SPI 847: The 2025 Product Launch Formula with Jeff and Dan Walker

SPI 847: The 2025 Product Launch Formula with Jeff and Dan Walker

Jeff Walker: Every niche has got lots of competition. Didn’t used to be that way five years ago. So there’s so much competition and now with AI and the people’s ability to create passable sales copy with AI, competition has just gotten that much harder.

The thing that’s working right now that feels like it will continue to work is to go deeper with fewer people, build deeper connections and be able to, you know, understand who your avatar is, who your persona is, who you’re trying to reach and how you’re going to change their lives. And then just going deeper and deeper with those folks.

Pat Flynn: Today, I have a legend on the podcast, but not only do I have a legend, but I have his son who works with this legend as well, and is becoming legendary in his own right in the company that he is in. I’m speaking about none other than Jeff Walker. And if you’ve heard that name before but maybe can’t quite put a pin on exactly who that is This is the founder of the Product Launch Formula or PLF. And Jeff and his son Dan are on and it was actually a super fun episode to record because Jeff and Dan both have never done an interview together so I was able to ask some questions about what that was like and a little bit of history behind how Jeff taught Dan to be an amazing copywriter at a young age and things like that.

But if you don’t know what the product launch formula is, you’re going to get very familiar with this, but it is for over two decades become kind of a framework or a system by which people have had massive launches, a formula for launching a product. And we’ve adopted a little bit of that here at SPI, but in it’s changed, it’s, you know, adapted to the times it’s, it’s gone through several different iterations and it continues to iterate on itself through the to stay up with the times and the way consumers behave, and that’s what’s so fascinating.

It didn’t even start out on purpose as the product launch formula. So we’re going to get, in fact, into the origin story of how this came to be. And it goes way, way back. I mean, we’re talking like, 1990s And Jeff spills the beans and he gives us what’s working today. And I think especially for those of you who are launching products in 2025, this will be the episode that you’re going to want to listen to so that you understand what’s working today in launching a product building trust and authority with an audience. And a little bit of behind the scenes on how jeff and his family work together and run their business. So here he is Jeff Walker and his son Dan from Product Launch Formula.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, his only winning year playing fantasy football, was the year he picked on auto draft, Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Jeff and Dan, both welcome to SPI. Thanks for joining me today.

Dan Walker: Thank you, Pat. Hey, great to be here.

Pat Flynn: I’m so excited to dive into the father son relationship and business together and what that’s like.

I have a son who’s growing up and I’m just so curious about what that’s like and what the pros and maybe even some of the cons of that might be. But Jeff, I want to start with you because most people in the audience, if they’ve ever been in marketing for a while, they’ve probably heard of the term PLF for product launch formula and you are the person who created that.

You started that whole thing. Can you go back in time and tell us where the PLF product launch formula came from? And then we’ll go from there.

Jeff Walker: So way back in the mid 90s, 1996, I was actually a stay at home dad, desperate to try to figure out some way to make some money. Online seemed like a cool thing, started publishing about the stock market, something I had some expertise in, eventually had this thought that someone might pay me for something.

And I put together in early 1997, what is now really the first launch of a sequence that brought people into this offer that I was going to make. And the reason I did that put together the sequence was because I was scared to ask for the order. I had no marketing or sales experience and I was uncomfortable with selling.

And. Amazingly enough, that first launch worked. I made $1,650, which was mind blowing to me. I, I was shocked that someone would actually pay me for something that I created. And then I just kept on doing that over and over. I had this thought that if I did this once, I could do it again and I could do it again.

I might get better at it. And that’s what happened. And eventually those launches grew into five figures and then six figures. And then in the early 2000s, I got out to a few marketing events and realized no one else was doing this putting together these sequences, these launch sequences. And so in 2005, I had a shift in my business and I decided to start teaching marketing and that was product launch formula was teaching people how to launch their courses or their memberships or their coaching programs.

And, and I, since 2005, I’ve just been working on making it better and better. And it’s gotten crazy. You know, that first launch, $1,650 was the most important launch I’ve ever done. But I’ve now done, I don’t know, something like 20 or 21 consecutive seven figure launches. And the biggest number is, you know, my students have done over a billion dollars in sales.

It’s been a crazy ride.

Pat Flynn: Absolutely insane. Why do you feel a sequence works better than just here you go, this is the sales page, which is probably how it was done when you first started. And, you know, I can imagine that the lead up to it and the relationship you’re building helps, but why does it really work?

Jeff Walker: I think for most of us, if we have digital products, we’re teaching, we’re training, we’re bringing someone else to a new vision of who they’re going to become. And to do that, you first have to convince them that this change is possible, that they can learn a foreign language, or they can have a meditation practice.

So that’s the first step is for them to see it’s possible. But the tougher step is to get them to believe that it’s possible and take on that vision of who they can become. And that’s tough to do in a single piece of marketing. Oh, by the way, it’s hard to get anyone to pay attention to any single piece of content, period, because it’s so noisy out there.

