You are listening to the Taps and Tee show weekly conversations for people, passionate about marketing, golf and craft beer. Marty is the cofounder of Bad Rhino an award winning digital marketing agency helping golf and craft beer brands get real results in social media marketing. Here is your host, Marty McDonald. [00:21.7]
Marty: All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of Taps and Tees, it's just continuing this series and talking to good people in marketing. It's not all about, you know, trying to promote myself all the time. There's a lot of good people out there and been doing this for so long. I get to introduce a good friend and one of the smartest people I know in digital marketing. He's been around for a while. He's a bestselling author; he is co-founder and president of Conversion Fanatics, which you could find in conversionfanatics.com. He knows his numbers, which I really like talking to him about that. He's been around, like I said, so you can call him a digital marketing veteran, but he's also a father, husband, like I said, a bestselling author. He can help you double your customers and I'm not lying there. He will show you where your sales and profits come from online with ton of different testing. Just like we do it, Bad Rhino. [01:12.8]
But you know, more importantly he's been around and he tells the truth. He's helped a ton of different companies; names that you know like Burt's Bees, Dr Axe and a ton of other companies help them convert better online. And the best thing about Justin is when he speaks, he speaks from experience. He's not trying to blow smoke or anything like that. He's one of the good people in this industry. So if you're looking to hire somebody and you're looking at your conversion and you're looking at everything, you don't know what to do, place to start. So check it out. And without further ado, Justin, are you there? [01:46.2]
Justin: Yeah, I am. Thanks for having me. And you're giving me way too much credit.
Marty: I know, I normally don't, but I figured for the podcast I'd have to like really push you. Mostly it's, I already just, we just break balls online if you follow either one of us and see that. But no, honestly you are one of the better people and that's who I've been interviewing for this whole thing. And why don't you give a little bit more color to your background and we'll go from there. [02:11.1]
Justin: Cool. Yeah. Well first of all, I appreciate it and I've been around, like you said, I've been around a while. I think this is your 19 or so for me.
Marty: Yup.
Justin: Way back. Young lad with a dream. Yeah. 20. Yeah, almost 19 years. Started out kind of a network marketing, affiliate marketing, moved up the ranks, you know, had my own information publishing company that did some pretty awesome things. Kind of sold it back, I guess that's been 10 years now.
Marty: Yup.
Justin: Started a private consultancy and that kind of spiraled out of control into what morphed into what's now Conversion Fanatics where we get to help a lot of really, really cool people and a lot of help them do a lot of cool things and help a lot of them, you know, millions of people with amazing products and services.
Marty: Yeah. And I think one of the things that I always enjoy talking with you is I've been doing this 17 years ish, almost need and started very similarly. So it's it's always interesting, but what, what got you into marketing? [03:15.7]
Justin: Well, I was working as an electrician at the time. Well, I'm actually a trained electrician by trade, but I was on my hour like 80 or 85 for a week and I got absolutely… said I couldn't, I can't continue to do this at this pace. So I just had some friends that introduced me to network marketing and I failed absolutely miserably at that. And I just realized that I can't bump into people and get them to spend money with me and buy my products and sign up for my business opportunity, it's time. So I found the internet and realized that I could generate leads. And I guess kind of the rest is history, but I've really just understood the psychology and kind of fascinated me. The psychology of that. You can make one small change on a page or you can say one particular phrase or word and you can get people to do stuff.
Marty: Great.
Justin: And take that desired action that you want them to take. And that's always fascinated me. And that's kind of morphed into what we have now. And you know, I, I just realized that I could, could be kind of a keyboard warrior and do a lot of amazing things and make people do what it is that I want them to do. And you know, with the written word or you know, in copywriting or you know, visuals and things of that nature. [04:40.2]
Marty: Yeah, no, I think it's interesting cause that's how I started in a roundabout way. I started on earliest forms of Ad Words and then when affiliate route and selling everything, you know, nefarious products.
Justin: Hmm…hmm.
Marty: You know, you get the underbelly of the world, like it was back then. People taking crazy things online and some of them are reputable companies, they were just taking whatever they couldn't sell through direct channels. They're taking it through the internet and it was like the wild West.
