Billy Broas is an expert in messaging and marketing. Billy shares his innovative "The Five Lightbulbs" framework, a powerful tool for simplifying complex concepts and enhancing communication. His approach emphasizes the importance of empathy, understanding customer pain points, and effectively addressing them.

Billy explains how his framework not only improves marketing strategies but also strengthens leadership by fostering clear, impactful communication. He highlights the value of distillation, drawing parallels with Steve Jobs' obsession with simplicity and Einstein's profound equations. Throughout the conversation, Billy underscores the necessity of mutual understanding between leaders and their teams, and between marketers and their customers. He also discusses his book, "Simple Marketing for Smart People," which offers practical guidance for subject matter experts. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to refine their leadership and communication skills.

Want to learn more about Billy Broas' work? Check out his website at https://fivelightbulbs.com.

Connect with Billy Broas on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/billybroas/.

Key Points with Timestamps

• 00:01:12 - Introduction to Billy Broas and his messaging framework
• 00:04:16 - The importance of simplicity and clarity in communication
• 00:08:02 - Overview of "The Five Lightbulbs" framework
• 00:12:13 - Differentiating between messaging and copywriting
• 00:13:02 - Detailed explanation of the "The Five Lightbulbs":
  • Lightbulb 1 - Customer status quo (empathy)
  • Lightbulb 2 - Other options customers have tried
  • Lightbulb 3 - Unique approach or methodology
  • Lightbulb 4 - Product or offer
  • Lightbulb 5 - Customer’s new life after success
• 00:24:32 - Applying the framework to leadership and team management
• 00:27:02 - Tackling and changing broken beliefs
• 00:33:00 - Enabling customers to articulate their pain and find solutions
• 00:35:24 - Importance of following a framework in business and leadership

Transcript

00:00:39:21 - 00:01:12:06
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Billy Broas I met Billy through a mastermind, and he was talking about a messaging framework and think you should listen this episode for a few reasons. One, Billy. Billy's an exceptionally good guy and just, you know, connected with him immediately after meeting him. One of the reasons I like Billy. The second reason you should listen is he takes something that can be complicated and simplifies it incredibly.

00:01:12:08 - 00:01:33:03
Craig Andrews
You know, "The Five Lightbulb" system. And I think you're gonna wanna hear that. And the third reason is he has a book coming out that's sharing even more insights. And we're going to talk about that. But before we talk about all of that, I just discovered he is a homebrewer with quite a, quite an interesting background.

00:01:33:03 - 00:01:36:12
Craig Andrews
So, Billy, welcome to Leaders & Legacies.

00:01:36:14 - 00:01:39:16
Billy Broas
Hey, Craig, thanks for having me excited for this.

00:01:39:18 - 00:01:45:19
Craig Andrews
So, so you had your own homebrew website or you still have it, or what's what's the deal?

00:01:45:21 - 00:01:51:10
Billy Broas
I sold it, I sold it a few years back, but I had it for, oh, for almost the better part of a decade.

00:01:51:12 - 00:01:52:21
Craig Andrews
Really?

00:01:52:23 - 00:01:54:10
Billy Broas
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:01:54:12 - 00:01:56:23
Craig Andrews
Well, what type of beers?

00:01:57:00 - 00:02:14:23
Billy Broas
Oh, man. Well, did you know, Craig, that there are over 150 styles of beer out there? You know, most people think it's just either Bud Light and those types of beers or IPAs because we're swamped with IPAs here in Southern California. And although I love them, there's so many styles out there. So that was always my goal was to just brew the gambit.

00:02:14:23 - 00:02:17:20
Billy Broas
And, and I was trying new things.

00:02:17:22 - 00:02:38:09
Craig Andrews
You know, the first time I ever had an IPA, I had no idea what it was. we were doing a going away party for somebody and, at a place called the Ginger man, which used to be downtown Austin. And I just asked waitress, I said, bring me something with lots of flavor. And she's like, oh, okay, I'll bring you this.

00:02:38:09 - 00:02:55:15
Craig Andrews
And she brought me a beer called dogfish 90 minute and and so I drank that and she's like, would you like another? I'm like, yeah, sure, that sounds great. And she brought another. And then she came back. She's like, would you like another beer? I'm like, yeah, yeah. And so I sat there and I drank three dogfish 90 minutes.

00:02:55:17 - 00:03:05:22
Craig Andrews
And then, then I stood up to leave and was like, oh crap, you know. And for those that don't know, that's like drinking a six pack because everyone's like.

00:03:05:24 - 00:03:08:20
Billy Broas
Yeah, that's a strong beer. You're feeling good?

