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Are you overwhelmed by an excess of marketing channels? Too often, entrepreneurs feel pressure to be on every platform, use every tool, and chase every trend. But the truth is, success in marketing comes down to focus and relationships.
Seth Greene, founder of Market Domination LLC and host of the SharkPreneur podcast, has built a reputation as one of the foremost experts in direct response marketing. Having worked directly with marketing legend Dan Kennedy and scaled multiple businesses, Seth has perfected the art of leveraging relationships to drive explosive growth. His approach, based on highly targeted marketing and strategic partnerships, has helped thousands of business owners scale their companies efficiently.
Today, we’re breaking down Seth’s key considerations and actionable steps to refine your marketing approach and leverage relationships to scale your business. Let’s dive in!
The Power of Focused Marketing
"You don't need to be on every social platform all the time. You don't need every latest widget or gadget. You don't need every course... You need one target market and you need one form of media to reach that target market where they hang out."
One of the biggest mistakes new entrepreneurs make is trying to be everywhere at once. Spreading yourself too thin across multiple platforms and strategies can lead to burnout and inefficiency. Instead, focus on one target market, one form of media, and one offer.
To implement this, start by defining your ideal customer as specifically as possible. Identify where they spend the most time, whether it’s Instagram, LinkedIn, email, or another platform. Once you have clarity on your audience and their preferred media, craft one compelling offer that directly addresses their biggest pain point. Before expanding into new channels, test and refine your approach to ensure effectiveness.
The Importance of Micro-Niching
"Dan taught me 50 percent of the success or failure of any marketing, or any business for that matter, is based on proper target market selection."
A broad audience means diluted messaging. The more specific you get, the more effective your marketing will be.
To refine your niche, narrow your target audience instead of opting for a broad category like "small business owners." For example, you could focus on "real estate agents in California earning over $250K." Conduct in-depth customer research to understand their unique needs and preferences. Then, develop content and messaging that speaks directly to them, ensuring that your communication resonates and drives engagement.
Leveraging Relationships for Scale
"Someone else has already built your client base. There is someone else who doesn’t compete with you but serves the same clients."
One of the most powerful ways to scale your business is by leveraging partnerships with those who already serve your target audience. This is where affiliates, joint ventures, and strategic alliances come into play.
To start, create a list of 50 potential referral partners, including coaches, consultants, and service providers in your niche. Offer to interview them on a podcast or feature them in your content to establish credibility and rapport. Develop a follow-up system to stay top-of-mind by continuously providing valuable insights. Over time, introduce collaborative promotions and revenue-sharing opportunities to strengthen these partnerships and drive mutual success.
Building Long-Term Referral Partnerships
" I will literally build up so much goodwill and reciprocity, which are powerful forces in human psychology, that you won't be able to take it. Psychologically, you’ll say, ‘What can I do for you?’"
Referral partnerships aren’t just about quick wins — they’re about building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. The key to this is value-first marketing — offering support before asking for anything in return.
To cultivate strong relationships, consistently provide value through high-quality content, insights, and helpful connections. Send personalized messages to maintain and strengthen these relationships over time. When the moment is right, introduce a formalized affiliate or referral program that allows both parties to benefit from ongoing collaboration.
Final Thoughts: Scaling Through Focused Marketing
Success in marketing doesn’t come from doing everything — it comes from doing the right things. Focus on a niche audience, a singular strategy, and high-value relationships to maximize growth. By strategically leveraging affiliates and partnerships, you can scale your business more effectively while reducing your customer acquisition costs.
If you’re looking for a way to implement this approach systematically, consider using the 50 affiliates in 50 weeks strategy to build your own network of referral partners.
…Class Dismissed!
What’s your next step? Identify one focused marketing channel and reach out to one potential referral partner today. Small, consistent actions lead to massive growth.
Want to hear the full interview with Seth? Click here!
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Your journey to success begins now! Take action today, and kickstart your journey with our FREE BUSINESS COURSE. And if you're ready for more amazing content, click here to check out the rest of the Millionaire University podcast!
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Transcript
Seth: [00:00:00] You don't need to be on every social platform all the time. You don't need every latest widget or gadget. You don't need every course you need one. You've got one product or service. You need one target market and you need one form of media to reach that target market where they hang out. So Dan taught me 50 percent of the success or failure of any marketing or any business for that matter.
Is based on proper target markets election.
Brien: Welcome to the Millionaire University podcast. I'm your host, Brian Guerin with you today. And on this edition of the MU pod, I'm joined by Seth Green. He's the founder of Market Domination, one of the foremost direct response marketing firms in the country. He's also the host of the Sharkpreneur podcast with Shark Tank's own Kevin Harrington.