Justin: Hmm…hmm.
Marty: And, you know, I learned through that. Then I got a couple of clients and you know, kind of the same path and then you wind up in, you know those network marketing worlds. And I think, you know, a lot of that is, can be used as training grounds you know, for what actually, I know it was training ground for me for what we do now and owning my own agency. And I think a similar pattern for you, is that correct? [05:31.5]
Justin: Yeah, I mean I learned the art of personal development through all of that.
Marty: Right.
Justin: And got to meet some really cool people, found my mentor, which is coincidentally how we met, you know, to be speaking on, you know, I ended up speaking at a large event because of that relationship. And I guess God, that's been a long time.
Marty: I know, it's funny. It's like, you know, there's so many people, I mean like Eric Willis cause works for us now and with us. I met him in Vegas whenever the first no excuses summit was, I think it was 2009. [06:08.4]
Justin: Yeah, that was the year.
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: That I sold my partnership.
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: And and I spoke at morning two of that and
Marty: I think I met you at two when you spoke. I remember you speaking at the first one, although those are memories are kind of fuzzy for everybody. [06:25.2]
Justin: Yeah, and that was.
Marty: It was a party.
Justin: Las Las Vegas 10 years ago.
Marty: But yeah, but it's an interesting path, you know, going through that.
Justin: It is, and you know, it's just come down to personal development and really just understanding that, you know, your own personal growth paths and you know, to just work with what you can control. And it just, it's just kind of the, the path that I, I've personally followed, but I don't think it to meeting those relationships, you know, and having those relationships started way back. Why and even when, you know, and that I've fostered into us being friends, you know, 10+ years later and completely different industries doing completely different things. You know, there's a lot to be said about that, but I would have never learned about, you know, what they used to call standing order back in the network marketing days where you could just get your CD of the month type scenario.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: You know, and learning from, you know, the greats like Jim Rohn and other, you know, leaders in, in certain industries and then spiraling into what I know now. But it's, it's just creating those habits of just working on myself and figuring out what I can control and what I cannot and you know, just putting my best foot forward every single day and not sweat the stuff that I can't control. [07:39.6]
Marty: Yeah, personal development is a big thing in the industry and it definitely exposed me to it. I mean, that was a huge part and still is and it's important part and I think what you said earlier, it's like, you know, you learn how to change like one or two things on a page or in copy and the next thing you know, it's converting, you know, 10X better, 2X better or whatever. What, what was like the biggest eye-opener for you realize that hey, this conversion thing and looking at how people look at the offer. Was it like one moment where you're like, Oh my gosh, this is really work? [08:13.5]
Justin: Well, I remember it way back even in our info publishing days, you know I was split testing things when there wasn't software to split test.
Marty: Now you have.
Justin: And you have to create duplicate pages and you couldn't just add elements. You couldn't track it very well because you just had to split ad words traffic to go there. So it was kind of a go by your gut type scenario with very little data compared to what we have today. But I remember testing an animated arrow.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: On a button and seeing like ridiculous, like 40% improvement in leads and that's like I was already split testing at the time.
Marty: Right.
Justin: But just seeing that and equated to roughly $1,900 I still remember this, I don't know why, but it equated to about $1,900 a day in additional revenue.
Marty: Wow.
Justin: From just adding a little arrow to a button. And of course things have completely changed in types of how I optimize and do things. But back then I was just split test and stuff and hoping something stuck. [09:17.1]
Marty: Right.
Justin: But that just got me thinking about it and I've seen it a thousand times since then its just one small change can drive people to take different actions and you know, could make or break your results, you know, once you know, down to even a small letter change in how you position it in the subconscious and the psychological approach. You know, there's, there's many, many studies that have happened about that, even pre-internet days.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: You know, but even looking at, you know, things like that come in the book Influence, you know, for example, it's one of my all-time favorite books. They talk about the turquoise jewelry where they couldn't even basically give this stuff away.
Marty: Right.
Justin: Until they doubled the price and now all of a sudden it sells out faster than ever, you know? So it's, it's the, what really makes people tick.