00:03:08:22 - 00:03:22:02
Craig Andrews
Well, fortunately I had an office downtown, at the time, and so I just went in my office, fell asleep for a little bit, sobered up, and then drove home once I was sober. But what was your favorite beer to brew?

00:03:22:04 - 00:03:35:17
Billy Broas
I like to IPAs. I really like, I like the British ales a lot. So a British, I like things that are simple is kind of my thing. You know, you mentioned a book and it's got simple in the title that that's really my word. And so.

00:03:35:19 - 00:03:36:13
Craig Andrews
so although, you know.

00:03:36:13 - 00:03:57:01
Billy Broas
You see these and this is a good life lesson, a business lesson, you know, although you see these beers that it's everything but the kitchen sink, it's like a 12% imperial stout with cinnamon and chocolate and coffee and all these things. The thing is, like, although that's fun, it's very easy to hide mistakes in those types of beers.

00:03:57:03 - 00:04:16:04
Billy Broas
So I was always very impressed by the beers like a British mild. It's like such a boring, unassuming beer. It's like 4% and it doesn't have a very strong flavor. But if you make a mistake in that beer, it is just going to jump out at you. So that's why I like those types of beers, those simple ones, because they're so darn tough to make.

00:04:16:06 - 00:04:39:13
Craig Andrews
Wow, wow. I get that. So, you know, it's interesting, when I think about Steve Jobs, I think about somebody that was obsessed with simplicity and clarity. Is that something that that just kind of goes through your life? You're always looking to simplify and remove, clutter?

00:04:39:15 - 00:04:58:08
Billy Broas
Yeah. And I've realized and more so I would say over the past ten years, I think it's always kind of been there. But then I realized, like, there's there's these two different types of simplicity. There's the cheap, flimsy simplicity. And you might call that simplistic, but then there is the deep, profound type of simplicity, the simple that just has a lot of depth to it.

00:04:58:08 - 00:05:15:00
Billy Broas
And it's just very powerful. You know, things like like Einstein's equation is a great example. E equals MC squared. I mean that you write that down and that's not a lot of ink on the page. But just think about how profound that is. Register just a few variables. And there's been books and books and books written about that.

00:05:15:00 - 00:05:18:16
Billy Broas
So that's the kind of simplicity that I'm a big fan of.

00:05:18:18 - 00:05:24:00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Are you familiar with the six word story rings about?

00:05:24:00 - 00:05:25:09
Billy Broas
But tell me in.

00:05:25:11 - 00:05:40:07
Craig Andrews
So it's often attributed to, Hemingway, but I think it was someone else. And it's six word story. Baby shoes for sale. Never worn.

00:05:40:09 - 00:05:42:05
Billy Broas
yeah.

00:05:42:07 - 00:06:07:10
Craig Andrews
And it's one of those stories as it sinks in, you're like, you start realizing the the pain and the emotion of the story is somebody bought baby shoes and they're selling them, but they've never been worn. Why have they never been worn? And, you know, you realize somebody lost their baby. Yeah. But just in those six words, a really, really powerful story.

00:06:07:12 - 00:06:27:23
Billy Broas
Yeah. The word distillation comes to mind. You take that whole story with all the details and you distill it down to whatever those five, those six words. And because it was distilled, I mean, I have to go back to another alcohol reference, but it's kind of appropriate here, right? Because liquor is actually distilled from beer. I don't know if people know that, but you make beer and then you distill it into two liquor.

00:06:28:00 - 00:06:39:16
Billy Broas
there's so much depth to that, you know? I mean, that story reminds me of one. I can't attribute this properly, but the story is we fought the British, we won.

00:06:39:18 - 00:06:40:12
Craig Andrews


00:06:40:14 - 00:06:49:24
Billy Broas
That's a story. Obviously, there are a million details that go along with that, but you can just feel the the depth in that.

00:06:50:01 - 00:07:18:01
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah. I, I tried to achieve that in one of my books. The Hope That Won't Die that talks about where my, you know, my, you know, survival of death. And I was in a coma, and I at the end of the introduction, I, tell us a little bit about how Karen came to me in my dream, or she came to me in my coma, and she spoke to me, and I heard her, and I heard her words, and they encouraged me.

00:07:18:03 - 00:07:40:00
Craig Andrews
And then the next sentence, the concluding sentences. I also heard the doctors, but they were saying much different things. you know, just kind of leaving, you know, leaving it with that weight of, you know, the contrast of her words that were encouraging me to whatever the doctors were saying.

00:07:40:02 - 00:08:02:00
Billy Broas
Yeah, it reminds me of white space. There's this idea of painting with white space, and it's what you it's what you leave out that really matters most. So yeah, it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart. And, and I think we could all benefit from embracing more. Not something that's simplistic, but simple. Simple but profound.