So I think the sequence just, it’s the winning formula. It has been for a long time, and I think ever more so now. If you look at, you know, Apple, how did, they don’t just, one day the phone doesn’t, just doesn’t appear on the website. Or movies, it doesn’t just one day all of a sudden there’s a movie available, they build up to it with a sequence.

Pat Flynn: Your dad was doing all this stuff and like, what, what were you doing? Were you interested in this at all or what was going on in your life at that time? I know you were probably in at least 97, a young kid, but what were your interests then? And how did you first kind of start to gain that interest in what he was doing?

Dan Walker: Yeah. So, you know, that first business back in 97, yeah, I would have been pretty young. And still fairly, I mean, 2005. So I was, you know, middle of high school at that point in time. So I knew what was going on. I think for me, It was copy and copywriting, I think is probably the thing that I most got interested in.

That was always something that I found myself had a bit of a knack for in, you know, in high school and going into college was writing, you know, and sort of writing assignments, you know, English classes are always the ones that I, you know, was more looking forward to and happy to be doing. And if we had something was writing an assignment or, you know, writing something, I didn’t really feel like I had to prepare a lot for it.

I could just sit down and write. And I liked that. And I just thought there was something really cool about, you know, me being. I mean, you know, fairly introverted kid in high school. I, it was just kind of cool that you could reach all these people from behind the computer screen that you could kind of compose yourself and come across the way that you really wanted to, which for me, you know, being someone who was a little more shy in that, that period of my life, at least I thought that was really cool.

I thought that was really appealing, you know, sending out an email broadcast and then seeing people respond and seeing excitement build from that, just seemed really cool.

Pat Flynn: What an amazing gift to have kind of learned about that kind of stuff at your age. That’s amazing. I’m curious, how did you further learn about copy?

So you got interested in it. Was there anything you did or did you get any training or what did you do to just get better at that at a pretty young age, in fact.

Dan Walker: Yes, there’s definitely some credit goes to my dad. So Jeff was, he would give me kind of extra credit assignments and you want to call it like almost like chores, you know, but pay me, you know, some, some small amount, like 50 bucks or something like that.

If I went through a full copywriting course, or if I read, you know, a legendary copywriting book, like, you know, like scientific advertising, or I remember being in college, I was probably a sophomore.. So there was some of that when I was in high school, you know, it’s kind of like, Hey, you know, I’ll give you 50 bucks because of this is, you know, go through this whole copy course.

I’m like, okay, yeah, that sounds cool. And then once I started to get a little bit older, I was in college. I remember kind of reaching out and saying like, Hey, I’d like to continue this. I’d like to learn a little bit more about this. And so I remember, one very distinct memory is Jeff saying, like, okay, well, this is a guy, Gary Halbert, so if you don’t know Gary Halbert, the legendary direct response copywriter, and his pretty much, I think the majority of his life’s work, at least the stuff that he did for himself, like he didn’t write for other clients is online and I believe it, I haven’t checked it for a while, but I believe it is still online. Gary Halbert letters. These are letters that he would write to his followers. And so basically what I would do is I think, I think it was every day. I think, is that, is that right? I think, I think every day I would basically read one of these Gary Halbert letters.

And then I would write Jeff just a short little email that was like, Hey, I read this letter. Yeah. And this is what he did. And this is what, what I thought about it. And sometimes they’re more in depth and sometimes they weren’t. But it’d be, I guess it’d be mostly pulling out the hook. You know, I’d be saying like, hey, here’s, here’s what he did in this.

And then just get feedback. You have to just give me feedback on that. I don’t think I was getting paid for that at that point. But, but it was fun.

Pat Flynn: That’s amazing. Jeff, how intentional were you about like, okay, I’m going to train my son on copywriting, or was this something that just kind of slowly built and you kept adding on?

I’d love to get your insight as a father on kind of your thought process there.

Jeff Walker: Yeah, it was super intentional. And this is actually Dan and I were just talking about this. Our stories diverge a tiny bit since this was a long time ago. This is 20 years ago now. But my version of the stories I said. Hey, Dan, if you love this process where I’ll give you a book or a course and you go through it and then you create a mind map of your learnings and then we’ll have basically an interview, it’ll be like an audio report where we’ll, we’ll talk about it and then I’ll give you 50 bucks.

And my thinking then was, you know, video games cost about 40 or 45 bucks. So. Dan really liked video games. So I was super intentional. We, Dan mentioned scientific advertising. That was what we started with. And that was one of the seminal pieces on copywriting, in my opinion, by Claude Hopkins. And then we went to, what was it?

The psychology, the book by Cialdini. And we went through a series of books and I was super, super intentional on that. And then I think once we got like to the Gary Halbert letter, I think that was more, Dan was just into it and we were just bouncing back and forth. But I also gave Dan an assignment, like during one of our launches and our, you know, our launches are the ones we do for ourselves are big time.