Marty: Yup. [10:11.4]
Justin: Is what fascinates me about it and kind of got me down this path and what really got me was everybody in their brother is teaching traffic every, you know, back then we had, you know, John Reese came out with traffic secrets. They, you know, you're in social media game, God, how many Facebook ads experts are there.
Marty: So many!
Justin: You know, quote unquote quote unquote Facebook ads.
Marty: That’s..yeah..
Justin: And so, and I even talked about this when I wrote my book, it's there's two sides of the coin and you got traffic and conversions but you can't have one without the other. And I was so kind of tired of people focusing solely on the traffic side and that they needed the other side. So what if you could get 10, 15, 20% more out of your efforts without spending more money? And that's kind of where it led me down in my kind of love for numbers, led me to what's optimization today. [11:08.0]
Marty: Yeah, I think, well first off I'm actually re-listening to Influence for like probably the 105, feels like to start really listening to it the other day, which is interesting that you brought that up because there is a lot of things in there. And I think when you're talking about that, you know, talking about background, you know, back in the day we change one little thing, but you're doing all this manual testing, it just blows your mind. It's almost feels like magic. Right. And I think some people fast forwarding the 2020 they still think that the internet is magic when there's so much more to it.
Justin: Hmm…hmm.
Marty: That you'd have to include all these things. And I think, I don't think, I know like when people come to us and they're like, well this isn't working, spend more money on it. And I'm like, well yeah, I mean that could be part of it. Might need some more eyeballs on it, but let's change a couple of things. Do you find people that are reluctant to change like on their website or their landing page or whatever most often or are you willing to do it [12:08.4]
Justin: Yeah, we get, we get completely different ends of the spectrum. You know, people that are all all about it that just do whatever, make it perform better. And we got the other people that fight us just every step of the way to make any meaningful improvement even though we've got data to back it up. And you know, I think like you said, people just want to pour more fuel on the fire and they just want, you know, and literally in a lot of cases burn that money. You know, you and I have had these conversations before, but you know, you get companies that come to you and it's like, okay, I got you 2X the results on less money spent. But they're like, but you didn't spend our budget. And it's like, well come on, seriously! You know, it's like, just because I didn't spend it doesn't mean, and I made you more money. That's a good thing. You know, Or companies just cut chopping off their own hand for the sake of you know, saving a couple bucks but. Yeah I don't get it, like we have clients right now that are up month over month, 20% [13:12.0]
Marty: Right.
Justin: And they're like, well I think we need to stop optimizing. I'm like, what is wrong with you? Like I don't get the psychology from that standpoint. And then you also, you mentioned, you know, back when it was the wild West, at the same time I think people, because we have the internet and it's this magical place and we have all of this software and we had all of these you know, automations and all of this stuff to try to make everything convenient for us. I think that actually hurts us in a lot of ways. You know, you and I kind of have the same philosophy on it, but having been through so many changes in, you know, beyond slot of the internet and marketing and nothing's changed,
Marty: No, nothing at all has changed. [13:55.6]
Justin: It's just the mediums have changed and I think, well people and consumers that probably gotten dumber over this whole side of it because of it, you know, attention spans are super short and it's just just weird to see that I, I've talked about this for years, but it's, nothing's changed. It's still the same principles. It's still the same methods. It's still the same everything. And it's the same thing I tell people when they ask me, it's like, well, have you optimized my particular type of product? And my answer is always yes. I'm like, do you sell to people?
Marty: Yes.
Justin: You know, we're all in the people business at the end of the day. So I just try to understand the behaviors of those people.
Marty: Right.
