I came across a video this past spring with a guy named Joel Bauer talking about his business card. It was an oddly compelling couple of minutes on personal brands that I’ve re-watched dozens of times.
And I’m not alone. The video, “Your Business Card is Crap”, has been viewed about 750,000 times on YouTube.
So I had to find out more about the man behind the business card. It turns out Joel Bauer is a best-selling author, and he has been a professional performer since he was 7 years old.
Also, Joel spent a couple decades creating and producing Infotainment presentations and road-shows internationally for the likes of IBM, Nortel, Dresser Wayne, Polaroid, and ITT, as well as creating systems on personal marketing, branding, passion, Infotainment, speaking, and closing from the platform.
All that is great, but what about the business card video?
The Most Famous Business Card
Shawn Collins: So, the first place I came across you was your business card video.
Joel Bauer: Oh that thing. [laughs] I didn’t put that out there, let me tell you. I think that was someone trying to do damage. It actually didn’t do damage, but stimulated a lot of activity out there, in the form of a bunch of television shows and other stuff. It’s still ongoing.
Shawn: Yeah. I guess the place that actually was brought to my attention was on the show “Red Eye” on Fox News.
Joel: Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. It was kind of weird sitting in a room, staring into a camera while you are watching a monitor with a six second delay from New York.
Shawn: Yeah. One thing I was curious about there is, I guess, you were saying that you thought someone was trying to do damage to you. And, you mentioned on Red Eye that you were sort of playing a character there. So, was that you just sort of hamming it up for that?
Joel: Well, I mean, I’m on the phone with you right now. And you tell me, was I playing a character or not? I mean, obviously; the entire film, called “The Pitch, Poker & the Public”, is where it was extracted from.
The documentary which was made by a guy by the name of Chris Zubryd, who actually published an apology about how someone had taken this small 25 second or 35 second excerpt from the film, out of context.
Because if you watch the film, it has me with my children. It has Joel light, Joel family man.
And then when they asked me to go into the pitch mode, I went into what was a trade show-style pitch mode because that’s what I was doing then. I was a trade show performer. And I was going into that very intense mode… what you would use on a floor.
I’m sure you’ve been to MacWorld, or Comdex, or some major trade show, and you’ve noticed that the only people who are noticed there are those that are intense.
Shawn: Yeah. Absolutely.
Joel: And they’re loud and they’re kind of carnie. So that personality was very polarizing and very edgy and obviously very effective from a viral stand point because here you have a man talking about a business card, without taking his clothes off; and generating as many hits as usually the sites that do that kind of nonsense.
So that was kind of interesting. It’s been fascinating. I don’t think there’s any predictable formula behind viral other than using the word dog or cat. [laughs] Or Megan Fox or one of those things that tends to get people to click on the video. Your Business Card is Crap is not exactly a positive title.
And I do know who put it up there originally. And they did try to do damage and it kind of backfired. I think you fight the fire. They want you to start a fire. They want you to respond. And I don’t respond, because it doesn’t matter. The people that study with me and follow me, they know that what I do has integrity.
Joel on Social Media
Shawn: I was looking to see your real identity on Twitter, and saw there’s one, @TheJoelBauer, that has your picture and your Web sites and everything, so they are certainly trying to give the impression. But is there any reason why you don’t bother to go in there yourself?
Joel: The absolute, with clarity, revelation here, is that I am so consumed doing what I do for my students. Right now I am sitting here in front of an hour training that is going out to 74 recent students. I train professional speakers. People that want to do what I do. I am on platforms two, three, four times a month, training people in our marketing systems. And as a result of that, I do what most other speakers don’t do and that is I actually take care of them.
I’m so busy doing this stuff. Traveling. I’ve got three kids. I don’t have time. Really, if you want to be effective on Twitter or Facebook, you need to do it every day. And it needs to become very personal. That’s my belief. You need to participate.
And I am so busy servicing those who are quite frankly spending a fortune on my attentions. I coach. I coach a very small group. And I’m out there doing it. And I don’t talk the talk. I walk it. So if you hear me teaching, they know that I’m actually doing it. Because then that’s how they met me or that’s how they saw me. The stuff that I reveal actually works.
Joel on Affiliate Marketing
Shawn: I saw that you had some affiliate links to Amazon for your books. Do you do much with affiliate marketing at all, or is that pretty much the extent of it?
Joel: No. Really what we’re doing is I have a group building all that. And it will be done. The only affiliate marketing I will do is with people I actually believe in. Where I’ve actually used their system extensively for significant periods of time and had massive results.
For example, there’s a link on my blog right now that says, “Cancer free.” And I don’t make any money on it, and it’s not affiliate marketing. But I do make some recommendations. And obviously with the following I have, if I wanted to make money on people I could just have JV (joint venture) links everywhere. People would click all day.
And you might say, well, why don’t you do that? It’s because, quite frankly, I’m not looking for every dime. And the marketers who are doing that aren’t transparent. We all know what’s being done.
When it has Shawn’s last name at the end, forward slash Shawn. Well, we kind of get it. Shawn’s making money. I always tell people where I’m making money, and when I’m not. So when I’m doing a training, I say, “Here’s my contact for printing. Here’s my contact and my resource for audio. Here’s my contact.”
And I tell them, “By the way, I don’t make money on any of these resources. You’re actually paying direct what they would charge normally. There’s no markup. There’s no kickback. There’s no motivation for me. I don’t have anyone’s hand in my back pocket.”