There’s a lot of moving parts. And I was like, Hey, why don’t you take a shot at this copy? And the copy we gave her that Dan did was specifically a copy for our joint venture partners and getting them stoked to promote for us. So I said, why don’t you take a shot at this? Yeah. So I, it was just one of those, I’m like, if I can teach him this skill, he’ll never want for anything.

He’ll always be able to make a living.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, that’s incredible. That’s, I mean, I’m, I’m inspired. I, I once paid my son at the age of 11. I paid him 50 bucks for learning how to solve a Rubik’s cube. It wasn’t quite necessarily a skill that necessarily will, you know, take him into the rest of his life, but it was something that motivated him and got him to learn how to figure something out.

And I feel like that’s an important skill too. So maybe I’ll take that Rubik’s cube and, you know, turn it into something more like this. And I got those Gary Halbert letters and some of the other names there. So I appreciate you both for, for talking about that. Jeff, related back to the product launch formula, PLF, at what point did you coin that term?

Because you didn’t in your 97 launch go, okay, I’m going to create something called the product launch formula. You just called it a sequence. But at what point did this materialize and how did you turn it into a repeatable framework for others to learn from?

Jeff Walker: That’s a great question. And there’s a few different pieces to it.

So right. I didn’t think of it as a launch. I didn’t call it a launch. And then I think in around 2003, I started going to some marketing seminars and I was like, wow, I, I really like these people I’m meeting. I love this, you know, I’ve been doing this marketing, but I hadn’t been part of sort of the ecosystem of online marketing.

So I got to meet a few folks and then started tell ’em about what I’ve been doing. And at that point, I’d just done my first six figure launch, I think was in 2000. Yeah, in 2000. So I’d just done that. I told a few people about it that I met, you know, some of the people I met at this event. I’ve become legendary, you know, Frank Kern, Ryan Dice, Ryan Dice was in college back then when we first met and somewhere in there, I think I started calling a launch, but then I helped John Reese was the first person to do a million dollar launch.

He did a million dollars in a single day. And this is, I think, in 03. Or so, and that, that, that idea of doing that kind of revenue was just mind boggling. It was just inconceivable, but I helped him do that. I was in the background and I showed him how to do this. And he was the one, him and Yannick Silver, these are names most people probably don’t know.

Pat Flynn: Oh my gosh. Yannick Silver. Yeah.

Jeff Walker: They’re from the blast from the past, but John and Yannick said, Hey, if you Create a course on this. We’d love to tell people about it. We’d love to be your partners and promote it. And I was like, okay, if you guys want to do this, then I’ll create this thing. And John Reese said, and you should call it product launch formula.

And I was like, okay, John, you, you know, everything. You’re the one that just did a million dollar launch. Sure. And I went and registered the domain and never looked back.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. You have a book now called Launch. That’s done really well. It’s gone through a couple of iterations, which is wonderful. And that.

I’m imagining has helped you get PLF in front of more mainstream audiences. And I remember when I first started an online business in 08, that was the time when Yannick Silver and Ryan Dice and Perry Belcher and all those guys were sharing stuff. I got into that quite a bit and did a lot of research.

Moonlighting on the internet was one of Yannick’s books that introduced me to sales pages and copywriting there. It was just this whole underground world. It felt like, and then now you’re able to share it with people like those who are listening to the podcast right now, which is great. So before we move on, I want to get to Dan and kind of what it’s like to work with your dad and kind of the dynamics of that.

But Jeff, where can people go to best to learn about the Product Launch Formula today?

Jeff Walker: I think productlaunchformula.com is, we’ve always got tons of free resources there, and that’d be the great place to start.

Pat Flynn: Thank you for that, Jeff. Dan, so the copywriting was just sort of a thing that your dad was helping you with training and then you started doing some launches for them.

When did you really start understanding the idea behind like the PLF or the product launch formula? What age were you at? And then how did you dive even deeper into it so much so that you are both now officially working together?

Dan Walker: Yeah, it’s been an interesting journey. So I would say in 2011, so in 2011, so I was in college, I was, I think I just turned 21, and I think basically what was it, we were going to be filming or Jeff was going to be filming PLF 4, PLF 4.0 back in the days when they used to have a, you know, a number in addition on that, you know, we’d be up to like PLF like 13 or something now, and I think it was the first one that was going to be like all video.

And so basically I just get a call. I’m actually, I think I’m driving home from college. I was going to school. I think I was going to school out in Nevada at the time, driving back to Colorado for like summer and get a call. I remember I was in a subway. I don’t remember. Yeah. I don’t remember why I remember that, but I’m in a subway just like, Hey, I want to.

Refilm. I want to film a live version of product launch formula. And I was wondering, Hey, do you want to learn how to work a video camera and learn how to set up a video studio, be my videographer for this? And I was like.

Pat Flynn: Oh, wow.

Dan Walker: Hey, sure. That sounds fun. I distinctly remember having the thought of like, yeah, it seems better than working in subway because you know, I was going to need a summer job.

