Episode #51 – David Dutton on How to Build A Powerful Network of Influencers

John: It’s John McIntyre here the Autoresponder Guy, I’m here with Dave Dutton a man who they say is the most connected man on the internet. That’s how a Drop Dead Copy or a McMethod subscriber said recently and the subscriber said that I just had to interview this guy so what we’re going to talk about today is how to connect with people via email marketing. Now he’s a formidable entrepreneur and he started by selling 150 space heaters out of a pickup truck in college. He’s worked with Kristi Frank from NBC’s The Apprentice and he’s done a bunch of interesting business stuff including after studying sales and marketing for a little while in college he brokered an $8 million deal from his college dorm room which sounds like a very interesting story.

Dave: It is.

John: Like I said today we’re going to talk about how to connect with big ass people, influencers, people who have clout in an industry and how to use email to get through to them and get them to listen to you, so we’ll get into that in just a moment. Dave how are you doing today?

Dave: Hey, wonderful man. I’m always looking forward to it. I mean any time, I’m a junkie, a marketing junkie and this is one of my favorite topics too so anytime I get to talk about it I’m always glad and it’s not work for me it’s a lot of fun so I appreciate you inviting me on the show.

John: Absolutely man, I’m the same. I get the feeling that you like doing interviews as well, you said you’d done 150 interviews?

Dave: Yeah, over 120 of them or almost 130 of them now and I’ve used those strategically to network with people and to learn a lot of stuff, build relationships with people and now I do it as a way to generate leads. I help my clients do interviews to position them as the expert and that’s worked very well so I kind of transition into another business with that so it’s been a lot of fun.

John: Okay, cool. In a minute we’ll talk about how to use email to network with these influencers and how you’ve done it and how you’ve become just a really, really connected guy on the internet. Before we do that tell the listener a bit about who are you and what do you do?

Dave: Sure, I’m 35 I live up just outside of Nashville Tennessee. I started making a living on the internet while I was in bible college, I was 20 … I always forget now, it’s like 22 or 23. Didn’t get rich overnight but Marlene Sanders affiliate program was my first commissions check for $47 and I was sold, I was like … because I don’t know where they came from, I don’t know what I sold, I don’t know who bought it but I woke up and there was commission and I was just like I’m done, this is awesome. Again I didn’t get rich overnight, I ate peanut butter, ramen noodles, I started other businesses like you mentioned in my intro about the … I’ve done, brokered $8 million deal.

We were buying and selling stuff from a local scratch and dent store and we bought 150 space heaters, these were heaters that … they’re just little small heaters. They retail for 25 bucks. We bought pallets of them, they were selling them and we’ve done a lot of stuff but I love my time. My time is my hot button. Money is awesome, I mean everybody loves money but time is my hot button so I gravitated towards the internet just because at least a digital footprint and you could put all the stuff out there. Just like this I mean you found me through one of your subscribers and I don’t even know how but somehow they tripped over my stuff and they liked it the stuff that I put out years and years ago and it still works and I love that because …

To fast forward I’ve written 3 books, I’ve published 2 in the past year, that’s a whole other topic, another discussion someday, book marketing because that’s done very, very well for me. I do, fast forward I still own probably about … on the internet and they pay the bills. Then I do consulting, I started a consulting business back in 2007 and so to where I will basically help people generate leads, position themselves as the expert through coaching or done for you. I actually will do it for them, it just depends on what people want.

I did a lot of local business now in the past year and a half. My 2 books that I published that are on Amazon they’re local books and I …

John: Okay.

Dave: It’s all about influence that’s what we’re talking about today and that’s what I’ve done.

John: Okay, tell me a bit about this, how you’ve become known. It sounds like there’s more than one person, sounds like there’s a bunch of people that know you as the most connected man on the internet. Tell me about that.

Dave: Yeah, so it’s fascinating. I was networked with people years ago because I made my first money brokering joint ventures back in the day and the internet was as congested as, it’s insane now but it used to not be as congested. I could just connect with people and I was just good at it. I mean it was something I could do and I was not a techie. I mean I didn’t know how to go to websites back in the day and that type of thing so it was hard for me but I got good at networking.

