Why Your Business Needs a Story

Dustin: [00:00:00] how can you totally give them more than they expected? , I do this sometime in various ways. I've talked about some with our accelerator, we've done this with gift boxes or a bonus one on one call.
Dustin: That , was not part of what people signed up for. just a lot of personal attention and make sure that we always over deliver and we're very tuned into our client's needs and always, for me, like always looking to make connections for people because that's, The special gift that I have. And it's also, , something I'm very blessed with.
Dustin: Welcome back to the seven figure lead podcast. I'm your host, Dustin Riechmann. And today you get me and a deep dive into a recent life changing trip that I experienced with my wife through Italy. So I'm going to [00:01:00] break down our trip, our itinerary, not like a travel agent, but like a marketer. So I'm going to go through the six locations that we focused on, on our trip.
Dustin: And. Basically give a marketing or offer optimization highlight to one of our experiences at each location so that you can think about how these could apply to your business. And if you're thinking about going to Europe, hopefully
you can learn some travel tips along the way as well. So to give you a little context, last fall, I was approached by my neighbor, uh, who had been planning this like crazy trip to Italy for months with, a really, uh, energetic and detail oriented travel agent.
Dustin: And he was going with his wife, who are very close friends of ours. And he said, Hey, we're going for our 20th anniversary. what would make it even better for us is if you and Bethany, my wife would join us. So I'm like, Oh, wow. Okay. Uh, so I said, well, let me think about it. I got two issues. One is making sure that, you know, we can keep up with you here with the cash flow, cause this is not a cheap trip.
Dustin: [00:02:00] and number two, I got to get my wife to fly across an ocean. Cause that had never actually happened for either of us before. So they worked with her on convincing her that she could handle the flight. And. And it was like the next day I had an unexpected, sum of money come into the business, someone who came in and paid for some annual access when I just didn't see it coming.
Dustin: And I said, well, this seems like a sign, right? So let's do it. So we signed onto this trip and six, seven months later, we find ourselves leaving St. Louis flying to Philadelphia and then over into Italy for a 13 day, 12 night excursion that truly was life changing and amazing. So if you're.
Dustin: Familiar with Italy or not, it won't matter. I'm going to go through again, the highlights of each stop and talk about an experience we had there through the eyes of marketing and improving their business and your business. I'm really going to highlight positive experiences. Of course, there were several areas of opportunity.
Dustin: And in fact, my buddy Randy, who was traveling with me, we [00:03:00] were, kind of Americanizing things throughout the trip. Like, wow, if they had billboards on this road, they can make so much money or like, wow, like the way that they don't turn tables over at all at restaurants, like what a room for opportunity.
Dustin: So, and our wives said, quit doing that. Like she just enjoyed the culture and the experience. So we mostly did just that. So we basically followed an itinerary that was like a reverse question mark. So we started in the Northeast. Part of the country went to the dead North, right on the border with Switzerland, headed Northwest, into the sea on Northwest side of Italy.
Dustin: And we basically worked our way South from there ending in Rome. So the cities that we stayed in were Venice, Lake Como. Port of veneer, Florence and then Tuscany was testing. These really like a region, but we stayed out in the countryside, outside of Florence. And then we ended with three nights in Rome.
Dustin: So it was quite an adventure. And as you can kind of hear in there, we really went like. Heavy touristy chill, heavy touristy chill. And so our travel agent was [00:04:00] very wise in giving us some like recovery time. there were days that we had 25, 000 steps. there were days that we mostly float around in a pool.
Dustin: And so I think we had a good mix, but as I go through each of these towns and each of these experiences, I hope that you will. Pick up on what I'm speaking about with offer optimization and literally think about, wow, how can I apply this methodology or this experience to my own flagship offer?
Dustin: So in Venice, it's definitely a theme of storytelling. So storytelling became, uh, really important throughout our entire time in Venice, the three
days that we were there, but in particular in our hotel. So we stayed on a cool hotel. It was called hotel much Metropole. I'm sure not saying it correct in Italian.
Dustin: However, it was just like super, super historic. It was right at the corner of two main canals. And from the moment we walked into this place, it was like anti. modern, So it was like this massive key that you had to use for your door that you had to leave at the front desk because you didn't want to carry it around with you outside, our [00:05:00] first afternoon there, we were kind of jet lagged and getting our bearings and we just went and got lost in the city and it rained a little bit, which forced us to go into some, maybe smaller shops and restaurants and things, but everywhere we went, there was just like this romanticism, right?