And so I was like, all right, cool. So he, he signed me up for the great late Andy Jenkins video boss.

Pat Flynn: Andy Jenkins. Yes.

Dan Walker: Do you know? Yeah. Yeah. Andy Jenkins. What a guy. Signed me up for his course video boss and was like, go through this course. And we rented a house kind of, you know, in a quiet area. And it’s like, Hey, we’re going to turn the garage into like a video studio.

So order all this gear. And so I was like, cool. And to be honest, I didn’t take it like super seriously. Cause I was like 21 and calm. When I was like 10. fun with my friends. And I was kind of like being a little lackadaisical. I remember he’s like, Hey, when are we going to get started? And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t actually know that.

He basically fired me basically like, all right, you’re not taking it serious. So like, no, you’re not. I was like, okay, like time to grow up. So I come back the next day. I was like, Hey. All right, give me another shot. Give me another try. I’ll do, I’ll do good. So it’s like, okay, all right. And I did. Went through the course, learned how to film videos, set up.

I remember I grabbed a couple of my best friends and said, Hey, I’ll give you 50 bucks. Like, let’s, you know, help me set up this video studio. Cause this is a lot of gear. So we went, we set up studio, we filmed course, I learned how to edit, made a whole lot of mistakes. And I found myself getting really interested in videography and photography.

I found that really interesting. And so I actually started working in the business from that point of view. I was the videographer. I was taking what I had learned with copywriting and was helping working with the video script and was kind of how to learning how to tell a story. And then the thing was, though, back then it wasn’t like we were putting out YouTube videos all the time.

It wasn’t really such a thing back then, you know, you’d film like really high production stuff. And then the rest of the year, there wasn’t that much to do. So I had these new skills. So I started freelancing and I built a business as I’m doing video production and doing video production In this kind of world, video production for entrepreneurs, creating launch videos, flying around, creating case study videos, creating story driven videos on like book launch videos, like kind of real high production videos where it was, you know, I’d always say it was, it’s easy because I’ll charge more, I’ll charge on the high end of the market.

And then people will be happy to pay for it. So I’ll make them more money than they spend. That’s how I describe it to my friends. And I built a career doing that. And I really feel that that really helped me nail my marketing and copywriting skills down in just a very, very strong way. And so then coming into, so I was doing that basically up until 2020, 2020, a whole lot of video shoots all got canceled.

I transitioned a little bit. I had my own video coaching course, teaching entrepreneurs how to do this. And then at some point when I was kind of ramping up and starting to take more, going to be starting to take more clients, it was right about the time that Jeff, the whole team was kind of getting restructured a little bit.

And actually the current COO reached out and was like, Hey, do you want to move into more of a full time role here. Cause at the time I was still just kind of contract part time moving to a full time role here as a marketing lead. And be doing that for us. That conversation Jeff about it and said, yeah, that sounds great.

Pat Flynn: That’s cool.

Dan Walker: Yeah. Came, came back and been full time there since I think about 2020.

Pat Flynn: Jeff, what was the conversation like with you and your team related to Dan’s hire and that role and that position of market lead?

Jeff Walker: You know, I’ve always been impressed with Dan. You know, we work together closely. Even though Dan was going building this, every time we did a launch, we were intensely involved getting the videos done.

And Dan was not just a videographer, he was my director and producer. So we would be going deep into the story and the launches are very story driven. And so we worked intensely together for years, even though Dan was more of like contract part time. So when our COO came to me, I was like, that sounds amazing.

And frankly, Pat, like one of the things I’m cognizant of both of my kids that, and they’re both involved, my, my daughter Joan involved, very involved in the business as well. And I don’t want it to be a case of nepotism. I want them to earn their way. And they will, they want to earn their way. One of the things I love most about my kids is they’re both very driven to build their own lives.

And so when my COO Jen came to me and said, I think he’s fit for this role, and I think he should take on this role. I was like, hell yeah, that sounds awesome.

Pat Flynn: That’s great. How about Joan? What is her role in the business?

Jeff Walker: She’s sort of the concierge and our, our chief cat wrangler for our mastermind group, which is a huge role because they’re not easy to manage.

And she’s very much in the room helping me run those events. And also she really does, she’s really in charge of process and process improvement within our company. I know that sounds super like corporate sounding, but the reality is, is we’ve got to big team now. And so we have to have a lot of process and she’s really good at creating this process and organizing it.

And also she was another one of them where my COO came to me and said, she’s just a superstar at this. We need to bring her on full time into this.

Pat Flynn: That’s great. So the whole family’s on, on it now, which is.

Jeff Walker: Literally the whole family. My wife’s got a big role as well. My brother’s got a big role too.

Pat Flynn: That’s really cool.

I’m curious about the dynamics of because it’s family working together, what is that like? I’d love to hear Dan, maybe your perspective first on, I mean, as a videographer, I know that there’s a lot of creative things that go into that. And a lot of times the creative person doesn’t necessarily always align with the person who’s, who’s more about process.