And it's one of the top five most listened to business podcasts in the country. And also guys, to boot, he is a wildly successful entrepreneur having launched four different ventures. Seth, welcome to the show, my man.
Seth: Thank you so much for having me. It is an honor to be here. And I need to update that bio because It's now [00:01:00] seven companies, as opposed to four.
We added a few in the last year.
Brien: All right. I figured I probably should have checked with you before I hit record, because I was like, there's probably more than four now, but that's great to hear. I love it. Awesome. Awesome. That's
Seth: the beauty of being a serial entrepreneur. You play Monopoly with businesses as opposed to real estate.
Brien: That's right. I love it. That's perfect. Awesome. Well, Seth, we're going to talk about a few different things today. I mean, you have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to entrepreneurship. So. That's definitely gonna be one of the things we jump into first. It'll be kind of being the foundations of being an entrepreneur.
Obviously you're uniquely qualified to talk about that, but also we're going to kind of segue that into talking about what you specialize in right now. And that's helping companies build 50 affiliates in 50 weeks to explode their revenue, take their business to the stratosphere. So I'm really stoked to talk about all of that.
But before we hop in, let's start with your origin story. Kind of let us know how you got to where you are today.
Seth: So awesome. The longer version of this story could go for hours. It's on YouTube. It's on our webinars. It's on podcasts. I'll try and do the super short [00:02:00] version now. So we have time for everything else.
So I started out as a retail financial advisor. My specialty was college financial aid negotiation. Got my series seven, all my licenses. And the first day of training, my branch manager says, I got a book where all your clients could come from your entire career. I said, this is great. I'm early twenties.
I'm going to young. I'm going to be rich. I'm gonna get a Ferrari. This is going to be awesome. Just like the movies. And he handed me the phone book because the internet didn't exist back then. I'm dating myself. So I made 300 cold calls a day, interrupting strangers, and I hated it. I was terrible way to get business.
So I had the good fortune after banging my head against the ball a lot to find legendary marketing guru, Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson, who I know, you know. I begged my wife for 30 days in a row to let me go borrow more than our house. We had just moved into to let me go work with Dan Kennedy on day 31.
She said, yes, you better pray. It works. It did. I was the sixth. I was last place at a fortune 500 financial services firm. There were 6, 700 advisors. I was 6, 700 and dead last. And then two years of working with Dan, I was in the top 30 nationwide. [00:03:00] So it absolutely worked all of a sudden. And this was all print media and direct mail.
My phone started ringing off the hook with advisors who had found me in the yellow pages. There was no internet saying, Hey, how do I do what you did? And Dan Kennedy said, I faxed him and he said, you start a marketing company and do it for him. So in 2007, I took the leap. I left the fortune 500 company. I started my own financial services company.
I started my own marketing company for in the beginning, only financial advisors. And that year, my wife and I had, uh, got married, bought our first house. And she quit her job because we had our first baby and she wanted to be a stay at home mom. So every major life stress rather than someone dying, I hit all at the same time.
Thankfully it worked out and we started with two companies. Now we're at seven and we've helped thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners. We've branched out from financial services. We're now in 63 different niches and we've helped thousands of business owners, literally in almost every time zone on the planet.
Over the last 18 years.
Brien: Wow. Okay. That's incredible. First, I [00:04:00] don't want to gloss over the fact that it seems like what kind of changed the entire trajectory was working with Dan Kennedy at GKIC. A hundred percent. Absolutely.
Seth: Without him, I might still be cold calling for a living.
Brien: Oh gosh, that sounds terrible.
Oh my gosh. Yeah. No, Dan Kennedy, for those who don't know, probably kind of like the godfather of direct response marketing. And like you said, you had to fax him. I love that because the only way to get ahold of him is through fax, which is pretty incredible. But for those of you out there, if you haven't checked him out, go Google him, go find his stuff.
It's incredible. Obviously it's life changing. He's done a lot for me in my career, just studying his work on the marketing side. But okay. So you. I love the idea of you were just marketed the heck out of yourself. And he said, go start your own marketing company. What other companies are you involved with?
And they were, they all kind of spawns from the marketing or is it just as you grew, you found opportunities and you went after them?
Seth: Yes. And yes. So we started out with a college financial aid negotiation company, how to find money for college. com, which still exists. We help client families every day, cut the cost of college tuition and market domination, LLC.
[00:05:00] com, the marketing company. That we created a very unique strategy. As we talked about 50 affiliates in 50 weeks, get others to grow your business for you, that spun off a separate company delivering that service. Cause we did it for us and it worked so well. It spun off a separate company, BMD publishing.
