Ep. 64 Under the Radar Marketing – How to Sell without Selling

Under the Radar Marketing – How to Sell without Selling

Everyone loves to buy, but no one likes to be sold to. So how can you sell without actually being salesy?

Is it possible for YOUR business? The answer is under-the-radar marketing and it can work for ANY business.

Torie Mathis and her cohost Sean talk about great examples of under-radar-marketing – even one they were a part of that sold over $100k in luxury items in a couple of days.

If you’re ready to sell easier this episode is for you.

Get SMART AF resources and tools to grow your business at besmartaf.com

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

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SAF 64

Torie: [00:00:00] What do you have to say to that? Sean Mathis? 

Sean: [00:00:02] I have the award for that. 

Torie: [00:00:03] Woo. Tell me more.

Hey, welcome to Smart AF I’m your host Torie Mathis. We’ve got a great show for you today. So let’s get started. Hey guys. Welcome to the show. I’m your host Torie Mathis, and I’m here with the one and only Sean Mathis, founder of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum here in Georgia. 

Sean: [00:00:32] That’s me 

Torie: [00:00:33] Some may say Georgia’s best automotive museum. What do you have to say to that? Sean Mathis?

Sean: [00:00:38] I have the award for that. 

Torie: [00:00:40] Woo. Tell me more

Sean: [00:00:41] that’s about it. Best automotive museum in Georgia. 

Torie: [00:00:45] That’s pretty cool. 

Sean: [00:00:47] Was that two years ago? 

Torie: [00:00:48] I think so. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, we’ve done a lot of events for the museum and these events that we’ve done, have really been a great way to get out into the community and get more people to talk about and to know the museum.

And it’s cool doing stuff like that because it’s when I went to advertising school and it’s what they called under the radar advertising, which is just selling to people or advertising to people without them actually realizing that you’re actually showing them an ad.

Sean: [00:01:22] Yeah. Like admission wise for the museum. I don’t really know exactly how much I’d have to spend. I don’t even, I don’t even know if I can spend a certain amount to get the amount of people into the museum that I do when they come in, just because we have an event outside. I think that last one, it rained. It was cold. Didn’t really advertise a whole lot. COVID we still have 450 people come in throughout the course of the day. 

Torie: [00:01:50] Yeah. And that’s not, and still more people didn’t come into the museum. They just came to the event that was outside. But even if they didn’t come in that time, they still know about it.

And then everybody that posted pictures knew about it. Their friends knew about it on social and things like that. It’s a, like a really cool compounding way. That really all those people ended up being like walking billboards because you gave away shirts. We’ve talked about this before.

Not only are you providing a free event for these people and then inviting them into the museum, but also making the billboards, people love the shirts. People get upset when the shirts run out. 

Sean: [00:02:26] Yeah. Which happens in about 40 minutes. It’s really quick. Last time. It was amazing. It’s almost 200 shirts just gone, just like that.

Torie: [00:02:36] Yeah. One of the best times of this under the radar marketing I can think of though is several years back, I set a goal that I wanted to buy a professional piece of art. Remember that was like one of the big games. No, I just, I had no idea like how to even go about that. So I was like, I want to buy a, 

Sean: [00:02:55] She wanted an art gallery in the house, along with the gigantic library.

Torie: [00:02:59] I always wanted both of those things, but I didn’t really know, I didn’t have a plan for buying a piece of art. I just knew I wanted to buy like a legit piece of art. And then we started going on cruises. And apparently, they sell some art on,

it might be a trap, but it is a great way of, we were super sold too, without realizing when you realize it. But w but without feeling like you were being sold to I never felt like I was pressured or anything like that. And I happily bought our first couple pieces of art. We went to, the kids are in kid’s club.

They’re having a great time. We’re in between stops on the ship. And we don’t gamble, we don’t drink. So all, what is there to do? 

Sean: [00:03:52] Pools are way too damn crowded. 

Torie: [00:03:54] Because we’re little tiny for so many people. Like it’s no, I don’t need that many people at the pool next to me. So we ended up finding an art class about Peter Max.

I didn’t even know who Peter Max is, but when we went into I recognized a couple of things, I’m like, oh, okay. That guy 

Sean: [00:04:13] To be fair. We actually, we saw. Some of these pieces of art in the hallway as we walked by. And I just distinctly remember going, it’s not my style. I can not believe how expensive those things are.