Dustin: It's a very romantic city. And in particular, uh, Our last night, we decided to have a nightcap after dinner at the hotel bar. And we had this amazing. Amazing bartender, Carlos was his name. So Carlos was just an amazing storyteller. So as we sit down, it's just the four of us at the bar. There's a few people in the lounge behind us, but he just greets us.
Dustin: And he's just very effervescent and like full of, life. it's obviously been a long day for him. It's late at night and he opens by talking about, Hey, like you see that window. Yeah. He said, that window was where Vivaldi. Who's a famous composer, taught the orphans of Venice in the streets here.
Dustin: It's like, this was his home and it was like, okay. So he got in this amazing story. And then throughout our time with him, just [00:06:00] probably less than an hour in total, he was talking about his own personal story and where he was and where he was heading next, in his journey. He did with a lot of. emotion and empathy.
Dustin: And he really cared about what we were up to and what our goals were for the trips. And this was our first stop. And it was just an amazing, amazing experience. really connected us emotionally, not only to him, but to bar as well as the hotel. so. It was like the very first place on our trip.
Dustin: I'm like five star review. This is amazing. He really made our night, everything down to like the way he created an expresso martini and the beans he put in, and he talked about where these beans came from and why, three, right? And so the attention to detail and I, and again, the big theme here in Venice is storytelling.
Dustin: So where in your business with your offer, can you tell a fuller story? Where can you show some empathy to your ideal clients and make them feel like it's an inside baseball moment, right? Like, wow, like this, this is really interesting. Now, like this is way deeper than what it appears on the surface.
Dustin: And that was exactly what we [00:07:00] experienced in Venice. We left Venice, we took a water taxi and a car to a train station, took a train to Milan, had some wild adventures in Milan, trying to find our rental car place and, and get to that. That was definitely on the negative side of things, but we eventually rented a car and we drove North to Lake Como.
Dustin: So the city is actually called Como. It was absolutely breathtaking. It was probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. And definitely the marketing theme and Como is status. Like you cannot walk around Como. You cannot look at the lake. You cannot be on the lake and not feel like you're in like the lifestyles of the rich and famous, right?
Dustin: It is a place that just evokes status. And so. for us, that looked like spending our first evening, downtown, walking around, we are outside of the cafe, which is very common everywhere we went, but everything was just kind of like next level in the cleanliness, the brightness of the marble and things like that.
Dustin: And I remember this moment while we were eating. at this, [00:08:00] cafe where this kind of mob formed in a good way, there's a circle of people and they were, had their phones out and it was like, wow, what in the world is going on? And you can hear this music. And what it was, it was basically like a flash performance.
Dustin: These young women were in these beautiful gowns, just like showed up next to the cathedral there in the town square and just started dancing and they, people were playing music for them and people were of course, recording it and it was just like, where am I? Right. We had another moment like that, where there's a cello player who's Just hanging out next to this, like, obelisk in the middle of, another, center there in Como and just playing a cello concert.
Dustin: Right. And people are just like standing around and, and, and like really nice clothes. And it's like, status, right? And our hotel is amazing. And it was right on the lake. And the most expensive thing we actually did on the whole trip was we booked a private, limousine boat for basically a six hour outing on Lake Como.
Dustin: So that was kind of the main thing we did in Como. And unfortunately it rained. However, despite the rain, we had a really A plus [00:09:00] white glove experience. We got to tour a lot of Lake Como and see Bellagio. We got to see George Clooney's house, which everyone likes to talk about when you mentioned Lake Como.
Dustin: he was pointing out things like, Oh yeah, there was a wedding here last weekend and it was some NBA rookie and LeBron James was there it's not like my normal place to hang out. but that feeling of status and what that results in is you're like, I'll pay more for my drinks.
Dustin: I'll mail. I'm going to buy more of a higher end souvenir here. Right. Because it drives this emotional state of like, to belong here. I have to be of a higher status. And that was Como was all about status. And, it was fun to experience that for a couple of days. But. And it was fun to move on from that as well to the places we felt a little more grounded.
Dustin: So we left Como now we're in a car. We drove several hours to the northwest coast of Italy. And the town that we stayed in there is called Porto Venere. It's a pretty small town. It's really famous because it's kind of the gateway into Cinque Terre. And Cinque Terre is like these five villages that are up [00:10:00] on the cliffs that are basically only accessible by water or train.
