How To Joint Venture With Gurus Interview Transcript
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BEN: Hello everybody this is Ben Settle of BenSettle.com. And today I’m talking to a friend of mine — joint venture expert David Dutton who’s been called the most connected man on the Internet. He’s had a lot success setting up joint ventures and business deals with people of power and influence. He’s done deals with the legendary Jim Straw, Willie Crawford, Joe Vitale, David Frey, and Michael Senoff, even Jessie Conners, star of the Donald Trump’s, The Apprentice.
These are people most of us only read about in many cases, but David has been able to sort of move his way into their lives and strike up profitable deals using some really simple techniques we’re going to talk about today. David are you there?
DAVID: I am.
BEN: I want to start this off with sort of challenging you on something. Okay, what makes you the most connected man on the Internet, and how did you develop this skill?
DAVID: Let me just tell your listeners the fact that after this phone call you’ll be able to do this, okay. Now, you may have to listen to it over and over again just to get the confidence if you’re not that self confident, but you will be able to do this. I’m going to share with you what I do and how I do it.
I’m from Tennessee. I’m a Southern boy, you probably can tell with the Southern accent and everything. Well, I’m 29, but at 16-years old I always knew I was an entrepreneur. I just knew I wasn’t going to work for anybody. But I was wrestling with what I was going to do after high school. I just wasn’t sure, I didn’t like school that much, because I just wanted to go out and make money even at that age.
I was working for Garden Plaza Hotel which is in Murphysboro, Tennessee. It’s now Double Tree Hotel. As a clerk I was making $6 - $7 an hour, I believe. I was wrestling with my life, had a lot of personal things going on. One of the guests in there, as I’m just kind of day dreaming which I do a lot, I saw one of our guests walk by, a doctor, and it hit me. I was like, “Wait a minute. I don’t have to go to Law School or Med School. All I have to do is know one. And if I just hang out with them I can pick up the phone and they’ll help me out if I give value to their life.” You just can’t call a buddy and ask favors all the time if you’re not giving him returns, giving value into your buddy’s life.
So that changed my life, but I didn’t get use that, Ben, until like years later, but that still to this day, even at 29 years old, was an “ah-ha” moment. That changed my life, because it changed my thinking.
I went to a little small Bible college in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And when I was home for break at 21-years old I was trying to get a sales job. I was very hungry, I had read a book called, How To Master The Art Of Selling, by Tom Hopkins, changed my life. I knew I wanted a straight commission job. This was ’97, ’98, ’99 around there, when cell phones were so huge as far as you could make a lot of money in it. So people had them, but there was still a lot of money to be had selling them.
I walked into Absolute Wireless in Murphysboro, Tennessee, I said, “Hey, can I get a straight commission job, do you all have those?” They hired me on the spot. I learned how to sell Nextel and all this.
I drove what I call a 1986 “ghetto-fabulous” Honda Accord. And I didn’t have any money if it broke down, so I didn’t want it to break down. So I didn’t want to cold call. I didn’t want to go driving and parking and trying to stop with these businesses and try to sell them cell phones, so I said, “Okay, wait a minute. I got a directory.” Some type of Chamber of Commerce newspaper. It even had Nashville businesses as well.
I started calling, I was making like a 100 calls a day. And I would do 90 percent of my selling right over the phone. By the time I got to them I was showing them the phone, and they were signing the contract, and I was done. And I made $100, $200, $300, $400. I was making about $3,000 working about 20 hours a week. Doing that changed my life. That’s when I started getting good on the phone and started networking a little bit.
A buddy of mine approached me about doing a barter business. Well he’s a little technical geek type guy and very intelligent, but he’s not a networker or anything. He had a Chinese connection that we could get connections in China. And what we were going to do was approach American drug companies that just got drugs and devices approved by the FDA that wanted to sell their stuff in China.
We would approach them; we would call them up and say, “Hey, do you want to sell it? You give us a percentage of the deal and we’ll broker the deal for you.” So anyway, my buddies weren’t going to call anybody, so I was like, “Okay, give me a piece of the action I’ll call.”
So I was 24-years old calling Fortune 100 CEOs, CFOs, COOs out of my dorm room, from a cell phone number, no website, no one to hand your number, nothing. Just calling them like I owned it. I just happened to have a surplus of confidence. I knew that they were going to do business with me. Did they all do business with me? No, actually none of them did except for one.
Now, to sell your drugs in China I found out, I didn’t know about this, but it takes about $8 million to get drugs through the Chinese government. My cut was going to be like $80,000 out of $8 million. This was good at 24. I’m like, “Okay, that’s cool. You know, that could start my real estate business and that type of thing, so I’m all right with that.” So that’s why I was doing it.
