Boss Your Business - The Podcast

[00:00:00] Yvonne Heimann: And welcome back to another episode of Boss Your Business, the entrepreneur podcast that you want to have been subscribed to, I hope so by now, because we are more than 60 episodes in, what are you doing if you're not yet subscribed? Today, today, this is going to be a fun one because this was also a fun podcast guest application.

[00:00:22] You're going to hear about this in just a minute here. First, I want to introduce to you, Daniel Den. You became fascinated with marketing and sales almost two decades ago. Somebody just aged himself. Today, he is the co creator of the X Factor Event, X Factor Effect Mythology, talk about tongue twister right in the beginning let's get it out, where you and your team helped over 20, 000 students and clients grow their business. Daniel teaches that different is the new better. And [00:01:00] his framework includes nine pillars for differentiating your business so that you can become a market leader or category king.

[00:01:08] For many years, Daniel traveled the world full time with his wife and four children. That's quite a workout in itself. You continue to travel often and now live in Florida. Daniel is the author of the new book Ideas That Influence that was built to help business owners discover their own wildly successful marketing ideas.

[00:01:30] Hi, Daniel. Great to have you.

[00:01:32] Daniel Den: Hey, thank you, Yvi. You're amazing. Thank you so much. I am excited to be here. And yeah, I think, I think we're going to have fun today. I think we've got some cool stories. I know you've got some cool stories. I've got some cool stories. If you like cool stories, stick around for the next few minutes.

[00:01:51] Yvonne Heimann: Oh, hell yeah. Do you want to, do you want me to tell the story? How you reached out to me or do you want to tell it?

[00:01:58] Daniel Den: I think it's better from [00:02:00] your perspective. If you want to share, share that, like, like, like, I know, I know how I did it, but

[00:02:07] Yvonne Heimann: So my audience knows I'm quite opinionated when it comes to guests.

[00:02:11] It's like, we are, we are getting inundated with applications every single day from, Hey, I want to be guests to really great intros. And you just stood out. And especially with entrepreneurs and business owners wanted to market themselves, wanting to get out there and standing out from the masses and not just sink in that sea of sameness.

[00:02:36] That's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring this up. And guys, if you are listening to the podcast. You're going to lose out a little bit on the visual. So you might actually want to pop into YouTube and watch this one, at least for the next five minutes. Because what Daniel did is he's not like, Hey, I want to be a guest.

[00:02:54] He's like, Hey, I want to send you something. And honestly, when I read that, I'm like, I have no idea what he [00:03:00] wants to send me, but hell yeah. Everybody knows I'm a swag whore. Anything I can get, I will get. And now, interestingly, I've also been following how you do, how you ship, how you package. We already talked in the green room about who is producing the boxes for you.

[00:03:18] And once I get you guys all of the information, don't worry, I'm going to ask him the, the response he's getting. So what happened is Daniel actually ended up sending me a nice, branded box with post it notes. You guys know, it's like there is never enough post it notes. With a nice welcome and a quick little guide plus the book, but he also didn't stop there.

[00:03:44] He did not stop there. And I am now in my brain is working with the, The Basics Of Mastering ClickUp book on how I can combine that because there's a whole bunch of, of more stuff in here.

[00:03:58] Daniel Den: Plus [00:04:00] more,

[00:04:01] Oh no, too much stuff.

[00:04:03] Yvonne Heimann: So I'm like, it's like so many things. So, and by the way, thank you for the pen.

[00:04:10] That is perfectly color branded with my branding colors and why, why I'm sharing this with you guys right now is because it stood out because it was different. It was not the same thing. And do you have to go this far? No, not really. You don't have to go as crazy as sending boxes out and doing all the things.

[00:04:35] But when pitching clients, when pitching brand deals, when pitching being guests on a podcast, you can't beat sending me sweets. I don't even, come on camera. Focus, focus for everybody that's watching on YouTube. You can't, you can't be really, I need, I need to find German sweets that are easy to ship. And it's just you [00:05:00] made meeting you an experience.

[00:05:03] And that's one of the reasons why this was for me a straight up, yes, because a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners, everybody is online now, everybody tells you, this is what you need to do, but it's all the same BS, it's all the same stuff and now suddenly here was somebody who, that stood out. That was different.

