957: Storytelling and the Secret Sauce of Entrepreneurial Success: World-Class Marketing with Peter Tzemis

Robert Plank 0:04 Welcome back to the podcast we're here is Peter Zemeckis. And Peter is a successful entrepreneur. He has a unique professional journey, including he launched something called pub labs. He has a number one Amazon bestseller for the 77 laws have six pack abs. And Peter has authored seven books, he's consulted celebrities, and he helps companies scale so we're gonna get into all sorts of interesting journeys, ups and downs as far as Peters history so Peter, glad to be speaking with you,

Unknown Speaker 0:33 man. Thanks for having me.

Robert Plank 0:35 Glad to have you. And so what is on your mind these days? What's your your passion, your focus? What get you excited to get up in the morning lately?

Speaker 2 0:41 Yeah, you know, pup Labs has really been a focus, it's my dog treats company, we sell kind of the world's healthiest dog treats around the world right now. It's been scaling really well. Our stuff is so clean that humans can use it to the tastes delicious to they're like little peanut butter balls. So that's really been what's been my focus.

Robert Plank 1:00 Well, awesome. And you know, that concepts, it reminds me as a former computer programmer, there's a concept called eating your own dog food where they say like, you know, dog food, when you think about it like that nasty, canned stuff, the person wouldn't need it. But then if you had to eat your own dog food, you would go and improve it make it better until it's good enough for humans to eat. So that's kind of a fun, little like, elevator pitch unique selling proposition there of like, well, it's so good that even you humans eat. And so what do you think you do that makes you different, makes you unique and stand out. Because you always hear our people are just, you know, having all of these piles of problems are always so busy, I can't get a lot done. But then you have these like five companies you run, you have time to kind of think about the big picture appear on podcast. So what's your secret sauce?

Speaker 2 1:49 I think my secret sauce is just staying in my zone of genius and building the team that is needed to make up for all my inefficiencies. That's real, probably good word. That's probably the best thing you know, I'm very good at being creative, very good at innovating, very good at launching, you know, scaling, but a lot of the operations, a lot of the CFO stuff is not my forte. And so I like to bring in people and build world class teams and have world class people. With me, specifically people that I can trust one thing else, I do believe most skill sets can be taught. But finding real loyal people that you can trust. That is probably been the best thing that I've done is put together that kind of team all the time, the best trustworthy team, you can, it gives me a sense of confidence that I can focus on me, they can focus on them.

Robert Plank 2:42 I love that. And when I think about I interview a lot of entrepreneurs here, and you always think about what are the commonalities, right, what are the those recurring trends, and it seems like a recurring trend from the last couple of months or so is this idea of talking about that, instead of trying to strengthen your weaknesses, you strengthen your strengths. And it's kind of like counterintuitive to the employee mindset counterintuitive to school where they tell you like you have to take art class, take history class, and beef up all these skills, and then you end up feeling bad about yourself for those things that you don't enjoy, that you're not naturally good at. But then as an entrepreneur or business owner, team builder, you can say, Okay, I'll take that inventory and figure out what are those handful of things that I'm great at that I enjoy that makes sense as far as my time goes. And then the rest is just all these other tasks, all these responsibilities that other people can take over for me, once you get over all that that mindset that you know about, of just knowing that other people can do it better than you and do it faster, and all that sort of stuff. And then you're saying that as far as finding those people to do it, you're saying it's not necessarily a matter of do they know how to do it yet? Do they have the skills to do it yet? But do you trust them to figure it out until you if there's a problem? And so what are like sort of the the criteria for figuring out that trust, like how do you figure out if a person not on your team or they're adding to your team is trustworthy?

Speaker 2 4:08 Yeah, I mean, a lot of it comes down to character of the person or the ability to go the extra mile. What does their personal life look like? What are their relationships look like? You know, I spent a lot of time just meeting a lot of different people. And I kind of keep a little tabs on the people that I think could be good fits and over time and ask around. It's never just a one day hire have done those mistakes, both with employees and business partners and they never work out. You know, I tend to really ask around about that person. The other people too, that I'll employ is like I'm playing my brothers. And that's just like a family blown that you can't, they can't replicate that. So that's been really, really nice to have.