00:08:02:02 - 00:08:31:00
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, that's one of the things I love about your "Five Lightbulb" messaging framework is you. I think when I first saw you presented. Yeah, I don't know, maybe it felt like 15 minutes. I don't know if it was 15 minutes, but felt like 15 minutes where you just kind of laid it out. and like, everything was immediately clear and I understood why it was important.

00:08:31:00 - 00:08:39:05
Craig Andrews
I understood why I should do it. I had a reasonable understanding of how to do it. So what is your "Five Lightbulb" system?

00:08:39:07 - 00:09:02:01
Billy Broas
Yeah. So there are categories of messaging because I realized that messaging is the number one highest leverage activity when it comes to marketing. And I discovered this from the beer website. So I had a real job. And then I started this beer website on the side. And I was trying to sell my home beer brewing courses. I was teaching beer brewing through these online courses and then, and then had to learn online marketing, of which I knew nothing about.

00:09:02:03 - 00:09:19:08
Billy Broas
And so I'm trying Facebook ads, I'm trying sales funnels, websites, social media, the whole thing. And because the career that I was in, I think this is why it's the case. It was I come from the energy industry where we study engineering and we study physics and, and, and the idea of leverage was always very top of mind for me.

00:09:19:11 - 00:09:47:22
Billy Broas
And I just know that not everything is created equal there. You might call it the 8020 rule. Right? There's there's one thing that you can do that will move the needle more than anything else. And I'm always on the hunt for that. And so after and took, you know, a few years in marketing for me to realize, you know, these, these Facebook ads, these, these product launches that we're doing this, these sales funnels and all that, they do not matter as much as getting the words right, because I can just rewrite a headline and double my sales.

00:09:47:24 - 00:10:02:06
Billy Broas
And that is very simple to me, but very powerful to me. So why am I messing around installing WordPress plugins for hours on end that don't move the needle at all when I can just double down on messaging? and that's where you supposed to do that? That's the rule. When you find the 8020, you stop doing everything.

00:10:02:06 - 00:10:04:20
Billy Broas
That's not that thing.

00:10:04:22 - 00:10:28:21
Craig Andrews
You know what that reminds me of is, you know, when I was in the Marines, I was stationed in Japan, and we were having a picnic. on the Japanese side of base, and we decided we saw them playing softball. So we thought, hey, we'll challenge them to a softball game. And. And they killed us. I mean, they destroyed us there few times I've ever been that humiliated.

00:10:28:23 - 00:10:49:12
Craig Andrews
and, you know, we have one guy. Our nickname. His nickname for him was a barbarian. I mean, the guy was like a walking muscle. And we were expecting he was going to be hitting all the home runs. But what the Japanese did, the way they killed us was they weren't doing the fancy crap. They were doing the simple things very, very well.

00:10:49:14 - 00:10:53:22
Craig Andrews
Yeah, they were doing the simple things well and repeatedly.

00:10:53:22 - 00:11:16:23
Billy Broas
Well, yeah. Yeah. The, the blocking and tackling. Yeah. Football's blocking and tackling. And because I'm a baseball player I love this ball. And you're right, it's not swinging for the fences. It's making solid contact. Yeah. Hitting line hitting line drives. Our coaches just drill that into us. Up is out. That's what he would always say. Up is out.

00:11:16:23 - 00:11:22:21
Billy Broas
Such a simple phrase. Right? Meaning that if you try to swing up to hit a homerun, you're going to get out.

00:11:22:23 - 00:11:37:14
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So what? So when it comes to copy, you know, what are those? What are those fundamentals? What are what is essential? Simplicity.

00:11:37:16 - 00:11:55:06
Billy Broas
Yeah. So the first thing I had to do is put it all in perspective. So I differentiate messaging from copywriting. And the way I do it is with the metaphor that I call upstream downstream. So I believe in getting your core messaging in place. And what that can materialize in is we always put it into a, a document.

00:11:55:06 - 00:12:13:18
Billy Broas
We call it a messaging map. So it's kind of like a brand manual. But instead of dictating your fonts and your colors and everything, it's your core persuasive messaging that you need to sell that product, that you're selling a product or service. And, and it makes sense to to get that right, really dialed in. And the way that we do that is with the five lightbulbs.

00:12:13:18 - 00:12:42:11
Billy Broas
And I can walk through the five lightbulbs in just a second if you want. But once we get that in, okay, that's your messaging. That's you might think about that. That's the high leverage thing. Then we apply that that's upstream. Then we apply that downstream to your Facebook ads, your website, your emails and everything. Because the big problem that I noticed was in working with clients on marketing was that they would just dive right into the website and the emails and everything else without doing that upfront work of first getting the messaging in place.