So give me some insight on what it’s like to kind of work. Has there been any disagreements and how does One, solve that when it’s your family member.

Dan Walker: Yeah, I mean, are there disagreements? Like, yeah, of course, because we’re working on big creative projects, right? And I, and I would say I wouldn’t necessarily call Jeff the process oriented one.

You know, I would say it’s very far on the creative side as well. Although there’s really three of us on the teams that are super heavily involved with like the creation of say a launcher campaign, but coming up with a strategy. So it’s myself, it’s Jeff, and then Justin Livingston on our team as well.

And Justin likes to say that, you know, he’s the super science approach. I’m the super like kind of creative approach. And then Jeff is kind of the perfect mix of the two. But I think that’s part of why it works. You know, we come at it with different points of view. I think honestly, I don’t really see there being much in the way of like family dynamics, family conflict type stuff coming up.

Certainly not within that group when we’re working together. I think we’re all friends in addition to all of our other relationships. I think having three people working on it is a really good number. You know, it’s a good number of brains to be able to come up with ideas. And there’s a lot, it’s a great one because you have tiebreaker folks.

And you know, at the end of the day, it’s just business. And he can occasionally just, you know, He has the right to just say, this is what we’re doing, but I’ll say he almost never actually does that, you know, usually it’s a discussion and it’s, you know, someone has an opinion, someone else has an opinion and we have debates, you know, and we will go through and we’ll go back and forth.

And sometimes, you know, one side gets convinced and sometimes it’s you know Hey, let’s, let’s just try it this way. Or sometimes we end up meeting in the middle, you know, I think there’s a real advantage in the way that I can really nail Jeff’s voice when it comes to copy. Whereas I can, you know, write scripts, I can write emails.

I can write a lot of things where, yeah, I think partly that comes from him being my dad. I think partly it comes from the fact that, I mean, we just work together on scripting things for whatever 14 years now almost, you know, so I’ve been around for a really long time. It’s all that but I don’t know. I think we really try to keep it super professional, too You’ll notice here like I call him Jeff if we’re hanging out and we go skiing or something like i’ll call him dad But if we’re at work, i’ll call him Jeff You know, it just makes more sense to me And then I think there’s just parts about just being super aware like when it comes to the team, you know that You I have a level of access to Jeff that other people might not.

And I have a level of access in two ways. One, in that I’m kind of the head of the marketing efforts on the team and I’m on a senior leadership team. So just from those positions, I work closer with Jeff and just about everyone on the team. And then there’s also the dynamic of that. Yeah, I have a little extra license to just give them a call, you know, but so for me, a lot of it is just awareness of that, you know, still follow the normal protocols, procedures, you know, processes for stuff and try to just consider like, Hey, in this concept, if I was not related, would I still be handling this in the same way? And if the answer is no, then there’s a question there, you know, is that the right approach?

Pat Flynn: Nice dad. I mean, Jeff, would you sorry, would you agree with that?

Jeff Walker: I would, yeah, absolutely agree. So I think this is an interesting question. And first of all, I think primarily because my wife is an awesome mom, we’ve raised two kids that are really, easy to get along with and aware. So I think that helps.

So I think Joan and Dan are two of the people in the team that I work with the most, that I have the most interaction with. And, and it’s fantastic for me. You know, I’m, we, I get along with both of them really well and they both, I think they feel free expressing themselves and their opinions to me, so I think it’s great working with them.

I love that they’ve earned their way into this team, and they continue to earn their way, and it would really suck if they were not great at their jobs. Then it would be awkward as all hell. Now, I will tell you that having family on your team, once your team grows up into a sizable team, and, you know, we’re probably about 35 people on the team right now, then it does add some cross currents, because all of a sudden, if their last name is Walker, then they have to be more aware.

Because they can’t just come in and give a random opinion about something. Because it just, no matter how much we don’t want it to be that way, it does carry some extra weight. And so like, if they just come into a random situation and just say, I’ve got this random opinion, it can, to someone else without that last name, it can feel like it’s got more weight.

So I think it’s incumbent on them that by de facto, they have a leadership position, and they have to be aware of that, that there’s almost like a power differential, and neither of them are power hungry or flexing their muscles or power muscles, but they have to be aware in how they express themselves, if that makes sense.

Pat Flynn: Completely. I appreciate it. And I admire this conversation a lot. I am. very much in admiration of you and people like Michael Hyatt, who work with their kids and integrate them into the business really, really well. I mean, it’s just so inspiring. And I imagine such a blessing for you as a father and your wife as well.

Does business come up at the dinner table? Like, is that something that injects itself in there when maybe it shouldn’t? I don’t know. Maybe it’s okay. But I’d love your thoughts, Jeff, on sort of that component of it, since it’s just like, It’s family and business and it mixes.

Jeff Walker: It doesn’t feel like it comes up at the dinner table too much.

And I just have to stop. I’ve got this woodpecker that’s banging on my house.