[00:05:30] So with that, I want to hear from you. How has that strategy worked on your end, on the receiving side?

[00:05:39] Daniel Den: Thank you so much, Yvi. Now, I'm, I'm so excited that you were excited about the gift and that you loved it and that you were able to, you know, open it up like, like a present and then you got excited.

[00:05:52] And, and so on, on my end, so we, our whole thing is about being [00:06:00] different. So if we're not different ourselves, then we've kind of like failed like with our own methodologies. So our whole thing, the X factor effect, we have nine different pillars that help business owners break through the noise. And one of those pillars is all about offering people an experience.

[00:06:19] And I decided that when I was going to put together my book, that I was going to turn it into this interactive book box experience. And I created it and it was amazing. And I started showing people, they started getting excited and it got to the point where I needed to start talking about it. And I was like, well, I can jump on podcasts and I've heard of this cool thing called pod match.

[00:06:42] And I was talking to Alex and Alex, Alex is amazing. And I was, I showed Alex, my boss, I said, Alex, I've got this really cool idea where I just like, instead of like just asking people, can I, can I jump on your podcast and talk about my stuff? And Instead of doing [00:07:00] that, I said, Alex, I'm just going to like message people and say, Hey, I want to start off the relationship differently.

[00:07:06] Cause I want a real relationship with you, Yvi. I don't, I don't want to, I want, I don't want it to be like superficial, just like, hey, you know, let's sit around and just chat and you let me promote my stuff type thing. Like I want like real deep relationships with people, because we know that like your network is your net worth.

[00:07:26] Right. And the deeper you can, you know, form the bonds with those relationships and the bigger you can grow your network, the faster you're going to grow overall. And so I said, Alex, this is my strategy.

[00:07:40] Yvonne Heimann: It's, it's not even, it's not even that it was just the box guys. So Daniel also ended up connecting with me on LinkedIn and Facebook sent a message.

[00:07:52] Just about an hour ago, he messaged me and he is like, hey, I can be on half an hour early. When do you want me to be on? Just to make sure [00:08:00] technology works fine and everything. Other than the people that I know personally that have podcasts that checked in. You are the first guest, you are the first quote cold call guest that went this far of connecting on LinkedIn and connecting on Facebook on reaching out before and you checked in with me yesterday, even though you got the calendar reminders that we have to make sure guests know what's coming up.

[00:08:26] You didn't just do the, hey, I want to stand out. You lived wanting to build that relationship and you showed up in that way.

[00:08:36] Daniel Den: Thank you. And you know, if you think about it, like it, Yvi, it should be like the basics. Like if you, if somebody is, if somebody like Yvi is gracious enough to put out together all the effort to have you jump on her podcast, the least you can do is connect with her on social media.

[00:08:57] And the least you can do is like follow up and, [00:09:00] you know, make sure that everything's good to go for the next day. Right. So that unfortunately in today's world, like doing the basics can get you a lot farther than it should, but we want to at least do the basics and then sometimes, well, a lot of the times the basics isn't enough because,

[00:09:21] when it comes down to it, there's a Forbes article that says that we're all exposed to between about 4, 000 and 10, 000 ads per day, which is just like, my

[00:09:32] Yvonne Heimann: Half of my feed is full of ads.

[00:09:34] Daniel Den: Insane. Yeah. And you know, just driving down the road and like just so many different things, like trying to get your attention, right. And it's just.

[00:09:45] It's just insane. And so the question is not only like lots of us, we're doing things online and we're trying to get everybody's attention online and grow our sales online. And which is great, but offline as well, like online and offline, [00:10:00] whatever business you own, whatever business you're trying to grow, you have between four and 10, 000 ads that you're trying to deal with every single day to break through the noise and get your message out.

[00:10:13] And so I told Alex, I said, Alex, Hey, you know, it seems weird just to be like messaging people and just saying, hey, like, can I jump on your podcast? Like, I mean, I know what, that's what, that's what it's for.

[00:10:26] But he was like, yeah. Like if you do anything, if you do anything different. You're going to have better results and your approach is going to work like crazy. So, the response has been phenomenal for me getting on podcasts, first of all, because I did something different. So, yeah, you don't have to do anything like I did you because you shouldn't because we're trying to do things differently, right?