Yeah. Just didn’t really. Do it for me at all? 

Torie: [00:04:30] No, it really wasn’t my style either. If you’re not familiar with Peter Max, it’s very pop art. It’s bright colors with like black ink geometric things. Some of it though, even after the Peter Max class, like I would never buy it.

However, there are these Liberty head ones that I really liked after we learned about Peter Max. It was like an hour long. Like a little class about him and his history and why he created these people. It was all free. I think they even had like champagne or something for people and, so they made like a little event out of it.

And you really learned a lot. And after that, Sean and I wanted to Peter Max. 

Sean: [00:05:09] It’s actually psychologically, really crazy to think about how much it altered my opinion on Peter Max in general like the statue of Liberty ones, all the patriotic ones are pretty cool. If you’re into that style, now that I’m into Peter Max, I really have a preference on those ones, but even like his the umbrella man is one of the most famous ones he’s known for.

Without knowing who he was or is there still I wouldn’t really do it for me, but now I’m like damn, he’s known for the umbrella, man. We should probably have one. 

Torie: [00:05:41] But there’s a whole story about the Liberty head. Do you remember exactly how? 

Sean: [00:05:45] He is responsible for the statue of Liberty even being here today?

He is the one that raised all the funds or got the funds. To save it, cause it was actually falling apart and they were going to have to take it down. 

Torie: [00:05:58] So he arranged everything I guess, and then was able to, they were able to restore the Statue of Liberty because. It was falling apart. So I don’t know it, Google Peter Max, and maybe I’ll find a picture of one of ours and put it up here.

You’ll at the time though, when we did the Peter Max class, like we did not get a Peter Max, you guys, Peter Maxes are not cheap. Like we did not get a Peter Max. We picked up a couple other little small pieces that were our first ones that like were like, woo we’re art collectors now. And that was pretty cool.

And it turns out if you buy on these ships, they will actually invite you if you spend enough, to private events. And we got invited to one locally here that was at I tried to remember what 

Sean: [00:06:43] Ritz Carlton

Torie: [00:06:43] At the Ritz Carlton here on this beautiful lake. And we got the whole entire weekend paid for.

And it was literally just there were art auctions that were going on, but then they also invited the artists in and they interviewed them and they got to talk. You talk with them and talked about their history and why they did pieces of art and just really. Really cool. I can’t remember his name, who is the guy that was there the first night that does the patriotic stuff.

Cause he had the native American dancers come out and cause that’s like a big part of his stuff. He’s also very patriotic. And does these beautiful flags that we haven’t got yet? Do you remember his name? We have the flag upstairs. I’ll think of it. So you really like, they had these whole demonstrations and everything.

And so we were able, at that time they got us and we bought our first Peter Max there, but again, That whole event was a big ass commercial. They could have spent all that money and used it like in a different, in a commercial or sent us all magazines or, all these different ways that seemed so conventional, but really what a smart way to put on an event of people that you knew of already bought pieces, bring in these artists that you want to sell them to.So then they have this personal connection to them. Tell their stories. They have more of a personal connection to them 

Sean: [00:08:03] When they had the guests, artists that, that actually showed up and you got to talk to all of them. And then of course, they’ve got all their special deals on all their art. But it made people really want to buy a piece of that guy’s art because they just met him and then they get the photos with them and yeah, they. They sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art in two days. 

Torie: [00:08:28] Yeah. Two days. But what’s crazy is like the people that were buying like big time buying and bidding on these things, they were the ones that were like, not the ones you thought. I was really surprised. Like it was really a neat experience too. Go in and see how that works. 

Sean: [00:08:44] Judging the room. I’m like, ah, they got a lot of money and then they’re not going to buy anything. And Nope, you had no idea when their hand was going to go up. It’s crazy. 

Torie: [00:08:55] Older people, younger people younger than us were in there. People dress nice people, not dress nice people. A couple people brought their kids. Like it was like such a neat crowd of people that if you think of trying to target those type of people, because it was such a crazy cross section of everybody, like you, you couldn’t have advertise to them. Like just inviting people who have already bought from you and having an event like that.