00:12:42:13 - 00:12:58:02
Billy Broas
So that was the the, the simple but not easy thing that I discovered was dialing that core messaging first. We like to use the five lightbulbs and then apply that to your copywriting, which I would call the marketing assets that your customers actually see, like your ads and your website.

00:12:58:04 - 00:13:02:02
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So what are the five lightbulbs.

00:13:02:04 - 00:13:29:18
Billy Broas
Yeah. So lightbulb one represents your customer status quo. So this this language around the problem the customer is having. It's the we call it the language of empathy because your customer really wants to be seen and heard. They want to think, oh man, Craig really gets me. And you know that. Like if you have someone to describe you probably in this experience, Craig, or someone's described the problem that you were having, whether it's like your physical health or whether it's your business health, even better than you could articulate it.

00:13:29:20 - 00:13:49:14
Billy Broas
And even without knowing what they do or what they sell, you assume that they have a solution, even if it's not through them. So that lightbulb one is really critical. lightbulb two then represents the other bridge. Is that and if you go to fivelightbulbs.com, you'll see the visual. That's what I'm saying. Bridges we have we have a bear on the side of a chasm.

00:13:49:14 - 00:14:05:11
Billy Broas
Who's crossing this chasm. And is all these different bridges that the bear could take. The bear representing your customer. And lightbulb two represents those other bridges. There's other options that your customer has tried before. And so when you're using the five lightbulbs, you want to give voice to those options. You don't want to just ignore them.

00:14:05:17 - 00:14:27:05
Billy Broas
So you want to say, why this other option? Your customer has tried hasn't worked for them, or why it has worked for them, or maybe just partially worked for them? You want to be honest about it. Okay, so what you do then is give voice to those other options. And if you're targeting the right kind of person who you can help, then that they should naturally be led to your option as the best option for them.

00:14:27:07 - 00:14:46:12
Billy Broas
That's represented by a lightbulb. Three for three represents your unique approach to solving the problem. This might be your methodology. This might be your, your steps in your system. Like a lot of consultants and coaches have steps in a system that they follow. It's not your product. It's not it's not where money is exchanged just yet.

00:14:46:14 - 00:15:08:24
Billy Broas
That's represented by lightbulb four, which does represent your offer or your product. And that's just a vehicle to implement your approach. And then assuming that they have success with your product or service, they achieved it. Yet they reached the other side of the bridge, which is like bold five. And that's representing your customer's new life. So that's where they've had success and where the problem is solved.

00:15:09:01 - 00:15:13:10
Billy Broas
So those are the five lightbulbs I know and very quickly through that.

00:15:13:12 - 00:15:41:14
Craig Andrews
Yeah that's cool. So the well, I love the fact that starts with empathy and the, you know, one of the phrases I like to use. Yeah. So, you know, I'm big into, first time offers. And one of the phrases I like to use is the, you know, the unforgivable sin of first time offers is getting the, getting the pain points wrong.

00:15:41:16 - 00:15:54:01
Craig Andrews
You get the pain points wrong, it's all bets are off and and failure is likely. And so I kind of hear that. Is is that what you're talking about in lightbulb number one.

00:15:54:03 - 00:16:13:05
Billy Broas
Yes it could be. It depends on where they are in their journey. But yes, getting the pain point right is critical. And and so we want to do like well we often sees that we'll identify maybe 5 to 7 different lightbulb ones. These might be 5 or 7 different problems that the customer suffering from. And and what you want to do.

00:16:13:05 - 00:16:38:16
Billy Broas
Again, going back to this idea of the the 8020 rule and distillation, what is the one that's going to resonate the most with them? And so then what you can do and, you know, great marketing is largely about experimentation and testing. We can test this lightbulb one versus this lightbulb one problem A versus problem B, and we can see what resonates more.

00:16:38:18 - 00:16:55:11
Billy Broas
And when we find a winner we can float that to the top. And that becomes the primary pain point or a light bulb one. And then you can do that across all the different light bulbs. So that's why we're seeing now a lot of paid traffic agencies are using the five light bulbs as a framework for split testing.

00:16:55:13 - 00:17:01:24
Craig Andrews
Oh wow. Wow. That makes a lot of sense.

00:17:02:01 - 00:17:15:10
Billy Broas
Yeah. It wasn't I didn't plan on that. I just kind of it turned out that way when I developed this thing, as these agencies started coming to me and like showing me like, hey, Billy, we tested lipo three versus lightbulb two and lightbulb three, double the sales. I'm like, oh, that is a good use of this thing.