Justin: And it could be whatever that demographic is. And then I just try to make it easier for them to do what it is that I want them to do and that's usually give my clients money. [14:49.1]
Marty: It's hilarious though when you talk about budgets, you know, we took on a client not all that long ago and they're like, Oh, we're spending $125,000 a month. And I said, well, my first goal is to get you to spend less and get the same results. And they were like, well, we can still spend that much and I'm like, no, I get it, we need to optimize it in order to scale it. And I'm like, as soon as we get in there, I guarantee you we'll be able to drop it, you know, a little bit maybe considerably and they were laughing a little bit and they're like, well, we want to spend that money so we want to ma. I'm like, I get what you're saying. The first month we did the same revenue on only $35,000 spend and we actually increased a handful of pages that were converting better. And it was hilarious because then they were like, well, we didn't spend the other 90 grand. And I'm like, okay, where, where are we? What are we missing here? Like, like where, where are you coming from that you want to spend more? And they're like, well, if we can spend only that, then we can, you know, in their head they can double it, right. [15:51.6]
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Or tripling or quadrupling, right. And I'm like, well, we maximize the market. I'm like, that's kind of what optimization means there.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: They're like, well, well what do you mean? And I'm like, well, you were way overspending in your former agency was screwing you over because they added all these other ads that weren't going anywhere, but you were spending money on clicks. And I'm like, yeah, they spent your money but you could do the same. Now we have to take that into the other markets that you really want to optimize and create that again. [16:19.4]
And I'm like, then we'll get up to that 125 but you'll make a heck of a lot more money now you will, next month we should spend the whole 125 I'm like, alright, time out…like what part of this do you not understand?
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Some of them just get lost in that because you know when you're dealing with bigger companies and they have bigger budgets, they're afraid to lose those budgets. And they're afraid because people constantly say, you got to spend more, which is true to a certain extent, but you want to make sure it's optimized like you said, and you know, that's what you're paying us for and let's get that part done and then let's scale up. And sometimes it's like an uphill battle for that, you know? And it's crazy, you know, outside of, you know, outside of your kids and family and all that. I mean, what gets you up in the morning? They can kind of do this stuff. [17:01.5]
Justin: The unknown. You know what? Even though I've done this so long, I'm still proven wrong and I'm still surprised at the results. So the fact that I get to help some amazing companies do amazing things and they get to help, you know, millions of people, and I've said, I say this to my staff every week is it's, it's more than us. It's more than just us helping our clients. It's, we get to help a lot of amazing people, you know, do some amazing things and help them with amazing products. And you know, just seeing that change in that really kind of keeps me driving and I'm kind of a workaholic anyway. So it's, it's just constantly grabbing and there's always a next, you know, there's always another level and just striving to be a little bit better than I was yesterday is, is kind of what keeps me going. Yeah. And we, we joke that, you know, it's agency life.
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: You're going to have your ups and downs.
Marty: Right.
Justin: You're going to get kicked in the chin and you're going to, you're going to do that like with any business. But you know, that's kinda what keeps me going. And my fight or flight reaction is just work harder and.
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: That's what I do. [18:15.6]
Marty: And I think, you know, some people laugh that this, depending on where you're coming from, and this is why I have people like Justin and Gina and handful of other people that are going to be here and over the next few episodes. But what Justin just said is I've been hanging out with a ton of marketers and a ton of agency owners for the past 12-15 years regularly. And the one common theme that I hear is there, and myself included is a little bit of workaholic, right? It doesn't mean we don't take breaks. It doesn't mean that you know you're constantly working, but you're always looking for that next thing to a certain degree. And I laugh all the time when I do see the ads and this is just you know for the clients and future clients that are listening to this, you know, don't fall for the guy that says I can run your ads and all your on all your networks and four hours a week. [19:06.6]
Justin: Hmm…hmm.
Marty: Or two hours a week or they're running them from wherever while they sit on a beach. It's kind of funny because the only people I know in this business are constantly tweaking and they're constantly working on the ads as well as any conversion factors when it's on a website or landing page, email response. They're always working and tinkering on those things, and that takes time. And I think that's a big thing is it takes time to be good at it. It's not something that you can just pick up and run and I'm not knocking people that are just starting out. I was there and you know, you have to really put the time in to be able to articulate what you're going to do and then explain the actual data that comes out of it
Hey, if you're enjoying what you're hearing on the show and want more, head on over to TapsandTees.info and get our free report with game changing tips and strategies straight to your inbox. Just enter your info and stop being stuck with no marketing plan. [20:03.4]
Marty: So with that, like what do you, what do you hate about the marketing industry? And let's, let's phrase this the right way because it's not so much hate, but what do you like really bugs you just about the agency world right now
Justin: That everybody and their brother, well first the term agency in and of itself, it's kind of been bastardized.