I guess it was a super smart, super like great piece of advertising. 

Sean: [00:09:27] It made you want to do it again. Although you had to spend enough money to get invited again. And we did not. But it was definitely a cool experience. Something I want to do on the car side of things. 

Torie: [00:09:37] Plus they are like, oh, you like this at the Ritz Carlton, we do these like super adventures, we get invited to that. Oh, you have to spend like a hundred thousand. 

Sean: [00:09:51] It wasn’t that much. 

Torie: [00:09:52] No, it was like, oh no, I think it was more than that. 

Sean: [00:09:54] Now it’s 10 cars to get to the Ritz Carlton. It was only like, five I think it was more for the big one. Maybe not. 

Torie: [00:10:02] I’m going to look into that. It’s only 10. Shit. 

Sean: [00:10:06] Yeah. Cause it was just, it’s just a cruise. You think of how much money we spend on a cruise. If it was just the two of us. You can go onto a cruise. Yeah. 

Torie: [00:10:13] But they were going to special places and having special tours. 

Sean: [00:10:17] And that’s just part of the thing on any cruise ship though, where you go 

Torie: [00:10:22] and you big cruise ship with them. That was a special, like small trip. 

Sean: [00:10:27] It might’ve been a different one. I just remember the cruise one and then you still get to go and you do different things because they paid for it all. You didn’t have to do any of it, but then you did, you were obligated to technically buy more art. 

Torie: [00:10:40] The beginning one was just this little hour, Peter Max class, and then the next one ended up being, this event at the Ritz Carlton for the weekend.

And then the next one and it just keeps expanding that they keep like getting you down the pipeline. If you’re the right person, but without ever advertising to you in a conventional sense, like super cool. 

Sean: [00:11:00] Like some of our earlier houses, like we had a ton of wall space, there’s no windows now. It’s like everything is windows and doors. And I don’t know if we have much wall space left of places that we actually go and would be able to enjoy the art. 

Torie: [00:11:16] Yeah. And the pieces that we have got, we, the Peter Max, we had the Peter Max class that we did the little seminar.

And then there’s an artist, Matt. Buyer Briar buyer, the buyer that does stuff on wood. And he was there and we got a piece from him and then Liebow, he was there. We got a couple from him. So it was crazy. If we would’ve just walked into the ship, like the very first time. And like Sean said, just look at these things.

We’ve been like they’re cool. But then once you get to know them and you’ve met them and you like. You get further down that and have that connection with the artist, like it really made you want to 

Sean: [00:11:57] find that buyer one was the only one that I would have. Already been drawn to, without meeting him just because it’s so unique.

Torie: [00:12:04] Actually, Matt buyer, we did buy two met buyers the first time they were, we did they weren’t actually on woods, so they were just they’re on wood. They’re heavy shit. Are they the ones that, oh, see, I thought we just had prints of those ones. They’re reproduction ones. So they’re not like a original one.

The one that we bought from the event there, that was an actual original painted by his hand one. So we went up with those ones. So I was thinking that they were just there. I don’t even know what you call that, like a, not a replica, but , 

Sean: [00:12:36] I don’t know what they call it. 

Torie: [00:12:38] Yeah. But it’s not painted by his hand. It’s like a fancy printed and signed by him, something like that, 

Sean: [00:12:44] Which they gave a class on all that stuff too. There’s that stuff. 

Torie: [00:12:46] It’s been a while. I don’t know. I liked the pieces and it’s kinda neat that we were able to expand on something that, you know,

Sean: [00:12:54] But now when we go to on another cruise, you immediately go to the.

Parkwest art gallery that’s in there and see what kind of deals they have. If anything, it gives us something to do while we’re on there. 

Torie: [00:13:06] Yep. While we’re waiting for another stop to go do something else, 

Sean: [00:13:10] Learn how to draw beast again.

Torie: [00:13:12] Yeah. We didn’t know what to do. So we ended up going to a drawing class on how to draw beauty and the beast. Just trying to find something to do. 

Sean: [00:13:25] It’s about the ports for us when it comes to cruises, 

Torie: [00:13:27] not the actual cruise there. The last time we did find the sauna. And so that was cool.

