This content analyzes marketing and sales strategies through the lens of the TV series "Better Call Saul," demonstrating how to create demand, position products effectively, and find new customer segments by understanding and addressing specific pain points.
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I'm going to teach you everything you
need to know about positioning,
marketing, and sales from an unexpected
source. A TV series called Better Call
Saw. Arguably the best TV show that's
ever been created. So, I just wanted to
listen up and just want to be careful
here. There's no spoilers, so you don't
have to worry. It should be
spoiler-free. In season 4 or so, Saul
isn't able to practice law anymore for a
period of time, and he has to go get a
regular job like a regular person. And
so, he gets a job selling cell phones,
early days of cell phones at a company
called CC Mobile. And in this clip,
you're going to see the store is dead.
He's vacuuming. He's cleaning. And there
are zero customers. He calls up his boss
and he asks his boss, "Hey, um, it's a
little slow right now. What's going on?"
And this is pretty much the business.
CC Mobile, this is Jimmy.
>> Hey, how's the first morning?
>> Good, Robbie. Um,
but yeah, actually, it's a little little slow.
slow.
>> Yeah, that store's always been a bit
calmer. Just bring a book.
>> So, this is a normal weekday
>> mostly, but wait till inventory week.
There's a line out the door.
>> When's inventory week?
>> Uh, you just missed it.
>> Uh, any chance that you could move me to
a store with a little more traffic.
>> Uh, let's see. The Gold Street store is
always hopping.
Uh, but it looks like the schedule's all
full right now. Let's give it a couple
weeks and then we'll see.
>> No problem. If I can, I'll swing by
later. Keep up the good work.
>> See you then. Bye.
>> So Saul being so industrious has to come
up with a new idea to find customers cuz
he's not making any money doing this.
Being the marketing genius he is, he
decides to do something quite remarkable
and that is to create a different type
of customer. Business guru Peter Ducker
once said, "The purpose of a business is
to make profit and also to create a
customer." And that sounds like a
strange concept to create a customer.
How do you do that? Well, in this time
and age, in this reference of this
video, the people who bought cell phones
were people who wanted mobile access to
be able to call people. And these are
early days, but there not that many
people who had a demand for this back
then. Today, it's ubiquitous. So, to
create a customer, it means you take the
product and without changing the
product, you move it to someone else and
you find a whole different category of
people to sell it to. So instead of
talking about features and functions,
about data plans, roaming, free access,
hands-free, and all that kind of stuff,
he focused on doing something very
different. He decided instead of selling
technology, he sold privacy. He painted
this beautiful sign across the window
that said, "Is the man listening?"
Followed up with, "Privacy sold here."
So they say, "If you want to get rich,
teach people about the problem and make
them problem aare." And then all he had
to do was wait for the customer to walk
in. Like a fly to honey, someone takes
the bait. The gentleman pulls up in a
truck, halts, and backs up, reading the
sign, "Privacy sold here." And the next
little part that we're going to see here
is the beautiful part where he pretends
he's on the phone with an existing
customer saying that they can't buy the
phones because the demand on this phone
is so high. He's created artificial demand.
>> Yep. [clears throat] Maximum privacy.
It's best money can buy.
10. No, can't do it. Everyone wants
these things. Six. Um, yeah. Yeah, I can
do six. Okay. See you later.
So, you notice also how he pretends to
have a call with a fake customer and
then he takes it and breaks it. A
demonstration of what you're supposed to
do, peing the curiosity of this guy
who's walking the store. Who destroys a
brand new cell phone? Well, he's [music]
showing them what the purpose of this
is. Single use, use it, destroy it. So,
it's untraceable. In fact, he's already
rehearsed this whole thing. So, when the
gentleman comes in, instead of being
eager to serve him, he's like, "I'll be
with you in 1 second." He's writing
something. We're not quite sure what
he's writing yet, but what he does write
is on hold, do not sell. And [music] he
has a stack of cell phones ready to be
purchased. So, the guy walks in, he's
like, "What is this all about? I heard
that you sell privacy. What do I need
privacy from? Well, he says, you know,
people are always listening and we're
doing a lot of business on the phone,
you know, cashbased business that we
might not want everyone to listen to,
which intrigues the guy. And this is
where another genius thing that Saul does.
does.
>> Privacy sold here.
>> Yep. This is the place.
Privacy from who?
>> Come on. you know,
>> like the government,
>> could be.
>> He doesn't know what he's trying to hide
from. He says things vaguely. So, the
guy says, "You mean like the IRS?" He
goes, "Bingo. That's what we're doing."
>> Like the IRS. >> Bingo.
>> Bingo.
And so, he knows this guy is trying to
hide some cash transactions. They get
into a little bit more. Scheduling
appointments on the phone. How are you
arranging payments? On the phone. And
who's listening? That's right. They know
every lick and tit. So, you're living
your life free and easy. And then one
day at a time of their choosing, bam,
they bring the hammer down to Chinatown. >> Jesus.
>> Jesus.
Jesus is right. Telling you, these guys
don't fool around. And they will clean
your bones faster than a school of
piranhas. I'll tell you what I do. I
practice something we call information hygiene.
hygiene.