00:17:15:12 - 00:17:29:15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Wow. So and just for clarity there, you know, if, if you're testing, let's say lightbulb one, you might test five different messages and see which one performs the best. Is that right and correct.

00:17:29:15 - 00:17:38:05
Billy Broas
You can test within a lightbulb. So five different lightbulb ones or cross the lightbulb. So a lightbulb one versus a lightbulb five.

00:17:38:07 - 00:17:54:08
Craig Andrews
very cool. And so then lightbulb two is things that they've tried before. and I guess that's a different level of empathy. It's just saying, you know, it's you acknowledging, hey, we realize you've probably tried this, this and this.

00:17:54:10 - 00:18:14:04
Billy Broas
Yeah. A good way to think about this one is if you think about software companies, what you often see on their websites, you ever see those comparison tables where it's like, here's us and then here's competitor A, B and C, and then down the first column right. There's these different categories like mobile app. And it'll have a checkmark if that company has a mobile app.

00:18:14:06 - 00:18:30:24
Billy Broas
Right. That that's a very straightforward way of doing it. But that's that's why I like that as an example. So you are you're essentially you're to use a phrase from the sales world, you're identifying the buying criteria. You're helping your customer shop for products like yours.

00:18:31:01 - 00:18:46:06
Craig Andrews
Yeah, okay. And then Lightbulb three is your your approach. And I've seen you write about having a like a proprietary framework or something like that. What does that mean to have a proprietary framework?

00:18:46:08 - 00:19:08:13
Billy Broas
Well, it doesn't even need to be proprietary even just. Okay. Let me give you an example. So imagine that there's a CEO of a company and two consultants approach him or her consultant and he says, I'm going to reduce your cost by 15%. Consultant B says, I'm going to reduce your cost by 15%, by following these three steps.

00:19:08:15 - 00:19:37:20
Billy Broas
All else equal, if you're the CEO, who are you more likely to go with? And most people say consultant B, you say, why? Almost like, okay, because they have a methodology. and that's the key thing is that you want to have you always want to be finding a better way of doing things and even just identifying your steps and what you do, like what what gets attention gets care and it gets improved.

00:19:37:20 - 00:19:59:10
Billy Broas
So even if your three steps are the same as a guy down the road, at least you have them. And because they're a central part of your focus, you're looking at them every day. They're naturally going to get improved. So that's why the people who see this, even if it's not, even if it's more intuitive because I think it is like in that example, you're like, oh yeah, I'd rather go with the second person because you think, oh, well, there's a method to the madness.

00:19:59:10 - 00:20:01:03
Billy Broas
And I like that.

00:20:01:05 - 00:20:08:01
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. And so then Lightbulb four is your solution. Yeah.

00:20:08:07 - 00:20:32:14
Billy Broas
That's what most people think of when they think of marketing. And you'll instantly recognize this language. It's the language of buy now, buy one, get one free 50% off 30 back money, three day back money guarantee. and so, you know, it's the it's where the transaction is very transactional language. but what we hear from people is when they learn the five lightbulbs, they say, oh, now I have other things to talk about.

00:20:32:16 - 00:20:52:11
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. And so it doesn't stop at lightbulb for it would be easy to think, okay, I got the offer. They bought the offer. We're done. But there's another lightbulb. It's their their ideal. I'm trying to avoid using my language. We call it the transformed state. What do you call it?

00:20:52:13 - 00:20:53:21
Billy Broas
The customer's new life.

00:20:53:23 - 00:21:03:21
Craig Andrews
Customer's new life. I like that that's better. the customer's new life. And. And why is that important again?

00:21:03:23 - 00:21:22:18
Billy Broas
Well, this is so you want to. There's a distinction. I get what you're saying about, it might make more sense to end with lightbulb for there's a distinction between how the lightbulbs are presented. And again go to the website Firefly postcard and you'll see the visual versus how they're used, how they're deployed. So you might think about them as ingredients.

00:21:22:18 - 00:21:41:03
Billy Broas
And you can reuse them in all different ways. And often if we're writing a sales piece like let's say it's a, like a long form sales page will often wrap up that sales page with lightbulb four, because that's where the call to action is. But the way it's presented the framework is the lightbulb five as the last one, because that is that other side of the bridge.

00:21:41:05 - 00:22:03:12
Billy Broas
And that one is so important, I find especially and this actually goes into the book too, because people who are a subject matter experts and I work with a lot of them, they tend to take label five for granted. They assume that the customer knows the benefits of their thing, and they get very obsessed with their thing, their lightbulb, 3 or 4 and so lightbulb five is a reminder.