[00:10:53] So the question is, how should you do things differently so that you can break through all the clutter as well? [00:11:00] So, yeah, that's from the podcasting side, how well things are working. And then from the actual book and the box experience and everything that we teach when it comes to X Factor Effect, that's a different story for how well that's working, which it's also working really well as well, so.

[00:11:18] Yvonne Heimann: So, this is, this is one way of standing out. Now, this, this is a lot. Guys, I'm not saying put your box together right now. Yes. Am I considering putting a box together? It's not going to have as much in it as Daniel has in it right now. So let's be honest, everything can be buildupable. You don't have to start where Daniel is right now.

[00:11:43] So with wanting to stand out from the masses and, and not get lost in that sea of sameness, how can somebody start that's done doing the bare minimum virtual shit? What would you tell them to, [00:12:00] to do to, to really connect more and have at least a little bit of an impact like you have?

[00:12:09] Daniel Den: Well, like I said, there's nine different things when it comes to the X factor effect that we teach, we teach. There's things that are harder to do.

[00:12:18] And there's things that are easier to do, like, for example, for you, Yvi, you've got an amazing personality, so you just being you can do it and I've got an okay personality, but it's, you know, it's not like the thing that like gets me all this attention. Right? And, you know, I've got, you know, I've got some muscles on my arms, but like, there's, there's, there's guys that get a lot bigger attention when it comes to physicality and, you know, stage presence.

[00:12:52] And so, like, yeah. I'm like middle of the ground, like stage presence type guy, right? So if you've got the personality, [00:13:00] like one of the things that you can do is go out there and be like Yvi and like, be like, yeah, like let's be vocal. And sometimes being vocal, just being you and being yourself and your unique ways is the way to break through the noise, but that's not for everybody.

[00:13:15] So there's luckily lots of other things that we can do lots of different x factor strategies that we can do to break through the noise. What I did with my product for the book, Ideas That Influence, is I turned it into an experience. And so one of the things we teach is that we are in the age of experience. And every single time you add experience on top of the sale of the product or service that you're selling, then you're going to see a bump in sales because people love a great experience.

[00:13:51] And it comes down to the fact that in the age of experience, we all have enough stuff. In [00:14:00] fact, lots of us have too much stuff and lots of us.

[00:14:04] Yvonne Heimann: As I have a pile, as I have a pile over there right now, cleaning out my stuff. Your timing is impeccable.

[00:14:13] Daniel Den: There you go. And so, so how, how, so that's part of the clutter, right?

[00:14:18] Not only are we dealing with, you know, upwards of 10, 000 ads that our dream customers are seeing every day, but our dream customers already have a bunch of stuff as well. So how, how do we break through that problem? Well, turning your stuff into more than stuff, turning it into an experience is the answer.

[00:14:37] So when it comes to experiences in general, people are willing to spend their disposable income on experiences. And most of you listening today, if you think about what you've spent your disposable income on. I mean, [00:15:00] sometimes you're going to buy like a brand new nice bike or piece of other piece of gym equipment, and sometimes you're going to buy the nice television or the gaming system, or maybe even a boat or a nice car.

[00:15:13] It's like, you're sometimes going to do that, but more often than not, we have enough of that stuff already. And we're like planning, like the next experience, like, where's, what's the next trip I'm going to go on and that's what gets us jazzed up because the experiences is it's way better than stuff.

[00:15:33] The experience that you can add to a product and service, it creates intangibles. And when we can create intangibles inside of our brand intent, like, for example, one common intangible is memories. You can't put a price on amazing memories. And where do you get the amazing memories? Lots of times it's through amazing experiences.

[00:15:56] So if I can create a brand experience on top of the [00:16:00] product or service that I sell, then Yvi, when she sees my box and it's sitting there, she's not going to put it in the junk pile because that box represents an experience that she's able to go through and enjoy and like to remember because of the memories and what she learned and the overall experiences that she had.

[00:16:23] Yvonne Heimann: Now, you just made a connection for me. Where did I read that? Or was it in a show? I don't even know, where I heard about the experience of unpacking Mac products. So you pretty much went in that same way where it's like, don't get me wrong. It's like. It's why do we keep boxes around?