Sean: [00:13:33] Totally spend most of my time there while we’re on the ship. For sure. Yep. Yeah. 

Torie: [00:13:36] That’s crazy. When I first got out of the army and graduated from advertising school, I started working at a publishing house that did real estate magazines. And that was the whole premise of the entire magazine. Was that it wasn’t. Under the radar. It was it had all of these listings for the individual realtors.

Cause we did individual magazines for individual real estate offices. And so they were all the same magazine, but then there was like 44, I think at one time we had at one time across the whole United States. So it wasn’t like you were getting, the same magazine from the same person in the same area.

But it was like, Beautiful glossy home magazine. We get these ones now in the mail and all they are, there’ll be some listings and a whole bunch of ads. We didn’t do it that way. Like we actually had home articles and we would do event calendars for their area because the magazines came out every month.

We had recipes and things like that gave people a reason to keep a hold of it, rather than just a bunch of. Coupons that we’re going to go in the trash. If you’re going to spend the money to get it beautifully designed and to get it printed and then mail the people, make it look nice and something that people would keep.

Sean: [00:14:43] We still do this, by the way you can email

Torie: [00:14:46] I do like still to this day doing magazines. It’s a really great way to, it’s a low commitment. It’s entertaining. It’s a way to get in front of people and sell to them without them knowing they’re being sold to, or without them like objecting to it. There’s so many other things going on that it’s hard to get people’s attention, it used to be all those Infomercials late at night that would sell like whatever those different products and juicers.

And I don’t know if they still have those. We haven’t had regular TV in a really long time. They probably do still have a, no, they come on late at night. You can’t see it.

Sean: [00:15:23] Now you get the home shopping network and all that kind of stuff. I just, 

Torie: [00:15:26] infomercials are different because it’s like it’s a story.

And it takes you through all this stuff and it has a demo and it doesn’t really feel like a commercial, like the home shopping network. I think it’s just like this. 

Sean: [00:15:36] I think there’s other networks that have that kind of stuff. 

Torie: [00:15:39] Yeah. I like to buy just, don’t be like, that’s not cool. No, 

Sean: [00:15:52] it’s like when you get the the piece of mail, that comes with just nothing but coupons in it. Or the magazine and it’s all ads like it’s trash immediately. It doesn’t even make it in the house half the time it goes straight down. 

Torie: [00:16:06] It bums me out because I know how much that stuff costs to print and to deliver, and like the work it takes to get all that stuff put together.

That kind of a bummer. 

Sean: [00:16:16] Every once in a while I see a magazine that looks more. Real magazine issue. And you’re like, oh, whoa, what is this? At least it makes it into the house, and if there’s, 

Torie: [00:16:27] Then you open it up, it’s like the. 

Sean: [00:16:31] Good articles or something in there that you wanted to read it.

Then it turns into that, coffee table worthy. 

Torie: [00:16:36] You had a good one. When we lived at the lake house, the energy company in that area put out a beautiful magazine every two months. I read that thing. Yep. Back to front because it was like, it was talking about, what they were doing for the community.

So they were really putting their mag, their name out. It wasn’t like they were trying to hide the fact that they made the magazine, but they put a little bit of time and it was a really nice magazine. Yeah. Cool, and all these, whatever anybody’s businesses, you can do these types of things.

If some of these, like the events and stuff like that might be not the best thing to start with. I think any business really could do an event and we’ve had another video that we talked about that but even what people call lead magnets, where you get people to download a guide or a coupon or things like that, you offer them something for free in exchange for an email.

It’s the same thing. If you do it the right way, 

Sean: [00:17:28] it’s totally, I mean that totally because you have their email address, you can slowly educate them about your business no matter what the business is because if you think educating them through social posts on Facebook is going to get in front of them.

It’s not. And so w would we have six, seven, eight emails, something like that automatically set up that if you sign up for Miles Through time Emails will automatically go out over the course of a few weeks that will tell you all about the museum, so if you found it, however you found it and maybe you haven’t been yet, or you’re, didn’t have time to go through the whole website, whatever the case may be.

As long as you put your email in there, you’re going to slowly learn about what Miles Through Time is. And so if you’re, if you’re that dog groomer, and one of the emails is telling you how, why you started that business. And talking to me, now, you talking about your dog and then here’s a coupon and why you should shampoo your dog every couple weeks or month.