Pat Flynn: I hear it. And I wasn’t going to say anything about it and it’s okay. It’s okay.

Jeff Walker: I can go scare it away. They’re so obnoxious. It’s amazing.

Pat Flynn: The videographer says it’s obnoxious. So we should probably take care of it

Dan Walker: in the video studio.

Jeff Walker: It’s like, let me, this,

Pat Flynn: I’m going to keep this in by the way, because this is what makes it great. It’s just real life here. Dan, all your dad’s out just from your perspective as the son, like how cool is it to be working with your dad?

Dan Walker: It’s great. And it’s great because it does really keep a close connection.

But I think one of the really cool things about it too, and even what I was thinking, you know, when you’re asked to Jeff, the dinner table question is, I think at the end of the day, for folks, like, I think for both of us, at least, you know, marketing is also a passion and a hobby and copywriting is also a passion and a hobby.

And the business is not just a job, but it’s also a passion and a hobby in, in some sort of way, you know, it’s it’s a project that means a lot more than, you know, maybe just a job would, and so I think it does come up at times, you know, more on their table, but it’s less of a like, hey, you know, how do you do this thing or hey, whatever it’s, it’s more like a kind of a random idea, but this would be cool to do sometime or, you know, hey, did you see when so and so did that in their launch like.

That was cool. Like, to me, it would remind me of the way, like, if I was, you know, hanging out with some of my, like, you know, buddies I go mountain biking with, and you know, you’re talking about your lives and suddenly, like, Oh, did you see that sweet video that so and so put on? I’m like, yeah, you know, it’s just an interest.

And so it’s something that will come up in that way at times. And I think that’s one of the really cool things is it gives me, it’s a way that I do connect with my dad, and actually my sister now too. And in that sort of way, it’s not just in a work way, but it’s also a shared It’s just such a big part of our lives that we share together, and that’s cool.

That’s amazing.

Jeff Walker: I think we’re also pretty good about being aware when we don’t want to talk about business. Like yesterday, actually, Dan and I went skiing, which is amazing. It was October and we’re skiing. And at some point, Dan started talking work and he’s like, Oh, is it, is it, you know, do you mind talking work now?

And I’m like, no, let’s go for it. But you know, there’s sometimes where I brought started talking work with Dan. He’s like, yeah, you know, I need a break right now. So I think there’s, there’s an awareness too.

Pat Flynn: That’s amazing. Well, I appreciate you both being open about that. How this all goes down and I, I’m inspired and I’m in admiration of it for sure.

I’d love to, since I have both of you here and you’re both excellent at what you do, I’d love to kind of dive into your brains a little bit as far as marketing in general and where we are now and where things seem to be going. And Dan, I wanted to start with you. You’d mentioned and Jeff did too, the importance of story.

In the work that both of you do, Dan, if I were to get a two minute crash course from you on what makes the story great for an entrepreneur to tell, if you’re trying to convince them to or convince an audience to work with you or purchase something, what are the things you look for in a story? What is working in story for entrepreneurs today?

Dan Walker: Oh, interesting. I think, you know, the quote that came to my mind is, you know, enter the conversation that’s already going on in your prospect’s head. One of the biggest challenges is that there’s just so many channels of communication coming at everybody all the time. You know, there’s probably five different apps on your phone right now in which people are trying desperately to reach you and to talk to you and to get your attention.

And so I think that initial hook. is super, super important. And, you know, I see, I’ll see people starting things off and they’re talking about themselves or where they came from or something, or you know, they’re just saying like, you need to do this without a context or something behind it. And I think that’s just kind of noise these days. I think it always has been, but nowadays people just have a more aggressive filter for that kind of stuff. So I think really dialing down into like, what is the thing that keeps people up at night? And what is the thing, and that could be a problem they have. It could be an opportunity that they are searching for.

It could be an opportunity that they can see, but they don’t see that middle ground, you know, they see the, they see the, you know, the good place they want to get to, but they don’t see the bridge and how to get there. And, you know, a line that steal from Jeff here, you know, is like is if you can articulate your prospects problems better than they can, then you’re just going to seem like an absolute magician. You’re just going to seem like absolutely legendary to folks. And the thing is, if you’re further ahead on a journey than somebody, you know, if you’ve started a successful business, if you’ve grown your Instagram following successfully, you know, if you have a great thriving garden, then and you’re looking at the person who’s looking to achieve that success that you’ve had in that area, you can probably pick out their problems.

Pretty quickly, probably pick them out pretty easily. It’s probably pretty obvious to you what newbie mistakes that they’re making and probably what newbie mistakes they’re making that they just they don’t even know how to think about yet. They haven’t even thought of the right questions to ask. So if you can articulate that experience that they are having to them using the words that they would use to describe the frustration or the excitement that they’re feeling, and then offer them a way to move forward, then I think that’s how you, you set that hook. And if you can do that really early in your communication with people that I think you’ve earned yourself, you’ve earned yourself attention, you’ve earned your, you’ve earned their attention. I think that’s the most important thing right now.

