7 Actionable Lessons Every Marketer Can Learn from Warren Buffett #2210

Published Sep 6, 2022, 1:00 PM

In episode #2210, Neil and Eric talk about 7 actionable lessons every marketer can learn from Warren Buffett. If there’s one thing anyone can take away from Warren Buffet’s teachings, it’s that you should focus your energies on long-term success, not short-term profit. We break down some of his most prescient pieces of advice, why they are so accurate, and how marketing can implement these lessons in their overall strategies for long-term success. Tune in to learn about the power of long-term thinking, why you need to nail it before you scale it, and how Warren Buffet’s lessons have helped us become better marketers!

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

  • [00:20] Today’s topic: 7 Actionable Lessons Every Marketer Can Learn from Warren Buffett.
  • [00:25] The power of compounding interest and long-term thinking.
  • [01:08] Why you should always be skeptical of anything that seems too good to be true.
  • [01:55] The advice “Be greedy when others are fearful, and be fearful when others are greedy” and how it applies to marketing. 
  • [02:41] Why you should never risk your reputation or your integrity for the sake of revenue.
  • [03:55] The importance of focus and why you shouldn’t try to do everything.
  • [05:12] The benefits of uncertainty and why focusing on building an amazing company and delighting your customers pays off in the long run.
  • [06:19] The concept of a strike zone and how it applies to marketing.
  • [07:02] That’s it for today! Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast!
  • [07:03] Check out https://www.marketingschool.io/jobs to see our job postings or advertise jobs that you have available!
  • [07:15] Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more!

 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

 

 

Leave Some Feedback:

 

 

  • What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below
  • Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review.

 

 

Connect with Us: 