Dustin: And they're Pretty beautiful. They're supposed to be very beautiful. we visited that we visited one of them. It was like, this is not that great. It's very crowded, not a lot to do. So we actually spent most of our time in port of veneer and didn't really do the syncretary thing as much as we thought we would.
Dustin: And the theme in Port of Veneer was definitely surprise and delight. I feel like this is something we do really well at seven for your leap, where we'll make a promise like, Hey, come into our accelerator program. We're going to help you with podcast guesting. We're going to make you, have a really effective marketing system.
Dustin: So you can sell your services through storytelling. Okay. And we deliver on that. However, what everyone goes through and they say, Oh my gosh, this is like way more than that. Right? The connection, the clarity of being part of this network, it like changed my life. was like a 10 X experience in my business.
Dustin: so that's a form of surprise and delight. I got way more than I paid for. I got way better of an experience than what was promised. And that's how we
really felt about Port of [00:11:00] Veneer. Port of Veneer, we were only there for one night. so we had a limited amount of time.
Dustin: And we all said universally, the four of us that would be the place we would add more time if we had the opportunity because we just enjoyed it so much. It's a beautiful little port city. We had a great hotel. the moment that stands out for us here is or for me here is. There's like all the normal restaurants out on the waterfront, and then there's these like interesting, almost like tunnels, these alleys, up on the, as you go higher and higher on the cliff in the town.
Dustin: And we were kind of lost on where we wanted to eat dinner. It was getting late. we thought we were going to be in Cinque Terre and we retreated back. And so we just randomly found this restaurant. And it was like a very small restaurant. clearly family owned, the main desk was like, a boat and like, it was a very, I can remember it like it was yesterday and we went in.
Dustin: They said, yeah, we'd love to serve you at 9 30. It's like, oh, man, this is like, we got like 2 hours. So we went and had a drink and I'm by the water and made the most of it. So we weren't really enamored. Like, we didn't really choose this restaurant. We It was kind of a fallback option. It was late [00:12:00] for us, not late for the locals, but late for us.
Dustin: and it was our actual anniversary night. So my wife and I were celebrating our 23rd anniversary, and this was our actual anniversary. And so our friends were like, Hey, we'd love to treat you to a really nice bottle of wine. And it turned out that we found the perfect place for this. so we went in with kind of low expectations, very kind waiter, but a young guy, it was like, it was certainly not like a Michelin restaurant, right?
Dustin: So we ordered this bottle of wine. It was a really nice bottle of wine and we order our entrees. And then this older gentleman comes to the table side, who didn't speak a lick of English, or at least he didn't, seem to, and he starts to prepare our wine and we like wine. And we've, had wine, most of our stops in Italy, but we'd never experienced what he did.
Dustin: And he was basically seasoning the wine glasses and he didn't even like make. Any commotion. It was just like, we started to notice as we were having small talk, he's still standing there and he's like, what is he doing? So I actually videoed a little bit of it. Very American thing to do, but I was pretty fascinated by it.
Dustin: I want to learn more about it. So he took the wine and then he would put it through in one [00:13:00] glass and very slowly and carefully swirl it and swirl it and sort of observe it. And then he would pour that into the next class. And like this process, it probably took five, 10 minutes, , before we ever got to sample the wine.
Dustin: But it was like. This is cool. Like I've never experienced anything like this before. And so that's one thing that I think everyone in our trip has talked about multiple times since we got back. we had a dinner, for another event recently with the same couple, this is a couple of weeks after we got back from Italy and we were asking the Somalia at this nice restaurant about this.
Dustin: And he's like, Oh, wow, you experienced like a wine seasoning. So the funny thing is a funny sidebar. This is. You know, give me a little, a little, uh, inside baseball on me and some of the silly things I do. So this gentleman like does all this stuff with the wine glasses, which I didn't really know what he was doing.
Dustin: And then he put this glass with wine in it, in the middle of the table. Right. And then he served us each our wine. Clean glasses. And so I'm like, Oh, there's an extra bottle. There's actually an extra glass. So I drink it and I was like, not thinking anything of it. Well, it turns out that it's like the [00:14:00] residue glass.
Dustin: Like they're cleansing these glasses and they're seasoning the glasses to get any like fine particles or soap or anything out of them and they dump it. And that's like a waste glass, which. I drink, but it tasted pretty good. we had a really good time, a very unique experience. Of course, the food was good and
everything about the experience was good.