Pat Flynn: I mean, that also leads to the importance of even before that, just. Knowing who you’re talking to or who it is that you’re targeting. And I think that’s a problem that we at SPI have had for a while is we’ve been trying to target everybody, right? The people who are just starting out to the advanced people, to people who want a podcast, to people who do want to do this other thing.

And it’s like, if a person. is getting mixed messages across things they don’t necessarily want, then they’re not going to believe that you have the solution that’s just for them. And right now things are so specialized in many areas where it’s so easy to find somebody who their expertise is literally the thing that you’re having problems with.

Well, why would they go anywhere else? So I appreciate that and do a hundred percent agree with you before I move on to Jeff, Dan, who are you going to for inspirational stories right now? Who, who is telling good stories in your eyes these days? Besides you guys, of course,

Dan Walker: That’s an interesting one, and it’s an interesting one, more so because I don’t feel like I’m trying to look outside quite as much for inspiration as I used to.

I feel like I used to, especially with video production, I feel like I used to really look outside and say, who’s doing something, who’s doing a style that I really like and who’s watching lots of videos, try and say, oh, I wanna take that, I wanna take that, you know, the, the a steal creatively to see something that I think is really cool.

And to grab that, the problem I feel like you can end up with, with that is that then you can end up not having kind of your own style as much. You can end up being a little too. Similar to everything else. So I actually feel at the moment I’m trying to do almost the opposite. I’m trying to pull back a little bit and trying to think about, okay, what would something look like if it was just not based on anything else that I’m seeing is I think that more, I don’t know, authenticity feels like real buzzwordy to say there, but it feels, it could feel a little more authentic. So I guess, I mean, maybe some of the folks I’m following the most that I like the most right now are copywriters actually, and some copywriters who tend to write in a very personal, very direct style.

There’s a guy called Schaefer. He sends an email every now and again, you don’t know when it’s coming. And it’s usually just a story. It’s not even usually selling something. He’s got a couple, you know, his courses and he’s got a, you know, copy agency that, you know, he’ll link in the email, but the main hook of it is there’s just a story, he’s just telling a story.

I tell you, when I get those emails, I don’t even open them. I wait until I have a quiet time when I can sit down with a coffee and, you know, really digest them. I love that. You know, another copywriter, Daniel Throstle. I love his stuff and stuff is just it’s just very direct. It’s not trying to incorporate, he does, he’s brilliant and incorporates all kinds of techniques and everything you think about, but it’s also kind of like, you know, Hey, I’m doing an affiliate.

I’m promoting for this guy. And I really want to win this affiliate contest. And so in order to win this affiliate contest, I’m going to make you an offer that is so good that you’re going to buy it and forget what you even bought just to get my bonuses. Cool. Are you ready? Let’s start. And then he’ll just like, it’s just very blatant, but he’s talking to people who write words to sell, right?

He’s talking, he’s a copywriter talking to copywriters. So there’s kind of that little bit of like, you laugh at it, you know, you’re like, cool. Yeah. Sell me, bro. Like, I want to see how you do this. Let’s have fun.

Pat Flynn: I love that. I appreciate the honest answer there. And words are so powerful. This is the power of copywriting.

And we’re in an interesting time now with AI and words automatically appearing when normally we’d have to think really hard about what to say. Jeff, what are your thoughts on the future and where AI is now with a person could hypothetically teach an AI tool to create one of these sales pages that back in the day would have crushed, but now everybody has a level of sales pages that are similar to that.

So what is going to be the difference between somebody who succeeds in a launch versus somebody who doesn’t, who might be trying to quick win their way into some of this stuff?

Jeff Walker: So the level of noise has just gone through the roof. The level of competition has gone through the roof and it’s not just AI.

It started with COVID and all of a sudden so many people realized they could have an online business. So, so many people started an online business. So every niche has got lots of competition. Didn’t used to be that way five years ago. So there’s so much competition and now with AI and the people’s ability to create passable sales copy with AI, competitions just gotten that much harder. Where it’s going, it’s hard to not, you know, the only thing I can imagine is going to get more and more crowded, more and more noisy.

I can’t imagine any other thing happening. Otherwise, it’s, it’s, it’s a little bit hard to predict when you have just exponential growth happening, which is what’s happening with AI. The thing that’s working right now that feels like it will continue to work is to go deeper with fewer people, like build deeper connections and be able to, you know, understand.

We’ve talked about that already here, understand who your avatar is, who your persona is, who you’re trying to reach and how you’re going to change their life. And then just going deeper and deeper with those folks. You know, we’re right now selling. We’re almost sold out. We’re putting together a really high end workshop, a very expensive workshop.

That’s with Dan and myself and Justin. We’re up a very small room. We’re going to be working with a few people to build their launches. And that has been an easier sale for us than selling at the lower end. And I’m not talking about the quantity of people coming in because it’s, it’s a very limited offer.