Well, I call this one company and I’ll never forget it Biosensors out of California. I’m on the phone I say, “Hey, are you interested?” They’re like, “Yeah, I think we are.” It was a good call, but no deal or anything, especially not on the first phone call, because you got to build a trust.
Well, I’m driving on I-75 in Chattanooga, Tennessee; I can still see exactly where I was, when I was riding in the passenger seat with my buddy in his Volkswagon Golf. And I get a call about 8:30 on my cell phone said, “Hi, this is Chuck Wong from Biosensors.” It was like an Asian guy. And I was like, “Yes, what can I do for you?” He said, “I heard you talked to Bob earlier and we’re very interested in your proposal. We wanted to see if we could fly you down to California next week.” I didn’t say this, but I was just like, “Oh my God. Are you serious?” So I said, “I don’t have my planner with me. I’m not sure I’m out of the office. Can I call you back?” He said, “Yes, please call me back.”
So I just got my buddy to contact our Asian guy and they started networking, because I don’t fly. That’s kind of my trademark at mostconnectedmarketer.com is how I do all these deals from Murphysboro, Tennessee without getting on an airplane. I don’t meet anybody at seminars, because most of them are across the country, and I have a flying phobia. So I’m not going to California, that’s crazy.
So anyway, the deal started rolling and everything. Long story short, I learned a very valuable lesson with contracts and lawyers. You need them, you need both. So I got squeezed out of the deal. Some people are like, “Okay, so you didn’t put an $8 million deal together.” Well actually I did put the $8 million deal together; I just didn’t get any money out of it. But that was such a confidence booster I could do anything.
At 22 I found people were making money on the Internet. So I translated that into making money, like I was terrified to build a website, because I’m not a technical guy, so I’d use those same networking skills I learned at the cell phone job, the import/export business that we created. I took those skills and I applied it to Internet marketing and started trying to broker deals for big dogs. I like to share that whole story so people understand my mindset and where I came from, so they can do the same thing.
BEN: There was no previous connection here; I mean you just started from scratch. Just a regular guy started from scratch and now you’re doing business with all these other people and you didn’t have any help getting it, and you just kind of used some street smarts.
DAVID: I didn’t have anything. I was broke as a joke at the time, but I had ambition, and I knew the alternative was to get a job and I didn’t want to do that stuff. I mean, I had good part-time jobs at times, but I knew there was something more like Michael Dell did it out of is dorm room. Bill Gates quit. If they do it why can’t I?
You just have to have confidence, and I expect them to do business with me. Like that’s another thing, like when I talk about mindset that it is just rah-rah, no. Like I expect people to talk to me, now some people are like, “Hey, man that’s like pretty cocky.” You have to believe that. If you don’t believe that you have value that you can bring, if I’m trying to do a deal with Ben Settle and I don’t feel like I can bring value into Ben’s life, you’re not going to network with David Dutton. So that’s how I feel.
And I expect them to view me on their level. Even though I was 24-years old and I was talking to that 40, 50-year old guy that were probably making half a million a year with stock options. Give me time and I’m going to be there. It’s just not an option it’s just time, I’m just young.
BEN: So one of your ways of doing this is you don’t even bother unless you’re going to bring something valuable to the table. That’s kind of like your in with these guys.
DAVID: Yeah, now I try now to only contact people that I’m fans of. It works, I’m getting an endorsement in a major newsletter next week, and I’m going to show you how I did it.
I’m a fan of a guy named Dr. Andy Williams. I heard about him about a year or two ago. He has a software called Keyword Results Analyzer. I do keyword research for people to help them get rankings really high in Google, and Yahoo, and all that. I used his software to filter keywords. Basically I’m just a big fan of it.
I wanted an endorsement in his newsletter, so you know what I did? I opened up Camtasia which is a screen capture software where it captures my computer screen, and I filmed and I put an audio to the video. Basically, I opened up the software, show people how I use it, and show them the results of a travel site I own, and just how I’m such a fan of Dr. Andy Williams.
I put it on YouTube, which is free. I went to his support desk I filled out a support desk with the subject line, “KRA success story.” I just said, “Hey, Andy I just want to let you know I did a case study about my success with your software and its right here on YouTube so everybody can see it. And it gets ranked in Google, blah, blah, the whole nine yards.”
Well, what did I do? Did I try to pitch him anything? No. Did I try to sell him anything? No, I didn’t do anything, but give value. He said, “Hey, great idea, love the video. I’m going to mention you in my newsletter next week.” Now, here’s the cool thing. On that video I have mentioned my links to my other websites, keywordresearchnerd.com, and mostconnectedmarketer.com. I had those all throughout the entire video.