Then we launched companies with several of our clients. We created coaching programs for them and then. We launched the company together that led to a couple of businesses. I started a nonprofit last year, the wealth production lines. org, which is a associate nonprofit association for business owners, helping them get to the next level.
I got hired to be CEO of one of my clients companies also last year, certainty news. com, which is a media outlet. So some of them were spinoffs of the first of an iteration of an idea. And then some of them were companies started with clients or hired by clients and said, Hey, I don't want to run my company.
I just want to do what I do. Can you guys run the company and do the marketing and I'll just go do the thing. And at the time I said [00:06:00] yes, a couple of times.
Brien: I love that. So talking about, you know, foundations of entrepreneurship, I think we may have hit all of them all within the last three minutes here in your story.
But I guess, was it the literally just the acquisition of the technical skill, the ability to write a direct response ad, the ability to communicate what it is you're selling in a way that is immersive and meaningful, maybe even emotional to someone who's reading it. I guess, what was the driver behind that?
Did you feel like the only way to succeed was doing the cold calls and doing it the way everyone else was, or did you kind of have that innate mindset where you're like, there's a better way. I just got to go find the person or the entity who can teach it to me.
Seth: So I hated making cold calls, loved helping people, hated the process that I was taught to get to them when you're broke and have no money and are just starting out.
At the time, without the internet, cold calling, I mean, I couldn't even afford stamps. So cold calling was the way to go because I didn't know any better. I hated it. I was actively, I said, there's got to be a better way. I didn't know what the way was. [00:07:00] I was reading all kinds of marketing books and tapes and stuff like that until I found, you know, one of Dan's books and said, Oh my, I was actually referred to Dan by somebody else, a guru in the industry and marketing industry, and said, Oh my God, in my spare time, I'm a professional.
I used to be a professional magician. And I had borrowed the money from my parents, much less like a thousand bucks at the time to buy a marketing course for magicians. And it was produced by a guy named Dave D who was one of Dan's most successful students at the time I implemented the course. I became the busiest, most successful, most expensive magician in Buffalo, New York and said, Oh my God, this really, I did it in like 60 days.
And I said, Oh my God, this really works. And I used my critique certificate. I faxed it into Dave. I got to do a call with Dave and I said, Dave, this stuff is amazing. Where'd you learn it? He said, the two words that changed my life. He said, Dan Kennedy. And I said, how do I talk to Dan? He said, you don't, right?
Like he costs more than your house, all this other stuff. And I said, that was a carrot tangled in front of me. Right. I'm like, I am going to go, you cannot tell me I can't do something. So [00:08:00] I found, that's how I got connected to Dan, started reading books, started getting products, and then went all the way up the ladder.
Brien: Wow. Okay. So did you actually work with Dan in his business or are you always, you were in the business?
Seth: Oh yeah. So he informed, helped write our first lead generation magnet in the financial services business, helped teach me directly. A lot of what I know about direct response marketing came from him and then went down the rabbit hole and started learning from Everybody in the industry and everybody who came before and everybody who came before them people have been long since dead so I went down the rabbit hole as you mentioned and alice turned out to be wonderland, I guess
Brien: Yeah.
So let's talk about marketing when it comes to, you know, if you're new to entrepreneurship, if you're aspiring entrepreneurs, or maybe you're early stage and as someone, I own a marketing company myself where I encounter business owners every single day where they feel completely clueless, completely lost.
And maybe that marketing is a total black box. What's your advice to a new [00:09:00] entrepreneur who maybe they're not new to their industry, but they're new to business ownership and they're new to. Calling the shots and doing the things. What's your advice when it comes to marketing to just get started, just get off the ground.
What is that step one thing that they need to be able to do?
Seth: First of all, they can relax. They don't need to learn everything. You don't need to be on every social platform all the time. You don't need every latest widget or gadget. You don't need every course, even mine. You need one, you've got one product or service.
You need one target market and you need one form of media to reach that target market where they hang out. So Dan taught me 50 percent of the success or failure of any marketing or any business for that matter is based on proper target market selection. The most common one in financial services, you ask any financial advisor who your target market is.
And over 80 percent of them will say baby boomers with money. And it's a terrible target market because it's way too broad. They don't have the money to reach every single one of them and they have nothing in common. So we teach what I learned from Dan is micro niche laser focus, you know, sniper [00:10:00] rifle target marketing I want the smallest possible market I can go after of my Exact ideal clients and the form of media they are on the most, which could be direct mail, could be print, could be Facebook, could be Instagram, could be tick tock if it's still around by the time this airs, whatever they need, one form of media that person hangs out on and they need one offer and they don't need everything else for a while, dig all the gold out of that hill, the one product or service, one target market, one way to reach them and one offer to make.
And once they're printing money, then they can afford to learn everything else.