Marty: Right
Justin: And it's given us that have been through the trenches for years. A real bad name.
Marty: ofcourse.
Justin: And well, yeah, but there's, there's those that can do and there's those that can sell it.
Marty: Right.
Justin: Everybody buys a course because there's, I mean, I could log onto Facebook right now and see 10 ads for people pimping how to get clients.
Marty: Right, yup.
Justin: It's what's happened with the industry. It's leveled the playing field for the bad. And it's, it's making it harder for those of us that actually can do and evolve. And that's really where I, you know, I try to turn it off, but it's still hard to see because I have those conversations every week. [21:13.0]
Marty: Right.
Justin: With companies that have been burned by the past company that claimed they were, you know, I just had one Friday that a company said, well, our programmatic agency or our agency said they're going to do some CRO. And he called me literally three weeks later. I said, how's that working out for you? And he said, well, they gave us the odd suggestion once in a while, but they're nowhere near doing anything CRO. I said...
Marty: Right.
Justin: You ready to do this now? Like the right way. And he's starting this week, so
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: No, but I have that conversation every single week. They claim they're going to do it or you see in our Facebook groups, you know, we're kind of master trolls about that, but you see all these people, these, Oh Hey, I just sold this $10,000 a month client. Now what? Now What.. What should I do to fulfill on this? You know, they do so much about getting clients and making that, you know the shiny Limo and mansion type syndrome and it's not that easy. I wish it was that easy. [22:18.0]
Marty: Me too.
Justin: I would have 10 times bigger agency and you know, maybe take a vacation to the beach once in a while. It is, it's that constant evolution. And I tell people that I'm a conversion guy. I'm not a miracle worker, but I'm good. I'm going to get you results, but I can't take something and infinitely scale it and infinitely grow it. I've yet in my 20 years been able to get a hundred percent conversion rate. So for that, I keep trying and you know, it's just those incremental marginal improvements that that constantly compound. But it takes work. We're working every single day. I bet I have 200 split tests running right now, you know, across all of our clients and we're going to probably have another 15 or 20 or more. Actually we're going to have more than that up this week. You know, I don't care who you are. There's always something to change. There's always something to tweak. There's always something to adjust to help scale businesses and it takes a village and those guys sitting on the laptop lifestyle, I wish it were true but unfortunately it's not. [23:27.4]
Marty: That explanation I think is good and I work with so many different people over the years as well as recently and they are looking for a quick fix and I think a lot of agencies and consultants, you know, whatever you want to call them, they pitch the quick fix. And I've had, so man, the number of clients is irrelevant, but for 10 years and still in business doing this servicing clients, I think the “Quick fix” has happened to us twice. And that's hundreds of clients, consulting and retaining. And when I look at the numbers, you know, I always say, no, look, it's going to take three to six months. And I'm not saying that you're not going to get results day one or change your results day one. I'm just saying to have tangible data that you can then make decisions off of, it's going to take you a little bit of time and there and I'll always, I always do this, they'll be like, well we have this other agency. And they said like in like 10 to 14 days. I was like, okay, just go with them then and like, and you know so many of them when I call back, just like you gave that example or they reach out, you know, it was like, so what did you learn? [24:43.7]
You know, and not saying it that way, but that's where it is. And you're right, you know, within the industry is when you have these fancy things and people can sell on the concept or idea, but then deliver it. You know, there's a whole other story and I like to sell on the deliverability and just kind of take it from there because once you start to get results and everything is running, you know, unless the client has other issues, they usually stay, you know, and things usually work out unless they change a different direction. Because what they realize is, is how much actually goes into creating those campaigns and then giving them the data that they can make decisions on in other aspects of their marketing.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: And if you frame it right, it works out really well, but it doesn't happen overnight, nor does it happen in 10 minutes. [25:29.7]
Justin: No, and I, I'll hit home runs once in a while, you know?
Marty: Sure. We all do.
Justin: It's, it's, it's a numbers game. You know, I will win just under 50% of the experiments that I run, but it doesn't happen overnight. And I sell the expectation too. I was like, if you want to win, you need to embrace this process. It's not some, you know, and I tell them that I can, I can magically improve your conversion rate day one but it's not going to stick.