[00:16:47] And guys, I didn't just keep the box around because he's on the podcast today. And it's at some point, same kind of same kind of idea. I finally cleaned up my Mac boxes and all the [00:17:00] things that was sitting around because it's an experience to unpack this stuff. And I'm like, don't even have that iPad anymore.

[00:17:08] And I still have the box sitting on, are you kidding me?

[00:17:12] But it comes back around to, to your point of the unpacking is an experience, and suddenly you have an emotional connection to something, and nobody wants to let go of an emotional connection, so the box sticks.

[00:17:29] Daniel Den: Right. Yeah, yeah. That's why a lot of the collectibles.

[00:17:34] So I still have my baseball cards as a kid. Now as a kid, I was thinking this was an investment and that, you know in, in, you know, 30 years, these are going to be worth like a bajillion dollars. So I just thought I was the smartest kid in the world for collecting baseball cards, but they're not worth a bajillion dollars, but I still keep them because it's like, like I have this emotional attachment, like, [00:18:00] I would use as a kid, my disposable income on like, most of the time I would go out and buy baseball cards and like, it was like a part of me.

[00:18:08] So, like, those cards aren't really worth anything like I wanted them to be, but I'm not going to throw them away because it's like part of, like, my childhood, a small part of my childhood that I decided to keep. If I think about the only other things I kept from my childhood that I still have, well, I kept my original Nintendo Entertainment System.

[00:18:31] And I kept my super Nintendo Entertainment System and I kept my Nintendo 64. And so there we go, me aging myself again. So in case you're wondering, I'm 41.

[00:18:44] Yvonne Heimann: We will not use numbers. You're younger than me. Really go away. I'm the older one in the room.

[00:18:53] Daniel Den: Oh, no. Yeah, I'm 41. Born in 82, baby. But, uh, [00:19:00] but yeah, I kept those and, you know, there's pretty much everything else. I kept my baseball cards. Pokemon came out when I was in like 11th and 12th grade. So I kept some Pokemon cards, my baseball cards. And I kept my NES, my super Nintendo and my Nintendo 64, everything else. I have no idea what happened to it.

[00:19:23] I have no idea. I just know that I don't have it anymore. So,

[00:19:29] Yvonne Heimann: so with that, for, for all the entrepreneurs and business owners, listening guys, building that experience. And it's like having, having your sweets right in front of me here. Making it, making it a personalized experience where I'm like, I'm always joking about if I share my German chocolate with you, you know, you're special because I don't share my German chocolate.

[00:19:54] Getting that stuff over here is freaking expensive. And believe me, if you even just get a piece, you were in the inner [00:20:00] circle. So with that, it would be fun playing off of this and, and bringing people in with some German chocolate or making that emotional connection of, I never had a PB and J till I was 40 years old.

[00:20:16] And a friend of mine sent me Uncrustables and really just for you guys thinking, thinking in a way of how, how can you make this fun? How is this not just a check a box here and automate? And you guys know, I love to automate everything. I love AI. I love chatbots. But bringing that experience,

[00:20:40] Daniel Den: ClickUp queen.

[00:20:43] Yvonne Heimann: Exactly. And, and just putting that spin on it.

[00:20:47] It's, my automated emails from ClickUp for guests often have a signature underneath where it's Eva, where it's my ClickUp bot that is replying to you. And just having fun with [00:21:00] it. And really everybody knows we automate stuff. Everybody knows we use templates and things. But just, just make it an experience, put, put some fun into it.

[00:21:13] Daniel Den: Yeah, 100%. But you know, people in our digital world, Yvi, they talk about that you know, it's all about conversion rate and how many clicks you get and how many views you get.

[00:21:26] Yvonne Heimann: Yeah, but the conversion rate is going to be way higher.

[00:21:30] Daniel Den: Yeah.

[00:21:32] Yvonne Heimann: When you are not trying to convert a complete freaking ice cold lead, because you sent a dumb ass LinkedIn message, if you actually take five minutes, now suddenly that ice cold lead, that's going to mark you spam actually feels connected to you because you ask a couple of questions and put just a little bit of effort in.

[00:21:55] It doesn't take that much.