>> I love how Jimmy even comes up with this
[music] expression, coining his own
term, information hygiene. He wants to
practice having very clean information
so the government or the IRS isn't
hearing anything they shouldn't be
hearing. That's a great way to package
this idea so you can come up with a
problem and even find a solution and
give it a clever name. So clearly this
customer is in for it. They get into a
little bit more. He goes, "Well, how how
would this work?" He goes, "Well, if you
buy this with cash, it's untraceable.
And if you use it just once, you want to
remain private will [music] remain
private. This just now can't be traced.
It can't be tracked. That'll keep you
clean as a whistle. What they don't know
can't hurt you, especially if you use it
only once per, you know, that's kind of key.
key.
Once per
Once per what? Once per week. once per
day, [music] once per call and
>> and that's the most genius thing that
you can understand. So in marketing
speak the definition of positioning is
this. It's the space you occupy in the
heart and mind of the customer relative
to your competitor. In this case he
needed to find a customer who had a
problem where the thing that he sold is
the perfect solution for. In order to do
that he has to agitate the problem and
it's not to sell cell phone technology
or convenience. it to sells something
very different. Privacy. Now, this is a
purely fictitious story, but it kind of
explains where the idea of burner phones
come from because if you want to have a
private conversation that no one else
can listen to, you want a burner phone.
So, there he creates an entirely
different market. And to test this, in
this next clip, we're going to see him
driving up and trying to sell the exact
same thing again, but this time he
encounters a bunch of kids who thinks
he's a narc, an undercover police
officer. He realizes something. He still
looks like an attorney.
>> Hey, how's it going? How you guys set
for phones?
>> We got phones.
>> Private phones.
>> Beat it, Narc.
>> Oh, come on. Would a narc drive this
piece of
So here he realizes because he's shown
up as his old self, his former legal
self, the kids don't trust him
naturally. So he has the bright idea now
he's got to go back home and change. And
now we see him reemerge in that kind of
Saturday Night Fever look and walk in
his tracksuit which becomes part of his
signature look moving forward. Now he's
walk around and he looks like the
people. [music] So a lot of this is
about perception and packaging. So, if
he doesn't look like his customers, his
customers have a problem with him. And
now he's selling them and they're flying
out of the trunk. He can't keep them in
stock. There's another lesson to be
learned here as he's selling these
things like hotcakes. Go to where the
customers are. Now, he realized the
traffic that came to the store was just
once in a while cuz there's not a place
where people are looking for this.
[music] So, he brings the show, so to
speak, to the customers. And this is
what you need to do if you're trying to
sell your services. be where the
customers are. For example, if they're
on Tik Tok, create content on Tik Tok.
If they're more businessoriented, they
might be more on LinkedIn or somewhere
in the middle like Instagram. So,
there's a valuable lesson here. By
bringing your product, your wares, your
services, your offers to where the
customers are, you're reducing the
friction and you'll be able to get in
front of them. Now, this last scene is
super cool because he's not satisfied
with selling a lot. He wants to sell all
of them and he has a handful more. And
so Jimmy being Jimmy packs up the rest
of the phones and walks straight towards
a biker gang. We don't know how this is
going to work out because in other cases
he's been beat up or people steal from
him. But let's see what happens here.
Did
>> you get uh did you get that ink in Los Lunis?
Lunis?
>> Los Cruus.
>> Off by one.
>> And you've been inside?
>> No, I haven't had the honor, but I used
to be a lawyer. Emphasis on used to be.
And I helped a lot of gentlemen such as
yourself and your friends here. And one
thing I learned from working with my
clients in the New Mexico correction
system is that private conversations are
few and far between.
>> That's excellent right there. So he says
private conversations and the correction
facilities are few and far between. So
he understands that gangs need to talk
to each other, but the man is always
listening. So he's speaking their
language. He's highlighting a pain point
they already feel. How do we talk to our
people? Then he adds the solution, which
is these phones are very small. They can
fit in almost anything. Suggesting to
them potentially them smuggling the
phones in in all kinds of different
ways. Pretty genius.
>> The man is always listening on those
landlines. So,
word to the wise. [sighs] Uh if you want
to talk to your friends on the inside,
there is a simple solution.
>> Once you agitate the problem properly
and use the language that they
understand and a problem they identify
with, the sale sells itself. Bravo
Jimmy. he sells all the cell phones.
This is a beautiful lesson. So, when
you're trying to build your business
[music] and if you're not selling an
abundant amount, it could be you need to
change the lane in which you're in. This
is also referred to as blue ocean
strategy. If you're in a space and
there's lots of competition, it's called
the red ocean. Everybody's fighting for
the same piece of business. If you take
your boat and you move it somewhere else
where there's less competition, you can
have the entire ocean to yourself. Now,
as it relates to me in my life, I used
to make commercials for a living. But we
saw a problem. Fewer and fewer people
were watching commercials. So, if I was
in an industry making something that
there was going to be less demand for,
this is going to be problematic. And we
saw the market slowly eat itself up. And
I am not that patient. I did not want to
sit around and watch us happen to our
beloved industry. So, I pivoted out of
that by doing client direct work, doing
brand strategy and brand design. And
that allowed us to have a totally
different market. We use the same skill
sets. We just found a different
customer. And that's how you apply
positioning in your business. Is there
another TV show where you think they do
an incredible job of sales or marketing
that you want us to do a deeper dive and
breakdown on? Let me know in the
comments below. Of course, we're going
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