BEN: Is that kind of how you ended up doing deals with, for example, a guy like David Frey who, again, I’m sure he’s not the most accessible guy in the world.
DAVID: David Frey was one of the hardest people to contact. People asked me who’s hard? Jesse Conners from The Apprentice was easier than David Frey. It took me like three years more with David Frey, but I’m the only person that’s gotten four endorsements to his list of over 52,000 people and I didn’t even ask for it. I didn’t even know the times he was going to do it. He did it about three weeks ago, and I didn’t even know about it.
But I’ve done stuff to catch his attention. If you type in David Dutton in Google, type in David Dutton magic ball video, I’ll pull up. He did a video about a ball I sent in the mail. So yeah, basically I just try to give value to these people. He can use that video in his marketing on his sales later.
BEN: I think that’s a good point. This is something that I know anyone, I mean, this has happened to me on a smaller scale, but I know it happens though to people who have much bigger influence than me. And I know they get annoyed by it. People will just email them or they’ll call them and just say, “Hey, want to joint venture?” Or, “Hey, I got this new product and man, I think you should just send it out to your list.” If you give value first and you strike up a relationship like you’re talking about it’s a lot better.
DAVID: Oh, exactly. Now Andy already knew who I was, because I’ve talked to him before, but I can promise you he definitely knows who David Dutton is now. And do I approach him later on? Which I may or may not, I don’t have an ulterior motive. I just wanted to do it, because I’m a fan.
BEN: No ulterior motives you just try to give him some value, and say hi, and that’s it. And there’s no “I want to get something from you.” There’s just “I want to help you.” And I guess the feeling is, “Hey, maybe someday we’ll do some business and maybe we won’t, but I just want to let you know I’m a fan and if you ever need any help…” Is that kind of what you’re talking about here?
DAVID: That is it. Whoever’s listening to this rewind that and listen to it over again, because that’s what I do. I might not benefit now, but six months down the road I may or I can go and ask a favor, because they remember me from six months ago. And I hook people up. I invite people to call me; I give my private cell phone number which nobody does. Mine’s posted all over the Internet, but no one does.
When people get Most Connected Report, I invite people to call me. I don’t even pitch them like I should. You would think I’m a non profit organization, because I don’t even pitch people hardly. I build a relationship with them; sometimes we do a deal, sometimes we don’t. But then like now, next time I send emails they listen to them more, because I actually answer my phone.
BEN: The fact that you’re even accessible by phone, that kind of makes you stick out. I mean, just having the option to call you makes you stick out.
DAVID: Oh, yeah that’s funny you say that, because most people don’t even call me. But I guarantee in their mind, exactly what you’re talking about, I guarantee that 10 foot wall that might be standing in between us is like two feet tall now.
BEN: You and I have talked about that before, the 10 foot wall mind set. Can you explain that a little bit?
DAVID: Okay. If I want to sell something to Ben Settle, whatever it is, I visualize there is a 10 foot brick wall right between us. And for Ben to hand me his Visa, and that’s what I want at the end of the day, because that’s what puts food on my table, makes my car payments, and pays off my student loan debt, and all that stuff. I have to make sure that wall is like two feet tall, so you can step over it and come to my side, and actually hand me his Visa.
Now, how do I do that? Well, I do that by playing good offense and defense. I have a little strategy I teach my clients to play good defense. I get testimonials, case studies, the colors of your website, the way your brochure or the way you present yourself, the whole nine yards. If you got good testimonials they might drop three feet down, so the walls only seven feet down.
Oh, okay, you have a really killer guarantee where people can’t lose if they hire you. Okay, that might drop it down another four feet, so now it’s only like two feet tall and Ben can step over and hand me his Visa.
BEN: Now, do you apply that same concept, for example, when you do business with Jessie Conners of the Apprentice and maybe some others. Is that sort of the same concept? Even if you’re not necessarily selling…?
DAVID: I am selling. I’m selling David Dutton every phone call. Every relationship is David Dutton. Okay, so I’m selling something, whether it’s the concept of David Dutton or a broker product, or service, or whatever if I’m talking to an actual prospect that’s going to buy something from me.
If I’m approaching Jessie Conners, or David Frey, or Willie Crawford, or Joe Vitale, or anybody, or any of those guys, Bob Burg of Endless Referrals, all those guys. So I’m contacting them, there’s a 10 foot wall in between us, and then for me to break it down.