Dustin: But it was really just that moment, right? As this five minutes out of this 13 day experience, that was a surprising delight. And we left with such an. Affinity for the city, for this region, it was the worst place in the world to try to drive and park. And there's a lot of things about it that were very stressful, but like that moment, the wine seasoning, the way that we were treated and the surprise and delight factor was huge in port of veneer for us.
Dustin: So again, think about what, how you're describing your offer. A lot of times we like to over promise, right? and you gotta be. Compelling. Like you have to get people get your thing, but then how can you totally give them more than they expected? , I do this sometime in various ways. I've talked about some with our accelerator, we've done this with gift boxes or a bonus one on one call.
Dustin: That , was not part of what people signed up for. [00:15:00] just a lot of personal attention and make sure that we always over deliver and we're very tuned into our client's needs and always, for me, like always looking to make connections for people because that's, The special gift that I have. And it's also, , something I'm very blessed with.
Dustin: it's kind of baked into our business as I get so many great relationships. And it's so simple to think, Oh, Zach should know John and connect the two. Right. And like, sometimes magic really happens from that. And I get credit for changing people's lives. Just had a call two weeks ago with someone, two individuals in the financial services industry who were not in the same accelerator group, but I knew them and I said, you guys really should know each other.
Dustin: And now they're, literally business partners and we may hire them to help us with some, some financial planning. So surprise and delight your clients. That was my takeaway from Port of Veneer. From Port of Veneer, we headed south. To Florence. So Florence is, I would say it's like the most iconic, truly Italian city, at least in our experience.
Dustin: And we have Rome, which I'm going to talk about in a minute. Rome is massive. It's a [00:16:00] massive international city, right? Florence is it's kind of the best aspects of that from a historical standpoint, but it's much smaller. so pedestrian oriented. Very scaled down, in its size. And they have this massive dome they called the Doma.
Dustin: we had some really fun experiences touring that and taking a hike outside the city to see it as sunset. So there's lots of things I loved about Florence. Florence was definitely my favorite city on this trip. So what marketing thing emerged from Florence? I would say it was empathy. love empathy.
Dustin: It's the one, two punch of a story brand guide is. Lead with empathy and then back it up with authority. And we had that very experience. I think maybe guide would be even a better description of this because our guide, a
little tour guide, had both empathy and authority, but it was really her empathy that stuck with me.
Dustin: So we had this middle aged woman We actually showed up a little bit late. We were a little confused on where our tour started and we had this, combination tour. so it went to the main museum there where most famously is
known [00:17:00] for Michelangelo's David statue. and then it went through the streets by the DOMA to the PHE Museum, which is a very.
Dustin: Famous, artwork museum with a lot of works from like Michelangelo and Da Vinci and Raphael. So, not Donatello. If you're a Ninja Turtles fan, we had some good jokes about that. But anyway, in this tour, this woman just really stood out to me. We had. Many great tours. I mean, everywhere we went, I think we had some sort of guide or tour or service, but she was, just very real.
Dustin: And one of the first things we discovered about her and having a little small talk where we were waiting for everyone else to arrive is that she was Ukrainian. she mentioned speaking five languages at some point. So of course we're like, I think everyone here speaks five languages and we're such losers.
Dustin: We only speak one, very well. And so we said, which five do you speak? And she listed them off. I don't honestly recall exactly what they were. Uh, probably Italian, German, English, and a few others in Ukrainian was one. And she said, well, I used to speak six, but I no longer [00:18:00] speak Russian.
Dustin: So that was. An emotional moment, right? Obviously with the war going on. , so she has those Russian ties, but she basically speaks six languages, but doesn't count that one anymore. And that, that really stuck with me on a, personal basis, but really her empathy for her job, which I'm sure she does multiple times a day.
Dustin: The depth that she took to make us feel special. , 15 people. It wasn't like a super exclusive thing and we had to get through, pretty crowded museums. But I'd say our time around the David statue. It was very special. So she just led up to that moment in a really great way. We took our time and we looked at these like unfinished works of Michelangelo.
Dustin: And we talked about his career and how he actually did all like his most famous things. Like when he was super young, there was the David and then there's a Piazza, which is in Rome and Vatican city. I believe it was like 19 and like 24 when he made those. And then as he got older, he basically got so overbooked with work.