Well some of the people I would network with that were really, highly successful and known and all that stuff they were shocked by my networking ability and the fact that I’ve never flown on an airplane and I was networking with all these really cool people and I was like really? I couldn’t believe it because I looked up to them because I thought they were connected and they weren’t as connected as I thought. They were like you should really write that stuff down and I almost was embarrassed by it to be honest with you.

I was really kind of oh man, is this going to be like somebody is going to read this and I’m going to waste their time because I just thought everybody knew that stuff, I really did. I was embarrassed to actually write it. It’s called Get Connected and you can go to mostconnectedmarketer.com, shameless plug there but it’s free now. I’ve sold like 9000 copies of that but I give it away for free now, the Get Connected report. I started calling myself the most connected man on the internet and it just, it literally just came about from there. I mean my cell phone is filled with really big influencers and it has been and so I just started … then it kind of just progressed from there or whatever, it just got bigger and bigger.

John: Okay and so what part did email, you could call this marketing I guess but what part did email play in it?

Dave: Yes, so I have an email and the template is actually in my free report so I give it away completely for free, I still use it, it’s 2014 as we record this but I’ve been using the same email since 2006, the template of it. Obviously I change the contents but the template of it. I used, I started doing interviews with people back in 06 when I wrote my first book and I used a subject line called quick question. It’s still one of my big subject lines to this day because I think people understand that it’s quick and the curiosity factor, curiosity and anticipation they’re both extremely powerful triggers.

In this case I’m using curiosity of what is the question? With quick I feel like it might not waste my time so that’s what I used. Then I have just certain paragraphs that I write in the email to reach out to people, connect. Kind of, I mean very similar to what we were doing. I mean you reached out to me for an interview and that’s what I would do, that’s how I started connecting with people is doing these interviews. Then because I did more interviews and Joe Vitale was in it then Willie Crawford was in it in all kinds of really cool people in our industry. Jeff Walker, I have one of the first interviews ever on the internet of Jeff Walker back in 2006, the product launch guy.

John: Yeah.

Dave: It just snowballed from there. That’s when social proof took over but it all started with reaching out through email and just really figuring out what how to get their attention because the only thing you have to get their attention is your name and the subject line at first.

John: Right.

Dave: If you’re not famous, I mean nobody knew who I was back in the day and so just really the subject line. I had to get my subject line really, really good and I still to this day, you don’t want to slack but there’s some things that you can do or whatever that get their attention.

John: Okay, tell me about … we will talk about how to do it, how to make it work in a minute but tell me about some of the mistakes that you’ve seen because I’m sure you get emails from people who want to do stuff with you, maybe it’s a JV or it’s an interview or it’s a whatever and … I get these kinds of emails all the time but from your perspective what mistakes are people making when they try and contact influencers.

Dave: Definitely, this is a great topic. One of the things that they do is they don’t try to give first. I mean they try to just, whatever their thing is they’re trying to promote they start with that and they’re just all about trying to, you can make this amount of money and this is a proven thing and whatever. They’re just really trying to, they’re not giving first and reciprocity is a really powerful trigger as well and so you always want to kind of give first when you do that. It sounds like captain obvious but I can tell you I wouldn’t say it right now if it was that common, common sense is not that common.

People will approach just thinking about themselves first, I think that’s the big thing really. That’s the big one, I’d have to really think about other ones that are really significant but that’s what I see just quite a bit, they’re reaching out just thinking about themselves first and it’s like you want to position yourself where … A lot of times the people that are influencers then that means they’re really busy and so you want to basically make sure that you’re not wasting their time and that’s what they’re thinking when they read the email, is this dude going to waste my time.

John: Right.

Dave: You want to think about that, that’s what they’re thinking because successful people have very limited time, it’s usually their hot button so if you think about that before you hit send on that email what can I do to make it worth their time then it’ll save you some heartache.

John: Right, okay. I get a thing all the time when people email me and they, I mean Dane Maxwell pointed this out in an interview done a few months ago but people will email and they’ll write a few paragraphs, few big long scary paragraphs about their problem and then at the bottom there’s a question which is really the point of the email. The point of the email is in the very last sentence. Someone is going to open that email and read a few lines and by the time they get to the end of it they’re sick of it or they’ve archived it or deleted it already.

Dave: Yeah.