Well, first of all I’ve broke down the wall a little bit by an email I came out with by accident. I started crafting a certain email. I’m going to give tons of information away, but I can’t give the email away, it’s only for clients that buy the book which is only $7. But I have an email with a certain subject line and a certain way I write emails. I pretty much talk to whoever I want to. I mean, it’s not 100 percent, because life’s not 100 percent, but it works enough to where I meet a lot of people. And so I use email to break down that 10 foot wall before they even talk to me on the phone.
BEN: You don’t just contact people out of the blue on the phone. If they don’t email you back or call you, you just don’t even deal with them.
DAVID: No, I’m done. I got other things to do.
BEN: So you’re only dealing with people who are already interested in you, or anything about you, or whatever it is that you want to talk about?
DAVID: Yeah. You got it. I have an email, every now and then, it’s like one percent of my time I’ve ever just picked up the phone and contacted somebody. Even if I could’ve, even if I had Kwame Jackson from The Apprentice’s cell phone number. Or David Frey’s private cell phone number. I just didn’t do it. I just don’t, because it’s weird. It’s like you’re overstepping that social norm as they call it in Psychology. The social norm, the weirdness factor goes up.
I use email to contact them first. And I structure my email with certain psychological, I guess, triggers. There’s a great book on influence, The Psychology of Persuasion. It has the six basic core factors that motivate anybody on this planet, and I used it in email first. The favorite one that I have stressed to everybody is social proof. Social proof is basically another terminology; a slang terminology is the bandwagon effect. And basically, you’ll follow a herd, you’ll follow a group.
One example is if you’re coming off an airline, I love this Jeff Walker gave this analogy one time on a social proof first call. He said, “You’re coming off an airplane and you don’t know where to go get your luggage, because you’ve never been to that airport before. But all of a sudden out of the 30 group of strangers that just got off the airplane with you, you see like 25 of them or like 23 of them start going off to the left. And what are you going to do? You’re probably going to follow the 23 people, because they’re probably going to get the same thing that you’re looking for, their luggage.”
And another terminology is called drinking the kool-aid. And that became famous with the Jim Jones cult. He got like 200 some people to commit a mass suicide, because they started watching other people in this group do something, and then everybody finally just did it. And they committed suicide. And you think, “Well, that can’t happen.” Well, yes it can actually. You can impact the way people think.
I use social proof. Actually, the email that I send out, the second paragraph, I use social proof in it. And I want people to know that I hang out with other big shots that they know. So that’s kind of like a social proof.
Another one’s scarcity, you want to limit yourself. I don’t buy that as far as phone. I tend to go the other way as far as my networking. I’m very available, but you want to limit the quantity of a product, limit maybe access to you, different things like that. Make it scarce, because your value goes up. There are a lot of different factors, but social proof is probably my favorite.
BEN: Let’s say you were just starting out and you didn’t know anyone. How would you use social proof? I mean, you just wait until you’ve gotten the first connection with someone before you use it or…?
DAVID: I don’t think I could use social proof right off the top of my head, I don’t think I could use it yet. I would go a different route. What I would do, I would learn to give something in that email. If I was starting out with zero connections I would try to like, if I had bought your product or something, I would try to give you a case study of how I used it and how it changed my life or something.
BEN: Which everybody appreciates that has a product. I mean, how can you ignore someone who does that.
DAVID: Exactly. That’s killer, because guess what? Everybody has an ego. You know what? I didn’t even think about that. That’s one of my big strategies. Most people have an ego, that’s another reason why I like to stroke it. So I stroke their ego, and I’m sincere too. Keep in mind, I’ll only contact people that I actually like. I do research on people before I contact them.
BEN: You’re not advocating, “Look, just find out a few things about them, maybe buy their product and then.”
DAVID: No, you can’t. It doesn’t work that way. Its interest, I feel like I have sales ability, and you don’t have to. Don’t think anyone listening to this, “Okay, no wonder you do, because you have sales ability.” No, you can do this in your local town or International like I do either one. But you can use it locally as well, but you do not have to be a salesman. But God gifted me with, I guess, a gift of gab.
But what’s interesting is it’s almost a blessing and curse, because if I don’t believe in something you would think I was like the most introverted person in the entire planet, because I can’t fake it. And I’m not a new age guy at all, but I can feel it if I’m in person, and I actually can feel it kind of over the phone, but it’s real good in person.
But I can feel what another person’s feeling like. Not to be weird or anything, I’m not a new age guy or anything. There’s energy around us that I can’t explain it, maybe people more educated than I am can, but I can tell you it’s there, because I can feel it when I’m selling or even when I’m on the phone with someone I can build rapport with people. And they can feel, even possibly in an email too, they can get that feeling.