Dustin: He had mostly unfinished work. Right. Until he, went back to the Sistine chapel, [00:19:00] and did his famous paintings there, which we saw. And I'll mention here, in just a moment, anyway, back to the David. this is the
first time I've honestly ever been like, In all of an art piece. And I've seen lots of pictures of it.
Dustin: There's boxer shorts with David, like all over, Florence, but to be there in the presence of the statue. and especially because of the empathy and the authority that we understood so much about it and respected it so much before we even stepped foot into the room with that statue. And then she was really careful about like leading us around it and not just saying, Hey, go take your picture in front of the David.
Dustin: It. But like, let's look at the back of it. Let's look at the side and Hey, do you see these initials MN? We don't know if that was vandalism or if that was actually Michelangelo's original work. And look at the vein in this calf. And like, it was like, she was very, again, like expressive and empathetic and talked about the emotions that Michelangelo had and how important this statue was to the city of Florida.
Dustin: Florence. And then as we're walking later in the tour, we, find out that this statue, which we're looking at inside of a building and the air conditioning actually stood in front of city [00:20:00] hall for hundreds of years. And then they put a replacement there. So you're like, Oh, is this David was the replacement, David, the original David that Michelangelo made is in this museum, but it really talked about and spoke to how important, like the tie between.
Dustin: The civil authorities, the artists, community, and religion really came together to make Florence and in many ways, Italy, , what they're really known for. So I just, I love that experience with that literal guide. I was a master at empathy and authority. The next step, the fifth stop out of six, was Tuscany and Tuscany is really a region and Tuscany technically Florence is in Tuscany.
Dustin: But when I talk about Tuscany, I mean, we've got out into the countryside, the most relaxing stop. We literally stayed in a castle. It had a pool outside. It was beautiful. So we had a great time there. My theme from our time in Tuscany was deep personal service. So I think if you're In the world of online marketing, maybe this would be the equivalent of a done for you service, The level of service that we received was like [00:21:00] amazing, and it really could have been negative because what happened was we're like, Hey, this place has an actual wine tasting. Like, that would be fun. And so I emailed them a couple of days before we arrived and said, I'd love to find out about booking a wine tasting.
Dustin: And they immediately wrote back and said, we don't have any availability. However, if you're open to, you know, our suggestions, we would love to take care of a different experience. I'm like, okay. And so when we arrived, they said, Hey, you're booked at whatever time tomorrow for your wine tasting. And they done for you.
Dustin: They've found this family vineyard that was reasonably close. we had an amazing tour. We had this out of this world, wine tasting, to meet the family proprietors of this place. we paid for the wine tasting, but it costs us 0. The resort or the castle, I assume, didn't like have a financial incentive, but this was like the level of service.
Dustin: And then they booked us in two different reservations on their property. Again, we kind of had low expectations because it was like, yeah, these were just eating at the hotel that you're staying there, right? It's like, yeah, it'll be good. But they were. Ridiculous. Like one was in a cellar though.
Dustin: The setting was just [00:22:00] amazing. We ate a simple dinner, but the other was in like a true Michigan level. Restaurant and it had like eight courses and there was three or four of them that were not, included on the menu. Right. So they were again, surprise and delight factor was here and the chef came out and talked to us and it was like, holy moly, this is a very high class.
Dustin: Establishment. And so, that was amazing. And then also at the vineyard give them some credit to seamless upsell. So we paid for the wine tasting. they were very kind to us. He gave us lots of time on the property to look around and take pictures, tell us some great history and story. And they're pointing to a couple of really important factors.
Dustin: One was like, there's literally a line on this property where on one side of the line, you see, the wine that's created from the grapes is called Chianti. And on the other side of the line is called Chianti Classico. We kept seeing Chianti Classico everywhere we went. And it's always double the price of Chianti.
Dustin: And like, tell me what the difference is. He's like, it's literally that line. there's only a certain parcel of. Of land in Tuscany. That's Chianti Classico soil. And so this winery was very [00:23:00] unique in that they sold both and we got
to sample both side by side. So that, was really cool to understand the nuance there.
Dustin: and then he mentioned how, Hey, we have this kitchen here. and. You see those woods over there. Like we hunt deer and pheasants and like, I mean, we serve it in our kitchen. It was like, Oh, that's not American either. That's very unique. , and so it was just, it was a seamless upsell process. Cause that's after we had these wines and we were bought into the history and the culture and the family, it's like, Hey, would you like to have three bottles to take home?