Brien: Yeah, I think it's so easy to get completely blindsided or overwhelmed by all the different platforms, all the ways you can advertise all the different things that you could possibly do to grow your business. And it, I think it leaves most people either broke, you know, empty pocketed.
They try everything and think they need to be anywhere, everywhere, or you just get completely overwhelmed and you might not do anything. You kind of just float and your business just is stagnant. But if choosing that [00:11:00] single pathway, you know. Pick one thing, stick with it and double down on it. I think that's fantastic advice.
Seth: Well, I wouldn't double down on it until it works. And then until it works. Yes. Combination right off the bat.
Brien: Yep.
Seth: I've gotten it wrong plenty of times.
Brien: Yep. Same. It took me about four or five iterations before I kind of found exactly where. Exactly who I need to be getting. And then the best way to attract them, you know, it's marketing is have a good offer, find the people, get in front of them and present that offer, present that solution,
Seth: not the
Brien: rocket science that a lot of people might feel that it is
Seth: right.
But it's our job to tell them it's rocket science. So they got to hire you. Right,
Brien: right. Exactly. That's part of the gig. Okay. So as a new entrepreneur, I think it's really easy to be completely overwhelmed, not just by platforms, not just by everything you can do, but what are, as you're leaning this more towards sales, when you were in your business, what was it, was it your offer that sold everybody and they were already in, is that where the emphasis needs to be or.
What about building out infrastructure to [00:12:00] actually close people?
Seth: I think there's a couple different questions in there and i'm trying to figure out probably like seven. Yeah I'm trying to figure out what the answer first so infrastructure to close people I don't know that you need any fancy infrastructure.
You know, we both are students of disciples of Russell Brunson, who will tell you're only one funnel away. It depends on where you're starting. If we're talking literally zero and I've got no money, I'm not worried about buying a ClickFunnels account or whatever, a grow high level or anything. I would literally do the lowest tech possible, like, which could be, I'm going to have a conversation with you, Ryan.
I am going to make you, right, Zoom, I can get the free Zoom. I am talking to you, I talk to you online, and then say, Hey, here's my solution, wanna buy it? I mean, obviously it can be more elegant clothes than that, but I think you've got to make enough money to pay the bills and keep the lights on before you're worried about, hey, I've got this 27 step funnel.
Now, do we have those? Of course we do. Do we build them for clients and drive traffic? Of course we do. Just like you do. However, I mean, I didn't start [00:13:00] that way. I mean, my very first quote unquote offer as a financial advisor was delivered via a letter with a stamp on it, and then it drove them to physically call my office phone number and then.
I didn't have an assistant. I was brand new, literally took the phone call, made an appointment, closed over the phone, and then said, okay, now I gotta figure out paperwork to get paid. When I first started, my very first marketing that I sold was an information product that was like 97. And I learned, I didn't know how to build web.
This is again, this is late nineties. I think I literally built the first sales page on front page. I didn't have payment processing like back that when I started. It literally was a PayPal button to send my personal PayPal account money. I didn't even have a business bank account yet. And people bought off of that.
And I said, Oh, okay, I'm onto something. I mean, I didn't sell a million dollars of it, but I sold four or five. And I was like, Hey, I might have something [00:14:00] here.
Brien: Yeah. You got to get proof of concept, prove that you can do it. Start getting comfortable being uncomfortable, right? You know, sales, I think for me, when things started changing is when I looked at sales conversations, classically, I looked at them more as this is just a conversation of me.
And if I have a solution, I'm going to offer it, right? It doesn't have to be that hard.
Seth: I'm going to tell you, I don't. And if I know someone who does, I'm going to send you over there, which is going to establish even more, like no trust credibility because I didn't sell you.
Brien: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, and I feel like this kind of leads a little bit more into, I really want to talk about your 50 affiliates in 50 weeks.
So So let's kind of start unpacking that because if, for those aren't, who may not be familiar with affiliates or affiliate marketing out there, can you explain just very high level, what that is, what that concept is like, and then we're going to talk about really unpacking this and how you guys find success with it.
Seth: Absolutely. So affiliate marketing is a term used in internet online marketing, but it doesn't have to [00:15:00] be. So for example, let's take the most basic business. Let's go financial advisor. Who else sees in this example, my baby boomers with money. Well, they all have accountants cause they pay taxes. They all have lawyers who did their wills and trusts, right?
So my goal is to get affiliates. Other people to grow my business. If you think backwards, someone else has already built your client base. There is someone else who doesn't compete with you, but serve the same clients, not your competition, your co op petition. They serve the same people you do and don't compete with you.