I can tell when people try to contact me, and I try to get a lot of people to contact me, because that’s how I became the most connected man on the Internet. But sometimes you can smell like, “Hey, this guy’s like a loser.” This guy’s trying to pitch me on whatever it is he’s pitching, and he shouldn’t be. He should be giving me something. Don’t waste somebody’s time whether it’s the Mayor in small town, USA or it’s Joe Vitale, or whoever.
BEN: When you made the deal with Jessie Conners from The Apprentice. How did that work? Did you send the email? Did you do exactly what you’re saying here, you sent the email, you used your technique, and you were a fan, and all that? Is that exactly how you did that?
DAVID: Yeah, actually just about almost word for word. When I launched my first book which is called, David Dutton’s Internet Empires, How Average People Are Making Money Online. I ended up getting lazy with it. I wanted it to hit the Best Seller List. Well, I wanted to get a celebrity to help endorse my book, because that ups my value if I can get a celebrity to endorse my book.
BEN: It’s the social proof and all that.
DAVID: Yeah, social proof absolutely. Because David Dutton’s hanging out with a celebrity. Basically I was looking for a celebrity, that their 15 minutes was up, wanted to start it over again and they were going to be cheap, because I didn’t want to pay any money or very little money.
So I was like, “Who do I contact?” And I was like, “Wait a minute, Apprentice, okay their reality TV shows up. They’re on like season three now.” I mean I was like, “Jessie Conners.” She is so sincere. She is very nice. She is very strong, like independent as far as like a good business person and everything. Don’t let her fool you or whatever. But she got on there at 22-years old, but I just like her from the show.
BEN: So you were a fan?
DAVID: Yeah, I really was, I was a fan. I was like, “Wow, she was a cool girl.”
BEN: You were rooting for her to actually get it, probably.
DAVID: Yeah, totally. I felt like I was like her. That’s another thing. I felt like I have a commonality with that person. She was just like a regular person like in Minnesota doing well in real estate, which that was her thing. And here I am building my Internet marketing thing and stuff, and that’s my passion. So I’m like, you know me I have like a commonality.
So I used my email, I found one of her websites; I had to do research and found out what she was doing and contacted her. And then we exchanged emails, and it took a couple of weeks. She travels a lot doing seminars. Then we talked on the phone.
And by that time I’ve done this so many times, but I’m still shocked. I’m like, “It’s really cool, I connected somebody that hung out with Donald Trump several times.” I have a picture on my computer with her and Donald Trump, so that’s pretty cool. One phone call away you’re one person away from Donald Trump now, just from one person. Now, will I ever talk to Donald Trump? Who knows, I haven’t tried contacting him, because I don’t have anything I could bring value to Donald Trump’s life right now.
My goal is to get on the Donny Deutsch show. He’s another guy I like. He’s for the boot strap Entrepreneur, so that’s why I want to be on his show one day. But I’ll contact him, I have a strategy already in my mind I’m just not there yet to where I can bring the value to his show.
BEN: There’s this marketer, Ken McCarthy, do you know who he is?
DAVID: Oh, yeah.
BEN: He did this copywriting seminar a couple years ago. It was a really good seminar and everything. His cousin did business with the Queen of England sort of on accident using almost your exact system.
DAVID: Oh my God.
BEN: She was just a regular person, just a regular ordinary person like the rest of us. His cousin, I guess, is a doctor or something, but basically lives in New Jersey, doesn’t know anyone special or anything. But she apparently is into horses, and I think it was Halflinger horses or something. She was so into it that she kind of made her own calendar; just like someone would if they were into dogs they might make their own dog calendar or something.
And she found out that the Queen of England was into the same kind of horses, so just for the fun of it she sent her one of the calendars. And low and behold one day the Queen of England called her up personally and just said, “I just loved your calendar. Come out and hang out with me at the Palace.” And there she was, she actually went out there and hung out with the Queen of England. I don’t know if they did business or not, but it so illustrates exactly what you’ve been saying here.
DAVID: Oh, that’s huge, yes.
BEN: Let’s kind of shift over to something else here, like the next step of the process. Okay, you sent the email out and let’s say David Frey called you back. He’s going to call you back and you know when he’s going to call you back. What do you do to kind of prepare for your first time? I mean, you’re used to it now, so it’s probably not a big deal, but to someone who’s never done this before what do you tell them?
DAVID: First of all you’re going to be nervous. You’re flat out going to be nervous. And you’re always going to get a little bit of jitters and stuff, but you’re going to get a lot your first one or two, whether it’s the Mayor of your town or David Frey, or anybody, Donald Trump, or whatever. Realize that they’re just a person. God gave them the same organs that you have. They have the same 24 hours a day. They’re just regular people, and they happen to be doing a certain thing in a certain industry, and they happen to be successful. Other than that they’re just like you.