00:22:03:16 - 00:22:10:14
Billy Broas
Hey, you still gotta check that box and tell them what this thing does for them. You still need to answer that question. What's in it for me?

00:22:10:16 - 00:22:37:24
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. You know, I can see that. I can see that. I can see that in myself. I can see that with other business owners. You know, you spend so much time on lightbulb three. That's where your life is. And it's easy to obsess there. But when you do that, you're not communicating all the things to your potential buyer that you really need for them to catch the vision of why this is important to them.

00:22:38:01 - 00:22:39:02
Billy Broas
exactly.

00:22:39:04 - 00:23:08:16
Craig Andrews
Well, cool. Well, let's talk about the book a little bit. So you've got a book that's come out. It's called Simple Marketing for Smart People. I love that, you know, one, I hate the whole dummies series, and I, you know, I get that, but, you know, I've never, never quite understood the, the idea of, you know, admitting that you're dumb in the title of books that you buy.

00:23:08:18 - 00:23:19:16
Craig Andrews
I'd rather be a smart person. but for you, I guess. What's the book about? And what does it mean to have simple marketing for smart people?

00:23:19:18 - 00:23:34:05
Billy Broas
Yeah, I hear you on the dummies book. Yeah. So this is, if you've never felt cool grabbing that dummies book and be like, I'm a dummy, then grab simple marketing for smart people because you will feel smart. And I promise if you read it, you will be smarter by the end of it. And, it has a double meaning.

00:23:34:05 - 00:23:57:14
Billy Broas
I mean, yeah, we want people who don't want to feel smart. but it's also the idea, this idea of being a subject matter expert, which, again, is a lot of the people I've historically worked with, they know their topic very, very well. But that but then they have the curse of knowledge. And so a lot of of us, I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with that curse of knowledge, where you know so much that it's actually a double edged sword and you have a hard time imagining what it's like to not have that knowledge.

00:23:57:19 - 00:24:32:05
Billy Broas
And so the book really takes that broad concept and applies it to marketing, because the curse of the curse of knowledge is really the kiss of death when it comes to marketing. And the reason is that we assume that the customer knows all these things, or that the prospect knows all these things. So what the book does is it addresses that fact, that curse of knowledge, and it gives you a system for surfacing a lot of those assumptions that you've been making about your customer, so that you can then give voice to those and not just and not assume things anymore, and really get on the same page as your customer.

00:24:32:10 - 00:24:46:18
Billy Broas
It's it's really a book about a mutual understanding between you and your customer so that when you meet there in the middle and you are on the same page, you can then lead them. You take them by the hand and lead them to eventually your, product or service.

00:24:46:20 - 00:25:11:20
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And you know, when we were talking, you said this has a lot of applications, even if you're not a marketer, if you're a business owner. You said this, and this really caught me by surprise. You said any any manager, any leader should read this book. and because there's lessons of leadership in there, what are those lessons?

00:25:11:22 - 00:25:37:08
Billy Broas
Well, if you're a leader and let's say that you have direct reports, you have a team, there are no doubt thing. There are no doubt that the things that you assume that your your team is on the same page on with you and with your fellow team members, and they're not on the same page at all. And so what you want to do is, is really surface those, you might call them, myths or mistakes or misconceptions that they have.

00:25:37:10 - 00:26:01:04
Billy Broas
And then once you do that then you can it's really a process of education and really, taking those false beliefs and instilling new beliefs around what you do and what you were trying to achieve. So I've been talking about this concept and writing about this for a few years now. And you're right, I've had interest from people from business owners to teachers and college professors.

00:26:01:08 - 00:26:08:17
Billy Broas
I mean, this, this can, this, this, this so applies to a classroom setting as well.

00:26:08:19 - 00:26:22:15
Craig Andrews
so, I mean, if I read that, what would be some of the nuggets I would take away from that? Well, where would be what would be like the top three things that would just kind of make me kind of stop in my shoes and say, you know what, I need to rethink this.

00:26:22:17 - 00:26:42:05
Billy Broas
Well, the question, the big question that we posed in the book, which is a good one for all your listeners to ask, and this is going to apply to your customers, but it can apply to your team as well. The question is, what do my customers need to believe in order to buy? Yeah. What do my customers need to believe in order to buy?

00:26:42:07 - 00:27:02:23
Billy Broas
And that question is, is just like this magic wand that you can take that just surfaces all these assumptions they've been making. So if you are a let's say that you are a marketing agency, what do my customers need to believe in order to buy? Well, if you're doing Facebook ads, what do they need to believe in? You believe that Facebook ads work.

