Are You Focusing on the Wrong Thing?

In this podcast, I talk with Dr. Flint McGlaughlin about marketing, which is something he knows quite a bit about. In fact, I’ve known about Flint and followed his work for over a decade now, so this was a treat for me.

In case you’re not familiar with him, Flint is an academic and business leader who served as the Director of Enterprise Research for Transforming Business at the University of Cambridge (UK) and is the founder of the MECLABS Institute, a marketing research institute dedicated to figuring out how people make choices and what influences those choices.

Not only has Flint written and edited hundreds of articles and texts and won multiple awards, but he’s patented ten offer conversion-related heuristics, conducted large-scale research projects in partnership with companies like The New York Times, Google, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Royal Bank of Canada, and has lectured at conferences and universities around the world, including New York University, Columbia University, Oxford University. He has also delivered keynote addresses for companies such as Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft, and Google.

To put it mildly, this guy knows his stuff, and as you’ll hear in the interview, he’s also an extremely interesting guy. In our conversation, he talks about . . .

• The concept of "metanoia" or changing one's mind
• Individuation and becoming who you really are
• How marketing is the essence of entrepreneurship
• Why the skill of marketing should be your priority if you want to go into business
• The blinding power of self-interest
• And a lot more . . .

We also talk about his book, The Marketer as Philosopher, which condenses his findings from 25 years of investigating why people make certain choices and take action. I read the book before the interview, and I really enjoyed it. In fact, it was one of the more enlightening marketing books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read quite a few.

So if you’re interested in marketing or business, you definitely don’t want to miss this interview.

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Timestamps:

0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/

10:16 - Marketing and NFTs

13:02 - Instead of obsessing over doing the thing right, you have to do the right things

15:00 - Concept of individuation

18:41 - First principles approach

20:35 - What is a value proposition?

25:11 - Truth, beaty, and goodness are identical

26:09 - How do you spot “good”?

27:48 - What does “thriving” mean?

32:41 - How do you examine decision making and influence?

40:26 - What are the most destructive common entanglements?

53:45 - Your life is a message and you're the messenger

56:06 - People judge the person and whether they trust them in order to decide if they want the product

56:45 - What is the initial offering that creates trust?

1:00:04 - What is a brand?

1:02:29 - What do you mean by “individuation”?

1:17:34 - Why do you have to experience a conversion and be customer-centric to convince others in your marketing?

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Mentioned on the Show:

Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/

MECLABS Institute: https://meclabs.com/

The Marketer as Philosopher Book: https://map.flintmcglaughlin.com/

Flint’s free online marketing course: https://meclabs.com/course/