Number two; expect that they should be talking to you. If you’re pitching something I would be very scared. I’d be terrified if they’re calling me. Because you’re about to be screwed, you’re about to waste their time, and you’re never going to have that relationship ever again, because you’re branded like that now. Think about that you’re on their level, and that you expect them to talk to you, because you have value. You’re about to bring value that’s about to rock their fricken world.
You sparked their interest by using the email. And I use email to get them onto the phone, because my phone’s my secret weapon, because I can bond with people very quickly.
BEN: Have you ever tried besides email maybe sending a Federal Express letter or something? Would that work too?
DAVID: If I really want to do business with Ben Settle and you’re not reading your email, and I really, really am persistent and I want to do business with you I will get creative. Let me give you an example, I wish I could take credit for this, but Leo Quinn of leoquinn.com is a buddy of mine out of New York. He’s a very good networker. He actually will send somebody a cell phone with prepaid minutes on it, like 20 minutes for $12. You can go to trackphone.com and do that.
So if you’re not answering me then I might send you a cell phone and tell you to call me. And that’s like ridiculous. I haven’t had to do that, because I’m fine with the results I get when I want to talk to people. And it gets easier, because another thing is, let’s just say that I try to contact John Doe. And I just happen to realize that Ben Settle is friends with John Doe. Well, now it just got so much easier, because I’m going in the back door. I’m sitting out on the porch drinking tea with them now, because Ben’s been sitting there calling John Doe for me, “Hey listen you need to talk to this guy David Dutton.”
BEN: It’s almost like the more you do this it’s just like interest compounding on itself. It just gets easier and easier, and easier, because you know more and more people, and you have more of that social proof, and more of that endorsement. You have their friends and their network, and now you are just kind of getting into their inner circle one contact at a time.
DAVID: Exactly. People buy from people they know, like, and trust. All you have to do is get people to know, like, and trust you. And if you give value then when you pick up the phone and call them for a favor, boom, done. It will happen, because you give, give, give, and stuff and word gets out.
BEN: You mentioned you’ve written two books now. One of them I remember you said you’ve got with a bunch of millionaires and they actually wrote it for you. Well, how did that work?
DAVID: Okay, here I am maybe 27-years old was sitting around. I had a nice time in Bible College even though it was Bible College I had a really good time. I spent a lot of money, so I ran up a lot of student loan debt. Well I didn’t want to be 60-years old paying off student loan debt, so I said, “How can I make money?” So I said, “I’ll just write a book, and I’ll just make a lot of money selling the book, and then getting jobs off of the book for consulting and different things like that.”
I already had all these connections, so I said, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll just interview all these people.” And I created a book called, Internet Empires. All I did was interview these people using my system in the Get Connected report, literally word for word and the email and everything, and did interviews. I would take the interviews, I put famous people in there like Joe Vitale, who’s been on Oprah, who’s like a four time Best Selling Author. He’s been on Donnie Deutsch. He’s been on Larry King.
I put Willie Crawford in there who’s a millionaire. I put Jeff Walker who has very few interviews on the entire Internet. I had him in my product. I put people like prominent in my niche. But I also, my passion, my true passion is teaching people how to make money on the Internet that are just average people that have two kids, a wife, and a mortgage, or even a second mortgage and they want to start an Internet business.
So I put those people in there that are making money online as well. I would interview people, remember I don’t fly I have a phobia, so I would interview people all across the world including Iceland, Texas, all these people I’ve never seen before and probably never will. Don Peters who sold a missile silo on eBay, all those guys I emailed and interviewed them.
As soon as I interviewed them I would send it over to these high school students. One of them is in Canada and one of them, I think, was in Romania. They would transcribe my interviews for me. I took the transcriptions and I paid people to edit my book for me. And then my publisher actually edited it and put the graphics on there. And, David Dutton’s Internet Empires, What These Nine People Can Teach You About Making Money Online. And there’s my book.
I’ve gotten like over 20 something more interviews of people that I could literally do a book. I was actually going to do a five book series, but it gets better, because the book sells for $16.95. You can’t make a living unless you sell thousands and thousands of books every month if you’re making $10 - $12 profit.
But, let me tell you something, David Frey endorsed my book. That was my first endorsement. I made about $500 off of that deal in a day. I made I think $1,400 or $1,700 that day David Frey endorsed my book. Well, Ryan Lee, the famous ryanlee.com was a big time marketer millionaire at age 34, personaltraineryou.com, yeah, all those guys, big guys, been on the Millionaire Blueprints Magazine.