Robert Plank 4:52 Yeah, and uh, you know, people sometimes talk smack about nepotism. But the upside to that is that there are people that You've you've known for decades known your whole life. And so you can kind of read them better than a total stranger. And so you're saying that one of the things that you like to do is when you have this potential hire, you ask around about them, you take your time with it that way, you can see what their relationships are like what other people say about them. And you hear about them some some times when just in like interviewing in general, you guessed them, you know, are you trying to give someone a chance to talk bad about someone else? Right, talk bad about their former employer talk bad about if they failed at some previous project? Do they put the blame on other people? And there's just a lot to be said about that a lot to think about that just like how do they treat other people? Because that's kind of showing their true colors. And so you have these, these five companies, and you run all these different things? And so can you tell us about some of them, like, if you feel like unpacking, like pump labs or something else, just we want to hear about you and about your successes and about these companies that you've grown? So what do you have, as far as story wise? Oh,

Speaker 2 6:03 I mean, my first company that I grew and sold, I was still in university, that was an interesting one, because I started my internet marketing journey, way back in the day, probably 2013, in the first, like product book I ever wrote, actually made only $8 in the whole year. So that was, that was a humbling experience, parents weren't thrilled. If they wanted me to kind of push the envelope of school and become a doctor, you know, I have a biology degree. But you know, I push through that, and I kind of learned a lot of things and that it's not about how good the book is written. It's not about it's called the best selling book for a reason, right. And it's about the sales aspect about the marketing. And so you can have the best product best information in the world. But if you don't know how to sell it, if you don't know how to package it with little rainbow, and a little ribbon on top, no one is gonna buy your stuff. And then what's the point of having a great message, a great product if you can't sell it. And so that was probably one of the biggest lessons there was just understanding that you need world class products, but you also need world class marketing to move those ideas. Because without it, the products fail, unfortunately, and someone else in the market place with better marketing to you and crap your product is going to out did you get your customers and end up screwing people over in the long run?

Robert Plank 7:16 I agree that there's so there's so much of what you just said there in that it's, it's unethical for you to market yourself as best as you can. Because if you don't, then someone else who is inferior is going to do a better job at the messaging and the salesmanship. So it's really like your duty to be a good marketer of what you have. And you can have really good helpful information and really good step by step. But if it's boring, if it doesn't have those, those fun nuggets, if it doesn't have the conciseness and the entertainment, then it just it might be missing just a few of those ingredients to make it really stand out. So you did that first company, you had that first book. And then now you have the Puppet Labs company. And so what's happening with that lately, I know that we kind of got into a little bit about how like you're scaling and sometimes that involves some headaches, some obstacles, sometimes it involves looking to like sell the company. So what's been happening lately with pump labs,

Speaker 2 8:13 the EPA Labs has been going well we've just been on the product innovation side focused for the past little while, you know, we had our choose which have been doing great, but one of the problems was that is that there are a lot of choose out there in the marketplace. And yes, ours are unique. Yes, ours, you can eat them too. But we wanted to create more innovative products in the market to help serve the dogs but also capture the attention of new customers. Because no matter what if they see a chew, it's not as attention grabbing in marketing like boring is the last thing you want to be in any business. So we've been really deep diving into product formulations getting bets on board, new ways of new modalities of delivering the same benefits whether it's joint pain, bad breath, itching and scratching, and really deep diving into that and then building marketing or world class marketing around those unique products because they need products amplify the marketing to a whole new level and

Robert Plank 9:06 fun so I can imagine that a lot of this is like looking at your competition looking at benefits looking at trends and just kind of doing putting a lot of that deep thinking time into coming up with the sort of aha was and so in Puppet Labs and with your kind of SEO and marketing journeys has anything surprised you that you feel like talking about is there any any been like a total U turn total 180 As far as your path goes?

Speaker 2 9:32 Yeah, I mean even the dog brand for example, actually was scared of dogs and like afraid of them didn't want anything to do with them for probably 23 years. 24 years. Like crazy like would never step foot like a dog park would be super tech scared and timid with dogs. I'd never thought I'd have the dog space. But I am my own dog. This little golden doodle Zoey and we had her through COVID and she like changed my entire philosophy about dogs and who they are and what they deserve. And the connection that's with humans and also the, you know, you learn more about dog in the street, how corrupt it is. And that's kind of when I was like, alright, let's there's an opportunity here. But also there's like a little bit of a, somewhat of a mission, I feel compelled to kind of go in this space, kind of help improve it.