John: Dane’s suggestion and I think this is great is you can just delete most of what was in that email and just keep that one sentence or what you do is flip it around, I do this a lot and I’ll go and write someone an email if I’m contacting people and I’ll flush out my idea, it’s almost like I need to write the email to flush out the idea and then I finish up with the question. It’s like hang on let’s take the question up to the top.

Then it’s kind of like they read the question, they know what the email is about as soon as they open it, it takes them an instant and then if they want to read more, some of them want, some of them are I’m not interested they can delete the email you haven’t taken much of their time. If they are interested they’ll keep reading, the background will be there and …

Dave: Yeah absolutely. I think this is a really important thing that I think about all the time. When you write copy the goal of the headline is to get them to read the next paragraph. The goal of the first paragraph is to get them to read the second paragraph. Okay? Think about that so when you write an email to somebody whatever the goal is for lead in or whatever it’s to think about what’s the goal. A lot of times my goal would be to get them, not every time but a lot of times my goal is to actually get them off, the goal of the email is to get them off of the email onto the phone. That’s actually my goal.

If anything, every single piece of that email whether it’s a line or 5 paragraphs, whatever, every word, the goal is leading them to say yes to a 15 minute phone call or 10 or 15 minute phone call. I just did one the other day, there’s a huge, I don’t want to drop his name but he’s a crazy highly successful really connected guy in Washington DC, runs a big networking group and he’s got Gary Vaynerchuk as his guest in the next week or two, he’s a big guy and that’s what I did with him.

I had to follow up with him because he’s really busy, he was in the middle of writing a book but I followed up with him a couple of months later because he was busy, really busy at the time but we scheduled a 15 minute phone call and it ended up being probably 45 minutes or whatever because we connected and we hit it off and he realized I wasn’t going to waste his time and that type of thing and we both get value out of it. I just did that last Thursday I guess it was. I did exactly what we’re talking about but the goal of that email I said literally was hey can we talk for about 10 or 15 minutes on X?

John: It’s interesting when I found that you get someone on the phone for 10 or 15 minutes there’s a good chance you’re going to talk to them for another half an hour. It’s incredible.

Dave: Yeah, unless you’re … yeah, I mean that’s very rare unless you do something really weird or whatever. I mean there’s very few people I’ve ever not connected with or whatever but you just, yeah that’s how it works. It’s kind of commitment consistency and kind of the foot in the door technique and that’s really what it is.

John: Right and then there’s the follow up. We were talking just before this call or just before I hit the record button about some of the guests I’ve gotten on this podcast I’ve had emails saying how did you get that guest? They can’t believe it and there’s an element of social proof just by the fact that I’ve been able to get them for an interview. Sometimes people often think that there’s some advance maneuvering or you’ve got to get good hookups or anything like that but I literally had people that I’ve had to follow up with, I have a note in my calendar once a week I go through a tab in my Gmail inbox called podcast interviews and I just follow up with everyone that hasn’t replied yet about interviewing. Sometimes I followed up 10 times, 20 times before they finally book in an interview.

Dave: Good for you.

John: They’re not annoyed, they never get annoyed about it it’s just that they’re busy.

Dave: Absolutely, yeah. See that killer, that’s a little thing but I think that’s going to separate you from everybody else if it hasn’t already just because, I mean obviously I guess it has because people are shocked at some of the people you got on your show so it’s working and most people they just won’t do that. I mean I’ve dropped the ball myself before but some people if you’re trying to get a Seth Godin or something like that, some really huge name I mean you’re going to have to follow up. I mean they really are legitimately busy.

John: Yeah it’s funny and some people take it personally, they’re too worried to piss someone off but I think you kind of have to bring out the body armor sometimes and not worry about that stuff. Be willing to piss the assistant off.

Dave: Yeah, well I’m going to tell everybody listening the reason why we’re doing an interview right now is because you had the character to actually follow up. You sent me this email, I don’t even think I responded, I can’t even remember if I responded to the first one or whatever. I had every intention of responding, I was like of course yeah absolutely I’ll do it. I love the topic, I’m glad to help and all that stuff and but it was just like the timing. I stopped, I’ve been testing something as part of my productivity I deleted my email app off of my phone. I’m not even checking emails as much anymore.