He calls me out of the blue and he says, “Hey, man this is Ryan Lee.” I was like, “Hey.” Is this the Ryan Lee? I was thinking this I didn’t say that. I was like, “Oh, hey what’s going on buddy?” And so we’re talking and he says, “Man you got endorsed by David Frey and you write copy.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I write copy.” He said, “I probably have some projects for you pretty soon. You’ve got to be a good guy if David Frey endorses you.” Did you see how that just happened?
BEN: Right, it just had social proof again, and it came to you.
DAVID: Exactly. Okay, now watch this. Watch what happens. Two days later I get an email from a Nick Osbourne. It says, “Hey listen, Ryan Lee referred me. I need some copy done.” I said, “Okay.” It turns out Nick Osbourne is like a big, big personal trainer in the strong man competition, like the World’s Strongest Man Competition. He’s in Ohio; he has a very successful weight training business.
So he said he’s training Phil Pfister, the World’s Strongest Man. Anybody listening, next time you watch ESPN2 when they’re throwing those cars around, those barrels, and carrying the cars, and all that stuff. There’s a big blonde headed guy name Phil Pfister. He is the World’s Strongest Man; he’s the first American to win in 25 years. Him and Nick Osbourne train together and they filmed their workouts for 12 weeks and they want to put it on DVD’s, so they did that. And they needed somebody to write copy. Well that was like a $400 copy job, but now look at my credibility. I have a client that is the World’s Strongest Man and he’s on ESPN2.
BEN: Right. I mean, it just amazes me how that just multiplies on itself one at a time, and it just explodes and expands. Before you know it now you’re a celebrity within some of these niches all because you were just doing these little things you’ve been talking about.
DAVID: Yeah, that’s it. There’s no other secret, Ben, there’s nothing. I literally, in my book I write it like a journal entry and I supply what I’m telling you right now. I mean, this is basically it.
BEN: Well, you know what’s really interesting about this. You talked about how you interviewed them and then they basically wrote your book for you. Let’s take this down to someone else’s level. Maybe they’re not in the making money business. Maybe they’re just selling let’s say a vitamin supplement or something. They could easily take that idea, interview a bunch of doctors and maybe even some celebrity nutritionists and do the exact same thing, with anything they’re selling.
DAVID: Oh totally. You could just go to town. I’m about to come out with a $7 product on how my uncle, my own uncle, made $18,000 on his first real estate deal. He lives in Portland, Tennessee, he’s a former cop. He doesn’t know anything about this stuff, and I’m going to interview him. Well, he’s an expert, because he just made $18,000. He used to interview a doctor and deal with them. They don’t know about marketing, you can create a product out of that stuff.
I’m telling you, you need to become an author. That changed my life. An author of a CD, or a book, or whatever, and I don’t even care if you actually sell one book. I can see it. I can feel it the way people talk to me, and I can see it in their eyes when they talk to me in person.
BEN: And the amazing thing is you didn’t even write the book.
DAVID: I didn’t write the book, no. The cover looks ridiculous, it’s awesome. I’ve got some big shots in there. You better believe I dropped Joe Vitale’s name. You better believe I tell people that he was on Larry King and Oprah, The World’s Strongest Man guy, all these different things. I do that for credibility.
That 10 foot wall just got to be one foot just because I, I call it dropping the hammer on people. You can drop the hammer. You make it so ridiculous that they can’t say no. You just drop the hammer on him.
BEN: Tell us about the magic ball. That was an incredible story.
DAVID: It was pretty cool. I love it. In fact I’m probably going to send out some this week, because I got some people I want to network with. But like a couple months ago seven o’clock in the morning I’m just like waking up, getting ready, eating a bowl of cereal, I see Good Morning America on. And they have an extra on there talking about, it was so crazy, the topic was how to increase employee retention or make employees feel better at work and stuff. And they had all these different things that you could do, had this expert on there.
The very first item that they showed was this little rubber ball. When I say little, it’s about as big as somebody’s head. So, it’s not necessarily little, but it’s not huge. It’s not as big as a beach ball, but it’s about as big around as somebody’s head, an average person.
Anyway, what’s cool is you can actually send a ball, most people don’t know this, you can send a ball in the mail unwrapped, the postal service actually just puts stamps on the ball, and you write the mailing address, the to and from. And the cool thing is, they don’t put them in postal boxes, because they don’t fit. So the postman, guess what? Has to deliver the ball directly or your AK, your message to your prospector. Whoever you’re mailing the ball to.
Well these couple stay at home moms came up with this product. You can go to sendaball.com, costs $10. You can mail an actual ball in the mail, but here’s what’s cool. You type a message on the ball, and these women will paint that message on the ball, and so they’ll do it for you.