[00:21:57] Daniel Den: Yeah. Yeah. [00:22:00] People undervalue brand tribe, community, clear communication. There's lots of ways to stand out and what we teach is, you know, with everything that we do with the X factor effect, what you want to kind of do is you want to kind of stack your differences upon one upon the other and get your, get yourself to the point, like Yvi has been able to do, where you are a unicorn.

[00:22:29] Okay. So when you get to unicorn status, usually you have three or four big differences that differentiate your business, your products or services or your brand. And those three or four differences make you so different. That if any comp competitor tried to directly copy your specific usps, your specific unique selling propositions, or your unique ways of doing things different differently, it would be so [00:23:00] blatantly obvious that it would be laughable. If I tried to be the ClickUp dude and I tried to jump on as excited as Yvi gets about Clickup.

[00:23:11] And I'm over there and I've got, I've got my ClickUp book. This is my ClickUp book and here I am. And now here, right here, this is what I do. And if I'm putting out similar content to Yvi about ClickUp. At some point, people that know ClickUp are going to be like, Isn't this Daniel Den dude just kind of trying to do what Yvi's trying to do?

[00:23:34] And doesn't he kind of look a little bit silly trying to copy what Yvi's trying to do? And the answer is yes, of course I would look silly. And I wouldn't be genuinely doing it. And I wouldn't be a unicorn in any way, shape, or form. And eventually, I would fail because I, because you want to discover your unique differences that break through the noise.

[00:23:59] And then once you've [00:24:00] have enough of those differences where you can break through the noise and start to make noise in your market, then you can add upon those differences as well, you know, continue to create. Amazing products and services that are different, that aren't clear copycats of the competition.

[00:24:18] And then you get to start growing that brand and that community, that tribe and you get to start to have kind of a snowball effect where things just start to take on a life of their own.

[00:24:30] Yvonne Heimann: And I love that you brought up this whole copy and paste. I'm like, guys, you want to be the next ClickUp Queen? Hell yeah, let's get it out there.

[00:24:41] As I mentioned, it's like, I've been looking at how you use the box. We talked behind the scenes about another box that's going on out there, which by the way, I ordered just to see the email funnel behind it and the box and how she is sending everything out. You can pull ideas. Don't give me wrong. And that's not what Daniel is [00:25:00] saying, but you need to put your own spin on it.

[00:25:03] Where, when, when you guys are following my Instagram right now, it's, am I bold? Am I out there? Hell yeah. But it also has taken time for me to be comfortable to, to be this much and be okay with it and be okay with not everybody liking me. That's fine. But that, that brings in that piece of personality where again, changing up the sweets, hell yeah, let's add some German candy to it.

[00:25:35] Let's do, let's do a box. Let's do something. And by the way, little tip for me while I'm copying you. Mugs should always have the print on the other side too, because if your host is using your mug on camera and they are not a leftie, nobody will see your branding and my audience has been around, is going to laugh on that one.

[00:25:57] Daniel Den: You're not, you're not left handed? [00:26:00] I sent you the left handed mug. You know,

[00:26:03] Yvonne Heimann: You sent me the left handed mug.

[00:26:10] So, so funny. Did I mention we have fun on this podcast? No, it's funny because anybody that has been around me for probably two years, there was back in the day, a moment where I'm like, guys, most of us are right handed.

[00:26:26] I feel for everybody left handed that needs to buy a left handed scissor. But it's like, it's those, it's those little things. So even with such an amazing box, I can add a little bit of touch to it.

[00:26:39] And guys, why I'm bringing this up, not to put Daniel down. I know he can handle that. I'm bringing this up to say,

[00:26:46] when you do something and you put your personality on it, I know a lot of us want to be perfect. There is never such a thing as perfect. Done is better than [00:27:00] perfect. It's all about progress, not perfection. So go play with it. Go do, go put your personality on it. Go look up Daniel. Go look up what everybody else does.

[00:27:12] Pull ideas from it. There is, there is, I don't think there's anything majorly groundbreaking and a super new idea out there nowadays. We have seen a lot of stuff. It comes back down to how you put your stuff together, how you put your own personality in it and the spin you put on it. My way.

[00:27:37] Daniel Den: 100%. Oh, yeah. I mean, with new stuff.