I mean I’ve never done that, I’m just testing certain things to kind of wean myself off of, so I don’t even check email as much like I used to or whatever, just at the end of the day or whatever. Anyway but you followed up with me I’m like yes, thank you, yeah absolutely. It literally had nothing to do with you, it had everything to do with just what I had going on and it got crushed in my inbox and that was it so follow up guys if you want to land some good interviews.

John: Absolutely, I mean it’s … I think with a topic like this, this is kind of related to autoresponders, it’s more like manual autoresponders or manual email marketing when you’re trying to market yourself to big people and there’s really no secret to it. It’s as simple as you have a subject line like your strange question or quick question, something like that that just gets them to open the email like what’s this. Because no one can … everyone likes checking their email inbox, it’s so addictive because every time you go in there and there’s a new email you get a shot of dopamine and that feels good in the brain right? You’re feeding someone drugs when you send them an email but you can’t be boring.

Dave: You’re right, yeah. Absolutely you can’t be and you usually only get one shot that’s the thing, I mean if you’re going to, like that whole kind of BS meter is running or whatever when somebody is like you know what no, this person is not in the game or he’s not going to add value or whatever. Sometimes you might not get a reply.

John: Another thing too I find sometimes people email me and the email is written and it’s about a favor for them, they need help with something, they need coaching, they need advice, they need something. Whereas I know what I’ve been doing is I make a point to not talk about what I want, I’ll say I want an interview but then it’s all framed about what the interview is going to do for you. Here’s what you’ll get out of it, here’s how it’s not going to cost you much all you got to do is show up on Skype. This is what people have to do, when they want something from someone else they should never mention that it’s a favor because it’ll never be a favor. The only way to get that other person to do what they want them to do is to give them whatever they want which is PR or whatever.

Dave: Yeah and more exposure, stuff like this, yeah. Just so you know the biggest thing is try to give first. I mean if you will come in like that and just think about what you’re doing is adding value to the person and do you feel like they’ll find value out of it. Just if you focus on that I think everything takes care of itself even if you’re a newbie and you’ve never done this stuff before it takes time. I mean my second interview was Joe Vitale. This is like when he was big with the Secret and all that when he was making his rounds and stuff. That was my second interview of my life. I mean I still remember doing the interview and that was 2006 or whatever and I still remember like it was yesterday because I was so nervous. I landed him and then it just, it snowballed from there.

John: Okay. I’m curious man, where are all these interviews. You keep mentioning these interviews done, where can people go and get these interviews if they want to listen?

Dave: Yeah, I’ve got internet empires inner circle. I’ve actually taken them down now but if somebody emails me, I mean I’ve got insane interviews, people that are famous and then other people that are not well known but they got really cool stories like a guy making 100 grand a year selling juggling supplies online and different things like that. If somebody wants to email me then I think then I’ll send you the file or whatever of the interview and stuff, they’re really fascinating.

I took the interviews, I transcribed them and that was my first book. Actually my first book is hanging on my wall right here called Internet Empires and it’s just stories of people making a living on the internet but we do all kinds of different interviews for different things, podcasts and that type of thing.

John: Okay, so we’re right on time then. Where can people go to learn more about you or what email address, what’s your email address basically?

Dave: Yeah, sure, david@mostconnectedmarketer.com, david@mostconnectedmarketer.com and you can go to mostconnectedmarketer.com and start there since we’re talking about email and connecting with people. That’s, we were talking offline or whatever that’s probably some of my best stuff I think and also I have a course set, up sell course going, I think it’s 17 bucks I think I sell it for now but specific strategies from … I mailed a little red ball to David Frye from sendaball.com to David Frye and he’s a huge, huge, marketer whatever.

That landed Ron Lee as a client, he’s a big internet marketer, multimillionaire, the world’s strongest man and I talk about very specific strategies of how I’ve actually connected with people strategically. It’s all strategic for me and it works really well but I give a lot of free stuff away and I’m glad to help if somebody is interested in this topic and I can point them in the right direction.

John: Fantastic, I’ll have links to mostconnectedmarketer.com, that was it right?

Dave: Yeah.

John: In the show notes at theMcMethod.com and yeah. This is the McMethod Email Marketing podcast. Thanks for coming on the show Dave.

Dave: Thanks for having me, I enjoyed it.