It's just many people have gotten accustomed to great companies like Apple or great companies like Starbucks. Well, how great would it be if you could go from a selling model to a buyer's model?

16:18That's what Apple has, Starbucks, Nikes, and Disney. How do you, Dan, succeed at marketing? Well, we've done a lot of studies, reviewed 4 ,000 companies, worked with a lot of clients over the years. We've narrowed it down to five critical steps. We believe that almost every business, if they follow these steps and leverage them, we'll get more results. So number one, get clarity on a vision and growth plan for your marketing. It's amazing to me. And again, you guys are one of the best in the world as you work with your clients, Brad. I will tell you, and you'll run it. I run a lot of businesses over the year.

16:55We've worked with a lot of clients, almost 99 % of them when we go, Hey, can we see like a marketing blueprint? Yeah. The most common answer is I don't have one other than in my head. Yeah. No, we got to get that on paper and laid out. So your team can have alignment. You can bring other people in and help support you in growing your business, right? And get the things done that need to get done in communicating what it is you do. And so the first step is the vision and growth plan. Second step are build connection campaigns. And the way we describe connection campaigns, Brad, it's like romance in advance.

17:31In the before stage of working with a client, in the while we're working with a client, and then the after stage. And if you do this properly, what ends up happening is you can create more conversions in a shorter period of time. It's like romance in advance. It's building up trust and respect ahead of time. And technology allows us to do this so much easier. When I got started with this back in the late 1980s, early 90s, probably like you, Brett, TV commercials, you could run a TV ad, which is part of the business we ran, TV, direct mail, and radio. And 99 % of the people we were marketing to were not a fit, but it still worked because it was kind of new and innovative at the time.

18:14Whereas today we can go to the demographic ages, male and female. We can go to the interest layers. We can go to income layers using the technology to put these campaigns, connection campaigns. And what does this do? Connection campaigns shortens the sales cycle. It builds trust, respect, authority. So the second step, connection campaigns or romance and advance. Third is move people from out there to in here. I mean, like simple businesses, you know, we go, hey, what can we see your list? You know, when someone walks in your retail shop, like in your restaurant, how are you communicating with them?

18:51Oh, well, we don't. That's money lost out the door. Something as simple as just building a list of, you know, somebody first name, email, or it can go deeper with more attributes. But it's building a lead machine and moving them from these platforms out here into your platform. In other words, become the media company. Yeah. Build your lead machine that you have more control. But more importantly, what it is that allows you to really intentionally build relationship with people in that lead machine process. That leads to the fourth step, which is like a hidden, in many cases, hidden opportunity.

19:27You teach this in several of your books, actually, that I've read, which you call it something else, but it's education-based event models. Disney's use this. Nike's use this. Apple uses the launch most things. Education-based events. And there's about 20 different ways you can do these, either live, you can do it virtual, you can do it like what we're doing here in many ways is a mini education-based event. And then you can evergreen it. And its whole idea is do it once and let it be leveraged. So you do it once and get paid over and over and over and over again with education-based events. What do they do?

20:04Shorten the sales cycle as well. Many times they move people from, say, a potential client to a client because the speed. It's like when we were dating, Brad, I've been through a divorce, which is kind of when I got back into dating. It's like going on that super date where you're in the mountaintop restaurant. It's like the best date they've ever had. That's like five dates. Well, that's what an education-based event can do to move someone from potential client to a client in a really cool, authentic, genuine way. So it's a fourth step. And then the fifth step is go deep. I don't know. You probably have faced this, Brad, but a lot of people suffer from shiny object syndrome.

20:43And they get one thing or a couple things working, and then they go want to focus on the new shiny object. AI is a big topic at the time we're doing this interview. And, yeah, it's valuable. but put 10%, 15 % into that and put 90 % of things into the things that are actually working for you and run those deep, which means optimize it. What do you do? Trim the fat because everything has a shelf life. So trim the fat, eliminate the waste, stick with the things and go deep with the things that are working. It sounds simple, but so true. And then implement more because the worst number, as you know, Brad is, is one, right?