Dustin: We're like, we'd love to, obviously we're flying. No problem. if we bought the three bottles, they would ship them at no additional cost back to our home. And so of course we did that. It's like, take my credit card. This is an amazing experience. So a true white glove experience. So Tuscany was all about personal service.
Dustin: Finally, our last three nights were in Rome. So Rome could easily be an entire two week trip. There's so much insane history and, Religious, things to see and do and experience in Rome, of course, probably one of the most historic cities in the world [00:24:00] in Rome, though. I'm not going to go through all the things we did in Rome.
Dustin: Cause again, it could be its own episode. And if you want to know more about any of these cities, any of our experiences, I would love to share it with you. probably the easiest way is to send me a DM on LinkedIn and, ask me, ask me anything when it comes to travel and what we experienced in Italy.
Dustin: But to keep it simple for Rome, talk about one very specific experience. And I'd say this is the crown jewel of offer optimization, and that is exclusivity. So there's been elements of this and a lot of the things I described, but we truly had exclusive access to a really important experience in Rome. So we are practicing Roman Catholics.
Dustin: So to be at the Vatican, has For everyone that has artistic and historic importance, of course, for us, it also has like a deep religious, experience tied to it. And so probably second only to like going to the Holy land. So we had lots of experiences around that, but for this particular experience, this is a credit to our neighbor who planned the trip.
Dustin: As soon as he found out we were going with [00:25:00] him, he added some slots into this lottery system. And we won the lottery. Literally we were, they do 250 tours. Or 250 people get to access the archeological dig site that is
St. Peter's tomb each day. And there's 50, 000 visitors to the Vatican to St. Michael's cathedral, which is over the top of his tomb.
Dustin: So you can imagine there's 50, 000 people above ground going through the cathedral, going through security out into the plaza, which holds 400, 000 people when there's a big event. Massive scale. And we literally like go around to the side, talk to the Swiss guards, personally go through a, private security line, stand and wait outside this, archeological office.
Dustin: And there's like, seems to be like dignitaries coming through in black cars. It was like, wow, we were like literally behind the scenes here in the Vatican. And then about 12 of us, English speakers came and then we had a, Amazing tour. So we go downtown, we go down in the ground, like deep in the ground.
Dustin: And we're the very first place we [00:26:00] stop. She says your feet are standing on like the original Roman streets from like 200, 250 BC in a pagan cemetery. you're standing on it. And like, please don't touch the walls because these are the original walls. We're literally standing, looking at a mausoleum, like a cemetery, right?
Dustin: Tombs, urns, coffins, like these elaborate marble coffins. These were all pagans, you know, obviously before Christ, this was 200 or 300 years BC. And they found it and they have been digging it out. discovering how does it all come to be? And it turns out the way this all fits together to keep this brief is this was all right next to this was Nero's circus.
Dustin: So if you've heard of emperor Nero and, fiddled when Rome burned that whole thing. So he had this circus, which is like basically an outdoor amphitheater and did all the things they did in those things including crucify Christians later on. So at the time of the cemetery, this was before Nero, but then, several hundred years into the future past that, after Christ was crucified, St. Peter's martyred in Rome and he's crucified [00:27:00] upside down in this circus, like in this like amphitheater. So they take his bones and they bury them next door, near the old pagan cemetery. So this is like kind of the history, but we're literally staying as I can't, it's hard to even describe. We're standing here looking at the cemetery that was there.
Dustin: 300 years before all of this happened. And then we proceed, we see lots of different artifacts and we end up literally seeing St. Peter's tomb, which is a very tiny little, discreet, it's not much to look at, right. There was like an old column next to it. You could tell it was a special thing, but it was like small because it was also secret, For effectively secret, until Constantine became emperor. But anyway, to be there and be like, so this is like in the 1900s, they've
been doing these excavations. This is not that old. And they found this tomb and they found a lot of archeological indications. these are Peter's bones.
Dustin: and then it turns out you're standing here looking at them and then they say, look up and there's like holes through all these levels above you. And you're seeing the dome over St. Peter's Basilica. And you see all these people, the 50, 000 people walking around way up there. And we're standing here, where it all started.
Dustin: in having a church in Rome in the first place. So what was [00:28:00] really interesting though, is like, you have this mausoleum and then when Constantine became emperor, which I think is maybe 380. So several hundred years after St. Peter was buried here, he decided because he was the first Roman emperor to, endorse or allow Christianity.