They've already done the time expense in decades to build that business. If you can just get them, and obviously we have a process for that. If you can get them to promote your business to their clients, you will go get a whole bunch of customers at once. So I want you to think two levels deep, not just who is my ideal micro niche target market, but who's my co op petition who serves them, but doesn't compete with me and how can I build relationships with those people so that they will share me, promote me to their client [00:16:00] base, thus saving me a whole lot of customer acquisition costs and bootstrapping my way up.
Brien: Okay. Got it. So it's really about building relationships with, I like the word, the co op petition, those who serve the same niche, but maybe in a different way. And now I love this because I'm all about relationship marketing and building relationships to help grow your business. We all know that one of the best leads you can possibly get is a warm referral.
A hot lead that comes from someone whether it's a friend or a business or a referral partner. Those are the ones that have the highest close rate. So building a little army of your own with sounds like 50 of these and 50 weeks sounds incredible because now You're never, you shouldn't ever have to want for any additional ways in revenue in terms of when it comes to affiliates.
So what's the process, what's kind of, what can you share with us in terms of how to go about doing this and as well as the importance behind it?
Seth: So what you wanted, what I would suggest is you want to start by making that wish list, right? Russell Brunson is famous has become no, you know, sharing the [00:17:00] dream 100 concept.
We call it dream 50 because a hundred can be overwhelming to people and we do it differently than Russell does it. Again, we both got it from Chet Holmes and then we iterated it into the 21st century, which is why I got nominated. The only person ever to get nominated back to back for Dan Kennedy's marker of the year award.
So you want to think 51 a week for 50 weeks could totally change your business. Who are those 50 potential joint venture partners, strategic alliances, referral partners, affiliates, whatever you want to call them. Start by making that wish list of who are 50, if you can't do 50, do as many as you can, who are 50 other professionals, and it could just be the type of professional.
I could just list accountant. I don't know what accountant I want or how many accountants I want, but I could just write accountant. Who are 50 other people or types of people who serve the same clients, but don't compete with me, that could move the needle for me if I could get them to. And then once you've done that, then part of our secret sauce is we have our clients We go out as their media department.
We get those 50 people to say yes to being interviewed on a [00:18:00] podcast like yours. So as a financial advisor, I'd be interviewing accountants and attorneys on my podcast every single week. And then we have a very lengthy, like 30 step direct mail sequence. That goes out after the podcast airs, spoiler alert, you're going to be on the receiving end of this because you were on our show.
So I just, now, you know, oops, pretend you don't and be surprised and impressed. So we drip on them. We add value every other week so that we're constantly adding value. We're permanently top of mind. We're always in front of you so that by the time you get to step three or four, you're literally going to send me an email and go.
Seth, I'd love to talk more so that we've got the message we've done it thousands of times. We've got the messaging. We've got what needs to be sent all dialed in. Doesn't matter what industry it's in pretty much that will get those guests to turn into ambassadors, affiliates, raving fans, people who are out there telling the world how fabulous I am and getting us business.
Brien: Awesome. Okay. So let's dig a little deeper. [00:19:00] Let's say you have an affiliate or a future affiliate. They come on the podcast. They have a great show. You follow up with them. And the offer is, will you essentially be willing to take a cut for every future client you send to this business owner?
Seth: I wouldn't even tell them that.
So is that the end offer? Yes. But it's not what I would lead with. Cause right there. That's, you're getting married. I still gotta date you. So, the first offer, so to speak, is, Hey, you're gonna see this. Spoiler alert. Hey Brian, thank you so much for having, for being on the show. Based on blah blah blah that you said, I had an idea.
Are you open to jumping on another 15 minute quick Zoom to discuss it? And Brian's going to say yes, even though now he knows Brian's going to say yes, because I put them on the show. He was on with Kevin. He loves me now for it. Like, Oh my God, that was awesome. I now have a relationship. You got a direct email now to Kevin and Kevin asked you for some stuff.
Like I just gave you tons of, [00:20:00] in addition to being in front of our millions of downloads, I just gave you tons of. So, of course, you're going to say, sure, I can't wait to hear what you have to say, Seth. And then, on that conversation, I'm still not going to say you should be an affiliate. I'm still dating.
So we're gonna offer, we're gonna do something to move you one micro step forward, one little yes forward that you feel comfortable with so we can keep adding more and more value to the point where, and I learned this from Robert Cialdini and his amazing books, influence, I will literally build up so much goodwill and reciprocity, which are powerful forces in human psychology, that you won't be able to take it.
Psychologically, you will literally say, Seth, I can't believe all the cool stuff you send me. I can't believe all the stuff that you're doing. You're welcome. What can I do for you? And I'm still not going to say, Hey, want to take a cut at that point? Then I'm going to use some of our proprietary languaging to make the offer of, Hey, can you share one more thing with your audience?