But in terms of the quantity of dollars, it feels easier to sell at the very high end because it’s a very, very relationship based. And, you know, right now that’s something that AI can’t do and isn’t doing. So I think, you know, the ability to build a longterm relationship with people, none of us are going to be able to outcompete AI in terms of the number of words we put out there, but at least at this point we can outcompete AI with how we make people feel.

And, you know, I think this is one of the things Dan articulated I took from him recently is like, in your launch or your marketing, you could put out endless amounts of free information, endless, more than anyone could ever, ever consume. These days, the first sale is getting people to consume, is earning the right for them to go deeper with you.

Like if you could just for free go opt in for a, for a graduate degree at Harvard, no one would actually actually go through the work to do the degree because they are not invested enough. Just putting an email address in or hitting a like or a follow, they’re not invested enough. So you have to get people invested.

First, there’s a process of getting them invested to consume your marketing. Your marketing gets them invested enough to actually Go through your course or your membership or your coaching or whatever to get the result.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. I mean, this is why we’re focused at SPI on building community and building those connections, those interactions that AI will never, ever allow for.

I was watching a video from Seth Godin the other day and he said the way to market these days is to consider the idea of like, what did he say? He said people Like us do things like this. So let’s find those like minded people and show them how to do things like everybody else in this community can do.

Cause we’ll have that understanding. Other people might not, but like you said, those niched groups of people, those communities are really what’s going to, I feel the businesses that thrive in the future. And of course, if you have a business and you’re launching it, you want to know how to launch it really well.

You’re going to need some sort of formula. So I recommend the product launch formula for that and productlaunchformula.com. Dan and Jeff, this has been an absolute. Pleasure and honor. And Jeff, I’ve been a big time, long time fan of your work for a very long time. It’s had an indirect impact on my work.

And now today, a very direct one through our relationship and our growing relationship. And Dan, it’s just been a pleasure to meet you. And I look forward to One day, hopefully meeting the rest of the family and the amazing team that you’ve built. So Dan and Jeff, thank you both so much. Jeff, one more time, where can people find your work and if they could connect with you in other ways, feel free to share.

Jeff Walker: Productlaunchformula.com is the easiest way. I’ve got all kinds of free resources or just go to Amazon. And my book is called launch. I think it’s in 16 languages was the number one New York times bestseller. So go get Launch.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. Or just JeffWalker.com to JeffWalker.com. There you go. Any, anywhere to connect with you specifically, Dan?

Dan Walker: You know, at the moment I would be the same answer, but starting to realize you probably have a little bit more front stage presence as well.

Pat Flynn: No, you’re, I like how you’re just keeping the blinders on, on the most important work that you’re doing now, like you said, and this is just another example of that.

So anyway, I appreciate you both. Thank you so much for today. And I’ll hopefully connect with you guys soon.

Alright, I hope you enjoyed that interview. That was such a fun, fun episode to record. I had a blast and they had a blast too. They sent me a message after saying that was super fun and it gives me inspiration, not just as a business owner and an entrepreneur, but as a father, as a family man, somebody who would love to one day work with his kids and family in this sort of way, maybe not necessarily in a Product Launch Formula fashion, but you know, who knows?

Maybe in the Pokemon space, wherever it’s just really inspiring. It’s very, Similar to how I feel about Michael Hyatt and his work with his kids and his family. So very much a lot of respect to you, Jeff. And Dan, my first time meeting you and hearing about you, and I just love what you’ve done and how you’re contributing to the company as well.

You’re a superstar as everybody in your family. So thank you, Jeff. Thank you to the Walkers.

And thank you for listening all the way through. I appreciate you for that. And I look forward to serving you in our final episode next week when we or I guess it’s second to final, but it’s our final Wednesday episode before 2025 and things start to take a different shape.

We are just like the product launch formula does adjusting to the times and looking to experiment and try new things to better serve you. And yes, there will still be guests on the show from time to time. However, it’ll likely, and a lot of you have been saying you’ve been enjoying the Friday episodes where I go lightly into something or I tell a quick story.

Well, I’m going to go deeper with you on our Wednesday episodes here. We’re going to get very specific with our topics and I’m going to hopefully speak to the things that you need help with and you’re working on right now. And when it makes sense, there’ll be a guest on related to that topic, but I’m here to serve you and I look forward to this journey with you and the next year.

So be sure to subscribe. Next week caleb and I are going to chat a bit about what’s coming in a little bit more detail and how that affects you and huge shout out to all the SPI community members. I see you. I appreciate you looking forward to the shift in our office hours as well next year and hosting that inside of Circle, which is just going to make the experience even better than it has been for the last seven years.

So thank you so much. Yes, I have been hosting office hours for seven years straight over four hundred hours of office hours there, which is awesome. And I’m going to continue for those who are members of the SPI community, smartpassiveincome.com/community. If you haven’t joined yet, now is the time and now’s the time for me to sign off, cheers, take care, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!