21:21Like one platform, one method to attract. So if someone's like, you know, you know, we work with clients and all these kinds of different platforms, but a client's just in like Facebook ads and the algorithm changes. Sometimes businesses can go out of business because their oil well dried up. They don't have anything to fall back on. So like, what it'd be worth is you're watching or listening to this right now. Number one, to get your vision and growth plan in place. Number two, to build intentional connection, romance and advanced campaigns to warm people up to speed trust. Number three is you have a lead machine, move people from here to here.

21:55They're in your platform versus out there. Number four, education-based events to drive more conversions faster. And number five is to go deep, optimize it and then implement. And here's a secret. Lead it as you're watching right now. Here's a little secret. what is the business that Apple is in? They're not really in the technology business. They are in the media business. Disney, they're not really in the entertainment business. They're in the media business. Well, like what if you shifted that? Whatever business you're in, what if you became your own media platform? It opens up so many doors directly and indirectly that allow you to be able to go connect, to be able to convert, and to be able to go deep with your business.

22:44You know, one of the big things you talked about there was shortening that cycle of the sale. You know, I think that in today's world, people are like 70 or 80 % sold before they call you if you do a good job online. What are some of the keys to making sure I do give enough education online so people can come to me ready to buy? Well, first is just get out some good content. So content marketing, this takes all kinds of shapes and forms. Brad, as you know, you and your companies are some of the best at it. The idea of doing an interview like we're doing and then leveraging it. Right. And, you know, this would be called, you know, in some ways, most people wouldn't look at this as like traditional advertising.

23:31But one of my early mentors, he says, you've got to drive advertising to your PR. So this might be considered a PR piece. But like, for example, we could take this piece and I will. I'll do a demonstration to prove we'll take this piece and we'll put it on Facebook and then we'll start running ads specific to our niche. the people that are our potential clients and literally for two cents to five cents, I can get in front of business owners, founders, CEOs, certain ages, sizes of business, income ranges, and more, and put this specific interview right in front of them or pieces of it. We can do the same thing in YouTube.

24:06We can do the same. So that's one example. And now when you build essentially a root system of just providing and adding that, The easiest way I could describe it is what are some nuggets and valuable tips or strategies that your clients would love to get the answer to? In other words, think from your client's shoes. We call it the boat, B-O-T-E. You're going to give them the breakthrough, the outcome, the transformation experience based on - Hang on, say those four again. Hang on, hang on. I got to write this down. Boat. You got to build the boat. breakthrough, outcome, transformation, experience, right?

24:46So you're in your client's shoes, you're in their heart. And then the first part of the boat, it's like the sail on top of the boat that makes this boat go. And that word inside their sail, if you can picture that is their problem. What problem or problems do they want solved? And if you can speak to them, you know, in a way related to their problem, an easy way to create content is start with a question. What is the question related to a problem that your client is suffering from today? Right. You know how a lot of people suffer from anxiety. I'm thinking of a therapist we work with, right? You know how a lot of people are suffering with anxiety?

25:24Well, I've got a proven method that can help reduce or eliminate anxiety in 10 minutes or less. Well, who wouldn't want that? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, we could do dozens of examples of starting with a question. Next time you're in a, as you're watching this right now, next time you're at a networking me and you do whatever they call it, the elevator pitch, or you do your introduction. Instead of doing what everybody else will do, they'll go, I do X to solve Y to do Z. And that's awesome. But just shift it just a 12 degree turn. And this 12 degrees will make all the difference. You'll move from people hearing white noise because it's like everybody else to people leaning in, being compelled.

26:02You'll be compelling versus convincing. And when you're compelling, instead of convincing, that also attracts. And you can do this in all your content by starting with the question. For example, that therapist I'm thinking of that would stand up in the network or it's in an elevator. Someone says, well, what do you do? Well, you know how a lot of people struggle with anxiety? Pause. Well, what I do is I help people eliminate or reduce anxiety in 10 minutes or less. Now, as you're watching or listening right now, take that one simple idea. You transform your message, speaking to the sale, their problems.

26:36and then you deliver the boat, breakthrough outcome transformation experience, now you've got something that can sail forever. I love it. Dan Cruchel, we'll be back with him in a moment. We're going to talk about scaling up on the Big Success Podcast. Dan is an accomplished business coach, strategist and serial entrepreneur who has started, built and sold multiple companies. He's also the founder of Growth to Freedom, a business and personal development platform that helps entrepreneurs and executives grow their businesses and improve their lives. To learn more about Dan Cushel, please visit his website today.