00:27:02:23 - 00:27:22:09
Billy Broas
They need to believe that Facebook ads work in their industry, and you need to believe things about you that you're capable of running Facebook ads, that you have the credibility. So the list starts to add up pretty fast. And this is what we take you through in the book. And we provide a template for this. And then once you surface all these things, these beliefs, then you say, oh man.

00:27:22:09 - 00:27:32:01
Billy Broas
Well, we have not been addressing these in our marketing material. So it becomes a big driver of then your marketing material, you know.

00:27:32:03 - 00:27:56:13
Craig Andrews
You know, and it's it's interesting. Belief systems is something I talk about a lot. that when your customers come to you, they do have broken beliefs and, and sometimes those beliefs are really hard to change. You know, in the example I give. So you, you know, you know a lot about my story. I was in a coma for six weeks, and when I woke up, I believed I could walk.

00:27:56:13 - 00:28:12:16
Craig Andrews
And I got in this big argument with my wife about whether or not I could walk, you know, because I was, I, I hated the hospital. I wanted out of there. And I want her to take me home. And we had this big argument and it was it's so funny. I walked away from the argument believing she was wrong.

00:28:12:16 - 00:28:26:12
Craig Andrews
She walked away from the argument believing I was wrong. All the facts were in her favor. And yeah, I still had that broken belief. and and so how do you tackle broken beliefs?

00:28:26:14 - 00:28:49:03
Billy Broas
Yeah. So it's a spectrum. And so this also dictates where you, you spend your time, your energy, your resources and marketing. You want to start with the you want to preach to the converted as much as possible, because it takes a lot of time in education to change beliefs. And they can't do it. But depending on how deep seated those beliefs are, it can be very difficult to change them.

00:28:49:05 - 00:29:07:01
Billy Broas
And I see a lot of people with their marketing not preaching to the converted, going to people who are but have beliefs that are just way off and it takes a lot of time and money to do that. So so start with the the people who already have these beliefs and and so you do that and you talk with the people who already have these beliefs.

00:29:07:01 - 00:29:22:13
Billy Broas
You're going to wear them out pretty quick though, because that's a limited pool of people, right? It's the people right around you. You think about it as concentric circles, and this is a graphic we show in the book. So the people with the beliefs that you already need for them to have in order to buy are right around you in this concentric circle.

00:29:22:15 - 00:29:38:02
Billy Broas
But then you have another circle beyond that. And those people have maybe have two beliefs, okay. But there's a whole lot of people there and a whole lot of revenue there. So what do you do? Well, this is what marketing material is for, is what a lot of people don't realize. This is the goal of marketing. It's to educate.

00:29:38:04 - 00:29:56:18
Billy Broas
So you educate. You're instilling these new beliefs. So now maybe instead of half the beliefs now maybe they have all the beliefs. And in doing that, you're also making your argument for why they should buy from you. Because I'm sure you've been in a situation where if you're trying to argue, you ever been in a situation, you're trying to argue with someone you're not like a heated argue.

00:29:56:18 - 00:30:11:13
Billy Broas
People like a debate style argument, right? It might be for a, you know, a something in like politics or in society. And if a person is just not as educated as you are on the subject, it's very hard for you to make it your argument, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. So yeah. Go ahead.

00:30:11:17 - 00:30:12:22
Craig Andrews
No no no please continue.

00:30:12:23 - 00:30:27:16
Billy Broas
Thought so. You educate right. Because if you were on the same page as you, if they knew what you knew, you could more effectively make your argument. So it's the same thing whether you're debating something, political or if you're a marketer making the case for why someone should buy your product, educate, then argue.

00:30:27:18 - 00:30:49:24
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Very cool. Well, and and I can see I mean, I can see how that broadly applies to leadership. If somebody has, and somebody has wrong if you have an organization made up of people with the wrong beliefs, it's going to be hard to achieve the the outcome that you're looking for.

00:30:50:01 - 00:31:10:24
Billy Broas
It's amazing the assumptions you'll find that people have. Yeah, I mean, a big one that I come across in marketing is that marketing is evil or marketing is deception. So that's a very fundamental belief. And if we don't address that, like if I'm working with a client and we don't address that up front, this is what I mean by I'm such a big believer, a believer in coming to a mutual understanding.

00:31:11:01 - 00:31:24:09
Billy Broas
If we don't address that upfront, everything downstream of that is going to be tainted because that person's looking at everything we're doing through the lens of marketing is evil. I'm looking at it through the lens. Of course, it's not evil, it's just how you use it. Your intentions.