Marty: Right.
Justin: It's not going to stay. You're going to be pissed at me in the next two months when it didn't stick. It's that continual compounding learning effort that's going to get you there. And I tell clients that in potential clients that all the time, it's like just be patient and I know you don't have any patience but you've just got to embrace that fact. And I do the same thing three to six months and we're going to get wins along the way. But it's a compounding effort and the more you can embrace that, the better off it's going to be. [26:31.2]
Marty: I think the internet still, it's amazing how many people sitting here in April 2020 and people are like, Oh, we should be able to just do this and like people will magically come. And I'm like, you know how this works.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: It's that you know, you're operating in an idea and there are so many companies that we work with that never really jumped into digital and they're fine to work with. I love them.
Justin: Hmm…hmm.
Marty But you know, in golf and beer and a handful of others that we have been in for a while, it's like you talk to them and like, well what do you want to do? And they'll be like, okay, well that's good. Well how much is...how much of an email list do you have? We don't have one.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Okay. Looking at your website doesn't really have too many bells and whistles. Yeah, we don't know if we're going to update that. [27:14.5]
Justin: Hmm…hmm.
Marty: Okay. And then it's like we go down the path and it's like, well what do you actually want to do? Well we want to get more customers via social media and the internet. And we're like, alright, well we already talked about a couple of things. One, you don't have any data; two you don't even have an email list. Your website, that's a bit out of date. It doesn't work on mobile. You don't have a text messaging list. I'm like, how do you get your current clients? And then you start walking them through a path and then you have to pull that out and then make it work on digital. And it's, and it's fine. It's actually something I really enjoy, but they're like, after you get the website up and then you start running a little bit of traffic and it's like day two, they're like, okay, we didn't get anything yet.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Oh okay, you know like, this isn't like; you just didn't show everybody your website in your ad yet. It takes a little bit of time. You know, there's little things like that. So it's always fascinating but you know switching it up here like what's what's like the craziest place or the best place you've ever traveled to? [28:09.8]
Justin: What's the craziest place I've ever traveled to?
Marty: Or the best place?
Justin: I mean, I've been a lot of cool places. Really just, I've stuck with North America for the most part, but Puerto Rico has always been fun. [28:21.3]
Marty: The second person today, that's said Puerto Rico.
Justin: I loved it there. I don't know. I mean we went before pre-kids so it's been Jesus, 10 years now. Went there. I also enjoy in the state, South Carolina, Charleston area.
Marty: That is awesome.
Justin: I've always liked that. I said, if I didn't live in Austin, I would live in Charleston. But yeah, I mean I kinda like the, the history and the stuff that go on in both of those places. [28:48.1]
Marty: Nice. Now I know you don't drink anymore.
Justin: Right.
Marty: And I think it's important and I do this, I've had a handful of people and a couple couple more coming up. Obviously this podcast goes out to beer drinkers as well as craft brewery owners whose offers and things like that as well as a marketing list. But I think it's important, you know, I think there's somebody out there that's listening this that might feel that maybe they need to quit. And what kind of led you down that path? You don't have to get into this like super detail, but you and I have known each other. I knew you before you quit drinking; some of those memories are very blurry.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: But some very fun times. But also, you know, I think it's an important message too. So just tell us a little bit about that. [29:35.0]
Justin: I had just hit a wall. I, alcohol was a massive, massive part of my life from the age of 14 all the way up to I guess, what is it now? 32 or so, like I just celebrated seven years. So seven years ago I had my last drop of alcohol and I had just hit a wall. I mean, I toured in a band. I was sponsored by Budweiser, a liquor distributor. I was, you know, I was, I was running, you know, in bars five days a week. So it was a big part of my life every day pretty much. Leading up to it and I just, business wasn't going good. My relationship with my wife wasn't the best, you know, we just had a second kid and I was, I was just done. I was out of shape. I didn't feel well. And it was just my time. [30:24.6]
And I remember I was actually speaking of golf. I was on I was on a board. I was actually the chairman for a charitable golf event that we were putting on and we held our meeting planning meeting at the bar and this was, I mean seven years ago. So literally this in this last week of the seven years, so I had a few too many drinks and I got in an argument with my wife and she basically said, you know, I had had a, had a couple too many and I just said I was done. I broke down and that was it. It was just my time and it had consumed me so much that I was, you know, by lunchtime, you know, wondering when I can go to the bar. Cause I was working out of a coffee shops and at the time, no working out of coffee shops then I'd go have lunch at the restaurant bar and sit at the corner of the bar and then pretty soon one drink turned into six and then I'd go home and drink a bottle of wine and, and I just couldn't keep doing that. [31:29.5]
And fortunately I didn't have any, you know, run ins with the law. I didn't have any DUIs. I didn't have any of that stuff. That'll often come out when somebody says you put drink in. But it was just the right choice for me. My wife still drinks, my family still drinks all my friends, you know, they still drink. It doesn't bother me, you know, to each their own. Our hell! You're not exactly shy about your drinking either, but.