 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Marketing School, the only podcast that provides daily top level marketing tips and strategies from entrepreneurs that practice what they preach and live what they teach. Let's start leveling up your marketing knowledge with your instructors, Neil Patzel and Eric Sue. All Right, guys, before we start, we got a special message from our sponsor. If you want to rank higher on Google, you gotta look at your page speed time. The faster website loads, the better off you are with Google's Core Vital update that makes it super super important to optimize your site for low time, and one easy way to do it is use the host that Eric and I use, dream Hosts, So just go to dream host or Google it, find it, check it out, and it's a great way to improve your low time everyone. Just a quick heads up here about our Leveling Up Founders community, which is a private, invite only network of people at the top of their game in business, content and media. Past guests have included people such as Alex and Leila Hormosi, Chris Do, Vanessa Lao, Cody Sanchez, and much much more. You can go to live dot leveling up dot com to apply and learn more. And we'll see you over there. Today we are going to talk about seven actual lessons every marketer can learn from Warren Buffett. So, Warren Buffett, if you're seeing the video right now, I have a bust of him over there. It's a bronze bust to remind me to think long term and not be an idiot. So that will be number one, to think long term. So what that means, and I'm serious, like I have a Charlie Munger one and a Warren Buffett one. But you know, when you think about a Warren and a Charlie, they're very humble people. They're in their nineties right now. They're still having a blast doing what they do, and they just you know, I think Buffett started investing at age thirteen. They just kept compounding, kept compounding. You don't see him buying like a huge house or lambos or anything like that, not that there's anything wrong with that, but he doesn't care to show off. He just loves what he does and he just he understands that things take decades to Compound's slowly compounding, slowly compounding. And that's why he has a book called Snowball. Yeah, less than number two Warren Buffett is a big believer that you need to be skeptical and if something is pretty much looks too good to be true, it usually is that's a really good thing for a marketer realize. And here's why in marketing everyone talks about the silver bullet. Oh, use this tactic, you're gonna get instant sales or results or right number one on Google. Typically in marketing everything is slow and steady wins a race. There really is no server bullets. And if there is a silver bullet, it's a silver bullet literally for one day, one month, or months and a short term. And what will happen is when you focus on that silver bullet, it'll actually set you back from your long term goals because you waste time on that versus focusing on things that are more long term. So, in essense, be skeptical when things seem too good to be true. Number three, speaking of be anything, so you want to be greedy when others are fearful, and be fearful when others are greedy. Right, So, right now, as this recording, we're in a recession technically, and I don't think we're done yet. Right. That's kind of how the sentiments of Neil and Night. We're not macro guys, by the way, But the idea is like when things get really bad, and like Warren Buffett has said this, like even you know, the same kind of securities that I'm buying right now, which are the same you know, stocks that I'm buying right now, Like I'm going to buy more of it during the recession because it's not like the fundamentals of these businesses have really changed, right. So the whole idea here is that as a marketer, you zig where other people are zagging. So right now, like you know, this recession gets worse or whatever, most people are canceling all their marketing, right But that's actually a chance for you to get in when things are cheaper and really double and triple down. Number four, Reputation is everything. Warren Buffett writes out an annual letter to CEOs, and one of them he talks about how if there's a way for you to make money but it can damage your reputation, don't do it. Sacrifice the revenue for reputation and long term growth. And that's super important because it doesn't matter how good you are at marketing if you're doing stuff that's going to hurt the reputation of business, the ratings, the reviews, the trust. It's going to bite you in the butt in the long run, and you'll notice that over time your sales are going to slowly start declining. A great example of this is at a ton of people that I met at Affiliate sum at conference and they're telling me how they grew their business from like zero two hundreds of millions of dollars in literally a matter of years with no venture funding or anything. I'm like, how, what was the secret? Like, oh, force continuity. You tell people free trial and you just don't let them know that you're continually rebuilding them. I'm like, that's just unethical. And where are they now? Most of those guys they're a out of business or B they got shut down by the FTC and fines and they had to refund all the money and there goes to Lamborghini's and Fraris. Don't do stuff that can impact your reputation and B don't do anything that's just unethical. You want to sleep well at night, and don't do stuff that can harm people. I mean, this is why I you know again more than Buffett, Like he's a very humble guy. Right. I think that what I'd like to see more of, especially in the affiliate niche, is for people to be more humble. Because just to continue on Neil's point, I actually heard about an affiliate that does a force continuity for seniors and he's making like a lot of money each day, right. And I actually ended up meeting this guy, and I just felt like the ego emanating from him. It's like, look at me, I make money. But it's like, dude, come on, it's like hurting people. It's a net negative for society to do that. So anyway, so number five actually the quote that I would use there to continue what Neil said, if you want hold it for ten years, don't even hold it for ten minutes, right or ten seconds? So you know that is what it is. So number five there's a story. I like to share this story a lot. But back in the day, when Warren reporters went up to Warren Buffett and Bill Gates of Microsoft, they asked both of them like, when you have like a billionaire investor, when you have a billionaire founder, right, And they said, what is the secret to your guys success? And they both wrote one word onto a piece of paper, but they both opened their hands. The word said focus. What that means is you don't need to try to do everything under the sun. And you know, as a market early days, I was like, oh, you know, I'm going to try email marketing, I'm going to try SMS, I'm going to try SEO, I'm gonna try affiliate, I'm gonna try this, try that in the early days. Just nail one channel down first, nail it before you scale it. Yeah. Number six, The future is never clear. Warren Buffett talks about uncertainty actually is a friend of the buyer of long term values. In essence, no one can predict what's going to happen next month, next six months or year. We would have never predicted the war. We would have never predicted oil prices are rising. With your marketing, you can't say I'm gonna spend this, I'm gonna make why and this is just gonna work and I'm gonna crush it in the next year or two years. But if you focus on building a great product, a great service, you focus on the fundamentals of marketing, You focus on what's going to provide the most value to the end customer. Yes, you may lose in the short run, but in the long run you can win through up sales, down sales, repeat purchases. Just look at Amazon. They lose money in many cases when someone comes to your website and buys from them, but the way they make money back is if you'll buy from them in many cases, like my wife, multiple times a week. It adds up and they continually make money. You can't really predict what's going to happen next month, next year. But if you focus on building an amazing company, you focus on an amazing customer experience, you focus underlying your customers through marketing as well, you can win in the long run. Number seven, last, but not least, is really warm. Buffett talks about this the concept of a strike zone. So when you are playing baseball, for example, you do have to swing at every pitch that comes at you. So it's really focusing on what you understand. And when it comes to investing, there's only a few key assets. You don't need to hold that many securities right, only focusing on what you understand and not trying to do everything in the world right. Because if let's say Neil's really good at crypto, great Neil focus on crypto. Let's say I'm really good at fitness stuff, right, like, I'm going to focus on fitness. But you get what you focus on, and then, like we mentioned with the earlier lessons, you just continue to compound over the decades and eventually it's going to work out for you. But most people just aren't willing to wait, and most people aren't willing to continue to read and just stay patient and then swing only on things that they really understand. So that is it for today. Please check out marketing school dot ilslash jobs to find a marketing job, Neil's companies, my companies, we have our roles up there too, or you can host a job for free at the moment. So that is it for today and we'll catch you later. We appreciate you joining us for this session of marketing School. Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit marketingschool dot io for more resources based on today's topic, as well as access to more episodes that will help you find true marketing success. That's marketingschool dot io until next time. Class dismissed