And then you're going to say, of course, cause you've already shared the video podcast, the audio podcast, all the other stuff we [00:21:00] gave you that promoted you. That's part of the secret sauce. All of the resources we're giving you along the way are promoting your business or promoting Millionaire University or the podcast.
So they're like, wow, they created all this cool stuff for me. And then I'm going to say, share one more thing. And that one more thing is going to start the conversation of leading those people now back to us.
Brien: Right. It's the power of reciprocity.
Seth: Yes. We're going to build up so much of it. Literally. I did this as an experiment.
When I first read Influence and I still worked at the Fortune 500 company, I did an experiment that I got from Cialdini where my best friend at the time at the firm, we would go out to lunch a couple of times a week. First time, I said, I'm going to try this experiment. First time I paid for lunch. And he's like, Oh, thanks so much.
Second time I paid for lunch. He's like, Hey, it was my turn. You paid last time. I'm like, I got this. I got this. Third time I paid for lunch. He's like, you got to stop buying me lunch. I feel terrible. It's my turn now. And now we've got to get, you paid for three times. Now we've got to go someplace fancy to make up for all of it.
Cause you, and we ended up, he ended up spending way more on me. Then like the three times we went to Wendy's or subway or wherever. I [00:22:00] wasn't trying to get him to spend more money. It was an experiment to see how many times would it take before the goodwill and reciprocity overwhelmed him and he couldn't psychologically take it anymore.
So that helps inform how much value we add to you. Before we ask for anything.
Brien: Oh, okay. I love this. And I think even at a micro level, especially if there's a new entrepreneurs, early stage entrepreneur, you're only a year in business. You can feel very lonely, right? You know that you're the only one out there selling your own goods or services that.
You know, you're in a pool full of sharks and you're the little turtle. But I think when you break it down, tell me if you agree with this, it's all about relationships and your network and who you start building with. So obviously you can do this at a very high level with Seth and I'm sure obviously 50 affiliates, 50 weeks, you can blow up your business, but when you're brand new, can you talk to a little bit about the importance of maybe just going out and actually meeting people and telling them who you are?
But not just that, if you can serve them in some way, even if it's not with your product or [00:23:00] service, you can start building that relationship so that there, maybe you start building your own teeny tiny affiliate network, but at least it's something and it's getting you started.
Seth: Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, these exist in local markets, I mean, in a way, like, for example, I was in BNI for 10 years, business networking international for 10 years.
In the entire region, I was the number one, most revenue producer, number one, most revenue generated, most referrals given most referrals received for years and years. And I did it because I did everything they told me. I went, I did one to ones like every week, three or four every week with. Every person I went to other chapters and met every single person in the region and did one to ones with them.
I came up with, Hey, I marketed the fact that I had this network of professionals behind me and you should call me for any decision you're making about anything, and I know I got a guy who can help you. So I made myself the center of the referral hub and promoted that and use that as a business differentiator.
And magically, if you follow their process, it works, [00:24:00] right? So you don't necessarily have to do the cool internet stuff. You could literally do this in a local market, like with a BNI. There are other tip clubs and referral networks, but the most powerful concept, because there are large percentages of people in any group or industry that don't get out of it, what they could, and it's because they don't do the work, right?
It works. If you work, it's a work and it works. And people would ask me every week, how are you putting up such crazy numbers? I'm like, I just did what they told us to last week. And they're like, Oh, I just did it a lot because if you're willing to work in a way that no one else will, you can have a life that no one else, that other people won't have.
So I think you could do it on a small level and do very well in a local market if it was, if you have that type of business. Now, if you're selling diet, weight loss eBooks online, you might not necessarily be in a B and I, B and I might necessarily give you a big enough reach. I eventually got to the point where.
I had some issues in BNI because I was like the [00:25:00] people I was working with. I needed a lot of our clients are nationwide and you're not going to meet that person in a local BNI chapter. I got referred to some who were, but I had better luck as we grew and got bigger and bigger doing podcasts, going to conferences, going to events, joining mastermind groups, where bigger players, for lack of a better term, I could find.
I needed a better pond to fish in.
Brien: Yeah, and that's, I'm familiar with that as well as that. When I started out my business, it was very locally based. I was part of BNI. I did chamber of commerce, the whole nine yards getting a little business, local business off the ground. And then eventually you moved online, you moved to podcasting, you moved to meeting people in the internet world, right?