And so I went ahead and did that. I thought David Frey, David Frey I had already built a relationship with him, but I was like, I’ll just be honest with you I thought if I did this I could probably get another endorsement to his list. This would be my second one. Sure enough I did. He actually called me I was blown away.
I sent him a ball and I put, “Have a ball from TwoWeeksNoticeReport.com. It was a website I owned at the time. He was blown away. He couldn’t even figure it out he was like, “Wow!” Well he had done a video about it. He started doing a video newsletter and he was talking about his experience with the ball. How the postman, who only comes up when they have packages to deliver that don’t fit in the box. And he said, “Hey, here’s your package.” And it was a green ball. And so he was like, “Hey, this is it?” And all his employees were looking around and everything, and then he noticed it was from David Dutton and he already knew me. And he went to my website and all this stuff. He was blown away. He was like, “Dude, I did not know you could mail a ball.”
So he does a video about it and puts my web address in there. So, of course, I made sales from that and I built my list. I’m sitting there flipping through one of my favorite magazines which David Frey happens to write an article about called Millionaire Blueprints Magazine. I love that magazine.
I’m flipping through, he’s doing an article on, I think it was marketing strategies just to get people’s attention or something. I’m flipping the pages, looking at the magazine, I see the green ball, and he talks about it. He didn’t use David Dutton in the article, but he says, “A friend of his from Tennessee.” Which is me, sent him this ball. And he tells the story and I see the actual ball I mailed him in the mail.
So I actually, technically made it to a nation wide, national magazine. And I was talking to Leo Quinn, Leo Quinn was so funny. He was telling me about him sending my ball and I was like, “Where did you learn about that?” He said from David Frey. I said, “You know that guy he was talking about? That’s me.” So it’s so funny Leo Quinn started using the ball thing because of that.
But that’s just one way you can get somebody’s attention is the bottom line. And plus, it creates fun that Seth Godin talks about. I sent it to a local newspaper in town when I was doing a seminar and I wanted to get people to talk about me, so I sent it to the secretary who loves to talk. She still keeps that ball on her desk and when she’s stressed out they’ll play with the ball. Guess who is on there? It’s me.
BEN: Anytime you want a toehold into that newspaper you’ve got a good contact now.
DAVID: Oh, exactly. I’m done. And everybody knows me, why? Because they want to know who sent the ball. So the whole staff knows me, $10. And so if your lifetime value, and that’s really cheap, but if your lifetime value of a customer can pay for that, meaning if you make enough off your customer long term, if that person were to become a customer that you sent a ball to, do it.
And you just have a goal, have a plan. I mean, I’m trying to visualize how I’m going to be on the Donny Deutsch show now, and I’m not even close to being on there.
BEN: I really appreciate you doing this, because you have shared way more information, I think, than you even intended to share here. And believe me, everyone who’s listening to this really appreciates it, too.
And I just want to let everyone know that if you would like to get a copy of David’s report just go to:
That’s www.bensettle.com/connected, and that includes the email he was talking about and basically how he was able to set these deals up.
And David did you have something you wanted to give to my subscribers to in addition to that?
DAVID: Anybody that knows me knows I’m real big about taking action. Nothing happens until you take action. I want people to not just take this interview and say, “Wow, that’s really cool.” And just day dream about putting a deal together, I want somebody to put a deal together. Whatever it is that you want to do, but some people lack the confidence just because of the way they’re brought up, the way they hung out with people, all these different factors. Sometimes people lack the confidence. That’s okay, it’s not a problem.
For a fee, for a small investment I’m going to help you, I’m almost going to do it for you, help you put your first deal together. I’m just pretty much like, “Hey, do this, do that. When he calls do this.” That type of thing. So, anyway that’s my special offer I want to give to your subscribers. If they want to put together their first deal I will let them do it with me, personally.
This is not a group seminar. This is like me and you on the phone rapping about how we’re going to close a joint venture deal, whatever it may be. You’re going to get the most connected man on the Internet for one hour.
If you’ve got something of value I might share it with my contacts. If I like what you’re doing and I see that you’re passionate about, you’re not just trying to make a buck off people. And I don’t mind people making a dollar, but you got to love what you do and be passionate about what you’re selling. And if you are, I have a lot of contacts that have huge lists. I’m the only person to get four endorsements with David Frey’s lists. So I do have the connections to do that.
BEN: Well, David, I just want thank you again for doing this. I really appreciate it.
To get David Dutton’s How To Get Connected Report go to:
If you’d like to take advantage of David’s consulting offer where he takes you by the hand and helps you set up your first joint venture email me at ben (at) bensettle.com for details.
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