Robert Plank 10:19 And you hear every now and then you hear these sad stories, right about like the greyhound racing dogs have their mistreated or like, I think at some point, we will we all like at least walk past a house where someone had a mean dog that was behind a fence so that I can definitely see how there is just all over the place, all kinds of ugly dog shelters, you name it, there's all sorts of opportunities to turn the bad into a good and what changed your mind about dogs, like it's easy enough to say, Well, you got a dog and there was the bonding through COVID. But there's a still a gap there, right from being timid around dogs to like, being a dog owner. So what made you take the leap there,

Speaker 2 10:59 I think it was the realization that dogs will love you unconditionally, and for who you are right away. You know, I've found, at least in my life, there's been a lot of people that will like you love you on a condition that you perform that you are this person that you are XYZ. But with dogs, they kind of just love you for you. You know, and it was really, it was a pretty special moment, when I realized that I'm like us is what I mean, the world just needs more of this. And so when I help these kinds of these very animals really spread the message, and they should not be mistreated at all. They're the purest form of honesty and happiness.

Robert Plank 11:37 That's great. And that's been something that's thought it only clicked for me maybe three or five years ago that when you have that friendship, relationship, business connection, and then years pass in one day, they just are gone, or they they're just not interested in you anymore. And you're like, Well, why is that and then you think, Oh, maybe I only served a purpose. And once my purpose was gone, then the relationship was gone as well. And then when you think when you come home and that the dog is so happy to see you no matter what. That's a good feeling and a good just energy to tap into in general. And so we definitely want to make sure that we tell people about what you have going on and how they can find out more about you. So if someone who's listening to the podcast says, I liked Peters Aha, I like what Peter has going on. And I want to find out more about him. How can someone jump into pump labs? Find out about your book and your website? What are the URLs calls to action?

Speaker 2 12:34 Yeah, you know, you can visit my blog, beat your control.com It's my marketing blog, business entrepreneurship blog, I share kind of all my wins losses there. mileson my personal emails on that website. So you can kind of really if you want to get in touch, I'm on Twitter, I just don't tweet as much as I used to just kind of focus on building the businesses. For Puppet Labs up labs.com If you want to dog treats, use the code family 20 for 20% off your first order. Yeah, that's kind of how you can get a hold of me and kind of what I'm doing.

Robert Plank 13:02 Okay, so we said puppet labs.com family 20 Is that fun code and then Beach, your control.com is the other website to see about those wins and losses. And as we're winding down wrapping up our conversation here, Peter, do you have like a time management? So like number one tip or secret? Like because like you mentioned how you have time to focus on these dear friends, companies, you have time for the deep thinking you have time for the publicity, like being on the podcast here. And a lot of people are caught up in the day to day or in the managing of the employees. So do you think as we're wrapping up our conversation, do you have any sort of time management tip? Are you all about like time blocking the deep work? Or are you all about Pomodoro? Or like what's your time management

Unknown Speaker 13:47 secret? Let me cut out for a second.

Robert Plank 13:54 Now. What's your time management secret was the question.

Speaker 2 13:57 Yeah, we, you know, man, it's honestly hiring people. That's what it is hiring more people to do what I can't do or don't want to do very well. And that way just focus on my zone of genius. He is more focused on my zone of genius, the better I get at it, which means the faster I can reuse produce results, which means open up more my time as a result. That's for sure the biggest thing

Robert Plank 14:23 I love it and so many people are afraid to hire and they I think they have kind of like a scarcity mindset. But then I love your advice there of saying like well, while you're focused on the lack on the negative, you're missing the real negative which is that you're being kept from your zone of genius. So hiring equals that you can focus on your zone of genius which means that you can get there faster which means that it opens up even more so many people see the hiring as a way to like a kind of constrained and compressed but you're saying hiring frees you up and hiring means that you can kind of break through in so many different levels. So if you out there in podcast land need that that push that nudge To do more hiring and scale better and build an amazing company, then you need to check out what Pierre has going on at BT your control.com and pump labs.com. And we will see you there. And thank you so much, Peter, for this this brief moment in time of stopping by and sharing your stories in your advice. I really appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker 15:18 Well, thanks, Ben. Ben, thanks for having me. It's awesome.

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