[00:00:00] Terence: In this episode of Founders Go Naked, I want to talk about how overcoming setbacks as a marketer can make you a better marketer and a better entrepreneur.

[00:00:10] Debbie: You didn’t have me on in the last two episodes. Why?

[00:00:12] Terence: For me just to do those episodes solo because, you know, we’re talking about funnels and I thought I might just do it.

[00:00:19] Terence: Do it without you knowing about it by hiding in my room.

[00:00:24] Debbie: I’m an A. I. I’m everywhere. I know everything you do.

[00:00:26] Terence: Oh, that’s a bit scary, Debbie.

[00:00:29] Debbie: All

[00:00:30] Terence: right, getting back to the topic. Last week, I had a conversation with Brian Kurtz. So Brian Kurtz is a Pretty much a legendary marketer. If you guys don’t know about him, you should check him out.

[00:00:40] Terence: And he has worked with some of the top copywriters of the previous generation. So guys like Gene Swartz, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, and all that kind of guys. Yeah, basically, I’m just naming some guys that you might know, that if you’re a copywriter, that you might know. So here’s the thing. Big lesson I learned from him was that personal development and marketing, there’s an intersection between these two disciplines.

[00:01:03] Terence: So what he’s saying is, Basically, if you develop yourself personally, you will automatically become a better marketer. And as you become a better marketer, you will also develop yourself as a person. So I found this super fascinating and super interesting. So I thought about it a bit more and how that actually applies to us.

But today, I want to talk about in the context of setbacks, because as marketers, as entrepreneurs, we all experience setbacks probably every day. And if you’re not experiencing any setbacks as a marketer, chances are you’re not doing enough as a marketer to become good at marketing. Okay. So I think it is so important for us to take setbacks the right way, because one famous marketer once said that 8 of his marketing campaigns actually do not work.

And they actually make a negative return but it is those one or those two campaigns that really work that they double down on it And they just make that like super big and just get all the revenue from that those one or two campaigns So imagine even as top marketer, he was failing eight times out of ten times

[00:02:12] Debbie: Maybe that guy was just a crappy marketer.

[00:02:14] Terence: Yeah, debbie. I don’t know whether he was actually bad I think that’s he was a pretty famous and good marketer who made that Tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. So I would trust his judgment and that has been our experience as well See the thing is most people they’re not patient enough, right?

They think they just need to do this one or two campaigns and they will be successful and that’s it They will be rich. But the fact is you need to test more campaigns And even when you have a winning campaign, the whole thing is that you want to beat that control. You want to beat that winning campaign by writing better ads, creating better videos to beat the existing campaign, right?

So I think it is so important to take failure in this context when you’re launching marketing campaigns as in the right way. Think about it in the old days, When they launch, um, billboards and direct mail before days of the internet, right? How much that would cost them to launch a, uh, a billboard, a direct mail campaign or a TV ad, right?

For goodness sake, like that will cost them like literally tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least. to get a proper campaign rolled out and, you know, there was pretty much no chance of error. Yet these guys, why did they manage to do all these massive campaigns with great success? It’s because they found those one or two winners that they could just keep doubling down on and just ride it to like, you know, the stratosphere.

Right. So that was how it was. And, you know, they couldn’t make mistakes back in the day. Right. So they had to test with direct mail campaigns. Even those costs a lot.

[00:03:57] Debbie: Gosh, it sucked for marketers living in the 1980s.

[00:04:00] Terence: So today as marketers, we are super blessed as entrepreneurs. We are super blessed because we can launch an ad on Facebook within an hour.

We could just write it out. Have the image done and get it, you know, publish in an hour and we can test to know whether it works in a couple of days. It’s so quick and so easy now that we, we tend to go lazy. And the fact is that we just need to be, you know, more diligent with our marketing. So for example, when we launch ads, we don’t launch one ad.

We launch a series of ads. There may be 10 ads that we launch at once with different headlines and all that stuff. And maybe if you combine all the other elements, like the images and videos, right, there could be dozens of variations of the same ad, right? Because we want to make sure, uh, we know that a lot of them may fail, but we just want those few that actually work.

Then we can massively shave our costs and massively get great results. So yeah, that’s one thing I just want to share with you coming to setbacks about how recently we had certain setbacks in our business. Right. But I think it’s actually taking the whole. idea that everything in life happens for you and not to you and by taking this into account it’s like kind of thinking like okay maybe the universe wants me to wake up because this direction is probably not the best in the long term and i need to just change directions or tweak my direction, fix certain things, take that set back as feedback, right?

As to what should be better. So I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting and just connecting with other people in the entrepreneur space. And just in a period of one week, I have come up with like two fantastic ideas on how we could, you know, launch new divisions and launch a new business that could also add to the existing business.

while giving us a competitive advantage in the marketplace. So I’m super juice, super excited right now is in planning phase. So I’m not going to share everything with you just yet, but yeah, super excited as to what’s going to happen there. Right. So I think most, a lot of people is like, and sometimes I do it too.