Where. The amount of people you can build a relationship with is endless in your local area, it might be, it might have a cap on it because there's only so many people you can meet locally, but when you expand it into the digital world, regardless of your business, it's pretty incredible. The amount of relationships you can get, you can make the amount of value you can provide is now tenfold compared to just keeping yourself local.[00:26:00]
So yeah, that's all I clearly you're living proof of that. And I think that's fantastic. So when you do have affiliates, let's say you have five or 10 affiliates that are pretty trusted. You know, you know that they will be referring you when the time is right for the people that come to them. At what point I've experienced this too, where, you know, I have a good affiliate or I have a, you know, a partner who I know they're going to refer business to me.
Do you have to incentivize them? Is that part of your program where you incentivize them to keep doing it? Or is it more of a. Basically, how do you keep it turning out? Like, do you keep providing value to them in ways that they can't match? So there's always that need to reciprocate. How does that work?
Seth: Yes. And yes. So yes, we keep providing value. Yes. We're always coming up with more clever, unique ways to add value so that we're always top of mind. And we're always building that goodwill and reciprocity. And it depends on the industry. So do we incentivize people? Do we have a paid affiliate program where if you refer clients to us, you get a commission on every dollar revenue?
Absolutely. A hundred percent. Now that doesn't work in every [00:27:00] industry. So for example, we have some clients who are attorneys. They can't reciprocate in terms of money, right? Attorneys legally and only in there's a couple states where it's okay. We just aren't in one, but in most States, attorneys cannot share fees with non lawyers and I don't want to go to law school and pass the bar exam.
So we had to figure out a different way to incentivize them because we couldn't write them a check. Whereas in other industries, like In anything, most things in the digital marketing world, like as a marketing firm, if I send you a client, there are no laws preventing you from having an affiliate program and cutting me a check, just like you send people our way.
We're going to cut you a check, but again, it depends on the business. Most of them work. The ones that are the highest regulated that have the most issues are obviously financial services, legal, and health care. It's not that you can't do it. It's just you've got to do it in a certain compliant way So you don't get yourself in any legal trouble.
We figured out how to pull it off in financial services We haven't figured out how to pull it off in legal So if you know let me know [00:28:00] in personal injury law So if you know let me know and we've figured out how to do it in some areas of health care, but not all
Brien: Interesting. So like, even in those heavily regulated areas, you can't even like take him out to a steak dinner or you can't like, it's just super compliance.
Seth: It depends. Like, for example, one of the biggest cases that made my financial services career was I was able through my interview, through the interview process, get in the door with a union pension fund. And it was a team, the Teamsters union, and they had hundreds of millions of dollars in assets under management that.
I accidentally went after and launched my financial services career. And it's funny when we would meet, they always wanted to go to this particular restaurant, which is known for its mammoth size burgers. And I would the very first time I tried to pay and they're like, you can't pay. And I'm like, why not?
And they're like, we're not allowed to accept it. I'm like. It's like 20 bucks each. And they're like, we're not allowed to accept a dime from a potential vendor or a vendor. So we appreciate the offer, but no, you can [00:29:00] never pay. You can't even pay to get us a dollar meal at McDonald's. We're not allowed to accept it.
Brien: Wow. That's wild. Okay. So this 50 affiliates in 50 weeks. What type of businesses do you guys work with and who are the best businesses that this can really help explode? Like what, at what point in business are they currently sitting at where this is the best, best opportunity?
Seth: Okay. So there's a couple of different answers to that question.
We're in three different main verticals, which I'm happy to share. And this is for our done for you service, where we do all of the work. And all you do is show up to your, do a podcast interview once a week, and we do all the rest. So the three verticals we're in professional practices, financial advisor, accountant.
Dentist, doctor, you know, alternative medical practitioner type of people. Then we're in the information marketer space. So online course, membership, community, author, speaker, coach, consultant. And then third, we're in e commerce. If you sell a physical product direct to consumer online. We serve that space.
So those are the three verticals that we're in for our done for you service. And [00:30:00] usually our clients are not startups in all honesty. They're usually doing probably at least a million dollars in revenue because they've got to be able to afford us. And we're not cheap because of all the work and expertise that's involved.
Now, that being said, I started the business with nothing. I started the process with nothing. Podcasts weren't even a thing when I did it. I literally am holding up. This is my Staples voice recorder. It was 20 bucks. It's like 20 years old. It still works. I have to have an adapter to get it to plug into my computer because that port doesn't exist anymore, right?
It's not USB C. But it worked and I would go do all my interviews in person because Zoom wasn't, Zoom and GoToWebinar didn't exist in the late 90s. So you can start it with nothing. You either got two things. This is one thing I've learned. You either have money, in which case you don't have time and you're happy to write a check to buy your time.
Those are our clients. They're buying the time that they don't have to do all of the steps. Now, if you're just starting out and you don't have money, you have time, so you're going to do it yourself because you've got the hours to do it and you don't have the money to pay for it done for you. [00:31:00] So if you wanted to do this, start this yourself, I would tell you it helps.