00:31:24:11 - 00:31:57:00
Craig Andrews
You know, it's funny, I, I run into people and they're like when they start realizing, because some of the tools that we use as marketers are, like, insanely powerful. And they, and they say, well, you're manipulating people. And the example I go to is like, look, I can't make anybody bark like a dog. now, if somebody wants to bark like a dog, I can influence what type of dog they want and bark like, but I can't make somebody that someone bark like a dog.

00:31:57:00 - 00:32:19:16
Craig Andrews
Bark like a dog. But if they went bark like a dog, I'm making bark like a greyhound, if that's, you know, and I think that's kind of where marketing comes in. It's, you know, another way of looking at is, is, you know, you have people with needs and you have people, that can fulfill those needs. And so in some ways, it's kind of matchmaking and it's, you know, helping bridge that connection.

00:32:19:16 - 00:32:37:16
Craig Andrews
And, you know, the problem is if we, you know, we think about it in the context of little children, one of the problems that little children have is that they can't yet articulate their needs. And so they just cry and, you know, and so the job of the parent is to help them, you know, one, to figure out what their needs are.

00:32:37:16 - 00:33:00:00
Craig Andrews
And, and do that. And I'm not trying to draw some crazy comparison that customers are like children or the other way around. But the simple fact is that a lifelong struggle of all of us is being able to articulate what we need, and even as adults, were often not good at that. And that's a job that I see.

00:33:00:00 - 00:33:22:09
Craig Andrews
Everything that you're talking about enabling, that it's creating a framework where people can understand their pain, understand why they've been unable to resolve their pain, understand how their pain could be resolved, what they need to do to resolve that pain, and what their new life will look like after it's been resolved.

00:33:22:11 - 00:33:43:05
Billy Broas
Exactly. Yeah. And without that initial mutual understanding, you just can't lead that person to the place where where you know that you can help them, because that's ultimately what marketing is trying to to help someone get what they already want. I mean, the way I'm writing this book is as a meta lesson in this, you notice the book is not called The Five Lightbulbs.

00:33:43:07 - 00:34:06:04
Billy Broas
Right? And the reason the reason is, is that it's for the same reason I needed I need I needed a mutual understanding first before reading the five lightbulbs book, which will come out eventually. But this book, simple marketing for Smart people, it's the underpinning of it. It is the foundation for it. So I need personally, and I also need my my readers to understand how the five lightbulbs are built.

00:34:06:09 - 00:34:13:18
Billy Broas
Once I achieve mutual understanding on that which is delivered in simple marketing for smart people, then I can move on to the five lightbulbs.

00:34:13:20 - 00:34:33:19
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, and you know, you probably noticed this when I was laying it out. I'm not sure everybody did when I was talking about, you know, you you have a pain. You need to be able to articulate that pain, understand why it's there, what you can do to fix it, the action that you actually need to take. As I was going through that sequence, I was just going through your five lightbulbs.

00:34:33:21 - 00:34:45:04
Craig Andrews
And so for me, in that moment, it was a framework that helped me lay out all these steps and all I had to do was follow the framework that you said you've so clearly laid out.

00:34:45:05 - 00:35:01:08
Billy Broas
Yeah, it, it maps to the the human experience of making a decision, in this case a buying decision. But it could be any decision. you can use the power levels for leadership too, right? Like what's what's the direction of the company? What are our five lightbulbs for the company? but the framework maps very well to the human experience of making a decision.

00:35:01:08 - 00:35:05:02
Billy Broas
So that's why it's very intuitive to people. Because we do this all the time.

00:35:05:03 - 00:35:24:22
Craig Andrews
Wow. Well, I love it. And, the one thing I'm confident of is I need to do more of that. You know, we were exchanging notes on LinkedIn about how, you know, you pose the question, how often do you follow a framework? And, I think that I think my answer is I need to follow a framework more often.

00:35:24:24 - 00:35:36:04
Craig Andrews
And I love the five lightbulbs that you've laid out. so couple questions. One, where can people get a copy of Simple Marketing for Smart People?

00:35:36:06 - 00:35:41:02
Billy Broas
Go to Amazon Good Amazon.com, type in Simple Marketing for smart people and you will find it there.

00:35:41:04 - 00:35:44:13
Craig Andrews
Okay. And how can people reach you?

00:35:44:15 - 00:35:52:23
Billy Broas
The best way is through either the two main platforms I'm on our LinkedIn and Twitter or X that is now all right.

00:35:52:23 - 00:36:03:15
Craig Andrews
Well, Billy, this has been great. thank you for bringing it. I love the simplicity, love the power of the the tools that we've put together.

00:36:03:17 - 00:36:07:18
Billy Broas
Awesome. Had a lot of fun. Craig. Yeah, thanks. You're a great interviewer, and I appreciate you having me.