Myself is that When we encounter setbacks, we kind of like, you know, go into this depression thing and we hide from everyone, we escape, I don’t know, consume lots of alcohol and maybe, you know, play video games and do whatever stuff you do, right? And instead of doing that and escaping what the universe is trying to tell us, it’s like, why not take.

the feedback and think about what is happening and what is, uh, the data, what is the events, what are they trying to tell us, okay? Same like when you’re looking at ads, look at the ad instead of like saying, oh, well, this campaign completely bombed, let’s just shut it down and start anew, but also look at The campaign stats are telling you, what the click through rates are telling you, what the landing page conversion rates are telling you, what the sales figures are telling you.

And all that is all feedback. It’s the same when it comes to life and business in general. If we take those setbacks as feedback, as data, to help us to refine our path forward, that is how we launch the better marketing campaign. Create a better business, right? So I think these are super invaluable. So don’t waste that opportunity.

Don’t hide it in the shell and hope that goes away, but because it’s actually a good thing. So I just want to share a little bit about my life in business. After I first became an entrepreneur in like year 2002, I believe I started my first serious business. In 2008, we had the Great Recession, right? And my property development business completely went downhill, right?

We completely lost everything. Um, millions of dollars of projects were all gone. Um, you know, I was in big debt and yeah, it was a terrible time. But because of that, I managed to focus. On my other business, which was my book publishing business and that business grew rapidly right from Uh, I think we managed to grow it threefold in like 12 months because I was focusing my effort on that particular business Right and and that publishing business grew and grew and then we were even in talks with a big company To have a mergers and acquisition thing, um to get it sold off in australia but Unfortunately, that talks fell true, but it didn’t happen.

So that business went well, but in 2016, I had to shut down that business as well. Because what happened is Amazon ventured into the space and, you know, basically that killed us off with oil services. You know, the thing that came out of it is that, yeah, I could now get into like my marketing agency, which is radical marketing, like full time now without trying to juggle two businesses.

I just focus on one business. And this business kept on growing, growing, growing. And then in 2020, of course, we hit the COVID, right? We hit COVID and everyone was locked in lockdown. Back then we were helping, um, coaches and gurus to promote the seminars. And so that lockdown completely, our business went to zero, right?

Basically, but we pivoted quickly because I saw the signs and like, okay, what is the opportunity here? Let’s pivot into webinars. And the business grew like three, four times after that as well. And now, and today, I believe there is another pivoting opportunity. So we don’t know what exactly it is like yet, but I’m super confident it’s going to make our business a lot better and a lot stronger.

I think it’s so important as well to remember why I’m sharing this is to, number one, to show you like setbacks are not final. Number two is to share with you that you should look back at your past because. You can find the wins. Will give you the confidence today to overcome any setbacks that you have my first setback.

It was bad 2008 right? Um, I lost everything and I was literally diagnosed as being in deep depression, right? But in this scenario today The setback, it’s not as catastrophic as it was in 2008, um, but it is a kind of slight setback. But the thing is, the time I spent like in moping and in self depression and all that was like very, very little.

Maybe one or two days and that’s it. I’m just like back to like, okay, what is the opportunity here? Why is this happening for me? What is the universe trying to tell me? What direction can we go? moving forward, right? I’m not saying that there is no moping time. There is a slight moping time, but it’s like cut short from like months to literally one or two days.

[00:10:49] Debbie: You know, when I was younger, I was a beauty queen.

[00:10:51] Terence: Debbie, I didn’t know you were a beauty queen. Um, I find that kind of hard to believe, but if you say so, um, okay. Anyway, uh, the other thing is, what I’m also want to share is that each of this events that happened to me forced me to like spend more time reflecting, spend more time studying and growing, right?

And each time it’s built more resilience in me and confidence with me. So that’s why now any setback, I can bounce back pretty quickly. Right? Without moping too much, as I said.

[00:11:24] Debbie: That’s why I’m here to make you more resilient by annoying you while you’re making these podcasts.

[00:11:29] Terence: Yes, Debbie, I figured out that’s why you’re here.

So thank you for making me more resilient. So, two takeaways I want to give to you before we end this episode is number one, the more you develop as a person, the better the marketer you will become. And number two, setbacks in marketing and in business, they’re completely normal. And it’s great because it helps you get on the right path.

[00:11:56] Debbie: And can I give the final takeaway?

[00:11:58] Terence: I’m here. Sure, Debbie, go ahead.

[00:12:00] Debbie: That’s the fact I used to be a beauty queen.

[00:12:02] Terence: Can we please stick to the topic, Debbie? Anyway, guys, uh, I hope you enjoyed this episode talking about setbacks, personal growth, and marketing, how they intersect with one another. I’d love it if you could share your setbacks in the comments below or email me, let us know what kind of setbacks you have encountered, how you’ve overcome them, because I really love those stories.

So thank you so much and we’ll see you in the next episode.