Marty: Oh no, yeah.
Justin: And you know, we've got mutual friends that even have their own breweries. It's not a big deal from, from that perspective. But what caused me to quit was just I, I had had enough. [32:03.1]
Marty: No, I think, and I'm always I know like sometimes I've talked to many people and hung out and still do hang out with a lot of former drinkers. And it helps because you also have a message and you're not very preachy about it whatsoever. And I think that's, it's not neither good nor bad. I think it's just always a good thing. It's just like you tell people just the truth about it.
Justin: Hmm…hmm.
Marty: And I know there's probably somebody listening to this that's just kind of questioning, you know, what they're doing. You know, and I think when you talk to people that have been down that road and don't know what to, you know, in some of these listening it doesn't know what to do. It just helps frame that, you know? And you know, I think everybody, myself included, you think about like, how am I drinking too much? Am I doing that? Especially being around, you know, craft breweries, you know, there's a lot of times where I just vanish because the night is getting too deep. [33:01.4]
Sometimes I stick around, but I also know like when there's times where people have issues, they can't walk away, but they also feel obligated because they work in an industry that is about beer, alcohol, etc. And you know, I've had will be the second and then I have a couple of others that are coming on and have the same type of thing. It was just like, Hey, I was done screwing up my life and I just had to make a change. You know, for me, I'll go weeks even though I may not show it on social media, etc., just to kind of get the conversation going, I'll go weeks without a beer or a drink. It's funny, as we're talking about this now and we're in April, 2020 and I've drank less during this quarantine than I normally would because I'm a social drinker. [33:47.0]
Justin: Hmm…hmm.
Marty: I'm not like gonna sit at home and polish off, you know, a bunch of drinks. Not that I'd never done that before, but I'm not going to sit at home and I like to be out in people and hang out and have that aspect of it. It's not just, Oh; I need, need a drink. But you know, there's times where entrepreneurs and their clients are business owners, which is a large audience in this or a large percentage of this that listens to this. You know, sometimes you do get caught up and you know, myself included. I throw myself in there where you're sitting there, going there, I have a couple of beers at lunch; it just ruins your day. May not ruin your life that day, but it just puts you at a disadvantage sometimes and sometimes you have to keep yourself in check. So I appreciate you sharing that. So do you still golf? [34:29.9]
Justin: When I can.
Marty: I know me too.
Justin: I mean really, I, I haven't enough. We've been, my kids been kind of getting into golf during this whole quarantine thingy.
Marty: Oh…yeah, I remember you telling me that. So my son, like we went to the park yesterday or day before sometime this weekend and he hit, you know, balls back and forth, just, you know, grab a little nine-iron and, and go after it. Before that, I didn't really do anything till, I guess we did top golf for our Christmas party at the company and I really haven't been out and around a golf in a while, but I always intend to. We've been to the driving range quite a bit before we got on lockdown. So when the kids got interested in it, we went, found a cool little driving range that's got a short chipping course and they got some, some actual chipping greens and you know, chipping targets and then they've got the driving range plus putting ring. That's pretty cool.
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: That we found, that's really cheap, not too far from our house. So we've been partaking in that. But an actual round of golf, not so much. [35:33.7]
Marty: And I know you've been involved in golf marketing in the past.