[00:27:42] Yeah, I didn't, I didn't create boxes. I didn't create box experiences. What we've noticed is that recipes, there are a lot of recipes out there that people aren't following yet in your market. For example, my, [00:28:00] my box, it's, it's actually free plus shipping, free plus shipping, interactive book box experience.

[00:28:05] So, there's free plus shipping books out there, but there wasn't a free plus shipping interactive book box experience out on the market. So I, I, I took elements for stuff that existed in the cloud or the ether or whatever, whatever Yvi uses is the, as the analogy of where all great ideas come from. We, we, we have all these elements and there's elements that your dream customers are going to love.

[00:28:37] And there's ones that they're not going to love. There's, there's, there's ways to mess this up. And so we encourage, like, when you think about all your differences, we encourage you to still go out and like split test and ask your, do ask campaigns. I split tested my book cover for ideas that influence.

[00:28:57] I did 99 designs. I took the five [00:29:00] finalists and then I surveyed my, my whole list and said, Hey, which cover do you like the best? And that was it. Yep. That's the one Yvi. That was the winner. And I was hoping it was going to be it. Cause I was like, this is cool. This is a cool cover.

[00:29:12] Yvonne Heimann: And I think what it is, is also, it's not as boring as other books are. Both of our books have that color aspect, that catchy, that stands out. When I browse through, because I did something similar, I had a couple of, a couple of ones and ask my close circle to, hey, what do you, what do you think about it? And what they went for was that.

[00:29:41] The thing that pops in my head right now, that YouTube thumbnail, that's suddenly in your face where it's that color. It looks different. It's, it's just, and it can be as simple as, as grabbing a different color than anything that's out there. I love it. Yeah, not, not to [00:30:00] mention it's on brand color wise with AskYvi too, and it's just bringing people in letting people be part of that experience and, and letting them decide.

[00:30:13] And it really is, it's, there is so many little pieces in your box. So with that guys. If you want to go stalk Daniel and see all the information and all the stuff that I have experienced and what he is doing and how you can work with him as well as get your box. Description, you know, guys, it's all clickable.

[00:30:36] However, Daniel, where's the best way to reach out to you? Where are you active?

[00:30:41] Daniel Den: Yeah. Yeah. So I, so I'm mainly active on like Facebook. It's, you know, I'm, I'm on Daniel Den. I, I love connecting with people more on the personal side, but I have, you know, Daniel Den official as well. My, you know, fan page, but you know how, you know, how fan pages are not as cool.

[00:30:58] The [00:31:00] box, if you go to bigideasbox.com, then you go there and there's this big button that says, click here if you want one of the boxes. So bigideasbox.com. And then you click there, you just pay shipping and handling and we'll send that, that out to you. And let's see, I am on LinkedIn, newer to LinkedIn.

[00:31:21] I, you know, everybody told me, hey, why aren't you on LinkedIn? And I ignored them for about 15 years. And then I finally gave.

[00:31:32] Yvonne Heimann: Talk about a late bloomer.

[00:31:36] Daniel Den: No, like, like 100%, 100 percent late bloomer for LinkedIn. And then finally I'm like, fine. I'm finally like this year. I'm like. Fine. I'll start adding everybody on LinkedIn.

[00:31:48] And so I'm on LinkedIn too. But yeah, Daniel Den, I love, I love connecting with people on a more personal level, you know, your network is your net worth and, you know, glad I [00:32:00] was able to get you get, I got, I was able to get to know you better, Yvi, the ClickUp queen and, you know.

[00:32:12] Yvonne Heimann: So much fun having you on and as always, guys, you know, the links are in the description.

[00:32:17] You can literally just click them right on there. Now that I officially get to open everything up because I wanted to have it ready for you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on. I will see you on Facebook, but also on LinkedIn. And thanks so much for making this a fun episode.

[00:32:38] Daniel Den: Thank you, Yvi. You're amazing. And, I, now I, now I know even more, like more personally, like why people love you so much is just really fun to get to sit down and talk to you. And that's why you have so many people knocking on their door saying, let me, let me on the podcast, Yvi, let me on the podcast, because you're amazing.

[00:32:57] So thank you so much.

[00:32:59] Yvonne Heimann: Thank you [00:33:00] so much. And thanks everybody for listening again. If you haven't subscribed yet, what, what are you doing? Go hit that subscribe button and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye everybody.