Rocket GTM 🚀 - The 8 Mile Technique

Disarm marketing: The 8 Mile Technique and more...

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Disarm marketing

Today, we unpack three techniques used in, what I call, disarm marketing.

1. ⛔️Pre-disqualification

2. 🎤The 8 Mile Technique

3. ⚔️Falling On Your Sword

⛔️ Pre-disqualification

For those not already familiar with the Bucket List Family, they make dope content while traveling the world. They have 2.6 million Instagram followers and 1.3 million Youtube subscribers.

Before building a successful audience around his Bucket List Family, Garret founded a successful startup called Scan which was later sold to Snapchat for $54 million.

Since building a loyal fanbase they wanted to get investment for the Bucket List Studios, an entrepreneurial venture to expand their business through content creation, applications, and experiences.

Below is his investor pitch video to raise $7M.

Garret masterfully structures the pitch by starting with pre-disqualification. The title of the video is " 3 Reasons WHY You Should NOT Invest in The Bucket List Studios. The first part of the pitch is listing all the reasons investors should not invest in the project.

Four reasons to NOT invest:

1. Startups are risky - we don't want people investing who can't afford to lose their money

2. Family over business - we will always choose our family over business decisions

3. You can't rush greatness - unlike traditional startups which need to be quicker, faster, better, we believe the best things are slow cooked.

4. Money is not our goal - Our goal is to make the world a better place, if we make money then great, but it's not our primary goal

This has a powerful impact. Garret surfaces all the reasons that help is non-target audience disqualify themselves, but in doing so he also evangelizes his target audience even more.

Weakness has become strength and differentiation.

I've applied pre-disqualification countless times on sales demonstrations. I explain that we aren't the cheapest, so if you're looking for fast, quick, and cheap then we're not a good fit. But if you're looking for a well built product that get's the job done then we're for you.

Make it easier for the wrong audience to disqualify themselves and double down on your target audience.

It works and it's powerful.

"you may want to ignore this one"

🎤 The 8 Mile Technique

In Eminem's film, 8 mile, there is a famous rap scene between Eminem vs Papa Doc. Gives me chill each time I watch it. You can skip to 45 seconds in below 👇

Note these lyrics in particular:

"I know everything he's 'bout to say against me

I am white, I am a f*cking bum

I do live in a trailer with my mom

My boy Future is an Uncle Tom

I do got a dumb friend named Cheddar Bob

Who shoots himself in his leg with his own gun

I did get jumped by all six of you chumps

And Wink did f*ck my girl

I'm still standing here screaming, "F*ck the Free World!"

Don't ever try to judge me, dude

You don't know what the f*ck I've been through"

Eminem approach is spectacular. He proactively brings up all the disses his opponent could use against him. Your customers aren't opponents, but handling objections by proactively shining a light on them is extremely powerful.

The front page of Hey.com is a great example:

The most common objection for HEY. com is “Why should I pay for your product when gmail and outlook are free?” It’s a good point. So what do they do?

They spend the most valuable real estate on their pricing page to tackle the objection upfront. They call out the elephant in the room instead of leaving it to their client to answer for themselves.

Hey.com have successfully:

✅ answered the question everybody was secretly asking

✅ built trust since they’re not hiding anything

✅ educated the customer of a problem they didn’t know existed

How often do you use the 8 mile technique to call out the elephant in your room?

⚔️ Falling On Your Sword

Falling on your sword means taking responsibility when something goes wrong. Proactively seeking out opportunities to admit wrongdoing can feel counterintuitive, but it's incredibly effective.

Here's an example. Imagine you finished a demo with your prospect and they decide not to choose you. You send a follow up email:

• ❌ Don't say: "Hey Sandy, Thanks for the heads up. I'm not sure you understood our value proposition, we're actually twice as good as the vendor you chose and half the price."

• ✅ Do say: "Hey Sandy, Thanks for the heads up. I apologize, I probably did a terrible job explaining why customers choose to pay a premium, I spent a lot of time talking about features and not enough time explaining how they can impact your business."

The second option assumes responsibility. It was my fault I wasn't able to explain our value proposition, NOT the customer's fault for not understanding it.

When your customer feels like they are being attacked, or positioned as a wrong doer they become defensive. You don't want that. Falling on your sword gives you the opportunity to critique yourself. It's human nature to contradict someone when they critique themselves. "don't be so harsh on yourself, it's okay!"

People who take responsibility receive empathy.

🌯 Wrapping it up

Disarm marketing helps you build trust and increase influence. Today we share examples of three common techniques:

1. ⛔️Pre-disqualification

2. 🎤The 8 Mile Technique

3. ⚔️Falling On Your Sword

Next time your building a marketing campaign or closing a deal, ask yourself this:

Does your sales deck proactively call out objections?

Do your sales reps admit fault and seek understanding?

Do you make it clear who's not a good fit for your product?

P.S I changed the format slightly, did you notice?

I love feedback, and ask for it constantly. Other than my wife (who reads each newsletter before publishing) I also received feedback from some of you that a shorter newsletter would be more impactful.

This week is my first newsletter testing a shorter, more compact format.

So, what did you think? Was it better? Was it worse? Do you prefer it longer or shorter?

Shoot me a reply to this email and let me know your thoughts!

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