Justin: Yes.
Marty: What's your, what's your perception of just the sport and how it's marketed both online and then just in general? Do you have a feel for that?
Justin: I mean it's, it's changed quite a bit, but it's, it's not, I like the fact that they're positioning it a little bit more towards kids and trying to bring up that younger audience because it is an old timer's club generally. And I, you know, I'm, I'm excited to see that, you know, even my kids are getting involved in it when it's not necessarily a massive part of our household, but I still enjoy the fact that golf is, you know, is, is a gentlemen sport per se. You know, that there's, there's a lot of, I guess that the ethics that go into being a, an actual golfer, you know, obviously you got the bad apples there too. But you know, those that lie about their score all the time. But, you know, it's, it's an honest game and I like the fact that it is really just going to kids, like even my kids, like watching. [36:39.9]
Marty: Okay.
Justin: You know, my son particularly will when we could actually watch golf, he really enjoyed watching it and seeing how, you know, Oh my God, can you see how hard, you know, far he hit that ball and you know, seeing the sky track and doing all of the things with it. So he gets excited about it and then he immediately wants to go outside and chip balls. So seeing that is exciting to me as far as I'm kind of removed from the actual marketing aspect, it's been quite a few years. What I was a part of was is now golf channel, so, so it was quite a few years, you know, I guess it's been seven or eight years since I've been really, really into it, but they're a passionate bunch, that's for sure. [37:22.4]
Marty: For sure.
Justin: Anything to get that extra five or 10 yards.
Marty: Anything. You have any favorite golf moment, like whether you're watching on TV or just playing?
Justin: My personal moment was the person that taught me how to golf was my grandfather and he died, I guess it's been 5, 6, 6, 7 years ago. But I was fortunate enough to play golf with him when he was still able to play golf. Probably one of the last really, truly memorable rounds that I got to play with him. I golfed absolutely terrible, but we just went to a municipal course. Nothing crazy, nothing super long, but being able to spend that time with him, you know, literally within a year, like probably a year and a half from when he died and doing, doing so, you know, I'll never forget, you know, the looks and you know, that that day, like I can literally picture it and I've got goose bumps on my arm just thinking about it. But that's, yeah. I mean he taught me, basically gave me an old golf set when I was, you know, 12 or 13 years old. And you know, that's, you know, I think I actually still have the putter that he gave me. [38:33.4]
Marty: Nice.
Justin: Way back then, it was an old Ping Day putter.
Marty: Yup.
Justin: With a bras. Like a brass, like Ping Day Putter. And I think it still has the original grip on it even. But yeah, just that was probably my most memorable. And then now being able to transfer that to my son and see, and even my daughter being able to hit balls and, you know, and just having fun doing it instead of forcing them to Hey, let's go out and hit golf balls. Them being excited to go do it, it’s been fun.
Marty: Yeah, that’s what. You know, the same story minus kids but yeah, same story. People teaching you the game kind of passing it on and it's always a good stuff. Great talking to you, why don’t you to tell everybody where you can be found on the worldwide web. [39:18.6]
Justin: The interwebs, I am pretty much everywhere. So you can go to conversionfanatics.com I think you can go to One Stop Social. I believe it is One Spot Social
Marty: One Spot, one spot
Justin: onespotsocial.com/justinchristianson Sorry, he just switched the URL on us and made that. But yeah, you can go there and find all my social channels. I've got videos on YouTube, you know, but I'm, I'm pretty much out there and reachable if anybody has any questions. [39:50.0]
Marty: Well awesome my friend, I appreciate you coming on and chatting with me in a different format than we normally do. But you know, we're going to continue this series but we're doing a lot of different things, bringing new people that I know that actually know what they're doing so you can get a different perspective. So follow them. Follow Justin, take a look at his stuff. If you, you have something that you're pushing out there and trying to figure things out, you can pick up his book, it will give you some insights of why things might not be working, if they get back to your agency, they get back to your team or hiring new agency and go from there. So thanks Justin. I appreciate it.
Justin: Yeah, thanks for having me. [40:28.2]
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