Dustin: And so he's like, I'm we need to build a church here. and so they built the first cathedral over St. Peter's bones. On top of that mausoleum. And so they couldn't remove the mausoleum. So what they basically did was fill it in with dirt and they built on top of it, which is how most things happen in these ancient cities.
Dustin: But you can see. The floor, like of the original cathedral. Right. in the 1600s, during the Renaissance, they're like, we need a big old church. they built the biggest church in the world still, in the 1600s, and that's St. Peter's Basilica under St. Peter's Basilica above the original church is this whole layer.
Dustin: That's like where they bury most of the Popes and a lot of the other important religious officials. So it's a mausoleum. There, and , you can literally walk under the main alter in St. Peter's Basilica to St. Peter's tomb. But it's really like a tomb above the original bones, if that makes sense.
Dustin: They didn't, bones are still where they [00:29:00] were. So it's like four layers and all the things you can't see with your naked eye. As a tourist, we were like literally in the foundations of all of this. And it was just. Unreal. and when you're down there, it's very humid. It's very tight. It's kind of claustrophobic.
Dustin: They have to preserve it. So it makes sense why it's so exclusive and why it's so difficult to get these tickets, but it's kind of getting tickets to the masters if you're a golf fan. Right. But for, religious, and. historical and archeological reasons so much better actually. And to have us find a time that we won the lottery.
Dustin: That was the time that we're going to be in Rome. Our next to last day was unreal. So there's way more to talk about with Rome and the Sistine Chapel and the Coliseum and all the things, but I really wanted to focus on this idea of exclusivity. So how can you charge in this case? They didn't really charge much.
Dustin: 10 bucks. but you can, right? So if you can create a lot of exclusivity, so maybe this is your one on one VIP day, or this is like, I'll come to you and do a deep dive with you in person. There's always room for that, like highest tier of product in this case, the highest tier of [00:30:00] access. there are more higher tiers than what we experienced.
Dustin: I'm sure if you're dignitary or whatever, but for the public, I mean, this was really exclusive access and we didn't need to pay very much for it, but had it not been. A lottery. And they would have said it's this much money. And I would have paid more for this than the limousine boat in coma.
Dustin: Right. Cause it was that exclusive. And so that's the theme I want to leave you from our, one of our many experiences in Rome. So that was a whirlwind tour of our trip through Italy, through the eyes of a marketer and someone who loves sales and offers and, uh, I hope that you got value, not only in the travel agent side of this and getting to hear a little bit of behind the scenes of our experience in these amazing cities, but also.
Dustin: Thinking about your own business through a little different lens here. So this has been a lot of fun to bring to you. I really appreciate you sticking with me. It's one of our longer solo episodes, but have so much to share. if you guys would like a followup episode or a deep dive in any one of these locations or some of the other offers and, marketing experiences and travel [00:31:00] experiences, let me know.
Dustin: I would love to go deeper. As you may know, I'm a traffic engineer by trade. And so there's so much to unpack, even in the transportation systems and all the ways that we got around and all the unique experiences and being in a different culture and speaking are attempting to speak and hear in a different language.
Dustin: It was truly a life changing experience. My wife did amazing on the flight. So I think we're going to head back to Europe and other places of the world as soon as we get the opportunity, because this was truly special. So thank you for letting me share it with you again, respond on our website, or hit me a DM on LinkedIn.
Dustin: If you have feedback, if you have questions, if there's anything I can fill in from a gap from this experience that we had, I would love to share it with you. And if you would like to be surprised, delighted, have exclusive access to me and our team, learn what it's like to work with and become a A true guide for your clients and be a great storyteller.
Dustin: I'm looking back through my list. and just have a true white glove [00:32:00] experience. That's what we do. That's what we're passionate about doing in our podcast profits accelerator program. Real simple to find out more about that. Just go to our homepage at seven figure leap. com. And you're going to see a couple of buttons there.
Dustin: You can click on one of those and you will set up a time for a free call. No pressure at all. It's literally just saying. What do you need? Here's what we do. We can see if that's a fit. And if it's not a fit, the beautiful thing is we have an amazing network of people who might be a fit for whatever you need.
Dustin: So definitely don't hesitate to go to seven figure leap. com. Come in deeper, learn more about what we do and see if we can be of service to you and your business. In the meantime, have a great, rest of your day. Whenever you're listening to this, I hope you have some amazing travel plans on the horizon and I will see you on the next episode.