I don’t know, but you educate them about how your business is then beneficial for them. And it’s. I mean it’s free, let people unsubscribe. If they want to unsubscribe, if they don’t open your email, they don’t open your email, but people are going to open it. And you’re probably going to get some some sales from that.

Torie: [00:18:44] And that’s all the park west thing did, they just took clients that had already bought for them and they do it by region. So we just happened to be in the south. And so there was one close to us. And so we were just added to that email list that they put out, like anybody that’s bought a certain amount from them and lived in, within, I don’t know, like 200 miles of wherever they were having the event.

There’s email, Hey, you’re interested. We’re going to do this. And if you were, you told them yes. And then they got you on the phone and got you all set up, but all was emailing us and inviting us. So I think any business can reach out to their customer list in a way that, invite them to come back because people who already bought from you.

I’m much more willing to buy from you. 

Sean: [00:19:28] And I think it’s like you don’t email them every day and say, buy this. I can’t you’re, you’d be missing the entire point of the

Torie: [00:19:34] Halloween shop. Holy shit. Like I, I was there. I wanted a coupon free, the right. So I put in my email address, didn’t get the email back with a coupon before we left the place. So I ended up buying everything full price for the kids then. Oh my goodness. They buy my stuff, which I understand it’s like seasonal.

But. Yeah. Wow. I think there will people think that yes, today, I think if people, because they do get those crazy, like old Navy, like there’s some of these brands that I think it’s like, they just want you to either act or unsubscribed, but then Ooh, you might miss out on something. So you keep it, keep the subscription.

I don’t know. But just because these other brands are doing this and just because these are what you’re seeing, like these giant brands doing, that doesn’t mean that’s what your business should do. You don’t email them every day or twice a day, buy my stuff. 

Sean: [00:20:27] Now I think there’s a balance there of making your customers or potential customers interested.

They make them a little curious as to what’s going on. And I think it can apply to any business really. Think of a hair salon, if you got a email every couple of weeks, it was like check out these, awesome hairstyles that we did throughout the course of a couple of weeks.

Something else that they did and, maybe they had a, some sort of event Somebody famous came in and got their hair done. And then, another one is, here’s your, you want to schedule your appointment 

Torie: [00:20:58] Or they all sell hair products and stuff. So it’s easy to be like, oh, let’s see a demo of this.

Sean: [00:21:04] Yeah. Any kind of recommendations, anything like that? Yeah. And there’s no shortage of things you can do. 

Torie: [00:21:10] Yeah. So you’re saying, not to email people so often I think a big problem is not emailing enough as well. Like when we did the real estate magazine, some people were like, I just want to do it once.

I just want to do it twice a year. And you’re like waste the time. Don’t even do it. It’s the other, there’s going to be so much, for this effort put into it, that people aren’t going to remember. You like, you’re starting over every single time you do it. We really tried to get people to do it once a month.

Twice every other month was good. And then people that wanted to do a quarterly, like even that, like you have to do things with some consistency. And I think for the Miles Through Time thing, I think that’s awesome that how often you email your list. Not too much, not too little, but when you have something great park west, I do still get their emails.

They’re still very educational. They share a lot of stuff. It isn’t just buy my stuff. And they have actually, I feel for them for, cruise lines, being their main source of revenue of new clients of, that’s their advertising, like that’s their lead generation.

They have been trying to do some online auctions. I don’t know how well that’s really gone for them, but they are still pumping out the emails and the information and doing videos on their artists and stuff like that. Cause I think they sign with their artists. They are able to produce stuff for them.

But they’re still sending stuff to us. 

Sean: [00:22:18] There’s gotta be something going on with your business that lets your customers know how great are you. Let them know. Otherwise they won’t, 

Torie: [00:22:28] They will know if you don’t tell them that is for sure. So if you liked this episode, great, once you liked this video and subscribe to our channel, we would definitely appreciate that.

And if you want some free resources on how to build your business and do some of these things that we’re talking about, sending emails and how to do that, and maybe how to do events go to our website, go to Toriemathis.com and we’ve got lots of free resources for you that you can check out.

And we’ll see you on the next one.

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