We've seen the most excessive. You're a high ticket business, high transaction value. So what I mean is if you are selling a 7 ebook and that is your entire business, there's nothing else. This isn't going to work because the amount of ebooks you would need to sell, volume, just probably, could you do it?
Sure. But is it the highest, best use of your time? Probably not. Now, if you're selling something that's In an ideal world, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars over time, right? They don't have to pay it all to you tomorrow, but if they're your ideal, if your lifetime customer value is significant, a lesson you and I both learned from Dan and Russell, if the lifetime LTV, lifetime customer value is good, then all of a sudden it makes sense.
And this can be some of the most profitable marketing you do, even if you're paying a reassuringly expensive fees to do all the work.
Brien: Absolutely. So I think that's a great message for businesses who might not be at that mark yet. I think what I'm taking from this is you just, you gotta go out and you [00:32:00] gotta do the work.
You gotta pound the pavement. Like you said, when you have the time and not the money. That's when you maximize your time. And then when you have the money, now you have the capability to buy it back.
Seth: And that's, that's
Brien: the one resource that you can't create, right? Time is time. You can only manage it as in your favor as much as you can.
And money is a tool to help you buy it back. So you do have more of it. So I love that. Yes. Awesome. Well, Seth, uh, we're gonna begin to land the plane here. I know you're a busy man. You got seven businesses. You got to go run. If we could leave our listeners with one piece of advice, whether it's entrepreneurial or maybe more marketing related, I know this is going to be a broad one, but what would be one that you could distill down through your years of experience to inspire our listeners?
Seth: So I would say one of the most important pieces of advice I ever got from a book called the 4 sandwich. It's by Dr. Cory Malnikoff, spoiler. He's my brother in law and it's an amazing book. He literally had his debit card when he was starting out declined for a 4 sandwich and it's the title of the book.
So one of my favorite quote from that book is [00:33:00] who you are being. How well what you are doing is working who you are being affects how well what you do works. So if I'm in a negative fear based scarcity mindset, I could do all the marketing in the world and we'll work the way it should. We've had clients do that.
Screw it up. But if you are optimistic, excited, confident, certain, Believe in yourself. Believe in what you're doing. Same marketing campaign could crush it for you. So, I try and spend, forget just sharpening the saw on your own expertise, I try and spend time doing what I call at least twice a day my personal development push ups, right?
If you go to, you can't go to the gym once and get fit, you gotta do the push ups, you gotta do the exercise every day. So I try and do personal development push ups multiple times a day to keep my mindset right, which I think is the most important thing, because if I come from that confident, excited, optimistic place, magically everything works better.
Brien: I love that. I love that. And an abundance mindset. Get away from that scarcity mindset. Live in abundance. Yes. All right. Awesome. Well, Seth, thank you so much, man. This has been awesome. I want to make sure anybody [00:34:00] out there listening today can check you out, check out your business, maybe connect with you.
What are the best ways to get more Seth Green in their life?
Seth: I greatly appreciate that. So we have a very special offer for your listeners. So my latest bestselling book on Amazon is the ultimate guide to growing your business with the podcast, how to turn warm, fuzzy feelings into cold, hard cash. It maps out this process.
Step by step we are for your listeners, giving them a 30 percent discount off the Amazon price. If they go to ultimate podcast, book. com, we will give them 30 percent off the Amazon price and we will physically ship them the book. If you're just trying to get ahold of me, LinkedIn is a social network I'm most active on message me there.
And it's Seth Green with an E on the end. If you do it without the E, you'll get the actor.
Brien: Right. Don't forget that E at the end. All right. Fantastic. Well, Seth, thank you so much for joining us. A bunch of gold nuggets here today. Really a pleasure having you.
Seth: Thanks so much. It was a lot of fun.
Brien: All righty.
And that is a wrap on this latest episode of the Millionaire University Podcast. Big thanks to Seth for joining me today. I think [00:35:00] he brought a lot of knowledge that you guys could benefit from myself included when it comes to foundational concepts and entrepreneurship, as well as talking about relationship marketing, affiliate marketing, there's definitely a time and a place in everybody's business for relationships like this, especially when you're getting started, there's nothing more important than building out relationships with people who maybe not only could use your product or service, but could also refer people to you so you can continue to grow your business.
Alright guys, that's it for me today. Brian Giran signing off. I do have one quick favor. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the share link in your pod player and send a text message to a friend, family member, coworker, whoever it might be, who you think would enjoy this episode as well. We would love to be able to reach them.
Alright, I cannot wait to see you on the next episode of the Millionaire University Podcast when she'd all go out there and crush it today.
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