And they appreciate that. They’re paying a considerable amount of money to train with me. See Shawn, the difference is when people train with me, they’re spending 10, 15 grand to be in a room with me for seven days. That’s not a lot of money, but it’s a lot to them. And they’re blown away. They’re absolutely blown away by the training. Again, I’ve never had a refund, a cancellation, or anyone upset with these live trainings. Anyone. Because I over deliver; I give them too much.
So my process is more of an offline process, in terms of what I’m teaching. I’m showing them how to speak on a platform, and generate massive dollars right there, right then, doing what it is they believe in, and communicating from their heart. Their area of expertise. An area they can empower others through.
And that’s very different than the Internet model. The Internet model complements it. I also believe that without the Internet you’re leaving at least 50 percent of your money on the table, and you’re leaving your forced continuity. You’re leaving that element of your business that would have enabled you to do it once and never have to do it again. And have an automated, replicatable, duplicatable, transferable process that generates income beyond your years. I believe in the Internet. No question about it.
Four Suggestions for Your Site
Joel: I’d love to close with four simple comments that would probably take us two minutes. I would just like to label them. I constantly see Internet marketers, with Web sites, not talking about your guys. I don’t know who your guys are exactly. I have an idea but there are four things they’re not doing and they wonder why their Web sites aren’t making money.
The first is, when you arrive, there’s no live video. There’s no warm, ingratiating call to action video that inspires someone emotionally. That has specifically you’re mission statement and benefit to them and why they would want to come to the other side. The video is generally missing and it’s not auto-play. That’s a mistake. It should auto-play.
Second component missing on those sites is an opt-in. They’re not even asking for name, email address. They don’t ask, they don’t get. Most sites you can go there check out the site and leave. It’s a massive error.
I don’t believe in sites where you just check them out and leave. I believe in sites that inspire a call to action with a video and have an opt-in that requires really only the email address. A double opt-in, of course, using an AWeber, iContact, or whatever service they decide to use.
If they ask for only the email address they’re going to have a much higher conversion level or opt-in level than they would asking for more information at that point. We don’t have trust, we don’t have rapport. We have nothing.
The email address is the safest thing to request, but double opt-in ensures that if they’re going to put “screw you Johnny” or whatever it is, they’re putting some stupid entry in there, that obviously you’re never see it. It will get kicked. It will never be confirmed in the system.
Opt in, video. Third component. At the end of the video, which is very short, 15 seconds, call to action. There should be social proof. A stream of 10 to 15 seconds of people raving about what it is you do. They should be monetized.
“As a result of Shawn, we generated 30 grand in the first three weeks. We couldn’t believe it. His writing style has enabled us to write more effective copy that has motivated people from the heart to invest in our products. We never thought it was possible.”
Then it goes on. “Before John, 30 pounds overweight. After John, his simple guidance and steps…” See, a monetizable testimonial is anything that shows the before and the after the transformation.
The fourth component missing from Web sites is the call to action. If there is no specific call to action, none will be taken. I would venture to say that in your group, we could go through a list together. We’re not going to. I’m just saying we could, and we could find 20 or 30 percent of them that aren’t doing those four things. They may know about them, Shawn. What I’m indicating here is, beyond knowledge, transcending knowledge is application. Are they applying it? Most of them aren’t.
Dan Kennedy, one of the top marketers on the planet, one of the most brilliant men in marketing, has finally embraced video marketing, and won’t argue the fact that it’s more effective than copywriting.
If you had an audience, and they had to make a choice between sitting and listening to a video, and reading 50 pages of copy, right now they’ll choose the video. Now if you do both, video and transcription, you’re going to optimize very effectively. That’s really effective, new, relevant data for positioning on the engines.
Absolutely the video of the call to action is what most are now using, some of the most effective marketers. I’m sure you could name names, because you’ve seen it done. That’s a massive change that’s taken place in the last two years.
Video now dominates. It’s huge. Copywriting is also very effective. I’m not putting it down. There are people that love to read copy, but the majority would rather be sitting and entertained initially, and then read the copy. I think both should be there, but on a different layer. I’d rather have video on the first layer, as it’s relatively non invasive and it’s an entertainment.
Anyway, I just wanted to make that comment. Very simple four principles. Auto-responder sequencing, the silent salesman. I’m amazed how many Web sites you go there, you opt in.
So those are the principles I discuss in detail prior to going to a live event, even though I don’t teach Internet at those events. I teach something very different, branding and differentiation, and yet I’ll talk about those four Internet principles because most people have a site, and it’s not generating any money.
They build it, and no one came. They’re not Kevin Costner. It’s not a field of dreams for most people.
They’re still dreaming about why it’s not working. I would start with those four repairs right there.
I would like to ask you something right now. Would you agree that if those components are missing, they’ve got a problem from the get go?
Shawn: Yeah. The one thing I would question is for me, as a user, I can’t stand auto-play video, and I’ve talked to a lot of people that don’t like it. So I use video a lot, but I always have the user having to take the action to play it.
Joel: No, that’s fine by the way. I would agree with your assessment, in terms of having interviewed audiences, but in terms of conversion level, our testing produced a very different result. If we want to strictly go according to the numbers, I would say everyone should ignore Joel Bauer, ignore Shawn, ignore everyone, and do their own test.
Shawn is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editor-in-Chief of FeedFront Magazine.
Download the entire FeedFront issue 8 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/20220412/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-8
FeedFront issue 8 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2009/10
